One of the key aspects there that we kind of align with is taking a long-term view of how you grow your business.
And I think that nicely fits in with kind of the Bitcoin ethos of low time preference, right?
And it is, how do I build this business to be sustainable and add value to clients in the long term?
We know there's a bunch of things that you can do in the short term to make more money.
But is that really in the interest of your clients?
And I think that aligns nicely with, hey, you know, I'm holding Bitcoin.
I know it's going to be volatile.
But I think long term, it is better for humanity.
It's a better asset.
I want to hold some portion of my wealth in it.
Bitcoin is a currency on the Internet.
If you don't trust any other currency, this is where you go.
It's going to outperform everything.
Bitcoin could eventually be worthless.
Every day is a good day to buy Bitcoin.
Bitcoin reached its highest price to date.
Bitcoin hitting a new high.
It really has reached escape velocity.
There is no second best.
Who cares about Bitcoin?
It's the only secure database that's ever been invented.
Antisocial.
Bitcoin is the real deal.
Stupid.
Everything is bullish for Bitcoin.
Immoral.
It's going up forever, Laura.
Fix the money.
Fix the world.
and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities,
investments, or investment strategies. Investments involve risk and almost otherwise stated or not
guaranteed. Information expressed does not take into account your specific situation or objectives
is not intended as a recommendation appropriate for any individual. Listeners are encouraged to seek
advice from a qualified tax legal or investment advisor to determine whether any information
presented may be suitable for their specific situation. Past performance is not indicative
of future performance. Any statements or opinions are subject to change without notice.
What's up, everyone? Thank you for tuning in. Welcome back to the Bitcoin for Financial Services
Media, the podcast where sound money meets professional services. We explore how to build
financial services industry within the principles ethos and values of bitcoin today we're honored to
be joined by joe wood founder of satoshi patroli let's get started
all righty welcome back y'all we are back with our second episode of the bitcoin for financial
services podcast this is the first episode though where we've got a guest and we uh we have a special
guest today, Joe Wood from Satoshi Pacioli. Joe is the owner and founder of Satoshi Pacioli
Accounting Services. And I know Joe well now, but Joe and I actually just met earlier, like
very beginning of this year at Bitcoin Park in Nashville. So we've gotten to know each other
well very quickly. And so I'm excited to have him on the show. And we've got Wyatt as well,
who's going to be, I think Wyatt's just here to get free tax advice, if I'm not mistaken.
And so that's a hundred percent.
Correct.
So Joe, thanks for taking the time.
I know, I know you're a busy man.
We're going into the end of the year and there's lots of work to be done on the tax side.
We'll get into all that.
But how's your, uh, how's your Monday or Monday or Tuesday?
How's it going?
Okay.
Oh, no, it's Tuesday.
No, we're just a day behind.
Uh, it's, it's going well.
Clearly I'm on top of things.
Yeah.
Yeah. Well, I guess tell us about because you were like the premier Bitcoin accounting firm. Right. And that's why that's why we're having you on, of course, because accounting is one of the main components in this whole well in the whole business cycle.
But of course, in an account or with the Bitcoin ecosystem. And so I wanted to just we've got to ask you, like how, you know, were you 2011? Were you class of 2015? How did you get into Bitcoin? Roughly what year?
yeah so it's always kind of hard to say exactly when you got in i i would say like i bought my
first bitcoin in like 2014 um and always was interested in from a like philosophical standpoint
like hey this would be really cool if this works right um and so it didn't take me very much to
like i heard about it was like oh that sounds like a great idea but it wasn't where i was like
oh i'm gonna like deep dive deep into this learn all the technical stuff um it was always kind of
one of those things that was kind of on the side of like hey there's this weird bitcoin thing it
aligned with like what i i think should work in theory but who knows what's actually going to
happen right um and so it was very much more so like a passive following for you know a number of
years watch the price go up watch the price go down um which is always fun um and then you know
as you know learning a little bit about it over the time but like you know i held bitcoin in 2017
when there was like you know the fork wars and everything um but don't really remember it didn't
have a strong opinion on it or anything um so to kind of give you a perspective of kind of how
deeply into it I was. And then really, yeah, 2020 came around, started a bunch of podcasts,
took it more seriously. Eventually all your debt worth is a Bitcoin. So this is kind of like the
normal cycle, I guess, but it took me kind of a while to kind of get deeply into it.
Well, and then, so remind me too, because you obviously you're CPA, but you weren't in tax
prior really to getting into Bitcoin, right?
You were more, I guess,
were you on the audit side of things prior?
Yeah, so I started on my career in audit.
I did like four years in audit and public accounting.
And then most of my career though,
I spent in accounting departments
for private companies, nonprofits.
