EP62 Bitcoin podcast with @_k3tan

Bitcoin is close to becoming worthless.

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.

Alright, 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 sit there to the deepest, darkest depths of the Bitcoin rabbit hole. Welcome back, everyone. Today's guest is Katan. Katan is someone I've wanted to have on this show for quite some time.

He really helped me when I was setting up my first node. I was pretty unsure of what I was doing, and his videos and his content were really, really helpful. They're comprehensive. It talks through network security.

It talks through setting up nodes, and much, much more. So if you haven't already, go and check out his site. Go and check out the content. If you then get stuck and you have any other questions, you can contact him at Ministry of Nodes.

So before we dive in, for those who haven't already bought any Bitcoin, check out CoinFloorUK, my sponsors. The link is in the show notes below. And for anyone who clicks through there, you'll get 30% discount off your fees.

If you're looking to stack non-KYC Bitcoin, as always, I would suggest hodl-hodl or bisque. Enjoy the show. Katan, can you hear me? Yes, there we are. Yeah, good thanks. How you doing? Yeah, not too bad.

Excellent. This is a weird one for me. I'm normally recording in the evenings with a whiskey, but I've just had my third espresso, so I'm buzzing for this. [LAUGHTER] Yeah, but it is a bit of a different time zone, isn't it?

Yeah, so what are we at 11 hours different, are we? Well, I've got 9 p.m. by my clock, so yeah, if it's 10 a.m. Yeah, awesome. Well, thank you very much for coming on. It's one I wanted to do for some time.

You actually helped me set up my first node. You're an enabler because it's now become an addiction. So we've now got, I think, the sixth Raspberry Pi is waiting to be built, and yeah, it wouldn't have been possible without you and your videos and talking me through it because I was so nervous getting involved and setting it up,

and it was something I wanted to do for a long time. And then I found a lot of the videos sort of explained some of it, but not all of it, and there were steps missing. And then I was pointed towards Ministry of Nodes and the work that you were doing, and it was so fucking helpful.

So I just wanted to say, first of all, thanks for doing that. And I'm sure you've helped many, many more. So what sort of made you decide, okay, this is what I want to be doing and helping people.

Like, how did this all come about? Yeah, look, I think, well, first of all, you're very welcome. I do enjoy producing content like this and that people will value. So the way this sort of came about was, well, I saw that running a node, but people were dismissing it as to why they even needed to run a node.

And so you'll see that the start of that series is just literally me standing and delivering why you should be running a Bitcoin node. And I think that that is foundational to getting some sort of motivation as to why you would want to do this.

And it's not easy, right? It takes hours of work and sourcing parts is going to take some money, a small amount of investment, but a learning curve as well for you. And so I want people to realize what the end goal here is.

And I think that's what kind of spurred it on, because I think there's two things to this. There's, hold your own keys and use your own node. Otherwise, if we don't do that, then it's just, you know, we're going back to surf them.

And so I think that's what's kind of spurred on this reason for why I wanted to go through end-to-end how to do this in an easier, intuitive way, rather than, you know, commands on Linux, which I've also done a series on anyway.

But this one made it just a little bit more accessible. And I found my node almost instantly, you know, as soon as it came up on the scene, I do kind of recall the first instances where it just had Bitcoin and Lightning, and that was it.

It wasn't as flashy as, you know, what we see today. So yeah, I'm just glad that I could help people to do that, to be able to enable them to now go on and build six raspberry pies in their homes and start tinkering.

So I think that that's rewarding. So yeah, that's really where it came about. Yeah. Well, that's great that you've taken the time to do it. And like you said, if people aren't running their own nodes, they aren't taking control of their own keys, then not what's the point because it's still a better money and, you

know, people can still store their wealth in it, but kind of, it takes away the whole purpose of this thing, which is to give us more freedom or as far as I can see it. And I think it takes some time to actually get to that point where people fully understand that.

And then there's this, although the barriers getting, there's less and less of a barrier as time's going on, because all of this stuff is becoming more accessible because of the guides, because it's just the user interfaces are getting better, but it does take a bit

of time to realize why and that's one thing I did like with you doing at the beginning of the video is like, well, why run a node? Because I think a lot of people just don't get it. And it seems that without it, we are a bit fucked without everyone stepping up and taking

control of their keys and running the nodes is a little bit like the old system, really. And you've got some dickhead coin base or someone like that, basically holding everyone hostage. Well, that's exactly what we've sort of designed this thing to prevent.

And so I want to make sure that people understand that and that they do have options and that the guys who do want to run their own nodes aren't left behind or forced into a system that we never agreed to in the first place.

And so I think, yeah, look, I think it's really, really important to understand why you would run your own Bitcoin node. And I think that that video really explains it in a intuitive way, hopefully.

Yeah, it certainly did. And I liked that it went through all the steps and all the bits and pieces because I think a lot of the guides do missteps out because for people who do this kind of stuff all the time, for people who are more technically able, I think some of the steps seem so obvious to them.

And they don't even think to explain that part. And then like someone who is coming in and a lot of the time is probably quite nervous because it's funds at stake and all the rest of it, there's a step missed.

And then they're like, Oh, you know, I didn't understand how to do this little part and you spend hours and hours researching and, you know, it's like, if you're researching something on the internet, there's a hell of a lot of information and most of it shit.

So it is good to have every step all the way along. And yeah, it's great. It's a great resource. It's somewhere I send a lot of people now so they can set these things up. I did wonder what your thoughts are though on that was my first node as the my node.

