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Parker Lewis | Why Bitcoin is Inevitable | Simply Bitcoin IRL · Simply Bitcoin

0:13
Hello everybody, Welcome to another episode of Simply
0:15
Bitcoin IRL. Today we have a very special
0:18
guest and someone who I've been looking forward to have on the
0:21
show for the first time, Parker Lewis.
0:23
But before we start the show, I want to give a very special
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0:44
All right everybody, no more delay.
0:46
Let's jump straight into it. Let me bring Parker up on stage.
0:49
Hey Parker, how you doing? Doing well.
0:51
Glad we could finally get together to do this and sorry it
0:54
took me so long to be here but I'm very excited or no dude I I
0:58
I'm I'm a super fan of of your work and your essays that some
1:03
of them that I remember you you dropped while you were at
1:07
Unchained and it really really made me kind of rethink about
1:13
it. There is this piece basically it
1:16
was called the Great Defined Definancialization.
1:20
Sorry, English is my second language.
1:22
It's a word I made-up, I think. So it's not readily available,
1:26
but but it was, it was, it explains a lot.
1:30
It explains a lot, right. It was very, very kind of
1:34
influential in in in my my perspective of the world and and
1:39
in and my Bitcoin journey as well.
1:42
But before we get into all of that, I I really want to ask you
1:45
about what's your take on the FASB's ruling today in terms of
1:51
basically this was one of the three things that Michael Saylor
1:56
said would be necessary in order to take Bitcoin to the next
2:01
level. So what's your take on that?
2:04
Yeah, I mean, I think that it's one, it's a very logical move.
2:09
It was a no brainer. I think the.
2:11
And read too much about it today but I did see the news and I
2:14
believe the the vote was unanimous.
2:17
I'm not sure that exactly how many votes there are but that it
2:21
was it was very clear that it was the IT was the right thing
2:24
to do. I think that it it reduces a
2:27
source of friction without doubt Michael Sellers talked about
2:31
this quite a bit but ultimately for those people who are not
2:35
familiar what the rule and in in certain certain.
2:39
Types of companies and there's different standards for public
2:42
companies and private companies, but the the standard that public
2:47
companies had adopted was, I think it was treated as a
2:50
indefinite life intangible and effectively what that meant was
2:55
that. Companies that held Bitcoin on
2:58
their balance sheet would have to market it effectively the
3:01
lowest value it had ever traded at and and basically impair the
3:06
Bitcoin. And then as it traded back up,
3:08
they couldn't write the asset back up.
3:10
And So what the FASD basically changed today was saying that
3:13
companies could mark. Bitcoin on their balance sheet
3:17
at fair value. So as it goes down, they mark it
3:20
down. As it goes up, they mark it up
3:22
rather than only marketing and marking it down and never
3:25
marking it up. I think the reality of the
3:27
situation is that that does I think reduce some friction for
3:32
for some companies. I think if somebody was valuing
3:36
a, a square who has Bitcoin on their balance sheet or a.
3:40
Micro strategy, they were probably looking past that and
3:44
being like okay they disclosed how much Bitcoin they have, how
3:46
much is actually worth. So I think the market was
3:47
probably treating it from a market mark to market basis
3:51
anyways, but I think for accountants and for kind of
3:55
finance department, treasury departments.
3:58
That are considered about their borrowing bases and their
4:00
balance sheets. There's certain things that are
4:02
tested against their balance sheets.
4:04
So I do think that it reduces friction, particularly for large
4:08
companies, large public companies to putting it
4:10
simplifies things for them. And yeah, and I have been
4:15
following it for, for quite a while, right.
4:17
And and it put them like in this kind of predicament right where
4:21
they couldn't they couldn't accurately report a loss on the
4:25
downturns and it was just it just became accounting it was an
4:29
accounting nightmare. So it deincentivize companies to
4:33
put Bitcoin on their on their balance sheet.
