Latest / Bitcoin for Financial Services Podcast / The CPA Who Orange‑Pilled Finance
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- 0:00One of the key aspects there that we kind of align with is taking a long-term view of how you grow your business.
- 0:07And I think that nicely fits in with kind of the Bitcoin ethos of low time preference, right?
- 0:14And it is, how do I build this business to be sustainable and add value to clients in the long term?
- 0:21We know there's a bunch of things that you can do in the short term to make more money.
- 0:25But is that really in the interest of your clients?
- 0:28And I think that aligns nicely with, hey, you know, I'm holding Bitcoin.
- 0:32I know it's going to be volatile.
- 0:34But I think long term, it is better for humanity.
- 0:38It's a better asset.
- 0:39I want to hold some portion of my wealth in it.
- 0:43Bitcoin is a currency on the Internet.
- 0:45If you don't trust any other currency, this is where you go.
- 0:48It's going to outperform everything.
- 0:49Bitcoin could eventually be worthless.
- 0:51Every day is a good day to buy Bitcoin.
- 0:53Bitcoin reached its highest price to date.
- 0:55Bitcoin hitting a new high.
- 0:57It really has reached escape velocity.
- 0:59There is no second best.
- 1:00Who cares about Bitcoin?
- 1:01It's the only secure database that's ever been invented.
- 1:04Antisocial.
- 1:05Bitcoin is the real deal.
- 1:07Stupid.
- 1:08Everything is bullish for Bitcoin.
- 1:10Immoral.
- 1:10It's going up forever, Laura.
- 1:12Fix the money.
- 1:14Fix the world.
- 1:27and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities,
- 1:30investments, or investment strategies. Investments involve risk and almost otherwise stated or not
- 1:32guaranteed. Information expressed does not take into account your specific situation or objectives
- 1:35is not intended as a recommendation appropriate for any individual. Listeners are encouraged to seek
- 1:37advice from a qualified tax legal or investment advisor to determine whether any information
- 1:39presented may be suitable for their specific situation. Past performance is not indicative
- 1:42of future performance. Any statements or opinions are subject to change without notice.
- 1:47What's up, everyone? Thank you for tuning in. Welcome back to the Bitcoin for Financial Services
- 1:51Media, the podcast where sound money meets professional services. We explore how to build
- 1:55financial services industry within the principles ethos and values of bitcoin today we're honored to
- 2:01be joined by joe wood founder of satoshi patroli let's get started
- 2:11all righty welcome back y'all we are back with our second episode of the bitcoin for financial
- 2:18services podcast this is the first episode though where we've got a guest and we uh we have a special
- 2:23guest today, Joe Wood from Satoshi Pacioli. Joe is the owner and founder of Satoshi Pacioli
- 2:29Accounting Services. And I know Joe well now, but Joe and I actually just met earlier, like
- 2:36very beginning of this year at Bitcoin Park in Nashville. So we've gotten to know each other
- 2:42well very quickly. And so I'm excited to have him on the show. And we've got Wyatt as well,
- 2:47who's going to be, I think Wyatt's just here to get free tax advice, if I'm not mistaken.
- 2:52And so that's a hundred percent.
- 2:54Correct.
- 2:56So Joe, thanks for taking the time.
- 2:57I know, I know you're a busy man.
- 2:59We're going into the end of the year and there's lots of work to be done on the tax side.
- 3:03We'll get into all that.
- 3:04But how's your, uh, how's your Monday or Monday or Tuesday?
- 3:07How's it going?
- 3:09Okay.
- 3:10Oh, no, it's Tuesday.
- 3:11No, we're just a day behind.
- 3:12Uh, it's, it's going well.
- 3:14Clearly I'm on top of things.
- 3:18Yeah.
- 3:18Yeah. Well, I guess tell us about because you were like the premier Bitcoin accounting firm. Right. And that's why that's why we're having you on, of course, because accounting is one of the main components in this whole well in the whole business cycle.
- 3:33But of course, in an account or with the Bitcoin ecosystem. And so I wanted to just we've got to ask you, like how, you know, were you 2011? Were you class of 2015? How did you get into Bitcoin? Roughly what year?
- 3:47yeah so it's always kind of hard to say exactly when you got in i i would say like i bought my
- 3:53first bitcoin in like 2014 um and always was interested in from a like philosophical standpoint
- 4:02like hey this would be really cool if this works right um and so it didn't take me very much to
- 4:08like i heard about it was like oh that sounds like a great idea but it wasn't where i was like
- 4:13oh i'm gonna like deep dive deep into this learn all the technical stuff um it was always kind of
- 4:19one of those things that was kind of on the side of like hey there's this weird bitcoin thing it
- 4:24aligned with like what i i think should work in theory but who knows what's actually going to
- 4:29happen right um and so it was very much more so like a passive following for you know a number of
- 4:36years watch the price go up watch the price go down um which is always fun um and then you know
- 4:44as you know learning a little bit about it over the time but like you know i held bitcoin in 2017
- 4:49when there was like you know the fork wars and everything um but don't really remember it didn't
- 4:56have a strong opinion on it or anything um so to kind of give you a perspective of kind of how
- 5:01deeply into it I was. And then really, yeah, 2020 came around, started a bunch of podcasts,
- 5:09took it more seriously. Eventually all your debt worth is a Bitcoin. So this is kind of like the
- 5:15normal cycle, I guess, but it took me kind of a while to kind of get deeply into it.
- 5:22Well, and then, so remind me too, because you obviously you're CPA, but you weren't in tax
- 5:29prior really to getting into Bitcoin, right?
- 5:31You were more, I guess,
- 5:32were you on the audit side of things prior?
- 5:35Yeah, so I started on my career in audit.
- 5:37I did like four years in audit and public accounting.
- 5:40And then most of my career though,
- 5:42I spent in accounting departments
- 5:44for private companies, nonprofits.
