Chat_140 - Time, Family, and The Bullish Case for Pickleball with Vijay

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Consumerism is something that kind of hollows out society. It takes away from the real meaning of why we're here and why we're here on earth and what our goal should be. And I think that just bitcoin shifting people away from that mindset towards a more future oriented mindset, I think it increases global morality, it has that effect on people and it's just, I think it's just bringing back something ancient that humans had, which is sound money. [00:00:52] Speaker B: What is up guys? Welcome back to Bitcoin Audible. I am Guy Swan, the guy who has read more about bitcoin and than anybody else you know. And this is Bitcoin Audible where you will stay up to date on everything happening in the bitcoin space and learn literally everything about it. Because that's what we do. Today we have an awesome chat. We're actually bringing Vijay Boyapati back on the show, which I hadn't got to sit down and talk to him for a long time. It actually been, had been years and I'm really glad we decided to do this. And I thought of him because this was a, this was an awesome conversation. Actually took a direction that I hadn't intended it to, but just a really, really great conversation. Vijay is an awesome dude, really, really like him, really love his work. But real quick, did you know that you can actually sell without selling your bitcoin, without paying capital gains tax? You can actually get the fiat from your bitcoin if you need it. So Leden IO offers bitcoin backed loans and I've been a customer to get my house remodeled. This is what I've used and literally right now, if I hadn't done the bitcoin backed loan, if I had just sold my bitcoin, it would actually have cost me more than twice as much, almost three times as much bitcoin as it does today. For, for me to have finished this remodeling project, there's a link in the show notes where you can get all the details about their track record, about the policies, about the fine print, about their proof of reserves, all the important stuff that you need to verify before you pull the trigger. But this is an awesome tool to have. Also check out the Oslo Freedom Forum. This will be next year, June 1st through 3rd in Norway. This is the conference bringing together, you know, activists, journalists, artists and cypherpunks to, to discuss stories, ideas and share technologies in the fight for liberty around the world. I'm hoping I can make it this year. I've only been once, but it was so great. It was fantastic. But I'll let you guys know. I'll keep you updated. Also, check out Pub Key Dot app. So the guys over at Synonym are literally building a new stack with established and tested technologies or protocols to fix the walled garden. The censorship, the just the total lack of control we have over our content and our networks. And they have a ton more to come. They've launched their kind of proof of concept with PubKey app to just show what you can really begin to do with this. And I have my public key up there so that you can follow me, send me a message, tag me, let me know. Definitely check it out if you haven't. And lastly, get Chroma co. Chroma is trying to bring Bitcoiners into the light. Light designed for humans, to be specific, because as you know, keyboard junkies, we are way too often destroying our hormones, our energy levels, our circadian rhythms, like the amount of health consequences that slowly build up over time because we're always staring at our screens. And Chroma has a number of fantastic products for getting that right. One is one of these is the Nightshades. I love these guys, especially because I can still see a lot of the color. You have to read about them, check them out. There's a link. Also, there's a 10% discount with code, Bitcoin, audible. All that is down in the show notes. All right, guys, we have an awesome conversation today. I really just kind of wanted to pick VJ's brain, where Bitcoin is today and specifically how he saw it in relation to when he last updated and was writing the bullish case for Bitcoin, because he predicted a lot of where we are. He saw the trajectory. But, you know, there's always a lot of different winding paths that you can arrive at the same place and that kind of set precedents and change the nature of where we might expect things to go next. And so I really just want to. Wanted to kind of dig into that with him. And, and like I said, I'm really glad that we got him on the show because we ended up actually talking about the perspective that bitcoin gives that. The perspective that it has changed for him and for me on family, on thinking about time and really, really focusing on, like, how it actually allows us to focus on thinking further out and changing our time preference and why so many things become clear when your money isn't lying to you about the opportunity cost of these things, why it gives more certainty and helps reveal the real purpose behind all of this. And then also a little bit about how awesome pickleball is. So I really love this one. Getting to sit down and catch up with Vijay. So. And I think you guys are really going to love this. So this is chat 140 time family and the bullish case for pickleball with VJ Boyati. Welcome back to the show. [00:06:18] Speaker A: Thank you. [00:06:18] Speaker B: I think you were one of my first audibles, like for books. [00:06:22] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:06:23] Speaker B: Like, it was like the. It was at least like one of the. Like the second or something. Like I might have done something, but I mean, like, the bullish case was bitcoin was a bullish case of bitcoin was like the one, you know, so it's been. It's been a freaking minute. Welcome back. [00:06:40] Speaker A: Yeah. And you. I mean, you've gone on to do such great stuff and, and become really important part of, like, this bitcoin community with what you've done. I. I feel like that's been true for a bunch of people that I. I knew and did interviews with in the early days, like you and Stefan Lavera and. [00:07:02] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:07:03] Speaker A: And to see. It always makes me so happy to see people I know go on to have great success. And I had this early in my career as well, where I joined Google, and I was just a kid, you know, just out of college, and Google was hiring people who were just out of college, and I had all these friends and we're all in our early 20s, and I. I look at what those people have done in their career and it just blows me away. And I feel so lucky to be connected to people who've done really great stuff. And I feel that same kind of feeling and story with bitcoin as well. I came across so many people, you know, in the early days of bitcoin, Even, you know, 2017 is really early, and. And they've just gone to have huge successes. Like, I think about Safe and his book and I think about Stefan, his podcast and what you're doing as well. It's awesome. It. It just makes me excited about the world to see people I know have great success. [00:08:14] Speaker B: No, I totally feel the same way. I was talking about it with a friend, couple people recently, actually. I think there's. There's an element of bitcoin in it too, is just that, like, there's this kind of clarity of motivation and that, like, you can build something, you know, and. And this might even be kind of generally true in tech because you're never too far away from a paradigm shift in tech. Yeah. You know, like, like a major adaptive shift in how the technology works, um, such that there is this degree of like, no, we totally can do this, you know, and, and there's this focus on like, okay, I, I gotta find one problem and I gotta solve it and everybody, we all have our own problems, right? And, and I think so much of it is about like, do you believe a problem can be solved? Do you believe there's a solution to this? Because there's so much nihilism in like, quote unquote, normie land, right? And that's how I think about it, at least. And there's just so much general hope like, like optimism in like, okay, maybe we don't know how to figure it out right now, but like, we can totally figure it out. And so much of like, success, I feel like, is just having the, the belief that there's some way to solve it and the conviction on what you're trying to solve and just like, keep showing up. Yeah, like just keep showing up, you know? [00:09:54] Speaker A: Yeah. And it's, it's very powerful and motivating to have a common mission and a common motivator that inspires you. I mean, that's when great things get done. And it reminds me a little bit about something Peter Thiel said. You know, the famous investor, he, he said one of the things that's really important is the story you tell the 20th employee at a company, because the 20th employee is not going to have enough equity that it's going to be, I mean, most companies is going to be a huge deal as much as say the third or fourth or fifth employee. But what motivates that 20th employee is the mission. Like, are we doing something that's truly impactful for the world? And I think that's one of the things which is most exciting about Bitcoin, I feel shares in common with my early career at Google is that there's this mission which is so motivating, which is fix the money and fix the world. It is such an enormously impactful mission. And Google's was making all of the world's information accessible and organizing it in a way that it's, you know, useful to people. And that was a big mission too, right? That's a, that's a hugely important, impactful mission. That alone is motivating. And so I think people come to bitcoin, even if they coming in now and they feel like, oh, you know, if I invest in Bitcoin, maybe I'm not going to get a thousand or 10,000x returns. They're still motivated because what they're getting involved with is going to make the world a better place. And I think they'll still get rich. I think bitcoin is still the best asymmetric asset on Earth, but the mission is really motivating. [00:11:52] Speaker B: No, 100%. 