4:35
Now what the the the other two things that Michael Saylor
4:39
brought up which would be major catalyst number one was the
4:43
Bitcoin spot ETF, right. So we all know what's been going
4:45
on with BlackRock in the news. We've been hearing it.
4:49
You know we hear rumblings coming out of the SCC.
4:53
How, you know, it seems to me like they're running out of Rd.
4:58
like that they're running out of excuses.
5:00
They can only delay this for so long.
5:02
The grayscale lawsuit, you know, they got defeated there.
5:06
So what's your take on this whole situation?
5:08
Do you believe it's it's politically motivated from the
5:11
SEC? Why do you think the why do you
5:13
think they're taking so long to approve a spot Bitcoin ETF?
5:18
Yeah, I think that that. I don't know if it's yeah, I
5:22
guess. In some way politically
5:25
motivated or state motivated and I don't want to say politically
5:29
motivated in the sense that I don't think it's one party
5:31
versus another. I think it's more of the
5:34
interests of the federal government and particularly the
5:37
Fed treasury impacting the SEC. And so I think that what I would
5:43
say is it does feel like they're they're getting at the the end
5:47
of the road in terms of excuses and that the the conventional
5:51
wisdom. With the likes of BlackRock
5:54
coming in, is that an ETF will get approved very soon?
5:59
I I'm someone who is just cautious around that.
6:02
I think that there are very large, powerful interests that
6:08
ultimately do not want Bitcoin to continue to even
6:13
incrementally gain ground and kind of.
6:17
Be be a potential future threat to the dollar.
6:20
I think that is ultimately what it is.
6:22
Not a threat in a bad way but in terms of competition it's
6:25
providing an option for people to opt out of you know endless
6:28
Fiat the basement like we think everybody's paying attention to
6:31
Bitcoin is figured out, but that has consequences for the Federal
6:35
Reserve, for the Treasury Department, for Finson.
6:39
And I think that currently the SEC is basically the the fall
6:44
guy or the front man for other interests within the federal.
6:48
That would rather not see Bitcoin proliferate via an ETF.
6:52
And so even though typically BlackRock gets what BlackRock
6:56
wants until an ETF is approved, I'm skeptical that it will
7:01
happen in the short term. And I don't think people should
7:03
necessarily, or people should not be making investment
7:06
decisions as to whether or not an ETF is or isn't going to get
7:10
approved like it. Maybe it's inevitable in the
7:12
long run but Bitcoin replacing the dollar is also inevitable in
7:15
the wrong long run and and then and I want to get to that that
7:20
last question because I I completely agree opt to do you
7:23
want to change the screens or shy.
7:24
Thanks so and I want to get to that last question about Bitcoin
7:28
inevitably replacing the dollar in the long run.
7:30
I I fundamentally believe that but to go back to what you were
7:34
talking about you know and and whether it's the piece Choke
7:41
point operation choke point 2.0. The wording coming out of the
7:45
treasury that released a paper late last year called the future
7:49
of money and payments and that entire pay and then the entire
7:52
paper they did not mention Bitcoin in fact they trashed it
7:55
a little bit and in the eyes of the current administration it's
7:58
central bank digital currencies. We know the release of the Fed.
8:02
Now I had Caitlin Long on the show a couple I think it was
8:06
either a month ago or so, and she said directly she said the
8:11
reason that the Custodia bank got denied the federal banking
8:15
charter, that order came directly from the White House,
8:20
right. So I I I agree with you.
8:22
I think I think that there there's some elements in the
8:24
federal government that do not want Bitcoin to succeed.
8:28
Now that leads me to my question to you is the people that are in
8:32
charge of socalled regulating the industry are also the people
8:36
that stand the most to lose. How does that like, how does
8:41
that play out in your eyes? Yeah, I mean I think that it's
8:46
interesting to think about the the different competing
8:51
interests, right, because you can look at the Goldman Sachs,
8:56
JP Morgan's Black Rocks of the World kind of the the, the, the
9:00
private, but more and more quasi public institutions not just in
9:04
terms of public shareholders but you know kind of becoming more
9:09
you know. Crony capitalists attached to
9:12
the state in terms of coopting the state to to create
9:16
regulatory capture. So I think that you know,
9:19
drawing the line between what's in the interest that some might,
9:22
some people might say like JP Morgan has the most to lose.
