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I had sort of this idea of a new way to visualize Bitcoin and wanted to create sort of a web

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block clock, so to speak.

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And that was the inception of the Time Chain Calendar Project.

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Probably for a lot of people, they look at this for the very first time and it's like

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it kind of clicks maybe on another level that conceptually you got it.

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But now like when you can see with your eyes.

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Oh, what's Bitcoin doing today?

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Oh, it's up or down X percent.

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like that's not bitcoin anybody providing true value to the world doesn't want anything but

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bitcoin because they begin to recognize the value that they're producing there's so much

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bullshit out there and there's so much deception the call is on you as a human being to like

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activate your brain and you gotta parse through some of this stuff and identify

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the truth and the signal amongst a overwhelming amount of noise

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hey everyone michael here with the bitcoin way podcast thank you for tuning in today on the show

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i have tc of time chain calendar this was honestly one of the most unexpected coolest interviews i've

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had what this guy has built is incredible if you think you understand bitcoin but it's just kind of

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all in your head he has created a visual tool that we actually show here in the podcast such

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an awesome, awesome tool. I think I'm going to spin this up, show it in my office, make sure I

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have it on my desk, something. I'm going to figure it out. But we also talk about his views on self

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custody, running a node, mining. And we have a really interesting back and forth on his unpopular

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opinion at the very end. So stick around for that. You're going to love this episode.

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Hey, everyone. Like I said in the intro, I've got TC here. TC, welcome to the Bitcoin Way podcast.

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Hey, nice to be here.

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Yeah, I'm excited to chat.

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So this I mentioned in the intro, but Tarantula introduced us and I was looking for a guest

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because he had some things fall through.

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But I think I stumbled across a good one here, man.

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You've been in the space a long time.

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For people who aren't familiar with you and your project, why don't you just tell us,

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obviously not who you are, but sort of what's your background?

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How did you get into Bitcoin?

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How did you find it?

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Well, I sort of consider myself a class of 2017.

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It like late 2017. It was around that time. I have a long background in web development. I've been making websites and in the sort of like tech software space for a long time. And around 2017, I was sort of jumping around different startups.

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And I was working at one point for a startup that actually they did a they actually did an ICO.

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They had a token. And I suddenly found myself in my my line of work.

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I found myself surrounded by people who were very interested in Bitcoin and crypto.

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And so I kind of caught the wave of FOMO towards the end of that 2017 bull market.

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And that was my my introduction to the space.

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I I got into Bitcoin.

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And I also unfortunately got into a lot of the other shit coins and, you know, those distractions.

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And to me, my whole first cycle was really marked by just getting my feet wet and not really fully understanding what was going on there.

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I sort of languished through the bear market of 2018, 2019, but I did sit on my hands.

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I held on to my Bitcoin.

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And I would say around late 2019 and going into 2020 and all the COVID stuff, that's when my eyes were really opened.

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And I really started focusing on Bitcoin exclusively.

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And my project came about a couple years later as I was sort of in between jobs.

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And because I'm a web developer, I had sort of this idea of a new way to visualize Bitcoin and wanted to create sort of a web block clock, so to speak.

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And that was the inception of the Time Chain Calendar project.

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That website's been live for about three years.

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And that's what I'm sort of exclusively focused on work-wise these days.

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Very cool.

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So I guess I got a lot of questions I could ask from there.

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I'm always curious when I talk to someone who's been around a lot longer than me, because I'm class of 22, and it probably wasn't until halfway through that year that I really kind of focused on Bitcoin only and that.

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How have you viewed the changing of sort of, I know people don't always like this term, but the Bitcoin community, Bitcoin culture, like, are we materially way different today?

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You know, when you look at, you know, X and the correspondence there versus 2017, 2018.

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Yeah, I would say it's different. I think there's always changes in the world around us. And the undeniable thing is that it feels very different now than it does five, six, seven years ago.

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you know, good way or bad way or, well, I mean, I think there's a, there's a perspective that says

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that, you know, I think every generation goes through its crises and feels like there's

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existential threats and witnesses, big changes. And I feel like we've been through that. It's,

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it's kind of a strange thing. We we've all been through a really intense, uh, last five, six years.

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And, uh, I think as a result, the world is a little different and people are seeing things

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from a different perspective. But the one thing that I notice after several cycles in Bitcoin is

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just noticing how every cycle, there is a new slice of the pie. There's a new demographic coming

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through, a new group of people that bring in new perspectives. And then we also see the landscape

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change. Bitcoin does evolve. There's new aspects of the protocol, new projects that come along that

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really, you know, introduce new types of activity. And so we're constantly seeing this sort of fly

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wheel of new participants entering and older participants tend to either stick around or

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fade off into the distance. So those narratives change, the narratives that really capture people's

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attention and help guide people's actions, those things are always changing. So yeah, I see a

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big difference. Even since 2022, there's a real different feeling. And I think that's where,

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again, it's important, I think, to pay attention and see what's going on out there. But I think

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every Bitcoiner is called to really identify where they are on their own journey and work

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towards figuring out what the next steps are or what the next kind of actions to take to further

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their own understanding, their own conviction and find the right way to proceed with Bitcoin.

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Yeah, I agree with that. It's been an interesting journey. I think when I first got into Bitcoin,

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I was listening to certainly like mainstream podcasts had been recommended and that kind of

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thing. It feels to me like the amount of like pure signal and the emphasis on, you know, things like

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Like with the Bitcoin way, like our bread and butter is helping people, training people to take self custody.

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We don't, you know, KYC, hold their keys, none of that stuff.

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And I, you know, I found the Bitcoin way as a client like two years ago and got into it.

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And now I see more and more alternatives to that.

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And it feels like we're deviating.

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And I don't worry about the future of Bitcoin, but like the, I don't know, the level of conviction that future generations of Bitcoiners are going to have or classes of Bitcoiners are going to have around some of these, what I view to be like very fundamental principles, like running a node, like self-custody.

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And long term, I think the bright orange future happens when people put in the work, they put in the time, and they don't use some proxy as their version of adopting Bitcoin or whatever.

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Do you share any of those concerns or that sentiment, or is that not something you really think about very hard?

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Yeah, I mean, for sure.

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I see these cycles.

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I mean, that word is used all the time, and there's different cycles that are occurring.

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Um, I believe you're going to continue to see these, you know, volatile kinds of like

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bull and bear markets result in, like I was saying before, all these different demographics

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of participants, new people coming in.

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And we all know when you're new, you don't really understand it.

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It's one thing to actually get the idea to acquire some Bitcoin.

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and then you learn, wait, there's all these different sort of form factors.

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And really, you have to do some work and you have to study

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and you have to learn to actually end up with the real thing.

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And there's all of these sort of Bitcoin adjacent things and paper Bitcoin.

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I mean, that's really what this last cycle has highlighted.

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there's so many places for people to kind of find themselves on an off ramp and they feel like

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they're within Bitcoin or they have Bitcoin but they really don't and then it's usually up to

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some kind of chaos or volatility whether in the market with price that scares people and they sell

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and they don't hold on to it or in so many cases that we've seen over the years failures that occur

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You know, people leave their, you know, supposed Bitcoin on a platform and then the platform implodes or goes insolvent and suddenly people get rug pulled and we see those things happen again and again.

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I feel like that's sort of the predictable unpredictability that you can count on.

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And the way to get off of that sort of, you know, going in cycles of, you know, sort of being led by the nose, being led by your emotions is to shore up your understanding and learn how to actually interact with this technology, how to actually own Bitcoin yourself and attain some sovereignty.

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You know, that's really the thing that I feel like it takes most people so much time to actually appreciate what it is that they need to achieve and why that solution is so much more important than some short-term price changes.

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You know, because it's like moths to a light every bull market.

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You get people who are looking for, oh, wow, I can just do a simple thing and get rich.

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you know most of those people don't last they don't stick around and it takes a little bit of

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critical thinking and time before most people come around to this perspective that there's a much more

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important uh reason to be in bitcoin i i mean i completely agree the the other path what i will

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say though is what i found is so i went down that kind of rabbit hole that you're describing like i

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started to study Bitcoin, understand the underlying fundamentals technically, understand the macro

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picture. Wow, this is all incredibly screwed up. Where I've gone more recently that I think could

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be a path for people who are maybe, I don't know, less curious technologically, they are going to

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spend quite the time to dig into that. It's not their background is I've gone down like more the

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historical rabbit hole, looking at sort of power structures throughout history and analyzing like

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our current environment through a very different lens than I had historically.

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And what I what my life has basically become is even if I didn't understand Bitcoin to the

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extent that I do, I I understand you could understand it enough to say this is my vote

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against all of the other chaos in the world.

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I'm done opting into the other system.

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And that other system consists of, you know, big food, the military industrial complex,

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politics.

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I mean, there are so many facets of that other system.

