I was forged in the bear market, man, and nothing can phase me now.
Founder of the Bitcoin way, Tony Yazbek.
Completely no-nonsense type of guy, and after my wife,
I reckon he's one of my favorite people on planet Earth.
No one is operating in the interest of the American people.
Only way out is to opt out.
A lot of people in Australia are like, oh, that'll never happen here.
In the last five years, we've lost 50% of our purchasing power already.
I have been completely radicalized in so many ways.
It's sovereign money, it's freedom money.
But Bitcoin is only valuable if you hold in self-custody.
Like, not your keys, not your coins.
Bitcoin is like having a key to the chains that have found you for your whole life.
And they're going to try to tighten the chains and hope that you don't find the key.
And I think what that means is...
G'day, legends. Welcome back to G'day, Bitcoin.
I'm your host, Sean.
joining us today, very special guest. We have Michael Jordan, host of the Bitcoin Way podcast.
He's also recently up on the main stage at Bitcoin Prague. Michael Jordan, how are you, brother?
I'm doing great. How are you, Sean? Yeah, very, very well. This episode is going to be a little
bit of meta, but for anyone that's interested in Bitcoin, maybe talking about Bitcoin, working
within Bitcoin, speaking, educating about Bitcoin, mentoring in regards to Bitcoin, we're going to
dive deep but first off you've only been in bitcoin for a couple of short years was it 2020
that you entered the space even newer man 2022 i was bloody hell baby exactly i was uh i was forged
in the bear market man and nothing can uh can phase me now i saw like i was in the early days
of my journey when ftx celsius you know uh blockfi all of them started collapsing so uh i'm unshakable
at this point. Dude, I love it. So did you come in sort of just before that happened? So Bitcoin
was up and then you went through that brutal bear market? So I came, well, I couldn't pinpoint
exactly like the moment I became a Bitcoiner, certainly not like a Bitcoin maxi. I literally
started on January 1st of that year studying sort of crypto, blockchain. I've read some horribly
boring books on blockchain and I was fortunate. I had someone who sort of nudged me in the right
direction right before I began my journey and gave me some people to Lynn Alden, Preston Pish
told me to listen to Preston's podcast. Yeah. I'm trying to think if there's anyone else that stood
out. I know I read the Bitcoin standard within, I don't know, a few months of the beginning of the
year and it became pretty evident. I think it was when Celsius and one of the others collapsed,
maybe in like May of that year.
Yeah.
I think Celsius and BlockFi were about the same time.
Okay.
So maybe it was those two.
And I had seen a couple of people like Bitcoin maxis predicting it and saying like, this is
a scam.
It can't work.
And then when the dominoes started to fall, I had to step back and, you know, I guess the
Bitcoiners are right about all this.
Completely started ignoring all the other crypto nonsense, went full in on Bitcoin and
been chasing hard after more Bitcoin knowledge ever since.
Yeah.
And something I think that you've done incredibly effectively
is being in Bitcoin for three years now.
You've been working in Bitcoin for the last couple of years,
the last two years now for the Bitcoin way.
That's pretty incredible because at least for me,
went down the rabbit hole.
We're reading all the books, watching, you know, six to eight hours worth of podcasts per day while I was employed, driving around.
And I was like, this thing is amazing.
This is life changing.
And I was like, I want to work within Bitcoin or I want to be able to contribute.
So I started the podcast and I was talking about shit coins at the start as well as Bitcoin.
I'm glad that didn't last for too long.
What a distraction.
But I see it all the time and I have so many subscribers and stuff message and be like, hey, Sean, are you free for a chat?
I'm like, yeah, of course, let's touch base, no issue.
And nine times out of 10, they're like, how do I work in Bitcoin?
I'm like, there's not a hell of a lot of jobs,
but what are your skillset and where can you be able to provide value?
But I guess coming back to you on this,
where the matter of the conversation is going to start,
is how did you get a job within Bitcoin?
But let alone, how did you get a job with the Bitcoin way?
The way that I see it is the best company literally in the world
to be able to teach people how to secure their Bitcoin.
I don't know if there's any company that's better
than what Tony and yourselves and the team at the Bitcoin Way do.
So I guess like number one, what made you want to pursue a job
or a career working within Bitcoin?
And then two, how did it come about with specifically the Bitcoin Way?
Yeah, well, it was serendipitous to say the least.
I got lucky.
So I was a client of the Bitcoin Way.
So I guess it would have been the beginning of 24.
I started working with them.
I kind of gone through this whole, you know, I kept my keys on Coinbase and I found a better exchange, kept my keys there.
And then I moved my coins to like a collaborative custody.
I don't know.
And it just became evident I was compromising on the custody and heard Tony, as you can imagine, on that podcast.
I think it was David's podcast and realized, OK, this I just need training.
I need someone to just teach me how to do this the right way.
I have a semi-technical background, but I wasn't going to gamble with generational wealth and try figuring that out on my own if there was someone who does this day in and day out.
So I was going through the process of being trained on how to take self-custody.
And fortunately, I'd subscribed to the Bitcoiner Jobs newsletter.
My background is in sales, so I had subscribed for, I guess, like the sales-related positions.
they were looking at the time to form like a sort of a decentralized sales team basically
and they got a ton of applications coming in all at once you know i threw my name into the hat and
i reached out to them privately because i was emailing with them anyways as their client and
i said hey you know i'm working with you guys love the process would be i've got sales experience i
was leading the sales team at an ai startup at the time you know would love to talk about this
And so they took a call with me and pretty quickly they said, hey, we'd love for you to be like the sales manager.
Like we've got so many people doing this.
I said, sounds good.
You know, like, can I can I give my employer two weeks notice and just, you know, out of respect.
And the way that we'd sort of structured it at the time didn't end up working as we had quite hoped.
We've we've kind of made some improvements as to how we do that now.
so i was left standing with not exactly the role that i'd thought but at the very beginning they
said hey could you start the start a podcast for us hey could you and they just started like you
know coming up with other other small startup you just do everything yeah and and we still do in
many ways so you know i'm working closely with marketing i'm uh i'm helping with our hiring
process now so i don't when someone comes to me and says hey you work in bitcoin how do you go
work in Bitcoin. I don't have any real tangible advice because I just tripped into it. I mean,
God ordained is the only way I can describe what happened. What I will say is as I've gone through
the process of hiring and trying to help us onboard people, I think there are, if you're
looking to work for the Bitcoin ways specifically, there are things that you can do to stand out.
and is if you if there is any detection of nonsense shit coining compromise on the types of
hardware that you like or play around with or anything like that i mean that's a red flag for
us we're not interested there are enough people who are you know who are focused on the mission
and the philosophy of the bitcoin way that we can find those people and those are the only ones we
want to work with yeah yeah what i really like about tony and i was telling you and i've said
it so many times is is tony you know sort of the the main face the founder of the bitcoin way tony
yasbeck for everyone watch this bitcoin prague speech it's incredible oh so good absolutely no
nonsense type of guy and after my wife i reckon he's one of my favorite people on planet earth
if not number one after my wife like you were saying absolutely won't compromise on shit coins
or hardware wallets and you see some of these bitcoin influences obviously because ledger and
Trezor have huge marketing budgets and stuff.
They'll be promoting hardware wallets and stuff without shitting on the company too much that also support shitcoins, but aren't Bitcoin aligned in the slightest.
And you're like, that makes no sense.
You're talking about Bitcoin.
We've got this freedom money.
Why not just promote the best thing?
There's plenty of options out there, but cold card foundation devices, at least they've got the basics of the Bitcoin ethos.
They're open source.
to verify they're air-gapped.
One thing that you said, Michael, is that you tripped into it.
I don't know if that's quite true.
It's not like you're just at home smoking weed or whatever
and someone knocked on your door and said,
hey, dude, you want a job with the Bitcoin way?
