Bitcoin Magazine talk with Mike Germano

Bitcoin is close to becoming worthless.

Let's go!

Now, what's the Bitcoin? Bitcoin's like rat poison. Yeah. Oh. The greatest scam in history. Let's get it. Bitcoin will go to fucking zero.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right, you ungovernable misfits. I'm your host, Max. Everybody knows that Bitcoin is useless, worthless, and doomed to fail. But what if everyone's wrong? What if it's the system that is doomed to fail?

Join me as I speak to some of the brightest people in the space and slither to the deepest, darkest depths of the Bitcoin rabbit hole.

Welcome back, everyone. Today's episode is with Mike Giamano from Bitcoin Magazine. I'm absolutely thrilled to have him on the show. It's amazing to see what they've been doing. It's so nice to see a magazine that's putting out real content about how Bitcoin's actually changing the world, not the stupid price talk, not all the bullshit,

but real change. I love this conversation, and I'm really happy to be connected with Mike and see what the team are doing. I hope you enjoy the show, but before we dive in, I just want to say thank you to my show sponsors.

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Hey, Mike, sorry about that. No idea why that crashed. No problem. I'll go. So, yeah, welcome to the show. Thanks for coming on. I've been really looking forward to this one. It's been in my diary for a few weeks.

And it's going to be a good one because I've looked through what you've done previously and everything that you're doing with Bitcoin magazine. And you've been a busy boy. So I was hoping that maybe you can do a bit of an introduction for anyone who's listening and isn't aware of what you've done previously.

And then we can sort of come up to date and then take it from there. Sure. Well, first, thanks for having me. I'm also excited to be in here. And I had in my schedule, not my diary, but I had it here and excited for this one.

So my name is Mike Germano. I'm the publisher of Bitcoin magazine. That's what I do now. Obviously, prior to that, I've done everything. And kind of the tech world have been an entrepreneur, created the first social media agency, which was a lot of fun with young folks and building great things.

And we even built Venmo out of our office. And my co-founder went on to go create Venmo. So watching that was always very exciting to building up a pretty large company that was helping brands understand how to build on community and build for media companies, because that was my passion.

And long story short, we sold to Vice Media. Because at the time, we thought this was such an exciting media company that was really telling the stories of outsiders. And we could do a lot to help not only build cool technology to distribute content, but on the branding side to make sure we can make money for the company

and the media size they can continue to tell stories. Did that for a couple of years. And after leaving that and being a sellout and trying to, I guess, live the sellout life and get to finally know your family, spend time with them, helped a couple of friends with their companies, which was very exciting.

And really, when the pandemic hit, got to work and launch some good news with John Krasinski to try to tell positive stories. And for a time being, it was positive. But really, during this whole time, I've always been excited about building media companies, content, sharing great stories.

And what ended up happening was David Bailey and Tyler, the owners of Bitcoin Magazine, who I've been friends with for a long time. And when I was at Vice, I actually tried to buy their company and that didn't work out.

Because I believe that Bitcoin was the most counterculture thing ever, and tried to convince a lot of people about Vice, who just looked at me and said, no, no. Bitcoin's for buying drugs.

I'm like, yes, it's for buying drugs. And while we didn't do that deal, I was catching up with them and always loved what they were doing and just seeing the growth that they had and the opportunity.

I made the decision to jump on this crazy train and to build everything that we're building now. And so have it look back and love to tell you what the future's going to look like. Awesome.

Well, quite a journey that sounds like. And before we go on to the future, you said about, oh, you know, I ended up as a sellout. Spend the time with my family. One thing that Bitcoin has taught me is that that's the absolute most important thing.

And that's why most of the people that I respect who are in this space are here for. You know, you get so far with Bitcoin, you get to a point where you understand that you can store your value in it.

You understand that it's counterculture. You understand that it can bring incredible freedoms, but there's not a lot of point in having the money and having the freedom if you're not happy and don't have a happy family.

And yeah, so that sounds like quite an adventure. I saw that you went traveling. Where did you go off to? Sure. Well, I think it's funny, you know, I lived in New York, you know, had a nice apartment, had a lot of things and my wife and I, and I knew my wife since I was 11.

We have two great kids. They were five and three at the time. You know, we were like, what the hell are we doing here? And we ended up like almost selling everything or packing everything up.

And we got on a literally a Disney cruise boat and went from Florida to Spain. I was like, hey, my great grandma came on for a little movie. Let's do the same with making the Avengers. But we ended up just traveling all around Europe.

I said, let's take off a hundred days. So we kind of, you know, I didn't get to. I started my company when I was in college. So I didn't get to do the backpacking thing in Europe after college.

So instead, I guess I kind of did that with the family and kids, kind of the opposite way to do it. But I will say this of everything I've ever done in my life and things you can buy, nothing has ever been more important than taking this time off and being with your family.

Not only does it make you understand what you fought for, but as you know, like you said earlier, you can be in Bitcoin, you can find ways to have some wealth and that gives you freedom, which is the most important.

But at the end of the day, you really want to see your kids grow up, you're never going to get that back. That's something you can't buy. And just to experience how they're looking at the world and to realize it is a big world.

You know, we went, we ended up going to 14 countries, 40 cities, and obviously the most important being running with the bulls. So, you know, obviously care about that bull market and just kind of traveled all over the place and got low moral.

- It was the place called. - That's it, yeah. - That's it, yeah. - That's the very place, coolest party I've ever been to. I almost got, there's a video, I almost got hooked. So right, I almost got a bullhorn in my back.

So I just missed it, which probably kind of your life in media, you're almost gonna get run over at any time. And, you know, just kind of, like I said before, did a lot of travel again, did it cheap?

You know, you do last minute, we had no itinerary so that we were in a city and while the kids would take their naps, my wife and I'd be like, okay, where are we gonna go next? What are we gonna do?