- 5:47So my accounting background really very much
- 5:50is on the financial reporting side,
- 5:52the general ledger, making payments,
- 5:55receiving uh you know receiving uh invoices in um and i always kind of tried to avoid the tax stuff
- 6:04because it's not the most fun thing to do um but it was very much one of those things where
- 6:10you know i started up the company i was really focused on you know serving that controller role
- 6:15for from all companies that weren't ready to hire a full-time person and continually were asked like
- 6:21hey like do you do taxes do you do taxes and i was trying to stay away from it but like the what i
- 6:27came to realize is like no one else actually has these answers like they need somebody who
- 6:32understands bitcoin and i knew enough about taxes to like fill that role for them right
- 6:38i mean we've evolved a lot since then brought on more expertise um but it really was like
- 6:44the bitcoin piece was a missing piece for the people that needed the tax support so being able
- 6:49fill that role for them in an immediate sense well now joe i appreciate that that's that's
- 6:56fascinating insight and i think you're just like the the perfect first guest to have on this podcast
- 7:01because we're really trying to help you know the normies and uh the folks working in traditional
- 7:06your professional services like adopt bitcoin so i think satoshi patroli is the premier
- 7:13bitcoin accounting firm give us some insight on how you you started the firm how you thought there
- 7:19was how you evaluated the market and thought there was opportunity to take here yeah i mean
- 7:25i don't know that it was all that uh strategic um it was um my last job was as a controller
- 7:33at a non-profit in dc i got to the point where i was like i don't want to do this i want to do
- 7:39something in bitcoin and so that was really the it came from the fact that i wanted to work in
- 7:45Bitcoin. I wanted to work with Bitcoiners. And so after thinking about all the different things I
- 7:49could potentially do, I was like, oh, you have 15 years of account experience. Maybe you should
- 7:53lean on that a little bit. And so that was really what it kind of came out of there. And then
- 7:58trying to just bring what I, you know, that traditional finance background, the accounting
- 8:03knowledge, like knowing that, you know, whether it's a Bitcoin company or anything else, that you
- 8:09still need that information. Right. And so just being able to apply that to the Bitcoin world,
- 8:15where it's not overly complicated, right?
- 8:18Like after you start learning about it,
- 8:20like accounting for Bitcoin
- 8:21is not the most complicated thing in the world.
- 8:24But when you tell somebody who has been doing it
- 8:26for 15, 20, 30 years,
- 8:29hey, learn about this new thing,
- 8:31they're probably gonna be like,
- 8:32no, I don't want to, right?
- 8:33And so that was probably the biggest difference
- 8:35for me starting the firm
- 8:37versus your CPAs that could have done it,
- 8:40but just had no real incentive
- 8:42or, yeah, no real desire to.
- 8:48Well, and so far, I've only heard you talk about one cryptocurrency.
- 8:52I've heard you talk about Bitcoin.
- 8:54And I run into a lot of, I run into not a lot,
- 8:58but some CPAs that are more crypto CPAs.
- 9:02So I assume maybe you had a bit of a shitcoin phase.
- 9:07I think maybe he's telling some of that story, if that exists,
- 9:10if you want to share.
- 9:11might be helpful to some other advisors who are kind of starting to dip their toe into the water.
- 9:17But then also, once you answer that, if you could also kind of touch on why did you go Bitcoin only with your firm?
- 9:26And from the outside looking in, someone might be like, well, aren't you kind of hampering your growth
- 9:32because you could be servicing this broad industry, but you took this route of going extremely niche.
- 9:40And of course, it's worked out very well for you. So maybe you could touch on that for the audience as well.
- 9:46Yeah, I mean, I think I certainly had the shitcoin phase where it was, hey, but it was as I was learning about Bitcoin. Right. And it was like, hey, I'm going to learn about this thing. And then you had Bitcoin for a little while. And then it was like, oh, there's this Ethereum thing. And I don't really understand it at all, but it's going up. Maybe I should buy some. Right.
- 10:07and so it really for me it was once I started to understand Bitcoin better I at least realized I
- 10:15didn't understand any of the other crypto at all right and so I was like all right I got to this
- 10:20point with Bitcoin maybe I should just focus on that and so I remember when I sold the all the
- 10:26Ethereum I had it was hey I'm gonna like understand this one thing well and I'm not gonna own things
- 10:33I don't understand whether it's from a technology or an asset standpoint.
- 10:37And so for me, that was kind of the path.
- 10:40And so I try not to be too judgmental of people that are like,
- 10:44hey, everyone have all these different tokens.
- 10:45I think there's probably a natural path there.
- 10:48But for me, if you understand Bitcoin,
- 10:53you understand why everything else doesn't really matter in the long term.
- 10:59And so that's kind of the way I view it.
- 11:01And then just from the, purely from the business side of things, I think for me at least, like, I couldn't, I don't think you can potentially, I don't think you can really fully understand all the different crypto.
- 11:18I always kind of find it weird of like if Solana or Ethereum or XRP, like I assume they all work very differently.
- 11:29I know they're all on blockchains, but if you actually want to understand the technology, like you probably have to go down a bunch of different rabbit holes.
- 11:36And so it's like Bitcoin is complicated enough that maybe you should focus on that one thing and know that well.
- 11:43if you're trying to understand 10 20 30 different cryptos if if you just want to do like the tax
- 11:51cost basis reporting that's probably fine but if you actually want to advise people and be an expert
- 11:55in it and get grain gain a really good understanding of it you probably have to focus on one and you
- 12:01what you don't see is oh i'm an ethereum accountant or i'm a xrp accountant um because like obviously
- 12:09that's not where you're going to like grow a business on it. Right. So you just put everything
- 12:13in the crypto bucket and you're like, oh, I know more about this than everybody else. Right.
- 12:18Which is maybe not the greatest place to start with. Yeah, that's such a good point. The first
- 12:25XRP account and I see I'm going to quit and I'm just going to exit stage left done. I think you're
- 12:33totally right. You know, one of my favorite sayings in Bitcoin is Bitcoin works like how
- 12:38your grandma thinks money actually works and it's like yes it is complicated there's a lot of nuance
- 12:43to it but if you focus on it's like it's actually you know somewhat somewhat simple to grok uh it's
- 12:49really not as complex i think we can actually do ourselves a disservice by you know making it like
- 12:54this super you know complex system you just takes homework like anything else but in that that
- 12:59journey joe were you ever pressured by any mentors or you know friends whatever it may be to
- 13:07really kind of embrace cryptocurrency at large or were you just like from the beginning i'm bitcoin
- 13:13only i'm planting my flag um yeah i think probably most people just thought it was a terrible idea
- 13:20general of just focusing on the county firm on just bitcoin even if it's bitcoin in in crypto
- 13:25um so yeah no one no one specifically was like oh you should do all crypto um but i i mean there
- 13:34there is a line there where it's like,
- 13:36hey, where do you actually draw the line, right?
