Oct. 1, 2024

Why Is Ben Bullish with Ben Perrin from BTC Sessions - Bitcoin Infinity Show #128

Why Is Ben Bullish with Ben Perrin from BTC Sessions - Bitcoin Infinity Show #128
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Why Is Ben Bullish with Ben Perrin from BTC Sessions - Bitcoin Infinity Show #128

Ben Perrin is the host of BTC Sessions, one of the most valuable Bitcoin education resources available! He joins the show to talk about what he's bullish about, Bitcoin in Canada and Alberta, his new Bitcoin Mentor initiative, and much more!

Connect with Ben:
https://primal.net/p/npub1rxysxnjkhrmqd3ey73dp9n5y5yvyzcs64acc9g0k2epcpwwyya4spvhnp8
https://x.com/BTCsessions
https://x.com/theBTCmentor
https://www.btcsessions.ca/

Connect with Us:
https://www.bitcoininfinityshow.com/
https://bitcoininfinitystore.com
https://primal.net/freedom
https://primal.net/knut
https://primal.net/luke
https://twitter.com/BtcInfinityShow
https://twitter.com/knutsvanholm
https://twitter.com/lukedewolf

Thanks to our sponsors - check out their websites for info:
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The Bitcoin Infinity Show is a Bitcoin podcast hosted by Knut Svanholm and Luke de Wolf.

The Freedom Footprint Show is a Bitcoin podcast hosted by Knut Svanholm and Luke de Wolf.

In each episode, we explore everything from deep philosophy to practical tools to emit freedom dioxide to expand your freedom footprint!

00:00 - BIS128 - Ben Perrin

00:12 - Welcoming Ben Perrin AKA BTC Sessions

03:08 - The Origins of BTC Sessions

07:52 - What Has Changed in Bitcoin?

09:28 - Neutrality

12:13 - Early Days

15:14 - Bull Bitcoin

17:57 - Calgary Community Building

20:48 - Vexl

22:48 - Sats Market

25:27 - Canada and Alberta

35:24 - Pendulum

39:56 - Nostr

43:46 - Why Are You Bullish?

45:33 - The Bitcoin Mentor

52:12 - What is Ben Most Excited About - Fedi(Mint)

57:48 - Outlook for Canada and Alberta

01:00:52 - Wrapping Up

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Welcome to the Bitcoin Infinity Show, brought to you by BitBox Stampseed,

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the Bitcoin Advisor and ShopInBit.

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Go to BitcoinInfinity.com for books, merch and more.

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Enjoy the conversation.

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Ben, welcome to the Bitcoin Infinity Show.

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Thank you for joining us.

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Thanks for having me, guys.

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Appreciate it.

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Yeah, this is where we first met, in Riga, five years ago.

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Yeah, that's wild.

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Time flies.

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Yeah, and our lives, both our lives took a turn.

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Yeah.

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I mean, it's, it's, uh, it's amazing what can happen in a

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seemingly short period of time.

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Everything is markedly different, I think, on both ends.

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Yeah, but I mean, I, I can't believe how you do what you do, like, you do like the

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double amount of conferences that I do.

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Maybe a little too many.

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I think I need to slow myself down a bit.

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but you've been, you've been traveling around a lot, like,

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with the family as well.

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Yeah, yeah, we, we try to strike a balance.

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Sometimes I go solo, sometimes it's the full family.

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Sometimes it's, uh, me and the missus.

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It really depends, but, um, a little bit of both all through the year.

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how's it been, like, what's your, well, it's a pretty big question, but,

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Yeah.

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I mean, the, I mean, the, the travel aspect of it is, is fantastic.

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I love seeing all these places and it's kind of cool.

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Yeah.

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To be honest, seeing all the Bitcoiners just in different parts

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of the globe all through the year, it's like every, every time it's,

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it's a quasi family reunion, right?

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In cool locations.

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Who was that that called us a traveling circus?

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Joe, yeah, it's Joe Hall.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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That's, I mean, accurate.

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I think it's based, I was just, uh, we're just saying outside that we should

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just collectively, you know, the con, like just, just buy a jet, put all the

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necessary stuff in it and just hop around the globe and, and host a bunch of events

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and then just, you know, get, get it all done in a couple of months and then

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It's not a bad strategy.

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no, it's a, it's a low time preference

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Are we, are we going to start a geyser fund for the jet,

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Yeah, yeah, what private jet wanted, like,

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If anything, it would be a good meme anyway, right?

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A nice, a nice

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Yeah.

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I feel like I'm going to put that up now.

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How many bitcoin do you think we need for a jet?

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Sats.

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Yeah, well, it'll take a while to, to, to gather the funds

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and we'll call that a jet lag.

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Okay.

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nice, nice.

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I, I all enjoy seeing the exorbitant amount of Bitcoin required.

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And then like, you know, 5, 000 sats raised so far.

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Yeah, and then five years later, 5, 000 sats is enough for a jet.

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there we go.

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Yeah.

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Yeah, that's true.

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Yeah.

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Oh, absolutely.

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So can, can you, can you give us a little bit of, uh, your

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story, how this all started?

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How did you, how did you get into Bitcoin and how did you become a,

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cause you're, you're not actually Mr.

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Sessions, but you are, you get confused for that all the

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Yeah.

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Um, Yeah, so, prior to Bitcoin, I actually, uh, I taught kids

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how to breakdance for years.

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Australian ladies,

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Yeah, non Australian ladies, no, no, I, uh, I taught, I was basically

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doing in school residencies.

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So, like, in, in phys ed, instead of the phys ed teacher, you know,

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helming the, the dance unit, I would come in as a novelty and, you know,

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You know, teach the kids a routine over the course of a week and then

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they'd perform at the end of the week.

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And, um, so it was, it was a fun job, but it didn't particularly, uh, pay the bills.

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So I needed a side hustle.

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And that side hustle for a while was, Um, I went on a bunch of tech blogs and

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I just kind of learned how to tear, tear apart a MacBook and like swap out the hard

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drive and the RAM and things like that.

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And then, so I, I would flip MacBooks because everybody wanted a

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MacBook, but you could get it used.

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And so I, I would upgrade it and then sell it and earn a few

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hundred bucks in an afternoon.

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And that felt pretty decent.

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But because I was like, the side note here is because I was on those tech

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blogs, the Bitcoin articles would be in front of me from time to time.

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And so it took about a year of saying, ah, crap, I missed the boat over and

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over and over again, uh, to finally say, maybe I should actually read

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into this and figure out what it was.

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And, um, I spent the better part of two years trying to learn how to use it.

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And searching desperately for video tutorials because

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I'm a very visual learner.

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And not finding a single thing.

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It was always like, Oh, go to this blog and, or, or go to this forum and

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halfway down in the comments, some dude described in point form how to do this.

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And I was like, I, I can't learn like this, but I had to.

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And so the, the, the channel was more like a response to the itch

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I couldn't scratch for myself.

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And I figured if, if I wanted that, somebody might find Bitcoin tutorials

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useful, and, uh, that was eight years ago.

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And so now, yeah, eight, eight years worth of, uh, doing tutorials.

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So, do you have any other, like, educational background?

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Like, um, university studies or anything like

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this, this was just like, it was a, a com, so the, this, I think the skills that kind

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of came together were, even though I was teaching dance, like, teaching a concept

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that can be complex to like a school kid.

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As long as you can break it down in a simple manner, like I had to get used

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to sometimes five year olds trying to learn and memorize a routine.

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With very foreign movements to them.

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Um, and so, regardless of subject matter, it translates

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if you can break something down.

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And so, and then the tech aspect of it, like I was not

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technical whatsoever before Git.

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Other than like, I mean, yeah I said I tore up Macbooks, but like, if you can,

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You know, put in a Nintendo cartridge.

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That's like the skillset that you needed to do that.

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Um, and then, and, and so that was just like trial and error, uh,

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and, and, you know, tearing your hair out, doing it again, trying

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again, learning what not to do.

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Um, and then just the being comfortable, like in front of

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a camera, I guess, over time.

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So, the stripe from tearing your hair out?

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Yeah, yeah, it's, it, it grew back eventually, but turned color.

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Yes.

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Yeah.

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did you realize that you're never allowed to change your hairstyle ever again?

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I, yeah, yeah, it's, it's, uh, I, I, I think.

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The first time going to a conference and, uh, somebody coming up and saying like,

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Oh, I saw you from across the parking lot.

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And I was like, Oh crap, I'm stuck with this forever.

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Yeah, now it's like, I literally, but this is going to be the OPSEC thing.

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Cause when it's time to disappear, I just have to die this back.

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And I, I'm a ghost.

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Yeah, yeah,

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Nobody will know who I am.

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I'll be unrecognizable.

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It's like if Knut shaves his

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Yeah,

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yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Yeah.

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Although actually the beard hasn't even been going that long, but

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now you're, now you're used to it.

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Yeah, yeah.

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So, so what's, what's changed over, over this eight years?

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Because I mean, I imagine early days that you're, you're teaching vastly different

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things from, from now in the space.

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Yes and no.

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Um, there's a lot more to teach now than there ever was.

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Um, like the early days, I was more or less confined to Um, you know, whatever

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phone app happened to be out as a wallet, there was very limited option

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for hardware, like it just kind of started to pop up as I was early days.

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Um, and then like Bitcoin ATMs or online exchanges, that was kind

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of the crop of what I could do.

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And now, the list of things I would like to cover is growing

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faster than I can cover it.

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It's an impossible task to, to teach everything.

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And so, um, that's I think, and that's a great thing, because there's so

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much optionality out there for people.

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It's just really hard to, and, and, I think because of that now,

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we're seeing a lot more people do tutorial videos, which is fantastic.

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I'm, every time I see a new person throw their hat in the ring and

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start making video tutorials, I'm like a, it's like a mini victory.

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Like it, it's, it's the, I've, I've treated the opposite of.

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Competition because you can never have too much education, just, just as

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everybody should have a Bitcoin podcast.

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Yeah, so speaking of podcasts and video tutorials, like, how do you

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stay neutral in terms of the products?

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I mean, you must be getting offers from everyone here and there,

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like, can you promote this for me?

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Can you do that for me?

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yeah.

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Yeah.

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So, so there's, there's two aspects to it.

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Um, I mean, number one, obviously the, the only way that I can do this full-time

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is to like, have sponsors on the show.

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But the, the sponsors that I usually have, it's typically not them coming to me.