And then what I found was the reason I've got all these other ones is the my node, I was like, Oh, yeah, it can do all these things. And I'll be able to use my whirlpool through it and I'll be able to do this and that.

And then I found that actually this stage now I've added these other nodes to do the bits that I thought that the my node was going to be able to do and I just kept having problems with it.

So in the end, I was like, right, well, I run a Ronan dojo so that I can actually have world called the works and then I'll run something else for lightning. And now all this really does is links with my specter wallet.

So do you see that that will ever get to a point where we can have one unit that's going to be able to do everything pretty well without all the issues? Do you think that that's a possibility or do you kind of see it more as you're going to have separate separate nodes to do separate things?

Look, for me personally, I like to have it all in the one box. And the reason is is for just the sake of, I guess, having it all compact, the same system resources, handling everything and electricity consumption as well is a factor.

So I would like to see node packages come with, you know, everything stock standard. And I really like the unreal approach that's coming through where you can sort of pick and play what you actually want to install.

That gives you a little bit more sovereignty around, you know, what your Raspberry Pi is actually running. So it's great to see the proliferation of all of these node packages and these instances that are popping up with Raspberry Pi.

I also want to make a note of that, though, in that the downside to that is that we lose knowledge. If we start to, I guess, keep, I guess, you know, creating a facade that looks nice and it's just a one-click button away.

What happens when that development team can no longer fund itself? What happens, because, you know, that's an issue, right? So funding is always an issue with open-source projects. And so what happens when, you know, one of the lead developers no longer wishes to work on the project?

And so what I'm trying to also do is educate how to run a Bitcoin node with everything start to finish on Ubuntu, for instance. And so I have a guide that's already on there for, on the Ministry of Node's YouTube channel.

But it's for Ubuntu 18.04. I've got the 20.04 one coming out. And so I'm going to start to release, well, the entire series. And I'll also put in the commands that you need to type and just giving you an explanation of what exactly is going on.

And it kind of replicates what the my node is doing in the back end. It's just that you build it yourself from scratch, picking out the software that you want. So say, for example, you want a BTC pay server, you obviously want Bitcoin.

You might want lightning, but you don't want to run a dojo or, you know, you want the whole bells and whistles, then I've got that as well. And so I'm building out this system right before your eyes in a virtual machine.

And so you can then follow along and build this out. And so it won't really matter whether or not, you know, one, one distribution, one flavor of a package like Umbrell doesn't support this and does support this.

And so you can sort of just learn to, if you find something on GitHub that you go, oh, wow, that looks interesting, well, you know, you can set up a test environment to do this and learn and say, all right, yes, this works or no, I've had some problems here.

And then when you're happy with it, you can then replicate it to your production node. And so that's, that's kind of my approach to it. I don't use any of these packages because it's not really designed for someone like myself.

It's designed for the newcomer. And that gets you kind of, it gets your, it dips your toes in the water. It also gets you addicted as you've already sort of already gone down the path of.

But I think the true self sovereignty comes in in the fact that you can then go on to understand the back end of Linux and really put in the commands to get to the outcomes that you want.

And I think that's the way, well, that's what I see as the way to go. However, I understand that not everybody has the time and the capacity to do that. I do because I just love this and I'm kind of, you know, just addicted to it much like you are.

I guess, yeah, that's kind of where I stand with, with running these node packages. Have you got, have you got me again now? Hello? Katan? What's going on here? Yes, I've got you. I've got you.

Ah, okay. I keep having problems with this fucking internet here. I don't know what is going on. Where do we lose each other? Basically, me just explaining through the entire node package and what my thoughts are on that.

Yeah. So, yeah, it was just in response to that, I was saying, I think it's, like you said, it's really important to have these node packages so that people can dip their toe in because it is quite scary.

It is, it is quite daunting to be setting something up and like to be jumping straight into command line and doing this kind of stuff for most people is scary. But I think then it gives them a taste for it.

So, like when you were explaining, okay, no, I want to, you know, I'm doing this guide where you can do everything right from Ubuntu and you actually build it yourself. I'm like, fuck yeah, that's my next, I want to do that.

That sounds cool. But I wouldn't have been even considering that before I set up my my node. So it's these steps that we have to take. And I think you're absolutely right saying that the idea is that you understand what's happening in the background because, yeah, one click is nice, you know, it's great and

a lot of people will like that, but if we're really going to be self-suffering, it would be good to know what software we're running, what it's doing and how it works because like you say, if one of these, these teams packs up and then you're like, oh, well, that's the only thing I know how to use, then you're a bit fucked.

So I like that approach. It's very interesting. It's very alluring all of the open source stuff and I speak a lot to Bitcoin Q&A in the background. The fellow brick coiner here, he's trying to sort of push me across to pop OS and that's something I want to do for somebody who's at the stage.

I am now and I'm still running Mac as my everyday computer. Is it that much of a leap for me to go to something like pop or Ubuntu and get comfortable with it and start to actually build these things using something like your guide and like how much, how much of a leap is it at this stage?

At this stage, if you're already addicted to the node packages like you're running six Raspberry Pi's at your home, I think it's worth, well, it's now time. It really is time for you to dive into Linux and the command line and kind of, you know, I don't think it's a massive leap.

Like at the moment, like if I was saying it 10 years ago, then yeah, okay, fine. Linux wasn't quite there yet. Now I think it's come an extremely long way. I don't think that there is a piece of software that you won't be able to find on a free and open source version of.

You can do all of your video editing and, you know, music and anything, the audio editing, anything that you need to get done, word processing, can all be done on PopOS. And I'm a big PopOS fan, actually.

