Baklava & Bitcoin - MANDRIK (Bitcoin Talk on THE Bitcoin Podcast)

I just completely snapped because I'm like, I can't pretend to be this person living in this just like normally fucking world normally fucking job bullshit. I look back on that and that was just like the most pivotal moment of my life. I changed everything about my diet. I went from like eating just standard American garbage to just like full on like keto, no more seed oils, all the stuff. So much happened in 2011 for me on Bitcoin or whatever.

You're just not being honest with yourself at the end of the day, right? That's the problem. And you don't have the fucking balls to just do to be that way because it's fucking hard, dude. And it sucks. It sucks so much because you're just like basically throwing yourself out of like the society you live in to be like fuck this man. I'm not doing this anymore. I'm just gonna go figure this out on my own. It's like the waking up from the matrix. I know that's like the analogy, right?

The whole waking up from the matrix thing. But it is. I mean, it's like that's not it's not like, hey, you woke up. Check it out. Now you're in the fairy land. You know, you're in a place that's fucking worse actually because now you understand what's really going on and it sucks. And you want to go back actually. You have those times where like, please just plug me back in. This sucks. But you'll never go back because you just can't. And you just don't, you wouldn't want to.

It seemed like a risky thing. But the more I did understand it, the more I was like not having bitcoins at the real risk, right? Like it, okay, the price goes up and down. But like at the end of the day, it's like even they're in the worst of the bear markets. I'd be like, has anything really changed other than the price? Like new blocks are still being found on, you know, 10 minutes on average. Nothing has changed fundamentally. So why would my belief in this change?

And today that guest is Bitcoin OG Mandrick, aka the Baron of Bitcoin, Baklava, the Sultan of Sweet and the Penis of Pastries. He came up with that last one, not me. Mandrick tells the story about how he started selling Baklava for Bitcoin back in 2011. And it's honestly just awesome. He also goes into a lot of stories about what it was like to work in the Bitcoin industry back in the early days.

But we get into a lot more than that in this episode, including whether we're still early to Bitcoin, circular economies, the vibe shift in Bitcoin. What do it mean for Bitcoin to fail, family and saving for the next generation, orange pilling, how Bitcoin changes you and a whole lot more? Mandrick is just an awesome dude. And I know you're going to love this episode. Before we dive in, do me a favor and subscribe to the Bitcoin podcast wherever you're watching or listening.

Give the show a boost on fountain if you find it valuable. And if you're not using fountain.fm for podcasts, what the hell are you doing? Go check it out. Go to Bitcoinpodcast.net for episodes and additional resources. Head to the show notes to grab discount links for my kickass sponsor, Bitbox and other partners. And send an email to hello at Bitcoinpodcast.net. If you're interested in sponsoring the Bitcoin podcast or if you just want to say hi.

Without further ado, let's get into this Bitcoin talk with Mandrick. Yo. Hey, hey, Mandrick, how's it going, man? What's up, dude? Nothing much, just hanging out. So, man, thanks so much for joining. So we are currently live streaming this as well, only to Noster because fuck YouTube. Yeah, fuck YouTube. YouTube just honestly sucks. They put one of those little fact checking flags on the last video I posted with Efrat.

It was basically like it was a link to New World Order conspiracy theory Wikipedia page, letting viewers know that the New World Order is of course just a conspiracy theory. Nothing they need to be worried about whatsoever. And I was like, God, this is just absurd. So I'm continuing to post to YouTube, but I live streamed with Corn Delorean and QW yesterday. And I was like, you know what? Maybe I should just do like a Noster sneak peek for all of these episodes I do. Live stream on Noster only.

And so if you want to get them ahead of time, you've got to get yourself an end pub. Let's do it, man. I'm cool with that. Sweet. So. You know, it's funny. I was like, what shirt should I wear for this? And I went with my zoo shirt. The one shirt that I almost wore was the exact same one you're wearing. I thought there was a non-zero probability that we would both end up wearing free Ross shirts. I was like, you know what? I'm going to do it if we end up matching even more beautiful.

My favorite part of the Nashville conference was like, it was like Friday or something, one of the conference days. I just, I went to the conference and then my kids and my wife and my mom are all, they came over a couple hours later and they show up and literally every single one of them is wearing a free Ross shirt. And I'm just like, I love my family so much. That's amazing. Yeah. You had the whole gang at the conference.

Yeah. You said it was your first time having your daughters at a Bitcoin conference too, if I remember correctly. And my mom, yeah. Man, did they all have a great time? I mean, what a historic conference for them to go to as a first one. Yeah. They had a great time. They were kind of blown away. They know the life to some degree, right? The whole Bitcoin lifestyle to degree. They've never seen it firsthand to that as that much.

And I've been in Bitcoin almost 13 years now and it's like, they were blown away. They're just like, what is your life? And I'm like, this is just big. It's a crazy world and you just hold on and you go on the ride. Man, yeah. That's got to be kind of interesting because you've been around a long time. I'm very new here. I've just went down the rabbit hole in like 2020 after hearing about Bitcoin. Like I heard about it and dismissed it a couple of times. As we all did. Oh, yeah.

Over more years than I'd like to admit, six years. It was six years that it took me from when I first heard about it to actually go down the rabbit hole, which is terribly embarrassing. But I also have empathy for anyone who takes a long time to grok Bitcoin. Like who am I to judge? It took me a long time, you know?

But like, I want to talk, you know, like you're kind of a perfect person to talk to about some of those early days because I feel like we have this view of Bitcoin now where people just getting into Bitcoin now. Like if you just buy your first sat this year in 2024, like you're buying them after the biggest asset managers in the world have set up ETFs. You're buying them after Bitcoin is talked about on CNBC like every other day. There's just a completely different vibe.

I mean, even, even then there was four years ago when I started going down the rabbit hole. And I can't imagine back in because you, you started out in like 2011 is when you first sold Baklava. Is that right? Yeah. Well, I was selling Baklava in 2009. Okay. I started getting inquiries in like 2011, early 2011, I would say, throughout that year. And I kind of was just like, and I'm really glad.

I'm actually really glad I didn't get into Bitcoin early 2011 because I would have been absolutely wrecked watching it climbed like 30 bucks and then crash. To me, it's like, I'm so glad I got into it after it crashed and it was like just chilling at five bucks in like November or 2011. I just look back on that moment.

I'm like, man, I had opportunities and I could have got like really cheap Bitcoin and I would have got into it and then I would have got destroyed, you know, when it climbed up there. Short term, of course, you know, but, but you know how that is. And then you end up having all this regret because you're like, oh, fuck this thing. It failed. And then it doesn't fail. It goes to $1,000 a couple of years later and you're just like, you just have this, this idea in your head.

Like I miss the, you know, I miss the greatest opportunity of my life, you know, and then you just have to live with that. Yeah. So, you know, that's actually a, maybe a perfect place for us to start is because I think if folks have been to Bitcoin conferences, they may have bumped into, you know, handing out trays of baklava, which is just amazing.

And I finally got the chance now after missing it, after it was eaten out of, out of stock at every conference I've been to, I finally got a piece of that sweet baklava in Nashville and how incredible it is. But can, can you maybe just like, let's, let's back up a little bit and just who are you? How did you get here today to be like the, you know, the Baron of Bitcoin baklava and the Salton of Sweden? What did you say? The, the penis of pastries. How did, how did this happen?

What brought you to that point where you started selling Bitcoin for baklava and now are kind of this like cult figure almost, the, the, just, you know, the long haired man who hands out baklava at conferences. How, how did this happen, man? I consider myself a C minus list celebrity and that's, you know, hopefully one day I can get down, downgrade that to a D. But no, I mean, the, the really the, I've talked about this at length before, but like, it's a pretty simple story.

I think a lot of people can relate to it where you just, you're just trying to get by, you're working some, some shitty nine to five job to some dead-end crap job. And at the same time I'm hearing about the ideas of liberty through like Ron Paul and I've already always had like a lot of those ideas in my head already and they just were never really formed into just like a cohesive thought. It was just like a lot of just like, here's what I don't like. I don't like the government.

I don't like the stuff. I don't trust these people, but like what's the solution? I don't know. And then I'm watching, I'm at work. I worked for a cable company. So I was at the monitor, high, like high viewership events. Cause if something went down, I was like the first person who had to like reach out to like support like to like technicians be like, yeah, there's a problem with this channel, blah, blah, blah. So I'm watching the, the Republican debates in 2007.

And here's Ron Paul comes on, you know, they asked all these guys, these, all these, it's just like a stage full of Warhawks with Ron Paul and they're just all like, yeah, let's bomb everybody. Let's kill everybody, blah, blah, blah. And then they get the wrong Paul. They're like, yeah, why don't we just go to the constitution? You know, why don't we just like.

We just, we're friends with people, but like leaving them alone, not in, you know, not in the fear with the world, you know, talking, talking about how like blowback from 9 11. It's like, yeah, 9 11 happened because like, probably because we're in their countries killing them and creating, you know, future terrorists. Like what do you think is that, you know, why do you think they attack us? You know, why are they attacking Switzerland or whatever? You know, they're coming after us.

And I'm just like, holy shit, who is this guy? And that was kind of the beginning for me, like going down. I needed to go down that rabbit hole first before I could go down the Bitcoin rabbit hole. There's actually a lot of rabbit holes that lead to Bitcoin. And one that I know you're, that you are very familiar with is video games, which game currency really helps you understand the idea of internet money. Right. Like it kind of does help a little bit. So there's that.

There was the ideas of liberty. And I started listening to this. I started listening to Alex Jones. Well, I often on listening for years, but not really.

It's a little too negative for me, so it wasn't really my vibe, but I started listening to free talk live in 2009, which is like a liberty based, very like, at least it used to be, I think it still is, they're still around, but I think it was a lot bigger a few years back, but very big on the ideas of liberty, very big on the free state project, which is to get a bunch of liberty oriented people move into New Hampshire and try to change that state, make it a more free place in the world.

So it's going down that rabbit hole. So I was already, and I already grew up with the idea of like gold and silver as money, because my dad was a goldsmith as a kid. So there are a lot of these things that like, a lot of these little elements that like, doll doesn't really sound related, but it relates to Bitcoin, right? Like internet money, you know, with video games, gold and silver sound money, you know, the idea is liberty, voluntary interactions with other people, right?

Like these all are a part of what Bitcoin is. So. Wait, quick, quick pause. Did you say your dad was a goldsmith? Did they hear that right? He was as a kid. He like, well, he grew up in, he grew up in Greece poor. Like he went to like sixth grade. I think he was done by school by like fifth or sixth grade, because you know, he had like nine siblings and his dad was a priest, you know, like living off of that. And they were dirt at dirt ass poor.

So there was an apprenticeship he did with as a, as a, as like a, to a goldsmith for a few years when he was a kid. And he remember, you know, and so he kind of had the idea of like the value of gold and silver and he kind of instilled that in me as a kid too and so I kind of collected some of that like silver, you know, junk quarters, you know, like this, the 90% silver quarters from 64. I knew about them when I was a little kid because he told me, he taught me about them. He ran a restaurant.

He owned a diner, like most Greeks who came over to this country, you know, they opened a diner. So he taught me about silver. So I already had a good idea of it and gold. So it was kind of, that really helped. I think all these pieces, without one of those pieces, I don't know if I would have really had like that basic understanding of Bitcoin early on.

So, so yeah, like as I'm getting into the ideas of liberty, I'm trying to think like, what can I do as like a side hustle for like, agorism where I could like start this business outside of the government, don't ask permission, don't get any food licenses, whatever. And that's what it was. I was like, I'm going to sell baklava on the internet. I'm not going to quit all my jobs. And you know, I was working my dad's diner and I was working full time at a cable company.

But I was like, I'm just going to be like a third job side hustle thing where I'm just going to sell baklava on the internet. So I started doing that and I was advertising on free talk live, like around holiday seasons like Christmas and stuff, my busy time, which was really cool. And in early 2011, they had Gavin Andreson on, who was like one of the, the OG devs of Bitcoin, who had a falling out, right? He's no longer, he went from hero to villain, right? Like so many people in Bitcoin.

But yeah, he was on free talk live in like April of 2011 talking about Bitcoin. That was the first time they ever had somebody on that show. And I had been listening for years at that point and I heard about it and I'm like, okay, that sounds cool, whatever. But you know, like everything else, the first time you hear about anything, you're just like, whatever, it's probably going to get hacked, right? It's like, what is this?

