Hello, everybody. My name is Daniel Prince, and I'm the host of the Once Bitten podcast.
This is a podcast focused on Bitcoin. It's my mission to interview as many people as I can
around the different aspects of Bitcoin and help people understand exactly what Bitcoin could mean
for them and for their families and for their future. I hope you enjoy the show. Thank you so
much for listening. Hello everybody and welcome to this episode of the Once Bitten Podcast.
Joining me today is Simon from Fanfares. He goes as ShortFiat on Twitter and also more active on
NOSTA where he has been building out Fanfares.io. We do talk about that towards the end of this show.
It is a Nostra native platform for creators to be able to get their work out into the world and earn in Bitcoin.
So we are talking still the value for value verse and taking Bitcoin mainstream as a medium exchange and getting creators paid.
and on that note if you are listening to this podcast please consider stopping it and making
sure that you are listening to it on the fountain app or another value for value enabled podcast
platform it's up to us the bitcoiners to get behind these tools and test them and give feedback
and use them and if not you then who because otherwise they're never going to get better and
They're never going to get adopted, and we'll never get out of these walled gardens that we find ourselves in.
And, yeah, that's the shill.
Simon will be at BitFest this coming weekend in Manchester.
There's a link in the show notes to BitFest, and you can get a discount using the code BITTON.
The Fountain team are also going to be there.
These are great Britcoiners, guys.
Like, you know, Fanfares, British built.
Fountain, British built.
So let's support our local British Bitcoiners.
In this episode, Simon and I spend the first hour or so going through what's happening out there in the wider world of Bitcoin mixed with macro, the financialization of Bitcoin, whatever you want to call it.
We're talking about Bitcoin treasury companies and these loan products that have been the talk of the space now for a good nine months, maybe a little bit longer.
and Simon and I, we just want to point out some of the dangers here.
I spent 18 years in foreign exchange markets.
Simon spent many years trading for himself using tools that he built.
So he's got vast experience in this area as well,
just watching markets and seeing how they behave.
So it's great to get the viewpoint
and I hope that there are some things you can take away from this
as you try and navigate these waters of the financialization of Bitcoin.
Should you be touching these things or should you be holding back and just sitting on your stack?
Is there a place for them?
Obviously, there is because they're here and something's happening with them.
Are we too early?
I don't know. We get into it.
So I hope it's going to give you some kind of context.
meanwhile please make sure
you are stacking sats
and like I said before
if we're not supporting the tools
and the companies that are being built out there
then who will be
Relay across Europe
R-E-L-A-I
Dossie Age forward slash Bitten
are now fully licensed
to operate across Europe
with their Mika
they've got it
took them two years
but there you have it
I've got Julian Lineger
coming on the show soon
to talk about that
that journey
but yeah Relay
r-e-l-a-i.ch forward slash bitten and start stacking today or get your big business onto
a bitcoin standard because they have relay relay private as well over there you can use swan bitcoin
for these services if you are in the u.s that's swan bitcoin.com forward slash bitten self-custody
is the name of this game if you are not self-custodying your bitcoin you are not owning bitcoin so
So that's like New Year's resolution, guys.
Put it on top of your Christmas list.
Or get to a conference and buy a hardware wallet direct from the producer.
Supporting the show for a long time now have been Bitbox.
They've got the Bitbox O2 and they have the Bitbox Nova.
These are both Bitcoin-only editions of the Bitbox.
And you can get one by going to bitbox.swiss forward slash bitten.
and that will give you a 5% discount.
Paywithflash.com is the place for you to go
if you want to start accepting,
or should I say demanding,
Bitcoin for your goods and services.
The news across the wires,
the last couple of days,
excuse me, couple of weeks,
has been that Square have upgraded their systems
to be able to accept Bitcoin purchases.
That's unlocked 4 million merchants to accept Bitcoin.
So, get over to paywithflash.com.
see what they can offer you.
Do not be left behind.
If you don't have a square terminal, it doesn't matter.
Paywithflash.com have got you covered.
And they're a Bitcoin-only company built by Bitcoiners.
If you want to meet Bitcoiners, which you should,
get out there in real life and up your social network,
get over to Club Orange, which has rebranded from Orange Pill App.
Meanwhile, enjoy this show with Simon.
All right, Simon, you're back, back on Once Bitten.
Great to see you again.
And last time we caught up was in person at Cypher Monk House in London.
Yes, that was it. Great to see you there.
Thank you very much for being back back.
It's always good to chat with you about all things Bitcoin.
Yeah, well, we're going to talk about a topic that we spoke about at that event.
And by the way, I'm going back there on Saturday.
to talk about this subject.
They've invited me back and going with Claire and Caitlin as well.
So Cypher Monk House in Bloomsbury, if anybody's around in London,
you should go and check it out.
Its doors are open all year round, and they have some great artwork.
Great Bitcoiners are always there to answer questions.
And they do put on events, not monthly, but quite regularly.
So looking forward to getting back there.
But we were there because there was a Nostra event,
which my wife was part of organizing for the Women in Bitcoin group that she helps coordinate with.
And of course, it's open to anyone. It's not just for women.
It's that she wants to get more people talking about different aspects of Bitcoin.
And it just so happened that this one was about Nostra and you were in town and you could come and talk about Fanfares and your project.
And we'll get on to that towards the end of the show.
But we did get talking about the Bitcoin treasury companies, the latest kind of new, big, shiny thing that people were being enticed with.
And we shared some concerns.
So we're going to get into those concerns.
And I just want to get the people who are listening up to speed as to who you are.
So do you just want to introduce yourself and give a background of where you came from, what the fiat role was, how you found Bitcoin?
And then we'll start talking about this subject.
Yeah. OK. Yeah. I mean, I've got to say that Nostra event that we were both at was really good.
That is a great venue, the Cypher Monk House.
But yeah, I think my background, I was a software developer for seven years and then I got into trading.
So I was trading the financial markets, particularly around property futures for quite a long time, interest rate futures and generally kind of all the different financial products that I thought I could get an edge on.
And I was doing that as a private trader for quite a long time.
And eventually I discovered Bitcoin and thought, yeah, this is an interesting thing to trade without really fully understanding what the technology was.
But as a former software developer, that should have been a logical thing for me to do was to really look into the code and see what was really going on.
But it took me a while to do that and took me a while to really figure out exactly what it was.
But, yeah, I think I was probably the classic king that the price goes up and stuck around for the revolution.
Once I really understood what it was, I thought, yeah, this is an amazing technology.
And it potentially gets us over a lot of the problems that I have seen for a very long time in the financial system,
you know, with fiat money not really being a long term store of value,
the way the governments can control it and print more of it is not great for the population
I was a gold bug for a long time sort of post the the 2008 financial crisis I was very much
into gold coins and burying them in the back garden and that never really appeared to be a
real solution to the problems that we had in the financial system because it was hard to imagine a
day would come when you'd go down to the local supermarket to buy a loaf of bread with a gold
coin or a silver coin but um yeah it was it was the only way i could think of of ensuring
that risk of you know a real problem within the financial system back then but you know once i
understood bitcoin it was like oh well you know people have actually come up with a much more
sophisticated solution to the problems of fiat money you know and um that you know really kind
of took me down the rabbit hole where once you start to get a glimpse of what it can be you
explore a lot more. You read the books, you talk to people, you go to the conferences,
you find out what it really potentially can be. But yeah, I think that's probably quite
interesting because you've actually worked in the financial markets and I've been, you know,
kind of a trader in the financial markets. But when we met at that event, it was interesting.
We both had a very similar view about the Bitcoin treasury companies but also about the leverage that getting built up within the Bitcoin space with people that we know that are starting to borrow against their Bitcoin and ultimately give up their custody of their Bitcoin
by borrowing against it. So we had a similar take on it, which I hadn't really found many other
people that thought the same way as me, but maybe a testament to the fact that we know a bit more
about the way that people operate in the financial markets and the potential things that people like
BlackRock and Larry Fink might do if they really want to end up owning people's Bitcoin at some
point. Right. Now, Lauren's not here to ask the first question, but if she were, she would probably
ask after I would have guided her. And I mean, she's heard the term now so many times because
she's around me and the rest of the family all day long. But what is, in your opinion, in your
mind what is a Bitcoin treasury company? I mean yeah the first Bitcoin treasury company I guess
that was was MicroStrategy and so that was Michael Saylor basically took the decision to
use the cash on a company's balance sheet to buy Bitcoin and I think he got in sort of 2020 or 2021
and people then went and bought the MicroStrategy shares because they wanted to own Bitcoin
and it's it's kind of a feature of bitcoin that it's quite hard to take self-custody it's not a
simple process that you just do on a whim and you know if you don't do it properly then you can lose
your keys you could be hacked so it requires a work a bit of learning potentially learning from
somebody else but it requires some time and some effort to to hold bitcoin in a self-custody
situation securely. And some people, I guess, don't want to do that work. They want to be in
Bitcoin. They want to be in for the price goes up. And a way to do that is to buy MicroStrategy
and hold it in a brokerage account. And when MicroStrategy first started doing this, that was
one of the few options that people would have to hold it in a normal brokerage account. So they're
effectively providing a custody service. They're holding the Bitcoin for their shareholders.
And in the case of micro strategy, certainly during the bull market, their share price has been above the net asset value of the Bitcoin that's on their balance sheet.
And during the bear market, I think their share price was actually about 50% of the Bitcoin value that they had on the balance sheet.
So that might give people an indication of what could happen to micro strategy in a bear market.
But yeah, it's kind of it's an easier way to own Bitcoin.
but you are relying upon somebody else to custody it for you.
So in the event that, let's say, the American government wanted to capture everyone's Bitcoin,
they'd find it much easier to capture your Bitcoin from MicroStrategy's balance sheet
than they would if you have your own self-custody wallet,
where they don't know where you are or necessarily who you are.
So it's more convenient in the short run,
but it's more risky in terms of ownership because you don't really own it.
You own a claim over it with the shares.
And if you have been buying any time in the last couple of years,
you're probably overpaying for it because the share price has been above
the actual Bitcoin value on the balance sheet.
So for MicroStrategy, this has been a great win
because they could just go and issue more shares
and increase the value of their company by issuing more shares
because they then go and buy more Bitcoin at the Bitcoin price
but the shares that they're selling are above the Bitcoin price.
