BTC Sessions - WHY ARE WE BULLISH? CK Snarks, Fractal Encrypt, Chris Alaimo ep276

Episode Date: July 29, 2022

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What is going on, everybody. Welcome to the show. Another Friday, another episode of Why Are We Bullish? We got a killer panel coming out today, a couple returning guests, and a first-time guest. So we'll be getting into that momentarily. I hope you're all having a good week, as I said. Super excited for this one. Anyways, this is live.

Anything can happen. So, of course, I defer to my good friend, Bill here. We'll do it live. Okay. We'll do it live. Fuck it. do it live I can write it and we'll do it live

thing sucks if you have not already please do like subscribe share all those things help get this content in front of more eyeballs even when there's construction by my window and I am Ben with BTC sessions this is your daily session before we bring in our

guests let's take a look at where we are in the market right now And we'll also take a look at a quick message, super important from Yellow, who wants to let you guys know, P-Poo-Poo. Thank you, Yellow for that. But besides that, in the market, we're sitting at $23,801 per coin. A single U.S. dollar will grab you 4,200 sats. 90.99% of all Bitcoin have been mined. And in terms of fees, we're looking at 15 sats per byte for the next block.

But if you're willing to wait a little bit, anywhere between 1 to 3. sats per bite should do you. Special shout out to sponsor the show, shakepay.com. If you're in Canada, super easy way to stack sats, no deposit or withdrawal fees. There's a thin spread. And if you use the link down below, you can sign up by your first $100 worth of Bitcoin. And I'm just getting past a beer. And you can then, wow, I just lost my train of thought. Beer will do that to you. Anyways, sign up with the link down below by your first hundred bucks with a Bitcoin. They'll give you 30 bucks for free. You get that also 30 bucks every time a friend or family member signs up with a link in your app. You can shake your phone every single day

for free Sats. They got Satsback Visa card, all kinds of great stuff. Check them out. Links are below. Leaden.com. These guys, you can use your Bitcoin for a ton of different stuff. For me, it's been particularly useful. Anytime I have just a simple cash flow issue and I need to get my hands on dollars temporarily to make sure things are flowing properly. I can deposit Bitcoin. here get a loan of dollars to my bank account within 24 hours. And when I pay back those dollars, I get back the same amount of SaaS. They also have savings accounts, of course. They've got their B2X offering. They've got Bitcoin back mortgages rolling out across Canada and to some select U.S. states all around awesome. Also, they have their proof of reserves audit that happens quarterly.

They just finish their fourth one. So you can have a little bit more peace of mind that they're not jerking you around allah, all of the other crap that's been going on. So, Yeah, check them out. Start.ledon.io slash BTC sessions. Bit refill helps me a ton living on Bitcoin. I can pick up any gift card that I can imagine with Bitcoin on chain and via lightning network. You're in SatSback as you shop. You can earn more Satzback with their referral program.

You can top up lightning channels. You can fill up your phone. And if you're in the U.S., you can actually make bill payments so you can even start getting on that Bitcoin standard. So check them out. Bitrefill.com. Keystone. Love these guys. I use this thing all the time.

Totally air-gapped hardware wallet, meaning you don't plug it into anything internet connected. It's all done offline via QR code. Just keeps the keys to your money safe and away from internet connections. Definitely upgrade to the Bitcoin-only firmware. Works awesome with Blue Wallet, Sparrow, Specter, great in a multi-sig. Really cool. I've got a full tutorial.

Check it out and links are down below. And finally, if you're backing up any important Bitcoin wallet, get it in steel. I don't like worrying about fire damage and water damage and all that kind of stuff and having a bill fottle and backing out my seat phrases in solid steel is a no-brainer for me. So check him out again, privacyprose.io. And with that, that's enough ranting from me. Let's get our guests in here.

That's why you guys are here, of course. We got fractal and crypt. We got Chris. We got CK. Gentlemen, thank you for being here. Very stoked to have you. Let's do a quick round of who are you and what do you do? So we'll start with fractal.

Dude, let people know. What do you do? What are you up to? Yo, yo, what's going on? I think I'm best described myself as a Bitcoin only, cypherpunk artist, infusing software, math, art, technology, and chemistry into biological interfaces. And I think I'm best known for my Bitcoin full-node sculpture series. Yeah, Sailor picked up one of those.

That's, where does he display it now? Where is it sitting? It's up in his house up north. It's not in his house in Miami. So, unfortunately, I don't get to visit it too often. Still, that's pretty awesome. Unbelievable. Super cool.

Yeah, super awesome. I love all your stuff. One day, I shall have a piece from you adorning behind me on the wall for the show. So I'll look at making that happen. Cool, quick rotation. CK, let people know who you are. What do you do? What is up, Bitcoiners?

I've been called one of the most bullish bitcoinsers out there. I think I'm still a bear, though. It's not humanly possible to be bullish enough on Bitcoin. And I help run Bitcoin magazine. I'm the general manager there. I get to work with the next guest, Chris, every single day. So just blessed to be Bitcoining every day. And huge shout out to fractal and crypt.

Absolutely legend. One of the best, absolute best artists in this space. I love everything he does. Oh, high praise. I praise. Chris, you're up next. let people know who you are what you do. Thanks, Ben, for having me on. Yeah, I'm Chris Alamo. I work for Bitcoin Magazine. I'm a multimedia producer for them. So I help do a lot of stuff behind the scenes,

whether it's the Bitcoin Magazine Live show, whether it's a lot of Twitter spaces that I help run. And yeah, just kind of love Bitcoin, love working in the space and love working with K and hanging out with Bitcoiners. You also come ridiculously prepared to why are we bullish every time you've got at least three topics in the chamber ready to go. So, CK said I'm not bullish enough and he's been hammering that drunk for at least the last month. So I brought three topics and hopefully they won't get stolen. I'll just list all three. I love it.

I love it. Well, gentlemen, again, thank you so much for being here. Everybody watching. Thank you for being here. Of course, if you're and you're watching for the first time, maybe you're unfamiliar. This is why are we bullish? Really simple. We go by the three hours.

We're all going to bring a reason for being bullish. That's our number one. Somebody can drop a reason why they're bullish. Number two, we're all going to riff on that reason together. And then number three, we're going to rotate. We're just going to go through that cycle until each one of us has had a turn. And I'm going to get us started this week with my reason for being bullish. And, guys, I'm like, it swelled up within me today how insanely bullish I am on the,

the building that happens during bear markets. And the way that I know this is happening is how much shit I have sitting right beside me ready to make tutorials on. Like, guys, I can't even. This is turning into a show and tell. Just so you know. Okay. So what am I going to lift up first?

So these arrived just the other day. These are my tap signers from from Coin Kite. And so these are just like NFC cards that have a private key or you generate a private key for them. And you can use them as kind of like a second factor or however you want for on the go Bitcoining. So it's more not as secure as using like your cold card, but it's more secure than just having a hot wallet because there's that additional little step where somebody gets your phone. well, they've also got to have the card. And if they just have the card, well, it's still pin protected and everything like that.

So there's degrees of security to it where, you know, if you're uncomfortable traveling with a hardware wallet or something, you can just like slip this into your wallet or something like that. And none, nobody would be any of the wiser. NFC scanner for my computer too, so I can start to do this. And this already works with Nunchuk wallet, which is a mobile and desktop wallet. that can do collaborative multi-sig.

So I'm super stoked to try this out. I just finished this week video on the Bolt card. I've got a bunch of them sitting here from Coin Corner. And again, this is an NFC card that can be used as a gift card. So you can basically tap it to a mobile device and redeem sats into any lightning wallet that's on your phone. It can also be used as a debit card. where it links to your coin corner account and does lightning transactions direct to any lightning accepting merchants.

So Breeze wallet has a point of sale terminal and you can actually just anybody that has that as a merchant, you can just go up and tap your card. There's also online BTC pay server has added the functionality. So like if you go to crypto cloaks and pick up something, you can actually just tap it to your phone and make the payment on the website, on the crypto cloaks website, with the bold card, which is crazy. Sorry, this is, this is gonna, I've got a few things here. I've got the coin debit cards.

And so this is just like simple QR code scan, top up with Bitcoin, instant spend anywhere that visa is accepted. Amazing. And also totally anonymous, by the way. What else? Those are absolutely badass, I have to say. I got my hands on one of them. We had a few in the office and it's just like, you send sats to it.

you get a dollar balance in that moment it's like that's when you're topping it up as you're selling stats and then you got a debit card you're good to go yeah it's crazy it's so it's such a all these useful things that we we didn't have before I also just got this delivered so I'm gonna be doing a tutorial on on the passport soon so shout out to the guys I got the sent over dude I've got I've been meaning to do this sooner rather than later but it's just taking me some time, but I've got my crypto cloaks like node ready to go because I want to do Start 9 Labs. I want to run one of those and see what that's all about.