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Not to say there isn't people coming to me, but the ones that come to

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me typically are like shitcoin casinos and stuff like that.

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And saying it's a default.

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No.

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Um, but the sponsors that I tend to have typically it's me saying,

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Oh, I use this and it's great.

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And then I reach out to that entity and say, would you like to sponsor the show?

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But that comes with a caveat of no matter what, The whole point of the channel is

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to educate people how to use things, so I will be covering your competitors and

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teaching people how to use them as well.

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So, it's just, you gotta, and you gotta just be forthcoming with, like, the pros

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and cons of everything, and be realistic about how things work, and, yeah.

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yeah, yeah.

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Oh, can I have that water?

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Sorry.

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Uh, yeah, the, uh, this is a tricky thing, like, uh, especially for consumers,

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like, how can you trust the content you're consuming, like, uh, but I think,

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like, the, uh, the, um, the essence of that is that, uh, authenticity is the

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currency of the future, whoever said that, but, uh, but it's, it's such a great.

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Like your reputation is everything.

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If, if you, if you're discovered to be a sellout or if people discover you're a

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sellout, you're, you, you lose, or your sponsors too, at, at certain point, right.

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So,

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It's, it's, um, in, in, in, especially in Bitcoin, I, I feel like, um,

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Bitcoiners hold each other to a higher standard than, than fiat world does.

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Um, and, uh, Bitcoiners is, it's not so easy to forget, uh, somebody.

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Um, not, not that there, you can't, uh, redeem yourself when you make

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a mistake as long as you own it.

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Um, I think the worst thing that you can do is just double down

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instead of being like, uh, you know, fucked up kind of thing.

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So, yeah.

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No, exactly, and I mean, I was actually curious about this.

216
00:12:16,579 --> 00:12:20,019
Did you ever go to, like, when you're getting into Bitcoin,

217
00:12:20,059 --> 00:12:24,089
were you ever curious about some of the, well, checkcoins and

218
00:12:24,324 --> 00:12:30,924
Oh yeah, like, especially early on, because, um, there, there was no

219
00:12:32,004 --> 00:12:37,654
good resources, uh, that succinctly described the difference between

220
00:12:37,674 --> 00:12:39,144
Bitcoin and everything else.

221
00:12:39,194 --> 00:12:46,139
And so, It wasn't until, and I, I never really, like, when I had Bitcoin

222
00:12:46,149 --> 00:12:52,779
and I had other things, um, I spent most of my time learning about Bitcoin

223
00:12:52,779 --> 00:12:59,649
specifically, and then, you know, I heard little things about other shitcoins and,

224
00:12:59,929 --> 00:13:09,219
you know, but I, I never, Spent enough time, really, really, well, I won't say

225
00:13:09,219 --> 00:13:13,449
I never spent enough time, but like, I just, I never gained any conviction with

226
00:13:13,509 --> 00:13:18,729
any of the other ones, and to me it was always just like, was always considered

227
00:13:18,739 --> 00:13:20,979
gambling, if I had anything like that.

228
00:13:21,534 --> 00:13:30,154
And so it took working at an OTC desk in 2017, like a physical walk

229
00:13:30,154 --> 00:13:36,604
in with cash and buy Bitcoin or shitcoins to open my eyes to just

230
00:13:37,304 --> 00:13:40,334
how degenerate all of that stuff was.

231
00:13:40,624 --> 00:13:45,844
So like my experience at the peak of the 2017 bull run.

232
00:13:46,269 --> 00:13:50,649
Was being in a room probably about double the size, double

233
00:13:50,649 --> 00:13:52,039
or triple the size of this.

234
00:13:53,059 --> 00:14:02,989
Um, uh, we had three, three desks, uh, with money counters on them, and

235
00:14:03,169 --> 00:14:09,009
it was shoulder to shoulder people in, in this room, all standing with

236
00:14:09,019 --> 00:14:15,764
stacks of cash, Ready to buy whatever coin had gone up the most that day.

237
00:14:16,854 --> 00:14:21,204
And, and it was, it was like, yeah, Ripple hit 3.

238
00:14:21,204 --> 00:14:21,224
50.

239
00:14:21,224 --> 00:14:24,184
I'd love 10, 000 worth of Ripple, please.

240
00:14:24,554 --> 00:14:28,254
Uh, and, and it was, it was just that day after day after day.

241
00:14:28,654 --> 00:14:32,684
And people convinced that like, oh, this is the future.

242
00:14:32,694 --> 00:14:34,284
This is how it's gonna be.

243
00:14:34,829 --> 00:14:39,749
And after going through all that and seeing the ICO craze and everything,

244
00:14:39,789 --> 00:14:45,529
it, it, it just put such a bad taste in my mouth witnessing that and, and in

245
00:14:45,529 --> 00:14:50,149
a way being party to it, like working and, and being on the other side of the

246
00:14:50,149 --> 00:14:57,629
desk from that, that, uh, that and, and, um, discussions with and working with

247
00:14:57,629 --> 00:15:00,079
Francis Pouliot, uh, with BullBitcoin.

248
00:15:01,949 --> 00:15:06,069
He actually poached me from that company that I was at and, and it

249
00:15:06,069 --> 00:15:10,079
was a breath of fresh air to, to get somewhere and focus on Bitcoin.

250
00:15:10,099 --> 00:15:13,979
And so that, that was the, the, the formation of where I'm at now.

251
00:15:14,324 --> 00:15:17,834
In 2019, you were here with the bull Bitcoin

252
00:15:17,949 --> 00:15:18,309
was.

253
00:15:18,659 --> 00:15:19,189
Mm hmm.

254
00:15:19,274 --> 00:15:20,804
how, how many of you were here?

255
00:15:20,834 --> 00:15:22,124
Like, I, I can't remember.

256
00:15:22,124 --> 00:15:22,184
I

257
00:15:22,199 --> 00:15:23,179
was a lot of us.

258
00:15:23,219 --> 00:15:23,309
I

259
00:15:23,354 --> 00:15:24,254
15 or

260
00:15:24,589 --> 00:15:26,059
Yeah, there was, there was a lot.

261
00:15:26,329 --> 00:15:26,779
Yeah.

262
00:15:26,839 --> 00:15:27,199
Yeah.

263
00:15:27,199 --> 00:15:30,229
It was, it was like they brought all the, you know, a bunch of the

264
00:15:30,229 --> 00:15:34,489
Debs and uh, like Madex was here.

265
00:15:34,609 --> 00:15:34,669
Yeah.

266
00:15:34,669 --> 00:15:37,429
'cause he did the, he did the, the shirts and everything.

267
00:15:37,429 --> 00:15:37,430
Yeah.

268
00:15:37,435 --> 00:15:40,999
Francis, uh, yeah, Francis Dave, like, yeah.

269
00:15:40,999 --> 00:15:43,789
We were all out here and it was, it was a good time.

270
00:15:44,099 --> 00:15:48,429
Bull Bitcoin is definitely the most based exchange in the world, I think.

271
00:15:48,459 --> 00:15:52,479
Like, I mean, there's other great ones, but Bull Bitcoin is like

272
00:15:52,789 --> 00:15:55,839
think there are exchanges nowadays that are on par with them, but if you take the

273
00:15:55,839 --> 00:15:58,139
historical perspective, there is no second

274
00:15:58,359 --> 00:16:05,159
Yeah, well it was, it was such a departure for Francis to come out and be like, his

275
00:16:05,159 --> 00:16:11,529
announcement of what BullBitcoin was going to be and to, to say, we are actively

276
00:16:11,539 --> 00:16:18,979
Bitcoin only and, and the announcement, there, I remember people in the room as

277
00:16:18,979 --> 00:16:24,339
he announced it being like, Seriously, you guys are only doing Bitcoin.

278
00:16:24,339 --> 00:16:28,039
You're actively choosing not to do anything else.

279
00:16:28,789 --> 00:16:34,299
And, and, and then it w it seemed like a crazy move to a number of people that

280
00:16:34,299 --> 00:16:38,089
watched that announcement and it was the best thing that they could have done.

281
00:16:38,309 --> 00:16:38,909
Of course.

282
00:16:39,269 --> 00:16:43,589
I mean, I love that before and after picture of Francis, you know, when he's

283
00:16:43,589 --> 00:16:45,519
in his corporate suit and everything.

284
00:16:45,619 --> 00:16:50,349
The before picture and the second picture, it looks like something out of Commando or

285
00:16:50,439 --> 00:16:50,489
Yeah.

286
00:16:50,849 --> 00:16:52,079
Rolled out of the jungle.

287
00:16:52,919 --> 00:16:53,229
Yeah.

288
00:16:53,419 --> 00:16:54,099
No, it's great.

289
00:16:54,499 --> 00:16:57,049
Yeah, no, that was a formative time for sure.

290
00:17:57,399 --> 00:18:02,099
Yeah, and I mean, those were my first touch points with crypto, the 2017 run,

291
00:18:02,099 --> 00:18:07,109
and I mean, in the offices in Calgary, because I'm just starting my career, just

292
00:18:07,109 --> 00:18:12,649
out of school, and I'm working at an oil and gas company, and it's like, everyone's

293
00:18:12,649 --> 00:18:14,179
talking about Ethereum or Ripple,

294
00:18:14,304 --> 00:18:15,224
Yeah, yeah,

295
00:18:15,317 --> 00:18:19,317
and so that was the only thing that I got off my ass and went and bought a

296
00:18:19,317 --> 00:18:23,667
little bit for a little while with some Ethereum, and as soon as everything

297
00:18:23,667 --> 00:18:27,437
crashed in 2017, it's just like, I'm like, Yeah, I forgot about it for four

298
00:18:27,437 --> 00:18:29,017
years until things started to climb again.

299
00:18:29,017 --> 00:18:32,957
And so no, no regrets, like, uh, what ifs or anything like that.

300
00:18:32,957 --> 00:18:35,437
But, but yeah, that, that was, that was the culture at the time

301
00:18:35,437 --> 00:18:36,807
though, is, is, is what I'm saying.

302
00:18:36,807 --> 00:18:40,407
And, uh, and, and, and this, this was all like, I had no idea this

303
00:18:40,407 --> 00:18:44,737
was all going on around me, the, the Bitcoin community, uh, in, in Calgary.

304
00:18:44,747 --> 00:18:45,027
Right.

305
00:18:45,057 --> 00:18:47,017
And, and so this is, this is now where.

306
00:18:47,247 --> 00:18:51,517
You're active in building the community in, in Calgary, right?