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and if nothing else if you understand nothing about bitcoin except it is the hope for defeating

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many of those things like to me that would be the impetus for many people to come into bitcoin

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and so i think there's there are actually multiple ways to get into it i agree with you though the

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more you dive into what bitcoin is understand how it works the more elegant it becomes

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and uh i think it's much easier for your conviction to grow in that way i don't know if you make any

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comment on that. I want to get into a time chain calendar. Yeah, no, I just, the last thing I would

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say is it's, it's the initial thread that when you actually find that thread and you start pulling it,

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it leads to all those other threads that are connected. You know, the, the monetary system

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really is at the foundation layer of so much of our society. And, you know, if there's deception

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there and if there's you know true leaks there you know you you participated in it taking for

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taking that system for granted your whole adult life until suddenly you realize wait a minute that

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system is corrupted and and really broken uh and then you you dive into bitcoin um that's the

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beginning of a very powerful shift in perspective that really does change your perception of

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everything in our world around us. So, I mean, it's a, to me, it's a,

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a part of a real sort of evolutionary path for us as humans, as individuals and collectively.

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So none of that is in most people's minds. When they first just come up, they get drawn in by

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number go up and they, they get excited about profits. There's actually quite a big leap to

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get over to this other frame of mind where I would argue there's just much more important

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things going on there. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. All right. Tell me about time chain calendar. So,

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uh, this is a project you've been working on for how long did you say?

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So the website's been live for over three years. Um, I did just launch a mobile app that's also

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available on the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store that was launched coming up on six

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months ago. So basically, Time Chain Calendar is this project that I started to attempt to

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visualize my own mental model about Bitcoin. I had acquired a device that a lot of people are

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familiar with called the Block Clock. It's made by the company CoinKite. It shows you the block

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height and it's a lovely sort of desktop or bookshelf piece of hardware that you display

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and it updates and it shows you what the block height is. It can show you the fiat price of

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Bitcoin and a lot of other bits of data. It's a really cool piece of hardware. And I had one of

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those. And I was just enjoying staying aware of, you know, what's going on with Bitcoin and,

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you know, realized at a certain point I wanted to see more. I wanted to actually evolve that concept

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to make it, uh, on the web so that it could actually update real time and include all these

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other aspects of my concept of Bitcoin's protocol. And since I was a web developer, I had the skills

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to be able to start manifesting that. So, you know, I basically just saw the giant block height

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number and I saw these circles as a way to represent these cycles that are going on in

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Bitcoin's protocol. And when the website was first launched, there was only two circles. There was the

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orange circle and the red circle and the big block height number in the middle the orange circle is

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the blocks to the halving the red circle is the blocks to the next difficulty adjustment

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so that was where it started and uh i've just steadily evolved it from there it's got

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five circles in the interface now uh interesting yeah we could dig into it more so so so does this

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relate when when uh when tarantula introduced us on x um i said hey what would we chat about you

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said bitcoin is the best monetary system only because of its nature is an immutable state

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machine also it's a global synchronization mechanism and calendar for the human race

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that i assume this is this is all one sort of concept that you're you're describing here

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is that yeah so there's actually a couple key concepts in in what i said there by the way

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You want me to try pulling this up for our audience?

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Sure, go ahead.

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You start explaining.

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I'm going to get this pulled up.

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Right, so let's talk about the calendar thing first.

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You know, I didn't spend that long naming the project,

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but I arrived at this perspective of Bitcoin as a calendar.

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You know, it's a really cool concept to think of Bitcoin

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as a timekeeping mechanism.

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And the design of the interface on time chain calendar actually evokes kind of a clock for a lot of people.

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But it's really, to me, it's kind of functioning like a calendar.

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A couple different reasons is because a calendar is a way of graphically displaying sort of nested time frames.

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So when you look at a typical calendar, you're looking at days within weeks and weeks within months and months within a year. And that sort of series of boxes in a typical calendar really does kind of help you watch your own progress through the course of that time scheme that humans have agreed upon.

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So you have a calendar on the wall and you maybe cross out each day as it completes.

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And to me what I doing here with Time Chain Calendar is displaying a series of nested timeframes relative to Bitcoin protocol And what I was really delighted by and now I very clear about this is kind of part of the purpose of the project is over the last few years that I had Time

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Chain Calendar live to the public, I see people referencing block heights, using this as a tool

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to figure out what block height my kid was born at, or what block height did I launch my business?

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What was the first sale that I made or miners that maybe the first block that they hit as a miner and so on and so forth. And there's so many different references for that. I mean, artists, a ton of artists that note the block height when they finish a painting or a piece of art.

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this is a a novel wildly exciting new timekeeping reference and it's less of a clock and more of a

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calendar in the sense that as these moments are associated you know something in your life you

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associate with a bitcoin block height that ends up sort of becoming a parallel reference that as you

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continue to pay attention and awareness to Bitcoin, it brings Bitcoin more into your life.

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I feel pretty confident that in the future, humans are going to be using this as a way to

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coordinate. That's another aspect of this too that's really, really powerful, I believe.

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You know, we have moments in human life that we celebrate around the globe, and yet they tend to

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be divided up by just time zones. Think of New Year's Eve every year, and the fireworks go off

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at midnight in each respective time zone around the world. So what should be a singular moment

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is really spread out across 24 hours. Well, when we have like the having, for instance,

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or some other specific block that everyone's paying attention to, that's a singular moment

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that is experienced by every human around the globe. And I think that's really, really exciting

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and really powerfully important because I imagine a future where human beings all over the globe

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can coordinate an activity around a specific block height. And that can be something that we

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all have consensus over and we all experience and witness. And it can function as like a signal,

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a trigger even for whatever. Use your imagination. Think about what humans might want to coordinate

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over. So a lot of ideas for me that really make Bitcoin a really powerful resource and

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new vector for human activity and time chain calendars trying to tap into some of that.

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that that's a really interesting concept because so sort of my uh parallel is i don't i don't think

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about the dollar denominated price of bitcoin now the way that i did you know when i got into

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bitcoin right like you know i'm thinking in terms of do i have more sats today than yesterday

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and and so like that's that's a that's a measure of value it has nothing to do with something

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external, like in seconds, minutes, it's like a singular metric that we can use.

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So could you describe, I mean, I've got the page pulled up here. Do you want to sort of describe

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what it is that we're looking at and maybe, you know, walk people through who are looking at this

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for the first time? Like how you design this? Yeah. I mean, right when I was finishing my rant there,

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I noticed that the block changed.

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The interface has a nice little rippling animation every time a new block hits.

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And to me, that's kind of the real essence of the spirit of the project is something I refer to as Bitcoin awareness.

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Hey, look, there's another one.

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So right there at that moment, while we're talking, block 936420 was received by nodes all over the world.

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And imagine months or years even before we had made some agreement about, hey, at block 936420, we're going to do X, Y, or Z.

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And that moment just occurred.

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What's amazing is that there's actually no mechanism in Bitcoin that determines when a block is going to occur.

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We hear this idea of 10-minute blocks all the time.

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I want to draw your attention to the circle that's kind of on the inside

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where it looks like a bunch of little teeny tiny dots or squares

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going all the way around it.

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It's just inside the red circle.

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Yep, that one.

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So that's the last 24 hours of blocks.

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And if you just look at those little squares going around that circle,

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it's pretty obvious that they're not evenly spaced out.

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There's giant gaps. There's clumps of blocks. They kind of happen whenever they happen. They

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happen sometimes in a second or two. Sometimes it takes an hour or two. So are blocks really every

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10 minutes? No, they're not. What there is is a difficulty adjustment that encourages the average

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time for blocks to be as close to 10 minutes as possible. So what we see here is a visualization

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of the last 24 hours of blocks. If you just move your mouse and if you look at the other side of

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the circle, sort of at the eight o'clock position, you can see there was like an hour and 10 minute

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gap between blocks there. You know, you see that giant gap. So the whole point is this is an

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interesting little detail about Bitcoin that you might never be aware of. If you just heard,

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hey, blocks are every 10 minutes, and you take that literally, you imagine the system as something

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very different than what it actually is. There's this randomness baked in. So that's what that

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circle with all those little squares is about. The red circle is how many blocks to the difficulty

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adjustment. The indicator's right at the sort of bottom at the six o'clock position. It's about

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halfway through the current difficulty epoch. And in about seven days, the difficulty is going to

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change again. And what happens is that Bitcoin's protocol will measure what was the average time

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for a block since the last adjustment. So the difficulty adjustment happens roughly every two

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weeks. That red circle is about a two-week time frame. So what happens is the protocol,

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when it reaches difficulty adjustment time, it checks and sees, well, how much time has elapsed

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since the last difficulty adjustment, divides by 2016 blocks. That's the amount of time between

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adjustments. And it will change the difficulty, which impacts how hard it is to find a block.

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What's amazing is last difficulty adjustment a week ago, we had a double digit

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drop in difficulty. Blocks were coming in more than 11 minutes on average over that previous two

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weeks, and the protocol automatically changes the difficulty accordingly. And so it's now 11%

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easier to find a block during this difficulty period than it was the previous one. And as a

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result, blocks are coming in faster. Right now we're averaging under nine minutes a block,

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And if that pace continues, we're going to get a big difficulty increase in another week. This is fundamentally like the monetary policy of Bitcoin. This is the regulation mechanism in the protocol that actually governs the pace of blocks over a long period of time.