I'm actually the one that pushed Bitcoin Q&A to go to PopOS, who is now, I'm glad he's now shilling it to all his friends. So yeah, I do talk to Bitcoin Q&A a fair bit. So shout out to him.

I know he'll be listening. Yeah, he will be because I said you were coming on and he said, guitar is awesome. He's like my Bitcoin dad. And I said, yes. I tell him you call him daddy. Yeah, no, he's awesome.

He's become a good friend and, again, someone who's really, really pushing forward and helping people get on-boarded and taking time to write through all this documentation and stuff. And anyone who's doing what you are and what he's doing, I have huge respect for it because without it, you know, no one can get involved.

It just means the barrier to entry is too high. Yeah, I think there's a comment in there in that, you know, you want the barrier to entry to be as easy as possible at the start, but it's also just maintaining, well, not being complacent about it and just continuously learning.

Put some time away because, well, I think, as you see number go up, I think your kind of self-interest starts to really go into, oh, I'd better pay some attention here. And so I think it's a self-interest type thing.

It's like, well, okay, if this is something that I need to protect, then I want to start learning about it. And so that's kind of, you know, a great motivator in itself. But yeah, I do think that, you know, running your own Bitcoin node is something that you

should be learning the backend of as well and not just relying on, you know, these development teams who are here and are fantastic and are doing a fantastic job today. But then we need to also look for what's going on tomorrow and we need to future proof it.

So that's kind of what I'm doing with the Ubuntu series. I know that, you know, these Ubuntu is going to be around for a while. And I think you should definitely get into it. I don't think it's a big leap, it is now available for you to, you know, just buy a cheap laptop to even just play around with.

You can get cheap used laptops on Gumtree and you can, you know, for two, three hundred bucks, you can get a nice think pad or something like that. And mate, it is phenomenal what you can do with that for just still learning purposes.

And you know, it might even get, it costs less than a Raspberry Pi at some point with all of it in there. You know, it just depends on what you want and the specs and how old it is and all that sort of stuff.

But you can get there and you can learn PopOS and yeah, I think it's something that you should be doing definitely. Okay. All right. That's the final push. I'll be investing some time into that.

What I also had a question on was, I remember when I was setting all this stuff up right at the beginning, there was a sort of, I can't remember whether you've written something and it was talking about home networking.

It was talking about these different open source routers and all this kind of stuff. And I left it to one side because I was like, ah, just let me do one step at a time. But so I have like a very unique and weird question here, which probably won't apply

to that many people, but I'm soon to be just selling everything all in no more property hitting the road. And I still want to run my nodes. I still want to have the same setup that I currently have.

Is there a way that I could run all of this stuff somewhere else because I'm not going to have stable internet connection? And I can sort of, it's probably definitely not going to be the right term.

But like SSH in from a remote place to back to my home network so that I can access all this stuff is there something that can be done in that way for people who don't have stable internet connection?

Yeah, so in that respect, there's a couple of things here. Like if you've got something, for example, already at home and you're just, you know, leaving for going traveling for six months and you know it's just going to be left on at home and you've got an internet connection there, then sure you can SSH back in no problems,

you can use a VPN, you can use another piece of software, an open source piece of software called zero tier and that builds a network for you such that you can SSH into any device that's connected to the internet and it's secure, it's encrypted and it's actually a very, very good piece of software there.

So that is an option for you. Now if you are actually just going to be mobile and there's nothing else that you've got, really other than just some sort of mobile internet connection, then I think the best thing for you is probably just run Spectre desktop locally.

And so you sync up when and as you need it. And so you won't be able to run a node 24/7, you might have data restrictions, all those sorts of things. And so it really just depends on the setup that you want to achieve.

I just don't think you're probably going to be able to do a lightning network from home. But what you can do is buy a VPS or rent out a virtual private server and things like digital ocean, that they have these instances where you can run these things.

However, that costs money and it's also someone else's infrastructure, not your node. Well, it is your node, you have full access to it, but somebody else also has full access to it. And so that might not be an option that you're willing to go down.

It really just depends on the situation and how you wish to, what trade-offs you're willing to make. And so I'd have to ask you more probing questions around what you're doing and what you set up is to be able to get a decent solution for you.

Yeah. No, I think from what you said there, that makes sense. It may then be because I will be on the road constantly. So I think that then I just have to find somebody nice enough to allow me to run my nodes maybe on their home network, someone close enough to me, and then I can use that software you're

talking about to access it, because really, I don't worry so much about all of it, but I would very much like to have my Ronan Dojo working and my world pool just constantly working, and I can't see a way round it other than doing that.

Yeah. So look, for me personally, my node is actually at my parents' place. So I don't actually have access to the infrastructure right now, but I know I can SSH in at any point in time, and I'm using zero-tier, and I can just molt straight in.

And so yeah, if you've got someone like that who is willing to sort of host you, then yeah, utilize that. I think that's a great option there. Okay. Cool. All right. With like these guides and everything that you're doing, I know that you're also doing sort of like one-on-one sessions and these kind of things.

How have you found that experience? Do you have some sort of a big mix of people who are coming to you and wanting to learn about this? Is it sort of all types of people and how has it been helping people?

Like what's that experience like? It's actually been fantastic. It's really rewarding. We get to meet so many different people. I've had boomers who will literally be in the command line with me, and I'm taking them through.

And I've ordered the supply of Bitcoin, and I've given them the command of, okay, get the outset info. And yeah, they've said, mate, this is the most fun I've had with my pants on. And so these boomers are just like loving it because they've never seen the ability to order the money supply before.

