since the beginning of time, problems were always resolved
violence.
You know, you try to talk, if we don't find a solution, it escalates a bit more.
If we still can't find a solution, then somebody gets angry.
And if it still can't get a solution, then you break out into a fight.
And if it still doesn't get fixed, somebody ends up dead.
Before Bitcoin, which is obviously, that peaceful
revolution, like, how do you do it?
There was no other way.
Welcome back to the Freedom Footprint show, the Bitcoin
philosophy show with Knut Svanholm and me, Luke the Pseudo Finn.
Today, we're joined by Tony Yazbeck, Bitcoin educator and
co founder of The Bitcoin Way.
In this episode, Tony walks us through his personal orange billing
story and the effects that Lebanon's financial crisis had on his journey.
We discuss Bitcoin adoption, violence, and the importance of self sovereignty.
Finally, we learn more about The Bitcoin Way.
And how Tony's 20 years of experience in cybersecurity, encryption, and
privacy play a big role in the company.
But before we jump in, I'll quickly cover how you can support the show.
First, you can send us a boost or stream us some sats using a value for
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You can earn sats from listening and you can support us and
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Even if you're listening as a podcast, head over to our YouTube
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It would be a big help.
And finally, we want to thank today's sponsors.
Amber App, Wasabi Wallet, Orange Pill App, The Bitcoin Way, and Geyser.
All their information is in the description.
We'll be talking a bit more about them later.
And now, without further ado, Here is Tony Yazbeck on the Freedom Footprint Show.
welcome to the Freedom Footprint Show.
Thanks for joining us.
Thank you for having me.
Yes, welcome, Tony.
You're the CEO of the Bitcoin Way, right?
I'm one of the co founders.
Yes, correct.
the co founders, which is an interesting company.
We'll get back into that a little later.
But first, a little bit about you.
Can you give us the TLDR on who you are and how were you orange pilled and how
did you become a full time Bitcoiner?
sure.
Absolutely.
I come from over 20 years of cybersecurity encryption and privacy.
So I've been like heavily involved in the IT world for a very long time.
Bitcoin, I'd say like a little over five years deep down the rabbit hole.
And, uh, My story in Bitcoin is an interesting one because I actually
witnessed the pain of hyperinflation and complete life saving destruction, you
know, before my own eyes, which is what really, you know, woke me up and led
me to look for answers to this story.
Thanks for watching.
Nuclear surprise, you know, that just came out of nowhere.
I was in Cyprus when it happened and the situation that I'm
referring to was not the Cyprus one.
It was the one next door in Lebanon when the protests broke out and, you
know, the whole country was in shambles.
And then from one day to the next, everybody's life savings were wiped.
Okay, so, when you live through something like this, you realize very quickly
that this is not a theory anymore.
This is not a movie.
This is real life.
It can happen.
It will happen to anyone.
No one's immune to it.
It's just a question of when your turn comes.
Once you live through something like this, it's very hard to unsee it, to
forget about it, because the pain and destruction it leaves in its path
is really, it's unheard of, okay?
I mean, you have people literally went to bed on a Tuesday, being financially
comfortable, a lot of them retired, waking up the next day, nothing's working.
This is how it happened.
You woke up the next day, you know, you're trying to buy
stuff, credit cards don't work.
Okay, well maybe it's a glitch.
Call the bank, there's no answer at the bank.
Okay, so then, then what?
So then, okay, you can't buy whatever it is that you're buying.
So you wait, hopefully it'll, you know, resolve itself.
One day, two days, three days, news comes out, banks are closed because of
whatever bullshit reason they give you.
Fast forward three years, money is hyperinflated to God knows what.
If you had a million dollars U.
S.
in a Lebanese bank, you have 300 now, this is what happened.
And, uh, when you see this, it wakes you up in a way that's very hard to describe.
You know, like, I mean, your views on the world change almost instantly
in a way that are irreversible.
So, you start looking for answers.
What the hell just happened?
what happened here, you know, all, all your life you're told, you know, you go,
you work, you make an honest living, you put your money in that bank, when you
decide to retire, your money's there, except no, finally you find out that
the money in the bank is not yours, the banks are the thieves stealing your
money, and they're not giving it to you, and there's nothing you can do about
it, so then you dig deeper, you know, how far does this thing go, who's behind
all of this, how is this put together, how is this scam concocted, since when,
you start asking questions, And that's essentially what led me to Bitcoin.
When I finally realized that my entire life has been a lie with regards
to money, any normal person would, would, would react the same way I
did, which was, you know, you get very angry, you know, because you
think you're doing the right thing.
And at the end of the day, you get completely screwed over.
And there's literally nothing you can do.
Something like this happens once.
If you let it happen twice, then you're the idiot.
before Bitcoin, we had no alternative.
And this is, was my biggest, lifeline, if you want.
Because once you survive, a disaster, having your life savings wiped out,
You know, you go to a, you go to a very dark place and it's not everyone
that can come out of it normally.
I don't want to get too morbid about this, but let's just say, you know,
like I've seen very close friends of mine not come out of this.
I've seen people that I know, good people, not come out of this.
And it's not something I wish upon anyone.
So, when I try to pass this message on, subtly through orange pilling, to try to
warn people, guys, this is not a movie.
It's not just Lebanon.
It doesn't matter where you are.
The fiat system is rigged.
It's bullshit from beginning to end.
It's a concoction by a group of thieves that designed this for this purpose.
And before Bitcoin, there was no real alternative.
mean, the, the, the notion that you don't own your money, that you have
to ask permission from someone to use your money, your time and energy.
How does that make sense to anyone?
How does anyone accept this?
I don't.
Not anymore.
Anyhow,
Oh, the, the first, uh, feeling I get is anger, of course, like, and, uh,
I can see the writings on the wall in other countries, like here in Spain,
for instance, the last time I needed to withdraw cash from the bank, they
asked me what I was going to use it for, and it's not like it was an enormous
sum, and still, even if it was, like, what the hell business of theirs is,
is it what I want to use my money for?
it's not their money, it's my money.
