EP52 Bitcoin podcast with the Matt Odell

Bitcoin is close to becoming worthless.

Now what's the Bitcoin? Bitcoin's like rat poison. The greatest scam in history. Let's get it.

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 to Bit by Bit. Today, I speak to Matt Odell.

In fact, it wasn't today. It was about a week ago. I'm just recovering, to be honest. It was a really late one. I got all over excited, drank far too much whiskey. Was sick as a dog for following day, but it was well worth it.

We talked about Bitcoin, obviously. We talked about privacy, security, and dogs. I did some fangirling, and I really, really enjoyed this one. Before I dive in, I just want to say thank you very much to Coin Floor for continuing to sponsor the show.

Also, I just want to give a massive shout out to Bada's self-banked, and Mr. Crown 21-ism is now live. It's got some absolutely amazing content on there. I'm so proud to be part of this. If you haven't gone and checked it out already, go do it now.

21-ism.com. Enjoy. Can you hear me? How's it going, my dude? Yeah, very well, thank you. Other than I got the timing's wrong, and I was sat here about an hour ago. I was like, "Oh, where's he gone?

Like, what's going on?" Just about send you a message, and then double checked and realized I got the wrong time in New York. It was a little bit stupid, but other than that, I'm good. How are you?

I'm sorry, dude, that sucks. I hate time zones or a bit of vulnerability for myself as well. It's all right. There's the bottle pop. I'll be joining you with that, although I'm getting through already because I've been sat for a while with this.

There we go. What are you drinking? I'm drinking Oban Little Bay, single mold scotch. Very nice. I've got a taliska sky. I've not had it before. Single mold reduced massive reduction, so I stacked some sats with the rest of it.

I love it. Cheers. Yeah, cheers. It's really nice to speak to you, mate. You know, this is a little bit surreal for me because I said to you before, I am a TFTC maximalist, especially with getting busier with the podcast.

Myself, most other things have been cut out, but I never miss a rabbit hole recap. I sort of have you and Marty in my ear once a week listening through that. So it's surreal having the conversation.

And to be honest, listening to the conversations you guys have had and the things that you've talked about with privacy have really, really helped me over my time in Bitcoin. Keep me away from the bullshit and help with the privacy and help with my understanding a lot.

So, you know, before we jump in, I want to say thank you so much for doing that and taking the time to help people. Truly my pleasure. Really glad to hear that. I mean, that's what I spend so much time in this space.

I mean, I enjoy it. Yeah, truly my pleasure. Awesome. Yeah, it's weird. Once you start sort of going down the rabbit hole, I remember when I first found TFTC and I started listening and like I liked Bitcoin.

I was like, this is cool. And I could understand it from the economic side. And I was like, you know, I think this is going to be massive. I think it's going to make loads of money. And I always had a little bit of a streak in me where I was like, fuck the government.

It's like, I know it's all bullshit. Like, I know all this stuff isn't true. But like, how are we going to fix it? And like, I kind of was pretty pessimistic on the future. And then sort of as I continued to listen, little bits just started falling in place.

And because I'm not massively technical, I was like, oh, this is all just too far past me. Like, I'm never going to be able to do this stuff. And then sort of recently, especially the last year or so, speaking to people like Bitcoin Q&A and following the things that you've been saying and so many other helpful people in

the space, I'm like, you know what? Like, it's not that unachievable for people to really have the sort of dream set up and actually have self sovereignty and actually have freedom money.

And I'm starting to get, not just bullish on the price, but like really fucking bullish on what can happen in the future. And it's a good feeling. Like, it's nice to have some positivity because there's so many miserable bastards around.

Like, everyone here is just, in England, is like just whinging about everything. Everyone's so down. And actually, I'm starting to get excited now. And, you know, seeing the things that are coming out, it's just, it's such an interesting space and the things that are happening just blow my mind every single day.

Yeah, I mean, I think, I think it's important that people tend to get really overwhelmed and one of the first things, one of my first goals is to try and make things more approachable, make people realize that, you know, a lot of this stuff is well within reach and you just got to take little baby steps and just fucking do it.

And then, yeah, on the, I mean, like, I couldn't agree more with you. I mean, like, Bitcoin, without Bitcoin, I have very little hope. And without Bitcoiners, you know, even less so, so the discovering free open source software, discovering the culture around it is really like the shining light to me.

Like the way I approach this whole space is basically if we don't have it, we're fucked. Like the alternative, the alternative is a very dark reality. So we might as well give it our best shot here.

Well, luckily there's enough people who are and, you know, there's a small group who are really giving it the best shot, like really fucking care about this stuff. And that's the other thing is like, not only is this system amazing, but the people around

it are just mind blowing and the amount of commitment and the amount of time that people are putting into everything is amazing. And nothing, like, I'm not really that interested in computers and never was until Bitcoin.

Like, I didn't really spend any time, like, I'm not a gamer. I don't spend time in front of a computer. All of this was so alien to me. And it took, you know, it took something special to make me really care like this.

And I think it is down to that. It's like, you're right. If we don't have this, we're fucked. And if it is the way that I'm imagining it, it's proper 1984 stuff. Like, it's really, really scary.

And, you know, somebody who wants kids and, you know, seem to get married. I am looking at this and I'm like, I really want to bring children into this world and, like, bring them into a world that's seemingly getting worse without this technology.

And then the answer is no, so it's how do you really spread the message? And how do you make this as accessible as possible? And things like your guides and things like that have really helped.

And I mentioned Bitcoin Q&A. He's been really, really helpful for me. He's awesome. He's an absolute legend. Like, I speak to him most days now because I'm always fucking something up. And I'm like, "Mate, can you just help me with this?"

And he's such a helpful guy and all of his guides are so good. It's people like that in this space that just make all of this possible. And getting from the normal way in of just like buying on an exchange and then getting to a point where you can actually run a node and have things in cold storage and actually using coin join

and all these things that sort of, you know, a year ago to me were just not possible. Now they're feeling acceptable. Then we need you to educate the next 100. Yeah, that's what I'm trying.

That's what I'm trying. That's the only way, that's what I realized. It's the only way this shit scales is because, you know, it's not a corporate network because it's a distributed network.

The only way it scales is if we basically like this active Bitcoin, Twitter, you know, online community that's very engaged is basically the way I consider this is they're being trained to go out and train other people because it's the only way you could ever see this kind of meaningful scale.

And it has to kind of be that one-on-one thing like for the non-technical people, you know, you can read through documentation, you can read through how to do something, but there's always going to be little snacking things and, you know, like I was setting up a Ronan Dojo the other day and, you know,

it took me a bottle of whiskey and like two nights to get through it and add some help and questions along the way. And there were times that I'm just like, oh, my God, like, what am I doing?

I'm so, so far above my head, like, this is not possible for me. And then I'd ask one little question and be like, okay, no, that's all clear. And it is just having that like support network around you where you can ask these little questions.

And you may not need it, but it adds a huge improvement, right? It makes it that much easier. Yeah, I mean, I remember it was probably about six months ago. I was trying to set up, I was trying to put a graphene OS on my phone and I'd listened like you were talking about it.

I was like, cool, I'm going to try this and I went through the guide. And I was having loads of problems because I put a bun to on a Raspberry Pi and I thought, oh, yeah, I've nailed this, but then I couldn't get it working.

And I reached out to you and you'd actually got back in contact and you were like, oh, you can't do that because it's ARM or ARM or whatever it was. And I was like, well, I don't know what the fuck that is, but okay.

You couldn't do it from a Pi. That's it. Yeah, I couldn't do it from a Pi. And then I somehow managed to get it done off of my MacBook. But just the fact that like I'd sat in front of that for again, like a whole night, just like banging my head.

And then I reached out and like you were nice enough to get back to me. And I was like, ah, okay, that saved me so much time. So it's that just people. Yeah, you're right. Just people passing it on and being held.

But it was even more than that because up until that point, I thought you could do it on a Pi. Oh, really? I think if I recall correctly, you came to me and then I like went to someone else.

And I was because I was like, it's gonna put my pay grade. I was like, I can't figure out why it's not working on this guy's Pi. And then we figured out the limitation there. I think it has something to do with fast boot, which is used to flash the different version of Android on to the device.