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it's kind of a contradicting idea it requires a little bit of critical thinking to hold these

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ideas in your head at the same time the one idea is the blocks are totally random timing wise one

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to the next and the other idea is every roughly two weeks the protocol automatically adjusts the

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difficulty which impacts that pace over a long period of time so that remarkably over the entire

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chain, and here's a metric that's at the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. It says time

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chain since Genesis, 9 minutes 36 seconds since Bitcoin started. So since 2009, with a completely

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random process and only this difficulty adjustment kicking in every 2016 blocks to attempt to control

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the pace, we've remained remarkably close to a 10-minute average block time.

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And so this is, this is wild to me. It's like this balancing act of randomness and a predictable

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aspect of the protocol that balances that randomness with an adjustment that keeps us

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relatively on track. And I'll just finish it with this thing, which I find really sort of

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meaningful to me. I believe this is really important to Satoshi, obviously, because

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if you didn't have an adjustment mechanism like this and you had this random process

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and you had the remarkable increase in the number of people competing to mine blocks because we all

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know the hash rate just keeps going up you know more and more people trying to to win these blocks

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if you didn't have this adjustment all the 21 million would have been mined already probably

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in the first few years because the blocks would have come faster and faster and faster

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this difficulty adjustment is so important to kind of balance out that increase in the competition

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and keep the block production close to 10 minutes.

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This is such a cool way of visualizing Bitcoin.

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We all have these concepts in our head.

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I mean, if you've done the work and you've done your research, you have these concepts in your head.

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but seeing them in some sort of a graphical way is probably for a lot of people they look at this

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for the very first time and it's like it kind of clicks maybe on another level that conceptually

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you got it but now like when you can see with your eyes how this is working and it's really cool

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you're you pointing me to like the randomness like i know the blocks aren't actually can you

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know found every 10 minutes but i i forget that you know you have an hour spacing or whatever here

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And then it's, you know, we had two blocks already over, you know, within a minute or two.

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Exactly.

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That were found.

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Like, it's such an elegant thing.

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So what's the, besides maybe giving people this sort of insight into, hey, this is really what Bitcoin is representing.

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It's like, I'm going to make it graphically for you.

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What's like the objective of this project?

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Do you think, I mean, are you trying to monetize it?

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Is your hope that people just, you know, download the app, log in, check it?

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is like a way of maybe recalibrating how they think about time and documenting important moments

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in their life like what what what what to you is success well for me uh the project has become

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sort of my my complete work path um there's another block look at that um for me

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I work on this every day and the purpose of it is evolving the concept and trying to find

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the optimum way of representing Bitcoin from my own mental model perspective.

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I find it truly impactful for myself. It's been over three years I've been working on this

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and literally I have it on my screen in front of me the majority of the day.

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There's times when I'm staring at it, and there's other times when I'm doing other things,

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but when a block hits, even out of the corner of my eye, I notice it.

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There's also a feature on the website in settings.

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You can turn on sound, and you can have a chime, like a little bell ring or a little water drop sound

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every time a block hits, so you don't even have to be looking at it.

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you could hear that little signal that a new block came in. And what's happening over time

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is that I'm developing a awareness of Bitcoin as those signals enter my brain throughout the course

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of a day, day after day, year after year. It's something that I feel has profoundly impacted

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my understanding of Bitcoin and hence my conviction in Bitcoin. So I see the value of

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having that signal. Think about this. How many people just look at a price chart every day

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and that's their signal? Oh, what's Bitcoin doing today? Oh, it's up or down X percent.

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like that's not bitcoin that's literally um that that's order books on exchanges

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of traders who for the most part have zero conviction in bitcoin and they're just

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fiat maxis trying to pull off trades that that's not signal you know over a very long period of

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time we've all seen the log chart of bitcoin and maybe that's some signal but to me day to day to

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be staring at a price chart, you're getting, again, you're getting kind of led by the nose.

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You're getting led by your emotions. You're not really seeing Bitcoin. But to see these blocks

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come in, I got to tell you, the last like two weeks has been amazing watching blocks come in

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super slow. We had over 11 minute average for an entire two week difficulty period. And I'm

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watching that the whole time, watching that is, is this an anomaly? Are the miners going to pick

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up the pace. During that period of time, there was winter storms. There was a lot of people

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impacted by really crazy weather. The price also had a huge drop. You have to imagine there's some

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miners that just become horribly unprofitable at $70,000 versus $90,000. And so people have to

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literally unplug their miners because they don't want to pay a premium to mine Bitcoin. The point

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of mining Bitcoin is to get Bitcoin at a discount. And so when the price drops, there's certain

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less profitable miners who have to unplug. I'm literally watching that just simply by paying

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attention to the pace of blocks. What is the average block time? And I see these blocks coming

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in. Wow, they're coming in 12 minutes on average. Okay. And then it starts speeding up a little bit,

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but it ends up settling, you know, 11 minutes and however many seconds and wham, the protocol

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responds with dovish monetary policy well we're going to drop the difficulty 11 and now for the

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last week we're watching blocks race in and it's a combination of the lower difficulty and the

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weather cleared up a little bit so some people are kind of plugging back in and it's to me this is

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this is very meaningful i'm like watching bitcoin itself and that to me is the purpose of the

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project. How I'm going to monetize and create products and run a company, that's all still

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being determined. But to me, the whole point of this project is to find that signal and try to

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isolate a ton of information and reduce it down to just the key metrics and signals that really

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inform me of what's going on with Bitcoin itself. Have you considered turning this into a hardware

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product i i've had i've had ideas from people about that you know it really does evoke a kind

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of a clock and uh there's another block like that uh so yeah i've had a lot of people suggest

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well you know i would buy a hardware version of this here's the neat thing any display connected

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to the internet can display this website so that's one of the reasons i love the web is that

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you can display it on a giant TV screen or a big computer display. You can display it on your phone.

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I've even seen people with smartwatches pull time chain calendar up on their smartwatch.

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So that's the cool thing about the web is that it traverses all these different pieces of hardware.

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I'm a software guy, so I'm probably not going to get into manufacturing hardware,

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but I don't know. Who knows what the future holds? Ask me in a year.

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yeah i think the uh well i mean the what what comes to my mind is i would replace my block

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clock in a heartbeat with something like this if i had like a you know a mini display that's

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something i could certainly build however it would be really cool if there was some sort of a

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uh a layer of software on top of that like zooming in at you know a certain point like you know how

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you on the block clock it scrolls through like you know you can do dollar price you know um i don't

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even remember what's on there anymore but there are like a lot of metrics you can show a lot of

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it's very much fiat sort of price chart kind of stuff though if you had something like this that

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like you could scroll through it zooming in on like the blocks to the difficulty adjustment like

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isolating just that ring and then you know it i'm sure it's not actually that hard especially with

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ai you could probably spin up a program to to do that for you but um man this is a it's such a

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cool thing i got another little thing for you to try because we didn't actually get through all the

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rings i want to show you one more thing on the interface so at the bottom of the screen there's

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what looks like a little blinking handle that's a slider slide it to the left now you are in

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control of the chain and you can roll all the way back to genesis yeah if you if you let go it it

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loads the particular block so um move that slider to somewhere in the middle okay and then let go

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And look, you can see the exchange rate on the upper right corner.

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You can see the information about the block.

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There's also a search function.

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Hit the double arrows.

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It just jump back to live And then on the other side there a little search button But you can also just click the big number in the middle of the interface and you can type in a block height

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So just type in 555-555 or something like that,

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and hit search, and it'll jump right to that block.

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You can also go into the future.

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So click in there again and type 1 million.

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So 1-0-0-0-0-0-0 and search.

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and it's going to estimate block 1 million for you,

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this is an exciting thing coming up,

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is it's showing you May 1st, 2027 at 2.35 a.m.

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and you have an adjustment for the block time.

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So if we know that blocks over the entire chain

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were nine minutes and 35 seconds,

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you know, so see, exactly, you can adjust that

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and you say, oh, it's really April 13th.

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And so this is a powerful block estimation tool

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and a block lookup tool.

