If top down was all that mattered,
top down would have already given us Bitcoin.
We needed ground up for Bitcoin
to even have a chance at existing.
Greetings and salutations, my fellow plebs.
My name is Walker and this is the Bitcoin Podcast.
The Bitcoin Blockight is 812500.
And the value of one Bitcoin is still one Bitcoin.
Today's episode is Bitcoin Talk,
where I talk with my guest about Bitcoin
and many other things as well.
Today, that guest is Ben Perrin, aka BTC Sessions.
We talk about everything from Bitcoin to Noster,
to Totalitarianism, to Ben's plans for his recent HRF grant,
to censorship, to in sync, to Ben's ideal Bitcoin app,
and a whole lot more.
But one of the central themes we dug deep into
was top down versus bottom up Bitcoin adoption.
I think you'll enjoy this episode.
I know I sure enjoyed filming it.
You can watch the video version of the Bitcoin Podcast
on Rumble, YouTube, or X by searching at Walker America,
or listen on fountain.fm
or wherever you get your podcasts.
If you listen to the Bitcoin Podcast on fountain,
consider giving the show a boost
or creating a clip of something you found interesting.
For those that have boosted the show already
or has zapped me on Noster, thank you.
And if you haven't checked out fountain yet,
I highly recommend it.
You can send Bitcoin to your favorite podcasters
and earn Bitcoin just for listening.
Without further ado,
let's get into this Bitcoin Talk with BTC Sessions.
Greetings and salutations, my fellow plebs.
My name is Walker and this is the Bitcoin Podcast.
I'm joined today by BTC Sessions for a Bitcoin Talk.
He is a Bitcoin educator extraordinaire, dare I say.
Content creator with 81.4,000 subs on YouTube,
over 1300 videos he's created just on YouTube alone
and around 8.5 million views.
In addition to his online presence,
he holds in-person workshops at Bitcoin conferences
and he's really become a go-to resource
for any sort of how-to video you need
about practical Bitcoin questions,
whether it be wallets, hardware, security exchanges,
whatever you need, I guarantee Sessions has a video for it.
He also hosts interviews and asks his famous question,
why are we bullish or why are you bullish?
And in addition to all of that,
Ben, which is his actual name, it's not BTC,
is a family man and all around solid guy.
And so Ben, BTC Sessions, welcome to the show.
Thanks for coming.
Thanks for having me, man.
I wish I had as smooth of an intro voice as you.
You know, we all play the hands were dealt, right?
So I appreciate that, but you're not doing so bad yourself.
I wish I had as smooth of hair as you, but what could I say?
That's impossible.
Niko tried, he couldn't quite make it, you know,
but well, so Ben, I will refer to Sessions interchangeably
as Ben and BTC Sessions, just for the audience's awareness.
But I'd love for you to just kind of start us off
by telling us the story of who is BTC Sessions
and how did he get here today?
Yeah, it was an interesting road.
So prior to Bitcoin, I was not, you know,
I wasn't specializing in a field where I was actually
and doing anything technical.
I was actually, I was doing in school residencies
teaching little kids at a break dance for about a decade.
So I've never seen you break dance,
but now I feel like I need to.
If you have, I think I did bust out a little bit
of something in Prague actually.
Now I'm bummed I missed that.
Yeah, something happened, something went down.
But yeah, no, so I was teaching little kids
at a break dance for a decade or, you know,
variations of popping, locking different styles of hip hop,
I will say, but yeah, I did that for a long time.
And on the side, I kind of had a few technical interests,
like I would, you know, go buy old Mac books
and tear them apart and switch out the RAM
and the hard drive and then resell them and things,
you know, just little, just little hobby things.
But because of that, I would get little technical blogs
and stuff in my feeds and I'd frequent tech crunch
and things like that.
So I saw a few articles about Bitcoin here and there,
got curious during one of the bull runs, you know,
you see it at multiple price points
and oh, I missed the boat every single time
until you didn't miss the boat
and then pile in near an all time high as we all do.
But yeah, so I basically had that trajectory
kind of got going with it.
And as I was trying to learn,
I just found it was so impossible
to find anything at that point in time.
So that was 2014, 2015 and around that time.
And I'm looking on YouTube saying,
okay, where's the tutorials?
There's got to be something.
And sweet Jesus, there was nothing.
And every time I asked anywhere,
Reddit was kind of the place to go.
And people would be like, yeah, go to this blog post
or go to this forum and look at this comment
about halfway down the page and they outlined how to do it.
And I was like, this will not do.
So after a couple of years of tearing my hair out
and trying to figure out just every little thing
and bumbling my way through it,
after a couple of years, I figured, okay,
I'll do the things I'm comfortable with.
I'll start doing some videos
because it seems like that's something people could use.
And it was really just a scratch my own inch of,
holy crap, how is nobody doing this yet?
And so 2016, I started the channel in around,
I think around June of 2016.
And yeah, I just told myself, okay,
I'll do one video per week.
And until I'm bored and here we are.
It's in June of next year, it'll be eight years.
So that's two full having cycles worth of sessions,
which is wild.
Yeah, and so I just never stopped.
I've obviously increased the amount of stuff that I do now,
but the tutorials are kind of the bread and butter
of the channel and here we are.
And now I'm very relieved to say that I see a lot
of great people that are starting to put out
tutorial content.
So, top of mind that people like Wicked, Cole,
and a dude from South Africa, Ian,
a dude named Ian from the West Coast of Canada,
there's a bunch of guys that are up and coming
that I think are great and that I can't wait
to see more from.
So I think we're gonna be reaching the golden age
of Bitcoin tutorials come soon.
Oh, I love it.
I mean, so at this point, it seems like there is nothing
that you haven't done a tutorial on.
Like that's kind of the beauty of your channel
is that if somebody asks for something,
like you're talking with a random person on Nostra
or on Twitter and they have a question that you can't
just explain in a small paragraph.
It's like, okay, let me just go on YouTube real quick.
Let me go to Sessions channel.
Let me just search it and it's like, oh, yep, there it is.
Like it truly seems like you have covered it.
And the amazing thing is for the critics who say like
that there's nothing happening on Bitcoin,
it's like your channel would say otherwise
because you have truly covered so many things.
Like it's wild.
I mean, how do you pick your topics that you're going
to cover?
Is it just whatever you're kind of interested in at the time?
Do you do it based on requests?
Or is it just however it comes in, you let it go out?
I think it's a mix of complete selfishness,
of me going, oh, I really want to do this.
And people nagging at me until I finally move my ass
and cover something.
So like the ones that I tend to easily gravitate towards
is, oh, somebody's got a nice app for something new
that I can play around with and I get it on my phone.
I can just tinker and it's fun and it's new and exciting.
It does something I haven't done before,
but it's pretty much right in front of my face.
The ones that I really dragged my feet on doing things
like running a node or setting up a lightning node.
Holy crap, that was an undertaking
with zero understanding beforehand.
And then even like BTC Pay Server, I just kind of,
I put it off to the side for way too long
with enough people saying, okay, can somebody do this?
And so eventually, and I'm so glad that I did.
So yeah, it's a mix of things that I am interested in
and stumble across that I really want to do.
And then things that other people tell me
that I absolutely have to do.
That I then become enthralled by
because I don't know why I waited so long to cover them.
So yeah.
So for you are a lot of the things that you cover,
like maybe you haven't actually played around
with these tools before until you go in
and try to make the video.
And so you're kind of learning as a part of teaching in a way.
Yeah, yeah.
If you saw the BReal, it is so laced with expletives.
It's insane.
It's like just every, every single thing
is like just every second is an F-bomb this, F-bomb that.
Many times of re-record, we were just talking about
you having to re-record some stuff
from technical difficulties.
You better believe that happens to me on the regular,
just missing audio, just dumb things.
But yeah, it's definitely not easy.
And I'm typically, unless it's something familiar
that there's just a new app doing it in a different way
and maybe they've cleaned it up or something.
If you see that there hasn't been this topic covered prior,
you can bet your ass that either in the 24 hours,
48 hours or sometimes week leading up to that video dropping,
I just learned all that stuff.
So yeah.
I mean, no, but I spent a lot of time
figuring out how to teach something
is often one of the best ways to learn.
It's a great hack for it.
It's like if you wanna really know some material,
figure out how you're gonna be able to easily explain it
to others.
