EP60 Bitcoin podcast with Stephen Chow

Bitcoin is close to becoming worthless.

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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.

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, I had the absolute pleasure of speaking to Stephen Chow.

You might recognize him from Bitcoin Twitter. He does transcripts for Bitcoin podcasts, and he also supports living artists. We had a very wide-ranging discussion. We talked about art, Bitcoin, and much, much more.

I had a great time chatting to him, and I really hope you enjoy listening. Before I dive in, I just want to say thank you very much to Coin Floor UK for continuing to sponsor the show for another year, and thank you to everyone who's been listening, everyone who's been asking questions,

who's been writing reviews, and suggesting the show to others. As we enter this bull run, make sure you have your coins off exchange, test your backups, and hodl. Enjoy the show. Hi, Stephen. Can you hear me?

Yeah, I can hear you, Max. How are you? Very well, Nick. How are you doing? Really good. Thank you. I've just finished watching your documentary, actually. And, yeah, I found it fascinating, and just really looking forward to jumping in and learning a little bit more about what it is you're doing,

because I have to admit, when I invited you on, I was like, right, there's this guy who's offering to do all these transcripts. That's pretty cool. I love that someone's doing that, and I didn't know about the art side, and I love art myself.

I'm part of the 21ism art collective, and when I saw this, I was like, right, this is going to be a good conversation. So just, yeah, looking forward to diving into it. That's awesome. Well, thank you for watching the documentary.

It's incredible you finding these sort of artists from all over the world. Yeah, the... Well, I guess I can jump right into it. This is kind of an evolution of maybe 10 or 15 years of trying to figure out what's wrong with the art world, and I guess that it culminated in my coworker the restaurant that I'm working at,

just showing me Instagram. And once I figured out what was going on on Instagram around 2016, I realized that there were just millions of people out there that you could discover through hashtags.

And that kind of opened the door for me to just start researching within, just within Instagram itself. All of these artists all over the world that I would have never heard about otherwise.

What I like about it is that you're finding people who are living artists. There's so many art collectors and people who are interested in it, who they'll go for these expensive works and these things that are from artists that are long dead.

And there are so many people who have so much talent, such incredible talent. And they either can't afford to spend the time to create the work that they want to create or it gets put on the back burner because they have to support the family or whatever it is they have to do.

And I think it's a great shame. So, yeah, when I saw the documentary, it really struck a chord with me. - Yeah, so the way I look at it is, it's just this gigantic tragedy that these artists that are out there that maybe have been working for 15, 30 or 45 years, they've just never been asked to do

this back burner project that they have in the back of their mind that is so much more ambitious than like the everyday person would ask them to create in a gallery setting, in like a gallery transaction or just asking them to make a commission for them.

And I just figured that the opportunity is just sitting right there to just ask them to make this thing that they've been dreaming of making for like 10 years. You just provide the budget and the project is underway.

And to me, it's a very simple transaction but someone just has to be willing to ask for it. - How do you view this then? Is this something that you were always passionate about? Were you always passionate about art and wanted to be involved somehow or did one day it just click for you?

You were like, this is a, this is, I mean, 'cause the way I look at it is this is actually a big change to people's lives. And art is a huge change to people's lives. It can literally save lives and make lives.

So how do you look at this transaction? Is it something that makes you feel a certain way when you know that you're bringing something special into the world and allowing someone to do it?

Or like, how does it feel when you're allowing people to do this work? - Yeah, so I'm pretty sure I was just born to be in the art world because as far back as I can remember, say from the age of four, I was collecting something aesthetic in some shape or form ever since then.

And I guess all through the years up through college, it's just been a discovery process to figure out how I wanted to direct that energy into something that was not consumerist because I was always afraid of just being like just like any other tourist that visits Rome or something

and just take some snapshots and comes back home. And there's no net improvement in the world because of that tourism. I'd rather figure out how can I look at the history of art and contribute to the next big thing that is art historically significant.

And that sounds really crazy from, if you say it like that. - It does actually, it does sound crazy but you know what, we're in the Bitcoin world as well and everyone thinks that's crazy as well.

So we like crazy people. I like people who dream of changing the world and the ones who are crazy enough to dream it are the ones that do. So I'm all for it. - Yeah, so I guess I look at it as using Bitcoin as a way to delegate this visionary dream to other artists

and I'm just the enabler of this. And I guess what I figured out in my early 20s is that I'm actually very talented at identifying the artists who are capable of creating very significant artworks.

That's extremely hard for me to like communicate to someone else who asks me like how can I also start identifying talented artists? I don't really know how to answer that question yet. - Well, it's a complex thing, isn't it?

I assume it's taken you a lot of practice and time to decide what it is that you love as well. I mean, how does that look? How are you sharpening your skills at honing in on what you think is the best art and who has the best talent and who it is you want to work with?