So they're gaining every time they do that.
And that's been a big win for them.
It's a very easy way of making money is just promote themselves
as being a Bitcoin treasury company and sell the shares to people that buy them
that don't necessarily know that they're actually overpaying for the Bitcoins
on the balance sheet.
But again, that's what's been going on.
People have seen this.
They've copied it.
There's now loads of Bitcoin treasury companies
and lots of them are actually trading at a premium to their asset value as well.
So it's created a whole new breed of companies
that are in some ways a bit like alternative coins
that have been in other cycles
where some of them you've seen the prices go kind of 10x
and then drop right back down again.
I think there was one company in the UK that listed our name
and that's what their share price did.
They were VC backed just like a lot of the alternative coins were.
You know, it's a kind of market dynamic thing rather than a value thing.
You know, usually in these situations, there's somebody who's going to take the money from the unsuspecting investors that get in at the wrong price and discover that they've lost their value.
So Bitcoin treasuries companies are not necessarily a good thing because they create a kind of centralization of ownership of Bitcoin.
They create a vulnerability to a government capture of Bitcoin.
The real solution, in my opinion, is for people to do the work, understand self-custody, and buy the Bitcoin themselves and hold it themselves.
But you could argue that the existence of Bitcoin treasury companies is creating more PR for Bitcoin.
It's bringing more people in.
Maybe it's a stepping stone for them to actually get to self-custody because they go through that process of experiencing the price going up before they actually go down and do the hard work of owning the Bitcoin itself.
yeah i mean look it's here it's not going away and i just want people to to do the real due
diligence here to do the work to to do the research not just hoon in to the next great big
thing and it just seems that there's a few narratives being built around these companies
in the case of micro strategy which you know to use that example when
sailor started stacking bitcoin way back in i think august 2020 was the first because i think
he announced in september i've got my dates right uh i think the initial buyer was 50 million or no
500 million and then uh each month he would dca with profits anything i think that was netted over
$50 million per month in revenue was swept into Bitcoin. So you're talking at that stage,
I think the company was 25, 30 years old, listed on the exchange, same CEO, and majority shares held
by him. That is a completely different set of circumstances to what we're seeing now with
these companies that are coming out of the woodwork that are doing a reverse listing,
and we'll talk about how that mechanic works in a second,
to issue shares to what the narrative being crafted very,
very cleverly is to trapped capital.
But that is coming with kind of the story that it's the three and a half trillion dollar bond market
that is just dying to get itself involved in the Bitcoin,
but it can't because of regulations and this, that and the other thing.
which I think is a bit of a clever narrative.
But what's happening is it's really directed at Bitcoiners
who understand they want exposure to Bitcoin in their pensions
that they can't touch for maybe the next 20 years.
And they've not been able to get exposure up until now.
And they're buying the stocks with their pensions.
And like you said, a lot of these stocks are pumping
and then they are dumping.
it's my worry that the the the pensions the private pensions of the plebs is an exit is the
exit liquidity that uh is being lined up for the pipe investors the vcs the capital that's there
on the table before the listing then gets unlocked and then it gets dumped so let's
let's delve into a little bit of of that what so reverse ipo um or reverse listing whatever
terminology people want to like uh use how do you in your understanding how is that how is that
happening with with some of these companies how are they getting themselves onto a stock exchange
um yeah it looks like there's cash shells that are um being offered up as as a way for
um a company to kind of a reverse takeover is where the company with the value is taken over
by the cash shell that doesn't really have a business um and it you know they've already got
the listing and that that gives the company that wants to get the listing a faster route onto the
exchange because if they actually need to do an IPO themselves,
it could take much longer depending on whether they're going on to AIM
or onto the main market.
But yeah, by getting a faster route, if they felt like there's a wave
of Bitcoin treasury interest, then it would be fair to assume
that that might not last.
And so the sensible thing to do would be to do it through reverse takeover
and try and get into the way before it comes to an end.
Because, yeah, I mean, when you get an unusual premium like that,
it's almost free money for the company that has the premium
because they could just keep on issuing new shares,
keep on buying more Bitcoin.
It's what MicroStrategy have been doing.
They've also been doing some debt instruments
and stuff like that as well.
But, yeah, ultimately, it's kind of arbitraging
the people that are willing to buy the shares
with actually buying the Bitcoin themselves.
and so yeah I mean reverse takeover is one route that people are taking
whoever's doing that should be quite careful because you never really know what's in the terms and conditions of the company that's taking you over
there can be some real nasties that only come out after the deal is done that might actually give them control of the company and mean that they can actually take the value for themselves so it um yeah it a risky game um like you say
yeah the vcs have definitely made some money out of this the retail investors um that are in that
position where they've got money in the pension and they can't actually invest it into bitcoin itself
are seeing this as a way of like you say getting exposure to bitcoin but they're paying the premium
which means they are the exit liquidity for the people that are funding the deal and making a quick return on it.
So it's not necessarily fair. I mean, whether or not people understand that they are paying a premium,
it really kind of, you know, that they should be doing that research for themselves.
But yeah, it's kind of, it's a quick win for some people.
Yeah, it's not really Bitcoin. That's the thing.
You know, it's kind of it's not what we know Bitcoin to be in terms of this alternative system of money, which really is intended as a currency, not a store of value.
And that's where we get onto the whole kind of wider picture of this.
You know, Michael Saylor is selling a message to the world saying that Bitcoin is a store of value.
Whereas what it really started out at for anyone that reads the Bitcoin white paper, it started out as a currency.
and the fact that the value has been going up for the last 16 years um obviously not in a straight
line but it's been going up overall does suggest that it has been a pretty good store of value and
you could sell it as that you know but of course past performance is never a necessary predictor
of a future future performance and you know the more that we kind of go down this route of
promoting Bitcoin as a store of value and holding it within a shell like MicroStrategy or one of
the others, the more we distract people from what the technology is really all about, is being able
to pay people on a peer-to-peer basis without a bank being in the middle. Because when you have a
bank in the middle, they can stop you making the payment if they don't like you, or if they want to
create additional money and inflate the balance sheet, then they could do that as well.
And the value of your money that you're exchanging can be eroded by them over time.
But with Bitcoin, they can't do that because anyone can pay anyone without censorship, without interference.
There is no third party that makes it happen. It's a decentralized network.
And the rules of the system are that there can never be more than 21 million Bitcoin.
So you're protected against those two things the banks can do to you with the bank money.
So that's what Bitcoin to me is really all about.
It's appear to be a money that gives you the freedom to pay whoever you want and to not have your money compensated either through freezing of your bank account or through slow inflation over time.
So, I mean, in some sense, yes, it is a store of value because there's never been more than 21 million.
but if we don't get adoption as a currency over the long term then is it really going to be a
store of value you know because if if it doesn't actually have a utility if people don't actually
use it to pay for things then is it really going to get more people into the network and make the
price go up or at least make the price stay stable because if people don't see a real utility in the
run then they might just leave the network and go and get involved in something else so yeah it's
there's more to it than just having it sat on a balance sheet and doing nothing you know it's about
the real network it's about people that have shops or or services for sale to actually say
i will accept bitcoin for this thing and it might mean that you know that they're able to accept
international transactions without having to deal with currency exchange.
It may mean that they can have automatic payment splits that pay more than one
producer of the product that they're selling automatically at the same time.
So yeah, it's more about the technology itself than the kind of the trading
instrument of Bitcoin or the Bitcoin treasury companies.
Yeah, exactly, mate.
people are getting trapped into this idea well it's number go up isn't it like you said at the
beginning it's it does that does bring people in uh but um yeah come for the number go up
state the day trade mnav i mean like that's what i'm saying at the moment like you know this is
this is not bitcoin it's not bitcoin because you don't hold it and it's not bitcoin it's not the
ethos of Bitcoin either. You know, this idea of staying humble and stacking sats, this idea of
lowering your time preference. And I still get a lot of pushback whenever I bring up these, you
know, the idea here that, you know, the Bitcoin treasury bag holders are going to end up
getting wrecked, quite, quite frankly. It's the only way I see this happening.
And I mentioned earlier another, I just want to make sure people get all the information. So
they heard me say PIPE deal. So PIPE investing, it's P-I-P-E, and that is an acronym for those
that weren't aware. It stands for Private Investment in Public Equity. And this is the
exact definition. This financial arrangement involves private investors purchasing a company's
publicly traded stock, typically at a discount to the market price. So the PIPE investors,
this is how it works they all get lined up by a venture capital firm for example UTXO management
that have been very much boasting about getting the pipe deals that they've got in and there's
even been uh it's gone around twitter there's lists now that are being leaked I don't know to
who or why or how of names of the people and I don't certainly agree with uh you know releasing
people's names and their private investments and whatever else.
Here we are. It's happened.
So you get to see the amount of shares that people get before you.
Private investment in public equity.
They got a shot at the shares well before you got a shot at the shares.
And typically, they would have a lockup period.
And that could range anywhere from a few months to one and a half years
or maybe longer.
Now, what's happening, it seems, in this case,
because we are in a smash and grab era,
as you've already explained,
these lock-up periods are pretty tight.
So they get the shares on board,
the venture capitalists especially,
and then they ramp the price up through the hype
because they own the headlines,
they own the conferences,
they can get on the Twitter spaces and do whatever else and get everybody revved up and create this hype around it into retail.
And it's a real sad, sorry case that at the moment, a lot of Bitcoiners are using what they feel is trapped capital to try and jump on this bandwagon just to get something out of it.
And it's a real shame.
I just want to point out, look, trapped capital is better than wrecked capital.
And you've got to keep that up front of mind when you're looking at these things.
So I've been digging around, Simon, because there's a lot of things in the S1 filings or in the UK, I think it'd be called something document is slipping my mind.
admissions document in the UK.
I don't know what they'd be called in France, Germany, Holland,
but these things are popping up all over the place.
You can read these documents.
As a could-be or would-be investor, please read these documents,
pull them up.
They'll be listed somewhere on the website of this company
and just search a few keywords.
Search Bitcoin, for example.
Now, if you go and do this on,
I'm not going to name any companies here outright.
People can go and do that for themselves.
If you go and do this on a few S1 forms or admissions documents,
search the word Bitcoin, see how many times that comes up.
