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Hey, hey, welcome back to the Bitcoin Matrix, where critical thinkers meet.

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I'm your host, Cedric Youngelman.

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Before we dive in, if you're getting value from the Bitcoin Matrix, subscribe on Fountain

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That's the best way to support the show.

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Or grab any episode ad free for just $1 after early access.

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Firefish is non-custodial Bitcoin-backed loans.

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Your keys stay in multi-sig the whole time.

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Don't sell your Bitcoin.

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Live off it.

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Firefish.io, Code Matrix.

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Club Orange is the location-based social network built for the Bitcoin community.

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Find Bitcoiners, meetups, and merchants near you.

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If you've ever wanted to meet the people behind the orange-pilled accounts you follow,

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this app is your map.

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Download Club Orange today in the App Store or Google Play.

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Stampseed makes a titanium DIY kit that lets you hammer your seed words into solid metal.

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Fire resistant, waterproof, crush proof.

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Stampseed.com code matrix for 15% off.

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These are companies I personally use and believe in.

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Please support them so they can keep supporting the Bitcoin Matrix podcast.

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Links and codes for all of them are in the show notes.

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Today's guest is James Caruso.

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He didn't go looking for Bitcoin.

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Bitcoin came looking for him, buried in a spreadsheet.

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He was combing search ad data for a metal stamping company

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when he noticed strangers were quietly buying their kits to back up something called a seed phrase.

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That one anomaly sent him down the rabbit hole.

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We get into the wildest ways people have hidden their backups,

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including one guy, a fake rock and a pond,

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why paper is where Bitcoin goes to die,

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and how a former panic seller learned to hope for the dip.

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And now, let's enter the Bitcoin Matrix for episode 280 with James Caruso.

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What is real?

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How do you define real?

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You can't jump into cash.

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Cash is trash.

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What do you do?

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You get out.

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James Caruso is the co-founder and vice president of Stamp Seed, a U.S.-made titanium kit that lets

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you hammer your Bitcoin seed phrase into solid metal letter by letter. Stamp Seed is a division

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of ImpressArt, the metal stamping company James and his team have run for over a decade,

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and the company that, almost by accident, became one of the most trusted backup tools in Bitcoin.

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James, welcome to the Bitcoin Matrix, where critical thinkers meet.

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How are you?

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I'm doing great, Cedric.

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Good to be here with you.

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And thanks for that intro there.

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Appreciate it, man.

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How are you doing?

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I'm doing great.

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I'm excited to get into it.

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It's a nice, warm, sunny day here in Florida.

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I think you're in Long Island, New York, my old neck of the woods.

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On Long Island, right?

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It's on it.

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On Long Island.

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Yeah, no.

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Strong Island.

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If you live on Long Island, it's on Long Island.

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If you're not, it's in.

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Yeah.

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Well, you know that.

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It's sunny here, too.

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You know, it's nice.

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Weather's good.

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Life is good, man.

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Yeah, I love L.I.

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Long Island.

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Long Island, yeah.

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One of my favorite places.

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But so, you know, before Stamp Seed on Long Island,

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you and your team were running ImpressArt,

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a U.S. metal stamping company,

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making kits for jewelers, leather workers, hobbyists.

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Walk me through the moment you realized

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something different was happening.

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What were people doing?

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What were they buying?

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Absolutely. Yeah, that's a great intro to kind of kick off this convo because it's a fun little story.

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And so I was hired by ImpressArt actually in about 2017 as a digital marketing specialist.

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Right. I didn't know much about digital marketing at the time, but to me, you know, all my strengths align with it.

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It was just like the perfect position for what I went to school for.

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So it was kind of something I just jumped into.

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A lot of a lot comes with digital marketing. Right.

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different aspects of it. But one of the biggest areas I work was search advertising.

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So, you know, when you guys go and Google something like, you know, Bitcoin hardware

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wallet and those ads pop up, they're not coming up by magic. It's coming up because it's a company

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actually bidding on the search term Bitcoin hardware wallet, whether it's the exact term

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or whether it's part of a phrase, you could actually pay X amount of cents or dollars

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to pay for your ads to show when those words are searched. So part of my job was, you know,

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quietly popping on my headphones, listening to podcasts and going through spreadsheets of search

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terms, just looking for our gold, right? We're looking for words that we aren't bidding on yet,

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because if someone searches an entire sentence, there might be some words in there that we're not

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bidding on yet. So we want to pull those and then bid. So it was called combing the search terms,

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real fun job, right? But a real good way to catch up on your pods, which was great. I love doing

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that. I wish I could still go back into comb search terms, but you know, we've gotten bigger

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since then. So someone else has to. So long story short, going through the search terms on impress

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our products, which you are correct. It was basically like jewelry focused items, or we had

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a lot of goldsmiths or silversmiths who were marking up their material after melting it down.

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All this stuff has to get marked. And we get into custom stamping for people who recycle. They have

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to stamp recycled plastics, things like that.

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And people were searching previously metal stamps

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for jewelry making or metal stamping hammer

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for metal stamping keepsakes and items.

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And I would say in about 2018, 2019 really,

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Bitcoin started being appended to the search terms

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that people were finding,

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which normally it would never register me,

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but the magic is you seeing a conversion tied

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to that keyword that's being searched, right?

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So anytime there's a conversion tied to a new word, that light goes off, right?

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It's like, okay, what do we have to do to bring this word in and bid on it?

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What do we have to do to make our listings for the product more relevant to that word, right?

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Do you put that keyword into some of the text overlay on some of the images that are in the product carousel just to make it more relevant to what someone's searching?

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Because if someone searches something and that's what they see, it all makes sense, right?

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They're more likely to buy.

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But in this case, you know, you can't optimize at the listing level, you know, where, you know, we could certainly bid on Bitcoin.

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You know, people are looking for like Bitcoin metal stamps, for instance, right?

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Or metal stamping hammer for Bitcoin or metal steel plates or steel seed plates.

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And we have products that are all relevant to populate with this.

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Nothing really meant for that because, you know, it was a new sort of industry, right?

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No one was making stuff like there was a few companies.

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But, you know, it's in the beginning, people are just piecemealing the stuff together, DIYing it with washers or hammers from the hardware store and things like that.

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So, you know, a lot of people searching it.

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We're like, OK, we have this one listing that's really for impress art.

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We can't make this a Bitcoin listing because we're going to scare away all these people that are crafting or marking gold and silver.

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They're not going to know what Bitcoin is. We don't want like an everything sort of listing here.

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So rather than bidding on the search terms and then optimizing the existing listings to make it Bitcoin friendly, I guess you could say, decided to just create something new.

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So I went to the bosses and took a lot of time to convince them, hey, this is something that could work.

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You know, I understand Bitcoin.

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I was enough to the point where I knew what the words meant.

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I didn't know what the seed plate was.

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I didn't even know what cold storage was at the time.

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I was like a crypto, you know, get rich quick trading guy, right?

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Like this is when Robin Hood was out for a few years at this point,

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saving for an engagement ring, saving for a house, all this stuff.

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It was like, I need money now, right?

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And, you know, I knew enough, though, that this is, there's something here, right?

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You know, first of all, why are people metal stamping passwords into metal?

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Like this is something relevant to us.

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We have people metal stamping names and dates and quotes into things.

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So this is like almost like a customer, but it's really not a customer because they need harder metals.

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They're different people.

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The tools that we have look a little crafty and they're not really made to really stamp hard metal.

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It is kind of like the gist of it.

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So after convincing ownership, hey, we need to make this a listing on Amazon to piece together materials that we had throughout the warehouse that was just kind of, you know, not being used, to be honest with you, just pallets of items.

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because before impress art started it was actually a tool company too that birthed impress art and the

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tool company had like older school metal stamps things that were meant for like stamping seed

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plates uh for you know for seed words and whatnot so we had a bunch of leftover inventory pallet by

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pallet of that inventory started getting sold down through this new amazon listing of a of a

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you know steel stamping kit that we made uh under a different name other than stamp seed it was just

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just like an initial test where we're like, hey, all right, James, we believe you. We think this

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could work. Whatever you're talking about with Bitcoin, metal plates and password, sure,

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go take a chance. I was pretty much owning Amazon at the time for the company. So great. I have

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inventory back here. Let's see what we have. Let's get some images made up, pop a listing together.

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And we were off and running. About two weeks went by and there was no sales. And I'm just like,

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oh my God, like bosses are going to not believe in me. This isn't going to be a thing. I started

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orange pilling myself at the time because like I'm not just going to put a listing together if

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I don't know what it is. I need to know what cold storage means. I need to know why people are

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stamping this into metal and steel. So like my orange pill journey started there, which is kind

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of like unique. I don't think many people start at like, you know, here's a plate stamp with words.

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You know, what is this? How do I get this? I think people are more like, you know, this is kind of

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like the last phase of your probably orange pill journey. But I had to learn it because I'm not

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going to create bullet points to describe a product if I don't know what that is. That's not

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me, right? You couldn't do it. So understanding what all this was, becoming orange pill, building

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out the listing, and then back to the point where there's no sales. And it's a little concerning

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because now I'm believing in this thing. I want it to work. This is cool to work sort of in this

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space. Where do we go? About two weeks later, there's four sales. And I saw the first one on

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a Saturday. I remember messaging everyone. I'm like, gosh, we got our first sale. Like it was

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this big deal. Like looking back, it was just one sale, not too crazy. And then shortly after that,

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there were like three more within the same weekend, which was really cool. So observed that

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and then kept tweaking out the listing, made a tutorial video to describe how to do this.