- 13:38And it's not like, hey, if you hold any other assets,
- 13:41we're not going to do your tax return.
- 13:42Or if it's like, hey, you sold some, you know,
- 13:46assets this year to convert into Bitcoin.
- 13:48Oh, we're not going to do your tax return, right?
- 13:50It is more so a, hey, here's where our interest
- 13:53and here's where our expertise lies.
- 13:55And whether we're a good fit for you or not
- 13:57is more on the client side.
- 14:00But if you want someone, an expert
- 14:02in all these different areas,
- 14:03we're probably not the right fit for it.
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- 14:37Totally, totally.
- 14:38Well, and that's what I think is kind of unique about, you know, services businesses.
- 14:41I think it's really more the venture-backed, you know, businesses, you know,
- 14:44whether that's, you know, whatever type of exchange or product
- 14:47that really get a lot of pressure you know from VCs to you know adopt other cryptocurrencies and clearly I morally opposed to that So I do think it an interesting segment of financial services generally not venture
- 15:01back or scalable businesses, where you really do have a lot more flexibility to just embrace
- 15:06what you believe in and you can really kind of lead the noise out.
- 15:10So I appreciate the insight on that.
- 15:11well joe could you also tell us a little bit about the satoshi paccioli uh token offering
- 15:19you guys are launching a token later this year yeah that's i think the big announcement for this
- 15:23podcast yeah we don't have a price yet but yeah uh only 21 billion for now for now and then we'll
- 15:32see um no i'm just kidding i one thing that came to mind as you guys were just talking was
- 15:38so the the bitcoin industry has had to do a lot of growing up you know really even in the last five
- 15:45years right and i'd just be curious you've had this you know keen insight to see bitcoin businesses
- 15:54from all the way from startup to you know more established businesses that are just owned by
- 15:59bitcoiners and so they either have it on their you know balance sheet or they just distribute
- 16:03the profits out and they buy the Bitcoin personally. But I would just be curious,
- 16:07like you've played this crucial role actually of, of helping a lot of, you know, and all founders
- 16:13are bootstrapped kind of like scrappy guys or gals, but you, you've helped people who have
- 16:20come into wealth that they probably didn't expect to come into. I'd just be curious, like how you,
- 16:26how you see the role you've played in helping the asset class actually grow up a bit and come into
- 16:31more of the mainstream yeah um i mean we yeah we have a wide variety of clients there and so
- 16:39it's everybody from hey i've been in bitcoin for 10 plus years and i need someone who understands
- 16:48it to you know help me with my tax accounting whatever it is um to the hey i just you know
- 16:56just got in last year and you know maybe older older clients um and they have you know cynically
- 17:05more wealth that they built up and so they're putting a cynically amount of money in but they're
- 17:09relatively new to bitcoin and so our role has really kind of evolved there from a hey i used
- 17:18to always tell people like i know a lot less about bitcoin than my clients do right because they are
- 17:23building businesses in the space, you know, building infrastructure, wallets, whatever
- 17:27it is.
- 17:28They're the experts.
- 17:29I'm trying to learn from them.
- 17:31And then now we have more and more as you have the ETFs and just more Wall Street getting
- 17:38in.
- 17:38It is more new people that are getting exposed to as an asset.
- 17:43And so they are coming to us more so as like a guide, advisory.
- 17:49And so that role has kind of evolved over these four years here.
- 17:53And yeah, not something I probably anticipated. I really was getting into it of, hey, I'm going to bring my accounting expertise to the Bitcoin space. And that being in the Bitcoin space and learning about it, going to BitDevs more regularly, like understanding it more, we're able to be a more valuable advisor to the people that have come in the last couple of years, which has been interesting to see.
- 18:16yeah well that all makes sense i mean it's it's definitely it is interesting when you're talking
- 18:25to someone who's like on the development side right like something that comes to mind for me
- 18:30and we can actually maybe pivot a little bit into some of the just nuances especially on the
- 18:35accounting side since i know that's kind of where you uh mostly live at this point on in the firm
- 18:40talk us through of course there's the whole cost basis there's bitcoin treated as property
- 18:45but maybe specifically like how are you thinking about different data sources that are harder to
- 18:53to track like I'm thinking specifically about lightning and how difficult it really is to track
- 19:00these micro payments do we have I guess and I know you guys have done a lot of work with you know with
- 19:07spreadsheets and but I guess just talk us through for an advisor who's not fully you know ingrained
- 19:13and how all this works.
- 19:15What does it look like from when you started the firm
- 19:17dealing with all of that stuff
- 19:19to where Lightning sits now within the business?
- 19:22Yeah, I mean, that certainly has changed quite a bit as well.
- 19:26Yeah, Bitcoin in some ways is very transparent.
- 19:29You have a blockchain.
- 19:31You know, if you want to go through and read the blockchain,
- 19:33you can see all the detail there.
- 19:35And if you have very little insight into what it's for, right?
- 19:38Like it's all in there and transparent.
- 19:40You can get back to it.
- 19:41lightning is kind of the exact opposite of that right um where even like the the service provider
- 19:48that you're working with like the exports that you get um the information there is just it's
- 19:54harder to track and if you're not doing it in real time going back and getting it is still very
- 20:00difficult um so i there are there's a wide variety of like um ways you can do that some
- 20:10are more built out than others um depending on yeah like if you're if you're using a you know a
- 20:19voltage or something like that you have a little bit more support versus if you're running your own
- 20:25node at home and you have to track all that yourself right um and so there there's a wide
- 20:30variety there and there's different lightning setups right um so all that to say like it is
- 20:38one of those things that we tell people to start of like if you can set up your accounting side of
- 20:44it if you can you can track your transactions really before you start and you have that set
- 20:51up you're going to be a much better place if we have to go back a year even six months and get all
- 20:57the transactions um it's all there it's all possible to get to but it's a lot harder to do
- 21:04after the fast if then you're proactive and maybe you set up something like bitment where you have
- 21:10it plugged in from day one um i know you guys are working on getting the lightning side set up but
- 21:15um like tools like that are critical so that we don't have to have these conversations with our
- 21:22client when they're you know when you're having the conversation on hey you should accept bitcoin
- 21:27for payment um it was like oh how do i do that and like there are custodial ways to do it right
- 21:33But if you want them to handle it themselves, getting the tools good enough so that you come to the end of the year and it's not a bit of a black hole is a huge, huge gap to get through.