307
00:18:52,172 --> 00:19:01,142
yeah, so, um, we're now kind of, you know, I've reached a point where, um, you

308
00:19:01,142 --> 00:19:07,292
know, it's, it's great using Bitcoin as a savings mechanism and all that, but, um,

309
00:19:08,282 --> 00:19:11,672
I think it was, it was late last year.

310
00:19:12,502 --> 00:19:18,082
Um, uh, there was, there was some announcement in and around like exchanges,

311
00:19:18,112 --> 00:19:21,702
basically sending out the warnings to everybody, like, Hey, if you, if you

312
00:19:21,722 --> 00:19:27,202
coin join and then send to the exchange, we'll have to like shut your account.

313
00:19:27,212 --> 00:19:31,162
Like you've got to at least add a hop and every, and, and people were.

314
00:19:31,432 --> 00:19:34,572
We're getting angry and almost like shooting the messenger, like, Oh,

315
00:19:34,572 --> 00:19:36,312
like, why don't you just not comply?

316
00:19:36,312 --> 00:19:38,492
And it's like, well, then the business doesn't exist.

317
00:19:38,492 --> 00:19:39,782
So I, like, I kind of get it.

318
00:19:40,132 --> 00:19:46,562
But at the end of the day, I got annoyed because people were, again,

319
00:19:46,562 --> 00:19:51,792
shooting the messenger rather than like just trying to do something about it.

320
00:19:52,332 --> 00:19:55,722
And, and so that kind of, uh, spurred me into.

321
00:19:56,762 --> 00:20:01,722
You know, recognizing that the only way around that is to actively

322
00:20:01,722 --> 00:20:04,862
use Bitcoin peer to peer, right?

323
00:20:04,862 --> 00:20:06,762
Like, not just save it.

324
00:20:06,762 --> 00:20:11,912
Cause like, if you're, um, if you're saving your Bitcoin and you're putting

325
00:20:11,912 --> 00:20:15,642
it away and everything, and then all of a sudden, every on and off

326
00:20:15,642 --> 00:20:20,447
ramp, it just Disappears overnight because of regulatory overreach.

327
00:20:21,007 --> 00:20:22,137
What the hell do you do?

328
00:20:22,187 --> 00:20:26,227
Like, yeah, you can find your, your, your peer to peer exchanges and stuff

329
00:20:26,227 --> 00:20:31,857
like that, but like, isn't it so much better if you can just know the place

330
00:20:31,857 --> 00:20:36,687
where you can get beef or, you know, your barber, if you, if you can just

331
00:20:36,987 --> 00:20:42,097
use your money for everything that you need and then also just save it.

332
00:20:42,882 --> 00:20:46,532
Like, isn't that a far better world than having to rely on somebody

333
00:20:46,542 --> 00:20:48,572
somewhere to exchange for a worse money?

334
00:20:49,282 --> 00:20:51,632
Are you familiar with Vexl?

335
00:20:51,652 --> 00:20:51,672
It

336
00:20:51,852 --> 00:20:52,442
Yes.

337
00:20:52,502 --> 00:20:53,142
Yes.

338
00:20:53,272 --> 00:20:54,812
looks really promising, I think.

339
00:20:55,332 --> 00:20:57,772
Yeah, uh, yeah, we had Grafton on.

340
00:20:58,602 --> 00:20:59,262
Weeks ago.

341
00:20:59,262 --> 00:21:01,722
And, uh, it, it's, it's great.

342
00:21:01,752 --> 00:21:06,312
I mean it's, most of the users are in Prague at the moment, but still, if we can

343
00:21:06,312 --> 00:21:12,432
get that going, it's like, I view it as VL being is to local Bitcoins what B2C pay

344
00:21:12,432 --> 00:21:16,242
server is to BitPay sort of, you, you're taking these centralized models and.

345
00:21:17,452 --> 00:21:21,042
You're making them peer to peer and more decentralized.

346
00:21:21,082 --> 00:21:26,162
It, it, yeah, it's needed, whatever the, I, I really like the idea of what Vexel's

347
00:21:26,172 --> 00:21:31,812
doing, again, like, it's, it's thin in my area for people listing stuff on there,

348
00:21:32,272 --> 00:21:38,282
um, but, again, at, at the end of the day, I think in, however we can do it

349
00:21:38,472 --> 00:21:44,462
to, to kind of build out, starting from the Bitcoiners themselves, ways to get,

350
00:21:44,512 --> 00:21:50,982
meet our daily needs, just using Bitcoin, like, I've, I've been, I've been basically

351
00:21:50,982 --> 00:21:53,192
living on a Bitcoin standard since 2020.

352
00:21:53,772 --> 00:21:58,332
Now, uh, 90 something percent of my income is all Bitcoin.

353
00:21:58,792 --> 00:22:06,622
Um, and I use it, like I, by default, don't have dollars beyond, like,

354
00:22:06,702 --> 00:22:10,582
exactly what needs to come out of a bank account each month for some specific

355
00:22:10,582 --> 00:22:12,752
payments that I can't do externally.

356
00:22:13,612 --> 00:22:18,752
So what is your reaction when people say that Bitcoin isn't money?

357
00:22:18,752 --> 00:22:25,682
Yeah.

358
00:22:25,682 --> 00:22:26,002
now.

359
00:22:26,002 --> 00:22:28,252
So you can say it, but you're fucking wrong.

360
00:22:29,592 --> 00:22:33,002
That's, that's, I mean, yeah, I don't know.

361
00:22:33,022 --> 00:22:39,802
I just, I, it's puzzling when somebody says that to me because my entire life

362
00:22:39,812 --> 00:22:42,372
is a refutation of that statement.

363
00:22:42,372 --> 00:22:44,742
Like,

364
00:22:44,832 --> 00:22:45,792
that's a clip right

365
00:22:46,027 --> 00:22:46,377
Yeah.

366
00:22:46,976 --> 00:22:48,482
Hahaha.

367
00:22:48,677 --> 00:22:48,807
it.

368
00:22:48,807 --> 00:22:49,937
That's, that's fantastic.

369
00:22:49,937 --> 00:22:54,087
And I mean, from, from my perspective, I had no idea any of this stuff existed.

370
00:22:54,087 --> 00:22:58,147
I literally got into Bitcoin as I was leaving Canada and I haven't, I haven't

371
00:22:58,147 --> 00:23:00,287
been back to Calgary in three years now.

372
00:23:00,287 --> 00:23:03,277
And so I I'm super looking forward to next, next summer.

373
00:23:03,712 --> 00:23:07,382
I'll make it to your sats market and the Bitcoin rodeo and everything.

374
00:23:07,452 --> 00:23:09,242
So can you tell us a little bit about the sats market

375
00:23:09,302 --> 00:23:13,892
Yeah, so, so, I guess I, I kinda went off the rails when I was about to dive

376
00:23:13,892 --> 00:23:20,412
into that, but that, that, that knee jerk of me getting angry that people weren't

377
00:23:20,412 --> 00:23:24,702
doing anything about it, that spurred me into doing the first sat market, and so,

378
00:23:25,312 --> 00:23:29,932
So I was like, guys, the only way around this is to just start using Bitcoin.

379
00:23:30,182 --> 00:23:35,162
And so I, I, I put out the word online and said like, let's, let's do this

380
00:23:35,182 --> 00:23:37,692
in three weeks, let's do a market.

381
00:23:38,152 --> 00:23:42,132
And we got 35 merchants together in that period of time, put on a

382
00:23:42,132 --> 00:23:44,072
big, a, a, like a Christmas market.

383
00:23:44,422 --> 00:23:45,992
And it was great.

384
00:23:46,002 --> 00:23:51,452
It was this, I was surprised how many people got together and made that happen.

385
00:23:51,492 --> 00:23:53,052
And so now we've done three of them.

386
00:23:53,567 --> 00:23:58,087
Um, we did a spring one as kind of like a dry run, uh, to prep for the

387
00:23:58,097 --> 00:24:00,087
Bitcoin rodeo one that we did in July.

388
00:24:00,567 --> 00:24:05,287
Um, but now I think we're going to do two per year and, and then, so

389
00:24:05,287 --> 00:24:06,967
that it's kind of more of an event.

390
00:24:07,377 --> 00:24:14,347
Uh, but then we want to actually form relationships with each other so that,

391
00:24:14,387 --> 00:24:17,617
you know, you don't need the market to get the things that you want.

392
00:24:17,617 --> 00:24:20,827
So like, you know, my kid shoved something in the toilet,

393
00:24:20,857 --> 00:24:22,247
I called the Bitcoin plumber.

394
00:24:22,527 --> 00:24:27,027
And he came and I paid him in sats for sorting out my shit coin problem.

395
00:24:27,637 --> 00:24:35,927
So, but like, and, and I think a big part of the market was, yes, it's great

396
00:24:35,927 --> 00:24:39,677
having, you know, like Bitcoin related merch and goodies and stuff like that.

397
00:24:39,677 --> 00:24:42,387
But like, It shouldn't be all that.

398
00:24:42,887 --> 00:24:45,957
It needs to be stuff that people actually need.

399
00:24:45,957 --> 00:24:51,137
So we have local farmers come in, um, and you know, they've got beef

400
00:24:51,137 --> 00:24:52,787
and eggs and chickens and all that.

401
00:24:52,937 --> 00:24:57,257
We have a lot of tradesmen, like roofers, people doing flooring, people

402
00:24:57,257 --> 00:24:58,637
doing all kinds of different stuff.

403
00:24:59,107 --> 00:25:03,817
Um, you know, we even have like, uh, backcountry camping tour guides.

404
00:25:03,817 --> 00:25:08,147
We've got a guy who, uh, one of the services he's offering is

405
00:25:08,147 --> 00:25:09,967
teaching people how to homestead.

406
00:25:10,657 --> 00:25:14,697
Um, so like there's, there's a wide variety, there's a children's author,

407
00:25:14,697 --> 00:25:16,617
there's a whole bunch of different stuff.

408
00:25:16,987 --> 00:25:20,897
Um, and it's a very eclectic mix of a lot of different things.

409
00:25:21,367 --> 00:25:27,527
Uh, but also like the useful, like, oh, I need food, you know, I need my haircut.

410
00:25:27,722 --> 00:25:33,332
so, uh, do you expect, I mean, if you look up government overreach during the

411
00:25:33,332 --> 00:25:37,852
early 2020s in the dictionary, you'll get a picture of a Castro's bastard doing,

412
00:25:38,982 --> 00:25:44,432
so, so do you expect, do you expect some kind of clamp down or like problems with

413
00:25:44,432 --> 00:25:46,812
this from a government side in Canada?

