Every person that sees Bitcoin will likely first say, I missed the boat.
People thought they missed the boat when Bitcoin was a dollar.
I saw Bitcoin as double digit prices and I figured I missed the boat.
Then I saw it over a hundred dollars and I figured I'd really missed the boat.
And then I saw it one of the tops of the bubbles.
It was like twelve hundred bucks.
And I was like, holy crap.
And then you start reading and then you start going, what is this?
Like, is this a Ponzi scheme or is there something here?
I think the big realization that people need to come to is Bitcoin is completely finite,
only 21 million and dollars can inflate forever.
So if you're looking at a dollar price of Bitcoin, you're using the wrong measuring stick.
Bitcoin is the measuring stick because it is constant.
There's a certain number forever.
And then there's a constantly inflating supply of dollars.
So if you're trying to measure something static in something that grows forever,
the static thing will always be worth more.
There's going to be ups and downs, but over a long time period,
it will always be worth more dollars because there's always more dollars.
Welcome to Saving in Bitcoin, your financial freedom blueprint on the Bitcoin podcast.
Powered by Fold, the best place to buy, earn, and save in Bitcoin.
I'm your host, Walker, and in this six-episode limited series, I'm talking to some of the best
minds in Bitcoin to walk you through the basics of why our money is broken, how Bitcoin fixes it,
and how you can use Bitcoin as your personal financial freedom blueprint. Let's get started.
Greetings and salutations. Today I'm joined by BTC Sessions, the world's most trusted Bitcoin
only educator since 2016. He's taught tens of millions of people around the globe. He also
leads local and international educational and community initiatives. His YouTube channel is a
go-to resource for anyone wanting to learn literally anything about Bitcoin. And he has
almost 400,000 subscribers there. He also practices what he preaches and lives on a Bitcoin standard
himself. So Sessions, welcome. Thanks for joining. Thanks for having me, man. And if I could bore you
for every time they announce me at a conference, I'd love you to read that bio.
Happy to do it as long as it's paid in Bitcoin. Yeah, we can work something out. So Sessions,
this is the last episode in this series, and I was really excited to have you on for it because
I think, again, you are one of the foremost educators around Bitcoin in the entire world.
That's a pretty cool title to hold.
Your videos are fantastic for anybody who wants to dive deeper into, again, literally any topic, technical or otherwise.
You have a video for it.
I guarantee it.
It's on your channel somewhere.
So people can check that out.
I'll link it on the show notes.
But I want to start out just at a really basic level because somehow this question, you know, Bitcoin's been around for 16 years, still appears to be confusing to some folks, which is what even is Bitcoin?
Is this just a technology?
Is it a speculative investment?
Is it money?
How do you think about it? How do you explain it?
I mean, it's an escape, right? It's an escape from feeling stuck, I think, for a lot of people
once they understand what it can do for you. You know, you see people every day, you know,
I thought I had a good job. I thought I had a good wage. And, you know, now I can't put food
on the table or for the younger generations, like the Gen Z coming up, I'm never going to retire.
I'm never going to own a home. And there's all these things that I was told I was going to get
if I was smart and went to school and, you know, got a whole bunch of student debt.
I was told that I would be repaid in kind with a secure future. And that's largely not the case.
So, I mean, for me and for many others, it is an opt out of the broken system and the broken promises that we were brought up with.
And it allows you to it's an outright rejection of the crappy hand we've been dealt.
And so, yeah, it's a it's a replacement.
Of the money that we are supposed to use.
and a lot of people say it's F you money, but using F you money allows you to say F your money
to the existing system. So yeah, that's, that's what it is for me. It's an opt out and it's a,
it's a silver lining to, you know, a storm that's been going on for a long time.
I, I love that. I'm curious to a lot of people, maybe, especially if you live in a, you know,
so-called developed or western nation maybe you don't feel the the pain of of some of the you know
the things that are broken in this system today or maybe you do you actually do feel that something's
broken but you can't quite put your finger on what that is what do you think is the most important
thing people understand about like what actually is broken what's broken at the core of our system
Why do things feel wrong?
Yeah.
I mean, when you step back and you think about how you value your time, maybe let's take this from the perspective of a blue collar worker.
You go, you get a job, you agree and say, okay, for every hour that I'm going to spend working for this company, I'm going to get paid X amount of dollars.
And at the time that you make that agreement, you have a decent understanding of what that means.
You understand X amount of dollars is going to be able to afford me the following things.
And, you know, there may be some promises of your wages growing over time.
And so you interpret that as my standard of living will get better because I'll have more dollars.
And based on what I know I can understand, right, I can afford right now with the current number of dollars I'm going to be earning, I think things will get better.
But what happens in practice is people don't realize how money, you know, that money itself doesn't create value.
And that money is merely just kind of a measuring stick for all the stuff that exists, all the goods and services that we could possibly buy with it.