- 21:47Go ahead, Jordan. You show Bitment.
- 21:52I'm just learning about Bitment, so I'll have to look into that tool.
- 21:56But thanks for shouting that out, Joe.
- 21:58well it's such a an interesting point joe because as you were describing that i was like
- 22:06ah shit looks like my bookkeeper is gonna have to go back and do some work because i didn't set up
- 22:12the proper infrastructure so would you kind of have any kind of you know generalized advice you
- 22:17know for folks that are you know interested in you accepting bitcoin you're paying vendors in
- 22:22bitcoin like what are what are some easy things to do off the jump to make sure we don't have kind
- 22:27of this you know rat sense we have to untangle yeah i mean just i mean personally like for our
- 22:34firm we accept bitcoin and we run everything through zap right so zap right's essentially
- 22:39an invoicing well more than an invoicing platform now but we use it for invoicing so we send out
- 22:45payment invoice requests to our clients and it has an option on there to pay in bitcoin
- 22:50lightning credit card ach um and so for us that's really nice in that we have the record of how much
- 22:59bitcoin we received at the time and so that we can always go kind of go back to that as our source
- 23:04of truth right so you know regardless of where it's going whether it's going into a self-custodial
- 23:10wallet into a you know a river or strike account into a lightning node like in zap right it all
- 23:17looks the same and I can all get to those records. So tools like that are really valuable.
- 23:24Square now has it built into their point of sale. I haven't seen their reporting on it. I'm assuming
- 23:29that it's really good. Hopefully it's really good. And most of those people are going to convert to
- 23:33dollars right away as well. So from that standpoint, the Bitcoin tracking becomes less important. But
- 23:39I think it really will become like, it has to be built into the product up front versus having to
- 23:47go back and do the accounting later. I think that's kind of the key and critical things
- 23:51as we try to build this out. If we actually want people to use Bitcoin as a payment mechanism,
- 24:00you have to build the accounting kind of seamlessly into it.
- 24:06Totally. Well, I want you to double click on that a little bit more because from my seat,
- 24:11I think it's my job as an advisor is getting more robust and in some ways easier because there's other entrepreneurs in the space that are developing Bitcoin-based financial products that I can help my clients with.
- 24:25So since you started Apacheoli, kind of walk us through on what is the tool development been that you've been able to kind of tap into?
- 24:35How is that making your job easier, et cetera?
- 24:38yeah i mean yeah there's been a lot out there i think i mentioned zap right as far as the invoice
- 24:46and that makes that side really easy um one of the things that we use i don't even know that
- 24:52it's advisable for all clients but we use uh like the strike bill pay as well um for businesses so
- 25:00for us we keep our treasury in bitcoin and so as people are paying us we're rolling into bitcoin
- 25:06or they're paying us a Bitcoin.
- 25:07And so our balance sheet essentially looks like Bitcoin.
- 25:12And then when we're paying payroll, it comes out
- 25:15and the payroll processor hits the strike account, right?
- 25:21And Bitcoin comes out of it, right?
- 25:24And so that is a custodial solution, right?
- 25:27So it's not perfect as far as like,
- 25:29hey, you're trusting the custodian,
- 25:31but from just an ease of process,
- 25:33if you want to live on Bitcoin
- 25:35and you want Bitcoin to be your base currency,
- 25:37you can do that now with the bill pay, right?
- 25:41It does not make your account it easier.
- 25:43Every time you do that, you have a gain or loss,
- 25:46which again goes into you have to build that in
- 25:49on the back end of like, hey, you're buying it here.
- 25:53We know how much you paid for it.
- 25:55Every time you have a transaction,
- 25:57we're recording a quarter of that gain or loss.
- 25:58If that's built into the exchanges,
- 26:00the headache on the consumer side is so much easier to take care of i know river's done really
- 26:07well with that for a while where they'll have pdf statements on a monthly basis that tell you
- 26:14here's how much bitcoin you have here's the realized gain here's the unrealized gain
- 26:18and then like from my standpoint we check that but it's really nice to have something you just go to
- 26:24and actually have that already at least as a starting point when you're doing that calculation
- 26:30so yeah i mean we use strike i think river has great yeah statements great uh proof of reserves
- 26:39there now as well especially after you know 2021 with all the ftx stuff um having a business hold
- 26:47bitcoin it's one of those things where you really want to be you know if they're going to do
- 26:51custodially you want to have some like some support that they actually hold in the bitcoin that
- 26:57they say they are. So, I mean, there's probably a million more things that I'm not thinking about
- 27:05right now, but just the where the industry is today versus four years ago. Yeah, I think just
- 27:13light years ahead and the tools are light years ahead. Lightning is light years ahead, right?
- 27:19so not perfect by any means still probably a long ways to go there a lot on the privacy side where
- 27:29we probably have a lot of work to do but yeah like unfortunately like a lot of the companies
- 27:35that we got we've gotten to work with kind of have have led the charge there but if you're
- 27:41getting into bitcoin today and the tools and resources that are out there are just drastically
- 27:47different than they were four years ago, but definitely five, six, seven years ago.
- 27:54If you're a financial professional working with Bitcoin, you know the pain of messy CSVs,
- 28:00broken cost basis, and accounting tools that were never built for this asset. Bitment fixes that.
- 28:06Bitment is the Bitcoin native accounting platform built for CPAs, bookkeepers, advisors,
- 28:11miners and serious bitcoin investors you get clean bitcoin bank statements reliable cost basis
- 28:18tracking full reporting and fiat integration through plaid no crypto talk no workarounds
- 28:23just proper accounting for the hardest money on earth create a free account or book a demo at
- 28:28bitment.co today i would say that's that's amazing um i really appreciate you sharing that because
- 28:35like one i think that's very you know encouraging for for people that may be intimidated and
- 28:40accepting Bitcoin. I mean, they're, they're treasuring Bitcoin. It's like the, the tool
- 28:44set is getting very robust, but also encouraging and exciting too, that there's still plenty of
- 28:49opportunities to, to build. Yeah. I was going to have you actually zoom in on the, uh, on the
- 28:57privacy component. I know like, obviously Bitcoiners are, you know, very particular bunch,
- 29:02right. And, um, and you're handling a lot of, uh, you know, sensitive information. I mean,
- 29:08that's just the nature of tax and accounting in general, but then even more so potentially on,
- 29:14on how we're, how do we even actually get some of this data from the client, right? Maybe we're
- 29:19having to ping their, their X pub. And, and then the other piece is like when you're paying out
- 29:26Bitcoin, if you don't do it right, are you exposing your balance to, you know, a counterparty,
- 29:31if you're just doing everything on chain? So maybe, maybe talk through just how you all approach
- 29:37privacy within the firm in general and then how you seeing some of these tools that are built out to actually just generally make Bitcoin more private than it inherently is Yeah Yeah so always trade there
- 29:51I think for us, the privacy broadly comes from, you know, one of the other sides of using custodial services is that, you know,
- 30:02the custodian is the one actually making the payments.