So my accounting background really very much
is on the financial reporting side,
the general ledger, making payments,
receiving uh you know receiving uh invoices in um and i always kind of tried to avoid the tax stuff
because it's not the most fun thing to do um but it was very much one of those things where
you know i started up the company i was really focused on you know serving that controller role
for from all companies that weren't ready to hire a full-time person and continually were asked like
hey like do you do taxes do you do taxes and i was trying to stay away from it but like the what i
came to realize is like no one else actually has these answers like they need somebody who
understands bitcoin and i knew enough about taxes to like fill that role for them right
i mean we've evolved a lot since then brought on more expertise um but it really was like
the bitcoin piece was a missing piece for the people that needed the tax support so being able
fill that role for them in an immediate sense well now joe i appreciate that that's that's
fascinating insight and i think you're just like the the perfect first guest to have on this podcast
because we're really trying to help you know the normies and uh the folks working in traditional
your professional services like adopt bitcoin so i think satoshi patroli is the premier
bitcoin accounting firm give us some insight on how you you started the firm how you thought there
was how you evaluated the market and thought there was opportunity to take here yeah i mean
i don't know that it was all that uh strategic um it was um my last job was as a controller
at a non-profit in dc i got to the point where i was like i don't want to do this i want to do
something in bitcoin and so that was really the it came from the fact that i wanted to work in
Bitcoin. I wanted to work with Bitcoiners. And so after thinking about all the different things I
could potentially do, I was like, oh, you have 15 years of account experience. Maybe you should
lean on that a little bit. And so that was really what it kind of came out of there. And then
trying to just bring what I, you know, that traditional finance background, the accounting
knowledge, like knowing that, you know, whether it's a Bitcoin company or anything else, that you
still need that information. Right. And so just being able to apply that to the Bitcoin world,
where it's not overly complicated, right?
Like after you start learning about it,
like accounting for Bitcoin
is not the most complicated thing in the world.
But when you tell somebody who has been doing it
for 15, 20, 30 years,
hey, learn about this new thing,
they're probably gonna be like,
no, I don't want to, right?
And so that was probably the biggest difference
for me starting the firm
versus your CPAs that could have done it,
but just had no real incentive
or, yeah, no real desire to.
Well, and so far, I've only heard you talk about one cryptocurrency.
I've heard you talk about Bitcoin.
And I run into a lot of, I run into not a lot,
but some CPAs that are more crypto CPAs.
So I assume maybe you had a bit of a shitcoin phase.
I think maybe he's telling some of that story, if that exists,
if you want to share.
might be helpful to some other advisors who are kind of starting to dip their toe into the water.
But then also, once you answer that, if you could also kind of touch on why did you go Bitcoin only with your firm?
And from the outside looking in, someone might be like, well, aren't you kind of hampering your growth
because you could be servicing this broad industry, but you took this route of going extremely niche.
And of course, it's worked out very well for you. So maybe you could touch on that for the audience as well.
Yeah, I mean, I think I certainly had the shitcoin phase where it was, hey, but it was as I was learning about Bitcoin. Right. And it was like, hey, I'm going to learn about this thing. And then you had Bitcoin for a little while. And then it was like, oh, there's this Ethereum thing. And I don't really understand it at all, but it's going up. Maybe I should buy some. Right.
and so it really for me it was once I started to understand Bitcoin better I at least realized I
didn't understand any of the other crypto at all right and so I was like all right I got to this
point with Bitcoin maybe I should just focus on that and so I remember when I sold the all the
Ethereum I had it was hey I'm gonna like understand this one thing well and I'm not gonna own things
I don't understand whether it's from a technology or an asset standpoint.
And so for me, that was kind of the path.
And so I try not to be too judgmental of people that are like,
hey, everyone have all these different tokens.
I think there's probably a natural path there.
But for me, if you understand Bitcoin,
you understand why everything else doesn't really matter in the long term.
And so that's kind of the way I view it.
And then just from the, purely from the business side of things, I think for me at least, like, I couldn't, I don't think you can potentially, I don't think you can really fully understand all the different crypto.
I always kind of find it weird of like if Solana or Ethereum or XRP, like I assume they all work very differently.
I know they're all on blockchains, but if you actually want to understand the technology, like you probably have to go down a bunch of different rabbit holes.
And so it's like Bitcoin is complicated enough that maybe you should focus on that one thing and know that well.
if you're trying to understand 10 20 30 different cryptos if if you just want to do like the tax
cost basis reporting that's probably fine but if you actually want to advise people and be an expert
in it and get grain gain a really good understanding of it you probably have to focus on one and you
what you don't see is oh i'm an ethereum accountant or i'm a xrp accountant um because like obviously
that's not where you're going to like grow a business on it. Right. So you just put everything
in the crypto bucket and you're like, oh, I know more about this than everybody else. Right.
Which is maybe not the greatest place to start with. Yeah, that's such a good point. The first
XRP account and I see I'm going to quit and I'm just going to exit stage left done. I think you're
totally right. You know, one of my favorite sayings in Bitcoin is Bitcoin works like how
your grandma thinks money actually works and it's like yes it is complicated there's a lot of nuance
to it but if you focus on it's like it's actually you know somewhat somewhat simple to grok uh it's
really not as complex i think we can actually do ourselves a disservice by you know making it like
this super you know complex system you just takes homework like anything else but in that that
journey joe were you ever pressured by any mentors or you know friends whatever it may be to
really kind of embrace cryptocurrency at large or were you just like from the beginning i'm bitcoin
only i'm planting my flag um yeah i think probably most people just thought it was a terrible idea
general of just focusing on the county firm on just bitcoin even if it's bitcoin in in crypto
um so yeah no one no one specifically was like oh you should do all crypto um but i i mean there
there is a line there where it's like,
hey, where do you actually draw the line, right?
And it's not like, hey, if you hold any other assets,
we're not going to do your tax return.
