A Lottery to Free Samourai | The Confab 31: Rick Messitt

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.

Welcome back. It's another Confab episode. It's been a while. I'm only gonna do a quick intro here because I'm rushing out the door, and I need to get this over to Jordan. But this episode is with Rick at r mess it on Twitter. And if you haven't been following, he has just helped raise 10,000,000 sats to help free samurai.

A fair and provable lotto, and I think there's gonna be another one very soon. We're talking behind the scenes to see if we can do something with Ungovernable. He also has an incredible backstory, including a a huge hack a few years ago. I think it was for 25 Bitcoin.

And the way that he has bounced back and giving back in the community is pretty incredible. Thank you to everyone who boosted the show on the last confab, which was months ago now. I can't believe how long it's been since we've done that confab.

Last one was with Vic Sharma, the CEO of Cake Wallet. And Welder Rin sent 2,222 sats with no message. Arrow sent 1,777 sats saying, love cake. I love Vic. Please direct Mac download for cake soon.

I thought there already was. Maybe Seth or Vic can answer that one, but I thought there already was. And very similar with 521 sats with a robotic strong-arm. Thank you to everyone who boosted the show, sent XMR chats, shared this episode with friends and family, made clips, retweeted,

and everything else that people do to help us continue to grow. Thank you to Vic for joining me. It was really good to catch up with him, get to know him a little bit, and thank you for supporting the show. It's been a couple of years now that Cake has been supporting Ungovernable.

I could bang on about all the features and everything that they've got, but put simply, if you're not already using Cake Wallet, you need to go and try it. Go to cakewallet.com. Download this on, I think, basically any device and try it out. Let me know what you think. I've been using this more and more. It's been

a couple of years of use now. The UX is nice. Everything just works. They're always working on their security. They take this stuff very seriously. And they're just always tinkering, making things better day by day. Even literally today, Seth has found a way to four or six x the speed of downloading blocks on Bitcoin using Fulcrum.

It's nerdy shit that goes way above my head. I don't know how the fuck they do it, but they do, and it works. So try it out. Go to cakewallet.com. I also wanna say a huge thank you to Foundation.

Foundation, I've been working with right from the very beginning, right from when they first launched their device, and it's been an absolute pleasure working with them. With all of the hacks and all of the crazy stuff going on, we cover a bit of it in this episode. But if you self custody, which you should be,

you need to be taking things seriously. Foundation has been doing things the right way, right from the beginning. Fully open source, an incredible team, great customer support. And although they do all the nerdy crazy super coder, super security stuff in the background, as an end user, this is piss easy to use.

If you sat there listening to this, you've heard all the hacks, you've heard all the scary stuff, and you're not a 100 comfortable with your setup, check them out. Go to foundation.xyz as the Americans say, and don't just rush and buy something without fully understanding it. If you have questions,

they've got loads of videos on there walking through how to use the devices. And if you still have questions, you can reach out. Ask us on the Freedom Tech Friday shows. You can join us live on the Bitcoin brief.

You can ask Q as many questions as you want. He knows these devices inside out. And if you do then decide to buy one, use the code ungovernable. I don't think it gives you a discount. I think it gives you... You get like a a cover or a bumper case they call it. But anyway, do that and then they know that I'm shilling.

And finally, and we will jump into the episode in the next twenty seconds, just to say a big thank you to my Nimbox. If you're looking for virtual private servers, web hosting, private domain registrations, or anything else, these guys are incredible.

You can pay with Bitcoin, Monero, Lightning, basically any cryptocurrency. And you can do all of this without giving any personal personal details. None. Check them out at mynimbox.io, and enjoy the show.

Rick, welcome to the ConFab. Hello, mate. How's it going? The ConFag as many people call it. Clean part by now. Yeah. Good, mate. Good. It's good to get you on now for the listeners. We had a few technical issues. We tried this last week, and I

think we finally got it working. I've been looking forward to chatting with you. I've actually just jumped off from rewatching your your talk and your video you'd made and reacquainting

myself with that. So, yeah, it's a it's a real honor to have you on. There's not many people in the Bitcoin space who impress me at the moment or bothering doing anything that's what we might call cypherpunky or important.

And, yeah, I just wanted to tip my hat to you and welcome you to the show. Thanks, man. It's a it's a real pleasure to be here. You know, I've enjoyed your show for a long time, and I think that's a very generous intro. I think it's probably more like a a cypherpunk with a a small c, but, you know, we try and do what we can.

No. It's it's been cool to watch it. We're gonna get into the the lottery and some other bits and pieces. But, yeah, the reason I say that, you know, just after jumping off your talk, which I suggest anyone who hasn't already watched it, go and have a go and have a look. Go to the r mess it Twitter.

It'll be in the... Links will be in the show notes as well. But go and have a watch, and you talk in there about fuck paper Bitcoin summer and the cyberpunk principles and, you know, what are we really doing here. And this is something that me and Q have talked about for a long time now.

The feeling of losing focus, sort of losing what this thing is about certainly to me and I think most of the ungovernables just re rallying the troops. Breathing a bit of life into it again, I think is really important because otherwise, all of what I think governments and agencies and the GLOEs and everyone who is trying to fight against

what we stand for, they win otherwise. They kind of... They just get to a point where it's not even necessarily they win on a technical basis or everyone ends up in a jail cell. It can just be that people give up and quietly leave and quietly stop.

The video and the talk was very, very good for that. I can understand why people can feel that at times. Like, the the news is depressing. The hacks are depressing. The samurai news is depressing, the letters even from Kione are depressing,

but it's a good way to remember why you wanna fight it and why you wanna not give up and where this all goes if you don't fight it. Yeah. I mean, I would I would agree with almost all of that sentiment. I think,

you know, for me, the the main reason I got interested in Bitcoin... I mean, my my origin story is maybe a little different to to a lot of people. You know, me and my dad got got into Bitcoin quite early.

And weirdly, he was the one who orange pilled me, right, which is... It's normally the other way around. But... Extremely rare. Yeah. The reason the reason we got into it is, you know, even when I was a young man, my dad would sit me down and sort of explain to me, you know, the central banking scam,

and this is before Bitcoin came along. So, you know, he was interested in things like gold and and how to protect his purchasing power. He'd he'd recognized

pretty early on that, yeah, if you print a load of money, you just debase everyone's savings. So he... I I guess before Bitcoin even showed up, we were quite acutely aware of of what central banking was all about.

And then he's a a very talented software engineer. You know, he's been been building a software his his whole life all the way up from sort of IBM three sixty assembler and... Well, he he was the guy who actually coded the lottery. Right? So so, yeah, he's one of those sort of gray beard coders.

But what that meant was, you know, like, we... We're we're not like a lot of people in Bitcoin, you know, with these huge inflated egos and stuff. Like, yeah, we got in early, but it's not really because, like, we're geniuses or anything like that. It was just a case of, you know, right place, right time.

We understood the problem, which is, I think, is the main place to start if you wanna understand Bitcoin. Right? Like, software engineers don't sit down and just hammer keys to develop new software. They almost always start with a problem they're seeking to solve. So

Bitcoin doesn't make a lot of sense to a lot of people, I think, because they haven't yet understood the problem that it's that it's seeking to solve. So, you know, with his sort of technical background and an understanding of the problem, when we first saw it, we didn't do what a lot of people did, which is just dismiss it.

You know, I wouldn't say we were prophetic or anything. I I remember, you know, Bitcoin being $30 a coin and us thinking, oh my god. Could you imagine it gets to a thousand dollars and, you know, we've all got those stories. But by and large, the main reason that we got really interested in Bitcoin was this promise that,

hey, man. I just wanna do business peer to peer with people, you know, without people controlling our money, without debasing it, without having to ask permission. And and those are the principles that that did and still do excite me the most. You know? I think

personal freedoms are being encroached to to an extent now that's getting quite alarming. And and Bitcoin for us was always this, like, beacon of of freedom. Right? Like, how can we escape this this insane dystopia?

And and probably like yourself, I I have found it a little bit hard maybe in recent months, you know, with a lot of the paper Bitcoin stuff, and it does feel a little bit like we've strayed away from from a lot of the core principles of Bitcoin.

And, hey, look, you know, I'm I'm a catalyst. Right? Like, I I I have no problem in people making investments and making money and, you know, number go up is is all part of the the brilliant incentive scheme that... That's built into Bitcoin.

But it's it's really not the be all and end all. So from where I'm sitting at least with my ATIQ, I see it as well, you know, the the the powers that be are quite comfortable with things like ETFs and and custodians and and all this stuff.

But it's quite obvious that they are not comfortable with financial privacy. Right? And people being able to transact privately between one another and Unless you're that by their behaviors. Right? And and going after the samurai dev. So, yeah, it's been a it's been a crazy road.

Yeah. Yeah. And I I think, you know, the number go up stuff is certainly not a problem. You know, it's Yeah. It's great. And in principle, in theory, people who have a similar view on things to me having more money and more influence in the world is a good thing.

But I think what people miss and, you know, Keone, before I would call him Keone, I'll just call him Samurai. He was come on the show. He pushed this idea harder than anyone that this money, no matter what the number that's assigned to it in dollar terms has, even if it goes to a million or whatever it goes to, is not that useful

if all your information is tied to it and men with guns and pens that can write any laws and do anything know who you are, how you spend it, and can prevent you from living your life. And this is something that, really, the samurai groups and telegram groups that they ran were really like my entrance into Bitcoin.

It's how I began to wrap my head around it. It influenced me really heavily. And I think that people sort of have lost lost along the way the fact that you still have people who don't want you to live freely even if the number's bigger.

And with KYC and any... Anti money laundering and source of funds and this and that, it's... They have all the tools that they need to make your life unlivable even if you have wealth.

And all of this, like, oh, well, you know, come and take it, and I can send it anywhere in the world, and I can do this. Like, it's like, yeah. Well, you can, but you have a very powerful adversary who can track anything that hits Fiat land.

And unless you're a shadowy super coder with no family and no ties and no school fees to pay and, like, none of the normie world shit that's very difficult to not be involved in and live a somewhat normal life for your family, you're a target. And so

that's why this stuff, even if you take out the fact that these guys are friends, these guys are people we look up to, You take all of that out of it. It's like you're fighting for your freedom of yourself and your children. And if you don't stop the general pattern, which is less freedom, more control,

and we don't make a stand and we don't kick up a fuss and we don't use the tools, then they win. And if they win, it's really fucking scary. You you know, you you just talked earlier about how controlled we are, how surveilled we are in our everyday lives, and it's really easy to just sort of ex... Not accept it, but, like,

I guess accept it. Like, yeah, even even in my own life, there's things like... I haven't bought a new TV for,

I don't know, fucking, like, ten years or something. Yeah. Because I like stacking and just, living life. And my kids really wanted a TV, and we were, like, watching everything just literally on a laptop, and I'm trying to do more work. I was like, sure what? Fuck it. I'm gonna buy a TV.

So I got out and buying TV, not really thinking, just, like, pull the trigger, go and buy this thing. Literally, the next day, I'm in TSB Group, Southern Bitcoin Group, great group, if anyone's not already in there, if you care about this kind of stuff. And and straight away, it's like LG TV can listen to a conversation 65

feet away. They're logging everything that you do that... You know, even if it's off, they've lied about this and they've lied. And I was just like, fucking hell. Like, what am I gonna do now? Do I do I go and throw my TV away? Like, what do I... Like...

And there was there was just a point where I went, fuck it. Fine. Like, fine. It's there. And and I've accepted that that there's a spy in my living room

and that it's complete big brother stuff, and I've just gone, fuck it. I don't say anything interesting anyway, bollocks. Like, I've paid for it. I'm not I'm not gonna not use it. But it's these sorts of things that there's thousands of them, and it's just constant. And it's a constant encroachment.