And then, but what was nice is from that point on, then I knew how to answer that question, right? And so like we all improve. Like I've learned that's one of the things I try and stay on top of is responding to my DMS.

I've learned a ton of things just like answering other people's questions, you know, things that I would never even consider. I mean, you know, people do crazy things. And then they come into my DMS and ask me questions about them that I wouldn't even consider doing.

And then all of a sudden I have that in my repertoire of something like that I know how to fix. You sort of learn by teaching. Yeah, I learned by trying to fix what actually the main way I learned is by making my own horrible mistakes.

But then I also learned whether people's horrible mistakes. Yeah, it's a little bit like that. I've touched wood and I'm probably going to jinx it now, but I've not yet made like a horrible fuck up and lost any like significant amount of sats.

But every day I feel like I'm very close to it. I'm always pushing too far way way past what I'm capable of. And I don't know, it's kind of fun sometimes to do that and it will probably trip me up at some point.

But I do think that's the best way to learn like when you're a little bit scared. When you could fuck something up and you you're probably you're probably in the right ballpark. You're pushing forward a little bit more.

Absolutely, I mean, yeah, I think it's important that people push themselves. You know, you don't want to you're going to make mistakes. Mistakes are fine. That's I mean, that's how I learned.

So you don't want to you don't want to end up in this like comfort zone where you just don't progress at all. Yeah. And when you came in, obviously it's been a while you've been involved.

What was your resources? Like I assume it's like very, very different. It was way worse. Yeah. I mean, even just the last two years, three years, it's massively improved in terms of, you know, we have people like 6102 and Bitcoin Q&A who are putting out all this content.

Keep it simple, Bitcoin, us, you know, BTC sessions, Stefan Lavera, Ministry of Nodes. Like, there's just so much good quality content. Back then, we had Andreas, because he hadn't really gone.

Like, I mean, the shitcorns are just like getting started. And the actual, you know, not only was the education not there, the actual tools to use were just so much more. Difficult to use and had so many gotchas involved in them.

I mean, like trying to use your own full node was just, I mean, besides using Bitcoin core, it was pretty much unattainable for most new users. Hardware wallets were like the Trezor one. They just come out.

So users definitely have a way, way, way, way easier now. There's way less pitfalls. I mean, but there's still a ton of pitfalls where you can, where you can fuck up. I think what's really good is, and I mean, anyone who's listened to me for a little bit would probably not be surprised.

I'm going to say this, is there's been this renewed focus on privacy, which just was really nonexistent whatsoever. You know, that's one of the reasons I think a lot of people don't realize is why Samurai has this, like, cult.

Cult is following is because, like, in 2015, when they came out, there was just no one was really addressing that kind of niche. No one was considering it. Yeah, it's, do you think that was like, people thought that Bitcoin was anonymous then or a lot of people did?

Or was it just that people didn't really give a fuck? They didn't think it was big enough or like, just, it just wasn't the main concern. What would you think made that flip? Is it just education or do you think something more to it?

You know, people knew, I mean, anyone who was actually, I mean, I'm not going to say overarching statements like that. A lot of people understood the privacy gotchas with Bitcoin. The thing is, is that the early days solutions to them and they still, you know, their holdovers now were custodial mixers.

And custodial mixers have two issues with them. They have a trust issue where you have to literally trust the mixer with your privacy and with your coins. You literally give them coins. They give you someone else's coins.

And they were major regulatory targets, so they were just getting hit left and right. You know, one of the geniuses of Silk Road, which is a little bit before my time, is that he just had a custodial mixer built in.

So, you know, talking about a good UX for privacy, like there was, you would send your Bitcoin into Silk Road and they would just automatically get mixed for you. So, anyone who was interacting with that didn't really even have to pay attention to it that much.

I mean, obviously they were probably leaking a ton of information going into and out of Silk Road, but in terms of actual transactions, they were getting mixed there. I think, yeah, I don't know, I did, there was a, I guess there was a false selling of Bitcoin as being anonymous by default, which clearly is not.

So, we had to get over that. And then basically, I think we just, the majority of people got sidetracked with the bullshit scaling debate that happened. And then finally, when that got over with, like people went back to like realizing privacy was important.

Yeah, but there was like a delay there where just like nothing was really happening.

I think what's really difficult, what I found, you know, you're saying about people reaching out and DMs and like it's getting to the point, my podcast isn't very big, but, you know, some people reach out and ask me questions and a few friends and family ask me questions and things like that.

And I think it takes some time for them to, like, they might come into it and say, okay, yeah, I can kind of see why this could be valuable with the money printer going, but all the stuff that you're banging on about like, yeah, okay, I get that.

But it takes a while for them to go from, I have it on exchange or, or, you know, maybe I have it in a hardware wallet and I'll just hold it for 10 years, or they may say that, but they'll try and trade it.

But it takes them a while to actually get to a point where they will understand like, yeah, this is kind of pointless if we don't have the privacy. And if we do have all of this just regulated and we have just all exchanges sharing all their information and everything just being transparent, then in some ways it's worse.

I mean, obviously the money's still good, but without the fungibility, it really is. I mean, I've kind of got to the point where I'm like, it's a bit fucking pointless if we can't have the privacy.

It's such a big part that is being overlooked, but it takes such a long time for people to care. And I kind of think like it's almost like a brainwashing. Oh, yeah, well, you know, if you've got something to hide, why have you got something to hide?

All I want to do is just hold this thing and it gets more valuable. And then, and then I'll sell it for X amount of money and you're like, yeah, but why do you want to sell it? You know, you know, how do you get that across where it's like, don't fucking sell it.

And, you know, this is your only way out of a full totalitarian government, which, you know, it's everywhere. It's not just in the UK, like it's definitely here. It is definitely here, but it's everywhere.

It seems like it's just one big global movement and just everyone is having their freedoms taken from them. Everyone is having their money taken from them, their time, their value, everything.

And, you know, how do you get them to wake up and just be like, fuck it, I'm just going to hold this thing and just use this thing. And I don't want anything else.

I mean, I think, you know, I think it's, it's multi-fold there, you know, multifaceted there is, first of all, people don't realize how much, how little privacy they have today. They give up their privacy every day. I mean, it's not just a money thing.

Like we, I mean, we have peers that literally wiretapped their houses with corporate surveillance equipment, with Google homes and Amazon Alexa, and they pay for the privilege of doing that.

And they brag about having those features, you know, and they put their little camera doorbell that's connected to the internet. You know, like you said earlier, you said we could be in like a 1984 situation, like George Orwell was wrong.

It's like way worse than I do for people are paying to install the wiretaps in their houses. The DNA exams, you know, where they're basically doxing their future relatives that don't even exist yet.

Like shit like that is crazy. So I think, first of all, like people don't realize they're losing their privacy. They're not valuing it enough. And I think as we've never been in the situation before, as people more and more of their lives get digital, these things will inherently get compromised.

They're not being stored securely, you know, centralized third parties or security holes. They'll get hacked. All these different compromises will happen. And people will learn from getting burned just basically over and over again.

People are just going to keep getting burned until they learn. And then on terms of the financial side, I think a lot of us took for granted cash.

I think when I first got into Bitcoin, what I kind of imagined was Bitcoin could be like the digital rails for cash, but on both sides, you just like go to a KYC free Bitcoin ATM and convert back to cash for spending.

Which actually like kind of works like decently well from a privacy perspective because cash is fantastic for privacy. And where you go outside of the ATMs, you would obviously be really private, but that never really materialized, right, because of the exact regulations that have led to Bitcoin needing to exist in the first place.

We don't see these ATMs everywhere. If it wasn't for regulations, we'd have Bitcoin ATMs in every single airport in the world. But anyway, I've seen the acceleration of the removal of cash.

So with that happening, we could for the first time in human history, like not have a private money to spend. And I think that this is going to have really drastic chilling effects on people.

So I think people will realize eventually the need for it. And I think the cats out of the bag, like people will mobilize if necessary. So I'm not worried necessarily about Bitcoin, the network.

But I am worried about individual users and I prefer if user individual users were prepared because if they're prepared, then the transition period isn't as bad as it could be. Otherwise, it could just get really, really dark for a while.

I was just, you know, life short, I'd prefer not to live that kind of path. Yeah, me too. Me too. It's kind of, it is difficult to get out across to people, but I think you're right. And I think people know that they're pissed off with it.

