What Institutions Get Wrong About Bitcoin with Ed Juline | BIS #197

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Ed, welcome to the Bitcoin Infinity Show. Nice to have you here.

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It is an absolute pleasure to be with you.

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Fantastic. We haven't seen each other in real life since a New Year's Eve party a bit longer than a year ago, I guess.

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And before that, we met in Amsterdam over a couple of beers at one of the BTC media conferences over there, I believe.

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Bitcoin Amsterdam, I'm walking back to the hotel and somebody introduces you to me and I'm like,

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do you want to grab a beer?

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I was like, sure.

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And then I'm like, who are you?

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And it was embarrassing that I'd never heard of you.

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No, but if I remember correctly,

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you used to live in Amsterdam, right?

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Well, I used to live in Amsterdam,

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but that was during the Bitcoin 23 conference.

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And so you and I sat down

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and I just got to get to know you over many, many beers.

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Mike Germano joined us for a while,

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but it proved to be increasingly embarrassing

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the more we talked,

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how much I didn't know who you were.

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But no, but it's amazing, isn't it?

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As long as we've been in Bitcoin and it's like every now and then someone that just was on our periphery comes into it and you're like, where have you been?

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It's amazing how big this space is and how multifaceted it is, because I stumble upon people I've never heard of that has been here since forever, once in a while too.

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And some people keep a low profile and some people are just in a completely different subset of interests within the Bitcoin space.

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Which is, ironically enough, sort of why I wanted to have you on the show and talk about this Bitcoin strategic reserve companies, which is something I very seldomly talk about, funnily enough.

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I just haven't had a proper pod about that subject.

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And I know you will try to touch it here because I'm incredibly intimidated being on your podcast because when I listen to your podcast, I always feel like I'm going to one day come on this thing and just get wrecked by you.

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But if you're gentle with me, I'll try to give you how I see it.

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You know, you also mentioned that we had met at Sailor's 100K party.

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and last week I was in Vegas at the Strategy World

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Bitcoin for Corporations conference

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and ran into an ex-employee,

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ex-colleague there.

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Yeah, this is a preamble.

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You used to work for Strategy.

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Yeah, I used to work there.

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I started in December of 24

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and it was funny because when I started,

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the price was like 90 something

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and these employees were asking me,

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when do you think we're going to break 100?

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And I said, well, I don't think it'll be until

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you know, mid 25, just because I felt like that's where the cycles were going, whatever.

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And sure enough, it was like two days later that it broke 100K. And they're all like,

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so you don't know. And I'm like, no, I don't know. But then the next day it dropped below 100

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and came back above 100. And then now look where we are. The other interesting thing about that

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is that when we had the 100K party in Miami, I got two separate messages. I got one from a guy

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in Europe, he goes, what is this 100K party? And he said, well, it's Bitcoin crossed 100,000.

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He's like, 100,000 what? Well, dollars. And he's like, oh yeah, because he only thinks in euros,

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right? And so he wasn't even watching the price in dollars. And so he couldn't,

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he didn't understand that it had broken $100,000. Okay, myopic, whatever. And then another guy in

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Argentina who wrote me, he said, yeah, we're about to break 100 million pesos, right?

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Yeah, it really opened my eyes to like, hey, Bitcoin is not just something denominated in dollars, right? It is denominated in your local currency that you have to use to spend, to eat, to pay rent, whatever. And so for us to keep celebrating this 100K number, okay, X percent of the Bitcoin market is in dollars. We should appreciate that. But there are other people around the world that say it doesn't really matter to me, that 100K number.

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no and i remember that there's a bit more like history to this uh i remember the first time at

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sailor's house was a couple of years before that i believe in 22 could be mistaken but uh and and

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that was bitcoin was at 40k and i was there with daniel prince uh who has a podcast too and we were

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we had started this whole meme about the 100k party hey and tagged sailor in hey sailor when

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and throw this 100k party and there we were we found ourselves there uh at 42k or something

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just giggling like look at this we're on the yacht and we're not even even close to 100k

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and then there was the actual 100k party uh last year then so uh that was hilarious or

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well can you say last year or the year before well it was both because it was new year's eve

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Yeah, it's a bit more than a year ago.

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Anyway, a very fun event.

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I was sort of stunned by how many shitcoiners there were at the event.

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I would have expected more Bitcoin-only focus,

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but I think that was partly due to them giving away

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some of the guest list planning thing to B2C Media

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and Bailey and the bunch, like handpicking.

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is not maybe the handpicking I would have done getting crypto people there.

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But yeah, I don't remember that.

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That wasn't something that I really noticed there being a lot of shitcoin people there.

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It was also, it was his party, right?

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It was Michael's party.

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It wasn't like an officially sanctioned strategy party or anything.

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So he had invited a lot of his friends from the Miami area.

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So that might have been why there were, you know,

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people that are on the periphery of bitcoin or shit coiners or whatever yeah yeah yeah yeah and

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i think i think also friends of michael's friends because i think he he's sort of uh friends of

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friends so it's it's not like i'm fishing for a guilt by association thing here it's just uh uh

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but it was a uh an interesting event to say the least it's like like for me it's not an everyday

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thing to go to a billionaire's party like that yeah usually doesn't happen this is a good question

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Because when I arrived at Strategy, I had a little bit of panic. I was like, oh my God, I'm a fraud. What am I doing here? I'm going to be the director of Bitcoin advocacy at Strategy, the biggest Bitcoin company in the world.

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and it's widely known that, you know,

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there's not a ton of hardcore Bitcoiners

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at the company, right?

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The company in general is all well-educated on Bitcoin.

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They understand Bitcoin.

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But if you said, you know,

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how many Bitcoiners are there at strategy,

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it's in the low double digits.

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And so it really made me start to ask the question,

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like, what is a Bitcoiner?

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Who is a Bitcoiner?

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You know, how do you qualify?

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How do you get your card, right?

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Where do you get your degree in it?

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And, you know, I would go to East Denver

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or to these other events

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because I wanted to see

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what they were doing.

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And then I'd go up to Bitcoiners.

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I'd go, you see what they're doing

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over there on Solana?

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Can you do that on Bitcoin?

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They're like, no.

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I'm like, well, then shut up

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and go build it on Bitcoin, right?

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But to ostracize them

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and to say you're a shitcoiner

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because there's some centralized control

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over your token,

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I don't know.

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I struggle with that.

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All right.

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It's that idea of, you know,

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the Bitcoin maxi

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and the toxic Bitcoin maxi

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versus people who are looking for some other goal?

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I'd love to hear your thoughts.

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I know this is going to be a juicy conversation then

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because I'm on the opposite side of that spectrum.

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Because the way I see it, Bitcoin is money

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and anything other than a monetary use case is an abuse case.

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And it nibbles away at Bitcoin's functionality as money.

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And I think it's crucial that we keep it that way

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and keep it pure and keep it simple, stupid,

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and do not make it into Solana or ETH 2.0 or whatever.

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Because we've seen what happens

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when you try to use this technology to build anything else.

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It just goes to shit and everyone gets rugged

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and there's just pyramids on top of pyramids

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and it all goes to shit.

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And that's why I've been very skeptic

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about the strategic reserve companies also.

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because I think, back to Daniel Prince,

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he has a great saying, fiat around and find out.

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And I think that's what's happening with these things now.

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Like a lot of these companies,

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like I have nothing against a company holding Bitcoin.

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I have a hard time though,

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understanding exactly what that means

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because to me, not your keys, not your coins

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is just as true now as it was back in 2016.

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Like it doesn't matter who you are or where you are in life.

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If you're holding your Bitcoin with a custodian, that to me is paper Bitcoin and not actual Bitcoin.

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So you still have this counterparty risk and you're not really taking the leap of reason into the full potential of this world.

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You're still living with a fiat mindset.

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You're still denominating in fiat.

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you still acquire the Bitcoin in order to get more fiat or to make more fiat for your investors or whatever.

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And to me, that is not the revolution I signed up for.

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I signed up for killing the dollar.

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Don't get me wrong, me neither.

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I approach it from, you know, what kind of Bitcoiner am I?

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Where do I fit into this?

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You know, this term suitcoiner came up along the way and Pleditor takes credit and Jack Mallers takes credit.

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And then I leaned into it with PodConf and said, yeah, I'm a suit coiner. And then they said, oh, suit coiners are people on Wall Street who are using Bitcoin for their own means. And I got really offended by that. And I said, no, no, no, a suit coiner is a Bitcoiner that wears a suit. And it's all definitions again, right? But I think what you're asking is like, are Bitcoin treasury companies just financial engineering? Is this just rebuilding the fiat system on top of Bitcoin? Is that kind of your doubt?

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Yeah, but before we go into that, I'd like to say that I did understand more about specifically strategies strategy or micro strategies strategy.

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Let's just call them micro strategy for sake of ease here.

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But the strategy of strategy in Lugano this summer, because Preston Pysh was there and he had a long lecture, even two lectures, I think, about the subject of how how sailors portfolio of products built upon Bitcoin work.

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And what I got away from that is it's like he's sort of building a, you imagine this dam or this pool of boomer money that is inaccessible.

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Like it cannot flow over to Bitcoin because they don't understand how to do that.

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So instead of doing that, he's like making that pond.

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There's a waterfall at the edge of it.

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and instead of trying to direct the waterfall into Bitcoin,

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he's sort of building a power generator next to the waterfall

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and that are all the micro strategy products that can make like,

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it's a bit of a bad analogy.

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I can't repeat his analogy because I don't remember it that well.

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But he's sort of building a way for Bitcoin to slurp up all the money

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that is in the boomer money pool

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that otherwise wouldn't have been accessible to Bitcoin.

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So in that sense,

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his more fiat monetary power, if you will,

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is being funneled into the Bitcoin space.

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And I guess that's a good thing.

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But to me, there are very many third parties involved

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and very much it's hinged on the good intentions

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of very many people, not only strategy, but Michael himself and, of course, Coinbase and

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whoever's the CEO of Coinbase at the time, and also the guy who actually owns the private keys.