And and we constantly say, oh, well, yeah, you know, our phones can listen to us. Yeah. Well, you know, the cameras are always on. Yeah. Well, you know, the government's always listening. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Where does it end? And I think it ends in a full 1984 style complete lockdown bullshit controlling your finances, controlling your health care, controlling your access to goods. And if

we continue to allow it just for the sake of convenience or like I have there, I've gone, fuck it. I've just spent, like, a load of money on this TV. I'm not gonna just, like, not use it.

That's me being a pussy. That's me being a walk over. And if I do that with too many things, then I make the world worse for my children. It's...

Yeah. I mean, it's a tough one because, you know, as as you've stated, it almost becomes a full time job just trying to protect your privacy. I mean, you know, I'm down the rabbit hole of just using projectors now, you know, with items with no microphones in them and all that. But Yep.

You know, with that amount of friction, it's it's quite natural when you're trying to live a normal peaceful life, you know, to to accept some of the some of the things they put in your way because as you say, it's almost impossible to to to do anything in the modern world now without

someone spying on you. And, you know, if we go back to that sort of paper Bitcoin argument, I think that's maybe the source of a lot of my frustration recently in in the Bitcoin community is there's a lot of laughing going on. You know,

if you if you go and buy your Bitcoin on an exchange or via a custodian or anything like that and and then call yourself sovereign, you know, you're really you're really... Either you're kidding yourself or you're trying to sell some... Something to someone else. Right? And and it's time to appreciate that actually

Bitcoin is just one tool that you need to adopt and start learning about if you wanna try and protect yourself from from all this lunacy. Absolutely. Yeah. I'm sorry to say. I mean, you said, you know, that they're going to win. I I think they're actually winning, you know, despite Bitcoin.

I mean, I said in my my talk, you know, that that saying, right, what is it? First, they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, and then you win. I I think we might have circle jerked ourselves into believing that we've already won.

Mhmm. And from where I'm sitting, I I... That couldn't be further from the truth. You know, it's very, very difficult at the moment to spend and use your Bitcoin without going through these on an off ramp, certainly, if you wanna make a significant size purchase.

And and the government still control all these on an off ramp. So there's still a lot of things. There's a lot of problems, a lot of things that that still need solving. Yeah. And and with all the lottery and that sort of thing, honestly, there's a big part of me and my dad who were just like,

we're just gonna do it because we can and because... Yeah. Maybe we shouldn't. But the technology exists. Why not? And, yeah, let's rattle the saber a little bit and see if we can find some other people who feel the same way and, you know, ultimately, hopefully, wanna help support Keoni and Bill. You know?

Yeah. Well, it certainly did that. And, yeah, it got my attention. It got it got many people's attention, I think, mainly who are already... Have at least an eye on the case and care about the outcome.

And, you know, as you said in your talk, the only way that we can get our friends out of a prison cell is really basically just old Donald Trumpy coming up and saying, yeah. You know, this is fucking retarded.

This is complete injustice, and I'm gonna free them. That's the only way. And to do that, you need to get a lot, lot, lot more attention on this than we currently have, and there needs to be a lot of funding to help them with the legal fees and everything else.

Before we go down the sort of how you did what you did and and how the lottery works and all that kind of stuff, I just want to maybe talk a little bit about what Keone and Bill built and remind people why it's important and maybe touch on why you care about this and and care about them and how they've helped you.

And just remind people really that these are human beings. They're not... Like, they're not an app. They're human beings that built software to protect users of Bitcoin. Like, Bitcoin has a massive problem with privacy, And these guys dedicated their lives to building the best privacy software to help...

Literally, I'm not overstating the facts here when I say save people's lives. Because when you're talking about people circle jerking themselves to failure, this just goes through the whole ecosystem.

You know? KYC is pervasive. Everyone who's onboarding saying that they're... They care about their freedom. They're giving away all their details. We see hacks all the time. We see physical attacks all the time, which are increasing.

So it's not a theoretical... Like, when I first... I think when I first had the conversations with, you know, these sorts of attacks were really much more theoretical. It was extremely rare if ever to hear about someone being robbed or tortured or killed for their Bitcoin.

And now it's kind of... I mean, especially in certain areas, like France is particularly bad. It... It's, like, commonplace. It's... You know, it happens all the time. What these guys are doing is to build software that allows you to use this incredible money

and take away or help obfuscate some of the risks. It doesn't go back in time. It didn't stop

the KYC records from existing because you can't go back in time and stop that. But they could protect you going forward so that when you pay your plumber or, you know, pay someone, they don't suddenly see, oh, okay. They've got this much money. I'm gonna come back and bash their skull in.

I see what they did as incredibly important for Bitcoin. And and without these tools, it's not really that fucking useful. You either go full KYC, buy on the KYC exchange, sell on a KYC exchange, use it just as, like,

money in fiat land, be fully tracked, be fully traced, don't have any of the privacy benefits, don't have any of the control benefits. You just have potential NGU, Or you use it how it's supposed to be used, but then if you try and use it how it's supposed to be used, you get attacked to every single step.

And, you know, if if you wanna get money that's had any sort of privacy add ons or you've used it in a private way or you can't prove provenance of coins and you wanna go and buy something in the real world that isn't like coffee for motors Bitmire,

you know, sending him lightning sats or or, you know, something from the ungovernable store or, like, a hat or something. Like, if you're buying something that's outside of our ecosystem, you suddenly get attacked.

And it's... It makes Bitcoin less useful and therefore less valuable. And so even people who don't care about Keone, they don't care about bill, they don't care about privacy, they don't think they care about these things. Well, actually, if you care about what that NGU stuff is gonna do, you probably should.

Well, I mean, absolutely. And and, you know, if you boil it down to basic principles as well, you know, if we're talking about number go up, well, number goes up on everything when you measure it with Fiat.

Right? So, you know, my butter is up a 100% against Fiat. You know, if we're in Weimar, Germany, a piece of bread went to a million dollars or a million marks. Right? So that that always is funny to me that people are still using the wrong denominator to measure the value of Bitcoin. I mean, how how can we, in one hand, say,

okay. This money is worthless because it's essentially monopoly money that can be printed into oblivion, but then use it as our direct measure of Bitcoin's value. It's it's it's kind of backwards, and I think it takes people a little while to to to flip that around and recognize that, actually, Bitcoin needs to needs to detach entirely.

Right? You know, you're not gonna be celebrating very much if Bitcoin hits a million, but your shopping costs $5. Right? You haven't really made progress in that regard. You need to measure it in rib eyes, diesel, and tools.

Exactly. And and, you know, the funny thing going back to what you're saying about KYC is, you know, we... We've had our own scary run ins with KYC. So probably the only reason anybody really is aware of me and and my old man on on x and all this sort of stuff is is,

because, unfortunately, we got hacked a a few years ago now. It's quite funny. Right? Because I had no interest in being an influencer or anybody that anybody had heard of before. Right? I was just lurking and reading and and learning.

But, unfortunately, what our story was is we bought our coins way back, you know, years and years, maybe a decade ago on Mount Gox. And we were smart enough to take self custody. But what we never realized is that when they hacked Mount Gox, they also will have taken all the KYC data.

So it's a bit of a long story, but I'll skip to the end. When we were trying to investigate where our funds went and what happened to them, law enforcement told us, oh, by the way, you know, you need to be aware that all of your details are circulating on the dark web. And that included,

you know, my full name, my dad's full name, his home address, my home address. I mean, they took our whole stack, which at the time was about 25 Bitcoin. And,

man, you know, that really makes you stop and think because, you know, we were hacked, so no one ever showed up at the house. But the reality is, like, that was a lot of money. And there are plenty of people in The UK that will show up in your door with balaclavas

and a... And and some weapons for for that kind of corn, and you think, Jesus, you know, that that could have been considerably worse than it was. I mean, it wasn't fun. I'll tell you that much. But,

you know, when you when you stop and decompress a little bit, you realize, hang on, you know, people could have come and got us for that. And and like you say, in France, we're seeing the outcomes of all this now, and and I do think it's only gonna get worse.

So... Yeah. You know, like, privacy privacy is an essential component of sovereignty. In fact, it's maybe it's maybe just as important as as the amount of wealth you manage to, you know, accrue in your lifetime. I would say more.

It has to be more because, you know, run this back. As you just said, it wasn't fun, understatement of the year, but it's not as bad as people turning up with balaclavas and weapons. Because in that situation, you can have all the fiat value in the world, and somebody turns up

and they break your kneecaps, if you're lucky, or they kill you if you're not, then what's the fucking worth... Wealth worth? You'd be much better off having a tenth of that amount, and no one's turning up at your door.

It is incredibly important. And the other thing that people talk about constantly on Bitcoin Twitter is

Bitcoin's going to x number. We're gonna be really wealthy, and we're gonna be the wealthiest people in the world and blah blah blah. And the world's gonna go to shit, and everyone else is fucked, we're gonna pick up all their assets for nothing. It's like, okay. Yeah. And so what

mind frame are those people gonna be in when they see you with all your wealth and all your details are all over the Internet, and they can turn up with weapons that aren't that expensive, like a hammer you can fucking get for nothing, and they turn up at your door or your kid's school or wherever else. So it's like... It... It's a really

stupid viewpoint that you can be really wealthy. The rest of the world can go to shit, and somehow you're insulated from that. Yeah. I mean, when when when people do show up at your doorstep and you're wearing your Huddl t shirt, you're gonna feel like a prize peanut. Right?

Exactly. And and it's funny. You you you offer two options there, which is option two is to have a significantly, you know, less money than you did and and not become a target, which is why I have no problem

repeating the fact that, you know, I've already been hacked. Like, I've I've been Leave me alone. Yeah. Please leave me alone. Because, know... And and this is this is the thing. I'm just a normal bloke, man. You know, like, you got interested in all this stuff. But, man, you know, I didn't know anything about OPSEC. Right?

Like, I'm doxxed all over Twitter and all this sort of stuff. And, you know, I would do things extremely differently if I had a had a time machine. But, you know, the scary thing is as well, you know, the lengths I go to now, you know, like projectors instead of TVs. You know, we've got a house full of firearms.

You know, we use PO boxes to send all my goods. And thankfully, have a very understanding wife. But, you know, some of my friends look at me like I'm an absolute... Like, I've lost my mind. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And you kinda get to the point. It's like, wow. You know, this adoption thing is is is...

It's an interesting challenge because don't I don't know if I know a lot of people that are willing to go as far as you might need to go if you really wanna... Want that true sovereignty. Right? Time.

If you have a family, you've got kids, you've got a job, you know, you... Your your time already in 2026 is spread so thin for the average person, and their attention is spread even thinner because they're fucking around on Instagram.

And we're... I mean, we're no better. We're on Twitter. You know? It's just as bad. But, like, you've got people who have very little attention span and very little time, and for most people, little money as well.

And then you're saying to them, right. Let me just give you a list of a thousand things that you need to fucking change just to get some type of privacy.

That TV, no good. Oh, what? You've got this phone. No. You need to be running graphene. Oh, you're using that laptop. No. You need this operating system. What... You've got that router? Oh, well, you need to change it to the... Like, it is an endless list.

And on top of that, not everyone's that technical. You know, people talk about these changes as if they're simple.

And then, like you say, it goes to the real world stuff. It's like, oh, well, what car are you driving? You got a Tesla. Well, that's recording you and sending information back or, you know, you need an old truck. Okay. Alright. Fine. And you need to use PO boxes and you need to... It's like, unless you understand

where this goes and unless you understand your safety of yourself and your family depend on it, you are not gonna spend the time and energy on doing it. Because you you would actually be fucking mental to do that unless you really thought, okay. This is for the safety of my family.

