Hey, what's up, everybody? Happy Friday. My name is Isaiah Austin. I am the admin of the Bitcoin Conference X Handle.
We're so happy to have you join us today. We're 31 days out, exactly a month from Bitcoin 2026.
And we have reached the conclusion of Maxi Madness. So today there's a lot of stuff to celebrate.
I'm here with Dennis from BMAG. Dennis, how are you doing today?
wow uh i'm really good um uh this is this is very exciting uh frantically uh sending messages to a
couple other people i would love to see in this uh but glad to see rod and uh richard and the
the bugle guys here yeah it's it's been a great a great tournament this year probably the best ever
and you know
shout out to the dog army
I see some of them out in the crowd
right now because they
showed up big time
for Casey and Aaron and they made it
possible for them to win
you can't go very far in Maxie
Madness without the fans
without your followers without
the people who made you
the Maxie influencer
that you are so shout out to
those guys shout out to everybody who
participated this year
yeah honestly a lot of shining moments and uh really really i mean look to go far we can talk
i know i know this is gonna get into the uh history of maxi madness and just like everything
that goes on year to year here but um to go far you need you need a cult or you need actual
followers or you need bots uh and uh um really we could dive into the intersection of those
is there a difference in some of those cases um yeah i very very uh interesting dynamics this year
um maybe less botting than previous years but uh we can chat about that uh or or is that taboo i
don't know if that's a taboo well the the ballot is c it's a secret ballot so the idea that bots
are voting in nazi madness is pure speculation there's a podconf tried to prove this last year
but they were unable to get very far uh because elon keeps the the api everything secret richard
um if you want to elaborate here yeah um good to be on here uh
i've been trying to differentiate the difference between a pleb and a bot
this is like one of the the journalistic missions i've been on and i i don't think there
is a clear difference because they they both operate the same way right like the the pleb
gets their programming,
their prompting from an influencer
and their behavior is dependent on said influencer.
So many plebs will go listen to their favorite podcaster.
It informs them how to behave,
whereas a bot gets their programming from an individual
just via computer code.
So I think they're very, very similar.
um and uh well you know if we've learned anything from brad mills very public journey with his
quad bot both labs and clod bots are very very hard to train they're very uh non-compliant very
ungovernable they kind of just go and go rogue yeah so so the plab is actually probably more
programmatically likely to follow directions than a bot at this point um but yeah i mean you know
these types of conversations oftentimes are used to try and discredit our democracy and uh i don't
always think are fair you know that the winners have put the work in they deserve it they've
organized their voting base uh however it might be and um you know this year was unique in the
sense that a podcast won the whole tournament i would say you know you had the co-hosts
uh facing off against each other in the final so it wasn't as clear uh as there being a winner
and a loser i feel like a podcast won for the first time in maxi madness history and uh that was uh
exciting
now I do see Erin in the
audience here
she needs to be
her own voice in this case
the
Hell Money podcast
is
oh I mean
it is a fantastic podcast
I recommend it
obviously Casey being in the finals
against
is quite silly
um yeah has walker ever gone up against his own r.i.p denim did we lose denim or did i lose everyone
no we lost denim yeah well r.i.p denim i can take it i i can take the hell money podcast praise from
here i could tell he was starting to route it to praise someone else or to talk about someone else
which i just think is wildly inappropriate in a time like this when uh how many podcast has
has clearly the champion yeah exactly exactly i mean walker was out i think in round one
or something so you know really not the time to be uh to be talking about lesser uh bitcoin
podcasts but um yeah i actually kind of wanted to say something about the the bot thread um
i oh jesus this is probably going to be a totally different like there's going to be
no Venn diagram intersection in a reference I'm about to make but um over the last week there has
been up about Chapel Rhone who uh her security guard apparently told a child that came up to
get her autograph uh like to back off basically like the security guard basically like squared up
against the child the child cried and then it turned out that the child had famous parents who
then went and posted about how Chapel Roan had done this and what an evil menace Chapel Roan was
for it. And this was kind of this whole big moment that's happened over the last week. And just today,
Chapel Roan, I mean, it's presumed that it's Chapel Roan's team because someone had to have paid
this research group. But basically, this research group came out with this report that says,
oh, you know, about 20 to 30 percent of all of the discourse surrounding this Chapel Roan stuff
were bots that were activated against Chapel Rhone. And so this report was basically trying
to reframe the narrative as, oh, it's just bots that have been saying this against Chapel Rhone.
It's not genuine engagement that is actually angry at her for this situation. And I just thought that
was interesting to see because that same research group did the same thing for Taylor Swift during
her Justin Baldoni, it ends with us, Colleen Hoover situation with Blake Lively. And so we're
actually starting to see like counter narratives around bots, which I think we also saw in Maxi
Madness, right? Where it's like, I mean, look at the engagement that Casey and I got on every single
round of Maxi Madness. Like regardless of if anyone ever botted anything, we dominated. Like
We dominated every single time that we were on.
And yet the best that the other side can do is say, well, it wasn't real.
It must have been bots.
And so I think we're just going to see this more and more.
The fact that you see that at the level of Chapel Roan or Taylor Swift and equivalent
competitions of equal importance like Maxi Madness, I just think we're getting to a point
where it like people can just write off anything as saying it AI it not real it bots And so yeah I just think we like getting further and further into a situation where like people can just kind of create reality
around whatever they want it to be.
Boy, I didn't know I was going to rage bait you just this soon
in the calls by bringing up bots, Aaron.
Aaron, speak about being runner-up to Casey.
Does this create any uncomfortable dynamics with the two of you?
