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okay not only is this just going to help me with a circular economy this is a general a

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new way for us to bring money into the country bring it out of the country and also use it

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digitally between the entire country not just in a small beach town and that's when i realized okay

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this is the real value that bitcoin brings it brings 21st century finance to everywhere in

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the world that traditional banks can't reach and everybody in the world they can't access a

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traditional bank via the traditional means. What's going on, everybody? Frank here. Just

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wanted to take a second to provide a little context for this episode. For those who don't know,

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Jamaica was hit by a Category 5 hurricane in November of last year, and it left the west side

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of the island in a state of disrepair. Much of the banking infrastructure went down in the wake

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of the storm, making it very difficult to transfer emergency funds to those in need.

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But Bitcoin, especially Bitcoin via Flash app, still worked. And our guest today is the creator

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of that app, Flash. After listening to the episode, if you'd like to learn more about what

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happened in Jamaica, more about Flash app, or more about how you can help with the relief effort,

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please check out the article I wrote on this topic for Forbes entitled,

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Jamaica's First Native Bitcoin App is Helping with Hurricane Relief.

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Also, I just wanted to say thank you again to everyone who's been tuning in.

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We sincerely appreciate your attention.

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If by chance you could take a moment to subscribe and leave a review on whatever platform on

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which you're listening, we'd greatly appreciate it.

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And thank you to Dave who sent us a hearty zap via Fountain for the last episode.

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We sincerely appreciate your support.

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You are the man.

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Finally, if you have any cool leads regarding Bitcoin adoption around the world, or if you'd

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just like to reach out to say hello, please feel free to contact me at newrentcap at gmail.com.

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That's N-E-W-R-E-N-C-A-P at gmail.com. All right, that's that. Let's get to the interview.

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Here's my conversation with Dred, founder of Jamaica's Flash app.

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What is going on, everybody? Frank here, back with an amazing guest, someone I'm really excited

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to have on the podcast because I fear that he has done far too few podcasts in the Bitcoin space or

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far too few podcasts in general because he has such an incredible story, such an interesting

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guy, such a kind-hearted individual who does really, really important work with Bitcoin in

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the Caribbean in his home country, Jamaica. Dredd is our guest today. Super excited to talk with him.

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Mike, I had the pleasure of seeing him later last year.

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And I know he's been quite busy helping with the relief effort in Jamaica.

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So we're all going to get into that.

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We're going to dive right in there.

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But first, Dred, if you want to just give a bit of an introduction about yourself, that would be great.

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Yeah, Frank, thank you for having me on the podcast.

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And for those who don't know me, I am Dred Am, the Jamaican Bitcoiner.

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I say that now. There's other Jamaican Bitcoiners.

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But I've been around for a while, so I like to call myself that.

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I've also been just a classical developer for a while.

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So that's kind of my reason for having passion around Bitcoin.

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And then from there, you know, I've just been building out Bitcoin for my country and for my region.

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There's a lot to go into there, but I won't really unpack it in my intro.

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I'll just let you know that if you're looking for a Jamaican person to tell you about Bitcoin, that's who I am.

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Yeah. And he's also developed a very cool app that we'll get into, Flash.

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We'll talk about that and also the role that it has played in the relief effort.

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But let's dive right in.

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You've had your head down doing incredibly important work, working with teams on the ground in Jamaica, helping to deliver relief to people on the ground who were impacted by the hurricane, which has happened months ago at this point.

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But these relief efforts take a long time.

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This was briefly touched upon in the news cycle.

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But since then, we've seen all sorts of stuff happening in Iran, in Venezuela.

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We were talking a little bit off camera.

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You've actually talked about how some of what's happening in Venezuela has actually impacted the relief effort in Jamaica.

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But let's start high level.

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What happened in Jamaica? What role did you end up playing? And how did Flash help out with all this?

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For those who don't know, the hurricane that hit the Caribbean and Jamaica first was quite literally a Category 6 hurricane.

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Now, granted, there is no such thing as a Category 6 hurricane, but it was the highest Category 5 hurricane on record in the region and in this century.

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And not only did it hit Jamaica, but it did something weird.

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It didn't just hit Jamaica from the east, it hit Jamaica from the west, which almost never happens with hurricanes.

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It almost did a loop and hit Jamaica from the west.

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So the west has never really had that kind of strength make landfall.

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It made a disaster zone of the west of the island.

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So from that point, we kind of jumped into gear and reached out to the Bitcoin community asking for contributions for the relief effort.

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And within days, we got over $10,000.

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We ended up getting over $15,000 total from 164 different people from the Bitcoin community.

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So thank you all.

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And we were able to immediately put those funds to use, creating care packages, whether it was actual food or medical supplies or underwear, feminine products, whatever the people needed.

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We were able to create these products for them so they could get food and health and safety immediately.

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And how do we do it?

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Well, there are merchants in Jamaica that use Flash, which we'll talk about.

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and they were able to accept Bitcoin and provide food.

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This was able to skip the banks because the banks were working.

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This was able to skip Western Union because Western Union was closed

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or completely destroyed, the building was destroyed.

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But people were still able to get their food through Bitcoin.

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So that was an amazing quick win.

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And then the long-term win was because we got so much money,

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we were able to start purchasing bigger things like solar panels

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and solar generators and batteries that we could ship down to Jamaica

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So people not only could get that food and supplies, but now in the community centers where they didn't have internet, they didn't have power, they were able to have a generator now and a Starlink.

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But the issue with that, which we'll get into, is that it took a long time to ship those things to Jamaica because, as you guys know, in the Caribbean, there's a lot of things happening right now that might delay boats.

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Let's actually, yeah, let's dive in there. I couldn't believe this when you said it to me. You know, I was facetiously saying like so much has happened since, well, it seriously has happened, but I was facetiously saying like the news cycle has sort of forgotten about what happened in Jamaica. And you actually said that some of what happened in Venezuela, one of the stories that's obviously sort of happened since, ended up having an impact on the ability to get supplies there. So could you get into some of those details?

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Yeah. So as you know, with the intervention that happened in Venezuela, the entire Caribbean region had a lot of American military presence in the marine areas. So a lot of warships, a lot of airspace being blocked off. And the usual, you know, traditional logistics that would happen across the region was completely slowed down by these military actions.

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So what happens?

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Ships that need to get in with a lot of resources for Jamaican relief efforts got delayed by months.

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We had, you know, generators that needed to come in and they were supposed to land in January.

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It's March and they're just getting here.

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Mainly because of, like I said, you know, a lot of the delays happening from those military actions.

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Now, I don't think there's anything that's happened in terms of, you know, things getting canceled or things getting broken or destroyed.

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but a lot of people that are waiting for relief now are waiting additional months

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because all of these stories are crossing together.

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The capture of Maduro and the actual intervention happening in Venezuela

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is affecting not just Jamaica, but a lot of other countries in the region

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that are trying to get supplies as well.

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So we're getting them. They're happening, but they're just happening a lot slower.

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Okay. And in terms of that initial few weeks,

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What was it like just from your shoes? What was it like? What were you hearing from people on the ground? What was the reality post the hurricane? I'm sure people can kind of imagine it, but I'm also sure there are certain things that you had to experience and help people with that people probably couldn't even imagine.

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I think the hardest thing for me, it was to see people that usually would be living a middle class to even upper class life in Jamaica, right?

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They have their two children and their dog and their white picket fence in like a nice area like Mandeville, Jamaica.

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And then after the hurricane, those are people that were immediately homeless.

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and not only homeless, but because Jamaica didn't have the type of resources a first world country

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would have, like, you know, the immediate Red Cross or, you know, tents and stuff, the people

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would be sleeping on the floor waiting for help. So a lot of community members were the ones that

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stepped up immediately and took stuff out of their homes to bring to them. And that is what really

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touched me. It was like, I saw the people of Jamaica step out and help their neighbor and

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help their countrymen before the actual government or the actual relief effort organizations,

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even foreign ones, could get to the country in time to provide that help.

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So that was touching.

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The other part was a little bit darker, which was the desperation of people.

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When you are homeless and you have no food and you don't know where it's going to come

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from, and the nearest city with resources is miles and miles away, violence tends to

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occur.

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So there was a little bit of violence happening on the road when people would try to bring

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relief supplies to the parts that were affected, they would get stopped and robbed along the way.

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And, you know, I mean, you might expect some of that to happen, but it was happening at an alarming

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rate to the point where, you know, the police actually stepped in and started making checkpoints

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along the way and putting up, you know, military posts to make sure that the community centers that

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were providing relief to people were protected. And those kind of things kind of gave you a stark

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reality check to say, this is not just a disaster zone. This is also a danger zone now, you know,

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because people don't have the protection they're used to, and they're not used to just living on

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the street So those are the two main things that that kind of shook me you know to make me realize this is real life And it made me take things a lot seriously and try to move as fast as I can because I knew that every day that we had a

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delay was another day that someone would be probably going home without food or going home

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without clean clothes or going home to an unsafe environment. That's a lot to take on. And for

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context here, how big of a team were you working with and how quickly were you able to mobilize

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this team? Is it part of your normal team that works on Flash and maybe Flash adoption in Jamaica,

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or was it a broader network of people that you tapped into?

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Both. So a portion of my team from Flash just immediately jumped into action and we were

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helping. But then it was a really beautiful decentralized way that it worked where many

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different smaller communities and organizations banded together. So there is DJ Amber, who works

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for IREFM. She has her own organization. There was Buds and Brushes. Mel, who runs an entire

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organization that already does food for the poor and it does women's shelters that she's

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been running for a long time. A lot of these organizations came together to form almost a

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convoy that would go with buses and food every week over to the disaster area and help out.

