We're trying to provide an escape hatch for people as fiat collapses around us.
But more specifically, I think it can be said that we're trying to build an anti-CBDC.
And that's kind of our core mission.
I personally think CBDCs are going to continue to become more pervasive.
They are. They're growing all over the world.
Now the question is, is a CBDC coming to you?
Is it coming to us here in the United States?
I believe it will someday.
I don't know how long that's going to be,
but it could be sooner rather than later.
And I want to make sure that I have a product
that is prepared to withstand that storm.
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 can eventually be worthless.
Every day is a good day to buy Bitcoin.
Bitcoin reached its highest price to date.
Bitcoin getting 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.
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investments, or investment strategies. Investments of all risk and almost otherwise stated are not guaranteed.
Information expressed does not take into account your specific situation or objectives. It 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.
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Welcome to the Bitcoin for Financial Services show, the podcast where sound money meets professional services.
We explore how to build the financial services industry within the principles, ethos, and values of Bitcoin.
And today we are joined by Adam Semecka, the founder of MANA, a self-custodial Bitcoin spending wallet that's built for everyday use.
And they're also building out merchant tools and point-of-sale solutions to make spending sats seamless on both sides of the transaction.
All right, let's get into it.
hey y'all welcome back to another episode of the bitcoin for financial services
podcast today we've got adam simeka the founder and ceo of manna bitcoin uh a self-custody wallet
and the point of sale system we're super excited to have adam on and kind of just talk through
all the things that manna supports and some things that they've rolled out in the past
six to 12 months. So Adam, thanks so much for making the time today.
I appreciate it. Thank you for having me, guys.
Yeah. So maybe start off, I know you've been in the Bitcoin space for quite some time. A lot of
the people that we end up talking with are part of that like 2020, 2021 class. One thing I really
love about you is you go back a bit further. So maybe give everyone in the audience kind of your
background how did you stumble into bitcoin um yeah what did that look like for you because i
know it's a little bit further in the past stumble is a great word i uh i actually found bitcoin
through ethereum so uh the short story is i was in the air force deployed over we'll have to bleep
that out jordan yeah just bleep that out i actually i don't i don't remember who it was
there's some big podcast that i started listening to a long time ago and i wrote them a message i
like hey you know it'd be really cool just like for marketing purposes just like bleep out every
time somebody says crypto or any altcoin there you go i love it it would catch on for like a pretty
fun uh shtick for somebody but um no anyway uh back to the story i uh was in the air force deployed
overseas so i had some free time i was a firefighter i was working 24 hour shifts so 24
on 24 off so every other 24 hours i had a lot of free time and so i was doing some studying
learning about stocks mostly. So I started investing in the stock market, wanted to find
a way to preserve my wealth into the future and start saving something and something that wasn't
just dollars. Because at the time, I didn't really know why. But of course, at this point,
come to learn that the incentives of fiat essentially create this mechanism of a requirement
to do something else with your money.
So we have to financialize and monetize
a non-monetary asset, so to speak,
in order to preserve our purchasing power,
which now that we have Bitcoin,
they can be one and the same.
Your money can also be your savings,
but we're disincentivized to save our money in fiat.
So I was just doing a bunch of research on some stocks
and I got a targeted ad
because of course I was searching,
putting all these search results
or these search terms in
and Investopedia targeted me for a targeted ad
and it was about Ethereum.
Fortunately, the article was specifically
about proof of work.
And so as I'm reading through this,
I was able to see what proof of work was
and it blew my mind.
And so I realized that like,
that was a really big deal.
I didn't know what Bitcoin was at the time, of course,
but I went back to my room
or my little trailer that I was like a little section inside of a trailer
in the middle of the desert in the Middle East where I was staying.
Had a little nice little window unit air conditioner.
So it was actually pretty comfortable.
Yeah, so it wasn't too bad.
But I was just doing some more research and I decided like,
hey, I need to sell all of my stocks and I need to buy all of this new thing.
Right. At the time, it was just crypto to me.
I didn't really quite understand, you know, what all the differences were.
But fortunately, a big part of that investment was in Bitcoin.
So at least by day one, I knew that I should buy Bitcoin.
Over time, I realized a lot more about, you know, the overall environment and what Bitcoin was specifically and how it was different from, you know, Ethereum specifically.
and just the overall environment of really what the technology was
and what solutions it was solving, what problems it was solving.
And, I mean, it probably took me a few years to really actually understand.
In fact, I would say it was probably not even until, like,
after the COVID era where it really fully clicked for me.
I thought it did before.
I went to, you know, schools and I did a ton of study.
In Bitcoin, I did some study under Andreas Antonopoulos in the University of Nicosia, if you know who or what that is.
It was called a digital currency program and basically went through Bitcoin.
It was essentially mastering Bitcoin in a course form.
So the purpose of it was like to come in from nothing.
And by the end of it, basically being able to build Bitcoin, like create Bitcoin from the ground up with, you know, all the open source architecture that it has.
And so it wasn't only technical, it was also, you know, some idealistic as well.
Some of the philosophies about Bitcoin and really the money aspect of Bitcoin, too.
So it took me a few years, but I eventually figured out that Bitcoin was the signal and everything else had insiders, basically.
That's kind of my background and sprinkled in there.
