Don’t Lose Your Bitcoin Generational Wealth | BTC Sessions

28:10So that's low cost. I'd say low barrier to entry and pretty simplistic interacting with it. The cold card, and I'm going to specifically refer to the Q, which it looks like a BlackBerry. it's got a full keyboard on it and all of the things uh this thing is like uh it's a beast like it's it's substantial and it does every possible thing that you could want to do so for me i'm like i want to try everything and the like the advanced menu and all of the features that you can do pretty wild but the long and the short of it is you have a device that has a screen and a keyboard and it has a camera on the top of it.

28:58It also does NFC so you can tap with it as well. You can interact with your phone or your computer. And the draw for this one is you can audit the code so you can tell that it's doing what it's supposed to be doing. So that checks one off the list. It's Bitcoin only. So I'm not worried about additional software on there that could be finicky. It's air-gapped, so you can plug it in if you want to, but if you want to up your game, you can migrate to air-gapping eventually. Big screen, so you can add passcodes and all these different things. Secure element. So it ticks a lot of boxes, and the other thing that I really actually kind of like about Cold Card is it doesn't have an app.

29:51So with, say, Trezor, Ledger, BitKey, and a lot of other devices, I'll throw in Bloxroom Jade, kind of, there's nuance there. But anyways, when you get roped into using an app, then you're kind of both the hardware and the software side of things are, it's a single point of failure. And so you must use that app, at least, you know, with the Trezor and the Ledger to set up the device and update it. But then you can migrate later. With the cold card, you can set up the device, have it ready to go without ever touching any app, and then you decide what app you want to use with it. And all of the apps are not created by CoinKite.

30:35So you kind of have this default diversification of software and hardware so that if cold card wanted to screw you in their app, they can't because there is no app. So you have to have another software developer in cahoots with CoinKite to screw you out of money, you know, to pull the wool over your eyes. So I think, so I love that ColdCard has a ton of features. I think they, basically everything you can do, they have often to do it. But there is risk with that. Because again, like if you have to assume for most people, your biggest likelihood of losing your Bitcoin is by you losing it rather than being attacked.

31:15And they do add like complexity. So do you think most people should stay away from that advanced settings menu? Most people won't ever really use it. The average person, if they're using a cold card, their interaction will be set up the device, which entails like setting up a pin and creating a new wallet and writing down your words, your backup words. And then other than that, it'll be picking an app and pairing the device to the app. When you're doing transactions, it'll be, I want to send this here, and then just interact with a cold card. Yes, I approve, back and forth. You're likely not going to be diving into the advanced stuff.

32:03And usually if I'm teaching somebody how to use a cold card, I'm saying, we're only focusing on what you need to know. The rest of this is at your disposal as you begin to learn more and you get curious. It's just kind of there. And there'll be features down the line that oftentimes people will go, oh, I didn't even know this was a thing. This is super useful. So I do think that the average person can get it as long as they focus on just what they need to do, especially for a very beginner, just plug the damn thing into your computer. 100%. You don't want to be creating your own entropy with three dice rolls and then be like, why is my Bitcoin not here?

32:42Yeah, exactly, exactly. So like you got to meet the person where they are. And if somebody is in a place where they're like, this is really cool. I want to, you know, maybe they're migrating from another device and they're saying like, I'm going to up my game now. Then you start them off simple. And then you say, okay, here's the breadcrumbs of where maybe we'll go after this. This episode is brought to you by River and they've just launched a very cool new product where you can automatically buy every price dip. Their zero fee recurring buys are a proven way to build wealth with Bitcoin and you can now supercharge them and buy up to 100 % more Bitcoin if the price is dipping at the time of your order.

33:23It's a great tool to buy more Bitcoin at lower prices and while your cash is waiting to be deployed, you earn 3.75 % interest on it paid in Bitcoin. River is built to last with security at its core and is the only Bitcoin exchange in the US with proof of reserves. To open an account, go to river.com forward slash WBD and earn up to$100 in Bitcoin when you buy. That's river.com forward slash WBD. What if you could lower your tax bill and stack Bitcoin at the same time? Well, by mining Bitcoin with blockware, you can. New tax guidelines from the Big Beautiful Bill allow American miners to write off 100 % of the cost of their mining hardware in a single tax year.