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So I was lucky enough not to have to create the whole team myself. I just volunteered me and my

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a few people to that larger group. And then that larger group was able to organize it. I mean,

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it was a beautiful moment of, you know, organic coming together without needing a top-down,

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you know, institution to help it happen. And to this day, it's still happening. Like, I think we

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have next weekend, another bus going out there with supplies that, and I think one of our

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shipments just cleared. So we'll have new supplies coming from Flash, from the donations that will be

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getting there this weekend too. Amazing. In terms of expediency, so banks were impacted by this. So

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I think some of it was literally just infrastructure was impacted in a way where not only could

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government not react as much, but literally the financial infrastructure that you might normally

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use to move funds around and to get aid to people wasn't functioning because of the damage from the

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hurricane. So Bitcoin becomes this thing that you can use through Flash to more quickly, again,

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move funds to wherever they need to be to purchase whatever you need to purchase.

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And also with Flash, because it also has an on and an off ramp feature there, it has a

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connection to the traditional system.

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I think that that was part of the equation in terms of because it's not like everyone

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overnight is going to become Bitcoiners just because they're in a disaster zone and they're

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going to understand how to use it and all that.

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So there was a lot that had to happen very quickly.

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But luckily, because of the nature of what Bitcoin is and the fact that, you know, its

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infrastructure wasn't necessarily drastically impacted by what happened in Jamaica. It was

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something that was very usable for people. Can you talk a little bit about some of the particulars

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and what it was like to sort of kick flash into action and maybe even get some people using it

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that might not be familiar with this technology? Yeah, that happened almost instantly because,

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like you said, you know, the banks were just not working. And you'd think, OK, well,

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why wouldn't the banks work if, you know, there are probably banks in the safe part of the country

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the east side that still had their servers up and running and branches were open. Well, the problem

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is that, you know, even though those branches were open, for some reason, the network, the bank

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network, the Visa network, the MasterCard rails just wouldn't work. So even if you happen to have

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internet access or power in a place that was affected, the Visa card just wouldn't swipe,

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right? It wouldn't work at all for the client. So the merchant was either saying,

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give me cash, right? Or I can't sell you anything, unfortunately, because they wouldn't do IOUs or

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credit. And that's kind of where we went into some merchants and were able to tell them, okay, well,

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this is your first time using Flash. So maybe we can sign you up, you know, you can collect it,

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we can show you how it works. Some merchants did that. Others didn't. Others had to get the cash

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directly. And then we would do peer-to-peer. And Jamaica has a decent Bitcoin community happening

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where we were able to do a peer-to-peer

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and give the person Bitcoin, get the cash,

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give it to the merchant, and get the food immediately.

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So both of those worked.

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But from the bank side,

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we realized that people who were not able

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to use their banking services

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and didn't have Flash set up yet,

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some of them already were accepting Bitcoin.

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And we didn't know this.

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If you go to btcmap.org,

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there's a lot more merchants in Jamaica and in the Caribbean

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than even Flash has been setting up.

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So we've realized now that we've been building upon this collaborative network,

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not competitive network, where even though we build up our own Flash merchants,

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there are other merchants out there collecting Bitcoin,

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collecting stablecoins, collecting Lightning,

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that you can go and pay with Flash.

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And that just expanded the network for us quickly,

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without us even knowing, because it was a necessity to find out

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if they would accept the Bitcoin or not.

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So I guess a silver lining in a dark area, in a dark moment.

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But from that point, we realized that every merchant that we spoke to, they were open to accepting something different because they realized for themselves that anything can happen to stop them from being able to collect their rent or collect their revenue going forward.

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And they wanted to know how they can make a more resilient method of payment that was available to them.

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And we've actually now created an initiative to continue creating this resilient flow of payments.

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So it's not just about Bitcoin. It's about Bitcoin in a place that can have uncensorable communications, you know, renewable sources of energy, whether it's solar generators, et cetera, mesh networking, where people can have even the basic Internet available to them for, you know, emergency services and payments.

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And we're going to keep on building that out in Jamaica as we go forward.

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That's amazing. So I just as you said this, I was reminded people were using things like BitChat, right? You spoke about a mesh network. So BitChat.

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Yeah, that works over Bluetooth. You don't necessarily need internet connection. So actually, I'm going to ask two questions there at the same time. You talked about these financial networks being impacted, but did the mobile networks and did internet, did these networks, I mean, I'm imagining they had to have been severely impacted as well. So did mesh networks become even more of a thing in that moment?

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so i'll send you a picture after the podcast so you can see exactly how bad it was it's a bird's

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eye view the place was flattened so what that mean is light poles are gone towers are gone

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cell towers are gone if you're not using satellite connection you're not getting internet and you

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don't have power you don't have cell phone service so everything was gone like you you're

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if you've even even if you had a cell phone with full battery you couldn't connect to any tower so

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it wouldn't work for you at all. And BitChat ended up being the number two downloaded app

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in the country, in the region, right after the hurricane. And people were using it for a long

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time until, you know, power started getting restored and until cell phone service was back up.

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I would say that the cell phone companies, Digicel and Flow, within maybe two weeks,

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had some emergency towers back up. But during those two weeks, BitChat was the most used app,

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for sure. Wow. So the average person, the super, you know, just the average person,

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how did this news spread so quickly? I mean, BitChat, it's okay. It's a thing amongst sort

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of Bitcoiners and stuff, but how did the average person end up hearing about this?

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I have no idea. I'm not going to lie. I have no clue. Like they, somebody downloaded it and

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shared with friends. If you went into the, you know, the regional chats where you could see

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people talking, they were all just testing it out. And I could see the Jamaican patois like,

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does this thing work? Oh, this, you know, and they're just like figuring it out together.

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No Bitcoiners were involved that I saw talking. But as soon as it spiked, it went right back down

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again. It was a very quick moment of emergency. And then once people used it and got what they

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needed, they were back off. So it's a very ephemeral usage of the tool. But I think that's

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exactly what it's made for. I think BitChad is made for those moments when you need it.

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And then you go back to normal right afterwards.

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Yeah.

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It's like emergency tech almost,

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like a new sort of tech,

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new name for the sort of technology we're building here.

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Generally speaking...

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Like it, emergency tech.

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Yeah.

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Generally speaking now, how are things there?

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How much has the island recovered?

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You were telling me a little bit off camera.

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You had a lot of people move from this western part of the island.

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They're living in a different part of the island now.

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What sorts of shifts or changes does that occur?

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long term? What does that look like long term? Just generally speaking, what's the state of

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things at this point in time? I would probably refer to it as displacement versus moving because,

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you know, they weren't willing to, they didn't want to move. But because of that, there's probably

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been a little bit of strain on the city of Kingston and other western, other eastern cities.

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But, you know, Jamaicans are very, very friendly, very neighborly people. You know, we are all about

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one love and out of many one people is our motto for the country. So when you see somebody in need,

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even though we might come off as rough sometimes, when we see somebody in need,

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they're always going to get help. So, you know, that happened. And along with, you know, we were

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bountiful in terms of fruit and food there. So even though it's rough going, you know, we're a poor

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country. I think once people were able to make their way over to the east of the island, it was

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a little bit better. I'm not going to sugarcoat it and say it's sunshine and rainbows. You know,

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we still have our problems. But, you know, a lot of that migration happened and people were taken

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care of. However, not everyone can migrate. So there's still a lot of people in the west of the

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island that are still suffering to this day. There's still a lot of aid that is coming down

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that hasn't been efficiently deployed. And they're still working on making that happen to this day.

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And then there's still a lot of, you know, shipments that are stuck, that are still waiting

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to be cleared to this day. So it's still a long process. I think that we're out of the danger zone

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in terms of worrying about mass casualties

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or anybody really dying from this anymore.

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But there a lot of work to do I would assume it would take another two to three years before we look at a full recovery of the island and hopefully an improvement in terms of disaster preparedness

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Okay. And also maybe potentially infrastructure as well. But there's something else that kind of

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comes to mind as you're saying all this. We spoke a little bit as this was going on. I interviewed

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you for a piece I wrote on the work that you were doing. And you also said, Jamaica, this happens

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every season, every hurricane season or different, you know, certain points in the year.

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Are certain things potentially different now, whether it's maybe some of the infrastructure

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that's being built, emergency readiness, whatever that is, even people being able to rely on

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something like Bitcoin a little bit more?

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What feels like it has sort of changed for the next time something like this happens?

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So first, I'll say that Jamaica is usually very lucky during the hurricane season.

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You know, the hurricanes come through and they might hit Haiti.

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They might hit, you know, Haiti.

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They might hit Dominican Republic.

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They might hit Cuba.

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You know, but 75% of the time, they circle Jamaica and don't really hit us.

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So this happening is probably one in three or one in four or five year occurrence.

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It might start happening sooner as we know that climate has been changing in general.

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but what I've seen that has changed so far is more the technology around the recovery right like we

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before you know we didn't have as many emergency beacons set up emergency systems set up

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this time around they had almost immediately emergency reporting system like with a map where

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you could really just point out where people need help and emergency services would be able to get

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there within a reasonable amount of time for Jamaica. So I think I've seen that setup like

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spun up on the spot here. And a lot of things like that are giving me hope that by the next

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hurricane, we're going to have a lot more quicker response time to areas in the country that were

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previously unreachable. So I'm really happy that this has allowed the country to kind of see where

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the weak points are and then have quick response teams that are ready to go to those areas during

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the next hurricane. That's like the most important thing is saving lives, right?

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It seems like a lot was learned from this and a lot of, you know, in terms of preparedness and

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responsiveness to this stuff. So I'm happy to hear that at least this seems like a silver lining or

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something good to come out of all of it. That's really, really inspiring to hear. In terms of

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people using flash i want to start with a little bit of an overview of it super cool wallet uh fork

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of i think is bitcoin beach wallet which is now blink um but has all these other features like

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the on and the off ramp to the traditional structure i think you ended up employing the

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the breeze sdk i think it also has something like something similar to stable stats so i was hoping

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that you could talk a little bit about the wallet and then how people were ended up using it or i

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mean were they did they quickly learn how to use lightning was it relatively easy for them were they

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using the base chain? Essentially, when people picked it up and had to learn it within minutes,

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what was their go-to? Yeah, great questions. And I'll start off by kind of narrowing it down to

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just the very, very basic part of the wallet, which is when you just download it for the first time,

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all you see is a USD or JMD balance. That's it. You don't really know anything about stablecoins

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it or lightning network or bitcoin or anything like that it's just flash and you can use it to

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pay for stuff and that's how we present it to people in jamaica because people in jamaica don't

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have paypal or cash app or venmo or zelle they know about these things from the u.s but the average

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jamaican that doesn't have access to the u.s doesn't have any fintech app on their phone

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per se they might have a beta version or an entire not beta a new version of link which is kind of the

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the CBDC type wallet that Jamaica has has implemented.