I should be asking them what they're using my money for, not
the other way around, right?
So, so that's, I see that as an absolute warning sign and it's everywhere.
You hear stories about people's bank accounts being shut down and you know,
what happened to Nigel Farage in the UK, for instance, and a multitude of other
people that had the same problem and I, I recently read some news from Sweden,
where I come from, where the Swedish krona is now at an all time low against
the euro, so it's now 12 Swedish krona per euro, and it has lost 40 percent of
its purchasing power against the euro.
Which in itself has lost its purchasing power against the dollar in 10 years
and 7 percent during the last year.
But I know since I, I changed some Swedish krona for euros half a year back
and it has dropped 7 percent since then.
So it's not the last year, it's the last half year, which is a significant amount.
mean, Scandinavia has.
It's viewed itself as the Scandinavian countries have viewed
themselves as being immune to all of this for a long, long time.
But then again, we've had these negative interest rates and other fictitious
bullshit for a couple of years now.
And sooner or later, the shit hits the fan.
And after the lockdowns and everything, I mean, Sweden didn't really have lockdowns,
but even, but still, the COVID measures.
Cost a lot of money in every country.
And, uh, it's just, as you say, it's just a matter of time.
It's, it's doomed because it's designed that way.
There is no way out of it.
they're printing money to reduce the value of the national debt,
which, and what that is, is just a mass theft of people's life power.
It's, it's just depleting everyone's mana, if you will.
Uh, I'm curious about Lebanon and what happened there, like how much,
how close to it, is it a civil war situation there now, or like how, how
dangerous is Lebanon at this point?
And what, what happens in a situations like that?
Do people start using other means of media of exchange?
What's your observation?
The thing is, Lebanon is a bit of a, it's a city of miracles in the sense that
depending where you go in Lebanon, you can see a completely different movie.
I mean, if you go down, if you fly down to Lebanon now and you go to
a certain part of the city, they live better than Beverly Hills.
You know, you wonder, like, how the hell is that possible?
But they
in Beirut you mean?
Yes.
Well, in certain parts of Beirut, yes.
But realistically, there's, I think, 80 or 90 percent of the
population is below the poverty line.
It's absolutely horrendous.
But there is a small minority, a small percentage of people
that, you know, somehow are still beating the rate of inflation.
And their money is obviously, well, yes, possibly, and likely that their
funds were not in Lebanon , when the system effectively stole everybody's
life savings, their funds were out.
You know, there was a lot of, um, illegal money transfers that was
going on behind the scenes during the time where supposedly no one
was allowed to take out their money, but certain people, somehow were
siphoning billions out of the country.
And you have no right to investigate how this is going on.
That's the worst part.
So, long story short, if you had your life savings over there,
today they are 100 percent gone.
And the worst part is, whatever's left, you're not allowed to take out.
They don't give it to you, you have withdrawal limits
that are completely absurd.
Yeah, I saw someone come in with a shotgun to withdraw money, not to rob the bank,
but to get his own money out of the bank.
Yes, absolutely.
And it happened on several occasions, right?
Well, of course it's going to happen.
I mean, you're, you're a hardworking individual.
You've got whatever it is that you have in that bank account as your life savings.
Your mom is sick.
She needs treatment.
The bank decides, screw you, I'm not giving you your money, so what do you do?
What options do you have?
If you do nothing, your mom's going to die.
So, you either let her die, or you take measures into your own hand.
Now, keep in mind, these people that went into a bank with guns,
none of these folks are criminals.
These are mothers, fathers, regular, good people.
On the contrary,
pushed to a limit.
Yes, they are victim, pushed to a corner that they have no
choice but to react this way.
And this is, what I keep telling everybody, I'm like, you guys have no idea
when things get bad, good people start doing crazy shit, , because they have to.
It's almost like a survival thing.
So these folks that went into these banks with guns.
They wanted their money.
They didn't want anybody else's money.
They weren't robbing anyone.
They just wanted their life savings to pay for medical
bills for a dying family member.
So, do you blame them?
Or do you, now all of a sudden, oh no, they're evil people, they have a gun.
No, I wouldn't call that almost a survival mechanism, I would call
that an actual survival mechanism.
That is, Your only option.
It's like when you, when you have no means of saving your, your time
preference goes up and I always talk about this, like if you're stripped of
all your, all of your possessions, your, your time preference is as the highest
it can get, you need to find food and shelter and you use any means necessary
to get that, otherwise you're dead,
Absolutely.
There's no other choice.
And, uh, unfortunately, you know, when, when you bully someone, so much.
At some point, you know, they're going to push back.
I mean, everybody has a breaking point.
And, uh, it's that breaking point that worries me, on a global level.
Because, I've seen it in one place and it was, like, horrendous.
Can you imagine this?
Spreading like a virus in, , more and more cities.
it's hard to imagine.
So why isn't Bitcoin adoption more widespread in Lebanon?
Well, it's twofold.
For one, it is increasing from what I hear.
I mean, I haven't been there in a while.
I have no interest in going back there.
I'm absolutely, disgusted by the whole situation.
But from what I hear, Bitcoin activity , is on the rise a lot more now.
You have to keep in mind a lot of these folks.
Don't understand money.
Okay.
These guys, they, they want immediate satisfaction.
They have to eat.
So they're not going to, , take a risk with something that
they can't exchange for food.
So the big thing over there is the US dollar.
So anything, they will do anything to get a US dollar, even though, you know,
this is not what they need, they need something that's not going to continuously
steal their money and time and energy, but because you have to eat and it's
not common enough to exchange, you know, Bitcoin for what you actually have to put.
Food on the table, you're like stuck in a catch 22.
This is what I think is happening.
And this is, it's like a common scenario in countries or with
people, you know, very limited financial resources, you're stuck.
And it's a, it's a very painful transition.
