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Hello, everybody. My name is Daniel Prince, and I'm the host of the Once Bitten podcast.

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This is a podcast focused on Bitcoin. It's my mission to interview as many people as I can

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around the different aspects of Bitcoin and help people understand exactly what Bitcoin could mean

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for them and for their families and for their future. I hope you enjoy the show. Thank you so

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much for listening. Hello everybody and welcome to this episode of the Once Bitten podcast.

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Joining me today is Stefan Briggs. I met Stefan at a conference in Switzerland last year and we

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got into one of the most fascinating conversations about the Asante empire and the spoons that they

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used to use to perform economic trade. An empire that spanned a couple of hundred centuries built

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on sound money. He has some of these spoons and he's written an article about it. I urge you to

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go and check it out. It's not one of these super long form articles. It's very digestible. You can

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read it in five minutes, but it's fascinating, truly fascinating. And this is where history,

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anthropology, money, all mixes. If you've been reading Jesse Meyer's work as well,

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this will resonate with you. So before we get into the episode, please, please make sure you're

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stacking sats. We are so early, so, so damn early in this revolution or our species evolution onto

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sound digital finite scarcity. And you can do that with a couple of companies. There's one

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across Europe called Relay, R-E-L-A-I dot C-H forward slash Bitten, download the app and start

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stacking today up to a thousand Swiss or equivalent. The wallet and everything is built in. It's done

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for you. You write down your words, self-custodial wallet, Relay dot C-H forward slash Bitten.

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Swan Bitcoin across the pond in the US is another place for you to go and start stacking your stats.

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Just download Swan Bitcoin, go to swanbitcoin.com forward slash Bitten or use the code Bitten when

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you've downloaded the app and start stacking today. Where can you spend your sats? Well,

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get out there peer-to-peer, get to meetups, get to conferences and start supporting those people

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that are creating the parallel economy. You can head over to paywithflash.com to figure out how

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you can start accepting sats at point of sale for your business. Pierre Corbin and the team have

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been building this out over the last couple of years. There's going to be more announcements,

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So just get over there. Get familiar with what they're doing. Paywithflash.com. You can get to plebeian.market. Find people from around the world that are selling merchandise for sats. And zapright.com forward slash bitten. Obviously, very easy for you to start creating invoices and sending out payment requests for the goods and services that you are providing. Start using Bitcoin as a medium exchange.

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How do you connect with people out there?

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Easy.

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Get to OrangePill app.

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The link is in the show notes.

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As soon as you sign up to OrangePill app using that referral link, you're going to get a

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thousand sats dropped in the inbuilt wallet and you can start using that to ping around,

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have fun within the app.

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You can geo zap people.

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You can zap whole cities.

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You can zap the whole damn earth if you want to.

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It's so much fun.

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Get over to OrangePill app.

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Connect with Bitcoiners.

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Find your local meetup.

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Find your local events.

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find your conferences talking of conferences bitcoin prague is just around the corner at time

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of drop we are about two weeks away succumb to the fomo now is the time for you to step into this

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arena and go and meet as many bitcoiners as you possibly can keep the noise very high low and the

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signal very high and get across the bitcoin only conferences btc prague is the biggest in europe

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and I'm looking forward to seeing you all there.

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So use the code BITTON at checkout,

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hit the link in the show notes

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and you'll get 10% discount.

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If you pay with Bitcoin,

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you'll get 15% discount.

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If you can't make BTC Prague,

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don't worry.

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In August, we've got the Baltic Honey Badger

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that's in Riga

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and we also have BTC Hell,

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which is going to be in Helsinki.

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Again, links in the show notes.

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The code is BITTON.

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You will get a discount.

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Please stack safely.

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Take self-custody of your Bitcoin.

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bitbox is the place for you to go go again if you go into any of these conferences you might want to

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hold off and go and speak to the guys directly and buy directly from them face to face using

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satoshi's peer-to-peer as it was intended to be then they can walk you through the full suite of

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security services that is inbuilt if you don't have tickets to the conference don't worry get

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across to bitbox.swiss forward slash bitten all of the information is there use the code bits and

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at checkout, you'll get yourself a 5% discount. But please take this very seriously. Get yourself

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a hardware wallet and start taking Bitcoin off the exchanges and into your own hands.

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Finally, where are you listening? I hope you're listening on Fountain. Get away from Apple or

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Google Pods or wherever. And there's a new service in town for the podcasters and the listeners out

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there. I've got a little read for you. And I'm sure I'm going to run out of music. So bear with me.

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You'll find shows like this one, Once Bitten, with our branded search portal, full transcripts with easy-to-clip and share tools.

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check it out at bubblefm forward slash join that's bubble fm forward slash join and it's very very

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cool guys i can tell you it's going to change the way you listen to podcasts you can literally just

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say you want to search a specific thing you might want to search op return conversations

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it's going like that what happens in the back end is crazy it's going to find every single podcast

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over the last however long that's talking specifically about Opratun, find those exact

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moments in the podcast, clip them all together, and create for you a podcast just made from

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different podcasts talking about that specific topic. It's powerful. I've had the walkthrough

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by the guys. This is exciting. So please go and check it out. This is going to definitely

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up your knowledge very, very quickly. And for all you 40 hours per week psychos, you can now

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drill down you can still do the 40 hours per week but you can drill down onto certain topics

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rather than listen to one one and a half hour long conversation at two and a half x you can now

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tap into all of these hidden little nuggets of information i've gone way over on the music by

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the way but i am excited by this it does look very very cool so go and check it out bubble.fm

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excuse me bubble.fm forward slash join meanwhile here's stefan all right stefan

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We're recording. Good to see you again.

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Nice. Good to see you again, Daniel.

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Lauren's usually here to ask the first question.

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Unfortunately, she is not with us today, but you met her.

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No, you didn't. You met Sophia. I forget.

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You met Sophia, my other daughter, when we were in...

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What was the name of that place in Switzerland?

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Neuchatel, the Paradigm Bitcoin conference.

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It wasn't Neuchatel. Chou de Fonds?

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Was it Chaudet-Font?

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Yeah, just outside of Neuchâtel.

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Just outside of Neuchâtel, yeah, north of Neuchâtel.

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Yes, exactly.

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Yes, at the, well, it was a French-speaking Bitcoin conference,

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but they had translation and everything, which was very helpful.

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Yeah, and the translations were super good.

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They were really good translations, yeah.

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They were, because my French is not up to that standard,

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even though I did try and host a panel, which I think went okay.

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But nonetheless, it was good.

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nonetheless that's where we met and uh kind of like really at the it was a turning point for you

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you just quit your your job at uh ubs i believe yeah yeah yeah so i had just quit uh my job at

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ubs officially and then i went to that conference because um i saw a bit box actually tweeted that

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there were two free tickets to the conference so i quickly got those luckily and then i went the

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first day alone and then the next day my father joined me and you met him as well i did that was

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just during the time got to meet you that was just during the time yeah when i quit my job there

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always so great to meet other other bitcoiners at these events but uh i really enjoyed our

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conversation because you can tell where someone is in their journey and you are so full of life

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hope optimism because you just quit you're going through I think you had like two weeks left or

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something but you want to tell people then like what what led you to that point what up until then

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what had you been doing what had you been working as or in and studied and what was the kind of

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jumping off point for you because there are so many people in your position that just want to get out

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yeah so um i can give you the long story sure um we've got an hour and a half

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so i went to university at bard college um and during my third year um at college i went for

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internship at a startup in Zurich because my family was living in Zurich at the time.

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So it was sort of my home during that time. So during my third year of university,

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I went for an internship at a startup that was in the fintech space and that was called

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Move Digital. So this was in the summer of 2017. I joined that startup and I was sort of a business

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analyst or a early product manager during that time and i was working closely with my boss the

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ceo and during this time we were sort of pitching ideas to credit suites so the startup was sort of

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a subsidiary of credit suites and we were in the sort of ideation phase of the startup so we had

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one tool that we were building it was called nexus and it was a data aggregator so the idea

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was that it would serve relationship managers in the bank, RMs, to help them with their day-to-day

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job So it was a data aggregator for news research so news and research that bankers would need so Financial Times Wall Street Journal all those finance focused news publications And we had research publications from Credit Suisse And we also had some market data in one platform that the banker could use

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so um during this time we were going into credit suiz every day or i was going with my boss into

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credit suiz every day to to sort of pitch our tool and get some traction with the tool so during that

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time he would uh take me onto the trading floor in credit suiz which at the time was super

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interesting to see because you see guys like on the phone like okay we'll close a million

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francs or whatever boom and then they go for lunch so that was very interesting for me to see as a 23

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year old uh degenerate you know um so uh so i was pitched my tool then to the like research teams

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that were working on the trading floor and in this tool you could build sort of funnels is what we

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called them which was basically a topic so if you're if people were interested in electric vehicles

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you could build a space where you could access that space within the bank and see all the news

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and research that was about electric vehicles to pitch clients or keep your clients up to date

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with whatever was going on in that sector so this was during 2017 when we had sort of

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one of the big hype cycles in bitcoin um and so bitcoin was going up a lot during that time

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And this is when I first started reading about Bitcoin. And so I created a Bitcoin funnel in the tool. And I was just posting news and writing little reports in the tool and gained some traction within the bank. So it helped the tool sort of get to the next phase of the development.