I did some other things.
I started a mining company in Wells.
It was actually pretty, I started working on that mining company pretty soon after I started learning about Bitcoin.
This was in 2017.
I don't know if I mentioned that.
So I started building my first Bitcoin business in 2017.
created a plug and play Bitcoin miner that we sold for a number of years,
which was just basically a box, an ASIC that you buy and it ships to your home and you plug it in
and you turn it on and it starts mining Bitcoin for you. So no setup required,
which was pretty novel at the time. A few months after we came out with that,
there was another company. They got pretty popular, but they actually died probably.
I don't know if they were still even around by the time you guys were in the space, but
I'm trying to remember the name of them.
It was like CoinMine, I think is what it was.
It was a different, but it wasn't just Bitcoin.
It was like crypto, right?
So that's why they failed.
And I mean, there's a lot of reasons behind why, you know,
crypto companies never last.
I don't know how far you want to go down that rabbit hole today.
But just to finish up my background,
I kind of just continued on that path for a while.
And then most recently, it's been a little over a year and a half ago, I started working on Mana, which of course is a self-custodial Bitcoin payments app with the wallet function as well as point of sale and also has some other pretty cool features as well.
But my theme has basically been taking Bitcoin, making it palatable for the average person, even the no-coiner, right?
So going and creating products that you don't necessarily need to understand Bitcoin in order to start dipping your toe into the water and building them in such a way that you don't really necessarily have to compromise.
And that's a big deal for me because as I'm building MANA, there's a lot of other options out there that are easy.
They work well.
Behind the scenes, they're very reliable to a degree.
But the caveat is there's sometimes some sacrifice or some compromises that are made.
For example, a custodial wallet generally works really well, but you are giving up a lot of the benefits of Bitcoin in doing so.
So I wanted to make a product that was as easy and as fluid to use as a custodial wallet without that tradeoff.
Sorry for the long intro, but that gets us caught up to today, I think.
No, man, that's great. I appreciate it. A handful of interesting things in that.
And I'll just start by saying I'm a patriot. So because Jordan Dent, I'll thank you for your service.
um you're welcome thank yeah and uh i do you think this is interesting thread i've kind of noticed
is as i've talked to more service members in the bitcoin community and if anybody has seen some
content on this i'd be definitely interested in checking it out but i'm always curious in how
people come to bitcoin i think service members specifically kind of have this innate sense where
it's like yeah maybe don't trust these guys or this fiat slop is just slop um so i think that's
interesting um and then the targeted ad you know for ethereum i think that's also interesting
because that's almost a meme in itself you know bitcoin doesn't have a marketing department
nobody should be pushing you things you know it's aggressors movement you gotta come to it
um yourself as opposed to it you know you know coming to you unless you're you're getting orange
billed by a good friend in which case they are a good friend but specifically when it
it comes to man, I'm excited to get into like this non-custodial aspect of things. Because as you
know, we're talking to other advisors, CPAs, you know, the whole works, like there's a lot of
legalese that go into, you know, what kind of products you can offer your clients. And, you
know, is this custodial? Do you have certain responsibilities and obligations because it is
custodial? How do you guys facilitate that framework? Yeah, so there are a lot of services
out there, especially exchanges. That's probably the main one people have exposure to just because
a lot of people get their Bitcoin from buying it through an exchange. And most of these exchanges
are custodial, meaning that there is a custodian that is taking custody of your asset. In other
words, it means it's not really your Bitcoin. What you have is an IOU and this company has promised
you to give you that Bitcoin at some point when you ask for it. Maybe. In fact, a number of years
ago, a lot of the popular exchanges that were coming up were not even able to give you the
Bitcoin. So PayPal, Robinhood, PayPal and Venmo, Robinhood, a lot of these, you know, pop up Bitcoin
exchanges allowed you to get price exposure. You could, they would tell you they were selling you
Bitcoin. But really, all you were doing is giving them some of your fiat money, and then they would
essentially lock your price in and then you could sell it again back to them and they would give you
the fiat back. So they didn't allow you to interact with the Bitcoin network natively in any way.
And so that's just, you know, one example of many of how this whole custody situation works.
So that's why you hear a lot of people say, you know, not your keys, not your coins.
you need to take custody, self-custody. It's very, very important because all of the benefits of what
Bitcoin offers can't be utilized unless you actually hold the Bitcoin yourself. So the
permissionlessness, the trustlessness, you know, the immutability, the censorship resistance,
you know, these things don't come with an IOU token, which is what happens when you hold your
Bitcoin on an exchange or in a custodial wallet. And that's a big reason why, you know, I do what
I do. And it is to try to make it easy for people to take custody of their own Bitcoin. So from,
you know, a tax perspective, an accounting perspective, the onus really is on the,
you know, end user. And of course, it's always helpful to have somebody there with you to help
guide you through that process and help show you how you can do your accounting properly.
and remain compliant if that's what you want to do.
Certainly there's people out there that are, you know, against that sort of thing.
And, hey, I commend them.
But I definitely don't recommend, you know, doing anything to try to avoid, you know,
anything that you're legally obligated to do.
So I'll just leave it at that.
But my point is on MANA, the way that it works right now is just like you would expect with
any financial product, there's a record that's easy to be exported.
