Best case scenario is we have a Super Bowl ad. It's fully scaled up. We've got this beautiful
learn directory that's curated with a one-stop shop that we can send friends and family to when
they're curious and ready to start learning about Bitcoin. What's your soft spot for middle-class
families and how do you think what you're doing at Bitcoin is better specifically reaches and
engages those people? 50, 100 years from now, people are going to look back and be like, wow,
so many people were working and they didn't even know the denominator of their money.
It all makes no sense unless the only thing that you think is viable is the fiat system.
Throughout the middle class is that you've missed the boat.
Bitcoin today is $73,000 per coin.
So it almost feels like you're too late, but that's not the truth.
Hey everyone, Michael here with the Bitcoin Way podcast.
Thank you for tuning in.
Today on the show, I have Daniel Hershberger of Bitcoin is Better. They are doing amazing work
with the goal of getting a Bitcoin-only high signal ad in the Super Bowl. We talk about how
it works, where your sats go. You can vote on different ads. So many cool things that they
are engaging in the space. Enjoy my chat with Daniel. Hey, everyone. Like I said in the intro,
I have Daniel here with me. Daniel, welcome to the Bitcoin Way podcast.
Michael, great to finally meet you face to face and excited to be here.
Yeah, I'm glad Adam Sameka connected us. Very excited for this conversation. I think what you're working on here, and I know, by the way, this is like a volunteer role for you, but it's a very important thing that you're working on sort of in the Bitcoin space. And it doesn't sound like a back burner item for you. I imagine this is taking a lot of time. But why don't you just give some context? Explain to people what is Bitcoin is better and why should they be excited about what you're doing?
Yeah.
So Bitcoin is better.
It's a very broad statement because in my opinion, Bitcoin is better means something
different to everyone.
So the purpose of the nonprofit is really to help middle class families see themselves
within the Bitcoin story.
So then once you see yourself inside the Bitcoin story of why it is better to you, then you
adopt it and build that firm foundation economically on Bitcoin, which we are still so early to
this adoption phase, but the common myth throughout the middle class is that you've missed the boat.
Bitcoin today is $73,000 per coin. So it almost feels like you're too late, but that's not the
truth. So yeah, with the nonprofit, the idea came about in about 2022. The Super Bowl ads came on
and we had Matt Damon pitching Crypto.com and Tom Brady was partnering up with Same Bankman
Freed. And I just watched those commercials and I was like, man, there's so many people that are
just going to get rubbed by these celebrities pushing crypto and of course, putting a little
bit of Bitcoin in there, you know, just a little sprinkle of truth. But I was like, man, there just
needs to be like a unified message of why Bitcoin exists, why it matters, helping people ask better
questions about money so that they can understand why Bitcoin exists and get in early for themselves
and their families. So the nonprofit started in 2023. I wrote a book, Bitcoin is Better,
Natural Money That Works for the Working Class, to basically polish up my thoughts for the
nonprofit, like the five main areas that Bitcoin is better has changed the way that I view the
world and how it's made money, economics, politics, property, and health better and is making it
better. So I broke it down into five chapters. But like I said, it's such a broad statement.
Bitcoin is better really means something different to each person. So the book was launched. The
nonprofit was filed. It took us about nine months to actually get approved for our 501c3 status.
That was during the Biden administration. So I'm sure we hit some keywords somewhere, you know,
so the administrative headache was a little bit more than anticipated. But yeah, we're rocking
and rolling now. Last month, we launched our TV ads and learn directory. So that's up and running.
We've got seven ads so far that we're crowdfunding. So I encourage people to check out
bitcoinisbetter.org. If one of the ads connects with you, feel free to throw some sats at it and
help us to get it out. But we have other plans as well to increase distribution. We've really just
kickstarted this thing as an all-volunteer board, but we're opening up what's called our
guild to get more of the Bitcoin community involved and get people to help us build this
vision of just having a unified signal message of why Bitcoin exists and helping middle-class
families adopt Bitcoin. That's awesome. So I feel like it was, was it two years ago that we first
saw the Coinbase ad in the Super Bowl or was that further back? I remember, I know I was in Bitcoin
at the time. And I remember thinking at the time I was kind of earlier on my journey and I remember
thinking this is exciting. Like it's going mainstream. I was probably like still buying
on Coinbase at the time or something. And then I guess there were more last year and I, it was
like just hard to watch. It's so sad. The further down the Bitcoin rabbit hole you go and you see,
you know, FTX and Coinbase sort of taking airtime for crypto.
So what's the what's the hope here is the hope to have a Super Bowl ad?
Is the hope to just broadly distribute this across mainstream outlets,
you know, network television?
Like, where do you see these ads playing out?
Yes.
And I mean, a hat tip to Coinbase, they put out some really solid Bitcoin ads.
Yeah, actually, they have been more recent days.
Yeah, more recent days that are amazing.
But it's like, where does that traffic go? And you enter Coinbase. It's a casino. It's turned into a casino instead of focusing on Bitcoin. So, yeah, the idea, the big stretch goal for the organization is to put together a Super Bowl ad.
and we've actually just recently partnered up with the Bitcoin Marketing Association
and they have a similar vision as us.
They're a 501c6 organization, I believe, which is like a trade organization nonprofit.
But their original idea was to send traffic to bitcoinisbetter.com
and make it like a got milk commercial where it's like, you know,
got Bitcoin or beef it's what's for dinner.
So just brand neutral and send traffic to a website.
And then we met up and like we were a little bit further along as far as ready to go to production.
But now we're going to be kind of like teaming up.
So we've got Bitcoin is better dot com and Bitcoin is better dot org.
But the idea is like you can't really run a got milk commercial for Bitcoin, because as soon as somebody goes to YouTube and types in Bitcoin, they're going to get captured by all these algorithms that are going to take them to to crypto and other types of scams.
