Your Paper Bitcoin Is Basically Worthless | George Bodine | BIS #210

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George, a warm welcome to the Bitcoin Infinity Show.

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Nice to have you here.

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Thanks, buddy.

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I'm excited.

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I'm pumped.

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You know, it was great meeting you in Prague.

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We had a blast, had a great dinner together.

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And, you know, Prague is one of those events.

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Last year, it kind of changed me.

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And this year, I think it's done the same thing.

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I cannot impress upon people that are listening to this enough that you've got to get off your ass.

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You've got to show up.

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You've got to go to these damn things.

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not some shit coiner conference, but I mean, like in Vegas, I'm talking about a real Bitcoin

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conference with Bitcoiners, no shit coins, no crypto stuff. And where people are being called

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out on the carpet for, uh, you know, basically, let's see, what, what would you say it for,

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for not being truthful? You know, if you, if you're not able to be truthful, if you can't

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handle the truth, then you know what, you're going to get called out on it. And I think that's the

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message is that I'm in a different place mentally right now. And I'm consolidating that position

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this year. I'm going to continue and nothing's going to stop me. That sounds fantastic. And

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right back at you, by the way, fantastic to see you. Always a pleasure. And yeah,

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I hope we see each other again soon. I don't know which conference will be next. But yeah,

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I agree with the sentiment that people should go to real Bitcoin conferences.

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They are a double-edged sword, though, aren't they?

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Like, there's always...

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You can never know what games people are playing at conferences.

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There's a lot of that going on, like, I love Bitcoin, buy my shitcoin, or buy my whatever.

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Like, I'm guilty as charged.

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Like, I love Bitcoin, buy my fucking books.

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And you are too.

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I love Bitcoin, buy my art.

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Like that's there's always that aspect of it. So so it can be tricky for a noob to to navigate what's the real deal and what's what's just a sales tactic.

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Thank you.

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You know, one of the best quotes that I use often is from Epictetus.

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He was a Greek Stoic, a slave under the Romans in 100 AD.

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And he wrote, if you are ever tempted to look for outside approval, realize you have just

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compromised your integrity.

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If you need a witness, be your own.

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And yes, it's true that I'm into Bitcoin and I sell my art.

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But quite frankly, I don't give a flying fuck if anybody buys it.

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I don't need to sell my art to anybody.

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And I don't need any likes. I don't need any clicks. I don't need more followers. I'm starting to realize that basically I've been given the greatest freedom that I could have. And sometimes I'm not using it to good effect.

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I think where I compromise my integrity is trying to position myself or to not to hesitate to call out people when basically I feel that they're not, you know, they're just not aligned with what Bitcoin's all about.

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And I'd have to say that, again, this conference has given me a renewed confidence and inspiration to get off my butt and start doing that.

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Yeah, I mean, I've got a renewed sense of hope, too.

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Of course, there were many sailor fanboys and there were many paper Bitcoin enthusiasts there and various other people that I don't agree with.

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but I could feel there was a lot of real ones too.

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Like a majority of the Bitcoiners at the conference

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are obviously sincere and real Bitcoiners

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and that's always a pleasure to mingle around with them.

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And that's what I love about these events

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that we're all just one big happy family

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but there are black sheep in this family

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and occasionally we have to flush them out.

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Yeah.

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But that's always been, yeah, that's always been,

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it's why I originally fell in love with the Bitcoin community

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because so many people weren't scared of calling out bullshit.

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So the slay your heroes mentality, basically.

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I prefer slay your heroes ideas maybe.

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So it can be kind of obvious who you're slaying

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when you're slaying a certain idea.

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anyway but there's

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there's like this

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this balance between diplomacy

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and

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just calling out bullshit whenever you

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see it because if you're being

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too

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undiplomatic let's just say if you've been

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too aggressive

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I think there's a risk that you won't be

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heard as much so there

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is some like

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for lack of a better word

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politicking to be done. I hate that word. So let's just call it diplomacy. What's your take on that?

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So, you know, F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote, show me a hero and I'll write you a tragedy.

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And I think we've seen that with some of our supposedly, you know, heroes, however you want

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to call it within the Bitcoin community. You know, I will say to you, Newt, that,

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you know, I'm beginning to think in my mind that this is a battle that we're in that is for the

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you know, the future of money. And why I say that is because, you know, for 10,000 years now,

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ever since we settled down, we've been looking for money. And now we have money, digital money

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in a digital age that's perfect. I mean, this is a zero to one invention of the wheel. And

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we are going to get tremendous pushback. You know, why don't we go through all the central banks?

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Let's go through 189 countries. And you show me, you point out the one that's going to embrace

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or coalesce around Bitcoin or Bitcoiners.

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You know, they're going to want to control the rails to Bitcoin.

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They're going to want to control access to Bitcoin,

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and they're going to want to control you.

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And the reason this is such an important fight is because Bitcoin is that last escape.

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It's the last raft off the Titanic.

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This is it.

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You got to get on board.

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And so I understand what you're saying,

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but I also think to myself that it's time for Bitcoiners to realize,

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as the financialization of Bitcoin is taking place before your very eyes,

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now is the time when you need to hone down to Bitcoin basics.

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It's like going through, you know, when I went through boot camp

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with the fucking Marine DIs.

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I still don't like Marines.

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But no, a lot of Navy guys don't though.

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But anyway, I'm just kidding.

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I love Marines.

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But what I was going to say is that, you know, this is like boot camp.

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You know, you got to get back to the basics.

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I just think that we're in a really existential fight right now.

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I'm starting to realize that, you know, just zoomed out and looking at the community, you're right.

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You know, you go to someplace like Prague and you see all these great Bitcoiners and they're building stuff and they are they're focused.

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They are wanting to go forward with Bitcoin.

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And then when you step back and you get into the news cycle, you realize that basically the institutional aspect of Bitcoin is not there to support that same mission.

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And we are on a mission.

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So again, I say get back to basics, and that's what I'm doing this year.

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Yeah, I absolutely agree.

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There's a lot of back and forth.

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Like this was to mention something very recent here.

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There was a Luke Dasher tweet about that if BIP1.

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He said something that might be perceived as very autistic.

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Something like if BIP110 fails, our only option is to go to a proof of work change.

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And then the other side immediately clinged on to that, that that would be Luke's endgame and that he really wanted to fork off Luke coin and make that.

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Which is not how I interpreted the tweet at all.

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I think the day that nodes aren't in charge anymore is the day that Bitcoin is already dead at that point in my eyes.

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That's the key. You nailed it.

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That's fiat Bitcoin.

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It's by decree from miners that we trust it to be Bitcoin and not by running our own nodes.

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And also I thought if you think deeper about this dictating rules and enforcing rules is really two sides of the same coin in Bitcoin If you enforcing rules you can also dictate them somehow I haven refined that thought entirely

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There is nuance to it.

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But running a node means not only that you're enforcing the rules, but you are dictating them because you have this nuclear option of signaling for a soft fork, which is very hard to not follow for miners.

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if it gets enough traction.

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So what's your stance there?

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How has your...

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Let me pose the question in an interesting way.

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How has your view on BIP-110

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and this whole Civil War thing changed

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since you first heard about it or first understood it?

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I got into this last year, like February, March in 25.

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And then at Prague last year, I asked Sailor.

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We had a little kind of a small gathering and I asked them about this controversy.

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I haven't stopped.

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I mean, I'm still involved in as far as studying it.

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I support BIP 110 100 percent.

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Not only am I running a no, but I'm signaling for it and I run nots and nothing has changed.

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In fact, everything that's come out since, whether it's HODL nots, exposés in particular,

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or some of the other writings that I've been reading, they support a lot of what I was

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concerned about the centralization of power, the lack of quality control, the lack of internal

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consensus, so to speak, within not just core, I'm talking about within the community. The fact that

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that core seems to be unable to build a consensus around an issue. And I don't mean consensus in

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Bitcoin terms. I mean, just building consensus agreement with an alignment within a community.

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I think that they're out of touch. I think they've become a walled garden. I haven't changed

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my mind about that. We need an alternative. I was interested in production ready, but I'm not sure

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that that's the way to go. I have no problems with NOTS, running NOTS. I think it's a very

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good software implementation. Again, I support BIP110. If you're a Bitcoiner out there,

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you're going to get back to Bitcoin Basics this year, run a node, get off your ass, run a node,

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and then make your own decision whether you're going to run NOTS or Bitcoin Core. I would not

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run core. You know, I mean, look at look at the Jack. Look at the stuff that came out of V30.

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You know, everybody was calling me an idiot and that I didn't understand what I was talking about.

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I don't write code. And what and when V30, the original came out, what did it do?

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It ended up deleting some legacy wallets and some people actually lost Bitcoin.

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Did you ever hear any did you ever hear anybody from core come out and say, hey,

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you know what? We really screwed up. We're sorry. We're going to change our process so that we can

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stop this kind of nonsense. No. So what comes out in V31? End up exposing some people's IPs.

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You know, what the hell? How could you do a much more egregious privacy invasion and

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actually a security violation than doing something like that? So again, you know, if you're going to,

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if you're going to talk the talk, then you better walk the walk. I want to hear something from

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Core 30. Tell me again why I'm an idiot. Let's get back in the discussion and figure this out.

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But yeah, I personally, I've made my decision and I support BIP 110 100%.

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Yeah, to play the devil's advocate a little bit there, I think there was something apology

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apology like from the official core account.

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They did mention the bug and said that,

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please don't do this this way.

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I don't remember exactly what the issue was.

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I think it had something to do with

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if you moved coins from a legacy wallet

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and didn't have the backup or something like that.

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which you shouldn't do anyway, but it's still sort of unforgivable.

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Like backwards compatibility has always been a priority in Bitcoin.

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And it sort of seems like it's not as much of a priority anymore.

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And that is a slippery slope in itself, I think.

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Well said. I agree. 100%, Newt.

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Yeah. So what other takeaways do you have from Prague?

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What other experiences did you have there?

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And did you talk to anyone in particular that changed your mind about something or opened up your mind to something new?

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Well, I really liked the beer there.

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Enjoyed that.

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So, you know, I did have an incredible conversation just one on one for about 45 minutes with Giovanni Santastasi, you know, who's brought to the forefront, the Bitcoin power law.

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You know, when that law first came out, I got I did some studying on just physics in general.

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And, you know, I it's a real slog for me, obviously, to get through something like that.

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You know, I've got a degree in marketing of all things and, you know, I'm an artist.

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But I did do a lot of research enough to the point where I actually began to realize that the power law really doesn't have anything to do with Bitcoin.

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It's really about networks and adoption and scaling.

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And when I see, when I took a look at the power law, I mean, right away, I probably within months, you know, I thought there's some there's some validity to this.

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I think where people got kind of bent out of shape or where.

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They didn't they didn't really look at it carefully was the fact that it was in hindsight, looking back, I wish we'd had more people pushing back against Plan B and Plan B's model in the last cycle.

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That was a mess. And it just would have taken some people to stand up and start calling that out to realize that it was a scam. And there were people that did. I mean, there were people that actually stood up and said, this is not, this is exactly. And you weren't, you weren't alone. There were other people calling it out.

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but I think that there was a lot of residual pain

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remembered from that particular event.

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And I think a lot of people kind of just thought

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that this is another model that is so predictive

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that you are going to be betting on it

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and you will take leverage

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and you will be assured of a certain price point.

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And I think that was the wrong take.

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And then the other thing is that

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You know, people push back because of its variability. I mean, when you look at it,

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if you look at the model itself, the way to view it is, in my mind, is quantiles. It's the idea

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of, you know, when it sits at a certain magnitude, a deviation from the mean,

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when it sits at a certain level in a variation or deviation from that mean, you need to look

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to see where it sits that amount of time. What is the percentage that it's going to be in that

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ballpark. And again, I mean, I had a great talk with Giovanni, you know, Giovanni. The other

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problem with the power of law is Giovanni himself is a little bit of a, you're laughing because you

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know what I'm going to say. I even, I told it to him to his face. We were sitting there and I just,

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I mean, we're like, you know, one foot apart. I said, look, Giovanni, I said, you're your worst

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enemy. I said, you, sometimes the, the, the method that you take in presenting this, but then he said,

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Look, that's my nature. That is who I am. I'm argumentative. I'm, you know, he didn't say it, but basically I think what he's implying is, you know, he believes in what he has and it's science. For him, it's math. It's science. It's proven. So just get off your ass and either understand it, learn about it, or be quiet. That's Giovanni.