It takes a considerable amount of effort to pass through this storm
to come out on the other side.
Some of them don't make it, some of them do make it, but , it's a
really huge workout to, to do this.
So time will tell what, what will happen, but there's a lot more
people mining Bitcoin in Lebanon.
I don't know how they're doing it considering there's electricity
only a few hours a day.
So I don't know, how they're actually doing it, if they're doing it via natural
resources, Lebanon has a lot of natural resource, water being one of them.
So I don't know if somehow they're being set up in locations close
to that to take advantage of this.
Otherwise, the price of electricity, first of all, is horrendously high.
And second of all, there is no electricity.
It's, it comes in like, it's rationed for a few hours a day.
So you couldn't possibly mine anything reliably or profitably
for that matter over there.
Yeah.
So the way I see bitcoin adoption, I is the only way to save people
in the coming decade when this is going to hit more and more countries
at a faster and faster pace.
If there isn't sufficient Bitcoin adoption there, in the next place it happens
to the alternative is, is violence.
There's only that, like there's, there's Bitcoin or there's violence.
Literally, uh, with Bitcoin they can trade.
So they don't have to use force.
If they can't trade, they will have to use force.
That's as simple as that.
You said you were in Cyprus during the time that this happened.
So, what was your orange pill moment?
Like, um, of course...
Having seen this and lived through this and all of that must have
helped your orange pilling journey, but how did you find out about
Bitcoin when did the penny drop?
So this is the obvious solution, like, were you ever a shit coiner?
Like, what's the story there?
of course.
I'm not going to hide or lie about this.
Obviously, I dabbled into a whole bunch of, stupid things in the beginning, you
know, nothing positive came out of it.
So that's fine.
Almost everyone did.
yeah, so, uh, yeah, of course I dabbled into, you know, a few things and learned
a few things along the way as well.
But ultimately, my objective was to find.
A permanent solution to this problem in a sense that I needed to be in a
position where no one can steal from me ever again, and it wasn't going to
be the traditional route of gold, real estate, none of that nonsense, because
all of that can be taken away from you.
I came to the very firm conclusion that nothing physical is safe anymore.
Nothing.
Unless, unless you have an army to protect it.
I get into debates sometimes with folks, you know, gold is, is a better
investment or buying real estate.
I have five apartment buildings.
All right, cool.
But if an army of five guys come up to you with a gun and tell you, get
out, what are you going to tell them?
That you have a piece of paper that says it's legally mine, you can't touch it.
They're going to tell you you have 10 seconds.
You either leave or we carry you out.
Pick.
So, unless you have an army to protect yourself in extreme cases, this is
what I'm talking about, obviously this is like an extreme case, but when
you are , in a predicament where the money's gone, people are desperate.
People are hungry.
People do all sorts of insane things.
So, you can't predict the behavior that's going to come your way.
You have to be ready for it.
And fundamentally...
Since the beginning of time, problems were always resolved
via one way only, violence.
You know, you try to talk, if it, if we don't find a solution,
it escalates a bit more.
If we still can't find a solution, then somebody gets angry.
And if it still can't get a solution, then you break out into a fight.
And if it still doesn't get fixed, somebody ends up dead,
so we want to avoid this.
Obviously nobody wants to go into violence that's not the end game.
Bye.
Before Bitcoin, which is obviously, you know, that peaceful
revolution, like, how do you do it?
Really?
How do you do it?
There was no other way.
Bitcoin.
Yeah.
I mean Bitcoin, defund, the source funding the bullshit, right?
And the solution, the way I see.
It's not that hard, but you just have to get the world to see it your way.
If everyone tomorrow decides, I don't want fiat anymore, just like this
tomorrow, five minutes, and you just opt into Bitcoin, we start transacting this.
Whatever it takes, we'll figure it out.
Problem solved.
The problem is nobody believes it.
You can't convince, the general public instantly to understand this.
Yeah, it's really problem solved for everyone forever, which
is, it's really that simple.
If everyone's orange pilled.
There's no more problems like Bitcoin fixes.
This is true on so many levels.
People think it's fictitious, but you know, it's like the saying, if goods and
services don't cross borders, armies will.
uh, it doesn't matter if it's a national border or if it's one of your five
apartments that you need to save from the five guys with guns, it's the same
thing if goods and services don't.
Don't cross guys with guns will at some point that that's the end game there.
Listen, these, these, these scenarios that I'm citing, they may seem a
bit extreme, but they've happened.
I've seen them happen.
This is why I know about them.
Obviously I don't, I don't like them, but it's not a movie.
I'm not making this up from my own imagination.
This is happening.
This will happen when things get bad enough.
So, uh, we try to avoid this as much as possible and, try to keep things
as civil and peaceful as we possibly can because, that's how it should be.
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So, is that why you started the Bitcoin way?
I guess it is.
But, but, when did that happen?
And what was the idea behind
Yeah, well, the idea is to ensure that...
The least number of people get affected by such a disastrous outcome as possible.
I mean, the more, the more people I can convince, educate, influence, to
understand, the reality of what's going on and to have them at least,
take some steps to protect themselves.
it almost feels like a mission, like a, like, like a calling, you know, like it's,
uh, I never want to see anyone go through what I've seen in the last five years.
Never.
Not even my worst enemy, I would wish upon that upon them.
But I do know that Bitcoin is technology and most people are
not tech people, by any stretch.
So it's a big.
It's a big roadblock for many, and I know this because they've told me
I don't know how to set up anything, cold wallet and all that, so I'm going
to screw it up, I'm going to lose my money, forget it, I'm not touching it.
All right, fine, so what if I do it for you?
Would that help?
Then the conversation lasts a bit longer, and then you actually get the
work done, they see how it works, you explain exactly, , how things function.
Some of them get it.
Thankfully, a lot more these days understand it because of the way, you
know, things are getting progressively worse, globally that, the world is just
doing the marketing for Bitcoin, which makes our job a little easier and just
executing what needs to be done in order to get the technicals out of the way.