And so when you have a fixed amount of money and we're able to gradually make more stuff with less effort, in theory, you know, everything should be getting cheaper.
But that's not the way that the system is working.
They are creating more money.
They're making more money faster than we can produce more stuff.
meaning that stuff is getting more expensive because there's more money than stuff.
You have 10 apples and you have $10 and 10 people.
Everybody can afford an apple.
But if one guy goes and prints $90, all of a sudden that guy can afford nine apples
and the remaining 10 people have to pool their funds just to afford one.
And that's what we're seeing in real time a little bit slower, but that's what we're basically seeing. The people that have the exorbitant privilege of being able to create new currency are siphoning away the resources from everyone else.
and there's this knee-jerk reaction of, you know, if you're rich, you must be stealing from me.
And that's not always the case, right? It's the wrong problem to look at. It's,
you know, if I bought something, and this is another thing that comes up often, people,
you know, their initial reaction is, I went to the grocery store. Groceries were more expensive.
You're the grocer that sold them to me.
It's your fault.
They don't dig a little bit deeper.
The people who do own the businesses are the ones that see the additional currency first.
They see prices creeping up and they can actually adjust their prices.
But you as a blue collar worker, it's a lot harder to adjust your prices because it's an hourly wage.
And so you're just put in this position where everything's getting more expensive and your only course of action is to go to your employer and effectively beg or argue or, you know, negotiate in order to maintain your standard of living.
And that's a pretty crappy place to be in.
So, I mean, I hope that kind of answers your question.
But in the end, it's, you know, we're creating a lot of additional money and creating money doesn't create wealth.
Creating stuff creates wealth.
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No, it definitely answers the question.
And I think that you made the point very well
that people look for something to blame or someone to blame,
but they are looking at the symptoms of the problem
and blaming the people associated with those symptoms versus looking at the root cause of the disease,
which is that they are printing money out of thin air, then they will continue to do so.
If there is one thing that is certain in this life, it is that central banks will continue to print money.
And the sooner people realize that, the better.
But the problem is you can realize that, okay, but if you don't see a solution,
you might be a little bit nihilistic, you might be a little bit depressed because you say,
well then i'm just running on this hamster wheel forever until i you know keel over so you're
somebody who you actually live on a bitcoin standard first of all can you talk about what
does that actually mean to live on a bitcoin standard and then we can kind of go from there
yeah yeah so effectively as of 2020 um i decided that i would like to earn as much bitcoin as
possible, not earn dollars and then purchase Bitcoin, but get paid directly in Bitcoin and
then use that to survive through whatever means necessary. However, I had to string it together.
And so, yeah, I've been doing that now for five years. I'd say about 90 to 95% of my income
is Bitcoin paid directly into my own self custody that I control. Nobody's has control of it. I get
paid. It's now mine. And how do I string together? How do I live on it? Because a lot of people are
going to be hearing that going, well, yeah, but how do you, how do you buy anything? What do you
do then? And it's a mix of things. You know, obviously there are hoops to jump through. Not
every merchant is going to be accepting Bitcoin directly. So there's a few things. There's a
couple companies in Canada that we're very lucky to have. So those would be Bull Bitcoin and Bitcoin
Well. And both of those companies enable me to be able to pay pretty much any Canadian bill
directly with Bitcoin. And so they deal with the end, you know, the end fiat payment, but more or
It's like, log in.
I would like to pay this bill from this company.
This is my account number.
And I want to put this many dollars towards that bill.
And they say, great, here's a Bitcoin QR code.
And here's how much to send.
I send it and they sort the rest.
So that's like a godsend.
And so that helps a lot.
Now, when it comes to things like groceries and, you know, gas and shopping online, Amazon
and, you know, going to Walmart or whatever I need to grab, you know, a lot of the gift card
services are excellent. So BitRefill I use often. There's another great service in Canada called
CoinCards. There's also the Bitcoin company. So there's a number of different ways that you can
obtain gift cards and place things together. It helps with travel too. So I do a lot of that.
But I'd say the third, final and most important piece of the puzzle is actually trying to be fully resilient and create Bitcoin circular economies and create those relationships.
And the reason I say that's the most important is because, you know, in the first two examples, I'm still reliant on a service in order to, you know, bridge that gap for me.
And there a possibility that you know in a nightmare scenario you know Bitcoin illegal We going to shut down all these services that help Bitcoiners use their Bitcoin But in a scenario where I actually know the people where I getting my goods and services from
and we're a local circular economy, we have real relationships with each other,
it's really difficult to stamp that out.
If I know the guy I'm getting my eggs from and I want to pay him in sats, good luck stopping that.
And so we've done that here in Calgary.
We've begun creating something called the sad market and we've been running it for, I think, a couple of years now.
And we just do it, you know, a couple of times a year.
But then we keep in contact throughout the year and try to frequent each other as much as possible.