So I think that that's something that is really cool to see, but then I've also got young guys who are coming and just wanting more advice around, you know, how to set this thing up and securing keys is another big issue.

So people are like, look, I'm not comfortable with this. What can I do? You know, I've got guys who are coming in with, you know, they're still on an exchange and they want to move off and they're just getting jittery and they just need that additional push to go, hey, you know what, you've got this, you've done your research, you've done

your homework and you've got a plan and you know what's important and what's critical. So go out and just do it. And you know, they value that to say that, you know, there's a guy there that's sort of poked holes in my approach, and I'm reasonably comfortable with what I'm meant to be doing.

So that's the type of questions or, I guess, scenarios that I'm faced with. And then obviously we also do kind of line one tech support almost, where people just go, mate, I can't, this thing's not working.

What's going on? It's just usually a reboot fixes it or whatever. And so, yeah, we'll get calls like that. Yeah, it's an array of people and array of issues. It really keeps you on your toes, actually.

But I do enjoy it. It's very, very rewarding and yeah, if you want consultation, you know, our calendar is open. So come say hi and, you know, if you need a hand with anything, then yeah, let us know.

Give us a shout. Yeah, I'd say to anyone listening and maybe you're at that stage where you're pulling your hair around and you've been sat in front of a terminal for hours and hours and hours and just nothing's working and you've read through all the guides a hundred times and still nothing's working.

And I've been there like I've been at times where it's just so frustrating and it's taken so much time. Then reach out and speak to Katana or who else is who else is there? Is it Stefan involved as well?

Yes. Yes. Stefan is there as well. It's just him and I at the moment and yeah, we just tag team, you know, whatever, whoever comes out where whenever we've got some time, we'll just, yeah, just jump in and it really just depends on who they want and what they want.

So I do more of the tech side stuff and Stefan does more of the, you know, like the get your money off the exchange and all those sorts of things as well. So yeah, like it just really depends, Stefan will jump in at any point in time.

Sometimes we just both are in because, you know, that's what we do. So yeah, like it's really, it's good to see some of the issues and also then feed those issues back to development teams as well.

So I'm sort of like this conduit between what is going on in the ground versus what's going on in the development space because I kind of now have a feel for what the development team is kind of looking at and where their holes are potentially holes and then patching them up.

So I've given lots of comments back to various teams and they've really appreciated it. And then hopefully that translates into a better user experience. So I'm hoping that people are enjoying that as well.

Yeah, well, that's great. And it helps push things forward. And so when you're in the middle and you're sort of speak to devs on one side and speaking to consumers of these, this software on the other side, how have you found bridging that gap?

Because I don't know whether you had a background in software development at any stage or is this something you just picked up from finding Bitcoin, like how, how did you get to this point where you're helping people do this kind of stuff?

You're helping help people's hands, you're explaining things and you're obviously very technical at this point, like, were you always, were you always into this stuff or is this something like I say you've learned through Bitcoin?

Yeah. So for me, computers, look, if you haven't noticed, I am Indian. I don't know if it's genetic, but we do like computers and I've liked them since I was 10 years old. And so yeah, look, I don't have a formal education in computing science or anything like that.

I do not have a degree. I don't have any sort of formal qualifications. I am just really into it. I just go out there and I, you know, just whatever I can get my hands on, I will go out and try and I'll just, you know, nut it out and just, I will be that guy that sits there

for 10,000 hours trying to figure out what's going on and why it's going wrong and then go back to a development team and say, mate, I think you've got a problem here. And so that's just kind of how I've just gone about it.

That's not to say that, you know, I've been doing this since I was 10 years old. Actually I've been doing it since I started really diving into Bitcoin. And so it kind of reignited that passion.

So what happened was at 10 years old, I was, you know, still, you know, I love computers and then kind of as I grew up into my teens, I was just playing Counter Strike and then I could, I learned that I could, oh, wow, you could download music and you could download games and you can download, oh, wow, this is interesting.

And then, you know, it just kind of evolves and then you get this, you know, like a, and then you finally, I just kind of, you know, drop that off for a bit and then I did whatever else I needed to do because I'm going to count them by trade.

So I was doing that and then, and then I, you know, came, found Bitcoin and I was just absolutely hooked. And then from there I started getting into open source like crazy. And then, you know, I started to just install random software like next cloud and all these

instances of, you know, all PF sense and router software and just, yeah, I just went really, you know, reading through all the material and all that sort of stuff and I spent a lot of time on it.

So that's kind of why I, you know, I've spent a lot of time on it. And so I think that that's kind of why I'm at the stage where I'm at to be able to teach it because I know it kind of, you know, from a, from a ground level and then I've worked myself up and then kind of trying to disseminate that.

That bridge between developers and users is huge. I'm telling you it's massive. And so the developers may not, or they may not necessarily know how to communicate that down to the ground.

And so, and the consumers are just like, well, that they'll just get lumped with this code and be like, they will just completely turn off. The moment you start saying, okay, insert this into a command line, they're done.

They're finished. They've walked away. And so I think bridging that gap has been really what is the, the conduit between those two development teams in the form of these videos. And so that's what I try and do.

Yeah, developers, they don't speak the same language as the users and the users. They are definitely not speaking the same language as the development. There's a lot of miscommunication there.

But what I do find is that the development teams are actually really open to feedback. The number of developers who have come to me and said, mate, if you've got any feedback, please let me know.

They are like literally begging for feedback as well as new ideas, new wanting to code something up. And like, I know that like, for example, the RTL guys, I said, mate, I'm an accountant.