And then I'm repurposing one of my old crypto cloaks nodes that I've got kicking around here. So I've, you know, had this around for a little while. I'm going to do Raspy Blitz because I haven't played with that before. So it's, it's time. And they just came out with actually, maybe I'll share. my screen here because they just dropped this, but where is it? They just released like an actual web interface for the Raspy Blitz, like today, if I'm not mistaken.

So I got to dive into that and get going. And so I'll be able to, it'll basically be a command center here on my, on my computer. I got my umbrella going. I got my Ronan Dojo going. And then I'll have my Raspy Blitz going. and I'll have my start nine labs. There's way too many notes. And then beyond that, I'm looking at diving into the Spectre DIY.

There's just, it's just endless. There's so many things that I need to do and try. And it's like you get to a point where you just add a loss of like, where do I even start next? This, what I just listed takes me well into the fall of tutorials. and that's assuming I don't get my hands on anything else between now and then. It's unbelievable. And I remember early on somebody saying to me, oh, so you do tutorials.

Do you ever worry that you're going to run out of things to do? And at the time, I thought, well, maybe, like, there might be lulls where I have to get inventive and do other things. that has not been the case. There's so much cool stuff. I'm at a loss. I don't even know what to say. But kudos to the builders out there. Yellow hashtag I am building.

And yeah, I mean, it's just, again, Bitcoiners are amazing and resilient and inventive. and I'm I'm bullish because of that. So I'm going to open it up there to you guys. I guess I'll posit it as a question. What have you been seeing that has caught your eye in terms of new stuff that has just kind of dropped? What have you been playing with? And like, are you equally bullish on how much cool shit is being built?

Anybody can jump in. I can start then. Yeah. I just got my hands on my MK4. couple weeks ago, so happy to get that from Cold Card, NVK, D, Mags, all of them. I really appreciate everyone up working at Coin Kite. I really like the Coin Corner card. I haven't gotten my hands on it. I know that they're based on the UK, but I was talking to Ben before we started. They shipped to the U.S., so I'm looking to try and order one or two of those. I'm waiting on my passport 2.0 from

foundations. I know that they had a bunch of them that just shipped out, so I really looking forward to that. And yeah, Ben, I agree. There's just like so much going on in the space. That's, I guess that's more of like the hardware side of things. I mean, obviously we have Fedomints just dropping as well, which is really, really cool. I know that's kind of even for me, it's hard to follow. I know I've listened to a lot of Obie's interviews about like Fedi, different from Fedi Mintz, but still in the same ballpark. But yeah, I really want to dive into Fedi and Fedi Mintz.

And yeah, there's just a lot being built right now. That's really, really cool things. I guess there's one more thing I'll add. I know with the coin corner cards, I was in a Twitter space is today, and someone was saying you could actually use them as like a half of a multi-sig. So let's just say like for signatures. So let's just say it's a two or three multi-sig. Let's just say the cold card, a blue wallet to keep it simple. And then you could use those tap signers as half secure, meaning that like one cold cards counts as one signature or one of those tap signers, the NFCs using tap root and then also coding in. in that it only counts as half. So you need both tap signers. So it's not like a full like very viable like single sig. It's like in case someone were to grab your wallet and just try and use that, you can use a cold card counts as one. Both of those count as one together. And then,

you know, blue wallet would be another rate of sign. That's just a simple way of explaining it. But you could code it that like you need three NFC tap signers to count as one signature. I hadn't really dug into it, but they were saying that that's something that can be done using taproot and sparrow and linking them. So not something I've looked into, but they were talking about, which I thought was really fascinating. That's super cool. Yeah, when I did the coin corner, like the bolt card walkthrough, I did, I set up like the, just the gift card part, I set it up with the coin corner app, but then the next segment,

I did the exact same thing, but I set it up without coin corner at all. I use like l.n. I can't remember what the website was. LN dot cash, I think. And you can create an LN URL there and send money to it. And then you can encode that on the NFC on the card with just like a simple app on your phone. And so you can basically create the exact same card and not have coin corner involved in any

way, shape, or form. So it's super cool being able to do that. And it kind of just shows the interesting things that, that you. you can do with NFC. And I love the idea of having an NFC tap as like part of a multi-sig. I think it's super awesome. Yeah. CK, do you want to have done it?

I was going to say kind of like on this, you know, I remember I always give you credit PTC sessions for being the person who first taught me about hardware wallets. I remember I watched a couple of years tutorials in 2017. But it's really amazing to see like, hey, in 2017, if I wanted a hardware wallet or if I wanted some sort of like unique signing device had to drop like 80 bucks. And now, you know, maybe these NFC cards don't have a screen, don't have like that hardcore cold storage ideal form factor. But all of a sudden, now the entire world can get these things maybe even for free, right?

Like you could see these things being given away. And as long as you're using, you know, a few different ones from different vendors in combination with different open source apps and different quorums. Like anyone can have relatively robust, you know, multi-sig cold storage to some degree at a very low cost with, you know, generic hardware and some of these cheap cards. So that's super bullish because the whole point about Bitcoin is like Parker Lewis quote is you got to distribute the keys.

Like it's all about getting keys in people's hands and distributing those keys because that is what mathematically makes Bitcoin. coin very, very difficult to, you know, really round up and put into a bubble, like, get into this walled garden is all these distributed keys. And if anyone can do that at scale with this, like, you know, cheap hardware, it's, it's really, really, really bullish. Yeah, totally agree. And I mean, in terms of the cost of cards, like, I think Rodolfo did a spaces earlier this

week on the tap signer, and he was saying, like, like, right now, it's a little. bit more expensive because production costs, they're just doing small amounts. But he's like, I think by next year we could get it down to maybe like you can order a card for 10 bucks or something like that. And that's that's pretty reasonable to like get your. And as you said, it's NFC. Like you can you can create your own NFC device from anything that's NFC enabled, right? And that's the interesting part. Like you can build it yourself. Things like seed signer, again like if you can i know that it's been a little tough getting the the parts right now but you can build your own hardware wallet from scratch and create seed phrases and create multi-sig

wallets and everything like that from pretty run-of-the-mill parts um yeah i'm a sheet signer i'm a big fan of that project i i love that project it's it's something that really was along the lines of what ck was saying you look back to 2017 you know what do we have ledger treasor you know a couple other things like Seed Sign or Timmy changes the game like that. They're like a really self-solvering tool. And I love to see things like that. And I like how you mentioned the start nine labs. I saw some of that, you know, the personal server idea where we take control of our data. I'm definitely bullish on a lot of these technologies that in some ways technologies, a lot of the technologies that are developed are technologies of control where corporations can, you know, track us or do certain things with us where our data is basically

the commerce product. And there's also technology that fights against that. And I love to see, you know, the rebellion. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it's, I mean, every, it seems like so many people are building in a way that's, that's meant to defy, you know, kind of funneling people into like very few choices, right? Like the seed signer is exactly an example of that of like, well, is it an attack vector? People have to only go through vendors where they have to order something online and that paints potentially a target on their back that this individual paid to get this device delivered to their own address, which by the way, use a PO box.

But nonetheless, like there's still like in a lot of instances a database associated with that. And so the idea that you could do all the stuff we're talking about and technically never have anybody know that you've even looked at Bitcoin is pretty astounding. And so the people that the people that are kind of entering now and they're like, hey, I want to go about this in a private fashion. They absolutely can. You can go stack non-KYC sats on something like Robosats or BISC or HottleHod or whatever. You can build your own hardware. You can create seeds. You can use privacy preserving technologies like coin join,

you know, Mercury wallet with state chains. There's so many different interesting things that that prevent you from being pigeonholed into just one option. And I love that. Fracto, I'm curious. What's your favorite interface to use your seat signer with? Are you like a mobile man? Are you desktop, like Sparrow?

Like, what are you using? I actually don't really like to talk too much about what I use. I respect that. That's okay. That's totally fine. I like that you're in the seeds center, though. It's pretty. Yeah, yeah.

I do, yeah, why do you think that's the thing about Bitcoin is you got to roll your own, right? You kind of have to like have your own self-custody and your own kind of thing. Otherwise, you start opening up the tax services. But at the same time, it's like a lot of stress to roll your own thing. You got to like have a lot of responsibility for that. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I love a lot of the, the non-specific hardware where it's like not only for this or not like not only a Bitcoin type type hardware. like actually where you just buy the microprocessors and do things with that.

That to me is kind of the way. I really like that. Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's becoming more versatile too. Because like with, for instance, with Seed Siner, nobody could get their hands on a Pye Zero for a long time. And so now I'm seeing like Keith and the other guys that are working on Seed Siner experimenting with different types of hardware.

So that is PSP chips. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so it's just pretty soon. there's going to be options where it's like, well, you can pretty much just piece together anything and it'll still function. I love that.

It's amazing. It's like chemistry, you know, like where, okay, you can make this molecule one way where you can go a totally another route with totally different steps and stuff.

And it's like, I think we're finding these similarities here. It's just amazing. Yeah. All right. Before we kind of wrap this topic, I'll let you guys jump in. But there's an audience question.