414
00:25:47,307 --> 00:25:54,617
Well, the, the nice thing about it is that it's the hardest thing to prevent

415
00:25:54,757 --> 00:25:57,607
when I know the guy I get my eggs from.

416
00:25:58,177 --> 00:25:59,707
When, you know, what are you going to say?

417
00:25:59,717 --> 00:26:01,977
You, you guys can't be friends anymore.

418
00:26:02,362 --> 00:26:03,232
Go fuck yourself.

419
00:26:03,322 --> 00:26:09,042
Like it's that's yeah, like if I happen to go visit my buddy at his house And

420
00:26:09,042 --> 00:26:12,782
he happens to give me some eggs, and I happen to slip and scan a QR code

421
00:26:13,012 --> 00:26:15,992
then then like I was to stop that

422
00:26:18,152 --> 00:26:22,062
Yeah Yeah Yeah,

423
00:26:22,232 --> 00:26:24,242
would go, because, yeah.

424
00:26:24,292 --> 00:26:26,742
Well, I mean, some calibration on this as well.

425
00:26:26,772 --> 00:26:30,602
I think for people who aren't familiar with how Canada is basically,

426
00:26:30,602 --> 00:26:35,992
Alberta and Calgary is like the heart of freedom country in Canada.

427
00:26:36,182 --> 00:26:40,642
Quebec is also a little bit, it's got its own flavor of that essentially, but

428
00:26:40,972 --> 00:26:44,782
Alberta has been going through some really interesting times in the last decade.

429
00:26:45,852 --> 00:26:53,042
we um so as It's very different from the US in that the individual states have so

430
00:26:53,042 --> 00:26:57,682
much more, you know, free reign to kind of set things how they like, and then you

431
00:26:57,682 --> 00:27:00,432
can freely move around between states.

432
00:27:00,432 --> 00:27:05,782
But in Canada, the federal government has a lot more power over each

433
00:27:05,782 --> 00:27:10,702
individual province than I would like.

434
00:27:10,712 --> 00:27:15,572
But Alberta, as of late, has been really pushing back against federal

435
00:27:15,582 --> 00:27:22,122
overreach, in particular, and around Uh, uh, energy, in and around, um,

436
00:27:22,282 --> 00:27:25,562
health, in and around, uh, uh, education.

437
00:27:26,102 --> 00:27:31,202
And so there's been all of these things that have kind of culminated in, uh,

438
00:27:31,212 --> 00:27:37,697
we created the Alberta Sovereignty Act, uh, which Gives us a conduit

439
00:27:37,707 --> 00:27:43,097
to any time the federal government tries to do something where they're

440
00:27:43,097 --> 00:27:47,897
stepping out of their wheelhouse, we basically can now refer to that and

441
00:27:47,897 --> 00:27:49,917
flip them the bird and say, tough.

442
00:27:50,507 --> 00:27:56,797
We saw that province next to us, Saskatchewan, when they tried to

443
00:27:56,797 --> 00:28:00,177
impose a carbon tax, the entire province, the government just

444
00:28:00,177 --> 00:28:01,347
said, we're not collecting it.

445
00:28:03,417 --> 00:28:08,832
And so like, you're starting to see, and it's very interesting because um, The

446
00:28:08,832 --> 00:28:16,192
sovereign individual, the book, when they were discussing, uh, the idea of, of local

447
00:28:16,202 --> 00:28:21,082
governance and like the breakdown of, of larger nation states, when they were

448
00:28:21,082 --> 00:28:29,292
talking about Canada, it was written in the 90s when Quebec was voting whether

449
00:28:29,292 --> 00:28:31,152
it wanted to remain part of Canada.

450
00:28:31,432 --> 00:28:35,342
And so one would have assumed at the time they, they would have said Quebec will

451
00:28:35,342 --> 00:28:37,742
be the first to, to separate from Canada.

452
00:28:38,292 --> 00:28:44,422
But they said no, it's more likely to be Alberta because it's so energy heavy.

453
00:28:44,837 --> 00:28:50,297
And, and we get kind of screwed by the rest of Canada, so we, there's a, uh,

454
00:28:50,307 --> 00:28:57,967
what's known as equalization payments, and so, you know, if we produce and, and have

455
00:28:57,967 --> 00:29:05,047
a lot of industry, rather than using that as a mechanism to incentivize people to

456
00:29:05,617 --> 00:29:11,287
to move away from areas where industry may not justify so many people living towards

457
00:29:11,287 --> 00:29:14,027
where the good jobs and the resources are.

458
00:29:14,607 --> 00:29:17,707
Instead, they just say, Oh, you guys are doing pretty well.

459
00:29:17,707 --> 00:29:20,827
We're going to take, uh, however many billions of dollars of that, and

460
00:29:20,827 --> 00:29:22,147
we're going to pepper it over here.

461
00:29:22,657 --> 00:29:22,957
Yeah.

462
00:29:22,997 --> 00:29:28,877
when you look at say Quebec versus Alberta, Alberta, um,

463
00:29:28,917 --> 00:29:30,452
I can't remember what this is.

464
00:29:30,842 --> 00:29:35,962
Very recently, in the past few years, um, there was a year where I think Alberta

465
00:29:35,962 --> 00:29:42,992
paid 10 billion dollars in equalization payments, and, uh, Quebec received 11.

466
00:29:42,992 --> 00:29:50,272
And, and, and so basically we just gave Quebec all the money, and

467
00:29:50,272 --> 00:29:52,132
that's like 40 percent of their GDP.

468
00:29:52,297 --> 00:29:53,827
yeah, it's socialism.

469
00:29:53,887 --> 00:29:55,327
That's how socialism works.

470
00:29:55,327 --> 00:30:00,447
And it, it's, it, what, what was the Margaret Margaret Thatcher quote?

471
00:30:00,567 --> 00:30:03,297
The problem with socialism is that eventually you'll run

472
00:30:03,297 --> 00:30:04,527
out of other people's money.

473
00:30:04,567 --> 00:30:04,837
Yeah.

474
00:30:05,427 --> 00:30:05,647
Yeah.

475
00:30:05,987 --> 00:30:06,437
Yeah.

476
00:30:06,497 --> 00:30:11,137
And, and so, but I mean, what would have happened if that wasn't in place

477
00:30:11,167 --> 00:30:18,647
is there wouldn't be as many jobs in, in Quebec and a number of people might have

478
00:30:18,647 --> 00:30:20,337
said, Oh, there's more jobs over here.

479
00:30:20,337 --> 00:30:22,987
We're going to move to where the industry is.

480
00:30:23,157 --> 00:30:23,397
Yeah.

481
00:30:24,537 --> 00:30:25,167
Free market.

482
00:30:25,197 --> 00:30:26,037
It's natural.

483
00:30:26,037 --> 00:30:29,997
It's what happens when you leave things be and let people co, uh, cooperate

484
00:30:30,057 --> 00:30:32,037
and collaborate the way they want.

485
00:30:32,042 --> 00:30:32,102
Yeah.

486
00:30:32,102 --> 00:30:32,342
Yeah.

487
00:30:32,542 --> 00:30:36,972
but instead we're incentivizing people to stay put where it's not

488
00:30:36,972 --> 00:30:38,792
as efficient for them to be there.

489
00:30:39,492 --> 00:30:43,342
Well, and I mean, the other thing, not just the equalization, right, is, is

490
00:30:43,342 --> 00:30:49,052
that the energy is literally locked, landlocked in Alberta, and to get the,

491
00:30:49,112 --> 00:30:54,132
to get the oil to market, it's, you have to take it to a coast, that's,

492
00:30:54,142 --> 00:30:58,022
that's, that's how this stuff gets, gets sold, and there's just been fights

493
00:30:58,232 --> 00:31:03,932
over building pipelines within Canada or into the United States, the, um, Barack

494
00:31:03,932 --> 00:31:08,332
Obama cancelled the Keystone pipeline, the Keystone XL pipeline the first time,

495
00:31:08,657 --> 00:31:12,897
Then Trump re approved it, and then Biden finally cancelled it, and I think

496
00:31:12,897 --> 00:31:14,187
they're actually giving up on it now.

497
00:31:14,187 --> 00:31:18,057
But even within Canada, that's the problem, is that, is that Quebec,

498
00:31:18,347 --> 00:31:22,097
who gets all of this money from Alberta, says they will not let a

499
00:31:22,097 --> 00:31:23,587
pipeline through their province.

500
00:31:24,772 --> 00:31:27,202
yeah, it's, uh, there's a section about this in the book.

501
00:31:27,925 --> 00:31:33,289
yeah.

502
00:31:33,289 --> 00:31:38,652
Yeah,

503
00:31:38,757 --> 00:31:40,017
yeah,

504
00:31:40,097 --> 00:31:43,247
your feeling on just the political situation in general

505
00:31:43,277 --> 00:31:46,137
in Alberta and Canada as a whole?

506
00:31:46,892 --> 00:31:49,232
We're in this messed up situation.

507
00:31:49,812 --> 00:31:58,182
it's, it's interesting because I don't put Too much or really any trust in

508
00:31:58,192 --> 00:32:05,832
politicians, but you know, you see the political pendulum making it's it's you

509
00:32:05,832 --> 00:32:09,902
know I feel like it already peaked to one side and it's about to swing back

510
00:32:09,912 --> 00:32:15,222
and they'll be that that degree of What seems like normalcy for a while and then

511
00:32:15,222 --> 00:32:20,002
it'll swing too far the other direction again and so like it's it's odd because

512
00:32:20,002 --> 00:32:27,207
in the 90s growing up I felt as if These damn conservatives are gonna censor

513
00:32:27,207 --> 00:32:32,177
everything and, you know, it was always like, Oh, we need to take this off TV and

514
00:32:32,177 --> 00:32:37,737
off the radio and we don't want anybody to see this and and my In my head, I was

515
00:32:37,737 --> 00:32:39,387
always like, well, just don't watch it.

516
00:32:39,387 --> 00:32:40,157
Don't listen to it.

517
00:32:40,157 --> 00:32:43,072
If you don't like Like, why are you telling others what

518
00:32:43,082 --> 00:32:45,412
they can or can't do or watch?

519
00:32:45,872 --> 00:32:50,652
And so I always grew up thinking that's where the pressure's gonna come from.

