Coming up in this episode of Bitcoin for Millennials.
As all transactions these days are happening digitally, so on
the database somewhere, you know this is the attack factor.
And that's also in a broader game theoretical perspective,
that's where you see this play out, right?
So you have this super tiny bank in the Netherlands.
Where are the databases? Probably some foreign power
knows where these databases are, so if they drop these three
bombs where they have these databases, the entire bank is
gone. Now this is something that is
not in anyone's. Mind right So.
This is so scary also from my perspective.
So for me, like Bitcoin, which is like everything is naked, it
will still run, you know, like it's just like such a solid
digital monetary database that will always work no matter what
happens across the globe. And I can't say that for any
other monetary system. Hey there.
This is from Constana. You're listening to Bitcoin for
Millennials. In this episode, I'm joined by
Bert Roth. He's an engineer by trade who
keeps greenhouses, warehouses, and offices warm with the
Bitcoin miners he sets up. Ferret has also helped thousands
of businesses, families and claps on their Bitcoin journey
with his company Bitcoin br.avon.com, as an official
reseller of open source hardware wallets, touch Bitcoin books,
workshops and much more. He enjoys working on the Bitcoin
standard full time and is currently also the chairman of
Phoebe and l.org, a body of 13 Dutch Bitcoin companies that
work together in this industry to combat fraud and improve
Bitcoin adoption in the Netherlands.
Bert is one of the most helpful, friendly, friendliest and humble
Bitcoiners I know, so I'm excited to talk with him today.
So welcome Bert. Thank you for the friendliest
part. That's yes, definitely.
And I hope I can stay humble in this, in this podcast because
the prices is nice in, in, in euro terms.
And I think a lot of people are becoming a little bit less
humble. And I think that's one of the
the most difficult parts for for some, yeah.
Well, at one point I think we all want to say I, I told you
so, but I generally view that as almost like an altruistic thing,
right? Because you hopefully trigger
someone to actually start listening to you, You know, like
what? We have all these attempts at
helping people, like studying this.
And yeah, at one point it's just going to run away from them.
You. Know yeah, but I think I told
you so far it doesn't really help adoption, right.
So that's this is this is the the the difficult part because
you can be right and a lot of people before us because we are
late comers, both of us. So I think that makes it really
complex because I told you so will not on board anyone.
It will just keep more and more people away because there's the
lucky guys. So I think in that sense that
this is already like directly a very super interesting topic of
the educational part that you have been through throughout the
years. That's not something that other
people see. They just think you drop some
money in and you got rich or something.
If that's the case, you know, like and for us, maybe not as
much As for others, but I think that's one of the prime things
that that should not be like the I told you so part or the the
generic stream of, of information that you want to get
across people, because that's not that's not nice, you know,
Yeah, it helps everyone and that's what it's really about.
And it doesn't matter when you actually start to do something
with Bitcoin, It's just you, you want to at some point because
it's better for you. Yeah, and that's not that I told
you so far so. I, I would, I would agree.
I, I'm not sure if I would actually say I told you so out
loud, but I will, I will definitely think it.
But I, I mean, IA 100% agree with you because I don't know
about you, but I cannot really retrace my own steps anymore
from like, you know, discovering it 10 years ago, then like up
and down with interest, up and down with spending time, you
know, and then eventually, you know, something clicks and then
you're like all into it. But I, I could not retrace my
own steps or where I was really like, OK, I'm, I'm swapping 1
belief or understanding for another.
And now this is you know how how my view changes so.
Yeah, yeah, in that sense, I, I had also like a lot of touch
points and I understand correctly that there was some
shit coining in the past for you.
Oh, A. 100% Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
So that's a part I never touched.
So for me, it was really that in a company I was working in, an
engineering firm in Delft, where a lot of colleagues were already
interested in investing in Bitcoin.
I had a local friend here from this small town where I'm from
that started to mine in 2014. I still have the app that he
sent me. Like Bert, you want to join in
because we're going to mine Bitcoin.
Cool. Like so many touch points.
But you can also see my replies. You know, back in 2014, I said
this is never going to work. The Chinese have free
electricity. They have unlimited capacity
with building out computers. Like they will have like 99% of
the network. And at some point they will just
take over and entire Bitcoin will be gone.
And I've held this point for until 2019, let's say until I,
you know, like started to investigate it a bit deeper.
And then I spent, yeah, the 10,000 hour rule.
So for me it was like I had a lot of touch points through
time. And because I also worked in,
yeah, let's say the software, I was very hesitant also
technically to really dive in. And I think we've now come to a
point that it's very, very, very, very hard to stop.
And that point actually came not that long ago for me also.
So the investigation part and then also physically, yeah, we
were just discussing Umbrella, you know that the interesting
thing is like once you've set up the node, you've done all the
hardware, you've done all the the the code checking whatever
you can do. I'm not a coder in that sense.
So but whatever I am capable of checking, I would like to also
verify. And then you jump into the
mining part and then, yeah, another box opens, which is
super interesting, but you also see some risks there.
So again, you want to to to jump into that more deeply and really
make sure that everything you think that is the case will also
be perpetual. You know, like it's really long
term. So the next 102 hundred, 300
years, we know for sure that this system is capable of
working. And I'm willing to invest all my
time and energy in this. And that's for me really
something that that became apparent in 2021 when I started
Bitcoin Brahmont. So it's a journey and for
everyone is different. But yeah, I've in that sense
I've been really late. So I need to do more proof of
work to actually survive on the Bitcoin standards.
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Now let's get back to the conversation.
Well, I think I think late as in as in when it clicked, but I, I
think that's a great example, right?
Like I just said, like my journey was 2013 got totally
into it like trading, etcetera. Then I kind of lost interest.
Then I sold a start up at one point and I sold it for ETH at
like, I don't know, $180 or, or or something.
And then I got into the ICO stuff, the shit coin stuff, of
course. But but really from perspective
of I always knew that like new technology is a Wild West.
So I knew it was a Wild West. So I didn't go to I like, I
tried it out, but I didn't lose too much money luck luckily.
But what is funny is that a few weeks ago, I looked up my old
tweets from 2013 when I was like, oh, Bitcoin crashed back
to $100. Should I buy more?
You know, and I and I, I, I, I also tweeted about, you know,
Bitcoin is like a digital commodity you can print or
something like, like similar tweets.
And I was like, damn, I got it right.
Like, I, I understood it, but no, I didn't.
Yeah. So it's just, it's just one, one
angle, but not, not in the bigger picture.
And I think that is also why it's so hard to understand
because in, in essence, Bitcoin is fairly simple, but it's not
easy to understand. It's very hard to understand
because it touches all these dimensions in, in the world
that, that we think we know. Right.
And I actually, I, I tweeted an article today from Jesse Myers
about why the, the, the yuppies hate, hate Bitcoin.
And he said, you know, these are the intelligent people that
trust systems. They they are in their ivory
tower and they think that the ivory tower is the
representation of the world and that they know everything.
And if something comes along that they don't know about,
right, That's also the meme, right?
Like I'm a PHDI don't know. And if I didn't study Bitcoin,
but you're wrong, you know, like it's, it's, it's so it's spot on
because it's that feeling like you have a fake trust in
yourself, you know, and once you study Bitcoin and reflect, then
you can actually trust yourself. And that's actually what I like
so much. Like even for you, you've
started really early in the game, but still you didn't
really grasp Bitcoin and then the the risks of Bitcoin along
the way. We're still relatively high.
So if you talk to the oh geez, you know, it's really like, yes,
I bought a new bicycle for 800 Bitcoin.
Oh man, what did I do? You know, I did, I never
understood it. And then, you know, I, I also
know some miners, you know, more than 10 years in the game and
they're just like, yeah, man. And we were trading coins a lot.
And I said, like, what would have happened if you would just
have held your Bitcoin, you know, like you would have.
Yeah, I wouldn't have been doing the mining still, you know, like
so that's basically the path, you know, like for for 99% of
the people you also meet that actually have crossed it
earlier, they always exchange it for something that they needed
along the way or they try to make more of it.
You know, you have like also these trading companies, they
say, yeah, we have a really great return of investment in
Fiat terms, but we never outperformed Bitcoin, but at
least our customers are happy, right.
So this is this is really in the industry.
It's a super interesting dynamic because.
Yeah, the Bitcoin by itself, like also what I'm doing with
this little company, you know, helping people, it basically you
constantly lose Bitcoin. So if you look for instance, we
did a lot of block stream, Jade says.
So hundreds and hundreds of them for Europe.
And then at some point I bought like, let's say I think I bought
1 batch of 200 in one go and that was when the price was
around 18 thousand, €19,000. And then of course, when the
price propels up, you just lose Bitcoin with every sale you make
because, you know, it's in Bitcoin terms.
And I think in Bitcoin. So like the, the business, you
know, is, is profitable in Fiat terms, but it's insanely bad in
Bitcoin terms. Yeah.
So this is always like, how do you outperform Bitcoin?
Yeah, if you, if you want to have a business, it's almost
impossible. I, I don't see an easy way to do
that. Like on in an almost way, let's
say, of course you have all these scammers and these, yeah,
that's a different story. But in an honest way, I, I, I, I
think it's very, very difficult. Yeah, yeah, I have similar.
I I bought at 400, sold everything at 4000, I've bought
headphones that are now like 7000 or €10,000 and I.
Hope they are still the same the ones who they.
