The Canadian Bitcoiners Podcast - Bitcoin News With a Canadian Spin - The Bitcoin Noise: Cutting Through the Clutter w/ Coinicarus of Pleb Underground | The CBP

Episode Date: April 10, 2025

FRIENDS AND ENEMIESIn today's chaotic world of bitcoin speculation, it's easy to get lost in the noise. With so many different voices and opinions on bitcoin twitter, it can be overwhelming to navigate the space. But what if you could cut through the clutter and get to the heart of what really matters? In this video, we'll be discussing the importance of tuning out the noise and focusing on the fundamentals of BTC. We'll explore how Bitcoiners, like those on the Pleb Underground and the Canadian Bitcoiners Podcast, are working together to create a community that's driven by a shared passion for bitcoin, rather than speculation and hype. We'll also touch on recent Canada news, including the Canada election, and how it may impact the future of bitcoin in the country. So, if you're tired of the MSTR and GME drama and want to focus on what really matters, then this video is for you. Let's dive in and separate the signal from the noise.Pleb UnderGround - YouTubehttps://x.com/CoinicarusAs always, none of the info is financial advice. Website: ⁠www.CanadianBitcoiners.com⁠Discord:   / discord   A part of the CBP Media Network: ⁠www.twitter.com/CBPMediaNetworkThis show is sponsored by: easyDNS - ⁠⁠www.easydns.com⁠⁠ EasyDNS is the best spot for Anycast DNS, domain name registrations, web and email services. They are fast, reliable and privacy focused. You can even pay for your services with Bitcoin! Apply coupon code 'CBPMEDIA' for 50% off initial purchase Bull Bitcoin - ⁠⁠https://mission.bullbitcoin.com/cbp⁠⁠ The CBP recommends Bull Bitcoin for all your BTC needs. There's never been a quicker, simpler, way to acquire Bitcoin. Use the link above for $20 bones, and take advantage of all Bull Bitcoin has to offer.

Friends and enemies. Welcome back Canadian Bitcoiners podcast. Joey tonight, one square, one rectangle, whatever. Len is, I don't know, he's not golfing. I'll tell you that. It's pretty cold outside. I just got back from walking moose. So I know it's not that warm, but I'm joined tonight by an OG Bitcoiner, Phil Koinikaris. You may know him from the show The Shall Not Be Named for sure, but Pleb Underground is his current venture. He's doing that every day. I think it's a kin show to CBP in that there's no brain rot. There's no infomercial slop. I heard somebody describe a couple of shows in Bitcoin Twitter these days as infomercials,

always on, never saying anything. I think his show is trying to do the same thing that we're trying to do. Share signal, stay focused and not bend the knee to the low IQ tube play counts like everyone seems to be doing. We're going to talk about all these things. Obviously, I mean, you can't not talk about them, but first the ads, EasyDNS. You guys know them. Mark is a sponsor and has been a sponsor of the show for a long time. He's a friend of ours now. If you're looking to start a business, buy a website, this is like the first thing on your list. EasyDNS has everything you need to do this website thing. It's the friendly neighborhood domain registrar, as he always says. You can either buy a domain through Mark or port one over to him that you've already purchased. It's easy in either case. We have done both at CBP in the past. On top of that, there's never any doubt about your security.

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He takes Bitcoin. Mark has been executing the Bitcoin balance sheet strategy for more than a decade. You can imagine how popular that was 15 years ago compared to how popular it is now or 12 years ago compared to how popular it is now. I will tell you it's probably ramped up. Go to easydns.com, use the code CBPmedia, sign up, get half off. Your first round of buys. Then the second sponsor is Bull Bitcoin. Len always does this read and he talks about the bills platform. He talks about all the stuff you can do there. You can buy gift cards. Cool. You can use a bills platform. I think the bills platform is pretty cool. You can pay your mortgage, your phone bill, university

tuition. I don't know. What else can you pay? Pretty much anything you can select as a payee at the bank, these guys will hook you up with on the Bills platform. It's private by default. There's no custodial option here. You got to give them a wallet address before you buy, period. And the story, you should have been buying the last few days. Trump told you to buy this morning. I don't know if you did or not, but Baron got a hold of the phone, told you to buy. You can talk about a lot of stuff and be right, for sure. But it's the team, man, that makes this thing tick. It's what stirs the drink. These guys are extreme in the best ways possible. And in some cases, I think in all cases actually, they're extreme in both official languages. So go over to bullbitcoin.com, sign up, use our promo code, get $20, $21, something like

that when you sign up and put some stuff in there, phone number, whatnot, and start buying in. There's never a better time than now to start your Bitcoin stack. Phil the Thrill is here. He's on his phone. This guy is... The number of things I see people doing in the green room is unbelievable. I'm surprised I haven't had like a Jeffrey tube in yet, some guy with his Dick out, but so far so good. What's going on?

You'll appreciate it. Man, I was actually going to retweet this and be like, come and join us. I took too long because I was also logging into the chat. I see somebody put a spicy question in there, but yeah, man, I just wanted to say, I, so first of all, being called an OG that that is, I am deeply humbled and not an OG, but I appreciate it. I remember the OGs when I first joined the space. And yeah, so like, you know, if any, that's just like paying it forward, right? It's just trying to essentially be true to ourselves and not become these essentially... I guess I would just call them self-important influencers. I'm trying to be polite. We're Canadian. I'm Canadian too. And I try to be polite.

