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Thank you for having me in your studio, sir.

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Great to be here.

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As we were just saying, this is the first time I've been interviewed in the studio.

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So I'm excited for it.

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I am too.

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I mean, this is a long time coming.

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We've been talking behind the scenes for many years now.

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Yeah, I've never been on the show.

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I know.

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I'm sorry it took so long.

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I mean, it's been a big week for the Block organization.

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Yeah, the past week extended into this week.

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There was even more announced on, well, yesterday, the DC policy stuff.

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Oh, yeah.

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The de minimis tax.

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So there's been a good week and a half of really great stuff from Block and extended to the whole Bitcoin community, I think.

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I finally got through the whole Miles Suter episode of yours.

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So I'm up to speed on that.

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He did a great job talking about all the efforts.

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And then today's the investor day for Block, which only happens.

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There was one like three years ago.

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So that was COVID era.

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So it was like remote.

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And, you know, this one will be in person.

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And I think, well, better for two reasons.

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One, there's a ton of exciting stuff to share.

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And then just being in person, it's more intimate and better feel to it.

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Well, the reason I bring up the week that was for Block is because a lot of the products that were launched revolve around using Bitcoin as everyday money.

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Obviously payments and merchant adoption.

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and it aligns very well with, correct me if I'm wrong,

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but based off our conversations over the last few years

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with something that you're worried about,

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which is if Bitcoin doesn't become everyday money,

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it's not going to attain the full potential

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that you think it can.

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That's definitely true that it would not attain full potential.

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And then the question is, can it just be digital gold

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and sustain with all the properties that make it valuable

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as store value?

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I think that's a really interesting question to get into.

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We can certainly talk about it.

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But there's no doubt it doesn't reach its full potential.

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And I also feel strongly that even for people that are into Bitcoin,

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there's different reasons people are into Bitcoin, right?

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But for the group of people who are just in it,

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for number goes up, they believe in store of value and that's it.

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That's completely fine.

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But even for that group of Bitcoin users,

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they should care, in my opinion,

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they should care about daily usage.

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It makes Bitcoin more resilient.

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It gets more people involved using it.

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More people will care about it.

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So in terms of a political force and voting segment,

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it grows.

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Imagine if millions of small businesses around the world

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depend for their business.

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That's a strong voting block.

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It also helps distribute the price discovery of Bitcoin.

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Because instead of just a few global exchanges as the primary points of discovering the price of Bitcoin, you'd have millions of touch points around the world where people are exchanging value.

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I come to your store, you give me, I buy fish from you or whatever, bread or whatever, and I give you Bitcoin and we're establishing a price right there.

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And that one single instance isn't going to really move the needle, but billions of those data points on a daily or weekly basis or whatever absolutely helps establish the price.

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Steve, why would you spend your Bitcoin? There's only 21 million and it's going to...

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That's another thing I feel pretty strongly about.

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It's a multi-hundred trillion dollar market cap potential and it's only $2 trillion. Why would you spend your Bitcoin?

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You should absolutely spend your Bitcoin.

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But it's definitely a common thought process to, you know, I mean, people who own Bitcoin most like believe it's going to keep going up a lot.

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Right. Including me, probably including you.

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So why would you spend it?

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Well, multiple reasons.

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One, humans are already accustomed to like the concept of a spent like checking account, savings account or like spending money in your wallet or purse and then like your IRA or something.

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So that mental construct is very normal for folks.

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So sure, if you have your stack that is your Bitcoin savings, don't touch that.

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Don't spend from that.

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Don't touch it.

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Like cold storage, secure it, and don't mess with it.

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But if that's like tens of thousands of dollars or more or whatever, great.

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Spending wallet is like $20, $50, $100, whatever you'd have in your billfold.

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maybe a couple hundred bucks, but just spending amounts of money.

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For that, just spend and replace, spend and replace.

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And I mean, for super hardcore Bitcoiners who are just like,

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throw out Gresham's law at you or whatever.

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If you feel that strongly that fiat is crap money and Bitcoin is strong,

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then go all in on Bitcoin.

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Have all of your money in Bitcoin, hold no dollars or fiat.

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And then you have to spend Bitcoin because that's the only money

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you have. So I think people can still be strong hodlers and still spend Bitcoin. Then there's the

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reason I just mentioned, which is even if you care about your stack that you're saving, by spending

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it, it actually strengthens Bitcoin overall. The network, the resilience, and it protects it as a

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store of value. Yeah, the distribution. And when it comes to spending Bitcoin, building on what

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you were just saying about living on a Bitcoin center.

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I mean, Parker, our good friend Parker Lewis,

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has run the numbers.

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I forget the exact name of the post

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that he wrote earlier this year,

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but it was basically the logic of spending Bitcoin.

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And if you actually run the numbers over many years,

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if you use Bitcoin as your long-term savings account

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and actually spend it as well on top of that

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on a Bitcoin standard,

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you can run the numbers.

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You're still making money.

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You're ending up with more purchasing power.

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Which is actually my personal situation.

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Like Block pays me and folks on the Spiral team in Bitcoin.

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So I receive it as Bitcoin.

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I keep it in Bitcoin.

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And then I only convert it to dollars when I need, if I have to make, still sadly.

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But realistically, most of my payments are still a denominator in dollars.

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So then I would convert sort of on demand.

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It's the way I do it as well.

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It's great living on a Bitcoin center.

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It's hard.

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It has been hard historically from a UX perspective.

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but it's getting easier.

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I mean, the products that are making it very fluid

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to switch from Bitcoin to fiat,

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to bill pay features and strike Cash App.

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Well, certainly like with Cash App's announcements

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and new features from the past week,

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it definitely helps, right?

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Because now all four combinations work.

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You can, I can have Bitcoin pay you as a merchant.

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You know, I can pay you in Bitcoin,

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you receive it as Bitcoin or Bitcoin to dollars

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or dollars to dollars, dollars to Bitcoin.

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So each party in that two-party transaction uses whatever they're comfortable with and what they want to do today.

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And I think some hardcore Bitcoiners might say that's fake or not really embracing Bitcoin.

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It's absolutely a meaningful baby step.

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And everyone has their journey with Bitcoin.

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Not everyone starts as hardcore, fully embracing and understanding self-sovereignty and privacy and all these important properties of Bitcoin.

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So meeting people where they're at today,

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whether they be the small business or the consumer,

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gets them started on that journey.

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Yeah.

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Preference optionality is how I would describe it.

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But to get to all this,

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many people sort of gloss over

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or simply don't understand,

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particularly the masses,

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that this technology needed to be built

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to enable people to live on a Bitcoin standard

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and use it as a payments vehicle.

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And that's been a lot of your focus at Spiral, particularly open source infrastructure around Lightning Network and privacy as well.

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And so how would you describe the progression of the technology layer of this payment stack over the last five years?

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Yeah, so for people that don't know, Spiral has a full-time team and most of that full-time team focuses on the Lightning Development Kit project.

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We also have a really robust grant program and fund over a dozen open source Bitcoin projects as well.

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So our scope is Bitcoin, but we do fund and support many different projects in the space.

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I'd say overall, we tend to fund protocol development and developer tools.

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Because six years ago when we got started, that's where a couple of things.

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One, those were very weak areas in Bitcoin.

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And two, they're not really naturally money-making opportunities.

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So it's not going to attract venture capital or angel investment or be able to generate quick cash flows for an entrepreneur to bootstrap.

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Yet they're really impactful, important things.

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So I felt like with Spiral's budget, we have these magical dollars for Bitcoin to give to developers to work on high-impact projects that don't have a business model behind them.

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And that's our criteria with all our grants too.

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If you came to me with a great idea, but also one that could make money, I'd be like, that's awesome.

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But we're not going to give you a grant.

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And it's because it's like, you can go build it yourself, generate money or get VC money.

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And I totally support that.

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So we're looking for projects that are high impact that aren't going to make money.

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And developer tools and protocol development are two categories that fit that.

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So yeah, but the full-time team has focused on Lightning Development Kit.

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Anyone who's followed along with Lightning at all knows it's a very complex protocol.

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It's a very ambitious protocol because it intends to scale Bitcoin and improve the user experience relative to on-chain in a dramatic way, but preserve as many properties of on-chain Bitcoin as possible.

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It does, I think, a really good job at preserving those properties.

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It's a little bit weaker security model,

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different and weaker security model to on-chain,

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but it doesn't,

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relative to all the other new protocols

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that have popped up,

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it still is the king.

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Lightning's the king at preserving those properties.

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User experience has improved dramatically,

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both for the developer and the user

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over the past six years.

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It still is not,

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it still has some rough edges,

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some of which are fundamental.

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And so we can talk about other payment protocols

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as well, which choose different trade-offs. Yeah. Well, important to bring up trade-offs,

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you mentioned not the same security assurances as on-chain, but this is what happens when you

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move up layers. You can get the trade-offs for UX usability, but you can always fall back to

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the main chain and reap the benefits of all the benefits that exist there, security,

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ability to self-custody, which we'll talk about with Lightning. But before we go on to

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the overall state of lightning and

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emerging second layer protocols as well. What would you say to the haters to say it's a failed

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experiment? It's centralized. It can't scale.

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And nobody uses it.

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Different answers to different points you made there. But I mean, overall, to call it a failure,

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I think is ridiculous. I mean, I can

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certainly steal, man, why people are saying that. If you have certain expectations or you

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had a certain use case in mind like if your expectation was eight billion people with a

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mobile wallet each with like one or more lightning channels um if that was your expectation and a

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great ux then um then it's failed at that and and no one ever no one ever expected it to scale to

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that point i mean simple math like with the because it's a function of the blockchain size

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so it can't scale that much but has it failed outright absolutely not because it it it definitely

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has won at being the glue between a bunch of different subsystems and those subsystems could

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be custodial like products like coinbase or cash app or all the other systems that have popped up

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like arc and spark and fediment and cashew and these new um layer two programs leave out liquid

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at the blockchain.

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Liquid as well.

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Yeah, yeah, liquid as well.

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You know, whether you want to call it,

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you know, let's call it later too,

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or I'll call it a subsystem.

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I hate the semantics.

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I like subsystem.

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I think that's a good...

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Yeah, subsystem.

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But these, you know,

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they all have trade-offs

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and I can, yeah,

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I'm happy to go through

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each and every one of them

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if we want to.

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I think they all have merit.

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All the ones we just mentioned

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have merit.

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I'm not a hater on any of them.

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In fact, Spiral supports

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almost all of them.

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But the, you know,

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if you live in the Ethereum world or Solana,

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if you're using like stable coins there,

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it's a total nightmare in terms of UX and interoperability.

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Because I might have dollars on like USDC base or something,

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and you have USDT on Tron and they're not compatible.

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So then we have to like, as the users,

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we have to like bridge or swap or do like crazy stuff

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that just to send dollars.

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But on Bitcoin,

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lightning is the protocol between all these subsystems.

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So I simply am sending and receiving Bitcoin.

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As a user, that's all you need to know.

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I'm sending and receiving Bitcoin.

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You're sending and receiving Bitcoin.

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You might be on a cashew wallet

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and I might be using custodial cash app.

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I don't have to know you're using a cashew wallet.

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You don't even have to know you're using a cashew wallet

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and we can send and receive Bitcoin.

243
00:13:43,320 --> 00:13:45,600
And what makes that tick?

244
00:13:46,000 --> 00:14:00,962
It the Lightning Network and also the payment protocol I mean right now Bolt 11 but in the future it be Bolt 12 So that glue is essential So it absolutely won at that It keep winning at that

245
00:14:01,222 --> 00:14:09,102
The only way it's displaced is if one of those subsystems ends up being subsumed.

246
00:14:09,962 --> 00:14:16,122
And all use cases and all payments work through one of those subsystems or some future invented

247
00:14:16,122 --> 00:14:17,822
one. And we'd all like to see that.

248
00:14:17,982 --> 00:14:19,642
Whether it's lightning,

249
00:14:20,162 --> 00:14:21,682
arc, zero-knowledge proof roll-ups,

250
00:14:21,922 --> 00:14:24,242
or something no one's ever thought of before,

251
00:14:24,582 --> 00:14:26,322
we'd love to have a technology

252
00:14:26,322 --> 00:14:28,002
that checks every box

253
00:14:28,002 --> 00:14:30,062
and scales to everyone and every

254
00:14:30,062 --> 00:14:32,102
AI and every machine and every possible use

255
00:14:32,102 --> 00:14:34,042
case. We'd love that. That is

256
00:14:34,042 --> 00:14:35,422
not on the horizon right now.

257
00:14:36,682 --> 00:14:37,642
Will it ever be?

258
00:14:38,182 --> 00:14:40,062
Yeah. So given what we know

259
00:14:40,062 --> 00:14:42,122
now, there's no way in the next five years that's

260
00:14:42,122 --> 00:14:43,802
going to happen. So in the

261
00:14:43,802 --> 00:14:46,022
best-case scenario, in the

262
00:14:46,122 --> 00:14:49,982
Coming years, something will emerge that is the silver bullet.

263
00:14:50,102 --> 00:14:51,842
And then maybe in 10 years, we're there.

