You think we'll see $10 million Bitcoin with today's purchasing
power anytime soon? I don't see how we don't see
10,000,020 million like we already have a 10 million, you
know, yen Bitcoin, right? How far off are we in pesos?
Like are we a 2X or A3 XOA in pesos like 10 million?
Yeah, why so bearish man? Like how about 50 million?
How about 100? It is inevitable wealth will
transfer to the scarcest most valuable asset.
There is literally 0 things on planet Earth more scarce and
valuable than Bitcoin. What happens when most of
society comes to the realization that like wait a second, if I
take self custody of my Bitcoin, I have the power?
Bitcoin is the gunpowder. It's the better version of
someone else having access and control of your money.
And so those that do not embrace that will perish.
The politicians are in a state right now, or they print, or
they 'cause, you know, mass catastrophe and failure.
The only way out of this is by holding an asset that's better
than the sinking ship. The sinking ship is the money
that everybody currently, the entire system is working on a
sinking ship right now. Yeah, it's 2025.
It's been an absolutely crazy year in Bitcoin.
I mean, start of the year, I think the rest of the year is
going to be absolutely incredible.
Today I'm joined with the CEO and founder of Bitcoin.
Wow, man, thank you so much for joining me.
It's some of the Bitcoin. IRL It's great to be here, man.
This place is amazing. Yeah, dude, thank.
You so much for coming to my side of the town.
I really appreciate it. I hope you've been enjoying
yourself so far. And it's been a wild year in
Bitcoin, man. I think.
I think it's underperformed to a lot of people's expectations.
Yeah, man, I think Bitcoin has a way of taking expectations,
putting them into like a meat grinder, grinding it up really
good, smashing it down and then spitting out something else.
And I think that that's what we've seen so far in 25.
I think obviously we expected SBR, we got SBR, but it turns
out, you know, Bitcoiners maybe didn't really want SBR, They
wanted a number to go up. And so we aren't getting that
that nice release that we were expecting from all the positive
sentiment because it's not coupled with price action.
I think that's showing how early we are.
We are so incredibly early in Bitcoin in people's
understanding of what Bitcoin is.
And I think that people like you and I look at this and we
texted, it's like, hey, cheap sats, like we get to stack more
and this is amazing. And I think that broadly,
probably we aren't seeing that as much people are are hindered
by the, you know, the lack of an immediate number go up and so
underperformed, yes. That said, though, I mean, my
goodness, Can you imagine in 25 years how it's going to, you
know, in, in 25 years when you know the US government or
whomever is paying off their debt, you know, how many
hundreds of trillions of dollars in debt at that point?
I. I think Bitcoiners are spoiled
though, Adam, because like I don't think we're used to that
25 year time scale, right? We all talk about low time
preference, but especially from your, your era in your class of
2013, right? I'm class of 2016.
Back then the volatility happened to, you know, it
happened to be a little bit more positive, right?
And things happen to happen in a much shorter time frame.
They're a little bit more extended or that's what it seems
like, right? I still think we're going to
get, you know, what Samsung Mao calls the Omega candle.
Dude I actually have a bed out right now with someone on
Twitter. I forget who it is but 100K
SAT's that will see 500K in 2025.
I'm like I'm Bolt. Hard.
I think that too. I mean, I've been making it like
full caps on Twitter, like just tweeting out just because of the
SPR stuff. Yeah.
Like, I think the initial executive order, a lot of people
were underwhelmed because it included, you know, a lot of the
alt coins. Yeah.
He renamed that though recently. I know Trump came through like
he freed Ross ended operation choke point 2.0.
The strategic Bitcoin Reserve is only a strategic Bitcoin was
what? But what do you think like what
were the back end games there where he's he's fully like what
did he had XRP in there? He had yet ETH he had you know
is there is little tweet was only you know these garbage
coins. So I kind of have some like kind
of the backroom talk. Essentially what was happening
at that moment was that there was a tremendous amount of
lobbying pressure from the XRP lobby and.
People. People were decentralized.
Exactly right. So decentralized it needs a
lobby and a CEO, but that's what was happening in the background
and a lot of people didn't see that and what I what I posted
was essentially like, look guys like as Bitcoiners, we
completely underestimated the altcoin lobby.
However, it doesn't matter because everything goes to zero
against Bitcoin anyways. Yeah, naturally so.
But I mean, I think it was like 3D chess.
Like it was like, you know, kind of teasing them saying of course
we're going to include Cardano and XRP and ETH.
And at the end it was Bitcoin only and Brad Garlin House had
to sit on the meeting, which was absolutely hilarious.
What do you think is the significance of the SBR?
Like do you do you think? Because like clearly no short
term significance whatsoever, But I think long term I
completely agree with you. I would not be surprised that by
the end of the year we saw 500 K Bitcoin.
Yeah, man, I think significance of SPR is challenging for me,
like for, you know, I'm a Canadian.
So watching this, my first kind of feeling is jealousy.
I'm infinitely jealous that, you know, once again, the Americans
have seemingly better everything, including a
government willing to adopt and support Bitcoin.
You know, as, as you know, and many people probably know like
I'm permanently debanked in Canada.
I do not have the luxury of a checking account.
My wife is missing bank accounts.
And so operation choke point is really the thing that I think
is, is very, very meaningful. And I think the the true benefit
of the SPR moves away from just number go up and pay off the
debt. There's probably Fiat games that
can be played to pay off the debt.
I mean, Japan is is playing them poorly, but is playing them.
I think that the the actual benefit is that Bitcoin
entrepreneurs now have comfort that in America they're going to
be maybe not looked after, but at least not targeted.
Like I am actively targeted in Canada.
There is a massive target on my chest.
Bitcoin entrepreneur for now 12 years.
The government does not like that.
The banks do not like that. You know, there's a reason you
and I were chatting even last night like Bitcoin or Canada has
some of the the most per capita Bitcoiners on the face of the
Earth. Oh, it's crazy.
And it's just because we have to be and, and like, but we're not
getting a new wave of Bitcoiners right now.
And it's only because it's so difficult to be a Bitcoin
entrepreneur in Canada versus now with the SPR and you know,
no more choke point, et cetera, et cetera.
The government completely legitimizing it here.
I think that's the only thing the government needs to do is
just get out of the way. And, you know, if you're going
to have an opinion, make it based in facts.
And I think that the Trump admin has done that pretty well.
And the SPR just adds to that. So I would say, yeah, it's just
going to increase competition and and benefits for
entrepreneurs here. And, and I agree because I
remember like last year, you know, there was moments in time
where I was like, Oh my God, you know, like I might have to move
to El Salvador because Operation Choke .2 point O is getting
scary. And all the things that were
happening behind the scenes that they weren't admitting to.
Yeah, like they were actively de banking people.
Now I want to circle back to what you were saying about you
being debanked. How do you get debanked and
managed to run a publicly trained Bitcoin company.
How does that work? Yeah, man, it's not easy.
Our story of going public actually was pretty interesting.