On one particular document, I found it seven times.
And in no case was the word treasury written directly after Bitcoin,
except for one company that I checked.
So that company, therefore, can literally call themselves a Bitcoin treasury company.
The other ones I've been looking at, they don't call themselves a Bitcoin treasury company.
They call themselves a digital asset treasury.
OK, you've already made a face there.
I was hoping you would.
What does that mean to you?
And then I'll give you the definition of glossary of terms that I found in some of these things.
Does that mean they're not really buying Bitcoin?
They're buying some other kind of digital asset?
it well it's it's legalese okay it's legalese they've left the door wide open because
as a as of up till now they are all of the companies from from what i can tell they're being
transparent in air quotes as transparent as they as they're happy to be and showing the amount and
announcing the amount of Bitcoin on the balance sheet.
But no one's digging any further into seeing if there is anything else.
So I'm just going to read from one of the filings.
Types of digital assets.
Cryptocurrencies includes major coins like Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Stable coins pegged to traditional currencies often providing stability and liquidity and tokens which may include utility tokens or security tokens relevant to specific projects
this is in the listing now if i was to pull up a ceo about this and the same kind of thing this
jargon is being used across many documents it's like it's like the template and this to me is
a, well, it's a backdoor.
That's a tall backdoor, yeah, because whoever's involved can create their own cryptocurrency.
And within that definition, they can sell it to that company and cash out.
And yeah, I mean, okay, but they might go and buy Bitcoin to the value of the capital
that's gone in.
But if they're leveraging, then they could then go and buy a lot of other things as well
and not state that.
Yeah, I mean, it kind of reminds me of a company
that I don't want to say the name of
that was holding Bitcoin for their customers.
And there was a bit of an investigation went on.
It turns out they were actually holding audio tokens,
which was an alt currency of the kind of 2021 boom.
But of course, they were illiquid.
And I think there was some quirk
in the terms of conditions of that, you know,
that holding that they were able to hold other digital assets.
And I don't know what deal was done behind the scenes
for them to buy that big tranche of audio tokens
rather than Bitcoin.
But the customers thought they were holding Bitcoin
on their behalf.
So, you know, that company's still operating.
Who knows them?
They've still got their money invested in there,
but I don't want to name names in public.
But yeah, I mean, that's a huge flaw.
That is a backdoor whereby people can have their money effectively stolen from them.
If any of these companies decide to do something underhand, but may still be perfectly within the terms and conditions of the prospectus that they've offered there.
And I think a lot of people that have invested in this stuff are Bitcoiners.
And I very much doubt that they were aware that this little clause is in there, because I don't think they would have bought the stock if they knew that it was on the table.
just in case at some stage, if we need to pivot to Ethereum or other digital currencies in air
quotes, in order to save the company or build our balance sheet or diversify or whatever.
And there's another form of attack here. It could easily be, let's say there's a salty,
salty
Ethereum
big blocker
whatever dude
sitting there
on a ton of cash
because they might be
part of a foundation
or they might have
had their own exit
on their own liquidity
or some token
or whatever
they could just sit there
and buy a shit ton
of these shares
over the course of time
and launch basically
what could be
a 51% attack
on the company or to at least gain a board seat.
And as soon as they gain a board seat,
then they could start pushing to start diversifying
into other currencies as well.
So there's, I mean, they're open,
not only is it a backdoor, but it's also an attack vector.
Yeah, if they really wanted to be malicious about that,
they could argue that the company has a responsibility
to shareholders to diversify out that one asset
into other assets.
and they could threaten to sue them if the Bitcoin price goes down
and they haven't diversified.
It could be quite, yeah, that could be a weird situation.
I mean, it's kind of like it goes down to the core of what Bitcoin is.
You know, when you rely upon somebody else to look after your money for you,
it's a trust relationship.
And history has shown that, you know,
people that do look after other people's money are not always the best people,
you know, and the nature of it, having all that money there.
sometimes they might, you know, borrow a bit with the best of intentions to give it back and go and gamble with it.
And then maybe they don't win. Maybe they lose. And so they borrow a bit more.
And, you know, these kind of situations have happened throughout history where people have lost their money through bad custodianship.
So it's always a risk. You know, if you are relying upon custodians to look after your money for you, then there is a risk there.
And you can do due diligence on the people involved. You can try and look up the history and see what kind of people they are.
that by help but you're always risking that the whole point of bitcoin is you can hold your money
securely in a way that you don't have to rely upon a third party you know you've got that call
holding um you've got it in a cryptographically secure wallet um which doesn't rely upon a
custodian so the the core of bitcoin is kind of antithetical to all of these new structures that
are being created you know it is a self-custody asset it's something that you have total control
over and you have responsibility for you know if you're careless with your keys then you can lose
it that's that's the reality but it's 100 your responsibility so yeah um it's interesting you
picked up on those flaws in the documents there because classically these kind of investment
documents are usually very long and very wordy and very boring because they don't want you to
read all the way through you've done a word search and go through three important parts and
figured out where the floor is, which is quite nice that you've done that. You're able to share
that with your audience because that is a huge flaw. You saw my reaction there when you said
digital assets. It's like, ah, that means not necessarily Bitcoin then. And that's where the
problems can come because they can literally go on to pump.fund, create their own Solana-based
coin within a few hours, probably even less than that. And they can, as the kind of custodian of
people's money they could choose to buy that instead of bitcoin but still remain within the
terms of the agreement that they've set out at the beginning so legally they're they're in the
safe space of course there's no exit equity for that token that they've created and sold to the
company so you know they could even do it at hand's length with somebody they they in theory
don't really know but quietly in the background they do know and that person has taken all the
money and um you know there is no market for that token so ultimately the money is lost you know
it's gone out the back door exactly like you say it's a backdoor in the system it's um it's very
concerning for and for anybody that are holding any of these it's definitely worth checking this
out and then asking yourself the question have you been misled or has there been misrepresentation
because whenever you do come up against uh like the the podcast interviews different ceos have
gone on different interviews or had the conferences or even in written communications, Twitter posts
or threads or whatever. It's always that the language and the communication is always Bitcoin
treasury company. We are a Bitcoin treasury company and blah, blah, blah. Or even like the
title of a panel or the title of a podcast or the title of a spaces is this is always the messaging.
It's never digital asset treasury company. So that's something I'm sure they'll be fully able to bat away any complaints should it come, because I'm sure the legalese is, you know, very tightly in their favor here.
But if you've bought these thinking they're just purely a Bitcoin treasury play, you should be asking some questions of the CEO, for sure.
And another thing I've noticed is very rarely, if at all, do you get any kind of update?
You always get an update on the amount of Bitcoin we've bought, the amount of new shares we've issued, the amount of new leverage we've entered into.
but I mean it's different in the case of microstrategy because they're a much bigger
company and they have a lot broader kind of shareholders and they have their earnings calls
and whatever else but for the smaller ones rarely do you see any update on the the operating business
that apparently exists underneath you know some of them claim to be already a business that has
xyz service good or product um you get no kind of right forward-looking statements or anything like
that no talk about you know what's happened market conditions market dynamics future looking
statements it's just purely bitcoin treasury we bought this much bitcoin trust me bro and it's
like oh my god stop this this has to end yeah from what you're saying it sounds like it's not
going to end well it's kind of uh yeah that i mean it's a bait and switch scenario isn't it
they're out there with the headlines saying bitcoin treasury and then when you go and read
the small print it's not necessarily bitcoin and there's no indication as to exactly how much of the
assets they own are bitcoin or they are something else and it's only if they're ever forced to sell
that they ever get exposed as having not put all the money in the Bitcoin.
So it's like a lot of these things,
as long as everyone's happy and it all goes rolling forward,
no one's ever going to get called out on it.
But if the whole thing falls apart and everyone's forced to unwind,
you find out.
What is Warren Buffett says?
When the tide goes out, you find out who's been swimming naked.
So, you know, we've seen this with Grayscale.
In the last cycle, Grayscale was running at a 20% premium
to their asset value.
And there was some kind of arbitrage that people were doing
where they were creating units of Grayscale.
They were buying Bitcoin and they were earning that 20%.
And then at some point, the premium eroded
and it turned into a negative 20%.
It was like a 20% discount.
The point at which that flipped basically marked the top
of the Bitcoin cycle.
That was the end.
It was whatever kind of liquidity was funding that arbitrage
dried up and
everyone started to pull their horns
in because they weren't making free money anymore.
So that potentially is what
we need to watch for in this
cycle. I know the micro strategy price is about half of its all time high. You know, it's kind of
about half what it was back in November last year. And the Bitcoin price is a little bit higher than
it was back then. So, you know, it's not been a great value investment for the last year.
and yeah it's it's going to be um maybe like trading a bit closer to its asset value now
so maybe that's something i should review and and see if it has actually crossed over and
turned into a discount the asset value because that's going to be a very bearish signal for the
market if that's the case it's it's the way things tend to work like this is it's all about
supply and demand when you've only got one bitcoin treasury company there's a shortage of supply and
a lot of demand and everyone's buying that one.
So it trades at a massive premium when you've got 500 Bitcoin treasury
companies all trying to flood the market at the same time,
because they've seen the premium and they've all rushed in,
you end up with an excessive supply over demand.
They will trade at a discount.
The incentive then for them is to actually sell their Bitcoin and start
buying back their shares, you know, if they actually do that.
But ultimately it shows that, you know,
there's a loss of liquidity in the market and that tends to be when prices
start coming down rather than staying up.
So, you know, I'm not arguing that anyone should try and trade the Bitcoin cycle in the long run.
The best thing is always just to huddle your own self-custody Bitcoin in your own wallet.
But, yeah, it looks like, you know, we are quite late in the cycle now.
We're following a four-year cycle.
You know, we're less than a month away from where it peaked four years ago.
So it has to be asked, you know, is this really the point at which all this is going to start unwinding?
and yeah, it might not be far from it,
but equally it might go on for another six months or a year.
We don't know for sure.
So we can't predict the future with any certainty.
And I can't help,
I can't ever get a solid straight answer to,
you know, let's just take it.