And I want to get takes from everybody on this, because everybody always asks about hardware. Like, is this okay? Is this okay? Is this okay? Is sat stacker asked, is ledger a good cold storage wallet? And so I'll get my take.

And then if you guys want to comment, then awesome. But I think in the context of if it's, you know, on a ledger versus in a hot wallet versus in on an exchange, the ledger is the clear winner. Then in terms of ledger versus other types of hardware, it's going to depend on your level of comfort because you also have to take into account user error.

And so if you're not super technologically inclined and if it's, again, the difference between you being like, this is too hard, I'm just not going to do it at all. And the ease of use of a certain device ensures that you actually do take self-custasy, then go with that device. Personally, I love the cold card for day to day because I just love all of the additional features that it offers. And it can be used in a simplistic way.

So the tradeoffs with Ledger would be you have to use their app, their application. to set up the device. So at least once you have to use their software. And in fact, you have to use it again every time you want to update the software, which is not ideal. So that aspect of it, I'm not a huge fan of. You can then go on to use it with other interfaces, Sparrow wallet, Specter, Wasabi, Electrum,

like whatever you want to use on desk. You can do that. That's fine. But there's that necessitate. of using their application. And so not super stoked about that. Also, closed source, that's kind of not a fantastic thing, in my opinion. To play devil's advocate, they've been around for a long time.

And there's that to be said, I guess, just like length of being in the market. They haven't run off with everybody's sats. So I guess there's something to that, but a lot of people prefer something that's open source where there can be eyeballs on the source code. So yeah, that would be your main tradeoff. They do have a secure element, which Treasor does not. So there's that tradeoff there, but Treasor is open source. So yeah, they're also not Bitcoin only.

And they do say, well, you can just use the Bitcoin app and not download the other ones, but they'd still have support for those applications. So if you view complexity as additional attack vectors, which you probably should, then it's likely less secure than a Bitcoin-only device. So I would say that. But with all of that being said, I would say odds of you being exploited sitting on a ledger of somebody getting away with your sats are more or less slim to none. like you're probably okay but some of those factors may be important to you and if so then take a look at some other options but yeah any of the thoughts guys yeah i'm like a hard no on the ledger and you touched on many of the reasons like open source probably being the main one the

ledger leak of the addresses is like really like probably my main issue although i love how you said that probably even with all this ideological stuff out of the way, the device is probably okay. Because my issues are mostly that, but the open source nature is huge to me. And I love how Yellow said here that Ledger is good if you also have a gun at your house because everyone knows your address. So that is. And the fact that they shit coin too is like, all this is hard no, but I do like your open-mindedness that the device itself is probably somewhat.

And Yellow is pointing to the fact that they had a big leak of customer of their customer database. So anybody who bought a ledger potentially had things like their address and phone number and email address and all that stuff leaked. And so a lot of people have been receiving a mix of like spam and fishing emails or like emails that or like actual physical mail. I think a bunch of people had Richard Hart give them like hex pamphlets direct to their home. Like just because that list of list of people. bought the list. Oh my God.

Yeah, he probably bought the list. So online, everybody, you could look it up yourself and mail to the people too, which is a fucked up thing. I'm sorry, that word. No, you can, you can swear as much as you fucking want here. It's fine. All right. Yeah, so we could all look that list up right now is the actual problem.

That's the exposure. Yeah. Yeah. It's unfortunate. So, yeah, like, there's a laundry list of things that kind of suck. You know, I still have some ledgers that I've used in the past. I literally spend my entire career. just like using stuff and trying it out.

So like I'm probably at some point going to do a video on like the replacement for the Ledger NanoS. But am I going to use it all the time? Probably not. I'm pretty like I like the more cypher punky things that I'm dealing with now. I like dealing with the cold card. I like dealing with the seed signer. I'm excited to get myself a Spector DIY.

You know, these are the things that I'm interested in. right now, but I'll still use regularly used hardware wallets that, you know, a fair number of people have just so they know that those applications are still accessible to them. So yeah. Yeah, I think you hit on all the points. There's actually, I have one. It was one of my first wallets. And it's kind of like there's levels to this.

It's like, you know, versus it being on exchange, it's probably much safer or I would say definitely safer on your own ledger device with your own seed phrase. But yeah, to your point, like they had a data. based breach. Luckily, my address wasn't compromised on that, or it's at an address I no longer live, so they can show up there all they want, and they're not going to find me or the device, which I guess is a good way to avoid that attack. But yeah, I think there is a risk with them being other altcoins or cryptocurrencies is a huge risk in an attack vector. I also, I still have a little bit of funds. I've moved majority of it off of there, but there was an issue with

the app that it's showing an incorrect amount on the app versus what I actually. actually own. And it was kind of one of those things I looked at. I'm like, this isn't right. And I take out like pen and paper. I'm literally like adding up bits of Bitcoin that I have of different transactions. Like, you know, I'm literally recreating the ledger on a piece of paper. I'm like, yeah, this isn't right. It's saying I have more, which I'll take, but like, this is wrong. So, yeah, it's definitely not good. Wow. So you have more Bitcoin. Yeah. So I guess I recreated more Bitcoin than 21 million hard cap or at least, you know, I'm going to find out when I send it. They're like, yeah, you don't have all that on there. It's definitely an issue. And, you know,

definitely more of the more cypherpunk ethos of using like a cold card foundation passport and other bitcoin-only devices is kind of been my go-to now going forward yeah i think everybody kind of gravitates there kk do you have a preference on hardware or like what do you well yeah i mean i actually i'm a fan of the ledger device i think that there's a lot of drawbacks but it's definitely one of the easiest devices to intro someone too i i also think the foundation passport. That's probably the easiest device to intro someone to because they can use a wallet. You know, they can use an app on their phone plus something that like feels very familiar, very simple. I'm a big fan of that. But I, you know, I think that the ledger is a good intro

wallet and it's also good for multi-sig. You know, if you have it in a quorum with, you know, a treasurer or have it in a quorum with a cold card and something else, maybe you're using unchained capital. Maybe you're using CASA. It's a good tool. Personally, I would not use it for single sig because of a lot of the reasons. I don't like that you have to use your app. You know, I don't like that's how small the screen is, things like that. But ultimately, if it's just one signing device in a quorum, you know, maybe it's something that you keep and it's locked up in a safe place and you only get every once in a while. I think, you know, I think that there's something there and there's something useful. And like BTC session said,

the company itself is relatively reputable, very early in the game here. And obviously, you know, you need to treat your Bitcoin like it's going to go up exponential. eventually. So treat it with a lot of care and respect. But, you know, I don't want to totally poo-poo them. You know, they, I think they are doing some good work out there. And there's definitely some use cases. Yeah. Yeah. Again, I'd echo that. And it just kind of goes to show like the range of kind of thoughts and responses we have here. It's very, it's a very personal decision what you're using. Because if you're, and somebody in the chat here said, Narwal said ease of use is important consideration.

For instance, I'm concerned about my loved ones trying to figure out what a cold card is and how it works. And yeah, like if you're if you're trying to think of, okay, well, you know, what happens if something happens to me and somebody needs to get, you know, I want my next of kin to be able to access my funds. What knowledge do they need to have in order to access that? and depending on depending on their level of

of you know tech savviness that can vary quite a bit and depending on whether you're using multi-sig or you know like something like unchained or whether you're just doing your own quorum or whether you're just doing single-sig there's a lot of considerations there

so gauge your risk maybe diversify how you're holding your coins maybe a certain amount in a single-sig a certain amount in a multi-sig and different types of devices. And then at least you maybe have the peace of mind of like, if something bad happens to me, my family will at least get a good chunk of my coins.

And then there may be some that they have a time trying to figure out how to get. But like, you know, you got to prepare for all potential threats. And that includes user error in your absence. So yeah. I just question how much user. user friendliness and ease of use is going to transfer from a bitcoiner to a total normie that just lost their loved one you know like is a cold car going to be that much more intimidating than a

ledger to that you know loved one necessarily you know if you leave good instructions um one should be relatively similar to the other if they have no instructions then they are a little screwed in some you know manner anyways but just a thought there yeah for sure i i saw william anthony one underlust his comment saying, holy F, I'm having the same issue with ledger. I'm in the middle of tech support showing less than ledger. So I guess I have his stats. I'll send you my stats that we can square up. No, but all joking aside, I guess for people that do have issues with devices,

don't panic. Like, that's the worst thing you could do. Like going with a level head when you're trying to recover a device. I've heard a way that it resolves it is make sure the apps updated one and then two, some people actually do have to do a recovery from the seed phrase. I would test other options before doing that and make sure that you have the proper seed phrase before doing that. The worst thing you'd want to do is lose them. You could always also try sending them to a wallet that you're more comfortable with or try sending a couple test transactions out to a different wallet and then sending a bulk amount.