How do you do that? - That's a great question. I think I take a look at the encyclopedic museums that already exist, say the British Museum or the Metropolitan Museum of Art or any of these major museums that have departments in every possible culture that they can collect art from.

And when you look at the guidebooks to these museums, they always publish these books that have like 2000 photos of their greatest hits, say like the masterpieces that they're proud of displaying in their museum.

And I think just flipping through those and also visiting a lot of museums in person, you just start to get this general idea of what a museum quality work looks like. And then you take that idea and compare it to what's sitting on eBay where there's millions of very mediocre works,

but sometimes there's something like at that museum quality level. Or you take that standard and you apply it to Instagram where you see the same thing, there's just an ocean of mediocre work that doesn't qualify to be sitting on a pedestal in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

But once in a while you do find something that looks like that. And that just sticks out like a sore thumb to me. - Like a diamond and a rough and you're sort of sifting through to find that special something.

And when you find it and clearly you do after watching the documentary, there was some incredible work on there. Really, really beautiful. When you do come across something like that, what does that make you feel like?

Because I assume this must be, you're doing this, it's all seems very selfless and you're helping people and you're pushing the art world forward. But I also assume there must be something that it gives you, it must give you like maybe in an excitement or a buzz when you find that it must feel good.

- Yeah, I think, so for many years prior to helping living artists, I was collecting solely on eBay and from auction houses. And I was getting this buzz, finding a really great work of art for a very cheap price.

And then once I made that transition to helping living artists, and instead it became, the buzz came from helping a living artist make an even greater work of art for the most expensive price that I could afford.

And that was just loading as much of my money as I could to help the artist further. So I wasn't, I was no longer trying to like get a great deal, I guess. It was more about how can I enable a much greater work to exist?

And that was much more fulfilling to me. - Yeah, I can see that. It sounds more fulfilling and you're allowing something to be created that quite possibly otherwise couldn't have been created.

So you're in many ways you're actually involved in the process of creating that thing. And I assume you hold onto these and don't sell them. And if that's the case, then every time you are around them and you get to spend time viewing that art then it must feel good to remember actually the connection you have with those people.

It's not just an exchange of money and then it's done and you don't speech them again. I assume you must have some pretty special bonds with these people. - Oh yeah, so I view all of these as lifelong relationships and friendships.

I'm talking to these artists like on a weekly or monthly basis, just exchanging ideas. And I almost see them as mentors because they're each an expert in their particular medium and culture.

And if I ever have a question, they're just always ready there and generous about sharing their time and ideas with me. But I think it's like there's so much potential out there. I think I said at the end of the documentary there's like there could be 10,000 people out there operating at this level right now.

And it's just a matter of discovering them on Instagram or some other social media platform. - Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. There's so much talent out there and it's one of the reasons which really drew me in with Bitcoin when I finally understood actually that this can allow people more time

and that with that time we can do some incredible things and people who otherwise wouldn't have that time will have it. And I kind of see what you're doing as like it's speeding up that process in many ways because without hyperbaconisation or without people actually investing in it, they then don't have that time yet.

Although eventually I do see it as at least when someone's earning their money, they're spending their time and energy to produce something that value isn't then stolen from them. So they're not on a like a constant hamster wheel just trying to keep up with everything which takes them away from doing what maybe they're born to do.

Maybe there are geniuses who could create all sorts of incredible things who are sat in an office cubicle doing something they hate. And it just is not an exciting world when you think of it like that.

That's what excites me about Bitcoin so much as the changes it can make in that way. But you're actually speeding up the process which is very cool. - Yeah, I just don't think that all of the Bitcoin holders can just wait for hyperbaconisation.

Like the artists out there can't wait for you or another 15 or 25 years before you can start sending them funds to work on their project. So there's this huge transition period where I think patrons do need to step up because there's so much talent that they're kind of stranded out there waiting for help right now.

- Yeah, absolutely. And it's interesting how you're finding these people. So you mentioned eBay and Instagram. Are there your two main places you're searching or are you actually going into the physical world and trying to find these people as well?

Or like, how are you going about fighting? 'Cause I can only imagine this takes a huge amount of time before I looked at what you were doing with the art. Like I said to you before, I was like, this guy's dedicating his time to writing up these transcripts.

And I was like, that's really cool. I love that someone's doing that. I thought, I thought to myself, that must take a huge amount of time to write them up. And now I'm finding that you're doing this as well.

How do you find this time? Like, because I see you work as well. Like, what would you do? You don't sleep. - I drink about six or seven cups of coffee every day, I would say. - Nice. - Nice.

Me too. (laughing) - But no, I realized I just waste so much time. I'm generally an extremely lazy person. And I just feel so bad about that, that occasionally I find these periods where I can just focus for four or five hours straight and just do intense research.

And that's generally how it happens. Like really, like short bursts of research or short bursts of working on transcripts. But yeah, I feel like if I don't discipline myself to spend all this time on researching or on doing the transcripts, it just gets wasted.