It's quite a backstory you have, Phil. I wasn't going to mention that you're an expat. You've fled for greener pastures, I don't know, some time ago now. I mean, you should tell people who you are a little bit, because I think that for the most part, our guests probably know the coin Icarus account, but they may not realize that the man behind it is actually a, I don't know, recovering Canuck. What do you call yourself? I have no idea. So, I mean, look, I'm a Canuck, right? I'm a Canuck at heart, right? But I'm a Canuck that moved to the States because of, essentially, I moved to the States because of work. But I grew up in Montreal. I grew up in Montreal and I'm an English Montrealer. And for the

people who are Canadian and understand Quebec and Canada politics, you know, that's English Montrealers are like, uh, uh, pariahs, right? To a certain extent, uh, English Montreal has been, or English, um English Quebecers have been decimated for the most part. They've all left Quebec for the most part. There are still some English people living there. And I had just experienced certain things in my work that I was like, you know what? I'm just gonna, I'm going to go somewhere else. So for me, essentially, right, it just turned out I was working for an American company in Montreal, and I was, I was able to create for myself an opportunity to the point where to take my promotion, I had to move to a taxachusets. And since I'm from the

wonderful taxation province of Quebec, I had no problem paying their tax. It's funny when I see Americans complaining about taxes and stuff, I'm like, you have no fucking idea. It's like to pay tax, like, bro, stay in your lane. Being from Quebec, it's, yeah, you know what taxes are. The bull Bitcoin guys are funny. We have a little group chat with them and they joke all the time and it's the most tax place on earth. I don't know if that's the case, but it is more severe than people realize. The US has it a little bit easier. Why don't we start with this? We'll start with Pleb Underground and then maybe we'll work backwards some of

the stuff you've done. We have to talk about the low IQ tube shit because you did, you did a show that is now like the flagship nonsense click bait program on the internet for Bitcoin. And you know, you, you jump ship or left. I don't know what happened. I'm not going to ask, but let's talk about club underground first. Like what, like you're, you're doing a show now. Like I said, in the, that I think is signal. It is signal amidst the noise. And you had a guest host not long ago, now you're flying solo for the moment. Tell me about it. Yeah.

So this was... Okay. So hold on. Before I talk about Pleb Underground, I just wanted to give you massive props for Bull Bitcoin as your sponsor. I love Bull Bitcoin. As a Canadian too, I have a Bull Bitcoin account and I love everything about it. I love how Bitcoin as your sponsor. I love bull Bitcoin. I, you know, as a Canadian too, I have a bull Bitcoin account and I love their, I love everything about it.

I love how they do everything. I obviously, I know Francis and everything and it's just like, I think the way that they are doing it is right. So props to you anyways. Besides that, so yeah, essentially pleb underground, right? I mean, if we're going to start, if we're going to start back at that point, right? I mean, if we're going to start, we're going to start back at that point, right? Essentially what happened was, was that I had come to a crossroads where I felt that the direction that things were going in and I'm talking about simply Bitcoin, the direction

that things were going in for me, that that wasn't exactly the direction that I wanted. And you know, people can make the argument, well, you know, like that channel has, you know, 60, 70,000 subscribers and everything like that. And he you know people can you know make the argument well you know like that channel has you know 60-70 thousand subscribers and everything like that and he has 12 people working for him and my channel does not right my channel has 3 000 subscribers and it's me and Ulrich so you know like people could easily justify and say well he obviously did the right thing and granted right um to each their own that is what he truly wanted right like that that is uh That is what he truly wanted. Right? Like that, that is, you know, what he wanted. And that's perfectly fine. In my case, I really wanted to just do a, I wanted to just do like a Bitcoin only show where I could just be honest with, with my takes. And I don't really have to care about, you know, like hurting people's feelings and stuff like that. And

I just felt that like, I just felt that unfortunately, when you take certain people's money, you have to, you have to tote a certain line. So yeah. So, you know, I started pleb underground and just so you know, pirate beach bum is the other half of pleb underground. He does all of the news media, all of our newsletter and everything. Yeah. So it's me and pirate beach bum and Walton was my cohost for the weekly show. Um, and yeah, so we did the weekly show for about two years and I just felt unfortunately, um, it was just way too much work for, um, too little reward. Um, as petty as that sounds, it just wasn't worth it for me. I was, you know, I was creating video clips and you know, it's, it takes me half, if not less time to do it. And it's

just way more worth it in terms of engagement and people viewing the content. And in, in many cases, people giving me shit about the content too. Because when you make content that is a little, I guess you'd say just a bit more outspoken, people give you hell. I've been called everything you can think of. Anything you can think of, I've been called it. And yeah, you know, so, but yeah, so in the end with, with Club Underground, we do daily vids. We also do a monthly live show. I have a humble Bitcoiner and Ulrich that it's, it's us three and we kind of do like a round table sometimes. People should know, if you don't know Humble, Humble was doing, I do not follow her work

usually, but she does, she was doing spaces for a long time every day. And Sir Ulrich, I can't remember his Twitter handle. It might be S-E-R Ulrich, is it? I think it might be actually. That's correct. Sir Ulrich. Okay. These guys, they've been around Bitcoin for a long time as well.

Oh yeah. Yeah. So Sir Ulrich was doing, and I hope I don't get it all wrong, but I feel like he was doing something for Bitcoin magazine at one point. I know he was doing work for swan as well. And I've, I met him at Bitcoin 2022. It was at, uh, so that's when I was still with simply Bitcoin. Uh, I was invited to Neil Jacobs, um, you know, like upstairs kind of balcony party and I met Ulrich there and we talked for like good two hours and it was

just like we totally hit it off and it was awesome. You know, ever since then we, uh, we, we kept in touch, but, um, but yeah, so, uh, we do the lively show, the lively, the live show, uh, monthly and, um, yeah, I do, uh, not, I'd say daily vids, but, uh, daily videos, but essentially it's, you know, it know, it's like anywhere from like two to four videos a week because this goes back to something you were talking about before about infomercials. I don't like making slop. So you know what I mean?

Like, you know, when you feel you have to churn out content cause you have to churn out content, that's a terrible feeling. Like I may as well, in all fairness, I may as well quit doing this and go back to my normie job if that's how I feel. That, and that's all because, right? Like the whole point is that

you're supposed to be talking about things that you're passionate about and the people who are choosing to listen to you and to watch you, they resonate with you. You know, like they feel that through the, you know, through the screen. So yeah, you know, like,. That's why I don't like to make that commitment that I'm going to make something every day because really there's some days there's nothing I want

to talk about. And having me make a video where I'm forcing it out, who am I kidding? Yeah. It's tough. I'll just go on and on forever. No, I mean, those are good points, Phil. Let's pull on a few of those threads. The thing about the everyday video is, yeah, I think that's a good point. And I think it's something that not a lot of people who are not in content, they don't consider it. And if you look at like, we could point to Simply again, we're picking on Simply because it's an easy target, but there's a lot of shitty channels out there who do the same fucking thing and the videos