And it was just great. We just kind of lived in different places. And I think that ended up being worth the, you know, 13 years that I ran a company and, you know, I took probably two days off total when I had two kids.

You know, never took a vacation 'cause you're always running it. You know, that wasn't maybe the right way to do it or whatnot, but that time, you know, looking at the kind of hundred days that we spent, not only was it time to really see the world and be completely disconnected, like I turned off my phone and internet,

which is something you can get very addicted to. But it was, you know, it's something I think that you have the pictures around your house and it's not just, hey, once you went on vacation, it was kind of a nice reminder to our kids that you can kind of go anywhere.

And this is what Freedom allows. So from that standpoint, I think the education I gave my kids was probably the most important thing out of it. And then also just trying to say, hey, we're not trying to live a normal life.

We're not trying to do what everyone tells us to do. We're kind of really paid off and was something I'll always, obviously not only remember, but I will always promote and tell people they should do the same.

- Yeah, definitely. And that's that proof of work. You've allowed yourself to have that time off after, what do you say, 13 years of grind, which is awesome. You know, and some people never do that.

Some people just keep grinding and whatever milestone they hit, however well they do, they just think of something new. And now I want this. And a lot of the time it's these material things.

You know, I want this car, I want this house, I want whatever it is. And you just get to a point where you realize it's all bullshit. Like none of it really matters. It's the experiences that matter.

And yeah, the traveling is something I massively miss personally. After all this pandemic and all the bullshit that's going on is like, yeah, I keep wanting to book my tickets and coming out to America and I fucking not allowed to come, which is crazy.

But at some point, at some point, hopefully Bitcoin is going to make this all possible again. But so if we now move on to like what you're doing now, obviously you said you previously tried to buy Bitcoin magazine and now obviously, you know, you guys are doing some incredible stuff.

It's really fucking awesome. What was it that made you decide that you wanted to do the switch and do the Bitcoin thing? Like, you know, you obviously wanting to buy the magazine, like were you one of the ones that were there understanding what this was going to do very early on?

Or is it that you were a business minded guy and you were like, okay, this is going to increase in value. Like where did the Bitcoin ethos come from? And when did it hit? Yeah, great question.

It's funny because it's the one thing you're supposed to always talk about, you know, how you came to Bitcoin and how you thought you were going to help it and then you realized how it actually helps you and kind of that.

But, you know, I think it was 2000, you know, I feel very late in 2016. For me, look, the reason why originally got on the Internet was freedom of speech to me was the most important thing.

I thought that that was the most valuable thing in the world, being able to say and express your feelings and that's what the Internet allowed. So, you know, whether it was, you know, trying to support WikiLeaks and seeing that you could only kind of do that through Bitcoin.

I was like, okay, that's interesting. You know, I think like a lot of other people, you know, you originally maybe bought Bitcoin to be like, okay, I'm going to, you know, especially when you work advice when I think we covered the Silk Road more than anybody else.

You were like, oh, I'm going to buy drugs. And then I failed at doing that. And so looking back at it, I left to tell my mom the best financial decision I ever made was to buy drugs and not do it properly.

You know, I think it was, you know, you wanted to believe that this could work. The mistake, not the mistake I made, but I wasn't as active in the Bitcoin community because you were involved in media and the social media community and you almost felt a little tapped out.

I was always the supporter of it. You know, the business side was, for me, this all just seemed inevitable. You know, looking at this, I was like, well, this, this makes sense. And I had seen this sound silly, but on the Facebook side, when I started my company and my background, actually, was I was the first, the first elected official.

I was, I ran as a Democrat, oddly enough and used Facebook to get elected to public office. So it was the first, and that was in 2006. And I remember being like, yeah, I only served one term and put GPS on all the public works cars and all the unions, hey, to me, and I can only survive one term.

So I did everything you shouldn't do. But, you know, I saw Facebook. I was like, yeah, this is going to be, this is going to be it. This is going to be the biggest thing. And everyone's like, oh, it's my space.

I'm like, no, it's going to be Facebook. You know, when Venmo was built, I'm like, yeah, this will be huge. I was, you know, maybe the fifth Venmo person to have a profile. And, and, you know, looking at Bitcoin, I've seen the growth and how a community adopts something.

Looking at Bitcoin, what was unique about it was these other things had companies that were promoting it and making the marketing for it. And Bitcoin did it, right? So Bitcoin had all this opportunity for explosive growth, but there was no, you know, there was, there wasn't a voice.

It was an auditorium room of everyone screaming why it was important. So all this time it took for people to understand what is the message that works for them or kind of really defining, you know, it was this kind of hodgepodge of everyone defining what Bitcoin is about when you realize it's different things

to different people, but looking at the, not just the tech, but the purpose of just this always seemed inevitable to me. And maybe I just didn't want to confront that because I didn't want to get, you can tell them a kind of passionate person.

So when I get involved in something, I spend nonstop all my time on it. So I looked at this as probably my hesitancy from time from a while ago as I was like, I'm going to get too involved in this and I'm going to make it my whole life and Bitcoin tech news and it's going to be a problem.

So this was just me knowing myself. I didn't want to get involved in this, this, this crazy world, but I felt I didn't have a choice. And it was something I wanted to do because I was excited about it.

But also I want my, you know, looking back, I want my kids to be proud of the things that I've worked on. And when you see your kids kind of running around your house, playing with Bitcoin magazine, you know, a physical magazine and your son's got stickers on his computers.

You're like, oh, yeah, yeah. This is a, this, this is something I can be proud of. So yeah, I feel like I didn't have a choice to join the company. I really wish I did, but I really, I really didn't.

