Welcome to Local Bitcoiners, a podcast about Bitcoin meetups.
In this episode, Reid and Rev chat with GC and James from the Jersey City Bitcoin meetup.
All right, welcome to Local Bitcoiners.
I'm Rev, Rev Hodel, here with Reid.
And today we have James and GC from the Jersey City meetup.
um we're looking at a pretty cool podcast tonight we're going to talk about a lot but i'm going to
start off by going over the south bend indiana meetup which is the meetup that i run um we run
that meetup the first thursday of every month at lang lab this next one is on march 4th uh thursday
march 4th uh at 6 30 p.m and in the last uh recording we did i talked about the february
meetup and that meetup was a bear market meetup. It definitely had bear market vibes. We had five
people come and one guy showed up just to buy a Bitcoin miner for me. I showed him how to use the
Bitcoin miner. I did a little demo. Everyone got to see how that thing worked as a space heater.
He grabbed that Bitcoin miner and off he went. So I was just left with four of us in total.
The Bitcoin account, who is my co-organizer of the meetup, was unable to attend. So it was just
me and a couple other guys. And there was a new person at the meetup who hadn't been messing with
Bitcoin at all before. And so it was a pretty good example of like how to navigate, not necessarily
orange pilling somebody, but introducing them to Bitcoin as a concept in general. And this person
happened to come at it with, she seemed to have like this aptitude towards natural systems and
farming and stuff, which was perfect for me since I do homesteading. And so I was able to paint
Bitcoin through this lens of permaculture. And it seemed like, you know, she left with a pretty
high interest in learning more. Reid, how did your, or I guess, what's the story with your meetup?
Cool. So as I talked about last episode, so I run the Western Mass Bitcoin meetup.
So I'll talk about our January meetup for a minute. So we run a Socratic seminar format,
and so basically what I do is kind of hop from topic to topic.
I try to keep it to like one slide per topic, but sometimes it goes more,
and one of the reasons why I do that is because we've got people of kind of all different,
let's say, Bitcoin experience levels who look at Bitcoin, almost like you were saying.
There's so many different lenses to look at Bitcoin through, right,
that I like to be able to kind of hit it from different angles,
and instead of getting locked in on one topic every month,
this kind of lets me sort of hop around to maybe some beginner topics.
We hit some news topics.
I tend to be, I of course, you know, put together the slides,
so I bring a little bit of my own flavor.
So I tend to talk about like mining a lot more than maybe some other people are interested,
especially up here in Massachusetts where we've got like 36 cent a kilowatt hour electricity,
which is not super conducive to mining,
but I was able to do a little bit of a demo of the datum gateway
that I have set up on my, I think it's, yeah, my umbral node.
So, yeah, definitely a little bit of bear market vibes,
mostly just like, you know, I think we did have one new person come,
and I think she's coming back this time.
So hopefully we got a new regular.
so uh gc james you guys want to talk about your meetup for a little bit
yeah what's up guys this is uh gc from jc jersey city bitcoin meetup and i'm really happy to be on
the show i i think that the one thing the world needs more than anything else are more bitcoin
podcasts i'm here for it i'm really excited and i'm just very grateful to to be on the program
and talk about Jersey City.
So I can talk a little bit about how our meetup went last time,
but I really just wanted to mention that we have two a month,
the second and third Thursday of the month,
and we'll post our meetup group and our website
so you guys can find us at JerseyCityBitcoin.com.
But our next one is going to be the 12th of February,
which you might miss if this comes out tomorrow,
and the 19th of February is going to be our Socratic style one.
So I'll pass it to James.
Yeah, thanks.
So James here from the Jersey City Bitcoin Meetup.
Thank you, Reid and Rev, for having us on.
It's a pleasure.
So yeah, as GC said, our meetup, we do two a month.
We started about three or four years ago, right after COVID,
doing just the social at the bar kind of thing.
and there was like a strong appetite for for educational stuff um and and hurdle for us
is in our area space is a little expensive and bars generally don't you know uh may not want that
that's you know to rent a room and have like a television and do demos and that kind of thing
so it's it's been um a long effort up until this point gc really led the charge on finding a space
and we were able to find something that's economic.
And just based off of the needs and wants kind of of our community,
we were able to start getting into educational Socratic seminar type stuff.
So it's really awesome and exciting to get up into this point.
And we're excited to continue growing and helping out the community.
So how many Socratic seminar format ones have you done?
so we're on to uh next week will be our fourth so we really just started but like anything else
it takes talking about it over beers for a couple years sometimes for it to formulate so if anyone
out there is a little bit downtrodden or you've been trying to start it for a while don't worry
we're right there with you and you kind of just have to start before you're ready
um i could talk about a lot of best practices there but i really like the educational format
so yeah break down oh go ahead i was just saying i can't tell you how many times we were
you know semi a few a few drinks down the hatch um and getting into whatever the flavor of the
week is in bitcoin um and and and being like oh man like i wish we had a better format to like
get into the nitty-gritty of it and so we're finally here um yeah so what what is the socratic
seminar format anyways. What do you guys do for that? Yeah, so I will not beat around the bush.
I completely ripped off of Reed's format. I downloaded it off the site and I kind of modified
it for our own. We have our own logo. We have our own best practices. I think that it's really great
for anyone out there doing a meetup is the first couple of slides is just to go over your general
guidelines for the club, your rules, you know, scammers, we will not solicit all of the best
practices. And then we kind of go into the fun stuff. I like to kick it off with a little bit
of a little bit of Bitcoin price just to draw people in, because let's be honest, everyone
wants to talk about it. And then we go into like Bitcoin news, a podcast of the month, the Bitcoin
meme of the month and then we'll do more of a demo or workshop style thing at the end is how
we've been formatting it yeah I think one of the things that drew me to it so I had been to a couple
of bit devs and so bit devs they all seem to follow the Socratic seminar format and a couple
things that drew me to it one you know I had I had done a couple of the formats where you just kind
to stand up there and you'd be like, okay, I'm going to talk about this topic for like 30 minutes.
Those are really hard to prepare for. And so doing a Socratic seminar, it just, it makes it a lot
easier to just kind of break it up. And also it's like the whole point of a Socratic seminar is it's
a, it's not a person talking at you, right? It's a conversation in the room. So I might introduce
the topic or something, but then it's like, all right, like, what do you guys think? Like, let's
talk about this. And so it gets people to engage, right? Instead of just kind of sitting back and
listening. And I try to even call on some of the new people, or maybe not like the new new people,
but like the new people that I've gotten to know a little bit. And I'll just try to like draw them
into the conversation a little bit. I think it's been, we've been doing the Socratic seminar for
a little over a year, I think. So it's been going pretty well.
Yeah, that was my first meetup too, going into New York for BitDevs. And I really enjoyed those,
but it's kind of a pain, even from Jersey City, where we are to get into New York,
at least for me, it's kind of a whole schlep. And I also just kind of thought like, I mean,
I'm personally a developer, but even still out of BitDevs, it's just way up here, right?
And so that's kind of a main reason why I wanted to start a meetup,
is to kind of bridge that gap or have something right kind of in the middle.
Yeah, I want to emphasize that the schlep, as James called it, is completely our differentiator.
A lot of Central Jersey, South Jersey Bitcoiners, we get people drive an hour plus to our meetup because that last leg just over the river into the city is going to be another 45 minutes.
It's actually insane.
So, yeah, it's kind of crazy.
Parking is a mess.
And just to rewind it back a little bit, I owe James everything because after the 2022 Bitcoin Miami, I was so inspired by meeting Bitcoiners IRL that I was like, I wonder if Jersey City has one.