Broke within a year yeah no, but it's, it's I have less Bitcoin
than I had when I when I bought it at 400, you know but but I
think that's part of it you know I mean I got scammed in the ship
and stuff like, but you know the only thing you can the only way
you can understand it is to to like try it out and be there
right Like I, I, I had an interview for for like a little
docu series and they interviewed her where I was talking to her
we're gonna have lunch because I think she's almost there
actually, but it's funny and she told me like what I don't like
about bitcoiners is that sometimes when people have like
a critique, they say like you didn't study enough.
I said, I'm sorry, but it's true, you know, because from the
argument you can hear that they just, they, they don't even have
Bitcoin. They didn't ever, they never
created a wallet or even an exchange account or what
whatever, right? And so, you know, you say 10,000
hours. I think I have the same, I don't
know, more like, how are you coming at me with like one hours
of, of, of, of, of, of, right? You know, reading blog posts or
whatever, Like what are you talking about?
You know, and I think you have to be real about that.
Like, I'm not going to talk about what a surgeon is doing,
you know, because I don't know what I'm talking about.
Yeah, Yeah. This is really like something I
really love in that sense in my new job, right.
So as a chairman of the United Bitcoin Companies in the
Netherlands, I also get to go to very nice meetings where the
banks are also present. And then I have to present a
little bit about Bitcoin because they wanted to know a bit more
about it. And then you have like the
chairman there. He's now retiring.
So good luck and enjoy. But the nice thing is like, he's
like the chairman of this payment platform.
And I asked him like, it was a last meeting, physical meeting.
And I asked him, did you ever actually receive any Bitcoin or
No, No, I don't know anything about this.
I said, grab your phone, man. You know, install this app and
I'll put some thoughts on it, you know, and I did that.
And he was like, yeah, nobody ever did this, you know, like, I
didn't know it was this easy, you know, and I don't have to
show my passport. What What's it?
What is this, You know, like this is.
Yeah, yeah, this where it's all about, right?
There are billions of people who don't have a passport and they
actually want to exchange something without it being like
some kind of note with a dictator hat on it.
You know, that's maybe something that we want to have in this
planet. And it's like, oh, yeah, OK,
maybe then it clicks, right. So it's really nice when you
don't have any touch points. And especially in the
Netherlands where, you know, the the payment system is really,
really great. So you're so far out, you know,
from where it is across the globe.
And because I worked a lot across the globe, you see the
necessity so much more than other people because, yeah, I've
been working with so many people from different layers and
different places of this planet that this is really necessary.
And we actually, you can build quite a lot of infrastructure
here that will help all these people in the authoritarian
sides of our planet. So it's super nice that as soon
as that clicks and also the impact that it can have that,
yeah, that people start to open up.
And I think that's something that's really still missing,
like on the educational part that most people always look at
it from like the personal gain. But it's, I've always learned
that you can only have a good life if the people around you
also have a good life. Because if the people around
you, their life sucks and they have to basically steal their
life away. So that will also affect you.
And then you see these differences in different
locations of our planet, you know, where you have to put more
protection up because people can actually take stuff from you and
will take stuff from you because the differences are much
greater. And it's like not a fair system.
And I think, and that's also what's coming back.
So next week I'm going to the parliament.
I have a discussion there with a couple of people in the
parliament in the Netherlands. And we have always been a
trading nation. And why have we been such a
stable trading nation? It's because we had such a
stable currency. You know, we had a very, very
stable, very, very conservative currency, which basically was
even better than the dollar if you look in the past.
So a link to the Deutsche mark. So this is something where
stability is, is, is a big part of of ingrained in US, you know,
like as the Dutch people. So and we let that go now under
the euro. So what do we want to do?
You know, like also in politics, where do we want to move to?
Do we do we want to go back into this more conservative approach
of holding a stable currency? And actually the countries that
will do this will be like the biggest enemy of Bitcoin in that
sense. Because if they can show that
they have a very conservative currency there, which works
perfectly well on the centralized database and the
Super efficient and can relatively trust them, well,
that will be used by a lot of people on this planet.
So I think that's where in the long term, you know, the
competition is going to come from.
And the question is which countries will move first,
right? So yeah.
Well, it's interesting, right, because I haven't seen any proof
of it, but I think people are talking about how like the Petro
dollar ended like yesterday or something.
I. Oh yeah, with the Saudi Arabia.
I don't know. I don't know.
There's nothing public about it. But in general, you know, this
is what what you're sharing is what the bit bricks are going to
try to do right. And it's interesting that it's
happening in general. And I agree with you if you, if
you because they will never, well never say never, but but
you know, the incentive for them currently is to not move to a
decentralized currency, obviously, right?
So they're doing it in a centralized way, but by creating
a currency based on or creating a basket, you know of their
currencies of. Course.
Well, this is the end game. More stable than the US dollar,
right? So this is the end game, right?
Like if you just and actually, if anybody watches us, check the
documentary by Smith, which is called Bitter Lake, which is
about the Petro dollar and all the shit that we have because of
it. And you know what is super
interesting is that if you look at.
Where we are heading to is indeed it's it's dollar, let's
say, yeah. So that's basically like euro
dollar, dollar system versus like the the bricks, let's say.
But but both is, is government related systems where they will
be able to print money of course because they they keep control.
And then you all of a sudden have like this this middle
ground, this this small thing in the middle, which is privately
owned there. We all run it and a lot of
people run it and more and more people in a lot of countries
around the globe run it. So this is like a really public
money. So it's not the private money of
the government's know, it's the public money of the people.
And this is you can choose what you want to use and this public
money will grow and grow and faster and faster as long as
these steps are taken into the centralization of both BRICS and
the Euro dollar system. So I I think that Bitcoin shines
so bright when we see these moves happening at the moment.
And I think also that that's reflected, you know, in, in, in
what we see in, in both price, but also, you know, you know,
the flows that you see towards ETFs.
What a guy like Larry think of, of BlackRock saying like, Oh
yeah, it's it's a safe haven, you know, like, yeah, it really
is. So there's a lot of need for
this, which is segregated from government money and I think
that's also where the path is going to be important in.
But we need to stay decentralized and that's the
most difficult part, especially on the mining side, where I
think we will see more problems coming in the in the future.
Yeah, let's talk about that in a second.
What, what I find interesting is what, what you're saying the,
you see these moves, right, with what the bricks are doing to
counter the dollar. And we all know that the dollar
is in decline. I I think it's almost inevitable
to, to, to you cannot save that anymore, right?
It's really on this downward slope and and it they can, they
can keep it alive for a long time.
But what I find interesting is that the fact that that this is
now a topic in this presidential race in general is just
interesting. I think it became it, It's
earlier than we all thought. But also, I think the right
people are in, in, in, in Trump's ear, for example, like
he's saying certain things where I think like, like someone else
wrote this, obviously, but they wrote the right thing, you know,
And I think the, the, the threat that you are illustrating, you
know, by the bricks to the US dollar.
And for example, I think it was the, the IMF who shared an
update on how they look at America and they see, you know,
the, the fiscal depth is way too much, etcetera.
Like there are signs that they, that they know they have to do
something right. But it would be like a real
reverse Uno if, if, if the US would adopt Bitcoin in some way,
you know, because then they can actually counter that threat of
the bricks. And I think this is in essence
what Jason Lowry talks about also with software, right, like
the, the, the, the entire like the macro global game theory
with this is just really, really fascinating because it is all
happening, right? If the Petro dollar ends and the
bricks actually launch, you know, they have all these trials
with their internal, you know, settlement system.
There was some publication last week like all this stuff is
happening at the same time. For this, you know, we still
have dollarization, right? So if you just look at the graph
of currencies being used across the globe, you just see that the
dollar is still growing and rapidly, right?
So you see that the euro is dropping rapidly.
The dollar is really going up. It's really eating away the
euro. And I think for the next few
years, it's still the dollar might grow, you know, like it's
not that it's all of a sudden going to no, no.
No, I agree. They they, they keep it alive.
Yeah. And and like just look at
theater for instance, how as a huge amount of treasury is being
insert and this, this, this digital dollarization is it
looks like that's actually the first step, right.
So if, if you, if you look at the wallet like Aqua, you know,
like that, that's rolling out quite rapidly.
A lot of people just use the dollars because they don't want
the fluctuation in the, in the Bitcoin still.
So they use this, this digital dollar, let's say, and that's
really rapidly being rolled out across the globe.
So I think and when people need to choose between a digital yuan
or a digital dollar, people in general choose a digital dollar
now because that's something they know they will probably not
choose for Bitcoin. So I think in the next decade,
it will basically be like A2 tiered approach or still we will
see first more dollarization And then at some point, you know,
Bitcoin comes very rapidly because it actually retains
value better and people start to understand what what is
happening and what they're doing and other countries need to
start leading the way on this, right.
So to adopt Bitcoin, and the question is who are going to do
that first? And yeah, back to the
Netherlands again, as a trading nation, you want to trade with
everyone. So you need a Ledger where you
can trade with everyone with. And in that sense, the
Netherlands can be like a midpoint with Bitcoin, you know,
So there's tremendous opportunities there.
And if you open yourself up, I think your economy will boom
like crazy. And next to that, we have the
most important chip machine manufacturer of the planet here,
HML. And of course what would happen
is as soon as we dip a little bit into Bitcoin as the
Netherlands, HML will soar like crazy because the chips need to
be need to be built. So like the direct impact and
the indirect impact of doing something with Bitcoin in the
Netherlands is just, yeah, it's just insane.