34:02That's right, 100 % write-off. So if you have$100 ,000 in capital gains or income, you can purchase$100 ,000 of miners and offset it entirely. Blockware's mining as a service enables you to start mining bitcoin right now without lifting a finger. Blockware handles everything from securing the miners to sourcing low-cost power to configuring the pool, they do it all. You get to stack bitcoin at a discount every single day while also saving big come tax season. Get started today by going to mining.blockwaresolutions.com forward slash wbd. Of course none of this is tax advice, speak to your accountant or tax advisor to understand how these rules apply to you and then head over to mining.blockware solutions.com forward slash wbd and you'll get one week of free hosting and electricity with each hosted miner purchased.

34:48What Bitcoin did is brought to you by the massive legends Iron, the largest Nasdaq listed Bitcoin miner using 100 % renewable energy. Iron are not just powering the Bitcoin network, they're also providing cutting-edge computing resources for AI all backed by renewable energy. We've been working with their founders Dan and Will for quite some time now and have been really impressed with their values, especially their commitment to local communities and sustainable computing power. So whether you're interested in mining Bitcoin or harnessing AI compute power, IREN is setting the standard. Visit iren.com to learn more, which is I-R-E-N.com.

35:22This episode is brought to you by Bitcoin Mina. On December 8th and 9th, I'll be in Abu Dhabi for Bitcoin Mina, along with 10 ,000 other Bitcoiners. There's an amazing lineup of over 200 speakers sharing Bitcoin insights and innovation from all over the world. And if you're looking for the ultimate vip experience with exclusive networking plus premium food and drink then grab the whale pass and the whale night party even include surfing so you know i'm going to be there tickets are on sale now use code wbd to get 10 off at checkout on all pass types the website is mina.b.tc and use code wbd for 10 off and in terms of like third party wallet software what like i like i think wasabi is great i think i think sparrow is great what else do you recommend people use?

36:05So I really, my default on desktop is Sparrow. And to be honest, even when I'm teaching somebody relatively new, I will show them Sparrow. And I know that looks scary, but I explain it in a way where, again, I just try to pull people's focus. Like you don't need to know, yes, there's other buttons there. Don't touch the buttons. Just touch the blue button. and that's telling you where to go. So I'll start really basic with that. But then on mobile, I think probably one of the most versatile mobile wallets for hardcore security is probably Nunchuck. Like I use that all the time for travel, for inheritance, for like a whole bunch of stuff.

36:50I quite like them as it pertains to with hardware. Yeah, I've not used Nunchuck in a long time, but I think Sparrow is great. Like I use Sparrow all the time. I do like Wasabi. I think their UX is really nice. It is. And again, like it can be an advanced wallet, but you can like hide a lot of features and just do things relatively simply. Yeah, you absolutely can. And actually it's, you know, it's definitely a good option. I've got a setup where I'm utilizing Wasabi, but then I'm also utilizing Sprite. I have this whole thing that I do. You're a nerd, we get it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So. And then when it comes to things like multi-sig, so I hear Odell talk about this a lot And I strongly agree with him in the sense that I think for a lot of people, it's just added complexity that you don't necessarily need.

37:35Like for you and I, people know we're Bitcoiners. Like there's some risk with that. And like having geographically dispersed keys, like that makes total sense. But if you're just like a Bitcoiner, like people don't necessarily know you have a lot of Bitcoin or maybe like I think single sig is totally fine and maybe the best option for a lot of people. Yeah, if you're just somebody, you know, you haven't really advertised the fact that you own Bitcoin, I'd say if you haven't been in a major data leak of who owns Bitcoin, then single SIG is also probably okay. I can't say that applies to me. Yeah, yeah.

38:14I mean. Before the scammers come after me, I've moved address and changed my phone number. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So you're right. If you're public about Bitcoin, I'd say multi-sig is damn near a necessity. Just full disclosure, I'm using multi-sig. You're not going to be able to kick in my door and just get all the keys. Me too, unless you want to take a 24-hour flight with me. Yeah, exactly. A lot of these things are smash and grab jobs, and they just want to be in and out. But yeah, for your average person, the most important thing is just a little bit of redundancy so there's no single point of failure.