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Okay, I love that you brought this up because I'm going to take the opposite angle here.

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Because I had a conversation with Giovanni in Bulgaria, I believe it was, where we didn't get to any form of agreement as far as I can remember.

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And I think the power law is bullshit through and through.

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And the reasoning is that physics and mathematics have very little to do with praxeology, which I think should be the basis for studying human action, and that all of these models can be destroyed.

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I am not saying that they're completely valueless.

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I just saying that they have nothing to do with economics If anything it economic assessment and risk assessment and such and they can have some validity there

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But conflating that with actual economics is super dangerous.

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And this is where I think that words like scientific are super dangerous in this context, because humans do things with agency, with free will.

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You have no choice but to have free will.

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So you can never truly predict what a human being will do in the future. And therefore, all these economic models of what's going to happen in the future with the price of a thing are inherently super flawed and can be like they're always hyped too much.

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And people attribute too much value to them, I think.

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And I think your soul is more in harmony with nature if you just don't give a fuck about these things.

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Like you do.

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You just sit on your stack and do art instead and don't even give a fuck if people buy it.

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I think that approach is a much more healthy way to live life than to be glued to charts every day and try to time the market, because that's a fool's endeavor in my eyes.

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So I would love to actually have Giovanni on and talk about this because our differences of opinion are vast, especially since he posted a long tweet.

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Like back in Bulgaria, I don't believe he had any understanding of praxeology.

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But then he made a long tweet about the power law and how praxeology is wrong and why Mises was wrong and stuff like this.

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When he didn't even seem that well read up on it in the first place.

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Maybe I misinterpreted that. I'm not trying to bash the guy here. Just the idea that you can predict markets in that sense and call it economics, because I don't think you can. And I think I can prove a priori that you can't. So I'd love to have that debate with him.

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Well, we should talk about AI. I'll bet you've got some interesting thoughts on AI.

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Yeah, I wouldn't call them intelligent to begin with.

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I can, you know, I can predict human behavior using power laws. I mean, I can. It's easy.

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You know, you can use it to predict the build outs of cities, infrastructure, you know, mammals, just ourselves, human beings.

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We share many components with other animals all based on power laws.

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You know, each one of us has about one point five billion heartbeats in us, whether it doesn't matter if it's a whale or a shrew.

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Obviously, they beat at different rates, but you got about all mammals have about 1.5 and then you just fall over.

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You're done.

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I can show that, you know, if you look at something like and I'm talking about scale now, because that's a really important part of the power laws, understanding scale and scale and variance.

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And, you know, you can look at blood pressure, that same shrew and the same whale.

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They, you know, they have about the same blood pressure.

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You know, Whale's heart is as big as a Mini Cooper, about a ton.

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But what I'm trying to say is, the thing to think about, Newt, or just to put in the back of your mind is that markets, you know, and markets psychology, I think they move because of humans and human psychology.

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And if so, and you, again, you think of Bitcoin as a network and adoption, and you look at how the power law with its own reflexivity, the fact that you can, nobody draws that line that you see.

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When you see that line on the chart that reflects the power law, nobody drew that line.

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It drew itself.

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And that's when I say math is math.

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And, you know, we'll see. I'll tell you what, we'll see in this particular cycle will probably be one of the most important cycles to see how that law goes forward.

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So you want to talk about AI too?

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Well, I'm just going to do a rebuttal here because I can agree with everything you said and still say that it has nothing to do with economics.

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It's risk assessment and not actual economics.

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And also that the fact that something has happened historically consistently can be a good tool in the human being's toolbox for predicting future events.

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The sun has risen and set every single day of my life, so there's good reason for me to believe that it will continue to do so tomorrow.

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Sure. However, that is not, and especially when it comes to market, that is not proof of anything, because empiricism has no place in economics. You cannot predict accurately how markets are going to behave, because they're predicated on human beings voluntarily choosing to do one thing over another.

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So if you throw a human being, if you throw a rock into a lake, physics can tell you how long it will take for the rock to sink to the seabed, right?

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To the bottom of the sea or the bottom of the lake.

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But if you throw a human being into a lake, you cannot predict at all what the human being will do.

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It can swim in either direction.

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It can sink to the bottom.

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It can bounce up again.

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It can start talking about, you know, politics in China or something.

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You don't know what a human being will do, and you can never know that to 100%.

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So I think the very fact that people call this economics and they call it science, to me, that's a very dangerous and slippery slope towards fiat economics.

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That's what Keynes did.

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He looked at the empirical data and said, just because this has happened historically, here's how we quote-unquote fix it.

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instead of looking at it from first principles and take the full and go full Rothschild and say that all theft is wrong, period, and the state is a criminal, which is where I'm coming from.

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I kind of, you know, I like that. I mean, I do understand and kind of agree with what you're saying regarding markets and economists and attempting to somehow predict markets based upon either human behavior or, you know, past trends.

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And, you know, you mentioned or you asked originally, I mean, so that was one of the interesting conversations.

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But, you know, the other thing is, and I can't I don't think I can identify this guy on air because we had a pretty interesting conversation.

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Everybody that is in Bitcoin probably would know who this guy is.

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But I got to sit or stand one on one at the bar with this guy.

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And I had the most incredible conversation about hallucinogenic drugs and mushrooms in particular.

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And, you know, I will tell you right now, it just kind of blew my mind.

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And I, as an artist, you know, I've thought about in the past, whether I would try something like that.

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And I think I would.

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I would just have to make sure that I had somebody, really good energy in a room, somebody that I either trusted as like a sitter or a traveler with me.

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And I think that in some time in my future, I can see that that's going to happen.

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So that was kind of a mind-changing or altering event.

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And then, you know, the other thing is-

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Just a conversation about it?

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Oh, it was a pretty deep conversation.

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I mean-

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All right, yeah, yeah.

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Yeah, and it was a life, you know,

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I will tell you right now for this particular gentleman,

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it was a life-changing moment for him.

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He got an insight into something

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that had been so toxic in his life

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and he actually healed it.

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I mean, he fixed it to the point

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where I think it changed his life.

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So pretty interesting. And then, you know, the other thing is I had some conversations, a lot of conversations with our host, you and I with Tony.

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And I thought that Tony, it's funny because Tony with the Bitcoin way has kind of a lot of my ideas have coalesced around his stance over the last two to three years.

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And I will tell you initially I kind of resisted Tony message a little bit I thought like Giovanni he was kind of just not ham but kind of like just very much blatant out there in your face kind of a viewpoint Quite frankly I think that he right

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I think that it just took time for me to understand where he was coming from. And quite frankly,

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I embrace that whole mindset. And if you're listening right now, I don't care where this

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conversation goes right now with newt and my mind just as important as running a node is you need to

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have a wallet you need to be able to interact with your node and you need to have bitcoin in self

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custody i have a lot of paper bitcoin and that paper bitcoin is basically worthless it's not

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anything i can ever count on the only thing i can ever count on is what i have in my possession

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yeah uh i tony and the bitcoin way have been uh based as fuck for the last couple of years i think

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and yeah

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thank you guys for the dinner

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and keep on doing what you're doing

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I think that's

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they're absolutely

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real Bitcoiners all of them

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I respect them a lot

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same

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they're great

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and Tony is worth listening to

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for sure he has a very based

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take on what Bitcoin is for

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and how you should view it

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I agree with him on most things

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same yeah so so from one thing to another how how what are you working on art wise at the moment

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uh i saw this beautiful uh portrait oh no not a portrait what's what's the other one called when

321
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when the subject is looking to the side a profile or something kind of a profile yeah of amy edberg

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the bitsy chick from Stockholm, Sweden.

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And it's gorgeous.

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I mean, she's a beautiful woman

325
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and you depicted that beautifully, I think.

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So what are you working on now?

327
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Well, I've always been a figurative painter,

328
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the human figure.

329
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And I think one of the reasons it's very difficult,

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probably the most,

331
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it is actually the most difficult thing to paint.

332
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And, you know, I follow a lot of classical,

333
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traditional techniques and methods of painting. I used to stretch all my own canvas and use white

334
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lead priming, but I stopped doing that a while ago. I was worried about health effects from using lead

335
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all the time. So I got away from that, but I still am using traditional Belgian primed linens,

336
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oil primed. You know, all my materials are archival and I really spend, I mean, I know what I'm doing.

337
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You know, after 10,000 hours, they say you can become a master. Well, you know what? I am a

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master of this craft. And I don't mind saying that because I'm not a master of a lot of things.

339
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I'm definitely not a master at plumbing. You know, I don't consider myself a master of Bitcoin.

340
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I think that that's an even deeper dive as far as being able to understand it.

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But right now, I'm just really pumped. I just got back. I'm inspired. You know, I'm working with a

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couple of new models and trying some different techniques and really pushing myself in a different

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direction. And so I'm excited. And, you know, if you're a Bitcoiner out there, you need to find

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something that excites you. And it's sometimes it's not going to be Bitcoin. You know, you can

345
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only do so much Bitcoin before you just say, hey, what the I'm tired of Bitcoin today. And you need

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to find something in your life that gives you an outlet, a creative outlet, whether it's writing,

347
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music, you know, there's so many different ways to express yourself. Woodworking. I mean, it can

348
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be anything, making, you know, duck decoys or something. There are a million ways for you to

349
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do something that's just for you. And don't do it for money. Don't do it for likes. Don't do it for

350
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clicks. Don't do it for followers. Just do it because it's something inside you that you want

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to do. So right now, yeah, I'm on fire. I can't wait. As soon as we're done here, I'm going to

352
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turn the lights on in the studio. I'm going to get to work. I got something I'm working on right

353
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now. I'm really excited about it. Fantastic. I'd love to pick your brain on something that

354
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that I've thought of for the last couple of weeks just.

355
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And creativity in general fascinates me and the creative process.

356
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Because as I say, you cannot know when creativeness strikes.

357
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You can never, when creativity will hit you, like you can never force it.

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You have to play.

359
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And I've listened to countless hours of creativity philosophy and creativity tips.

360
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My favorites are John Cleese and Trey Parker, like Trey Parker of South Park fame and John Cleese of Monty Python fame.

361
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I've heard Trey Parker talk about creativity, like they make the South Park episodes in six days before they air the episode, which is just mind blowing to me.

362
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and he writes the script in two days.

363
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And he said a great unlocker for me was when I heard Trey Parker say

364
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that he could have worked on the script for two more months

365
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and he would have been 5% better.

366
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So it's diminishing returns.

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So instead he chooses to work fast and then get some momentum

368
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and get the new thing going every week

369
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and thereby getting better at the process.

370
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John Cleese had another great tip,

371
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which was not only do you need to not be interrupted when you're creative,

372
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you need to know that you're not going to be interrupted.

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And I figured out that that's why I've been writing my books in the mornings,

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because I know that my family is not up and they're not going to interrupt me.

375
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So that's why I work in the mornings and stuff like that.

376
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So I'm super interested in the creative process.

377
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I've also heard Benny Anderson of ABBA say that the only way to write a good song

378
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is to be in the room at the piano when the song is there.

379
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And then you're like channeling the song, but it's actually in the room. I don't believe that to be literally true, but true creativity, when you really get a lightning in a bottle creative moment, certainly feels like it's not you, it's not your conscious self, it's something else flowing through you. That's how it feels to me.

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so so i've been thinking a lot about creativity and also yeah this is a long story but i need to

381
00:32:14,048 --> 00:32:20,548
i need this preamble to to get to the point where i'm actually asking a question yeah when i was a

382
00:32:20,548 --> 00:32:26,408
kid i used to i was a very creative kid so i used to do all sorts of projects but i could never

383
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finish them i would for instance uh tell myself that i was going to write a hundred page comic

384
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book, which resulted in me like folding and clipping a hundred pages together and then

385
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designing the cover and the first page. And then I got bored with it and I started the next project.