So the question is which politicians understand this and
when do you get this game theory going on a bit as as you're
already saying, the US might already be building out a lot of
things that we don't really see. And this is actually where I see
the danger is that indeed, if the hash rate really
concentrates, let's say, yeah, in Foundry USA, which you can
clearly see in the man pool. And then it becomes clear that
they will demand some kind of block templating there, where
the block template of each block with transactions being filled
will have some kind of compliant list attached to this.
And this is an issue because then, you know, it becomes more
difficult to use Bitcoin easily. In other countries for.
Every way for everyone because they will start to let's say
sanction addresses, but there will be a huge counter movement
also. And if you really study Bitcoin,
you will see that in the long term it will be private mining
versus state mining, you know, and that's the long term game.
And the question is added could be in decades from now.
So, but but in the long term, this is where it could play out.
And the question is, are some countries already working with
this or preparing for this or going in this direction and
pushing Bitcoin further down this game theory on the on this
part? I think 2 two things on that.
I, I don't disagree with you, but I think it could go faster,
but it's just when I think through it, right, I think like
if we figure this out, I think someone in a relevant government
has also figured it out. It's just, you know, like it
would be incredibly disappointing.
I would say just, you know, if someone didn't figure this out,
that that plus I feel like the, the, the global game theory, we
could talk about it. We can set the pieces, but I
think the start is a very tiny is, is, is a one time event or
fame or announcement, right? And it doesn't have to be that
that big. You know, you know, as you as
you say, like let's say if the Netherlands says, well, we are
the trading hub for the world because there's now two blocks
of currency, for example, but we still want to buy something in
China, but we don't want to use the bricks currency, But you
could exchange it here for Bitcoin, you know, and Bitcoin
is the the neutral in between currency.
I don't know, I'm just fantasizing.
That will be very cool by the way, but that'll be super huge,
obviously. But but something like this for
me, it's it it's so logical. It makes so much sense, right?
But I just can't believe that that other people have not
figured that out. So I feel like.
Right. This has been Switzerland
throughout history. Yes, yes.
So. Again, if you pitch someone in a
government, would you want to be the Switzerland of the New
World? Duh.
Yes, of course. Yeah.
And this is indeed, and you see what you're saying, it could be
more rapidly, but because if you just see the small touch points.
So you saw the White House letter on the Super small mining
location, which was controlled by some Chinese guys through
Bermuda, you know, and there was like a letter from the White
House about about this mining location.
That's insane, right? That that that that they
actually published a letter about this small mining location
just controlled by some Chinese folks through Bermuda.
Yeah. OK, what the fuck?
But this this feels like a game theory thing, you know, like,
holy shit. So who controls the hash?
That is that really where we're what we're looking at here?
Is this like the touch point where you're you're aiming for
or is this because you they made it public, right?
So they could have just stopped the whole thing like non public.
So why do they make this public? Is this like also something they
want to share in public then? And what's what's the idea
behind this? That's exactly what you're
saying, right? So, yeah, so exactly what you're
saying, like what is happening in the background, there must be
you. You mentioned Jason Laurie, you
know you, I have the software book and then in the back here
also that there's, there's a lot of theory in in the background
where you could, yeah, where you could see some game theory
playing out here. But I still believe it's really
early in that sense, so. I believe that too.
It's just more like when I think about this, it's a spectrum of
they figured it out just as we figured it out or we figured it
out and they are fucking clueless, which would be just so
incredibly bad that it's just, I put a lower like percentage on,
on that option, right. And, and, and so that's kind of
how it works. It, it would be deeply saddening
if, if they are on the, on that side of the, of the, of the
spectrum and they just don't really know what they're doing.
Because for example, that's, that's kind of how I felt with
this Ethereum ETF. You know, crazy turn around
within a week, you know, you see Trump at some random rally
answered to a question from a guy in a crowd like, hey, do you
like crypto? Oh yeah, crypto is great.
What? Oh, crypto, crypto, crypto you.
Know I I only see someone from the Biden team like laying on
the couch watching this presser and they're like shit he's pro
crypt. Oh no, we have to do something.
What do we do? You know, that's how I feel.
It's very clear. And that in this speech also, he
said that, yeah, I support the 50 million, 50 million people,
you know, in the US that so, and this is a similar.
Thing right in but isn't that important?
No, but it's vote. It's just vote hurting.
That's how I. Feel like it is and I agree but
wait, wait, there's more topics that touch the same 50 million
people, right? So, so again, it's either he has
no clue he probably has no clue and this is just like a
communication line and he talks like that, right?
Just to to to get to these 50 million people.
But let's say they really identify 15,000,000 people for
which for for who Bitcoin and crypto is a real election point,
then we are not that early. If that is really like it's an
election point for you and me, right.
But 50 million Americans like you and me, I don't think so,
right. So it's either it's again.
If if you look at the perspective, right, so if you
have like how many people will have read the genesis book, you
know, like about the origins of Bitcoin, about what Bitcoin
really is, how many people run a node?
You know, how many? So going really into like what
Bitcoin is versus then crypto, which is very big.
And in that sense, you know, the difference between Bitcoin and
crypto, I think you can explain very well.
And you've done that in your podcast because you've seen both
sides from close by, I think. So you know that there's a huge
difference there and this is something that that that still
needs to be explain thoroughly because that's where the the mix
up and the mismatches in the general public.
I think still, yeah. So, so how do you how do you
think that we would would get there right.
So if we look back at your story maybe a bit, I think it's
interesting because before you started with the podcast, we
already discussed like a bit like what you were going to do
you, you were searching. So, so why, why did you get to
this point that you get this podcast going instead of like go
on a crypto tour and try to get rich?
Let's say, well, I I talked about crypto or web tree also
in, in, in some podcasts as a guest myself like I see, and at
that point I kind of understood the difference.
But now how I explain it right now is, is crypto is an attempt
by startup teams, by teams of people to create an ecosystem in
which a token that they created fuels to use in that ecosystem,
right? And so if that ecosystem becomes
big enough, if enough people use it to solve their problems or
fulfill their needs, then that token has value.
So in that sense, you know, although, you know, I, I don't
like the whole origin story of Ethereum, etc.
Like that concept concept does hold up for Ethereum, right?
It's an, it's an ecosystem like a decentralized supercomputer,
etc. You can build apps and you use
ease as the gas to power the, the apps or that or that
network, you know, make sense. If enough people use it, then
yes, that token has value in some way.
But it's, it's exactly that description.
It's not ultrasound money or all the, all these things.
It's it's it's a token that represents a certain value
within an ecosystem created to solve a certain problem or
fulfill a certain need, which is totally different than than
Bitcoin, which is a Nobel Prize level discovery or invention of
something that we've never seen in the world that that, for
example, might, you know, provable finite digital
scarcity. It's with Michael Saylor
compares it to time. There.
The only thing in in our real, you know, life that you can
compare Bitcoin to is time, which is incredibly crazy to
say, like I didn't like me five years ago.
Wouldn't think, you know, that, that I would say this now, but I
do see it. It's, it's that like we
discovered scarcity, like true, true, verifiable scarcity, which
is once, once you dive into that more, it just touches upon
everything, everything in our lives.
Every I, I, I say to my like progressive millennial friends,
like everything you would want to fix in the world is broken
because the money is broken. Broken money creates wrong
incentives. So we have to fix the money and
we can only fix the money if we have an apolitical, a religious,
like all these things, just a, a neutral decentralized money that
we can use to exchange value with each other.
So that's kind of how I, how I explained it now.
But but I had to do the shit coining before I did the
bitcoining more because it's it when you, when you, when you
like technology or like digital products or the Internet,
etcetera, you know, you hear something like blockchain and
you know, all these, all these projects use a form of a
blockchain, right? And so if you just look at it
from a blockchain perspective, then every everything is in the
same buckets basically. There it comes, right?
This is where you, so you can have the most beautiful stories
and you know, in the in the Bitcoin world, you, you will see
a lot of people in podcast with the most beautiful stories, but
it all comes back to physical reality.
And then the question is always very simple.
Where do you have the database? Because it's very simple.
Your bank account these days, it's your phone, right?
So the bank account is on the phone.
It's just ones and zeros in a database.
Where is the freaking database? How many people make use of this
database? So how many people actually work
on this database? And is this an open database or
a closed database? That's the core physical
questions and it's one and 0. So it's transistors, they're
just very small, but it's physical, all right.
So it's really a one and a zero. It's a one and a zero.
And then the question is, if you look at the physical reality, is
it not many databases, you know, and is the entire history stored
or not? And then if you just ask these
very basic questions, like 99% becomes very difficult to
explain because, OK, is someone checking the entire history of
what happened? Yeah.
In Bitcoin, it's like the entire history.
Everyone is running a super cheap computer at home with a
small hard disk, and they are all doing the entire history
check. And everything is there.
And there's so many people across the globe doing this.
And then the miners, there are so many people, you know,
plugging in now open source, you know, like bit access everywhere
across across the globe. Everyone is mining little
blocks. You know, everyone wants to
participate on this global network.
The physical touch point, the physical hardware is with
Bitcoin. And that's where we also see the
attack factor of the energy, you know, like all bad for the
environment. I have the sticker here which
says 0 emission electric miner, right?
No, but literally, if you don't have sufficient machines in the
physical reality, then the system will be captured.