And so that's that you are now this encyclopedia
of these sessions, which is kind of a beautiful thing.
I'm curious from your perspective,
is there a particular,
maybe whether it's software or hardware
or just let's say overall technique or area of study
within Bitcoin or we can go later too as well,
that you think a lot of Bitcoiners miss out on
or don't take advantage of,
something that you find that you're like,
wow, I can't believe more people aren't psyched about this?
Yeah, yeah.
So what I'll say around that is yes,
I definitely think there's a few things
and I'll highlight them in a second
that people have not yet dove into,
but I think all of these things that I'm mentioning,
they will and they're starting to,
and I can see it because I see people reaching out
to say, how do I do this?
Or doing one-on-ones with me to walk them through.
So what I'll say, funny enough,
a lot of the OGs,
there's a lot of OGs that you would assume,
they've just been around forever,
so they must know everything,
but there's lots that are like,
they're just like on-chain maxis that you kind of,
and I get it because if you get busy with other stuff,
I'm lucky in that this is literally what I do for a living,
so it's like I'm out there trying every single thing
all the time, but it's wild when you're like,
you know, you talk to somebody who's been in Bitcoin
for 10 years and they're like, yeah, I've never tried lightning.
You're like, whoa, what?
It's mind-blowing.
Yeah, yeah, and like the first time I tried a lightning wallet
was 2018, basically the second it was available on a mobile device.
Yeah, I was going to say that's a long time
before most people tried out anything on lightning.
Yeah, and I had no idea what it was.
I was like, oh, great, it'll just be Bitcoin,
but it'll be faster and cheaper,
and then I was like, wait, what's a channel?
Oh, no, I don't understand what's happening.
I have to balance it.
Yeah, yeah, no, that wasn't even part of my thinking at that point.
I don't even think that existed.
Okay.
I think, but yeah, so like, you know,
lightning is one where it's become,
you know, so many people are discussing it
that if you haven't tried it at all yet, it's kind of like odd,
but some of the ones that stand out to me would be
maybe running a node, although that's become
so much more accessible in the past few years
with these plug and play options where it's like,
oh, plug it into your router and into the wall
and then just jump on any computer in the house
and go on your browser, and it's just there.
And that's amazing, and that's a totally different experience
than anybody had in the years prior.
I would say that a bigger blind spot
for a lot of people is multi-sig, I think,
and that's, I think that's reasonable.
I think that's a reasonable thing for people not to be well-versed in,
but I think it's a thing that can be quite accessible
depending on the way in which you're doing it
and how it's presented and what UI you're exposed to,
but it's getting to the point where you can have like
magnitudes better security in a very simple way
that will also be accessible to your family later on.
So a lot of these assisted multi-sig options,
there's a lot of very interesting things there.
The other thing that I think is, well, I mean,
mining, of course, and I'm tentative around that
because I have limited experience in mining.
I've got an S9 that I turned into a space heater,
and then I've got a miner sitting just off to the side here in my office
that is yet to be plugged in,
and it's like a more heavy-duty, like it's an M30 Plus
for those that are privy.
Nonetheless, it's a more expensive one,
but I've got to get my electrical done to be able to even do that,
and then maybe I'll use it to heat some stuff.
So mining maybe for some people,
and then the last one, some newer stuff like the eCash kind of stuff
in and around that I think is interesting,
and then just making the leap from Bitcoin to Nostra,
I think, for a lot of people,
that's still obviously a big blind spot for them because it's so new.
I definitely agree on those points.
Multi-SIG is something that I hadn't personally tried out until last year.
I did it with Nunchuck, and it was this last summer,
so a little over a year ago now,
but did it out of necessity because we were organizing a donation for Bitcoin Beach,
and it was the Stack Chain Crew, Carl and myself,
and we were like, okay, we want to accept donations.
Well, we don't just want to trust one person with this.
Not that we don't trust each other,
but we don't want to need to trust each other.
So okay, let's set up a two or three multi-SIG.
We don't need more than that.
Let's get a couple of us in here.
And that was an amazing learning experience for me
because honestly with Nunchuck, I'd heard about Nunchuck.
I downloaded it already, but I hadn't used it all yet.
Then I started using it, and I was like, oh,
and this is like many releases ago for them now,
but it's gotten a lot better,
but even then it was like, wow, this is super easy,
and we, the three people who have never met in person at this time,
just were able to coordinate over the internet,
set up a multi-SIG, arrange donations in such a way that we had,
there was multiple checkpoints on it,
and wow, what a beautiful thing.
We were able to do it in the space of minutes,
and there were some learning curves along the way,
like having a bunch of small UTXOs that came in,
and there was some, like we were like,
why are our fees blowing out?
So we learned a lot along the way too,
but I think the Noster one is another interesting one,
because the mining I see, but I think for a lot of people,
that's like, for you also, it involves like,
okay, I need to get my electric redone.
I know there are multiple companies working on like better,
let's say home-friendly options
that aren't just gonna blow you out,
but the Noster one is an interesting one to me,
because it seems like something that's so obvious.
You have this open protocol like Bitcoin,
so that's something that's familiar already.
You have the ability, like when you're on Noster,
you're literally using Bitcoin, granted on lightning,
so some on-chain maxis would say that's not Bitcoin at all.
But, okay, what?
But it's better now, but it's...
Is Bitcoin flowing? Yes.
Okay, then you're using Bitcoin, you're using a layer too,
whether it's custodially or non-custodially.
But that's an amazing thing that just by being on this
social media network, which obviously Noster can expand to be much more,
but right now, it's starting with what we know,
what's familiar and what's needed also,
which is sensor-seer-possessed and social media.
It shocks me that, and I think we've got a good...
I think there's, I just checked earlier today,
that the time-hole is saying that there's about 570,000 active users on Noster,
which like, okay, that's quite a lot,
but it's also like that's absolutely nothing.
That's quite tiny, really.
And so, I'm always wondering, like,
what is the hesitancy for some Bitcoiners
who should just, again, get that right away,
like, okay, censorship-resistant social media, wonderful.
It's an open protocol, you can build anything on it,
such as social media.
Why do you think there is this kind of like...
And you see it with folks on Twitter, like,
oh, well, Noster's not going to be around in the next year,
you know, it's just a fad.
The same things that you probably have been hearing for years about Bitcoin.
What's your take on that?
I think the lead-up to Noster was kind of what made people hesitant about it,
and what I mean by that is people saw censorship happening on Twitter
and other platforms, and there's been a couple times where it was like,
oh, we're all going over here,
and then everybody gets over to this new thing,
and then it just fizzles out, or, oh, there's a major problem,
like, Mastodon was one of them.
It's like, oh, host your own server and everything like that,
and everybody thinks, oh, cool, decentralized,
and it turns out that one person being the dictator of a server
that can then just like fully deplatform you for any reason
is no better than one person owning an entire social media platform.
So, you know, people had already this PTSD
from just like censorship after censorship
after, you know, a lack of network effects after whatever,
and I think that they also haven't taken the time to realize
how Noster differs from those things,
and I think, again, like, the degree to which I've seen things innovate
just this year, because I dove onto Noster at the beginning, like in January,
and shortly thereafter I made a video on it.
I'm shocked that there was a video involved.
Yeah, but making a video for Noster is infinitely worse
than making a video for Bitcoin because it goes obsolete almost immediately.
Like, it was laughable how obsolete my first video was by April,
so I had to make another, and then I've since made another,
like, something slightly different, but like,
end of the year I'm just going to have to just throw in the towel
and be like, alright, let's just start from scratch with Noster again.
Let's just do it all over again, because it'll be so different,
because it's evolving so quickly and it's becoming so much easier that, like,
why, you know, if you go look at my original Noster video,
it's, it was long because it needed to be,
because there were so many different aspects that you kind of had to think about
as you were starting, and now you can onboard a Noster in a few taps, right?
And you're just there, and if you want to integrate a Lightning wallet
then a few more taps, but like, it's, you know, I could do an intro video,
which I think would be beneficial, like a five minute,
get on Noster and Lightning immediately.
Great, there you go.
Like, I think that's possible now.
And so I think it's just a function of people need to realize
that you can do it quickly and easily.
And there's also just some things that, you know, you jump on Noster
and you click on global and, holy shit.
Who knows what you might get, yeah.