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So we proved that we could bring users to the tool.

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And so partially through the Bitcoin funnel, it brought more people to the tool.

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So then it was a good success for the tool.

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So this was during the 2017 hype cycle.

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So the traders on the trading floor, I was watching them.

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You know, they were trading shit coins like Pokemon cards, you know.

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So to me, it was like a real thing.

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Bitcoin and crypto as well was like a real thing that people were throwing a lot of money at.

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So I naturally became interested in it.

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And then I went back to finish my final year in university.

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I studied economics there.

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And then the company hired me then full-time starting in 2018.

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So then I started my career in the startup.

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I worked with the NLP team, the natural language processing team.

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And the whole time I was growing and becoming like a product manager for the startup.

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So working with engineers and developers to build software for mostly Credit Suisse at the time, but it expanded later.

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And then the tool grew and grew and everything was good.

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And we had more developers and more engineers in Bulgaria.

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We had an office in Bulgaria as well.

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And then Credit Suisse acquired a company, Move Digital, and then Credit Suisse collapsed.

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so i'm sure you know all about that story but credit suites collapsed and then began

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the sort of transition phase to become ubs so this took a long time to sort of integrate all

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the credit suites things into ubs and i think it's still ongoing many years later but throughout

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the whole time i had continued studying bitcoin um got a little bit distracted by crypto but then

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came back to Bitcoin. So I was still fascinated by it. And people in the office, it was like a joke,

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you know, like, okay, the crazy Bitcoin guy, you know, whatever, it's funny, which was cool,

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which was fine. So then during that whole time, while I was sort of becoming a PM in the software

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company, I was still fascinated by Bitcoin and continuing to study it. And then they integrated

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our team into UBS. So then we went from our small little startup office into UBS and everyone there

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was very nice and they're very welcoming and very generous and it was a good opportunity.

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But it wasn't what I wanted to do with the rest of my life, that sort of corporate life.

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Also, they kind of killed our tool. They killed Nexus and used another tool for it. So that wasn't

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so cool. But everyone there was super nice. And I said it was a good opportunity, but it wasn't

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really what I wanted to do with my life. So yeah, I decided to quit. So I told people I was going to

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quit and study Bitcoin. And they gave a little laugh and chuckle, you know, and they said, okay,

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fine. And so yeah, so I did it. So I quit. And then I went to the conference and then we met.

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And so now I've been just sort of reorganizing my life a little bit and continuing to study

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Bitcoin and trying to write some articles and just keep starting it as a fellow pleb.

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So we'll get into the article you wrote because I love it. I want to go back to

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it's so easy to brush over when a big bank gets swallowed up by another bank because it happens

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so often. But this is all part of the centralization process. It's all part of the plan,

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the agenda by the people, the invisible hands that rule these companies, you know, that,

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as John Hamer would refer to them, the banksters, which is a kind of an amalgamation of the word

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banker and gangster. And, you know, it is important as well for people to understand that

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there's only a very, very few people that do that. Generally, the people working at these banks who

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you would consider a banker, your friends, your family, they're just doing a nine to five. Well,

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No, they're not. They're doing probably 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.

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They're just doing a job. They're there.

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They're there to do a job and to create products and to serve customers and have relationships with their customers and just get on with life.

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They have no idea of the formation of the Federal Reserve and how all of this ties into fiat money and printing.

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and they have no idea.

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They might have heard of LIBOR scandals or gold fixing scandals

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or foreign exchange scandals, which I've seen throughout my own career,

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very up close.

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But, you know, generally just good people doing their work.

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But then Credit Suisse.

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how on earth can a bank of that size and magnitude and history just disappear overnight and the way

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it was done was very very weird it was all done over a weekend if i remember correctly

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and completely unconstitutional nothing like this has ever been seen before in the history

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of banking and especially in switzerland are you you know especially do you want to tell people as

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you sitting on the inside how did this all start unraveling was there any murmurings before

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because there was talks of like deutsche bank there's always like the last 10 years deutsche

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bank is on the precipice it's on the precipice of going over and then all of a sudden no no

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you were all looking there and credit swiss just went down but it's okay guys ubs are going to save

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it like what did you see as an insider what what was leading up to this yeah so so so they called

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the shotgun wedding you know between UBS and Credit Suisse because UBS didn't really want to

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acquire Credit Suisse or take them over you know but the government basically said you have to do

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this otherwise you know the game is over otherwise it's we're done you know so from my perspective

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the the tipping point the way I saw it the tipping point when they said over the weekend okay UBS

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take Credit Suisse it's over was when people started to withdraw a lot of their money

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from Credit Suisse.

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So I remember at the time they showed like a chart

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and it was starting to get exponential of people,

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Swiss citizens or anyone,

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starting to remove their money from Credit Suisse

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and putting it into UBS.

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So in my opinion, that was, I think, the turning point

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when they started to have kind of a bank run a little bit

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and they couldn't afford to have that to grow

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or to become like a media hype cycle

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because people were starting to say in the news and everything.

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So I think it was going to be a bank run.

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So they said, we have to stop this now.

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You have to take over Credit Suisse.

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We will give you billions of dollars,

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billions of francs to do this,

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but you have to do it now.

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And ironically, this was a great time

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for our platform, Nexus,

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because everyone had to know what was going on.

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And we had the best sources with the news

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and the fastest platform for that.

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So our usage was going through the roof during this time

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because everyone has to know what's going on.

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So they came to our tool.

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So that's just a bit funny.

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But yeah, so I think it was when there was threat

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of a real bank run happening on Credit Suisse.

247
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That was the tipping point, in my opinion.

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Which is crazy for Switzerland,

249
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the safest financial place in the world.

250
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So there was a crack.

251
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that's where you could start to see a crack starting to form um and they couldn't let it

252
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get out of control so you did you find out that just like via an email or like watching the news

253
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like because you get you go home on a friday night and yeah through the news um through the

254
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news i remember um i was having a coffee with my colleague you know we're walking outside

255
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i said wow this is a historical event um what's going to happen now like to our do i start up you

256
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and it was just nothing really just wait so there was a lot of waiting when this was happening there

257
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was a lot of waiting for the news what's going to happen next and it was a bit a little bit

258
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annoying because i have a team of engineers you know and we want to build stuff and and fix things

259
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and have priorities and it's my job to you know prioritize prioritize what we're going to build

260
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and at that time it's strange because we don't really know exactly what we're supposed to build

261
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next um so so yeah so then that started like a year-long process of sort of waiting and

262
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stalling and waiting for the UBS merger to really happen and then we went into UBS

263
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and I said okay I'll give it a few months you know see see how it goes um see if I like it

264
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maybe it's cool maybe this for that or anything um so I did it for a few months and then yeah I

265
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decided that I didn't want to do it for for a number of reasons um so so I quit so I quit and

266
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then went on a road trip to Spain for two weeks just by myself which was cool nice man um yeah

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so now we're gonna get you know get into the article that you wrote uh because when we met

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and we're just chatting uh in Switzerland at that conference you started showing me pictures you

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started talking about Asante spoons.

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And I like never heard of it You know oh yeah let me show you one And you have like an actual physical collection So do you want to give us the background on how you come across Asante Spoons why you have some in your possession

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And then we will get into the title of your article, From Asante Spoons to Bitcoin, The Legacy of Sound Money.

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And I love all of this philanthropic stuff.

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You've written a beautiful article.

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So let's set the scene.

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How did you become aware of Asante Spoons and how did you get any in your possession?

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Yeah.

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So my friend called me one day and he told me that his grandfather had passed away and they need to clear out the house of all the things that are there.

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And he needs my help to do that because I had a car.

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I was in Switzerland and I could go help.

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um and um my friend's grandfather i don't really know exactly all the details but he was like a

281
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scientist um explorer and he was studying um some some disease in africa many years ago but he was

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also a collector so he has many old interesting things in his house so we went to his house and

283
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we were rummaging through this stuff looking for interesting things and uh one of the boxes we came

284
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across was all of these spoons all of these brass spoons uh with interesting drawings on them and

285
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art and everything so so we took and there were other things as well from the house but we took

286
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some of those things back to my place in Switzerland and then I was going through some of the stuff you

287
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know just checking it out and then I was holding the spoons and I researched what they were for

288
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And I discovered that they were for peer-to-peer transactions using gold dust in the Asante empire during the 1700s to 1900s.