We're probably going to have a subscriber podcast here soon, yeah?
Or spaces.
Was that this week?
Yeah, we actually have an episode dropping right at the end of this space.
Like the Hell Money episode about the Ordinals BIP rejection will go up at noon,
like in 45 minutes from now.
So you will get to see us in like maximum sadness.
This was pre Maxi Madness.
So like morale was extremely low on that episode.
But yeah, you know, I'm used like Casey has like more than 10 times the amount of followers
that I have.
So it's like, what do I think is going to happen?
And then also like when you activate the ordinals DGens, like Casey is the more name recognizable
name.
So I think the thing is like, I know that the real ones voted for me.
And like Casey might have even voted for me, to be honest.
Like, I feel like, you know, I know that I'm the heart and soul of the movement.
I know that anyone who's really in it knows that as well.
So, you know, it's just it's just part of the part of the situation.
And did Casey use Chinese sorcery to activate certain types of DGENs?
It seems like he had an acute awareness of various types of Chinese meme memory.
He is now here. He can speak for himself.
I guess these are like, again, false accusations, perhaps.
I just want to say that this is a huge victory for the downtrodden simps.
We won't let the foids walk all over us.
This is the real message.
The incels are going to rise up.
The trickerous astrology foids don't have power of ours anymore.
Okay, we've discovered Chinese numerology, which gives us our own power.
So I think this is a great victory and a great equalization of the sexes.
I disagree. I think you winning Casey was a major loss for the Sims. We were all looking forward to winners posting nudes.
See, that's the that's the first order effect. But the second order effect is you the Sims need to break free of their chains.
OK, they can't be tackled, just praying out here, begging for a glimpse of the titties.
You know what I mean? They've got to have more self-respect. They've got to be saving their money on OnlyFans.
they've got to be stacking sats so i think that's the real that's the real message it's important
never to glaze the simps if you glaze the sense they just get out of control
casey i don't know if embracing your incel identity is really going to help with your
overall mission of trying to get a girlfriend yeah probably i feel like you were on a better
path yeah this is not this is a i feel like every time we we put ourselves in front of a new audience
it's an opportunity for you to like meet a woman and like this is you've really turned off everyone
all of the like two women that are in the uh what i really meant to say is that i'm a dedicated
feminist and i actually endorsed erin to win she should have win she was really she was really the
uh the power of the campaign uh and it was only due to structural misogyny that she lost uh so
yeah i just wanted to put that out there i would like to see a prediction market on who gets a
girlfriend first casey or uh shinobi well casey is the maxi madness champion so that is going to
be a huge advantage to him shinobi he looks let's let's face it there's a lot of obstacles in the
way for shinobi to find a girlfriend maxi madness winning maxi madness would have helped but i still
think there would have been a lot of roadblocks there.
Now, clearly this is going to be an unhinged, no direction type of conversation, but I do
want to kick it to Tommy, who is here from the BMAG handle, who awarded the winner with
a very special present.
Would love for him to hop on and explain himself and perhaps, you know, ceremonially betroth
this to Casey? Sure, yeah. I mean, I'm a little busy ripping packs of Pokemon cards right now,
but I'll try to, you know, do this too. Yeah, I got the call from Rod Palmer to make the trophy
for this year's Maxi Madness, and I did it in the wee hours of the morning last night, and I am very
proud to present a hand-drawn slop, nothing AI, just pen on paper, Pepe for Casey as the trophy.
And it was really handsomely paid for by the Bugle. So thank you.
This is incredible. I wasn't expecting this at all. I think some original Tommy artwork is
absolutely a fitting championship gift or whatever. I will definitely treasure it forever
and have it framed and put it up on my wall. No joke. I can send you the actual paper because it
is real. So let's do that. Let's get it framed. Hell yeah. Yeah. I will send you my address.
Absolutely. Yeah. We should probably hang it somewhere that you can see it in the
like Hell Money episodes.
So we got to figure out
good placement for that.
Because just to remind you,
it is really a Hell Money award.
I'm even featured in the art itself.
So I'm sure Dennis made sure
that that happened, honestly,
because Dennis knows what happens.
I'm like a very sore loser.
So I'm sure Dennis...
No, I promise you Dennis
had nothing to do with this one.
Aaron, speaking of sore losing,
can you speak a little bit
about your ranking and your first round matchup with Ross Ulbricht.
Because I'm looking at, I was reviewing Rob Hamilton's winning bracket,
and I noticed that Frank Corva was up against Lynn Alden in the first bracket.
Again, a very tough draw.
Did you take that personally?
Would you like to speak about that?
And yeah, if I were to do a one shining moment,
I would say that first round victory was a big deal.
And then maybe we can also talk about the Chris Cedar matchup, which also had some shining moments.
Yeah, I was definitely very upset and invigorated by being seated number 15 out of 16 in the hot bracket.
You know, I think it's actually, I mean, clearly it was a fair fight for me to go up against Ross because I beat him.
So it's not that I was necessarily so angry that I was up against Ross.