So I think if I'm on top of that time that's getting wasted, then it's like, I feel like it's always there available for me to use. - And so when you're doing these transcripts, you're speaking to someone who types very slowly, can barely write, very dyslexic.

The idea of listening to a podcast and typing that up, I'd think to myself, right, that's gonna take me all day 'cause I have to keep going back and replay it and back and back and back. - Yeah.

- And I wouldn't take in the information. So that's why I love podcasts is 'cause I can listen, take in the information way more than I would with reading. Is it the other way with you? Are you sort of listening to them and typing whilst you listen and then you like to read more than you listen?

- Yeah, I feel like I just don't retain much information at all if I'm just listening to the podcast. Like when I'm transcribing, I realize that most of the time I actually don't understand what's being said because I can't write it down.

And that does take repeated listens to figure out what they're actually saying. But generally I play the podcasts back at half speed and most of the time that's slow enough for me to like keep pace with it as I'm typing.

- Okay, that's quick. How many words a minute is that? - Oh, I want to say something like 130, 140. - Sounds very quick to me. I don't know what to do here again. - I guess I'll take a test today and figure out what the number is exactly.

- And do you enjoy that process? Like how, do your hands hurt after doing it or like is it something that you find therapeutic? - It is therapeutic in a way. I think for myself, I see it as a great motivation to actually listen to podcasts that I wouldn't otherwise have listened to

because I don't see myself like sitting around listening to three or four podcasts every day. I don't know, I guess I get distracted too much. So when there's this responsibility to actually get a transcript out there for everyone else, then I'm on top of it.

- Yeah, and do you find that doing this helps you learn and really dig into certain subjects? Do you have certain subjects that you prefer to dig into? Like for example, if they're Bitcoin ones, do you prefer the technical stuff?

Do you prefer the finance stuff? Is there any sort of specific stuff you really enjoy listening to? - I would say the philosophical stuff is the most interesting. Like I'm really looking forward to listening to Michael Saylor's series with Robert Breedlove

because it really digs into the philosophical side just straight on for like 10 hours or something. - Yeah, that would be great. Breedlove has a very good way with words and refining things down.

It's, I'm not sure that would be an incredible listen. I guess I've already volunteered to transcribe that entire series. So that's something that's looming over my head in the future. (laughing) - I'll keep you busy.

So you like listening to that kind of stuff and is that because you think deeply about the impact that Bitcoin's gonna make? Is it something that goes through your head a lot? And if it is, how long has it been going through your head?

How long have you been falling down this rabbit hole and interested in Bitcoin? - I'd say I really started paying attention in 2017 around the summertime before the hard fork. And I think I was very fortunate to discover Safedeen's account on Twitter prior to him publishing

the Bitcoin standard because he was really talking about like the impact of Bitcoin on culture and civilization on Twitter at the time. And that really got me started starting to connect the dots between what Bitcoin could do with the art world and with culture.

Because I've always, I've been studying art and culture for many, many years before that. And it wasn't clear to me how all of this new stuff was gonna get funded. I just didn't see that many patrons out there that were, that had the funds available or the willingness to spend it on like the best and brightest

that are available. And that still, that still seems like a problem to me. Like how do you get the, how do you get the best curators the most amount of Bitcoin and then they can start doing their patronage?

Because that seems to me the most effective way to, to start contributing to culture is just funding the best of the best. - Yeah, I completely agree with that. I think people will, you know, you're talking about we need these Bitcoiners to do this kind of work to help other artists.

And I think there comes that point where somebody allows themselves to free up some time if they've suddenly seen their Bitcoin in fiat terms double, triple, 10X, 100X. And it gives them some breathing space.

It then allows them to spend some time and think, what do I want to do with my life? Like, I don't think a lot of people necessarily think too deeply, it's like, oh, I want this car and I want to be able to go on this holiday.

And then the rest of the time it's, I want to work until like it's the weekend and get pissed or get high and forget about everything else. And I don't think they allow themselves maybe to think about the generations to come and what, what changes they can make to the world.

And even if they do think about those things, maybe they just literally can't afford to or don't have the time to. And I think that these people will start thinking, you know, I've noticed that more and more people who I know who've been involved for some time and have seen their wealth increase are thinking now about generational wealth.

They are thinking more about family, they're thinking more about, you know, what legacy they leave behind and how they can make a positive change. So I do see this helping. - Yeah, I guess, yeah, that's a tough one.

I think somehow there needs to be a greater amount of art appreciation, but I don't know where the motivation comes from. Like, are people just born with that interest in art or can it be activated?

- It's hard to say really, isn't it? But I do agree that it's not appreciated enough. I think people take it for granted. I think there's certainly here in Britain and a lot of Western cultures, I think that we have a kind of, I think maybe it's bred into people in school, is that like the people that are important

are the intellectuals, the ones, you know, the doctors and the lawyers and this and that and that what the artists are doing is somehow not as important. I actually think that's completely wrong and the amount that art enriches your life, you don't appreciate because it's around you all the time.

