The Canadian Bitcoiners Podcast - Bitcoin News With a Canadian Spin - The CBP - Daniela Villalba - Learning Bitcoin

Episode Date: September 19, 2024

FRIENDS AND ENEMIES Join us for some QUALITY Bitcoin and economics talk, with a Canadian focus, every Monday at 7 PM EST. This week we welcome Daniela Villalba, part of the team making the Learning Bitcoin event (Sept 28, Victoria BC), with the help of other great Bitcoiners and Bull Bitcoin. From a couple of Canucks who like to talk about how Bitcoin will impact Canada. As always, none of the info is financial advice. Website: ⁠www.CanadianBitcoiners.com ⁠Discord:   / discord   A part of the CBP Media Network: ⁠www.twitter.com/CBPMediaNetwork This show is sponsored by: easyDNS - ⁠⁠https://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. D-Central Technologies - https://d-central.tech/ Your home for all things mining! Whether you need a new unit, a unit repaired, some support with software, or you want to start your own wife-friendly home mining operation, the guys at D-Central Tech are ready to help. With industry leading knowledge and expertise, let the D-Central team help you get started mining the hardest money on Earth.

Friends and enemies, stuck with me again on a Wednesday, Tuesday, I guess, today. Usually we do Wednesdays, but Tuesday this week. Interview show. Going to be joined by Daniela Villalba from, I guess, I wouldn't say from, but one of the organizers, I guess. One of the minds behind the Learning Bitcoin Conference, which is coming up September 28th in Victoria, British Columbia. Beautiful BC. If you guys are in that area, I think you might go in there. We'll talk a lot about what's going on with the conference.

We'll get into some of her background. It says here that this is an event that is led by trailblazers, visionaries, and experts. So I'm going to ask her which one she is. But before we get started, we'll do the usual sponsor stuff. EZDNS. Best place for you to buy a domain, port a domain, your friendly neighborhood registrar, as Mark always says. We use EasyDNS for our website.

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Second sponsor, actually a sponsor of the conference, Learning Bitcoin Conference as well, Bull Bitcoin. You guys know Bull. You know Francis. You know the team. The boys are in the chat from time to time here when we're doing the streams. It's the best Bitcoin exchange in the world. You buy, it's non-custodial. There's no rug. There's no nonsense. You don't have to worry about them holding your coins, taking your coins at the request of some nefarious actor. I don't want to go too much further than that, but they're the best place to buy Bitcoin. You can sell Bitcoin there as well if you want, or use it, pay your bills, buy some gift cards, whatever.

And I'm not just talking like Home Depot gift cards, like Len always says. I'm talking like your mortgage, your credit card bill, cell phone. I'm pretty sure you can pay your tuition there too. I don't know if you, Vic, is on there. Daniela can tell me, but it's a great platform. Nothing beats it.

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miners. I'm not going to pull up the website here because I am ill-prepared. I just came out of the weight room. But if you haven't ordered a CBP Media miner yet, you should. I think it's like $250, gets you the miner, all the CBP branding, the friends and enemies on the back, the logo on the front. You pick your cooling and you get next day shipping for, I think, 15 bucks, something like that. These guys are based in Quebec, great Canadian company. We love Jonathan and the boys. You've probably heard Jonathan on this show a handful of times. The CBP bid axe is not the only thing you can get though. You can get the plain bid axes, you can get your boards repaired, you can get new boards, you can get home heating equipment or home heating apparatus for your S21 or your S19

or whatever you got there. And tons and tons more. No promo code. Just go there and buy the stuff, man. You got 200 bucks to spend. I saw you at the bar on the weekend. The beers are 10 bucks each. Skip those next time. Get a miner, help decentralize this thing and keep Bitcoin afloat. Daniela, expert, visionary, or what was the other one I said? Trailblazer. Which one are you? I would consider myself a visionary in the sense that- Yeah. Totally.

I mean, yeah, like I can definitely envision a better world these days. Definitely something Bitcoin made for me possible i probably wouldn't say this like four years ago yeah that's great so tell people a bit about you this is your first appearance on our show and this is the first year for the learning bitcoin conference which we'll get to but let's hear a bit of uh of your story you're you know at uvic i don't know if you're teaching students something something in between. I know there's some gray area there a lot of times in post-secondary. How did you come into Bitcoin? Where did it take you? What are you doing now? What's going on with you?