264
00:14:52,442 --> 00:14:57,902
But even that's, I would assign a low probability to that, given what we know, even if that's what we all hope for.

265
00:14:58,222 --> 00:15:00,942
So we're going to have different subsystems.

266
00:15:00,942 --> 00:15:03,902
I'm quite confident in 10 years and beyond.

267
00:15:04,502 --> 00:15:06,862
And because they have different trade-offs.

268
00:15:07,182 --> 00:15:10,162
So your use case, ARK might be the right solution.

269
00:15:10,462 --> 00:15:12,582
In my use case, Cashew might be the right solution.

270
00:15:13,222 --> 00:15:14,502
And that's totally fine.

271
00:15:14,502 --> 00:15:23,602
But to keep that great user experience between us so that we're sending and receiving Bitcoin and keep it simple, the Lightning Network is that backbone.

272
00:15:23,862 --> 00:15:25,562
So to me, it's won there.

273
00:15:25,642 --> 00:15:26,442
It's going to keep winning there.

274
00:15:26,542 --> 00:15:28,802
And in 10 years, it's going to be there for that purpose.

275
00:15:28,902 --> 00:15:31,482
And it's actually a great technology fit for that.

276
00:15:32,302 --> 00:15:39,422
Now, running a mobile phone in your wallet with Lightning, that's where it's a lot more interesting discussion and debate, I think.

277
00:15:39,662 --> 00:15:41,302
It clearly hasn't won there.

278
00:15:42,202 --> 00:15:45,642
We already know it won't scale to every use case and every person.

279
00:15:46,922 --> 00:15:51,542
But are there still some use cases and people that will benefit

280
00:15:51,542 --> 00:15:52,922
and that'll be the right technology?

281
00:15:53,042 --> 00:15:54,322
I think absolutely, for sure.

282
00:15:54,802 --> 00:15:56,322
Anyone who uses a Phoenix wallet,

283
00:15:57,162 --> 00:16:00,682
I mean, people who criticize the Lightning UX, even for mobile,

284
00:16:01,502 --> 00:16:02,282
I mean, have you used Phoenix?

285
00:16:02,562 --> 00:16:06,282
I'm not saying it's, you know, I'm asking the audience, right?

286
00:16:06,282 --> 00:16:07,822
I mean, you know, have you used Phoenix?

287
00:16:07,822 --> 00:16:12,562
we can certainly still find things to critique about Phoenix.

288
00:16:12,662 --> 00:16:15,022
It's not perfect, but it's a good user experience.

289
00:16:15,462 --> 00:16:18,322
So you can create a good user experience with Lightning.

290
00:16:19,642 --> 00:16:20,642
And the LDK ecosystem,

291
00:16:20,842 --> 00:16:24,142
Phoenix is built on Async's own technology stack

292
00:16:24,142 --> 00:16:25,342
and Lightning implementation.

293
00:16:25,982 --> 00:16:27,542
But with the LDK ecosystem,

294
00:16:28,322 --> 00:16:34,042
it now has all the APIs and tools and SDKs and features

295
00:16:34,042 --> 00:16:37,882
for anyone to build a wallet that matches and surpasses

296
00:16:37,882 --> 00:16:39,482
the Phoenix user experience as well.

297
00:16:39,602 --> 00:16:41,382
So I don't think it's...

298
00:16:41,382 --> 00:16:44,842
No one should have the expectation that every wallet on a phone

299
00:16:44,842 --> 00:16:46,882
is going to be running lightning and have channels,

300
00:16:47,002 --> 00:16:49,382
but I think there will absolutely be...

301
00:16:49,382 --> 00:16:52,962
It has the capability and capacity to have tens of millions of users

302
00:16:52,962 --> 00:16:56,722
who benefit from that, and it's the right choice for them.

303
00:16:57,262 --> 00:16:58,442
And also merchants too.

304
00:16:58,762 --> 00:17:02,582
I think it actually might be a better sweet spot for merchants

305
00:17:02,582 --> 00:17:03,722
versus individual users.

306
00:17:04,042 --> 00:17:06,822
Where right now with the Square launch, that's awesome.

307
00:17:06,962 --> 00:17:09,702
We're going to onboard more merchants and kickstart that.

308
00:17:10,362 --> 00:17:15,222
Fast forward into the future when there's tens of millions of small businesses around the world accepting Bitcoin.

309
00:17:16,162 --> 00:17:18,362
Custodial is how most of them will start.

310
00:17:19,422 --> 00:17:21,202
But tens of millions.

311
00:17:21,202 --> 00:17:28,322
And then if 10% go through their journey and realize the value of self-custody to them and their business,

312
00:17:28,522 --> 00:17:33,382
or just the situation they're in, the environment they're in, the country or the banking situation,

313
00:17:33,382 --> 00:17:36,942
or what their commerce is.

314
00:17:38,082 --> 00:17:39,762
If 10% self-custody,

315
00:17:39,842 --> 00:17:41,562
that'd be millions of small businesses

316
00:17:41,562 --> 00:17:45,742
who are looking for a lightning-based solution

317
00:17:45,742 --> 00:17:47,062
for accepting money.

318
00:17:49,342 --> 00:17:53,262
Just one more steel man of the lightning network

319
00:17:53,262 --> 00:17:56,662
or a refutation of a FUD that's often thrown at.

320
00:17:56,762 --> 00:17:57,542
It's like, there's no activity.

321
00:17:57,662 --> 00:17:58,522
Look at the amount of Bitcoin

322
00:17:58,522 --> 00:18:01,322
locked in the lightning network

323
00:18:01,322 --> 00:18:05,302
compared to the TVL of these DeFi protocols.

324
00:18:05,482 --> 00:18:06,222
It's a pittance.

325
00:18:06,502 --> 00:18:08,862
And I think there's two things here.

326
00:18:09,342 --> 00:18:13,182
Number one, it's a mischaracterization of...

327
00:18:13,182 --> 00:18:16,382
It's a bad comparison because the way Lightning channels work,

328
00:18:16,622 --> 00:18:18,482
it's actually bullish if you have less

329
00:18:18,482 --> 00:18:19,802
because it means you're doing more with less.

330
00:18:19,922 --> 00:18:23,862
And then on top of that, Lightning is so distributed.

331
00:18:23,862 --> 00:18:27,862
I think Lisa put it best when she was last on the show.

332
00:18:27,942 --> 00:18:30,442
It's literally, if you look at any quote-unquote L2

333
00:18:30,442 --> 00:18:33,242
across any blockchain that's out there.

334
00:18:33,322 --> 00:18:35,642
Lightning is objectively the most distributed.

335
00:18:36,442 --> 00:18:38,982
And that means that it's very hard to track

336
00:18:38,982 --> 00:18:39,822
what's actually happening.

337
00:18:39,822 --> 00:18:41,822
There's a lot of unannounced channels

338
00:18:41,822 --> 00:18:43,962
that aren't, you know,

339
00:18:44,022 --> 00:18:45,762
so like the number of channels reported

340
00:18:45,762 --> 00:18:46,362
is a bad metric.

341
00:18:46,442 --> 00:18:47,942
Basically, all the popular metrics

342
00:18:47,942 --> 00:18:50,102
that are reported are misleading

343
00:18:50,102 --> 00:18:52,322
or relatively poor metrics.

344
00:18:53,102 --> 00:18:54,482
So it doesn't really tell the story,

345
00:18:54,622 --> 00:18:56,462
which is, it's also,

346
00:18:56,622 --> 00:18:58,602
Lightning is relatively private too,

347
00:18:58,682 --> 00:18:59,382
which is a good thing,

348
00:18:59,382 --> 00:19:02,422
but then it's hard to do data analysis and know is it healthy or not.

349
00:19:03,642 --> 00:19:04,762
But in terms of is it growing,

350
00:19:07,062 --> 00:19:09,142
I forget exactly what...

351
00:19:09,142 --> 00:19:12,322
Miles Suter from Block at the Vegas conference

352
00:19:12,322 --> 00:19:15,862
gave a really great presentation on Cash App and Block

353
00:19:15,862 --> 00:19:18,542
and reported a bunch of juicy numbers.

354
00:19:18,742 --> 00:19:20,122
I forget exactly what he revealed.

355
00:19:20,322 --> 00:19:23,902
But definitely, I can say that a couple of years ago,

356
00:19:24,062 --> 00:19:25,302
River came out with a report

357
00:19:25,302 --> 00:19:28,702
where they collected a lot of private data from companies

358
00:19:28,702 --> 00:19:30,182
and assembled it into a report.

359
00:19:30,682 --> 00:19:32,882
And I think it was like 1,212% growth

360
00:19:32,882 --> 00:19:35,262
of payment volume on Lightning Network

361
00:19:35,262 --> 00:19:36,822
over the past 18 months.

362
00:19:37,042 --> 00:19:38,702
And that was two years ago.

363
00:19:39,242 --> 00:19:41,942
What I can say is looking at Cash App

364
00:19:41,942 --> 00:19:45,142
and Lightning Node data from Block since then,

365
00:19:45,322 --> 00:19:46,242
the ensuing two years,

366
00:19:46,822 --> 00:19:50,582
that growth rate of on the order of 15% monthly

367
00:19:50,582 --> 00:19:51,522
has sustained.

368
00:19:51,522 --> 00:19:54,702
So the data that we're seeing at Block

369
00:19:54,702 --> 00:19:57,182
is very, very strong for payment growth.

370
00:19:57,182 --> 00:20:12,682
So it's, and you'll note that if you look at the capacity, the number of Bitcoin locked into Lightning does not reflect that. It's sort of been constant, roughly, what, 4,000 or 5,000 Bitcoin or something in that entire three or four year period.

371
00:20:13,482 --> 00:20:19,322
So I think that indicates how misleading that metric is.

372
00:20:19,422 --> 00:20:20,122
And it's what you said.

373
00:20:20,262 --> 00:20:21,622
I think the answer you might,

374
00:20:21,762 --> 00:20:22,582
and then someone might ask,

375
00:20:22,702 --> 00:20:24,722
well, if it's growing so much, why isn't that growing?

376
00:20:25,062 --> 00:20:25,902
I think it's what you said.

377
00:20:26,202 --> 00:20:28,722
Lightning operators are learning how to be more efficient

378
00:20:28,722 --> 00:20:30,282
and operate with more efficiency.

379
00:20:30,962 --> 00:20:33,902
So like River kept closing channels and closing channels.

380
00:20:33,902 --> 00:20:34,502
And then people are like,

381
00:20:34,542 --> 00:20:36,262
oh, are they getting out of this business or whatever?

382
00:20:36,322 --> 00:20:38,462
It's like, they're just making their operations more efficient.

383
00:20:38,882 --> 00:20:42,402
Now, of course, once you reach sort of optimal efficiency,

384
00:20:42,682 --> 00:20:47,262
then if you still keep continuing to grow payment volume,

385
00:20:47,422 --> 00:20:48,862
you're going to see that number go up.

386
00:20:48,982 --> 00:20:50,362
And I think it did recently go up.

387
00:20:50,522 --> 00:20:52,542
And I think we are going to see it.

388
00:20:53,102 --> 00:20:56,482
It'll be a grind, I think, with square payments

389
00:20:56,482 --> 00:20:57,542
and people paying in Bitcoin.

390
00:20:57,742 --> 00:21:01,382
It's not going to like 10x from now to Christmas or something.

391
00:21:01,482 --> 00:21:05,342
But we're going to see a steady growth month to month to month

392
00:21:05,342 --> 00:21:06,602
with that as well.

393
00:21:06,662 --> 00:21:08,562
And we will see that capacity grow.

394
00:21:08,962 --> 00:21:10,122
Well, it's not happening right now.

395
00:21:10,122 --> 00:21:12,362
But another thing to take into consideration is

396
00:21:12,362 --> 00:21:13,862
when the price of Bitcoin goes up.

397
00:21:14,362 --> 00:21:16,362
Prices, denominating stats goes down.

398
00:21:16,522 --> 00:21:19,942
So you need less Bitcoin to move through these channels

399
00:21:19,942 --> 00:21:21,442
to actually purchase goods and services.

400
00:21:21,782 --> 00:21:22,942
That's another good point.

401
00:21:23,342 --> 00:21:23,462
Yeah.

402
00:21:23,642 --> 00:21:23,822
Yeah.

403
00:21:24,122 --> 00:21:30,462
So, yes, I think the easy, simple metrics that are reported

404
00:21:30,462 --> 00:21:33,022
don't really tell the story.

405
00:21:33,262 --> 00:21:34,342
Or you certainly have to...

406
00:21:34,342 --> 00:21:36,662
I mean, I would agree that like 10 years from now,

407
00:21:37,002 --> 00:21:38,782
the capacity of Bitcoin and Lightning channels

408
00:21:38,782 --> 00:21:40,942
should go up a lot compared to...

409
00:21:40,942 --> 00:21:43,942
So that metric, I think, is important to look at.

410
00:21:43,982 --> 00:21:47,742
If you zoom out in a four-year window, is it going up?

411
00:21:47,782 --> 00:21:48,742
And I think that is important.

412
00:21:48,902 --> 00:21:55,022
But if you zoom in more right now, you have to have access to these private data sources and stuff.