You're sort of, you're immersed in art all the time and we're very privileged to be able to have that and people almost, they almost forget that. I think if you just suddenly took all music and art and movies and everything out of the world, one day, clicked your fingers, everyone would be begging and crying for it back.

- Right, exactly. And I guess what I see out there is people just don't realize how much more you can add to this pool of great artworks just by sponsoring new projects. There's so much more that can be funded if only more people were willing to step up

and to realize that all of these artists have so much more to say. - Yeah, and I don't know whether there's some sort of way that that can be done on a small basis where people can sort of, in a way like dollar cost average in to helping these artists, you know, whether there's a way that you can start people small

and people can pull some money together possibly using something like lightning or, you know, you can actually subscribe to an artist and help them along the way. Have you sort of thought about how the technology that we're spending our time around and the work that you're doing could somehow

work together, coexist, sort of use some of this technology to make it easier for people to invest in these artists? - A little bit, I've considered something like a crowdfunding idea where I would like choose some projects that I think really deserve to be funded

and they could be funded through lightning or something like this from like hundreds of contributors. But the problem there is that it's an original work of art and somebody needs to own it.

So the only thing I can think of is if there was an arrangement to just immediately donate it to a museum for public display or something like that. Because otherwise it's very much a collecting game where an individual owner is motivated to purchase it for their own collection and then they can donate it to a museum or something

if they wanted to. - Yeah, I think some people would definitely be keen to do it with no ownership. When I say investing in the art, what I really mean is investing in the artist and what made me think of it was I was banging my head against brick wall yesterday, trying to set up on lightning this IP2 tool thing

on a Raspberry Blitz and you have to subscribe and pay it's like 21 cents a day or something like that for the service. And I was thinking like, that's pretty cool. You can just subscribe to a service like that for such a tiny amount of money that people literally wouldn't, is nothing right now.

And maybe it could be something where people could subscribe and have a daily donation that goes, you know, even if it's a few sats and you have enough people, it could be pretty helpful and it doesn't have to necessarily have the ownership.

They can just know that they're contributing to something special. - Yeah, I almost wanna say like from the artists perspective they would actually prefer the one-on-one relationship that they could develop with the patron because it becomes personal there because they're trying to create something

for one, for one, an audience of one person. - That's true. - And I wonder if that kind of gets diffused a little bit if they're just creating their next masterpiece for all of humanity that seems a little large.

(laughing) - I definitely agree with you. I think that that relationship and I can see from the footage that I've watched, the relationship that you're building with these artists is really, really special.

And you definitely wouldn't have that if you had a thousand subscribers or giving a small amount, but you might get one more artist funded because, you know, it is rare for somebody to do what you're doing.

It's quite a rare thing. And I think, you know, maybe there's a middle ground where people dip their toe in and then they've been part of something and then they go, wow, you know, that felt amazing.

And I've just seen how I've changed this artist's life and, you know, this work is incredible. And then as they see their value grow within their Bitcoin and then 10 years maybe, it might say, you know what, I wanna do this one-on-one now.

I actually, I liked that. I wanna do more. Sometimes it just encourages people and gives them a taste for, I suppose. - Yeah, I think at the moment, this kind of crowdfunding system seems to be more suited for music or for writing.

With artwork, the original work is just like so personal. It seems like it just demands to be created on a one-on-one transaction. - And when you get these pieces of artwork back to you, I saw the, obviously, the one that came and had to be in separate pieces and then rebuilt.

When you get these home, do you keep them all at home? Do you have that as like your own exhibition or do they go elsewhere? - So I guess that's the current problem that I'm trying to figure out is because I don't actually want any of these works to be sitting in a house somewhere.

I'd really prefer that each work be out on display in a museum exhibition for the public. And it's probably just a matter of time because I think the work is of high enough quality that curators that see them would be interested in displaying them.

There's only one artist, Morgan Asaf, that was in the documentary, like her work, she has had a lot of her work in museum exhibitions and she's planning to do more exhibitions this year. But I haven't had the same success with any of the other artists in the collection.

- Yeah, like you say, maybe it is just a master of time and do you have a sort of way of reaching out? Like I don't know how this all works. Do you, can you reach out to a museum and say, look, I have this piece, it's incredible.

Could you, you know, would you consider showing it or do they have to come to you? Like how does that side of it work? - I think in one case, like with the giant mosaic, a museum that is fairly close by to me, I reached out to them by email and showed them photos and they actually did come over to take a look at it

in person with a staff of like four people to try and figure out if it would make sense to display it in their own museum. So that hasn't materialized into an exhibition yet, but hopefully it's just something that they have on the back burner on their side.

But I guess that's how it would work is just email exchanges and that eventually turns into in-person visits by the particular museums. - Well, that'd be very exciting if you can get one in and great for the artist as well.