I think Ross is very good looking. He has really great like bone structure. He kind of consistently
mogs. But to see some of the people that were seated above me in the hop bracket. Yeah, I don't
know how that was chosen, but it wouldn't have been the selection I would have gone with. And I
actually even think maybe the hop bracket in general, like there were lots of people that
could have gone in the hop bracket over some of the other competitors. No shade to my no shade to
my bracket. But that was kind of, I think, what activated me initially to get so involved in
Maxi Madness was I realized what a shame it would be if I not only lost to Ross, but proved that my
15 seeding was accurate. That was really what motivated me is I needed to beat Ross. I needed
to show that I shouldn't have been seeded at number 15. And I think I showed that ultimately,
because not only did I dominate the hot bracket but ultimately I dominated PodComp as well which would have been my other one Yeah I Yeah The you not being in the podcasting one I know probably also was a yeah
But I mean, I'm, I'm not upset about being in the hot bracket,
you know what I mean? Like that's fine. That's fine. But,
but it's nice to show to be given the opportunity to show that I can dominate
both arenas. You know, so, so ultimately I think the results speak for themselves,
but yeah, I, I also just kind of want to say like,
this is the first Maxi Madness that Hell Money podcast or Ordinals people have even been on the
board. And so I feel like maybe Casey and I would have won 23, 24, 25 and 26. You know what I mean?
Like, who's to say? So I just think this is the first Maxi Madness that we've given. We've been
given the opportunity to to compete and show what we're worth. Well, Bugle may have to defend
themselves here a little bit. But I also think like, look, I have stated that I thought Larry
should have been in the hot bracket.
I mean, he does post a lot of CrossFit pit photos.
And also, is that kind of ageist
to not have him in the hot bracket?
But Bugle can defend themselves
because clearly there's been numerous questions of rankings here.
I want to say that Ordnulz has had representation before.
Udi and Eric have competed in the past
and they performed extremely poorly.
uh i think they're poor representations of the ordinal's ecosystem though yeah i would i mean
i wouldn't really we've not we haven't had either of them on hell money podcast for example like i i
i feel like putting udi and eric in as ordinal's people is kind of just like an ignorant misnomer
no offense um i would say they're they're more like just like anti-maxy people that just sort of
happened to coalesce around ordinals at the time because the maxis were so mad about it. And I guess
because they already had an NFT collection that they were trying to do, which my understanding is
they were going to do that NFT collection, like the Taproot Wizards on Ethereum. And then it just
happened to a line that ordinals came out. And so they ended up making it an inscriptions collection
instead. So yeah, I don't know. I wouldn't put Udi and Eric in with ordinals people. I just think
that's kind of like um yeah it's like i mean this is so like representative of what i think has been
showing in the last week is like the maxis just have no idea what's happening outside of their
bubble like everyone who's not in their bubble they're like they're a shitcoin or ordinal person
and they're all the same and it's like no we have our own ecosystems going on um and some of them
might be even bigger and more dominant as we've seen from me and casey getting to the top two
yeah I think there's a lot of
truth to that and you know
maybe I wouldn't
fade Casey or Aaron
in any Maxi Madness tournament
however last year
Teddy Bitcoins
I don't think anybody
could have beat Teddy Bitcoins
and if you want some
evidence of that just look at the
poll results of the
championship last year when Teddy Bitcoins
faced Michael Saylor
So now going back to what Aaron said about the slot back of the chamber and Maxi's not necessarily having a lot of awareness outside of their bubble.
right last year maxi madness preceded paper bitcoin summer and so the finalists in maxi
madness last year were two paper bitcoin influencers at the very top right at the very
height of the spring entering into the first paper bitcoin summer teddy bitcoins was a big
micro strategy um you know influencer i guess you could say and of course michael saylor was
his opponent in the final. And so once TeddyBitcoins shocked the Maxi Madness fans, dominated,
completely dominated the team. He took out Yellow. He took out Lynn Alden. He took out Adam Back.
And then he took out Saylor in the final. And Saylor was engaging. Saylor sent his simps
to the polls and still lost to TeddyBitcoins. And then we had PaperBitcoin summer. So I think
nobody saw that coming a year ago. And I think, I don't know what's coming this summer. I don't
know if it's the money the the summer of hell money the summer of runes the summer of the dog
army i don't know but i know that paper that maxi madness uh typically is like a a is foreshadowing
a very um right something that's going to be trending big time in the summertime so just
think about that when when when the summer kicks off and and things start to get crazy
that's a really good point i wonder what kind of thing how many podcasts could do that would cause
like a major bullish rise in the summer and then just like a complete nuclear crash in the fall
casey and i will have to think about that um to see what we can figure out yeah the turbo flag
the turbo flag that's a great point actually maybe casey should speak more on the turbo flag
If anybody has ideas for what the turbo flag should do, definitely let me know.
You know what I mean?
I'm all ears over here.
There actually was a beautiful moment of unity.
Yesterday, we ended up going live on the Hell Money account.
In theory, it was like to debate each other, although that wasn't really what actually ended up happening.
But Yellow was in the chat on the stream and Yellow was throwing out ideas for the turbo flag, which I thought was beautiful.
So there definitely has been a little bit of unity, I would say, coming from the traditional maxi side.
So, yeah, maybe we can workshop with yellow and see what a good turbo flag feature would be.
I also see Rob in the audience here.
It would be great to get him up here for him to talk about his winning bracket.
because he picked the best bracket, and tis the season.
But yeah, Casey, again, huge congratulations.
Once again, mogging Aaron is real rough in a public setting like this.
I don't approve of that.
Don't say that.
She's going to beat me in private.
It's going to be bad.
It's going to be real bad, bro.
It's true.
Actually, yeah.
I'm not going to get a single worded edgewise on the next podcast.
It's just going to be, uh-huh, yep, yep.
Seeding her so low by the bugle,
they didn't know that Aaron is not going to not try
and also doesn't agree with the idea of just trying to lose.
She's just not going to do that.
So was quite the fury that she unleashed from round to round.
And the Chris Eater round was really entertaining.
And obviously, Yellow is an absolute legend.
And he can speak for himself.
I see that he's here now, so.
What?
What do you want, Denim?
