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 on today's show is SatsScholar is the name he goes by on Twitter and you can get over
there and follow him straight away or X whatever you want to call it. I'm sure there are still many
Twitter maxis out there that have not yet switched to calling it X but there you go.
It's at SatsScholar.
And well, you'll find out the reason why we connected and what we had to talk about here.
But I do love doing these shows whereby you get exposed to perhaps people you've never heard of in the Bitcoin space.
They're not that well known just from their tweets, maybe not even following them.
So get over and follow and reach out and keep connecting.
That's all we can do, especially after this year of craziness in Bitcoin.
Keep connecting, keep learning, keep educating others as best you can.
Stay humble, stack sat, self-custody your Bitcoin.
That has to be the mantra.
We have to assume that the people coming behind us don't know that yet.
And we have to keep banging the table with that.
It's the most important thing people can do is just get their Bitcoin and get control of their Bitcoin.
Take control.
Get your private keys.
The best way to do that is head over to bitbox.swiss forward slash bitten.
Get yourself a hardware device.
You can use the code bitten.
5% discount on the Bitbox O2 or the Bitbox Nova.
Bitcoin only edition of the Bitbox.
And yes, put that straight on top of your Christmas list.
in case someone's going to run out and get you a late gift,
or make it your New Year's resolution to self-custody your Bitcoin.
You can set up dollar-cost averaging,
which again, over time, is playing out to be the best strategy.
You can get over to Relai, R-E-L-A-I.ch forward slash bits,
and download the app today.
In fact, the last episode is with the co-founder of Relai
and the current CEO, that's Julian Linegar.
so you can go back and listen to that and yeah you can download the app and the wallet is built
in you're going to get your word so you have a loodial title learn that word a loodial title
a-l-l-o-d-i-a-l and you own the bitcoin or to be more specific you are the only one that would
ever be able to move that bitcoin again so keep the education ticking over as you move into 2026
you can stack with different companies but you know depending because relay serve europe they're
across europe so if you're not listening from that jurisdiction then find out who is the bitcoin only
exchange or a bitcoin only app where you can start stacking your sats uh do it in the most
private way you possibly can obviously peer-to-peer is the best way to do that and you can find your
local bitcoiners that's easy now that's solved club orange used to be orange pill app pivoted
the name to Club Orange almost 20,000 users active users daily that you can connect with
the best thing to do is just hit the link in the show notes set yourself up an account
buy a year's membership try it out for a year yes we have to support the builders here in Bitcoin
and yes it is a paid app because if it was free then you would be the product
there are no ads there is no tracking you can sign up with a burner email
and you can start connecting with Bitcoiners
and you can even load a NIM account.
It doesn't have to be your account.
It doesn't have to be your picture.
However you want to work this, right?
I'm happy to just join it as myself.
So if you join Orange Pill App, hit me up in the DMs.
You can play around with the wallet.
You can GeoZap people.
It's got a great feature now where you can do calls.
So if you DM each other and you just want to grab hold of each other quickly, sort out a meetup, you can do a face call.
You can do just a normal call.
And you can zap each other on the face call as well, which is, you know, why not?
You can just build things.
So Club Orange, get over to it.
If you want to start accepting Bitcoin for your goods and services, paywithflash.com have got you.
That is also solved.
Get over there.
Support the guys.
Use the tech.
Play around with it.
Give them feedback.
and start invoicing, sending invoices out in Bitcoin to the people that you are interacting
with. And that's a great way for you to start educating your clients about Bitcoin.
What's left to say? Not much other than I wish everybody here a Merry Christmas at time of drop.
We're getting very close. So, you know, enjoy some time with your family. I hope you have a great
break, go into the new year. Like I said, full guns blazing, set up your dollar cost average if
you haven't already, and please take control of your Bitcoin. You are the only one that should
have the keys to that Bitcoin. With all that said, I hope you enjoy this episode with Sats Scholar.
All right, we are recording. Sats Scholar, nice to meet you.
Definitely nice to meet you, Daniel. How are you?
Very well, thank you.
Very well.
Looking forward to this one.
Lauren has just walked in to ask you the first question.
So I will let her lead off.
Awesome.
Hi.
So I have a bit of a classic question today,
but what is your favorite thing about Bitcoin?
Ooh, that's a great question.
My favorite thing about Bitcoin is the decentralized nature.
to be completely clear. The fact that it's kind of everywhere and nowhere all at once, right? That
it's this thing that you can kind of touch, right? If you have your hardware wallet, but you kind of
can't. It's somewhere in Thailand. It's somewhere in Japan. It's somewhere in the United States.
It's somewhere in the UK. It's all these places, but yet it's kind of nowhere at the same time.
And how that is part of its strength, right? How that makes it so robust, that decentralized nature.
that's absolutely my favorite part.
And hopefully that will be its strength
for many, many hundreds of years to come.
Was that one of the main epiphany drops for you
when you were on your rabbit hole journey?
Yeah, I'd say it was up there as an epiphany drop for sure.
It was when I realized, you know,
and to be clear, like I would like to be
a little bit more decentralized.
Like I would like to see more nodes
and more miners. But just when I first saw the first map of the miner distribution network,
I was just like, oh, okay, it's like that. Like, you know, it's something where, you know,
I can't just, you know, attack this. I can't just, you know, do something here that affects it over
there. I just can't do that. And then, you know, going down that decentralized nature of how people
treat these nodes, which wound up to how I treat the nodes as well, right? About like storing
in ferretty cages, hard drives with the blockchains up to certain block heights. You know,
there's really, once I realized that, I was like, there's just no way to really kill this. I mean,
you would have to have some sort of global catastrophic event in order to stop this.
As long as society continues on its general trajectory, this will continue. So yeah,
that was a major, it was a major epiphany. I put it up there in the top five.
All right. Excellent. Lauren, any follow-up questions?
I wasn't prepared for this.
He literally walked in and was like, Lauren, we have a podcast.