9:25
Reality is that everybody has the most to gain by adopting a
9:28
Bitcoin standard. Companies that you know help on
9:31
the financial services side, it's either adopt or die.
9:34
So if they don't adopt, JP Morgan doesn't adopt Bitcoin to
9:37
BlackRock doesn't adopt Bitcoin, they're more likely to.
9:40
Fail quicker than than than if they were that going to be a
9:43
lifeboat for everybody. I think that the corporate
9:46
interest or the private interest, even if they're
9:48
becoming more quasi governmental as as too big to fail, is
9:52
codified that is distinct from the Fed and Treasury and the Fed
9:59
while it is a a private institution owned by the the the
10:03
large banks or or maybe not necessarily the the large banks
10:07
and. Smaller banks, kind of a
10:09
conglomerate of banks. It is that the Fed is a quasi
10:13
public institution. The Treasury is a 100% public
10:17
institution. And so I think that across those
10:20
lines and chasms, you probably have a world where treasury and
10:25
fencing totally like government, government interest, state
10:30
actors. They they 100% do not want that
10:33
coin Their their business is the dollar. the Fed, same thing.
10:39
But you could look to a world where maybe the Fed wants to
10:41
continue to exist and adopts Bitcoin.
10:43
So I think that I think it just exists on a spectrum, but I
10:47
would distinguish the large interest that even though JP
10:50
Morgan. And Goldman Sachs and Bank of
10:53
America and City they might you know kind of seemingly have an
10:57
interest to to to stop Bitcoin. I think it's it's more the pure
11:00
government bodies that really extract you know kind of state
11:04
derived power from the dollar and and kind of derivative
11:08
systems that that the dollar can kind of coop that are really
11:12
kind of creating the push back from this rather than the large
11:16
private institutions that kind of control the government but
11:19
but are distinct from it. Gotcha and and how how do we
11:23
fight against that so to speak right like how how do you how do
11:27
you fight against this administrative state that is
11:30
funded by you know this this endless money printer.
11:35
How do you, you know, is it a term?
11:37
Is it in terms of election? Is it in terms of getting people
11:41
to, you know, adopt A Bitcoin in the United States?
11:43
At Corey Clipston wrote a paper called The Race to Avoid the
11:47
War, where he makes the case about, you know, getting an
11:50
intransigent minority in the United States.
11:53
I think it's like 10 million bitcoiners that are unwilling to
11:56
bend in a certain issue. How do you say?
11:59
Is it an educational thing? Is it a lobbying thing?
12:03
What's your take on that, Parker?
12:05
Yeah, I mean I think it's somewhere between too big to
12:07
fail on Bitcoin side of like too many people have to adopt it and
12:12
where the interest become conflicted.
12:15
I think I saw a tweet from Safe Safety in the news or someone
12:20
putting a tweet out that that quoted him that was come for the
12:23
greed, stay for the revolution. And I I honest.
12:27
So I think it's like it really is education, but it's education
12:30
on the side of like people. You know, kind of will generally
12:35
adopt Bitcoin for fear of missing out.
12:38
That fear of missing out is actually rational, like they're
12:40
they're following a market signal.
12:42
It's saying bitcoins not dying. It continues to to increase in
12:45
purchasing power over time. I either need to adapt or die,
12:49
either need to adopt this or not.
12:51
And oftentimes, people first adopt Bitcoin for the reason
12:55
that they're expecting their wealth to increase as people
12:58
fall further and further down the rabbit hole.
13:00
You know, there's the saying which I think is 100% true.
13:03
It's not true to, you know, 100% rule in in all cases.