I need CSV files. Can you, can you start to export all my lightning transactions to CSV? Next version, there's a CSV export file. So these are the types of things that were, were so early and that you can sort of, if you've got a decent enough reputation and you go to a development team and say, hey,

can, like, this would be cool, they will actually consider it. And you won't get that out of the bank. You won't get that out of, you know, any other software company or any other kind of, you know, big, big company, you'll only get it in the Bitcoin sort of ethos.

And that's what I love about it. You can really make a difference if you want to. Yeah. It is incredible. Um, I've experienced it myself. Just that ability is, it feels, it feels really nice because you feel part of it.

And to see these things literally happen in front of your eyes and it is an exciting thing to see. And like, the fact that developers don't just say, I'll fuck off, like, you know, we'll do what we want.

You'll like it or lump it basically. They are looking for that feedback is great because I think the thing is we're all, we all have the same goal or like most people here have the same goal.

It's like, we want freedom money. We want this thing to succeed. Most people are sort of sick of the current system and don't feel it's right. And so we all work together and everyone has their different skills and abilities and between us.

I think incredible think were incredible things already have happened and they will continue to happen. It just fills me with so much confidence when I see what is happening and how fast things are moving.

I just, like, I don't know if you're the same. I can't see a world now without Bitcoin and I can't see a world where we lose. That maybe that's really fucking arrogant, but I can't like, I just, the, the, the things that are being built here and the just the leaps and bounds of just how much better this

system is than the current financial system and everything that's being built outside of Bitcoin. It's just completely different worlds like it just doesn't even feel like it's in the same century.

100% can occur there. You're making me feel bullish now, Max. I do, I do concur there and I think that, yeah, this is a far better system. Sure, it's not the best system. I don't think we'll ever get that, but we will get a better system, a fairer system, a, a just, you know, a more just system.

And so I think, yeah, with, with this software, with this whole environment, it's just, I think if you're a central bank, surely by now, it's just time to pack up really. I just can't see how, you know, unless you stop printing the money that, you know, that this is going to solve itself.

And so they just don't have an option. There is no way out here and the banks, they're not helping by shutting down people's accounts and those sorts of things as well. And you know, it's just, it is a mess out there and Bitcoin is the really, it is the

only, I guess, lifeboat that we have, but it's constantly growing and it's not just a life boat anymore. I, I, I do feel that, look, this is going to be around for a very, very long time and I think that we can, hopefully we can bank on it, literally we can bank on it.

Yeah, it's, it's interesting. I remember, you know, probably a year and a half, two years ago and like I'm a big TFTC fan. I've listened for a long time. Steph and Lavera fan, I've listened again, both of those are two of my like favorite shows.

I've listened to every single episode on both and I remember like when it was discussed from Matt, he was like, ah, yes, that's in my safe haven. I remember the first hearing that and I was like, hmm, that's in a safe haven.

I was like, there's still some risks here. I was like, I still, I'm not sure. And I like it mulled over in my head for a while and I'm not too much later. I was like, he's absolutely fucking right.

Everything else seems like a serious risk. So like for me, I was previously into property, like I've been scaling out for a while now and all into Bitcoin because I just, I'd see it as a risk.

Yeah, it's the ultimate shit coin actually. Yeah, it seriously is like it was a huge amount of hassle, tenants for a fucking nightmare. We don't have any rights. Our yields are going down and down, we're getting more regulation.

It's a massive fucking bubble. It's a huge, huge bubble, especially in the UK and everyone's like, oh, there's nothing safe. It's safe as houses, bricks and mortar. I'm like, no, it's not, Sats literally are our safe haven and like it's a reality now.

Like I really feel that. And I think, you know, we're only a tiny percentage of the world who think that way, but I don't think it's probably that much of a stretch to see the rest of the world or a huge proportion of the world realize this within the coming years because the world outside is so fucked.

Like you said, there's no way out. They have no way out of what they're doing other than literally putting us all in a concentration camp and locking us away. Like I don't see any other root out and this is like you said, it's just a better system.

So it makes me incredibly bullish. And it also just makes me excited to see the smirks wiped off the faces of these smug fucking arseholes who are taking everyone's rights away and have done for so long.

And they feel their superior. And in this world, this new world, they're nothing. And that's exciting. Oh, yes. Yes. I completely agree with you here, Max, that it is very, very exciting.

I'm looking forward to it, but I also am quietly cautious. I just hope for the best way forward. And look, I don't want to take this dark, but you know, look, no, no. Take it dark. I actually like that.

Well, look, I just hope that there's not too much bloodshed on the transition to a Bitcoin standard. I hope that this is a peaceful revolution. I just really do. But if you look at the way that the governments are acting at the moment, it's I just I don't

know whether we'll get that transition that we want to peacefully move into under a Bitcoin standard under that, you know, global Bitcoin standard. So that's something that to look, we just need to ponder over.

But also, I think Bitcoin is need to be prepared for. You really want to hope for the best, but you also need to prepare for the worst. And I think Bitcoin is a very, very good at that. And so that's why you see these conversations around self-defense and all that sorts of things,

because now we have something to protect and we're the only ones that can protect them. And that is sovereignty, that is self-responsibility, but with that power comes this responsibility.

So we just need to find ways to protect that. So yeah, it is bullish, but just think about attack vectors. And I think Bitcoin is do like it's ingrained into them to think about attack vectors.

And you should be starting to think about physical attack vectors as well. Yeah, I agree, especially with, I mean, what is going on in the UK at the moment is real proper 1984 stuff. It's really seriously worrying.