100%. The why is really what I think keeps people. Because the why is the ultimate question. And so much of fiat land tries to get you to stop asking why and just kind of like doing a bullet point, like doing what you're told and kind of like staying in line so that you're, you're the piece of the cog that works of the big thing. And you know, when you ask why, it's just like, oh, well, that's just how it works. And I think when you have something that can give people a why that really feels meaningful. Especially one as deep and meaningful as like fixing the meaninglessness of fiat is actually replacing it with something where we can actually build a real why for all the things that we do. Like bitcoin, it lights something in people and it stays. That's at least been my experience with all the people that I know in bitcoin. Here we are, what, eight years later having another conversation and it's me and you again. Yeah. [00:13:13] Speaker A: And the interesting thing is that a lot of people come to bitcoin, not necessarily because of the mission, because they are just sort of trying to get. [00:13:21] Speaker B: Rich, but they find it. [00:13:23] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, they find the mission. And bitcoin does transform people. And I know you've seen this in enough people to know it's not a coincidence. And I've seen it enough to know that bitcoin transforms people. Because just the simple fact of being able to keep your savings in a way that doesn't melt away over time changes your view of the world. You start thinking about the future in a different way. And just the fact that you think about the future in a different way can change your moral compass. It means that you sort of slowly but surely become lower time preference. You want to invest more in your future. You think about all of the great things you could do if you are able to defer consumption in the present. And consumerism is something that kind of hollows out society. It takes away from the real meaning of why we're here and why we're here on Earth and what our goal should be. And I think that just bitcoin shifting people away from that mindset towards a more future oriented mindset, I think it increases some global morality. I mean, it sounds really strange because we're talking about like this digital, but, but it had, it has that effect on people and it's just, I think it's just bringing back something ancient that humans had, which is sound money. [00:14:59] Speaker B: Yeah, it's, it's really wild how that whole connection happens because I do, you know, you kind of caveat that it's like, you know, we're talking about like a digital thing and like, it's just a ledger. Right. But like, how could something like that have such a profound effect? And if I, if I was like forced to explain it in like a very short span, you know, the money of a society, I think Rothbard describes it this way, is that it's the ultimate hedge against uncertainty in that like, when you want to hold cash, when you want to hold the money of society, it's because you don't know what you want to do with it yet. You don't know. It's basically this ambiguous, like, investment in your future. Okay, I have a future, but I don't know where I'm going to take it yet. It is in the most ambiguous universal standard unit of, of worth that I have. Whereas when you destroy the value of the money, you have everybody focused on the stuff, it like flips it around because you don't have this kind of like universal, like, okay, this is just what's going to be there. Whatever it is that I need, when I need it, it becomes this, oh, I have to have the car, I have to have the house, I have to have this new TV or something. And so you're just chasing the stuff. And it's an, it's an ever like hyper focus on the literal material that you were trying to get. But that ambiguity of value in the future lets you ask, like, gives you time to sit and ask, what is my future? Like, what is it going to be? What am I going to be willing to spend this on? And if that is the most valuable good in society, if it's the most scarce thing to get a hold of, it means that the first focus of what anybody can do is, okay, I'm just going to put it in the money and I'm going to ask what's worth spending on this, on in the future, you know, because this is the ambiguous. I can have whatever my future heart desires if I have some of this saved up. And the fact that you can see or expect it, that uncertainty to actually be, um, or the certainty of the money that hedge against uncertainty, the, the certainty of the money's value. You can see it 30 years out, you can ask yourself that question. You know, you can look at that honestly and you can feel like it's not like a. An arbitrary. Just experiment for like, oh, I'm just gonna. I'm just gonna go on this journey for, you know, whatever reason. I'll write it down on a piece of paper, but it doesn't really mean anything. It doesn't. It's never gonna manifest into anything. It's like, no, I could have this in 30 years. This could get me 10 times the life that I want in 30 years. What is that life? And like, that's a super existential question. That's a. Like a. Like a seriously kind of spiritual framing for how to look at your life. And it's just because you have this one piece of foundational value that you can hold onto, that you just expect to be there. And it lets you look into the future and ask what's worth it, you know, and it's just. It's wild that something seemingly so innocuous as let's put some numbers on a spreadsheet and make it so you can't edit it, you know, could have such a profound effect on what it means for people who live in that society. [00:18:34] Speaker A: Yeah, I really like the way you frame that, because I think what you said at the beginning is money is really a tool for reducing our uncertainty about the future. And just undermining that tool really kind of raises social anxiety in a way, because we don't have a way of protecting ourselves from the anxiety of the future and the uncertainty of the future. But getting it back allows us to sort of, like you say, sit back a little bit more and ponder the possibilities of what we can do with the future. And it is thinking about the future that is what helps build civilization. It's investing in the future rather than consuming in the present. It's the deferral of pleasure for some greater mission that helped us build these structures that we have that makes our lives so much better than, you know, our ancestors 10 or 20,000 years ago. So that's a. I think that's a really cool way of thinking about it. [00:19:33] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. The bullish case for bitcoin. I'm just going to go ahead and give a shout out for that, just because it's like one of the quintessential pieces for. I assume everybody who's listening to bitcoin audible right now has probably heard and. Or read or has a copy of the bullish case for bitcoin. If you haven't You're. You have missed a critical prerequisite for the university of Bitcoin. So go ahead and get that. You can literally dig this up in the show. I think I've republished it like three times on this show. I don't even know. It's one of the oldest videos. It's one of the first ones that I was like, I should publish reads on YouTube. And so I published it on YouTube. It's still got like a crappy background and like all my old logo, like crypto economy logos, I think even. But it's there. You can listen to it and it's been listened to thousands of times. But shout out to that one because that one still is just amazing. Not too long ago, I refreshed it. [00:20:35] Speaker A: One of my favorite readings, and it's the one that's still linked to from the article. Like the, the, you know, the article that preceded my book has a link to your reading. And I really loved it when you did that because at the time, you know, when I published the article, I've said this a few times, I had no idea that it would get the reception it did, honestly, just thought it would be a tool for me. When people came to me and said, you know, why are you so interested in bitcoin? I'd point them to it and then, you know, a lot of inbound people asking me whether they could translate it. And then you did the audio. And that was just. I mean, it was really humbling that there was so much interest in it. And that kind of opened my eyes to the possibility of like, hey, there's something resonating here. And, you know, getting it into different formats and getting into different languages might be helpful. It might be useful for people around the world who want to consume this in different ways. So I, you