Well, I mean, this is the crazy thing as well. And I I I think in in in the industry in general, we have a bit of a problem where... Man, like, when are we all gonna accept that we're all learning this as we go? Right? Like, if if Bitcoin is this frontier money and frontier technology,

I think... Well, you know, what's obvious to me over the last few months is nobody saw the cold card thing coming. Right? Like... I don't know. It's nobody. Maybe some obscure forums.

Right? There were some guys talking about the possibility of, you know, the RNG not not producing good randomness. But, man, like, even the big accounts and and and the big influences and all this sort of stuff, I know know everyone was asleep at the wheel on that.

Now now this week, we've learned like, oh, if you've got a ledger, go and get your screwdriver out and take it apart and see if there's any unusual wires in the back of it. And... Yeah. I mean, it's it's it's not for the faint of heart, I guess. And, you know, the alternatives are are these custodians.

But I tell you what, a whole lot more money has been lost through custodians than than, you know, all these self custody problems that we've had recently. And... Yeah. Alright. ETFs and and treasury companies and all this will, you know, essentially, you end up with an IOU.

You know, this is no longer freedom money at that point. So it's it's kinda pick your poison and I... Yeah. I'm still trying to figure out, you know, what I make of it all. Right? Like, I I certainly have the approach now, which is different to my original approach is, yeah, I'm not gonna keep a 100% of my money in Bitcoin anymore. Yeah.

And that's because I've done that once before. And, yeah, it didn't didn't work out so great. You know, I made some really silly mistakes, and I'm happy to hold our our hands up about that. But, know, there's there's a lot of... There's known knowns...

Known unknowns, and then there's unknown unknowns. And I think, you know, we're on this crazy journey still discovering them. So... Yeah. Yeah. It's it's like, I don't know I don't know how many how many, like, you know, grandmas we're gonna onboard successfully onto this without

putting them in a in a tricky spot. You know? Yeah. At at the moment, very, very few grandmas are are joining our ranks. And I think, know, for for most, it's probably irresponsible to try and onboard a grandma in the way that we would see fit because it's either too complicated, too risky.

They have to be on top of things. It's it's just... It's a very difficult one. And, I mean, especially from your perspective, you... You're gonna have a very different perspective than most because you've been through this. You've seen what can happen, how that feels, how does that change your life.

You're gonna be looking at these sort of hacks in a different way than most. And I think what you said about not having a 100% in Bitcoin is absolutely right for most people. I've I've been repeating that on maybe the last five or six shows nonstop

to a point where it's getting boring. Like, don't have all your eggs in one basket. That is for assets. Don't have it all in Bitcoin. Have some property maybe. Have some Bitcoin maybe. You know? Have some cash maybe. Have some food. Have some weapons. Have some tools. Have, like... And whatever you do have in any form of cryptocurrency,

you spread it. Like, I don't... I wouldn't put everything in one pot anymore. It's like, I might have a little bit on this wallet over here, and I might have a little bit behind a passphrase, and I might have a little bit on this graphene phone.

Spreading risk in what I would only describe as, like, a fucking war zone at the moment is not a bad thing. And, yeah, I wanna touch on, like, your experience, how you did things. You said you've made some mistakes.

Everyone does. Like, this is just a constant learning game. Can you talk us through? Because you you guys were early. You're way earlier than I was. The fact that you said Mt. Gox, you know, roughly dates it. So you bought your Bitcoin.

Your dad is a a very skilled, by the sounds of it, software engineer. What was it like from that point, and how did it unravel? What were the mistakes that were made? So...

Oh, man. Yeah. We we lived a crazy story. Like, we... So we we first started buying Bitcoin sort of tail end of, I think, around tail end of twenty thirteen, start of twenty fourteen. Mhmm.

And the way we self custody that... I mean, bear in mind as well back then, there were no such things as hardware wallets. Although, I think the trades might have been coming out not long after we got in. I can't really remember. Mhmm. But hardware wallets, you know, they weren't they weren't as widely adopted and used as they are now.

And, you know, people weren't really stamping seeds into steel plates, or it certainly wasn't on our radar at the time and and stuff like that. So... And and here's the interesting thing. So, you know, my dad is a very talented software engineer, but there is a big difference between a talented developer

and someone who's really well versed in cybersecurity. Right? They they are two distinct fields.

So the way we went about it is that we understood what Bitcoin was thoroughly enough to recognize, right, the safe thing to do here is to take self custody. Right? What's the point of trying to use a a currency that doesn't require banks and then use an exchange as a bank? That that seems really obvious to us early on.

So we thought, right, we'll we'll take control of our own money, which, of course, you end up with a with a seed phrase and all this sort of stuff to to protect. Now in lieu of sort of having hardware devices and this sort of stuff,

what we did is we took the open source password manager called KeyPass. I don't know if you know that one. Yeah. Yeah. For anyone listening, it's very different to, like, something like LastPass, which is, you know, a centralized company

storing your passwords for you. KeePass is a password manager that you can host yourself. Right? So it's self hosted. It's open source. Nobody else had this file that we put our seed phrase inside.

So the seed phrase goes inside this KeePass file, and, yeah, we encrypt it with a password.

And then it's kinda obvious when you look back how this happened, but my dad's a software engineer. Right? So he's pretty well versed in being like, well, you know, if I store something on one physical device and that device breaks, I've got a problem. So the natural thing to do is to back it up, which he did.

And we then compounded our problems by uploading that key pass file into the cloud. And, yeah, that was a that was a big mistake. Now how we actually ended up getting rubbed by whomever this attacker was, we... Well, I can't prove this exactly, but I think it's probably the most likely scenario is we think we were targeted

because our data was in the Mt. Gox hack. And, you know, they could see where we live. They could see how much we had. You know, they had all the transaction details of us withdrawing from the exchange.

Those funds then probably sat in the same address as we sent to so they could see, okay. These guys likely still have the money and all this sort of stuff. And then I think they just tried to to break in.

And the real fudge up for us was we pulled a bit of an NVK. Right? The entropy on the password for the cloud storage was nowhere and it was ridiculously laughably low, and the same was true of the key pass files. So once we were targeted, I would imagine it was ten, fifteen minutes for these guys to brute force their way into the cloud

and then brute force their way into the key pass file as well. Then they have the seed, and and Bob's your uncle. That was it. It was all garden shipped off into mixes and and all this sort of thing.

And it it seems really noobish looking back. I mean, the thing that really bugs you is, you know, I would never recommend anybody store anything like that in the cloud. But had our passwords been secure enough,

then chances are they would have never got in. So that bit is absolutely on us. And I think, you know, the next the next bit of learning was

I think there was some real complacency on our side because, you know, things did develop and progress. You know, hardware wallets started coming out, you know, steel plates and all these solutions started emerging, and we just never updated our setup.

And we never continued to play with the tools. You know, we we were off busy living our lives and fairly confident we're... We were secure. I mean,

the funny thing about holding it for ten years is, you know, if nothing's gone wrong for ten years, you kinda fall into this Yeah. Place like, oh, it'll never happen to us. You know, why would anyone target us? Well, it works. Why change something that works?

Like, it's tested. What... What's it called? There's like a... There's a word for it where it's like when something's worked for... Or a phrase for it. Like, when something's worked for a long time, you have, like, a bias or a complacency.

I can't... It's called now. So brain doesn't fucking work anymore. But Yeah. But, yeah, I can understand it because I'm much the same as, like, anything where it's Bitcoin related. I move very, very, very slowly and cautiously.

And, generally, if things work, I don't wanna touch them. So I can completely understand why you would think, okay. Let's just leave things as they are because they work. And, yes, things are developing, but, like, it's worked for ten years.

We should be good. I I I would probably be guilty of exactly the same thing. Well, this is it. And and, you know, I

mean, the the... It's been a few years now since it happened, so I have developed a bit of a sense of humor about it. But the fun... The funniest thing... Well, maybe the funniest thing is that had we left the coins on Mount Gox, at least we would have got some of it back.

Oh, fuck. Yeah. Because they did that. Which is kinda funny. Right? Like, yeah. Go self custody. By the way, I'm I'm still I'm still a self custody Maxie, but it is it is quite funny that that, yeah, I'd be better off had I not taken self custody in that specific instance.

Right? But Yeah. Lot of this stuff makes you think, you know, there's there's there's more than one way to skin a cat. You know? For sure. Without making it like a depressing episode, like, what what is the feeling?

Like, what do you experience in the coming hours, days, weeks, months when you realize that this hack has taken place? Like, are you alerted somehow? Do you just log in to

send some funds or do something and suddenly you're like, fuck. Like, the reason I asked this is not to, like, dig up the past and make you sort of relive it, but it's... I know that there are many people who are listening now who have been caught up in this cold card hack

and have lost funds. Some of them lost most of their life savings. Good people, people I really respect, smart people. I just want them to feel like, okay. You're not alone here. It's not through stupidity that you're feeling this way. It is something that happens with self custody, and to some extent, it's a bit of potluck.

And so if if you're comfortable going through it, like, do you mind to Man, listen. You know, I'm an I'm an I'm an open book on this stuff largely because I think I recognize in in in the industry, you know, with all the influencers and a few big egos, like, very few people are willing to put their hands up and share their mistakes.

Yeah. And that that doesn't help other people. I mean, you know, out of all the contacts I have in Bitcoin, and some of them have been around a long time, I would say less than 10% don't have a story

about how they either, you know, foot gunned themselves and locked themselves out of some funds or Yeah. Lost some keys or got hacked. Or Yeah. Yeah. Very few people get get... Have have been here a long time and haven't taken a few flesh wounds. Right? If not if not more... If not worse. Oh, yeah.

The the the crazy thing, man, is, like, we we basically lived through our own personal little Netflix series, it felt like, when it all happened. So I'll try and paint the scene a little bit, but, you know, we'd been hodling for ten years, this this stack of Bitcoin.

And we managed to make it through ten years, still holding on to twenty five coins, which, you know, is is not bad going. Right? We we we had a we had a decent time preference.

And, unfortunately, I have to say as well, I I was that meme. Have you ever seen the meme where, there's a guy in a spaceman outfit just lying on a mattress in in a bedroom with no other furniture.

I've not seen that one, but I'll be honest. That that was me for a long time as well. Oh, man. Me too. And that was a fuck up. That was a fuck up. Right? Because I I had... You know, the delayed gratification thing, I absolutely am... I'm a subscriber

to to that, and I think it's important to try and build wealth for your future and all of those things. But I was I was way too far on the extreme side of that. Like, I was living in this tiny little flat in the worst area of Dundee

in Scotland, which I don't know if we have any international audience. I'll I'll just We've got quite a lot of Scottish listeners, actually. Okay. Fucking horrible. Dundee. Yeah. I was living in Hilton, right, which is...

It's pretty much the epicenter for drugs in the whole of Europe. So, yeah, it it... Not a nice place. Right? Nice people. Like, I like Dundee a lot, but, yeah, I was in a pretty rough part of town

and sitting on sizable amounts of of of money in in Bitcoin, but I was delaying my gratification so hard, man. You know? I was gonna skip right to the end of this journey, you know, get the nice house, the car, the big booty Latina, all of that. Right? Like, that was Why not to? Well,

yeah, if it all went to plan. Right? Colombia, we don't say daddy. In Colombia, we say papa zito. Papa. Papa zito. Very good. Very good. Well... Yeah. You know? And I... And and and and I was listening. You know? I I I was thinking, well, if Samson's...

Samson Mao's predictions ever do come true, I'm gonna be laughing here. Right? Anyway anyway, so one one fuck up I made was living entirely in the future. Right? And looking back now, that was that was really retarded.