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And that's a whole different conversation we can get into.

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But most people don't have it.

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It was only 2% adoption.

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So most people don't have a FinTech app on their phone.

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So a flash is usually the first touch for a FinTech app.

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And we made it as simple as possible.

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You press start, you see the USD wallet,

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or if you switched currencies, it's the JMD wallet.

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And then you can just go to a store and spend,

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or you can top it up from your bank account.

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And that's it.

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Like very, very MVP version.

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Now, to your point, there's a lot of things in the settings, right?

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So if the, you know, the techie ones or the really Bitcoiners that are hiding in Jamaica

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and don't want to, you know, come on podcasts like me, they would open up the wallet and

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they would see, oh, advanced mode.

315
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And then you can turn on the Bitcoin side of the wallet, which to your point, we integrated

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Breeze SDK to do that.

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So it provides you with a non-custodial wallet that you get your 12 words for your seed phrase.

318
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you write it down and you can switch between each wallet, your USD wallet and your Bitcoin wallet

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back and forth, depending on where you want to hold your funds. I consider it to be like a

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checkings and a savings account. And then you can, you know, off ramp into your hardware wallet if

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you want to, because it does on-chain as well. And then the exciting part for me is that because

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we're a community type of culture, you know, people always want to chat and commerce and do

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all their little peer-to-peer, you know, fun, trading, etc. And we created Noster as a button

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in the, as a tab in the wallet that allows people to chat with their fellow merchants,

325
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chat with each other, send zaps, just like you do on Noster. And also we'll be integrating the

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P2P trade version of Noster. So it's like a NIP, NIP 69, where you can just post stuff. And it

327
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doesn't have to be you're posting Bitcoin. I know Bitcoin does have to post Bitcoin, but I could post

328
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a table for sale. I could post my monitor or my Xbox. And that P2P trade thing will be inside the

329
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app where you can zap people to get what they want from them and then collect however you want. So

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we're very excited about the social aspect of it, the simplicity of it. And then it still gives them

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the sovereignty of having a non-custodial wallet in there too. It's amazing. And how dare you bring

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non-Bitcoin propagandists to Nostra? How dare you bring normal people that can use this for

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normal things. It's so crazy of you. I want to dive into a little bit of your making the app

334
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because I think it's a really cool story and I don't do too much Bitcoin story stuff here,

335
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but I think this is really important because of your intention in making it. I think your

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educational background is great for people to understand as well, but there was just really

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this earnest motivation for you to create something that would really be this amazing

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financial services slash money app for people in Jamaica, especially given that complete void that

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existed before you brought Flash to people. So if you want to go as far back as you're comfortable,

340
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but maybe just a little bit of background on how and why you created Flash.

341
00:27:24,798 --> 00:27:36,818
yeah sure so um i saw a podcast actually um about el salvador and when i first saw it i realized okay

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el salvador has been something really cool with bitcoin i was already buying bitcoin and i was

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you know following the the technological side of it really as a coder as a developer but then i saw

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that a country in my region el salvador was using bitcoin in this small little beach town and i

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wanted to see what it was all about and how it was working for them because I saw people that I

346
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could relate to using it, not, you know, a techie or an investor. So I contacted Mike Peterson,

347
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who I saw on the podcast, and I just DMed him on Twitter and said, hey, can I come down and check

348
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it out? And Mike was like, sure, come down whenever. I'm like, all right, I'm coming Thursday.

349
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He said, wait, this Thursday? So I showed up, found the, you know, the most recognizable hotel

350
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I could find because I didn't know anything about El Salvador.

351
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And from your history, reading about El Salvador, you'd know it traditionally was a very dangerous

352
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place to go to.

353
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So I tried to find a safe hotel, checked in, and randomly as I walked into the hotel, there

354
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was a huge table with this massive fish in the middle of the table.

355
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And around the table was sitting where people I recognized from Twitter.

356
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It was like, you know, Jack Mahlers, Peter McCormick, Miles Suter, a couple, you know, reporters.

357
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Mike Peterson was there.

358
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Jorge and Ramon, if you know about the Bitcoin speech story.

359
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And a couple other people just there kind of, you know, almost brainstorming on El Salvador and what was going on there.

360
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And I just walked up to them and did a bold move that changed the trajectory of the rest of my life saying, hey, guys, I'm Dred from Jamaica.

361
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I'm a Bitcoiner. Can I join you?

362
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And they said yes.

363
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so from that point forward i learned a lot about what was going on in el salvador almost directly

364
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you know and then was able to volunteer immediately to help them build it out so i stayed there for

365
00:29:22,858 --> 00:29:28,218
another couple weeks i helped to onboard people that were just learning about bitcoin you know

366
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half spanish half english my spanish is terrible but i was able to like you know show them how to

367
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move money on the blink wallet i learned a lot just how to adopt and how to you know create a

368
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circular economy from these guys. And then I took all that knowledge and went back to Jamaica and

369
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started building. At first, I thought I would be building just a circular economy, right? I would

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go do the same thing, onboard merchants. But then that didn't happen because we don't have Blink

371
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in Jamaica. We don't have an ATM that you can use to move from cash to Bitcoin. So the rails just

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weren't there in Jamaica that we had in El Salvador. And I'd go back to El Salvador every

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couple, every couple of weeks, no, not months, every couple of years, every year, I go back to

374
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El Salvador. Every year, I'm back to El Salvador and checked it out and saw how they were progressing.

375
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This is right around the time, you know, Bukele started picking up steam and they created the

376
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Chivo wallet and they had the Bitcoin law, you know, all that happened while I was trying to

377
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make this happen in Jamaica. And I turned around and I said, okay, I realize what the gap is.

378
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It that we don have a Blink or a Bitcoin Beach wallet in Jamaica so I going to build Flash And then as I built Flash I realized that okay not only is this just going to help me with a circular economy this is in general a new way

379
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for us to bring money into the country, bring it out of the country, and also use it digitally

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between the entire country, not just in a small beach town. And that's when I realized, okay,

381
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this is the real value that Bitcoin brings. It brings 21st century finance to everywhere in the

382
00:31:00,407 --> 00:31:04,767
world that traditional banks can't reach and everybody in the world that can't access a

383
00:31:04,767 --> 00:31:10,847
traditional bank via their traditional means. So I'm really happy to be continuing that mission.

384
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And I hope I'm, you know, making the El Zante guys proud that I'm standing on their shoulders

385
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because those guys are giants. I have no doubt that you're making them proud. No question about

386
00:31:20,927 --> 00:31:25,087
that. One thing I wanted to touch on though, we talked a little bit about this last time we spoke

387
00:31:25,087 --> 00:31:29,907
was the amount of people that just in Jamaica who have a bank account or who don't have a bank

388
00:31:29,907 --> 00:31:33,787
account. So having a bank account is kind of difficult for, I think, a few reasons, as you've

389
00:31:33,787 --> 00:31:38,107
mentioned. But if you wanted to maybe touch on that to help contextualize why something like

390
00:31:38,107 --> 00:31:44,147
Flesh is so important. Yeah. So a lot of people will look at the statistics and say that,

391
00:31:44,147 --> 00:31:49,387
oh, well, 75 to 80 percent of people in Jamaica have bank accounts. The number might be somewhere

392
00:31:49,387 --> 00:31:56,007
around 77. But if you look at how many of those people are economically using those bank accounts,

393
00:31:56,007 --> 00:32:02,547
the number drops to almost 40%, 30-something percent are people that are actually using their

394
00:32:02,547 --> 00:32:08,207
bank accounts. Why? Because compared to the salary and the expenses and things you buy in Jamaica,

395
00:32:08,327 --> 00:32:15,227
the fees to use a bank account can be prohibitive for many people, right? If you're getting a certain

396
00:32:15,227 --> 00:32:20,247
pay and you deposit it, and by the time you deposit it and take it out to buy food, you've

397
00:32:20,247 --> 00:32:25,247
lost 10% to 15% of your monthly wages, you're probably not going to put it in the bank, right?

398
00:32:25,247 --> 00:32:33,427
Or if it goes to the bank via pay, you're probably going to pull it all out and keep it so you don't have to pay a transaction fee every time you want to spend your money.

399
00:32:33,727 --> 00:32:38,147
So it's that small level of margin that caused people not to want to use banks.

400
00:32:38,407 --> 00:32:40,347
And I think there's a space there.

401
00:32:40,407 --> 00:32:46,387
I know there's a space there for digital currency in general, because now with Flash, you can do Flash to Flash for free.

402
00:32:46,387 --> 00:33:07,007
So people can do transactions without having to stash the money under their bed, right? Or keep it safe from criminals that know they just pulled out their entire monthly check at the ATM. So we're solving two problems. It's one, giving them digital access and two, keeping them safe if they really want to have their money, you know, to spend without people knowing.

403
00:33:07,007 --> 00:33:21,947
And I think there's also another misnomer, which is that, you know, because Jamaica is a cash rich country or not cash rich, a cash first country, you know, that cash is king, that we don't have the technology there.

404
00:33:22,287 --> 00:33:27,907
And that's why. And that's not true. Jamaica has a technology. Like, you know, we're a very technology first country.

405
00:33:27,907 --> 00:33:32,747
were actually very progressive in terms of the Caribbean islands and the tenology that we have.

406
00:33:33,027 --> 00:33:37,627
We were one of the first countries in the region to launch and roll out a CBDC,

407
00:33:37,867 --> 00:33:40,807
which is a central bank digital currency that people could use.

408
00:33:40,927 --> 00:33:42,347
Banks could use it and people could use it.