Or if it's like, hey, you sold some, you know,
assets this year to convert into Bitcoin.
Oh, we're not going to do your tax return, right?
It is more so a, hey, here's where our interest
and here's where our expertise lies.
And whether we're a good fit for you or not
is more on the client side.
But if you want someone, an expert
in all these different areas,
we're probably not the right fit for it.
Your wealth deserves intention.
Basilic Financial is a Bitcoin-focused wealth management firm
built to help our clients find balance between money and meaning.
We integrate sound money strategies across four distinct personalized services.
Financial planning, individual wealth management,
retirement services for SMBs, and Bitcoin financial services.
Your prosperity, your purpose, intentionally guided at Basilic Financial.
Visit our website at basilic.io to schedule free consultation.
Totally, totally.
Well, and that's what I think is kind of unique about, you know, services businesses.
I think it's really more the venture-backed, you know, businesses, you know,
whether that's, you know, whatever type of exchange or product
that really get a lot of pressure you know from VCs to you know adopt other cryptocurrencies and clearly I morally opposed to that So I do think it an interesting segment of financial services generally not venture
back or scalable businesses, where you really do have a lot more flexibility to just embrace
what you believe in and you can really kind of lead the noise out.
So I appreciate the insight on that.
well joe could you also tell us a little bit about the satoshi paccioli uh token offering
you guys are launching a token later this year yeah that's i think the big announcement for this
podcast yeah we don't have a price yet but yeah uh only 21 billion for now for now and then we'll
see um no i'm just kidding i one thing that came to mind as you guys were just talking was
so the the bitcoin industry has had to do a lot of growing up you know really even in the last five
years right and i'd just be curious you've had this you know keen insight to see bitcoin businesses
from all the way from startup to you know more established businesses that are just owned by
bitcoiners and so they either have it on their you know balance sheet or they just distribute
the profits out and they buy the Bitcoin personally. But I would just be curious,
like you've played this crucial role actually of, of helping a lot of, you know, and all founders
are bootstrapped kind of like scrappy guys or gals, but you, you've helped people who have
come into wealth that they probably didn't expect to come into. I'd just be curious, like how you,
how you see the role you've played in helping the asset class actually grow up a bit and come into
more of the mainstream yeah um i mean we yeah we have a wide variety of clients there and so
it's everybody from hey i've been in bitcoin for 10 plus years and i need someone who understands
it to you know help me with my tax accounting whatever it is um to the hey i just you know
just got in last year and you know maybe older older clients um and they have you know cynically
more wealth that they built up and so they're putting a cynically amount of money in but they're
relatively new to bitcoin and so our role has really kind of evolved there from a hey i used
to always tell people like i know a lot less about bitcoin than my clients do right because they are
building businesses in the space, you know, building infrastructure, wallets, whatever
it is.
They're the experts.
I'm trying to learn from them.
And then now we have more and more as you have the ETFs and just more Wall Street getting
in.
It is more new people that are getting exposed to as an asset.
And so they are coming to us more so as like a guide, advisory.
And so that role has kind of evolved over these four years here.
And yeah, not something I probably anticipated. I really was getting into it of, hey, I'm going to bring my accounting expertise to the Bitcoin space. And that being in the Bitcoin space and learning about it, going to BitDevs more regularly, like understanding it more, we're able to be a more valuable advisor to the people that have come in the last couple of years, which has been interesting to see.
yeah well that all makes sense i mean it's it's definitely it is interesting when you're talking
to someone who's like on the development side right like something that comes to mind for me
and we can actually maybe pivot a little bit into some of the just nuances especially on the
accounting side since i know that's kind of where you uh mostly live at this point on in the firm
talk us through of course there's the whole cost basis there's bitcoin treated as property
but maybe specifically like how are you thinking about different data sources that are harder to
to track like I'm thinking specifically about lightning and how difficult it really is to track
these micro payments do we have I guess and I know you guys have done a lot of work with you know with
spreadsheets and but I guess just talk us through for an advisor who's not fully you know ingrained
and how all this works.
What does it look like from when you started the firm
dealing with all of that stuff
to where Lightning sits now within the business?
Yeah, I mean, that certainly has changed quite a bit as well.
Yeah, Bitcoin in some ways is very transparent.
You have a blockchain.
You know, if you want to go through and read the blockchain,
you can see all the detail there.
And if you have very little insight into what it's for, right?
Like it's all in there and transparent.
You can get back to it.
lightning is kind of the exact opposite of that right um where even like the the service provider
that you're working with like the exports that you get um the information there is just it's
harder to track and if you're not doing it in real time going back and getting it is still very
difficult um so i there are there's a wide variety of like um ways you can do that some
are more built out than others um depending on yeah like if you're if you're using a you know a
voltage or something like that you have a little bit more support versus if you're running your own
node at home and you have to track all that yourself right um and so there there's a wide
variety there and there's different lightning setups right um so all that to say like it is
one of those things that we tell people to start of like if you can set up your accounting side of
it if you can you can track your transactions really before you start and you have that set
up you're going to be a much better place if we have to go back a year even six months and get all
the transactions um it's all there it's all possible to get to but it's a lot harder to do
after the fast if then you're proactive and maybe you set up something like bitment where you have
it plugged in from day one um i know you guys are working on getting the lightning side set up but
um like tools like that are critical so that we don't have to have these conversations with our
client when they're you know when you're having the conversation on hey you should accept bitcoin
for payment um it was like oh how do i do that and like there are custodial ways to do it right
But if you want them to handle it themselves, getting the tools good enough so that you come to the end of the year and it's not a bit of a black hole is a huge, huge gap to get through.
