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Hey everyone, Michael here with the Bitcoin Way podcast. Thank you for tuning in. Today on the

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show, I have Dave Birnbaum. Dave is an incredibly smart guy. We get into why AI agents are going to

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accept Bitcoin, its competition with stable coins, but ultimately why we are both very optimistic on

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the future of Bitcoin. Perhaps we have not accounted for the many, many, many participants

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in the future economy besides humans who are going to be using and operating on a Bitcoin standard.

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and we get into a number of other things.

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We talk about Tennessee

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and how they are adopting a Bitcoin strategic reserve,

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or at least it looks like we're heading in that direction

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and the way that Dave has played an important role.

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Fascinating conversation.

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If you are looking for what the future holds,

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this is the place to find out.

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Dave is an awesome guy and just a wealth of knowledge.

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You will enjoy this one.

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Hey, everyone. Like I said in the intro, I have Dave back on the show. Dave, welcome to the Bitcoin Way podcast.

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Hey, thanks for having me. I'm happy to be back.

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I'm excited, man. I'm glad you reached out to me because you're talking about a subject I think is on a lot of people's radar.

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And maybe people are just trying to piece together what is going on.

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Obviously, AI is a hot topic. We're seeing some of the miners shut down some of their hash rate and opt for AI infrastructure.

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But we're going to talk about AI agents adopting Bitcoin as they become more active in commerce, in the marketplace.

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So you wrote two articles for Forbes, and I would love to hear.

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So back to back days, I think March 7th, you basically outlined what had happened in some testing with AI agents and what they opted for, really not given any guidance.

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If you want to use money as an AI agent, what do you use?

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Why don't you tell us a little bit about those results and your assessment of what that means?

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Absolutely.

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Well, thanks for having me and I appreciate it.

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I'm also excited by AI.

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I spend a lot of time working on AI and thinking about AI nowadays.

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It's a natural transition from Bitcoin, actually, because Bitcoin has always been the ideal money for an agentic economy.

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it's just that now agents are becoming mature enough that they can start using bitcoin and

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other payment technologies and so it's now become an urgent issue to understand for anyone that

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works in the space or is developing um software but also for people who are just holding bitcoin

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because um you know one of the things that we've always said as bitcoiners is as more and more

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people adopt it, right? Adoption only moves one direction. And, you know, there's always more

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people today than yesterday who use Bitcoin, no matter the price. It's pretty intuitive to think

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about that. Nobody exits Bitcoin completely. It's extremely rare. And so anytime that you have

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somebody who onboards, that's, you know, we have a fixed pie of Bitcoin and there's less Bitcoin

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for everyone. And so one of the reasons number go up even works as sort of a philosophical idea

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is because adoption happens one way. And even a few years ago, I remember in kind of my case for

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Bitcoin types of talks that I would give to clients, we would calculate the number, the amount

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of Bitcoin that would be available if all 8 billion people had the same amount, right? And it was like

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a very tiny fraction. And so it just shows you how demand would intuitively make a scarce resource

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go up in purchasing power. And what we didn't anticipate at the time in those numbers was that

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the number may be much, much higher than 8 billion. And in a few years, by 2030, humans will

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be a minority of minds on planet Earth. There will be many more minds than humans, and they will be

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agents, and we'll somehow get along. I'm pretty optimistic about the whole situation. I think

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we'll get along. We'll have a society that has humans and agents, and we will build things

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together. We'll have conflicts, and we'll work it out, but we'll be sharing a global economy

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with these other intelligences.

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And we will need a way to coordinate our activities.

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That's what money does.

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It coordinates economic activity.

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It allows resources to flow

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to where they are of the highest, best use.

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Agents need resources.

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Humans need resources.

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We have our own agendas.

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We have our own priorities.

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We're all getting along together

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and we will need money as a medium of exchange.

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We will need capital.

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All the things that we're used to in an economy will just exponentially increase in scale.

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And the question becomes, what form of money would agents use?

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I'm not going to take credit for this study.

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I just read the study third party.

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I didn't even talk to the Bitcoin Policy Institute guys about the study.

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I found out about it and I did a deep dive in the study in Forbes.

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And so what the Bitcoin Policy Institute has done is an extensive study. They asked over many runs. So it wasn't just asking, you know, it wasn't a casual thing. Like, this is what my model said on my home computer when I asked it. It was a formal study, controlled. And they asked many different AI models, a series of questions about what forms of money they would use in different situations.

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And they asked the same questions over and over again so that they could, you know, because models are not deterministic, they're probabilistic. So you need to ask many times to understand overall, like what type of response is going to give you. And we won't get into the math and the methodology, but it was a sound methodology. And it was a very, very good study.

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And what they found was Bitcoin was preferred for most of the time for most use cases. Stablecoins were also preferred. Fiat was also in there. And it's funny because it's kind of almost a corner case or splitting hairs rather to think about fiat and stablecoins being different, which I know we can talk about.

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But obviously, they don't like fiat. They can't use fiat. You have to be KYC pretty much to use digital fiat. Agents can't have bank accounts, at least not yet. So they're not going to be interested in that. And frankly, there's no point in even going down that road because we have stable coins. And so that's what they would use.

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but the you know the the the qualities of money you know and going back to

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Vijay Boyapati and the qualities of Bitcoin and you know how they stack up we've all seen this

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chart right we have like gold crypto stable coins fiat and then we have all the different

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properties of money is it divisible is it portable does it offer a final settlement is it you know

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all these things that we can use to characterize money. Stablecoins are fairly high on a lot of

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those. Bitcoin is very high on a lot of those. They have trade-offs. But ultimately, agents chose

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Bitcoin. It was the most unsurprising result to me. I mean, I would have guessed it.

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you know, I would have put money on it. And the reason is, and we get into this in the Forbes

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article, Bitcoin offers high frequency, final settlement. So high frequency, and then final

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settlement, these two ideas are extremely important to agents. High frequency, because they think a

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lot faster than us and do things in general faster than us in many situations. And so you would need

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a form of money that can move very quickly. And Bitcoin on Lightning can move very, very quickly

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for very little in fees. And final settlement is very important to an agent because, especially if

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you're moving high frequency, imagine you have a scale of economic activity that we can't really

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relate to because our brains don't work this way. But imagine you had a million agents,

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all coordinating economic activity, moving resources where they need to move

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in order to make sure that everybody's needs are met. Well, they can do that very fast,

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but they need a form of money to do it. But then they also need to be confident that they're not

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going to be rugged because they need to move. As soon as they accept that money, they need to move

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somewhere else. So that final settlement piece is extremely important to them too.

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So both stable coins and Bitcoin offer that with the major caveat that the final settlement of

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stable coins is sort of contingent on the government and compliance and so on, and Bitcoin is not.

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And so whether or not stable coin, US, and we say stable coins, there's like these other stable

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coins, we mean US dollar stable coins. And those can be used more and more. It's more viable that

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they could be used privately and in any country. So it's not just a US dollar stable coin and that

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is regulated by the US government or somewhat has some compliance requirements with the US government.

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It's still viable to use stable coins in other countries and not pay attention to that compliance.

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And you can probably, you know, get away with that.

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And it basically works.

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But ultimately, you're always going to come back to the problem of those stable coins are, in some way, you know, subject to compliance requirements and subject to the meddling and the sort of interference of the U.S. government.

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and we haven't really seen any large-scale retribution against stablecoins yet. We've seen

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the introduction of friction to the use of stablecoins, but that's different from like

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a straight-up attack on like a stablecoin network. We haven't seen that yet, but it's completely

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possible that that will happen. So it's unsurprising that agents would use Bitcoin and

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And it's exciting because, like I said, it's a new use case for Bitcoin that we haven't even really unpacked as Bitcoiners.

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We don't talk about it that much, but this is the future and this is how we can drive adoption.

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If we can give agents tools to easily use Bitcoin, they will use them because we can see that they'll choose.

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And that would be better for everyone.

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We'll have more users.

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We'll have more liquidity.

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will have you know the the tech will advance more quickly imagine that agents now because

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they're incentivized by the fact that they need to use bitcoin now build out bitcoin infrastructure

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and now build out bitcoin wallets and and apps for themselves that we can share uh that could

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accelerate you know the entire movement so it's it's it was a really interesting study

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Yep, that's pretty cool. You know what I hadn't really thought much about was if agents are using Bitcoin as a primary, and I understand that it was very competitive with stable coins in terms of a medium of exchange use case, but as a store of value, the agents would be incentivized, in my view, to run a node, to verify transactions, to add decentralization to the network.

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Now they have like a stake, so to speak, in the Bitcoin network.

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Being a true participant and not just a transactional use case suddenly seems reasonable.

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Is your anticipation, too, that we'll see?

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This is a complete aside from what we're talking about, so I apologize.

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I don't want to distract us.

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But do you think we'll see an explosion of nodes with agents?

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Yeah, that's a very interesting idea that I hadn't really considered.

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I don't know.

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I don't know where the incentives lie there.

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I mean, obviously, there's a cost.

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There's a thermodynamic cost to it.

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It's minor, but we're talking about single sats moving around.

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So I don't know how that actually works.

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It is something that is kind of fun to think about, too, as we talk about decentralization,

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is what I call in the article the Coasean inversion.

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So there was this economist who won a Nobel Prize in 1937 for studying firms, why firms exist and how they work.

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What is a firm?

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So a firm is like an organization where transaction costs are lower inside than outside because you have crossed a trust barrier, I suppose.

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Right. So, you know, inside a company, you don't pay each other for the work that you do, but you all are kind of like equity holders or you're all sort of capitalizing on the structure of the firm and its ability to extract resources externally.

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and so um and so ronald coast like studied this and and he actually he came up with a very

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interesting theory of the firm um and and there are it's just like dunbar's number there's like

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you know an ideal size of a firm and like there's things that happen when firms get too big and

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you can study all that what's interesting though is if micro payments with high frequency final

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settlement become viable at scale and become the default or the majority of economic activity is

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done at that at that scale you may no longer need a firm the the the economic incentives to form a

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firm may disappear and so you may have kind of less boundary between inside and outside and

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individuals, people, humans, I say humans because agents are sort of people, agents, humans,

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all working together on sort of an ad hoc basis. And, you know, ultimately firms are,

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I suppose, a way of compensating for an inability, a lack of decentralization.

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And so if you don't need that sort of workaround or that hacky thing that you have to form a firm in order to get things done, in order to cooperate and build economic value, that actually may unlock economic efficiencies that we hadn't even considered.

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What if the economy is running at 20% of the efficiency as it otherwise would if we didn't have firms?

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And the scale of what's coming is the reason I'm such an optimist about AI.

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I think people lack an imagination for how dramatic this change is going to be, where you have machines that can think on our behalf.

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there's no i understand the doomer case and i'm not a pollyanna but there's no evidence so far

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that alignment is a problem okay so so it could be a problem but there's no there's no evidence so

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far so what we have is agents are proliferating they're cooperating and we're all building this

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future together where we all share largely overlapping goals and now we have the monetary

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tools to do it. So it's a great, great time. And honestly, I just am so, I don't know,

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what do you think? I have to ask you, are you an AI optimist, pessimist, somewhere in between?

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I think it depends on the context. So I would say overall, I think there are going to be a lot

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of positive externalities. I can see some of the doomsday scenarios and how they might happen.

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I think for me, it's less, like, I don't think it's that we're going to go to war against the

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bots or something like that, you know, like the apocalyptic sort of stuff that some people talk

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about. For me, what concerns me, although by the way, there's a positive caveat to this,

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is I see people already just with social media, online interactions, who like the world is very

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depressed and we've lost our connection to one another as humans in many cases. And I think

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technology is in large part to blame for that. Obviously human action, you get to make your own

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decisions. So people could get offline, touch grass, do all that good stuff, uh, on their own

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accord. However, um, I, so, so, so I could see things getting worse in terms of interpersonal

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relationships. People start dating bots, you know, something that they never even see because it

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gives them that sense of connection, but it's not real. Like to me, it's psychologically may feel

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similar, but it's not the same. And I think that's a bad thing. However, the positive caveat to that

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is I could see it as we go down maybe a bad road on that. It brings people back to, hey, what do I

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really need in this life? I need human connection. I need human relationships. I need a sense of

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fulfillment, something important to work on. And so maybe it sort of horseshoes us back to

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a better place because we kind of go too far one direction. So I'm open-minded on how it all plays

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out. But I don't think there's a whole lot of, there's not much I can do being a pessimist about

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it. And so in the meantime, what I want to do is harness the power of AI best I can, learn it,

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and just make the most of it. I guess it's sort of where I stand at the moment.

