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Grafton, welcome to the Freedom Footprint show.

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Thanks for joining us.

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Thank you for having me.

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Yeah, good to see you again, Grafton.

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How have you

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Always good to see you as well, man.

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Yeah.

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It hasn't been too long, it's just a couple weeks at this

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point, but I feel like we've seen each other quite a lot recently.

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Yeah, before that was Warsaw, and before that was Riga, I

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guess.

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Madeira?

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of course.

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Madeira.

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of course.

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Basically, every time I go anywhere I can pretty much assume that you're

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going to be there, I feel like.

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it tends to be.

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What did, what did Joe Hall call it?

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Uh, like a, uh, a traveling circus band thing.

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Uh, yeah,

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that's what we are, I guess.

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sure is, yeah.

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But I think that it's always like, that's what's a lot of fun

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is we travel a lot, but we always wind up in really cool places.

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And, um, yeah, it never gets old.

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No.

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And you're in, right now you're in the studio that was built for

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BTC's Prague specifically, right?

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Yeah, this will, it's not specifically for BTC Prague, but, um, you know,

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I work in Satoshi Labs, so Trezor.

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As well.

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And so Trezor built like a really nice podcasting studio.

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Um, and I am getting to use it today.

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I feel, I feel honored.

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Um, it's very nice.

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Um, probably the nicest studio I've ever been in.

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So we have nice microphones and camera set up.

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So I hope I look good for everybody.

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Uh, you do, certainly do.

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So, so you live in Prague, but you're, uh, but you're not from Prague.

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You have a, a, a bit of a dialect there.

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Can you give us the TLDR on Grafton

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Yeah.

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So, uh, born and raised in Mississippi.

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Um, so that, that is a dialect you're hearing there, that

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Southern, Southern accent.

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So I do have the, uh, the old Southern drawl.

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M M I S S I S S I P P I.

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Is

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Yeah, Crooked Letter or Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter, Humpback.

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Humpback if you can't read, you know, like most people from Mississippi.

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Yeah.

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Um, but yeah, I've been here in Czech Republic like 13 years now.

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So it's, it's home.

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I really love it here.

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it's, uh, Prague is a great city.

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It's, it's my favorite big city.

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Like, uh, I can't think of one that I like better than Prague.

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Well, there's not too many places, like I, you know, we travel a lot.

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We were just talking about, but there's always like that feeling of I'm

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coming home when I get back to Prague.

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And it's like, I always compare When I travel, I was like,

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all right, could I live here?

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Would I want to live here?

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And you know, like Lisbon's nice.

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I love Lisbon, but I don't want to live there.

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Um, Prague is kind of that it has everything that I was looking for.

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Um, and the pace of life is really nice here.

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And the people are, uh, I mean, you've been here, Czech people are, are great.

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We have a really good Bitcoin scene and yeah, it just feels

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like where I was supposed to be.

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Yeah, we, uh, we definitely like Prague.

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I mean, uh, obviously, obviously, BTC Prague brings everyone there.

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Uh, but, but yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's great.

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Uh, I, I made sure to visit Prague as soon as I was living Europe side

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before either of the BTC Prague events, but I, I'm curious what, what brought

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you to, to Czech Republic originally?

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Yeah, um, I studied history.

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So, you know, like a growing, growing up, I had, uh, we, if we can get into that

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as well, but I had like a crazy childhood full of like entrepreneurial everything.

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And then I went to university and, um, I didn't know like what I wanted to do.

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Of course, like every, um, you know, 20, 20 year old that gets

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out of, you know, says like, all right, what do I, what do I do?

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So started to figure out, you know, taking all the classes, never had one that got

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me, but then I had this history teacher.

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And I think if most people can remember one or two teachers

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that made an impact on them.

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And, um, I had this history teacher who just spelled out class, taught like

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it was the best book or movie that I'd ever, you know, been, I wanted more

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and more and more, and so I really fell down that history kind of rabbit hole,

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and as I started to kind of get into there, Czech Republic was always one

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of the things that was most fascinating to me, it was like, I want to go there,

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I want to see how this, what makes this so different than everyone else.

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And, um, I did a study abroad, like, my version of Erasmus, kind of, uh, Europeans

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have Erasmus, but we had just study abroad, and, uh, I did mine in the UK,

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actually, in Kent, down in Canterbury.

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And I came to Prague for like a four day weekend and yeah, I had so much fun.

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Like a lot of people who come to B2C Prague for three or four days,

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they come back and they're like, Oh, I'm going back next year.

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I couldn't wait to come back.

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So, um, after I graduated, you know, I graduated with a degree in

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like history teaching, like I was supposed to teach high school kids.

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I I'm going to do one year, go over there, take a break, relax, hang out,

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and then a blink, and it's been 13 years.

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It's crazy.

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So, um, that was just like, you know, it was like, I want to

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go check it out, and here I am.

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But I could ask you, you know, the same, because you said you were from

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Canada, and you wound up in Finland.

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Like, I guess they're both cold and kind of like, you know, in the same area.

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So, like, what, why would you go over to Finland?

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What, what you be there?

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No, it's, it's, uh, it's funny.

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I, I was hearing your, your story and thinking just so much parallel, just

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some kind of fascination for a long time.

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I mean, I'm not, I'm not quite as, as long, uh, in my state.

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It's, it's coming up on three years here shortly, but I have exactly

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the same feeling of, of when I, whenever I get back to Helsinki,

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it's like, I'm I'm coming home.

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It feels like home.

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And yeah, I've been interested in a lot of the sort of the cultural historical stuff.

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I did a pod for a few years on mythology, mostly Norse and Inuk stuff.

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And so, yeah, just the interest was always there.

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And then when I got the chance to transfer to my company's Finland office, I was

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like, Oh my God, this is unavoidable.

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Took it and yeah, I, I think I'm aiming to stay.

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So yeah, there's, there's something about there's something about Europe

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that, uh, hopefully, hopefully the entire thing, uh, doesn't fall apart because

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there's some pretty cool places here.

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And I, and I personally love being, uh, nearby to be able to,

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to travel to different places.

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Like, uh, I, I'm sure it's even better, uh, from, from where you are, right?

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Well, I mean, we're pretty central for sure.

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So, I mean, it's easy to get everywhere.

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And I mean, I, with, I mainly travel for work.

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I haven't, I can't remember the last time I had like a, you know, a vacation

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for myself where I went somewhere, but like, it's, that's why, you know, I

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even joked at BTCProg when I talk, I was like, everyone just thinks that I

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am on vacation all the time, whether it's my parents or my girlfriend or

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my friends, because I'm always, it's Somewhere nice, but it's like, yeah,

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what is a dream job is finding a job that allows you to get somewhere where

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you can travel and do things you love.

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And that's kind of, I can't imagine living somewhere, you know, far

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away, like Australia, where you're really isolated or even the U.

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S.

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I feel, and I have, I mean, you talk about Yeah.

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You're worried if Europe falls apart, like I, I saw the United States fall apart.

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You know, I grew up in that, that, you know, where as a kid from now, it's

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just a completely different place.

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And then under, I can't imagine ever going back there and trying to live

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or start a family or anything here.

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It just, it works for now, you know, and like, like you said, studying is

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like looking at Czech Republic has historically been a very peaceful

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place and full of people who.

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Yeah.

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Uh, you know, kind of hack the planet or hack the system in a way that they,

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they never really get taken over.

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You know, it's like they might be occupied, but they've

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never really been conquered.

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No, and the word defenestration comes to mind.

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yeah,

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it's a great word.

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I think we should adopt more defenestration here and

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there on the planet, right?

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could definitely use some of that right now, I think.

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Yeah.

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so, and where do you, like, where are you based mainly?

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Cause I basically only see you out in the world.

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Never.

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Yeah, I'm based in Spain, but I

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am from here in Sweden.

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So like, yeah, uh, a couple of years or three years back now, we decided to

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move down to our holiday home in Spain and now we've sold off both the old

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homes and have a new home in Spain.

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mainly for the, for the sun and getting out of the cold and the darkness.

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Um, yeah.

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And yeah, and also just to reset life and like, uh, try to going

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full time with Bitcoin, I needed a change of environment, I think.

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So that was part of the deal too.

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Uh, but yeah, uh, so far I, I like it down there.

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The politics are bad, but they're, they're sort of bad everywhere.

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So if you can avoid them, that's good.

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You're, you're kind of like, uh, becoming like a Hemingway of Bitcoin in a way.

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I feel like, you know, you got the, you got the look, you know,

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you're the boat, you know, the boat guy, the sailor as well.

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And like, yeah, it's a good vibe, man.

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Well, thank you.

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But speaking of history, like I, when I was young, younger, I was never really

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into history, but it wasn't like until later in life where you, uh, where you

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sort of realize that like right now I'm pushing 50, like I'm 48 this fall.

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And, and you sort of feel like that's.

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Half a century, like, uh, so, so, and, uh, that means that you

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can put yourself in this context.

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So like 50 years has passed since I was born.

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And if you just, rewind the tape back a couple of those, uh, half

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lifetimes, you, you end up in.

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You know, when the Hansa was a thing and, uh, like the things are so close in

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history to, uh, and, uh, you don't really realize that as a kid, you think history

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is like, Oh, this is way, way back.

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Yeah, and, uh, just looking at, like, the Beatles or Jimi Hendrix or something

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like that, which is, uh, when I grew up, so it's like, these are old bands,

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this is ancient history, and it's just 10 years before, or 20 years before, the

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bands that you like and grew up with, like, so it's, it's, time is weird, like,

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Yeah.

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I mean, time blinks, you know, like BTC Prague was a month ago.

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And I, like, it's just, everything is moving at this lightning speed now,

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and, um, when you're a kid, everything moves so slow, and then now it's, you

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can't get control of it, no matter how hard you try, you, you can't, you

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can't ever get ahead, or, like, you know, you'll never beat time, and, you

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know, there's, like, nothing you Yeah, nothing fucks you like time, I would say.

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No, but also, it's a symptom, like that means you're living a good

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life, like, because the more fun you have, the faster time flies by.

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yeah, I'm having too much fun.

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Yeah, no, I'm definitely not bored, but yeah, sometimes you want to sit back

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and be like, where did, you know, I'm 36 now and I'll be 37 and it's already

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half a year of that, you know, gone.

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Um, um, yeah.

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Time flies

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one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.

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But I mean, for me, like, music, that was, that was really, like, one of the

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things growing up that, because, you know, I grew up in a small Mississippi town

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where, you know, we didn't have, we didn't have a lot, and music was the thing that

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started pulling me outside of my bubble.

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Um, because it wasn't just like going to see a band, you know, one off, I, I

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listened to like, jam bands, um, so like, you've heard of the Grateful Dead, right?

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So, I'm one of these kids that grew up, you know, following bands around

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the country, I've seen like my favorite band in concert like 130 something

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times, um, all over the United States.

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Widespread panic.

231
00:11:48,842 --> 00:11:52,272
Fractals, favorite band as well.

232
00:11:52,662 --> 00:11:58,232
Yeah, so the crazy thing about that is, um, I, when in the BTC Prague

233
00:11:58,232 --> 00:12:01,832
fractal was having trouble like shipping the stuff out on a Sunday and

234
00:12:01,832 --> 00:12:03,182
I was like, Hey man, I can help you.

235
00:12:03,222 --> 00:12:03,862
I live here.

236
00:12:04,232 --> 00:12:05,282
Um, no problem.

237
00:12:05,282 --> 00:12:06,302
I can, I can help you.

238
00:12:06,662 --> 00:12:09,412
And so I like shipped it stuff, you know, the next day I got

239
00:12:09,412 --> 00:12:10,362
there, everything was fine.

240
00:12:10,672 --> 00:12:12,592
And then, um, I was just like checking something.

241
00:12:12,592 --> 00:12:13,802
I saw that he retweeted them.

242
00:12:13,802 --> 00:12:15,312
And so I had, of course, sent him a message.

243
00:12:15,332 --> 00:12:17,472
I was like, are you a fan?

244
00:12:17,472 --> 00:12:18,012
He was like, yeah.

245
00:12:18,012 --> 00:12:19,162
And so we were like chatting about that.

246
00:12:19,162 --> 00:12:21,162
He's like, I was actually at their show last Sunday.

247
00:12:21,762 --> 00:12:25,522
So, but I've been over here so long that I kind of stopped going.

248
00:12:25,522 --> 00:12:28,782
But actually this time last year, I went to, to Iceland to see

249
00:12:28,782 --> 00:12:31,652
another one of my favorite bands for like three nights and concert.

250
00:12:31,682 --> 00:12:36,972
And so that was kind of, What really got me like traveling and what

251
00:12:36,972 --> 00:12:40,122
pushed me outside of Mississippi was you started meeting friends at

252
00:12:40,122 --> 00:12:46,152
concerts all over and I wound up in Texas at university and then Europe.

253
00:12:46,502 --> 00:12:46,892
So

254
00:12:47,047 --> 00:12:51,767
Yeah, I have a similar, similar story to that, uh, yeah, and added to that all the

255
00:12:51,767 --> 00:12:56,367
sailing stuff, of course, but, uh, yeah, music was also like a big pull to the

256
00:12:57,067 --> 00:13:00,097
larger world than your own little bubble.

257
00:13:00,311 --> 00:13:04,246
yeah, and you know, like even like the, um, You know, getting into like, well,

258
00:13:04,656 --> 00:13:08,896
peer to peer is these were bands where you like, you actually tape the concerts.

259
00:13:08,926 --> 00:13:10,916
So like they allow taping.

260
00:13:10,976 --> 00:13:14,546
They, they encourage people to come to make live audience recordings.

261
00:13:14,556 --> 00:13:17,736
And then they encourage people to trade those tapes peer to peer.

