BTC Sessions - WHY ARE WE BULLISH: A look at Bitcoin for 2021 ep134

Episode Date: January 2, 2021

HAPPY NEW YEAR! On today’s panel we discuss what has us bullish about Bitcoin for 2021. Follow the panel guests on twitter: https://twitter.com/TheRealTahinis https://twitter.com/nikcantmine https://twitter.com/johnkvallis https://twitter.com/criptobastardo https://twitter.com/stephanlivera SUPPORT THE SHOW: LEDN Bitcoin backed loans –  get $25 free https://bit.ly/397rlLN Get Wasabi wallet for Bitcoin privacy https://wasabiwallet.io/ Cobo Vault: secure your Bitcoin! https://bit.ly/2GgMFlH BillFodl: get your wallet backups in solid steel. https://privacypros.io/ Bitrefill: use Bitcoin to purchase gift cards https://www.bitrefill.com/buy/?code=O04UMic9 LIGHTNING tips: https://tippin.me/@BTCsessions Telegram channel: https://t.me/btc_sessions

Wasabi wallet and fairly private. Happy New Year, everyone. Welcome, welcome to another episode of Why Are We Bullish? New Year's edition. Got some awesome guests here and some more that will be joining us midstream. So we're going to get rolling on this. Very excited. I hope you guys had a great New Year's Eve.

Mine was pretty low-key. I don't know about you guys. But again, this is live. So my forewarning every time from my good friend here. We'll do it live. Okay. We'll do it live. Do it live.

I'll write it and we'll do it live. The thing sucks. You never know, but hopefully this will go very smoothly. But in case, anyways, I am Ben with the BTC sessions. This is your daily session, New Year's edition. All right. Now, before we get rolling, of course, let's just take a quick look at where we're sitting in the market. We're sitting at $29,330 some odd dollars.

For one U.S. dollar, you can pick up 3,409 sats. That number is decreasing as we speak. 88.51% of all Bitcoin has been mined. That'll be 90% by the end of next year. And as far as it goes for fees, actually pretty low today. So next block, eight sats per byte, not bad. Anything over an hour, one sat per bite. Will the Mempool clear?

Matt O'Dell? I don't know, man. Anyways, before we dive in, of course, shout out to sponsors of the show, lend.io, where you can use your Bitcoin for a bunch of different services. They've saved my butt on a few occasions where I needed to get my hands on dollars and I didn't want to sell my Bitcoin because that's taxable and I was worried about having a buyback in at a higher price, which I would have. They also have, of course, Bitcoin in USDC savings accounts and their B2X offering where you

effectively use the same loan mechanism to buy more Bitcoin. If you want to check these guys out, links down below. If you click the link and off to get any other loan products, they'll give you $25 into your savings account for free. Kobo Vault, one of my regularly used hardware wallets, I love it. It's 100% air-gapped meaning you never plug it into anything internet connected, which is wonderful. It keeps your keys safe and offline.

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But I do need to live. I do need to buy things. So of course, I need to shop and gas. I can help myself do that via bit refill and I can earn some of those sats back in the process. So be sure to check them out. And finally, if you're backing up your seed, maybe you don't want to just stick it on paper because that could be, you know, fire is problematic. Water is problematic. And you might throw it out because it's just paper. So if you want to back it up on steel, head over to Privacypros.io and check out the bill fottle. And with that, I'm going to start bringing in my friends here.

We have a bunch of people joining us today. We've got five of us altogether, but we're going to have six. We're going to have John join in a bit. But I'm just going to do a little roll call down the line and get you guys to just let everybody know. who you are, what you do, just something quick. I know there's a lot of us, but Javier, I'll let you take it away first. Okay, hello guys, and thanks a lot of having me here, man. And well, I'm in Caracas, Venezuela. I'm a job as a writer as a journalist at CoinTelegraph in Spanish, that is the Cointelegraph Spanish version.

and I'm also the organizer of Satoshi in Venezuela that is a Bitcoin-only educational platform and project here in Venezuela. So that's me. Awesome, awesome. Thanks for being here, man. And Stefan, go ahead. Yeah. Hey, guys.

My name is Stefan Levera. I'm well known as a Bitcoin podcaster in the space. And I'm also a co-founder of Ministry of NERs, which is a Bitcoin education venture. So I'm mostly known for my podcast in the space. It's a way for people to learn about the economics and technology of Bitcoin. Awesome. Awesome, Stefan. Glad you could be here.

Ali, I know you were probably panicking with the link situation, but you made it in before I started recording and streaming. So welcome. Can you let everybody know who you are? Well, hello, everyone. Thank you, Ben, for having me. My name is Ali. I'm the co-founder and owner of Tahini's restaurants. We are the best Middle Eastern restaurant in the world.

and we're, as far as I know, the first restaurant chain to go on a Bitcoin standard, and we're happy to join the community here. Awesome. Thanks for coming, man. And Nick, take it away. Yo, what's up, everyone? It's Nick here. I work at Bitcoin Magazine.

I run their social media. I write articles and do podcasts for them, as well as I'm the co-host of Bitcoin Kindergarten with Optimus Fields, aka My Live and Children. truth and I think I'm just most well known for my shit posting on Twitter with the clubs. Awesome. Awesome. Guys.

Thank you all for being here. Also, uh, fart face dude. Thanks, man. You just dropped 20 bucks in the super chat. So cheers. Happy New Year. Uh, the, the theme of the show is simple for those of you watching that have not seen this before.

Show is titled, Why Are We Bullish? We go by the three R's here. Uh, basically. somebody gives a reason why they're feeling bullish. We riff on it. And then we finish up by rotating to the next person. All right. Reason, riff, rotate. Dude, we got another super chat. 50 bucks. Thanks, guys. That's rad. Unlearn to learn. Thanks for being here, dude. So we're going to get rolling on this. First, one thing, if you're watching, smash that like button, subscribe and share. I'm going to start with my reason.

My reason is kind of hilarious and ridiculous, but Tom Lee from Fundstrat came back and made a prediction. And we all know anybody that's seen predictions from Tom Lee, they're always just hilariously off base. It's sad because he was almost too bullish in the bear market. and well, I mean, he was way too bullish in the bear market. He was calling 50K in 2018 by end of year. And that obviously didn't pan out.

And he just had a lot of calls that kind of went that way. And I felt bad for the guy at the time. But he was on TV the other day and he made a call. And he said that it could, I think he said 300%. And it's not that it's bad that it's a bullish call. For me, it's hilariously not bullish enough. And I think it'll just be like blowing out of the water. I mean, he's in the right direction at least, I think this year.

But, you know, I hope that his general lack of being able to predict Bitcoin price is, is again blown away. But I will pass it down the line to maybe ask if you guys have seen some predictions that you found to be that you think are probably credible. and maybe if you've seen any that have just been horrible ass backwards predictions out there, what kind, and maybe what you're feeling this year. So maybe I'll go down the line. Let's start with Javier again. What have you seen out there? What's caught your attention?

Okay. I'm not too focused on the price, even with the price is the most exciting thing. But I think that the most hilarious comments are, right here and around Bitcoin price is the comparison against ETH. Many of the ETH Chilers are always talking about how ETH will over price Bitcoin and that they will have a better monetary policy and many stuff like that. And I think that they have this really backwards.

