[00:00:00] Speaker A: We've planted our orange play in the ground. You know, we've made it known where it's like, yeah, this is a space where we will try to propagate and spread the mission, values and ethos of Bitcoin. And we hope that only spreads to other cities around the country or the world. But we really view this as like a greater movement of how we can really take back our cities. We do need to organize and align ourselves online, but when it actually comes time to take action, the in real life aspect, you know, can't be understated and, you know, you need to lock arms as the collective and move forward supporting a cause that is bigger than oneself. And again, to kind of the younger generation, I think that's something they really crave. And, you know, I think the space is really going to give them an outlet to contribute their skills to something that will live beyond them.
[00:01:07] Speaker B: What is up, guys? Welcome back to Bitcoin Audible. I am Guy Swan, the guy who has read more about Bitcoin than anybody else, you know. And this show is brought to you by the Bit Kit Mobile Wallet. And just so you know, we actually have a QR code that is hidden in our videos that we post on YouTube. So in this video right here there's a QR code and if you scan it with your Bitkit wallet, it may or may not have some sats on it. Just saying. So keep an eye out for it. Bitkit is an all in one bitcoin on chain and lightning non custodial wallet and it is fantastic. I love its design. I have been a big fan of it since it released and I have been following very closely all of the other projects that synonym the company is building. Definitely check it out if you haven't. And it is also brought to you by the Jade plus hardware wallet. I just did an unboxing video on YouTube and the socials which I urge you to check out because a couple people told me it was funny and I did actually have a lot of fun making an unboxing video which I did not expect. I am also going to dig into my configuration and how I use this baby. But this is a fantastic hardware wallet and you can get 10% off with if you go to my link and use my code Guy G U y gets you 10% off. All right, we have a really important conversation today. You know, one of the things we talk, we're always talking about making a new social network and getting on key and no stir and pub key and all the things that we can do and the software we can build and the applications and all of this stuff. But there's something that is still deeply missing from that conversation and it's bitcoin in real life. It is real world networks and real world relationships. And somebody I have been working with for a while was very much involved in the Denver space, which is very much like the bitcoin park and Bitcoin commons. It is a physical, in real life space for building out a genuine bitcoin community. And as someone who has been personally interested in setting up something like this myself because of how valuable I find some physical space, some location in order to leverage, to point people to, to organize at. Wyatt and I were having this conversation in a different group and it just got me thinking how much I felt like it would be valuable to get into this on the show. Because I think I'm not the only one out there. I think I'm not the only person who wants to have a good real life bitcoin network. And so if you are interested in finding bitcoin in real life, then I think you're going to enjoy this conversation. Let's get right into it with Wyatt O'Rourke. This is Bitcoin in real life.
Wyatt, welcome to the show, boss.
It's been. We hadn't caught up in like days and I actually when. When we ended up talking about this and we wanted to do a show together, I was actually like really kind of stoked because the, the thing that you have been, I mean, not only are you super kind of type A and you're way more organized by the. Demonstrated very clearly by the fact that you knew when this show was and I didn't even have it properly on my calendar. But the. You've been like super organized and specifically you are helping to manage and run the space in Denver. And that is something I have been intrigued by for a long time. The bitcoin park is super popular and I've been really impressed by what they do, what they have done and, and how they have set up their stuff. And you know, this is something that a lot of people I feel like have tried to tackle in a lot of different places and in a lot of different ways. And only a handful have really been sustainable and like really kind of caught like a lot of attention. And so. And it's not an easy thing. It's not an easy thing. As I was just talking about is I have wanted to set up a quote unquote bitcoin embassy in my area for a really long time. But you either need an enormous amount of capital to burn or you need to have like a real plan. And I wanted to, I wanted to get into like your thoughts and your management and how you organize and how your whole everybody that you work with, how you've set this up, how you set up the space in Denver and what that looks like for like, what's the game plan for other people and how can they kind of follow your example. So maybe just start there, introduce yourself and, and that project a little bit and then let's, let's kind of pull on that and see where it goes for a little bit.
[00:06:05] Speaker A: Absolutely no pleasure and honor to be here. Guy, longtime listener, first time caller. So I'm happy we get to chop it up on the pod here. I'm an entrepreneur. I founded a couple startups, but my main one now is BE Financial, small wealth management firm where we aim to bridge the gap between traditional financial services and bitcoin financial services. State registered ria. So this is not investment advice, but the, the space is probably, I think the. I always tell people I think it very well could be like the coolest project I work on in my career. It's a nonprofit bitcoin citadel in Denver, Colorado.
And to your point, bitcoin citadels are come with their, their fair share of challenges. And yeah, I think you share this sentiment, but I think bitcoin is as much a tool for technological and monetary change that is for social change. And so something we've been really focused on and trying to tap into is like the social layer of bitcoin. And it's been an incredible journey so far. We really started kicking this idea around in like early fall of 2023. Got it pretty formalized in, in April of 2024. We had board elections and then we started collecting treasury. And you know, it was a bit of a hard work, create your own luck sort of opportunity. We're able to move into a beautiful building in October. We're up to about 77 members and it's just been a hell of a ride and something I'm very proud of. And as, as within anything in bitcoin, you know, it's bitcoiners helping bitcoiners. So we definitely tap the folks at Bitcoin park and Bitcoin Commons, PubLab, Bitcoin Bay, and they've been, you know, tremendously helpful in sharing their two sides on how they got their operations up and running. What's a little bit different about the space is that it's community run and operated so it's very much a grass railroads movement, ground up movement. You know, in the, in the true ethos of Bitcoin, you know, park and, and commons are, are great, but you know, it's a little bit more of a top down structure where you have a couple individuals who, you know, founded a for profit business.
Unfortunately for us, that wasn't opportunity that was available, so we had to think outside the box a little bit. It's like, how do we get this started without a whale or wealthy individual that was just willing to bankroll the whole thing? And so in that ethos, we've had to do everything from a community aspect because we're nothing without our members. And something that might be kind of interesting to tap into more. I think for any old timers listening to this, it might sound kind of funny for them, but they actually have a sense of what community is. But for younger folks, many of our communities have been eroded over time. And this is a little bit of a, a Phoenix concept, if you will.
[00:09:12] Speaker B: I mean like in physical space, without a doubt. It's kind of crazy how unaccustomed to it, like something that would arguably be evolved into us, how unbelievably unfamiliar it is to younger generations. It really, it really is kind of wild. Even, even myself is like, it's, it seems it's not an easy thing to have to deal with the resource constraint and organization of people in real life in a physical space and to make that sustainable and to like build a community that, build a culture that's sustainable. You know what I mean? Like, you can't just, you also just can't have people casually thinking about it and you know, being there once every two years, you know, like you have to build like a real community. You know, like that's not an easy thing to do.
So. But. Yeah, yeah, sorry to interrupt.
[00:10:11] Speaker A: No, you're absolutely right. And just like anything in bitcoin, it really comes down to the, you know, your proof of work. It really takes, you know, building the time and like you mentioned your cultures and it's just something that, that shows up. You have to, you have, you'll be very intentional about how you build in. So one of the things we try really hard to do is open source as much as what we're doing to make the next bitcoin citadel that much easier to get off the ground. Any of that includes like our member handbook and stuff. And we outlined from the very beginning, you know, our principles and what we're about. And we try to attract people that Align with that. You know, we try to be, you know, scrupled with our, our membership. Obviously this is a bitcoin focus hub, but that bleeds into a lot of synergistic things with Bitcoin. Health sovereignty, tech sovereignty. We host our tech stack. So we're outside the prying eyes of big tech. And for somebody that's not very technical myself, that's been extremely valuable for me just to learn from community members and just plug into their knowledge and see how I can become a better bitcoiner, a better individual just by learning from people in the meat space, which is actually like something as bitcoiners. I think we really should not underestimate. Obviously we're accustomed to Internet native monetary monies and protocols, which is obviously very important. I'm a network state enthusiast too, so I'm very much aligned with this idea of, you know, cloud power, to land power and organizing online. However, in order I think to fulfill our mission and bring bitcoin to the masses, the in person aspect of learning and building, you know, cannot be overlooked. And that's just been really powerful. I've been blown away by the talent that's accumulated in our little community and it's just been fantastic being able to pick people's brains and learn from them, you know, one on one or you know, be able to tap into to their networks and get connected with other people. Maybe answer, be able to answer a question, you know, if they can't, you know, readily do so. So it's very rewarding and something I encourage, you know, everybody to partake in and seek out.
[00:12:28] Speaker B: Dude, what's the rough like? Like Denver's a pretty, I mean Denver's a pretty big city, you know, it's not, it's not like you're, you guys are tiny and you know, in my area, I mean I've got pretty solid population around here too and we've got a pretty solid Raleigh crew. But how's, how does the membership and the cost and managing of the space work out? Can you go a little bit more into just the details and challenges there and how difficult was it setting up? Did you guys just like raise money amongst yourselves and the people that you kind of got for your board and just kind of source everything from everybody who wanted to be involved in the project to begin with? And is that still the case? Is this member funded totally? Or are you, do you still have like, you look for sponsorships to like, let's say like could bitcoin audible sponsor it and have like a big Sign up in the space or something. And that's a way to help you guys fund. Like, I'm curious about kind of the, the sustainability side of it, you know, like, what's the monetization plan to make the thing survive long term?