262
00:13:18,256 --> 00:13:22,076
So it's like, if the best way to share music, music is made to be shared.

263
00:13:22,106 --> 00:13:24,686
So you saw something, you go, Hey, man, you got to check this out.

264
00:13:24,976 --> 00:13:25,906
You give it to them.

265
00:13:26,176 --> 00:13:27,266
And so this.

266
00:13:27,631 --> 00:13:31,021
For my early ages, I wasn't doing like illegal file sharing, you know,

267
00:13:31,021 --> 00:13:34,741
I definitely, well, okay, I was, I definitely had Napster, but my early

268
00:13:34,741 --> 00:13:40,001
days were actually like trading tapes and using like torrents to share

269
00:13:40,331 --> 00:13:43,161
like music concerts peer to peer.

270
00:13:43,581 --> 00:13:47,431
And so that was like, that really was what kind of got me into

271
00:13:47,501 --> 00:13:50,781
that path of understanding what a peer to peer technology is and

272
00:13:50,781 --> 00:13:52,151
why we need it and how it works.

273
00:13:52,976 --> 00:13:56,836
Um, so I, and I can blame music for all of, all of the good stuff that's

274
00:13:56,836 --> 00:13:58,176
happened to me most of the time.

275
00:13:58,686 --> 00:13:59,396
That's great.

276
00:13:59,736 --> 00:14:03,631
Me and Luke went to a concert after B2C Prague last year.

277
00:14:03,701 --> 00:14:09,331
We went and saw Pantera reunited, or like half of Pantera, I guess, but yeah.

278
00:14:09,346 --> 00:14:09,776
yeah,

279
00:14:09,981 --> 00:14:15,231
My wife's favorite band of all time, and she had just become pregnant with

280
00:14:15,231 --> 00:14:19,041
our, with our kid, uh, just before Prague, found out just before Prague,

281
00:14:19,081 --> 00:14:22,871
so she unfortunately didn't get to enjoy it as much as possible, but, but

282
00:14:22,871 --> 00:14:24,751
she, she still, uh, still loved it.

283
00:14:25,041 --> 00:14:28,731
We're both too young to have managed to see them in their heyday.

284
00:14:28,756 --> 00:14:32,156
baby could hear it as well, as, yeah, Panteras,

285
00:14:32,916 --> 00:14:37,396
And me as being a, being an old safety officer, the first time, the thing I did

286
00:14:37,396 --> 00:14:39,466
was look for the fire exits and stuff.

287
00:14:39,856 --> 00:14:43,846
And then we was like crammed into this crowd and all of a sudden there's

288
00:14:43,846 --> 00:14:48,466
one of those, Uh, what do you call it when people start, uh, a mosh pit,

289
00:14:48,501 --> 00:14:49,471
Mosh Pit, yeah,

290
00:14:49,476 --> 00:14:53,256
yeah, yeah, like, uh, just a couple of meters away from us and like, oh,

291
00:14:54,556 --> 00:14:56,106
all right, I'm a bit too old for this.

292
00:14:56,744 --> 00:15:02,384
I learned my lesson, um, I went to see, um, a band, a Czech band here, and I was,

293
00:15:02,394 --> 00:15:05,004
you know, with my girlfriend at the time, I was like on the front row, you know,

294
00:15:05,004 --> 00:15:07,554
like, looking around, I was like, oh, this is, you know, these people are getting

295
00:15:07,554 --> 00:15:10,684
pretty crazy, and I turned and looked, and when I did, someone jumped, stage

296
00:15:10,684 --> 00:15:15,774
dove off the stage, collapsed me to the floor, I had a hairline crack in my neck.

297
00:15:15,914 --> 00:15:19,644
So I had to, like, take Stretcherd out to the hospital, and so now,

298
00:15:19,654 --> 00:15:22,744
when I go to concerts, I stand in the back by the soundboard.

299
00:15:22,774 --> 00:15:25,794
I want to be right in front of the soundboard so I can hear good and not

300
00:15:25,804 --> 00:15:27,854
be a part of the chaos anymore, because

301
00:15:28,029 --> 00:15:28,379
Yeah.

302
00:15:28,654 --> 00:15:30,144
I can't go through that ever again.

303
00:15:30,811 --> 00:15:31,951
Were you at the Rocamodo?

304
00:15:31,991 --> 00:15:33,171
Were you at the Rocamodo?

305
00:15:33,211 --> 00:15:34,101
I can't remember.

306
00:15:34,189 --> 00:15:36,179
No, I was not at Rakamoto this year.

307
00:15:36,199 --> 00:15:37,799
I was so exhausted.

308
00:15:37,809 --> 00:15:41,439
That was like the, you know, we had the cypherpunk meetup on Thursday

309
00:15:41,479 --> 00:15:46,909
and then I had my talk on Friday and preparedness of everything.

310
00:15:46,909 --> 00:15:48,199
I was exhausted after the thing.

311
00:15:48,199 --> 00:15:49,339
So I stayed at the after party.

312
00:15:49,339 --> 00:15:54,269
I think I was in home in bed by 10, but, uh, Saturday night I was, I closed

313
00:15:54,269 --> 00:15:57,539
down the PVA Lethgiani like area.

314
00:15:57,539 --> 00:15:58,369
We closed it down.

315
00:15:58,369 --> 00:15:59,019
So we had fun.

316
00:16:00,023 --> 00:16:00,203
Oh,

317
00:16:00,233 --> 00:16:00,803
good to hear.

318
00:16:00,963 --> 00:16:03,083
for everyone at that conference.

319
00:16:03,573 --> 00:16:06,343
Can't wait to see what they'll pull out next year.

320
00:16:06,393 --> 00:16:12,673
Nothing but rave reviews from this last year for BTC Prague.

321
00:16:12,713 --> 00:16:12,973
So,

322
00:16:13,268 --> 00:16:16,878
Yeah, I mean that was the same everywhere you, everywhere I went, you know, you

323
00:16:16,878 --> 00:16:19,658
chatted with people who went to BTC Pro and everybody has the same kind of

324
00:16:19,678 --> 00:16:22,278
consensus, which is like, don't miss it.

325
00:16:22,378 --> 00:16:23,088
It's a lot of fun.

326
00:16:23,118 --> 00:16:25,538
And I love that because this is my, my hometown.

327
00:16:26,218 --> 00:16:30,708
Um, and Prague really is kind of like the true Bitcoin capital of the world.

328
00:16:30,708 --> 00:16:32,248
I really feel that.

329
00:16:32,708 --> 00:16:33,488
Absolutely.

330
00:16:34,048 --> 00:16:34,952
Um, yeah.

331
00:16:35,313 --> 00:16:39,663
A lot has been done here and still happening here and you can feel, feel it,

332
00:16:39,743 --> 00:16:42,623
you know, you have El Salvador, you have these places where stuff is happening,

333
00:16:42,623 --> 00:16:44,163
but it's a completely different thing.

334
00:16:44,163 --> 00:16:49,263
This is the Bitcoin capital for people, I would say, not for anything else.

335
00:16:49,843 --> 00:16:51,623
So can you take us through that a little bit?

336
00:16:52,453 --> 00:16:53,473
The history,

337
00:16:53,943 --> 00:16:54,253
Yep.

338
00:16:54,513 --> 00:16:55,233
whatever you know.

339
00:16:55,253 --> 00:16:55,693
Yeah.

340
00:16:56,024 --> 00:16:59,534
Yeah, I mean, I've been into Bitcoin quite a long time.

341
00:16:59,564 --> 00:17:03,564
Um, you know, this is the home of, you know, Paralanypolis and Bitcoin

342
00:17:03,574 --> 00:17:06,614
Coffee, the first place that I ever, you know, knew where I could

343
00:17:06,614 --> 00:17:08,784
spend Bitcoin, um, for coffee.

344
00:17:09,414 --> 00:17:13,454
Uh, was here, but it's also where Trezor was invented, which is the

345
00:17:13,474 --> 00:17:15,064
world's first hardware wallet.

346
00:17:15,474 --> 00:17:18,884
Um, they have, like, even behind me, like, the early prototypes

347
00:17:18,884 --> 00:17:21,454
here in the studio, even I was, I used to work at Trezor as well.

348
00:17:21,974 --> 00:17:26,344
But, um, you have Slushpool, which is now Brains, um, which

349
00:17:26,344 --> 00:17:30,294
is where, BTC Prague, uh, General Bytes, the guys who made the ATMs.

350
00:17:30,614 --> 00:17:37,374
Um, so, there is, uh, Something to be said about a post communist country, um, that,

351
00:17:37,774 --> 00:17:41,214
you know, is no one really understands what it means to have freedom, like those

352
00:17:41,214 --> 00:17:45,724
living in a post communist state, and I think that you've seen, uh, the true

353
00:17:45,724 --> 00:17:51,744
reaction to that, um, here, and you have some great minds, um, who really, the

354
00:17:51,744 --> 00:17:56,861
Czech Bitcoin scene is very strong, and then, um, last year, after BTC Prague, uh,

355
00:17:56,881 --> 00:18:02,051
this company enabled, um, you to pay with Bitcoin in nearly 5, 000 restaurants and

356
00:18:02,051 --> 00:18:04,291
pubs all over, all over Czech Republic.

357
00:18:04,711 --> 00:18:04,841
They

358
00:18:04,876 --> 00:18:06,226
What, what's that app called?

359
00:18:07,755 --> 00:18:09,725
Q E R K O, yeah.

360
00:18:10,180 --> 00:18:11,380
yeah, I, I downloaded it.

361
00:18:11,380 --> 00:18:13,870
I never got to use it, but, but I have it on my phone.

362
00:18:13,870 --> 00:18:14,110
Yeah.

363
00:18:14,341 --> 00:18:15,201
It's super easy.

364
00:18:15,241 --> 00:18:18,271
I mean, you just scan a QR code and then choose how you want to pay.

365
00:18:18,321 --> 00:18:20,651
You pay Lightning Bitcoin, scan it, and you're done.

366
00:18:20,671 --> 00:18:22,831
You walk out, you don't know, nobody says anything.

367
00:18:22,881 --> 00:18:25,121
And I mean, the waiter doesn't know that you paid in Bitcoin.

368
00:18:25,171 --> 00:18:28,651
I mean, if we're being honest, it's mainly the company who's, is

369
00:18:28,851 --> 00:18:30,501
processing the transactions for them.

370
00:18:30,501 --> 00:18:35,021
But, um, Certainly it allowed for spending your Bitcoin wherever

371
00:18:35,021 --> 00:18:37,011
you want, which is a good thing.

372
00:18:37,715 --> 00:18:42,325
Yeah, this is sort of a philosophical thing with the Bitcoin as a medium

373
00:18:42,325 --> 00:18:43,955
of exchange of it all, right?

374
00:18:43,955 --> 00:18:50,605
Like, that forcing restaurants or wherever to adopt Bitcoin and have

375
00:18:50,605 --> 00:18:54,105
this whole other layer, it's sort of the other way around, right?

376
00:18:54,365 --> 00:18:57,875
You have people who want to use Bitcoin, well, just make it easy

377
00:18:57,875 --> 00:19:03,460
for them and get it flowing around and And then that's, that's fine.

378
00:19:03,470 --> 00:19:05,840
And then you don't have, you don't have the overhead and the, the

379
00:19:05,850 --> 00:19:08,210
waiting with, with merchants, right?

380
00:19:08,210 --> 00:19:13,730
But is, is there merchant adoption as well in, in Prague beyond the sort of parallel,

381
00:19:14,340 --> 00:19:16,030
parallel police scene and all that?

382
00:19:16,540 --> 00:19:20,050
yeah, I would say there is, um, you know, there definitely are some

383
00:19:20,050 --> 00:19:23,280
places I would have to look at, like, you know, CoinMap or something.

384
00:19:23,330 --> 00:19:27,420
Um, but certainly there are coffee houses and interiors where

385
00:19:27,420 --> 00:19:30,240
it's not just, they're, they're accepting Bitcoin as a payment.

386
00:19:30,330 --> 00:19:34,090
Um, there are pizza places that accept Bitcoin as a payment.

387
00:19:34,140 --> 00:19:38,030
Um, you know, and I, I think that it's definitely becoming more and more

388
00:19:38,030 --> 00:19:41,840
part of, um, I don't know if there's many Czech people who haven't heard

389
00:19:41,840 --> 00:19:45,870
of Bitcoin or don't know what Bitcoin is or why it matters in a lot of ways.

390
00:19:45,870 --> 00:19:48,800
I mean, yeah, there are a lot, but I think Czechs are

391
00:19:48,800 --> 00:19:50,480
definitely familiar with the idea.

392
00:19:50,610 --> 00:19:54,440
Um, you know, adoption is, is very strong here in Czech Republic.

393
00:19:54,450 --> 00:19:59,790
I mean, if I look at, you know, The success that we've had with Vexl, um,

394
00:19:59,860 --> 00:20:03,840
it's remarkable to see how quickly people have taken to it and really

395
00:20:03,840 --> 00:20:08,660
started to understand that they have this ability to buy and sell not just

396
00:20:08,720 --> 00:20:13,450
Bitcoin, but eggs and honey and beef jerky and find jobs and everything else.

397
00:20:13,470 --> 00:20:16,410
So you really are starting to see that circular economy aspect

398
00:20:16,480 --> 00:20:18,180
start to take place here as well.

399
00:20:18,645 --> 00:20:25,005
So, yeah, this leads us to vl, uh, and uh, yeah, I'm excited by the project and when

400
00:20:25,005 --> 00:20:30,635
you explain it to me how it works, because I think like VL is to local Bitcoins

401
00:20:30,725 --> 00:20:35,045
what BTC pay server is to BitPay, if you

402
00:20:35,045 --> 00:20:36,005
know what I mean by that.