Go ahead, Jordan. You show Bitment.
I'm just learning about Bitment, so I'll have to look into that tool.
But thanks for shouting that out, Joe.
well it's such a an interesting point joe because as you were describing that i was like
ah shit looks like my bookkeeper is gonna have to go back and do some work because i didn't set up
the proper infrastructure so would you kind of have any kind of you know generalized advice you
know for folks that are you know interested in you accepting bitcoin you're paying vendors in
bitcoin like what are what are some easy things to do off the jump to make sure we don't have kind
of this you know rat sense we have to untangle yeah i mean just i mean personally like for our
firm we accept bitcoin and we run everything through zap right so zap right's essentially
an invoicing well more than an invoicing platform now but we use it for invoicing so we send out
payment invoice requests to our clients and it has an option on there to pay in bitcoin
lightning credit card ach um and so for us that's really nice in that we have the record of how much
bitcoin we received at the time and so that we can always go kind of go back to that as our source
of truth right so you know regardless of where it's going whether it's going into a self-custodial
wallet into a you know a river or strike account into a lightning node like in zap right it all
looks the same and I can all get to those records. So tools like that are really valuable.
Square now has it built into their point of sale. I haven't seen their reporting on it. I'm assuming
that it's really good. Hopefully it's really good. And most of those people are going to convert to
dollars right away as well. So from that standpoint, the Bitcoin tracking becomes less important. But
I think it really will become like, it has to be built into the product up front versus having to
go back and do the accounting later. I think that's kind of the key and critical things
as we try to build this out. If we actually want people to use Bitcoin as a payment mechanism,
you have to build the accounting kind of seamlessly into it.
Totally. Well, I want you to double click on that a little bit more because from my seat,
I think it's my job as an advisor is getting more robust and in some ways easier because there's other entrepreneurs in the space that are developing Bitcoin-based financial products that I can help my clients with.
So since you started Apacheoli, kind of walk us through on what is the tool development been that you've been able to kind of tap into?
How is that making your job easier, et cetera?
yeah i mean yeah there's been a lot out there i think i mentioned zap right as far as the invoice
and that makes that side really easy um one of the things that we use i don't even know that
it's advisable for all clients but we use uh like the strike bill pay as well um for businesses so
for us we keep our treasury in bitcoin and so as people are paying us we're rolling into bitcoin
or they're paying us a Bitcoin.
And so our balance sheet essentially looks like Bitcoin.
And then when we're paying payroll, it comes out
and the payroll processor hits the strike account, right?
And Bitcoin comes out of it, right?
And so that is a custodial solution, right?
So it's not perfect as far as like,
hey, you're trusting the custodian,
but from just an ease of process,
if you want to live on Bitcoin
and you want Bitcoin to be your base currency,
you can do that now with the bill pay, right?
It does not make your account it easier.
Every time you do that, you have a gain or loss,
which again goes into you have to build that in
on the back end of like, hey, you're buying it here.
We know how much you paid for it.
Every time you have a transaction,
we're recording a quarter of that gain or loss.
If that's built into the exchanges,
the headache on the consumer side is so much easier to take care of i know river's done really
well with that for a while where they'll have pdf statements on a monthly basis that tell you
here's how much bitcoin you have here's the realized gain here's the unrealized gain
and then like from my standpoint we check that but it's really nice to have something you just go to
and actually have that already at least as a starting point when you're doing that calculation
so yeah i mean we use strike i think river has great yeah statements great uh proof of reserves
there now as well especially after you know 2021 with all the ftx stuff um having a business hold
bitcoin it's one of those things where you really want to be you know if they're going to do
custodially you want to have some like some support that they actually hold in the bitcoin that
they say they are. So, I mean, there's probably a million more things that I'm not thinking about
right now, but just the where the industry is today versus four years ago. Yeah, I think just
light years ahead and the tools are light years ahead. Lightning is light years ahead, right?
so not perfect by any means still probably a long ways to go there a lot on the privacy side where
we probably have a lot of work to do but yeah like unfortunately like a lot of the companies
that we got we've gotten to work with kind of have have led the charge there but if you're
getting into bitcoin today and the tools and resources that are out there are just drastically
different than they were four years ago, but definitely five, six, seven years ago.
If you're a financial professional working with Bitcoin, you know the pain of messy CSVs,
broken cost basis, and accounting tools that were never built for this asset. Bitment fixes that.