I'm sure that would be very exciting for them. So you've had obviously incredible work that I've seen. Have you had any where? 'Cause I guess a lot of this is done online. Maybe you don't always sit physically.

Have you had anywhere you've commissioned something and it's come and you thought, oh no. This is not what I expected. This is not up to the standards I'm looking for. Do you have any sort of weird stories or any time you've been scammed or any sort of crazy stuff that's happened in this process?

- Yeah, I think thankfully most of the scams happened when I was collecting privately just through eBay like buying secondhand works. - And they were scams as in, they were fakes or they were, or they just took your money and sent you nothing?

- Yeah, one was a literal scam where the seller was just dragging me along for several weeks with excuses of not shipping this thing, this painting and just ran off with a thousand dollars.

- After the date expired that I could apply for a refund or something like that? - Bastard. Hopefully it bought XRP. (laughs) - I think there's been many, many cases where I just ended up buying forgeries

and spending thousands and thousands of dollars on these things. And I think at the time, for some reason, I decided to just not get a refund and just start hanging these up on my wall like as a wall of shame.

I really wanted to take ownership of my huge financial mistakes. And this was before I even had heard about Bitcoin. - I can see how it clicked for you. I can see how you saw Safe's posts and then this just clicked because yeah, taking responsibility and all these kind of things

that you were already doing. - Yeah, so I think there was, it had to be at least like $50,000 of artworks that I had bought between 2012 and 2016. That were just complete garbage that I probably should have returned in retrospect.

And yeah, I was just totally oblivious to the fact that Bitcoin existed that entire time. But that's fine because it's like, that was precisely the art education that I needed to be able to start applying that skillset to living artists.

- Yeah, you've got to get that. - Yeah, I don't see it as this huge amount of money that I left on the table that could have been Bitcoin or anything like that. It was actually essential to what I'm doing today.

- Yeah, it's part of the learning process, isn't it? You have to get scammed and learned and these things happen in whatever industry you're in. You have to learn some heavy lessons and that earlier you make those mistakes the better because it costs you less time than money that way.

- Yeah, and I should say like how I got started in 2012 with collecting art is I took a look at eBay and I just said, okay, every month, no matter what, I'm just gonna spend $500 or $1,000 on the best possible work I can find on eBay and whether or not it's museum quality,

I'm just gonna go for it and try to learn from there. And I did this for 18 months in a row, just looking at it had to be like half a million listings on eBay, just scouring all sorts of mediums and styles of artworks, looking for something like you said, like a diamond in the rough.

And that actually worked a couple of times where I found something that does deserve to be in the museum. But I think when I looked at it, it was so costly because there wasn't this one-on-one relationship with a living artist.

And the other thing that gets lost is when you do find a great artist out there on Instagram, that's a working relationship that you can have for the rest of your lives. That could be like 30 or 40 years worth of commissions that you can have with this artist if you wanted to.

And to me, that's just a priceless thing to be able to discover on Instagram. It's worth all the hours of research to find someone like that. - Yeah, and these are the great things about social media.

There's a lot of terrible things about social media, but it does allow you to find people you would otherwise not have been able to find. And yes, you've got to do some digging and I'm sure it takes a huge amount of time, but without these tools, you probably would have never connected with these people.

So how do you view that? How do you view these social media platforms? Do you think they're a net benefit? Or would you still say they're a net negative sort of on society in general? - I would look at it as a net positive.

But yeah, like you said, it's underutilized as a net positive because what's possible on social media is making connections to people that you might not have found in any other way, especially through the use of hashtags or hashtags translated into other languages that allows you to kind of,

it makes a direct link to someone on the other side of the planet immediately and you can just communicate with them within seconds. And that's really incredible to me having grown up in like the 1990s with a 56K modem or something like this where it still might have been possible to do that 20, 25 years ago.

But I think the internet was so slow back than the, and so few people were using it that it just wasn't possible to make these kind of, what do you call it? - Connections? - Yeah, like spontaneous connections, like really unexpected connections because all of the artworks that I'm funding now

are from cultures and from mediums that I just had no idea existed even a year ago or six months ago. So it's very much a discovery process. I expect to hate the works that I start commissioning later on like immediately because they're so unfamiliar to me that it just takes a huge amount of time

to acclimate myself to what these artists are doing. So it's not about like finding a comfort zone. It's actually the opposite of this. It's like, how can I be receptive to the most revolutionary artworks that are being created today?

Because by definition, they'll be completely abrasive to my current worldview and my current vantage point that I almost would hate it immediately until I better understood it. - So what you're actually doing is you're finding an artist that you think has an incredible talent and then you're allowing them,

you're just giving them complete free rein, are you? You're just saying, look, make what you wanna make, or fund it, is that basically the agreement? - There's a lot of curating that goes on, I would say, almost intuitively, before that can happen.