And lo and behold, he had just posted on Reddit, hey, come meet up for our third ever meetup or something crazy like that.
and now we're over 100 members in the telegram and we're getting 20 plus consistent especially
between you know the two different meetups that we have each month it's easily over 20
so yeah yeah tell me that so what's what's the journey been like you guys have been doing it
for a while how did you get started how what was that like and what was the process as you grew
now it sounds like you're doing two meetups a month, which is pretty awesome.
How did you end up there?
Yeah, so right after COVID, I've been interested in Bitcoin for a long time.
Never really had many Bitcoin friends, a few here and there.
But through that COVID lockup, which sucked,
but I was just kind of like talking about Bitcoin constantly to my wife.
My wife was like, okay, this is great.
you have a passion i get it but but you need to go out and and find other people to connect with
so that inspired me to to start the meetup but it wasn't um it wasn't like a direct route i'll say
i made a twitter um and i started playing around with the idea and there is there's another person
um um she's she's no she doesn't come to the meetup anymore but her and her husband
um i won't say her name because whatever but but she reached out to me on the twitter account in
jersey city bitcoin and she was like hey do you want to start doing meetups locally and that was
kind of the push i guess i needed to have the first one it's probably just me her and her husband
um and then we started posting on meetup.com and reddit uh reddit which i've kind of fallen off
with just because um it wasn't a great place to connect but gc found me through there so
That's fine.
But, and then slowly over the years on meetup, initially we were on meetup or maybe it was
Eventbrite.
I think you have to pay for meetup.
So that's why I was hesitant to do that.
But, but yeah, just through that slowly built up, we first started at one bar.
And then we came to realize that being close to a train in our area, a lot of people don't
have cars, was a really big thing.
So we moved it over to Zeppelin Hall Beer Garden.
It's a huge beer garden.
Another thing is like the first place we had that they wanted you to get a table and they wanted you to have one tab and they didn't want any splitting.
And that was like a big issue. Right. Like it's so for the first couple of meetups, I always was like biting the bullet of a few people kind of dipped and I had to pay for their drinks.
I was like, whatever. But we've gotten all those things figured out. And I want to shout out.
I'll just say the first initial of her name, Kay. You know who you are. You inspired me to start the
meetup. And then since then, we've really kind of embraced the decentralized community format.
And what's great about that, I was listening to your first podcast and I agreed with a lot of the
points you were making. Life happens. People want to take vacations. Sometimes it's just cold out
and maybe you don't want to go outside, right? So I think it's important and I would press for
anyone who's interested or active in the meetup to embrace that decentralized model, just like
Bitcoin itself, right? So one day you might move away, you might want to buy a house and have kids
and whatever, and you want to know that that community will outlive you. So having a partner
like GC has been, I can't say how much it's done for our community. It's really taken us to the
next level he's solely responsible for the socratic seminar part of it for years literally just like
oh you know that would be nice to have but if if we rented a space that would be so much money i
just kind of stopped there and gc kind of bridged that gap so um i can't say enough good things
about a decentralized um leadership yeah and just having it the second thursday of the month every
month we don't even have to show up anymore we've created something we can't stop it's like bitcoin
You know, people will just show up anyway because they know everyone else is going to be there.
And so that's really how you build a lasting movement is years of just, hey, we're going to meet up same time, same place.
Consistency.
Yeah, I know some meetups in New York, which are a little more at, I don't know what the right word is, but just like different on different dates.
And I think it's been a really good thing for our community to just have it same day every month.
so GC how did you get into the fold as far as taking more of a organizational role or leadership
role did you just start off going to the meetup and then you're like dude I like this so much I
wanted what can I do more how did that go yeah I guess that was kind of it and I think it's kind of
like when one person when uh one of the founders and their husband stopped showing up and it was
just James going every time he missed you know you miss a couple you can't go every single time
and I think James correct me if I'm wrong but I think it was my idea I didn't even know this was
a thing other meetups did but to hold it at the same time at the same place and I would go and
maybe one other person would show up and it just that's kind of how I contributed I think most of
the club is just being just being there consistently and and then yeah the educational thing we've just
been trying to do for so long. Reid and Rev, when we went to Nashville last year, I was just
so inspired by all of the other Bitcoin meetup organizers, how incredible, how many people show
up, how large of an organization they have and everything they've accomplished. And I was just
like, we just drink. That was the moment for me where I had to step up my game, I think.
yeah i could tell you um when i knew i had a partner in crime so to speak is like when gc would
be getting there early locking down the first table um at the bar because another thing was like
people would come they'd show up um and another thing is like he'd come with the signage he got
signs printed jersey city bitcoin were like taking over the bar um so people would come and
they would like shoot the message to telegram hey i don't know where you guys are actually a little
funny side story there's a group of swingers that meet at the same bar we do and they put this flower
on the table and it's orange so sometimes people come up to them and ask them through the bitcoin
meetup which is kind of hilarious but um but yeah that's when i knew um you know because i would
talk to people like hey maybe i want to do educational stuff and and it kind of just
stopped there and gc kind of you know took the ball and ran with it so um you know if you
go to a meetup right now and you just kind of attend it and you think you want to take the next
step, I would encourage you to reach out to the organizers, ask them what you can do.
What's nice about it is it's like, it doesn't fall all on me. It doesn't fall all on GC.
It's a shared responsibility to build this community. And so it can be overwhelming sometimes
when you own something, you know, end to end. But, you know, when you have that support,
it makes it a lot easier. And, you know, there's a lot to benefit. Like, I remember when we were
first doing the Socratic seminars, a big idea for me in my head was like, this is a great way to
elevate, you know, people in our community. You might know something, might be very knowledgeable
on a topic. A common theme I noticed with a lot of people is they want to work in Bitcoin, right?
They don't have a job in Bitcoin, but they want to work in it.
And so I think that this is a really good stepping stone to that.
I think like, well, you had something.
Go ahead, Reid.
I was just, I wanted to ask.
So when you, one of the things, so we also started, you know, just in bars and stuff like that.
And I think that's pretty common.
and finding a location when you just need to meet at a bar is like you know it's maybe like a little
bit of work like you said we hopped around from a few bars to try to find you know oh hey this one's
a little bit better they got a better room for us and stuff like that but yeah as soon as you
graduate graduate as soon as you decide that you want to kind of step up your game and start putting
something on a screen and doing more educational stuff the complexity like of finding a place that
you like don't have to pay for or that is like not prohibitively expensive uh that's like a just
a big bar and that held us back for a couple of years until we finally were like we had a meetup
member come and they offered their like little print shop and we like kind of set up a bunch of
chairs in there and stuff like that and that worked for a little while um so i'm just wondering what
your experience was like trying to find a location and how you guys got over those hurdles
so miserable can i tell you that that was the number one barrier to entry for us too and i
think going to nashville and and meeting up all the other organizers and hearing them talk about
it definitely helped i think that james i maybe on like the fifth ever jersey city bitcoin meetup
we were already brainstorming venues and it just nothing ever came of it and i think it's a
combination of being afraid to pay for a place that financial commitment uh but two it's it is
finding the right spot. And obviously, if you have Bitcoiners with a place that's like
a classroom setting, that's optimal. What worked out for us, so we're actually located
in this place called the Barrow Mansion So rewind really quickly We were trying to go to a WeWork We were trying to find you know rent a space in all of these places that were like an hour especially in the Jersey City
New York area. Everything was incredibly expensive. And I lived next to this clubhouse,
and it was built in the 1830s. I think it was finished in 1837. So pre-Civil War, like huge
Roman columns in the front of it. Absolutely tremendous clubhouse. I would go there for
Buddhist meditations a couple of times. And I was just like, this place would be really cool
for our meetup. And I just never took that next step. And then all I did was I went on the website
and I emailed them. They got back to us and we pay about $50 an hour. So a hundred dollars for
the month, which is nothing compared to everything else. So I think that maybe if you're looking on
those sites that have classrooms, try to avoid that. Try to do what you know in the community.