This is a really good contraindicator that we can have around. And also we have in Venezuela some economists that are economies and engineers that they have expertise in economy. And they are talking a lot of shit about Bitcoin, that Bitcoin is a scam. making a full leamy castor saying that it's a ponzi and we have a really big crown of people that are trying to spread this nonsense so seeing how bitter that those guys are are right now i think that we will be seeing a very bullish year i'm with you man yeah yeah yeah i 100 Thomas Lee, I remember him from 2017 coming out with these like outrageously bullish, like, oh my God, Bitcoin is like it's just going to kill the world. Like, and then I think you're very right, Ben, when you were commenting that he was over bullish in 2017.

And then he was just like, yeah, like he was just like way off. Like there were times when he was too bullish. And then there were other times that he was just like too bearish. And then this guy was going on now, this Tom Lee guy, he was went on. he was going on like BSV conferences and BSV shows. It's just like this guy, what is he even doing? Like, has he not studied enough in this space to understand that that is a complete scam and has almost zero value compared to Bitcoin?

I mean, it's just, I mean, it's not zero, but it's like, it's just, if you look at the chart like the BSB Cash SV priced in Bitcoin, it looks like this, okay? It looks like that. So it is just like, some of these people, people. And the thing is like these guys come from that very kind of like, oh, I charge you thousands of dollars for my research pieces and blah, blah, blah, and I, you know, whatever. And it's just like, come on, mate. Like, you know, there are people in this space who have been giving out better, free advice and free suggestions is just, it's crazy, right? You look at

the way they, here you go. So, you know, ultimately, it's a question of signal and noise. and we just don't have that same, you know, like say, Ben's show and my show and, you know, you guys, we don't have the same kind of reach that some of these kind of guys, just because they come from that kind of more, quote-unquote, respected Wall Street world. And unfortunately, well, fortunately for the people who have managed to hear from us, because they've done very well out of it. So in terms of predictions, look, I don't want to, I don't really have any myself. I'm just hoddling along for the ride, but certainly I agree with you.

Him not being bullish enough is a good reason for us to be very bullish. One other thing I'll add actually is that, you know, you know that people are making bad predictions when you see like Peter Schiff coming out and saying stuff like, oh yeah, Bitcoin will never get $100,000 or Bitcoin will never be more than gold market. Then you know it's time to be bullish. He's like a perfect counter indicator. 100%. Alie, what are you feeling?

Yeah, so I agree with you guys. Like I actually don't like to make, you know, price predictions, and I don't like to focus on that too much. I actually like to look at what it has done over the past five years. And that's kind of what's important to me. And I think it's going to be very important to switching the narrative of people that, oh, like, you know, like the narratives in the past two years has been, oh, well, if I bought at 20,000, I would have been in the red and still be in the red.

But now, after what's happened, people are going to be like, okay, so Bitcoin over the past five years has done what it's supposed to do, right? And it has, it has beaten the hurdle rate, like Michael Taylor likes to say it. the inflation hurdle rate that faces everybody, right? It's picked its butt, basically, right? Like, so as long as Bitcoin is doing that, that is the most bullish thing for me. Like, it's, it really doesn't matter, you know, like who says it's going where or whatever. As long as it beats that 20% inflation rate, which it did by a lot, you know, that's really good enough.

That's why we're, that's why I'm into Bitcoin. I don't want to be robbed by inflation and I don't want my business to suffer from that, you know, from these policy decisions. And Bitcoin has delivered, man. And it is so bullish for me and, and for a lot of people out there because now narrative has, has shifted. Nobody's lost money in Bitcoin till now if they held on, right? And, and that's the message that Stefan put.

is out there you been everybody out there in the space it's just it's just amazing and I couldn't be happier being part of this part of this community awesome awesome Nick what what have you been seeing any any good or bad calls in your opinion that you've seen the last little bit yeah I was just at the bar watching the man United game and I at half time I was scrolling through the timeline and I saw some dude saying that Bitcoin's gonna die soon because it's gone to up. He's gone up too much. I scrolled through his profile and, you know, go figure he's an XRP dude. And ever I see someone talking crap about this point, you just drop an H in the comments and everyone just spells out, have fun staying poor and just dunks on them. It's hilarious.

Like, it's all Bitcoin Twitter's been doing the past couple weeks. It's incredible. It's awesome, dude. We got great teamwork dude we can we meme stuff into reality it's amazing and like going forward like you know we always talk about 100k and all these you know bullish prices like you know we're going complete bull tart over here and you know we're going to meet 100k into existence it's going to be awesome let's go a hundred percent yeah um yeah it's it's been a hell of a year uh we've got 170 people watching live right now. So guys, thank you for being here. If you haven't yet, smash that like button. Give this a share. Yeah, the more you do that, the more this gets in front of eyeballs and

we beat the the draconian YouTube algorithm. We can get ahead by doing algorithm of the lords. Yeah, exactly. So now we're going to be passing it down the line and riffing on some other people's reasons for being bullish. So again, we'll start here with Javier. What has you feeling bullish lately? Well, I'm earning Bitcoin since 2017. So my economy, my personal finance is basically Bitcoin Isid. But this is not because I am a special. I'm not a techie guy. My degrees in philosophy so I'm not a techie or a savi guy in this regard but I think that as we are facing the fact of dollarization many other Venezuelans will find that Bitcoin maybe is more useful than they saw before because if you see the numbers in 2017

local bitcoins volume was in the highest numbers but now in 2021 we maybe we will see a more hard bull run and that will drive people to see Bitcoin and we have many other things around the technology and the uses that we are seeing here in the country that are really different against that scenario. So I think that it could be an answer to many other people. Maybe they could try to earn a little. Maybe you will see people that, yeah, they will want to have dollars, of course,

because the Bolivar is a piece of shit. This is the only way that it has value when you transform it in art or you turn in something useful. But as people will like to have dollars, the main key or the main point to get them could be Bitcoin as the media will report as we have these critics, as we have even comedians talking about Bitcoin. So I'm really bullish on the Venezuelan use case. I'm not trying to say that everybody will use Bitcoin. I'm not of that crow. I'm a critic of that crow that say that if a Bitcoinization will save Venezuela. I'm not thinking in that way.

But for individuals, we are seeing many things that could lead in that way. So that makes me really bullish. Yeah, 100%. Stefan, if you want to tag on there. Yeah, so I mean, it's really interesting because obviously now we're kind of, we're like well into the clear in terms of all-time high and volumes and things like that. But even before we had breached the all-time highs kind of recently in these last kind of month or two, we were already going all-time high if you looked in terms of peer-to-peer

market volume in certain places in the world, right? And so this is something I was saying even during kind of the bear bear market was it was interesting because if you spoke to just a random person on the street, you know, they would have said, oh, didn't Bitcoin die in 2017, right? That's what they would have thought. And yet the volume in certain markets, right, in South America and in Africa, was already all-time hiring in terms of peer-to-peer markets. Now, peer-to-peer markets is not necessarily the same thing as like the regulated exchanges and so on. But it is a lot. But it is a lot of the time. And is an interesting indicator that there's all of these people. And so if this really was just like some huge tulip thing, then why is it that there's all these people around the world who are

using it to send value around the world? And so this whole story, it's a global story. You know, I think, yes, it's true to say a lot of people in the US and Canada and so on, in the wealthier nations around the world are, you know, speculating on Bitcoin. But it really is, I think it's true to say that it's a global story. Yeah. Al, Ali, Do you have any thoughts on kind of this global approach to Bitcoin, like outside of, I guess, the kind of westernized, like, you know, first world problems that are dealt with typically in the U.S. and Canada, but having real use case outside of that. Any thoughts there? Well, I think that what's going to drive adoption is the Western countries and the major corporations that are going in right now. I mean, look at the year that Bitcoin has just had. You know, like you got Square and PayPal and micro-strategy and hedge funds, the top, the best hedge funds in the game.

right like Paul Tudor Jones coming in and just clearing the way for the rest of the hedge fund industry you know like what PayPal and Square are doing right Apple and Facebook and and Google they're gonna like their mouth is just going to start running after seeing what these companies are doing on top of the Bitcoin protocol right and they're not just going to sit there and let them eat all the cake right And, you know, you see this stuff happening and we were, like, witnessing it at hand. And then you got insurance companies that, you know, like put money into Bitcoin was going to pave the way for the rest of the insurance industry. I mean, every single industry is plugging into this.