know, a special place in my heart for that reading you did in the very early days. [00:21:40] Speaker B: Hell, yeah. That. That piece deserves that place as well. And it's. Yeah, I think the reason it resonated so, like, there is something. There is something, like, incredibly satisfying to hear somebody articulate something in a way that rings so true to you that you're not able to put words to. You know, like when you're. You're starting to get an idea and then somebody frames it in just some particular way that just like, oh, it just fits. It's like when you get that puzzle piece and, you know, you're trying to figure out where it goes, and it just like slots so per. Like, like no resistance when it just slots Right in there, and you finally get the grid on the puzzle down altogether or whatever. Something about that in the bullish case for bitcoin, I mean, it's just so many of these pieces. There is that element of that that is just. So that's why. That's the thing that I've been trying to put my freaking finger on for so long. And I really think that's why it resonated so well with people, because. Cause there's a number of moments in that. In that work that I think, like, really kind of satisfy that. That perfect puzzle piece. [00:22:58] Speaker A: Oh, I appreciate that. [00:23:01] Speaker B: So what. I haven't been keeping up with you very well. I haven't. I've tried to ignore social media as much as I can to get work done. And I was just thinking when Johnny and I were talking about, like, who should we talk to on the show? And I was like, what the hell has Vijay been up to? And we kind of chatted back and forth, and he's like, well, let's just reach out to him and get a show. What have you been up to? How are things? What projects are you working on? Where are you in the scope of the whole. Of the big picture? [00:23:32] Speaker A: Yeah, so I. I would say mostly for the last year and a half. Ish. I've been focused on being a dad. Have four. Four young kids at home. And so I spent a lot of time doing dad stuff. I mean, that just like, dude, you and me both. Yeah. Chauffeuring my kids around, you know, getting involved in their activities, being involved in their education. On the bitcoin side, I have started thinking about and working on the second edition of the Bullish case for bitcoin, because I do think that the. The market has changed so significantly, and there have been such important developments in the last. Even just a year that it warrants revisiting. And the same thing had been true with the book. When I originally published it, people were asking me, like, to write a book version of the article. After the article came out, you know, almost instantly, people were like, can you turn this into a book? And. And some people were just printing out the article and binding it and then giving it to people. So they just. They just wanted a physical copy that they could do that so they could give it to people. And I just. I didn't feel like there was more that I wanted to say after I'd written the article. But after three or four years, I think it was around 2021, I felt like things had changed enough from 2017, which is when I started writing it that I was like, actually, you know, I do think there's enough here to add to the article and write a book. And, and so the book is, you know, quite a bit longer than the article. And I feel like I have that same feeling now that there is enough that has happened that it's worth revisiting the book and talking about, you know, treasury companies and ETFs and revisiting the nation state adoption thesis that I had in the first, in the first edition and the risk profile. What are the risks to bitcoin? I think one of the things that people that resonated with people about the article in the book was that I tried to be really open and honest that there are risks to bitcoin and to owning bitcoin and that you should consider those. Like, I didn't want to be like just a blatant shill and be like, you know, this is inevitable. There are no risks. Bitcoin is going to 20 million and it's going to be a straight shot up there. I wanted to be honest about that. [00:26:13] Speaker B: Why wouldn't. I don't understand. That's exactly what's happening here. Okay. [00:26:19] Speaker A: Yeah, well, you know, I think now that's much more true. I think the biggest risks to bitcoin are really off the table. Uh, but I do think there are risks and I wanted to talk about those in the second edition. So there are a number of topics that I think are really interesting that should be added to the book. And so that's, you know, where my effort is, is going now. [00:26:44] Speaker B: No, that's awesome. I didn't, was not even aware of that. But that's, that's fantastic. And I agree, like you, you kind of like, especially because there's so much about like trying to see where things are going to go. It's like, okay, how are the incentives going to play out? How, how's the political landscape likely to, to kind of evolve itself? And you kind of have these predictions and in some conceptual ways they do play out, but then so many things happen in different areas at different times that just completely kind of shatter one path as like the likely outcome. And so now there's a new set of possibilities within the one, the one that didn't get eliminated, you know, and so it's like, okay, well now it's time to revisit this because, you know, this, this really big one might be gone, but now we have three new big ones within the realm of where we are, where we stand today. And I find that quite common, especially every cycle. Every cycle, there's enough of how things have shifted and where we moved into kind of the next chapter that we can kind of get a better, slightly better focus on where things are headed and what. All the kind of like, theoretical mumbo jumbo we talked about in the last cycle, what it might actually start to look like when it becomes concrete and starts to draw edges around it. [00:28:16] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. And the world has changed too, right? I think sort of the global macro picture is different too. [00:28:26] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, Yeah. [00:28:28] Speaker A: I think Lynn Alden has done a really good job of explaining, you know, the way she says that nothing stops this train. Like, the fiscal picture of the United States is in a really dire state, and it doesn't seem like there's any way to get consensus, political consensus, to fix that. So what are the implications of that? The macro background, I think, is a really interesting story as well. So these are all little pieces of, like, that got me motivated to be like, I should revisit this. Because, you know, when I wrote the book for a few years, I was like, oh, there isn't really much more I want to say, and I've made my contribution to the bitcoin space, and now other people do their thing and make their contributions, and I'll kind of go back to the background and just shit post on Twitter. [00:29:23] Speaker B: It's where we all descend to. I will step back and simply shit post on Twitter. [00:29:32] Speaker A: But, you know, I think I'm motivated again, which is fun. It's like, I feel motivated to talk about the big picture, bitcoin, its importance, its role in the world, the global economy. Lots of. Lots of interesting stuff to talk about. [00:29:46] Speaker B: Yeah. Hell yeah, man. Something we started briefly getting into before. I was like, all right, we should just lob this into the show. Here was how it kind of changes our sense of time and that. And just thinking about time itself as capital, because it is kind of the foundational thing, like going back to the idea that money is a hedge against uncertainty. It's a way to be able to allocate to know that we have some degree of control over our time in the future. Because at the end of the day, the ultimate, most scarce, most valuable resource is time. And I don't think it's a coincidence that, you know, we price the use of resources in time. It's interest rate. It's. It's the. It's a cost per time that we pay hourly for work done. And what's the value of the output of that Work in time. So this type of work and this speciality is worth $80 per hour or $10 per hour. You know, like the, it all, it all falls back to time. And as I have gotten a little bit older and as you know, you were saying the same is. It's crazy how you just think about time extremely differently. You know, when you're holding a four month old baby and I'm thinking about like, okay, how healthy am I going to be when she's having kids and I need, I need to be the grandparent and how much it affects my day to day, like thinking, what should I do? How should I like. And this is again, goes back to why bitcoin and sound money. And I should say sound money because it sounds crazy when you say bitcoin fixes health. But that's not what it is. It's sound money allows a refocus on your health and your recognition of that cost in time, you know, into the future. But you were just like starting to get into like a really good rant on that. And I stopped you because I wanted to, I wanted to place it right here. So maybe expand on that idea a little bit. [00:32:12] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I think the point I was making is there's one thing that's more scarce and precious than bitcoin and that's time. Our time. And