I don't want to slag off your country too much, but yours looks just as bad. Yeah, well, I've seen like people just getting arrested, their doors kicked in like crazy shit. Like we had it here, we saw a couple of days ago, an old lady sat on a bench, got taken

away in handcuffs for sitting on a bench because someone had grasped her up because it was the second time she'd left her home for exercise and you're only allowed out once a day to go and get some fresh air and she'd done it twice and so arrested and like what the fuck is going on?

It's really, really scary. So when you're talking about, oh, you need to learn some self-defense or you need to have a plan or you need to make sure that you're protecting yourself, I don't think that's a stretch when people are being arrested for sitting on benches or I think it was in Australia's

some lady writing a post on Facebook or something like that, I saw her a while ago, doors kicked in like, what's going on? Yeah, look, the stories that you see on social media and in the media as well, it's not painting a great picture of the country but look, I think if you focus on the protection that

you need to do for you and your family, I think that that's kind of what you need to sort of resolve and understand those threat models. Also in the event of a death, you also want to make sure that you passed on those keys and you've got some sort of plan and I think that's really what's important here.

There needs to be a plan to, if in the event of something goes down, then there needs to be some action that you need to take and creating that trigger point to say, yeah, you know, right, I'm at this point, we're seeing this happen, this is my call to some form of action

now, and that's the only thing that you can do, whether that's looking at second passports and other, you know, moving out to a rural area or doing what you're doing, just packing up and going traveling or, you know, within the country or whatever but just, yeah, you

want to try and move to areas that have less of it and so that's the idea and unfortunately in Australia, UK, US, some of these cities are getting more of it instead of less of it. Yeah, definitely in the cities, getting out to somewhere rural, it is, I think, a very

good idea and that's, I guess, one good thing with Australia is you've just got so much fucking land, like, you've got so much land, I guess, if you really want to sort of go off grid for a little bit, it's probably not that difficult, whereas here, although we

do have a fair amount of it, it's getting harder and harder because it's just these shitty new build house complex villages that all look exactly the same everywhere, just being built everywhere there was woodland, you suddenly got these monstrosities going up, the absolute

opposite of the citadel, shit building, you own 5%, they tie you into a load of debt and everyone's just going for them, but you can still get away, you can still get into the countryside which is good.

Yeah, some of these things are just based on the fiat standard and you and I know that it's just, that's the reality of it and you just fit that into your mental model of the way you view the world and go look, these are just fiat things that we have to deal with.

So you were talking about coming into Bitcoin that you'd already, since 10, you'd always been involved in computers, you realise you could download music and games and all this kind of stuff and I assume it was Napster and LimeWire and all that kind of thing that

I was really into when I was younger as well, did that, when you heard about Bitcoin, was it that that drew you in or was it the money side of things? What angle did you come into this thing and how did it strike a chord with you?

Was it that you were like, I don't think anything is right with the money, I don't feel that anything is right with the way that the government is and I don't feel any of this is right and that struck a chord or was it like, okay, this is this open source thing, like this makes sense to me because I fucked around with it in the past.

What was it that drew you in in the first place? Yeah, so interesting question. So I've known Stefan since we were 15 and so he was well ahead of his time. He was a libertarian at that point, at 15, everyone else had a school dance worrying about getting someone's number, whatever, like all the shit that you think about 15, he's like,

right, I'm a libertarian, these are the things that are wrong with the government. That is correct. No, but he used to shit on central banking and all this sort of stuff at a very, very young age when we were at university together.

He would just absolutely blast central banking. He had a disdain for it. And so, you know, the thing was though, there was no actual practical application or alternative to what he was saying because Keynesian economics was the only thing that we had.

It was reality. It was that that was it. Then one, so I dismissed Stefan. I was just like, made these guys all look like literally he is off on his own here. And then one day out of nowhere, Stefan sent me a link.

And it was literally the white paper, bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf or whatever it was. And I opened it up and I was just like, mate, if this thing can do, what is it, what it says it can do, we might have something.

And because the reason, yeah, my mind went straight from Napster to Torrance, we're torrenting money here. Like, whoa, what? And so from that angle, I was like, okay, well, here is a practical solution to the alternative that Stefan's talking about, which is no government being in control of this thing, no printing of money.

He was actually well, well ahead of his time. And then it started to click. It kind of just clicked at that point, and I was like, as soon as he sent me the white paper, it took me two weeks of reading, and back then it was just mostly on Reddit.

And so I was just reading when no one stopped. I'm not talking like one or two hours. I'm talking like, you know, 20 hours in a day for two weeks on just bitcoin. The only thing that I could find my hands are like any take that I could find, I would just read it.

And then in two weeks, I was like, you know, in that scene in The Matrix where the guy, he comes out and he goes, I know Kung Fu, that's literally how I went after two weeks. And so at that point, I was like, okay, well, yeah, you know what, here I am, I'm aged this.

I've got a bit of money. Let's take a punt. And so that's kind of how it kind of grew. Then I saw number go up, and then I was like, ho, ho, ho, we are on. And yeah, it just kind of, it kind of just went from there and yeah, it's been unreal learning about this and then ultimately teaching others about it as well.

I think it's the gift that has kept on giving. I'm just so thankful for what Bitcoin has done. It's changed my world view completely. I just never could have thought the things that I thought I could.

Meanwhile, I'm still dealing with normies and having these conversations where they're like, nah, nah, you still need a government or nah, nah, nah, I'm just, I'm well past that point where I'm just not really, I'm not, like, I'll let Stefan argue his case because I think he's very, very good at it.