They just can't quite put their finger on how to fix it. Like the amount of times, especially, you know, a lot of people say, oh, boomers are out of touch, they're not going to be buying this thing.

Like I totally disagree with that. Like the amount of times I've gone to say the bank and literally like the other week I was there and someone's there saying, um, I want to pay this money in.

Who's it? Who's it for? This is not your account. Yes, my wife's account. You can't do that. That's someone else's your account. You're like, it's my wife's fucking account. I want to put in 500 quid into my wife's account.

No, you can't do that. They need to be here or people wanting to draw out money. Oh, can I ask what that's for? We need to know where it's going. And you know, and you see these people know they're not used to it because it wasn't like this before.

Like it's getting worse and worse. And you can see how frustrated they're getting. And part of me wants to like reach out in the line and be like, Hey, have you heard about this really fucking cool thing called Bitcoin?

But I know that they're just going to either laugh at my face or they're going to say, Oh, well, that's for criminals or whatever. But there has to come a point where the education is good enough.

The message has been refined enough and they're annoyed enough. You know, where they go to the bank and they're drawing out a hundred pounds and they're being asked what you're doing with it.

It's like, Jesus, what is going on? There has to come that point where it crosses over and then they say, OK, I want to use this. But then I suppose the question is, how do you, even if they want to use it, they're probably just going to go on to some shit coin casino buy on there and hold it?

And how do you get them to be using tools like Samurai and these kind of things? Or do we get to a point where it's so easy to use and there are wallets where this sort of stuff is integrated to a point where it's easy enough for the average person to have the best possible privacy unless they really don't want it.

It's just built in, it's easy and they don't even have to think about it. Everything is just running in a very much private way. Do you think we're ever going to get that? I mean, I think we need, first of all, you hit the nail on the head.

First of all, people are going to, they need to need it first. They need to need it and when they need it, they'll sneak it out. They'll figure it out if they have to figure it out. When that time comes, we want the tools to be as ready for them as possible.

We want the education to be there and ready as well. But they're going to need to need it first. And one of the things I like to compare to is message encryption. So we had PGP. PGP is a very good way of encrypting your messages. The UX sucks.

It's just not really good UX, but it's super censorship resistant. The code is lightweight. Anyone can run it open source. Anyone can participate. Any message medium you can use, you can send a PGP message to Twitter DM through WhatsApp, through whatever.

Message encryption really didn't become more widespread until we started getting apps like iMessage and Signal, which packages it into a really user-friendly way of using these encrypted tools.

They have features like where you can do smiley faces and shit. Now, iMessage is a little bit worse example because it's closed source. So it's not ideal you obviously want open source software so people can verify and you can make sure that there's not, you know, the app's not doing something. It says that it's not doing.

But Signal is a perfect example because it's open source. It's run by this foundation. The foundation is running centralized servers that could easily be shut down. But the servers can't de-anonymize the messages because they're encrypted locally.

Signal couldn't exist if our governments didn't want it to exist. Right? So the number one UX issue we have going for Bitcoin right now is government regulation. So it's not going to ever get really easy to use until those regulations subside.

It's going to take some time, you know, and it wasn't always that way with message encryption. There was a fight there and then it became the norm. It became industry standard, right? We didn't always have SSL on the internet, HTTPS and it became industry standard.

So we need, we basically need the regulations to evolve and they're not quite there yet. And they'll probably be like a fight period in between where it's going to remain like more enthusiast driven, or you know, the user needs to be more active about it.

It can't just be like a mainstream user before we get to that point where like basically that'll go on for a while. It'll become like inevitable and then we'll probably see regulations loosen up and allow more mainstream users.

That's kind of like how I look at it. I sort of worry that it will go the other way personally. I do worry that governments will wake up and maybe they already have, but they will see that actually this is a serious threat to them,

but they can't just carry on fucking around with people like they have been for so long and tightening their grip just constantly and making everyone's lives generally worse. And you know, I do wonder whether they're going to, how hard are they going to fight back against things like encryption

and how hard are they going to fight against things like Bitcoin. And if I was them and like I was a lunatic who just wanted power, those are the two things that I'd be going for straight away.

And you know, they're not stupid, these people, they might not be good people, but a lot of them are not stupid and I sort of think it's not that hard to make the masses believe what you want them to believe.

Like that is evident. You know, you have conversations with just normal people and you just think, Jesus, like you just literally sit in front of the box. You listen to whatever you're told. You don't question anything.

And you just go along with whatever anyone else says, like, you know, orange man is bad. Whatever the BBC says, everyone just chimes in and goes along with and never questions anything. And I just wonder whether they can turn this whole thing round and say, well, encryption is bad because, you know,

the normal stuff, terrorism and all the other stuff they'll use and how hard would it really be for them to stop this. And then, you know, what do we do to protect that, that if they do make it illegal, we make it impossible to shut down.

Is there a way? And this is something I was speaking to BTC XL car about the other day. And I was saying, you know, with the with the Ronan Dojo, would there be a way to, because, you know, talking about PGP, I haven't got to a point where I've messed around with it yet.

Like I understand why it's useful. It's just one of those things on my list I haven't got to. And I was saying to him, like, can we not have some sort of messaging app within the Ronan Dojo?

And like, we have a kind of thing where people can communicate and they could effectively then trade through this thing. And then everything runs through coin joins and someone has this kind of hub at home, which is really powerful that they can use.

And that just gets slicker over time. Are these things possible if it goes to that case where governments do just really clamp down or the people do it for them? I mean, look, the positive, the positive take is in America, we haven't seen encryption ban yet.

Even though it's been attempted for many years, it is considered protected speech. We haven't even seen tour restrictions, right? So your, your government and your internet provider can block you off from tour, which that would cause real major headaches for people in our threat modeling.

Remember, we're talking and then you'd have to move to stuff like mesh nets. The other positive is if you look at a country like China where you have a lot of these restrictions that were already, that we're concerned about happening in the future, they have some of the most educated populace.

Like these people, they use VPNs. They've learned how to use encryption. They've learned how to use Tor because they have to because they realize that they're being cut off from the world economy.

If they don't learn these things because they see their family members getting cut off of the financial system and getting censored on WeChat. And then they learn and it's, is it painful to people go to prisons and, and, you know, have, have worse things happen to them than that?

Like, yes, but like people learn because of that. I think ultimately the beauty of free open source software is that it's so easy, so hard to stomp out. Governments can easily make it more difficult for us and, and restrict the free flow of information and they can push us back years and hurt progress.

But ultimately it's a pretty futile act to try and block free open source software. And it's, and if you were even going to attempt it, you need, you need almost like full buy-in around the world.

And that's what we basically see right now is like the US fosters Tor and encryption and Europe has a bunch of VPN services. And so do the US, right? So the Chinese are able to go and access that stuff.

Otherwise they'd have to, they'd have to go even more dark, right? Like it, it does, it doesn't make access easier for them because it's available from other places in the world. And I just don't think they're just, they're, they're hopeful.

Hopefully there's not the global willpower and coordination to like make that kind of sophisticated attack happen. But if it does happen, like we should be prepared and like people should, you know, we're going to have to fight for it.

Like that's just going to be what it is. I just hope it doesn't come to that situation. Yeah, I mean, they're pretty inefficient, but, but I do wonder whether, you know, this is really, this is taking food off their dinner plate.

If we do have more and more people getting involved in Bitcoin and we do have some sort of speculative attack, we do have them being defunded effectively because they don't control the money or they control less of it, I think it's going to really piss them off.

And so I think you're right, like having, having that backup and like sort of almost working as, okay, this is what's going to happen. This is worst case, be ready for that. And then if, if somehow they aren't as crazy and they don't stamp on it as hard as that, then we just go, okay, well, that was lucky.

And we didn't need what we've made, but at least we had it in case. Yeah, you prepare for hard mode, but hope for easy mode. Yeah. And if, like, if that does happen and say we do go to a, like, hyper Bitcoinization, say this happens, I don't know when, like, say it happens.

What do you see happening with governments and, like, obviously, it can't just go from everything to nothing. Like, we can't just switch them off and have nothing. There has to be some sort of transition phase and, like, whatever way I look at it, it kind of is quite messy.

