So when laws were made, right,
no one's contemplating Bitcoin mining.
No one's contemplating digital thirsty.
No one knows the Bitcoin protocol, right,
when they're creating laws and same AI.
So these legislatures and these judges
also in their judicial brains,
they're seeing some of these things for the first time.
So a lot of these are cases of first impression.
So you are setting a precedent now in these lawsuits.
That becomes a persuasive authority.
So then someone in another state can say,
well, this judge ruled in this way
and this is what you need to do here.
And, you know, the judge, if it's persuasive authority,
they can just kind of use that as an analogous thing.
But the judges will look to something else,
especially when it's a new thing that they haven't,
they don't understand.
And so the laws that we,
and the orders that we get from courts now,
the judgments that we get from courts now,
any of these verdicts and any of the new sensitization
that happens will be used as precedent moving forward.
And that goes for all of them.
So, you know, I know there's competitor mining competitors,
but really what's set for one is kind of set
for a lot of them.
So everyone kind of needs to be on board.
And...
Greetings and salutations, my fellow plebs.
My name is Walker and this is The Bitcoin Podcast.
The Bitcoin time chain is 8, 8, 4, 6, 2, 2,
and the value of one Bitcoin is still one Bitcoin.
Today, my guest is Paula Pendley.
Paula is an attorney and some of her newest clients
are Bitcoin miners.
Paula and I dug deep into her work as a lawyer,
defending Bitcoin miners and the types
of legal attacks miners face.
But we also discussed the use of AI in law,
why no one trusts the legacy media anymore,
the changing regulatory landscape and more.
But before we dive in,
do me a favor and subscribe to The Bitcoin Podcast
wherever you're listening
and make sure to subscribe on YouTube or Rumble as well.
Just search at Walker America.
And if you find this show valuable,
consider giving value back by giving it a zap
on Noster or a boost on Fountain.
You can find me on Noster at primal.net slash Walker
and this podcast at primal.net slash TIT coin.
Without further ado,
let's get into this Bitcoin talk with Paula Pendley.
Paula, welcome.
Thanks for coming on here.
This is only your second ever Bitcoin podcast
appearance, is that correct?
That is correct.
Yes, my first phone was on CoinStories Natalie.
And so thank you, think me.
Of course.
I'm sorry, this show may be a little bit
of a step down from Natalie's,
but I promise we'll still have a good time.
Of course.
So I mean, I met you through
the podcast and I met you through the podcast
and I met you through Natalie
and it's been great getting to know you a little bit.
And I wanted to have you on because honestly,
I think the perspective that you bring is really fascinating.
I think that people are paying a lot more attention right now
to kind of not just their own Bitcoin stack,
but like what is actually happening
in the broader ecosystem
and what sorts of things may be impediments to that.
And you specifically deal with a lot of companies
who are fighting legal battles
and those companies are ones that are trying to
promote the adoption of Bitcoin
or to mine Bitcoin or whatever it may be.
But, and I wanna get into some of that
and just like some of the legal challenges
that you've dealt with,
but I wanna start out a little bit with just
who are you, how did you get here today?
How did you get to be an attorney
that is now focused on Bitcoin
and kind of quite immersed in this Bitcoin ecosystem as well?
Right.
Well, thank you for having me,
I'll try to keep it interesting for the viewers and listeners.
So I'm originally, I'm from Louisiana.
I went out to law school in California
and undergrad out there.
I started practicing at a firm that I was working at
when I was in law school.
And I did a lot of construction work
and kind of accident prevention,
premises liability type cases.
I ended up laterally moving to another firm
and that was in 2012.
And I tried my first case to verdict in 2014.
And ever since then,
I've really been predominantly a trial attorney.
I handle a lot of litigation, disputes, like coast to coast.
I'm licensed in California and Texas,
but there's something in the legal world called Prohawk Vici.
And so you can prohawk into, yeah, it's a Latin term.
You can prohawk.
Yeah, of course.
Of course, yeah.
Into certain jurisdictions.
And so you just essentially move the court
or you file an application to the court
to allow yourself to practice law in a foreign jurisdiction
in which you're not licensed
for the limited purpose of just trying
that particular lawsuit or case.
So I've had to try cases in New York and Connecticut,
Carolina, places like North Carolina, South Carolina.
So all over the place.
But now I live in Texas.
I moved to Texas in 2020.
And so how I got into the Bitcoin world
and how did Bitcoin become a legal practice
is I went to the Bitcoin conference in 2021 down in Miami
with Natalie, Nali Brunel, Orange Pilled Me.
She and I go back since undergrad.
We went to undergrad together
and just have been friends ever since.
And once I went to that one conference,
I mean, I've heard Natalie talk about Bitcoin for a while,
but it never really stuck until I really got immersed in it
and met people in it, understood a little bit more,
took some time to educate myself in it.
And then he started working, like doing the estate practice.
I thought, okay, well, a natural thing
that I was hearing in the community
was people that were kind of worried
about how to properly secure and then transfer
and allow their loved ones to inherit their Bitcoin.
So if, and how do you securely transfer that private key?
But when I started to do that work,
I learned that it's a really niche practice
and it's very, very state specific.
And it's mainly in boutique firm practices.
So I then, when I really, really got involved
helping Bitcoin businesses and generally data centers
and miners was when a lot of the miners
started moving to Texas.
And Governor Abbott here is welcomed.
A lot of them publicly invited them to come to Texas.
Texas is obviously a very friendly business,
friendly state, it's got cheap, abundant energy,
lots of land, you know.
And then also, I think part of the catalyst too
was when China kind of banned the miners.
And so I think a lot of the miners started refocusing
and trying to figure out where they're gonna relocate.
And a lot of them came to Texas.
And at that point, you know,
of course they need counsel to help them set up
legal frameworks and set up the processes
and assist with any outside litigation
and any outside disputes.
Because as new technology evolves,
there's always contract disputes,
all sorts of things that people
maybe not even thought about.
So there was an increasing need
for specialized legal expertise
and it's hard to find someone, you know,
you can find a litigator, but it's hard to find someone
who's actually knows what Bitcoin is
and understands it and was involved in it.
So I think that's what drove a lot of people to come to me
is, wait a second, like a lot of people don't understand
the digital currency aspect of it.
So that kind of gave me, I guess, a leg up a little bit.
So, and cut me off when you want me to,
but I can tell you about the cases I've handled
in this ecosystem, if you think it'd be helpful.
No, I just wanna say, I think that's such an interesting thing
because it's the same thing with like,
with Bitcoin companies who are looking for,
let's say like marketing firms
or for any sort of marketing help,
they can go to any number of the firms
that specialize in just marketing.
Like, but those firms don't necessarily know
what the heck they're talking about
with regard to Bitcoin.
And that's just like, that creates problems.
And I imagine it's the same thing with law.
It's like, if you're a Bitcoin company,
you want legal representation
that actually like understands Bitcoin,
that is preferably a Bitcoin or advocating for you
because you're just going to be better at doing your job.
You're not gonna have the hurdle of like,
even explaining what Bitcoin is,
like you're already there, you're already orange-billed.
So I imagine that that's like very attractive to clients.
It just makes it easier for them.
I mean, even internally here at my firm,
when I bring a team together,
I have to give them a little Bitcoin 101 course
a little bit, because a lot of people, it's still new.
And we have a Bitcoin family that we have,
and we, you know, we're Bitcoin Twitter
and you get involved and immersed in it.
And it's hard for us to step back and remember,
okay, wait, not everything is as involved as we are
and has been with it for as long.
