Grafton, welcome to the Freedom Footprint show.
Thanks for joining us.
Thank you for having me.
Yeah, good to see you again, Grafton.
How have you
Always good to see you as well, man.
Yeah.
It hasn't been too long, it's just a couple weeks at this
point, but I feel like we've seen each other quite a lot recently.
Yeah, before that was Warsaw, and before that was Riga, I
guess.
Madeira?
of course.
Madeira.
of course.
Basically, every time I go anywhere I can pretty much assume that you're
going to be there, I feel like.
it tends to be.
What did, what did Joe Hall call it?
Uh, like a, uh, a traveling circus band thing.
Uh, yeah,
that's what we are, I guess.
sure is, yeah.
But I think that it's always like, that's what's a lot of fun
is we travel a lot, but we always wind up in really cool places.
And, um, yeah, it never gets old.
No.
And you're in, right now you're in the studio that was built for
BTC's Prague specifically, right?
Yeah, this will, it's not specifically for BTC Prague, but, um, you know,
I work in Satoshi Labs, so Trezor.
As well.
And so Trezor built like a really nice podcasting studio.
Um, and I am getting to use it today.
I feel, I feel honored.
Um, it's very nice.
Um, probably the nicest studio I've ever been in.
So we have nice microphones and camera set up.
So I hope I look good for everybody.
Uh, you do, certainly do.
So, so you live in Prague, but you're, uh, but you're not from Prague.
You have a, a, a bit of a dialect there.
Can you give us the TLDR on Grafton
Yeah.
So, uh, born and raised in Mississippi.
Um, so that, that is a dialect you're hearing there, that
Southern, Southern accent.
So I do have the, uh, the old Southern drawl.
M M I S S I S S I P P I.
Is
Yeah, Crooked Letter or Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter, Humpback.
Humpback if you can't read, you know, like most people from Mississippi.
Yeah.
Um, but yeah, I've been here in Czech Republic like 13 years now.
So it's, it's home.
I really love it here.
it's, uh, Prague is a great city.
It's, it's my favorite big city.
Like, uh, I can't think of one that I like better than Prague.
Well, there's not too many places, like I, you know, we travel a lot.
We were just talking about, but there's always like that feeling of I'm
coming home when I get back to Prague.
And it's like, I always compare When I travel, I was like,
all right, could I live here?
Would I want to live here?
And you know, like Lisbon's nice.
I love Lisbon, but I don't want to live there.
Um, Prague is kind of that it has everything that I was looking for.
Um, and the pace of life is really nice here.
And the people are, uh, I mean, you've been here, Czech people are, are great.
We have a really good Bitcoin scene and yeah, it just feels
like where I was supposed to be.
Yeah, we, uh, we definitely like Prague.
I mean, uh, obviously, obviously, BTC Prague brings everyone there.
Uh, but, but yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's great.
Uh, I, I made sure to visit Prague as soon as I was living Europe side
before either of the BTC Prague events, but I, I'm curious what, what brought
you to, to Czech Republic originally?
Yeah, um, I studied history.
So, you know, like a growing, growing up, I had, uh, we, if we can get into that
as well, but I had like a crazy childhood full of like entrepreneurial everything.
And then I went to university and, um, I didn't know like what I wanted to do.
Of course, like every, um, you know, 20, 20 year old that gets
out of, you know, says like, all right, what do I, what do I do?
So started to figure out, you know, taking all the classes, never had one that got
me, but then I had this history teacher.
And I think if most people can remember one or two teachers
that made an impact on them.
And, um, I had this history teacher who just spelled out class, taught like
it was the best book or movie that I'd ever, you know, been, I wanted more
and more and more, and so I really fell down that history kind of rabbit hole,
and as I started to kind of get into there, Czech Republic was always one
of the things that was most fascinating to me, it was like, I want to go there,
I want to see how this, what makes this so different than everyone else.
And, um, I did a study abroad, like, my version of Erasmus, kind of, uh, Europeans
have Erasmus, but we had just study abroad, and, uh, I did mine in the UK,
actually, in Kent, down in Canterbury.
And I came to Prague for like a four day weekend and yeah, I had so much fun.
Like a lot of people who come to B2C Prague for three or four days,
they come back and they're like, Oh, I'm going back next year.
I couldn't wait to come back.
So, um, after I graduated, you know, I graduated with a degree in
like history teaching, like I was supposed to teach high school kids.
I I'm going to do one year, go over there, take a break, relax, hang out,
and then a blink, and it's been 13 years.
It's crazy.
So, um, that was just like, you know, it was like, I want to
go check it out, and here I am.
But I could ask you, you know, the same, because you said you were from
Canada, and you wound up in Finland.
Like, I guess they're both cold and kind of like, you know, in the same area.
So, like, what, why would you go over to Finland?
What, what you be there?
No, it's, it's, uh, it's funny.
I, I was hearing your, your story and thinking just so much parallel, just
some kind of fascination for a long time.
I mean, I'm not, I'm not quite as, as long, uh, in my state.
It's, it's coming up on three years here shortly, but I have exactly
the same feeling of, of when I, whenever I get back to Helsinki,
it's like, I'm I'm coming home.
It feels like home.
And yeah, I've been interested in a lot of the sort of the cultural historical stuff.
I did a pod for a few years on mythology, mostly Norse and Inuk stuff.
And so, yeah, just the interest was always there.
And then when I got the chance to transfer to my company's Finland office, I was
like, Oh my God, this is unavoidable.
Took it and yeah, I, I think I'm aiming to stay.
So yeah, there's, there's something about there's something about Europe
that, uh, hopefully, hopefully the entire thing, uh, doesn't fall apart because
there's some pretty cool places here.
And I, and I personally love being, uh, nearby to be able to,
to travel to different places.
Like, uh, I, I'm sure it's even better, uh, from, from where you are, right?
Well, I mean, we're pretty central for sure.
So, I mean, it's easy to get everywhere.
And I mean, I, with, I mainly travel for work.
I haven't, I can't remember the last time I had like a, you know, a vacation
for myself where I went somewhere, but like, it's, that's why, you know, I
even joked at BTCProg when I talk, I was like, everyone just thinks that I
am on vacation all the time, whether it's my parents or my girlfriend or
my friends, because I'm always, it's Somewhere nice, but it's like, yeah,
what is a dream job is finding a job that allows you to get somewhere where
you can travel and do things you love.
And that's kind of, I can't imagine living somewhere, you know, far
away, like Australia, where you're really isolated or even the U.
S.
I feel, and I have, I mean, you talk about Yeah.
You're worried if Europe falls apart, like I, I saw the United States fall apart.
You know, I grew up in that, that, you know, where as a kid from now, it's
just a completely different place.
And then under, I can't imagine ever going back there and trying to live
or start a family or anything here.
It just, it works for now, you know, and like, like you said, studying is
like looking at Czech Republic has historically been a very peaceful
place and full of people who.
Yeah.
Uh, you know, kind of hack the planet or hack the system in a way that they,
they never really get taken over.
You know, it's like they might be occupied, but they've
never really been conquered.
No, and the word defenestration comes to mind.
yeah,
it's a great word.