But it would be good if we started to see things,
what would be actually incredibly useful is, is follow lists based on interests,
where you can jump onto Noster and a particular client would be like,
what are you interested in?
And then you tap a few options and it would bring up.
I'm going to blow your mind on one of the, I want to say within the last month,
I know at least Damos added a new feature that when you,
when you log in for that first time with your new NPUB and NSEC,
it gives you, it's a pretty short list and it's, but it's like, okay,
you know, are you into food? Are you into photography?
And it does give you a few people in each category, which is like,
and I think you're going to see more clients implement that.
But another example of like, things move so fast in there,
because the amazing thing is too, is it's like,
because it's just like a couple of developers working on each client
or maybe one developer on a particular client,
but these guys are somehow, these guys in GALS are somehow pumping out,
like they're listening to their customers, their users,
and they are responding so quickly, which is just amazing to see.
Like meanwhile on, you know, on Twitter, it's like,
you can yell about the bot problem just for so, so long.
And it's like, even though they have the tools to be able to fix that,
it's just not going to happen, you know?
But meanwhile on Nostra, it's like, hey, this font appeared a little bit weird for me.
You're like, I don't like the way how this is.
And it's like five minutes later, you know, the dev is pushing an update.
Like, and not that you can expect that to continue like that forever,
but it's pretty cool to see in the, in these early days,
how receptive they are to the feedback and how quickly they move,
because it's mind blowing.
Yeah. I mean, I can, again, it's been, what, nine months since I,
10 months since I jumped on Nostra, I can't even imagine a year from now,
what the experience is going to be like.
It's going to be wild.
And so it's just, it's only a matter of time.
I think, and again, just how open it is.
I think all that's necessary at this point is, you know, we've got the Bitcoin niche
and we've, we're starting, you know, I've started to try and purposely populate my feed
with, with a more diverse kind of group of topics.
I'm starting to kind of hone in on that if I can.
But I think the next thing is just finding another niche of people to,
to bring over to Nostra.
And I've seen a bit of it.
I think, you know, the marriage of gaming and Bitcoin and then bringing that to Nostra
and with like Nostra streaming, I think that, that marriage is, is just like right
for the picking and I already see a little bit of it happening.
Yeah.
So I think that's probably, you know, that kind of thing.
And then not to get too controversial, but, you know, there's, there's some ladies that
enjoy streaming content to people that enjoy zapping them.
So that's, I mean, maybe there's some dudes that would enjoy streaming content.
I don't judge.
Well, that's the thing.
It's like content doesn't matter what the content is, but if a centralized platform
finds it undesirable for whatever reason, you can be demonetized like that.
And, and we've seen this over and over again, not just for, let's say, you know, X-rated
content, but for just saying things that people don't like.
And so I think that that's, you know, like with Bitcoin, you know, you don't want to
have to dive into it by force, but sometimes you do.
Sometimes because something happens, you're, you know, you get, maybe you get
de-platformed and you're like, okay, I need alternative social media of some kind.
What else is out there?
Because I already know that mastodons not going to work.
Blue sky is like kind of a nice idea, but it's just like weird.
And, you know, okay, Twitter, I don't trust or X now.
But at a, at a higher level, I also just, I think that as these other groups, I think
we will see them come in.
I think we'll see more journalists come in there.
They'll maybe just even use it as a repository for their work in case they get pulled off
of wherever else.
But I think that it's such a great, you know, the purple pill leading to the orange pill
for a lot of people.
And I've talked with multiple folks who have had this experience where they came on to
Noster.
They did not know anything about Bitcoin beyond just it exists.
And then, you know, you start seeing some posts and you realize, wait, what are people
are talking about zapping in Bitcoin?
What is all this?
And then of course, people are happy to help you when you ask questions and you get orange
pill to that experience of actually using Bitcoin.
Yes, layer two.
Yes, maybe custodially through wallet of Satoshi or whatever, but you're still using Bitcoin.
And I think that's a beautiful thing where you see the social layer really leading toward
that monetary layer of Bitcoin.
And something I talked with Preston Pish a couple of weeks ago.
And one of the things he said really stuck out to me because he was basically saying,
I'm as excited about Noster as I am about Bitcoin.
And I think it's, you know, free speeches on par with free and open money.
And his point was basically, okay, having this, you know, decentralized and permissionless
money that is you can freely transact with anyone freely store the value of your time
and energy.
That's great.
But if I want to send money to you across the world, we need a channel on which to communicate
the information.
I need a way to get your address and I need a way to do that.
That I can't be stopped from having that communication that I hopefully am not going to be surveilled
and that I can't be censored because otherwise how does that I want to transfer monetary energy
to you?
But unless I have the channel to do it, then the point is kind of moot.
And so I thought that was a really, a really interesting perspective to, you know, to look
at the marriage of the two and say, yeah, you need that monetary layer, but the communication
layer is just as important.
And so I thought that was a good perspective to have on it.
Yeah.
And, you know, I'd kind of like to just speaking of the purple pill leading the orange pill
and adoption, I'd like to ask your opinion a little bit.
I've seen a lot of debate recently about just, let's say, bottom up versus top down adoption.
And you have certain people and won't, you know, name names or anything, but we're saying,
you know, this small merchant adoption or, you know, a few people adopting in small communities,
that really doesn't matter.
You know, that's really not important in the grand scheme of things.
It's so small.
It's just, yeah, it's a nice story, but it has no real, real meaning, no real value for
adoption.
And other people, and I think you probably, you know, maybe know what I'm talking about
there.
And other people who are on the ground visiting countries, visiting communities or educating
like yourself at this very bottom up level, obviously have a very different opinion.
Now, I think that it's, it's kind of silly to even split the two.
Obviously adoption happens from the bottom up and the top down at the same time.
We see the grassroots and we see the institutional happening all at once.
But I'd love your, your thoughts on just where you see the value there.
What would you say to those people who say that the, you know, the individual here and
there or the circular community or the political dissident, you know, that doesn't really matter.
It's about the, it's really about the institutional money coming in and all of that.
I would say that's horseshit.
So to start there.
So what I would say is if top down was all that mattered, top down would have already
given us Bitcoin.
We needed ground up for Bitcoin to even have a chance at existing.
Those like no top down system would have said, you know, it's a good idea taken away all our power.
It's a great idea.
Let's build that thing.
That wouldn't have happened.
Right.
And so you, you, it's not just that it's nice to have.
It's that you need, you need bottom up.
I'm not saying that top down can't exist.
I'm not saying that top down isn't going to pump a bunch of bags because it probably will.
Right.
Like that's, but, but that's not, that's not the thing that changes lives.
That's not the thing that changes the world.
Right.
It's the bottom up that changes the world when, when you go and you see places where people
have had their, their livelihoods and their life savings destroyed by fiat central bankers,
by, by the currency devaluation, by mandated or, or official exchange rates and all these,
all these predatory things that happen to everyone, but, but, you know, with the dial
cranked to 11 in many countries, the only thing that solves that is bottom up is individuals
saying, I am opting out and I'm opting into a system where this cannot happen.
And so yeah, no, I think to look at, and this, and you know what, I get, I get the knee jerk
initial reaction to running around looking at shops saying, oh, they're, they're accepting
Bitcoin now and then doing like payment videos.
Because yes, that was Roger there.
It's different now.
And here's why in, in 2015, 16, all that, and then the Bitcoin cash era, there, there were
a lot of large merchants that were effectively pressured into accepting Bitcoin and said yes
as a marketing shtick.
They thought, hey, I'm going to accept Bitcoin because a whole bunch of people will rush in the door
and buy a bunch of merch and then I'm not going to keep the Bitcoin.
I'm going to dump it for fiat.
What we're seeing now is different.
What I'm seeing now is different.
What I'm seeing is people saying, I want the Bitcoin.
I want Bitcoin.
I would like to accept Bitcoin so that I can keep that Bitcoin.
And you know, and you see companies saying, I'm going to put this on my, my treasury.
You see individuals saying, I'm going to accept Bitcoin.
Yes, I have bills.
I might convert some of it so that I can pay my bills, but I'm going to save in Bitcoin because
they're seeing the difference.
It's not just a marketing shtick to get more customers in the door.
It's a savings mechanism and it's a recognition that other forms of money are inferior.
And so I think, I think it's easy to initially say like, are we pressuring people to take Bitcoin?
No, we're presenting them with what Bitcoin is.