409
00:33:42,347 --> 00:33:50,207
So I know that the people have the capability and the capacity and the incentive to use tenology.

410
00:33:50,527 --> 00:33:54,747
I think we just haven't had the right tenology in their hands yet for them to use it properly.

411
00:33:54,747 --> 00:34:08,547
Amazing. And you've given them that. And speaking of that technology, one of the things that I really love about it is that on a certain level with the Bitcoin Beach store, you kind of, I don't know, soft forked the idea of the circular economy and brought it to Jamaica.

412
00:34:08,547 --> 00:34:16,647
But on the other side of things, you actually did fork the Bitcoin Beach wallet, now the Blink wallet, as the foundation layer.

413
00:34:16,787 --> 00:34:18,547
I think that's a fair way to put it of Flash.

414
00:34:19,307 --> 00:34:25,407
So I think that this stuff is really interesting for people to note because it's not like Bitcoin development happens in a vacuum.

415
00:34:25,647 --> 00:34:28,287
It's obviously the nature of open source tech that it doesn't.

416
00:34:28,367 --> 00:34:31,047
We can all see what everybody else is building because it's open source.

417
00:34:31,587 --> 00:34:35,267
But I think it's really important to highlight this point of you went to El Salvador.

418
00:34:35,487 --> 00:34:36,947
You saw how people were using this wallet.

419
00:34:36,947 --> 00:34:39,567
I don't want to put words in your mouth

420
00:34:39,567 --> 00:34:40,967
But I'm assuming maybe you thought

421
00:34:40,967 --> 00:34:43,207
Oh, this seems like a really good onboarding mechanism

422
00:34:43,207 --> 00:34:44,787
This is a good place for people to start

423
00:34:44,787 --> 00:34:47,267
I've used Blink, I think it's a great wallet

424
00:34:47,267 --> 00:34:48,907
I know people are critical sometimes

425
00:34:48,907 --> 00:34:51,487
You know, it's custodial or whatever like that

426
00:34:51,487 --> 00:34:53,207
You've made some changes

427
00:34:53,207 --> 00:34:54,747
People can use the Blink SDK

428
00:34:54,747 --> 00:34:56,847
Can you talk a little bit about that though?

429
00:34:56,927 --> 00:34:59,247
Having that Gallois stack, the Blink stack

430
00:34:59,247 --> 00:35:01,247
To start building with, or the Bitcoin Beach

431
00:35:01,247 --> 00:35:03,827
The wallet to fork and start building with

432
00:35:03,827 --> 00:35:07,827
Did it give you some confidence?

433
00:35:08,227 --> 00:35:11,567
Did it take some of the cognitive burden of creating the app off of you?

434
00:35:11,847 --> 00:35:13,087
What was that process like?

435
00:35:14,927 --> 00:35:19,387
Yeah, without that kind of foundation to start with,

436
00:35:19,467 --> 00:35:22,387
I probably would have spent another two years building it from scratch.

437
00:35:22,567 --> 00:35:24,367
It was a big accelerator.

438
00:35:25,047 --> 00:35:28,027
Not only did they already find out what worked in the market,

439
00:35:28,147 --> 00:35:31,487
like in the wild, and they were able to get that real feedback,

440
00:35:31,487 --> 00:35:38,247
but also the open source nature of it allowed a lot of other Bitcoiners from around the world to contribute to the code,

441
00:35:38,647 --> 00:35:41,047
you know, and provide reviews, provide improvements.

442
00:35:41,447 --> 00:35:43,627
So it wasn't, you know, it was twofold.

443
00:35:43,747 --> 00:35:49,207
It was the on-the-ground experience that gave real-time feedback to create UX and UI improvements,

444
00:35:49,207 --> 00:35:54,487
and then the Bitcoin community and the open source community providing security updates and audits

445
00:35:54,487 --> 00:35:57,787
and improvements to the code to provide, like, world-class code,

446
00:35:57,787 --> 00:36:00,827
even though it was kind of all over the place

447
00:36:00,827 --> 00:36:02,367
because it was many people contributing,

448
00:36:02,547 --> 00:36:03,767
but that's the way open source works.

449
00:36:03,907 --> 00:36:06,587
If you look at Linux or any other open source project,

450
00:36:06,947 --> 00:36:08,607
it starts off all over the place

451
00:36:08,607 --> 00:36:10,407
and then it creates this coalescence

452
00:36:10,407 --> 00:36:13,587
of a really strong product that everybody wants to use.

453
00:36:14,067 --> 00:36:15,467
And that's what happened with the Blink wallet.

454
00:36:15,907 --> 00:36:18,887
I think that it's gone productized now, as you know.

455
00:36:19,007 --> 00:36:21,887
Blink has its own thing apart from Galoi,

456
00:36:21,967 --> 00:36:23,047
which is still open source.

457
00:36:23,567 --> 00:36:24,567
Blink is still open source too,

458
00:36:24,647 --> 00:36:25,887
but Galoi was the foundation.

459
00:36:25,887 --> 00:36:29,887
and we have also forked so far away from them.

460
00:36:30,147 --> 00:36:33,247
As you know, we've kind of put a scalpel to it.

461
00:36:33,507 --> 00:36:34,527
It made a lot of improvements.

462
00:36:34,827 --> 00:36:36,387
And the most important thing we did

463
00:36:36,387 --> 00:36:38,547
is we made UX improvements

464
00:36:38,547 --> 00:36:42,087
that were much more focused on the Caribbean communities

465
00:36:42,087 --> 00:36:44,867
and both English-speaking and Spanish-speaking

466
00:36:44,867 --> 00:36:46,427
and Dutch-speaking Caribbean communities

467
00:36:46,427 --> 00:36:47,627
that have their own culture,

468
00:36:48,007 --> 00:36:49,287
their own flair for things,

469
00:36:49,487 --> 00:36:51,607
their own words that they kind of recognize

470
00:36:51,607 --> 00:36:53,027
and ways that things work.

471
00:36:53,327 --> 00:36:54,607
We really focused on that

472
00:36:54,607 --> 00:36:57,727
to make sure that people felt like this was a product they could be proud of.

473
00:36:58,087 --> 00:37:01,047
You know, it wasn't just a random product that was coming from another country.

474
00:37:01,387 --> 00:37:05,167
And then on top of that, we were able to use our relationships in Jamaica

475
00:37:05,167 --> 00:37:07,687
to make sure that people can on-ramp and off-ramp,

476
00:37:07,967 --> 00:37:10,607
either at agents or through their banking system.

477
00:37:11,147 --> 00:37:13,027
And Blink couldn't provide that directly.

478
00:37:13,547 --> 00:37:16,327
Maybe we could have still gone through them and had partnerships with them,

479
00:37:16,327 --> 00:37:20,667
but that kind of ownership and that cultural ownership was very important

480
00:37:20,667 --> 00:37:22,687
because people are skeptical.

481
00:37:22,687 --> 00:37:28,707
You know, people are very skeptical of the digital currency and cryptocurrency industry in general.

482
00:37:29,007 --> 00:37:34,247
So if it wasn't coming from someone that they could point to and say, you built this, then adoption would have been much harder.

483
00:37:34,607 --> 00:37:37,007
So it was very helpful to have the blink as a start.

484
00:37:37,187 --> 00:37:44,247
And then putting the Caribbean Jamaican face on it was really the accelerator that made it, you know, made it all work together.

485
00:37:44,247 --> 00:37:54,387
The security in the beginning, the time-tested proof in El Salvador, and then the one love Jamaican face on top to make it work.

486
00:37:55,647 --> 00:37:56,847
I love this.

487
00:37:57,027 --> 00:37:59,067
And it's something that's coming to mind as you're saying it.

488
00:37:59,087 --> 00:38:03,567
One of the things, I used to be a writing professor and I would tell my students more details, more details.

489
00:38:03,667 --> 00:38:06,267
I want to know exactly what you're talking about here.

490
00:38:06,427 --> 00:38:10,527
So one of the things I want to know, how did you Jamaicify the app?

491
00:38:10,527 --> 00:38:14,027
What are some things that are sort of a signal to the people that are using it?

492
00:38:14,067 --> 00:38:15,247
This was made by a Jamaican.

493
00:38:17,027 --> 00:38:22,987
So if you go on the website, getflash.io, getflash.io, you'll realize it immediately has all the Jamaican colors.

494
00:38:23,567 --> 00:38:26,607
The background is a skyline of Kingston.

495
00:38:27,127 --> 00:38:30,347
So people recognize our downtown pier and, you know, the buildings there.

496
00:38:30,487 --> 00:38:38,007
But then when you go into the app, like you download it and you onboard to the app, the first thing the app asks you when you press start is, what's your name?

497
00:38:38,007 --> 00:38:51,587
And in front of that is our national bird. It's a doctor bird, we call it, which is a type of hummingbird that Jamaicans know very well. But it's like almost metallic, futuristic, cyperpunk type of hummingbird. And that is our mascot.

498
00:38:51,587 --> 00:38:57,447
So from the beginning, you're just getting inundated with just Jamaica, Jamaica, Jamaica and the Caribbean at large.

499
00:38:57,827 --> 00:39:09,307
And then from there, everywhere you look in the app, we try to put a little, you know, style, whether it's maybe a different word you use for an action that might be patois or a different color or a different form.

500
00:39:09,647 --> 00:39:11,567
And, you know, it's just really, really cool that way.

501
00:39:11,627 --> 00:39:16,707
And we also have all of the currencies of the Caribbean and languages of the Caribbean as well.

502
00:39:16,747 --> 00:39:20,227
So you can change your language, you can change your currency to match your culture.

503
00:39:21,207 --> 00:39:21,527
Amazing.

504
00:39:21,887 --> 00:39:27,107
Speaking of currencies, one of the things too, how much are people using Jamaican dollars

505
00:39:27,107 --> 00:39:30,327
versus US dollars and then now potentially even Bitcoin?

506
00:39:30,607 --> 00:39:33,667
Are they currently thinking about Bitcoin as more of a savings asset?