You know, if you really know your local area, start there versus going straight to the places that are advertising.
Because we got a really great rate because there's not a lot of people that host there.
Yeah, I think Rev, I think you made the point last time right now that they've got all these BTC maps and stuff like that where people might be accepting Bitcoin now.
You know, that's a great place to start, right?
If you're looking for a place, hey, if there's a place that accepts Bitcoin, they're probably going to be more likely to be able to have you on as a host.
Yeah, this place doesn't accept Bitcoin.
It's like a historic mansion.
And they even do like AA meetings in the basement.
But, you know, it seems like, you know, they need the income.
They need someone to rent space.
We need a space to rent.
The rates are almost laughable.
So it's, I mean, it's just, it's nice to have someone who doesn't quote you an astronomically high price.
Because like as GC was saying, we were looking at these co-working places.
And at first the rates weren't like crazy.
But then we started getting into details of like, all right, what if we have like 15 or 20 people there?
And we quickly realized like they don't, this isn't going to work.
And one other thing too, don't let a place not having a screen stop you.
I got this projector off of Amazon for 70 bucks.
Incredibly crisp, incredibly crisp.
Our place has table and chairs already.
What else do you need?
It's cozy there.
So that's another really great best practice too.
You know, just try to be scrappy.
and so yeah like these venues and everything they're totally dictated by what's available
the community that you have access to and like as you saw at nashville there's a whole swath of
different intentions for what people are looking to get out of when they start a bitcoin meetup
and so james for you when you got started what were you really looking for did why did you want
to just did you just want to talk to bitcoiners did you want to get a bitcoin job what was your
intention when you started the meetup? Yeah, really just to connect with other Bitcoiners,
to have Bitcoin friends, to meet other people who share, you know, a passion, but it's really like
so much more than that. Sometimes when I'm telling normies or my wife or whatever,
who may not understand like, well, why, you know, why are you so gung ho about hanging out with
Bitcoiners? It's, it's like, it's kind of like meeting someone who likes the same sports team
or something, right? I know we share, there's going to be so much common shared values.
If you could visualize a Venn diagram or whatever. With the average Bitcoiner, I just know there's
going to be much more overlap. We're probably going to have a lower time preference. Bitcoiners
tend to care about their health. They tend to care less about short-term results and more about
kind of the long-term. Proof of work is something that commonly is said in this community. But
I find that Bitcoiners really embrace and embody that spirit. And it's just nice when you meet
another Bitcoiner, you know you're going to have all this shared overlap of values and that kind
of thing. So that's really what inspired me to do it. Now, since then, I was a developer at the time.
right after COVID, I took a coding bootcamp. I ran full speed ahead into development.
And I was able to land my first job, which was for a big food company, making online ordering
apps for convenience stores, which was cool. It was a good first experience. But over time,
seeing people build awesome stuff on Bitcoin, I just wanted to get into that. And since then,
I have been able to land a gig. Someone literally just reached out on Twitter and said, hey,
I'm looking for a Bitcoin developer for this lightning thing I'm building. And that's how I
got started with him. So it's actually amazing. I was looking for jobs at the time. And I don't
know if anyone out there listening is doing that. I feel for you because LinkedIn sucks.
but it just kind of fell into my lap.
Someone reached out on Twitter and gave me, you know, a Bitcoin job.
So that's just kind of another reason to,
if you're kind of on the fence about starting a Bitcoin meetup
and, you know, having a Bitcoin job sounds cool,
I would encourage you to go for it.
And so it started off as you kind of just looking to meet like-minded people
And you didn't necessarily land your Bitcoin job through the meetup.
But I'm curious if now the meetup's been going on, you said it's so much more than that.
What has it become?
The regulars, have they started businesses together?
Have they started cooperating?
Are there any cool stories that you guys have from that angle?
Yeah, I mean, for me, once I came back from Bitcoin Miami, and I really was inspired to join, meet up, meet like minded Bitcoiners, like what James said, I quickly realized after a few of the sessions, listening to some of the most incredible and intelligent people that I've ever met in my life, that this really I did like a flashback.
This really was like seventh grade U.S. history or European history where I was thinking of Bitcoin meetups as like the New Age Enlightenment salons.
I don't know if you guys know anything about those, like how there would be diplomats like Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson who would go to France and they would sit in and discuss Enlightenment ideas.
And a bunch of people just sitting around drinking, discussing philosophy, literature, art, science, politics.
And those small meetups really played such a huge part in the whole enlightenment growth and development of these ideas of people just having these Socratic seminars, debating and talking and networking and growing.
And that's what we're doing here.
We have, you know, there's been so many connections that I've made personally.
I've met some incredible people within the industry and I just love growing and building.
And another thing for me, this really just makes Bitcoin feel real, right?
You almost feel like a crazy person when you're reading about it or listening and watching on YouTube videos.
Maybe it was just because it was COVID, but this was really going to a meetup in person at the turning point of coming out of the pandemic.
the pandemic really just made Bitcoin feel so real to me. And people don't understand how much
of a paradigm shift Bitcoin really is. So like we were talking about talking to normies, it really
just doesn't sync with them. But when you're face to face talking to somebody who gets it,
that is just such an incredible feeling that nothing else can replicate. There's tons of
different perspectives, right? We're all listening to the same 50 influencers and going to a Bitcoin
meet up and meeting 20 new people who each have their own different perspective and they're also
incredibly intelligent and you realize what's out there it just opens your perspective um and it's
just such a game changer and of course there's the cliche of having a third space and and really just
having a place outside of work and home that you can go and and meet and relax um but yeah i could
i could pop off more but i i'm just very passionate yeah to build on that for a second um
I very much agree with the third space.
I'm a bit of a homebody.
I work from home.
And so after a day or a week of developing, sometimes the last thing I want to do is go
to the bar.
When I was younger and single, maybe, more than maybe, right?
I was there.
But these days I really just don't have a strong desire to go out and go to the bar.
If I'm going out with my wife, that's one thing.
If I'm meeting a friend, that's another thing.
But I just don't have that desire.
it's it's just completely different to like go meet up with bitcoiners and one just like little
anecdotal things to build on what gc was saying is like recently a lot of our meetups you might
be mistaken that it's like an ai meetup right just because that's like the flavor of the week
but um another interesting like shared common ground kind of thing uh that i've observed is
is when we discuss ai and the future of ai um and you're talking to another bitcoin about it's not
not even like a question what type of money do you think this AI would prefer right do you think
it would prefer the money that can be turned on and off that's just a number in a database that
the the operator of the AI or the bank or the government or the whoever um can just turn off
or do you think you'd prefer centralized peer-to-peer unstoppable uncensorable cash uh you
know it's not even a question right um so yeah this is such a cool topic not only what money
would it prefer, but what infrastructure does it want to build on is really the question, right?