But yeah, I know that a lot of people have had issues with it and potentially the way that they've found a way to get around is recovering via C phrase. So that's kind of what I've seen online. If you don't hit send, you can't get scammed. just remember that if you don't hit send you can't get scammed also i really do think that and i don't know how many people actually do this when you set up a wallet for the first time you need to erase the wallet and re-recover it from seed at least one time every single time before you actually store money in it because you need to make sure that that seed you know is good to go and you know that's just like the safest way it's just set it up wipe it restore the seed and then you know at least

to go through that one time one time so that way when you're restoring the seed again if you ever have to like it's not like oh my god this is going to work like you've done it before you know the seed is good i was just thinking about this though because i just actually had to set up a new bitcoiner with a wallet um yesterday and wouldn't you have to have sats there first before you destroy the wallet because won't they just have zero balance anyways and you won't know whether it's good or not i don't think you can just recover random not if you don't have a zero balance you don't have a zero balance It doesn't matter when you recover. So you need to kind of send like a small amount there first.

So that you see that. That's what we did. Cool, cool. Yeah. And I would say also another important thing is ensure that you can spend out of it. Right. Yeah. Do that send a transaction in, send a transaction out.

If that's successful, you know, along with a recovery, then, you know, you've kind of done all the steps that are necessary. Like you've, you've done the, yes, I can use the wallet properly. Like, I'm not sending. money into a black hole that I'll never recover. And then also, I actually have a recovery that works. And then you're pretty much set. You've kind of idiot proof to yourself at that point. So yeah.

All right, gentlemen, I'm going to wrap this topic because I threw a lot at it. And we kind of got in a rant here. But that's okay. I love it. Everybody that's in the chat, keep them coming. Thank you for being here. Smash that like button. Give this a share.

We're going to do a rotation now. And we're going to try. up to fractal. Dude, I'm going to let you have your rant. What are you excited about? What has you bullish this week? All right. Well, I just spent the week out in the mountains in the Ozarks.

And what has me bullish is that I just orange pilled a crystal miner and crystal pilled two Bitcoin miners on the top of a mountain in the most unlikely of places. Like, I don't even think there was any kind of internet or cell phone connection on top of the mountain where we were. And we totally like orange pilled this guy. And he was like a very first principled thinker. know like we were kind of talking to him all day and he sounded like a bitcoiner he just didn't have any bitcoin he didn't really know anything about it and um we were just with him all day just

chatting and stuff and then at the end of the day um i had invited two bitcoinsers to come crystal mining with me on the top of this mountain and they had never met each other uh before so it was a really cool trip for everybody to kind of get together and just uh do some work in a hundred and two degree heat on the top of a mountain i was like i was telling them i was like it's going to be brutal guys, you know. So, but everybody had a great time. And at the end of the day, one of the guys was like, hey, can I throw you some sats for, you know, inviting me out here? And I was like, no, man, whatever. It's cool. And as I was walking up to my car and back, I was like, wait, did I just turn down sats? Like, that's like sacrilegious or stupid or both. So let me correct this.

And as I was walking down, I was like, you know what, man, let's instead of him giving me the sats, let's give this crystal mind of the sats. So I told him, I was like, hey, you know, if we set you up with a wallet, will, you know, would you be down for that? And like, we, you know, we talked to him all day. He's like, oh, hell yeah. So basically, we just went, took this guy off zero right there. And it was just amazing thing. So if you can't be bullish about that, like, I don't know what you could be bullish about it. I love that, man. I've got to go. So I got a question for you, because when we're talking before the show, you're saying that, like, in listening to the crystal minor, you're thinking like, hey, this, this guy from like our first principal's perspective.

sounds a lot like a bit coiner. So what was some of the the values and stuff that you found kind of crossed over with, with that of kind of the Bitcoin or ethos? What, what things lined up between this crystal miner and Bitcoiners? Well, he right off the bat, he actually knew all about the Fiat scam and the Fed and all that. And he was familiar a little with like gold, this sound money. So he had already had some feet in the door there. He was also very like, you know, just skeptical of authoritarianism in general and, like, seemed to be like a kind of self-sovereign individual where he could just go out and teach himself stuff from the internet.

And like this is, he was like a very, like, it was like super unlikely. But obviously I used lasers for my art. So I said something about lasers. And he was like, oh, yeah, you know, I used to fix lasers. And you don't know how hard I had to look at one point for a laser mechanic so hard that I had to just give up and become one myself. Like I had to learn how to like tear these things apart and build them from from beginning to end. So when this crystal miner told me he knew how to operate and fix lasers, I knew he was intelligent because to figure that out to some degree you have to almost like translate from Chinese into English a lot of the time. So like there's, you know, you have to be a very self-starter in those ways.

So like all these things were kind of adding up. And he also sounded a lot like Bitcoin Twitter in a lot of ways, like, and just like health and politics and some of those things. I really want to get him set up with an account or something because he's, he was like a Bitcoiner with no Bitcoin. So we rectified that situation at least. And everybody there, he was with a good group of guys. So I think he knows that I basically told him just never press that send button.

Just like CK was saying. I love that. Steve only. Chris, you want to say something. Yeah, no, that's awesome. I know sometimes it just takes like meeting just people out in public for like orange filling someone. And I guess my case that relates to that is one of the guys he works in the Bitcoin space. I won't docks him.

But long story short, it was me and him and a bunch of other people from our Bitcoin meetup. And he was bringing one of his buddies, his childhood friend that he's been friends with for like 18 years. And he like works in Bitcoin, works on one of the projects that many people know. And his buddy's like, yeah, yeah, I keep hearing you say about this Bitcoin. thing, Bitcoin thing. And then, you know, ironically, we were on a boat. So a bunch of Bitcoiners on a boat. And he was talking to me and a couple of other people from our meetup. And he's like, we were telling him about like, you know, how like how messed up like the Federal Reserve is and just kind of going all the Bitcoin Twitter rants. And basically we got him to buy like $2,000 for the

Bitcoin like off the bat. He's like, dude, I've been working in the space for years. I've been his best friend for 18 years. And he never got any. And then he just hangs out with you guys for like a couple hours and he decides to buy a bunch of Bitcoin. So it sounds like a very similar experience, like different but similar. You know what I mean? Like you kind of met a guy that was kind of primed for it. This guy was definitely primed for it hearing his buddy talk about it working in the space. But finally they're like, yeah, dude, like it's like, like you should really get some. And then he even like sent him the receipt of like, yeah, this is what I bought. So it was just very funny. And like, you know, orange peeling out in the, in the ethos is awesome. Yeah, no,

I love that just going out in the middle of nowhere and kind of just, you know, spreading that vibe. But I just told him, I was like, look, this is really like it's not an investment. It's a savings technology. You know, you're out here working. You put your work in time and your energy away and you have the chance to store it in a money that's fair and it's non-diluted. Or you can put it into government money, which basically they're just going to keep stealing value from you. So, you know, to me, it's the ultimate savings technology. You don't have to even think of it as an investment or putting money into it.

It's simply you're just saving your time and energy and storing it in a better mechanism than. than you could have otherwise. So I think, like, you know, a lot of that clicked with him. I see Johnny Rico was saying, I keep thinking of a miner that deals in crystal meth. And it's so funny because I, like, was joking with the Bitcoiners. At one point, I, like, peaked out of this vein. And I was like, man, you know, I'm real sorry, y'all that I'm going to be the one that got y'all addicted to crystal. I love that.

Oh, man. It's so interesting hearing the crossover. And it's like there's a certain type of person that will gravitate towards Bitcoin and get it very quickly, right? Like you were saying, you know, he's already kind of in tune with sound money. He's already kind of distrustful of government. He's already in tune with proof of work and self-sovereignty. Like he's willing to go out and use proof of work to become self-sovereign, right? Like he didn't know how to work on lasers and he literally just learned how to do it himself from the internet.

So there's a unique type of individual that that comes to Bitcoin very easily. And if you don't have those certain qualities, then I think they'd be, if you get into Bitcoin for some other tangential reason, those qualities begin to be pulled out of you. You become more self-sovereign. you become more willing to learn and build on yourself and use your time towards things that will reward you later in life instead of immediately right now. And I love seeing that. I think it's awesome. Absolutely.

Yeah, I was telling the Bitcoin miners that I invited down that this was like the most proof of work activity you could do. You know, I was like, you know, it's going to be brutal. It's going to be hot as hell. We're going to be like getting beat down by the sun. But at the end of the day, you're going to have something you can bring home with you that, you know, the crystal is the proof. You know, you do the work all day and your proof of work actually is physical and you can hold it in your hand.

It's the most crazy, beautiful geometry you've ever seen in your life. And actually, you're the first one to see this geometry in 100 million years. And some people may never even see it. It's just such a unique experience. And yeah, it seemed like everybody was totally into it. And I certainly enjoyed it. Damn. What is the same thing between Bitcoin proof of work and crystals?