Whereas I just get impatient and I just, I just, I just don't like engaging in those types of conversations. The conversations that I engage in are more like, okay, here's how you run your own note.

Here's how you, you know, do your, hold your own keys. Here's what it looks like. Here's what a Bitcoin address looks like. Those types of conversations, once they're already in, or bitten by Bitcoin and decided, yeah, you know what?

I'm interested in learning more about it. Then we have those types of conversations. But if it's something like, oh, Bitcoin's a scam or it's infinitely divisible or some, some rubbish like that, I will not engage in that.

That's just, that's just, I'll leave that just to find, to find you take that one. Have fun staying, Paul. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Like the beginning, it's so exciting. And so like you're saying, you're like reading 20 hours a day, you're just like obsessed with this thing and you're like, this is just, it is mind-blowing.

That is just like, especially early days when it clicks is just absolutely mind-blowing. And you do want to share it with everyone, but it doesn't take too long to realize no one gives a fuck.

And I think like I'm a big fan of this kind of way of thinking of everyone buys Bitcoin at the price they deserve to buy Bitcoin. And I really think that if people can't be bothered, they are too rigid in their views or they're not intellectually curious enough to actually read and think that there could be another option.

And they just want to, you know, read the newspaper and the BBC and what their financial advisor tells them and just believe whatever they're told, then fuck them, you know, let them believe what they want to believe.

And I think you waste a lot of energy just trying to explain this stuff and you can get really rolled up because it is frustrating actually, like you're saying, you teach people how to use the stuff who want to learn, who want to better themselves.

That's a much better way to use your energy than trying to convince these people who just they're happy the way things are. And like I just, I think that what you were saying before about Stefan being so early with it and there wasn't a practical solution, it's interesting because I think a lot of

people knew something was wrong, a lot of people didn't want government, a lot of people didn't want things the way that it was set up. But there was never, there was just never an option that you could really explain to someone that would make sense.

And now there is an option and it's a really fucking good option. And you can explain it if someone's willing to learn. And everyone else, especially in the UK, like we're winders, like the average person in the UK is a fucking winder.

They just love to moan about everything. But they never come up with a practical solution, they just winge. So it's what's very exciting about this space is people will have a windge, but then they'll say, "I don't like this, so I'm going to build this or I'm going to do this."

It's always a practical, it's not dwelling on what you don't like, it's just, "I don't like that, I'm going to make something better." And I've not come across that anywhere else. And it's one of the things that makes me bullish is that it's not a group of people who just have a moan and then just go on about their life.

It's people who are really actually making changes and they're making changes fast. And that's really exciting. Yeah, it is, I concur with that as well. People are actually just going out there and building it, building the better world that they want to see.

And I think that that is, it's incredible and it's such a breath of fresh air as well. People actually stop moaning and just get on with making the old system obsolete. I think that that is just so powerful in itself.

And we've seen multiple instances like Nicodoria with the BTC pay server, I will make you obsolete and all of those sort of things, standing up to them and saying, "Hey, look, I can do things better and here's how I'm going to be doing it."

And I think Bitcoin does that and I think that, yeah, it is draining to have these conversations with people. One of the other things to be mindful of is when you're really bullish and you want to tell the world about Bitcoin and people just aren't receptive to it, I've destroyed a lot of relationships.

I'm not going to lie in the early days, I have absolutely decimated relationships. It really pays to be a little bit more, I guess, yeah, this is why, look, I like the meme, have fun staying poor, but what are the long-term implications of that?

It's just going to leave sour taste in people's mouths and they will never come around, even though that they'll be grudgingly have to, but it's just going to draw out that process longer.

Maybe, I don't know, it might shame them into thinking, "Hey, I need to buy some today." I don't know what the effects are, different people have different effects, but I think that a tailored approach to your family and friends needs to be taken because I can tell

you from firsthand experience, it gets very, very riled up, particularly when world views collide in such a, I guess, it's almost like an explosion of differing beliefs and you sit there and they're so opposing that sometimes you just never hear from them again and it's very sad to see.

Just be mindful when you are trying to red pill your friends and family, but you've been doing all this reading on Bitcoin and you understand it and you get it and then you go out and you just be careful and so I've kind of tapered that down.

You won't see me doing bullish tweets and those sorts of things anymore. I've kind of tapered that down and I just focus really just on having those conversations that I really want to have, which is some guy will come up to me and say, "Hey, mate, I need some help here and I am more than happy to sort of help them guide them through."

Yeah, no, I agree, they have fun staying poor thing, like at the moment it's one of my favourite things on Twitter is the have fun staying poor chain, especially on like Peter Schiff and just like people who just have really bad takes, I find it very funny, but I'd never

use it in real life and like you say, it really can damage relationships and it's not worth damaging these relationships and it's not worth even really discussing with some people. You have to sort of pick your fights and there are some people you just know, they're just

never going to get it and I think even with like politics and all this stuff now because I don't know if it's the same with you, but for me, like I literally don't care with anything to whatever is happening in politics, I just go, I don't care, they're all ourselves, it's all a lie.

It doesn't matter, like I don't care, it doesn't matter at all. So when people are getting all riled up about these different political opinions at a dinner table, I just won't get involved, I'll just be like, I don't care, like it's not, like I won't even engage anymore because it's such a waste of energy again and it's all the

same shit, it's blue versus red, same shit, someone says they're going to do this thing if they get in power, they won't, they'll lie, like it's literally, it's the same team all the time, just in different kit and I find all of that very draining and once you

realise that it's kind of, it saves a lot of energy just to step back and just not engage with any of it. Yeah, no, that's my approach as well, I don't engage in politics whatsoever, I never have actually, I never really got involved at all.