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And I think this is the most interesting aspect of it. I guess there's a multisig or something and

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multiple jurisdictions and they're, you know, obligated to do this and that. But to me, if you

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have the private key, if you have access to it, you control the Bitcoin, meaning that you could just

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F off whenever you want and buy an island somewhere and just disappear from the face of the earth and

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poof, all that money is gone. And to me, that's the beauty of Bitcoin. I'm here for the final

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scene of Fight Club where all the credit card companies skyscrapers keep falling and I've just

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shot myself through the head and taken like that's that's what i'm looking forward to like

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and i don't think i share that opinion with the suit coiners so yeah what do you say to that

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well you know you on a podcast you did just a few weeks ago you you mentioned a analogy to

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to minecraft which is just stuck in my head and and and been beautiful that you know minecraft has

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rules it has a kind of objectives and but maybe you're just there to build right and to make

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something beautiful, right? There is no way to win. And that's really stuck with me lately because,

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you know, when I built my first computer in 1987, six, sorry to date myself there, but I had to get

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a motherboard and then I had to get a jumper cable and I had to get a floppy drive and then you'd get

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a new floppy drive or you get a new whatever and you put it together And then who was it It was like Zenith and IBM and Acer They said we gonna do a vanilla box that you can open Right And I said nobody ever going to buy that Who going to want a vanilla box that you can open

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Well, guess who won?

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Right.

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And that's the whole story of early adoption.

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All they really wanted was a spreadsheet and a word processor in Solitaire.

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I've been quoted on this and because I wrote about it was that I thought orange pilling was over.

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I think that, you know, the early adoption phase is done.

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We're crossing the chasm or we've crossed the chasm.

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and now we're looking at the early majority.

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Now, the question is,

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how do you keep the early majority honest, right?

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How do you keep the early majority

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focused on the original intentions and goals

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of the innovators and the early adopters?

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This all goes back to Jeffrey Moore's book.

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And you look at the case of like VHS Betamax,

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Betamax is a superior technology.

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It's the direction we should have gone with videotapes,

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but Sony kept it under their patent control

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and the porn industry saw VHS as cheap

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and we all ended up with VHS tapes.

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And it's like, OK, so that's how it can go off the rails, right, that you don't get the purest form of the technology.

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So Bitcoin is unique in that aspect and that, you know, we've got this army of cyber hornets that are trying to keep everybody honest and saying, you know, that wasn't the original intention.

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So treasury companies, like you said, they're not replacing self-custody.

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They're onboarding institutions that can't self-custody directly, right?

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These institutions are saying, we're under rules and regulations that say we can only invest in certain things.

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And then Saylor sits there and says, yeah, and you got a lot of money.

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How can I create a bridge?

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How can I create a capital formation vehicle, a public market infrastructure?

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How can I create something that allows you to come into the world of Bitcoin under the current rules and regulations?

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With the eventual goal that, yes, everyone will self-custody, every company will self-custody.

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But if we just wait for all the rules and regulations to change, then it's just going to take forever.

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So I think this has really been a question of how far do we want to bend the knee to allow others in without sacrificing our principles.

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Yeah, that's exactly it.

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I mean, if you look at email, for instance, almost no one runs their own email server at home.

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Like everyone uses a centralized service and it's super convenient and it works for the most part.

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But our emails are getting read by AI bots that look for certain words so that certain institutions can come and do things to us if we say the wrong things to the wrong people.

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It's not private.

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It's not sovereign.

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It's a service and we pay for services.

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Like, same thing, to me, it's very akin to the whole MP3 revolution,

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where that happened and all the record companies had their panties in an uproar

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and were all screaming at one another.

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And, you know, the drummer from Metallica suing Napster and all of that era,

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like a wonderful era of the internet.

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And the CEO of Napster came to this MTV Music Award with a Metallica T-shirt.

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And the host of the show said, oh, nice T-shirt.

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And he replies, oh, it's not mine.

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I borrowed it from a friend.

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And it's just so beautiful, you know, a middle finger to everything old.

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And the Internet sort of pointed out that information wants to be free.

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It yearns to be free.

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Copyright laws and patent laws are products of the anomaly in human history, which is the 20th century.

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The century where you could make money off of mass producing information.

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and you couldn't do that before the 20th century because the technology wasn't there and i don't

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think you can do that after the 20th century because information is practically free now

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and of course instead you get cataloging services like spotify and whatever other music apps apps

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there are out there and i think with bitcoin it's it's a very similar thing it's just the money

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touches absolutely everything and these are the most powerful institutions in the world and they

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are going to have to change so um like trying to build these fiat financial products on top of it

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it's sort of like the the square peg in the round hole if you know what i mean like it's it's trying

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to what's the equivalent in in the well it's it's it's at best it's building netflix and hbo when

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the pirate base already exists if you know what i mean the the real freedom is there for those brave

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enough to take it and but but yeah i i somewhat i guess i somewhat understand onboarding normies

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will require uh this funneling what i'm afraid of is that everything gets if you look at like

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the streaming services for instance um sorry for ranting for long here ed but but like i'd like to

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make the case so if you if you look at netflix and hbo and paramount plus and disney plus and

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whatever the streaming services are called, right?

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It's the illusion of a free market

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because they're not really competing with one another

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because they all have different products.

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So it's not like you're comparing the subscription

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of one to the other

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because they're competing for the same movie.

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They all have rights to different movies

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because rights is this thing

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that we invented in the 20th century

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that we have something called copyright now

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and it's to protect and then it's been abused ever since really so you're creating the illusion of a

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free market and not really a free market and i'm afraid that something similar could happen

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in the bitcoin space so you get all these companies that have bitcoin on the balance

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sheet i have nothing against that by the way it's just that if they're if that is what triggers the

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valuation of the stock and stuff, and they don't have a sustainable business underneath,

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then what's the point? They're just doing this for show. And I know for a fact that some of these

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companies are only doing this to ride the wave and the hype of this cycle's shitcoins,

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which is the Bitcoin strategic reserve company. What I would have wished is that more companies

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dared to just step outside the system completely and realize that to be a company in 2026, you don't

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even need the legal structure at all. It could just be a signal group with a bunch of Bitcoiners

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together sharing the loot of whatever they're selling for Bitcoins without anyone being able

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to interfere with it. And that's sort of more like the direction I think would be preferable.

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And I see Bailey and his ilk and similar people pushing for all these other narratives and they want to get into NASDAQ and they want to do this and that and they want to be on the Chicago whatever exchange and stuff.

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And I'm like, it just makes me yawn because to me it sounds like, oh, we're all Gordon Gekko again here and we're playing the same fucking games that we did back in the Fiat days.

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And it's not the revolution I signed up for.

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Yeah, no, absolutely.

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And I think that's why Bitcoin needs you.

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Bitcoin needs me.

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Bitcoin needs these early adopters.

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You know, I hate the phrase OG

291
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because I don't even know what that means.

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I mean, I bought my first Bitcoin in 2011,

293
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sold it in 12, then got back in in 13,

294
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screwed it up in 15.

295
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And I don't even know what class I am, right?

296
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I tell people I'm the class of 2039

297
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because that's when I'll finally figure it out, right?

298
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It's like, so, you know...

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Part of what I bought into in 2016 when I did a code review with someone, I paid a guy half a Bitcoin to do a code review with me.

300
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It took about three hours.

301
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And I had done enough coding that we were able to go through it block by block.

302
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And I said, holy crap, this is like scripture, right?

303
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This is something so pure and so different.

304
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Didn't really understand all the sound money part of it yet.

305
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But just the code itself and how perfectly it worked was like, that's when I said, I'm all in and moved my IRA to Bitcoin and sold the house into Bitcoin.

306
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And, you know, I've been on a Bitcoin standard ever since.

307
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You know, even when my bank account gets below 5,000, my wife gets the notification and I'm like, ah, shit, there, there's 25,000.

308
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How much do you need in the bank account to feel like we're OK?

309
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You know, it's like it's all going to stay over here in Bitcoin.

310
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Then the treasury companies came along.

311
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And for the most part, when Saylor did it, I didn't really pay attention to it.

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I just kind of thought it was, you know, the Wall Street-ization of Bitcoin.

313
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And I was doing a lot of other stuff.

314
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I was working with Mara on this L2 project and didn't pay attention to it.

315
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And so when they called and said, you know, the job opened up for this Bitcoin advocacy, it was to run their conference.

316
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But it was also to, you know, educate the employees.

317
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and it really got me asking a lot of questions you know who is a bitcoin or what is a bitcoin

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company i mean if i ask you who's the biggest bitcoin company in the world what are you going

319
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to say well that's a very good question um biggest in terms of what yeah exactly right

320
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everybody always says strategy right off the bat and i said well why not what why not tesla

321
00:23:22,881 --> 00:23:30,701
well yeah i i'd say the more interesting question is what is the most impactful bitcoin company in

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the world. Okay. Yeah, sure. And so, you know, this is really getting into this question of,

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you know, you mentioned Coinbase earlier. Are they a Bitcoin company? I don't think anybody

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would try to argue that they're a Bitcoin company, but they're part of the Bitcoin ecosystem. You

325
00:23:44,021 --> 00:23:48,061
know, Alex Leishman and what he's doing at River, that's about as pure a Bitcoin play as you can get.

326
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He's helping a lot of people, you know, get Bitcoin into their wealth portfolio. But, you know,

327
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they're still not self-custodying, but it's pretty close. And even the treasury companies

328
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themselves, you know, a few have popped up that said, hey, we're going to self-custody.

329
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And then they go talk to their insurance company and then they come back and they say,

330
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okay, we're going to custody with Coinbase and Fidelity and Anchorage because the insurance

331
00:24:13,161 --> 00:24:20,461
company is just not set up for that. You know, you can't explain to an insurance company how

332
00:24:20,461 --> 00:24:25,981
you're going to self-custody $100 million in Bitcoin and get insured on that yet. So what do

333
00:24:25,981 --> 00:24:32,061
you do? Not do it? No, you got to bridge. You got to bridge. You got to bridge. You got to bridge.

334
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You got to keep on doing all these little bridges. Now, are there cases where companies have been

335
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overzealous and bridged into areas that they just did not know what they were doing? It's happened

336
00:24:42,861 --> 00:24:49,901
way too much. One of my best friends lost tens of millions of dollars at Celsius. And I went to a

337
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meetup here in Atlanta and I it was a Celsius meetup and they're all like, hey, we get interest,

338
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you get interest, everybody wins. And I had already felt weird about it. But Celsius didn't have

339
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anything to do with Bitcoin, did it? Celsius didn't have anything to do. It was rehypothecation,

340
00:25:06,821 --> 00:25:11,621
right? And we we I'll admit I didn't know what rehypothecation meant. It sounded sexy,

341
00:25:11,621 --> 00:25:16,681
right? It sounded sexy. And it was like, OK, now we know rehypothecation is a dirty word.