507
00:39:33,887 --> 00:39:35,067
Are they using it as money?

508
00:39:35,227 --> 00:39:37,107
Are they using US dollars within the app?

509
00:39:37,107 --> 00:39:41,347
What tends to be their go-to as far as like day-to-day spending money when using the app?

510
00:39:42,627 --> 00:39:44,387
It shifted over time, actually.

511
00:39:44,387 --> 00:39:51,567
I would say last year when we were in our pilot phase, it was almost exclusively U.S. or Jamaican dollars.

512
00:39:51,767 --> 00:39:53,527
And I want to make a point of clarification.

513
00:39:53,947 --> 00:40:00,647
We are just like the Blink app where the base currency on the dollar side, on the stable coin side, is U.S. dollars.

514
00:40:01,227 --> 00:40:03,567
But you can show your display currency differently.

515
00:40:04,027 --> 00:40:07,527
So even though you're holding U.S. dollars, it'll show you the Jamaican equivalent.

516
00:40:07,527 --> 00:40:12,887
right but then if the if the exchange rate changes you might see a up or down shift in by pennies

517
00:40:12,887 --> 00:40:17,827
of the of the forex between u.s and jamaican dollars so that's a point of clarification

518
00:40:17,827 --> 00:40:23,727
the majority of people last year were using the just the usd side they just wanted to hold

519
00:40:23,727 --> 00:40:27,647
dollars in their hand it was cool that it came through bitcoin or lightning but they were like

520
00:40:27,647 --> 00:40:32,707
yeah let me just hold the dollars and see what's what it's like as of december january february

521
00:40:32,707 --> 00:40:38,587
that started to shift. People have gotten a drastic increase in curiosity, I would say,

522
00:40:38,907 --> 00:40:42,807
in the Bitcoin and stablecoin space, and they want to see how it works.

523
00:40:42,907 --> 00:40:48,147
So a lot of people are now opening up the wallet, turning on the Bitcoin side, and all

524
00:40:48,196 --> 00:40:53,296
purchasing, topping up Bitcoin, whether it's from their own exchange that they know of,

525
00:40:53,656 --> 00:41:00,876
or they can top up straight from the Flash wallet and then move money back and forth between their

526
00:41:00,876 --> 00:41:04,596
savings and their checking. And that's happening a lot more now, we've realized.

527
00:41:05,636 --> 00:41:12,236
Breeze has been a great partner, I have to say. As we grow with them, the non-custodial wallet

528
00:41:12,236 --> 00:41:16,656
SDK just gets faster and cheaper and easier to use.

529
00:41:16,876 --> 00:41:19,836
And I'm really happy that we're able to build with them

530
00:41:19,836 --> 00:41:21,056
and see what else they come up with

531
00:41:21,056 --> 00:41:24,696
because as they create more functionality in their app,

532
00:41:25,176 --> 00:41:27,556
our app Flash immediately gets that functionality

533
00:41:27,556 --> 00:41:28,636
that people can use.

534
00:41:29,216 --> 00:41:33,276
And we hope that that kind of growth will continue

535
00:41:33,276 --> 00:41:36,256
and that Jamaicans will eventually have the same parity

536
00:41:36,256 --> 00:41:39,036
of usability in all the apps that they use

537
00:41:39,036 --> 00:41:42,356
because Breeze is like an SDK for all apps, right?

538
00:41:42,356 --> 00:41:43,156
Not just for Flash.

539
00:41:43,716 --> 00:41:43,876
Yep.

540
00:41:44,236 --> 00:41:46,756
Yeah, the Breeze team, they just do not stop.

541
00:41:46,836 --> 00:41:48,036
And it's not even a huge team.

542
00:41:48,116 --> 00:41:51,536
They just continue to ship and to improve and to iterate it.

543
00:41:51,596 --> 00:41:54,296
They're truly an amazing group of people.

544
00:41:54,476 --> 00:41:56,156
Danny and Umi are here in New York,

545
00:41:56,156 --> 00:41:57,456
and I see Roy quite frequently.

546
00:41:57,456 --> 00:41:58,676
So shout out to that team,

547
00:41:58,736 --> 00:41:59,996
and I love that you're working with them.

548
00:42:00,896 --> 00:42:01,096
Yeah.

549
00:42:01,656 --> 00:42:03,176
You mentioned this a little bit earlier

550
00:42:03,176 --> 00:42:05,416
about the messiness of open source development,

551
00:42:05,416 --> 00:42:24,476
And then and then and then, you know, this compliment you just paid to the breeze team. But this idea of working all together with people, sometimes there's pros and cons to that. You're classically trained. You went to school, I think, for computer engineering or computer science, whichever. Yeah.

552
00:42:24,476 --> 00:42:32,896
So you have this formal college education in doing things a certain way.

553
00:42:33,016 --> 00:42:37,636
You have a background, I think, working within more traditional structures, more traditional companies.

554
00:42:38,056 --> 00:42:42,776
I'm kind of curious as to, I guess, emotionally what it's like to go through.

555
00:42:42,836 --> 00:42:48,376
I mean, technically as well, to go through building an open source app, working within this open source culture.

556
00:42:48,376 --> 00:42:55,856
Are there moments where it's frustrating, where you just wish it could be a little bit more streamlined, that you're making the final decision and you're just pushing forward with it?

557
00:42:55,856 --> 00:43:05,216
Or has it been far more, I don't want to be too dramatic, but has there been more pros than cons in this process of having to work with other people in open source culture?

558
00:43:07,456 --> 00:43:09,256
Yeah, I would say it's been a journey overall.

559
00:43:09,256 --> 00:43:14,136
to your point I've been a classically trained engineer and went to becoming a process engineer

560
00:43:14,136 --> 00:43:19,856
and a management consultant and worked you know in much more structured formats right you start a

561
00:43:19,856 --> 00:43:24,256
project and you kind of have all your resources and your docs lined up the open source community

562
00:43:24,256 --> 00:43:29,656
is very different I didn't come into it actually trying to work in the beginning I came into it as

563
00:43:29,656 --> 00:43:34,696
you know a student learning everything about FOSS and not just that everything about Bitcoin at the

564
00:43:34,696 --> 00:43:41,956
same time. So I would say I ended up with a three to four year degree in just learning about how

565
00:43:41,956 --> 00:43:47,376
open source coding happens and how it's different. And then from that point forward, I was able to

566
00:43:47,376 --> 00:43:51,456
start building smaller projects on my own, you know, like contributing to projects that were

567
00:43:51,456 --> 00:43:57,816
already on the way. I did a long stint with, if you know the guys from Start9, Start9 Labs,

568
00:43:58,456 --> 00:44:03,656
and they create, if you guys don't know them, they create sovereign computing, which is basically

569
00:44:03,656 --> 00:44:07,896
your own server that you can run in your own home and you can run your own node on it and you can

570
00:44:07,896 --> 00:44:12,156
also run anything else you want on it instead of the cloud. So you can check it out start9.com and

571
00:44:12,156 --> 00:44:17,076
I started working with them for a while and got my chops under me for open source coding you know

572
00:44:17,076 --> 00:44:22,336
like figuring out how to contribute things figuring out ethics behind open source contributions

573
00:44:22,336 --> 00:44:28,996
and licensing and that really got me interested in the whole world of it because I had not done

574
00:44:28,996 --> 00:44:33,996
that before in corporate America. In corporate America, it was about IP and it's about speed to

575
00:44:33,996 --> 00:44:40,716
market and protecting your capital, your code. And it was just a completely different world.

576
00:44:41,336 --> 00:44:47,736
So that took a little bit to adapt to. But once I did, there's no going back. You realize that

577
00:44:47,736 --> 00:44:52,636
everything you write at this point, everything you produce as a coder, this is kind of what

578
00:44:52,636 --> 00:44:57,416
the cypherpunks were saying when cypherpunks write code, is that what you're writing is going to

579
00:44:57,416 --> 00:45:02,856
benefit the world in some way once it's productive. You're not just benefiting your pockets or one

580
00:45:02,856 --> 00:45:07,476
segment. You're opening it up to the world and whoever wants to use it can use it. And there's

581
00:45:07,476 --> 00:45:13,396
kind of a sense of, I don't know, zen there, you know, writing like that. I think a lot of coders

582
00:45:13,396 --> 00:45:20,236
and programmers and engineers in general that do open source products are operating at a higher

583
00:45:20,236 --> 00:45:24,416
vibration, is the best way I would put it. You know, they're operating at a higher vibration,

584
00:45:24,416 --> 00:45:25,636
and they're doing it for a good cause.

585
00:45:26,076 --> 00:45:28,556
And therefore, a lot of the greed that you might see

586
00:45:28,556 --> 00:45:30,256
just doesn't exist as much.

587
00:45:30,316 --> 00:45:31,676
There's still some, of course, we're human,

588
00:45:31,996 --> 00:45:34,996
but there's a lot lower proportion of it.

589
00:45:35,116 --> 00:45:38,296
And I think I like living in that space.

590
00:45:38,396 --> 00:45:39,576
I like working in that space.

591
00:45:40,116 --> 00:45:42,436
And that's the reason why everything we do at Flash

592
00:45:42,436 --> 00:45:43,296
is open source.

593
00:45:43,756 --> 00:45:46,336
Of course, we can't open source the PII

594
00:45:46,336 --> 00:45:47,516
and the bank account numbers

595
00:45:47,516 --> 00:45:48,856
and the way we do our trades,

596
00:45:49,036 --> 00:45:51,436
but we open source everything in terms of code

597
00:45:51,436 --> 00:45:52,656
and everything that we build,

598
00:45:52,656 --> 00:45:54,356
we hope that other people use it.

599
00:45:54,416 --> 00:45:56,936
to either create products like ours,

600
00:45:57,076 --> 00:45:58,516
products comparative to ours,

601
00:45:58,696 --> 00:45:59,656
complementary to ours,

602
00:45:59,696 --> 00:46:00,816
or collaborative to ours.

603
00:46:02,236 --> 00:46:02,716
Amazing.