13:07
But is that Bitcoin changes people more than people change
13:11
Bitcoin. I think that's something we're
13:12
seeing currently as people are trying to change Bitcoin or at
13:14
least certain the consensus rules.
13:16
But it's getting more people in and engage of why they they have
13:21
an individual interest or a business interest to gain by
13:24
adopting Bitcoin. And then once they're in the the
13:27
Bitcoin vortex, they become, you know, on on.
13:30
Team Bitcoin and The more people that adopt it, the the harder it
13:35
is to stop. The more people in the
13:37
government body that are holding Bitcoin individually, their
13:40
interest is aligned to to not fuck it up.
13:43
The more people within JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, the Federal
13:47
Reserve that owned Bitcoin, the less likely they are to fuck it
13:50
up because ultimately they're going to align behind their own
13:53
selfinterest. And the selfinterest are both
13:56
personally and and and their businesses.
13:58
Yeah. And and it's so it's in it.
14:01
So my interpretation is it's it's a, it's a bottom up, right?
14:07
It's it's an infiltration so to speak and not in a bad way
14:10
because I feel like that has like a negative connotation
14:12
attached to it, but it's adoption, right?
14:17
The more people adopt Bitcoin in positions of power and
14:19
influence, the more they're incentivized to act against it,
14:23
is what you're saying? Yeah, and I do think it's bottom
14:26
up. Like when you use the term
14:27
infiltration, it's like it's like if if people are educated
14:32
on how Bitcoin can can help them, You know at the individual
14:36
level, at the family level, at the community level, at the
14:38
business level, they will act in their own self-interest and by
14:42
acting in their own self-interest everyone benefits.
14:46
Because we're we're getting sound money.
14:47
But but it is that, you know, maybe not every person adopting
14:51
Bitcoin is created equal and and that's not necessarily a bad
14:54
thing. You know, if the CEO of General
14:58
Electric or GM figured out why Bitcoin was money and why sound
15:03
money was the key to their companies surviving and all
15:07
their employees continuing to have jobs and their ability to
15:12
build better cars, well, that 1CEO is figuring out.
15:16
Bitcoin may matter more than, you know, somebody down the line
15:22
at GM or down the line at GE. And while Bitcoin solves a
15:26
problem for everyone, kind of a rifle shot approach to get
15:29
people that can otherwise stymie or put up roadblocks or make our
15:35
lives more difficult would be better.
15:39
You know, kind of accelerating their path to understanding
15:42
Bitcoin. You know, like if you could get
15:44
J, pal. To figure out why his entire
15:48
life has been a disaster and that Bitcoin is the answer.
15:54
Like causing that domino to fall has far faster ripple effects
15:59
than maybe somebody else learning about Bitcoin.
16:03
Yeah, I agree and name Bukele in El Salvador or Michael Saylor
16:11
bold in their own fronts right in the nation state level night
16:14
Michael Saylor on the on the public company front.
16:19
But yeah, I agree, right? Because they're proving they're
16:22
proving that Bitcoin is a viable alternative to holding Fiat or
16:28
using Fiat currencies. So I I completely agree.
16:32
Now, Parker, I come from the extremely bullish for the next
16:39
5-10 years just because I think that the next cycle, I think
16:43
those two gentlemen, those two guys are really going to prove,
16:48
they're going to prove a lot of the mainstream consent.
16:50
I hate calling it mainstream. Really the corporate media
16:53
better said the corporate media narrative that you know, Bitcoin
16:57
is a bad thing. You know this is going to
17:00
destabilize El Salvador is one of the things that I heard not
17:03
so many attacks on Michael Saylor, but mostly on El
17:06
Salvador. I think that by the next cycle,
17:09
you know whenever it comes, it's going to be undeniable that
17:13
these two gentlemen made the right decision.
17:15
And then tie the tie this in with the FAFASB news that
17:20
dropped today and the BlackRock Bitcoin ETF so to speak.