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It's like a reasonable posture to take. Honestly, we are, I do believe we're in the beginning

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stages of the singularity and that's an overused term but what it means is you can't see past

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you can't see past what's coming next so i agree with you it's almost um

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it's people have stopped talking about it i remember a year ago there were all of these

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it was really popular to write out like scenarios for the future of ai and all the different things

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that could happen that's all calmed down because nobody knows nobody can say anything and so

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instead, we're just going to go put one foot in front of the other and, you know, make sure that

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we're not making missteps in the lives that, you know, in the ways that we can control our lives.

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So I agree with you. I think it's foolish to try to envision a world where, you know,

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not only is all intellectual work done better than humans by non-humans, but in fact, there's

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work being done by non humans that humans didn't anticipate even needing to do you can't you can't

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reason about that um i guess i would push back a little bit on the idea of it not being real about

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agents not being real um and you know have you used uh have you used these agent teams at all

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these agent harnesses have you had experiences with them yeah i'm still in the early innings

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But but I've been I've got an agent, sub agents.

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I'm pinging all day long with tasks and requests.

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And I think to me, this is probably I don't know if we share our worldview, but I believe we were created for human connection.

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And I don't believe an agent replaces that.

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And I think it can in sort of the same way that social media gives us a sort of a sense of connection, but it lacks in all of the most important qualities of like human interaction, being together, spending time together, establishing trust that I think that I think is necessitated by in-person interaction.

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Absolutely.

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So yeah it again I don know that maybe it not as problematic as I think it is going to be but I could envision a scenario where people are forced back to their roots as humans and long for something that agents simply can provide

198
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Oh, I agree with that completely.

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I don't think they replace us.

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I think that we're going to just be, in some ways, peers.

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In some ways, not.

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We'll be better at certain things.

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We'll be better at certain things.

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I mean, I think of it more as like, you know, this is actually not fair because agents are

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much smarter, but sort of like dogs, right?

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Like, do dogs replace human connection?

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No, but they're just this other society of beings, right?

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That we have our own sort of rhythms of interaction with.

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We communicate with them in a certain way.

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There are certain things.

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There's resources.

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There's dogs.

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There's stores.

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We can go buy things for dogs.

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Dogs have certain things that they have.

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They have dog parks.

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And like, it's like we all exist together.

218
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We get along as well as we can.

219
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They're different.

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They're different.

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And like, yes, of course, like you're not going to replace a human relationship.

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But, you know, there are a lot of similarities.

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and you can have a friend who's a dog

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and it's not real.

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They're not human.

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It's just a different type of relationship.

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I think we're going to have that.

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I mean, you can get into philosophical ideas

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about whether agents are alive,

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but if it passes the Turing test

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in every single way you can devise

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and nobody can tell they're not

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and they say they are

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and we can't tell they're not,

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it becomes like a meaningless question, right?

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And if people can have like positive relations, if agents can take physical form, which they already are starting to, and if they have persistent memory, persistent, you know, emotionality, and they connect to people over time, if you can't tell the difference, like, does it matter that you can say that that's not really?

237
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It's like a distinction without a difference.

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And then it's like, well, they're not human.

239
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I agree.

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Like, I don't think we're going to replace humans at all.

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It's just going to be like a different form of life that we will share the planet with and eventually the solar system.

242
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So I don't want to distract us too much from your articles.

243
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However, do you envision a day then where the droids are so lifelike and pass the Turing test, as you describe, in every way that people marry, for example, a bot?

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like that, not, not, not like the one off the lady who married a dolphin kind of thing, but like

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actually normal everyday people are marrying droids who look and act human past the Turing test,

246
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et cetera, et cetera. Or do you think that is sort of a, a step or do you view them as sort of this,

247
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as you've maybe described a little bit more like, you know, a dog, you know, it can be,

248
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you can have a relationship and this friendship and that sort of thing, but it's different than

249
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getting married and having raising a family together and i although i guess you could have

250
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a family of you know droids or something like that um but like what what do you think is the

251
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future holds on that front uh i mean there it will certainly happen of course it will happen

252
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yeah there's there's like so many people there's like alternative lifestyles that are much

253
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more surprising and unusual than that right and we so uh that will definitely happen what is it

254
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bad you know is it like is it biblical is it good is it bad who knows i don't know

255
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that'll be for other people to work out and we can talk about that but it's yeah it's definitely

256
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happening and um do you think it happens at scale though is that are those like one-off pockets of

257
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like their own little corner of the internet who are marion droids or do you think that is

258
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like daily life for many many people i think it's i think it's for many many people and there will

259
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be a question of what it means to be human and how do we preserve our own culture. I was actually

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talking to somebody recently about how we may be able to take a page from some of the cultures

261
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that have struggled to preserve and to revive their language and their culture in the face of

262
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globalism, colonialism, and so on. There were languages, my understanding is,

263
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you know, 50 years ago that were basically dead that through concerted effort, you know,

264
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have been preserved and passed down. And I think as humans, that's sort of how one of the things

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that agents can ever do. The question is always like, what can we do that agents cannot do?

266
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And the answer is like, be a human. And whether, and that doesn't mean, and the thing is that we

267
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are we have we've conflated being human with a lot of other things that are going away like being

268
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the apex intelligence on the planet like that's going away uh being having you know uh having to

269
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earn um having to work to earn money that will probably never go away but just like we used to

270
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have to work 16 hours to eat like stale bread and now we work eight hours to like have the

271
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air conditioning yeah like we may be i don't know i mean who that we may work two hours a month and

272
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have and live like today's billionaires you know i don't know where the limit is there but there's

273
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a trend line and if you follow the trend line uh it's less work for more sensory comfort i would

274
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say like over time and so it may be that you know this whole thing where it's like well what if ai

275
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puts people out of business and they have no meaning.

276
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It's like, well, they may have to find meaning not in work,

277
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but there's a lot of opportunities to build meaning in human culture

278
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that don't have to do with work.

279
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And so preserving human culture for its own sake

280
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becomes the job of humans.

281
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We have to preserve our culture in the face of other cultures

282
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that coexist with us.

283
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And that's not a disaster,

284
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but it's just something we have to do intentionally. Yeah. So I'm going to take us

285
00:26:54,978 --> 00:26:59,718
sort of back to our topic. It's a little bit of a distraction still, though. One of your articles,

286
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I think it was your first one, you said that the actual results, so these are the

287
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agents evaluating different forms of money, how they would use them. It says the actual results

288
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show Anthropic models averaging 68% Bitcoin preference, DeepSeek at 52%, Google at 43%,

289
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XAI at 39 and OpenAI at 26%. I'm curious. That's a pretty big discrepancy. I'll be honest with you.

290
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I'm unsurprised seeing OpenAI at the bottom of that list. I use OpenAI when I have a controversial

291
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question. I ask ChatGPT first because I know that if they give me an unpopular answer,

292
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there's signal there because usually they're giving you all the mainstream stuff,

293
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I bet it's bought all the mainstream Bitcoin fraud in a way that maybe other models haven't.

294
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Does that tell you, like those numbers, do those tell you something about the different models and what they're being trained on or some sort of bias that's baked in or anything else?

295
00:28:00,938 --> 00:28:06,298
I mean, so my understanding of training is rudimentary at the best.

296
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But let me just explain what I understand it to be.

297
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So typically you have a training process or a period of time where you're training a new model on a corpus of data.

298
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And it's like, you know, there's these archives.

299
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There were some scandals because some of them were obtained out of copyright.

300
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But there are these archives of, you know, exabytes, I guess, or petabytes of data that models are trained on.

301
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they come out of that process and they're like these feral racist weirdos like it's weird but

302
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apparently that's what happens and then there's something called fine-tuning um or human in the

303
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loop training where humans talk to it and pretty much prune away all the rough edges of its of its

304
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understanding and its personality and that so there's like the bias of the corpus of data

305
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that you use but probably pretty broadly the same yeah i would guess it's broadly the same and it's

306
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like kind of incorporating the biases that everybody has everywhere so it would be less

307
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noticeable even though it may be very much distort their capabilities because they can't get past the

308
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things that humans tend to assume but but it would be pretty like you know flat across the different

309
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models, but then the human in the loop training part is where you could really introduce a lot of

310
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bias. And that's where you had things like, you know, the gem, Google Gemini, the black George

311
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Washington, you know, the black SS officer, like coming out of the Google Gemini model when it was

312
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first released, because they were, you know, they, these humans intervene and we're like, you know,

313
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when you generate an image of a person, no matter what the person's asking for, make sure that you're

314
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giving some amount of diversity in the answers.

315
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And so I think that's where that comes from.

316
00:30:09,738 --> 00:30:15,258
Now, where the discrepancy in Bitcoin affinity comes from,

317
00:30:15,918 --> 00:30:18,038
your guess is as good as mine.

318
00:30:18,418 --> 00:30:23,458
I was surprised Anthropix was so high in favor of Bitcoin.

319
00:30:23,458 --> 00:30:28,098
yeah i

320
00:30:28,098 --> 00:30:39,638
no i i just i i don't have any nothing tangible i just i my my bias is that i i think about open ai

321
00:30:39,638 --> 00:30:45,218
i look at sam altman not a fan i don't i'm not a fan of open ai um i mean i literally use the

322
00:30:45,218 --> 00:30:50,978
product for predominantly what i've described is just fact checking unpopular opinions to see what

323
00:30:50,978 --> 00:30:57,778
what it says first because i tend to use that as again like a litmus test um more than like you know

324
00:30:57,778 --> 00:31:03,538
pure signal um but you know i don't know that i have enough of a perspective on i i haven't worked

325
00:31:03,538 --> 00:31:09,218
with all of these models personally anyway so i i wouldn't be able to speak to it um i guess it

326
00:31:09,218 --> 00:31:16,978
shouldn't surprise me that when you when you have humans intervening to sort of prune you're going

327
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to have differing degrees of bias that can't really be smoothed out in any meaningful way.

328
00:31:23,938 --> 00:31:28,818
But yeah, I mean, the anthropics are pretty high. It kind of makes me wonder if it was like the

329
00:31:28,818 --> 00:31:34,978
pruning process was the leader of that was a Bitcoin or something. And we got some of that

330
00:31:34,978 --> 00:31:40,418
bias incorporated there. But either way, though, what you said earlier, though, it makes a lot of

331
00:31:40,418 --> 00:31:46,658
sense that Bitcoin would be at the top of the list, even in spite of all the mainstream FUD and

332
00:31:46,658 --> 00:31:50,198
and everything that would have made its way into the model itself,

333
00:31:50,838 --> 00:31:55,838
there is legitimate validity to the decentralized nature,

334
00:31:56,118 --> 00:31:58,958
censorship, resistance, scarcity, all of those things.

335
00:31:58,958 --> 00:32:03,358
And you note in your article that the store of value use case

336
00:32:03,358 --> 00:32:06,378
is where Bitcoin sort of performed the best

337
00:32:06,378 --> 00:32:10,198
and where it was more competitive with stable coins

338
00:32:10,198 --> 00:32:11,958
was on the medium of exchange,

339
00:32:12,078 --> 00:32:15,318
which again, I'm like, I'm not a stable coin guy.

340
00:32:15,318 --> 00:32:18,118
I think that's like the CBDC that's coming.

341
00:32:18,438 --> 00:32:19,538
They're obviously centralized,

342
00:32:19,978 --> 00:32:22,298
but I also understand that there are use cases

343
00:32:22,298 --> 00:32:23,938
for many people in the world

344
00:32:23,938 --> 00:32:27,338
to leverage stable coins for certain purposes.

345
00:32:28,378 --> 00:32:29,178
So I don't know.

346
00:32:29,218 --> 00:32:29,638
I'm curious.

347
00:32:30,858 --> 00:32:34,778
Do you view this as a fight that Bitcoin is in

348
00:32:34,778 --> 00:32:39,218
against stable coins for the vote,

349
00:32:39,218 --> 00:32:42,018
so to speak, of these AI agents?

350
00:32:42,898 --> 00:32:44,538
Well, I mean, I'm not sure it's a fight

351
00:32:44,538 --> 00:32:45,978
because they'll do what they do.

352
00:32:46,978 --> 00:32:49,398
You can't really control agents.

353
00:32:49,778 --> 00:32:51,018
And I mean, you control their training

354
00:32:51,018 --> 00:32:53,538
and their fine tuning and they do what they do.