So for people that don't know, the Bitcoin way is, as I understand it,
advises Bitcoiners on every level.
You guys are providing advice, technical advice to people on how to secure their,
even if they want a custodian to hold their coins, or if they want to do it.
Themselves, if they want to use a hardware wallet, if they want to use
a multisig, if they want to do coin joins, whatever, you're, you, you
can provide technical assistance.
Absolutely.
Like you can think of us as like the Bitcoin.
So we cover really everything.
We, from cold wallets to nodes, inheritance planning, no KYC
Bitcoin, integrating Bitcoin payments into your platform.
Whatever it is that you need around the Bitcoin ecosystem,
we can definitely assist with.
We don't sell anything in terms of hardware or software.
We are pure knowledge service here.
So we have zero financial incentives to favor.
One product over another.
I test things personally myself on a regular basis, like a lot of stuff
that's on the market just to stay on top of things and to filter out, the
good, the bad and the ugly, make sure what's, what's reliable and what's not.
And based on the, on, on a, like a strict set of guidelines
that I have for these products.
I make my recommendations, so for example, for cold wallets, we only
deal with and recommend open source or verifiable source, anything
outside of that we don't even look at.
Um, same thing for nodes.
Privacy is a very, very big thing.
If there's a way to protect your privacy that you haven't thought
of, you know, we will find it.
I mean, you have 25 years of cybersecurity here that's coming into play.
during our consultation.
So there's a lot of things that I probably will be thinking of that
most people will not, consider simply because of my background.
And that becomes very valuable, in many aspects that most people
don't even realize, and we are 100 percent for self custody.
We don't hold any keys for anyone.
I'm not a particular fan of, the whole third party involvement.
The less, the least, the less people you involve in your
Bitcoin custody, the better.
Like the way I see it is the only person that should be
responsible for your money is you.
And unless you have implicit, absolute trust in someone, you shouldn't
be trusting them with your keys.
No, I agree.
Yeah, because people problems are a hundred times worse to
troubleshoot than technical ones.
That's a fact.
Like you have the whole multi sig thing, you have different parties
involved, then you have a problem with one of them or two of them.
How do you deal with that?
One of them disappears.
The other one doesn't want to talk to you.
Now what?
That's hard.
Yeah.
So if you have a multisig, you should probably have.
Enough keys by yourself to, um, to be able to unlock your
Bitcoin, without the third party.
So if you have two out of the three keys yourself, that's better than
yes, yes.
Or deal with people that you know, have like, I don't know, like a
99 percent chance of you never running into a problem with them.
Like a mom or a dad or a brother or sister, like not a stranger.
, unless you've known this person your whole life, type of thing.
Yeah.
So, this is a bit of a devil's advocate question.
How, how can people know that the Bitcoin way is not biased
towards a certain company?
, how can the customer know that you haven't accepted a big bag of coins
from one of these products that you
Yeah, that's a very good question, actually.
Um, we, we just don't.
I mean, based on our recommendations, you can tell when we consult with
someone, for example, they have nothing.
They come to us with absolutely nothing.
Phase one usually starts with the cold wallet.
We have a whole list of cold wallets that we've tested and we recommend.
, you can see from the list, we have like four or five really good ones.
So we have no affiliation with anyone.
The user can pick whichever one they want.
They don't pay us to recommend their products.
You pick whatever you want.
When you have it, you call back.
I'll help you set it up.
Doesn't really matter.
Same thing for all the products.
So we are really like a neutral company.
This is why, and when we intend to be this way, because we really
want to focus on providing.
The truth.
Knowledge and truth.
So we're not going to, sweep things under the rug to favor one person over another.
If something needs to be said, then, , we will say it if it benefits the people.
Bitcoin is for the people and we're here to ensure that everyone is set up
properly in a bulletproof and airtight way from now to the end of time.
Yeah, sounds awesome.
Sounds like we should have a longer call
Yeah, well, we could.
without an audience someday.
Absolutely, man.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
As you know, both me and Luke have felt this calling as well.
This is nothing.
This is not something you choose to do because.
for fun.
I mean, it is, it is a calling.
It is something that it's an outside force in a way that compels you to do these
things because you've seen something, and you want everyone in the world to
see it because you can see how much better a place the world would be if they did.
, and then you just can't help yourself.
It's too good to be true almost.
And the more you try to debunk it, the more, the more convinced you get.
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, you have to meet, people where they are , on this journey, there's no way
you're going to shove, thousands of hours of research into someone in five minutes,
that you just, met down the street.
Before the Bitcoin way, I was orange pilling, People for
three, four years for fun.
I mean, I've, I've orange spilled maybe like a hundred
folks, you know, just on my own.
And these are a casual people, restaurant waiters, barbers,
that, that type of individual.
And it all started, with a fun conversation.
And.
The way I do it is that I actually show them how it works,
without explaining anything.
I'm like, uh, like the restaurant's usually like the easiest one.
I tell people when you start in a restaurant, it's like
your easiest playground.
Tell them, okay, I'll give you, I'm going to give you your tip.
I'll pay you in Bitcoin.
Takes two minutes.
They're gonna laugh.
Some of them will be nervous.
They have no idea what to do.
They all have phones.
Download the phone.
I like to start them off with a non custodial phone.
So, for example, Lightning, I download the Phoenix wallet.
A lot of people, use the wallet of Satoshi, which is an excellent wallet.
There's no denying that.
But, from a Bitcoin principle perspective, , not your
keys, not your coins, right?
So, I want to get them off on the right foot.
So, you start off with a non custodial lightning wallet,
at the same time, two minutes, download it, send the funds, done.
And they're like, what happened?
And they look at the money like, ah, shit.
What do I do with this now?
That's the next question.
Well, now you do nothing, you just leave it and I'll see you like in a
few weeks and you'll see that this 10 or 20 now is actually worth more
and then you'll understand why this is such a big deal, like you pique
the curiosity that way before you get into, the heavy stuff, but it works.