I'm like, ah!
I don't think so. If you want to ask me a question, then you can.
But if not, then that's good.
Well, I want to throw that same question back to you.
What was one of your big aha moments?
What do you think is its biggest strength?
Its biggest strength, I think, is the connection between people and how people are so just willing to help other people understand things about Bitcoin.
And I feel like that's a very important thing because Bitcoin cannot grow without the people.
Yeah, that's a great one. It really does bring out that, you know, ingrained altruistic nature of humans.
I would have to agree with you.
and that's a 14 year old picking up on that that's awesome that's awesome my daughter just turned 10
um and i'm i'm completely bringing her down the rabbit hole with me i've been teaching her
about hard money and everything so great job dad well it wasn't me it was no it no they ignored me
fully ignore you like we listened but we didn't at the same time if you get what i mean so the
great unlock the great unlock actually for for the rest of the family was to be around other
bitcoiners was to take them to the meetups to take them to the conferences uh so all of a sudden
it was real like it wasn't just me talking about some esoteric shit at dinner
there was all of a sudden other kids out there there were other women out there other wives
long wives uh there were other uh you know crazy men that would all sit around at these conferences uh but but the best thing is everybody would just be open and like lauren sat down to
have an hour and a half conversation with 43 year old men at a conference about the deepest
about the deepest most esoteric stuff uh you know and she includes these people as her friends now
like roger 9000 is a perfect example uh yeah yeah the conversations you can get into
and canute obviously we've got close with canute and his family um yeah you find yourself i love it
i i'm at an event and i look across the room and one of the kids is in like this really deep
conversation with another grown adult you know oh wow like you can't undo that yeah but now that's
Awesome.
Sorry.
Now we go to like conferences.
I'm like, oh, I know that person.
So then you get like stops every like 10 minutes, which is lovely.
But you get stopped every 10 minutes, like saying hi.
And it's, yeah, it's really nice.
That's kind of a similar story with what happened to my mother.
You know, we own a family business here and we work together a lot.
And I just have like usually a Bitcoin podcast playing in the background.
So I never actually orange-pilled her.
Just her just absorbing the information in the background.
She orange-filled herself.
And I started bringing her to the local meetups here.
And it was just a similar thing.
And so now she's a Bitcoiner.
My stepfather is mining Bitcoin.
I've got my daughter.
It's amazing how it just kind of like seeps into people.
Once that little bug is in, they're just like, oh.
And then they can't get enough of it.
Yep.
It's a classic story.
I was going to say planting the seed.
Yeah.
so anyone listening get your get your wives girlfriends kids mothers aunties uncles whoever
it is get them to the next meetup or a conference somehow but like obviously like don't force them
that much because if you force too much then they want to resent it's it's like yeah but you can make
a road trip of it you know a nice here in europe it's great you know hey who wants to come to prague
for the weekend they're like yeah yeah sounds great so you mix in a little bit of family time
oh and by the way we got this two-day conference thing going on so
that's awesome yeah all right well thank you lauren yeah thank you for having me and thank
you for answering my question yeah no problem all right thank you bye bye all right sat scholar um
As we were saying just before we hit record, we kind of connected a few months back when the kind of not core debate.
It was heating up then. It's gone, you know, nuclear now since the new proposal and everything else.
But way back in the day when. It was much more meme warfare back in those days.
and a lot of the memes were humorous, let's say,
rather than purely toxic.
And we hadn't really started the character assassinations
that have now been wielded, which is really kind of sad to see.
And I just gravitated towards some of the stuff
that you were putting out there
because you've kind of taken this stance
that rather than kind of enter into the dunking ring,
I'm going to do my best to put out threads
that I believe are educational
and people are going to get a lot from
and be able to make more of an informed decision
on which side of the fence they sit
just by using the facts.
And I really like that approach.
Thank you.
So I just wonder now, how active had you been up until that point of like this debate kind of starting to creep in and divide?
Active like in the Nats crowd or just in Bitcoin in general?
Just in Bitcoin in general, like the Twittersphere.
And because like, you know, we all follow so many different people.
Yeah.
I don't think I'd seen your account until that point.
So I just wonder, you know, did something draw you in to make you more active?
Were you lurking before?
Were you busy ship posting and we were just kind of like two ships passing in a night?
Well, I'll be honest.
I started the account, mostly I was kind of pushed to do it.
You know, I found, you know, because of the Orange Pill app, I found my first local meetup.
And there's some pretty, you know, there's some developers that go to this meetup.
And then there's some OGs that go there.
and I'm not like, I'm not super technical,
but I'm not un-technical, if that makes sense.
And I would talk to the developers a lot
and they would keep telling me like,
you know, you should have a presence online.
And so I made one and I was just starting off
just, you know, posting Bitcoin facts,
little bits about the history,
kind of, you know, snippets of how, you know,
Merkle trees work and things like that, right?
Little educational things.
I wasn't trying to be like a full-on educational individual,
at least not at first.
you know i i don't think i could rise up to the standards of say like you know um btc sessions
or somebody like that um but i wanted to hit like different different things that people weren't quite
talking about um and then um then everything kind of started getting crazy with um the op-term wars
and i started speaking up like that and my account kind of blew up after that um and i was just trying
to point out like from from and again it's all just my opinions whether i'm right or wrong whether
people agree or not just from my opinion and my viewpoint what what was more of like a cypherpunk
take on how these things were really working and what some of the the truth and and not lies but
like just inaccuracies were and i like i said i put it in a couple threads they gained a ton of
traction and um and then i kind of just you know i kind of started stepping back a little bit i i
pushed a lot of people to run knots in the beginning um and then i put out enough information
for people to just kind of choose, right?
Like at the end of the day,
the right to run whatever software you want to run
is your right,
whether it's Nots or Core or an older version
or even Libitcoin,
a separate implementation altogether, right?
Or heck, compile your own from scratch and run it, right?
As long as it's consensus valid.