604
00:46:03,596 --> 00:46:05,896
I do agree that people are operating

605
00:46:05,896 --> 00:46:07,036
at a different vibration.

606
00:46:07,236 --> 00:46:08,336
And I mentioned earlier

607
00:46:08,336 --> 00:46:09,856
just how kind of a soul you are,

608
00:46:09,876 --> 00:46:11,256
and I can't highlight that point enough.

609
00:46:11,316 --> 00:46:13,536
So if you ever get a chance to meet Dredd here,

610
00:46:13,656 --> 00:46:15,256
please introduce yourself to him

611
00:46:15,256 --> 00:46:18,416
and absorb some of that good energy.

612
00:46:18,996 --> 00:46:22,036
On that notion of

613
00:46:22,036 --> 00:46:29,856
creating something for a higher purpose, what is your greatest hope for Jamaica with what you're

614
00:46:29,856 --> 00:46:33,976
creating? So obviously, you know, you've now created a tool that can be used in emergencies,

615
00:46:33,976 --> 00:46:38,176
could be used to foster some sense of financial inclusion. But in terms of like,

616
00:46:38,496 --> 00:46:42,276
maybe even a borderline utopian vision, what does Flash do for Jamaica?

617
00:46:44,196 --> 00:46:51,156
Oh, wow. I love these kind of, you know, cosmic questions. I think that, you know,

618
00:46:51,156 --> 00:46:58,516
a lot of people in Jamaica are very hopeful, very hardworking. We are probably some of the

619
00:46:58,516 --> 00:47:03,236
hardest working people in the world. That's why we're so talented in general. Probably something

620
00:47:03,236 --> 00:47:09,616
to do with the food too, the yams. But I think that the people that have that potential in

621
00:47:09,616 --> 00:47:20,211
Jamaica are going to start being able to realize they can use it you know And of course this is not every other show talks about AI so I won go into AI too much on this but AI has an

622
00:47:20,211 --> 00:47:26,151
acceleration effect, right? And you have people that are able to use something like AI and use

623
00:47:26,151 --> 00:47:31,071
something that they can fully control their own sovereign money without being, you know, diluted

624
00:47:31,071 --> 00:47:36,791
or inflated or censored. Then I think a lot of things that are being held back right now,

625
00:47:36,791 --> 00:47:42,151
in terms of talent, in terms of potential, might explode. That's my utopian vision,

626
00:47:42,511 --> 00:47:51,251
is that Jamaica becomes a productive explosion of productivity and talent. And people that

627
00:47:51,251 --> 00:47:55,951
probably left Jamaica, we call it brain drain, they left Jamaica to go have a better life

628
00:47:55,951 --> 00:47:59,711
somewhere, will realize that, oh, I can live in my hometown, in my home country,

629
00:48:00,271 --> 00:48:04,771
and still do great things with the tools that we have today. And there'll be kind of a big

630
00:48:04,771 --> 00:48:09,151
repatriation as well. I mean, these are all utopian visions, so don't think of it as, you know,

631
00:48:09,291 --> 00:48:15,511
I might be being bombastic, but people coming home, people being productive, and us growing into this,

632
00:48:15,511 --> 00:48:24,211
you know, very, very wealthy, bountiful country, you know, just because we're freed the people to

633
00:48:24,211 --> 00:48:29,491
be able to actually work is kind of my utopian vision. Lots of relations between here and there,

634
00:48:29,791 --> 00:48:31,931
but I think it's a good vision to keep working for.

635
00:48:31,931 --> 00:48:52,591
I spoke with a handful of other people who have started using Bitcoin when I was working on the piece that I worked on a few months ago about Flash and your efforts. It seems like there has been some traction already. You know, there are people using it already. I don't think that that sounds utopian. We're seeing repatriation in places like El Salvador, which we've talked about.

636
00:48:52,591 --> 00:48:59,591
are you seeing anything that's sort of the early stages of what you're talking about?

637
00:48:59,711 --> 00:49:02,071
Are you working with any developers on the ground there,

638
00:49:02,151 --> 00:49:05,951
with any people who are benefiting from this technology directly?

639
00:49:06,431 --> 00:49:10,651
And to your point, so much so that they're not thinking like,

640
00:49:10,711 --> 00:49:11,511
how do I get out of here?

641
00:49:11,551 --> 00:49:13,251
It's more like, no, no, I could be okay,

642
00:49:13,251 --> 00:49:17,091
because now I have sort of what I need to be productive and to be fruitful

643
00:49:17,091 --> 00:49:19,471
while still living here, as you put it,

644
00:49:19,471 --> 00:49:22,771
while still being home in my home country doing this work?

645
00:49:22,831 --> 00:49:26,411
Are you seeing any kind of early stages of that thus far?

646
00:49:28,211 --> 00:49:32,891
I think my view, my aperture is a little bit smaller than I would like it to be.

647
00:49:33,171 --> 00:49:35,251
I'm sure there are people out there that are doing it,

648
00:49:35,311 --> 00:49:38,291
but my aperture is focused on a lot of my users and the merchants.

649
00:49:38,811 --> 00:49:42,911
And the merchants that I see, they are showing a lot of signs of that.

650
00:49:42,911 --> 00:49:46,911
A lot of merchants that are working there and getting revenue in Jamaican dollars

651
00:49:46,911 --> 00:49:49,551
are no longer thinking of how to get it out of Jamaican dollars

652
00:49:49,551 --> 00:49:52,911
or how to escape the current jurisdiction.

653
00:49:53,371 --> 00:49:56,051
They're now thinking, the opportunity is here, right?

654
00:49:56,091 --> 00:49:57,671
I can actually save here in Bitcoin

655
00:49:57,671 --> 00:50:00,211
and go back to Jamaican dollars whenever I want to.

656
00:50:00,631 --> 00:50:03,711
So those merchants now are no longer feeling reliant

657
00:50:03,711 --> 00:50:07,771
on foreign institutions or foreign currency

658
00:50:07,771 --> 00:50:09,511
in order to keep their business running.

659
00:50:09,711 --> 00:50:10,931
And that is an amazing thing.

660
00:50:10,931 --> 00:50:14,771
It gives them a lot more freedom to build things that last on the ground.

661
00:50:14,771 --> 00:50:20,991
You know, a lot of the short term thinking was because of the, you know, need for, you know, foreign resources.

662
00:50:21,291 --> 00:50:24,331
And that doesn't that doesn't require it anymore for a lot of the merchants.

663
00:50:24,331 --> 00:50:26,831
And they're slowly starting to realize that, I think.

664
00:50:27,271 --> 00:50:31,571
Now, granted, there's a lot of steps that still need to happen for this to become a normal thing.

665
00:50:31,931 --> 00:50:35,351
But a lot of the forward thinking merchants are heading that direction.

666
00:50:35,351 --> 00:50:42,391
And I think I see more of that every day, not just for Bitcoin, but for stable coins, for digital assets, for, you know,

667
00:50:42,391 --> 00:50:47,011
ways that people can digitally transact and communicate. I think that all of that plays a

668
00:50:47,011 --> 00:50:51,471
part in the way merchants are changing the way they think and how to do business today. And I'm

669
00:50:51,471 --> 00:50:55,251
looking forward to that happening more and more, you know, because that's going to create more

670
00:50:55,251 --> 00:51:00,991
flash merchants for us. Yeah, that's amazing. There does seem to be a bit of a contagious effect.

671
00:51:01,691 --> 00:51:07,211
There's like people, they start using it, they feel the benefits of it, they teach a friend about

672
00:51:07,211 --> 00:51:14,911
it. I think on a certain level with any sort of new technology, there's some anxiety around it,

673
00:51:14,951 --> 00:51:19,491
but then just the fact that it sort of sticks around and just continues to be reliable,

674
00:51:21,031 --> 00:51:26,711
it's great. I'm just kind of thinking about you having given your home country such an amazing

675
00:51:26,711 --> 00:51:33,831
product. I think about this a lot and I think about it as a non-developer. Do you feel any

676
00:51:33,831 --> 00:51:38,611
sense of like pressure to continue to make it really good to make sure to keep up with it because

677
00:51:38,611 --> 00:51:43,711
I because it is such an amazing enabling thing that you're doing but also does some of that

678
00:51:43,711 --> 00:51:47,431
pressure potentially get alleviated because it's open source because there are other people that

679
00:51:47,431 --> 00:51:51,111
can look at the code that can help you out what is it like playing the role that you're playing

680
00:51:51,111 --> 00:51:58,931
yeah it's a good question and I think um last year some of that pressure was realized mainly

681
00:51:58,931 --> 00:52:01,591
because we're at a point in the project

682
00:52:01,591 --> 00:52:05,511
where we're not necessarily getting a lot of reviews

683
00:52:05,511 --> 00:52:08,191
or stars or GitHub will be stars or follows.

684
00:52:08,751 --> 00:52:11,431
And we're not getting those kind of needed reviews

685
00:52:11,431 --> 00:52:14,031
to do a lot of security audits

686
00:52:14,031 --> 00:52:15,971
or a lot of code reviews to check for bugs

687
00:52:15,971 --> 00:52:19,991
and contributions to documentation, to functionality.

688
00:52:20,331 --> 00:52:21,791
We're not seeing that as much.

689
00:52:22,111 --> 00:52:23,791
You might get that in a wallet like Blink

690
00:52:23,791 --> 00:52:26,131
or a wallet like Phoenix or others

691
00:52:26,131 --> 00:52:27,771
that are much more well-known.