Right? Because, you know, look, man. It was several $100,000 that that I was sitting on personally. Right? And, man, I could have peeled off $10 and gone on the holiday of a lifetime and made some memories with my friends and family, and I didn't do that. And that was a mistake.

I could have, you know, gone for a few more nice steak dinners and spent a couple $100, and it would have been a rounding error to to the stack I was sitting on, but I didn't because... And and that that that really fucks with you a little bit. Like, it really... If you live in the future too much...

I'm gonna sound like some sort of stupid guru here. But, like No. No. You're you're a 100% right, and I was completely guilty of this as well. Like, this is Yeah. Very good advice. Never lived in the present. And and, you know, it's it's really funny. You know, I was playing the game, I guess, on paper the right way. You know? Mhmm.

But now now I'm a lot more frivolous with my Bitcoin. Right? Like, if I earn some, then I spend it on stuff, you know, things that I wanna do. Not not not to the point that I'm like a sort of nihilistic fiat person, you know, not running around and buying

Nike trainers and stupid watches or anything like that. Yeah. Yeah. But more like, yeah. You know, I'm gonna I'm gonna take the family out to dinner because I love sitting around the table with them and and doing things and and Experiences.

A few more rounds of golf now and again would would be nice. Right? And Mhmm. You realize your most scarce asset is actually... It's not your Bitcoin. It's it's your time. Mhmm. Like, when... None of us are getting out of this game alive. Right? And you could be hit by a bus tomorrow. So

I think it's important to delay your gratification with your Bitcoin, but but not at the expense of actually living your life. You know? I woke up ten years later and was like, shit. You know? I I I burned not just that Bitcoin that I lost. I lost those ten years.

And, actually, that was probably the more brutal thing out of it is feeling like someone had stolen all of that prudence and delayed gratification and ten years of patience evaporating. That that was very difficult.

Yeah. That's a good way of looking at it because you... It isn't easy, that game of delayed gratification. I think a lot of us have gone to pretty extreme lengths

with it. Like you're saying, like, you don't need to be living on a mattress in a place where you could get stabbed and you're routed by the fucking crackheads and all sorts of craziness and stupid stuff.

Examples would be, like, being unbelievably thirsty and not having a water bottle with me, but refusing to buy a bottle of water because it was one pound fifty. And I'd, like, go and find some fucking outdoor tap

out of my way to go and drink out of a fucking... Stupid... Or, like, go to a public bathroom, drink out of a fucking tap. Like, stupid shit. If I wasn't with my missus at the time, it would have been even more extreme because my mind is that way. It's all or nothing with everything.

So there's no fucking life for a long time. And what sort of snapped me out of that really was having kids and a few close people to me dying early. Like Mhmm. Seeing that and going, fuck. Yeah. It is time. It is like, if I have a heart attack tomorrow and my kids are like, can we have ice cream? I'm like, no.

You gotta huddle, you little cunts. Like, you're not fucking having ice cream. You can have a cup of water. You know, that sort of snapped me out of like, come on, mate. You gotta you gotta live the life. But, you know, I understand completely your thought. And like you said, it's not wrong

because when you're looking at it, you're going, well, I spend one pound 50 now. If it's going where I think it's going, that's gonna be a 100 pounds. And so by delaying this one pound 50 now, I'm gonna have another 100 pounds. And you just think about that with everything. Oh, the steak dinner.

Well, that... You know, that's gonna be 60 pounds. Right. Well, for for Americans, like, it's kind of like dollars, but a bit more valuable pounds. You know, you're thinking, okay. That's 60. Well, you know, that's gonna be, like, a thousand.

And so you do you do calculate everything in... That you're living in ten years from now, and it's not wrong, but it is wrong. It's a weird Well, in that game that game never ends. Right? Because, like, when we bought it at $30,

right, I had... I was living in, like, a house share. You know? I was still in my early twenties in a house share with a few lads and and, you know, got all them into Bitcoin,

and stuff, you know, nice and early. But what you notice is, like, you know, at $30, you're like, oh, man. It could hit a thousand. Right? And then it hits a thousand. They are. It could hit 10,000, and then it hits 10,000. So that game never ever ends. Like, you will always be trapped

in that, yeah, but it's gonna be worth 10 x. Yeah, but... So Yeah. You know, at at what point? I mean, maybe you're gonna end up with a really fucking nice Zimmer frame. Right? Like, what...

What's the fucking plan here, lads? Like, what what would... What are we doing? But, I mean, let me let me tell you a bit about then how... Man. It's so it's so ridiculous. I can't even believe this is this this is the experience we had. But so we'd huddled this corn for for ten years, right, doing all this delayed gratification stuff.

And then, yeah, it was funny because me and my dad decided, right, we're gonna go and celebrate with a sort of father son trip of a lifetime to El Salvador. Right? Mhmm. To sort of celebrate this... Like, it's funny because we'd start... Started to think maybe we should spend some. So we thought, fuck it. We even went, man.

We even went first class. Can you believe that? Like, I'd never been on a first class plane in my life. This was, like, a holiday of a lifetime. So we go to, the adopting Bitcoin conference. You know, we fought about on Bitcoin Beach and and all that sort of stuff, and we have a nice time.

Then on the last night of the conference, right, we rushed back to our little Airbnb in El Salvador, and we we start working on our little project, which funnily enough is the lottery. Right? Because we've been fiddling with that thing for a while Mhmm. Trying to get it together. And Just the provable fairness, like

so that you can prove how it's drawn, basically. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. And and so we wanted to fit... Like, because we'd seen all these cool people, you know, speaking on stage and building their own projects out, you know, we were a bit fired up. So we we went back to our... And and we don't always get that much time together.

So we we rushed back to the Airbnb, and we're like, right. You know, let's go. Let's get stuck into this lottery and keep building it and finish this thing. And it was in that moment in El Salvador in this Airbnb just after the conference, and I've... Man, I'll never forget it. You know, my dad opens the laptop.

I'm making a sandwich or something, and he just goes, fuck. But I'm like, yo. You know, what... What's up? I thought he stubbed his toe or spilled his drink or some... You know, something innocuous.

And then he just said, yeah. I think I think I've been hacked. The Bitcoin's gone. And it was, oh, man. It...

Like, your brain almost blocks out. The things I remember is just, like, a surge of adrenaline like like nothing I've ever felt before. Right? Like, I've played a fair bit of sport and stuff in my life and, you know, had those sort of intense moments and and stuff, but but nothing like this.

I I I think I would have broken every personal best on every weight machine. You... Like, it's it's visceral. Like, your your body's shaking just searching. Whole fight or flight thing. Like, you're ready to...

It's weird because you feel this huge need to do something, but there's nothing you can do.

And then what happened was the bargaining. Right? The bargaining phase, which we went through these phases pretty fast. Right? The next stage was bargaining. So my dad was like, oh, hang on. I've just changed to this new laptop, right, and migrated everything and all this sort of stuff.

And he thought, well, maybe there's some fuck up here that I've I've not figured out. You know? Like, who knows what it was? But he starts tinkering around. And then I have this idea and said, do you know what? Send me send me the latest transaction IDs or whatever.

Threw them into... I think it was mempool.space. Mhmm. And then see... Saw, you know, all the coin joins and just all this... All these shitloads of transactions flying around the place. Mhmm.

And it's in that moment you absolutely know. Like, oh, no. Like, this is this is genuine. It's... And, man, yeah, wow. It was insane because, like, I mean, the funny thing was I was about six weeks away from getting married as well. So Oh, fucking hell. Yeah, man. That was, that was an interesting phone call home. Like, hi, honey.

So you know We're poor now. Broke now. So, yeah, that was, that was intense. And Well, share what you're missus. She's obviously a real one. That's a very good test. Oh, man. Do you know what? She is such a legend. One of the nicest bits of the story is, so I was living in Scotland at the time, but I was flying back into Manchester.

And I wasn't... I thought I still have this lonely drive on my own back up to Scotland or whatever. But she actually showed up, like, two hours later when I got back to the place in Manchester and and Mhmm. Showed up at the door, and it was just the loveliest thing ever.

Yeah. She's she's absolute magic. And, you know, and and since then, you know, I've got a little girl now. We've had kids and stuff like that. So... Oh, man. Listen. It's funny. Like, well, for any of the listeners that that maybe have suffered recently, I mean, man, I I know exactly how you feel or

and all that stuff. And, again, it's cliche, but what I can say is is it does get better. Mhmm. It it really does get better, and you will... You know, I lost everything, like, absolutely on my ass, like, basically. And and, you know, a few difficult things come with that. Like, you know, you feel like a loser.

You feel like you've let your family down. You feel like you've let lots of people down in yourself, and especially mine was so public. All all of that stuff is very, very hard to deal with.

But it it does kinda leave you in this place where it's like you've got two options now. Option one, you roll over and die and and, you know, let it consume you and take you into some, you know, dark, horrible abyss.

Mhmm. Or you get up and you just keep swinging. And and I think when you boil it down to those two options, you realize you really actually only have one choice. I mean, you know, for me, it was realizing that, well, if I if I go down this dark road, right, of of really, you know, letting it,

you know, destroy my soul and all that stuff, then Mhmm. I'm gonna take a lot of people with me. Right? I'm gonna take my wife with me down this black hole. You know, my dad, for example. Right? Like, imagine imagine if I ended up in some miserable state because of this.

You know, what's that gonna do to my dad? Right? And and those things Yeah. Yeah. Fuck the money, man. Like, at at a certain point, those things are just so much more important to me, and it was like, alright. You know, this is gonna be very, very difficult, but giving up is never an option.

So that was it. And and and the crazy thing was... I mean, you know, I feel very silly for it now, but when we when we found out we'd been hacked, it was actually a good... Like, we were hacked, like, a good three months or two and a half months before we even realized we'd been hacked, you know, because this was some cold storage thing.

And and we didn't mess with it much. And and the only reason we were moving some funds around was to test and play with this lottery thing we've built. And,

yeah, that that was that was sort of all she all she wrote. And, yeah, it went viral, so it certainly got a lot of followers on x, which I never asked for. But I think also people just appreciated the the honesty and the fact that we could hold our hands up, call ourselves retards.

I mean, I I I I made a load of memes about myself. I had a little competition where I asked people. Like, I said, I would send you a thousand sats for the best meme that takes the piss out of me. And some of them some of them were so fucking funny, man, about about, like, storing your seed in the cloud like a total idiot and all this.

And I've I've always had a half decent sense of humor, and and and I don't mind sort of laughing at myself and making myself feel stupid. But that was that was one of the best decisions I made actually was sharing it publicly because it helped me get over it almost, I would say, instantly is is not true, but a lot quicker. Right? Because

once it's out there, you have to accept it, and you have to just own it and just say, okay. You know? What do we do next? And I think if I had just kept it quiet and kept it to myself, there was probably an increased risk that I would sit, you know, in a dark room while everyone else on Twitter is celebrating

about the price pumping, and and that could be excruciating. It's quite a good group to share it with because it's a brutal group. Yeah. I'm sure the memes are pretty brutal and and everything like that, but there's also a lot of kindness.

And often, it's like the hidden kindness. Like, people are complete assholes on Twitter and Mhmm. Pretty aggressive, pretty, like, confrontational. But, actually, they're real sweethearts.

From my understanding, this is where, like, Samurai enters the picture. You've lost everything. You are in a pretty dark place. You open up, tell everyone on Twitter. Were you already speaking?

Did you already know each other? Strangers. We we didn't know each other at all. You know, I was I was aware of them, of course, and and followed them and all that sort of stuff. But the post I put up way back then, I think it did, like, over a million views. So I think it...