Yellow, how many days in a row did you do Don't Stop Believe in Spaces?
that you cultivated a, you know, calling DSB was like,
for people that weren't there, it was incredible.
Like, I loved those days more than anything.
It was absolutely phenomenal daily humor.
And it was almost like a Sisyphus thing where he had to show up every day.
So you, like, kind of wanted Yellow to be free.
But also the idea that it kept going.
I remember at Bitcoin 2022 in Miami, listening to it, I think the price of Bitcoin was like
$46,000 or maybe it was in the high 40s that had gone down from $69,000.
Then the days just started to go on and on But that was that he had I mean Yellow you have I would consider myself one of them
a dedicated following.
But Casey and Aaron,
they also have a following
and they also have
Chinese followers that were
sleeping sometimes.
How do you
get Chinese? Thank you for your kind words.
it was 1,123 days
consistency
and also
how do I get
Chinese followers?
I'm really interested
about that.
Do I have to like
start tweeting in Chinese
or something?
Yeah, Aaron
how does Yellow
get Chinese followers?
You have to be tweeting
in Chinese
like in Mandarin
specifically.
Honestly
Casey is the best.
He knows all of
the Chinese memes
somehow like the one that he posted with the beaver where he face swapped himself onto the
beaver like that wasn't like he didn't have to like go ask what meme to do like he just knew so
casey's very tapped into uh to chinese culture i would say he has a great appreciation for it
actually yeah you've just got to be a terminally online uh basement dwelling nerd i think that's a
that's a good good first step i just want to jump in for a moment to verify this at bitcoin hong
kong the bitcoin magazine conference in hong kong uh two years ago casey like showed up at an event
and the line of people looking to talk for with him like basically wrapped around the whole talking
area of people like mobbing him like a celebrity he's already plugged in and aaron and i just kind
of sat there and watched him just have like a whole wall of simps just charging casey so he he's
been working on this coalition for years at this point i've taken so many selfies uh all playing
the long game. So many selfies with Chinese fans all playing the long game to win Maxi Madden.
It's all been leading up to this moment. Yeah, I think that trip that Rob's talking about where
Rob and I were just sitting watching Casey take selfies. I swear to God, Casey took 1000 selfies
over the course of three days. It was insane. So if you want to know where those Chinese votes came
for, because I did see, you know, Adam back was really loose and just playing fast and loose with
the accusations of bots? And the answer is just like Europe went to sleep and Asia woke up. Asia
woke up and the Chinese DGENs were activated and they came and they voted. So I feel like, yeah,
those like 1500 or however many votes that came in overnight for Europe and America, that was just
the Chinese mob coming in and supporting. Those were all the people that Casey took selfies with.
I think yellow deserves to be flooded with Chinese beaver.
I think that he would love that.
Was that a sexual induendo?
No, no, it was about followers.
Okay, okay.
Aaron, did you think that the TikTok dance would perform a little bit better
in terms of numbers? That was one question I had.
You know, I kind of knew that once we awoke the sleeping dragon of China, that they weren't going
to be able to be swayed by such tactics. The TikTok dances mostly work for incels in America.
It's kind of just like a different audience, I would say. So the Chinese are going to simp for
Casey. Like I knew that. So I did know that the fact that we had to activate the Chinese in order
to get us into the top two, I figured that that would probably also hurt my chances of winning
overall. I think the biggest disappointment was really that Witter's call to action was not
heated with more seriousness and with more attention. That did boost me a lot in the polls
at the end. But yeah, you know, I think my strategy when I was campaigning against Ross
Ulbricht and Chris Cedar was that Bitcoin maxis aren't gay. And I think that that played out
well there. Unfortunately, once you get into the Ordinals mob,
it seems like many of the Ordinals people might be gay.
Well, you do call it the turbo fact. I don't know why you call that.
that's a good point that's a good point we all know that waiters uh call to action got mr hoddle's
attention yeah widers that was a great attempt uh chris edore though also wore a tube top and uh
looked quite good as well so i i you know my hat's off to him but but still still in the chris
Cedar around, though, you know, that's basically Maxi versus ordinals. You know what I mean? And
so like the ordinals people are going to be loyal to me, even if they might find Chris Cedar to be
more attractive to them personally. But I think once you get ordinals versus ordinals and it's
Casey versus Aaron. Yeah, that's where the sexuality comes out. And so that actually might
be one of the biggest major findings of Maxi madness is where is the gay split within the
kind of greater bitcoin culture well i know yeah there was a lot of there was a lot of accusations
of asian gays too uh for casey but um yeah go go ahead rod i think i was gonna say well
in the sweet 16 round one of the toughest matchups that casey had was against nifty
um she put up a pretty good fight like that was almost as close or maybe as closer than the adam
background um and i think that i think nifty deserves uh you know some some praise and some
glaze for her performance uh she was pretty much out of commission the next day uh with a mind
drain after she left it all on the court i guess she does deserve some glazing because she really
She has a history of cosplay and LARPing.
And, you know, really, like, you know, to battle, like, Casey and Aaron's background in cosplay, like, she really had to dig in deep.
It was, well, I don't know.
Is that like you choosing to play somebody on their own game?
Like, you don't want to run against, like, Arizona this year.
Like, that's a bad idea.
Like, or I don't know who wins.
Maybe you don't want to play Aaron and Casey in a cosplay game.
I want to say something if I may.
Please, yeah, sorry, Yellow.
Once again, congrats to the Ordnance guys, Casey for the Maxi Madness being the winner,
and to Erin for a good fight.
My parents have taught me to extend the hand after the match is done, so I did that.