And you're like, yeah, just let me have another pull
and pull the bong and I'll think about it.
You were actively studying Bitcoin.
you were a private client of the Bitcoin way, you're already on the Bitcoin jobs board.
I'll get that link off you after the show and I'll put it in the show notes for everyone.
And then once that job came up, you put in your application, but then you also emailed
them as well.
And people like, oh, it's lucky that you had their email.
You had to pay as a private client to be able to get to that place.
and I guess I just sort of want to like pull on this thread a little bit when it comes to Bitcoin
nothing's ever handed to anyone like you can jump on a podcast I can jump on a podcast we can say
read the big print by Lawrence Lepard the Bitcoin standard safety and moves parallel by Brian DeMint
etc watch what's the problem by Joe Brian we can say all that and people can just sit there and be
like, oh, cool, this is good entertainment. But unless they pick up that book or watch that
video or go onto the exchange and set up the exchange and connect it to their bank and everything
like that, nothing's going to change in their life until something else changes. How do you define
proof of work in your own life? And has that changed since you've come into Bitcoin?
Well, so I've always been a hard worker. I spent a decade in enterprise sales,
selling into fortune 500 companies. And it's not, it's not something that comes naturally to me.
And, uh, like I, I'm not a guy who wants to go out and make friends and go to, you know, social
events and network and like, that's just not my, my cup of tea. Um, but I think, I think early on,
I had done the proof of, I had committed to, okay, this is a role that I'm going to take.
I'm going to learn. And I just did it. And eventually you sort of overcome the hurdles
that you feel at the beginning that, you know, like you feel awkward, you know, going to a
networking event or whatever. And so I think there's always been that. Since Bitcoin, I would
say since finding Bitcoin, my time preference has lowered immensely, as I think it does for many
people. I think the biggest thing for me is, I think there's like, I think all Bitcoiners are
more naturally curious than the average population. I think that maybe my superpower, to the extent
that I have one, is I think I'm more curious than most. I don't have time to tinker and to do all
the things that I want to do, you know, playing around with new hardware. Like, I've got three
little kids. I've, you know, I've got a busy life and I work a lot of hours. Like there's just not
a lot left for that. But I, I'm yeah, like maybe your point is valid that, you know, I was on the
Bitcoin or jobs, you know, paying attention to all of that in my free time that I had, I was reading,
I was, you know, I listened to podcasts when I work out, when I'm, you know, just cutting the
grass, I mean, doing anything. And so I think I was able to compact what has taken a lot of people,
you know, five or 10 years of being in Bitcoin to grow their conviction. I mean, within six months
of 2022, I remember I was at a wedding in June of 2022. And I remember telling my wife's cousin
about Bitcoin and explaining to him why I thought the rest of crypto was something that he should be
disinterested in. And so I must have gone pretty hard, pretty fast and been open-minded. And I
wouldn't have considered myself an open-minded person before Bitcoin. I would have considered
myself a pretty closed-minded person. And now as I look back, I think almost everything,
there are very few things that I believe to be true today that I thought were true five years
ago, four years ago or whatever. And so I think just having that, maybe that was something that
the guys picked up on that I was curious. I was trying to figure this stuff out, continue to learn.
And they thought, Hey, this is a guy who could, you know, be a podcast host and ask people
questions and engage with them. And, uh, you know, so I'm, I'm sure there are ways that I,
I teed myself up for the opportunity. And I think there are ways that I, you know, I, I did kind of
stumble into it to some degree and, you know, a lot of, they, they could have ended up with a lot
of other, other people. I'm grateful it's me. And I work hard to justify the decision that they made
for them. Yeah, I think, you know, talking to Tony and stuff, everyone loves you, but watching your
podcast and stuff, I tune in about every week and watch one. It's always just pure signal. It's fire.
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So reach out to the Bitcoin way today.
I want to talk about the podcasting.
It's going to be matter on matter.
But you're saying, let me phrase it this way.
Do you reckon, you said Bitcoin's changed you in the way that you perceive things and approach things, and you're always really curious, and you said Bitcoin is in general a more curious to the average population.
But has Bitcoin radicalized you or your thoughts in any way in the way that you perceive the world and the way that you interact now?
Yeah, I don't want to get you cancelled.
If I say some pretty outlandish shit on here in the video with coming up with Daniel Prince, that's some deep rabbit holes, man.
so he's a he's a good one he's a good one well i don't i don't go as safe okay i would never take
my own life i'll just i'll say that so uh yeah so i i have been completely radicalized in in so many
ways and i think there's there's obviously a negative connotation to the idea of becoming
radical i think it's a i think if you look at the political spectrum for example it's i mean at least
in the US, I'm not going to speak for Australia or anywhere else. If you are willing to break free
of the tribalism, it is entirely evident that we have a uniparty system. No one is operating in the
interests of the American people. And the only way out is to opt out. And I think there are,
what I tend to emphasize and focus on are the small ways that you can opt out of the education
system, you can opt out of the monetary system, you can opt out of the healthcare system,
you can opt out of a lot of things. To what extent that makes a big long-term impact,
I'm just one guy trying to raise my family in a way that I see fit. But my hope is through the
podcast, through my interactions with the people in my life, we begin to build this peaceful
revolution from the ground up and I get more people opening their eyes. And I think I've
probably, hopefully resonated with some people in the podcast. I think there are a handful of people
in real life that I've connected with who I think have made some material changes.
It's still an uphill battle though. It's a very difficult thing, especially where I live. I don't
live in a nice area, like a fancy area, but it's affluent and people are relatively comfortable
and they don't want to imagine. They like voting for their Republican candidate where I am and
they think Trump or the next Republic, J.D. Vance, someone's going to come and save them.
And I'm just like, man, if you just open your eyes to what these guys are doing right now,
like you would be a lot like and you understood that if the other side was doing the exact same
thing, you'd be all over them. It's this just isn't the solution. And so we could go down
20 rabbit holes that I'm probably not comfortable talking about because I care too much for my
safety for the benefit of my life but yeah understood sufficient to say i suffice it to say
i've been radicalized in many ways yeah it's crazy um same with me and the uni party we've got like
our political systems cooked as well i think everywhere in the western world's pretty fucked
up at the minute but um has your wife dealt with the radicalization of yourself has she come along
on that journey or she's sort of stayed fairly grounded where she was and then you've just gotten
more and more radical?
That's a good question.
She is so patient and loyal
that it's sometimes hard for me to tell
to what extent what I say resonates with her and to what extent she just patient and loyal and accommodating of these of these crazy ideas that I bring to her You know I there are you know a lot of big world events you know
one of them may or may not have happened in September of 2001 that, you know, for the longest
time, I just believed like, oh, the mainstream narrative, this is what happened. And then if you
just kind of spend an hour looking into it, your views begin to change. You're like, hang on,
None of this makes sense, like literally none of it.
That's right.
But if you don't go look at it, then you just sort of, you know, take it face value, whatever
in the US, we've got Fox News is the conservative, you know, CNN's the liberal mainstream outlet.
You just take it at face value that this is the story.
This is the narrative.
I think she has become more open minded to a lot of these things because what I'm able
to do is like she's never going to go watch podcasts, read books.
like it's just not a these aren't topics of interest to her but if i can if i can talk to
her for 20 minutes or 30 minutes and kind of go through the evidence that i've uncovered
she's she's a hell of a lot smarter than me and so it becomes easy for her to like she's forced
as someone she's talking to someone she trusts she's forced to at least confront the reality
that maybe there's more to the story and that everything she's been told is is not the case
where I'll say she's been particularly made in my view, a lot of progress is we've got three
young kids with is with health. Like we like we're done vaccinating. Our kids don't have like
a normal primary care doctor. We were homeschooling now. I was gonna ask about that.