And then they're actually getting orange pilled and realizing the value that is there.
And they're becoming Bitcoiners.
It's different than Microsoft accepting Bitcoin for a little while because God knows why.
And then being like, nah, it's, it's very different.
And it's different than BitPay basically going around and trying to make sweet heart deals with a bunch of, you know, big companies because it seems to be the next up and coming thing and saying like, you know, just, just accept this.
Don't worry, we'll dump it for Fiat for you.
This is not what is happening.
When you see people going into, into countries around the world and small little merchants and saying, hey, you accept Bitcoin?
Cool. I saw the sign and then, and then sending some sats and them being like more than happy to accept them.
That is entirely different from the 2014, 2015 era.
And I can say myself especially I've because I live on a Bitcoin standard more or less now, like 90 plus percent of my income is Bitcoin.
And so I want the Bitcoin, the dollars that I get that gets that's out the door immediately.
Right. Like it's like, okay, what are my bills?
Hopefully I don't I didn't get more Fiat than my bills.
I don't want that to be the case.
So having so many.
Yeah.
That's that is if I get more Fiat than my bills, then I'm in trouble.
I would know.
So the Fiat is out the door right away.
And then every set that I spend thereafter, it's, it's, I know what my bills are off the top.
So like I convert that right out of the gate.
But then every other purchase thereafter is like, it's like a cognizant.
Do I want to no longer have these sats?
And like, yeah, I mean, you still buy stuff.
It's not that you don't buy stuff, but it is, it is more of a decision than just a, I got cash, my pot, whatever is this dollars.
It's very different.
So yeah, in the grand scheme of things, bottom up, absolutely, it's, it's, it's not a nice to have it is needed.
And the top down is, is the nice to have.
That's the cherry on top.
That's the thing.
And like in the context of doing, you know, my tutorials and stuff, like I obviously it's, I suppose it seems like a cater to the average person.
And I do, but I'd love to think that somewhere, you know, some head of state is like, how do I set up a multi-sig types in YouTube?
I love, I'd love to think that that's happening somewhere.
I'm sure it has.
I guarantee it's happened at least once.
Somebody has stumbled upon a daily session and found their way to some good knowledge.
And now I think that's beautifully put.
And that's actually a perfect segue because I wanted to also talk to you about, you recently received a grant from HRF, the Human Rights Foundation.
Congratulations.
Thank you.
That is extremely well deserved.
And, and it's basically as far as I understand it, just from the little snippet that I was reading to work with educating, you know, political distance or journalists, people around the world who really need the censorship resistant and
and unconfiscable properties of Bitcoin in their lives for very, very clear and present reasons to educate those people to work on, to do workshops. So could you, could you give us a little bit of a background just of, you know, when you decided to apply for the grant?
Because I believe there was a whole application process.
And then what your kind of plans are moving forward to make use of this, this Bitcoin.
Yeah.
First off, I want to say huge thanks to Alex Gladstein to the Human Rights Foundation.
Not just for the grant, but for the experiences that I've had, you know, and the people that I've met through these events, because like, it's one thing to go to a Bitcoin conference.
And I mean, that experience in and of itself is already incredible because the people that you meet and the relationships that you create are amazing.
But going to a Human Rights Foundation event.
It's, it's so different.
Number one, because it's not a Bitcoin event.
Bitcoin is present because it's a useful tool for the people that are there.
And second, the stories that you hear, it kind of, it jerks you out of your, oh, cool.
We're, you know, we're, we're doing what we're doing.
You know, you know, the typical year at a conference and you get excited about and like number go up, which I'd say is a lesser to a lesser extent, you know, what you hear from from conferences now, which is nice.
You know, you still get in your kind of Western bubble and then you get to a Human Rights Foundation event to like also freedom forum.
And you hear the stories of these people that like had to walk out of their countries to not be thrown in prison, you know, in the dead of night.
You hear these people of these people saying that their family members were thrown in prison until they issued an apology saying that they were wrong for criticizing the government.
You hear these, these stories of, of, you know, the ones that hit me the most fathers being separated from their daughters because they're abducted by their governments for three years.
And, you know, I met a wonderful woman who was learning about Bitcoin as a way to fundraise to protest within her country because there were no bank accounts and no access to any sort of anything to get money into the country to protest there.
And so you see these stories and you hear how totalitarian governments can actually affect people and it's, it's wild and Bitcoin doesn't, you know, Bitcoin fixes a lot of things, but Bitcoin doesn't fix the fact that at least for the time being,
there will be bad people that obtain power for certain periods of time. And so, but it what it does fix is those bad people having an advantage when it comes to monetary sovereignty.
Right. So it puts the average political dissident and the dictator on a level playing field in terms of being able to send and receive value from anywhere on the planet freely.
And so it does become a very useful tool. So I guess my experience with the Human Rights Foundation is I was lucky enough to be invited by Alex Gladstein back in 2021 when they hosted an event actually in Miami in October.
So I did some emceeing there and I got to meet a lot of great people. And then I was invited again last year in 2022 this time to actually to Norway for the US will freedom forum. And I got to speak and do some some smaller sessions there.
And then again, I came this year and and did some speaking and emceeing and a whole bunch of stuff. And then most recently they had a global summit in Nashville at Bitcoin Park with people from I think 56 different countries from all over.
There's about 100 of us there. All just discussing how can we use Bitcoin? What are the tools that are available now? How can we help the people that are here to best use Bitcoin in a private way in an efficient way and just educate them as best we can.
And so they the HRAF has put together a Bitcoin grant program. And so they've done they've already handed out a ton of grants in relation to development of various projects.
And then they opened it up a little bit to education. And so having been involved, I actually actually wasn't planning on applying for the grant because I kind of thought, well, you know, I'm doing my own thing and it's all it's all kind of there anyways.
But then there were certain things that I kind of couldn't afford to do, to be honest, that that I was like, well, you know, I'll write up a little proposal. If I don't get it, this final is kind of keep doing my thing.
But I threw in a proposal and I got a pretty quick response like, hey, yeah, let's let's do this. And so what am I doing? Well, first of all, I got, I got a grant from the HRAF where I'm in the process.
If we're seeing a grant from the HRAF for $25,000, which blows my mind. And so my goals for that, there's a number of things. So, you know, I obviously have like a deep catalog of educational materials and tutorials and everything.
But I think a lot of, especially in the realm of political dissonance that are looking to, you know, perhaps fundraise that need to remain private, that also want to figure out just how to learn how to use wallets, how to secure their Bitcoin,
maybe are at risk of some members of their team being abducted at some points. And there's so many perspectives here. And just like, how do you even fundraise? How do you then allocate? What do you do with the funds once you have them?
So I have a lot of videos on that, but it's, it's a little bit disjointed. And it's not as streamlined as it needs to be in that situation. We need these people to be able to pick up on just what they need to know to get them through to be able to arm them with the tools as quickly as possible as efficiently as possible and make them understand only what they need to do know and nothing more.
We need to trim the fat. So basically what I'm doing is I'm going to refilm a whole bunch of tutorials that are very, very straight to the point. None of the kind of deep dive stuff that I'm used to just like, let's let's get you through this.
And then I need to assemble those tutorials in educational tracks based on the goals of the individual. You know, hey, you know, I'm a political dissident, I need to fundraise in a private manner and distribute funds and I also need to be secure.
Okay, well, that involves I got to, I got to figure out how to use a wallet. I got to figure out how to set up a BTZ pay server. I got to figure out how to potentially use a multi sig. And then I got to figure out how to send and then instruct my, you know, employees or or whoever, how to use the funds once they once they receive them.
So like, I've got to create kind of these educational tracks. So that's one aspect of it. The other aspect is, I've already actively been doing one on one. And when I say one on one, I mean me, and then a room full of journalists or political distance or whatever it is like zoom calls and stuff, basically walking them through.
All right, well, let's set up a wallet, let's send around some money, let's figure out how to do this. And then let's talk security. I've already been doing that for the past few months here.
And so, you know, I got to allocate time to that. I want to get in person to some events that, you know, maybe don't have the budget to just bring me down and that I wouldn't be able to afford to fly around the world to myself because that gets expensive.
So that's another thing. And then more recently, I think you saw, I had a teaser of BTC session is so it's a little. Yeah, I did. I did a little AI live translation of of like a cold cold card tutorial just to snip it of it to kind of see how it work.