I think we should adopt more defenestration here and
there on the planet, right?
could definitely use some of that right now, I think.
Yeah.
so, and where do you, like, where are you based mainly?
Cause I basically only see you out in the world.
Never.
Yeah, I'm based in Spain, but I
am from here in Sweden.
So like, yeah, uh, a couple of years or three years back now, we decided to
move down to our holiday home in Spain and now we've sold off both the old
homes and have a new home in Spain.
mainly for the, for the sun and getting out of the cold and the darkness.
Um, yeah.
And yeah, and also just to reset life and like, uh, try to going
full time with Bitcoin, I needed a change of environment, I think.
So that was part of the deal too.
Uh, but yeah, uh, so far I, I like it down there.
The politics are bad, but they're, they're sort of bad everywhere.
So if you can avoid them, that's good.
You're, you're kind of like, uh, becoming like a Hemingway of Bitcoin in a way.
I feel like, you know, you got the, you got the look, you know,
you're the boat, you know, the boat guy, the sailor as well.
And like, yeah, it's a good vibe, man.
Well, thank you.
But speaking of history, like I, when I was young, younger, I was never really
into history, but it wasn't like until later in life where you, uh, where you
sort of realize that like right now I'm pushing 50, like I'm 48 this fall.
And, and you sort of feel like that's.
Half a century, like, uh, so, so, and, uh, that means that you
can put yourself in this context.
So like 50 years has passed since I was born.
And if you just, rewind the tape back a couple of those, uh, half
lifetimes, you, you end up in.
You know, when the Hansa was a thing and, uh, like the things are so close in
history to, uh, and, uh, you don't really realize that as a kid, you think history
is like, Oh, this is way, way back.
Yeah, and, uh, just looking at, like, the Beatles or Jimi Hendrix or something
like that, which is, uh, when I grew up, so it's like, these are old bands,
this is ancient history, and it's just 10 years before, or 20 years before, the
bands that you like and grew up with, like, so it's, it's, time is weird, like,
Yeah.
I mean, time blinks, you know, like BTC Prague was a month ago.
And I, like, it's just, everything is moving at this lightning speed now,
and, um, when you're a kid, everything moves so slow, and then now it's, you
can't get control of it, no matter how hard you try, you, you can't, you
can't ever get ahead, or, like, you know, you'll never beat time, and, you
know, there's, like, nothing you Yeah, nothing fucks you like time, I would say.
No, but also, it's a symptom, like that means you're living a good
life, like, because the more fun you have, the faster time flies by.
yeah, I'm having too much fun.
Yeah, no, I'm definitely not bored, but yeah, sometimes you want to sit back
and be like, where did, you know, I'm 36 now and I'll be 37 and it's already
half a year of that, you know, gone.
Um, um, yeah.
Time flies
one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.
But I mean, for me, like, music, that was, that was really, like, one of the
things growing up that, because, you know, I grew up in a small Mississippi town
where, you know, we didn't have, we didn't have a lot, and music was the thing that
started pulling me outside of my bubble.
Um, because it wasn't just like going to see a band, you know, one off, I, I
listened to like, jam bands, um, so like, you've heard of the Grateful Dead, right?
So, I'm one of these kids that grew up, you know, following bands around
the country, I've seen like my favorite band in concert like 130 something
times, um, all over the United States.
Widespread panic.
Fractals, favorite band as well.
Yeah, so the crazy thing about that is, um, I, when in the BTC Prague
fractal was having trouble like shipping the stuff out on a Sunday and
I was like, Hey man, I can help you.
I live here.
Um, no problem.
I can, I can help you.
And so I like shipped it stuff, you know, the next day I got
there, everything was fine.
And then, um, I was just like checking something.
I saw that he retweeted them.
And so I had, of course, sent him a message.
I was like, are you a fan?
He was like, yeah.
And so we were like chatting about that.
He's like, I was actually at their show last Sunday.
So, but I've been over here so long that I kind of stopped going.
But actually this time last year, I went to, to Iceland to see
another one of my favorite bands for like three nights and concert.
And so that was kind of, What really got me like traveling and what
pushed me outside of Mississippi was you started meeting friends at
concerts all over and I wound up in Texas at university and then Europe.
So
Yeah, I have a similar, similar story to that, uh, yeah, and added to that all the
sailing stuff, of course, but, uh, yeah, music was also like a big pull to the
larger world than your own little bubble.
yeah, and you know, like even like the, um, You know, getting into like, well,
peer to peer is these were bands where you like, you actually tape the concerts.
So like they allow taping.
They, they encourage people to come to make live audience recordings.
And then they encourage people to trade those tapes peer to peer.
So it's like, if the best way to share music, music is made to be shared.
So you saw something, you go, Hey, man, you got to check this out.
You give it to them.
And so this.
For my early ages, I wasn't doing like illegal file sharing, you know,
I definitely, well, okay, I was, I definitely had Napster, but my early
days were actually like trading tapes and using like torrents to share
like music concerts peer to peer.
And so that was like, that really was what kind of got me into
that path of understanding what a peer to peer technology is and
why we need it and how it works.
Um, so I, and I can blame music for all of, all of the good stuff that's
happened to me most of the time.
That's great.
Me and Luke went to a concert after B2C Prague last year.
We went and saw Pantera reunited, or like half of Pantera, I guess, but yeah.
yeah,
My wife's favorite band of all time, and she had just become pregnant with
our, with our kid, uh, just before Prague, found out just before Prague,
so she unfortunately didn't get to enjoy it as much as possible, but, but
she, she still, uh, still loved it.
We're both too young to have managed to see them in their heyday.
baby could hear it as well, as, yeah, Panteras,
And me as being a, being an old safety officer, the first time, the thing I did
was look for the fire exits and stuff.
And then we was like crammed into this crowd and all of a sudden there's
one of those, Uh, what do you call it when people start, uh, a mosh pit,
Mosh Pit, yeah,
yeah, yeah, like, uh, just a couple of meters away from us and like, oh,
all right, I'm a bit too old for this.
I learned my lesson, um, I went to see, um, a band, a Czech band here, and I was,
you know, with my girlfriend at the time, I was like on the front row, you know,
like, looking around, I was like, oh, this is, you know, these people are getting
pretty crazy, and I turned and looked, and when I did, someone jumped, stage
dove off the stage, collapsed me to the floor, I had a hairline crack in my neck.
So I had to, like, take Stretcherd out to the hospital, and so now,
when I go to concerts, I stand in the back by the soundboard.
I want to be right in front of the soundboard so I can hear good and not
be a part of the chaos anymore, because
Yeah.
I can't go through that ever again.
Were you at the Rocamodo?
I can't remember.
No, I was not at Rakamoto this year.
I was so exhausted.
That was like the, you know, we had the cypherpunk meetup on Thursday
and then I had my talk on Friday and preparedness of everything.
I was exhausted after the thing.
So I stayed at the after party.
I think I was in home in bed by 10, but, uh, Saturday night I was, I closed
down the PVA Lethgiani like area.
We closed it down.
So we had fun.
Oh,
good to hear.
for everyone at that conference.
Can't wait to see what they'll pull out next year.
Nothing but rave reviews from this last year for BTC Prague.
