Welcome to Pleb Chain Radio, a live show brought to you by Plebs for Plebs, which focuses on the intersection of Nostra and Bitcoin protocols.
Join QW and Avi as they run down the weekly news and developments, breaking down the current thing and the future frontier with the foundation of decentralization, the builders, thinkers, doers and plebs.
All right, we are live. Welcome, gentle pioneers, to the lightning-laced airwaves.
Today is Friday, the 28th of November, and it is 10.02 a.m. on the east coast of the United States at the time of recording.
This is episode 139 of Plep Chain Radio, and we have a fun one in store for you.
For you today, our guest is Cypher, artist, playwright, and caretaker of the Cypher Monk House in London.
Looking forward to a fun conversation about Bitcoin, culture, and the arts.
And a reminder, folks, if you are listening to this show on Apple or Spotify, first of all, thank you for listening.
but I would urge you to hit pause and switch over to the Fountain Podcasting app
where you can earn some sats and support the Value for Value revolution while you listen.
And while you're there, if you hit that subscribe button,
you will get access to bonus episodes.
Your support helps keep the show ad-free and our mics warm.
This show is streamed live on zap.stream and any other Nosteclient that supports streaming such as Amethyst, Nostur, Fountain and Primal.
July 18, the sequel to my first novel, 24, is now available for purchase.
it's not a book about bitcoin it's a surrealist literary and philosophical epic about the world
it makes possible this is the most important and meaningful work i have ever created and i do hope
you check it out the link is available in the show notes and folks if you are listening to this
either on the live stream or on the weekend
and you happen to be in New York,
then do stop by PubKey on Monday, December 1st
for a conversation about Bitcoin and the arts.
Daniel Prince will be there, as will several others.
I plan to attend. It should be a good one.
The Nos Fabrica Waterthon is underway
with the second group call completed earlier this week.
And we've had some excellent discussions so far.
We're inviting builders from all walks of NOSTA and Bitcoin
to participate and build out the open source web of trust substrate for NOSTA.
The prize pool is 50 million sats or 50 million Bitcoins,
as the kids these days like to say.
This is the largest Bitcoin price pool that I'm aware of in recent memory.
You can find out more at nosfabrica.com slash whatathon.
W-O-T-A-T-H-O-N.
And for our sermon today, it is a respite for the weary.
I want to talk about buildings, actual walls, floors, leaky espresso machines, and wobbly tables.
In a world that keeps floating off into the cloud, I want to plant a flag in the very old idea that human beings need places,
and Bitcoiners especially need sanctuaries.
call them embassies little pockets of a parallel standard you walk in from the fluorescent glow of
fiat life where your time is inexorably eroded by quiet desperation and fine print and suddenly
the room runs on something different prices make sense time feels heavier more sacred more profound
People look you in the eye instead of over your shoulder at the nearest yield opportunity
These embassies can be cafes or a little live dive bar in the West Village
Or a four-storied Victorian building in Bloomsbury
They can be co-working lofts, tiny galleries above a pizza joint
What matters is that sats move, art breathes and conversation goes deeper than
So what's the price today?
A lightning invoice on a napkin
A mural of a lone node holding the line
A poetry night about sovereignty that accidentally turns into a Nostowallet Connect workshop
Culture does the onboarding while everyone thinks they just went out for a drink
Adoption often shows up disguised as vibe
A tired teacher pays in cash, notices someone tap their phone to settle in sats and starts asking questions.
A local painter hangs work about time theft and shared ledgers, then starts saving part of each sale in Bitcoin.
And for the fiat weary, these places feel like oxygen.
You do not have to justify your hardware wallet, your obsession with privacy, your refusal to treat money as a disposable subscription.
The room understands.
Paranoia relaxes into prudence.
Isolation loosens into fellowship and inside jokes about seed phrases.
So today, we honor the people turning keys into real doors.
Before any grand vision of Bitcoin citadels, there is a very simple scene.
A small room, some mismatched chairs, a node humming in the corner,
and a few pioneers deciding that this little patch of earth will run on different assumptions.
That is how new worlds begin.
And we have one such pioneer with us today.
cypher welcome to pleb chain radio hi avi thank you very much for having me what a lovely introduction
well i you know i had the pleasure of visiting the cypher monk house for the first time
last week and i saw what you're building there cypher but uh you know for people who've never
heard of you or the house who is cypher and what exactly is the cypher monk house
who is cypher and what is the cypher monk house wow i feel like i've just seen a whole different
cypher monk house and imagined one in your imagination which is which is so brilliant
anyway but uh it's it feels so amazing to kind of see the one in your head as i'm sat in in the
real bricks and mortar that you talked about. But yeah, who is Cypher? Cypher is me, is my
nymph. And I am basically just a London pleb, born and bred in this city. Quite a rarity
these days to find other Londoners. But yeah, we are here doing our thing. And I have basically
been putting a lot of time into Bitcoin, like every other psychopath that cares about it
for the last few years and trying to focus on the things that I think bring me value,
which are communities and culture and just holding space for people to come together
and create and build in the real world.
And how did the Cipher Monk House come to be?
What is the history of this place?
It's about a year, year and a half old, is that correct?
Yep, it's coming up to two years, so we are eagerly planning and thinking about the possibility of a second year birthday party for the house and for the community and all the people that make this place tick.
But yeah, it actually came about quite randomly because, I mean, well, where do we choose to start really, Avi, is the interesting thing.
I mean, I wasn't sure I'd explain this bit, but it feels like it makes sense in my head because really it is the catalyst for Cyphermonk.
And it actually starts in 2023 when I was in India and I was traveling around India with a friend.
And he was meant to depart for a week to go on a Vipassana.
And for some reason or other, he then couldn't go and had to go see some family in another part of India.
so this spare place on a vipassana opened up and obviously i didn't really know what it was
but i was encouraged by my friend to do it saying that this will be a good thing
so for for people who don't know vipassana is a 10-day silent meditation and it's kind of worldwide
global and it's all essentially you could think of it as the first value for value kind of
one of the value systems because you don't pay anything for the teaching and the housing and
the accommodation and the food you get but you donate after the fact depending on whether you
took some value from it. So I was in a completely remote part of India that I never even thought I
would be in and I was silent for 10 days and you're obviously not allowed pen and paper, you're not
allowed books you not allowed your phone you not allowed to speak to anyone and yeah you just have to sit still and think and try and clear everything out and it amazing how much garbage and
sort of fiat films and nonsense that are kind of floating around in your head in those first few
days. And I remember, I think it was sort of the fourth day, the fifth day, that I was just sitting
there and I think I'd cleared out all the fiat garbage and suddenly this this very clear image
came into my head of the Federal Reserve being blown away by a tornado of dollars
and it was just like a very kind of clear image that I could kind of see and I could see it 2D on
paper and then what followed for the next that that sitting I mean it was a sort of you have I
think the midday one is almost two and a half hours or something and what followed was just
suddenly like ideas of of imagery around fiat money and and all the things that i'd learned so
far on my bitcoin journey um and ideas for pieces that came into my head to make kind of physical
bitcoin art to kind of communicate i guess the problem side of the conversation what is wrong
with fiat um so yeah i was and obviously then you're there and you can't write anything down
and you're like, all these ideas, I've got to keep them somehow in my head.
Anyway, needless to say, eventually I was back in London
with loads of ideas in my head to make some art.
I had a lot of other projects on the go at the time.
I was finishing a film and other sort of just normal life stuff.
And I think I'd kind of parked that idea in the back of my head,
like, nah, this is probably not something that I should be doing.
And then, yeah, space kind of cleared up.