38:55So you don't want to have your hardware wallet and the backup seed phrase on paper stored in the same place because then one fire or flood and everything's gone. So if you can have your device and then maybe have your seed words ideally stamped in a steel plate or something. And then fire and flood matters far less. Yeah, exactly. So even then, if fire and flood, those two things in the same place, if it's steel, then at least you've got that. If you separate them even better, the only additional thing to consider would be with the 12 or 24 words with your backup to the naked eye. If somebody comes across those and they know what they are, they have access to your money.

39:44So the one other thing you may want to consider would be a passphrase. I just wrote down BIP39. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So basically this is you have your 12-word backup and you add the equivalent of what's like a 13th word, but it can be anything, letters, numbers, symbols. That's where it gets tricky. Is whatever you type in, in combination with your backup, is a new wallet. There is no wrong answer because all of them create wallets. So if I type apples as my passphrase and it's all lowercase, and then I go back and I go to log into the wallet and I type apples with an uppercase A, that is a new wallet.

40:32That is a separate wallet. And if I've never used it before, it will show a zero balance, even if I had Bitcoin sitting on the lowercase apples one. So you need to be very, very clear in writing out that passphrase as is so that if anything happens to you or if you just forget, you can see what it is very clearly. And that might sound scary to people who are new, but that is the power of Bitcoin. And that's why before anyone brute forces your wallet, it will be the end of the universe. Yes. Yeah, exactly. Like it's the main goal with adding a passphrase is just to put a wall between somebody finding your seed phrase and being able to actually access your money.

41:12And so you would store those separately. You wouldn't have your seed phrase here. Here's the passphrase to my wallet sitting beside it. You would have seed phrase here, passphrase at your mom's house or wherever. Like, yeah. And it's also important that I think people don't just try and remember the passphrase. No. Because you think you can remember stuff, but give it five, 10 years, good luck. Yeah, not only that, but you think you can remember stuff. And even if you do, if something happens to you, is your family member going to remember the time you told them your bass phrase? I don't think so.

41:46Exactly. And so if I was like a, you know, new to Bitcoin, coming to you and being like, I want to take this seriously, do things properly. Yeah. What else do you think I need to know? So, I mean, those are the core three. Where are you going to get Bitcoin? learn a little bit with hot wallet figure out what hardware works best for you and hone in on those three the most important thing I'd say beyond your own personal security is kind of what we just alluded to which is if something happened to you this second would your family be able to access your Bitcoin and for a lot of Bitcoiners they start going that's an awful question Yeah.

42:29And so if you're watching this going, then you need to get your shit together now because you don't know if you're going to be listening to this podcast and get hit by a bus crossing the street. Look both ways. But at the very least, you need to write out some clear instructions to your family members saying, I have this device. It has a pin. The pin is the device is stored wherever. If it's more complex than that, it has a passphrase, which is da-da-da. And then the other thing I would recommend is if you have a Bitcoin or friend that you deeply trust or family member that you deeply trust, put their contact info on that same sheet.

43:25You know, if you have Bitcoin or circle of friends, which we're very lucky to have, just having that and somebody that you deeply trust be able to be like, okay, we know you guys are panicked. Let's look at the sheet. We can at least walk you through what to do so you have access. I think that's super important because your family in that moment, like, yeah, they may be able to get through your instructions, but it's a lot nicer if you have somebody that can be there. Totally. And then like for full transparency on some of this, like I had a really poor inheritance setup. It was basically like a treasure hunt of different bits of information all over the place and never tested.

44:10Like I never was like to my wife or whoever, like, can you actually do this? And so one of the things I did was move some Bitcoin to Casa and use their inheritance. Are there any inheritance products that you think are really worthwhile looking into? Yeah. Yeah. So there's a variety of options out there. So obviously you have things like Casa, you have Unchained, you have these options that, again, it's a multi-sig setup. So you've got multiple devices. Yeah, Anchor Watch. Shout out to the sponsors. I'm actually really stoked on what Anchor Watch is working on. They have some incredible solutions, and the insurance part of it is really nice.