are garbage. It's literally one guy reading from a screen, offering no insights, offering no background research. Like if you, if you watch pleb or if you watch us, or if you watch like even Marty and Matt, who are doing a weekly show, Marty does interviews too. Even if you think that they're putting out too much content, you could never accuse Marty and Matt of just putting out content for the sake of it. They've read stuff that week or that month. They know what they're talking about. They have some background. Matt's very technical. Marty's

very technical. Marty's got a finance background. These guys are doing work in the space. The background knowledge is there to give you a quality output three times a week, four times a week, whatever they're doing. Right? For Len and I, we feel like we can do one good show every Monday, news plus Bitcoin, a lot of Canadian stuff, because that seems to be the niche market that we're in, thanks to the name. In retrospect, maybe I shouldn't have pigeonholed myself like that, but that's a thought I've had four years too late. And then we do the interview show, right? Where I try and bring on one person or two people that I think can have a good conversation about what's going on in Bitcoin,

interesting people with some decent depth of knowledge and whatever, that's what we think we can do. When I look at some of these other channels, I see the same things over and over again. And I know there's one or two people behind this marketing strategy. I'm not gonna name the names. You could figure it out for yourself.

It's very easy. It's the same comment around all the videos on YouTube, in the Twitter accounts, always the same fucking guy. There's one strategy behind this and it is algorithm drives views, views drive dollars. Except that I have it on pretty good information that some of these big channels are not making a lot of money on ads. They're making all their money on YouTube plays, which is why what you see is just slop because you don't need engaged listeners or listeners who are net producers.

You need people who are literally gooning and have a YouTube video on in the background. That's the kind of person you need to get plays. And you see this in the content. Maybe we could talk a little bit about like what, when did that happen? When did that start? I don't think it started with Simpli, but I think Simpli's really picked up the flag and run with it. And now it's like all I see. I look at every channel and like we kind of joke, like I started making the thumbnails myself a couple weeks ago because I just had a baby. That's so easy.

Yeah, I just had a baby. Hey, congratulations. Yeah, thank you. My wife usually does it and she's fucking busy. She's not going to make the thumbnails. So I got a Canva account and I started making them. I'm looking at YouTube, I'm like, this isn't that hard. You put a big picture of the guests, something catchy. It takes a while. It takes a while to make the fucking thumbnails. And so I want to ask you, between the thumbnails and all this other stuff, this started somewhere for Bitcoin. I don't know what you think about where it started,

but I'm curious. When did we get to this point where every bit of content is just slop for clicks and nothing of substance ever rises to the top anymore? It's going to get dirty. It's going to get dirty here. Do it. I mean, listen, I'm, I'll say whatever, I don't give a fuck. So yeah, no. Okay. As long as you're okay with that. I mean, look in all fairness. Um, so I, I do agree with you. It wasn't like this before, or at least I don't have the perception that it was like this before. I came to Bitcoin, I became more of like a Bitcoin maximalist in like 2018, 2019. I'd say it was like the transition year was like 2018. You know, like I was still at that point, I was doing my fun with Bitcoin podcast, which

was first named fun with crypto. So I pivoted before the name was too permanent. So unlike the Canadian Bitcoin podcast, I did the pivot soon, but look at crypto cloaks, man. He's stuck. Right. He's stuck with crypto, but it works for him anyways. But my point is, is that, yeah, you know, doing the, the, the fun with Bitcoin stuff, I didn't really see too much of like, there wasn't really that that type of slop at all.

Right. There was, there was Pierro shard and bit scene, right. They were doing noted. I believe it was they were doing the noted podcast. There was a bottom shelf Bitcoin. I forget his name. I totally apologize. Solid Bitcoiner, but he was putting out real content, doing real interviews. Of course, right. Odell andell and Marty, right? You know, they were doing back then it was Tales from the Crypt. Wasn't TFTC. And yeah. So, but their stuff was like, they weren't just churning it out. And of course, BTC Sessions was making the, you know, the educational stuff. Ben is the man. Ben will always have a place in my heart, regardless of what other content he does to drive viewers. Those tutorials are AAA every time. And he is one of the only guys who could

truly be mailing it in. And you'd never know because you don't have the product, but he never mails it in. Never. Yeah. Yeah, dude. I totally love Ben. And he's when I first came to the Bitcoin space, he was like one of those people. I was like, this guy looks like he really likes what he's doing. You know, you could tell he loves what he's doing. But anyways, my whole point is I'm just dragging this out. There wasn't any of that slop. Okay. There really, really wasn't. And in all fairness, if I am to blame anybody, I am going to blame swan swan. Okay. I'm going to blame swan. I'm going to blame Bitcoin magazine. Yep. I'm going to blame it. Maybe not swan primarily, but I am going to blame Bitcoin magazine and then swan because so there's this, this interesting thing. And Corey, you'll probably get pissed if he sees

this, you know, like I'm not saying this in a bad way. Okay. I don't hate swan. He's been on the show. He doesn't like everything we say. I'm sure. So go ahead. That's okay. Yeah. But sometimes he'll, sometimes he'll message me and give me shit. Anyways. So it's okay. But like my point is, is that like,

you got to do competition, right? For the eyeballs. You need comp, you need to do competition for the eyeballs. So you need to have more content all the time, right? You cannot, you cannot catch up to somebody who out produces you on a daily basis, okay? And essentially the nature of slop is born if you think about it because you constantly

need to churn out content. So it then becomes a race, right? It becomes a race to the bottom. First of all, it becomes who gets to the news first, who creates the videos first, who does the live episode first, who has the guest first. It, it all becomes those things. And then after that, it just becomes recycled crap. So it's, yeah, man, it's tough, you know, like that's like, like, what do you write? Like, it's like, what do you expect them to do? Because if you think of it like this, if they're not putting out content, somebody is watching

somebody else's content. Yeah. It's a fair point. The thing I wonder... No, you're right. It's still crap. It is. And this is the problem I have really, right?

I've said on our show before, and I'm sure you feel a similar way, even if it's not exactly the same, Bitcoin is growing and it's growing in price and it's growing in adoption and it's growing in the number of people who care about this thing. So when I think about what that means for the media content space adjacent to Bitcoin, it means that you're going to get a lot more people who are looking for top of funnel stuff. And so part of me, while I do agree that Swann is a big contributor here, one I hadn't thought about actually, if I'm being honest, while I do agree they're a big contributor, at least some of their stuff was top of funnel. When I look at like, I don't know, what's a good

example? Like some of these, the other day, great example of the other day, okay? Yesterday or Monday or whatever day it was, everyone at eight o'clock tweets out that there's an emergency federal reserve meeting that day. Okay? And, and like, we just, we just went through this like three months ago or something. It wasn't that long ago. Emergency federal reserve meeting. And what did everyone come to this?