Bitment is the Bitcoin native accounting platform built for CPAs, bookkeepers, advisors,
miners and serious bitcoin investors you get clean bitcoin bank statements reliable cost basis
tracking full reporting and fiat integration through plaid no crypto talk no workarounds
just proper accounting for the hardest money on earth create a free account or book a demo at
bitment.co today i would say that's that's amazing um i really appreciate you sharing that because
like one i think that's very you know encouraging for for people that may be intimidated and
accepting Bitcoin. I mean, they're, they're treasuring Bitcoin. It's like the, the tool
set is getting very robust, but also encouraging and exciting too, that there's still plenty of
opportunities to, to build. Yeah. I was going to have you actually zoom in on the, uh, on the
privacy component. I know like, obviously Bitcoiners are, you know, very particular bunch,
right. And, um, and you're handling a lot of, uh, you know, sensitive information. I mean,
that's just the nature of tax and accounting in general, but then even more so potentially on,
on how we're, how do we even actually get some of this data from the client, right? Maybe we're
having to ping their, their X pub. And, and then the other piece is like when you're paying out
Bitcoin, if you don't do it right, are you exposing your balance to, you know, a counterparty,
if you're just doing everything on chain? So maybe, maybe talk through just how you all approach
privacy within the firm in general and then how you seeing some of these tools that are built out to actually just generally make Bitcoin more private than it inherently is Yeah Yeah so always trade there
I think for us, the privacy broadly comes from, you know, one of the other sides of using custodial services is that, you know,
the custodian is the one actually making the payments.
And so it's not going to a multi-sig or a single-sig where we're holding the keys.
And, you know, if we wanted to pay all our employees out of our Bitcoin single SIG wallet, like you could kind of see how much we were holding in there. Right. It's not a great solution. But I think Lightning itself is a great option there. Right. Where, you know, payments on Lightning are more private.
and then I know just on the more technical side,
you know, PayJoin has been one of those things
that has been developed relatively recently
that has a lot of potential there
where it still needs to gain adoption, traction,
and actually get people to use it.
But there are more ways that Bitcoin can be private.
I think it's honestly one of those things
where it is more of a do people actually want it and do they care versus are the tools available
and out there um there are probably more better there's probably tools out there that are
underutilized because there isn't actually as much of a focus on there we have a we have a select
view and like we see kind of maybe some of the more hardcore people that care about the privacy
but it's probably not up there as much for even most of our client base right um so like we've
we've made that a point of emphasis for our clients for for our operations so like we'll
use proton mail for our our um our mail service we have encrypted storage for receiving documents
for clients we do that because we care about you know safeguarding and making sure that we don't
leak our customers um information but i think the reality is if we if we change from that 95
of our clients probably don't care right and so it is very much the minority that we are trying to
make sure that we satisfy but then also like dragging some people along there right where
it's like actually there are really good reasons to care about this this is not just privacy for
the sake of like keeping all your information um you know secret so you can do tax fraud is
hey you don't need to expose your data to people if they don't need it right and so
some of that's education um but i i think there are there are probably more i don't think tools
are the issue at this point.
I think it is, you know,
the average Bitcoiners willingness
or sense of ERV's HC to use them, I would say.
Yeah, I'm happy you brought that up, Joe,
because that's something I really am curious
in getting your input on,
because something, you know,
Jordan and I want to do with this
is helping normies
or traditional financial service providers
really kind of understand the language of Bitcoin
and working with Bitcoiners
and Bitcoiners are a unique bunch.
And I think the encryption, Proton are great examples
of kind of going above and beyond to service Bitcoiners
or provide what they want to see.
So over the course of running your business,
how have you been intentional about kind of serving
the psyche and ethos of Bitcoiners?
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, another example there is like,
we will use like Maple AI for like our AI stuff
of like we want to stay on top of the most recent like progressions we want to use technology in the
to you know make our firm you know more efficient keep our prices down like be able to do all that
but doing a private privacy preserving way so i think it really has been like staying up to
to date on the most recent trends what's available out there and there are people on our team that
know this stuff a lot better than I do we kind of can lean on as far as hey what's going on um
and so it really has been a what are the tools out there and what are the trade-offs that we're
making we we try not to do things just for the sake of like hey this is the most private way to
do it this is going to give us the most like brownie points for you know the most hardcore
our privacy people we try to make it actually like a tangible trade-off where it's like
all right we use ProtonMail there are some things that don't work as well with ProtonMail but
overall we feel better about using that than running it to like something like Google or Gmail
where we know all that information is going to get exposed maybe not broadly but to Google at least
right and every one of those decisions is hard though there's not one thing where it's like
we're always doing the most private thing it is is the privacy trade-off work whatever whatever
other vantage it at it is out there and i think as those tools get built out though ideally there's
more less and less trade-off to make um to save that privacy but it's always going to be a battle
of like what are you giving up what are other firms able to do that we're not able to do
because maybe it's not as open or not as integrated.
So that's been a constant battle for us.
Yeah, no, that makes sense.
I wanted to potentially pivot a little bit
because part of this whole show is about educating,
like what I just said about just what Bitcoin is.
One of the things that struck me
when I got into my Bitcoin podcast journey
was I heard a gentleman on the What Bitcoin Did podcast,
I'm going to blank on his name, maybe I'll think of it,
but he spoke about Bitcoin, the network.
And obviously there's Bitcoin, the asset.
That's what people generally mean
when they talk about Bitcoin.
But then there's Bitcoin, the network.