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Because the truth is I've been metal stamping for years prior to this. So I was a good source.

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I'm a person to ask with that. Probably stamped more non-metal seed plates than seed plates,

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but I'm up there with the seed plates too. Anyway, that listing started selling, like I said before,

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and then we started going through pallets. And then we had to change the listing because now

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we had new products that we were using, right? We were just working down the pallet line of

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different metal stamp sets or different hammers that we had. Good enough to stamp into hard

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metals, but not great, not like a solid put together brand that made any sense.

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So we started looking at what sales look like and we had some questions.

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We're like, oh, what are our customers like?

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Who are they?

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Why are they buying five plates with a kit?

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Why are they buying three plates with a kit?

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What's the need for more than one?

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We didn't understand that.

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And can you put certain, there's crypto at the time, right?

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Could we put certain ones for crypto or there are different ones for Bitcoin?

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All these questions we had, but mainly who is the customer?

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That's the most important part, because just like building that listing,

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wanting to make sure that the listing made sense for the customer.

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We didn't just like, you know, we don't want to just slap something together like in press art and expect people to figure it out.

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We want to optimize and make sense.

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We took it a step further. We're like, we need to know who the customer is.

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So I went to a crypto conference.

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I'd hate to say it in the beginning.

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It was very inexpensive to go.

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It was very like low budget production, but I figured out a lot of stuff.

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I learned what multi-sake was.

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I learned why people were using more than one plate and why that was important.

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And just got a little bit of a better, I guess, feel and take on, I guess, like the industry sort of as a whole.

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Although, obviously, that was crypto, right?

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And then we learned a lot at that conference, enough to take it to the next point.

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You have to get face-to-face with people at the end of the day.

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I wasn't a Bitcoin maxi even at the time. I was still kind of learning at that point.

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You know, this was this had to have been 2019. It was before the pandemic.

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So, yeah, at some point around then. So took back the learnings from that,

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spent a little more time selling those listings on Amazon and then decided that this is big enough to be its own brand, basically.

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And that's where stamp seed comes from. So stamp seed gave us the opportunity to look at the tools that we have now are good enough, but how could we make, and we weren't stamping in titanium at the time. We were doing aluminum, which was not great, and then steel too. And then we started a little bit with titanium towards the end of the initial launch pre-stamp seed.

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Stamp Seed was just full on titanium, which meant we need to make sure everything is bigger, faster, stronger.

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And also, with ImpressArt, people have metal stamped before.

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They've done this. We don't have to teach them.

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With Stamp Seed you are possibly teaching people who have never used a hammer before And that crypto conference I went to that one that I was cringing on earlier someone actually told me he like dude I never stamped a hammer before I am a computer guy Like I have no idea what this is

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And that was crazy because, you know,

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my dad taught me how to use a hammer

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when I was a young kid, basically.

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But there are people out there that didn't.

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Not everyone's the same.

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And I understood that.

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So we had to create this kit to pretty much make it

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possible to stamp a titanium easy for anyone

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to do it the first time if they'd never done before.

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essentially make it dummy proof. And there's a lot of aspects of the tools that we have,

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whether it's the extra weight that we put into the hammer or the marking on the side of the

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stamps to show you what the letters are. All these little things are things that we add in for the

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first time user. So we just want to optimize constantly and protect no matter what stage we

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are about the product. It's putting a customer first, optimizing it, making it as easy as possible.

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So Stamcy became a thing. We created all these new tools and this whole new kit as a thing.

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It's a patented product, which is really cool. My name gets to be on the patent as one of the inventors, which to me was just like awesome.

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I wouldn't expect something like that just from going through search terms, right?

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Combing through search terms before I even knew what Bitcoin was led me to the point where we started going to Bitcoin conferences.

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I started meeting with Bitcoin podcasters, making friends with a lot of Bitcoiners.

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you know, awesome culture and community. Like it really like aligned with how I felt pre-Bitcoin,

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you know, as pretty much a red pill guy to begin with that. And now there's this whole other

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community behind it and this monetary system that just kind of lifts this whole entire thought

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and culture up and it gives it something solid to stand on. Like we have, we have a voice now.

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And it, you know, it's amazing how far it took me. So it's, you know, I started orange pilling

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myself at SteelSeed Plates and we ended up with StampSeed.

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And, you know, it's been great traveling the world, traveling the country.

242
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It's a really cool opportunity.

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And that's why I was kind of scared when we first launched and we need to get that first sale.

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And we got that first sale.

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I was like, oh, my God, it's working.

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This is so cool because I was already books in at that point and podcasts in at that point.

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And, you know, learning about, you know, all these different aspects of Bitcoin,

248
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but also, you know, getting embraced and being part of this cool culture that,

249
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that, hey, if I can make this my job, that'd be amazing.

250
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And what's even cooler is we turned this company, ImpressArt,

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into sort of a Bitcoin company,

252
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and I like to see that happen more with other companies and entities.

253
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It's the orange, I don't want to say infection,

254
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but the orange is bleeding into everything, so even ImpressArt.

255
00:16:21,757 --> 00:16:23,737
Wow. That's a wild story.

256
00:16:24,397 --> 00:16:28,897
You definitely used your pattern and trend recognition-seeking skills there.

257
00:16:30,217 --> 00:16:36,657
You know, when, well, how long has ImpressArt been around and the tool company that ImpressArt spun out of?

258
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Oh, wow. So the tool company, it's pretty cool. And the best part about it is like everyone's still here almost.

259
00:16:44,537 --> 00:16:49,417
So 1952, we're going back to, is when NK Tools started.

260
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And that company started selling surplus tools from World War II.

261
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So surplus tools from World War II is how it started.

262
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And then it was like, okay, let's start selling more tools like hobby tools.

263
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They found a niche in hobby tools.

264
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That was really the good angle.

265
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And then metal stamps, which I'm sure people have seen them.

266
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I don't know if you've seen these before too.

267
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The stamps, these little letters at the tips, it's like a nail.

268
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Instead of a pointy tip, you have a letter at the end.

269
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People were buying that before ImpressArt, obviously before stamping Bitcoin seed plates because it wasn't a thing.

270
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people just mark tools or they had to mark metals with different things. And it was just simply

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metal marking. That's why those existed. And guess what happened? I wasn't with the company yet,

272
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but I think about the 2010s, people started buying metal stamps from NK in a very curious manner.

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Why are we selling all these metal stamps all of a sudden? This used to be a D-level product. Now

274
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it's an A-level product. And from what I understand, they started digging into who these

275
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people were, and they found that they were women. So why are women buying metal stamps from a surplus

276
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World War II hobby website? Because they were making jewelry. So there wasn't a company to go

277
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to to buy all this stuff. They would go to buy it from different areas. Oh, I could get my metal

278
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stamps from NKO. Oh, this metal supplier has strips that I could use to make bracelets, right?

279
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And I could piece together all these other jewelry making tools. Oh, I could use my regular claw

280
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hammer instead of a brass tip metal stamping hammer to make it. So it followed a very similar.

281
00:18:29,897 --> 00:18:36,957
Firefish is non-custodial Bitcoin backed lending. That means when you borrow against your stack,

282
00:18:36,957 --> 00:18:43,437
your keys stay in multi-sig the whole time. You're not handing your Bitcoin to a custodian.

283
00:18:43,917 --> 00:18:49,557
You're not trusting a counterparty. You're not waking up to bankruptcy news. It's just

284
00:18:49,557 --> 00:18:56,677
collateralized Bitcoin lending the way self-custodians built it. Firefish.io code matrix.

285
00:18:57,237 --> 00:19:03,417
Your seed phrase is the most consequential sentence you'll ever own. And writing it on

286
00:19:03,417 --> 00:19:10,397
paper is the weakest place to put it. Stamp seed is a titanium DIY kit that lets you hammer those

287
00:19:10,397 --> 00:19:17,017
words into solid metal. Fire resistant, waterproof, crush proof. 20 years from now,

288
00:19:17,017 --> 00:19:19,277
that piece of metal will still be there.

289
00:19:19,917 --> 00:19:23,757
Stampsie.com, code matrix gets you 15% off.

290
00:19:24,017 --> 00:19:27,277
Club Orange is the location-based social network

291
00:19:27,277 --> 00:19:28,977
built for the Bitcoin community.

292
00:19:29,437 --> 00:19:32,117
You open the app, see who's near you,

293
00:19:32,337 --> 00:19:33,757
what meetups are happening,

294
00:19:34,297 --> 00:19:37,197
which merchants in your city actually accept Bitcoin.

295
00:19:37,617 --> 00:19:40,017
If you've ever wanted to meet the people

296
00:19:40,017 --> 00:19:42,377
behind the orange-pilled accounts you follow,

297
00:19:42,997 --> 00:19:44,357
this app is your map.

298
00:19:44,637 --> 00:19:46,737
Download Club Orange today

299
00:19:46,737 --> 00:19:48,637
in the App Store or Google Play.