And so as a Manna user all you would need to do is export your transactions and share them with you know anybody that is helping you with taxes or financial assistance
So if you've got, you know, a CPA, they have easy access to all of your data that you want to share with them.
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And you guys do multi-sig, I assume, right?
So there's single-sig setups and multi-sig, right?
Yep, yep.
Yeah, because I think that that's honestly, you know, that's the path that I think everyone is ultimately going to need to go down for all kinds of different use cases built on top of these wallets.
Like, for example, I was even pitched. These guys have been pitching me for a little bit. I won't out them, but they've been talking to me about this, like lending, you know, desk that, you know, and I go into each of these conversations like, okay, well, if you want me to talk to my clients about this, like, I've got a lot of questions.
Right. And and main the main one is what is the custody like?
What's the custody set up in the background?
Because if someone's going to send their Bitcoin over to you or post it to you and now you're able to go run wild, like that's what we ran into with the FTX.
And so I guess maybe I don't just speak on that a little bit.
I know FTX was just this, it was a terrible event that scared a lot of people.
And I think a lot of people never came back after that because they just figured, oh, Bitcoin's a scam because of this, because of what happened with FTX.
Maybe for a new user who just read a few headlines back in 22 when that all went down, maybe talk through what exactly happened there and why that wasn't a failure on Bitcoin's part.
part that was a failure on the custody that um and the trust that those users were putting into
a third party like ftx and then adam just before you you answer that i want to want to build onto
it because and probably then to something you just mentioned too and to jordan's point i think
us as you know professionals and advisors in this space this custody question and your due diligence
process is probably the most important and something that just resonated with me that
you brought up adam i remember it's like when i was first getting into bitcoin like the people
um i had known that had you know bought or traded bitcoin or whatever were predominantly using
robinhead and i remember at the time learning that it's like you can't even withdraw it's not
even real bitcoin it was like this you know fake paper whatever the hell it was and it was just so
shocking to me it was like oh wow people are actually doing this sort of thing like that's
crazy you can't even get your bitcoin like that's where all your bitcoin is like holy smokes
oh yeah uh i mean yeah i remember that very clearly um and i mean in the total bitcoin
fashion you know you if you were on bitcoin twitter at the time of course you would get
made fun of like that's just how bitcoiners lovingly fix all these problems we just make
fun of people until you fix your issues uh i promise we we love you we do it out of love
um and we don't want to see you guys get rugged because i actually i have a thread
that I made a number of years ago.
And it had a running list of every centralized custodian
that had rugged their customers.
Basically, they collapsed
or they just straight up stole their customers' money.
It's a pretty long list.
But I could honestly name more failures
of custodial solutions than I can successes,
which is really sad.
And obviously, you brought up FTX Jordan.
That's a great example.
of course that was probably the biggest although I'm not sure if you would qualify like any of the
hacks because there have been plenty of hacks as well that have been massive as well so the scale
I'm not 100% sure of but FTX was a very noteworthy one it's very public and that's the one we all
know and recognize there's a lot of layers to that and why that happened I'll just like I don't know
how deep you want to get into it, but one of the solutions that we have to preventing things like
this is proof of reserves. So it's something that I'm a big advocate of, but at the same time,
I'm also skeptical and cautious about because it can be false sense of security. So proof of
reserves, all it does is basically attest to the amount of Bitcoin they have in a public fashion.
So if you're holding Bitcoin on behalf of somebody else, especially the public, I think it's important for you to be able to share that information with the world or at least, you know, your clients.
There are a lot of people and businesses that still don't.
So I think that that really should be the standard for anybody holding Bitcoin in a custodial fashion.
there are a lot of also a lot of great businesses organizations and even governments that do
disclose those proof of reserves so river's really good at that they're kind of a pathfinder
so shout out to river they're they've built a lot of technology that has made that easy and
they've made it available for other people to use as well so um you know lots of credit to those guys
um you've got el salvador you know a country that is publicly disclosing their bitcoin holdings so
You can go, anybody can audit their treasury, their Bitcoin treasury at any moment.
You have Tether, which, you know, that's kind of a little bit of a tangent subject, but they're holding Bitcoin and they're also publicly disclosing that.
So it's really not hard to do, in my opinion, for the trade.
You know, it's not much of a tradeoff.
And I think everybody should do it.
Rewinding a little bit more, Jordan, you're asking about multi-sig.
And I think, I don't know if you've said these words, but it sounded like you were maybe insinuating or implying some degree of collaborative custody.
So collaborative custody would be a multi-sig setup where somebody, a third party, holds one of your keys.
So real quick to break that down, just in case there's anybody listening that doesn't know what multi-sig is.
Multi-sig is just an arrangement of the keys that you hold to access your Bitcoin where you have more than one signature.
Now, multi-sig could be with yourself. You could have more than one key with yourself. You could have multi-sig in an organization where, you know, certain key players in the business or organization have a key. And it's kind of like, I think of like the nuclear launch codes, right?
So you've got these nuclear launch codes that are distributed among all these military generals and the president and everybody.
And the correct amount of keys have to be inserted and turned at the same time in order for the nuke to launch.