And Joe, I think you just have such a unique position
being that you are the accounting guy in Bitcoin.
talk to us about what bitcoin the network is how does it like how is it a ledger and how do we
actually all keep the ledger and make sure that there's no devil spend no um no funny business or
anything like that yeah this is one of those things where i think because of the the nature
of bitcoin i would i would expect more accounts to get it earlier uh which is a little bit
disappointing uh but yeah like i and i don't know i don't know this was one of the initial like
draws to it but like it always made sense to me right i'm like when we talk about the network
we're talking about essentially all the transactions historically on bitcoin are all view
viewable on a ledger um all transparent right um and you can go i i mean i remember when i first
you know loaded up ran my own node and seeing like the blocks fill right and like having the
full data to go back to um i i mean i could be wrong about this but i don't know that it really
exists in any way with anything else out there um and so like having a historical ledger there
where you're able to see all those transactions um for what 16 years now um it's kind of an
amazing thing just on itself um and that obviously a little bit of a tangent but that led a lot of
people in the kind of the earlier years and probably even still in a day of like oh this is
awesome what else can we do with this blockchain i want to put everything on the blockchain right
um it was like all right maybe that wasn't really the solution but for money right where it's like
i want to have a clear transparent ledger of all the the transactions that's happened
And, you know, throughout the globe or at least right now, whoever's using Bitcoin, it's kind of an amazing thing from an accounting standpoint.
And so, like, yeah, from an accountant where it's like, hey, we're used to working with ledgers.
We have double entry bookkeeping.
Having, you know, an open, transparent public ledger was always one of those, you know, initial fascinating things that I would think your average accountant should be like, at least that's interesting, right?
but we haven't had a ton of adoption necessarily in the accounting world compared to
at least the broader space but maybe we're catching up.
Hey that's what we're trying to do here right Wyatt we're trying to bring some more normal CPAs
into the fold. Yeah I mean I just I feel like it's so interesting that you know how even how
the nodes work. The analogy that I heard early on was, it's like a group of people, call it 10
people who have all memorized the New Testament of the Bible, right? And so if one person says that
John 3.16 says something that it doesn't, right? The other nine folks who have memorized it, they
can all as a group say, no, like we all say unanimously, that's not true. And that's what
the nodes are able to do, right? Since we're all running the same code, we've all got the same
transaction history, we can validate amongst ourselves what's true on the network and what's
not true, which is just, is very interesting because generally you, well, one, generally all
that stuff's hidden, right? Maybe there's a group of nodes for JPMorgan Chase that has all their
transaction history, but of course, none of us can see that. And so, yeah, it's definitely very,
That was always a big part of my Bitcoin journey as an accountant myself, I guess.
Yeah.
And I think the other big difference there is Bitcoin is not tangible, right?
But it is actually sending data back and forth that has something to it, right?
Whereas literally on the JP Morgan spreadsheet is just numbers from one sheet to another.
And it's like, oh, I owe you this.
Now you owe me that.
And these numbers go back and forth, right?
Whereas like Bitcoin, whoever is it currently at, whoever has those keys has that Bitcoin, right?
And if it doesn't move, then you don't have a transition, a transfer of that Bitcoin.
So it is that kind of that digital but real asset side that is, I think, really hard to wrap your mind around at first of like, hey, these are just made up numbers.
And it's like, I mean, kind of, but also like there is something behind it and it does require real, real energy to move the Bitcoin.
And yeah, it is one of those things that, you know, I don't think I even like touched the surface on for the first five years of kind of like thinking about Bitcoin.
It took me a little while.
Well, I'm happy you brought that up, Joe, because that's one of the points I harp on.
we're all responsible for building a Bitcoinized financial system within the values,
principles, and ethos of Bitcoin. And I think that only happens with the asset settling and trading
in kind. And that's extremely important and obviously unique to Bitcoin just being a digital
bear asset. So I love that aspect about Bitcoin. I think it's really kind of
underrated, especially when we're talking about how centralized ledgers work.
This episode is brought to you by Satoshi Pacioli, a full-service accounting and tax
firm built for the Bitcoin economy. If you run a Bitcoin business, mine Bitcoin, or invest in it,
you need advisors who actually understand how this industry works. Satoshi Pacioli handles
bookkeeping, financial reporting, tax compliance, and strategic planning for Bitcoin-focused
companies and individuals. They speak the language of Bitcoiners and help you stay
compliant while building for the long term. To learn more or book a consultation, visit
satoshipacioli.com. So I'd love to just bring up how the firm is changing. Of course, you know,
for those who don't know, Joe and I are actually merging our firms together here by the end of this
year. But specifically, like, you know, your team has grown a lot over the last, obviously, three or
four years. And I'd love for you to touch on, you know, the client advisory services that you guys
are adding on, as well as touch on the PBM side, because I think it's really unique what you,
what you're trying to build, you know, essentially trying to help bring the Bitcoin businesses
into the future and adding some pretty unique consulting services on top of the
underlying accounting stack? Yeah. There's probably a lot there. I could dive into each of it.
I mean, as far as the team growth, yeah, we're looking at beginning of next year as a merge
firm, about 11 people to start. You said growth over the last three or four years. It really has
been the last two years it was basically it was just me for the first two years um and then
essentially added two people in year three um and now as we're going you know year four into year
five we'll be at 11 um so yeah pretty pretty significant growth in a relatively short period
of time after like a kind of a slow start there right where it's the first couple years it's very
Like, hey, what's going on? What's the industry? What is our actual unique fit here?
So that's been interesting.
And yeah, kind of like you touched on, we're trying to see what is out there as far as needs in the industry
and what are kind of some of the unique values that we can bring.