And then you got the medium and small-sized businesses like us, you know. Like, you know, one of the best things and the best feelings that I've got is I've had dozens of people reach out to me on Twitter and say, hey, I want to put my business on a Bitcoin standard. How did you do this? Or, you know, they asked me a bunch of questions on how to do it. And those are just the people that reach out to me, right? And how could you not be just insanely bullish on this, man? Like, it's freaking insane. And it's, and it's saving people from ruin, right? It's everybody struggling. Like, the, the, the restaurant industry in 2020 is taking a beating.

And we've just had the best year in our careers. You know? And people that adopt, and we're going to tell this to everybody we meet, and people that adopt the Bitcoin standard and, you know, and it benefits them and it benefits their lives and their families and their businesses, they're going to tell everybody around it and it's just going to spread like a fire in cyberspace. And it is just like, it's amazing to be part of this movement.

You know, and like how can you not be crazy about this? You know, what I first thought in, I was, you know, I was hearing and watching Bitcoiners out there on Twitter and they sounded a little insane like, you know, they sounded like, you know, this is, you know, going to fix everything. And it kind of sounded a little crazy, right? But now when you get into it and you start to understand what it is and what it fixes and what's going on in the space, you turn into that crazy person, right?

Like I've turned into that crazy maniac that things, you know, I tell people like Bitcoin going to go to 100,000, which for me is actually very conservative, they think I'm crazy, you know, and, you know, maybe rightfully so, but you can, it's very hard to contain yourself when you know what's going on out there. And more and more people are starting to catch that bug and go down the rabbit hole. And we've got great people in the space like you guys. Like, I've listened to you guys going, like, we're a class of 2020, right? And I've listened to you guys day and night, you know, while I was washing dishes in March, you know, like, you know, during the first lockdown. And, yeah, like, it's ready, you know, like the knowledge and the education is out there.

you know, it's ready to accept the millions of people that are about to, that are going to want to learn about Bitcoin. And that, for me, is the best thing there is right now. Yeah. I want to tag on to kind of the road that you were going down there. It's interesting because I feel like there's other than the initial crazies that got into Bitcoin. So I'm encapsulating all of us in that.

Other than the initial crazies that got into Bitcoin and saw something early, it seems like the polar opposite ends of the spectrum are the ones that are understanding what's going on first. The people where it's a necessity. And it's a necessity if you're somewhere where your currency is being devalued so quickly that you understand why. it's necessary to have a currency that cannot be easily debased. On the other end of the spectrum, you have people that manage large amounts of money, and they are required to conserve that spending power.

And they are cluing into that. Some of the smartest money out there is starting to dive into this. So you see these polar ends. And in the middle, you have people like trading with leverage on shitcoin casinos. like they haven't like figured that out yet. And so I feel like that'll gradually kind of sweep into that middle area. But a lot of people are going to get wrecked along the way. There's a thread the other day on Twitter, somebody that had, oh, it was devastating.

But they said that they got in in 2017. At one point, they said they had 55 Bitcoin worth. And now they barely have enough money to eat because of less. leverage trading. And it was devastating to read, but like this happens to a lot of people where they see themselves become very, very rich and then very, very poor. And it's not the fun poor. Yeah, it's it can be bad. But anyways, I digress. I'm going to pass it to Nick here. Any comments on kind of like the, the, what Javier was talking about. And, and I guess kind of the road that Ali took it down.

Yeah, I want to go off what Ali said. And getting into Bitcoin now is as easy as like it's the most easiest, you know, it's ever been. Like if you were to get into Bitcoin in 2011, it's totally different. Like today, we're spoiled with so many good content creators and educators and constantly more and more keep coming in. I mean like, like Robert Breedlove and Michael Saylor are these like Bitcoin poets and can put. and like articulate Bitcoin super well. Even when it's like bullish and funny, like I was laughing the other day when I saw Michael Saylor tweeting about dragons and Bitcoin.

And I was like, oh, okay, this dude is extra bullish. Like he knows what he's talking about. But it's like, you know, you see Allie and his restaurant come in in 2020 and they get it. Like they're binge listening and binge watching Bitcoin content. They're learning it. And then they eventually take the plunge in and lead by example for other companies to follow. Like other companies, like let's say restaurants, for example, they can look at Tahini's and say, well, they're doing something right, you know, because their value didn't decrease. It increased by a lot.

And, you know, where can I learn about this? You know, let me just look up some YouTube videos by BTC sessions or learn Austrian economics by Stefan. It's so easy and every single day more and more people come in and I'm really bullish on all y'all's content creation and just like in developing countries as well. I'm excited to see where it takes Africa because I've been seeing all through 2020 like Africa constantly hit record numbers in different countries for Bitcoin, just Bitcoin usage and stuff. And yeah, I've been following Venezuela somewhat closely. I'm sure Javier knows a lot more than me, obviously. But I've like the mining pools popping up and just like Bitcoin usage just going up more and more and more. It's super bullish to see.

And it makes me think one moon, you know. I love it. Okay, cool. So we will round out that one. Let's jump to Stefan here. What has you feeling bullish for 2021? I think it's the rise of saving mentality, right? So if you think years gone by, right, in the earlier years, it was the mentality totally shifted, right?

So years and years ago, it was more like, oh, I just bought back then and that's it. And I just huddled the coin. And, you know, it just now we're seeing the rise of saving as the mentality. And now the idea is you regularly buy Bitcoin. You regularly accumulate Bitcoin, whether you buy it or you earn it, or even if you earn Fiat, but then you buy Bitcoin. And the rise of companies and exchanges and brokerage services who offer this kind of thing, right?

Like Swan and River and Cash App and Bitteroo and country, all around the world. I think that Reli, is it relay.org, r-e-l-a-I-C-H and a few others, all around the world. This is really super bullish in my mind. because we don't know if this is the final cycle or not. But what I would say is a fair statement is that the more stackers there are out there, the more people who are just continually accumulating Bitcoin,

that just raises the floor, right? The floor just can't go that far down if you've just got this many people all around the world, all trying to stack. Now, we don't know exactly what price will be, that floor will be. but it's just clear like and if you really think through how scarce bitcoin is it doesn't take that many stackers to really cause a big drive up in the price because everyone's hoddling and then like everyone's like everyone because of the shift in the mentality it's all about savings and so that for me is actually and also this is the piece uh nick you might have seen it as well i wrote a piece for bitcoin

magazine as a right as a kind of a roundup of what was what what my thoughts are were on 2020 and so i think that's probably going to be the big shift uh and that to me is probably the biggest reason to be bullish yeah i i agree i love the the meming of savings technology into reality that everybody's partaking in and and you know matt odell gifting the world with stack sats like what a what a stroke of absolute genius is his like the Michelangelo of Bitcoin memes. It's fantastic. I just want to give, again, a quick shout out to everybody in the chat.