692
00:52:27,771 --> 00:52:32,571
but I think we need to get to the point where we're getting more independent reviews from

693
00:52:32,571 --> 00:52:37,371
Bitcoiners that you know love this kind of thing then that would really help us out so reach out

694
00:52:37,371 --> 00:52:42,351
to the community and see if that can happen another thing that was a little bit of a learning curve

695
00:52:42,351 --> 00:52:48,011
for us was also the usage of the tool you know like we started off you know trying to use it

696
00:52:48,011 --> 00:52:52,811
in a much more cypherpunk way like you know this is Bitcoin and a lot of people couldn't understand

697
00:52:52,811 --> 00:52:57,471
it. So, you know, we learned how to kind of tailor it so it's a lot more understandable

698
00:52:57,471 --> 00:53:04,071
and realizing that education is needed alongside the actual app. So we're building a lot of that

699
00:53:04,071 --> 00:53:10,151
education out as well in terms of documentation, YouTube videos, and that kind of stuff. But I

700
00:53:10,151 --> 00:53:14,971
would say that those are some of the things that we needed to build out to make sure that the app

701
00:53:14,971 --> 00:53:21,851
was usable in Jamaica. Yeah, I forgot what the rest of your question was. No, that's it. No,

702
00:53:21,851 --> 00:53:25,391
I think it's great. I was just saying, like, what sorts of responsibility do you feel?

703
00:53:25,391 --> 00:53:30,971
Do you feel any pressure to make to make sure, you know, obviously it's safe, usable, all these things.

704
00:53:30,971 --> 00:53:32,911
But I think that, you know, it's interesting.

705
00:53:32,911 --> 00:53:35,951
I think a lot of people come out of with that sort of cypherpunk.

706
00:53:35,951 --> 00:53:51,067
This has to be cool and kind of almost edgy But then you like look we just trying to make digital money that makes people life better We making technology that people generally speaking you know want to use and want to use as easily as they use maybe like comparably to something like Cash App here in the United States

707
00:53:51,587 --> 00:54:02,187
And I say I say this because I don't think it necessarily means that the spirit, the cypherpunk or like the Bitcoin spirit is inherently taken away if you're not approaching it with that edginess.

708
00:54:02,187 --> 00:54:12,507
Because I think just the fact that you're enabling people and providing them with the opportunity that it does provide them just to have this app and what it facilitates for them, I think you're still keeping that spirit alive.

709
00:54:12,627 --> 00:54:14,347
You're just doing it in a more subtle way.

710
00:54:14,347 --> 00:54:17,807
You're not hitting people over the head with it saying, this is what I'm all about.

711
00:54:17,967 --> 00:54:22,487
But at the same time, they're feeling the benefits of what you're all about and what you're trying to do for them.

712
00:54:22,647 --> 00:54:23,907
Is that a fair way to put it?

713
00:54:24,027 --> 00:54:24,567
I don't know.

714
00:54:24,587 --> 00:54:27,927
I've been trying to refine this sort of perspective on Bitcoin myself.

715
00:54:28,067 --> 00:54:29,347
So maybe I'm just projecting here.

716
00:54:29,407 --> 00:54:29,727
I don't know.

717
00:54:29,727 --> 00:54:58,487
No, I think you kind of hit the nail on the head. I think I like to term it the trying to find the lowest common denominator customer and make sure that they are taken care of. There's a good friend that I have in Jamaica, that's his name is Mikey. And for Mikey to use the app, it can't be, you know, only for iPhone 16, you know, it has to be able to run on a phone that is, you know, commoditized or a low resource phone. And then Jamaica doesn't always have the best internet everywhere.

718
00:54:58,487 --> 00:55:02,607
so you can't just have a high bandwidth internet access to the phone it has to be able to run

719
00:55:02,607 --> 00:55:07,327
offline partially part of the time or in a low bandwidth situation and these are the kind of

720
00:55:07,327 --> 00:55:11,587
things that i say okay we can get to that customer even a customer who doesn't like to type that much

721
00:55:11,587 --> 00:55:15,467
you know a lot of people in jamaica and the caribbean and latin america everywhere except

722
00:55:15,467 --> 00:55:21,047
sorry for the cursing everywhere except um the u.s almost uses whatsapp and when you use whatsapp a

723
00:55:21,047 --> 00:55:26,267
lot of people use voice notes so we you know we're getting to the point where as the app can you can

724
00:55:26,267 --> 00:55:30,347
you work for people that want to use a voice note, you know, to send a message instead of

725
00:55:30,347 --> 00:55:35,307
typing, then the app has that kind of accessibility controls in it. You know, so imagine you're using

726
00:55:35,307 --> 00:55:40,427
the app, you're sending a Nasta message and you tell the app, you know, zap 100 sats to my friend

727
00:55:40,427 --> 00:55:45,907
Mikey. And the app converts that into an actual action that you can confirm and send the money to

728
00:55:45,907 --> 00:55:50,707
him. Not techie at all, right? It's just a voice note you're sending at that point. And that's where

729
00:55:50,707 --> 00:55:55,347
we want to get to. We want to serve those kind of people. And that's really what drives me and makes

730
00:55:55,347 --> 00:56:01,847
me feel like, you know, we're covering that gap. Yeah. Amazing. It sounds, again, as a non-technical

731
00:56:01,847 --> 00:56:05,927
person, that sounds quite challenging, but super, super cool to think about. You actually also kind

732
00:56:05,927 --> 00:56:10,367
of beat me to my last question here is sort of what comes next. Any other things like that? I

733
00:56:10,367 --> 00:56:13,827
know that accessibility is really big for you. So if you want to touch on that a little bit,

734
00:56:13,867 --> 00:56:17,567
and then in terms of what comes next, obviously what comes next for Flash and then just

735
00:56:17,567 --> 00:56:22,427
next steps for you, what's happening with Jamaica, the recovery effort, and then maybe ways that

736
00:56:22,427 --> 00:56:28,847
people might be able to still help if they want to. Sure. So first, what comes next for Flash?

737
00:56:28,967 --> 00:56:33,667
You know, we're rolling out our new beta release soon. We still haven't fully launched. Like all of

738
00:56:33,667 --> 00:56:39,227
this has been happening in a pre-launch stage and it's been amazing, you know, adoption. So we're

739
00:56:39,227 --> 00:56:43,867
going to be launching on Bitcoin Pizza Day, May 22nd. We have a lot of really cool surprises that

740
00:56:43,867 --> 00:56:49,487
I can't tell you on this podcast, but I really want to. I'll probably tell you offline, but just

741
00:56:49,487 --> 00:56:53,347
know that you're going to have a lot of really cool, exciting things that people all around the

742
00:56:53,347 --> 00:56:59,287
world can participate in as part of our launch. And then, you know, we're going to be also having

743
00:56:59,287 --> 00:57:03,207
a lot of new rollout features, you know, a lot more Nasta stuff. We're going to have additional

744
00:57:03,207 --> 00:57:08,907
features for Jamaicans to access the international markets, you know, as a finance, basically, not

745
00:57:08,907 --> 00:57:15,807
investment, but just buying things and being able to use international bank accounts. So we have

746
00:57:15,807 --> 00:57:21,667
that rolling out. And then on the Hurricane Melissa stage, like I said, we're still sending buses

747
00:57:21,667 --> 00:57:28,807
over to the west of the island. But most importantly, once we have our final set of

748
00:57:28,807 --> 00:57:33,547
solar panel generators land in Jamaica and get cleared, we're going to be going to different

749
00:57:33,547 --> 00:57:37,647
community centers and donating those to the community center. Now, granted, the community

750
00:57:37,647 --> 00:57:41,967
centers have already probably gotten their internet back up, gotten their electricity back up, and

751
00:57:41,967 --> 00:57:46,927
they're running again. But these are the places that are going to be the center for the next

752
00:57:46,927 --> 00:57:51,387
disaster that happens, right? So we want to make sure that before the next disaster happens, we

753
00:57:51,387 --> 00:57:57,107
have them up and running with internet that can work without, you know, needing the grid,

754
00:57:57,807 --> 00:58:02,587
electricity that can work without needing the grid, and then finally, Bitcoin that can work

755
00:58:02,587 --> 00:58:06,767
without needing the grid. So if we can set them up with those three things, a node, Starlink or

756
00:58:06,767 --> 00:58:12,487
something and the solar panels, then we're going to have these really resilient nodes around the

757
00:58:12,487 --> 00:58:18,587
country that can withstand the next disaster. That is the goal. So you're actually thinking

758
00:58:18,587 --> 00:58:22,947
in terms of this like resilience by like a disaster standard, that's sort of your,

759
00:58:23,107 --> 00:58:27,627
how can I say, like your baseline almost at this point? I don't know if that's the best word to use,

760
00:58:27,707 --> 00:58:33,087
but is that like... Absolutely. Yeah, it's like the table stakes. The baseline is if we're setting

761
00:58:33,087 --> 00:58:36,767
you up with a node and you are going to be one of our, we call it Project Island Resilience.

762
00:58:37,267 --> 00:58:41,167
And we're setting you up with one of these nodes. This node is going to have internet power and the

763
00:58:41,167 --> 00:58:47,047
way to actually send either communication via Nostra or payment via Bitcoin. And that, you know,

764
00:58:47,047 --> 00:58:51,067
will be, of course, checked every now and again. We were looking into different ways that we could

765
00:58:51,067 --> 00:58:55,947
do offline payments as well. So I'm not really sure which protocol we'll use. And we're kind of

766
00:58:55,947 --> 00:59:00,787
experimenting with that right now. But that'll be part of it as well. You know, as merchants around

767
00:59:00,787 --> 00:59:05,647
the area will need to still transact, right? So you might have a mint in the node. A lot of that's,

768
00:59:05,647 --> 00:59:10,907
you know, technical, but the point is it's a resilience node that we'll have around the island.

769
00:59:11,187 --> 00:59:16,427
And if you are in disaster zone, that should be the place you go to and get what you need without,

770
00:59:16,427 --> 00:59:25,607
you know, having to wait for help or wait for recovery. Wow. That's amazing. In terms of

771
00:59:25,607 --> 00:59:31,467
creating these hubs, is it all just organic? Is it just, again, that coordination amongst

772
00:59:31,467 --> 00:59:34,967
different groups that you mentioned in the beginning of this conversation? Is it all just

773
00:59:34,967 --> 00:59:39,127
happening? Or is there some level of federal government involved with this? Or is this all

774
00:59:39,127 --> 00:59:43,847
just basically grassroots efforts between different people working together on this right now?