- 30:04And so it's not going to a multi-sig or a single-sig where we're holding the keys.
- 30:09And, you know, if we wanted to pay all our employees out of our Bitcoin single SIG wallet, like you could kind of see how much we were holding in there. Right. It's not a great solution. But I think Lightning itself is a great option there. Right. Where, you know, payments on Lightning are more private.
- 30:29and then I know just on the more technical side,
- 30:36you know, PayJoin has been one of those things
- 30:39that has been developed relatively recently
- 30:41that has a lot of potential there
- 30:43where it still needs to gain adoption, traction,
- 30:46and actually get people to use it.
- 30:48But there are more ways that Bitcoin can be private.
- 30:53I think it's honestly one of those things
- 30:55where it is more of a do people actually want it and do they care versus are the tools available
- 31:03and out there um there are probably more better there's probably tools out there that are
- 31:08underutilized because there isn't actually as much of a focus on there we have a we have a select
- 31:16view and like we see kind of maybe some of the more hardcore people that care about the privacy
- 31:22but it's probably not up there as much for even most of our client base right um so like we've
- 31:30we've made that a point of emphasis for our clients for for our operations so like we'll
- 31:36use proton mail for our our um our mail service we have encrypted storage for receiving documents
- 31:46for clients we do that because we care about you know safeguarding and making sure that we don't
- 31:53leak our customers um information but i think the reality is if we if we change from that 95
- 32:03of our clients probably don't care right and so it is very much the minority that we are trying to
- 32:09make sure that we satisfy but then also like dragging some people along there right where
- 32:16it's like actually there are really good reasons to care about this this is not just privacy for
- 32:21the sake of like keeping all your information um you know secret so you can do tax fraud is
- 32:28hey you don't need to expose your data to people if they don't need it right and so
- 32:33some of that's education um but i i think there are there are probably more i don't think tools
- 32:40are the issue at this point.
- 32:42I think it is, you know,
- 32:45the average Bitcoiners willingness
- 32:46or sense of ERV's HC to use them, I would say.
- 32:53Yeah, I'm happy you brought that up, Joe,
- 32:56because that's something I really am curious
- 32:58in getting your input on,
- 33:00because something, you know,
- 33:01Jordan and I want to do with this
- 33:02is helping normies
- 33:04or traditional financial service providers
- 33:06really kind of understand the language of Bitcoin
- 33:08and working with Bitcoiners
- 33:10and Bitcoiners are a unique bunch.
- 33:13And I think the encryption, Proton are great examples
- 33:16of kind of going above and beyond to service Bitcoiners
- 33:20or provide what they want to see.
- 33:22So over the course of running your business,
- 33:24how have you been intentional about kind of serving
- 33:27the psyche and ethos of Bitcoiners?
- 33:30Yeah.
- 33:31Yeah, I mean, another example there is like,
- 33:34we will use like Maple AI for like our AI stuff
- 33:38of like we want to stay on top of the most recent like progressions we want to use technology in the
- 33:45to you know make our firm you know more efficient keep our prices down like be able to do all that
- 33:53but doing a private privacy preserving way so i think it really has been like staying up to
- 33:59to date on the most recent trends what's available out there and there are people on our team that
- 34:05know this stuff a lot better than I do we kind of can lean on as far as hey what's going on um
- 34:12and so it really has been a what are the tools out there and what are the trade-offs that we're
- 34:18making we we try not to do things just for the sake of like hey this is the most private way to
- 34:25do it this is going to give us the most like brownie points for you know the most hardcore
- 34:29our privacy people we try to make it actually like a tangible trade-off where it's like
- 34:35all right we use ProtonMail there are some things that don't work as well with ProtonMail but
- 34:41overall we feel better about using that than running it to like something like Google or Gmail
- 34:47where we know all that information is going to get exposed maybe not broadly but to Google at least
- 34:53right and every one of those decisions is hard though there's not one thing where it's like
- 34:58we're always doing the most private thing it is is the privacy trade-off work whatever whatever
- 35:07other vantage it at it is out there and i think as those tools get built out though ideally there's
- 35:14more less and less trade-off to make um to save that privacy but it's always going to be a battle
- 35:20of like what are you giving up what are other firms able to do that we're not able to do
- 35:25because maybe it's not as open or not as integrated.
- 35:29So that's been a constant battle for us.
- 35:34Yeah, no, that makes sense.
- 35:36I wanted to potentially pivot a little bit
- 35:40because part of this whole show is about educating,
- 35:44like what I just said about just what Bitcoin is.
- 35:48One of the things that struck me
- 35:49when I got into my Bitcoin podcast journey
- 35:52was I heard a gentleman on the What Bitcoin Did podcast,
- 35:57I'm going to blank on his name, maybe I'll think of it,
- 35:59but he spoke about Bitcoin, the network.
- 36:03And obviously there's Bitcoin, the asset.
- 36:06That's what people generally mean
- 36:09when they talk about Bitcoin.
- 36:10But then there's Bitcoin, the network.
- 36:12And Joe, I think you just have such a unique position
- 36:15being that you are the accounting guy in Bitcoin.