And I like the idea of citadels. I like the ideas that have been thrown around, but it's kind of, like, whatever way I look at it, it's going to be a bit of a crazy time. Do you have a theory or, like, what you think is most likely that if that happens, how it will play out?

Well, I mean, the, the, the PC term for citadels is, is localism. We don't worry about PC, yeah. I think, well, I mean, look, before 2020, people, you know, said that reasonably discussing the rise of citadels was a 10 pot bullshit thing.

And then 2020 happened, and everyone wished they had their own little citadel. But, look, I think, yeah, like, no matter what, it'll probably be messy. But this is one of those things, like, maybe we can make the transition.

Like, maybe Bitcoin is a release valve that we have this objective truth, that we have this objective money that's separate from these failing governments. That is, that is there and can expand with people as people adopt it, right?

You know, there's, as more people add value to it, the value, the total value it holds increases. So it can expand as people join in. And it's kind of like this little release valve while everything's going to shit.

Like, that's pretty positive to me. And then on the local side, like, just dissolving authority down to more local levels, kind of could reduce some of that turmoil, at least for some people, right?

I mean, it would, I guess, it would basically, you'd have some regions that were worse than others. And, you know, I don't have a good answer for that. I mean, I don't think life is fair. You just kind of, it's too overwhelming to try and solve the world.

So I, but I feel like you could presumably solve, like, small community issues. So maybe that's, maybe that's the place to start in, in, in, like a worldwide breakdown. And one of the cool things is, like a lot of world global trade and whatnot was hard to coordinate without massive nation states in the past.

But if we have an independent money, and we have the ability to communicate securely and freely. And transportation is independent, transportation is, is pretty sophisticated already at this point.

I mean, you put all those things together and you're able to have relatively efficient global markets without massive nation states. So that whole localism idea doesn't become just like, oh, I'm like 30 people in like a small area of raising cows and goats and shit.

Right. Like you can actually have elements of the global economy without massive nation states. Yeah, it seems completely reasonable to me. But, you know, when I try and speak to most people about it, they do have that.

Like, are you fucking crazy? Like don't you never work? But like the more that I run through with people and the more they sort of listen to me bang on about it. I can't, like it is difficult to really come up with a reason why it can't work.

And when you look at how inefficient things are run anyway, like, you know, people say, oh, well, you know, you need a security, you need police. It's like, well, I'm not saying you don't have that. But, you know, why can't it be privatized? Like, is there really a good reason why it can't be?

And if it was privatized, you not think it could potentially be a little bit more efficient and like better run. And as a little bit more responsibility. We already kind of have that. We already, like, I, so I live in New York City.

Historically, I've lived in New York City. And given the current situation and that my Fiat job allows me to work remote. And all the Bitcoin stuff is obviously remote. I got rid of my apartment and I've just been driving around America.

And like staying at like Airbnb's and stuff. It's fantastic. And I was in Florida for a bit. And like Florida, there's parts of Florida that are just, they're full on living the city of life already.

You know, every, they have their private education. They have their private security that are carrying guns that are policing their private roads, you know, with their gates and whatnot. It's just not fully formalized yet, you know, but it exists. And I was, I was looking at a, I had the other day in one of the New York newspapers.

And that's what they're building. They're building something 13 miles above New York City. That's like this, like, wealthy community that's gated with their own private police.

And yeah, their own, their own private police, their own restaurants, you know, everything is like in-house. And like, you imagine those kids go to like some private school, right? And that is the full, then you got the full package.

Right. That's like, there's pretty much the Citadel theory just on a lighter level. And you can expand that and, and, and decrease that in different scales in different situations, something like a Singapore or something like that.

And presumably you can have like, you know, you're going to have different areas where people are going to live in a different way. Like, you're going to always have some people who are like massive anti drugs, anti whatever.

And it's like, okay, cool. You all live together. You can sort yourselves out. You can have that where you are and police the fuck out of it.

But the people who don't care and just want to let people live their lives and just enjoy their lives and live like human beings who aren't enslaved, you can live over here and you can have your own area.

And presumably you sort of find people who a little bit like, you know, people say there isn't a Bitcoin community, but I think it feels like there is like everyone who is a Bitcoin community.

Yeah, everyone who I reach out to, I think literally everyone that I've spoken to on the podcast and through Twitter, I have a lot in common with like views, values, personal responsibility, all these kinds of themes and ideas.

It's not just about like, Oh, yeah, we love Bitcoin. There are certain themes that run there. And, you know, that's going to be the same for all different types of people who have different types of views and people are always going to have different types of views.

And there's no point in trying to change them. Like, some people just won't be changed. So let them just get on with it and live by themselves. And when they realize that some of their ideas are fucking stupid and they start starving, then they'll probably change and they want to go somewhere else.

It will find an equilibrium. That's the kind of way I see it. Eventually, it would play out. Okay. But yeah, it would there would be some struggle in between.

My big weak point with these these ideas when I think about them is is is basically they fall apart when when you remove like free movement of people, like people should be able to like there should be some like competition between these different regions.

People should be able to move where they, you know, they think the trade off server. They best suit them. Right. I think the reality is the unfortunate reality is like people are going to get stuck in like really shithole places.

Right. And some people are going to be left behind. I don't know how you could ever really. You can't. It's kind of unsolvable, unfortunately. Yeah. But a lot of things are just unsolvable. And, you know, people always go like down to the like the tiny points of like, Oh, how are you going to solve this?

It's like, Oh, okay. Well, you know, it solves most things, but like nothing's perfect. Yeah. It's better. You know, and if you can just strive for better, then I think that's worth doing.

And I think it's a lot better. Like, I don't think it's a bit better. I think it's so much better. The whole idea behind Bitcoin and the whole idea about this kind of like Citadel theory and all these different ideas.

I think I don't think it's really possible to argue any other way. Like when when someone really digs in and starts to understand it, I think it's very difficult for anyone to argue.

I've had friends who were I would almost I'd basically class them as like status and like very much the complete opposite of the way that I was thinking about things. And over time, they do come round like over time when you sit and have a reasonable conversation for long enough, generally like, yeah, okay.

I can see how this is better. And I don't really see a valid argument for going against it. I really don't like I do try and keep an open mind. I do try and sort of, you know, because I do I do wake up sometimes and think like am I completely fucking mental less less so this year because more and more people are coming round.

But more and more people are like, wow, yeah, okay. Maybe you got a point. But certainly before I'd wake up and I'd be like, you know, in a bit of a cold sweat, like, Oh my God, am I in a coal?

Is everyone here just a lunatic? Like, am I the crazy one? Yeah, am I the crazy one? And a lot of these points that people have been talking about for a long time.

You know, I've read through a lot of articles like from Pierre Richard and people who have written things a long, long time ago that are really playing out and I'm, yeah, I do feel confident that this is the way forward.

And, you know, you talked about it a lot on your podcast about the things that could go wrong. But is there anything right now that's kind of making you concerned outside of people just sort of not looking into things not paying attention?

Is there anything that's concerning you within Bitcoin outside of privacy? Or is it, is that your main focus? I mean, I think I think that it's easy when someone has a problem or an issue for them to want someone else to solve it for them.

And I think that as a society, we've kind of been coddled in recent history to the point where personal responsibility is on the back burner and personal responsibility will always be the more difficult option.

So it's not glamorous. And so the concern really, and I think we're kind of watching this play out, is that people, it's going to be the same thing like what I said with privacy.

And it's like people need to get burned first. And in both cases, it sucks because other people's decisions influence all of us, they affect all of us, you know.

So it's almost like it feels like it's almost inevitable that we're going to have to try out all these things that seem so obviously bad idea to me, and people are just going to have to go through them.

And we're going to have to go through them as a society, unfortunately, because we're all getting dragged through it together before people come out the other side and realize.

And basically, my goal is just to try and reduce the effect of that as much as possible. And my, so my two focuses are basically privacy and personal responsibility. And there's just, it's just, you know, I used to be into politics because I thought that was how you solve those things.

And I guess like Snowden was probably the one who radicalized me and I just went down this like, I went down this open source rabbit hole before I went down the Bitcoin rabbit hole.

It's just, it's just, it's effective protest. It's like you're actually tangibly accomplishing something like using code to enforce and defend our rights is insanely productive compared to trying to lobby a broken political system.