To be honest, I never even growing up, I didn't even know what left and right was and so I just, it was just not part of my belief system at all and so I think that really is what moulded me when Stefan was kind of just pushing these libertarian ideas on me, I was just

not interested in politics and so I don't talk about it, I don't even care at all, similar to you but it's also a huge weight off my shoulders, it's like, well I don't have to have that history, I don't carry that history with me, I don't carry any sort of preconceived

ideas with me, it really is, it feels like it's a fresh start, it really is a breath of fresh air so I'm really glad that I never got involved into young libertarians or any sort of groups like that, or sorry, sorry, young Labour Party or Liberal Party or all

those sort of things, I just never got involved and so yeah, that's kind of, I'm happy, that's wise. So, outside of politics with Bitcoin and all that kind of stuff, looking forward at this new system which, you know, we both agree is going to be the future.

What's really exciting you now because you're talking about you are this sort of bridge between the devs and the users and you are in this very special place where I don't think there are probably many people on the planet who were seeing developments happen right

in front of their eyes in the same way you are, is there anything right now over the coming months or years that's really exciting you or anything that's really worrying you? In terms of excitement and worry, I just look, as you said earlier, you said that, you know,

you can't really see anything better popping up, you can't really see, it's kind of like, well, there's no other alternative, like, I just, and Bitcoin is going to win and I kind of hold that sentiment so it's like, well, whatever happens is good for Bitcoin, like

that's the thing, right, so I think that yeah, look, in terms of actual, you know, development that's happening, I think I'm looking forward to more privacy stuff that's going to happen on chain, I'm looking forward to that, I'm also looking forward to, you know, all the

node packages that are coming up up as well, I think that that's going to help users really understand what's going on in the background, I'm looking forward to all the wallets that are now up and coming, you've got Sparrow wallet, you've got a various wallet option,

Blue wallet is like, that's getting tweeted by Jack from, you know, the CEO of Twitter, and so having this level of exposure and development that's happening, you know, Samurai wallet is also making coin joins easier for people, there is so much that is happening on the

Lightning network as well, with Sphinx chat, that's pretty cool, where you can, you know, paper, SATs for, you know, content that you want to stream, you've also got the Zebide guys, now I used to be an avid Counter Strike player, and now what these guys are doing, they're

making, they're putting Counter Strike and putting that into the Lightning network in that every time you headshot someone, you get paid to headshot somewhat, in Lightning, and I think that's pretty cool, that's coming out, and so, you know, I haven't seen, I haven't

seen that one, I had Mandelduck on this very, very early, like, one of my first people I spoke to, and they had like a Street Fighter version, and it was my first time I've ever sent a SAT on Lightning was to send so that this bomb would go in or something like while

they were playing, it was like in-game play from the audience, and I was like, fucking hell, that was a couple of years ago, yeah, I think you should go revisit what he's doing, I think that they are doing some really cool stuff, and I think the chosen Counter Strike to focus

on because it is something that is nostalgic to everyone, a lot of people continue to play it today, and have played it in the past, and so when they, you know, when you can put, you can go into a pot, you buy into the rounds with your, with SATs, and then you have this

ability to, based on your score, you know, make a profit out of that, I think it's going to change the dynamics of the game completely, but I think that, that could be something massive further down the line, so I'm looking forward to these sorts of things just kind

of proliferating, and, you know, pay per content, streaming SATs, all of that sort of stuff is looking pretty promising for the future, it's just that hopefully, you know, this whole COVID situation and the realities don't hinder it too much, you know what I mean?

Yeah, definitely, yeah, well, it's all exciting stuff, and if all of this COVID stuff, and people wake up and stop being so fucking stupid, if you do find yourself over in the UK, it'd be brilliant to catch up with you, I owe you at least a few drinks for your help with

your videos and all that kind of stuff, it's been invaluable to me, and yeah, thanks for coming on, mate, it's been really great to learn a little bit more about your backstory, I love thinking about Stefan as a 15 year old, just banging on to people, I love that

story, it was very funny, and yeah, thanks for what you do, it's really fucking cool, but is there anything that I haven't talked about, or we haven't covered, and also, I'd like you just to shill your site again, and just say to anyone who's listening to this,

seriously, if you are banging your head against a wall and you are stuck, and you are thinking, oh, this is just too hard for me, you know, maybe I just have to leave my coins on Coinbase, and I just have to give in, don't speak to Catan, and get some help, because it's well worth doing.

Well, thanks Max for having me on, I really appreciate the chat, yeah, look, you can find me at ministryofnodes.com.au, you can book in a consulting session, we don't charge, you just pay whatever you think it was worth, and yeah, look, just reach out to us, if you

are nervous about, you know, taking your coins off the exchange, if you are nervous about setting up your own node and doing all these things, just feel free to just book in a session with us.

You know, there's lots of material on YouTube, we've got our channel there, and read through our articles, and we've got other guides coming up as well, so keep an eye out for that. But yeah, if you need to contact me, I'm available on Twitter, underscore K3TAN is the best place to find me, or you can find us on emails from our website.

Okay, great, well, yeah, thanks again, mate, and it's been an absolute pleasure speaking to you. Enjoy the rest of your day, I'm now wired with all this coffee, so I'm going to go for a run or something like that, keep fit so I can sort myself out when the police come.

Take care, Max. All right, cheers.