Other than that, I think Ordnose are kind of stupid, it's not my thing, but you do you,
I won't judge you, you do yourself, whatever you want.
So the Ordnose guys in their game, I guess the new narrative that Yellow was the part
without realizing at the first was, ladies and gentlemen, culture is done, Ordnose culture
is in.
Now, the rest of the guys, they're all my friends on quotes.
And this is going to be the last Maxi Madness I'll take part.
I want to do my thing also.
And I have big plans down the line.
So that's it.
I reject your kind of open-mindedness.
I think it's kind of gay.
and I feel free and okay to my closet absolutism.
So cheers.
yellow is always a gentleman at heart um but uh
aaron aaron and casey also kind of think that ordinals is gay too so i don't know if they're
necessarily i don't know i don't know i think there's really not that much they don't they
don't call it the turbo fag for no reason you know well heartful heartfelt words words from
yellow always speaking from the heart he's he's one of maxi mad he's a maxi madness legend he won
the inaugural championship um it's it's doing that many dsb spaces three maxi madnesses in a row
um it takes a lot it takes a lot out of you
yeah i can see that i mean it's it's hard for me to imagine campaigning like the way that i did this
time again. I really, I really lost a week of like any other productive stuff I could have done
working on this Maxi Madness campaign. But fortunately, it paid off. You know, I think
I do also want to want to just say to the DGens that there's absolutely no way that Casey would
have acknowledged or noticed this competition and then decided to do the turbo flag had it not been
for my obsession.
So, you know, I'm not mad at the DGENs
for not voting for me in the end,
but I do feel like, again,
anyone who knows knows that I was the one
who was running the campaign
and who was bringing in the results
that the voters care about.
So, you know, it's fine.
I'll just do like Hillary Clinton's
secretary of state to Obama thing.
This is sort of the way for women, I suppose.
Yeah.
I should dip.
It's time to go to the gym.
It's time to, you know, Spartan-like, you know, work on my body or whatever after Maxi Madness has challenged my mind.
But thanks.
Thanks, everybody who voted.
And send me your ideas for the turbo flag because God knows I need them.
He really does.
What are you planning to do with the lifetime supply of Soap Miner Tallow Soap that is now coming your way for picking the best or the most accurate bracket from Axie Madness?
I'm honored. I'm flattered. I'm already a regular Soap Miner purchaser. They have great fragrances for men and women. My wife's a big fan of the Earl Grey one.
I use a lot of the Pine Tar one and also their redacted one.
They're great. It's great soap.
I saw Evan Kalupas is also giving me an official Zeus wig and hat.
And Craig at the conference has now told me that I need to wear that when I'm on my panel at the conference.
So I'll be sure to get my shipping details to get those in the mail.
It's funny because I remember right when Maxi Madness was kicking off at the start,
I was on a spaces. I posted my bracket and I was talking with Erin.
And she tutted me properly saying that, how could you think that she wasn't going to go deeper and that she would lose to Ross?
And I totally, totally miscalculated.
I thought the Bitcoin culture on Twitter had just a decades-long Pavlovian response of supporting Ross whenever something's happening on the Internet.
And that did not happen. It did not happen at all.
And then Aaron went on a deep run. I actually found out about the space originally because Chris Cedar said that I needed to come up here and defend his honor. And if he wanted his honor defended, he maybe he should have tried a little bit harder and won the bracket. You know, maybe maybe he could have put in a little bit more effort. You know, like it was it was all over once he started posting photos of him in the tube top with Aaron.
that may or may not have been my idea to start.
That may not have been me nudging him,
telling him that that's what he should have done.
But I also, like, I had a pretty good run.
You know, I got to the Sweet 16.
I lost to, as Casey calls him, Guacamole Zucchini.
But Giacomo unblocked me on Twitter maybe like three months ago,
so I'm eternally grateful already.
I'm pretty proud of my run.
I think it was a good show by everyone.
I see Mars in the audience.
I think Mars should have at least had a play-in round.
I think the biggest upset of the whole thing was Teddy Bitcoin's losing in the play-in round.
That was shocking.
The whole bracket was just wild.
But great performance by everyone.
I'm sorry I doubted you, Aaron.
You crushed it.
You persevered.
And you won all the way to the finals.
So you took out the PodConf region and the Hot region.
Well-deserved and well-earned.
Thank you. Thank you. I will say I also kind of underestimated myself because in my bracket, I had myself beating Ross, but then losing to Isabella. I thought that people were going to take the hot category very seriously.
um so i thought okay i'm obviously a shoo-in against a man but the second that i go up against
a woman um it's kind of over for me unless like i mean in isabella's case like she is
she's she's kind of like exactly what a maxi would want like she's like living on an island
like tax haven situation and talking about like being lonely and wanting wanting people to come
visit her who are into Bitcoin. You know what I mean? Like, I can't compete with that no matter
how many TikTok dances I do. So I really thought Isabella was going to beat Ben. I was shocked when
Ben won against Isabella. And then I figured I'd go out. Justine Harper was sort of like,
that was the first woman that I went against. And I was very scared to go against Justine.
Fortunately, I think at that point, I had built up enough momentum from the really,
really aggressive round with Chris that I was able to kind of like get carried through um just
just on like kind of the uh the hangover from that campaigning strategy from the previous day
and do you think that Isabella fell into that category that maybe is the Adam back category
where they they just didn't try try and then and then yeah for sure for sure if she had posted even
once I think she would have beaten Ben and then she could have probably beaten me too
so what has that done to your psyche like how has it changed to have the free market
choose you to be hotter than uh the titans of hotness like justine and isabella aaron um
i mean i casey casey remarks almost every single day that i am like the least humble person that
he knows i am consistently like tooting my own horn and celebrating my own accomplishments
So honestly, this is just like par for the course for me.