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and so like i said before you know look up when your kid was born or when you got married or when

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you did anything during bitcoin's uh lifetime you can uh easily find things and there's a neat way

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to search by date too you can actually just click on the date or you can click on the search thing

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and you can dial in year month day time and uh search by a a moment in time uh so you know that's

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where this tool, this website and the mobile app really functions as a connection between you

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and Bitcoin. It's like a resource for you to look up what's happened. It's a resource for you to

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sort of think about what's coming. Uh, it's a resource for you to kind of fine tune your own

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mental model. Like, what do you see in your head when you think about these things? You know, the,

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the, um, one more time, just slowly move that slider at the bottom. And you'll notice that the

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orange circle, which is the blocks to the having, right, that's moving back, but also the dark

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orange circle on the very outside, that's the supply. And notice how, when it passes the top

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of the having circle, you just passed an epoch marker on that outer circle. And so you can

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actually really use this to kind of teach yourself and teach others. What is this relationship between

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the halving and the supply. You know, I love these kind of like unwrapping certain concepts

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like this, you know, pop quiz, you know, we have a fixed supply, 21 million. We've all heard the

396
00:40:19,862 --> 00:40:28,482
right? 21 million. How is it a fixed supply? And the answer is the halving. That's what function

397
00:40:28,482 --> 00:40:35,942
the halving serves is that every 210,000 blocks, which is roughly four years, the amount per block

398
00:40:35,942 --> 00:40:41,822
that's issued is cut in half. And eventually, you're cutting two Satoshis down to one Satoshi

399
00:40:41,822 --> 00:40:46,882
per block. And then the subsequent halving after that, we're in the year 2140 by now,

400
00:40:47,182 --> 00:40:53,502
but the next halving after one Satoshi is zero Satoshis, and the supply is done. So it's that

401
00:40:53,502 --> 00:40:59,702
having, that's the actual mechanism that enforces the ultimately fixed supply. So to me, just having

402
00:40:59,702 --> 00:41:07,462
a visual here about connecting those having cycles to the supply. And you can see the supply is at

403
00:41:07,462 --> 00:41:15,702
over 20, it's over 95% issued. So it's less than 5% of Bitcoin's supply is remaining to be issued.

404
00:41:15,942 --> 00:41:21,802
And to have a visual of that and to have a tool you can interact with to kind of reinforce the

405
00:41:21,802 --> 00:41:27,922
idea in your brain. That's kind of the purpose of this. I love it. I'm going to, I need to do a

406
00:41:27,922 --> 00:41:31,662
little bit of research and how I would love to have something like sitting next to my desk. I

407
00:41:31,662 --> 00:41:35,182
don't have dual monitors, believe it or not. I'd love to have something sitting next to my desk

408
00:41:35,182 --> 00:41:40,922
that I can just see out of the corner of my eye every time a new blocks, uh, found. And, uh,

409
00:41:41,062 --> 00:41:47,642
it's just, it's a cool reminder of, of like, and I think it's a good reorientation to what Bitcoin

410
00:41:47,642 --> 00:41:53,362
is because there's so much in the news about price and what Larry Fink's saying about it and

411
00:41:53,362 --> 00:41:58,962
sovereign wealth funds. And it's like none of that, none of that is Bitcoin. None of that is

412
00:41:58,962 --> 00:42:05,342
makes any difference in TikTok next block. Here's what's actually happening with Bitcoin today.

413
00:42:06,182 --> 00:42:10,502
So are there like instructions? Like I wouldn't have known to do this because

414
00:42:10,502 --> 00:42:14,902
I want to make sure people know that, you know, when they go to the site, there's a lot of

415
00:42:14,902 --> 00:42:21,342
stuff that I hadn't even noticed you could do. So it's, uh, it's part of my roadmap is developing

416
00:42:21,342 --> 00:42:27,142
a little more tutorial material. Um, you know, that's why I like to take this opportunity every

417
00:42:27,142 --> 00:42:34,402
time I get on a podcast or something to just, you know, point people to those things, you know,

418
00:42:34,402 --> 00:42:38,942
the whole idea, it's a, it's a really simple interface, but you know, it's a little bit

419
00:42:38,942 --> 00:42:44,742
interactive and, you know, maybe it's calling to you to get a little curious and poke around and

420
00:42:44,742 --> 00:42:51,122
and try it out. You know, the really cool thing was, uh, I did this mobile app recently and the

421
00:42:51,122 --> 00:42:58,062
mobile app is great. Just right in your palm to have this same functionality and be able to kind

422
00:42:58,062 --> 00:43:04,382
of look at these ideas on the mobile app. I did do a very simple little explainer, sort of five

423
00:43:04,382 --> 00:43:08,882
screens. When you first load the app, it kind of walks you through what the circles are.

424
00:43:09,482 --> 00:43:14,042
Um, but I want to do more content like that to, you know, make it as clear as possible,

425
00:43:14,042 --> 00:43:28,662
But, you know, really, that's the sort of point of this is just I feel like it's really meaningful to have Bitcoin present to remind you that it is not all those other things.

426
00:43:28,822 --> 00:43:33,142
You know, the world out there does a great job of distracting us away from Bitcoin.

427
00:43:33,142 --> 00:43:34,802
And there's so much noise.

428
00:43:35,222 --> 00:43:36,622
There's so much FUD.

429
00:43:37,062 --> 00:43:40,442
I think it's a meaningful thing if you care about Bitcoin.

430
00:43:41,362 --> 00:43:43,902
Include Bitcoin in your daily life.

431
00:43:44,042 --> 00:43:46,522
just making it present, just having it visible,

432
00:43:47,302 --> 00:43:49,462
just having that simple awareness.

433
00:43:49,662 --> 00:43:51,202
Sometimes it's not even conscious.

434
00:43:51,722 --> 00:43:54,282
Like if I have the sound on and it's a little water drip

435
00:43:54,282 --> 00:43:57,022
and I might be completely focused on something else.

436
00:43:57,102 --> 00:43:58,222
I'm not sitting at my computer,

437
00:43:58,342 --> 00:44:00,062
but I hear that little sound in the background.

438
00:44:00,622 --> 00:44:04,002
In my brain, a little pin was dropped right at that moment.

439
00:44:04,362 --> 00:44:05,722
And that's Bitcoin awareness.

440
00:44:06,442 --> 00:44:10,682
That's like this thing I think we're all cultivating over time

441
00:44:10,682 --> 00:44:12,102
as we learn more about it,

442
00:44:12,102 --> 00:44:13,982
as we understand the importance of it.

443
00:44:14,042 --> 00:44:20,842
as we make these changes in our life to incorporate it and use that resource, use that tool.

444
00:44:21,462 --> 00:44:26,702
We all go through an evolutionary process. We change. So there's something really powerful about

445
00:44:26,702 --> 00:44:31,882
heightening our awareness on a day-by-day, moment-by-moment basis about Bitcoin.

446
00:44:32,602 --> 00:44:36,542
And that's what my project's trying to be part of.

447
00:44:37,602 --> 00:44:43,002
Beautiful, man. Anything else you'd point to on this? Or we can start talking about some signal

448
00:44:43,002 --> 00:44:45,702
around some of these other topics that I was hoping to get to.

449
00:44:46,362 --> 00:44:48,062
I think we covered Time Chain Calendar pretty well.

450
00:44:48,202 --> 00:44:50,362
I just encourage people to try it out.

451
00:44:50,442 --> 00:44:51,382
Go check it out yourself.

452
00:44:52,222 --> 00:44:52,622
Awesome.

453
00:44:52,902 --> 00:44:53,581
I love it.

454
00:44:54,062 --> 00:44:54,522
All righty.

455
00:44:54,522 --> 00:44:54,742
Hang on.

456
00:44:54,762 --> 00:44:58,922
Let me stop my sharing here and log off here.

457
00:44:59,982 --> 00:45:00,202
Okay.

458
00:45:00,342 --> 00:45:04,202
So we touched on this a little bit at the beginning,

459
00:45:04,202 --> 00:45:06,242
but like I said, at the Bitcoin Way,

460
00:45:06,322 --> 00:45:08,581
we're all about run a node, take self-custody.

461
00:45:09,902 --> 00:45:12,422
We've been really pushing people to solo mine.

462
00:45:13,002 --> 00:45:16,422
lately, just to begin learning about some of this. I know these are all topics you have

463
00:45:16,422 --> 00:45:24,122
opinions and convictions on. So let's start with self-custody. Where do you stand? And you've also

464
00:45:24,122 --> 00:45:29,262
been around for long enough to have seen sort of probably an evolution of custodial solutions and

465
00:45:29,262 --> 00:45:34,502
what people think of when they talk about self-custody. What's your general opinion or

466
00:45:34,502 --> 00:45:38,522
guidance that you would give to someone who's maybe newer into Bitcoin when it relates to

467
00:45:38,522 --> 00:45:44,962
self-custody? Well, I think the biggest thing and the most important thing is that when you're new

468
00:45:44,962 --> 00:45:52,882
to Bitcoin, self-custody is framed as an option. And I feel like once you reach a certain

469
00:45:52,882 --> 00:46:00,922
understanding about Bitcoin, it's not an option. It's not optional at all. It's required because

470
00:46:00,922 --> 00:46:11,762
self-custody is actual Bitcoin ownership. Everything else short of self-custody is at best

471
00:46:11,762 --> 00:46:22,342
a limitation of that sort of set of property ownership benefits and all the attributes of

472
00:46:22,342 --> 00:46:29,581
Bitcoin that you get when you actually control it. And at worst, most other things are you just

473
00:46:29,581 --> 00:46:34,062
don't have Bitcoin at all. That's been the interesting thing about this last cycle is

474
00:46:34,062 --> 00:46:40,622
the proliferation of all these paper Bitcoin form factors. You've got treasury companies,

475
00:46:41,062 --> 00:46:49,242
stocks, and there's all these options and futures and just so many different things where people

476
00:46:49,242 --> 00:46:56,602
feel, oh, I've got exposure to Bitcoin. No, you don't. You have exposure to the action on the

477
00:46:56,602 --> 00:47:01,962
exchanges, which I said it earlier, that's outside of Bitcoin. That's not Bitcoin itself.