Because I'm always filtering like the quality of the work that's being made. I'm trying to figure out if it's like derivative or if they're just like how original is the work they're making is the question that I'm always asking.

And that takes a lot of research to figure out. But I think for the most part, it's like an intuitive Eureka moment that I do realize that someone is capable of making great works of art through just by asking them to make something and giving them a budget like that.

And all of these works, you're saying you know, you've had a couple that have gone to museums from one of the artists, you've got one that might, if the rest of them are at your home, is this like a museum now?

Like, do you get to just sort of walk around and enjoy the work? Do you find it difficult to have the space? 'Cause it sounds like when you're talking about collecting one piece of work every month for 18 months and then you're doing all of this and you've been doing it for quite some time, either you already live in a citadel

and then you have all the space in the world or I imagine it must be quite difficult to store all of it. - If you've heard of Herbert and Dorothy Vogel, - I haven't actually. - They're a collecting couple from New York City.

They have this like 800 square foot apartment that had something like 5,000 artworks in it. - Wow. - I guess I envision something like that, but that would be a very unfortunate result of collecting all this work because I really, I really would rather like 50% or 75% of the works

actually be in exhibitions all year round. That's kind of what I'm shooting for. And to me, that's just a matter of finding the highest quality work that I can find. And if I can manage to do that, then I kind of expect museums to just jump at the opportunity to show these things because they are so incredible.

- And do you get involved in creating yourself? I think it possibly said in the documentary that you did some oil painting, but is that something you still find time for? Do you still create or has that gone on the back burner?

- It's definitely gone on the back burner. I would say from about, when I was 18 years old until about 22, I was very serious about studying oil painting

and attending Atelier classes where we would paint and draw from a live model three hours a day or six hours a day. And I actually became extremely depressed after doing this because I guess it seemed so meaningless from my perspective because I didn't feel like I had

a crystallized culture to communicate with the world. All I was doing at the time was just making a study of objects in nature or people in nature. And I wasn't actually transmuting that into something that was culturally significant.

It seemed like a very futile thing to do to just make still lives or make portraits all day. That was how I looked at it. - It's interesting that it made you feel that way because I think for a lot of people it makes them feel the other way, it makes you feel that you are contributing something or that you are expressing something

or I know personally for me when I started painting did literally save my life. Like it changed me from a path of complete hopelessness and depression to feeling like I could get something out of me in this energy that was not doing me any good, had an escape and like something.

It was all worth it because of that. But I wonder why with you you sort of, you didn't feel like it was a significant, was it? Do you feel things would change if you came back to it now or maybe not?

- As far as I can tell it was missing like this transcendent quality that you find in like the Orthodox artworks or in very spiritual artworks or even spiritual writing or spiritual music.

It seems like that was the major thing, that was the major hole that was causing a depression

because that's actually what I look for in artists is do they have this kind of transcendent aspiration in the work that they're creating and how can they rise above the material world and start communicating things or being a channeler of things that are coming in from like a transcendent realm or an unconscious realm.

Like it starts getting into like Jungian things and like spirituality and like tributes to God or something like this. It's not clearly like a religious thing but that's what I think each of these artists are generally looking for is how can they communicate

something that's so much larger than the world around us that we can see and touch? - I completely understand what you're saying there and I think maybe sometimes you're saying, you know, it's not necessarily a religious thing but I do feel sometimes people are channeling something.

It's either channeling an idea or a feeling or an emotion or like you're saying something bigger than you can really explain and sometimes that kind of takes over. It's almost, I don't know how to describe it as like you're trying to express something that you don't even fully understand yourself sometimes or like get an emotion out

that you don't fully understand yourself and it takes control of you and you become obsessed with creating that thing. And that's kind of, it's almost like you're not fully in control which is quite a weird experience.

And I think some of the, probably some of the best work comes that way. Like it's you feel it rather than think it. - Yeah, that might be the best way to describe like the paintings that I was creating that caused depression.

It was just that I was not in doing the artworks with any mystery whatsoever. It was just what you see is what you get and that really depressed me.

- I would rather listen to music or look at art that had so much mystery and unknowability in it that I just kept wanting to ask questions and like keep wanting to explore the depths of something that it seems like they have answers

that I can grasp at if I spent 500 years researching it. - That's how it seems almost. - Yeah, it's that mystery, isn't it? It makes it so much more fascinating. Yeah, I can see that something that's just, it is what it is and you feel like there isn't a depth to it.

It can't excite you as much as what you're describing. So yeah, I guess you've found your own way of expressing things and it's through other artists and collaborating with them and helping them.

And that's a great thing. I think sometimes we have to accept like you're saying you've dropped that, dropped your own painting to work with other artists. And sometimes you just know that that's right.

You know that that's what you're drawn to and what feels right for you. And if you follow that, I don't think you can go too far wrong. - Yeah, and it really struck me to read this rule from Jordan Peterson where he said opportunity lurks where responsibility has been abdicated.