the value of time is that it gives us the ability to connect with the people who are really important to us. And that time is so fleeting and precious. And I think I was making the point to you guys that parenting is difficult. It involves a lot of time and anxiety and sacrifice and, and sleepless nights, but it's also incredibly precious. And it's the deepest social connections you have are with your family and the time that you have with your kids. The thing that someone pointed out to me which made it easier to go through those hard times was 90% of the time you spend with your kids is spent before they're 12 and they become teenagers and they want to spend more time with their friends and eventually a few years later, they move out and they get their own lives and you'll see them a few times a year. For a lot of people, that's true. So you really have to try and be as present as possible for that part of their life. And bitcoin has given me that benefit that I can spend, devote more of my time to my kids and take time off to be a dad and focus on that. So I, I try to explain to people the end goal is getting Your time back. And if you look at people who are really, truly wealthy, you know, the people who have built massively successful businesses and they're billionaires, what, what they do with their money is they try to buy back their time and they'll do it in various ways. Like they don't fly commercial, for instance, because you know, when you fly commercial and you go through airport security and drive to the airport and you go through the rig morale of, of getting on a plane, you're wasting hours. Whereas if you don't even get me. [00:34:37] Speaker B: Started, dude, the last few trips I have had lost flights, like delays, missed connections, staying in a random hotel room for the next morning, like 36 hours. Airlines and airports for like two day trips, front and back end. I mean, like, God, that's so precious, right? [00:34:58] Speaker A: That that time could have been doing something that you felt passionate about or, or connecting with your friends and family or people who are dear to you. The time is that time is more important than bitcoin. And so if you can use your money to win back time, you know, you know, most of us can't hope to fly private or. But I'm just giving an example of the mindset the people who have where money is basically effectively infinitely abundant to them, what they focus on. And we can do this too. Maybe not in the same way, but we can think about it, right? What, what's another thing that you could do? Like, I spend a huge amount of time prepping food and, and cooking food and cleaning up. One thing that the really wealthy do is they have a chef. Like they have someone who comes into their house and cooks their food for them so that they're spending not the time doing all that stuff, but they're sitting down with their family and connecting with their family at dinner. Now, I'm not saying this is. You shouldn't cook your own food. There's actually joy in preparing your own food. And if you enjoy it, you should, should definitely do that. But it's an example of one way you can buy back time. And maybe, you know, for people, you know, we don't. I'm not a billionaire and don't have enough wealth to have like a chef, but you can get like meal prepping services. These are just ideas. I'm just trying to illustrate the fact that when money becomes abundant for you, the thing that you start caring about is how can I do the thing that is the most important thing in my life? And for a lot of people, that's not their job, right? Their job is just a means to get enough time to do what they want. So your goal should be to work at something, preferably that you feel passionate about, to accumulate enough savings that don't lose value over time, which is where Bitcoin comes in. But the ultimate goal is to use those savings to maximize your time on earth, to do the thing you're meant to do. And a big part of what you're meant to do is to be connected with the people you love. And also we have other purposes. We're supposed to contribute to the world and make it a better place. But. But a really big piece is just connecting with the people we love. So that, that's the, that's kind of a message I feel like shouldn't be lost there. There is a deeper purpose to having money that allows us to save and not to have it debased over time. And that is what the deeper purpose is. And when you get that, then you might start thinking like, okay, bitcoin's made a whole bunch of money or value for me over time. What do I do with that? Focus on your family. And that's what I have done. I've got the opportunity now to spend more time with my kids and I try to advocate that as well as something that's important. And I know you're doing that before the show. You're holding your daughter. It's incredibly beautiful image to just see your dad holding his daughter. It's a reminder. That's what it's all about. And hopefully reminder to the audience as well. [00:38:29] Speaker B: Having to sell Bitcoin hurts, especially when you are certain it is going to be worth more in the future. But you can actually get access to the Fiat without selling it by using a Bitcoin backed loan. Maybe this is for an emergency, maybe this is for an investment that you think will do really well. But it won't beat Bitcoin because it's monetized. Or this is actually something that you know you'll get back, but the timing just isn't right. And you don't want to let Bitcoin go for that span. This is why Leden was built. They let you borrow against your Bitcoin quickly and easily. And Bitcoin is the ultimate collateral. There is no more perfect thing to use securely in this setup and something that you can verify with their proof of reserves that they do. There are no monthly payments. If you don't want, you pay it off at your pace. There's no penalties for early payment. There's no finder's fee. It is quick and simple to get your funds. I think their turnaround right now is like 12 hours. And I don't know why every bitcoin company doesn't do this. Everybody who's at least holding bitcoin for other people but they do a proof of reserves so that you can confirm that your balance is there. And something that made me really happy recently is they just cut their Ethereum loans, they cut their yield product, they cut their non custody loans at lower rates. And so they now offer one simple hyper focused thing, custodied, secure, easy bitcoin backed loans. Use someone with a good track record who's done over $10 billion in loans available in over a hundred countries. They do proof of reserves and they've made it through the toughest times in the market without having a single problem. There's no credit check, there's no hassle. It's simple. This is why LEDN IO exists. Get the value of your bitcoin without having to sell it. Remember to read up on how the collateral works. They're really good at reaching out and making sure that everything stays balanced. Remember that bitcoin is volatile so do not overextend. But if you know how to use it, this could be a huge benefit to your bitcoin stack and give you optionality in accessing fiat without it being that selling bitcoin is your only option. I've been a very happy customer. Check them out. The link and details are in the description. It's weird how like being a parent changes like framing and I don't know when it was exactly on the show because I do still think oh, I want to build something that is lasting. I want to have an impact on the world and all of that stuff. But a lot of that I think of is kind of secondary or kind of a Secondary is not quite the word derivative of the. Why I want to have those things is so that I can show or have an example laid out for my kids to do that. I don't know when it was but there was definitely a point in the show where I realized, you know, this show doesn't make as much like just like profit as like, like for a sheer job or whatever. Like I wouldn't be doing this show if it was just like oh am I, am I making enough profit to, to not be a technician or something else. But it, it lays such an important groundwork for building a network that can like hit you. Like I get to meet people like you, I get to talk to people who are building other projects. And so it ends up being just kind of this way for me to build the foundation of a network that I can go reach out and be involved in another project or get in with, you know, some other group that's making a really important investment to. To fill in a blank that the space needs or the ecosystem needs. But the other thing that I have thought for quite some time as my podcast is, you know, I. I'm not going to always be here. And, like, how valuable would it be? Like, so many of my episodes I think about, like, you know, what if by some horrible mishap, I'm not around when Rad's 12? And what would it be like for him to be able to go back and listen to me and still. Still get, like, I could still maybe teach him something, you know, and the. The value of me trying to spend all this time digging into these topics and trying to make better sense of it for other people is really my attempt to. How can I have other people be my feedback mechanism for the right way to explain something, or the way that definitely clicks and makes the most sense to the most people so that I can kind of condense that down into something