413
00:21:55,022 --> 00:22:05,022
But I think another thing, something that I thought of recently, a lot of my friends who aren't into Bitcoin, but they're techies.

414
00:22:05,182 --> 00:22:06,962
They're Silicon Valley people, not into Bitcoin.

415
00:22:06,962 --> 00:22:14,202
And they think Bitcoin, at least as everyday currency, it's failed, but also that it's over.

416
00:22:14,442 --> 00:22:18,142
It had its moment and it should have caught on.

417
00:22:18,402 --> 00:22:27,942
Their mentality is like back in 2013 or 2014, the first wave of excitement of Bitcoin payments, at least in Silicon Valley, that it didn't take off then.

418
00:22:27,942 --> 00:22:37,722
And if it was as great of technology or promising of money as everyone was talking about then, that it would have taken off then.

419
00:22:37,922 --> 00:22:39,042
And so they just write it off.

420
00:22:39,382 --> 00:22:41,202
Well, there's a little more to it, right?

421
00:22:41,202 --> 00:22:52,582
And so I think with the Square launch, and now there's going to be stickers and windows that show the Bitcoin symbol next to Visa, MasterCard, and Apple Pay.

422
00:22:52,582 --> 00:23:01,922
And even if no one's actually making Bitcoin payments, normal people will see that sticker in the window and they will think, oh, it has arrived.

423
00:23:02,362 --> 00:23:03,942
People are paying in Bitcoin.

424
00:23:04,302 --> 00:23:05,482
It is everyday money.

425
00:23:05,942 --> 00:23:11,602
So I think it'll be this huge psychological shift with the narrative, which we haven't really talked about the narrative.

426
00:23:11,722 --> 00:23:16,222
But the narrative that dominates Bitcoin is like ETFs and number go up and store of value.

427
00:23:16,302 --> 00:23:17,642
That narrative is hurting today.

428
00:23:17,642 --> 00:23:18,122
Yeah.

429
00:23:18,962 --> 00:23:19,902
Well, right.

430
00:23:19,902 --> 00:23:35,362
But I mean, again, for my own experience in Bitcoin the last eight years, the store of value, that was to me sort of obvious from the beginning and just inevitable.

431
00:23:35,562 --> 00:23:35,982
Preordained.

432
00:23:36,242 --> 00:23:37,862
Didn't really need much work.

433
00:23:37,862 --> 00:23:44,962
I mean it still needed to work but in terms of like software development and design and

434
00:23:44,962 --> 00:23:50,322
the kind of things where I'd want to contribute to it's like yeah it's already it's already done

435
00:23:50,322 --> 00:23:55,622
but but everyday currency a lot of work needs to be done including you know improving the tools and

436
00:23:55,622 --> 00:24:01,882
creating better products and new use cases blah blah blah so I think I think it's a great use

437
00:24:01,882 --> 00:24:10,922
case, but it's really crowded out the everyday money narrative. And so last week to me was awesome,

438
00:24:11,522 --> 00:24:18,342
not just for Block the company, but for everyone who's into Bitcoin as everyday money. I think

439
00:24:18,342 --> 00:24:22,762
that's why it was easy for Bitcoiners to cheer Block on because of the alignment around that.

440
00:24:22,762 --> 00:24:28,762
And hopefully it's not just a one week wonder in terms of narrative, but it's the start of

441
00:24:28,762 --> 00:24:30,282
recreating this narrative

442
00:24:30,282 --> 00:24:32,702
and joining alongside

443
00:24:32,702 --> 00:24:34,682
the digital gold narrative.

444
00:24:34,922 --> 00:24:36,262
I don't think it needs to replace that.

445
00:24:36,402 --> 00:24:38,122
The digital gold narrative shouldn't go away.

446
00:24:38,442 --> 00:24:40,442
We should be talking about everyday money

447
00:24:40,442 --> 00:24:41,102
way more.

448
00:24:41,922 --> 00:24:44,662
Since we're in San Francisco,

449
00:24:44,802 --> 00:24:45,902
I'll say it because this is

450
00:24:45,902 --> 00:24:48,202
the nomenclature. Let's double click

451
00:24:48,202 --> 00:24:50,202
on your Silicon Valley friend

452
00:24:50,202 --> 00:24:51,142
saying that it failed

453
00:24:51,142 --> 00:24:53,822
as payments technology.

454
00:24:53,822 --> 00:24:54,742
That blows my mind.

455
00:24:55,342 --> 00:24:57,182
To me, it highlights some

456
00:24:57,182 --> 00:25:05,422
sort of time preference uh mistakes that are being made in this part of the country and other

457
00:25:05,422 --> 00:25:11,042
parts as well because how could you honestly expect something to be launched in 2009 and to

458
00:25:11,042 --> 00:25:16,882
take over the world and be an everyday payment um in five years if this was happening in 2014 or

459
00:25:16,882 --> 00:25:21,282
they expected that would happen like how do they not recognize that rome wasn't built in the day

460
00:25:21,282 --> 00:25:26,022
and there's a process to this i think it's uh i mean i think there is a good explanation i mean it's

461
00:25:26,022 --> 00:25:32,002
it's wrong thinking but it's a there's a good explanation if you think about the success stories

462
00:25:32,002 --> 00:25:39,022
through in silicon valley over the past many decades and the patterns that people build up

463
00:25:39,022 --> 00:25:44,322
in their head here we're working on it being part of it or seeing these success stories things do

464
00:25:44,322 --> 00:25:52,122
happen fast um whether it be google or facebook or instagram or youtube like you go from like

465
00:25:52,122 --> 00:25:56,502
zero to high growth in users very quickly,

466
00:25:57,322 --> 00:25:58,422
revenue quickly,

467
00:25:59,142 --> 00:26:01,362
and acquisitions quickly or IPOs.

468
00:26:01,582 --> 00:26:03,402
It does move fast.

469
00:26:03,542 --> 00:26:06,822
So if things don't click in a few years

470
00:26:06,822 --> 00:26:08,562
or at least within the first four years,

471
00:26:09,122 --> 00:26:12,922
usually you shut the thing down

472
00:26:12,922 --> 00:26:14,342
and you move on to the next idea.

473
00:26:14,782 --> 00:26:15,902
That is the common pattern.

474
00:26:16,622 --> 00:26:17,642
And so that's the pattern matching

475
00:26:17,642 --> 00:26:19,702
all the smart, successful people here have.

476
00:26:20,042 --> 00:26:21,122
So when you have something like Bitcoin,

477
00:26:21,122 --> 00:26:23,142
Sure, it was introduced in 2008, 2009.

478
00:26:23,762 --> 00:26:31,182
And so by 2014, oh, great, this emerging technology, let's VC fund all these startups, make a lot of money.

479
00:26:31,322 --> 00:26:33,382
And then no one was making payments then.

480
00:26:33,762 --> 00:26:34,602
It wasn't used.

481
00:26:34,742 --> 00:26:39,602
None of these companies, I mean, except for like Coinbase, which had to go way beyond Bitcoin.

482
00:26:39,742 --> 00:26:41,602
They had to create a gambling casino to make a lot of money.

483
00:26:43,402 --> 00:26:47,622
There was just failure after failure from a venture capital and startup perspective.

484
00:26:48,202 --> 00:26:50,662
So I think that's why they wrote it off.

485
00:26:50,662 --> 00:26:55,702
Now we know, like the Bitcoin community knows that that's an absurd expectation.

486
00:26:56,162 --> 00:27:05,582
I think another dynamic was people thought that like, they compared it to like PayPal or Visa as a justice payments technology.

487
00:27:05,722 --> 00:27:10,062
And they didn't have a deep appreciation for like, oh no, this is way bigger idea.

488
00:27:10,242 --> 00:27:11,442
This is not disrupting Visa.

489
00:27:11,582 --> 00:27:13,122
This is disrupting the US dollar.

490
00:27:14,642 --> 00:27:19,062
And if you look at history, there's not that many things that have been money.

491
00:27:19,922 --> 00:27:26,982
We have a piece of artwork here at Presidia Bitcoin from Crypto Graffiti with a history of money.

492
00:27:27,202 --> 00:27:34,682
And there's eight different symbols of representation going back to seashells and rocks and stuff like that.

493
00:27:34,742 --> 00:27:35,722
And obviously gold.

494
00:27:37,402 --> 00:27:40,382
Depending on how you define things, like a credit card or something.

495
00:27:40,382 --> 00:28:05,584
But even that actually is a bit of a mistake to think of that as money right As dollars the money behind it But there not that many things in history that have been money And now Bitcoiners are saying this is the new money This is going to be the new money And then to your point that doesn develop overnight especially if it not fiat if it not declared if it not forced upon all of us from up high It has to be a grassroots effort

496
00:28:05,584 --> 00:28:12,044
it also happens to be like super complex and counterintuitive from many different angles.

497
00:28:12,244 --> 00:28:16,224
So it's very common, whether you're a Silicon Valley person or Wall Street or just

498
00:28:16,224 --> 00:28:27,604
whatever your lot in life is, it takes a leap of faith and then it requires a journey of learning

499
00:28:27,604 --> 00:28:33,164
to really see like, how does this work? So I think Silicon Valley myths that this is not just

500
00:28:33,164 --> 00:28:37,524
displacing and competing with the payment layer, but actually the money layer.

501
00:28:37,904 --> 00:28:41,344
And once you appreciate that, then you realize, oh, this is obviously not going to happen in

502
00:28:41,344 --> 00:28:41,724
five years.

503
00:28:41,924 --> 00:28:45,204
This is like a 20 year or more process.

504
00:28:45,784 --> 00:28:50,444
And then all the other disruption happens on top of that sort of in parallel.

505
00:28:50,584 --> 00:28:56,424
You think people are coming around to recognize, oh, we mischaracterized this a decade ago.

506
00:28:57,084 --> 00:28:58,344
Sadly, I don't think so.

507
00:28:58,344 --> 00:29:01,404
hopefully we'll talk a little bit about Presidio Bitcoin too

508
00:29:01,404 --> 00:29:03,164
on this episode

509
00:29:03,164 --> 00:29:05,564
but one of the missions for Presidio Bitcoin

510
00:29:05,564 --> 00:29:07,224
is to help bridge that gap

511
00:29:07,224 --> 00:29:08,864
we're going to take advantage of the fact

512
00:29:08,864 --> 00:29:10,724
that we're here in Silicon Valley

513
00:29:10,724 --> 00:29:11,684
physically

514
00:29:11,684 --> 00:29:14,144
and we've got a bunch of people here

515
00:29:14,144 --> 00:29:16,384
who have ties to Silicon Valley

516
00:29:16,384 --> 00:29:19,364
and so be it through

517
00:29:19,364 --> 00:29:21,464
events we host here

518
00:29:21,464 --> 00:29:25,524
myself and Max Webster and David King

519
00:29:25,524 --> 00:29:28,024
do the Presidio Bitcoin Jam podcast

520
00:29:28,024 --> 00:29:28,424
Great show.

521
00:29:28,764 --> 00:29:29,384
Yeah, thank you.

522
00:29:29,984 --> 00:29:31,164
We're podcasters now.

523
00:29:31,284 --> 00:29:31,644
Watch out.

524
00:29:32,064 --> 00:29:33,184
Everybody becomes a podcaster.

525
00:29:34,084 --> 00:29:35,084
Yeah, big proponent.

526
00:29:35,644 --> 00:29:42,504
But our intended audience for that show is Silicon Valley people.

527
00:29:42,884 --> 00:29:45,504
It's people who would not identify as a Bitcoiner.

528
00:29:45,904 --> 00:29:49,024
Now, of course, people who are into Bitcoin watch the show and I think like it.

529
00:29:49,064 --> 00:29:49,504
And that's great.

530
00:29:49,644 --> 00:29:52,964
But what we have in mind, we want to bridge that gap to Silicon Valley.

531
00:29:52,964 --> 00:30:00,224
So we, well, I mean, we're just ourselves in that show, but like, I think we...

532
00:30:00,224 --> 00:30:01,284
You guys can talk the talk.

533
00:30:01,844 --> 00:30:06,384
Well, we come from, I mean, I worked at Google for a decade as a product director.

534
00:30:06,504 --> 00:30:07,684
So I come from Silicon Valley.

535
00:30:07,804 --> 00:30:08,864
David King does as well.

536
00:30:09,384 --> 00:30:10,504
We know that culture.

537
00:30:10,664 --> 00:30:12,124
We know that we come from that world.

538
00:30:12,204 --> 00:30:12,784
We're part of that world.

539
00:30:12,964 --> 00:30:14,504
We also happen to be hardcore Bitcoiners.

540
00:30:14,584 --> 00:30:16,904
So it's kind of rare to be in both camps.

541
00:30:17,104 --> 00:30:19,664
So we can speak both languages.

542
00:30:19,844 --> 00:30:21,224
So hopefully we can bridge that.

543
00:30:21,224 --> 00:30:22,824
Thank you for Google Maps, by the way.

544
00:30:22,964 --> 00:30:23,964
You're welcome.

545
00:30:24,624 --> 00:30:26,344
I'm glad you said that instead of Google Glass.