289
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And I immediately thought that that was totally related to Bitcoin, that there's for sure a connection between how they ran their economy and Bitcoin, sound money.

290
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So then I was sitting on the couch holding the spoons and I thought there's for sure a connection here.

291
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And then I sort of forgot about it a little bit.

292
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And then I went to the Bitcoin conference.

293
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We met there and we started chatting.

294
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And just as we were chatting, it just jumped back into my mind.

295
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I told you about the spoons and you said, that's super cool.

296
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Write an article about it and then come on the podcast, you know?

297
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So, so yeah, that's how I came into possession of the spoons.

298
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So, so I have the spoons.

299
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That's the story behind the spoons.

300
00:26:07,430 --> 00:26:09,251
Yeah, that's, it's so cool.

301
00:26:09,251 --> 00:26:12,591
So let's talk about, so it's Ghana, right?

302
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You start here, in the bustling markets of Kumasi,

303
00:26:16,670 --> 00:26:21,251
the 19th century capital of the Asante Empire in modern day Ghana,

304
00:26:21,831 --> 00:26:25,191
traders conducted their commerce not with coins or paper notes,

305
00:26:25,531 --> 00:26:30,211
but with gold dust measured by intricately crafted brass spoons.

306
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It sets the scene so beautifully.

307
00:26:32,871 --> 00:26:35,851
Like gold dust, it's just something we say, you know,

308
00:26:35,910 --> 00:26:37,410
oh, you know, it's like gold dust.

309
00:26:37,410 --> 00:26:43,771
Like, you know, it's a very throwaway kind of common day phrase.

310
00:26:45,271 --> 00:26:47,971
But this is what they ran a whole economy on.

311
00:26:48,531 --> 00:26:52,371
And it's kind of like they're the sats, right?

312
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They're the sats of the bar.

313
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That's the way I see it, you know.

314
00:26:56,571 --> 00:26:59,351
And it became a medium of exchange.

315
00:26:59,430 --> 00:27:03,871
And this is exactly, this is the parallel I draw, and I'm sure you do too.

316
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And then you go on.

317
00:27:06,371 --> 00:27:11,871
this monetary system devoid of a central bank or state issued fiat sustained a sophisticated

318
00:27:11,871 --> 00:27:18,831
civilization for over two centuries. And this is where we want to go with Bitcoin, right? We want

319
00:27:18,831 --> 00:27:27,430
to get back here. But I'd never heard of Kumasi. I'd never heard of the Asante empire. Did you dig

320
00:27:27,430 --> 00:27:35,811
into the Asante empire at all? Yeah, so I'm still looking into it. And I think there's a lot of

321
00:27:35,811 --> 00:27:41,091
parallels you can draw between Bitcoin and the Sante empire, but they were like one of the most

322
00:27:41,091 --> 00:27:48,951
powerful empires around that time in Africa. They fought against the British for many years,

323
00:27:49,711 --> 00:27:54,531
and they were one of the, like at around that time, only African empires to give a good fight

324
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back to the British. So they had a very strong empire, very strong military.

325
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and you could argue that one of the reasons that they were so wealthy and had such a strong military

326
00:28:08,871 --> 00:28:17,271
was because they had an empire that functioned officially on a sound money standard you know

327
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using gold dust which couldn't be inflated by central banks or the government and it was

328
00:28:23,731 --> 00:28:30,971
officially recognized by the government at the time um those transactions were were legit you

329
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And the traders themselves could independently verify that the transaction was legit, that the right amount of gold dust was used for the transaction.

330
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So the way it would work, which wasn't actually clear to me in the beginning, was that they would have each trader or each economic individual who is either going to the market or buying a house or land or something like that.

331
00:28:55,611 --> 00:29:04,311
They would have on them a brass spoon, a scale, and little weights, you know.

332
00:29:04,731 --> 00:29:11,571
So they would agree on how much gold dust needs to be traded in whatever the transaction was.

333
00:29:11,571 --> 00:29:18,051
and then the person would scoop the gold dust

334
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with the spoon onto the scale

335
00:29:19,971 --> 00:29:22,391
and get the correct balance

336
00:29:22,391 --> 00:29:24,071
to prove that this is how much gold

337
00:29:24,071 --> 00:29:26,311
I'm going to give you for this transaction.

338
00:29:27,151 --> 00:29:29,371
And then if the other person didn't trust him,

339
00:29:29,791 --> 00:29:32,211
the other person also had their own scale and weights

340
00:29:32,211 --> 00:29:34,531
and then they could measure as well in their system

341
00:29:34,531 --> 00:29:37,151
and then everything's good.

342
00:29:37,251 --> 00:29:39,811
You can continue on with your basket of vegetables

343
00:29:39,811 --> 00:29:41,091
or your piece of land.

344
00:29:41,571 --> 00:29:48,031
So the government recognized that this was the way it was done.

345
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And the government would tax the people before they entered a market.

346
00:29:54,591 --> 00:29:55,851
The government would take a little tax.

347
00:29:56,670 --> 00:30:01,811
And if you wanted to pass through trade routes that ran through the Asante Empire,

348
00:30:02,231 --> 00:30:05,391
the government would tax that as well to use their infrastructure.

349
00:30:05,391 --> 00:30:11,951
but yeah the one one argument as to why the empire was so strong was because they had a

350
00:30:11,951 --> 00:30:19,430
economy running on sound money so you can make the argument that they were a low time preference

351
00:30:19,430 --> 00:30:26,151
economy because they were still mining gold from the rivers but it was very slow you know of course

352
00:30:26,151 --> 00:30:32,930
and it required work of course so if you want to claim that they were a low time preference

353
00:30:32,930 --> 00:30:38,211
economy there's evidence that they would save their wealth in little boxes that had nice art

354
00:30:38,211 --> 00:30:44,670
on them as well and pass that wealth down to younger generations so that's one example that

355
00:30:44,670 --> 00:30:49,771
that suggests that they were a low time preference economy because the money couldn't be just printed

356
00:30:49,771 --> 00:31:00,251
um whenever you know there was actually valuable and hard to come by um uh wealth so so yeah that's

357
00:31:00,251 --> 00:31:05,831
has kind of the main parallel to Bitcoin is that, you know, the economies can function

358
00:31:05,831 --> 00:31:14,011
on sound money and it is possible and they can become strong and invest in infrastructure and

359
00:31:14,011 --> 00:31:21,831
education and the future. But sadly, they were, after their battle, they were taken down by the

360
00:31:21,831 --> 00:31:26,691
British and then the British came in and imposed their own currency and did the usual story, you

361
00:31:26,691 --> 00:31:33,191
know so then they they failed but they they didn't fail because of they were on a sound money standard

362
00:31:33,191 --> 00:31:39,651
uh they failed more because they didn't have the technology to to to handle the british so

363
00:31:39,651 --> 00:31:45,811
so with bitcoin that's not a problem anymore so that's sort of the main takeaway that i took from

364
00:31:45,811 --> 00:31:56,991
nothing like a good old bit of colonialism to uh you know and destroy a civilization i mean it

365
00:31:56,991 --> 00:32:03,131
says here by 1900 the asanti had amassed 14 million ounces of gold a volume that rivaled

366
00:32:03,131 --> 00:32:10,551
the economic output of many european nations during the same period so this it's the same

367
00:32:10,551 --> 00:32:17,051
people for every single time is you know the uh they just that that's all they want they just want

368
00:32:17,051 --> 00:32:22,731
they want it all they're insatiable they want the land they want the gold they want the tin the copper

369
00:32:22,731 --> 00:32:29,331
the zinc the cobalt whatever it is right now they want the diamonds yeah you know whatever

370
00:32:29,331 --> 00:32:35,231
and they'll stop at nothing to get it and they're insatiable doesn't matter how much they have

371
00:32:35,231 --> 00:32:40,531
they will never stop and like their primary weapon right now is obviously just printing

372
00:32:40,531 --> 00:32:48,671
fiat currency to get it to so the central banks will print the fiat currency to uh in debt the

373
00:32:48,671 --> 00:32:53,991
governments to them print print money out of nothing like digitally print money out of nothing

374
00:32:53,991 --> 00:33:02,971
then charge usury on it interest on that lent money uh which the government can never pay back

375
00:33:02,971 --> 00:33:08,391
it doesn't matter how much they tax us they'll never be able to pay it back and nor do they even

376
00:33:08,391 --> 00:33:12,551
want it back they don't want fiat currency back that they can print what be the point of that

377
00:33:12,551 --> 00:33:20,591
no they want the assets they want the land they want the mining interests and then they can carry

378
00:33:20,591 --> 00:33:29,511
on making billions from the profit of those things and uh by any means necessary and

379
00:33:29,511 --> 00:33:39,571
generally that means bloody conflict and murder it's so vile yeah and it's still it's still uh

380
00:33:39,571 --> 00:33:45,651
still happening today um they're still coming to to africa for the resources and the minerals

381
00:33:45,651 --> 00:33:52,930
and they being the big companies and the governments um and yeah that's why that's why

382
00:33:52,930 --> 00:33:57,391
africa suffered from the resource curse you know for for some for its entire history

383
00:33:57,391 --> 00:34:01,291
because they've been getting scammed for forever

384
00:34:01,291 --> 00:34:05,930
by the mining companies and the other nations

385
00:34:05,930 --> 00:34:08,831
who come and secure some, get the resources,

386
00:34:09,891 --> 00:34:10,631
trap them in debt,

387
00:34:11,050 --> 00:34:14,010
and then leave with all the resources.