Totally. Yeah. So I did just graduated from UVic. I did economics. So I definitely come from that economic side in Bitcoin. And I don't really know if studying mainstream economics made me more likely or less likely to be into Bitcoin at all. But it did one thing and that was just made it very clear that the answer and how the world was going to get better, it was not in the mainstream economics, at least not what I was being taught in school. But it did kind of led to kind of like system thinking and seeing things from like outside of boxing perspective. So I guess when I came across Bitcoin, you know, I guess Bitcoin has always been like present in my life since I was a kid, never really got into it until I was trying to disprove it. And I feel like just going into

that rabbit hole of like, oh, how can Bitcoin fail, but it won't because systems don't work the way most people just believe they do. It was kind of very magical. And kind of piecing those things together just did it for me. Yeah, so while I was in school, I joined the crypto club. And it's very funny, but we really did Trojan horse the students into like, hey, here's the crypto club. But it was just a club.

And now we're going to do a two-hour presentation on just Bitcoin. You want to, like, talk, like, altcoins? No. Yeah, obviously, we do try to, like, educate from where people are. But, like, ultimately, it really has transformed into a Bitcoin club. And I'm just very happy to see that representation on campus. There wasn't any before. And after that, I met Scott Dittles from Block Rewards at some point.

And now I'm working a little bit with him doing just like Block Rewards articles and stuff like that. And I am here with Learn and Bitcoin. Yeah. Awesome. Scott's been on the show. I like Scott quite a bit. I wish I was the one who did that interview, but am here with Learn and Bitcoin. Yeah. Awesome. Scott's been on the show. I like Scott quite a bit. I wish I was the one who did that interview,

but my co-host Len did it. He's a good dude. And Block Rewards is a team of great guys. So I guess the natural question here is this Bitcoin slash crypto club, you're Trojan horsing onto UVic's campus. Do you ever get any attendance from former professors or are they boycotting

outside with signs and megaphones? Yeah, so I think I've been very grateful to see the perspective shift from professors. When I was in classes, especially in my first economics introduction to micro macro, I was also just coming to Bitcoin. So I would ask a lot of questions. And with my experience, it was pretty brutal. Like they would just shut me off like this. There's no real explanation, but things are just the way they are. And eventually, yeah, so I came out of university and just last month, I found out that UVic has like a history of money curse. And right now they're doing a final module on Bitcoin, which I was like, hey, I wish I had taken that curse myself. Like I was, I wish I was there still.

So how did they, I mean, they're obviously teaching, I don't want to call it like, you know, traditional economics. I don't think that's really what traditional economics is. Maybe we'll call it legacy economics in the post-secondary realm. How did they come up with a class that has a Bitcoin, you know, capstone? I realize that this is sort of the, you know, most recent iteration of money, but that's got to be a difficult thing to get through. I mean, how much can you tell me about what it takes to get something like Bitcoin into a syllabus? It cannot be a, uh, cannot be an easy task. Yeah. I mean, I can only imagine it wasn't my work to do. I believe the teacher himself has, it's like a Bitcoiner and we just like recently reached out to him. I believe he is coming to the event and he's talking to the students about it. But I don't imagine that to be an easy task at all. Yeah, because even after class, I would come with my teachers and be like, no, but this is the proof. It's not a Ponzi scheme, because I think many of them wanted to really believe it was a Ponzi. Yeah. So, you know, if they do believe me, I cannot imagine what it must be for a professor who is in the faculty and has to deal with their own reputation. And like, literally, that's their job. That's how they make money. But that's awesome.

Listen, God bless them for putting that in. Let's talk a bit about the conference we agreed on conference i said i suggested symposium but uh daniella tells me conference is the the preferred term so people not everyone likes conferences there's like so many people who say conferences are no good i completely disagree i like all the conferences i go to and i wish i could attend this one but it's a little out of my neighborhood so this is uh the first year for this event sponsored by Bull. There's a ton of great sponsors, including your friends at Block Rewards, among others. Now, this is a one day, I count eight different workshops. Maybe we should start with going through some of these things, why you guys chose these. There's some interesting topics here. I am particularly interested in why you guys chose to do a session on the byzantine generals problem under it's cool but it's under discussed like i don't think in the three years we've been doing the show i'm pretty sure i've maybe said byzantine generals twice three times maybe uh so i'd be curious about hearing about that but maybe tell me uh what was the thinking in terms of putting the conference together what do you guys think you're

doing a little differently why should people really be paying attention to what's going on with the Learning Bitcoin conference? Yeah, those are great points. I mean, as you were saying, like conference or symposium, I think it's a little bit of both. I think like, you know, if you're someone who wants to come and like listen to the speakers and they'll sit down and absorb information, You can do that. But if you're like, oh, that's kind of boring. Like I kind of get, want to get my hands on and stuff. Then there's the workshops and learning Bitcoin and the whole,

the whole Bitcoin team has put on so much, so much to the workshops. I think that's really what kind of like stands out on this conference. And yeah, as you you said there's like rather unconventional stuff to work with um which in my opinion i think it's just very important i'll get to it in a second um but ultimately it is structured like a bitcoin conference um you know there's also going to be a lot of exhibit exhibit bidders uh the Quick Pick boutique is coming, which I'm very excited about because I have a couple of things in my shopping list there. And this is also like meant to be a family event.