And so we started with, you know, the accounting, the monthly close, the financial reporting stuff.
um we have essentially like three four people for three or four person team doing that um
we have you know a whole full tax function um what are we up to there on the tax side now
if we do what we do fds yeah i think it uh five five or six of us depending on what what bucket you fall in figure out how much you want to allocate to each person So yeah that kind of always been like a 50 thing for us though of like between tax and then the monthly accounting
Kind of been 50-50 as far as like workload, revenue coming in, kind of a split there in that they do work very nicely together of like, hey, you need tax support.
You need monthly accounting.
you need you know and then also like leaning into like fractional cfo client advisory services
we're gonna have a full-time person devoted to fractional cfo work and in the new year we already
have you know i think probably a backlog of clients that need that right now uh so really
being able to ramp that up in 2026 um and really just being able to focus on i mean i think uniquely
that that fractional cfo side it is getting someone with many years of experience doing
fractional cfo work but also with a deep understanding of bitcoin is going to be very
hard to find there's a few of them out there but like being able to bring one on full time onto the
team now that we have kind of the workload and need for it has been like i think will be a huge
value add across our whole client base right um and that there is the hey a dedicated fractional
cfo and then there is the hey i just need these one-off questions here and there and like being
able to have that on the team will be great um and then you reference the kind of the pbm stuff
uh what i would broadly call kind of like organizational development um a little bit
outside the the main accounting focus of the organization outside accounting and tax um or
even finance where it gets into how do you as a bitcoin or want to think about running your
business growing your business um that has been one of those things where i came from an organization
that had a pretty strong culture as far as like organization development leadership and how
organizations should run um and one of the guys that worked there and that i learned a bunch of
stuff from was looking for new opportunities really wanted to get into bitcoin um and so it
was one of those just i i wouldn't have done it if they're like the time time in place hadn't kind
of worked out nicely for both of us um and so he's been helping us internally for the last few months
to kind of build out our processes
and the timing's worked great
as far as we've grown as a team
to help us think more strategically about things.
A whole wide range of things
that would probably be better to dive into
with him versus me trying to explain it all,
but really just fundamentally trying to get organizations
to be strategic and with that Bitcoin mindset
as far as growth and long-term thinking.
And we have him working with one external client
is kind of a test case for us right now.
And then really looking to roll that out broader in the new year again
to what other Bitcoin businesses out there are growing, doing really well.
Maybe they have a first-time founder.
They want to get things organized as far as like,
hey, how do I want to run this business?
How do I get everyone on the same page?
I think there's a huge need for that.
And so we'll be rolling out that more broadly probably towards January this year
and seeing what companies kind of want to dive into it.
Well, I'm so happy we got on this topic
because that was something I was really interested in
chatting with you about, Joe,
is I think there's a little bit of a chicken and egg problem
when it comes to growing Bitcoin businesses.
You spent time in traditional finance.
You obviously built a business in Bitcoin.
So two-parter here.
It's like when you've come to evaluating talent,
are you kind of prioritizing knowledge in Bitcoin?
Are you kind of prioritizing a knowledge in your core field and like trying to teach or train staff on one or the other?
And then this second, which kind of related to what you were just talking about, being in Bitcoin, servicing Bitcoiners, having Bitcoin as a core function ethos of your business.
How is that influence your thoughts on your business model?
How is it? How does it vary from traditional CPA or advisory firms? Why don't you tackle those two things for us?
Yeah. So, I mean, I guess on the first side. So one of the one of the tools we have kind of in our our organizational framework is like when we look at talent, we have them on like a matrix of like virtues and then talent.
So it is like, how technically competent are you?
How good are you at doing the thing that you're going to do?
And like, what are your virtues, right?
And you decide how much like Bitcoin wants to like work into those virtues.
But really it is like, we're primarily focused on like, who are the high value people that
if I need to teach them something, I can teach them, but they're going to be the right people
for the organization long-term over the person that may be the most technically competent.
And I think I would probably apply that to Bitcoin or accounting, right?
So I can teach someone more about accounting or I could teach them more about tax.
I can't teach them to be a better person, right?
We're probably a little bit past that phase.
So that's kind of how we think about it as far as like priorities there.
And I think either way, like we've had people that are newer to Bitcoin that are still learning, but really want to grow, right?
And then we have people that have been in Bitcoin for a while.
That's maybe more closer to me where it's like, hey, I just want to work in the Bitcoin.
How do I figure out how to contribute there, right?
And so Bitcoin is inherently a piece of that, I think, as we look at the people that we're bringing on.
But it is not like a one-size-fits-all.
It is very much, I think, virtues first.
And then out of that, like, what's the right fit for the organization?
So I think that was the first part of your question.
What's the second part?
just how uh bitcoin has changed or um influenced your thoughts on your business model
yeah i mean this is kind of one of the things that we try to build into this what we're calling
like a pbm product which is um yeah essentially yeah like an organizational framework of like how
do you think about your business and one of the key aspects there that we kind of align with is
taking a long-term view of how you grow your business and i think that nicely fits in with
kind of the Bitcoin ethos of low time preference, right? And it is, how do I build this business to
be sustainable and add value to clients in the long term? We know there's a bunch of things that
you can do in the short term to make more money. But is that really in the interest of your clients?