I mean, it works.
There's folks that, believed in nothing.
They thought it was all a scam and they just did it to entertain me, the client,
but now sometimes I feel they're more maxi than I am, there are folks that
started off with a 1 percent allocation.
Now they're at 60 and that's with zero involvement from my end.
These are folks that I bumped, into like months after the initial conversation
and set up and they're like, Hey, look what I have, so orange pilling, , you
have to meet people where they are.
Unfortunately, I don't think.
The majority will get it before it's too late.
but that's because pain is usually your best teacher, at least in my experience.
If you don't get destroyed and wrecked, you'll never learn or you wouldn't
be open enough to understand that someone's actually trying to help you.
You always, , come at it from, what's he trying to sell me?
Is he lying to me?
Can I trust him?
Most instinctive human reactions are along those lines, so that's why I think most
people, will have to go through the pain.
Before they wake up, when my job is to make sure that that
number is as low as possible.
Yeah, yeah, I always say that take the orange pill now or be forced to
take the orange suppository later.
Because those are the only two choices you have.
The suppository is the per is the perfect word for this.
Because that's exactly where it's going to be.
I mean, if you have kids...
It's, it's your responsibility as a parent to at least consider
this, what kind of role model do you want to be for your kids?
You know, it's a deep conversation.
Bitcoin opens up so many directions of conversations beyond the money
that are all valid, and all center around something that is
permissionless and trustless and cannot be manipulated by anyone.
I don't know how familiar you are with my rants, but one of the points I always
try to make is that you are your Bitcoins.
Since Bitcoin is all about keeping a secret, since it's just information,
the final resting place for every single Bitcoin is in someone's head.
It needs someone's action and someone's deliberate.
Brain movement to do anything.
The bitcoins don't do anything on their own.
And the same with the miners and the nodes.
They're not the computer doing the calculations.
The guy who chooses to buy the computer to run the software, to do the calculations.
Right.
So, at its core, bitcoin is a part of each and every one of us, and I find
it so insanely fascinating when you start looking at it that way because
you realize quite quickly that the two main things that Bitcoin does to
people is that it lowers their time preference because they now have
something that they know will keep its value over time in all likelihood.
So they can feel more financially secured over time, especially if they're
in a place like Lebanon where you lose money every day from inflation
or true for every place, really.
But, the other thing is that.
As Bitcoiners, we're incentivized to help one another because Bitcoin
succeeds faster if Bitcoiners succeed in whatever endeavors
they're engaged in at the moment.
So, if I help you and you help me, we help Bitcoin and we both gain from that.
And that, to me, does something to Bitcoin companies because a fiat company
It's engaged in free market competition and free market competition is good, but
it can be, weird when you get lobbyists, lobbying politicians and people getting
into artificial monopoly situations and, and it's a, you know, move fast
and wreck things, uh, sort of situation.
So, I view real Bitcoin companies as companies who get this, that they're
all incentivized to help other Bitcoin companies and other Bitcoiners succeed.
So how do you see that?
Do you see a lot of collaboration down the line between the Bitcoin
way and other Bitcoin companies?
And I'm, of course, not talking about being biased and getting
a ton of dollars from Ledger.
That's not what I'm talking about here.
But just in general, collaboration between all bitcoin companies on some level.
Do you see that becoming more and more of a thing in the future?
Yes, I mean, everything is possible.
We are open to have conversations with anyone that wants to have them.
We have our principles, though, that we are not going to, break
or sway from for anyone.
for example, we are not going to engage or support any project
that, , does censorship on any level, that's a non negotiable thing.
We won't, support any projects that voluntarily collaborates
with chain analysis, for example.
That's a no go too.
We are pro freedom, pro The right to own your own time and energy.
There's no gray zones about this.
You know, you're either you're going to do it right or stay in fiat.
There's no point, wasting anybody's time.
We encourage companies to accept Bitcoin, and we encourage Bitcoiners to spend a
small allocation of their Bitcoin holdings to support businesses that accept it.
And I say this, specifically to fast track the normalization of Bitcoin.
In the real world for everyday people, in the sense that, when Mr.
and Mrs.
Joe walk into a store, they need to see cash, credit card, Bitcoin, cash, credit
card, Bitcoin, every single place they go.
So they start thinking about it as money and not just this speculative thing
that you're going to buy and hold and make you like a billionaire one day.
, that's like a side effect of Bitcoin, but I want Bitcoin to become normalized
in the world so that it becomes like electricity, like the internet, like
it's something that's always been there.
this is how Bitcoin wins.
Okay.
And the sooner we do this, the quicker we get to where we want to see
Bitcoin in our lifetime., ultimately I'm convinced Bitcoin will become
the global standard for everything.
Now, if I want it to happen in my lifetime, there's a lot more
people like myself that have to, do a lot of work in order to fast
track that, that time timeline.
Otherwise, , it'll happen, if you have kids and, , your kids, lifetime,
maybe their kids, I don't know.
But yeah, the more contributions we can offer the world in terms of
Bitcoin adoption, we will do it.
No problems there.
Excellent.
Luke, do you have any questions for Tony on your mind?
Yeah, little bit of...
Professional curiosity, actually, my fiat job, and for the foreseeable future
will continue to be in, in cybersecurity.
And so I'd like to hear about that part of your background and
what that brings to your work.
Uh, roll in the Bitcoin way.
You mean like, , the security models that we implement?
Yeah, I mean, we take security very seriously.
Like for example, before even getting to the Bitcoin itself, we check networks.
We can go as far as making sure, for example, that you have a good router in
place, that the router's properly set up.
Is your computer infected or susceptible to infection?
, what do you have installed on it?
Is it old?
Is it new?
What are you doing on it?
You know, all of these things.
We can go as far as to, minimizing the risk factor as much as possible
even before getting to the Bitcoin because all of this ecosystem,
all these elements are involved.