Like, let's say that the AI has their own crazy economic financial system that only they can
develop and understand, and we mere humans will never be able to possibly comprehend it. But what
economic infrastructure are they going to build that on? Some centralized human-made shitcoin? No,
they're going to build it on Bitcoin. And that is really the unlock of that Bitcoin is not just
money, but it's also a network and a platform and a whole technology stack that no one really
understands. And it's just so inspiring. Some of the AI stories with Bitcoin are
getting a little bit crazy these days. Some of the open claw agents and stuff like that,
because it's almost not even just like, can this be turned off or not be turned off? It's like,
hey, I'm going to give this to you. It's now yours, right? Like you have control of it.
Now go do what you're going to do, you know, AI, robot, or whatever you are.
And they're able to like almost grasp that like inherently and understand the keys and understand
how to send it and use it as a tool, right? As a tool to build, as a tool to research,
as a tool to do perform the tasks that you assign them.
Yeah, it's really, I mean, it's what money was always meant to be, right?
I'm looking forward to the time where I can like plug a brand into my car,
you know, and it can go drive around, you know, be a taxi, collect the Bitcoin.
It goes right to my wallet, right?
My car is just working for me because I tell it to.
And then when it needs an oil change, I don't have to go take drive to the oil change place.
that can go get the oil change and pay for it itself.
You know, I imagine this is,
you need something like Bitcoin for that to be possible
to like utilize the AI and bridge it into the real world
and have it like do economic physical tasks
for you with the robot, right?
Yeah, and blockchains don't scale
and centralized databases don't scale,
but the Lightning Network does.
And if we're going to have trillions of transactions a second,
there's no other monetary infrastructure that AIs can use.
It's just like full stop.
No, but on the topic of AI,
I do think that it relates to Bitcoin meetups more generally
because I don't know if you guys listen to Bitcoin Audible at all,
but Guy Swan did a read really recently.
Poe's Laws comes into full flower.
Did any of you guys listen to that one by chance?
Not yet.
it's in my queue actually I haven't heard it yet highly recommend I might spoil it a little bit here
but the TLDR on this is if you lose the ability to trust anything AI comes in they're creating
videos they're creating deep fakes they're creating news stories you don't know what's
real or fake anymore that's now that's here the recent models the nano banana there was another
one Sora or something recently like you cannot tell what's real and what's fake anymore
what's going to happen? What are we going to do? If you can't trust a voice, a Zoom call,
a phone call, you just stop. All of humanity just stops believing what they see on their screens
and the world gets small again. So now I'm quoting from the actual article.
You trust what you see with your own eyes. Businesses move to highly protected, verified
networks. So the real high trust, that's going to be the face-to-face, the IRL, the hands that
get shaken, the eyes that get looked into, and people once more do business directly with other
people. And we're social animals. We want to be around each other. We want FaceTime. We want lunch,
talking, body language, having a drink, communicating over in person. And what does this mean? What does
this future of we can't trust anything anymore? Don't trust Verify. Going to Bitcoin meetups are
going to be the only space where you can trust someone to teach you about Bitcoin. There will be
these webs of trust that we, us, right now are building right before AI fundamentally undermines
our ability to trust anything on online transactions, right? These friendships, the networking of
like-minded people, this is going to be the only way to move forward with Bitcoin. And I think that
That is highly underrated.
And what you guys are doing with this podcast is especially foundational for building those
webs of trust in the future.
More meetups.
That's what we want.
I want more meetups.
Well, and so have you noticed any economic activity happening from the relationships that
get built at the meetup?
In my area, in the meetups that I go to, this is like what it's become about, man, is like
how can we build now?
Like we know each other, we trust each other. We know what,
what skills and aptitudes and resources we all have.
Like what can we do with that shit? And we start working together.
Yeah. I mean, there's, there's definitely,
there's definitely that, that type of camaraderie going on.
People are talking about what they're building you know,
cool things that they think would be, you know,
a place for something in the market. We also have, you know, Rob from Bitcoin News. He's a member of
our meetup. Hopefully I didn't dox him, but, but yeah, but like, and he's, he's always, you know,
as a developer, I can always tell him like, oh, you know, I'm thinking about building this cool
thing or, or maybe I even approached him one time, like, you know, I'm a developer, but
it feels like everything cool is already built and I don't know what to build. And he comes
out with like a laundry list of, of things to build and offers, you know, to tweet it from his,
his large account. Um, and so it's just, you're not going to get, um, that, that level of,
of cooperation and, and support. I think maybe with friends you've known for basically your whole
life, but like at a Bitcoin meetup, it's almost like speed running, right? You still have to be
a little hesitant. Like when you just meet somebody, you don't know who they are, what
their attentions are. But after, after a couple meetups, you know, having some beers together,
and if you don't drink, that's cool too, just hanging out, you know, I, back to GC,
sorry to go on a tangent here, but what GC was saying before about like, you know, like bars
and taverns, like America was founded essentially by people meeting in bars and taverns and talking
about new ideas. And so I just think, you know, even if you're not a drinker, I just think it's,
it's like a magical environment.
Yeah, to your point, Rev,
maybe it's just a Northeast thing,
but no one makes syrup here
and no one wants to spend their sats.
And it's highly disappointing
and definitely a point of failure
for us as meetup organizers
that we don't have more circular economies going.
But people here are like accountants
and software developers.
Like it's really hard to sell and share services.
So I think maybe that's just a factor of where we live, but I wish there was more of that.
Although we have had somebody in the Telegram asking for the past few weeks, they want a Bitcoin butcher.
So if you know an awesome butcher out there that accepts Bitcoin, hit us up on JerseyCityBitcoin.com.
We'll buy some steaks.
Well, and you said that people come from an hour or more away a lot of times.
Now, I don't know an hour or more away from Jersey City what you can find, but that's a pretty big range.
And like I travel an hour to two hours, sometimes two and a half hours to a meetup.
But that's because I know I've got a good or service that's valuable to that group and I can get my gas money back at least by selling a thing or two.
and uh so there's a there's a place uh in chicago i think they're calling it uh the bitcoin
collective uh i don't know if i got that right or not but they they're creating like a co-work
space kind of like uh bitcoin park in nashville but the chicago version of it i i think there's
a some a place called the space in denver which is similar and so these kinds of spaces create
gravity for people to come from far away and bring their shit but when you have somebody still willing
to drive an hour or two away it's like what what do they have access to in that area and do we does
do the people at the meetup want that thing because you can buy you can spend your fiat on a thing
like a fancy brewery has some beers that you can't get or i don't know what it could be
um and they go buy that stuff they take the pre-orders and bring it to the meetup and then
and they sell it for sats and they just basically DCA or buy Bitcoin through selling a good or
service to the meetup, which then it moves the sats around and it gets the economy started,
right? The bridge from fiat into the Bitcoin land, into Bitcoin world, whatever.
no yeah uh i i i went to vegas this past uh bitcoin conference in vegas um and another person
from our community was there uh and i didn't have you know i was light on on money like actual fiat
right um and so essentially my option was hit an atm in a casino which is going to rip me off
or ask my friend, hey, do you want to like stack some sats, right?
Because it like you buying Bitcoin It like I using an ATM no fees and we made that happen So that you know it not the traditional idea of like buying stuff or a circular economy or whatever
but it's, it, it served a purpose for all. He was actually up, he had won money in the casino. So
it's like he's taking some of his profits and buying Bitcoin. I'm getting some money to gamble
that, you know, I promptly lost and whatever, but, but it served the purpose and I didn't have to
pay some rent-seeking ATM owner, you know, $10. Have you guys ever played the credit card game
at the restaurant or something with your friends where you go and buy, everyone just like buys
whatever they want. And then you throw all your credit cards into the hat and the one that gets
picked out buys the dinner, right? But if they buy the dinner and you're paying them back sats,
it's like you're the one who wants your card to get picked because now you just stacked a bunch
of KYC free Bitcoin from all your friends locally.