But I think, predominantly now
with like the new administration,
it's been in the new so much more,
the obviously all-time highs that we've been dealing with
has just really gotten people very interested.
So I think there's a lot more people now out there
that are educating themselves, hopefully,
but and it's becoming a little more adopted.
But yes, I think when, you know,
someone's out there, a Bitcoin business or a data center
in general is looking for someone that could help them.
They don't wanna have to explain what it is.
And I think it makes it easier if, you know,
you just have enough information to be dangerous.
And you certainly don't want somebody like representing you
who thinks what the legacy media has told them,
which is that Bitcoin is a scam or a Ponzi scheme
or bad for the environment or whatever else.
Like, you know, you want somebody
who's gonna really be on your side and get it.
And I'm curious if you can talk
as much as you are legally allowed to,
maybe about some of the cases that you've worked on,
because I'm sure some of them are gonna sound
a little bit familiar to people
who have followed the mining space fairly closely.
Right, yeah, sure.
Yeah, just because of attorney,
client confidentiality reasons,
I won't go into like certain details,
but generally speaking,
I do do a nuisance litigation for data centers.
And that's been, you know, a nuisance litigation.
Let me define it really quick.
It's when someone is alleging that another party,
the defendant is substantially and unreasonably
interfering with the use and enjoyment of their property.
So, and every state has their own,
you know, they'll reword it in some way,
but that's essentially the common law definition of it.
And so there's tweaks here and there.
You have to understand the standard of care
and things like that in different jurisdictions.
But the main seminal cases in Texas,
where I am, is a case called Crosstex.
And there's another case, Blanchard, I think.
It's a Sanderson Farms case,
but those are the two cases that you really follow
for nuisance litigation.
And, you know, a nuisance litigation is something
that involves a lot of risk management.
So you try to be a good neighbor to avoid lawsuits, right?
So you do a lot on the front end.
You have to do a good job listening and planning
and adapting to some of the concerns of the neighborhood.
But at some point, sometimes lawsuits are filed
and you have to defend them.
And so you'll probably, one of the biggest challenges
in the nuisance world right now,
is as it pertains to mining and these kinds of plaintiff
advertising that you kind of alluded to
when you were talking about the mainstream media
has kind of had a hostile reporting on mining in general.
But even plaintiff's lawyer advertising
is also aimed at finding lawsuits, okay?
So you've probably seen it,
that every state has different rules on what they can show,
how plaintiffs can advertise.
But, you know, you'll see all these things online
where they say, okay, we'll call this number
if you've been harmed in this,
or call this number if you ingested this,
or it's a med mal thing or a cancer inducing thing.
So you call one of these telephone farms,
and it's not really even a lawyer there, okay?
It's that someone just taking out a lot of your information
and they take that information
and they sell that as a lead to a plaintiff's firm.
And so that's in all kinds of industries
that's been going on.
And so Bitcoin is no exception to that rule, unfortunately.
In mining, it's been no exception to that rule.
And so that's how they will sometimes,
and then in the newspaper,
so plaintiffs' lawyers will advertise.
And, you know, I don't wanna say,
but sometimes create lawsuits by power of suggestion.
So ads suggest to people what they may be experiencing.
And that is what, and I'm not just,
this isn't just pie in the sky,
this has happened in my nuisance cases that I deal with.
So you're more inclined to perceive something
that's suggested to you.
So Walker, if I'd say, like, oh my gosh,
do you smell that chocolate chip cookie
or that popcorn or something?
All of a sudden you're like,
you're smelling for it, right?
And then same with noise,
so with sound, it's, you know,
do you hear it?
You all of a sudden start listening for it.
You start thinking, oh, does it,
and it's so much perception and emotional involved in that.
So that's one of the challenges is really just
kind of battling these heavily funded other groups,
non-profits that have agendas that really wanna kind of
shut down mining or the mainstream media
that doesn't wanna give a fair side to the story.
And so people when they don't understand something,
they read an article or a headline,
and unfortunately it breeds fear for your, you know,
you feel like you're lacking control
and you look at all the negative things
instead of all the positive aspects.
So anyway, nuisance litigation is one area.
Another is environmental issues.
Miners, when they're setting up data centers,
you know, one of the main issues is, you know,
there's an agency in every state,
they probably run under a different name,
but it's like a commission of environmental quality,
and they regulate your air, land, and water usage.
So every data center needs to be aware
of the requirements for that.
And then they have to report on that every year.
And these are just regulations, state by state,
but I realized, you know, in this practice,
that there's a misconception that a lot of data centers
use a lot of water, and in some cases,
that's totally untrue.
But so we have to educate these regulators
and clarify the usage and the report on it promptly,
because they do have the right to show up at,
and they're not trying to fear, like scare anyone,
but they do have the right to show up at a business
at a, what, at, during reasonable business hours,
and allow, and you have to allow them access
to see what you're doing on the property.
And these can be induced by anonymous complaints too, okay?
So who do you think's making anonymous complaints?
I mean, I think, so consumer advocacy groups,
plaintiffs, lawyers, politicians,
needing a platform to run on,
it can run, you know, run the gamut there.
So that's just something that I've also had to deal with
and work with, and then there's contract disputes
with hosting agreements, okay?
So a lot of data centers will host their party miners
on their property, and then there's just common pitfalls
that lead to disputes, you know,
the keto-riding a contract,
to anticipate the worst case scenario all the time,
and kind of protect you from the beginning
to kind of get you leveraged later if a dispute arises.
I'm curious if I can ask quick, just earlier,
you mentioned some of these kind of advocacy groups
and sort of, I guess, in your world,
like leading the witness,
not before the trial has even started,
but like kind of priming them, let's say.
And is that, I mean, some of the biggest,
well, I don't know if they were actually the biggest stories,
but the ones that like Greenpeace and the Sierra Club,
some of these other ones were like pushing out there
with these protests that they were showing
with like five people,
is that kind of what you're referring to?
I think a lot of these were in Texas too,
where they were spending clearly a lot of money to try
and make it seem like there was a bunch of public resistance
to these Bitcoin miners.
Oh, right, yeah, exactly.
And another one's like Earth Justice.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
So they are anti-fossil fuel,
and they think that, you know,
miners are harming the environment, right?
But they don't tell the other side of the story,
which is that, you know,
miners obviously use the surplus that would be wasted.
It would go, you know, when oil is extracted,
there is natural gas that comes with it,
and unless you want it to flare off as methane and the air,
you can capture it and use it for electricity.
And that's what miners do.
They stabilize the grid, you know, by using that.
And then there's, you know, wind, solar, hydro,
all that surplus energy, that's,
we have a ton of it in Texas.
And all of that surplus energy,
well, if it's not captured, we just waste it.
And so it's a way of using that.
And anyway, so that's the other side of the story,
and that's the one you have to tell.
And, but yeah, it's easier to tell the victim's story.
It's just an easier, it's an easier media story,
kind of clickbait thing.
You really have to dig deep to kind of get past that.
And I do think mainstream media has been put
into the task recently in the last couple of years.
And I think people are looking at news
in a more critical eye, and this is just my opinion,
but they, I don't know that people go to the mainstream
ones as much for their news.
I think people go on their phones more,
and hear from people more.
So hopefully that continues,
because I think that's when you really get
to understand both sides of the coin.
Absolutely.
I mean, it's interesting too.
I'm curious, you said that you represent data centers
broadly, Bitcoin miners are obviously like
a type of data center, right?