So, you know, there's like all ages lounge. Part of the workshops are like structured to be family friendly and stuff like that. But going into the Vicente in general situation, I guess I'm kind of happy that I get to tie it up with like the economics and like, you know, mainstream economics versus like system thinking and stuff like that. One of the things that I do kind of like take in very deeply and I'm grateful that I learned in school was that kind of like game theory decision making uh just physics almost I don't know um and the Byzantine general problem is just such a good representation of that uh same point. And I believe it gets people thinking critically. So it's not necessarily about Bitcoin itself. And we're not really like pushing Bitcoin, like you gotta buy

it because it's going to go up or anything. It's like really showing people the logic behind what this technology is all about and being uh just hands-on about it talk to me a bit about the thinking behind the order of the the workshops if there was any i'm looking at this and i see that there's maybe some rhyme and reason to how you guys decided to uh structure these things so it starts you know for example with the history of money that's a good first base and then you into hashing proof of work those things sort of work together. Byzantine generals also mining adjacent will say, then you have the transaction stuff along with fees. You had the cold storage from there. And then everyone's favorite flood wrestling. Is that intentional on your part? You know, you're kind of guiding people. The conference is called learning

Bitcoin after all, you're kind of guiding people from, uh, you know, conception to execution to, you know, continuing to be a good Bitcoiner once they encounter friends and family at Thanksgiving or whatever the case is. I'm assuming that was on purpose by you guys. What was the thinking there? I think this is a great concept for a conference that you don't often see. It was definitely structured like that. You just couldn't say it better.

This conference is perfect for people who are just beginning't say it better this conference is you know perfect for people who are just beginning and it's perfect for your friends and family who refuse to be orange build but you really want them to kind of like start looking at what this really means so yeah like it really is structured to start from the beginning and you know go all the way to the foot situation. However, obviously, if you're an already experienced Bitcoiner, you can always just join the ones that you choose to get. So you don't have to go through that whole day of workshops. I think there's something for everybody.

And yeah, you don't have to go to the history of money if you've already been in space for like years and years, probably. For sure, for everybody. And yeah, you don't have to go to the history of money if you've already been in space for like years and years, probably. For sure. For sure. Okay. So talk to me a bit about the ticket tiers. We'll talk about some other stuff besides the conference, because I want to know a bit more about you and what's going on at UVic as well. But this is one of my favorite things when I look at conference websites is what am I getting for the premium package? The Bull Bitcoin Prime Lounge, 19 plus VIP only. So I already know there's going to be cold bevs over there. Great. What else do you get for the premium package?

Do you get to hang out with like Kev and Matt and the boys? Like what else do you get? Definitely. You definitely get to hang out with them. There's also going to be food, drinks and food. So, you know, you're not going to be hungry or all there. There's going to be obviously priority register check-in. There's, oh, this one is a great one. You can get a complimentary massage from Compass Mobile. They like bring over their massage settings all around.

I am jealous about that. I guess I'm going to be working and I'm not going to get my massage, but that's pretty much like a dream. Obviously like better seating areas and just a lot of, uh, access to pretty much everybody. That's great. And what about the family friendly stuff? I, you know, I just did, uh, a talk actually with Francis and made X at the Canadian conference in Montreal this year. And one of the things I noticed from the stage, there was a lot of kids.

I mean, Danielle, I'm talking like younger than 10 in some cases, taking in the conference, which I really like. It says something about the family and the parents and all that stuff. Great. But I don't know how much a kid gets from me and Francis and Madex talking about how the fiat standard is eroding the quality of art and the banks have a target on your back. The 10-year-old, I don't think he's taken that much from that. So what are you guys doing at the family-friendly, you know, on the family-friendly side to make sure that kids take something from this? And I'll warn you that we talk about education

a lot on this show because I think education broadly in this country has gone sideways over the last 15 or so years, maybe a little longer. So I'm curious. Yeah, what are you guys doing for the little ones? Yeah, totally. I mean, besides the workshops having, like,

this structure of, like, being kid-friendly, we do have the All Agents Lightning Sparks lounge. That lounge is designed by Angela Chan. Sorry about that. She is the first, I believe she's a middle school teacher that has pushed Bitcoin into public education, actually.