386
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So throughout my adult life, and my parents pointed this out to me all the time, believe that,

387
00:32:52,808 --> 00:32:57,168
like, and my teachers and everyone around me, every adult said, yeah, you need to finish what

388
00:32:57,168 --> 00:33:03,528
you start and i was never like that as a kid so all my adult life i've been fighting that inner kid

389
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and actually uh following through on on the on the projects i start but lately now i'm approaching my

390
00:33:11,148 --> 00:33:19,348
it's my 50th birthday this fall so i'm approaching your kid yeah yeah but but i'm uh approaching that

391
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point and i'm i'm slowly realizing that i might have been fighting the the wrong side of myself

392
00:33:24,728 --> 00:33:31,288
all along because what i figured out uh you're doing talks at bitcoin conferences and stuff and

393
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and even writing is the the more i try to force it the worse it becomes so nowadays when i do a talk

394
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uh on stage about bitcoin or praxeology i i the less prepared i am the better the talk is usually

395
00:33:44,648 --> 00:33:52,968
so so so i've realized that this uh the not giving a fuck is an art form in itself and creativity is

396
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actually the literal opposite of productivity so when i write for instance like most of the actual

397
00:33:59,468 --> 00:34:05,948
work the coming up with all the ideas is done while i'm not sitting at the keyboard and and

398
00:34:05,948 --> 00:34:11,528
and typing the actual letters it's done before way before that and then i have to go into

399
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productive mode to to like materialize whatever creative work there is into reality but the actual

400
00:34:18,488 --> 00:34:25,728
creative part of it, the important part, that's not work, that's not productiveness. It's

401
00:34:25,728 --> 00:34:33,588
the opposite. You have to let your mind play and really relax and just not think about

402
00:34:33,588 --> 00:34:39,248
anything and not force anything. And that's when you get the ideas.

403
00:34:39,248 --> 00:34:43,308
So this productivity being the opposite of creativity, and I've seen this

404
00:34:43,344 --> 00:34:52,704
In Bitcoin, there's a great misconception about, still don't worry, I'm getting to a question at the end here, I think.

405
00:34:53,164 --> 00:35:03,024
I've seen a lot of people, a lot of artists in Bitcoin, they conflate proof of work with proof of results.

406
00:35:03,024 --> 00:35:06,604
So they focus on proof of work rather than anything else.

407
00:35:06,604 --> 00:35:14,664
So they think that if they just put enough work into something, then that makes it automatically good by some.

408
00:35:14,964 --> 00:35:22,904
But to me, that sounds exactly like Mark's labor theory of value and has nothing to do with if it's actually valuable to other people or not.

409
00:35:23,064 --> 00:35:24,464
It's rather the opposite.

410
00:35:24,984 --> 00:35:29,384
And I view proof of work in Bitcoin as an unfortunate means to a greater end.

411
00:35:29,384 --> 00:35:44,344
It would be much better if we could trust our fellow men with a money printer, but history shows that we can't. Everyone abuses the money printer. So we need to keep each other in check, and that's why we need the proof-of-work mechanism.

412
00:35:44,344 --> 00:35:51,344
But it would be better if we didn't need that, if we could just trust other people to not inflate money whenever they get the chance.

413
00:35:51,884 --> 00:36:03,204
So the misconception, I think, is in thinking that proof of work is valuable in itself.

414
00:36:03,764 --> 00:36:07,784
And proof of results is sort of one of my favorite Picasso paintings.

415
00:36:08,024 --> 00:36:12,124
It's just a sketch of Don Quixote that he probably made in five minutes.

416
00:36:12,124 --> 00:36:19,624
but a lifetime of being picasso led up to him being able to just churn out that in five minutes

417
00:36:19,624 --> 00:36:25,564
you are touching on so many things so so this is what i love to pick your brain about is it

418
00:36:25,564 --> 00:36:32,484
do you agree with the statement that creativity is the opposite of productivity or am i on to

419
00:36:32,484 --> 00:36:40,704
something or am i just full of shit here fuck well listen you touched on so many things here

420
00:36:40,704 --> 00:37:07,804
I mean, God almighty. All right. Let's just let's go through some of the things that you discussed here. First off, you got to show up. OK, if you want to, again, master a craft, you do have to show up. Even if it's writing, you got to put some time in. Two, I do agree with what you said. It's nice to have a place that is yours alone where you know you won't be interrupted and you can concentrate on what you want to do.

421
00:37:07,804 --> 00:37:19,724
Three, I'd also agree with what you said, touching on being paid or remuneration for what it is you produce and being able to separate yourself from that regime.

422
00:37:19,724 --> 00:37:32,744
I'd also would say that when you discuss what has value, then you need to think internally,

423
00:37:32,744 --> 00:37:41,224
because if you think about what has value in the outside world, you'll get you'll be twisted in your creativity.

424
00:37:41,224 --> 00:37:54,724
I can attest to that because back in the 90s, back in the 90s, I was with a gallery and it was they sold every painting I produced at shows.

425
00:37:54,944 --> 00:38:00,424
I one time sold 44 paintings with commissions at one show.

426
00:38:01,584 --> 00:38:03,844
So what did that do to me?

427
00:38:04,284 --> 00:38:06,184
Well, it meant that I became.

428
00:38:08,444 --> 00:38:09,124
Twisted.

429
00:38:09,124 --> 00:38:15,504
I, the genre that was popular that I was selling meant that I had to stay within that genre.

430
00:38:16,124 --> 00:38:21,964
The gallery itself pressured me on prices so that I would keep my prices low and continue to crank out work.

431
00:38:22,144 --> 00:38:23,884
Like, you know, go poop me a painting.

432
00:38:24,904 --> 00:38:30,284
And it ended up taking the joy out of what I was doing.

433
00:38:30,284 --> 00:38:36,364
I can encapsulate the moment that this also occurred was when I painted this incredible

434
00:38:36,364 --> 00:38:40,384
scene of this woman standing there, her back to the viewer.

435
00:38:40,604 --> 00:38:42,104
But in her hand, she had a cigarette.

436
00:38:42,464 --> 00:38:44,864
It was set in Europe and she had a cigarette in her hand.

437
00:38:44,904 --> 00:38:49,664
And the gallery said basically that, hey, I don't think we can sell that with a cigarette

438
00:38:49,664 --> 00:38:50,004
in there.

439
00:38:50,124 --> 00:38:55,824
And here's where I knew that I'd violated that first thing that Epictetus told us at

440
00:38:55,824 --> 00:38:57,024
the beginning of this podcast.

441
00:38:57,024 --> 00:39:00,224
And that is, I thought about painting out the cigarette.

442
00:39:00,284 --> 00:39:07,204
I guess the good news is that I didn't. And in fact, afterwards, occasionally I would paint

443
00:39:07,204 --> 00:39:11,624
somebody with a cigarette in their hand just because I basically wanted to say, go fuck yourself.

444
00:39:12,144 --> 00:39:17,444
And I still sold work there. But finally, I got to a point where I thought I've had enough of this.

445
00:39:17,844 --> 00:39:22,204
So all of these things that you've touched on, we're discussing right now. So let's finish up

446
00:39:22,204 --> 00:39:29,004
with the most important part, which is trying to conflate what proof of work is with creativity

447
00:39:29,004 --> 00:39:31,904
and production versus creativity.

448
00:39:32,644 --> 00:39:37,744
You know, you mentioned before about the show South Park,

449
00:39:38,044 --> 00:39:41,284
but what you also probably should mention

450
00:39:41,284 --> 00:39:44,104
is the fact that that show ran for how many years?

451
00:39:44,704 --> 00:39:47,464
And that writer showed up.

452
00:39:47,764 --> 00:39:50,824
Yeah, they're on their 28th season

453
00:39:50,824 --> 00:39:52,444
and it's still the same team,

454
00:39:52,544 --> 00:39:53,944
the same core team that makes it,

455
00:39:54,224 --> 00:39:56,524
which is Matt and Trey and a handful of other people.

456
00:39:57,104 --> 00:39:58,064
And what did he do?

457
00:39:58,064 --> 00:40:06,784
he showed up he showed up every week probably when he didn't want to well uh there's a caveat to that

458
00:40:06,784 --> 00:40:11,864
he showed up every week for the weeks that they actually did the show which is just a couple of

459
00:40:11,864 --> 00:40:16,804
months in the spring and a couple of months in the fall and so so it's not every single day

460
00:40:16,804 --> 00:40:23,864
then again trey parker is a super uh work ethic guy like they do a bunch of other things they do

461
00:40:23,864 --> 00:40:30,044
movies and and you know this broadway musical and stuff on top of south park of course so so it's not

462
00:40:30,044 --> 00:40:35,104
that he didn't show up to other things but i think there was a lot of play involved and a lot of not

463
00:40:35,104 --> 00:40:42,364
doing south park for long uh periods time involved uh um what i'm trying to say newt is that if you're

464
00:40:42,364 --> 00:40:46,584
going to if you're going to produce something you've got to do you do if you're working you

465
00:40:46,584 --> 00:40:52,004
got to show up you got to put in the time and the work and the effort and well uh sorry for

466
00:40:52,004 --> 00:40:59,084
interrupting but uh the this is why i've changed my mind uh ever so slightly to the opposite and

467
00:40:59,084 --> 00:41:07,364
now pushing 50 and that is i think that's the easy part i think that men working men have that in them

468
00:41:07,364 --> 00:41:14,884
inherently like it the the real guys i know they're all so semi-workaholic they're they're like

469
00:41:14,884 --> 00:41:21,824
default mode is working and then they allow themselves to do other things i know i'm like

470
00:41:21,824 --> 00:41:26,884
that and i know most of my bitcoin friends are like that already they work all the time and then

471
00:41:26,884 --> 00:41:34,324
they allow themselves to do other shit so so work work mode is sort of the default mode when you're

472
00:41:34,324 --> 00:41:39,984
not sleeping it sort of depends on how you define work but but i think that's very much more common

473
00:41:39,984 --> 00:41:44,844
than people think. And then people pound their chest because they're working harder than everyone

474
00:41:44,844 --> 00:41:52,584
else. But I don't necessarily think for successful people, that's generally not true. Most successful

475
00:41:52,584 --> 00:41:57,344
people already have it in them to work all the time. And I think if you want to be creative,

476
00:41:57,344 --> 00:42:02,644
you sort of have to get out of that bubble rather than the laziness bubble.

477
00:42:03,964 --> 00:42:08,764
Well, continuing with what I was saying is that they showed up, they did the work. But the other

478
00:42:08,764 --> 00:42:14,224
thing is, what I was going to say is the other side, the flip side of that discussion is this.

479
00:42:14,984 --> 00:42:22,424
If you put an artist in front of a canvas and he thinks that the amount of work that he puts

480
00:42:22,424 --> 00:42:28,884
into the canvas will somehow increase its value, what you find is, and we've seen this over decades

481
00:42:28,884 --> 00:42:35,304
now, this runs in like cycles. You'll find artists that think, back in the 70s, we called it

482
00:42:35,304 --> 00:42:42,524
photo realism. And basically what it was is you would have a cadre of artists that would sit in

483
00:42:42,524 --> 00:42:47,924
front of a canvas and try to paint every pixel that they could of an image. And of course,

484
00:42:48,044 --> 00:42:55,084
almost always these images were photographs. So basically at the end of it, as good as you could

485
00:42:55,084 --> 00:43:01,044
ever get, you could produce a fucking photograph. And you know what? Most of that worked from those

486
00:43:01,044 --> 00:43:08,364
70s. Today, it's either in garbage dumps or it's not appreciated. That's not what creativity is.

487
00:43:09,104 --> 00:43:14,144
So getting back to your discussion and to kind of think along these lines, when you discuss

488
00:43:14,144 --> 00:43:29,920
proof of work trying to conflate like Bitcoin proof of work with what creativity is I think probably gets you off on the wrong foot And maybe that kind of what you hinting at is the fact that the creative part doesn

489
00:43:29,920 --> 00:43:39,180
incorporate, it's not inside that proof of work. It comes from somewhere else. Now, where, I don't

490
00:43:39,180 --> 00:43:48,040
know. And, you know, for instance, I will say, you know, so I'm a lot older than you. I mean,

491
00:43:48,040 --> 00:43:55,040
I am a lot older than you. And looking back on my life, one of the things I've learned is, yes,

492
00:43:55,120 --> 00:43:59,800
I definitely was more along the lines of what we call in the U.S. a type A personality,

493
00:44:00,020 --> 00:44:06,020
somebody that works hard. But you know what? As time has gone by, I'm beginning to realize and

494
00:44:06,020 --> 00:44:11,660
understand, maybe you see this too, is that time is finite. It's short. And when you're 50

495
00:44:11,660 --> 00:44:15,440
and you're looking in front of you, you're thinking to yourself, you know what?