342
00:25:16,681 --> 00:25:24,541
we knew that you know this same guy he had bitcoin at 10 and this is back in 2013 he had all of his

343
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bitcoin at 10 different exchanges around the world because he didn't know how to do self-custody

344
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and three of those chinese korean whatever disappeared so he lost 30 of his bitcoin but

345
00:25:32,861 --> 00:25:37,921
that was his risk management you know was to put it at 10 different exchanges because he had so much

346
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of it it was like he didn't know he didn't know where and he couldn't figure out the self-custody

347
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thing yet in 2013. And it was like, okay. So we're bridging and bridging and bridging.

348
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And where I think people like you and people like me, and we've named 10 other names here

349
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come into play is keeping people honest, right? Is making the noise and saying,

350
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you know, are we promoting paper Bitcoin? Does owning MSTR or Treasury, does that weaken the

351
00:26:05,061 --> 00:26:10,381
case for self-custody? Or are we kind of recreating the ETF culture? Treasury companies aren't

352
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replacing individuals. They're just onboarding the pension funds and the insurance companies

353
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and the capital allocators. And they're expanding Bitcoin's monetary network effect.

354
00:26:19,821 --> 00:26:24,621
So by expanding Bitcoin's monetary network effect, is that good for Bitcoin? Is that good for you and

355
00:26:24,621 --> 00:26:29,961
me? I guess it all comes back to how are you doing it, right? If I need an investor from my company

356
00:26:29,961 --> 00:26:33,981
and he says, yeah, here's $10 million. And I say, where that $10 million come from? Then he goes,

357
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don't worry about it. And then I find out he's part of a cartel. Well, then it's a problem,

358
00:26:38,021 --> 00:26:44,561
right so so how much due diligence and how who's the the who's the holder of the truth

359
00:26:44,561 --> 00:26:50,501
in the bitcoin world yeah this is this is why it's so different because there is no holder of truth

360
00:26:50,501 --> 00:26:57,061
like you have to do your own homework and you have to you you verify to the whatever extent you can

361
00:26:57,061 --> 00:27:05,821
and what you since you're responsible yourself you but that was to me that was the blue beauty of the

362
00:27:05,821 --> 00:27:11,961
learning curve that was forced upon me. Like when my Bitcoins weren't worth very much in the

363
00:27:11,961 --> 00:27:17,761
beginning. Yeah, this is way before the boating accident where I lost all of it, of course.

364
00:27:17,981 --> 00:27:24,581
And then they grew in value to some where I suddenly realized that, holy shit, I'm totally

365
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responsible myself for all of this. And therefore I need to do my homework here and I need to

366
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figure this thing out and it sort of forces itself on you that that learning curve and i i've i found

367
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that to be a very beautiful part of the system because it it sort of rewarded responsible behavior and uh and it punished uh f around and find out very hard and that was one of the more beautiful aspects of it i mean when you talk about building bridges for instance we have

368
00:27:55,443 --> 00:28:01,862
one of the companies that are sponsoring this show uh the bitcoin advisor uh it's peter dunworth and

369
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his uh bunch there down in in australia i think they're doing a fantastic job and i'm not only

370
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saying that because they're paying me, but it's not 100% self-custody. It is a multi-sig between

371
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them and a custodian and you. So you're sort of bridging. In order for them to be sneaky and take

372
00:28:26,342 --> 00:28:32,003
your Bitcoin, they would have to collude with this third-party custodian. And not even then,

373
00:28:32,003 --> 00:28:42,063
it's very easy. I think they sort of safeguarded that so that the person's key overrides somehow,

374
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or they have some solutions going on. I'm not well read up on the details, but that in itself,

375
00:28:49,322 --> 00:28:55,383
they've never lost the Bitcoin for anyone. Then again, they take a substantial fee for storing

376
00:28:55,383 --> 00:29:01,983
people's Bitcoin that way, but then you can sleep well at night, I guess, because you know that

377
00:29:01,983 --> 00:29:07,922
you have your key somewhere but if someone steals that key is not they're not immediately going to

378
00:29:07,922 --> 00:29:12,523
get access to the bitcoins because there there are other hurdles to get you need to get over as an

379
00:29:12,523 --> 00:29:18,763
attacker so yeah so so i think there are in the neighborhood that i live in a number of of of the

380
00:29:18,763 --> 00:29:22,162
other fathers in the neighborhood have come to me you know and just say hey how do i do this bitcoin

381
00:29:22,162 --> 00:29:27,402
thing and i don't try to convince i don't try to orange pill them and they don't want to be orange

382
00:29:27,402 --> 00:29:31,102
pilled, right? What they want to know is how do they get some exposure to Bitcoin? Okay, great.

383
00:29:31,623 --> 00:29:35,502
So I go, you can go to Coinbase. It's like E-Trade. No, I don't want to do that. Okay.

384
00:29:35,943 --> 00:29:40,123
You could go to Unchained and you get this multi-sig. Well, one guy actually, he liked that.

385
00:29:40,223 --> 00:29:44,322
And so he's at Unchained and he's got the key. His wife has a key and Unchained has a key and he

386
00:29:44,322 --> 00:29:49,162
feels secure and he has to pay a big fee to do that. But he sleeps at night. Quick side story.

387
00:29:49,243 --> 00:29:53,063
There was a point at which I had everything on a ledger in the safe and I'd wake up in the middle

388
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of the night and go open the safe. And my wife's like, what are you doing? And I'm like, I got to

389
00:29:56,623 --> 00:30:00,883
make sure it's there. You know, I would have these panic attacks at night about opening the safe and

390
00:30:00,883 --> 00:30:06,283
the ledger's gone. And anyways, then, you know, I would tell other ones, here's River. It's got

391
00:30:06,283 --> 00:30:12,623
this amazing UI, UX, and it's as safe as it can get. Or you can get negative yield with an ETF.

392
00:30:13,123 --> 00:30:17,422
What do you mean negative yield? I'm like, well, you're getting Bitcoin yield, but you're also

393
00:30:17,422 --> 00:30:22,362
paying them to do it for you. And they're like, I can just call my broker and buy it that way.

394
00:30:22,362 --> 00:30:51,043
And they're like, yeah, that's good for me. And so I can't orange pill 10 people. I can't orange pill a million people. And so we can provide these different paths and tell them when something's super risky and dangerous. I got one guy that texts me a different shitcoin every week. He says, what do you think about this one? What do you think about this one? I'm like, there's cryptocurrency, stable coins. There's a crypto asset, Bitcoin, and all the rest are crypto companies run by people.

395
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and anytime you get people involved,

396
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shit goes wrong, right?

397
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Something goes wrong.

398
00:30:57,443 --> 00:30:58,543
And that's what we're trying to do.

399
00:30:58,662 --> 00:31:00,502
I mean, you know,

400
00:31:00,563 --> 00:31:04,342
I always hesitate on bringing religion into this,

401
00:31:04,422 --> 00:31:04,963
but it's like,

402
00:31:05,102 --> 00:31:06,902
is the keepers of the truth the Vatican

403
00:31:06,902 --> 00:31:08,322
and then it branches out

404
00:31:08,322 --> 00:31:10,223
to all these little churches all over the place.

405
00:31:10,342 --> 00:31:12,002
And, you know, then we've got some flexibility.

406
00:31:12,002 --> 00:31:13,063
Let me ask you this.

407
00:31:13,263 --> 00:31:15,763
Do you know Pope Leo VIII?

408
00:31:17,002 --> 00:31:18,082
Of course you don't.

409
00:31:18,082 --> 00:31:21,362
Pope Leo VIII was famous for one thing.

410
00:31:21,922 --> 00:31:23,082
He put Galileo in jail.

411
00:31:24,142 --> 00:31:25,002
Oh, yeah, yeah.

412
00:31:25,443 --> 00:31:33,002
And burned Bruno, which is Galileo's helping hand there on a stake, I think.

413
00:31:33,002 --> 00:31:36,743
Galileo was the one who said, I think the sun's at the center of the universe.

414
00:31:37,502 --> 00:31:41,642
And they all said, yeah, you're probably right, but it doesn't matter.

415
00:31:42,602 --> 00:31:47,303
And then I'm going to forget his name, but the guy who kind of thought up the theory of germ theory.

416
00:31:47,303 --> 00:31:51,203
right? And he went to the doctors and he said, you're killing patients by not washing your hands.

417
00:31:51,283 --> 00:31:55,842
They're like, no, we're not. And then even during the internet boom, the Toys R Us that had all

418
00:31:55,842 --> 00:32:00,362
these stores, they're like, we don't need to sell online. We've got all this real estate.

419
00:32:00,983 --> 00:32:08,023
And so the keepers of the truth are the ones that have their incentives misaligned. And that's where

420
00:32:08,023 --> 00:32:16,242
I'm really concerned about where the early majority is going. Because shortly after the 100K party

421
00:32:16,242 --> 00:32:17,602
that we mentioned at Sailor's House.

422
00:32:17,842 --> 00:32:19,643
I went to the Crypto Ball in D.C.

423
00:32:20,263 --> 00:32:23,362
And it was David Sachs coming out party

424
00:32:23,362 --> 00:32:27,602
and they had Snoop Dogg and a couple other rappers

425
00:32:27,602 --> 00:32:30,362
for a almost entirely white audience,

426
00:32:30,443 --> 00:32:31,502
which was really strange.

427
00:32:32,182 --> 00:32:34,682
But, you know, Trump announced his Trump coin

428
00:32:34,682 --> 00:32:36,862
and Melania coin while we were at the event

429
00:32:36,862 --> 00:32:38,662
and all the Bitcoiners were standing around going,

430
00:32:38,842 --> 00:32:40,242
what the hell just happened?

431
00:32:40,783 --> 00:32:44,102
You know, we just got backdoored, you know,

432
00:32:44,102 --> 00:32:46,682
by someone who said he's a Bitcoiner,

433
00:32:46,803 --> 00:32:48,883
but no, he's just part of the early majority.

434
00:32:49,963 --> 00:32:54,043
And so how do you keep people honest?

435
00:32:54,983 --> 00:32:56,283
Well, I believe,

436
00:32:56,422 --> 00:32:58,263
and I hate using the word believe with Bitcoin

437
00:32:58,263 --> 00:32:59,703
because it's like, oh, you believe in Bitcoin?

438
00:32:59,983 --> 00:33:01,842
No, Bitcoin is not something you believe in, right?

439
00:33:01,902 --> 00:33:03,322
It's math and it's code, right?