XYZ company, not MicroStrategy,
XYZ company that's a Bitcoin treasury company
that has announced itself in the last six to nine months,
whatever.
what's the play like what's the what are you going to be doing in 10 years time you're going
to have all this bitcoin on your balance sheet what's the good or service or product that you're
going to be putting into the market how long can this because we've been again the narrative of
the uh the flywheel right the uh the perpetual motion flywheel where you just keep offering uh
printing shares into the market and using that to buy the bitcoin and then you do it again in
six weeks and then again in six weeks and everybody's just great and happy and we're
making money and we're going to have like eternal riches and big titty bitches and driving around
in orange lambos like it's what are you going to be doing in 10 years where is that bitcoin
going to be where is it going to be held like and what happens if you just fold the company one day
yeah i mean you're exactly right you know any of these kind of easy money or free money scenarios
is they don't last.
You know, they do exist.
And for a period of time, people, you know, make good money out of it.
But there's always somebody losing somewhere, you know,
because they're not actually creating any real value.
You know, they're not producing.
Some of the Bitcoin treasury companies might have real businesses.
And there may be a real argument for having Bitcoin as the asset
on their balance sheet rather than cash.
And, yeah, I mean, if you have a company and you want to keep Bitcoin
on your balance sheet, then great.
You know, that's a good way to do it.
you're probably going to have a more secure form of reserve for your company over the long run.
But if you're doing it just so you can go afloat on the stock market and get an increase in your share price
and then sell those share prices to unsuspecting retail investors,
that's probably not the best way to carry on.
And you're probably just riding a wave of liquidity.
And you've got to ask the question, if you start out doing that now,
is the premium still going to be there by the time you get to the market?
because it might actually have turned negative by then
and you might end up looking a bit silly
if you've missed that wave of liquidity.
But yeah, it's an interesting phenomena.
I think it's, like we said before,
you and I have got experience in markets
and we've seen how these things tend to pan out.
If it looks too good to be true, it probably is.
You know, that's the kind of scenario that we're in here.
People that bought MicroStrategy during the bear market,
when it was running at a 50% discount,
they could have made a lot of money, you know,
because they were making that contrarian trade.
But if they were buying in November last year
when Trump got elected and the price went to the moon,
then they're probably feeling a bit sore now
because the Bitcoin price has gone up from where it was back then,
but they've lost half their money in the micro-estrategy investment.
So that's where it gets a bit more painful,
because they're overpaid, basically.
They paid for the management process
that micro-estrategy were offering,
and they paid for the market premium that was being offered,
you know, that kind of imbalance of supply and demand,
which over time is correcting itself
by more Bitcoin treasuries coming onto the market
and that the prices, the premiums come down.
So yeah, we're in, we're potentially in the kind of,
the less good part of that wave of liquidity
where it slowly drains away
and people are left holding the baby.
So we've, I think we can put a pin now
in Bitcoin treasury companies.
I hope that's been helpful for people listening.
Loans.
Bitcoin loans is the other thing that's going on, like hand in hand.
This is a tandem attack almost.
It's the financialization of Bitcoin, isn't it?
You know, each cycle we see new kind of things come about.
And Bitcoin Treasury has been one that we've seen this cycle.
but also lending against Bitcoin has been made widely more accessible.
Loads more people are doing it.
Even Jack Mallers now,
I think a lot of other companies that we saw as being grassroots Bitcoin
companies that were offering lightning services and things like that
have started to offer loans against Bitcoin.
And I don't know if it's their backers,
their VCs that are pushing them to try and make some money somehow.
And this is a way of doing it.
But yeah, it kind of goes hand in hand with the narrative,
which unfortunately again comes from Michael Saylor and saying,
don't ever sell your Bitcoin. That's the mantra. Never sell your Bitcoin.
So if you are continuing to invest in Bitcoin and you know,
you need to access your savings for something that you've been saving up for
and you don't actually sell your Bitcoin, then what do you do? Oh, guess what?
There's a whole range of companies offering leverage against your Bitcoin.
But if you do choose to lever your Bitcoin, you are having to post collateral with that company that's given you the loan, which means you're giving up the ownership of that bit of Bitcoin.
And that does mean, you know, de facto, you've got a stop loss kind of price.
So if they're asking you to put up 25 percent collateral against the loan, then if the Bitcoin price goes down by 25 percent, then you're going to get either closed out.
They're either going to sell your Bitcoin and keep the money, which pays for the loss that you've made, or they're going to ask you for more capital.
Now, this becomes a problem if it drops by 25 percent, you post more collateral, and then it drops by another 25 percent.
You're going to slowly have your Bitcoin take it away from you.
And this is where you and I really connected, I think, at that event in Nostro, where we said we know what people are like in the financial markets.
we know if we see a big buildup of leverage like this where lots of people are getting
conned with a dubious narrative of you know getting to leveraging your bitcoin where previously it
was just keep it in your self-custody wallet then we might suspect that at some point there's going
to be a liquidity event maybe even it's only going to last 10 minutes but you might see the price of
bitcoin drop by 90 percent and then go straight back up again now most people don't like to hear
that you know this is not a way to make yourself popular at a bitcoin dinner party saying things
like this i know because i've done it but it's it's kind of it's a reality of what could happen
you know and i'm not saying it will happen i i again i can't predict the future but if people
like larry fink or michael saylor or anyone else that they're associated with wanted to capture
the grassroots bitcoin this is exactly how they would do it they would put out narrative never
sell your bitcoin they would provide a lot of liquidity to a lot of bitcoin companies so
that they could enable easy leverage at relatively low interest rates.
And they would get people's Bitcoin effectively onto their balance sheet.
And then at some point, they would figure out the time when the market has least liquidity.
And they would put a big sell order at any price or multiple exchanges at the same time.
Nobody would have time to get money on to buy Bitcoin at those stupidly low prices.
And it would literally dip down, flash crash, straight back up again.
And guess what?
all of the people that had collateralized Bitcoin would have lost it because it's gone through that
price. It doesn't matter how long it stays down. Therefore, once it's at that price, you're out,
you know, you're done according to your contract. So, yeah, it's a way of capturing people's Bitcoin.
And it's not like we're immune to conspiracy theories in the Bitcoin space. So it's the kind
of thing that Bitcoiners should be thinking about. You know, we know that they would like to have our
Bitcoin. We know that if there's a way that they can get it, then they'll probably do it.
And this is a way that they could get it. So, you know, if you say that two parts of that theory,
two parts of three of that conspiracy theory are already in place where they create a narrative,
say, don't sell your Bitcoin. They've offered a lot of easy leverage to capture people's Bitcoin.
The only final part is a big dip in the Bitcoin price. I hope it doesn't happen. I don't want to
see people that I know lose the Bitcoin, but it's a reality of what could happen.
So the message really is if we can help anyone in this space to say you know don leverage your Bitcoin don fall for this you know if you want to go and spend your money on a holiday or something special you been saving up for then you know
sell a bit of Bitcoin and use the fear to pay for that thing.
And then when you earn more money and you save more money,
you put it back into Bitcoin.
And I know it gets awkward when the price is going up and down and that
kind of thing,
but it's,
yeah,
it's something,
a friend of mine,
identified a new term called spendle.
he's kind of um very much on the side of bitcoin being a currency not being a store of value and
he said if you if you want to spend your bitcoin if there's somewhere you're going and you're using
lightning to buy a beer or to buy dinner and you're supporting that bitcoin merchant which
is what we should all be doing because we're supporting the network we're testing the tools
we're promoting merchants accepting bitcoin you are you know you're you're selling your bitcoin
effectively for food or for drinks.
And then you could go and take some of the fear
that you might have spent on those things
and turn that into Bitcoin.
And okay, you're paying fees and stuff.
And yeah, you might not get the price quite right.
You might lose a little bit on the price moving
if you don't happen to go and buy the Bitcoin
whilst you're in the bar buying the beer.
But, you know, that's just a thing
that you take the hit from
because what really is going to make Bitcoin win
in the long run is actually spending Bitcoin as a currency,
you know, actually enabling merchants
to accept that Bitcoin.
Because when they're accepting credit cards,
they're paying 2% or 3% transaction fees.
And this is one of the key things that Satoshi talks about
in the Bitcoin white paper.
People forget all of this.
The transaction fees on credit cards are relatively high.
Most people don't see them because it's the merchants that pay it.
Bitcoin Lightning doesn't have these fees.
So it's a way of reducing the cost to the merchant
of accepting your transaction.
that's a that's a benefit of bitcoin you're utilizing the features of bitcoin that make it
a better form of money than fiat money and you're promoting the network of merchants that will accept
bitcoin you're enabling them to add more bitcoin themselves if they're actually storing that as a
bitcoin treasury company rather than cashing out to fear maybe they need to do that to pay the costs
but if you've got a business owner and they want to stack bitcoin that's a good way for them to do
it because they're not having to go in on exchange and buy it they're just receiving it they're
earning it through the business that they're carrying out so yeah it's it's a whole kind of
ethos that i feel like a lot of the bitcoin community being led down this route of bitcoin
treasury never sell your bitcoin borrow against your bitcoin but it's all a financialization of
bitcoin that's distracting people from what bitcoin really is and what bitcoin really should be
what satoshi wanted it to be at the beginning and what you know i i think real bitcoin is really all
about this is a currency it's a better currency yeah okay it's a store of value as well as every
currency should be you don't really want to use a currency that's going to lose all of its value
over two days but it's you know it's it's a kind of it's a new um instrument that is better for the
people than money that's under the control of the government.
And that's where we really win is by using it, the grassroots adoption.
That's how we win, not through companies listing on stock exchanges with Bitcoin in a balance
sheet, selling their shares for more than they're really worth and using that to buy
more Bitcoin.
That's a short term fad that's making a lot of money for a lot of financial people, a
lot of VCs, a lot of people that are getting money from floating companies, CEOs that are
able to do it and time the market right you know that they're the ones that are making money
the people are losing out the ones that are overpaying for the shares that don't really
understand they should really be you know encouraged to actually buy real bitcoin not
buy the bitcoin treasury companies the people are getting caught out in the narrative of
never sell your bitcoin getting leveraged you know i really hope they don't get wrecked but
you know that's where if you if you if you think that markets will tend to bring the most pain to
most of the people most of the time that's where the real pain is you know it's it's a flash crash
in the price that takes out all of that leverage you know and it's it's a frightening thought but
it can happen it can and it has and it will again and we never know at what time but the the the
masters they are like wall street is the masters of this stuff like you know the the flash crashes
in the past they get blamed on fat finger and this and the other thing no it's it it's all
lined up in the background by power players and they're all trying to beat each other to the punch
and you know i worked in foreign exchange markets for 18 years and the saying was information is key
believe me you don't have the information there's a very few people that have all of the information
and they've got key players put in place so if i look at if i look at one of these loan companies
they're offering, so you have to, like you rightly said,
you have to give up your alloyedial title
so you have true ownership of that Bitcoin.