44:54It's like the product that I think Bitcoin has been dying for for a number of years. Yes. There's obviously some limitations in it in terms of how much Bitcoin you have to have to be able to use it. But if you have a decent amount of money and you want to store Bitcoin in a way that you can kind of just set it and forget it, it is probably the best option out there. Yeah, exactly. So I mean, yeah, what they've done and what they've put together is, I mean, all Bitcoiners owe them a debt of gratitude for the hard work that they've done to accomplish that. So hats off to Anchor Watch. Uh, the other, and then I, again, on the, on the subject of nunchuck, um, you know, they, they also for the, the cypher punks out there that are like, I don't want to give up any personal information.

45:41Nobody needs it. Nunchuck has a wicked setup too. That is pretty automated. The, the long and the short of it is you give a family member three English words and a password, like a bit of a long passphrase. Uh, and you just say, this is for you. Keep this safe. Multiple copies. If you want, nobody can do anything with those copies. Um, just keep them, keep a few of these, uh, at, you know, whatever threshold you set, like a rolling threshold every year, every, you know, couple of years or something like that. But the idea is you keep on resetting the threshold of when the inheritance will trigger.

46:23When it does, they get an email, it's time to receive your inheritance. They handhold through like, download the app. Okay, now put in your three words. This identifies the account for them of which one they're supposed to claim. Put in this passphrase, and then they have access to the money. You can also force hold your inheritors at that point. You can be like, you've got to wait 10 years to get this. Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You can do all kinds of fun things with it. So it's, you know, there's a whole bunch of like technical stuff in the background of how that works and what's going on there.

46:58But the long and the short of it is your family needs three words and a password, and then they will get an email and access the money. And the only sort of caveat there is you have to assume these companies still exist at that point. You can have a secondary. If I die in this calendar year and Nunchuck goes tits up and they don't have any sort of a offboarding after X amount of time, then you can still access the funds by using these devices that I've left here with a file. So it would be a pain in the butt, but it would be possible and recoverable. Yeah, I think same with Kasa. So I think the other thing that people need to understand, you know, if you're thinking of setting this up today, is that, let's just say for easy numbers, you've got 10 grand of Bitcoin.

47:50You're not securing$10 ,000. You're securing what that might be in the future. And we all think Bitcoin is going to a million dollars plus. I don't know the timeframe, but, you know, give it 10 years, I've no doubt. So like, how importantly, how seriously do you think people have to take that? I think it's pretty important. And it's not just important for you to get it set up, but it's important for you to start informing your next of kin, you know, roughly what's, what happens when it's their time to claim that. Like I sit with my wife once a year and review what Bitcoin we have and where. I should do that.

48:27Yeah.

48:35That's always very accommodative and tolerant. And then she began to be more upbeat and excited about things when our lives markedly improved. So she's more than willing to sit down once a year to just make sure - She's just waiting for the day you get hit by a bus. Yeah. Thanks for explaining all that. Now turn around, look over there for a second, whack with a shovel. Yeah, no. Yeah, I think it's important. Even I know some people will be met with a family member that's very resistant, but it's just important to impart on them like, hey, you know, there's been people in the past that have had the equivalent of a hundred bucks that they threw away that ended up being millions later.

49:25so like you need to you need to treat this seriously and like even if it seems like it you know not a super significant amount right now uh it could be and you need to be prepared for that so just having like a little sit down and and for the love of god when you sit down with your family it can't be like you said a treasure hunt yeah you need to go to the third tree into the forest and then dig a hole and when did you get access to my treasure yeah I think this is a bit more almost like philosophical, but I think there is an important thing as well. Like assuming we both live long, happy lives.

50:03Yeah. I've got a young kid. I know you've got kids. It's also like passing down the values that people like the importance of Bitcoin to your kids. Like Bitcoins have a lot of kids. We need to make sure we like keep this thing going. Yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. I've had a number of proud dad moments, especially my daughter's eight now, so she's definitely picking up on things. She's got her own little Bitcoin wallet. Love that. We've got a local Bitcoin market at home, and she goes there. She knows how to buy things and pull up the wallet. We also actually, for her, she gets her allowance every week, and we split it between cash and Bitcoin.