So you guys can do shit like that.
I mean, even cash trades, people, I much prefer,
I avoid selling my Bitcoin back on the exchange.
I want to, if I need fiat, I'm going to go to my local community first.
You know, and there's a lot of people that want the opportunity
to buy Bitcoin with cash.
And so meetups are a great opportunity for those kinds of trades
to start to happen.
Once again, because you built, you spend a lot of time with these people.
We meet up with them month after month for years.
And so there's a high level of trust there where you can feel comfortable going to this.
And you're around a bunch of other people and the trade happens.
You don't have to necessarily do it right in front of everyone.
But you know there's people around.
It feels safe to me.
I have to agree with you.
You know, one thing that I've seen, you know, in our community and others is online impersonation.
Um, so like, yeah, you trust, you know, you trust the people in the community, but how
do you, uh, you know, on the internet, it's not that hard to, to, to make a telegram handle
and make it look like exactly like someone else or whatever.
Um, and so I think that it's probably smarter, um, you know, to do things face to face with
someone you've known for years or months, um, you know, smarter than just using the
internet to source that.
So, yeah, if I could emphasize that point, I think everyone who's running a Bitcoin meetup or will run a Bitcoin meetup, you will face someone getting scammed. And so you have to know how to be prepared. And just being proactive about it. I literally print out sheets of paper and hand them to new members that are drinking meetup. Because if there is a scammer afoot, they know that we're serious and we're educating our community to not fall for their tricks.
and so yeah i can't emphasize that more enough um just make it make it a point to to say it
to put in your handouts uh and just to make it a habit because honestly scams are everywhere it's
not just bitcoin it's ai it's texts it's it's everything so um people should just be aware of
of what ai is now capable of yeah and and it may not even be a member of your community right um
If your meetup grows to a certain size, there's going to be people in God knows what third world country hopping in there, lingering, watching the dynamic, figuring out who to pretend to be.
And, of course, you know, you can also have people in the community doing it, too.
You don't know.
But GC's right.
You need to be vigilant for these things.
you know uh definitely set the tone that um you know we're watching out for this
um we had someone ask and by the way i don't think it was malicious i don't think it was a scam
but i think we had someone ask um you know they wanted to trade stables for bitcoin
and we took a hard line stance on that um and we kicked them out of the group it was weird
it was weird i um are you guys talking in the group chats yeah so they'll come to the meetup
listen around then pretend to be so they'll get in the group chat then they'll pretend to be someone
in the group trap and try and scam them online so we don't we don't know and that's why we've
changed so another best practice that we've learned and you guys can can chime in is that
we only let people in the telegram in person we we're admins to the group you have to scan a qr
code add an actual meetup i have to actually meet you and then know who you are because that way
that that won't happen.
Or who knows if it's someone
who just joins the meetup randomly.
So a good bridge and transition to that is marketing
in that I wish we did a little bit more,
but I kind of like that we're a little bit undercover.
Bitcoiners know that there are Bitcoin meetups
and we don't want to be too loud about it.
I think for the Socratic seminar,
it's important to market to our local community.
but the online just blasting out,
hey, we're Bitcoiners, this is where we are,
it's a fine line to walk.
Yeah, yeah.
Because when Bitcoin is skyrocketing
and even though it's down a little bit now,
it's still $67,000 of Bitcoin, right?
People see that, they see dollar signs.
Not everyone is a good person
and you just need to be watchful.
Like another rule that we kind of have,
It's not like the hardest of rules, but no solicitation, right?
Like if you come to a sarcastic seminar and you talk about something, that's cool.
But I'm not going to have you up on that stage soliciting an investment, right?
If you want to do that on the side, it's cool.
It's kind of like our shitcoin rule, right?
We focus on Bitcoin, no shitcoins.
If someone mentions a shitcoin once or twice, you know, it's fine.
We'll just kind of remind them to refocus.
Yeah, we learned that scammer thing too about the – like we have a Telegram chat for the group and we had impersonators starting to come in and we switched exactly to what you said, GC.
We took it down.
We had our Telegram link posted on like our meetup.com page, took that down and then we kicked out the scammers or whatever and then we haven't had a single problem since.
So I think that's a good thing to keep in mind.
And the other thing I started thinking about, I started thinking about it as I started my meetup.
But I try to remind people every once in a while, like we've talked about, like Bitcoin isn't necessarily the only community that has these types of risks.
I mean, anytime you're going out in person with anything, but especially if it's associated with money, right?
like you said about when the price goes up.
We actually heard some stories in our meetup group
about how this happens to like gamblers.
People will hang out outside the casinos
or outside where you're playing your poker game.
And hey, if they saw you win big
and you're walking out of there,
there's some security things that you should be aware of.
So we try to emphasize security.
Like there are some security,
like some regular just standard kind of OPSEC type things.
that we try to just, not everybody thinks about that when they go to a meetup.
You reminded me of another best practice that I kind of, this was probably a shower thought,
but in order to build up proof of work. So when someone joins your meetup, like they scan the QR
code, if you're a meetup organizer, you should be shooting them a DM and being like, hey, welcome to
the club. Build up a little proof of work so that they don't think that, like when a scammer does
message them, it won't be you because they'll know they'll have no chat history. So building
up a chat history with the people in your group is, is I think something that I've, I've also
learned is good to discern if it's a scammer or not. This is really just a problem with Telegram
from my experience. Yeah. And we've, we've migrated a lot of our chats, our group chats to
signal for that reason. But it's, if you have a good Telegram channel, like the Grand Rapids
meetup Telegram channel is amazing, dude, there's, there's like, 100 to 200 people, I don't know
exactly, but there's a bunch of people in there, they're active. It's like the Bitcoin meetup is
continuing on after the meetup, there's, you know, you're sharing your memes, you're sharing your
links to news stories and podcasts and whatever people are asking questions. It's great. But those
meetups, the Telegram one, like, so you don't want to sacrifice the Telegram one just to switch
over to signal so we've been slowly doing it right encouraging people to try and engage more on signal
um and use the telegram less and it's been working um but it's it's a process we've been
probably trying this transition for over a year now wow yeah we we briefly use something called
like ox chat which is like built on on nostr or nostr um and there was like some pain points there
but it's been probably over a year. It might be a lot better now. But to your point,
you know, it kind of sucks to abandon a chat room that you've been building for years.
I kind of, I don't know, I would just encourage people, you know, to think of Telegram as not
safe. Don't try, like I've known GC for years, but I will, you know, sometimes I'll like double,
triple check that this is the same conversation I've had with him. Recently, there's been this
story going around about people impersonating people who run meetups, I'm sorry, podcasts,
and like sending a malicious Zoom link. And I asked GC today, like, hey, you know these guys,
right? And he's like, yeah. So I don't think you can be too cautious. And like, for example,
there's a number of other telegrams I use for stuff that I like, like BTC pay server or whatever.
And you just got to know that like when you post in there for help, you're going to get impersonators.
A million percent instantly ban them or block them.
You know, don't feel bad about ignoring DMs.
I'll tell people straight up, don't reply in a DM.
Just talk to me here in this chat where we can all sit.
That's one thing that we really encourage is like, you know, like when people DM me and they're asking for shit or asking about, you know, I'm just like, we could just have this conversation in the chat.
we don't have to do this in dm there's no uh information that we need to keep private here
um i'm happy keeping it out in the open and that and so this is it's like you have to educate your uh
your your group about um about telegram if you're going to use telegram and it takes some work but
telegram is really effective i feel like it's a good platform yeah no i i do like it um and if
If anyone listening is, I know we've been talking about scam prevention for a while here.