So my goal too is just to get more nodes out there.
Like we were talking in the beginning of the conversation,
And you look at the node map, look at like Central and Southern Africa, there's almost no nodes, right?
Same thing for South America.
So, you know, we have work to do as Bitcoiners who are trying to push this to get more people to run nodes and get the network more robust.
And then a lot of this comes down to whether or not what we're seeing is like a governance issue, right?
because if this is a thousand-year asset and a thousand-year chain,
what does a thousand-year governance model look like?
I'm not exactly sure, but I'm leaning towards
acts and acts on GitHub is really not accurate.
How do people in, let's say, Thailand or the Congo,
how do they advocate for what they want to see on the chain?
What gives a group of people living in New York City
the right to dictate policy and consensus to a global asset?
I'm not sure what the answer is,
But I think what we're seeing right now is the first shakeups and the first pushbacks of what could be possibly a new governance system emerging.
It's a weird time.
You know, I empathize with newbies here, like class of 24 and 25 have walked into like a real shitstorm of stuff, not just with the upsized wars.
and you know i have empathy here because i sat through the block size wars like had no
fucking idea what was going on like no clue like but what these guys i was just literally lurking
on twitter thinking who on earth am i supposed to be following on this one uh didn't understand
any of the uh like the the acronyms or the parlance that was being used and everything
was changing so quickly and then the battles got really very vicious uh yeah even worse than this
oh yeah you know and if you're if you're a new bitcoiner uh if you've been around if you've not
been through a cycle even uh you've got this going on um you might not even be running a node and
And this could be like the word node could be new language to you.
So you've got this going on.
You've got the Bitcoin treasury companies springing up out of left field, all over the place, all over different countries with different strategies and different reasons.
And, you know, that kind of harkens back to those around you compare it to the ICO craze, because then you had a new ICO every single day.
Like, okay, what's this doing?
And if you hadn't found that conviction, if you didn't know Bitcoin was the thing and you hadn't read, when did Parker publish Bitcoin, not blockchain?
Because that was one of those clicking pieces of the puzzle for me.
It's a worrying time because so many people are new and so many people don't know exactly what's going on.
So having those threads that you were putting out there, I think, well, I hope a lot of like the newer people managed to kind of at least plug in that little bit of knowledge to help them gain the conviction that they're on the right path.
And, you know, Bitcoin, we're going to have these arguments.
In the end, it won't die because of this.
Right.
But yeah you know so well done Thank you is the message here Where do you think we headed now I kind of taken my eye off the ball a little bit
We've been doing a bit of traveling.
And to be honest, it was getting really exhausting.
And here's another thing, right?
A lot of it does go over your head, even if you've been in the space a long time.
There's certain elements and technical arguments that you just can't engage with.
uh and because like you don't have that that knowledge but and this is what the other side
of the debate would say so you got one one side saying you guys aren't technical enough to
understand we shouldn't bow to that because i think the the the answer there is oh should we
just trust you bro which we all know isn't the correct right right yeah so it becomes like a
almost a mission of teaching, right?
Even from the other side,
like that's something that, you know,
I think core needs to figure out a lot of is,
you know, they're saying, you know,
you guys aren't technical enough
or you guys just don't understand this.
This is how we're going to do it.
Well, then teach it.
Like lay it all out piece by piece and explain it.
And then if you do and people don't get it,
just don't just say, well, you don't understand.
No, explain it differently, right?
Like different words for different people. People absorb information in different means.
So you have to approach, you know, each student in a particular method. Right.
You know, blanket ways of teaching don't work. So, you know, if you have a communication issue core, you know, think about that, work on that, figure it out.
Now, they tried with that letter. Right. Which completely backfired on them.
and that's, you know, neither here nor there.
But the answer then is not to go silent and push, right?
The answer then is to put out another letter,
keep talking, keep the conversation moving,
lay out all the pros and cons and put it all forward.
And, you know, and not to mention there is other pros as well
for having, you know, a second or even third or client.
And then to your question of like, where are we right now?
I did back out a little bit as well from the fight because I was exhausted.
As I said, I own a small business and work just got overwhelming.
And, you know, I got to focus on what feeds me, right?
And, you know, I kind of backed out of a lot of the fight.
And, you know, but I'm still looking at it.
I'm still in a lot of DMs.
And I think where we're going now is we're going to see, you know,
a lot of other competing implementations.
I know Samson Mal was working on one.
When that's going to be out, I'm not sure.
I know of another one that's being worked on.
You know, blood has been drawn, so to speak, on core.
And that's, you know, for better or worse, right?
Because it's done.
It's done now.
So now, you know, the community has to move forward and figure that out.
You know, what does that mean now?
What does a network that, you know, previously never had multiple implementations now has
multiple implementations?
What does that look like?
And what does that mean?
What does that mean for ossification?
What does it mean for soft forks?
What does that mean for, you know, hard forks now?