So,
Yeah, I mean that was the same everywhere you, everywhere I went, you know, you
chatted with people who went to BTC Pro and everybody has the same kind of
consensus, which is like, don't miss it.
It's a lot of fun.
And I love that because this is my, my hometown.
Um, and Prague really is kind of like the true Bitcoin capital of the world.
I really feel that.
Absolutely.
Um, yeah.
A lot has been done here and still happening here and you can feel, feel it,
you know, you have El Salvador, you have these places where stuff is happening,
but it's a completely different thing.
This is the Bitcoin capital for people, I would say, not for anything else.
So can you take us through that a little bit?
The history,
Yep.
whatever you know.
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, I've been into Bitcoin quite a long time.
Um, you know, this is the home of, you know, Paralanypolis and Bitcoin
Coffee, the first place that I ever, you know, knew where I could
spend Bitcoin, um, for coffee.
Uh, was here, but it's also where Trezor was invented, which is the
world's first hardware wallet.
Um, they have, like, even behind me, like, the early prototypes
here in the studio, even I was, I used to work at Trezor as well.
But, um, you have Slushpool, which is now Brains, um, which
is where, BTC Prague, uh, General Bytes, the guys who made the ATMs.
Um, so, there is, uh, Something to be said about a post communist country, um, that,
you know, is no one really understands what it means to have freedom, like those
living in a post communist state, and I think that you've seen, uh, the true
reaction to that, um, here, and you have some great minds, um, who really, the
Czech Bitcoin scene is very strong, and then, um, last year, after BTC Prague, uh,
this company enabled, um, you to pay with Bitcoin in nearly 5, 000 restaurants and
pubs all over, all over Czech Republic.
They
What, what's that app called?
Q E R K O, yeah.
yeah, I, I downloaded it.
I never got to use it, but, but I have it on my phone.
Yeah.
It's super easy.
I mean, you just scan a QR code and then choose how you want to pay.
You pay Lightning Bitcoin, scan it, and you're done.
You walk out, you don't know, nobody says anything.
And I mean, the waiter doesn't know that you paid in Bitcoin.
I mean, if we're being honest, it's mainly the company who's, is
processing the transactions for them.
But, um, Certainly it allowed for spending your Bitcoin wherever
you want, which is a good thing.
Yeah, this is sort of a philosophical thing with the Bitcoin as a medium
of exchange of it all, right?
Like, that forcing restaurants or wherever to adopt Bitcoin and have
this whole other layer, it's sort of the other way around, right?
You have people who want to use Bitcoin, well, just make it easy
for them and get it flowing around and And then that's, that's fine.
And then you don't have, you don't have the overhead and the, the
waiting with, with merchants, right?
But is, is there merchant adoption as well in, in Prague beyond the sort of parallel,
parallel police scene and all that?
yeah, I would say there is, um, you know, there definitely are some
places I would have to look at, like, you know, CoinMap or something.
Um, but certainly there are coffee houses and interiors where
it's not just, they're, they're accepting Bitcoin as a payment.
Um, there are pizza places that accept Bitcoin as a payment.
Um, you know, and I, I think that it's definitely becoming more and more
part of, um, I don't know if there's many Czech people who haven't heard
of Bitcoin or don't know what Bitcoin is or why it matters in a lot of ways.
I mean, yeah, there are a lot, but I think Czechs are
definitely familiar with the idea.
Um, you know, adoption is, is very strong here in Czech Republic.
I mean, if I look at, you know, The success that we've had with Vexl, um,
it's remarkable to see how quickly people have taken to it and really
started to understand that they have this ability to buy and sell not just
Bitcoin, but eggs and honey and beef jerky and find jobs and everything else.
So you really are starting to see that circular economy aspect
start to take place here as well.
So, yeah, this leads us to vl, uh, and uh, yeah, I'm excited by the project and when
you explain it to me how it works, because I think like VL is to local Bitcoins
what BTC pay server is to BitPay, if you
know what I mean by that.
Uh, so, so we're, we're, we're sort of going away from these honeypot
centralized bullshit things to, to things that are actually peer to peer.
And, uh, so please, Grafton, give us the TLDR on Vexl and, uh, why it's so
awesome and why it has so many synergies with other developments in Bitcoin
Yeah.
I mean, so you kind of hit it right there, which is like local bitcoins.
Um, local bitcoins is great, but, you know, it kind of didn't scale over time
and it had its own issues and had a different type of reputation system.
Um, and so when we were kind of figuring out, you know, what is Vexl and how do
we build something that we want to use?
Um, you know, it was actually, uh, Slush's idea.
Um, you know, Monarch from Trezor is, you know, Sitting on his sofa one
night, I think he was like, okay, so if I want to buy or I want to sell
Bitcoin, what's the best way to do that?
And there's not currently, um, a great solution.
Like, no matter how you frame it, there's problems with them and they don't scale.
And you look at centralized exchanges and the KYC nightmare and the data nightmare
that they have, you look at, you know, other previous peer to peer applications
or things like that, and there was always a but this and a but that.
So what is Vexl?
Vexl is a mobile app that allows you to peer to peer Bitcoin without
KYC the way it was intended.
And so what I mean without KYC, uh, that means there's no, no
excuses, no exceptions whatsoever.
Um, we do not touch Bitcoin.
We do not touch fiat.
We are a non profit.
We created Vexl as a tool to empower the individual to
have the freedom to transact.
So what It does is it leverages your real world reputation and your real
world social graph that creates a web of trust that allows you to trade
with friends and friends of friends.
And that's it.
It never goes further than that.
So, Knut, I know you.
I don't know Luke.
Right, but you know Luke.
So, I can trade with Luke by knowing and leveraging my connection with Knut.
So I don't know who Luke is, I just see that Luke has posted an
offer that he's selling Bitcoin.
I don't know who that person is, I see a random Japanese name similar to Satoshi.
And that's where the offer appears, but I do see that I have common friends.
And I have, in this instance, one common connection, and
that connection is you, Knut.
So I say, hey, we don't know each other, and we don't have a lot of mutual friends,
but we both know Knut, so if it's okay with you, I'm gonna send him a message.
You don't have to tell him anything else, if you don't want him to
give me your name or anything, just, you also send him a message.
Since we're both messaging him at the same time, he's gonna
know that we want to verify that.
Knut doesn't have to be a bitcoiner.
He doesn't have to be on Vexl.
None of that to be able to be in that and to leverage his trust.
So Knut says, Hey, yeah, Luke's a good guy.
We do a podcast together.
You can trust him.
I go, All right, I trust you.
Now, Luke, if you screw me over, Knut's gonna have things to say, because I'm
certainly gonna tell him, like, yeah, Luke screwed me over, man, and he's gonna, it's
gonna damage your real world reputation.
So, we talk about how to, how do we create something that scales?
Well, over time, this truly scales, because then you go from having one
friend in common, to two friends, to ten friends, to twenty five friends.
And you can be damn sure, if I have twenty five or thirty friends in
common with somebody, I'm like, okay.
That the trade is going to go well.
And if I don't, if that person's not already a friend, I
probably want to make them one.
natural follow up question for the, the, uh, uh, suspicious bitcoiner here, like,
uh, how does the app get this information?