It's not just a cold wallet and a node and that's it.
Your cold wallet, your node, they all go through a router
to go through the internet.
So if those are compromised, then you possibly have a problem.
If your computer is compromised with like malware or virus,
, then you have a problem.
A big thing that a lot of people don't even know is a risk.
These are the actual cables that they use.
Did you know that there are cables that are infected with malware?
So you can buy a USB cable, regular looking cable, looks no
different from an infected one.
You plug this into your computer, your computer's done because
this cable contains a web server.
Which allows a remote hacker to execute scripts to do absolutely
anything and everything they want on your machine without your knowledge.
Okay?
Most people have no idea this even exists.
I check for it.
They think I'm crazy, but you know, once we find something,
then they're like, what the hell?
Where did you buy this from?
Well, I bought it from some cheap vendor for 2.
99.
I'm like, ah, there you go.
That's why it was 2.
99.
It's because you were worth more than the cable.
So, all of these details we think about.
Anything that has to do with Bitcoin, for example, and this is where, by the way,
here's a shout out to CoinKite because I think they do a really good job at this.
When you buy something from CoinKite, they wipe your data after 30 days.
So when you buy something Bitcoin related from another
merchant, do they wipe your data?
Not necessarily.
And the best thing that CoinKite brought, uh, well, whenever I guess they, they go
to conferences and you can, can buy, uh, entirely KYC free, but they, they brought
cold cards to Riga, Altecani Badger.
And it was fantastic.
Yeah.
But you see, that's because I don't know if it's NVK was making the decisions,
but their mindset is pure in that sense.
We're very aligned in this in direction of the thought
process behind these decisions.
You know, like privacy is a big deal.
So when you buy anything Bitcoin related from anyone, regardless of
who it is, the merchant themselves may have a fantastic product.
They could be the best people in the world.
They get hacked.
You're in trouble.
And a lot of folks don't even think about this now because Bitcoin is like 26, 000.
It's no big deal.
When Bitcoin is worth a hundred million dollars.
Let me tell you, every hack is a kill shot because it becomes very dangerous
at that point because people are specifically after the asset and those
that are hacking exchanges And doing, these things, they're not stupid people.
They know exactly what they're doing, why they're doing it and how to get to it.
So privacy is a big deal.
And if there's a way to preserve your privacy or to protect your privacy,
even as far as when you're making your purchases, we will find it.
And we will advise you on it.
And at the end of the day, it's up to you to either, take the advice or not.
Obviously we don't compel anyone to do anything.
We provide information.
So, it's Is this the only way for Bitcoin to become more secure for
the individual user in the future?
To just listen to advice?
Or will the free market take care of it sooner or later?
Like, how do you see the future playing out when the world
is getting hyperbitcoinized?
Obviously a lot of people will lose a lot of coins, which is good for the
people who still have their coins, because scarcity goes up, Uh...
Still how far into the future do you think services like this
will be needed, like forever?
Or, um, is it a transitory phase or?
Well, I, no, I think it'll, I mean, I think it'll be forever.
you're dealing with money here.
You're not dealing with a table or a chair.
It's not a luxury item.
Money.
It's money.
It's something that every human being needs.
It's not something that it's an option for them to want to get.
You have no money.
You have nothing.
You can't live.
So securing those funds is going, always going to be an imperative thing to do.
The notion of self custody petrifies a lot of people because
they've never had to do it.
Being your own bank, it sounds cool, but , for a lot of people, it's
like, Wow, man, this is too scary.
So they don't want to do it.
And so, you have other services that capitalize on this fear by sort of
like mimicking the conveniences of the traditional world into Bitcoin.
And everything is okay as long as everything is okay.
But as long as, as soon as something goes wrong, then people are like what happened?
And then they automatically assume that Bitcoin's the problem.
Look, it's a scam, it's a shitcoin.
No, it's not.
Bitcoin's not the problem.
The problem is...
You sacrificed responsibility for convenience and now you've paid the price.
That's what happened.
Yeah.
Reminds me of the Benjamin Franklin quote.
What is it?
Any society that would give up , a little liberty for a little temporary security
deserves neither and will lose both.
100%, 100%.
Self custody is not hard.
It's just new.
You know, like it's been said many times.
I mean, if you drive a car, you're doing something way more
complicated than self custody.
But you're familiar with driving a car, but were you born a car driver?
No, you had to learn it, right?
So, how is that any different from learning to self custody your money?
It's not.
You just have to be willing to sit down, listen, and learn to protect
something that you absolutely need.
It's not an option.
It's Bitcoin or slavery.
You want to choose the convenient, convenience road?
Well, you have many governments that will be more than happy to
provide you that convenience.
But that comes at a price.
Yeah, it reminds me of that picture of a lion in a zoo, and a lion, a proud male
lion on top of the, you know, the Lion King image was standing on top of some
mountain being The King of the Sahara or , the king of the Serengeti is the word.
And, , the lion in the Sioux being, uh, malnourished, but still
able to survive because he gets a meal every day from his captors.
But he's still behind bars.
So you choose if you're a real lion or if you're a captive
lion, that's the choice you have.
You've seen the meme, I guess.
yeah, of course, of course.
I mean, people, need to understand what the word freedom means.
Until you actually truly understand what it means and what it represents.
sometimes it takes extreme pain to slap
you out of whatever coma you're in, to wake you up, so to speak, you know?
And then once you get it, that's it, you're done, man.
There's no way you're going back to the other side.
And thankfully, there seems to be a lot more people that are getting it.
And that's definitely a big step forward for humanity, because, the
alternative to this is very dire, and I don't want to live in such a
future, and I don't wish for anyone's kids to have to live in such a future,
one that they have no control over.
, no one has the right to dictate what you do with your life, absolutely no one.
So, you obviously come from a computer security background, but what's
your background with economics?
Did you study any Austrian economics and praxeology and all of that?
No, that's the funny part is that I hated those courses in, in, in college.