17:25
It figuratively, it really does seem like the all the stars and
17:28
all the planets are aligning for Bitcoin.
17:31
Like I'm I'm extremely optimistic and and very, very
17:34
bullish about you know the next couple of years I think we might
17:39
see something that that we that we aren't expecting maybe I'm
17:43
you know maybe I'm too optimistic, but that's my take.
17:48
I would love to get your take. I think that I do think that
17:53
both of those individuals Bukelli and who I do not know
17:58
never talked to, you know only observing from a far as well as
18:01
sailor again, who I do not know well, but had a few
18:05
conversations that. Time will prove them to have
18:09
been both bold and be rewarded for it.
18:12
I think that that each one I think sets a precedent and that
18:20
they're not the only precedents that are important, but they are
18:23
important precedents at the same time.
18:25
And so I don't know if it's necessarily the stars are
18:29
aligning, but that the longer the Bitcoin.
18:32
Kind of continues to move forward with each passing cycle.
18:36
Something else is true, which is that the Fiat system is kind of
18:40
nearer and nearer to its death throes, and that at the same
18:44
time that the the. Trains coming off the rails or
18:47
wheels coming off the bus, whatever analogy you want to use
18:50
that that Bitcoin development and adoption and knowledge
18:54
distribution only continues to grow.
18:56
That things will continue to accelerate and and things will
19:00
become more and more obvious to more and more people with kind
19:04
of reaching a level where public companies are are.
19:07
Buying and holding Bitcoin and nation states are starting to
19:09
adopt it that that Bitcoin can't be nothing and vaporware at the
19:13
same time that these other things are true that are that
19:16
are deeply fundamental. So I do think, but I but I think
19:19
it will always be true that kind of Bitcoin always seems prime to
19:23
take, you know a more significant step forward, but
19:27
that that that will always be the case as it gets larger and
19:30
larger. And also I think it's the the
19:33
government media, not the the corporate media.
19:36
Interesting. What, what makes you say it's
19:38
the government? Supposedly these are private
19:39
companies. Yeah, but I'm saying they're
19:42
they're Co opted by by the government you know as we saw
19:45
post lockdown and you know how they have they push
19:49
pharmaceuticals and how then how everybody.
19:53
Yeah, basically becomes like fan champion.
19:55
Everyone who's a fan of the the media is now suddenly a fan of
19:58
like Pfizer, like Pfizer's, like the the best, you know things in
20:02
slice bread that that the basically the the large
20:05
corporation interests are coopted by the government.
20:09
I completely agree. I mean and you see that like on
20:12
the the war footing too. I remember seeing a a tweet
20:15
from, I think it was like Jack Posobic and he said something
20:19
like along the lines of if social media existed in 2003, we
20:23
wouldn't, there was a there'd be a big probability that we
20:26
wouldn't have gone to war with Iraq.
20:27
And the reason I'm saying that is because it was originally the
20:30
New York Times that dropped. The art is the same New York
20:33
Times, by the way, that is attacking Bitcoin.
20:36
But it was originally the New York Times that drop dropped,
20:38
the infamous article that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction
20:42
and that, you know, started a domino effect.
20:45
So I like that it's not so much corporate media.
20:48
It is government media. So you said something earlier
20:52
that I kind of wanted to double back on because you said it was
20:55
such confidence. And it was, you said look, but
21:00
and it was, it was in a way, it was nonchalant, but it was very
21:03
confident. I really want to focus on that,
21:05
which is you said Bitcoin. You know, I'm paraphrasing or
21:10
I'm misquoting, but you said basically like Bitcoin will
21:13
replace a dollar, like you said it.