496
00:44:15,440 --> 00:44:23,740
the things that I may have valued as a young man, somehow I need to look, I need to zoom out and I

497
00:44:23,740 --> 00:44:29,320
need to look at those. I need to find what is the purpose of life? Where does, and maybe when you're

498
00:44:29,320 --> 00:44:35,900
looking at that, that maybe that's where you find creativity. What is my purpose? So I don't know if

499
00:44:35,900 --> 00:44:40,580
any of that answers some of the things you were asking about or that you brought up, but that's

500
00:44:40,580 --> 00:44:49,060
kind of my take on that uh don't i don't mind if it's not a an answer to the actual question but

501
00:44:49,060 --> 00:44:55,060
but it's a it's a valuable answer to me i mean uh i love this discussion because because i find it so

502
00:44:55,060 --> 00:45:03,420
fascinating because it differs so much from from human to human what creativity is to them uh

503
00:45:03,420 --> 00:45:09,840
I mean, we have super different views of what that is.

504
00:45:12,820 --> 00:45:14,060
Where was I going with this?

505
00:45:14,080 --> 00:45:15,240
I had something on my mind.

506
00:45:15,1000 --> 00:45:19,100
The photorealistic stuff is a super good example, I think,

507
00:45:19,180 --> 00:45:23,680
because you're putting in all this effort just to make something that a camera can do better.

508
00:45:25,080 --> 00:45:26,240
Yeah, well said.

509
00:45:26,740 --> 00:45:30,560
And the point of art is not to be a camera.

510
00:45:30,560 --> 00:45:31,740
Of course it isn't.

511
00:45:31,740 --> 00:45:41,520
It's a capture of feeling in the moment and make a time capsule in a way of how you felt at that point in time and conveying that feel.

512
00:45:41,520 --> 00:45:47,040
Like to me, my main art form is writing songs and doing music.

513
00:45:48,060 --> 00:45:52,700
I'm releasing an album soon, by the way, so you'll hear some of it at some point.

514
00:45:52,860 --> 00:45:54,860
I can't wait. I'm definitely going to get it.

515
00:45:54,860 --> 00:46:01,720
But that, and of course, the Bitcoin stuff has taken a lot from that lately.

516
00:46:01,720 --> 00:46:10,540
And I wouldn't say that I'm good enough to call myself a musician or an artist or anything like that.

517
00:46:10,560 --> 00:46:11,740
I do it for my own sake.

518
00:46:12,380 --> 00:46:19,640
But it's like, to me, it's a way of communicating feelings that you can't communicate with words.

519
00:46:20,1000 --> 00:46:24,100
Is that the same with, you know, paintings?

520
00:46:24,860 --> 00:46:30,740
Yeah, I love that. I love that, Newt. You know, the thing is that you've said a couple really

521
00:46:30,740 --> 00:46:38,200
important things, which is basically, you know, what am I doing this for? You know,

522
00:46:38,580 --> 00:46:43,980
that's really kind of the key. I mean, who are you? And, you know, when we talk about work,

523
00:46:43,980 --> 00:46:50,520
sometimes we have to realize that, yeah, if you love doing something, then you have to

524
00:46:50,520 --> 00:46:56,760
balance that in life with what you can either be paid for. Have you ever, are you familiar with

525
00:46:56,760 --> 00:47:02,240
Ikigai, the idea? Absolutely. I wrote an article about that, the Bitcoin Ikigai. It was one of the

526
00:47:02,240 --> 00:47:08,400
first articles I wrote. So you understand where I'm going with this. You know, first off, you

527
00:47:08,400 --> 00:47:14,940
obviously have a talent. I've heard you play. So you have, there's a talent, your creativity is in

528
00:47:14,940 --> 00:47:19,560
whoever you are. If you're listing this, you could be any, I have no idea what your creativity is,

529
00:47:19,560 --> 00:47:25,520
but you've got some. So you have your creativity. And then on the other hand, you should probably be

530
00:47:25,520 --> 00:47:29,900
thinking about, you know, is this something that makes a difference in the world? And it doesn't

531
00:47:29,900 --> 00:47:35,800
have to be something that you build that creates a pathway for Bitcoin to be adopted faster. I'm

532
00:47:35,800 --> 00:47:39,560
not talking about that. When I say, when I'm saying good for the world, I just mean, just puts,

533
00:47:39,700 --> 00:47:46,060
it's a, it's something that the world values or, or almost has a need. Sometimes you don't even

534
00:47:46,060 --> 00:47:51,580
know that the world needs it. And art for me, my painting, I think, fills that. I know that I

535
00:47:51,580 --> 00:47:56,300
produce work that isn't going to end up in a garbage can. And, you know, I'm working on stuff

536
00:47:56,300 --> 00:48:01,960
that's two to 300 years easily before it needs to be cleaned and restored. So for centuries,

537
00:48:02,040 --> 00:48:06,640
that model behind me, I've got a painting I just finished there with her. I mean, that model will

538
00:48:06,640 --> 00:48:12,200
be, she'll be dead. I'll be dead. You know, everything usually lasts only three, three

539
00:48:12,200 --> 00:48:17,380
generations. I don't care if you've got a beer can collection. I don't give a shit if you've got

540
00:48:17,380 --> 00:48:24,200
a great photographs collection, whatever. Usually about three generations is where it ends up in a

541
00:48:24,200 --> 00:48:31,960
garbage can. And getting back to Ikigai, the reason I mentioned that is because you also have

542
00:48:31,960 --> 00:48:39,640
to balance off what you can earn a living with. I'd have to say that this is where people fall

543
00:48:39,640 --> 00:48:48,980
down because they they're trying to make their creativity pay. And as soon as you do that again,

544
00:48:48,980 --> 00:48:54,480
just fall back to how we started the podcast. And, you know, that quote, if soon as you do that,

545
00:48:54,540 --> 00:49:00,700
you've got an issue there. If you can just somehow separate that feeling inside you of being wanting

546
00:49:00,700 --> 00:49:07,680
to create something just to create. I, you know, for me, just for me, I'll say that's where that's

547
00:49:07,680 --> 00:49:08,160
Where it lies

548
00:49:08,160 --> 00:49:09,640
When I'm in that mindset

549
00:49:09,640 --> 00:49:10,580
Where I'm just doing

550
00:49:10,580 --> 00:49:11,600
What I want to do

551
00:49:11,600 --> 00:49:12,820
And I don't give a shit

552
00:49:12,820 --> 00:49:14,180
What happens with it

553
00:49:14,180 --> 00:49:15,400
That's where I'm

554
00:49:15,400 --> 00:49:16,540
At my most creative

555
00:49:16,540 --> 00:49:17,420
And where I'm having

556
00:49:17,420 --> 00:49:18,700
My most fun too

557
00:49:18,700 --> 00:49:19,980
So

558
00:49:19,980 --> 00:49:21,420
That's just some thoughts

559
00:49:21,420 --> 00:49:22,500
Yeah

560
00:49:22,500 --> 00:49:24,160
Would you say that

561
00:49:24,160 --> 00:49:25,900
You're compelled to paint?

562
00:49:26,260 --> 00:49:27,280
Like does it feel like

563
00:49:27,280 --> 00:49:28,180
You have to?

564
00:49:28,840 --> 00:49:30,1000
Is it optional you think?

565
00:49:31,100 --> 00:49:31,640
Or do you have

566
00:49:31,640 --> 00:49:32,260
This

567
00:49:32,260 --> 00:49:34,740
Is the urge to paint so strong

568
00:49:34,740 --> 00:49:36,100
That you just can't deny it

569
00:49:36,100 --> 00:49:37,220
And just have to do it?

570
00:49:37,680 --> 00:49:50,620
That's a good question because then it makes you think to yourself, you know, artists have a reputation for being, you know, temperamental, depressed, moody.

571
00:49:51,560 --> 00:49:58,040
And I'd have to say, I don't know what it is because, you know, I've been hanging around artists for decades now.

572
00:49:58,560 --> 00:50:02,540
And I know from my own personal experience that there's some truth to that.

573
00:50:02,540 --> 00:50:12,140
But I also know that when I've become blocked where I just can't seem to work and I think it's never going to come back, it always does.

574
00:50:12,280 --> 00:50:17,040
There's some moment in my life when I'm thinking, I got to start painting again.

575
00:50:17,500 --> 00:50:23,640
I have a feeling that if you stop playing music or stop writing, you just rage quit.

576
00:50:24,520 --> 00:50:30,760
I bet within six months you'd be back because sometimes it's just inside you.

577
00:50:30,760 --> 00:50:37,320
I mean, and most people have that new, I mean, some, most people that you talk to, if you really

578
00:50:37,320 --> 00:50:41,840
spend time with them and just really listen to them, they'll, at some point you'll realize that

579
00:50:41,840 --> 00:50:46,520
there are things that they really want to do that they're just interested in just as a human being.

580
00:50:46,700 --> 00:50:53,040
It could be, you know, just making pottery or could just be, you know, so many different ways

581
00:50:53,040 --> 00:50:57,480
you can express yourself. And I think people need that, especially with the world that's coming,

582
00:50:57,480 --> 00:51:03,1000
the AI world. I think to express yourself is so important. Yeah, yeah. Real stupidity is our last

583
00:51:03,1000 --> 00:51:09,340
line of defense against artificial intelligence. Absolutely. There's a need for that.

584
00:51:11,520 --> 00:51:15,740
That's a paraphrasing Terry Pratchett, one of my favorite authors,

585
00:51:16,360 --> 00:51:21,040
said that real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time. And I think it's

586
00:51:21,040 --> 00:51:25,140
a very powerful quote. I like that. I view Bitcoin as real stupidity,

587
00:51:25,140 --> 00:51:27,520
like defending against AI in a way.

588
00:51:28,680 --> 00:51:33,100
But anyway, yeah, the thing you were alluding to before,

589
00:51:33,220 --> 00:51:35,980
I think like being a sellout is a big,

590
00:51:36,160 --> 00:51:39,260
like you should definitely strive to not be a sellout

591
00:51:39,260 --> 00:51:41,280
and just do things because you get paid.

592
00:51:41,420 --> 00:51:43,740
You think that you're going to get paid to do them.

593
00:51:44,040 --> 00:51:46,840
But there's a thing there, I think,

594
00:51:46,920 --> 00:51:48,440
that is kind of hard to navigate.

595
00:51:48,620 --> 00:51:49,860
And that is appreciation.

596
00:51:50,400 --> 00:51:53,960
Because if you get appreciated for some of your work,

597
00:51:53,960 --> 00:52:11,056
I think it inevitable that that will influence what you choose to focus on in the future Like if you make something and other people give you appreciation for it and say that it good then they chime in You think it good and they do too Then you going to do more of that

598
00:52:11,475 --> 00:52:14,536
And there's a way to view money as nothing but that.

599
00:52:14,776 --> 00:52:20,335
Money is sort of, I appreciate this with an extra amount of exclamation marks after it.

600
00:52:20,335 --> 00:52:22,796
There's really nothing more than that.

601
00:52:22,855 --> 00:52:25,256
It's just a way of showing more and more appreciation.

602
00:52:26,355 --> 00:52:26,636
Well said.

603
00:52:27,036 --> 00:52:28,896
So where's the line?

604
00:52:28,896 --> 00:52:34,376
Like where do you draw the line between doing what people want you to do and doing what you want to do?

605
00:52:34,715 --> 00:52:48,916
I mean, if you look at artists like musicians and writers and painters historically, this has always been like the struggle, the inner struggle every single artist is battling with, I think.

606
00:52:49,116 --> 00:52:53,176
So how do you prevent yourself from becoming a sellout?

607
00:52:54,455 --> 00:52:55,756
Yeah, that's the question.

608
00:52:56,335 --> 00:52:58,416
Yeah, that is the question, isn't it?

609
00:52:58,416 --> 00:53:05,196
because I did become a sellout. And you nailed it. That's exactly why. It was the compensation or the,

610
00:53:05,676 --> 00:53:09,355
actually, I didn't need the money at the time in the 90s when I was working for that gallery.

611
00:53:09,595 --> 00:53:14,595
I was flying as an airline pilot and I was making a good money, had a lot of time off.

612
00:53:15,955 --> 00:53:20,136
You know, I was flying all over the world. Things were great. So I didn't need the money,

613
00:53:20,136 --> 00:53:27,136
but it was that benchmark of success that you alluded to. And that's a slippery, you know,

614
00:53:27,136 --> 00:53:34,776
So it's almost, I mean, you're talking about some really deep philosophical discussions about what it means to be a man or a woman.

615
00:53:34,876 --> 00:53:39,355
I don't mean just a man, but the idea of what it means to be who you are inside internally.

