EP90 Bitcoin podcast with @muteness11

Bitcoin is close to becoming worthless.

Let's go!

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

[ Laughs ]

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

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

Welcome back, everyone. Today's guest is Muteness. Muteness and I have been speaking for a little bit of time in the background. He's actually been a listener for some time. He's just been on Daniel's podcast as well.

And just an all-round, really interesting Bitcoiner. I love the ideas that he's had around travel and actually finding self-worth. And it was just amazing to be speaking to somebody who is new in the space, but actually see how far they've gone down the rabbit hole already.

And it gives me a lot of hope that the newcomers in the space with all of the different podcasts, the articles, the books, and just all the incredible content that is out there, we are minting proper Bitcoiners faster and faster.

So, yeah, I really enjoyed this conversation, and I hope you enjoy listening. Before diving in, I want to say thank you to my sponsors. First up is Coin Floor UK. Coin Floor have been with me from pretty much the start of this show.

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Hi, Muteness, can you hear me? Yes, Max, how are you? There he is. Yeah, I'm very well, very well. I've been looking forward to this conversation all morning, just got myself a coffee. I have to say it is very cool to be speaking to somebody from the other side of the world, through the internet,

about something that's gonna change the world. So, yeah, welcome to the show, and thank you for coming on. Really, really cool to meet you. Thank you for having me, Max. This is my second podcast, and I do have no experience in podcasting, so I'm just gonna chat with you like I'm chatting to a friend.

That's exactly what it is. That is what we're doing. And was it Prince's you were on recently? Yeah, I was on a once bitten podcast, and he's a very, very interesting guy, and a genuine guy who has been in the space for quite some time.

I came across his book, and then I followed this podcast. He's a good friend. Is he? Yeah, he was one of the first people on my show. We became very good friends, and also a big fan of his show, doing great things, and a lot of knowledge in lots of other areas, homeschooling, and traveling, and all sorts.

So, yeah, he's fantastic to have in the space. And how was that experience? Yeah, I have to say that I was, ever since I joined the Bitcoin space, I was very surprised like how much people would actually get out of their way to help you.

It's just chocking. And even people who don't really have much time to you, because they're like quite busy with their lives, and their followers, and their work, they would just get out of their way to just help you.

But I have been in touch directly with some of the celebrities in the Bitcoin space, and they were like very helpful. Yeah, it's what's nice about this space is that, you know, people don't think of themselves as any different to anybody else, and they are willing to help.

And I think the reason for that is Bitcoin is a kind of against the world. You know, everyone disagrees with us. We have very different views on many different things, and we're constantly having to defend our rights to speak, to transact, to do the things that I think we should all be able to do on this planet.

And when you have someone who's thinking on your same wavelength, and has the same ideas, and wants to push the world forward, then you think, well, fuck, I'm gonna help them. This is my friend, this is a brother, this is someone who is wanting things the same way as me.

And so it helps to form some very strong bonds and friendships. Absolutely. And so, can you tell me a little bit, 'cause we've not spoken previously, really. We've had a couple of messages on Twitter, which has been cool, but I haven't really had a chance to know about your backstory and how you've entered the space.

I know early on we'd messaged a little bit, and you'd asked a couple of questions. But what's it been like for you, and how did you enter this space and how long has it been? So, I come from a country that is very, very small, called Jordan in the Middle East.

And I recall when I was very, very young, when I was 11, that was 1989. Both of my parents were middle class, and they both worked in the government. So we had all the basics in life and some luxuries.

And I do recall from my childhood that whenever I opened the fridge, I would find a particular type of cheese called La Vashkiri, a French cheese. So, one day, and all of a sudden, I opened the fridge and I couldn't find it.

The next day, it's the same, the following day is the same. So I asked my parents, "Where's the cheese?" Well, they told me that it's no longer available in the market. What I realized years later is that the Jordanian Dinar lost 50% of its value back in 1989.

And of course, as a young kid, I had no explanation or understanding of what inflation standard here. So fast forward, I went to college, I studied business, then I worked myself here. Hey, sorry, I lost you at cheese.

It kept cutting out, it has done it a little bit for the last couple of minutes, it kept cutting out, and then you went completely offline. So I only got as far as, I don't know whether possibly, is your, are you on Wi-Fi or are you on cell signal?

I'm on a cell signal. Is that better now? Okay, it sounds a little bit, it was weird 'cause it was fine, I could hear you perfectly, and then it would just cut out for a second or two and then keep doing that, but it sounds better now.

So I'll tell you where I got to was, you'd mentioned that you'd gone to the fridge and the cheese that was always there, no longer was there. Yes, and then I asked my parents, "Where's the French cheese?"

And they told me that it's not in the market anymore. So of course, as a young kid, I had no understanding of that. But then years later, I realized that there was inflation back in 1989.

So the Jordanian dinner lost 50% of its value. So fast forward, I went to college and then I started my career in human resources, moved from one job to another, trying to climb the so-called career ladder.

And then I moved to Dubai, I've worked in so many different jobs, in sales, business development, and HR. During that time, I met a couple of people who would drag me into a scam. Let me just emphasize on dragging me.

So just to be precise, Max, I wasn't dragged, it was my choice, so I was driven by greed. That was back in 2016, and... - You were enticed. - Yeah, enticed to be more accurate. So they introduced a financial instrument called bullet, and I just fell for that.

Although all the indicators were clear in front of me that this is not true. But I was promised with millions and millions of dollars, et cetera. So I have lost a lot of money from that. And I was so pissed at myself.

Like, how could I fall for this? Considering that I'm very intelligent. Like, how could this happen to me? And that led me into the rabbit hole of understanding cons, and con artists, and fraud, and all of that.

Of course, 2017, I heard about Bitcoin, which was like skyrocketing, but I was completely dismissive of that, because, you know, it's a scam, it's a Ponzi scheme, it's a throat, et cetera, et cetera.

So I continued with my life, and then one day in 2019, I decided to quit my job. I no longer wanted that. I'm just, I'm not doing anything meaningful. I'm just doing pretty much the same thing over and over and over.

Yes, more money, but what's the point of all of this? So I wanted to do something different. Then I decided to leave everything behind, and travel into the unknown to Southeast Asia. So I went through many, many countries in Asia.

What shocked me the most is that when I interacted with almost anyone from anywhere in the world, they all have the same feeling of lack of trust in their government. And for me, that was very different.

Like some of those people came from democracies, like well-established democracies, which I thought that they had a say in their country. And even people coming from the Far East as well, under dictatorships, authoritarian regimes, everybody's not happy with their governments.

So with COVID, I was stuck in a beautiful, beautiful place in India called Goa, living simple life. And then I had to be evacuated back to Jordan. Now, historically, I had stopped investments in stocks, real estate, and other investments.

I'm very, very conservative when it comes to investments. So the central bank of Jordan decided, due to COVID, to ban bank dividends, bank stock dividends, to shareholders. And I happened to own-- - Shit, I didn't know that.