21:14
As a matter of fact, why do you, why do you believe that so
21:19
strongly? What makes your conviction so
21:22
high? So I I would say that my one,
21:31
it's certainly not out of out of hubris, it's one out of out of
21:35
logic and reason. And that on my on my own journey
21:39
to Bitcoin, I first. Came to the conclusion that the
21:42
dollar was irreparably broken, that was broken beyond repair,
21:47
and that it was going to end in hyperinflation and that that
21:51
that was a problem for the entire world, but particularly
21:54
anybody using the dollar and the dollar is the best Fiat
21:57
currency. So anybody using the euro, yen
22:00
has a similar problem. Anybody who's, like, lucky
22:03
enough to have. Reasonably reliable money today
22:07
is in a better position than people that don't.
22:10
But that that money system is broken.
22:12
It's broken because of the degree of leverage is broken
22:14
because it became coopted by central, third party central
22:19
banks, but then the banks that control them.
22:21
And so I started from the point that the dollar was broken, the
22:24
dollars going away. So then the question if you come
22:27
to that conclusion, independent Bitcoin, which I did then.
22:31
You start to look and and try to figure out well what the answer
22:34
is, what what is, what is going to replace it.
22:36
And from my side and the reason why and I don't say it
22:39
nonchalantly where I don't say it in a way that is to overlook
22:44
a lot of assumptions that are built into it.
22:46
But that there's there's actually a finite surface area
22:49
to evaluate the problem and it's bitcoins fixed supply and that
22:53
if you can. Start to understand or formulate
22:57
as to how Bitcoin credibly enforces fixed supply and you
23:00
start to develop conviction in that which I believe is a a
23:03
known or knowable question. You can you can know it to a
23:07
degree and you can also develop high degrees of conviction and
23:10
the the more that you study at the more time that you observe
23:13
it that if that fixed supply is credible that.
23:19
Money, and the most important property of it, is that it store
23:22
value over time, that it intermediates a series of
23:24
transactions from from the present to the future.
23:27
And it does so identically for all individuals.
23:31
Or at least that. That being the identical problem
23:33
of intermediating a series of present transactions to the
23:35
future, present exchanges to the future, that the most important
23:39
property to form money to storing value is its supply and
23:42
its supply constraints, and that if there is.
23:45
If Bitcoin is actually a form of money that is finite and supply
23:49
that can't be increased at all, and if all these other dollar,
23:52
euro, yen, yuan, peso systems are broken, the world is going
23:57
to have to adopt another form of money.
23:58
And I came to the conclusion based on, you know, kind of
24:02
years of research, but also years of experience of
24:05
developing a very hard conviction around the fact that
24:07
Bitcoin is. People to credibly enforce this
24:10
fixed supply and I think the other thing is that it's not
24:13
subject to some technological silver bullet where something
24:17
could happen tomorrow and and the whole Bitcoin network just
24:20
fall apart that the bitcoins. Because of its decentralized
24:24
architecture, redundant architecture that there is no
24:27
software hardware silver bullet, technological silver bullet that
24:30
could cause a 21 million fixed supply to to break down that
24:34
that the fixed supply is credible and that if Bitcoin
24:36
does credibly enforces fixed supply that that the entire
24:40
world will adopt it as a global reserve currency.
24:42
So it's kind of two parts. It's.
24:44
The system is broken. It's obviously broken for people
24:46
that are paying attention. It's going away whether Bitcoin
24:49
is here or not and the world's going to have to adopt the new
24:52
foreign money. It's going to adopt the foreign
24:54
money that has a fixed supply. I developed conviction around
24:56
how Bitcoin enforces its fixed supply that that it is credible
25:00
and that it's that. It's also not that it's not
25:03
subject to technological failure, it's more subject to
25:07
social failure or social Co option, but that as we see time
25:11
and time again that the the Bitcoin is sufficiently.
25:14
Centralized to to withstanding state level cooption and I say
25:18
that based on like when China banned Bitcoin mining.
25:21
Bitcoin mining has doubled and a half since that happened.
25:24
India tried to ban Bitcoin exchanges first.
25:29
People still use Bitcoin in India but then their their
25:31
Supreme Court overruled that the same thing happened in the
25:34
United States. Bitcoin would continue to work.