616
00:53:39,776 --> 00:53:41,416
That's a really hard discussion.

617
00:53:42,016 --> 00:53:48,376
You know, in fact, speaking of men, I mean, you know, as a man, that's a tough discussion too.

618
00:53:48,475 --> 00:53:50,195
I mean, what does it mean to be a man?

619
00:53:50,196 --> 00:54:00,776
And how do you somehow navigate the world that has expectations of you or wants to put you in a certain bucket and you resist?

620
00:54:01,416 --> 00:54:11,796
You know, Bitcoiners as a whole, we are a group that are, I don't want to just use toxic because a lot of people aren't toxic.

621
00:54:11,796 --> 00:54:18,516
But, you know, we have a strong independent sense where we are free thinkers or deep thinkers.

622
00:54:18,516 --> 00:54:25,556
and you're touching on the very core of what it means to be internally yourself,

623
00:54:25,896 --> 00:54:27,416
to know who you are.

624
00:54:27,876 --> 00:54:30,636
And the only way to do that is through self-introspection.

625
00:54:30,816 --> 00:54:31,516
I mean, I don't know.

626
00:54:31,576 --> 00:54:32,156
Do you meditate?

627
00:54:34,056 --> 00:54:34,695
Yeah, sometimes.

628
00:54:35,095 --> 00:54:39,536
I think there's, yeah, not as much now as maybe 10 years ago,

629
00:54:39,676 --> 00:54:44,056
but I was kind of deep into meditation.

630
00:54:44,056 --> 00:54:49,316
I did it not for super long, but I did it quite consistently over a couple of years.

631
00:54:50,036 --> 00:54:55,095
Just before I wrote my first Bitcoin book and I still had my Fiat job and stuff, there was a ferry ride.

632
00:54:55,576 --> 00:55:03,896
I lived on an island, so I had to take an 11-minute ferry every day back and forth, morning and afternoon.

633
00:55:04,355 --> 00:55:08,656
So I meditated while I was on that, and I find it very valuable.

634
00:55:08,656 --> 00:55:23,595
I think there's the philosophical armchair philosopher bullshit I want to spew about that is that I think dropping your ego is the – that's how you find your true self.

635
00:55:24,016 --> 00:55:26,376
So the ego is sort of the opposite of the self.

636
00:55:26,376 --> 00:55:42,416
And you want to, but this is why it's so fascinating with this whole being a sellout or not, because I think as a man and as a provider, as a family man, if you will, and I'm not going to filter this through any postmodern bullshit.

637
00:55:42,776 --> 00:55:47,776
As a family man, you want to provide value to others.

638
00:55:48,556 --> 00:55:51,215
And ironically enough, that's how you get successful.

639
00:55:51,215 --> 00:56:01,516
Like successful people are successful because they add value to others or because they're assholes, which you can be also in fiat land.

640
00:56:02,036 --> 00:56:02,955
In Bitcoin, it's harder.

641
00:56:03,556 --> 00:56:10,936
But like if you're honestly wealthy, then you have become honestly wealthy because you provided a lot of value to others.

642
00:56:11,116 --> 00:56:14,256
So I think that that's inherent in us in some way.

643
00:56:14,256 --> 00:56:15,996
And I think art is that too.

644
00:56:15,996 --> 00:56:24,955
Like if I write a song or you draw a painting and paint a painting, you want other people to see it.

645
00:56:25,016 --> 00:56:27,195
You don't want it to just sit there in your garage.

646
00:56:27,355 --> 00:56:29,695
Like you want to show it to the world at some point, right?

647
00:56:30,256 --> 00:56:31,076
So, yeah.

648
00:56:32,676 --> 00:56:35,176
Yeah, you're dropping a lot of truth or not.

649
00:56:35,455 --> 00:56:37,336
You're dropping a lot of big thoughts here.

650
00:56:37,336 --> 00:56:41,156
So, you know, I have a quote that it's my quote.

651
00:56:41,156 --> 00:56:48,455
And I say to people sometimes, you know, the ego seeks windows where the mind builds walls.

652
00:56:49,475 --> 00:56:50,916
And, you know, it.

653
00:56:51,455 --> 00:56:51,796
Love that.

654
00:56:52,276 --> 00:56:58,016
Well, and if you will just let go of your ego, the walls will fall away.

655
00:56:58,076 --> 00:56:59,276
You'll be standing outside.

656
00:56:59,636 --> 00:57:09,556
I, you know, I, the best thing that ever happened to me was a really, really nasty period in my life about a decade ago.

657
00:57:09,556 --> 00:57:15,215
a little bit more in a decade now. And I mean, it, it, uh, kind of like broke me.

658
00:57:15,575 --> 00:57:19,816
I was at the end of my rope. You know, I told you I was an airline pilot. The airline had gone

659
00:57:19,816 --> 00:57:26,595
into bankruptcy. They stole my pension. The great financial crisis had hit. I was living in a dinky

660
00:57:26,595 --> 00:57:31,595
house in a kind of a, not a great neighborhood, just trying to get along, just trying. I was

661
00:57:31,595 --> 00:57:37,195
actually just trying to get from one month to the next in bills. I'd gone through a really bad,

662
00:57:37,195 --> 00:57:44,695
divorce. I couldn't make my alimony payments. I mean, my whole life was just coming undone.

663
00:57:45,695 --> 00:57:53,475
And I was heartbroken. I mean, I was devastated. I remember, sometimes I couldn't even,

664
00:57:53,576 --> 00:57:57,676
and I'm telling people this because I know I just was talking to somebody. There are people out

665
00:57:57,676 --> 00:58:02,916
there that are having a tough time right now. And it was bad enough where I couldn't get out of bed.

666
00:58:02,916 --> 00:58:05,215
I mean, there were some mornings I just laid there.

667
00:58:06,676 --> 00:58:08,916
And what I'm going to tell people right now is

668
00:58:08,916 --> 00:58:14,916
the best thing that ever happened to me was going through that period in my life.

669
00:58:15,396 --> 00:58:19,616
And in the biblical sense, it was like sitting in your ashes,

670
00:58:19,796 --> 00:58:22,796
like sitting in the ashes, you know, the Garden of Gethsemane,

671
00:58:23,016 --> 00:58:28,076
that you're out there just going through this pain because you have to.

672
00:58:29,095 --> 00:58:31,076
And, you know, here's another thing.

673
00:58:31,076 --> 00:58:32,715
if you're going through this tough time,

674
00:58:32,935 --> 00:58:33,776
nobody's gonna fix it.

675
00:58:33,855 --> 00:58:34,536
Nobody can save you.

676
00:58:34,975 --> 00:58:36,256
People will come up to you and they'll say,

677
00:58:36,355 --> 00:58:37,695
oh, you just need to do this.

678
00:58:37,756 --> 00:58:38,676
You need to do that.

679
00:58:39,036 --> 00:58:40,676
It'll pass and all this stuff.

680
00:58:40,796 --> 00:58:41,656
It doesn't help.

681
00:58:42,296 --> 00:58:43,095
Nothing's gonna help.

682
00:58:43,176 --> 00:58:44,355
You just have to get through this.

683
00:58:44,435 --> 00:58:46,576
You get through it by getting through the next five minutes.

684
00:58:46,955 --> 00:58:48,336
Then you get through the next hour.

685
00:58:48,676 --> 00:58:50,195
Then you get through the morning.

686
00:58:50,336 --> 00:58:52,496
And then someday you find out you've gotten through the day

687
00:58:52,496 --> 00:58:54,516
and the evening comes and it's rough.

688
00:58:54,516 --> 00:58:55,855
But then finally you get to a point

689
00:58:55,855 --> 00:58:56,816
where you get through days.

690
00:58:57,756 --> 00:59:00,136
And on the other side of that,

691
00:59:00,136 --> 00:59:09,676
on the other side of this, I lost, I, my ego was gone. I mean, my, my ego was just gone. I didn't

692
00:59:09,676 --> 00:59:16,056
have it. And I've never, I've never thought, I've never thought the same way about myself. You know,

693
00:59:16,056 --> 00:59:20,876
I came from a community where I was a fighter pilot, top gun pilot, you know, airline pilot.

694
00:59:21,076 --> 00:59:26,876
I was, you know, I was like top of the mountain, king of the hill. And I really thought a lot about

695
00:59:26,876 --> 00:59:31,296
myself. I thought I was pretty important in life. Best thing that ever happened to me was have that

696
00:59:31,296 --> 00:59:36,435
ego just destroyed. And then all the walls, they just fell down. I was standing outside. I looked

697
00:59:36,435 --> 00:59:41,156
around. I thought, wow, this is pretty cool down here. And now I can just relax. And, you know,

698
00:59:41,156 --> 00:59:45,735
I'm talking my ass off here, but, you know, I don't know if you saw me at the concert or conference,

699
00:59:45,735 --> 00:59:51,916
but when I meet people, I just be quiet. I just, I love to just listen to people. And it's just,

700
00:59:51,916 --> 00:59:53,095
It's such a gift.

701
00:59:54,536 --> 00:59:59,376
Yeah, I was almost disappointed with that because I wanted to hear you talk.

702
00:59:59,516 --> 01:00:01,676
And I'm tired of hearing myself talk.

703
01:00:02,095 --> 01:00:04,896
But you asked all the questions when we met in Prague.

704
01:00:05,676 --> 01:00:06,536
Yeah, but you know what?

705
01:00:06,556 --> 01:00:07,676
I learned a lot from you.

706
01:00:07,676 --> 01:00:16,595
You know, the same thing with that one person I was telling you about, you know, the discussion around mushrooms and ayahuasca and stuff.

707
01:00:16,676 --> 01:00:18,855
You know, I never would have learned any of his story.

708
01:00:18,855 --> 01:00:22,036
And, you know, he kind of maybe changed my life a little bit.

709
01:00:22,136 --> 01:00:24,896
So I just was quiet, put my ego away.

710
01:00:24,955 --> 01:00:25,876
I didn't have to impress him.

711
01:00:25,896 --> 01:00:27,595
And, you know, we talked about being a man.

712
01:00:28,136 --> 01:00:34,376
You know, if you're a confident man, and I'm just saying this to the young Bitcoiners out there because I, you know, I'm old.

713
01:00:34,435 --> 01:00:35,636
I don't have to worry about it anymore.

714
01:00:35,636 --> 01:00:55,892
But there a lot of young Bitcoiners out there that are dating or not dating or want to date or maybe they given up But you know I going to give you some advice When you find somebody and you want to date them you want to go out and do something together you know be confident Know who you are as a man You don need to impress people You should be talking a lot less You should be

715
01:00:55,892 --> 01:01:00,831
listening a lot more and make somebody feel important. You know, get to know their story.

716
01:01:00,912 --> 01:01:05,231
And here's another thing, too. If you're smart like that, you'll see if there's any red flags

717
01:01:05,231 --> 01:01:09,291
that come up because they'll talk themselves into it. You'll know that person pretty well at the end

718
01:01:09,291 --> 01:01:13,971
of a dinner or say you're just out for a walk or something like that, or just meeting somebody

719
01:01:13,971 --> 01:01:19,051
casually, maybe in a bar, let them talk. And then you'll learn a lot about them. But if they're

720
01:01:19,051 --> 01:01:22,431
really a neat person at the end of that, you know what, they're going to think you're pretty damn

721
01:01:22,431 --> 01:01:26,071
cool. And they're going to know that you're confident. You don't need to sit there and

722
01:01:26,071 --> 01:01:31,371
brag about yourself and what you've done and what kind of shit you got. I met somebody at the airport

723
01:01:31,371 --> 01:01:35,772
on the way back from Prague and I was getting ready to get on the plane and stuff. And this

724
01:01:35,772 --> 01:01:40,791
guy was talking to me. And within five minutes, I mean, he had basically told me all of his

725
01:01:40,791 --> 01:01:45,091
important things, how important he was, the business he had and his offices and everything.

726
01:01:45,091 --> 01:01:50,251
And I thought, you know what? You're a jackass. You know, you're a whole, you're not anybody I

727
01:01:50,251 --> 01:01:54,211
want to spend any time with. And I was thrilled to death when I got on board the plane and he

728
01:01:54,211 --> 01:01:58,431
walked past me and went to the back. I was thought, oh, this is great, buddy. Adios.

729
01:01:59,071 --> 01:02:05,631
So just remember that. That is such a good story because it sort of reflects

730
01:02:05,631 --> 01:02:08,971
this creativity being the opposite of productivity.