There's like 240 people in there right now. Smash that like button. Give this a share. Let's pass it over to Ali. What do you think about what Stefan had to say la savings technology and stackers growing? Yeah. So that's what it's all about, really.

you know the the narrative like so we we gather a lot you know and with our community you know we have well at least we used to not right now but 30 people gatherings every weekend you know three you know three days in the weekend like and there's always you know this grandpa this this older person that says you know back in my day i used to one penny used to buy me this and that and that and that and so on on, right? And Bitcoin switches that on, you know, switches that narrative, right? And the, like, when we're older, we're going to say, you know, like one, one Bitcoin used to buy me a car and now it buys you a house, right? And that's, that's really, that's really a game changer in, you know, the way money works, right? Because people are not used to money working like that. And, you know,

people are going to spend Bitcoin, right? You know, us in our lifetimes, you know, we're going to spend Bitcoin. But, you know, like, even when we spend it, we're going to pass on these lessons to our, you know, our friends and our kids and our young, you know, are the younger generation to teach them, you know, like the true meaning of savings, right? And that is really a game changer. It's a paradigm shift in money. And, you know, it's going to, in my opinion, it's really going to change the world.

And, you know, it gives, like, you know, 1% of, you know, the world control most of the money, right? And these all of the one percenters have that same problem of money, you know, debasing at a huge rate, right? And Bitcoin is a technology for them to protect their wealth. And nothing will put a fire under your butt than trying to protect $5 billion, right, or whatever the number is. And when you look out there, you know, between bonds, negative yielding bonds and golds and stocks that are like, you know, high time, like highest ever valuations at like 200, 200 PE, like how are these people going to, going to protect their wealth? They have to, they have to move right now. Otherwise, they're just going to, they're just going to watch their wealth, you know, disappear, right? and that is going to really move like yes the day-to-day savers and stackers they're they're going to help but you know when when you got movers like michaeler and and big insurance companies

and these people are going to put a position in and and try to and hold it for like 10 years if not more right and and that's going to that's going to change the game. The volatility might not be the same like what we, you know, what we had in the past. But it's going to change the name and how it changed the game in how people view

Bitcoin, you know? It's not a get rich quick scheme. It's a get rich slow really if you really think about it. It's a don't get poor slow scheme. Yeah. Nick,

Thoughts. Bitcoin just makes savings cool again. I mean, it makes it cool, you know, to begin with. It's like I try and pay attention and follow as many kids like my age on Bitcoin, Twitter, just because I'm curious to see like, you know, everyone my age stacking stats and like making good decisions. And from what I've talked to and like the people I've talked to and their friends and my friends and stuff, it seems like a lot of like gen Zeeb kids or the zoomers like they're starting to see a lot of the mistakes that older people have made like millennials with like a lot of student loan debt and a lot of

auto loan debt and credit card debt and they've kind of looked at that and been like well i don't want to end up like that and like you introduce bitcoin and you're like you know hey you just stack you know i recommend daily but you know you can do daily weekly monthly whatever you just stack sets and um you know like magic they can't devalue your money and over time number go up and i think that really attracts people like the number go up is the thing that attracts them the most until they actually start learning about why it's important and stuff but uh yeah i i just think uh bitcoin makes saving money cool again and eventually with enough people joining in it'll just help drive number go up and it's going to become more and more popular as people say, well, why is the prices of

food going up in the grocery store? And I can't afford as much money, but, I mean, as many groceries as I could before. Like, I feel like I'm getting poor and I don't know why. But all these Bitcoin, all these bitcoins over here are getting, you know, wealthier. And, you know, I want to look into that now. Yeah, 100%. And I'll pass it really quick to have here too. Do you have any other things you'd like to add on. Yes, I think that one of the key points of this chief that Stefan mentioned

is that we have a kind of infortuning Vivente, this kind of frugality mind. I think that we passed the time where Lambos and Moon and I will buy a Ferrari were the common sense

among bitcoins. So this kind of new stoicism. If we can say that, makes me really bullish because we are in a context, in a global context that is against humanity and we have a kind of hope in this new kind of fellas, this new kind of people, the bitcoins that are struggling with deeds, but that have a conviction because, well, we have Bitcoin with us. We are using it. We are earning it. We are learning it. We are learned about it. So really bullish. Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. And, uh, and, and, and welcome John, uh, John Valis in the house.

What's up, guys? Glad to have you, man. Uh, if for those of you watching, John, can you just let people know who you are? Uh, yeah. My name's John. I host a podcast called the Bitcoin Rapid Fire podcast and, uh, I'm a hardcore bitcoiner like everyone else here. So awesome to be here. Well, welcome. Happy New Year friend. Always glad to have you come chat. We were just chatting about being bullish about Bitcoin because, as Nick here so aptly put it, he said Bitcoin makes savings cool again.

Do you have any feelings on Bitcoin as savings technology? Anything to add there? I know you missed part of the conversation, but you heard a bit of it. Well, I just totally agree. And I think it's being made cool, at least in part, not just because of what it actually, you know, what it allows you to do, like has been said, like not get poor slowly. But I think it's being made cool because of what's being represented and expressed by all the Bitcoiners in the space that are using it for that purpose.

Like what kind of people is this generating when their time preference gets way extended out into the future, when they're not going for, you know, the quick, immediate intense gratification? And when, you know, when they start engaging with other like-minded individuals, and when they actually start looking toward the future and looking toward the future and looking toward the problems in the world and trying to determine how best to approach solving them and where you fit into that mix. And all of that taken together and a hell of a lot more, I think, you know, I've said this a little bit recently, but of course number go up is nobody can resist number go up, right? But I think a strong number two that's emerging is people look out of the world today and

there's people fighting and arguing and there's conflict and there's social unrest and there's lots of problems, despair, depression, substance abuse, like all that crazy stuff that we know is going on. And he got this group of people over here that are optimistic and hopeful about the future. And they're supportive of one another, they're talking about ideas and sometimes really deep ideas. And they're talking about building. And they're talking about how things could be better. And they're actually doing it. They're putting themselves out there.

They're putting skin in the game. They're saying, like, how about this? And they're humble enough to come into that arena, get smacked around a bit and come back again. And all the other things that we, I'm sure we all share in terms of our, how awesome we think this community of people is, I think that's going to be a real emerging story in 2021 of people coming to this, not, you know, not just for a number go up, but because it looks like a, if you can get past the veneer of toxicity that

may, some people may perceive on Twitter, you, you, I think a lot of people are going to highly value what this community represents and what this emerging culture actually is because that's ultimately what's happening. You know, this is just a tool. I think I've said this before on your show, Ben, but like what's unique, we can tell how important this tool is going to be by what it fosters. And we are all an expression of what it's fostering in the work we do and the people we become and all the things we build. So I think that's going to be increasingly attractive to people. And, you know, savings being and sexy again is definitely a part of that.

100%. Well said, John. While you have the mic, I'm just looking at the order of things on my screen so it's easy to organize. But while you have the mic, maybe you would like to drop a reason why you are feeling bullish for 2020. What's caught your eye? What has you feeling good? Man, what couldn't you be bullish about? I mean, it's hard for me to find a reason not to be village, to be perfectly frank. I mean, there's just, there's so many tailwinds and, you know, things just seem to be going in the right direction. But I was, I wrote an article for Bitcoin magazine recently, too, and I keep coming back to this well, but purely because it's true to me.