You know, everyone in the the community had seen it or was aware of it. Yeah. And like you say, it was funny. We... I got accused of all sorts. Like, some guys said, oh, man. This guy is just a really good scammer. Right? He's made up this whole story, and and the the element with his dad is to pull on the heartstrings.

And I'm thinking, fuck now. You give me far too much credit. Like, I would be the greatest actor in the world if I if I could pull that off. I'll be honest with you. When I heard the story, I was, driving trucks up and down The UK.

And so I listened to podcasts nonstop and books, like, twelve hours a day. And so I was, like, really plugged into the whole thing. And I heard the story, and I'll be honest, that was my first that was my first thought. I went scammer.

Fucking scammer. Well, I mean, I get it. The the the story is so ridiculous. Like, I I mean, you know, like, what the fuck? I was in El Salvador when I found out. I mean, this this story actually gets even funnier than that. Like, we we then moved into another another little house that we were renting there,

and we got, like, an ant invasion came in the house. And then God. Man, one night, we're sitting there watching some movies trying to console ourselves, and a fucking scorpion scuttles across the board. I looked at my dad. I was like, I don't know what the fuck is going on here, but I don't know if they're now alive.

Alive. Yeah. Like, it it was like a Netflix special. It was bizarre. Yeah. But amidst all this chaos, oh, before I get to Samurai, the the the worst thing about the trip or maybe the funniest thing about the trip was because we booked these first class flights.

Imagine me, right, flying back home from El Salvador, lost all my money, and I'm sitting there in this lovely comfy chair, and and the air hostess passes me a glass of champagne. Like, man, even I had to burst out laughing at how ridiculous that was.

At least you have a sense of humor. Oh, man. If... Hey. Listen. If you're gonna be in Bitcoin, you need one. Yeah. So... But, anyway, yeah, skip forward to to Samurai. You know, those guys... I I think it might have been...

Oh, man. His name... His Twitter handle escapes me. Who's the guy they always used to do research with? Ergo. Ergo BTC, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I think it was him who was who was messaging me through the the the main Samurai account, I think, if I remember correctly.

Mhmm. And because I posted all the transaction IDs and all that sort of stuff, they they had taken the time with no prompting or or requesting from me to just go and have a look, you know, what was going on. And, yeah, they sent me loads of transaction graphs and explanations of what was going on and all that sort of stuff, which was

immensely helpful. You know? I mean, first of all, me and my dad, our heads, you know, like shredded lettuce. Right? We can't think straight or do anything useful. And Mhmm. Also nowhere near as as talented as these guys in terms of, you know, chain analysis and all that sort of stuff.

So they dumped they dumped these files on us, which were, you know, unexpected but extremely helpful. Unfortunately, it didn't result in any any funds being recovered. I think, most of our funds were coin joined through Wasabi.

Some was flipped into Monero, all sorts. So, anyway, you know, it was scattered to the wind and gone. But, you know, we had to go through this, like, process with law enforcement where they were trying to figure out what was going on and being able to just, like, give them this sort of dossier

that we'd had from the samurai devs. I can't tell you how much, You know, your your head is in just a total mess. So to have... Be able to, like, answer questions, provide documents, and feel like...

I mean, at the moment, you know, you're thinking, well, maybe we have half a chance here to, like, hunt this down or whatever. Yeah. Because we'd have been lost on our own, and and we were feeling quite lonely about it all. Right? Like, you know, it's Bitcoin. There's no CEO. There's no customer support. So those guys essentially ask...

Acting a bit like customer support was was just amazing for us. Yeah. And and, you know, they didn't need to do that. And and and I can I can give you another example as well, actually? Because ever since I got hacked and and that whole story became public, I I kinda became, like, the patron saint of hacked clubs.

I can't tell you how many people get in touch with me when something bad has happened to them to, you know, share their story or ask for some advice or some support and and stuff like that. And, man, the numbers are pretty crazy, to be honest with you. Like, even... I won't mention any names, but there's there's people who are,

you know, well known, well respected, more more technically capable than I am who, you know, unfortunately, have been in touch with me since, saying they've, you know, they've been wiped out and stuff like this, which is scary.

Yeah. One of those people, interestingly, is a guy... I don't know if you'll you'll know him, a guy on on X who goes by Bitcoin cookie. I I only know things by images. So if I saw the... Do you know what mean? Like, it's just how my brain works. So if I saw

an image of his Twitter, I'd probably know it, but the the name doesn't ring a bell. Again, really, really lovely bloke. Right? Really lovely bloke. And he's actually... He's building a Bitcoin game.

Right? And it's like a... I'm not so clued up on these things, but, you know, like, these card battlers. Like, people always say magic the gathering. I've I've never played it. It's that kinda Yeah. Style game, but it's all online.

And he was building this game out, and it's pretty cool. Like, he's a games engineer and stuff like that. Shout out to Cookie. He's a lovely bloke as well. Anyway, what happened to him was quite tragic because he's building this game in public. You know? He's getting some popularity and stuff.

And then someone reaches out to him and says, hey. I'd love to get you on a podcast to talk about your game. Right? And you can probably tell where this is going, but it was a it was, you know, a fake podcaster.

Sent him a link. He downloaded some some software. It didn't work. You know? I'll follow these instructions. At some point, you know, ended up downloading some sort of dodgy file to his computer,

and and he got wiped out as well. Fucking hell. So, randomly, I just saw his tweet probably three minutes after he posted it, and it wasn't even a a main tweet. He was replying to someone else's tweet. And I saw it, and I was like, shit. Has he has he been hacked? So I messaged him, and it turns out he has.

And, obviously, he's in in all sorts of issues and stuff like that. And I wasn't sure how to help him, but then I suddenly tweaked. I was like, oh, do you know what? I'd I'd I'd been messaging Keoni.

This story is jumping around a bit, but, basically, Keoni had gone This is what a confab is. This is Okay. It's not a scripted pod that has a perfect flow. It's just like we we take it where it needs to go.

Well... So so I had, at this point, direct contact with Keoni, and the reason was, I think this was before his, hearing.

He had asked people like myself to write, like, a character statement or a... I don't know what they call it. You know, some sort of a letter talking about his his character and stuff. And and so they asked me to write a letter

describing how they'd helped me and supported me and my views on it and this sort of thing and and how KYC had hurt me and why their software was so important. And so, you know, obviously, I was more than willing to do that.

So it meant I had, Keoni. You know, I had a way of getting in touch with him. And this is before he's been sent to jail or anything.

And I'm also conscious that Cookie had only just been drained. Right? And based on my experience, you know, time is of the essence. If we can follow this money and we can see it get deposited at a major exchange, and if we get law enforcement involved quickly enough, there's half a chance

that we could get the front... Funds frozen on these exchanges and return to you. So, you know, I was like, man, it's like midnight. I'm running around the house. My wife's like, what is going on? Was like, someone's been hacked, but we can maybe we can maybe do something.

So I'm running around trying to get in touch with my contacts that I had at the police and stuff like this and doing everything I could. I thought, how are we gonna track these funds? And I knew Keone was obviously completely in the thick of it with with all the shit he was dealing with.

Yeah. So I didn't message him for his help, but I did message him to say, hey, man. Like, could you recommend anyone, or do you know anyone that could help us? Right? Mhmm. And I didn't... He didn't even... He... The only response I got came sixteen minutes later.

And, again, it was a full dossier of all... Of Cookie's stolen funds being tracked across the blockchain. He let us know some funds had made it to Binance and this and that and the other.

And, man, I mean, if that doesn't strike you as an insane level of sort of selflessness and and show you really what this man is really like, I mean, he's he's facing a court case. You know, he's millions of dollars in debt. He's getting absolutely shafted by the state.

But, you know, a Bitcoiner that he's never met, never even heard of, you know, through through one hop from me. And he doesn't even ask any questions. He just gets straight down to business,

goes and searches out the transactions, and and tries to help Cookie out. Yeah. So I think it's important to share stories like that. Like, he was a genuine,

a real person, and a real part of the community. And and for me, based on his actions, someone that is, yeah, like, a a fundamentally a good a good person that that doesn't deserve what's happened to him. Yeah. I had the the pleasure of spending some time with him over the years, and

one of the kindest, most genuine, funny as well, extremely funny, good people. And and that was what was always so funny over the years is, like, people are, ah, samurai is so mean and that, you know, like, mean red team and, like, all this stuff. And it's, like,

couldn't be further from the truth. Like, what... One of the one of the kindest, nicest people. And I think something to point out with them as well is, like, I didn't need to make the software they're making. I didn't need to do all of that. Like, it'd be very easy to just be like, do you know what? Let's just live our lives and

just, like, be comfy and, like, just go and do something else. Very smart guys, very talented, could have turned their hand to anything. It's not that they didn't have some Bitcoin and, like, genuinely cared about what they were doing. Like, genuinely cared about building the best privacy software in Bitcoin,

and and that's why they were there. So, yeah, I'd like... I genuinely can't say a bad word about them. I really can't. It's a rare thing these days as well. I mean, you know, I I I know you've been around a while as well, so so you probably feel the same, but, like, we've lost a bit of that edge now. I mean Mhmm. You know, I do I do.

You you do feel a bit like... You know, one of those kids who discovered a cool band first. Yeah. And then you sit there whinging. That. Yeah. It's like, oh, I knew about this before it was cool. Right? And all this. But Yeah.

But some of it's some of it's valid. Right? Like, when I scroll my timeline now, you know, everybody, everybody and their dog was shilling cold card. Right? And, man, within two weeks pay the most money. That's why. Well, that's it. And within two weeks, everybody's shilling BitKey.

Mhmm. And at a certain point, you're like, guys, I know that most of you haven't used these products or tested them or know anything about them.

And there's... For me, there's a a lack of integrity that's kind of, you know, wheedled its way into Bitcoin a little bit, and and it's hard to know who to trust. And, yeah, like like I was saying, like, the last slide of my my my talk said, like, man, can we make Bitcoin based again? Like, you know, I really...

Like, I I used to enjoy it here a lot more. When it felt like we were after after freedom. But I suppose

maybe what what I've realized now is actually only a very small percentage of the population is actually interested in freedom. And I think that's also true of the Bitcoin community, I'm if I'm really honest about it. It's only a very small enclave of us that really, really wanna separate ourselves from the state.

And maybe maybe it's always been that way. Maybe maybe most of human populations prefer to not be free because it it comes with a lot of responsibility. And, you know, hey, man. Listen. It's funny. Right? Because sometimes I I do look at normies, and I do think, man,

are they enjoying life more than me? Like, maybe I should've maybe I should've caught the game last night. It it might have been it might have been fun. Right? Like, I could've had a couple beers, watched some football, and shouted at the telly and not dealt with this existential

dread of, you you know, flock cameras and Epstein files and, you know, the constant... They say ignorance is bliss. Right? And and, obviously, I'm not advocating for for that necessarily.

But, yeah, you gotta you gotta balance all this stuff with a bit of real life, I suppose. Yeah. I get your you get your point. And I think a lot of these people are not necessarily happier. Just their problems and the things they think about are more basic.

They still find things to worry about and whinge about, but just those problems are, like, much more... You know, like, oh, my football team didn't get into the fucking... This league and that player's injured and... Like, shut the fuck up. Don't know. Like, then why do you care about that?

But to them, that is, like, important that they are all, like, sad, like, having a little sad point to them. You know? Just like, oh, wow. Yeah. And then we're here sat like, oh, good men are in prison for creating the best software to keep people safe. Like, what sort of fucked up world are you living in where

people who should be celebrated for being brave and smart and good at what they do, extremely competent at what they do, are sat in a cage, while people who put them in the cage are a bunch of sick, pedophilic, disgusting, thieving cunts.