You know, it's like, what's the connection there? Like, I never thought we'd be talking about that, but here we are. Well, not only that, but we also came up with the congruence between Bitcoin as a timekeeping mechanism and quartz crystal is a timekeeping mechanism because, you know, all this quartz was actually originally mined by the U.S. government in World War II for oscillator grade courts. That was like kind of what started the whole quartz crystal mining. They actually used to need this for the war effort. It was critical for radio transmissions and stuff like that.

And it's because it oscillated a certain frequency. and that's why Quartz watches work as well because it oscillates perfectly at a certain frequency and you count the oscillations and that's time. So Bitcoin also has its own oscillations every block. That's crazy. Bitcoin is time. Quartz is time.

Ractyl and Crypt, baby. I fucking love it, man. I can't think of someone more cosmic than this dude. Right. Thank you. We need that because Gigi wrote that article if there was some sort of like quartz-backed piece of art with that like his that article like transcribed onto it would be fantastic.

But yeah. Maybe one day there will be. The quartz full node structure. That's what he's mining. I didn't mean to blow it guys. But I love it. I was definitely thinking it would be cool to take like something that I mind and put it in an art piece and stuff.

I don't think I found that piece this time. Like, that certainly would be a neat thing. You know, I've been thinking of it for a long time to incorporate crystals into the art. But it's like each crystal is different. You know, like no two crystals are the same. Every single one is different. So, like, if you do that, you have, like, you have to kind of create the art around the crystal, which I really love that. So it's like, you know, like that, the art is around that specific geometry.

So, you know, I'm working on it. I'm very slow with this stuff. But one day we might see it. Again, it pays off, right? low time preference. Let it happen. Yes. That's awesome.

Gentlemen, any final comments on this topic as a whole on, on, I don't know, just any of the ethos that seems to cross over between people that are willing to work hard to see the fruits of their labor come forth? I don't know. I feel like we hit a lot of topics. and if I could just jump in on this one thing that I'm like super passionate about is like I think about adoption a lot it's like one of the things I think about a lot I actually think about like shit coin or psychology a lot because I think that like a lot of people enter

through shit coining because it's like very fiat oriented activity so it makes sense that's why people like people enter through that but I think when it comes to like adoption like a lot of adoption requires priming. We need to have our layers of priming to kind of see this complex organism, this complex Frankenstein, that's Bitcoin. And I'm super bullish. Maybe this is a transition that like that level of priming is going down. You know, we're going from like you had to be a cypherpunk on the cryptography mailing list to,

you know, you could be a blue collar trucker in Canada and get it. Right. So like the level of priming is going down a lot. Part of that is because Bitcoin is becoming easier. The brand is getting, you know, more time, mind share. Lindy, if you will. But a lot of it, too, is like, clown world is escalating. And it's coming for all of us. And like that's helping a lot of people get primed a lot more quickly. So it's scary, but at the same time, it's extremely bullish for Bitcoin. I think this is an excellent transition here. I was just thinking this today and the past couple days that people are so, there's never been more in your face reasons why Bitcoin is so important.

And so maybe this is the S curve. Maybe this is the hockey stick moment where it's not that like a critical mass of people found Bitcoin at a certain time, it's that a critical mass of people are being exposed to clown world at such an accelerating rate that they can't help but eventually find the solution.

Like when the administration is sitting there saying, we're not in a recession, and you literally have reporters that just spent, like, they spent four years like screeching about the last administration, not like stating things in a 100% factual manner.

And now they're subjected to literally the people that they cheered into office next doing the same thing that they were mad about, basically coming out and being like, this is what it is or this is not a recession. Well, the definition of recession is two negative quarters of GDP growth. Well, that's not the definition. So what is the definition? Well, we're not here to define it for you.

What the fuck are you talking about? How are we supposed to have a conversation? How is anybody supposed to understand anything about what anybody's saying if we don't have a common definition for words? And it's just how do you look at that and not begin to say maybe we need something where like the proof is in the pudding? Maybe we need something where it's just math, irrefutable math, and it doesn't matter how people externally define it. It just continues to function and work as expected to anybody that takes the time to understand it. I don't know. Thoughts?

Yeah, I mean, there's like a guy, gosh, why am I blinking at what it's called? It's a yin and yang, but on one side, it's a clown face and then on the other side is Bitcoin. And that's just, that's it. It's like as one accelerates, it pushes Bitcoin forward because, you know, Bitcoin is like the opposite. It's the 180 to like the clowniness. Nothing is real. Whatever they say you must obey. It's just the opposite of that.

So yeah, I think I'm bullish because we're at 0.001% adoption, if not less in terms of global adoption. There's 21 million Bitcoin only. Everyone's a bear. And Clon World is just constantly accelerating. So you don't need that much more people entering into Bitcoin for number to go up, fees to go up, everything to go up. And I just don't think that people are taking into account like Bitcoin is becoming more necessary, guys. And they're literally not making more of it. Like, that's the whole point.

I love it. I don't know. Chris, Fractyl, do you have thoughts on? on this inevitable acceleration of adoption in the face of clown world? Yeah, I can add to that. I mean, they're doing an awesome job destroying themselves. It's almost like, what's the Sun Tzu quote of like never stop an enemy that's making a mistake? And my perfect point, this kind of ties into my thing.

It's not, but it ties in well. My girlfriend just moved in with me a couple months ago, And she's doing all the typical things, you know, you update your license, your address, all that. And one of the things, normally for most people, is setting up a bank account. And so she starts setting up a bank account. And she has, you know, an online bank account. And then we kind of have a local branch that she's using. And she's like, yeah, like, I'm trying to transfer money from my old bank account to my new bank account.

And then there's all these issues and like the wire didn't go through. And then like they sent like they're, you know how they normally send like micro payments of like 16 cents and 13 cents confirm these. She's like, well, in the app, like, they actually sent a dollar in 16 cents, and I can only put in two digits. So it's like given all these issues. And I'm just sitting there, like, listening to her to complain about like the legacy system. I'm just like grinning ear to ear. She's like, what do you smirk about me? I was like, well, I work for Bitcoin magazine.

I love Bitcoin, babe. Like, this is why I told you to buy it in first place. Like, we could do this much simpler in terms of transferring money. And she's like, okay, I get it. Like, I don't even have to do the work anymore. Like, you know, she hears enough of it from me about how great Bitcoin. is and all that like you don't i don't even have to do the we don't even have to do the work anymore like the system's collapsing in and of itself and to ben's point like they they don't even know how to

define things they say it's not the definition and then they refuse to define things so it's like you know people they don't even need to seek the truth it just like hits them in the face eventually i don't know fractal what do you what do you think i mean i fully agree with with um the analysis of saying that you know the society is doing itself more harm and I think the benefit of Bitcoin becomes apparent to people when they need to use it. You know, it's all raw, raw to hear about it from your buddy in the office. But, you know, when it becomes like the only form of money that you can transact in for some reason or another, then or a better form of money that you can transact in without restrictions or without rules, then I think the light starts to come on for people, like where we had the situation with the Canadian truckers where, you know, like that was like a funding mechanism for them. Or I, you know, I even had personally a situation where I was helping a company and they had a programmer in Russia that they were working with during the recent, whatever you call that war that's going on over there.

And when the banking system got cut off, their relationship with the employee that they had was actually super difficult. Like they couldn't pay his salary. And I was like, well, yeah, you know, what we could do is probably pay your guy in Bitcoin. And so they suggested it to him and he said yes. And like they were like, okay, cool. How do we get Bitcoin? And so that was a relatively easy walk from here to there because all of a sudden this company that would have never ever needed that, you know,

needed that, you know, all of a sudden was not that they wanted to use it. They had to use it. So these type of situations, I think, are going to be brought about by that same collapse that Chris was talking about where, you know, through no fault of that company's zone, they were exposed to a need to use Bitcoin because it just is better money. And I mean, even me, like, I had a situation where I was trying to get some laser parts from China and my bank would not send the money from the U.S. to China. Like, they were like, well, how long have you known these people? Are they trying to scam you? I was like, no, like, no, I, like, I have a machine

from them. I'm trying to get a spare part. What the heck? What are you talking about? And, like, they wouldn't do it. So I went to Western Union. Western Union wouldn't. do it because like oh there's a lot of scammers in china and it's like can like are you serious you know and it was like will you guys accept bitcoin and yes so i was like oh well we just we could have just saved ourselves a whole week of hassle here and um you know that was cool and then but then um later on they wouldn't accept bitcoin when um i'd say like two years later and that was like things had gotten politically a little different and i don't know if it was because we were doing like clear text emails and stuff

so that might have been exposed on their end to surveillance or whatever but but yeah they definitely were all about it when I couldn't pay them other ways and stuff so it was cool it's it's again it when it becomes a necessity

you know it very quickly people kind of wake up to oh I get it now you know like the shit in Canada the stuff you're talking about the any time that it's just clearly easier to deal with Bitcoin, which for me is just always. Like I cringe every time I have to utilize some sort of banking or like I'm getting paid and it's like, oh, can we send you a wire?