And it basically echoing what I just said, I'm bullish on all of you guys. And everyone who's listening to this and everyone who's stacking their staff and, you know, people who identify as Bitcoiners, like nothing makes me more excited than that, more bullish. and that to see these people, how they're interacting, how they're transforming. I mean, the class of 2020 Bitcoiners, many of whom I've spoken to on my show and privately offline, I'm amazed by the transformation that they've experienced just by starting to stack their sats and then starting to engage with the amazing content that this community is spitting off and starting to change their perspective and their ideology and all that stuff.

and then finding ways to contribute or, you know, like genuine transformation. And, you know, all of our favorite Gigacad, Sailor, I mean, he's such a great example of this because in December 2019, I'm not sure if many of you, you know, went back to look at some of those videos, he looked like an entirely different person. And after going down the rabbit hole in March and, you know, seeing the light, as it were, and making the moves that, you know, we all know he made and made public, he's a transformed person. You know, his appearance looks radically different. He's smiling a lot more. He's more energetic, more enthusiastic. And I know we all feel that way, too. Like, we have this wellspring of energy

and enthusiasm that we, you know, we want to find ways to express and deploy and contribute and connect with others that feel the same. And that, you know, that's what makes me the most bullish is like a genuine culture is emerging because of this amazing tool that we're starting that we continue to try to learn and refine our understanding about more and more as we go along and the whole thing is just so fucking awesome you know so uh for me it's bitcoinsers that that make me the most bullish about 2021 despite the fact i think we're probably going to have a nice year in the number go up category as well but uh for me it's all about bitcoiners 100% uh lea uh we uh we what kind of transformations have you noticed in either in your own journey through bitcoin or or people that you know or just interacting online what have you seen honestly ben like my life has changed like 180 degrees and uh you know actually i told this to john before as well like uh everything from going to work to making food to doing

what I do every day. I just have a big, you know, like I tap dance to work every day, right? I, I really want to do the best showermas that I can, right? And make people happy

and do my job and like grow my company just with honesty and integrity and without taking too much risk because like, you know, without Bitcoin, you know, that I had to think of, you know, people tend to resort to taking big risk to kind of stay ahead of the hurdle rate, right? And, you know, Bitcoin just changed that.

So it eliminated all that worry and fear of not being able to keep up with, you know, with the house that I want to buy or the real estate that we want to acquire or this or that, you know, because that just that just gets solved. So it changed me in that perspective, but also like what John was saying, I'm going to add on top of that is that when I'm sitting with people like friends in my community and stuff, like I hate talking about events and people and politics and all this bullshit. Like I right now I just love talking about ideas and the future and and and and plans and how I can you know how I can make my family happier and and you know how you know first before Bitcoin I wanted to have three kids. Now I want to have six kids. You know that's that's you know and that's huge. Yeah.

I mean like just because you know just because the future. is brighter and and you know bitcoin showed me that and you know and now you just you you want to give more you want to have more kids you want to you know do better work open more restaurants do this you know like help your family like I you know I helped out tons of people since I got into Bitcoin and their lives are better my family my family's my parents I got him into Bitcoin, you know, when I went down the rabbit hole, you know, and they're now protected. They're retired, right? They didn't know that, you know, their money was debasing at 20%.

They had no idea, right? And, you know, Bitcoin changed their lives. You know, they don't really know it, but it did. And I'm a happier person because of it, right? So, yeah, Bitcoin is probably the best thing that happened for us as people as a company and, you know, just as a society, I think. 100%. Let's jump to Nick. I think I've heard you previously on a panel talking about some of the changes that Bitcoin made in your life and how it's kind of transformed you.

Maybe you want to tag on to that. Yeah. I mean, just going into that, I do a podcast for Bitcoin magazine called Meet the Taco Plubs. And a lot of the people I meet when they're discussing their rabbit hole story, one thing I've noticed is that a lot of people have tended to find Bitcoin when they're at a low point in their life. And once they find Bitcoin, their life just does a complete 180. and it's like it's like nonstop improvement ever since

and I can honestly say the same thing for me like Bitcoin was actually like this beacon of hope when I would I literally was at like such a low point in my life like I don't want to go too much in a detail but like it sucked and all I did was hunkered down and learn about Bitcoin because it it provided me like

these sunglasses to see you know through a different lens and see into the future. And I really liked the future that I was seeing with Bitcoin and I just went down further and further into the rabbit hole and kept doing Bitcoin stuff. And it completely changed my life in many ways. You know, like, when I was down in the dumps back then, like I ate a lot of like fast food and stuff and I haven't been eating as much of that. I've been eating more like home-cooked meals. I've always been an exerciser. Like I love running and I've just been doing that even more, but this time I've been trying to lift more weights because I need to get it

on that. But yeah, like it's just just like the lifestyle of like the average bitcoiner is just like it kind of forces you to like, how do I want to explain this? I remember it so specifically because Connor Brown said it really well. Actually on a podcast he did with John Valis and he was talking about how in Bitcoin, you got to, you got to like keep up with the community because it's always progressing. It's always moving forward. You know, like one month in Bitcoin feels like a year in the real world. And it's like you have to be constantly training your mind and your body as well just to keep up with everyone. And that's what I've been doing. I know a lot of others have been doing that. And one thing I wanted to touch on going off what John was talking about is I'm super

bullish on Bitcoins and one of the things I'm really bullish on is the entrepreneurs who keep adding more and more value to the space like what Jack Mallors made with strike is phenomenal and you know it's getting like I know a ton of you know people like us use it but I mean now like Russell O'Con is using it to get half his salary paid from the uh the Carolina Panthers I think he plays for that's like six and a half million dollars that he's going to be. putting into Bitcoin through a strike and it's like it it gets me so bullish and I hope you guys are front running as purchases I love it let's let's jump over to Javier what have you noticed as as you've kind of come into Bitcoin and understood it and how is it shaped how you know how

you handle your life day to day how is it shaped your your mannerisms your your whatever tendencies that you used to have have any of those changed over time well i'm focused in bitcoin as as i wasn't in any other kind of knowledge i'm i'm a philosopher and my degree as i said is in philosophy but i had to thinking many many topics like culture politics and stuff like that but the I think that the opportunity to focus only on Bitcoin like I can only learn read listen to podcast do these things with of course with my philosophical lens but doing it through Bitcoin and trying to understand and in a very deep way how it changed the people that use it and experimenting it by myself is a really weird thing.

I think that many of the Normies will find this like we are in a cult, we are in a religion, we are in, I don't know, in a, I don't know, in a group. But as John said, this has many cultural implications. We are seeing that we if we change the money that we use, I'm living in a country that have a shitty money. So I really understand that if you change the money, you change yourself, you change the things that as you see the things around you, it changed many things, but all this is in an individual level. So it gave me focus. It gave me a way to learn about many topics that were,

I mean, I wasn't aware about many of the money problems, about the Fiat system, and it makes me be more critical. So yeah, it makes me more heavier than I was before Bitcoin. I love that. More you than you used to be. That's awesome. Stefan, any final additions to this topic regarding just how Bitcoin changes you? Yeah, certainly.

I think it is an expression of time preference as we kind of talk about. It's like this idea of starting to think more long term. Certainly many of the people who came into Bitcoin, who were already into kind of Austrian economics and thinking about these kinds of things, that was already a focus for many of them. But I think certainly I've seen from many of my listeners of people who DM me and say, hey, it's changed my life. These things have happened and, you know, I've done these things.