So, like, if we slowly opt out of this thing, this like juggernaut that's happening around us, we can reduce that burden for at least our friends and family, you know, and, and, and hopefully as a collective action.

It helps everyone else as well, you know, but, but predominantly, like I'm not going to sit here be like I'm trying to help the world, you know, like I'm trying to help me in mind.

And I love being part of this movement and helping educate people and make stronger users, but when I'm doing that, I'm doing that a lot of the reason I'm doing that is from a selfish point of view I'm doing it because I know that like we're stronger together

and if I'm just doing it on my own. Yeah, 100%. And it works. I mean, from listening to your podcast and to Stefan Lavera and the people at Bitcoin Q&A and all these people, like the bounds that I've taken are massive, and I'm trying to help the people that I can as well.

So from a selfish point of view and a lot of people get annoyed by that but it's just honesty and that's how all human beings work like we are all selfish at the end of the day it's kind of how we're wired and these technologies are accessible to people now and without people

self explaining things and going through it and without people like Snowden actually standing up and being like, no, fuck this, this is wrong. Like, I can't, this can't happen. I have to actually do what's more difficult. I actually have to put my life at risk.

I have to actually, you basically fucked his life up to do what was right. And without people like that, then things just get worse and worse and you have to have people stand up.

So, yeah, I mean, I actually started reading, I read his book and like sort of watched documentaries and things after getting involved in Bitcoin and I was like, Jesus Christ, this man has done so much.

What an amazing guy. But before actually looking into it before I'd actually learned about it, like, I was like, oh, he was some traitor. That's what I was told. He's like some traitors to the US government.

Like, that's what people think. And then you look at it and you're like, wow, this guy's incredible. And like, these technologies are incredible. And this is like, you're saying it's not politics. Like, what's the point in, in voting for someone who tells you they're going to do something and they promise they're going to do something

and they're never actually going to do it anyway. Like, it's just a promise. Everything's a promise. Everything's short term. Everything's like, just fuckery and you can't trust anything. And then it's like, oh, I'm going to vote for this guy because he seems slightly better when he's talking on stage

or, you know, the media has said this is slightly better. But at the end of the day, they're not looking out for you. It's all bullshit. And everyone knows that in their heart. Most people know it in their heart. They just don't know that there's another option.

So when you found open source, like, did it just completely turn you to a point where you're like, oh, fuck politics. I can't be bothered. There's much more productive things to do with my time.

Or did you still sort of sit on the fence and were involved with both for a while? Like, how did that work in your head? Was there just like a complete tipping point or like a light switch moment?

Oh, I mean, it was. Yeah, I mean, Snowden was a betrayal. Snowden was just a straight. Like, that was my trust had been betrayed. Like, not only did my faith in my own government go out the window.

And the faith in the laws that that government was supposed to be governed by, right? Like, in the United States, we're supposed to have, like, the strongest constitution in the world or one of the strongest constitutions in the world.

You know, you're in a worse situation over by you, but specifically in America, we were supposed to be better off. And not only did the government betray that, but all of our companies betrayed that, right?

Like, it was like, we couldn't, you couldn't rely on like a Google to protect you. You couldn't rely on an apple or Yahoo or Microsoft to protect you.

Or, well, I guess Blackberry was Canadian, but even they got pressured or AT&T, like all the big US government, all the big companies got pressured by the US government. They got gag orders.

And it just basically blew a hole open on the issues with closed-source software, where it didn't matter what they said. You know, iMessage is secure and it's encrypted. Like, okay, let's see the source. Like, without seeing the source, it's just all bullshit.

So, I mean, I was red-pilled, like, really fucking hard. And I was basically like an angsty young kid. You know, like, we're all fucked, we're screwed. And Bitcoin and open-source software and encryption just like completely turned turned. Now I'm an optimistic person.

You know, now there's hope. Now there's a path. I see the path. We just, let's take it with the least amount of bumps possible.

And so, like, when this happened, you came across this Snowden stuff, you were kind of interested in politics. I can obviously, like, I can tell that you seriously fucking care. And that's why I was really excited to have you on. Like, you've really helped me with all this stuff. And I will always thank you for that.

And I think so many other people can say the same thing. You know, it's funny because I've been quietly listening to your podcast. Like, I think your podcast is fantastic, by the way. Oh, fuck off to you. No way.

No, I've been listening for a while now. So seriously. Yeah, the feeling's mutual. Wow. That's incredible. That's, um, I genuinely, like, I do these and I think, like, no one fucking listens, but that's, that's amazing to hear. Thank you.

Um, you hit, like, a ton of, like, my favorite guests, too. So you're on a roll. Well, I'm trying to go down the privacy route because, like, I said, you'd like, that is really where I think things have to go. And, like, it's really hit me hard. How important it is.

It's incredibly important. And, you know, that's why I was really asking, like, when it happened to you, when, when it hit you, like, fuck, we can't trust anyone when you learn about the Snowden stuff.

Like, were you already techie? Were you already interested in this kind of stuff? Like were you already somebody who, like, understood computers? Were you somebody who sort of could dig into this stuff? Or did that happen? And then you were like, fuck, I need to learn.

Like, which, I mean, I had it, I had it kind of uneasy. I mean, like, I should have discovered Bitcoin way earlier than I discovered Bitcoin. Like, I don't know what the fuck I was doing. I'm, I, I loved, I loved tech. I was a fucking nerd. I loved politics, like game theory and shit. Geo politics.

And, and I loved money and gambling and markets and shit. So, like, I literally loved all the different facets of Bitcoin before I discovered Bitcoin. So they would, that was a pretty, I mean, I guess it wasn't love at first sight. It was not, this is too good to be true. It's bullshit.

And then I just tried to, I kept trying to break it. And I was like, damn, maybe this could work. You've got to look at it like that, right, though. You, if you come into this and you don't question it and just go, yeah, great.

Then you're a fucking idiot because it is so different and it's so crazy. And it's so weird that if you just went along with it, you'd be naive. Yeah. I mean, I think that's how you end up thinking like XRP, the standard or something.

Yeah. I'm heavy, heavy bags on XRP is fucking good. Yeah. I mean, I went through the shit coin stuff. I haven't been involved that long. I got in in 2017 through a friend literally because he knew I fucking hated government and liked cash and all that side of things.

And he was just like, yeah, this is going to be right up your street, mate. But I fell down that because he then started shilling me on this fee chain this and tracking wine that and all this stuff.

And I was like, yes, sounds cool. Yeah. Whatever. I'll chuck some money out there. Like, I don't know. I don't know what I'm doing. And yeah, it was only really from just listening and studying and spending the time that you do get to that point where you're just like, nah, this is bullshit.

But it's the same thing. It's the same thing as everything else is that the Bitcoiners tend to be too insecure about altcoins. They're not a threat to Bitcoin and people will inevitably learn by getting burned just like with privacy and personal responsibility.

The risk is to the user who gets burned, right? You come in and you put a bunch of money in Tron or something and you end up losing it. Bitcoin doesn't. There's no effect to Bitcoin. Like people get, I think, they get too riled up about it and it shows in insecurity.

Like it's like Bitcoin. It's not a threat to Bitcoin. It's a threat to the users that fuck around with them. And almost everyone comes in that way. Probably less so now because we have this.

You're like coin floor and swan and these like Bitcoin only comes. It's like mature now. It's like this Bitcoin only thing is like kind of got memed into reality, which is kind of awesome to see.

To be honest, we have like the Bitcoin only network, like the unofficial Bitcoin only network that like exists that people get like pushed into. But I think for most people, you're just naturally curious and greedy. And you just need to get burned.

You'll learn you'll learn your lesson. Click enough. Yeah, I didn't even really get burnt that bad to be honest. It was just a case of I was watching a load of YouTube videos and listening to a load of stuff where people would just.

I just thought the person who's speaking here, they might have a Lambo behind them. But they're a fucking idiot. And what they're talking about makes no sense. And I've been watching these videos for seven months and everything they say is going to happen doesn't happen.

Whereas this is other little group of people who are just talking about Bitcoin and that this is the only thing that matters. And everyone else is a fucking idiot. And what they say is going to happen kind of happens and they don't seem like idiots. And yeah, they don't have a Lambo behind them.