Uh, where does it get it from and where does it store it and
does it go to a server somewhere?
So everything happens on your device locally.
So your phone number is used to build out your web of trust, your social
graph, because currently, we do not have one that's any better than that.
Your phone number is what you share with your friends and your loved ones.
Everybody is still using WhatsApp as their main form of
communication outside of Bitcoin.
Um, so my aunt, my uncle, they're going to have a web of trust
based around their phone number.
What Vexl does is it hashes your phone number and it uses the hashes to build
out But the way we handle data is means that we do not know your phone number.
No one else knows your phone number.
No one gets a notification that says, Hey, Luke, join Vexl like you see
on every other messaging platform.
No, this is done in a fully anonymous and discreet way.
So your hashes are built out, but we split up.
Transcribed The data across four different microservices that never
communicate with each other, right?
So, your phone number hashes are hashed, they're coupled on your device, the
hash is built with the network, your offers are encrypted separately, your
chats are end to end encrypted, and your profile is encrypted, and they
never communicate with each other.
So, let's say that, for the argument's sake, as people say, well, phone number
hashes are really trivial to, you know, get the number from the hashes.
And that might be true, but if someone does that, they're going
to get a giant list of phone numbers that are not connected to
Bitcoin, they're not connected to anything, or, and they have no value.
Because I can randomly generate numbers with AI that are more valuable,
because we don't have any information about what those phone numbers do.
Because when I import them I import everyone I know, every contact number
in my phone, because each one of them is essential to my social graph.
So my dog walker, she's not a Bitcoiner.
Well, her number appears there.
Why?
How is that connected with anyone else?
It's not.
They don't have value if there's no data attached to them, and there's not.
So, uh, we have a really good blog about this on our, on our, like,
blog you can check out to really see how that splits the data.
This is so, so fascinating because we've been, even been riffing on app
ideas ourselves around this concept that Since Bitcoin has so pointed out to
everyone in the world that money doesn't need to be anything but information,
uh, sort of nothing else does either.
So you can just like, between people you trust, you can do so much without
ever touching any network of any kind.
Just, just, uh, there's so much to explore there.
And like the natural follow up here is like, is there on the roadmap for Vexl?
Uh, is Nostr somewhere on the roadmap?
Because this sounds like something that would be built upon Nostr and not
telephone numbers in the future, right?
Yeah, so because a better web of trust doesn't exist right now, of course,
phone numbers is the natural way.
I mean, who has a better one?
Maybe Facebook has a really good web of trust, right?
Because it's old now, it's established, but creating a new
one is very difficult, right?
So looking at Nostr integration, Nostr integration.
Yes, of course, we're curious and we're interested in to go down that path.
But right now you're looking at something like 25, 000 active weekly users.
Um, we are five people in a dog that we need to work and focus
right now on actually building out the best version of our app.
And then as Nostr's web of trust and social graph starts to grow and starts
to come, we, of course, naturally will eventually replace Nostr.
Phone numbers in every, every system of every web of trust.
And you've already seen that happen with things like telegram usernames, or even
now signal usernames is Threema session.
You're starting to replace these with keys.
And, and so what Nostr is doing is certainly interesting.
Um, but right now it's just not a viable, like, web of trust to use
to trade Bitcoin with, because this is You know, when I, when I look at
how I do peer to peer trades on Vexl is I'm not doing them digitally.
I'm meeting you underneath a statue of the horse in Old Town
Square in Václavská Náměstí in the center, like, You know, Wenceslas
Square as they call it in English.
I'm meeting you under the horse.
I'm giving you cash and you're giving me Bitcoin and I'm walking away, right?
Most of my Nostr web of trust is, well, you're in Sweden right now
and Luke's in Finland and like, I'm sorry, even though I know you, I still
don't want to send you a digital bank transfer because I don't want my name
appearing in anyone's bank account.
For any reason.
Now this is the thing, this is the problem with, with, uh, you know,
you know, the old, with exchanges in general, as soon as you touch
the banking system, you're fucked.
Like, it's the on and off ramps, as they call them, but I, I prefer,
prefer like the terms, uh, Oh, Proper system and legacy bullshit system.
Like that's, and you don't want to touch the legacy bullshit system
because it comes with all of the baggage that we're trying to get away from.
And that's like the very, very thing, right?
Is that if you're like, people ask me like, oh, is Nostr coming?
It's like, well, if you are like, because my Bitcoin friends are on
Nostr, but my Bitcoin friends don't live around the corner from me, right?
But my phone number, the people that I have my phone number, that's everyone.
That's my cleaning lady, my dog walker, the people that I get beers with on
Tuesday evening, you know, these people.
People, they live in this community and they have friends that they trust that
I don't know, you know, but I can meet their friends on a Wednesday afternoon,
have a coffee, do Bitcoin, or I can meet the farmer who's selling honey,
um, who I know through, you know, my colleague who I, like, I had no idea.
I didn't need to ask my colleague, Hey, do you know anybody that's selling honey?
But I see.
On Vexl, there's an offer.
Oh, I share two people.
It's my colleague.
Oh, yeah, I got a honey guy now.
Right.
So
A honey
how you, yeah, exactly.
Is the honeypot is like actual honey, you know, not, not anything else.
Yeah.
You've replaced the honey, honey pot with the actual honey.
Yeah.
So.
It's super cool.
And, and I see so many synergies with like, we, we, um, talked to Svetsky
in Prague about the Satlantis project.
Do you know about that?
Yeah.
I, um, I unfortunately slept through.
The satlantis, uh, hang on a minute, but Jozef Tetek, he, uh, he, I was supposed
to present and Jozef did a wonderful job, so thank you, thank you to Jozef
for taking over for me, but yeah, I talked to, to Alex for a while and I
really like this because this was using my example, um, which is if you visit
Prague, please don't look at TripAdvisor.
No, no.
Contact me, ask a friend, and that's exactly what we have to learn how
to leverage is like friends and friends of friends is like, uh, maybe
I don't know the best vegetarian restaurant in Prague because I'm not
a vegetarian, but I certainly have a few friends who could tell you that
Yeah.
And, and I, I could easily see, um, Vexl integrate integration with that.
Go into a city.
Yeah, I mean, visiting a new city, seeing maybe how you can turn local
shitcoin into Bitcoin before you leave.
Yeah, that'd be nice.
Or Orange pill app.
Like if you have both the apps, you could just start chatting on there
and then see the, the V Excel offer.
I, I guess if, if you have the, the one you don't really need the other, but yeah.
But I think, you know, that I like the idea, but you know, the, the thing
is going back to like local bitcoins.
I mean, we're really, we're talking about local is, I really think that the best
way to do that is really face to face.
So, but with, with Satlantis, I mean, that's a really good kind of thing
because you are visiting a city and there might be, you know, as a, Hey,
I'm in Istanbul for the weekend.
Well, I know somebody who has three really good friends who live there.
So they're going to give me advice.
They're going to tell me who I can buy Bitcoin from this kind of stuff as well.
So I do think there's some synergies between them.
And, you know, that's what we want to ultimately create is
something new, a private company.
Marketplace for the people that's not, um, polluted by advertising
and greed and everything else.
so I mean, it's it's a great vision.