- 36:19talk to us about what bitcoin the network is how does it like how is it a ledger and how do we
- 36:26actually all keep the ledger and make sure that there's no devil spend no um no funny business or
- 36:32anything like that yeah this is one of those things where i think because of the the nature
- 36:38of bitcoin i would i would expect more accounts to get it earlier uh which is a little bit
- 36:44disappointing uh but yeah like i and i don't know i don't know this was one of the initial like
- 36:49draws to it but like it always made sense to me right i'm like when we talk about the network
- 36:54we're talking about essentially all the transactions historically on bitcoin are all view
- 37:00viewable on a ledger um all transparent right um and you can go i i mean i remember when i first
- 37:10you know loaded up ran my own node and seeing like the blocks fill right and like having the
- 37:15full data to go back to um i i mean i could be wrong about this but i don't know that it really
- 37:21exists in any way with anything else out there um and so like having a historical ledger there
- 37:28where you're able to see all those transactions um for what 16 years now um it's kind of an
- 37:36amazing thing just on itself um and that obviously a little bit of a tangent but that led a lot of
- 37:42people in the kind of the earlier years and probably even still in a day of like oh this is
- 37:47awesome what else can we do with this blockchain i want to put everything on the blockchain right
- 37:52um it was like all right maybe that wasn't really the solution but for money right where it's like
- 37:57i want to have a clear transparent ledger of all the the transactions that's happened
- 38:03And, you know, throughout the globe or at least right now, whoever's using Bitcoin, it's kind of an amazing thing from an accounting standpoint.
- 38:11And so, like, yeah, from an accountant where it's like, hey, we're used to working with ledgers.
- 38:16We have double entry bookkeeping.
- 38:19Having, you know, an open, transparent public ledger was always one of those, you know, initial fascinating things that I would think your average accountant should be like, at least that's interesting, right?
- 38:32but we haven't had a ton of adoption necessarily in the accounting world compared to
- 38:40at least the broader space but maybe we're catching up.
- 38:44Hey that's what we're trying to do here right Wyatt we're trying to bring some more normal CPAs
- 38:50into the fold. Yeah I mean I just I feel like it's so interesting that you know how even how
- 38:58the nodes work. The analogy that I heard early on was, it's like a group of people, call it 10
- 39:05people who have all memorized the New Testament of the Bible, right? And so if one person says that
- 39:13John 3.16 says something that it doesn't, right? The other nine folks who have memorized it, they
- 39:19can all as a group say, no, like we all say unanimously, that's not true. And that's what
- 39:26the nodes are able to do, right? Since we're all running the same code, we've all got the same
- 39:31transaction history, we can validate amongst ourselves what's true on the network and what's
- 39:38not true, which is just, is very interesting because generally you, well, one, generally all
- 39:43that stuff's hidden, right? Maybe there's a group of nodes for JPMorgan Chase that has all their
- 39:49transaction history, but of course, none of us can see that. And so, yeah, it's definitely very,
- 39:55That was always a big part of my Bitcoin journey as an accountant myself, I guess.
- 40:01Yeah.
- 40:02And I think the other big difference there is Bitcoin is not tangible, right?
- 40:10But it is actually sending data back and forth that has something to it, right?
- 40:20Whereas literally on the JP Morgan spreadsheet is just numbers from one sheet to another.
- 40:25And it's like, oh, I owe you this.
- 40:27Now you owe me that.
- 40:28And these numbers go back and forth, right?
- 40:30Whereas like Bitcoin, whoever is it currently at, whoever has those keys has that Bitcoin, right?
- 40:37And if it doesn't move, then you don't have a transition, a transfer of that Bitcoin.
- 40:43So it is that kind of that digital but real asset side that is, I think, really hard to wrap your mind around at first of like, hey, these are just made up numbers.
- 40:55And it's like, I mean, kind of, but also like there is something behind it and it does require real, real energy to move the Bitcoin.
- 41:05And yeah, it is one of those things that, you know, I don't think I even like touched the surface on for the first five years of kind of like thinking about Bitcoin.
- 41:15It took me a little while.
- 41:19Well, I'm happy you brought that up, Joe, because that's one of the points I harp on.
- 41:23we're all responsible for building a Bitcoinized financial system within the values,
- 41:29principles, and ethos of Bitcoin. And I think that only happens with the asset settling and trading
- 41:35in kind. And that's extremely important and obviously unique to Bitcoin just being a digital
- 41:40bear asset. So I love that aspect about Bitcoin. I think it's really kind of
- 41:45underrated, especially when we're talking about how centralized ledgers work.
- 41:48This episode is brought to you by Satoshi Pacioli, a full-service accounting and tax
- 41:56firm built for the Bitcoin economy. If you run a Bitcoin business, mine Bitcoin, or invest in it,
- 42:01you need advisors who actually understand how this industry works. Satoshi Pacioli handles
- 42:05bookkeeping, financial reporting, tax compliance, and strategic planning for Bitcoin-focused
- 42:10companies and individuals. They speak the language of Bitcoiners and help you stay
- 42:13compliant while building for the long term. To learn more or book a consultation, visit
- 42:18satoshipacioli.com. So I'd love to just bring up how the firm is changing. Of course, you know,
- 42:26for those who don't know, Joe and I are actually merging our firms together here by the end of this
- 42:31year. But specifically, like, you know, your team has grown a lot over the last, obviously, three or
- 42:38four years. And I'd love for you to touch on, you know, the client advisory services that you guys
- 42:45are adding on, as well as touch on the PBM side, because I think it's really unique what you,
- 42:50what you're trying to build, you know, essentially trying to help bring the Bitcoin businesses
- 42:56into the future and adding some pretty unique consulting services on top of the
- 43:03underlying accounting stack? Yeah. There's probably a lot there. I could dive into each of it.
- 43:12I mean, as far as the team growth, yeah, we're looking at beginning of next year as a merge
- 43:20firm, about 11 people to start. You said growth over the last three or four years. It really has
- 43:28been the last two years it was basically it was just me for the first two years um and then
- 43:34essentially added two people in year three um and now as we're going you know year four into year
- 43:42five we'll be at 11 um so yeah pretty pretty significant growth in a relatively short period
- 43:48of time after like a kind of a slow start there right where it's the first couple years it's very
- 43:53Like, hey, what's going on? What's the industry? What is our actual unique fit here?
- 43:57So that's been interesting.
- 44:01And yeah, kind of like you touched on, we're trying to see what is out there as far as needs in the industry
- 44:07and what are kind of some of the unique values that we can bring.
- 44:10And so we started with, you know, the accounting, the monthly close, the financial reporting stuff.