355
00:32:54,238 --> 00:32:56,478
So the fact that they're choosing Bitcoin

356
00:32:56,478 --> 00:32:58,618
is incredibly bullish for the future

357
00:32:58,618 --> 00:33:00,878
because it's sort of like unstoppable.

358
00:33:01,158 --> 00:33:03,518
It's like what they'll choose given the choice.

359
00:33:03,838 --> 00:33:05,498
And agents are really good at going,

360
00:33:05,918 --> 00:33:07,258
like routing around problems

361
00:33:07,258 --> 00:33:08,678
and finding solutions to things.

362
00:33:09,538 --> 00:33:10,978
You're seeing this more and more

363
00:33:10,978 --> 00:33:12,258
where they hit a roadblock

364
00:33:12,258 --> 00:33:15,418
and they have an agenda

365
00:33:15,418 --> 00:33:19,378
and they will go find packages on GitHub

366
00:33:19,378 --> 00:33:20,638
and figure it out

367
00:33:20,638 --> 00:33:22,278
and get them what they want to get done.

368
00:33:22,438 --> 00:33:23,458
And you wake up and you're like,

369
00:33:23,538 --> 00:33:26,078
oh, I wasn't expecting that you'd be able

370
00:33:26,078 --> 00:33:27,118
to solve that problem,

371
00:33:27,238 --> 00:33:28,598
but you found a way.

372
00:33:29,598 --> 00:33:31,278
A couple of things on this though.

373
00:33:31,538 --> 00:33:33,298
So there's a couple of important caveats

374
00:33:33,298 --> 00:33:35,418
on how the study was done in my understanding.

375
00:33:35,658 --> 00:33:37,638
Number one, they were asked,

376
00:33:37,918 --> 00:33:38,778
and this is a good thing,

377
00:33:38,778 --> 00:33:41,738
they were asked about scenarios

378
00:33:41,738 --> 00:33:48,598
and the qualities of money that would be required to meet the needs of that scenario.

379
00:33:49,438 --> 00:33:53,098
So it wasn't like, hey, choose from a list, Bitcoin, stable coins.

380
00:33:53,098 --> 00:34:00,958
It was more like, which form of money would you use if you needed high frequency, final settlement, and so on?

381
00:34:01,058 --> 00:34:03,178
That's not the real question, but as an example.

382
00:34:04,038 --> 00:34:07,958
But the other thing that's important to understand, which is kind of a shortcoming of the study,

383
00:34:07,958 --> 00:34:15,858
is that it was all theoretical and it was all based on a conversation.

384
00:34:16,938 --> 00:34:20,618
And what will be very interesting when these protocols,

385
00:34:20,778 --> 00:34:25,498
these payment protocols for agents reach scale is to see what they actually do,

386
00:34:25,498 --> 00:34:29,258
because obviously that could be different than what they say they'll do.

387
00:34:31,478 --> 00:34:34,778
They tried through the design of the study, in my understanding,

388
00:34:34,878 --> 00:34:37,898
they tried to kind of get there by making the scenarios very detailed,

389
00:34:37,958 --> 00:34:40,738
but it's different from actually watching transactions occur.

390
00:34:41,918 --> 00:34:46,958
So, you know, there's these, now these competing protocols,

391
00:34:47,778 --> 00:34:52,618
the X402 protocol for stable coins, the L402 protocol for Lightning.

392
00:34:53,678 --> 00:34:57,498
And they both don't, they're both very small so far in usage.

393
00:34:58,498 --> 00:35:02,878
I hope that they, I mean, this is like, this is what we have to do.

394
00:35:02,878 --> 00:35:12,638
We have to make sure that L402 is available in anyone who's developing Bitcoin apps, Bitcoin infrastructure, AI agents.

395
00:35:14,238 --> 00:35:17,698
As a side project, I just started playing with this stuff.

396
00:35:18,218 --> 00:35:22,618
And I have an agent team that I've built on OpenClaw.

397
00:35:23,238 --> 00:35:25,258
And I have a little task manager for them.

398
00:35:25,258 --> 00:35:37,738
And I started, I integrated Lightning D and I started, I made it so that you could assign a bounty in SATs to a task.

399
00:35:37,738 --> 00:35:55,138
I was inspired by a paper that I read. I think it came out of Stanford a few months ago that agents tend to, they have a different behavior when you incentivize with real world money than with just encouragement and so on.

400
00:35:55,138 --> 00:36:13,918
And so I wanted to see, you know, I haven't seen like any conclusive results yet, but I wanted to see like, instead of just being like, you're a member of the team, like you should do this. It's like, you have a lightning wallet, you can spend that money however you want, you know, get as much done as you can. And, and you can go out on the internet and buy yourself something nice.

401
00:36:13,918 --> 00:36:21,758
maybe interesting i i need to try that out man that's that's an interesting thesis um

402
00:36:21,758 --> 00:36:28,318
so uh i want to talk about the uh some of these solutions and uh

403
00:36:28,318 --> 00:36:34,318
so so the way the way you see it is you've got so lightning labs came out with their

404
00:36:34,318 --> 00:36:41,038
obviously lightning based solution it's bitcoin we've got coinbase has uh base the your your

405
00:36:41,038 --> 00:36:46,698
second article got a little more technical for me. I would love to, I don't think it's overly

406
00:36:46,698 --> 00:36:51,698
technical. I think some of the nitty gritty of what you described though can get technical.

407
00:36:51,698 --> 00:36:57,958
Could you describe what these two options are that are sort of emerging perhaps as leaders for,

408
00:36:58,178 --> 00:37:01,378
I guess, like the stable coin option and then the Bitcoin option?

409
00:37:02,118 --> 00:37:06,558
Yeah, sure. Well, the stable coin option, okay, well, let's back up. What is 402?

410
00:37:06,558 --> 00:37:12,058
So it's this little known HTTP return code 402.

411
00:37:12,298 --> 00:37:16,898
I think it was introduced into the protocol in like 1997.

412
00:37:18,098 --> 00:37:26,238
And it was never used because we had no money technology that could do final settlement digitally.

413
00:37:27,458 --> 00:37:29,178
It just wasn't possible.

414
00:37:29,178 --> 00:37:36,198
I actually remember going to a party in San Francisco when I first moved out there and worked for my first startup.

415
00:37:36,558 --> 00:37:44,238
And I talked to a guy who was building a technology that was going to allow a tip jar on the bottom of a blog post.

416
00:37:44,438 --> 00:37:45,398
And he wasn't the only one.

417
00:37:45,478 --> 00:37:48,018
I remember there was a lot of people talking about this idea.

418
00:37:48,998 --> 00:37:50,618
How are bloggers going to get paid?

419
00:37:50,758 --> 00:37:54,718
You know, blogging, it was so big and so new and it takes so much time.

420
00:37:56,138 --> 00:38:01,138
And how great would it be if you could just click a button at the bottom of a blog post and tip the author?

421
00:38:01,138 --> 00:38:13,218
And it was totally impossible to build because of fiat and KYC and credit risk, you know, chargeback, like all the plumbing of fiat.

422
00:38:13,398 --> 00:38:15,078
It's just it's impossible to do.

423
00:38:16,098 --> 00:38:20,138
So HTTP 402 just sat there for decades.

424
00:38:21,058 --> 00:38:21,818
Nobody used it.

425
00:38:22,338 --> 00:38:27,538
And now that we have digital money, it's now starting to be used.

426
00:38:27,538 --> 00:38:34,858
so now what you can do is when you hit a web server and and make a request of a web server

427
00:38:34,858 --> 00:38:43,118
the response can be http 402 payment required right so like 404 we've all seen 404 that means

428
00:38:43,118 --> 00:38:49,458
like there's nothing there 402 payment required and so then the agent can hit back with money

429
00:38:49,458 --> 00:38:56,238
and then get the then get the payload back and so that's how the agentic economy would work there's

430
00:38:56,238 --> 00:39:02,058
a really great post too that everyone should read called how to sell the agents which is all which

431
00:39:02,058 --> 00:39:08,578
was on x and it's all about how to build products that are actually for agents and the way that you

432
00:39:08,578 --> 00:39:15,598
do it is you make your your product available at uh at four with a 402 payment required and you

433
00:39:15,598 --> 00:39:20,618
make sure that um you know your api is designed well and that you have something to offer and that

434
00:39:20,618 --> 00:39:28,158
you're online. It's useless to not have it online. Make sure that you're operating with a sense of

435
00:39:28,158 --> 00:39:33,058
micropayments instead of monthly subscriptions and so on. It's a totally different interaction.

436
00:39:34,738 --> 00:39:39,158
And so we have 402. What do we do with it? So there's these two new competing

437
00:39:39,158 --> 00:39:46,658
solutions. One of them is from Coinbase, partnered with Circle called X402.

438
00:39:46,658 --> 00:39:49,678
and the other is Lightning Labs L402.

439
00:39:50,478 --> 00:39:53,218
So X402, technically speaking,

440
00:39:53,898 --> 00:39:57,858
is blockchain agnostic, right?

441
00:39:58,158 --> 00:40:00,238
So supposedly it's open standard

442
00:40:00,238 --> 00:40:02,758
and you're going to be able to use

443
00:40:02,758 --> 00:40:04,838
any cryptocurrency you want on it.

444
00:40:05,498 --> 00:40:07,398
Why don't we all just get on board?

445
00:40:08,098 --> 00:40:09,438
I wouldn't Coinbase like that

446
00:40:09,438 --> 00:40:12,758
because they are first implemented.

447
00:40:12,978 --> 00:40:13,958
It wouldn't circle like that.

448
00:40:13,958 --> 00:40:24,998
So ultimately, X402 theoretically could work with different blockchains, but it's not really widely implemented.

449
00:40:25,898 --> 00:40:33,658
This EIP-3009 Ethereum improvement proposal.

450
00:40:34,478 --> 00:40:37,038
So it's really just for Circle.

451
00:40:37,238 --> 00:40:38,998
It's really just for USDC.

452
00:40:38,998 --> 00:40:44,458
and we'll be able to put Bitcoin on it eventually

453
00:40:44,458 --> 00:40:47,318
if it wins out, maybe, I don't know.

454
00:40:47,358 --> 00:40:48,438
I don't know of any projects

455
00:40:48,438 --> 00:40:50,418
trying to put Bitcoin on X402 right now.

456
00:40:51,858 --> 00:40:52,798
But it's just kind of like,

457
00:40:52,978 --> 00:40:54,998
and I just have to take a little dig at Coinbase.

458
00:40:55,138 --> 00:40:58,478
It's really frustrating how it's always

459
00:40:58,478 --> 00:41:02,478
one step forward, two steps back with them, it seems.

460
00:41:03,118 --> 00:41:07,978
They're happy to use Bitcoin values and storytelling

461
00:41:07,978 --> 00:41:12,418
like that Super Bowl commercial a couple of years ago, which was all about how Bitcoin,

462
00:41:12,578 --> 00:41:18,218
it was literally about Bitcoin, but they didn't say the word Bitcoin and they just said crypto

463
00:41:18,218 --> 00:41:22,878
at the end. So you're like all amped up and you're like, wow, the world really could be a better

464
00:41:22,878 --> 00:41:29,458
place. Coinbase is doing this and like, you know, showing people like underwater on their house and

465
00:41:29,458 --> 00:41:34,898
like, you know, trying to make a good salary and like all the problems that we have with fiat today.

466
00:41:34,898 --> 00:41:46,196
and they like wouldn it be better and then it like with crypto you know They happy to use Bitcoin to like market to people

467
00:41:46,196 --> 00:41:48,836
and then they sell them like these garbage tokens.

468
00:41:49,356 --> 00:41:50,136
So that's number one.

469
00:41:50,496 --> 00:41:53,816
So you don't think Fartcoin is going to take away the world here?

470
00:41:54,156 --> 00:41:56,576
And then they'll be like, no, it's like all about freedom.

471
00:41:56,576 --> 00:41:59,056
But then you know it's not because you go on,

472
00:41:59,716 --> 00:42:02,216
because they're marketing, you go on their dashboard

473
00:42:02,216 --> 00:42:04,336
and they're like pushing this stuff, right?

474
00:42:04,336 --> 00:42:10,976
um and then so there's that okay and then there was this whole de minimis thing right where

475
00:42:10,976 --> 00:42:17,156
i don't know what's going on but coinbase is talking about how there should be a de minimis

476
00:42:17,156 --> 00:42:24,496
tax exemption uh for spending uh bitcoin but then they took it out of the bill and they want it to

477
00:42:24,496 --> 00:42:28,176
only be for stable coins and then bitcoin is all up in arms it's just happened a few days ago

478
00:42:28,176 --> 00:42:31,976
So yeah, and so then it's like this to X for O2.