OPSEC is obviously always a core aspect of Bitcoiners.
And a lot of people don't want to be famous or known.
They just want to be rich and unknown.
And so this was a big point for me as a meetup organizer.
I was going back and forth.
Do I want to jump on a podcast?
Do I want to host a meetup?
Do I want to join regularly?
And I thought about this for a long time and ultimately decided to pursue Bitcoin because there's this one quote that really stands out to me and that it's a ship in the harbor is safe, but that's not what ships are built for.
And it's one of those things like if you want to make a change in the world, if you want to actually contribute and do things like there is there's risk to everything.
But that's what it's all about, man. That's what we're here for.
so it's worth it
oh yeah
because we were talking about platforms
here a minute ago
with Telegram versus Signal
and stuff like that
I know you guys, you were talking about Eventbrite
and you were talking about
some of the other platforms that you've hosted on
I think I saw on your meetup, you guys are on Luma
now
how's that journey been? What's your feedback
like being off of
meetup.com?
So we still try to have all of the main ones because honestly, we get two or three new people from Meetup every month that just find us organically. So having a Meetup, having an Eventbrite, having those things, even if you don't really use them or post them, it's still good because we've had people, I ask every time a new person comes, where did you hear from us?
And a lot of times there's these weird New York groups that just like pull like organically. I don't know if there's an API or something. It probably pulls from Meetup into their platform, you know, so that's really a good way to get discovered, I think.
But I think that PubKey moved to Luma only too.
You might have to fact check me on that.
But Freedom Lab in New York also moved to Luma only.
A lot of these platforms, it's just the UX is great.
I mean, Satlantis obviously is definitely something we could think about using too.
But Luma, we've only had great experiences with.
And I like it a lot.
Plus it's free.
yeah and i think it even will text people to remind them or do push notifications or whatever
so it's just um and i know for myself um when we first got on meetup.com it just like spammed me a
ton of things i probably instantly turned it off so that's probably what end users are doing too
um i remember like very early in the meetup there was um a woman who came which is kind of
you know most people who come are not women we always always happy to have uh more women in
bitcoin at meetups right but one came and i asked her how she heard about us uh and she just found
us on meetup.com and not that this is really relevant but i remember she mentioned she was
like a jehovah's witness i was like man this is just like so interesting like i would never
meet up brought you here and now i get to try to orange pill you um so um you know how the tables
have turned yeah loomis loomis definitely a good platform uh probably the best platform but
i think uh being on all of them has been good for us um and like meetup.com i think you have to pay
um and the guys who run the south jersey bitcoin meetup who regularly come to ours it blows my
mind that they drive over an hour to come but there's there's more that there's three or four
guys that come from south jersey um which is like an hour an hour and a half because you know if
if you don't geographically know New Jersey.
But we work out a little arrangement there.
I made a deal with him.
He pays for meetup.com for some other reason.
And so he pays for us to be on there.
And similarly, some other people in our meetup,
I don't have the Orange Pill app subscription,
but other people in our community do,
and they post on there for us.
So that's kind of a bit of a circular economy as I see it.
you know to to share any platform you may have access to to promote your local meetup even if
you're not you know the person who started or whatever and just always going to bit devs and
shilling jersey city every time where people just know who we are because so going to other meetups
and showing your own is also a great way to get people out yeah i remember when we had like just
kind of started i don't think we had a website yet we only had the meetup.com page uh and i guess
you go around the room, you introduce yourself or you ask a question and they hand you a microphone
or whatever. I think GC had mentioned, you know, the Jersey City meetup. I don't know if I had ever
done it at BitDev's and they pulled up our thing in the room for probably like 50 people. And that
was like silly, but I was like, oh man, it's like a milestone looking back on it, you know?
Yeah. Our number one, it's not even close. Our discoverability, like where new people hear of us,
it's not even close. It's word of mouth. Um, you know, that's, I, yes, definitely. We have had
people come in organically, like who found us on meetup.com or found us on, on other places.
Uh, we've had some people find us from orange pill app. Um, we had a couple of people find us,
um, from Noster. Uh, but you know, it's, those are the exceptions to be honest,
most people it's, it's word of mouth. Um, so before we transition maybe to like the,
the last part of the show here, there was one other thing I wanted to ask you guys about. So I
saw, I was browsing your socials and I saw you guys started like a library or a book sharing
program or something like that. I thought that was like such a good idea. And like, you know,
I've got like all these books behind me, like a bunch of us at the meetup, we all have all these
books. I'd love to hear like, what, like, how are you guys running that? Like, are you just asking
people to bring in books or how does that work? So this was started by one of our members who
literally he just came up with the idea and he was like, hey, I have an idea for the meetup
because I would post in the group. I'd be like, please, if anyone wants to present something,
please, we want you up. And he was like, I have all of the books and I would love to start like
a mini book club. So I have my the book of Satoshi right here, which is his just loaning it for a
month and he's basically the only one doing the library right now where it's like every month you
know just bring the book back and I just thought it was such a cool idea um thanks for bringing that
up yeah I remember when he came up the idea I was like oh you might want to like take a deposit
maybe just like some I know that's what I was thinking too uh but it's gone well so far he
was completely like nah nah it's fine because you know there is that shared um it's just there's
there's just so much, you know,
I'm not going to do someone dirty like that and steal their book.
So it hasn't been a problem and hopefully it continues to go well,
but he's the man. He's the man for doing that. Shout out.
Yeah, that's cool. Plus, I mean, it gives them an excuse.
Like now they have, if they're, if they're worried about stealing your book,
right, they have to come back the next month so they can return it.
Yeah, I know. No, that's, that's a great idea.
Oh, that is a good point.
oh we just give out books to people and then they'll be like oh shoot i have to go to the
meetup to bring it back oh man i didn't even think about i'm writing this one down thanks
reed and i last episode kind of talked about what is the incentive to drive the regulars to keep
coming you know because reed was talking about the the social meetups weren't as popular and
once he switched to education then the people really started to show up and come back and i've
noticed that, you know, people don't come back for one reason or another. So you have to come
up with a reason or, or it's bet the meetup gets so much better when there's all these incentives,
this value that someone gets. Um, and then the, I guess in this instance, the obligation to return
and you have to hang out again. So, um, so I guess with that, um, maybe we'll transition here
to the next part of the show, which is, I guess, first to say, so we are a podcast.
We're streaming on podcasting 2.0 platforms, which means that people can boost us sats or
stream us sats.
And I'm incredibly grateful to the outpouring of support that we got for our first episode.
So thank you so much to everybody who contributed to the show and boosted.
And so we're going to kind of make sure that we always prioritize having some time here at the end to read off some of the boosts.
So I think, Rev, you got those queued up. You want to start reading some of them off?
Yeah. And before I do, she'll the Jersey City meetup again.
Just let us know the details, where you can find it, when it's happening, what's the next one. Let us know.
Jerseycitybitcoin is where you can find us And then we also have a Twitter JerseyCityBitcoin And so stop by
We have a contact form on the website.
The email comes to me.
A few of us run the Twitter.
So just reach out and come out to an event.
Second and third Thursday of the month.
So if I'm looking, Feb and March are the same.
So the 12th, the 19th, and then March is also going to be the 12th and the 19th.
And where are those at?
Good question.
The drinking meetup is at a place called Zeppelin Hall, big German beer garden.
And the Socratic seminar is very close by at the Barrow Mansion.
All right, sweet.
So yeah, if you're near those locations or maybe even an hour to two hours away, check it out.