And I think leveraging some of the synergies with the the other
applications, I think, as you say, maybe maybe it'd be good to look
into those things in the future.
But if the if the focus is on keeping it local, it's fantastic.
My only my initial thought on that is that the zero to one ing of it
that that getting onto the app and well, what if you don't have any
contacts that are already on the app?
I mean, the of course, one of these things is you've just got to kind of get
sort of a hook in some location, right?
Some some person or group of people that actually adopt it.
The thing, but I, I figure I have tons of great contacts on Telegram, but not
very many are actually phone number contacts, you know, so there's just
a couple of a couple of these things that, that are a little bit of friction
that, that are probably not making it quite so easy to, to use at this point.
What, what do you think about that?
well, you know, we're very, we're all familiar with, uh, gradually and then
suddenly and, um, with Czech Republic is a very good example of that.
Is right now, you know, there's like over 6, 000 users in the country.
If you want to buy Bitcoin this afternoon, you can do that.
Um, this time last year, you could still do it.
Maybe took a little bit longer, but right now, I mean, there's
there's liquidity on there.
People are buying and selling Bitcoin every day.
Um, and I.
You can see every time I open the app, I check, I'm a curious person, so I
check and I see my number's grown.
My number gets bigger.
So you can actually, when you open up your app, if you go to the
settings page and look up in the very top corner, it'll say your reach.
And your reach is how many people you could potentially Vexl with.
And that number grows.
Every almost every day, every time you open the app.
So to someone who I can say, well, okay, I don't have many offers in my area.
Well, why haven't you created one?
And every marketplace, whether that be Craigslist or Facebook or your
local classifieds ads, I Uh, and the newspaper were empty at some point.
It took people actually posting offers.
It took people, you know, as Kevin Costner, uh, in Field of Dreams said,
if you build it, they will come.
And, um, we are, we've built it.
We are still building.
We still have a lot of ways to go and improving and really making
the tool, um, for, for everyone.
But I'm really proud of our UX.
I'm really proud of how the app It looks and how intuitive
it feels for most people.
Um, you know, I can put it in the hands of my mom or my dad and it
makes sense to them, and that's what we're, we're going after.
Um, but if you don't have an offer in your area, uh, if you don't have many contacts.
You have to do two things.
You have to start talking about it to other people, telling them, try
this out, if we build this private marketplace between us, it will
happen, um, and create an offer.
If you want to buy, say you want to buy.
If you want to sell, say you want to sell.
If you're curious, if maybe you just want to meet somebody for a coffee
and do a symbolic, you know, 20 euro trade just to see and test out the app.
Put that there as well because you might meet somebody in your community.
Maybe you have a small town.
Maybe you didn't know there were other Bitcoiners around
and that you were connected.
And the next thing you know, you can put together meetup.
Um, you can get more people in, but it's really word of mouth.
Grassroots.
You got to talk about it.
And, um, you know, because we're a nonprofit, we will never monetize.
So we don't have marketing budget to go out and put up, you know,
advertising everywhere on the internet or billboards or wherever.
Um, it's truly like, I want this.
This is what I want.
Um, why do people build anything?
Why do we do anything?
Because it's, it's for me, number one.
Um, but I'm pretty sure you want it too.
And so you got to build it.
That's beautiful.
So people download vxl and like, subscribe and brush your
teeth, please do all the things.
We'd love to see in the comments what you, uh, what you think about Vexl and,
uh, spread the word, uh, don't forget, and, and, and just as a, just as a thing,
let's, let's, uh, let's make sure to, uh, to do this regularly, uh, come on,
come on, Grafton, uh, to, to our show, you know, every, every few months or
something, at least once a year, something like that, and let's, let's spread the
word together, that's the least we can do.
I mean, look, it's taken me a long time to get to, to, to where we are now.
I mean, and, and, and Bitcoin, you know, is like, everybody's panicking
because the price is at what?
Fifty seven or something?
So it's like, people go crazy, but they also like.
When Bitcoin drops, you know, what it is right now or whatever, like,
all of a sudden you look at Vexil and people are really using it.
So there's like these periods of time where, um, because people
are buying the dip, but people are also selling it as well.
And so, like, you can see that and by talking about it and understanding
that there is a private marketplace out there where you can Vexl, Bitcoin
with your friends and friends of friends, like that's the biggest
secret that's going on right now.
It shouldn't be a secret.
We have to, we have to build these tools for tomorrow, today, because if you look
at what's happened with KYC and what's happening with Bitcoin is The further we
get away from that, you know, Satoshi's white paper, the more it starts to
mirror our current financial system.
And that scares me because that's not what Bitcoin is.
Bitcoin was rebel, you know?
So, so other than you and, and slush, uh, like how is, how is Vxl connected to
Satoshi Labs and, and Trevor and all that?
Yeah.
Um, so Slush is, I mean, Vexl was Slush's idea, but we have Stick as well.
So Stick, Slush, um, they are the co founders of Trezor,
founders of Satoshi Labs.
Um, and Vexl is the newest.
project.
Um, we have Trezor, uh, which is, you know, the OG hardware wallet.
Then there is Tropic Square, which is aiming to be the world's
first open source secure element.
Okay, so, so, so, uh, so, uh, it's under the Satoshi Labs, uh, umbrella.
So, so, so to
It's yeah, it's under the umbrella.
So we were our initial investment was funded through Satoshi Labs.
but that's, that's it.
Now we are supported through grant for the last six months from OpenSats
and we're currently fundraising.
for listening.
Um, to kind of look at Nostr, to look at these things as well.
So, but yeah, Satoshi Labs is our parent company because
our co founders created it.
Oh, wonderful, and, uh, yeah, I mean, Uh, as you say, I think this massive
weight of sort of the history and the companies in Czech Republic, I mean,
there are other places that are starting to kind of pick up some steam, try to
be these sort of Bitcoin destinations, but, uh, Yeah, really, really cool
to see kind of how that's all worked.
And I mean, yeah, I, I think I think for for my part with the with the vexling of
it, I definitely see the gradually and suddenly that you're talking about that.
Just got to get the contacts and it incentivizes people to you.
Make these connections.
And I mean, we're still early as soon as you were starting to say, you know,
the price has dipped and everything.
I mean, I'm old enough to remember when 55, 000 US dollars per for one Bitcoin.
That seemed like a lot.
Yeah, I mean, I remember when 600, I remember telling my mom to
buy Bitcoin at like 600 and her response was, Oh, it's too expensive.
I'll wait for it to come down a little bit.
Um, and I mean, that's like, you know, I think the first time my mom really started
looking at Bitcoin is, you know, as a real thing was when Bitcoin hit 69, 000,
you know, and then she's like, all right, I should probably get some just in case,
you know, and that's like, well, that's where we are with, you know, With Bitcoin,
I think we should all start looking at, um, getting some just in case, but
getting some no KYC Bitcoin just in case.
And I think that realistically, we're going to wake up in 10 years and go like,
okay, this is a nightmare of KYC hell.
Everybody's information is all over the place and there's no going back.
There's no resetting that.
Once it's out there, you know, they leak how much Bitcoin
you own or something is just.