You are, you listen to the siren song
of you never have to sell your Bitcoin,
just leverage it, bro, live like the rich guys.
This is how they all do it.
And, you know, they've got everything in trusts
and all this kind of, so you give that up
to the middleman, XYZ company,
who gives you fiat in return.
Where does the fiat come from? It's not that company. That company doesn't have it. They're a startup. They're running very, very lean. The margins are tiny. They're just about surviving, if not profitable at all. All of the money is from the backers.
So who are the backers? Who does the fiat come from? And in some cases, that could be venture capitalists, that could be private investors, but it could also be Wall Street registered brokerage firms or even banks that have direct credit line to the Federal Reserve.
so you could be giving up bitcoin for counterfeit fiat from someone you have no idea where it's come
from and the loan company in the middle is just like holding your bitcoin in escrow but they don't
tell you where that fiat's come from then you'll be in charged interest on it so that's usury
straight up because if the fiat has been just printed and counterfeit in the background and
funneled your way. And these interest rates, they range anywhere from what I can see, anywhere from
like 5%, 6%, 7.5% up to 12.5% and higher. So you're giving up the thing you truly own
to a third party in exchange for fear, which you're paying usury on top of back. And you face
not only the counterparty risk of the company that you've loaned it to, the counterparty risk
of all of the backers that could, like you just described, form a narrative and through very
manipulative ways using derivatives markets and headlines and whatever else, cause a crash in the
price, not only in the price just in that, but also in the stock market just in general, just
really to pile on the pressure because two are becoming a bit more correlated as time goes on.
and then you are wrecked.
They take your Bitcoin and you still owe them
because you'll still owe the interest.
Yeah.
Yeah, it's kind of, I mean,
there's a whole kind of wider context to this.
Have you read the book, The Great Taking?
Yes.
Actually, I employed Guy Swan to read it to me.
Shout out to the Bitcoin Audible podcast.
Thank you, Guy.
Yes.
What a book.
Yeah.
there you go are you going to publish that one on fanfares well uh we should do you should get
hold of guy we're going to get on to fanfares actually about this yeah that would be a great
book to have on there yeah like guy swan's got a great voice and that that is a real bitcoin
a book it's it's something someone recommended to me i think shortly after it was published
and i i was already thinking along those lines of like you know everything's a derivative we don't
really own anything and it's a huge rabbit hole that people can go down but the reality is in the
financial markets you actually have no ownership of any of the assets you think you own everything's
credit any price movement that you gain from is a derivative contract that's the structure of it
it's a whole matrix of illusion effectively um but yeah the there's people like caitlin long
talk about this and i can't remember the name of the guy that wrote the great taking but very smart
guy he is in the financial markets he understands it very deeply now you've had someone i'll find it
carry on yeah yeah he's he now has most of his assets i think in farmland around the world
because he he's pretty much convinced that uh that at some point they're going to come and steal
everything hence the name the great taking you know because they have the legal right to take it
all and uh who knows exactly how or when all of this will happen but it's it's a frightening
prospect i'd advise everyone to read it but it kind of goes down again to the core of what bitcoin
is bitcoin is your self-custody ownership of something that you have in your own right
anything that you own through the financial markets is intermediated by brokerage or by a bank
they own it on your behalf you have like shares in a nominated company
and you you don't own the shares the nominee company owns the shares because it comes down
to the legal ownership you know the legal ownership is the holding of the piece of paper
share certificate so the nominee company keeps that in a safe you can't digitally own a share
there isn't a legal setup for that so they just give you a brokerage account where you have numbers
on a screen and you have a contract with them that says um you know if the price goes up you
get more fiat the price goes down you get less fiat so if you think owning shares in a brokerage
account protects you from hyperinflation then all you really going to get is a lot more of that that worth less and less as the share prices go up If the value of the money goes to zero the value of your shares is actually zero because you just have billions and billions of the fiat money that worth nothing So
it's a real subtlety to the structure of financial markets. And people like Katie Long,
who I respect greatly for the way that she speaks out and stuff like this, she's a real
kind of early days Bitcoiner.
She was on Mt. Gox.
She got into self-custody after that.
But yeah, she tried to start Custodia Bank
where they were going to be a one-for-one reserve
and they wouldn't let her have a banking license
for some reason.
I think they thought that people might take their money
out of other banks and put it into her bank
because they had more security there.
Might have been a bad thing for the financial system.
But yeah, that was also a crypto bank.
and yeah, she wasn't allowed to have a banking license.
So there's various things like this that are going on.
I mean, I've got to say,
I love the independent media scene
for keeping us informed about stuff like this.
You know, the amount of stuff that we can learn now
through podcasts and YouTube videos
where people like yourself interview people
that understand this kind of stuff.
You know, it's a way of educating yourself.
It's a way of understanding things that, you know,
you might have had to do a lot of research in a library before, you know,
now you've got a lot of it at your fingertips and you can really kind of find
something new, research that area more. And yeah, a lot,
a lot of people are now able to understand the financial system in a lot more
detail than they ever did.
And it's probably a reason why there's so many Bitcoin podcasts out there,
because that's how we educate each other, isn't it? You know,
we kind of interview each other.
we move forward the body of knowledge about what's happening.
And yeah, that's, I guess we're both making a contribution to that with this podcast,
where we're trying to spread the word that we understand about what's going on with the
financialization of Bitcoin in this cycle.
Absolutely.
And yeah, it was a great shame to watch Caitlin go through that pain.
I remember the tweet of the stack of documents that she had.
It was just ridiculous that they jumped through every single hoop and they went back and they went back and they went back.
And then finally, no, you are not allowed to be a licensed bank because you want to run full reserve banking.
You can't have that.
My goodness, what are you talking about?
If you want a banking license, you're going to have to run a fractional reserve bank and play by our rules and sign up to our system.
And that's the way the game is played.
And if people can't see how unfair that is, I mean, just that exercise that she did alone,
her and her team just exposed so much of what is truly going on in the system.
It's one big club and she won't in it.
And she ain't going to be.
And nor are you and nor am I.
But we can buy and self-custody Bitcoin.
And that's the best thing we can do.
and recently actually there was um a new bank has been uh uh given the license have you have
you heard of this one Erebor Bank I haven't heard of that one at all no please tell me
so Erebor or Erebor I don't know how you pronounce it but apparently Lord of Rings
Lord of the Rings fame uh I think it was a mountain that was uh full of uh precious gems or
stones I don't know I'm not a big fan of the films right yeah I know that when you mean full
gold yeah there was a dragon that lived there and guarded the gold yeah right a dragon that lived
there that guarded the gold so and it was called mount erebor is that correct yeah that's it yeah
right okay so new bank has been this one new bank has been uh given the green light
erebor bank uh co-founded by technology figures such as peter teal
our old friend palmer lucky and joe lonsdale recently received preliminary conditional
approval from the office of the comptroller of the currency to operate as a national bank
this marks a significant step for the cryptocurrency and tech focused banking in the united states
so they're going to be um uh like pushing cryptocurrencies and all this kind of nonsense
i assume uh it's funny that they should get the license but yet caitlin was unable to now
I couldn't somebody pointed this out to me on Nostra about oh look yeah uh the mountain
full of gold um protected by uh no a mountain full of gold um and called um called Erebor just
so happens that this Erebor bank has been given the green light by the the technocrats currently
in charge uh all we're missing is the dragon guarding it and i'm like you do realize that
peter teal is an anagram of the reptile he's like oh shit
this i mean my goodness this is either top level trolling
or the biggest coincidence you've ever seen in your life okay that's actually an anagram of his
name the red yes okay that's interesting and he's the dragon that's guarding the gold in the arable
looks like it to me they will always they will always give you signs simon yeah okay all right
that's interesting yeah that's a fascinating uh fact that that i i didn't know another thing that
i'll go away and research yes yeah go go search overview of arable bank and um yeah what they who
they're going to be serving and why they're going to be existing and whatever else so
the great taking was david rogers web i looked up david rogers web yeah very smart going
worth a read that one and he's got a couple of youtube videos that he's done about it as well
i was going to say there's a documentary so people can go just check this out you can download the
book for free uh pdf version you can go and listen to guy swan on bitcoin audible read it he does it
in four parts and you know i love guy and what he's done over the years listen to his podcast now
he had in his nose since like 2017 18 whenever he launched it uh or just go and buy the book uh it
is incredible i hope david's got some bitcoin i really do because to have written that and not
grok's bitcoin would be so yeah what a miss he has yeah i mean i don't know for certain but i know
he's kind of talked about cryptocurrencies being the solution to the problems
he's identified. And if you think about it,
if you go down the rabbit hole to the extent that he does in terms of financial
assets, not having any real value,
you've got to be able to recognize the ownership that Bitcoin gives you.
I know a lot of people that own Bitcoin don't like to talk about it,
particularly if they're very wealthy, like he is,
that they like to keep it a bit quiet because they don't want to be an,
you know, kind of a vulnerable to an attack. So yeah,
he might just be not talking about it.
He doesn't want to be openly a Bitcoiner
because that could make him vulnerable.
He talks about owning farmland around the world, as I said,
which is a kind of more secure asset than money in the bank.
That can still be taken with men with guns, though,
if a government decides.
I mean, this is...
Yeah, not even with that.
I mean, I bought some farmland in the UK a few years ago
thinking that the UK government would never repeal
the inheritance tax exemption.
They were never to be stupid enough
to do such a thing,
but it turns out the Labour government
have actually done that.
So, yeah, that damages the value
of my farmland in the UK to some extent.
And yeah, they would take part of it
away upon my death.
That's how it works.
You know, that's, yeah, it can be,
it can be confiscated.
Yeah, I mean, and you're not kind of
geographically free with farmland
in the way that you are with Bitcoin.