My other projects ended and I just suddenly felt right,
I was just going to then commit what turned out to be the next year of my life to kind of finding a space to make art and create these pieces, which in itself was a very kind of educative experience, not only about creative processes, but also more kind of little dark tales about fiat and how it's working and the paper currencies and some of the realities of how kind of different money sort of networks are.
operating right now in the world. But yeah, that culminated with some pieces which I put together
and obviously then the big question was, well, where am I going to display these artworks that
I've created? So yeah, I was sort of approaching galleries, trying to find some space and eventually
I lighted on this space in Bloomsbury and I spoke to the owners and I said, can I set up
a pop-up gallery for a week or so.
And they agreed.
And that was basically the opening.
And to be fair, I mean, the concept of Cypher Monk House
even then wasn't really fully formed.
It was just I wanted space for art, for Bitcoin culture.
And when the conversation with the owners kind of continued,
it kind of became apparent that as long as we were going to
treat these walls and these floors with respect,
We'd be able to just keep doing simple meetups, bringing people together under the proviso that obviously as soon as this building is sold in whatever purpose the owners really intend for it, then we have to find a new home.
So that's a very long-winded journey, Avi, but that's kind of the catalyst personally, and I guess a bit about me and my sort of Bitcoin art recently, which culminated in Cyphermonk.
And as you said, it's been going now for almost 18, 19 months, and yeah, very, very happy to have it for myself and for all of the people that can use it as a space to learn and to commune.
that's a fascinating story
one that I was not aware of
really the genesis of this can be traced back to
a Vipassana event
in some remote hilltop on India
presumably a hilltop, they tend to be on hilltops
were you a Bitcoiner at that time
or did Bitcoin happen to you during that Vipassana session as well
Yeah, I'd actually found Bitcoin during COVID.
Obviously, it's popped up on the radar several times.
I think discussions with my father and my uncle and my cousin
who were always much more economically minded than I've ever been.
And it was always just kind of talked about very sort of derogatorily.
What is this thing?
And just very much in passing.
And I think COVID, I think for obviously a lot of the class of 2021,
It kind of opened up a few uncomfortable truths about the way the world works, for which I think I was already very much in tune with.
But it provided the space to go down the rabbit hole, to learn, to get my first SATs.
And yeah, that was that was really the first that my my kind of Bitcoin genesis.
And I mean, I think, yeah, within about three months, I was sort of regularly on Twitter spaces, just chatting nonsense with some other plebs and trying to trying to get a kind of regular thing going with a few Bitcoiners, just talking online, which I think we did sort of weekly or something or maybe twice a month.
and then after sort of a year of that
I just felt I needed the real world
I needed people
I couldn't be stuck in a sort of Twitter space
particularly coming out of lockdown
and all those horrible COVID kind of realities
the physical space was just so essential
so then I sort of started running another Bitcoin meetup
in London and did that for a little bit
And then that was then the kind of pre-journey before then I had this lovely trip in India.
And yeah, then Cypher Monk starts after that.
So if someone walks into Cypher Monk house on a random Thursday night or a Wednesday night,
what are they likely to see, hear and smell?
Well, that's a very poetic question, have you?
I mean, the first thing is, I guess it depends if the incense is burning. We do have an incense at the door. I think I've very much been inspired by the kind of what I see as sort of the surreality of church and religion that has existed for so many centuries now.
that obviously Bitcoiners do like to joke about the parallels
between this being its own almost civilization-birthing religion of sorts.
And certainly civilizations are sort of founded on economic systems.
So I do try to lean into that just for the humor and just for the fun,
but also for the simple fact that sanctuary spaces provide
kind of people with comfort and calm to talk about the real things.
So, yeah, you might smell some some incense and you'll you'll probably first see the the haphazard board that we I constructed, I think, on sort of day two of the original art gallery.
Just two bits of plywood that I stuck together and created a notice board.
So that that marks the marks the house, the Cypher Monk house.
We've currently got a very nice inflation poster by Raya, who is one of the artists who was working with the Art of Freedom gang when they released seven open source posters, which I think are still available online.
They're all really lovely, lovely posters.
That's from the Rebel Money and Flo's art gang, which is very nice.
We've got one of those posters on the door.
And then you will see stickers.
You will see a staircase leading up to a strange plinth that might have a head with a rabbit hat on or some cypher bunk glasses, depending.
And you'll be pulled into the first main sort of welcoming room where we have our bar for sats.
And we have art on the walls, which is constantly changing, constantly evolving.
We've literally got some brand new art in the house.
I think two days ago, an artist reached out to me from London and said, I've got some fresh art.
Can I please bring it to the house and put it up? I said, absolutely.
So it's a kind of constantly evolving space, which I think mimics what Bitcoin is in itself, is a constantly evolving phenomena.
And I think all art movements in themselves and spaces like this, that freshness that we all feel when things are changing, it's the kind of counter to a kind of static fiat kind of frozenness.
so yeah it's it's a fresh space and depending who's around that day you might meet some
extremely toxic psych bats or you just might meet some some some strange fellows who've just walked
in as you said randomly off the street and and that is that is really the beauty of of having
the real world space is is knowing that we can just have the door open and it doesn't just have
to be a space for the hardcore. It can just be a place for punters, tourists walking through the
lovely streets of Bloomsbury to just stroll in. And, you know, I think if you've got that
curiosity to cross a threshold into a space that seems bizarre on the outside, and it really does
seem bizarre on the outside because it's a sort of former legal offices. So there's sort of all
sorts of chartered accounting kind of plaques on the wall. And then there are the strange logos of
the cypher monk house and there's a sort of hanging disco ball in the window so it pulls a lot of
people to just stop and just gawk at like what on earth is this building um and obviously for the brave ones that that cross the threshold they uh they find out um that it a lot more lot more than a strange symbol in the disco ball Speaking of random characters from the street and crossing the threshold
one of the evenings I was there, and you weren't there, Saifer, your other,
and I don't think he wants to be named, so I'll just call him the other caretaker,
who happened to be there, and I showed up with a couple of folks.
actually Roger 9000.
And there were already a few people there.
This must have been about 7 or 6 or 7 p.m. in the evening.
And there was a random guy who just walked in.
I don't know how.
And he was a gold guy.
They were deep in conversation.
And I think there was one point where the gold guy,
he said, yeah, look, I think you Bitcoin guys get it.
So I'm not trying to sell this to you.
But he was basically looking for ways in which he could sell his gold.
He wants to do something with gold, I guess, create digital certificates or something and get more people into his gold business.
I have no idea how he'd randomly stumbled into the Cyphermunk house.
And we were having a great time, great conversation with him.
And it just struck me that if that is the sort of thing, it seemed like the sort of thing that happens on a fairly regular basis.
right people just walking in and then getting stuck into these long conversations I mean it's
it's you know and it's something that we the the challenge for us is just to make sure that we have
we have people on the ground all the time so actually we can have the door open and obviously
there's something about you know if it's just one person in the building it can be a bit tricky but
certainly if you've got a couple of people in the building it means we can open the door and as you
said it's you know all the time there's just the curious conversations of you know people who are
might be completely alien to Bitcoin, might have a semi-interest.
I mean, and you realise that actually by having an open door,
you just learn about your locale.
You learn about the community.
You learn about the people that are living and working and breathing
in the very kind of streets around you.
And the thing that seems so clear to me is that, you know,
everyone in some way is an artist.
Everyone has some kind of creative bent.
Everyone wants to make music, you know, paint, sing, dance.
whatever everyone has something like that so as a kind of space where that's the kind of
front perhaps oh it's it's a cultural space you know it's a really kind of accessible entry point
for for anyone to come in and it's i mean it's just amazing to think of of the crazy kind of
artists and musicians that i've met just just from having the door open who who are are not
bitcoiners in any way but certainly having found the space and having found a sanctuary where they
and kind of, you know, think creatively, talk creatively and be creative.
It just makes it such an easy journey for them to then start learning about Bitcoin
and come down the rabbit hole with us.
And, you know, just for folks who are listening who haven't been to the Cypher Monk House,
I just wanted to describe it compared to some of the other physical outposts,
these physical Bitcoin embassies that are out there.