- Yeah, and I happened to own some. So I was like in my head, the fucking central bank decided on this without consulting anyone to quote-unquote, "strengthen the economy." So literally, Max, I felt that they took what I thought is my money, not only that,

adding insult to injury. They gave it to the fucking private banks to make more money, of my money. So I was really pissed. - Disgusting. - Yeah. So back in, that was mid to 2020. So I didn't have a job back then.

I was bored to death. All I knew is that I don't want to do the same old thing again and again. And ever since I was 26, I was looking for the purpose in my life. Like what is really something that I can do that I have passion to, that really has meaning.

And so my brother told me about this app called Audible. And he's like, "Listen, I know that you like to read a lot. And what did you try this?" So back then, I was like finding it difficult to read an actual physical book because I just lose track and I have to reread what I read earlier.

So I tried Audible as part of being a new user. You're offered one free book. So I was browsing the books. Like I have no reference of what I wanted to read. And then I came across this book.

It's called The Bitcoin Standard. So I looked into the author and I was like, "Yeah, he's an economist. It's something that I would be interested in, for sure. And Bitcoin, yeah, it's something I've heard about like many, many times now.

How could this survive for so long?" And coincidentally, during the time the Bitcoin price was going up, that was in October of last year. So I read the book and I was shocked to the core.

Like I thought I knew something about history and about finance. Apparently I knew nothing. And then I read the book three times and then I was more convinced of Bitcoin but I was like an island.

Like I was on my own on an island that doesn't have many Bitcoiners. So it was interesting that I had to rely on the content out there. Like I've watched videos on YouTube and I managed to get into podcasts and listen to it.

And every time I feel like I'm learning something, I'm getting better. I just realized shit, there's so much to learn. And you know, it's like when you get into the rabbit hole, it's quite technical.

It's not easy. You have to really consume a lot of content and spend time and effort into knowing this. So fast forward, I have decided to allocate two-thirds of my wealth into Bitcoin. Now, I knew of, you know, peer to peer but I don't want to be scammed into this.

I need to trust a centralized exchange but I couldn't find a way to get my cash into an exchange. Now the central bank of Jordan back in 2014 banned the financial sector from dealing with cryptocurrency.

Now as individuals, we can still deal in cryptocurrency but not via the financial services sector. So anyways, I managed via the financial services sector to move my cash into an exchange and I bought some.

It was really frightening at the time because it's just like my money is in the air. Will it evaporate? Will the network go down? It's just not easy, especially when you don't have anyone to talk to that knows more than you do like on the face-to-face interaction.

As I read more and then I'm like, you know what, fuck it. I'm gonna allocate more. So I've allocated a total of 97% of my wealth into Bitcoin and that was really a good feeling at the beginning and then with time, especially when the last dip happened

this week, it was quite an emotional thing, Max. It's just very different knowing something versus experiencing it. Does that make sense? - Yeah, it makes complete sense. And the reason it does is I first entered the space right at the very, very top

in 2017, I actually made my first purchase after about 15% dip from the top because I thought, okay, this is, you know, see a dip here, I'll buy. And I experienced two and a half fish years of pain of just watching it go from 20,000 right down to two and a half fish, 1000.

And it was the same boat as you, nobody to talk to alone. Convinced I was right, but didn't understand, you know, that there could be external problems that could bring the whole thing down or I didn't feel 100% comfortable.

And the pressure when you have everything you've worked for in this network and you can't talk to anyone else and when you do talk to somebody, they laugh at you and say, are you fucking idiot?

You know, what do you think this internet money's gonna work and it can be really scary and really lonely. And that's why this podcast started, was because I was lonely, I wanted to speak to other people I wanted to learn and so yeah, I know how you feel and I feel very confident you'll come out the other side of all of this

and look back and laugh, but it's no joke when it's your net worth. - Yeah, that's quite interesting to know that my story has been a story that has been repeated by so many people as well, that's reassuring for sure.

Now I just want to say something for your listeners, like I have the conviction to allocate 97% of my wealth into Bitcoin and I'm not saying that you should or shouldn't, but I just want to explain something.

So in my head, I thought, best case scenario, that's a life-changing event. Where's case scenario, I could lose it all, but I will not die out of hunger. I still have some liquid cash in other things and investments as well.

So I made that conscious decision. So just to be perfectly clear about that so that people don't just jump ship and just like go all in without much conviction. - Yeah, that's very important because what happens when you see people do that, it's normally when the price is going up, they chuck all their money in or they go leveraged

and then they see a dip, they shit themselves, they sell everything and they move on. And that's a real shame. So I think the amount of money that you invest into this thing should be aligned with the amount of information you've consumed and how much you understand so that when you do see a 10%, 20%, 30%, 50% dip,

you're still gonna feel uncomfortable, it's still not gonna be nice, but you're gonna understand that what I'm investing in here is not the number, it's not what it says on the screen, the value is still there, this is still a world-changing technology, this is still something that,

when you were talking to me about the central bank of Jordan, effectively just seizing your money, taking it and giving it to somebody else, there's no other way of framing that than it's just complete, straight up and down theft.

And if we ever wanna stop central banks and governments around the world from stealing the time and energy from its citizens and working more and more against them, holding people down and creating a world that is really not what any of us want, you have to think of something outside the box,

and the only thing that is gonna change things is Bitcoin. And so, once someone understands that its value is there, its value is that it's gonna change this world, it can help future generations, it becomes more than a number, and then, once you get to that stage, you're actually thinking, well,

even if this fucking goes to zero, I don't give a shit, I've done everything I can to do something and make a change, and that's invaluable. 100%, just to re-emphasize on the point of conviction, I have been spending on average at least six hours every day, I would say for the past six months on Bitcoin, okay?

So, I read books, I listen to right now, maybe 21 Bitcoin related podcasts. Some of the information is really, really good, some of the information is really shitty, so you have to isolate yourself from that noise.

And I'm not on a level where I think in Bitcoin terms, as a unit, I'm not saying I'm Bitcoin maxi, or something like that, but I just feel that this is a life-changing event, not just for me, but for everyone else.

And I'm an advocate for freedom, like personal freedom, wealth for every person, access to every person, I'm a firm believer in that. Yes, it's gonna be a bumpy road ahead, and the last test of the tip of like 50%, I was happy with myself that I huddled and I didn't take any action.

So that grew my conviction. Now, I wanted to mention something else, so I managed to orange pill a couple of friends, and the shit I get from them, after the dip was like beyond imagination.

(laughing) But I told them, listen, you told me that you're in for the long haul, and I made it clear for you that this could dip dramatically 80%. Are you ready for that? Now, saying it is different than experiencing, obviously.

So one of my friends wanted to create an account on one of those exchanges, and he couldn't get verified. So he's like, how can I buy it? So I'm like, listen, transfer money to my bank account, and I will do that for you.