478
00:47:02,802 --> 00:47:10,302
And Bitcoin itself is literally Bitcoin on chain. That's what it is. If you have Bitcoin,

479
00:47:10,422 --> 00:47:19,882
it means you have the private key that controls a UTXO. That's part of the UTXO set. The UTXO set

480
00:47:19,882 --> 00:47:25,682
is the list of all the spendable Bitcoin. Every time there's a new block, that list gets updated.

481
00:47:25,682 --> 00:47:30,802
and the UTXOs that get spent are no longer spendable. They're no longer part of that set.

482
00:47:31,062 --> 00:47:35,662
The new UTXOs that are created from the new transactions, those are added to that list.

483
00:47:36,022 --> 00:47:44,662
That's it. That's the only thing that's real. Do you actually control a UTXO or some UTXOs

484
00:47:44,662 --> 00:47:52,162
that are part of that list, that UTXO set of spendable Bitcoin? That's it. That is Bitcoin.

485
00:47:52,162 --> 00:48:00,822
everything else is some affinity scam in my mind compared to that so if you if you actually

486
00:48:00,822 --> 00:48:07,822
realize that you you realize okay i've got to figure out how do i actually create a private

487
00:48:07,822 --> 00:48:14,182
key securely and so that i know that it's mine and only mine and then how do i move bitcoin from

488
00:48:14,182 --> 00:48:19,382
somewhere else onto one of the addresses that that private key controls and only at that point

489
00:48:19,382 --> 00:48:26,922
have you actually acquired Bitcoin? Yeah, it's been exhausting, if not frustrating for me to

490
00:48:26,922 --> 00:48:32,862
see the number of people who, up until like the treasury company craze, for example,

491
00:48:33,382 --> 00:48:38,402
I mean, you know, we had block, like, I mean, I was 2022, right? Like BlockFi, FTX, like all these

492
00:48:38,402 --> 00:48:42,442
things happen. Like I was there at the beginning, you know, the beginning for me was in the midst

493
00:48:42,442 --> 00:48:49,182
of all of that. But people who by and large are, you know, sending out some level of signal into

494
00:48:49,182 --> 00:48:55,862
the world. And then immediately they're FOMO into treasury companies. And I'm, I'm like, you're,

495
00:48:56,102 --> 00:49:00,081
you're distraught. You have to remember, it's one thing if you've been around a while and you're

496
00:49:00,081 --> 00:49:06,202
like, I'm going to have some fun, speculate on a treasury company, you know, sailors got a huge

497
00:49:06,202 --> 00:49:11,262
stack, you know, maybe something crazy happens with strategy. Like, okay, go, go have your fun.

498
00:49:12,162 --> 00:49:17,922
What frustrates me is when I see these people talking about it so much that I envision,

499
00:49:17,922 --> 00:49:23,662
what if I wasn't as deep down the rabbit hole as I am today? I'm just getting into the space.

500
00:49:24,122 --> 00:49:28,362
I see that this influencer, whatever you want to call them, has, you know, 100,000 followers,

501
00:49:28,622 --> 00:49:36,682
and they're talking about how they bought Nakamoto. And like people early on, you might

502
00:49:36,682 --> 00:49:42,862
actually believe that that's how you Bitcoin or something. And to me, it's just such an incredible

503
00:49:42,862 --> 00:49:49,562
disservice, nevermind compromises your reputation entirely, because these things have not so

504
00:49:49,562 --> 00:49:56,302
far panned out to be the utopian investment options that people sort of peddled.

505
00:49:56,962 --> 00:49:59,542
But I don't know if you, maybe you're more patient than I am.

506
00:50:00,642 --> 00:50:04,402
It's kind of getting on my nerves at this point that this is still a thing.

507
00:50:04,402 --> 00:50:11,822
So what you're witnessing there, in my opinion, is really common human

508
00:50:12,862 --> 00:50:19,482
human characteristics. I feel like people are, especially in today's day and age,

509
00:50:20,022 --> 00:50:26,242
don't forget we're in a fiat world that has cultivated this culture where people are

510
00:50:26,962 --> 00:50:37,282
essentially afraid of new things. They're afraid of responsibility. They're afraid of anything that

511
00:50:37,282 --> 00:50:44,862
requires too much effort. So I think we see a lot of that. And that's where all of these paper

512
00:50:44,862 --> 00:50:52,542
products really shine is their sales pitch is very well received. Oh, all you got to do is just buy

513
00:50:52,542 --> 00:50:57,002
these shares on your brokerage account. You don't have to learn anything new. You don't have to

514
00:50:57,002 --> 00:51:03,762
develop new skills. You don't have to learn about this protocol. You can just click and buy those

515
00:51:03,762 --> 00:51:10,302
shares and now you've quote unquote got bitcoin but it's it's it's the it's the bitcoiners who

516
00:51:10,302 --> 00:51:15,542
haven't shed the easy button mentality of the fiat world i guess you could say because that's

517
00:51:15,542 --> 00:51:22,302
what we harp on is taking self-custody is not that hard like we train p we have 80 year olds

518
00:51:22,302 --> 00:51:29,062
running their own node yep the problem is you have to have a degree of curiosity you have to

519
00:51:29,062 --> 00:51:32,581
be willing to invest the time and you have to be willing to sit down and do the work

520
00:51:32,581 --> 00:51:39,142
I've got a, I've got a good metaphor that's worked in the past. And by the way, I have

521
00:51:39,142 --> 00:51:49,581
helped onboard, uh, an 82 year old and a 14 year old to using, you know, uh, Sparrow and cold cards

522
00:51:49,581 --> 00:51:55,422
and, you know, doing the real thing. And it's, uh, it's not hard. It does just require that,

523
00:51:55,422 --> 00:52:03,062
curiosity and work ethic. Oh, okay. I actually need to learn something new here. Let me pay

524
00:52:03,062 --> 00:52:09,382
attention. What about the, the, the parallel of driving? Cause it's something I think everybody

525
00:52:09,382 --> 00:52:14,081
can relate to is that at one point in your life, you were a kid and you didn't really know how to

526
00:52:14,081 --> 00:52:19,742
drive. And then at some point in your life, you paid attention. Some people pick it up right away,

527
00:52:19,742 --> 00:52:30,942
But most of us, there's a transition maybe for a few weeks when you get used to, you know, controlling a car and driving a car around and flying down the freeway.

528
00:52:31,262 --> 00:52:37,742
And if you think about the risk reward, I think we all know clearly what the benefit of transportation is, right?

529
00:52:38,242 --> 00:52:44,682
But we also know that it's one of the primary ways that people die in our modern society is on the road.

530
00:52:44,682 --> 00:53:12,302
And so there's this massive risk. You're taking your own life and your loved ones in the car and people outside of the car's life. That's a huge risk that you take responsibility for every time you drive. And you take that for granted completely. Now, look at Bitcoin from that same lens. Here is something that's going to make a massive difference in your future well-being and the solvency and sovereignty of your family from a financial perspective.

531
00:53:12,302 --> 00:53:20,682
it's got massive implications, there's something to learn. And to me, it's just a no-brainer once

532
00:53:20,682 --> 00:53:26,602
you figure out the value there, you figure out why I need this thing. And when you get on the

533
00:53:26,602 --> 00:53:33,142
other side of learning these few skills and these few key concepts, you realize, wow, it's actually

534
00:53:33,142 --> 00:53:38,682
not that complicated at all. It's not difficult. And these are not like rocket science concepts.

535
00:53:38,682 --> 00:53:45,602
That's one of the things about the time chain calendar is I just visualize some simple concepts and suddenly it's like, oh, look, there it is.

536
00:53:45,642 --> 00:53:47,762
Of course, you just see it.

537
00:53:47,862 --> 00:53:48,762
You recognize it.

538
00:53:49,242 --> 00:53:52,982
You're not struggling with something vague anymore at that point.

539
00:53:53,062 --> 00:53:55,702
So I feel like there's a way to get through to people.

540
00:53:56,222 --> 00:53:58,022
There has to be a will, though.

541
00:53:58,602 --> 00:54:04,702
And people do have, just like when they learned how to drive, they didn't have to question, wait, why do I need to know how to do this?