[00:13:38] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely no gabbin waiting for your tax account in the mail. Haven't seen it yet, but yeah. So in April, when we kind of have like our founding night, we elected the board. We have, you know, nine members on the board, six member role or six officer roles, and then three member representative roles. And at that point we were kind of selling vaporware, as our CEO Tyler Stevens likes to say. And at that point, we were giving people discounts on what we ultimately thought membership pricing would be based on if they would commit early. So we about had 25 early movers who were willing to pay anywhere from 50 to $100 a month to contribute to the space and trusted us to make it a reality. So you can kind of think of the space as social club meets, coworking meets, event space meets, like trade organization.
And, you know, working with nine other Bitcoiners can certainly be frustrating at times because F3 Foxy is a bit opinionated.
[00:14:44] Speaker B: Wait, are you saying bitcoiners are stubborn? You wouldn't exactly, would you?
It's bits. It's bits.
[00:14:56] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly, exactly. We've actually had that conversation in our board meetings. Like, guys, this is like completely off the rails at this point. So it's been a very fruitful experience getting to learn and leverage the strengths of everybody on that board. Fortunately, we have some folks with previous board member experience or have been in the bitcoin industry, done some stuff similar. So, you know, those resources have been been critical. But while we were looking for a physical location that was particularly challenging, you know, we're a startup, we keep our treasury in bitcoin. Any landlord that you know you're renting a. A building from would like to see. You have generally three years of financial statements and they're not exactly keen on your. Your treasury being in bitcoin. So fortunately, this is why I met you and hardware crazy on luck. One of our members was looking to purchase commercial real estate property and the timing worked out where, you know, he did. So then we moved in. And so we rent the first floor of a beautiful building from M. We keep our treasury in bitcoin. It's in line with our treasury policy. We generally keep about one month worth of fixed expenses and fiat to try to hedge any volatility within bitcoin. Just make sure, you know, we're good for our expenses. And then from there, we've, you know, kind of developed a series of committees and members can really, you know, chip in where they fit in. And this really kind of comes back to more of that community aspect where it's like the space isn't, you know, one person. It's a collective of people who, you know, want to leave their. Their mark or get back to the bitcoin ecosystem in some way. And that's where we really draw our strength from.
[00:16:40] Speaker B: Gotcha. Now, without getting too much into, you know, giving away OPSEC things, how do you, like, what tools do you use specifically to. Because, like, I have been. I've actually. It's been really nice having switched entirely to fold, basically for my banking after. After I got it where I could just send bitcoin to it and push it directly to the card, but they still. It's still a prepaid debit card, so there's still certain things that I can't pay for. So I was curious, like, you know, how do y'all treat banking? And do you have, like, a particular bank or service or something that you use?
You have a Treasury and do you have multiple people on a board member? Do you guys use multi sig with, you know, a majority, you know, five of seven or something? Like, what's kind of the. That with, you know, without saying, like, oh, I. We do exactly this, and these are the people who are holding the keys and he puts his under his mattress, you know, you know, without getting, you know, too much into it, like, how do you. How do you think about. I mean, you're working with a group of people. How do you deal with bitcoin and a group of people and banking and a group of people. Exactly.
[00:17:53] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. No, it's a great question. And anybody interested in more of these resources can find them on our website at Denver Space, we've made all our policies that we can, including like our board minutes, open to the public. And again, we try to hold. Run the organization in the ethos.
[00:18:10] Speaker B: Denver Space. Just make sure I got this on my list. Denver Space. Okay.
[00:18:17] Speaker A: So we try to run this into the ethos of Bitcoin as much as we can, including transparency, sovereign individuals, and all that. So our bitcoin treasury we do keep in cold storage. Multisig strike has been a very valuable partner for us. Be able to end zap, right? Be able to invoice our members, collect dues. We do have a traditional bank that we manage our dollar balances. In and pay our dollar denominated expenses. And we are just recently set up our own LNBIT server. So we're working on getting more sovereign in our own tech stack. We self host this and that's where a lot of our members who have some traditional IT experience have been a tremendous help in making sure we're running this correctly and above board.
And that's to your prior point as well. As we were developing the space and it was taking more and more shape, we moved in this building in October and that was a big membership push for us. It's this beautiful building that really lends itself well to events and different community aspects. You know, whether it's happy hour, social networking, doing a presentation, our corporate members or sponsors are a big part of that as well. We have four founding corporate sponsors, Compass Mining, Unchained, Casa and Fetty, who really helped us, you know, kind of bankroll our initial treasury to get started and be able to take on additional expenses. And some of our biggest member acquisition strategies have just been getting people into the building, you know, and interacting with other members. You know, it's like it's a very powerful and energizing experience just being able to talk and interact and be a part of a group with other bitcoiners. And so as we had been in the building about, you know, five months now, we have multiple events a week. This is. They're predominantly have some sort of educational focus. We host bitdesk here. We just had a workshop last week on setting up wallets. Compass Mining does a monthly technical mining deep dives. Really getting into the nuts and bolts of what their industry includes and the challenges they face.
[00:20:35] Speaker B: That's cool.
[00:20:36] Speaker A: Are able to bounce ideas off other bitcoiners.
[00:20:39] Speaker B: Have you ever done one on home mining or home heating?
[00:20:43] Speaker A: You know what? Our CEO Tyler Stephens is hosting Undermine the Heat Punk Summit in February.
That's over 100 people RSVP for that. Coming from across the country to specifically focus on heat as a resource as opposed to a byproduct within mining. And that's something I'm particularly excited about. I'm extremely proud of him for what he's been able to accomplish in that niche of a niche. But we really pride ourselves at that space on being the source of signal and avoiding the noise. And we really want to kind of make these mini summits, not quite a conference generally like a two or three day thing at most, kind of centered on something specific within the bitcoin industry or kind of a synergistic aspect of Bitcoin. We're hoping the next one can be around sovereignty and kind of like the health aspects, but pointing people to somewhere where they can fiscally meet up and you know, get the good stuff and, and avoid the, the noise out there.
[00:21:46] Speaker B: Yeah, no, a hundred percent. Like, I, I, you don't even know what my electricity bill is going to be this month. But, but I've been, I've been running one miner downstairs. It's not, it's not even finished, you know, like it's just framing and wires hanging from the ceiling and stuff. And there's even like a huge hole in the wall that I like took a, an old dog blanket that we had and wrapped around a board and just kind of shoved it up there so that it's leaking as little air as possible. But I've had one miner running down there with taped all up with a big filter on it because it's disgusting and I have to vacuum it about once a week.
But it keeps it comfortable, it keeps it completely comfortable down there and that's with it, you know, sometimes getting 30 and 40 degrees at night.
Like, you know, it's a little, it's definitely cooler downstairs. But is one miner running on low power just consistently? And my electricity bill for this may be, I don't know, like the worst it ever was. I was running two miners on high and I was heating both the basement and upstairs and I got a huge bill, I got like an 800 bill. But I, I, I'm pretty sure I mined like $500,000,000 worth of bitcoin at the time, which the price was around $40,000, so. And it's KYC free, you know. So like using the heat like, you know, my net was probably a 300 cost and it was a really cold month and I was heating and for the first time I was heating like twice the square footage that I'm used to heating, you know. And so like all I could think was that, I mean I haven't like hard done the math on it, but all I can think is like that's not, it's just not that bad of a cost for what I'm getting out of it. And I would usually pay a premium for KYC free sats anyway. And it's like a great little just kind of like stack to have on the side that's just kind of like an emergency thing that like my winter just pays for it. You know, I'm selling, I'm always stacking because I just sell my electricity.
I, I sell my I sell, I buy my comfort, buy and get, I get, I get sats for buying my comfort and I sell my electricity for it.
But it's wild. It's wild. It's a really crazy. I'll tell you when I finally did it, I really wish I had done it sooner. And it's not even because like you know, it was massively profitable or anything like that. I'm probably, it's probably not a whole lot difference in cost.
Like in fact I may be paying a little bit more because I'm. Because I had gas. Otherwise gas heat is super cheap, you know. And electric, electric heat especially in my area is very inefficient. It's expensive. It was like 14 cent per kilowatt hours. Something, something ridiculous.
So I'm not getting like a good deal or anything. But it was a really fun project and I was regular, regularly surprised by how easy some of the things were that I wasn't, you know like going in and configuring it.