Even with gold, it's hard to take
through an airport but um people do it sometimes but um yeah farmland you're stuck within that
jurisdiction you know and subservient to that legal system subservient to that government if
they choose to tax you on that asset they can take at least part of it away if you end up with
a communist regime which is not impossible in europe in the next 20 years in my opinion
and then they might take all of it away i tell you what do you want to do you want a little bit
of fun uh i because i did this exercise with my daughter uh just today um let's see
10 planks of the communist manifesto
have you ever read these i know one of one of the key ones is a central bank number five right so
stop me listeners if you hear something that you do not currently live under
and this is this is the the 10 planks Karl Marx communist manifesto number one abolition of
property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes so has there been an
abolition of private property rights in the UK in any way shape or form or anywhere that you live
two two is a brilliant one a heavy progressive or graduated income tax
there you go that's already there three abolition of all rights of inheritance well you just touched
on that not all rights yet but you know there's a creep four confiscation of the property of all
immigrants and rebels so you know you can't own anything if you remember they they what was it um
Abramovich had his yacht taken because of something.
I can't remember exactly what it was.
And didn't they take Chelsea Football Club off of him?
He kind of figured out he had to sell it quite quickly, didn't he?
Because they were freezing the assets of any Russian people,
whether or not they were associated with Putin.
You know, it was like...
Look I think most countries around the world have frozen assets of certain races or ethnic groups at some stage in their history Number five centralization of credit in the hands of the state by means of a national bank with state capital and exclusive monopoly over currency
All right, there's your Bank of England.
There's your Bank of Canada.
There's your Federal Reserve.
There's your Bank of Japan.
You choose whichever country you live in.
Six, centralization of the means of communication and transport into the hands of the state.
Well, you know, look at your telecommunications companies.
Look at the way that the roads are built, the bridges are built, the railroads are built.
Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state.
Number eight, equal liability of all labor.
So we're talking about like probably minimum wage laws there, maybe.
establishment of industrial armies especially for agriculture that's all in number eight
number nine combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries uh so i mean classic
i think a classic example there would be fertilizer oh yeah that's already there for sure yeah i mean
come on number 10 my favorite my personal favorite number 10 care to guess anyone anyone listening
Simon would you care to guess
I don't know the answer
I'm keen to hear
Free education for all children in public schools
Really?
Yep
So anybody listening right now
If you think you live in a
Capitalist country in air quotes
You don't
And I've probably just listed
10 truth bombs
Communism won the day
Always did
You've lived under it
we all do with the sheer veneer of having some kind of autonomy.
But we don't.
This whole idea that the Conservative Party were ever right wing
was a complete illusion.
They were just another version of socialism, you know,
and become ever more evident these days with the Uni Party,
the things they were doing in the end.
It was a continuation of the Blair Project, wasn't it, really?
Yeah, it's a sad fact.
Yeah, it's a very sad fact.
It's one of the things that's led me to flee England in the hope of better weather and escaping woke policies and escaping burdensome taxes and various things like that.
Yeah, it's not the country that I used to believe in, I have to say.
I've lost a bit of faith in England, you know, before Keir Starmer, but then Keir Starmer has really put the nail in the coffin on that one.
You know, he really has his free speech laws or whatever they call them these days.
You know, it's kind of a digital ID is going to save us all.
So, you know.
Oh, yes, that's going to solve the immigration problem.
And that will bring you back.
Right. Fanfares, mate.
Let's talk about Fanfares, because that's what we talked about, like the first time you came on.
So if people hadn't listened to that one or maybe are new to Fanfares, it's been around for a while.
You've you've been building quietly in the background.
What do you have to announce?
What do you want people to understand about Fanfares
and what you're trying to build here?
Well, I would say to tie in with what we talked about before,
Fanfares is really kind of my idea that has come about
as a result of really kind of thinking about Bitcoin
as a digital currency, as being a peer-to-peer money
with incredibly low transaction costs.
and I think for me that was a penny drop moment with Bitcoin where previously I'd owned Bitcoin
I'd seen it as a trading opportunity but by going to meetups and talking to people that really
understood it that they would explain to me yeah this is this is a different kind of currency
because you can transact in small amounts with low transaction costs that makes that possible
and then following on from that my thoughts were maybe that could make a different kind of digital
media system because if you think about the way that digital media has evolved it's it's mostly
been funded by advertising because there hasn't really been a way for people to pay for small
items of media so short videos or podcasts people haven't been able to pay for that so
the only route for monetization for creators has been through advertising through giving the content
away for free and advertising because in order to get paid directly with the credit card system
they would have to set themselves up as a merchant and they would have to charge a price that justifies
the minimum transaction fee of 30 cents or whatever it is even with paypal as a commercial
enterprise you're you're required to charge that minimum fee so my thoughts were what about if we
could build some kind of system that enables creators to publish and get paid directly with
bitcoin lightning and and that's what we've built and i i started on this one about three and a half
years ago and then at some point during that journey i discovered nuster and thought this is
is fantastic someone's already done a whole lot of work on this one they've created a whole protocol
where we can distribute content to each other and we can tip each other for it which is great
and we've also had the whole value for value movement with fountain and the smart guys there
that enable people to tip for podcasts but sadly you know we have to be realistic about the way
that business model is working and no one's really making a lot of money out of that system because
human nature being what it is people don't tend to pay for something they can get for free
It just doesn't work like that. You don't end up with a lot of rich buskers in the world.
Even most musicians these days don't actually make a lot of money.
But back in the days when they used to sell CDs, they did actually make a lot of money.
People had to pay for that individual item in order to get that music.
So what Fanfares is, it's utilizing the NOSTA protocol, which is a decentralized communication protocol,
which enables creators to distribute outside of platforms.
And they can get paid outside of the platforms.
People can send them Bitcoin Lightning directly to their profile or for an individual item of content.
And what we've built on top of that with FanFares is the ability for them to encrypt an item of content so that it's out there.
It's published on Nostra, but it's only accessible when somebody zaps the right amount of Bitcoin.
So if they set the price to be a thousand sats, it's just about a dollar at current prices,
then that content becomes accessible to their Nostra identity when they've done that zap.
So the system recognizes that they've paid the money. It creates a decryption key as a Nostra
event that's only accessible to them. That enables them to decode the content and to listen to the
content. So we've started out with audio files. You could do notes as well. We will be doing video,
potentially games, potentially courses.
We want to really kind of cover all forms of digital media eventually.
But yeah, we're creating what we think is the building blocks
of a new digital economy.
It's a new form of digital scarcity.
If you see Bitcoin as being money that you can own versus bank money,
which you don't own, the bank owns it.
If you see NOSTA as being an identity that you can own versus any,
Legacy social media where they own your identity has a row in their database.
They can delete it whenever they want.
They can censor you whenever they want.
Nostra, you own your identity.
If you don't like the way Nostra app is treating you, you can take your identity, move to another app,
and you're resistant to things like censorship, advertising,
all the things that we kind of don't like on the internet, but we feel powerless to stop
because the platforms have come to dominate the internet.
And I've written a book about this, which I published on FanFares.
And it explains how the internet has evolved the way it has,
how the platforms have come to dominate because of that dynamic,
because we didn't have a way to pay each other, peer to peer.
Still it. What's the book title?
It's called Digital Sovereignty.
So you can get it on the, if you go to fanfares.io, scroll down the page,
you'll see a link to the audio book there.
it gives you a whole load of detail about how we got to the problems of the platforms where they
control everything they effectively control we think because they are choosing what we see
you know they know what we think google knows what we think because we put it into their search
engine they store it all on the database they have a huge amount of control more than any of us
realize it all comes because there was no native currency on the internet because everything had to
be funded by advertising, which meant our data was the most valuable currency on the internet.
So they collected our data, they sold that to advertisers that could target us based on our
preferences, our interests, and they could get a better return on the advertising because they
had that data. So the way that we work back against this is by using Bitcoin Lightning as
a digital currency, by paying each other directly for the work that we do. And that's what we're
trying to enable with fanfares. So we're using the Nostra system, we're using Bitcoin Lightning,
we're building on top of it, we're enabling publishing, we're enabling monetization directly
between people. And a lot of people would pipe up at this point and say, well, if someone publishes
something behind a paywall, then someone's going to pay for it and then steal it and then put it
out there for everyone else to have for free because they believe that information should be
free. So yeah, this has always been the problem with digital content is that everything that is
digital is copyable. That's really kind of the core of what Bitcoin is as a currency. It's digital
scarcity. So the way we enforce that, we know we can't enforce copyright technically. Ultimately,
it will always be copyable and will always be distributable. The way we enforce that is through
an incentive system where we enable a creator to put a payment split in place. So if you buy a copy
of my book, you have a right to get a referral link, where if you share it and somebody buys it
out of the back of your recommendation,
then you can get a percentage of the money for yourself.
So you're acting as a promoter,
you're utilizing the network of people
that you've built over time,
that trust your judgment and you're making a recommendation to them of a book
that you believe has good value.
And you are kind of disciplined in a way with that system,
because if you recommend something that's rubbish just to get the payment
splits, then they're probably not going to listen to you again.
So you lose value within your network.
So the incentive of this system is to find content that's actually good and then
recommend that and earn from those good recommendations and build confidence in
your network over time.
But yeah, that system effectively means that no one's really motivated to go and give stuff away for free.
We might put it out there on a website for free, but why is anyone going to go there?
The only way people are going to find it is if you recommend it.
You're then utilizing your reputation, your network that you've built.
If you think it has value and you're recommending it, why not earn from the recommendation?
You're providing a service to the creator and to your audience.
That's really the part of the internet that isn't paid at the moment.
We all repost stuff. We all recommend stuff. But we don't get paid for that service. And that's the alternative discovery system to the algorithms that we currently rely upon.
And we know the algorithms are bad. We know they're optimized to capture our attention. We know that means they're promoting the most addictive stuff to us.
We know this is causing all kinds of problems with teenagers that use Instagram, TikTok and things like that. It's the algorithm. The incentive system exists there.
So this system that it's cool has the potential to replace the advertising funding system of the Internet.
It has the potential to replace the algorithm as the discovery system.
When you have a network of financially incentivized humans that are evaluating content and only recommending good stuff, you end up with a way of controlling the firehose of information.