And I'm wondering, have you seen different treatment
of Bitcoin miners specifically versus,
let's say a traditional data center?
Like cloud hosting data center versus Bitcoin miners.
Have you seen different treatment?
I mean, I certainly feel like I have at least in the media,
Bitcoin miners seem to be demonized.
People don't seem to really care that much
about data centers.
Maybe now that there's more AI compute required,
people are a little bit more paying attention,
but what have you seen kind of from behind the veil
in terms of the treatment of these different classifications?
I do think, unfortunately, Bitcoin and cryptocurrency,
just in like other cryptos even, they just get a bad rap.
And the Bitcoin world, the subculture of the Bitcoin world,
you know, is the pretty vocal and anti-government,
anti-traditional finance, distrust of banks.
So the messaging can sometimes sound conspiratorial
in some other worlds, right?
And especially to, we don't alienate a mainstream audience,
but that is why I think that maybe Bitcoiners
are targeted more, because it's more of the independent thought
libertarian thinking, just anti-government,
sovereign over money and that kind of thing
just gets people, you know, all worked up,
the people that have been doing the same thing
for years and years.
So I do think they are targeted more, unfortunately.
I think also the whole Silk Road thing
kind of gave it a bad image from, you know,
years and years back, I guess, you know,
I think people have just thought I was drunk money.
This is how you used to get drug money or something.
So I think that image is getting better,
but I do think there's some people out there
that still think that, which means that, you know,
they kind of target a little bit more.
I'm not saying that the AI isn't gonna be targeted more now,
but AI is fairly newer, is a lot newer than Bitcoin
and digital currencies and things like that.
So AI, I'm sure, is gonna be,
it's something down the pike that they're thinking of
and considering and knowing that that's gonna be an issue
that they're gonna face as well.
It's just a little newer, so they're not getting,
they haven't gotten the heat as much quite yet, probably.
It blows my mind that there are Bitcoiners out there
who are not yet on Noster's seriously,
what are you doing?
Just like you shouldn't need to ask permission
to use your money, you shouldn't need to ask permission
to speak freely, but that is exactly what you are doing
if you are still stuck
on centralized social media platforms.
On Noster, you can't be censored, you can't be banned,
and you can't be deboosted for saying words Elon
or Mark Zuckerberg don't like,
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unlike on YouTube X or any other centralized platform.
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or check out any of the hundreds of other Noster apps
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So I'm curious with these nuisance lawsuits specifically,
what is the end goal on the side of the plaintiff?
Is the goal to extract monetary compensation?
They want to basically get a settlement
out of the Bitcoin miner, for example.
Is it to shut down their operations?
Is it just to drown them in paperwork
so that they have to close up shop?
What do they actually hope to get out of it?
And what is the, I guess, if you're representing them,
maybe the result is very good for the Bitcoin miners,
but have there been some negative results
where the Bitcoin miners ended up losing these things
and really suffering?
So the end goal depends on the lawsuit.
Some will allege personal injury
and they'll make a complaint for personal injury.
I'm talking generally a nuisance litigation, generally.
Some will, yeah, looking for perhaps
some monetary compensation in nuisance lawsuits, generally.
Others are looking for injunctions,
permanent injunctions,
and an injunction would shut you down.
Now, every state, it's gonna be different
on their injunction.
Some can do a limiting injunction, say requiring.
So an injunction is equitable relief.
And so the judge has a little more in the jury,
depending if it's a bench trial or jury trial,
but they have a little more leniency
in essentially what they're gonna rule,
because they can sometimes say,
well, I won't shut it down, but it has to do X, Y, Z.
So you see that in different,
it depends on the case, it's a case by case basis,
but yeah, I mean, I've been in lawsuits
where they're requesting incommensation,
and I've been in lawsuits where they're just asking
for the whole thing to be shut down.
I think the ones that you'll see with respect
to the green pieces, those kind of lawsuits
that are heavily funded, and they have third party funding,
and then they have government funding,
they have private funding, but those,
they're looking more to shut it down
because they want the industry to go away altogether.
So yeah, that's that.
And this is what's so important right now,
is because these, so when lots were made, right,
no one's contemplating Bitcoin mining.
No one's contemplating digital currency.
No one knows the Bitcoin protocol, right,
when they're creating laws, and same with AI.
So these legislatures and these judges,
and also in their judicial brains,
they're seeing some of these things for the first time.
So a lot of these are cases of first impression.
So you are setting a precedent now in these lawsuits
that will, so it's binding in the,
if you're in state court, it'll be binding
on the court of that jurisdiction.
But even say there was a ruling in a neighboring state,
or it can be, it doesn't have to be a neighboring state,
but in any other state, such as like Kentucky,
or Arkansas, whatever, like that becomes second,
that's like a persuasive authority.
So then someone in another state can say,
well, this judge ruled in this way,
and this is what you need to do here.
And the judge, if it's persuasive authority,
they can just kind of use that as an analogous thing,
but it's very, people, the judges will look
to something else, especially when it's a new thing
that they don't understand.
And so the laws that we, and the orders
that we get from courts now, the judgments
that we get from courts now, any of these verdicts,
and any of the new-sense litigation that happens
will be used as precedent moving forward.
So that's why it's really, and that goes for all of them.
So it's, I know there's competitor mining competitors,
but really what's set for one is kind of set
for a lot of them.
So everyone kind of needs to be on board.
And then so I do anticipate there will be quite a lot
of appeals going on because I'm going up to the highest court
to get it rolling on some of these things in the state.
So it's depending on if you're in a federal jurisdiction
or in the state court.
So anyway, that's one area.
And then, yeah, so.
Yeah, I was just gonna say, I mean, so there's kind of like,
this is like a unique moment where you have the birth
and kind of widespread adoption of a new technology.
During this time from a non-technological,
but from a legal standpoint, it's like this is sort of
setting the rules of the road, or at least the precedents
that are going to be used legally later to just kind of,
potentially, I mean, if things don't go well,
used to really punish miners.
And if they do go well, allow miners to actually continue
operating without needing to worry about frivolous lawsuits
being thrown at them hand over fist.
Is that kind of a fair summary?
Absolutely, yeah, exactly.
I mean, so this is kind of like a key moment then right now,
because it's like, if you don't win these cases now,
if you don't set that precedent,
it's gonna cause just an unimaginable amount
of trouble down the road.
I mean, is it, do you see like a lot of,
is there, our Bitcoin miners kind of also getting together
on this and realizing, hey, look,
even though we're competing, we're all competing
for hash rate, what benefits one of us
from a legal precedent perspective
is gonna benefit all of us,
or do they all kind of go it alone to a certain extent?
And I, I, you know, I'm probably not frilly
to a ton of the conversations among all of them,
but I do think, you know, perhaps not in the legal set,
like in a, like a dispute or litigation setting,
but certainly in a lobbying setting
or an advocacy group setting, like for example, in Texas,
we have the Texas Blockchain Council led by Lee Bratcher,
and they, you know, you have all these miners
that are members of this council
and come together to engage lawmakers
to make more favorable Bitcoin friendly laws.
And so the response there has been wonderful,
but it's really going to the legislature at that point.
Like, for example, I, so either yesterday or two days ago,
sometime this week, the, the Senate had a bill
in Austin on creating a Texas Bitcoin Strategic Reserve.
So that's something that they're gonna be voting on soon.
And I think there's a, also a house bill.
And there's maybe the only distinction there really
is whether or not the tech of the state of Texas,
it'll be part of the treasury,
or whether it's, you know, man more outside of the treasury,
probably like the state control or in like,
there's probably some, you know, checks and balances there
and someone monitoring the whole thing.