520
00:32:50,952 --> 00:32:56,382
But as that, that political pendulum swung to the left, it doesn't

521
00:32:56,382 --> 00:33:00,862
matter who's in power, it's just what are they censoring, right?

522
00:33:00,892 --> 00:33:09,247
And so I, I, you know, I I think I leaned left, politically speaking, early in my

523
00:33:09,247 --> 00:33:11,417
life because it was just like a knee jerk.

524
00:33:12,102 --> 00:33:17,402
Against whatever, whoever was telling me not to do things, and so I felt

525
00:33:17,412 --> 00:33:23,842
like I swung left, and then it got to a point where I was just insufferable,

526
00:33:24,482 --> 00:33:31,822
like, active, like, actively, uh, just, just trumpeting whatever the

527
00:33:31,892 --> 00:33:39,142
leftist politicians would say, um, and it wasn't until I Uh, a friend

528
00:33:39,142 --> 00:33:43,192
of mine actually said to me, I asked him about the election when, when

529
00:33:43,192 --> 00:33:50,442
Trudeau got elected for the first time, which I voted for, um, yeah, and,

530
00:33:51,782 --> 00:33:52,402
Sorry.

531
00:33:52,522 --> 00:33:54,452
yeah, and, yeah.

532
00:33:54,902 --> 00:34:03,332
The thing that opened my eyes to how insane I had gotten was, um, uh, a friend

533
00:34:03,332 --> 00:34:09,572
of mine that I would have assumed for like the, who he was and kind of his lifestyle

534
00:34:09,572 --> 00:34:15,162
and everything like that would have, uh, definitely been voting for Trudeau.

535
00:34:15,602 --> 00:34:17,812
So I asked him what he thought of the election.

536
00:34:17,962 --> 00:34:23,382
And he, he said, you made me vote conservative.

537
00:34:24,842 --> 00:34:30,997
And I was like, I had to, I, I stepped away from that conversation and took a

538
00:34:30,997 --> 00:34:36,947
long hard look in the mirror and realized like the, the person that I thought I

539
00:34:36,947 --> 00:34:42,497
was helping by voting this way voted the opposite because I was such a loud mouth.

540
00:34:43,527 --> 00:34:48,747
And, and, and, and what I ended up doing is I started searching for the exact

541
00:34:48,757 --> 00:34:51,897
opposite of what I would have searched for on like YouTube and all that.

542
00:34:52,407 --> 00:34:59,987
And it was my first peek into how bad the algorithms get you.

543
00:35:00,487 --> 00:35:04,437
And because all of a sudden I was getting served inside of a couple

544
00:35:04,437 --> 00:35:09,737
of weeks, I was getting served the polar opposite end of the spectrum and

545
00:35:09,737 --> 00:35:12,267
nothing but that, and like rage bait.

546
00:35:13,042 --> 00:35:16,857
Like here, here's why the, the leftists are like it.

547
00:35:16,862 --> 00:35:20,122
It was start and it, and so it made me realize like.

548
00:35:20,972 --> 00:35:24,632
There's, there's no winner in that scenario.

549
00:35:24,917 --> 00:35:29,677
it's so funny that they use the word pendulum because that's one of the

550
00:35:29,687 --> 00:35:31,257
chapter names from the new book.

551
00:35:31,587 --> 00:35:36,727
And we describe exactly that process of left and right, but also how this dynamic

552
00:35:36,727 --> 00:35:39,397
happens in smaller communities as well.

553
00:35:39,417 --> 00:35:46,577
And the danger we see in the Bitcoin community here is that, uh, I've noticed

554
00:35:46,577 --> 00:35:51,237
this effect that when, when Whenever people discover Bitcoin and realize

555
00:35:51,267 --> 00:35:52,967
that the government is lying to them.

556
00:35:53,397 --> 00:35:57,217
The lazy thing to do is just to buy the opposite narrative and buy into

557
00:35:57,217 --> 00:36:01,377
all the conspiracy theories, and all of a sudden Alex Jones is not a liar,

558
00:36:01,377 --> 00:36:07,117
but the, the, you know, so, so, uh, um, so, so, have you noticed that too,

559
00:36:07,117 --> 00:36:10,327
and like, do you see, are you worried about the Bitcoin community, that we're

560
00:36:10,327 --> 00:36:14,037
getting sloppy, buying into stuff?

561
00:36:14,332 --> 00:36:23,492
Yeah, I think it's inevitable that people have that reaction in that we're at that

562
00:36:23,492 --> 00:36:30,232
point in time where people are deeply distrustful of every single institution.

563
00:36:30,302 --> 00:36:32,992
And I think it's exactly what you're saying, is that the knee

564
00:36:32,992 --> 00:36:37,432
jerk reaction is, so everything's a conspiracy, or everything's a scam.

565
00:36:37,432 --> 00:36:37,567
Mm hmm.

566
00:36:39,427 --> 00:36:42,587
And, you know, kudos to the people that are a little bit

567
00:36:42,587 --> 00:36:44,437
more nuanced with the thinking.

568
00:36:44,447 --> 00:36:46,117
I can fall into that trap too.

569
00:36:46,167 --> 00:36:51,147
And, and it's, I think it's also, um, to, I guess to go back to one

570
00:36:51,147 --> 00:36:57,377
of the other formative moments in, in Bitcoin for me was, uh, as

571
00:36:57,377 --> 00:36:59,767
I first started getting involved.

572
00:37:00,337 --> 00:37:01,537
Seeing the coverage of Mt.

573
00:37:01,537 --> 00:37:08,057
Gox, um, on the news because I had, I, I still knew very, very

574
00:37:08,057 --> 00:37:09,637
little about Bitcoin at that point.

575
00:37:09,637 --> 00:37:13,487
I had just started learning, but even with, you know, a month or

576
00:37:13,487 --> 00:37:18,877
two of reading, I knew that all of the reporting was completely wrong.

577
00:37:19,342 --> 00:37:21,432
where they were saying Bitcoin got hacked.

578
00:37:21,762 --> 00:37:24,782
And I knew, I knew it was just a bad company, lost people's money.

579
00:37:25,072 --> 00:37:31,072
And, but to see every news outlet report it the same and all be wrong,

580
00:37:31,342 --> 00:37:38,452
and know that I've done effectively the minimal viable, minimal viable research,

581
00:37:38,482 --> 00:37:40,312
and I know that you're incorrect.

582
00:37:40,532 --> 00:37:45,062
It made me step back and say, well, God, like, what if, what if other

583
00:37:45,062 --> 00:37:48,272
things that I know even less about are being reported incorrectly?

584
00:37:48,332 --> 00:37:52,682
I know exactly what, what I reacted to the most, like, uh, is, and that still

585
00:37:52,682 --> 00:37:58,532
goes on today, that they describe Bitcoin ma mining as solving this super complex

586
00:37:58,772 --> 00:37:59,452
Yes.

587
00:37:59,582 --> 00:37:59,672
Yes.

588
00:37:59,672 --> 00:38:01,892
When it's really just guessing a number over and over again.

589
00:38:02,102 --> 00:38:07,322
So, so it's, it's so it's portrayed as something that's absolutely isn't

590
00:38:07,352 --> 00:38:07,612
Yeah.

591
00:38:07,612 --> 00:38:11,532
It's, it's, it's blindly throwing a dart at a dart board somewhere.

592
00:38:11,757 --> 00:38:16,057
and I had experiences with this earlier on where, you know, being

593
00:38:16,067 --> 00:38:22,437
interviewed for smaller things and just reading the interview afterwards

594
00:38:22,437 --> 00:38:23,917
and seeing how much they got wrong.

595
00:38:23,967 --> 00:38:27,007
And this is so often everything.

596
00:38:27,027 --> 00:38:27,297
Yeah.

597
00:38:28,067 --> 00:38:28,237
Yeah.

598
00:38:28,877 --> 00:38:29,157
Yeah.

599
00:38:29,157 --> 00:38:33,527
Cause I mean, there's, there's, there's people in society that are tasked with

600
00:38:33,527 --> 00:38:38,457
trying to distill information and present it in a friendly public facing manner.

601
00:38:38,897 --> 00:38:45,462
And, uh, uh, when, when you're trying to do that, It's, it's difficult to

602
00:38:45,472 --> 00:38:53,482
do that accurately and also in an entertaining way that, that drives clicks

603
00:38:53,512 --> 00:38:55,142
and views and all that kind of stuff.

604
00:38:55,172 --> 00:39:00,972
And, and so I think a lot of people by default just use some of those

605
00:39:00,992 --> 00:39:05,832
bad habits and, you know, go for the, go for the clicks, I suppose.

606
00:39:56,656 --> 00:40:01,206
Well, and how do you feel about an antidote to this in Nostr,

607
00:40:01,246 --> 00:40:02,596
decentralizing communication?

608
00:40:03,516 --> 00:40:06,366
Yeah, I mean, I, I think.

609
00:40:07,658 --> 00:40:14,058
With this, it, it, it definitely puts us in the right direction in that,

610
00:40:14,428 --> 00:40:21,258
you know, previously, the way, uh, we've seen dissenting opinions dealt

611
00:40:21,258 --> 00:40:22,828
with is just shutting them down.

612
00:40:23,378 --> 00:40:28,958
Um, you know, now, I, I still very much think that the entire world is,

613
00:40:28,998 --> 00:40:32,628
is, has not yet grappled with the fact that you can instantly communicate with

614
00:40:32,648 --> 00:40:36,828
anybody, anywhere, and get a megaphone to tell the world whatever you think.

615
00:40:37,313 --> 00:40:41,973
Um, and people are, have not been great at learning how to distill

616
00:40:41,973 --> 00:40:48,293
information and decide if it's, if the information is right and true.

617
00:40:48,803 --> 00:40:54,743
Um, we're, we're still as a species not great at that, and I, but I think

618
00:40:55,363 --> 00:41:04,023
having Absolute censorship resistance puts us towards that because then the

619
00:41:04,033 --> 00:41:09,013
only tool you have to fight against bad information is better information.

620
00:41:09,478 --> 00:41:14,978
And so people need to stop being babysat and actually be forced into a

621
00:41:14,978 --> 00:41:18,968
space where they, they have to distill information and think critically.

622
00:41:19,538 --> 00:41:26,518
Um, and that's a muscle that most people haven't exercised and even

623
00:41:26,518 --> 00:41:31,418
myself, uh, at times just, you know, it's, it's easy to go the lazy way.