But the AI tools, they're insane. They're insane. Like the clip that I did, I took, I took like the middle of a cold card tutorial, and I just like tossed this two minute clip in into a browser.
And I said, okay, Spanish. And not only did it translate it and dub it, it dubbed it in my voice. And then it just CGI'd my lips to look like I was speaking the words.
It's it's incredible. I used Hey, Jen. I mean, right? Yeah, I had seen that come up, you know, just in like the AI lists that I follow. I'd seen that come up. And I was just mind blown by it because the translation is one thing.
But the dubbing of the mouth as well to literally make your mouth movements look like that just that like blew my mind to another level. But when I saw your your video today, at first I was like, dang, sessions, I didn't know, you know, like, you know, you speak very well, you like you obla very good, my friend, you know, like,
but and then I was like, wait a minute, wait a minute to too good. But yeah, but but it's incredible. And, but I think that that's a that's a great point because also, one thing I noticed about that stuff, though, they give you like a minute or two free, usually, but it gets expensive really quickly.
Like, like very like I was looking at a couple of different platforms for that. And I think even the most basic packages are like at least 50 bucks a month. And that gives you maybe like 20 minutes. And then each additional minute is an extra, you know, two, three bucks, which obviously adds up insanely quickly if you're doing hours of content.
Yeah, when you've got a cold card tutorial, that's two hours long.
Right. I mean, yeah, that's that's an expensive translation. And then you know, the, the good thing about this is though, I think at least in the, as far as AI is concerned, is that it's that expensive now, but it's going to rapidly decrease in price down to the marginal cost of production, which is just how much electricity and how many GPUs, you know, how
many GPU hours do you need to run this. And so it will, it will come down. But for now, at least, I mean, it's an amazing service they provide, like it's, you know, but it's pricey for, for the average.
You know what though, you know what though, that I mean, it's pricey. But I was trying to price out last year, because the tools just didn't exist. Well, number one, I couldn't like there's no way for me to feasibly do it.
Because with with a tutorial specifically, you can't just have, you can't just get it dubbed, like number one, I wanted it dubbed, I didn't just want subtitles, I wanted it actually dubbed over.
So I needed like a specific kind of voice, you know, I can't have like, I mean, I guess I could have a female dub me, but it might be like a little odd.
But nonetheless, in a tutorial, it the the timestamps really matter. It has to be I'm saying something as I'm doing something, otherwise the instruction gets lost. And so I needed it very on time. And so I was looking through and I was trying to price out like somebody taking a video of mine and translating it and then
over dubbing it themselves. And that was going to be hundreds of dollars per video.
Well, I mean, it makes sense to and like so that's the that is the interesting thing. It's like, while this the price tag seems expensive, when you think about the fact that that's your voice, your video, the timing is all there and perfect.
And it actually looks like you're saying it, it looks like you made content for a Spanish speaking audience. I think that's that's huge. And I mean, you know, just speaking about the grant, it's like you would have the ability because you're going to be working with people that speak a lot of different languages, you
know, not just English and Spanish, but now instead of, okay, I need to find 15 different translators. It's like, okay, I've got the one video. Now let me put this into 1520 however many languages I want. And you can do it like that, which is a powerful tool because I think that's
another thing is that there's so much great Bitcoin content and education in the English language. I think there's there's a lot in Spanish too. Of course, there's quite a bit in like German as well the German Bitcoin scene is extremely robust.
But like those are the three languages that come to mind as far as probably the most saturated at this point. But there are a lot of languages spoken in this world. And, you know, sessions like yours are really valuable for people.
So to have that ability now, enabled by technology to say, okay, now, I mean, you could have a new channel, I don't know if you want to do it on a new channel or use the existing but you have the ability to take all that great backlog and turn that into stuff that is accessible for everyone.
And honestly, like I would assume at some point probably in the next few years, who knows, maybe it happens in the next few months, you never know what this tech cycle of AI, but I would assume that platforms like YouTube will ultimately just offer the user the ability to say, I want to, you know, here's a button that lets me not just
give me subtitles in another language, but let's me dub this in the other language because that ultimately enables YouTube to serve them more ad content in a different language than they would have been able to previously. And so it's like, that's a win win for everyone.
I hope we see that but I thought it was really awesome that you did that because that just opens the door to so many other people. And like, that's what it's all about, right?
Yeah, I'm, I'm extraordinarily excited at the prospect of, of being able to level up people that would never be able to do it otherwise, right, like there's, there's, let's just face it, it's Bitcoin is still niche, right.
And, and we're lucky as English speakers that there's so much content. But I mean, even when you get to Spanish, there's a bunch, but like nowhere near the level of content that we have in English.
And, and when you start branching out to, you know, some of the, I don't even say less used languages, but I suppose that's the right way to say it. It's just the content isn't there and it needs to be especially in and around practical Bitcoin use.
So important.
No, I could not agree more. And it's, it's nice that there are these tools now which at least make that so much more accessible because otherwise it's just a, well, it's a lot more work on both ends.
Yeah.
And just kind of speaking of speaking of political dissidents and totalitarian governments, Canada, you know, usually, usually you guys, I'll borrow a, you know, a phrase from, from Greg Foss, it's like, you know, just our neighbors up in the attic, you know, quiet,
minding your own business, beautiful landscape, nice people, not, not making the news too much. And I just feel like recently, and maybe it's just algorithms feeding me more, or maybe it's the government doing more and more absurd things, but there's been just a lot of Canada in the news and not always for the best reasons.
Yeah. And what I saw recently and was about, I actually saw Glenn Greenwald post about it on Twitter and then I went over to Noster and saw you had already actually noted about it like a day before. So you were way ahead of, ahead of Glenn.
But it was about this new law that is being passed, I guess, or part of the CRTC. Basically, they framed it as modernizing Canada's broadcasting framework. But what it ended up being is they're basically going to have any platform that hosts podcasters with over like, if the platform has companies over 10 million in revenue,
they're going to have to like register with the government and presumably keep logs of all those podcasters and everything they say. What's your take on this? I mean, it seems like a weird thing to do in just a very obvious power grab to say we like, okay, if you're a podcaster, you're a
broadcaster, and we were going to hold you to those exact same rules as we would if you were a talking head on TV. Yeah. So a lot of the stated intent for this is, I would say under the guise of ensuring that Canadian content gets bolstered.
And this is, this is the same kind of tactic that has been used in various ways. I don't know if you know, but like on, on, I think it's face, I think it just Facebook right now. But just recently, also this year, just earlier this year, the government was like,
All right, if you are a social media platform, and, and you're, you allow people to share links that are news, then you need to pay, you need to pay the people that that made the news so like, if a if a Canadian wants to share a news story on Facebook,
then Facebook was going to have to pay all of the news outlets like ridiculous sums of money. And so Facebook was like, now we're good, we'll just not do news in Canada anymore. And then all of a sudden everybody's like, wait, I can't share a link.
Facebook says I'm not allowed to do this in Canada anymore. So literally, you can't share news on Facebook. That's still active. That's right now. Yeah, if I want to share a news link on on Facebook, they're like, Oh yeah, no, you're not allowed in this country.
For some reason, I thought they rolled it back. Okay, so that's still, which is just absurd. Like you would think, especially because news media, online news media makes their money off of ad clicks. And it's like, No, you don't want all those extra click throughs.
Like, it's just, but it's the government basically, right, saying, yeah.
And so then the government turned around and said, these greedy corporations are blocking our news. Well, no, you gave them an ultimatum, you said, you can only share news if you pay us a bunch of money. And they said, Well, we don't want to pay you. So I guess we won't do that.
And so you did it to yourself. But I mean, so the the CRTC and the government kind of dictating what happens there. They've, they've taken an approach around this on a lot of different mediums where they basically say like X percentage of content must be Canadian.
And so, you know, you get this kind of sway rather than having kind of like a free market of who's making the best content. Maybe if the Canadian content isn't getting viewed as much, maybe we should look at the other content that is and and start to try and make it so that Canadians want to watch that instead of mandating it.
And so it's it's such a weird approach to me. And it's not that we can't. I mean, you can get a VPN, we can like I can still see stuff. I mean, people that don't know how to do that, maybe we'll, they're just shit out of luck.