388
00:34:14,271 --> 00:34:17,071
So that's another topic, but the whole resource curse.

389
00:34:17,651 --> 00:34:19,931
But that's also important.

390
00:34:20,190 --> 00:34:25,171
Well, that's all done through the philanthropic lens

391
00:34:25,171 --> 00:34:30,210
of the World Bank or the IMF, right, which as Bitcoiners

392
00:34:30,210 --> 00:34:31,510
we're slowly learning about.

393
00:34:31,631 --> 00:34:34,530
And if you've ever read Confessions of an Economic Hitman

394
00:34:34,530 --> 00:34:37,171
by John Perkins, he goes into this because he was on the inside.

395
00:34:37,811 --> 00:34:40,451
But, yeah, the idea being the IMF will come in

396
00:34:40,451 --> 00:34:42,991
or economic forecasters will come in and say,

397
00:34:43,510 --> 00:34:47,231
oh, well, look at all of these natural resources you have.

398
00:34:47,231 --> 00:34:54,451
You could lift your people if you were going to mining

399
00:34:54,451 --> 00:35:00,571
this particular mineral or, for example, hydroelectric powered dam.

400
00:35:01,471 --> 00:35:16,516
And look at the money that it would make for your country And then they find the perfect prime minister or president to vote this thing through And then all of a sudden the money gets released

401
00:35:16,516 --> 00:35:23,956
and they're indebted forever, because the economic forecasting was all reading tea leaves anyway.

402
00:35:24,436 --> 00:35:30,176
But now they have to use the money that they've just received to start hiring the companies that

403
00:35:30,176 --> 00:35:37,096
are all in cahoots and owned by the same people like oh i don't know when all this ends man i i'm

404
00:35:37,096 --> 00:35:43,576
but i'm ready for it yeah yeah it's a trap and then so then when a new politician is elected in

405
00:35:43,576 --> 00:35:49,296
a african country their main priority is how do i get out of this debt track that we're in because

406
00:35:49,296 --> 00:35:55,436
they're stuck so deeply in debt so they can't really focus on you know really trying to do

407
00:35:55,436 --> 00:35:59,556
the right thing they have to deal with the debt hole that they're in it's also a good book about

408
00:35:59,556 --> 00:36:07,976
the topic hidden repression yeah how the imf and world bank sell exploitation is ah alex's book yes

409
00:36:07,976 --> 00:36:15,096
yeah yeah so this was a good one i wrote in in my final year at um bard college i wrote for my

410
00:36:15,096 --> 00:36:21,716
thesis about a bit about the resource curse and um and yeah how trying to explain exactly how the

411
00:36:21,716 --> 00:36:26,896
african countries are typically scammed by the world bank imf so it's a really interesting topic

412
00:36:26,896 --> 00:36:28,816
and a bit sad, yeah, for sure.

413
00:36:29,296 --> 00:36:32,176
And then you get into, oh, well, who set this up?

414
00:36:32,296 --> 00:36:33,576
The World Bank and the IMF.

415
00:36:34,496 --> 00:36:34,716
Yeah.

416
00:36:35,376 --> 00:36:38,376
It all leads to the same people every single time.

417
00:36:38,376 --> 00:36:41,016
It's always been through the money

418
00:36:41,016 --> 00:36:45,696
is how they've always controlled resource-rich countries.

419
00:36:47,596 --> 00:36:49,276
Through the whole history, it's been through the money.

420
00:36:49,716 --> 00:36:50,996
And you can see with the Assante Empire,

421
00:36:51,136 --> 00:36:52,216
when they came in and took them over,

422
00:36:52,296 --> 00:36:53,936
they introduced their money,

423
00:36:53,936 --> 00:36:58,476
and then that's how you need to run your economy now

424
00:36:58,476 --> 00:36:59,316
is with our currency.

425
00:36:59,936 --> 00:37:02,156
So same story.

426
00:37:02,316 --> 00:37:03,956
You can look at different empires, different countries,

427
00:37:04,036 --> 00:37:05,776
and you'll see the same pattern happening.

428
00:37:05,796 --> 00:37:06,956
And we will take the gold.

429
00:37:07,096 --> 00:37:07,956
Thank you very much.

430
00:37:09,096 --> 00:37:09,316
Yep.

431
00:37:09,516 --> 00:37:10,396
Yep, we'll take the gold.

432
00:37:11,816 --> 00:37:13,296
And yeah, goodbye.

433
00:37:13,656 --> 00:37:18,996
Because we need to prepare for the next phase of our industry,

434
00:37:19,196 --> 00:37:20,156
our countries to grow.

435
00:37:20,516 --> 00:37:21,336
So we need these minerals.

436
00:37:21,716 --> 00:37:22,636
So we're going to take that.

437
00:37:22,636 --> 00:37:29,676
and then we'll give you nice things and whatever you know but in the end africa gets poorer and

438
00:37:29,676 --> 00:37:36,396
poorer um but i think it can change over time it can change but it'll be slow i think it'll be very

439
00:37:36,396 --> 00:37:41,956
slow gradually then suddenly we hope uh but uh right so let's get back to the because you've

440
00:37:41,956 --> 00:37:46,856
got a picture of the spoons um are these the the picture in the article are these the ones that

441
00:37:46,856 --> 00:37:52,396
you have in your possession did you keep some or did you did your friend yeah i have i have them

442
00:37:52,396 --> 00:37:59,196
still i don't have them on me now but there's a lot more um so i don't know if you're going to the

443
00:37:59,196 --> 00:38:05,056
the conference again i just got my ticket for the the partying conference in the summer so if you're

444
00:38:05,056 --> 00:38:10,876
going there i can bring all the spoons and we can take a look um but the the pictures are just a few

445
00:38:10,876 --> 00:38:15,016
of them in the article just a few of them the most the most like clear ones because some of them are

446
00:38:15,016 --> 00:38:22,756
old and faded um so the pictures in the article are ones with little animals or or uh like shapes

447
00:38:22,756 --> 00:38:29,516
cool geometric shapes that they have and they're made of brass made of brass yeah and then within

448
00:38:29,516 --> 00:38:38,576
in the brass like the carvings are intricate yeah i mean we have a high level of skill and artistry

449
00:38:38,576 --> 00:38:46,036
Yeah, so this is actually one of the parts that I'm focusing on now a little bit for my next article or whatever.

450
00:38:47,256 --> 00:38:56,616
The art in the spoons is actually super interesting because the art in the spoons was meant to sort of build trust in the whole system.

451
00:38:58,796 --> 00:39:06,456
By capturing sort of proverbs from the culture and putting them in the spoons.

452
00:39:06,456 --> 00:39:15,276
so there's one quote in there about the bird in the spoon but one of the bird quotes from the

453
00:39:15,276 --> 00:39:22,036
empire i have it here is uh so when a bird was carved in a spoon it meant to reference this

454
00:39:22,036 --> 00:39:30,076
proverb which is uh it is not wrong to go back for that which you have forgotten okay so like a

455
00:39:30,076 --> 00:39:36,936
wisdom of the culture of the time and they they put it into the art they put the art into the

456
00:39:36,936 --> 00:39:43,196
spoons to sort of build trust in in the system you know and there's an interesting parallel

457
00:39:43,196 --> 00:39:48,476
there bringing it back to fiat and back to bitcoin because you can look at the design of

458
00:39:48,476 --> 00:39:55,756
fiat bills and you see in your art and and and and you know proverbs from whatever culture the

459
00:39:55,756 --> 00:40:01,876
currency belongs to um you can see the art they put in the fiat bills to sort of build trust in

460
00:40:01,876 --> 00:40:07,596
the currency you know we have like dead dead presidents on the u.s bills um other bills from

461
00:40:07,596 --> 00:40:13,896
other countries have interesting art that reflects the culture you know and if we bring that now to

462
00:40:13,896 --> 00:40:21,456
to to bitcoin we also have proverbs in in bitcoin you know and like cultural sort of

463
00:40:21,456 --> 00:40:28,696
proverbs that we say to to uh to build trust in the system um you know stay humble stack

464
00:40:28,696 --> 00:40:35,376
sides it's one proverb a favorite is uh don't trust yeah don't oh fuck the fucking fuckers

465
00:40:35,376 --> 00:40:37,036
but you know yeah

466
00:40:37,036 --> 00:40:46,956
yeah you're right you don't have like art but you know the last point about the art is you have the

467
00:40:46,956 --> 00:40:52,756
headline on the Times, the Chancellor on the second brink of bailouts, that's like a piece

468
00:40:52,756 --> 00:40:56,856
of Bitcoin art, and it's meant to capture sort of the values of what Bitcoin's all about.