I've been to PubKey, been to Bitcoin Park, been to a few others in Europe, in Eastern Europe and so on.
Palo Laini Polis as well.
It's no longer there.
But I would say that, to me, Cypher Monk House was one of the most impressive, if not the most impressive physical embassy that I've been to.
And it's this, what is it, 400, 500-year-old building?
Possibly.
Right? It's four-story, what in the U.S. would be called a brownstone.
Very impressive Victorian-era building.
And I know you said there were chartered accountants' offices and so on,
but once upon a time, I think it was someone's home.
and you can almost feel that phantom presence of that family
that lived there once upon a time,
especially if you go up to the higher floors.
You can hear the pitter-patter of,
the echoes of footsteps of children
who once ran through the hallways.
There's a real personality to the house.
But Saifah, you're a playwright as well, correct?
Yes, sorry.
Sorry, I think my internet just dropped out.
So probably other people in the house using all the bandwidth,
but that's what we're meant to be doing in here.
So no, I was just going to finish.
I lost you a little bit when you were talking about the house
and the phantom family that probably lived here.
And I think there's a good reference point is that actually down the street
from Cyphermunk House is the Charles Dickens Museum,
which was his former home.
so when you think about you know if you can imagine perhaps where Charles Dickens might
have lived in a kind of old British you know as you said four-story sort of brick house
I mean it's it's exactly that and that that museum in its own right is is fascinating and
there's a lovely little bit on the very top floor where it's got a tiny little little kind of
display box showing some of the coins that Charles Dickens when he was a 12 year old earned
And I mean, these are the kind of, and this is my kind of numismatic geekery, having read books like Good Money and the kind of history of coinage in the UK is kind of learning about those origins of the first private monies in Britain and why they came about for reasons because the king didn't want his face on metals as low as copper and things like that.
So it was down to private industry during the Industrial Revolution to kind of come up with ways to provide coinage so that they could pay their plebs for the work.
And really without private innovation in money, we possibly wouldn't have had the kind of the progress of the Industrial Revolution.
But, you know, obviously private money was essentially stamped out very swiftly after that.
But it's just it was sort of funny that in all these places, all these stories, Dickens, you know, you can always see the kind of the underlying thread of what was going on with the money.
And what does that little story about money tell us?
Yeah.
No, it's a fascinating place.
And I would love to know the true history of the building.
who the original owners were
and when it was built
and the family and so on.
Perhaps lost to time.
Yes, possibly.
There's a lovely photo of the pub.
We're right next to a pub
which is obviously convenient as well.
But there's some lovely photos of that
at least from the late 18th century
I think.
And yeah, the house stands.
But yeah, I'd really need to
probably go into some old archives
to get the real history of the building.
So, Saifu, you're an artist, but you're also a playwright.
Maybe we'll start with the art itself before we get to,
I mean the physical art itself, before we get to the performance art.
How does Bitcoin show up in that art?
Presumably it's beyond the stylized Bitcoin logos, right?
There's some thematic Bitcoin interplay there.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, I think I definitely started with a real clear idea
that all of the work was going to use fiat.
And then that kind of informed the medium of just using paper,
just using paper, a kind of form of like assemblage
or to kind of just kind of tell stories
about all the kind of different stories that I'd sort of absorbed.
You know, obviously Alex Gladstein's written so much
about the kind of all these negative externalities of fear
in different parts of the world
and just trying to kind of capture some of those stories
and express it kind of symbolically by, I don't know,
making the American flag out of all of the currencies
that America has invaded post 9-11.
and yeah so it was very much
trying to target the negatives
but I think kind of towards the end
of my process
you know sort of crunch time
I've got to try and get this show up
but then I think it kind of expanded
it opened up even more doors in my head
and then a few kind of much more
Bitcoin focused pieces came out
but still kind of playing with the money
because I hadn't planned
to kind of destroy any money
I thought I would kind of leave everything intact. But I think when you've just been kind of seeing when you know, when you just start to think this, this thing is so corrupt, you kind of eventually just want to destroy it. So I think some of the later pieces, I think, kind of did communicate. Yeah, you know, why, why really Bitcoin is a better alternative.
But yeah, I mean, for me, it wasn't really fine arts, 2D art, however we call it, was really not really in my in my kind of skill set, really.
I mean, it's something I've done at school in art, art classes and things, but it was never really.
I've always been much more focused on kind of performing arts, telling stories, writing.
but it was nice personally just to kind of test myself
in an artistic medium that, yeah, I'd never sort of put myself forward
to kind of make an art show but I'm really glad I did
and like I said, doing anything new and for the first time
is always going to give anyone a lot of growth
so it was really good.
And then let's talk about the plays themselves.
So were you a playwright or into the performing arts before you became a backcoiner Yeah yeah yeah I was very much working at the bottom of the food chain in the performing arts world Avi as an actor for a while
getting paid to do really naff commercials,
shill-like nonsense delivery companies.
But yeah, occasionally getting those chances
to do something that had a bit of substance.
so yeah I mean obviously most people know London is very much a sort of culturally rich
city capital obviously theatre and arts is a big thing so yeah I mean I've kind of been brought up
on it I was very lucky to have a very kind of influential drama teacher when I was at school
and I think it was just yeah I mean you leave school and you think you have to do the kind
of normal things and do a proper degree which is what I did um but then you know when things when
you sort of start to realize there's this you should really kind of focus on the things that
you you really enjoy um and you realize yeah there are always there are ways to make money doing
doing things that you love um I kind of started to pivot back into into the creative creative space
working in film working in theater writing um yeah had a few kind of short short plays um put on in
different theatres in London um done lots of acting around London um but yeah I guess everything
kind of was just culminating in realising eventually like I'm I'm at the behest of an
agent telling me what to do whenever whenever you know make a self-tape tomorrow in three hours and
send it to me and it's for a like ketchup commercial or something you know things that I don't believe
in and don't value um and it's quite a you know it's very you're very much exploited when you're
at the bottom of the food chain as an actor so uh that was pretty bruce and then when you realize
well actually it'll even if you do make it you're just going to be in some some netflix thing which
probably is just parroting the kind of same narratives of of the mainstream kind of thinking
which which doesn't really progress any of us that further forward in my mind i mean there's a lot of
great a lot of great work out there um and yeah it's you know it's nice to it's all part of
pool part of our culture but you know at the end of the day a lot of it is just a bit
naff so um i think i just kind of tying that into kind of when bitcoin appeared in my radar
it just felt like a very easy moment to just kind of what i thought was kind of saying goodbye to
all kind of performance and create and that kind of side of my creativity and just yeah spend
spend a few years learning about something that seemed much more important for for all of us
but then yeah it's been it's been nice having having a space to then start thinking and trying
to trying to get back into that world because yeah at the end of the day we're kind of
we're narrative beings we like to understand the world through stories I certainly do
and I like to yeah I like to be able to kind of yeah transmit ideas in that way because I think
it comes across much much easier than than sometimes facts and figures do but actually
and interesting just just to touch back to the vipassana i kind of mentioned like that that was a
very kind of um kind of scary like not scary but it was just a thing that i was very conscious of
in those first few days like how much my mind just kept drifting to like films that i'd seen and like
not even good films but just like you know scenes and jokes and lines and things and i was just very
aware like these aren't my memories like this isn't my life this is someone else's kind of
some narrative that they've somehow wormed into my head.
And I mean, I think if you're leaving good messages
and good stories in people's heads, that's a good thing.
But I think a lot of, I mean, certainly the stuff
that was coming into my head was just, you know,
sort of the lowest kind of silly film entertainment.
So, I mean, I actually took like a, what I would call
a two-year film fast after that.
And I actually just abstained from watching anything
because I was kind of aware of the power of what moving visual narrative media can do to all of us
and how easy it is to kind of implant messages and stories into people's heads.
And so, you know, as the great Spider-Man saying, with great power comes great responsibility.