That's just how it works, because you physically capture
the database where the transactions are happening.
And as all transactions these days are happening digitally, so
on the fucking database somewhere you know this is the
attack factor. And that's also in a broader
game theoretical perspective. That's where you see this play
out, right. So you have this super tiny bank
in the Netherlands. Where are the databases?
Probably some foreign power knows where these databases are.
So if they drop these three bombs where they have these
databases, the entire bank is gone.
Yeah, this is something that is not in anyone's mind, right?
Yes. It's this is so scary also from
my perspective. So for me, like Bitcoin, which
is like everything is naked, it will still run, you know, like
it's just like such a solid digital monetary database that
will always work no matter what happens across the globe.
And I can't say that for any other monetary system.
So this goes back to what we said, what I said to you before
we started recording. This is factually true, OK, One,
if people hear this right, because out by the way, I would
even say the database is not on your phone.
Your phone is a viewer for one number in the entire database,
right? And then that number in your
banking app does not represent real coins and and and bills
that are stored in in in in a vault like Scrooge Mcduck,
right? They are not there.
OK, But let's say you hear this factual truth.
Most people will not act on this because it's very harsh.
Like, like the implications of what you are saying are are are
are world view shattering because you are trusting a third
party to store the monetary energy that that you gathered
with your job or your venture. Yeah.
And that is real. Your time is real, your energy
is real, right? And then you store that reward
into something that is not real. It's not real.
It's, it's literally fake. It's fake.
And it's not there, you know, and, and that is, is so hard.
It's so hard to to actually integrate that realization
because that. Goes yeah, but you're saying
it's not. It's actually real because it's
physical ones and zeros in a certain database somewhere.
OK. It's just like, what does it
represent? And that's where.
You come back. That's a good point, yeah.
So so because. In the perception you have of
it, let's let's. Call it that.
Just just just take this one step further or back.
I think you're back because back if you go one step back, it's
just if you have this bank which actually has this database of
this ones and zeros, do you actually want to be part of this
small database for a couple million people somewhere local,
you know, on this planet? No, I actually prefer to be in a
database where actually the ones and zeros are distributed across
the planet and everyone can check on these ones and zeros
too, right. So the bank will never fail.
So just looking at it from the bank perspective and also on the
physical level. And I think that's also
something that we in general don't really talk about with
Bitcoin. But if you just go through the
story physically, then it becomes quite apparent that it's
all ones and zeros. And that's actually quite scary
for many, many people because not that long ago, it was felt
as being physical. And most people still believe
it's indeed something physical. And that's where you also say
it's not real. And then if you just talk here
on the street with people, they say a Bitcoin, I can't touch it.
And then exactly, you come to the point, yeah, but you can't
touch your euro, right? No, no, I have this banknote.
You know, I have this and I can touch it.
And that's where people still have this physical
representation. Where?
They see value. Well, it's funny because that
bank note is not the same as bank money, right?
That the currency note the the the right that that's the
government money. That's not the bank slash
private private money, right? And so even well, that that's a
that's a that's a whole podcast by itself, I'd say.
But but that's what I mean with the perception of it, right?
And I think when you say it's one sincerest, I think it's a
great example, right? You are just in one database.
Let's say you are with one bank. You were in one database of one
bank. That's where all the numbers get
crunched. And when you look at your bank
app and you see a number, it's literally the number that's in
the database at with your account number, right?
Sometimes in the Netherlands we've seen that people had the
wrong amount on their app, right?
It's great, right? Oh my.
God, it's but, but, but these, the, the fact that these things
happen and are real and they're like, oh, we had a problem with
our database, right? And now we fixed it like
millions of people trust the PR message like that.
Oh, the bank fixed it for me. Well, Julia, yes, now, now, now
it's correct again, correct. And, and that is, I think, you
know, what we see now is just that that behavior is something
that's eventually you have to run into yourself in some way,
right? Because you are you, you are,
how do you say that? Like outsourcing your
responsibility over that money to some company, some random
engineers at, at a random bank that fix the database for you?
Like wow, you know, and, and, and as you said, the, the
Bitcoin database is zeros and ones, but it's checked by 20,000
nodes every 10 minutes, you know, every, at any moment
basically. And that is what should give you
the safety. You know that that is what
actually gives you the safety and they are zeros and ones.
But, and also when someone says it's not physical, I can write
down letters and numbers with a pen on the paper and it can
represent a billion dollars. Like that is for me that is mind
blowing about Bitcoin that how tangible is that?
You know it's just letters and numbers.
No. But in the end, again, like
already more than a decade ago, I always said like if Apple, you
know, comes with their Apple money and Apple Bank, you know,
I would probably just dump all my EUR into the Apple Bank
account because I have more trust in Apple than in any bank
in this country. Because the scary part about the
banks is they are just built for this couple of million people in
this small location on this planet with bad databasing and
poor engineering because it's like too local, it's too small.
It's not built for the masses. So I would expect that like
Apple would become a bank and then everyone would dump their
money with Apple and then at least you would be running your
bank there. But of course, like Facebook
tried this, right? Facebook tried to bring the
Libra there and then government doesn't allow this.
So the The thing is that even if you would expect this to happen,
governments are not allowing it and it's all being killed.
So the only thing that that can survive now is something that
comes in a slight roundabout way that they can stop.
And that's where we are at now, right?
So we are now at the point where we need this all to be safe
first and foremost, I think, and then for for the future of
mankind to actually trade in peace with everyone in the
fastest way, Internet money, magic Internet money, so we can
all cooperate on a global scale. The only place where I see this
happening is currently Bitcoin. I don't see it in any other way.
And that's where I would love to see it go.
And before Bitcoin, my mind was more on like some really global
corporations that are global anyway that would perform this
bank task. But now, you know, we have a
much better system where these global corporations can't
corrupt this databasing system. And this is where we are at now.
So, and I hope to see in the next few years some of these
large global corporations actually, you know, implement
Bitcoin into their company. And I think we saw a glimpse of
that already with Tesla, right? So they started accepting
Bitcoin in in the US. They used BTC pay server there,
you know, but why did they stop? And I think this is like a
similar story as to what you see with Facebook, You know, you try
to build something, but you they were even stopped before it got
live. Like if the Chinese would just
say to to Musk, Oh, nice, you accept Bitcoin, we take your
factory. I think you will stop accepting
Bitcoin, Right. So these corporations can all be
pressured as such a great amount by these governments.
But at some point, game theory comes in play and and that's the
tipping point. And we will see that in the next
couple of years. Yeah.
But yeah. This is so fascinating.
This, this is this, I, I love that you give this example
because this, these are these little incidents that could show
you that, for example, in the example you had, right, like
let's say governments against Libra or, you know, any type of
attempt to create another money is instantly killed by
governments, you know, for your, for your protection, you know,
and it's, it's these little incidents.
I hope that will show people that, no, it's not in your
interest. It's in the interest of the
entity that's creating the money, you know, which is a very
logical conclusion. It doesn't even have to be in a
malicious way or evil or blah, blah, like all these things.
It's just for the conservation of the entity that that is the
government, right? And, and so it's just a logical,
it's just a logical thing. And I think, I think it's
important to emphasize that too, right?
It's not about like, oh, someone controls the money and they're
bad and evil and blah, blah. No, they control the money and
they want to keep it that way. Like, of course, duh you.
Want to you want to to to to keep the control there that you
that you already have and yeah, if.
Imagine if it's so easy to subvert a currency with just a
few companies, you know, like the Libra project that are like,
oh, well, yeah, let's let's try this out.
That was enough. That was enough a signal.
It didn't even launch. It was already enough of a
signal for the government, the US government to say no, no,
that's not going to happen. How much more of a signal do you
need? It's so fragile that that even
the concept of talking about it and and and launching a presser
gives and. And, and taking them back to
China have you have of course we pay, you know, and Alipay there
who was controlling Ali pay, you know, like Mr. Alibaba, Jack got
quite some issues at some point. And at some point everyone was
oh, where where did Jack go? You know, like, yeah, yeah.
So you become too powerful. You become simply too powerful.
And then, of course, government comes in and that's just how it
works, you know, and look at Mr. Finance now, you know he's in
jail. When you become too big, they
will come for you. So it has to be millions and
millions of people that just run it and do it.
And then at some point it will, it will work out.
But that's the struggle where it's going to go through.
Yeah. All right.
So now my second question. Did we just answer the 1st?
No, I don't know. We just, we just went for it
now, but like we're talking about this.
And I wanted to ask you also like you are, you are a fellow
millennial, you know, and I always ask like all the all the
guests, especially when they are millennials, like we are just
shooting the shit here, you know, like, how do you
experience talking about Bitcoin with like other millennials?
Do you have like, like you, you probably have people in your
life that are not into Bitcoin that are maybe bored by you just
talking about it all the time. Like how?
How does? What does your environment look
like? Yeah, so I have a lot of friends
who are not in Bitcoin at all. And of course I gave, when they
got children, I gave them Bitcoin and I said on an open
dime, you know, I just put it in your vault and let them come
after 10 years because then we will check the chip quality, if
it's still OK and then probably put it somewhere else.
But at least that they can go and study when they are turning
18 or 20. So I did that with all my
friends and they, they, I think they, they thought because it's
already quite a while ago that I'm a, I'm a bit of a strange
guy in that sense, you know, like maybe not not thinking too
positive or something about the future with Bitcoin, but I'm
actually really positive in that sense because I see this shining
light there. And Bitcoin will bring a lot of
good for the next generations. The question is where these
locations that move first will be.