Nice. She's awesome. She's going to be speaking in the Women's Panel as well. But she designs very interactive games and game boards and stuff like that for children all around Bitcoin

and how money works. So it is like it is going to be interactive. You know, if you're a parent, you don't have to be with your kid while they're at the lounge. So they have a little more freedom to make friends and just like, yeah, the games are amazing. I've checked a couple of them and I am a big board game person. So I, I'm very excited for that. It should be fun. Okay. So I want to ask you, I mentioned yesterday when we were kind of giving our listeners viewers the, the rundown for this week and next week on the show.

And when I mentioned you were coming on, I said, you know, it's not for lack of trying, but we hardly ever have any week on the show. And when I mentioned you were coming on, I said, you know, it's not for lack of trying, but we hardly ever have any women on the show. We've had like Sue Ennis, Crypto Mags, Magdalena Pra, something, I forget her last name, Polish last name. But, you know, I'm wondering, I look at this list of speakers, it's very heavily populated by females, which is great. Tell me a bit about the thinking behind that.

And, you know, I'll be the first to admit that I think some Bitcoiners view, you know, panels for the sake of their, you know, gender or background or whatever. It's kind of like, you know, we don't need this, blah, blah, blah. I have a different opinion. I think it's important, especially because women are oftentimes, you know, having different struggles explaining things to people than I would or that a professional banker or whatever would. So I'm curious, one, why did you guys do this and did you have any pushback? And two, as a guy who hosts a show, how hard was it to find women who are willing to talk about Bitcoin at a conference? This is

something, like I said, I just don't come across that often. Maybe it's my fault. Talk to me a bit about that. I don't think it's your fault. I think we're definitely a minority in the space. Like, you know, even talking to other women in space, I think we recognize that. But we do exist. And I think we're, I mean, very lucky to have geographically and throughout, I guess social media and stuff been in contact with awesome women in the space who were yeah we didn't struggle finding people to talk they I think everybody's very excited about it and it's it's kind of interesting like I don't

it's a little it can be intimidating at times when it is like a male dominated space to kind of like be a very girly girl and like, I don't know, my perspective before like being in the space was like, Bitcoin was for like super manly men and like there's no space for a woman. But I think that as soon as you break that narrative, there really isn't any pushback. I feel like people who are serious in the space are always very welcoming despite gender

or anything of the likes. But yeah, we're very proud to have this panel and we did want to make a strong representation of women and students as well in the space because we do see that. We do see that there's a minority and we want it to also be attractive for everybody around in the world. So I think it is important to have that representation. And for other women to come to the space, I think I would love to see that. You guys have to be strong ambassadors for women. I think that's true. I think there's some value there as well. Do you want to give me a preview of the Women in Bitcoin panel? I'd be curious. Or any of the panels. I'm actually on the website.

And I remember I saw the panels somewhere earlier today and now I can't find them. So if you want, we can go through a couple of the panels. You can give me a preview of who's speaking and maybe what people should expect and what they should be hyped about. Yeah, of course. So we have the woman's panel, Emma Apatou from BTC with Ventures.

And she also is the founder of DreamGrad Academy. She's an educator, she has been a space for so, so long and she is an incredible person in general. Angela Chan, who I've already mentioned from Lainey Sparks, she's also an educator, super exciting. And Amanda Wright, she has her own consulting corporation, but she has done the greatest job at pushing Bitcoin. And I know she's been rejected so many times, but she sometimes works with the public sector and she's always pushing for Bitcoin, despite obviously it being completely pushed back. It's an uphill battle, yeah, a little bit. Yep, there's the business panel. That's also super exciting.

We have, yeah, local businesses here. Also Amanda speaking. We have Adam from Privato Winery coming, so. Beauty. Yeah, and Dale from QuickBid. Yeah, and then we have the students panel, which is me, Zach and Matthew from Laurier Bitcoin Club. Before I wanted to give a big shout out when I was talking to the student panel about like the Bitcoin Student Network. As women, As well as women, we want student representation and we want more and more young

people, especially, yeah, like not especially here in Canada, but I would love to have friends my age here in Canada who are into Bitcoin. So I'm just very grateful for the Bitcoin student network. And if there's any student out there listening to this, please reach out to them. Definitely. I won't ask how old you are, but I have kind of a rough idea. What is it about people your age that they're having trouble getting into Bitcoin? And I don't just mean getting into students clubs. Not everyone likes going to student clubs.

I didn't. I still got into Bitcoin a little later than some people. But what is it about that? In my view, and I would guess in yours as well, that generation should be the one to see all the problems sort of firsthand, right in your face. It's very tangible that currency and economics are failing you in a way that they just didn't fail your parents. Didn't even fail someone my age.