So I'm able to get beef and chicken and eggs.
I've got a personal trainer.
I've got a dentist.
I've got a roofer and somebody who does flooring and like like real tangible things that are incredibly useful day to day.
Not just like Bitcoin merch and hats and stuff, which is also there, but real stuff that helps me survive.
And so I think that's one of the most exciting things in the Bitcoin ecosystem that's coming to fruition in many places right now.
I think that's awesome.
And that community aspect of it is really powerful.
And that may be something that takes a little while for people to build up.
But then, as you mentioned, you know, in the meantime, there are these other services.
And I would be remiss if I didn't mention, you know, for U.S. folks, you have access to Fold.
And they are a sponsor of this series, but it's a similar thing.
And these companies are great where you can pay bills and you can, you know, even earn rewards.
You can pay off your mortgage, your credit card, like other bills, get Amazon gift cards.
Like you can do all of these things and live on this Bitcoin standard.
But as you said, it does take it's not it's not as easy right now.
but a lot of these companies are making it easier and easier and easier for you to do that.
Like it's certainly if you would have tried doing this, you know, uh, 10 years ago, it would have
been a much different story, but there are all these companies today, uh, you know, like fold,
like bit refill, like bull Bitcoin and Bitcoin well that provide these incredible services. And
I'm, I'm very grateful we have them because they allow you to really, uh, you know, take this next
step and try to actually live on a Bitcoin standard. The other thing that I think is,
is interesting is, you know, people may say, oh, well, okay, that's all well and good,
but I'm, I'm, I'm too late to Bitcoin. I missed the boat because Bitcoin's over a hundred thousand
dollars. And, you know, that's all nice for you guys who, who, you know, bought it a couple of
years ago. But for me, I, how can I possibly, you know, how can I possibly catch up? How can I be
still early? What do you, what do you say to those people who think I'm just too late? I've missed
the boat? What's the point of even trying? First thing I would say is I said that to myself
through three orders of magnitude first before I got into Bitcoin. So every person that sees Bitcoin
will likely first say, I missed the boat. People thought they missed the boat when Bitcoin was a
dollar. I saw Bitcoin as double digit prices and I figured it was, I missed the boat. Then I saw it
over a hundred dollars and I figured I'd really miss the boat. And then I saw it. And like one of
the, one of the tops of the bubbles, it was like 1200 bucks. And I was like, holy crap. And then
you start reading and then you start going, what is this? Like, is this a Ponzi scheme or is there
something here? And as you actually dig in and you start asking it, there's gotta be a way,
there's gotta be something that's going to break or that it's just straight out, straight up
illegitimate and you dive in and you start asking questions. How does this work? How is this possible?
What could break it? And you begin to realize how resilient Bitcoin is. And then you begin to
realize how corrupt the existing monetary system is. And I think the big realization that people
need to come to is Bitcoin is completely finite, only 21 million and dollars can inflate forever.
So if you're looking at a dollar price of Bitcoin, you're using the wrong measuring stick. Bitcoin
is the measuring stick because it is constant. There's a certain number forever. And then there's
a constantly inflating supply of dollars. So if you're trying to measure something static
in something that grows forever, the static thing will always be worth more.
You know, there's going to be ups and downs, but over a long time period, it will always be worth
more dollars because there's always more dollars. You know, if you think back to the financial
crisis of 08 the bailouts back then that everybody was losing their minds over were hundreds of
billions of dollars if i see some sort of money printing shenanigans today and it doesn't start
with a t i'm not even phased let alone if it's you know what i'm waiting on what i think would
truly kind of be initially shocking to me is going to be the first time that they announce
a trillion, a multi-trillion bailout or printing or deficit or something like that, that is at
least over 10 trillion. That will raise my eyebrows slightly. That's where we've come from,
hundreds of billions to multiple trillions and people don't even blink an eye.
I think that that's really it's hard for us to wrap our minds around these massive numbers, right? And the numbers always seem massive at the time. Then in retrospect, when it comes to fiat, as you said, the numbers don't seem quite so big because the number, you know, you went from billion, you know, millions to billions to trillions. But that's just that speaks to how destructive this system is. It doesn't. The measuring stick is the perfect analogy, because how can you possibly measure your time and your energy and your hard work?
You wake up every day and you go to work and you try to create value.
How can you measure that with a measuring stick that's constantly changing?
And it's really just expanding.
It's getting bigger and bigger and bigger.
It's valuing your time less and less and less, your energy, your work less and less and less.
And so I think that that's a really important thing for people to realize that you haven't missed the boat.
There's a thousand at the time of this recording in 2025, there's a thousand trillion dollars of global assets, right?
Bitcoin is 2 trillion.
0.2% is what Bitcoin currently clocks in at.
It's not even a quarter of 1% of the total global assets as of 2025.
That's crazy.
We're insanely early.
And the great thing is, too, that there are still places.