546
00:30:26,884 --> 00:30:28,424
I worked on both.

547
00:30:28,724 --> 00:30:33,324
Google Glass is an unquestionable success.

548
00:30:33,964 --> 00:30:34,524
But yeah, Glass.

549
00:30:35,724 --> 00:30:37,084
Hey, Kyle Simani liked it.

550
00:30:37,544 --> 00:30:38,164
Yeah, I know.

551
00:30:39,604 --> 00:30:40,484
Let's not go there.

552
00:30:41,104 --> 00:30:42,664
Everything's bad in that direction.

553
00:30:42,704 --> 00:30:45,964
Well, I mean, we were just focusing on Silicon Valley,

554
00:30:45,964 --> 00:30:48,744
broader Silicon Valley's perspective on Bitcoin

555
00:30:48,744 --> 00:30:51,244
and how it may be the perception

556
00:30:51,244 --> 00:30:53,224
may be sort of misguided

557
00:30:53,224 --> 00:30:54,404
because they don't understand

558
00:30:54,404 --> 00:30:55,524
what's actually happening.

559
00:30:56,584 --> 00:30:57,584
The shift to the Bitcoiner figure.

560
00:30:57,684 --> 00:30:59,184
That's a Bitcoiner

561
00:30:59,184 --> 00:31:01,264
really dedicated to building out

562
00:31:01,264 --> 00:31:03,164
Bitcoin as everyday money.

563
00:31:03,784 --> 00:31:06,624
How would you grade Bitcoin's success

564
00:31:06,624 --> 00:31:07,144
up to this point?

565
00:31:07,304 --> 00:31:08,064
Is it...

566
00:31:08,064 --> 00:31:09,324
As everyday money?

567
00:31:09,524 --> 00:31:11,244
Or just like where it is on the trajectory.

568
00:31:11,904 --> 00:31:13,524
Understanding that Rome wasn't building a day.

569
00:31:13,604 --> 00:31:15,384
This is going to be a multi-decade process.

570
00:31:16,724 --> 00:31:17,704
How would you...

571
00:31:17,704 --> 00:31:18,484
I don't want to say grade.

572
00:31:18,624 --> 00:31:19,204
It's like...

573
00:31:19,204 --> 00:31:19,504
Yeah.

574
00:31:19,504 --> 00:31:22,964
How would you describe Bitcoin's progression up to this point?

575
00:31:23,044 --> 00:31:27,164
Is it over-exceeding where it should be underperforming?

576
00:31:29,404 --> 00:31:33,784
Given the way you framed it, appreciating how long it takes to establish it as money and stuff,

577
00:31:33,824 --> 00:31:35,924
I'd say I'd give it a good grade overall.

578
00:31:35,924 --> 00:31:46,424
Like high level, very good, because we can easily nitpick and say like the everyday currency narrative has been sort of squeezed out.

579
00:31:46,664 --> 00:31:49,224
And obviously it's not like heavily used for that yet.

580
00:31:49,504 --> 00:31:52,464
So we can say like, oh, it's kind of, it's so far failed at that.

581
00:31:52,464 --> 00:32:00,084
But again, appreciating how long realistically it's going to take to do that, I'd give it a good grade.

582
00:32:00,244 --> 00:32:04,024
A good grade to this point, but like a lot of work ahead of us.

583
00:32:04,284 --> 00:32:07,364
But I remain super optimistic about that future.

584
00:32:07,544 --> 00:32:16,284
But it's to attain like a sustainable good grade, like we've won, we've succeeded, that's going to take another 10 plus years.

585
00:32:16,284 --> 00:32:17,984
but that doesn't mean

586
00:32:17,984 --> 00:32:21,364
that doesn't mean meaningful progress

587
00:32:21,364 --> 00:32:22,924
is not going to happen every year right

588
00:32:22,924 --> 00:32:24,604
I mean so there should be a sense of urgency

589
00:32:24,604 --> 00:32:25,584
among all of us

590
00:32:25,584 --> 00:32:27,704
there needs to be intentionality

591
00:32:27,704 --> 00:32:31,004
and not just assume

592
00:32:31,004 --> 00:32:33,404
like oh you're going to do it

593
00:32:33,404 --> 00:32:35,464
like no like each person

594
00:32:35,464 --> 00:32:36,364
who's into Bitcoin

595
00:32:36,364 --> 00:32:39,164
find your own way to contribute

596
00:32:39,164 --> 00:32:40,944
and help will this into action

597
00:32:40,944 --> 00:32:42,684
I'm a strong believer in like

598
00:32:42,684 --> 00:32:45,584
the individual can make a real big difference

599
00:32:45,584 --> 00:32:47,644
and you don't have to be like Elon Musk or something.

600
00:32:47,824 --> 00:32:52,284
Like any individual can contribute value.

601
00:32:52,404 --> 00:32:54,224
I mean, like with the launch last week,

602
00:32:54,764 --> 00:32:56,424
in Spiral's small part in it,

603
00:32:56,544 --> 00:32:58,564
we created like a Bitcoin or marketing kit

604
00:32:58,564 --> 00:33:00,484
to help people go to their favorite merchant

605
00:33:00,484 --> 00:33:05,264
and help them persuade them to turn on Bitcoin payments.

606
00:33:05,264 --> 00:33:08,704
And it's a laser sharp focused, like save on fees, right?

607
00:33:08,764 --> 00:33:09,944
Get rid of the 3% fees.

608
00:33:10,064 --> 00:33:12,384
And so we have like a one-pager leave behind

609
00:33:12,384 --> 00:33:15,084
and plushies we've distributed to like six different.

610
00:33:15,584 --> 00:33:21,404
physical Bitcoin, physical hubs around the country. And so that's our, that's our small part.

611
00:33:21,464 --> 00:33:26,144
But then like as an individual Bitcoiner, you don't have to be a Bitcoin core developer or like

612
00:33:26,144 --> 00:33:32,864
an engineer to just go to your local merchant and talk to them about Bitcoin and talk to them about

613
00:33:32,864 --> 00:33:38,444
saving. I mean, my recommendation start with like, do you want to save fees? Like, don't the fees

614
00:33:38,444 --> 00:33:42,104
suck? Don't, you know, aren't they like a significant part of your profit margin? Wouldn't

615
00:33:42,104 --> 00:33:47,764
you like to get rid of them? And then they're going to say yes. And that's the hook. And then

616
00:33:47,764 --> 00:33:53,464
you can say, well, here's how you can do it. And that's a way for anyone to contribute.

617
00:33:54,464 --> 00:33:58,284
And I don't, another thing I like about marketing kit, and I don't know if you guys actually made

618
00:33:58,284 --> 00:34:03,304
this or a Square merchant just put it on their door with a Bitcoin preferred sticker. I think

619
00:34:03,304 --> 00:34:09,484
that the preference signal from the merchant is very strong too. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. I'm glad you

620
00:34:09,484 --> 00:34:17,484
notice that i think that's great copy and the you know it's a multi-phased approach to get people to

621
00:34:17,484 --> 00:34:24,744
spend bitcoin i think um at least at like a retail outlet in america um i i used even two months ago

622
00:34:24,744 --> 00:34:31,624
i was actually bearish on this becoming popular compared to other wow other types of payment use

623
00:34:31,624 --> 00:34:38,624
cases because like an american buying coffee like it like i i just i use apple pay and i get two

624
00:34:38,624 --> 00:34:44,904
percent cash back it's like that and it's a super good user experience um so like why spend bitcoin

625
00:34:44,904 --> 00:34:53,164
right that but i've turned from uh bearish to bullish just in the past two months and um largely

626
00:34:53,164 --> 00:34:58,444
thinking through it through the lens of the merchant like the small business those fee card

627
00:34:58,444 --> 00:35:06,824
fees are very material to their business and most small businesses are low margin and uh it's like a

628
00:35:06,824 --> 00:35:14,204
it's a passion pursuit for them and they just want to stay in business um and so being able to

629
00:35:14,204 --> 00:35:22,204
eliminate or significantly reduce that fee is an enormous value prop so but that's just step one

630
00:35:22,204 --> 00:35:26,944
like and and of course with the square product introduction that makes it so much easier for

631
00:35:26,944 --> 00:35:31,084
them because if they're using a payment solution whether it's toast or clover or square or whatever

632
00:35:31,084 --> 00:35:36,804
and then someone comes in with a like a bitcoin wallet as the pos and there's several of them

633
00:35:36,804 --> 00:35:40,864
out there and they're good they're good user experiences on the surface but it doesn't

634
00:35:40,864 --> 00:35:45,704
integrate with their with the small businesses like accounting system and back-end system and

635
00:35:45,704 --> 00:35:51,264
you have to be a pretty hardcore bitcoiner i think it's a merchant to adopt that but now with square

636
00:35:51,264 --> 00:35:56,044
it it's integrated into the system you're already using for your whole business

637
00:35:56,044 --> 00:36:02,944
so that that's a much smaller lift but that's just step one getting them to turn it on because then

638
00:36:02,944 --> 00:36:09,524
they'll learn um early on they'll attract some rabid bitcoiners to come in and spend some bitcoin

639
00:36:09,524 --> 00:36:14,984
and attract new customers that's a marketing win they'll like that but it's not sustainable and it

640
00:36:14,984 --> 00:36:20,624
doesn't grow to a larger part of their consumer audience or you know customer base so then it's

641
00:36:20,624 --> 00:36:25,144
like well i love the pitch of saving fees but no one's coming in and spending bitcoin anymore

642
00:36:25,144 --> 00:36:30,544
or only like you know my three percent of my customer base who are crazy bitcoiners do

643
00:36:30,544 --> 00:36:32,284
and it's saturated.

644
00:36:32,744 --> 00:36:35,624
So how do you get everyone else spending Bitcoin?

645
00:36:35,804 --> 00:36:37,304
And that's where like Pink Owl Coffee

646
00:36:37,304 --> 00:36:38,604
helped change my mind

647
00:36:38,604 --> 00:36:38,984
because they're like,

648
00:36:39,044 --> 00:36:41,064
we're going to give 21% discount.

649
00:36:41,204 --> 00:36:42,204
And I'm like, wow,

650
00:36:42,444 --> 00:36:43,864
that's something that's going to wake up

651
00:36:43,864 --> 00:36:44,804
a normal person, right?

652
00:36:45,564 --> 00:36:48,504
21% discount at your favorite merchant,

653
00:36:49,124 --> 00:36:51,544
then that's going to get a lot of people

654
00:36:51,544 --> 00:36:53,644
over the hump to install a Bitcoin wallet,

655
00:36:53,764 --> 00:36:54,904
a spending wallet on the phone

656
00:36:54,904 --> 00:36:56,404
and get some and load it up with some Bitcoin.

657
00:36:56,664 --> 00:36:58,344
$5 coffee becomes a $4 coffee.

658
00:36:58,484 --> 00:36:58,664
Yeah.

659
00:36:58,804 --> 00:36:59,544
Less than $4.

660
00:36:59,544 --> 00:37:00,984
Well, that adds up when you do that every day.

661
00:37:02,084 --> 00:37:16,504
And I do think early adopter merchants who are hardcore Bitcoiners or see the value in changing consumer behavior to eliminate or to spend Bitcoin in order to eliminate the fees.

662
00:37:17,524 --> 00:37:21,164
Early adopter merchants will come out with crazy promotions like that.

663
00:37:21,164 --> 00:37:31,704
And it's kind of a one-time thing because if you convert a consumer to install a Bitcoin spending wallet, get some Bitcoin on it, then that cost to the consumer, they don't have to do it over again.

664
00:37:31,944 --> 00:37:35,644
It's only a one-time thing to get the wallet set up and just sort of change your behavior.

665
00:37:37,044 --> 00:37:43,044
So all other merchants in your local community will benefit from that one-time onboarding.

666
00:37:43,424 --> 00:37:49,044
So it's not like every merchant has to offer 21% and has to do it indefinitely in order for Bitcoin payments to work.

667
00:37:49,044 --> 00:37:51,144
It's like a bootstrapping thing.

668
00:37:51,164 --> 00:37:55,304
So I think that'll be effective.

669
00:37:55,784 --> 00:37:56,424
And then I think...

670
00:37:56,424 --> 00:38:01,564
So another part of the Spiral Initiative is not just a Bitcoin marketing kit, but we're

671
00:38:01,564 --> 00:38:03,624
going to come out with a merchant marketing kit as well.

672
00:38:04,924 --> 00:38:07,784
And we also established a Facebook community.

673
00:38:08,064 --> 00:38:10,244
I haven't used Facebook for over 10 years.

674
00:38:10,364 --> 00:38:11,444
I've been off since 2016.

675
00:38:11,444 --> 00:38:16,344
I literally have a minor complaint to my team that I have to log into Facebook again.

676
00:38:16,444 --> 00:38:17,604
But it's a smart move.