Yeah, like, yeah, we can get to homeschooling. And so she's, she's, she's woken up to that a lot
that big pharma, big food, they hate you.
They don't want your kids to be healthy.
And that's been fortunate
because I would impose that on my family.
At this point, I'm so far radicalized
that I would impose no vaccines,
none of that on my family.
The fact that she's gotten on board
has made it much easier, obviously,
for us to be in agreement on some of these things.
That's interesting.
Like here in Australia, they hate strong men, just in general.
They're just, you're toxic and they want men to be feminized
and they want them to be weak and disempowered and stuff.
And you said, you know, that you wouldn't pose it if you had to.
Obviously, I think that's the right thing as well,
not in a violent way or whatever, but this is the right way.
These are the rules under the house.
We're going down that path.
has that been something that you've grown into through bitcoin or you're already sort of that way
inclined and it's just the conviction of bitcoin and everything you've learned that
really allowed you to be able to hold that line so i think that bitcoin has actually i think bitcoin
has probably changed that a lot for me i've always been rather traditional like i don't think if you
ever asked my wife or i who's the you know who's the head of the home we would ever disagree that
it's me, right? Something I've noticed though, in the last few years, I don't know when it,
I don't know exactly what it was that triggered it. A year or two, a year and a half, two years ago,
I went out and bought a motorcycle and I told her I was buying a motorcycle and she didn't want me
to buy a motorcycle, but we never even had a conversation about it. Like I just told her like,
Hey, I'm going to pick up a motorcycle, you know, on Saturday or whatever. And like, that was that
she wasn't happy with it, but I really, and like in general, that's not the way we operate. Like I
don't just impose my will on everything. My view of marriage is you try to be as democratic as you
can, come to an agreement on every possible thing that you can, because that's going to, I mean,
that's going to bring peace to the home if you can do that. And the important thing that you can do
is find a spouse who generally agrees with you, generally understands the roles that you've
adopted. And when you have those one-off moments, that's when you need to know who is actually in
charge here because someone has to make the final call. And I have friends who are, you know,
they have all sorts of marriage issues and, and it's like, they're negotiating everything.
And it's like, who gets to make the final decision? Because this could be put to bed
if one of you could just make the final decision, but instead you're going to pick it for the rest
of your life. And to me, that makes for an unhealthy marriage. Like what my wife and I
have is a healthy marriage. You know, we don't argue hardly ever. Like there's just nothing to
argue about because we generally agree. And if we don't agree and I have a strong conviction on the
subject at hand, I will make the final call. And, you know, if that was where to be vaccines or
homeschooling or any of these things, that's what we would do. And that's what she signed up for.
And that's what I signed up for. And I think Bitcoin has probably furthered my confidence that
some of these traditional values that we've gotten away from are exactly what we need to be
moving back to. So I would say my marriage has gotten stronger since Bitcoin because of that.
I love that. I definitely want to come back to the homeschool and maybe we'll come back to
the vaccines. But of most interest, it's something like I've had Walker, America on,
Nico from Simply Bitcoin and stuff. And you'll bring on other podcasts or Robin Sayer and stuff.
And you're like, before the conversation, I don't want to talk about being a Bitcoin podcast and
stuff. So I've actively avoided doing that. But I think like the theme of this conversation,
working within Bitcoin, putting in the proof of work, it probably could be very helpful for some
people that are potentially thinking of what can they just do? Because there's no permission to
start a podcast. You pull the phone out of your pocket and you can talk to it and then you can
post online, Google, YouTube, they can shut down your account if they don't like what you're saying.
But there's really like very little barrier to entry to be able to do it.
And it's something that takes a while to be able to build up.
But it's something people can do instantly to be able to contribute to the conversation of Bitcoin.
What's that journey been like for you?
Like you went into the Bitcoin way as a sales manager.
That was the mindset, the role.
And they're like, start a podcast for us.
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Yeah, I was a bit nervous at first
because it's not something I probably
would have proactively done on my own.
But the one thing I've been grateful so far
in my journey at the Bitcoin Way
has been I haven't said no to anything.
and so um like last year when they earlier this year when they asked me to speak at btc prog
um it was kind of optional it was sort of thrown to me because uh just some circumstances the
logistics didn't work out for someone else and they said hey do you want to go speak in front of
you know 2 000 people on the main stage at btc prog and i just said yes and the reason was was
because i knew that if i didn't do that and that was my chance to speak at btc prog and someday we
reach hyper Bitcoinization and we're, everyone's looking back at 2025 as the early days. If I said,
Oh, I could have, you know, I could have been on stage, but I, you know, I didn't want to,
or I didn't, didn't know what I'd say. I knew I'd regret it. The same thing was true with the
podcast. As soon as they asked me, uh, the last thing I wanted to, first of all, say to my, you
know, brand new employer was, uh, yeah, I don't know, but I knew this is a great opportunity to,
to talk with some of the people who I've been listening to on podcasts. I've been reading
their books. There are so many questions I would love to ask someone like Larry Lepard or Saifedean
or any of those guys. Daniel Prince. I love Daniel. And so this is my chance to do that.
And I completely agree with you too. The barrier, if that's something you're thinking about for
anyone listening, the barrier to entry really is low. I mean, I'll give you like a couple of tools.
Like we're using Riverside. That's what I use for our podcast. Very simple. You click record,
It can create like shorts and clips for you automatically.
If you want to get an editor and someone to brush everything up, you can do that.
I use Buzzsprout to then push the audio version to Fountain, Apple, Spotify.
And I mean, you're talking, I don't know.
I don't know what the cost is anymore.
You know, 50, a hundred bucks a month, maybe for the tech that you need to get a halfway
polished podcast out into the world.
And I think really the only question from there comes down to, do you want to do, you
know, long form stuff, short form?
Are you going to monologue?
Are you going to invite guests on?
And I can assure you, if you don't think no one's going to come on your podcast, start with me because no one cares about me.
It's probably harder for you to get safety on your podcast if you're just starting out.
I'm still trying to get siphoned.
I was fortunate.
We sponsor his podcast.
So I had him on a while back.
But a lot of the people I talked to early on were names that weren't household Bitcoin names.
but there are a lot of people like myself out there who I think if you send me a message and
you say hey I'm starting up a podcast could you join I'd be happy to come on you know and
there are there are people far more important than me in the space who would also gladly come on you
you know you just need to ask the question yeah yeah I remember when I went bitcoin only I don't
know if it's my first bitcoin podcast but it's like really early and I reached out to Natalie
Brunel and said maybe I'd done a couple of whatever but I'm like it seems like there's so many
men in Bitcoin, I'd love to be able to get like a female perspective on it. Would you be interested
to come on the show? And she's like, yeah, sure. And I'm like, whoa, like, this is amazing. You
know, she's got one of the biggest Bitcoin podcasts and just said, sure, straight away.
A little bit of other tips and tools that may be able to help people on this as well is like,
take Michael up on that offer, take myself up on that offer, just reach out and send those texts,
but do it strategically like this is all a game or life's a game or whatever.
And the way that I've found it starting out is if you go for someone like SafeDean straight away,
they're so busy, they get all these inquiries and stuff.
But if you start with like Michael or myself or whatever, and you can be like,
hey, do you have anyone else that you think might be interested in talking on the podcast?
If they had a good experience, they may be able to lead you to that person.
Or once you've had that on and then you've posted that podcast,
then you can reach out to someone that's maybe a tier higher,
even though Bitcoin's like fairly neutral.
You know, if you go D, C, B, A list celebrities within Bitcoin or whatever.
Start at the lower one and then leverage that and then message somebody else.
So you interviewed like a D person, go to a C person, be like,
hey, I just had Sean on and would you be interested in coming on the pod or whatever?