So it's kind of like that where you can't actually send a Bitcoin transaction unless you get approval from everybody, a minimum quorum of the people that you have predefined.
so it is uh fairly customizable in in how you do multi-sig but again keep in mind there's a total
number of keys and then a minimum quorum so you could have a two of two multi-sig which just means
there's two keys and it requires two signatures you know one signature from each key in order to
send a transaction you could do a two of three you could do a three of five i mean there's really
not really any limit um although i you know you don't want to get too carried away because the
more complicated and you make it, the harder it's going to be to spend that Bitcoin. And if
something happens, that Bitcoin could get locked away forever. So just keep that in mind. It's not
a beginner setup, I don't think, in my opinion, unless you have a third party involved. And so
there are a lot of good services out there that can do collaborative custody, which I think is
good for some people. I don't recommend it for everybody, just because there are trade-offs.
the main trade-off being you are giving up your privacy pretty much entirely. So if you have a
collaborative custody set up, just understand that whoever the third party is on the other end of
that, they're going to be able to see all of the activity on that wallet. So yeah, again, I just
want to make sure that it's clear that it's not like a silver bullet, but it is a good solution
for people that want to be able to have kind of a better, more of a handheld experience.
And if you have somebody who's very well experienced and knowledgeable in the Bitcoin space,
you know, one of these companies or an advisor that is able to join you on that journey and you
trust and you're okay with giving up that privacy, then it's a great option because they're able to
help you with you know the the the tracking of all of the financials and everything like that so
yeah and i think the other thing you know we say keys i think maybe let's go down that path just
to touch just to just to kind of say exactly what it is right because it's not it's not exactly like
a key like you used to you know put into your toyota camry right it's i guess maybe adam talk
through the different devices that are that have a key stored on them and what that technically
looks like so a key in very simple terms is basically a password right um you have in bitcoin
you have public keys and you have private keys and you need a public key and a private key in order
to spend the bitcoin um the public key can be shared with other people um and that's part of
what would be required to receive a transaction.
But, you know, it's not something that you would want to just disclose
to the whole world all at once.
You don't want to keep, you know, both keys relatively private to a degree
unless you have a reason not to.
So an example of this would be, you know, El Salvador
providing its public wallet address to the world.
They made that decision to do so.
The alternative example would be like strategy.
Right now, they don't publicly disclose their address
or their addresses. And so as an individual, most people don't have a reason to share
that level of information with the world. I don't want everybody to know how much Bitcoin I have,
so I'm not out there sharing all of my public keys with everybody.
And so these keys, again, it's just a set of characters. It's a password, if you will,
in a very simple way of looking at it. And that is how you access your Bitcoin. It's kind of like
how you log into the to the time chain, so to speak. It's how you prove that you are the owner
and you're able to move the Bitcoin to where it needs to go. And it's stored on a device, right?
So when you actually go to go like spin that Bitcoin, it's you're physically picking up
a device, right? And then you're either using a SIM card into your computer or you're plugging it
into a cord with a cord. And that is basically signing it from us. And that's the whole thing
with the cold storage, I guess, versus the hot wallet as well, which we could go down that path
as well. Yeah. So let's talk about the different ways that you can store or manage a key. So
really the standard, the best way to hold a key is offline, meaning that your keys are not on a
device that touches the internet. That would be what we call cold storage, right? So this would
be like you buy a hardware wallet or, you know, it's kind of what we call them. I don't think
hardware wallet is actually a good term for most of these devices. I agree. I agree. It's a huge
misnomer. That frustrates me. It's a misnomer. What it is, it's they're usually key wallets,
right? So you're actually, it holds your key, but it doesn't hold the Bitcoin. It's not a wallet
itself. It's not a Bitcoin wallet, right? Most of these, I mean, some of them have Bitcoin wallets
built in. But for the most part, these devices are not actually wallets, at least not for the
Bitcoin. They're just they just hold the keys and allow you to sign transactions. So when I can,
when I have the opportunity to, I typically just refer to them as signers or signing devices.
I think that's a much more appropriate term for what these cold storage devices are. But you don't
actually even need to keep your key on the devices. So there's another method that would allow you to
keep your key offline. And some people have created like QR codes that they can scan,
this would be how something like the seed signer would work. So seed signers, what's called stateless,
stateless just means it doesn't store the memory of the key inside the physical memory of the device.
So if somebody steals the device, there's literally no way they can extract your key.
Now, obviously, there are trade offs with with everything you do. And so you still have to have
the key in an accessible format. So either you would have to enter the key in the device,
or you could scan one of these QR codes. But at any rate, you would have a key either,
most of the time, written down in a 12-word, what's called a BIP39 mnemonic seed phrase.
It's just 12 or 24 words sometimes. It's just a series of random words that actually
decrypt your key, which is just an unreadable set of characters. So BIP39 was a standard that
was put in place to make your key human readable. So you can actually, you know, say it, you can
speak it, you can see it, you can read it. Because if it's just completely random characters and
numbers, it's a lot more hard to work with. So either you have a BIP39 seed phrase, or you have
that in a QR form. And so there are a lot of devices that can do that stateless. I know
SeedSigner, of course, that's really all it does. It doesn't ever store your key. There's
Blockstream Jade that can also operate in a stateless fashion. I think the new Coldcard Q,
I think that can also do stateless with scanning because it's got a camera on it now.