677
00:38:17,604 --> 00:38:20,084
some people

678
00:38:20,084 --> 00:38:21,064
some people

679
00:38:21,064 --> 00:38:21,424
are like

680
00:38:21,424 --> 00:38:22,024
DarthCoin

681
00:38:22,024 --> 00:38:22,684
on Stacker News

682
00:38:22,684 --> 00:38:23,224
is critical

683
00:38:23,224 --> 00:38:23,904
of the choice

684
00:38:23,904 --> 00:38:24,544
of Facebook news

685
00:38:24,544 --> 00:38:25,444
because who uses Facebook

686
00:38:25,444 --> 00:38:27,064
but guess who uses Facebook

687
00:38:27,064 --> 00:38:28,024
merchants

688
00:38:28,024 --> 00:38:28,984
small businesses

689
00:38:28,984 --> 00:38:30,004
around the globe

690
00:38:30,004 --> 00:38:30,864
are not on Twitter

691
00:38:30,864 --> 00:38:32,004
they're on Instagram

692
00:38:32,004 --> 00:38:32,404
and Facebook

693
00:38:32,404 --> 00:38:33,324
so

694
00:38:33,324 --> 00:38:35,204
my mom runs a coffee shop

695
00:38:35,204 --> 00:38:36,064
in her hometown

696
00:38:36,064 --> 00:38:36,644
I can

697
00:38:36,644 --> 00:38:37,444
I can

698
00:38:37,444 --> 00:38:38,384
confirm

699
00:38:38,384 --> 00:38:39,604
so we've created

700
00:38:39,604 --> 00:38:40,544
a Facebook community

701
00:38:40,544 --> 00:38:41,544
that is for merchants

702
00:38:41,544 --> 00:38:42,344
for merchants

703
00:38:42,344 --> 00:38:43,104
by merchants

704
00:38:43,104 --> 00:38:43,684
for merchants

705
00:38:43,684 --> 00:38:44,984
so we've seeded it

706
00:38:44,984 --> 00:38:45,544
with some merchants

707
00:38:45,544 --> 00:38:46,444
who have been accepting

708
00:38:46,444 --> 00:38:46,824
Bitcoin

709
00:38:46,824 --> 00:38:49,464
and no Bitcoin and it can answer one-on-one questions.

710
00:38:50,004 --> 00:38:51,304
And then other merchants who are new to it

711
00:38:51,304 --> 00:38:53,464
can ask questions or look stuff up there.

712
00:38:53,584 --> 00:38:54,484
So we did that.

713
00:38:54,624 --> 00:38:56,284
And then the merchant marketing kit

714
00:38:56,284 --> 00:39:01,104
will include ideas like offering financial incentives

715
00:39:01,104 --> 00:39:04,824
or putting a Bitcoin plushie by your cash register.

716
00:39:05,664 --> 00:39:07,604
I actually am pretty bullish on that.

717
00:39:07,844 --> 00:39:09,264
The plushie is sitting in front of you right now.

718
00:39:10,384 --> 00:39:11,444
I get one of these from my boys.

719
00:39:11,904 --> 00:39:12,944
You can grab one.

720
00:39:13,024 --> 00:39:14,764
Yeah, you can grab one after the show for sure.

721
00:39:15,344 --> 00:39:16,264
You can grab two.

722
00:39:16,264 --> 00:39:19,204
And then you can also give your favorite merchant one of those.

723
00:39:19,324 --> 00:39:26,224
And we've seen evidence of merchants actually not just taking it home and giving it to their kid, but actually putting it by the cash register.

724
00:39:26,504 --> 00:39:30,024
Because it's a great way to communicate, hey, we accept Bitcoin.

725
00:39:30,404 --> 00:39:31,264
You should pay in Bitcoin.

726
00:39:31,784 --> 00:39:34,264
And it does so in a silly, goofy way.

727
00:39:34,504 --> 00:39:36,224
It's non-confrontational, right?

728
00:39:36,704 --> 00:39:37,724
It's not like a...

729
00:39:37,724 --> 00:39:38,704
He's grimacing.

730
00:39:39,644 --> 00:39:40,264
Well, imagine...

731
00:39:41,044 --> 00:39:42,284
Hey, give me Bitcoin.

732
00:39:42,284 --> 00:39:52,404
Well, look at most of the, well, our one page leave behind tells the story of why he's grumpy because he doesn't like 3% fees.

733
00:39:55,684 --> 00:39:57,844
So he's remissing at the people paying our credit cards.

734
00:39:58,384 --> 00:39:58,624
Yes.

735
00:39:59,864 --> 00:40:09,204
But I think it's a really nice conversation starter at a local business where you have that human to human connection to just start talking about Bitcoin.

736
00:40:09,204 --> 00:40:18,344
So I do think there's a plausible story to convert people to consumers to have Bitcoin on their mobile wallet and start spending.

737
00:40:19,124 --> 00:40:25,044
Also, another thing that greases the wheel is like Cash App's now dollars and lightning.

738
00:40:25,264 --> 00:40:30,404
So you can have the 58 million, I know Miles talked to you about this on another episode,

739
00:40:30,544 --> 00:40:38,024
but 58 million active users in Cash App have dollar balances and all of them can now pay via Bitcoin.

740
00:40:38,024 --> 00:40:43,564
Via the Lightning and Bitcoin rails, they cut out the card fees.

741
00:40:44,784 --> 00:40:50,404
But the Cash App customer doesn't have to have ever owned Bitcoin or be into Bitcoin at all.

742
00:40:51,164 --> 00:40:54,264
And is that the full experience we're hoping for long term?

743
00:40:54,384 --> 00:40:55,364
No, but it's a baby step.

744
00:40:55,744 --> 00:40:57,784
It allows the merchant to save fees.

745
00:40:58,004 --> 00:41:01,624
It allows the merchant to save in Bitcoin if they want to.

746
00:41:01,624 --> 00:41:07,824
And then eventually, some of those Cash App customers will keep

747
00:41:08,024 --> 00:41:13,304
converting over to using bitcoin yeah yeah i'm very bullish as somebody who's been spending

748
00:41:13,304 --> 00:41:18,664
bitcoin using the lightning network for years now and certainly and as i talked to this with miles

749
00:41:18,664 --> 00:41:23,544
and talked with many other people like merchant adopted i think there's an apprehension to really

750
00:41:23,544 --> 00:41:31,384
lean into bitcoin payments and merchant adoption specifically due to the sort of failed attempts

751
00:41:31,384 --> 00:41:46,326
at it previously most famously back in like 2014 to 2016 era and then i read that i think that was was a big push but like Roger Burr and that early Bitcoiner crew haven really seen it since until now a decade later And I think it makes sense And I thought

752
00:41:46,326 --> 00:41:50,466
Miles' point was really good, which is like, hey, today's the best day. Tomorrow will be the best

753
00:41:50,466 --> 00:41:54,686
day. Let's just get it out there and it's time. Yep. Well, like I mentioned, I think it'll be,

754
00:41:54,846 --> 00:42:00,506
it'll be a grind. It'll be a lot of work, but I do think we'll see steady growth. And that's just

755
00:42:00,506 --> 00:42:08,806
like square in america but then like the world's big place so i think square will also light a fire

756
00:42:08,806 --> 00:42:14,246
under like other payment providers too i mean i would hope that toast and clover in the u.s and

757
00:42:14,246 --> 00:42:20,866
other um established payment providers around the world will be seeking out a bitcoin solution too

758
00:42:20,866 --> 00:42:28,186
um but that's just one type of bitcoin payment solution i think or like use case or category

759
00:42:28,186 --> 00:42:47,546
And one I mentioned, I sort of went from bearish to bullish in the last few months, but others that I'm very excited about. One is just like new applications and new ways to integrate Bitcoin and like Nostra's apps is the canonical example or Stacker News apps, but like micropayments within these social media experiences or community forums.

760
00:42:47,546 --> 00:42:49,546
People showering us with sats.

761
00:42:49,826 --> 00:42:50,946
They listen to this podcast.

762
00:42:51,206 --> 00:42:52,186
Podcasting 2.0.

763
00:42:52,266 --> 00:42:53,346
Yeah, that as well.

764
00:42:53,526 --> 00:42:57,366
So we have these real world examples that we see.

765
00:42:57,686 --> 00:43:01,526
They're not scaled yet, but we do see retention and usage.

766
00:43:01,926 --> 00:43:03,566
And anyone who's done it, I think,

767
00:43:03,886 --> 00:43:06,466
I love zapping people's posts.

768
00:43:06,546 --> 00:43:07,426
It makes me feel good.

769
00:43:07,606 --> 00:43:08,946
I mean, getting back to also another reason

770
00:43:08,946 --> 00:43:11,466
about spending my Bitcoin or whatever.

771
00:43:11,666 --> 00:43:13,566
It's like, okay, well, I've got my savings account,

772
00:43:13,846 --> 00:43:14,566
my spending account.

773
00:43:15,046 --> 00:43:16,766
And the spending account, I mean, I'm zapping sats,

774
00:43:16,766 --> 00:43:17,346
but what is it?

775
00:43:17,346 --> 00:43:21,486
a few dollars a month or I don't know what it is, but it's not that much money.

776
00:43:21,986 --> 00:43:25,426
But it makes me feel good to do it. And then obviously on the receiving end,

777
00:43:26,926 --> 00:43:29,246
my zaps alone don't move the needle, but

778
00:43:29,246 --> 00:43:33,326
hundreds of people doing it, then it's kind of a nice amount.

779
00:43:33,326 --> 00:43:34,646
I mean, it's at least like

780
00:43:34,646 --> 00:43:41,166
having a dinner paid for you because of your work or whatever. It's like a nice gesture.

781
00:43:41,586 --> 00:43:45,306
Well, I was talking about this last night with somebody because they were

782
00:43:45,306 --> 00:43:47,286
asking about podcasting 2.0

783
00:43:47,286 --> 00:43:49,226
like ah is it actually working? I mean we

784
00:43:49,226 --> 00:43:51,606
I think TFTC was literally

785
00:43:51,606 --> 00:43:53,486
like one of the

786
00:43:53,486 --> 00:43:55,326
first five podcasts in the world

787
00:43:55,326 --> 00:43:57,466
to ever put a lightning address in our RSS feed

788
00:43:57,466 --> 00:43:59,166
to begin receiving

789
00:43:59,166 --> 00:44:00,406
sats over the lightning network

790
00:44:00,406 --> 00:44:03,046
that was 2018

791
00:44:03,046 --> 00:44:05,006
2019? 2019 because

792
00:44:05,006 --> 00:44:05,966
lightning launched

793
00:44:05,966 --> 00:44:09,286
it was definitely before I left New York so it was like 2019

794
00:44:09,286 --> 00:44:11,246
so it's been six

795
00:44:11,246 --> 00:44:13,366
years and

796
00:44:13,366 --> 00:44:15,166
I think a lot of people think it's a dead model

797
00:44:15,166 --> 00:44:19,186
But you can, Fountain makes it very easy to look at the data.

798
00:44:19,506 --> 00:44:20,786
Like the numbers have been going up.

799
00:44:20,886 --> 00:44:23,986
I mean, it's not enough to run the business,

800
00:44:24,186 --> 00:44:27,226
but it's consistently up and to the right in terms of revenue

801
00:44:27,226 --> 00:44:30,966
from people streaming and boosting and commenting on the show

802
00:44:30,966 --> 00:44:33,466
via Podcasting 2.0 and Noster.

803
00:44:34,166 --> 00:44:38,846
And then we'll live stream Rabbit Hole Recap every Thursday or Friday to Noster.

804
00:44:39,106 --> 00:44:42,446
And we've sort of gamified the zapping there.

805
00:44:42,446 --> 00:44:48,206
if you zap us more than 21,000 sats, we'll read your comment and have a brief discussion around it.

806
00:44:48,206 --> 00:44:57,466
And that, to your point of spending Bitcoin, I have my fountain app, my fountain wallet, my Primal wallet.

807
00:44:57,906 --> 00:45:00,846
And those are my main spending wallets.

808
00:45:01,206 --> 00:45:05,486
And it's all Bitcoin that's been sent to me from the content I've been using.

809
00:45:05,786 --> 00:45:06,226
That's great.

810
00:45:06,506 --> 00:45:06,946
That's great.

811
00:45:07,206 --> 00:45:07,386
Yeah.

812
00:45:07,386 --> 00:45:16,786
So all the Bitcoin payments around micro-maintenance is still niche, but I'm optimistic about that.

813
00:45:17,326 --> 00:45:26,866
Anytime you can see usage and repeated behavior, even if it's on a small scale, if you see that repeated behavior in retention, I think that's a very good sign.

814
00:45:27,346 --> 00:45:28,906
And it's just a matter of scaling it now.

815
00:45:28,906 --> 00:45:38,846
I think another really positive trend is vibe coding and just the development tools that opens up access to new product development to literally 100 times more people.

816
00:45:39,266 --> 00:45:41,406
Or like in order to magnitude more people.

817
00:45:42,146 --> 00:45:52,806
You no longer have to be a coder to take an idea in your head and manifest that into an application or a mobile app and allow people to use it.

818
00:45:52,806 --> 00:45:58,306
And vibe coding is incredible for that, where English is a language to program.

819
00:45:58,906 --> 00:46:06,226
Anyone can create an application now, one that is good enough to realize your vision,

820
00:46:06,226 --> 00:46:12,886
or at least mostly, and get it out to like 100 people or 1000 people to use.