403
00:20:36,995 --> 00:20:41,685
Uh, so, so we're, we're, we're sort of going away from these honeypot

404
00:20:41,775 --> 00:20:45,975
centralized bullshit things to, to things that are actually peer to peer.

405
00:20:46,015 --> 00:20:52,335
And, uh, so please, Grafton, give us the TLDR on Vexl and, uh, why it's so

406
00:20:52,335 --> 00:20:56,445
awesome and why it has so many synergies with other developments in Bitcoin

407
00:20:56,836 --> 00:20:57,126
Yeah.

408
00:20:57,126 --> 00:21:01,886
I mean, so you kind of hit it right there, which is like local bitcoins.

409
00:21:01,916 --> 00:21:06,816
Um, local bitcoins is great, but, you know, it kind of didn't scale over time

410
00:21:06,816 --> 00:21:10,326
and it had its own issues and had a different type of reputation system.

411
00:21:10,856 --> 00:21:16,706
Um, and so when we were kind of figuring out, you know, what is Vexl and how do

412
00:21:16,706 --> 00:21:18,686
we build something that we want to use?

413
00:21:18,726 --> 00:21:22,046
Um, you know, it was actually, uh, Slush's idea.

414
00:21:22,106 --> 00:21:26,076
Um, you know, Monarch from Trezor is, you know, Sitting on his sofa one

415
00:21:26,076 --> 00:21:29,576
night, I think he was like, okay, so if I want to buy or I want to sell

416
00:21:29,576 --> 00:21:31,506
Bitcoin, what's the best way to do that?

417
00:21:31,516 --> 00:21:35,446
And there's not currently, um, a great solution.

418
00:21:35,796 --> 00:21:41,386
Like, no matter how you frame it, there's problems with them and they don't scale.

419
00:21:41,706 --> 00:21:47,586
And you look at centralized exchanges and the KYC nightmare and the data nightmare

420
00:21:47,586 --> 00:21:53,006
that they have, you look at, you know, other previous peer to peer applications

421
00:21:53,006 --> 00:21:56,546
or things like that, and there was always a but this and a but that.

422
00:21:57,276 --> 00:21:58,326
So what is Vexl?

423
00:21:58,326 --> 00:22:03,896
Vexl is a mobile app that allows you to peer to peer Bitcoin without

424
00:22:03,916 --> 00:22:05,876
KYC the way it was intended.

425
00:22:06,526 --> 00:22:12,016
And so what I mean without KYC, uh, that means there's no, no

426
00:22:12,016 --> 00:22:14,206
excuses, no exceptions whatsoever.

427
00:22:14,386 --> 00:22:18,016
Um, we do not touch Bitcoin.

428
00:22:18,156 --> 00:22:19,526
We do not touch fiat.

429
00:22:19,526 --> 00:22:20,886
We are a non profit.

430
00:22:21,326 --> 00:22:25,216
We created Vexl as a tool to empower the individual to

431
00:22:25,216 --> 00:22:27,046
have the freedom to transact.

432
00:22:27,416 --> 00:22:33,456
So what It does is it leverages your real world reputation and your real

433
00:22:33,456 --> 00:22:38,756
world social graph that creates a web of trust that allows you to trade

434
00:22:38,756 --> 00:22:41,636
with friends and friends of friends.

435
00:22:41,676 --> 00:22:42,296
And that's it.

436
00:22:42,336 --> 00:22:43,786
It never goes further than that.

437
00:22:44,466 --> 00:22:47,216
So, Knut, I know you.

438
00:22:47,796 --> 00:22:48,646
I don't know Luke.

439
00:22:49,106 --> 00:22:50,426
Right, but you know Luke.

440
00:22:51,146 --> 00:22:58,076
So, I can trade with Luke by knowing and leveraging my connection with Knut.

441
00:22:58,676 --> 00:23:02,666
So I don't know who Luke is, I just see that Luke has posted an

442
00:23:02,676 --> 00:23:04,346
offer that he's selling Bitcoin.

443
00:23:04,936 --> 00:23:09,656
I don't know who that person is, I see a random Japanese name similar to Satoshi.

444
00:23:10,426 --> 00:23:14,466
And that's where the offer appears, but I do see that I have common friends.

445
00:23:15,001 --> 00:23:18,641
And I have, in this instance, one common connection, and

446
00:23:18,641 --> 00:23:20,521
that connection is you, Knut.

447
00:23:21,251 --> 00:23:25,231
So I say, hey, we don't know each other, and we don't have a lot of mutual friends,

448
00:23:26,021 --> 00:23:31,451
but we both know Knut, so if it's okay with you, I'm gonna send him a message.

449
00:23:31,681 --> 00:23:33,851
You don't have to tell him anything else, if you don't want him to

450
00:23:33,861 --> 00:23:36,931
give me your name or anything, just, you also send him a message.

451
00:23:37,211 --> 00:23:40,911
Since we're both messaging him at the same time, he's gonna

452
00:23:40,911 --> 00:23:42,991
know that we want to verify that.

453
00:23:43,615 --> 00:23:45,305
Knut doesn't have to be a bitcoiner.

454
00:23:45,325 --> 00:23:46,715
He doesn't have to be on Vexl.

455
00:23:46,895 --> 00:23:50,445
None of that to be able to be in that and to leverage his trust.

456
00:23:50,845 --> 00:23:52,895
So Knut says, Hey, yeah, Luke's a good guy.

457
00:23:52,895 --> 00:23:54,305
We do a podcast together.

458
00:23:54,335 --> 00:23:55,185
You can trust him.

459
00:23:55,385 --> 00:23:57,285
I go, All right, I trust you.

460
00:23:58,040 --> 00:24:02,026
Now, Luke, if you screw me over, Knut's gonna have things to say, because I'm

461
00:24:02,026 --> 00:24:05,506
certainly gonna tell him, like, yeah, Luke screwed me over, man, and he's gonna, it's

462
00:24:05,506 --> 00:24:07,166
gonna damage your real world reputation.

463
00:24:07,646 --> 00:24:10,866
So, we talk about how to, how do we create something that scales?

464
00:24:10,866 --> 00:24:14,516
Well, over time, this truly scales, because then you go from having one

465
00:24:14,516 --> 00:24:18,136
friend in common, to two friends, to ten friends, to twenty five friends.

466
00:24:18,436 --> 00:24:21,296
And you can be damn sure, if I have twenty five or thirty friends in

467
00:24:21,296 --> 00:24:22,546
common with somebody, I'm like, okay.

468
00:24:22,546 --> 00:24:24,216
That the trade is going to go well.

469
00:24:24,236 --> 00:24:27,246
And if I don't, if that person's not already a friend, I

470
00:24:27,266 --> 00:24:28,526
probably want to make them one.

471
00:24:29,123 --> 00:24:34,073
natural follow up question for the, the, uh, uh, suspicious bitcoiner here, like,

472
00:24:34,103 --> 00:24:37,063
uh, how does the app get this information?

473
00:24:37,143 --> 00:24:41,043
Uh, where does it get it from and where does it store it and

474
00:24:41,193 --> 00:24:42,763
does it go to a server somewhere?

475
00:24:43,153 --> 00:24:47,863
So everything happens on your device locally.

476
00:24:47,973 --> 00:24:52,373
So your phone number is used to build out your web of trust, your social

477
00:24:52,373 --> 00:24:56,703
graph, because currently, we do not have one that's any better than that.

478
00:24:57,358 --> 00:25:01,218
Your phone number is what you share with your friends and your loved ones.

479
00:25:01,448 --> 00:25:03,898
Everybody is still using WhatsApp as their main form of

480
00:25:03,938 --> 00:25:05,708
communication outside of Bitcoin.

481
00:25:06,158 --> 00:25:09,268
Um, so my aunt, my uncle, they're going to have a web of trust

482
00:25:09,428 --> 00:25:11,078
based around their phone number.

483
00:25:11,658 --> 00:25:17,038
What Vexl does is it hashes your phone number and it uses the hashes to build

484
00:25:17,038 --> 00:25:23,768
out But the way we handle data is means that we do not know your phone number.

485
00:25:24,128 --> 00:25:25,728
No one else knows your phone number.

486
00:25:25,798 --> 00:25:30,458
No one gets a notification that says, Hey, Luke, join Vexl like you see

487
00:25:30,458 --> 00:25:32,348
on every other messaging platform.

488
00:25:32,688 --> 00:25:36,358
No, this is done in a fully anonymous and discreet way.

489
00:25:36,408 --> 00:25:40,278
So your hashes are built out, but we split up.

490
00:25:40,278 --> 00:25:44,983
Transcribed The data across four different microservices that never

491
00:25:44,983 --> 00:25:46,583
communicate with each other, right?

492
00:25:46,943 --> 00:25:50,873
So, your phone number hashes are hashed, they're coupled on your device, the

493
00:25:50,873 --> 00:25:55,683
hash is built with the network, your offers are encrypted separately, your

494
00:25:55,693 --> 00:25:59,843
chats are end to end encrypted, and your profile is encrypted, and they

495
00:25:59,903 --> 00:26:01,703
never communicate with each other.

496
00:26:02,188 --> 00:26:06,798
So, let's say that, for the argument's sake, as people say, well, phone number

497
00:26:06,798 --> 00:26:10,878
hashes are really trivial to, you know, get the number from the hashes.

498
00:26:11,188 --> 00:26:14,668
And that might be true, but if someone does that, they're going

499
00:26:14,668 --> 00:26:17,938
to get a giant list of phone numbers that are not connected to

500
00:26:18,308 --> 00:26:21,928
Bitcoin, they're not connected to anything, or, and they have no value.

501
00:26:22,288 --> 00:26:26,448
Because I can randomly generate numbers with AI that are more valuable,

502
00:26:26,488 --> 00:26:30,248
because we don't have any information about what those phone numbers do.

503
00:26:30,248 --> 00:26:35,513
Because when I import them I import everyone I know, every contact number

504
00:26:35,513 --> 00:26:40,263
in my phone, because each one of them is essential to my social graph.

505
00:26:40,583 --> 00:26:42,473
So my dog walker, she's not a Bitcoiner.

506
00:26:42,473 --> 00:26:43,583
Well, her number appears there.

507
00:26:43,583 --> 00:26:43,863
Why?

508
00:26:43,883 --> 00:26:45,253
How is that connected with anyone else?

509
00:26:45,323 --> 00:26:45,863
It's not.

510
00:26:46,453 --> 00:26:49,643
They don't have value if there's no data attached to them, and there's not.

511
00:26:50,623 --> 00:26:54,353
So, uh, we have a really good blog about this on our, on our, like,

512
00:26:54,353 --> 00:26:57,143
blog you can check out to really see how that splits the data.

513
00:26:57,633 --> 00:27:02,403
This is so, so fascinating because we've been, even been riffing on app

514
00:27:02,433 --> 00:27:08,703
ideas ourselves around this concept that Since Bitcoin has so pointed out to

515
00:27:08,703 --> 00:27:12,553
everyone in the world that money doesn't need to be anything but information,

516
00:27:13,143 --> 00:27:16,243
uh, sort of nothing else does either.

517
00:27:16,243 --> 00:27:21,643
So you can just like, between people you trust, you can do so much without

518
00:27:21,653 --> 00:27:23,803
ever touching any network of any kind.

519
00:27:23,803 --> 00:27:28,573
Just, just, uh, there's so much to explore there.

520
00:27:28,603 --> 00:27:34,343
And like the natural follow up here is like, is there on the roadmap for Vexl?

521
00:27:34,888 --> 00:27:37,108
Uh, is Nostr somewhere on the roadmap?

522
00:27:37,138 --> 00:27:41,118
Because this sounds like something that would be built upon Nostr and not

523
00:27:41,128 --> 00:27:42,788
telephone numbers in the future, right?

524
00:27:43,433 --> 00:27:48,503
Yeah, so because a better web of trust doesn't exist right now, of course,

525
00:27:48,503 --> 00:27:49,633
phone numbers is the natural way.

526
00:27:49,643 --> 00:27:51,623
I mean, who has a better one?

527
00:27:51,633 --> 00:27:54,813
Maybe Facebook has a really good web of trust, right?

528
00:27:54,813 --> 00:27:58,253
Because it's old now, it's established, but creating a new

529
00:27:58,253 --> 00:28:00,383
one is very difficult, right?

530
00:28:00,403 --> 00:28:02,523
So looking at Nostr integration, Nostr integration.

531
00:28:02,863 --> 00:28:07,243
Yes, of course, we're curious and we're interested in to go down that path.

532
00:28:07,303 --> 00:28:12,523
But right now you're looking at something like 25, 000 active weekly users.

533
00:28:12,853 --> 00:28:18,243
Um, we are five people in a dog that we need to work and focus

534
00:28:18,243 --> 00:28:21,243
right now on actually building out the best version of our app.

535
00:28:21,243 --> 00:28:25,263
And then as Nostr's web of trust and social graph starts to grow and starts

536
00:28:25,263 --> 00:28:29,243
to come, we, of course, naturally will eventually replace Nostr.

537
00:28:29,478 --> 00:28:32,468
Phone numbers in every, every system of every web of trust.

538
00:28:32,488 --> 00:28:36,938
And you've already seen that happen with things like telegram usernames, or even

539
00:28:36,938 --> 00:28:39,988
now signal usernames is Threema session.

540
00:28:39,998 --> 00:28:41,608
You're starting to replace these with keys.

541
00:28:41,608 --> 00:28:44,938
And, and so what Nostr is doing is certainly interesting.

542
00:28:45,138 --> 00:28:50,088
Um, but right now it's just not a viable, like, web of trust to use

543
00:28:50,088 --> 00:28:54,693
to trade Bitcoin with, because this is You know, when I, when I look at

544
00:28:54,703 --> 00:28:58,403
how I do peer to peer trades on Vexl is I'm not doing them digitally.