that my son or my daughter can watch, you know, 20 years from now, and I can be better at explaining that to them. And so, like, it really does because, like, all the other stuff just feels like, you know, anything that I build, even though it's great to think that I'm, like, going to build something that lasts and all this stuff, but, you know, who's going to host my podcast after, you know, 10 years? Like, like, you know, like, the. That stuff is just going to disappear. And, like, I'm okay with that. But what actually lasts, like, my legacy is my kids, you know, like, my legacy, like, they could last indefinitely. It's the only thing really, that, if you think about it could actually last indefinitely, that something meaningful that I taught some value that I instilled in them today could actually survive generation after generation after generation, to the point that it's connected and it's had some, even a minor effect that has cascaded through, you know, after 50 generations, millions of people, you know, I mean, just like, just the. The cascade of, like, how and what it could affect is so much mature. You get 20,000 people listen to a podcast. That's cool, you know, but it's just a podcast in their feed with all the other ones and Sayfedeen and Stefan and, like, everybody's got good points and everybody's got a great way of expressing, explaining it or a new topic to cover. But I don't know, all of it just ends up having me rethink that. It's all really about how I can do, be better and have a better foundation for my most important project, which is those little psycho rugrats that are running around. [00:45:29] Speaker A: Yeah, totally. [00:45:30] Speaker B: Right now, you know. [00:45:32] Speaker A: Yeah, I think that's so true. And I tell people this, I say, for the vast majority of us, the most important contribution we will make to the world is our kids. There are some exceptions. You know, if you're Albert Einstein or you're Isaac Newton, you'll do something so profound that it will dwarf maybe the contribution of your children. But for the vast majority of us, 99.9%, it is our kids and raising them in a moral, healthy way is a huge contribution to society. [00:46:05] Speaker B: And. [00:46:07] Speaker A: I do think it is important also to do, to find your calling and to find work that you feel passionate about. And it's not necessarily the thing that's most lucrative, it's the thing that speaks to you the most. I got advice very early in my career that was incredibly helpful to me. Before I joined Google, I was evaluating whether to work there or at another company, Yahoo. And Yahoo was a much, much bigger company at the time and they offered me a lot more salary. Google was a startup, it wasn't a public company. Yahoo is a public company. And I spoke to a friend of mine who was a professor of mathematics at the University of Toronto, and I was like, what do I do? Like, I didn't know what to do. You know, I had gone through the dot com bust and been at a really small startup that blew up. And, and so this whole idea of shares being worth anything really wasn't something that resonated at the time. It was like, it's probably not worth anything. And so I said, you know, how do I make this decision? Yahoo is going to pay me like enough extra per year that I could buy an extra car a year. And he said, well, you know, the only rational point of having money is if it can make you happy. So if you can find a place to work that makes you happy, that's worth a lot of money. That alone is worth a lot of money. And that made my decision really easy because I remember going to Google and the passion that people felt and the excitement in the air. And I remember going to Yahoo and just felt like this corporate boilerplate job. And I was like, this is such an obvious decision decision when he framed it that way. And ultimately it did work out financially as well, because Google became this big success. But that wasn't why I made the decision. I made the decision because it was the place that spoke to me. And I feel like I was so much more passionate about working there and working with the people there. So if you can find your calling, if you can find something that really speaks to you and motivates you, you may not make as much money, but it's worth a lot of money because it makes you happy. And I think in a lot of cases, just the fact that you're doing what you're passionate about can lead to financial success because you have this burning internal motivation to do well at the thing you care about so the things can align. But ultimately the big thing is to find something that speaks to you and makes you happy. [00:48:45] Speaker B: Yeah, it is actually funny, my. My wife is a bit to blame for me finally just going full in on the show because I had started the show a bit on a whim and I had left my job very quickly when I started the show. And I show was not successful. It was not paying for itself at all. I think we were having a few hundred dollars come in or something a month. But really the reason I quit my job was that we did the math on paying a contractor to come in. There were no bitcoin back loans or anything back then. This is 2017, 2018. And I did the math on having a contractor come in to redo the kitchen and do all of this stuff. And it was just an extraordinary amount of bitcoin. And I was like, well, let's take my loss of salary and set aside this. This amount of time for my brother and I to just basically live in this construction zone and do it ourselves. How much does this cost? And this gives me the time to work on the podcast. So we did that for a spam because it actually the math laid out in our advantage. And my brother and I did construction for years and years, and my dad was a general contractor. So we remodeled the kitchen and we like tore out the wall and like, you know, did all of that stuff and saved a small fortune on it. Probably in all said and done, we didn't save a ton, but I still like that a whole lot better than working a job and having to deal with a contractor. [00:50:20] Speaker A: But that gets back to time, right? Yes, that gets back to time. And you accounted for time, you did a calculation and you figured out that this gives you the time that you want to do what you want. And I feel like that is. You were intentional about it. And I think that's a really great message for people to think about is accounting for your time. People account for the money, but they don't account for the time. And when you think of it that way, it can really have a profound impact on your life. [00:50:54] Speaker B: Yeah. So after we kind of, like, got over the hump of that and the house was in a bit more stable position, I was getting my sysadmin certification and stuff, and I was trying to go the more, like, heavy tech route. I was also looking at, like, you know, jobs in the bitcoin space, like, what was out there and applying this stuff. But I had really just kind of, like, gone all in on the pod. Like, I was just doing the podcast. It was what I love to do. I was trying to make it better. I wanted to try to figure out how to get into video stuff, which, you know, only manifested years later. We were kind of going back and forth because we were mostly living off of her income and savings. And we kind of sat down and, like, have a heart. Had a heart to heart, and just stopped in the driveway one day, and she was like, listen, I feel like I'd be an idiot to not recognize that your heart is not in. And the show is still not. It was okay. I was doing okay, but it wasn't. It was no, by no means, the salary I had left. And she said, like, I feel like I. We have to recognize that your heart is not in getting a sysadmin job or going to work for a server farm to do clerical stuff on their computers. And then, like, every single time you have a minute, like, you have a free zone, you're trying to figure out how to do something new with the show. And. And I feel like it just makes no sense to split your focus and your time and your heart into two different things when it's really. When you want it all in one place, like, let's just drop it all. Let's just stop and go all in. I'm happy to just take the risk, and I want to see what you can do in bitcoin. And with this show. And it was like. And she just put it in a way that I was just like, no, yeah, that's totally right. You know, I'm not. Like, I've been. I've been. It's very easy to put this at the bottom of my list because I didn't really care. Like, you know, it was not. I didn't care. You know, like, it was kind of neat. It's like, oh, yeah, I'm gonna work on sysadmin with the server thing. And I went and got a. You know, they flew me out to New York for a job interview, which looked really cool. And. But at the end of the day, like, where my heart and my time was spent was, Was Bitcoin. Like, I didn't want to do anything else other than the things that I thought would be best for bitcoin or best for what I could contribute. And it still ended up being, like, quite a while. But then we had, like, a Holy crap. When she left her job and, like, came home just before Rad was born. And it was like, all right, you know, like, which was shit. We did it, you know, and then went from me trying to decide what I was spending, what I was giving up in my free time to work on the show to, like, I could give up my work time to work on the show. And now