50:42So half of it always goes into savings, which is her Bitcoin. And then the other half is cash. And the thinking there is down the line, she's going to be looking at her Bitcoin wallet going, oh my God, this is so much money now, just from my allowance over however many years. and then we'll say, yeah, and you could have twice as much, but you took it in cash and the cash obviously didn't appreciate. So it'll be that moment of like, oh, wow, if I save, look what happens. And it goes up in value. And so she's learning. We also actually set up like a hobby miner in the basement. That's cool. And it mines directly to her wallet.

51:28So she sees like 60 cents worth of sats going into her wall at every single day. Love that. She gets excited about it. We're not at the allowance part yet. It's too young, but she's been stacking Bitcoin since the day she was born. She just doesn't know it yet. But I think one of the, you know, like really interesting dynamics that with people as young kids, we're going to have to kind of deal with is the fact that by the time they're 18 or 20 or whenever, like they might be going to a world where no one works. Yeah. Like it might be all, AI might have taken basically every job by that point. And it's like the hardest thing in the world to predict the future that they're going to live in.

52:08I don't think there's ever been a time in history where it's been harder. But the one thing you can be sure of is that Bitcoin's going to be there. Yeah. And this, I mean, it's interesting, it's exciting, and it's terrifying all at the same time. Because, I mean, in a world where wealth wasn't siphoned off by an elite few, taking away purchasing power and allocating it where they see fit. The pie likely would have been a lot more evenly dispersed, and people would have been more able to save for their future. But now you're in a situation where most people are never going to own a home. They can't put anything away for savings.

52:52And pretty soon, their jobs are not going to exist at all and they have no assets. And in a world where productivity goes way, way up because it's just machines and correspondingly asset values are probably going to continue to explode and the cost of human labor is going to go to zero because nobody's going to want it. What do you do? Like, how do you do anything? There's so many dystopian outcomes that could like, again, impossible to predict. But if you're going to put like a percentage on it, it's going to be dystopian. Like there's going to be likely a ton of UBI, people not working, ready player one type, live in your house and just go online all day.

53:42And this is why it's important. Like if you have kids, stack that for your kids. You can do that UBI now with Bitcoin. I mean, you're the UBI. That's going to be the - I'm convinced it's happening. That's going to be the government's first response to - What else can they do though? Like, ideologically, I don't agree with it, but I can't see how they do anything else. There's nothing else. There is nothing else that, you know, if, you know, we've been through, society has been through things before where entire industries have been replaced and people move to different industries. But when almost everything disappears, like what do you, again, when you combine AI and robotics and manual labor goes away, I don't, I don't know.

54:31Yeah. If you're a plumber, you might have five, 10 years, but eventually it's coming for everything. I did a show with Roman Jampolski yesterday. I think it was yesterday. and he thinks that like AI replaces all jobs within a decade. And I mean, he also thinks it's going to kill us all. So if it does, this won't be a huge problem. But assuming that doesn't happen, like the world is going to be wildly different. There's very few things that you can put total faith in, even existing in 10 years. But the thing that I think you can do that with is Bitcoin. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you're going to need, it's tough, man, Because if the government first response to a complete destruction of jobs is UBI, and they're trying to pay in their funny money that they're creating from nothing, who do you think is going to get the finger pointed at them first for the reason it's not working?

55:32The people with the money that can't be printed, right? You're the reason that UBI and it's going to be Nixon currency speculators all over again. You think they come for Bitcoiners? I mean, if everybody's out in the street and there's a subset of people that are all doing quite well, I mean, there's already like, you know, everybody already villainizes the rich. And again, right now, it can be misplaced because you can be rich and very productive and a net positive to society, or you can be rich because you're a leech. And people in positions of power in government where they're close to the money spigot, those are the leeches, but there's no differentiation for the average citizen.

56:24They just see, are you doing better than me? You're part of the problem. So even though as Bitcoiners, we're definitely not leeches, you still think we'll be seen as part of the problem? Yeah, because, I mean, what are the politicians going to do? The people that are actually in those positions, they want to keep those positions. They need a scapegoat. Look how well those Bitcoiners are doing. That's a scary world. I wish I'd never used my name or face. I know. I mean, you think you're bad. I've got this thing in my head. I'm very identifiable. You spot me from a mile off. Yeah, I'm going to be taking your haircut pretty soon just to blend into the crowd and ghost.