So the idea is to send traffic to a board curated brand neutral learn directory with the best Bitcoin resources for people to begin their learning journey.
So so, yeah, that's the idea of like how the ads platform and the learn directory are, you know, working together and complementary.
That's fantastic. Yeah. And I think the Bitcoin way is is in there as well for for self custody.
So I hope everyone checks it out. So I think it's something people are going to want to know, because whenever you have.
I think people are rightfully skeptical of, I mean, certainly anyone collecting money and maybe increasingly of nonprofits.
How does like the flow of sats work?
So if I go on your site and I see an ad that I say, this is one I really like.
I want to support this.
I'd love to see this on, you know, a major news outlet or a major media outlet.
And I and I and I contribute.
Right. And actually, by the way, I did just a couple of hours ago.
I contributed to one of the ads.
what like does bitcoin is better you know retain a small portion of that like a fee basically
does the creator uh earn anything does what happens if it doesn't go you know and it's not
voted on uh enough to actually get airtime how does all of that work yeah that's a great question
um so the the donation breakdown is basically 80 goes to distribution of the ad uh 10 goes to the
creator of the ad and then 10% is retained by the nonprofit to keep the lights on for administrative
costs. So we have a board of 12 board members, Bitcoin only board members. And yeah, so there's
transparency that comes with that. We have Joe Wood from Satoshi Pacioli. He's our treasurer.
So he handles the finances of the organization. And each week or each month we meet as an
organization and make sure that funds are responsibly handled. But yeah,
that's a great question because a nonprofit has almost become like slang word
for, for scam, you know, the last couple of years in Minnesota, right?
Yeah, yeah, that's right. Well, I think it is, it is an important question.
What I will say is that knowing some of the folks on your team,
I have complete confidence because I have personal relationships.
Obviously not everyone does. I, I, I couldn't rattle off the,
like what you would typically see in a nonprofit.
My impression though, is that 80% actually going to the cause,
to the purpose is incredibly good.
And people have to realize that there is overhead
with running something like this.
And it's not to pay volunteers, obviously.
It's to pay to keep the lights on.
It's to make sure the website is functioning, outreach.
I imagine there's marketing that you want to do,
those sorts of things, because you can only receive ads
and have an effective game plan if people know that you exist
and are incentivized in some way to do something
and to spend time and invest energy
and put in proof of work into creating something
that they think could potentially be shown on live television.
Where have been, you said,
I think there are seven ads right now on the site.
Where have those come from?
Are those people who you just,
because this launched relatively recently,
are those people who you knew and you sort of primed for,
hey, we want to get some content up there. So when we go live, we have people have options.
Or are those people who heard about you after you launched and said, this is awesome,
I want to do this? What's been the source of content so far?
Yeah. So, so far we have bootstrapped as a board. So six of the ads I created,
one of the ads Adam created, Adam Semeca. The idea behind that, we don't have,
neither of us have a film background, but we both are very passionate about Bitcoins.
We're like, okay, these new AI tools are coming out. This is like five or six months ago.
Let's put together just some 30 second and 60 second ads and see what we can come up with
with these AI tools. So we did that. We went through a few iterations of the ads based on
board feedback. And the idea was just to get launched. This isn't like the final product
that's ready for the Super Bowl, but this is the idea, the vision that we have.
So we're hoping that that inspires people in the Bitcoin community who are more creative than us,
have a background in film, to put together some really, really moving stories that plant those
seeds in people's minds that get them curious about Bitcoin, which leads to a desire for education.
But yeah, the idea is crowdfunding and crowdsourcing of these videos. But also,
we're going to be opening up a new venue as well for Bitcoin whales who have a vision in their mind
that they want to share with middle-class families about why Bitcoin exists. And then partnering that
Bitcoin whale with a production team to actually put that into a 30-second or a 60-second ad.
And the whale can push it out. We could probably supplement it with some crowdfunding as well.
so that's going to be another venue and just yeah it's it there's a lot of moving parts to it but
we're kind of learning as we go and figuring out you know what works best and to answer your
question before moving on about the funds because I think it's really important so we we pick a
monthly winner to actually push out all the videos that don't win eventually we're going to drop them
off of the platform at some cadence you know two to three months and then those funds are going to
go into like optimized alternative media campaigns where the Bitcoin Marketing Association is going
to help us, you know, with Instagram ads, YouTube ads, you know, banner ads. But we're going to take
those funds and, you know, put them into other forms of media, which may show like a higher ROI
because ultimately our KPI that we're really striving for is number of learners per month.
Okay. Yeah, that's what we're optimizing for.
That's fantastic. And I really can't overstate at least my opinion that all of those things that you're talking about are really important. I know there are a lot of people when they donate or contribute in any capacity to a nonprofit, they want to know that their money went to this place around the world that they're trying to fund.
And that is obviously the most important at the end of the day.
It doesn't matter if it's your sats that go there.
What matters is that your sats help drive the machine that enable that activity to take place.
And sometimes that is marketing.
We run a business at the Bitcoin Way and we have an unbelievable service.
Doesn't matter if no one knows about us.
And that's just part of what we have to do.
It's why we do the podcast.
It's why we do marketing.
It's why we do all sorts of things.
So I hope that your numbers are, I think, very compelling, but I hope that doesn't discourage anyone.
The fact that some of this isn't going directly to getting a Super Bowl ad produced.
So I like this concept of Bitcoin whales funding production teams because I am unfortunately I'm not a Bitcoin whale.
I haven't been around long enough, wasn't stacking hard enough in my early days.
It's given me freedom, but not immense riches.
However, I think that there are people who are still on this mission that you're on, that I'm on, who have stacked a lot of stats over the last decade, decade and a half.