So for all content film creators, it's like we've really got to kind of raise our game
so that we can kind of compete with the Hollywood machine
to try and get really good independent stories about Bitcoin,
about, you know, peer-to-peer economies
and this decentralized world we're building.
We've got to work really hard to create that.
So, yeah, I mean, you know this as well as I do, Avi.
So, I mean, from one storyteller to another,
it's amazing that you do this as well
because I think it's like one of the real kind of superpowers
that we can help kind of bring Bitcoin into life.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, if you take a leaf out of any major religion, right,
God reveals himself through stories.
And I think storytelling is one of the most powerful tools.
You were telling me, Cypher, about a play that you'd staged
at the Cypher Monk house and something about a seed phrase, perhaps.
You want to talk about that?
Yes, my first little Bitcoin play, which had a hidden seed phrase in it, and is obviously what I thought was extremely easy to crack.
It's actually not so easy to crack, apparently.
So yeah, I think it was a couple of months before what turned out to be one year of CypherMonk.
someone someone asked me you know what a how long have you been doing this and I and I totted it up
and I realized gosh it's it's like 10 months now maybe and it made me very aware of like all right
well we're going to be we're going to be one year in um and it kind of made me immediately think that
having having created something myself to open the house um and then spent a really solid year
working with loads of people to kind of bring more culture bring more events bring more education
into the house and grow the community.
Yeah, it was the realisation that I wanted to make something
for the one-year birthday party and to make something new
and to get back to the creative roots of performance
and players and mask work as well.
I mean, that kind of the tradition of Greek theatre and masks
and obviously such a clear parallel to kind of the Bitcoin space
and anonymity.
And I mean, we've kind of always had it as a kind of norm
and a practice to make sure we have lots of masks in the house just just for the banter just for the
fun but also yeah because it's we want to you know you want to take photos and get some content in
the house makes sense to kind of spread the message but uh we want to enable people to to
keep anonymity and privacy whenever they want so um yeah the mask work thing of the play just became
part of something that you know can i tell a story with a few players um in a very short period of
time. I mean, I think I had about a month just kind of pulling ideas together. And yeah, I mean,
the framework of it was the Promethean myth, which several Bitcoiners have written very
intriguing articles about the parallels between stealing fire from the gods and kind of stealing
back our monetary independence from central banks. It felt like a very kind of, you know,
it felt like the right story to start with.
And so, yeah, I did a lot of homework on Prometheus
and, yeah, just got dug back into my old networks,
got some auditions together,
found three fantastic players,
none of whom were Bitcoiners,
none of whom, and, yeah, I'll say,
I mean, literally, we did a public call advertising
on one of the platforms that kind of the network uses
and I kept the whole Bitcoin thing
secret. So I didn't tell people who were auditioning what this was for. I just said
we're doing a Promethean myth. I didn't say anything about Bitcoin. I didn't say anything
about a hidden seed. And so eventually I found these lovely actors, got them into the house,
and I think we had about 10 days of just chaos ideas, chucking things around. I had a sketch
of a kind of seven structures of scenes and seven pieces of music that I wanted to work
with to kind of build a kind of tale of Prometheus stealing the fire once more. And it was just it
was a really, really rewarding experience, not least because it was working with people that
knew nothing about Bitcoin. And I think it was maybe day two that I told them. So there's some
there's another layer to this this whole story. It's really we're talking about Bitcoin. And
and what do you think about that? Obviously, there were a lot of sort of, you know, blank faces and
like curiosities but it was a really nice experience then over the next few days to kind of talk to
them about kind of the ideas and why I thought this was important and to and to see that they
were sort of understanding that it was important too and then seeing their journey of learning
about something through the medium that is their medium to perform and to create and to devise
and to see them kind of some of these ideas clicking into their minds because they're using
their bodies to kind of uncover them um and then the final reveal was sort of i think a day the day
before we went on i uh and i explained to them that uh i'd also hidden hidden a seed within within
the piece that we had just created together and i think that was a real uh really gawping moment
for them they just i mean it was very much uh you know but once you once you can explain and and you
You know, it's easy to understand that, you know, essentially there's some you could imagine it is sort of invisible cash floating in the air as they're kind of playing around it.
But I think it was the idea that I obviously couldn't tell them that from the start because I needed to keep some kind of level of keeping my actors blind to the code so that I don't know, they didn't somehow work it out and steal it before we got there.
but it was
it was just a
it was a
it was a lovely
experience
and the show
remains uncracked
so we
We did the first edition in the house for the second year birthday, which I think mainly kind of confused people, made some people laugh and smile and have a good time.
But I think people weren't really sure what on earth they just witnessed. But certainly happy faces.
I remember having the time of my life watching my creation come into come into life as most creatives do.
and then I spent the kind of next period
just refreshing it with them a couple of months later
to get it into the Camden Fringe
where we sort of properly added text.
So I mean this whole 12 words,
I mean the whole thing was entirely non-verbal
so it was a kind of physical performance
where you've got 12 words hidden in a piece with no words.
So for most people,
and my i mean it does seem a bit nonsense and i can see now why maybe that's a bit tricky
to kind of crack but in my head it still makes perfect sense abby but um obviously wait 12 words
hidden in a piece with no words what does that mean it means i'm crazy no it means it means uh
it means that i was i was playing with i was playing with all of the ways that a word and a
seed can be represented and obviously the word is just one form of how the the bites and the bits
are kind of represented so i was playing with the other layers of it um and to be fair i mean
i'm not saying there weren't words in the piece and visually maybe words were
displayed um probably there's one word which is displayed in the piece which is probably the
easiest word to identify um so maybe a spoiler alert but um but the rest of them were kind of
more more elaborately kind of encrypted based and and the great thing was it wasn't you know
i i knew how i wanted to find the seed but really you know the actors found the seed for me because
they decided how they were going to do things they decided various kind of dynamics of the show
and that informed the seed that was then produced and locked in.
And yeah, I put some sats into that seed
and gave people a sort of companion puzzle program to try and uncover it.
And yeah, then we did it all again at the Camden Fringe
at a lovely theater called The Cockpit
and had plenty more normal people or regular people
not interested in Bitcoin came along and saw that
and had sort of a lot more various questions to ask,
what on earth is this mad world that we've just been shown?
But yeah, that's really, I feel like that's really,
that's where I take the most value from my current life
is just trying to do the propaganda and have fun along the way
to kind of spread it mainly to our community,
but also find those bridges outside and beyond.
So there were two screenings of it,
one at the Cyphermunk House and one at the Gamblin Fringe?
two kind of iterations
yes we've done three
productions of the original
version in the house which was unscripted
purely physical
across I think a month
so opening on the birthday and then did two
more and
two more in
Camden for the Camden Fringe
and the great thing was I mean obviously
with the nature of a seed
and a prize to be won
the fun thing for me was seeing that
some of my friends in the space, some of the psychopaths of Cyphermonk House,
you know, came to multiple, multiple versions, pen and paper, taking notes,
pulling their hair out that it made no sense, but really kind of enjoying, I hope,
the fact that here was another lens on Bitcoin.
And yeah, here's, I guess, another bridge to kind of bring more people into Bitcoin
who wouldn't necessarily have found it otherwise.
how much uh what is it did you show the actual address uh to folks yes absolutely the address is
is live i think it's currently i mean i i put a million sats in it i thought it was a nice clean
number so a million sats in the prize and that has been i think there have been several donations
to add to that so uh it has it has moved up um yeah but i mean the reality is i don't think it's
going to be cracked yet so uh the question is when do i restage another version of it where i can
expand it further to make it more accessible as a puzzle to solve um and yeah that that was the
kind of in between stage between the first edition and the second edition it was like trying to find
a way to communicate how things have been encrypted but also communicate more about bitcoin and
obviously when you can add text and dialogue you have a lot more a lot more space to kind of talk
about the ideas that people need to understand.
I mean, certainly for people with no interest in Bitcoin,
I'm sure the original physical piece was just that.