And I think we already see some glimpses there.
But if in that sense, you know, the Netherlands is not the
shining light, then a lot of people will leave that I know.
And a lot of people have already left, but I think it will
increase rapidly. So, but also people that are not
into Bitcoin at all, right? So it's just like when it
becomes so much more expensive to to be here, while you can
earn a similar amount but keep so much more somewhere else, a
lot of people will want to leave.
And that's something that I in general see in my generation.
So people don't have a solid base anymore and that's where I
grew up in. So if I just go back to my
parents, you know, it was super solid.
I grew up between all the farms, you know, 4 kilometers of
nothing to see. We ran around on the on the ice
in the winter and really enjoyed, enjoyed the farmers
life, let's say. And I always thought that I
would live there forever, you know, and maybe travel a lot,
but that would be my base. And currently, I don't see this
as a base. And I think more than half of my
friends that are around my age are also looking at it in a more
fluent way. And this is really bad, right?
Because you need a solid base to actually build things for the
long term. Yes.
And that's something that, that I, I really sense and feel and
that that of course, is not in that sense positive, but these
shining lights that are there where people might move and
really build, you know, like do their proof of work and build it
up. And I think we see that and
these shining stars that are, are popping up already that I
hope to achieve here because that would bring a bright future
here. And that's where I'm still like
hoping for and, and building towards too.
So I really want to show I, I send a letter to the the finance
department in the Netherlands with an open invitation.
Come look at our companies, You know, the exchanges that we
have. We have really great exchanges
in the Netherlands with proper proof of reserves, you know,
like something that you want to see.
Next to that, we have very impressive mining facilities,
stabilizing our grid and heating our food in the greenhouses.
I want to show you this. Please come along and see what
this means. You know, like in a broad sense
and you still don't get a reply. And that's something that in
that sense scares me. So as I'm saying, next week, I'm
in Parliament, but that's not the broad range.
I want to, to, to have the entire, you know, like finance
department, you know, from all parties left and right.
I want them to at least be curious and, and take up this
invitation and then see what we're actually building and what
we're doing because I don't think many people have an idea.
So if you look at NSC, one of the largest political parties
now in the Netherlands, it was very nice because we had a
debate about cryptocurrency and they they actually, there's a
really nice passage passage in the, in the, in the how do you
say that? Yeah, the no agreement where
they actually said, yeah, Bitcoin is anonymous, but isn't
it also a transparent Ledger? So they were actually
contradicting themselves in this sentence.
And the NSC group was asking this question.
So you see the lack of education that is still there with one of
the largest political parties. And that's something that we
really need to speed up. But they need to be open for it,
right? Because, yeah, we can bang the
doors whatever we want. But if they're not open for it,
yeah, then these questions will be asked for for the next couple
of years still, Yeah. Yeah, I agree.
And it's also it's, I don't think it's a surprise that they
are not educated, right. I think eventually it's all
about about the incentives and the incentive.
Well, it depends. I think the incentive to look at
something alternative like Bitcoin is super relevant.
I think that's what we both see and a lot of people see.
But yeah, when you're in the center of, of power, that is
probably outside of your your field of, of vision in some
sense, right? Like if you don't have to take
it seriously, then why why, why would you, right.
But for me, that that also ties back to that game theory, right?
Like it's that, that, that, that hubris in some sense that
actually makes them finish or get it lost.
And that is so fascinating. Like that paradox for me is very
fascinating that that like you, that, that what you've built,
you know, and especially our country, if we don't maintain it
or, or, or stay vigilant about what we have and appreciate what
we have, you know, we will not be humble enough to see anything
new that's happening in the world.
And the funny fact is that literally our country already
experienced the downfall of being the global reserve
currency, right? So it already happened in the,
in the past and I, I, I love that paradox.
I, I, I love it. I absolutely love it.
It's the same as with like corporate innovation, right?
Like most corporate companies are, are already unbundled by
thousands of startups that take like, you know, do one little
service of what they have put together in for example, you
know, let's say a traditional finance corporate, like they,
they, they don't realize that they are already done.
But they have some sort of cash cow that keeps them running for
a few years and the same, you know.
Exactly what you're saying, like the interesting part is here,
like if you go back to that old reserve currency status, it's
really well documented there. So in the Netherlands, we had
the house prices in Amsterdam. They were perfectly documented.
And then when the new world reserve currency came, the house
prices in the new currency actually became that all the
house prices in Amsterdam dropped 80%.
So the entire real estate in Amsterdam was devalued with 80%
on average. And if you, if you think about
this back then, then you see the store of value being now in real
estate in the Netherlands. Like I had some real estate and
I sold it because I felt like this was not going to be
sustainable where we are in and expressed in the new reserve
currency, you'll be fucked if you hold this currency right.
And if you in this currency where you're in OK, it looks
still going up, but in the new world reserve currency, you're
losing a ton. So, and that's actually what we,
what we already experienced a little bit in Bitcoin, but it
will, it will, it will become much more clear in the next
couple of years that real estate is just simply not the safe
haven. And when I, yeah, when I say to
people that real estate is not going up forever and then people
don't believe me still. So yeah, I think this paradigm
shift will come, but it will take time.
Yeah, definitely will take time. And you see, you know, what I
like is it's already happening. What you are saying is already
happening, right? And so I, I think it is a fight,
right? As you illustrated, it is a
fight. We have to educate people.
But but in some sense, like the truth is on our side because we
have proof. You know, it's, I, I had a tweet
yesterday, like there was a video I saw by a guy who
explained like believing versus knowing.
And you can only believe in something if you don't know it,
for example. And I said, well, crypto is
believing, you know, Bitcoin is knowing, but it's, it's, it's,
it's the knowing part that is nice, but also frustrating,
right? Because I honestly think and,
and, and also for you, we could sit in any, you know, theater or
whatever, like some room and people could ask us any question
and we would have any, all the answers to that question and,
and ask people questions back as well, right?
Like, why do you think this or why do you ask this?
Can you explain this to me? You know, like, I know that we
know, right? But that doesn't mean that other
people know and they still believe in this other thing, you
know, and, and that, you know, that's just, it's the game.
That's the game. But what you're saying without
work, something is, is basically.
Let's see, I have it here. Yeah, it's basically it's this.
And this is the scary part because it it's always the
physical thing, right. So you just said knowing
knowing, knowing is owning. So there's this really nice.
This is a guy from Sweden. This is called knowing is
owning. And this is something you of
course discussed also with with some people on your podcast, the
famous people. So not the flaps like me, but if
you look like this thing, this thing, I'm just holding it on
the camera. Yeah, birth demo, it says.
Yeah, it's a demo. It has, it's not numbers, so
it's not, it's word, not word one, but it's actually, you can
see, I think you can see it's actually, you know, what we have
in the sky. So you can actually remember the
dots on this disk and that's the access to your Bitcoin.
Yeah, knowing is owning. It's in the physical reality.
People don't understand that this thing will last for 1000
years. If someone finds this and knows
this code, this distributed network of computers, wherever
they are at that moment, in 1000 years will have access to this
absolutely scarce monetary base that we build as a human
society. And it's all physical.
But this part is always lost because people still think that
Bitcoin is just some digital currency.
No, it's actually most tied to the real world as anything.
And that's why knowing is owning.
You can travel across the globe with something in your head and
you will be able to exchange it everywhere for whatever you
need. And that's just completely
insane. And this is so far out from the
mainstream, they don't see this yet.
And as you're saying, also with the millions of millions of
people, the 50 million people in in the US, this is exactly the
thing. Like of these 50 million people,
the majority holds something on an exchange and in a very small
part on this planet holds something physically.
And luckily that's growing because otherwise the shop
wouldn't grow. But this is the real shift, you
know, and it takes a lot of time before you get to that point
where you understand that knowing is owning.
Yeah, I love the distinction, what I learned about property
and ownership. So I would even take it further
because in in in this world, owning something doesn't
actually mean it's your property, right?
I think in, in Dutch, yeah, there are words for it.
I think in English, like ownership and property is
better, right? But like for me, ownership is
something that is kind of like abstracted, right?
Like you have a title deed to your house or some stocks,
right? Like Bert owns this stock and
there's, there's, there's two autographs and then you know,
okay, but it's not property. You don't have it, right?
You don't have it. You cannot like the, the
journalist I talked to, she's not into gold and not into
Bitcoin yet, but she's into stocks.
And then she asked me the question, what if, you know, I
don't know, like shit hits the fan and there's like a war and
you have to leave. I said, well, I leave with the
Bitcoin in my head and you're going to call your stock broker
and be like, well, you know, I want to sell my stock or take my
stock. Like what are you doing?
You know, the fact that you have to call someone to get what you
think you own means you don't own it, right?
And just just that, that, that difference between property
actually having it and owning its ownership, like on paper is
such a massively different thing.
But taking property of, you know, the monetary energy that
you gathered is also really scary.
I, I was talking to a friend who has no Bitcoin, but he's rich.
And he said to me, oh, but that if I have a million in Bitcoin,
I I'm the only one who's guarding this.
I said, yeah, it's like, no, that's very scary.
You know, I said, yes, that's true.
But you actually, it's, it's, it's your property that that
million now in the bank is not yours.