So there's a number of them.
But my point is, you don't even have to have it on the device if you don't want to.
I would say a very popular method of key storage is on the physical device where you're keeping the key in the memory of the device.
But some people advocate against that.
You can also keep a key on your phone.
Like this can be a signer It can also hold the software for the wallet And that would be what we would call a hot wallet So MANA is a hot wallet because your keys are on the phone
And it is not as secure as cold storage because it is only as secure as the device in which the keys are on.
So if you want ultimate total security, maybe you've got a lot of Bitcoin you need to keep safe.
The best and most secure way of doing that is in cold storage.
meaning your key has not been seen by a device that touches the internet.
You know, so you can even have paper wallets.
I guess we'll just wrap up with that real quick.
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Well, I think it's helpful because, you know, I think a lot of the time, if you've been in the
Bitcoin space, if you've handled key, uh, these, these signing devices and you've configured
wallets, you kind of, at least in my head, I kind of assume, oh, everyone, everyone's done this.
Everyone knows what we're talking about. And so I know it feels a little elementary to kind of go
back and walk through some of that, but I think it's, it's important. I don't know if Wyatt and
I have actually gone down that path with any of our guests and, and the first eight episodes. So
I really, I appreciate you doing that, Adam. Yeah, absolutely. Um, I'll also just say, um,
This is kind of a unique time.
If anybody's watching this, you know, in, let's just say, 30 years from now,
I'm pretty sure this won't be useful to them
because I don't actually think that normal average people
are going to be using Layer 1 in 30 years, at least not directly.
It'll be, I think, indirect just because Layer 1 can't support planet Earth.
It just can't mathematically.
so with that said that's a big part of you know how we're building mana as well because we have
you know a higher layer like a layer two and you could even consider mana a layer three because it
it's interoperable between different layers it's kind of built on top of lightning and liquid
and bitcoin but it allows you to I mean and that's why that's why we have it on the phone
It's simply just because that's the easiest way to do it and with the least amount of tradeoffs, I think, in my opinion.
And the purpose of it is to be a spending wallet.
Now, we talked about the misnomer earlier, Wyatt, with these wallets.
Now, MANA, I think, is actually what we would think of when we think of a wallet.
It's like the billfold that you carry around on you.
Maybe it's your purse, whatever.
But it is a spending mechanism, right?
It's not necessarily to replace your retirement.
That's not where you put your retirement savings, in my opinion.
It would work for that, and people use it for it,
but it's not the best use case for MANA.
So again, right now we have the benefit and the luxury to use Layer 1 fairly easily.
Fees are pretty low, and we all have access to it.
And so my general recommendation is if you've got a lot of Bitcoin
and you want to store securely for a long time,
I definitely want to probably put that in cold storage.
So yeah, just kind of the different mechanisms
and ways of using and storing Bitcoin.
Yeah, I'm glad Wyatt.
Yeah, a couple of things on that, Adam.
So one, maybe we talk about the secure element
with phones and hot wallets and why that's important.
And then two, you kind of brought up the future.
One of the things I get excited about with these non-custodial collaborative custody technologies that, you know, we thank you for developing is specifically the types of financial products that can be built with that kind of core infrastructure and technology.
And, you know, one that comes to mind, you know, instantly is, you know, lending.
I'm seeing a lot more, you know, lending products kind of utilize this setup.
up. So have you kind of thought the second part of the question, have you thought in the future,
you know, what this kind of technology facilitates in terms of financial products and services?
Yes, I have, in fact, from day one. And I don't want to disappoint anybody just because
it sounds like you guys, you know, are, you know, have a particular stance on this. And so do I,
but I think I think I might have a different one than you guys do.
um let's hear it we love controversy on the podcast yeah so so a big part of of why i built
mana and why that why the team is behind me is building mana alongside me is um you know we're
trying to provide uh an escape hatch for people as as fiat collapses around us um but more
specifically um i think it can be said that we're trying to build an anti-cbdc and that's that's
kind of our core mission. I personally think CBDCs are going to continue to become more pervasive.
They are. I mean, that's an objective technique. They're growing, you know, all over the world.
Now, the question is, is a CBDC coming to you? Is it coming to us here in the United States?
I believe it will someday. I don't know how long that's going to be, but it could be sooner rather
than later. And I want to make sure that I have a product that can, that is prepared to withstand
that storm. And part of that is I want to build tools and products that, um, that provide humanity
with more freedom, not less. And so we've taken a very specific, um, direction in doing our best to
not promote or propagate that fiat system. So lending is something, you know, specifically that
we have decided not to build. Because, you know, my personal belief is that further entrenches us
into the central banking fractional reserve, rehypothecated system. So, and those are things
that I think are a detriment to society. So yeah, yes, you can build lending products into
really easily onto open source architecture, which is great.
As far as, you know, from Mana's perspective,
you know, at least, you know, with us officially,
we don't ever intend on, you know,
building out any type of a fiat product inside of the app.
It's all Bitcoin.
And that's kind of part of our brand as well.
No, that makes sense.
And I think the lending is,
it'll be interesting to see how it all plays out.
I mean, right now, again, we're getting pitched on a bunch of different products and most of them saying I can't wrap my head around how you guys like, for example, one comes to me that's like, oh, we can do it at a lower interest rate.