Yeah. You think you have all the dumb, stupid thoughts that people still have now that are supposedly really intelligent or like, yeah, but has anyone thought about this before? It's like, bro, we've been talking about this for like 10 years. What if the government shuts it down, I bet you didn't think about that. It's like, oh, fuck. Or they're really, oh, but it was started by the CIA.

So and it's like, okay, even if it was, you know, and did you see, did you see this slight cyber, but you see some, I don't even know who this guy is, but just like this went somewhat viral on X, but it was like, this guy's like Bitcoin is clear. No, he said Satoshi Nakamoto is a Chinese intelligence operation. It's like, okay, bro, they've got a weird, yeah, and, but like, you know, and, but like also they've got a weird way of showing it.

If that is the case, I mean, a really weird way, but yeah, I digress. Yeah. So like, I hear about that. And then I was starting to get people asking me throughout the year, throughout 2011, I started getting inquiries like, Hey, would you take Bitcoin for baklava? Because they heard my ads on free talk life. And I was like, yeah, maybe I don't really know how to set this up. This sounds hard. I don't, I don't really get it.

And it's like, no, no, all you gotta do is, and I'm like, maybe, maybe later. So then I watch it rise over the summer from like, whatever, I was kind of loosely following it, not really. You know, I'm not going to pretend like I was all into it. I wasn't. So I watched it, but I heard, you know, I saw stories and stuff about climbing to 30 bucks, and then it crashes. And I was like, Oh, it's dead. Okay, cool. Not cool, but I was just like, whatever, you know, like who cares?

But then, uh, it didn't really die, I guess. And people kept messaging me and asking me about it. And I was just like, you know, I already take like gold, so I'll take like silver for baklava, I'll take whatever, pretty much whatever. Like I like trading. Trading is a lot of fun, you know, like it's just, it's like, hey, it's not dollars.

Uh, so I started like warming up to it and Roger Vera reached out and I had already known Roger Vera at that point because he had, uh, he had, but he's a big, he was a big sponsor. I mean, you look at what Roger invested in all these early Bitcoin companies. He had done so much to support so many like, um, freedom oriented Bitcoin podcast. We're talking about podcasts that had like a hundred listeners. He was like donating to them and stuff like that.

Like he was in a, like if you're hung out with Roger back in the day, he was listening to them constantly. Like it was never any music. It was always like free talk live or some other Liberty themed podcasts. Um, that's just how he was. So he heard my advertisement and he's like, Hey, I want to buy a pan of baklava, uh, ship it to my company in LA. And he's like, I don't want to pay in your Bitcoin. And I was like, okay, fine. Roger, sure.

I, because I'd interacted with him a few times with some other stuff. So I was like, okay, this is the first time we interacted specifically about Bitcoin. And I was like, sure, I'll do it. So he was like, yeah, just set up a Mt. Gox account and I'll send you the Bitcoin. So I was like, sure, Mt. Gox, that sounds great. What could go wrong? Uh, so yeah, that was my, that was my initial intro to Bitcoin, like where I actually had some. And then he also was sending Cassatius rounds to people.

I was living in New Hampshire at the time for the Free State project. I was all in, right? Like I'm just like, okay, let's go Liberty movement. Uh, it was the end of 2011. I'd already gotten laid off. I was going through a divorce. I was just like fully committed to like this idea and like, I want to be an agris where I'm just like earning on my income outside of the government, blah, blah, blah, you know, not going to pay taxes.

Well, yeah, you're not going to pay taxes anyways because I wasn't making any money. So yeah, it's really easy to not have to pay tax. It's really easy when you're poor. Uh, yeah, yeah, you got you. Uh, yeah. So it was like, I mean, it was cool, like kind of living on principal ideas, but like, it gets a little complicated, right? But, uh, but yeah, I started getting into Bitcoin. He was mailing Cassatius rounds to free talk live studio though at the same time, just to give out to people.

And I remember he gave all the co-hosts like the 25 Bitcoin Cassatius rounds and then like just rolls of like the single one Bitcoin Cassatius rounds at a time like five bucks each and just, I remember someone giving me a role and it's like here, one of the co-hosts like go hand these out to people next door and I was like, oh yeah, sure. Okay. And yeah, I'm just giving them out. I'm like, here you go.

I'm selling sandwiches at the same place and they're all just giving them back to me for for a $5 sandwich because they're like, yeah, free sandwich. Can you, for anyone who is not familiar with that particular part of Bitcoin lore, can you explain these coins? Yeah, I was going to get into that. Cassatius rounds with the OG physical Bitcoin where this guy might call it.

Well, I still call him the most trusted name in Bitcoin because he still hasn't somehow redeemed all you know, he never, he printed out all these little private keys on these little stickers and he put them on these brass coins called Cassatius rounds and they're really cool. I got one right here. You see kind of, there's one right there. It's a redeemed one on my wall. You can kind of see it right there. It's awesome. Yeah. And they were a little sticker.

When you peeled it, you could tell it was like peel, but there were people figured out ways to like break them to make them look legit. But yeah, it had a mini key on the back of it, a mini private key and there were some, I think an electrom you could redeem them. You could also redeem mini keys on Mt. Godson at the time, so that's what I was doing. And I redeemed a lot of them. I peeled a lot of them. They're worth now like 1.3 Bitcoin each, I think.

Maybe more 1.3 to 1.5 somewhere around there you could probably sell them for. But I still have one and it's like my family heirloom. I told my kids this. I'm like, never redeem this. This isn't, who cares how much it's worth dollars. I sold this. I earned this selling a $5 sandwich and I've held it and it's like, to me, it's like a piece of history. It's like my roots. I was like, this is where I came from. Like my humble origins in Bitcoin. That's so cool. It has a lot of meaning to me.

Yeah, yeah. I used to have the actual one on my wall. Then I was like, I can't do this anymore. This needs to be locked up somewhere else. That's like a very expensive piece of wall decoration. Maybe a little bit too pricey to just leave hanging there. Yeah, I mean, if this was the real original times, that would be worth a hell of a lot more. This is just a print. So I can hang that on the wall. These are all prints. Prints, whatever.

I don't have really anything of great value on the wall other than my OG BlockLock, which is really, it's like a piece of art itself. But if you had the original times, Chancellor on the break, that thing I think is sold for over a million easy. It's probably the most valuable physical piece of Bitcoin that doesn't have private key. They made a cassatius. They made a, Mike made a handful of cassatius rounds that were like one ounce gold coins that had a thousand Bitcoin on them.

And they weren't preloaded. All these other ones are preloaded. This one's like, you have to load it yourself. And I think Charlie Lee has one that's loaded or Bobby Lee's. There's like a couple people. So it's like, yeah, okay, maybe that's worth more than, but that's like, well, that's Bitcoin, right? So it's more as like a piece of like collectible that's not, doesn't have a private key on it. Probably the times is the most valuable piece you could think of, which is fine.

I think of how many like birds shit on it or hamsters or whatever, you know, like in somebody's cage in England. It's like countless. That, that's just nuts. I love these kind of early day stories because like it just, it seems so insane to think of people just handing out coin, like rolls of these coins with one Bitcoin. On each, like that just sounds like that sounds nuts. Yeah. But it's like, it's, it's all relative, right?

Like at the time it was five bucks and granted, you know, thanks to inflation, five bucks bought, bought like five US dollars bought a lot more back then. You know, you could actually get a sandwich for five bucks. You could, but, but, but that's just nuts that it's like, this was just, yeah, hey, let's spread the good word about Bitcoin.

This guy did this cool thing where he put, you know, put Bitcoin into a physical object that you can hold cool, lets people kind of literally have something tangible they can hold onto a little bit more, maybe help some grok it a bit. It did. It helped. That's exactly why they made them and it helped a lot of people. Did you, you know, like, so back, back in, in those days, like, obviously there was not like Bitcoin Twitter at that point.

I mean, maybe some people were talking about on Twitter, right? Like how fitting in a pretty early, you know, early Bitcoin tweet there. Yeah. But like mostly this was on, this was on Bitcoin talk. This was on other forums. This was on like these smaller podcasts. Like it was it. I guess how was like the vibe back then when it was like relatively speaking, it was wildly increasing in value.

So obviously, like, there was a lot of monetized interest in this in terms of like people want to make money. But what, you know, like that, that meme of like, you know, like, you know, Bitcoiners in like 2011 Bitcoiners now and it's like, you know, like the big jacked like dog and then it's like the little like hip dog. Like, I mean, is that pretty true? Like, have is it much softer now?

I guess is that a way to put it like less liberty minded or how do you feel the vibe has changed over these years? I think the, okay. Yeah. So it started out like 2011 early, late 2011 into 2012, the place where you could actually earn 100% of your income in a circular economy with Bitcoin was New Hampshire. It was like the only place. And I could say that because that's exactly what it by the end of 2012, I had accomplished that. It was cool. I was cleaning people's houses.

I was getting paid in Bitcoin to do it by people who were also earning Bitcoin through podcasts or whatever. So it was great. Like I was able to do that. I was selling food at events and whatever, like on a weekly basis. Most people paid in cash. Some people paid in silver and some people paid in Bitcoin. So it's kind of cool. Like 2012, this is very Bitcoin was a very Liberty oriented thing. And that was like, it was like a bear market for the half the year. The price was like five bucks.

Summer time it jumped up to like 78. By the end it was like getting close to 20 bucks or something in 2030. And then by the start of 2013, it was like 2013 was like such a huge, huge bull market. I mean, we saw it go to like 266 in April and then a thousand bucks by the end of the year.

But, but like that run up, I remember going to a, I started working for BitInstant, which was like one of the very early ways to buy Bitcoin with, it was like no KYC, paid in cash, you go to a drug store, they had like just red money, grand phones. And you would money, grand money to this company, ZipZap. Once they received it, they told BitInstant, we got it. And then we sent the people to the Bitcoin and they could, you could buy it for like 300 bucks at a time. No KYC. It was great.

It was awesome. And then regulators cracked down on it by the mid 2013, but it was a cool service. And I, and I feel like so honored to have been a part of that. You can actually see, if you ever watch the documentary, The Rise and Rise of Bitcoin, it was like the first Bitcoin documentary they're filming in there. And I'm in there briefly. You can see me in the documentary. It was a cool time. That was run by Charlie Shrem, just a really, really cool early Bitcoin company.

But like I was in New York working, I was working remote mostly, but there was a couple weeks there like when they're specifically when they were filming Charlie's like, Hey, let's get over to the office. So I was in the city and I went to a Bitcoin meetup. And this was like right when the whole thing was Cyprus and like the government taking money from back, you know, like that whole thing was going down in like March 2013. And Bitcoin was blowing up, like really popping off.

And it was that run up to 266. I was, I was in the New York City office at the time. The film crew was there. I was just like so much hype. And I went to a Bitcoin meetup in town while I was there. I was like, why the hell not? What else am I going to do other than just work the whole time? So I go to this meetup and I start talking to people and I'm like, yeah, yeah. And I'm there like 10, 15 minutes and I'm like, holy shit, this isn't, this is not a room full of Ann Capps.

And I was just like, what is going on? It was the weirdest experience. And it was my first time at a Bitcoin thing where I'm like, it's not liberty oriented people. These are people who are like, they just want to make money or they have like different ideas. And my initial reaction wasn't like, oh, the heart of Bitcoin, what it's supposed to be about is dead.

I just, I kind of started to realize I'm like, there's just going to be some people that get into Bitcoin that I'm not going to agree with, right? And I kind of, I kind of already understood that from living in New Hampshire where it's like, oh, you're going to move to New Hampshire, you're going to live with all these liberal oriented people and they're all going to be your best friends. No, it's like, okay, cool. Yeah, we like the same things.

Like we have the same kind of philosophical beliefs, but you're still a fucking asshole, right? There's still plenty of that. And there's still, you're not going to just be friends with everybody. It's like, just imagine now, you'd be friends with everybody because they're in a Bitcoin. It's stupid. So I kind of already gone through that where I'm like, just because these people like a thing I like doesn't mean we're going to be best friends and that's okay.

So I kind of just like went with that. Now it's kind of just understood, right? That we say like, oh, Bitcoin's for enemies, right? It's just, but back then it was a little weird. So there are a lot of people even today that are like, oh, the idea of Bitcoin, you know, using it as money or whatever, that's dead. You can't do that anymore. It's been co-opted, whatever.