821
00:46:13,506 --> 00:46:19,426
And that's really all you need to like, for most things to prove out,

822
00:46:19,746 --> 00:46:21,706
is this actually useful to people?

823
00:46:21,706 --> 00:46:27,526
is it something people come back and do a second time a third time make it a recurring habit

824
00:46:27,526 --> 00:46:34,426
and if they do it's hard to do that by the way so it's like law of large numbers so if we have

825
00:46:34,426 --> 00:46:40,146
but if all of a sudden we have a thousand times more attempts at creating the right recipe

826
00:46:40,146 --> 00:46:46,066
we're going to see way more at the end of that funnel we're going to see a lot more compelling

827
00:46:46,066 --> 00:46:51,526
applications ones that do have a thousand users who are using it constantly and love it and then

828
00:46:51,526 --> 00:46:54,006
maybe vibe coding isn't

829
00:46:54,006 --> 00:46:55,786
then you actually need real human

830
00:46:55,786 --> 00:46:57,906
engineers still to create something that's secure

831
00:46:57,906 --> 00:46:59,886
scales and checks all the boxes

832
00:46:59,886 --> 00:47:01,606
from an engineering stability standpoint

833
00:47:01,606 --> 00:47:03,726
but you don't have to do that until

834
00:47:03,726 --> 00:47:05,906
that point in time and you've already

835
00:47:05,906 --> 00:47:07,806
and so 999 out of

836
00:47:07,806 --> 00:47:09,926
a thousand ideas fail by that point

837
00:47:09,926 --> 00:47:11,886
so don't invest the

838
00:47:11,886 --> 00:47:13,866
hardcore expensive engineering resources

839
00:47:13,866 --> 00:47:15,846
until you reach that point I think

840
00:47:15,846 --> 00:47:17,666
we're going to see that you know that

841
00:47:17,666 --> 00:47:19,766
that's happening right now and that's going

842
00:47:19,766 --> 00:47:21,826
to lead to thousands

843
00:47:21,826 --> 00:47:23,106
of applications being developed

844
00:47:23,106 --> 00:47:25,686
that people wouldn't call Bitcoin

845
00:47:25,686 --> 00:47:28,006
applications, but they just integrate Bitcoin.

846
00:47:28,146 --> 00:47:29,766
Because the second trend is that the

847
00:47:29,766 --> 00:47:31,906
tools around Bitcoin are much easier. You can now take

848
00:47:31,906 --> 00:47:33,806
Lexi or Spark or

849
00:47:33,806 --> 00:47:35,326
Liquid or all these, and

850
00:47:35,326 --> 00:47:37,386
literally one-shot VibeCode

851
00:47:37,386 --> 00:47:39,666
and application has Bitcoin payments

852
00:47:39,666 --> 00:47:41,406
integrated into it. That's amazing.

853
00:47:41,686 --> 00:47:43,506
Integrate this API or something like that, or

854
00:47:43,506 --> 00:47:45,126
use this development kit too. Yep.

855
00:47:45,486 --> 00:47:47,466
Matt Belez did a one-shot

856
00:47:47,466 --> 00:47:49,646
into Replit and was able to create

857
00:47:49,646 --> 00:47:50,666
a Bitcoin tipping app,

858
00:47:51,066 --> 00:47:52,886
you know, circa 2014 or whatever.

859
00:47:52,966 --> 00:47:53,646
But in 2014,

860
00:47:53,786 --> 00:47:54,506
the people creating

861
00:47:54,506 --> 00:47:55,326
a Bitcoin tipping app

862
00:47:55,326 --> 00:47:56,786
was like two developers for a year.

863
00:47:57,446 --> 00:47:58,706
They spent that much time

864
00:47:58,706 --> 00:48:00,266
and like, you know,

865
00:48:00,306 --> 00:48:01,366
highly skilled engineers

866
00:48:01,366 --> 00:48:02,646
to build a Bitcoin tipping app.

867
00:48:03,006 --> 00:48:03,986
Now you have literally

868
00:48:03,986 --> 00:48:05,646
a one sentence

869
00:48:05,646 --> 00:48:07,226
or paragraph prompt

870
00:48:07,226 --> 00:48:09,666
that you can speak to the computer

871
00:48:09,666 --> 00:48:11,706
and then nine minutes later

872
00:48:11,706 --> 00:48:13,606
have the same Bitcoin tipping application

873
00:48:13,606 --> 00:48:14,906
that existed 10 years ago

874
00:48:14,906 --> 00:48:16,206
from two person years

875
00:48:16,206 --> 00:48:17,246
of engineering effort.

876
00:48:17,566 --> 00:48:18,546
That's amazing, right?

877
00:48:18,546 --> 00:48:34,386
So I think we're going to see thousands of quality applications created over the coming years that integrate Bitcoin in ways that we couldn't have thought of or imagined, or I'm certainly not thinking of them right now.

878
00:48:35,026 --> 00:48:40,186
And that is going to yield some home runs and then payment growth.

879
00:48:40,846 --> 00:48:43,106
So I think I'm very, very bullish on that.

880
00:48:43,106 --> 00:48:47,006
and then AI

881
00:48:47,006 --> 00:48:51,186
I'm still not super articulate on exactly

882
00:48:51,186 --> 00:48:54,826
what this looks like but obviously AI is explosive right now

883
00:48:54,826 --> 00:48:58,686
AI agents you can imagine a world with

884
00:48:58,686 --> 00:49:02,366
payments between agents and you can imagine

885
00:49:02,366 --> 00:49:06,746
AI agents don't have an identity they're not going to be able to KYC or

886
00:49:06,746 --> 00:49:10,586
onboard so like permissionless systems just to me make intuitive sense

887
00:49:10,586 --> 00:49:17,746
for this world. But I still don't know exactly what it looks like. And it's important to compare

888
00:49:17,746 --> 00:49:23,426
like, okay, where do stable coins fail and where can Bitcoin succeed in that use case?

889
00:49:24,606 --> 00:49:28,846
So that's still like a learning process for me. And I think for most of us trying to figure that

890
00:49:28,846 --> 00:49:34,906
out, but I'm generally bullish in that area as well. And one thing I'd sum up for that category,

891
00:49:34,906 --> 00:49:38,486
for the micropayments and sort of new application categories,

892
00:49:39,026 --> 00:49:42,406
what's really important for those is no KYC.

893
00:49:43,546 --> 00:49:45,366
And so let's talk about that a little bit.

894
00:49:45,426 --> 00:49:49,766
Because I think most Bitcoiners, when they think of no KYC,

895
00:49:50,446 --> 00:49:53,026
the reason they think it's important is like,

896
00:49:53,506 --> 00:49:56,846
government shouldn't have my data or privacy focused.

897
00:49:56,846 --> 00:49:59,986
And that's completely legitimate and a very, very good point.

898
00:50:00,326 --> 00:50:03,206
But I think that's sort of, it's my impression, a lot of Bitcoiners,

899
00:50:03,206 --> 00:50:05,946
that's the start and end of that argument.

900
00:50:06,226 --> 00:50:07,926
And I think there's other arguments too.

901
00:50:08,406 --> 00:50:09,946
It improves the user experience.

902
00:50:10,346 --> 00:50:12,106
Like if I have to fill out a bunch of forms,

903
00:50:12,166 --> 00:50:15,206
if I have to upload selfies holding my passport

904
00:50:15,206 --> 00:50:16,186
and like all that.

905
00:50:16,386 --> 00:50:17,146
It's so ridiculous.

906
00:50:17,586 --> 00:50:18,066
It's a horror.

907
00:50:18,126 --> 00:50:18,826
I just stop.

908
00:50:18,826 --> 00:50:22,606
Like something has to be really important to me,

909
00:50:22,746 --> 00:50:25,966
like buying Bitcoin or whatever.

910
00:50:26,126 --> 00:50:29,266
I mean, you know, it's a really high bar

911
00:50:29,266 --> 00:50:30,426
to go through that effort,

912
00:50:30,686 --> 00:50:32,886
totally independent of the privacy.

913
00:50:33,206 --> 00:50:37,686
Even if you don't even care about it or you're ignorant about it, you don't even think about the ramifications of that.

914
00:50:37,946 --> 00:50:41,326
Just the friction of onboarding is horrible with KYC.

915
00:50:42,086 --> 00:50:49,466
So getting back to the zapping stuff, let's say Nostra takes off in a big way and actually starts scaling to other people.

916
00:50:50,366 --> 00:50:56,646
That's going to be the first introduction point to most people for Bitcoin, at least Bitcoin payments.

917
00:50:56,646 --> 00:50:58,946
They'll have never done a Bitcoin payment before.

918
00:50:59,766 --> 00:51:02,746
They probably don't even have any Bitcoin.

919
00:51:02,746 --> 00:51:20,786
So that's going to be the first introduction to Bitcoin. And let's say I'm that person. I'm new to this, but I love Primal or Domus or whatever new application gets built in us. I love that and I'm really interacting with that. And then all of a sudden, people start zapping my posts and I get this Bitcoin.

920
00:51:20,786 --> 00:51:28,226
if I have to like upload my passport and go through all this onboarding friction I'm unlikely

921
00:51:28,226 --> 00:51:33,866
to do that because I'm not I don't have a strong enough reason yet in my head to do that so I'll

922
00:51:33,866 --> 00:51:38,606
just opt out but if it's like frictionless and it just accumulates because there's like no

923
00:51:38,606 --> 00:51:45,686
onboarding cost really then sure and then once it then once that that stash grows big enough then

924
00:51:45,686 --> 00:51:49,666
it's all of a sudden it's like oh and you mean I can spend it here or I can use it here or I can

925
00:51:49,666 --> 00:51:52,106
zap people back. So I think

926
00:51:52,106 --> 00:51:53,466
no KYC is

927
00:51:53,466 --> 00:51:56,326
very important for that application.

928
00:51:56,666 --> 00:51:58,186
And then for the AI agents, it's super

929
00:51:58,186 --> 00:52:00,226
important. Again, because if they don't

930
00:52:00,226 --> 00:52:01,426
have identity, it's just

931
00:52:01,426 --> 00:52:04,246
fundamentally, they need

932
00:52:04,246 --> 00:52:06,166
no KYC. So to me,

933
00:52:06,306 --> 00:52:08,346
there are many important reasons for

934
00:52:08,346 --> 00:52:09,486
no KYC

935
00:52:09,486 --> 00:52:12,166
and not just

936
00:52:12,166 --> 00:52:14,246
sort of down-of-the-state privacy reasons.

937
00:52:16,126 --> 00:52:17,626
And that's why it really

938
00:52:17,626 --> 00:52:19,246
just scales to

939
00:52:19,666 --> 00:52:25,786
everyone. People don't walk around thinking, oh, I need no KYC in my life. But it impacts everyone.

940
00:52:25,906 --> 00:52:32,106
It's important. And then that leads to why are trust-minimized systems very important?

941
00:52:32,566 --> 00:52:37,006
Which just gets all the way back to why do we work on Lightning and LDK at Spiral?

942
00:52:38,586 --> 00:52:45,386
Because it's a very trust-minimized system. If you're running a Lightning node, I'm running a

943
00:52:45,386 --> 00:52:52,986
Lightning node, I don't have to trust you. You can't steal my money. I mean, there's a few areas,

944
00:52:53,106 --> 00:52:58,126
like if I'm offline and then maybe then you could try to steal, but overall, it's a very trust

945
00:52:58,126 --> 00:53:05,826
minimized system. And so that's why I think it's worth continuing to invest in Lightning or any

946
00:53:05,826 --> 00:53:13,126
technology that minimizes trust. Some of the other newer payment protocols, I really like them as a

947
00:53:13,126 --> 00:53:18,606
recipe. They make smart trade-offs and I think they're valuable for the ecosystem, but they are

948
00:53:18,606 --> 00:53:24,766
more trusted. And some of them are going with the no KYC approach now. And I think that's great.

949
00:53:26,106 --> 00:53:32,606
I'm glad they're doing that. How long will it last? I don't know. When will the state crack

950
00:53:32,606 --> 00:53:36,706
down on some of these out there ecosystems? And I think it's a matter of time. I mean,

951
00:53:36,806 --> 00:53:41,826
I think it's like three to five years away. It won't really be an issue until they become really

952
00:53:41,826 --> 00:53:43,766
popular or there's a lot of

953
00:53:43,766 --> 00:53:45,886
illegal activity through it,

954
00:53:45,926 --> 00:53:47,686
that's when it gets the attention of regulators. But

955
00:53:47,686 --> 00:53:49,566
ultimately, I think it will

956
00:53:49,566 --> 00:53:51,866
fail at that. It will

957
00:53:51,866 --> 00:53:53,946
then require KYC. And then all of a

958
00:53:53,946 --> 00:53:55,686
sudden, all these cool, interesting,

959
00:53:55,886 --> 00:53:57,826
valuable application categories we

960
00:53:57,826 --> 00:53:59,646
just mentioned won't be possible with them anymore.