Sure, in the old days, you had the Bitcoin faucets.
And for people that don't know, you could go to a website, basically click a button, and it would give you free Bitcoin.
I think at the time, it was something insane.
Like, what was it, like five Bitcoin or something?
Yeah, probably.
You could click a button.
Which is wild.
In today's dollar value, you were getting over half a million dollars just for free from somebody who had set up this site to give people Bitcoin.
But these things still exist today.
Like you can spin the wheel unfold and get a few sats every single day.
And in 10, 15 years, what is a one Satoshi going to be worth?
I think people really need to change their mindset, change their frame of reference to realize that we are so incredibly early.
And the longer that you think you've missed the boat, the less early you are.
You'll still be early, but you'll be a little bit less early.
And so I think it's good for people to hear that, look, you watched it go three orders of magnitude before you picked it up.
Because I think people don't want to admit that, hey, if I could have bought it when I first heard about it, but I didn't.
Do you think there's a lot of that just kind of like a sunk cost fallacy there?
Yeah, yeah, of course.
Everybody always thinks, you know, actually for the first time I've started hearing, you know, a bit of,
I guess it speaks to the nihilism of, of the coming generation. Uh, but you know, everybody's
in such a, I'm never going to again, own a home or retire or anything like that. They're in that
mindset. And so the, the only possible way out that people can think now is gambling. You know,
if, if I gamble, if I buy a meme stock, if I gamble on some sort of like meme coin or something,
or if I hit the lottery, then I'll be set and then I can just, you know, then I'm good.
But otherwise, I'm just going to doom spend.
And for the first time, I'm hearing that Bitcoin, from some of these people and their perspective,
is not risky enough because they've been so conditioned to think that if you just work hard,
spend less than you earn and save, that you can actually make it.
But that's what Bitcoin is reattaining for the average person.
That used to be all you needed to do.
Just be good at something.
Save.
And then you're good.
But, you know, the fiat world has changed that dynamic.
You can't just have a skill and save the exact same money that you earn.
You had to become a professional speculator.
And now today that's not even – that's still not good enough.
And so I think right now when people are looking at Bitcoin and they're like, there's no way, it's still not even for me.
Everybody already made it.
No, that's not true at all.
And you really need to shift your mindset into the opposite of what you've learned growing up.
And it's a return to just providing value to society and simply being able to save the money that you earn.
And that's an incredible thing.
It takes such a burden off one's shoulders.
You can start now.
And furthermore, the people that think they're too late right now, think about the people that are not born currently.
They're going to be born and they're going to be like, can you imagine being born when Bitcoin was still, when there was still a block reward, when Bitcoin was still being mined?
Like right now, every block is 3.125 Bitcoin being mined.
And like they're still over a Bitcoin per block right now.
And that's going to be unheard of in the future in a very short amount of time.
Yeah, it's a crazy thing to think about.
And I think that for a lot of people who have started saving in Bitcoin, because that's what Bitcoin is.
As you said, it's a savings technology.
It's a return to savings.
We're just not used to that being possible.
We're used to needing to speculate, needing to gamble because the thing we're supposed to be able to save in, the money, is broken.
And so for people when they hear, what, I just have to save money, I just have to save Bitcoin and I don't have to be a super trader and be calling the highs and the lows and all these things.
No, no, no. You can just focus on your craft. You can try to create value for society and you can save the value of that time and energy in Bitcoin.
And that's enough. You shouldn't need a second job as an expert trader just to be able to make ends meet.
But that's where we're at right now. And that's it's incredibly sad.
Yeah. Yeah. It's hope for the future. Again, imagine somebody just saying, I'm just going to learn a skill to get really good at it.
And I'll just do that. And then I'll, with my free time, I can just enjoy myself and I'll just save. What a wonderful, simple life that could lead to.
it's it's beautiful and i'm curious you know on a on a personal note for you
how has living on a bitcoin standard you've you obviously create a ton of value uh through all
the work that you do now you live on a bitcoin standard how has that changed kind of your life
your perspective your your family's life since you've kind of started this journey yeah well i
mean the the first the first thing that really took a weight off our shoulders was um or for me
personally was pre-bitcoin i could never save like i've never really saved much of anything in my life
i just had i grew up learning bad habits and around money as most people do i if i had a dollar
in my pocket, I was finding a way to spend it. And that really shifted with Bitcoin. For the first
time, I had a reason to save. And it actually also, I never really worried about the price
fluctuations because in my head, having anything in savings, even if it dropped, was already more
than I had ever had. It was like, okay, well, it dropped by 80%. Well, it's still 20% more
than I would have had in the first place.
I was never saving.
And so it started to change the dynamics there.
Over time, as we saved, you know, myself and my wife,
when I first got into Bitcoin,
there were, you know, plenty of times where it's like,
oh crap, we've got bills and we do not have a way to pay bills.