440
00:33:03,362 --> 00:33:04,922
It's like saying, I don't believe in gravity.

441
00:33:04,922 --> 00:33:07,783
I don't believe in whatever part of science.

442
00:33:08,002 --> 00:33:10,983
It's math, it's code, it's going where it's going.

443
00:33:10,983 --> 00:33:21,543
but do you believe that the early adopters the innovators the people who like you who are or

444
00:33:21,543 --> 00:33:28,383
keeping the truth of bitcoin are going to be able to keep the early majority and the late majority

445
00:33:28,383 --> 00:33:33,623
and these people who are institutionalizing bitcoin honest and i worry about that every day

446
00:33:33,623 --> 00:33:38,483
that's that's kind of why tim and i formed bitcoin treasuries media because we wanted to

447
00:33:38,483 --> 00:33:43,102
we wanted to be kind of a trusted source. We wanted to be this connection layer between the

448
00:33:43,102 --> 00:33:48,082
treasury companies, the service providers, and the investors. Provide information, interviews,

449
00:33:48,483 --> 00:33:54,322
events, where we get people together and you get to make your own call. You know, have we had people

450
00:33:54,322 --> 00:34:02,682
on our podcast, on our events that, you know, might end up pulling the rug out or screwing

451
00:34:02,682 --> 00:34:08,183
someone over? Yeah, it's possible, but we're really trying to do our due diligence in sacrificing

452
00:34:08,183 --> 00:34:14,762
some sponsorship money and some, you know, influence by keeping everybody honest.

453
00:34:15,363 --> 00:34:19,423
And it's a hard thing to do when you're running a media company or event company, because

454
00:34:19,423 --> 00:34:23,762
there's temptation every day of someone that says like, hey, look, I got this new thing.

455
00:34:23,762 --> 00:34:26,282
And you're like, but that doesn't align with Bitcoin.

456
00:34:26,403 --> 00:34:27,183
What are you talking about?

457
00:34:27,782 --> 00:34:30,383
And they look at me like, don't you want my money?

458
00:34:31,102 --> 00:34:32,102
I'm like, I do.

459
00:34:32,102 --> 00:34:40,942
but i mean no i i know i've since i i run a very small but still a media company by myself here

460
00:34:40,942 --> 00:34:47,802
with luke uh and and so and also that we especially organizing the conferences uh like

461
00:34:47,802 --> 00:34:54,043
bitcoin atlantis i helped out with that a bit and then even more so with btc hell the helsinki

462
00:34:54,043 --> 00:34:59,843
conference and picking sponsors and saying no to people that aren't aligned with your values it's

463
00:34:59,843 --> 00:35:01,942
It's hard. Of course, there's a temptation there.

464
00:35:02,123 --> 00:35:12,203
And that's why I think some of these Bitcoin conferences, they choose to go, la, la, la, la, la, I'm not listening, and just take the money and run.

465
00:35:12,203 --> 00:35:19,363
And yeah, my friend Giacomo has a great take that there's a balancing act here.

466
00:35:19,623 --> 00:35:28,802
And it's between the far ends of a spectrum from pure cypherpunk ethos and adoption.

467
00:35:28,802 --> 00:35:33,102
You have to sort of choose where you stand between those two extremes.

468
00:35:33,643 --> 00:35:41,023
So if you keep the cypherpunk ethos and like everyone should run their own node and if anyone says anything else, they can go screw themselves.

469
00:35:41,762 --> 00:35:47,002
And total adoption, which is like anything that even mentions Bitcoin is good.

470
00:35:47,442 --> 00:35:53,602
And therefore we should cheer for Trump selling Melania coin because it's somewhat adjacent to Bitcoin.

471
00:35:54,363 --> 00:35:56,982
Everything is good for Bitcoin, that kind of mentality, right?

472
00:35:56,982 --> 00:36:14,143
And I think there's a balance to be struck between the two if we're ever going to be taken seriously by the seriously big money and at the same time being taken seriously by the really principled, hardcore Austrian economist, cypherpunk ethos people.

473
00:36:14,802 --> 00:36:20,582
Like if you want to be taken serious by serious people, you have to find that balance.

474
00:36:20,683 --> 00:36:21,843
And it's tricky to find.

475
00:36:21,942 --> 00:36:24,582
And we all have different roles to play in that, I think.

476
00:36:24,582 --> 00:36:41,883
I think the best way to look at treasury companies, dude, is they're not the best way to own Bitcoin, right? No, we all know the best way to own Bitcoin. There's no one who could ever argue there's a better way. Even Saylor will tell you this, that, you know, the best way to own Bitcoin is to self-custody. He gets that.

477
00:36:41,883 --> 00:36:46,383
but they are one layer of the adoption stack.

478
00:36:47,002 --> 00:36:47,123
Okay.

479
00:36:47,302 --> 00:36:49,043
So you have self-custody individuals.

480
00:36:49,383 --> 00:36:49,563
Great.

481
00:36:49,903 --> 00:36:51,723
We would love to see everybody's self-custody

482
00:36:51,723 --> 00:36:53,683
and Natalie, bless her heart,

483
00:36:53,802 --> 00:36:55,563
keeps pushing for this and pushing for this,

484
00:36:55,643 --> 00:36:56,403
but you know, and she,

485
00:36:57,143 --> 00:37:00,063
all of us true Bitcoiners were trying to say,

486
00:37:00,163 --> 00:37:01,383
how are we going to get to this part

487
00:37:01,383 --> 00:37:02,502
of self-custody individuals,

488
00:37:02,643 --> 00:37:04,843
this utopia that I'm there with you.

489
00:37:05,302 --> 00:37:06,543
Then you got private companies

490
00:37:06,543 --> 00:37:08,663
that, you know, may have a few hundred Bitcoin,

491
00:37:08,762 --> 00:37:11,502
a thousand Bitcoin on their balance sheet,

492
00:37:11,502 --> 00:37:15,823
treasury they're a private company and maybe in self-custody and maybe in coinbase and you've got

493
00:37:15,823 --> 00:37:19,823
these public treasury companies that now are under a lot more scrutiny and then they've got to figure

494
00:37:19,823 --> 00:37:25,102
out ways to get insurance and then they got stock and they got shareholders then the etfs which is

495
00:37:26,223 --> 00:37:31,502
a convenient way for a lot of people to get exposure and understand it and by the way when

496
00:37:31,502 --> 00:37:35,343
people say that blackrock's one of the largest holders of bitcoin no they're not their customers

497
00:37:35,343 --> 00:37:39,502
are right let's not forget that and then you got the sovereigns right when the when the nation

498
00:37:39,502 --> 00:37:44,863
states start to own it. And so what does each layer do? Each layer expands the addressable

499
00:37:44,863 --> 00:37:50,482
capital base, right? Because each capital base has to have good exposure and they have to play

500
00:37:50,482 --> 00:37:56,143
under the rules that they're playing on. And so all of this, in my opinion, and I'll probably get

501
00:37:56,143 --> 00:38:01,203
killed in your comments, but it all strengthens the Bitcoin's monetary network.

502
00:38:01,742 --> 00:38:06,723
Without a doubt, it strengthens the Bitcoin's monetary network. And it's kind of like a

503
00:38:06,723 --> 00:38:08,482
civilizational lens to it.

504
00:38:08,582 --> 00:38:10,823
It's like, you know, you can't have just

505
00:38:10,823 --> 00:38:13,723
8 billion people all owning their own Bitcoin

506
00:38:13,723 --> 00:38:15,823
and there's no companies and there's no sovereigns

507
00:38:15,823 --> 00:38:18,282
and that won't work either, right?

508
00:38:18,403 --> 00:38:20,242
We're not going to go back to this pure

509
00:38:20,242 --> 00:38:22,982
8 billion barter economy.

510
00:38:23,782 --> 00:38:27,262
Well, not right now, but I hope to get to that point

511
00:38:27,262 --> 00:38:29,242
a couple of generations ahead.

512
00:38:29,703 --> 00:38:31,123
What's the bridge to get there, right?

513
00:38:31,742 --> 00:38:34,942
And so I think that's kind of our role.

514
00:38:34,942 --> 00:38:40,363
I mean, I've found numerous ways, and they're not boating accidents, they're just stupidity, right?

515
00:38:40,482 --> 00:38:42,403
I said, hey, I'm going to open a restaurant.

516
00:38:42,663 --> 00:38:43,343
That didn't work.

517
00:38:43,403 --> 00:38:44,383
I tried a software startup.

518
00:38:44,482 --> 00:38:45,082
That didn't work.

519
00:38:45,683 --> 00:38:50,383
You know, I went over to some other adjacent Bitcoin investment for a while.

520
00:38:50,462 --> 00:38:50,982
That didn't work.

521
00:38:51,023 --> 00:38:56,082
So I found very creative ways to cut my stack down to well below where it used to be.

522
00:38:56,082 --> 00:39:08,962
But at the same time, I've got this underlying kind of moral ethos that, yeah, this is something that I feel is my time on Earth.

523
00:39:09,203 --> 00:39:21,143
I've got to be a part of and you too and Yakimo and all of our weird groupie cult that we I don't call it a cult because a cult needs a leader.

524
00:39:21,922 --> 00:39:24,082
But it's a leaderless cult.

525
00:39:24,082 --> 00:39:26,363
no we're the ones leaving a cult

526
00:39:26,363 --> 00:39:28,683
that's why I also had a chapter

527
00:39:28,683 --> 00:39:30,683
in the first book called financial

528
00:39:30,683 --> 00:39:32,543
atheism which meaning

529
00:39:32,543 --> 00:39:34,482
not alluding to that

530
00:39:34,482 --> 00:39:36,462
absolutely no god or anything

531
00:39:36,462 --> 00:39:38,203
but the skeptic you know

532
00:39:38,203 --> 00:39:40,183
we verify

533
00:39:40,183 --> 00:39:42,242
what you said we don't believe

534
00:39:42,242 --> 00:39:44,582
there's no need for gods

535
00:39:44,582 --> 00:39:46,563
or priests or anything in

536
00:39:46,563 --> 00:39:48,602
bitcoin you have to do the work yourself you have to

537
00:39:48,602 --> 00:39:49,703
verify that it's true

538
00:39:49,703 --> 00:39:50,602
and

539
00:39:50,602 --> 00:39:53,163
yeah that's

540
00:39:53,163 --> 00:39:56,223
And so the way I view it, we're the ones leaving a cult.