They got a lot of good shit going on.
It's a great meetup.
So we got some boosts.
And the first one is a good friend comes to a lot of the Michigan meetups, Pleb to Polymath.
And he's talking about the Indianapolis meetup.
So this is the Indianapolis Bitcoin meetup, third Wednesday of the month at a new venue.
It's going to be at Keystone Sports Review on 71st and Keystone, 2-18, 7 and 9 p.m.
That's your usual date of your usual cadence there.
And they have an upstairs area that they'll have.
It's private.
You'll have it to yourselves with its own bar.
And Pleb to Polymath is also talking about his meetup, which is the Marion Bitcoin meetup.
the first Wednesday of each month, 6 to 8 p.m. at Obie's Barbecue in Marion, Indiana.
And so, dude, Pleb to Polymath is like a great example of somebody who just,
I met him at Lake Satoshi a few years ago.
And he wasn't running a meetup.
He wasn't doing anything.
But he's like, dude, I'm starving for interaction with Bitcoin.
And so he started going to the indie meetup.
And then he's like, dude, I don't want to drive so far.
Why don't I just make a meetup in my own town?
And so now he's doing that. And he's still traveling to all these other meetups. And he's participating in the circular economy. He's just a shining example of like, once you get the first meetup under your belt, you start to get that taste of blood, you know, you keep going to more.
the next one is
anonymous and this is for that
the Midwest Bitcoin
Summit it's September
23rd to 24th
it's the largest Bitcoin meetup
for Bitcoin meetups
from all across the Midwest
the Midwest Bitcoin Summit will
host four stages business hall
VIP lounge expo hall
Bitcoin only pure signal get your tickets
there's a link in the boost so if you
guys click on the show
you'll see their boost down there you can find the link um so there's a ton i i had never heard of
this um this conference or whatever the summit and but uh a friend of mine fundamentals was a
speaker on there and i'd noticed that there was a bunch of other uh speakers that i i had met in
person i'm like so i asked fundamentals i was like dude what's the deal with this he's like it's
going to be an amazing conference you should go um so ben workman he's been to the grand rapids
meetup is one of the speakers timothy niemeyer uh from the illinois bitcoin council lincolnland
meetup he's also written a book uh history echoes bitcoin is going to be there uh shane hazel from
bitcoin veterans uh and the bitcoin veterans is like have you guys heard of the bitcoin veterans
yeah i have
they're they're doing like amazing stuff man i i really like what uh bitcoin veterans is doing so
So there's going to be someone from there.
The seed signer is going to be there.
Stacey, who has the Bitcoin Nova podcast.
I just met her at the Elmhurst, Illinois meetup.
And she's doing stuff with Bitcoin Army on Twitter.
She's going to be there.
There's just like the list goes on and on of all these people that I've met in person that are going to be at this Midwest Bitcoin Summit.
But I don't know anything about it.
I've never heard about it until this boost.
I was checking out their website.
It was just, I was kind of blown away at the number of speakers that they had.
I don't know.
I'm not going to lie.
I think I was telling you actually, we had a little conversation about it after the boost came in, but I was like checking out flights.
I don't know.
It sounds like a good time.
Yeah.
Bart and G from Grassroots are going to be there.
Amber Harris from the Michigan Bitcoin console.
Amber Harris is like a super active participant in the meetups here.
She's been to all of them, really trying to make Bitcoin better.
So it just sounds like a lot of people who are really doing stuff.
Brian Hirshfield, that's fundamentals.
He's going to be speaking there.
Tons of people.
It sounds cool.
Okay, so the next one is from Matthew D.
He's from the Ann Arbor meetup in Michigan.
and he's got an arbor meetup will be the last tuesday of the month so every last tuesday of
the month the anarbor meetup happens this next one is going to be february 24th from 6 to 8 p.m
uh at the 4m in ann arbor and he's also i buy soap and tallow from from matthew he's got a
company called white paper soap um and so i get to instead of having to buy from soap miner on
Noster or whatever, I can just go to my local soap guy from Ann Arbor. And he ends up crossing
paths with me at Grand Rapids. So I buy soap and tallow bomb from him. It's great stuff.
The next one is from Mark Cat. And he just said, you guys inspired me to start my meetup again
at a business that actually accepts Bitcoin. And then he asked about, have we used Plectos,
which is Derek Ross's event app? Have you guys heard of Plectos?
i was just yeah i was just checking it out um yeah i hadn't heard of it so that's you know we
were talking a little bit before about event apps right it seems like there is sort of an explosion
of apps that are coming out because meetup.com is not the best and it costs a lot of money so
well i think there's a big dose man is like plectos will be interactive with satlantis
because they're both on Noster and they're using the same NIP, right?
The same events NIP.
And there is another one called Floxter that I've used as well.
But the events all show up on all of them.
So if you create an event on Plectos, it will be available on Satlantis and Floxter.
And that's the cool thing about Noster.
So Plectos is Derek's app.
I think that it's using Noster as a way to market your meetup.
You're going to get like real good, high quality Bitcoiners that come from that.
but there's not it's maybe in a higher population density like you guys are in
it's going to be more useful it sounds like meetup.com has been really useful
because of the high population density whereas meetup.com has been like a waste of money
in my area because it's more rural um but anyways plectos is cool i use it i i can't say that anyone
showed up from it yet but you know why not another place to post right especially if it's going to
start showing up across multiple apps,
you kind of get better bang for your buck.
Yeah.
And Mark, when you do finally start your meetup again,
let us know the boost us again.
And people, you just boost whatever.
You don't boost 21 sats.
I don't care.
Just put a boost in there and we'll read it off.
So we'll boost your meetup once that's going.
We'll let everyone know about it.
The next one's anonymous.
Check out the Columbia, South Carolina Bitcoin Meetup on Saturday, February 21st.
Savage Craft Ale Works, West Columbia, South Carolina.
They meet from 3 to 5 p.m., usually on the rooftop and once a month.
So it should be at that same cadence, third Thursday.
They're no longer on meetup.com.
They don't want to pay the monthly subscription.
I don't blame them.
They're using Luma, so you can find them on Luma.
And so I was going to ask your guys thoughts on Luma,
and I guess you're using it,
so it sounds like a pretty good one to go for as well.
Yeah, I love it.
The UX is great.
It's like the party full for meetups.
And James mentioned before,
even if you don't have the app, you still get the text.
So I just think that the way they figured it out,
the way that push notifications and everything is,
is really slick um yeah no i'm i'm a fan so and this is a way this this boost came in anonymously
and so this a lot of people have had trouble boosting on fountain but they don't want to use
the fountain wallet or whatever um there may be i don't know this is one way you can use fountain
to boost anonymously you click the fountain link um to the show uh you click comment and then you
You click add boost amount, add your comment, and then you pay the lightning invoice.
And so you can boost anonymously.
If you're worried about doxing yourself or whatever, you can boost your meetup anonymously on Fountain by following that process.
You click the link, click the comment, add your boost, add your comment, and now you've boosted it anonymously.
You don't have to worry about doxing anybody or using your own lightning wallet.
Next one comes from wartime.
He just boosted us some emojis, but wartime, this guy is boosting every podcast out there that I listen to, at least.
He's a big value-valuer supporter and Noster lover, so I wanted to give him a shout out.
And so the next one's an Illinois meetup from Tom.
He started the North Chicago Bitcoin meetup in Long Grove.
They meet the first Saturday of each month at Joni's Pizza, 1130 to 2 p.m.
The first meetup was in November 23.
It's grown a lot since then.