And it's like, yeah, there are people that you disagree with and don't like that are used in ways that you don't like, but you know what? You could still use Bitcoin how you want to. That's not, and you can still have those, it still works, right? As long as that still is a thing, as long as you can still use Bitcoin for the transactions, they say you're not allowed to do, it hasn't failed.

You know, once that happens, once it's like, oh, you can't use Bitcoin anymore for the legal stuff or whatever, then I would consider it a failure. But it's still just, it's still just a strong, like if you're very liberty oriented, whatever, whatever you want Bitcoin to be, it could still be that, right? Like from that point of view, there's just a lot more people who they don't care about that. And that's not why they're here. They're fine with custodial, whatever.

They love Kamala Harris or whatever. You know, like, okay, you just have to accept that. That's the reality. Wherever you are on your Bitcoin journey, you know that it's all about doing the work. No one can go down the rabbit hole for you, and sometimes that's kind of scary.

But that's why you should go to bitbox.swiss.walker and use the promo code Walker for 5% off the easy to use, fully open source, Bitcoin only, Bitbox 02 hardware wallet, then do the work to get your Bitcoin off the exchange and into your own self custody. The Bitbox team is awesome. They build easy to use, secure open source solutions to keep your Bitcoin safe.

And not only is the Bitcoin in your Bitbox safe from government confiscation, but Bitbox is one of the only two wallets to actually address the dark, skippy vulnerability. So you are in luck. Plus, and I cannot emphasize this part enough. The Bitbox 02 is just easy as hell to use, whether you are brand new to Bitcoin in this your very first time ever setting up a hardware wallet, or you are a well seasoned psychopath. It is Bitcoin only. And again, it is fully open source.

You can head to their GitHub and verify that for yourself. Don't trust me or Bitbox. When you go to bitbox.swiss.walker and use the promo code Walker, not only do you get 5% off, but you also help support this fucking podcast. So thank you. Well, and that is kind of like the that is the incredible thing about Bitcoin. I would also agree with you that if you if Bitcoin is no longer fuck you money, that's kind of a failure, right?

But I think that in order for Bitcoin to be what the people who are in it only for the monetary side, like only for in the NGO, and that's fine, like do whatever the fuck you want, have whatever motivations you want. That's fine. But in order for it to stay that pristine asset, it needs to also be fuck you money. Because if it's not fuck you money, that means it's been somehow centralized, captured, whatever. And then the massive monetary premium on this pristine asset starts to go away.

Because that means then there's the greater possibility of, you know, some sort of tail emissions or some sort of bullshit being added. So it's like, I think that like the NGO and the, you know, the number go up and the freedom go up kind of have to go hand in hand. And that's like, that's beautiful. That's like the, the NGO is kind of the, the Trojan horse into the, the FGU. Like it's, it's, it's gonna have, and like that's a beautiful thing. So it's like, yeah, okay.

Wall Street, like, you know, you can, you can pump our bags and that's fine. We're still gonna use this fuck you money. And by the way, fuck you. Yeah. Exactly. Yep. You know, eat shit guys. But what was I gonna say? Just that, I guess, in that time, I guess. So I'm kind of curious about like your, your orange pilling experiences, whether or not you like the word orange pill.

I've got, I've gone in circles around this, whether or not I like that is like, cause it's really like you're, you know, you're giving some of the orange pill. Like it's almost somewhat condescending in certain ways. Like, cause at least for me, it was like, I kind of had to, I kind of had to like, you have to make that jump on your own, that final jump. Like I think somebody can kind of get your foot in the door, but like you have to kind of go down that rabbit hole a little bit alone.

Maybe we should start calling it like an orange depository or something. Yeah. Bend over and take it. Yeah. Yeah. That's really how Bitcoin hits you, right? Right up the ass. Yeah. The invisible hand of Bitcoin is like, okay, I've got you over a barrel and the, you know, it's either me or the state basically. So, you know, pop it up. And eventually you're just like, you know what, just put another one up there. It's fine. It was great. I will take those, those orange depositories. That's great.

I'm very regular now. But, you know, so like, do you still, or in that time, did you try to like quote orange pill or orange depository people a lot? And did that, do you still do that to the same extent that you did or has it changed for you in a way just because of the place we're at in the adoption curve? So I think everybody goes through this. When you get into Bitcoin, you go through that phase where you're just like, I got it. I'm never going to stop talking about this thing.

You become like the, like the horse people, you know, where they just never shut up the door. The only people worse than Bitcoiners are probably pilots. As somebody who's gone through flight school. So like I was at a Bitcoin meetup once. It was very small when there was like nine of us and I started talking about flight school at the time when I was flying. And like it turned out like there were four other pilots. We overtook it.

There were more pilots there than Bitcoiners and we just turned into a aviation meetup and I was like, oh my God, I found a group worse than Bitcoiners. But yeah, in general, Bitcoiners are pretty bad. They're, they want to, they do not, especially the early days. They do not shut the fuck up about Bitcoin. And man, we get, we get pretty loud about it, especially with the friends and loved ones. We've all been there, I think, to some degree.

And yeah, early on, I, I just all, it's all I wanted to talk about. And I was already big on like the Liberty movement stuff. So I was already, I wouldn't shut the hell up about that. And then you throw in the Bitcoin stuff, right? And I tell you when it was a bear market, people would just be like, you're an idiot. You're going to lose all your money. And then 2013 hits, you know, cause 2012 Thanksgiving and stuff like that.

I remember getting arguments with cousins and people are just like, what the hell are you doing? Like you have a fan, like you're, you're just complete dumb ass. Like you're just going to ruin your whole life and ruin the lives of kids and all. And it's like, and then 2013 hits and the price goes up, right? And so many people are just like, holy shit, you're a genius. How can I make all this money? What's the next coin? Right?

That's what it would start to is like, what's the next of the ICOs 2014, right? All that, all that shit. Eventually, like 20 or like later on, like 2016, 17, whatever, but that's how the cycles would be. So you get the price will go up, then it would crash and it's like, oh, I'm an idiot again. Right? I'm the stupid cousin.

I'm the dumb ass, whatever, even though the price is higher than what it was a few years ago when I was talking about it, even in the bear market, but whatever that's irrelevant. I'm a dumb ass. And then, you know, 2017 rolls around and it's like, oh, I'm the genius again. And then they mount Cox or I'm sorry. Then like everything happens, you know, or another bear market hits and whatever you get it, right? Like that's, it just goes back and forth with that.

But eventually, I just would stop talking about it with people. And that's kind of where I'm at now. I don't go out of my way to orange pill people. If they really want to know, and it's like a friend or family, I'll have them come over, you know, help them set up a wallet. I'll even, you know, do like a peer to peer transaction where they pay in cash and like, you know, no KYC. Here you go. I send you Bitcoin. You give me cash. This is how we should be doing it. Don't set up a Coinbase account.

You know, they do this, but eventually they do that anyways. They want their KYC shit. I get it. But I don't go out of my way to do that anymore. But yeah, early on, very passionate about it. I think the people who are tend to be attracted to Bitcoin, especially not just like to make money, but like for like freedom minded stuff, they probably tend to be more passionate and want to talk about things like that. They want to talk about their passions, be it Bitcoin or whatever.

So yeah, we just, we don't know when to shut the fuck up. We don't know when to read the room. We just keep talking about Bitcoin. And eventually what happens is, yeah, like I said, this will be my 13th year. I'll be on Bitcoin 13 years next month. And eventually you just, you just have to realize like, Hey, I don't need, if somebody tells me I'm an idiot, that's fine. I'm just like, yeah, I am an idiot. Right. I actually, I'm retarded and that's fine.

But like, you kind of just let your life speak for you. Right. You don't need to justify the decisions you live, the decisions you make. Like I don't need to justify decisions I make to people. Very rarely do I ever feel the need to justify myself to people with rare exception, maybe like my wife and kids, right? But like in general, like to some random person who thinks I'm an idiot, think I'm an idiot. I'm gonna fuck. Like you really have to just not care about what people think.

And that's really easy to say that. And I think we all say that when we're younger because we do care. And that's our way of coping by saying, I don't care when you do. Right. But you have to reach a point where you're just like, I don't need to convince this person. And it's not worth convincing. It's not worth my time. If they want to really know and they ask me sincerely, I'll be there, right? Like I'll be there if you need me, but like I'm not going to go out of my way to do this.

And it really sucks in some levels because like having to watch so many friends struggle, so many people who had Bitcoin and didn't hold. And then, yeah, there's just a lot of that. And it kind of sucked, but it's like you can't live their lives. You can't live their lives. Like you can only live your own and live by example, I guess. But like, if they don't want to take the risks and get involved in Bitcoin, then that's on them. Yeah, I mean, you can't save everyone, right?

And I feel that, like, feel very much your kind of arc there. And because it was the same for me. It was like when I first started going down the rabbit hole. And like, ironically, it's like when you are least knowledgeable about it, you feel need to try and educate most. And granted, it's not that I have stopped trying to educate people. It's just doing it in a more internet-first way.

Like, having a place where it's like, okay, if you are interested, like you can come and listen to this podcast or see things I write about it, like whatever. But initially, it was like, I just need to tell everyone and anyone and all my friends about this. And for people like us and for most Bitcoiners, like it does come from like a place of love. It comes from a place of, I realize what's happening now. Like I feel that my eyes are open now more thanks to Bitcoin.

And I want other people to have that experience and to also have this lifeboat that they can hop into. So, you know, we'll all be saved. Yeah. It's like, you know, you've got to put on your own airflow mask or whatever in the airplane before you help others, right? And so it's like, okay, you get to a point where it's just like, boy, this is, I can only tell people so many times and they can only not listen so many times before it's just like, okay, fuck it.

If you're interested, you know, yeah, hit me up, but I'm going to stop pushing this in any way. And that's kind of where I'm at. I mean, you're, how open you are to risk too, really plays into that. Like to me, when I got into, when I started understanding Bitcoin early on, and I mean, not to say I understand Bitcoin, I feel like it's a lifelong journey that you're, you'll never fully understand Bitcoin, maybe like two people in the world, right? Kind of thing. And I'm not, I'm only one of them.

So, you know, that's just, that's just the reality of it. But like the more you learn, the more you learn that you don't know, the more you understand that you don't understand Bitcoin. And that's okay. And that's fine. But we, I looked at it as like, it seemed like a risky thing, but the more I did understand it, the more I was like, not having Bitcoin's the real risk, right?

Like, okay, the price goes up and down, but like, at the end of the day, it's like, even during the worst of the bear markets, I'd be like, has anything really changed other than the price? Like Bitcoin, you know, new blocks are still being found on, you know, 10 minutes on average. Nothing has changed fundamentally. So why would my belief in this change? And that's what kind of kept me going.

I mean, I think you need to really, especially early days when there weren't books and stuff, you really needed like some good, good altism to get through that. You know, like that's really what helped because I mean, what did we have? We didn't have like this echo chamber.

We had Bitcoin talk, which was like, I mean, you can call that an echo chamber, but whatever, you know, it was just a bunch of audits and, and like some Facebook groups, you know, even before Reddit, a lot of it was on Facebook, just like with local, you know, local people that we knew and stuff when we talk about Bitcoin. But it wasn't, we didn't have like the facts like we do now, right? The facts, like, you know, Bitcoin standard or whatever, things like that.

Like it wasn't, it wasn't as well thought out, well written things, well made arguments yet about Bitcoin. They were just, you know, still getting started. So yeah, like that, I think is why a lot of people weren't able to hold in those early days. And you got to kind of be careful orange peeling people because some people do get in, especially the timing of it, they get in during a bull market and then it crashes and then they sell it at a loss and now it's like, what the fuck, man?

What did you do? Like I got screwed. You screwed me. You screwed them, you know?

Yeah. So yeah, you really do have to be careful with just like blabbing about Bitcoin to everybody who will listen even if they don't want to or whatever because I don't know, man, not everybody, not everybody's like gung-ho about it into it as you and doesn't have like that, that level of passion to hold through things like that, you know, or something happens and they have to sell it because of hospital bills or whatever. I don't know, like things happen, right?

So I found that to be like something I started being careful about and what I did now, what I've done now in the past is I have a huge family. My family's Greek and I have like, there's like 31st cousins total between my mom and dad's side. Damn. Yeah. So there's a lot of kids and like they all have kids. Well, they're not old, but you know, most of them have kids now and they're getting married. You know, my kids are, they're not teenagers anymore. My twin girls, you met them in Nashville.