541
00:39:56,403 --> 00:40:04,023
I mean, the dollar bill is the thing that has the, you know, the Illuminati pyramid on it, not the Bitcoin.

542
00:40:04,523 --> 00:40:06,163
So, yeah.

543
00:40:07,582 --> 00:40:13,343
Also, like, do treasury companies create systematic risk for Bitcoin?

544
00:40:13,903 --> 00:40:14,323
Absolutely.

545
00:40:14,663 --> 00:40:20,442
Each one of these companies that says we're going to become either a pure play treasury company or we're just going to put Bitcoin on the balance sheet.

546
00:40:20,782 --> 00:40:23,123
Yeah, there's some risk being created.

547
00:40:23,163 --> 00:40:41,843
And when I was at the Bitcoin for Corporations conference, the strategy one last year, one of the custody companies, one of the big ones, I won't name them, but the CEO of the custody company gets up there and he kind of makes a joke in the middle of his presentation about how even I don't know where it's kept.

548
00:40:42,343 --> 00:40:53,002
And half the room got it and said, that's good. And half the room was like, what do you mean you don't know where it's kept? Right. And so for a custody company of that size.

549
00:40:53,163 --> 00:41:00,023
the process, the public company being audited by Ernst & Young or PwC or whoever they're audited by,

550
00:41:01,482 --> 00:41:10,163
is there insider threat? Holy crap. I just refuse to believe that on these big massive ones,

551
00:41:10,422 --> 00:41:16,723
they could go through the 17 steps and collude with all the people that would have to collude

552
00:41:16,723 --> 00:41:22,102
to run with the Bitcoin. Now at a small treasury company that has 30 Bitcoin on the balance sheet

553
00:41:22,102 --> 00:41:26,223
And, you know, the son of the owner, you know, decides he wants to run with it.

554
00:41:26,442 --> 00:41:26,843
Absolutely.

555
00:41:27,482 --> 00:41:29,602
But that could happen anywhere, anytime.

556
00:41:30,563 --> 00:41:44,784
So the treasury companies add some systematic risk to the Bitcoin world Absolutely But the only way we going to figure out how to do it right is by scraping our knee a few times And that what happening right now

557
00:41:44,863 --> 00:41:45,744
There's a bunch of knees

558
00:41:45,744 --> 00:41:46,904
being cut up pretty bad.

559
00:41:47,964 --> 00:41:49,524
That's a good way of viewing it.

560
00:41:49,584 --> 00:41:51,024
I think it's trial and error

561
00:41:51,024 --> 00:41:51,984
like everything else.

562
00:41:52,343 --> 00:41:53,584
That's the fiat around

563
00:41:53,584 --> 00:41:55,584
and find out part, I guess.

564
00:41:56,124 --> 00:41:56,784
Yeah, no, I mean,

565
00:41:56,883 --> 00:41:59,104
my short time at strategy,

566
00:41:59,284 --> 00:42:01,124
I was just so impressed

567
00:42:01,124 --> 00:42:02,624
and awestruck

568
00:42:02,624 --> 00:42:04,064
at how professional

569
00:42:04,064 --> 00:42:06,704
and diligent they are, right?

570
00:42:06,883 --> 00:42:10,363
And Michael Saylor is of a different breed.

571
00:42:10,363 --> 00:42:14,504
He is so dedicated to what he's doing.

572
00:42:14,843 --> 00:42:16,024
And the critics of him,

573
00:42:16,383 --> 00:42:17,544
anytime I hear a critic of him,

574
00:42:17,584 --> 00:42:19,363
I'm like, yeah, you're not understanding it,

575
00:42:19,724 --> 00:42:20,644
what he's trying to do.

576
00:42:21,224 --> 00:42:22,744
I mean, there is absolutely,

577
00:42:23,363 --> 00:42:26,323
in my opinion, zero risk.

578
00:42:26,564 --> 00:42:28,084
Can't be zero risk,

579
00:42:28,164 --> 00:42:30,564
but the number is so infinitesimally small, right?

580
00:42:30,564 --> 00:42:34,464
of anything happening at strategy.

581
00:42:34,704 --> 00:42:36,823
It's just that they're on a mission.

582
00:42:37,064 --> 00:42:38,744
I almost said mission from God, but I didn't.

583
00:42:39,084 --> 00:42:40,464
They're on a mission, right?

584
00:42:40,464 --> 00:42:43,464
Yeah, still, like, the thing that worries me

585
00:42:43,464 --> 00:42:46,524
about all of this is that the nature of Bitcoin

586
00:42:46,524 --> 00:42:48,624
is different than the nature of ownership

587
00:42:48,624 --> 00:42:49,504
of anything else.

588
00:42:49,604 --> 00:42:52,323
Because in Bitcoin, the private key

589
00:42:52,323 --> 00:42:54,124
is just a string of information.

590
00:42:54,584 --> 00:42:56,823
Like, if I go deep philosophically,

591
00:42:57,044 --> 00:42:59,323
as you know I like to do with these things,

592
00:42:59,323 --> 00:43:07,343
then uh i'd say like the uh my deepest understanding of bitcoin is that you cannot own a bitcoin what

593
00:43:07,343 --> 00:43:13,684
you can do is act as if you own them because you find it extremely implausible that someone else

594
00:43:13,684 --> 00:43:19,323
has the access to your private key and you also find it extremely implausible that the network

595
00:43:19,323 --> 00:43:26,244
would agree to change the rules to such an extent that would render them that that were that that

596
00:43:26,244 --> 00:43:33,124
decision would render your Bitcoins not valuable anymore. That's why we're having this BIP-110

597
00:43:33,124 --> 00:43:38,823
internal conflict now. That's the vigilance of the, like, to me, that's a sign that the immune

598
00:43:38,823 --> 00:43:43,484
system is working, regardless of what side you are on that debate. It's the fact that there's a war

599
00:43:43,484 --> 00:43:51,883
going on inside Bitcoin is to me a sign of healthy network because it is reacting to a threat or a

600
00:43:51,883 --> 00:43:57,524
perceived threat. When I say that I own Bitcoin, I don't really mean that. What I do is that I know

601
00:43:57,524 --> 00:44:04,244
this private key. I know that the likelihood that someone else knows it too is so small that I can

602
00:44:04,244 --> 00:44:11,464
discard it. And I also know that the 21 million cap is so memed into reality now that it will

603
00:44:11,464 --> 00:44:15,904
never change. Therefore, I can act as if I own it, but I don't really own it. And it's this

604
00:44:15,904 --> 00:44:22,664
fundamental difference in how Bitcoin works from everything else on earth. I mean, that's not true

605
00:44:22,664 --> 00:44:27,704
for a shitcoin, for instance. In a shitcoin, it is very likely that the rules will change

606
00:44:27,704 --> 00:44:35,363
and that change will render your shitcoin worthless. That's a real risk there. It's not

607
00:44:35,363 --> 00:44:41,444
at all as big of a risk in Bitcoin because Bitcoiners are resilient to that stuff. The

608
00:44:41,444 --> 00:44:47,624
network itself, the human beings behind it are resilient to attacks. So what I mean by that is

609
00:44:47,624 --> 00:44:53,164
that all of these counterparty risks. So when you say that you need 17 people to collude

610
00:44:53,164 --> 00:44:56,544
at Coinbase to run away with the Bitcoin. I didn't say Coinbase.

611
00:44:56,964 --> 00:45:04,144
Or whatever. Yeah, you didn't say Coinbase, but at one of these big ones, to me, that's not very

612
00:45:04,144 --> 00:45:11,343
much. Like 17 people could collude. Like it's a real risk because the knowledge they

613
00:45:11,343 --> 00:45:19,444
need to take the money and run is 30 characters. It's a private key. It's 12 magic words. If

614
00:45:19,444 --> 00:45:25,803
someone utters those 12 magic words to someone else, okay, they got multisig. Yeah. So it's not

615
00:45:25,803 --> 00:45:31,084
one person's 12 magic words. It's a couple of people's 12 magic words. But still, it's the

616
00:45:31,084 --> 00:45:37,863
nature of the asset just being information that makes this counterparty risk so much bigger than

617
00:45:37,863 --> 00:45:43,944
with any other asset. If you're going to steal gold, you need trucks, you need somewhere to

618
00:45:43,944 --> 00:45:51,264
store it, you need to take it abroad, you need a private jet. What do I know? I'm not an expert

619
00:45:51,264 --> 00:45:58,564
in robbing banks of gold, but I know that it's much easier to steal Bitcoin if you have access

620
00:45:58,564 --> 00:46:02,804
to the private key. It is also, by the way, ironically enough, why it's so hard to steal

621
00:46:02,804 --> 00:46:07,104
Bitcoin from someone else, because you can point a gun at my head and say, give me all your Bitcoin,

622
00:46:07,104 --> 00:46:11,164
and I can simply refuse to give up my private key

623
00:46:11,164 --> 00:46:12,704
or I can give you a small amount.

624
00:46:12,784 --> 00:46:16,044
You have no way of knowing how many I actually had.

625
00:46:16,604 --> 00:46:18,343
And that's true for every person on earth.

626
00:46:18,424 --> 00:46:20,363
You cannot know, you can make a guess,

627
00:46:20,564 --> 00:46:23,624
but you cannot actually know how many bitcoins

628
00:46:23,624 --> 00:46:25,184
another person has access to

629
00:46:25,184 --> 00:46:28,284
simply because of the nature of the thing.

630
00:46:28,284 --> 00:46:30,044
It's not a thing, it's information.

631
00:46:30,204 --> 00:46:33,144
It's just information, which is why, you know,

632
00:46:33,464 --> 00:46:35,184
I called it element zero once

633
00:46:35,184 --> 00:46:36,944
and like this informational element

634
00:46:36,944 --> 00:46:38,523
without protons and neutrons.

635
00:46:38,704 --> 00:46:40,044
It's just the electrons.

636
00:46:40,184 --> 00:46:42,564
The information about the element is the element.

637
00:46:43,184 --> 00:46:45,704
And that's, it's part of what makes it so amazing

638
00:46:45,704 --> 00:46:48,004
because it can exist everywhere at once

639
00:46:48,004 --> 00:46:50,404
and we can beam it through space and time

640
00:46:50,404 --> 00:46:52,064
at basically no cost.

641
00:46:52,224 --> 00:46:55,144
I like, that's why it's so mind-blowing.