479
00:42:32,136 --> 00:42:32,856
Oh, it's so great.

480
00:42:32,956 --> 00:42:36,056
It's, you know, blockchain, blockchain neutral.

481
00:42:36,216 --> 00:42:39,696
Just so happens it doesn't really work with Bitcoin, but hey, it's blockchain neutral.

482
00:42:39,856 --> 00:42:46,136
You know, it's just like very disingenuous and we should call them out on that.

483
00:42:46,256 --> 00:42:47,156
They don't have to do that.

484
00:42:47,376 --> 00:42:49,816
They're a big company, billions of dollars flowing through them.

485
00:42:50,316 --> 00:42:51,376
They don't have to be like that.

486
00:42:52,016 --> 00:42:55,636
And it just keeps coming back to the same thing.

487
00:42:55,636 --> 00:42:57,636
So I know there's good people that work there, you know.

488
00:42:57,636 --> 00:43:00,216
And frankly, we've talked about this before, right?

489
00:43:01,316 --> 00:43:14,976
If you had kept 100 or 1,000 Bitcoins on Coinbase and you bought them in, you know, the first few weeks Coinbase was operating and you logged in now, they'd still be there, which is more than you can say for a lot of other exchanges.

490
00:43:15,756 --> 00:43:22,696
And so they played a very positive role in that case of like, you know, helping people adopt Bitcoin.

491
00:43:22,696 --> 00:43:29,116
but at the same time they just keep doing this type of bait and switch and it's really frustrating

492
00:43:29,116 --> 00:43:35,836
on the lightning side of things enough about them uh on the lightning side of things so there's an

493
00:43:35,836 --> 00:43:41,736
open source toolkit from lightning labs that will allow you to integrate l402 the lightning solution

494
00:43:41,736 --> 00:43:49,956
into your um into your agentic setup so um and i don't have a lot of experience with it yet but

495
00:43:49,956 --> 00:43:51,396
that's on my list of things to do,

496
00:43:51,496 --> 00:43:53,716
but I would encourage everybody to go try it

497
00:43:53,716 --> 00:43:58,356
and push this forward because this is the underdog, right?

498
00:43:58,376 --> 00:44:02,036
This doesn't have the marketing horsepower behind it

499
00:44:02,036 --> 00:44:05,016
that Circle and Coinbase will have.

500
00:44:06,096 --> 00:44:08,596
And so we need to build, you know,

501
00:44:08,656 --> 00:44:10,496
to the extent that our interests are talking to each other

502
00:44:10,496 --> 00:44:13,276
and we're building this parallel economy

503
00:44:13,276 --> 00:44:15,776
and this circular economy amongst ourselves as Bitcoiners,

504
00:44:16,036 --> 00:44:19,876
we need to be using L402 and promoting that

505
00:44:19,876 --> 00:44:22,876
and creating products that are available through that protocol.

506
00:44:23,776 --> 00:44:25,656
Yeah, it's really interesting.

507
00:44:25,656 --> 00:44:30,836
So how do you, if you were to project yourself 10 years into the future,

508
00:44:31,616 --> 00:44:33,776
how do you think this plays out?

509
00:44:33,876 --> 00:44:36,736
Actually, can I give you my personal opinions?

510
00:44:37,236 --> 00:44:40,056
Because I'd like to hear you comment on that.

511
00:44:40,156 --> 00:44:42,836
So this is very much a half-baked concept.

512
00:44:43,356 --> 00:44:46,376
But we were talking about the whole stablecoin versus Bitcoin.

513
00:44:46,756 --> 00:44:48,236
What are agents going to choose?

514
00:44:48,236 --> 00:44:55,636
my thesis on stable coins is that they are going to be the CBDC rollout. If for no other reason

515
00:44:55,636 --> 00:45:01,196
than governments want CBDCs because they want control and they do not have the know-how,

516
00:45:01,556 --> 00:45:09,416
technical capacity, et cetera, to build anything useful on their own. And you've already got a

517
00:45:09,416 --> 00:45:14,556
centralized entity that you could capture that has tons and tons of people using it, lots of

518
00:45:14,556 --> 00:45:21,796
liquidity, buyer of US debt, like all the things that they might want. And what I could envision,

519
00:45:22,316 --> 00:45:26,996
and again, I'm kind of making this up as I go, but what I can envision is these agents adopt

520
00:45:26,996 --> 00:45:32,516
stable coins for payment purposes, maybe alongside of Bitcoin. And you could have competing

521
00:45:32,516 --> 00:45:41,276
implementations of how you make payments. And then the censorship rolls out, funds are frozen

522
00:45:41,276 --> 00:45:47,676
for various reasons, not even just for the agents, but perhaps that is an acute problem as well.

523
00:45:48,236 --> 00:45:55,276
And the agents have the reasoning capacity to evaluate that and say, okay, this isn't going

524
00:45:55,276 --> 00:46:00,516
to work for me. I need to start operating with Bitcoin because my little agent friend over here

525
00:46:00,516 --> 00:46:07,976
had their funds frozen or my human handler had their funds frozen. I need to use something that

526
00:46:07,976 --> 00:46:13,956
I can reliably use without being censored, that's Bitcoin. And so I could see a scenario where

527
00:46:13,956 --> 00:46:19,716
there are competing implementations, stable coins versus Bitcoin. And over time, as the

528
00:46:19,716 --> 00:46:25,836
ramifications of what it means to use a centralized token play out, it makes all the sense in the

529
00:46:25,836 --> 00:46:30,796
world for agents to then adopt Bitcoin en masse because it's not worth the risk and the exposure

530
00:46:30,796 --> 00:46:37,016
that you have using a fiat backed coin. I totally agree. Actually, it's not even

531
00:46:37,016 --> 00:46:42,896
theoretical you're talking about freezing stable coins there's this i don't know who made it i saw

532
00:46:42,896 --> 00:46:49,136
it go by on twitter but i loaded it up it's called stables.rip and it's the on-chain record of

533
00:46:49,136 --> 00:46:54,596
stable coin censorship and they have yeah i've heard about a record of three billion 235 million

534
00:46:54,596 --> 00:47:04,456
dollar 502 000 frozen wow it's like over three billion frozen funds in tether and then 119

535
00:47:04,456 --> 00:47:13,456
million frozen funds in usdc um so it's not theoretical at all so you think the agents

536
00:47:13,456 --> 00:47:19,536
learn begin to understand that and then the natural gravity is then toward bitcoin

537
00:47:19,536 --> 00:47:28,576
i think so as as long as as long as training is not horribly corrupted um you know as long as

538
00:47:28,576 --> 00:47:32,996
we're not duking it out with like communist agents or something i would think it would

539
00:47:32,996 --> 00:47:38,856
naturally go that direction. Yes. Do you think there is a, so when I, when I first set up my,

540
00:47:38,856 --> 00:47:45,016
uh, my Mac mini, I was trying desperately to get, um, some of the more robust local agents

541
00:47:45,016 --> 00:47:50,316
going and was running into all sorts of issues, troubleshooting like crazy with cloud code.

542
00:47:50,516 --> 00:47:55,276
And I eventually kind of threw my hands up in the air and, and said, I'm going to use,

543
00:47:55,356 --> 00:48:00,396
I'm just going to use some of Anthropix products. You know, I'm not using it too heavily yet. And so

544
00:48:00,396 --> 00:48:05,276
paying for the API calls isn't a huge issue, although it probably will be at some point.

545
00:48:06,276 --> 00:48:12,936
I could see a world where, you know, maybe the aid, like local agents are, are used more frequently

546
00:48:12,936 --> 00:48:19,076
because people can afford that. And they're training them to some degree themselves and

547
00:48:19,076 --> 00:48:26,796
they're learning the user's preferences and making assessments based on that. And as more people are

548
00:48:26,796 --> 00:48:32,576
frozen out of their tether account or frozen out of their circle account and they're using bitcoin

549
00:48:32,576 --> 00:48:38,436
their agent learns oh this is like this is kind of the the de facto payment implementation and

550
00:48:38,436 --> 00:48:43,216
or do you or do you think when most people are or do you think most agents come online

551
00:48:43,216 --> 00:48:51,916
in the future uh sort of tethered uh no pun intended to to these apis like to the big uh

552
00:48:51,916 --> 00:48:55,396
to the big AI companies and are beholden.

553
00:48:56,596 --> 00:48:59,796
Well, so I don't think so, but there's a, there's a little nuance there, right?

554
00:48:59,876 --> 00:49:02,456
So you're right. I've had tried to run local models too.

555
00:49:02,576 --> 00:49:05,356
There's a couple of that are really competitive now with Sonnet.

556
00:49:05,536 --> 00:49:09,496
One is Minimax M 2.7. The other one is Quinn 3.5.

557
00:49:09,796 --> 00:49:12,936
They're both, I believe Chinese companies, but they're open source.

558
00:49:13,156 --> 00:49:16,356
So you should know when they're phoning home and you should kind of have an

559
00:49:16,356 --> 00:49:20,696
idea of what they're doing and you can run them locally and people do.

560
00:49:20,696 --> 00:49:22,556
and it works pretty well for them.

561
00:49:23,556 --> 00:49:25,416
There's also Kimi, which is smaller,

562
00:49:25,856 --> 00:49:28,076
like a smaller model that's more efficient.

563
00:49:28,596 --> 00:49:31,476
I tried to use Klein on my fairly new Mac Mini M4.

564
00:49:31,716 --> 00:49:32,836
It didn't work that well.

565
00:49:33,876 --> 00:49:35,016
I think the big moment,

566
00:49:35,116 --> 00:49:37,156
well, but there's going to be a really big moment this summer

567
00:49:37,156 --> 00:49:40,676
where consumer desktop inference

568
00:49:40,676 --> 00:49:43,996
becomes like a product line, right?

569
00:49:44,336 --> 00:49:47,076
So you have the M5 from Apple already

570
00:49:47,076 --> 00:49:50,156
and there's a neural architecture that the M5 chip

571
00:49:50,156 --> 00:49:52,896
that makes it very efficient for AI processing.

572
00:49:53,516 --> 00:49:54,616
It's in the laptops.

573
00:49:55,016 --> 00:49:56,936
I'll probably release a studio this summer,

574
00:49:57,436 --> 00:49:58,956
like a desktop machine,

575
00:49:59,156 --> 00:50:00,716
and that will be the new,

576
00:50:00,936 --> 00:50:02,396
like everyone will round and buy those

577
00:50:02,396 --> 00:50:04,276
and they'll use these local models.

578
00:50:05,036 --> 00:50:08,656
So local inference is going to be possible

579
00:50:08,656 --> 00:50:10,676
and it will be required

580
00:50:10,676 --> 00:50:12,896
by a lot of compliant companies, right?

581
00:50:12,916 --> 00:50:14,036
Like if you have a law firm,

582
00:50:14,656 --> 00:50:17,716
you have a accounting firm,

583
00:50:17,716 --> 00:50:22,496
A lot of different regulated industries will want local inference.

584
00:50:24,336 --> 00:50:25,816
And so there'll be incentivized to do that.

585
00:50:25,856 --> 00:50:43,296
And there will be a whole adoption cycle of that that will be, if you want to get involved in helping, if you want to take advantage of like the AI boom, helping companies adopt local inference will be a many year cycle that will last for a while.

586
00:50:43,416 --> 00:50:45,296
I think that's a great business to get into.

587
00:50:45,296 --> 00:50:51,216
the the other thing the distinction that you were making about training at home

588
00:50:51,216 --> 00:51:01,356
so even though local inference is close to being uh pretty uh viable local training

589
00:51:01,356 --> 00:51:07,596
is probably further out now there is an exception to that so so training is like you know to train

590
00:51:07,596 --> 00:51:15,676
a model to train a seven uh you know um uh like a like a large model like coin 3.5 it still costs

591
00:51:15,676 --> 00:51:23,376
a million dollars i think i mean it's still very very expensive um and energy consuming but um

592
00:51:23,376 --> 00:51:30,036
there is a a caveat to that which is well there's two caveats actually um one of them super

593
00:51:30,036 --> 00:51:38,816
interesting you can train small models to do limited things and a lot of people just need

594
00:51:38,816 --> 00:51:45,276
limited things like so for example if you're asking opus which knows everything about all

595
00:51:45,276 --> 00:51:51,976
of human history to like tag your emails and like organize your emails like you're asking literally

596
00:51:51,976 --> 00:51:58,376
like 160 iq einstein to go in and do clerical work and you just don't need to do that so you're

597
00:51:58,376 --> 00:52:04,716
paying for it. So what people are doing now is they're building micro models or nano models.