But also like spend time interacting with them on X or on Noster to be able to provide value,
share their things comment in a smart articulate way like the more value that you can provide to
them i think the more receptive they're going to be and then also realize like everyone's pretty
bloody busy um so they may not get back to you straight away so don't you know pest the shit out
of them or or things like that just you know play it cool take your time and bitcoiners or anyone
that's been here for a while or a little bit of time but they've put in the proof work realizes
Bitcoin's not going away.
We're not going away.
So it's better to be able to play the long game
and be like, hey, come on my show.
Come on my show.
You haven't replied to me.
Fuck you.
And like, I'm out, you know,
and then you're going to ruin that chance.
But then they're going to talk to somebody else
and then you get a bad name and stuff.
It's better just to take the time and play it safe.
What are the other opportunities out of the podcast
directly or indirectly that have come across?
Because obviously you've got the opportunity
to talk to the best and the brightest people
within Bitcoin.
which pretty much translates to some of the best and brightest people or thinkers in the entire world.
So opportunities that have come just from meeting some of these folks, talking to some of them.
I mean, there's, you know, one of the things that's cool that we do,
and I'd encourage anyone who is just finding out about The Bitcoin Way,
go to our website, www.thebitcoinway.com, subscribe to our newsletter.
I was going to say that is so good.
Yeah. So the newsletter is great. It comes out every Sunday. It might be Monday for you. But Sunday, that gets sent. And one of the things we'll share with newsletter subscribers is like webinars that we have. So something we do once a month, usually about once a month, is we'll have someone on, you know, like we've had Larry Lippard, we've had Natalie, we've had Saifedean, handful of really, really smart people, big names in the Bitcoin space who have come on.
And we've done a sort of a variety, like Larry Lepard did a presentation on sort of the macro outlook, like making the case for the big print.
And then he spent 40 minutes taking questions from the audience.
And so like an opportunity.
Yeah. So like we're doing that again here in a couple of weeks.
I don't know when this podcast is going out, but we're we're doing that again, mid-December with him.
But it's going to be a straight hour of Q&A with Larry.
so bring your questions but you only know about that if you're following us on social media you
know subscribe to our newsletter that kind of thing so yeah i'd encourage you to do so those
opportunities have been great because i get to sit there and moderate a q a with tony and natalie
like two like opposite ends of the spectrum and in terms of temperament in the bitcoin
completely very smart very you know competent in their own right and i get to sit there and
field questions for them and chime in if I think it makes sense. So like those opportunities come
up. I think the fact that I was doing the podcast probably lent itself to me being the person that
they asked to speak at BTC Prague because I had some, you know, I was a familiar face to some
people and, you know, had talked to so many people. Like there wasn't really anyone else
on the team who was actively doing public, you know, appearances of any kind. And I at least
had the podcast. So yeah, when you put yourself out there, it's, uh, it really does open a lot
of doors. And to the point you made, yes, start with someone like myself, start with someone like
a D list person. I can introduce you to a handful of C list. I can introduce you to a B or an A list
person or two, you know, once you kind of got going and, you know, felt like that was something
I'd be comfortable doing. But when you just, when you just like, what's the mean, like you can just
do things, right? Just do shit. You really can. And point a camera at yourself, spend $50 on a
slightly better microphone or if you want to invest a little bit. And then eventually, I've
got a whole studio set up now because I've been doing this a while. And you can justify the cost
of those things after a bit. But yeah, just put yourself out there. Figure out what you're best
at. If you're not a podcast type person, go write articles, right? Get a substat going.
start a newsletter, you know, write an ebook.
You know, you can do so many low cost things that lend that your,
your skillset lends itself to.
I think there's no, there will never be too many Bitcoin podcasts or books.
I know it's like, it's almost like a joke in and of itself,
but different people resonate with different groups of people in different ways.
You know, I've been on a couple of podcasts with some,
some women in Bitcoin and I told them afterwards,
I said, like, keep doing this because we like we, you know, I'm not a big like diversity, equity, inclusion type guy, obviously.
But I'm like, my wife would not. She doesn't. My wife doesn't want to hear Tony and I talk about Bitcoin and like, you know, it sounds like my wife.
Yeah. Like she's the sweetest person you'll ever meet.
But like, if I sent her one of Natalie's, you know, podcasts, and I said, Hey, this is a topic that might really interest you. I think she'd be more inclined to it. And then she'd start to love Natalie. And like, we'd bring a new Bitcoiner along. So yeah, don't sell yourself short. I mean, if you've ever watched my podcast, I'm hardly like a personality. It's just, you know, a matter of right time, right place, and then taking action to go do it.
And I think a lot of people would be surprised at just what they could accomplish if they picked up a microphone, picked up a camera and hit record.
What you just said there, right time, right place.
Earlier, you were saying that you're lucky and you just tripped into it.
Right time, right place.
With proper planning and preparation, that's what I call luck.
That's how I define it.
So if you want to call yourself lucky, like 100%, you're lucky.
but it's not that mythical luck that people dream about when they're broken their mindset.
I would say I'm the kind of guy who wakes up early, works out hard, works hard,
spends as much time as possible with my kids, with my wife.
And there are very few moments in any day that are not intended to serve someone else.
and I think if you that's that's maybe the proof of work right yes there's a right time right place
but it's yeah it's when that meets the person who's willing to say yes to go speak on stage or
yes to start a podcast or yes to you know to do whatever and like you know there are a lot of
little things I did at the Bitcoin way where it's a hey can you jump on a call you know like a
welcome call with someone they want to learn about our services we think you know and you've been
through the process you know enough and I just I say yes yeah I'd be I'd be happy to you know
helping who's more credible than someone who's gone through the process and uh you know sort of
sort of gone on this journey of coins on exchange coins in collaborative custody and now
you know pure self-sovereignty so uh i think just saying yes to all of the important things and all
of the opportunities that come your way and if it doesn't stick then you know find the next thing to
say yes to i yeah i i love that it sort of reminds me i don't know seven years ago whatever i was
back when I was working a bullshit job, we're on the roads and building roads. And it was like
my first week or week one or whatever. But it was like at least the first couple of days.
Like I've always been very busy. I'm getting paid. I signed up to work by the hour. So I'll
fill that hour with work. If there's nothing to do, I'll go find something else to do. So anyway,
I was literally sweeping the road, like the gutters, you know, when it rains and stuff.
And these I won discriminate in his looks or whatever not a very healthy person older person been working there for 20 30 years or whatever just totally checked out of life And he came over to me he like Sean you making you need to stop that I like why he like you making us look bad I like
no buddy you are making you look bad I'm working at the moment this is what I got employed to I
just signed that contract they employed me just last week so I'm doing what I meant to be doing
what are you doing it's like fucking that it didn't go over well um since then but i like
stayed in that role for a tiny little i don't know a couple of months or whatever and moved
on to another role really quickly and they're like oh you're a kiss ass or you're a suck ass
or suck up or whatever and you're like no i'm just doing what needs to be done i'm going over
and above because i don't want to stay in this situation this just a means to an end to be able
to achieve my goals, my life or whatever.
Of course, I'm going to rise above everyone else.
I'm going to be the best that I can be, not to be better than them,
but to be better than myself so that hopefully that we can continue
to step into these opportunities.
I think that's important with everything.
But a couple of things that you've mentioned,
you've said the word collaborative custody a couple of times.
It's the same within Bitcoin, not your keys, not your coins.
I think the worst thing people could do is hear about Bitcoin
They hear about that it's this freedom money, like literally freedom money.
It's sovereign money.
It's what's going to dictate, I think, the free people from the fiat slaves, the economical
slaves in short order.
That's sort of my beliefs with it.
But Bitcoin is only valuable if you hold in self-custody, like not your keys, not your
coins.
That's my belief.