Yeah. And so it's like, yeah, I mean, I have few youth who know it's like I'm going to be a grandpa soon. And I don't know, like, you know, five, 10 years, it seems pretty reasonable. But what I've done, a lot of my cousins who I talked to about Bitcoin way back in the early days, I weren't really into it.

What I've done now is I've gifted their kids Bitcoin where it's like, hey, now they have it, they have like a small amount or whatever part of their savings, kind of like giving like a savings bond kind of thing back in the day you would do, which we wouldn't fucking do that now. No. It's a much better way to save. So I think that was a great way to do it where it's like, okay, fine, you don't want to have Bitcoin, your kid's going to have Bitcoin.

And I have friends who are like, call me idiots for being a Bitcoin or way back when. And it's like, yeah, they're their baby daughter, I hope is going to be wealthier than them by the time that kid is 18, right? With that little bit of Bitcoin that they have, that'd be hilarious. I think that's a great way to do it though. It's like, listen, you know, like you can't turn down a nice gift for your kid.

Like you could do whatever you want parents like still, you know, think, think I'm an idiot, but like, hey, your kid is getting this and they're, you know, they're not going to touch it for however many years and by that time it's going to give them a heck of a lot more purchasing power than it does right now. I think that's a beautiful way to do it.

And yeah, delicious irony of like, you know, this kid has this little, little, you know, gift now that turns into something that is worth a heck of a lot more like in, you know, 10, 15, 20 years. Yeah. It's kind of beautiful. Yeah. And then I get to call them up one day and be like, haha, who's the dumb ass now? Told you so. I mean, yeah, it's the kid with it. And you know, you trust them that they're not going to steal from their kid. But you know, I would hope not.

But yeah, but yeah, also like with more with closer relatives like my mom, my sister, my dad, my parents, my sister, I would just hold for them, like set up accounts for them. Or in my mom's case, back in the back in like 2012, 2013, we had a family phone plan and I was on her plan and I would just give her cash for my portion of it. I would just give her like six months at a time. And I remember 2013, I was like, Hey, can I just pay you in Bitcoin? Because that's how I'm earning my salary.

And she's like, okay, I guess whatever. And I was like, okay, cool. I paid you, I'll pay you in Bitcoin. So I paid her in Bitcoin. And then I was like, what do I do with this? I'm like, that's the thing. Nothing. I'm not going to let you, even I didn't even give her the keys. I was just like, here you go. I'm paying you in Bitcoin. By the way, now you have to hold this and you don't get to do anything with it. So I was paying her paying this phone bill for a few years before I got my own plan.

And then like any other time something came up with something with my kids or whatever and I had to give her money for something, I would just give her Bitcoin. So she just had like this little stash. And then eventually she'd started buying someone around just doing like, you know, just a little DCA, you know, dollar-cost averaging, just buying some here and there maybe like 50 bucks at a time or something.

And then she really started getting into it, especially during bear markets when she'd see the price crash and she'd be like, text me like, Oh, we just got to this low. The third, you know, as low as it's been in six months, I'm just, I got to buy some. I was going to, you know, save for this vacation, but screw it. I just got to put this money into Bitcoin and I'm like, cool. And she retired eventually, you know, a few years back.

And now her Bitcoin holdings are worth more than her 401k and a job she worked at for 30 some years, you know, and it's like so cool. And now she's cash, she's started cashing it out this year. It's not a lot, but it's enough where they have a, they have a retirement home in Florida. It's where they always wanted to live and my mom and dad are so happy there. And it's this nice little house, it's this tiny little house they bought in like early 2000s, so it was pretty cheap.

And now they're basically, they've just doubled the size of it through Bitcoin. And it's like, Hey, what else do you want to, like what was the point of holding? And if you like, they don't need to take it to the grave. They don't need to give it to me, right? Like I want, I'm so happy for them. Like you now have this house that's like so cool. It's big enough now where my kids can come down there.

They have their own bedroom, their own bathroom, you have a sunroom, you have all these extra things that you wanted. And it's like, yeah, you weren't able to do that if it wasn't for Bitcoin. And to me, it's like, that's so cool that that happened all because, you know, just some little bills here and there. You know, so I love that. Yeah. Well, it's like, it goes back to two kind of like this power of dollar cost averaging.

Like when I, if I do now, like if, you know, I started to have a couple of friends who like reached out again, you know, once price starts going back up a little bit, people like come out of the woodwork, you know, you're still into that Bitcoin thing. Yeah. It's like, yeah, yeah, like that cute little hobby you have that weird nerd hobby. But I now just like, you know, do it.

I won't tell you what to do with your money, but what I do is I buy a little bit every day, you know, I buy a couple bucks worth and it's the same as way to do it. Yeah. Because then they're also not going to get like, you don't know, like if you tell somebody like, yeah, you should check out Bitcoin. They're like, okay, you know, I, I aped in right here at the, at the, at this cycle top. And you're like, oh no, maybe you should have not have done that right now.

Cause you're going to, like you said, you're going to, you know, we're going to go down a lot and you're going to hate me for a while. Blame me for your decision, which like I didn't, you know, hold a gun to your head. But it's like, that's why DCA is so nice. Cause it's just like, yep, just level this out a little bit every day. You don't even, you know, notice it's, it's, it's happening. And then you can check it in a few years and you'll be very happy with yourself. Like it's.

And it's nice that so many different platforms automate that now, but it's also like, boy, just back to the whole KYC thing that is kind of like a bitch is that most of the ways that are easy for people to get Bitcoin these days involve a very ridiculous amount of overreaching KYC. And like that sucks. And I mean, from what you were saying, you know, like you were earning it, obviously you were exchanging it peer to peer where there's just a lot more options for that.

Like before regulators came in and start, you know, like, Oh, you're operating without a money transmitter license or whatever. Like, was it just a lot easier to get no, you know, non KYC Bitcoin that time, like mining aside, like I'm talking about just peer to peer exchange. Yeah. I mean, that's kind of a sad reality that we live in with Bitcoin is it was KYC free Bitcoin was just kind of the standard for the longest time. And now that's like way harder to do. It's not impossible.

Maybe I mean, there's still options for it, but there's just so many easier KYC options that people just choose that instead. And I get it. And there's also like the fear of like, well, the government could come after me, right? Like that's a legitimate fear. You know, if you get too big, your business, I mean, so much of that happened. I mean, I used to sell on local Bitcoins back in the day. I used local Bitcoins all the time because I was 100% of my income was paying Bitcoin.

I was working for a blockchain.info. I spent five years there. My wife spent seven. I was like, I'm gonna give my first two employees like we were getting paid in Bitcoin from like 2013 or whatever. And I needed cash to pay bills and stuff. So I would go on local Bitcoins. I sell some and then I would, you know, meet people in person. They give me cash. I would just go to like Starbucks or whatever. You go to like a public place.

You know, it's like that scene in Breaking Bad where they like they, they meet in the the dump or whatever. And they're like, why don't we just go to the mall? Because it's like, yeah, go to a place where there's a ton of people, of course, you know, especially some of us. And I'm like, I don't always cap it out of certain like, I wouldn't do more than like a thousand bucks or something. Cause it's like, I don't know these people. I don't know.

And if anyone ever said like, oh, I can't wait to buy drugs on Silk Road. I'm like, this sounds like a setup. I'm out cause like you have to be really careful. People got busted for that where, you know, the buyer said they were going to do something illegal with it. And then the seller still took their money. And then it's like, it was actually a cop or something. There's just weird stories like that. But entrapment. Like, I don't know. So bad. It's just absurd. Yeah. It is insane.

So there's even, even by the, the last few years that local Bitcoin was still easy to use without KYC before that whole way of buying and selling Bitcoin got pretty much shut down. There were still a lot of concern, not just like you're meeting people in person. You got to be careful, but like government stuff. Even though you're not committing, there's no crime. It's not illegal, by the way.

You can just like, if you were here right now, if we were in person, I could just sell you Bitcoin for cash. We're not breaking any laws. But they don't want you to do that. And they'll make you look like a criminal, right? I mean, and just speaking of, speaking of Silk Road days and making people look like criminals, like we, you saw these examples being made like Ross. It's like, all sorts of ridiculous.

You still see people who like, if you post about Ross, will be like, yeah, but he was hiring Hitman and all this stuff. And it's like, oh, are you talking about the entrapment? That he was also not charged for, but you give somebody two life sentences in 40 years without the chance of parole for creating an open marketplace on the internet, which is just like, it's just insane. It's sickening. Like, and what he just finished, this would be his 12th year now.

Yeah. I mean, it's so gross that even I'm like fine, I'll vote for Trump.

Like, as gross as that is, you know, I'm like, I'm just going to be like whatever, just okay, fine, like whatever, because man, that's like, look Walker, if you're in prison for life, like if that's you or anyone, anybody I know who's a friend or whatever, like, and they're in that same situation, I'll just vote for the guy that I don't really care for who's because it's like, okay, now you have a greater than 0% chance of being free. Because right now you have a 0% chance.

So I know you're not a big politics guy. Hi there, Ross. Well, no, honestly, when I, when I saw you post about that, like I was like, damn, okay, because I know that you're not using the, you know, you were a raw politics type. No. I mean, it is like Ross very much deserves to be free. There's really, I mean, let's be honest, there's no chance I'm going to vote for Kamala. So right, right. Like if I do vote, I mean, I also, I'm in Illinois, so my vote's basically like a Californian vote.

Yeah, yeah. It doesn't matter very much. But yeah, I truly hope that Trump keeps his word that, you know, if he is elected, he will do that on day one because it's like, man, I can't even imagine like you see now, you know, Julian Assange just speaking of other people unjustly and grossly prosecuted. I mean, seeing those videos of him like finally being out in the sunlight after so many years, just literally in solitary. Yeah. I just can't even imagine what that inhumane treatment.

It's disgusting. It's so gross. These people in power are just absolutely just vile, disgusting creatures, you know, on all sides. There's really only one side. It's just, it's just these terrible humans, you know, that they're just fighting amongst each other for power. And it's gross. Like that whole system is just disgusting, but they can do whatever they want because they control the men with guns. They make the rules. They're allowed to do it.

They print their money, you know, and that's where, to me, like I came to Bitcoin through the ideas of liberty. And I look at Bitcoin as like those ideas actually happening because I, you know, like it's cool to read about things like on a philosophical level and how these things could work and blah, blah, blah. But like the end of the day, I'm a practical guy. I'm not, I'm not really a book guy. I'm not really like, I learn better through like fiction than nonfiction.

I don't read nonfiction ever. I read like one nonfiction book a year maybe. And I probably read like 60 fiction books a year. Like I get more out of that. Like that influences me more like my ideas and everything and helps me understand ideas better than like a nonfiction book. So like I'm a very practical person. I need to see things working to really be like, okay, you can have these ideas.

I mean, like I call myself an Ann Cap at heart, but I'm like, yeah, a lot of it's just philosophical shit. Like I don't know, like I would have some of this shit work in reality, whatever. I don't really care like to sit there and dwell on it too much. To me, it seems pointless. I just want to see like, I want to see things working. And Bitcoin is like the first time ever where something is like, oh, it's those ideas are actually brought to life.

It's the closest thing we have to like the, the, the ideas of like a free society, a free money, because people can be like, I hate Bitcoin. I'm not going to use it. And you can just be like, okay, no, don't use it. It's fine. But like, I don't want you to use it then. I'm actually like, I'm one of the, I'm like, I consider myself Bitcoin maxi, but like at the same time, I'm fine with the world where there's other altcoins and shit, the other shit coins or whatever you want to use.

You want to use, I know, I know so many people that prefer to use Monero use Monero then I don't care. I messed around with it way back when I was like, okay, this seems kind of cool. I like, like privacy is a huge concern for me. And I, you know, it's huge concern, my biggest concern with Bitcoin. I'm one of my biggest. And like, if you want to use Monero, fine, I don't like, go ahead. Like you should be able to freely use that if you want to. And I might think it's stupid.

I'm not going to use it, but like, you should have that freedom to do that. I don't want to be in a world where your only choice is Bitcoin. That kind of sounds dystopian to me. Like, yeah. Well, yeah, there's a, I think just like back to you said about like a practical solution, right? I think that is the beauty of Bitcoin because so many, and I think this is why you see so many people, you see so much nihilism and negativity and despair in so many corners of the world.