I mean it, I was, it was no different than setting up a router, you know, I mean it literally was that easy, you know. And just knowing that like I can, I mean I just broke it out the other day and stuck it down in the basement. I mean like three weeks ago now. But I just stuck it down in the basement and it took me no time at all to set it back up. And I've got an asic, you know, like there was, there was some lead into that but it's just really, really cool. And I've always thought as well like with a commercial space with you know, a community thing is what a fun project that could be to have a group and to go through that together, detail out and lay out the entire framework, everything that you're doing and then literally just continue to heat the space with bitcoin mining just because you're a bitcoin space and that's the way you're supposed to do it, you know what I mean? So I don't know. That's always fascinated me and it would be such a fun thing for a bitcoin community like that to dig into. And that's like one of the things about an in real life space is you can do those things, you can do hands on projects, things that just aren't the same when they're just a YouTube video, you know.
And, and I really want that for our area. And Steve, who's on the round table with me has done about as close to it as. I mean that guy has been Dedicated. He has a bar and they even like have dealt with and work with bitcoin. They sell gift cards and bitcoin and stuff.
And we've had a meet up there for a really long time and so he's the closest it's ever been. But even that, it's, it's a bar and he makes money because it's a bar bar, you know, So I don't know. I, I, Even though I feel like I, I am super busy and I'm doing all a million different things, I. I wish I had time to do that because it's such a.
It's just such a great thing to have real life, real life people. And I think, I think we miss, we miss some of that sometimes.
[00:27:06] Speaker A: Well, you're absolutely right. Guy and miners actually make up a pretty good chunk of our membership. And Tyler actually gifted me for my wedding old s9 that I use for a space heater. And my wife works for interior design firm, so she's pretty particular about what goes in the house. You need 3D printed a case for it so it looks nice and everything, but nice. Yeah, we have some real hardos who heat their home with bitcoin miners. And so it's been a pleasure for me as somebody that's not necessarily their, their strength or, you know, interest, but then bitcoin just being able to, you know, learn from them and you know, even as a, A basic club, like how I can, you know, do my part to, to secure the network, which I do appreciate and to. So kind of some of your earlier point, which I think. Yeah, does a good, Well, a good job of illustrating our membership. Something we joke about is the greater Front Range area has a very high cipher punk the NPC ratio.
[00:28:04] Speaker B: Nice.
[00:28:05] Speaker A: So the Denver metro is about, you know, 3 million people or so. And there's been a lot of, you know, there's a lot of research jobs, aerospace, government, you know, jobs that are really kind of into, I would say kind of the actual, more like technical aspects of the services they provide as you know, as opposed to the bureaucratic ones. And so it's been a lot of shitcoin projects too, unfortunately. But what we've been able to kind of draw from is just people who are doers, they actually take it upon themselves to heat their home with bitcoin miners and then they understand the technical and sovereign aspects of that as well. Start 9 is headquartered here out of Denver. System 76 is out of Denver. And so we've really been able to pull toll on those groups of people and it's been.
[00:29:01] Speaker B: I knew there was somebody in Colorado from Start nine. I didn't realize that like is Matt Hill there? Like are they in Denver? Dude, that's awesome.
[00:29:09] Speaker A: That's awesome.
[00:29:09] Speaker B: I love the Star 9 team. Dude. They're, they're killing it. I, I still want my router. Good God. I want my router so bad and I'm, I pre ordered that like last year. I'm so, I'm, I, I, I've run into so many like little networking problems and, and now he showed me the interface. He showed me like we walked through it and now every single time I have any sort of a networking problem I'm like man, if I had that stupid router, this, this problem would be solved.
So upset. I want my router. I want my bitcoin router.
But yeah, and System 76 too. They're, they're pretty baller. They're, they're very serious when it comes to you know, alternative and kind of like sovereign, Sovereign tech. And that's, that's, that is a pretty solid crew, solid base to, to have in Denver.
[00:30:04] Speaker A: Absolutely. No, it's very exciting. You know we kind of talked about some of like the day to day operations, how we run the space but you know, if we zoom out and kind of how we view, you know, our you know, macro mission, you know we want to fix the money and you know that's not something you just do talking about on Twitter. You have to actually go out and do it. So something we're really proud of and that's, you know, I'm, I'm personally proud of as a network state enthusiast and we've planted our orange play in the ground. You know, we've made it known where it's like, you know, this is a space where we will pro try to propagate and spread the mission values and ethos of bitcoin and we hope that only spreads to other cities, you around the country or the world. But we really view this as a greater movement of how we can really take back our cities. Apologies here in Boston talks about this at length where we do need to organize and align ourselves online. But when it actually comes time to take action, the in real life aspect can't be understated and you need to lock arms as the collective and move forward supporting a cause that is bigger than oneself. And again to kind of the younger generation, I think that's something they, they really crave and you know, I think the space is really going to give them an outlet to contribute their. Their skills to something that will live beyond them.
[00:31:24] Speaker B: Yeah, you know, you brought something up there that one of your articles actually is about, which. Which I said I hadn't gotten into, like, really digging into your blog in earnest, but I've got a bunch of it saved in my. In my list, so I'll. I'll get back to you on that one.
But one of the things that. That you did have was about the idea of fixing the money. And, you know, because it's a platitude, it's kind of a, you know, just a slogan that's thrown around a lot and, you know, in the context of, like, real life and boots on the ground, like, what.
What do you think?
Or. Or you. You say you posit that, you know, what does fix the money really mean? And I want you to expand on that and, like, give me. Give me that layout. Give me your thinking on that idea of what fix the money, like, really not. Not just in a abstract sense. What does it actually mean when you're talking about the people and the community and, like, you know, how and what we build and think about?
[00:32:38] Speaker A: Yeah, totally. So I've been, you know, blown away by what other people and bitcoiners have contributed to the ecosystem. I'm so appreciative for the work they've done and what I've been able to learn from them. And so this piece was really an effort for me to try to get back to the community because I feel like I've received so much from it, and it really is kind of centered on the work of Larry Locard and Lynn Alden. Two people. Yeah. Holding in very high esteem. And I was just, you know, they, you know, as least Larry, you know, frequently uses, you know, the term fix the money, fix the world. And so I just really tried to dig into. It's like, well, what does it mean when. When people actually say that? Because, you know, at bitcoiners, you know, you listen to podcast, you do your 10,000 hours, and it's like you kind of inherently get it. But then I was like, if I'm trying to explain this to, you know, a pleb or one of my normie friends, like, can I distill this down into, you know, a digestible piece? And ultimately, what I found is humanity's fatal fall is when the superior technological civilization centralizes the money.
And as, you know, humans, we're technological beings, but we're also social beings, and we're. We're creatures of habit. And I think, you know, the Unfortunate thing is the bureaucrats know this and that's why they've been doing it forever. And over and over again we kind of see the same pattern. I think this is very much the old trope. Strong men create good times, good times create weak man, weak man create bad times. That's the creatures of habit aspect. And I think that also intrinsically means that bureaucrats understand this. And that's why we keep having civilizations that, that fail. And as humans we've been, we've shown that we have the, the capabilities of building, you know, tremendous things and societies. However, none of them have lasted in perpetuity. There's always, you know, a rise and fall. And I think at the beginning of that civilization, they start on some sort of technological advancement. So it's a schism. And the paradigm that, you know, ambitious men generally take advantage of. And this ultimately kind of leads to the rise when markets are most free and they're prospering. The societies are prospering as a whole because market signals are clear and there's a succinct and functioning feedback loop of capital being deployed. And so markets organize capital, they deploy the capital and they create more capital. And this ultimately leads to like a rising tide lifting all boats, and you kind of end up in a golden age, which is extremely exciting for everybody. And the unfortunate thing is I think the worst type of people are attracted to power. I think that really kind of centralizes at the money printer. And obviously before bitcoin, we never had any sort of finite ability or finite money to organize our economic systems. And these. At this point, you're kind of past the building stage of the society. And you know, we kind of the bureaucrats, they're attracted to that power. They can't compete in a free and open market, so they compete in lawfare.
And then this is where really, you know, things kind of start to, to break apart and ultimately you just end up in, you know, this debaucher space and the fall. And you know, I think this is where you have. Call it what you want. There's a lot. I like the Leviathan people call it, you know, managerial class, you know, choose your, your moniker. But it's when these people are in control and they instituted so many laws where it's, it's really like the market singles that, that start to become obscure and they just print over, you know, any problems that may arise. And I love how Lynn Alden breaks down your money. I think it's, you know, very easy to think of it as a ledger, a Technology and a market and when you distort that base market, every other market you know, on top of it is then you know, distorted or manipulated in some sense. So instead of making informed decisions on how to, you know, allocate capital, you're forced to guess. And I think this results in like this gambling mindset that is really just a debaucherous mindset, has cascading, you know, social effects on the civilization at whole. And then, you know, once that snowball starts, there's really no coming back from it.