If you don't hold the Bitcoin, if somebody else does in a collaborative custody or it's
on the exchange or it's in the ETF. My belief is they're fucked up. And that could be for a couple
of reasons, like just missing the information, which is probably the most likely. They just don't
know that you can do this or they don't know how to be able to do it. Or somebody like worse has
led them to stray and saying, oh, this is easier. You just buy the stock, you know, BlackRock's,
Bitcoin or whatever. And it's just going to work like you've been buying all your other stocks.
where you go down the collaborative custody,
we'll hold one of the keys for you if you lose it or whatever.
But then you're like starting to hand away power
and that defeats the whole purpose of Bitcoin.
Obviously, with the Bitcoin way, as I said sort of at the start,
the Bitcoin way are the best in the world at teaching or mentoring people
how to be able to take self-custody of Bitcoin,
not your keys, not your coins,
but then to be able to like go through the steps systematically
to be able to learn.
And before we sort of talk about what the Bitcoin way does specifically from your experience working at the Bitcoin way, what have you seen like the things that trip people up the most or they're the most hesitant to actually take control of their Bitcoin?
So I think there are probably a few things.
One of them is a fundamental misunderstanding of why Bitcoin appreciates in value.
I think a lot of people, they hear it's scarce.
And so number go up.
It's like digital gold. And so I'll buy the ETF because I think it's going to, it's like, no, no, no.
If you understand the state of macro, you know, you look in Australia, in the UK, in Canada, I mean, some of the absolute insanity being rolled out by government.
It's, it becomes like Tony's experience in Lebanon feels like this extreme example, currency collapse.
He walked away with $70 in his pocket.
And what people don't realize is that, yes, it started with Lebanon, but nobody is immune
for that.
Like you have to begin to recognize that the same dysfunctional policies that brought Lebanon
to its knees are already in place in all of these other places.
It's central banking, it's money printing, corrupt politicians, you go down the line.
And you have to realize that the music stops at some point for everyone, I think. And I don't know if that's in two years or five years, 10 years or 50 years, but it doesn't really matter. Because when you begin to recognize the corruption, the fact that there's no one coming to save you, and like you really internalize that you become obsessed with self-sovereignty and wanting to hold your wealth and wanting to educate your kids yourself and wanting to do all of these other things that we could get into.
it becomes obvious like every day the decisions I make and I don't mean to to go on a tangent but
there are a lot of things that I don't do because I feel like if I did them I would be casting a
tiny vote to institutions that I want nothing to do with and like the example I always use is like
I literally have not eaten dessert in three years let's go I never signal and it's in the in the
reason is because if I open that, I don't know what you got, if you guys have, do you have Oreos
in Australia? Yeah. So man, I used to be able to pound some Oreos and I haven't eaten any of them
in three years. And the reason is, is because I don't want to fund with any of my value,
that institution that is poisoning is trying to poison me. And then the people on the back end
who say, hey, we got a pill to fix, you know, the fact that you poisoned yourself. And then
the healthcare system that says, hey, you know, now that you're fat and obese, and you need to go,
you know, do these medical treatments or whatever, like, I want nothing to do with it. I want to
completely opt out. And so my point is, when it comes to financial self-sovereignty, the same is
sort of true. If you are trusting a key to someone else, if you're working with a company that
supports shit coins, if you're buying the paper Bitcoin, if you're speculating on a treasury
company who may do great in fiat terms, it just, it just doesn't matter. I'm completely disinterested.
Like, I think I'm grateful that sailor has orange filled. A lot of people could not possibly care
less. If my strategy buys more Bitcoin, if they go, if they go to the moon and way outperform
Bitcoin in dollar terms, like it literally doesn't matter to me because it's, there's,
it's completely detached from the notion of self-sovereignty.
And that is my sole pursuit.
So when it comes to self-custody, where do you want me to go with this?
Like I could sort of break down like why I left collaborative custody,
why self-custody itself is so important.
Where would you like me to go?
I think that's probably, yeah, really pertinent.
Like most people, you get to talk to Tony, I get to talk to Tony and stuff.
You're right deep into it.
But I think because you're so deep into it and you work within the space,
I think that could be the most helpful conversation of why, yeah, left collaborative custody and why self-custody is the most important thing.
Just for context for everyone, if you couldn't take self-custody of Bitcoin, it would be worth exactly zero dollars if that part didn't exist.
But yeah, I'll just hand it over to you.
And if you want to go down those rabbit holes.
Yeah.
So self-custody is the revolution.
I mean, as much as any other aspect of Bitcoin, I think, you know, you talk about scarcity.
like all these very fundamental, like you can't have one without the other. I get all that. But
the, when it comes to, I was in a collaborative custody setup and the company started supporting
shit coins. And that was like the red flag that I needed to at least begin, you know, looking for
like, what's the alternative to that? I don't think I understood like exactly how self, like pure
self-custody worked. I wasn't allowed to run a node, which I, you know, I heard more and more
people talking about, Hey, you need to run a node. Like that's what makes that is participation in
the network. And I'm kind of just a purist sort of, sort of guy. So I was like, yeah, I feel like
I'm making a lot of compromises here that maybe I don't fully understand, but don't seem quite right.
You know, I had a KYC myself. I had like, I got, I remember getting an email from the company and
they were like, Hey, we're going to be down for maintenance between, you know, 10 PM and midnight.
And I was like, okay, so it is no longer permissionless, censorship-resistant money because your app is going to be down.
And that was, I think, the moment.
And I think I happened to get one of those emails right before, right after I'd heard Tony on TV.
And I was like, this is exactly what I've been waiting for.
Let's go.
You know, and a lot of people, there are technical reasons too.
like the two or three multi-sig using a third party.
Like it's not just two keys you need.
Like there are configuration files
that you need to recover in a worst case scenario.
If the government were to co-opt,
you know, one of those companies, shut them down,
it would probably be impossible.
I think, I could be wrong.
I'm not, you know, I'm not making any blanket statements here.
It would probably be impossible
for some people to recover their Bitcoin
because they probably don't have what they really need.
And it would be very,
for the people who had kind of done it right,
it would be very difficult and very painful.
And they would probably come to the Bitcoin way and say, can you help me?
Can you help me through this process of recovering my Bitcoin?
And so I'm like, I'm just going to skip all that stuff.
Like, why would I go through all this?
I'm not an idiot.
I can figure out how to secure my well.
Probably the biggest concern for most people is I don't trust myself.
It's a single point of failure if I take self-custody.
So, you know, there's this hesitation.
The reality is there's only a single point of failure in self-custody.
if you choose to allow there to be a single point of failure.
That's right.
There are plenty of ways you can make copies of things,
secure them, separate your seed phrase,
geographically disperse them.
Like you can get creative.
You don't have to get fancy.
You can get creative though.
And there's no natural disaster.
There's no anything that would necessarily shake you
out of your Bitcoin in self-custody,
but you have to have it done right.
Like you can't make rookie mistakes.
um yeah you know i think that's that's that's the benefit of securing the bitcoin way
that's right we literally have a team that sits on calls all day every day guiding our clients
through self-custody we've never had a client lose bitcoin um and in the in the beauty of it
too is when it's in self-custody you're less tempted to like it's a little less convenient
right like that that's where like my dreams are and so i'm less tempted to go buy stuff i don't
need. I'm less tempted to go speculate on Bitcoin treasury companies. Not that I feel that temptation
anyway, that so many seem to, but it's just sitting there. And really all I need to do with it is
occasionally load it onto a hop spending wallet so I can have Bitcoin to spend and use it as money.
And other than that, I sleep like a baby knowing that no one else can touch it. No one else
knows how much I have. No one knows anything about it. So it's a beautiful setup.
It truly is. And for context, I've said it, I think twice on this show, but when I, like I started out on Bitcoin by myself or crypto, then Bitcoin found Bitcoin within two weeks.