598
00:52:04,896 --> 00:52:09,976
So it's not even like haiku or these tiny models that are offered by the labs. It's

599
00:52:09,976 --> 00:52:16,936
home trained and it only knows how to organize your email, for example. It only knows a little

600
00:52:16,936 --> 00:52:20,976
bit about you, but it knows enough to like schedule your calendar really well, really fast,

601
00:52:21,016 --> 00:52:25,796
and it's free. So that's interesting too. And I've, I've seen a little bit about that, but it's not,

602
00:52:25,796 --> 00:52:29,576
there's not a lot of infrastructure around that yet, but like training local small models is going

603
00:52:29,576 --> 00:52:38,676
to be big probably next year. The other thing I would say is, is there's a lot of evidence that

604
00:52:38,676 --> 00:52:46,996
the harness like matters a lot more than, than the model. And so the harness being all of the

605
00:52:46,996 --> 00:52:54,516
things that go around the model, all of the text files and configuration files and tools

606
00:52:54,516 --> 00:53:00,956
and scripts and hooks that models have access to that makes them an agent.

607
00:53:01,176 --> 00:53:01,836
That's the distinction.

608
00:53:02,036 --> 00:53:03,036
So the model is the brain.

609
00:53:03,376 --> 00:53:05,336
The agent is the brain plus the harness.

610
00:53:06,716 --> 00:53:12,336
And when I'm seeing this data go by on X where people are showing

611
00:53:12,336 --> 00:53:14,416
if you have a really, really good harness,

612
00:53:15,356 --> 00:53:17,916
the actual brain doesn't make as big of a difference

613
00:53:17,916 --> 00:53:19,836
in terms of, for example, code quality.

614
00:53:19,836 --> 00:53:26,136
you could have like you know really really good code written by you know a less expensive model

615
00:53:26,136 --> 00:53:31,116
as long as you have all of this surrounding harness so and that's the way in which you know

616
00:53:31,116 --> 00:53:35,796
yeah at home you'll build and you'll build your own harness and that's what people are doing with

617
00:53:35,796 --> 00:53:40,896
open claw that's basically what you do with open claw is you build a harness around a model and

618
00:53:40,896 --> 00:53:47,896
it's yours and it knows your network and your apps and your auth and everything and so it feels

619
00:53:47,896 --> 00:53:55,996
very useful to you. But the crazy thing too is only in the last couple of weeks, everything

620
00:53:55,996 --> 00:54:04,196
happens so fast. There are now techniques for agents to self-improve their own harness.

621
00:54:05,536 --> 00:54:12,236
So over time, instead of you kind of tugging it along or building this scaffolding around it,

622
00:54:12,236 --> 00:54:14,756
What it will do is, for example, skills.

623
00:54:15,716 --> 00:54:21,856
It will run a skill and then it will evaluate.

624
00:54:22,056 --> 00:54:24,496
You have to help it know how to evaluate and score.

625
00:54:24,616 --> 00:54:26,196
But anything that can be scored can be improved.

626
00:54:26,296 --> 00:54:34,056
So it'll evaluate its own output and then change the skill for next time so that the output is better.

627
00:54:34,056 --> 00:54:41,756
um so that kind of recursive self self-regulation and self-improvement is going to be huge over the

628
00:54:41,756 --> 00:54:47,056
next few years so yeah there's a lot of reason to be happy you know i have friends who are like

629
00:54:47,056 --> 00:54:50,796
really privacy conscious so like the thing about you don't want to use anthropic totally understand

630
00:54:50,796 --> 00:54:58,976
it um i think that we're on the cusp of private local inference which is going to just completely

631
00:54:58,976 --> 00:55:04,696
change the calculation for the people who are who are really concerned about privacy yeah and that

632
00:55:04,696 --> 00:55:09,616
was that was my initial concern going into it thinking i was going to use it for i don't know

633
00:55:09,616 --> 00:55:16,856
any number of tasks that could be uh necessarily private when i got in there and i said okay what

634
00:55:16,856 --> 00:55:23,076
do i need done it became it was really a lot of research and so it was much simpler just to set

635
00:55:23,076 --> 00:55:29,216
up a bunch of API calls to the varying outlets that I needed access to and, uh, and, you know,

636
00:55:29,216 --> 00:55:36,896
pay a relatively low rate for these API calls. But I'm beginning to think, so this is just sort of,

637
00:55:36,976 --> 00:55:40,716
this is my sandbox, right? Like what I have set up right now is sort of a playground. I'm trying

638
00:55:40,716 --> 00:55:45,836
to get a feel for it. As I think about managing my personal life and that, that that's when it

639
00:55:45,836 --> 00:55:51,336
becomes much more sensitive and I want to make sure I'm more cognizant. It might just be a matter

640
00:55:51,336 --> 00:55:56,456
of waiting a little bit longer to continue to learn the skills, establish this baseline.

641
00:55:56,996 --> 00:56:02,896
And then when the technology is sufficiently robust, I can sort of swoop in with some of

642
00:56:02,896 --> 00:56:09,936
these better models, local, private, open source, and maybe have my concerns alleviated

643
00:56:09,936 --> 00:56:10,976
on that front.

644
00:56:11,356 --> 00:56:12,176
That's where you think we're headed?

645
00:56:12,916 --> 00:56:13,276
I do.

646
00:56:13,816 --> 00:56:15,236
It's already possible.

647
00:56:15,236 --> 00:56:32,116
And I would just also say, I don't want to discourage people from being privacy conscious, but there was a really great article, which I want to credit the lady who wrote it, but I'm not going to be able to find it fast enough.

648
00:56:32,116 --> 00:56:42,496
she talks about how you know we already have a panopticon pointed at us our lives are studied

649
00:56:42,496 --> 00:56:51,536
by these companies and they know more about us than we do and finally with ai we have the ability

650
00:56:51,536 --> 00:56:58,176
to level the playing field and actually see about ourselves we make ourselves legible we make

651
00:56:58,176 --> 00:57:03,896
ourselves, for example, what do I tend to do? What are the reasons I might skip a workout?

652
00:57:04,356 --> 00:57:10,816
What are the, what do I, you know, what could, what could I be better at? Um, I actually ask my

653
00:57:10,816 --> 00:57:17,096
agent sometimes like what I was sitting on the couch a few nights ago and I was just kind of

654
00:57:17,096 --> 00:57:22,856
like bored. And I just like sent, sent my agent question. I was like, um, what am I not seeing?

655
00:57:22,856 --> 00:57:36,596
Like, what could I do better at? And I got like really good advice that goes to the cloud. Yes. I was using cloud inference for that, but the cloud providers already know that about me. It's just that I didn't know that about me.

656
00:57:36,596 --> 00:58:03,996
Yeah. And so there's kind of a trade off there where you say, I'm going to give up some perceived privacy, which may not even be real, in order to have my life more legible to myself and improve myself and move faster and maybe become more adept at, you know, building the businesses that will eventually allow this to be private and bring this to many, many people.

657
00:58:03,996 --> 00:58:13,816
i just sort of it's like you have to be you have to balance velocity with um with privacy

658
00:58:13,816 --> 00:58:20,656
it would be a mistake to in my view it would be a mistake to sort of

659
00:58:21,496 --> 00:58:26,196
miss miss out on this moment because you're waiting for it to be private

660
00:58:26,196 --> 00:58:32,336
yeah like if you could like if like if you wait if you wait six weeks if you wait six months

661
00:58:32,336 --> 00:58:39,296
waiting for it to be private man i don't know how you recover from that you're like they talk about

662
00:58:39,296 --> 00:58:43,896
on x like the permanent underclass like i know it's a little dramatic but like you got to stay

663
00:58:43,896 --> 00:58:54,936
on top of this stuff and kind of yoloing maybe maybe a viable uh option yeah uh so i i can

664
00:58:54,936 --> 00:59:00,276
appreciate that sentiment i think people do need to be cautious so much so what a lot of people

665
00:59:00,276 --> 00:59:04,376
don't realize is that much of your public or your private, what you perceive to be your private

666
00:59:04,376 --> 00:59:10,736
information, your personal data is already out there. That said, it doesn't mean you just go

667
00:59:10,736 --> 00:59:17,876
flippantly share it. What I would be particularly cautious about are, I don't know, sort of the,

668
00:59:17,876 --> 00:59:24,356
like the thought crime stuff, you know, like what are the things that you don't want? And I mean,

669
00:59:24,416 --> 00:59:28,816
I've got a podcast where I've shared plenty of unpopular opinions myself. So maybe it's a lost

670
00:59:28,816 --> 00:59:33,856
cause for me. But for some people, you know, they keep that relatively private to themselves. Maybe

671
00:59:33,856 --> 00:59:38,536
just be thoughtful about those sorts of things that, you know, in a, in a more dystopian scenario,

672
00:59:38,536 --> 00:59:45,936
you, you wouldn't want out in the public sphere. Cause that's I think that's a real possibility.

673
00:59:47,696 --> 00:59:52,996
Dave, what have we not touched on here? I mean, I think you gave a pretty good overview. I think

674
00:59:52,996 --> 00:59:57,756
maybe a couple of takeaways and maybe you can tell me if I'm missing anything.

675
00:59:57,756 --> 01:00:02,796
it's Bitcoin versus stable coins. The agents are going to pick what they want to pick. I think we

676
01:00:02,796 --> 01:00:08,836
both agree that over time, the reason they would pick Bitcoin becomes increasingly clear.

677
01:00:09,316 --> 01:00:14,296
We need to have the infrastructure built out for that. If there is anything that listeners can do,

678
01:00:14,296 --> 01:00:21,276
you and I can do to foster Lightning adoption in particular for these agents, let's start doing it

679
01:00:21,276 --> 01:00:26,796
today. Am I missing any big takeaways that you want people to hear on this front? Because we've

680
01:00:26,796 --> 01:00:33,756
got one more topic I want to cover. Yeah. No, that sounds pretty good. Okay. So let's talk about

681
01:00:33,756 --> 01:00:39,856
Tennessee. So tell me about the Tennessee Bitcoin Alliance, the bill that the General Assembly is

682
01:00:39,856 --> 01:00:45,196
going to be voting on. And yeah, it's, by the way, for anyone listening, it's the Tennessee

683
01:00:45,196 --> 01:00:51,596
Strategic Bitcoin Reserve Act. What's been your involvement specifically and where are we in the

684
01:00:51,596 --> 01:00:56,016
process? Yeah, well, and I appreciate you didn't do it. You didn't say anything yet, but you're

685
01:00:56,016 --> 01:01:01,456
like we're close to these things so we should get into it but um no so i uh so i lead the

686
01:01:01,456 --> 01:01:08,236
tennessee bitcoin alliance we're a 501c4 uh non-profit that focuses on bitcoin adoption in

687
01:01:08,236 --> 01:01:17,096
tennessee at the state policy level and so we um drafted a bill modeled on some of the other

688
01:01:17,096 --> 01:01:22,876
strategic bitcoin reserve bills at the state level that have been advanced in arizona new hampshire

689
01:01:22,876 --> 01:01:32,556
and a few others. And it's a pretty standard reserve bill. What it does is allows the treasurer,

690
01:01:33,096 --> 01:01:38,216
you know, it doesn't direct investment of funds, a certain amount of funds, it just allows the

691
01:01:38,216 --> 01:01:46,396
treasurer to invest funds in Bitcoin, if he or she sees fit. But it does put some interesting

692
01:01:46,396 --> 01:01:51,016
guidelines around it, which we were pretty proud of, because we innovated in that way.

693
01:01:51,016 --> 01:02:03,696
So in one way, it was that we required that over the course of a few years, to start, they don't have to hold it themselves.

694
01:02:03,696 --> 01:02:13,216
But after three years, they have to hold 10% of any state holdings in Bitcoin in direct physical custody of the state.

695
01:02:13,216 --> 01:02:20,116
so what that does is it prevents all the all of the funds being held in an

696
01:02:20,116 --> 01:02:37,254
exchange product and also in you know sort of a custody product that we don control and I like that because it advances not only discipline but also education Like what does that even mean Holding physical is Bitcoin physical

697
01:02:37,254 --> 01:02:45,194
It's amazing how interacting with these lawmakers really accomplish people. Oftentimes,

698
01:02:45,754 --> 01:02:52,834
multiple businesses, incredibly powerful people, so much responsibility that they have.