But so anyway, I'm just saying that's just one example
of like where miners are really coming together
to create policies on both the state and federal levels.
And then really that also,
when you start creating the laws that are favorable,
then the judges and the, you know, they have to follow it.
But another way of doing that is also in litigation.
But yeah, I do think the miners, you know,
are coming together for different reasons.
Like for example, in Wyoming,
they passed a lot of Bitcoin friendly laws
about self custody and private keys and things like that.
And so I think in different states,
they're targeting different like laws
that they want to have passed.
And just a matter of getting them passed, educating,
educating the people in the legislature too,
because that's another hurdle.
So, but anyway, I don't think the miners
are restricted in that participation,
but I'm not sure that they all get together
and necessarily when there's a litigation going on.
That's fair.
I'm curious too, if you see that there's gonna be,
I mean, obviously different states
have different treatments for things, right?
They have different ways they're gonna handle it,
different levels of friendliness towards any industry,
but towards Bitcoin miners specifically.
I mean, you mentioned the China mining ban earlier.
Obviously that brought a lot of mining to the US.
Do you think we're gonna see a lot of,
let's say, jurisdictional arbitrage continue to happen
just within the US itself, states like Texas,
states like Wyoming that are more favorable?
Like that just seems like they're gonna suck
any hash rate out of these other states.
If people know, hey, legally, from a legal standpoint,
this is a friendly state to do business in
because you know you're not gonna have
the rug pulled out from under you.
Yeah, I absolutely agree.
I mean, I don't think you're gonna be seeing it
in California and New York, you know?
Oh, I think you're just,
it's gonna be gravitating towards the Texas,
the Florida's, the Wyoming's, the Ohio's.
That's where you'll see it,
predominantly maybe even the Nevada's or the,
in Arizona, you know, so,
there's a lot of land, you know, a lot cheaper energy,
good infrastructure, welcoming policies, taxes,
or, you know, tax friendly policies,
business friendly policies,
that's, I think that's where you're gonna see most of them.
And you will see, I think, a distinction there.
Have you seen an increase or a decrease in some of the,
let's say, frequency of these different lawsuits
being brought against Bitcoin miners?
Like, is it still kind of building up?
Like, are we just in the early stages of this?
Or because of some of the work that's been done,
are less of these getting filed?
I just, I have no sense for like,
how, like what stage are we at in this kind of,
this process?
Yeah, that's a really good question.
I think it depends, you know,
more miners, more data centers,
are popping up every day.
And, you know, there's the big ones
and then there's small ones,
the big publicly traded ones and then there's smaller ones.
So, you know, to say it's the,
I don't, I can't answer that.
I'm not sure that I'm seeing necessarily an uptick,
but with, I know there's these AI computing,
you know, huge data centers.
I just saw this week that another,
like it's another place in small town Texas
that has been bought by a data center
and they're just starting the construction now.
So, the more that these pop up,
I do think the more unfortunately litigation will follow.
Just, and that's just a nature of, you know,
if you have a solvent company,
a, you know, the news says billion dollar companies,
things like that,
they become a target for lawsuits, you know.
And so, I have it personally, necessarily,
I can't say that I've seen like this great giant uptick,
but I wouldn't be surprised
if there is one coming on the horizon.
So, kind of going to the other side of the coin a little bit,
because obviously you represent these businesses, right?
These Bitcoin miners.
There's obviously the other side of that,
which is the people who are filing these.
Now, granted, you mentioned that a lot of the times
it's let's say lawyers that are kind of fishing
for business, right?
They're looking for people to bring together and make a case.
But, you know, what have you seen from,
because I assume that you've probably, you know,
talked to some of these actual people
who are, you know, making these complaints
or just these communities where these miners are operating,
what are you seeing as far as the actual feeling
on the ground from people?
Like, are communities happy to have these miners?
You know, you think about it and it's like,
well, I don't know if I would want to be, you know,
right next door to a giant Bitcoin mining operation,
but it's like there's going to be more and more of these
and more and more data centers popping up everywhere.
So, like, what are these actually doing for the communities?
What are you seeing as far as the, you know,
legitimate response from people who maybe don't have
a different sort of axe to grind, if that makes sense?
Yeah, well, I've noticed that it's very few.
It's not that many, but those few have loud voices, right?
And so, you know, it's like you had mentioned earlier,
how they'll have this big story on something,
but then if you really get, you turn the camera
and it's five people, right?
But if you angle the camera a certain way,
it can look like a giant crowd.
So it's not to say that, you know, some people,
you know, it's, right, like you say,
you don't know, no one wants to live next to something,
but it's really communicating to find out and determining
what really is the issue.
Like what, okay, so if it, is this sound level okay,
you know, and communicating with the people,
but, and you, we have found in our experience
in these different nuisance cases that we've been involved in,
it, once you remedy one little area or one action
by doing something, some enhancement to a facility,
a ton of them are like, thank you so much,
that's all I needed, thank you, and they are gone.
But that doesn't mean that there aren't your token,
four, five, six, that are still the loud ones,
creating a lot of noise, you know, going to the media
and making the complaints and things like that.
And some people just don't like, you know,
saying that's an Adelie's podcast too,
they just don't take yes for an answer.
You're like, oh, okay, well, we can't satisfy you.
I feel like there was no,
there was no satisfying you from the beginning,
it was just a matter of shutting down the company,
that's what you really want.
And so it doesn't matter how many enhancements you make,
and because, you know, everyone I've worked with is like,
oh, well, I don't want to, I want to be a good neighbor.
And so you do, you go through a huge expense
changing certain things and making, to make people happy.
But then sometimes you just find that some people just,
they can't be, you know,
also it was just from the beginning,
you were never going to please them.
But, you know, a lot of people outside of the small token few
actually are very business friendly.
And they are, I mean, you'll see a lot of favorable comments
and a lot of these sections, you know,
there's all these like Facebook posts and things like that
in the comment section of Twitter posts and things like that,
where people are like, we, you know,
they've helped bring so much tax money to the community.
They have helped our emergency services by, you know,
donations and by, you know, hosting certain events
in the community, you know, in small town Texas,
there's all these parades around the 4th of July,
they will sponsor the entire thing,
they'll sponsor children and scholarships.
So there's a ton of giving back that isn't covered in the media
and all the favorable things that having a new business in town
and this isn't just, you know, data center only,
but just when a business comes to town,
there's a lot of benefits that actually come from it.
And, you know, like we were talking earlier,
even just in Texas in general, just stabilizing the grid,
that's a benefit for all consumers here.
And so anyway, so yeah,
I know I find that it's actually a very token few,
but they make a lot of noise, unfortunately.
And when you start following the money back to like,
you know, Greenpeace specifically,
it's like we know that they got $5 million
from Chris Larson, the chairman of the board of Ripple,
like we know that they were being financed
with the explicit intent of trying to demonize
proof of work Bitcoin mining.
Like this was their goal.
And they, you know, put up $5 million Petrodollars
to try and advance that goal.
And so it's like, okay, you follow the money
and you start to realize that even if there are these
complaints, some of which may be completely, you know,
completely reasonable and have remedies,
but a lot of the over, like the overarching push
is kind of being directed from some very specialized
interests who have, who really don't actually care at all
about the energy usage or the nuisance or anything else.
They just care about trying to make Bitcoin look bad
because they have another, you know, crypto token
to try and sell to consumers.