But they seem smart. And it was at that point where I was just like, yeah, fuck everything else. Like just not follow the money. Like follow where people are smart. And that's Bitcoin. I've met the smartest people I've ever met in my life speaking to Bitcoiners. And it's like clearest day. It's just completely different worlds.

Yeah, I mean, it's funny that we're all grouped in together in the same industry. It's very different priorities. But I mean, like, where else do you see like a young, like a young male dominated industry that's like preaching like family values, wealth accumulation, holding over time.

You get a family. Right? It's really strange. It's like the opposite of Lambo's, the exact opposite of Lambo's, but at the same time, like obsessed with profits. Like let's like we're not in for the tech. Like let's not pretend. But like when people talk about profits, they're talking about like generational wealth.

They're not talking about like a Miami condo. Yeah, generational wealth. Don't watch porn. Get a family. Get a dog. I've just got a dog actually recently. Dogs are the best. Yeah. Fucking. I have two dogs.

What have you got? Or is that doxing them? I don't want to. I don't want to. I have like a pit bull mix. That's like a pit bull and a bunch of snow dogs. So like I call her a snow pitch. She's like a furry pit bull. And then I have a Husky German Shepherd. Very nice. They're actually smart dogs.

Yeah. Very smart dogs. My dogs are proper Bitcoiner dogs. Yeah. My dog is a fucking idiot, but he's pretty cute. He's actually on Twitter. He's @snowtoshi and he does a few Bitcoin guides and stuff like that, but he's... I love it.

He's given back. He's a French bulldog, a blue French bulldog. I think Peter just got a French bulldog. Oh really? Yeah, McCormack. Yeah, they're really cool. Like they're pretty stupid, but like he's very, very cute. He's very cute and he just sleeps most of the time.

So like I can get on with my work and he just sits by my feet and just like fucks around with his dragon and just like runs around my feet. Well, I'm a dog Maximus. I believe it's one of the few things that I feel very strongly about alongside Bitcoin.

I'm a corporate source software. If you don't like dogs, like I have trouble trusting you. Yeah. I think people who don't like dogs are generally shit people. Exactly. Hard and fast rule.

Yeah. And people who love their dogs and care for them, you can at least see that, okay, well, they can take responsibility for something. Sometimes they don't even take responsibility for themselves, but they can look after the dog and you're like, okay, well that's something.

Yeah, I mean, what I miss is, you know, I'm a very social person. This whole rona mess is really messed with my, my chi, you know, it's not quite the same. Like I would love if we were doing this in person. Oh, you have an whiskey in person.

And one of my favorite things in that situation is to, you know, like have my dogs in the room. They're just, they're such a great judge of character. And just like puts you, puts you like right on the spot.

It's like really personal. Yeah. They know you don't quite get that with cats. Cats are a shit. Cats are a shit coin. I'll co-sign that message. Yeah. They're just not the same. And I'm allergic to them as well.

So I've got no time for cats. Unless I had a farm and then I'd let them kill the rats and that kind of stuff, and they're useful. But yeah, like you say, the, the rona is difficult. I've managed to do all of, I think, three, you know, I've done five episodes in person.

Everything else has been online and it is so different. It's, it's nice to be able to just, you know, sit and have a conversation and then like be in the same room as someone. And I don't know. A lot of people here are just saying, fuck it.

We're going down on lockdown again for another month tomorrow. Yeah. What's with that? I'm, I'm just so over it. Like, I've lived my life this year exactly as I lived my life the year before. Nothing's changed for me.

But people are scared and they're locking everything down again. You're near London? Yeah, not far. Not far. But in the sticks enough that it doesn't really affect me. Right. The city's been getting harder. Yeah, really bad.

And yeah, I mean, it's just complete lockdown again, I think, from tomorrow. And yeah, it's just, it's, it's a bit of a crazy time. It's, it's really weird. But there are enough people who just don't give a fuck here and just like, yeah, come around for dinner, whatever.

Like, you know, you're meant to be in a bubble and all that kind of stuff, but no one really cares or like some people do. Yeah. Here. Yeah. Here. It's not as bad as it seems like it is in some other places like Australia. Just down.

Really bad. Really bad. I've got a friend flying out there because he's a cricketer. He's flying out on Friday. I've got to drop him to the airport. He's got a quarantine in an air in a hotel with barbed wire around it.

He's not allowed out of his room for two weeks in Australia and Australia. And he's got to pay $3,000 for the privilege. Yeah. So why is he doing that? He has a good reason. Yeah, he's a cricketer. So he gets, he gets paid pretty good money to go out there and do like the Indian Premier League and all that.

Okay. Fair enough then. But yeah, I mean, you're stuck in a room for two weeks. It's horrific. Yeah, but I just think that it's self selecting like they're just destroying their economy. In America, it's a lot of people complaining on social media and whatnot.

When in reality, you know, I mean, I mean, it really, it really sucks for small businesses, you know, especially in New York, small business, like a bunch of small businesses got forcibly closed. But besides that, there's not really any mandatory.

It's more like social pressure, right? Like, I've just been traveling around and like, no one stops you doing anything. You just do it. So, I mean, in that way, it's good. But like, obviously, like, everything has been, I mean, we had tales in the crypt was was the beauty of it was 99% of our episodes were in person.

And we had, we had that flex we had going for us, which was like, if you were in New York and you were a big corner, you should come on the show. So we didn't have to go travel to people. They were just coming to us and no one's coming to New York now.

Yeah, it's different. So that, that part sucks. Like, my favorite part was that I met all these fucking badass bighorners. And we got, we got drunk together and went out and got dinner afterwards and like the best conversations were the ones you weren't having on the record.

You know, it was the ones that you're having on the side and those conversations are gone. Like, you can't have the, I mean, if you know what, if you're not an idiot, it's impossible to have those conversations on an internet connected device.

So I just haven't been having them as much. And our New York Bitcoin community, you know, there's so many negatives in New York. That was the beauty of it, the best part.

We had like one of the strongest communities in the, in the country and, and maybe in the world and everyone like dispersed, you know, we all, there's like, no, there's not a good reason to be in the city.

So we like mostly dispersed. You have bit devs and all that sort of stuff there. Yeah, bit devs was probably the best meetup in the world. We have one in the world. Yeah, but ours was, ours was the best one. Yeah, for sure.

But we haven't had that since March. We had one in the park like a month ago, but I was out of, I was out of state. It will come back. I hope I think all this stuff will come back. There has to be a point where they just go, this is fucking bullshit, like people wake up and, you know, eventually it goes.

But it is, it is a pain for now. But you got to stay positive. And I keep telling myself that I keep saying, Oh, after this next lockdown, everyone's going to wake up and just things are going to get better.

We had 200 people in Dallas last month for a bit like boom, 200 Bitcoiners. Was this the one that was in a hotel? I'm sure I saw one. Yeah, it was a Marriott. We did a, you got in trouble all the time for not wearing masks.

I mean, look, people complained about it, right? Cause Marriott complained to us. But like at the same time, they hosted a 200 person conference, right? Like, we live in a litigious society. They have to complain to us.

They have to say to the insurance company that they told us to wear the masks. Yeah. You know, like you have to play like, it's not the Marriott employees fault. They were, they were very good to us. They hosted this big ass conference of a bunch of bitcoins that came from around the country in the middle of a pandemic.

And, and the whole thing was inside. I mean, it's funny. Like this, you know, southern, southern states of America, like they're obsessed with their air conditioning. You know, I've always been a northeastern boy myself. They, like in the summer is their indoor months. It's weird.

They just, they don't like it's too hot outside. Everyone needs to be inside all the time. I want to get myself to one of these conferences. I, I do hope that one comes up that I can go too soon. Um, I just did the Paranelli Polis one, but again, it was live stream.

But I know you had an in person too in Prague. They did. I was on the ACCP TV, like 24 hour stream doing some interviews and stuff. It was a bit last minute and like it was really cool, but I wish I could have been there.

Yeah, I was supposed to go in person, but I didn't. Yeah, it looks cool. It looked cool. And then, like, I know everyone raves about Riga. So, like, again, which got canceled this year. Yeah, but I was there last year. That one's definitely a good one to go to as a European. It's, uh, it's probably.