you know uh here's a con for multiple implementations let's say the quantum threat
um is real and comes up tomorrow and we got to go with the bit let's say it's bit 360 right we
gotta we gotta push that out it's got to be here now well now you have to not only coordinate core
but knots and any potential third and third or fourth implementation so it makes emergency updates
difficult um so you know pros and cons right so where are you where are we right now well
they've got um it's technically it's you know community wise named bit 444 they're working on
that uh i believe it's gone through its second rewrite and uh i think the maintainers are looking
at it um there's of course a lot of pushback on that which you know that's to be expected
and we're gonna have to see how that plays out and you know whether or not that gets uh any kind
attraction i'm not sure to be honest with you um i think if it gets a little bit of traction in the
pools um prisoner's dilemma might kick in and it might it might go through uh but whether or not
it gets minor support is uh that's to be decided yeah and these things can take years um absolutely
which is by design that's a feature not a bug
mm-hmm i just wonder how how clear that is for some people because some of these bips have been
around like for years and are still reiterated upon oh yeah um oh yeah there's there's a lot
even controversial bips um like uh the drive change bips uh three uh three three hundred and
301 i think are the numbers um that's been around for jeez i don't even know seven eight years now
it's been rewritten, you know, BIPs can stay for a long time. And, you know, this type of software
can stay as a BIP for a very long time. And again, yeah, that's a feature. And people, I would say to
this that, you know, people who are worried and concerned, you know, that's okay. It's okay to be
worried and concerned. I would say try not to be, right? Because these features of the decentralized
network that we spoke about earlier, these are its strengths, right? You don't want this system
to be able to have, you know, quick updates. You don't want it to be able to have even automatic
updates or things that happen quickly, unless, of course, the entire community agrees overnight,
like let's say the quantum threat, right? You want these things to move slowly with precision and
thought and nuance um you want large discussions to go around it and and perhaps that was part of
the problem with lifting the opera turn like maybe it didn't go through the length of discussion
that the community wanted and uh and and now now here we are is this the result of moving something
too fast you know possibly and actually it's just dawned on me are we are we guilty ourselves of uh
not not explaining what BIP stands for for those people that are listening and might wonder
we are yes look at and see you get caught up right you get caught up um BIP uh Bitcoin
improvement um proposal uh that's what that's what BIP stands for and then they get numbered
uh uh I forget who numbers them but um there's the maintainers number them accordingly with how
they're released and they go through this you know kind of like a check and balance where
they go through the mailing list and they get talked about uh about you know how the technicals
and things like that and you know they often get rewritten multiple times um and it's all just part
of the process and it's part of the process that we want and we want to maintain yeah 100 percent
uh i'm i'm just trying to find out how many open bips there are at the moment um i wouldn't know
would you have any question i don't know that might be i'm just being told notable notable
open bips uh three two four focuses on encrypted peer-to-peer communication four four four is uh
the latest one proposes a soft fork to limit non-financial data in transactions and bip one
one eight so we're going all the way back to one eighteen uh lays the groundwork for future layer
to flexibility so like you know this is how long these things can linger these ideas
yeah they can linger a long time and again like like all of that is part of that governance model
that i was talking about right like that's that that purposely done slow thing um because sometimes
you know if somebody comes up with a bip right and maybe they're a little forward thinking right
in how this BIP works.
Like, for example, the encrypted communications, right?
Maybe there's just no need for that right now.
So, you know, they create the BIP,
whoever that person was, they put it out there,
it gets numbered, it gets discussed, right?
And then if and when the need arises,
we have it and we can merge the code.
So all of that is another reason
why you want these things to just kind of
be able to be put out there in the ether, so to speak,
where people can learn about them, read about them, and make decisions on them.
So you said you've got a small business in fiat land.
I'm always interested in people's journey to finding Bitcoin.
What was life looking like for you pre-Bitcoin?
So pre-Bitcoin, I got into Bitcoin.
I first learned about Bitcoin in, it was around 2015 at a Freedom to Connect conference is when I first learned about it.
But I didn't really, you know, know what it was at that point.
So I didn't start like buying Bitcoin until sometime in 2016, 2017.
That's when I started buying it.
And again, I wasn't buying whole coin.
I was buying a dollar, two dollars.
but I was into hard money and you know financial systems since I was a child I was I was um I
inherited my grandfather's silver collection when I was very young uh and it wasn't much it was you
know a very small safe's worth you know a couple hundred dollars worth of silver but it was all
American silver coins and you know I was able to you know track in my hands what what they were
right you can see the debasement of the currency you can hold it you can actually physically hold
the debasement of the currency in your hands. So I started learning about that very early on.
And so my path was almost like fatalistic in a way. And when I started combining my knowledge of,
you know, the government and, you know, my anti-government stances as, you know,
like a libertarian and my understandings of, you know, the fiat system from when I was a child,
that kind of clicked in
like again late 2016
early 2017
when there was no like one thing right it was just like it was kind of like death by a thousand cuts if that makes sense it was just like a little bit a little bit a little bit a little bit and and then finally one day I was like this is it like like this this is it there there is nothing else
this solves all the problems and I'm not sure if that answered your question because my journey was
just so it was so fragmented on on the way there right it was not a a single point but prior to
that I was um I didn't we didn't own the small business yet I was uh working in fiat land um
I was actually uh working in aviation at the time and uh so I I I learned to see you know a lot of
the the technical and what I did in the aviation was was pretty technical stuff right you know it
It was all with the computer flight systems and things like that.
And so taking that knowledge into the Bitcoin land was also just like a no-brainer.
It all just kind of flowed for me.
And then the small business grew out of, again, my libertarian ethos.
Full disclosure, I don't work well for others.
I often think that I can do the job better than the way my boss wants the job done.
And one day I put my money where my mouth was. I started a small business with my mother and now it's been 12 years.
So that's that's not aviation related anymore. No, it is not. I completely left the aviation field.
Wow. So now running a small business, you must see like the importance.
So and this is, you know, like I said earlier, we've got all of these Bitcoin treasury companies being announced.
And I want people to understand the difference that I define, like what a pure Bitcoin treasury play company is,
is a company that's just mining the fiat debt markets
with financial engineering wizardry
that is actually rather feeding the beast
rather than starving it as they try and convince you.
Because by engaging with it,
you are vis-a-vis feeding it and making it stronger,
almost validating the fiat system rather than draining it.
Whereas if you're a small family business
putting monthly profits from fiat into Bitcoin is starving the beast. That is the only way that
you and your family will have that business still around in 15 to 25 years time. Because by design,
the system, whether you get regulated out of business through different policy changes,
whether you get monopolized out of business because the bigger fish just come along and
gobble you all up because you're not able to protect yourselves because you you can't
you can't you know uh your your purchasing power is devalued over time uh you you don't have the
best access to the talent that you need because they're getting hired by yeah that the big guys
out there that can well not only that you you're competing with uh in your case the u.s government
for labor with the minimum wage requirements.