It seems like a disaster waiting to happen.
yeah, let's let's dig into this a little bit.
Yeah.
How important is it?
KYC versus non KYC in your view, because, I mean, you sort of described the picture,
but non KYC at the moment is difficult for newer people, at least as the first
point of entry, compared to just go on whatever exchange dick, and I had a
encounter recently, locally, with a guy who was trying to convince, I forget it.
He was related to her, but, um, somebody knew, uh, and, and she was
saying that she actually did not want, I guess, I guess this, this guy was,
was advocating non KYCU, but pushback was she wanted it to be KYC'd so that
it was all above board and legal.
And so it's just this funny, this funny opposite mindset.
Right, of, of how people think the world is supposed to be but just, just
to actually get to, get to a point here is that, is that in, in a certain
extent, there's only 21 million.
You have, you have a certain percentage of, of Bitcoin on a
hardware wallet in your possession.
You keep the secret, only you know what that is, right?
Well, you have it, whether it's KYC or not.
But what's your view, I guess, of the nuance and the interplay
between just simply having Bitcoin and KYC versus non KYC Bitcoin?
Well, KYC thinks like, okay, so I saw an interesting discussion about
this actually on Twitter recently, where he said that, um, looking at
KYC Bitcoin, it doesn't mean that, you know, your, your Bitcoin, your KYC
follows you everywhere or whatever.
And it says that it's know your customer.
So what it means is for you to be able to have Bitcoin, you have to have permission.
Um, and that's what KYC is for most of these, like, people, right?
If you are Coinbase or Binance or any of these things, what they're
saying is that we have this system, you can participate in it, but first,
we need to make sure it's okay that you participate in that system.
And not everybody can do that, so for me, we have to make it as easy
to buy Bitcoin for everyone as we do for the exchanges who make it easy to
buy Bitcoin on their exchange because they've granted you permission.
So, when you look at, I mean, the BTC pay server movie was great because
you go into El Salvador and you look at the dentist who never had a bank
account, who was never able to save money to do this, or you have people
who don't have identification or who are unbanked, who can't participate.
What are they supposed to do?
Um, how do they get permission?
And when you introduce permission into Bitcoin, well, that's not
what Bitcoin is supposed to be.
Bitcoin should not have permission attached to it.
Um, you know, go and look at Canadian truckers.
protest, you know, is going, well, their bank accounts are frozen.
You don't have permission.
So we, you can't do anything because we're freezing your accounts, right?
Your permission has been revoked.
They can do that to you in 2020, 2022.
They can do that to you tomorrow for, I saw an article of
not wearing a hijab in Iran.
They will freeze your bank account because you're not, they, you don't have
permission to participate in their system.
That's what KYC is to me.
Um, you know, looking at someone who says, well, We need to make sure that the coins
that we're getting are not tainted, right?
Or they're not blacklisted or this.
And I go, well, what is that fucking, what is tainted Bitcoin?
Bitcoin is Bitcoin.
So what it means is you don't have permission to spend that
Bitcoin on that exchange.
And I think that that's really, to me, why I see KYC as an enemy.
Not because I'm trying to hide anything or anything like that.
I'm just trying to protect myself and be able to have permission with money.
now, I, I totally agree and I think there's a cognitive dissonance here, and I
hear it all the time because like, there's so many people who want like Bitcoin to,
to be legitimized by some fucking entity before, before they can take it seriously.
And that is completely missing the point because if, if all bitcoins
were legitimized by someone, the, you know, if they all required permission.
Then, uh, there is no 21 million cap anymore, and there's no value proposition,
because then you, these people are able to censor and, and rule the network anyway.
So, so all the, all the value propositions go away when it's
not underground money anymore.
So, so it needs, like, we've figured out a way to do money
without government involvement.
And that's the point.
Like, if you want it to be permissioned, you have this cognitive dissonance.
Like, it doesn't work.
It's like saying, yeah, I love this invention, the wheel here, but I refuse
to use a wheel to roll this thing down this hill until the government
says it's okay for me to do so.
It's
imagine?
I mean, but that's kind of where we are, if you look at regulations, I mean.
Look at where we are with, um, I mean, the bottle cap in Europe,
um, I think my camera died, um,
Your camera definitely died.
yeah, look at where we are with the bottle cap in Europe, you have to have, you
know, different ones, hold on one second,
while he's fixing it, that, uh, you know, uh, freezing of bank accounts if
you're not wearing a hijab thing made me think of a rainbow hijab, do you think
there's such a thing as a rainbow hijab?
Yeah.
I mean, a lot of them are pretty colorful.
Uh, but, but it's, it's an interesting, it's an interesting thought.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You're, you're good now.
You're good.
Yeah.
I don't know, maybe the battery on it is something, we'll see if I
have to message my, uh, my guy, but yeah, I mean, That's exactly what
you're talking about a rainbow hijab.
I mean, that's like people have such, such difficulty these days understanding
what they're even for or against.
Um, and like the, you know, saying, well, I want my Bitcoin that's like,
you know, the gays for Palestine thing and like all of this,
for KFC.
yeah, chickens for KFC.
It's like, you have, I don't think that you really have
so much idea what's going on.
I think you're just whatever feels good in that moment is what they're going for.
we go into this a lot in the new book about like the difference
between legal and lawful.
It's like there's been some libertarian writings about this and how lawful
is something that is actually ethically and morally correct.
And it's basically all property rights when you boil it down to essentials
and legal is just something that some guy at some institution came up with
regardless if there's a victim or not.
Well, I don't know if you've read, I told you, I think we talked about it in, um,
Poland or Warsaw, but I told you about a book called A Lodging of Wayfaring Men.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
I haven't read it yet, I
I will, I will send you, um, I'll send you a copy, um, because it's
hard to find, um, but I think that you would really enjoy that book.
I like exclusively do audiobooks these days because I just
don't have the time to sit down
not sure.
If there's not an audiobook, there should be one.
My dog is making an appearance.
Um,
Yeah, there's a Kindle version, that's
yeah, I'm not sure if there's an audio one, but man, I think there should be.
I might maybe need to talk to Max Hillebrand and get him to record.
I would listen to him.
well the AI voices are good enough now, you could just, like, make
some app read it for you, I guess.
Well, that'd be nice.
I don't know if you've ever done like the immersion reading
technique where you listen to a book and read it at the same time.
Um, oh my god.
Uh, no.
No, the target languages are good.
This is all good.
Yeah, and there's a, there's a similar language learning technique too if you
want to take it a whole other level.
You listen to a, you listen to an audio book in your target language and
you keep your, your native language and the target language at the same
time and it's like, that's like the hardcorest way you can immerse yourself.
Um, Doggo is, uh, is getting, is getting the, uh, attention
here, but I think that's
Hey, doggie.
That's, that's priorities in
What was the name of the dog?
this is Ash.
We call him Ash the Vexl dog.
Ash the Wechseldanger.
yeah, he has his own Twitter account and everything.
On Vexl, no one knows you're a dog.
They just know that you have a lot of mutual friends.
But, but they will call you out if you try to sell the Doge coin or doggie
coin,
exactly.
Yeah.
Well, getting into that.