And what that gradually shifted to as we saved in Bitcoin was,
Oh we've got a cushion
We've got a cushion where
If something happened and I was out of work
For a period of time
We would be okay
And that grew to
We would be okay for a long time
And that grew to
We have a retirement
And now it grown to We have a retirement And we are confident that we be able to help our kids in the future And so it you you start looking out to the future
You start saying, OK, well, I'm good now.
What am I what do I want to spend my time doing?
What does this free up for me?
What am I passionate about?
What do I want my kids to experience?
What do I want out of my family, out of my life, out of my hobbies, out of my own personal health and fitness so that I'm actually around to enjoy this later?
It takes the stress off of just trying to put food on the table and it allows your mind to open to all of the other beautiful things that life has to offer.
That is beautifully put.
If that's not an enticing pitch for folks, I don't know what is.
I want to talk a little bit too because you're the perfect person to talk to about this.
Just kind of some practical tips for people.
And one of the things maybe as a preface to that is perhaps what's the biggest sort of mistake or pitfall that you see?
Obviously, you help a lot of people as they're starting their Bitcoin journey.
What's the biggest issue that people have when they're starting out?
And maybe that's something on the technical side.
Maybe that's something just on the way that their mind is thinking about its side.
What do you run into as the most kind of common thing?
Yeah.
So one thing that I'm not going to dive deep into it, but one thing that oftentimes comes up for people when they first get into the Bitcoin realm is there are distractions out there, right?
There's all these other coins and things that people will try to market to you and sell to you as this is the next Bitcoin.
This is worth your time and your blood, sweat and tears and, you know, the fruits of your labor.
And while I won't, I'm sure there's plenty of material out there regarding why specifically Bitcoin.
I will just for the newcomers watching this, please tread with caution.
over many years after dabbling in different things, I coalesced on just Bitcoin. And it took
time to understand if you get in the proper kind of stream of consciousness and you start listening
to the right types of content and, you know, here with Walker, you're going to be led down that path.
Absolutely. Especially with the prior guests in this series as well. You can begin to understand
why that is. So I'm not going to dive into that, but let's chat maybe about the practical,
you know, what do you actually need to do? What are the main skills that you should probably
focus on? So it's important to note that Bitcoin is very much like cash or like a physical asset
in that you, the best way to deal with it is taking full custody, full control of it,
yourself rather than leaving it with a third party. And so, um, you were, we grow up thinking,
oh, I got to be responsible for, you know, this, that, and the other thing, you know,
watch after my passport, keep track of, you know, all my important documents and all that.
But the, the glaring hole in that is everybody's like, yeah, but don't you dare try to take care
of your own money. No, leave that with the experts over here and they'll do some magic in the
background. Don't worry. Don't look behind the curtain, but leave your money with us. It'll be
safe. And Bitcoin is the antithesis of that. Leaving your Bitcoin with somebody else is just
about the worst thing that you can do. It, you know, not only was Bitcoin built in and around
the premise of, of personal responsibility and removing trusted third parties, but the risk is
greater there. And what I mean is we've seen many times where exchanges that hold people's Bitcoin
have blown up either through hacks or internal malicious intent or a host of other reasons. But
at the end of the day, mistakes happen and people, real people lose real money. And it's heartbreaking
when that happens. Now, some of you may think, well, yeah, but I, you know, if I take control
my Bitcoin, what if I make mistakes? And my counter to that is if everybody on exchanges
like FTX had self-custodied, some of them, yes, may have made mistakes. But the people
that were on FTX, all of them lost their money, every single one. And so if you can learn the
tools and you can learn a few basic concepts and skills, you can very effectively secure your money.
And so what are those skills? One, you need to be able to obtain Bitcoin. Where are you going to get
it? There's lots and lots of options depending on your jurisdiction. And so, you know, I'm sure,
Walker, I'm sure you talk about many different places that you can get Bitcoin. So I'll kind of
defer to, you know, places that you've talked about on the show before, but, you know, look
locally what's available for you to be able to purchase Bitcoin. Number two is just getting
familiar with a regular Bitcoin wallet, like a hot wallet on your phone. There's tons of options for
this. You know, if you're, if you're on a phone, then some, there's, there's lots of simple options.
There's things like blue wallet and aqua wallet. And, you know, I like things like Phoenix and,
you know, there's a lot of point being, there's lots of different options. I've done videos on
lots of different wallets on your phone, but this is your initial pathway to understanding what a
Bitcoin wallet is. Now, the interesting thing about a Bitcoin wallet is even though I say you're
taking control of your own money, you're holding your own money. Technically speaking, a Bitcoin
wallet, it doesn't hold your money. It doesn't have Bitcoin in it. It has something else. And so
what I mean is Bitcoin is just a big ledger of who owns what kind of like a bank would have a
record. Okay. This person has this much, this person has this much. That's what the Bitcoin
blockchain is. It's just a copy of where's all the money. And even though there aren't names
specifically attached, there are a record, there is a record of every single sat on the Bitcoin
blockchain and what addresses it sits in. And so when you have a Bitcoin wallet, what you actually
have is the keys to your money. You have a key, a digital key, and it sits on your phone.