And then you hang out with Bitcoiners and you're like, holy shit, everybody's so positive. Everybody's so hopeful. Everybody's so excited about the future while being realistic about the fucked upness of the present. But I think that's because so many people who consider themselves very like awake and aware and they may be, they may know what the problem is, but they don't actually have a solution.

Like it's a lot of just like shouting in their own echo chambers of other, you know, awake, red-pilled people who are like, yeah, like this is a problem. And yeah, the government is overreaching. And yes, you know, all these things, like they have control of everything, CBD, Caesar. But then it's like, those people are so primed to make that jump to Bitcoin. But I think still it's like, until that problem becomes very real for them, a lot of them won't.

And until then they just keep kind of yelling into the void, correctly identifying the problems that we have, but not having a solution that actually makes them hopeful about the future. And that's exactly what happened in 2011. I just snapped. I was like, I can't, I can't pretend, I can't be this like normal, just like pretending to live in a normal world thing anymore. Like everything I was feeling in my brain just, just had to come out.

And I just, anyone who knew me pre 2011, pretty much probably looks at it as like a midlife crisis kind of thing. I mean, I was like 30 or something at the time, 31, something like that. And it was just, I just completely snapped because I'm like, I can't pretend to be this person living in this just like normally fucking world, normally fucking job, bullshit. You know, I tried to do this and I just can't do that. I can't be me, you know, and I'm just, I look back on that.

And that was just like the most pivotal moment of my life, you know, that whole, that whole year, everything, everything, I mean, it was like, I changed everything about my diet. I went from like eating just standard American garbage to just like full on like keto, no more seed oils, all the stuff like, so much happened in 2011 for me on Bitcoin or whatever.

You know, it was like a rock bottom moment and I think that's what people, people need to, some people need to, not everybody, but some people need to experience that rather than just like feel like, oh, it's hopeless, whatever. And then just go to your shitty job doing your dumb shit, you know, whatever, hanging out with people that you're not even really friends with anymore, but like it's, it's comfortable because you've known them for so long and you don't have real conversations.

You just talk about football, whatever, you know, you'll talk about feelings or anything like we don't do that shit. You know, we're men, whatever, whatever. You're just not being honest with yourself at the end of the day, right? That's the problem. And you don't, you don't have the fucking balls to just do, to be that way because it's fucking hard dude. It's, and it sucks.

It sucks so much because you're just like basically throwing yourself out of like the society you live in to be like, fuck this man, I'm not doing this anymore. I'm just going to go figure this out on my own. I don't care if that means I'm going to be scrubbing toilets or whatever. Like I'm just going to fucking figure something else out. I got to get out of this, right? Like it's like the waking up from the matrix. I know that's like the analogy, right?

The whole waking up from the matrix thing, but it is. I mean, and it's like, that's not, it's not like, Hey, you woke up, check it out. Now you're in the fairy land. No, you're in a place that's fucking worse actually. Cause now you understand what's really going on and it sucks and you want to go back actually. You have those times where like, please just plug me back in. This sucks, but you'll never go back cause you just can't. And you just don't, we wouldn't want to. But it is hard.

Yeah, it's a fitting analogy though, right? The real world like, Oh wow, like your own plugged in this, like this kind of sucks. Like this is pretty fucked up, huh? Like it was, it was nicer back there with my steak that tastes just like steak and like, you know, cozy bed. It feels just like a bed, but it's like out here. It's wild. Like, yeah, but Bitcoin's like a thing that like is so much of, and it's true. Like when you go to conferences and you meet Bitcoiners, I love going to these things.

Cause like I, I love being irrelevant now. Like I, I tell us to Bitcoiners all the time. Like embrace the relevance when you get to that point in your life, especially people that are like A-listers right now or B-listers where like you, right? Like I'd put you somewhere between A and B. A minus maybe? Yeah, yeah. Probably, yeah. I mean like you, you and your, you and your wife, you guys really blew up. I mean, you guys, you know, host the big events and stuff. We did not plan this.

I'll say that. Nobody plans it. It just, but you bust your ass and yeah, but I mean, right place, right time, but also great work ethic and whatever. I mean, you build it, right? And that's awesome. Good for you. It's gonna be a time when you're relevant at Bitcoin stuff and you're gonna love it. I'm telling you, just, just love it.

Don't ever get, cause the people that I think that they're such a big part of Bitcoin or we have, we, there's so many stories of these people, you know, like, like Gavin and whatever Mike Hearn, all these, all these people were there just like, oh, Bitcoin's failed because of whatever. And then it's like, actually it hasn't. And you're an idiot. Yeah. So it's like, you reach that point where you're just like, yeah, I served my time and now I'm just going to go to these things and have fun.

And there's a new group of people that are up and coming and they're doing all these things. I mean, I love it. That's my favorite part. It's, there's two things I love most about Bitcoin conferences. Well, there's the main thing is like what you said, the positivity.

We all know how fucked everything is, but I've never been more positive in life ever than I am when I'm wearing Bitcoiners because it's like so many people are building in many different ways, whether it's like building on Bitcoin, building families that are like, not just like anybody can have kid, right?

But like building real family, like where like things are really important and like focusing on that and to be better like, we all fuck up, we're all going to make mistakes for raising kids, right? We're human beings, but like focusing on how to be the best dad possible, best mom possible, how to give, give your kids the best food possible, all those things. So important. There's so many more things to it than just, you know, old Bitcoin, right? There's so much more to it than that.

But then there's a, so that's like my, the main thing I love and that comes from people that have been in Bitcoin a long time, people who are just getting in, but I love going to see my friends that have been around for a long time. It's always nice catching up, seeing people that, you know, I've known for a long ass time in Bitcoin, even some I've known since before Bitcoin that we've been friends, you know, and they're Bitcoiners. And then I also love seeing the new people that are so excited.

That's probably my most favorite thing, like especially like, I remember when I met you when you were just, you and your wife, when you guys were just getting into Bitcoin and I love that energy and that, that like you just want to do so much, like you're just trying to do so much to have it to be a part of your life. And I can relate to that as somebody went through that. You'll go through burnout then. But it's still, that comes later. At least maybe not for everybody, it's good for me.

But we definitely had some, like after doing like a really intense conference circuit, like what, like, or in 2022, we'd like, we did a lot of conferences and like it's awesome, but man, do you just get wiped. Like, like, like, unbelievable, like you're like, charged up at the conference, but then afterwards you're just like, like 1000 miles stare.

It's a, it's a weird place where you're, you know, you're burning out and you know, you're overextending yourself, but there's literally nothing else in the world you want to do. You just wake up and you're like, I'm just going to, I, it's a weird spot to be in because it was the same thing for my wife and I working together at a, you know, Bitcoin startup, where it's like every day, it was just 24 seven. It was our life.

You know, we were doing, we were doing all the customer service stuff for blockchain.net. That info back in the day and like we go on vacation and we're just working, you know, we would go, we do stuff on vacation, but then it's like, okay, let's go back and get the work done. You know, and it was just, but that's what we wanted to do. But then like when we both stopped, I needed like a year to get over the burnout. She worked even longer than I did. She was there seven years. I was there five.

I was like, fuck this. She was there seven and she needed like a year and a half, almost two years just to just not feel burned out anymore. It's just nuts, dude, but it's a wild ride and it's such a great feeling. I love that energy that people have and I love the ideas that people bring. There's, I've just seen so many people come in. Like I remember seeing like Lynn Alden when she just started popping up in Bitcoin and I'm just like, oh my God, this woman is just incredible.

Like she's the best, right? Like I love it. But then I also just like meet people that are just like, yeah, I'm a rancher and I'm in a Bitcoin bubble and I'm like, this is so cool. Those are the people that excite me the most. It's not the Michael sailors. It's the, you know, it's the people just, just normalize people, you know? I don't get excited about billionaires or whatever. Like it doesn't really do anything for me.

I'm really into like the thousandaires that are getting into Bitcoin, you know? Like, that's to be like, I love that energy. Because they, I feel like they have, they're risking more. They have more to lose. You know, if Bitcoin goes to zero, Michael sailors probably gonna be okay. Let's be real. Even though he holds as much as he holds, he's probably fine. Bitcoin goes to zero. A lot of us are gonna be working McDonald's, you know? That's the reality if we're lucky.

Not that I, not that I fear that, but that's, you know, you know what I mean? Like that's, to me, I feel like they have even more skin in the game. Even though on paper he has more like dollar, dollar value, but I feel like spiritually just and just like energy level and everything these people have put, they're putting it all into Bitcoin, like everything they have, not just money, but like their livelihoods, everything. And I respect that. Like I love being around people like that.

It's like a really cool thing and it's contagious. You come home from these conferences and my mom and my kids, man, they've never gone to one of these things. They didn't know what to expect. And they're, my kids are like, yeah, I'll go one day and then whatever. I'm just gonna hang around Nashville. And every day they just got FOMO and they're like, yeah, we're coming up. We're just, we're coming to the conference now. We're getting an Uber. We're on our way.

And I'm like, okay, you want to come again? Cool. That's awesome. And they just had that FOMO, man. They just, even, they're not hardcore Bitcoiners. It's the hardest people to archipel. Are the people that are closest to you. But they all get it, like my mom especially, because like I said, she was stagging, but like with my kids, with your kids, it's different.

And then hearing the same things, the same dumb shit I've been saying for years, but from other people and seeing firsthand, all that stuff, they really felt that, you know? And they came home and bought a bunch of Bitcoin, which was great. But yeah, they get caught up in that energy too, man. It's so cool. Like it's hard to explain. Like people are like, don't waste your money going to conferences. I'm like, it's not a waste of money.

If you can afford to take a trip there, you get a lot out of it. It's not just the circle circle Bitcoiners. I mean, it is. But it's other stuff too. I'm curious, you know, for your daughters, like, do they have friends that are into Bitcoin, that are learning about Bitcoin, is Bitcoin, because I have no exposure to like that age group. You don't have a Gen Z. Yeah. So what have you heard from them about like, you know, do they talk about this kind of stuff with their friends?

They come back from the conference and I'm talking about it with their friends or some of them into it. Is there like, or is it just kind of like not on a lot of the Gen Z radar? There's some funny moments, even when they were in like high school and stuff, where they were like, they text me, be like, oh my gosh, I was talking to the so-and-so at school and apparently he follows you on Twitter. Amazing. And I'm like, oh my God. It's like, yeah.

So Bitcoin has been a part of their life, not just for me, but from outside sources too. They just didn't have to learn the technical aspect of it as much when they have a dad who is just, oh, he can do that. But it's like, I'm trying to get them to understand those things better. And they have wallets and stuff. They have a very, very general understanding of it. But right now they don't really need it as much, but that's okay. They still like DCA every once in a while.

They give me some cash and they buy some Bitcoin and I've obviously saved some for them as well. So it is a little bit part of their life. And they've seen how fortunate, how much Bitcoin has done for my family, for my wife and I for sure. It's completely changed our lives. And it's changed a lot of people's lives. It's just, it's incredible. So yeah, they've definitely seen that from, there's a lot of Gen Z interest for sure.

There's a lot of, even some of their friends in house still, their Bitcoiners and stuff. And a lot of their cousins, like I said, my cousins, my first cousins who have kids, a lot of them are the same age as my girls around the same age. And a lot of them are Bitcoiners and they've talked to them. They worked with them and whatever because they work at one of my cousins restaurant, of course, right? Like I was like, you Greeks, you know, it's so predictable.

Yeah. Yeah. I started working with my dad's signer when I was 11. All right. Because my mom was like, Hey, I don't want to waste money on Nintendo games anymore for you. This is this is it. I was like, I don't want to waste my money on Nintendo games again. And I was like, I went to my dad. I was like, I need a job. And then when you start making your own money, you're like, this is way better than being given money. You know, it's just like, I don't need, I don't want handouts.

I want to earn my own money. Until you start getting taxed on the money you earn and then you're like, wait, you guys have just been, you guys deal with this this whole time? You just, the government just taking part in this? My dad was paying me under the table for the first like, as it should be, as it should be. Yeah. Can't relate. He would just give me 40 bucks in cash for like an eight hour show.