And anytime someone who comes in and says, oh, you do it at a lower interest rate than what Strike is offering, for example, I'm like, I mean, 99% sure that I could never tell my client confidently to go use this.
and so I think it will be interesting to see how it all plays out because you know there are like
and I want to get into the small businesses that are able to use your tool with point of sale
but there is like mismatch I guess if I was to try to steel man it between cash flow coming in
the door and cash flow going out the door and so even you know a line of credit for a small business
makes a lot of sense you know for a very short-term cash needs but I totally understand
your guys stance of like, that's just not us. There's products out there that you can go to
utilize that solve that problem. That's not MANA. I guess if we wanted to pivot maybe over to the
point of sale, there's all kinds of hubbub in the Bitcoin space right now about this whole treasury
versus payments. I think it's probably both, but I'm sure you guys both saw the controversy that
happened, I guess, earlier this week when the Sailor Danny Knowles podcast was released. I guess,
Adam, I assume you have some strong opinions about that exchange and what was spoken there.
Maybe give us your spicy take there, and then I'd love for us to go down the path of
Bitcoin payments and how you all are supporting small business owners that are onboarding there.
Sure. I'll get into the Sailor Danny thing here in just a second. But I wanted to recap on something just a moment ago that we're talking about, about how MANA has taken the specific direction of non-incorporating fiat products.
honestly one of the biggest reasons for that is simply regulation and and you know requirements
and compliance um once you touch fiat you have to have all sorts of licenses and uh lots you know
all sorts of different certifications for the compliance uh side of things so it's really it's
also just not practical for us at our size to even incorporate that so i just wanted i didn't want
that to go unsaid so let's get back to the question uh the one that everybody's wanting to
hear, you know, my opinion on Saylor and Danny. Of course, there is a infamous interview between
Daniels and Michael Saylor on what Bitcoin did. So my opinion on that is before I,
before I, you know, roast Saylor, so to speak, I'll just say, I love Michael Saylor, probably more
than, you know, a lot of people around me. I mean, people are just generally either, you know,
for him or the critics of him. I'm definitely for Michael Saylor. I actually truly believe that he
is a massive net positive in Bitcoin from a traditional finance perspective, as well as,
you know, this emerging, you know, freedom money perspective as well. So I think that
Michael Saylor is fundamentally putting more energy toward hyper Bitcoinization. And I would
even go as far as to say as ending central banking than any other human. So that's my argument
against the hardcore, diehard Bitcoiners that say, you know, sailors just building these fiat
products and making the fiat world stronger and taking away people's sovereignty by offering these
securities. Here's what I'll say to that. If you're in that camp, don't buy stocks, just buy Bitcoin.
In fact, Michael Saylor himself has only ever advocated to buy Bitcoin.
Really.
I mean, he's never said to buy his sock over Bitcoin.
Not once.
So just keep that in mind.
Like, I think he's actually a good guy.
I don't think he's against the Bitcoiners.
With that said, you know, all those compliments.
I do think that he could have handled the situation in the interview a little bit better.
I did not like his response personally.
I will say we are all human.
I have certainly also had my fair share of exchanges that I wish had gone a little bit differently from my side.
And I think he just had a moment.
That's what I'm interpreting this as.
He just had a moment of being human.
And I think a question was asked that struck a nerve.
And it was a very simple, I think, honest question from Danny.
I don't think he deserved the lashing that he got.
and I'm glad they kind of were able to resolve it.
I've also seen a lot of criticism on the Danny side as well
and I've been sticking up for Danny online
just because people are saying he's been a pushover
to put it lightly in the PG version for this show.
But yeah, I think it's unfortunate
that we had an interviewer go into somebody else's home
and people are criticizing him for not being,
you know pushing back harder on Michael Saylor I don't think that's right I think I think he
handled it well um I think Danny was very respectful um and uh you know apologetic which
I think is actually pretty important to uh find common ground in people you have to be a little
bit empathetic uh to the other side of the the the other side of the argument I guess in this case
so well and Adam just for for the the audience why don't we get some background like the specific
a question and response uh yeah so as best as i can remember i only watched it once but
danny nobles was basically uh asking a question of you know why would anybody invest in some of
these other bitcoin treasury companies you know what is like what is the reason basically and i
think that it was a like i said an honest question um and i think michael saylor took it as him
criticizing these
treasury companies and saying,
I think Michael Saylor heard
these other treasury companies shouldn't exist.
I think that's what Saylor heard.
I don't think that's necessarily what Danny was asking
or saying, but
I think in Michael Saylor's mind, Danny
was saying, you know, these companies
shouldn't be adopting Bitcoin.