That's awesome. And so it sounds like it's a perfect fit because you said obviously to you freedom of speech is the most important thing. It sounds like that's kind of shaped your life and career.

Yep. Why was it your family? Was it your experiences? Was it just something deep inside you always thought I'm just going to say what the fuck I want? And that's the most important thing.

What shaped that view because it's quite rare. I wish there were more people like you, but it's quite rare that people see the importance. Yeah, I look, I think being the, I think being the, you know, the classic left handed ADHD prone dyslexic kid growing up.

Me too. You know, you look at that and you realize that it's not only it's okay to be different, but you're different. And I know now being a white, straight male, I'm not different. I understand.

I can't say those words. But when you feel kind of that you're that, then not that you're just different, but you, you kind of have empathy for other people and you, and you want to hear from them.

You want to understand them. And, you know, at the end of the day, you realize the more you talk to people, the more you understand them, the more, the more interesting it is, the more insight you have.

And I guess it was my whole life. I just, I'm better at talking to people than I am writing something down. So I would always talk to folks. And in my house, it was, you know, we didn't grow up.

It like, don't talk to strangers. I think our parents raised us with like, you should be talking to every stranger and get to know them. So you realize how important it is to express them, but how much you actually can learn and the insight you can get.

And I was 14 years old. I built my first website and it was a way to kind of express myself to the school, which was early days. And, and I just saw the power of it was so, so exciting that we could express things and we could show pictures and we talk about it.

And, and it just seemed that this was, you felt free. You felt that you had an ability to connect with other people and, you know, what everyone forgets is that social networks, you know, some kids grew up in high school a little bit at sports and they had a friend group there.

They were the popular kids and they had a friend group there. For a lot of us that were computer nerds, that was kind of lonely. And the reason why you originally built social networks was this was a language you can kind of connect with people all around the world and kind of found a way to connect to those people.

Now, the big mistake we made was we made it really easy for everyone to do and that's when the popular kids started posting pictures and really fucked up the social networks for all of us.

Language made it harder to, you know, but you had to know, you know, if you want to talk, you had to know HTML or you had to, you know, you had to know how to host your own website. So I think for me, it opened the doors to being able to read and take in any information I wanted.

And, you know, I was very from early on, I was very concerned. You could see, you know, what a school, what a government would tell you and everyone had to think that way. And I could see how everyone was, you know, it was so obvious kind of manipulation that was that was there.

And the only thing that ever changed were the people who kind of spoke out against it. And you look at anything that's I think important that we value today was at some point it was banned.

It wasn't allowed and it was outsiders who fought to have that conversation and, you know, it's funny. I probably I probably, you know, I'm weird in the standpoint where I'm the one who's always saying like that person has a right to say it.

And, you know, even if it hurts me or or or people think you're totally against this, I'm like, it doesn't it doesn't matter. I'm definitely not against censorship and obviously being younger when I was quote, you know, this, this Democrat, it was more because I was like, look, freedom of speech is important.

And it was the conservative side that we're trying to, you know, silence video games or the Internet or music. And that just in jive. And now, you know, it's the complete opposite where you have a group of people who are supposed to be for, you know, kind of this freedom of expression who are doing everything they

can to seem to silence and censor folks. And it's it's really disturbing. And I think it's one of the biggest problems that we're facing is the fact that people are not only being censored from platforms, but they're feeling censored.

They're feeling that that they can't say these things and you're watching how this what happens. It builds up it builds up to more anger builds up to worse feelings because you're just telling people, well, you can't think this way.

You can't talk about it. And if you do you're wrong and you're going to get fired and if you don't tell the party line, I mean, this is, you know, this is that is a very scary place to be.

And, you know, I would say unlike maybe other people in the Bitcoin world, I'm a very, I love my country. I love the, you know, the US, I love the Constitution. I'm a, you know, I don't necessarily love our government and what they what they do in the politicians are the worst.

But, you know, I think that being in a country where you have, I've always respected my freedom to be able to express myself and think that's the most important thing. I think that's what's made what we've been able to build here great and watching people trying to destroy that to quote, you

know, protect everyone is, is I think a real danger. Yeah, I completely agree. And, you know, if you are scared of somebody speaking out, somebody that you hate speaking out, then you're not actually for freedom of speech.

And, you know, we have to, we have to completely allow that like, otherwise, how do you move forward? Sensoring is just, it seems like it's just like the most obviously stupid thing, but it is definitely becoming more and more normalized.

And, it's really scary. It's one of the main things that draws me to Bitcoin. And one thing that gives me hope, you know, you're talking about the Constitution and America, like, I never really understood how important that was.

It's something that it may just be because I'm in England and everyone's like, oh, the stupid fat America. You know, like you guys think, oh, we've got bad teeth, whatever, like basic stupid shit.

And I never really got it. And it's only since getting into Bitcoin and speaking to loads of Americans that I'm like, fuck, it's really important. Like the Constitution, it seems to be kind of eroded in a lot of ways, but the fact that you can speak freely generally and that you can protect yourself and, you know,

the fact that you have the state so that you have some competition is amazing. And, you know, especially with what's going on now, I'm very uncomfortable where I am. Like I'm thinking, how long have I got?

You know, I can't leave. I can't go anywhere. I can't protect myself. They're coming for me. I can't speak. You can be imprisoned for some of the things that you say. And I mean, Jesus, if they listen to my podcast and the things that I say, I'm sure they'd lock me up and throw away the key.

And so I have a huge amount of respect for America and what it stands for. And I feel like it aligns perfectly with Bitcoin. It really does. It, I will say, you know, like everyone else, you're like, oh, this is what I can add to Bitcoin.