731
01:02:09,652 --> 01:02:13,351
Like a guy, I can think that that was a productivity maximalist

732
01:02:13,351 --> 01:02:14,851
and a creativity minimalist.

733
01:02:16,351 --> 01:02:16,912
What do you think?

734
01:02:17,191 --> 01:02:17,311
I agree.

735
01:02:19,011 --> 01:02:20,591
I mean, yeah.

736
01:02:22,171 --> 01:02:23,532
Yeah, there's so many insights here.

737
01:02:23,591 --> 01:02:25,611
And this is why I was excited to talk to you

738
01:02:25,611 --> 01:02:28,831
because I know you're philosophical like that too.

739
01:02:28,931 --> 01:02:30,652
You're much like me in that sense.

740
01:02:31,191 --> 01:02:34,392
Like you like to explore these topics and I love it.

741
01:02:35,091 --> 01:02:35,392
Yeah.

742
01:02:35,631 --> 01:02:37,451
Yeah, it is so important.

743
01:02:37,611 --> 01:02:38,912
You know, the reason I mentioned,

744
01:02:39,051 --> 01:02:40,272
we didn't really discuss it much,

745
01:02:40,311 --> 01:02:41,571
but the reason I mentioned meditation

746
01:02:41,571 --> 01:02:43,611
is because when you meditate,

747
01:02:43,611 --> 01:02:45,551
you're not trying to get any deep insight.

748
01:02:45,652 --> 01:02:46,931
You're not sitting there trying to fix,

749
01:02:47,211 --> 01:02:49,311
you know, you're not, truthfully,

750
01:02:49,392 --> 01:02:51,451
what you really want to do is just let your mind go.

751
01:02:52,091 --> 01:02:53,611
And, but the reason I mentioned it

752
01:02:53,611 --> 01:02:56,931
is because I found out that the more I'm engaging in it,

753
01:02:56,971 --> 01:03:00,431
the more I'm able to focus outside of that period.

754
01:03:00,511 --> 01:03:01,892
And all you need is 10 minutes.

755
01:03:02,251 --> 01:03:05,231
And it allows me to more clearly focus

756
01:03:05,231 --> 01:03:06,271
on some of the issues.

757
01:03:06,392 --> 01:03:07,711
And quite frankly, like we said,

758
01:03:07,791 --> 01:03:08,751
coming back from Prague,

759
01:03:09,271 --> 01:03:10,311
this is a chance for me.

760
01:03:10,371 --> 01:03:12,031
I'm going to do a lot of self-reflection

761
01:03:12,031 --> 01:03:14,111
and introspection this year.

762
01:03:14,191 --> 01:03:14,791
That's my goal.

763
01:03:16,152 --> 01:03:17,311
Yeah, I mean, that's,

764
01:03:18,211 --> 01:03:21,091
if you've truly learned

765
01:03:21,091 --> 01:03:22,371
how to meditate properly,

766
01:03:22,371 --> 01:03:25,451
you can get back into that mind state

767
01:03:25,451 --> 01:03:27,531
pretty easily afterwards, I feel.

768
01:03:27,771 --> 01:03:29,392
That's why the main reason

769
01:03:29,392 --> 01:03:30,671
I don't do it that much anymore

770
01:03:30,671 --> 01:03:34,331
is because I feel like more zen

771
01:03:34,331 --> 01:03:39,912
as a default mode or I can get back to it pretty quickly if I get angry or irritated

772
01:03:39,912 --> 01:03:40,912
or something.

773
01:03:40,912 --> 01:03:45,791
It's like, oh, no, no, no, maybe you're the idiot here and maybe you should just calm

774
01:03:45,791 --> 01:03:47,412
down.

775
01:03:47,412 --> 01:03:53,831
Because if you're in an argument, no matter who you're in an argument with, you should

776
01:03:53,831 --> 01:03:57,571
have the insight that you can change yourself, but you cannot change the other person.

777
01:03:57,571 --> 01:04:03,191
So you can change your way of doing the argumentation, but you cannot change the other person's mind

778
01:04:03,191 --> 01:04:06,211
with anything but that, like that's the tool you have.

779
01:04:06,251 --> 01:04:07,152
You can change yourself.

780
01:04:07,331 --> 01:04:09,231
You cannot change the situation around you,

781
01:04:09,351 --> 01:04:11,951
this whole Marcus Aurelius thingy.

782
01:04:12,491 --> 01:04:16,431
Well, I don't think I'm quite at the good point

783
01:04:16,431 --> 01:04:16,991
that you are.

784
01:04:17,551 --> 01:04:20,451
I think that's probably my biggest failing.

785
01:04:20,591 --> 01:04:22,451
You know, I try to live my day every day,

786
01:04:22,551 --> 01:04:24,311
honor, integrity, strength.

787
01:04:24,772 --> 01:04:26,912
And then I add kindness, you know, four words.

788
01:04:26,991 --> 01:04:29,772
That's why I try and live, honor, integrity, strength.

789
01:04:30,251 --> 01:04:32,111
But the last word is kindness.

790
01:04:32,111 --> 01:04:36,331
And I think I kind of put that one like on the, it's kind of a smaller bucket.

791
01:04:36,631 --> 01:04:45,611
And quite frankly, I have to say that's my, if you know, if anybody were asking me, what's your biggest failing or regret, I'd have to say that's the one.

792
01:04:45,691 --> 01:04:46,751
But I'm doing better.

793
01:04:47,191 --> 01:04:48,331
I mean, I am doing better.

794
01:04:48,331 --> 01:04:52,031
But I don't think they are mutually exclusive, any of these things.

795
01:04:52,031 --> 01:05:03,331
If you're truly kind and someone asks you for your honest opinion on something they did, you don't wrap it in ribbons.

796
01:05:03,591 --> 01:05:12,631
You say what you think because that's much more valuable to them than someone just licking ass and saying, oh, that's beautiful.

797
01:05:12,631 --> 01:05:18,111
like it's funny how you and i our discussion here is really revolved around one word which is

798
01:05:18,111 --> 01:05:24,031
integrity yes i mean in my mind in my mind it is integrity which you know everything from

799
01:05:24,031 --> 01:05:30,591
whether you're talking about selling out or you know proof of work or artistic creativity or

800
01:05:30,591 --> 01:05:37,751
all of these different things you know integrity is it's that it's that key point is that you know

801
01:05:37,751 --> 01:05:42,231
it's when you're up there in the mirror shaving and you look at yourself and you man you you feel

802
01:05:42,231 --> 01:05:46,351
good about yourself or you really don't, if you were to ask yourself, you know, do I feel good

803
01:05:46,351 --> 01:05:52,491
about who I am? And, you know, I've mentioned before, I mean, you're a kid. I don't have that

804
01:05:52,491 --> 01:05:57,351
many blocks to mine here on this planet. And when I'm done, you know, I'm going to look back on my

805
01:05:57,351 --> 01:06:03,971
life and hopefully I'll have a moment to just reflect before I'm gone. And I hope that I can

806
01:06:03,971 --> 01:06:09,691
be honest with myself and that I can feel like it was a life well lived and, you know, that I

807
01:06:09,691 --> 01:06:15,811
contributed something yeah i think the the thing you alluded to before the the depression period

808
01:06:15,811 --> 01:06:21,371
there or whatever you may call it like i mean i i don't think i ever had a proper depression i think

809
01:06:21,371 --> 01:06:27,172
i was close uh once or twice in my life i mean i've lived for 50 years now so it would be surprising

810
01:06:27,172 --> 01:06:34,531
if i hadn't but uh uh when dumped by my former girlfriend and stuff like that like way way back

811
01:06:34,531 --> 01:06:43,711
when uh but uh i i did have a couple of near-death experiences where i thought i was going to die

812
01:06:43,711 --> 01:06:51,011
a handful of them throughout my life like including hurricanes on the north atlantic so so uh and i

813
01:06:51,011 --> 01:06:56,931
think i learned a lot from those because any any reminder you get that you're you're an ant on a

814
01:06:56,931 --> 01:07:03,251
spinning rock until you aren't like like you you have your life is super fragile and like then you

815
01:07:03,251 --> 01:07:08,051
become grateful for all of it uh and you're reminded that you ought to be grateful for all

816
01:07:08,051 --> 01:07:13,571
of it because otherwise you miss your chance of enjoying yourself like if you don't enjoy the

817
01:07:13,571 --> 01:07:19,771
moment there is nothing else to enjoy than the moment the future and the past are that they are

818
01:07:19,771 --> 01:07:26,471
uh vast and they're one is one direction and one's the other direction and we're in the very

819
01:07:26,471 --> 01:07:31,951
intersection that isn't even a point it's it's just a nothingness in between and that's where

820
01:07:31,951 --> 01:07:34,152
everything that ever happened in your life happened.

821
01:07:35,531 --> 01:07:35,971
Wow.

822
01:07:36,591 --> 01:07:37,331
Wow, dude.

823
01:07:37,351 --> 01:07:38,851
So you need to appreciate that.

824
01:07:39,611 --> 01:07:42,771
You know, yeah, man, again, I'll just say,

825
01:07:43,491 --> 01:07:47,271
you know, I stopped counting at 15, I think,

826
01:07:47,631 --> 01:07:49,111
near-death experiences.

827
01:07:49,371 --> 01:07:51,591
In fact, I've got, I don't think you can see in the frame,

828
01:07:51,652 --> 01:07:53,892
you can see the jet up there above my shoulder,

829
01:07:53,971 --> 01:07:56,031
but right below that, there's a little thing in there.

830
01:07:56,031 --> 01:07:57,411
It's got a news clipping.

831
01:07:57,591 --> 01:08:01,731
It says Navy pilot ejects safely or something like that.

832
01:08:01,951 --> 01:08:09,271
You know, I, I, I celebrate that day every year because yeah, you know what?

833
01:08:09,331 --> 01:08:11,931
Life is precious and it's short and it's fragile.

834
01:08:12,091 --> 01:08:17,831
I mean, it's, it's, and I, you should be able to answer at some point, you know, are you

835
01:08:17,831 --> 01:08:22,892
comfortable with who you are, whether it's being a man or, or being a human, I don't

836
01:08:22,892 --> 01:08:23,911
care how you want to frame it.

837
01:08:23,911 --> 01:08:26,991
You should be able to be comfortable because that can happen at any moment.

838
01:08:26,991 --> 01:08:33,652
You know, I just lost a buddy recently and it was terrible.

839
01:08:33,851 --> 01:08:35,731
I mean, you know, it was just instant.

840
01:08:35,851 --> 01:08:42,991
He was alive one minute, actually one second, and then he was tragically killed and stupid

841
01:08:42,991 --> 01:08:46,111
too, stupid fucking accident, absolutely unnecessary.

842
01:08:46,611 --> 01:08:55,991
And, you know, I just, I wish I could somehow give that gift to everybody that's listening

843
01:08:55,991 --> 01:09:02,652
right now or watching, if I could give you that gift, that idea of to embrace and how precious

844
01:09:02,652 --> 01:09:08,432
life is, I would give it to you right now. And you wouldn't waste any more time. Every day,

845
01:09:08,531 --> 01:09:14,071
you'd be looking around and going, you know, I'm enjoying my life. Even if life's going bad and

846
01:09:14,071 --> 01:09:18,912
sucks, you know, you still, there's something about it. You just, you are grateful for certain

847
01:09:18,912 --> 01:09:23,172
things. If you're walking, you're just grateful that I can walk today. You know, I just about

848
01:09:23,172 --> 01:09:26,652
ended up, you know, I could have, I've had some experiences

849
01:09:26,687 --> 01:09:28,887
in the Navy, I could have ended up not walking ever again

850
01:09:28,887 --> 01:09:30,687
the rest of my life, and I made it.

851
01:09:31,507 --> 01:09:32,887
So, yeah, I mean,

852
01:09:32,887 --> 01:09:34,847
you're just touching on a lot

853
01:09:34,847 --> 01:09:36,907
of deep things here, buddy.

854
01:09:38,347 --> 01:09:38,787
Yeah,

855
01:09:38,887 --> 01:09:41,067
as I said, that's why I wanted you on,

856
01:09:41,167 --> 01:09:43,027
because I feel a connection here

857
01:09:43,027 --> 01:09:44,987
that you're able

858
01:09:44,987 --> 01:09:46,267
to talk about these things

859
01:09:46,267 --> 01:09:48,807
and

860
01:09:48,807 --> 01:09:50,667
enjoy talking about them.