And that's kind of what Saylor took
off and ran with. And he's like,
why are you criticizing Bitcoin companies? You should
be criticizing, you know, the companies that aren't
buying Bitcoin, which I agree with. I actually think both sides were right in what they were
saying. I just didn't necessarily agree with the delivery from Michael Saylor. And I think that
I think Saylor was talking past Danny. Yeah. So and the big thing, too, was that I think Danny
was just making the point, you know, that you've got to choose where to put your money. Right. So
you're going to put it in Bitcoin or you're going to put it in one of these treasury companies.
and um and a lot of the people who put money in treasury companies have not been it's not been
panning out well and and then when sailor said you know when he was like we don't compete against
each other i mean i was like well of course you do because an investor is looking down a list of
all these treasury companies just try to say and i think it's it's a bit shitcoin like behavior
because they chasing what they believe to be our potential higher returns than what Bitcoin would provide And so I thought it was a real I just thought it was a super fair question And when he said we not competing with each other I understood in one sense what he meant But like from a practical sense of course you competing with where those dollars are flowing into whatever Bitcoin backed equity is in that bucket
So, yeah, and I think that's a good point. I think that's really a big part of the problem is that from my perspective, and by the way, full disclosure, I hold micro strategy or strategy shares stock in a 401k retirement account that I have.
So I am a shareholder of strategy. So take what I say with a group of salt here. But I think from my perspective, there's really two things that we're talking about here.
It is the fact that what you just said, I think, is true.
I think there is some competition among the Bitcoin treasury companies, right?
So when you're buying a security and your goal is to essentially buy Bitcoin, maybe you can't buy real Bitcoin, but there's a large number of people who want Bitcoin exposure or think they're buying some form of Bitcoin, right?
There is a specific category of that type of security. And I think that there is competition and who's going to be able to do that best and who's going to be able to attract the most capital. So I do think that that's true. But to Michael Saylor's point, I don't think it has to be true. Right. And I think the underlying point that he's really trying to make is that every company can benefit from buying Bitcoin.
now i think it's up up for argument whether or not that these securitized bitcoin companies if
there needs to be more than one or if there is you know where is the line on in the competition
and when i say securitized bitcoin i just mean like i think there's a group of people that like
i mentioned their goal is to buy bitcoin they can only buy a security right or it's the best method
for them to get exposure and so what in their mind they're buying bitcoin but instead of buying
real Bitcoin in cold storage, so to speak, you're buying a security-like strategy.
And so I think there is a lot of overlap, right?
And I think, honestly, the biggest tell of that was when we saw a lot of these Bitcoin
treasury companies kind of take a nosedive, what happened in the altcoin space?
And this kind of goes back to what you were talking about, Jordan.
Altseason, so to speak, took off, right?
So the treasury company started going down and the altcoins are going up.
So it's just this group of people that are essentially gambling and chasing those fast gains.
And that's kind of what I saw.
And that is my impression.
It is that this group of people went from buying these Bitcoin treasury companies and propping them up and even front running the IPOs and rotating into altcoins.
It's the same game, in my opinion.
I think this is really a big part of why Saylor might have been a little bit more on edge is because, and this was actually brought up in the interview as well.
But the fact that the stock price has gone down isn't necessarily reflective of the performance of these underlying companies.
The market can do as much damage as anything just by chasing these fast gains.
So if you had all these pipe investors and everybody that was trying to get in before the IPOs and even buying the IPOs,
they jacked the price up really high. They got what they wanted and they're tourists. So they're
just, they're, they're just here for a quick gain and then they're out and they're moving on to
whatever other investment or altcoin they're, they're, they're wanting. And so I think that
that was a big part of the problem. I think that that's probably a big part of why Michael Saylor
was a little bit, um, unnerved during this interview. Um, but, uh, just because I can relate,
You know, as a shareholder, you know, I, you know, held the shares from $425 plus a share all the way down to, you know, $155 or whatever, whatever the bottom was.
So, you know, I'm feeling some of the same things, sailors, not even on the same level.
Of course, I'm not trying to compare myself here, but I can definitely relate.
Yeah, okay.
So our last, you know, few minutes here, I do want to get to like.
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So obviously, like Wyatt and I, we work with a lot of small business owners, whether it's on the financial planning side, tax prep, tax planning, accounting.
There's some different options that are popping up, whether it's a Square user or maybe they're an invoicing company.
So ZapRite makes a lot of sense.
I would be curious, just speaking to advisors on this show, what's the value prop with the point of sale software that Mana has put out?
And what are you all seeing from the adoption of that, the users?
Like, what's kind of the target market that you guys are going after to adopt the point of sales side of MANA?
Yeah, so a lot of people ask me the question, how do I buy Bitcoin?
Or how do I get Bitcoin?
And my answer a lot of times to these people is, well, how do you get money?
Because Bitcoin is money.
and so uh you know it's it people have this mindset that bitcoin's like this other type of
asset that it's not money and so they feel like they have to take what they understand as money
and buy this thing um which you know for a lot of a lot of people that that's a good way of
explaining a great way of accumulating and acquiring bitcoin but with bitcoin if bitcoin
is fundamentally money you can get it the same ways you can get what you think is money which is
fiat currency. I don't necessarily qualify fiat currency as money. I don't think it fits the
definition personally, but I do think Bitcoin is money. And so in people's mind, that helps them
frame how to acquire Bitcoin. You don't have to go to an exchange. You don't have to give them
your fiat dollars or whatever currency you're using to get Bitcoin. You can earn it. You can
trade for it for any way you get dollars. So for example, I have a full-time job. I go to work for
an employer and they give me a paycheck. That is one way to get Bitcoin, right? As long as the
person that you are delivering a service or your labor to or a product to is willing to give you
Bitcoin, that is a great way to get Bitcoin. In fact, I think it's probably the best way to acquire
Bitcoin because it is a lot more private. It essentially allows you to participate in Bitcoin
in the ways that we were talking about earlier, where you have all those assurances that Bitcoin
provides because you can accept real Bitcoin and not an IOU. That part's important, right? So it's
not like you're getting paid on a centralized exchange where it's not real Bitcoin, it's just
an IOU. You could and should just accept real Bitcoin. And that's a big part of what we built
the Manna point of sale for was to allow businesses to be able to sell their products and services
directly for self-custodial Bitcoin. You don't even have the option of going through a centralized
party. It's literally from one person to you in Bitcoin, right? So over the Bitcoin network,
Manna does some swaps and stuff to keep things easy and simple. But ultimately what you end up
with is the ability to interact with Bitcoin with keys that you hold, which is the important part.