542
00:54:04,702 --> 00:54:12,762
obviously you want to you know take part in this amazing thing called transportation okay now we're

543
00:54:12,762 --> 00:54:18,282
talking about bitcoin and we're talking about sovereign money and we're talking about preserving

544
00:54:18,282 --> 00:54:23,862
your purchasing power you want to take part in those amazing things you got to learn something

545
00:54:23,862 --> 00:54:29,602
new and you got to learn the ropes and you got to get past you know standing on the sidelines and

546
00:54:29,602 --> 00:54:37,842
just calling an Uber. Well said. What's your take on running a node? So that's another one that

547
00:54:37,842 --> 00:54:44,542
changed for me drastically, probably in my second cycle, where previous to that, I thought of running

548
00:54:44,542 --> 00:54:48,782
a node as sort of an optional thing. And I think that's a common thing when you're a new person,

549
00:54:48,782 --> 00:54:55,502
too. Maybe it's overwhelming because there's like several kind of buckets of knowledge and things to

550
00:54:55,502 --> 00:55:01,061
figure out. And so you might look at running a node as an optional thing. I think you get to a

551
00:55:01,061 --> 00:55:05,842
certain perspective with Bitcoin when you realize running a node is another one of these things I

552
00:55:05,842 --> 00:55:11,902
don't believe is optional. I think if you control Bitcoin on chain, you owe it to yourself to run a

553
00:55:11,902 --> 00:55:22,322
node. You gain massive benefits of privacy and permissionlessness by running a node. And the

554
00:55:22,322 --> 00:55:28,382
simple fact is, just like if you don't have the private keys to the UTXO, you don't have Bitcoin.

555
00:55:29,102 --> 00:55:34,602
Well, if you don't run your own node, you're using somebody else's node because every Bitcoin

556
00:55:34,602 --> 00:55:39,962
transaction on chain requires a node. And so that's one of these realizations I had at a certain

557
00:55:39,962 --> 00:55:43,462
point. I was like, wait a minute, I never thought about running a node. And that means every

558
00:55:43,462 --> 00:55:48,222
transaction I've done up until this point, I've been using somebody else's node. I've been sending

559
00:55:48,222 --> 00:55:52,702
the message to somebody else's computer and saying, would you please broadcast this to the

560
00:55:52,702 --> 00:55:58,702
network for me? Right? Would you please, you know, look up my balance? That's a crazy one.

561
00:55:59,022 --> 00:56:03,842
Think about every time you open a wallet and you want to see the balance, it's querying a node.

562
00:56:04,282 --> 00:56:08,882
So if you're not running your own node, whose node did you just ask to look up your addresses

563
00:56:08,882 --> 00:56:13,541
and what the balances are there? I mean, some of these things are a little shocking when you see

564
00:56:13,541 --> 00:56:22,081
them from the right perspective. And so to me, it's a required activity. If you have on-chain

565
00:56:22,081 --> 00:56:27,322
Bitcoin, you should have your own node. Yeah. If you could come up with a way to visualize some of

566
00:56:27,322 --> 00:56:33,382
these concepts, I'd really appreciate it. So get in front of people and let them soak it in.

567
00:56:33,382 --> 00:56:47,943
And then I mentioned mining Well you mentioned mining as a topic you be happy to discuss Are you mining Bitcoin Are you solo mining Do you have hosted miners your own ASICs What the status

568
00:56:48,343 --> 00:56:51,663
Yeah, I've been mining since the summer of 21.

569
00:56:54,262 --> 00:56:57,883
During 2021, if you look on a price chart,

570
00:56:57,962 --> 00:57:01,943
you can't miss it when we had that big crash

571
00:57:01,943 --> 00:57:03,063
in the middle of the bull market.

572
00:57:03,363 --> 00:57:07,043
That was directly related to China banning mining.

573
00:57:07,043 --> 00:57:14,762
and at the time the majority of the hash rate on planet earth was in china and a ton of that hash

574
00:57:14,762 --> 00:57:21,383
rate got shut off there were also some monsoons and floods and storms that that led to more hash

575
00:57:21,383 --> 00:57:27,643
getting turned off we ended up having several difficulty adjustments massively downward because

576
00:57:27,643 --> 00:57:31,363
the blocks were coming in so slow because there was so much hash rate that came off the network

577
00:57:31,363 --> 00:57:39,443
so quickly. And that was a call to a lot of new participants to mining, myself included. I went

578
00:57:39,443 --> 00:57:43,703
through that FOMO at the time. I'm learning about Bitcoin. I'm watching the difficulty fall.

579
00:57:44,282 --> 00:57:50,943
And I understood the concept that, wait a minute, the difficulty just dropped by 50% over the last

580
00:57:50,943 --> 00:57:56,262
month or two. It is twice as easy to find a block today than it was a couple months ago.

581
00:57:56,523 --> 00:58:00,943
I'm going to get into mining. And so I FOMOed into mining. I went through my own little experience

582
00:58:00,943 --> 00:58:02,523
of trying to run miners in my home.

583
00:58:03,302 --> 00:58:08,203
Unfortunately, I live in a very expensive energy area

584
00:58:08,203 --> 00:58:10,782
and I quickly learned how uneconomical it is

585
00:58:10,782 --> 00:58:12,962
to try to mine at home where I live.

586
00:58:13,482 --> 00:58:16,722
So I was looking into options for hosted mining.

587
00:58:17,023 --> 00:58:18,843
I went through a really bad experience

588
00:58:18,843 --> 00:58:21,523
with a very well-known hosted mining company.

589
00:58:21,742 --> 00:58:22,722
I'm not gonna mention them.

590
00:58:23,462 --> 00:58:27,323
And I did end up getting my hardware back from them.

591
00:58:27,742 --> 00:58:30,563
And at this point now, I'm partnered up with a pleb

592
00:58:30,563 --> 00:58:36,403
that I know who has a pretty large operation in a different area than where I live, where the, uh,

593
00:58:36,903 --> 00:58:43,502
the energy is quite affordable and I'm mining profitably, uh, with, uh, this person's help to

594
00:58:43,502 --> 00:58:50,443
host me. And, and it's, it's, uh, in my opinion, another really sort of important thing at the very

595
00:58:50,443 --> 00:58:57,742
least to wrap your head around just to sort of understand the mining part of this whole, uh,

596
00:58:57,742 --> 00:59:03,203
system, you know, the, the, the random blocks we were looking at earlier, that's the result of

597
00:59:03,203 --> 00:59:09,502
the most furious competition on planet earth, which is right now at this very moment,

598
00:59:09,502 --> 00:59:16,962
every miner out there, every ASIC machine is just hashing trillions of hashes per second,

599
00:59:16,962 --> 00:59:22,823
as fast as they can to try to win the next block. And it's this just mind boggling

600
00:59:22,823 --> 00:59:31,242
competition. It consumes a mind-boggling amount of electricity. And you're looking at a group of

601
00:59:31,242 --> 00:59:37,102
participants that not only understand the value of Bitcoin, but they've enacted business plans

602
00:59:37,102 --> 00:59:46,363
and expended capital and put plans into action. The mining cohort of Bitcoiners is one of the

603
00:59:46,363 --> 00:59:53,602
best places to find signal about Bitcoin. That's why I said when I'm watching the average time of

604
00:59:53,602 --> 01:00:02,423
blocks, that's giving me real feedback about that landscape out there. And I don't live in a part of

605
01:00:02,423 --> 01:00:09,203
the country where there was this real cold snap, crazy weather, but I'm watching it happen via the

606
01:00:09,203 --> 01:00:16,883
pace of blocks. And so there's a real incredible perspective, I think, in learning these things,

607
01:00:16,923 --> 01:00:21,563
even if you never do it. And it may turn out, though, if you start learning about it,

608
01:00:21,802 --> 01:00:28,582
you may realize, whoa, I actually have access to some cheap energy. You're suddenly operating with

609
01:00:28,582 --> 01:00:35,043
a new lens, a new perspective, and any situation you come across where previously you didn't see

610
01:00:35,043 --> 01:00:43,602
value. You might see value now. You never know. You might be the next person to take advantage of

611
01:00:43,602 --> 01:00:51,222
this and find this amazing use for energy that was disregarded because that energy couldn't be used

612
01:00:51,222 --> 01:00:56,782
in the sort of fiat world. Well, in Bitcoin, Bitcoin doesn't care where the energy comes from.

613
01:00:57,262 --> 01:01:02,363
So you could be at the top of a mountain or out in the middle of nowhere. That was one of the cool

614
01:01:02,363 --> 01:01:09,563
things about hoddle tarantula who introduced us this guy is an expert at off-grid mining and he

615
01:01:09,563 --> 01:01:16,903
does just that he goes into these remote areas wherever you can get that really cheap if not

616
01:01:16,903 --> 01:01:22,942
free energy it's just the proof of work required to actually go get it set up an infrastructure

617
01:01:22,942 --> 01:01:32,143
and harness it and use it to mine bitcoin and it's a profoundly significant important part of

618
01:01:32,143 --> 01:01:37,982
the entire Bitcoin system that we all depend upon. We all depend on this fierce competition

619
01:01:37,982 --> 01:01:45,823
over blocks to enforce security at the tip of the chain and to make sure that the creation of new

620
01:01:45,823 --> 01:01:51,923
blocks is something that is not pre-decided to come from one particular entity or another,

621
01:01:52,563 --> 01:01:58,703
that anybody has the potential to be the creator of the next block that gets added to the chain.