And when you create that wallet, you take that key, which is information, and you make a spare key.
And that spare key, what it looks like is just a copy of typically 12 words, sometimes 24, but
12 English words, maybe written on a piece of paper. Some people go as far as stamping it into
steel so that it doesn't get burned up in a fire. But nonetheless, it's a piece of information.
It's on your phone. And then it's written down in case you smash your phone or you delete the app.
And so that's kind of the first major hurdle of learning Bitcoin. How do I get a wallet?
How do I back it up? How do I recover it if I do something wrong? And so if you can
write down 12 words and keep them in a safe spot, which I'm certain many people can. If you have
important documents that you've kept safe, you are qualified. If you know how to download an
application on your phone, you are qualified. If you have children and you've managed to keep
those children safe and alive and thriving, you are indeed overqualified. So we do many
important things, there's no reason to fear writing down 12 words and keeping them safe.
So step one, where are you going to get your Bitcoin? Step two, learn a basic Bitcoin wallet
on your phone. And then I would say the third and final step for your average person is going to be
let's get in something a little bit more secure. You can get a specialized device to secure your
Bitcoin often referred to as a hardware wallet. And this just keeps the keys to your money instead
of on your phone. It keeps them on a special security device that's totally offline. And so
if you can do those three things, get Bitcoin, learn about Bitcoin wallets, and then graduate
to a hardware wallet, you're nailing it in the Bitcoin realm. I think that's fantastic and
actionable advice because it's very understandable that people may, because of also all the bad
information that's been put out there over the years, people may hear Bitcoin and maybe want to
get exposure to it, but just don't know where to start. Luckily now there are, I mean, there are so
many amazing channels. If you want to have literally a step-by-step guide on how to do any of these
things that Sessions just talked about, go to the BTC Sessions YouTube channel. I can't recommend it
enough. It will literally be your one-stop shop to learn all of these things in detail. You know,
your personal guide basically to walking through these.
And that,
and that's the thing is that it doesn't have to be too complicated.
People want to act like it is,
but really if there's one thing that's complicated,
it's our current,
you know,
banking and monetary system.
By contrast,
Bitcoin seems pretty simple,
at least to me,
you know,
is that what you found as well?
Yeah.
I mean,
have you,
have you tried getting like getting a bank account and then logging into
online banking and sending wire transfers and get, and, and not only that, but at times having
your bank say, no, you can't do that. Or you need to call us or things are frozen or we reversed a
transfer or we don't know where that money is. You know, that all of the, all of the things that
can come along with somebody else dealing with your money. Yeah, it's absolutely in my, I, I will
die on this hill that Bitcoin is easier than traditional banking. On its head, Bitcoin is
much simpler, much less in terms of barriers to entry. You got to learn how to download an app,
write down 12 words. And if you delete the app, how to download the app again and put in 12 words
again. It's not too bad. One thing I want to talk about a little because you brought up just,
potentially getting cut off from the banking system.
And that's something that you personally helped a lot of people get through.
Can you talk a little bit about the trucker protests
and what happened there kind of at a high level?
Because I think we've talked up until now about,
yes, you want to escape the pain of inflation.
You want to kind of get off that hamster wheel.
You want to be able to provide for your family.
There's that kind of, okay, I want to be able to have a great savings technology,
which Bitcoin is.
But there's another side to Bitcoin too,
which is that it allows you and it's true freedom money and so can you talk about that a little why
people should really care and even if they think oh it won't happen to me that this kind of thing
can happen to anyone yeah absolutely so you're right we've been talking about kind of protecting
yourself from the debasement of of the dollar or whatever your local currency is and and savings
technology, but Bitcoin is also censorship resistant. And while many in the West come to
Bitcoin for protecting their savings, a lot of people from all over the globe come to Bitcoin
to protect their ability to just simply transact. And so, you know, we got a taste of this here in
Canada in 2022. There was, it was the largest protest in Canadian history, the Canadian
trucker protest. Um, and, uh, the, I, I want to start by saying that these protests while large
were completely peaceful. There was no violence that happened. There were families and children
and music and bouncy castles and all kinds of great like live concerts,
things like this happening in front of Canadian parliament.
Was it noisy?
Yeah, sure.
There were horns honking, you know, all kinds of stuff.
There was music.
It was loud.
Yeah, it was the largest protest in Canadian history.
But the way that the Canadian government dealt with it
was painting anybody that was partaking in that as,
I mean, name every kind of general slur in the book.
They were all bigots and racists and, you know,
deplorables or whatever they decided to throw at them.