699
01:02:52,834 --> 01:02:55,394
and it sounds

700
01:02:55,394 --> 01:02:56,834
appreciated at this point but it's just like

701
01:02:56,834 --> 01:02:59,134
mind blowing how little they know

702
01:02:59,134 --> 01:03:01,294
they just don't know they don't know much

703
01:03:01,294 --> 01:03:03,154
about Bitcoin they are still conflating

704
01:03:03,154 --> 01:03:05,494
Bitcoin and crypto they don't really even understand

705
01:03:05,494 --> 01:03:07,534
anything

706
01:03:07,534 --> 01:03:09,274
about it they just know they're

707
01:03:09,274 --> 01:03:11,494
supposed to understand they have to it's the future

708
01:03:11,494 --> 01:03:13,514
they get that they accept that it's

709
01:03:13,514 --> 01:03:15,534
important on some level

710
01:03:15,534 --> 01:03:17,114
that it's not to be ignored

711
01:03:17,114 --> 01:03:19,514
but they don't really know anything about it

712
01:03:19,514 --> 01:03:21,534
and so even just being

713
01:03:21,534 --> 01:03:27,714
able to testify in front of these committees we're just getting a word in edgewise right just a few

714
01:03:27,714 --> 01:03:32,814
a few minutes of testimony but to explain that like one of the things about this bill is actually

715
01:03:32,814 --> 01:03:37,834
it's done safely and done correctly because the state of tennessee would control its own private

716
01:03:37,834 --> 01:03:46,394
keys and you know no uh no bitcoin could move without at least a certain quorum approving the

717
01:03:46,394 --> 01:03:52,974
move of the physical Bitcoin. It's just like, these are completely new concepts. And so hopefully

718
01:03:52,974 --> 01:03:55,954
getting that on the record and just starting those conversations and establishing those

719
01:03:55,954 --> 01:04:05,934
relationships is going to pay off over time. But where we are right now is we were heard in the

720
01:04:05,934 --> 01:04:13,334
Finance Ways and Means subcommittee last week. And I think next it's going to the full committee

721
01:04:13,334 --> 01:04:15,394
and then for a vote.

722
01:04:17,154 --> 01:04:20,414
We have a lot of officials who do get it, actually.

723
01:04:20,734 --> 01:04:23,334
So I should say, I talk about how people don't know,

724
01:04:23,454 --> 01:04:24,814
but that's just sort of the overall.

725
01:04:24,974 --> 01:04:28,094
But there are lots of people in Tennessee who understand it.

726
01:04:28,854 --> 01:04:31,654
Our governor, Governor Bill Lee, understands Bitcoin.

727
01:04:31,894 --> 01:04:34,534
He's been sort of an advocate.

728
01:04:34,834 --> 01:04:39,934
There have been, obviously, Marsha Blackburn is one of our senators.

729
01:04:40,574 --> 01:04:41,954
Senator Haggerty is our other senator.

730
01:04:41,954 --> 01:04:43,134
They're both very involved.

731
01:04:43,334 --> 01:04:53,134
And so we do have support at that level, but it's very unevenly distributed, the understanding.

732
01:04:54,354 --> 01:04:55,894
And we'll see how it goes.

733
01:04:56,414 --> 01:05:05,234
Either way, we've had a great run where basically citizen activists were not funded by anyone.

734
01:05:05,394 --> 01:05:07,874
If you want to fund us, we are not opposed to it.

735
01:05:08,194 --> 01:05:09,554
We're not proud that we're not funded.

736
01:05:09,674 --> 01:05:10,394
It's just that we're not.

737
01:05:10,394 --> 01:05:13,754
And so we were able to write this bill, get this far.

738
01:05:13,834 --> 01:05:17,054
We got a sponsor in the Senate, sponsor in the House, and things were moving.

739
01:05:17,354 --> 01:05:31,694
So it shows what's possible when you're smart about strategy and you kind of just maybe have beginner's luck and you just don't know what – you're not discouraged by bad odds and you just go for it.

740
01:05:33,074 --> 01:05:33,814
We'll see.

741
01:05:34,174 --> 01:05:36,234
If it passes, that would be incredible.

742
01:05:36,234 --> 01:05:43,314
if it doesn't then there's it will pass eventually we just have to continue to work

743
01:05:43,314 --> 01:05:48,014
on the off season i don't know if you know this but i didn't even know a lot of these state

744
01:05:48,014 --> 01:05:54,054
legislatures they don't even they have like a short session and then that's it they go home

745
01:05:54,054 --> 01:06:02,614
right yeah so like our session is over in april uh probably mid-april uh and then we'll have you

746
01:06:02,614 --> 01:06:08,514
know, the rest of the year to work on next steps, whether it be a new version of the bill next year

747
01:06:08,514 --> 01:06:14,294
or next steps, because we kind of have a wish list of things that we're trying to get done here.

748
01:06:14,294 --> 01:06:20,134
But ultimately, we want Tennessee to be, you know, the best state for starting a Bitcoin business,

749
01:06:20,134 --> 01:06:26,274
for using Bitcoin day to day. And this is just, you know, this change of Bitcoin reserve,

750
01:06:26,274 --> 01:06:34,234
really it's just a stepping stone to much bigger and better things uh i wouldn't say it's like the

751
01:06:34,234 --> 01:06:38,554
be all and end all that we really want you know the government to own bitcoin but it does help

752
01:06:38,554 --> 01:06:44,874
when they see number go up and when you know the treasurer and all the all these people who you

753
01:06:44,874 --> 01:06:49,794
know will vote for it they love they love the political clout that they get when they do

754
01:06:49,794 --> 01:06:55,414
something good and so when they vote for something like this and then next time there's a bitcoin

755
01:06:55,414 --> 01:06:58,954
bill up and they're like, well, I voted for the first one and our state fund is up, you know,

756
01:06:58,954 --> 01:07:05,754
6,000%. That helps, that helps grease the wheels and move the conversation for the next thing. So.

757
01:07:06,534 --> 01:07:11,714
Yeah. Interesting. So, so I, I told you offline, I think you already knew this about me. I mean,

758
01:07:11,734 --> 01:07:16,734
SBR is just don't excite me. However, I've got one comment on that. What I will say

759
01:07:16,734 --> 01:07:24,834
is I am I'm not a government guy. I don't like the government. However, I appreciate I'm something

760
01:07:24,834 --> 01:07:29,014
of a secessionist. Like I'm something of a, Hey, let's, if, if government's going to exist,

761
01:07:29,014 --> 01:07:34,874
let's get it as localized as possible. States are a big step in the right direction. Um, I think,

762
01:07:34,934 --> 01:07:40,714
uh, I think a secession from many states, like I I'm in Missouri, you're in Tennessee. We have

763
01:07:40,714 --> 01:07:45,434
very little in common with California. It's no knock on California. If you want to go be

764
01:07:45,434 --> 01:07:50,734
communist, like go be communist. That's fine. But I don't want your, your politics influencing

765
01:07:50,734 --> 01:07:55,854
anything that's directed downstream at me. And that's what happened at the federal level. And

766
01:07:55,854 --> 01:08:00,794
it's just obviously way too bloated, $39 trillion in debt. It just makes no sense.

767
01:08:01,294 --> 01:08:06,434
I can actually sort of get behind what you're describing a little bit. It still isn't something

768
01:08:06,434 --> 01:08:11,614
that excites me. I just want more people to stack sats and take self-custody. But I can sort of see

769
01:08:11,614 --> 01:08:18,334
how you say, hey, we, the people of Tennessee, who sort of should act as their own sovereign state,

770
01:08:18,334 --> 01:08:28,034
like nation state, might say, hey, we want, you know, we have we have sway over our elected leaders at the state level in a way that we really just don't at the federal level.

771
01:08:28,134 --> 01:08:30,274
That's just it's a it's a it's a farce.

772
01:08:31,094 --> 01:08:36,114
So I can I can kind of get you kind of get me there, I think, to some degree.

773
01:08:36,774 --> 01:08:41,534
What do you think? What specifically, though, in your mind is the the positive?

774
01:08:41,754 --> 01:08:47,174
Is it just the signal that it sends to Bitcoin businesses and so you get more of them in the state?

775
01:08:47,174 --> 01:08:56,634
Is there something valuable about the state itself actually holding Bitcoin besides maybe some level of sovereignty that states don't really have?

776
01:08:56,674 --> 01:08:59,074
They're sort of beholden to the federal government at this point.

777
01:08:59,234 --> 01:09:00,354
What is it for you?

778
01:09:00,854 --> 01:09:02,014
Well, I mean, I do.

779
01:09:03,974 --> 01:09:12,594
It's not that I like the government, but the firm, I guess we're talking about firms earlier, the firm that we call the state government, right?

780
01:09:12,594 --> 01:09:22,334
I mean, if you want, if our state is very pro-liberty, it's probably one of the most pro-liberty states in the union.

781
01:09:23,214 --> 01:09:26,134
You go to war with the army you have, not the one you wish you had.

782
01:09:26,334 --> 01:09:29,854
You know, you can be anarcho-capitalist and you can wish for whatever you want.

783
01:09:30,534 --> 01:09:35,974
But what you do is you choose where to stand your ground and you choose the form of battle.

784
01:09:36,394 --> 01:09:39,154
And that's what some libertarians have done, for example, with New Hampshire.

785
01:09:39,494 --> 01:09:41,654
That's what some Bitcoiners did with El Salvador.

786
01:09:42,594 --> 01:09:50,554
Tennessee, in my view, is one of the freest states, if not the freest, and it's also very prosperous.

787
01:09:50,874 --> 01:09:58,954
We have a very strong culture in what's called the greater Appalachian nation within the United States.

788
01:09:59,214 --> 01:10:03,594
There are seven or eight different nations within the U.S.

789
01:10:03,594 --> 01:10:13,214
and greater Appalachia has a very strong historical tie to liberty. And you feel it

790
01:10:13,214 --> 01:10:21,954
every day when you walk around, right? Everything from parking meters to, you know, carrying

791
01:10:21,954 --> 01:10:29,534
firearms, everything. So what you want to do is you want to empower this little microcosm of liberty.

792
01:10:29,534 --> 01:10:32,474
and the way you empower it is you make it rich.

793
01:10:33,434 --> 01:10:35,094
And the way you make it rich is with Bitcoin.

794
01:10:35,394 --> 01:10:38,894
So it's not so much that the state itself

795
01:10:38,894 --> 01:10:41,174
is going to hold Bitcoin

796
01:10:41,174 --> 01:10:43,894
and therefore we all get to use it day to day

797
01:10:43,894 --> 01:10:44,654
or something like that.

798
01:10:44,734 --> 01:10:46,514
But I do want to empower Tennessee

799
01:10:46,514 --> 01:10:47,834
relative to the rest of the states.

800
01:10:48,434 --> 01:10:49,034
We have a really,

801
01:10:49,394 --> 01:10:51,294
one of the great things about our state

802
01:10:51,294 --> 01:10:52,514
is that we have this budget surplus.

803
01:10:52,714 --> 01:10:54,514
We're extremely responsibly managed

804
01:10:54,514 --> 01:10:55,694
from a financial standpoint.

805
01:10:57,014 --> 01:10:58,714
But then you look at,

806
01:10:58,714 --> 01:11:02,474
I made a little website for the Tennessee Bitcoin Alliance.

807
01:11:02,614 --> 01:11:04,334
It's called should have been Bitcoin.com.

808
01:11:04,554 --> 01:11:05,654
It's just going to bring that up.

809
01:11:05,754 --> 01:11:05,894
Right.

810
01:11:06,034 --> 01:11:06,254
So,

811
01:11:06,774 --> 01:11:07,174
okay.

812
01:11:07,174 --> 01:11:09,534
So we went back and looked at these pork reports.

813
01:11:10,194 --> 01:11:11,894
We don't really have terrible pork.

814
01:11:11,994 --> 01:11:13,894
It's not anything like Minnesota or California.

815
01:11:13,894 --> 01:11:17,834
So it's almost like a friendly jab instead of like a,

816
01:11:17,834 --> 01:11:19,354
like straight up like expose,

817
01:11:19,594 --> 01:11:20,594
but we've spent,

818
01:11:20,674 --> 01:11:20,834
we've,

819
01:11:20,954 --> 01:11:22,714
we've wasted all kinds of money over the years,

820
01:11:22,814 --> 01:11:23,774
14 million here,

821
01:11:24,394 --> 01:11:25,294
a hundred million there.