775
00:59:44,847 --> 00:59:49,207
It's all grassroots at this point. We haven't even approached any of the federal or other

776
00:59:49,207 --> 00:59:54,587
institutions. And I think it's a good idea for us to do it. But I think that it would be much

777
00:59:54,587 --> 00:59:59,547
better to actually like lay a kind of proof of concept, a foundation that works, and then go to

778
00:59:59,547 --> 01:00:17,543
them with this proof of concept saying hey this works You know so at the federal level if you guys are interested in rolling this out we have a method that works We have the knowledge to volunteer and give to you Let do it together And I hope that happens because Jamaica is really known for adopting things well if they work and going viral with it

779
01:00:17,963 --> 01:00:24,083
So if Jamaica adopts this, we could see at a federal level this happening all over the country and all the region.

780
01:00:24,623 --> 01:00:26,323
But, you know, I am always the utopian.

781
01:00:26,323 --> 01:00:35,863
So at a bare minimum, we're going to have 10, you know, community centers that will be donated with solar panels and Bitcoin nodes.

782
01:00:36,243 --> 01:00:37,663
And then we'll take it from there.

783
01:00:39,063 --> 01:00:40,923
Bananas. Absolutely amazing.

784
01:00:41,163 --> 01:00:47,163
That's yeah. Maybe bananas isn't the best word, but I'm just like kind of blown away that I didn't know this was all happening.

785
01:00:47,163 --> 01:01:01,603
But it's just really, really amazing to see because I think oftentimes with relief efforts, from my limited understanding of being involved with them, there's a lot of like, OK, let's let's repair things and get things to like a state where it's like, OK, everything's good enough.

786
01:01:01,663 --> 01:01:08,063
And now we can get back to our daily lives. But there's a level of proactivity here of preparing, knowing that this is going to happen again.

787
01:01:08,063 --> 01:01:14,703
But using this technology on that level, I haven't heard of anybody else doing that, at least not to this extent.

788
01:01:14,703 --> 01:01:23,683
And also, I think combining these different elements that you're talking about, it just seems like an absolutely amazing, just an absolutely incredible effort.

789
01:01:23,882 --> 01:01:27,402
So I commend you for it. Very much appreciate you sharing it here.

790
01:01:27,963 --> 01:01:30,923
Where can people follow not only you, but the effort?

791
01:01:31,043 --> 01:01:36,043
Are you documenting this anywhere that they can sort of maybe follow along or continue to get more information about it?

792
01:01:36,863 --> 01:01:41,983
I probably should. I've been so heads down that the documentation part is always falling to the wayside.

793
01:01:41,983 --> 01:01:44,003
So I'm happy I'm doing podcasts like this.

794
01:01:44,142 --> 01:01:46,543
And, you know, I'm probably going to start writing some articles too.

795
01:01:46,723 --> 01:01:50,043
But if you want to follow what we're doing in general, you can follow us on Twitter.

796
01:01:50,262 --> 01:01:52,563
It is on getflash or lnflash on Twitter.

797
01:01:52,882 --> 01:01:54,882
On Instagram, it is getflash.io.

798
01:01:55,083 --> 01:01:57,303
It's getflash.io on most social media.

799
01:01:57,902 --> 01:02:00,443
And you can go to the website and see all the social media links there.

800
01:02:00,843 --> 01:02:03,142
And then we're also on Noster as Flash.

801
01:02:03,303 --> 01:02:04,963
So, you know, definitely follow us on Noster.

802
01:02:05,402 --> 01:02:08,863
But the open source community knows a lot of our team and knows us.

803
01:02:08,943 --> 01:02:10,803
And I have to shout out to the open source community.

804
01:02:10,803 --> 01:02:19,282
Like, you know, people who are building on Fedimint, people who are building on Cashew, people who are building on stablecoins even, you know, a lot of the open source stuff.

805
01:02:19,402 --> 01:02:35,622
Anyway, a lot of that stuff has really helped us to maintain velocity, you know, like to maintain the velocity of innovation that is needed for countries like ours and countries that are in conflict zones and countries that are in consistent disaster zones to get the resources they need.

806
01:02:35,622 --> 01:02:41,563
Like this is the change in the world that we need to see so that we can move at the speed of technology.

807
01:02:42,083 --> 01:02:47,902
You know, the people that need electricity in Africa, they're getting, you know, expanded electricity from companies like Gridless.

808
01:02:48,343 --> 01:02:50,603
These things are needed and we're going to keep building it.

809
01:02:50,843 --> 01:02:52,483
And I'm really happy to be a part of that.

810
01:02:52,522 --> 01:02:59,003
And I thank the open source community that I'm working with and the human rights community that I'm working with that helps with the, you know, everything that we're doing.

811
01:02:59,423 --> 01:03:03,622
So if you want to reach out to me directly, I am Dredd also on everything.

812
01:03:03,622 --> 01:03:10,943
everything well not on instagram but on twitter and nostril aren't you pull pull vault uh i'm

813
01:03:10,943 --> 01:03:19,683
spacing out a pull vault hero i forget it it's pull wall dream well what do you call it the the

814
01:03:19,683 --> 01:03:25,003
name on it just says dread okay if you type in pull wall dream you'll see dread and i'm you know

815
01:03:25,003 --> 01:03:30,683
check out what i'm doing and what we're doing we always we always you know meme and crap post on

816
01:03:30,683 --> 01:03:32,043
Twitter whenever we have the chance.

817
01:03:32,863 --> 01:03:34,723
Yeah, and for those who are unaware,

818
01:03:34,923 --> 01:03:36,762
Dredd is a pole vault champion.

819
01:03:37,103 --> 01:03:38,522
I don't know the easiest way to say it.

820
01:03:38,522 --> 01:03:39,663
We have the picture behind him there.

821
01:03:39,723 --> 01:03:40,843
We didn't get into this today,

822
01:03:41,022 --> 01:03:43,663
but competed in the national game.

823
01:03:44,163 --> 01:03:44,723
Yeah, I was going to say,

824
01:03:44,882 --> 01:03:46,503
maybe a quick, before we go there,

825
01:03:46,583 --> 01:03:47,522
just maybe a quick overview

826
01:03:47,522 --> 01:03:48,483
of your pole vault skills.

827
01:03:50,022 --> 01:03:51,703
Yeah, I competed for Jamaica

828
01:03:51,703 --> 01:03:53,863
from high school all the way up

829
01:03:53,863 --> 01:03:54,543
to professional.

830
01:03:55,063 --> 01:03:56,762
I tried out for the Olympics twice

831
01:03:56,762 --> 01:03:58,642
and competed at every other level down,

832
01:03:59,243 --> 01:04:00,443
won a couple medals,

833
01:04:00,443 --> 01:04:12,703
And I guess the biggest achievement is that I held the national record for Jamaica in the pole vault for 11 years running and then coached the guy that ended up breaking my record after it was over.

834
01:04:12,943 --> 01:04:15,603
So I coached as well after, you know, my heyday.

835
01:04:15,743 --> 01:04:18,423
But it's been a passion for me and I still follow it.

836
01:04:18,622 --> 01:04:22,142
And hopefully one day I'll be coaching my son as well on how to pole vault.

837
01:04:23,022 --> 01:04:23,503
Amazing.

838
01:04:23,763 --> 01:04:24,243
Go pole vault.

839
01:04:25,443 --> 01:04:28,443
I hope, yeah, thank you for taking the time to do this, Dredd.

840
01:04:28,483 --> 01:04:29,122
I know you're busy.

841
01:04:29,122 --> 01:04:33,743
I hope everybody listening just gets how awesome the work that Dread is doing.

842
01:04:33,943 --> 01:04:35,183
It's really, really amazing stuff.

843
01:04:35,243 --> 01:04:47,583
And I think it's a true testament to not just cypherpunk culture or whatever, but you can just do things and you can use this technology to do such incredible good in the world and tell people about that.

844
01:04:47,763 --> 01:04:53,183
You know, we oftentimes we're hearing about a lot of the financialization of Bitcoin and all this other stuff, which is fine to each their own.

845
01:04:53,243 --> 01:04:54,423
Everybody can do their thing.

846
01:04:54,423 --> 01:05:02,703
But, you know, using Bitcoin freedom tech, what's now becoming emergency tech, as we were saying, you know, it's it's truly changing lives.

847
01:05:02,703 --> 01:05:09,122
It's making stuff better for the next time things go wrong that that a place like Jamaica experiences severe hurricanes.

848
01:05:09,583 --> 01:05:12,923
And, you know, this this narrative does not get out there enough.

849
01:05:12,923 --> 01:05:22,223
And the only thing I think that's significantly harder than spreading this narrative is being the person building the technology that that underpins it all.

850
01:05:22,223 --> 01:05:35,683
And that's actually creating this technology and making it usable for people. So Dred, many thanks for the work that you do. You're an incredible inspiration. And thank you again for taking the time to jump on here with me and talk about this stuff.

851
01:05:36,963 --> 01:05:39,443
Thank you, Frank. One love. And I hope to see you soon.

852
01:05:40,282 --> 01:05:44,263
Absolutely, my friend. All right, everybody. Thanks for listening. We will talk soon. Take it easy.

853
01:05:44,263 --> 01:05:58,303
Hey everyone, Frank again. Just wanted to say thank you so much for listening. It was an honor to help Dredge share his story, as not only is he an incredible Bitcoiner, but a remarkable human being as well. Feel free to share his story far and wide.

854
01:05:58,723 --> 01:06:12,983
Also, as I mentioned at the beginning of the episode, I'm always looking for more good stories like this, so please feel free to contact me with any leads at newrentcap at gmail.com. That's N-E-W-R-E-N-C-A-P at gmail.com.

855
01:06:12,983 --> 01:06:18,522
finally once more we would greatly appreciate if you could subscribe and maybe leave a rating and

856
01:06:18,522 --> 01:06:24,022
review it would really help the algorithm find us and that's that thank you again for listening

857
01:06:24,022 --> 01:06:25,882
and we'll talk soon much love everybody