So I managed to get his money via my bank account into an essentialized exchange. Just last week, the bank called me, and inquired, like, we want to ask you a few questions. Like, yeah, sure.

It's like this transaction, can you share more information about it? I'm like, what do you mean? So the bank said, it's coming from that person. Is he, what is he related to you? So I'm like a friend.

So the bank asked me, is it related to debt, or profit, or something? I said, it's a friend. They said, yeah, but we want to know more. I said, the matter is really private. Like, it's like somebody calling you out of the blue and asking you, when did you have dinner last night?

Like, who are you? So I think maybe I have been red flagged at the bank, but that's fine. I'm willing and I'm ready for that as well. So I'm just giving an example of how things could turn a bit ugly, but this is still very early.

What do you think, Max? - Yeah, I'm with you. I completely agree. I see it every day, you know, we were talking earlier. You said that you were surprised when traveling, that even countries that had democracy, or so-called democracy, people were unhappy with their governments.

We, you know, living in England, as an outsider, everyone will say, wow, you know, this is a place, this has democracy. I would call it an illusion of democracy. It's, you know, you can choose this dickhead on the left or this dickhead on the right.

Neither of them are going to represent you properly. Neither of them are doing anything to help you. They're actually doing things to help the people who are lining their pockets. Every bank is asking for more and more information.

Everything to do with COVID is not about helping people. It's about enslaving them. It's about taking as much data as they possibly can, tracking them, tracing them. And the amount of cash is being eradicated, so no one's accepting cash hardly anywhere.

It's all to do with petting people into a corner. And I see constantly that the banks are taking the piss. And I've had the same, I've had things flagged. I've had a bank account closed in the last year.

The idea that that money is yours when it's in a bank is wrong. And I think it's just going to be a little bit of time before most people wake up to it. But this is why, once you understand that, once you understand, well, hold on, if I keep money in a bank, it's not mine, they're not there to help me.

There's only one thing that can happen with these central banks. And that is to print more money. And so that's going to devalue any savings that I had. The stock markets in a bubble, the property markets in a bubble, nobody's worked for almost two years.

Businesses are closed down all over the world. And you're seeing these assets go crazy. Like anything scarce is going crazy. The property market's going crazy. And there's a load of repos just sat there.

The banks are waiting to repossess all of these. And they're not allowed to yet here because it's just going to have a knock on effect and destroy the housing market. So when I look at something like Bitcoin, I don't see risk, I see risk in everything else.

Everything else out there is massive, massive risk. And there's no real reward for it. You know, you've got, you could put your money somewhere else and say, oh, you know, I'll keep it in the property, which was my previous business.

And so you'd say, OK, I'll keep it in there. What's the upside? I don't know, maybe 10% per annum over the next 10 years, possibly, maybe it would be stupid, but it could happen. What's the downside?

50% drop, possibly, repossessions everywhere. Well, what's Bitcoin? OK, we could have a 50% drop again. We could do. But there's probably also 10 to 100x over the next 20 years. So where do you keep your money?

And when you actually don't really own these assets, you're talking about things being seized, you're having your finances being seized. Well, if you do things properly with Bitcoin, no matter how bad it gets out there, you still have this asset.

And if your friend wants to send you money and you want to send him money, he's not going to have some fucking banker call you up and ask you what it was for. Who are they to you? Blah, blah, blah.

You just send it, it's received, and it's done. Absolutely. Just to shed more light on this particular point, at one point, I wanted to liquid some of my Bitcoin to just do something else with it.

And I'm like, well, would I put that in stocks, bonds, real estate, et cetera? It's all related to the same system. So it's more riskier to put it outside of the Bitcoin network for me. And I just decided not to.

I will only do that if I want to just convert it into cash and just spend it on the spot on something. So as well, I have been looking into investments. Ever since I was maybe 25, because I just realized back then that as long as you're an employee, you will never, ever be rich.

So I came across the idea of passive income. And I worked my ass off to save some money and invest it in stocks and real estate. And then I came to the idea of minimalism. And that led me into the rabbit hole of understanding what is money.

So I've done a lot of research on what is money. So my point is, Max, throughout your life, there are dots that are scattered all over the place. And one day, those dots are somehow connected.

Like the inflation back in Jordan led me into understanding later on what is inflation, and what is the impact on your family directly. And then understanding the history of money and when gold was money, and how the governments corrupted money, and now why Bitcoin?

And looking at tax as well, like Dom Frisbee has an excellent book called Daylight Robbery. I would recommend it to everyone who wants to understand the history of tax, which is another formal theft as well.

So all of these dots somehow are not directly connected. But if you look at the big picture, it's very connected. That all led me into Bitcoin. It's not like I'm a rebellious person that I want to just overthrow the system by itself, just because I want to be different.

I'm not into anarcho-capitalist type of thinking. Right now, the governments are pure evil. I'm just saying that the governments are pure evil now, the governments that we have today. Does that ring a bell for you?

It does. About 90% of it does. The 10% that doesn't is. I have always been more on the anarchist side. I've always hated authority. I've always seen a flaw in the way things are run. And that is just the way that I've been built.

And probably, again, you're talking about experiences that make you feel a certain way. Every time I have had to deal with authority, it's let me down in a big way and cause me issues in a big way.

So for a long time, I've said, if I can just choose to just not have any of that shit, I would just press the button and have it tomorrow. I'd just complete just nothing. No government, no police, nothing.

But I know that that is not an idea that's shared by most people. And so I think that Bitcoin opens the door. It lets people peer through and start to ask questions, like, what would things be like if we did have a free market?

What would it be like if we didn't have currency controls? What would it be like if people had the freedom to transact with anyone on the planet and start businesses without crazy amount of regulations that hold them back and tie them down so that larger entities can outperform them?

And what would it be like if the prices of things didn't rise all the time and all these sort of questions? And I think that what happens with a lot of people, who even those, like you're saying, is not that necessarily government has to be bad.

It's just that it is now. People with that sort of view, I think, quite often get further and further down the rabbit hole and then just see that most of what we see out there is a scam. And we have Bitcoin as this sort of...

It's like the only thing that we can show that is truthful. I know that there is this much in circulation. I know that, right, this is your address. I can send you it and no one can stop it.

And it's quite refreshing to have that. It's quite refreshing to have rules without the rulers. And yeah, I can't imagine ever going back. I just, I can't imagine not having that hope anymore because if we didn't have Bitcoin right now, I'd be really, really concerned.

- Yeah, me too. I mean, it's pretty much business as usual, but let me ask you this on the 10% that you just agree with me on. - So my understanding is that like communism, as an ideology on paper, seems really noble.

Like on parts of it, like most people would resonate to that. And socialism as well. So when I look at the pure anarchy idea of not having a body or an entity that would dictate your life, that's really appealing to a lot of people.