But like, you know, it's it's it's ridiculous. People figure out ways around it. And it just it makes for it forces Canadian content went down your throats rather than having Canadian content rise to the occasion and become good enough to be deserving of your attention.
And it seems like this is the impetus. But through that, again, it puts content creators in the crosshairs of the government, depending on the size and reach that you have it very much could result in content creators being either kind of like sidelined or I don't know what it could mean for local content creators.
Because because I think my tactic is right now, like they're focusing in on on platforms broadly, you know, right? Are you pushing a certain percentage of Canadian content? They haven't yet gotten granular down to the individual content creator to say like, Hey, Canadians, are you talking
enough about Canadian stuff? But I have a tactic. If that comes about, all I'm going to do is, if they start saying that I need to have X percentage of my content focused around Canadian stories, I'm just going to bring in other Canadians to bitch about how crappy our
government is. And we'll just use, we'll have a timer of the percentage of the episode.
You've got a lot of Canadian bit coiners that I'm sure would be very willing to come on and share that kind of conversation.
Yeah, we could do some great podcasts on how to subvert the Canadian government when they shut down your bank accounts. It'll be a party.
Do you think they'll actually get that granular as to telling an individual creator that the kind of content they need to have a certain like a quota basically for pro Canada content? Because that's, I mean, I'll never say, you know, never say never.
That just would be so absurd. But I guess so is a lot of what the state is.
I don't think that they have the manpower to do so, to be honest. Like, I don't think they're not. Number one, they're not efficient enough. Number two, like God for that. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
The task of doing so would just be so far beyond their reach. Not that they, not that I don't think they would love wouldn't love to do that. But I just think that it would be impossible to execute on.
But yeah, I do think that Canadian media is is corrupted by the government that backs it like our our biggest broadcaster is the CBC. And I don't know if did you ever see the chart of the CBC when they they fudged their accounting numbers as to where their funding
came from? Was this where they had like a really weird axis on their chart that made like no sense? And like, like, somebody looked at it was like, no, no, this is like, yeah, just I it's funny. I shared it because I was looking I shared it probably a year before it blew up because
I saw it was like, what the hell is this? Look at the squiggly lines. They just jumped a billion dollars and kept the chart the same. It looks like the government funding is like 30% when it's like 70% just chart chart crime.
Like, yeah, yeah, exactly. Like so. So yeah, but more or less they the the CBC is is the national broadcasting arm of the country. And they have TV radio and print or online print and
and yeah, so they are basically they wouldn't be profitable if it weren't for the government just pumping billions and billions of dollars into them every single year. And so yeah, like that that has an effect right especially when you've got an opposition
leader that's running against the current government saying, I'm going to defund the CBC. What do you think that does to reporting from the CBC? How could you possibly be impartial? When you're saying I'm going to cut off the government funding keeping you afloat if I get in?
It's there's there's no way you can have a reasonable take on on the incumbent or the on the opposition. And I assume you're referring to Pierre. Yes. Yeah.
What's as a Canadian? What's what's your take on him?
So number one, never trust a politician as far as you can throw him. Amen. Number two. Yeah. Yeah, that's that number two. I there's a number of things that he says that I agree with. I also think on the Bitcoin front that he has a lot of good people in his ear and that
I think he kind of knows his shit and that he is actually a bit coiner.
And I think that as Prime Minister, it would probably be a nice little track of runway for Bitcoin to be able to build up before the next asset gets in power and wants to ban it.
So like, I mean, that's really like, you can't bank on the guy that you like getting in and then everything's fixed because there's always the next election, right? Yes.
And so it's just, it's like, can we get a little bit more runway? That'd be super nice. I wouldn't mind that too much.
But honestly, like right now, again, I don't know how familiar people are in down in the States. But like, like all of the poll numbers right now, like the Liberals, which is Justin Trudeau's party, they're, they're decimated.
If there was an election today, Paulie would win like hands down.
You mean that celebrating a literal Nazi in parliament didn't do them any favors?
Especially after calling a bunch of Canadians who just wanted some freedom Nazis.
I mean, I did not see that coming.
That I really like there. There's a lot of crazy things that didn't have on my bingo card, but Justin Trudeau is celebrating a literal Nazi and like that.
I mean, wow. Yeah.
It really is impressive levels of self sabotage and just, I don't even, I don't even know what you call that. Yeah.
We've got, we've probably got two more years of them to sit through.
There could be an election sooner if there was a, it's called a no confidence vote where if enough other parties came together.
But odds are that I don't think that's going to happen. And so it will just be two years.
I anticipate two years of him just making people more and more angry until he just gets absolutely slaughtered in 2025.
I don't see the, you know, a lot can change, but like he's, he's been in for eight years.
That's wait, do you guys not have what's the, what's the total term limit?
There is none.
I don't know. See, this is, I learned something new about Canada today. I thought you guys still had term limits.
There's terms you must have, you must have an election at least every four years.
But if the incumbent sees an opportune time to call an election, you can call an early election at which point the next election is at least four years from that point.
Oh, wow.
So, you know what Trudeau did was as, as everybody was at peak panic mode, he said, listen, guys, I'm going to keep you safe.
I'm going to lock you all down and guess what? I'm sending out checks. Oh, by the way, there's an election. Yeah.
And that's, and that's what happened. Anyone. And then, and that's why we're waiting until 2025 to the next election because it was 2021 when he did that.
It is, it is amazing that like how obvious some of these politicians are about being just crisis actor. Well, I shouldn't say crisis actor is the wrong word.
Crisis opportunists. Yes. But manufactured crisis opportunists where they're, you know, they're creating the panic themselves and it's like only I can save you, you know.
And by the way, here's some money as well. I'll save you and give you money. So like, you know, you got to vote for me.
And now, and now he's, he's stuck between a rock and a hard place because he the everything that they want to spend money on they can't afford like all of the rates are through the roof.
And you've got Pauli of who literally in 2020 was like,
shit's going down guys like the inflation is going to be insane if you do this. And like what happens if interest rates go up like, and all of the responses back to him were like, interest rates are at historic lows.
It'll be totally fine. Which is like, now it's just like fodder to just, hey guys, remember this clip like that's it's just all of that. Right.
I love watching some of his clips on the floor where he'll be like grilling somebody, you know, like ask and I mean, it just goes to show like he seems to, you know, again, as an American who is just watching from the outside.
He seems to be a guy who has a pretty darn good head and his shoulders. And again, I, you know, never trust a politician.
Yeah.
He's still saying what he knows people want to hear, but at least he knows what he's talking about a little bit more. It seems.
Yeah.
And to see the responses to some of it where they're just sitting there like, yeah, I don't know.
There's never an actual answer.
It's just, it's just absurd. But yeah, that's story is the same the world over. That's the funny thing. You know, whenever you travel somewhere, it's like, you know, asking people about their, you know, how do you feel about your politicians.
And it's usually like, you know, the guy or the gallon charges an asset. Yeah. You know, that's a pretty common story. Some of them are larger assets than others. Yeah.
But at least that's something all us humans can share is that the people in charge of our respective states are pretty absurd.
One is pretty.
Oh, go ahead.
I was just going to say, it is pretty interesting though, knowing that in two years time, there's a greater than 50% chance, in my opinion, that the Prime Minister of Canada is a Bitcoin.
Well, this is a really interesting point because, okay, you've got, let's look at a country where the majority of the populace does not think their elected leaders an asset El Salvador.
That is as pro Bitcoin of a president as you could get in Naibu Kele. And he's got like the highest approval rate, what it's like over 90%.
I mean, and I mean, shocker, it turns out when you put gang members in jail, so people stop getting their livelihood stolen from them and vicious crimes committed against them.
Wow, people like that. What a tremendous shocker.
But you've also, so you've got him as that's a, that's a, as pro Bitcoin of president as you could have in El Salvador in office right now.
You've got Pierre, who is pro Bitcoin. And I mean, hopefully again, as an outsider, like I think I would like to see Fidel Castro's son get out of Canadian office there, you know, and.
It's not his way out.
Yeah, yeah.
So you've got, there's another one. You've got Javier Malay, who is that guy is fiery and like, like, wow.
I mean, it's impressive. And then, you know, in the US, you've got a number of people you've got RFK has been vocally pro Bitcoin Vivec, vocally pro Bitcoin.
DeSantis kind of like knows maybe what Bitcoin is and someone on his team told him he should say he's pro Bitcoin.