642
00:46:55,323 --> 00:46:57,404
One of the things that I love about Bitcoin events

643
00:46:57,404 --> 00:46:58,564
as you're walking around

644
00:46:58,564 --> 00:47:01,684
is that you have no idea how much each person has, right?

645
00:47:01,804 --> 00:47:03,784
You know, say there's the CEO of strategy

646
00:47:03,784 --> 00:47:04,904
or chairman or whatever.

647
00:47:04,904 --> 00:47:09,184
And yeah, I came from the world of manufacturing, 25 years in manufacturing.

648
00:47:09,644 --> 00:47:13,224
And you knew who the CEO of that company was and the head of engineering.

649
00:47:13,523 --> 00:47:14,924
And, you know, this guy is just a sales guy.

650
00:47:15,004 --> 00:47:15,784
This guy is a technician.

651
00:47:15,924 --> 00:47:17,044
And there was a pecking order.

652
00:47:17,164 --> 00:47:19,504
There was a hierarchy of people and companies, right?

653
00:47:19,523 --> 00:47:21,343
The bigger company, the smaller company, whatever.

654
00:47:21,924 --> 00:47:26,104
You go to a Bitcoin event and you just don't know, you know, the more powerful ones are

655
00:47:26,104 --> 00:47:30,424
the ones that are more eloquent, the ones who are able to, you know, they have more

656
00:47:30,424 --> 00:47:31,323
power in the room.

657
00:47:31,823 --> 00:47:33,204
But, you know, that's fine.

658
00:47:33,204 --> 00:47:34,863
And it's just they have a podium.

659
00:47:35,084 --> 00:47:37,904
They're able to get on stage and say what they're saying.

660
00:47:37,964 --> 00:47:40,284
But you really don't know who has what.

661
00:47:40,584 --> 00:47:48,004
You know, it's always fascinating to me to start talking to some random person in the hallway.

662
00:47:48,004 --> 00:47:52,924
And I look at them and I go, does this guy have 100 sats or 100,000 Bitcoin?

663
00:47:53,044 --> 00:47:53,944
I don't know.

664
00:47:54,044 --> 00:47:54,924
And I will never know.

665
00:47:54,984 --> 00:47:55,644
And I shouldn't know.

666
00:47:56,724 --> 00:48:02,323
No, and this is another aspect of the whole thing that I fell in love with conferences specifically.

667
00:48:02,323 --> 00:48:06,023
because all of a sudden the playing field was leveled.

668
00:48:06,604 --> 00:48:08,984
Like all that matters was merit.

669
00:48:09,244 --> 00:48:12,904
So like all my old credentials, none of that mattered.

670
00:48:12,904 --> 00:48:16,304
Like I come from shipping, as you might have heard,

671
00:48:16,883 --> 00:48:19,004
or we talked about in Amsterdam, I think.

672
00:48:19,604 --> 00:48:22,823
But in Bitcoin, I was nothing before I wrote the book.

673
00:48:22,944 --> 00:48:25,204
And all of a sudden I was someone.

674
00:48:25,984 --> 00:48:30,064
And like none of the, your CV didn't matter anymore.

675
00:48:30,064 --> 00:48:37,523
The only thing that mattered was what you actually said and what you actually wrote and what you actually stood for.

676
00:48:38,144 --> 00:48:39,863
And I absolutely love that.

677
00:48:40,464 --> 00:48:40,944
Your actions.

678
00:48:41,684 --> 00:48:44,584
Yeah, your actions spoke louder than words, finally.

679
00:48:45,004 --> 00:48:53,204
And that is also why, like, this, of course, Sailor, for instance, has an aura of authority around him.

680
00:48:53,444 --> 00:48:57,164
And very few Bitcoiners are immune to that.

681
00:48:57,164 --> 00:49:02,664
I mean, I was starstruck the first time I met him, and I'm usually not starstruck by meeting people anymore.

682
00:49:03,204 --> 00:49:05,184
But he has a certain aura around.

683
00:49:05,304 --> 00:49:11,584
And these Jordan Petersonian lobster serotonin level hierarchies, they're a real thing.

684
00:49:11,744 --> 00:49:18,883
Like we do form hierarchies and some people have more inherent authority or whatever than others.

685
00:49:20,023 --> 00:49:26,023
But like the thing I fell in love with with this community was that it was so devoid of that.

686
00:49:26,023 --> 00:49:29,624
We had all this saying of slay your heroes back in 2017.

687
00:49:29,843 --> 00:49:33,144
We were much better at that time, by the way.

688
00:49:33,823 --> 00:49:38,504
And everyone, if anyone said anything that wasn't ethical or that was like out of line,

689
00:49:38,604 --> 00:49:44,764
then we just destroyed them online and said that you don't have to listen to Roger Ver anymore.

690
00:49:44,984 --> 00:49:47,684
That's the culture in Bitcoin that I grew up with.

691
00:49:47,764 --> 00:49:49,484
And that's the thing I fell in love with.

692
00:49:49,904 --> 00:49:54,544
Here were these, you know, wonderful contrarians that were right about stuff.

693
00:49:54,544 --> 00:50:00,684
And they were relentless in just not letting false information come through.

694
00:50:01,343 --> 00:50:11,843
Well, having spent some time with Michael, you know, behind the scenes a little bit and not very much, but some, no one should ever feel starstruck by him.

695
00:50:12,004 --> 00:50:15,304
Right. I mean, if you feel starstruck by him, it's just by his conviction.

696
00:50:15,304 --> 00:50:20,004
Right. And he is a genius in certain areas.

697
00:50:20,244 --> 00:50:22,383
Right. That he just knows and understands.

698
00:50:22,383 --> 00:50:26,744
and ChatGPT has just taken his genius and blown it up exponentially.

699
00:50:27,224 --> 00:50:32,224
You know, his ability to take a thought and then blow it up into 100 thoughts

700
00:50:32,224 --> 00:50:34,343
that would have taken him another 10 years.

701
00:50:34,464 --> 00:50:35,604
He's now able to do on a weekend.

702
00:50:35,863 --> 00:50:38,363
And so that part of it you can be starstruck with.

703
00:50:38,904 --> 00:50:42,684
But he's just another dude, you know, it really is.

704
00:50:42,924 --> 00:50:43,464
We all are.

705
00:50:43,744 --> 00:50:48,584
And yeah, once you get over that hurdle and we're all just another dude out there

706
00:50:48,584 --> 00:50:52,323
and the ones who try to pretend that they're, you know, something more important

707
00:50:52,323 --> 00:50:56,704
or bigger or whatever, you should really question and go, what is this guy hiding behind?

708
00:50:56,843 --> 00:51:01,724
I want to take issue kind of with calling treasury companies shit coins, which I'm not

709
00:51:01,724 --> 00:51:04,744
accusing you of having done, but a lot of people are doing.

710
00:51:04,944 --> 00:51:07,644
Self-custody, it changes individuals, right?

711
00:51:07,883 --> 00:51:11,664
They are able to feel that they have self-sovereignty for the first time.

712
00:51:11,744 --> 00:51:13,363
And it's like, oh, my God, I own my money.

713
00:51:13,564 --> 00:51:17,023
Or as you put it, you own this concept of owning money or whatever.

714
00:51:18,383 --> 00:51:20,724
The treasury companies change capital markets.

715
00:51:22,323 --> 00:51:48,784
And Bitcoin needs both. We got to have both because we don't change the capital markets. Self-custody and each person owning their own Bitcoin isn't going to do it on its own. It's just it's not enough. We need to change the capital markets. And the only way to change the capital markets is through these projects. And in that case right now, it's treasury companies. But three years from now, you know, it's going to be something different.

716
00:51:48,784 --> 00:51:52,224
three months from now you know it's going to be something different i wake up every monday and i

717
00:51:52,224 --> 00:51:57,704
dread picking up my phone to look at what people are talking about now because it's like god man

718
00:51:57,704 --> 00:52:01,424
in the shipping industry did you ever wake up on a monday every monday and go oh look the shipping

719
00:52:01,424 --> 00:52:08,944
industry is different no i was in the rubber industry i'd go to the same rubber expo in hamburg

720
00:52:08,944 --> 00:52:15,624
and it was like nothing has changed it's the rubber a condom a condom is still gone no this

721
00:52:15,624 --> 00:52:19,684
It was mostly tires, but like other types of rubbers.

722
00:52:20,684 --> 00:52:25,084
Michelin had a airless tire and it's like, oh, that's cute.

723
00:52:25,523 --> 00:52:30,064
But then we moved on and it's just like, you know, there's 0.1% improvements every year.

724
00:52:30,204 --> 00:52:33,404
You get into the Bitcoin world and it's like, it's going to be something new.

725
00:52:33,684 --> 00:52:34,323
But that's a trap.

726
00:52:34,863 --> 00:52:35,584
Yeah, I know.

727
00:52:36,064 --> 00:52:36,424
I know.

728
00:52:36,424 --> 00:52:41,964
And so I think that's what we need to do is we need to keep going to these events.

729
00:52:41,964 --> 00:52:55,104
We need to be on the podcasts and the digital conferences and all this stuff and keep talking about it because when you see that light come on for someone and they at least want to buy the ETF, that's a step, right?

730
00:52:55,484 --> 00:52:55,984
It's a step.

731
00:52:56,444 --> 00:53:04,044
And I will stand by my statement that orange pillings over just because that it's supposed to be over, right?

732
00:53:04,124 --> 00:53:06,124
The early adopters are a smaller group.

733
00:53:06,404 --> 00:53:08,343
You can't orange pill everyone.

734
00:53:08,624 --> 00:53:10,023
It doesn't work that way.

735
00:53:10,023 --> 00:53:17,204
what the early majority needs to decide is what does this mean to me? What does it do for me in

736
00:53:17,204 --> 00:53:24,023
my life? And the same way that if I walk out of a building and some guy's saying, look at this

737
00:53:24,023 --> 00:53:28,484
umbrella, it's got 12 ribs and it's got a button that lets you eject it and it comes back and it

738
00:53:28,484 --> 00:53:33,044
ejects back. And I'm just sitting there going, dude, how am I going to not get wet? You know?

739
00:53:33,404 --> 00:53:36,924
And then the other guy says, here's a piece of cardboard, hold it over your head. You know,

740
00:53:36,924 --> 00:53:39,644
It's like, my problem is getting wet.

741
00:53:40,064 --> 00:53:42,343
You know, I don't care about all the technical details.