961
00:53:59,946 --> 00:54:01,586
So it's very important from a developer

962
00:54:01,586 --> 00:54:03,846
and protocol perspective to

963
00:54:03,846 --> 00:54:05,566
keep investing

964
00:54:05,566 --> 00:54:07,586
in trust-minimized systems, even if

965
00:54:07,586 --> 00:54:09,766
people are saying things are

966
00:54:09,766 --> 00:54:11,526
dead, failed, or whatever.

967
00:54:11,826 --> 00:54:13,066
We got to keep working at it.

968
00:54:13,226 --> 00:54:13,366
Yeah.

969
00:54:14,606 --> 00:54:18,686
And I mean, I had the conversation recorded with Kyle Olney in here yesterday.

970
00:54:18,826 --> 00:54:23,786
It was really on the tip of the spear in terms of Save Our Wallets campaign, ensuring that

971
00:54:23,786 --> 00:54:30,366
we get the ability to, developers like yourself and everybody working at Spiral and other open

972
00:54:30,366 --> 00:54:34,906
source projects across space have the ability to write open source code and not be held

973
00:54:34,906 --> 00:54:37,266
liable for what their end users do.

974
00:54:37,266 --> 00:54:46,866
And I completely agree, based off the trade-off, some of these other secondary solutions are making, or sub-network solutions are making.

975
00:54:47,926 --> 00:54:48,406
Subsystem.

976
00:54:48,546 --> 00:54:49,566
Subsystem, excuse me.

977
00:54:50,046 --> 00:54:55,626
Are making the state will eventually be like, hey, you got a KYC.

978
00:54:55,626 --> 00:55:06,446
And we've seen it with FinCEN Treasury coming out with guidelines like, hey, they want to sort of connect PII with Bitcoin addresses and try to make it so wallets.

979
00:55:07,266 --> 00:55:10,226
are doing the job of the state collecting this information.

980
00:55:10,226 --> 00:55:14,366
And it's just like, it's so demoralizing, number one.

981
00:55:14,366 --> 00:55:18,106
But two, it's infuriating because it's like, are we free?

982
00:55:18,366 --> 00:55:19,226
Are we free?

983
00:55:19,226 --> 00:55:20,526
Do we live and live in a free country?

984
00:55:20,526 --> 00:55:28,526
But broader point being once if and when manifesting positivity here,

985
00:55:29,306 --> 00:55:32,526
we get the blockchain regulatory

986
00:55:32,568 --> 00:55:34,588
Clarity Act in the market structure

987
00:55:34,588 --> 00:55:36,688
bill and it's the way we need it to be

988
00:55:36,688 --> 00:55:38,528
which protects individual

989
00:55:38,528 --> 00:55:40,708
developers and individual users and their

990
00:55:40,708 --> 00:55:41,908
ability to self-custody.

991
00:55:42,388 --> 00:55:44,628
Next battle has to be repeal the Bank Secrecy

992
00:55:44,628 --> 00:55:46,248
Act. It is insane that we have to have

993
00:55:46,248 --> 00:55:48,708
this conversation and go through these mental

994
00:55:48,708 --> 00:55:50,588
cycles, go through all the costs, go through

995
00:55:50,588 --> 00:55:52,668
the UX hurdles just because

996
00:55:52,668 --> 00:55:54,528
they want to force this ineffective

997
00:55:54,528 --> 00:55:56,668
sort of

998
00:55:56,668 --> 00:55:58,888
data aggregation system on us.

999
00:55:59,488 --> 00:56:00,748
Since you brought that up, I'll

1000
00:56:00,748 --> 00:56:07,088
I've tweeted this before, but like Spiral will offer a grant to someone who wants like,

1001
00:56:07,088 --> 00:56:13,728
and this would probably be like a, like a lawyer or policy type person. So it's, it's not,

1002
00:56:13,868 --> 00:56:19,048
we have not given a grant to a lawyer or policy person before, but we would totally would with

1003
00:56:19,048 --> 00:56:24,568
the project being something like, imagine the world without the BSA. So imagine a world where

1004
00:56:24,568 --> 00:56:30,848
it is repealed, but also imagine like the real world where there are like legitimate

1005
00:56:30,848 --> 00:56:37,048
policy issues that need to be addressed somehow, like, you know, anti-terrorism and AML type

1006
00:56:37,048 --> 00:56:37,248
stuff.

1007
00:56:37,348 --> 00:56:42,388
So let's say we have to address those, but we get a start from scratch.

1008
00:56:42,928 --> 00:56:46,628
And let's learn, what have we learned in the past 50 years with the BSA?

1009
00:56:46,868 --> 00:56:51,428
What have we learned with new technologies and like incorporate the fact that Bitcoin

1010
00:56:51,428 --> 00:56:57,188
exists and that there'll be an AI exists in these technologies and just start from scratch and

1011
00:56:57,188 --> 00:57:07,188
develop a new policy that's credible. I think that would be a really awesome project because

1012
00:57:07,188 --> 00:57:14,048
it also gives Bitcoiners more credibility if you are in DC talking to regulators or politicians,

1013
00:57:14,208 --> 00:57:18,468
whatever. Because if you just go in there and rant, then they're not going to listen to you.

1014
00:57:18,468 --> 00:57:21,448
even if that's your view and that's what you want,

1015
00:57:21,608 --> 00:57:23,048
you're not going to win that argument.

1016
00:57:23,668 --> 00:57:26,228
But if, I think it does two things.

1017
00:57:26,348 --> 00:57:29,508
One, in the somewhat remote possibility

1018
00:57:29,508 --> 00:57:30,808
that the BSA would be revealed,

1019
00:57:30,928 --> 00:57:33,128
well then, okay, here's a credible alternative

1020
00:57:33,128 --> 00:57:38,848
that we've thought about and would be pro-society,

1021
00:57:38,988 --> 00:57:42,228
pro-American, and ultimately like everyone in the world

1022
00:57:42,228 --> 00:57:43,868
and pro-technology, et cetera.

1023
00:57:43,868 --> 00:57:58,128
But secondly, even for the nitty gritty, like we're debating the Clarity Act or whatever, like incremental changes we're either wanting to see happen in legislation or things we don't want to see happen.

1024
00:57:58,388 --> 00:58:06,168
If we have this body of work to fall back on, it can influence, I think, these other more smaller year to year decisions.

1025
00:58:07,188 --> 00:58:08,188
So this is many cases.

1026
00:58:09,288 --> 00:58:12,968
Spiral would give a grant for anyone who wants to work in something in that vein.

1027
00:58:12,968 --> 00:58:15,088
I know there's many esteemed lawyers in the audience.

1028
00:58:15,428 --> 00:58:19,308
Okay, please do your duty to Bitcoin in your nation.

1029
00:58:19,648 --> 00:58:21,068
It is insane.

1030
00:58:22,988 --> 00:58:28,968
Number one, how much friction it adds to any interaction you have with financial applications.

1031
00:58:29,748 --> 00:58:31,688
And then number two, how completely ineffective it is.

1032
00:58:31,888 --> 00:58:32,888
It's not stopping.

1033
00:58:33,068 --> 00:58:41,288
Well, like we briefly mentioned at the beginning of the show, the de minimis tax and like Blox doing a marketing campaign in DC right now around that.

1034
00:58:41,288 --> 00:58:55,476
And we talking about spending Bitcoin Well I mean right now in the US and I think many other countries but certainly the U S it treated as a capital gains Um when you when you when

1035
00:58:55,476 --> 00:59:03,116
you buy a coffee and it's kind of ridiculous, right? So the proposal is like a $600 de minima.

1036
00:59:03,176 --> 00:59:08,896
So if your payment is under $600, you don't have to pay taxes. It's too low. Sorry. It's too low.

1037
00:59:08,896 --> 00:59:20,796
to a little bit of inside let's think big uh yeah i i agree but so a little bit of um context

1038
00:59:20,796 --> 00:59:30,816
uh senator lammas uh original bill i think was 300 um there uh are other cryptocurrency

1039
00:59:30,816 --> 00:59:35,476
stakeholders that I've heard are pushing for $50.

1040
00:59:37,696 --> 00:59:38,376
Scumbag.

1041
00:59:38,476 --> 00:59:39,856
Which is completely ridiculous.

1042
00:59:40,736 --> 00:59:47,276
To the degree that's true, I've got to think that is like companies that have a vested

1043
00:59:47,276 --> 00:59:48,596
interest in stable coins.

1044
00:59:49,656 --> 00:59:54,916
And so that's really just, that's throwing Bitcoin into the bus to do a $50 de minimis.

1045
00:59:54,916 --> 00:59:57,996
so in that context

1046
00:59:57,996 --> 01:00:00,776
600 is a lot better than 300 or 50

1047
01:00:00,776 --> 01:00:04,756
but I agree that it should be

1048
01:00:04,756 --> 01:00:06,356
ideally a lot higher

1049
01:00:06,356 --> 01:00:08,556
we're taking the wins that we can get

1050
01:00:08,556 --> 01:00:12,876
it's arguably a big win over

1051
01:00:12,876 --> 01:00:14,836
or it is a big win over what we have now

1052
01:00:14,836 --> 01:00:18,856
arguably is maybe the best that can be achieved

1053
01:00:18,856 --> 01:00:20,836
and we haven't achieved it yet either so we'll see

1054
01:00:20,836 --> 01:00:23,916
but a problem with the BSA and everything

1055
01:00:23,916 --> 01:00:25,776
since then is that

1056
01:00:25,776 --> 01:00:28,216
the way they're written into either

1057
01:00:28,216 --> 01:00:29,576
law or regulations is

1058
01:00:29,576 --> 01:00:31,736
a fixed amount of dollars.

1059
01:00:31,936 --> 01:00:33,856
As certainly all Bitcoiners know,

1060
01:00:34,056 --> 01:00:35,156
inflation, right?

1061
01:00:35,276 --> 01:00:38,056
What a $3,000

1062
01:00:38,056 --> 01:00:39,876
limit in the 70s was

1063
01:00:39,876 --> 01:00:41,736
is way different than today.

1064
01:00:42,056 --> 01:00:44,316
$3,000 in the 70s was a substantial

1065
01:00:44,316 --> 01:00:45,936
amount of money, so it might have seemed like

1066
01:00:45,936 --> 01:00:47,876
a reasonable limit or whatever the limit is.

1067
01:00:47,996 --> 01:00:50,096
$3,000 when you have to report certain

1068
01:00:50,096 --> 01:00:52,336
transactions or whatever. And now all of a sudden

1069
01:00:52,336 --> 01:00:53,936
And it's like, well, that's like a...

1070
01:00:53,936 --> 01:00:54,536
It's pretty common.

1071
01:00:54,676 --> 01:00:56,476
That's like a nice bicycle or something.

1072
01:00:56,676 --> 01:00:59,056
I mean, it's not like buying a house.

1073
01:01:00,416 --> 01:01:04,176
So that de minimis tax will be...

1074
01:01:04,176 --> 01:01:04,376
Yeah.

1075
01:01:04,496 --> 01:01:07,756
So some Bitcoiners want it denominated in Bitcoin as well,

1076
01:01:07,836 --> 01:01:10,336
which, again, I philosophically agree with.

1077
01:01:10,396 --> 01:01:11,396
I mean, I agree with that.

1078
01:01:11,456 --> 01:01:13,576
It's just like, is that practical?

1079
01:01:15,176 --> 01:01:17,156
I know we got to get going here soon.

1080
01:01:17,156 --> 01:01:26,336
But, I mean, on this note, too, BSA privacy, like on-chain privacy, too, I think everybody's like, oh, that's a big narrative.

1081
01:01:26,436 --> 01:01:29,256
There's a bunch of people in Silicon Valley trying to pump Zcash right now.

1082
01:01:29,516 --> 01:01:31,016
Looking at you, Naval Balaji.

1083
01:01:31,316 --> 01:01:31,876
We see it.

1084
01:01:32,156 --> 01:01:33,536
They're like, Bitcoin's not private enough.

1085
01:01:34,396 --> 01:01:42,156
It certainly has its pitfalls on-chain when it comes to privacy, but it's not impossible.

1086
01:01:42,156 --> 01:01:47,016
And one thing I want to make sure I ask you about is PayJoin development kit.

1087
01:01:47,156 --> 01:01:54,996
like making the case for PayJoin at a large level, particularly at exchanges,

1088
01:01:55,456 --> 01:02:10,164
because it improve on privacy by messing with the chain surveillance heuristics that exist But just as importantly maybe more importantly for these exchanges creates efficiencies in terms of being able to batch

1089
01:02:10,264 --> 01:02:11,864
And so it can be positioned that way too.

1090
01:02:12,104 --> 01:02:12,364
Yes.

1091
01:02:12,484 --> 01:02:15,844
Depending, I think, how you position that technology and project,

1092
01:02:16,104 --> 01:02:17,744
you want to know your audience.

1093
01:02:17,744 --> 01:02:24,504
But I've always liked PageJoin and big credit to Dan Gold,

1094
01:02:24,644 --> 01:02:27,164
who's carried that torch for many years now.

1095
01:02:27,504 --> 01:02:28,364
Thankless torch carrying.

1096
01:02:28,364 --> 01:02:29,524
Thankless torch carrying.

1097
01:02:29,884 --> 01:02:31,724
And no one else is really working on it.