Anti CBDC is the big one.
Yeah, that's that's the big one. So it's like, okay, you're, you're partway there.
But I think this is like these next few years are going to be really fascinating because that overton window is shifting to where Bitcoin is now part of the discourse in presidential elections around the world.
And that's a pretty powerful thing.
Like, I don't think either, at least speaking for the US, the only thing, you know, Trump said about Bitcoin back in the last election was that he thinks it's some sort of, you know, dirty money.
And it's he doesn't like it because it's bad for the US dollar.
And so it's like, okay, you know, Biden has no idea what's going on.
But it's like, now, okay, we've got some people on both sides of the aisle in the US who are speaking in a pro Bitcoin way.
And I think this is we're going to see this proliferate a lot around the world.
So it's it's an exciting time at least.
I find the political circus to be thoroughly tiring, but also at times entertaining.
So, I mean, at least now we've got some people that are verging on Orange Party versus whatever they were before.
Yeah, well, it's just a matter of time, right?
Like people people will hear Bitcoin.
They'll hear it on either side of the aisle now.
And they'll start asking questions.
They'll start learning a little bit.
And and with the absolute mountain of Bitcoin content that has been put together, all all we really need is to get the
audience to know what we really need is people to mention Bitcoin.
All we needed is is it to be in the public view and we need a few people to get curious because of that.
That's it.
We just need that little shove and the public will begin to educate themselves and like, you know, YouTube content, podcasts, all of these things.
These are all mediums and up and coming Nostra, right?
All of these mediums are going to be where people actually get their information because it's not going to be CNN.
It's not going to be Fox.
It's going to be independent media.
It's going to be individuals having conversations and, you know, and it's going to be the again, the wealth of knowledge that has been published by by many of Bitcoin are explaining in a million different ways the how and the why of Bitcoin.
And so I and I think that's the strength of it.
The message is so cohesive, but so able to be presented to anyone, depending on what's important to you, that it can't help but get through to people.
And it's just, it's just how do people get exposed to it?
And that's coming like it's impossible to avoid.
It's true, and well, and it's a beautiful thing that at this point now, it feels like, you know, in the past, you know, even just like a couple of years ago, you'd Google Bitcoin.
And the first thing that comes up are, you know, it's either New York Times or CNN or maybe CNBC with something halfway decent.
At least they've been, they tend to be a bit better sometimes than the rest of them, but it's usually some mainstream source, you know, and now it's like, you Google, you know, Bitcoin or Bitcoin one on one or something.
There are so many resources.
And that like, and that's a beautiful thing like flood the, you know, flood the market with as many Bitcoin resources as possible so that at least the majority of people when they search for it, whatever search algorithm they happen to be using feeds them something that's not just the same old main,
or I won't even say mainstream media, legacy media, because now they're, it's not them.
I mean, look at their viewership numbers.
Like it's just, they're not the mainstream anymore, they are just the, they're the legacy, you know, and BTC sessions is the new mainstream, you know.
Not there yet. Maybe one day.
You know, you'll have that that hundred thousand sub chip pretty soon. I'm certain of that.
Yeah, that'll be the next milestone to go after. We'll see though. I feel like I need a bull run to pull that one off.
Well, I think, you know, with the having coming up, it's going to get very interesting.
Like we've been in such a, the doldrums, you know, the sideways crab market, which is really great for stacking sats.
Like it's wonderful. It's like, oh, great. Okay. The price is still about what it was yesterday. Wonderful. I'll DCA again.
Okay. You know, and it's, it's kind of nice.
Like, but it also lulls you into a bit of a false sense of calm where you kind of forget that sometimes Bitcoin will just rip.
And you won't expect it and there's nothing you can do about it and then it just won't come back down.
This worries me because I have every month I send out invoices and I receive them in Bitcoin.
And so it's always worrisome to me where like, I'll send out an invoice. I'm like, I'm dreading the one month where I send out invoices.
And then before I receive them back, a God candle happens.
No.
Well, you know, I'm curious, do you just for people who are out there who may be looking to accept Bitcoin for their goods or services?
Do you do just a spot price at the time? You know, it denominated in whatever it's, you know, maybe it's denominated in Bitcoin, but if it's denominated in fiat, you just do the spot price at the time and that's what it is.
Yeah. Yeah. So, so first thing I got rid of was my local shitcoin, which is the Canadian dollar.
So I don't, I don't invoice in Canadian dollars. I do invoice in the shitcoin to the south for me, which is the US dollar.
But then I receive it in Bitcoin. So whatever the equivalent is at the time that I get the payment.
I'm curious, have you thought about doing like a smooth moving average of it? Like, okay, I'm going to invoice based on not the spot price, but like the 20 or 50 day moving average to like mellow out because, you know, it mellows out volatility on both sides.
Like, yeah, if you get it happened, you know, depending on where the God candle falls, maybe it doesn't go, maybe it goes better for you, maybe it goes worse, but like you have less volatility in terms of how you're invoicing.
I just, just a thought. It's something I've been thinking about a little bit.
I hadn't thought about that. I'd have to, I'd have to do some experimentation on that. Yeah.
I've just been kind of, you know, throw, throw in caution to the wind and seeing what happens.
Playing it fast and loose. I mean, no, it's the ideal is having it denominated in Bitcoin because then, you know, exactly what you're getting right.
Yeah. I'll be very excited when I when I price my first, that'll be the next thing because I feel like, okay, I'm on, I'm on the Bitcoin standard.
I'm starting to do some of the circular economy stuff at home and then using services to jump through hoops for other things.
But that, that first time where I'm like, no, this is it. This I'm now invoicing in Bitcoin. I think that'll be it. That'll be another big moment for me.
I'm not there yet. It's it's it'd be kind of difficult to do now. But I think, you know, maybe five, 10 years down the road, that might be, you know, it's going to be like, oh, I could, I could.
Well, I'm curious. I want to ask one more kind of a bigger picture question than just a couple of little questions.
But what do you see? And this was something that came in on on no stir and the question was phrased, basically, like, what does session see as the killer app for adoption in the next couple of years and it was from I think the confetti money.
So if you're listening to this confetti money, thanks for the question. But you know, you're somebody who you are so deep into all of the up and coming tech.
So I guess, you know, another way to ask that would maybe be, you know, is there something that you are just really, again, like excited about the you're thinking, not just like, Oh, wow, Bitcoiners are going to find this very cool.
But oh, wow, this is going to usher in like this is going to bring a whole lot more people into the fold because it's making something so easy or accessible or what's what's your take from that perspective.
Yeah, so I think one of the things that really needs to happen is a simple like it funny enough, it just comes directly from the wallet interface. And what I mean is, there's a lot of different ways you can interact with Bitcoin.
You got on chain, you got lightning, you've got liquid, you've got e cash, like chummy and e cash slash fedamint type stuff. So there's all these different ways to interact.
I think and also, of course, you've got like the kind of layers of security that you can add on to that. I think we're going in the direction that that I've kind of been hoping for and envisioning and what I mean is all of that stuff in one place, but then also all fiscated to the background.
And so you're kind of seeing this in some instances. So, okay, for instance, Blockstream Green, they have, I don't think it's public yet, you know, I made a tutorial on it because I got an early access, I think I got ahead of myself there but Blockstream Green, you can do on chain lightning and liquid all in a single interface on your same wallet.
You can't yet easily shift between them, but the lightning stuff has like Pagan or not Pagan's but like swaps in and out. So like it's getting better, but my dream wallet would be something like you download the wallet, it says this is your Bitcoin wallet.
It doesn't say in what capacity you're using it, you still have custody of it, but it would be like, hey, what's important to you like security, speed, privacy, and then based on your selections, it would use the most efficient network for that purpose.
And so you may be using Chow Me In E-Cash at some point, you may be using lightning or both, you may be using on chain or you may be using liquid, and you just have Bitcoin, and you're just using whatever that entails.
And so I think that's where we're headed. I think that's kind of what's coming up next and I've never been more excited than seeing Francis Pouliot did a talk in Toronto for the Canadian Bitcoin conference and he was talking about what he's in the midst of building for bull Bitcoin.
He's making an app and so I don't think it's like a big secret that he's doing this. So obviously you did a talk on it. People are going to talk about it.