I was born in 87. And when I think about the things that I saw in university, I think I was in my second year during the OA crash. I didn't even think about it, really. I didn't think about Bitcoin at all until I turned 28 or 29. And it was at that time when I started to realize, hey, there's something going on here. As you know, you wind up going down this path and you find it. What is it about sort of the, let's say, the 20 to 25 crowd that they just don't care or

don't want to care, or it's, they think it's nerdy. Like, I don't know. You tell me, what are you, what are you seeing? Um, this all comes from my perspective. And I feel like every time I get this question, I get a little anxious about like roasting people too hard. Uh, you know, everybody, you cannot say anything that is going to be worse than things i said only yesterday on this program so don't worry about it yeah um i feel like i mean obviously there's people who do wake up and come to bitcoin um but i see two main struggles and the first one is definitely like the media i think the media did such a great job in the earlier bitcoin years to paint it as such like yeah super manly impossible evil like it's going to destroy the world and i feel like a lot of people just got like married to that idea and it won't uh like detach from that. And there's a lot of girlfriends

that I have that think it's just unattractive. That it's like, yo, you're like a crypto world. Why are you here? No. And it's a little sad because everybody, as you said, I believe everybody in my generation is able to see

the issues. They just don't want to see Bitcoin as a solution anymore. And that's very sad and frustrating for me. But the second thing, I believe that a lot of people my age also kind of have lost hope. And, you know, if you don't believe that anything will make your life better, and even Bitcoin won't save you like if you already gave up uh it's not you're not gonna read a book about it you're not gonna like go and like watch an hour podcast about it um i feel like a lot of people my age just gave up and they're just like i'll just have my like job and and try to like survive i think that's probably true i have to ask uh

what do you tell your girlfriends when they say that they don't want a boyfriend that's like into bitcoin i mean i don't i my wife doesn't really care i don't think she thinks about it at all but you know i can't imagine i mean if i was picking a partner now would it matter like how far down on the list would like bitcoin or any other hobby because really it's a hobby more than it is a lot of other stuff like how far down the list would it be pretty far like what do you say to your girlfriends like hey don't just not date the guy because he told you about his you know bull bitcoin account or whatever like what do you tell them i need to know i mean if the bitcoin is on an exchange i don't have like that much effort to put in there but you know if they're

doing it right and like it's someone who actually cares like um man i mean even like with me because i do feel sometimes like a little like she's the she's the crypto girl. Well, you know, you love someone. And like when you care about someone, you're going to like at least try to like see what they're trying to say. The way I came to Bitcoin was through a friend who I was in my mind trying to like protect from Bitcoin. I was like, oh, like Bitcoin is evil. Like you're going gonna lose your money. And it, like, the caring about this person was, like, researching and doing my own thing. And that's pretty much what I would say to anyone. Just, like, do your own research. And, like, it's just,

why would you like to live a life like everybody else does? um you know maybe it is like odd to be a bit like a bitcoin guy or a bit like but why does it matter like it's better to be a little different and odd and like at least this difference is doing a change in the world and it's also probably going to make you financially better off those are yeah, yeah, those are important things. Good advice there. Well, that was the CBP dating minute here on the podcast. What does your family think about all this? It's not often I get to speak to somebody who's like coming out of school. I just remember some of the dumb shit I used to say to my parents when I was going through university, because I thought I knew absolutely everything. And to be honest with you, I knew probably closer to nothing than I did everything. That may actually still be true. But I just can't remember

a time when I came home and said to my parents something crazy I had heard in some political theory class or whatever, like I was a poli-sci major, where they didn't say back, like, come back to me in five years. Is this the response you get too? Bitcoin's way further out on the curve than anything I was saying. It must be, you know, at least the conversation started for you. Totally. Actually, I was kind of like watching your conversation yesterday a little bit. And I bring this up because my parents have been so reluctant to Bitcoin, even though my dad's supposedly into finance. I was saying, yeah, they got their bank account frozen

like a few months ago and not even that was enough to get them on a Bitcoin standard. I was going, yeah, that's so frustrating. That's life. I think that's life for so many Bitcoiners out there as well. However, and the reason why I mentioned your talk yesterday is because I really want to see your BidX video coming up. Yeah, I'll do one probably.