300
00:19:50,557 --> 00:19:55,257
Our trend or trajectory that Stamp Seed started from, right?

301
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You have Stamp Seed kind of coming out of Impressor

302
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and Impressor kind of coming out of NK.

303
00:20:00,817 --> 00:20:03,117
And it's been interesting to kind of,

304
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like I never really thought about it to that point

305
00:20:05,557 --> 00:20:08,677
until now it's pretty much the same exact story,

306
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just with a different group of people

307
00:20:10,377 --> 00:20:12,617
and all just with these pretty cool tools

308
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that whoever invented them,

309
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I don't think they ever imagined

310
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how they'd be being used today.

311
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So yeah, now we have these three different companies

312
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and Stamp Seed is becoming a big part of that,

313
00:20:25,877 --> 00:20:26,297
which is cool.

314
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If you can recall,

315
00:20:28,777 --> 00:20:30,397
how long did it take you to go from

316
00:20:30,397 --> 00:20:34,237
seeing the trend or pattern with the word search

317
00:20:34,237 --> 00:20:39,337
to recognizing that this might be a separate identity

318
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or separate community,

319
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separate identity for the company,

320
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a separate community of people to really market to

321
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that's strong enough?

322
00:20:44,477 --> 00:20:53,197
like um to tell you the truth i'd i'd have to put a guess on that i would say a year or so but it was

323
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it was it's hard to understand because like it was started off as a side project initially

324
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coveted hit this became my sort of side project working from home but i was also doing everything

325
00:21:02,717 --> 00:21:07,517
else on top of that and every all the other things you know there are the aspect of the business was

326
00:21:07,517 --> 00:21:12,397
really supporting stamp she gave the stamp she the ability to to actually you know take a chance to

327
00:21:12,397 --> 00:21:14,457
to spend some marketing dollars, to take some hits.

328
00:21:16,177 --> 00:21:18,557
So, you know, it's hard to really measure the wins

329
00:21:18,557 --> 00:21:20,497
knowing that we had a little bit of that safety net,

330
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you know, throughout the entire time.

331
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But I would say we truly knew

332
00:21:24,457 --> 00:21:27,957
after we had significant sales on Amazon.

333
00:21:28,297 --> 00:21:30,837
When we started sending to Amazon FBA,

334
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meaning Amazon holds the product and sells it for you

335
00:21:33,297 --> 00:21:34,477
to get prime eligibility,

336
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once like we were good enough for that,

337
00:21:36,757 --> 00:21:37,857
and that scales for you,

338
00:21:37,957 --> 00:21:39,877
then it's like you don't have product fast enough.

339
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I think to the point where we started emptying out

340
00:21:42,377 --> 00:21:46,557
pallets from the back and then we were like oh maybe we should use the impress art stamps or

341
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like no we're going backwards now like that doesn't make sense we need to make something new

342
00:21:51,057 --> 00:21:55,377
so it just said we ran out of inventory so it's not really i don't know the time which we ran out

343
00:21:55,377 --> 00:22:00,657
of product surplus product um which was great because now we have these really nice kits

344
00:22:00,657 --> 00:22:05,837
with really cool tools that are meant for stamping into titanium versus you know stuff that might

345
00:22:05,837 --> 00:22:10,117
have a little rust on it or a little bit of life on it or sat on the shelf with some dust for a

346
00:22:10,117 --> 00:22:15,117
while. We had great pricing, but it was nice to be able to, you know, put together everything we

347
00:22:15,117 --> 00:22:21,177
learned and make a really cool toolkit we're proud of. Wow. And so you were trading crypto,

348
00:22:21,177 --> 00:22:28,517
I guess, before this all happened or sort of parallel. Were you trading anything else before

349
00:22:28,517 --> 00:22:32,557
that? Were you interested in sort of stocks or was creating trading crypto sort of like a new

350
00:22:32,557 --> 00:22:37,917
endeavor of speculation for you? Oh, so I was part of the group of guys that was like, oh my God,

351
00:22:37,917 --> 00:22:41,017
if you get Robinhood on your phone and you could buy stocks, this is great.

352
00:22:41,237 --> 00:22:45,097
Like it was just sort of like learning because everyone else was doing it.

353
00:22:45,217 --> 00:22:46,197
Like my friends are not alive.

354
00:22:46,277 --> 00:22:50,677
This is when the app Robinhood really like started coming up in about, you know,

355
00:22:50,717 --> 00:22:52,537
I guess like 2017, 2018.

356
00:22:52,837 --> 00:22:53,977
That's when it got on my radar.

357
00:22:54,737 --> 00:22:57,297
About the time Bitcoin first came on my radar,

358
00:22:57,437 --> 00:22:59,417
you hear that it was at 16,000, 17,000.

359
00:22:59,497 --> 00:23:00,537
It was a huge talking point.

360
00:23:00,617 --> 00:23:02,097
You go out to the brewery with your buddies.

361
00:23:02,277 --> 00:23:03,237
This is what you discuss.

362
00:23:03,237 --> 00:23:07,857
Like couldn't wrap my head around the fact that one thing could be worth that much

363
00:23:07,857 --> 00:23:13,697
didn't know what sats were, right? This was 2017 for me. So this is before the search term combing

364
00:23:13,697 --> 00:23:18,797
incident happened where I started my Bitcoin journey. And, you know, it really came from a

365
00:23:18,797 --> 00:23:24,057
place where, hey, I know people that are getting rich off this. Oh, that must be nice for the

366
00:23:24,057 --> 00:23:29,197
people that held Bitcoin as long as they did to have this. So I wanted in on it. And it was at a

367
00:23:29,197 --> 00:23:35,697
time in my life where I'm saving up for an engagement ring, right, to propose to, you know,

368
00:23:35,697 --> 00:23:40,737
who's now my wife at the time, saving for a house, you know, living on Long Island, you know,

369
00:23:40,757 --> 00:23:44,957
you're kind of behind the eight ball, right? I grew up here, wanted to stay here. It's not easy.

370
00:23:45,357 --> 00:23:52,837
It's extremely expensive taxes, dealing with the city. It's just a nightmare. But it was home. So,

371
00:23:52,997 --> 00:23:57,397
you know, we wanted to make it work. And these were the ways that I thought you can make work. So

372
00:23:57,397 --> 00:24:01,297
it was terrible. I just lost money. You know, you're just holding all these different coins.

373
00:24:01,297 --> 00:24:07,317
I didn't even know what they were. My research was what is Coinbase putting on their front screen and what are other people buying?

374
00:24:07,477 --> 00:24:19,937
And I'm going to sell it before anyone else can. It was just complete short time preference mentality, which I think almost everybody might have a little bit of in them, you know, with inflation as bad as it is.

375
00:24:19,937 --> 00:24:22,977
Right. It's almost like that's instilled in you and you have to break out of it.

376
00:24:23,797 --> 00:24:31,917
And it took some pain and some losses of funds to get to the point where I said, hey, I'm not doing this anymore.

377
00:24:31,917 --> 00:24:37,417
I'm taking a break or I'm just holding on to these bags that are draining because it doesn't make sense to sell them at this point.

378
00:24:37,997 --> 00:24:45,577
And then once I went through the search term combing and then down the Bitcoin rabbit hole, starting with the titanium plate,

379
00:24:45,577 --> 00:24:50,537
it was the first time I actually researched something beyond like knowing what the company

380
00:24:50,537 --> 00:24:55,097
Apple was, you know, just because I used their phone. It was, you know, once you read a few books,

381
00:24:55,317 --> 00:25:01,177
you know, about, I would recommend inventing Bitcoin as one of the better books to read.

382
00:25:01,237 --> 00:25:05,857
It really explains under the hood, right? It's that under the hood look at how Bitcoin works.

383
00:25:05,897 --> 00:25:10,877
And once you understand that and things like difficulty adjustment, limited supply, just

384
00:25:10,877 --> 00:25:17,357
have the entire network works, it becomes easy to get your arms around it. As big as Bitcoin is,

385
00:25:17,437 --> 00:25:21,577
it's very easy to understand to a point where you can have a conviction that can't be broken.

386
00:25:23,337 --> 00:25:27,957
It's not like Apple where somebody is going to fuck up in the middle of the night and then I

387
00:25:27,957 --> 00:25:33,517
can't sell my stock until 9.30 a.m. the next day and everyone else already sold it before me,

388
00:25:33,877 --> 00:25:39,497
preferred stocks got out and I'm sold in common stock that's going down. With Bitcoin, that's not

389
00:25:39,497 --> 00:25:44,257
the case. You could buy and sell at any time of the day. And I just understood it. I probably read

390
00:25:44,257 --> 00:25:49,437
and listened to more content on Bitcoin than probably anything, to tell you the truth.

391
00:25:50,997 --> 00:25:55,537
Maybe fantasy football is kind of up there, but I stopped that a while ago. But that was a pretty

392
00:25:55,537 --> 00:26:00,997
deep dive research sort of project. But Bitcoin is beyond that. Once you have that conviction,

393
00:26:01,757 --> 00:26:04,877
you understand what you're holding. It becomes so much easier. I used to

394
00:26:04,877 --> 00:26:09,477
sell on the way down when I was holding things. I used to get, I'm not going to lie, scared.