469
00:40:56,856 --> 00:41:02,196
And that's inscribed in the Genesis block. So I think you can look at the art and the money and

470
00:41:02,196 --> 00:41:08,076
the relationship there and see what it's meant to capture or to why we do it. And the Asante

471
00:41:08,076 --> 00:41:11,696
empire understood that, and that's why they put the art into their spoons.

472
00:41:12,316 --> 00:41:14,776
But I think there's an interesting angle there to study, for sure.

473
00:41:14,776 --> 00:41:25,056
There is. And before any of these ordinal tards start getting excited and jumping up and down and say, you see, we're right. This is why we need to raise the op return.

474
00:41:25,356 --> 00:41:29,096
This will settle. This will settle.

475
00:41:29,096 --> 00:41:44,316
Yeah. But if you go back earlier in the blockchain, obviously, I don't know off the top of my head, the exact blocks, but there is R inscribed in there.

476
00:41:44,316 --> 00:41:48,756
there's a picture of Len Sassamon, you know,

477
00:41:48,756 --> 00:41:51,996
kind of made from ones and zeros, you know, how you can make.

478
00:41:52,696 --> 00:41:57,856
So there's a portrait of him in there and of Ben Bernanke as well.

479
00:41:58,456 --> 00:42:03,556
So, you know, a little, a little ode to, you know,

480
00:42:03,656 --> 00:42:08,856
what that person has done in his life to,

481
00:42:10,196 --> 00:42:14,216
as the head of the federal reserve to, you know,

482
00:42:14,216 --> 00:42:20,536
impoverished and now now yeah go ahead yeah and now it's getting now it's getting physical art

483
00:42:20,536 --> 00:42:26,736
with the statues you have in logano or nelly so so the art is very important for for the money to

484
00:42:26,736 --> 00:42:36,876
to sort of reflect what the what the culture believes in um so yeah we artwork if you go back

485
00:42:36,876 --> 00:42:44,116
four or five years bitcoin art and i'm saying bitcoin art not crypto art bitcoin art specifically

486
00:42:44,116 --> 00:42:48,276
was something just very, very new.

487
00:42:48,976 --> 00:42:51,316
You know, there were a few pioneers in this field,

488
00:42:51,996 --> 00:42:56,016
Fractal and Crypt with his incredible pieces,

489
00:42:56,196 --> 00:42:57,756
you know, intricate carvings

490
00:42:57,756 --> 00:43:02,016
and just wonderful pieces of art.

491
00:43:02,496 --> 00:43:04,976
Rebel Money out of Wales

492
00:43:04,976 --> 00:43:08,936
has been in this space as well for a long time.

493
00:43:09,376 --> 00:43:10,896
And it's him actually that,

494
00:43:10,976 --> 00:43:13,176
he's given a talk on this a few times,

495
00:43:13,176 --> 00:43:19,596
it's him that brought my attention to the artwork in the blockchain uh not not just the the genesis

496
00:43:19,596 --> 00:43:27,976
block but the uh the portraits uh you know he's he's very much aligned with what you're saying

497
00:43:27,976 --> 00:43:36,176
you know once the artists turn up things are changing there's a cultural shift now it's not

498
00:43:36,176 --> 00:43:42,816
just fuck the fucking fuckers right there is something going on it's not the bloody revolution

499
00:43:42,816 --> 00:43:45,176
It's not let's light the torches and the pitchforks.

500
00:43:45,916 --> 00:43:48,196
And my goodness, are they here now?

501
00:43:48,296 --> 00:43:51,976
There's a project going on at the moment called the Smash Toshi Project,

502
00:43:52,216 --> 00:43:54,176
which is the most beautiful art project,

503
00:43:54,416 --> 00:43:57,756
which I was lucky enough to be a part of and write a piece for that.

504
00:43:58,316 --> 00:44:00,756
And I'm really looking forward to seeing that finished.

505
00:44:01,096 --> 00:44:04,776
But when you go to the conferences and you walk around,

506
00:44:05,136 --> 00:44:07,176
there's a dedicated art section now.

507
00:44:07,176 --> 00:44:17,976
Like there's hundreds of square feet dedicated purely to the artwork that is going on in this space.

508
00:44:18,756 --> 00:44:27,256
Yeah, there's another thing that just gives me hope because, you know, it's all about number go up and we're all going to get rich and drive Lambos.

509
00:44:28,676 --> 00:44:35,856
Yeah. And another thing that was sort of crypto distracted big time with the art thing, you know, with the monkey JPEGs and everything.

510
00:44:35,856 --> 00:44:40,016
so there's always the crypto scam on top

511
00:44:40,016 --> 00:44:41,876
and then the reality below

512
00:44:41,876 --> 00:44:42,756
which is the Bitcoin art

513
00:44:42,756 --> 00:44:45,116
is actually important and meaningful

514
00:44:45,116 --> 00:44:47,016
yeah absolutely

515
00:44:47,016 --> 00:44:49,236
and you've got a bunch of spoons here

516
00:44:49,236 --> 00:44:50,116
that looks as though

517
00:44:50,116 --> 00:44:53,536
trade and tradition

518
00:44:53,536 --> 00:44:55,756
there's people

519
00:44:55,756 --> 00:44:57,736
yeah so

520
00:44:57,736 --> 00:45:00,216
I haven't found other examples

521
00:45:00,216 --> 00:45:01,336
of those spoons

522
00:45:01,336 --> 00:45:02,356
they look like

523
00:45:02,356 --> 00:45:07,676
bigger spoons than the brass ones because the brass ones are quite thin.

524
00:45:08,856 --> 00:45:15,116
So I don't actually know what those spoons were for.

525
00:45:15,356 --> 00:45:18,296
I'm pretty sure they were gold dust spoons for transactions,

526
00:45:18,616 --> 00:45:20,296
but maybe they were for larger transactions

527
00:45:20,296 --> 00:45:27,436
because you could use the spoons to buy vegetables in the market

528
00:45:27,436 --> 00:45:29,976
or meat or whatever, but you could also use them for land.

529
00:45:29,976 --> 00:45:34,036
so maybe if you showed up to buy a piece of land you brought one of the big spoons the big voice

530
00:45:34,036 --> 00:45:41,116
you know um but i don't really know i need to look into it more um because i've only seen examples

531
00:45:41,116 --> 00:45:44,936
with the drawings on it and the proverbs and the thin brass spoons but i haven't seen those bigger

532
00:45:44,936 --> 00:45:51,236
ones so i'll need to research that more yeah and then you touch you touch as well super cool

533
00:45:51,236 --> 00:45:54,496
you touch as well on a bit of modern monetary theory was

534
00:45:54,496 --> 00:46:00,776
were you taught this stuff at university like because you said you did economics at university

535
00:46:00,776 --> 00:46:06,756
so let's let's like side sidetrack there a little bit you're you're at your university

536
00:46:06,756 --> 00:46:12,316
what are they teaching you at economics about modern monetary theory and all this nonsense

537
00:46:12,316 --> 00:46:20,936
yeah so so bard college has the levy institute uh and the levy institute it's on the hudson river

538
00:46:20,936 --> 00:46:26,536
it's basically an economic group that studies MMT.

539
00:46:26,936 --> 00:46:27,916
They're pro-MMT.

540
00:46:28,316 --> 00:46:30,636
They're closely aligned with Minsky,

541
00:46:32,836 --> 00:46:33,536
Hyman Minsky.

542
00:46:34,356 --> 00:46:37,396
And so there's one branch at Bard College

543
00:46:37,396 --> 00:46:38,896
that teaches MMT.

544
00:46:39,076 --> 00:46:41,676
So I took a few MMT courses there.

545
00:46:42,056 --> 00:46:44,176
And I believe at the time that they were advising

546
00:46:44,176 --> 00:46:47,036
the economic campaign of Bernie Sanders,

547
00:46:47,796 --> 00:46:50,716
who was also starting to sort of talk about MMT,

548
00:46:50,716 --> 00:46:52,376
policies.