the whole conversation changed around like, okay, well, what can we do together? What can we do with our kids? Where can we go? Because I can work from the Airbnb for a couple of days or whatever, but holy crap, it really does just change your framing on everything. [00:54:20] Speaker A: Yeah. I would just say that you're very lucky because you have a. You have a partner who will foster your dreams as if they are her own. [00:54:30] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:54:30] Speaker A: And that is a very special thing. [00:54:32] Speaker B: Yeah. I wouldn't give that one up. Yeah, I, that would have been so. [00:54:41] Speaker A: Much. [00:54:43] Speaker B: So much harder without her. She's been, she's been irreplaceable in all of this. You know, this is funny because we didn't finish this conversation, but this actually brings me back to the time and thinking about, like, staying active and, like, thinking about where things are going to go in 30, 50 years when I'm a grandparent, the whole pickleball thing. So you were talking because somebody, Somebody sent me, resent me this thing about, like, how pickleball is bitcoin or something. The other day, there's an article, I think it was even published on Bitcoin magazine. I've had it in, like, the lineup forever. And somebody else brought it back to my attention the other day. And I've, I, I, I will say I've played it, like, once or twice, but the fascinating, like, the, the level of, like, community and just the energy, the energy behind pickleball is wild. So because pickleball is kind of your thing, I want you to explain this to people. For the people who are in my situation or in my perspective. Give me the rundown. Tell Me about freaking pickleball. [00:55:55] Speaker A: Yeah. I do feel like there's some similarities between these communities in the sense that there's this evangelism with pickleball that you have in the bitcoin community. People who are getting to bitcoin feel this desire to tell everyone about it. Like this is so important. You need to, you know, you need to be involved as well. And I feel like the same thing is kind of true with pickleball. And you know, there's orange peeling, I feel like there's pickle pilling as well, where you think you get someone into pickleball and they. And you know, the funny thing guy, is that the person who orange peeled me was the same person who pickle pilled me. I mean, there were many, many years apart, probably, you know, separated by almost a decade. But what, what makes pickleball special? I mean, I think firstly, it's just a really fun game. It, it has all, all of the fun aspects of tennis of just, you know, a kind of racquetball type sport. But it's also, I feel like it's much more social because most Pickleball games are 2v2. They're doubles games inherently. Singles is a thing too, but it's not quite as popular as doubles. And it's so social. The way it works in most places around the country is that you just go to a public court and you put your paddle down in a stack and when a court opens, the stack of four moves in and has game with people you don't know. And I found that it's so welcoming. People want other people to play. And you see this on the courts. Just the other day, my son, who's 7 years old, was playing with an 87 year old man and, and to me, that sense of community, of bringing people together is really, really cool. And it's great for you. It's just, it's great exercise. You're out, you're in the sun, you're hitting a ball around. Ball is life and is. It is and it can not. I feel like you don't need to be as physically gifted to play pickleball as you do to play tennis. But, but that's not to say that pickleball is easy to master. It's something where you can get better and better and better, but it's. I think pickleball the difference with tennis is it's more mentally challenging, whereas tennis is more physically challenging. You know, to, to the court is smaller and the amount that you need to run is less, less Running involved. But it's a chess match. You're trying to kind of set up the, the killer shot. You can't really overwhelm your opponents with just sheer physical skill. It's more like getting the ball in the right spot and then getting them to make a mistake that, that sets you up to make the killer shot. Yeah. Whereas tennis, I think, is much more about raw physical skill and power. Like you can overwhelm someone with sheer physical talent. And you know, the best players, you know, some of their games are just like, when you watch them, it's like ace, ace, fault, ace. Because they're just so, so powerful. Whereas that's much, much less true of pickleball. So it's just a game where anyone can come in and pick it up and people with such wide ranging skill levels and age levels can come together and play. And that's why it's going, it really is going viral. I mean, in the same way that I think bitcoin has gone viral and has this, it creates this internal motivation with the. Within the community to evangelize it to more people. It's the same thing is true of pickleball. And it's been a slow burn. I mean, pickleball has been around since the 60s, but something seems to have happened in the last, let's call it five years. Maybe it's pandemic related, where people were looking for something to connect with other people that was outdoors and social and aerobic. And pickleball just happened to be the perfect combination of all of those things. And so it's had its viral moment and you see it all over the country. There are pickleball courts going up everywhere. I mean really, you can go to any city and you'll find like a lot of pickleball courts and tennis courts being converted to pickleball courts, which, you know, the 10, the, the tennis players pickleballs in. Yeah, tennis players don't like that very much, but that's. I think you'll find, I think you'll find that they're gonna. There is gonna be a lot of overlap because I think people in the bitcoin community, because they've sort of over time, their time preference is lowered and they start thinking more about the future, they start thinking about their health and they start becoming intentional about their health. And whatever your thing is, it doesn't need to be pickleball. We talked about this before the show started, guy. You should be intentional about your health and your well being. And I, I mentioned Stephen Lupka, who I think is a great advocate for walking and just being in the sun, being outside and walking. He's a walking maximalist, and I am a pickleball maximalist. But find something that activates you physically, because humans are not meant to sit. I mean, there are occasions when it. It's good. You can sit and we can connect with each other and I can speak to an old friend and. And that's worthwhile, but it's not something we should be doing for more than, like, an hour or an hour and a half. We should be up, we should be outside, we should be walking. And we now live in a world where there's this kind of strong tendency to pull us towards laziness and lack of mobility and just sitting around and not doing anything. Video games and TV and social media, and when you have kids, you will see that pull is going to be very, very strong. As your kids get older, they're going to have pressure from other kids at school. Like, all my friends have video games, and they get to play and they get to be on tv. And one thing that my wife was very militant on when we had our first kid, and she. She had a conversation with me, and I will say that I was very skeptical, was she was like, I don't want our kids to play video games at all. I want them outside and I want them rolling in the dirt, and I want them, like, playing with chickens. And so we have backyard chickens, and I want them to live kind of an outdoors life. And I was like, well, you know, I grew up with video games. They're not that bad. But I realized the wisdom in what she said. Video games are much more addictive now, I think, than when I was a kid. And. And it's so easy for kids to get sucked in and for kids to get sucked into social media. And I think the parents that are very intentional about the health and mental health of their kids will put a strong limit on these things. And they will think about the physical health and the mental health of their kids and say, no, you cannot be on social media. No, you can't be playing video games for multiple hours a day. Maybe as a treat or a reward, you can play for like half an hour or an hour, maybe once a week, and they'll think about it that way. And what I see is a lot of parents where it becomes a crutch and it becomes a habit, and then the kids just expect it. And so every day they will want to be on a tablet. And you can see there are parents who Outsource the parenting to a tablet. And there's a real danger in that. It's one of those things. It's high preference versus low time preference. Right. Like in the moment. It's very easy when you're struggling. And all parents go through periods where they're struggling, where they're sleep deprived, they're cranky, they haven't showered, especially in the early days, they haven't showered in days. And it's just so easy to be like here, take, take the tablet for a while and let me just like sit on the couch and doom scroll for a little bit. And I, I have that tendency too, I mean that, that I'm not going to say that I haven't done that. But there