545
00:28:58,903 --> 00:29:02,793
I'm meeting you underneath a statue of the horse in Old Town

546
00:29:02,803 --> 00:29:07,843
Square in Václavská Náměstí in the center, like, You know, Wenceslas

547
00:29:07,843 --> 00:29:09,193
Square as they call it in English.

548
00:29:09,543 --> 00:29:10,673
I'm meeting you under the horse.

549
00:29:10,703 --> 00:29:14,153
I'm giving you cash and you're giving me Bitcoin and I'm walking away, right?

550
00:29:14,683 --> 00:29:17,993
Most of my Nostr web of trust is, well, you're in Sweden right now

551
00:29:17,993 --> 00:29:21,673
and Luke's in Finland and like, I'm sorry, even though I know you, I still

552
00:29:21,673 --> 00:29:25,213
don't want to send you a digital bank transfer because I don't want my name

553
00:29:25,243 --> 00:29:26,713
appearing in anyone's bank account.

554
00:29:27,268 --> 00:29:28,048
For any reason.

555
00:29:28,808 --> 00:29:32,758
Now this is the thing, this is the problem with, with, uh, you know,

556
00:29:32,818 --> 00:29:36,558
you know, the old, with exchanges in general, as soon as you touch

557
00:29:36,558 --> 00:29:38,328
the banking system, you're fucked.

558
00:29:38,598 --> 00:29:44,318
Like, it's the on and off ramps, as they call them, but I, I prefer,

559
00:29:44,408 --> 00:29:49,623
prefer like the terms, uh, Oh, Proper system and legacy bullshit system.

560
00:29:49,623 --> 00:29:53,203
Like that's, and you don't want to touch the legacy bullshit system

561
00:29:53,203 --> 00:29:56,613
because it comes with all of the baggage that we're trying to get away from.

562
00:29:57,365 --> 00:29:59,595
And that's like the very, very thing, right?

563
00:29:59,605 --> 00:30:03,115
Is that if you're like, people ask me like, oh, is Nostr coming?

564
00:30:03,115 --> 00:30:06,775
It's like, well, if you are like, because my Bitcoin friends are on

565
00:30:06,785 --> 00:30:10,175
Nostr, but my Bitcoin friends don't live around the corner from me, right?

566
00:30:10,715 --> 00:30:13,855
But my phone number, the people that I have my phone number, that's everyone.

567
00:30:13,855 --> 00:30:17,145
That's my cleaning lady, my dog walker, the people that I get beers with on

568
00:30:17,145 --> 00:30:19,355
Tuesday evening, you know, these people.

569
00:30:19,625 --> 00:30:24,655
People, they live in this community and they have friends that they trust that

570
00:30:24,705 --> 00:30:28,535
I don't know, you know, but I can meet their friends on a Wednesday afternoon,

571
00:30:28,835 --> 00:30:33,205
have a coffee, do Bitcoin, or I can meet the farmer who's selling honey,

572
00:30:33,595 --> 00:30:37,645
um, who I know through, you know, my colleague who I, like, I had no idea.

573
00:30:37,645 --> 00:30:40,715
I didn't need to ask my colleague, Hey, do you know anybody that's selling honey?

574
00:30:41,025 --> 00:30:41,905
But I see.

575
00:30:42,280 --> 00:30:43,650
On Vexl, there's an offer.

576
00:30:43,690 --> 00:30:44,740
Oh, I share two people.

577
00:30:44,740 --> 00:30:45,340
It's my colleague.

578
00:30:45,370 --> 00:30:46,780
Oh, yeah, I got a honey guy now.

579
00:30:46,890 --> 00:30:47,280
Right.

580
00:30:47,720 --> 00:30:48,210
So

581
00:30:48,660 --> 00:30:49,010
A honey

582
00:30:49,150 --> 00:30:50,740
how you, yeah, exactly.

583
00:30:50,750 --> 00:30:54,800
Is the honeypot is like actual honey, you know, not, not anything else.

584
00:30:55,280 --> 00:30:55,590
Yeah.

585
00:30:55,830 --> 00:30:59,310
You've replaced the honey, honey pot with the actual honey.

586
00:30:59,950 --> 00:31:00,290
Yeah.

587
00:31:00,660 --> 00:31:00,960
So.

588
00:31:01,970 --> 00:31:02,980
It's super cool.

589
00:31:03,010 --> 00:31:07,360
And, and I see so many synergies with like, we, we, um, talked to Svetsky

590
00:31:07,360 --> 00:31:09,200
in Prague about the Satlantis project.

591
00:31:09,200 --> 00:31:09,960
Do you know about that?

592
00:31:10,310 --> 00:31:10,650
Yeah.

593
00:31:10,650 --> 00:31:10,940
Yeah.

594
00:31:10,940 --> 00:31:13,570
I, um, I unfortunately slept through.

595
00:31:14,315 --> 00:31:18,505
The satlantis, uh, hang on a minute, but Jozef Tetek, he, uh, he, I was supposed

596
00:31:18,505 --> 00:31:21,815
to present and Jozef did a wonderful job, so thank you, thank you to Jozef

597
00:31:21,825 --> 00:31:26,745
for taking over for me, but yeah, I talked to, to Alex for a while and I

598
00:31:26,745 --> 00:31:32,405
really like this because this was using my example, um, which is if you visit

599
00:31:32,405 --> 00:31:34,625
Prague, please don't look at TripAdvisor.

600
00:31:35,170 --> 00:31:35,750
No, no.

601
00:31:36,400 --> 00:31:39,650
Contact me, ask a friend, and that's exactly what we have to learn how

602
00:31:39,650 --> 00:31:43,930
to leverage is like friends and friends of friends is like, uh, maybe

603
00:31:43,930 --> 00:31:47,340
I don't know the best vegetarian restaurant in Prague because I'm not

604
00:31:47,340 --> 00:31:50,350
a vegetarian, but I certainly have a few friends who could tell you that

605
00:31:50,620 --> 00:31:51,080
Yeah.

606
00:31:51,180 --> 00:31:56,730
And, and I, I could easily see, um, Vexl integrate integration with that.

607
00:31:57,413 --> 00:31:58,453
Go into a city.

608
00:31:58,523 --> 00:32:01,893
Yeah, I mean, visiting a new city, seeing maybe how you can turn local

609
00:32:02,163 --> 00:32:03,663
shitcoin into Bitcoin before you leave.

610
00:32:03,753 --> 00:32:04,513
Yeah, that'd be nice.

611
00:32:04,920 --> 00:32:06,030
Or Orange pill app.

612
00:32:06,030 --> 00:32:09,910
Like if you have both the apps, you could just start chatting on there

613
00:32:09,910 --> 00:32:11,650
and then see the, the V Excel offer.

614
00:32:11,680 --> 00:32:16,030
I, I guess if, if you have the, the one you don't really need the other, but yeah.

615
00:32:16,105 --> 00:32:20,565
But I think, you know, that I like the idea, but you know, the, the thing

616
00:32:20,575 --> 00:32:22,465
is going back to like local bitcoins.

617
00:32:22,475 --> 00:32:26,855
I mean, we're really, we're talking about local is, I really think that the best

618
00:32:26,855 --> 00:32:28,495
way to do that is really face to face.

619
00:32:28,505 --> 00:32:33,085
So, but with, with Satlantis, I mean, that's a really good kind of thing

620
00:32:33,085 --> 00:32:37,440
because you are visiting a city and there might be, you know, as a, Hey,

621
00:32:37,440 --> 00:32:39,370
I'm in Istanbul for the weekend.

622
00:32:39,370 --> 00:32:42,060
Well, I know somebody who has three really good friends who live there.

623
00:32:42,060 --> 00:32:43,230
So they're going to give me advice.

624
00:32:43,230 --> 00:32:46,280
They're going to tell me who I can buy Bitcoin from this kind of stuff as well.

625
00:32:46,280 --> 00:32:49,400
So I do think there's some synergies between them.

626
00:32:49,440 --> 00:32:53,010
And, you know, that's what we want to ultimately create is

627
00:32:53,510 --> 00:32:55,475
something new, a private company.

628
00:32:55,665 --> 00:33:00,715
Marketplace for the people that's not, um, polluted by advertising

629
00:33:00,715 --> 00:33:02,235
and greed and everything else.

630
00:33:03,062 --> 00:33:05,962
so I mean, it's it's a great vision.

631
00:33:05,982 --> 00:33:09,572
And I think leveraging some of the synergies with the the other

632
00:33:09,602 --> 00:33:14,402
applications, I think, as you say, maybe maybe it'd be good to look

633
00:33:14,402 --> 00:33:16,442
into those things in the future.

634
00:33:16,442 --> 00:33:19,612
But if the if the focus is on keeping it local, it's fantastic.

635
00:33:19,612 --> 00:33:24,422
My only my initial thought on that is that the zero to one ing of it

636
00:33:24,492 --> 00:33:28,692
that that getting onto the app and well, what if you don't have any

637
00:33:28,692 --> 00:33:31,012
contacts that are already on the app?

638
00:33:31,462 --> 00:33:35,422
I mean, the of course, one of these things is you've just got to kind of get

639
00:33:35,812 --> 00:33:38,892
sort of a hook in some location, right?

640
00:33:38,982 --> 00:33:42,241
Some some person or group of people that actually adopt it.

641
00:33:42,552 --> 00:33:47,432
The thing, but I, I figure I have tons of great contacts on Telegram, but not

642
00:33:47,432 --> 00:33:51,462
very many are actually phone number contacts, you know, so there's just

643
00:33:51,462 --> 00:33:55,442
a couple of a couple of these things that, that are a little bit of friction

644
00:33:55,452 --> 00:34:00,042
that, that are probably not making it quite so easy to, to use at this point.

645
00:34:00,052 --> 00:34:01,181
What, what do you think about that?

646
00:34:01,281 --> 00:34:05,311
well, you know, we're very, we're all familiar with, uh, gradually and then

647
00:34:05,311 --> 00:34:10,421
suddenly and, um, with Czech Republic is a very good example of that.

648
00:34:10,771 --> 00:34:15,691
Is right now, you know, there's like over 6, 000 users in the country.

649
00:34:15,701 --> 00:34:19,511
If you want to buy Bitcoin this afternoon, you can do that.

650
00:34:19,731 --> 00:34:22,551
Um, this time last year, you could still do it.

651
00:34:22,561 --> 00:34:25,631
Maybe took a little bit longer, but right now, I mean, there's

652
00:34:25,661 --> 00:34:26,881
there's liquidity on there.

653
00:34:26,891 --> 00:34:28,981
People are buying and selling Bitcoin every day.

654
00:34:29,461 --> 00:34:31,511
Um, and I.

655
00:34:32,661 --> 00:34:37,481
You can see every time I open the app, I check, I'm a curious person, so I

656
00:34:37,481 --> 00:34:38,991
check and I see my number's grown.

657
00:34:39,171 --> 00:34:40,031
My number gets bigger.

658
00:34:40,051 --> 00:34:43,161
So you can actually, when you open up your app, if you go to the

659
00:34:43,161 --> 00:34:47,771
settings page and look up in the very top corner, it'll say your reach.

660
00:34:47,911 --> 00:34:52,041
And your reach is how many people you could potentially Vexl with.

661
00:34:52,531 --> 00:34:53,641
And that number grows.

662
00:34:54,121 --> 00:34:56,981
Every almost every day, every time you open the app.

663
00:34:57,271 --> 00:35:01,961
So to someone who I can say, well, okay, I don't have many offers in my area.

664
00:35:01,961 --> 00:35:04,271
Well, why haven't you created one?

665
00:35:04,361 --> 00:35:09,151
And every marketplace, whether that be Craigslist or Facebook or your

666
00:35:09,181 --> 00:35:13,616
local classifieds ads, I Uh, and the newspaper were empty at some point.

667
00:35:13,746 --> 00:35:16,356
It took people actually posting offers.

668
00:35:16,356 --> 00:35:20,616
It took people, you know, as Kevin Costner, uh, in Field of Dreams said,

669
00:35:20,616 --> 00:35:22,236
if you build it, they will come.

670
00:35:22,296 --> 00:35:25,016
And, um, we are, we've built it.

671
00:35:25,056 --> 00:35:25,936
We are still building.

672
00:35:25,936 --> 00:35:29,016
We still have a lot of ways to go and improving and really making

673
00:35:29,016 --> 00:35:30,966
the tool, um, for, for everyone.

674
00:35:30,966 --> 00:35:32,676
But I'm really proud of our UX.

675
00:35:33,006 --> 00:35:35,916
I'm really proud of how the app It looks and how intuitive

676
00:35:35,916 --> 00:35:37,266
it feels for most people.

677
00:35:37,506 --> 00:35:40,776
Um, you know, I can put it in the hands of my mom or my dad and it

678
00:35:40,776 --> 00:35:44,406
makes sense to them, and that's what we're, we're going after.

679
00:35:44,586 --> 00:35:49,356
Um, but if you don't have an offer in your area, uh, if you don't have many contacts.

680
00:35:49,726 --> 00:35:51,196
You have to do two things.

681
00:35:51,206 --> 00:35:54,206
You have to start talking about it to other people, telling them, try

682
00:35:54,206 --> 00:35:58,116
this out, if we build this private marketplace between us, it will

683
00:35:58,116 --> 00:36:00,436
happen, um, and create an offer.

684
00:36:00,466 --> 00:36:02,746
If you want to buy, say you want to buy.

685
00:36:02,826 --> 00:36:05,226
If you want to sell, say you want to sell.

686
00:36:05,566 --> 00:36:10,786
If you're curious, if maybe you just want to meet somebody for a coffee

687
00:36:10,786 --> 00:36:16,126
and do a symbolic, you know, 20 euro trade just to see and test out the app.