So that's one of my favorite things ever is, uh, the first time I ever met,
I don't know if you know this story, Luke, but we were in Miami, Miami, 2022.
You know, I'm fresh into, uh, working in Bitcoin.
I'm very proud that I I'm working in Bitcoin.
I'm very proud that I work at Trezor and the Trezor booth is
right across from the book signing.
And, um, I was like, oh, Knut's gonna be over there.
I was like, I gotta get him to sign my book.
Um, so I went over, and I was like, hey, I'm so glad to meet you.
Will you please sign my book?
He's like, yeah, what do you do?
And I was like, oh, I work at Trezor.
And he's like, oh, Trezor, he's like, yeah, you should tell them they're
a bunch of shitcoiners, alright?
So I was like, well, I'm not sure how accurate that statement is, if
Trezor's a bunch of shit coiters.
I mean, we've, we've, the reason you have 12 words is, is,
I think you remember this.
I have a slight different memory.
I
told them like you should you should do the Bitcoin only thing
on top at least like you should go
Bitcoin only.
Yes, you should.
But at least you should put like the Bitcoin only firmware
as the default.
And I think there was some I think you told me afterwards that it was something
like that they put Bitcoin on top, whereas it wasn't before, or something's changed.
But, basically, That, that moment, it's stuck in my head, and it really, it made
me, it made me crazy, you know, because I'm like, what, you know, Trezor is, is,
we've, you know, contributed so much to Bitcoin, and like, we are Bitcoiners,
like, Trezor are Bitcoiners, like, we, okay, yeah, we have shitcoin, they have
shitcoin, but like, we do everything we do for Bitcoin, and um, so basically, every
time that I've seen Knut since, Um, I have, I have basically slightly insulted
him, not insulted him, but like dug at him a little bit and be like, yeah, try to
call me a shit coiner now, motherfucker.
And so, like, it worked, you know, and then in Prague, you were like,
uh, I think you said something like, you're definitely not a shit coiner.
I was like, yeah, finally, it worked, yeah.
think even in Warsaw, I'd come around to that.
But, and, uh, yeah, so, you know, Trezor makes legit products.
I still wish they would stop shitcoining completely, and I stand by that, and
stand by that for every single hardware wallet manufacturer, or everyone on earth,
actually, should stop shitcoining
immediately, but the product is good.
Yeah, I mean, I can't speak on, on, like, too much of it, but I mean, Trezor,
they are, we are, they're Bitcoiners.
I mean, that, that's why, yes, they do have shitcoin, um, and I will say that,
um, the one thing I can, you know, add about that is that shitcoiners hopefully
make Bitcoiners, and they never took look back, so, you know, a lot of people
still, in their minds, They go, I'm looking for the next Bitcoin and that's
like, I've heard that from my friends.
I've heard that from everyone.
Um, you know, my, my normal friends who are like, Oh, I'm
going to get the next Bitcoin.
I'm trying to find the next one.
And I'm like, you know, I go to sailor.
There, there is no,
There is some second, but yeah,
yeah, but
that's still going on, but, but that's why I'm so irritated with shit
I know.
they are the attack, like people who fall for them and then get burned,
likely they won't come back to Bitcoin until 10 years down the line.
Then when they realize, oh, it was Bitcoin all along, like, and, uh, I
think for the most part, that process coming to Bitcoin only, mentally, uh,
could be faster if there weren't all of these bullshit narratives about the
place.
Oh yeah, like, I'm, I'm open personally.
I, I started with Ethereum in 2017, and my office, my personal local community, was
only into Ethereum for whatever reason, and that's the only thing I bought,
and then everything crashed, and, ah, I didn't think about it for four years,
and then things started going up, and I go down the rabbit hole, and whatever,
but yeah, I started in shitcoins, and Probably, possibly, I missed the boat
by four years, and that's too bad for me, but, you know, no regrets, but, uh,
But I mean, I get Knut's point, which is that if you provide this place for
shitcoiners to put their shitcoin, um, what you're doing is in a way
validating that like, oh, yeah, yeah.
And I, like, I, I do, I agree with you in that point.
Um, you know, and I, I have had shitcoin in my life.
You know, I'm not saying that I've never had a shitcoin.
I had litecoin back in like 2012 or some shit.
I Um, and I had some Ethereum like the day that it was out.
I was like, Oh, you know, I was playing around with stuff
because I was naturally curious.
But, you know, it's like, there's that, you know, the meme of the guy where it's
like each level, you know, you get is eventually you do get to where Bitcoin
is like, giant laser The I's, you know, going out where you go, no, this is it.
This is, this is what it is.
then again, like, there's something to that, there needs to be, uh, like if
Bitcoin goes to shit, or some code that we don't like get implemented, we need
to be able to fork off and do our own thing, and like, Uh, so there's, there's
something to that, but still legitimizing those fucking Doty coins and Ethereum.
Ethereum being the mother asshole has safely inputted so poetically
the mother asshole from which all other shit coins are spawned.
I mean, uh, and putting that side by side with Bitcoin is like, uh, uh, what, what,
what's the analogy is like you have this, um, um, you have the most beautifully
marbled ribeye steak, angus steak, or wagyu steak, and you can buy this, or
you can buy for the same price, um, Uh, this, um, eats the bugs dog food here.
That is, uh, but I promise it will be as tasty.
Like, it's, it's such a, it's not even a bad an, uh, it is not even a
good analogy, but it, the, the whole thing is you put the best thing in the
universe next to the scam, iest fucking trash shit that has ever been created.
Uh, and, and, and it there, that's where the similarities end.
well, that's what you mean.
I think the problem, one of the biggest problems stems from
the fact that something like CoinMarketCap and CoinGecko exist.
It's like, uh, there's a, there's the, here's a cap is Bitcoin.
Like, I don't give a shit for me, it's like, when I, when I turn on and look
at the price, I go to CoinGecko and it's like, of course you look at what,
Bitcoin's number one, that's really all you need to see, but then you start,
you know, you find your eyes going down a line, you're, you know, you're
curious, you're looking, and like, that's what most people are doing.
Is, they're going to these websites and aping into this bullshit.
You see things like, uh, I don't know who it is, uh, Petri, so I think it is opposed
to these threads about, uh, he's a,
this guy is a Bitcoin legend because blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And he's been doing a good job at it.
And then all of a sudden Erik Voorhees shows up there and it's all this, oh,
Erik Voorhees did this and this, that and that year, and how awesome he is.
And he leaves out the whole thing that he started an exchange where you
could switch your Bitcoin for shit.
Tch.
Uh, and he took a cut every time you did that.
And that's the entire purpose of that fucking site.
It's that to enrich him at the expense of everyone else thinking
that the shit they're exchanging their precious sats for is somehow
worth something in the long run.
Which it isn't.
It's just fucking scams, all of it.
But that's why, like, going from one coin into another and doing this,
it's like, no, we go back to, like, I'll give you some Bitcoin for some
honey or for some eggs, you know, like, that's what, you know, it is.
We hear this every day, value for value, but, like, I enjoy spending my Bitcoin,
you know, like, I know that's weird to say for most people because they
look at it as like, oh, you know, hold up, but even when Bitcoin is coming.