622
01:01:58,703 --> 01:02:04,002
it's a it's deep and really exciting stuff there so i encourage people to look into it

623
01:02:04,002 --> 01:02:08,703
i love it man you you've helped rekindle my appreciation for the elegance of bitcoin i

624
01:02:08,703 --> 01:02:14,523
think here on this call um hey in the interest of time we're about an hour i i'm gonna blindside

625
01:02:14,523 --> 01:02:18,623
you here i forgot to tell you i have a final question that i ask every one of my guests

626
01:02:18,623 --> 01:02:23,643
and it's what is an unpopular opinion that you have you get bonus points if you offend

627
01:02:23,643 --> 01:02:34,762
some Bitcoiners with it. Wow. Okay. Hyper Bitcoinization doesn't look like what you want

628
01:02:34,762 --> 01:02:39,742
it to look like. That's going to be my opinion that I don't think a lot of people are going to

629
01:02:39,742 --> 01:02:46,242
like. I remember last cycle, there was a lot of talk of hyper Bitcoinization. And that represents

630
01:02:46,242 --> 01:02:55,523
this idea of a somewhat utopian future where Bitcoin has defeated the central banks and

631
01:02:55,523 --> 01:03:01,523
taken over the world. And we suddenly have this world that has hard money at the root of it.

632
01:03:02,043 --> 01:03:09,183
And it has an impact on reducing, if not stopping wars, and it changes people's behavior.

633
01:03:09,183 --> 01:03:16,703
um i don't believe that's exactly how things are going to go and i think that what we're witnessing

634
01:03:16,703 --> 01:03:22,462
especially in this last cycle with all of this paper bitcoin wall street jumping in with both

635
01:03:22,462 --> 01:03:28,442
feet i think you're starting to get a taste of really what hyper bitcoinization is going to look

636
01:03:28,442 --> 01:03:37,063
like which is that bitcoin is amazing it's incredible it's a critical resource to harness

637
01:03:37,063 --> 01:03:44,962
as an individual, as a business, as a corporation, as a nation state, as a financial institution.

638
01:03:45,602 --> 01:03:52,462
Every entity has that same incentive to figure out Bitcoin and to use Bitcoin and to plug into

639
01:03:52,462 --> 01:03:59,343
this system. So I think that's the thing I would say that might upset some people is that I think

640
01:03:59,343 --> 01:04:05,742
that utopian idea that all these corrupt people and vampires out there are going to just disappear

641
01:04:05,742 --> 01:04:10,782
because of Bitcoin? I don't think so. I think the vampires are going to use Bitcoin too,

642
01:04:11,442 --> 01:04:15,403
to their benefit. Everyone's going to use Bitcoin the way they want to use it.

643
01:04:16,223 --> 01:04:21,723
And the truth is, is it's an opt-in system and you don't get to say how somebody else uses Bitcoin.

644
01:04:22,543 --> 01:04:31,523
So there's kind of a setup there for disappointment if you've got in your head too strong the idea that

645
01:04:31,523 --> 01:04:37,223
Bitcoin is going to make all these corrupt, bad things go away. I don't think it does.

646
01:04:37,223 --> 01:04:44,363
I think that's human nature, that corrupt tendency. That's human nature. And that's

647
01:04:44,363 --> 01:04:49,802
going to always find a way to surface. I think it might ebb and flow, but it never goes away.

648
01:04:50,802 --> 01:04:56,323
I agree with that. For the first couple of years of my Bitcoin journey, I was a fix the money,

649
01:04:56,323 --> 01:05:02,602
fix the world guy. And I no longer believe that. I, I believe that if we can, I believe that human

650
01:05:02,602 --> 01:05:09,423
action is what changes the world. And what I'm hopeful for, I don't, I don't necessarily disagree

651
01:05:09,423 --> 01:05:14,282
with you. What I'm hopeful for is that having a base layer of money that everyone sort of has to

652
01:05:14,282 --> 01:05:21,302
capitulate to because it is safe. It means monetary gunpowder analogy, um, might alter

653
01:05:21,302 --> 01:05:27,282
human incentives such that it makes it more, it makes, it gives a much shorter runway to the evil

654
01:05:27,282 --> 01:05:31,883
people to do their evil things. I agree with you. It doesn't eliminate the evil. It doesn't

655
01:05:31,883 --> 01:05:38,002
eliminate human nature. A new crop of evil will spring up when the old crop of evil has run out

656
01:05:38,002 --> 01:05:44,403
of their Bitcoin, so to speak, or whatever the case may be. Um, I'm hopeful though, that we,

657
01:05:44,403 --> 01:05:49,563
we at some point reach a point where, uh, how would you, how would you say it that,

658
01:05:49,563 --> 01:05:59,982
anybody providing that true value to the world doesn't want anything but Bitcoin because they

659
01:05:59,982 --> 01:06:03,183
begin to recognize the value that they're producing. Like this is actually something

660
01:06:03,183 --> 01:06:06,623
that the world needs. It's not all of the fiat nonsense that we have in the world today.

661
01:06:07,623 --> 01:06:12,982
And that sort of creates its own circular economy that you're forced to provide value

662
01:06:12,982 --> 01:06:17,923
and everyone providing value is accepting Bitcoin only. Like that's what they do.

663
01:06:17,923 --> 01:06:32,923
I think that's to me what hyper Bitcoinization kind of looks like in practice and probably the, you know, collapse of fiat currencies. I don't know how long that lasts or when it happens, if there's some sort of a, an alternate fiat system alongside a Bitcoin for a long time horizon.

664
01:06:32,923 --> 01:06:42,623
But I think I broadly agree with you that at the end of the day, the world has been the way that we perceive it to be now for forever.

665
01:06:43,063 --> 01:06:44,962
There have always been evil people.

666
01:06:45,203 --> 01:06:51,802
There have always been power structures that, you know, suppress the rights of humanity, the natural rights of humanity.

667
01:06:52,363 --> 01:06:56,823
And I think Bitcoin is a tool that can fight much of that.

668
01:06:56,823 --> 01:07:02,883
but it isn't, uh, uh, it's not like a get out of jail free card from the constraints that humans,

669
01:07:03,023 --> 01:07:07,863
you know, have by virtue of their humanity. Yeah. And I think that highlights a couple of

670
01:07:07,863 --> 01:07:12,482
things that highlights the responsibility that's required. You know, it's not a get out of jail

671
01:07:12,482 --> 01:07:19,063
free card. It's a radical set of responsibilities that you have to adopt and maintain it's,

672
01:07:19,063 --> 01:07:25,802
it's behavior you have to like adopt and keep going constantly. Um, there's also just, you know,

673
01:07:25,802 --> 01:07:31,762
maybe a timeframe aspect to it. I really feel like people, when they're new to Bitcoin, they see

674
01:07:31,762 --> 01:07:38,143
everything through the lens of sort of memes. You know, I was showing you, oh yeah, 10 minute blocks.

675
01:07:38,323 --> 01:07:42,462
Well, actually, guess what? They're not 10 minute blocks. You know, you could do the same thing with

676
01:07:42,462 --> 01:07:48,242
almost every aspect of Bitcoin that you may have learned before. It's not actually 21 million. It's

677
01:07:48,242 --> 01:07:53,423
actually distinctly less than 21 million. You know, it depends what kind of like detail you want to

678
01:07:53,423 --> 01:07:58,383
get into to understand some of these things in a more nuanced way. I think in regards to the

679
01:07:58,383 --> 01:08:04,102
hyper-Bitcoinization comment, maybe it's time there where I think some people have set their,

680
01:08:04,343 --> 01:08:09,442
in their minds, maybe in the next decade, they're going to see these wild changes and improvements.

681
01:08:09,723 --> 01:08:15,123
And maybe that's where I'm coming from a little bit more of a measured point of view, timing-wise,

682
01:08:15,643 --> 01:08:22,303
that I think it's more of a generational thing. And maybe our kids or maybe our grandkids,

683
01:08:22,303 --> 01:08:28,502
or maybe our great grandkids when we're long gone are gonna figure some of these things out so we

684
01:08:28,502 --> 01:08:33,442
don't really see them in our lifetime i think that in the short term especially in the next decade or

685
01:08:33,442 --> 01:08:38,942
so you're not going to see shit coins disappear there's always an incentive for people to

686
01:08:38,942 --> 01:08:44,343
take advantage of and scam other people and you're not going to see central banks disappear

687
01:08:44,343 --> 01:08:50,462
they've already shown us their ability to reinvent themselves and change form factor

688
01:08:50,462 --> 01:08:58,042
You know, that's what vampires do. So I think we're going to see just a continuation of a lot

689
01:08:58,042 --> 01:09:05,583
of those things. And really the onus is on you as an individual to figure out how Bitcoin helps you

690
01:09:05,583 --> 01:09:11,343
overcome those challenges. How does it help your family survive when maybe some of your neighbors

691
01:09:11,343 --> 01:09:18,183
are going to really struggle to do the same? So it's a nuanced adjustment. It kind of takes the

692
01:09:18,183 --> 01:09:24,442
the glow off of some of the, the memes and, and tries to make it a little bit more grounded and

693
01:09:24,442 --> 01:09:29,583
real. Um, you, you got work to do and you have to, you got work that you have to keep doing.