So people get to sit at home for X amount,
you know, rather than actually get out to work.
It's a nightmare.
And the only way you can protect yourself against that
is by using monthly profits to buy Bitcoin
to put on your family balance sheet,
which makes you a Bitcoin treasury company in a sense.
I couldn't agree more with everything you just said.
Jeff Booth speaks about that a lot.
You know, how anything you do
where you participate in the old system just continues to strengthen it and and limp and have
itself you know limp along you know when in reality we should be opting out of that system
and that is what i do you know i i purchase bitcoin i have daily not daily buys but i have
weekly buys i have monthly buys and anytime we get like a large job and there's a good chunk of
profit left over uh if i don't have any um you know uh outstanding credit from that job um i just
buy Bitcoin with it. And that's all I do. I don't mess around. I don't own any stocks. I don't own,
you know, I don't have a 401k. I don't have a savings account. I just have Bitcoin. And I refuse.
I refuse to take part in a system that I know is crumbling, a system that I know cannot sustain
itself, right? You know, a system that's, you know, valuing itself in something that is continuously
losing value. It's, you know, it's like people talk about this all the time,
trying to build a house with a tape measure that constantly changes the measurements on it. You
can't. It's impossible. And that's what the fiat system and that's what they're doing.
So I completely agree with you. And that, you know, small businesses are so important to economies
with how they operate. You know, I've been proud of what we've done. We've had full-time employees
that have had benefits, right?
So these people, they lived off of the income
that my business generated, right?
They paid their mortgage.
They bought food.
They went on vacations with my benefits.
Like my company did that.
And I'm not a big company.
We're pretty small.
And I'm proud to say that I've been able to do that
for people and provide that for people.
and, you know, keep not giving into the systems that exist,
not giving into that system that steals wealth from individuals.
I hate it. I can't stand it.
I think it's just evil. That's what I do.
I actually think it's evil.
Yeah. So do I.
People, you know, people will say,
oh, well, you know, the path to hell is paved with good intentions
and it's just one misaligned incentive after another
and there's no great evil plan
and there are no overlords and whatever else.
I'm like, no, Paul Wahlberg knew what he was doing.
He knew exactly what he was doing
when he set this thing up in a secret meeting
with six other guys.
They knew what they,
they 100% knew what they were trying to achieve.
Oh yeah, these are not stupid people.
I mean, that's another,
a lot of people don't give enough credence
and respect to those individuals, right?
Like these are not stupid people that run these systems.
They're highly intelligent.
They know what they're doing.
They understand the game.
They understand the consequences.
And they're very adept in providing, you know,
solutions that benefit themselves and their friends.
That's an absolute fact.
To think that, you know, well, you know,
we're just going to, you know, ascribe it to incompetence.
I don't think so.
I've never bought that and I never will.
No, 100%.
And I think we got to get back more to that line of thinking.
I think we're losing that because people have been bedazzled
by the corporate treasury structures that have proliferated
over the last year or so.
And I think we need deeper thought over this, dare I say,
critical thinking or conspiratorial thoughts and get back to basics look at how this was how this
whole system was fundamentally but what were the foundations of this whole system go back to that
and yeah yeah it's thievery murder coercion uh like it's it's all of those things uh population
control eugenics uh societal control um through the mechanism of controlling people with
monetary policy because like you say these these people are so damn good at doing and they they
they unfortunately have a very very low time preference you know that they'll have an idea
10 to 15 years in advance and then start laying the plans and the narratives uh and and the
policies to to be able to execute on those ideas when time comes and get the people the right people
in place to help them execute that uh absolutely absolutely and you know it's a tale as old as time
right i mean if you look back at all these you know whether they're you know full-on civilizations
or countries it's the same playbook over and over again right it's it's not like this is new either
you know uh it goes all the way back to rome some some people argue even back to like the ancient
egypt you know like how did their systems work we don't have as much details but you know we do know
Rome, you know, they debased their currencies and they did that very strategically in ways to,
you know, keep funding their troops to keep the wars on and expand their empires. It's the same
playbook over and over and over again. Yeah, I mean, the Bank of England was formed by the
Dutch royal family who managed to usurp the then sitting king, get their own king involved and in
power, William of Orange, to set up the Bank of England in order to then create the narrative on
why they needed to go back to war with France. So it was a gold acquiring vehicle. The Bank of
England was set up to do that, to issue loads of credit and whatever else, divide and conquer,
just to grab the gold. And when you look at what's happening today with the amount of
different ways now that are available for um those in power to to grab or to attract bitcoin
or to attract fiat to be able to uh you know accrue bitcoin with that and whether that's
an etf i think there are 11 over there in the states uh there's there's a smattering there's
handfuls over here in the europe in europe um that's directly targeted at uh player pension
money, basically. Bitcoin is pension money, like specifically trapped Bitcoin pension money,
because retail don't care. Like grandpa who's sitting there with a diversified portfolio,
you know, X amount bonds, X amount stocks, isn't pivoting to a Bitcoin fucking penny stock
anytime soon. These are the stories we're told that all of this trapped capital and the bond market
and whatever else.
is going to come and it's just a matter of time.
And then we have the loaning products
that are being spun up as well
that is attracting Bitcoin into honeypots
from what I can tell.
Oh, yes.
And we already had a problem already with lava.
Yeah.
Again, it's a tale as old as time.
I mean, you know, the Bitcoin honeypots,
that goes all the way back to um mount cox right so it's a people people don't learn i mean and
that's part of what i'm trying to do well i i as much as i can i guess is that that bit of education
to try to get that out there right you know uh to understand like hey listen you know like
there are options you know understand your risks here you know people people get caught up you know
They call it the fiat mind virus, and it sure does wiggle into people's brains.
And you might have all this Bitcoin, but then when you hear you can get a 4% loan and you've got, let's say, 10 Bitcoin, that's a lot of cash.
And that's hard for some people to say no to.
And then what happens? The system blows up. Something blows up, and it's just inevitable.