So it's like, I feel like that's such a,
I wish that you got more coverage of that sort of thing
in the media, but apparently not.
That doesn't sell as well, you know,
everybody wants to find the big bad guy and Bitcoin is,
and Bitcoin miners seem to be an easy target for that.
Do you see, like, is there a legal challenge
that you see kind of coming down the pipe potentially
for Bitcoin miners that like is not currently there,
but something that you think
that they're gonna have to grapple with, you know,
in the future, or do you think with this new administration,
hopefully at least a federal level,
you're gonna see more friendliness towards industry
more broadly, but Bitcoin mining specifically.
Yeah, I mean, I think, well, the current administration
has been pro Bitcoin.
It's kind of been quite amazing.
And then they've incentivized these data centers
actually, love start a long turn, I remember,
but they want big business, they want,
so there is support there, at least publicly.
Yeah, I think, you know, it's evolving,
framework right now is outdated, you know, right?
So that hopefully once there'll be more clarity.
So like, I'm not just talking in a new sense,
but like they need fair and predictable tax treatment, right?
And they need banking and financial access,
just like every other company.
They need to enter C policies that acknowledge,
you know, Bitcoin's role in grid stability
and, you know, as an energy provider.
And so once there's a well-structured environment
that'll benefit Bitcoin companies,
but also like consumers, investors,
and broader economy, I think that's,
that'll support this emerging industry.
But yeah, as far as like trying to see on the pipe
like what they're gonna face,
well, I mean, it's hard to anticipate that,
but I do think there is,
we're really encouraged now with the current administration
that I do think, you know, people are listening
and trying to understand and trying to educate themselves.
And they're more open to a conversation,
but at the end of the day, I mean, you have to,
there has to be clarity in the laws
and it has to be consistent for all businesses.
And I understand it's evolving in new technology,
but it's here to stay.
So it, you have to move with the new technology.
And so, I mean, listen,
there's always gonna be lawsuits with fixed business.
I mean, they can run from like, just like my career,
like when a lawsuit against an employee,
like an employee does something
while they're under the course and scope of their employment,
you know, outsiders are gonna see,
you're gonna see suits like that
for big companies all the time,
but that's not specific to mining or anything like that.
But it's not necessarily,
I don't know, other than just,
they have, you know, more better laws for these four miners
and more clarity so that they can comply.
Cause it's not like, doesn't wanna comply
these companies want to, but they just don't have,
it's like the moving target or the whack-a-mole of,
we don't know who we had to report to
and what we're violating if you don't tell us.
So.
I mean, I do hope that there is a big push
for more clarity on this and a recognition that,
as you said, these Bitcoin miners are,
they're not just like,
they're not stealing the electricity from granny
or something like that.
You know, they're only gonna use the electricity
when it's profitable for them to do so.
If there's high demand for it
and electricity is more expensive,
they're not going to use it.
They're going to shut off and they can do that.
And I mean, I think Texas is just such a fascinating,
like this is really a case study,
I think for other states to look at,
to say, oh, look, they've been able to stabilize the grid,
to use all this excess power.
We don't have to use natural gas,
peak or plants or whatever else.
We can literally use Bitcoin miners
and they can bring jobs
and they can bring more tax revenue for us.
Like it just seems like it's such an obvious thing.
And to me, that's an indication
of how early we still are.
Like the fact that it's non-obvious
to still the majority of people,
like if you go up to 10 random people on the street,
you say, do you think Bitcoin mining is good or bad?
And like, first of all, half of them
just won't know what you're talking about.
And probably the other four will be like,
I read an article that it's boiling the oceans
or something like that from 2020.
And then the other person's going to maybe be like,
I don't have an opinion on it.
That's a small sample size granted.
But the point being that we are still so early in this,
it's, I don't know how long this takes though.
Like how like it does come down to education
as you mentioned earlier, just not just for legislators,
but for the average person.
So that people will start to say,
hey, we want to, we have an aluminum smelting operation
that was shut down and we lost tons of jobs
back 10 years ago.
We'd love to spin that back up again
and we want to bring in Bitcoin miners.
But like, I think we're maybe a little ways off
from getting that kind of public appeal for these things.
But maybe I'm wrong.
Maybe it moves gradually then suddenly
and all of a sudden, everybody's clamoring
to have a Bitcoin miner in their town.
I don't know.
Right.
I know.
Maybe.
Yeah, I know that I'll co-applant too
because we did some of that litigation
way, way, way back in the day.
But yeah, the grid doesn't work like a household
circuit breaker where there's just like unused electricity.
It's just going to sit there, right?
It's the excess energy is either used or wasted.
So I think just like making sure
that people understand that.
And how do we get people to understand that?
That is the real question.
How do we get the mainstream media or to really listen?
Texas Blockchain Council has come up with amazing,
like even recently there was a report that came out.
It's like all the economic benefits of text,
I'm not butchering the name, but it's like every economic
benefit of the miners across the country
and the top 20 states or something.
And it gives all the economic benefits.
It's like a 20 page report that was prepared by,
I don't know who funded it,
but it was prepared by an independent reporter.
I mean, not a reporter, sorry,
independent group that can statistically
analyze that information.
But how do you get that report into the news,
into widespread news?
Because there are a lot of really great reporting like that
and we will see it on Twitter or LinkedIn.
We'll post something and someone's done a really deep dive,
but the challenge is getting it outside
of our Bitcoin echo chamber and getting it into
the homes of like the mom and pops.
And so that's the challenge.
And how do we make it interesting for those people?
Until it impacts you, sometimes you just don't care.
But I don't have the solution.
I'm just identifying that I know that's an issue
that we're having right now.
And I do think it's important,
kind of maybe even gaining a rapport
with some of these reporters and saying,
you really need to focus on this side of it.
You're only telling one side of the story.
And it's all...
It takes time.
And I mean, the sad thing about the legacy media
and I think one of the reasons why it is really dying right now
is because they will only focus...
Like basically every legacy media outlet
essentially became like,
tried to replicate the Buzzfeed model.
Like when Buzzfeed first came out
and it was lists of different things
and it was all super click baity.
And instead of being like, no, we're the mainstream media.
We've got to hold ourselves to a higher standard.
They just went all in on that
because everything was driven by the incentives
for ad revenue, for clicks, right?
Exactly.
So now they went from like the...
They always used to like to show really dark
and disturbing things on the news
because again, that's what gets people to watch.
Just people like the horror, the car crash
they can't look away from.
But then they just took it like to the umpteenth degree.
But the problem is that that kind of leads them
in a direction where they're not actually incentivized
to tell the truth or to tell the whole story,
to tell it in an unbiased way,
an objective way, which is what you're supposed to do.
But I think that that's really gonna end up
being their own demise.
It's why they have lower viewership numbers
than ever before.
It's why they have lower readership numbers
than ever before.
It's why independent journalists or some Joe Blow
with a podcast can get better viewership on a random video
than some local reporter will on their hard-hitting
news segment about all of the cats
murdering pigeons and trees or whatever it is.
Like it's just, it's a different world now.
But I'm curious.
What made Bitcoin, what made Bitcoin click for you?
Like was it going to the conference
and just like seeing that this was an actual,
like this wasn't just something that Natalie was into,
but this was like, oh wow, this is like this massive,
massive thing.
There are people from all over the world who were into this.
Or was there another moment where it just like,
finally hit you?
You know, I think,
I just think the whole ethos behind it
is just so cool.
And the emerging technology is just so cool.
And that's what I think maybe gravitate toward it really.
Like you can have financial self-sovereignty
over something that cannot be manipulated.