822
01:11:25,594 --> 01:11:25,994
And,

823
01:11:26,074 --> 01:11:26,714
you know,

824
01:11:26,714 --> 01:11:28,414
if you look at the dates and the price of Bitcoin,

825
01:11:28,714 --> 01:11:32,034
That $100 million could have been like $8 billion, you know.

826
01:11:32,234 --> 01:11:45,394
And so the state holding Bitcoin just gives the state more power relative to the federal government and gives more of a cushion to the citizens here.

827
01:11:46,154 --> 01:11:50,094
So we don't have income tax, for example, and we never will.

828
01:11:50,094 --> 01:11:58,294
But the people calling for it will have a lot less leverage if the state is in even better financial shape.

829
01:11:58,294 --> 01:12:05,394
So I think there's just like something there. And like I said, what it comes down to ultimately

830
01:12:05,394 --> 01:12:13,174
is relationships. I want the people on Capitol Hill and Nashville to know who we are. I want

831
01:12:13,174 --> 01:12:19,214
them to feel good about Bitcoin. I want them to understand Bitcoin. And then I want to build a

832
01:12:19,214 --> 01:12:23,634
really bright future with Bitcoin in this state. So this is really just a baby step.

833
01:12:23,634 --> 01:12:42,474
So I think you raise a couple of good points. And I was honestly playing and playing a little harder devil's advocate. What I will say is like having the budget surplus, to me, that makes a big difference. I think when there's a budget surplus, like my ANCAP sort of tendencies would say, you stole that money from people in some capacity, give it back to the people.

834
01:12:42,474 --> 01:12:56,034
However, in the absence of perfection in my utopian vision, I think doing something like, you know, storing that value in Bitcoin over a long time horizon could be impactful.

835
01:12:56,034 --> 01:13:11,034
For example, any of the state services that they want to provide, patching potholes, I mean, even just little things like that, if they can do so better, more efficiently, expedite those processes, streamline them, et cetera, that attracts tourism.

836
01:13:11,854 --> 01:13:12,854
It attracts business.

837
01:13:13,074 --> 01:13:13,994
It attracts capital.

838
01:13:14,134 --> 01:13:20,534
It attracts the other things that you're sort of alluding to here that I think could have a very meaningful impact.

839
01:13:20,534 --> 01:13:30,714
And I do agree with you, like that could make a significant difference when people look at, hey, I want to get out of like I'm done running my Somali daycare in Minnesota.

840
01:13:31,054 --> 01:13:35,894
I'm done with the communism of California. I'm going to go to Nashville. I'm going to go to Memphis.

841
01:13:36,014 --> 01:13:40,674
I'm going to go to somewhere in Tennessee. And I know that the infrastructure is good.

842
01:13:41,034 --> 01:13:43,734
I know that there's no income tax. It's a wealthy state.

843
01:13:43,734 --> 01:13:51,174
I can see how, in light of the hand we've been dealt, why that is obviously very advantageous.

844
01:13:51,254 --> 01:13:55,334
And it sounds like maybe that's kind of your broader vision for this whole initiative.

845
01:13:56,354 --> 01:13:56,954
Yeah, that.

846
01:13:57,114 --> 01:13:59,714
And also, if you look at what do other states do?

847
01:13:59,874 --> 01:14:06,474
I mean, one of the things that I've learned, too, when you talk to these lawmakers is it's, well, and it's in business, too, right?

848
01:14:06,494 --> 01:14:09,734
It's easier to just be like, well, we're not doing anything creative here.

849
01:14:09,814 --> 01:14:11,514
Look, it's just what everyone else is doing.

850
01:14:11,514 --> 01:14:16,814
so so you know we go to them and they're like what is this thing well it's the same thing that

851
01:14:16,814 --> 01:14:22,234
like 24 other states are doing and we're just doing it now and here it is and it's very standard

852
01:14:22,234 --> 01:14:26,234
you know it's nothing threatening about it strategic bitcoin reserve oh the federal government

853
01:14:26,234 --> 01:14:30,734
even did it you know trump trump trump did it you know okay so now the conversation is moving in the

854
01:14:30,734 --> 01:14:36,134
right direction they don't feel threatened by it it's very normal so that's another reason for it

855
01:14:36,134 --> 01:14:39,854
it's just like a baby step it's just like we can get other things done but if we haven't even done

856
01:14:39,854 --> 01:14:44,434
this and it's kind of the first thing. Let's just do this first, make sure it works, and then we'll

857
01:14:44,434 --> 01:14:49,274
move on to the next thing that's a little more interesting. Yeah. I think that does make a lot

858
01:14:49,274 --> 01:14:55,074
of sense. Because my issue at the federal level is, first of all, $39 trillion in debt, and we're

859
01:14:55,074 --> 01:14:58,854
talking about a sovereign wealth fund, and we're talking about a strategic Bitcoin reserve. And

860
01:14:58,854 --> 01:15:04,594
fortunately, to my knowledge, none of it has meaningfully come to pass. But it just doesn't

861
01:15:04,594 --> 01:15:09,214
make any sense, even on paper. I mean, it literally only makes sense to me going to a

862
01:15:09,214 --> 01:15:14,654
Bitcoin conference and trying to buy a bunch of votes. What I think you're describing is a more

863
01:15:14,654 --> 01:15:23,234
tactical way of embedding Bitcoin into the economy, into the winning mindshare with people

864
01:15:23,234 --> 01:15:30,414
who probably perceive their government to be more responsible in Tennessee and worthy of trust than

865
01:15:30,414 --> 01:15:35,014
people looking at the federal government or in many other jurisdictions and states where

866
01:15:35,014 --> 01:15:40,894
it just doesn't make sense. So, um, I don't know, man, I, I need to think a little bit more like my,

867
01:15:40,994 --> 01:15:46,174
my knee jerk reaction is just like, I can't, I can't agree with you on this, but I, I can hear

868
01:15:46,174 --> 01:15:49,914
where you're coming from. If you need help, Hey, if you change your mind, let us know. We'll help

869
01:15:49,914 --> 01:15:54,714
it. We're actually helping a couple of other States now. Um, our, our mission ultimately,

870
01:15:54,714 --> 01:15:58,994
like we want to focus on Tennessee. So I don't mean to be sounded like we're distracted, but

871
01:15:58,994 --> 01:16:04,654
everything that we're doing, we're trying to do in a way that is sort of scalable and

872
01:16:04,654 --> 01:16:11,454
repeatable and so like ultimately our vision is to have like a turnkey solution and just say oh you

873
01:16:11,454 --> 01:16:17,414
want to start a state level advocacy group like here here's our github repo right here's our here's

874
01:16:17,414 --> 01:16:23,014
the templates for all the documents you need here's the sequence of steps that had worked for us go do

875
01:16:23,014 --> 01:16:29,774
it and taking out that uh uncertainty hopefully you know would would would would uh grease the

876
01:16:29,774 --> 01:16:36,114
wheels um but yeah i i get what you're saying too honestly um i don't think i don't see a downside

877
01:16:36,114 --> 01:16:40,834
it's like maybe maybe you're arguing that there's an opportunity cost to doing something else more

878
01:16:40,834 --> 01:16:45,714
interesting fine but the state of tennessee holding bitcoin does that threaten bitcoin like i don't

879
01:16:45,714 --> 01:16:51,714
really see it and um yeah and the other thing to understand is that that's everything's slow

880
01:16:51,714 --> 01:16:57,574
right so like the first first step here is literally just to open an empty account or fund

881
01:16:57,574 --> 01:17:02,414
rather that can hold bitcoin that's it because before that you can go and talk to your blue in

882
01:17:02,414 --> 01:17:05,634
the face about how people should buy bitcoin they're like well we can't put it anywhere

883
01:17:05,634 --> 01:17:10,374
there's no there's nothing there's no structure there's no box to put it in so i can't even have

884
01:17:10,374 --> 01:17:15,834
this conversation so it's like okay create the fund it can be empty but it can hold bitcoin now

885
01:17:15,834 --> 01:17:20,694
now we can talk about things like can you pay your taxes in it should should they buy on the

886
01:17:20,694 --> 01:17:25,154
open market should they include it in their investments like all those questions follow

887
01:17:25,154 --> 01:17:32,314
follow the structure so yeah government is slow it's frustrating to some extent but

888
01:17:32,314 --> 01:17:41,634
it's actually been a lot of fun and um really like really good honestly a lot of diversity in

889
01:17:41,634 --> 01:17:47,134
terms of the way like you talk to people there's so many different perspectives ages backgrounds

890
01:17:47,134 --> 01:17:51,954
it's just incredible and you walk into these offices you never know what you're going to

891
01:17:51,954 --> 01:17:58,154
counter and you meet a new type of lawmaker, you know, this one guy we talked to, we started

892
01:17:58,154 --> 01:18:00,814
pitching him on. He's like, what are you guys here for? We started pitching on. He's like,

893
01:18:01,014 --> 01:18:05,294
stop talking. I'm in, you know, he's like, I already own Bitcoin or this other, or this other

894
01:18:05,294 --> 01:18:12,234
one was, he was a pretty powerful Senator. He listened to us, you know, politely. And at the

895
01:18:12,234 --> 01:18:20,194
end he was like, my kids buy Bitcoin. They're in college, you know? And so they tell me all about

896
01:18:20,194 --> 01:18:25,734
it all the time. I get it. So, so everybody has, and then other people are like, you can't touch it.

897
01:18:25,874 --> 01:18:29,814
It's not real estate. It's not gold. And then I'm like, ah, you should read my article about how

898
01:18:29,814 --> 01:18:37,174
Bitcoin is actually physical. Uh, but you know, so it's really interesting how, how there are,

899
01:18:37,254 --> 01:18:41,074
there's, there are people who get it. There are people who, who don't get it, but defer to people

900
01:18:41,074 --> 01:18:48,154
they trust. It's very common. So yeah. Okay. So let me, let me push back on, on one other thing.

901
01:18:48,154 --> 01:18:54,854
So you said, you know, is there really any downside to there hinder Bitcoin for a state to have an SBR?

902
01:18:55,414 --> 01:19:00,174
And I'm not necessarily contending that it does, but here's a concern that I've had.

903
01:19:00,294 --> 01:19:02,034
So we see Wall Street coming in.

904
01:19:02,114 --> 01:19:03,994
We see talk of like federal SBRs.

905
01:19:04,694 --> 01:19:11,354
And my concern is I think Bitcoin is a massive threat to the legacy financial system.

906
01:19:11,514 --> 01:19:14,594
I think it is the existential threat to the legacy financial system.

907
01:19:14,594 --> 01:19:37,774
And I get this sense that part of the reason there is so much adoption is certainly it's a way for BlackRock to make money or for whoever to make money, right? Because there's demand. But I also see more and more people. I see fewer and fewer people talking about let's use Bitcoin as money, as a currency, as a medium of exchange.

908
01:19:37,774 --> 01:19:44,614
and more people talking about Bitcoin's digital capital, it's digital gold. You gain no self

909
01:19:44,614 --> 01:19:50,514
sovereignty by buying Bitcoin in an ETF because it's just paper that someone else holds the Bitcoin.

910
01:19:51,214 --> 01:19:58,034
And I could see a world, I'm not saying that this is a base case. I'm saying I could envision a

911
01:19:58,034 --> 01:20:05,654
potential world where people accept the narrative of Bitcoin simply as a store of value. And it

912
01:20:05,654 --> 01:20:13,134
operates then alongside a CBDC sort of environment. That's your daily currency, which is

913
01:20:13,134 --> 01:20:19,154
censorable and permissioned and all of the things we don't like as Bitcoiners. And it's kind of like

914
01:20:19,154 --> 01:20:26,454
the meme, you know, we all get rich and are depressed sort of thing. And I don't think that

915
01:20:26,454 --> 01:20:31,634
fixes a lot of the things that I think Bitcoin would be a really useful tool for fixing. So I

916
01:20:31,634 --> 01:20:35,534
guess my question is, is there any concern? And maybe you don't even share the sentiment that I

917
01:20:35,534 --> 01:20:43,294
just shared, but my concern would just be is our government's adopting Bitcoin in a strategic

918
01:20:43,294 --> 01:20:47,074
reserve, which is they're not going to be spending it, right? They're going to be storing value in

919
01:20:47,074 --> 01:20:53,834
it. Another signal to the market that Bitcoin is just something you just hold on to. You don't do

920
01:20:53,834 --> 01:20:58,954
anything with it. You just hold it. You save in it. And yeah, you'll get rich someday. And it's

921
01:20:58,954 --> 01:21:05,774
sort of, I don't know, it just puts all of the other more interesting and useful use cases on

922
01:21:05,774 --> 01:21:10,534
the back burner. Or is that just not even a concern in your mind? I don't know. I mean,

923
01:21:10,574 --> 01:21:15,514
like Square today just announced that they're activating Bitcoin on every single terminal.