Drops or whatever.
I have, you know, stuff that I still like.
I spent in my cleaning lady.
She, she's this lady from Ukraine.
She does clean.
I don't need her, but I've had her now.
And so, like, she's kind of grandma in now.
I have her, uh, slowly.
It started because why do you have so many of these like treasure T shirts?
What is this?
You know, and then she starts learning about my, you know, I go, I have a
colleague who also wants his house clean.
And so then, you know, you have all these people from.
Here, who I started talking to about Bitcoin, and now I told her, I was
like, okay, every time I pay you, I'm going to give you this much in fiat,
which is what I know that you want, that you need, but then I'm going
to give you This 10 euros, I'm going to pay you in Bitcoin every time.
And you could, you should see her now, like every, since I've been
doing this, is she, she gets her lightning, you know, her QR code ready.
I pay her and she gets really excited because she feels that she's saving
and doing something different.
And
it's great.
It's great.
Yeah, about, about the, um, spending versus hodling.
We have, uh, uh, Uh, section in the book about that, because I think the
terminology is what's, what's wrong.
Like, uh, so the, the term store of value is flawed, uh, because
value is subjective, right?
That's basic, the most basic building block of economics,
the value is subjective.
So, uh, so we prefer, we try to introduce the term value, medium of exchange over
time and, and medium of change over space.
So there's, uh.
There's a temporal dimension and the spatial dimensions, and gold was good for
the temporal stuff because it held its value over time, and fiat's good for the
spatial, uh, spreading, spread of money because it's good of a space, but Bitcoin
does both, and it also, like, introducing medium of exchange over time sort of kills
the whole narrative that, uh, saving and spending are, are different, they're just
two aspects of the same functionality.
Uh, it's just that when you save, you're trading with your future
self, so you're still trading, but with your future self, uh,
and when, and then you, and then you trade over space.
So as I, like, I don't really like the dichotomy between the two,
like, uh, yeah, use your Bitcoin.
You can
use them in many ways.
HODLing is one use case.
Uh, it is using them.
They are providing you with something with financial stability,
security, like self esteem.
All of that comes with.
Having a stack, right?
Go into, you know, it's like, I remember, you know, going to conferences and these
things and you always see like the, this much Bitcoin was, was processed, you know,
during the conference of people buying everything from t shirts to, you know, we
like it because we, of course, it's for me is that's what Bitcoin is, is I travel
so much and I'm in different countries, whether that's Warsaw or Madeira, I'm in
the Europe, I'm in the Czech crown here.
It's like, of course, I enjoy spending Bitcoin.
But also, like, because we're Bitcoiners, um, there is something
truly satisfying about doing that and, and giving your Bitcoin to
somebody else for something of value.
And I think that that's where it starts to click for a lot of people is, and
that's where I went with, like, my cleaning lady is, you know, you can
tell her to buy Bitcoin and she won't do it, or I can just start giving her
some of my own and paying for her and saying, well, here, I want to do this.
Will you accept it?
And if they accept those terms and they start doing it, then eventually they go,
alright, now I have something because they can see the fiat value there.
So they go, oh, I have something I need to protect this.
I need to learn more.
And, um, that's what I did with my friend, um, Gary.
You know, at the beginning of the call, he said, there's always
problems with audio or whatever.
It's like, I played games online in the evening with my friend for years.
So we were used to being, you know, three o'clock in the
morning talking bullshit online.
And a lot of that time, you know, it gets on philosophy.
It gets on Bitcoin.
It gets on just life in general.
And, um, that was one of the ways I did it with him was like, yeah.
Dude just like, alright, every time we go to dinner and I pay, I'm going
to pay you my portion in Bitcoin.
And that was what made sense to him.
He goes, okay, I can live with that, right?
And then he got to the point where, alright, I kind of
have a lot of Bitcoin now.
You've been paying for a lot of dinners.
Um, that that's the way it works with him.
So you have to kind of find those people who are skeptical or who aren't sure
about how to do it or whatever, because if someone says, alright, how do I buy it?
That's a hard question to answer right now because, you know, you don't want to get
into the nuances of KYC or, uh, you know, this, it's like, well, that's where Vexil
and that's why we, you know, we talked about we wanted to create something that
my aunt, my uncle, or anybody could use.
the, the thing I really want to encourage people to do is earn Bitcoin
or ex accept Bitcoin for, for, uh, for the goods and services or for
whatever, because that's, that's the true hyper bitcoin ization of yourself.
Like when you accept it.
So, yeah.
And if you have one sat more than you had last year, you're an absolute 100
percent winner in every sense of the word.
That's a financial advisor is the easiest job in the world right now.
Well, and that's, that's what we, you know, I remember seeing, you know,
just how, you know, Vexl we created for, for buying and selling Bitcoin,
but then people went like, okay, um, so I do back end development.
Um, I post an offer on here.
And then the next thing you know, they have a job where they're earning
Bitcoin doing back end development.
Where I talked to one guy who was literally working for a bank, um, put an
offer on Vexil for back end development and was like, ah, I can do this.
And then started earning money in Bitcoin through Vexil.
So that's from Vexil.
So it is pay your, you know, talk to your cleaning ladies, talk to your
dog walkers, talk to these people and say, Hey, do you accept Bitcoin?
And if they don't, You know, play by their rules, you know, let them go, Hey, um,
okay, I'll give you fiat, but can I give you a little bit of a tip in Bitcoin?
And just kind of, if you're not forcing it, but you're giving them something,
and then that's how, when people start to perceive value, they go, okay,
maybe this does have something to it.
Um, so I, you know, in looking at communities and, you know,
meetups, my camera turned off again.
Meetups and stuff like that.
You really do, like, need to be able to answer those questions for people who go,
okay, there's a Bitcoin meetup in my town.
I go along, they're going to ask people, how do I buy it?
Well, we have to have some way to do that that doesn't incentivize them to
give away all their private information.
True that.
Um, Grafton, I, I'm really sorry how we, we could have gone on for,
uh, uh, another two hours if we had the time, but we're, we're sort of
running short today, unfortunately, so.
So, uh, uh, um, super, uh, grateful that you came on and, uh, looking forward
to seeing you in real life next time, or we'll have a longer chat there.
I'm sure it won't be long, um, but thank you guys really for having me on, um,
and we can, yeah, we can do it again in a, in a year or so, and we're, we have
a lot more, bigger network hopefully, but please, uh, check out Vexl if you
don't know anything about it, if you have, you're, like, you could find
me Um, sats disco, like everywhere, um, and check out our website, Vexl.
it, we're not from Italy.
It's like, how do you get Bitcoin?
You Vexl it.
Um, so check us out and then please like, let me know if you have a meetup, if
you're going to meetups, if you have a community, um, reach out, get in touch.
We want to help you, um, build private peer to peer community.
So
Check out Vexl, brush your teeth, buy your toothbrush with Bitcoin somehow,
and, uh, yeah, see you in the next one.
thank you.
Thanks so much, Grafton.
This has been the Freedom Footprint Show.
Thanks for listening.
Don't forget to leave us a comment, let us know what you think, and spread the word.
Thanks again, Grafton.
This has been the Freedom Footprint Show.