[00:37:06] Speaker B: That's a great way to put it actually is that you're forced to guess is that the feedback mechanism that is supposed to tell you the weights and importance of all of the things, of all the costs and all the trade offs and the limitations of resources from everyone else in the society is so distorted that you're just kind of having to go by how it feels. And those signals are lies. They are, they are literally telling you to do things that are incorrect. A perfect example is going into debt for a mortgage and failing to recognize that when you are financially incentivized to go into debt, that the value, the quote unquote value, the price of the house is going to go up while the value, while the debt is going to stay denominated in dollars that will continually like, like I have tons of quote unquote equity in this house and it has nothing to do with the amount of work that I've put into it Now I have redone bathrooms, I've completely ripped out and redone the kitchen and we tore wall out and we have framing downstairs and it is concrete, you know, all that stuff. I've done a ton to this house. I've invested an enormous amount so that we can have a family here and we can stay here for at least, you know, 10ish years maybe.
But none of that is why the price has gone up. None of that is list Zillow doesn't know that. You know, nobody knows how much, nobody's looked inside of it. But my estimate is literally twice what my mortgage is and I put as little down as possible. And we've had it for seven years. Like we have been like inflation. The fact that we did this before the government printed $6 trillion in 2020 and because of the constant, the 7% year over year devaluation of the money supply we have, we own half of our house just outright because our debt has.
We borrowed in something that we now don't have to pay back. We will never have to pay back the value of the actual resources of this house. And so what we have done is we have sucked resources from somewhere else. Like this act is actual, is genuinely pulling resources from overseas, pulling resources from someone somewhere else in the US Economy. Half of my house was basically ill gotten gains because of a financial accounting trick that has devalued my debt against it. And there's no re. It's stupid for me not to like, I can't. If I choose not to do that, it doesn't, doesn't save anybody anything. It doesn't mean that, oh, those people suddenly aren't stolen from. It is so systemic that whether you choose to do it or not, everyone still gets screwed. So the question is, do you want to be screwed with them or do you want, do you want to try to get a lifeboat? Do you want to try to hold on to something scarce? Because you could argue the same thing about the price of bitcoin. A lot of the price of bitcoin is just money printing. You know, so it's wild. It's wild that. And, and because you're having to guess because everything is so ambiguous.
That's it's all. It's also such an indication of why the mindset changes and, and why it leads to this tendency to gamble and to basically just throw money at things. Because a lot of that is a feedback loop where, where throwing money at something because you have an inflated amount of money ends up inflating it and making it seem like it, it actually worked. So you get this entire economy based on gambling and you, your financial system turns into a casino. Rad is coming to get me because I'm an idiot and I lock the screen door, so, or the storm door because. So my wife can't get in. So give me, give me two seconds. Talk about something else. Talk amongst yourselves. Talk amongst yourselves. I'll be right back. If you want to save in better money and you want 20,000 sats for free, right now it's about 20 bucks at $100,000 of Bitcoin. Check out fold. Every time I swipe this card, I get 0.5%. Sometimes one, sometimes even one and a half percent. I can get two, three, five, even 10% on gift cards with major merchants between the roundups, the gift cards, the auto stacking, the sats back on, every single swipe fold literally does all, all of the work for me. And it is denominated in bitcoin. And I have more savings just by using this card than like 90% of the United States normal consumer. I'VE got a referral link for you right here. Shout out to fold for sponsoring my work and honestly being the most important service for my being on a bitcoin standard.
[00:41:54] Speaker A: But yeah, no, you're absolutely right. And that's kind of one of the things I'm most fascinated with and I hope to be able to kind of, you know, leave my impact on the, the bitcoin ecosystem is just kind of elaborating on how the social or kind of soft benefits, you know, our, our human, you know, aspect built on top of bitcoin, you know, because bitcoin is a, a source of truth and you know, it's a decentralized open source protocol and you know, I know your, your audience is accustomed to to reads, if you will. I would just love to just read this paragraph, kind of highlighting that and really distilling this point down and get your reaction.
[00:42:31] Speaker B: Oh, we have a guest read on the show. This is great. Yes, let's do it.
[00:42:35] Speaker A: Okay, so this is the paragraph title what they do Strip us of our agency and create despair Participants in global markets, also known as humans, are deprived of the right to receive accurate signals. When market feedback distorted or manipulated, people lose the ability to make informed decisions, leading to a profound erosion of their sovereign agency, their intrinsic gift from God. Humans are endowed with free will, a sacred attribute. This allows them to navigate the world with intention, purpose and virtue. However, when a lower power intentionally seeks to strip them of this autonomy, it is not just a violation of their rights, but a deep humiliation. This laws of agency plunges individuals into a state of despair where rational thought and sound decision making become nearly impossible. Despair is not just a momentary lapse in judgment. It is a coercive force that snowballs leading to increasingly poor decisions that exaggerate suffering.
In such a state, humans are who are naturally designed to thrive on clarity and truth, become disoriented and vulnerable. Their resources, both physical and emotional, are drained or outright depleted as they struggle and navigate an environment filled with confusion and misinformation. This disorientation disrupts the natural order of human existence as we are not wired to function under such constant overwhelming uncertainty. This result to the society where despair feeds on itself, leading to greater chaos and suffering. A far cry from the flourishing that is possible. Individuals are free to act with full agency and clarity.
[00:44:09] Speaker B: So there's two things that stood out to me immediately in that one that I really liked. One was the idea that it takes away your agency because it interrupts your ability to communicate with those around you. Like you Know, you talk about this and anybody who really digs into it, like, we are a deeply, deeply, deeply social species. We are a social species to the point that we cannot, we literally die without social contact. Like, if you leave an infant to be not hugged or nurtured or loved in any way. Like they. They did these experiments in. I can't remember how long ago it was now, but they literally had to. A baby died and they had to halt the experiment because they were so sick. They were literally like shriveling up and dying to. And. And they were given all the milk they needed. They were given everything that they needed from a pure sustenance position. But they would literally die if they are left without love because they. They genuinely. Like, without that social contact, you lose the will to live. And the most important part of that contact, of that social web is your communication with others. And when you communicate, when you trade with people, when you voluntarily cooperate with people, you are indicating and you are communicating how important something is to you. What the skin in the game cost, like, what blood, sweat and tears you are willing to put into your agreement. Your time to devote to someone. Us working together is about us committing our time, our resources, our. Our energy. And, you know, my trust that you're handling things when we don't talk for two weeks and vice versa, that I'm trying to organize and put things together so that we can keep working together. You know, like, all of those things are critical pieces of the puzzle. Now imagine if every time we had a conversation, somebody was literally like inserting themselves into our conversation and literally just taking out words.
They're literally just taking out a sentence and manipulating it to mean something entirely different and then putting it back into the conversation. That is what it means. When someone is manipulating the money, you are getting disinformation. It is literally a fraud of the ability to socially weigh value with other people.
Like, and it, like, it literally does. It causes depression, it causes nihilism. It makes you think the whole world is out to get you because everything feels like an attack. You feel like nothing is real, that there. There is no honesty in your interaction with someone else. You do not feel like this company is on your side and it specifically because their. Their means of acquiring resources isn't you. I go back to an example or using an analogy or something is, you know, people, we have this facade, like this really shallow facade of free market in this economy. And so it's like, okay, well, I could buy an Apple iPhone or I could buy a Windows Phone from Microsoft. Now sure, I have those options, but if I bought an iPhone. But Microsoft Stock goes up 20% just, or, or 10% or whatever, just because it's in, it's in an index. And everybody's having to shove their retirements into that index and they don't care or know what it is they're even investing in. They're literally just having to put it in there because otherwise they're going to lose 10% every year. And so the stock market's just kind of like naturally going up and they get preferential loans at like 1 or 2%, sometimes 0% from the government or from some financial institution that is just printing tens of billions, hundreds of billions of dollars. So no economic weight whatsoever, no real cost or value of the resources that are going to them is even slightly calculated in the loan that is given to that company. And Microsoft gets just a set of loans for hundreds of billions of dollars. Their stock goes up because they get all of this money. And because of that, they can then take out money and buy back their stock, which pumps up the price, the price of their stock again. And now they're worth that much more and they can reinvest and expand and just buy up some competitor that actually has a comparable product to Apple's and then integrated in theirs stack, slap Microsoft on the back of it, and then they've made up for it in the next round and now they can keep going forward. And so even if you bought the iPhone, it didn't really matter because Microsoft access to all of the resources necessary without any of the cost, without any of the genuine communication of economic value that the customer is the feedback mechanism for. And so you have these giant corporations that end up being parasitic and play this game of finance and government privilege that just exist in perpetuity even when they make bad decisions or they literally go against their customers, because their customers aren't their customers. Their customers are. The banks are the government and the, and the organizations that they sell our information to. We are their product. We are on their farm and they are selling us. And all of our information, we are misaligned. And it is not because we are naturally misaligned. It is because our money is broken. And they are chasing something that has nothing to do with us or the value we provide. It is the place where the money comes from that they are pointing at and they stop pointing at us. And it sets us against each other. And of course it causes despair. Of course it causes people to feel like they have no control over anything. And it doesn't matter what they do. And they stick their. They're like, I hate Microsoft and they stick their retirement. And it's like, oh, my retirement went up 7% this year, even though the dollar lost 8% of its value. And somehow all of that money is sitting in Microsoft's coffers so that they can do whatever the hell they want and rape us of all of our information and sell us like cattle. And of course, of course that's what happens. And then another thing that, that you said in that towards the end that I really liked was the idea that we are having to live with uncertainty, because I think it was.