But I came up with this amazing self-custody setup. It would have been like a couple of hundred hours of watching YouTube tutorials and videos and things like that in three different countries.
And it was fucking complicated, like really fucking complicated. And I thought it was super, super secure.
met up with Tony he's like this is just shit I said it a lot nicer he's like let's start again
man and we start and we build it back up and you're like like I should have just paid at the start
to meet with you guys I didn't know of Tony at that stage and you're like oh my god this could
have been so much easier and those hours that I spent doing it I could have been stacking more
skills or I could have been providing value or I could have just filmed a couple more podcasts or
whatever it is. Like I could have used that time for something of benefit to the world or service
to the world or whatever or service to myself. I could have chilled out and spent time doing
something for me instead of doing something where ultimately it just got shredded up and it actually
wasn't that safe. It wasn't that secure. It was super complex. If something happened to me, then
And that Bitcoin probably would have just been donated to the Bitcoin network.
And then sitting with Tony, it didn't even take that long.
A couple of sessions, great, good, good to go.
And for everyone that doesn't know, like I have partnered with the Bitcoin way with my longest channel partner.
But the best thing is the first 30 minutes is free.
So when you call them up or when you jump on a call with them, it's not costing you anything to be able to find out what would work for you.
And you mentioned the website earlier to sign up with the newsletter.
That's amazing.
I'll read not 100% everyone because I fucking hate emails in general.
I go through hundreds of emails a day, but I'll take it as a brain break.
And it's just absolutely amazing.
The newsletter, but also that three-minute survey that you have on the website,
I think that's amazing.
So if you just go to the Bitcoin way and then just wait,
it'll pop up automatically or you go to the top on the tab and it says survey there.
Take that survey and see how good your current setup is.
Like it's free, it's easy, and you can sign up to the newsletter
at the same time.
We'd be able to do that.
I've got my interest in Bitcoin treasury companies is that I don't understand
why people would do it and for a couple of reasons.
It's not Bitcoin in self-custody, like you were saying.
If it's not Bitcoin in self-custody, it's not Bitcoin in self-custody.
I think that's how you win the lot.
the game of life, you win the game of Bitcoin. It's Bitcoin and self-custody. Aside from that,
say like you make all these fiat gains over the next three to five years and you're 10X or you
100X, you're Bitcoin of what Bitcoin would just be. But then you go to sell and you get paid out
in fiat, capital gains, you deal with that, but you've got all this cash here. What happens if
at that stage in your local jurisdiction, you can't buy a large amount of Bitcoin and put it
to self custody. What if they stop it at that stage and they only allow the banks to be able
to custody the Bitcoin on your behalf if you're going through traditional exchanges? That's what
I fear with these Bitcoin treasury companies. What I fear the most is that they're going to be down
like 94% like NACA or I think most of them are fucking down. I think even micro strategy is
down hard. I literally don't pay any attention to the prices or whatever. You know,
say the other day saying, for years, he's saying we're never going to sell our Bitcoin. Then the
other day and saying like we could sell the bitcoin if we we had to or whatever and they're
taking out fiat getting like holding fiat cash reserves and things like this and you're like
that's not bitcoin that's not the separation of money from state that looks like that's money in
the state getting closer and closer in the current system so i guess without um being interested in
shit coins when you're talking to people not shit coins bitcoin treasury companies they're
they're just a shit coin that's a freudian slip um but like how do you communicate them about them
or do you just totally ignore the conversation because i'm sure you've got a lot of clients
that say hey what do you think uh micro strategy or whatever the other ones are i mean i i think
we're disinterested for the same reasons you are we talk about them you know in our on bitcoin
banter our bi-weekly segment that we do on the channel i mean the way i frame them is this is
sort of me, me speaking personally, I don't know that everyone at the Bitcoin way would frame it
like this. I think of, of saving, investing, and speculating and saving is what you do with Bitcoin
and self-custody, right? Like when you have conviction, you understand it. Like you just
stack sats, you stay humbly stack sats. And that's like, that's my savings vehicle. If I want to
invest, it means I want to seek, you know, outsized returns and something that I understand I'm going
to put sweat into, I'm going to, you know, like I have a fundamental understanding, but I also
recognize that it's, it's a riskier, like starting a business could be, I mean, even like, I don't
view like, like real estate is uninteresting to me because, but like, if you're like, Hey, that,
you know, for cashflow purposes, like I need to, you know, pay my bills, you know, you could say,
Hey, I live in a, you know, I've got, I know a safe jurisdiction, you know, in a college town
where lots of people need to rent, you know, like that could be like an investment that you make.
you understand that you've got counterparty risk, you've got local ordinances to abide by,
but for you, the risk that you're taking, you understand it and you choose to pursue it anyway.
Speculating then is, in my view, I don't know much about it, but there's a lot of hype. I don't
want to have the FOMO of missing out on this. So I'm going to dump some money into it. I think the
treasury companies, I think there are a handful of people who are investing in treasury companies.
I had Mark Moss on our podcast. I think Mark Moss is investing in treasury companies. I'm not a
finance guy. So this stuff is, I don't get it. He does. He is a professional investor,
very well as an investor, and he has conviction in certain treasure. I think I'm not going to
speak for him. My understanding is he has certain convictions in a few treasury companies. I don't
get, I don't care because I don't think treasury companies push the ball forward for Bitcoin.
and it's not a Bitcoin.
And so why would I invest in a treasury company
versus Nvidia or Apple or it's all the same to me.
It's just a bunch of fiat companies.
For, I don't know, 95% of Bitcoiners,
I put that in air quotes,
when they invest in a treasury company,
I think they're purely speculating.
They're hopping on the hype train
and they're hoping that they make 150% recurrence
while Bitcoin only makes 50%.
And it's just like they're YOLOing in.
And to me, it's if you just walk through, what if Saylor gets hit by a bus tomorrow?
Like, is your conviction and strategy still as high?
Here's if Saylor gets hit by a bus tomorrow, my conviction and strategy, which is not very
high anyway, it plummets.
And my conviction in Bitcoin is completely unchanged, right?
It's a globally decentralized, open source monetary protocol, right?
You know, some guy, some guy getting hit by a bus has no impact on that.
Literally anyone could get hit by a bus tomorrow and my conviction in Bitcoin is unchanged.
So there's managerial risk, there's operational risk, execution risk.
So, you know, you like now it's it appears as though he said, never sell your Bitcoin.
And now they might need to sell some of their Bitcoin.
You know, that's that's fine if they think that's the prudent financial decision for the company.
But is that what you as an investor or a speculator signed up for?
Probably not, because all you heard him say for, you know, what, five years now is never sell your Bitcoin.
you've got confiscation risk. I think, you know, 600 plus thousand Bitcoin looks very appealing to a
government that's 30, almost $39 trillion in debt. And if they believe that's going to be a
way of the future, it's trivial. They did it in the 1930s with gold. It would be trivial
for the federal government to intervene and just confiscate Bitcoin from Coinbase Fidelity,
whoever's custodying for strategy. It's your point. It's everything's KYC, right? You're
operating through brokerages. You're only getting access to number go up. Like, dude,
we could spend an hour on the counterparty worth here and the downside of these products.
Maybe you win. Maybe you beat me in fiat terms, but you sure as hell aren't beating me in
self-sovereignty terms. And that's the metric that matters. And to me, to me, maybe you just
about dirty fiat and you want to keep propping up the system that not the game for me So treasury companies are just completely uninteresting personally And then frustratingly a distraction I think for many
as I watch, you know, quote unquote, influencers talking about, oh, they missed the boat on NACA.
And it's like, did you? It's trading for, you know, like, yeah, hopefully you're glad you didn't
get in at $25 now because it's trading for what, 50 cents or something. I'm not, again,
I'm not tracking it closely, but I see the numbers from time to time.