549
00:46:52,421 --> 00:47:00,481
year was this do you remember so what year would this would be 2016 2017 around then so you'd started

550
00:47:00,481 --> 00:47:08,661
looking into bitcoin already uh so this was around 2017 i knew about bitcoin so actually when i went

551
00:47:08,661 --> 00:47:15,341
back to my when i went back to college um the topic was uh there was a topic about what are

552
00:47:15,341 --> 00:47:19,221
you going to do your little thesis on you know because there's just a four-year bachelor of arts

553
00:47:19,221 --> 00:47:24,161
So I sort of made a joke, you know, because I knew they hated Bitcoin like big time.

554
00:47:24,941 --> 00:47:30,781
I sort of made a joke to one of the professors like, oh, yeah, well, maybe I'll write my thesis about Bitcoin, you know.

555
00:47:31,381 --> 00:47:40,481
And his face dropped, you know, and he said, he said, and I quote, Bitcoin, that's not economics.

556
00:47:42,021 --> 00:47:44,421
And you want to look into blockchain technology.

557
00:47:44,581 --> 00:47:45,401
That's super interesting.

558
00:47:45,501 --> 00:47:47,021
But Bitcoin is basically a scam.

559
00:47:47,021 --> 00:47:50,041
So it was the typical blockchain, not Bitcoin, you know.

560
00:47:51,041 --> 00:47:59,581
So then I thought, okay, you know, I don't really want to start this whole fight with my whole university and maybe fail my thesis or whatever.

561
00:47:59,721 --> 00:48:05,501
I should have written it on Bitcoin, but I decided to talk about the resource curse in sub-Saharan Africa, which was also super important.

562
00:48:05,721 --> 00:48:08,601
So I did my thesis on the resource curse in Africa.

563
00:48:09,201 --> 00:48:13,801
But I mentioned that I wanted to do it on Bitcoin and it was shut down instantly.

564
00:48:13,801 --> 00:48:22,541
um so they also teach the traditional you know Keynesian economics there as well but so I learned

565
00:48:22,541 --> 00:48:30,701
in high school and and university the typical Keynesian economics you know um and I had a few

566
00:48:30,701 --> 00:48:38,421
courses in MMT and yeah I uh you know I I always thought it was interesting you know I was always

567
00:48:38,421 --> 00:48:44,481
interested in this topic, but I basically just ignored them and just bought Bitcoin.

568
00:48:45,621 --> 00:48:50,401
So if my economics professors are going to read this paper, they're going to shudder.

569
00:48:51,161 --> 00:48:55,901
But yeah, I think I made the right decision.

570
00:48:56,061 --> 00:49:01,801
But they do, to give MMT credit, they do, of course, have a, they do study the origins

571
00:49:01,801 --> 00:49:03,041
of money a lot.

572
00:49:03,041 --> 00:49:06,841
but yeah I think they're

573
00:49:06,841 --> 00:49:10,741
I think they're very focused

574
00:49:10,741 --> 00:49:14,641
in studying like how we can just print infinite money in the fiat

575
00:49:14,641 --> 00:49:17,821
system and that's okay and we should do it but

576
00:49:17,821 --> 00:49:21,881
Bitcoin is saying this whole thing is you know a scam

577
00:49:21,881 --> 00:49:26,341
so I think the Bitcoin versus MMT topic should also be explored more

578
00:49:26,341 --> 00:49:30,601
for sure. Yeah it says here in your article one modern

579
00:49:30,601 --> 00:49:38,321
theory that modern monetary theorists posit is that money gains legitimacy solely through state

580
00:49:38,321 --> 00:49:45,921
declaration underpinned by taxation and legal tender laws whereas the asante's experience

581
00:49:45,921 --> 00:49:51,901
contradicts contradicts all of that and as we now know bitcoin contradicts all of that

582
00:49:51,901 --> 00:49:58,561
yeah yeah so the asante empire shows that you don't need you don't need a central bank basically

583
00:49:58,561 --> 00:50:01,701
for an empire to succeed and flourish and be strong.

584
00:50:02,641 --> 00:50:03,741
An empire as well.

585
00:50:03,961 --> 00:50:05,941
This isn't just like a little village.

586
00:50:06,761 --> 00:50:11,201
This isn't Bitcoin Beach in El Salvador doing their thing

587
00:50:11,201 --> 00:50:13,841
and getting the papoos from Mama Rosa and all of that.

588
00:50:13,841 --> 00:50:19,961
This was an empire built on decentralized economy,

589
00:50:20,181 --> 00:50:24,281
medium exchange, gold dust, using weights and measures

590
00:50:24,281 --> 00:50:27,601
beautifully carved to gain trust.

591
00:50:27,601 --> 00:50:30,061
it's so cool

592
00:50:30,061 --> 00:50:32,741
so anybody pushing back on the fact

593
00:50:32,741 --> 00:50:34,261
that Bitcoin will never become a medium

594
00:50:34,261 --> 00:50:36,761
exchange and only a

595
00:50:36,761 --> 00:50:38,761
store of value is total nonsense

596
00:50:38,761 --> 00:50:40,201
it's completely

597
00:50:40,201 --> 00:50:42,841
antithetical to what we're trying

598
00:50:42,841 --> 00:50:43,681
to achieve here

599
00:50:43,681 --> 00:50:45,941
yeah it can be both

600
00:50:45,941 --> 00:50:47,001
it can be both

601
00:50:47,001 --> 00:50:50,721
and I think that breaks people's

602
00:50:50,721 --> 00:50:52,001
brains a little bit

603
00:50:52,001 --> 00:50:52,981
it has to be one

604
00:50:52,981 --> 00:50:55,201
but it can be both

605
00:50:55,201 --> 00:51:05,641
um so so yeah so there still was um this government was still there to to tax um

606
00:51:05,641 --> 00:51:11,341
to tax certain transactions so i don't know how that's into the grand scheme of things

607
00:51:11,341 --> 00:51:27,606
but um but yeah the the government was i guess a bit more i guess you could say like just sort of the overseer of the whole system As it was an empire they would have had a king right I think you mentioned

608
00:51:28,646 --> 00:51:31,966
And they had the golden stool, you know,

609
00:51:32,266 --> 00:51:35,646
that was what they sort of worshipped was this golden stool.

610
00:51:36,466 --> 00:51:36,606
Okay.

611
00:51:37,626 --> 00:51:39,686
When the British came in, they wanted that stool.

612
00:51:39,826 --> 00:51:40,686
They took that stool.

613
00:51:41,266 --> 00:51:41,666
Of course.

614
00:51:41,806 --> 00:51:44,886
But that was like the holy stool, you know,

615
00:51:44,886 --> 00:51:46,706
and nobody could ever sit in it.

616
00:51:46,966 --> 00:51:50,326
So it was meant to symbolize like the, I don't know exactly.

617
00:51:50,426 --> 00:51:51,886
I need to research it more, but it was like,

618
00:51:52,026 --> 00:51:55,486
we kind of worship the stool, which is a sort of,

619
00:51:55,546 --> 00:51:58,006
it represents like not really the king. The king is still important,

620
00:51:58,006 --> 00:52:03,346
but we worship the stool and nobody can ever sit on it because, you know,

621
00:52:03,346 --> 00:52:04,566
it's more of a collective,

622
00:52:05,086 --> 00:52:10,066
a collective view of sort of the whole economy and the whole culture.

623
00:52:10,406 --> 00:52:13,726
But I want to research it more because it's super interesting and you don't

624
00:52:13,726 --> 00:52:16,506
really hear about the Asante empire ever really.

625
00:52:16,966 --> 00:52:35,326
No, this is the first time. Keep digging. I love all this stuff. And I know other people in the Bitcoin space do as well. Jesse Myers, he's just written his latest piece, Bitcoin Once in a Species. He's updated his... Have you read any of those?

626
00:52:35,326 --> 00:52:42,146
yeah i read i read that jesse myers one very very interesting super cool and he also brings

627
00:52:42,146 --> 00:52:49,026
into the art element a little bit as well so yeah i think i think this this this topic is

628
00:52:49,026 --> 00:52:55,586
really interesting and you know i think everyone's a little bit done with the crypto distraction

629
00:52:55,586 --> 00:53:03,906
so i think i think a lot of people are going to to come back to to bitcoin um and they were

630
00:53:03,906 --> 00:53:08,406
distracted by crypto and that's that's fine but i think a lot of people are going to come back to

631
00:53:08,406 --> 00:53:12,866
bitcoin and they're going to look at it again with fresh eyes people who are here already since

632
00:53:12,866 --> 00:53:18,506
a long time ago you know and if if you can write articles that helps sort of

633
00:53:19,786 --> 00:53:25,106
bridge make connections to the past and show that it's a historical thing you know uh i think it's

634
00:53:25,106 --> 00:53:28,766
it's really interesting work to do and it's really fun to write these articles as well and research

635
00:53:28,766 --> 00:53:35,846
these topics because the professors won't really write about this because they're they're promoting

636
00:53:35,846 --> 00:53:44,666
the keynesian economics um so so so yeah so jesse myers wrote a really nice article on that one um

637
00:53:44,666 --> 00:53:48,446
so yeah i want to keep keep looking into the santa empire and see see what other parallels

638
00:53:48,446 --> 00:53:54,506
to a bitcoin you can you can make so is that um would you create a series of essays on on this

639
00:53:54,506 --> 00:53:59,646
from that is this like kind of your jumping off point i i think you can yeah you can focus on the

640
00:53:59,646 --> 00:54:06,106
art um you can focus on the exactly how the peer-to-peer decentralized transactions work

641
00:54:06,106 --> 00:54:10,246
you can look at the role of the government how did the government really work because maybe it

642
00:54:10,246 --> 00:54:16,126
it maybe it shows a bit in the future you know when we are to enter a you know hyper-bicronization

643
00:54:16,126 --> 00:54:21,986
and and move on to this new world what's the role of the government in this new world um and maybe

644
00:54:21,986 --> 00:54:23,986
we can learn from the Asante empire.