And that's what I saw out in the art world is, there was this responsibility for the greatest masterpieces to be funded from living artists. And I couldn't find anyone that was actively trying to sponsor these things and I couldn't understand why.

That's what I'm trying to figure out is why is there no motivation to sponsor masterpieces? And instead it's to sponsor like a portrait of my dog or a portrait of my house. It's something more let's self-centered instead of asking

how can I maximize the creative potential of someone, of another artist? - Yeah, you're talking about Jordan Peterson there. I read his 12 Rules for Life book and I watched a lot of his talks and things.

I'm a big fan of a lot of the way that he thinks about things. And it seems like he goes very much down the sort of religious roots and looking at sort of cultures and going into things a lot more deeply than most people are thinking about.

I wish we could get him on our Bitcoin side. I know he had, I think he had his Patreon taken down not too long ago for something he said and he's had a lot of problems. And do you think he actually maybe is one of the nims on Bitcoin Twitter or is involved?

Or do you just think somehow he's too busy? - Well, I mean, I see his daughter, Michaela Peterson, interviewing a lot of Bitcoiners. I think she interviewed Safedine and Bitstine, Michael Goldstein, very recently a couple of months ago.

So I'm sure Jordan is aware of Bitcoin, but I don't know. I haven't really been paying attention to what he's been doing the past few months. - Yeah, well, I met like you say, maybe if his daughter, is this the daughter that in his book he's talking about, she had some real health problems and that going on a sort of carnivore diet

had massively helped her. I seem to remember. - Yes, exactly, yeah. Yeah, that's okay though. - Right, I'll have to check those protocols so I haven't listened to them. - I think it's just a matter of time.

I think there's so much pressure to just go all in on Bitcoin right now that people will just be shamed out of being a no-corner within a year across the entire planet. - Wow, that's a bullish thought.

So I think it's reasonable to see that people would do that. But do you not think that the average person is controlled enough by the media and the narrative that they spin, that they will just continue plotting along and doing as they're told?

Do you think people will wake up and actually do the research for themselves? Or do you literally think it's gonna be number go up enough that they're all gonna pile in? - I would hope that losing tons of money is a great enough motivation to start figuring out what's wrong with the world and also at the same time

watching these random plebs become millionaires. Something's going on there. Something very important is going on that they're not paying attention to. - And it is something that is very important.

You were saying you'd like to sort of look at the philosophical side of things. I'd be really interested to know from you like where you see this all going because you're clearly something that is, you're looking at like leaving a legacy, you're looking at actually making the world a better place

and bringing some incredible art into the world. You're doing these transcripts and helping so that more people can learn about it. It must have struck a chord with you. It must have some sort of special place in your heart and you must be doing this for a reason.

Do you have an idea in your head of how things play out?

- I think we just have to like on an individual basis, we just have to imagine a much more optimistic world than is being presented to us on social media and especially from television and through mass media and through movies and stuff like that.

And I guess Twitter and specifically Bitcoin Twitter is the most effective way that I've found to just completely wake up to what's going on around the world and actually like get a grasp of some real truths that are being suppressed everywhere else.

So it seems like the faster we can get people to study Bitcoin, Twitter, the better the world will become. But that seems like a tall order. - And we're also top take as well. We're awful people telling things how it is.

- It doesn't seem to be, there doesn't seem to be a lot of people that are willing to sit down and study Bitcoin, Twitter for very long. It's kind of like an acquired taste, I guess. - Yeah, I think it's definitely an acquired taste and it takes a long time to understand the lingo, understand it's pretty confusing for someone

who's just stepping in. There's a lot to learn and it's so different. It flips the world on its head. And I think if you already have a view of the world where you don't trust the politicians, you don't trust the bank because you don't trust anything that's in the media.

You have your own views on things and you're not a materialistic type of person who's sort of just been allowed to be programmed a certain way. You can more quickly make sense of it all and it's not such a shock.

But to go from literally being a robot into, I'm reading Bitcoin, Twitter and every single thing in my life that I thought was real is a lie. It's quite a big ask for people to do that. And I think probably people are quite scared to do that.

To admit to yourself, I was wrong about everything and everything that I thought I knew, I don't and I need to start again. That's pretty intimidating. - Yeah, but I think the rewards for doing that are so extraordinary.

That if you can just, if you can somehow find a friend out there and in person that has actually gone through that, then hopefully that's enough. That's enough of a motivation to actually take it seriously.

- Yeah. Well, I certainly hope so. I want to see a real world. I want to see more artists be able to create and less people will be put into little boxes and made to punch in numbers that don't really matter and have these bullshit jobs that don't actually help society at all.

I think the world can be incredible. And what you said about not allowing ourselves to think, oh, the world's going to go to shit and believe what's on the news is pretty powerful, like having that positive outcome.