624
00:41:31,878 --> 00:41:32,498
Um.

625
00:41:32,893 --> 00:41:36,733
But I think, I think, yeah, with something like Nostr where, you know,

626
00:41:36,733 --> 00:41:39,273
you can, you can say whatever you want.

627
00:41:39,803 --> 00:41:42,413
Nobody, you can't remove it afterwards.

628
00:41:42,413 --> 00:41:44,343
Nobody can remove it afterwards.

629
00:41:44,973 --> 00:41:50,683
Um, it forces, it forces hard conversations to be had rather

630
00:41:50,683 --> 00:41:52,143
than trying to silence them.

631
00:41:52,143 --> 00:41:58,923
So I think it's, it's a slow process and it's not gonna happen anytime soon.

632
00:41:59,263 --> 00:42:03,943
But it gets us stepping in the right direction.

633
00:42:04,328 --> 00:42:09,748
I mean, I think communication is the thing that elevates us from

634
00:42:09,878 --> 00:42:12,368
barbarism to civilization, really.

635
00:42:12,618 --> 00:42:16,718
Because if you go down to first principles and what this is all about,

636
00:42:16,728 --> 00:42:20,078
it's like humans have two ways of resolving conflict, and the one is

637
00:42:20,078 --> 00:42:22,703
violence, And the other is communication.

638
00:42:22,943 --> 00:42:27,643
You agree and you argue and you come up with a solution.

639
00:42:28,113 --> 00:42:32,023
And the latter is obviously preferable to the former,

640
00:42:32,373 --> 00:42:33,883
because we don't want violence.

641
00:42:34,453 --> 00:42:40,853
So, uh, and seeing things that way makes everything so much clearer, um, uh, you

642
00:42:40,853 --> 00:42:45,673
realize that like, I, I believe that even without the internet communication

643
00:42:45,673 --> 00:42:49,923
would have won out in the long run, because it's more efficient than violence.

644
00:42:49,923 --> 00:42:51,083
Violence is costly.

645
00:42:51,553 --> 00:42:57,183
Uh, so, uh, and it did sort of like there were fewer wars, uh, like

646
00:42:57,183 --> 00:43:02,043
in, uh, Early 90s when the internet wasn't a thing than ever before.

647
00:43:02,093 --> 00:43:04,203
So like, fewer people were killed in wars.

648
00:43:04,513 --> 00:43:07,273
So the internet has just sped up the process.

649
00:43:07,593 --> 00:43:13,643
And right now you can communicate with anyone in the entire world at an instant.

650
00:43:13,673 --> 00:43:17,503
And it's not only text, it's video, like without a lag.

651
00:43:18,093 --> 00:43:23,243
And on top of that you have bitcoin, which is, no it's not on top of that, it's part

652
00:43:23,243 --> 00:43:25,193
of that, because it is communication.

653
00:43:25,213 --> 00:43:28,373
What bitcoin pointed out was that money doesn't have to be

654
00:43:28,383 --> 00:43:29,913
anything but communication.

655
00:43:30,453 --> 00:43:36,023
So you get all this, that's why I'm so, That's why I'm bullish, why I'm so

656
00:43:36,083 --> 00:43:42,373
extremely optimistic about it, because it is the cure all, in that sense, because

657
00:43:42,373 --> 00:43:49,013
it's so damn powerful, so, so what was, so Ben Sessions, why are you bullish?

658
00:43:51,983 --> 00:43:52,683
Why are you bullish?

659
00:43:53,788 --> 00:43:54,768
am I bullish?

660
00:43:54,828 --> 00:43:55,828
Um,

661
00:43:58,218 --> 00:44:04,568
in this moment, I, I, I think I'm most bullish because people haven't

662
00:44:04,568 --> 00:44:09,618
stopped building and they're, and they're doing so at such a breakneck

663
00:44:09,678 --> 00:44:15,418
pace that I guess alluding to earlier in the conversation, how that list of

664
00:44:15,428 --> 00:44:19,248
things for me to teach people about is growing faster than I can teach it.

665
00:44:19,968 --> 00:44:28,798
And, and that's a great place to be in, given that when I started, the most common

666
00:44:28,798 --> 00:44:33,518
question I got from people hearing, Oh, you're doing a Bitcoin tutorial channel.

667
00:44:33,848 --> 00:44:36,008
I mean, you're going to run out of stuff to do, aren't you?

668
00:44:36,528 --> 00:44:38,248
And it's the exact opposite.

669
00:44:38,588 --> 00:44:45,638
Um, and so I, when there's that much of a brain drain and, and

670
00:44:45,648 --> 00:44:51,018
there's so many people Interested in somehow being involved and

671
00:44:51,018 --> 00:44:58,018
contributing and, and, and seeing this as the seismic shift that it is.

672
00:44:58,428 --> 00:45:00,818
Um, how can you not be bullish about that?

673
00:45:00,818 --> 00:45:05,888
I mean, even like, so I, I, um, we, we started a company a few

674
00:45:05,888 --> 00:45:07,428
months ago called Bitcoin Mentor.

675
00:45:07,768 --> 00:45:12,058
Um, again, like, Educators, one on ones and all that.

676
00:45:12,448 --> 00:45:15,928
But we put out the word that we were looking for people that

677
00:45:15,928 --> 00:45:17,388
wanted to be Bitcoin educators.

678
00:45:17,388 --> 00:45:19,758
We had 350 applicants.

679
00:45:20,298 --> 00:45:21,548
Isn't that insane?

680
00:45:21,703 --> 00:45:22,193
It's amazing.

681
00:45:22,253 --> 00:45:22,733
Yeah,

682
00:45:22,758 --> 00:45:23,828
crazy.

683
00:45:23,948 --> 00:45:29,928
Obviously we couldn't take all 350, but you know, we built a solid team from

684
00:45:29,928 --> 00:45:33,168
the people that were there and there was some really talented people there.

685
00:45:33,188 --> 00:45:33,508
So.

686
00:45:33,613 --> 00:45:35,353
So can you talk us through what this is?

687
00:45:35,353 --> 00:45:36,483
What, what is the, the Bitcoin?

688
00:45:36,713 --> 00:45:38,623
It's the Bitcoin Mentors.

689
00:45:38,623 --> 00:45:38,723
Is

690
00:45:38,753 --> 00:45:40,093
Yeah, uh, Bitcoin Mentor.

691
00:45:40,233 --> 00:45:40,543
Yeah.

692
00:45:40,743 --> 00:45:41,083
Yeah.

693
00:45:41,533 --> 00:45:41,953
Yeah.

694
00:45:42,333 --> 00:45:49,508
Um, so I, I, uh, have previously for a number of years done, Private one

695
00:45:49,508 --> 00:45:54,138
on ones with people, typically, you know, Zoom or whatever, video call.

696
00:45:54,598 --> 00:46:01,118
Um, and so those were usually people that had gone to the free

697
00:46:01,118 --> 00:46:06,778
tutorials on YouTube, but they need a little bit of extra hand holding.

698
00:46:06,788 --> 00:46:12,188
Maybe, like, it's either just their confidence in doing it themselves,

699
00:46:12,188 --> 00:46:14,548
and they just want somebody to kind of walk them through it the first

700
00:46:14,548 --> 00:46:20,923
time, or Maybe they hit a snag and like the, I didn't cover it as in

701
00:46:20,923 --> 00:46:25,153
depth as I should have or, or it's just there's a lot of moving parts.

702
00:46:26,473 --> 00:46:33,363
And so, I got to the point where I was so busy with these sessions, these

703
00:46:33,363 --> 00:46:38,093
one on ones, that I wasn't having time to make the tutorials anymore.

704
00:46:38,633 --> 00:46:43,053
And, you know, I can't not have that.

705
00:46:43,103 --> 00:46:47,943
You know, that's like, it's such an important thing to have the

706
00:46:47,943 --> 00:46:49,633
free resource out there as well.

707
00:46:50,053 --> 00:46:57,483
So, um, I, I met, uh, my co founder now, Mike, um, and, uh, we just kind

708
00:46:57,483 --> 00:47:02,713
of formulated an idea of, of building a team and, and, um, yeah, so it's

709
00:47:02,713 --> 00:47:07,973
basically for anybody that's either like brand new and is just trying to

710
00:47:07,983 --> 00:47:12,973
wrap their head around, you know, key management or hardware or whatever, or

711
00:47:13,143 --> 00:47:18,343
for the, you know, What I would refer to as the Bitcoin luddites, the ones

712
00:47:18,343 --> 00:47:22,903
that have, and this isn't at all a dig because this happens to everybody, but.

713
00:47:23,768 --> 00:47:27,548
Where you come in, you learn the few things you're comfortable with, and

714
00:47:27,548 --> 00:47:31,508
then you stand still for a long time and you begin, begin wondering like,

715
00:47:31,598 --> 00:47:36,278
is my setup still as good as I thought it was when I originally did it?

716
00:47:36,518 --> 00:47:38,318
Should I add to it?

717
00:47:38,318 --> 00:47:39,698
Should I learn something new?

718
00:47:39,698 --> 00:47:42,278
Or I just wanna level up and learn some new things?

719
00:47:42,278 --> 00:47:44,468
'cause I feel like I haven't done that in a while.

720
00:47:44,768 --> 00:47:47,378
We get a lot of people coming in like that, being like.

721
00:47:48,183 --> 00:47:52,973
Yo, I, I don't know, I got a ledger like five years ago and I set it up

722
00:47:52,973 --> 00:47:54,483
and I haven't done anything since.

723
00:47:54,483 --> 00:47:58,473
And now I think I want to try a cold card or whatever else, or now

724
00:47:58,473 --> 00:48:02,273
I want to run a node or now I want to, you know, I want to learn again.

725
00:48:02,653 --> 00:48:05,193
And so we get a lot of those people coming in the door saying,

726
00:48:05,263 --> 00:48:06,453
help walk me through this.

727
00:48:06,453 --> 00:48:10,843
And once they've done it once, then, okay, that's a skill they've

728
00:48:10,843 --> 00:48:14,203
attained and they can do it themselves without any assistance after that.

729
00:48:14,223 --> 00:48:14,853
So, yeah.

730
00:48:15,363 --> 00:48:16,623
Oh, awesome initiative.

731
00:48:16,623 --> 00:48:19,913
And I mean, yeah, like obviously there's a, there's a need there for, for

732
00:48:19,913 --> 00:48:21,223
people to get involved in this stuff.