And then when you allow, you know, when you really look at the values that Bitcoin has, it has been so mentally helpful, I think, that especially during the crazy time of COVID and the censorship that was happening, when you look at the values that Bitcoin has, you know, not only can you

relate to them, but it's refreshing to know that there's people all around the world that are like, here's the here. Look at these values that we all share. Now, the nice thing is, yeah, America has always kind of had this freedom.

It's scary in terms of what's, you know, what's currently happening with kind of this, you know, very woken and extreme left and censorship side of things because, you know, they're all trying to protect us from ourselves by just trying to engage us in, but, you know, you bring up a great point, which

is that the states have competition, right? And you're seeing, you know, you're seeing this rebellious side of, you know, where Florida, not only just being open for business, but you're seeing how different states can handle this.

So it's not just one country saying, this is how we do everything. That is great. You're seeing now, but more importantly, you're seeing how Texas and Florida are embracing Bitcoin. How exciting is that because obviously not only is the Constitution, you know, important and it's funny when I talk

to all my European friends and, you know, you're like, oh, well, you know, I'm a pretty liberal person, but, you know, obviously I have my multiple guns and people are like, how could you have guns?

And I'm like, well, you know, you need to protect yourself and your family and, and they think that's crazy. Can I just say Europeans are really fucking dumb, really dumb. You guys are very afraid of guns.

And I'm like, well, of course you need to have guns. How are you going to protect yourself? And you're like, I want everyone to know I have guns so that they know what they're going to do.

But, you know, I would say that the responsibility, you know, the right gun owner, they know the responsibility of that. And essentially, if you have freedom of speech, you should know what the responsibility of that is and why you should be protecting it, you know, freedom of speech isn't so that

you feel you can yell at anybody and block traffic, you know, freedom of speech is your ability to express yourself without a government telling you can or cannot say things. And my big fear that, you know, the battle that we are going to have is, you know, right now, you know, we all know that

everyone's trying to find every way to fight Bitcoin. And that's what makes it continue to, to be more powerful is that everyone keeps throwing stuff at it. And what hasn't happened yet is when does the US government decide, you know, if they can tell you that you can't say certain things about COVID or different, you know, treatments,

you know, what's the difference between saying like, oh, don't talk about this treatment for COVID, you know, don't say you can exercise more and be healthier, right? At what point are they going to say, you know, no, don't tell people about Bitcoin because we want to make sure you're

using our, you know, our vaccine, which is the US dollar. Don't try doing it yourself. And, you know, at what point are they going to start doing that because, you know, ironically, Twitter, which was kind of the really heavily censored of all the social network platforms is the best for Bitcoin.

That's just because Jack received leaves in it. But, you know, we as Bitcoin magazine, right, that just talks about Bitcoin, which I think is different obviously than the, our competitors that, you know, talk about all the coins we face censorship on LinkedIn, on Facebook, you know, we're constantly, you know, I'm just watching the

performance of our content. You constantly are getting shadow banned. If not, you know, not being able to even, you know, buy media on Tabula, and this is all content that, you know, it's not, we're not pushing some shit coin and, you know, we're not, we're not some scam.

You know, this is actually news and reporting on what is currently happening in the Bitcoin ecosystem. You know, my fear is that the censorship is going to start coming for, for this content, because once we start scaring the US government even more, in terms of threatening their kind of reserve currency, I mean, they're, you know, this

is just going to be another thing that they're going to try to pull on us. It seems that's the way it will likely go. I really hope not. I really hope that America embraces it, even if it's just that they realize they're smart enough to realize, we're not going to win this battle long term, and they decide actually

let's embrace it and become the sort of Bitcoin powerhouse. Oh, I don't want to use to embrace it. Here's the thing is you don't know, no, no, no, you want States to embrace it. You want peoples to embrace it, right?

So the last thing I want is the US government to embrace anything, right? I want the best thing that happens is let's let make sure people are embracing it because the more that the government gets involved in it, the more than that, the kind of people who just want the government to get involved in things around

look at them to handle it. So the good thing is this is going to infect, you know, Bitcoin is going to infect the rest of the US population that is open-minded, that is interested in taking care of themselves, and essentially it's going to self-select the people, the pride that the people that are going to be best

in building a future in a community. So I don't think the US has a choice. I mean, the US doesn't, there's nothing that they're going to be able to do to stop this. And then the States that pick it, you know, the Texas and Florida, great, I want to see them do better because essentially they were the, you know, they were the startup

that made the right investment in States like California that are run poorly, that are not cost effective, you know, that they're going to need to suffer the consequences for making, you know, poor business decisions.

Yeah, I see your point and it puts capital in the hands of people who are competent, which is brilliant. I guess my fear is, and it's a big fear is when we become domestic terrorists and what we're doing is destroying the US dollar and destroying, you know, the euro and you can see it all coming.

It's so fucking obvious. It's the same with all the COVID stuff like right from the beginning, this whole play has been so obvious if you're looking through the lens of they want more power, they want you to have less freedom.

If you look at it through that lens, you can very, very easily be a few steps ahead of the game and see what's coming. And that is what I see is that no matter how ridiculous it is, people seem to go along with it.

No matter how obvious, if you think about it, that Bitcoin is going to bring more freedom and that it's better for more people and no matter how much great content there is out there, they can very easily spin a narrative, which is that we have brought this whole system down.

We are the cause of the financial crisis, not because they've been complete fucking lunatics basically for the last 20, 30 years, like it's going to be us. And so that's why I say I wish or I hope that they realize that this is a battle they don't win and that they don't come after us because a big theme on this pod is, yeah, we will win.

I have 100% certainty or as close to it as as is possible that we do win. I'm very confident that this becomes a very, very valuable asset and that more and more people are going to use it over time.

It seems almost unthinkable that that doesn't happen. But how useful is it going to be to us if we have a bullet in the back of our head or in a gas chamber? You know, we've seen in history how crazy these governments can be and that most people just go along with it.