1098
01:02:33,064 --> 01:02:35,564
I like when it was first.

1099
01:02:35,684 --> 01:02:39,264
I forget when it was even originally thought of.

1100
01:02:39,484 --> 01:02:42,304
But I like the trade-offs from the get-go.

1101
01:02:42,444 --> 01:02:43,664
But then, yeah, no one was working on it.

1102
01:02:43,724 --> 01:02:45,204
But he started working on it.

1103
01:02:45,344 --> 01:02:48,864
And now there's a really healthy set of developers working on it.

1104
01:02:48,964 --> 01:02:50,144
Spiral funds it in a big way.

1105
01:02:50,264 --> 01:02:52,244
We're big believers in it.

1106
01:02:53,884 --> 01:02:55,944
Starting with, well, why is it attractive?

1107
01:02:55,944 --> 01:03:00,304
I think it's like, there's a couple different versions of PayJoin now too.

1108
01:03:00,404 --> 01:03:05,164
So I'll start with like the one that is implemented today and integrated into some wallets.

1109
01:03:05,384 --> 01:03:09,304
I feel like it's a very practical and pragmatic solution.

1110
01:03:10,044 --> 01:03:11,664
It's not overly complex.

1111
01:03:11,944 --> 01:03:17,084
It also, it doesn't require like the whole ecosystem to adopt it for everyone to benefit.

1112
01:03:17,824 --> 01:03:25,924
Because you only need, I don't know what the threshold is, but as long as there's just like a nominal amount of usage of it,

1113
01:03:25,944 --> 01:03:29,964
it benefits everyone because it destroys the common input heuristic,

1114
01:03:30,204 --> 01:03:35,604
which chain analysis heavily depends upon and is very successful at right now

1115
01:03:35,604 --> 01:03:40,564
because pretty much it's a good heuristic right now to identify,

1116
01:03:41,244 --> 01:03:45,044
like help identify everyone's coins into,

1117
01:03:45,184 --> 01:03:49,204
oh, these are all these coins which are disparate or actually all from your wallet.

1118
01:03:49,464 --> 01:03:51,744
If you can break that common input heuristic,

1119
01:03:52,304 --> 01:03:54,444
it really destroys that level of analysis.

1120
01:03:54,444 --> 01:03:56,524
and PayJoin does that.

1121
01:03:56,964 --> 01:03:57,644
And as you mentioned,

1122
01:03:57,764 --> 01:04:01,524
PayJoin also has a benefit of batching.

1123
01:04:02,264 --> 01:04:03,524
And if I'm the receiver,

1124
01:04:03,804 --> 01:04:05,504
if I'm a merchant and you're paying me,

1125
01:04:05,604 --> 01:04:06,944
I'm incentivized to do it

1126
01:04:06,944 --> 01:04:09,424
because I actually get to consolidate my UTXOs

1127
01:04:09,424 --> 01:04:11,904
as part of that transaction.

1128
01:04:12,884 --> 01:04:15,944
So I think it has a number of attractive properties.

1129
01:04:15,944 --> 01:04:16,664
It improves.

1130
01:04:17,264 --> 01:04:19,044
It's not a silver bullet for privacy,

1131
01:04:19,244 --> 01:04:20,604
but it definitely improves privacy.

1132
01:04:21,084 --> 01:04:22,824
You don't need the whole ecosystem to adopt it.

1133
01:04:22,824 --> 01:04:24,504
so I think it's very

1134
01:04:24,504 --> 01:04:25,884
very promising

1135
01:04:25,884 --> 01:04:27,084
then there's

1136
01:04:27,084 --> 01:04:29,464
PayJoin v3

1137
01:04:29,464 --> 01:04:30,424
which is like

1138
01:04:30,424 --> 01:04:32,224
a much more advanced

1139
01:04:32,224 --> 01:04:33,144
version of it

1140
01:04:33,144 --> 01:04:34,324
Yuval Kogman

1141
01:04:34,324 --> 01:04:35,884
he goes by nothing much

1142
01:04:35,884 --> 01:04:37,044
on most of his

1143
01:04:37,044 --> 01:04:37,964
online handles

1144
01:04:37,964 --> 01:04:39,364
he's on the

1145
01:04:39,364 --> 01:04:40,244
he's a full-time member

1146
01:04:40,244 --> 01:04:41,104
of the Spiral team

1147
01:04:41,104 --> 01:04:41,984
and super

1148
01:04:41,984 --> 01:04:43,544
super sharp guy

1149
01:04:43,544 --> 01:04:44,964
really passionate

1150
01:04:44,964 --> 01:04:45,624
about privacy

1151
01:04:45,624 --> 01:04:47,944
and he

1152
01:04:47,944 --> 01:04:48,724
he

1153
01:04:48,724 --> 01:04:50,084
used to contribute

1154
01:04:50,084 --> 01:04:51,084
to Wasabi

1155
01:04:51,084 --> 01:04:51,844
he's sort of the

1156
01:04:51,844 --> 01:04:56,844
architect behind that so yeah he has a lot of um experience from that and he learned a lot of

1157
01:04:56,844 --> 01:05:01,144
things from that too and things he didn't really like about what was created at the time and and

1158
01:05:01,144 --> 01:05:05,784
and he so he has a lot of ideas on how to improve it that ultimately so he's working on a project

1159
01:05:05,784 --> 01:05:14,484
called fungi which was that like um and it's really multi-party um uh coin joins and but

1160
01:05:14,484 --> 01:05:30,252
he worked with dan gold and other p join contributors in that project to fold it into the PayJoin project So now payjoin v3 is that vision because payjoin is just two Like you paying me and we both put UTXOs as inputs into the transaction

1161
01:05:30,792 --> 01:05:34,192
But with payjoin v3, it can be more than two.

1162
01:05:34,772 --> 01:05:37,392
Is this similar to what Dusty Damon was?

1163
01:05:37,752 --> 01:05:42,512
I talked to him at Bitcoin++ earlier this year and he was saying like a payjoin protocol

1164
01:05:42,512 --> 01:05:45,272
where you could sort of have a gossip network.

1165
01:05:45,592 --> 01:05:48,752
looking at lightning channels and what they're rebalancing?

1166
01:05:49,752 --> 01:05:50,232
Probably.

1167
01:05:50,652 --> 01:05:52,472
I don't know exactly what he's referring to.

1168
01:05:52,752 --> 01:05:53,732
I think it was an idea.

1169
01:05:53,832 --> 01:05:54,832
I don't think he implemented anything,

1170
01:05:55,012 --> 01:05:56,712
but in the context of splicing,

1171
01:05:56,852 --> 01:05:58,052
it was like, yeah, page one can be implemented.

1172
01:05:58,272 --> 01:05:59,112
It's similar to that.

1173
01:05:59,412 --> 01:06:00,452
It sounds similar.

1174
01:06:00,772 --> 01:06:03,192
So that's still R&D mode,

1175
01:06:03,472 --> 01:06:04,892
but that'll be coming.

1176
01:06:05,132 --> 01:06:08,592
And then that takes the privacy to another level.

1177
01:06:08,812 --> 01:06:11,172
It's a lot more challenging for that to be successful,

1178
01:06:11,332 --> 01:06:12,352
but if it is successful,

1179
01:06:12,352 --> 01:06:14,372
there has to be a very high volume,

1180
01:06:14,372 --> 01:06:17,792
not a payment's willing to do that so that you don't have too much

1181
01:06:17,792 --> 01:06:23,012
latency with your payments. Like channel rebalancing is like a perfect thing to

1182
01:06:23,012 --> 01:06:28,472
put into that, right? Right. Yep. So in any case, but back to what you're saying, like getting

1183
01:06:28,472 --> 01:06:32,652
people to adopt it, I think getting mobile wallets to adopt it is

1184
01:06:32,652 --> 01:06:37,192
relatively easy. I mean, it's always a prioritization game.

1185
01:06:37,192 --> 01:06:41,272
Yep. Cake wallet as well. Getting

1186
01:06:41,272 --> 01:06:43,192
exchanges too. I think

1187
01:06:43,192 --> 01:06:44,472
most likely

1188
01:06:44,472 --> 01:06:47,272
to succeed, you have to go in

1189
01:06:47,272 --> 01:06:48,832
with the save

1190
01:06:48,832 --> 01:06:51,532
efficiency, save transaction fees

1191
01:06:51,532 --> 01:06:53,172
angle. We're looking out for shareholders

1192
01:06:53,172 --> 01:06:55,372
here. We're looking out for shareholders.

1193
01:06:55,712 --> 01:06:56,352
Yeah. And

1194
01:06:56,352 --> 01:06:59,212
it's definitely

1195
01:06:59,212 --> 01:07:01,252
worth the effort to make

1196
01:07:01,252 --> 01:07:03,032
that sales pitch and get it to happen.

1197
01:07:03,372 --> 01:07:05,152
So that sales pitch

1198
01:07:05,152 --> 01:07:07,052
will happen within Block, but

1199
01:07:07,052 --> 01:07:08,472
within other companies too.

1200
01:07:08,652 --> 01:07:09,632
We'll see.

1201
01:07:09,632 --> 01:07:12,652
I mean, these companies have compliance departments,

1202
01:07:12,892 --> 01:07:15,572
so unclear how they'll respond to it.

1203
01:07:16,312 --> 01:07:18,072
Just using the Bitcoin protocol in a more efficient way.

1204
01:07:18,312 --> 01:07:19,092
Why don't you want to do that?

1205
01:07:19,312 --> 01:07:20,592
Yeah, there is power.

1206
01:07:20,932 --> 01:07:24,372
My observation for speaking with lots of compliance teams,

1207
01:07:24,492 --> 01:07:25,632
not just Block, but many others,

1208
01:07:26,112 --> 01:07:29,472
is that the more something is part of the protocol,

1209
01:07:29,552 --> 01:07:30,572
it's part of the open protocol.

1210
01:07:31,232 --> 01:07:32,952
Everyone's doing it as part of the open protocol.

1211
01:07:33,632 --> 01:07:34,452
That does help.

1212
01:07:35,112 --> 01:07:35,672
That does help.

1213
01:07:36,872 --> 01:07:38,752
I've been on this pay join journey for years.

1214
01:07:38,752 --> 01:07:40,272
Dan, thank you for your work.

1215
01:07:41,372 --> 01:07:43,352
Exchanges, seriously consider it.

1216
01:07:43,532 --> 01:07:47,852
I think this is one of the lowest hanging fruits,

1217
01:07:47,992 --> 01:07:53,152
highest leverage tech implementations

1218
01:07:53,152 --> 01:07:55,752
at the protocol level that everybody can make in the space.

1219
01:07:56,612 --> 01:07:58,272
Steve, we got to get going.

1220
01:07:58,452 --> 01:08:01,072
Any final thoughts, parting notes for the audience out there?

1221
01:08:01,492 --> 01:08:02,392
No, thanks for having me on.

1222
01:08:03,012 --> 01:08:08,452
I'd say that people should remain optimistic on Bitcoin

1223
01:08:08,452 --> 01:08:09,872
even the price is going down

1224
01:08:09,872 --> 01:08:10,572
even if

1225
01:08:10,572 --> 01:08:11,872
they're not happy

1226
01:08:11,872 --> 01:08:12,532
whether lightning is

1227
01:08:12,532 --> 01:08:13,312
out of mobile phones

1228
01:08:13,312 --> 01:08:14,112
there's just a lot of

1229
01:08:14,112 --> 01:08:15,052
promising stuff ahead

1230
01:08:15,052 --> 01:08:15,532
so

1231
01:08:15,532 --> 01:08:17,152
everyone keep their spirits up

1232
01:08:17,152 --> 01:08:18,312
we're gonna win

1233
01:08:18,312 --> 01:08:19,232
we're gonna win

1234
01:08:19,232 --> 01:08:20,132
peace and love

1235
01:08:20,132 --> 01:08:20,452
yeah

1236
01:08:20,452 --> 01:08:21,852
that's your email signature

1237
01:08:21,852 --> 01:08:23,052
I just noticed

1238
01:08:23,052 --> 01:08:23,852
some people

1239
01:08:23,852 --> 01:08:24,532
some people don't

1240
01:08:24,532 --> 01:08:25,792
some people don't think

1241
01:08:25,792 --> 01:08:26,272
it's a signature

1242
01:08:26,272 --> 01:08:27,132
after the first email

1243
01:08:27,132 --> 01:08:27,552
and they think

1244
01:08:27,552 --> 01:08:28,152
I'm just writing it

1245
01:08:28,152 --> 01:08:29,432
and get a thread

1246
01:08:29,432 --> 01:08:30,812
that's your signature

1247
01:08:30,812 --> 01:08:31,852
that's great

1248
01:08:31,852 --> 01:08:32,332
we're gonna win

1249
01:08:32,332 --> 01:08:32,832
you gotta have that

1250
01:08:32,832 --> 01:08:33,652
irrational optimism

1251
01:08:33,652 --> 01:08:34,232
we're gonna win

1252
01:08:34,232 --> 01:08:35,612
peace and love freaks

1253
01:08:35,612 --> 01:08:36,172
the game