It was just an interesting physical piece
with people climbing on tables
and extracting floating light bulbs from the air
and reveling at kind of a sort of marvel
of a new idea coming into being.
Yeah.
You know, cryptography is a form of alchemy in some sense,
And there's so many cool things you could do with it, right?
A Bitcoin private key, yes, you can map it to 12 or 24 words using BIP39,
but you can also map it to all sorts of other things, deterministically even,
which makes this whole thing of hiding Bitcoin in any form of art really interesting.
Did I ever tell you, Cypher, that I hid, you know, sats in 24, right?
The chapter titles, each chapter title was a BIP-39 seed word.
It just so happened that they were in the wrong order.
And then throughout the book, I had clues how to, I guess, unravel that and put them in the right order.
Avi, I'm so annoyed that I didn't get to it sooner.
I mean, I remember when I first was introduced to knowing about you.
And I think it was on Rebel and Flow's podcast.
and I remember listening and hearing about this book and just I was just I remember being in the
house and just kind of stopping and just being captivated to this idea and knowing that because
I think there'd been you know the kind of first trend was was hiding seeds in tangible art in
fine arts and things but then you had kind of you put it in a story and again it just
it opens up the possibility and as you said when when when it is just bits and bites and you can
hide it kind of anywhere it's it's it's also it's kind of like it's not even hidden you don't have
to hide it for it to be there you know everything can kind of be represented as a seed you could find
some kind of pattern within the structure of a leaf and actually that might map to a seed and
who knows maybe there's some sats in it you know what i mean so it kind of means that there's
bitcoin possibly hidden in the entire universe which is it kind of blows my mind a bit and
connects to this this this thing which i've been thinking a lot recently about the importance of
secrets and and the universe being able to keep its secrets and when we are when when the universe
is is no longer a place of secrets um it means kind of we've reached our zenith and there's
nothing more to learn um and it and it maps perfectly to the to the nature of our societies
and the importance of being able to keep secrets and and yeah and that that you know there's free
speech and the sharing of ideas how can it be done if you don't have you know private encrypted
channels and that ties perfectly back to having four walls which was the original you know the
original security for two people trying to have a private conversation that they didn't need anyone
else to hear about but in a digitized world with with every phone a listening device in our pockets
and our laptops and cameras everywhere the four walls of a space that is a sanctuary becomes much
more valuable and important again, particularly for us Bitcoiners, to have the important conversations
that we're all having.
Yeah.
Yeah, which is why what you're doing at Cypher Monk House is so critical.
And there's PubKey in New York, and there's Bitcoin Park in Nashville.
Will you be going to PubKey whilst you're there in New York now, Avi?
I will, yeah.
I think on November 1st, there's an event about Bitcoin and the arts.
In fact, there's a Bitcoin for the arts nonprofit that is in the process of being launched.
And I'm going to be involved in that as well.
So that's going to be one of the things we'll be talking about on Monday.
That's on Monday.
Wow.
God, we just need to invent teleportation now.
I know.
By the way, speaking of teleportation or being in London, rather,
I was, you know, it was my first trip back to London after almost 20 years.
And in the meantime, I'd been reading the news, as one does, right?
I mean, not voluntarily, but these things tend to seep in about how London's falling apart.
It's, you know, it's crime, this and that and the other, the fabric of society is crumbling.
I found none of that.
London was perfectly fine.
It was a lovely place, as lovely as it was when I was there 20 years ago.
In fact, it was brilliant.
I mean, do you, as someone who lives there, get the sense that things are fraying and are falling apart?
Because I certainly didn't as a visitor.
I mean, yeah, I'm very aware of how London changes.
I mean I been here most of my life And yeah it definitely still a beautiful place And yeah the green spaces we have and yeah the people and the kind of melting pot
It's definitely a long way away from falling apart in any real sense.
But then you can't help but acknowledge that it's a very old city,
infrastructurally, under the roads, you know, the pipes, electrics,
everything is kind of, you know, the first of its kind in a sense for a big city.
The underground network is old.
But I think it just kind of constantly keeps getting new life
because new people keep coming all the time.
But yeah, I mean, I could sort of speak both ways about London, honestly,
and I don't want to be too negative.
But yeah, you know, there are tensions everywhere in the world.
I can share one of my slight kind of fiat old habits,
which still remains strong, is an interest in football.
and going to the football with my dad, which I enjoy.
But, you know, over the last five seasons,
the sort of tension amongst people going to football games
and whether that's fans of opposing sides
or even just fans on the same side,
I mean, there's a lot more pent-up anger and frustration amongst people.
And for me, that's undeniable.
And I feel like that's where it's most obvious to me
is seeing football crowds and the energy that's there.
but yeah generally speaking I think London is a happy place
but I think yeah it's just everyone we just all need to stay on top of
being open to change and things changing
and it's just when it's one of the oldest kind of countries in the world
and its institutions are the most archaic out there
it's the resistance of those entities being comfortable changing
is the challenge, I think, for us in Britain.
But yeah, it doesn't stop me being massively optimistic
about the future and being bullish about Britain
and wanting to see kind of this land prosperous,
as I do for every country.
I guess the thing I do find amusing is online on NOSTA
when I see it always feels like there's people commenting
on people being locked up for posts in Britain,
you know for posting on twitter or i just i find it hilarious i don't know because it it seems so
implausible i mean allegedly this goes on i mean i've seen the odd video of someone being arrested
but i'm like is you know to what extent is it really happening and also i get i guess i'm just
showing my my own kind of opting out nature because i've already you know i i've i've gone
off all my socials deleted i'm noster only so it just seems like it seems so crazy when i when we
user platform where we're not where ids are not linked and we can say whatever we want it just
seems i don't know it seems so funny it seems so sad that actually this is going on but then
i don't know i i it's it's the hype that maybe that gets on lost are people saying our britains
are kind of 1984 so it's all gone wrong i'm like well there's still a lot of freedom here compared
to some other places in the world um and the fact that we can still all meet up quite freely talk
about bitcoin you know and you know that's that's that's the great thing i mean cypher monk is just
one of many awesome groups in london and in britain um and obviously in the world that are
doing these great things creating spaces creating meetups bringing people together um bringing
people that otherwise wouldn't wouldn't be together you know because it's easy to kind of
stay isolated and digital but when when you start to sort of have calendars of kind of events of of
people talking um you know present um you know projects being launched um about the very thing
that that you know is is is the thing for all of us it makes it kind of impossible to kind of stay
on the outside for too long and and seeing that kind of physical network um there's a there's a
great um network the the bitcoin events uk run by a guy called psy um and he's been he's been
doing that for god knows how long just getting all the meetup organizers together in a in a in a
chat, keeping everyone up to date, getting all the dates and then posting out on a newsletter
to everyone so that everyone can share the information about what is going on across
the country so that we can slowly start to make everything orange.
As you were saying that, Sypha, Spaceman in the Zap.stream or in the live stream chat
said, you rock, Sypha.
Just thought I'd let you know that.
the spaceman no idea who that is but i can i can guess maybe it's maybe it's one of one of many
nims of someone who knows but yeah it's uh yeah it's it's nice it's nice to know that we're part
of something bigger than than just us you know it gives you a lot of um gives you a lot of hope
knowing that there are so many people building in the same direction um yeah it's a kind of it's
it's it's the essential community and a kind of yeah this is this is humans have these support
systems to keep us going if we were if we could function as as individuals without need for
community it would be a very different world and we would be a very different living thing but we
are obviously so much stronger when we're when we're when we're together and when we can when
we can build together and share ideas um so it's kind of to see that happening real time like
unbounded by any of the former kind of divisive kind of ideologies of the past religion politics
you know, all of those sort of slightly annoying things in today's world.
And here we are just doing something that just doesn't care about any of that.
And, you know, you just have immediate brotherhood, sisterhood with anyone who is a Bitcoiner.
It's quite remarkable, really.