And that's certainly been a focus. I see it on Twitter in terms of people who talk about how it changed their lives as well. But given the stage we are currently in, we are very much in the, you know, you know, if you look at that bell curve, we're in that first kind of two and a half percent globally. So we're still very fringe in some sense. But I think 2021 is the year that we start to see this idea go a lot more mainstream. And in fairness, it's one of those things where your opportunity cost of spending bitcoins right now is very, very high. Because we're all anticipating huge price appreciation.

So the game, if you will, is to basically lower your living expenses and be able to stack and stop spending as much as you can because over these next crucial next few years, it's going to make a huge difference. So I think that is also why it's kind of exaggerated the tendency as well, because your cost to spend Bitcoins right now is very, very high. So you preferentially spend your Fiat income if you have it, and it just drives these kinds of changes in our behavior. Awesome.

And I know Nick just wanted to have. add something right after you here. I saw a YouTube comment say the column inside, the column that Bitcoin gives you inside is just amazing. And I like me and optimist, we always meme that and we call it Bitcoin Zen. It's like once you, once you learn enough about Bitcoin, where you fully understand it, well, what I mean fully understand it to the point where you know it's a safe haven asset in comparison to the Fiat currencies, like you completely take a step back from that financial system and it just allows you to just be calm and like we always say you know we sleep better at

night knowing we own bitcoin and i i couldn't imagine not owning bitcoin in 2021 yeah 100% awesome well let's jump over to alley because i know uh john came in and he stole your spot what a jerk but but uh ali what has you bullish for this and by the way stephan i know You might be short on time at some point. If you do need to drop out at some point, we'll just give you a little salute as you go. But Ali, take it away. What has you bullish this year for Bitcoin? This year, like I said, the amount of, you know, the narrative has completely shifted for Bitcoin.

And, you know, from our business, we're seeing like tons of people. wanting to do wanting to put their their company on a Bitcoin standard that's just insane like you're you're changing like people's lives are completely changing and you're you're now supported by you've got the support of like billionaires where you can say okay this thing is not going to get banned or you know because you see square and PayPal right like that's big tech right there. And they're fully, you know, integrating with the Bitcoin network. So now that risk is is being eliminated, not fully yet.

Like maybe when a big player like Apple comes along, it's going to be, you know, set in stone. But it's starting to go away, you know, like after PayPal came with their announcement, a lot of the people that we were talking to were saying, oh, but, you know, it's going to get banned. It's going to get banned. You know, you guys all heard it a million times, I'm sure. But after PayPal, they all, you know, they all hit me up and say, okay, well, you know, this Bitcoin thing is actually, you know, catching on, you know, how do I get into this, right? So that's just going to scale up. More and more people are going to have confidence in putting more more than just 1%.

You know, I think Michael Staler, you know, laid the groundwork of why it's not a 2% or 3% asset. You know, it's plug in your life's energy into Bitcoin. And that's a huge game changer, right? When we first got in, we were, you know, we were trying to push the same narrative, but like all the BitConners were already, they already knew it. You know, everybody was over 50% allocated into Bitcoin and we were like, okay, well, the outside world didn't know. And, you know, that narrative is shifting as well. And people are not just going to be going in with 5% or 10%. They're going to go in with a lot more than that.

and when they see the change that it has on their life, it's just going to spread like a fire. I love that. Michael Saylor did the equivalent of in sales where you do like price anchoring, where you'll like, you'll say a price that's way higher. It was this, but now it's this. And so he's like, I'm basically putting my entire reserves into Bitcoin. And people are like, oh, well, maybe I guess five, 10%,

really isn't that crazy. like people aren't going to balk at that anymore. He basically did that with his, you know, $500 million, which is amazing. Anyways, Nick, do you want to add to that? I'm sorry, can someone else go before me? I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah, no worries. Let's hop over to Javier.

Do you want to add on to anything that Ali was saying? Well, I think that I really agree that if you put, connect your energy through a, kind of network of monetary energy as a sailor said, as Ali said right now. You really change the way you see the things around you. I think that it is really difficult if you find an idea as this and you can walk away of that. I mean, maybe you can do a Roger Bear and go full retard and change because you don't really understand what Bitcoin was in that time. As we are saying, it is really more easy to get into Bitcoin in this time that maybe it was early in the early days. But when this idea of connecting to a network that is as important,

as the internet, because the internet is what is leading us to make this happen, but also Bitcoin enabled us to make a really important change as humanity, and this kind of optimism that we can have in this scenario around the world that we are seeing economics falling and fiat currency going fully per inflationary. So you can walk away of Bitcoin. So I really agree with that too. Yeah, that's awesome. Hey guys, sorry, I've got a head off now,

but it was great to chat with you guys. And everyone out there, keep learning and keep stacking. Let's, you know, huddle. Hodel on. Yeah. Everybody, Stefan, I've got him down. below so thanks to fun.

You guys. Either John or Nick if you want to jump in on what Javier was talking about or Ellie. Yeah I mean just on the point that has been made about plugging into Bitcoin. Like I think yes is on a personal level we're all beginning to see well we understand the benefits of doing that and I think more and more people are beginning to see the myriad benefits, It's not just to your financial well-being. But this is the case for companies too. And this is one of the really exciting narratives going into 2021 is that Bitcoin being money

and being a vastly better form of money that has ever existed, it's almost inconceivable that you could be a business operating in the market and not find a way to plug in or leverage Bitcoin in some way. Now, I know this has a long place to run. And, you know, it's not as clear at the moment all the different ways that you can leverage Bitcoin for your business. But, you know, what I'm encouraged by is what the market is signaling to businesses that make that move, right? So micro strategy made the move was a big bold move. And their stock is up, you know, 3, 4X since making that move in the end of summer.

And most of the companies that have signaled that they're putting Bitcoin on the balance sheet or they're getting involved in the industry in some way and are on the public markets, the markets are rewarding them as well, right? So people, the markets are saying, we think that's a good idea for you to take your existing business and plug it into Bitcoin somehow and figure out a way to, you know, leverage the benefits that exist there. You know,

because people want to interact with Bitcoin and Bitcoin is continuing to grow and Bitcoin represents unique opportunities that you might be able to leverage for your business and the management of your business and your business is finances and like a lot of stuff. And just to have that be validated, because it, you know, conceivably it could have gone the other way. We could all be as bullish as we always were. But, you know, micro strategy could have came out with this news.

The markets might have been like, yo, sailor's crazy. Like this is a stupid move that the company is being extremely irresponsible. Let's, you know, sell down the price of the stock or whatever. But that just doesn't seem to be the case. I mean, the general mood and the signals that it seem to be coming from the markets are adopt Bitcoin, figure out a way to leverage its unique attributes to improve your business's situation. And that, you know, so it improves on the individual level. It seems to be something that the markets want for companies and businesses.

And what, you know, just another thing to put in the bullish, you know, basket for Bitcoin. Because, you know, on it goes, just, you know, smashing down barriers every way and proving to everybody that not only is it here to stay, but there's so many different ways you can approach it. And that's another thing about bringing individuals and companies into this space over the, you know, over the next year is that I think some people up till this point felt like maybe it wasn't for them. Like, you know, I'm, I'm either this type of person or I'm this type of business. And what do I know about finance or investing or economics or technology? And they kind of frame Bitcoin as exclusively in those categories. But once you start to realize that it is money and that money touches everything.