733
00:48:21,223 --> 00:48:24,943
And I mean, the user experience in Bitcoin is still very much, you

734
00:48:24,943 --> 00:48:28,653
have to do the things or else it's not quite going to, going to work.

735
00:48:28,653 --> 00:48:31,013
And I mean, do you think it's ever going to be?

736
00:48:31,943 --> 00:48:36,893
So simple that anyone can just quickly get on to Bitcoin in a self sovereign way.

737
00:48:36,893 --> 00:48:39,283
I don't, I don't think that there's ever going to

738
00:48:39,303 --> 00:48:40,073
always a trade

739
00:48:40,223 --> 00:48:40,453
there's

740
00:48:40,458 --> 00:48:41,188
always a trade off.

741
00:48:41,248 --> 00:48:41,618
Yeah,

742
00:48:41,684 --> 00:48:42,543
do you think about that?

743
00:48:42,708 --> 00:48:44,018
there's always a trade off.

744
00:48:44,088 --> 00:48:44,948
I think,

745
00:48:47,308 --> 00:48:52,178
and it also depends on what our interactions with Bitcoin look like in

746
00:48:52,178 --> 00:48:58,598
the future, like in terms of what is the average person's experience using Bitcoin.

747
00:48:58,978 --> 00:49:03,088
Bitcoin, I would venture to say that their initial interaction with

748
00:49:03,088 --> 00:49:10,003
Bitcoin inside of Five years or less is not going to be on chain.

749
00:49:11,113 --> 00:49:13,953
Like people aren't going to be onboarded directly to on chain.

750
00:49:13,953 --> 00:49:17,843
They're going to, I think the way that we teach needs to be completely

751
00:49:17,843 --> 00:49:23,443
inverted because the, the way I, I used to teach was, okay, let's attack a

752
00:49:23,443 --> 00:49:25,823
regular on chain Bitcoin wallet first.

753
00:49:26,403 --> 00:49:27,853
Here's, here's how you set it up.

754
00:49:27,883 --> 00:49:31,183
Here's your seed phrase on chain transactions work like this,

755
00:49:31,183 --> 00:49:33,883
you know, every 10 minutes, all like, here's how the fees work.

756
00:49:34,588 --> 00:49:38,698
That was typically the first thing you wrapped your head around and

757
00:49:38,698 --> 00:49:42,428
then you would say, Oh, and now there's this thing called lightning.

758
00:49:42,558 --> 00:49:45,448
And this allows you, you know, for more day to day, smaller trends.

759
00:49:45,638 --> 00:49:48,768
And so you'd, you'd start at the base and you'd build the

760
00:49:48,768 --> 00:49:50,938
knowledge to the upper layers.

761
00:49:51,318 --> 00:49:54,028
But that's not going to be how people interact with Bitcoin

762
00:49:54,038 --> 00:49:57,218
because, economically speaking, that's not going to make sense.

763
00:49:57,548 --> 00:50:02,538
They're going to come in from a top layer first with their first few sats.

764
00:50:02,718 --> 00:50:03,818
custodial lightning.

765
00:50:03,918 --> 00:50:04,388
Yeah,

766
00:50:04,388 --> 00:50:05,088
exactly.

767
00:50:05,138 --> 00:50:10,558
But what will be the goal is working your way down through the self sovereignty

768
00:50:10,558 --> 00:50:14,198
stack to hopefully get as close to the base as you can for that person.

769
00:50:14,778 --> 00:50:18,508
And so it's gonna be like, oh, I came in through a Fediment, or I came in

770
00:50:18,508 --> 00:50:22,268
through a Cashument, or I came in through a Custodial Lightning Wallet.

771
00:50:22,498 --> 00:50:23,758
You'd be like, okay, great.

772
00:50:24,168 --> 00:50:27,388
Transactionally, you now know what you're doing, but let's see

773
00:50:27,388 --> 00:50:29,578
if we can give you more control.

774
00:50:29,868 --> 00:50:31,718
And move that direction.

775
00:50:31,719 --> 00:50:32,862
Yeah,

776
00:50:32,978 --> 00:50:36,428
had a thought about the 350 applicants, because they all

777
00:50:36,438 --> 00:50:38,648
want to be Bitcoin mentors.

778
00:50:39,228 --> 00:50:42,038
I think they probably all are, just on a smaller scale.

779
00:50:42,048 --> 00:50:44,718
Like, all of those people are teaching their friends

780
00:50:44,718 --> 00:50:46,308
and family how to use things.

781
00:50:46,958 --> 00:50:48,188
And that's just,

782
00:50:48,378 --> 00:50:48,668
yeah.

783
00:50:48,718 --> 00:50:50,168
It's already amazing.

784
00:50:50,178 --> 00:50:54,708
Because yeah, you're right, all of those applicants Yeah, sure, they were vying to

785
00:50:54,718 --> 00:51:00,438
be part of a specific group but nothing precludes them from continuing to be the

786
00:51:00,438 --> 00:51:06,138
bitcoin person in their group of friends that people come to for advice and help.

787
00:51:06,658 --> 00:51:06,998
Yeah,

788
00:51:07,238 --> 00:51:07,748
beautiful.

789
00:52:12,936 --> 00:52:16,797
And so you, you mentioned a couple of things like, um, Fedimint and Cashew

790
00:52:16,797 --> 00:52:20,390
as, as one example, like just new stuff that's, that's been coming up.

791
00:52:20,390 --> 00:52:24,196
What are you most excited about that's, uh, like projects that like

792
00:52:24,196 --> 00:52:25,896
look really exciting to you right now?

793
00:52:25,906 --> 00:52:28,696
I'm, I'm very interested in the Fediment stuff.

794
00:52:29,016 --> 00:52:30,966
Um, I think it's really cool.

795
00:52:30,996 --> 00:52:34,636
Now, again, you gotta recognize that it's, it's a trade off.

796
00:52:35,146 --> 00:52:41,536
But, I, I tend to look at things from the perspective of What

797
00:52:41,536 --> 00:52:44,296
is available to us right now?

798
00:52:45,056 --> 00:52:52,936
No, I recognize that things can change and maybe you have the ability to have shared,

799
00:52:53,316 --> 00:52:59,536
you know, UTXO custody in a way, like, We don't know what we don't know that doesn't

800
00:52:59,536 --> 00:53:02,276
exist and is just an idea right now.

801
00:53:02,476 --> 00:53:07,546
But with how Bitcoin works right now and the tools that are available to

802
00:53:07,546 --> 00:53:17,396
us, I think FedAmends are pretty damn good trade off, um, to enable a number

803
00:53:17,396 --> 00:53:18,756
of things that are very attractive.

804
00:53:18,756 --> 00:53:26,266
So like, instant, uh, peer to peer free and perfectly private

805
00:53:26,276 --> 00:53:27,786
transactions within a mint.

806
00:53:29,021 --> 00:53:32,761
Gaining the privacy of the crowd if you spend to another mint.

807
00:53:33,161 --> 00:53:37,451
Um, and what I mean by that is, maybe you have a mint that has a thousand

808
00:53:37,451 --> 00:53:40,131
people in it, and another mint that has a thousand people in it.

809
00:53:40,461 --> 00:53:45,071
When you go to send money to somebody in the other mint, uh, it's a

810
00:53:45,071 --> 00:53:47,091
lightning transaction between the two.

811
00:53:47,641 --> 00:53:54,221
Uh, federations, but nobody knows which person in this mint initiated

812
00:53:54,221 --> 00:53:57,801
the transaction and nobody knows which person in that mint received it.

813
00:53:58,301 --> 00:53:59,001
So it's just

814
00:53:59,121 --> 00:54:00,251
Yeah, yeah, it's beautiful.

815
00:54:01,141 --> 00:54:02,231
Um, so I love that.

816
00:54:02,231 --> 00:54:05,111
And there's, there's things like you can do offline payments.

817
00:54:05,111 --> 00:54:07,591
There's, there's a lot of really cool things.

818
00:54:07,592 --> 00:54:13,691
And, and Feddy app is doing is something that I think it would be super.

819
00:54:14,051 --> 00:54:18,481
Useful in the context of what we're doing with the sat market in Calgary is

820
00:54:18,521 --> 00:54:24,801
if we had, uh, you know, within, if we had everybody sound like a, a, a mint.

821
00:54:25,551 --> 00:54:30,801
And within the Feddy app, we could have a community that in that same

822
00:54:30,841 --> 00:54:35,411
app with their wallet management, they also see all of the resources

823
00:54:35,411 --> 00:54:38,391
needed to use said Bitcoin locally.

824
00:54:38,391 --> 00:54:42,611
So maybe it, it, by default, we have built in there, the btcmap.

825
00:54:43,551 --> 00:54:47,321
org that will center in on Calgary when you tap on it within the

826
00:54:47,321 --> 00:54:51,391
app, maybe it has bit refill or whatever to get your gift cards.

827
00:54:51,391 --> 00:54:56,631
Maybe it has whatever other, because it's like, it, It's like a whole ecosystem

828
00:54:56,631 --> 00:55:01,581
in a singular app that you can tailor for your specific community, which

829
00:55:01,581 --> 00:55:08,151
is, it's so useful, um, and I didn't know exactly what it was going to be

830
00:55:08,151 --> 00:55:10,031
until I actually physically saw it.

831
00:55:10,251 --> 00:55:10,701
Yeah, yeah.

832
00:55:10,721 --> 00:55:11,941
Yeah, so I love it.

833
00:55:12,111 --> 00:55:15,881
Now, yeah, we still have some questions about it, but we'll

834
00:55:15,881 --> 00:55:18,961
talk to Obi one of these, like, tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.

835
00:55:18,961 --> 00:55:22,671
So we're looking forward to interrogate him about the

836
00:55:23,301 --> 00:55:24,791
nooks and crannies about Fede.

837
00:55:24,791 --> 00:55:28,141
But, yeah, it's very, very promising.

838
00:55:28,301 --> 00:55:28,611
Yeah.

839
00:55:28,751 --> 00:55:34,231
yeah, it's, it's, I, I think that, that particular ecosystem is gonna make

840
00:55:34,251 --> 00:55:37,261
leaps and bounds in the coming years and it'll be very interesting to see

841
00:55:37,261 --> 00:55:43,981
how it's used and how resilient it is, um, in the way that they're trying to

842
00:55:43,981 --> 00:55:48,091
flesh out that ecosystem because at this point anybody can make a mint.