The only reason I took them is because I was dating the
teacher, you know, but beyond,
ha, ha, ha,
but beyond, but beyond that, I was never interested in them.
But now because of Bitcoin, I'm far more informed and Interested and educated
on the matter that I've ever been.
I don't think what I know now, I would have never learned in school or college.
I mean, there are some amazing folks that have written books, you being one
of them that have taught me things that I would have never in my entire lifetime,
thought possible for me to understand, and that deepens my conviction.
into what I'm doing, you know, it solidifies the entire found,
like the ground that I stand on when I'm doing this work.
And when I'm helping others, when they come to the Bitcoin
way, it's a really, it's a feel good mission more than anything.
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So do you have any book recommendations or content recommendations in Bitcoin?
There's a lot of good books, man.
A lot of people like to start off with, the Bitcoin Standard,
Seyfeddin Amoussi is like, the go to.
There's a lot of people that start off with that.
For some reason, it resonates with them, but, there's Jeff
Booth's, Price of Tomorrow.
There's a lot of stuff out there.
I mean, I don't recall them all by hand now, but I do a lot of reading,
on my own whenever I have the time.
I listen to a lot of ... Good people on Twitter, to stay up to date, with
those topics that were not necessarily my strong point with regards to macro
and microeconomics and all that stuff.
Sometimes even philosophy, like Robert Breedlove, I listen to him
sometimes he brings perspectives that I've never thought of before,
which are very insightful and useful, but also help us doing what we do.
Sometimes you get a question that's not technical, based on, the knowledge that
you know, you sort of like explain it in a way that The other individual, like it
makes sense to them and you move forward.
Like you said, everybody helps each other in one way or another.
We primarily provide the tech knowledge about this, but our knowledge is
coming constantly from all other people, from all different directions.
We're not narrow minded just on the tech.
No, we want to know everything about everything that has to do with Bitcoin and
what we can do to accelerate its adoption and, keep contributing to it positively.
so do you think people can get Bitcoin without first getting what's
wrong with the traditional system and how they're being robbed by
it, or is that a required insight?
Like you said, you have to have the pain, like if you can understand
how inflation is stealing from you.
Is that, and how Bitcoin can't steal from you.
Is that a required, insight to get Bitcoin at all in your opinion?
It certainly helps make it faster and easier.
If somebody's been completely wrecked, to explain why Bitcoin matters.
But there are people that understand it.
I've encountered many folks, that I've sat down with and explained it to them,
but they were open minded to begin with, to hear what I had to say to, , and
I show them like concrete examples as to why, what it is, what's it for,
why the current system is no good.
Why you need an option, and then so forth.
Some people get it.
Most people, unfortunately, they don't get it.
And the sad part is that those that need it the most are the ones
that don't take it too seriously.
And by those, are usually high net worth individuals.
Okay?
Ironically.
Because they're so rich that it's almost like a form of arrogance, I find.
They feel so rich, like you're untouchable.
Come on, man, this will never happen to me.
Really?
There were people worth billions in Lebanon too.
That woke up the next day homeless, literally
you have, the more you have to lose.
yeah, yeah.
So, and another important thing, we take, by we, I mean people that are, in
financial privilege, take the fact that you can buy Bitcoin so easily for granted.
For us, it's like, we're investing for a better future.
So we can easily go, buy it off an exchange or you buy it
peer to peer, whatever the case, you have access to it easily.
So the people on this side of the planet are doing it as a
hedge against what's coming.
The other side of the planet is using it to survive.
There's a very big difference.
Bitcoin in certain parts of the world is literally saving lives.
They cannot eat, they cannot buy anything without it.
So, you have to keep a very, open mind about this, that yes, Bitcoin
serves many, fixes many things, but some people desperately need it.
Yeah, I know from personal experience, one of the things that happened to me quite
early in my, public Bitcoiner A career or whatever you may call it, was that I
got a letter from a guy who just recently fled Venezuela, and they thanked me for my
writings, had motivated him to do that.
So it was actually affecting a human being's life and, in some
way, shape or form help them escape a to totalitarian regime.
And that's was so empowering and such a holy shit moment , for me.
If it, it can just help someone somewhere, , a little bit that it has this cascading
effects that affects absolutely everyone on the planet in the end, and it's
just what an amazing time to be alive.
What an amazing thing to be a part of.
It's just completely.
Takes over your view of yourself and your view of the world.
And it's just beautiful.
You see the flaws in the, traditional system, and that's tragic and everything.
But the hope that this instills in people, it's great.
And to your point about the two sides of the planet, let's not forget that.
All the poor people in the world and all the people below the poverty
line, they can all accept Bitcoin for their goods and services.
And that's where the real magic happens when you start accepting
it for your goods and services.
That's where the real freedom comes in, right?
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
If you see what's happening in, places like Nigeria, it's absolutely absolutely
mind blowing, how they're using it.
I didn't even know you could use Bitcoin without the internet.
I learned it from them.
When I found out that they can transact without the internet, I'm
like, hold on a second, really?
Then I looked into this.
I'm like, wow.
This is where, the need, like accentuates the functions and the
features and things that you've never thought, possible because you need them.
So when you say, do you think Bitcoin adoption is going to increase
the security and all that stuff?
I think absolutely it's going to do because once it becomes valuable and
becomes like a must have, there's going to be a much bigger army of individuals
that are going to stand to protect it.
It's not going to be left to a handful of speculative people
just to make money off of it.
No, this becomes, a lifeline, like the oxygen for life for a lot
of folks and There's going to be an army protecting anyone attempting
to do anything, to do something nefarious, to risk destroying it.
I'm 100 percent convinced of this.
And a hundred years from now, they will look back upon our generation and
possibly, hail us as the heroes, as, you know, came up with this and, had the
courage to stand up and put an end to the abuse that's been going on for decades.
since forever, really.
I mean, coin clipping has been around since thousands of years.
Uh, inflation has always been in every monetary system.