When we went public, it took us almost a year and a half, or
just over a year and a half, and it cost us like over 2,000,000
bucks just to do it. Typically it should take four,
maybe six months and shouldn't cost even $1 million.
And, and that was strictly because of the Bitcoin.
And then because we're non custodial, like the securities
commission's just couldn't understand that we never had
custody of funds. And so it, it was, it was
confusing. But I think like I'm building a
product that I need in, in Canada.
And so I live on Bitcoin and it's kind of, it's kind of just
the only way that you can live. It's like when I talk about
Bitcoin in self custody being some, you know, unconfiscatable
money that only that only you can have access to.
I'm speaking from experience and I, and I think now more than
ever, like in Canada especially, we saw the trucker protest a
couple years ago. We watched people actively
losing banks. Like there's horror stories that
people just donated 50 bucks because, oh, my uncle's a
trucker and I wanted to donate 50 bucks to the truckers, not
knowing the political, you know, turmoil happening behind the
scenes. Then, you know, the single mom,
her bank is, is shut down and, and she can't pay her rent and
she's got eviction notices coming in.
The power is getting turned off. And it's like really, really
dire consequences because someone has the kill switch on
your bank and it's it's catastrophic.
And so, you know, in Canada, especially having ways to move
money around without the, the government, you know, saying yes
or no is super is super important.
And so how do like, how do I do it is literally with Bitcoin,
it's Bitcoin and self custody. And I'm probably lucky that
there were no like when, you know, 2013, there was no
custodial wallets, there was no place to leave your coins.
I just kind of was forced, like my first Bitcoin wallet was a
node that was the only one that existed.
And then we got like this, you know, jankyblockchain.com app,
which then hilariously Apple banned.
And I remember phones with the blockchain app post Apple ban,
like I was not updating my phone.
I was like, this is sacred. Like I've got this Bitcoin on
here. I I'm not going to lose this
app. And so it's just, I mean, I'm
kind of just tearing away from the like original question
maybe, but the the ethos of the only thing that has protected me
and my family and to be able to live and, and you know, buy a
vehicle and a house and this stuff is strictly Bitcoin and
self custody. That's the only thing that's
been reliable for. No.
And I think you, you really, you show that in the way that you've
built your company, which in from my perspective, I think
it's the much harder way because the easier way would be to build
a platform that allows individuals to keep the Bitcoin
on the platform, right? It makes it much more accessible
for let's say someone that has spent most of their Fiat, most
of their life in the Fiat matrix.
And they're just like the idea of taking self custody of their
wealth and enabling their independence in the process is
such an alien concept to them. You decided to do it the right
way, right, which sets up the right incentives right from the
beginning. For anyone who doesn't know
Bitcoin well, is a self custody by default on ramp.
So essentially what that means is you can't, you can't buy
Bitcoin on the exchange if you don't intend to take self
custody. You guys don't hold people's
Bitcoin. Why do you decide to do it that
way? Because I, I, I feel like the,
the critique is like men, like you're essentially you're,
you're not targeting the, the, the biggest, the biggest
potential customer base. Why did you decide to make it
the right way, which is self custody by default?
Yeah. I mean, I'd love to say because
I like wanted to have, you know, this altruistic vision of
philosophy. I think it was just the only way
that made sense to me at the time.
Like, you know, starting from there and then we start, we
start with with Bitcoin ATMs and then which are just self custody
by nature. And then we wanted to bring that
same experience to the online portal.
And I think that at that time when we launched the online
portal, I wanted the Bitcoin ATM experience to come online.
I don't think I fully acknowledged it was going to be
that much harder in my mind. Who like, as someone who'd been
self custodying for a decade at that point, it was kind of like,
Nah, this is, you know, like, you know, how we, we sometimes
forget how early we are. And you, you know, you look at
the bus and it's like, none of these people know like you've
got this big secret. And I was a little bit naive in
in thinking that you know, 30-40 million Canadians would be
willing and and able to self custody funds you regret.
Your your decision. No, no, no, not, not one bit.
I think knowing what I know now, I would still make the the same
decision simply because what you said it's this is the only way
that you should be building like it is.
Uncle Ben says like with great power comes great
responsibility. Like we have a great power.
We have the power of knowledge. We know that Bitcoin in self
custody is the better way. We know that it is.
And like the safest way, we know that it is the only way.
There was actually, there was someone yesterday on Twitter was
talking about he had the government, he has 135 Bitcoin
that he has in self custody the government wants Yep.
And they're finding, they're finding about $10 a day, 10
grand a day. And my response to that is like
Bitcoin in self custody works because that's not even going to
court. Yeah, if that's in a custodian,
if that's in any Bitcoin exchange, it's just handed over.
Government is like, hey, by the way, here's the order, Here's
the guy's name, here's this SSN. Like I want the and I think.
The government takes that for granted and I think that there's
still this there's still this perception in people that the
government has that power. But yeah, what happens when most
of society comes to the realization that like, wait a
second, if I take self custody of my Bitcoin, I they have the
power, right? I think things are really going
to change. That's the.
Superpower. It's I've said it many times,
it's not number go up. And I and I think if you want
number go up only like frankly, like don't even self custody,
just like stick to your number go up platform.
You're like Fiat Bitcoin exchange, custodial, like just
whatever, it's fine. You don't get to kind of where
the Bitcoin ethos. You don't care about
sovereignty, you don't care about generational wealth, you
don't care about all the important things like Bitcoin is
at most 20% price, at most 80% freedom.
And I think that there are lots of things that probably do
number go up better than Bitcoin, especially now that
we're kind of reaching some sort of critical mass.
I think that the most important thing that we have to remember
is that we want freedom go up. We want maximum independence.
I call myself an independence maxi or a freedom maxi.
And I just don't see how these, you know, so-called Bitcoin
platforms are custodial, you know, and, and like offering a
product that they know is wrong under the guise of mass mass
market. It, it just, it rubs me the
wrong way. And I and I, I think that as
Bitcoiners, we have to be better.
We have to be stronger and and we have to do more than just
like educate and then profit off of the, you know, the wrong way.
So I want to go back to something that you said earlier
in regards to Bitcoin being early, right?
You're early to Bitcoin still. I mean, how can you say that,
right? Like, you know, you've been a
Bitcoin entrepreneur for 10 years now.
I think it's been 11 years since you got into Bitcoin in the
first place. How can you still say at this
point, I mean, you're not really that early.
If the US government is saying, hey, look, guys, like probably
going to buy. We're probably going to buy.
It 20% or whatever it is. Like, you know, you can't, you
can't be that early. Are you talking about like
adoption terms, price terms? And then I'll add a follow up
question to that. Like, you know, what are the,
what should people expect getting into Bitcoin?
Because and you know, it's almost getting a little bit
boring in a way. It's kind of, yeah, you're
right. It is getting a little bit
boring and it's interesting to say that I it's like 5%.
Like it feels like the stock market, man.
Like I feel like Bitcoin Twitter is still operating and it's
2017. We're about to RIP, you know,
20X. We're all degens looking for.
It, I mean, the market cap is just so big.
You know, it's not to say that I can't do it totally.