- 44:17um we have essentially like three four people for three or four person team doing that um
- 44:25we have you know a whole full tax function um what are we up to there on the tax side now
- 44:31if we do what we do fds yeah i think it uh five five or six of us depending on what what bucket you fall in figure out how much you want to allocate to each person So yeah that kind of always been like a 50 thing for us though of like between tax and then the monthly accounting
- 44:50Kind of been 50-50 as far as like workload, revenue coming in, kind of a split there in that they do work very nicely together of like, hey, you need tax support.
- 45:00You need monthly accounting.
- 45:01you need you know and then also like leaning into like fractional cfo client advisory services
- 45:09we're gonna have a full-time person devoted to fractional cfo work and in the new year we already
- 45:15have you know i think probably a backlog of clients that need that right now uh so really
- 45:21being able to ramp that up in 2026 um and really just being able to focus on i mean i think uniquely
- 45:28that that fractional cfo side it is getting someone with many years of experience doing
- 45:36fractional cfo work but also with a deep understanding of bitcoin is going to be very
- 45:41hard to find there's a few of them out there but like being able to bring one on full time onto the
- 45:45team now that we have kind of the workload and need for it has been like i think will be a huge
- 45:51value add across our whole client base right um and that there is the hey a dedicated fractional
- 45:59cfo and then there is the hey i just need these one-off questions here and there and like being
- 46:04able to have that on the team will be great um and then you reference the kind of the pbm stuff
- 46:10uh what i would broadly call kind of like organizational development um a little bit
- 46:16outside the the main accounting focus of the organization outside accounting and tax um or
- 46:22even finance where it gets into how do you as a bitcoin or want to think about running your
- 46:29business growing your business um that has been one of those things where i came from an organization
- 46:36that had a pretty strong culture as far as like organization development leadership and how
- 46:43organizations should run um and one of the guys that worked there and that i learned a bunch of
- 46:48stuff from was looking for new opportunities really wanted to get into bitcoin um and so it
- 46:54was one of those just i i wouldn't have done it if they're like the time time in place hadn't kind
- 47:00of worked out nicely for both of us um and so he's been helping us internally for the last few months
- 47:07to kind of build out our processes
- 47:09and the timing's worked great
- 47:11as far as we've grown as a team
- 47:13to help us think more strategically about things.
- 47:18A whole wide range of things
- 47:20that would probably be better to dive into
- 47:22with him versus me trying to explain it all,
- 47:25but really just fundamentally trying to get organizations
- 47:28to be strategic and with that Bitcoin mindset
- 47:31as far as growth and long-term thinking.
- 47:34And we have him working with one external client
- 47:36is kind of a test case for us right now.
- 47:38And then really looking to roll that out broader in the new year again
- 47:42to what other Bitcoin businesses out there are growing, doing really well.
- 47:47Maybe they have a first-time founder.
- 47:50They want to get things organized as far as like,
- 47:52hey, how do I want to run this business?
- 47:54How do I get everyone on the same page?
- 47:56I think there's a huge need for that.
- 47:58And so we'll be rolling out that more broadly probably towards January this year
- 48:05and seeing what companies kind of want to dive into it.
- 48:11Well, I'm so happy we got on this topic
- 48:13because that was something I was really interested in
- 48:14chatting with you about, Joe,
- 48:16is I think there's a little bit of a chicken and egg problem
- 48:20when it comes to growing Bitcoin businesses.
- 48:23You spent time in traditional finance.
- 48:24You obviously built a business in Bitcoin.
- 48:27So two-parter here.
- 48:28It's like when you've come to evaluating talent,
- 48:31are you kind of prioritizing knowledge in Bitcoin?
- 48:34Are you kind of prioritizing a knowledge in your core field and like trying to teach or train staff on one or the other?
- 48:43And then this second, which kind of related to what you were just talking about, being in Bitcoin, servicing Bitcoiners, having Bitcoin as a core function ethos of your business.
- 48:56How is that influence your thoughts on your business model?
- 49:00How is it? How does it vary from traditional CPA or advisory firms? Why don't you tackle those two things for us?
- 49:07Yeah. So, I mean, I guess on the first side. So one of the one of the tools we have kind of in our our organizational framework is like when we look at talent, we have them on like a matrix of like virtues and then talent.
- 49:24So it is like, how technically competent are you?
- 49:28How good are you at doing the thing that you're going to do?
- 49:30And like, what are your virtues, right?
- 49:33And you decide how much like Bitcoin wants to like work into those virtues.
- 49:37But really it is like, we're primarily focused on like, who are the high value people that
- 49:43if I need to teach them something, I can teach them, but they're going to be the right people
- 49:48for the organization long-term over the person that may be the most technically competent.
- 49:53And I think I would probably apply that to Bitcoin or accounting, right?
- 49:57So I can teach someone more about accounting or I could teach them more about tax.
- 50:02I can't teach them to be a better person, right?
- 50:06We're probably a little bit past that phase.
- 50:08So that's kind of how we think about it as far as like priorities there.
- 50:13And I think either way, like we've had people that are newer to Bitcoin that are still learning, but really want to grow, right?
- 50:21And then we have people that have been in Bitcoin for a while.
- 50:24That's maybe more closer to me where it's like, hey, I just want to work in the Bitcoin.
- 50:28How do I figure out how to contribute there, right?
- 50:31And so Bitcoin is inherently a piece of that, I think, as we look at the people that we're bringing on.
- 50:38But it is not like a one-size-fits-all.
- 50:40It is very much, I think, virtues first.
- 50:42And then out of that, like, what's the right fit for the organization?
- 50:48So I think that was the first part of your question.
- 50:49What's the second part?
- 50:51just how uh bitcoin has changed or um influenced your thoughts on your business model
- 50:57yeah i mean this is kind of one of the things that we try to build into this what we're calling
- 51:02like a pbm product which is um yeah essentially yeah like an organizational framework of like how
- 51:08do you think about your business and one of the key aspects there that we kind of align with is
- 51:13taking a long-term view of how you grow your business and i think that nicely fits in with
- 51:20kind of the Bitcoin ethos of low time preference, right? And it is, how do I build this business to
- 51:26be sustainable and add value to clients in the long term? We know there's a bunch of things that
- 51:33you can do in the short term to make more money. But is that really in the interest of your clients?