I have to do better at educating about that if that's what I'm here to do.
and all of us need to do better about that
is try to tell people,
get them to understand like,
hey, the issues that we've had
for hundreds of years,
you're just adding to those issues.
We want to stop those issues.
We want to actually move towards a better world.
We want to actually build
a better world for our children.
I don't want my daughter
to have to go through
back-to-back financial crises again.
I don't want endless wars in the Middle East again.
I want these things to actually come to an end.
And I think Bitcoin is the solution to that.
But it's a tool.
And whether or not we use that tool or use it appropriately, it's still up in the air.
So why were you naturally drawn towards the educational side of things?
Was this something that you've ever taught before?
I've taught martial arts a long time ago.
There's that.
But I don't know.
I'm not sure if I can answer that.
I've seemed to have answered questions for people.
And people are just like, you know, you should talk more about this.
And I'm much better with writing than I am with my spoken words.
You know, when I write something down, I can read it back to myself
and I can edit it. And people just gravitate towards that. And, you know, and it's not that
I think I'm right with a lot of this stuff, right? I'm parsing what I think are right opinions. And
then I'm parsing those together and putting them together for people. And I just, I just feel like
it's something I need to do. I can't really explain it. Honestly, I can't really explain it.
I just feel like I need to be out there, you know, shouting from the mountaintop, like, hey,
listen, look at this, you know, um, cause if I don't, who does that's, it's, it's kind of hard
for me to explain a calling. Maybe. I don't know. That's a, that's a great question, man. I don't
know if I can answer it properly. Um, wow. Uh, yeah, it's just, there's just this, this, this
urge in me to try to get these words out there and, you know, have people, you know, understand
that the problems that they think they're seeing are not really those problems, right?
That there's layers and there's things.
I just had a conversation this morning actually about all this.
And they were trying to blame, you know, political parties, this one or that one for spending
and things like that.
And I was trying to explain to them, like, that's not really what's happening, right?
Like, the debt-based system requires the spending, you know, because I think we've just been
lied to our whole lives, right? We've just been lied to about how all these systems really work.
And again, going back to those people who are very intelligent, they know the truth. And that's why
the system works so well for them. And why does it not work for other people? Because they're lying
to us. Like they're lying. Because if they told you the truth, you would use the system to your
advantage as well. And then that would disadvantage them. Like it's just, it's game theory. So I don't
know if that answers your question that was a great question man um and and it's just yeah it's
maybe it's destiny i have no idea it's a great question it's something that you know i've had a
conversation with many authors about like nobody are you thinking about doing a book actually the
next question i've been thinking about writing articles i've been thinking about um i have
thought about doing like um not a book book but like a thesis um um like maybe turn it into a book
uh but i have been really thinking about doing um articles about um deflationary um systems like
people keep talking what you know why is the um system actually deflationary like what's actually
happening right and there's i keep i keep posing this question you know what's it cost to flip a
bit, right? Like at the end of the day, that's the final cost value for Bitcoin, right? Is when
you're flipping these bits and there's, there's actual limits to like the, the wattage that goes
into that, that, that, that has to happen. And when you break all these things down, like that's
your finality of value, right? You know, so it's like, well, what's, what's, you know, when I send
a thousand Bitcoin over there, you know, what's that value? What's the cost to flip a bit, right?
And that goes down to all things digital, spitting up an AI.
Why are altcoins garbage?
Because what's it cost to flip a bit?
It's almost nothing and it's going to continue to go to nothing.
And then moving towards post-scarcity, right?
I think Bitcoin is the only thing that can move us towards post-scarcity.
That's the thesis that I want to write.
And breaking it all down into steps.
And now, there's no guarantee that we get to post-scarcity.
We could totally move towards a cyberpunk dystopia.
But we don't get post-scarcity without Bitcoin.
You just don't.
It's just not possible.
So I have been thinking about expanding my writing at least to articles and theses maybe to books Books are you know with my business books are a lot and they take a lot of time and effort And I not sure I have the ability to do that
But I would like to expand into articles.
Articles would be great.
You know, we have – there are obviously some great writers in the space,
but never enough.
And I don't know – I mean, it's different for everybody.
you read a certain article at a certain time this is why i've been doing these uh like well i i meant
to do daily posts but it turned out like that was not gonna happen so i'm just doing a post whenever
i can as often as i can like the uh the i member posts uh and i'm just um referencing those articles
or those podcasts or those youtube videos or whatever it is whatever the content that helped
me along my way and unlock me in my own certain way and content that people one have either
forgotten about maybe they saw at the same time as i did or two have just not been exposed to
because there was a load of like the proliferation of of the written word really started around
2018 to 2021 2022 obviously the lock uh the lockdowns helped uh the back end of that that
range of time there.
But it really started exploding.
And I'd love to see that happen again.
We need more articles.
Yeah, for sure.
So do it.
It would be so cool.
I'm going to try.
And then I'm going to...
I don't want to get paid for it either.
I know a lot of people, they want to write articles and get money.
I have business.
It makes money.
I have Bitcoin.
I buy Bitcoin.
I don't need to make money off of any of this.