Everyone came to the same conclusions. These things are scheduled. It's not an emergency. They're scheduled way in advance, been on the books for months. Every other Monday they meet, sure they have to. And they talk about the same shit every time rates and the discount rate, right? It's the official term. Every account tweets that out. And I'm looking at basically a who's who of people who are supposed to be top of funnel, but are just completely wrong, doing zero research and gunning for clicks. Now I expect it from simply Bitcoin. I expect it from, I don't know,

Luke Milchich or whatever, but I don't expect it from- Bitcoin magazine. Yeah, Bitcoin magazine. But I don't expect it from Preston fucking Pish. Why is Preston Pish tweeting that out? Do I now have to look with a more critical eye at everything Preston Pish tweets out? And what about some of these other macro guys that are sort of Bitcoin adjacent? Like they're tweeting out emergency meeting. I'm thinking, this is not an emergency at all. And it would have taken you five minutes to figure this out. Like, is this the amount of research you're doing every time you say something? And if that's what the top of the funnel looks

like, you're never going to, people are never going to make it to Plymouth Underground, Canadian Bitcoiners podcast, even stuff like The Bugle, which is a caricature of the Bitcoin space. You know what I mean? They're great. But it's still a good show and people are not going to make it there. Or like Scott Dedal's show, like all these other shows. Even now what Bitcoin did, I would guess, you know, I don't know what kind of host Danny is. I haven't listened since Pete stopped hosting, but I would guess

that the plays on that are way down because people are going to, like you said, this other stuff. And there's a place for top of funnel slop, the same way that like YouTube clips could draw people to a longer form video on your channel or Ben's channel or Pleb Underground and say, yeah, we made this video with the catchy graphics and you can scroll through it and there's a... On the bottom half of the screen, there's some mysterious hand peeling soap or whatever the ASMR thing is on the clip. But if you make it to the channel, you'll see that there's more to this.

We'll give you a little bit about the bond rate or why quantitative easing is important to Bitcoin or why self-custody is the only thing that matters in the whole space or whatever. You get to that stuff. But these other guys aren't talking about that. It's all just the same garbage over and over again. And the reason I think it's allowed to happen, honestly, is because the sponsors don't really get what they're signing up for. You have a couple of sponsors on Pleb Underground. You don't have to name them, but like I would guess you're in the same boat as me where our sponsors care a lot more about what we say and the quality of the way we say it than they do about the number of clicks. Like I'm never, I mean I don't want to say never. Maybe we hit a

home run or something, but I'm never gonna have a hundred thousand subscribers on my channel saying the stuff we say. Talking about Mark Carney's wife at the beginning of the election cycle or talking about why- That's entertaining though. Well, it's entertaining, but also it's just fucking right. It's correct to say that she's a dangerous figure in this whole thing that's not being talked about. It's correct to say that Poliev is not a good politician, even though it's not popular. It's correct to say, if I look across the spectrum, people

are saying all this shit that makes no difference to anyone's life, makes no difference to any Bitcoiners journey, but we'll get clicks. And I don't know, the sponsors thing is a big deal. Do you want to, I don't know if you want to get into the weeds a little bit, but what do you think about when you guys are getting sponsors? Because like I said, you guys are a kin podcast to us. We have about the same number of YouTube subs. And I just, I'm always curious, like what are you, what are you guys talking about when you're looking for sponsors? Are you looking for people who are mission dedicated? I mean, we've turned down more money from sponsors in the past because we didn't like, like you said, that what they stand for. And so I'm

curious, like what do you guys, what do you guys think about when you're, when you're deciding who to partner with? Um, in all, in all fairness, so this is, this is probably also what makes me a terrible businessman. I don't give a shit. Um, I'm not actively going out and looking for sponsors. The, uh, you know, like the, the, the people that are, and the companies that are choosing to sponsor us, it's because they're in the space. They like our content or they want to be associated

with our style or with our content. And that's about it. Right? Like, so right now, so the two sponsors that we do have is Cypher safe, who is now rebranding and, um, he's going to Archimedes Emporium and he's just doing a kind of like Bitcoin collectibles with, uh, you know, CNC carving and stuff like that. Got the clock and the clock is on the website now. Yeah, exactly. Right. The Bitcoin clock.

Yeah. Yeah. And he just, yeah, he just did that. Um, yeah, that's right. And, uh, the other sponsor, which actually is finishing up was no Hugh, right. Uh, which was T. Selly, you know, so I so I met T Sally, I hung out with him in 2023 at the conference. We chilled out, you know, we just smoke joints and talked and stuff. And anyways, he's like, Hey, I love your show. He's like, I'd love to sponsor you. And I'm like, sure.

You know, that'd be amazing. And he actually did. So that was very cool. That was super cool. But yeah, no, in all fairness, I know that sounds terrible and all that and all unbusiness like, but I also think so hold on, I want to explain something, right? So I'm not like, I know that like some people, I already had a career, you know, like there's, there's some people like I get it, right? Like you're, you know, not you personally, but you know, some people they're in their twenties or their their early 30s and they're building a career. And that's perfectly fine. When I was building my career I was also working

18 hour days flying all over the place and jumping for it through every fucking hoop. Okay. That's perfectly fine. To the people who enjoy doing that go right ahead. Do it all you want. I'm not here to fucking jump through hoops. I didn't stack Bitcoin so that I can fucking sit there and, and do stupid hand signals and stuff like that so that, you know, some guy can cash in. Like I appreciate it and all that, but like, that's not what I'm here for. So, you know, in all fairness, it's just, you know, long story long, I I'm just, I'm not really thinking of that. When somebody approaches us to sponsor us, then we start talking about it But otherwise what we what I actually look for