I was earning five bucks an hour when I was 11, you know, Friday night, dude, I felt like the richest kid ever with $40 in my pocket back in 1991 or whatever. That's a lot of money for an 11 year old. And it's especially a lot of money back in 1991. That's the wild thing. Like inflation really is just a, it is a fucking scourge. Like insane how little a dollar buys or, or, you know, five bucks like. McDonald's used to be for poor people. I mean, it's garbage, but yeah.

But you know, as far as garbage goes, like you could, you could have worse garbage probably. Hey, 91, it was still tele-fries at least. I think 92 is when I changed the vegetable oil. I feel like something like that. Sad day that they did that. I'm curious. So okay, you said this is 13 years in Bitcoin for you, which is just wild. I look forward to the future from, you know, almost a decade from now where I'll be at my, you know, lucky 13 anniversary. Enjoy the ride. But, but I'm curious.

So like, does it still feel early to you? Because like we always say like, we're, you know, we're still so early. And for those of us who maybe have just gotten in recently in the last few years, it really does still feel like that just because you look around and, you know, even just like in, in your own social group, not a lot of your friends are into this. You know, you're still the annoying Bitcoin person. Yeah, always. But you've been around a lot longer.

Like you really were early, early, but does it still feel early now? Or how do you, how do you look at that? Like having been around the block, you know, for a bunch of cycles. So I would say like we're both on Nostar. We love Nostar. It's great. What Nostar feels like right now is kind of like how Bitcoin felt early, like 2011, 2012. It still kind of has that vibe to it, I think, because Nostar's really early, right? Like, and it's not the same as Bitcoin, right?

They're two different things, of course. But it's similar in the ideas of like the whole idea of like freedom of speech, right? You know, Bitcoin is like freedom money. Nostar's like freedom voice or what? I don't know. Like it's, it's a part of that whole subset. So kind of has that vibe. Now Bitcoin is, are we still early to Bitcoin? Yeah, we're still early. Are we like early? No, obviously not. Right? It's not, there is a lot more. And the politicians are talking about it, we're not as early.

Sure. Now is there still a lot of upswing in terms of like dollar value? I mean, of course, the dollar is not getting any stronger, right? Like it's, you look at the writing on the wall and it's like, how are people, how is Bitcoin not worth a million dollars today, right? Like that, that's what I ask, or even a hundred thousand dollars. It's mind-blind. So it's like, in that sense, yeah, we're way fucking early, dude. Like, we're really early.

When I think about it like that, people still don't understand it. They still think of it as like, as a high risk thing, right? That's, whereas like, I think once you're a Bitcoin and you've been on for a while, you're like, it's not having Bitcoin as the high risk, right? Like that's how we view it. So until there's more mindset change around that, yeah, I would see it as we're still pretty early. I think we are. How long is that going to take to grow?

I mean, I don't know, like really bad, really bad judge at that because we, at the Bitcoin meetups in like 2012 that I would go to, we always talk about, oh, it's going to be worth, you know, a thousand dollars, you know, 50 years from now. Because it's like, you can't, you just, you have a hard time really grasping how exponential growth works and how it just takes off. Because when it takes off, you're just like, you just wake up one day and it sounds like, it's like, what is going on?

And then it's just like, it compounds every day. We're just like, the insanity just keeps getting crazier and crazier. You just get, in a lot of ways, you just get wrapped up in the FOMO. You're just like, what can I sell? How can I buy more Bitcoin? You're like a crackhead, right? Like you're just like, I need another hit, but I'm all out. You know, like I'm like, I'm like, what do you understand Bitcoin? What can I, what can I get rid of? You know, like, you're just like, what can I do?

Can I get another job? Like, get rid of a kidney or something? Yeah, anything, whatever. You know, like, you get that feeling. And I think we're due for another one of those, right? Like it's been a while, but I never know what triggers that. I never know how it kicks off. I don't know, like, I feel like when for Bitcoin to really take off, things just are going to get worse in the world. And that's what sucks, right? Like, I don't want to see a million dollar Bitcoin next year.

Like, like, is that good for me? Sure, financially, I guess. But like, is that good for the world? I don't think it is, right? I think for Bitcoin to be a million dollars next year, that means a lot of really bad shit has happened in a lot of places. And it's probably led to a lot of death and suffering. So like, I don't cheer that on. Like I expect it to happen. I don't know about next year. Like I expect things to get worse. Like I plan for that.

But like, I'm really not cheering that on because it's like, you know, it's like the scene, you know, the way you don't fucking dance or whatever in the big short, right? You know, it's really what it is. Like, I'm not going to be celebrating that. Like being right about Bitcoin doesn't feel like something you want to celebrate. I mean, there's been times where it has, and then you're just like, what am I happy about?

Like, just like, you feel good knowing that you made the right decision, but that because you're not a piece of shit politician, you know, you're a human that cares about other people, it sucks, right? Like it sucks being right sometimes, even while feeling good at the same time. It's a weird feeling. I've never experienced that before Bitcoin. It is like, because Bitcoin is such a measuring stick for just, let's say, clown world fuckery. Like it is a really good measuring stick for that.

But it's like, okay, if we're measuring that in, you know, for pricing it in dollars and it's it's going up and up and up in dollar value. And if it's going up in dollar value, it's certainly skyrocketing in every other currency's value even a bit more. Yeah, even more. Like, you know, Turkish lira, we've already had Omega candles, like, you know, so because it's just it's a shittier fiat, right?

But I think you're right that there is that weird feeling of like, you know, just like, don't fucking dance. Like because shit is, there's a lot of messed up stuff in this world. A lot of people are really, really struggling. Bitcoin is absolutely a lifeline for people. But sadly, it's a lifeline not enough people have realized yet. Yeah, they still don't know about it. Yeah, that's how that's another way you can tell early.

But it is nice to know that even in like these, these countries where their their money is so devalued, that there are people who have like, yeah, Bitcoin saved my life, you know, like, like even like, I think safe at the end, you know, it like him switching to Bitcoin being in Lebanon, like, it that was his lifeline, right? Like that. There's so many people like that. It is nice to hear that it's great that they have that they never had that option at any point in history before, right?

Other than like stashing gold in their house, but then you know, that's so many stories of that of that being taken from them or whatever. And, you know, now they can actually cross borders with this money and they can escape with their wealth, with their savings. Like that's, that's never been a thing in history, like not on this, not in this way. So that is that's a very positive thing about Bitcoin. But to get there, you have to have Bitcoin. You have to learn about it.

It's not easy, you know, you can't trust custodians, there's so much to it. But if people who are that are willing to go down that path and do it, it's saving their lives in countries, you know, outside of the US, you know, saving plenty of people lives, people's lives in the US. But you see that a lot in just other countries, two third world countries or even, you know, first world countries.

Well, I think too, in like the United States, because even though there's a lot of messed up stuff that happens here and a lot of people very much struggling, we still have a higher standard of living than, you know, the vast, vast majority of people on the planet. And so it's like, that's, that's a good thing for people in the United States.

But it's also, I think oftentimes a hindrance to people really grocking Bitcoin, because, you know, something my father-in-law says a lot is, you know, you get smart by, by force, not by choice. And this is him coming, having escaped a communist country. It's true. And it's like, you literally get smart because you are forced to get smart. If everything's cushy, if everything's easy, yeah, then you're just comfortable staying in the matrix, right? Like you're, you're fine with that.

It feels good. Like you got nothing really to worry about too big. Yeah, there's some minor annoyances, but like, you know, who really cares? But it's like, when you have some sort of pain, when you have some sort of external force acting on you that makes you get smart, like that is, that's when it happens. And like you, like, grocking Bitcoin is like getting smart. That's the realization that there's a better money that exists and that you can freely opt into.

But I, you know, I think that perhaps that ends up being somewhat of an equalizing, a naturally not artificially equalizing force around the world is a lot of people in very desperate situations around the world that don't have the cushy lives that Americans do are going to get Bitcoin first out of necessity.

And that ends up leveling that global playing field just a little bit because wealth transfers start again, just happening organically and naturally because people that really need Bitcoin seek it out, find it and start saving it. I don't know. I mean, we'll, we'll see. A lot of those countries also try to make it really difficult to get Bitcoin. So that's a, that's another story, but it's like people, if they, if they're really determined, they're, they'll find a way, they will find a way.

People are amazing. What your dad, what your dad says is totally true. And you're, you know, he, he, he, uh, when did he come to the US? So father in law, father in law, late, late 80s. All right. Yeah. Yeah. My dad came in his, when he was in his twenties, like in the early seventies and my mom, she was technically born here. Like, but she grew up in Greece. So both my parents, I just consider them, they're pretty much both Greek immigrants more or less.

Um, but my dad, especially like, he had a pretty tough too. And I, what I've, I think I've learned from them and from my own personal story, like my own personal experience is that in general, as a man, you want to be, you just want to be comfortable. You don't, you don't really don't need a lot to be happy. Like all those memes or whatever, it's like, you just need like a woman that's like, Hey, you did a good job.

You know, a nice meal at just a nice place where you live that we don't need much to be happy. You know, we just need like an adaboy every once in a while. We're good. Right. Like if you want us to, for us to be better and to change and to like really challenge ourselves, we have to be in a shitty situation. I think a lot of times maybe some people aren't like that.

I feel like I need to force, like I need to put myself in these situations to, if I want to improve myself, I have to make it so things suck. Right. Like my, the, when I was operating at my best is was when I was at rock bottom, I was firing all cylinders. I was waking up to boom, boom, boom, like getting things done. Like I felt that I needed that as like a man, like I have these responsibilities.

Everything's fucking sucks right now, but I only got one place to go and that's up and I'm just going to work on that every day. So yeah, getting comfortable with the crappy foods, the fiat food, the fiat money, the fiat jobs makes it really easy to just be that cog in the machine and whatever. And it's just, it's so easy to just do that rather than to spend a couple hours learning about Bitcoin, learning about money, learning about food, whatever, right?

Food, what, all these things, there's just so many things that people are just like, yeah, this is what I was told. So it must be true or they even, they know it's bullshit and they're just like, whatever. And they still just keep sticking with the bullshit. I think a real man is willing to just be like, fuck it, I'm going to make things worse for me now so things are better for me than, you know, later. You know, and that's like that.

That's the high time preference versus low time preference thinking. And when you make that mental switch, you're willing to go through the bullshit upfront so that way you get through it and you have a better life. You know, the better life doesn't mean you're all of a sudden rich or whatever because you can do, you fail plenty of times, you will fail all the time, but that's fine. You get used to that. You're like, that's fine. You learn and you do the next thing, right?

And you're just like, hey, that wasn't so bad. Let's try another thing. Let's keep going because it's still, at least I'm doing something that's not just mindless mediocrity. You know, like that's just such a better way to live than just doing the minimum, you know? And that's what a lot of immigrants, man, that's what they did. That's what my dad did. That's what his brothers did. They came over here. They worked in factories. They did wherever the fuck, man.

That's why all these Greeks open restaurants or whatever. You think they open restaurants because they're like, oh, I want to be a chef. No, they're like, fuck it. I know how to cook. I'm just going to make some food, make some money, right? Like, wasn't anything glamorous. Yeah, it is not an easy life to spin up a restaurant and run it and keep it going for years. There's a reason that like such a high percentage of restaurants fail because it is really tough to do. But no, you're right.

I mean, that's the thing that, I mean, the immigrant mentality in America is really powerful because, and you realize, because it's a self-selector too.

It's like, if you were willing to go through the hardship of making it from wherever you came from and coming into America and busting your ass and still, and busting your ass and then, you know, needing to pay taxes to daddy government as you busted your ass the whole time, but doing it because you were going to really embrace the suck in the present because you knew that it was going to be able to build a better future for you and your family.

And like, I do not take it for granted that I was privileged enough to be born here in America. You know, that is a huge, huge privilege. And it's an important thing to remember. And I mean, I think it's great advice too from you just be willing to tolerate shittiness and use that to actually make yourself better. Because like, if you wallow in it, that's like, there's kind of two reactions to that, right?

You either wallow in it and, you know, woe is me, everything's so shitty, I'm such a victim, or it's like, fuck this, this sucks. I want to work really hard so it doesn't suck anymore. Exactly. And that those are kind of your two choices. Like you really don't have another way. Like there's no middle ground there. It's either embrace the suck and use it to make yourself better or just wallow in the suck and let it drown you.