And that's pretty much where we have been maybe 2,000, 5,000 years ago. Living with small tribes, managing and coordinating activities within that small tribe. And now with the evolution of human beings moving into bigger tribes and with the introduction of the state, there was a real need and necessity for protection

and a monopoly of violence. And then it turned against the people as well. So if we move into a society or a community, not a country where we have complete anarchy, not in the negative sense, but just having freedom, personal freedom.

Don't you think that some level of regulation is needed for us to coordinate together and deal with each other? And if so, who would be putting such regulations? - Yes, I would say probably nothing is perfect.

So when I get asked questions like this, I would say like, we're never probably or for a long time, we're not gonna have a world without violence. We're not gonna have a world that is perfect, but what's different from now to 3,000 years ago, let's say, is coordination is very, very different.

Like if we think that we have a solid currency that isn't being debased and that everyone can agree on, and we're saying, you know, who's gonna regulate, who's gonna make these rules? Well, one of the people making the rules is Bitcoin, you know, it's saying, you play by the rules if you wanna participate in the system

and everyone on the entire planet can use it, but you can't fuck with the rules. Doesn't matter how rich, how powerful, how much violence you use, how much aggression you use, you can't mess around with it.

This is how it is, use it or don't. So that is, in some ways, that is regulating and people can all trade across the world. Whereas, you know, previously you'd have maybe, you'd be limited by like the Dumbar number, 150 people, and then you'd split off into other tribes.

Well, potentially this could, especially with the use of the internet, so we have free-flowing information, everyone connected around the world or most people, especially if we're talking in 10 years time, you know, most people should be able to have internet access and access to Bitcoin.

Then I think that changes things quite a lot. And in terms of actual living, well, I would think that maybe you just have smaller states, agreements, for example, one might say, okay, you know, if you live here, if you live in this area, everyone has a private military or private police if they want it, drug uses allowed here,

you know, it's someone's own body, they have sovereignty. Don't be messing around with nuclear in this area, that's something that's not agreed upon. And if you were to try and either kill someone, steal from someone, do the things that we have that are our rules.

If you don't abide by them, you won't be allowed in here. You will be thrown out of this citadel or this area. And in another area, you might have a load of authoritarian weirdos who are sort of from today's world.

And they say, well, no drugs, no sex. You have to do things in these ways. We want to have a currency that's debased every day. We want all these rules and regulations that stifle innovation.

This is how we want to live. And they will just die off because it's fucking stupid. And the ones that are freer and more open will flourish. - Right. - Yeah, in answer to the question, it won't be perfect, but I would rather roll the dice and trust in Bitcoin, open source software and human ingenuity than trust

in a system that I know to be wrong, I know to be fraudulent and we can see where it gets us. We see the mess we're in. So I would take a punt on the second option personally. - That's very interesting.

And the thing is the Bitcoin itself is that little, tiny little thing at the moment that is very mysterious to some and each person has a different definition of what Bitcoin is. For some, it is an asset.

For others, it's a currency. For some, it's a store of value, et cetera, et cetera. I think having those narratives is really essential for the growth of Bitcoin. Now, on another note, Max, I have really good old friends that I interact with almost on daily basis.

Some of them are really dumb, but I love them. The thing is, what I've noticed in the Bitcoin space, I was like really, really pleasantly surprised how knowledgeable, not educated, how knowledgeable people are.

Like, I would have conversations over Twitter and I would come out of the conversation thinking, "Hmm, there's an interesting idea. I never thought of it this way." That is something I don't come across with my friends.

Like, we just talk day to day stuff. But the Bitcoin space is really knowledgeable and people are eager to learn and they are also very humble to say, "Oh, sorry, I got this wrong." And then they change their opinion.

Now, on the other hand, yes. You can say that there is Bitcoin toxicity and you can call it hard love or whatever. But you know what? It's a tribe, just like any other tribe. You see different kinds of people in that tribe.

What are your thoughts on that? - Yeah, I mean, it's certainly a tribe and it's a very different tribe. It's, like you say, there are some incredibly knowledgeable people here who are willing to share their ideas and experiences with others.

And it ties into what I was saying at the beginning of the podcast is like, I think it's because we have a common goal and it unites us. We, no matter how different a lot of us are, like I speak to people who speak a completely different language, not as in linguistically, but literally as in,

I speak to tech guys who I cannot wrap my head around what they do, or cryptographers or mathematicians who just are on a completely different wave to what I can possibly understand. But they'll help, you know, they'll do whatever they can to try and help me if I need help with something.

And I would do the same for anyone else. And I think that's what it is, is a common goal of people who, yeah, they want to see change and they're prepared to help anyone else who wants to make that change a reality.

And I think a lot of people are predisposed to this. You know, you said to me before you were working, you didn't necessarily know what the meaningful life was or find your purpose and you decided to go traveling because it sounds to me that you were very successful, you had a good job and you'd worked very hard,

you'd managed to accumulate assets and you'd done well for yourself, but it sounds like you still felt there was not something right. You didn't know what it was, but you went to go and find yourself.

And that's something that I find quite often with Bitcoin is that yes, we all come here for the money, we all come here to get rich, but in learning about it, you realize that there is more to life and that's what keeps people here.

I mean, that's the thing that draws me in is that, yeah, you get to speak to these incredibly smart people and you get to learn about all sorts of things. It's not just about money and you do meet these people that have common interest, common goal.

- Absolutely. It just reminded me, Max, so when I used to work for a real estate company as a salesman, and I would justify what I did to myself by simply saying, it's survival of the fittest out there.

If I didn't eat, somebody else is gonna eat. And pretty much the whole system is based on one loop, win, lose kind of scenarios. But in the Bitcoin space, it's like, it can be win, win. We can all win, basically.

Nobody needs to lose. And that's an idea that gravitates me towards Bitcoin more and more. Like literally I would, and I can humbly say that and I'm not proud of that. I did bad things to people by convincing them to buy stuff that I'm not convinced of.

Telling myself, it's a necessity of my job, a continuation of my job. And I didn't feel so good about it, but I just created a story in my head and I believe that story, that's pretty much everybody's doing that.

But eventually that led me into thinking, you know what, fuck this job. Fuck all jobs that I have done. I never liked any of them. I was just good at them. So what's the point? The only difference is that I'm getting older, repeating the same thing, and I'm not excited about these things.

So between the age of 26 and maybe now I'm 43,

I found Bitcoin, or Bitcoin found me. I didn't know really. But it's just like I woke up every day feeling so passionate about life and wanting to change the world. I haven't done much, but at least it starts with an idea.

Now I have started developing material and I've started doing workshops about the history of money and why Bitcoin. It just started as a joke and a hobby and then it got more traction. And now I'm having more and more people.

And I'm not charging much. I'm charging like around five quits for a session, five pounds or something like that. And I tell people, listen, you pay five if you don't take much value or any value, you can take it back.

So I put it in a basket. At the end of the session, people don't take their cash back. In fact, some contribute more. I'm not doing it for cash, but I think anything that's you don't pay for or you don't appreciate.