And the way that they decided to deal with these individuals,
the organizers, the truckers that were down there,
the individual businesses that they could target,
is they shut down bank accounts. They passed the Emergencies Act. They said, all right,
if you're present down here, if we, you know, see that you're down here, if you're in any way
involved, you run the risk of having your bank account shut down, your credit card shut down.
They revoked people's auto insurance. They started doing all this crazy stuff. And so
So what ended up happening is well before all of this took place,
when the protest was just beginning and they were doing the convoy across Canada,
I was asked if I could help set up a donation page and manage Bitcoin donations.
And so we thought that most people would probably still donate through traditional means but maybe we get a few thousand bucks Maybe we get you know four or five grand Um and that would have been great That would have been cool Maybe we could get some gift cards buy people some Tim Hortons coffee or whatever Um but what
when the emergencies act passed, when bank accounts started getting shut down, when they
started freezing donations on GoFundMe, uh, and reversing those, sending them back to the donors,
after saying they were just going to donate them to whatever other cause they felt like.
They did get threatened with a lawsuit, so instead they just sent the money back to the donors.
And then another platform stepped up and said, yeah, we'll accept the donations and we won't freeze them.
And then when they went to send the money to the organizers, to a Canadian bank,
well, that Canadian bank took those funds.
So all of these digital payment mechanisms were just failing in the face of tyranny.
And the one glaring thing that kept going was Bitcoin.
And people started piling in because they realized this is the shot we have.
We have a global example of this being censorship resistant freedom money.
And yeah, like $1.2, $1.3 million, I think, donated to the Canadian trucker protest.
It was effectively, it was over 21 Bitcoin.
So basically one one millionth of the entire monetary base that will ever exist was donated to that single cause, which is crazy.
And yeah, at the end of the day, not every sat got there because, you know, some RCMP did kick open a door and use force to to take some of the last few Bitcoin, which to this day sit in a legal escrow awaiting the outcome of a lawsuit.
But the vast majority of those funds were handed directly in care packages to truckers on the ground.
And it was the only digital payment mechanism that was successful.
And I'm very confident that had we made some smarter decisions earlier on and anticipated it being as big as it was, it would have been 100% of funds donated directly to the people that it was intended for.
That story is just so incredible because, again, there's the saving money and building up for a family.
But sometimes your government is overbearing, oftentimes actually.
And you need to stand up for what you know to be right.
It's very difficult to do that when your access to the banking system is completely shut down.
You know, in America, if you want to exercise your freedom of speech, well, that starts with the freedom to transact.
In Canada, you know, same thing.
You need to have the freedom to transact to truly be able to exercise your other rights.
Otherwise, you know, it's pretty scary how quickly you can be cut off from everything just by getting cut off from the banking system.
And that's where Bitcoin is this incredible lifeline.
Yes, it's an escape valve.
it's a you know escape boat to get away from punishing inflation but it's also a way for you
to escape something that is you know arguably just as dark or even darker in some cases which is
financial repression financial censorship these are things that may not seem important to you now
but if it happens to you you really want to have another option yeah there are examples around
around the world because of my involvement in you know the bitcoin donation side of things with the
Trugger protest, I've now for the past four years had active involvement with the Human Rights
Foundation. And we host quarterly webinars with political dissidents from around the globe,
teaching them how to use Bitcoin as a tool for human rights and freedom. And we regularly have,
you know, 100 to 200 people in these webinars every single time. And it's wild seeing some of
the people that come through and recognize the importance of Bitcoin. I'm talking, going to
events and, you know, each person in the room standing up saying who they are and what they do.
And I get to stand up and say, I make YouTube videos about Bitcoin. And then, you know, four
or five other people in the room stand up to say that they've toppled the dictator.
which is like if you ever want imposter syndrome go to uh an hrf event and listen to people's
stories because these people have been through the gamut and uh and have come out the other side
just through uh insane amounts of hardship and human suffering and they're still there
and they're still positive and they're still working their asses off.
And they're using Bitcoin as a tool in their tool belt, which is incredible.
I think there's often a misconception, again, specifically in the West,
that Bitcoin, again, is just this speculative investment or this tech bro thing
or associated with a certain political party.
And the reality is that it's not.
I mean, is it fair to say, in your opinion,
I mean, like Bitcoin's for anyone who's willing to learn about it.
Yeah.
A hundred percent.
And, and I, I know that there's a, you know, right now, given the current political climate, many people would say that, you know, Bitcoin is a partisan issue.
I fully disagree.
I agree that it's been painted into that just by nothing more than timing.
But I think that all it has to do with is the time where Bitcoin kind of began to grow and be used.
the people that are most likely to use it are the ones that are at the current time,
most likely to have a degree of censorship, perhaps financial censorship. And it just
happened to come about, you know, during a, during a political time where the political
apparatus was leaning a certain way and there was a shift. But pre that shift, there was a very
concerted effort to kind of stop people from using Bitcoin. We saw something called Chokepoint 2.0.