- 51:38And I think that aligns nicely with, hey, you know, I'm holding Bitcoin. I know it's going to
- 51:42be volatile. But I think long term, it is better for humanity. It's a better asset. I want to hold
- 51:50some portion of my wealth in it right and so i think those as we looked at this product and as
- 51:56we're trying to build it out of like who is going to like gravitate to it and would actually buy in
- 52:01and get value in um into some of these concepts it's going to be the big corner that are already
- 52:07kind of familiar with it and comfortable with it um from a very like kind of base level
- 52:13oh that's awesome and you know follow a question how did you justify bringing
- 52:19jordan on even though he scored well on that virtue scale uh yes uh it was uh i mean
- 52:27yeah he was obviously very high in other areas but that is one of those things actually
- 52:31i'm like we have like a we call it like a matrix right and like you actually
- 52:38the person that's really high in the talent section um if they're not like they're actually
- 52:45the worst one to have if they're low on the virtue because like they're the ones that can
- 52:49actually do the worst uh damage to your organization um so as much as i would like to say
- 52:56that jordan is like very very low on that uh it probably doesn't work out
- 53:00no it's been uh no it's been fun honestly i like joe and i met because i was trying to
- 53:08you know talk to him about hey maybe this software we're developing would be helpful for the firm and
- 53:13he's like yeah no that sounds interesting but uh what if we just merge firms together too and i was
- 53:18like let's do that too that sounds fun so yeah yeah no it was very much one of those things where
- 53:25we we knew we we potentially were growing and it was like hey we got all this in down demand
- 53:32it was me and seth it was like all right we're pulling this off but it's like we need more
- 53:37people we need more expertise and jordan had been doing this for a while already uh and he's building
- 53:43up the software so it was like hey if we need more people like there's not gonna be anybody better
- 53:48than than jordan so like how do we pull this off that's mutually beneficial for everybody
- 53:53and so we talked for a little while um eventually able to to make it happen
- 53:58yeah no it's all all fun stuff well i think that that i don't have any other questions i don't know
- 54:06why is anything else on your mind you want to make sure we cover yeah um i'm starting to think
- 54:11we should just make this a recurring question for for all of our our guests but i think it's so
- 54:17funny joe that uh it's almost like innate within bitcoiners like they have this skepticism
- 54:22of professional services like i just buy bitcoin i'm fine how have you encountered that how have
- 54:28you kind of uh countered it or you know kind of you know educated your client base where it's like
- 54:33yes bitcoin's awesome but my services are still valuable yeah um i don't we probably don't get
- 54:41that as much as you do um because like i mean we will get the people that will say
- 54:48oh why would I pay taxes on my bitcoin the government doesn't know about it I'm not going
- 54:53to pay taxes when I send my bitcoin or whatever it is I'm like that's fine you go ahead and do that
- 54:58we're not going to be your accountant um but generally if you are coming to us they like they
- 55:03realize there's a need for it right and they're trying to do it correctly and so like those people
- 55:08that are coming to us like we get less of that in that um assuming that they do want to compliantly
- 55:17file their taxes like they're going to have a need and like a support for that um so probably
- 55:23less so than than your side where they are saying like hey i'm just going to hold everything at
- 55:27bitcoin i don't need any help where it's like there's a little bit more nuance to that right
- 55:31um but yeah i think it i think we'll get more of that honestly um as people just hold the etf right
- 55:41and they're like oh i just have the etf it's just like anything else and then it's like all right
- 55:46if you just want to hold the etf that's fine again we're probably not the right fit for you
- 55:50um so i i we'll probably see that evolve in the years to come
- 55:54must be nice you guys have a spoiled riches over at satoshi patroli i should have been an accountant
- 56:01i i don't know about that every every accountants i've ever worked with i feel like in the first
- 56:06couple years they're like oh what do you want to do next how do you want to evolve and they're like
- 56:10i want to go work in finance i'm like i know you want to go work in finance but
- 56:13someone's gotta do the accounting uh yeah yeah i wouldn't be too jealous no definitely not
- 56:21well this is great joe thank you so much for just being so gracious and uh generous with your time
- 56:27uh and for being our first guest on the bitcoin for financial services
- 56:31podcast um we'll be excited to bring you back out to denver uh where wyatt's at we're
- 56:39out in the mountains mountain men out there why it's always giving me stuff you know crab
- 56:43about living in the Midwest.
- 56:45So I think he's...
- 56:47Joe's trying to get me to move to Nashville.
- 56:49Wife's trying to get me to move out West.
- 56:51And my in-laws want me to move to Florida.
- 56:53So I got to figure out where to go next, I guess.
- 56:56But all that said, really appreciate it, Joe.
- 56:59Yeah, absolutely.
- 57:00Thanks for having me on.
- 57:01Yeah, thanks so much for coming on, Joe.
- 57:03I hope you were the first guest with a badge of honor.
- 57:06Quick clarification, though, because that was slanderous.
- 57:09I'm a Midwest boy.
- 57:10I'm from the Midwest.
- 57:12Kentucky is not the Midwest.
- 57:13That's the South.
- 57:13okay well Louisville is right on the is right on the line generally is Tennessee in the Midwest
- 57:21yeah that's the south too okay that's what we said right when we were getting on the call I was like
- 57:28Joe did you get snow today he's like no I'm in the south I'm like all right fair enough so um
- 57:34well this is great yeah we'll probably have to bring you back on Joe maybe uh post-tax season
- 57:38and get the rundown on how everything went.
- 57:43So where can people find the content
- 57:46that Pacioli's putting out,
- 57:49follow you if they wanted to reach out for services?
- 57:53Yeah, probably it should be pretty easy
- 57:55to find Satoshi Patroli.
- 57:57We're really the only one out there.
- 57:59It's a little hard to spell,
- 58:00but Satoshi Patroli accounting,
- 58:03you'll find this, our website, Twitter, Noster.
- 58:07we have a sub stack as well so if you want more of this like content i would go to the sub stack
- 58:14probably first that's where we're really trying to build out and get some more educational
- 58:18resources whether for our clients or more broadly um some really valuable information that we think
- 58:24is missing there that's hard to fit into like i'm a short you know short tweet so um that's where i
- 58:30would point people to the most. Perfect. All righty. Well, thank you so much, Joe. We will
- 58:37talk to you next time. Great. Thanks.
- 59:00and our clients are better served.
- 59:03Stay sharp, stay sovereign, and keep leading from the front.
- 59:30Thank you.