Like gold's market cap increased tremendously, but I think it was
like 6 trillion. Yeah, market cap really only
works for businesses, not for like commodities or protocols
like, you know, gold, oil, Bitcoin like you don't like
market cap is completely irrelevant because there's
there's no way that we can capture, you know, mass
distribution. And I think that's what I mean
when I'm early is Bitcoin hasn't hit a mass distribution, not
even close. Like if we just walked, you
know, walked anywhere down any St. in any city and said, hey,
do you have a Bitcoin wallet? I bet less than half say yes.
And of the half or of the, you know, whatever percentage say
yes, less than 5% actually have a seed phrase.
And when you think about, you know, where is Bitcoin going to
go? It's going to go one of two
ways. It's going to go to 0 or as the
global, you know, monetary policy.
And if it goes to 0, it'll be because everyone holds Bitcoin
in a custodian and or you know, is 61 O2.
And if it goes to be global monetary policy, it's going to
be because we've mastered self custody and everyone's
comfortable custodying their wealth for like moving backwards
150 years to gold coins under my mattress, but preferably, you
know, not held under your mattress.
Is that, is that possible? Because in my experience, right,
it's been like there's just some people that there's, it doesn't
matter how many times I've showed them, I still end up
being like Uncle Jim, yeah. The Internet tech support, yeah,
no, it's not possible today. It's not supposed to be.
And I think that's actually. Hardware.
Limitations. No, it's nobody has to change
right now to survive. I mean, you think safety explain
this perfectly, the adoption of Bitcoin more akin to to
gunpowder than to like a fancy iPhone or something like that
where you know, you don't really know who adopted gunpowder last
because they're just dead. The history books, they're not
in them, their colony or their their citizenship is just gone
because they lost. You brought a knife to a
gunfight and you lose 100% of the time.
And Bitcoin is the gunpowder. It's the better version of
someone else having access and control of your money.
And so those that do not embrace that will perish.
Their bloodline will not have access to wealth.
It will be very, very, very difficult for their descendants
to have any level of access to wealth.
And this Fiat world where we can pass wealth from generation to
generation without teaching the next generation how to manage
it, is going to evaporate, probably in the generation from
from our parents to us. Why?
Why so?
Because I think there's going to be a tremendous amount of of tax
and government authoritarianism where like right now we're
seeing this narrative play out where we've got the rich are bad
and we have to, you know, steal from the rich and give to the
needy. I mean, but that that's always
been the case. Right, but we haven't it hasn't
been paired with, you know, the seeming the end of a monetary
like we're looking at the end of Fiat.
I think we'd agree. Like if you know, even in the
70s, even like you know, back in into the 30s, Fiat currency
wasn't as as bad as it was as it is right now.
And so when you look at A at a generation of people who have,
you know, now for two generations just received
account statements and a built in manager and it became
somebody else's problem to train up a new manager, you know, oh,
hey, I'm leaving. But Bob's here and he's been at
the firm for 20 years and he's going to look after your kids.
And it's like, awesome, Bob, where's my rib eye steak?
Thank you very much. I'll go to a ball game with you.
And, you know, you can manage my $35 million.
And I think that that's going to completely disappear in favor of
Bitcoin in self custody. And when it does, it will be our
parents passing wealth to us because people our age, I'd say
half of them are comfortable with self custody.
And I think that the generation coming up is more comfortable
than ever. I am so bullish.
I have like the girl who babysits my kids who's like 16.
I'm always talking to her. You know, what's the latest?
Like I'm getting the pool teenager lingo.
I'm like figuring out how they speak and how they think and
their freedom. Maxis man, like they understand
they're not bought into the liberal brainwashing that I
think that our generation kind of was exposed to and and was
bought into. They're not they are digital
natives and they have no problem money being in the cloud and
they're incentivized to want to learn how to manage that because
I think they they understand what's going on.
And so I'm super bullish on self custody, not because your
grandma is going to self custody.
Frankly, your grandma doesn't need to self custody like she's
15 years. Like I don't know your grandma
specifically, but like, you know, grandmas in general are
probably fine. Our parents probably have us so
so they're OK. But our generation and younger
like consider this a direct call out to learn how to self custody
so. I'm of that belief too, right?
And I think it's 'cause, you know, again, the class that
you're from, right? But as Bitcoin continues to go
up in value. But I don't think everybody's
going to have the luxury of being able to deal with the main
chain just because of essentially being outpriced.
I mean, what would your response be to that?
Yeah, I think layer 2 is to be determined still.
There's two real prominent players right now in Liquid,
which is kind of a, you know, hybrid custodial solution
federation style and Lightning. I think that, you know, I'm
probably more in the camp of Lightning because I'm
technically capable to set up a lightning node and and you know.
The lightning is great, but it's not ready.
For not ready for what I'm saying completely not even close
because it takes. It takes one of the entire
reason, like all of a sudden we're back to square one we're
relying on. Custodians, yeah, man,
completely and and in in both scenarios.
So you either have to be technically adept to be able to
set up a lighting node and and and balance the channels and
manage the channels and and be able to spend in self custody
or. Is Bitcoin destined for only a
few people to have self custody of their Bitcoin?
No, no, no. I think that the layer 2 that
wins doesn't exist yet. I think that we're going to see
some sort of, I mean, dude, think about how easy it is to
self custody Bitcoin today even compared to 2016.
It was. It's significantly easier.
And bro, let me tell you 2013. Wallets.
They didn't. Exist 100% like and why, right?
It wasn't necessarily one company or one initiative, but
collectively the industry, the free market, if you will,
identified yo, Bitcoin wallets suck and we should make them
better. And you know, tons of open
source software, tons of guides, you know, tons of tutorial, like
like just so much stuff coming out And what do you know, like
now you download, you know, like blue wallet or you know, any
other self custody open source software, two buttons, you know,
write down your words and like you're good.
And I think that, you know, look at even like the bit key that
launched. That's maybe controversial, but
but is is seedless and self custody focus.
They're there is people and are people innovating in the space
that I think have the right incentive and the right motive
that want to see Bitcoin scale. We all understand, you know, our
sacrifice of of having UTXOS and I am very, very, very convinced
that layer 2, whatever it may be in the future, I don't think it
will be lightning. I don't think it will be liquid.
I think it will be some other kind of combination thereof is
is going to work and and who knows?
I mean, it could be it, it could be like liquid, like federation
style inside smaller communities where you just have like
federation bridges. Like like I said, that's not my
field. Whatever the smart people do,
I'm going to adopt A Bitcoin well, but like, you know, wipe
my hands. But as someone who's been in the
space a long time and has seen the innovation, I am very, very,
very convinced Bitcoin will scale.
Bitcoin is for everybody or it won't work as a as a reserve
currency. It has to be for, but it isn't
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I think eventually, and maybe not everybody, but it is for
every bloodline, It is for every generation on the main chain.
I think that we have to think about the downstream effects of
a Bitcoin standard and how it aligns incentives, how it
doesn't allow for frivolous spending.