Are you helping to orchestrate the production teams?
Like are there people you know who you or is that the Bitcoin Marketing Association where they got incredibly talented folks who can work with AI who have the cameras the equipment whatever they need in order to produce these ads And it more just a matter of finding the interested investors matching them up with
people who you know are going to do good work and making it come together.
Yeah, I would say more of the latter. So thankfully, we had Terrence Michael join our board
last week. And he has a background of film. So for those of your listeners who may not be familiar
with him he wrote the book proof of money but if you look at his wikipedia he's got you know quite
the track record in in hollywood making and producing film i didn't know that yeah yeah
it's cool cool dude yeah background um but yeah so terrence is great he's bringing a lot of
direction as far as like how to how to build those teams out in the right way i've had some
i had an interview this week with a guy who reached out about the guild who has a video
editing background and he's going to put together an ad and you know get board feedback on it so it's
really just like as volunteers reach out to create ads like the cream will rise to the crop and we'll
kind of like develop our own uh team of sorts and um and yeah yeah put that together like i said with
with terrence and there's another uh another guy named jordan he he has a film background as well
he's starred in a few films um and i just met him over the last couple weeks with the launch as well
And he's interested in getting involved and helping us up our video creation skills.
So, yeah, I'm just confident that when the time is right, when the Lord's timing is right,
you know, the team's going to be there.
But we're just kind of putting the vision out as a nonprofit and trusting that, you know,
the right people will come at the right time.
Yeah, I think that time has come in.
It's just a matter of getting enough people aware of what's going on and why they should do it.
I would also add that people spend,
And Bitcoin spend a lot of time trying to orange pill their friends and family to no
avail.
You're just, it's too close to home.
They don't want, people don't want to imagine that you were right about something and that
they didn't get it and that they kicked the can for so long.
The moment I think like a third party can intervene with an interesting, catchy ad,
a resource, a website where they can go learn sort of on their own time at their own pace.
It just opens the door for better conversations.
Because I know like for my family, I think they probably think I'm the only Bitcoiner
in the world and that I'm the only one who's screeching about all this stuff.
When in reality, we're hopefully very close to a Super Bowl ad just about Bitcoin, not
about a crypto casino launching and the whole world being awakened to the notion that this
is really happening and that there is something to be paying attention to.
So I love that.
You mentioned on your website in many places that this is largely about helping middle class families.
The ads to me make a lot of sense for that.
Obviously, if people are watching TV at night, that's going to be a lot of middle class families.
What's your soft spot for middle class families?
And how do you think what you're doing at Bitcoin is better specifically reaches and engages those people?
Yeah, so I grew up in a working class family.
my dad worked in a factory. My mom is a nurse. So yeah, I would say growing up that way created
a soft spot. And then also I'm a Christian, so I read the Bible and especially Proverbs is very
heavy on the consequences of oppressing the poor, stealing from the poor. And with inflation being
intentional the way it is, I view that as one of the greatest justice issues of our time.
And Bitcoin is a tool for economic justice. Because I think that if Joe the plumber, if his
boss gave him a 7% pay cut every year, Joe the plumber would be pretty upset. Or if Joe the
plumber's congressman voted for a seven percent tax increase every year joe the plumber would be
upset but somehow you know the the fed can print seven percent more dollars each year and dilute
joe the plumber's paycheck and he's not even aware of it so i just think the the subtlety the
stealthness of intentional inflation is um is something worth uh i don't know asking questions
about. And then for me, I've ultimately found Bitcoin to be the better tool. And that's why I
support Bitcoin with my economic energy. And yeah, I think that it has the opportunity to change the
world more, like as much as AI or if not more than AI, because just think about like all the economic
consequences of money gaining value over time. So if your money bought more each year, how is that
going to change how you invest your time, how you think about your work. So many things change when
money grows in value over time. So it's just a big idea that most people haven't wrestled with.
And same with you, Michael. It's like, yeah, family and friends sometimes are the toughest.
Yeah. I like the way you frame that though, is if they voted every year on a 7% tax increase,
if your employer paid you 7% less every year and the answer was, well, you just need to invest
better. That's kind of the obvious solution is we need the S&P 500 to go up more than that 7%.
People would be screeching about it and they would never stand for it. The hurdle to overcome there,
of course, is that they don't advertise 7% M2 inflation. And most people wouldn't know what
that meant anyway. They advertise, well, we're about at target, we're close to 2%.
And most people don't understand that 2% versus 3% is a 50% increase. And so 3% sounds close in
enough, you know, it's only one percentage off when really it's a 50% difference. So it's, it's
a huge educational gap. I'm always curious, Daniel, you said that friends and family are one of the
tougher, one of the sticking points for, for Bitcoiners. Have you had any success with your
friends and family? Like when you talk to loved ones, are they on board Bitcoin? Are they not?
What's, what's the status? So at first, when I first, like when first Bitcoin first clicked for
me. Like, I would just talk about it for like an hour and like see faces glazing over and you know,
it just felt like I was being annoying. So that was, yeah, you can relate. Yeah. So I was like,
okay, I'm going to write a book. They'll know I'm really serious about this if I write a book.
So I wrote a book and yeah, my brother read it. He had great feedback. You know, he got,
he got a little Bitcoin as well after it. But I still have family members like who, who haven't.
Thankfully, I mean, my dad read the book and then after that he started saving in Bitcoin.
So I was like, all right, that's cool.
Yeah, yeah.
If you can affect the habits of your father, I think that's a good signal that you're saying some of the right things, you're making sense.
That's fantastic.