I'm a firm believer in that. Yeah, that's absolutely true. And it's cool to hear that you're doing that. It's cool to hear that you're now finding a way to educate others and that you're waking up with excitement and feeling this passion because that's so important.

I mean, you do realize at one point in life that it's like, no matter how much money you have now and no matter how many possessions you have, if you go to bed after a day's work knowing, okay, like you said, I'm good at my job, but what I've done is not true, it's not honest.

And I've lied to people and you can make as many excuses as you want. And yes, that is the way that the world works. But after a while, it makes you feel like shit and the value in waking up with excitement, the value in having honest conversations and being able to speak truth every day, even if Bitcoin went to zero.

If I got to do this for the next 10, 20 years, I get to have conversations like this, meet people from all around the world, just live where you say what you think and you don't have to lie and you can just be open.

Yeah. I can't think of a better way of living. And it makes you go from, I had a similar situation with you, not so much the traveling, but just completely stopped all work because of a similar way of thinking and just had very, very bad mental state because of it and just said, fuck, I can't do this anymore.

No, I cannot do this shit anymore. And now it's completely different. I look back at the person I was then and think, I don't know how you did it. I don't know how you lived with these lies.

So, yeah, it's really cool to hear you're doing that. And is that physical, I assume if there's a basket there, it's a physical space that you're finding and inviting people, friends and family, or how are you finding the people?

So when my conviction grew in Bitcoin and when I felt that I have enough information to be able to share the basics and maybe get a little bit deeper, have this. I thought about starting my own podcast just like yours.

And then I started looking at all these videos and how to do the technical audio stuff and I'm like, good Lord, that's a fucking full-time job to understand that. Like, I just got into the Bitcoin rabbit hole.

I don't wanna get into the audio video stuff.

Then I realized that, no, that's gonna be tough. So I wanted to work in the Bitcoin space now. And I realized that the Bitcoin population is maybe one and a half percent of the global populations.

So looking at jobs in the Bitcoin space, it's not that many and most of the jobs are technical related. So for sure, I'm not gonna go and do programming 'cause I can't and I'm not interested in that.

So I thought maybe I saw an opportunity after I watched Michael Saylor and Breedlove series. And I'm like, you know what, what is needed is the most, the most is the education part. So I thought about doing the education like digitally.

And I think I would be successful in that. But I felt that there's so much content out there and that's really fantastic. However, it lacked that human interaction on the basic level. Like when you are new to Bitcoin and you just see all these videos and all of that, there's so many questions in your head

and you want immediate answers. So I thought, you know what, I'm gonna do something to play with and see how it goes by a group of having five, six people, discussing Bitcoin, sorry, the history of money and then Bitcoin.

And what I do differently is that I'm sure that you know the board game called Monopoly. We all played it at one point in my life, in your life as well. - Yeah, never finished it. - Yeah, because we fight, right?

(both laughing) - Yeah. - So I use that in my workshops by simply playing a role in directly as if I'm the central bank and assigning roles for each and every person and then giving money to each and every person and then asking them to trade and exchange products.

So it's more like I'm leading them towards something but they just don't know it. That's quite different when you do such workshops. Basically, I realize because I come from a background of training and I've been a member of Toastmasters which is a public speaking club, that you know what, you cannot tell people

what to think about, what to think but you can tell them what to think about and then have them come to their own conclusion. That's the best way. - So this is what I do. I lead them into a certain conclusion.

Now they don't have to be convinced of Bitcoin. I mean, some of the people that I have done workshops for, they ended up being a doge believer. So it's not always a success Max. But yeah, it can't be.

- No, seriously, I had this guy that I spent, like it was even one on one. Like I spent a good three, four hours with and then he told me, like I was checking on him after some time. He's like, yeah, yeah, I got into the crypto space but you wouldn't like what I have invested in.

I'm like, okay, that's fine, that's fine. But one day you will come back, I'm sure. So I still want to work in the Bitcoin space and I couldn't find an opportunity that really is exciting more than education.

Even if I found one, I will still continue to do my education. But the workshop spot is only maybe a two, three hour thing in a day. So I do have plenty of time to do something that's full time as well.

- Yeah, I think there's going to be more and more jobs opening up as things roll out. There is so much to build still. You know, everyone constantly says, oh, you know, we're so early, we're so early, we're so early and as much as like, yeah, we're not right at the beginning, like right 2010, 2011, that sort of time.

In terms of infrastructure, in terms of accessibility, in terms of wallet design, in terms of just all of the stuff that, you know, you said before, you're not going to sit and become a programmer, neither am I.

I've actually tried it. I was fucking terrible. And so I'm going to leave that to the side. But the amount of work that is needed for an individual to use Bitcoin reasonably privately and in a self-sovereign way and be comfortable with their security, especially if they've got, you know,

90 or more percent of their net worth in this thing, it's really, really hard. It's almost a full-time job just to keep up with the developments. And so I think that there's going to be a lot of jobs for people in education in terms of actually saying, look, okay, this is what you want to do with your Bitcoin.

Let me help you and I'm going to charge you, but I'm going to hold you a hand and make sure you're secure and make sure you're safe. There's going to be jobs for that. There's going to be jobs from the marketing.

There's going to be jobs for the design. There's going to be jobs for people sitting with ultra high net worth individuals to talk them through this stuff. All of it's coming. And my view on it all is that there is a very small group on Bitcoin Twitter who all sit and help each other,

who all have vast amounts of knowledge in every sector. And you sort of have one reputation in this space. And so if you give and help and you're honest and people see that over a long time, these job opportunities, you're saying about, there's dots throughout your life that all sort of join up eventually

and they don't seem like they're correlated, but eventually they join. I kind of think that's what's going to happen. You might find that six months, it's a year, it's two, whatever it is, but a job will present itself or a business opportunity will present itself and you will just know, right, this is me, this is what I'm built for.

And I truly believe that everyone who's on Bitcoin Twitter now and passionate will most likely do this for the rest of their lives. - Yeah, that's so reassuring to hear Max. And I've already made up my mind.

I will not work in a fair job as long as I don't need to, okay? So I feel at peace with myself, you know what, fuck it. I don't want to go to a job that I hate or dislike and then go back home, eat, repeat and same thing.

I've done that for many, many years, I'm done. I fully agree with you on the education part and how genuine people are on the Bitcoin space. Now, I need to highlight something that there are some Bitcoiners as well who are not as genuine as the people that you mentioned earlier, like they're using their audience and influence

to get more cash. And I'm not saying it's wrong, completely, like listen, we can use your talent, get more Bitcoin, get more dollars. I don't care, there's no harm in that. And there's like another group of people who do not benefit from the information that they share with you.

Like this information that they have has been accumulated through years and hard work as well. And they give it to you for free. And now I have to mention by names here, two people basically.

When the DeFi thing started blowing up and you have to be attracted to the marketing material. And I managed to kind of try to avoid the noise and all the marketing jargon that is out there.