And when you look at it that way, like, it's hard not to get angry. It's hard not to be Yeah. Fired up by it. It's hard not to be like, I wanna fucking go to war with these people. But at the same time, you can't fully go to war with them because they're not fighting on an eve... Even playing field. It's like

you... You're sort of... You're fighting with shadows because, you know, they can change the rules underneath you. They have unbelievable reach. They... Because they can print money, they just have endless funding.

You never really know who you're fighting. A lot of it's puppetry and all that kind of stuff. And so I think there is a line of, like, don't be completely, oh, I give up, and I'm just gonna, like, watch the game and, you know, whatever, and just NGU so I can get a Lambo and whatever.

Like, probably don't be that. But, also, if you allow it to consume you to a point where you're so paranoid that you're sat in a basement somewhere with no connectivity to the Internet or the outside world because you're worried that you can get hacked or you're worried that you can get attacked and

you hate everything and everyone, and you just chase all of these different conspiracy theories. I'm not saying they're not right, but, like, you get to a point where you actually lost because your life has been destroyed. Like, you're not you're not actually living in a way where you're being the best version of yourself,

and then they've won. So there is a really fine, like, balancing act here. Wow. Absolutely. You know? I I mean, I I leaned in a little bit to, like, stoicism after the hack and stuff and and tried to take some

good advice from that. And I I I can't remember who it was. Maybe it was, like, Marcus Aurelius or something, you know, talking about there's absolutely no point worrying about something you have zero control over. Like, you will just drive yourself

completely insane. And I think I think there is a risk with this whole black pill stuff that, like, you know, misery loves company.

Right? So if you become really miserable around this stuff, you you you can surround yourself with other miserable people talking about the same stuff, and it it can become like a dark hole that's hard to get out of. So Yeah. I think the right advice is to do something in the middle. Right?

Like, you know, be aware of of of all these crazy challenges and the very real problems the world has, but also have the ability to sometimes say, god. You know what? Fuck it. Like, yeah, I'll come down to the the pub

and watch the football and drink five beers. And, alright, I don't really give a shit who wins like some of the people around the table, but we can all tell silly jokes and have a laugh and, you know, just, you know, enjoy yourself for a couple of hours, you know, because...

I mean, sometimes I do wonder as well, like, you know, the the... Is the world getting worse as... Or has it always been like this? You know, like, you know, in the time of kings and queens and and, you know, feudal lords and all that sort of stuff, there was always a a sort of...

I I I don't think, like, we've gone from this completely free world into a very unfree world. I think it's just... It... The the the processes and methods of control have changed. And I suppose, you know, arguably got more pernicious and and and more effective.

But, yeah, yeah, it's a difficult line to tread. It's not easy being a Bitcoiner. No one tells you that. The the methods to monitor its subjects is much more powerful, I think, is the thing. Like Mhmm. You know, you you could see a police officer walking down the street and, like, you'd know, okay. Well, you know,

I can see this coming. But now with the tech and the cameras and the rules and the laws and that you've gotta sign in with this verification and click this box. And where's the funds from? And, like, doing anything.

Like, you can go and buy a car in cash, and now it's like, oh, we're not over this amount. And this... It's just like everything is much tighter. Like, the net is tighter, and there's more

points where you can be caught out and they can try and control you and everything else. I don't think the actual world is necessarily worse. I just think it's, like, it's harder to bob and weave.

Like, if... You know, in the eighties, seventies, eighties, like, if you wanted to live relatively freely and you weren't a retard and you could bob and weave a little bit, you can pretty much sort of fucking get away with being left alone.

Mhmm. Whereas now it is a very different thing, and it... It's a much more technically difficult thing. But then there are tools, and this is, you know, where if you can use the tools properly and you can take advantage of the information that's freely out there, you can live a life where you have this jurisdictional arbitrage. Arbitrage.

You have a a less attackable, less concentrated surface for them to to get at you. I think it's like the game is just more complex. But if you can learn to play it, maybe you could be even freer than you would have been in the eighties.

Possibly. And, hey, the game can be fun. Right? So, like, it's all very scary and depressing when you talk about, like, oh, how do you defend yourself from, like, wrench attacks and all this sort of stuff? But, like, you can make it fun. Like, guns are really, really fun. Right?

So, you know, I'm not depressed and morose about all the risk when I'm, you know, firing off handguns and stuff because I'm I'm actually genuinely enjoying myself. So I guess Mhmm.

I'm just trying to encourage people, I guess, to, like... You know, the black pill's real. Like, all... Most of this stuff that you hear about is real. It's a real serious problem.

But try and enjoy the journey because that... That's one of the biggest mistakes that I made above and beyond losing the Bitcoin was also almost like losing my sense humor a little bit. And Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And becoming someone I didn't wanna be. You know? Like, life's short. You gotta you gotta enjoy it as much as you can.

And and that's the advice I give to people who were hacked as well. It's like, you know what? Going on a long walk for me is is lovely, and it's free. So don't forget, it is just a number on a screen at the end of the day, and and it's your clock that's ticking down to zero.

Yeah. Oh, yeah. A 100%. And when we talk about time being the most precious thing, I think that's the bit that gets me more than anything with our friends being put into cages Yeah. Is taking someone's time in probably really, like, the most important time of their lives is really what's criminal here.

And apart from the the point that it's like they've done fucking nothing wrong. I'm not gonna get into the the whole case because we've covered it ad nauseam on the show. Your talk, which is gonna be in the show notes, people go into that. That that covers it really nicely. I think

one bit that really stood out to me was, like, the other line in there. The first time the US government ever spoke to was through the scope of a rifle. It just makes so clear that this is not about justice, and they're not turning up there because he's dangerous.

It is a message being sent. And the message is, listen, you cunts. Don't think you can have freedom just because you've come up with this clever technology that sidesteps some of the bullshit that we're trying to do and impose on you.

If any of you get out of line, we'll do this to you. It doesn't matter how illogical it is, how provably illogical it all is. We will just drown you and your lawyers in data. Mhmm. If anything needs changing

for laws or we need to get in a different judge or we need to change this, we need to change that, we need to lie about this, we need to lie about that. We've encroached on your rights. Yeah. It's fine. We will put you in a fucking cage. Right or wrong. So don't do it again. Yeah.

We're gonna take your life from you. And while you're in there, if anyone who's been reading what Keanu's been writing, he's not having a very fucking nice time in there. And it... It's not just taking your time, but it's it's making the time that you would have otherwise had with with your family really pretty shitty.

That's the real criminal part of this. And, you know, taking us back to the lottery and back to why this is all important, that's it right there. Privacy matters. Freedom matters. Time matters.

All of those things are being taken from good people. That's why you need to stand up. That's why you need to... If you actually care about anything, that's why you need to try and support these guys.

And so you did this by using this lottery. Raised, was it, like, 10... Was it 10,000,000 sats? What did it get to in the end? Hang on. Let me let me quickly check. We got to we got to over point one in the total prize pot.

So hang on a minute. Yeah. Yeah. It was over 10,000,000 sats in in total. 10,260,000, which... Man, I mean, yeah, like, I was I was pretty blown away by that. You know? I was kinda hoping for...

To be honest, man, I don't know what I was hoping for. It's really hard to predict. Yeah. Yeah. Like, how these things will go. You know, it's not the first one that we've done. We we ran a pilot in, Bulgaria ages ago,

and we didn't we didn't promote that online or anything because it was pretty new software, and I didn't fancy, like, sticking that out in the public and having some, you know, severe bug or something.

And I think we raised a couple $100 for a local economy initiative there that was trying to onboard local businesses, and and that was a a good bit of fun.

I I love going on these trips with my dad as well to go and do these stupid things. Like, that... That's the real joy for me is, like, building stuff and and playing with my dad and and going on adventures is really fun.

And then, actually, I I met up... I met Q for the first time at at Bitfest in Manchester, I think, last November. And we did a... We did another lottery there, and we raised money for the free speech union

in The UK because, well, as as you all know, I think they've arrested, what, 60 odd thousand people for things they've said online in The UK. Like, it's it's totally out of control. Yeah.

And that lottery was really fun, because I actually gave away my car in that lottery. So... Yeah. Yeah. Now before anyone gets too excited, right, like, I'll I'll I'll send you the video at some point. You might wanna put it in the show notes because it was it was pretty funny video.

It's a lamp away. Touch. Well, yeah, my my my car at the time was a 2010 Ford Fiesta. It had about 150,000 miles on the clock. You know, the wing mirror is held on with duct tape. It's got no hub... I mean, it's an amazing... It's an absolute bucket of a car. Brilliant. But

we realized, hang on. You can give away physical prizes in this lottery if the winner is willing to to sign...

You know, prove that they owned the winning Bitcoin address by signing a message. And and funnily enough, someone did, so they actually claimed the car. So that Q's been driving around in it ever since?

Yeah. It's still driving around in The UK. Thank... Well, the deal was I would deliver it to anyone who won it. So I was Right. Part of me was hoping some guy in the South Of Italy would win it. Right? And I I could go on go on some road trip.

But it stayed it stayed in The UK. We called it the Plebmobile. Right? Because this thing was it's brilliant OPSEC. Like, if you're driving that around, everyone knows you've already been hacked.

You know? And it's all hydrocarbons, no telematics, no tracking. It it really is. I mean, I I go as far as to say, like, that car is is no longer a car. It's actually artwork. Right? Yeah. This is the first car ever given away in a in a Bitcoin lottery. So that that one belongs to me and my dad, which is which is nice.

And then... Yeah. The... But but, really, like, all I've been thinking about for two years is trying to do something for for samurai,

just to repay their kindness. Right? Mhmm. And so having done a couple of them, we thought, sod it. Right? We'll try and do our biggest one. We'll try and make some cool videos to promote the the lottery and try and push it a bit more on social media and stuff.

Yeah. And I think... I don't know. Raise... I mean, the price moves around all all the time. Right? But I think it raised in the region of 4 to $5 for the samurai devs. And the funny thing is there's some Bitcoiner out there that woke up, the day that we we closed the drawer

and just thought, shit. Someone just sent me, like, 4 grand's worth of Yeah. Of Bitcoin. That's that's a good day. Right? Yeah. Amazing. It's amazing. It's it's a really fun way of, like, raising awareness, raising some funds for them.

And, obviously, then, you know, someone's won as well. So, you know, getting tight fisted Bitcoiners to reach into their pockets is hard, but this is like a way of gamifying that. And, yeah, I mean, clearly clearly, it worked.

Yeah. It would... Man, it was a it was a real joy. And, you know, thanks to to you guys and a few others. You invited me into that that group that that you've got, and, you know, there's a lot of supportive people in there. And, you know, I think I think

what's refreshing to me is it was a nice reminder that there are still a lot of us out there that actually, you know, really care about this stuff and are are really committed to to to it. So, you know, we love that.

And, I mean, maybe it's a bit soppy, but, like, there was one part of me as well that thought, I don't know if this story gets back to Keoni, right, while... And and Bill while they're in jail.

Mhmm. But I tell you what, if I... You know, because I'm I'm reading those letters from the inside, and they're genuinely heartbreaking. Right? Really hard to read. And, I mean, he's a fabulous writer, but but, you know, awful subject, obviously.

But, you know, there's part of me that just hopes that, I don't know, when when Lauren goes to visit him or something, she goes, oh, by the way, like a bunch of these idiots on the Internet, they they held a a provably fair lottery for you, and they managed to raise, you know, a a a nontrivial

amount of money. And, you know, obviously, compared to the amount of money and debt they're in through this, you know, five grands of rounding error, it doesn't really touch the touch the sides. But, you know, maybe that's enough to to...

If it were me and I were in his shoes, I think I would love to hear that, like, people are still out there. They still care.