And so there are a lot of other companies, like you mentioned, ZapRite. They do a great job,
Square, we're not the only ones providing this service, but there is some differentiation between,
of course, what all of us are offering. Square, for example, that is not an option that you can
use if you're locked outside of the banking system. You've got to have a bank account,
for example, to use Square. Square is not available outside of the United States. So
that's another reason why you might need to use something else. BTC pay server also has some
wonderful, great options too. And it's all just a little bit of a different approach. I think MANA
is, in my opinion, by far, like exponentially easier and quicker to set up than any other option
that is self-custodial. In fact, I did a demo in Las Vegas at the Bitcoin conference and showed how
in 60 seconds, you can have this fully set up as a barber that wants to take Bitcoin for payment.
So if anybody's curious, it's pinned on my X profile right now. But if you're a barber,
you're a restaurant, a food truck, food trailer, whatever, you're selling knickknacks,
you're at a farmer's market selling whatever products you have or offer, you can spin up
a mana Bitcoin point of sale system in 60 seconds and start accepting Bitcoin payments on the spot.
No ID, you know, no, no name, not even an email address, no phone number, none of that,
no personal data collected whatsoever. And that makes it really fast and easy as well. But more
importantly, it doesn't block anybody out. I love that. And that's, and it's on chain Bitcoin,
as well as Lightning Layer as well
if someone wanted to pay in Lightning
at a farmer's market, for example?
Yeah, so if you're running a MANA point of sale,
you can accept Bitcoin through any of the major protocols.
So we often talk about Layer 1, Bitcoin, and Lightning.
Those are probably the two main ones that we use as payments.
But there are a lot of other protocols that are emerging as well,
like eCash, for example, is becoming popular,
which is essentially kind of built on top of Lightning.
I would say it's kind of like a layer three,
depending on which protocol we're referring to.
There's a lot of different methods.
Spark is getting pretty popular.
That's from LightSpark.
There is, what else is there?
I mean, Liquid is another popular protocol,
which is actually where our app basically lives.
It's basically a liquid wallet with interoperability with everything else.
So the important part for MANA, if you're interested in MANA, is that you don't need to know about any of these protocols.
They just work automatically, right?
So if you're a vendor, if you just want to use the wallet, whatever, you don't have to worry about, you know, can I connect to this type of Bitcoin?
If it's Bitcoin, it works.
I love it.
All right, man.
Well, this has been great.
I really I'm glad that we kind of covered a lot of a lot of just like basic stuff.
I think that your background of running the meetup in Kansas City and you're just being in the space for as long as you have been.
I think it's just it's just good background and speaks well to newcomers, which is one of the big parts of our audience.
So, Adam, I guess the only thing that's left on my side is if someone wants to use mana, what's the best way to go about doing that?
Well, fortunately, there's really not a long answer to that.
You can just download the app on either the App Store on Apple or the Google Play Store.
Right now, those are the two places where our app lives.
And you just hit the button that says create a wallet, and you can have a wallet running in seconds.
And then it automatically creates everything needed for the shop as well.
And you can just add products, items, or services if you're a business.
And I'll also say, you know, from, you know, a financial advisor perspective, you know, if I could, you know, have the, you know, opportunity to advise the advisors, I would just say it's a great idea to recommend people acquire Bitcoin through this method, just because it is one of the most freedom preserving methods of using Bitcoin.
providing a service in the local economy um and even spending bitcoin i think that's important too
uh to grow the to grow the bitcoin economy and help build out the infrastructure
that comes back to my original purpose and that is to uh give people an alternative to cbdc's as
they come so that's what i'll say i'll leave it at that love it man well and it's an amazing
mission to try to fight back against the cbdc you know on so i i think will come in our our
lifetimes that were appreciative of folks like you building that kind of technology. And yeah,
one of the things I want to emphasize that you just pointed out there, Adam, is that I think
in an advisor seat and you want to start talking about Bitcoin, one of the best ways you can convey
confidence to your clients is to accept Bitcoin as payment and show them be a proof point,
maybe be their first interaction where they're actually interacting with the blockchain or
Bitcoin as a medium of exchange. And I think that's super paramount role for us as well. And
it's great getting to know you, Adam, and Manam more and keep on building, man. We need more stuff
like this and appreciate you coming on the pod. Thank you very much. The pleasure was all mine.
Appreciate talking with you guys. Thanks for having me. Yeah. All right. Thanks, Adam. All
We'll talk to you soon.
Take care.
from the front.