are these kind of incentives pulling us away from the right thing. And this is true, you know, in terms of these visual mediums like tablets and TVs and stuff like that. And it's true on the, on the food side as well. Like the food industrial complex has made the worst foods, the most addictive ones, the ones that are worse for our bodies have been hyper. They've been engineered to be, yeah, you know, hyper palatable. And, and so once you get onto them it's really hard to get off. And so we now live in a world where the real challenge is having enough self constraint to be able to hold our impulses back, knowing that that will benefit ourselves and our children in the future. And we're fighting this constant battle every day against, against a world that is trying to prey on those tendencies which have evolved over millions of years for profit. And so there's this very strong profit motive to, to hack our, our biosystems and it's all over the place and you have to be really, really vigilant to fight back against that and to prevent yourself destroying your life and destroying the lives of your kids if you do not pay attention. That can happen very easily. [01:06:07] Speaker B: It's crazy how much like this is yet again something that sound money actually plays a significant role in is if you just think about an extremely generic way of thinking about the profit to cost over time. Especially in a market where you're actually solving a problem versus a market where you're conditioning a problem ongoing like, and you can apply this to pharmaceuticals, you can apply this to healthcare, you can apply this to social media. My favorite example is flip flops because I've had the same pair of flip flops for like 25 years. And they work, they're amazing. They're rainbow flip flops. And if you Think about that from the context of like a business is rainbow, at least in my example, made the perfect flip flop. And they, let's say they have this explosive period of like five years where they sell flip flops to everyone, but then everybody's flip flops last for 25 years. Well, if we're in a fiat world where they make a billion dollars profit on their flip flop empire, well in 15 years, what's that worth compared to what it is when they started? The money supply may literally be, I mean you look at a billion dollars was like a huge portion of the money supply. There's A doubling every 10 years in the money supply. So you're looking at such a staggering devaluation for what your profit can do for your next business enterprise that you need to always have customers. You, you're almost forced to sell a crappier flip flop because in seven years your profit is going to be worth 40% what your profit was when you actually earned it. Which means you need new profit in seven years. You just have to have it. And so you need to make sure that in six years your flip flops start falling apart so that you can sell rainbows number two in seven years. Now what happens under sound money? What happens when seven years later the money is worth 40% more, 100% more? Just because of the growth and capacity and improvements throughout society and because you saved and you waited for that next business opportunity, you can actually just solve a problem for everybody and save the money until the next problem comes along. You don't need this perpetual built in obsolescence because your money doesn't go obsolete. You need to build in obsolescence to your product and you need to condition or fix the symptom rather than actually cure the cancer. Because if you actually hold onto the money, the money has built in obsolescence. Therefore you have to have built in obsolescence to your solution so that you can keep fixing your own money. And if your money isn't broken and it actually grows in value, you can actually cure cancer, make an extraordinary amount of money, and then you have investments to just solve the next layer of problem. And you don't have to worry about it bleeding out. You can wait for it to come along and it continues to grow in value as time passes. Like that affects everything. Like that's a fundamental frame shift that you can't not apply to farming because of course how you think about it goes into farming, like how you think about the future as a condition in how you make decisions about farming. It's a, it's a major element, a major pivot point in how you think about pharmaceutical or, or making a product or getting flip flops to people. And under sound money it makes the built in obsolescence model stupid. Because what you want is the sound money today because it's going to be easier and cheaper to get it today than in five years because society is going to make it harder to get money because society is going to be better. You know, it's wild how much it affects that. Like it could have that, that frame shift. And like right now we're in this like uphill battle fighting against this constant built in obsolescence of social media. Forget what happened tomorrow. You're not going to be able to search it, you're not going to be able to download it, you're not going to be able to save it. What you have to do is you have to go up, you have to watch the video of people beating each other up today and think the world's about to come fall apart today because tomorrow we got to do it all over again because you got to keep coming back. We got to sell your attention over and over again. Everything's built to be addictive because the money has built in obsolescence and so that you have to be back tomorrow so that they can get fresh money before it gets obsoleted. And it's just, oh, it's so wild how, how many layers of problems get affected by this. [01:11:13] Speaker A: It sounds crazy to people who are outside the bitcoin world when we say stuff like this, but when you think about the connections it does make total sense. And I remember Safe getting a lot of criticism in the bitcoin standard because he, he made the connection between the, the debasement of, of money and like the quality of modern art. And it is maybe a few levels removed, but there is a connection there. It is kind of a moral debasement which then flows into all aspects of society. And, and so fix the money, fix the world does sound crazy, but there is, it is like it's truth because money is the foundation for civilization. It's the, it's the foundation for all trade and savings. And so when you break that foundation, everything above it begins to crumble slowly but surely. And it's good to see kind of the fact that we can re engineer that foundation and, and, and allow people to adopt it voluntarily and, and re. Civilize, you know, a world that's been decivilized over time, over the last hundred years is a, I think a Hugely hopeful message. [01:12:32] Speaker B: Yeah, I. I totally agree. It's. It's crazy to think. I think so many people gave up on the idea that, like, well, society just works this way and the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer, and you can't do anything about politics. And everybody just kind of like, threw their hands up and it was like, what even is the solution to this? Like, the problem is so big and shapeless, you know, like, it's like this big blob that every time you throw something at it, it just kind of like, sucks it in and turns it around and ruins it and throws it back at you, you know, just like, it's. It's amorphous. And no matter what you seem to do, it's just like, the incentives just, you know, it just, it co ops the next movement of apparently fixing it, you know, And I think a lot of people had a lot of hope about, like, Trump's rhetoric and Elon were like, oh, my God, wait, you could actually cut the budget? You know, like, there was this idea that maybe, maybe in the political system you could actually do something about it. And has there ever been more explicit motivation and an explicit, like, technical attempt to, like, okay, let's break it down. Let's look at what we're spending money on. Can we cut it? And they couldn't cut anything. The budget went up, like, and Elon Musk, the guy who's launching 98% of all the rockets on Earth every day, couldn't do it. And the guy who, quote, unquote, turned Twitter around and actually made there appear to be some sense of competition in the apparent narrative on social media, the allowed narrative of allowed on social media. And he gave up and, like, the doge just ended up being a whole bunch of nothing. And now we're back to where the hell are the Epstein files? And is anything of any consequence going to happen? It's like, well, nope, nothing stops this train. But Bitcoin makes you realize that there's a deep, really deep technical problem, that, that the reason the amorphous blob doesn't respond to anything is because we're throwing stuff at a layer above where the problem is. And of course, the, you know, if your playing field keeps shifting out from underneath you, you're never going to get a good footing. And so it's like, okay, well, we need a new field. Like, we. We need. We need to put new ground out there so that we can stand and begin to look at the problem again. And, like, that's what bitcoin is like, okay, well, let's fix the freaking money. And then we can start to actually recognize where all the problems are and what those incentive structures are. We actually took like 10 leaps away from pickleball. But there was one thing I wanted to say about pickleball