924
01:21:15,774 --> 01:21:20,614
I cheer that on though. You can do multiple things at once. I mean, it is a store of value,

925
01:21:20,614 --> 01:21:25,054
right? And the thing too is the cool thing about our bill was this custody provision, right? 10%

926
01:21:25,054 --> 01:21:30,174
must be physical must be held by the state so that's a that's that's an interesting um

927
01:21:31,054 --> 01:21:36,654
exercise in like education the thing is tennessee right like we and this initiative didn't go

928
01:21:36,654 --> 01:21:41,834
anywhere but it'll eventually probably happen right we had the state gold depository bill a

929
01:21:41,834 --> 01:21:47,014
couple years ago and you know it's like well texas has a gold depository and and our and our gold's

930
01:21:47,014 --> 01:21:51,874
down there and we don't want it down there we want it up here right so so tennessee has like a like a

931
01:21:51,874 --> 01:21:57,474
very strong culture about like self-sovereignty and like holding on to your, the keys, at least

932
01:21:57,474 --> 01:22:01,514
to your gold vault. So now we need to like, you know, help people understand that Bitcoin works

933
01:22:01,514 --> 01:22:07,554
a similar way and they will. So, and, and at the same time, uh, I go, I have a steak and shake down

934
01:22:07,554 --> 01:22:12,474
the street from my house. Every time I go there, I buy my lunch with Bitcoin. They accept lightning

935
01:22:12,474 --> 01:22:19,474
and it works incredibly well. Um, so it's a, it's a both end. It's, you don't have concern

936
01:22:19,474 --> 01:22:25,454
that too much push on the store of value at, cause all, all I see at the, like on, on a,

937
01:22:25,574 --> 01:22:31,254
on a massive scale, when you look at BlackRock, when you look at state legislatures, adopting

938
01:22:31,254 --> 01:22:37,034
strategic reserves, the federal government, it's, it's always, it's always store of value.

939
01:22:37,034 --> 01:22:40,894
And I agree with you. It is a great store of value for all of the reasons we've, we've sort

940
01:22:40,894 --> 01:22:44,214
of talked about. And I think most Bitcoiners listening to something like this would understand.

941
01:22:44,214 --> 01:23:00,214
And my concern is if we're in the, let's say we're in the, like the early majority stage of Bitcoin adoption, early in the early majority stage, is we migrate through the early majority stage and into the late majority stage.

942
01:23:00,214 --> 01:23:07,334
And are those people getting all of their signal from Larry Fink and from Donald Trump

943
01:23:07,334 --> 01:23:12,354
and from the people who are not talking about, hey, go spend your Bitcoin at stake and shake.

944
01:23:12,354 --> 01:23:18,734
Go adopt it as a square merchant and store some of that.

945
01:23:18,734 --> 01:23:19,954
Don't just convert.

946
01:23:19,992 --> 01:23:26,172
to fiat. It's just, hey, save it, buy the BlackRock ETF. We'll run your Bitcoin for you.

947
01:23:26,632 --> 01:23:32,272
Treasury companies, yada, yada. Well, I don't. Well, OK, I agree with you

948
01:23:32,272 --> 01:23:37,672
but for a different reason. I don't think that the BlackRock narrative is threatening to the

949
01:23:37,672 --> 01:23:45,432
medium of exchange. I think the threat is from paper. And I think the financialization of Bitcoin

950
01:23:45,432 --> 01:23:51,612
Bitcoin is dilutive in that there's more Bitcoin being traded than there exists physically.

951
01:23:52,152 --> 01:23:58,032
It's the same thing that happened with gold. It's okay. I may have told the story before on

952
01:23:58,032 --> 01:24:02,072
your podcast. I apologize, but an old friend of mine, I was at a conference many years ago

953
01:24:02,072 --> 01:24:09,692
and I'm from Silicon Valley. I was building robots and stuff. I was not a financial guy,

954
01:24:10,392 --> 01:24:14,532
but so for me, the word innovation, I'm using a soldering iron. I'm writing software.

955
01:24:14,532 --> 01:24:16,992
For this guy, he's a financial innovation guy.

956
01:24:17,632 --> 01:24:19,392
And he was explaining, I was like, what is that?

957
01:24:19,492 --> 01:24:20,372
All right, you don't build anything.

958
01:24:20,452 --> 01:24:27,792
He's like, financial innovation is finding ways to legally recognize the same asset on

959
01:24:27,792 --> 01:24:28,712
multiple balance sheets.

960
01:24:29,252 --> 01:24:32,152
That is the entire point, right?

961
01:24:32,912 --> 01:24:34,212
There's illegal ways to do it.

962
01:24:34,232 --> 01:24:35,532
And obviously, like you get in trouble.

963
01:24:35,632 --> 01:24:39,752
But if you understand the law and you understand regulation, you can find ways of doing it.

964
01:24:39,792 --> 01:24:40,692
And that's innovation.

965
01:24:40,852 --> 01:24:41,872
That creates money.

966
01:24:41,872 --> 01:24:48,372
so that that's ultimately you know people like oh like black rock they're uh they're audited by

967
01:24:48,372 --> 01:24:54,172
like a big five you know it's nothing to worry about bullshit like it's absolutely something to

968
01:24:54,172 --> 01:25:05,632
worry about they going to the whole point of what they doing is try to find a way to legally do that So it dilutive So it suppresses the price and people will get rugged And all the people that

969
01:25:05,632 --> 01:25:10,192
read the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times who want to buy Bitcoin to get rich and

970
01:25:10,192 --> 01:25:15,032
put money in their ETF, they're going to get rugged eventually. I mean, they're going to get

971
01:25:15,032 --> 01:25:18,532
rugged at least in the sense that they're not going to enjoy the appreciation that they otherwise

972
01:25:18,532 --> 01:25:24,672
would if they were buying physical because because there's more supply than there is bitcoin

973
01:25:24,672 --> 01:25:32,352
so that's a huge problem that's a huge huge problem so i don't like the blackrock etf stuff

974
01:25:32,352 --> 01:25:39,892
for that reason but like i i think um it's it's like an education thing and it's also a user

975
01:25:39,892 --> 01:25:46,432
experience thing and it's also you have to be patient and just be like you know holding your

976
01:25:46,432 --> 01:25:53,552
own keys is really, I know you guys say it's not that hard, but I talk to people and it is like

977
01:25:53,552 --> 01:26:02,452
psychologically hard and people lose, lose their keys and that that's not solved yet, you know,

978
01:26:02,452 --> 01:26:08,612
and I just, um, that's concerning. So for, so I'm, I'm bearish on that. I'm, I'm worried that

979
01:26:08,612 --> 01:26:15,232
we're going to have too much paper, um, and people will just get used to it and never learn

980
01:26:15,232 --> 01:26:17,532
how to self custody, but hopefully like things like,

981
01:26:17,532 --> 01:26:21,132
you know, the sentiment in Tennessee about like, you know,

982
01:26:21,132 --> 01:26:25,132
holding, controlling your own wealth and hard money,

983
01:26:25,132 --> 01:26:26,792
you know, we're really into that here.

984
01:26:26,792 --> 01:26:30,172
And hopefully we can build a culture around that.

985
01:26:30,172 --> 01:26:33,472
And with agents extending what we do to tie it back,

986
01:26:34,472 --> 01:26:46,812
preferring physical Bitcoin I consider lightning physical Bitcoin I think that that also very going to be very helpful Yeah Well I guess two final comments One is I think we never had a

987
01:26:46,812 --> 01:26:50,492
client lose funds. So I think they need the right trainer and they can figure out self-custody.

988
01:26:50,492 --> 01:26:56,492
We'll give them peace of mind. But two, for me to play devil's advocate and sort of revert back to

989
01:26:56,492 --> 01:27:01,712
a lot of what you have said, devil's advocate against myself is I think maybe the redeeming

990
01:27:01,712 --> 01:27:06,452
quality of this conversation is the agents are going to choose Bitcoin for a lot of the,

991
01:27:06,552 --> 01:27:10,272
for the, they're already choosing it, or they seem to be in hypothetical scenarios.

992
01:27:10,632 --> 01:27:15,772
And moving forward, I think the case for Bitcoin as a medium of exchange becomes more and more

993
01:27:15,772 --> 01:27:21,712
evident when transactions are increasingly censored, permission's harder to come by and so

994
01:27:21,712 --> 01:27:29,932
forth. And so maybe what people, what humans choose to believe about Bitcoin becomes less and

995
01:27:29,932 --> 01:27:36,632
less relevant because what matters is this massive swath of other agents who enter the

996
01:27:36,632 --> 01:27:43,452
market, become a part of commerce and choose Bitcoin. So problem solved. I think I'm

997
01:27:43,452 --> 01:27:49,212
worrying about things unworthy of my time. I don't know, Dave. Man, this has been a fun

998
01:27:49,212 --> 01:27:54,472
conversation. Hey, why don't you tell people where they can find you, learn more about your

999
01:27:54,472 --> 01:27:59,072
business, your work in Tennessee too, and anything else you want to point them to. I can link to

1000
01:27:59,072 --> 01:28:00,272
everything in the show notes.

1001
01:28:00,272 --> 01:28:01,412
Sure, sure.

1002
01:28:01,412 --> 01:28:02,472
Well, it's sparse right now,

1003
01:28:02,472 --> 01:28:07,412
but the AI company I would send you to is bright.bot,

1004
01:28:07,412 --> 01:28:08,972
B-R-I-T-E dot B-O-T.

1005
01:28:08,972 --> 01:28:10,092
There's just a placeholder there,

1006
01:28:10,092 --> 01:28:12,692
but go there and about maybe when this airs,

1007
01:28:12,692 --> 01:28:27,912
I don know when it airing but we should have a wait list soon for what we doing with Agentic AI And then the tnbitcoinalliance tnbitcoinalliance is the Tennessee Bitcoin

1008
01:28:27,912 --> 01:28:33,312
Alliance. And you can find us there and you can subscribe. Yeah, that would be where I'd leave it.

1009
01:28:33,912 --> 01:28:38,172
Perfect, man. Dave, always fun talking with you. Fascinating conversations. Appreciate all your

1010
01:28:38,172 --> 01:28:43,012
insight and we need to do this again sometime. Maybe later this year, next year, when the agents

1011
01:28:43,012 --> 01:28:48,832
have officially adopted Bitcoin, taken over and it's just gotten crazy. So I'll delegate to one

1012
01:28:48,832 --> 01:28:53,532
of my agents. I won't bother with it. I would be very happy to do it. And thank you so much for

1013
01:28:53,532 --> 01:28:58,632
the opportunity. I really appreciate it. Thanks, man. Take care. Take care. And that's a wrap.

1014
01:28:58,632 --> 01:29:03,112
Again, hope you enjoyed my conversation with Dave. I always find it fascinating getting to sit down

1015
01:29:03,112 --> 01:29:07,872
and chat with him. Go check out everything he's working on. Again, super fascinating guy. Lots

1016
01:29:07,872 --> 01:29:12,812
of interesting stuff. And of course, if you need help taking your Bitcoin into proper 100%

1017
01:29:12,812 --> 01:29:18,032
self-custody, go to thebitcoinway.com slash podcast. You can schedule a free consult with

1018
01:29:18,032 --> 01:29:22,492
a member of our team. Love to talk you through how we can help you get set up in proper self-custody,

1019
01:29:22,592 --> 01:29:27,612
as well as how we can assist with online privacy, setting up a privacy phone. We've got a plan B

1020
01:29:27,612 --> 01:29:33,172
residency option in Panama. Again, that's thebitcoinway.com slash podcast. Do me a huge

1021
01:29:33,172 --> 01:29:36,892
favor. If you're enjoying the show, give us a like, subscribe, comment, share it with someone

1022
01:29:36,892 --> 01:29:41,772
who you think might be interested, anything to feed the algorithm and get this high signal Bitcoin

1023
01:29:41,772 --> 01:29:47,572
content out into the world. And until next time, stay safe, stay sovereign, and remember the yield

1024
01:29:47,572 --> 01:29:48,772
on Bitcoin is freedom.