We saw bank accounts, you know, being shut down if you were doing something with Bitcoin. And so
one side of the political aisle was able to latch onto that and the displeasure of everybody in the
Bitcoin space and use that to their advantage. But I very much believe roles reversed,
it would absolutely be viewed as partisan in the opposite direction. What do you think they would
have used if Bitcoin was coming into being during the civil rights movement? What do you think would
have been the money of choice then, right? And when you look in different parts of the globe,
it doesn't matter like the political affiliations it's not a right or left issue it's who is being
censored they're going to use censorship resistant money yeah well said and i hope that people take
that to heart because the last thing that i want is for somebody to not get into bitcoin to not
start saving in bitcoin simply because some talk show host or some politician has painted it to be
one way. Don't listen to that. Do your own research. Check out channels like BTC Sessions
when you want to really dive deep into this and make up your own mind because Bitcoin is not a
partisan tool. Bitcoin is political. Money is always political, but it's not partisan. It's
not right or left or red or blue or orange or yellow. It is orange actually, but it's not any
of those other colors. And so I think that's really important to emphasize. I want to just,
as we're sort of wrapping up here, is there something that you, some advice you would give
to yourself if you could, you know, go back in time earlier in your Bitcoin journey, maybe before
you were buying, what advice would you give yourself or what advice do you most commonly
give to people who are just starting to look at this, who have not started stacking yet?
yeah i mean times have changed a little bit um over the years and the the resources that i had
at my fingertips uh for for practical education did not exist uh it was like go to this forum
and scroll down and there's a comment with some bullet points on how to do it oh god i don't learn
that way. Things are different now. I think that the biggest piece of advice I would give to people
is don't wait on educating yourself. Don't think that you need to know it all before you can start
dabbling in Bitcoin and trying to use it. The medium is the education, right? Like by utilizing
Bitcoin, you are learning how to use Bitcoin. And so you don't have to go and be playing around with
thousands and thousands of dollars, you can get 50 bucks or a hundred bucks worth of Bitcoin and
learn how to use a Bitcoin wallet and delete it and recover it and learn how hardware works. And,
and so you can start to learn the tools with very little, uh, risk. You know, it's still good to
have some skin in the game so that, you know, if you do make a mistake and you lose, you know,
50 bucks or something that's painful but pain is also a valuable and effective teacher and so
start with small amounts but actually play around with real bitcoin and if you make a mistake
and you lose 50 bucks i guarantee you you won't do that same thing again and that perhaps 50
mistake, which I'm not saying people are going to lose 50 bucks right away, but if that were to
happen, the $50 mistake prevents a mistake down the road that could have been hundreds or thousands
of dollars. And so start learning the tools right away. Don't get analysis paralysis, act. And by
acting, you actually learn. Don't just kind of try to read your way through understanding Bitcoin.
That's not how it works. So the other thing that I would say is I have a, I actually set up a bit of a curated list of tutorials. I have a dedicated page for it now. And I sub in what I believe to be the most relevant tutorials on each kind of specific skill set that you can learn.
And so if you're wanting to kind of start and learn some of the basics, I would just go to btcsessions.ca, it's Canadian, slash learn.
And on there, you're going to see beginner, intermediate, and advanced.
And if you're brand new, there's three videos for the beginner part.
Just take a look at those three and just begin your Bitcoin journey.
And you don't just tackle one at a time.
You don't have to do them all in a night, like, you know, do one a week, something like that.
And just begin that process.
Oh, how do I, how do I get Bitcoin?
How do I get a wallet?
And what is a hardware wallet?
And it'll take you through those three things that I mentioned.
And then, and then you're pretty much good.
Like if you want to go beyond that, there's more to the page beyond that.
But if you just get through the beginner section, you're golden and you can always level up later.
So yeah, go to btcsessions.ca slash learn and that'll give you your base.
I love it.
And I appreciate all the advice that you've shared with folks because you are truly the goat when it comes to Bitcoin education.
And so I'm very grateful for you to share that knowledge on here.
I'll link that btcsessions.ca slash learn here in the show notes for people.
They should also, if they want to follow you on XNoster or YouTube, they should just search BTC Sessions.
You'll come up, certainly.
You're the big one there.
But really, thank you.
Look for cartoon ridiculous hair.
Yes, absolutely.
But really, Sessions, thank you so much.
Appreciate your time.
Is there anything else you wanted to leave folks with before we close out?
I believe in you.
You can do it, honestly.
Once everything new is going to seem foreign,
until you've done it a few times.
And so act.
Actually, as soon as you finish this podcast,
go download a Bitcoin wallet for the first time ever.
It's a great experience.
Just learn how it works.
It's really cool.
And you'll be glad you did.
Perfect note to end on.
Sessions, thank you so much for your time.
Thanks, man.
Thank you.
Peace.