And to anyone watching, the one thing that got my dad into Bitcoin last week was explaining how BidX works. He ordered one himself the day of. Yeah, just thinking like, how does mining work? But like mining can be a little bit of a lottery kind of thing. It got him. It was like, I'm getting one just in case and I'm going learn later kind of thing it's it's a sick like kind of intro i think like um you know we talk a lot on the show about some of the gadgets you know cold cards and even like the block clock over there like the stuff that bitcoin companies make quality bitcoin companies make is always a conversation starter none of my

friends none of them daniella like bitcoin none my co-host Len is the only guy I really talk to that likes Bitcoin. For real, they don't care. They don't get it. They don't want to do whatever. It's fine. But everybody, when they come to my house, wants to see the podcast room and the stuff in here always gets questions like, what is this? What are the numbers flashing by? What does this mean? Blah, blah, blah. The bid-ax ax is going to be that too. And one of the things I say to some friends of mine that ask these questions, much like your father, if you're that curious, just spend the 100 bucks or 200 bucks on one of these things and see what you think. Before you know it, you're going to buy 50 bucks worth. I've started giving people at weddings, what are those little open dimes, right? The USB keys that CoinKite

makes. I always get questions about those. And people start to realize that Bitcoin is sort of in the same bracket as a lot of other quality products. Quality people come to Bitcoin, they make quality products, and they'll bring people on that way. And you just don't see that in fiat. Whether it's my shitty TD banking app. I make this joke all the time, but it seems like once a year, TD sends me an email celebrating a feature that Bitcoin has had for a decade, right? Like I think last year they sent me an email and gave me an in-app notification about now I can take pictures of checks in the dark if I want. Sweet. I haven't seen a check in five years, but it's going to be great if I ever get one. I can just take a picture of it in the dark. Thank you for that. And I think

the more and more people realize that banks are so far behind everything else and they're coming too slowly. I want to ask you in terms of like the sort of bringing young people on board, you're part of a Bitcoin club where you are at UVic. You mentioned Laurier has one. Are you guys trying to plant the seed at other universities? Like I'm in Hamilton or in Dundas, McMaster's a kilometer or two kilometers away from here. I don't know what they have going on, but I've not heard anything from that community in a long time. And we have meetups here. I don't see a lot of kids from Mac. Are you guys actively trying to propagate your message in other schools or is that just something you want to see happen organically

and when they're ready, they'll reach out to you oh we're definitely uh we would definitely love more and more clubs uh bitcoin plus happening and um us like individually with the crypto club we don't really like reach out beyond the university of victoria but we are part with the Bitcoin Student Network. They are pretty much all over the world. They were founded like years and years ago. And what they do is that they connect students from all over the world. And they like give them the resources to create their own club and to link those clubs together and have like networking opportunities um yeah their work has really been like life-changing in terms of like yeah meeting even Matthew who's coming um going to Nashville they were uh the ones that allow like made the student ticket free for students through Nashville they're honestly amazing I I'm just very grateful that we stumbled onto them as well.

That's huge. Did you, so you went to Nashville then? Yes. And how did you like that conference? I did not go. I think I'm going to go next year, but I'd be curious, what do you, you know, given that you're now part of a conference here, you know, what did, what did you like about Nashville and what did you not like about Nashville? It was my first like big Bitcoin conference ever. So I of course loved it. I like, you know, kind of like refer to it as like the Disney World for Bitcoiners in a way.

But ultimately, I believe that this year was a little like politicized. And I kind of wish that I was there. Like a couple of the previous years where it seems like it was more about like bitcoin and the technology and i feel like i've been having donald trump and also security and everybody it just made a little more like it created friction uh which is fine because again my first conference very happy and lucky to be there but yeah um just a little in my end, I think politics don't really like matter in Bitcoin. Really? It matters, but it matters. But it shouldn't be about them. It should just be about Bitcoin in my mind.

Okay. So let me ask you then, as we dig down into your philosophy on Bitcoin here, the politics of Bitcoin has always been interesting to me because inside of Bitcoin, there's tons of politicking. People are always playing power games, whether it's the industrial miners, the pleb miners, node runners, the influencer crowd. You have people who kind of stray. They stray from God's light.

God bless them and do some things they maybe shouldn't be doing. I think about Breedlove and the the whatever BitCloud thing a couple of years ago, among others. But a lot of Bitcoiners, even those ones who engage in internal politicking, see politics as broadly a waste of time. I don't know where I come down on that. Part of me says that there's value in engaging politicians because even if they won't engage with you from a public policy point of view, they may at some point change their mind about Bitcoin. I look at a guy like Joel Lightbound,

famously here in my neck of the woods. He's actually from Quebec, but he spoke at the conference this year. He's a liberal MP who broke ideologically from the liberal caucus during the trucker convoy and since about some of the language and whatnot the liberals have used and he's become a bitcoiner is this is this worth our time i don't know i'd be curious because now you're you're you're in a position where you're spending a lot of time engaging the community engaging students engaging uh businesses and whatnot by the sounds of things is that a better use of your time than engaging a local politician? Where do you come down on that?