688
00:36:16,316 --> 00:36:20,776
Put that there as well because you might meet somebody in your community.

689
00:36:20,776 --> 00:36:21,816
Maybe you have a small town.

690
00:36:21,826 --> 00:36:23,676
Maybe you didn't know there were other Bitcoiners around

691
00:36:23,676 --> 00:36:24,666
and that you were connected.

692
00:36:24,666 --> 00:36:26,726
And the next thing you know, you can put together meetup.

693
00:36:27,276 --> 00:36:30,866
Um, you can get more people in, but it's really word of mouth.

694
00:36:31,216 --> 00:36:31,896
Grassroots.

695
00:36:31,916 --> 00:36:32,836
You got to talk about it.

696
00:36:33,046 --> 00:36:37,906
And, um, you know, because we're a nonprofit, we will never monetize.

697
00:36:38,066 --> 00:36:42,536
So we don't have marketing budget to go out and put up, you know,

698
00:36:42,866 --> 00:36:45,556
advertising everywhere on the internet or billboards or wherever.

699
00:36:45,886 --> 00:36:49,396
Um, it's truly like, I want this.

700
00:36:49,836 --> 00:36:50,606
This is what I want.

701
00:36:50,986 --> 00:36:53,306
Um, why do people build anything?

702
00:36:53,306 --> 00:36:54,166
Why do we do anything?

703
00:36:54,236 --> 00:36:56,016
Because it's, it's for me, number one.

704
00:36:56,476 --> 00:36:58,936
Um, but I'm pretty sure you want it too.

705
00:36:59,476 --> 00:37:00,606
And so you got to build it.

706
00:37:01,080 --> 00:37:01,770
That's beautiful.

707
00:37:01,770 --> 00:37:05,870
So people download vxl and like, subscribe and brush your

708
00:37:05,870 --> 00:37:07,355
teeth, please do all the things.

709
00:37:07,839 --> 00:37:11,452
We'd love to see in the comments what you, uh, what you think about Vexl and,

710
00:37:11,452 --> 00:37:15,822
uh, spread the word, uh, don't forget, and, and, and just as a, just as a thing,

711
00:37:15,852 --> 00:37:20,342
let's, let's, uh, let's make sure to, uh, to do this regularly, uh, come on,

712
00:37:20,362 --> 00:37:25,272
come on, Grafton, uh, to, to our show, you know, every, every few months or

713
00:37:25,272 --> 00:37:28,712
something, at least once a year, something like that, and let's, let's spread the

714
00:37:28,712 --> 00:37:30,322
word together, that's the least we can do.

715
00:37:30,507 --> 00:37:34,747
I mean, look, it's taken me a long time to get to, to, to where we are now.

716
00:37:34,747 --> 00:37:39,137
I mean, and, and, and Bitcoin, you know, is like, everybody's panicking

717
00:37:39,137 --> 00:37:40,287
because the price is at what?

718
00:37:40,427 --> 00:37:41,997
Fifty seven or something?

719
00:37:42,967 --> 00:37:46,037
So it's like, people go crazy, but they also like.

720
00:37:46,102 --> 00:37:49,912
When Bitcoin drops, you know, what it is right now or whatever, like,

721
00:37:49,922 --> 00:37:52,382
all of a sudden you look at Vexil and people are really using it.

722
00:37:52,392 --> 00:37:55,952
So there's like these periods of time where, um, because people

723
00:37:55,952 --> 00:37:58,632
are buying the dip, but people are also selling it as well.

724
00:37:58,632 --> 00:38:03,072
And so, like, you can see that and by talking about it and understanding

725
00:38:03,072 --> 00:38:07,562
that there is a private marketplace out there where you can Vexl, Bitcoin

726
00:38:07,572 --> 00:38:11,032
with your friends and friends of friends, like that's the biggest

727
00:38:11,072 --> 00:38:12,472
secret that's going on right now.

728
00:38:12,472 --> 00:38:13,402
It shouldn't be a secret.

729
00:38:13,402 --> 00:38:17,952
We have to, we have to build these tools for tomorrow, today, because if you look

730
00:38:17,952 --> 00:38:22,437
at what's happened with KYC and what's happening with Bitcoin is The further we

731
00:38:22,437 --> 00:38:27,607
get away from that, you know, Satoshi's white paper, the more it starts to

732
00:38:27,607 --> 00:38:29,277
mirror our current financial system.

733
00:38:29,317 --> 00:38:31,717
And that scares me because that's not what Bitcoin is.

734
00:38:31,807 --> 00:38:33,807
Bitcoin was rebel, you know?

735
00:40:14,144 --> 00:40:19,484
So, so other than you and, and slush, uh, like how is, how is Vxl connected to

736
00:40:19,484 --> 00:40:21,645
Satoshi Labs and, and Trevor and all that?

737
00:40:22,213 --> 00:40:22,553
Yeah.

738
00:40:22,613 --> 00:40:28,673
Um, so Slush is, I mean, Vexl was Slush's idea, but we have Stick as well.

739
00:40:28,713 --> 00:40:33,223
So Stick, Slush, um, they are the co founders of Trezor,

740
00:40:33,733 --> 00:40:35,063
founders of Satoshi Labs.

741
00:40:35,543 --> 00:40:37,263
Um, and Vexl is the newest.

742
00:40:37,813 --> 00:40:38,433
project.

743
00:40:38,633 --> 00:40:43,653
Um, we have Trezor, uh, which is, you know, the OG hardware wallet.

744
00:40:43,663 --> 00:40:47,793
Then there is Tropic Square, which is aiming to be the world's

745
00:40:47,793 --> 00:40:49,403
first open source secure element.

746
00:40:49,889 --> 00:40:55,079
Okay, so, so, so, uh, so, uh, it's under the Satoshi Labs, uh, umbrella.

747
00:40:55,079 --> 00:40:55,709
So, so, so to

748
00:40:55,963 --> 00:40:57,663
It's yeah, it's under the umbrella.

749
00:40:57,823 --> 00:41:02,023
So we were our initial investment was funded through Satoshi Labs.

750
00:41:02,460 --> 00:41:03,430
but that's, that's it.

751
00:41:03,480 --> 00:41:07,580
Now we are supported through grant for the last six months from OpenSats

752
00:41:07,620 --> 00:41:09,220
and we're currently fundraising.

753
00:41:09,220 --> 00:41:09,295
for listening.

754
00:41:09,585 --> 00:41:12,615
Um, to kind of look at Nostr, to look at these things as well.

755
00:41:13,495 --> 00:41:16,675
So, but yeah, Satoshi Labs is our parent company because

756
00:41:16,675 --> 00:41:17,725
our co founders created it.

757
00:41:18,139 --> 00:41:24,769
Oh, wonderful, and, uh, yeah, I mean, Uh, as you say, I think this massive

758
00:41:25,009 --> 00:41:32,719
weight of sort of the history and the companies in Czech Republic, I mean,

759
00:41:33,169 --> 00:41:40,219
there are other places that are starting to kind of pick up some steam, try to

760
00:41:40,229 --> 00:41:45,384
be these sort of Bitcoin destinations, but, uh, Yeah, really, really cool

761
00:41:45,384 --> 00:41:47,914
to see kind of how that's all worked.

762
00:41:47,914 --> 00:41:52,224
And I mean, yeah, I, I think I think for for my part with the with the vexling of

763
00:41:52,224 --> 00:41:55,954
it, I definitely see the gradually and suddenly that you're talking about that.

764
00:41:56,774 --> 00:42:01,184
Just got to get the contacts and it incentivizes people to you.

765
00:42:01,639 --> 00:42:03,039
Make these connections.

766
00:42:03,039 --> 00:42:07,499
And I mean, we're still early as soon as you were starting to say, you know,

767
00:42:07,519 --> 00:42:08,739
the price has dipped and everything.

768
00:42:08,739 --> 00:42:13,259
I mean, I'm old enough to remember when 55, 000 US dollars per for one Bitcoin.

769
00:42:13,289 --> 00:42:14,419
That seemed like a lot.

770
00:42:15,343 --> 00:42:20,423
Yeah, I mean, I remember when 600, I remember telling my mom to

771
00:42:20,423 --> 00:42:24,183
buy Bitcoin at like 600 and her response was, Oh, it's too expensive.

772
00:42:24,183 --> 00:42:25,743
I'll wait for it to come down a little bit.

773
00:42:26,333 --> 00:42:31,543
Um, and I mean, that's like, you know, I think the first time my mom really started

774
00:42:31,543 --> 00:42:36,973
looking at Bitcoin is, you know, as a real thing was when Bitcoin hit 69, 000,

775
00:42:36,973 --> 00:42:39,663
you know, and then she's like, all right, I should probably get some just in case,

776
00:42:40,093 --> 00:42:43,938
you know, and that's like, well, that's where we are with, you know, With Bitcoin,

777
00:42:43,958 --> 00:42:48,088
I think we should all start looking at, um, getting some just in case, but

778
00:42:48,098 --> 00:42:50,638
getting some no KYC Bitcoin just in case.

779
00:42:50,798 --> 00:42:55,978
And I think that realistically, we're going to wake up in 10 years and go like,

780
00:42:56,038 --> 00:42:58,828
okay, this is a nightmare of KYC hell.

781
00:42:58,998 --> 00:43:03,138
Everybody's information is all over the place and there's no going back.

782
00:43:03,158 --> 00:43:04,508
There's no resetting that.

783
00:43:04,508 --> 00:43:07,488
Once it's out there, you know, they leak how much Bitcoin

784
00:43:07,488 --> 00:43:09,818
you own or something is just.

785
00:43:10,378 --> 00:43:12,158
It seems like a disaster waiting to happen.

786
00:43:12,789 --> 00:43:15,289
yeah, let's let's dig into this a little bit.

787
00:43:16,239 --> 00:43:16,639
Yeah.

788
00:43:16,729 --> 00:43:18,119
How important is it?

789
00:43:18,859 --> 00:43:24,589
KYC versus non KYC in your view, because, I mean, you sort of described the picture,

790
00:43:24,599 --> 00:43:31,609
but non KYC at the moment is difficult for newer people, at least as the first

791
00:43:31,609 --> 00:43:39,139
point of entry, compared to just go on whatever exchange dick, and I had a

792
00:43:39,139 --> 00:43:45,973
encounter recently, locally, with a guy who was trying to convince, I forget it.

793
00:43:45,974 --> 00:43:52,864
He was related to her, but, um, somebody knew, uh, and, and she was

794
00:43:52,864 --> 00:43:57,914
saying that she actually did not want, I guess, I guess this, this guy was,

795
00:43:57,954 --> 00:44:03,314
was advocating non KYCU, but pushback was she wanted it to be KYC'd so that

796
00:44:03,314 --> 00:44:04,914
it was all above board and legal.

797
00:44:04,914 --> 00:44:08,884
And so it's just this funny, this funny opposite mindset.

798
00:44:09,284 --> 00:44:14,254
Right, of, of how people think the world is supposed to be but just, just

799
00:44:14,254 --> 00:44:17,554
to actually get to, get to a point here is that, is that in, in a certain

800
00:44:17,554 --> 00:44:19,374
extent, there's only 21 million.

801
00:44:20,614 --> 00:44:24,184
You have, you have a certain percentage of, of Bitcoin on a

802
00:44:24,184 --> 00:44:26,434
hardware wallet in your possession.

803
00:44:27,224 --> 00:44:30,864
You keep the secret, only you know what that is, right?

804
00:44:31,254 --> 00:44:34,224
Well, you have it, whether it's KYC or not.

805
00:44:34,604 --> 00:44:38,404
But what's your view, I guess, of the nuance and the interplay

806
00:44:38,404 --> 00:44:42,284
between just simply having Bitcoin and KYC versus non KYC Bitcoin?

807
00:44:42,548 --> 00:44:47,328
Well, KYC thinks like, okay, so I saw an interesting discussion about

808
00:44:47,328 --> 00:44:53,148
this actually on Twitter recently, where he said that, um, looking at

809
00:44:53,148 --> 00:44:56,688
KYC Bitcoin, it doesn't mean that, you know, your, your Bitcoin, your KYC

810
00:44:56,688 --> 00:44:58,038
follows you everywhere or whatever.

811
00:44:58,038 --> 00:44:59,838
And it says that it's know your customer.

812
00:44:59,878 --> 00:45:05,088
So what it means is for you to be able to have Bitcoin, you have to have permission.

813
00:45:05,973 --> 00:45:11,363
Um, and that's what KYC is for most of these, like, people, right?

814
00:45:11,373 --> 00:45:14,683
If you are Coinbase or Binance or any of these things, what they're

815
00:45:14,683 --> 00:45:18,813
saying is that we have this system, you can participate in it, but first,

816
00:45:18,973 --> 00:45:21,773
we need to make sure it's okay that you participate in that system.

817
00:45:22,273 --> 00:45:27,963
And not everybody can do that, so for me, we have to make it as easy

818
00:45:27,963 --> 00:45:34,063
to buy Bitcoin for everyone as we do for the exchanges who make it easy to

819
00:45:34,063 --> 00:45:36,583
buy Bitcoin on their exchange because they've granted you permission.

820
00:45:37,463 --> 00:45:40,793
So, when you look at, I mean, the BTC pay server movie was great because

821
00:45:40,793 --> 00:45:44,003
you go into El Salvador and you look at the dentist who never had a bank

822
00:45:44,003 --> 00:45:47,923
account, who was never able to save money to do this, or you have people

823
00:45:47,923 --> 00:45:51,703
who don't have identification or who are unbanked, who can't participate.

824
00:45:52,273 --> 00:45:53,433
What are they supposed to do?