56:59I don't know how to tell you this. This isn't a choice. Is it worse that this was a choice? Absolutely. Yeah. So we've gone through a ton of stuff there of how to get started, how to go from sort of one to a hundred. I think an important thing is that this is like a journey. What you pick today doesn't have to be what you pick in the future. Like getting started is the important thing. Yeah, of course, of course. um there's and there's there's kind of going to be like a choose your own adventure aspect to this but you know just know that just because you've you know there's there's not going to be a hideously wrong answer right if you go to take self-custody and i've you know i've just been saying i'm not a big fan of ledger and you go get a ledger realistically you're still way better off than sitting on an exchange.

57:51You know, if you go to use, you know, some hardware, it's going to be better than relying on a custodian. You know, it's just that you don't overcomplicate it and you don't lock yourself out of the Bitcoin. That's all. Yeah, 100%. Okay, before we close out, I want to talk to you a little bit about what's going on up in Canada. Because you said before you have a, I mean, I don't, we don't need to talk politics. I saw you wince then. No, no, it's good. But you were saying that your daughter goes to a Bitcoin market. Yes. Do you have a little circular economy building up there? Yeah. Yeah. I think this is super important.

58:27You know, obviously, Bitcoin's an incredible savings technology. But at the end of the day, in a nightmare scenario, like we just discussed, scapegoat Bitcoiners, you know, let's outlaw Bitcoin. You can't hold it anymore. Confiscation. Illegal to spend it. Kind of, you know, on ramps and off ramps. Turn, you know, shut down. What happens if you're the Bitcoiner that's a recluse that has never met another Bitcoiner in person and you've got this asset that's technically quite valuable even still, but in your jurisdiction, you're not allowed to use it. How do you actually utilize that at home if there's no on and off ramp, if there's no merchants that you know of?

59:16And I think building a local Bitcoin community and circular economy is a very valid and important goal that a lot of people should have. So, yeah, we started a local market in my city, Calgary. And at this point, we've got total merchants. I'm not sure. But every time we have a market, it's somewhere between 40 and 50 merchants that are there. All accepting Bitcoin. Yeah. Every single one, it's only Bitcoin at the market. And so all of these merchants, and we've really pushed to try and get people that, yes, there's obviously artists and people with Bitcoin merchants, stuff like that, which is awesome.

1:00:00But we also wanted to make sure there was always stuff that you legitimately need. You want a butcher and a baker and all this kind of stuff. And we have all that stuff. We have local farmers that bring eggs and beef and jerky and all this different stuff. We have personal trainers. We have tradesmen. We have a plumber. We have somebody who does flooring, electricians, all of these different things. We have health professionals. We have my barber. We have a whole bunch of different things. And it's not just at the market that we transact. What I'm really trying to push is that we create a society within a society.

1:00:39So it's like, you know, the secret handshake, you know who to go to, to get, to get your beef for Bitcoin. And, um, I think that's, it, it creates not only kind of this natural circular, you never need to exit Bitcoin again, kind of mentality, but it also gets back to a day where you knew your butcher, where you knew the people that you dealt with. and it wasn't just like a faceless company because you see each other. You have a bond. And so, yeah, we've been doing this for, I'm going to say a couple years now. And we do it a few times a year. But then I always put a challenge to the participants, like find three other merchants here that you, what they have, you really need and you really value what they do.

1:01:29You think they do good work. and I want you to transact with each one of them at least once before the next market happens so that there's this, again, underlying community within a community. And then if shit did hit the fan like that - You have your crew. Yeah, you're self-sufficient. You can get most of what you need with Bitcoin. I think the cool thing from a merchant side as well is like, let's say you're a farmer. Bitcoin, they just get gouged consistently from the supermarkets and places like that, and which always leads to degradation of quality. And we know that like Bitcoiners values will pay more to have better quality goods.