And so it is a fear for me where I'm thinking of maybe it's because I don't have so many guns as you. But yeah, it is a fear. I mean, what are your thoughts there? It should be. Look, people hate obviously when you do any comparison to war or, you know, fascist governments yet people just spent

the last four years calling Donald Trump a fascist because he didn't put, you know, executive pressure and try to take over states' rights. So, you know, we've been told that anyone who voted, you know, the majority Americans were Nazis for voting for Donald Trump.

It's not like you're called that yet. My fear, your fear, everything you just said, I think it. I think it's going to be real. And I think that that's why and I'm not usually that person.

But the reason why I'm happy for the people who are fighting against, whether it's sharing information about COVID or vaccinations, how about this? I'm personally vaccinated, right? Fine, but yet I do not feel that we should ever be passing laws of forcing vaccinations on to other people and they

should have a right to make that decision, right? So that's an example where like, look, I did my own research for my family, like I'm not having any more kids. There's a couple other things that said, look, I'm, you know, we had a daughter with some health issues.

So we're like, look, I'm going to get this. My kids don't have it. And I'm not going to be pressured into, you know, we had to pull our kids into a private school. So, you know, the public schools have different rules on this.

But, you know, I guess the thing is we need to make sure the reason why the fighting COVID is important now is they're just going to use this playbook against us on Bitcoin. So we need to show that we're unwilling to give up any ground and that, you know, instead of showing them like

Australia, like, okay, yeah, we'll let you do whatever you want. They're just going to try to do that same playbook when we threaten their traditional way of how they've tried to destroy the economy.

And in terms of fighting back, I guess, here's the hope. The nice thing about the U.S. is we want that fight, right? They're going to try to censor what we do. And the thing I like about Bitcoin magazine is when I look around between the founders and the people who work there, you know, we're kind of, we're ready for that.

If you're going to try to censor us, we're going to do everything we can to go, I mean, we look at, you know, things like you look at pirate radio, you know, I mean, as we read stories and we're like, oh, you know, that's cool in England.

You couldn't play music. So they went, you know, offshore broadcast. And I'm like, that's cool. You know, I'm like, okay, how do we let her bomb? You know, like, I'm trying to do plans where I'm like, okay, how do I take Bitcoin magazine?

How do I put it on a plane and how do I leaf lip bomb it into North Korea, right? Like, and it's like, you know, it sounds funny, but like, that's what we want to do, right? That's awesome.

You know, like, we are, the US will never be able to censor us. And guess what? Even if they try to, you're looking at places like El Salvador, which, you know, once again, no one cared about a year ago.

And they're obviously making a brilliant business decision to not only adopt Bitcoin, but all of a sudden looks like there's a home for like-minded people. There'll be places we can broadcast this information from anywhere.

And they're not going to be able to stop it. And if they do try to stop it, the nice little thing is, you know, this is going to be very much a peaceful revolution in terms of we're just providing information out there for how people can exchange goods and services with each other and not have to rely on the government to do it.

I think that the one country that will obviously survive and thrive in is in the US with or without the government. I'm hoping without and just with the people. I mean, what gives me hope is the group that I see on Bitcoin Twitter and the people I interact with are the most competent

and capable people I've ever met in my life by far and also passionate. These people are getting up every day, grinding, trying to make things work, trying to bring freedom to the world. And if I'm going to back a horse, it's certainly this one.

And that's the nicest thing about it. I mean, look, here's the biggest thing that the rest of the population misunderstands about Bitcoin, Twitter or Bitcoin. You know, I get to Bitcoin magazine.

The difference is, and I've been in a lot of media companies, you know, they kind of all brag about how successful they are and what they have and, you know, cars and planes and clothes and all sort of stuff.

That's never the case within Bitcoin magazine or Bitcoin Twitter. It is not about, you know, look at these things I bought. Look at this kind of, you know, flaunting of it. It was very much, hey, how are we bringing, you know, this financial freedom to everybody else?

I mean, look, you know, we had reporter Aaron down in El Salvador for three months, you know, we didn't just fly and say, oh, look, this was a story about, okay, how are we helping spread the tool that Bitcoin allows for financial freedom?

You know, I'm more interested in the fact that there's two million people now, Salvador, you know, when I went down there and you're buying, you know, food off of a street cart for 50, you know, 50 US cents and you're able to use, you know, your lightning wallet, that to me is more important.

The freedom that that has been Wall Street, you know, being like, oh, cool, another bank, you know, another rich person has decided to jump in. I don't give a shit about that, right? Like, obviously, it's more of a signal to the rest of the traditional establishment side, but the faster that we can get

the rest of the, you know, population that's been unbanked or hasn't had an ability to save or is getting their dollars inflated, you know, our goal is to try to get those people understanding what this is and embracing it prior to trying to inform Wall Street why they should give a shit about Bitcoin.

I love that. Yeah, fuck Wall Street and fuck all these bankers and everyone else. Wall Street has, you know, Wall Street has always been, they've just been a transaction fee. All those people are a transaction fee.

What are they really doing, right? And they're just a really high transaction fee. And when we say Bitcoin fixes this, look at Bitcoin, but obviously crypto in general, look at what you can now minimize that.

What are those folks actually doing? If they're going to argument about providing liquidity, businesses and all those other things, fine. But I look at this as just an over bloated transaction fee.

And I really wanted to, I think I got vetoed on this, but I really just want to buy ads in Wall Street saying, you know, telling Wall Street people not to buy Bitcoin. We don't want them just to piss them off.

And obviously they would even more, but, but, you know, you're having the goal is not to try to get those people to adopt it. I think, and I think sometimes Bitcoiners want that as a signal or to show, look, we've arrived.