You know, people are thinking about us, and, you know, they're willing to put a bit of work into to, you know, maybe that just gives him a a little bit of strength that makes the next week, you know, not feel as rough. I I I don't know. But Yeah. Yeah. I really hope that that

just us supporting them even if... You know, maybe we'll never get a pardon. But if we can chip away at that debt and we can also remind them that we're eagerly awaiting their return and we still care about them and there are people out there that sympathize with them,

hopefully, that makes everything a little easier. You know? For sure. Yeah. I mean, you know, the pardon would be amazing. I don't know how likely it is. There was some hope at the beginning, but it seems to have just been brushed away. Like, we can only hope.

But like you say, if if he sat in there and can hear these types of stories, it might make things just slightly easier. It seems like he's dealing with things very well. It's hard to read through these. We, you know, we have people read them, and then we post them on the show in audio form, all of them. And then anyone who boosts

any of the shows a 100% goes to support them. So it's just, again, a a way to to raise some funds, although it's not a lot. It's just like an attempt. But what I've enjoyed, even though it's painful to read, is he does deal with these things with some humor.

Yeah. There was one, the skin walker one, which was maybe... Was that the one before the most recent? Mhmm. That one made me laugh and made me happy to some extent because I was listening through, and there was a part where he's talking about, like, his job is to clean the toilets.

And he was, you know, saying, like, you know, obviously a disgusting job. Like, all these people fucking animals, how they, how they treat the bathrooms and not something that he would wanna be doing, but he was taking pride in doing it. And he'd created a system to do it in the most efficient, most effective way.

And that's typically him. Like, okay. I'm in a shit situation, but I'm gonna do this better than any other person could do it. I'm gonna do it the best way, the most logical way even though there's this weird fucking skin walker guy who's coming in and, like, making a mess and all the other stuff. Like, I think he's gonna get through

just fine and come out the other side. But, yeah, it's... I'm glad he's writing. I'm glad that there's still that communication. It'd be great to hear from Bill as well, but I think it's just it's just gonna be Keo and A. Mhmm.

I mean, yeah, you know, you've gotta respect it, haven't you? You know, we talk a lot about honey badgers and all that, but,

you know, he really is one. Right? And and, you know, maybe maybe some of the people who've lost funds this year and stuff can take a little bit of inspiration from it. You know? Like, look at look at what Keoni's lost, and he's still able to face life

with a sense of humor. And, you know, I'm sure he's not smiling that much in... Inside, but you can tell it's not. He's not allowed it to diminish who he is, and and he hasn't lost his sense of humor.

And and I'm I'm as confident as you he'll he'll come out the other side of this. So, you know, I think anybody can take some some some inspiration from that and say, well, look. You know, things could always be be a lot worse.

But... Yeah. Yeah. Fingers crossed. I mean, you know, the thing the thing that bugs me honestly about the whole thing is, like, how the hell have we only got 17,000 signatures on the, petition? I think for me personally, that's that's a bit of a joke.

That's extremely niche. That's why. Yeah. But, you know, Ross Ulbricht, we got to 600,000 signatures. Not niche, though. It's... That's not niche. The reason this is so difficult is it's so hard to explain.

Mhmm. And I tested this theory. So, like, the Ross Ulbrich one is, like, you you can, without going into any technicals, be like, young guy seems like to be pretty decent. He shouldn't spend the rest of his life locked in the cage for a nonviolent crime. Like, it's a rel... It's not easy to explain, but it's, like easier.

With the Samurai case, because it's labeled as money laundering, and it's Bitcoin, it's instantly, like, obviously bad. And I tested this. So one of my family members is, like, the most normie, perfectly normie normie who has the most normie takes on everything.

Like through COVID. They guarantee you the most normal response. And I tried to have a conversation with them about the samurai case to say, like, look. What do you think about this? No matter what argument I gave and no matter how clear I was with everything, the technical part of, like, they don't hold funds

and that they're not in control and they don't take ownership of funds, blah blah blah, just could not penetrate their skull. Mhmm. They could not get it. To them, they're money launderers, and they're bad and prison.

And I think that for most people, they won't even hear about the case anyway because... Let's be honest. Like, no one really cares about Bitcoin, like, in the general public. And if they do, they only care about price.

This sort of stuff is too technical and too obscure and too niche for anyone normal to look at it or care about it. And it's really unfortunate, but I think that's the truth of it. And I think the only way that we get more support is probably the more emotional

side, the pulling on the heartstrings side. Yeah. Your video that you made was fucking excellent. I think a video like that to a normal person does a lot more than

talking on a podcast for the next twenty years about it or trying to explain to people in the kitchen who just can't get it through their skulls. Like, it doesn't it doesn't do anything. It doesn't hit them, but the emotional pull is a much more likely thing. And and that's something that you can easily explain.

Men build software. Don't hurt anyone. Don't have control over it. Guns pointed at their chest in the middle of the night, dragged out of their homes, that's the first contact, scares the life out of them and their wife, and then gets locked in a cage. Like, that is a much easier way to grab attention.

And... Yeah. I mean, I I I mean, that you can probably tell, but, you know, with me and a couple of mates, like, we we spent a fair amount on tokens producing that video. God. It was it was amazing.

Oh, it was so much fun. You know? Like, honestly, we loved it. I mean, so I'm I'm a marketeer by trade. Right? My my whole job is storytelling, basically. That... That's what marketing boils down to. Yeah. One of my favorite sayings is, you know, people don't remember what you say.

They remember how you made them feel. Mhmm. And I and I think that's a pretty universal truth. Like, I I try and bring that into any marketing sort of work that I do. And it was realizing, like, you know, you have to you have to get people to empathize. You have to get them to imagine themselves

with, you know, armored trucks and drones and 40 police officers and tactical gear outside of their house. Fucking terrifying. You know, obviously, the the the logical arguments is not... You know? And and this is true in marketing as well is, you know, you lead with the feelings. Right? But then you justify with the logic.

Mhmm. And I think a lot of the discourse around the samurai case. Right? Because... And I think Bitcoin is generally just wired this way. Right? They go straight for the inaccuracies and the illogical stuff because, you know, a lot of us are are are more technically minded. Right? So so our brains operate that way.

But I think if you approach it from a more of a marketing lens, which this is this is... I mean, if you boil it down to it, it kind of is a marketing problem if we want to raise more funds and we wanna raise It's 100% a marketing problem. It is not a logical problem because you don't win on logic

against people who don't care about logic. You don't win that game ever. Yeah. So you you lean on the fact that that, you know... Look. You know, if you said to someone, would you donate to help, you know, turn over a legal case that that was, you know,

not right? That... That's not very compelling. Whereas if you paint the picture of a real human being and and the man himself and and what his experience was... And especially, I mean, these AI tools are crazy. Right? Like, I could never...

Very, very difficult to tell that story without using visuals and and tools like that enable it. So... Yeah. I mean, yeah, I'm definitely gonna dive in and and make more sort of videos like that. And then, you know, we had the launch one as well. I don't know if you saw the one where the samurai smashes the the TV in in half.

No. Is that the bit at the end of the talk? Yeah. So that was, like Yeah. The launch video bit. Right? And, again, so also, I'm trying to, like, get people to...

You know, it sounds a bit weird, but, like, have some fun and get a bit pumped up and, like, yeah. You know, fuck the state. Fuck these assholes. Like, fuck paper, Bitcoin, some are all this bollocks. Right? Like, let's go and let's go and save these people. They're they're just like one of us. Mhmm.

So... Yeah. You know? And, I mean, I I tweeted. I'm a bit of a cheeky cheeky chappy. Right? I suppose it comes with the job, but, you know, I tweeted out and I said, oh, wouldn't it be cool if one of these treasury companies would match the donations that we raised?

Like, how... Man, there's so many Bitcoin companies out here. And look, I... Again, I'm not a communist. I don't wanna try and spend anyone else's money. But the amount of money that flows around in this industry, you know, and and gets spent on sponsorship deals and, you know, advertising

and and shilling fucking the next hardware world. I know there's a lot of money swilling around in this industry. Yep. And,

man, we... We're we're struggling to raise even a couple Bitcoin for for for their defense or to to get them from out under this debt. And I just think... I mean, maybe I'm just wired very, very differently to to a lot of people, but fuck me, man. If I was if I was Michael Saylor, that debt would have been cleared already.

Yeah. Well... Yeah. That frustrates me. And and like I say, it's not my... I'm not here to try and spend anyone anyone else's money, but I'm like, man, can we really not raise more than this? Like, I...

I've been quite disappointed with that. It is disappointing, but it... It's a different part of Bitcoin. There is very much different camps and different clubs. And, you know, samurai guys didn't really have a seat at those tables. They were disliked by a lot of people who hold the purse strings. And

there is huge amounts of money that flow through, and it's,

you know, I think it's just that there's just a small amount of people who care, but it doesn't mean that the small amount of people can't make a big difference. And, you know, you said, you know, you made that video with a couple of friends and some AI tools and, like, you know, that is a very powerful

emotional thing to watch, and it can rally people. So it doesn't have to be money that's thrown at this. It can be

attention grabbing the attention of people. And who knows? Like, one of those things goes viral. Someone actually starts to bother looking to the case. Like, one of the bigger platforms looks into the case and a few million people hear about it.

Then you start to get into the territory of, you know, enough signatures to get the attention of Trump, and then maybe it's not out of the realms of possibility. Like, explain properly for two minutes on, like, a Joe Rogan episode or something like that. Millions of people listen to it. And then, like,

I defy anyone to listen to the case and the facts who has any sort of ability to understand what's going on, not to be like, that's fucking retarded. Like Well,

listen. Know, if anyone's listening that runs a Bitcoin company or or anything like that, listen. If you drop $10 towards the Samurai Defense Fund, I'll make you a really fancy video to help promote your company or or whatever it is yourself.

There There we we go. Go. Yeah. You know, like, let's fucking go. Let's put our hands in our... In in the pockets. And listen. If you did this, like, I will... I'll work my ass off to make sure everybody knows you're the most based Bitcoin company. But Mhmm. Come on. Let's see. Who's who's got a decent set of nuts here? Yeah.

And and wants to join the cause. And here... Here's an interesting question for you, Max, actually, the guys at Bitfest are asking, like, oh, you know, any chance you could run another lottery? And I'm I'm... I think that's the tail end of November.

Mhmm. And I was thinking, like, maybe we just run it again. Right? The same Samurai lottery, run it again. My only concern is, like, fuck. Am I just gonna bore people now? You know, like, exhausted? No. I don't think so. I don't think so. I mean, look. At the end of the day, it... It's a lottery.

People can win some money. The odds... I don't know what the odds are. I'm not regular maths, but I'm sure they're better than fucking doing the normal lottery. And,

you know, we'll promote it on this show, and I'm sure other shows will do the same. And even if you don't... You might raise more, but even if you don't raise as much as you did last time, like, any stats that are going their way

are important. And also just the message that it sends is like, we haven't forgotten about you. We'd we'd do what we can. Like, I think that's an important... That's as important as as the sats themselves.

Well, I tell you what. I mean, listen. You know, like, me and my dad, we don't we don't make any money out of this or anything. We just do it for the love of the game. Right? So, I mean, one thing we could do, Max, is, fuck. If you wanna run a monthly one on your show,

you... I... You know, that doesn't bother me. Like, you can... We'll give you the code. You can run... You can... We can run thousands of lotteries concurrently

and all this sort of stuff. We could do... You know, you could do a monthly prize draw on the show and build it up every month. And if we run another one in Bitfest, again, if there's any people running decent companies, like, man, you know, why don't you start the pot at a million sats? Because I I can't afford to keep doing that.