I mean, now we really see it with all the inflation,
everything after COVID and 2021,
like we were just on the heel.
I mean, it was still people storing mass in this first
conference, you know, I mean this,
and all that money being printed at the time,
that's when it really clicked.
I'm like, okay, wait, hold on a second.
So we can,
we can hold our, the dollar's gonna be inflated,
but ours is this fixed money supply,
it's tabbed every four years,
I really understand supply and demand.
And so I was like, this, I've got to get on board with it.
This is, this makes sense.
And I think that, you know, it's just my,
maybe why I became an adopter.
And then obviously I stayed true to this hotdling because,
you know, I, it's, it's the best performing asset
of the last decade, you know, as everyone says.
So I just think that I'm gonna continue to hodl.
And then the people I've met in the industry
is what made me stay.
But I think the thing that clicked with me is really just,
it just makes sense.
So just like, I mean, how annoying is it when you go
to a bank and you're like, hey,
can I get X amount of dollars out?
They're like, yeah, sure, we'll do it in three days.
You're like, what?
Why?
See, let's do your money.
And why it took so long.
That's mind-blowing.
Yeah.
And so to be able to just transfer something like,
it was that fast.
I just can't believe we can do that now.
And so Bitcoin's off that problem.
It was amazing for me,
like the first time transferring Bitcoin to self-custody,
like the first time you really like,
you send a Bitcoin transaction, I think it's just like,
yeah, yeah, it's a little bit like, it was nerve-wracking.
Like I didn't have anybody like walking me through
or anything like that, you know, I'm just from my reading.
And maybe I don't even think I watched
a BTC sessions tutorial before doing it like that.
I should have really, but like once you do it
and you're like, oh, like I just did that.
There was no, nobody's asking me to confirm anything.
I'm not having to route this through anyone.
It just happened.
Like that is such a like galaxy brain light bulb moment
where you're like, this is insane.
Like this is really cool.
Like I don't have to ask permission or forgiveness
or anything else.
I just don't have to ask, I can just do it.
And I think that in an era where it seems like
everything has a gatekeeper, like whether that be,
you know, whether that be, you know, your social media
or your money or whatever else, like to not have that
is just so refreshing.
And it's crazy to me still that like, we're probably at like,
I don't know, less than 1% of global adoption.
Like that's just nuts.
Like that's really crazy.
And then you deal with everyone saying,
I'm too late for it.
I'm like, no, you have no idea.
Yeah.
Do you have those conversations with your friends still?
Like mine, mine have like, haven't really even started
talking to me about it too much yet.
This like this year, it's really like a little bit of
when we ran up to over a hundred K the first time
or had some friends like reach out.
But what's the vibe you get from like your,
your non-Bitcoin circle?
Like are people talking about it more?
Or is it still feel kind of like it's being ignored again
until it pumps like crazy.
And then they'll all come clamoring in.
Right. It always, always when it pumps is,
and everyone wants to start talking about it.
But yeah, I mean, the general consensus
and among my, you know, circle is just,
oh, I was too late for it.
Dang it, I should have got in when it was, you know,
whatever 30 K or something even, you know, and, and so,
or they either will tell me stories about how they sold
and they made, they made some money selling.
And I got, you know, Bitcoin maybe money and,
and I'm like, great, but hold,
you're going to wish you held.
Yeah.
So yeah, that's, I might just tell people
to continue to hold, but yeah,
I do remember the first time when I moved it from
self to self custody.
It's like I held my breath.
I'm like, please, I hope I did this right.
But yeah, once you do it once, it becomes a little easier.
But yeah, and this, I think predominantly a lot of people
like, well now it's at a hundred K or so.
I can't, I'm not going to make any money on it,
but like stack those stats, friends.
That's the thing that always blows my mind is like,
you start to realize how short people's attention spans
really are because it's like, if you, you know,
if you would have asked that same person four years ago,
like, you know, do you want to buy or however many years ago,
it's like whatever, like Bitcoin always seems too expensive,
but it's always in retrospect really cheap.
Like it will always seem too expensive at the time,
but then you go forward in time a little bit and you look back
and it will always seem really cheap.
Like, oh, why didn't I buy?
Why didn't I buy more?
But it's like humans just, why do we have this like insanely?
Well, not everyone, but many it seems have this just,
it's like they're only looking at like the next week,
month, year.
I mean, maybe that's just a function
of how broken our system is though that they're,
it's like, well, if it's not going to make me
a millionaire overnight, then like,
I'm going to look for something else.
I don't know.
Yeah, yeah, that is probably part of the ethos too
of Bitcoiners is just the longterm longterm thinkers.
But yeah, we need that.
We need a psychologist.
You know, we need someone to tell us why the human,
why we just can't think so far in advance
or why we have such regret.
I mean, they probably have all kinds of studies on this
because of, you know, related to like gamblers too,
you know, when do you leave the table, that kind of thing.
So I don't know, it's, but yeah, you need a,
you need a psych person to really study us.
Yeah, there's, well, I'm sure, I mean, what,
the one that I can think of that got widely publicized
was the article where they were like, you know,
clinical psychologist says that, you know,
Bitcoin holders possess, they call it the dark triad
of personality traits.
It was like narcissism.
Like this is where like the Bitcoin psychopath thing
like came from because of course as Bitcoiners do,
you know, somebody insults them, thinking they're insulting them.
And they're like, you know what, actually being like
a toxic psychopath sounds pretty cool.
Yeah, okay.
So we're all just toxic Bitcoin psychopaths.
Like it's the best thing to do though.
Somebody insults you and just turn it around,
wear it as a badge and take their power away from them.
And luckily Bitcoiners are very good at that.
Right, right.
Been dealing with it quite a long time.
So, yeah, for real.
Yeah.
Speaking of ethos more broadly, I'm curious,
do you see kind of a natural intersection
between law and Bitcoin?
Do you see this as something that like does,
are the reasons that you got into law,
do you think somehow also intertwined with the reasons
that Bitcoin attracted you?
Like do you see a sort of a confluence there?
Well, I can see it's really, really interesting thought.
And you know, the law at its best,
it's supposed to be the ultimate equalizer.
You know, you have a right to a fair trial,
right to do process.
Just like anyone has the right to use the Bitcoin network,
right?
So there is that similarity there.
The system doesn't care, you know,
if you're rich or poor or what gender you are,
the same will supply with Bitcoin, you know?
So I think Bitcoin, it does operate
on that absolute fairness, you know?
There's no bailout that's gonna come, you know,
no discrimination or favoritism
where you'll see in traditional finance, like, you know,
banks, your banking, your credit, your investment opportunities
are based a lot on privilege and things like that,
which that doesn't apply and shouldn't apply
in the legal scheme and definitely not in Bitcoin.
So, but I guess the real distinction was law.
And, you know, as much as law is, you know,
it's supposed to have a right to a fair trial
subject to 12 members or a jury.
And 12 members of a jury all come from different backgrounds.
They've all had a different experiences,
they have different biases, you know?
And so, and a judge sometimes you get a judge on a bad day,
sometimes you get a judge on a good day and stuff like that.
So that's a real distinction between like the law and Bitcoin.
But I mean, yeah, technically, yeah,
the law is supposed to be an equalizer, but you have,
you know, in some, in my experience in trials,
you do law deers and it's all law deers, very different.
And, or jury selection is very different,
depending on what state you're in or what judge you have.
So sometimes I have experienced being a jury selection
for I'm not even joking a month and a half.
It is the most comprehensive jury and jury selection.