And that's another reason why I wanted to stay.
pseudo anonymous because people would then well i'll pay for this or i'll do this nope you can't
because you can't pay me if i if i don't give you my name you can't pay me right like i can give you
a bitcoin address i guess and you could put put funds into that and that's fine because nobody
knows that but um i would just do it for free like i just i don't i mean i i i don't i'm not
on twitter to get monetized you know um if i ever make a nice youtube channel like i'm i'm not gonna
get sponsors. I don't, I think that again, like that's almost like Fiat games, right? Like you're,
you're, if my goal is to make money by getting words out there, then the money can
affect that goal. If that makes sense. I don't, I don't want to do that. I want,
I want my words to stay as, as pure to what they're supposed to be as possible. So I'm going
to try i want to reach out to a couple of magazines um or or you know if i have to if i have to pay to
up my um twitter to do the articles on twitter uh maybe i'll do that or start a blog um uh something
something like that because i i don't know how to that was the other problem with the book that i
was thinking about um i don't know how to publish the book under a pseudonym you know because they're
going to want to pay me which like i would i don't i don't care to get paid like so i don't i don't
know how to do that unless i just self-publish and and just mail it out myself and just i don't
know have like staples bind it or something like that i could do something like that yeah um but
that might limit the audience but that's okay you know that's okay if it limits it um well i got one
for you it's solved you'll be happy to know uh and i've got a uh an interview with simon coming
about it um it's called fanfares.io and it's a place where writers can go and publish their work
over there obviously you could just do threads on Noster and people can zap you that's great
no problem at all um but with fanfares which is Noster native as well uh you can actually just put
the the articles up there for for purchase if people like you know the first page or so and
then they can value for value send you some uh some sats to unlock the rest of the article
uh simon's even done his own book he's written a book and he he did the audio so he can upload
audio to that as well uh oh my god friend of uh a friend of ours um aj she's been inspired to
write poetry and she didn't want to self-publish she didn't want to go down the the fiat route and
didn't want to do a substack or medium or anything like that was just going to put it out on nostr
and hope some zaps came in but yeah she's going to go and even read that out on fanfares.io
so that's um look no one's going to get showered with sats like that you know yeah the the idea
that you can become rich by writing a book and creating a bestseller and that's all fiat stuff
all of the bestsellers all of the bestsellers are pushed at you because absolutely because that
novel or whatever it is well it fit the agenda or absolutely or it was um commissioned to be
written and uh fit the yeah and people gonna be well no that's not in the case with jk rowling
it's like yeah go down that rabbit hole uh listen you look at all the great like some of the most
greatest things that were ever written right they were was beowulf written for profit did did
Socrates write his writings for profit? No, no. People felt they needed to put this information
to the world. And then because the world valued the information, the information stood the test
of time, right? Like that's what it's about, right? And that's that freedom of creativity.
And when something is truly a work of art, you know, whether it's written word or not,
it stands the test of time. And the, you know, fiat, you know, and not to say that a good work
or it can't appear in the fiat world, it can.
But like you're saying, the fiat world,
it intentionally almost mystifies,
it intentionally clouds what's really out there.
I mean, go through a Barnes & Noble
and look at all just the slop that's in there
and try to find a gem.
It's not easy anymore.
It's not easy.
No, it's not.
It's just all pulp fiction.
Yep.
And it's really difficult to walk through those bookstores.
Even when you go and look up at the, I love going into bookstores, asking the lady at the
front desk, do you have any books about Bitcoin?
Could you just search the word Bitcoin in your database for me?
And like it either a flat no or it some crypto book and you like oh God we still so early This is just so bad Yeah I looking at this fanfare
This is awesome, man.
I'm going to have to check this out.
And this is, see, like these type of things,
like these decentralized things, this is the future.
This is absolutely the future.
That is, I mean, you know, people argue that,
rightfully I would say
that NOSTA is what the internet
was supposed to be
oh yeah for sure
absolutely
for sure
the ability to just kind of
create
I don't know if you remember
the old
Usenet groups from back in the day
NOSTA very much
reminds me of those
right well I hope that helps
And I hope that inspires you and it gives you a platform to get something written and get it out there.
It's interesting that you mentioned Orange Pill App at the beginning of the show here.
I think maybe during your response to Lauren, just gone through the rebrand to Club Orange, which is a fun story.
I sit on the advisory board there.
Mateo started Club Orange three years ago, actually, almost to the day.
and uh he reached out to a handful of people uh just to he he just wanted some people like
as a sounding board like when i have these crazy ideas i need to check with you guys just to make
sure it's not completely and utterly nuts and uh we would just meet on a zoom call once a month
and uh you know this is all unpaid work you know it's just hanging out with bitcoiners
and uh i'm pointing out some things that might be fun some things that would fail and whatever else
So it's been a great journey along with him on that.
But did that unlock you then with the local event?
That's always nice to hear that there are some success stories out there.
It did.
I wouldn't even be on this podcast with you right now if it wasn't for Orange Pill or Club Orange.
Absolutely, I wouldn't.
Because at that point, I don't remember what year it was.
It might have been 2020 or 2021, but I was completely orange pill, right?
I was completely down the rabbit hole, obsessed.
You know, I had my, you know, my nodes up and running, my hardware wallets, my seed signers.
I mean, you name it, I had it going.
And none of my friends were Bitcoiners.
And I tried, I tried, I tried.
They just didn't have it.
I had one buddy who was buying it, but like he wasn't a Bitcoiner.
And I was just like, I got to find some Bitcoiners.
Like I need people that speak my language around me.
And I don't remember how I found at the time the Orange Pill app.
I can't remember how, but I found it.
And, you know, I downloaded it, installed it.
And sure enough, there was a local meetup.
It was just, you know, two cities away from me.
And, you know, I go there and it's a decently sized meetup.
There's usually like five to ten people there.
But I go there and there was only one person there.
but it didn't matter right
because you know that happened to be
you know one of the Bitcoin developers that I know
and
him and I just hit it off
we hit it off and
you know and now I go to the meetup
I go to the meetup constantly so I would
not the Sat
Scholar would not exist
if the Orange Pill app wasn't real and I wouldn't
have found these people that
I consider them friends now
one of them is he's become a good friend and I'm
setting up Bitcoin miners in his house. I set up his node for him. We hang out. He's become a very
good friend of mine. And it's all because of that. It's all because of the community that I was able
to find because of the Orange Pill app. So none of this would have even ever been possible or ever
have happened if this didn't exist. So I'm extremely grateful for it. That's so cool to hear.
And like that, that was the whole premise of that's why he founded the company.
I won't, you know, take words out of Matteo's mouth.
People can go and listen to his story.