You know? And then it can be the Samurai lottery powered by whomever. Right? I mean, again, it's it's stuff we do in our free time. If I had more time, I would have run around a load of companies and ask them, you know, to chip into the pot or whatever.

But... Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Alright. Sod it. We'll do it. We'll do it again in November then. I think, yeah, I think it's definitely worth doing. And I'm I'm sure it will have the support of the ungovernables.

And, yeah, if there's some way of, like, gamifying something... I mean, every every episode, do 10% goes to free samurai, and we also do 10% to Ashigaru. We do a 100% on any of the the, you know, the readings and things like that. But if there's a way to gamify things,

it's best just to speak to cue because you're like, oh, I'll send you the code. It's like, fucking alright, mate. I have no idea what to do with that, but, you know, we'll do whatever we can to

try and No. Me neither. I think I think my dad and Q need to have that conversation because I I... I'd be just as useful as you. Probably less less so. Your dad and Q and and his mate, Claude, and between them, they'll they'll come up with something for sure.

Alright. Well, we'll we'll talk about that off air as well, and, like, we'll come up with some ideas. We we will help in any way that we can. Before we sign off, I wanted to just get your thoughts again as someone who's gone through this whole process, had the hacks. You said that people reach out to you

who have been hacked, it's more people than you might imagine. What is your current view on the state of self custody? Do you have any hot takes? Do you have any thoughts with everything that's going on? Because it's it's a subject. I mean, the the recent brief that I just did with Q a couple of days ago,

we pretty much just talked about self custody and the the trade offs and the options out there, and we skipped the the... Most of the news because it's just so fucking depressing anyway. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts. You know, you've obviously, something that you probably think about quite a lot.

Yeah. I mean, the the first caveat I'd say is, like, I wouldn't be the guy to come and ask direct advice of. Right? There's people far more knowledgeable and talented than me.

But I... That... So so many thoughts. I mean, number one would be, you know, foot guns are real. Right? So I know after the cold card stuff and and and all of all of these hardware wallet attacks, you know, obviously, everyone's very, bullish on,

multi vendor, multisig. Right? Which, yeah, you know, that could be a great solution for for someone. However, I probably know more people that have screwed themselves over than have been hacked, or screwed over that way. So I think,

you know, you should you should always progress your knowledge, but, like, be careful not to get too over your your own skis. It'd be really easy to make a very complex setup that's extremely secure, but you make it so secure that you get locked out.

So I think... You know? And then and then I'm not a big fan of this dichotomy either that that people are creating between, like, single sig versus multisig, for example. Because one thing I've learned is your your security is probably directly correlated to your knowledge.

Right? So why not go on a bit of a journey? Like, don't pick one solution, learn that, and then stop. That's a mistake. That's very similar actually to what me and my dad did. We came up with our own solution. Wasn't a particularly good one. And then we never upgraded it, never revisited it. So, you know, would it be a crazy idea to

start off somewhere with... Well... And and, again, the amount of money that you're looking after should should very much dictate, I think, or or certainly contribute to your decision making. But let's say you got $10, right, and it's your first $10 worth of Bitcoin.

I'd say the first thing you should probably do is just understand how wallets work. Right? So you get a hot wallet on your phone, and you piss around a little bit, and you send transactions here, there, and everywhere.

You maybe screw up a couple of times. You know, you lose your phone or whatever. Like like, learn learn just like a hot wallet first because it's surprising how many people I know or have encountered that have quite a lot of Bitcoin. But if you ask them to send the transaction or buy a lottery ticket,

they wouldn't know how to do it. And that to me is, like, wild. Right? Like, you know, I've I've heard of people sending Bitcoin into a cold wallet that they've never spent from.

And then my question is always like, do do you know if you can spend for... I mean, that that would be that would be one of the first things to check before you put all your money there. Right?

But I think what I'm saying is, like, why not start off learning, like, mobile wallets? And then, you know, why not get really good at single sig and maybe learn how to roll your own seed phrase, you know, use dice or whatever.

And then maybe you learn about passphrases, and then you get really comfortable with that and, you know, running your own node. You know, definitely learn things like coin control,

you know, and UTXO management. That's really, really important for both your privacy and making sure you don't end up with loads of, you know, unspendable sats. And then, you know, you maybe go and try a couple of different hardware wallets, and maybe you start looking into multi vendor, multisig.

But I think I think my biggest takeaway is... And and everything that's happened should should kinda prove this point is that we're all learning as we go. Even the super technical,

super talented people, they are learning on the job. Right? That is absolutely true. Nobody saw the cold card thing coming. Nobody saw this ledger thing coming.

You know, just keep learning. Keep learning. If you ever stop or if you ever have that thought of, like, oh, I'm absolutely sorted, that should be your wake up call to say, hang on a minute. I'm too comfortable. That that that should be a warning sign.

And, yeah, don't don't be myopic and think about just one solution. There's multiple ways to do this. And the more you learn about every single one, the more you'll understand the trade offs, the more you'll spread your risk in the right ways.

Just keep learning. Keep learning is the best thing you can do because you you can't outsource this stuff. If you outsource it to someone else, you're just introducing counterparty risk,

and all sorts of other risks. Like, I mean, you know, collaborative custody, for example, is one that really kinda gets my goat. And and not because I necessarily think it's the worst option for everyone. You know? But because the way it's sold is they never really talk to you about the the downsides, and there's loads of downsides.

I mean, first of all, you have zero privacy. Right? Second of all, if you hold two keys and they hold one, well... Alright. If you lose a key, you're... All of a sudden, you're in a Mexican standoff situation. And if they say no, they're not gonna cosign your transaction. Well, you're shit out of luck.

They're also... You know, you're opening yourself up to risk from government and state actors, right, who can go and take these companies out and that sort of thing. Yeah. And and I think people... It's funny to me. I meet so many people who will say things like, I use collaborative custody

because then I don't have a single point of failure. Right? Now that's funny to me because in some previous, work that I've done with various companies, I put out a survey asking people about their self custody choices.

And based on the answers you gave, it took you off on various branches. And so one of them was, how do you store your Bitcoin? And if you selected collaborative custody, then, it would ask you follow-up questions. The net quest... Next question was,

okay. If your provider vanishes tomorrow, right, completely goes offline, the app is gone, the website's gone, can't reach anybody, could you recover your Bitcoin? Now, interestingly, only about 50% of people who responded, and and we're talking of thousands of responses.

Yeah. Only 50% said they could. But I still didn't believe that 50% that they could, so I asked another follow-up question, which was, okay. Do you know... Like, so have you secured your config file, right, and all this... The extra details? And Mhmm. Overwhelmingly,

I think one of the question... One of the proposed answers was, what the fuck is that? And I think about 80% of people clicked. What the fuck is that? So what that tells me is you do have a single point of failure. Because if your provider goes offline, you cannot recreate this wallet in a new environment. Mhmm. So,

yeah, I guess there's no silver bullet. A lot of the things being promoted have their own flaws and trade offs. There is no perfect solution. The more you learn about all of them, the better choices you'll make, and the more empowered you'll be. There is no shortcut to to sovereignty.

You have to learn the skills. There is no way around it. Because if you wanna use a collab custody provider, for example, and you wanna be sovereign, well, you better know how to recreate that wallet on your own, which means you didn't manage to get around the learning. And if you've learned how to use multisig and you know how to...

How it all works, then why not just do it yourself and save the fees? Yeah. It's a conversation we could probably have for hours on end, and I'm I'm sure you guys have already. But, yeah, learn as much as you possibly can, and I would I would strongly recommend people to to steer away from working with third parties. So I think

once one of these collab custody providers goes under, and it will happen, a lot of people are gonna get... Find out the hard way, which I think is unfortunate, but to me, it feels inevitable.

Oh, yeah. I agree with the collaborative custody stuff. I think that the the two... And what me and Q were not arguing about, but, like, throwing back and forth at each other was multi vendor multisig Mhmm. Versus single sig with strong passphrase.

Mhmm. And he made some really good points. And, like, he... He's done, like, onboarding for loads of people. Like, that's his job. Like, he he does it all the fucking time. He's very good at it. And he said most of the time, it's...

That he's seen at least his passphrases.

People have, like, not written them down. They've written down them wrong. They haven't understood the the the... How important they are. I've experienced it with friends. They're like, oh, yeah. There's some sort of password, but that was just to get into the app, wasn't it? And I'm like No. No. Like, no.

It's not. And so I think I think there is definitely a learning curve with all this stuff. I think that, to me at least, they're the two options that make sense. Mhmm. But the point that Q is making is, well, multivendor multisig survives all the recent attacks.

And True. He's not wrong. So there is that. It's just the complexity of footgunning yourself, which is which is the issue. And it's got much better, but there are still potential issues. So

I wouldn't say I've changed in the sense that... I I still think for most people, single sig with a strong passphrase is really fucking good. Mhmm. It it solves a lot of problems. If you have a strong enough passphrase that's kept in a separate location, it's kind of like a multisig because you can't spend funds without that passphrase.

It... It's... It solves some issues. But, yeah, I... Like, with everything that's going on, multivendor multisig might be the way. And also, you know, trust in hardware wallets is a difficult one.

The multi vendor thing helps to solve that. Things like seed signer being thrown into the mix could be useful. A phone... Degoogled phone thrown into the mix could be useful. There's there's these sort of things that are options, but what I worry about is people getting overly complicated with their setups, doing like a j w Weatherman

situation and then just fucking rocking themselves. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting. There's a few things you said there that that I find interesting. So number one would be... I think Hugh's right. Obviously, multivendor multisig would have survived all of these attacks.

But I think it's probably also true to say a single sig where you created your own entropy plus a pass phrase would have also survived all of these attacks. At all... Well, perhaps not the not the supply chain attack, I suppose, ledger this week. Alright. Fair fair fair enough.

But but let's say let's say it was a seed signer that you built yourself. Then then then that could be a suitable option. But but what you said was really interesting is that you've seen loads of people, balls up with their. Passphrase.

Yeah. And I kinda feel like, man, if they're not ready... If they if they can't figure out single sig and passphrase, then I think they're probably not ready for multivendor, multisig I agree.

Yeah. So I I think I always land on the... I would probably try and teach someone single sig and passphrase with a hardware wallet they build themselves and entropy they create themselves would be my first... Learn that.

Get really comfortable with it. Wipe all your devices and restore your wallet 10 times over until you could do it, you know, with your eyes closed. Then let's go and learn multisig, and let's play with that until you get really good at it.

Don't choose one and not learn the other. Like, learn everything, I think, would be my advice. Good advice. I think good advice to end this on, Rick. It's been a real pleasure getting to know you a little bit more. Just echoing what I said at the start.

It's it's nice to see someone who's actually walking the walk, not just talking the talk and doing what they can to help our friends and try and support them either financially or, you know, even if it's just to give them some news that people still care and are still trying.

So, you know, thank you for that. We'll definitely stay in touch and try and work some bits out for the show and see what we can come up with with lotteries and all sorts of things. So we'll definitely do that. But, yeah, I just wanted to say thank you and,

you know, sharing your story, being there for other people who have been hacked, and and being there for the Samurai guys. No. Thank thank you, man. It's been a real pleasure. It's one of the one of the most interesting conversations I've had in weeks. And and, know, I love I love you guys. I love your content as well. Like, this...

You're you're so based, and there needs to be more of this. I think you do just a a fantastic job. So it's been it's been a real a real treat for me, man, honestly. And, hey. Listen. I'm sure at some point, our our paths will cross, and I'll... We can go and catch the game.

Yeah. For sure. Alright, mate. Well, yeah, just stay on the line while I close this out and make sure we save the audio. But, yeah, absolute pleasure. I'm sure we'll do it again soon. Thanks, man.