1:02:08Yes. And so like there is an incentive there where they can make more money, provide better quality stuff and not have to deal with like supermarkets and places like that. Yeah, there's this guy and he always brings this jerky. And so I don't know if you've ever had the bull Bitcoin crew is always bringing around. They've got like branded bull Bitcoin jerky. Anyways, Albertan dude, it's the best jerky I've ever tasted in my entire life. He comes to the sat market and he cleans up. He's sold out within two hours. That's awesome. And he's like, this is super worth it for me every time. He drives hours and hours to get there every time, and he will never miss a market because he's just, yeah.

1:02:53But it's like, the quality is just amazing. And you're right. Like, when you're spending sats, there's this inclination. Everybody says, don't spend your Bitcoin. No, I think you can, even if you're earning dollars, you can still kind of have like remain even spend and replace. And in doing so, only buy things that are worth the money, the type of money that you're spending. And what you're doing is you're rewarding people that are creating quality products and you're spending quality money with them. And you want the people in your community not to be creating trash. You want to have good quality stuff.

1:03:37And again, in a world where shit hits the fan, most of the products and services are going to be total garbage. So you need to surround yourself with better people. But the don't spend your Bitcoin narrative is nonsense. It is. Any dollar you spend could be Bitcoin. So whether you're spending Bitcoin or you're spending dollars or pounds or euros or whatever, you're doing the same thing. There's an opportunity cost to everything. If you're 100 % Bitcoin, what are you going to spend? You've only got Bitcoin. And so you know what? You should get on zero. Yeah, this is exactly it. And this is how, I mean, I've been living on Bitcoin since 2020.

1:04:09Zero dollars in the bank account. The only dollars in the bank account are stuff that has to come out of a bank account. So I get paid in Bitcoin. 95 % of my income is Bitcoin. And whatever comes in, I know what bills have to come out. So I just convert that as soon as the invoices come in, plunk that in the bank. And then I have bare minimum dollars just for that purpose. My wife, while I'm down here, she's like, can you send me a bank transfer for$300? I was like, I cannot because otherwise we won't be paying our car payment. But I'm like, I can send you Bitcoin and then you can convert it. And she's like, okay.

1:04:49See, on a business level, I do have dollars in the bank account. I need to get better at that. But on a personal level, I have like a little bit, but almost like close to zero. And I just spend everything on a credit card throughout the month. And then as soon as I get paid, pay that off. Everything else is just Bitcoin. And I've been doing that for a few years now. And like there's times when it sucks and there's times when it's great. But the times when it's great, definitely outweigh it. Yeah. Well, yeah, exactly. Like, it's just, if you can, again, there's a very simple equation that, I mean, for the time being, until AI takes over, will do very well for a lot of people.

1:05:28Create value for others, spend less than you earn, and save in a money that nobody else can print. You're going to be pretty well off. Yeah. And if you're already in that money, then you don't even have to do an extra step in between. So how do you start a Bitcoin circular economy, Bitcoin market? because I live in Brisbane. We have a meetup every month. I'm never there for it because it happens to fall. It seems to be always when I travel. But when I do go, it's good. There's a lot of people there. And I think if you try to set something up, you could probably get it started. But how did you get it to the point where you have like 50 merchants or whatever it is?

1:06:02So I started going to the meetup and requesting to take five minutes at the beginning of each meetup and just say, hey, I'm looking for the following thing. that somebody would accept Bitcoin for. I'm looking for a plumber. I'm looking for whatever. And oftentimes, either it would be somebody in the room does that thing, or it would be somebody in the room knows somebody who does that thing. So then they go to that friend who very possibly not a Bitcoiner, but they plant that seed. Hey, somebody is asking if there's a plumber that would accept Bitcoin. Would you ever do that? Maybe they say no, but curiosity has peaked.

1:06:46So I started doing that. And then I also started encouraging people at the meetup to get up and we all know this is better money. We all earn dollars, then buy Bitcoin with the dollars. If you can, on occasion, why not cut out that step when somebody pays you in Bitcoin? So I started encouraging people to stand up and be like, oh, I actually do this. And I'd be happy to accept Bitcoin for it. And not just once, like every, Hey, as a reminder, so-and-so does this, there's our plumber, there's the floor flooring guy. There's the personal trainer. Like, you know, if anybody needs any of this stuff, they all accept Bitcoin.