And that I've ever experienced.
But then I've also been in trials where
you get to ask like one question.
So you have to think, I mean,
the reason why you even have Wadir
and you have the churs there is so that you can
smoke out anyone that may have a bias
that's going to prevent them from being able to evaluate
only the evidence that's put in front of them during trial.
Because everyone has a bias,
I mean, everyone's had a different experience.
So you come into the courtroom and we acknowledge them.
We say, please, you know, we acknowledge
that everyone has these biases
and that you've come in with different experiences.
But the question really is, can you set that aside?
Can you set that aside?
And for the time that you're actually in the courtroom,
can you listen to only the evidence
and then apply whatever evidence
that you hear in this courtroom, evaluate it as you may,
you know, if it's credible to you,
or if it's not, you can dismiss it,
but then apply it to what the law is
that you are given at the end of trial.
And that is when you have to come down to your decision.
And that is when you base your decision on
only and only that.
And that's what you have to get,
make sure that you have a juror like that.
But sometimes, you know,
sometimes you don't get to do a voidir like that.
And sometimes you just get the first 12 in the box
and that's what you have to go with.
And you're like, okay, that's certainly
a rock and roll with that.
So that's kind of a distinction between law and Bitcoin.
But yeah, I mean, there's there's an alignment there.
But it's the best we can do.
It's, you know, it's the judicial system that we have.
And I think it's the best, the best one out there,
but it doesn't have, it's not without its flaws.
I just learned a new word today, which is voidir.
So that's now I've got a new one in my repertoire.
That's that's that's fascinating though,
because I mean, I was really as a non,
I am not a legally educated and trained person.
And so I was thinking of it very much from like the,
the high level, like what is the law supposed to be?
But you bring up a great point, which is like,
there's what the law is supposed to be
and how it's what, who it's supposed to protect,
which is, you know, everybody,
but then there's the realities in the ground,
which is people, humans, we, you know, have biases.
And it's kind of a, it's a, it's a great analogy though,
just given that it's like, okay,
Bitcoin removes those humans from the law,
like the code is the law, right?
And that's the whole thing.
It's like, you don't need a jury selection
to determine, you know, the blocks.
It's, you know, whoever discovered that discovered it first.
And so I think that's, it's interesting, you know,
maybe, yeah, Bitcoin's a model for what,
what the law should be, perhaps.
On the law set, I'm curious, I mean, I saw,
just today I saw this guy, he was in Belgium
and he had posted a tweet, I still say tweet,
he had posted a post, I guess, on X.
It just posts, which just sounds lame,
but he had posted on X that basically,
Belgium uses these AI tools to basically, I guess,
surveil and then analyze group chats.
And they give you a toxicity rating for like,
if you're saying things that the,
this AI trawler deems as racist, sexist,
whatever it may be.
But there's all these slip-ups to it.
Like you could be quoting somebody else and saying like,
this, like, what a moron this guy is for saying this,
but it would still, because it had all these toxic remarks
in it, it would market as toxic.
When he's got a very toxic story, score is currently facing
like a massive fine in jail time.
And I was just wondering, like,
do you think that we're going to start seeing more,
like AI involvement in law?
And I listened to yours and Natalie's showing,
you guys talked about kind of using AI as a tool
for your legal work, but I mean more so,
like at a higher level, like, you know,
is an AI judge gonna remove the human component
that you just mentioned, like remove that fallibility,
or does that just add another layer of problems?
Because it's like, well, who trained the AI?
What were they trained on?
Does that, have you thought about that at all?
Like, just what does that, like,
it seems a little bit like, you know,
cypher, cyberpunk, dystopian, but like, I don't know.
Just, I'm just thinking out loud here now.
Yeah, that's really interesting.
I mean, I do know that there is a,
I mean, this was a, it was like a DUI case or something.
It was a massive case, probably like a two-day trial,
one-day trial, and they used, this is here in America,
I'll have to find it, we'll have to do the letter,
something like this, but he put in an AI in his ear,
this is a non-lawyer, put an AI in his ear,
and it was asking, like the judge would ask questions,
and it would give the answer, you know,
like he would wait for the AI to tell him what to say,
and then he would say, anyway, it was apparently
a huge fail, big flop, like it was just,
it wasn't accurate, hallucinating, you know,
they probably just hadn't worked out the kingship,
but it was an interesting case study to try it
and see what would happen, but that's more on assisting
with, you know, maybe a legal argument,
if someone doesn't wanna have to pass the bar
to represent themselves, Sue A. Sponte,
another mother term, you know.
There you go.
But they, yeah, so, you know, maybe that offers people
who maybe don't wanna have a legal counsel, you know,
it would offer them the opportunity
to maybe have the law in their ear,
but they just have to work out the tweaks of it.
Now, to answer your question about whether or not
a judge is gonna be replaced with an AI,
I absolutely do not think that will ever happen,
I don't think the founders were even contemplating
at the time.
I think a lot, a lot, a lot would change if we were,
you know, but although, you know, there are small claims cases,
small claims court, and that is,
depending on what jurisdiction you are,
I don't know, most jurisdictions like $5,000 or less.
So this is for people that don't jam up the big court systems
with, or the dockets of a big court for a small claim case,
and you go see, and there are judges in small claim cases,
but you don't have a jury, you just kind of,
you show up, you don't need a lawyer for it,
and you, it's kind of like the people's court,
you know, that you see on TV, or just,
and things like that.
Perhaps a judge jute, I mean, I can see something like that,
where it's, you know, a dispute of whatever, $2,000 rent issue,
landlord, tenant issue, or something like that,
maybe, maybe the, in years from now,
we'll be open to having someone just, you know, rule on it,
I mean, save a lot of money, take over jobs,
I don't know, there's so many things I'm f**king through right now,
but I do, I think, might actually,
there might be a market there in the future for small claims,
very small claims, but, or small disputes,
or even mediation, because sometimes your,
your required is called court mandated mediation,
and sometimes the judge, before they'll see, say,
go hire mediator, or use a public mediator that,
that the state plays for, to try to talk it out first,
don't jam up our court docket right now,
with something like that.
So, a mediator could be an AI, you know, where,
you know, someone writes everything they wanna write
on one side, and then another one writes everything
that they think is wrong on the other side,
and then you have a mediator that, you know,
get issues or ruling.
So anyway, let's coin that, we'll go into business together,
I was just gonna say.
You have an NDA, everyone sign on his,
I'm gonna have to delete this part from the podcast,
we can't have this idea getting out there.
Just like, I was talking through like,
can you do this actually?
You know, actually, not a bad idea.
I mean, but this is the crazy thing about,
I feel like we're at this time where,
like, technology is, is, like, I guess,
technology always seems like it's moving fast,
probably to everybody at every point in history,
like, you know, when the telephone was coming out there,
probably like, my God, things are really moving
at high speed here, you know, like,
cars driving instead of the horse drawn carriage,
it's like, we're living in the future.
But I think that rate of change accelerates,
and it gets harder and harder to predict actually
how much is going to change and how quickly it will change.
But yeah, either way, I think we've got ourselves
a great business idea on our hands.
We'll start a mediator, a mediator AI company.
I love it, I love it.
Paula, I wanna be conscious of your time here.
I did wanna just ask also, you know, I mean,
is there any advice that you have?
Cause you've been able to now transition
a successful law career into a successful law career
in Bitcoin.
Like, I think there's a lot of Bitcoiners out there
who have a, you know, a very particular skill set
or highly skilled in whatever their industry may is,
maybe, excuse me, and kind of wish, like,
I wish I could somehow find a way
to incorporate Bitcoin into this.