He collaborates a lot with the other Illinois people,
the Illinois Bitcoin Council.
And so, yeah, Tom is in a bunch of Signal chats that I'm in.
I haven't made it to that meetup yet because it's in the morning.
I can't get out, but come check it out.
There's a lot of cool stuff going on in Illinois.
Next one comes from SourceNode.
And SourceNode was a person who had trouble boosting on Fountain,
but he hit me up on Noster, so I'll put it in here.
Burgers and Bitcoin meet up at 2 on 2-21
at Steak and Shake in Greenville, South Carolina.
Source Node works with Sovereign.
Have you ever heard of the company Sovereign?
No.
There's a couple.
This is like they spell it weird without an extra E.
There's like one E missing from it or something.
um but they're a company that helps businesses start to accept bitcoin they like hold your hand
and and uh advise you through that process and so um brandon karpelis who goes to the chicago
bit devs meetup he works at sovereign and he's got a really cool podcast called the bitcoin
business podcast um anyways sovereign's all right source node wanted oh go ahead yeah for for
reference so it's s-o-v-r-e-i-g-n dot i-o so sovereign dot i-o yeah they'll get you a business
setup uh accepting bitcoin uh the next one's from otis bitmeyer uh he's thankful for the southwest
west michigan meetup which is the meetup closest to my place the southwest michigan meetup
um that's in benton harbor the third thursday of each month at dwellers co-working space 6 30 p.m
this is a meetup that feels like a lot what you guys were talking about where
it's like you feel like you're in the the the back corner of the bar and you're coming up with
the ideas that are going to like create this is the beginning of the revolution you know
that meetup those kinds of conversations are really what happens there he says he leaves
inspired to continue building the world he wants to see by attending that meetup
and so otis bitmeyer also has this really cool podcast called sound sound coffee um and that's
with fundamentals as well and this is otis bitmeyer sells he roasts coffee and right now he's roasting
coffee with solar power which is fucking cool and um he roasts the coffee and then he sells it in
his coffee club for bitcoin only and he denominates the price in coffee and sats and i've been drinking
that coffee for years, like over a year now. It's the best coffee and I pay in Bitcoin for it every
month. Next one we got is TamTam. This is the first boost for a meetup outside the United States.
Everyone who's not in the USA will promote, we'll talk about your meetup too. We want meetups to
grow everywhere. This one's for Bitcoin Beach Born Mouth every third Thursday of the month.
The next meetup is Thursday, February 19th.
There's going to be a little clinic at the beginning for one-on-one help, learning about Bitcoin.
Then social starts at 7.30 p.m.
It's at the COG Room at Modern Times Restaurant in Chaplin's Bar, 529 Church Street Road, Bournemouth, BH14AG.
That is gobbledygook to me.
But you can find that information once you click on the episode and go read that.
He says, bring your stats to spend.
The venue accepts lightning payments.
Badass.
That sounds like a great meetup.
You can go and pay in Bitcoin and you get some help if you want to learn.
And to round it out, I just want to thank the other people who aren't necessarily promoting a meetup, but sent us a boost.
Thanks to Jer, Shadrack.
Shadrack's got a really cool thing going on.
He's been on a bunch of podcasts recently called A to B where he's trying to take.
We have like a an issue where the Bitcoin meetups are a diaspora, right?
And we're all sort of trying to build a circular economy, but there's not enough people to support a diverse.
It starts off with food because everyone needs food and you can do that in a small area.
But sometimes you produce too much food.
But the people in Indianapolis, they want the food, but they're not producing the food.
So how can we get the food to Indianapolis and still keep it Bitcoin only?
Well, Shadrach's A to B thing is kind of trying to bridge these gaps with creating incentives for people to take goods and service or well goods from one meetup or bubble economy area to another.
Avi Burra from Pleb Chain Radio.
Avi's been doing so much cool stuff.
He's a big Noster dude.
Thanks for the boost, Avi.
kirk nick malister and bullish clips shout out so real quick so bullish also he runs uh a website
take my sats.com and it's so it's a platform for other bitcoin other bitcoiners to post their stuff
for sale um and it's all it's really easy to set up i actually set it up for a couple things that
i make and sell for sats um it's super cheap it's he he runs it it's very uh clean interface
so definitely shout out bullish
dude all the support that we got from this first episode is really encouraging man
there's a lot of you know this is just the beginning
look at how many bitcoin meetups are out there
if you think that there's not a bitcoin meetup in your area there probably is one
you just got to do some digging to find it we're working on trying to make it more accessible
and if there's not you should start one
totally totally agree have you guys ever heard of uh the philly john i think it's called or john
philly uh it's the philly area meetup uh i think evan colutis attends it who makes zeus wallet if
you're familiar with that but um it's a pretty big solid community i've never been but i heard
that they do it in like a big chinese banquet hall place which kind of is just hilarious to me but
if it works it works definitely go to the philly john meetup i don't know the frequency or
cadency if you organize the philly john meetup and you want to let us know send us a boost
this has been such a pleasure guys um the support that was like it's like 17 minutes
of boosts that was incredible you guys are are killing it very honored to be a part of this
movement that you guys are starting. And yeah, just can't thank you enough.
Yeah. Thank you for, it's been a pleasure. Thank you for having us on. It's thank you,
Rev and Reed, you know, connecting about our meetups and discussing it and,
and encouraging others to attend or start their own meetup. It's, you know, this is,
it's great. Yeah. We're just, I think we're, Rev and I, we're just trying to do our small part
here, right? We're trying to get the word out, you know, for one thing, but then also trying to
remind people that, you know, running a Bitcoin meetup, this doesn't have to be rocket science.
It's probably a lot easier than you think to get started. So if there isn't one in your area,
or you've been kind of toying with the idea of starting a meetup, strongly encourage you to do
that. And, you know, hopefully this episode and hearing more about Jersey City, what you guys are
working on, you know, hopefully that'll kind of emphasize to people like all the awesome benefits
that you get out of starting and running a Bitcoin meetup. So yeah, definitely thank you guys for
coming on. I was really glad that we had you guys showing up here for our, to be our first guests.
And yeah, I hope everybody enjoys hearing about, you know, what you guys got going on.
I know I got a lot out of this, so definitely thanks to you guys for coming on.
it's a pleasure um and just one to drive it home um a lot of these things are open source i remember
when we first wanted to do our educational stuff we were like well what are we going to talk about
almost every meetup out there that does educational stuff is open sourcing it so
that's just to really drive it home that you can do this um actually that's a really good point i
wanted to bring it up before when when gc was like oh we we ripped off your slides read um
I mean, you didn't rip them off because I open sourced them all.
So in the show notes, there'll be a link to a GitHub page that I started where I'm trying
to collect as much stuff as I can.
I'm trying to keep it organized.
There's just been a flood of stuff that continues to come in.
So I'm going to be working on hopefully ways to get that organized and make it easier for
people to, if you're looking for a topic to cover at your meetup, you can just kind of
pick one off of a list and see what other people did or, you know, grab, maybe grab a one slide
overview of a topic or something like that. So yeah, check, check, check the link out in the
show notes for that. And I'll be collecting from you guys to all of your meetup. I have your website
and stuff like that, but anything else that you guys want to put in the show notes, just let me
out.
So go find your local
Bitcoin meetup and if there isn't one
start one.
Find your local Bitcoiners.
Alright. Cheers guys.
Thank you.
Episode complete. If you
run a Bitcoin meetup and want to talk about it here
reach out. Contact info is in the
show notes. And as always
attend your local meetup or start your own.
Local Bitcoiners are always just one
meetup away.
All right.