You know, that shouldn't be the concern. You know, we're in El Salvador. I was in Ukraine last week. You know, you're talking to a population that, you know, has had to battle, you know, communism, really battle communism to even have the own room to have their own money.

You know, they don't have stock exchanges out there. They're not, you know, how they have their financial savings. You know, they're afraid of a government seizing it and they, you know, had to fight for their, really fight for their independence for, you know, as long as they can remember.

I want them to be adopting Bitcoin. We need to be informing them and properly informing them, providing them with accurate information. And, you know, obviously not being such fan boys that we avoid some of the pitfalls and not truthfully tell them.

And that's the big balance. We have a Bitcoin magazine is, you know, we have to do a good job of informing people, which we are excited about what this future is, but also properly doing it so that they trust us.

You know, and that's obviously why we just talked about Bitcoin and don't talk about the other ones. But, you know, that's a tough responsibility and balance that we have. It is. Yeah. It's not necessarily sexy.

People like want to, like, look at the price and get all excited, but what's really happening on the ground and, like, where it's really interesting are where you have Bitcoiners who are really pushing for privacy, pushing to get people on board, who have no other banking services, like all this stuff

that's at the ground level, like the foundation level, that's where it's really, really exciting. And exactly what you said. Like, do you really want these middlemen who have been leaching off society for so long?

And they've gone soft. They seem immoral to me. Most of what they value is fucking pointless. Do you really want them to continue having the money? Or do you want the people who have suffered who are tough and who are really fighting for freedom?

Well, you want the money in their hands. You want them to be able to build something new, build something great, and I think that's what's so exciting about El Salvador. Like, I try not to get overly hyped because I don't want to get let down, but what I am seeing there is that there are just

a load of people who are going to have a better money in their hands, and I'm hoping that they can build with that. And, like, it's an unthinkable thing. Even a couple of years ago, it's unthinkable.

Getting the message out there to people about this is not just about buying drugs on the internet, although, like you said, it's quite useful for that. And it's not just about making money.

This is about real change, and that's the fucking exciting bit. It's like this really can seriously change the world in such a positive way, and it's telling the story. You know, this is what Bitcoin magazine is about.

It's like telling the story of Bitcoin and actually separating it from the shitcoinery and all the pump and dumps and the scams and the bullshit and the blockchain and all the buzzwords. So, what's your vision going forward of, like, how are you thinking about telling that story and what's coming?

You know, what are you thinking about? Yeah. Well, I think you did a great job. I liked your last part, so maybe I could just steal all that, and I'll say that that's what we're trying to do.

But, essentially, you know, it's for me, and, you know, I want to speak for myself, and maybe say some of the visions for what we're doing and don't speak for the whole company. But, for me, it's, you know, it's purpose over price.

But that's why I like what we're doing at Bitcoin magazine. And, you know, I have no problem with competitors. I'm going back to freedom of speech. They should all do that, you know, so I'm not here to, you know, my goal is not to try to take down all the shitcoins.

I just don't report on it, and I think it's anything I'm more incentivized to properly inform people about Bitcoin and help the Bitcoin development world because it obviously is more important.

Because Bitcoin is what is going to say things, not, you know, Shiba-Nibu, not Ethereum, not Solano, and cool enough, fine, whatever, great. Don't care, right? Like, that's not the purpose.

You know, like someone else's Salvador is not using an NFT to buy food. You know, someone in Venezuela is, you know, not going to use, you know, a smart -- is not going to be so excited about a fucking smart contract so they can stake something on, you know, Olympus to make sure that they're getting -- all that stuff is fine.

I'm happy there's innovation there. But if we're looking at the responsibility that Bitcoin magazine has, because we just talk about Bitcoin and because that's our focus, it also allows us to talk about not only the culture, but the people who are working on this and how is it actually impacting things, right?

I don't need to talk about every new coin project. That is irrelevant, right? I want to tell you what's actually happening Bitcoin, the good, the bad, the ugly, right? You know, like I said before, our newest print magazine, which came out and we're launching that quarterly, which is, you know, obviously a huge step for us.

You know, that was the origins of actually being a magazine. And we were printing and stopping and printing for a while and recommitting to print, you know, shows kind of actually not only our commitment and is the physical thing that, you know, there's a lot of joy when people kind of touch a physical product and we

live in such a different world. But the most important thing about a magazine is it allows me to get the time to tell a story because you have Bitcoin Twitter, which everything is happening so quickly, right?

And maybe you can put it online. You know, you get 24 hours to talk about a story that does not give you enough time to understand the problem, understand the people and to articulate, you know, what's actually happening.

So, you know, the fact that the El Salvador issue just came out, you know, obviously Aaron, our lead writer who was down in El Salvador for, you know, more than two months actually was able to talk to people before the law went to place and after the law, during the law and after the law.

And you were actually able to understand what people were actually using it for, you know, instead of just kind of coming in and out and, you know, CNN flying down and being like, oh, look, people are burning an ATM.

And it's not working. It's working like you had no idea what the hell you're talking about. And, you know, all of a sudden, you know, the funny thing was, of all the press everyone got, what was the biggest thing?

The biggest thing was in the morning when Aaron, a reporter, went to McDonald's, which, you know, he'd been going to for months for breakfast and used Bitcoin to buy McDonald's, right? And he naturally took that picture.

And, you know, that's what McCaly retweeted. And all of a sudden that became like this huge part of the conversation. And it was because he was organically doing this. He was talking to people.

And he was just interested if it would actually actually work. And now it's funny. You see everyone who goes to El Salvador. They all seem to now go to McDonald's by, you know, and it's like, you know, I bought it.

And, you know, that was a very natural thing when you have a reporter there for two months. But you were able to understand, okay, here's what they built in the wall that, you know, they gave you the $300.