It I would compare it to Bitblock Boom, like Bitblock Boom is like for the Americans in Dallas. Mm hmm. And then, hodl hodl does it in Riga. Yeah, I want to get myself a Baltic hunting badger. That's what they call it. Yeah, it's a good one. Yeah, it looks cool.

I like the small ones because the small ones, they're cheaper and they're more intimate. You have some really good conversations. You just always have to remember when you meet Bitcoiners in person. And one of them is probably the mall.

How many do you think there are? Like, the other thing I think is I know everyone on Twitter by their little avatars and, like, I feel like I'd have a conversation with someone and not know who the fuck they are for ages.

Like, everyone is, you know, I'll be looking at someone and be like, I have no idea who you are. Well, the funniest one when someone introduces themselves with their NIMM and you're like, I know who the fuck you are.

Yeah. Yeah, like none of my favorites. Like, I met Fartface once, you know, and he's like, Fartface 2000. He's a legend. Yeah, he's like, it's Fartface 2000. It's like my dude. It's like such a ridiculous thing. But yeah, I've actually met him a couple of times.

Yeah, it's going to be weird with all these meetings and, like, you always have to have, like, a little badge with your avatar on that, whatever they call it, so that everyone knows who you are.

Oh, there's this one guy. Fuck. Oh, Billy Mac do. He printed hats that he wore with his. It literally had his Twitter username just, like, printed on his baseball hat and just, like, walking around the conference with it, which I thought was pretty genius.

That's pretty good. I thought that was, I thought it was like selective privacy could like take it off and keep it on when they want it to be known. I knew exactly who it was. I remember him to this day because of it.

It's a difficult one, this privacy stuff. It's, um, I'm really struggling with it, to be honest. Like, I'm still semi anonymous. Like, none of us are anonymous. Maybe a few. It's hard. Like, the people who know my face, the 21 is an art collective, like, self-banked batters, Mr. Crown. That's pretty much it. But it's really hard.

And, and, like, it's annoying because you want to just be able to have these conversations and, like, you want to not bother about it, but I'm so fucking paranoid about it.

Like, um, I do try and, and then I keep getting my Twitter shut down, like, consistently, like, fucking, I literally have to open my mouth. I get it shut down. So I'm like, on, well, because, like, what your, the phone number you have attached to it or whatever.

No, I just keep, I keep changing that as well. Like, it's, it's always a, that's probably why. Oh, you reckon? Yeah, it's because it's like a burner phone. It's not like a KYC phone number. KYC email, KYC phone number, it always gets less likely you get banned.

Mariah, you know, I talk about privacy all the time, but I'm, look, I'm a public figure about it, right? Mm. So, ever worry if you, would you go back or not? I, I go back and forth. Um, what makes it worth it for me is that I think I've helped a lot of people.

And I think by helping those people, I'm helping, like my, like the future world, my kids will be in and my grandkids will be in and whatnot. And I think people need to step up and I am a social person, right?

Um, so I'm not, I don't want to live in fear where I have to just be a shut in all the time. Um, you know, with Corona, I did more live streams and stuff with video, which I kind of regret a bit because of like face, like super HD video in my face.

But honestly, I've done a bunch of Zoom calls and stuff. Uh, we're probably all face fucked, but like I try not to, like I think that's like a bad.

Like it's a bad premise to put yourself in like you shouldn't, you shouldn't get demoralized to the point where you don't do small incremental things that improve like even if zoom has your face or Google has your face, then maybe some other schmuck doesn't like have your face and their database yet.

Um, so you should try and reduce as much as possible, but I think it's a balancing act and you can't live in fear. Um, and like life is short and, and you know, like for instance, I get shit, I'm on Twitter, right?

But like Twitter is the only social media mom. And like I'm very focused about it. Like I'm not posting pictures of my dogs and like friends birthday party or my politics or my sports team.

I'm like, you should care about your privacy and bitcoins a future money and free open source software, like needs your support. And it's like the way forward like I'm super focused on it.

I don't have LinkedIn. I don't have Facebook. I don't have Snapchat. Don't have TikTok. Um, so like I, the way I look at it is it's, it's, it's, it's a balancing act. Um, but obviously like, you know, my privacy shouldn't be.

Like people get ahead of themselves, you know, like they're like, oh, I'm a privacy expert. Like I'm not a privacy expert. My privacy is important. I advocate for privacy. I try and practice what I preach.

Uh, but I don't, um, I mean, you just, there's, there's trade offs everywhere. And I've actually, I've talked to 61 or two about this a lot because I fucking love that dude. I listened to your episode with Stefan and six.

Right. And I wrestled with this on the episode. Uh, I literally wrestled with this on the episode. Uh, because 61 or two basically like had me read his words that were like, I will never expose my voice.

Like as I'm exposing my voice is speaking for him. Um, and, uh, so like I've, I've had these conversations with 61 or two. Obviously not true voice, right? Through text. And he's like my good friend.

And I've never seen his face and I've only talked to him through text. But my reach is so much stronger than his. Like he's super smart dude, super dedicated. I fucking love the shit out of him.

My reach is so much stronger than his and his reach is amplified because I amplify his reach. Right. And I do the same thing with Bitcoin Q and A. So like you need and like maybe it's me trying to just justify some of my poor decisions.

But I think you need, we can't just have the public figures being the Peter McCormick's and the Gemini twins and the Michael sailors and the pumps. Like you can't, if, if, if those are the only public figures we have, then no one's going to get amplified.

Like none of the people that are making real substantive changes in education, why not, are going to get amplified. So like we need those people to stand up. And if you compare myself, like I shouldn't even be compared in the same sentence with someone like Snowden, like I'm doing fucking shit all compared to what he did, right?

So like who am I, you know, I don't know. Like I just think that people need to stand up. And I think that if you have, people are more likely to relate and understand with someone who is more exposed than if someone is, is more private.

They're a face and they have something to lose. If you're a complete nim, you can walk away from it and no one knows who you are. Then people trust that less and they shouldn't, but they do.

Yeah, of course. And they do. And like I listened to 6102 and I trust the guy. He sounds fucking amazing. Like everything he says I agree with and it's great, but there is a difference to most people.

And I am leaning more and more towards the point where I'm just like, you know what? I'm not a security expert. I'm a fucking idiot. I don't know how to use this stuff. If someone wants to track me, they can track me.

And so at the same time, I don't know who you are, right? So you have to be careful there, right? Like I knew the US government knew my identity. I knew Twitter knew my identity because I fucked up with my early nims.

Like I used to be hardcore nim all over the place, right? I had like five different nims, six different nims. And as I learned more about privacy, I realized I had made massive errors. And I like came to the conclusion that the major tech companies and my own government knew who I was.

And I used that to justify doxing myself to a further degree. When the reality is like the Lithuanian government or some random schmuck didn't know who I was, right? And now they know I'm a known Bitcoiner, right?

Like I've expanded that pool. So just because you can't base your decisions off of the most sophisticated attacker, because the majority of people aren't the most sophisticated attacker. At the same time, I'm not saying that no one should be public.

Like obviously, like, and like if I talk about my New York City Bitcoin crew, like so many of them, like they're super close friends. Like I would never have met them if they cared about their privacy to the point where they didn't come to the meetups.

Yeah, so fine line. It's definitely something I'm leaning more towards just accepting that, you know, like you said, we're all face fucked. But I think I'm probably IP fucked and every other type of fucked that I could be.

Like, you know, when I came into this, I could barely turn on my computer. And like I've got no idea what I'm doing. I'm sure whoever really needs to can find out and like you say, having a face behind what's being talked about is important.

And what is being talked about is really fucking important. It's the most important thing I can think of. And, you know, the reason I'm here is the reason I left my previous work, which made money and doing this, which makes no money, and spending all my time doing it because I do really care about it.

And if it means that people know who I am eventually, and maybe it fucks me up in the future, then I don't know. Maybe it's worthwhile because it can help other people. And it can actually make a stand and having your face out there and saying, okay, I don't believe in government.

I don't believe in all this bullshit. I do believe in Bitcoin. I'm putting your face to it. It kind of makes it more legitimate in most people's eyes. And if that's the case, then like you said, if you're going to have kids and you're going to pass this world onto them, then it's probably the best thing to do.