If that was the actual question like what I actually look for is number one. I don't take money from exchanges I do my best not to take money from exchanges. I should say because sometimes it's kind of a roundabout way, right like At one point we had Thunder funder that was a sponsor and thunder funder, even though I think it's totally awesome and everything like that. And they fund open source projects and everything. And you know, it's like some projects some people may not agree with, right? Like a hundred percent. Some people may not agree with those projects and that's say, you know what, you don't agree with it. Well, you can make a show and not take them as a sponsor if you want. I, you know what I mean? I get along with jar moves. I think he's a fucking good guy and he likes our stuff. So, you know, but anyways, my,

my point is, is that we stay away from exchanges. Uh, we don't show stuff where people end up with custodial solutions. Um, obviously no shit coins. Yeah. Uh, yeah, no, you know, like that's, that's how you end up with, you know, collectibles, uh, you know, like t-shirts, you know, the, uh, seed plates, hardware wallets, not every hardware wallet. Of course. Uh, we wouldn't take ledger as a sponsor. Um, couldn't give a shit about ledger. Uh, yeah, exactly. Right. Cold card. But I don't think it likes me either. I have never been closer to like abandoning my Mark four for a wallet than then I went this one. I just keep

this one on my desk. Actually, we had a friend of the show. It's an amazing product and I don't usually jump wallets, but fuck I'm close. Anyway, so okay. The sponsor thing is good. I'm glad to hear that. And I think one of the things, we're kind of opening the book here and this is why I wanted to bring Phil on. We're kind of opening the book here on what it's like making, I would say, a mid-tier Bitcoin content enterprise. And when I think about what we've done, the shitcoin thing is big. It's a big one. It's because you are the unofficial face of whatever experience people have with your sponsors. And, you know, we've, people who listen to this show will understand and remember that we had a third sponsor not long ago and suddenly we didn't. And that was our decision to cut bait. And I think a lot of people sort of agreed and you can

see in our Discord chat that people are talking about, you know, this other third sponsor. And it makes me feel good that not only were we responsive to the people who really make the show go, right? The listeners and viewers, but also I really thought that that was the right time to leave that arrangement given the status of some of the stuff that was going on with them and with us. And it sounds like you guys are doing a lot of the same things. People think it's all, all funny games. Like sponsors, it's funny you mentioned earlier, like, you know, with Simply you have to kind of bite, it's not at all. You have to bite your tongue sometimes. And

you know, we've had a couple of, I don't want to say bad meetings, not with the current sponsors have been great. We've had them for years now. I don't plan on changing anytime soon, but in the past, when we were kind of getting bigger, we did have a couple of bad meetings, you know, about what the show was worth on a monthly basis. We had one company really try and pin us down to referrals only as a model, which we didn't like because we spent time building this thing. Right. And it says- I hope you told them to go fuck themselves.

In not so many words. And they came back with, I think, a better offer. And they were, I think, a little bit behind the ears as well, but I won't mention who it was. But all these things- Everybody loves to get work for free. Everybody wants you to work for free. Fucking bullshit.

The referral only. It is frustrating. And like, I don't want to, at the end of the day, be held responsible for like a poor product on the other end. You know? Like if you can't sell your product, that's really a you problem. It's not a me problem. And I'm here for a couple hours a week anyways.

I'm the one who's listening to Bitcoin podcast while I'm taking a shit in the morning. Like I'm the one who's doing the reading and if you guys don't want to pay that's okay. But you know, we're not gonna take you. We should talk about this question we got in the chat before that. This is by the way before the show even started. So I don't think Phil can see the Twitter chat. I can see it here a little bit. Oh, I can't see the Twitter chat. I just fucking tell people every week to stop posting in Twitter chat because no one can see it here a little bit. You guys are... Oh, I can't see the Twitter chat. I just see a... I fucking tell people every week to stop posting in the Twitter chat because no one can see it except me, including the other people in the YouTube chat. So you're just talking to me,

and I can't respond on this on Twitter. So I don't know what I'm supposed to do with these, but this is from Clickbait Jones. Okay. Yes. So he posted it here too. Yes. We got to see it. So it says, good morning, Phil. It's not morning, but I love the GM. I would like to know your personal thoughts on simply Bitcoin's marketing strategy, particularly when Nico, not me, his name is Nico, I guess. Oh yeah, it says that. Said he wanted to emulate the shit coin YouTubers at Bitcoin Miami on stage in 2021. I did not realize this. Yeah. So we, yeah. So he was, I he was, um, I wasn't there. Uh, I just want to not that it matters. I wasn't there. Uh, that was the, uh, the first conference I remember he went

to. That was the one where he did the, uh, the speech that everybody went wild where he was like, you're against Bitcoin, you're against freedom. And everybody was like super happy. Um, so yeah, so I was not there for that one. But look, he and I used to have a lot of these conversations. And you know, the thing is, is that I'm a Gen Xer. I didn't grow up watching YouTube. I grew up watching like sitcoms and like, you know, prime time and you know, like it's, it's all this scheduled stuff. You know, you go home for Friday at a certain time because your show is on like X-Files was on at 11 o'clock at

night on Friday. That was not your show. Don't tell me that was your show. That was definitely one of my shows, man. Come on. You kidding me? X-Files? I'm a little younger than you, but I'm like, I'm an elder millennial. I do remember X-Files being an important show. That was a Sunday night when I was growing up. Well, for me, it was a Friday night or anyways, but, uh, you know, my, my whole point is, is that, you know, he grew up more watching YouTube and stuff. So for him, like he, like, he has a way better grasp on like the way that people engage in the P the way that people watch

and, you know, one of the things, you know, one of the things that, you know, he noticed was like, yeah, you know, like the shit coiners, they have it right. Like to a certain extent. And I mean, I've said this in the past as well, begrudgingly at different times, like, Hey, they're doing amazing marketing, right? Like if you think about it, if you think about how many people they've managed to dilute into buying absolute nonsense. And here you are telling the truth. I mean, it is literally the meme, right?

Of the thousand people standing in line at the idiot price and nobody standing in line at the free booth where they can just get it all for free. Like it's the meme. That's totally what it is. So yeah, you know, obviously, uh, as you guys, I mean, to answer that question, to finish answering that question, history has happened. So obviously I didn't totally, you know, agree with all of that stuff. And, and I went my own direction, but yeah, that was, uh, you

know, it was interesting times. I, I do sometimes wonder, you bring up a good point there about the demographic break between, like I said, I was born in 87. I didn't start watching YouTube regularly, honestly, until like a year ago. And now I watch it like instead of TV or I'll watch a podcast on my TV while I'm working out or something or pretending to work at my nine to five, you know? But it's weird talking to people younger than me about this whole like lack of attention span because they can't really articulate it, but they're living it every day. They go to the phone every 30 seconds. Nothing they watch is on demand or nothing they watch is long form. They can't make themselves get into a routine even for a program they like.