It's, it's, it's contractually not, not yours.
So you have to understand that too.
You're scared of something without understanding what what
you're currently participating in.
And I think you alluded to that earlier, like Bitcoin is just
another system. It's just another system that
you can participate in and you can still move to it freely and
totally conscious. And you can choose to adopt that
system versus the system that you're currently in.
You never chose to be in that. Yeah.
And that's also why you don't understand it, because no one
ever. Just what you're now mentioning
is actually also the scary part, right?
So because someone walks in here with a gun, you know, there was
another podcast guy in the Netherlands who had that I
walked in, you know, who take his Bitcoin.
The thing is, you can also properly protect it and
distribute it across the globe, right?
So you can, you can lay the keys around and you need multiple
keys to actually be able to access it.
And if you trust people, you have nice people in your
surroundings, you can actually distribute it among people.
Also, you can have a pop there, you know, like, and distribute
these keys. So the, the, the beautiful thing
is like, if you shoot someone, you cannot take it.
So that's wild. That's, that's just such an
insane thing. So this this physical thing,
yeah, you can find it that doesn't hold any value because
you need other things too, right?
So The thing is like you have the physical thing, but always a
little part is there like a passphrase or it's a multi sig,
you need more things. And that's almost always in the
minds of one or multiple people. And that's really insane because
all of a sudden this time saving technology, this monetary value
is actually kept within these people and it makes it very.
Far says you are the Bitcoin. Yeah, you are the Bitcoin.
Exactly. And that's just completely
insane. Like also we have like these
really tiny seeds, they're called tiny seeds in our web
shop and we sell them to people that travel a lot because
they're not detected in in the X-rays on the airports.
Oh wow. Yeah, so people can actually
travel with their seat and not remember every because it's
quite hard. So they put the the seat, you
know, they can saw it somewhere in there and it's super tiny.
So it cannot be detected easily. Like these kind of things people
think about and that people are really travel with this kind of
freedom money across the globe is is just fantastic.
And even if they would do something about the tiny seat,
then people would still be able to do it in their head, Right.
So I, I think this shift is still very far out from general
understanding. Yeah.
And as you're saying, it's scary.
It's scary if you don't know exactly how to do this stuff.
And luckily, there are a lot of people helping out on this
already. But you have to be.
Yeah, You have to be. Yeah.
Also a little bit wary because there are also of course
scammers in this. Yeah, yeah, I know.
But what I tried to point to, yes, I agree.
You need to learn about it. For him, it was only the
concept. Yeah, that already scared him,
right. And I like to have like those
conversations because then I'm like, OK, let's just
conceptually talk about this, right.
Like if you call the bank now and you want to get 100K of your
million out some girl or man who a woman or man who has a certain
job, you know, task list description, whatever, it's
going to be like, oh, 100K that's above this limit.
What do you want to do with it, Sir?
You know, like you're going to have a conversation with someone
who's just, you know, executing their job.
But they are they are standing in front of a door between you
and that what you think you well.
You won't get it. You won't get 100K out of bank.
And it's not to protect you, right?
And so I, I, I, I talked with him through this and I said,
well, you don't like, I don't care if you buy Bitcoin or not.
I'm just trying to help you get to the point where you start
thinking about how am I really in control of my life?
Am I really in control of the reward that I got for spending
my time and energy my most finite resource, you know?
And the answer is just no. And it's not a nice realization,
but it is the answer. And then once you understand
that that is the answer, you have a big choice.
You have a choice to ignore that and just, you know, continue
ignoring it. You know, like like the Matrix
red pill, blue pill type thing. Or you can be like, OK, well, if
it really works like that, what can I do about it, Right.
And, and that was the case for me.
And I, I shared that a lot already on this podcast.
But like, I was 30 and I worked at a bank and I had a mortgage
and I was already into Bitcoin. And then a colleague explained
to me why the money in the bank wasn't mine.
And I was like, what, what are you talking about?
And then after you explained it to me, I was like, I'm an idiot.
And that's how I felt. Like I, I felt like an idiot.
I'm participating in the system. I don't understand, like, what
am I doing? And like, for me, yeah, I don't
know, maybe I'm lucky that I'm wired that way, but I could not
accept that. I I couldn't accept that I I
didn't understand what I was participating in.
So that's kind of pushed me more to work, just more studying and,
and trying to get the information that got me to
actually form an opinion about what I was participating in.
I think, yeah. And this is the scary part,
right? Where people trust and we always
say don't trust verify. And then you have this trust
percentage that is carefully managed.
You know that How many people actually trust the banks at the
moment? Do we need to have a campaign
that people get trust in the banks again?
You know, like this is actually what's happening.
It's just insane. It will take time before people
wake up, but it will come at some point.
And then I'm just quoting the central bank, Christine.
So it will come. And that's also where everyone
is of course, scared off because as she once said, if there's an
exit, it will be used. So, but the difficulty is if you
don't allow your people to go through the exit, you will get a
lot of angry people and you will also get a very poor society for
it. So at some point, you know, this
is the decision that has to be made somewhere and I don't know
how fast that will come. Depends on hard how hard they
push, I think. But yeah, it's a fairpoint.
I don't know either, but that's why it's fun to talk about this.
Yeah, but. It's also not nice, right?
It you can all say, oh, it's very beautiful and I'm positive
about Bitcoin in the future. But the transitional period can
be very messy and it really depends on which location you
are in on this planet. And if it becomes messy, Yeah,
that's not. We don't want to be in a messy
situation where this transition goes very, very roughly, let's
say. Yeah, yeah, I agree.
It's, yeah, it's hard to predict.
I like what you said about, you know, that you want to stay and
do something here, but there's also people leaving.
You know, I once heard a guy, an American guy say like, yeah,
these people going to a Salvador, their pussies, you got
to stay here and fight the fight here.
And I think that is true too. But it's also true what you're
saying, like, yeah, do you? There is a breaking point,
right? Big questions, yeah, but there
is a breaking point. That's the difficult part.
But the question is indeed like now.
It was really nice. We had the Bitcoin standard.
It was like 80 books, 2 weeks. And that's the Dutch translation
I'm talking about. We are in the niche of the
niche. There's a couple million people
in this country. So it was sold out in two weeks.
And then the printer was not an ECB printer.
It couldn't keep up. And.
So it took a couple of weeks to refill and then today I shipped
again 16 pieces of the Dutch Bitcoin standard.
And you see that people are educating themselves.
And if you just think back of your own path, you know, you,
you see where some touch points were, were already there.
And for me, the Bitcoin standard was also a really nice insight
that I got. And the book was written only in
2018, I think. And the Dutch translation is
only from a couple of years ago. And some volunteers just
translated it. If you listen to the audiobook,
you hear me, which is actually really weird, right?
So just these volunteers and these guys that wanted to share
the message took this upon themselves.
And that's why this book is translated in Dutch with all the
other books combined. And now people start to actually
educate themselves through these books.
So it's nice that this became available, but it's all because
of these people in Bitcoin that that want to propagate this
message and educate. Yeah.
And this first part, I think this monetary part, that's where
first the first people will get in.
And it's always first some skin in the game.
And then after that, they start educating themselves.
And then to guide them to the next step is going to be the
most difficult part because a lot of people get lost on our
databases part let's. Other databases, that's true.
Yeah. So I I saw in in your Twitter or
X bio it says I'm visiting Earth as a Bitcoin engineer and I
wondered how did Bitcoin give you purpose in life?
Oh shit, yeah, yeah, I'm living the, the, the the road to
Bitcoin hyper bit organization, let's say, because I'm at the
forefront now. I feel all of a sudden while I'm
quite late in the industry, but yeah, having the role that I
have now in combination with the company just growing, just
helping more and more people with with home mining, but also
just mining in general on the educational part, we see a lot
of growth. It's really nice to to be in
that sense so early. So I, I hope, I hope to see that
the Netherlands educates itself rapidly enough.
So we and not just us too, but a lot of people with us want to
build from here. And I think there are a lot of
people, if you just see at the companies that are currently
there from the 1st of January when me car so the European
legislation comes into effect, all these companies will not be
based in Europe anymore because it's basically not possible
anymore. And this is the scary thing.
China copies US invents and Europe regulates.
That's basically how you currently see the planet.
That, that's something that I hope we can, we can put a brake
on and then it would be good for, for the Dutch people.
But it's going to be a real struggle.
I, I believe and my heart takes for Bitcoin and we'll see how
far we can stretch this in the Netherlands, But otherwise we'll
do it anywhere on the planet, right?
Of that I also wanted to ask you what does proof of work mean to
you? Yeah, you have to show the work.
So what you are doing, you didn't really know what to do.
So what did you do? You started to create podcasts.
Something. Yeah, and you just told me
before we went into this call, right?
Where's this heading? I don't know.
Forward, yeah, but you will keep on putting work in, right?
You keep on editing, inviting all these people put the proof
of work in. It's all about the physical
proof of work. You create physical proof of
work by interviewing people. I'm creating physical proof of
work by helping thousands of bitcoiners in the Netherlands to
actually get on the right path. At least that's what I'm trying
to do. And I think that's what proof of
work for me is. And apart from that, proof of
work is of course the protocol thing that we all name.
So not proof of stake. So not by force and by having a
big bag, being able to determine what happens.
Now you have to put work in to actually be a part of something.
And I think that's what we are showing both.