There's a whole lot of content out there, more than any of us can ever consume in one lifetime.
What we really want is to be able to find the best stuff.
A lot of us do get recommendations from other people already.
We recommended good authors or good creators that we might follow.
But if there's people that can actually do that as a job,
because people can actually become professional curators and own from those recommendations,
then you end up with a really strong network of people.
Over time, they build a reputation.
People learn who they can trust.
They follow the people that they can trust through NOSTA.
Their feed on NOSTA is that discovery system.
it's not the algorithm that's trying to capture their attention it's a network of people that are
getting paid for their work it's a proof of work system uses bitcoin it uses nostr it utilizes the
fact that bitcoin enables low transaction uh low cost transactions which like i said that's the
bitcoin white paper that's what bitcoin really is the payment splits it's actually ben arke and
LNBits that pioneered that one, but we're utilizing that as part of FanFares to enable
that kind of incentivized copyright protection.
And we hope the network that kind of emerges from this, the emergent property of the system,
is a better discovery system.
So that's what I talk about in the book.
It costs 8,000 sats.
There is a referral opportunity there.
If you like the book, if you've got a following, why not make some money by recommending it
to other people?
but obviously do listen to the book first.
I've read it myself.
It took me a huge amount of time
and a lot of pay to write it, I have to say.
Definitely not.
I'm a numbers person, not a words person,
but I went to a great deal of effort
to make something that I thought transmitted the message
about what we can do with Bitcoin in Nostra,
what we think we can achieve with FanFares
as a system that facilitates that new media economy.
So thank you very much
for purchasing a copy of the book yourself.
I do appreciate that. And I hope that over time, you know, people get the book, they recommend it and that the word can spread.
And that will encourage people to upload their own content and fanfares to offer the payment splits.
And we might see that network of curators emerge that replace the unfortunate nature of the Internet that we've kind of sleepwalked into.
I love the fact Bitcoin touches something and it turns the whole thing upside down.
And to what you've been saying here, we have been socially engineered so bad by, like, no proof of work at all in the background is, you know, stealing our data, stealing everything that we, you know, the key term searches that we're using, our date of birth, you know, whatever we're putting in, that has been monetized by.
And then the algorithms are tweaked to show us whatever it is they think we're interested in at that certain time.
We've been socially engineered, whereas what you've just described, you become the engineer and you build your social network around that.
But it's your proof of work that's there.
We both read or listened to David Rogers Webb, and we've been talking about him on this podcast.
So this is a perfect example. You and I are both willing to stake our reputations on that guy's work. But wouldn't it be great if he earned some sats on the back of that recommendation?
Another book here I'm reading right now, A New Science of Heaven by Robert Temple. Nothing to do with Bitcoin, but my goodness, this book has been blowing my mind.
I would happily recommend that. So once you start building up this social kind of network, it's true, it's a real social network, not the social networks we've been bombarded with. This redefines it from what I can hear from what you're saying.
yeah i think i mean it's you've got to bear in mind that no one set out to build the kind of
social media companies that we have now that they've evolved through the dynamics of the system
you know facebook started out everything was free you know they had to monetize at some point the
only way you could do it was for advertising you know so it's kind of like they've been at the
mercy of the system they have to work with you know bitcoin offers an alternative path but it
does require that you know we embrace it you know that that means we've got to experiment with
systems like fanfares we've got to talk about it to other people so you know that's that's how we
win you know that's how we as as the plebs are the real network you know we we we win by you know
experimenting with these tools by making them better you know if you think something's wrong
with our system message us you know we're on nostra fanfares you can find our handle there
and you can message us and make suggestions you know we we want to hear how we can make it better
so that it's better, more usable for people.
And I've had, I get people all the time,
I want to write a Bitcoin book,
or I've just written a Bitcoin book,
what's the best way to publish?
And I've pushed a few people your way.
I'm just like, just go straight to FanFest.
Now, AJ and her poetry.
So when she learned about like,
and had that chat with you,
she was just ecstatic.
Like this is the only place I want to ever share my work and put it out there you know or what or you self on kindle direct publishing or you you you sell your soul to like an agent or a publishing house or something it
not good yeah aj was the perfect introduction there it was so encouraging to have somebody
that really kind of got what we were doing you know she bought a copy of the book she was listening
to it she really understood and it was you know as as a public as a writer herself you know with
the poems that she wanted to put out there it was exactly the right kind of person and that would be
interested in in in this system but it really is a reality that a lot of creators are almost in a
form of slavery you know with what they have right now you know and it's it's a weird thing where
they're forced to give their work away for free um as you said the data is the currency but it's
also our time and our attention is our is the currency as well that's what the the algorithm
is designed to capture and you know it's kind of those are the most important things that we have
our time and our attention you know we have limited time on this planet and the our ability
to focus on something is what enables us to get things done to make things to make a difference so
if those things are being robbed from us by clever algorithms that know how to capture our attention
and tell him then, you know, we are being disenfranchised
in some way or another.
The weird thing is in order to be a successful creator,
to some extent you have to learn how to do that.
You know, if you want your YouTube videos
to be at the top of the algorithm,
you've got to make a video that captures people's time
and attention.
You need an open mouth thumbnail, Simon.
That's all you need.
Open mouth thumbnails.
That's all you need.
That's the clickbait.
Yeah.
it's it's the worst it's if it's a picture of somebody famous isn't really on the video at all
it's so much the better you know i mean there's loads of ai stuff now on on youtube you know they
just take somebody's content and rehash it into ai and you know that person that created it is
earning nothing and not that they were earning that much before anyway from the youtube payment
splits but yeah it's it's a race to the bottom with a lot of this stuff now it really is like
You know, I don't know where it ends, but I personally believe that we have the potential for an alternative.
We're very early days with fanfares. It's going to take a while to get traction.
But, you know, our opportunity is with the people.
You know, we're an open source project. We're not charging any payment specs right now.
At some point we will charge for hosting. And at the moment, hosting is free.
Like I say, we're going to roll out all kinds of forms of digital media so that everyone can publish.
but yeah it's you know it takes a bit of work like everything else and that's worth something
it takes a bit of work to figure it out you've got to experiment you're going to put yourself
out there and say i'm going to charge for this i'm not going to let people see it until they
actually pay which a lot of people won't like originally because they've all been conditioned
by the free system that isn't really free because it's capturing their time and their attention
their data we all know it deep down we know it's not really free but we kind of like it that way so
So it's kind of playing to our weakest parts of our psyche.
And we know that's not good for us, but it is what it is.
So, yeah, it's something that I'm building.
I'm going to continue to build.
You know, I hope it works.
You know, I hope this is the system that really demonstrates the utility of Bitcoin,
because that's where it works at the core.
It's only possible with Bitcoin as a currency and with NOSTA as a protocol.
you know it really is that was an absolute gift to us that we didn't imagine would come our way but
yeah the guys that created that early days they they have really kind of given something to the
world and um yeah again they're not really making any money out of it that's an open source project
as well and but it's taking time to get off the ground nostr you know it's still quite niche but
i personally think it will replace twitter over time i think nostr is to digital media what
Bitcoin is to money, where if you look at banks that own your money on their centralized databases within their database, Bitcoin, you have control of your money and it's distributed across a network.
With Twitter, your data is on their centralized server. They control it. You don't.
With Nostra, your data is on a distributed network and you control it with your private key.
So it's very synonymous between the two. It makes total sense to work together.
familiar once Bitcoin Lightning was enabled as the currency on NOSDA to me that was you know that
was that this is the solution you know this is where we're going what we hope we can do at FanFares
is improve the monetization of creators on NOSDA by enabling that digital scarcity by enabling
almost a sort of game theory you know where where if you give people the chance to charge for things
over time they're going to figure out how to distribute some parts for free and then promote
the stuff that's that's uh encrypted and lead people on to buy that stuff and people are already
doing this with sub stack and with patreon you know what they do part of a podcast dominic frisbee
actually does that quite well he has these little podcasts he puts out in his email and he says if
you want the rest of this you've got to subscribe but of course subscribing is a very high hurdle
you know you've got to like get your credit card out put all your details in and give away your
name and address commit to monthly payments of the product that you might not want to use because
Maybe it was just that one thing that you wanted.
If you had a button where you could connect with your Lightning wallet
and make a simple one-off payment, no identity, no bother, no commitment,
that's a much lower hurdle.
So those people that might not have paid with a subscription
might actually pay with Bitcoin Lightning.
So particularly if you're a Bitcoin creator,
your audience has already got the money to pay,
and they're more likely to pay if you're actually utilizing fanfares
than if you're using something like Substack and Patreon,
which are, of course, still platforms.
They may, at the moment, look freer than YouTube does,
but at the beginning, YouTube looked quite free, didn't it?
And then it slowly closed the net onto people
and made it more and more difficult.
But with all of these platforms,
you don't own the connection with your audience.
They own that connection.
You can't leave a platform without a huge cost.
With Doster, you don't just own your identity,
you own your connection with your audience.
So you've got peer-to-peer monetization, you've got self-sovereign identity, you've got a network.
And that's, you know, for all of their faults, the platforms have demonstrated what we want on the internet.
We want to have our own identity.
We want to be able to publish for ourselves.
We want to be able to build a network of people that we publish to.
And the platforms have enabled that.
It's just unfortunate that the business model has meant that they own all of that.
and then monetization means that they're kind of filtering
and selecting content that's probably the worst possible thing for us.
It's the stuff that's addictive, that's the short attention span.
It's not the good value stuff that we might really want
if we actually have the chance to think about it.
So if you think about the way that NOSTA works you only going to zap somebody on the tipping model if you think it actually good value So really kind of looking at what at the top of the NOSTA algorithms
is going to be better than what's on the top of a Twitter algorithm.