825
00:45:53,433 --> 00:45:55,183
Um, how do they get permission?

826
00:45:55,863 --> 00:46:00,573
And when you introduce permission into Bitcoin, well, that's not

827
00:46:00,633 --> 00:46:02,013
what Bitcoin is supposed to be.

828
00:46:02,903 --> 00:46:05,283
Bitcoin should not have permission attached to it.

829
00:46:05,783 --> 00:46:08,533
Um, you know, go and look at Canadian truckers.

830
00:46:09,023 --> 00:46:12,283
protest, you know, is going, well, their bank accounts are frozen.

831
00:46:12,493 --> 00:46:13,563
You don't have permission.

832
00:46:13,593 --> 00:46:17,003
So we, you can't do anything because we're freezing your accounts, right?

833
00:46:17,093 --> 00:46:18,953
Your permission has been revoked.

834
00:46:19,683 --> 00:46:22,603
They can do that to you in 2020, 2022.

835
00:46:22,613 --> 00:46:25,683
They can do that to you tomorrow for, I saw an article of

836
00:46:25,763 --> 00:46:28,013
not wearing a hijab in Iran.

837
00:46:28,023 --> 00:46:30,573
They will freeze your bank account because you're not, they, you don't have

838
00:46:30,573 --> 00:46:32,193
permission to participate in their system.

839
00:46:32,573 --> 00:46:34,243
That's what KYC is to me.

840
00:46:34,793 --> 00:46:39,298
Um, you know, looking at someone who says, well, We need to make sure that the coins

841
00:46:39,298 --> 00:46:41,488
that we're getting are not tainted, right?

842
00:46:41,488 --> 00:46:43,508
Or they're not blacklisted or this.

843
00:46:43,508 --> 00:46:46,118
And I go, well, what is that fucking, what is tainted Bitcoin?

844
00:46:46,278 --> 00:46:47,128
Bitcoin is Bitcoin.

845
00:46:47,738 --> 00:46:51,728
So what it means is you don't have permission to spend that

846
00:46:51,728 --> 00:46:52,688
Bitcoin on that exchange.

847
00:46:53,618 --> 00:46:58,248
And I think that that's really, to me, why I see KYC as an enemy.

848
00:46:58,268 --> 00:47:01,308
Not because I'm trying to hide anything or anything like that.

849
00:47:01,338 --> 00:47:05,828
I'm just trying to protect myself and be able to have permission with money.

850
00:47:06,559 --> 00:47:11,479
now, I, I totally agree and I think there's a cognitive dissonance here, and I

851
00:47:11,479 --> 00:47:15,619
hear it all the time because like, there's so many people who want like Bitcoin to,

852
00:47:15,799 --> 00:47:21,409
to be legitimized by some fucking entity before, before they can take it seriously.

853
00:47:21,869 --> 00:47:26,669
And that is completely missing the point because if, if all bitcoins

854
00:47:26,679 --> 00:47:31,609
were legitimized by someone, the, you know, if they all required permission.

855
00:47:32,464 --> 00:47:37,144
Then, uh, there is no 21 million cap anymore, and there's no value proposition,

856
00:47:37,404 --> 00:47:43,534
because then you, these people are able to censor and, and rule the network anyway.

857
00:47:43,764 --> 00:47:48,244
So, so all the, all the value propositions go away when it's

858
00:47:48,244 --> 00:47:49,494
not underground money anymore.

859
00:47:50,124 --> 00:47:54,524
So, so it needs, like, we've figured out a way to do money

860
00:47:54,524 --> 00:47:56,214
without government involvement.

861
00:47:56,444 --> 00:47:57,814
And that's the point.

862
00:47:57,964 --> 00:48:01,284
Like, if you want it to be permissioned, you have this cognitive dissonance.

863
00:48:01,294 --> 00:48:02,554
Like, it doesn't work.

864
00:48:02,814 --> 00:48:09,234
It's like saying, yeah, I love this invention, the wheel here, but I refuse

865
00:48:09,304 --> 00:48:13,584
to use a wheel to roll this thing down this hill until the government

866
00:48:13,584 --> 00:48:14,924
says it's okay for me to do so.

867
00:48:14,924 --> 00:48:16,253
It's

868
00:48:16,318 --> 00:48:16,848
imagine?

869
00:48:18,668 --> 00:48:22,118
I mean, but that's kind of where we are, if you look at regulations, I mean.

870
00:48:22,908 --> 00:48:30,548
Look at where we are with, um, I mean, the bottle cap in Europe,

871
00:48:30,908 --> 00:48:33,828
um, I think my camera died, um,

872
00:48:33,954 --> 00:48:35,214
Your camera definitely died.

873
00:48:35,658 --> 00:48:39,078
yeah, look at where we are with the bottle cap in Europe, you have to have, you

874
00:48:39,078 --> 00:48:40,378
know, different ones, hold on one second,

875
00:48:42,237 --> 00:48:47,717
while he's fixing it, that, uh, you know, uh, freezing of bank accounts if

876
00:48:47,717 --> 00:48:52,697
you're not wearing a hijab thing made me think of a rainbow hijab, do you think

877
00:48:52,697 --> 00:48:54,207
there's such a thing as a rainbow hijab?

878
00:48:54,207 --> 00:48:55,127
Yeah.

879
00:48:55,237 --> 00:48:57,527
I mean, a lot of them are pretty colorful.

880
00:48:57,607 --> 00:49:02,367
Uh, but, but it's, it's an interesting, it's an interesting thought.

881
00:49:02,807 --> 00:49:03,437
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

882
00:49:03,437 --> 00:49:04,317
You're, you're good now.

883
00:49:04,317 --> 00:49:04,767
You're good.

884
00:49:04,807 --> 00:49:05,167
Yeah.

885
00:49:05,457 --> 00:49:08,387
I don't know, maybe the battery on it is something, we'll see if I

886
00:49:08,387 --> 00:49:13,402
have to message my, uh, my guy, but yeah, I mean, That's exactly what

887
00:49:13,402 --> 00:49:14,582
you're talking about a rainbow hijab.

888
00:49:14,582 --> 00:49:20,362
I mean, that's like people have such, such difficulty these days understanding

889
00:49:20,362 --> 00:49:22,942
what they're even for or against.

890
00:49:23,112 --> 00:49:27,242
Um, and like the, you know, saying, well, I want my Bitcoin that's like,

891
00:49:27,282 --> 00:49:30,512
you know, the gays for Palestine thing and like all of this,

892
00:49:30,517 --> 00:49:31,507
for KFC.

893
00:49:31,752 --> 00:49:33,162
yeah, chickens for KFC.

894
00:49:33,162 --> 00:49:36,112
It's like, you have, I don't think that you really have

895
00:49:36,172 --> 00:49:37,482
so much idea what's going on.

896
00:49:37,492 --> 00:49:41,892
I think you're just whatever feels good in that moment is what they're going for.

897
00:49:42,127 --> 00:49:45,337
we go into this a lot in the new book about like the difference

898
00:49:45,347 --> 00:49:47,527
between legal and lawful.

899
00:49:48,417 --> 00:49:52,607
It's like there's been some libertarian writings about this and how lawful

900
00:49:52,607 --> 00:49:55,907
is something that is actually ethically and morally correct.

901
00:49:56,357 --> 00:50:00,727
And it's basically all property rights when you boil it down to essentials

902
00:50:00,777 --> 00:50:05,847
and legal is just something that some guy at some institution came up with

903
00:50:06,637 --> 00:50:08,867
regardless if there's a victim or not.

904
00:50:09,341 --> 00:50:13,401
Well, I don't know if you've read, I told you, I think we talked about it in, um,

905
00:50:13,701 --> 00:50:17,841
Poland or Warsaw, but I told you about a book called A Lodging of Wayfaring Men.

906
00:50:18,231 --> 00:50:19,071
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

907
00:50:19,371 --> 00:50:21,771
I haven't read it yet, I

908
00:50:21,921 --> 00:50:26,551
I will, I will send you, um, I'll send you a copy, um, because it's

909
00:50:26,551 --> 00:50:30,201
hard to find, um, but I think that you would really enjoy that book.

910
00:50:30,741 --> 00:50:34,841
I like exclusively do audiobooks these days because I just

911
00:50:34,841 --> 00:50:36,751
don't have the time to sit down

912
00:50:36,801 --> 00:50:37,611
not sure.

913
00:50:37,631 --> 00:50:39,971
If there's not an audiobook, there should be one.

914
00:50:39,981 --> 00:50:41,691
My dog is making an appearance.

915
00:50:41,761 --> 00:50:42,421
Um,

916
00:50:42,831 --> 00:50:44,691
Yeah, there's a Kindle version, that's

917
00:50:44,841 --> 00:50:48,451
yeah, I'm not sure if there's an audio one, but man, I think there should be.

918
00:50:48,451 --> 00:50:51,531
I might maybe need to talk to Max Hillebrand and get him to record.

919
00:50:51,531 --> 00:50:52,351
I would listen to him.

920
00:50:53,531 --> 00:50:57,351
well the AI voices are good enough now, you could just, like, make

921
00:50:57,351 --> 00:50:59,471
some app read it for you, I guess.

922
00:51:00,046 --> 00:51:01,756
Well, that'd be nice.

923
00:51:01,786 --> 00:51:04,706
I don't know if you've ever done like the immersion reading

924
00:51:04,746 --> 00:51:08,176
technique where you listen to a book and read it at the same time.

925
00:51:08,306 --> 00:51:09,446
Um, oh my god.

926
00:51:10,026 --> 00:51:11,586
Uh, no.

927
00:51:11,776 --> 00:51:13,330
No, the target languages are good.

928
00:51:13,330 --> 00:51:14,366
This is all good.

929
00:51:14,446 --> 00:51:18,846
Yeah, and there's a, there's a similar language learning technique too if you

930
00:51:18,846 --> 00:51:20,096
want to take it a whole other level.

931
00:51:20,096 --> 00:51:23,386
You listen to a, you listen to an audio book in your target language and

932
00:51:23,386 --> 00:51:26,636
you keep your, your native language and the target language at the same

933
00:51:26,636 --> 00:51:30,566
time and it's like, that's like the hardcorest way you can immerse yourself.

934
00:51:31,066 --> 00:51:34,746
Um, Doggo is, uh, is getting, is getting the, uh, attention

935
00:51:34,746 --> 00:51:35,856
here, but I think that's

936
00:51:36,076 --> 00:51:36,966
Hey, doggie.

937
00:51:37,226 --> 00:51:38,076
That's, that's priorities in

938
00:51:38,096 --> 00:51:39,466
What was the name of the dog?

939
00:51:39,766 --> 00:51:40,726
this is Ash.

940
00:51:41,006 --> 00:51:42,676
We call him Ash the Vexl dog.

941
00:51:43,846 --> 00:51:45,056
Ash the Wechseldanger.

942
00:51:45,076 --> 00:51:47,876
yeah, he has his own Twitter account and everything.

943
00:51:48,356 --> 00:51:51,056
On Vexl, no one knows you're a dog.

944
00:51:51,271 --> 00:51:53,371
They just know that you have a lot of mutual friends.

945
00:51:53,656 --> 00:51:58,006
But, but they will call you out if you try to sell the Doge coin or doggie

946
00:51:58,006 --> 00:51:58,266
coin,

947
00:51:58,531 --> 00:51:59,101
exactly.

948
00:51:59,101 --> 00:51:59,401
Yeah.

949
00:51:59,701 --> 00:52:00,641
Well, getting into that.

950
00:52:00,651 --> 00:52:05,561
So that's one of my favorite things ever is, uh, the first time I ever met,

951
00:52:05,751 --> 00:52:12,081
I don't know if you know this story, Luke, but we were in Miami, Miami, 2022.

952
00:52:12,221 --> 00:52:16,411
You know, I'm fresh into, uh, working in Bitcoin.

953
00:52:16,421 --> 00:52:18,791
I'm very proud that I I'm working in Bitcoin.

954
00:52:18,801 --> 00:52:21,751
I'm very proud that I work at Trezor and the Trezor booth is

955
00:52:21,751 --> 00:52:24,601
right across from the book signing.

956
00:52:25,306 --> 00:52:29,246
And, um, I was like, oh, Knut's gonna be over there.

957
00:52:29,246 --> 00:52:31,046
I was like, I gotta get him to sign my book.

958
00:52:31,316 --> 00:52:35,186
Um, so I went over, and I was like, hey, I'm so glad to meet you.

959
00:52:35,186 --> 00:52:36,006
Will you please sign my book?

960
00:52:36,016 --> 00:52:37,156
He's like, yeah, what do you do?

961
00:52:37,206 --> 00:52:38,486
And I was like, oh, I work at Trezor.

962
00:52:38,486 --> 00:52:40,686
And he's like, oh, Trezor, he's like, yeah, you should tell them they're

963
00:52:40,686 --> 00:52:42,466
a bunch of shitcoiners, alright?

964
00:52:43,056 --> 00:52:47,996
So I was like, well, I'm not sure how accurate that statement is, if

965
00:52:48,016 --> 00:52:49,246
Trezor's a bunch of shit coiters.

966
00:52:49,246 --> 00:52:52,846
I mean, we've, we've, the reason you have 12 words is, is,

967
00:52:52,891 --> 00:52:54,231
I think you remember this.

968
00:52:55,191 --> 00:52:56,941
I have a slight different memory.

969
00:52:56,941 --> 00:52:57,041
I

970
00:52:57,041 --> 00:53:00,661
told them like you should you should do the Bitcoin only thing

971
00:53:00,671 --> 00:53:02,451
on top at least like you should go

972
00:53:02,471 --> 00:53:03,251
Bitcoin only.

973
00:53:03,261 --> 00:53:03,961
Yes, you should.