395
00:26:09,797 --> 00:26:12,317
Like, I don't want to lose anything else. This thing's going down forever. You know,

396
00:26:12,337 --> 00:26:16,777
you have this fear in your head where things go down, they never come back up. With Bitcoin,

397
00:26:16,877 --> 00:26:20,397
that's not the case. Now I'm at the point where like, we were talking about it before we were

398
00:26:20,397 --> 00:26:24,937
recording. I want it to go down. Like this, this is good right now. Like I didn't think where we

399
00:26:24,937 --> 00:26:29,437
are right now at 80 was possible when BlackRock and Trump were embracing Bitcoin. I thought we

400
00:26:29,437 --> 00:26:34,437
were just going up from there. I thought like the next stop was a million, but it's not.

401
00:26:34,877 --> 00:26:41,357
And we're in this nice place now where we could stack at the low price of 80K, which I'll still take any day of the week.

402
00:26:42,337 --> 00:26:46,937
So, you know, truly, for me, once I read enough, that was it.

403
00:26:47,117 --> 00:26:48,457
You know, and it's not changing, right?

404
00:26:48,497 --> 00:26:53,217
Not much of it's changing, and it's going to take a lot for Bitcoin to change so I could sleep that night without, you know, worrying.

405
00:26:53,617 --> 00:26:56,117
I could drop 40%, and I'm just buying more.

406
00:26:56,377 --> 00:26:57,737
And there's a lot of us out there like that.

407
00:26:58,797 --> 00:26:59,237
Yeah.

408
00:26:59,457 --> 00:27:03,337
I mean, 2019 is not that long ago, $3,500 Bitcoin.

409
00:27:04,877 --> 00:27:15,477
You know, in 2017, 10K, 20K was sort of mind bending to, you know, all the spilt milk here, the critters over spilt milk at 80K.

410
00:27:15,637 --> 00:27:26,177
I mean, how would you, you know, I mean, a lot of people, you know, you're doing your job, you notice this trend, this uptick or this new pattern that you see.

411
00:27:27,097 --> 00:27:32,037
I mean, how are you so open minded to, you know, you're already trading crypto.

412
00:27:32,037 --> 00:27:45,274
So like maybe Bitcoin is just another thing people are speculating on How are you open minded to that there more to it Maybe some people would just be like oh here some weirdos right you know they think they going to take self of their money

413
00:27:45,274 --> 00:27:51,994
or that was probably something that was super hard for me even understand uh at scale how valuable

414
00:27:51,994 --> 00:27:56,794
that is even if you talk about you know you could have a brain wallet and walk over a border i mean

415
00:27:56,794 --> 00:28:02,154
when you first start getting into bitcoin that's you know just doesn't seem like that's going to be

416
00:28:02,154 --> 00:28:09,614
I don't know. Do you remember at all, like sort of why you were so open to it or maybe primed to it?

417
00:28:09,974 --> 00:28:15,394
Yeah, well, I think initially, like where I work, if I see an opportunity, I like I'm on it.

418
00:28:15,654 --> 00:28:22,134
Like I like anytime there's like something like right now, AI is a big part of the advertising, like advertisement running.

419
00:28:22,294 --> 00:28:24,294
But, you know, three different brands. So it's not all just stamps.

420
00:28:24,394 --> 00:28:26,034
You do a lot of Facebook advertising, too.

421
00:28:26,714 --> 00:28:30,734
You know, there's different AI aspects that are there that you just got to get on top of it and on early.

422
00:28:30,734 --> 00:28:33,054
and just to look for opportunity.

423
00:28:33,214 --> 00:28:36,474
And that's kind of how I naturally am in general.

424
00:28:36,554 --> 00:28:38,074
And then my job lent itself to it.

425
00:28:38,394 --> 00:28:40,374
But then with Stamp Seed in particular,

426
00:28:41,114 --> 00:28:41,974
it became my baby.

427
00:28:42,374 --> 00:28:43,794
Like this thing was something

428
00:28:43,794 --> 00:28:46,274
that I kind of found in the search term.

429
00:28:46,354 --> 00:28:47,694
I didn't discover anything,

430
00:28:47,694 --> 00:28:49,274
but I found this in the search terms.

431
00:28:49,514 --> 00:28:50,354
I saw a trend.

432
00:28:50,854 --> 00:28:53,034
I convinced ownership that this could work.

433
00:28:53,454 --> 00:28:56,334
I had a lot, in a way, I put a lot on the line, right?

434
00:28:56,334 --> 00:28:57,314
Because by doing this,

435
00:28:57,374 --> 00:28:59,894
I'm not doing as much of the stuff

436
00:28:59,894 --> 00:29:01,854
that's actually making money for the business anymore.

437
00:29:02,214 --> 00:29:04,674
I'm taking a chance on something totally different and new.

438
00:29:05,194 --> 00:29:06,434
And it was also cooler, right?

439
00:29:06,474 --> 00:29:08,314
You could work with crafting stuff

440
00:29:08,314 --> 00:29:10,094
or I could work with Bitcoin stuff.

441
00:29:10,454 --> 00:29:11,994
So, you know, there was that aspect too,

442
00:29:12,014 --> 00:29:13,434
where it's like, no, I'd rather be doing this.

443
00:29:13,514 --> 00:29:15,594
I'd rather be telling people I'm doing this

444
00:29:15,594 --> 00:29:16,294
than anything else.

445
00:29:18,454 --> 00:29:20,574
So that was like the initial spark, right?

446
00:29:20,574 --> 00:29:21,674
This is sort of my baby.

447
00:29:21,674 --> 00:29:24,614
And then I would say like that it really took a,

448
00:29:25,154 --> 00:29:26,754
like you do a little self-learning here,

449
00:29:26,814 --> 00:29:29,114
but the self-learning was really just what is cold storage?

450
00:29:29,114 --> 00:29:33,774
What is the steel plate? How does this fit into the Bitcoiners repertoire?

451
00:29:34,874 --> 00:29:37,634
And I think the convention started when I had to go on my first podcast.

452
00:29:38,334 --> 00:29:41,054
We started getting approaches for sponsorships.

453
00:29:41,294 --> 00:29:49,634
Well, I actually probably messaged about everyone meaningful in the Bitcoin space in 2020 to see if we could ever work together or something.

454
00:29:49,794 --> 00:29:52,314
No one knew who the hell we were. Most people didn't get back to us.

455
00:29:52,434 --> 00:29:55,614
And I see some people replying still today, which is kind of funny.

456
00:29:55,614 --> 00:29:58,634
You know, I just I got a list and I just went crazy with the list.

457
00:29:59,114 --> 00:30:04,334
Not really the best approach, but hey, I didn't know much about the space at this time and I was trying to work quickly.

458
00:30:04,894 --> 00:30:06,514
And someone got back to me eventually.

459
00:30:07,074 --> 00:30:08,774
It was the first podcast I ever went on.

460
00:30:09,454 --> 00:30:14,974
And, you know, I could go on the podcast and talk about Stamp Seed, but I want to do a little more research about Bitcoin for that.

461
00:30:15,154 --> 00:30:17,394
So that got me a little more involved.

462
00:30:17,554 --> 00:30:21,354
I hated how I did on that podcast, right?

463
00:30:21,454 --> 00:30:22,394
Like it was the first.

464
00:30:22,474 --> 00:30:23,594
It wasn't the greatest.

465
00:30:23,594 --> 00:30:29,214
I probably said some things that didn't really make so much sense.

466
00:30:30,174 --> 00:30:33,154
So you want to basically learn a little bit more from that.

467
00:30:33,754 --> 00:30:37,014
And then from there, you just start to discover who everyone is in the space.

468
00:30:37,154 --> 00:30:38,614
What are the books that you must read?

469
00:30:41,234 --> 00:30:44,214
I was never really a reader either, which is kind of amazing.

470
00:30:44,834 --> 00:30:47,954
I hated, you know, my whole life reading comprehension was a thing.

471
00:30:48,314 --> 00:30:50,294
I would never read any assigned books.

472
00:30:50,374 --> 00:30:51,254
I would skim things.

473
00:30:51,354 --> 00:30:52,834
I would just write fake reports.

474
00:30:52,834 --> 00:30:58,754
I would read like the first and last sentence of a chapter. But with Bitcoin, I just couldn't read enough and fast enough.

475
00:30:59,134 --> 00:31:05,414
And I don't know if you get a few books in and you listen to a few podcasts, it kind of became a hobby.

476
00:31:06,154 --> 00:31:10,854
Really? I didn't have much Bitcoin at the time. It was anything crazy.

477
00:31:10,854 --> 00:31:22,754
Like I wasn't like retiring anytime soon off of it. But when that becomes all that you consume and then it also kind of aligns with this red pill sort of mentality I had since my teenage years.

478
00:31:22,834 --> 00:31:28,354
you know, you know, I don't want to say conspiracy theories because we've been right on a lot of them,

479
00:31:28,494 --> 00:31:33,034
but sort of like this alt culture I've been part of. That's what the Bitcoiners were. So then you

480
00:31:33,034 --> 00:31:36,814
start meeting people that are kind of aligned with that. And you're like, wow, this is we're all sort

481
00:31:36,814 --> 00:31:41,094
of on the same page, right? You meet a Bitcoiner, you don't even have to really talk to them that

482
00:31:41,094 --> 00:31:46,274
much. And you have those kind of common things in mind. And, you know, that that really sets the tone

483
00:31:46,274 --> 00:31:52,274
for the conversation and just kind of like, you know, where both your heads at. So, yeah, it's

484
00:31:52,274 --> 00:31:57,534
it really is an interesting way that it came to be, to tell you the truth.