This isn't, you know, but I will say like,
I kind of already knew that I was gonna lose to Casey.
And so I didn like put my self into that Like I know when to kind of like pick I know how to pick and choose like which things to be competitive in So you know
I think it's, it's correct for me to win the hot bracket. That doesn't necessarily mean that I'm
like, visually speaking, the hottest of all the competitors. I think it's a combination of
campaigning and visual appeal. And I know that I have the social politics intelligence to be able to
rally the troops behind me and to create a good social campaign. So I think it's a combination
of looks and personality. And I just happen to be the total package.
Well, I think it also has to do with astrology. I would consider astrology having been on the
ballot and the voters decided astrology is hot yeah i think there's also some people who might
fear me as well um and so they may have voted for me just because they think maybe aaron knows if i
they vote against me you know so they don't they don't want to build up that bad karma against me
you know some do you anticipate seeing more bitcoin astrologers now that one bitcoin
astrologer one like is this rod do you think there'll be more than one bitcoin astrologer
in next year's uh maxi madness and it's it's worth exploring even making that its own region
if it becomes trending enough and popular enough and this is what i think for the first time we
integrated prediction markets and having having astrologers in maxi madness mixed with
prediction markets, that might be a crazy combination because if they can predict the
future, it completely changes the game theory of Maxi Madness. This year was just the first year
that we had it and predicts, told me, that the Maxi Madness markets had surpassed more than 1.2
Bitcoin with almost a full Bitcoin paid to winners.
Rob, how much personally do you take credit for some of that?
And maybe fill people in.
I mean, Zaps weren't able to on Nostra, which is awesome.
But I heard that prediction markets via Nostra was like really popping off.
Oh, it was incredible to watch.
the Noster competition was fierce there was a lot of excitement there were a lot of sats spent
a lot of sats spent we're talking millions of sats and a 16 seed won the tournament
Rev Hoddle absolutely incredible guy I saw him in the space here a little bit earlier but
yeah it was fun to watch it was we didn't know if it was going to work I mean one of the
you know, the problems with Nostar historically is that the UX is kind of,
you know, less than the best. And it, it worked, it worked.
And people are excited about it. People had a ton of fun.
So for those that, for those that don't know,
can you explain that there was like actually a different competition going on,
like a kind of like a separate, but equal, but,
or like apartheid type situation. And then like who was in that?
people that aren't Nostra are not on Nostra may not know about this at all.
Yeah, it's, you know, the world of Nostra is completely different than the world of Twitter.
They have their own culture. They have their own. So to say influencers and, you know, celebrities,
it's very like developer focused in many ways is kind of like a galt's gulch of Bitcoin culture
culture where you know it's individuals that don't really want to participate in the the
mosh pit and they're just kind of wanting to hang out with people that you know do things similar to
them um but yeah i mean i think most of the people looking at the nostril bracket have no idea you
know tone bass didn't know anybody in this maxi madness bracket which just kind of goes to show
how to how out of touch he is with uh who is tone vase like i've never even seen that profile before
you see what i just did there you see how they just keep uh they do that over and over again
but that actually is serious i don't know who tone vase is and i was confused is he pro bip 110 or
anti bip 110 because i saw bip 110 people being mad at him i don't he's very anti bip 110 okay so
he's politically homeless yeah he he's like an old he's a very old school podcaster uh
But I think he's an important one for you to know and just understanding broader Bitcoin culture.
But he is a guy that has obviously been resting on his credentials and is very out of touch.
But he organized a conference, has been a longtime podcaster, likes to do trading stuff.
He's one of the old school, like this is how you trade Bitcoin people.
So, you know, Matthew Cratter, you know, kind of looked at Tonebase and built off of his model.
I mean, you say you say that I should know these people, but I literally have asked Casey things on the podcast.
Like, who is Mark Andreessen? Is he the guy who's like a VC with an egghead?
Like it's or Gavin, Gavin, Mark, whichever one.
Again, like literally this is the level I got into Bitcoin post COVID.
So, you know, it's 2026. I've been in Bitcoin for over five years now.
But I think the old heads really just have this like nostalgia for, you know, it's like it's like when grandpa.
tells you stories from the war. You know what I mean? And you're like, wow, you have PTSD from
Vietnam and you are stuck in like a version of reality that no longer exists. I feel like that's
kind of what's happened in Bitcoin Maxi realm. And for some reason, they can't break out of it or
like there's no wake up call that will present itself to them and make them realize like, wait,
maybe it actually isn't that the newcomers need to educate themselves on how important I am.
It's like maybe you aren't as important anymore and you're not as relevant anymore.
And it's OK for a new wave to come in that has their own interests, their own perspective.
Actually, kind of speaking to that point, in terms of a astrology bracket in Maxi Madness, I think you could do an astrology fourth turning bracket because there's a lot of influencers in Bitcoin world that are doing astrology.
but because they're men, they don't say that. They instead say that they believe in the fourth
turning or they say that they believe in the Ray Dalio cycle of empire rise and decline.