The other thing, it's so funny that what I think is going to be the most powerful orange peeling tool, and I think, again, not everything you're working on is incredibly important.
it's actually the interactions with,
with an everyday life that are going to fundamentally change people's
opinions because my,
so my wife and I are expecting our fourth baby this summer and we're upgrading
her car because we just don't have room for,
for four and what she currently drives.
And so we're going through this process of trying to figure this out.
Like right now at this moment, we might go after,
after I finished recording, I might be going to pick up a new car.
We'll see.
And they don't accept Bitcoin at the car dealership.
And so we're trying to figure out, okay,
do we wire? Do we need to get money moved into our checking account, write a check?
We're sorting all this stuff out. And there are all of these delays. And if you want to do a wire,
well, you've got to sign off. You've got all of these moving parts. And I told my wife, I said,
do you, because she's a Bitcoiner by proxy, I guess you could say. And she has to listen to me
explain these things and why it's so important. But I said, if he could just send me a QR code,
if the guy at the dealership could just send me a QR code,
he could be paid in 10 minutes.
And we don't have to worry about the fact that the weekend's almost here.
We don't have to do any paperwork.
He can verify it right then and there.
I can see that I no longer have access to those funds and we're,
and we're done.
And I told the story,
I don't know if I told on the podcast or one of our Bitcoin banter segments,
but my sister-in-law had an issue with a contractor who needed to be paid
very quickly.
and her bank doesn't have traditional checking account services, so she couldn't pull out
enough cash. She couldn't pull out any cash. She can just go to the ATM for $200, $400 a day or
something like that. And she needed several thousand dollars. And she was going to have to
open a checking account at another bank, initiate a permission to transfer to that bank, and then
they have a 30 day waiting period to withdraw that much cash because you're a new client.
We don't know you yet. We need to, you know, there's all these approvals that need to happen
for us if we wanted to expedite that, but we probably can't. I don't even know what their
internal rules are, but it's these sorts of everyday examples that I think really awaken
people to that. So as I'm thinking about what you're working on, sorry, I'm kind of rambling
here, but as I think about what you're working on, it's those everyday stories that if we can
articulate those in a medium like an ad that reaches many, many, many, many millions of people
potentially. Just to have that awakening moment where they realize how insane it is that they have
to sign off on everything. They have to wait. They're holding periods. Oh, it's a bank holiday.
It's the weekend. I can't. I have to rush this because of this or that. And oh, never mind. I'm
We have to wait anyways.
It all makes no sense unless the only thing that you think is viable is the fiat system.
The moment you have any understanding of Bitcoin, any understanding of Bitcoin at all, and then you have to jump through those hoops, you think this is absolutely insane.
It makes no sense.
So I'm hopeful maybe those are some of the stories that can emerge from these ads.
I'm curious if you've...
I watched a couple of the ads.
I didn't think I got through all of them, but are any of those, the sorts of stories or ads that you envision could be, could be a part of this?
Yeah, a hundred percent. And like the metaphor that was coming to mind as you were telling that story is almost like back in the early 1900s when people were, you know, horse and buggy going down the dirt road and then their neighbor comes by, you know, on a model way or whatnot.
right and until you see that neighbor pass you like you're probably going to be very skeptical of
motorized vehicles and um so i think that there's going to be like time that takes time and like you
said you can't pay with bitcoin right now to at the dealership but if you could and you had this
story or like somebody was with you and saw how much easier it was i i think that that's going to
be when it clicks that you don't have to live in this fiat system that technology has evolved beyond
that um but but for me too it's like the ease of transactions over lightning is a game changer and
cash app you know doing what they've done and with square terminals i think that's a huge move
forward in adoption um and i think that that's a big friction pain point but also i think that
50 100 years from now people are going to look back and be like wow so many people were working
and they didn't even know the denominator of their money.
It's like, why would you work for a money
and you don't even know how much exists
or how much is going to exist 10 years from now?
And I just think that that's going to be like historically,
like what were people thinking?
Like why didn't they adopt Bitcoin sooner?
But like you said, once it clicks, once you experience it,
once you send your first Bitcoin transaction,
like this is dumb.
Like why are we still living this way?
There's a much better way.
Yeah, it's just people need to have that experience. Like I think I tweeted about it. I said, hopefully this is my sister-in-law's awakening to Bitcoin because I told her, I said, first of all, it's not money. Second of all, they don't have it. And third, it's not yours. This is why you need Bitcoin. So I'm hoping maybe she starts to ask some more questions.
my brother is a bit more on board. So they've got a little bit of Bitcoin, but they're not as
they're not doing a Bitcoin podcast or working in Bitcoin or earning in Bitcoin. I'm hopeful
these are the sorts of conversations we have that lead them down that path eventually. But
we'll see, man. Hey, tell me a little bit more about. So on your website, you've got some other
things that you're doing. So the ads to me, that's the most exciting because I think that's just very
public. But I know that there are some more personal ways that people can be affected by
your work. So it's correct me if any of this isn't is inaccurate. It sounds to me like you're
trying to also find ways to help match people up with Bitcoin jobs, because obviously it's very
competitive working in the Bitcoin space and then helping early stage Bitcoin startups find people
who are maybe not willing to work or maybe would like to work for pay, but are willing to work as
volunteers so they can they have some of these resources, these tools at their disposal to to
get off the ground, hopefully without a bunch of VC funding. And then now new incentives enter the
equation. What are you doing there? And did I, was I wrong about any of what I've just described?
No, you described it correctly. So, so yeah, that's called our guild program and Dan Sherman.
So he goes by Hoddling J on X. He's the author of the gospel according to Bitcoin. He leads
the guild program. And the idea there is, yes, it's very competitive to get into
full-time Bitcoin work for a Bitcoin company.
So the idea is come help us as an organization, as a nonprofit,
build your portfolio, put in the proof of work,
hopefully build your network as well as you're working with different people
in the Bitcoin space on a volunteer basis.