You can't have that unless people actually believe and work towards it. So the more people that jump in and start fighting for it, the better. - Yeah. And just on this side, have you watched the movie Children of Men?

- No, I haven't. - That strikes me as a very extremely relevant movie to watch nowadays. Because I see a lot of that stuff playing out as we speak and there's even a scene called the Ark of the Arts where there's this guy who has built his own Citadel

full of all of these masterpieces from museums around the world. And he's kind of holding himself up in this isolation and pretending that everyone around him isn't suffering. And that's something that I'm trying to avoid is this, I guess from that perspective, I'm against the idea of citadels

because you no longer have compassion for your fellow man. I'd rather that we actually try to help everyone at the same time instead of trying to escape from it. - Yeah, I also, I don't like the idea of these walls going up and shutting people out and all of the rest of it.

But when I sort of think about a citadel, I suppose I think about it in terms of there are certain rules that you would have within certain areas, call it a citadel where people would be in agreement of how they want to live their lives.

And, you know, for example, if they want to smoke a plant, they're not going to go to prison for it. But if they steal from another person within that citadel, they're out. And you have these certain agreements between your fellow man.

And if people actually think, no, all I want to do is just arrest people for smoking a plant. I love that. I love taking away their freedoms. It's brilliant. Well, they can fuck off over there and they can do that to each other.

That's more what I see as a citadel is that like, you're never going to get everyone on the planet to agree. You're just not like it just, you can't. We're all too different. But maybe we can be a little bit closer to the people who we agree with.

And we don't have to infringe on anyone and else's freedoms at all. They can go and do what they want. But we won't allow them to do the same to us. Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. I don't know if that necessarily has to involve like physical relocation to somewhere else.

'Cause like with Bitcoin, it's kind of like you're just standing where you are and you're just arming yourself with new protections against this kind of thing. Yeah, exactly. Your Bitcoin's accessible everywhere and it doesn't really have a jurisdiction.

But I suppose you're in meat space, your physical self is and it can still, your freedoms can still be taken. Like for example, I wasn't legally allowed to go to my family's home for Christmas this year.

I wasn't legally allowed to do that because the fuck we're government here has decided that people can't do that. And so that is something that really annoys me. And obviously, annoys a lot of other people.

So no matter how much Bitcoin you have, you can't stop that. I mean, you can still break the rules but you can still get arrested. And I guess that's my dream of a Citadel is that it's like these sort of stupid rules can't affect you if you're in your own jurisdiction.

But we shall see. We shall see this is the future we have to look forward to. And yeah, it's exciting. It's good to have something to be positive about and excited about and something that you believe can actually change the world.

It gives you a much more exciting world view. - Yeah, I think it's very important to recognize like how much optimism you can have by looking at the younger generations and like who's alive right now, or even the older generations.

And all of these people can help contribute to a much better world simply by having access to something like Bitcoin. And it's just a matter of time before you see these kind of this teamwork or collaborations to make huge differences in the world by working together on projects like that.

- Yeah, it's exciting stuff. And like I said to you at the beginning of the interview, I'm amazed with all the stuff that you're doing and the way that you're contributing, not just to the Bitcoin space, but to the art world.

And yeah, it's really, really exciting to see and I thank you for doing it. I thank you for doing all the transcripts and what you're doing in the art world is incredible. It's been awesome getting to know you.

And if you ever find yourself in London or anywhere in the UK, do give me a shout. I'd love to go for a drink with you, go to an art museum or something, it would be great. - I've never been to the museums in London.

- Well, if you do find yourself in London, I'll take you, it'd be great. - Yeah. - We got some good ones. And yeah, before we close out the interview, is there anything that you wanted to discuss that we haven't or that you could point people towards the work that you're doing and then helping others do?

- Well, I would just say that the documentary that you mentioned is on YouTube. You can find it by searching for Chow Art Fund or the title is The Art of Funding Art. And you can also find my website on chowartfund.wordpress.com and that's website in particular has about 45 quotes

that have collected over the years, highlighting the importance of art patronage and the support of living artists. I think reading all of those quotes would really put you in the right mindset to like where I'm coming from and my motivations to help these people.

- Okay, great. And I'll link that in the show notes as well so anyone can click through. - Awesome. - Okay, and any other bits that you wanted to cover or any artists you wanted to give a shout out that you're working with at the moment?

- I think that's all for the moment. There's a lot more that I plan to do in the future. Like this documentary is just the tip of the iceberg really. I'm hoping to be doing this for like 50 years.

And if I can manage to do that and Bitcoin does what it's going to do, who knows, all kinds of crazy stuff can happen. - Excellent. All right, well, yeah, keep me updated with all of that.

And I'll be excited to see how these things progress. But thanks again for coming on the show. And yeah, it's been an absolute pleasure. - All right, Max, so thank you so much. - All right, cheers, speak soon.

- Yeah, bye bye now.