You know, money is the other side of every transaction. I think people are more and more beginning to, you know, be able to envision ways of somehow plugging in, engaging with, interacting with Bitcoin. And I think that will continue over the next year. And it's going to be really exciting to see that all the different ways in which it does so. Awesome. Let's, Nick, if you want to tag onto that,

and if you want, you can also. then segue into your reason for being bullish. Sure. Sorry, sorry I dodged it originally. I had a family member call me on the phone. But I'm, it's,

I just think businesses and people, mainly businesses as well, like they kind of have to get in to, you know, save their butts and of all the stuff that's been going on throughout 2020. And like John said, he said it perfect.

So like the market is signaling to them you know I Bitcoin is very important and you need to be paying attention to it if you don't pay attention to it you know you get wrecked financially and if you do you get rewarded correctly and yeah I don't have too much else to say on that but um what I'm most bullish for is I kind of already said it a little bit with the whole Jack Mallors thing. and strike and, you know, just entrepreneurs building amazing products, you know, new people coming into the space who hear Bitcoin for the first time or maybe have had been skeptics of it and started to see the light of it and just really can articulate it in better ways for more people to understand and build better products that solve problems that, you know, or bring value to the table and really allow. Bitcoin to progress and move forward in big and small ways and one of the the main things that I'm really bullish on is just the average Joe the average bitcoiner are the real MVP's of Bitcoin like you know we always talk about oh it's amazing how Michael Saylor got in it's amazing how you know Stan Drucken Miller and all these other millionaires and billionaires got in but it's like you know your average person is putting their life in the Bitcoin.

They're working hard. They're living low time preference. They're stacking stats and they're putting a high percentage of their net worth into Bitcoin. It's like they technically have more to lose than some of these, you know, millionaires and billionaires. And I think it's just so mad respectable to all the plebs and all the people who really, you know, go out there each and every single day, work a normal job, stack sats and learn in their free time.

better their lives. Yeah, I will echo that 100%. I want to, you were talking about people that are building. And I've got to say just down that, down that line of thought, it is staggering how different the Bitcoin experience and the options

that you have for just the basics, like getting Bitcoin and getting a wallet and security, and securing your coins and multi-sig and lightning and just the plethora of stuff that is just continually being built upon is insane. Like I remember messing around with wallets years ago and it was pretty standard fair. There's a few out there. At one point, Apple full-on did a wallet ban so you could not have Bitcoin wallets at all

if you had an iPhone, which was the reason that I initially switched to Android and haven't gone back. But now it's just the options out there are insane. And user-friendly too. Like there are good user-friendly wallets. There's obviously still complicated stuff out there too. But we've got more people building more stuff with a greater attention to detail and a greater focus. this now, I think, starting to go towards the user interface and the user experience. It's like what the guys that Blue Wallet are doing is regularly blowing my mind,

how simple it is to use that and spin up like a multi-sig situation if you want to. You know, some of the lightning wallets that you're seeing out there with like Breeze and Phoenix where it's non-custodial, but it's still like, you just instantly swap back and forth between lightning and on-chamination. and then like the yeah the you have like caravan and all these open source options for multi-sig and and cold card and cobo and and you know all of these great options for hardware and it's crazy what has been built and and bitcoin is coming in now it's funny it's funny to me when i still see and you know we should still give it some credence it's yes it's difficult as you're getting in there's a lot to learn and maybe with a lot of options it can be more

confusing, but the fact that there are so many options is bullish as fuck. And I love that so many people, just regular plebs join in and they're like, I love this and I want to build more of it. And they're making that leap. And yeah, 100% what you said, Nick, the every man who, who's working a nine to five job and then finds Bitcoin and starts spending time on it, they are the real MVP's. But let's continue around the circle on what, Nick was saying about the people that are building and joining in. Let's start with Ali. What are you feeling?

Yeah. I mean, the example of the pond, the Bitcoin pond, you know, and you're starting to see channels being built for money to flow into that pond and and you know what you were talking about band that's just that's just one layer of money right uh you know michael sailor also when he when he did that debt offering and he bought 650 million you know with with offering debt you know that he's basically showing other corporations that you know you can you can do that right and there's there's like a there's there's a whole lake of money that's staying in debt that wouldn't easily go into Bitcoin without, you know,

seeing it. And that channel has been built, right? And then got channel like a license insurance, you know, like mass mutual buying Bitcoin. Now they can offer it to, they can offer as a product to, you know, the rest of their, you know, to all their customers. And that's, that's another channel to the Bitcoin pond, right? And then you got, you know, corporate treasuries, you know, that's another layer of money. So, and, you know, of course, you got the, you know, the tech companies with, with Square or PayPal and soon to be Apple and Facebook and the like. You know, it's just going to keep building channel after channel after channel.

And because it's about money, you know, it's so easy to plug into it, right? And banks are going to be doing it. They're going to be custodying Bitcoin. And, you know, you got like Bitcoin trusts are going to start, you know, becoming more competitive. Like here in Canada, we have two Bitcoin trusts this year. Last year we had none, right? And that's a wall of money of people having money in their in their TFSA accounts,

which is like their tax-free saving accounts, you know, kind of like the raw IRA in the States. You know, now these people, you know, billions of dollars have option to buy Bitcoin, you know, now. So, you know, these channels are being built and it's all feeding into the Bitcoin network. and, you know, it's so amazing to see. I didn't think that it would happen this way, you know, back in August when we got into it. But, you know, now that I understand it more, I'm starting, you know, like I feel there's,

we haven't even scratched the surface yet. You know, and it's the ground infrastructure is being built right now. And it's going to work. Perfectly. That's great. I love it. And to what you're saying, again, as these institutions and bigger companies start getting their feet wet and actually really diving into Bitcoin, what does that then do for development around Bitcoin and the creation of new apps and products and things? It just, it, everything kind of gets steamrolled by Bitcoin because so many mines are just being sucked into it. And we saw it in 2017 with the Bull Run. obviously a lot of capital comes into it and then we go through a bear market but during that bear market people build they build really cool shit and some of the stuff that we've seen over the past three years while we were in kind of the bear market before we went back above all time

highs so much stuff was created in that time and so it's exciting because you think of the implications and we're just getting started through a bull run but whatever happens over this next year, the effects of that won't be felt until a few years after that as that capital gets allocated and people build things and see what the market wants. So I'm very excited to see that happening. What we're going to do right now, we'll maybe get Javier's thoughts on this and then we'll jump to John and then we'll start rounding it out. But Javier, what have you seen as far as people building building. I think that there are many people that are seeing that Bitcoin could be a way to create things that could last longer. And I think that it is a really big motivation

to see things as Losha, Losha mesh, that is a project that tries to create internet mesh in places like Venezuela. And I think that this kind of thinking, because you may not find useful a mesh in a country in the developed world, but in places as Venezuela, as Africa, as the third world, all around the world. This could be useful and you can't think in things like this if you don't have this perspective that I think that is started because of Bitcoin. And I'm finding people that maybe trying to figure out how to add value to what they are doing. We have people here. We have people here in Venezuela that even in the context of the regime are trying to create things around

Bitcoin trying to help people to use it and in that way create their own business. So yes, I'm totally agree with you guys that this is a new, maybe a new paradigm. Like we are seeing the very early days of a new trend in business development, but I think that it will won't go away. Yeah, 100%. John, what about you? What are you feeling? What do you like about what's being built?