And I hope a lot of people join us in this proof of work way of
living. And as we always said in the
ports, there's 24 hours in the day and then we still have the
night to. Work nice so well what I what I
like about that is you know like you see you see Bitcoin is a
real community right like I, I think it was last week I had a
tweet like it's just find it so incredible that like I know
surgeons now and lawyers and real estate people and I don't
know people people from any background and any expertise
right and I think first time you and I ever talked I think you
ended with well if you're ever around the door is open and then
I I actually met someone else who said like, yeah, the doors
literally open at birthplace like I had coffee with his mom
or something you know yeah and I think I think that is so great
you know like that Bitcoin really fosters this this
community building and it's really it's really being
interested in other people and yeah I want to I just want to
ask you about that like why why do you think that is why why
does it why does it foster this community building so much?
What do you see bro? For me, what I make of it is
that I, although you and I are from different backgrounds, we,
we challenged our mind to eventually understand the this
thing that is Bitcoin and I think what it can bring to the
world as we just talked about for over an hour.
And I think that is what connects us, just the fact that
that, well, at least that's for me, that's what I see that like,
I don't have to understand fully where you come from or who you
are or your upbringing or beliefs or all these things.
Like, I know you did the work to understand this and again,
challenge your mind just the same as I did.
And that is a lot of work. And, and so I think there's like
a mutual understanding and respect for that, for, for doing
that. And I think that is what
connects people in, in Bitcoin so, so easily.
And, and, and we all feel inclined to contribute something
in some way, even if it's just randomly talking for an hour.
Like I, I, I reached out to you a few few months back and you
were like, yeah, sure. And I don't, I don't know,
something like that. I, I, I don't know exactly.
So I was interested this it's curious.
For me, it's curious, like we are at the stage where it's
still the curious minds that I get.
I get meals daily. So can, can we meet?
Can I work at your company? Can we have a talk?
You know? And of course I used to do this
quite often in the past few years, but at the moment I just,
I can't do it anymore. Like I get these kind of meals
daily, which warms my heart, but I, I can't do it anymore.
So the, the, the amazing thing is that is the curious, like,
which people would actually send an e-mail and say, oh, I'm
really interested to learn more. Can you help me out?
And I, I did this, you know, I, I did this with, with, with,
with I think far over 100 people already.
And I, I tried to guide everyone on the way, but now we do it
more digitally, right? So we did a workshop just before
Bitcoin Arnem and that's also recorded.
So we will launch it on the website soon and on the YouTube
and of course on Master also. And there were, I was astonished
because I organized the workshop and I rented this little place
and it costed me more than €400 and I was expecting maybe 10
people for the workshop. It was the day before the
conference. And let's see, you know, who
wants to go for a workshop? And I asked €21.00 because I
wanted to at least cover a bit of the cost of the €400.00 of
the rental. And and then it went up and up.
And then at some point we were at 30 people that were going to
attend. And I was like, yeah, most of
the time half of the people don't attend, so it will be
fine. But it was really like more
people want to attend. So we had to change the venue to
a larger venue, rented the place for over €700.
And then you still hope that it gets full enough.
And then I was standing there and there were more than 50
people and. Very cool. 40 bill paid.
So I was, I was out of the cost, but it was amazing, right?
So there's a community here that wants to learn in depth because
who the hell goes to a mining workshop, right?
And and it's it's the curious that are now learning and
everyone wants to help each other out.
We've seen the last year, we've seen the Dutch mining community
grow to hundreds of people and everyone is using their excess
of solar and heating their homes.
And it's happening. And that that's what gives me in
that sense, the shivers that I'm really happy that we got so many
people to bring the bank home. And that's where it's all about.
In the end, you know, we take back responsibility and we will
be our own bank and that's where we're going.
So with regards to mining, what's, you know, there's
obviously a lot of misconceptions and actually
today I I saw a tweet by I don't know her name, but she's a
pretty famous scientist too. Actually, she had a video before
about how bad mining was. Now she was like, oh, it's way
more interesting, I think. Yeah, yeah, yeah, she makes
pretty cool YouTube videos. Yes, I I forgot her name.
But then Daniel Batten replied, like, Oh, you still use old
information, this is new information, etcetera.
Very cool. So I, I think I, I like, I like
that aspect too, because we know way more than most established
people that have like a certain authority, right or, or
audience. So I, I love, I love to see
that. But I wanted to ask you because
you are obviously at the forefront of mining as well.
Like what are what are still the biggest misconceptions you see
about Bitcoin mining and how do you how do you address?
Them, yeah, people still see there's a waste of electricity,
right, Of energy It's but they haven't seen anything yet.
And The thing is like, even as I said that I want to take
Parliament towards a mining location and I want to show
them, you know what we're actually doing.
So balancing the grid. So Bitcoin mining is just paying
for electricity. We pay for electricity that we
want to consume at a very low, it has to be an insanely low
price, right? Because otherwise you cannot
mine. So it's waste.
It's it's electricity that otherwise would have been
wasted. So the projects that I'm working
on is just, you have a huge factory, they have the factories
full of solar panels. Most of the time they cannot put
any of the excess electricity back on the grid within the
factory. They need heat.
So we engineer now a heat buffer, we put a mining location
there, we push the mining the heat into a heat buffer.
And then throughout the week, when they actually the factory
is working, we can use this heat into the process.
And then next to that, because you, you create a base load, you
can basically take full time electricity from the grid.
And we just drop the mining when there's excess, you know, sorry,
when there's a shortage on the grid.
So a couple of hours a day, when the grid needs to be balanced,
we just drop the electricity from the mining.
We don't need the heat constantly anyway.
And then we actually ensure that this grid stays balanced.
And with that, we lower the cost of the grid.
So the grid providers would be happy with this.
We supply heat and we actually use all this access.
And this is the projects that we're all working on.
A lot of these projects are already there with greenhouses,
but we don't show them in public.
They're huge. So they're 10 MW plus they're
already running in the Netherlands.
But we can't show them because we don't want any pictures or
videos anywhere because they will pick a trailer up and, you
know, it's millions of EUR. So risk wise it's relatively
high. Plus, we don't really, yeah,
want people on this location, you know, like, we don't want to
show this, but it's there. And I think the politicians need
to know that this is there, and that's why we need to show it.
And then again, it's proof of work.
You've seen it, You've touched it.
And that's where we're going. And the new projects that are
going to come online in the next years across the globe will all
be based on this heat and excess.
And we will have such a positive impact everywhere around the
globe. And with excess, I also mean
like adamatic mitigation, the things we already all know.
But at some point it will spread among mainstream.
It will be seen at some point. Yeah, yeah.
I find it fascinating that people think more energy use in
general is bad, which you know when they say like all Bitcoin
mining uses in this video of this German lady, it's like the
equivalent of Indonesia uses. I think she has as an example.
But that doesn't mean that it it can be used for something else.
I think that's the entire point, right?
Like the fact that you say it's waste energy because the
incentive for a minor is to find the lowest cost electric energy
that that's not energy that is newly created by a newly bought
energy source. May, yeah, maybe add some
waterfall in the middle of Kenya or you know.
Yeah, but this is what gritless is doing, right?
Yeah, exactly, exactly what you see.
But in essence, it is wasted energy.
It is because. Because it cannot be harvested
and you know at that, at that location because it's not
economically viable. I would add to the list that
that you mentioned is also because you mined the Bitcoin,
you do not only, you know, do these things that you said, but
you make it economically viable, right?
You can actually have more than a 100% return on your investment
in in the in the energy. But just just look specifically
at the service. Every time we have a little bit
of wind, a little bit of sun, we turn off gigawatts of yeah, of
access. Gigawatts are being turned off.
And The thing is, why is it in the Netherlands not being done
with Bitcoin mining is because everyone that turns off is paid
a lot, you know, still. And the thing that we do?
Energy. Companies then to do that or.
Yeah, it's subsidized. So you just turn off and you're
being compensated. So in the end, all the Dutch
people pay the bill, right? Everyone pays this bill and then
just. For not using the windmills and
solar farms that have. This and then shift their view
towards Texas where they have an even more extreme build out, the
build out we are going to have in the Netherlands very soon,
but they don't have these incentives.
So they have gigawatts and gigawatts of mining there
because they want to actually use this electricity and they
want a base load that can shut off directly to actually balance
the grid. So if we wouldn't be in an over
subsidized society here, we would have had a lot more
Bitcoin mining already. And this is something that
people don't even grasp yet. But luckily you know, even
because on the level at Tenet even they are getting educated
and we will get there, but it will take time.
Because the, the government or the OR the the net, the company
that that takes care of the of the energy net, right?
Yeah, they can earn money instead of paying money, right.
Or the government can can earn money and the people can pay
less for their energy, right. I, I talked to Des B.
Do you know him? Yeah, Des B and he.
Met him in. The era, Yeah, very cool.
Yeah, he told me. I have to say it correctly.
Of all, like the renewable energy sources, only 1/3 of the
created energy gets sold. But it does not get sold.
It gets sold. You pay, you pay three times as
much for what it's actually worth because only one third can
actually be used. You know, and it's such a basic
business case because if you can sell 100% of the energy, then
you pay the regular price as a consumer of of the energy,
right? You and me just to sit the
citizens, right and and the person who owns the the energy
source gets actually paid for the energy day to get created
and and even more, right, if they mine Bitcoin because they
could sell, sell the Bitcoin as well if it's appreciates the
price. So you get, you can get over
100% return on, on any investment in a renewable energy
source, which is just again, so, so logical, right?