And people, you know, you probably have a feeling about this too, but I remember like a few years back when Stranger Things decided to release on a staggered schedule instead of just dumping all eight or 10 episodes at once. And people freaked the fuck out. Like, why do I have to wait for the... Why do you have to wait? We used to have to wait every week for the same... And if you missed it, you missed it. That was it. It was gone. Yeah. And like, you know, we kind of sound like a couple old guys telling people to get off our lawns, but this has changed the way content is created and changed the way content is consumed. And I think it's had a negative effect on the overall understanding of the subject matter. When you ask people, for example, about the block size wars

now, not a lot of people can articulate it. There's a video floating around of a friend of mine, like Brandon Green Candle. Julian Figueroa is giving him a quiz. Julian makes great content too, by the way. Julian is giving him a quiz and Brandon's got 10 or 11,000 YouTube subs. Doesn't know what a UTXO is. Doesn't know. So to get a Bitcoin channel where a guy doesn't know what a UTXO is, I'm not saying Brandon doesn't know how to use Bitcoin, but that's something that if you were consuming longer form content or had the focus to do so, you would do it. And then if I look at his content, it's all like quick hitting dopamine, zoom in, zoom out, cut here, cut there, graphics everywhere, shit's on fire, shit's fucking glowing all the time.

But you bring up a good point, right? It's about the sizzle. It's just about being out there. Like look, in all fairness, okay, there is a formula, right? Like there is a formula to growth. I'm not gonna pretend like there isn't, okay? Like if you are turning out regular content, in all fairness, you just go to all the conferences and fucking be a part of the circle, jerk. I'm serious.

Like it really, anybody who thinks it's not that easy, it really is that easy, okay? And it's like, if you choose not to do it, then you just end up like me, right? Like you just end up on it. Hey, does that not end up like you, okay? Cause I feel like I ended up like you a little bit here. I personally don't care.

No, I don't actually care. I just, like, look, everybody plays their part, okay? Like that's what it is. Like we're right, like, well, what is that? You know, all the world's a stage, right? That all of us are actors, like, so everybody plays their part. Okay. Like that. That's what it is. Like we're right. Like, well, what is that? You know, the world's a stage, right? And all of us are actors. Like, so everybody plays their part. So like I'm the the part of the person that is not in the circle jerk and you can see like look so here if you want To do a show that's not part of the circle jerk. This is what you can look forward to now You want to be a part of the circle jerk?

We have all of these fantastic prizes and this you know, this wonderful place and all this stuff You just you pick what, you know, this wonderful place and all this stuff. You just, you pick what story you want, right? Like you just, you pick whichever one you want. And personally, I like my story. Like I enjoy it. So but I did want to, I did want to comment back. I saw that somebody, I saw Nico clickbait Jones put another comment and said, you either

get booted off the show or you live long enough to become the open mouth click baiter. And I just want to point out, I left of my own accord. I was not kicked off. People looking for dramatics all the time. I had a feeling. As long as it's not your drama. That's right. As long as it's not your drama. People ask a lot of questions about this stuff and the conference thing is interesting. We should talk about that too. Yeah. So many people won't say the truth, but it's okay. Well, because they don't really... Everyone wants to feel like you do,

but they want to act like they're big time. And that's okay if you want to be big time. You can go to the big time conferences and get on stage and repeat platitudes like if you're against Bitcoin, you're against freedom. Like I'm pretty sure I could get Grok to come up with that tweet and then code something to have it tweeted out for me automatically. And you know, I doubt that they would invite the AI bot to the conference, but here we are anyways. Okay, basically the same content. It's pod conf, right? Everyone just playing their greatest hits, trying to get a sound bite, get a picture. And maybe Mike Saylor invites you for a slice of pizza on the yacht, right? Is that, is that the plan? I don't know, but that seems to be what people

are doing in conferences. The Canadian conference, uh, this year, you know, I'll give you a bit of insight, people listening, watching. I had a call with Dan Carlin, the organizer a few weeks ago with a HODL D who's a friend of mine. And they're trying to go all Canadian. Oh yeah, I know Hoddle D. He works- CoinKite. He's also cold. Yeah, CoinKite. Yeah.

Sorry. He's a great guy. Great guy. He's him and his wife are friends with my wife and I. They've been here for dinner a couple of times. We're like, yeah, we're good pals. And they're trying to go all Canadian, Phil. And the reason they're trying to go all Canadian is for two, it's for two reasons. One is because it's cheaper for sure and you get a better ticket price and I think a more intimate, more productive conference. And two, because they're just sick of everyone playing the fucking hits. I don't need to go to a conference to hear, I don't know, who's a good example, who else

can we pick on here? To hear Natalie Brunel do an interview with somebody and ask the Fox News set of pre-approved questions about Bitcoin and freedom, or to hear Sailor filibuster for 65 minutes with said young man. I like said. I had beers with said last year at the conference and I told them, I'm like, Sailor is the guy who's, he's a steamroller and he's not saying anything new. He just goes on these shows to share a pre-prepared script and some of these shows take them and

some of them don't. That's what conferences need to be now. They need to be low ticket price, low barrier to entry, people who actually have valuable insights and maybe are not just there to promote their podcast, promote their show, promote their YouTube channel and try and get clips for interviews. Like I think that's the way conferences should go. What are you doing for conferences this year? Are you thinking about doing any?