861
01:09:51,367 --> 01:09:52,527
Not a lot of people do.

862
01:09:54,027 --> 01:09:54,767
So, yeah,

863
01:09:54,847 --> 01:09:56,267
we're coming up on

864
01:09:56,267 --> 01:09:58,067
an hour and 10 minutes.

865
01:10:01,427 --> 01:10:03,767
Before we close this out,

866
01:10:03,907 --> 01:10:05,627
which we don't need to do right now,

867
01:10:05,667 --> 01:10:06,007
by the way,

868
01:10:06,027 --> 01:10:07,287
we could go for another 20 minutes,

869
01:10:07,327 --> 01:10:08,767
as long as you want.

870
01:10:09,507 --> 01:10:10,967
But is there anything

871
01:10:10,967 --> 01:10:12,267
we haven't talked about yet

872
01:10:12,267 --> 01:10:13,467
that you'd like to have

873
01:10:13,467 --> 01:10:14,507
a conversation about?

874
01:10:15,947 --> 01:10:17,947
Any subjects in particular?

875
01:10:18,667 --> 01:10:20,227
Yeah, I think that,

876
01:10:20,847 --> 01:10:22,387
you know, I started this out,

877
01:10:22,527 --> 01:10:23,887
this conversation with us,

878
01:10:24,127 --> 01:10:25,187
you know, discussing about

879
01:10:25,187 --> 01:10:32,847
how I think I'm going to be a little bit more forthright. Some people might say that I don't

880
01:10:32,847 --> 01:10:37,147
hold back as it is, but I think I'm going to be more forthright about some of the discussions that

881
01:10:37,147 --> 01:10:42,487
are going on or need to be happening in the community. And, you know, I think we touched on

882
01:10:42,487 --> 01:10:49,107
BIP-110 and Core, which is great. I think also, you know, on these Bitcoin treasury companies,

883
01:10:49,107 --> 01:10:50,787
We need to probably touch on that.

884
01:10:51,227 --> 01:10:56,947
And, well, you know, they're in the news right now, obviously.

885
01:10:57,267 --> 01:11:05,527
And my focus here is that, you know, from this last cycle, we touched a little bit when we were discussing Giovanni.

886
01:11:05,787 --> 01:11:11,187
We touched a little bit about Plan B and that model and the last cycle and how people really got hurt.

887
01:11:11,187 --> 01:11:15,967
and as these financial products are being built on top of Bitcoin,

888
01:11:16,587 --> 01:11:19,947
you've got to understand that there are some people

889
01:11:19,947 --> 01:11:22,047
who are going to get really hurt in this environment.

890
01:11:22,167 --> 01:11:22,807
They already have.

891
01:11:23,027 --> 01:11:25,947
I mean, if you look at Nakamoto and Naka and where that went,

892
01:11:26,587 --> 01:11:30,307
you know, I've got somebody, we follow each other on X,

893
01:11:30,307 --> 01:11:32,267
and I mean, he's lost probably, I think,

894
01:11:32,327 --> 01:11:35,127
half a million dollars of his own money in that company.

895
01:11:36,367 --> 01:11:39,627
And that's a common thread with a lot of people.

896
01:11:39,627 --> 01:11:45,407
and I, at the time, knew something.

897
01:11:47,007 --> 01:11:49,427
Somebody asked me about investing about it privately

898
01:11:49,427 --> 01:11:50,727
and I said I wouldn't touch that.

899
01:11:50,807 --> 01:11:52,507
It was at the time before it came out.

900
01:11:52,587 --> 01:11:53,547
I said I wouldn't touch that

901
01:11:53,547 --> 01:11:58,247
and I never really discussed it outside of those loops

902
01:11:58,247 --> 01:12:00,827
and now we've got another one

903
01:12:00,827 --> 01:12:02,067
that's going to be launching here.

904
01:12:02,207 --> 01:12:03,567
I think it's BSTR,

905
01:12:03,887 --> 01:12:07,867
which is another one of these treasury companies

906
01:12:07,867 --> 01:12:12,187
And this one, of course, is Adam Back will be behind this product.

907
01:12:12,507 --> 01:12:26,067
And, you know, I don't know if you're following any of the reporting that's been done on that regarding Hodlnott's discussion on the Blockstream mining note, which is, you know, in the past.

908
01:12:26,207 --> 01:12:27,907
This is how they've been raising money.

909
01:12:28,907 --> 01:12:30,107
Have you been following that?

910
01:12:30,347 --> 01:12:30,607
Of course.

911
01:12:30,707 --> 01:12:31,087
Of course.

912
01:12:31,167 --> 01:12:32,147
I follow it closely.

913
01:12:32,967 --> 01:12:33,487
Yeah.

914
01:12:33,547 --> 01:12:36,807
And I love to hear people's opinions about it.

915
01:12:36,807 --> 01:12:43,867
I'm a skeptic by nature, and I'm skeptic towards all sides.

916
01:12:44,187 --> 01:12:50,847
So I'm skeptic about the, first of all, about the product.

917
01:12:51,007 --> 01:12:53,567
I don't really believe in Bitcoin treasury companies in general.

918
01:12:54,147 --> 01:12:59,567
And I'm skeptic about the company, Blockstream, but I'm also skeptic about the accusations.

919
01:12:59,567 --> 01:13:06,287
I'm skeptic towards all sides of the arguments

920
01:13:06,287 --> 01:13:07,627
Let's just say that

921
01:13:07,627 --> 01:13:10,787
Well, I'll tell you what

922
01:13:10,787 --> 01:13:12,567
For the people that aren't listening there

923
01:13:12,567 --> 01:13:14,907
There's been some reporting that's come out recently

924
01:13:14,907 --> 01:13:21,327
That the gentleman, their CIO, Christopher Cook

925
01:13:21,327 --> 01:13:25,047
For the Bitcoin mining note

926
01:13:25,047 --> 01:13:28,167
Was convicted, he's a convicted felon

927
01:13:28,167 --> 01:13:30,567
and it was for mail fraud, I believe.

928
01:13:31,907 --> 01:13:44,825
And I don think that ever been disclosed in any paperwork that I am aware of or at least I haven seen it And you know there documentation that shows that he has spent tremendous amounts of money

929
01:13:45,185 --> 01:13:53,925
And if you're curious what this what we're talking about here, basically, it's think of it as like almost cloud mining where you're renting out hash rate.

930
01:13:54,585 --> 01:13:59,205
Well, if you look at that organization, I mean, their hash rate right now should be off the charts.

931
01:13:59,205 --> 01:14:04,465
I mean, they should be producing enough hash rate that we should have no trouble finding that.

932
01:14:05,085 --> 01:14:06,285
So you say you're skeptical.

933
01:14:06,665 --> 01:14:18,065
So, you know, I would just say that if right now I think what Blockstream needs to do is they need to address this issue, you know, first and foremost.

934
01:14:18,625 --> 01:14:25,785
And, you know, if I'm blowing smoke up people's asses, then go ahead and show the pool account hash rate.

935
01:14:25,865 --> 01:14:26,205
Show it.

936
01:14:26,385 --> 01:14:27,065
You can show that.

937
01:14:27,065 --> 01:14:27,625
It's not hard.

938
01:14:27,625 --> 01:14:32,305
You know, show us the power contracts you've got down in Texas and everywhere.

939
01:14:32,565 --> 01:14:34,405
Show us the proof that you're actually mining.

940
01:14:35,425 --> 01:14:38,045
You know, show us the ASICs that you have in inventory.

941
01:14:38,445 --> 01:14:38,985
I mean, do it.

942
01:14:41,265 --> 01:14:44,305
You know, give us the give us the auditor reports.

943
01:14:44,605 --> 01:14:49,565
Find and show me where if if this is the right cook and he's actually a felon.

944
01:14:50,205 --> 01:14:52,105
Show me where this is disclosed.

945
01:14:52,225 --> 01:14:54,005
It's a fitting surname, right?

946
01:14:54,005 --> 01:15:05,065
so all i'm saying is you know people are going to be hurt i think and already have been and

947
01:15:05,065 --> 01:15:12,085
you know i'm not discussing strategy i i don't have you know i still have stock or equity and

948
01:15:12,085 --> 01:15:17,645
and strategy so maybe i'm biased and you should just tell me to go you know screw myself but

949
01:15:17,645 --> 01:15:23,305
you should probably sell it what's that you should probably sell it and buy bitcoin instead

950
01:15:23,905 --> 01:15:24,805
Well, you know what?

951
01:15:25,285 --> 01:15:26,065
Hey, guess what?

952
01:15:26,145 --> 01:15:27,205
I'm going to tell you something.

953
01:15:28,105 --> 01:15:29,445
That's probably good advice.

954
01:15:29,605 --> 01:15:32,305
And if anybody's listening, I would echo that advice.

955
01:15:32,445 --> 01:15:34,805
Remember what we said at the start of this conversation.

956
01:15:35,645 --> 01:15:40,445
You know, you have to realize because of my history and how the world that I grew up in,

957
01:15:40,445 --> 01:15:47,965
a lot of my history involves pension funds, which I still do have pension funds and other avenues.

958
01:15:48,885 --> 01:15:52,445
401ks, which is a very big investment vehicle in the U.S.

959
01:15:52,445 --> 01:15:54,965
and equities and stuff.

960
01:15:55,865 --> 01:15:57,445
You know, all of it's in Bitcoin,

961
01:15:57,765 --> 01:15:59,725
but it's paper Bitcoin.

962
01:16:00,445 --> 01:16:02,705
It's basically a promise.

963
01:16:02,705 --> 01:16:05,505
I don't have any Bitcoin through those avenues.

964
01:16:05,645 --> 01:16:05,885
None.

965
01:16:06,185 --> 01:16:07,245
That's not my Bitcoin.

966
01:16:07,665 --> 01:16:09,545
The only Bitcoin I have is a Bitcoin

967
01:16:09,545 --> 01:16:11,565
that I have put away in cold storage.

968
01:16:11,805 --> 01:16:13,605
That's my Bitcoin.

969
01:16:14,145 --> 01:16:15,705
So maybe rather than discussing

970
01:16:15,705 --> 01:16:18,265
any of these treasury companies

971
01:16:18,265 --> 01:16:19,125
or where they're going,

972
01:16:19,465 --> 01:16:21,165
what we should really say to people is

973
01:16:21,165 --> 01:16:28,885
if you're serious about having wealth in the future that is yours, that cannot be seized,

974
01:16:29,445 --> 01:16:35,565
that has now no counterparty risk. It used to be gold. You used to be able to say that about

975
01:16:35,565 --> 01:16:41,925
gold if you held the physical gold. But at the same time, if you want something where you can

976
01:16:41,925 --> 01:16:49,505
actually cross borders with it and keep your wealth intact, especially in a digital dystopian

977
01:16:49,505 --> 01:16:55,665
prison being built by AI, then you have to have Bitcoin and Bitcoin in cold storage.

978
01:16:55,865 --> 01:16:56,985
You need to run a node.

979
01:16:57,245 --> 01:17:00,805
You need to have a wallet that you know how can interact with a node.

980
01:17:01,045 --> 01:17:03,185
You are truly sovereign then.

981
01:17:03,785 --> 01:17:06,025
And until that, you're just you're like me.

982
01:17:06,305 --> 01:17:11,125
You're just, I don't know, virtue signaling with paper products.

983
01:17:11,585 --> 01:17:12,225
Yeah.

984
01:17:12,225 --> 01:17:22,165
Yeah. All of these paper Bitcoin companies and quote-unquote solutions, they remind me of

985
01:17:22,165 --> 01:17:30,505
pension funds that the banks in Sweden used to advertise for like 20 years back. And the ads

986
01:17:30,505 --> 01:17:36,205
always featured young women. So they were targeting young women, women in their early 20s,

987
01:17:36,205 --> 01:17:39,165
to start saving for their pensions.

988
01:17:39,165 --> 01:17:40,585
And why is that?

989
01:17:40,585 --> 01:17:55,662
Well it because women are not as prone to taking risk as men to begin with statistically So it probably easier to sell pension fund FUD or pension FUD to younger women

990
01:17:55,662 --> 01:18:01,922
And then, of course, the banks could reinvest that money and guarantee a certain profit

991
01:18:01,922 --> 01:18:07,462
that probably wouldn't even cover the inflation in the end.