Then we take it a step further where the network is only going to recommend
something if they believe it's good value,
because they're going to ask somebody else to pay for it,
and they might share a video for free on Twitter.
and if it turns out to be rubbish then nothing's really lost you know it's like a short period of
your time but if you share something on fanfets and somebody trusts you enough to pay for it and
it turns out to be rubbish or different to what you said it was or just you know misinformation
of some kind your reputation will take a hit they might not trust you again you know you've lost
value in your network and that's that's really what we build in nostril over time we have the
ability to curate our own experience by doing so we can feed into the experience of other people
through the web of trust the apps that are building our nostril kind of tapping into to your
network and saying okay if your friends like this then you might like this as well if your friends
have been willing to pay for this then you might be willing to pay for this as well that's how we
have a a kind of decentralized discovery system over time and it's the incentive system is entirely
different it's optimizing for value rather than engagement that means we're going to have a better
quality stream of content it's not going to be addictive or as addictive as as the traditional
social media is creators will get paid more curators will get paid so people that are
influencers right now quite often they're doing a lot of reposting for free that's how they build
the network and then they're having to monetize through specific ads where they're getting sponsors
what they might be able to do with this system is to actually get paid for the reposts using our
payment split model with with fanfares so there's a whole new opportunity for creators to earn more
money directly from their audience the curator network can become a whole new class of professional
that are really good at figuring out what has good value they spend their time evaluating content
they know who might appreciate it they direct it specifically towards those groups and make that
recommendation and are judged on their recommendation. And then you've got the audience
that just basically get better content. Maybe they're going to pay for it with their Bitcoin
rather than with their time and their attention and their data, but they're going to get a better
product as a result of it. They're going to get a better quality outcome and that is worth paying
for. That is worth parting with your Bitcoin for, Michael Saylor. You might want to spend some of
your Bitcoin in order to get a better quality feed of digital media on the internet.
Because that's what Bitcoin really is.
It's a currency that can be used purely on the internet.
You know, the creators can earn Bitcoin directly from their audience.
They could be anywhere in the world.
You know, they don't need to have feet on the ground anywhere.
You know, their business is entirely virtual.
The work is the input.
They're receiving Bitcoin.
They could trade that locally for cash, wherever they are.
They could live a life of absolute freedom using Bitcoin.
And that's what we all talk about.
I hope that what we're doing with FanFares brings us closer to the actual means of making Bitcoin a currency and turning it into something that can actually fix the world.
Me too, mate.
And well done.
Congratulations.
Well done for, like, keep pushing it because I know you've been working on it for a long time.
And great to see, like, the latest iteration.
and hopefully this podcast will alert people to it again
and get them back over and having a look.
So if anybody wants to reach out,
where's the best place to reach you?
On Nostra, I assume?
Yeah, I'm shortfiat on Nostra
or you can message us at fanfares on Nostra.
Yeah, that's the best place to get me.
I'm completely off of Twitter now
and I got three hours a day back
by deleting my Twitter account.
Nostra, I seem to be on there about 10 minutes a day
on average and unless i get a post that seems to go particularly well then i can check it quite a
lot to see how well it's going but but mostly it's it's not that addictive um it seems to be just
like i say it's it's optimizing for value and it's a much better place to be the whole feeling of
notster is a much better experience it's not the scrolling it's it's more kind of educational
value sharing and uh yeah i think over time it's going to win you know it's going to take a while
When I look at the way that we've built Fanfares over the last three and a half years, it's really taken a while to deliver what we wanted.
The team are great.
They're working really hard.
The technical challenges are significant.
We have a product that works.
We've delivered a very good product.
We're building on it.
We're making it better.
Even bigger challenge is the social layer.
How do we get people to try this product?
How do we get people to talk about this product?
And that's what we're just starting out on now.
So my book is essentially the first part of that.
If we can get creators to experiment with the product,
even if they're charging a very small fee for their work,
just to prove the tech.
And that's a step forward, just get people used to doing it,
get people connecting with their Lightning wallet,
making a payment, experimenting with reposting,
earning a small amount of money.
Let's just test the tech to begin with.
And over time, I just believe we're going to have that amazing concentration of quality that's going to come out of it just because the financial incentives enable that.
So it's going to take time to build it.
But it's all of us that make it work, basically.
Over time, if we adopt the system, if we experiment with it, if we talk about it, that's where we win.
But it's going to take a while.
You know, I'm locked down the next 10 years of my calendar for this one.
So it's not going to be easy.
Right.
So I'm sure I did ask you this question last time.
I had no recollection of your answer,
but if you had one last orange pill left to give to somebody,
who would you give it to and why?
Okay.
Can I change the question?
Yeah.
If I had one last Fanfares pill, who would I give it to?
Fanfares pill.
All right.
Sorry to mess with your question.
No, no, no.
No problem.
The things I've heard Jack Dorsey say about the way the algorithm works
and the way that it's damaging our free will,
he actually sat down and had a look at Fanfares
and maybe listened to my audio book.
I think we'd have a real advocate of the system there
because it's the kind of thing that he's not the only person
that's talked about that kind of thing,
but obviously he's high profile within the Bitcoin Noster world.
So if I had a Fanfares pill, whatever color that would be,
then I'd give it to Jack Dorsey
because I think he's been a great force for good within the Nostra community
with the kind of the boost that he gave at the beginning there,
the kind of Nostra events that he been organising and funding there So good for him If we can get any kind of opportunity for him to have a look at what we doing I think he going to be a great advocate for the product Excellent
Right.
Plebs, you heard Simon.
Get hold of Jack.
Get this in front of him.
Let's get this thing moving.
Grassroots efforts.
This is how we use our network.
This is how we reach the people that we seek to reach.
And that's now it's out there.
Jack Dorsey, whoever's listening, let's get connected.
I'll do my best.
I don't have a direct link, unfortunately.
Yeah, I'm sure he gets a lot of inbound, no doubt.
I'm sure he does.
But it is a network, isn't it?
What is it?
Six degrees of separation.
We know everyone in the world, don't we?
So I'm sure within the Bitcoin Nostra network, it's a lot closer than that.
Yes, exactly.
Well, thank you for coming on, mate.
And talking us through what's going on with FanFares,
your worries around the Bitcoin treasury companies
and especially the loans and the leverage.
And let's just remember,
please everybody stay humble,
stack,
sets,
self-custody.
Your Bitcoin is literally that easy.
Like this,
it sounds hard to do.
I mean,
it is hard to do if the price is ripping in one way or the other,
but if you just sit on your hands,
stack,
take self-custody,
you will be in a different position from 10 years from now.
exactly right
you've always got that message there
and it's the call
that is what it really is
yeah
self-custody
stacks out
love it
thanks for coming on Simon
and we'll catch you on the next show
thank you
well there you go guys
thank you so much for listening
thank you again Simon
for coming on
looking forward to seeing you
in person
in Manchester
Simon's going to be talking there
at the Nostashire Day
the event
it's a three day event
so you've got Nostashire on Friday
and then Bitcoin
all kinds of Bitcoin stuff
panels, talks, keynotes
gaming zones
kids zones
there's going to be a music event
on the Saturday night I believe
go back one episode and listen
to my
interview with Nat Cole
and Aaron Dorn who are organizing that
the NME, the new music
economy, all built
on Bitcoin, all artists will be paid
in Bitcoin
this is awesome and what
What Simon's doing with Fanfares is really, really cool as well.
And I've seen this grow from the very beginning.
I remember uploading podcasts to Fanfares way back in the day when he first started this.
But now this kind of pivot to the idea of audiobooks I think is a great one.
And like we discussed here, a friend of ours, AJ, is going to start releasing poetry on there.
I've put him in touch with another author
that really likes the idea of getting their work up on Fanfares as well
so you don't
if you've got any of you listening now
if you've got an article, if you've got a short story
if you've got anything that you want to get published
anything, just reach out to Simon
because Fanfares is the place for you
to just get this happening
get this out there
get it off your chest
you don't need to now go start looking for a publisher
or setting up a sub stack or a medium or whatever people used to do.
This is the new economy.
And it's built. It's ready.
It just needs testing.
It just needs us leaning into it.
The Bitcoiners on the ground.
Get out there and meet other Bitcoiners.
A huge shill for Club Orange.
They rebranded from Orange Pill app.
Mateo's got the word pill out the title.
That was bugging him a lot.
So Club Orange is now the place that you can go and find all your local events.
You can find your local Bitcoiners.
You can start using a wallet.
You can face zap on a video call.
That is the coolest thing.
If you've not done that yet, open Club Orange.
Hit the little phone button on the top right.
Make a video call to someone you know.
And just tap their face.
And you will see.
You will see the magic happen.
It's such a cool little feature.
Just something.
I mean, for shits and gigs, I suppose, but it's cool.
You can just do things, right?
So go check it out, Club Orange.
Link in the show notes.
Go get yourself a membership.
Yes, it's a paid membership, guys.
Seriously, if it's free, you are the product.
That's not the Bitcoin ethos.
So get over to Club Orange.
Link in the show notes.
Stack your sats with Relay, R-E-L-A-I.C-H,
and take self-custody with Bitbox, as I said.
pay with flash again i gave them a nice shill at the beginning here because square
are rolling out like this bitcoin is becoming a medium exchange you cannot stop that idea
like you will not stop that idea like simon was saying here in the um towards the front of um
towards the beginning of this podcast about how people say you don't you'll never need to sell
your bitcoin um that's a narrative bitcoin is and always will be money and money is a medium
exchange that's how we as human beings exchange value and communicate value across time and space
to each other and we've stumbled onto this bitcoin thing this discovery the hardest money our species
has ever known which is going to unlock abundance in all forms whatever like the mind boggles and
if we're not using it as a meme exchange
I don't know, I don't even want to think of
the dystopia that we'll end up in if
this whole thing fails, but it won't, it's inevitable
what was I going to say next
shout out to a good friend of mine
who has started a company, she was talking about this
at a few of the conferences this year
Glock.me, G-L-O-K.me
If you are concerned about physical well-being or being targeted as a Bitcoiner, then this is probably the best place that you can start.
So get over and have a look at Glock.me, G-L-O-K.me for your peace of mind.
Basalto Fund, that's run by Andre Loja out of Madeira.
He's also going to be at Manchester this weekend talking about this fund.
If you're looking to diversify into different passports, different jurisdictions, run a little bit of red flag theory.
Red flag theory.
A small Freudian slip, I suppose.
It's called flag theory when you have different passports, different jurisdictions, different countries.
So Basalto Fund, go check them out.
Link in the show notes.
You can listen to my interview with Andre
if you just scroll back a few episodes there
and find out all about it.
With all that said, I'm out of music.
I'm out of time.
If you're coming to Manchester, we're looking forward to it.
Catch you on the next show.