Yeah, it really is because, you know, I was there in the UK for about a little over a week,
spent three days in London
was at the Cypher Monk house a couple of times
spent four days
in Manchester for Bitfest
and then back in London
for another day when I again stopped by
the Cypher Monk house and the easy
camaraderie with
Bitcoiners, both at
Bitfest, at the Cypher Monk house
easy conversations and so on
and then after that I met some
non-Bitcoiner friends
in
London
was that did you mean you're from from down the road abby that the chap the uh the yes
keynesian friend that's right i think you know he's an old old friend of mine and uh you know
it was a nice conversation but at the same time i was thinking you know this is a guy i've known
since i was nine versus bitcoiners who have you know gotten to know you know anywhere from
five, six years ago to, like in your case,
a week ago, meaning meeting physically for the first time.
I know we've chatted on Nostra before then.
And it's so bizarre.
The easy, like I said, the easy camaraderie,
the friendship, the ease of conversation,
it's so different with Bitcoiners
than it is with non-Bitcoiners.
yeah i think there's a lot of uh just shared understanding from the get-go isn't there
i mean you just you just don't you don't have to kind of deal with any of that that those
irritating differences that seem to i mean i i had a another sort of local person who who actually
works as a i think he's a tax lawyer um next door to seif munkhouse which is which is hilarious
really but he's also a rapper in part time so he is a good he is a good good dude but he was
organizing a kind of big business meetup a couple of days ago at a local restaurant and it was kind
of all small business owners of sorts and some reason or other I was invited as a sort of local
someone and it's just it's just it's just amazing that you know people sort of still seem to think
that that the system is is working as it should be and shouldn't be changed and you know this is
the way to do it and I think my my recent kind of mind epiphany is is kind of trying to place
politics economics and culture in some kind of time continuum of thinking well what what really
has to be established first before something else follows and realizing that you know people always
start with politics today it's always the kind of starting point of like how to make things better
and why are things going wrong let's talk about the politics and it's and and really it's it's
obviously should should have become clearer to me sooner i'm sure but realizing that all first
kind of foundational questions have to start with economics in terms of how is money working
how are we able to transact and and who is privy to transactions and who has power over transactions
um and if we if you can't start you know if you start there then the political questions which
again i even think the political you know after economics then it then it's culture you know
culture comes next and and and in all kind you know all of its guises and stories and faith and
mysticism and all these other layers that of things that humans have been doing for our whole
existence you know these these things can't preclude politics you know so politics is like
the last thing that people need to talk about but it always seems to be the first so i think that's
always you know interesting to when you when you when you do chat to to friends and family you know
Of course, we're all, you know, I don't know many people who kind of are entirely in their friend and family circle or Bitcoiners.
I mean, that is crazy.
And that's great then to think that, well, we've all got our normal friends and family,
but then we've also got this amazing, growing Bitcoin family that is kind of everywhere.
And on that topic, Safer, how does London as a city interact with what you're doing at the Safer Monk House?
Do you feel like you're in a parallel universe, you know, quietly running inside London's universe?
I mean I always very aware of how close we are to the Bank of England That always been very much in my head I mean it like a crow flight It probably less than a mile I mean you can walk to the Bank of England from Cypher Monk House quite easily
So I always think that that's always felt significant to me
because it does seem kind of brainless to be trying to...
Not brainless, but it's obviously an uphill struggle
to be building community in London and to be building with Bitcoin
because, you know, London is going to be the last place,
Britain is going to be the last place to kind of get fully pilled.
So we're really, we're an uphill battle.
But then it's also kind of good to have a beacon standing,
as you've mentioned, without flying a flag,
so close to kind of one of the epicentres of the Fiat system.
That's always felt important to me, and I'm glad that we are close,
even though, yeah, it feels a bit touch and go and a bit edgy at times.
But, yeah, I mean, we're lucky to really not have actually sort of interfaced with, I guess,
that element of London and Britain in a good way.
We are just humbly, calmly doing our thing here, spreading the gospel, spreading education,
spreading culture and just ticking over.
But, I mean, yeah, I do wonder kind of at what point, I mean, one of our first questions
to anyone when they enter the house is, are you a Fed? Which is obviously always well received with
lots of gags and jokes. But it's also, it is generally a kind of great question, because at
some point, we have to think that we do, again, to continue the thread of secrecy and encryption.
It's important that we have private spaces and we can work together. And we know and we trust
people like bitcoin has has kind of solved trust for for money and we don't have to have to deal
with that anymore we can just we have we have blockchain we have bitcoin it's it's sorted but
the kind of human network is still trust right you know so you can't you can't verify every human
you know because that's not how human beings work that's not how that's not how just a healthy
kind of introduction and making friends work like i'm not going to ask for your bank details and your
and your passport and like tell me all of your history and your working history it can't work
like that it has to be based on trust um and i think that's kind of what communities are doing
it's like they're working as kind of groups to kind of just make sure that yeah new people are
allowed to come in and be and and help the thing grow but yeah at the same time we're always kind
of conscious that you know different you know different people might have different ideas but
also different people can very well be bad actors. And there are enough kind of horror
stories in the Bitcoin space that remind us that we have to kind of be safe and keep our
communities safe. And so, yeah, we can have our jokes about being feds. But also, yeah,
it's just good to get reads on people.
So for anyone who's looking to visit London soon and, you know, they're hearing this and
they say, I want to check out the Cyphermunk House. They just show up there.
and they press the doorbell that's it abby you're going to keep that secret
is that right i uh yeah something like that what you said like 123 william street that might be it
something like that i can i can i can take this off though i can cut this out don't worry don't
worry i mean we we have i think uh we sort of make a joke that we're kind of we i think we might
might be the biggest the biggest bitcoin only space in the uk that no one's ever heard about
i mean and that is kind of that is kind of on purpose because we want to keep things kind of
on the down low i mean got it most bitcoiners find us in the right ways they find us through btc maps
they find us through um nostr and they find us through i mean we use eventbrite occasionally to
get them just get new people in and and some other apps but it's it's kind of again it's
finding the space and reaching the space is its own proof of work. Like, we don't need to be
advertising to the whole of London and getting our posters up on billboards and saying, oh,
come and learn about Bitcoin. No, because people need to kind of do those first steps by themselves.
They have to realise this is something I want to learn about. I've understood there's a problem.
I want to go and do my homework. And then they find us. But it's not, it doesn't really,
we don't need to kind of push out so far.
But yes, for plebs, wherever they are in the world,
if they want to come and see this crazy little world in Bloomsbury,
then they just have to go down the rabbit hole in London
and try and find one of our events.
As I said, the best place is Noster, a big, big Noster maxi.
So we're always kind of updating events,
letting people know what's going on there.
we have a website which keeps events updated
but yeah it's a kind of
it's part of the game you know you don't want things
to be too easy you want people to have to put
the proof of work in and then
at the same time that gives us such a kind of
it's always very
joyful when a random person
comes in and you say well how did you find us
oh I saw you on Noster and I've been you know
I found you on B2C maps it's just like
wow again these things that
other amazing plebs
out there have built are working
for the community, bringing people together.
So it keeps me bullish on how unstoppable this whole phenomena is.
So you've talked about NOSTA,
and obviously you host Bitcoin events, you host NOSTA events too.
Do you see a difference in energy between a pure Bitcoin night
and a NOSTA heavy night?
um well we hosted one or two nostonites um sort of 12 months ago or so and then we're lucky to
be working closely always with the 2140 gang um they they have been uh working to build a
nostonite over the last few months um which is going really good going really well and uh yeah
they i wouldn't say this there's too much of a difference at all really i mean it's the same
it's the same crazy psychopaths i mean it's i don't think it i don't think it differs really
too much at all i think um i think the difference maybe occurs when we make things more um introductory
when we run when we run introductory sessions um which really try to target new people and people
who are interested in learning for the first time that's when you and then that's that's just a kind
of um being in a space with people with with kind of that beginner level um that creates a kind of
much different environment because everyone's there, all of the regulars are there trying to
kind of lift them up and help and teach and educate and it's a really kind of sharing environment
whereas the NOSTA and just regular Bitcoin nights, it's just
the mad psychopathic energy of plebs just coming together, communing,
having a beer and trying to kind of, trying to come up with some
new things that we can add to the space. But yeah, we are
running a NOSTA night with the 20 and 40 guys tonight so that's a
Very, very lucky to have that in the house that they've organized.