And then eventually, yeah, connect you with people within our network
to hopefully work full-time in Bitcoin.
And I would say like we really pushed this initiative hard a year or two ago.
We kind of scaled back and focused more on the ads and the learn directory recently.
But we getting a lot of interest Like people are submitting forms on bitcoinisbetter for the guild So Dan is like reigniting that program to really put in more effort to bring more people into the Bitcoin
ecosystem. But I would say like the last few years, I don't think that there's going to be
enough Bitcoin jobs to go around for Bitcoin people. I mean, there's also like some something
to working your fiat job and converting that to Bitcoin. It's still working for Bitcoin if you're
earning Bitcoin. Because unlike the fiat banking system, I don't think that there's going to be as
much overhead in the Bitcoin economy. It flourishes. There's not going to be as much financialization.
But I still think that it is a great opportunity to network, to build your portfolio. And then,
like I said, proof of work will kind of rise the cream to the top. And then hopefully, you know,
those connections will pay off and then also help our organization get your work out in front of
more eyeballs. And like I said, on a volunteer basis, we'll take all the help that we can get.
I think that's fantastic. You know, I'll say as someone who has been involved,
and first of all, I have people ask me from time to time, like, hey, how do you get a job in
bitcoin because i have one and i have to be completely honest i i got really lucky i was
a client of the bitcoin way and so the lines of communication were already open with them i was
going through like the self-custody setup process when they were looking to hire someone with my
with my experience and knowledge and so it just sort of worked out so i don't have any real
tangible you know no personal story to tell however i've been fortunate to be involved in
some of the hiring that we do. And one of the things that, at least for a company like ours,
where we are very hardcore, uncompromising, Bitcoin only, toxic maxis, that sort of thing,
people who are willing to trade some of their time in exchange for that experience,
that proof of work, a better resume within Bitcoin, that means a lot. And then I would
also just add some free advice for anyone. If you send exactly what we ask for, like,
hey, we want a resume and answer these questions or whatever. And you send a resume and answer
those questions might work out well for you because that's what we're asking for. If you
do that and then you also go above and beyond and you send a video, you send examples of the work
that you've done, you reference something that you did for Bitcoin is better, for example,
and how you connected with them and spent five or 10 or 20 hours a week doing work that you didn't
have to be doing, but it was because you are on this mission with us, it goes a long way. So I
love that. What do you, what sort of work? So if I was looking to bolster my resume, if I was
looking for an opportunity to work for Bitcoin is better, what sort of, because I think there will
be people who are interested, what sort of work is useful to you right now? And who would you
accept into that program? Yeah. So right now our immediate need is video editors, graphic designers,
also programming.
We've got a few things with our apps
or with our website that we're wanting to build out.
So those are the top three that come to mind.
But really, if you've got a vision
for how to grow Bitcoin adoption
within the middle class,
I'm open to new ideas as well.
And our board is as well.
So I want it to be a big tent, basically, a big tent to grow Bitcoin adoption.
But yeah, I'd say out the gate video editing.
If you put together AI videos for Bitcoin content, then yeah, that would be a good place to start.
I think that's a great call to action because some of the videos, again, I didn't watch all of them,
but some of the ads that you guys put together I thought looked really good.
I like the, I think it was Thomas Jefferson, George Washington one.
I thought it was cool.
But I know that there are really talented people or even people who are maybe not designers themselves or videographers or anything like that.
But they're really good with AI.
They've got a creative lens by which they view the world who could produce sort of a next level of content for you guys very quickly.
And at least your portfolio of the content that you're offering for people to vote on and to send sats in on could grow exponentially.
So if you're one of those people listening, if you can create an awesome 30, 60 second AI ad or not an AI ad, right?
Make it fully authentic.
I think those are people that would benefit immensely.
And I think you guys would see the fruits of that labor as well.
What's your take on scaling Bitcoin is better?
So as you think about your very, you know, sort of a recent post launch that we're discussing this, how do we get from what you're doing now, a handful of ads that you guys have generated to an ad in the Super Bowl, for example, is maybe sort of the pinnacle of advertising nirvana.
What do you think needs to happen between now and then?
I think our ads need to be better.
So hopefully we can level up our ads and our storytelling.
I think after we get the first ad running on, you know,
normie airways and we start to get some metrics in for number of learners per
ad dollars, I think that those metrics will help.
And I think ultimately it's going to come down to Bitcoiners because there is
a lot of, I don't know the right word to define it, but basically if you go on Geyser, Geyser
Fund, a lot of great projects never get funded. So a big hesitation with the Bitcoin is better
approach is will Bitcoiners donate? Will they actually support this? Like Bitcoiners will go to
multiple conferences per year, spend millions of sats to go and hear the same speeches by the same
speakers multiple times. And I mean, there's networking opportunities there and, you know,
there's benefits to going to conferences. But that's a question I've been wrestling with is
like, why do most Geyser funds fail? And can we come together as a community and get behind this
idea of giving back to people who, you know, haven't experienced Bitcoin yet, like giving
Bitcoin to people because Bitcoin has improved our lives so much. So it's a, it's an optimistic
experiment. Like for my, in my mind, like best case scenario is we have a Superbowl ad. It's
fully scaled up. We've got this beautiful learn directory that's curated with, with, you know,
a one-stop shop that we can print, send friends and families, family to when they're curious and
ready to start learning about Bitcoin. But worst case scenario is, okay, we've got these ads,
We've got a modest learn directory that's still a helpful resource for the Bitcoin community,
but maybe donations didn't come in the way we thought they would.
And we didn't get out on the airwaves like we thought we could, but we still come together.
We came together as a 12-person volunteer board and put together this helpful resource for the community.