742
00:53:42,704 --> 00:53:44,764
And it's another concern of mine

743
00:53:44,764 --> 00:53:47,604
is that the Bitcoin early adopters are techies

744
00:53:47,604 --> 00:53:49,843
and techies can't help themselves sometimes.

745
00:53:50,064 --> 00:53:52,424
And they just get into, you know,

746
00:53:52,484 --> 00:53:54,664
the having and multi-sig and this and that.

747
00:53:54,764 --> 00:53:58,323
It's like, no, man, just sell it as another asset for now.

748
00:53:58,704 --> 00:53:59,544
Let them get into it.

749
00:53:59,604 --> 00:54:00,584
Let them see the returns.

750
00:54:00,883 --> 00:54:01,724
Let them hear this.

751
00:54:01,863 --> 00:54:02,644
Let them hear that.

752
00:54:02,804 --> 00:54:04,264
You know, give them a copy of Natalie's book.

753
00:54:04,363 --> 00:54:05,464
Give them a copy of your book.

754
00:54:06,124 --> 00:54:06,784
Maybe they'll read it.

755
00:54:06,784 --> 00:54:10,604
Maybe they won't. And it's a slow process.

756
00:54:10,904 --> 00:54:12,644
But this isn't biblical.

757
00:54:12,944 --> 00:54:17,604
Coming back to, you know, you don't have to be this devout Catholic that swears to the Vatican.

758
00:54:17,823 --> 00:54:21,323
You just got to say, what does this mean to me and why do I think change is necessary?

759
00:54:23,064 --> 00:54:27,363
I think Luke Dasher might have a different opinion on that specific point.

760
00:54:27,863 --> 00:54:29,204
Of course, of course he will.

761
00:54:29,944 --> 00:54:32,244
Anyway, yeah, insider joke.

762
00:54:32,244 --> 00:54:46,204
So you said before that your role in this is sort of to vet these companies and like when you're doing this for these conferences and stuff and picking and choosing between sponsors and trying to get the honest ones.

763
00:54:46,523 --> 00:54:47,764
How do you do that exactly?

764
00:54:47,904 --> 00:54:49,904
Like, how do you know who's honest and who's not?

765
00:54:50,444 --> 00:54:53,184
No, don't put me in that, the level of responsibility.

766
00:54:54,184 --> 00:54:57,204
Is there a thought process?

767
00:54:57,204 --> 00:55:07,924
I mean, we look at, you know, whenever we get approached by either a treasury company or a service provider or somebody who's looking to invest a lot of money, even the ones who are looking to invest a lot of money.

768
00:55:08,104 --> 00:55:14,984
If I see that they're just looking to short squeeze a stock and then, you know, flip it and whatever, I'm like, yeah, stay away from Bitcoin.

769
00:55:15,843 --> 00:55:18,184
Go play in the stuff that you play in.

770
00:55:18,184 --> 00:55:21,704
so it is incredibly difficult

771
00:55:21,704 --> 00:55:23,504
because each one of these

772
00:55:23,504 --> 00:55:24,564
treasury companies

773
00:55:24,564 --> 00:55:25,484
that comes along

774
00:55:25,484 --> 00:55:27,164
I made this comment

775
00:55:27,164 --> 00:55:28,144
to someone in Las Vegas

776
00:55:28,144 --> 00:55:28,624
last week

777
00:55:28,624 --> 00:55:30,004
it's like each treasury company

778
00:55:30,004 --> 00:55:30,604
is like a woman

779
00:55:30,604 --> 00:55:31,484
each one is different

780
00:55:31,484 --> 00:55:32,304
right

781
00:55:32,304 --> 00:55:32,843
and

782
00:55:32,885 --> 00:55:34,425
And there is no pattern yet.

783
00:55:34,485 --> 00:55:35,825
There is no way to do this.

784
00:55:35,905 --> 00:55:38,405
There is no perfect model for this.

785
00:55:38,405 --> 00:55:40,105
And each one's just trying to do it a little different.

786
00:55:40,645 --> 00:55:49,625
But when I hear that they're getting, you know, like short-term financing out of the Cayman Islands and it's with a subsidiary out of Isle of Man.

787
00:55:49,625 --> 00:56:02,785
And then, yeah, the alarm bells start to go off and you start to go, okay, well, either I'm going to do some more research on you or we're not the platform for you because then I'm going to be liable, right?

788
00:56:02,885 --> 00:56:11,205
I can't tell you that there hasn't been a company that we've had on our podcast, had on our shows, had on our events that's going to come back and burn me.

789
00:56:11,545 --> 00:56:12,585
It'll probably happen.

790
00:56:13,025 --> 00:56:14,725
And they'll be like, oh, you said that that one.

791
00:56:14,805 --> 00:56:16,985
And I'm like, no, all I did was I gave them a platform.

792
00:56:17,645 --> 00:56:21,385
And it turns out that, you know, I didn't know everything.

793
00:56:21,485 --> 00:56:22,045
It happens.

794
00:56:22,845 --> 00:56:22,945
Yeah.

795
00:56:22,945 --> 00:56:29,385
but if the people running the events you know like having luke with btc hell you know having

796
00:56:29,385 --> 00:56:35,145
people like that or nifty with all the great work she does and stuff it's having these og people

797
00:56:35,145 --> 00:56:40,885
these core bitcoiners that are like you know we need to kind of hold the line and and not let this

798
00:56:40,885 --> 00:56:47,245
drift off into you know turning it into something that it wasn't meant to be those are the events

799
00:56:47,245 --> 00:56:51,845
that we need to support those are the podcasts we need to support and say like you know this this is

800
00:56:51,845 --> 00:56:55,345
how we're going to hold the line. This is how we're going to maintain the truth.

801
00:56:56,905 --> 00:57:04,725
Yeah, absolutely. So what events are coming here in the short-term future? Can you tell us a bit

802
00:57:04,725 --> 00:57:09,585
about that? Yeah, so if you go to bitcointreasuries.media, you'll find the list of all of our

803
00:57:09,585 --> 00:57:17,505
events. Tim challenged me with us doing 21 events in 2026, which most of those are digital online

804
00:57:17,505 --> 00:57:24,165
events. So don't think we're doing 21 in-person events. We got a call from Aldana in Madrid that

805
00:57:24,165 --> 00:57:29,125
wanted to do the Madrid Mad Bitcoin, which is beginning of May. We're doing a Bitcoin

806
00:57:29,125 --> 00:57:35,705
Treasuries Unconference with Andrew Webley and SmarterWeb at the end of May. We're doing an event

807
00:57:35,705 --> 00:57:40,385
at the Bitcoin Conference. It's the pre-party on Sunday. So if you're coming to the Bitcoin

808
00:57:40,385 --> 00:57:44,885
Conference in Vegas, make sure you get in early enough Sunday. We're doing a huge pool party at

809
00:57:44,885 --> 00:57:50,965
the stadium swim, which is not related to Bitcoin necessarily, but anytime you get the chance to get

810
00:57:50,965 --> 00:57:56,785
500 Bitcoiners drinking around a pool, that's a good time to, you know, just get your thoughts out,

811
00:57:56,925 --> 00:58:01,205
get your conviction out and talk to other people. So there's just all kinds of them.

812
00:58:01,945 --> 00:58:06,725
We're doing, our big event will be the Bitcoin Treasuries Unconference in New York in September.

813
00:58:07,105 --> 00:58:11,845
And we call it the Unconference because I treat it more like a town hall, put the stage almost in

814
00:58:11,845 --> 00:58:16,165
the middle of the room, don't introduce people from their company just by their name.

815
00:58:16,745 --> 00:58:22,185
The agenda is voted on by the ticket buyers and we do a town hall and we just say like,

816
00:58:22,285 --> 00:58:25,545
hey, move the mic around the room and let's talk about this.

817
00:58:25,585 --> 00:58:38,938
So that kind of the reason we call it an unconference It not these traditional past the panels And I agree with the previous panelist crap And then August we be doing one in Buda in Norway Just Glenn called me out

818
00:58:38,938 --> 00:58:43,178
of the blue from Buda and said, I want to do an event here. And I'm like, okay, let me find Buda

819
00:58:43,178 --> 00:58:50,078
on Google Maps. And I had to keep scrolling up and up and up. Yeah, it's far up there.

820
00:58:50,738 --> 00:58:53,998
Yeah, that's why we called it Bitcoin Beyond 66, because it's in the Arctic Circle.

821
00:58:54,938 --> 00:58:55,038
Yes.

822
00:58:55,238 --> 00:58:56,578
But it's just a beautiful location.

823
00:58:56,838 --> 00:59:02,778
And it turns out that Norway, this country of 5 million people, El Salvador, 6 million, has so many big names.

824
00:59:02,858 --> 00:59:04,298
I just saw your episode with HODLNOT.

825
00:59:04,378 --> 00:59:09,178
He's going to be there with EFRAT doing a discussion on freedom of speech.

826
00:59:09,298 --> 00:59:12,018
Just some big names in the Bitcoin space in Norway.

827
00:59:12,198 --> 00:59:13,538
Some really great companies.

828
00:59:13,538 --> 00:59:13,698
Yeah.

829
00:59:14,258 --> 00:59:17,338
I'm hoping to get to that one myself, too.

830
00:59:17,558 --> 00:59:17,658
Yeah.

831
00:59:18,058 --> 00:59:19,698
Smaller events, 400 people.

832
00:59:20,298 --> 00:59:20,318
Right.

833
00:59:20,318 --> 00:59:23,378
Yeah, and the Madrid one is the other one that I have.

834
00:59:23,978 --> 00:59:28,598
Madrid will be a little bit bigger, but that's just because it's the first time there's been an event in Spain.

835
00:59:28,958 --> 00:59:30,698
And then we'll see what else comes up.

836
00:59:30,738 --> 00:59:40,038
We just did a very small one at PubKey in New York for Bitcoin treasury companies in emerging markets with Mexico, Brazil and South Africa.

837
00:59:40,418 --> 00:59:46,158
You know, talking about how these Bitcoin treasury companies can have an impact on these emerging market countries.

838
00:59:46,298 --> 00:59:49,238
And that was just like about 50 people in the back room there at PubKey.

839
00:59:50,018 --> 00:59:54,818
So yeah, BitcoinTreasureys.media is the place to get to our Luma page where all of our events are listed.

840
00:59:55,058 --> 00:59:58,838
And then you got Tim Kotzman on X, you got Tim Kotzman on YouTube.

841
00:59:58,838 --> 01:00:07,218
And he's just a fantastic interviewer of just, you know, getting people to tell their stories and having us share them.