Do you have any advice for people about, you know,
just lessons you learned along this process?
Like, maybe even just, how did you actually
make the decision to say, you know what, I'm gonna,
I'm gonna take my skill set and move it
to start to work in Bitcoin.
How do you actually get there?
Yeah, well, in honesty, it took a while.
It really did.
It took a couple of, like I said,
I started trying to do the estate plan,
I think it just didn't work out.
It just didn't make sense.
So, you know, sometimes you just have to test an area
and know when to walk away and say, okay, you know what,
maybe I have to wait for the opportunity
to come to, or to me identify it later.
It'll make sense when it pops up.
And that's kind of what ended up happening for me.
So I was, I just really stayed in contact,
kept my, you know, obviously listening to podcasts
and things like that.
I would have ideas.
I don't think they need help in this area.
Well, I don't really, I'm not, I don't really do that.
You know, and I, you know, obviously don't want to take
on a case that I don't feel like I'm competent in handling.
So there's, there, you just have to kind of keep your ear
to the ground and that's what, and that's really what happened.
I mean, I was talking to Natalie one day
and she told me about some nascent cases.
I was like, wait, I've tried multiple nuisance case,
like this, and then I, it's not like I pitched anyone
or anything like that.
It wasn't, but it was just becoming involved.
I was involved in the Texas Blockchain Council at the time.
So I was, that's how I got the referral.
So, you know, it's things like that, but I guess my advice then,
if you're asking for my advice, it would, to become involved
in as many things, Bitcoin related possible.
And then write down, you can almost think about,
okay, what are my skill sets?
What do, what, what have I been trained to do
and where is, where is their overlap?
And it might not be automatic, but you know,
I'm part of this Dallas Bitcoin Meetup group.
So I talk to people about that.
I tell them what I do.
Over time, it'll, it'll just cut, you know,
it'll eventually come to you.
Business will come to you.
Someone will have a great idea, you know, and talk.
So, you know, it might not be overnight,
but I give it time and I think there'll be a,
you'll find an overlap.
I think that's great advice.
And I mean, just my personal experience has been that,
and it maybe it won't stay this way forever
cause right now the, you know,
Bitcoin or community is still relatively small
on a grand scale, but Bitcoiners are so willing
to make connections and to reach out a helping hand
or like there's, it's not like a zero sum mentality.
It's kind of like a rising tide lifts all boats mentality.
It's positive sum.
It's like, oh, I, like, I can help you with this or like,
it just, I've had a very positive experience in that regard
and it sounds like you have two.
And so I would also encourage people like, you know,
Bitcoin, Bitcoin needs as many people working for it
as possible cause like, you know,
we are the network ultimately.
And so I think that's a,
I hope that more people hear this story and say,
you know what, okay, this is what I need.
I need to get more involved.
I need to talk to more people.
I need to see if I can put my skills to use.
Yeah. And another thing, like for example,
just with that great example, it is the people.
I love the people of the, of like the Bitcoin world.
I can't emphasize that enough.
Everyone is so interesting and, and, you know,
just thought provoking and just,
there's so many ideas are, you know,
conversations are all around ideas.
And I just love the, the people of this community too.
And so that's enough.
So through the community, I also,
maybe I don't do a certain area of law, for example.
So someone came to me with an, you know,
our friend group that we've, that,
and needed some amending to a structure
from an LP to a master feeder.
Okay. I don't do hedge fund work,
but I have a colleague that helped do that
and got it done in two weeks.
So that's another way.
And now she knows what I do.
And I know that she can do that.
And so through the, through the like,
the web of friendships that you make in this world
and learning what everyone does, always finding out
whenever you have a conversation,
we always find out what they do.
And then you can, you send them stuff.
And, and I'm one of those people that believes
if you send something out, it will return.
It's like a boomerang.
So send out help, give, give value to other people.
And then they'll, it'll come back to you.
Maybe not through that person, but through another way.
And, and I, you know, it, it's relationships.
The world turns on relationships.
I'm with you on that.
You put good out into the world and good tends to come back.
And, and usually comes back even more than you put out.
So it's, yeah, I could not agree more with that.
Last thing, and then, cause I appreciate you not, you know,
having any billable hours for me here for, for taking your time.
Is there a, without holding you to this,
and because I don't know what you're actually allowed to say
as a lawyer, like if you can like give legal advice
without it being legal advice, like financial people,
you know, not financial advice, either way.
Right.
Like, is there like,
Yeah, none of this is legal advice, but is as a lawyer,
is there anything that you have that's like
generalized legal, not advice guidance?
Is that a word that you can use?
Like something that you would look at this and say, like,
this is something that you should be aware of specifically
as a bit coiner.
I don't know if, you know, I know a lot of your work deals
obviously with, with businesses,
but like on an individual level,
is there anything that you look at and you're like, you know,
this is something Bitcoiners should either maybe be really
careful about or be aware of.
Is there anything like that?
Oh gosh.
Don't mean to put you on the spot.
No, and it just individualized what people, you know,
just stay, stay on top of the exchanges that you use for,
for like holding Bitcoin, you know,
because there are some just, I don't know,
maybe because there are issues with them freezing
some of the assets and there are issues with like asset
recovery and they won't allow you to liquidate it.
And sometimes they'll send it to the state.
So there are issues there.
So make sure you trust where you're putting,
where you're buying, where you're holding things like that.
That's because that might be something
that's going to be an issue long-term.
And I know that they're trying to figure out the kinks
on that, but I don't know.
But that kind of sometimes keeps me up in my own bit.
So really the advice there is take custody of your own keys,
put it in cold storage and make sure
that you don't need to worry about an exchange freezing you.
Yeah, that's, I see a lot of tweets about that
or posts about that, excuse me.
And it's not something I want to need to deal with
because it also seems like for most of these exchanges,
especially like the big ones like Coinbase,
like you're just never going to be able to get somebody
from customer support on the line.
Like they just don't care.
They've got some algorithm that flags your funds
and then like good luck, like it's not your keys,
not your coins, right?
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
So I don't know if that's very helpful, but.
No, I think giving the advice to not trust exchanges
is always helpful for people,
especially if they're new to the space.
Paul, I really appreciate you taking the time here
out of your day.
Where should people find you?
I'll make sure to link your ex account.
We've got to get you on Noster also.
I'm going to hold you to that.
I'm going to keep badgering you about it.
But anywhere else you want to send people anything,
you know, you want to direct people towards.
Sure. Yeah. I mean, you can find me on,
I work at a law firm called Nelson Mullins.
And so you can just, whatever,
Google Paula Pendley at Nelson Mullins.
You can find my bio there
and has all of my contact information.
I'm on X, Paula Pendley Law is my handle.
And yeah, LinkedIn, all the usual suspects of places
that you can find me.
And on Noster soon, which I will hold.
Yes, I will be holding you to that.
Yeah. I'll download it after this pod.
There we go. That's what I love to hear.
Paula, thank you so much for your time.
Great catching up.
Hope to see you.
I'll see you at the Bitcoin conference.
Yeah.
Yeah, absolutely.
I'll see you in May.
Hopefully before then, that's too long.
But yeah, I agree.
I agree. We'll have to do something about that
so we can brainstorm this new business venture we have as well.
Exactly. We need to bring Carl on board.
We'll all get together.
Absolutely. I'm here for it.
Paula, thanks so much.
It was great talking to you.
Great talking to you. Bye.
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