1:07:22So hit them up. I started doing that a bit more regularly. And then, uh, it was kind of end of the year, one year. And I saw something people were whining about regulations on like choke point 2.0 style clamp down on what you could do with exchanges and thing. And everybody is whining about it and bitching about it and kind of shooting the messenger. The one exchange that came out and said like, hey guys, just so you know, you can't do this before you go on or off or exchange. It was CoinJoin or something. Everybody's trying to shoot the messenger. I was like, guys, you get like, do something about it.

1:07:55And for me, the thing that you do is you don't require the on and off ramps to get your Bitcoin or use your Bitcoin. And that's the way that it becomes completely unshakable. Yeah, somebody could shut down the exchange that I need to use to get dollars or get Bitcoin. But if somebody could tell me I can't go to my friend Frank and get eggs and pay them in sats, good luck. Just demand to be paid in Bitcoin. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And so we did that a little bit, but right around that time where I saw that story, I don't know why, it just really riled me up. So I reached out, went to the meetup.

1:08:31I was like, we're doing this. We're doing it in four weeks. And we put together a market. We had 30 merchants at our first market. Wow. And with four weeks prep time, we found a venue. We went and we just kind of hodgepodge it together. And yeah, the most challenging part is getting people to stay in contact and keep interacting in between markets. But it becomes like a fun social event. And people super keen just to get together, not even to have to listen to talks or anything, but just to interact. And everybody's so like-minded and just happy to come together. It's been great. We've got another one coming up in December and we try to pair other things with it.

1:09:11So we'll have the market. And then the day after we all drive up to the mountains and stay in Banff for a weekend. And yeah. When is it? I can't do December. When is the next one after I'm coming? That'll be in Calgary last week of June. Oh, no skiing then. Yeah. But we're still going to go to the mountains. I'm coming when it's snowy. Well, you should come in the summer too. The hiking's amazing. So we're going to go up and there's hot springs and there's a whole bunch of stuff. We'll do a hike. Last time we went, we did a workshop. We did like a Bitcoin workshop out in the mountains. And then before the workshop started, we hiked up a mountain and back down.

1:09:48I was in Banff. Like, when would it have been? 21 maybe. Yeah. It would have been that winter. So either 21 or 22. Yeah. stayed at that hotel. It's like Hogwarts. Oh, yeah. In the Banff Springs. It was incredible. Yeah. We went up to Lake Louise. It was very cool. Next time you do one in winter, I'm coming in and we can go snowboarding. Next time you come, come stay in the Bitcoin hotel. Is there a Bitcoin hotel? There's a hotel. They accept Bitcoin. They're a part of the market. If you go into the lobby, you'll find a little bookshelf and it has Bitcoin standard, a bunch of other awesome. And even like tangential, like the fourth turning and the sovereign individual all on this little bookshelf as you enter.

1:10:30Does it look like Hogwarts though? Because that place was incredible. It doesn't, but it's got awesome steam rooms and a cold plunge and a nice pool. And they just renovated. I mean, it's called the Kenrick, but this guy, Jeff owns it and he's an awesome Bitcoin. He's super keen and he gives discounts for Bitcoin. Okay. Sold. Challenge accepted. The next meetup I'll be in in Brisbane is in November. So first Thursday, November, if you live anywhere near Brisbane, come and let's set this up. Hell yeah. Sessions, this has been amazing. Dude, thank you. Appreciate it. Thank you. Anywhere you want to send anyone, where do they find your nine and a half year old YouTube channel?

1:11:06Yes. Yes. So yeah, you can find me BTC Sessions on YouTube, but if you're a person that's maybe coming in, you're relatively new and you just want a well curated kind of like, what do I do next type thing. I set up a learn page that I've just kind of hand selected some very specific videos that you can just go through. If you can get through that page, you're going to have more skills than most Bitcoiners. It's just btcsessions.ca, Canadian, slash learn. And if you go there, it's going to have exchange, hot wallet, cold wallet, and then some additional advanced skills if you want to level up beyond that.

1:11:44Perfect. Thank you, man. I know you're on your fitness regime. I made you drink beer, but... I mean, you know, I take low breaks here and there. It's beefsteak tonight. You've got to have a couple of beers. Yeah, exactly. A few steaks will offset the beer. All right. Thank you, man. This has been great. Cheers. Cheers.