Like, you know, you know, it's going to encourage you and be there for you other Bitcoiners. So many people, they like, I've never seen more positivity than from other Bitcoiners that just you're willing to do all that stuff, whether you're working on yourself physically, mentally, whatever, so much support from Bitcoiners. It's unreal. Because so many of us have that mentality and I love that. It's so cool.

And like you were saying, like the whole immigration thing, like, could you imagine just going to another country with another language and everything and like deal with that? Like that's insane to me. But you're going to just stay at home in this other place and just dealt with a crap there. Not that it was a great world, but like to take that kind of chance, like, man, such respect to like my family. Like I just think about that and I'm like, man, that took some balls, man. That takes balls.

And that's the problem. A lot of people, they just don't have the balls to do shit anymore. And that's like, I fall on that too. You get real comfortable with your life. I mean, I was pretty comfortable the past few years and that's when I was like, you know what, I'm tired of being a pussy. It was afraid of heights, afraid of flying. I still fly, but I'm just always a bitch when I'm on an airplane and I'm sick of it. And that's, I was like, fuck, I'm going to fucking flight school.

And it was the worst, greatest experience of my life. Like I spent the first few months just waiting it. And then it's like, everybody was going three times a week going out to the airport, flying the fucking little Cessna 172, getting in that thing. I'm like, what am I doing? I'm going to die. This is awful. I hate it. It's summertime. The turbulence is so bad when I'm taking it. It's just like, here I am doing for pattern work again and fucking hate this.

And then within a few months, I was like, oh, I actually kind of like this. This is actually kind of fun. Oh, I understand why the plane's moving like this. This isn't so bad. I was like, man, a month ago, I was such a bitch. You know what it's like? It wasn't really that hard. It just took me wanting to do it and doing it. And now that's something like, that sounds kind of minor, but it's like, I conquered a fear. That felt fucking great. So then it's like, you do something like that.

And then it's like, now you have no other excuse for anything. Like, if you got over that, it's like, what's your excuse for this other thing you don't want to do? You're just a bitch. And you just like, you need to tell yourself these things. You got to be willing to keep growing as a person. And yeah, and it's all it does really like the Bitcoin, I think. I think it really does in a lot of ways. No, I think so too.

It's like, for a lot of people, maybe it's the, there's like, how do I say this? There's fear of conquering a fear or fear, because then if you conquer, you no longer have that crutch. Yeah. Like as soon as you get rid of that, then you're just standing on your, yep, there's no more excuse anymore.

And I think for a lot of people that are very comfortable in their lives right now, this is, you know, people in, you know, whether you're in a Western nation or you are a wealthy person in a not wealthy nation, you're very comfortable. You don't feel the need to change. And it's like trying to understand Bitcoin and learn about Bitcoin and study Bitcoin and then start saving in Bitcoin is like a little bit of an admission that what you're doing right now is maybe not actually sustainable.

Like it's not, the life path you're on now is not actually a long-term solution. And that you, like this other thing exists that you can freely opt into, but you kind of have to admit like, okay, what I was doing before really wasn't going to keep going that way forever. Like it was going to crash and burn at some point because I was using an unstable unit of account as my, you know, denominator.

Like it's that mentality switch of accepting that things are fucked up, except that you have things good right now, but that actually maybe you weren't as smart as you thought. Like you, because you didn't adopt Bitcoin sooner. And that's okay. Like it's a little bit of an ego killer to be like, okay. It requires a great deal of humility. Yeah. It does. And the ride of the Bitcoin ride, the longer you're on it, the more, the more humility you like, you become more humble for sure.

Like it humbles the shit out of you constantly. Like you just, you get humbled over and over and eventually you're just like, Hey, it's fine. I'm just going to let it happen. You know, like the price is crashing, whatever. Like you just have to deal with that. Like that's not why I'm here ultimately. Right. Like it's nice. Number of great. Of course we love number go up, but there's just more to it than that for sure.

And yeah, people, people don't like being wrong, I think, and it's okay to be wrong. It's okay to make mistakes and whatever and Bitcoin definitely does help you with that. It's completely changed my life in every possible way, like the way I think, the way I live. And I feel like you, I know you can relate to this. Having a partner, you know, having a wife who is 100% on board and has been the whole time is like, I could never have done this without, without my wife. I know.

And that just means so much. Just I think that's so important. I hear stories of people like, yeah, I had Bitcoin, but I haven't told my wife and I'm just like, oh, that's not good, buddy. Like you're setting yourself up for disaster. And it's like, again, it's like, yeah, maybe she's, maybe it's going to be hard convincing her or whatever, but it's like, if this person cares about you, right, she'll want to listen and try to understand where you're coming from from it.

But like if you hide it from her, that's even worse. Like she should be pissed probably. And maybe we're just very fortunate in that we have wives who like grok this and are like, you know, We're the unicorns, dude. We got the, we got the girlfriend and she has got Bitcoin. Yeah. Like, like it blows my mind when I'll hear, hear people be like, yeah, you know, I've been stacking for like years and I've, I keep trying to talk to my wife about it, but like, she's just not interested.

I'm like, dude, I'm sorry. Like that sucks. I literally cannot relate at all. Like I can, I can sympathize. I cannot empathize. Like that, that must suck. But like, man, if somebody loves you, it's like, you would hope that they would listen. Yeah. And like, you know, but yeah, whenever I hear those stories, I'm like, damn, I am very grateful that my, my wife is very based and has been on this journey alongside. I met my wife in the free talk live IRC chat room.

So we, we were already both ideas of liberty, right? Like totally on board. And then we both got into Bitcoin around the same time. So it's like, uh, and I know, I know you've met my wife and she's, uh, she's talked to your wife before too and stuff. And I just feel so lucky. Like she doesn't really go to, she goes to conferences and she'll talk to events like a beef steak or something.

And she'll go to the, she actually went to the conference this year because my kids and my wife mom are there and, and she had a good time. But it's like, she's like, I don't need to be into it as much. Like I don't need to be like in like the social aspect as well. And it's fine. It's just, you don't, there's so many Bitcoiners. I know that like you will never meet who are like, I'll see every once in a while.

And it's just like, they're still gung-ho Bitcoiners, but they're, they don't do any of that shit. They're just, they're just living their lives, man. That's what Bitcoin is. Let them do it. Like the best part about Bitcoin over a time period, you get into it for so long, you go through those phases where you want to arch up everybody, eventually get to this phase where you don't need to talk about it anymore.

Like you just, it's not, it doesn't need to be the discussion, constant discussion, right? And that's kind of where my wife and I are. I'm going to talk about Bitcoin for sure, especially newer things developing or whatever. But in general, it's like, it's not the focus of our lives. And I love that, right? Like it's nice to reach that point. And I think that only really comes with time, right? And eventually, you know, you'll have other hobbies.

This might be hard to believe, but you'll want to do other things than Bitcoin. Eventually, probably like five or six years from now. I don't know, maybe we'll see. I'm going to have to start a podcast about a different topic. You mean shit? Okay. But even worse, you won't even want to do a podcast. My God. You won't even show up to the conferences. This is insane. I can't even fathom this. You'll show up and people will be like, who are you? You know, come on.

The guy with one of the thousands of podcasts. Do you remember the videos I wore the thing and it was a strange video that got like a million views? It was dressed up like Fiat. I've got the hot wife who dresses like Bitcoin, you know, that guy. Yeah. Yeah. That is such a great point though. It's like, that's kind of like the point of Bitcoin is not to be the focus of your life.

The point of Bitcoin is to be something that enables you to lead the life that you want because it gives you the power to actually make choices and give you choice and optionality in the future about how you spend your time. Because you are sacrificing something in the present, you know, you're trying to save as much as you can. And like that, that's the whole, you know, like that's the whole point of it, right? Yeah. Like it's like money is not supposed to be the entire focus of your life.

It's supposed to be the thing that enables you to live the life that you want because you have a good money, hopefully like Bitcoin, that actually gives you the freedom to make choices. But it's like, you know, but for now, I sure do enjoy the conference vibe. Oh, absolutely. And maybe that's another way you can tell that we're still early. We're still having Bitcoin conferences, right? That's a pretty good indicator that that's still a thing, right? Like when that... That's true.

When those aren't needed as much, right? Like, yeah, we're definitely still early. And when you think about the really big picture of everything. Yeah. But yeah. Yeah. And it's like, ultimately, yeah, what are we doing? We're saving for what? Our future... Like I've said, like my goal in life is I want to take care of my health. I want to be as healthy as I can because I want to spend time with my great-grandkids, you know? And like Bitcoin is a big part of that.

I'm saving for these for my great-grandkids. I don't even have grandkids yet. And I'm already thinking about like I'm saving for my great-grandkids. So in a lot of ways, rather than just like spending all my money for my whole life for myself and doing whatever, I'm willing to make those sacrifices because to me it's like family is way more important. And I get that vibe from a lot of Bitcoiners. I know you're just starting out with your family, right? And it's like... It changes everything.

And it's like that's way more important to me than anything now. And you know, your priorities in life change. And it's like, yeah, I want this child. Like you don't want to just hand them everything, right? Like you want them to also experience life and have to struggle and deal with hardship as well. But like you still want to provide for them, right? And you want there to be, you know, you want to be there for them. No, it's a trip. I mean, you are way farther along the dad journey than I am.

I'm like, I'm just a... At the beginning of the dad rabbit hole, you know? And it is amazing how much that is a light switch that gets flipped on and then ripped out of the wall and you can't turn it off and you just have a complete... All the cliches that people told you, like leading up to being in Dad, they were all true. They were all... They were correct. Hate to admit it. Hate to admit it, but yep, you were right. I also... One thing I noticed is that I'm like, I have so much...

Becoming a parent, I have so much more respect for my parents. Like I already did, but I have even more now because it's like little things that I didn't appreciate at the time. Now I'm like, oh, wow, that was like... That was really amazing that you did that, like, or that you made this sacrifice to allow me to just... Like, you have so much more appreciation for that because now you're living it. But it's like you can't... You know, the cliche, like you can't understand it till you're in it.

Like, yep, true cliche. And you'll fuck up a lot. I mean, I fucked up planning with my kids for sure. I think what's been important now is I'm closer to my kids now than at any point in my life, for sure. And during their late teens, it was definitely a rough patch having twin girls. Like, it was tough, you know, some of those later teen years, but like, I think I took the high road in a lot of things.

And now they're at a point where they're like, I mean, when you're a teenager, you do stupid shit and you say stupid shit, right? Like, we've all been down that road. But like, in general, my kids were great. But there's some things that it's like, I did in the past that I was not happy with. And I've talked to them about where I'm like, hey, I'm sorry. I did, you know, like, I made the wrong decision here. Like, I didn't do the right thing. And I'm owning up to that now, right?

Like, I wanted to do better. Like, and going forward, I think I've done better, right? And they, like, I think it's important to be able to have those conversations with your kids when it's like, hey, you know, even when they're young, it's like, hey, you know, I shouldn't have done this or said this or whatever, you know, and I'm sorry, you have to teach them to, you know, you don't want your kids just, you can't just tell your kids to apologize all the time and then just be like, I'm perfect.

I'm never wrong, right? That's just part of being a father to and a lot of that. But I definitely like, now that they're like adult children where we can just talk about a lot more things and I enjoy that. But man, when they're little to when they're babies, it's just a magical time for sure. And I always say they, I don't say when you have a, because I just, I only think in like doubles, right, I can't imagine just one kid stuff. I can't imagine doing it with twins. That's like respect, man.

That's a lot. You know, you just, it just happens and you're just like, okay, one from zero to two is nuts. Yeah, you can't just give like, well, okay, we're actually, we just need one. We'll just get the one. Can we get the other one like a year from now? After we kind of figure things out? No, not at all. Well, Matt, I appreciate you sharing this time with me very much. This was a blast talk with you.

One other question I wanted to ask that's completely un-Bitcoin related is because you also mentioned you read a lot of fiction. I do. What are you reading right now? Or what is something maybe you've read in the past year that you would really recommend and like specifically fiction? I'd love to know. Okay. So I've always been a fantasy nerd all my life and sci-fi. So those are always been my favorite.

I wanted to read Stormwind Archives by Brandon Sanderson for a long time and I put it off because I really hate starting an epic series, especially in people like this is so good and then having to wait for every book, you know, multiple years, especially just after getting burned when Game of Thrones and those novels and stuff like, you know, Song of Ice and Fire, all that shit, like having to wait and then just waiting forever.