485
00:31:58,574 --> 00:32:01,074
But I would say the biggest thing is stacks of books.

486
00:32:02,494 --> 00:32:07,954
You spend your time in there enough, and then you start hearing people in your life say,

487
00:32:08,034 --> 00:32:10,674
oh, Bitcoin's a scam. It's like, oh, where'd you hear that?

488
00:32:10,994 --> 00:32:14,274
Oh, I saw it on an article, and did you read the article?

489
00:32:14,474 --> 00:32:15,474
No, I didn't read the article.

490
00:32:15,474 --> 00:32:19,154
Okay. So before I read all this stuff and knew all this stuff,

491
00:32:19,234 --> 00:32:21,454
I would have heard these people saying this and be like, oh, yeah, that's right.

492
00:32:21,454 --> 00:32:25,194
It's a scam. And that's what everyone does. That's all scam, scam. They're all parrots, right?

493
00:32:25,194 --> 00:32:29,794
They're going to repeat everything they see, whether it's a headline or something they heard in passing,

494
00:32:29,794 --> 00:32:33,494
just because that's something to talk about around the water cooler besides the weather.

495
00:32:34,294 --> 00:32:39,674
And then when you start seeing people who you thought were smart say these things that didn't put the work in,

496
00:32:39,674 --> 00:32:43,274
you're just like, oh, OK, everyone else is sort of brainwashed under this spell.

497
00:32:44,134 --> 00:32:47,394
Hold strong. Buy when it's low. Don't sell.

498
00:32:47,394 --> 00:32:52,114
So it's a lot easier than it should be.

499
00:32:52,274 --> 00:33:00,834
But the work comes from the studying and staying up on it or having conviction and faith in people that you think are really smart and hoping that they like Bitcoin.

500
00:33:01,994 --> 00:33:02,434
Yeah.

501
00:33:02,974 --> 00:33:07,394
You're pouring all this work into learning about Bitcoin and you're running Stamp Seed.

502
00:33:07,874 --> 00:33:10,394
And there are a lot of ways to make a metal seed plate.

503
00:33:10,794 --> 00:33:11,834
And it's got to be reliable.

504
00:33:12,154 --> 00:33:16,414
You could use steel, stainless, aluminum, copper, titanium.

505
00:33:16,834 --> 00:33:18,414
Walk me through the engineering decision.

506
00:33:18,534 --> 00:33:19,774
Why titanium specifically?

507
00:33:20,094 --> 00:33:22,494
What's the bear case against the alternatives?

508
00:33:23,574 --> 00:33:27,714
So I'll preface this by saying metal is always going to be better in general.

509
00:33:28,174 --> 00:33:28,414
Right.

510
00:33:28,454 --> 00:33:29,494
You buy your hardware wallet.

511
00:33:29,994 --> 00:33:30,354
Great.

512
00:33:30,674 --> 00:33:34,034
Comes with a piece of paper to write your seed words down on.

513
00:33:34,174 --> 00:33:34,834
Not so great.

514
00:33:35,194 --> 00:33:37,494
How many people might leave them on that piece of paper?

515
00:33:37,494 --> 00:33:43,154
And God forbid they're using sort of a gel ink pen or the paper has sort of a coating on it.

516
00:33:43,254 --> 00:33:43,374
Right.

517
00:33:43,374 --> 00:33:47,134
You're going to, you know, ink fades over time as well.

518
00:33:47,314 --> 00:33:48,514
It's just not a great way to store it.

519
00:33:48,534 --> 00:33:49,814
So anything metal is really good.

520
00:33:51,114 --> 00:33:52,054
Why titanium?

521
00:33:53,134 --> 00:33:57,034
I guess it's got a few key factors, but the biggest one is it just doesn't rust.

522
00:33:57,174 --> 00:33:58,774
It literally will not rust ever.

523
00:33:59,414 --> 00:34:01,154
It naturally oxidizes.

524
00:34:01,494 --> 00:34:05,854
It's in an oxidative state, which is almost like there's an invisible layer of oxygen

525
00:34:05,854 --> 00:34:09,454
surrounding it at all times that prevents it from rusting, which is key.

526
00:34:09,454 --> 00:34:14,934
you know, if this is stored in a damp environment or, you know, if you want to put it in salt water

527
00:34:14,934 --> 00:34:19,734
or bury it somewhere, you know, we put a seed plate on a fishing line to put it in water for a year.

528
00:34:20,034 --> 00:34:26,394
No rust, nothing happened. We just wanted a superior metal. Steel is still good. That's going

529
00:34:26,394 --> 00:34:30,974
to hold up very well for you, but it does have that tendency to rust, and it's a little bit harder

530
00:34:30,974 --> 00:34:36,534
to stamp. The titanium feels a little bit easier when stamping. And then it's just a little bit

531
00:34:36,534 --> 00:34:43,134
lighter, which that doesn't really play a role so much. And the biggest one is just cooler.

532
00:34:43,374 --> 00:34:48,694
Titanium is cooler. People like it better. It's going on spaceships and airplanes. It's just a

533
00:34:48,694 --> 00:34:53,434
cooler metal. So why not use that? It's not much of a price difference. So the cost of our products

534
00:34:53,434 --> 00:34:58,214
really in the tools, these are legit metal stamping tools that were made for one purpose

535
00:34:58,214 --> 00:35:03,994
and one purpose only to stamp into that titanium deeply and to make it super easy. So the metal is

536
00:35:03,994 --> 00:35:08,514
really cheap so why not go with a cooler one that has a higher melting point and also will never

537
00:35:08,514 --> 00:35:14,254
rust and that's titanium right yeah i can see that and so stamp seed kits are stamped by hand by the

538
00:35:14,254 --> 00:35:19,914
user in their own home there's no factory like pre-engave engraving no shipped with data on it

539
00:35:19,914 --> 00:35:25,434
model from your end at stamp seed walk me through what's actually in the box why each piece is there

540
00:35:25,434 --> 00:35:32,634
and what's not in the box all right i do have a box you want to just sure yeah just all right so

541
00:35:32,634 --> 00:35:35,774
So, you know what?

542
00:35:36,074 --> 00:35:37,094
Let's do this first.

543
00:35:37,874 --> 00:35:43,634
So the main components of the box, of course, you get the titanium seed plate.

544
00:35:43,634 --> 00:35:48,534
And I don't know how well the focus is, but this one's already stamped with letters.

545
00:35:49,394 --> 00:35:49,614
So –

546
00:35:49,614 --> 00:35:52,054
Yeah, I can see seed, seed, stamp seed, stamp seed, stamp seed.

547
00:35:52,334 --> 00:35:56,274
Yeah, so you get this blank plate that you have to do yourself.

548
00:35:56,454 --> 00:35:58,554
And, like, a lot of people think that we do it for them.

549
00:35:59,054 --> 00:36:02,494
When we go – every time we go to a conference, people are like, okay, so I give you my words.

550
00:36:02,494 --> 00:36:06,274
like how does this work and then you get some people that sort of test us and

551
00:36:06,274 --> 00:36:09,694
like they're trying to make sure that we're not DIYing it but it without fail

552
00:36:09,694 --> 00:36:13,594
someone always thinks that we're doing it for them as a service so you also

553
00:36:13,594 --> 00:36:18,034
have the stamping aid which holds the plate in place you slide the plate in

554
00:36:18,034 --> 00:36:22,014
the stamping aid with stamping guide rather and it has all these little lines

555
00:36:22,014 --> 00:36:26,414
on it that you know there's a max of eight letters per seed words in bit 39 so

556
00:36:26,414 --> 00:36:30,454
there's eight dashes per cell and those dashes are sort of your shooting points

557
00:36:30,454 --> 00:36:34,374
for where you line up your little metal stamps like I was showing you before.

558
00:36:34,874 --> 00:36:39,114
So you get like these, you know, the alphabet basically on the tip of a metal shank.

559
00:36:41,254 --> 00:36:45,074
You get your, the hammer and you just hit it.

560
00:36:45,314 --> 00:36:45,834
That's it.

561
00:36:46,714 --> 00:36:51,934
Put it, hit it into the metal while it's lined up in this jig, just like that, you know.

562
00:36:52,594 --> 00:36:55,634
Might be hard the way I'm showing it, but if you go on, you know, the website on the

563
00:36:55,634 --> 00:36:58,634
homepage, it shows it, you know, perfectly up there.

564
00:37:00,454 --> 00:37:03,454
And then, what else?

565
00:37:04,154 --> 00:37:06,514
Compatible, you know, these are the 24 word plates,

566
00:37:06,574 --> 00:37:07,914
but we recently had the 12 words

567
00:37:07,914 --> 00:37:10,114
because a lot of people obviously have 12

568
00:37:10,114 --> 00:37:13,194
and they don't want the extra space or the bigger plate.

569
00:37:13,834 --> 00:37:16,154
And like I was saying before, like our tools are expensive,

570
00:37:16,154 --> 00:37:17,654
so why make you buy them again?