Is there anything that has stood out to you over the past few years or even just the general pace of development around things? Well, there's so many good projects, right, that I know we're all familiar with. LN. Strike and Jack has been mentioned, BDC Pay Server, hardware people. Like, what I see as being the most exciting development is, like, once you start owning Bitcoin, basically a countdown clock to freedom is started. And I don't mean freedom in the way that we often talk about in like, you know, a future society that's far more free.

I mean, even nestled within this one, you know. So every thousand. every $10,000 that number go up, people all over the world that hold Bitcoin are inching closer to being able to actually extricate themselves from a scenario of work or how they deploy their time and effort and intellectual capital and everything else in a manner in which they're not very satisfied with that doesn't, they don't derive very much meaning from that they don't have a lot of energy or enthusiasm for toward finding ways to do the exact opposite in Bitcoin. So let's say Bitcoin is 100K at the end of the year, just hypothetically speaking.

How many people does that set free to say, you know what? I'm not going to work that shitty job anymore. I'm actually going to go, I'm going to lean into this because I believe in this thing. And I want to contribute and I want to build. And I, you know, I want to be amongst these people in a working capacity. How many people does that set free to do that? A fuckload. And then what about at a million?

Like a gigantic amount. And we can't even, there's no way we can predict the impact that we'll have. But I think if what's happened thus far as any indication is we're going to see a lot of really, really cool shit being built by people with really, you know, good intentions, extremely enthusiastic, ideologically aligned with like what this is all about and what, how they want to see the world be different as a result of having access to this tool. And that's, you know, again, that excites me more than anything. like number go up doesn't exist in a vacuum, of course, right?

So when number goes up, it means something and what it means that excites me in the context of people building is the more number go up, the more those countdown clocks, ting, you know, they hit the timer bell, and more people just flood in and say, I now have the financial security to lean into what's really meaningful to me. And I get to, you know, unleash my creativity and my hard work and tap all this potential that I actually wasn't even able to tap before because you can't access what your, you know, your full potential when you're doing soul-destroying work or monotonous work and some bullshit job that you don't have any, you don't care for it all. But when you realign to something that you

have, you derive a great deal of meaning from and you see so much potential in, it unlocks a huge wellspring of energy and enthusiasm within you. And then you can go the fuck forward and build something really cool. And so, you know, that's what, that's what I'm excited about is every time I see Bitcoin go up by a thousand bucks, you know, personally, I'm like, I wish it would go down because I still want a stack, you know, like I've almost never want, never wished for BTC Bitcoin price appreciation. But I have a smile on my face when it goes up because I know with every thousand dollars it goes up, someone somewhere is being like, I can go now. I'm free now and I'm going to lean into this. And so when we have those $10,000 green candles, when we have those $100,000

green candles in the future. All I see is unlocking potential of all the different people that are holding Bitcoin. And I got goosebumps just saying that right now. So that's what I'm most excited about in terms of people building. Yeah. It's amazing. The second and third order effects of that too, because when you get people that can go and then do what they want and be passionate about what they're building, what does that do to everybody that's experiencing and consuming those products and services. You know, even like, Ali, you're a perfect example. You say you're tap dancing into work.

Imagine walking in to tahini's. And this dude is just biggest smile on his face and makes a fucking incredible meal for you. And it's just delicious because he's catering the 100K party for Sailor. And it's just everybody's having the best damn shwarma they've ever eaten in their entire life because he's happy to be there and he's set free to do that. And I mean, the same thing happens to, you know, people that build on Bitcoin or don't build on Bitcoin because when you have the freedom to do what you want to do, you will do it well. And that's

the incredible thing here. I think, man, that's, I'm so fucking bullish right now. So, so guys, I want to say, first off, thank you so much for joining me. I couldn't think of a better way of spending New Year's Day, although Stefan is in the future on January 2nd. So, you know, whatever, I guess, Aussies. But guys, again, I really appreciate it. Everybody in the chat, you guys have been awesome. I've seen all, you know, I've been trying to bring up any comments that I see while still paying attention to the conversation here.

It's been great. Let's just quickly go down the line and you guys can show whatever you like, including where people can find you. So, Javier, are you first? Okay, thanks a lot for having me here, Ben. And thanks a lot you guys for being here with us. Well, you can find me on Twitter. I'm a crypto-bastarto, but instead of Hawaii is a Nye, because in Spanish, we used to write in, yes, with Aind.

And I'm crypto because I started as a blockchain believer. I think that many of us transitioned. I don't know if there are born maximalism. Maybe 2020 could be a year when we saw people that go full maximalist. But, well, I think that we are in a journey. We are starting a very bullish year. So jumping and join us. Awesome.

Thanks, thanks, Evier. Nick, where can people find you and chill whatever else you need? So my Twitter is Nick can't mind. Nick being spelled N.K. And I don't have too much to show. I will show follow my podcast I do with Optimus Fields. It's BTC Kindergarten. It's a live show we do every single week.

And Discord. We've built like a pretty decent community. We got like about 20 people who show up there every single. week. We have a presentation with educational content and then we go into like something called Teachers Lounge where we just talk about the recent events, what's going on and everyone's involved in that. So everyone just unmutes themselves and has a huge conversation. So if that interests you, we're live every Wednesday at 9 p.m. Eastern. Awesome. That's great. And John, where can people find you?

I think, you know, if people want to find me, they can go to the normal places. I don't have anything to shill, but I do want to say thanks, Ben, for the invites. Always fun to jam with you. And all you guys, I'm a big fan of all your work. Love your output, wherever you do it. And I wish actually Nick's buddy Optimus was here to give us a big fat let's go for 2021 because I'm super pumped for the year. And I wish all you guys the best. And I can't wait to see what we do with this upcoming year because I think it's going to be a wild one.

So let's do it. 100%. And Ali, where can people find you? Honestly, people can just reach out to us on Twitter at the real tahini's. This has become my favorite platform now. And our DMs are open. If you're nearby any tahini's restaurant, come join us for Shawarma, you know, like have some good food and lots of Bitcoin.

I'd love to, I take any excuse to talk to Bitcoin. coin with anybody so I'm always game and if you're interested in like you know opening a tahini franchise just shoot me shoot me a DM and I'll be more than happy to talk business with you and thank you guys honestly the Bitcoin you know like every bitcoiner out there we wouldn't have we would have like have been in this spot if it wasn't for every the community and everybody being so kind and generous with their knowledge and just thank you at everybody and we love you all. Awesome. Well, gentlemen, I had a blast here. Thank you so much for being on. And guys, anybody watching, you can find

all of their links to their Twitter down below. So if you want to follow these guys. In fact, not if you want to follow these guys, go follow these guys because they're all awesome. Guys, I really enjoyed it. So thank you. I'm going to drop you out and give a quick goodbye to everybody here, but thank you, gents. All right. So everybody, again, thank you so much for being here. We had like 250 live people at one point, which was super awesome to see. So thank you all. As always, if you want to help about the show, like, subscribe, share.

All of those things really do help. They're super important that gets this in front of more people. You can always hit up the previously mentioned sponsors that I said at the beginning of the show. That was Leden. That was Bill Fottle over at Privacypros.io. That was BitRefill and that was the COBOLVOL. So that's all down below.

And if you really, really enjoyed what you saw, you can always drop me a Bitcoin Lightning Network tip at my tip and dot me page. That is t-i-p-p-in. dot me slash at BTC sessions. With that, I am out. Have yourselves a wonderful day, a wonderful evening, wherever you may be. And I'll see you next time for your day.

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