So it's an optimistic experiment.
I hope it scales up.
I hope that we're able to get thousands, millions of learners, whatnot.
That would be amazing.
but if not, like we're going to still give it our best. So it's really, it's an experiment. And I,
I don't know if it's going to be crowdfunding, uh, you know, plebs zapping sats to their favorite ads,
or if it's going to be, you know, getting a few whales and then hooking them up with the production
team and then we get the ads out. Um, so, so yeah, I guess, I don't know. That's a long way of saying,
I don't know, Michael. I think it's a fair answer. My, my only request of you as you,
you look at going to whales is that you're cautious about, because I think there's value
to centralization when it comes to something like this, because people can get behind the vision of
what you're doing and say, okay, I like this guy. I like what they're doing. I like the message
they're sending. I'm going to invest in this. I'm going to send some sats. I'm going to vote on an
ad. It's very easy. I think at times when you start to get someone who says, Hey, I've got,
I hold 1,000 Bitcoin or 10,000 Bitcoin.
And yeah, I'll fund this.
But this is what I want the message to be.
And it in some way deviates from the real intent.
But it's like, hey, this could be our Super Bowl ad.
Okay, but is it just another Coinbase Super Bowl ad?
That's not what we're going for.
But if they fund it and they put all their support behind it,
there is the opportunity for a whale to make their own,
to make waves, pun intended.
And to, I don't know, maybe to potentially dilute really the message that I think you are here to send.
Are there any, I don't know, checks and balances on that where you say, hey, this was not like you vet the ads yourself or does your team vet the ads before they go up?
will that continue as you have hopefully more funding come in because you want to make sure
that we're not just we don't have one whale who's massively funding some generic crypto ad or
something like that right um yeah because one of our original ideas was just to set up our website
where somebody could upload their video and it automatically went to the you know
that's dangerous yeah that's dangerous after yeah after talking that through as a board we're like
no we better we better have a curation process so yeah 100 um has to get a majority vote from the
board to be put up on our ads platform and then it's a non-negotiable that we send traffic to
bitcoin is better.org which is a learn directory that's also curated by our board to be bitcoin
only and to be helpful yeah so that was the other thing i wanted to ask you about is the where you
direct people so let's say we get we get our super bowl ad going and we have millions of eyeballs on
bitcoin is better learning about bitcoin and they are being funneled somewhere to your website
presumably and uh i think it really matters a lot what the first thing they see what their first
touch point is on that website uh obviously and you know i i hope people see the bitcoin ways spot
is you know great but more importantly those people aren't they're not thinking about self-custody
because they don't even know what self-custody is.
They're thinking that something about that ad resonated with me.
What do I not understand?
What do I not know?
What is Bitcoin?
And like, what do you view the future of that landing page
or whatever their first interaction with the website to be?
Because just imagine a world where you have a Super Bowl ad.
That needs to be an incredibly important bit of information
that you're sharing when they get directed to that site.
What do you think that needs to be?
And what's sort of your vision for where you're headed with it?
Yeah, so that's where the guild comes in.
We're hoping that a web developer can come and help us to optimize that welcome.
Right now, we just have two buttons up.
It's learn about Bitcoin or watch the TV ads.
So which way do you want to go?
And then we've got it kind of structured by books, podcasts, and businesses.
Each one broken down into their different category.
But yeah, I mean, in my mind, it would be a friendly face welcoming them to Bitcoinisbetter.org
and then make it interactive, like which ad connected with you.
Here's the top three things that you may not know about Bitcoin, but you should know.
And then you click and work through.
But yeah, that's the good thing about starting small.
We're starting small and hopefully over time we'll learn and optimize before we get on the big stage.
and have that responsibility to optimize that onboarding process.
Yeah.
I have to imagine you've got five or 10 people who will hear this,
who will listen to this podcast who say, I can contribute to that.
I can help make that good.
The thing, it takes a village though, right?
Because yeah, you need software engineers.
You need web developers.
You need really good designers.
It needs to look clean.
You need, and the hardest part is what is the content?
What is the message, right?
I've presented to two or three churches now
trying to get them to adopt a Bitcoin treasury. And each time I do the presentation and like slide
deck and all, and I think, is this the best way that I can present this to them? Am I overwhelming
them? Do I sound like a crazy person? Is it logical? You know, like I have, I really have no,
I'm just guessing. And there is certainly, there are certainly resources that do it much better
than I could. And maybe you should team up with someone like Joe Bryan from Sats versus Fiat.
you know he did the what's the problem video something like that if we could like i think 40
minutes is a little bit long but an abbreviated version of something like that i think it'd be
incredibly impactful for people but i i don't have the answer well it requires someone who is way
smarter or at least way more thoughtful than i am who who's who can explain this stuff simply it's
it in me otherwise i'd volunteer and help you man yeah and that goes back to um the bitcoin
Marketing Association. So the guy that leads that, his name is Randy. And that's his specialty. He's
done paid media for 25 years, especially in like regulated environments. And his vision for the
Bitcoin Marketing Association is figuring out what messaging works for converting someone from
no coiner to a bitcoiner. So he's going to look at that data and try to figure out what works for
certain audiences, like what clicks for them, Bitcoin is better. And how do you frame it? How
do you say it? So that's not my specialty. But thankfully, you know, Randy's coming to the
picture with what they're doing at the Bitcoin Marketing Association. And his idea is to share
that data with different Bitcoin companies who have a marketing advertising budget and, you know,
want to know what messages are working with their future customers. So it's a really cool
a nonprofit model he has going as well.
That's fantastic.
You need to connect me with him
because I'd like that for my own personal benefit.