All of these things are based on astrology. Like they literally are astrological cycles, but
it's not like it wouldn't work for their audience for them to say that. So they instead use these
other terms. But I think you could easily fill out a bracket like Lawrence Lippard is a fourth
turning guy um there's obviously like a couple bitcoin astrologers you could throw in there
there's a bitcoin astrology panel happening happening at the uh vegas conference this year
so i think that the first time we getting that so i would say fourth turning astrology that could be an interesting bracket to put in next year well unfortunately aaron uh we in the first turning now so that ship kind of sailed but uh yeah i don know i mean
it's an interesting i i think it's helpful to to understand history or else history you know
tends to repeat itself it's this is one of the common things where the plebs don't read history
and then they continue to repeat the same art you know kind of old boring arguments that have
already happened um so i i do think it's helpful to know who tone base is you know for that reason
because you know tone's been having a lot of the arguments for years that that many people are
rehashing uh so you can you can skip a lot of uh headaches if you if you just have a little bit of
a historical reference of, uh, you know, what's going on. But, um, at the same time, you know,
you bring up a very good point, which is that many of these people that have been around for a while,
they have just rested on their credentials. They're, they're failing to continue to learn.
Uh, they don't have enough entropy in their, uh, podcast listening. Um, if they even listen to
podcasts, like, I mean, you just look at how stupid everything Mr. Hoddle says all the time.
Like that guy obviously doesn't listen to podcasts.
He has no idea what's going on.
Um, and it's just, it's a shame that people embarrass themselves so, uh, regularly on
the timeline.
Like, I don't know how in 2026, you don't know who Aaron and Casey are.
You don't know who hell money is.
Um, and you don't understand the importance of the most important election of our lifetimes.
yeah I I feel like ignorance is not something that people should be proud of like I'm not
necessarily proud of the fact that I don't know who Gavin Andreessen is it's more that I say it
because I think it's funny and it's interesting also to see that I don't know that like there are
just like there are different perspectives in Bitcoin that exist and so if I have to like put
myself on the chopping block to show my ignorance in order to like, not just promote this idea that
everyone has all the same cultural references, and everyone has all the same perspective,
I will do it. And I think that's kind of what Hell Money ends up being like,
the basic premise for Hell Money is that Casey's the expert, and I'm the interviewer.
It has completely gone off the rails since that initial premise. But that was the initial idea is
that Casey is this expert on Bitcoin and I'm asking him questions that I think the audience
would want to know and that I want to know. And so, you know, with that, I feel like I kind of,
I think at one point I asked him if smart contracts are executed by lawyers. Like,
do you need a lawyer to make a smart contract? Like shit like that, you know?
So I try to just kind of like go for it. But I, but I, I do find it really interesting that
a lot of the maxis are sort of flaunting their ignorance in a way that's like,
there is no educational purpose. Like they're not like, oh, who is Casey Rotemore or Aaron
Redwing? What are ordinals? I've never heard of these things. I would really love to know about
this. Like they're flaunting their ignorance as if it's a trophy or a prize in and of itself,
and they have no interest in educating themselves. So it's like, I don't know, it's kind of
interesting to see that sort of meme play out. And so when Tone Veys says that he hasn't heard
of Casey, I just kind of don't believe it. Not that I think he should have heard of me, but it's
like Casey was everywhere like for like a year or two I don't know I just I don't buy that it just
feels like he's kind of he's regurgitating language that he's heard other people say that for some
reason he thinks makes him seem cool and it doesn't you know oh I don't think any of us on stage think
tone bass is cool uh yeah it's it's productive to play the bit and I think you know a lot of the
individuals that are around these days many of them got their education from peter mccormick
right and so they they think and they they talk like peter did and like part of what made peter
such a great interview was that he played the bit of being uninformed but you know because he's so
prominent like a lot of individuals thought that he was setting the example for how to be
which is coming off as being uninformed and so they thought it was appropriate like okay the
biggest podcaster in the world doesn't know what an x-pub is i don't have to either uh you know so
i can go out there i mean you look at like hodl not he's like the perfect example of somebody like
this that is unironically being peter mccormick yeah that's that's a good point um i mean i think
that's also like the monetary kind of macro econ guys kind of took over as well right it's like
they i do think it's very effective to use these kind of analogies like bitcoin is literally a
battery bitcoin literally converts energy into currency like that speaks to the plebs because
it's so simple and it just like scratches your brain and i think that that sort of like it kind
of ends up being like an alternative history kind of rhetoric. And by the way, big enjoyer of
alternative history Atlantis was totally real. But like those types of things just like
captivate people's minds. And so they don't actually ever have to learn about how Bitcoin
works because like they're not even interacting with Bitcoin. They're just like DCAing on Swan.
So I feel like, yeah, it's like it's the Peter McCormick kind of effect, like that sort of
podcaster style of like, I don't know anything. I'm going to interview all of my guests like I
don't know anything and I'll never learn and I'll never come up with new information or my own
insights. I'll just keep being a blank slate over and over and over again for these people to
put their messages out. But then I think it's also the messages themselves that like the messages
that came out were these like very dumbed down kind of delicious metaphors that make Bitcoin into
something that like you know it's like not even really getting at what bitcoin really is it's kind
of just like dumbing it down so that you just like can tell yourself that you're a genius for
getting into it first the technical definition of what you're describing it's called pleb slop
i need to be very careful because i'm actually in bedford right now the bitcoin capital of the world
for peter mccormick's conference cheat code in the uk so if i speak illy of him his his his goons
the police force are going to be right outside my door.
So I just need to come out and say that Peter McCormick is the best Bitcoin
podcaster that's ever done it.
And I think he does great work and I hope he comes back to Bitcoin soon.
I don't want to, I'm in Bedford.
I'm behind enemy lines.
They will extract me out.
I will have to explain to Peter what an ex-pub is.
It's going to be like a tortured prison sentence.
So I want to be very careful.
But if you have anything you want me to share with him,
I can go tell him at dinner tonight your thoughts and opinions.