It doesn't allow to not teach your kids like how many people
right now have so many, you know, have their two kids or
whatever the standard is and they just dump them in the
school system. Don't teach them about saving or
budgeting or or smart spending or time preference.
And and ultimately just, you know, their kids get brainwashed
by the state and then and then off they go to make the same
mistakes. That is not possible on a
Bitcoin standard simply because the incentives do not work when
you've got this low time preference and you instill that
in generation, let's call it generation one.
Our children's generation is generation one in, in this
example, we're going to be passing down Bitcoin to them.
And let's say we're starting right now, we're starting at
Ground Zero right now. We make 100% and we, you know,
spend 90 and 10% of our income goes into into layer 2 and it's
sitting there. And we do that for 30 years,
probably as part of our succession, our our life
succession. That 30 year accumulation in
layer two goes on the main train and it's and it's there and
hopefully that child does the same thing and it's stacking and
then that goes, you know, onto the main chain.
And so I agree the main chain is probably not to use, you know,
every year or, you know, like I consolidate Utixos quarterly.
That won't be a thing in 20 years.
But you know how the like the like the Jewish have like the
bar mitzvahs and the like this becoming a man, It will you will
be becoming a man when you you have your coins transferred from
layer 2 to the main chain. This is like this is a
celebration. Get the cake, get the, you know,
get the bubbly water. Like this is a big deal.
So OK, let's talk about like the the long term, right?
So where are you? Do you agree with Hal Finney's
posts? You think we'll see $10 million
Bitcoin with today's purchasing power anytime soon?
Anytime soon? I mean anytime soon in regards
to the next 1020 thirty years. Oh yeah, like I don't see,
unless the government stops printing, I don't see how we
don't see 10,000,020 million. Like we already have a 10
million, you know, yen Bitcoin, right?
How far off are we in pesos? Like are we a 2X or A3 XOA in
pesos? Like you know, yes, because the
US dollar and the Canadian dollar and the Australian
dollar, we are no better than the peso.
We are just a little bit further down or further behind in the
life cycle. And so 10 million, yeah, why so
bearish, man? Like how about 50 million?
How about 100? It is inevitable that sound
wealth will transfer like wealth is like water and it's no one is
questioning does water go downhill?
It's like, yeah, and wealth will transfer to the scarcest, most
valuable asset there is literally 0 things on planet
Earth more scarce and valuable than Bitcoin.
Not gold, not oil, not the US dollar, obviously not land, not,
you know, beachfront real estate, like nothing is more
scarce and valuable than Bitcoin.
And so yeah, 100 percent, 10 million.
I agree with Hal. Yeah, 100%.
Yeah. And and I agree with you as well
too. One of the phenomenons that
we've been seeing in developing countries, specifically in South
South America, Africa, Southeast Asia, is the mass adoption of
stable coins, specifically Tether.
I think Bitcoiners had this initial concept that, you know,
this is a perfect fix, right? You have an unstable Fiat
currency, boom, boom, boom, Bing, you're going to adopt
Bitcoin. You know, makes sense.
Listen, that's not what the free market is saying.
The free market is saying is that people want dollars.
So do you think that's an educational issue?
Do you think stable coins are a threat to Bitcoin?
Do you think that my my own public opinion is that they're a
Trojan horse in a way because it gets people exposed to digital
wallets? That phenomenon surprise you at
all? No, I don't think so.
The first time I was exposed to stable coins was during kind of
the ICO craze in 2017. And I was like, wow, moving
money should go a lot easier or moving dollars got a lot easier.
I was already very used to like my first Bitcoin transaction,
real Bitcoin transaction was buying a Bitcoin ATM in 2013.
I paid for it in Bitcoin like I, I moved money on a Sunday
afternoon from my wallet to to his and it was a done deal.
And so I was used to this idea that money needed to move.
What I wasn't used to was that stable money could move.
And I think that it's less of an education thing, especially in
these several countries, but you, you have to imagine a
person who is looking to balance their risk tolerance and their
innovation kind of levels. And there's kind of on a bit of
a scale. And for us, you know, we have
stable currency already in our bank accounts and in our pockets
and, and, and whatever. And So what we're escaping with
Bitcoin is not so much the the failing dollar, although that is
part of it. That's the number go up part,
but it's mostly the freedom. That's how I talked about
earlier. Like what we're escaping is the
tyranny in, you know, a developed country that our money
can be stolen. That's why Bitcoin is so
valuable. They're not escaping that same
thing they are in thermal countries.
But I think they're more excited about holy smokes, I finally
have access to a stable current a stable currency, and I'm not
going to jump from my already unstable currency to another
unstable currency in in Bitcoin. Obviously over the long term,
Bitcoin has number to go up. And I think most stablecoin
users would probably agree with that.
But they don't yet have the luxury of thinking long term
because they are exposed to yeah, man or not even like
probably shorter than that. I actually read a a thing the
other day. Well, Walmart CEO said that they
can see their sales drop on the back half of a two week paycheck
cycle. People are buying like smaller
packages, less food when their paychecks are running out.
And that's petrifying for us. But that's how it's been in
thermal countries for decades, for generations.
And so they're not, you know, forget self custody, forget, you
know, freedom go up. Their version of freedom is just
number stability. And so we, and that's what I
mean by early and, and also like we have to count our blessings
here in North America with how lucky we are that we have, you
know, relatively stable footing to sit on and, and have the
opportunity to look at Bitcoin benefit from number go up, but
also, you know, really push for freedom go up.
Yeah, absolutely, 100%. So you said something earlier
which is really interesting. I want to further explore that
topic talking about setting up your first Bitcoin ATM 2013 use
Bitcoin to buy the first machine.
How do you get from the first machine to how many years later
till you went public? 9-9 years and then you're a
publicly trained company with how many machines now 100?
And sixty across Canada or so, but a. 160 ATM.
We've yeah, we've basically we've, we've moved at one point
was 300 with partnerships and and things we only own 160, but
we operate like many more. So essentially 300X.
At peak, yeah, I guess, yeah. So how did you do 300X?
Yeah, I mean you just it it's funny, like I am not very good
at traditional business. You know, I was very young when
I found Bitcoin. Very young.
Wanting to bring ATMSATMS feel like the most logical you're.
In your teens? No Early 20s.
I was 19 when I found Bitcoin, and then I think I was just 20
when I launched the first Bitcoin ATM.
So yeah, like pretty young, you know, back then I thought I knew
everything. And today I'm like, wow, that
guy wasn't a complete idiot like, you know, but it was like
no business plan. It was just let's get a Bitcoin
ATM. Honestly, those are the best
types of business. Bro, you have a dream in your
head. You're naive.
Yeah, enough to believe. Dude.
And that, that was part of it. I had 10 people that I asked,
hey, should I do this? And they're all like, no, this.
Is 10 of them said no, it's. A terrible idea.
It's not safe, it's not stable. You know, we don't know how it's
going to pan out, blah, blah, blah.
And I was like, I don't really know why.