But it goes so much against the current landscape of, you know,
how it's managed. I think that's also what.
You yeah, but that's why Bitcoin mining is moving upstream, you
know, closer to where the generation is.
So what we will see is also when batteries come into effect, OK,
if we have batteries and let's say a more micro grid level, you
know, a small grid where you have a lot of access because you
need to have a worst case generation capacity that there
will be a lot of access even with the batteries in place.
And you actually want to fully utilize your entire setup.
So you will plug in some mining there because you want this base
load that just drops directly when you have a shortage.
And the shortage is just a small moment in time throughout the
year. So there's always capacity for
this base load, but that's just on the energy level that people
are still not grasping I think. And we just keep on searching
for the optimal locations. And I think now we are still
very early. So there are still margins on
Bitcoin mining, but I think they will deteriorate in the future
in Bitcoin. In Bitcoin they will.
But yeah, of course in Fiat terms it still looks good,
right. So that's what we are currently
discussing. I have like a graduation student
that is looking at it in the build environment.
So we have a case at the elderly home where instead of changing
natural gas for natural gas, we would put a small Bitcoin mining
installation there because it needs high temperature, which we
can do with Bitcoin mining. So we would electrify a part of
the natural gas. And then what does this look
like cost wise? And then you just see this curve
that he made like in a low, mid or a high expectation of the
Bitcoin value, but directly exchanging the Bitcoin for Fiat.
And then you just see the first years, it's the best solution is
the best solution. But then after a couple of
years, of course, a different solution is better if you just
keep on selling directly. But then the question is like,
will you sell your Bitcoin for or will you buy EUR directly for
your Bitcoin? If that's not the case and you
make then an estimate at the point where you do it, where you
might need it or you don't, yeah, then it's it's a business
case that's extremely solid. But it always comes back to do
you believe in Bitcoin? And like all the installations I
have built, and there are quite a few now, it's always this core
question, do you believe in Bitcoin?
If you don't believe in Bitcoin at all, don't step in.
It's I, I won't even touch the project like it's, I don't want
to be near it because it's not about the fee of denominated
value. You need to see a future for
Bitcoin. Otherwise it doesn't make any
sense at all. And I think that that's often
lost. You know that most people are in
this for, for EUR, but the people I've I've been with and
that they understand Bitcoin and they know where this is going
and that's where they invested in and that's a lot of families
actually. So, and I'm happy to see that
because the next generation will only be stronger in this.
Yeah, I love that love, love that you're sharing that I I
personally don't have a lot of insights about, you know, the
mining industry. So it's I love that you're
sharing that. I think this is again,
something, you know, like another dimension of Bitcoin
that you that, that is a rabbit hole by by itself, you know, and
yeah, in general that's just fascinating that you can have
like all these, all these different dimensions, but
especially the mining part. I'm super interested to see
where that's going to go. I I wanted to ask you two more
questions because I see it's pretty, it's pretty late.
We just, we just started talking.
So I love, I love that. I wanted to ask you about self
custody setups. Like you have so many wallets
and you help people out. Like what are like the most
basic recommendations for anyone we.
Actually don't have that many wallets.
So we made a very strict selection.
So the thing was when we started with the mining, all these
families of course also needed to store a Bitcoin.
So they ask you, OK, how do I store my Bitcoin?
And there's a thousand options, as everyone knows.
And then the question is what is the optimal solution for which
family? And I think that's different at
a different point in time and also different for people.
So we made a very simple selection.
We wanted the code to be open source so we could actually
check what is running on the device and preferably also that
it's open, what's in the device, you know, so, and that's the
case and what we have now. So it's open source, fully open
source, both software and hardware.
Then we have. Air gapped, so we don't want any
physical connection with the Internet because the device
generates the code and as we were saying on steal or it's
physical and we want it not to touch the Internet at all in any
way. So it has to be air gapped.
That means that there's an air between the connection.
So that means that it actually communicates via a camera.
So it shows a QR and it scans a QR.
So it's an air gap device. And then we wanted it to be
Bitcoin only because in the past I helped people and at some
point they were in some kind of going with a dog and lost all
their money. So I don't want it to be related
to any other coin. But next to that, it's also an
attack factor because if you have other coins in the device,
it's an additional risk. And then only three device,
three devices were possible. So yeah, if you look behind me,
it's block stream Jade. It's a foundation passport.
That's like the foundation passport is the most expensive,
but the most easy also. And then you have the block
stream Jade, which is the cheapest mass produced, but very
great device. And then we have the seat
signer, which we produce with a group of people in the aluminium
casing, but you can just build it yourself.
So that's an option you have. You can just download the part
list, but we assemble it into a proper device because a lot of
people want this proper device and it's quite difficult to
build it in the aluminium frame. So that's the three options that
we currently have. And there's another option going
to come really beautifully made, but that's for later.
But but these are the three we currently do and what we see, we
sold hundreds and hundreds of jades.
So it's a mass product. It's cheap, but we also sold
quite a few foundation passports and that's actually where a lot
of people are really happy with because it's an easy setup.
I think that's something that I would advise a lot of people.
I don't know if you have any I. Love by Foundation Passport yes,
yeah, I I think, I think. And I had Zach, a CEO, on I
don't know which episode number. OK, Yeah.
Check that out. But I I love his vision.
This is the Apple of Bitcoin. Yeah, yeah.
He has actually also once had a call with him and he has all
these pictures of the commercial of Apple behind him.
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. So.
Cool. And then the seed signer.
Yeah, of course there are some things there that that people
might find difficult because it's a stateless device.
That means that the seed is not kept in the device itself.
And if you don't properly back up and know what you're doing,
you don't want to go there, you know, like you really need to
know what you're doing. So the first steps in general,
you know, are either Passport or Jade, not the seed signer.
So it's more for the bitcoiners in that sense.
And then the nice thing is the thing we sold most are actually,
I'll show it one SEC. This is this stuff.
So you just thick paper, you know, with seed QRS because you
can also put it in a QR code that the seeds or your excess
and then the words, but on thick paper.
And then next to that we do that into a sealed bag.
I have them here. So you put it in a sealed bag
and that's actually what we explained on the website also
like why do you put it in a sealed bag?
Yeah, you don't want anyone to touch your backup.
So whatever backup you have, if it's on steel or it's on paper,
you want it in a little bag that you can see if someone touched
it. Because if someone touched it,
even if it's a multi signature or is as a press race, that part
is compromised. And also the signing device, you
put it in a bag because if somebody touched it or found it,
you can see it and there's a unique number on it.
It's super cheap. You know, we sell this shit,
it's like $0.50 and we ship it all in the envelope, you know,
like. Nice.
People order this by mouth because they understand that
it's, it's that's the way to store or have this additional
security on already proper security.
And it's super cheap anyway. And this is something we, we
came up with with a lot of Bitcoiners, you know, like, oh,
this is the cheapest way to do it.
And that's, yeah, that's what I love also about the community,
because everyone thinks about these things and what we just
discussed, like where, yeah, what, what's the best way?
It's difficult. Everyone needs a different
solution. Yeah, yeah, I love that thing.
Thanks for sharing. I, I think it's a little
journey. I think the passport is my 4th
wallet or something you know? I wasn't the LED rec, I wasn't
the LED rec. That's what pushed me a little
bit extra. You know, if if an address is
yeah, known that that that's really scary, right.
So also with with that's also what I explicitly always say
that we delete the data directly after we ship.
So for me, because personally I was yeah, I was in that heck.
So the Ledger hack, that means that people that ordered
Ledger's during a certain period, the database was leaked
and all the e-mail addresses and home addresses, home addresses
of all these people are shipping because if you didn't use your
home, but home address for most were on this database and there
was a lot of shit. Shipped.
Towards these addresses so physically at this location, it
was actually not my home so don't worry, but like this shit
was coming in there on my name and then you know holy shit
something happened. This is not good.
And that was the leisure hack. And I, I wanted to prevent
people from from, yeah, seeing this happen.
So I don't store any data and it's actually really cumbersome.
So if you just go to shipping, you know, I have the order.
I manually input that, you know, or we do that.
I'm not the only one. We manually input that into the
shipping part because if you would open an API for the
shipping, it's huge risk it could be scraped.
It would end up as a account database.
With the shipper. So we don't have an account with
the shipper. So it's not related.
You want to keep that separate. And I think I'm, I'm like one of
the only ones who does that. But I'm, I'm, I've been in this
heck, I, yeah, I took it personal.
So that's why I'm like this on this.
So yeah. Nice, nice, nice practice.
I am. I wanted to ask you the last
question. Yep, I think we can talk for an
entire day actually. Maybe we should do that sometime
soon. Yeah, but the.
Door is open for you so. Yeah, I know.
Yeah. The last question is, is, is
something I ask everyone. I ask the same question.
And that is what is a core belief you will never let go.
The core belief I will never let go.
Be good to others then they will be good for you and Bitcoin will
help everyone a lot with this. Of that well, thanks for sharing
and thanks for this conversation yeah, we should do this again
sometime in the future and then we just go for for three hours I
think but yeah, I'll make sure to to link to your social
socials and and to your company so people can check it out and
yeah man thanks. Sorry for the long rants, thank
you. No, I love it.
I love it. Thank you man.
I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, it would be amazing
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hope you'll be here for the next episode.
Thanks for listening. Bye.