571
00:37:18,094 --> 00:37:20,674
That's why the stamping aid works with both the 12 and 24.

572
00:37:21,114 --> 00:37:22,974
You put this little spacer adapter in

573
00:37:22,974 --> 00:37:25,994
and then you have room for anything we come out with really.

574
00:37:26,214 --> 00:37:28,194
Like once you buy this tool set, that's it.

575
00:37:28,194 --> 00:37:30,894
It's like you just get your plates, whatever else you need from there.

576
00:37:33,134 --> 00:37:37,394
And this is kind of like, yeah, the new 2.0 version of the kit.

577
00:37:37,514 --> 00:37:39,594
It's just, you know, nicely boxed.

578
00:37:40,254 --> 00:37:41,154
Everything's in here.

579
00:37:41,314 --> 00:37:43,114
Easy to grab, easy to take out.

580
00:37:44,434 --> 00:37:48,454
It's funny to look at this and, you know, look at how our kits looked like when they were on Amazon.

581
00:37:48,654 --> 00:37:49,834
You just come a long way.

582
00:37:50,654 --> 00:37:52,154
So everything's just in here.

583
00:37:52,434 --> 00:37:54,894
And if, you know, a lot of people buy extra plates.

584
00:37:54,894 --> 00:37:59,534
So if someone gets five plates, 10 plates, we just load them all in this box and send it.

585
00:37:59,534 --> 00:38:01,634
So it's just nice and easy and ready to go for you.

586
00:38:03,514 --> 00:38:05,814
And then this is like the deluxe version.

587
00:38:06,874 --> 00:38:12,394
There's a lot of people out there who may have a hammer ready and want to save some SATs.

588
00:38:12,394 --> 00:38:16,394
So we have a basic version of the kit too that discludes the hammer.

589
00:38:16,494 --> 00:38:20,074
And it also doesn't come with the extra metal anvil that goes under the stamp guide.

590
00:38:20,514 --> 00:38:21,474
That's our basic kit.

591
00:38:21,534 --> 00:38:24,874
So we have both options available for those looking to save some SATs.

592
00:38:24,894 --> 00:38:26,354
who might already have a modest setup.

593
00:38:27,694 --> 00:38:30,254
But the metal head hammers,

594
00:38:30,414 --> 00:38:33,334
they're not as great as the brass head hammers.

595
00:38:33,474 --> 00:38:35,874
Brass tip, softer than steel.

596
00:38:36,074 --> 00:38:36,934
So when you're hitting steel,

597
00:38:36,974 --> 00:38:37,834
it's not going to bounce off.

598
00:38:37,894 --> 00:38:39,014
It's going to drive things down

599
00:38:39,014 --> 00:38:40,014
and get a deeper result.

600
00:38:40,194 --> 00:38:42,154
So that's why this thing is like the workhorse beast.

601
00:38:42,654 --> 00:38:44,234
It's like the hero of the kit.

602
00:38:45,914 --> 00:38:47,854
Two pound weighted head, short handle.

603
00:38:48,054 --> 00:38:49,134
People pick this thing up.

604
00:38:49,254 --> 00:38:50,934
We were just in Vegas at the conference,

605
00:38:51,534 --> 00:38:52,234
Bitcoin conference.

606
00:38:52,494 --> 00:38:54,554
And everyone's like, wow, this is like a legit hammer.

607
00:38:54,774 --> 00:38:55,534
You get this with it.

608
00:38:55,554 --> 00:38:57,194
You're like, yeah, you like, we can't do it for you.

609
00:38:57,234 --> 00:38:58,154
You're not sending the hammer back.

610
00:38:58,194 --> 00:38:58,714
You get it.

611
00:38:59,374 --> 00:39:01,434
And like, I'm not even kidding.

612
00:39:01,494 --> 00:39:02,794
Like everyone did good at it.

613
00:39:02,814 --> 00:39:04,934
Like we set up a demo, you know, kit.

614
00:39:05,014 --> 00:39:07,554
So people just stamp a letter or two just to get a feel for it.

615
00:39:07,874 --> 00:39:10,394
A lot of people say, oh, I saw you on so-and-so's podcast.

616
00:39:10,694 --> 00:39:11,254
Like, great.

617
00:39:11,294 --> 00:39:14,194
Now you could come here and hold the tools and, you know, get a feel for it.

618
00:39:14,194 --> 00:39:15,694
And then maybe buy a kit if you like it.

619
00:39:16,294 --> 00:39:17,094
Everyone does fine.

620
00:39:17,174 --> 00:39:18,554
Like there's never mess ups.

621
00:39:18,674 --> 00:39:19,534
No one hits their fingers.

622
00:39:19,814 --> 00:39:20,434
It's just set up.

623
00:39:20,494 --> 00:39:21,434
So it works super easy.

624
00:39:22,314 --> 00:39:23,314
You have like it.

625
00:39:24,554 --> 00:39:32,734
stamp seed is the most analog object in your bitcoin stack no batteries no firmware no third

626
00:39:32,734 --> 00:39:39,174
party trust just a titanium diy kit that lets you hammer your seed words into solid metal

627
00:39:39,174 --> 00:39:46,414
fire resistant waterproof crush proof the simplest dumbest most reliable backup for the most important

628
00:39:46,414 --> 00:39:54,114
sense you'll ever own stamp seed.com code matrix for 15 off bitcoin gets kind of lonely when you

629
00:39:54,114 --> 00:40:00,554
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630
00:40:01,234 --> 00:40:06,674
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631
00:40:06,674 --> 00:40:13,334
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632
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633
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634
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635
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636
00:40:40,014 --> 00:40:43,794
For instance, like a hammer with a short handle versus a hammer with a handle this long,

637
00:40:44,654 --> 00:40:48,674
right, like a standard claw hammer, it's going to have a big difference. Because if you're

638
00:40:48,674 --> 00:40:51,814
working with a longer hammer, you're going to be further back from the point of contact,

639
00:40:52,174 --> 00:40:56,454
you might miss, you might swing too hard. When you have a short stubby hammer with,

640
00:40:56,534 --> 00:41:00,774
you know, weighted head, you kind of just like flick it and drop it on. So it makes it super

641
00:41:00,774 --> 00:41:06,394
easy. And a lot of people, like I was saying before, oh, I've never swung a hammer before

642
00:41:06,394 --> 00:41:12,214
this, that those people are doing fine. We have kids come by the booth and do it. You have a lot

643
00:41:12,214 --> 00:41:15,554
of kids go with their parents to the Bitcoin conference, and they're all going to the booth

644
00:41:15,554 --> 00:41:20,534
to look for giveaways and freebies and t-shirts and hats and things like that and then they see

645
00:41:20,534 --> 00:41:35,552
this and they just want to try stamping it so sure let the kid do it so we have some photos of kids at conferences stamping it which i show those to people anytime they like oh i don know this looks hard Like yeah it not The kid could do it Yeah I think getting the husband

646
00:41:35,552 --> 00:41:39,471
wives and the kids involved is a great way to sort of teach about Bitcoin and self-custody.

647
00:41:41,091 --> 00:41:44,552
You know, we kind of talked about why paper is so dangerous. It was kind of interesting. We

648
00:41:44,552 --> 00:41:50,571
talked about the coding of the paper, but also the kind of ink, you know, or pen you use.

649
00:41:50,571 --> 00:41:57,691
have you heard real world failure modes from customers like what's happened or you know

650
00:41:57,691 --> 00:42:01,211
what's happened to certain do they talk to you at conferences or in emails or dms about their

651
00:42:01,211 --> 00:42:06,831
horror stories um not so much the horror stories you know i haven't got too many of those i think

652
00:42:06,831 --> 00:42:12,391
people might be almost too embarrassed to talk about them i but i get a lot of the people's like

653
00:42:12,391 --> 00:42:17,032
oh i need to do this the amount of people that see us at a conference because online you don't

654
00:42:17,032 --> 00:42:20,691
really talk to people too much. This kind of just asking questions or, Hey, can I get a coupon code

655
00:42:20,691 --> 00:42:24,751
at the conference? Everyone's just like, Oh, I still need to do this. Or, Oh, I still have to

656
00:42:24,751 --> 00:42:29,131
get the kit. Oh, I, or I have the kit, but I haven't done it yet. Oh, I have to get a new

657
00:42:29,131 --> 00:42:33,351
wallet first. It's just procrastination is the biggest thing. And that's the biggest risk. Cause

658
00:42:33,351 --> 00:42:37,391
that's the biggest segment of people, right? Oh, I have to get it off the exchange still, right?