I think it's Hayek that talks about the idea that money is the idea of money and why money becomes serves this role as the ultimate store of value after becoming, or not after becoming, but that kind of leads its base is this store of value that leads to it being able to be a medium of exchange and the most liquid asset in the entire economy. It becomes the ultimate hedge against uncertainty. We do not know what the future holds. I don't know if I'm going to be here next week or ten years from now. I have no idea. Ultimately, everything in the world is an unknown. It is uncertain. And when you're having to invest in something with counterparty risk, you're having to invest in something where you are. You're at the risk of, you know, whatever stupid decision some financial institution is making or some regulator is making or whatever, whatever jackass becomes president today and decides that they're going to change everything or they're going to overhaul or all your money suddenly goes to Microsoft or all your money suddenly goes to Merc or Wells Fargo, whatever the hell it is. And they're printing trillions of dollars and they've got a small group of a whole bunch of corrupt jackasses who just play this stupid social political game and everything's like a facade. Nobody actually does any due diligence and they pass trillions of dollars worth of spending that just go to special privileges, special privilege, you know, cousins of all the congressmen and giant corporations that did all the lobbying necessary for a few million dollars and boug some fancy dinners, just bribed a bunch of politicians and their wives, fake charities in order to get privilege and get those people in office and they don't care. 3,000 pages, 6,000 pages of literal that not a single person reads, that gets pushed through Congress that literally realigns the resources of millions of people's entire lives, entire lives. And it destroys any sense of certainty. It destroys any sense of meaning in what is literally the reason we get up every day to work to do something of value, to do something like we don't just work arbitrarily, we work to make stuff better. There's no reason to work if things don't get better, if we don't understand what kind of contribution is actually at the end of that. And the reason money becomes the money is because it is the ultimate hedge against uncertainty. It is that thing that it's going to, that's going to hold value, that where it's rules. Think gold being a prime example. Who the hell can change the, the, the atom, the atomic weight of gold?
Like, who's got that? Nobody. Nobody's got that. The universe says what gold is. It's easy to verify why. Why did gold become the, the greatest money in the world, like historically is because it was the greatest hedge against uncertainty. You always knew gold was going to be gold. You always knew gold was going to be scarce. And even if you could fake, even if you could artificially make it is going to be insanely expensive to the point that it's still going to be scarce. It's just easier to go get real gold. The consistency and integrity of what makes gold gold and the ability to verify that made it the greatest hedge against uncertainty. It didn't matter what the government did, it didn't matter what war was happening at this one particular time, or who is in power or which country or what side of the world or hemisphere you were in. Gold was gold. And that, that uncertainty is the, the negation of that uncertainty is what allows cooperation.
It's what allows us to, to say, okay, I can engage with you and I can trust you. I can actually work with you. Because the rest of my life starts to have a little bit more of a foundation because I'm holding in bitcoin and I know bitcoin's going to be bitcoin in five years, you know, so let's do business together. Let's start to build trust socially on top of that. Because only if I feel like I'm standing on my own two feet, am I going to be able to shake your hand if I don't even know if I can stand up.
What are you, what are you doing? Get away from me. You know, like, I've got things to deal with. If I can't put food on my table to give a. Who gives a about climate change, you know, who gives a about, oh, there's trash in the ocean. I haven't eaten in three days. I don't care. I do not care. Throw my, I'm gonna go take a dump on the trash in the ocean if you give me a piece of bread. You know, um, and people just don't realize how intricate, like how deeply connected all of these things are. Sorry for like the 15 minute rant, but I, I, that was a really good, those two points in particular I thought were, were really prescient, I guess.
So. Good, good paragraph.
[00:55:28] Speaker A: Yeah, thank you, guy. That, that was beautiful and well said. And yeah, I mean, you're just totally right because I'm a finance bro. So it was easy for me coming into bitcoin to first learn that the money is broken. I had to learn all the technical aspects later.
But it's very easy for me to identify and just see things as markets. So if money and energy are the base market, they go into everything we see and interact with.
I think it's then easier to understand like the layers and layers and layers of manipulation that are built on top of it. You know, river published a great graphic a couple months ago and it was like just the global financial system, you have regulators and payment rails and like these quasi international institutions like the IMF and the bis and they just like distort everywhere along the, along the road. And I think if you think of bitcoin as a source of truth, which I certainly do, and this is, you know what I mean, when, you know, expanding on the social aspect of it. You know, if you think of the average, you know, Joe Six Pack, you know, who's working two jobs, his wife has to work and they outsource raising their kids to the, the government. And he goes to work knowing that he's falling behind, but he doesn't know why he's falling behind because he's just getting stolen from, you know, in the background. And I think that's particular evil. And that's what kind of leads to like a lot of the social strain we see, you know, particularly in the west, where people just are downtrodden and beaten and they don't know why. And when you can't identify me, you can't put your finger on it. Like, that is a extremely daunting feeling to have. And so that's why I think bitcoiners are kind of naturally optimistic. And something that's also helped me frame and understand what you just said, Guy, is I'm a Catholic. I just gave a presentation at the space, the Young Catholic Professionals chapter in Denver about the overlaps between Catholicism and bitcoin. And I try to view things through a theological lens a lot of time. I think that's kind of something that's been forgotten about in our modern secular society. And it's given me a ton of clarity, using that moral worldview to just call spade, spade. And it's like, you know, it's not.
It's just a battle between good and evil, and it always has been. You know, there are forces at work that, you know, push us in one direction or another. I think, like, the more out front and open we are on saying that, I think it just provides, you know, additional, you know, layers of clarity. I'll share my screen with you here. This is a part of what I included in the presentation. This is a graph I got from Alex Svetsky. And I really like this. This is just like a little Venn diagram here. And so it's kind of like the three corners or, you know, failure to think or incompetence. Complex systems and nefarious scheming. Yeah. In the middle of that, it's a banality of evil. And it's like, that's what we're dealing with.
[00:58:30] Speaker B: Arbitrary bureaucracy.
I know. That's a good one.
Oh, that's funny. I'll have to. Is that presentation, like, available somewhere?
[00:58:40] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, it's on my flog.
[00:58:42] Speaker B: Okay, cool. Cool. Yeah, I'll link to that one. Since we're kind of digging into kind of the personal side of bitcoin and also just kind of bitcoin in real life.
You brought up Svetsky, and I'm reading his book, Bushido of Bitcoin, and it's really interesting, some of the things, because, like, part of his diving into all the things that he put into the book was about him changing on his personal journey, too. And he even talks about how, you know, he kind of has this Persona, which has made him popular, actually, of being kind of an asshole, like, just being belligerent and loud and constantly cursing. And one of the things, like, as he was digging into all this stuff kind of made him realize how immature he presents himself. How. Or in a lot of ways, that immature is really the way to describe a lot of what Svetsky has been known for and that. And since then, he's pulled back a lot from social media. And I'm probably gonna have him on the show sometime soon, actually. We'll probably do it after I get the audiobook done. But I really want to dig into this because it's been a really interesting part of the book to Hear him talk about his journey and how he has changed in his mind frame.
But I'm curious, like, what has been your biggest shift in.
And this could be literally in anything, like in becoming an entrepreneur. And the, the, the close to my heart, challenges and pains with trying to pull that off and with running, you know, in real life spaces with your relationship with. I mean, like, I'm curious. And do you connect any of it or was any of it connected to Bitcoin? Was, was it part of your journey toward bitcoin? Because I had like, a bunch of, like, personal shifts that ended up being why I understood a lot of those foundational pieces and like, framing were actually important reasons for why I understood bitcoin when we first saw it. Because I actually went through a lot of those quote unquote journeys or transformations that usually happen after bitcoin. I managed to get lucky enough to happen before bitcoin.
So I'm curious, what's yours? Do you have one that stands out or was it kind of like a slow piece by piece over a long period of time?
Maybe. Maybe expand on that.
[01:01:19] Speaker A: Yeah, no, it's a, it's a great question. And yeah, I really do think or, you know, encourage people to adopt a moral worldview. And I'm a big fan of like, the Lindy effect. And, you know, so if it's been around, you know, a long time, it's probably going to be around for, for a longer time. I think, you know, specifically in Western culture, you know, this woke ideology has really kind of entrenched itself in almost every aspect of our daily lives. And I have particular issues with that just because, you know, to me, these are false idols and these are, you know, false religions. And it's like a very, I think, and hope it's just going to be a key point in time when we just completely lost the plot. And I've drawn, you know, a lot of inspiration from, you know, Spsky, and I'm excited to dig into his book. Even though it's like 450 pages. That's a fatty. So it's going to take me a while. A slow reader.