But basically, yeah, a lonely dude sitting there, you know,
wife wouldn't listen or entertain the conversation.
Existing friends kind of like, you know,
Homer Simpson backing into the bush when you turn up at the pub sort of thing.
Like, you know, you want to hear about some Bitcoin stuff?
Like, no. Oh God, he's back.
uh so and taking like your your newfound online friends into in real life space uh it is yeah it
it's changed our lives as well um and again you know testament to so the tools that have been built
and to the people that run the meetups whoever you are around the world that's another thing
people can do just lean in just run a meetup just like just start a meetup and and see who's out
there because this is how these ideas spread um yeah it's uh well it's awesome that's that's great
to hear and by the way i think two people have met on orange pill app and and married and that's
awesome even there's even an orange pill app baby which is just uh you know so great so that is great
that two bitcoiners out there found each other fell in love of building a family uh yeah and um
you know uh want to kind of lean towards leaving on a positive note rather than um all this the
screaming and yelling that's going on on the on the socials on the unsocials yeah right so i'm
gonna end it with the usual question okay if you had one orange pill left to give to somebody who
would you give it to and why?
Hmm.
Anybody in the world?
Yeah, man. Anyone. Okay.
Oh.
Oh, that's a
that's a
tough one.
I would give it to my best friend that I've
known since middle
school.
He's the one that he buys Bitcoin,
but he is not a Bitcoiner. And if
If I had one left to give him so that he could see Bitcoin the way I see it the way that other Bitcoins see it so that he could see the world that we all trying to build together I would give it to him because I would love for him to see that world and see my vision and see the potential that Bitcoin brings
So if I had one pill left in the world to give, I would give it to him.
Love it.
Well, thank you so much for coming on and stepping into the ring to do this.
as, you know, just a
playabout there, trying to make a difference in the world.
It means a lot. I love doing these
episodes and
I can't look forward
I am really looking forward
to your first article
and if that turns up
on Fanfares, it's going to be awesome to see
that as well because, you know, that's my
job done then, just connecting
two completely
two complete strangers who are just trying
to add value into the space and
coming together and having that benefit dozens, scores, hundreds, thousands of other people down
the line. Yeah, that's all we're here to do, right? Absolutely. And thank you for having me,
man. This was a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it. And thanks for pushing me because I probably
needed that little bit of push to write the articles. So I appreciate that. All right. Well,
have a great afternoon. Thank you so much. You too, man. Thank you. I'll talk to you soon.
thank you so much sad scholar thank you everybody for listening i hope you enjoyed that one i really
love connecting with people that i i've never heard talk on a pod before uh been enjoying their
their tweets and uh just reaching out and connecting that what like lauren's lauren's
answer at the beginning of the show was everything you need to know right that this is what is
happening we are building out like the social layer of bitcoin we are if bitcoin is nothing
without us and knut's von holm uh has given many talks about this uh around the world the different
conferences that he's been going to uh you know um you know you are your note right if if that
makes sense if not go and listen to knut's show or go and find one of his talks in um the the
interwebs uh it will be on the youtube channel on sure the bitcoin infinity show and um
yeah we are all satoshi but well except one person uh without this ability to meet each other
and start sharing our journeys start sharing our unique perspectives start joining each other to
build out the next thing whether that is and that could be anything like completely anything
so just case in point on Wednesday I met two bitcoiners that live within like a 45 mile
radius of me I'd met one of them in real life before at the Bury St Edmunds event in the UK
and he is designing a bitcoin card game and that's incredible he had a physical bitcoin
card to give to me and the other guy that we were meeting because we were part of the early
supporters club and all we had to do was give him permission to use our avatar or headshot from
from our twitter profile because this is how he's building the game out it's an excellent game it's
really fun and if you're if you're into that kind of stuff go on what go and look at it
BTCG official is the Twitter handle there.
But the point I'm trying to make here is,
you know, we connected over Orange Collab,
which is now Club Orange,
which Sat Scholar did as well.
That's how he found his local people.
He was the Lonely Bitcoiner until that point.
And he gets along to his local Bitcoin meetup
and there's developers there.
Like, you know, that's crazy.
Who, you have no idea who is meeting in your town.
And if they're not in your town, they'll be half an hour away, 45 minutes away.
Believe me, there is someone close to you that is running a Bitcoin meetup.
And when you get there and you meet the people, you might walk in and it's...
I'm going to share a few stories.
Our meetup recently in the southeast of the UK, a young lad shows up, 18 years of age.
He's studying at the local university.
And his father has written a Bitcoin book, which I'd not even heard of.
And I've tried to read them all and interview all the authors.
And this blew my mind.
And he lives over on the west side of the country.
So we've now connected.
And of course, I'm halfway through the book.
And I will get him on to go through it.
The book is called Bitcoin Unchained.
And it's written by Richard James.
So go find him on Twitter.
That's one anecdotal story.
The meetup we had Wednesday night.
The other guy that comes along.
he brings a copy of my book which he he'd thrown out a tweet i'm trying to get the missus up to
speed on homeschooling world schooling unschooling this kind of thing is there any good resources out
there bitcoin lebowski tweets back and says get hold of choose life it was one of the best books
that we read and it was kind of the the pushing point for my wife for us to leave the uk take our
kids out of school and start a different life so he goes and buys the book he brings the story with
him of how he got to learn about the book through another pleb and he was thrilled that I was there
and able to sign the book for him and just three dudes three dudes sitting there and he's writing
his own book now about bitcoin so there's me with the podcast there's the other guy who's building
out the uh the card game and now there's this guy about to be a new bitcoin author
each getting you know great vibes from each other and the support we need that's why it's
so important to get out there so you know my question to you is is bitcoin ones and zeros
or is it x's and y's think on that hit the link in the show notes get on club orange start meeting
your people because it's only us that are going to push this thing forward and you will be
astounded at the support and the level of expertise that you will attract to you
that's the end of the show guys thank you so much for listening
have a great christmas and i'll catch you on the next one