I think the way I said it also was a little wrong. I think ultimately everything is politics. Whether it is not our politicians, everything comes in a political sense. So there's definitely politics in Bitcoin. Would it be worth it? everything comes in a political sense. So there's definitely politics in Bitcoin. As would it be worth it? I think like Bitcoin, you know, will be here. Whoever like, whoever wins in both the United States

or Canadian elections, like Bitcoin will be here. So in a way, like I would like to see personally like adoption from the people and for it to be a more organic way ultimately because I believe that will allow decentralization to really like stay the way it should stay. But you're right as well. Like I think you did a great point, you know, like ultimately as long as they're aware of Bitcoin and it's like creating awareness, it probably is for the right.

Yeah, I just would love to see a conference that, like I would love to live myself a conference that is kind of like ultimately all about bitcoin but we are in election season we are like oh yeah we're in the thick of it now yeah big time did you guys try and engage any politicians to speak at learning bitcoin or no no not even a single one well i'm surprised to hear that i'm impressed at the same time because it's difficult not to. I don't think there's any official politician in here, VC, that is openly pro-Bitcoin. Or I can't imagine anyone willing to come and speak publicly based on what the other parties like their parties would say and stuff like that. Yeah. It's been interesting to me anyways, to watch the way the politicians embrace and then

distance themselves from Bitcoin over time. I won't say too much about this, but just before Pierre Polyev won the conservative leadership, we had him lined up to come on the show. And as soon as he won that leadership campaign, he basically never said Bitcoin again. He stopped returning our emails. And since then, he's obviously taken on a much more focused campaign messaging strategy that just doesn't include Bitcoin. I think about Trump next door. You mentioned that Nashville, he's there with all the security. I don't know what you thought about that speech. Maybe I'll get your comment on that in a second.

But I thought the speech was sort of underwhelming. And since then, he's sort of proven what exactly? I would say that he doesn't really understand it, that the politicking he did around Bitcoin near the conference really didn't take root for him at all. He wasn't able to get a handle on why it's only Bitcoin that matters. He wasn't able to get a handle on the people around him who were telling him that Bitcoin was important. And maybe even further, he doesn't seem to understand how negatively launching a token,

you know, an unregistered security weeks before an election will impact the voter base that he otherwise would have had in Bitcoiners who don't vote. What did you think about the Nashville speech? I assume you didn't like it, but I'd be curious to hear your comment. I mean, I completely agree with you. I think, I mean, in my opinion, and this is all my opinion, I'm not pro. You are speaking for learning Bitcoin for University of Victoria. All your opinions are also their opinions. No, no, I just, yeah, it didn't strike me as he

really understood what Bitcoin was. And I mean, there was one part where he like, like, this is every time I think about the Trump this is like the one part that really stick into my mind and it was like he went and said something how he was advised to be pro crypto and bitcoin at least until the election was over like i remember like i remember hearing exactly that it was not like my imagination i swear um so yeah i i didn't i didn't see it being very truthful to be honest i do think it's like a voting situation uh but with all that said i'm not not pro anyone yeah i i mean it's it's weird uh for bitcoiners i think the feeling i get especially in the united states like that

contingent bitcoiners don't want to vote for anybody they are broadly i think anti-government anti-centralized control obviously and don't believe what the candidates say i'm in that boat too but you know you and i are going to have an election here probably inside of six months and you know i'll have to vote for somebody during that election i don't plan on abstaining or just not going to the ballot box right there's there's always a candidate who's better for you than the other. Yeah, I see people in the chat saying all the candidates suck. I know, I agree. Okay, don't get me wrong.

But it's funny to think about that because Bitcoiners always have an opinion on almost everything. Like you mentioned it earlier, right? And I think we touched on it yesterday. We touch on it all the time. You can ask a Bitcoiner about everything from steak to raw milk to the proper weightlifting split to child rearing to property upkeep. They got an opinion on everything.

Every single thing you can think of in the world, Bitcoiners have an opinion. But they seem apolitical. And it really bothers me. I'm curious about whether or not you think it's worthwhile for Bitcoiners to become more opinionated on the political side of things. I'm not necessarily asking if you think that they should vote for one party or the other. I'm asking if you think that it's worthwhile for Bitcoiners to sort of throw their support behind a group of ideas, even if it

doesn't capture everything they want, because it captures some of the things. And Trump, I think, maybe isn't now, but was trying to do that. Is it worth for Bitcoiners to get on a train in that way? I don't know if it's even possible, to be honest with you, Daniela, but I'd be curious to hear if you think it's a good idea or a bad idea. I'm unsure right now. And honestly, to me, it kind of seems like it doesn't really matter as long as you're saving Bitcoin. And I, well, yeah, I don't really want to dismiss this. Obviously, it doesn't really matter. But right now, ultimately, I feel like everybody gets the sense