694
01:09:29,902 --> 01:09:35,502
And, and then maybe you got a chance to, to have more choices and better outcomes down the road.

695
01:09:35,683 --> 01:09:40,442
That's, that's more what I would say. I'll, I'll make one more comment on this. Uh, something I've

696
01:09:40,442 --> 01:09:47,402
said before is that I think there is a, we have several generations alive right now who buy and,

697
01:09:47,402 --> 01:09:52,442
by and large, don't have incredibly useful skills to bring real world value, right? It's like,

698
01:09:52,862 --> 01:09:57,042
if you look at like the growth of administration roles, like in hospitals, at schools, that kind

699
01:09:57,042 --> 01:10:03,263
of thing, where it's, it's just really unnecessary fat. It's only there by virtue of, um, fiat money

700
01:10:03,263 --> 01:10:09,602
over-regulation. Right. And so I, where I think you're hitting the nail on the head, if this is,

701
01:10:09,602 --> 01:10:16,442
if this is what you're saying is it could be a couple of generations before, um, the upcoming,

702
01:10:16,442 --> 01:10:21,763
before an upcoming generation of people learning, going to school, being educated,

703
01:10:22,203 --> 01:10:28,643
recognize it's not about checking a box, passing a test, showing a diploma. It's about entering

704
01:10:28,643 --> 01:10:34,723
my working years with tangible skills that make me a productive member of society.

705
01:10:35,183 --> 01:10:42,442
And until that exists, I think we like, I think that's maybe one of the positive externalities

706
01:10:42,442 --> 01:10:47,623
of Bitcoin, but it could be to your point, our grandkids, our great grandkids, something like,

707
01:10:47,703 --> 01:10:51,683
I don't know how long that takes. It depends on how far they kick the debt, you know, sovereign

708
01:10:51,683 --> 01:10:57,862
debt crisis down the road. It depends on how long they are able to play the charade. And eventually,

709
01:10:57,862 --> 01:11:02,602
I think we get there. But just, I think my encouragement to anyone listening is just

710
01:11:02,602 --> 01:11:08,023
lower your time preference. It might not be your, like your life will, if you're 30, 40,

711
01:11:08,223 --> 01:11:12,263
even 50 years old, I think you're going to benefit financially from what Bitcoin will do

712
01:11:12,263 --> 01:11:18,402
over the next couple of decades, you might not get to experience some of the best of what Bitcoin

713
01:11:18,402 --> 01:11:25,402
provides because it's going to play out how it does. And that might not be as quick as many

714
01:11:25,402 --> 01:11:33,123
people are hoping for. Yeah. I mean, in the short term, it's optionality. I feel convinced that

715
01:11:33,123 --> 01:11:38,502
you start looking at longer timeframes, five years, 10 years, 20 years, undoubtedly,

716
01:11:38,502 --> 01:11:42,743
there's going to be more optionality for you if you have Bitcoin than if you don't.

717
01:11:42,743 --> 01:11:43,042
Sure.

718
01:11:43,163 --> 01:11:48,922
And you don't know if that looks like just being able to increase your family's lifestyle

719
01:11:48,922 --> 01:11:56,683
and have a more comfortable life, or if it's a ticket on a private plane to get out of Dodge

720
01:11:56,683 --> 01:11:59,123
when things go sideways.

721
01:11:59,542 --> 01:12:00,283
You don't know.

722
01:12:00,283 --> 01:12:09,982
but it's a I think that it's a really important set of thinking and concepts to adopt because

723
01:12:09,982 --> 01:12:16,203
I think that's what the world is calling for now there's so much bullshit out there and there's so

724
01:12:16,203 --> 01:12:23,563
much deception the call is on you as a human being to like activate your brain and you gotta parse

725
01:12:23,563 --> 01:12:29,942
through some of this stuff and identify the truth and the signal amongst a overwhelming amount of

726
01:12:29,942 --> 01:12:36,583
noise. You know, Bitcoin's an incredible way to start that. Like I said, the first thread to pull.

727
01:12:37,542 --> 01:12:43,442
But, you know, for a lot of people beyond the financial aspect of it, maybe it's just that

728
01:12:43,442 --> 01:12:50,683
sort of turning your brain on in a new way that is the biggest impact. And I think we all discover

729
01:12:50,683 --> 01:12:55,523
that after, you know, a number of years and after reaching a certain perspective on Bitcoin,

730
01:12:55,523 --> 01:13:03,002
undeniably you you've evolved as a as a human you're kind of uh in in a lot of ways a better

731
01:13:03,002 --> 01:13:10,683
version of yourself so that's what i i really you know i i i i'm driven by for myself and i hope

732
01:13:10,683 --> 01:13:15,263
anyone else out there who's discovering bitcoin and just getting into it like that should be

733
01:13:15,263 --> 01:13:21,623
something that you you know notice after uh after time and it should really be your your primary

734
01:13:21,623 --> 01:13:28,602
incentive to keep going deeper down the rabbit hole. I love it, man. Alrighty. I think that's

735
01:13:28,602 --> 01:13:32,303
a good place to wrap up. Why don't you tell people where they can follow you, find you,

736
01:13:32,303 --> 01:13:35,042
find a time chain calendar, anything else you want to share?

737
01:13:35,783 --> 01:13:43,482
Yeah. Um, time chain calendar.com, the website and, uh, time chain calendar, the app on iOS

738
01:13:43,482 --> 01:13:47,502
and on Android in both of those app stores.

739
01:13:48,523 --> 01:13:51,102
And you can find me on X.

740
01:13:51,343 --> 01:13:54,542
The project is at at TimeChainCal.

741
01:13:54,703 --> 01:13:56,663
That's C-A-L at the end.

742
01:13:57,303 --> 01:13:58,822
And then I'm also on Noster.

743
01:13:59,083 --> 01:14:03,083
You can find the Nipo5TC at TimeChainCalendar.com.

744
01:14:03,083 --> 01:14:05,982
That's how you can find the Noster profile there.

745
01:14:06,782 --> 01:14:10,362
But mostly just check out the actual app,

746
01:14:10,663 --> 01:14:11,263
TimeChainCalendar,

747
01:14:11,263 --> 01:14:13,902
and start getting some more Bitcoin awareness.

748
01:14:14,663 --> 01:14:17,402
I think that's the most I care about.

749
01:14:17,502 --> 01:14:18,563
You don't need to get a hold of me.

750
01:14:18,982 --> 01:14:22,002
You need to get a hold of your own Bitcoin awareness.

751
01:14:22,542 --> 01:14:24,502
And I'm hopefully trying to help with that.

752
01:14:24,883 --> 01:14:25,822
So that's it.

753
01:14:26,623 --> 01:14:27,123
Well said, man.

754
01:14:27,203 --> 01:14:28,343
Thank you so much for being here.

755
01:14:28,422 --> 01:14:29,803
This has been an absolute blast.

756
01:14:29,942 --> 01:14:30,843
Really appreciate it.

757
01:14:31,402 --> 01:14:31,763
Awesome.

758
01:14:31,902 --> 01:14:32,303
Likewise.

759
01:14:32,703 --> 01:14:32,902
Cheers.

760
01:14:33,083 --> 01:14:33,322
All right.

761
01:14:33,502 --> 01:14:34,002
Take care, brother.

762
01:14:34,402 --> 01:14:35,422
And that's a wrap.

763
01:14:35,422 --> 01:14:37,803
Again, hope you enjoyed my conversation with TC.

764
01:14:38,322 --> 01:14:39,683
Go check out Time Chain Calendar.

765
01:14:39,862 --> 01:14:40,803
Such a cool project.

766
01:14:40,803 --> 01:14:44,183
You will absolutely become obsessed with it, is my anticipation.

767
01:14:44,523 --> 01:14:47,063
And give them a follow on XNOSTA wherever you are.

768
01:14:47,883 --> 01:14:51,023
And if you could, if you're enjoying the show, do me a huge favor.

769
01:14:51,123 --> 01:14:55,002
Give us a like, subscribe, comment, share it with someone who you think might be interested.

770
01:14:55,203 --> 01:15:00,183
We would really appreciate you helping feed the algorithm to try getting high signal Bitcoin content out there.

771
01:15:00,263 --> 01:15:03,163
No suit coiners, no nonsense, none of the fiat games.

772
01:15:03,803 --> 01:15:06,663
And of course, go to thebitcoinway.com slash podcast.

773
01:15:06,663 --> 01:15:15,563
If you need help getting your Bitcoin into proper 100% self-custody, we can also help you with cybersecurity, privacy phones.

774
01:15:15,683 --> 01:15:21,402
We've got a plan B residency option, and you can schedule a free 30-minute call with our team to learn more.

775
01:15:21,583 --> 01:15:23,843
Again, that's thebitcoinway.com slash podcast.

776
01:15:24,282 --> 01:15:29,462
Until next time, stay safe, stay sovereign, and remember the yield on Bitcoin is freedom.

777
01:15:36,663 --> 01:15:37,663
Thank you.