I asked what I think is. Entrepreneurship like you need a
little bit of overconfidence, optimism and self belief because
if not, it's not going to work. Yeah, man and self belief, but
also and something that I realized later on was like
passion and adaptability are probably the only things that
you need in in. When we went public, my friends
were calling like to congratulate and like all this,
all this stuff or sorry. My friends parents were calling
to graduate and, and one of them talking to my dad was like, oh
man, like I'm just so happy Adam got so lucky.
Like getting into Bitcoin and my dad was like lucky.
He's like that kid is so frustrating and stubborn.
There is no one that hasn't told Adam stop or no.
But the idiot just keeps on, you know, bursting through walls and
like frankly man, every single wall can be can be pushed
through every single one. I am not convinced and I have so
much, I have the audacity to say there are 0 problems that cannot
be solved with brain power and manpower.
And I mean, look at like we have, we have more of that than
any time before. Like we are just going to blast
problems. And and that's, that's
ultimately what it was. It was like, oh, we want to run
ATMs. No one wants a Bitcoin ATM.
So I remember there's this one time here's the first problem I
ever experienced. So Bitcoin ATM comes to my
house. It's really heavy.
I like lift it up and carry up the stairs, like hurt my back.
So put it down, set it up. I send 100 Bitcoin to the to the
Bitcoin wallet in there. It's gone.
It leaves and I'm like, oh, that was a good scam.
Like it didn't work very good. And so I called the
manufacturer, the guy that sold it to me, and I'm like, dude,
like what is going on? He's like, Oh yeah, we
accidentally loaded one wallet onto 50 different machines when
we shipped from the factory and we forgot to wipe that.
So someone must have just taken the coins.
And I was like, well, that was kind of like, you know, I didn't
do test transaction. It was just like 100.
No, but at the time it was worth how much?
It would have been like probably a couple $1000 which like and
today. Now it's. 10 million or well,
yeah, yeah, for sure. But even even like couple $1000
though like when you're 20 years old.
Yeah, of course. That's just like, I was like
sick to my stomach. I wasn't sure I was going to
recoup. And so eventually like called,
he was like, I don't know. And I was like, well, you got to
figure this out. He's like, OK, OK, So we like
talk on the phone. He ends up finding the coins.
We go through this big long. The guy that ended up having
them was like some, you know, wanted to feel very important to
me. I did this big long drawn out
phone call and all this stuff and then, you know, a week later
I get the coins back. I was like whoo.
And so did he do it on purpose? No, he was just like, oh, coins
in the wallet, like like any reasonable.
He did want any. I don't fault him.
He probably could have handled the situation a little bit
better, but when he'd be like, hey, like here's proof that I
sent them. They're mine.
Can you just put them back please?
But anyways, so that was like problem one.
Then problem 2 was oh, hey, no one wants, no one's heard of
Bitcoin and no one wants a Bitcoin ATM.
So lucky for me, my father-in-law, who also gave me
the seed capital for the first ATM and the Bitcoin that were
subsequently gone and then and then returned.
He had a pub. And so I was like, great, we'll
put the pub, we'll put the ATM in the pub.
And then the third problem was, which is amazing.
And we were the first one in Alberta.
It was great publicity, I think for, for, for his pub.
It was really awesome for me to be able to have a friendly face
and, and whatever. But then, you know, the third
problem was like no one wanted to use the like no one was using
the ATM. And so it was a slow grind, a
slow build up to to end up using it.
And you know, but any, any one of those things could have been
like, oh, my coins were stolen. This Yep, Yep, no, everyone was
right. Like this is done.
You know, no one wants it. I'm going to hang it up.
Like you just got to keep on, just keep on grinding.
You know what's really interesting too is like those
times, those dark times, right? They if you, if you survive and
then like, honestly, it's very rare that I've ever met an
entrepreneur that doesn't eventually succeed.
Totally, man. What I find more often is
someone who gives up, someone who quits, Yes.
But if you keep chipping at it, eventually you either have a
break or you know, but you're going to have extremely dark
days and pain throughout the entire process.
But I feel like that's the price that you have to pay.
Yeah, man. And I think it's healthy.
I don't think we want successful people who haven't gone through
pain. We definitely need.
I don't think you can be successful.
If you haven't, I would, I would agree with you.
And, and I think that as a society, we want the leaders,
you know, whether they be business people or, or leaders
in politics or whatever. And that's not how it works now.
Not anymore, but it used to be. Because now the way that society
works, too, and it was recently in Washington, DC, and it's so
like, it's a beautiful city. But so, yeah, I just, I have to
remember where I am. So it's a beautiful city.
But I guess what I'm trying to say is like, essentially, like
the way that society works now is, you know, there's a
popularity contest. Yeah.
And whoever wins that popularity contest controls the money
printer, essentially, dude. And it's crazy.
It's a complete because like in business, right?
If you make bad decisions, what happens?
You die, You go out of business. Yes, right.
You have to start from zero. You get a massive piece of
humble pie and you start again. And then you learn what not to
do. And then, of course, the free
market kind of decides, OK, you know, this guy's really good,
this guy's winning, right? So it's like the free market
kind of takes care of itself and the political system.
The only feedback mechanism that they get that the government
gets is an election, at least in the US, every four years or
every two years is, you know, kind of how.
But for presidents every four years, that's a terrible
feedback. Mechanism, it's a very difficult
four years is also it's the same in Canada, but it's, it's even
worse because it's, it's somehow too short to get anything done,
but then too long because it's got such a long feedback loop.
You almost like in business if you make bad decisions for four
years. Actually, I don't think you can
make bad decisions for four years in business.
You can do bad decisions for like 6 months Max and then you
just end up, you know, disappearing and no one has
heard of you. It's because you have this like
at Bitcoin. Well, especially like I love the
short feedback loop of, of the portal.
Even with ATMs, the feedback loop is so long.
We, we discovered that it takes about 8 months for a machine to
hit it's it's stride. And so we have an 8 month feed
from placing machine on day one. Whatever the machine is doing at
8 months is kind of the cap that it will ever do.
And if that's, you know, 50 grand a month, it's like
dynamite, but if it's 100 bucks a month, it's like time to yank
it. And so we have a place and wait
strategy. You have to wait eight months on
the portal. If we launch like we just
launched recurring buy in the USA and it's been like a huge
hit, which I'm, you know, we were expecting.
But if it wasn't, that would be, you know, in the first week.
If we didn't have our expected uptick, it would be like, oh,
hey, you know, why did I think it would?
Where did I make that mistake? Let's change, you know, in our
future decisions and then make better decisions next week.
Like we get to make a better decision next week.
We have to wait eight months or four years or it's like we can
take meaningful action now. And and that's why again, like
back to, you know, even like the layer 2 conversation, like we're
getting really good feedback currently in Bitcoin in its
digital nature, in its global ability.
And I, dude, I'm just so bullish on the future of this, you know,
product or currency or monetary. Policy 100%.
I mean, like Bitcoin essentially has incentivized the smartest
people on earth to come on or yeah.
Yeah, you'll end. Incentives are insane.
They're just working for their bags essentially, I think Kaiser
says, like, Sailor is the employee of the month, Trump,
Trump was the employee of the month with the hands.