So I don't know. I do the same. I swing to and fro and, you know, you're much more technically capable than I am. And you're out there. So maybe I just need to stack up. Sometimes I wake up in the morning and I'm super hyped up.

I'm like, you know, no regrets. Let's fucking go. And then sometimes I wake up and I'm just like, you fucking idiot. And it goes back and forth. And look, at the end of the day, can't take it back.

So it is what it fucking is. I think we need people to step forward publicly and be loud about it. But we also need like the masses to not. Yeah. Which is a really weird balance. And no one gets to decide what that balance is and who chooses to do what they choose to do.

But I like I need people to do both. And I think we need people to do both. And yeah, I think I think if you talk to older generations, you have a lot more perspective on just doing what needs to be done.

Because I really do think like we've been coddled a bit. Yeah, we're Pussies. Yeah. For sure. We're Pussies. Yeah. You look at what our grandparents did. It's completely fucking different.

And this is a battle. This is a war. As far as I can say it, this is a war that needs to be fought. If we're going to move forward and make the world a better place. It's not one with violence.

But like you said, there have to be a few people on the front line and a few people who stand up and publicly say, "No, fuck it." Like so many people think it. But don't say anything. So many people feel a certain way.

But we'll just hide and never say anything unless they're behind closed doors. And I guess there just has to be a few who just stand up and say, "No more." I was talking to a 94-year-old who was at, he lied about his age at 17 and he was flying for the Free French Army, Free French Air Force at 17 years old.

And like planes were going down left and right around him. And he somehow survived. Like they did not have good planes. Wow. And then I'm questioning, am I too public talking about coin join?

I just, it really snaps you into it. We're very lucky to be where we are. And it's important to keep that perspective. Yeah. For sure. Well, listen, Matt. I don't want to take too much of your time.

It's been incredible speaking to you. Like I say, it's been a little bit surreal because you've been in my ear every week for years now. But you've really helped me through this and made me see how important the privacy side of things are.

And it's really actually shaped this podcast. And it was amazing to hear that you're actually listening to them and great to chat to you. But before you go, I just wondered, I have got people now reaching out to me.

They're asking me, look, what do I do to be more private? What do I do to, this is going to be quick. What do I do to be more private? What do I do to make sure that I can do things in the best way and sort of keep my non KYC and KYC coins separate?

And my sort of general answer is, buy a couple of cold cards, anything that's KYC. Wack all of that through Samurai. Put that onto your cold card, number one. Run that with Spectre and then have your other cold card and run everything that's non KYC through that one and just keep those separate, that's step one.

Is that a reasonable thing to be saying, or is there like a middle ground or something that you think I actually know there's a better way of doing this? Because I don't want to be giving the wrong information to people and more and more people are reaching out and I want to make sure that they're doing things in the right way.

Yeah, I mean, I think we're on the same page. Well, first of all, I was recently, I did a fidelity, did a privacy conference, Bitcoin privacy conference, and I did it with Ricardo, a fluffy pony, and he made a very good point.

Just overarching. So much of our lives, we compromise our privacy for convenience. Gmail, Alexa, you know, Google Home. If me saying Alexa just cued your smart speaker, like maybe you should consider getting rid of it, what he said was every six months remove something that is killing your privacy.

Just move to a slightly better alternative. With email, I really like to do nota, proton mail is good. I have a bunch of different tools I like at madreville.com if you want to go check those out.

But like every six months, you just remove something that is bad for your privacy. And don't get overwhelmed with having perfect privacy. You're fucked. You're not going to have perfect privacy.

It's not going to happen. Let's try and just improve your situation. And if we do that on a collective scale, if a lot of people are practicing this, then it reduces the ability for mass surveillance, which creates significant benefits.

So you don't want to get too overwhelmed there, I think, is really important. As far as Bitcoin goes, yes, absolutely. The first step is you separate KYC stock and non KYC 100%. You know, I get caught in the middle of the privacy hardliners.

I think KYC is absolutely harmful for users. Unfortunately, it is the reality that we live in and surrounds everything we do outside of Bitcoin as well as inside of Bitcoin. The one place where I will semi-tolerate it is on the on-ramp just because it is difficult to find non KYC.

So basically, in that situation, you just reduce your KYC, just a single KYC on-ramp. So you have your single KYC on-ramp. You have your non KYC funds that are completely segregated. And then you have your single KYC on-ramp and that on-ramp, I put everything through Whirlpool, which they can see.

They know you're using Whirlpool. They know you're doing it. It's a visible protest. In the developed world, it's not illegal. It might be made illegal in the future. It's not illegal right now.

I'm not a lawyer, but it's not illegal. So it's a visible protest. I put it all through Whirlpool. And then if you don't fuck anything up and it works as intended, they shouldn't be able to easily track your future transactions from there.

So then I send it to my cold card. The ideal thing in privacy land is to basically leave it in Whirlpool forever and just spend from it. The ideal from a security perspective is to immediately send it to cold card.

So if you do like a middle ground and then send it back into Whirlpool, if you want to spend it in the future, that kind of gets the job done with limited gotchas. There's some gotchas there.

You don't want to combine it at all. See, this is the issue. Like we need to have less gotchas. But the point is just by doing these simple things, you're improving the basics. The number one thing you want to do when you're using Bitcoin, trying to use Bitcoin more privately is to use your own full node.

When you interact with the Bitcoin network, you're interacting through a node. If you don't use your own node, you're using someone else's node. That node can track all your transactions.

So when you're using Samurai, you want to use your own dojo. And when you're using your cold card, you want to use your own node as well. My favorite setup is exactly what you said, which is Spectre plus core Bitcoin core in your computer plus cold card, which is surprisingly easy to use and very new, but fantastic.

Absolutely fantastic. And the nice thing there is it has the coin control. The coin control is really important. So you label what your transactions come in. You say this came out of Samurai or this came from Cash App or whatever.

This came from Bisc. Yeah. That's what I've been advising people is keep them separate, keep them on cold card, putting through Samurai and label them and make sure that these things are separated and outside of that.

Things get more complicated if you want to go really deep and go crazy with it. But as far as I'm concerned, that's the best that I'm capable of right now and running that through my run and dojo.

Yeah. And if you go to KYC, then they know you have this much Bitcoin. If you buy one Bitcoin through a KYC service, it goes to Whirlpool. You do everything right. It goes to your cold card.

They still know you have one Bitcoin. They just aren't able to track every single transaction from there. And if they're almost more importantly, if their database leaks or gets compromised and then gets stolen or sold, whoever gets that database isn't able to track all your transactions.

The thing that the hardliners miss, I think, is it's one thing if your job is paying you off the books and you're getting paid complete cash. But if you already have a KYC income that's coming into your KYC bank account, then getting KYC Bitcoin from it isn't like the worst deviation in the world.

So that's why I think there is a place for that KYC stack and I think it's important that people actively protest with it. If you do not want to go, if you don't want to take that risk, then someone called me out on this and they said I should mention this, so I'm going to mention it.

The reason I'm willing to go through this process on the KYC side is because I understand the risk that I might not be able to sell my KYC coins that I then put through a world pool on a KYC exchange in the near future, like the five-year range or something like that.

And I have no intention of doing that, so... That's fun, I'll buy them. I'm willing to take that risk. But if you're intending to be like a short-term trader or something, then by all means don't do it.

What you should do for sure is you should always take self custody. The number one rule you can do is transfer it to a wallet you control. It's not as difficult as you think it is. Write down your seed words, keep them safe, and just take custody yourself.

Don't leave it in the exchange. Wise words. Thank you very much, Matt. I've said it a million times on the podcast, but I really do appreciate what you've done and you've really helped me as well as I'm sure many, many others, and it's been great chatting to you.

It's been great getting a little bit deeper into the way that you're thinking about things and the way you're thinking about the future, and I really appreciate you taking the time to have this conversation.

It's been awesome. I hope that at some point, when COVID fucks off and everyone can stop being little bitches about it, that you can come to London and get you a whiskey. Thanks for having me, dude.

I appreciate you as well. I do look forward to that whiskey in person, whether that is in London or Riga or maybe the United States. I do look forward to it, and hopefully it's sooner rather than later.

Awesome. All right. Thanks, Matt. Cheers!