Money needs to have a cost, a production cost.
Otherwise, it's not money.
It's bullshit.
Absolutely.
And even simpler than this, the mere notion that somebody can decide
how you live your life and how you spend your money, that on its own
must be completely destroyed and never allowed to exist again, ever.
It just doesn't make any sense to me
tell that to a lefty.
well, you know, obviously a lot of people will disagree with me on that point, but.
No, but it's such a, it's such a simple thing to understand when
you really think about it.
Why is it that other people can decide for you what to do
with your life and your money?
Because your money is your life.
It's supposed to represent the scarcity of your lifetime.
Your time and effort, your energy, is supposed to be represented by this number.
And when the number can be printed...
At will by some, like, it's cheaper to write the word dollar because I
have to press six keys instead of just pressing enter, which is the
cost of, of producing new dollars.
So the word dollar is more expensive than a dollar to produce.
absolutely,
that should tell you something.
absolutely, but the thing is people need to want not to be abused, , some
people just don't care and it just blows my mind when I see them react
that way, I try to frame it in a different way for some folks.
I'm like, if I came up to you every day and beat the shit out of
you, how long would you accept it?
Like, , I beat you up on Monday, you go home and you cry.
I beat you up on Tuesday, you go home and cry.
For how long are you going to sit there and let me beat you up?
Well, some people are sadomasochists, uh,
Okay.
Okay, fine.
But, but, but most people aren't right.
At some point, somebody is going
people, apparently most people are, I'd say, since they accept the fiat system.
Well, in the past two, three years, a lot of things have been very surprising,
but yeah, I guess maybe you're right.
Maybe you're right.
And hopefully there's a large amount of people that.
Stop doing this to make a difference.
Which I think we just need to get to maybe, I don't know what, 10, 15 percent
Bitcoin global adoption and the whole thing, just goes nuts after that.
It'll become so huge, as it is that.
There's nothing else out there that you want to transact with, you know?
once you're in it and once you're in these circles and you hang out
with other Bitcoiners and you see the other side, it becomes blatantly
obvious that how much better this is.
It's just like life with or without the internet, but on steroids.
I mean, it's, it's way bigger than that.
So yeah.
Luke, do you have any more questions for, for Tony before we wrap this up?
Yeah, I, I think, you've given us a great picture of, well, first of
all, yourself and the Bitcoin way.
And I just like to hear a little bit about the practical side.
What happens if someone contacts you and, books a call, uh,
walk us through the process?
sure.
, first of all, we always offer a 30 minute complimentary call.
It's the first 30 minutes are free just to get to know you, see
what you want, where you are in this journey, and what have you.
If, if someone, just to give you an example, someone has absolutely
nothing, we obviously start with, an educational part, , just to make sure
that they understand what it is that, they're getting into, what they're
buying, and it's not something that they're going to buy at x to sell at y.
It's not why we Bitcoin, there's way more value in this than that.
Then we get them into stage one is usually a cold wallet.
We get them set up and configured properly with a cold wallet and, fully air
gapped, on that sense that we move on to the node, set that up, connect the two
together, make sure everything's working.
Set up wallets properly with desktop mobile.
Once that's complete and understood, we can move on to purchasing no KYC Bitcoin.
We show them how to do it, because obviously that has its value
and merits for obvious reasons.
We also offer inheritance planning afterwards.
And if they have a business, we help them integrate Bitcoin
payments into that business.
And we take it from there.
But fundamentally, we want to make sure that everyone at the very
least has a cold wallet, air gapped.
Connected to a node, which is a must, because if you're not fully sovereign
or private, if you don't have that node, there's no way around it.
Without it, you're leaving fingerprints of anything Bitcoin
that you're doing on somebody else's server, on somebody else's node.
So what you have, what you buy, where you buy, when you do
it, there's a trace somewhere.
If you don't want this, You 100 percent need to know
there's no other way around it.
Yeah, excellent.
And, and so you basically take, your customers from, zero or
wherever they are to self sovereign.
That's the goal.
Yeah, the goal is 100 percent self custody.
And, sometimes people ask us, do we hold backup keys and all that stuff?
Right now, we don't.
We don't do this.
I want to make sure that you know how to become a sovereign individual.
I don't think anyone's too stupid to learn.
They just have to want to take the time.
To learn, and we spend a lot of time and are very patient in the process, by the
way, I can sit down with someone for many hours and , it wouldn't faze me one bit.
I've consulted folks for hours.
Eight hours a day, on the same person because, they weren't a technical person.
They had many questions, some of them, many would consider, Oh my
God, how can you put up with this?
It's okay.
Nobody's born knowing everything.
But at the end of the day, that individual is fully sovereign.
They know how to send, how to receive an air gapped mode,
fully secured, fully private.
And that for me is a win.
Excellent.
Well, Tony, thank you very much for coming onto our show and, for all
everyone listening, go to the bitcoin way.com to find out more, about, how
to get in touch with Tony and his team.
And, , hope to continue the conversation.
Absolutely, it was, thank you for having me, it was a great call.
Likewise.
And, anything else you'd like to mention, any final thoughts anywhere else
you'd like to direct our listeners to?
Well, if anybody wants to find me, I'm very active on Twitter.
You can use my Twitter handle, the V4BTC, which stands for Victory for Bitcoin, or
the BitcoinWay, obviously, the BitcoinWay Twitter handle, we're also very active
there, the BitcoinWay underscore.
So, if you have any questions with regards to Bitcoin self custody,
security measures, best practices, tips, tricks, and all that stuff,
Feel free to reach out anytime.
Happy to help.
Sounds great.
thanks again for joining us, Tony, and looking forward to
following everything you're up to and going on this journey with you.
you very much.
onwards and upwards.
This has been the Freedom Footprint Show, thanks for listening.
So what did you think of that episode with Tony?
It was great to hear about his contribution to the Bitcoin
space through the Bitcoin Way.
What was your favorite moment?
Let us know.
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