Trump was the employee of the month for, for, for February.
Like without a shadow of a doubt.
And I mean, he came through so hard.
Like I and I remember, you know, the end of 2024, it was, it was
put us in a very difficult position because we've always
taken a very neutral stance, right?
Like I'm like, look, don't care if you're left, right.
You know, Democrat, Republicans, all the same thing.
And then they arrested the Samurai wall.
Yeah, man. Like simply Bitcoin endorses
Trump 2024 and but RFK, you know, 2024 a 100% they have.
And then so many people in the chat loss was like, why are you
guys getting political? Like you guys do not understand
this is survival. I got to say, we told you so,
right, right. And I think this is a very
interesting phenomenon. This is where it leads me to the
next topic where we're kind of in this weird transition period
in politics. I really do believe the theory
from the sovereign individual where information technologies
or the adoption of them is going to lead to the eventual death of
politics like politics. Is going to take a backseat in
terms of the importance in people's lives.
And we're kind of seeing that system go through that
transition. Like what was a really
interesting phenomenon to me was how much they fought to control
information. Like now Inbuka has a very
famous quote from Bitcoin magazine.
The name of the article is don't drink the elite kool-aid.
And in that article, he says their most important weapon is
their control over the truth. And we saw this.
I mean, the mainstream media was like, if it's a tweet, it's
misinformation. Yeah, right.
You know, And then at the same time, they're blaming inflation
on the weather. Like, it's so absurd.
But we saw the collective consciousness of the world as
soon as Elon freed the bird. Like wake up and eventually
reach this critical mass where the the majority of people are
no longer getting their information on legacy media,
which in my opinion is like propaganda for.
The states 100%. And most people are doing their
own research on social media, for better or worse.
I think it's better. Yeah, I think.
It's a free market of ideas. But what I'm trying to make is
like, you know, where does politics go from now?
Like where, where does it go? Like this is going to be some
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I think it's pretty clear that democracy as we have it doesn't
work. Oh God.
It's like it's obvious I don't know what the right solution.
Is what is the alternative? Well, this is this is the right
question. And I think this is the question
that our generation needs to be asking internally and also in
conversation. But also we need to be having
this discussion with our with our kids and and with the next
generation, because it is very clear that the popularity
contest to give someone, you know, God like power for four
years and then also restrict it to just one of two sides like
it's not working. I mean, to play to play devil's
advocate, right? Like how else would you get
equality? How else would you get, you
know, fairness? Like what would happen to the
people that are left behind, right?
Well, I think I think that we. That's the like, essentially the
main proponents of democracy are like, look like there's massive
wealth inequality. Democracy fixes that.
Right, Yeah. I think that we rely a lot,
though, on someone else like wealth inequality.
If we had a nice naturally incentivized monetary policy,
like a Bitcoin standard, let's say, wealth inequality would be
first of all like levelled out just by the nature of the value
economic system, you'd. Think it'd be much better than
where it is stands today. Way better, but because it would
be more decentralized, but even even even further so investing
stops to look like Fiat gains number go up and it starts to
look like building the world that I want to see.
And and this can, you know, obviously pose problems.
If enough people want to see a bad world, then you know, they
will spend their money on making bad old things.
I believe, and this is probably where my optimistic, you know,
puppy dog nature comes out. But I do believe that humanity
is good. I believe that we have more good
in us than than evil as a like as a Christian, I believe that,
you know, God has the ability to help us see the benefits of
good. And I would love to think, and I
think others would join me in thinking that with monetary
equality, meaning everyone has access to the same ability with
a value based, you know, monetary system, they would also
start investing in a good world. And you actually probably won.
You want that, but you also want, you want people
incentivized to, we're not incentivized to make a good
world right now. We are, we are all being stolen
from by, you know, inflation. But even deeper than that, we're
being stolen from by a, a third party in Fiat, in Fiat money.
And when you don't know who is stealing from you, it looks like
your neighbor, it looks like your, your brother, it looks
like your friend is stealing from you and you, you're being
punched in the face and you just can't figure out where it's
from. And so you just start swinging.
And when you start swinging, you go into, like you said, this
self preservation mode. And you have no ability to look
out further. You have no ability or desire to
try and fix the world because you're just so focused on, on
maintaining what you have. I think that the the future of
of politics or or in my mind, lack thereof, it it doesn't look
like a democracy like we know it because it doesn't need to be
the problems that existed. The reason democracy is here is
because money was centrally controlled.
Like we've never seen an opportunity for a society to
work with an openly fair democratic money.
I just think that we have such a cool opportunity to adopt the
principles of Bitcoin, you know, rules, not rulers.
Like like I don't know why we don't vote on multiple things
like voting. You know, we vote on Twitter
like 9 times a day with a poll. We can, we can probably get
smart enough to figure out how to, you know, have have
individuals in a community campaign for certain things.
You know, like I live in a suburb in Alberta of like
100,000 people. Like it shouldn't be hard for me
to say guys, why do we have grass?
We should have fruits and vegetables here.
So what you're saying is essentially Bitcoin essentially
fixes democracy. It's not necessarily.
It's not necessarily that Bitcoin gets rid of democracy,
it's that democracy is broken because of Fiat and it's
essentially misaligned the incentive structure.
Maybe said differently, Bitcoin actually enables democracy,
where right now I wouldn't call what we have right now
democratic. I don't think it's democratic at
all. I didn't vote for a carbon tax.
Like actually, literally right now.
Then there's a brand new Prime Minister that came into Canada.
He he's just got in on Sunday and he is never once been on a
ballot sheet, never once been elected at all.
The people voted for a party. And then the party leader was
like, yeah, he was garbage. And he left.
And then the party leaders appointed someone new.
And he's, by the way, a global essential banker.
Like it cannot get any less democratic than that already.
But they're like, oh, this is democracy.
Like you voted for this. I didn't vote for this.
I didn't vote for you to shut down the truckers have bank
accounts and for you to, you know, lock me in my home because
I didn't think of medicine and and for you to like put a diaper
on my kids face. Like no, no, no, no, I do not
vote for this. And So what is, you know, a
democratic system if it's not having the ability to vote on
the things that are deeply, deeply important?
And like, can we even call a world that has mass, you know,
mass restrictions put upon it in the name of safety?
Can we call that democratic if they can just play the safety
card, like climate emergency, you know, medical emergency,
like we're just, we're just giving them.
I think they've taken these God like powers and removed our
democratic powers. And I think that Bitcoin kind of
throws everything back in the middle and I think we have an
opportunity now to kind of regain our democratic powers
from what has been taken. Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, specifically if you take self custody, if you take self
custody, you're reclaiming back your financial sovereignty 100%.
You're empowering yourself and you're empowering your family.
100% agree. And it's going to be very
interesting to see how this plays out.
I, I, it's going to be because it's a pivotal moment in human
history really. We're seeing the balance of
power shift from the state to the individual.
The individual just haven't realized that yet.
They don't realize how much power they're really taking back
once they take self custody. It's going to be an interesting
phenomenon to see how they try to stop it.