And I'm like, oh, no. It's just you're just picturing all of the things that can go wrong and like just the pain in the ass of having that sitting there. not to mention that like I especially this year have lost all faith in having any amount of fiat, even though fiat's worthless, but having any amount of fiat sitting in an institution in Canada. Like, of course I'm not going to like I try to keep minimal dollars possible at all times and everything else is Bitcoin because I, you know, that was one of the biggest reliefs.

during all of that shit going on was, I was like, okay, worst case scenario, my bank account gets frozen. They get the like few dollars that I have. And then, and then,

okay, it'll be probably a bit more of a hassle and a pain in the ass to pay bills, but I'll still be able to do it. I'll still have all my money. And that really stuck with me, more so than ever before. And now I don't, I don't know that I could ever go back to like having a consistent fiat balance because I just, I don't, I don't have trust in that system.

Like what trust was there, you know, I knew that my, my purchasing power was being constantly eroded. I knew that. But to see like bank account gone, to see that happen, like, that's big. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, it was, it was unbelievable. And so, like, I... You got re-orange-pilled. Yeah, yeah, it's like Kaiser came up and, like, shoved a palm full down my golet.

Like, that's, that was that moment for me. I don't know. Yeah, that stuff's dramatic. And I think this stuff comes in waves. So you have whole waves of people that were affected by, by what happened at different levels. And, and, you know, just like a wave goes up and down, like, you know, each person's exposure and understanding of Bitcoin will kind of both peak and and trow at different times and the more times you go through this it kind of raises and raises the level as it goes

until you know you hit a threshold point where you're like okay now I'm actually coming off of zero and then once they're in then it's like okay then then your understanding starts to develop at a deeper level and you know it's still a multi-year process of trying to figure this stuff out so I just think it's like you know, the adoption thing will come in waves, and it's also waves of understanding that are not equal at all levels. So you've got a lot of stuff going on. Ben, with your luck,

you have probably minimal dollars in your account, like you said. They might close it for not having enough fiat money in there. Or they'll hit you like, oh, there's like a fee for not having enough money in here. Yeah. Yeah, your negative account balance.

You pay this negative balance back in order to use it again. Yeah. Yeah. You have an HSFP service fee, sir? Yeah, that would be poetic. That would be, you know, if ever I needed that extra push to never touch a bank again, that would be it. You know, sir, we know that we previously attempted to take all of your money. But now you have too little money with us for us to take.

So we're going to charge you money for us. We know. We know. That's an overdraft fee is. They do this every day to all of us. Yeah, it's like, oh, you're too poor. We're going to just take more of what you don't have. You are negative.

Yeah, it's insane. It's insane. I try to dig your way out of this whole pleb. I love it. CK. Did we adequately, is there anything that you wanted to add to flesh out your topic? Did we adequately address it? Any final thoughts on it?

You know, where are we at? Yeah, I mean, the only thing I would add is that telephony, obsolete, you know, analog telephone lines without analog telephone lines shooting themselves in the foot the entire way down, right? Like, we're looking at central bankers and they're killing their own system,

like as Bitcoin is obsoleting them simultaneously. So whenever someone says, like, it's not going to happen quickly, laugh at their face, know that. Sure, it won't happen quickly with these clowns, you know, the helm and have confidence in your stats and, you know, walk with confidence. So I think all

Bitcoiners should be confident in their stack. They should respect their stack. And if they take any time in studying macroeconomics, they'll soon realize that our enemies are both evil, but also incompetent. So it's really important to get that too. Perfect. I think that's an excellent way to round out that topic. So fantastic. Well, let's give it a final rotation here. Again, shout out to everybody in the chat here, Shawshank in there saying that banking is a total fraud these days. And we should, somebody was saying we should start a Fiat rehab clinic. Yeah, absolutely. But, With that, let's rotate over to Chris. Chris, I know you've got a lot to throw at us. So just let us have it, all of it. Go.

Well, I guess the first one was my girlfriend's story. So I already got that off the list. I guess the second one. Wait, wait, Chris, are we all getting girlfriends now? Apparently, maybe. I don't know. It remains to be seen. We're in a bear market now, so maybe they went away.

But she wasn't with me for the money because I told they were like 75% poorer. So I guess I guess you're sticking around. She's a good one. That's proof of work, though. She's like, my wires don't go through, but one dollar equals one dollar, Chris. Yeah, exactly, exactly. I guess my one that I've been thinking about a lot this last month, and we've kind of briefly hit on it, is like, Bitcoin's the truly the only thing you own. And I know we've seen a lot of this lately, but I'm just kind of been like connecting a lot of the dots of this. We have obviously Canadian truckers, Ben, you can speak at nauseam on that.

We have the Russians. Like you could just been a Russian in America, you know, you don't know anything. You have no relation to Putin. What I think Putin did was awful. I think him killing anyone is people killing anyone is awful. But like you could have just been like a by proxy of just being a Russian citizen having your assets confiscated or make a lot difficult to move things around. I think about like Alexei Naval. I was thinking about him a lot recently.

He's the one that went up against, he went up against Putin obviously to try and fight us him being a different political party. And obviously he was jailed for it. He obviously was kind of skirting around it with donations and Bitcoin. But imagine like he gets hit again with Russians, with US sanctions. So he's like the opposition of Putin and Putin tries to quash him. And then the US system would sanction. So his family is like hit with that. But it's like at least if they were smart about their Bitcoin and how they have it allocated, maybe some of it's out of the country, maybe has it with other people that are helping custody's coins. Like that's truly the only thing that can work for this guy. Like he might be in the roughest situation.

and not to say, woe is me and who has it worse. But like, literally you're getting sanctioned by a dictator and then you're getting sanctioned by the largest power in the world. Like this guy, like, is out of options. And I think the next wave that really hits home and like I've definitely been trying to like Orange Fill my dad. And he has some Bitcoin. And I think a lot of times people say like Greg Foss hammers this drum that like a small amount of Bitcoin will be worth a lot because of like you can't be bullish enough. Like to CK's point, if you have one percent of your total net asset in portfolio and Bitcoin, like that'll cover the 99% that might go to zero. But I don't think it's like really hit home. Like obviously the Canadian truckers know, many Russian people know,

but us in the Western society, I guess less so much Canada. But a lot of people, it still has not hit home. And I mean this for like the boomer generation in the United States that have had a very, very luxurious last 50 years since 1971, maybe even a little bit before that of them growing up, even being on a gold standard. But like, you know, a lot of them have benefited from 401Ks, from the bond market being in a bull run, from real estate prices going exponential since they were younger and buying homes 30 years ago. Like all of those things, I don't think people realize how easily those things can be confiscated. Your bank account can be shut off. The running joke is your bank accounts a two or three multi-sig and you have one key and the bank of the government

have the other two keys. And they are in much more likely to cooperate with each other than they are to cooperate with you, even if you being a customer of technically both of those institutions. but we can save that for a later date. You know, bonds can be confiscated through a brokerage just by the government saying, hey, like, this person did something wrong. You know, he's guilty to proven innocent. In weird ways, money, it actually goes to reverse. Instead of like having to prove it, it's like, oh, let's lock his assets and then we figure out afterwards.

So I guess my whole rant is like people are, do not realize your bonds can be taken. Your stocks can be taken. Your real estate, they can price you out by increasing your taxes because they're printing more money and it's like, hey, the government in order for us to run, not only do we have to print more to keep going, the states don't have that ability. So they have to jack up the state taxes as a federal government prints more money. And I know I'm kind of conflating how money printing occurs. It's very complex. But like anything besides Bitcoin can get confiscated more easily. And my last point that'll hit home, Israel right now, and we do the daily news at Bitcoin Magazine Live, Israel right now is putting a

limit of new shekels of their currency. You can only transact in cash up to $6,000 starting, I think, August 1st. It is illegal to do more than 6,000 new shekels. It's about 1,700 U.S. dollars to transact. It is illegal. Like, if C.K., I'm like, hey, I want to buy a car from you. It's $1,800. It is illegal to do so. And like, how crazy is this? This is cash. It's literally peer to peer to, barring, you're not doing anything illegal. They're literally saying transactors. Have you heard of Australia? What? Yeah, exactly. You heard of Australia? That's true. I got the same funny shit, too. I guess my point is to CK. Sam, we're not bullish enough. And I think you have to have

to realize that how powerful Bitcoin is literally every other asset can be taken from you much more easily than Bitcoin. I'm not saying it can't happen. I'm not saying they can't torture you to get your seed phrase out, but it's much more difficult for that to occur. So that's why I'm bullish on me. They can only torch you one by one, Chris. That's true. I'll give you guys a warning when they get me first. All right, guys. I love the, I love the Alexei Navalny example. And the interesting thing is, so I went to the Human Rights Foundation event in Oslo, the freedom forum in Oslo, this past, you know, a couple of months here. And I was speaking to somebody who was helping or with the, you know, raising Bitcoin and maintaining that or or at least

maybe not maintaining it, but like knew the process that they were going through. And so, um, the Alexei Navalny, uh, Bitcoin like fund where they're, they're taking a Bitcoin. It's always just been like a static address, um, for large periods of time. And we were kind of talking to them and we're like, well, you know, like it's, it is better to have a new address for each, each new, um, each new donor and, you know, it helps the privacy and everything. And they're like, yeah, we've, we've heard this a lot, but at the same time, they can't touch it. So we don't care. And we don't care if they know how much money we're getting because we get to use it anyways. Um, and it's almost kind of in your face and we're, well, we don't care if we flaunt it. And, and we don't care if we flaunt it. And,

And so I find that kind of like exactly to your point where they're like, fuck them. They can see how much money we have, whatever. And I love that. I think that's great. I'm glad that they're in that position. I just want to like throw out there that like when people say like, why is Bitcoin going to win?