[01:02:11] Speaker B: Guy, I've got the audiobook. The audiobook is on the way, sir. All right, thank you.
[01:02:15] Speaker A: I'm going to have to rely. Rely heavily on that. But I just love this idea of, you know, living to a moral code. And, you know, he uses whether it's, you know, the samurais or, you know, the, the knights of, you know, Western Europe. Yeah. These men, you know, in particular held themselves to a Certain standard. And you always, you know, raised a cradle Catholic, fell away from faith, but over the last couple years, really kind of in conjunction with my bitcoin journey, have had this big reconversion. And I'm really thinking of, you know, the church and the Bible is like a playbook and how to, you know, be a man of integrity. And so that's given me, you know, a lot of strength, which is why I was so motivated and excited to finally, you know, put the. This presentation together on the overlaps of the two. And, you know, I went to thank God for bitcoin this summer, you know, side event at the national conference. And I just gave me even more, you know, optimism and encouragement for. For what those guys are doing. I highly recommend everybody, you know, check out their. Their resources. And Andy Flattery, who's a friend of mine, he started the Bitcoin Financial Advisors Network, you know, which I'm a member of, and he has a podcast, and one of his episodes, he was talking about the noble oblige, which means, you know, nobility, obligates. And, you know, he's also Catholic, so he's talking about it, you know, through this. This lens. But, you know, for centuries, like these old aristocratic families of Europe, yeah, they were expected to use their wealth and influence for the greater good and actually, you know, care about the. The communities, you know, in which they lived in. And, you know, for those who've been given much, much will be demanded. And one of the things I hate about bitcoiners is any time, like, the price moves, like a tick up, it's like, have fun staying core. You know, it's like, I was right. And it's like, you know, this in your face, like, brashness.
[01:04:04] Speaker B: That man. I will tell you. I will tell you. Hold that thought for two seconds. Don't lose it, because I want to keep going down this. But I will tell you, those are people who have not been here very long, like, almost across the board. There are a handful that I see that have been around for a bear market or so who will just kind of do it playfully. But it's. It's really just like.
Yeah, I. I think of it as, like, the people who are, you know, you talk about, like, good times create bad men or weak men is green candles attract fools. And if you.
And they act like fools and they talk like fools. And then when the bear market comes, the people who actually learn to grow up a little bit will stick around and the fools will leave. And that's why. That's why I like red candles. I think red candles are the healthiest part of the bitcoin journey. And I wish they were hard and fast and sometimes I wish they were harder just because there are plenty of people who haven't been here very long and deserve to get a punch in the nuts and get a little bit of humility dusted on them from time to time. And I wish, I wish we did it more often. I wish we did it more often because it. I, I completely agree. And it's ridiculous a lot of the time. Like, you're never going to convince anybody that way. They're just, they're all just going to think you're an. And they'll probably dislike bitcoin because of you when they have no reason to dislike bitcoin, you know. But anyway, continue. Sorry to interrupt.
[01:05:48] Speaker A: No, that, that's totally fair. You know, I was prepping and, you know, tweeting out. It's like when we are on the verge of hitting 100k for the first time, it's like, I understand it's cool. It's like this nice mile mark, but it's like, guys like, this is going to plan. Like, this was always supposed to happen. This was, you know, inevitable. Like, why are we freaking out about this arbitrarily arbitrary number is ultimately, you know, kind of denominated dollars. You know, we don't care about dollars. Yeah. So it's just like, I really, if I could leave anything to the bitcoin ecosystem, it's kind of like carrying ourselves with a certain level of tact and understanding that we've been given gifts and we are all called to seek excellence and we need to strive for more. And I really love this idea of the noblesh oblige because we have historical examples of people doing this and it's like, we should draw on those examples and, you know, live our lives or, you know, encourage bitcoiners to embrace the president they set because, you know, I think it's not only, you know, noble, but good. And yeah, I think we share the belief that bitcoiners will be, you know, the economic and political 1%. So once we're in that position, are we going to have like the firm foundations to conduct ourselves in a manner that will ultimately help build a prosperous, trust based, high trust society? Because it's like, there's a lot of degeneracy, specifically in crypto that I think spilled to bitcoin and we just need to eradicate those mindsets and to your point. So it's like in Your original question. So kind of like these two big journeys in my life correlating and then starting, you know, Episode Financial. I had a previous startup that, that went bust. And you know, I knew at this point I had partners at my other startup. And so now that I was fully on my own, I wanted to start, you know, a bitcoin company. And you know, I'm, I'm finance bro, so I can't code or anything. So I was like, shoot, like, how do, how do I do this? And so I just learn to code, man. Yep.
Adopted like the RAA business model and say, okay, I'm gonna, you know, build a bitcoin company doing this and you still service, you have traffic clients. But just in building this business, my bitcoin financial services, I don't charge aum on my bitcoin services. And this was really kind of instilled for me from others in the bitcoin ecosystem, like Jeff Booth. He's like, that's pretty rent seeking to me. I'm just telling you and advising you to buy and hold bitcoin. It's not like I'm evaluating this side over that side. So how in good faith could I charge assets under management, you know, fee for that, that service? And so kind of taking what I've learned from the ecosystem, so applying it to not only my businesses, but, you know, my, my day to day you know, practices, I found, you know, a lot of, you know, comfort and confidence doing that because I'm of the belief, you know, it's like, thank you. We, we share this as well. And it's like a more libertarian than not. And it's like, I really would prefer a smaller government and I don't want a lot of regulation. It's like, well, if you don't want a lot of regulation, then you need to hold not only yourself responsible, but you need to hold like the people in your ecosystem responsible. And I make a big effort to partner with bitcoin only companies. And as opposed to a regulation for this, that or the other thing, I'd rather us as a community hold bitcoin companies to a certain standard. Do you cold storage, multisig? Do you show proof of reserves? And if we as a community can, you know, align again behind the core ethos of bitcoin, we can self regulate and hold each other accountable as opposed to, you know, this outside third party or government agency feeling the need to influence and direct, you know, bitcoin companies in one direction or another.
[01:09:46] Speaker B: I love that you bring up regulation specifically because this is something that I feel like so many people don't properly understand because, you know, it's so easy to get in the mindset of like, what we're against and like, this is bad and to mistake the, the idea that regulation is bad because it's regulation rather than realizing that government regulation is bad because it's poor quality, extremely easy to abuse and corrupt. And it is not regulation that is bad. It is that centralized government regulation is bad regulation.
It is corrupt and easily bought regulation. You're just centralizing it in one place and making it extremely easy to know who to manipulate, who to buy and who to control. And it's very, very easy to control people because most people are pretty shitty and, and especially in your. If you're in a position that is unearned and you're making money that is comfortable and it is not actually being presented by the market and you're not actually accountable to any of your, any of your customers because nobody can. I can't, I can't go say fire this regulator. That doesn't work. What I have to like, hope that my, the person I vote for, President, cares enough about this one particular issue on this, like one particular thing, and they're going to, they're going to narrow down into this entire apparatus of hundreds of thousands of Alphabet agencies and find the one that I'm bothered by and then fire that one person, which they probably can't even do because it's like, requires an act of Congress or some.
So like, the idea is not about regulation is bad, Regulation is critical. Regulation is the source of how, like that's the filter on. That's like saying that like, you wouldn't filter people based on your values. No, of course you do. That's, that's the whole goal of it. You must filter, you must regulate. You must hold somebody to a standard. The problem is, is that someone else is taxing you and then forcing you to hold to a standard that is a bad standard that is manipulated to the benefit of some certain group of people and is probably bought in order to get around it from that subset of individuals who have, who have controlled and abused the entire thing. So it's bad regulation that just punishes people, that loses the sight of what its purpose even is, while it, even while it allows the worst offenders to just go about their day without having any problem at all. So it's not that regulation is bad. Regulation is wonderful. Regulation is the source of how it is that we actually hold somebody to a standard, that you actually develop a Standard that you actually develop a culture and a value about what it is that you expect from the business that you are working with, from the people that you are working with, the people that you choose to trust in an industry or in a market or in a local community. Those are all regulations. The thing is, is that you need to take over regulation, and we need to get rid of centralized government regulation because you're being forced to pay something that's taking away resources and basically letting somebody slip through. Basically allowing someone to get through your filters without actually adhering to anything, and you pay the price for it. Regulation is great. That's why we need to set our own standards and actually be better. We need to be better regulators than the government and get the government out of it, because they are explicitly bad and corrupt at doing the one job that they're, quote, unquote, tasked to do.
So, yeah, I. That. That's one of those things that drives me crazy. It's like, regulation is bad. No, it's not. It's just like the algorithm on Twitter is bad.
[01:13:30] Speaker A: It's like.