I think that this previous election in the United States, I
think the stakes were so high because I think both, and again,
you know, both parties are not monolithic, right?
But I, I, I really do believe, like if you look at one party,
they voted essentially for a central bank digital currency.
You look at the other party, they're like, oh, Bitcoin,
right? Like it was like, you know, fork
in the road which way you're going, Bitcoin or slavery type
of thing. And I'm glad that we went in a
certain direction, But again, we're only four years away from
essentially the color that being reversed, right?
So it's very, very interesting. Now I kind of want to circle
back to something that we were talking about earlier in the
conversation regards to essentially us being early and
the price, right? So, you know, this this year,
like, like I was saying, has been underwhelming.
You're you're anticipating 500K Bitcoin.
And I think my question to you is like, is Bitcoin going to be
boring heading into the future? You know, it's, it's very easy
for us to be like, ah, you know what, like this is great.
Yeah. I mean, you know, we've been in,
we've been at this for a couple of years.
What would you say to someone that was just getting in and
they're seeing Bitcoin and, you know, they they want to improve
their lives? Like what would your response to
them be? Because they're looking at, you
know, a lot of the meme coins or a lot of these stocks, EXA has
more volatility. They're like, why shouldn't
this, this Bitcoin thing is boring.
Like you know the best days of Bitcoin are behind it.
Certainly I think from a dopamine level, the best days of
Bitcoin are are behind, and that's a feature, not a bug.
I think that if you are coming into Bitcoin because you want
maximum dopamine, you're probably not quite ready to be
in Bitcoin. I call the alt coins, the crypto
casino, and there's a reason nobody with a, you know, with a
sound mind takes their paycheck every two weeks, throws it on
red and just sees what happened, right?
No one's going to the blackjack table thinking I'm going to work
like I'm a blackjack pro. I'm going to.
It's like, no, no, no luck in the draw.
You get the card. You can know when to place big
and and when not to. You can play probabilities to
your advantage, but you do not have the ability to determine
when the card is going to hit and when it's not.
And I think that as Bitcoin becomes more boring, it only
becomes boring because we have a group of people that
collectively believe that the casino, like I used to love, you
know, gambling on the football games and, and, and playing
cards with my friends, like very, very fun.
I used to get a rush when I played with more money and I
don't anymore. Now, I just love the act of
doing it. I don't need or want to bet big
to win big because I know the risk and the cost associated
with that. If 1% of the generation before
me thinks this way, maybe 5% of my generation thinks this way.
But we're all having kids right now.
And so probably 50% of the next generation thinks this way.
And then they're going to have kids and probably it's 80% after
that. And during those generational
transfers, dude, they're going to line up with the monetary
supply basically unchanged. Bitcoin is going to be boring.
Bitcoin is going to be the GDP. Like that's just what's the
market cap. It's like, what's the GDP of the
world do? You agree with sailors
prediction where he's saying $13 million base case by 2045?
I mean, I, I don't think Sailor has the, the missing variable
here is how much money will be in existence.
It's like I have no desire to predict 20 years down the road
because I think 20 years ago you could have never predicted the
M0 like the base money supply in Canada, it quintupled in, in an
18 month period. Like who's predicting that?
And what if that happens twice more in that same time frame?
13 million. No, no, no, it's like 100
million. So yes, like it's going up
because the politicians are in a state right now where they print
or they 'cause, you know, mass catastrophe and failure.
And I think that's something that we often ignore as
Bitcoiners is the only way that's kind of the game three
playing up. The only way out of this is by
holding an asset that's better than the sinking ship.
The sinking ship is the money that everybody currently entire
system is working on a sinking ship right now.
You know, we've heard the analogy.
Bitcoin is the lifeboat when you run out of lifeboats when they
get more expensive. And yeah, I just, I think that
without question, number goes up for the long period, but
eventually that stops because it's we as a society just get so
much healthier with our finances.
Investing will be a word that does not mean the same thing in
50 a hundred. Percent because it's essentially
the way that the system works now, right?
And I want to talk about essentially the root thing that
Bitcoin fixes, right? Essentially the way that
investing works now is you have to you're forced to invest just
to maintain your purchasing power, which is absolutely
ludicrous. But if you want to identify the
root cause. And also just quickly, that all
sounds fine. If if that was the case, it's
like fine just to maintain, I have to invest.
So I maintain fine. But it comes with the risk of
losing. Like you have two situations,
you either hold or you invest. If you hold your guaranteed
loss, if you invest, it's 5050 loser gain.
So you have of the three options, 2/3 of those options,
you have a 66% chance of loss and only a 33% chance of gain
of. Money of money that you worked
for, dude, right? Of money that you paid taxes,
right? Like, and I think the
essentially the root cause right, is inflation.
Bitcoin fixes inflation. The more the more days that
Bitcoin survives and the price goes up and not only proves that
money can exist without inflation, it actually proves
that money could be deflationary.
No, it's not the correct technical word, but just for the
sake of the conversation, I think it describes it right.
Everything essentially trends to 0 towards Bitcoin.
And it's a very interesting phenomenon.
You adopt Bitcoin, you start feeling those benefits,
everything starts getting cheaper, your time preference
starts getting larger because you're just like, dude, like,
you know, I'll just wait a couple more years and that thing
that I want is going to be half off essentially.
Yeah, man, so. What has inflation in your eyes
as a Bitcoiner class of 2013? What has inflation done to
society? I think it misaligned incentives
so poorly to the fact that it has created an invisible force,
which has eliminated the opportunity for for for fairness
and prosperity. And I think that when you look
at a family unit, you know, the smallest form of community,
which is, you know, call it even just a, a partnership, a husband
and a wife that is designed to be in such a way where you have
the ability to think about your future and you have the ability
to understand and think about what your goals are, make
strides towards those goals, and then either achieve or miss
those goals, but on your own accord.
And probably in that some of it is his kids.
But now you know, your goals probably include a certain
number of hours or a certain dedication to A cause.
And so as a result, you know, for half the partnership,
usually the female variety, you're forced to choose.
Do I want to, you know, be a part of those goals and
contribute because, you know, hey, we decided we wanted to
travel like this and have a house like this and drive a car
like that and have a lifestyle like this that's not attainable
anymore, like we thought it would be.
So now I have to, you know, either enter or re enter the
workforce. And so, you know, you make it
work. And, you know, thank goodness
the government's here and, and they, and they gave it the so
there's maternity leave and there's systems set up and all
the, you know, regulations and like good, I'm pro, I'm pro like
inequality in, in, in that way. But now we have a generation
coming into the world, which no longer has the luxury of, you
know, a caring individual at the home who is, you know, making
good food, educating in a certain way.
And so, you know, last generation, what was it?
It was like, well, we're just going to eat out a little bit
more, right? Our food can come from a box, no
problem. So we get a little bit, you
know, unhealthy. And so, you know, that creates
an incentive to make quick dinners that taste good and who
cares about health? So boom, like Fiat food, like
there's the apocalypse in in health.