659
00:42:37,411 --> 00:42:42,671
That's the biggest group of people there is. So, you know, they're kind of waiting in queue for a

660
00:42:42,671 --> 00:42:49,052
potential issue because they don't have things set up properly. So not so much horror stories,

661
00:42:49,171 --> 00:42:54,211
more potential horror stories, I would say, than anything from a massive segment. And then you have

662
00:42:54,211 --> 00:42:59,512
the cool stories, which are the people who kind of tell you not exactly where they hide it, but

663
00:42:59,512 --> 00:43:04,091
kind of how they hide it. And some of the crazy things they've done or their crazy multi-six setup,

664
00:43:04,331 --> 00:43:10,771
which you don't want to really share too much of that, but you have some very creative and

665
00:43:10,771 --> 00:43:16,552
interesting ways to hide these things that blow my mind still to this day, you know, then of course

666
00:43:16,552 --> 00:43:20,091
you get to the inheritance issues. Like, Hey dude, is anyone going to be able to find this thing

667
00:43:20,091 --> 00:43:25,751
after you go? Right. So you have to have things planned properly, but there's some pretty cool

668
00:43:25,751 --> 00:43:32,571
ways out there. I'll give you one really cool sort of way to hide a plate that someone told me that

669
00:43:32,571 --> 00:43:38,012
I don't think anyone's going to find this one. But you essentially take like a stamped plate

670
00:43:38,012 --> 00:43:45,331
ready to go. You would cover, well, this one's damaged. You would cover this in resin,

671
00:43:45,532 --> 00:43:50,151
or at least he covered it in some sort of resin epoxy and then painted it to make it look like a

672
00:43:50,151 --> 00:43:56,551
rock, right? So he has a C plate that looks like a rock. And then he has a giant pond, like a

673
00:43:56,551 --> 00:44:00,871
man-made pond in his backyard, threw it in the pond. So that's just a rock in the pond. No one's

674
00:44:00,871 --> 00:44:04,671
going in there to find that thing. And it might pass metal defection too, if the epoxy is thick

675
00:44:04,671 --> 00:44:09,911
enough. So that's like the level of hiding that you have because, right, you're holding in self

676
00:44:09,911 --> 00:44:14,371
custody. It's literally yours, completely yours at this point. You can't call up Coinbase or,

677
00:44:14,492 --> 00:44:19,492
you know, your wallet and say, hey, I need my password to get back in. Can you send me to,

678
00:44:19,631 --> 00:44:24,611
you know, authentication code through my email or security code and I'll confirm it? I'll send you

679
00:44:24,611 --> 00:44:29,631
my ID. I'll do anything. Just give it back. Can't do that here. So that's why, you know, we go through

680
00:44:29,631 --> 00:44:34,711
these crazy lengths to hide it. But, you know, I hear stories like that, just like, do multi-sig,

681
00:44:35,052 --> 00:44:38,992
just go with multi-sig, right? Like, make your life easier. You don't have to hide these things

682
00:44:38,992 --> 00:44:44,751
as crazy as you think if you have a good multi-sig in place. God forbid one of those plates gets lost,

683
00:44:44,891 --> 00:44:49,191
stolen, destroyed. You just recreate your wallet all over again. You don't take the chance

684
00:44:49,191 --> 00:44:55,891
versus a sole single-sig, which is not great, right? You know, there's a place for single-sig,

685
00:44:55,891 --> 00:44:57,271
but is your entire stack.

686
00:44:57,492 --> 00:44:59,131
It's definitely not a great idea.

687
00:45:00,191 --> 00:45:02,071
Yeah, I think there's definitely a natural evolution

688
00:45:02,071 --> 00:45:03,831
to the Bitcoiner and it sort of revolves

689
00:45:03,831 --> 00:45:05,451
or it's tethered to counterparty risk.

690
00:45:05,831 --> 00:45:08,271
So you start stacking maybe on an exchange

691
00:45:08,271 --> 00:45:09,691
and maybe you stack enough

692
00:45:09,691 --> 00:45:11,771
or it grows enough in purchasing power

693
00:45:11,771 --> 00:45:13,391
that you want to get off the exchange

694
00:45:13,391 --> 00:45:14,691
and start recognizing the value

695
00:45:14,691 --> 00:45:16,552
and start thinking about

696
00:45:16,552 --> 00:45:19,532
now it's maybe worth investing a little bit of money

697
00:45:19,532 --> 00:45:20,691
to take it off the exchange

698
00:45:20,691 --> 00:45:21,971
and learn how to self-custody.

699
00:45:22,371 --> 00:45:23,911
Then you start to self-custody.

700
00:45:24,012 --> 00:45:25,131
Maybe you have a single SIG,

701
00:45:25,131 --> 00:45:29,971
but now you start to realize you're the counterparty risk to yourself and to your loved ones.

702
00:45:30,151 --> 00:45:35,131
And you start to figure out how to eliminate single points of failure within your own system.

703
00:45:35,731 --> 00:45:38,731
Maybe you move to the single SIG with a hardware wallet and a metal plate,

704
00:45:38,811 --> 00:45:42,811
and then you move into maybe multi-SIG with maybe a metal plate on one of them.

705
00:45:42,911 --> 00:45:48,151
But you sort of evolve into learning how to hold this thing on your own in self-custody.

706
00:45:50,351 --> 00:45:52,411
How can people mess up with a metal plate?

707
00:45:52,411 --> 00:45:55,131
Are there risks with metal they need to understand to use it right?

708
00:45:56,492 --> 00:46:02,471
Yeah, I guess like you could mess up by stamping the wrong letter, right, as an option or stamping the wrong word.

709
00:46:03,032 --> 00:46:05,671
Things like that, you know, mistakes are going to happen, right?

710
00:46:05,731 --> 00:46:07,191
And there, you know, there's no eraser.

711
00:46:08,171 --> 00:46:13,211
And that's why like sort of we built the kit to try to prevent as much of that as possible, but it still could happen.

712
00:46:13,671 --> 00:46:19,512
So like one way we prevent it is like with these stamps, like, you know, there's one side that shows you a letter.

713
00:46:19,512 --> 00:46:23,791
and that's the side that you need to have facing you to make sure it's oriented properly.

714
00:46:24,071 --> 00:46:27,171
If you didn't have a marking on the side, you wouldn't know which way to hold it because things

715
00:46:27,171 --> 00:46:32,891
are mirrored and you might hold something the wrong way or upside down. If you think about the

716
00:46:32,891 --> 00:46:37,371
letter M, it could look like a W just because you grabbed it the wrong way. So mess ups are highly

717
00:46:37,371 --> 00:46:42,911
possible. So we write stuff on the side so you know not to do that. And the instructions are

718
00:46:42,911 --> 00:46:49,271
very detailed. I know a lot of people probably don't read them, but they're there. The hammer

719
00:46:49,271 --> 00:46:53,911
makes it easier and things like that. But people mess up. What happens if you do mess up? It's

720
00:46:53,911 --> 00:47:00,091
really not a big deal. You have plenty of room on the cell here to continue adding more letters.

721
00:47:00,331 --> 00:47:04,971
So if you stamp the wrong letter, okay, not a problem. You could even put an X through that

722
00:47:04,971 --> 00:47:09,411
letter and continue stamping the word. Or you could just use these sidelines on the plate,

723
00:47:09,611 --> 00:47:13,931
which you turn the plate 90 degrees, pop it in the stamping guide, and you have sidelines. So you

724
00:47:13,931 --> 00:47:19,091
could just write, oh, word 17 was actually this. So you could have your corrected word right on

725
00:47:19,091 --> 00:47:26,591
the side of the plate. But, you know, I would say seven times out of 10, your seed word is probably

726
00:47:26,591 --> 00:47:31,311
going to be like four to five letters or less than five letters. And you're going to have like three

727
00:47:31,311 --> 00:47:35,791
extra spots at the very least to continue your word. If that's not the case and you have like a

728
00:47:35,791 --> 00:47:40,771
six, seven, eight letter seed word, you could just use those sidelines perfectly fine. Or if you have

729
00:47:40,771 --> 00:47:47,331
immense inescapable OCD, like I have myself, you just get another plate and you re-stamp it and you

730
00:47:47,331 --> 00:47:52,651
hope you don't mess it up there they're like 28 bucks or something like that so it's it's not that

731
00:47:52,651 --> 00:47:56,391
bad you know it's just the tools that are bad but i'm not buying them again i have them already just

732
00:47:56,391 --> 00:48:04,711
get another plate right i love that um you know it's so analog in today's digital stamps yeah no

733
00:48:04,711 --> 00:48:10,231
batteries there's no firmware no third-party trust can you maybe just talk about that as a design

734
00:48:10,231 --> 00:48:18,051
principle? Yeah. I mean, the biggest thing is like you're, you know, you're getting all these

735
00:48:18,051 --> 00:48:22,012
items and you're keeping them for life. You're not sending the tools back. You're not like

736
00:48:22,012 --> 00:48:26,851
imprinting this online. You're not uploading your file and getting back something. You literally

737
00:48:26,851 --> 00:48:31,951
have to do this yourself to do it right. There's no way around that. You go through the trouble of

738
00:48:31,951 --> 00:48:37,911
taking your Bitcoin off of the exchange, right? Onto a hardware wallet that you spent, you know,

739
00:48:37,911 --> 00:48:41,391
nowadays maybe $200 plus on, you know, they're getting bigger, better.

740
00:48:41,591 --> 00:48:42,971
They have screens and keypads.

741
00:48:42,971 --> 00:48:46,331
And I would highly take advantage of the ones with the full keypads too,

742
00:48:46,811 --> 00:48:47,591
because you're going to need them.

743
00:48:48,351 --> 00:48:49,691
You don't want like two little buttons.

744
00:48:49,851 --> 00:48:50,512
Like it's very annoying.