842
01:00:08,078 --> 01:00:09,898
So, you know, same way what you're doing.

843
01:00:10,538 --> 01:00:18,078
But yeah, if you are, you know, hardline opposed treasury companies, hold the line, you know, conviction that they're bad for Bitcoin.

844
01:00:18,078 --> 01:00:37,278
If you don't understand it, well, then take some time to understand it and see what's really going on and why we need to break into the capital markets, why we need to have this pump out of fixed income, this pump out of bonds into Bitcoin, because otherwise they're just sitting there going, I can't invest in Bitcoin. The system doesn't allow me to.

845
01:00:37,278 --> 01:00:54,938
Now, will that change one day? And the pension fund of Sweden will be able to just buy Bitcoin and self-custody it? Someday, but that's a long way off. And in the meantime, they hold shares of MSDR or they hold IBED or whatever.

846
01:00:54,938 --> 01:01:06,598
Yeah, I believe they do have, it's called Sjunde AP Fonden, it's a Swedish, like where most Swedes have their pension money and they are invested via some third party into Bitcoin.

847
01:01:06,958 --> 01:01:10,618
So they do have exposure, whether they'd like to have or not.

848
01:01:10,898 --> 01:01:13,218
So like, yeah, there's no getting around it.

849
01:01:13,218 --> 01:01:18,278
And yeah, just to have said that, I'm not vehemently against Bitcoin Treasury Conference.

850
01:01:18,278 --> 01:01:38,691
But I do tend to take the devil advocate sort of position when I arguing because that how you find the interesting stuff right So yeah I keen to learn more about this Absolutely Yeah looking forward to the events regardless of how many it will actually be

851
01:01:38,691 --> 01:01:45,111
The Buddha one is tricky for me because I will just have arrived from Michigan.

852
01:01:45,251 --> 01:01:48,891
I'm going to Michigan just before that with my family for two weeks.

853
01:01:49,291 --> 01:01:54,371
So I would have to just hop onto Buddha right after that.

854
01:01:54,371 --> 01:01:55,791
but it's doable

855
01:01:55,791 --> 01:01:57,031
of course

856
01:01:57,031 --> 01:01:58,451
we'll see where it lands

857
01:01:58,451 --> 01:02:00,051
if I end up there

858
01:02:00,051 --> 01:02:00,971
that one I'm expecting

859
01:02:00,971 --> 01:02:01,631
to sell out

860
01:02:01,631 --> 01:02:02,851
because after Buddha Glimp

861
01:02:02,851 --> 01:02:04,011
wins the Champions League

862
01:02:04,011 --> 01:02:04,591
I think that

863
01:02:04,591 --> 01:02:05,491
we're all gonna

864
01:02:05,491 --> 01:02:05,831
wanna

865
01:02:05,831 --> 01:02:08,631
go to Buddha

866
01:02:08,631 --> 01:02:08,891
but

867
01:02:08,891 --> 01:02:10,591
yeah that's been

868
01:02:10,591 --> 01:02:11,431
a great story there

869
01:02:11,431 --> 01:02:11,831
as well

870
01:02:11,831 --> 01:02:12,131
but

871
01:02:12,131 --> 01:02:13,571
no but thank you

872
01:02:13,571 --> 01:02:14,791
for everything you're doing

873
01:02:14,791 --> 01:02:15,931
in the Bitcoin space

874
01:02:15,931 --> 01:02:16,311
for

875
01:02:16,311 --> 01:02:18,271
keeping us all honest

876
01:02:18,271 --> 01:02:18,951
for your books

877
01:02:18,951 --> 01:02:19,771
for your academy

878
01:02:19,771 --> 01:02:20,771
there are

879
01:02:20,771 --> 01:02:21,951
suit coiners out there

880
01:02:21,951 --> 01:02:22,791
and I'm gonna define

881
01:02:22,791 --> 01:02:23,811
what suit coiner is

882
01:02:23,811 --> 01:02:24,291
which is

883
01:02:24,371 --> 01:02:27,271
You know, people that come from, I'm not wearing a suit today.

884
01:02:27,311 --> 01:02:29,771
I have a suit over here where I put the orange tie on when I need to.

885
01:02:30,411 --> 01:02:32,571
But it's people on Wall Street.

886
01:02:32,671 --> 01:02:38,611
If you were to go to Central Park and yell, Bitcoin, thousands of people would come running to Central Park.

887
01:02:38,711 --> 01:02:39,311
They're out there.

888
01:02:39,351 --> 01:02:49,791
I mean, I knew this because when I worked at the Bitcoin conference, we had dozens of people from Citibank, BlackRock, Morgan Stanley at the conference using their Gmail, their Hotmail, their Yahoo mail.

889
01:02:50,071 --> 01:02:52,031
They just couldn't come in an official manner.

890
01:02:52,911 --> 01:03:05,151
And so when you get to these companies and you say, once again, I won't name the Financial Services Institute, but institution, but I found out that they have an internal chat group of about 500 people that are all Bitcoiners.

891
01:03:05,151 --> 01:03:10,771
And none of them work in the same department, but they're all, you know, chatting about Bitcoin inside the company.

892
01:03:11,091 --> 01:03:16,711
And then eventually, occasionally, that sneaks on up to a Larry Fink.

893
01:03:18,331 --> 01:03:19,651
Right? Occasionally.

894
01:03:19,651 --> 01:03:29,291
no this is this is my experience too like uh the the thing is like i've traveled the last five years

895
01:03:29,291 --> 01:03:35,411
uh for the most part i've traveled to a lot of different conferences and meetups and all sorts

896
01:03:35,411 --> 01:03:42,851
of bitcoin events i've just said yes to everything basically and i know uh to some extent you're

897
01:03:42,851 --> 01:03:50,331
always surprised by how small it is everywhere but then you realize that the the that the key

898
01:03:50,331 --> 01:03:56,631
word there is everywhere because it really is everywhere every every one horse town in every

899
01:03:56,631 --> 01:04:02,751
single country has a bitcoiner or a couple we're absolutely everywhere and most bitcoiners don't

900
01:04:02,751 --> 01:04:09,451
even go to conferences so so there there there is a bitcoin scene like absolutely everywhere and i

901
01:04:09,451 --> 01:04:17,711
I know here in Spain, for instance, there's a meetup at least once a month in Alicante here and the same in Morsia and same in Valencia.

902
01:04:18,431 --> 01:04:19,431
Like it's getting everywhere.

903
01:04:19,431 --> 01:04:24,331
And in Germany, every single big city has a regular weekly meetup.

904
01:04:24,691 --> 01:04:26,471
And it's been like that for years.

905
01:04:26,771 --> 01:04:40,484
They not growing right This was my thing In 2016 when we were doing the Bitcoin meetup here in Atlanta and we had whatever 100 people I like wow one day this is going to be 1 people And it not It actually less people now than it was before right in the local meetup

906
01:04:40,484 --> 01:04:53,864
And this is where that early adopter, early majority, I think what us early adopters need to do is we need to figure out what this means for the early majority, interpret it for them, make sure they're keeping them honest.

907
01:04:53,864 --> 01:05:05,264
And I think that's where these meetups are going to go. It's going to be about, OK, how do we onboard our neighbor, our doctor, you know, this company, the local government?

908
01:05:05,264 --> 01:05:19,644
One of our local guys has been coming to the meetup since 2013. He's now starting a political action kind of thing here in Georgia to try to address the Georgia state government and educate them on Bitcoin.

909
01:05:20,044 --> 01:05:28,064
There's a fantastic group in Illinois that's doing this. It's a large group of people and they're really making progress with the Illinois state government.

910
01:05:28,064 --> 01:05:38,224
And so we're on a mission. We're on a mission, man. And it's hard, right? Because you just keep getting beat down and beat down. But Bitcoin will keep us all honest.

911
01:05:38,224 --> 01:05:46,484
absolutely that's uh that's a i think that's a great way to to round this out become bitcoin

912
01:05:46,484 --> 01:05:51,664
will keep us all honest because it really is a truth machine it's it's it forces people to behave

913
01:05:51,664 --> 01:05:57,664
honestly it's more expensive to try to cheat it than to just follow the rules and that's that's

914
01:05:57,664 --> 01:06:04,684
what's going to keep us keep us honest going into the future so yeah you you mentioned this site uh

915
01:06:04,684 --> 01:06:06,424
BitcoinTreacheries.media

916
01:06:06,424 --> 01:06:07,624
to find all the conferences.

917
01:06:08,064 --> 01:06:09,224
Where can people find you?

918
01:06:09,464 --> 01:06:10,944
Is there anywhere else on the internet

919
01:06:10,944 --> 01:06:13,024
where you want people to go

920
01:06:13,024 --> 01:06:15,564
and something you want them to check out?

921
01:06:15,984 --> 01:06:17,184
Yeah, I mean, me personally,

922
01:06:17,464 --> 01:06:20,344
I'm E Juline, E-J-U-L-I-N-E on Twitter,

923
01:06:20,524 --> 01:06:24,844
but we have BTC Digital Conf is our handle.

924
01:06:24,984 --> 01:06:26,384
You can find all this on our website.

925
01:06:26,384 --> 01:06:29,384
But yeah, I'm not hard to find LinkedIn

926
01:06:29,384 --> 01:06:32,804
and everywhere and Signal, but no Telegram.

927
01:06:32,804 --> 01:06:37,084
It's, yeah, we all seem to find each other and connect with each other and follow each other.

928
01:06:37,224 --> 01:06:48,784
And I always appreciate when people reach out saying, you know, how something I said or something Tim said, you know, impacted their allocation of their investment portfolio or got them to think about something.

929
01:06:48,944 --> 01:06:50,644
So don't ever hesitate to reach out.

930
01:06:52,124 --> 01:06:53,444
No, fantastic.

931
01:06:53,664 --> 01:06:56,524
And I enjoyed this conversation a lot.

932
01:06:56,564 --> 01:07:02,044
And I'm looking forward a lot to seeing you at some of these events later this year.

933
01:07:02,044 --> 01:07:04,344
So until then, all the best.

934
01:07:04,744 --> 01:07:05,544
You too. Hasta luego.

935
01:07:06,524 --> 01:07:07,144
Hasta luego.

936
01:07:07,864 --> 01:07:09,464
This has been the Bitcoin Infinity Show.

937
01:07:10,384 --> 01:07:11,804
Like, subscribe and brush your teeth.

938
01:07:12,044 --> 01:07:12,924
And adieu.