that democracy is a little broken and it doesn't really matter how much you stand for someone like it depends. But I do think that ultimately in like the long run, we Bitcoiners are going to have to be a little more just active in politics. And it doesn't have to be the way we see it right now where there's left and right. But we will eventually have to like defend our principles and have um yeah like a true like our party in that sense uh just don't really know what it will look like or when that is really going to be worth it but um yeah i do think that there's like a lot of worth in the defending what you believe in your ideas uh it just doesn't seem

to be really working like it doesn't matter how much you support one candidate or the other it really just seems like it's going to like you know uh inflation is going to keep on going up things are just going um so like yeah right now i believe it's more about protecting yourself but i think i hope to see a world where we're past that and we can actually like, because if Bitcoin succeeds, we don't want to be divided either. We want, yeah. Yeah, I'm with you on that. I think that's a good way to put it. You're going to have to be engaged at some point because defending your own interests is something that everyone should be doing. So maybe let's wrap with two questions. I ask this of the new guests fairly frequently, whether they're C-suite from a publicly traded company or they're heading up a new conference.

What are the biggest threats in your view to Bitcoin? There are fewer, I think, than in the past, but they've certainly changed over the last year or two years. What should Bitcoiners be thinking about in terms of defending their own interests? What should ourers be thinking about in terms of defending their own interests? What should our interests be? I believe, and I'm not too knowledgeable on this one, but I do believe that decentralization within mining power is definitely very important. And I think it was Matt Corrello that did a speech in that. It really got to me. I do really feel like that's a priority. We want to defend for Bitcoin to stay truly decentralized.

So that would be the number one thing that I would say. And the second one has to also do with decentralization, but it's all about like teaching people to desire self-custody and to want to be active in managing their funds. Because I do see a lot of people who are in the Bitcoin space, they have their Bitcoin at an exchange and it's like, okay, but what is that doing? Yeah. So I think those two issues all comes to decentralization in a way, but it's also about giving people the actual power that bitcoin is offering yeah totally no i agree with you on both fronts we've been

passionate about that here especially the mining thing for the last uh you know six or eight months you're you're in a unique position for the next uh sort of uh question you are talking to people about bitcoin oftentimes as one of the first touch points for them. Whether they come to your club or whether you're talking to them at the conference or in your friend group, or when you're telling one of your girlfriends they should date a Bitcoin guy, you're talking to people in a way that they've not been spoken to before. And invariably, you will go to resources that you trust, podcasts or YouTube videos or whatever. One thing I'm conscious about as a guy who does a show like this for a fair-sized audience is that am I saying things

on a weekly basis that are going to help spread this message in a way that's not too abrasive or too blackpilling or whatever the term is? What do you think Bitcoin content? I don't want to say content creators, but what do you think Bitcoin supporters should be changing about some of their messaging, like podcasters or YouTube people to make this more palatable for new people to the space? That's a great question. Ultimately, I think everybody should really just represents themselves. Like I think that as long as you're genuine and you're not trying to fit in with like, yeah,

your Twitter, Bitcoin space, like, you know, I think that there's a lot of people who are not necessarily in the carnivore diet or eat raw milk and et cetera. They, if you're not doing that, you don't have to promote it in your in your material um but i think it's it really is all about like being genuine and i think more and more people when they realize that you're being genuine they'll come to the space and then they'll

have their own perspective to share and that's kind of like what i enjoy from the space because yeah there's like a lot of guys uh doing like um you know normal things but there's also yeah there's like you have a Canadian perspective which is like incredibly unique there's like um I was with uh on DJ Valerie's podcast like there's all that side of like the energy and ultimately it doesn't matter if you come from like the, um, like carnivore side or the energy super like it's, I think it's all about being genuine and not lying about who you are. I'm with you on that. Yeah.

I, I DJ Val is a, she's a character. I do follow her on Twitter. She's a lot of fun to, uh, to follow. People should check her out if they haven't. Okay. Daniela that you've been an excellent first time guest. So, uh, kudos to you. Doing podcasts is not always the easiest thing. And so I want to give you an opportunity here to tell people, number one, where they can find out more about

the conference. Number two, where they can find out more about you. And maybe if you want to share some stuff about the UVic Club, the floor is all yours, buddy. Go ahead. All right. are the event that's in most social media. It's learning Bitcoin. LearningBitcoin.ca is the website. And we do have a special discount code for anyone who's watching. That's right. It's CBP, just CBP. And it is a 50% off discount code. Yeah, I'm very excited to meet everybody there.

And, um, for the, you would crypto club is literally you big crypto. That's. So that's it. Easy enough. Easy enough.

Daniela. Thank you for coming. Everyone. Thank you for listening, watching, and we'll see you next time. Thank you so much. Joy.