And then now what we're seeing even worse is I don't have time
to cook. I don't have time to clean.
And these kids are driving me crazy.
I don't have the ability myself to even think because I'm, you
know, busy at work and doing all my stuff.
So I dumped the screen into a kid and these, you know, 8 month
old, 2 year old, 5 year old kids are buried in their screens from
an early age. So we're at the point where
their dopamine receptor, they don't ever properly learn how
to, how to think, how to be bored, how to have an
imagination, how to, how to be a kid and how to, how to develop
their brains in a certain way. And so that that's this next
generation coming in and, and even like even me, like my, my
parents were, you know, relatively good with screen
time. We're like at our house where
superstars on it, but my brain is fried, my dopamine receptors
are fried because of the dopamine that I receive as like
a 30 year old man. Like what does that do to the
six year old? And and you know, it's so often
like, oh, your kids crying iPad, your your toddler won't sleep
show in the bed. No problem.
So what does it caused? It's like, what didn't it 'cause
man? Like as a result that we have a
broken monetary system. We have families that can't
support themselves on a single income, which forces, you know,
both, you know, parents into the workforce, which removes the
attention from from the child. Or reliance on the state.
Yes, exactly. Like so now I'm on food stamps
and, and like, you know, it's just where does, where do we
end? Like we end up like Wall-e.
Yeah, I mean, the, the it's it's very dark.
It's we end up in slavery. Like essentially that's what it
is. Like, I mean, like it it's
essentially a coercive system. It's a system based on theft.
Most people don't see that. And if it's a system based on
theft, it needs coercion or to function.
And the more theft occurs, the more tyrannical they become.
Like, I remember there was this law that was passed or they
tried to pass it during the infrastructure bill, and
essentially it was monitoring every $600.00 transaction had to
be reported to the government. Crazy.
Meanwhile, Dodge is getting in there and they're just
discovering all this type of misallocation and just blunt
fraud, right? That no one agreed was a good
idea to spend on. And, you know, essentially,
they're screaming bloody murder. They're saying, like, how could
you audit the government? So, like, let me get this
straight. They can audit you at any
moment. If not, you go to jail.
But the moment you decide to say, hey, like, what are you
doing with my tax dollars? Like you can't know.
Who do they work for? Like who's never been installed
to protect and surf? I think as long as it's a Fiat
standard, it's a government by the government for the
government. And I think that's really what
Bitcoin fixes. It aligns incentives in society
again. And that's a really, really
beautiful future. And I think that's what we're
fighting for, dude. It's crazy.
Just quickly on that, it's crazy how politicized the Doge like
the Department of Government facility is.
Like it's wild to me that there are just facts like here's the
receipts, here's the problem, here's the receipt.
And half the country is like, how dare you?
And it's like, regardless of who this is, like I was in in a, in
a chat with some friends and they were, they were talking
about this. And he was like, don't think you
wouldn't be sceptical if it was Biden or if it was Trudeau on
the other side of the doge. It's like, sure, be sceptical.
But when someone comes with a receipt and says here's a fact,
here's a problem, we got rid of it, that's a good thing.
I don't care what your last name is, that's just a good thing.
I, I think, I think unfortunately a, a big
percentage of people are essentially consuming legacy
media. And I think legacy media is able
to paint a very, very a different narrative than what's
happening. And if you meet someone who
consumes legacy media as their main source versus someone who
consumes does their own research, like on X, YouTube,
Roma, whatever platform, Noster Protocol, they live in totally
different realities. Yeah, man, right.
And you can tell within yeah, within a minute they.
Live in they live in totally, totally different realities,
man, but the future is bright. You know Bitcoin fixes these
things. I think it's going to be a hell
of a fight. And last question I'll ask you,
Adam, is what is the future of of Bitcoin?
Well, man, like what are you planning on, you know, five
years down the line, 10 years down the line?
Oh, I love that. I dude, I love thinking about 10
years down the line because that's when that's what we're
building for. Like I think I've got, I've got
4 kids. I've got an 8 year old, A7 year
old, A5 year old and a three-year old.
And when I think 10 years down the line, they're they're all
teenagers, which is which blows my mind.
And they're all going to need to be meaningfully interacting with
the world and with the economy. And we're building a world where
they never once have to think, where's my money?
Because they have some because they're working and producing in
the world, but also they have custody of their money, but they
can still interact with the real world, interact with the current
world. I know that three years ago we
had Mahler's on stage like at the Bitcoin conference, you
know, super jacked up. We're going to have you want to
go to Chipotle and Walmart like you do that pay with your
Bitcoin. It's like that's not coming to
USA for decades. Like we are so far away from
corporate America adopting Bitcoin in any meaningful way.
I went to El Salvador. I was surprised at how well it
worked, but also shocked at how little anyone knew about.
Like, it's like, you know, listen to this Puerto Π guy,
call him Bitcoin. I, there's my Spanish and it's
like, get the Bitcoin phone. Someone's got to get it dusted
off, like turn it on. Oh, it's out of batteries.
Let's plug it. I guess it's not a good
experience. No one's using it down there.
And that like, you know, up until recently it was legal
tender. It was like part of the part of
the thing. And so we are so far away and,
and I want to build a platform for the early adopters, for the
ones that are class of 2030 when you're still very early in
20-30. I firmly believe this.
I want to build a spot for you to have to be a freedom maxi you
like. Our mission is to enable
independence. You should have the ability to
hold and control your money and be able to use it.
And you know, we're currently in this current system, we have a
dilemma. You can either hold your money
in cash. That's the only way you can hold
your money or you can use your money in a bank.
I don't know about what it what it's like here, but I know that
I got a really hard time paying for anything in EU or in in
Canada with cash. Like you can't buy a car with
cash. You can't, you can't buy a
obviously a house with cash. Like I went to the street or
down the street from the office to buy a sandwich with a $50.00
bill. They were like, we don't take
50s. Like I was like, what?
Like the sandwich is 13 bucks. You don't have $30 to give me
back. Like this is ridiculous.
And so when you're forced withhold your money or use your
money, you're obviously going to choose used what because you
can't use and it creates negative incentives.
And so I want to build a world and a platform that allows
people to hold and use their money.
And that means we're a conduit to the, you know, traditional
Fiat world. If you want to pay your credit
cards with Bitcoin, no problem. You want to send money to your
friend, no problem. You want to, you know, have your
paycheck deposited and then and then buy Bitcoin and send itself
custody, no problem. But we're doing this the hard
way because I'm building this for my kids like, you know, the
user growth and stuff. We're public like you, you know,
our investors will be very unpleased if I only thought
about the 10 years. So obviously we're, we're, we're
working very hard to make sure that, you know, number go up in
the short term. But at the end of the day, I'm
building a platform that I'm going to be very proud that my
kids use, not because, you know, daddy built it, but because it's
just the best platform to have the ability to interact with the
Fiat world through Bitcoin in self custody.
Amazing, amazing. Well, Adam O'Brien, thank you so
much for joining me on since the Bitcoin IRL.
Appreciate it bro. Appreciate it man.