They're bringing the Geyser team in.
So very happy to have Metamick in the house this evening,
presenting his new element within Geyser,
the all or nothing fundraising thing.
So looking forward to hearing about that for Nostra Nights.
So this will be applicable, sadly,
only for the folks listening on the live stream right now.
If you are in London, do the proof of work.
Forget what I said about the address.
Do the proof of work.
Find out where the Cypher Monk house is.
And at what time will it be, Cypher?
Six o'clock UK time till 11 o'clock.
And there's going to be some free pizza.
There's going to be a few free beers.
And it's going to be a good evening.
All right.
So six o'clock London time.
to all the folks listening on the live stream.
If you are listening to this on Fountain or any other podcasting app,
sorry to say you've missed your opportunity,
but there will be a next one, I'm sure.
So, you know, the art events that you have,
and you mentioned the 2140 guys, is that Nat and others?
Is that 2140 Cypher or is that something about someone else?
I think, yeah, Nat is, well, I think there's two 2140 gangs, or they were one, maybe they became two. Nat is definitely part of their 2140 art and music. They seem to have a really cool crew of kind of rappers, MCs, musicians, performers, DJs, which they're doing great work at the moment.
and then there's the sort of the other 2140 crew which I've had just more more dealings with and
spent more time with which is mainly Mr. Anon and Mad Monkey and then their kind of team of
artists all over the world, Mr. Toshi, F-Zero, Zaza Wow Wow, sort of all other crazy plebs
and yeah with them we've run a few kind of DJ nights, we've run a few art exhibitions
We've run two Bitcoin culture fests.
We literally finished that maybe a month ago.
So that was the second one.
And that was, yeah, just trying to kind of, I guess,
take advantage of London's kind of sprawling nature in many venues
and try and do kind of a serious week of satellite events going on all over the city,
obviously with CypherMonk as a key part of being a space where we can host lots of events,
but then trying to kind of get to other places too.
So yeah, it was a really successful culture fest with 2140 recently.
And yeah and I must say as well because really on top of all this I really want to thank the people who supported us throughout this whole time which is all the plebs helping make this happen As you mentioned we call him the co absolute legend in the space
And all the plebs that come and give us their hard sats to kind of make this happen.
And then on top of that, a team which I'm very grateful to have met because they have supported us ever since we met them,
which is the Angle team based in London.
and they are in between taking Angle from level 1 to level 2
and I think Angle level 2 is going to be quite a game changer
for people building projects
and all of the assorted projects that are coming out of Angle
so to know that there are kind of hardcore devs
who are building projects in London
who value having the real space to work, to commune
And to consider them friends as well on top of this, of course.
All the people in this space, we're all friends.
But very lucky to have actual supporters to make this project tick and carry on.
And Angor uses it on occasion as a co-working space, correct?
Yeah, exactly.
So Angor, they co-work here.
And we have a few other people co-working in the space.
So that's kind of the main sort of daytime offer when people want to come and co-work.
But yeah, it just obviously a lot of people have the fiat mining jobs.
That's their daytime.
So it just depends, you know, what the community needs at any one time.
And we just we try and make sure the house can be as open and as accessible.
But certainly to know that projects want to come here and use the space.
I mean it's just
to know that there are people
thinking and building all in the same space
you just you know ideas are being shared
and I think
I'd love to get some more teams in the house
really I'd love to see lots of
projects being built out of Cyphermonk
and to know that
you know we have
as much kind of
ammunition for change and for
hope in this kind of
in this movement that we're all part of
Do you apply any kind of curatorial philosophy to the events, the art and the events that happen at Cypher Monk House?
Hmm. I guess I do. I couldn't really explain it.
I guess it's just my own sort of my own tastes and leanings about what should be going on.
I mean, when it comes to education, I mean, I just we just try and freestyle and open it up with the community as much as possible and get plebs up on, you know, within, you know, if they're trusted, they're good, they know their stuff.
We just try and get them up as soon as possible to get them presenting about whatever they want to present about.
So educationally, it's just less the main thing is just we want to just keep it regular.
I always want to make sure that there's a I've always felt like it's just we need to make sure that there's always the starting point for someone, you know, so any community, any space, you just always want to know that like some newbie in that town, that village can come to a place and they can start from the beginning because, you know, there are still millions of people that have to start from the beginning, you know, getting on board with all the tools and the knowledge.
So that's always a kind of decision with the education. And then on top of that, it's just trying to feed the interests of what we're all trying to learn.
and then from a sort of cultural perspective
it's just
it's my own kind of
my own interests on top of what
all of the other kind of cultural
cultural plebs
in the space are talking about
and want to help kind of bring
to the house so it's a kind of team effort
I hope as much as it can be
to get different things in the house
and then yeah
I think I've been sort of
I'm always sort of still seeing things in London
And so in a sense, I'm kind of I feel like I'm sort of always scouting now, because if I do see some kind of just non Bitcoin thing, but I feel like maybe the people seem like good people or they're young and they want to learn and they want to be part of something.
You know, I do occasionally sort of just reach, try and reach out to people who are just artists in the city and see if they want to bring whatever their thing is, their music, their theater, their dance, whatever it might be into the house.
and I think that's always a good kind of you know it's a good thing for them because it kind of asks
them if they are happy to kind of enter a space which they know nothing about are they open to
that invariably creatives are always keen to kind of experience something new so yeah I'm hoping to
bring I say during the Camden Fringe I saw a lot of other shows just to see what else was on and I
I saw a very interesting show that was very counter, counter culture, shall we say.
And again, a kind of very sort of edgy physical theatre piece with three performers who were brilliant.
And I have been talking with them and I'm hoping, I mean, this is not really a secret,
but I guess I'm hoping to try and bring them to the house to have their work put up here.
I mean, and already we're having those conversations about what is Bitcoin?
What is this space?
so I just think yeah I mean creatives always need a space to play in and to express what you know
their ideas but if we can align more and more creatives in the world with Bitcoin and with
NOSTA I mean it's a no-brainer for NOSTA you know if you're if you're creating any kind of content
to think that in the 21st century you'd still be hustling for likes on Instagram is it's quite
it's quite sad so we need to get people fast into Nostra um I literally just checked before the show
um we are there's 11,000 you know roughly 11,000 daily users or average users on Nostra at the
moment so we are still so young and so early in the Nostra space um so we've all got a lot more
purple pilling to do that's for sure and and you know sometimes the purple pill is easier to swallow
for people so um we will uh keep doing things like that yeah yeah i think yes love is something
like 11 000 daily anything if you look at it weekly it rises to 30 or 40 000 which is still
not a lot uh if you think about it tiny tiny tiny i mean it's like it's like a village
and that's great though right i mean everyone always you know i mean maybe the twitter maxis
they love to berate Nostra and say it's an echo chamber and things like that.
But I mean, I just think, I actually think what a great thing to have.
I like to think of it more often. It's an ideas chamber, you know?
Okay, there's way less noise coming into it.
There's way less distractions.
There's way less of the kind of dark stuff that we're used to on Twitter and the tragedy.
And it's just like, let's just look in the,
let's just build in the direction that we're all going in.
let's use this kind of contained space with such high frequency.
So much more can be done in NOSTA than trying to get your message out
through the algorithms and things.
It's a no-brainer for me.
It's the happiest place on the Internet,
and it can be the most fun place on the Internet too.
How often can you say that?
I mean, yeah, the Internet has become a cesspool of despair for the most part.