I was hesitant, shall I just put my Bitcoin and lend it? So I've sent a private message to both Robert Breedlove and Safideena Moose. Now, as you know, Max, these are like two celebrities in the Bitcoin space, okay?

They don't know me personally, they never... - They wouldn't accept that term. - Huh? Okay, a plebs. - I said they wouldn't accept that term, plebs, yeah. Yeah, they're two absolute legends in the space.

- Yeah, and you know what? I never knew that Safideena's a Jordanian as well. So just, anyways, so I've sent them a private message, like, what do you think of DeFi? Shall I put some money there?

And they were both quotient against that. They never, they didn't give you a direction, which I respect, but they said not just be cautious. It's still a new industry. You could potentially lose everything, okay?

Now that's a kind of advice that I have so much respect for. You know what I mean by people being genuine and just like trying to help others. So when it comes to those kind of people, the educators, sorry to say that, Max, but the educators, like they're educating others, they're creating content,

and now they're getting traction from big companies that is employing them as an advisor or full-time employee. That's exactly what you mentioned maybe earlier. Am I right? - Yeah, exactly that.

And I think that filters down, you know, you have some people who have a massive following. They will probably snap up these sort of bigger jobs quicker because there's more eyes on them.

But the humble plebs as well, who are day in, day out, sharing information, helping people with technical issues, there are so many of them on Bitcoin Twitter and real Bitcoin Twitter. I'm not talking about the sort of edges where you have the shit coiners who sort of sit on the edge and the people who are in this just for to be a name

and to get the attention, there's a lot of that as well. But the real core people, they, I think, are gonna do really well. That, you know, people like Bitcoin Q&A, who I've had on the show many times, he's a busy man, but he spends hours and hours every day.

He's helped me with so many different things where I've had technical issues. And they do all of this to help. And they have done for years. And so they're the sort of people where I think, if I was a big company, if I was a tech company, if I was, I needed someone to help customers walk through things or help design the things,

someone with deep understanding of the Bitcoin space, I'm not gonna go and ask for a load of CVs on a normal job application site or anything like that. I'm gonna go onto Bitcoin Twitter, I'm gonna find someone like Bitcoin Q&A, I'm gonna just see how many people he's helped and how good he is at his job,

who it's not even a job, he's doing it for free. And I will hire him straight away because he's the best. And so there are loads of people in all these little pockets who are the best at what they do, and they're the ones who are gonna get hired.

And I think just more and more, you'll see that over the coming years. - Hmm, that's interesting. I don't think I follow Bitcoin Q&A, but I will surely do that after this. But he helped you in what sense?

Like technical stuff like what? - Technical stuff. So like I mentioned, I'm not a very technical person. So I've had to learn how to do this podcasting stuff, I've had to learn how to build nodes, run them, set up wallets, use coin join, build the samurai stack, learn about UTXO management and how to make sure I don't docs myself,

learn about Linux, learn stuff that, I mean, a few years ago, I could turn on my laptop, I could go on Facebook or whatever like basic, basic stuff, but I was not a very technical guy at all.

So most of this stuff is way, way, way over my head. And there's many times where I've thought, I just can't do this, I just can't operate privately. I just don't understand how I can do this.

All this software keeps crashing. My node isn't working. I can't link it to this wallet. And there's so many times where I've been at the end of my tether and I've just reached out to Bitcoin Q&A and said, look, mate, I'm really struggling.

I don't understand why this error message is coming up or why I can't link to this. And so many times he just sat and said, okay, mate, let's jump on a call, let's go through it. Right, have you tried this?

All right, what area are you seeing now? I'm seeing this. Okay, that means this, right. Now we need to download this and sit and walk through it. And the thing is that there are a lot of non-technical people in the world who want to be able to transact freely and they want to secure their SAT safely.

And they need someone to help them because right now it's not easy. I don't know whether you've got to that stage of running nodes and messing around with this tech yet, but I have not found it easy at all, but it's well worth while.

It's something that we should all be doing. And yeah, that's why there's that opportunity. I think there's going to be a lot of jobs made specifically for people hand holding. And I'll tell you why I haven't delved into that.

It's the technicalities of it. It's like, you know what, if you read Chinese now, you will not understand it. Assuming that you don't understand Mandarin. - Barely speaking English. - So what you would do is that you would look at words and break it down, like each word by itself.

And then you have to know the grammar, et cetera, et cetera until you get sufficient knowledge and then you'll only be able to understand. Now, what has happened with me is that when I look at Bitcoin, I mean, there's so many different angles to this, like the economics, the technicalities, the wallets, lightning, et cetera, et cetera.

We cannot do all obviously. Now, but back to your point, like, I remember when I first got Bitcoin, I moved it into, of course, I kept it on the exchange at the beginning and then I read on how horrible that is and then the exchanges get hacked, et cetera, et cetera.

So I moved it into a soft wallet, basically. And then I read how horrible that is and all that unlike shit, man. I got my hardware wallet. Now, what happened is that I moved all of my Bitcoin from my software wallet into hardware wallet.

And then just, you know, it can take like, you know, half an hour, an hour, 10 minutes. So I was like waiting and then just like, I wanted double check if the address is correct and I checked and the address was different.

No, wait, wait. So what happened is that, oh my God, I lost all my fucking money now, everything. And then after 10 minutes, like, I received the whole amount. I had no clue what happened exactly.

Maybe the address keep on changing. I didn't know, like, I don't know all these technicalities that well. But that's why I'm quite careful when I want to try something else. As important as running your own node and probably I should at one point in time.

I just don't feel comfortable now doing that. Well, to ask about the name of your podcast, bit by bit, does it have a story? Yeah, kind of. I wanted something that was a play on words with Bitcoin, obviously, but also I was looking at how can we change this world?

How can we adapt and create more freedom? And the way to do that is bit by bit. My grandma, before she died, bless her, she always used to say to me, Rome wasn't built in a day, step by step.

And to do things in a slow, safe, methodical way. And that's kind of how I see Bitcoin, is that it is incredibly well engineered. People move very, very slowly. And they do things with a huge amount of thought and that it is done bit by bit.

They've built the base layer to be very, very secure. And now they're saying, okay, well, now we can build lightning on top of this. And now we can build other things on top of that layer.

So I wanted something that could convey that idea of bit by bit people moving towards freedom with the main tool being Bitcoin.

Yeah, that's quite interesting. But Bitcoin is biting me in the ass as well. So whenever I go out with a girl on a date now, I talk about Bitcoin. So I'm not joking, like this is like, I'm excited about this and I don't wanna hear about that.

- It doesn't drop panties, that's for sure. No one ever goes, oh my God, tell me about central banking and debasement of money, type it to bed, it's never happened. - Even with my friends, like I tried to share with them.