843
00:55:49,476 --> 00:55:54,786
And so, and, and that's a double edged sword, because anybody will

844
00:55:54,966 --> 00:55:59,016
make a mint, and some will be, they won't all be created equally.

845
00:55:59,106 --> 00:56:06,211
Some will rug, for sure, some will rug pull, um, but others will, you know, It'll

846
00:56:06,221 --> 00:56:10,991
likely be done well and stand the test of time and, and kind of, it'll be more of

847
00:56:10,991 --> 00:56:15,441
a reputation based thing rather than, um,

848
00:56:15,911 --> 00:56:19,891
yeah that's reputation based is, is, is based.

849
00:56:20,231 --> 00:56:25,921
I mean it's, uh, that's what we're excited about, about Nostr, a lot of

850
00:56:25,921 --> 00:56:31,411
the You know, web of trust things so that you get all the, the reputation

851
00:56:31,411 --> 00:56:37,151
score is basically your, you own your social graph and your friends and your

852
00:56:37,151 --> 00:56:39,211
connections and your posts and everything.

853
00:56:39,431 --> 00:56:42,301
And that's where you get your recommendation is from.

854
00:56:42,331 --> 00:56:46,886
So I think that ends up, uh, you know, killing woke disney one day

855
00:56:46,886 --> 00:56:50,586
because there won't be a discrepancy between user scores and critics

856
00:56:50,741 --> 00:56:51,551
yes,

857
00:56:51,836 --> 00:56:52,666
like so

858
00:56:53,906 --> 00:56:56,261
yeah,

859
00:56:56,426 --> 00:56:57,166
much going on

860
00:56:57,321 --> 00:56:59,061
yeah, that's fantastic.

861
00:56:59,621 --> 00:57:03,751
It's fantastic to get your perspective on this because I mean, you, you're

862
00:57:03,761 --> 00:57:05,911
probably one of the most, the people who really actually gets

863
00:57:05,921 --> 00:57:07,891
in there and tries the most things

864
00:57:08,511 --> 00:57:09,101
Amplifying, right?

865
00:57:09,271 --> 00:57:09,581
Something

866
00:57:09,581 --> 00:57:10,641
like that must be close.

867
00:57:10,931 --> 00:57:16,451
I, yeah, maybe I, I tend to tinker around with pretty much everything

868
00:57:16,451 --> 00:57:17,801
that I can get my hands on.

869
00:57:17,871 --> 00:57:24,951
Um, but there's, there's more people that are starting to, to be that as well.

870
00:57:24,961 --> 00:57:29,806
So, but yeah, it's, it's, uh, I've, I've, if you were to look at my

871
00:57:30,386 --> 00:57:36,206
apps on my phone, it's just like a disgusting amount of, of different

872
00:57:36,216 --> 00:57:37,866
Bitcoin wallets and everything.

873
00:57:37,866 --> 00:57:40,236
And the, and those are just the ones that I have put in a folder.

874
00:57:40,236 --> 00:57:44,116
If you just like go through the, the app, the entire app drawer,

875
00:57:44,116 --> 00:57:48,556
it's just, I don't remember when I downloaded this and like, yeah, yeah.

876
00:57:49,391 --> 00:57:53,571
No, it's funny, but, but you're clearly, you're clearly bullish on, on Bitcoin.

877
00:57:53,861 --> 00:57:56,001
And what about, what about Canada?

878
00:57:56,041 --> 00:57:58,541
What's your feelings on Canada, Alberta as well?

879
00:57:59,521 --> 00:58:01,341
I hope Alberta secedes.

880
00:58:02,471 --> 00:58:07,791
So that's that would be, I'm, I'm, I'm very pro, uh, smaller

881
00:58:07,791 --> 00:58:09,521
and more local governance.

882
00:58:09,931 --> 00:58:16,741
Uh, I, you know, I, I think that you become disconnected from, uh,

883
00:58:16,771 --> 00:58:21,241
your constituents when you try to govern too many of them all at once,

884
00:58:21,431 --> 00:58:23,871
it's very difficult when you have.

885
00:58:24,521 --> 00:58:29,351
A such a large la large landmass with such a large group of people

886
00:58:29,351 --> 00:58:33,041
in very, very different conditions and trying to say, you guys are all

887
00:58:33,041 --> 00:58:34,901
gonna live by the exact same rules.

888
00:58:35,291 --> 00:58:38,801
Um, so I think more local governance is great.

889
00:58:39,651 --> 00:58:43,251
I feel like Trudeau will be gone next year.

890
00:58:43,731 --> 00:58:47,542
Uh, everybody's sick of him, including his own party, so like.

891
00:58:48,421 --> 00:58:56,131
Great, uh, uh, but at the same time, I've probably, if I had to guess,

892
00:58:56,241 --> 00:59:02,241
um, I would say that, uh, he'll be stubborn enough to run again.

893
00:59:03,001 --> 00:59:09,491
And that Polyev will probably win and he's like, he's a bitcoiner like he, um, but

894
00:59:09,861 --> 00:59:16,421
at the same time, like, I don't think that he'll, he'll do anything, um, in terms of

895
00:59:16,421 --> 00:59:19,921
regulatory that would be super favorable.

896
00:59:19,921 --> 00:59:21,731
I think it'll just kind of be status quo.

897
00:59:21,732 --> 00:59:27,161
Um, and that's, that's, yeah, I think I, I, if anything,

898
00:59:27,161 --> 00:59:29,011
it'll at least buy some time.

899
00:59:29,481 --> 00:59:36,931
To build out things that make Bitcoin more resilient in the face of the next tyrant.

900
00:59:36,932 --> 00:59:40,446
Yeah,

901
00:59:40,571 --> 00:59:45,101
I've still got all my family in Canada, tons of friends in Canada, I hope for

902
00:59:45,101 --> 00:59:50,961
the best in Canada, I'm the coward, sort of, and left, but no, no, it was more of

903
00:59:50,961 --> 00:59:54,661
a pull than a push, I mean, as much as things were difficult a few years ago in

904
00:59:55,011 --> 01:00:00,421
Alberta, I mean, like, yeah, it was other reasons, but still, of course, close to my

905
01:00:00,566 --> 01:00:01,706
voted with your feet.

906
01:00:02,056 --> 01:00:02,376
It's good.

907
01:00:02,416 --> 01:00:04,326
You you made a freedom footprint.

908
01:00:04,326 --> 01:00:04,796
That's what you

909
01:00:04,891 --> 01:00:10,101
Well, yeah, but, but, but, uh, no, uh, awesome to have you and other

910
01:00:10,101 --> 01:00:14,181
great people in, uh, in Calgary and, and Canada, you know, still

911
01:00:14,181 --> 01:00:15,351
bearing the torch and everything.

912
01:00:15,351 --> 01:00:15,681
So,

913
01:00:15,776 --> 01:00:19,106
Yeah, there's a good, there's a solid group there, and uh, yeah,

914
01:00:19,106 --> 01:00:23,496
the Calgary, the Alberta, generally, like all the Alberta Bitcoiners,

915
01:00:23,496 --> 01:00:30,066
there's, there's something there, and uh, I can't wait to see that blossom

916
01:00:30,066 --> 01:00:32,496
into what it seems to be becoming.

917
01:00:32,821 --> 01:00:38,291
well, sign us up for the sats market, uh, in, in June, July, uh, next year.

918
01:00:38,301 --> 01:00:40,021
Cause, uh, yeah, well, a hundred percent

919
01:00:40,406 --> 01:00:43,746
We need Knut to come stampeding is what you need to

920
01:00:43,836 --> 01:00:44,986
I can do the stampeding.

921
01:00:45,056 --> 01:00:47,646
Yeah, Luke tells me I'll be in Canada around there.

922
01:00:47,706 --> 01:00:51,866
I don't know where he gets that from, but yeah, yeah, apparently it's not optional.

923
01:00:52,436 --> 01:00:55,576
Anyway, anyway, where do you want to send our listeners?

924
01:00:55,626 --> 01:00:57,886
Like with btc sessions.

925
01:00:58,106 --> 01:00:58,436
com?

926
01:00:58,506 --> 01:00:59,896
Is that a thing now?

927
01:00:59,897 --> 01:01:01,571
Dot ca,

928
01:01:01,891 --> 01:01:02,601
flair on there.

929
01:01:03,161 --> 01:01:07,031
Um, yeah, I don't know, like if somebody's listening or watching

930
01:01:07,031 --> 01:01:10,721
this that is unfamiliar, uh, and you need to learn anything, just

931
01:01:10,721 --> 01:01:12,581
search BTC Sessions on YouTube.

932
01:01:12,691 --> 01:01:13,951
Uh, you'll find it there.

933
01:01:14,321 --> 01:01:19,521
Um, I'm on, obviously Nostr, I'm on X still.

934
01:01:19,966 --> 01:01:22,846
Uh, you gotta, you gotta be where the normies are at when you're

935
01:01:22,846 --> 01:01:26,796
trying to or, uh, uh, orange pill and educate, I, I suppose, too.

936
01:01:27,196 --> 01:01:31,826
Um, and then, uh, the Bitcoin Mentor stuff, you can check out at bitcoinmentor.

937
01:01:32,456 --> 01:01:34,886
io if you need some more hand holding on anything.

938
01:01:34,886 --> 01:01:37,286
There's a, a solid group of educators there.

939
01:01:37,972 --> 01:01:38,235
fantastic.

940
01:01:38,235 --> 01:01:42,721
And I'm going to look at this camera now to my friends from Calgary, who I've been

941
01:01:42,721 --> 01:01:44,831
telling you to go attend the sats market.

942
01:01:45,141 --> 01:01:49,691
Get to it, talk to this guy, you won't regret it, and you know who you are.

943
01:01:50,521 --> 01:01:53,281
And to everyone else, uh, yeah, check out all the things.

944
01:01:53,281 --> 01:01:55,641
We'll put everything in the description, the links.

945
01:01:56,201 --> 01:01:58,531
Thanks for everything you do, and thanks for being on the show.

946
01:01:58,536 --> 01:01:59,646
thanks for having me, guys.

947
01:01:59,666 --> 01:02:00,336
Appreciate it.

948
01:02:03,526 --> 01:02:04,366
Definitely do that.

949
01:02:06,561 --> 01:02:07,681
Ben, thanks again.

950
01:02:08,971 --> 01:02:10,801
This has been the Bitcoin Infinity Show.

951
01:02:11,171 --> 01:02:11,951
Thanks for listening.