645
00:54:24,706 --> 00:54:26,126
So you can do, there's a lot of topics

646
00:54:26,126 --> 00:54:27,046
you can do around this.

647
00:54:30,606 --> 00:54:33,126
And so what's going on with you as well then?

648
00:54:33,426 --> 00:54:36,186
You know, you've moved away from gainful employment.

649
00:54:36,966 --> 00:54:38,706
You've started writing about Bitcoin.

650
00:54:38,886 --> 00:54:40,986
Obviously that doesn't pay.

651
00:54:41,606 --> 00:54:43,926
You know, you might get a few zaps and whatever else.

652
00:54:44,326 --> 00:54:48,106
Where are you with regards to trying to find yourself

653
00:54:48,106 --> 00:54:50,826
a place in a Bitcoin company

654
00:54:50,826 --> 00:54:52,866
or what's the next step?

655
00:54:54,226 --> 00:54:57,786
Yeah, so I'm looking to be basically a PM

656
00:54:57,786 --> 00:55:00,806
in a Bitcoin-only company or startup

657
00:55:00,806 --> 00:55:05,746
because at my previous position at Move Digital,

658
00:55:06,026 --> 00:55:07,326
I learned how to be a PM,

659
00:55:07,586 --> 00:55:09,226
basically how to handle a team of engineers

660
00:55:09,226 --> 00:55:11,846
and make sure we're building the right thing.

661
00:55:12,546 --> 00:55:15,066
So I would love to apply my skills

662
00:55:15,066 --> 00:55:18,426
that I learned to be a PM into the Bitcoin space

663
00:55:18,426 --> 00:55:22,686
and build something with a team of engineers

664
00:55:22,686 --> 00:55:26,166
that can help people stack stats

665
00:55:26,166 --> 00:55:27,886
or do something with their Bitcoin

666
00:55:27,886 --> 00:55:32,086
without joining a hyper-financialized Bitcoin company.

667
00:55:33,546 --> 00:55:35,966
So yeah, I'm looking to be a PM basically

668
00:55:35,966 --> 00:55:37,186
in a Bitcoin startup.

669
00:55:37,566 --> 00:55:39,566
So I'm starting to look more seriously now

670
00:55:39,566 --> 00:55:41,426
at everything and apply and everything

671
00:55:41,426 --> 00:55:44,786
because it took some time to sort of readjust

672
00:55:44,786 --> 00:55:58,350
my life after leaving UBS So I still studying Bitcoin every day and trying to write about it and looking at interesting companies that need a PM So that my plan for now

673
00:55:58,470 --> 00:56:05,210
All right, cool. Weirdly enough, just yesterday, I interviewed Anya from Bitvocation. So if you're

674
00:56:05,210 --> 00:56:12,490
not on the Telegram feed, just go find it, Bitvocation. And they scrape all of the data

675
00:56:12,490 --> 00:56:14,590
out there for Bitcoin only jobs.

676
00:56:14,730 --> 00:56:16,570
And it's just a constant feed.

677
00:56:16,570 --> 00:56:18,310
So it's updated all the time.

678
00:56:18,370 --> 00:56:21,270
It just saves you trawling through job boards

679
00:56:21,270 --> 00:56:22,510
and whatever else is all there.

680
00:56:22,810 --> 00:56:25,290
There's already 1400 people in there as well,

681
00:56:25,550 --> 00:56:26,390
sharing ideas.

682
00:56:26,390 --> 00:56:30,030
And, you know, that's the place to go hunting.

683
00:56:30,370 --> 00:56:32,290
But yeah, well, good luck, man.

684
00:56:32,530 --> 00:56:35,050
And so glad to have met you

685
00:56:35,050 --> 00:56:38,470
and talked about these spoons.

686
00:56:38,570 --> 00:56:39,630
I'm so glad you showed me that

687
00:56:39,630 --> 00:56:41,010
when we were there face to face.

688
00:56:41,010 --> 00:56:54,190
And, you know, it's great to see the come forward and and write the article and start, you know, connecting these dots and making these analogies to this part of history that I had no idea of.

689
00:56:54,750 --> 00:56:58,030
This is what we're here to do. Right. Just continue learning.

690
00:56:59,150 --> 00:57:05,210
Yeah. Yes. I hope it's one more sort of historical example that strengthens the Bitcoin thesis, you know.

691
00:57:05,210 --> 00:57:10,670
and yeah it was great great to meet you at the conference and thank you for encouraging me to

692
00:57:10,670 --> 00:57:15,330
write the article and share it and everything it's a good good push to do it so yeah thanks for the

693
00:57:15,330 --> 00:57:19,350
thanks for the encouragement no problem i'm gonna go and share it again now but before we tie this

694
00:57:19,350 --> 00:57:24,730
up if you had one last orange pill left to give to somebody who would you give it to and why

695
00:57:24,730 --> 00:57:28,450
who would i give it to and why

696
00:57:28,450 --> 00:57:32,850
that's a tricky one one last orange pill

697
00:57:32,850 --> 00:57:36,130
I would give it to

698
00:57:36,130 --> 00:57:37,430
I would give it to

699
00:57:37,430 --> 00:57:38,990
a

700
00:57:38,990 --> 00:57:42,590
nation state actor

701
00:57:42,590 --> 00:57:44,570
in a sub-Saharan African country

702
00:57:44,570 --> 00:57:46,850
to orange pill them to really

703
00:57:46,850 --> 00:57:48,970
start studying this and looking

704
00:57:48,970 --> 00:57:51,010
into it because it's I think

705
00:57:51,010 --> 00:57:52,650
it's stacking Bitcoin at the nation

706
00:57:52,650 --> 00:57:54,670
state level for sub-Saharan

707
00:57:54,670 --> 00:57:56,750
nations and starting to mine

708
00:57:56,750 --> 00:58:03,670
Bitcoin with their renewable energy resources, of which they have plenty, can be one solution

709
00:58:03,670 --> 00:58:05,110
to escape the resource curse.

710
00:58:05,790 --> 00:58:17,830
So I would give it to a politician, a good politician, a good politician or someone very

711
00:58:17,830 --> 00:58:22,590
influential in a sub-Saharan African nation state.

712
00:58:23,810 --> 00:58:24,530
Love it.

713
00:58:24,530 --> 00:58:27,430
Well, how can people reach out to you and learn more?

714
00:58:27,690 --> 00:58:29,130
And I'll put the link to the article.

715
00:58:29,270 --> 00:58:33,610
But if you've got any particular place that you want people to go and find you, where should it be?

716
00:58:33,730 --> 00:58:33,870
Yeah.

717
00:58:34,430 --> 00:58:35,610
So I'm on Nostra.

718
00:58:36,550 --> 00:58:37,750
I'm on Substack.

719
00:58:38,310 --> 00:58:39,650
And I'm on Twitter.

720
00:58:40,250 --> 00:58:42,150
So you can find me on Nostra.

721
00:58:42,230 --> 00:58:46,630
I can send you my NPUB and Twitter and Substack.

722
00:58:47,230 --> 00:58:51,530
Those are my three platforms while I'm posting my articles and my photography.

723
00:58:51,530 --> 00:58:58,690
and you're still a twitter maxi like me rather than using x twitter maxi yeah it's tough it's

724
00:58:58,690 --> 00:59:01,730
tough you know i'm trying to think of what i want to say so i'm just going to say twitter you know

725
00:59:01,730 --> 00:59:07,530
yeah i can't say it i can't say x excellent all right stefan thanks for coming on really appreciate

726
00:59:07,530 --> 00:59:14,230
it cool cool thanks daniel thanks for having me take care well thank you everybody for listening

727
00:59:14,230 --> 00:59:19,130
and thanks again stefan for coming on the show i want to talk about a cool thing that stefan and i

728
00:59:19,130 --> 00:59:24,290
Stefan and I did on Orange Pill App after we did this recording together.