And I was like very, very like shocked, like nobody wants to listen until they're really ready. Even if you give the books, like, I mean, these are my fucking friends and they trust me. But they're just like, nobody wants to read, put an effort.

And one of my friends told me like, listen, do you have a video for like two minutes? I can watch on Bitcoin.

- Yeah, it is the way it is, unfortunately. They'll come back to you in a couple of years. You know, if we're 100 grand or 200 grand or whatever we are recording, they've seen that number go up, they'll come back and say, hey, you know that book?

How can I read it, where can I read it? That is just something that I see, it's a theme I see. And the people that called me a silly wanker two years ago are now calling me saying, oh, how do I buy this thing?

What do I do, what do I do? How do I do it not today? 'Cause we've had this drop. But, you know, when things are going well, that's when you get those calls. And the thing is, we've got to remember that this is an idea.

We talked about it earlier, like, I think it sounds like you were predisposed to this. You've had things in your life that have made it accessible and understandable, and it's still really hard.

You know what I'm saying? You're spending six to eight hours a day researching this, trying to understand it. It's study to be bothered to do six to eight hours research for years and years and years, without earning anything from it is rare.

And also to have the ability to understand very complex systems, to understand the need for Bitcoin, to understand this interdisciplinary idea that is Bitcoin. There's just not that many people who are going to get it.

It's just, it's too complicated, too weird, too different, and people don't see its value until it's too late, generally. And so I suppose the way to look at it is, or the way I try and look at it is, well, I try not to be annoyed with normal people not listening.

I more look at it as, fuck, how lucky am I that life has dealt me hands that have made me able to see this and see it early? And if people want to listen gray, if they don't, that's their problem.

- I fully agree 100%. And, you know, especially when you get into the Bitcoin bandwagon, you just feel like, am I that, you know, am I very late? I'm pretty much, that's like, that's a new universal thing among the Bitcoin community.

And I wanted to get your opinion on something, actually, Max. I see it through. And 16, 1700 in Europe, when people used to give their goal to a goldsmith and they used to issue certificates.

And then at the World Overtime, it became a bank and all of that. So basically what they were like issuing certificates, these are like private entities to store their value. Now, I look at stablecoins today, which we all know, it's being done by private companies, and I'm a firm believer that this will not continue for a long time.

It's either the government will shut it down or something bad will happen or there's gonna be a mistake by the company itself. That's the evolution of history of anything private. We just tend to fuck it up because we're greedy.

And of course, stablecoins do have utility that for people that they cannot access the banking sector, so to them is like, I'm having my dollar in stablecoin. What are your views on stablecoins and its growth and becoming like a unit of account because it's just like it's static.

It's, yeah, what are your thoughts? - I'm not a full like Bitcoin maximalist who will say everything else is a fucking shit coin, everything is a joke, because I know that although a stablecoin for me, I've never used one, I have no need for one.

It doesn't mean that other people don't have need for them. If people need to jump in or jump out of Bitcoin or they suddenly have a need, then I can understand that it could be useful. It's still centralized, which is obviously a problem.

It's still tied to the dollar, which is unstable, which the dollar literally is a shit coin. I think that long term we'll see that the stable unit of account will be Bitcoin. It will be SATs.

And that literally is the stablecoin and everything else is volatile against it. But I do think that we're a long way away from that. And so in the meantime, there are gonna be all sorts of things that are thought up and they'll be useful for some people and they won't be useful for others.

So I guess the thing is just to be careful. These things can go away at any point in time. They either can be regulated and just seized and taken. It's not like we don't see that all the time from governments and banks or they can just disappear.

Or the value of the underlying asset can completely disappear like the dollar. So yeah, I guess to summarize would be useful for now. At the end of the day, they're not actually stable and the only thing that is actually stable and a true measure of value is Bitcoin.

It's just the market hasn't caught up with that yet. - So what I can indirectly text from you is that you have only accumulated Bitcoin and maybe on few occasions or never, you have sold your Bitcoin for cash.

Am I right or not? - I've never sold. - So yeah, I've never sold. - Okay, so walk me through the feelings here if I may ask, so we have been through two main cycles and we're in the middle of the third one now.

So you know for a fact that with adoption of Bitcoin, it's gonna go through a higher price and then it will crash. So you know this for a fact. Of course, there's a percentage that it could hype a bit colonization phase.

We can get into that. Now, if you're a believer of, okay, it's gonna go higher and then it's gonna crash. So what I'm thinking right now is that you know what? I might sell some so that when it crashes, I buy it again so that I can end up having more Bitcoin.

And I'm not saying it's too bad. I think it's a good idea. Now, my question is to you, why would you sell your Bitcoin at one point in time so that you can get more Bitcoin or spend it on other materialistic stuff for you to enjoy with?

- The reason I don't sell it for materialistic stuff that I can enjoy is because prior to Bitcoin and prior to leaving my fiat job and having a breakdown was, I had a lot of materialistic stuff.

I had a very nice car. I had a very nice bike. I had a lot of fun with those things but they never actually made me feel whole or have purpose or be proud of myself in any sort of way. Bitcoin, to me, is my one chance to stand up and try and stop some of the tyranny that is going on in the world.

And it's a way for me to say fuck you to the people who are stealing people's time and causing all sorts of problems all throughout the world and nothing, there's no possession. There's nothing on the planet which I want more than that.

And in terms of trading it, fully respect, if people can time the market, personally, I don't think anyone can, but if they can, respect to them, carry on, trade it. But I do see it as picking up pennies in front of a steamroller and I don't believe myself to be smart enough to make the right decision.

I'm not a trader. I don't understand how I would possibly time the market correctly and I'm not gonna sell something to try and buy 10% more of that thing and risk the price movements of over 10 days this could double or triple.

And I could jump out and say, "Oh, I'm gonna wait for it to drop." And then it never drops. And then I go, "Oh, right, okay. "It's just run up another 15%. "Well, I'll wait for it to drop again."

And then it does another 50% up and I go, "Oh fuck, I can't buy back in yet. "I can't get this back. "I'll never have as much Bitcoin as I had." And so the way I look at it is just every time I look at my stack, I want the number to grow, not in dollar terms, not in pound terms, but in Sats terms.

So I wanna look at that and go, "Do I have more Sats today than I had yesterday?" Yes. Or, "Do I have more Sats than I had yesterday?" No, but I have exactly the same 'cause I couldn't stack today or I couldn't stack for this week or I couldn't stack for this month.

But I'm always looking at the number being more. And so now the same with my art, I only sell art for Bitcoin. I'll only do any work for Bitcoin because I don't want the pounds. I know what they're tied to.

I know the problems they cause. I don't want to be associated with them. So yeah, it is a Bitcoin standard for me and I would ride it to zero if I have to. - Oh, you're as hardcore as standard prince as well.

- Yeah, yeah, forever, that's it. - Is he fully, he will ride this to zero? - I think so, I think so, I mean-- - Good man, good man. - I mean, I still, it's quite interesting because he started with, I think Bitcoin and shit coins and then he was bitten by that.