Yeah. Your thoughts are very much aligned with mine. Talking about Bitcoin treasury companies
like we did just then, that's where I find the interest in it because it's not Bitcoin in
self-custody, but to actually go down the rabbit hole or whatever. But I like that saving, investing,
speculating i think that's that that's bang on and um you've got to make sure you know what you're
doing like when you're allocating the the value that you've accrued through your labor what are
you doing with that and if you really understand it you're probably saving or investing depending
on what the technology is and if you really don't understand it but everyone else is getting you
excited about it you're probably speculating yeah yeah the majority of most people and
I don't know ladies and gentlemen it's your money it's your choice do as you wish but just try and
get as much bitcoin and self-custody as humanly possible I give you three years maybe you got a
little bit longer earlier we're sort of saying you're talking about Tony in Lebanon and what
happened with him with the currency collapse and a lot of people in Australia like oh that'll never
happen here and my first reaction is like fuck that won't happen here because in the last five
years, we've lost 50% of our purchasing power already. Like we're already there. It's just not
accelerating as quickly. But, you know, if you had 100 grand five years ago, you still got 100
grand in the bank, but it was buying $50,000 worth of stuff. That's a huge issue. And in my opinion,
and I think it's only going to accelerate and get worse and worse and worse. As the currencies
around the world collapse, you know, and the debts grow higher and higher and higher.
What do you think is going to happen from governments around the world? Because they're
going to see and they're going to know that a lot of people have Bitcoin in self-custody.
Are they going to try to do a 6102? What type of scenarios do you see playing out as things get
more more desperate for the state i think that the i don't know if i would bet on a 61 or two or not
i mean it's on the table like i'm not writing it off i think that what governments are going to do
is they're going to try like bitcoin is is like having a key to the chains that have bound you for
for your whole life and they're going to try to tighten the chains and hope that you don't find
the key. And I think what that means is stable coins are going to turn to CBDCs if they don't
just overtly roll out government issued CBDCs from the start. I think stable coins feel like a nice
trap that they could pull people into because you associate it with crypto and decentralization,
not realizing it's just a centralized entity that's already censoring transactions. I'm talking
about you, Tether? I was going to ask, that just happened recently. Like it's happened a lot with
Tether, but wasn't it just last week that they censored some major transactions? Oh, I don't know.
I might've missed that, but I think it's, I don't think that's something they shy away from.
I think they would, you know, they, they will share that they worked with law enforcement.
I think they've, they've pulled back, pulled back certain transactions, even sort of like Ethereum
did. Wow. So, but I think most people, they think of it as it's, oh, it's crypto. So it's
decentralized, right? I've heard that word a lot of times. And so it's much easier for people to,
and Tether is extremely efficient as a system, right? Because it's centralized, it's very easy
to actually send dollar denominated value around the world borderlessly, not permissionlessly,
obviously, but man, they, they co-opt one of those companies and like Tether with a massive
market share. And suddenly everything you do is surveilled and they get to the side. If you
drove your car around too much, blown too many miles, ordered too much beef, you know, like,
I mean, pick it. And like, those are the ways that I think they can very easily retain people
in this sort of digital prison. And I think it happens slowly. And I mean, it's the frog boiling
in water kind of thing.
You know, I think it's, you don't even know.
And then one day you wake up and the water's at a full boil and it's too late.
Like you, you know, the, the on-ramps, the off-ramps to Bitcoin are closed or it's been
criminalized in some form or fashion.
And, you know, Bitcoiners are living their best life, you know, in something of a, I hate
to say black market, but, you know, just sort of operating kind of independently of the
rest of the world and everyone else.
And the parallel economy.
yeah yeah very much in a parallel economy i haven't seen the movie uh tony keeps referencing
elysium is that is that a movie after tony referenced it like a couple of times i've
watched two movies on this tv screen like all it does is show my logo and holy moly what an
incredible movie but yeah i feel exactly like that after tony kept saying he's like it's going to be
like Elysium and I'm like what's Elysium he's like it's a movie if you're not saying I'm like
no he's like oh you better go watch it if you haven't seen Elysium well worth your time Michael
it's great I'm not I'm not a movie guy but there are neither am I dude I haven't I haven't even
seen V for Vendetta like I think I've neither have I actually oh really okay I've seen the
Matrix that's like the only uh Bitcoin movie uh I've seen the big short I think that's it though
in terms of Bitcoin movies I've watched.
Yeah.
But yeah, I think that's probably the way,
you know, unfortunately it's going to go.
And, you know, the question is how many people
can we get dialed in on this before you're just out of luck, you know?
You know, my hope, and I say that,
I think over a long enough time horizon,
I think Bitcoin brings a new wave of prosperity and freedom to the world.
Because eventually, even if you're in sort of fiat chains
in this hypothetical future that we're talking about.
If you're someone who can provide value to the world
and I have Bitcoin and you would love to earn Bitcoin
and you have something like truly valuable to me,
I'll pay you in Bitcoin.
Like that's what I have.
And then now that person has some Bitcoin.
And then if there's another fiat slave
who can provide them some value,
they'll take Bitcoin as payment.
And I think it begins to sort of,
um my friend uh uh daniel white uh i don't know if you know micro seed um he makes oh yes
yeah so the idea i've partnered with micro seed it's the fucking greatest thing in the world
it's so good man yeah it's dude it's amazing there's a discount code below for everyone it
is just phenomenal 12 or 24 words and a one inch washer that's one inch washer it's amazing but
But anyway, Daniel has a, he sort of frames it as Bitcoin is the antibody that is slowly
overtaking this biological system that we think of as the global economy, I guess.
And it's funny, he and I, he's one of my favorite Bitcoiners.
We tend to disagree every time we talk about it.
But I think he's onto it with this.
I think how he views it playing out versus how I view it, it will play out in the future
are a bit different.
But I do think like Bitcoin will ultimately serve as the antibody for this diseased body
that is the global economy today.
When you first said Daniel's last name, when I think of Daniel, I just think of Daniel
21E15.
Yeah.
Like every time.
I'm like, who the hell are you talking about?
But yeah, what a guy.
If you haven't seen that podcast, Rob and Sire and Daniel and I did together.
as fun as. I agree with you. And like that point of not being able to get Bitcoin in self-custody,
I truly give it three years. Like if you're wrong or I'm wrong, but people have Bitcoin in self-custody,
it actually doesn't matter. Like it's still number go up technology. It's sovereign money.
It's freedom money. So you get all the benefits of that. But if shit does hit the fan and it turns
into George Orwell's 1984 or whatever, it's too late a day after or an hour after.
You can't possibly do it at that stage.
So you're better to be, you know, a couple of years early
or you could be a couple of weeks or a couple of months early.
Like who knows with the political landscape at the moment,
like politics in Australia are pretty crazy.
You know, what we see in regards to the US seems pretty great.
The whole world just seems pretty crazy because it's based on fear and I think it's going to get worse.
I want to flip gears.
It's something that I'm pretty interested about.
My wife is a little bit older than me, so we're not going to be able to have kids.
That door in our life is well and truly shut.
But I do believe that especially Bitcoiners, because they're going to have the capacity, their critical thinking, they're also going to have the wealth.
Kids aren't that cheap to be able to raise, to be able to raise right.
But it's one common thing that I've seen within like a lot of Bitcoiners is Brian DeMint, Daniel Prince, and yourself, it sounds like you're homeschooling your kids.
What's that journey been like?
And have you been homeschooling them even before Bitcoin?
No, that's a post-Bitcoin thing.
Nice.
I think we would have been interested in it regardless.
I think we're all in at this point.
My oldest is only in first grade.
So she's seven.