You can only spend it on stores. You couldn't immediately cash it out. That's why they thought the ATM weren't working. Hey, that was not ideal. But how could you inform people about that?

You know, we make the magazine allows us to take the time to do it because you know when you have a magazine, you know that the content in there is not going to be, you know, what just happened two days ago.

So, you know, allows us the freedom to really dig into a story. I mean, I think the El Salvador could be 14, 15 pages. You know, that takes time. It takes time to understand that. And by doing that, we're going to really allow people who are wanting to understand what's happening here and get real insight

and real depth what's changing in this world and how it can impact them in their country. We'll be able to do that. And, you know, not just our competitors, but everyone else. They're just coming in to make a tweet or a quick post or a quick video.

And they're never going to be able to do actually the commitment to the journalism that we will. And by doing so, you know, obviously print magazines are, you know, this is not the financially smartest thing to do.

You learn pretty quickly why I think print is dead for everything else. But it allows us to, you know, the nice thing is we've had thousands of people who've now signed up for a subscription because they've made an investment in our storytelling.

I mean, it's such a beautiful thing. And it's such an encouraging thing for our staff. And we see every day, you know, we're seeing hundreds of people who are subscribing to a print magazine.

And these are people who, you know, obviously live in a very digital world. But we look at as that, you know, this is a capitalistic, you know, this isn't a Kickstarter. This is a nonprofit.

This is a capitalist way of saying, hey, we want you to continue to do this. And we'll make that investment in these important stories. It's going to influence obviously the rest of our content that we have digitally.

We're building out a video department, you know, which takes funds and time. And, you know, we want to try to capture more of that. So we have a responsibility to not just talk about Bitcoin price or the blockchain or taproot, which obviously we cover.

We have a responsibility to talk about how this can help change the world, how Bitcoin actually can fix this, have proper discussion of what is the environmental impact and why is that good or why is that bad.

And also to talk about the type of people who are making this happen, right? So you can say, wow, you know, I relate to that person. And this goes back to, you know, freedom of speech allows you to connect more with people and not feel alone.

We have such a unique responsibility at Bitcoin magazine that, you know, every time someone, I guess, if they see us on Twitter, they don't feel alone. If they have the magazine, they don't feel alone.

It's such a beautiful thing that kind of really does connect all these people who have been passionate about Bitcoin and maybe don't know how to express it. Maybe they're not active in Bitcoin Twitter, but all of a sudden they see a magazine.

They know that there's been, you know, 50 people put their blood sweat and tears into making this and we want you to hold it. And it's something you don't have to be embarrassed or feel dorky about or, you know, have people tell you're doing a stupid pyramid scheme or scam.

You look at it and you go, oh, yeah, the smartest people are, you know, like smart people. These seem like passionate people. And we could be doing a whole lot of other things for our time, making a lot more money, but we're doing this because we believe in it.

And we want them to know that, you know, there are people out there like them. It's a really exciting and, as you can tell, I can't stop talking about it because I get so pumped. It's a really exciting but also a stressful response to the ability that we have.

Yeah. But like you say, it is fucking exciting. And I think that's why we're all here. And the amazing thing which you touched on there is this social layer, which is I've got to meet. And I think this is the same for a lot of Bitcoin is I've got to meet people who I've classed now as my best friends, who, a lot

of them I've never even met in person. They've never seen my face. I like to stay sort of off the grid as much as possible. But, you know, these are people who are fucking amazing. I would never get to meet them in my normal life.

I felt like just everywhere I looked, there was just dickheads taking gym selfies and posting about what car they've bought and just complete fucking useless waste of space, in my opinion.

And I did feel quite alone. I did feel quite lost. And meeting these people who are like, have their own homesteads and getting interested in farming and caring about their nutrition and caring about freedom and caring about building things that last and like real legacy.

And like you said, actually doing something that you know that your children can be proud of. That was a big thing for me. I was like, before Bitcoin, my life was a complete shit show. And I was thinking, when I'm on my deathbed, will I be proud?

Like, will anyone look at my life and go, wow, you've done something great. And the answer was absolutely no. And this has allowed me to rethink things and allowed me to meet people who can help me along the way.

And that's, you know, in itself without the technology, without everything else it's doing, that's like the real Facebook, in my opinion. That's like the real way that I've connected with people that matter, like people that I can connect and I love those people because they don't exist in most walks of life anymore.

It is, you know, you're absolutely right. And it's just this moment alone, right? Like, I'm sitting here on another side of the screen. I'm not looking at you. I'm looking at whatever the Zen caster thing is.

And I'm smiling because, you know, I'm like, what you said, I'm like, you're right. It's what is, it would reaffirm why this is, why this is important. And, you know, I'm almost 40. So at Bitcoin magazine, I'm, you know, I'm pretty much grandpa.

But, you know, I'm talking these 20 year old passionate kids. And they're talking about Bitcoin, like, well, you know, obviously when I start a family, I got to think about that. That's why I'm saving.

And you're like, I don't know a lot of 20 year old, you know, just, you know, just out of college guys that are sitting here going, hey, look, this is how I can save properly because someday I'm going to start a family.

And that's going to be important. Like, just that even as a conversation is such a beautiful thing. And when you think of the Bitcoin community, what are they encouraging you to do? They're saying, hey, we would like for you to think of yourself as an individual.

Care about saving your resources so you have more time. And then honestly, please just don't trust our opinion. We would like for you to do your own research and stuff like, it's insane. Like, that's the exact type of friend that you want to have, you know, like, and you're just being surrounded by those people.

And the best thing is they're all different. And they don't care how different you are, right? You can be completely, you know, the type of things that you care about. But this kind of bond Bitcoin is this, it's this social contract where we kind of all know that these are some of the core values that we all share.