974
00:53:04,331 --> 00:53:06,971
But at least you should put like the Bitcoin only firmware

975
00:53:07,891 --> 00:53:08,881
as the default.

976
00:53:09,261 --> 00:53:13,391
And I think there was some I think you told me afterwards that it was something

977
00:53:13,391 --> 00:53:18,971
like that they put Bitcoin on top, whereas it wasn't before, or something's changed.

978
00:53:19,276 --> 00:53:24,436
But, basically, That, that moment, it's stuck in my head, and it really, it made

979
00:53:24,436 --> 00:53:27,796
me, it made me crazy, you know, because I'm like, what, you know, Trezor is, is,

980
00:53:27,816 --> 00:53:31,156
we've, you know, contributed so much to Bitcoin, and like, we are Bitcoiners,

981
00:53:31,986 --> 00:53:36,286
like, Trezor are Bitcoiners, like, we, okay, yeah, we have shitcoin, they have

982
00:53:36,286 --> 00:53:42,256
shitcoin, but like, we do everything we do for Bitcoin, and um, so basically, every

983
00:53:42,286 --> 00:53:49,101
time that I've seen Knut since, Um, I have, I have basically slightly insulted

984
00:53:49,101 --> 00:53:52,821
him, not insulted him, but like dug at him a little bit and be like, yeah, try to

985
00:53:52,821 --> 00:53:54,671
call me a shit coiner now, motherfucker.

986
00:53:55,661 --> 00:53:59,081
And so, like, it worked, you know, and then in Prague, you were like,

987
00:53:59,081 --> 00:54:01,651
uh, I think you said something like, you're definitely not a shit coiner.

988
00:54:01,651 --> 00:54:03,771
I was like, yeah, finally, it worked, yeah.

989
00:54:04,521 --> 00:54:07,091
think even in Warsaw, I'd come around to that.

990
00:54:07,301 --> 00:54:12,771
But, and, uh, yeah, so, you know, Trezor makes legit products.

991
00:54:14,266 --> 00:54:19,336
I still wish they would stop shitcoining completely, and I stand by that, and

992
00:54:19,336 --> 00:54:24,026
stand by that for every single hardware wallet manufacturer, or everyone on earth,

993
00:54:24,406 --> 00:54:25,666
actually, should stop shitcoining

994
00:54:26,846 --> 00:54:30,356
immediately, but the product is good.

995
00:54:30,831 --> 00:54:35,421
Yeah, I mean, I can't speak on, on, like, too much of it, but I mean, Trezor,

996
00:54:35,421 --> 00:54:37,471
they are, we are, they're Bitcoiners.

997
00:54:37,741 --> 00:54:43,021
I mean, that, that's why, yes, they do have shitcoin, um, and I will say that,

998
00:54:43,201 --> 00:54:47,701
um, the one thing I can, you know, add about that is that shitcoiners hopefully

999
00:54:47,701 --> 00:54:52,311
make Bitcoiners, and they never took look back, so, you know, a lot of people

1000
00:54:52,501 --> 00:54:57,911
still, in their minds, They go, I'm looking for the next Bitcoin and that's

1001
00:54:57,911 --> 00:55:00,261
like, I've heard that from my friends.

1002
00:55:00,261 --> 00:55:01,431
I've heard that from everyone.

1003
00:55:01,901 --> 00:55:04,931
Um, you know, my, my normal friends who are like, Oh, I'm

1004
00:55:04,931 --> 00:55:05,881
going to get the next Bitcoin.

1005
00:55:05,881 --> 00:55:06,871
I'm trying to find the next one.

1006
00:55:06,871 --> 00:55:08,701
And I'm like, you know, I go to sailor.

1007
00:55:08,751 --> 00:55:09,731
There, there is no,

1008
00:55:10,486 --> 00:55:11,846
There is some second, but yeah,

1009
00:55:12,651 --> 00:55:13,251
yeah, but

1010
00:55:13,306 --> 00:55:16,786
that's still going on, but, but that's why I'm so irritated with shit

1011
00:55:16,921 --> 00:55:17,861
I know.

1012
00:55:18,166 --> 00:55:22,606
they are the attack, like people who fall for them and then get burned,

1013
00:55:23,546 --> 00:55:26,866
likely they won't come back to Bitcoin until 10 years down the line.

1014
00:55:27,351 --> 00:55:31,561
Then when they realize, oh, it was Bitcoin all along, like, and, uh, I

1015
00:55:31,561 --> 00:55:36,821
think for the most part, that process coming to Bitcoin only, mentally, uh,

1016
00:55:37,311 --> 00:55:41,301
could be faster if there weren't all of these bullshit narratives about the

1017
00:55:41,509 --> 00:55:41,549
place.

1018
00:55:41,559 --> 00:55:43,549
Oh yeah, like, I'm, I'm open personally.

1019
00:55:43,629 --> 00:55:49,569
I, I started with Ethereum in 2017, and my office, my personal local community, was

1020
00:55:49,569 --> 00:55:53,009
only into Ethereum for whatever reason, and that's the only thing I bought,

1021
00:55:53,019 --> 00:55:56,909
and then everything crashed, and, ah, I didn't think about it for four years,

1022
00:55:56,909 --> 00:55:59,569
and then things started going up, and I go down the rabbit hole, and whatever,

1023
00:55:59,569 --> 00:56:05,299
but yeah, I started in shitcoins, and Probably, possibly, I missed the boat

1024
00:56:05,329 --> 00:56:09,479
by four years, and that's too bad for me, but, you know, no regrets, but, uh,

1025
00:56:09,677 --> 00:56:15,087
But I mean, I get Knut's point, which is that if you provide this place for

1026
00:56:15,087 --> 00:56:18,987
shitcoiners to put their shitcoin, um, what you're doing is in a way

1027
00:56:18,987 --> 00:56:22,107
validating that like, oh, yeah, yeah.

1028
00:56:22,107 --> 00:56:25,707
And I, like, I, I do, I agree with you in that point.

1029
00:56:25,767 --> 00:56:28,747
Um, you know, and I, I have had shitcoin in my life.

1030
00:56:28,757 --> 00:56:30,807
You know, I'm not saying that I've never had a shitcoin.

1031
00:56:30,807 --> 00:56:33,967
I had litecoin back in like 2012 or some shit.

1032
00:56:33,967 --> 00:56:38,887
I Um, and I had some Ethereum like the day that it was out.

1033
00:56:38,887 --> 00:56:40,797
I was like, Oh, you know, I was playing around with stuff

1034
00:56:40,797 --> 00:56:42,377
because I was naturally curious.

1035
00:56:42,407 --> 00:56:46,697
But, you know, it's like, there's that, you know, the meme of the guy where it's

1036
00:56:46,717 --> 00:56:50,727
like each level, you know, you get is eventually you do get to where Bitcoin

1037
00:56:50,737 --> 00:56:56,947
is like, giant laser The I's, you know, going out where you go, no, this is it.

1038
00:56:56,957 --> 00:56:58,247
This is, this is what it is.

1039
00:56:58,277 --> 00:57:04,697
then again, like, there's something to that, there needs to be, uh, like if

1040
00:57:04,987 --> 00:57:10,427
Bitcoin goes to shit, or some code that we don't like get implemented, we need

1041
00:57:10,427 --> 00:57:15,362
to be able to fork off and do our own thing, and like, Uh, so there's, there's

1042
00:57:15,362 --> 00:57:21,237
something to that, but still legitimizing those fucking Doty coins and Ethereum.

1043
00:57:21,242 --> 00:57:25,622
Ethereum being the mother asshole has safely inputted so poetically

1044
00:57:25,892 --> 00:57:28,682
the mother asshole from which all other shit coins are spawned.

1045
00:57:29,112 --> 00:57:36,372
I mean, uh, and putting that side by side with Bitcoin is like, uh, uh, what, what,

1046
00:57:36,372 --> 00:57:43,312
what's the analogy is like you have this, um, um, you have the most beautifully

1047
00:57:43,342 --> 00:57:49,762
marbled ribeye steak, angus steak, or wagyu steak, and you can buy this, or

1048
00:57:49,762 --> 00:57:56,787
you can buy for the same price, um, Uh, this, um, eats the bugs dog food here.

1049
00:57:56,787 --> 00:57:59,847
That is, uh, but I promise it will be as tasty.

1050
00:57:59,877 --> 00:58:03,927
Like, it's, it's such a, it's not even a bad an, uh, it is not even a

1051
00:58:03,927 --> 00:58:07,167
good analogy, but it, the, the whole thing is you put the best thing in the

1052
00:58:07,167 --> 00:58:12,177
universe next to the scam, iest fucking trash shit that has ever been created.

1053
00:58:12,657 --> 00:58:17,817
Uh, and, and, and it there, that's where the similarities end.

1054
00:58:18,387 --> 00:58:19,297
well, that's what you mean.

1055
00:58:19,597 --> 00:58:22,397
I think the problem, one of the biggest problems stems from

1056
00:58:22,407 --> 00:58:25,557
the fact that something like CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko exist.

1057
00:58:25,937 --> 00:58:30,567
It's like, uh, there's a, there's the, here's a cap is Bitcoin.

1058
00:58:30,987 --> 00:58:34,007
Like, I don't give a shit for me, it's like, when I, when I turn on and look

1059
00:58:34,007 --> 00:58:37,797
at the price, I go to CoinGecko and it's like, of course you look at what,

1060
00:58:37,797 --> 00:58:40,387
Bitcoin's number one, that's really all you need to see, but then you start,

1061
00:58:40,397 --> 00:58:43,217
you know, you find your eyes going down a line, you're, you know, you're

1062
00:58:43,217 --> 00:58:45,887
curious, you're looking, and like, that's what most people are doing.

1063
00:58:46,617 --> 00:58:50,737
Is, they're going to these websites and aping into this bullshit.

1064
00:58:51,037 --> 00:58:56,757
You see things like, uh, I don't know who it is, uh, Petri, so I think it is opposed

1065
00:58:56,757 --> 00:58:58,647
to these threads about, uh, he's a,

1066
00:58:58,717 --> 00:59:01,877
this guy is a Bitcoin legend because blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

1067
00:59:02,247 --> 00:59:03,857
And he's been doing a good job at it.

1068
00:59:04,137 --> 00:59:07,887
And then all of a sudden Erik Voorhees shows up there and it's all this, oh,

1069
00:59:07,897 --> 00:59:12,637
Erik Voorhees did this and this, that and that year, and how awesome he is.

1070
00:59:12,847 --> 00:59:16,017
And he leaves out the whole thing that he started an exchange where you

1071
00:59:16,017 --> 00:59:18,687
could switch your Bitcoin for shit.

1072
00:59:18,687 --> 00:59:18,937
Tch.

1073
00:59:19,227 --> 00:59:21,697
Uh, and he took a cut every time you did that.

1074
00:59:21,777 --> 00:59:24,257
And that's the entire purpose of that fucking site.

1075
00:59:24,277 --> 00:59:27,857
It's that to enrich him at the expense of everyone else thinking

1076
00:59:27,857 --> 00:59:30,827
that the shit they're exchanging their precious sats for is somehow

1077
00:59:30,837 --> 00:59:32,267
worth something in the long run.

1078
00:59:32,277 --> 00:59:33,007
Which it isn't.

1079
00:59:33,337 --> 00:59:34,957
It's just fucking scams, all of it.

1080
00:59:36,022 --> 00:59:41,842
But that's why, like, going from one coin into another and doing this,

1081
00:59:41,912 --> 00:59:45,172
it's like, no, we go back to, like, I'll give you some Bitcoin for some

1082
00:59:45,192 --> 00:59:49,972
honey or for some eggs, you know, like, that's what, you know, it is.

1083
00:59:50,002 --> 00:59:54,952
We hear this every day, value for value, but, like, I enjoy spending my Bitcoin,

1084
00:59:55,002 --> 00:59:59,692
you know, like, I know that's weird to say for most people because they

1085
00:59:59,692 --> 01:00:02,582
look at it as like, oh, you know, hold up, but even when Bitcoin is coming.

1086
01:00:02,752 --> 01:00:03,972
Drops or whatever.

1087
01:00:03,972 --> 01:00:07,132
I have, you know, stuff that I still like.

1088
01:00:07,162 --> 01:00:08,872
I spent in my cleaning lady.

1089
01:00:08,872 --> 01:00:11,052
She, she's this lady from Ukraine.

1090
01:00:11,062 --> 01:00:12,272
She does clean.

1091
01:00:12,272 --> 01:00:15,182
I don't need her, but I've had her now.

1092
01:00:15,182 --> 01:00:18,052
And so, like, she's kind of grandma in now.

1093
01:00:18,052 --> 01:00:20,782
I have her, uh, slowly.

1094
01:00:20,782 --> 01:00:23,622
It started because why do you have so many of these like treasure T shirts?

1095
01:00:23,622 --> 01:00:24,222
What is this?

1096
01:00:24,222 --> 01:00:27,802
You know, and then she starts learning about my, you know, I go, I have a

1097
01:00:27,802 --> 01:00:29,582
colleague who also wants his house clean.

1098
01:00:29,582 --> 01:00:31,272
And so then, you know, you have all these people from.

1099
01:00:31,747 --> 01:00:35,147
Here, who I started talking to about Bitcoin, and now I told her, I was

1100
01:00:35,147 --> 01:00:39,277
like, okay, every time I pay you, I'm going to give you this much in fiat,

1101
01:00:39,787 --> 01:00:43,067
which is what I know that you want, that you need, but then I'm going

1102
01:00:43,067 --> 01:00:47,442
to give you This 10 euros, I'm going to pay you in Bitcoin every time.

1103
01:00:48,052 --> 01:00:52,252
And you could, you should see her now, like every, since I've been

1104
01:00:52,252 --> 01:00:55,732
doing this, is she, she gets her lightning, you know, her QR code ready.