And I think that aligns nicely with, hey, you know, I'm holding Bitcoin. I know it's going to
be volatile. But I think long term, it is better for humanity. It's a better asset. I want to hold
some portion of my wealth in it right and so i think those as we looked at this product and as
we're trying to build it out of like who is going to like gravitate to it and would actually buy in
and get value in um into some of these concepts it's going to be the big corner that are already
kind of familiar with it and comfortable with it um from a very like kind of base level
oh that's awesome and you know follow a question how did you justify bringing
jordan on even though he scored well on that virtue scale uh yes uh it was uh i mean
yeah he was obviously very high in other areas but that is one of those things actually
i'm like we have like a we call it like a matrix right and like you actually
the person that's really high in the talent section um if they're not like they're actually
the worst one to have if they're low on the virtue because like they're the ones that can
actually do the worst uh damage to your organization um so as much as i would like to say
that jordan is like very very low on that uh it probably doesn't work out
no it's been uh no it's been fun honestly i like joe and i met because i was trying to
you know talk to him about hey maybe this software we're developing would be helpful for the firm and
he's like yeah no that sounds interesting but uh what if we just merge firms together too and i was
like let's do that too that sounds fun so yeah yeah no it was very much one of those things where
we we knew we we potentially were growing and it was like hey we got all this in down demand
it was me and seth it was like all right we're pulling this off but it's like we need more
people we need more expertise and jordan had been doing this for a while already uh and he's building
up the software so it was like hey if we need more people like there's not gonna be anybody better
than than jordan so like how do we pull this off that's mutually beneficial for everybody
and so we talked for a little while um eventually able to to make it happen
yeah no it's all all fun stuff well i think that that i don't have any other questions i don't know
why is anything else on your mind you want to make sure we cover yeah um i'm starting to think
we should just make this a recurring question for for all of our our guests but i think it's so
funny joe that uh it's almost like innate within bitcoiners like they have this skepticism
of professional services like i just buy bitcoin i'm fine how have you encountered that how have
you kind of uh countered it or you know kind of you know educated your client base where it's like
yes bitcoin's awesome but my services are still valuable yeah um i don't we probably don't get
that as much as you do um because like i mean we will get the people that will say
oh why would I pay taxes on my bitcoin the government doesn't know about it I'm not going
to pay taxes when I send my bitcoin or whatever it is I'm like that's fine you go ahead and do that
we're not going to be your accountant um but generally if you are coming to us they like they
realize there's a need for it right and they're trying to do it correctly and so like those people
that are coming to us like we get less of that in that um assuming that they do want to compliantly
file their taxes like they're going to have a need and like a support for that um so probably
less so than than your side where they are saying like hey i'm just going to hold everything at
bitcoin i don't need any help where it's like there's a little bit more nuance to that right
um but yeah i think it i think we'll get more of that honestly um as people just hold the etf right
and they're like oh i just have the etf it's just like anything else and then it's like all right
if you just want to hold the etf that's fine again we're probably not the right fit for you
um so i i we'll probably see that evolve in the years to come
must be nice you guys have a spoiled riches over at satoshi patroli i should have been an accountant
i i don't know about that every every accountants i've ever worked with i feel like in the first
couple years they're like oh what do you want to do next how do you want to evolve and they're like
i want to go work in finance i'm like i know you want to go work in finance but
someone's gotta do the accounting uh yeah yeah i wouldn't be too jealous no definitely not
well this is great joe thank you so much for just being so gracious and uh generous with your time
uh and for being our first guest on the bitcoin for financial services
podcast um we'll be excited to bring you back out to denver uh where wyatt's at we're
out in the mountains mountain men out there why it's always giving me stuff you know crab
about living in the Midwest.
So I think he's...
Joe's trying to get me to move to Nashville.
Wife's trying to get me to move out West.
And my in-laws want me to move to Florida.
So I got to figure out where to go next, I guess.
But all that said, really appreciate it, Joe.
Yeah, absolutely.
Thanks for having me on.
Yeah, thanks so much for coming on, Joe.
I hope you were the first guest with a badge of honor.
Quick clarification, though, because that was slanderous.
I'm a Midwest boy.
I'm from the Midwest.
Kentucky is not the Midwest.
That's the South.
okay well Louisville is right on the is right on the line generally is Tennessee in the Midwest
yeah that's the south too okay that's what we said right when we were getting on the call I was like
Joe did you get snow today he's like no I'm in the south I'm like all right fair enough so um
well this is great yeah we'll probably have to bring you back on Joe maybe uh post-tax season
and get the rundown on how everything went.
So where can people find the content
that Pacioli's putting out,
follow you if they wanted to reach out for services?
Yeah, probably it should be pretty easy
to find Satoshi Patroli.
We're really the only one out there.
It's a little hard to spell,
but Satoshi Patroli accounting,
you'll find this, our website, Twitter, Noster.
we have a sub stack as well so if you want more of this like content i would go to the sub stack
probably first that's where we're really trying to build out and get some more educational
resources whether for our clients or more broadly um some really valuable information that we think
is missing there that's hard to fit into like i'm a short you know short tweet so um that's where i
would point people to the most. Perfect. All righty. Well, thank you so much, Joe. We will
talk to you next time. Great. Thanks.
and our clients are better served.
Stay sharp, stay sovereign, and keep leading from the front.
Thank you.