And the reality is that Bitcoin is money that works. And like all of us like we're actually raised. our expectation for like money to like money that works and then we look at all the other shit. I'm like oh damn that stuff sucks. So like once you experience like Bitcoin like why is Bitcoin going to work when is because it actually just it works like all the other stuff doesn't work like money like what is going to be money is like this competition for what works his money best. Well Bitcoin works way better than everything else to the point that everything else actually is like at deficit.

It just doesn't even work. It does not get the job done. So I think Bitcoin works. I think humanity's discovering that. And, you know, when enough people figure that out, it's going to hockey stick. So I'm not trying to blow smoke up people's asses. The world is better with Bitcoin. All of our wildest predictions are bearish because we are not visionaries enough to

like even understand what you know the world will look like in a bitcoin future and take all of your wildest expectations increase them by a couple orders of magnitude respect the shit out of the stats you have and uh you know i hope you're ready to get across the finish line so like bitcoin works and like it's badass that these people can flaunt it in the russian spaces and say that hey you know our bitcoin works so you can see how much we have it and that's how well it works but on the flip side like it's kind of crazy this meme of like get on zero like you don't actually have to buy that much bitcoin to get on zero because eventually bitcoin will get you on zero like it'll do it for you it's automated inevitable in purchasing yeah it's inevitable it's literally

automated it so you just you buy whatever bitcoin you want you live your life and bitcoin will put you on zero eventually so I don't think it's going to take that long either I love that it's it's like yeah you will be on zero at some point it's just how much in the other direction away from zero you are uh you know like it's how many stats were you able to stay to stack in the midst of that transition um yeah it's funny because i there was uh the whole like get on zero through the bull market and everybody like just just all all bitcoin don't hold dollars and everything and then as the bear market hit i saw a good handful of people shitting on the idea of get on zero.

But if you've kind of gone through and understood like the ethos of that and like one, creating value to spending less than you earn and then saving the rest and actually saving for long term, then get on zero works just fine for you. Right? Like you're able to save more now because you're spending less than you earn and the rest is just Bitcoin and it just goes into savings. The people that run into trouble would get on zero is the people that are spending more than they earn.

So they're racking up more and more debt. And now in a bear market, they're having to dip into savings that are now worth less for the time being. That's where you get in trouble. Or if you're using leverage because you think that's going to help you grow your stack, while you're super fucked right now, if that was your tactic. But if you just keep your head down, you do the work, you earn and you try to stay humble and spend conservatively and put away a little bit every month, then you're totally fine on zero because you're making an income and you're able to save each month. So yeah, I don't know.

I'm still team get on zero personally. And maybe it's not for everybody. But like if you have a way to earn Bitcoin, why not, man? why not bitcoin will either put you on zero or the state will you'll be on zero and you'll be happy yeah exactly just whether you have bitcoin or not but the state is going to attempt to make you un nothing and be happy yeah yeah exactly the state's favorite pronouns for everyone is were was right you know. That's fantastic.

All right, gents, what I want to do now and actually, fractal, do you want to add anything to the topic at hand? No,

I mean, no other than to summarize, like, CK was saying, it works, and Chris was saying it's unconfiscatable, and it's fuck you money.

All that I'm in full agreement with, like, Let's fucking go. Awesome. All right. Jen, so what I want to do as we kind of round this corner, we've done our topics. I always like finishing up with just a quick round of any final thoughts from everybody, anything that you didn't get to say, anything that you think is important, anything you want to just like reiterate.

And then also, I'd like you to add a recommendation, whatever that may be. It could be a podcast you recently heard. It could be a book you read. It could be a video or that you watched. It could be a device or an app that you use. Something that you think is cool that has helped you in your Bitcoin learning journey or that you found useful. Yeah. And I'm basically any sort of recommendation that you want to point people towards.

Yeah. So in terms of final thoughts. Yeah, I mean, all these topics kind of linked loosely but well together. You know, we've got the crystal miner that understands the ethos of Bitcoin without ever having interacted with it. Kind of going to show that proof of work and self-sovereignty and and having a sound honest money is, it's kind of a universal truth that if you take the time to learn it, can be understood. you know, it's Bitcoin's inevitability is happening in the face of, of clown world exponentially growing, right? You have people that are seeing how hypocritical and how nonsensical everything they're being told is. You know, there is no inflation.

Inflation is, there's a little bit of inflation. Inflation is transitory. Inflation is good. Inflation is here to stay. there is no recession. We're on step one of that progression. You know, they're seeing it time and time again,

and they're kind of going, what the hell is this? Why are we able to be lied to like this? And this is just the system we live in. And again, it's becoming inevitable because the writing is on the wall. And again, like Chris,

your girlfriend's example, it just works in the face of a ton of shit that doesn't. So yeah, I think it all ties together. and we're moving down that path. And I know that for some of us, been around the block a few times, but it seems like it should happen even faster,

but it's happening fast. Like it's been 13 years. You don't completely change the world monetary system in like a decade and a half. It takes two. So we'll see how it goes. But anyways, guys, loved all the topics. What I'm going to say in terms of recommendations,

I'm going to recommend if you have not, I like people to play around. I'm just feeling this today. I like people to play around with a seed signer. I like people to use it as a learning tool. One thing that I didn't get to say is there's a couple comments on people's hardware wallets, it's crapping out and everything. this is also an excellent recovery tool just to have on the ready because you can take any seed phrase and input it and use it simply as a device that allows you to sweep the funds in the interim to something else that you want to store them on.

So just even just as like a oh crap, shit went sideways. I got a seed phrase. I'm golden. But even just key management, key creation, all that kind of stuff, it's so cool. and you get to build it yourself and it looks like Nintendo so you know that's my show for the week

go go play around with the Seed Siner it's fun Can I make a confession? Yeah I have not played around with the Seed Siner yet so shame on me and I need to I need to build one yeah you should play around

it's a lot of fun I quite enjoy it We're gonna 3D print some in the office Yeah yeah and on top of it the first time that you transcribe a private key onto a QR code that you use with a Sharpie, you're like, there's no way this is going to scan. And then it does, and it feels like magic. Like, I made this.

It's amazing. You should try it. Keith Mukai's pretty robust, too. Like, I think you can only do like 70% of the 100% like actually accurate and it'll like actually work. So it's pretty crazy how robust those things are. Yeah. Yeah, it's wild.

If you haven't played. Shout out keep. Yeah, it's worth a play. So I'll leave it there. That's my, my, my recommendation for the week. Fracto, you're up. Any final thoughts and any recommendations you may have?

Yeah, I do have some final thoughts. Something I always like to tell people is just that I think whatever your talents and passions are, like whatever you're interested in, if you focus that at Bitcoin, in many cases, that will be very fruitful for you. It was for me. So I just like to recommend that to other people. And it really doesn't matter what your skill is necessarily. Like all that has some application to Bitcoin.

And you may be surprised, but like, I mean, I'm an artist. It couldn't be farther from, you know, Bitcoin in many ways, even though it's like not, it has that as its subject matter. So, yeah, I just think that that's a healthy and wholesome thing for people to do. And it's going to help you with the way that you think and approach your passions and the thing that you do because you're going to kind of start melding Bitcoin philosophy. ideology into the things that you do and i think that those those things can only benefit you so that was just my final thought there and then my recommendation at first i was going to recommend bitcoin core

because i think all bitcoiner should just use that just download it and just play around with it but i think even better than that is if you do download bitcoin core it comes free with test net which is also like super free so you can get free test net coins and do just any wild thing you want at zero cost to yourself so it's like the most amazing learning tool for me person in my Bitcoin journey. So I would just suggest to other people that, you know, they just explore Bitcoin Core because it gets lost in the mixed with a lot of the new stuff that's out there and about. But to me, that's my, that's one of the things that I really like to use. Just it gives you so much functionality and there's just so much cool stuff that you could do

with Core. So that's my suggestion. I like that. And I mean, if you, if you're running Core on your computer and you want to use that as like your node, you can, you can then, you know, whatever you do, download Sparrow or Spector or something and they'll just auto link to it, right? That's, yeah, that's great. 100%. Awesome. Yeah, I love that.