745
00:48:51,532 --> 00:48:54,532
So, you know, you go through all that trouble, you have your hardware wallet,

746
00:48:54,532 --> 00:48:56,871
and then you're going to get to your seed plate portion.

747
00:48:57,371 --> 00:48:58,751
You can't outsource that, right?

748
00:48:58,811 --> 00:49:00,891
You know, you have to completely do that yourself,

749
00:49:00,951 --> 00:49:03,391
just like you set up your hardware wallet yourself more than likely.

750
00:49:03,951 --> 00:49:05,851
Can you have someone else set up your wallet for you?

751
00:49:05,951 --> 00:49:06,151
Sure.

752
00:49:06,151 --> 00:49:09,591
but they're probably not going to look at your C words. You're going to do the C word part,

753
00:49:09,671 --> 00:49:13,231
right? They're going to tell you to write these down or, you know, confirm these words and then

754
00:49:13,231 --> 00:49:16,711
give me back the wallet off and it's helping you with set up or, you know, don't show me the whole

755
00:49:16,711 --> 00:49:22,971
thing. But the C word portion, if anyone else sees these, you're at risk, right? You know,

756
00:49:22,992 --> 00:49:27,191
you trust someone so much. Oh, you know, my best friend, I trust him. You know, we went halves on

757
00:49:27,191 --> 00:49:31,512
Bitcoin and, you know, he's not going to steal it from me or anything like that. Every night you

758
00:49:31,512 --> 00:49:35,231
sleep, you're going to be thinking of that. And then eventually you're going to be like, you know,

759
00:49:35,231 --> 00:49:39,371
this isn't great. Someone else saw my seed words. You know, this isn't good. You know,

760
00:49:40,151 --> 00:49:44,951
you don't want anyone else knowing what these are. So being that these are also heavy tools,

761
00:49:45,171 --> 00:49:48,671
it also makes sense just for you to own them, right? Send it to you. You do it yourself.

762
00:49:49,512 --> 00:49:55,031
And that's it. You, you know, you're set up. You're good to go. And it's, you know, it's

763
00:49:55,031 --> 00:50:00,251
very analog, right? It's very low tech in a high tech sort of space like Bitcoin, but it has to be.

764
00:50:00,251 --> 00:50:03,471
It's simple is better at the simplest form.

765
00:50:03,571 --> 00:50:04,731
You're memorizing these, right?

766
00:50:04,811 --> 00:50:09,931
So that's extremely close to you, but that's very risky just to memorize them.

767
00:50:10,091 --> 00:50:13,251
So better to get them into a titanium size post-it instead.

768
00:50:13,771 --> 00:50:19,512
So, yeah, I mean, I really can't sort of voice this enough.

769
00:50:19,571 --> 00:50:25,371
I think now is the time to get all your sort of set up in order when things are a little

770
00:50:25,371 --> 00:50:26,012
bit calmer.

771
00:50:26,631 --> 00:50:28,351
It's not as frenzy.

772
00:50:28,451 --> 00:50:29,251
There's no mania.

773
00:50:29,251 --> 00:50:34,791
you don't want to kind of be like looking at your setup and eliminating single points of failure

774
00:50:34,791 --> 00:50:40,591
you know when price is a lot higher and you're a lot more nervous and to even just

775
00:50:40,591 --> 00:50:45,151
touch things and all your relatives are like you sure you're okay over there you got everything all

776
00:50:45,151 --> 00:50:51,591
set so this is a golden opportunity not just to stack but to secure what you do have I'll go back

777
00:50:51,591 --> 00:50:58,851
to a show I did with CK many moons ago no one is bullish enough on Bitcoin if you think you need

778
00:50:58,851 --> 00:51:05,371
more Bitcoin. If you don't have enough, you're kind of not bullish enough on the future value

779
00:51:05,371 --> 00:51:11,671
of Bitcoin. And I would encourage people to kind of think about getting the stats they have now

780
00:51:11,671 --> 00:51:17,571
and the family they have now to like 2030, 2035. Because I think a lot of people are through

781
00:51:17,571 --> 00:51:22,391
leverage, through security concerns are going to end up with less Bitcoin than they have now,

782
00:51:22,471 --> 00:51:28,271
maybe in the future. So I'll leave it to you for any sort of parting words. Where can people find

783
00:51:28,271 --> 00:51:36,931
you find Stamp Seed and secure their seed phrase? Yeah, check us out, stampseed.com. We're actually

784
00:51:36,931 --> 00:51:42,871
under a website redesign now. Not going to affect your experience on the site, but it's going to be

785
00:51:42,871 --> 00:51:46,931
a nice site probably in a month or so with a lot more content on there, a lot more information to

786
00:51:46,931 --> 00:51:50,891
kind of research and understand. More for the people who are just getting into cold storage,

787
00:51:50,991 --> 00:51:54,931
right? Want to learn a little bit more. It's going to be better experience all around there.

788
00:51:54,931 --> 00:51:58,831
So stampseed.com. Find us on the X at stamp underscore seed.

789
00:51:59,071 --> 00:52:05,031
And then if you want to reach out or follow me, say hello, Hammerseed21 on X.

790
00:52:05,711 --> 00:52:08,411
And we're going to be at Bitcoin Prog coming up.

791
00:52:08,531 --> 00:52:13,591
So if anyone listening, if this is going to be out before then, which it should be, it's about a month from today.

792
00:52:13,691 --> 00:52:15,751
Bitcoin Prog will be there.

793
00:52:16,351 --> 00:52:21,191
We've gone to everyone since the first and I highly suggest checking out that one.

794
00:52:21,691 --> 00:52:23,811
It's one of my favorites. It's like a meetup almost.

795
00:52:24,931 --> 00:52:47,111
And we had Adam back come to our booth. I was talking to him for like 15 minutes. He was like doing his own demo, just like everyone else did. He just wanted to learn about the product. So, you know, I don't work for the conference. I feel like I'm pitching him now. But yeah, check us out. Use your coupon codes. I'm sure you got a good one lined up, Cedric, 50% off. You know, get your deal and get your seat plates into metal now.

796
00:52:47,111 --> 00:52:52,091
don't like Cedric was saying, I don't procrastinate. I was just at, you know, the conference,

797
00:52:52,091 --> 00:52:56,191
like I was saying before in Vegas and every other one, you might have people that just know what the

798
00:52:56,191 --> 00:53:01,151
product is, but haven't done it yet. Right. It's a huge segment of people. Just don't be part of

799
00:53:01,151 --> 00:53:06,351
that. You know, set aside the time to get your stuff off the exchange onto a trusted hardware

800
00:53:06,351 --> 00:53:12,591
wallet that's preferably like air gapped and Bitcoin only checks all the boxes and just get

801
00:53:12,591 --> 00:53:17,331
your seed words into metal. You know, hopefully it's stamp sheet if it's not, and you're going to

802
00:53:17,331 --> 00:53:22,671
choose another metal, I would highly suggest one that is a single solid piece. I don't like anything

803
00:53:22,671 --> 00:53:27,271
with multiple pieces for a lot of different reasons. And the simplest way to say it's just

804
00:53:27,271 --> 00:53:31,591
more pieces, more problems. Hardware could be a different material that's holding it together.

805
00:53:32,111 --> 00:53:37,191
When things bend or heat gets applied, things expand and things start to fall out and become

806
00:53:37,191 --> 00:53:43,371
weaker it also gives water a place to hide dirt a place to hide corrosion things seizing up

807
00:53:43,371 --> 00:53:48,051
becoming harder to open whereas with a plate like this you could just literally bury it underground

808
00:53:48,051 --> 00:53:56,871
so um don't wait and just get it on a metal plate yeah i agree uh i i well you're so lucky you guys

809
00:53:56,871 --> 00:54:01,492
go to bitcoin prog that's my dream uh conference maybe you could put in a good word for me maybe i'll

810
00:54:01,492 --> 00:54:06,171
get to see there next year i'll be at camp nakamoto this year in new hampshire at lake

811
00:54:06,171 --> 00:54:12,211
winniposaki um this has been so dope uh hopefully i'll be on long island soon we can meet up in

812
00:54:12,211 --> 00:54:17,992
person and do another show uh together oh that'd be awesome yeah absolutely thank you so much

813
00:54:17,992 --> 00:54:25,191
thanks for having me yeah it's been great thanks cedric you too hey hey and that's a wrap on this

814
00:54:25,191 --> 00:54:31,811
one if this conversation added value share with one person who needs to hear it that is how the

815
00:54:31,811 --> 00:54:38,331
Bitcoin matrix where critical thinkers meet grows. Huge thanks to our sponsors, Stamp Seed,

816
00:54:38,512 --> 00:54:44,171
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817
00:54:44,171 --> 00:54:50,151
believe in. Please support them so they can keep supporting the show. Links and codes for all of

818
00:54:50,151 --> 00:54:57,451
them are in the show notes. Not on Fountain yet? $5 a month gets you every episode a full day early,

819
00:54:57,451 --> 00:55:05,352
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820
00:55:05,751 --> 00:55:11,391
The show is at underscore Bitcoin Matrix. We're in the conversation every single day.

821
00:55:12,012 --> 00:55:17,391
The Matrix is real. Keep on stacking. Keep your head on a swivel. Spend your time well.

822
00:55:17,671 --> 00:55:19,211
And thank you for listening.