So we're still very new.
like we're really only two years into the homeschooling journey. One thing for me that I,
you know, we kind of talked about the, I guess the division of labor between my wife and I,
and the more I sort of learn and grow in my conviction about a number of things,
the, and hopefully, you know, I, as much as I'm happy with sovereign self-sovereign money,
you know, eventually I'd love the number to go up just because it would allow me
more financial freedom to spend time with my son. So he's, he's almost five. And I think boys and
girls need to be educated differently. I mean, I think the basics of all that stuff, I think is
great. One of my concerns I told my wife is I can't believe I'm saying some of this stuff on a
podcast. I'm usually a little more measured. I said, you know, my problem. So right now my son
is in like preschool. So he, he goes to like a small private school, the values aligned,
like a couple of days a week for a couple of hours sort of thing. It's like fun for him,
socializing, that kind of thing. But once next year, when he starts kindergarten, that's when
we start homeschooling him. But I told my wife, I said, I don't like the, I don't know what the
breakdown is, but basically like 90% of teachers are women. And I was like, that's awesome for my
daughter. Like that, great. Like I want her to learn from, you know, first of all, my wife,
first and foremost, I want her to be like my wife and not like some other woman. But in general,
like at the little school that my son goes to, perfectly comfortable with the character,
the philosophy of the school. I don't have an issue with those women interacting with my
daughter on a daily basis, but I'm obviously happy that we're not anyway, and she's homeschooling.
I was like, I don't want my son going and being taught all day, every day, and influenced for
seven hours a day by women. I want him to be influenced by men, predominantly good men,
who want his, you know, the best for him and expect the best from him. And, you know, there's a,
there's a great Steve Harvey video that I watched recently. I sent to my wife, he was talking about
how, when his dad died, he realized that the only man on earth who wanted Steve to be better than
him had died. Every other man wants you to, you know, like, you know, like, you know, my best
friend, I love him. I want, you know, something great for him, but I don't want him to be better
than me, right? My son, I want him to be better than me. I want him to be orders of magnitude
better than me. And I'm the only man on earth who wants that for him. And so when it comes to
homeschooling, my intention is for me to be much more involved in my son's education and my wife
to be much more involved in my daughter's education, because I want them to be reflections of us,
reflections of who we strive to be, and then to, you know, soar far beyond anything that my wife
and I are. And I think that's probably the only way we can do it. And you can't handpick teachers
the way that, you know, and certainly not in public schools, but even in private schools,
you're kind of stuck with who you've got. And I'd rather me be teaching my son the things I want him
to learn. And certainly I'll be teaching him very different things than he would ever learn in a
formal educational environment. But I want my daughter to learn from my wife. And I sort of
had some, I was like, man, am I, am I off on this? Am I, is this like too traditional? But
the more I think about it, I think there's, there's a lot to be said, you know, I would have
benefited from being homeschooled by my dad specifically. And I think my sister would have
benefited from being homeschooled by my mom specifically. And, you know, there's, you know,
you're kind of mixing and matching and sharing different skills and, and that sort of thing along
the way, certainly. But like homeschool for me is, it's, it's like a non-negotiable at this point.
And I think it's going to evolve immensely.
And I'm trying to take notes from guys like Daniel.
He's like very unstructured.
And he's given me some good book recommendations I need to dive into.
But yeah, that's kind of where my head's at the moment.
Daniel's like a walking encyclopedia with book references.
Oh, yeah.
Just absolutely amazing.
Like when you're saying this, I'm just thinking in the back of my head,
oh my god somebody's gonna say he is so misogynistic with with his views about that
yeah but when you go down like think critically about it it just makes sense like it's just
common sense do you think within bitcoin like we're going to go through this this like really
rough time and i think it's going to happen roughly within the next three years the big
print, digital IDs, CBDCs. It's just going to be fucking chaotic as well. But however long it takes
to transition to the other side, I'm not saying we're going to transition onto a Bitcoin standard
after the next dystopian three years. I don't think that's going to happen.
I think this could be like way down the track, 15, 20, 30 years plus. But as Bitcoin becomes the
world denominator, the new morale, do you think some of these maybe conservative or traditional
values are going to be able to come back. Men are going to be allowed to be strong. Women are going
to be allowed to be women. Kids can just be kids and we can get rid of a little bit of the nonsense
or do you just think the world's too far gone? No, I think it'll be a requirement that we vacate
some of these nonsensical first century ideas because I think at least when we reach a Bitcoin
standard, the only way to earn a living is to be competent, is to provide real world value.
And today you can, you know, get by with not providing much real world value and still be employed and get health insurance and, you know, save a little bit.
And I think on a sound money standard, that no longer becomes an option.
I think it's going to be a painful transition because there's going to be a generation or two of people who are still alive of working age when that happens, who haven't acquired any skills.
And now are suddenly trying to figure out what do I do?
No one's going to part ways with their Bitcoin for anything I have to offer.
And that's going to be, it's going to be messy.
But I think on the other side of that is a generation that grows up realizing I can't be fat and weak and I can't be stupid and I can't spend my entire life just playing video games and eating whatever I want to eat.
And because no one's coming to save me.
Like right now there is someone kind of coming to save you, right?
Like they'll, they'll shoot you up with those Olympic or they'll, you know, send you a welfare check or whatever.
And on a sound money standard, it's no longer an option. I mean, quite literally. And I think because of that, we're going to have, it's going to, the people who, you know, the people who choose not to care for themselves, who choose not to accumulate skills that are useful in the world, I think are going to suffer.
And, you know, hopefully there are good, generous, charitable people who, you know, will choose to help them, train them, you know, teach a man to fish kind of thing.
But in the interim, I think it's going to be messy.
But I think we'll get to that point where the expectation is you're competent, you're respectful, you're strong, capable.
And I think that's going to be a I think I think what Bitcoin really does on that is I'm not a fix the money, fix the world guy anymore.
I'm a fix the incentives, fix the world guy.
I think Bitcoin fixes a lot of the broken incentives.
At the end of the day, though, it always comes down to human action.
There will still be people who choose to be lazy or fat or to not produce value, even on a Bitcoin standard.
And they're just going to suffer in a way that they've been able to sort of skate by on a fiat standard.
Yep.
I guess on that note, ladies and gentlemen, get Bitcoin into self custody.
if you want to connect with the Bitcoin way.
Again, the first 30 minutes is free.
I've linked them at the top of the description.
They're always the first link.
But Michael, I just want to hand it over,
take a minute or so.
If you've got a final message for the audience,
anything top of mind,
and we'll see everyone on the next video.
Yeah, well, first of all, Sean,
thank you so much for having me.
It's been a blast.
I think I've opened up on this podcast
more than several of the others.
Hopefully you don't get canceled
and hopefully people aren't too hateful.
Yeah, well, first of all, I'd just love to say, you know, follow me.
I'm mostly active on Twitter, whatever we're calling it.
It's at the other M Jordan.
If you want to link to that in the description.
I will for sure.
I'll put all your links.
Go check out the Bitcoin way.
As a client turned employee, I can't say enough good things.
I've never been happier in my work.
And it's not just because I like the guys.
I do.
I love the guys.
But what we're doing is I think something truly special and incredible.
Everyone should take full self custody of their Bitcoin.
And the last thing I'd say is we talked about Treasury Co's and all the noise amongst the little bit of signal.
What I always like to say is that the yield on Bitcoin is freedom.
Love it.
When that begins to resonate and you internalize that, I think amazing things happen.
Your life changes for the better.
And I hope everyone listening can reach that point.
Mate, it's been absolutely amazing.
I have seconded that wrap up there.
But for everyone out there, all Michael's links are below.
Connect with the Bitcoin way.
The free survey, it's freaking amazing.
It's just do it.
Find out where you stand with your self-custody setup, the newsletter.
And then, of course, go out, do something nice for yourself today
for somebody else out there.
Be blessed.
Peace.