Let's rotate. CK. Final thoughts, recommendations. You're up. Huge fan of a pruned core node on your primary computer. It's not that bad. you can do it. You don't have to buy anything. Just take your daily driver, pruned core node. It might be a little bit of a bitch when you're downloading it. But after that, you're good to go. That thing is lean, mean, it stays up to date pretty easily. So super, super underrated. There's no reason why you don't use a node every time, you know, you're kind of using Bitcoin. And, you know, with that being said, I think that I would be remiss if I didn't talk about the Bitcoin conference. that's happening in Amsterdam.

So October 12th to the 14th, Chris and I, we work for a company, Bitcoin Magazine. We're throwing a conference in Amsterdam leading up to Bitcoin 23, which is going to be Miami Beach again next year. But Bitcoin Amsterdam is coming up in less than 75 days. So it's going to be a lot of fun. We got GA tickets. We got whale tickets. We have amazing speakers.

We're really trying to focus on what is happening in Europe. And honestly, I got on Stefan Levera's podcast pretty recently, and I was talking about this. Like, I'm not trying to come into Europe and say I'm American fixing Europe, but Europe needs Bitcoin desperately. If you look at everything that's happening in Europe, Europeans as individuals, I think that their sovereignty is under attack, their wealth is under attack, and they need Bitcoin. So I think Bitcoin is something that can help the continent of Europe, the people of Europe, the people of their individual countries.

Bitcoin, Amsterdam is one of the best places to meet European bitcoinsers, whether you're from Europe or the U.S. or wherever. It's going to be a lot of fun, so I cannot wait to be there. And I just got a shiny new promo code for 10% off, so CK10 to get 10% off. And I'm in the competition with Chris for a free ticket. So make sure to use my promo code and whatever. Just ignore what he shows next. Perfect.

Recommendation is go to a Bitcoin conference. So whether that's it's ours or someone else's, Bitcoiners are best in person. So go to a Bitcoin conference. It will change your life. 100%. Actually, meeting Bitcoiners in person. There's a lot that can be learned particularly in a bare market like this.

Man, you can hit one of those. And there's a ton of signal. There's a lot of great people. Like I very much valued Bitcoin 2019. Yes. Because it was just so like there's there's it's it's you know I love the big ones but I also I love like when you get there and it's like tighten it and you like you see you get just like interact and spend more time like chatting directly with people and the people there's less

noise I think it's fantastic noise in like a sessions yeah Bitcoin Amsterdam is going to be like Bitcoin 2019 reincarnated it's going to be like less than five it's going to be less than like three or four thousand people. It's much tighter campus, indoor, outdoor vibe. Obviously, in a bear market. Europe is a little bit harder to get to. So I think it's going to have those 2019 vibes. So I think a lot of people, they're going to have really hardcore fomo when they're going to

skip out on it and they're going to really have some hardcore fomo. Just add great alcohol, scenic overlook and food and you're set in Amsterdam. Yeah, I got a, I got to try and get there. I'm going to see what I can do. I don't have any travel at that time. It's just whether I can hop across the pond. I shall see. With that, Chris, you're up next.

Final thoughts, recommendations take it away. Yeah, I guess final thoughts. Bitcoin is a thing that you continuously fall down more rabbit holes. I mean, I'm going to guiltily say this. Like, I use lightning all the time for payments and transacting with Bitcoin, but I do not know like the robust underneath the hood of lightning really. So definitely you can always dive down the rabbit hole of that. Taproot, Fetiment.

I mean, the list keeps going on and on. I mean, Ben, at the beginning of the episode, when you're bringing out all these different devices, I mean, you can literally get lost in all the endless features of all the devices, all the different protocols, all the different improvements for Bitcoin for Lightning, for Fetamint, whatever it may be. So, you know, always just remain learning and remain driven to keep improving,

not only your setup, but your personal sovereignty and just like more about Bitcoin. You can keep going down the rabbit hole endlessly. I will shamelessly plug not just the conference, but you can use BM Live as the code for 10% off. You know, that's the team. I'm a team player here, CK. So, you know, that supports the multimedia team, not just a one individual. Bitcoin's a collective. So there's that.

Also check out the Bitcoin magazine censorship resistant issue. We put a lot of work into this. It's an ode to the Canadian truckers. a lot of great articles. I know our magazine team put a lot of work into that. I think CK is running to go grab that. So I'll buy some time, but a lot of great articles in there. An ode to the Canadian truckers, obviously owed to what BTC Sessions did.

It is a lovely article. It's our longest issue as well in there. And I think it's really, really worth it. The word count is double. Yeah. Word count is double than the most recent one. So also I'm just going to continue to show all the print mags because they're awesome. But yeah, BM Live works for not only the conference, but also for the magazines or anything in the store.

So that code is awesome. And then that's enough of the shill there. But then the last thing is I consider this like the third book in the trifecta of Bitcoin. And I don't want to say speak bad of any of the Bitcoin books because I think many of them are awesome. But if you're going to have orange pill one like a person with one book, it would probably be the Bitcoin standard. If you can give them three books because they're an avid reader, I'd say the price of tomorrow, the Bitcoin standard. and then the block size war by Jonathan Beer. I finally got a chance to reading this.

This book is so in-depth. I think it does a pretty fair job, too, of the small blockers versus the large blockers. Small blockers are what we know as Bitcoin, what it is today. But it explains a lot of the nuance and history from basically like 2013, even to present day, or I'd say like 2018 of the block size war and what occurred and what really happened. And like I consider this probably it's at least the largest civil war in Bitcoin's history. I can almost consider it the biggest threat. I know Mount Gox was big back in the day in 2013, 2014, but I definitely consider this probably

the biggest threat it's overcome, barring the U.S. or a nation state going full-blown attack on it, China maybe. Like this is probably the next closest thing if that were to ever occur in the future. But I really think it's not going to do it. What? I guess China already did it. China already did it. I think it'd be even crazier for the U.S.

But yeah, they were kind of like half stepping in. But I think it does a really good job. And I think everyone should, every Bitcoiner should read that book along with the other two. Yeah, I'd echo that. They're all great books. And that block size war won. It really does outline a lot of the nuance and, and interesting things that happened around that time. Because I got to watch it kind of live as it was happening.

But reading that book back, there's a lot of stuff I didn't. know what was going on. There's there's plenty to take in even as somebody that kind of watched it happen. I don't think that I had the knowledge base that I do now. And so looking back on that with this as a help, it clarifies a lot. Yeah. And he did a great job even taking stuff off the mailing list. Like he would quote like literally what was said by Greg Maxwell, by Roger Ver by all these different characters. And he also helps paint a picture of all these people if you don't remember who they were, you just don't know who they were. So it does an excellent job of the history of Bitcoin.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And speaking of just, I think this is how I want to leave this show is Roger Vera actually, he still exists, just so you know. He tweeted out just today. I'm going to bring it up because it's super fun. he tweeted out attention bitcoin maximus bitcoin stopped working as peer to peer cash and i just replied with with a like 30 second screen grab of me scrolling through my fraction of a penny transactions that were streams directly to my own lightning notice people listen to the podcast so

really like bitcoin works beautifully as peer to peer cash anybody can send money like fractions of a penny anywhere to people across the globe in a non-custodial manner, any time that they like. And that's right now. You can do this right now. If you haven't, go do it. You can learn. You can start learning right now. But yeah, it's, you know, everybody's expectations of what they thought was happening back then. Now we're seeing it actually play out. Bitcoin does scale. It is. It has. It will continue to. And privacy is next. So I'm excited for it. But with that, gentlemen, sorry for the noise, a little bit of construction going on, but it's hot here. Holy crap. Anyways, I wanted to say

thank you guys all for being here. I really appreciate your time. I appreciate the conversation. It was fantastic. Anybody watching all these guys' Twitter handles are in the description down below. You can follow them there and then you can basically daisy chain together, all of the other stuff that they are up to and doing and all the things that they mentioned today. So gentlemen, thank you for being here. You are all welcome back anytime. Yo, yo, thanks for having me. Peace out, everyone.

Thanks. Thanks, Ben. Cheers, guys. Thanks a lot. And everybody that's watching in the live stream and in the comments, thank you so much for being here. I do really appreciate everybody that comes and joins the show and comments and shares and likes and all that stuff. If you want to help out the show, of course, you can like, subscribe, share.

All those things are really helpful. They help get this in front of more eyeballs. You can also hit up the previously mentioned sponsors, ShakePay, Lead, and Bitrafail, Keystone, Bill Fottle. They're all done here. And if you really liked what you saw, you can always drop me a Bitcoin tip at my strike page, strike. At my strike.me slash BTC sessions. You get there. Type in any amount you want.

Hit the tip button. You'll see a lightning invoice or you can tap to the right and get a regular Bitcoin QR code. with that i am out have yourselves a wonderful day or evening wherever you may be see you guys next time for your daily session