I don want to walk into another church or to my local farmer market without being armed with something better than what I done before I two for two on the churches but I think it more because I offered to help
seed their treasury, not because I just made such a compelling case for Bitcoin. I think they're
like, hey, this guy wants to give us something. I guess we can accept it. We'd be idiots if we
didn't. I love that. So the last thing I wanted to talk with you about as we head for home here is
a topic we talk a lot about on the podcast. It just comes up in just about everything these days
is AI. So you talking with Adam, I understand you guys used AI for a lot of the development
of what you've done so far. I would love to know your, tell us a little bit about your background
because I know you've got some other, some work that you do in the outside of Bitcoin is better
that I think is related to some of this stuff and maybe has enabled you to better leverage AI tools.
How did this all come together and what was AI's role in it?
Yeah, so a little background on myself.
I'm an industrial engineer.
I started my career building databases and reporting for Fortune 100 companies, including the big banks.
So Bank of America, Wells Fargo, I was a contractor.
That was before my Bitcoin days.
I became my own bank.
Yeah, I had the lines.
So I became a full-time entrepreneur in 2018. I did a bunch of different businesses,
but ultimately I landed on, I'm a Microsoft certified Excel expert. So I did consulting
for about six months where I would come in and help these small, medium-sized businesses with
their spreadsheet nightmares, add some VBA, some AppScript to their Google script, some buttons,
make it better. And then I had one client about a year, year and a half ago, who asked me to build
a custom web app for them instead of a spreadsheet. I was like, okay, sure, I'll take a shot. You know,
I was certified in Python back in 2019. So maybe it's like riding a bike, you know,
we'll take a shot at it. And then I discovered these like AI, you know, app building tools,
and it's been off to the races since then. So I've transitioned from SheetSignal, where I was
a Microsoft certified Excel expert to now run an agency called Express Apps Agency.
And we help our clients escape spreadsheets.
So we build AI empowered apps.
And yeah, it's really amazing how that technology has come along.
So that and then recently launched something called the AICardInstitute.org.
And the idea behind the AICard Institute is to measure your workforce
and how AI ready they are to identify your AI champions
and basically find the critical gaps in their understanding and measure it.
And then we offer a training, so customized training based on the test results.
And then also we can come in and build systems if that's the best route
or the business owner can just take the strategy report and their CEO report
and all that information and do it themselves.
But I think that the biggest problem in small business right now with medium-sized business with AI is like you buy all your employees a chat GPT subscription and you think, okay, I checked the box on AI.
But you don't want to get comfortable in that position.
That's like buying everyone a gym membership and then expecting all of your employees to be healthy just because you bought the gym membership.
Right.
So it's really important to measure where you're at. And I think that we can help a lot of small, medium-sized businesses compete with the big guys. Because I saw working for some of these big corporations, they're putting teams together, huge teams to just build projects that now AI can help a smaller, medium-sized business build with 90% less costs, but still get similar results.
So I view AI, both AI and Bitcoin as like leveling the playing field.
And I think that we really need to lean into that technology.
So that's where I devote my nine to five, you know, daytime effort is helping small
medium size business do that.
Interesting.
So I've sort of had this assumption.
This is not a thesis or anything.
I have no idea what's really going to play out.
But I've had this assumption that there's going to come a day here in the very near
future when you onboard you're hired by a company you onboard and part of the onboarding process
is hey here's your you know here's your pc and here's your mac mini that's all set up for you to
it'll query salesforce or you know your crm it'll answer questions write emails do all this stuff
and you sort of have access to your own customized personal ai bot that can help you automate all of
your work, maybe dial the phone for you and your job is just to talk to the customer, talk to the
prospect or whatever job that you're working in. Do you think this is just a matter of curiosity?
Do you think that is what's going to happen or do you think it's going to be more of a simple
setup like you describe? Everyone gets a ChatGPT subscription and it's maybe enterprise level. So
there's some amount of privacy if you believe Sam Altman. What do you think the future of small
business in their use of AI is at least over the next couple of years, 10 years from now,
I don't think either of us probably have any concept of how crazy it could get.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
So I think we're slowly transitioning out of AI chat into AI agents.
So the easiest way to break down the difference between the two is AI chat is you have a
question, AI gives you an answer better than Google can give you an answer.
yeah um ai agents it's you give the agent a task and then the goal of that task and it completes it
you know from from start to finish um i i'm similar to your vision i think within two years it's going
to be um to be competitive in the workforce you're going to have to work alongside an agent
as the curator, as the skill creator for the AI agent.
And that's where I'm leaning heavy right now is with AI agent skills.
So actually going in and doing a process from start to finish with an AI chat.
And then at the end of that AI chat, it's like, okay, we got this process where it needed to be.
We worked out all the hiccups, create a skill for my agent.
And then the AI agent will create the skill for you.
and then the agent can run off and do it on its own.
But yeah, I don't know if it's going to be more open source
like OpenClaw or I mean,
Claude just launched managed agents this past week.
So I don't know.
I mean, anytime you approach a business with open source,
I mean, there's security vulnerabilities.
There's a lot more things you have to do
versus Claude's got their policy,
They're, you know, large organization security measures behind this product.
So I would lean, I don't know, I think probably OpenClaw is going to be more niche, at least in the beginning.
And I think the clods and the open AIs and stuff will probably capture most of the small business.
But I think that there's a place for both.
And I think that open source keeps the big guys honest as well, more honest.
Okay, interesting.
So I'm curious if you're willing to share if you have your own agent that you're running and what your setup looks like.
That's probably best for another.
Yeah, we could go deep down that rabbit hole.
Let's do an AI pod next time we get together.
You know, I try to keep it Bitcoin focused.
At the same time, there's a lot of interdependency.
The agents are going to use Bitcoin, I believe.
I talked with Dave Birnbaum about this recently and we had a great chat.