Yeah, yeah.
So hence, yeah.
But, yeah, I mean, Nostra is, we're lucky to have it.
So, yeah, we just need to keep getting people towards it, keep GMing and web chaining, and it's all good.
so what what is the most surreal or unexpected thing that's happened at cypher monk house
oh really unexpected well i mean i've certainly had some surreal experiences here myself certainly
i mean i do find it amazing how even sort of being obviously one of one of the main instigators
of its change and and keeping it fresh how the house itself always kind of feels fresh and
surprises me but um I think some of the some yeah certainly some individuals who've come through
have been quite surprising I mean you know and and sort of I think we had sort of someone who
literally is sort of not a government I think someone who worked for the for the Bank of England
um I mean we have well I won't talk about a pleb who's linked there but we have we just someone
who's kind of very a very statist kind of person came through to look at the art and really enjoyed
themselves but they told me about their career and it was just like oh my goodness are you meant to be
in here or should you be in here should i escort you out quickly um and then just yeah i mean i
think i mean it's more where it's when we try and take some of the madness onto the streets i mean
i'm i try to try to do as much as i can with sort of content and marketing and advertising and
have been have been known to don don the odd hilarious mask and uh yeah i mean we get we get
looks on the streets and things and lots of questions asked but i think i think the surrealness
is really it's just it's just seeing people all in the same space um sort of happily saying the
things that they're saying which seem you know maybe 10 years ago in my life would have seen
like the most extreme like nonsensical things but actually there's just every everyone is kind of
aligned i mean that in itself is surreal um but uh yeah i mean i don't know i mean it's you know
we're next door to a we're next door to an embassy i mean that's that's pretty surreal and you know i
I sometimes say good morning to the ambassador of bloody Kosovo.
And it's just outrageous, you know.
And it's just like here I am, you know, just caretaking a funny old Bitcoin pop-up
and chatting to the ambassador of Kosovo.
And he has no idea what kind of ambassador I'm trying to be.
So I guess that always feels a bit surreal.
But, yeah, the Bitcoin space is surreal, Abby, as you know.
How do you keep a place like that alive in an expensive city like that?
London. Is it pure sats and miracles or is there a practical structure behind it?
It's definitely been a lot of pure sats and miracles to start. And yeah, that's obviously not
the most sustainable thing. But obviously, with the nature of what the owners have allowed us to do,
it is definitively a pop-up space. And this iteration of it will come to an end whenever
that is and I think because of that kind of uncertainty from our point of view or lack of
clarity about when the end date is I mean god I had not expected to still be doing crazy cypher
monk business uh sort of 19 months after after an art show um but obviously I'm I'm so glad I am
I wouldn't be doing anything else the fact that I can I'm obviously doing it so uh but yeah keeping
it going and planning for a kind of next stage is very much kind of, yeah, the key
Cyphermunk work at the moment is really working out the structure for what happens next because,
yeah, it's kind of pure sats and miracles and a lot of free labour from a few hardcore
nutters making it happen is not going to kind of keep this going forever. So, yeah, we need to
kind of plan for being in another venue what happens in interim periods when we're kind of
maybe nomadic if if we can't jump straight into another space um but then you know london as we
know is full of spaces that you can pop up in and and and you know even just doing it in a pub or in
a even in a library or whatever i mean it's very easy to kind of find the space to do things it's
just making sure that we capitalize on on the network that we've built of of of monks of plebs
and the crazy people that make this thing happen
and making sure that that structure can carry it forward.
Now, so the Cyphermonk house really is an idea
more than a single physical location,
although it manifests itself best in a physical location but at the end of the day it is an idea I think it an idea yeah I mean the cypher concept is you know in itself
it feels like it's, yeah, it's a kind of additional thing
to kind of help the cypher-punks,
because I'm not sure I'm ever going to be at that scale
of being able to crazily code the next valuable thing
that we all need to use,
But certainly I can do my bit to kind of help spread the message, the culture, and try and develop the culture that helps us kind of, that ties everything all together so that we can move forward.
So that idea of kind of, you know, what is a cypher monk, you know, to try, people who want to propagandize and make community.
and yeah that idea for me is as you said is much bigger than a building
and I will certainly be flying that flag I would imagine for probably forever more Abbey.
But do you see that do you see this idea of the Cyphermunk house
as a London thing or as part of a broader cultural movement in Bitcoin?
time? Well, I mean, knowing that there are spaces everywhere, you know, in every country,
you know, I was lucky enough to go to the Bali festival early this year and seeing the Bitcoin
house Bali. I mean, you know, it's just amazing to know that there are people on the other side
of the world doing exactly the same thing, you know, in their own unique way, which is, you know,
It's just very kind of reassuring.
So I think that idea, you know, you're talking about these embassies, I mean, they will just continue to propagate.
I mean, to think that we've got a big building in London is going to be the be all on the end of it for this country is brainless.
I mean, they're going to be popping up.
And I kind of hope that the thing that inevitably happens when things end in the vacuum is that kind of that when we double up and then three spaces pop up and 10 spaces pop up So I think Bitcoiners anyone who crossed the digital space and gone into the real world and met other Bitcoiners
once you've done that and you know the value of having spaces,
Bitcoiners are not going to sit by and sort of be happy not having that space wherever it is for them.
And yeah, as more and more people come in, we'll need more spaces.
So, yeah, the idea of kind of, you know, sort of pilling our nations somehow from the inside out in the same way that I think, you know, governments and all these big institutions are in their own way being pilled from the inside, because obviously it's in everyone's self-interest to learn and understand Bitcoin and get hold of some Bitcoin.
So all of those people within governments and then, yeah, in the kind of real world terrain, it's it's knowing that there are buildings and little businesses starting to accept Bitcoin.
These are kind of little mushrooms within the terrain that are just starting to just be Bitcoin only.
And that that is unstoppable. But, yeah, we need to support them.
And we need we need plebs to go to go to the places, spend their sats and start the circular economy kind of in real world time.
Because, I mean, as a as a store of wealth, it's kind of it's kind of fine for everyone.
You know, it's kind of fine for the banks. It's kind of fine for the big guys.
But I think when it starts to become really a medium of exchange for many more people, I think we really start seeing a lot more change.
yeah couldn't agree more uh so cypher any any call to action uh you want to give the audience
anything else you want to plug call to action call to action is uh yeah just to everyone should
remember that they that they they can create this reality like none of us have to we don't have to
be afraid we can just make this reality come true as we are we will live and breathe it so um you know make it happen just just do it we all doing it so um simple call to action is that Stay true to your artist self Get to Cypher Monk House when you can or get to whichever local Bitcoin community space
or vendor you can and support them.
And yeah, keep spreading the good word.
Excellent.
Well, Cypher, thank you for being so generous with your time.
Thank you for all the amazing work you're doing in London.
I genuinely mean it.
I got the warm fuzzies when I was at the Cyphermunk House in London.
It's such a lovely place.
And it was so nice.
Every time I was there, there was a group of people.
And then we'd just sit down and have this impromptu, nice conversation.
I always felt like I belonged every time I went there.
And there's just full credit to you and your other caretaker at the Cypherman cast for doing such an amazing job there.
Thank you, Avi. I'm so pleased you came through and have had a good time.
The warm fuzzies, very, very good feedback.
And yeah, you are immortalized forever on our picture board with Mr. Roger 9000.
So I hope you will be back one day.
Oh, I most certainly will. Most certainly.
And then to folks who are listening, if you are in London or nearabouts, do do the work.
Find out where Cypher Monk House is and go and pay Cypher and others a visit.
You'll have fun.
Folks, thank you so much for listening.
I do hope you're listening on Fountain.
And while you're there, if you could hit that subscribe button, your support helps keep our mics warm and this podcast ad free.
We do appreciate all of our subscribers.
Thank you, Cypher.
Thank you to all the listeners on the live streams across Nostra.
Until next week, goodbye.