[01:13:30] Speaker B: Well, it's not that algorithms are bad. You can't. If you have a filter for the Internet, you can't just like, you can't just drink from the fire hose of the Internet. You have to have a filter. You know, there must be an algorithm. The idea is that you choose your own algorithm. So the algorithm's not used to manipulate you, but your algorithm is used to manipulate and sort through the data that is sent to you. I can't filter through the crap on my own computer. It's not organized. I have so much shit saved and so much stuff up here. I need an algorithm just to go through my folders of crap. God forbid I tried to do use the Internet without something, you know, it just. It's a. It's a misunderstanding because we're so focused on what we don't want and what we see as bad that we end up equating it with the thing itself. And regulation is not bad. Regulation is critical. We need to regulate, and we need to regulate better than the government, which isn't even hard. It's not hard at all. Government does not do a good job.
But on. On that note, actually, I am more. I'm actually really curious about your business, about the financial side, because I know how we work together because you take over all my sponsorship stuff and, you know, you do like everybody. Everybody that talks to me usually goes through you these days.
But what else?
What is. Tell me more about your Business because I'm used to just work, working with Wyek, with Wyatt. I'm used to working with Wyatt. And tell me about the whole scope of your business and how you think about it and how you set it, set it up for all of the things. Is that, is that, is it a lot of what you do with me or is what I, what you do with me kind of special or an outlier?
[01:15:17] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. No, thank you for the, the question, guys. So yeah, you're, you're my favorite side hustle. So I just kind of. Yeah.
[01:15:25] Speaker B: Yes.
[01:15:26] Speaker A: Yeah, that's right. Do that on the side. Because I love working with the other. I love, you know, working within, you know, bitcoin and just getting to meet, you know, a bunch of different people. It gives me a bunch of industry. But, but still, like, like I said, so just identify mainly with the entrepreneur. And I wanted to use. I always joke, you know, I was traditionally trained in finance and like a lot of good that does me. So. But I was like, when I was starting, you know, the company is like, well, that's where my, my skill sets and you know, experience are. So. And that's where again, I would challenge all entrepreneurs building bitcoin companies. To your point, how do you hold ourselves and each other to the bitcoin standard, if you will, and doing things within the bitcoin ethos? And so I challenged myself to found a bitcoin company using the registered investment advisor business model. We offer four services, retirement services like 401ks for small business, individual wealth management, financial planning and bitcoin financial services. Kind of my shtick is, you know, we only focus on sound custody solutions. So I'm not going to recommend the ETF or MicroStrategy as a proxy to bitcoin. We're sovereign individuals and we have the ability to self custody.
[01:16:39] Speaker B: You don't find the ETF to be a solid custody solution, sir? They are government regulated.
Don't you know this?
[01:16:50] Speaker A: I do. It's. It's forced down my throat, but it's just, I certainly could do that and probably sleep at night just because, you know, getting, you know, people price expense.
[01:17:04] Speaker B: Bitcoin, getting them out of the index and into bitcoin. It's something, it's a step in the right direction, I guess. Right. Like, better to have it than not, you know.
[01:17:14] Speaker A: That's totally true. And you know, I'm big on, you know, expanding the capital markets, you know, within bitcoin. I think there's some, some ways we can do that by taking the best of traffi and applying it to bitcoin. But in general, it's like I'm not just after price exposure. Like there's so much more to bitcoin than just that. And it's like, I don't think as a fiduciary, you know, forgoing those other benefits of bitcoin just in terms of price exposure is generally in the best interest of my clients. And again, not financial advice. But even across my trifi services, I seek to, you know, integrate bitcoin into them. You know, try to keep my ear to the industry. Some of the most exciting developments I've seen are, you know, build asset management.
They're out of Seattle. They take unchained collateralized loans, buy them, package it up in a private credit fund, and then sell that to accredited investors. So that's a tried and true tri fi strategy where it's, you know, private credit fund. You are getting yield on that. That yield is real trifi yield. It's the interest the loan recipient is paying on that loan. That's a contract, you know, they signed up for, but instead a sovereign debt. That underlying collateral is bitcoin. So that can help me fulfill a potential fixed income need for a client that they may need if they're older or whatnot, without having to succumb to an asset that is getting debased and melting based on the whims of the federal bank. Another exciting development is Strive Asset Management, Vivex, Ramaswamy's old company. They just released an ETF where there are packaging up companies that have issued debt to buy bitcoin into an etf. And so that's an easy way for, for me, other financial advisors to, you know, get exposure to some sort of like fixed income with the under underlying collateral being bitcoin. You know, the financial planning aspect of things. You know, worked with a lot of bitcoiners here, how to be good stewards of our wealth. You know, it's like if you're in bitcoin earlier, you see the potential of bitcoins. Like, yes. You know, it's like, I don't like parting with SATs either, but money isn't the only thing in this world. And really try to be cognizant of not worshiping money, which I do think some bitcoiners unfortunately fall into. And obviously that's bad. So try to help them to develop a plan to be good stewards of their wealth, whether that's donating it to a charity that's close to their heart. Or the next generation, you know, they can fulfill the family's missions and obligations, their communities. Like there's a lot of, you know, fringe aspects, you know, around a singular asset that we can be clever with. And ultimately we try to help our clients reach funded contentment where money and meaning are in balance.
[01:20:11] Speaker B: Nice. Nice. Yeah, have y'all. Are y'all actually getting into like. Because, because I know like two things that you brought up in, in that I think are like huge markets and I thought it was really interesting because I read the Stone Ridge letter for this year recently. I'm not sure if you listen to that one, but the. He talked about how them and backed are getting into in no uncertain terms. He basically said that the interest rates are crazy in bitcoin backed loans in the bitcoin backed loans market. But that there's a freaking phenomenal opportunity if you can find the capital behind it. Because it's basically the most secure loan you could possibly. You know, like you're, you're over collateralized in bitcoin. And you know, they've been bitcoin standard since 2017. So like they know the degree of risk and the, the, the expected volatile or what volatility they think they can expect and that it would seem to and has shown or indicated to get better and better over time at this very job. And they are trying to get into that. But then also there's a really strong market because we talked about this in the roundtable recently, there's a really strong market for multisig kind of as a service. Is having a service as like a backup key or a third key in a quorum or two keys out of seven or something, you know, some crazy thing like that.
And I was curious, are, are do you get like that detailed like that involved in what you're doing with your clients and you just like charge this as a service? Like, like how does multisig and the setup of okay, I want to get you to hold your own keys. How do you think about tackling that with clients?
[01:22:09] Speaker A: Yeah. So unless I'm working with the client and this generally comes to some sort of tax qualified account where there's much more stringent rules and regulations on how you take custody of an asset. Sometimes the ETF is the only option there. However, 99% of the Bitcoin that my clients hold and I advise them to hold is cold storage multisig. I've partnered with Unchained to make this possible. Offer three custody solutions to make to meet people where they are depending on Their comfortability and familiarity with the asset. So we obviously have like the client model. Yes, you hold two keys on chain has one offer an advisor model where you hold a key, I hold a key and unchained holds a key. Then we can also offer multi institutional, multisig and we can enroll two key agents which are generally us domicile trust companies to hold keys. And moral story is that it's all at least two or three, it's all cold storage and while with the institutional technically trusted third party. But I still think that's better in exchange. And so that's kind of the foundation of our bitcoin services. And again something I was set out to build this company, something I thought I had to remain, you know, true to the, the ethos of Bitcoin and taking custody of the bare asset ourselves on the lending front. This is actually something I'm super bullish on. Work with obviously individuals in a case by case basis. So Basilic doesn't facilitate any of these instruments or products or strategies necessarily ourselves, but we do help clients, you get exposure to them. And this is something I've been really trying to bang the drum on and help bitcoiners, you know, see past, you know, kind of their, their orange, you know, colored glasses. And so I'm of the beliefs that financialization isn't a bad word. I understand how it's been abused and how there have been, you know, bad actors and traditional finance. But to me like there's nothing inherently wrong with an option contract, right? That is a contract where two market participants take either side of that trade.
[01:24:25] Speaker B: If it actually requires real liquidity and you actually have to put the reserves up, an option would necessarily be a proof of reserve sort of contract because you actually have to buy the asset in order to be able to sell the contract. So if you actually had this delivered in a sound way, it literally decreases the volatility of the money. Like it's not, it's not something that attributes to volatility, it's something that dampens volatility. And people don't realize that it's a critical market service to actually produce financialization that is useful, that is actually meaningful. But the thing is, if you don't have real price signals, then it becomes an accelerant. Then it becomes something that actually attributes to volatility because you don't actually have it backed by any real resources. So it's not constrained by scarcity or real risk and you don't have the real price of the loan because people are just Printing loans, loans out of thin air for nothing. And your interest rate makes no sense. So all of your, all of the parameters that go into your options contract, are you just pulling stuff out of their ass and you know, throwing it into the wind and hoping something sticks. And all you're doing is just flooding 10 times the amount of money into this gambling system because everybody's just chasing, okay, well if there's money just flying in the wind, what I need to put up a net and catch it. And it just leads to fragility and systemic risk being spread throughout the system rather than its actual purpose, which is decreasing risk, offloading risk onto speculators instead of holders and people who are making long term contracts so that they eat the volatility in the risk of the contract. That's literally what it does. Financialization is a hugely valuable thing for the economy over financialization, with trillions of dollars being printed out of nowhere and dumped into the economy is poison, is a, it's a market destroyer. I totally agree, I totally agree. Sorry.