I mean, you obviously have strong feelings about them. Are you going to go? Nothing. Zero. No, I, I'm not doing so I already didn't. So this kind of goes back to something. So when, when Walton and I first started doing the weekly show of, of club underground, one of our agreements, I don't

like conferences. I don't like doing any of this thing. Any of this stuff. As I said before, I had a career part of my career was flying all over the place between in North America and essentially just always being on the road. So personally, I have no desire to, you know, go sit in some shitty hotel and go to a conference. And I get it, don't get me wrong. I love people and everything like that. I like talking to people. I like helping people, all that good stuff. I just don't give a shit to travel. I think I can have just as good conversations without that stuff. Yeah. That, that being said, Walton is more, was more the conference goer, right? He's

more of a public guy and that's good because I'm not, you know, so, so essentially like he was the one that was going to the conferences and like doing stuff. And then I went to one, I went to BTC plus plus because it was a technical conference. That's pretty much my, um, that that's more the type of conference that I will go to. If I'm going to pick a type of conference, it's most likely going to be a technical conference just because it's a lot more signal. I forget who it was that I discussed this with, but essentially it's like, and I don't mean it to sound in a terrible way.

I understand that businesses are out there and everybody has to meet and networking and all of that good stuff. I'm just saying from my own personal experience, conferences are like fast food, like the Bitcoin magazine type of conference, right? Like the shit that's going to happen at Vegas, stuff like that. That are like fast food, like, like, like the Bitcoin magazine type of conference, right? Like the shit that's going to happen at Vegas, you know, stuff like that. That's like fast food. You go there, it's like fucking McDonald's. But if you want to go and like sit down and have like a proper meal, right. And get full after the conference, right. And feel full. Well, then you're going to go to a Bitcoin technical conference because

those guys like they're not selling you any fluff. Okay. Like some of these guys are standing there in like dirty sweatpants and t-shirts with fucking Tivas on. Okay. Because they're totally mind blown by this idea that they just came up with that may just solve privacy. Right. Or that like may just be some insane scaling solution that could work, you know, if this and this gets merged in like that's what they're thinking of. And you're watching this guy go through work, you know, if this and this gets merged in, like,

that's what they're thinking of. And you're watching this guy go through his, his mental, right? His mental gymnastics of figuring this out. Now I'll tell you this, after I watched that guy figure that out or start to figure that out, I'm not worried about Bitcoin. I'm not sitting there thinking about the price. I'm not sitting there going like, fuck man, are we going to get to 200 K? You know? Like is BlackRock going to buy more Bitcoin? I don't care. Who cares? Look at these geniuses.

These guys are great. This is like the meat and potatoes. Anyway, so yeah. It's funny. All in all, I'm thinking the technical conferences, but for now it's zero. Sorry. You're right about the diet and the fast food thing. I like that analogy actually.

One of the things I was thinking about the other day, because I live in the GTA and I always think to myself, I should do a meetup nearish to my house and have people come to this local bar in Dundas and we'll meet up and talk about Bitcoin. I used to say, like you, when we first started the show, I'm never leaving my fucking house to go talk to these people. I don't know these people. They don't know me. It's fucking weird. Okay. If I wanted to do that, I'd be back on Tinder or something. You know, at least the risk reward is much greater than and you know, I said to Len, my cohost, I'm never going to do this. And then I did it once. He convinced me to do it once. And Phil, I got to tell you, I love going to meetups now. If they're

in my area and it's like a thing I can do, because I do feel like you're right. Like that's the thing that'll get you hyped up. It's people who are like you, like-minded. They're just there to talk about Bitcoin. They want to share their story. They want to share their enthusiasm. And a lot of times, honestly, much like me, their wife is fucking sick of hearing about it. And so they go to these things instead and like, let's get a picture and some wings and shoot the shit for an hour or two hours. Talk about Bitcoin. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's therapeutic. I like the meetup thing a lot. And I want more people to do stuff like that, but it's, again, it's a hard thing to organize and you are in some ways

kind of putting yourself out there. If you have a meetup, like if you have a pleb underground meetup, there's, you're not worried. You're going to get 20 people, 25 people, right? If you have some meetup. If you have a pleb underground meetup, you're not worried. You're going to get 20 people, 25 people, right? If you have some meetup somewhere. I feel the same way about us. But if you're someone who's running a little community of Bitcoiners in a smaller town or you don't have a podcast and you want to do a meetup and you're like, ah, I just don't want to put myself out there. You run the risk of having these good people fall into the conference basket. They're going to conferences and they're just sitting in the stadium seating. They're watching, I don't know, who's talking at the conferences this year? Who's going to be the big get? Fuck, I don't know. They're watching

fucking sacks. He's like, oh, Bitcoin is different than all the other assets. I fucking know. Okay. I own Bitcoin. It's just so stupid. And I don't want people to fall into that trap. And part of the reason that I don't want them to fall in, it's not just because that's a waste of time and money, but also because it will neuter your enthusiasm to sit in a place like that, a hotel conference room and just be like, wow, this is fucking great. It's not even a fucking bar here or whatever.

Right? Like I can't even get a tequila to make this a little more palatable. And people, people do do that. And when I think about the Bitcoin magazine conference, talk about not trying to beat the charges. Everyone says you're a fucking shit coin conference anyways. And instead of saying, yeah, you're right, maybe we got to refocus. Vegas is the next answer.

I don't get that at all. Ben Felix They just double down. They just double down on that. Yeah, it's... Look, I know I sound like we're just shitting on all this stuff. Ben Felix We're not. We're not. Ben Felix I just want to point out, I do think that there is some value to meeting people in real life, but in all fairness, okay, in all fairness, my goal is to make content. Okay. Like all these content creators that are on YouTube, you're not, you're not getting, you're not getting a viral video. You're not getting like a whole, like a whole bunch of people watching your stuff organically because you're going to a conference. You're just getting subscribers. You're getting people to click there that

you meet them. They click subscribe and that's it. They're not necessarily going to watch your content at all. Whereas in all fairness, when people find it actually through the YouTube algorithm, I think that that's more organic, but either way, it doesn't make a difference because all that what I was explained a long time ago was that the ends ends justify the means right you just it doesn't matter right it doesn't matter as long as you get the clicks and the the clicks and the views and the subs and all that stuff right it doesn't matter. So yeah you know I guess it's a it's a tough it's a tough line to to walk but you know going back to those conferences like I don't think that they're necessarily like all terrible right right? Like I get that they have some value, you know,

for some people. But it's just like when it comes to my experience at these places, I just, I just thought that it was, you know, kind of fucking weak. And to your point, right, there was like one of them, you know, that there was like, uh, one of these, uh, one of the conferences where we had to spend, I don't know how many, like, it was like 400 bucks for a dinner or 300 bucks for a dinner or something like that. And like, you know, you're standing there waiting for food for like three hours. I mean, no offense, but I can spend way less and not eat. Like this is Like this isn't fucking magic here, man. And look, I get it, right? People sit there and they get all enamored by the experience. It's such a great experience. Oh, I'm standing next to Peter McCormack. You know, stuff like that.