So the other parts that make us completely different, you know, that's fine. Look at the, we agree on the kind of the main foundation here. It really is such a, I get such a smile because, you know, essentially when I remember being in El Salvador, here's the difference.

And, you know, we're doing this Bitcoin travel guide and people kind of don't think it's important. But why I think it's important is, you know, we talk about connecting with Bitcoiners. Well, when you travel, essentially, you use your Visa, your MasterCard, right?

And I pay with the currency, I believe, into you and you accept it in a currency you believe in. And, you know, there's visas being the middleman. They're taking their fee. And there's not really a connection there.

And when you're in El Salvador and you're buying something, you know, I'm giving someone my Bitcoin and they're accepting Bitcoin. And so as silly as it sounds, we kind of have this trust in the same currency.

It's going almost back to this way of trading with folks, you know, where, you know, you kind of come in by ship and you'd be like, I trade the thing that I have that, you know, like we make in our world and trade it with you and something new value.

And there was just, there's, there's something there. There's this connection that every time you kind of, you know, pay someone Bitcoin, there's this like head nod that like, hey, yeah, we both believe in this and look at the value that has there.

It kind of makes every purchase, you know, feels so much better. And I think that's kind of the fun thing about, about this. This isn't just a social network where we're all like, yeah, we're all on Facebook.

You know, we're trading the thing that we take the most value in with each other for something that we value more than Bitcoin, which is, you know, in order to spend something and buy something with Bitcoin, you got to value it more than you do the Bitcoin itself.

So there's this real connection you have when you do that. And that part gets me excited, something we try to showcase in just our Bitcoin or travel guide where to travel and where to, you know, how to, how to use your Bitcoin to travel and connect with other Bitcoiners around the world.

But, you know, we're really trying to also open up the world for people that, that believe in this, that here's a way they can connect with others that share that and that reward is going to be more than, than I think that they might realize.

Yeah. It is a special connection and it takes a lot to spend your Bitcoin. Like exactly like you said, it's a real, you really have to think very carefully about when you're doing it. And the times when I have spent my Bitcoin, it has been a connection generally.

I stay in contact with those people when I'm doing it. Obviously it would be different if I was buying a McDonald's. But, you know, for the things that are special to me, certain pieces of sort of Bitcoin history, I would call it, that are special to me that sit on my desk, I look at them every day and I think of that

person who has built that product and I go, yeah, they're fucking awesome and I'm glad I've given them that Bitcoin. And there isn't this thought of, oh my God, that Bitcoin that I spent three years ago, oh, if I'd have not bought this product, then I'd have X amount of money.

It's not that. It's actually, I'm glad they have it because they fucking deserve it because they're awesome. And so it's very, very different to that fiat culture. But yeah, listen, it's been incredible chatting to you.

I really, really enjoyed it. And I can, like you said, I can feel the passion through this call. I wondered if there was anything else you wanted to cover that we haven't gone through. I try and keep these to about an hour.

But maybe we touch on the conference or something like that. We haven't sort of gone into those sort of bits. But yeah, I've been all over the place. But it's been really cool to connect with you, mate.

Well, same. It's been fun and I didn't even know that. It's been an hour. You know, I think obviously Bitcoin Magazine, our parent company, BTC Inc, which puts on Bitcoin 2021, Bitcoin 2022.

The conference, obviously, is very exciting. And I think there'll be a lot of talented people who talk about how that's going to be so amazing. And I'll let them do it. Obviously, I think that's kind of our pilgrimage to the coolest party event.

And it's kamakan meets, you know, can meets every type of conference. CES. And I think it's great. But I would say that's amazing on its own. What I would like to say is, look. We're on a mission at Bitcoin Magazine for people who listen to this.

You know, if you are a real big pointer, I know there's a lot of valuable things you can be doing with your time. But we have a responsibility to put this message out there. And what I really hope is, you know, if I can get one or two people who listen to this to think, you know, how can you help us grow this?

You know, we're opening international offices. You know, we're opening an office in Ukraine for Eastern, you know, to Eastern Europe. You know, we have a global company that works remotely.

But, you know, we're trying to grow this not because we're trying to grow revenue. You know, we're trying to grow this because and make, you know, international locations where we can translate the content.

We can report locally. We're doing this because this is the best way to properly inform people about what Bitcoin can do and how it can help them. And we are on this mission. We're looking for the best and the brightest and the people who want to work on this.

I really hope, if they're out there, that they reach out to me at Mike Trimono on Twitter or wherever else, or mike@b.tc. Please reach out to me for people who make great video and storytelling.

You know, we are hiring for these positions. We want to encourage people who are doing this. You know, our company is always looking for bright brilliant ideas that can help with hyper-Bitcoinization.

And if you are doing that, please, you know, let us know. And if it makes sense, we want to be super supportive of that. But, you know, this is kind of a, you know, we talk about kind of having that fight.

You know, we're trying to really build up the army on our end to continue to have the freedom to talk about this and show how it changes things and report on it properly. And, you know, we really need the right type of people to want to join our company.

I promise you it's going to be absolutely worth it. It'll be something you'll be proud of while you're doing it. It'll be something your kids will be proud of. And your parents might not understand it yet, but I promise they will be proud of it.

And you'll be proud of yourself. So I just implore that or my kind of call to action is if you're talented and you believe in this, please join us because we're trying to do some big things.

That's awesome. Well, thanks for everything that you're doing. It's incredible to have this level of quality and also documenting the things that really matter. I'm excited to get one of these prints in my hand.

And in terms of getting some high quality candidates, I have a few people in my mind so offer. I'll mention their names as some very, very talented people that I know in this industry. But yeah, thanks so much for coming on.

And hopefully at some point I can find my way into the US and we can enjoy a whiskey or something like that. Thank you. It's been a pleasure.