I don't think anybody spoke ill of Peter.
I think you're misunderstanding what was said.
Also, Aaron, you've been a guest on that show, no?
No, no, no.
Casey been on What Bitcoin Did but Oh no I was on with Danny Wow danny knolls not with peter mccormick peter mccormick um like i i think was he small i don know if he was swan podcast industrial
complex or what but like someone clearly told him that he needed to be anti-ordinals because when he
had casey on i mean it's like the most absurd interview see i'll talk shit about peter mccormick
now that i know that rob is behind enemy lines and that they're gonna execute him um yeah when
When Casey went on Peter McCormick's show a couple years ago, it was so crazy.
I encourage anyone who's interested in this topic of this kind of cultural divide to watch
that episode because Casey answers every question with complete knowledge, technical efficiency,
just kind of gets to the point and answers everything honestly.
And about an hour in, you can just see Peter McCormick.
He literally says something like, I'm trying to think of anything that I can say against
you.
Like he's literally like stirring his brain, trying to come up with anything that he can say.
And then at the end, after this like very like honest, easy, you know, it's not like Casey's defensive about ordinals.
If you ask Casey about ordinals, like he's he's not into it.
He doesn't even like trade inscriptions like he's not like a shit coiner at all.
I think like it's like at the end, Peter's like, yeah, well, I don't know if I have enough information to make up my mind at the end of this.
Like, it just seems really clear to me that he had some sort of agenda pushed onto him for some reason.
And I don't know why or who, but that's kind of my shit talking on Peter.
But Peter has done a service in that he's just gotten out of the game.
You know what I mean?
He, like, has clearly realized he was out of his depths and that he should just talk about, like, UK cultural issues instead, which I think is probably a better market for him.
well uh yeah and in yeah i again we don't need to dig up all this history but i do remember
listening to casey on citadel dispatch which is like a super uh um you know uh of the culture uh
matt odell um uh podcast i remember those days but yeah okay so uh bugle i'm throwing it to you
as we wind this this time down uh what do you expect from the next year uh any parting words
about this year aaron uh aaron casey hell money uh appreciate everything you brought to this and
and like taking it serious i i hope for more cringe honestly i want more cringe next year i
next year i have no idea what to expect it all just when it when the time comes the brackets
the matchups, the regions, it just comes to you.
And I think part of the reason Casey won this year
is because the secret to Maxi Madness is don't overthink it.
Don't overthink it.
Just enjoy the ride on the plug slot popularity contest.
I have no idea what to expect,
and I don't even want to think about it.
I think we put everything out on the court for this year.
I think both of us are just completely tapped out energy-wise.
Going to have a nice, relaxing weekend.
Enjoy, you know, smell the roses.
And listen to some Bitcoin podcasts.
I mean, it's just, there's a lot of things on the horizon.
The next big thing for us is going to be the Las Vegas event that we're excited.
We're going to be partnering with PubKey and Rabbit Hole Recap to do an event there.
So anybody in the audience, tell all your friends.
Make sure to show up because I'm sure it's going to be a very popular event and there's limited space to be there.
I'm very excited about that.
There's going to be a Noster event that'll be a lot of fun.
We'll have some awesome musical performances there.
I mean, that's all I really could think about.
it's just living in the moment living life one bitcoin podcast at a time yeah speaking of living
life one bitcoin podcast at a time the uh the hell money podcast episode just dropped and i've uh
pinned it to the top of the space so if you are someone who did not know who me or casey were
before uh maxi madness or you had never listened to hell money podcast um the episode that we just
posted is Casey and I, it's so demoralized. Like we are at like max pain because we,
this was filmed like right after they rejected the ordinals BIP. And so like, we're completely
defeated in this episode. But I think, I think we get at some interesting, you know, of course,
we talked about the Epstein files, because that's always relevant to things relating to Bitcoin
core and the BIP process. And yeah, it's a pretty good episode. So if you're, if you're trying to
keep the Bitcoin podcasting vibes going, go check that out. I heard Brian Bishop's thinking about
reopening the bib since Casey's victory. Yeah, I think that was a stipulation from Maxie Madness
was that Luke, if he didn't win, it was going to have the, or I guess Dathan. Dathan didn't win. I
don't even think he made it out of his first bracket. So I think they have to close the BIP
110 PR and then I think they have to
reopen the ordinals BIP and give
it a number.
I was
a little disappointed in Gloria's performance.
I
thought that could
have gone better.
Hell Money Podcast is a fantastic
podcast and if you're
a subscriber to it, you get in on
what is always a very funny
and entertaining
members
Twitter space.
so highly recommend it
Bugle good luck in Las Vegas
Aaron thank you for bringing it
I expected nothing less
out of you
Tommy thank you for
the time you put into the award
it really nailed the
vibe I think
and you know actually one more
thing Bugle the level of production
this year was fantastic I don't know if
you've been complimented enough on that but it
really was like an incredible
step up so cheers to you guys
but thanks to everybody
winners sorry we didn't get
to see you naked
that was a real bummer
Erin
congratulations on hotness
you know it's a thing
thank you
thanks to the Bugle guys for doing this
I feel like this was a
fun opportunity to bring the whole community together
and I made plenty of
friends along the way so
I'm very grateful to that
the friends you make along the way that's the truth bugle take us out thank you uh guys for
having us on and uh tommy if you're still listening or around uh thank you for that wonderful uh piece
of artwork you are truly one of the greatest bitcoin artists of all time and if you are
still in line to vote for aaron stay in line
thanks everybody see you all in vegas next month use code x10 for 10 off see ya