992
01:18:07,462 --> 01:18:21,242
And I think a product like Stretch reminds me of that because it's promising 11% per year unless something goes to shit.

993
01:18:21,742 --> 01:18:24,062
And there's a lot of counterparty risk.

994
01:18:24,522 --> 01:18:32,202
But 11% per year so that Saylor can get all the additional percent that would come from every Bitcoin cycle.

995
01:18:32,202 --> 01:18:59,622
And that is, to me, buying that product seems very ill-advised because not only are you excluding yourself from the actual super-duper gains that you could have gotten from holding real Bitcoin instead, you're also taking on like three levels of counterparty risk because you're trusting Saylor to not change his mind or die for that matter.

996
01:18:59,622 --> 01:19:03,542
because we don't know what happens to strategy's stuff

997
01:19:03,542 --> 01:19:04,702
after Saylor's gone.

998
01:19:04,702 --> 01:19:08,042
Like he's a benevolent leader there, I guess.

999
01:19:09,542 --> 01:19:13,482
And you're trusting strategy to actually have the Bitcoin they have,

1000
01:19:13,962 --> 01:19:15,942
which they have custodied with Coinbase.

1001
01:19:16,042 --> 01:19:19,362
So you're trusting Coinbase to actually have that Bitcoin in custody.

1002
01:19:19,842 --> 01:19:24,102
And you're trusting whatever American institution

1003
01:19:24,102 --> 01:19:28,702
that surveys Coinbase.

1004
01:19:28,702 --> 01:19:31,702
Coinbase, that audits Coinbase, audits is the word.

1005
01:19:33,062 --> 01:19:39,082
So in the end of the day, you're trusting some guy at Coinbase to hold the Bitcoin for

1006
01:19:39,082 --> 01:19:47,982
all of these billions of dollars worth of Bitcoin for this guy in three levels of counterparty risk.

1007
01:19:48,362 --> 01:19:53,962
And just to get a lower yield than you would have had, had you just taken the Bitcoin into

1008
01:19:53,962 --> 01:19:54,922
self-custody yourself.

1009
01:19:54,922 --> 01:20:06,962
So I think it's a totally moronic product and only a very naive boomer would, no offense, but would fall for such a thing.

1010
01:20:07,782 --> 01:20:08,602
What's your take?

1011
01:20:09,162 --> 01:20:09,642
That's me.

1012
01:20:09,882 --> 01:20:16,642
I definitely was a naive boomer because about four months ago, I did have a bunch of cash and I stuck it in there.

1013
01:20:16,882 --> 01:20:18,502
And then I actually bought it.

1014
01:20:18,902 --> 01:20:21,362
Remember when Bitcoin first dropped down to 59K?

1015
01:20:21,742 --> 01:20:24,182
But did you buy a stretch or did you buy MSDR?

1016
01:20:24,922 --> 01:20:33,262
stretch. And, uh, MSTR went down to about 107 a share and STRC came off the peg,

1017
01:20:33,702 --> 01:20:39,422
dropped down to about 93. And I bought at the time I had cash and I thought, I'm just going to stick

1018
01:20:39,422 --> 01:20:43,162
it in here. I'll go through the first dividend cycle and take it out. So it worked out great

1019
01:20:43,162 --> 01:20:48,382
for me, made a lot of money, but guess what you, I think you're right. I mean, I, I think that

1020
01:20:48,382 --> 01:20:54,662
cause for instance, now that it's off the peg, I could, if I wanted to, I could raise cash and

1021
01:20:54,662 --> 01:21:00,142
stick some in there, but I'm not comfortable doing it right now. My pushback to the sailor hero thing

1022
01:21:00,142 --> 01:21:05,122
is that I think Fong's done a great job and that I almost think that they're in a position now where

1023
01:21:05,122 --> 01:21:11,902
sailor's not as important. And the other thing is if last year when I stood up there and I asked

1024
01:21:11,902 --> 01:21:17,702
about core V30 and versus knots, I don't think some people in the audience were happy when I

1025
01:21:17,702 --> 01:21:22,902
asked sailor that because they were there for something else. It was a small gathering. This

1026
01:21:22,902 --> 01:21:28,682
year, I missed the VIP with him because I was down on a panel. Well, guess what? If there's

1027
01:21:28,682 --> 01:21:33,122
anybody out there that got this guy's ear or strategy, there's two things I was going to ask

1028
01:21:33,122 --> 01:21:36,942
him and I'm going to ask him. I'll tell you right now, it's not going to stop if I ever get a chance.

1029
01:21:37,102 --> 01:21:42,002
And those two things are this, you know, I'm a strategy. I hold their stock, MicroStrategy,

1030
01:21:42,302 --> 01:21:47,422
now strategy. I do hold some of that stock still. And I've been a stockholder for a long time in

1031
01:21:47,422 --> 01:21:52,442
that company. And there are two things that I'm going to ask Santa to bring me this Christmas.

1032
01:21:52,442 --> 01:22:02,520
And if not you going to have to explain to me why strategy can do this And that is you already touched on it One self Tell me why strategy doesn have the ability to self

1033
01:22:02,900 --> 01:22:04,340
Explain it to me like I'm an idiot.

1034
01:22:04,340 --> 01:22:07,540
And then two, I want to see published proof of reserves.

1035
01:22:07,800 --> 01:22:11,840
If you're going to be a digital capital reserve,

1036
01:22:12,380 --> 01:22:16,300
basically almost like a central bank in Bitcoin,

1037
01:22:16,500 --> 01:22:18,680
then show me what you hold.

1038
01:22:19,100 --> 01:22:21,220
And the other thing is, take away that honeypot.

1039
01:22:21,220 --> 01:22:23,580
Stop using Coinbase Fidelity.

1040
01:22:23,1000 --> 01:22:28,520
Use your own custody and divert that risk profile out there.

1041
01:22:29,300 --> 01:22:45,860
So, you know, looking back, I mean, I've, you know, I invested in strategy years ago when they first came into the, you know, their, I guess it was 2020 when they first decided they were going to put Bitcoin on the balance sheet.

1042
01:22:45,860 --> 01:22:51,060
And, you know, yes, I agree with you wholeheartedly.

1043
01:22:51,180 --> 01:22:54,780
You know that I feel Bitcoin and self-custody is the way to go.

1044
01:22:55,500 --> 01:23:01,840
But for an old boomer like me, and I'm sure there are other old boomers out there, you know, a lot of us have pension funds.

1045
01:23:01,960 --> 01:23:03,200
We've got insurance products.

1046
01:23:03,340 --> 01:23:07,940
We've got, you know, 401ks, all kinds of things that we're invested in.

1047
01:23:08,420 --> 01:23:10,960
And strategy still plays a small part.

1048
01:23:11,100 --> 01:23:12,540
I'm not using stretch right now.

1049
01:23:12,560 --> 01:23:14,440
I wouldn't get into that because I'm a little concerned.

1050
01:23:14,440 --> 01:23:18,320
I want to see that thing, whether it's going to come back onto the peg or not.

1051
01:23:18,680 --> 01:23:20,500
Yeah, I mean, good luck with all of it.

1052
01:23:20,740 --> 01:23:23,340
I'm not condemning any of these actions.

1053
01:23:23,700 --> 01:23:26,560
I just want to speak my mind.

1054
01:23:26,700 --> 01:23:27,180
Yeah, but you're probably disappointed in me.

1055
01:23:27,540 --> 01:23:29,580
You're probably going, that damn Jethro.

1056
01:23:29,760 --> 01:23:31,460
No, no, no, no, no, not at all.

1057
01:23:32,540 --> 01:23:37,560
You're still one of the basest boomers I know of, so you get a pass, of course.

1058
01:23:38,840 --> 01:23:39,400
Thank you.

1059
01:23:39,400 --> 01:23:47,300
yeah uh what else what else haven't we talked about that that's about you know that's about it

1060
01:23:47,300 --> 01:23:50,720
i'm gonna get back i'm gonna start painting here in a minute as soon as we're done i'm gonna turn

1061
01:23:50,720 --> 01:23:55,520
on the lights and guy got my paints out already that painting back there is pretty much finished

1062
01:23:55,520 --> 01:24:01,360
uh i've got one other that i'm working on that's really cool and uh i can't wait i'm gonna get

1063
01:24:01,360 --> 01:24:07,260
started on that can we can we see it closer or is it no it's hard to move right now but i'll tell

1064
01:24:07,260 --> 01:24:08,980
you what, I'll post a picture of it later.

1065
01:24:09,100 --> 01:24:10,200
I'm going to be working on it. Fantastic.

1066
01:24:10,440 --> 01:24:12,1000
Fantastic. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Beautiful

1067
01:24:12,1000 --> 01:24:15,080
stuff. I love it

1068
01:24:15,080 --> 01:24:17,180
and hope to see you

1069
01:24:17,180 --> 01:24:19,020
soon again, man. When

1070
01:24:19,020 --> 01:24:21,260
will that be? Well, I'm going to do

1071
01:24:21,260 --> 01:24:23,100
Bitblock Boom. I'm going

1072
01:24:23,100 --> 01:24:25,020
to do Prague. I've already signed up.

1073
01:24:25,180 --> 01:24:26,420
I'm going to go to Prague again.

1074
01:24:27,180 --> 01:24:28,940
I may do one other

1075
01:24:28,940 --> 01:24:30,980
conference. Also,

1076
01:24:30,980 --> 01:24:33,180
when Madeira comes up in 2028,

1077
01:24:33,360 --> 01:24:34,240
I'm going to go to Madeira.

1078
01:24:35,320 --> 01:24:36,860
And that's probably it.

1079
01:24:37,260 --> 01:24:40,560
All right. No plans for going to El Salvador anytime soon?

1080
01:24:41,160 --> 01:24:42,660
Actually, I have thought about that.

1081
01:24:42,880 --> 01:24:43,960
No, I have thought about that.

1082
01:24:44,040 --> 01:24:45,020
I want to see it again.

1083
01:24:45,160 --> 01:24:46,360
I need to get back there.

1084
01:24:46,640 --> 01:24:48,740
And it's been on my mind.

1085
01:24:48,920 --> 01:24:50,300
It's funny that you should mention that.

1086
01:24:50,540 --> 01:24:52,620
So that might, yeah, that could be definitely a player.

1087
01:24:53,180 --> 01:24:56,1000
I'm going late November, it looks like, for Bitcoin Historical.

1088
01:24:58,160 --> 01:24:58,560
All right.

1089
01:24:58,940 --> 01:25:02,460
I think I'm just going to put a little note here to myself

1090
01:25:02,460 --> 01:25:05,320
and reach out to me as it gets closer, okay?

1091
01:25:06,140 --> 01:25:06,740
Yeah, sure.

1092
01:25:06,740 --> 01:25:07,980
All right.

1093
01:25:08,460 --> 01:25:08,900
Absolutely.

1094
01:25:09,040 --> 01:25:10,300
Where can people find you online?

1095
01:25:10,940 --> 01:25:12,960
Just type my name in Google.

1096
01:25:13,320 --> 01:25:13,980
You'll see me.

1097
01:25:14,320 --> 01:25:18,200
I come up as two things, a Bitcoiner and an artist.

1098
01:25:18,980 --> 01:25:19,460
Fantastic.

1099
01:25:20,140 --> 01:25:21,380
Not an airline pilot then.

1100
01:25:21,880 --> 01:25:22,920
No, only that.

1101
01:25:24,720 --> 01:25:25,240
Okay.

1102
01:25:25,900 --> 01:25:26,180
Yeah.

1103
01:25:26,680 --> 01:25:27,760
Great chat, man.

1104
01:25:28,320 --> 01:25:29,980
I absolutely loved it.

1105
01:25:30,260 --> 01:25:32,060
Thanks very much for coming on.

1106
01:25:32,060 --> 01:25:36,620
And always lovely to chat with you and get deep into these subjects.

1107
01:25:36,740 --> 01:25:40,240
of the self and what artists and all of the other stuff.

1108
01:25:42,120 --> 01:25:43,500
So take care.

1109
01:25:43,840 --> 01:25:44,320
I'll see you.

1110
01:25:44,380 --> 01:25:44,940
Be good, buddy.

1111
01:25:45,880 --> 01:25:47,880
This has been the Bitcoin Infinity Show.

1112
01:25:47,880 --> 01:25:51,680
You should brush your teeth and do all the other things.

1113
01:25:52,280 --> 01:25:52,560
Goodbye.

1114
01:26:06,740 --> 01:26:36,720
Thank you.