729
00:59:25,970 --> 00:59:28,130
You open your Orange Pill App.

730
00:59:28,650 --> 00:59:29,690
You open your wallet.

731
00:59:30,330 --> 00:59:31,590
Then you hit send.

732
00:59:32,330 --> 00:59:33,710
Then you search Ghana.

733
00:59:34,270 --> 00:59:37,030
There are 31 Bitcoiners in Ghana.

734
00:59:37,830 --> 00:59:40,790
Both Stefan and I zapped them all.

735
00:59:41,690 --> 00:59:45,450
A handful of sats with the link to his article.

736
00:59:45,450 --> 00:59:47,810
Just to say, have a look at this.

737
00:59:47,810 --> 00:59:49,330
here's my friend Stefan

738
00:59:49,330 --> 00:59:50,790
he's based in Switzerland

739
00:59:50,790 --> 00:59:53,410
he's written this incredibly interesting article

740
00:59:53,410 --> 00:59:55,290
about the Asante empire

741
00:59:55,290 --> 00:59:58,930
the spoons that they used

742
00:59:58,930 --> 01:00:01,870
to perform economic trade

743
01:00:01,870 --> 01:00:03,690
by weighing out the gold dust

744
01:00:03,690 --> 01:00:05,690
and how that ties into Bitcoin

745
01:00:05,690 --> 01:00:06,950
I think you'd really like it

746
01:00:06,950 --> 01:00:08,750
I'm going to do the same now

747
01:00:08,750 --> 01:00:10,290
with this podcast

748
01:00:10,290 --> 01:00:12,130
once I've finished the editing

749
01:00:12,130 --> 01:00:13,370
and shipped it

750
01:00:13,370 --> 01:00:14,850
I'll just open again

751
01:00:14,850 --> 01:00:15,530
orange pill out

752
01:00:15,530 --> 01:00:29,795
open the wallet hit send search Garner and then put the link to the fountain episode of this of this uh episode and of course that link will have the link again in the show notes to the article and it

753
01:00:29,795 --> 01:00:36,655
just just the the coolest way to connect with complete and utter total strangers that see the

754
01:00:36,655 --> 01:00:43,795
same thing as you see that borderless permissionless money is going to completely change the landscape

755
01:00:43,795 --> 01:00:52,695
of our world and not only that i don't want to put words in anybody's mouth but i i can imagine

756
01:00:52,695 --> 01:01:00,595
that just receiving a random message with some sats attached that is so specific to you and your

757
01:01:00,595 --> 01:01:06,255
history and your culture written by somebody halfway across the world would just be a super

758
01:01:06,255 --> 01:01:11,595
cool thing to receive that's the power of orange pill app and the connecting that we're doing

759
01:01:11,595 --> 01:01:18,855
across the world and geo zapping people it i just got a zap this morning uh i i received a sat and

760
01:01:18,855 --> 01:01:26,075
a message from a guy in the uk saying he's building a tea company and he wants input on the best blends

761
01:01:26,075 --> 01:01:32,335
what people like and he's gonna he's gonna start a tea company and you can buy tea with sats

762
01:01:32,335 --> 01:01:37,735
like i said at the beginning of the show find out where you can spend your sats well there is a

763
01:01:37,735 --> 01:01:42,735
marketplace as well on orange pill app you can just sign up as a merchant and people can come

764
01:01:42,735 --> 01:01:48,415
and find you btc maps obviously uh shout out to nathan another incredible tool for you to be able

765
01:01:48,415 --> 01:01:54,535
to track when you're traveling using orange pill app using btc maps to to find these economies

766
01:01:54,535 --> 01:02:00,995
these parallel economies um at the beginning of the show i talked about fountain they've built a

767
01:02:00,995 --> 01:02:07,215
parallel economy for for listening to podcasts get across sign up to their like their monthly thing

768
01:02:07,215 --> 01:02:08,735
Just support them.

769
01:02:09,255 --> 01:02:13,375
And you can use sats there to stream sats, to boost messages.

770
01:02:13,915 --> 01:02:16,795
You even earn sats by listening to certain shows.

771
01:02:17,935 --> 01:02:19,555
Bitcoin is a medium of exchange.

772
01:02:20,255 --> 01:02:26,055
I do not understand who could ever claim it to be the opposite.

773
01:02:27,335 --> 01:02:29,715
It is a store of value as well.

774
01:02:29,935 --> 01:02:30,815
It's all the things.

775
01:02:31,395 --> 01:02:32,755
Bitcoin is all the things.

776
01:02:32,935 --> 01:02:36,435
But it is a medium of exchange and it will become predominantly a medium of exchange.

777
01:02:36,435 --> 01:02:47,935
and we will explode global trade and efficiencies and the produce and the quality of product.

778
01:02:48,375 --> 01:02:53,535
I was at a Bitcoin conference meetup, Cypher Monk House in Bloomsbury in London just last week.

779
01:02:53,595 --> 01:02:54,435
It was a great event.

780
01:02:55,035 --> 01:02:58,215
I bought Bitcoin jam, marmalade, excuse me.

781
01:02:58,495 --> 01:02:59,515
And it was brilliant.

782
01:03:00,015 --> 01:03:03,575
Picture of Bitcoin on there, strategic Bitcoin preserve.

783
01:03:04,595 --> 01:03:05,655
Absolutely awesome.

784
01:03:05,655 --> 01:03:08,255
the work that the Essex Bitcoiners are doing

785
01:03:08,255 --> 01:03:10,455
Aaron, shout out to what you're doing

786
01:03:10,455 --> 01:03:11,795
on the music front with

787
01:03:11,795 --> 01:03:14,235
Joe Martin, one of the OG

788
01:03:14,235 --> 01:03:16,515
value for value musicians, with Longy

789
01:03:16,515 --> 01:03:18,375
and with the other handful

790
01:03:18,375 --> 01:03:20,375
of musicians that they

791
01:03:20,375 --> 01:03:22,515
are attracting to figure out

792
01:03:22,515 --> 01:03:24,035
that, oh wait a second, my music

793
01:03:24,035 --> 01:03:26,035
I can play my music and be streamed

794
01:03:26,035 --> 01:03:28,415
Satoshi's direct, I don't need

795
01:03:28,415 --> 01:03:30,395
to go get a record deal and sell my soul

796
01:03:30,395 --> 01:03:32,295
to the devil with Sony or EMI

797
01:03:32,295 --> 01:03:34,475
or any of these huge freaking conglomerates

798
01:03:34,475 --> 01:03:38,415
I can just literally get paid by the fans of my music.

799
01:03:38,535 --> 01:03:40,595
They're doing in-person live gigs now.

800
01:03:40,675 --> 01:03:46,015
They just had one last week in Southend, Westcliffe, in Essex in the UK.

801
01:03:46,135 --> 01:03:47,875
And there'll be more initiatives like this.

802
01:03:47,975 --> 01:03:49,815
We have to build out the parallel economy.

803
01:03:50,235 --> 01:03:53,195
Go and pick up Brian DeMint's book called Parallel.

804
01:03:53,655 --> 01:03:54,895
Pay for that in sats.

805
01:03:55,775 --> 01:04:00,475
Go message Brian on Orange Pill app and say, ship me a book, I'll send you some sats.

806
01:04:01,295 --> 01:04:02,595
That's as easy as it is.

807
01:04:02,595 --> 01:04:09,515
You can also find other books on Consensus Network, bitcoinbook.shop, forward slash Bitten, get 10% discount.

808
01:04:09,635 --> 01:04:11,675
You'll find my book on there. It's called Choose Life.

809
01:04:12,055 --> 01:04:19,375
I'll be signing copies of my book in Prague with Knut and Luke, who are going to have a booth, the Bitcoin Infinity Show pair.

810
01:04:19,995 --> 01:04:22,955
And I'm looking forward to it. Get along to Bitcoin Prague.

811
01:04:23,595 --> 01:04:27,515
Use the code Bitten, B-I-T-T-E-N, for a 10% discount.

812
01:04:27,955 --> 01:04:29,915
Pay in Bitcoin and you'll get 15% off.

813
01:04:29,915 --> 01:04:31,735
and don't forget to check out Bubble.

814
01:04:31,855 --> 01:04:33,135
Like I said at the beginning there,

815
01:04:33,835 --> 01:04:35,775
this looks really, really cool.

816
01:04:35,855 --> 01:04:37,375
This is something new on the street,

817
01:04:37,755 --> 01:04:40,175
built again by Bitcoiners for Bitcoiners.

818
01:04:40,555 --> 01:04:42,175
It's going to streamline your listening.

819
01:04:42,415 --> 01:04:44,755
So get over to bubblefm.com

820
01:04:44,755 --> 01:04:47,655
and I look forward to seeing you guys in Prague.

821
01:04:47,835 --> 01:04:48,255
Take care.