Like, okay, good, man. If that fucking floats your boat, then good for you. That's fantastic. For me, like it doesn't do it for me. I just don't care. No. It's too bad. I do agree with that. I wish I cared. I wish I cared. I see people that care. No. You know? And it's too bad. I do agree with that. I wish I cared. I wish I cared. I see people that care and they're happy.

But you should have... And this is... Maybe we'll finish on this question. Like I said, you and me are both doing, I think, mid-tier shows. And one of the things I noted to myself- No, we're top tier, bro. Yeah. I fucking think so.

My wife, maybe, I don't know. I haven't asked her. I'm afraid to, honestly. I don't know, I haven't asked her, I'm afraid to, honestly, I don't think she listens, but I do know that my Nona watches the show sometimes when she gets YouTube fired on her TV. So the thing I would, I maybe want to ask you to finish is what responsibility do you think you have as a content creator when you either meet somebody or are asked to speak on someone's behalf or something like that? The reason I ask is because I...

Last year at the Canadian conference, I met a few pretty popular, what I would say are like A tier Bitcoin streamers content guys. And one of the things I could not believe was that in a room full of people who are potentially like, you know, happy to meet you, interested in talking about Bitcoin and all these things, there was at least two of them who I will not name, who were so fucked up on Coke that it was impossible to like miss that they were fucked up. And like everyone drinks of these things. I was pretty hammered the first night last year, whatever.

But to be in a position where you're like strung out, I thought that was unbecoming. And again, like I find myself more and more thinking that I'm sounding like an old man, but I feel like I don't think, I don't actually think that that's the right way to behave at a conference when you're sort of one of the bigger names there, because people are looking to you as an ambassador and they're looking to you as maybe like a Bitcoiner. Now you could say, like Charles Barkley once said, raise your own damn kids. I ain't no role model, whatever.

That's fine. But I'm curious, where do you come down on the responsibilities of the content creator in the meat space? Because again, I am happy to get two tipsy to drive home at a meetup, okay? Fine, no problem. But you're never going to catch me. I mean, I don't do these drugs anyways, but you're never going to catch me in a position, a compromised position of that nature when people are expecting you to be, I think, an ambassador to the conference, certainly an ambassador to Bitcoin. And you're one of the sort of bigger names. Do you have responsibility? What do you think? Yeah, I think that's a great question. So when I was working my corporate job,

because I do think that this does go back to somewhat personal responsibility and perception. So when you go to a corporate party, right? Like the New Year's party or something like that, you never wanna be the guy or the girl that gets piss drunk that everybody remembers making a fool of themselves. Right? Like, let's be honest, right? At a job, like, you don't want to be that dude. You know, like you just don't. It's embarrassing. Right? Like it's a matter of personal responsibility. It's a matter of pride. You know, it's also if you don't respect yourself, other people

can't respect you either. So to your point about this, I think, even though like, I mean, in my personal life, I'm me, right? Like I just, I'll sit there and make stupid jokes and stuff like that and whatnot, and smoke joints and whatnot. But like when I'm out there, let's say, let's say like when I'm recording a video or I'm doing an episode with somebody or something like that,

like number one, I'm not high when I'm doing that. But number two, when it comes down to the conferences and just like, you know, speaking with people and having self control, that's a responsibility. Forget about to the people that you're meeting. That's a responsibility to your to yourself. You know, like I think it's embarrassing. It's, you know, because I wouldn't want to be in that situation where I am at, you know, like a conference or, or a talk or even a meetup and I'm, I'm slurring my words and I, I'm not remembering anything and I'm, I'm just like a shit show. I mean, think about that, right? Like, so even as a person meeting somebody like that, are, are you really going to take what they're

telling you seriously? It's that whole, don't judge a book by its cover, but it's really tough not to in that scenario, because it's like you have this small amount of time where you just need to show that you're competent and you can't even do that. So what does that mean for the bigger picture? You know, like, like, what does that mean? Anyways? Yeah. So yeah, I do think there is, I do think there is some responsibility. Um, again, to Charles Barkley's point, right? Like I do think, right? Yeah, sure. You know, you do raise your own damn kids, but at the same time, it means

use your head, right? Like, like be? Like be present in the moment and like, I guess do what is required of you in that moment, right? And so if you're at a conference and in front of a whole bunch of people, then at that moment you should probably not sit there and make an ass of yourself and get plastered. Anyways, I've seen people go the other way though. And I just let them do it, man. Look, you're not going to stop somebody in the middle of that

shit show, right? When that train wreck is happening, it's just by all means I'm watching the show. Yeah. You're not going to put the, even if you pull the lever, someone's still on the track. So not much you can do. Phil, this is your, this is your first appearance on the show. You've been fantastic. I appreciate it. Thank you. I got to have you on Club Underground though. I'm happy to, anytime you want. One thing we do on this show is repay the favors. Maybe tell people... Usually I tell people like, oh, before you leave, tell everyone where they can find you. They already know. So instead of that, for a last question, what advice would you give to someone who's listening, watching, who's thinking about starting something like you started or I started or a podcast or whatever?

What would you tell them? When you're starting out, what is the bit of advice you would have liked to have had when you got going? Okay. The bit of advice when I first got going, don't waste your time with audio only. Immediately create video content. Don't waste your time with audio only immediately create video content. Don't kid yourself. It's going to be easier. No, it's not. Doesn't matter. Just learn how to work with video. That's the first thing. The second thing, be persistent. Okay. Lots of people are going to tell you that you're wasting your time. Lots of people are going to tell you that what you're saying doesn't matter. That's perfectly fine. Just be persistent. And another thing I want to

say about because you can see I've thought about this so much. Another thing that I would say is when you think you're not going to make another video every time. Okay. And I think the last thing that I can say for content creation... I already said the persistence part. I think I'm good. Okay. Sage advice from, like I said earlier, a guy I would consider an OG Bitcoiner. So Phil, thank you so much for your time tonight.

Thanks, man. I appreciate it. God bless everyone. Talk to you soon. Peace.