1105
01:00:55,922 --> 01:00:59,352
I pay her and she gets really excited because she feels that she's saving

1106
01:00:59,352 --> 01:01:00,522
and doing something different.

1107
01:01:00,712 --> 01:01:01,162
And

1108
01:01:01,167 --> 01:01:01,697
it's great.

1109
01:01:02,257 --> 01:01:02,657
It's great.

1110
01:01:02,867 --> 01:01:06,237
Yeah, about, about the, um, spending versus hodling.

1111
01:01:06,247 --> 01:01:10,292
We have, uh, uh, Uh, section in the book about that, because I think the

1112
01:01:10,302 --> 01:01:13,032
terminology is what's, what's wrong.

1113
01:01:13,052 --> 01:01:19,162
Like, uh, so the, the term store of value is flawed, uh, because

1114
01:01:19,162 --> 01:01:20,532
value is subjective, right?

1115
01:01:20,532 --> 01:01:24,012
That's basic, the most basic building block of economics,

1116
01:01:24,012 --> 01:01:25,032
the value is subjective.

1117
01:01:25,292 --> 01:01:32,272
So, uh, so we prefer, we try to introduce the term value, medium of exchange over

1118
01:01:32,632 --> 01:01:35,822
time and, and medium of change over space.

1119
01:01:35,882 --> 01:01:36,772
So there's, uh.

1120
01:01:37,732 --> 01:01:43,082
There's a temporal dimension and the spatial dimensions, and gold was good for

1121
01:01:43,082 --> 01:01:47,822
the temporal stuff because it held its value over time, and fiat's good for the

1122
01:01:47,832 --> 01:01:53,482
spatial, uh, spreading, spread of money because it's good of a space, but Bitcoin

1123
01:01:53,492 --> 01:01:59,082
does both, and it also, like, introducing medium of exchange over time sort of kills

1124
01:01:59,082 --> 01:02:04,322
the whole narrative that, uh, saving and spending are, are different, they're just

1125
01:02:04,542 --> 01:02:06,892
two aspects of the same functionality.

1126
01:02:07,572 --> 01:02:10,882
Uh, it's just that when you save, you're trading with your future

1127
01:02:10,882 --> 01:02:14,662
self, so you're still trading, but with your future self, uh,

1128
01:02:15,412 --> 01:02:18,242
and when, and then you, and then you trade over space.

1129
01:02:18,282 --> 01:02:21,842
So as I, like, I don't really like the dichotomy between the two,

1130
01:02:21,852 --> 01:02:24,412
like, uh, yeah, use your Bitcoin.

1131
01:02:24,542 --> 01:02:24,882
You can

1132
01:02:24,882 --> 01:02:26,062
use them in many ways.

1133
01:02:26,192 --> 01:02:28,052
HODLing is one use case.

1134
01:02:28,152 --> 01:02:29,602
Uh, it is using them.

1135
01:02:29,602 --> 01:02:32,612
They are providing you with something with financial stability,

1136
01:02:32,632 --> 01:02:34,282
security, like self esteem.

1137
01:02:34,802 --> 01:02:35,892
All of that comes with.

1138
01:02:37,127 --> 01:02:38,297
Having a stack, right?

1139
01:02:38,837 --> 01:02:42,557
Go into, you know, it's like, I remember, you know, going to conferences and these

1140
01:02:42,557 --> 01:02:46,977
things and you always see like the, this much Bitcoin was, was processed, you know,

1141
01:02:46,977 --> 01:02:51,487
during the conference of people buying everything from t shirts to, you know, we

1142
01:02:51,487 --> 01:02:55,977
like it because we, of course, it's for me is that's what Bitcoin is, is I travel

1143
01:02:55,977 --> 01:02:59,637
so much and I'm in different countries, whether that's Warsaw or Madeira, I'm in

1144
01:02:59,637 --> 01:03:01,317
the Europe, I'm in the Czech crown here.

1145
01:03:01,327 --> 01:03:03,397
It's like, of course, I enjoy spending Bitcoin.

1146
01:03:03,892 --> 01:03:07,532
But also, like, because we're Bitcoiners, um, there is something

1147
01:03:07,532 --> 01:03:12,292
truly satisfying about doing that and, and giving your Bitcoin to

1148
01:03:12,292 --> 01:03:14,312
somebody else for something of value.

1149
01:03:14,312 --> 01:03:18,452
And I think that that's where it starts to click for a lot of people is, and

1150
01:03:18,762 --> 01:03:21,872
that's where I went with, like, my cleaning lady is, you know, you can

1151
01:03:21,872 --> 01:03:25,632
tell her to buy Bitcoin and she won't do it, or I can just start giving her

1152
01:03:25,632 --> 01:03:29,702
some of my own and paying for her and saying, well, here, I want to do this.

1153
01:03:30,212 --> 01:03:31,132
Will you accept it?

1154
01:03:31,162 --> 01:03:34,052
And if they accept those terms and they start doing it, then eventually they go,

1155
01:03:34,052 --> 01:03:37,872
alright, now I have something because they can see the fiat value there.

1156
01:03:37,872 --> 01:03:39,682
So they go, oh, I have something I need to protect this.

1157
01:03:40,352 --> 01:03:41,282
I need to learn more.

1158
01:03:41,362 --> 01:03:45,122
And, um, that's what I did with my friend, um, Gary.

1159
01:03:45,122 --> 01:03:46,812
You know, at the beginning of the call, he said, there's always

1160
01:03:46,822 --> 01:03:48,342
problems with audio or whatever.

1161
01:03:48,342 --> 01:03:52,332
It's like, I played games online in the evening with my friend for years.

1162
01:03:52,342 --> 01:03:54,842
So we were used to being, you know, three o'clock in the

1163
01:03:54,842 --> 01:03:56,702
morning talking bullshit online.

1164
01:03:57,032 --> 01:03:59,982
And a lot of that time, you know, it gets on philosophy.

1165
01:03:59,982 --> 01:04:01,122
It gets on Bitcoin.

1166
01:04:01,402 --> 01:04:02,902
It gets on just life in general.

1167
01:04:02,902 --> 01:04:06,047
And, um, that was one of the ways I did it with him was like, yeah.

1168
01:04:06,387 --> 01:04:09,617
Dude just like, alright, every time we go to dinner and I pay, I'm going

1169
01:04:09,617 --> 01:04:11,637
to pay you my portion in Bitcoin.

1170
01:04:12,197 --> 01:04:14,717
And that was what made sense to him.

1171
01:04:14,727 --> 01:04:16,997
He goes, okay, I can live with that, right?

1172
01:04:17,327 --> 01:04:19,177
And then he got to the point where, alright, I kind of

1173
01:04:19,187 --> 01:04:20,397
have a lot of Bitcoin now.

1174
01:04:20,707 --> 01:04:22,287
You've been paying for a lot of dinners.

1175
01:04:22,347 --> 01:04:25,427
Um, that that's the way it works with him.

1176
01:04:25,437 --> 01:04:30,077
So you have to kind of find those people who are skeptical or who aren't sure

1177
01:04:30,087 --> 01:04:34,837
about how to do it or whatever, because if someone says, alright, how do I buy it?

1178
01:04:35,792 --> 01:04:39,552
That's a hard question to answer right now because, you know, you don't want to get

1179
01:04:39,552 --> 01:04:45,842
into the nuances of KYC or, uh, you know, this, it's like, well, that's where Vexil

1180
01:04:45,842 --> 01:04:48,272
and that's why we, you know, we talked about we wanted to create something that

1181
01:04:48,272 --> 01:04:50,062
my aunt, my uncle, or anybody could use.

1182
01:04:50,347 --> 01:04:54,847
the, the thing I really want to encourage people to do is earn Bitcoin

1183
01:04:54,877 --> 01:04:59,497
or ex accept Bitcoin for, for, uh, for the goods and services or for

1184
01:04:59,497 --> 01:05:04,987
whatever, because that's, that's the true hyper bitcoin ization of yourself.

1185
01:05:05,092 --> 01:05:06,492
Like when you accept it.

1186
01:05:06,812 --> 01:05:07,582
So, yeah.

1187
01:05:07,582 --> 01:05:11,392
And if you have one sat more than you had last year, you're an absolute 100

1188
01:05:11,392 --> 01:05:13,622
percent winner in every sense of the word.

1189
01:05:13,922 --> 01:05:17,762
That's a financial advisor is the easiest job in the world right now.

1190
01:05:19,247 --> 01:05:22,547
Well, and that's, that's what we, you know, I remember seeing, you know,

1191
01:05:22,547 --> 01:05:27,707
just how, you know, Vexl we created for, for buying and selling Bitcoin,

1192
01:05:27,727 --> 01:05:32,267
but then people went like, okay, um, so I do back end development.

1193
01:05:32,357 --> 01:05:34,307
Um, I post an offer on here.

1194
01:05:34,307 --> 01:05:36,527
And then the next thing you know, they have a job where they're earning

1195
01:05:36,547 --> 01:05:38,132
Bitcoin doing back end development.

1196
01:05:38,272 --> 01:05:43,002
Where I talked to one guy who was literally working for a bank, um, put an

1197
01:05:43,022 --> 01:05:46,572
offer on Vexil for back end development and was like, ah, I can do this.

1198
01:05:46,572 --> 01:05:48,952
And then started earning money in Bitcoin through Vexil.

1199
01:05:49,022 --> 01:05:50,252
So that's from Vexil.

1200
01:05:50,292 --> 01:05:54,302
So it is pay your, you know, talk to your cleaning ladies, talk to your

1201
01:05:54,302 --> 01:05:58,022
dog walkers, talk to these people and say, Hey, do you accept Bitcoin?

1202
01:05:58,052 --> 01:06:03,762
And if they don't, You know, play by their rules, you know, let them go, Hey, um,

1203
01:06:03,802 --> 01:06:07,322
okay, I'll give you fiat, but can I give you a little bit of a tip in Bitcoin?

1204
01:06:07,872 --> 01:06:11,532
And just kind of, if you're not forcing it, but you're giving them something,

1205
01:06:11,542 --> 01:06:15,332
and then that's how, when people start to perceive value, they go, okay,

1206
01:06:15,362 --> 01:06:17,672
maybe this does have something to it.

1207
01:06:18,252 --> 01:06:21,602
Um, so I, you know, in looking at communities and, you know,

1208
01:06:21,922 --> 01:06:23,752
meetups, my camera turned off again.

1209
01:06:24,072 --> 01:06:28,042
Meetups and stuff like that.

1210
01:06:28,042 --> 01:06:32,942
You really do, like, need to be able to answer those questions for people who go,

1211
01:06:32,972 --> 01:06:34,862
okay, there's a Bitcoin meetup in my town.

1212
01:06:35,242 --> 01:06:37,962
I go along, they're going to ask people, how do I buy it?

1213
01:06:38,272 --> 01:06:42,412
Well, we have to have some way to do that that doesn't incentivize them to

1214
01:06:42,432 --> 01:06:44,012
give away all their private information.

1215
01:06:44,589 --> 01:06:45,299
True that.

1216
01:06:45,389 --> 01:06:49,879
Um, Grafton, I, I'm really sorry how we, we could have gone on for,

1217
01:06:49,879 --> 01:06:54,419
uh, uh, another two hours if we had the time, but we're, we're sort of

1218
01:06:54,419 --> 01:06:56,889
running short today, unfortunately, so.

1219
01:06:57,224 --> 01:07:03,494
So, uh, uh, um, super, uh, grateful that you came on and, uh, looking forward

1220
01:07:03,504 --> 01:07:06,894
to seeing you in real life next time, or we'll have a longer chat there.

1221
01:07:07,209 --> 01:07:11,379
I'm sure it won't be long, um, but thank you guys really for having me on, um,

1222
01:07:11,459 --> 01:07:16,299
and we can, yeah, we can do it again in a, in a year or so, and we're, we have

1223
01:07:16,309 --> 01:07:21,159
a lot more, bigger network hopefully, but please, uh, check out Vexl if you

1224
01:07:21,159 --> 01:07:24,179
don't know anything about it, if you have, you're, like, you could find

1225
01:07:24,199 --> 01:07:29,659
me Um, sats disco, like everywhere, um, and check out our website, Vexl.

1226
01:07:29,674 --> 01:07:31,699
it, we're not from Italy.

1227
01:07:32,409 --> 01:07:33,969
It's like, how do you get Bitcoin?

1228
01:07:33,989 --> 01:07:35,169
You Vexl it.

1229
01:07:35,839 --> 01:07:41,469
Um, so check us out and then please like, let me know if you have a meetup, if

1230
01:07:41,469 --> 01:07:45,219
you're going to meetups, if you have a community, um, reach out, get in touch.

1231
01:07:45,219 --> 01:07:48,809
We want to help you, um, build private peer to peer community.

1232
01:07:49,249 --> 01:07:49,479
So

1233
01:07:50,424 --> 01:07:54,384
Check out Vexl, brush your teeth, buy your toothbrush with Bitcoin somehow,

1234
01:07:54,554 --> 01:07:56,874
and, uh, yeah, see you in the next one.

1235
01:07:57,519 --> 01:07:57,929
thank you.

1236
01:07:58,459 --> 01:07:59,459
Thanks so much, Grafton.

1237
01:07:59,469 --> 01:08:00,979
This has been the Freedom Footprint Show.

1238
01:08:01,119 --> 01:08:01,809
Thanks for listening.

1239
01:08:01,809 --> 01:08:06,499
Don't forget to leave us a comment, let us know what you think, and spread the word.

1240
01:08:07,019 --> 01:08:07,939
Thanks again, Grafton.

1241
01:08:08,259 --> 01:08:09,419
This has been the Freedom Footprint Show.