So like I finally decided to start reading those this year and Brandon Sanderson is just like the best epic fantasy writer right now, like modern, even in general, he's just like one of the greatest ever. So I, so he has the final book is finally coming out at the end of this year, the December, I think the first book was like 2010, 2011 around then, first to five. Well, there's like set, there's a couple like books, whatever.

But anyways, like I was like, I'm gonna finally I've been putting these books off for like eight years, nine years, I'm finally gonna read it. No ways are gonna live up to all the hype. I read book one and I'm like, this is better than the hype. I'm like, how the fuck I'm like, this book has been hyped to me for like for almost a decade. It's like this whole series. And I so I started reading that I went through it.

They're huge novels and I, I went through the audio books in like a month or two, like a month and a half or something. It was insane. And I, is this part of the Mistborn series or it's separate from that? It's part of the same like world, but it's just like a different, you know, there's not really, you don't need to read the one to know they understand the other. Because I literally, because Lynn Alden recommended it, I literally just started reading the Mistborn trilogy. Great.

Well, there's the way those are done are there's there's a trilogy. And then there's, and I think it's gonna do the same thing with the story. That's this is what he says he's gonna do with these books too, where there's like, here's these books, and then there'll be another series that takes place, you know, like hundreds or thousands of years later. He did that with Mistborn. I'm actually rereading Mistborn right now because I never read the second part because it was never finished.

So I never started it. So I'm like on book three of the original trilogy. And then I'm gonna finally start reading those. And then I'm just gonna go through and start the Stormwind archives again. I'm gonna reread those books, which I've never, I never reread. I always reread it, but usually years later, but I'm gonna reread all those. Once I'm done with all the Mistborn books.

So that way, as I'm finishing book four, book five will will be just coming out or it'll already be out or something because it's coming out in December. So I'm like five pages in like, I literally just reading it. You're in for a treat. I was reading it out loud to Carla and the little guy to try and, you know, because I wanted to read it and then also so that he would fall asleep one of the nights. But how are the, how are the audio books?

Because I'm always, I enjoy audio books a lot, but I'm also a little bit of a snob when it comes to like, if it's got a shitty narrator, I just, I cannot do it. He used the same narrators as, oh, what the hell is it called? From the Wheel of Time, I'm looking at my phone right on my audio books. So the Wheel of Time novels, Robert Jordan, I read those when I was younger, like fantastic. I read those when I was, when I was a kid.

Well, you remember the very final book, he, you know, Robert Jordan died before it was published. Brandon Sanderson finished it, right? But yeah, the same people who did the audiobooks for those did the audiobooks for, they pretty much, they pretty much do all of Sanderson's audiobooks. It's Michael and Kate, something or another. I can't remember their names. They're fantastic. So we have male and female voice parts then. For the, for the Stormwind books, yes. Okay, nice.

He does a Michael Kramer, yeah, that's, he's doing all, he does all the Mistborn novels. He's great. I love his voice. He's, he's just fantastic. Now, those are fantasy novels. The Best Sci-Fi I've read recently, I'd have to say The Three Body Problem. I know, I heard they came out with the, the show for that and I heard it was like a pretty simplistic version, but still very good. I enjoyed the show. I haven't read the, I haven't read the books, but I enjoyed, I enjoyed the show.

Books are fucking nuts, dude. They are so stupid good. Like ridiculously crazy ass hard sci-fi. Like, and they just, like the first book, you're just like, oh my God, this is crazy. And then the second book, you're just like, what the fuck? And then by the third book, you're just like, what the fuck am I, like this is nuts, but I, I'm in, like this is so, it's just wild. It's wild, dude. That would, I would say huge, just huge, right?

Like, I know it's already like highly recommended by everybody, but like for a good reason. Another one series I will say, the other one, the last one I'll mention is, this was one from like the 80s or 90s. Have you heard of Hyperion? The Hyperion Cantos? Goodbye, Dan Simmons. This rings a bell, yeah. I read that a couple of years ago. There's four books, Hyperion, The Fall of Hyperion, Endymion, and The Rise of Endymion. Top five favorite books of all time. Really? Just hands down.

I read, I read through those. They're, I want to reread, when I finished the series, I was like, I can't wait to reread this in a few years. I wanted to literally just start reading them again. They were that good. That's a good sign. I'm like, I just, but I'm like, I don't, there's so many other books I want to read. I just don't. I feel like when you, Jero read something where it was so good, you can't read anything for like a month because it's just, they had that impact on me.

It wasn't a month, but it was like, I had to force myself like two, three weeks later to be like, pick up a book, start reading again. Like you don't even want to like go into another like frame of mind because you're still in that one. Like you kind of want to like, you want it to last just a little bit longer. Like you still enjoy it. Yeah. It had that impact on me. And even just thinking about now I'm getting chills because I'm like, oh my God, when am I going to read Hyperion?

I'm reading it again next year. I can't wait. Fuck it. Okay. I'm going to have to, that's too good of an endorsement. Absolutely. I'm going to literally order this immediately after. So you said it's a four part series? Yeah. Yeah. And they're very, like the first book is very different from the other. They're all the books are kind of weird in a lot of ways, but like if you like world building sci-fi and just like, I don't know his style of writing.

I've heard some people say that it wasn't for them, but man, it was so for me, especially the first book, like, but I loved all four of them in so many ways. Like you just, I just really got wrapped up in how well written it was. And I was just, I was mad at my younger self. I'm like, how the fuck did I not read this when I was like a teenager or whatever this came out? Like how did this not, how did I not cross path with these books until now? And I was almost, I was like mad at myself.

It was that good. But you got to enjoy it now. Yeah. Yeah. We all get good books at the time we deserve. I don't know, there's a parallel there somewhere. So yeah, those are the three for sure. You should definitely read all those. I think if you saw, if you saw the three body problem, I should watch it actually. I heard it was very good. Even the serious, did you enjoy the show? I enjoyed it. Yeah. I thought, I thought it was solid.

And again, like maybe I enjoyed it because I also didn't have the like the prejudice of knowing how much more detailed the book was. Yeah. But no, I mean, I enjoyed it. I thought it was like a fascinating plot. I'm excited for another season of it to come out. But now I really, I do want to check out the book because it's just like you can, I mean, like at least with a series, you get so much more detailed than you can with just like a standalone movie. Like you just, that's the thing.

It's so hard to watch just like a, you know, a major motion picture these days because it's like, okay, like hour and a half, two hours, like you're only going to have like shallow plot development to a certain extent. Sure. But some directors can do a really nice job of it, but like if you've got like a 10 episode series, you can just do so much more with it. Like you can actually take your time and like, I don't know.

I think the one exception to that recent history, because that is true, like 99.9% of the time. Dune was done so well. I felt like every single scene from the book was in the first movie. Like I felt like it was just like scene for scene that first movie. And I was so, and then the like the way it was like artistically shown in the second book, I, okay. I consider Dune the most overrated sci-fi novel of all time. That's my hot take. Everyone says I'm an idiot. Very spicy take.

It doesn't mean it's bad. I just think it's the most overrated. I enjoy it. It's fine, but it's the people like it's the best sci-fi novel ever. And I'm like, bro, come on. Like I just, I don't, I don't get, I've read it as a teenager. I read it in my twenties. I read it in my thirties. I've read it like four different times in my life because I just like every time I'm like, maybe I was wrong.

Like when I re-challenged myself on this and every time I'm just like, man, and I've read a bunch of the not the Dune books. But man, when I watched those movies, I was like, this is so much better than a fucking book. Like I, I never, I never say that. Very rarely do I have that feeling. But the Dune movies, especially the first one, oh my God, I was so blown away by it. And I love this. I only watched the second one once. I got to see in the theaters. I got to go see that again.

Have you watched the, if you watched the original Dune movie to Yes, back in the day. It's been, I should re-watch that though. Oh, it's, it's so, it's so amazing too. Cause I hadn't, I hadn't seen it. And then I watched it after watching both of the newer Dune ones. Cause I was like, I love, like that era of sci-fi movies is like incredible because it's got that perfect level of cheesiness to it. Like that seems cheese to us now. It's like serious about the cheese. That's why.

But it's super serious at the time. Yeah. And like it's, it's incredible. Yeah. What's his name? Is it Kyle McLaughlin? I think it's, I think it's Kyle McLaughlin. I think it's Kyle McLaughlin. That's a show I tried to get into, Twin Peaks. I really wanted to, I really want to get it. Just didn't. How far did you make it? I didn't make it far enough, I think. Okay. Man, it was rough. What I would say, cause I, that, I hate what you're going to watch like 10 episodes.

I'm like, man, I know, I know. It goes from like typical small town, like dark murder mystery. So bop-bra. To like, what the fuck is time and space and reality, man. I didn't get, I didn't get there. And I know I'm doing myself a disservice. But that's the show I want to, I'm going to, I'm going to give it a fair shake. I did give it a fair shake. I just, you know, like, do you ever get an album from like one of your favorite bands when it comes out and you listen to it?

You're like, this album sucks. And then you listen to it like a year later, you're like, this album's great. I just sucked a year ago. Like I've had those experiences in life where I'm just like, no, I was just wrong. And I have a feeling that's going to happen with Twin Peaks. Now, I would, I would highly recommend giving Twin Peaks another, give it another chance. And yeah, it does take a little bit of patience at first, but then like, I knew nothing about it going into it.

And Carl and I watched it together and then you get, you get to a certain point and the vibe of the show just like completely changes. And you're like, Oh, what, like, did I like miss something? Like, was I warned about this? Or we're just, we're just going. So yeah, I won't say anymore, but no, that's fine. I like things that are like a real mind fuck, right? Like that's my kind of like my favorite. And like three body problem has that, uh, that show dark. Oh, the Netflix show. Oh, yeah.

The German one. Oh yeah, dude. I was like, people were like, go into it dark. I'm like, haha. I'm like, I always go into things dark anyways, but then I watched it and I'm just like, well, I know what I'm doing for the next week and it's just going to be watching this show. That show is aptly named. Like it is really fucking dark. I'm going to say absolutely nothing about it. Just be listening. Just, just watch it. Don't look anything up on it. Don't watch the trailer.

Just watch the, no, no, no, no. It's like, you don't need to watch 10 episodes. You just watch one episode. You're like, what's going on here? And then by like three episodes in, you're going to be like, I don't even know what the fuck and I'm just not going to stop watching this now. Yeah. Like I literally can't. I guess sleep is not happening tonight. No, it's that is a really good one. It's only three seasons. So really easy to, really easy to binge that one. It is. It is.

Man, man, this has been a treat. Thanks so much for coming on here. Thanks for having me on. It's good talking to you. It's always nice to see you in person and online. I'm looking forward to the next, next reunion we can do in person. I'm going to steal some more of that delightful baklava and you're not stealing it. If I'm just giving it away. Fine. I'm taxing your baklava. Man, but really I'll drop your, your no-ster and your Twitter in here.

You want to, you want to send people or that's, I don't want to send anybody anything. I got nothing to promote and that's the way I'm keeping it. That's amazing. Well, thanks for sharing. By Bitcoin, earn Bitcoin. Don't buy it. Yeah. You can buy it too. Earn Bitcoin. Earn Bitcoin. Yeah, whichever one. But earn Bitcoin is better than bought Bitcoin. It feels better. Absolutely. You're going to say that. Man, thanks so much. Appreciate your time and looking forward to doing it again.

Thanks Walker. Take it easy. And that's a wrap on this Bitcoin talk episode of the Bitcoin podcast. If you are a Bitcoin only company interested in sponsoring another fucking Bitcoin podcast, head to Bitcoinpodcast.net slash sponsor. If you're enjoying the Bitcoin podcast, consider giving the show a five star review wherever you listen or sharing the show with your friends, family and strangers on the internet. Or don't Bitcoin doesn't care, but I always appreciate it.

You can find me on Noster by going to primal.net slash Walker. If you want to follow the Bitcoin podcast on Twitter, go to at TIT coin podcast and at Walker America. You can also find the video version of this podcast at youtube.com slash at Walker America and at Walker America on rumble or just go to Bitcoin podcast.net slash podcast and find links everywhere. Bitcoin is scarce, there will only ever be 21 million, but Bitcoin podcasts are abundant.

So thank you for spending your scarce time to listen to another fucking Bitcoin podcast. Until next time, stay free.