[01:26:21] Speaker A: No, you're exactly right. And so it's like some of the things, you know, I've been trying to, some trends I've been watching is like the growing, you know, industry for your bitcoin collateralized lending. And I think this is going to be extremely beneficial to deepening bitcoin capital markets. Interest rates generally are high right now because there aren't too many.
You have servicers or people offering the service. So part of that's a function of competition. But as we get more and more participants in that business, you know, we'll get more credit assessment. See, you know, using unchained an example like they will do their due diligence on you as a potential lender on if this is a good bet for them or not. You know, they're in a business, they want to make money. And so as more credit assessment gets out there, lenders will analyze bitcoin backed loan solutions. I think that will contribute to better price discovery. The interest rates charge on those loans I think will act as a market signal to the perceived perception of volatility within Bitcoin.
As we get more and more professional corporate finance teams working on a bitcoin standard, looking their risk management prowess to Bitcoin, I think kind of example that it's like airlines buy jet fuel, they hedge that jet fuel and they use financial instruments to do so. So the more tools we have available within the bitcoin markets, these all serve as greater data points for us as market participants. And Bitcoiners that will ultimately help deploy more capital into bitcoin. And so I believe this is a good thing. And it's mainly a good thing because it's built, like you said, on a solid foundation where those price signals can be interpreted accurately. And then it's just up to the individual themselves to decide which side of the bet they'd like to be on.
[01:28:14] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. 100, man.
We're actually. My cutoff is like a minute ago. And I don't think. I don't think. I think I still have like a couple of minutes. I don't think they're here yet. But I just want to say thank you for coming on. I wish we had a little bit more time to go down this rabbit hole because I could talk about, especially from the context of financialization, how I think E Cash is going to come up. The idea of a financial institution that's proving reserves for every single E Cash note. So credit can spread as E Cash and become like a payment mechanism that is provably backed by bitcoin in some sort of a multisig quorum that could even be jurisdictionally separated to a bunch of different governments. The number of things that you can do with that to kind of expand or extend that trust model, I think everybody's sleeping on how valuable, like the multisig market, the proof of reserves market, the bitcoin loan market is, I think, utterly massive. And what we are going to see in the next five to 10 years, I think that's at the heart of it. I think that's where the overwhelming majority of real use and real, like, you can do this with bitcoin that you cannot do with anything else exists. And I think it's going to get into an interesting place because I think there will be networks and monetary or financial powers or operators that challenge the authority of governments trying to tell them what to do because they are necessarily not in any jurisdiction. There might be some player or set of players that are in a jurisdiction, but how do you hold a Canadian company, a U.S. company, a Russian company, a Syrian company, and then a private undisclosed lawyer and three personal individuals accountable according to some sort of a system or say that your E Cash or something has to do this when not even any, like, you know, the US can tell the three people in the US but the three people in the US can't make the system do it, you know, so that's all to say, like, I could go down that rabbit hole for like an hour and I would love to unpack it, but I am out of time, dude. I wanted to say thank you for joining me. Thank you for working with me. It's been. It's been a trip and it's cool to see like a little bit of momentum and I'm glad people are starting to know that, you know, Wyatt is part of the bitcoin Audible team and maybe for use this opportunity to shill like, like what's, what's something that you want to direct people toward, get people to the space and the stuff that you're working on and like how to follow you and that sort of thing.
[01:31:08] Speaker A: Absolutely. God, thank you so much for having me on. It's an honor and a pleasure. You can find my business, Basilic Financial.
Our slogan is prosperity with purpose. If that message resonates with you, you would love to set up a conversation. You can also find some of my personal
[email protected] or I'm on Twitter @WR O'Rourke.
[01:31:30] Speaker B: Sweet. Sweet. I'll have the links to all that in the show notes and I'll have the link to a couple of those articles, actually. The ones. The ones that I have in my reading list right now down there too. So if anybody wants to dig into those or if they end up on the show. I don't know. I don't know. You never know. I read a lot, so.
[01:31:46] Speaker A: Oh, sorry. And then of course, if you're interested in starting a bitcoin hub or bitcoin citadel yourself, like, please reach out. You can find more resources at Denver Space or, you know, if you're in the Denver area, we have a bunch of events. You can find that event calendar on our website as well.
[01:32:01] Speaker B: Yeah, dude, I need to find a time. I need to get up that way. I'd even been.
[01:32:05] Speaker A: Yeah, you do.
[01:32:06] Speaker B: I went to Colorado once. Like in traveling to somewhere, I don't even know where the hell I was going, but we stayed in Colorado for like a couple of nights. But I have not gone out to Denver and I would love to come hang out and see the space, maybe do a. A little gathering or something. I'll do a presentation or something. God knows what, lightning maybe and. But we need to get the crew together and hang out. I'd love to see it in person and you know, kind of dig into the details, which I'll have the link to all the open source, everything that you guys have, open source or whatever clearly available to people because I think we need more in real life bitcoin spaces and bitcoin communities because not only has these recent Generations lost this. But I think everything about our system and the disinformation in the economic system has disincentivized this greatly. And we've tried to band aid over it, and we've tried to create artificial alternatives, and ultimately they need to lead us back to fixing this in the real world.
And it's not. It means you have to change how you think about things. It means you have to change day to day what you do and, you know, what your.
How you think about what it is that you're doing, what's actually meaningful, what's actually a step in the right direction. And it's. It's a big deal that, you know, commons the park. You guys, like so many. So many. You've done such a good job of kind of leading the way, and everybody has provided so much information and assistance to everyone else to. To get others on board, and we really need to take advantage of that because that's literally how you build it. You know, like, you let, like, one person gets down, does the work, takes all the risk and the uncertainty, and makes something work, and it says, hey, this worked. And then other people. Other people do it. And then you really. You start to set a standard. You start to spread this through the community, and then you can actually have a network in real life, you know, and you can meet people and you can do things and you can have boots on the ground actually making the world better rather than tweeting about it, so.
[01:34:26] Speaker A: Absolutely. Well said, Sarah.
[01:34:28] Speaker B: All right, man. Dude, thank you so much for joining me. I'll probably talk to you. We got a meeting, I'm sure in the next day or two, so.
[01:34:34] Speaker A: Yeah, Wednesday.
[01:34:35] Speaker B: Yeah, I'll catch you on Wednesday then.
[01:34:39] Speaker A: Take care. Bye.
[01:34:43] Speaker B: That wraps us up for today. I really hope you guys go and check out the space and check out what Wyatt has been up to. And a huge shout out to Wyatt for joining me and for all the literally amazing work that he has put in helping to keep bitcoin audible running. He's been. We've been working together for a while now, and he is indispensable.
So also just. We've had a lot of different conversations about stuff, and I've wanted to get into the whole bitcoin in real life thing for a while, and I hope you guys check out the space in Denver that he has, especially if you are in that area. I know numerous people that crew, actually, and I can vouch for knowing they're great to work with and they're great to talk to and all of that good stuff. So really something to take seriously. And then also if you are not in that area, if you don't have a good meetup, if you don't have a, a space, but you think you might be able to set one up or you could talk to people, you know why I talked about this in the episode is that a bunch of them just got together and said, let's do this. And that's literally all it takes. And there is a layer of in real life that needs to happen in order to make this revolution real. Because that's what it is.
It is a fundamental change in how we build our networks, how we think about our money and how we think about what it is that brings us together as a society and that starts and ends in real life.
So I hope this was a useful conversation to you guys. This will definitely be a topic that comes back up as I get a little bit more time or be able to refocus from some of the projects that I'm finally bringing into reality. Something happened today actually with Pear Drive. I'm going to give you guys an update on because it worked, it worked, it's working. So stay tuned, stay tuned. Really exciting things there. And I am still looking for a developer by the way, someone who can build probably in React native, but also just generally having familiarity and having worked with Nostr and building with nostr IDs or just the Nostr spec and then Also familiarity with JavaScript would be nice, but also just general UI development. I'm really just looking for someone who is motivated, who can learn, who is comfortable with some of those things and can learn the rest of it. Because I think we have a lot of really, really cool things that we can build. I want to be able to demonstrate exactly what it is that we made and why we made it. And so I'm looking for people. So reach out to me. Let's start a conversation. You can find Mel, Noster, Keaton, Twitter, even. All those links will be down in the show notes. And do not forget that you can get 10% off your jade. This baby, she's so pretty. Look at that thing. You can get 10% off with code guy and the link and details are right in the show notes and hope you're looking out for a QR code and hope you got your BitKit wallet.
It's bit kit by the way. Like B I T K I T. Check it out. Bitcoin lightning all in one self custody. That's hard to come by. Thank you guys. I will catch you on the next episode of Bitcoin. Audible, I am Guy Swan. Until then, everybody take it easy, guys.