because I have, as an outsider who has played pickleball twice, there's an element of pickleball that I think probably makes it super popular. I think you're 100% right on 2020. Having something to do with it is people are looking for something to just go connect again and like be out. Because we, like you said, we have so many things trying to trap us in and addict us to screens and our phones and God knows what else. But there is one thing about pickleball that you kind of touched on with your son. Playing with like an 87 year old man is kind of. Everybody can play it because the ball is pickled. It's slow enough that you just can't decimate people. So there's this huge dynamic range in who can get on the court and actually begin to play. Whereas like tennis, if you like hit a ball really fast, really quick to the right corner, you can just like one shot, one shot the game every single time. You know, like there's, there's such a scope of like, if somebody's super talented, like, I can't, I just, I can't get. I couldn't get on a. With, you know, was it Roger Federer or whatever? I couldn't even get on a court with, with him and even begin to play a game. It would just be a joke. But if we were playing pickleball, that ball's going to be moving slow enough that I could, we could hit it back and forth a bunch. You know, it's fun for the entire dynamic of skill levels. Um, and it's small and contained enough that even an 87 year old and, you know, a 12 year old could have an interesting match. I think that's part of its uniqueness that has me curious about the wild phenomenon that it is today. Because it is that thing that everybody at every layer can at least participate. [01:17:15] Speaker A: In, you know, well, hopefully next time we see each other, we can jump on a court together. That would be. [01:17:22] Speaker B: We should, we should. In fact, when's, when's the next time you're going to be at like a bitcoin? You're in the Northwest, right? You said. [01:17:29] Speaker A: Yeah. Yes, exactly. So that gives me an excuse to mention. [01:17:34] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, oh yeah. [01:17:35] Speaker A: The conference that, you know, this will probably come out after the conference, but it's going to be a yearly conference. It's called Bitcoin is for everyone, and it's in Portland. And it is one of my favorite conferences. It's an intimate conference. Usually there's about, you know, 250 to 300 attendees. It's really focused on. [01:17:57] Speaker B: That's a good. That's a perfect, you know, like that middle ground. That's what I loved about blog boom and stuff. Like, those size things are just. They feel like a crew getting together to care about something. You actually get to hang out with everybody. [01:18:10] Speaker A: Yeah. And you get to hang out. Exactly. And. And it's such an interesting venue. They. They chose McMinimans, and it's kind of this old school that's converted into a hotel. It's got this really cool, interesting vibe. And it's small. You get to hang out with most of the people there. And it's short. It's just one day. It feels so great. It's mostly focused on Pacific Northwest, but the, you know, speakers and guests who come in from everywhere. And if you're in the area or, you know, even California or Idaho, I really encourage people to come by this conference. It's so well organized, such a great crew of people, and it's just the most fun I've had at any conference. And I think people who have the ability to come, they'll really, really enjoy it. [01:19:04] Speaker B: Well, heck, yeah. Now I'll definitely put that in. Especially if, like I said, if we. If this ends up coming out afterward, we'll put in a link so we can do it next year. And it might be something, like I said, I love, like that size of conference is really just. Especially if you haven't been to a bitcoin conference before. Those. Like, the bitcoin conference is not the first one to go to, I feel like. [01:19:27] Speaker A: No, absolutely. Right. The real bitcoin conference is. I shouldn't say the real one, but the big one is it's kind of a zoo and it's. It's not the best place to connect. Yeah, I. I don't know if you went there, but I. I found it hard to see people that I cared about and wanted. Wanted to hang out with because, I mean, everyone's running in different directions. There's like 30, 000 people there. I mean, it's kind of fun. [01:19:54] Speaker B: Did you go this year in Vegas? [01:19:56] Speaker A: I did go this year. Yeah. [01:19:57] Speaker B: Yeah, I actually skipped it. My. My daughter was, what, a month old? 2 months. 2 months old or Something like that. And I was just like, man, this is not. This is. This is ridiculous. I'm just not going to do. I got to skip it this year. [01:20:11] Speaker A: It's a little crazy. It's a little overwhelming. [01:20:14] Speaker B: Dude, thank you for coming on. Thanks for hanging out, man. It's been. It's been a minute. And glad I got to catch up with you the next time we're doing it, whether or not it's the bitcoin for everyone conference or whatever, but we need to make sure that we're in the same place and we need to play a game of pickleball. [01:20:29] Speaker A: Yes, yes. I. Next time I see you, I'm going to insist that we find the court and we go out. I mean, the good thing is there are pickleball courts everywhere now, so we. We will definitely be able to find the game. But it was so nice to reconnect with you, to see your success and. And what you've done. And also, I think the thing that I love the most is just at the beginning, before the show, you holding your daughter and. And trying to coup her. Warms my heart to see that, so. [01:21:01] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, man. Hell yeah, dude. Ditto. Ditto all the way. Thank you. Thank you so much for all the things over the years. And I'm glad I got to sit down and extend my wife's thanks for. For the toys, for the kiddos, too. All right, well, where should people find you? Follow you. Check out the book and maybe. Maybe a version 2. All that good stuff. [01:21:27] Speaker A: Yeah, so the best place to find me is on Twitter or X real vj. So R E A L V I J A Y. And my website is called bullish case for Bitcoin.com where you can find my book. And yeah, you can find some recordings and various things there. And yeah, those are the two best places. [01:21:50] Speaker B: Heck yeah. Heck, yeah. Well, awesome. Thanks for joining me, man. And I'll have all that stuff in the show notes. [01:21:57] Speaker A: Awesome. [01:21:58] Speaker B: All right, take it easy. So one of the ideas that we covered in this was actually something that I hadn't really framed in my mind the way that we did in this conversation. Vijay sometimes just kind of has a way of explaining things that makes an image really clear. And I think it's going to be worth doing a video on. [01:22:22] Speaker A: So I'm. [01:22:23] Speaker B: I'm going to be digging into a 2sats video on something we talked about, but really the idea that sound money lets you focus further out into the future and how it changes time preference, because I think we're A lot of the explanations that I see of that are a little overly technical in my opinion. And, and I think it's, it's really about kind of like the human side of it. It's like how is it that at the person level, why are you able to see further out into the future when money is doing its job? What role does money play in that and how does that affect you as a person? Like, like what does that mean for how you see life? I'm very happy that I had Vijay on the show because I really love that part of the conversation and how we he helped pull a lot of those ideas together. A huge thank you to Vijay, by the way. Always. I hope he does another update to the incredible bullish case for bitcoin and gives his perspective on kind of what he sees in the next five to 10 years, which it sounds like that's what he's doing. Don't forget to check out the links in the description. The bullish case for bitcoin, obviously if you have not read and or listened to it, it is quintessential. It is a prerequisite to the big picture of bitcoin. I love, absolutely love that piece. Don't forget to check out LEDN for Bitcoin backed loans so you don't have to sell, you don't have to pay capital gains, but you can access the Fiat Chroma Getchroma Co for your light health and getting your hormones and energy levels straight. Pubkey if you're trying to fix the centralized like walled garden web and you want tools that make that possible, check out the Pub Key Stack pubkey app is you know what they're showcasing for what you can do with it. And then lastly the OSLO Freedom Forum June 1st or 3rd next year. Definitely check it out and subscribe to their newsletter, the Financial Freedom Report, which you'll hear about a lot on the show because I'm a big fan. And then we also just have a bunch of other great resources. If you're looking for a good place to buy bitcoin, you want to check out other episodes of the show or the endless amount of reads and stuff that we've done. I try to have links to the typical questions that I get about bitcoin right down in the description so that it's easy to find. So don't forget to check those out and that should do us. I will catch you guys on the next episode of Bitcoin Audible. I am Guy Swan and until then everybody, that's my two sats. [01:25:20] Speaker A: La.