- Yes. - But it's just quite interesting. Like having people like you who have so much conviction, it's all or nothing. I wouldn't say it's good or bad, it's just like it's just an idea. And ideas create change and change can be fantastic for people as well.

- We'll see. I mean, I fully understand that I could be wrong completely. I get that, like I know that I could be wrong, but I don't think that I am. And I think this is my best opportunity to create change for the world.

And so when I'm on my deathbed, I want to look back at my life and go, did you do your best? Did you try your best to be good and create change and make the world the way you want to see it and be kind and do things right?

Or were you a complete fucking asshole, you know? Which was it? I'd rather be lying there and go, well, I tried really hard with this thing that I thought was going to be great. And I was wrong and I lost all my money, but I tried and I meant it and I was honest.

Then, oh well, I just lived a fiat culture lifestyle. I didn't really bother. Yeah, I had some money, but was I honest? No, can I be proud of myself? No, should my grandchildren be proud of me?

No, they shouldn't. They shouldn't be proud of that fiat culture. They should be proud of a man that stands up for something and tries. And so that is more valuable than any possession or currency.

- So it's all about principles mainly or first for you and then everything else, right? - Don't get me wrong, it was about money to start. - Absolutely, 100% I jumped in 'cause I wanted to make money.

No question, didn't know about anything else, didn't care about any of it, didn't understand what changes could make. It was just this thing has gone up in value like 10X in the last year or whatever.

How do I make some money? How do I buy some more shit? (laughing) - Yeah, I mean, I started with that, but the thing is once you get into that because you have allocated a good percentage of your wealth then you feel like you need to do the work and understand it better.

And once you do that, you were like, yeah, so money is important, cash is important, but you know what, fuck it, that's something revolutionary going on here. - What's it been like this process from the start, like in terms of how your feelings about it and understanding has evolved?

And do you feel that after leaving the traditional world to go traveling because you felt something was missing and you didn't have purpose? Have you now found your purpose? Are you now a happier man than you were before?

- So when I used to get a question from people, like when you wake up every morning, what are you excited about?

And I really struggled with that question. I would always give an answer, but it's not a genuine answer, like just a good answer. So when I first got into Bitcoin, I just started looking at the price every like five, 10 minutes, 15 minutes.

I would wake up and look at the price. - So basically, don't listen to what I say, look at my actions. So what was interesting the price? Because it's like, you know, it's sort of a if I can make this amount of money, then I can do X, Y, and Z.

Which is not bad, okay? But that was how I thought about it. But then because I have allocated 97% of my wealth into that, I had to understand it better. My understanding is good, but I need to understand it better.

So I delved into the Bitcoin rabbit hole, I dig deeper and deeper. Then I started to think, you know what? If you live a life without strong conviction coupled with the principle of making your life, so that answers the question, what's in it for me?

So if it doesn't bring anything good to your life financially and bring something good to others as well, financially, and on the side of freedom and improvement in every aspects of life, every aspect, then I start to think, I don't want to be selfish and just like live on my own and do things.

And just like, I want to do something for others because when you help others in a way, indirectly you're helping yourself. It just gives you that feeling of, you know what, I've done something good to that person.

I feel good about that. So that's, so I moved from price into, this is a technology that's not gonna be repeated again anytime soon and it could potentially eat everything. But also I'm not a dreamer.

I know that there is a bumpy road ahead as well. There's going to be battles and it's not gonna be easy. So the first test was when it dipped, I huddled and now I'm happy about that. So living that.

So for me, like now I don't check the price. So it has been quite some time when I don't check it regularly. - Don't check it today. - No, I did not check it today, honestly. - No, I'm saying don't.

It's not a nice price. - Yeah, that's fine. - Yeah, I get what you're saying. - Yeah, so like when I decided to just like as much as I possibly could to leave the fiat system and do something with Bitcoin and it's not about someone offering me the opportunity.

It's me creating the opportunity. I believe that you create your path. You don't wait for others to create the path. - So this is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna start with education and see where that takes me.

Small groups of five to six people. Then I'm gonna start traveling again and I'm gonna be holding and developing workshops wherever I go. - That's a really cool idea. And do you have an idea for a name for it?

- Ah, so it's called the history of money and wipe its coin. - And do you have a website or anything that anyone listening can go to or? - Since it's not digital, it's face to face. So I haven't done much material or advertisement.

It's all organic. So I'm testing the water here because I'd like to get feedback from others on the workshop so I can fine tune it and improve things. And only when I feel that it's solid material, then I'm gonna start to do some marketing and then offer it to others as well, expand.

But right now, still the ideas are quite scattered. I need to put myself into the audience shoes as well, like feel how they feel, because, you know, like Bitcoin can be too much information and too much information equals no information.

(laughing) - Yeah, there is way too much. I think we all have that tendency to someone's like, oh, what's Bitcoin? And you're like, you just reel off so much information because it's all rattling around in your brain.

You know, it's gonna be the best store of value in the world. It's gonna be this monetary network that everyone's gonna use. You know, it's gonna create freedom. It's gonna do this. It's, you know, and we could go into all this stuff about security and how it's this and how it's that.

And everyone, what they really wanna know is like the simple basics of like, why is it here? And how can it help me? - Yeah, I think I found the answer, Max. I think I did. - Yeah, so, 'cause everyone struggles with that question because it's not like, you know, a one-line kind of an answer.

But I like Vijay Barayati, the definition of Bitcoin. Like he says that it's a new form of money that exists on the internet that could potentially be the best form of money in a thousand years.

That's it. So this particular statement is quite generic, yet it's powerful because it has conviction. And it shows the people that the possibilities of growth. So what's in it for me is kind of embedded in that as well.

- Yeah, that's very good. I can imagine that capturing the imagination of most people. - Absolutely. - Very cool. Well, look, it's been really, really nice to get to know you. It's amazing to have someone reach out and be able to have these sort of conversations from the other side of the world.

I'm very happy that we have another Bitcoiner here, someone who has conviction is taking the time to sit and read and learn and now teach as well. So I'm really interested to see how this develops.

Hopefully one day, if you're doing some travel, if you find yourself in London, it'd be great to go and have a drink. And yeah, just massive respect for what you're doing and the journey that you're going on.

It's been really cool to get to know you. - Yeah, for sure. I mean, what I hear of London, I've been there once, is that the weather is great. So I'd love to be there one day, again. (laughing) Yeah, thank you so much.

I have a big smile on my face that I interacted with you. Like I often interact with people who know far less than what I know of Bitcoin here. So it's good to interact with you and listen to your story as well.

I feel privileged to be on your show. - Thank you very much. Yeah, really cool, really enjoyed it. And I'm sure we'll speak in the background anyway. If you just stay on the line for a minute after we close out the interview, so I make sure I get all the audio.

But yeah, thanks again and absolute pleasure. - Thank you, Max.