But like his grand vision was, all right, so you go to bull Bitcoin, you're buying Bitcoin and right now when you go like this, it's only accessible in Canada and now Costa Rica.
So right, that's Francis. But nonetheless, right now when you go to bull Bitcoin, you go on the website, you hit buy, you must provide a Bitcoin address before you can hit that purchase button.
They'll hold your Canadian dollars, but they're never going to hold your Bitcoin. So it's instant self custody. The second you hit that button, there's a trigger that will send an on chain transaction or a lightning transaction or a liquid transaction.
So this already exists in the form of an online interface. What he's doing is an app and it's just your Bitcoin app. And when you go and you fund it with dollars and you hit buy, it just says that you have Bitcoin.
It would look kind of like, you know, like a coin based type, you hit buy. Great, I've got Bitcoin now. But when you hit buy and bull Bitcoin, it's actually now self custody because an on chain transaction has taken place in the background and funded your actual
wallet, which is now on your phone in the form of the app. And on top of this, he wants the ability to add like a cold card or whatever hardware device you choose as your wallet. And then you can also just when you hit buy, it just shows your balance in your cold card.
And it's just instantly there. And he's doing all these things he wants to do pay join and all these privacy mechanisms. And on top of it, every time that you withdraw, that's a coin join.
It's already happening. So like all of this, when he did the presentation, I was like, holy shit, that is nearly everything that I want from an app. So I think we're headed to this place where you're just going to have your app.
And and you you'll have lots of choices between them. But it's going to be a race to be like, can we just get like a fully fleshed out Bitcoin experience where I'm just using Bitcoin and sure you can go into the background and tweak things and change it if you want to but they'll just be a default.
I need fast private Bitcoin. And then it just does it for you.
Yeah, well, I think that that's I've been loving following what what France has been doing because like I think he really he's such a hardcore dude in terms of like he really wants to do things the right way.
And I think that that really shines through. And the idea that and you hit the nail on the head here. It's about like what drives adoption is that obfuscation of a lot of the details that most people don't need to work with.
Don't need to worry about as long as it's in the background happening in a way that is, you know, that is private that is secure that is encouraging self custody.
On the front end, people just want it to be easy and and and simple.
They just they just want to be able to to use money, you know, and and luckily they'll be able to use better money. But I think that that's a it's going to be very exciting to see what what starts rolling out here.
I think in probably that well a lot of it's rolling out now but in the next next few months next couple of years, it's going to be really exciting and there's going to be a lot of competition too.
And as you said, which is I mean, that's ultimately great for the user. The more competition, the better. Let's have people compete, you know, it's that's fantastic.
I hope maybe maybe someday it'll be possible for me to use bull bitcoin in America. But for now, for now, perhaps for now, for now, no luck.
Well, we'll see. Yeah. Well, so I want to just a couple of other questions. Not so much Bitcoin related.
What are you reading right now? Any any books that you'd recommend that you've really enjoyed recently?
So I just finished David Goggins second book.
I saw your your note about that actually on No Star.
Yeah. Yeah. So I'm I'm one of those people where everyone's in a while I need to swift kick in the ass to stay motivated.
And so I found I found his books are pretty good for that. And it's I really enjoyed that one. I'm now reading one called God, what is it?
It's it's the comfort crisis by Michael Easter.
It's pretty interesting. It's basically talking about how boredom used to be a normal thing where you did you couldn't just constantly be entertained by everything.
And now we're so used to being, you know, we have all of the modern comforts. Like at one point, how often are you actually just like cold and you can't do anything about it?
How often are you just like hot and you have no option to fix it? How often are you just like tired, like actually like mind numbingly tired and you you cannot lie down because you have to do something like it's not very often that we get tired.
And it's very often that we get to those levels of discomfort. And the book is talking about how because we have and you know, it's not advocating for like a return to the Stone Age, but it is advocating for putting yourself in situations that genuinely challenge yourself,
where there is a greater than 50% chance of failure in trying to actually achieve something and doing so allows you to kind of step outside of your little bubble of Oh, I know I can I can get this done.
And it forces you to do something more and in doing so, it when you do return to comfort, it's like, Oh, wow, this is actually pretty nice and and it posits that the reason for huge upticks in depression and suicide are largely in part funny enough to our excess comfort.
So it's a it's a very interesting I'm like, you know, I'm a quarter of the way in but you said that was the the comfort crisis, the comfort crisis by Michael Easter.
That sounds very interesting.
It was recommended by somebody on Nostra actually I can't remember who recommended it but I went and I downloaded it right away I've been listening to it while I've been at the gym.
There we go folks you just got to find yourself that bookstore hashtag and you will get some great recommendations.
The last thing is, is there anything you're listening to right now, perhaps, maybe there was a band that got back together recently.
I don't know that something you know, there's been few moments of sheer joy in my life, much like the return of NSYNC after 21 years hiatus.
What was it 21.
It was 21 fortuitous.
I know.
Last last song and I don't care I'm worth dedicating time to this the last time that they did was girlfriend in 2002 from the celebrity album.
They've now returned.
Do they have a full album out now or is it just the single for now.
It's just a single for now.
I've got to say that there's not many things I would say this about but I don't know if they're like I would part with many, many sats if there is a tour.
When I saw you tweeted about it and I was like no way. It's one of those things you don't think that they're going to get back like everybody's gone their own ways. Justin Timberlake is obviously the most successful of all of them.
But somehow he came back together into the fold.
Reunions are a beautiful thing, especially when they turn out to be like that song I thought was pretty nice. I enjoyed it.
I'm all about it. That thing has been on repeat nonstop.
I'm just to add some context to this. I sang in an a cappella group for 15 years and I grew up as like a closeted boy band fan like Backstreet Boys and sing 90 degrees.
I think it was my jam and I would just like like I would be rollerblading in the 90s with my Discman just like rocking out to end sync note strings attached like if you could picture it.
I can picture it actually but I feel like I'm going to need some we got to get like a throwback Thursday for this. Do you have photo evidence because the internet needs this I think.
Sure there's there's plenty on there back in my boy band days I had long shaggy hair that was bleach blonde and kind of curly.
Okay now I really need some photo evidence in here.
You know now like the the the internet if you don't release anything somebody is going to snoop something out there.
Something that exists on the Internet.
Somebody please find it. I'm sure it's out there.
It exists.
What's your a cappella group called God Tatum already doxxed us.
Why am I surprised Tatum Tatum had me on between two a six and then he inadvertently showed some some horrendous footage of of us on stage doing I can't remember what the song was but.
Nonetheless we were called the a cappella fellas classic a cappella you know yeah and and and there may or may not be video evidence out there don't judge me too harshly I don't claim that we were amazing we were.
Okay.
You know like if you're in the room and he had some drinks and you'd be like those guys are pretty good and we'd be like yeah I guess.
The only thing I'll judge you for is not just naming the group the a cappella's because that just taken.
Oh of course okay okay that makes sense.
Also we were one of three a cappella fellas but we purposely go on their other sites and give them bad reviews.
Oh terrible listen to the other a cappella a cappella fellas number one man well I'm I appreciate that little bit of color at the end I am going to need to see photo evidence of this long shag though.
Yeah.
Having recently parted with my own shag it's like I'm you know I'm needing some in my life.
Yeah.
Yeah it'll I'll I'll send some your way.
Please do well and then the last thing is I'll link to all of your you know your YouTube your Noester Twitter is there anywhere else you'd like to send people your on YouTube your at BTC sessions anything else that you want to direct people toward.
Yeah so I guess just I got my website so BTC sessions dot ca so Canadian of me.
Oh sure.
I haven't got that one down yet but there you will find like a getting started on Bitcoin track and it'll kind of give you like step by step like video tutorials to kind of get you going all the way from like beginner to run in your own node and doing coin joins.
And then there's also ways to like if you need one on ones and stuff you can find me there and there's there's a whole bunch of stuff over there.
Awesome.
So BTC sessions dot ca.
Indeed.
Beautiful.
Well Ben BTC sessions.
Thank you so much for coming on.
This has been an absolute pleasure and I'll just say to the audience thank you.
Bitcoin is scarce but Bitcoin podcasts are abundant.
So thank you for spending your time to listen to this one.
And yeah.
Cheers.
Great to have you.
We can do it again sometime.
I appreciate it.
I love to be back.
And that's a wrap on this Bitcoin talk episode of the Bitcoin podcast.
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