It's a really good reason to be bullish, but I think people are interested.
They're trying to figure out what does this mean for my career?
What should I be learning, studying?
What skills do I need to work alongside of an agent, to out-compete an agent?
They just have no idea where to even begin.
And I kind of feel the same way.
I've got my own setup, and it's so far from what it probably could or should be,
but I'm learning.
I know I'm just scratching the surface.
And I would just say too, like the last six months has, I think, been a foreshadowing of what it's going to be like with Bitcoin one day.
Because we're all seeing like AI in action.
And if you don't use it, you get left behind.
We haven't really seen that with the Bitcoin adoption wave quite yet, where people are looking at, oh, if I don't adopt the Bitcoin treasury for my business, I'm going to get left behind.
How do I do this?
Because my competitors are getting ahead.
So I think eventually like AI is going first, but I think we're going to experience something similar with Bitcoin where people unfortunately have that fear of missing out and it drives curiosity because the idea with Bitcoin is better is, you know, people can have that desire for education out of curiosity or out of pain.
And we're trying to like spark it with curiosity before the pain really kicks in.
But I don't know.
I mean, we'll see what percentage of people react to curiosity versus pain and fear of missing out.
Yeah.
You're never too late to Bitcoin, but you might be so late that you just don't get a whole lot of it without having to go figure out new skills and earn it.
I think is where we're headed probably much sooner than most people can imagine.
So, okay, man, let's end on this final question.
I warned you in advance.
What is an unpopular opinion you have?
You get bonus points if you offend some Bitcoiners with it.
All right. So I'm going to use scripture for this one. So 2 Timothy 3.7.
They were always learning, but never coming to knowledge of the truth.
And I think in Bitcoin, we can almost become selfish by going down the rabbit hole too deeply
without coming up to people who haven't even entered the rabbit hole yet and explaining it
simple terms. So I think an unpopular opinion that I hold is whether it's conferences, podcasts,
like all these different ways that we just dive so deep into all this theoretical future on a
Bitcoin standard or with AI, instead of diving so, so deep and almost becoming like selfish in our
intellectual pursuit, like my opinion is we should come back up, maybe not go so deep,
but like come back up and bring other people into the better system.
I think that's a good one. It's I'll tell you for myself of the first two years of my journey,
I was listening to multiple hours of Bitcoin podcasts a day. And to be fair at the time,
I didn't understand it real well. It wasn't as self-indulgent. I just didn't know anything.
But it was a lot of consumption, a lot of consumption. And lately I've been, like I said,
trying to orange peel my church, my church, another church here in town. And I think maybe
more important for my sanity. I've really unwound from listening to a lot of Bitcoin podcasts and
I've dug into some other podcasts, other topics of interest and things that I think round me out a bit
better as a human. So my only knowledge that isn't that we need Bitcoin and that everyone needs
Bitcoin. And I also think that some of what I've explored has actually helped me explain Bitcoin
better because I've learned, like I've gone down sort of the history, revolutionary war,
rabbit hole, a lot of those things. And it sort of reinforces my desire to promote Bitcoin because
I realized how far we've gone. And I think a lot of people have done that too, very effectively in
the health space and whatever their topics of interest are. And it's refreshing, I think,
at times to have those sorts of conversations and to take a little bit of a breath from the same
same old stuff. But again, I think it's just, it's a balancing act, right? Like life is not Bitcoin,
but Bitcoin is a very important thing that I'm grateful that you're investing your time in.
And hopefully people are going to, hopefully what you're doing is going to end up reaching
millions of people for the better. So I appreciate that. And I appreciate your time, man. Why don't
you tell people where they can find you? Show anything. You've got a lot of stuff going on.
Tell them where they can follow you, find you, look up more about Bitcoin is better, anything.
Yeah. And thank you. I've really enjoyed this conversation, Michael.
And I love what you guys are doing at the Bitcoin way.
You're one of the good guys in the space and there's such mission alignment, you know, between our organizations.
So really, really happy to have this chat today and hopefully it's the first of many.
So, yeah, as far as shilling, I mean, I just say I'm on X.
So at D.C. Hirsch, D.C. H.E.R.S.H.
that's where I spend most of my social media time
my DMs are open
if you want to reach out to me about the organization
and also our website
bitcoinisbetter.org
if some of the things that we were talking about
things that we need from our volunteer base
connect with you and you want to contribute
and help us grow middle class adoption of Bitcoin
please reach out through our guild program
and we'll be happy to meet with you
to be either myself or Dan Sherman
Perfect
And to our listeners, please, let's help these guys get off the ground.
I think what you guys are doing is incredibly important work.
Daniel, it's been a pleasure, a lot of fun.
I hope we get to do this again sometime.
And best of luck with all that you're working on, my friend.
All right.
Thank you, Michael.
Take care.
And that's a wrap again.
Hope you enjoyed my conversation with Daniel.
I know I did.
Go check out Bitcoin is Better.
Send him some sats.
Vote on one of these ads.
It's such a great way to support Bitcoiners who are doing the right thing, doing very important work.
Of course, if you need help taking your Bitcoin into proper 100% self-custody, go to thebitcoinway.com
slash podcast.
You can schedule a free 30-minute introductory call with a member of our team.
We can also help you with protecting your online privacy, setting up a privacy phone.
We even have a very, very popular Plan B residency option in freedom-loving Panama.
Again, it's thebitcoinway.com slash podcast.
We'll walk you through what we do.
This is for people who are serious about their self-sovereignty.
Do me a favor.
If you haven't already subscribed to the channel,
give us a like, comment, share it with someone
who you think might be interested in it.
We'd really appreciate that.
And until next time, stay safe, stay sovereign,
and remember the yield on Bitcoin is freedom.