25:36
It's it's working as predicated on its ability to continue to
25:40
work. Regardless of what any
25:42
government ever tried to do or intended to do.
25:45
Yeah. But 100% and and and forgive me
25:48
for saying nonchalant, but it was just the the the confidence
25:54
of which you said that statement.
25:56
I had a feeling that there was a, you know there was a there
25:59
that what you said there was some conviction behind it.
26:01
There was some reason. There's some logic behind it.
26:04
That's why I asked you asked it that way.
26:06
So one of the things, Mark and I can by the way, I completely
26:09
agree with you. I I think I, I do believe in my
26:13
heart. I think Bitcoin is inevitable.
26:15
I I think it's incentives. Show that when the China ban
26:19
happened, right, that no central authority was telling those
26:22
Bitcoin miners to relocate it was just bitcoins mere
26:26
incentives alone. And the other side, you know the
26:29
CG, the CBDC side, Fiat side truly has coercion that that
26:33
that's their tool, right. Bitcoin has incentive, which I
26:38
think is is going to win in the long run.
26:40
Now one of the things I never forget this Michael Saylor, was
26:44
on a podcast, I think it was with Natalie Burnell and Natalie
26:48
asked her asked Michael Saylor what kept him up at night and
26:52
his answer was something that it my girlfriend intuitively has
26:57
brought up to me too. She's like, he goes, this is
26:59
this is amazing money is I get it 100%.
27:02
But what I'm noticing is that people just don't care and
27:07
that's something very similar to what Michael Sayler said.
27:09
Michael Sayler said people just don't care about sound money.
27:12
Now I think that in the developing world where people do
27:16
not have an option to people or it's not the reason that a lot
27:23
of people adopt Bitcoin in the developed world, which is out of
27:26
speculation or ideological reasons, but they adopted out of
27:29
necessity. So I'm extremely bullish on the
27:32
developing world adopting Bitcoin and alternative to Fiat
27:35
and state currencies. But what I'm seeing in the
27:37
developed world is just like people are just like they just
27:42
don't care. They're distracted by the bread
27:43
and circuses are strong, the inflation rate isn't big enough
27:47
for people to start asking the question, what is money?
27:50
So what's your take on that? You're saying that of the
27:54
developing world or the developer, the developed world,
27:57
the developing world. That's the exact opposite.
27:59
People are clearly seeking alternatives because they're
28:01
incentivized to or they don't have, they don't have a stable
28:04
Fiat currency, so they're incentivized to seek
28:07
alternatives. But in the developed world, I
28:09
don't see that as much. Yeah, I mean I honestly like I
28:13
would be, I'm actually a little surprised to hear that like from
28:15
like what I've seen, I feel like that that it's actually kind of
28:23
like the the cross section of people that care like I don't I
28:31
don't think and maybe we'll have to you know.
28:35
In history, people will write about this of like what were the
28:37
commonalities of the people that that saw Bitcoin for what it
28:41
was? Because I don't think it would
28:43
necessarily be developed versus developing.
28:45
I think it will have something to do with like kind of freedom,
28:50
personal responsibility, like the the drive to improve their
28:55
their own individual interests and that whether it's developed
28:58
world or developing or whether it's like you look at one
29:00
billionaire. And Jack Dorsey gets it.
29:03
You look at another billionaire, Elon Musk, and doesn't that
29:07
there's an equal opportunity that it's not an IQ test, it's
29:11
not a wealth test, it it's probably tied more deeply into
29:17
kind of people's desire to be free and their desire to to
29:22
better themselves. And that I don't think.
29:26
I wouldn't agree. So you know not that I disagree
29:29
with seller that says that people don't care.
29:31
I think it's that either people have never had a good form of
29:36
money and and don't understand what it could offer them or in
29:40
the developed world it's that it's taken for granted and that
29:45
they don't understand that they have a problem.
29:48
And so, in my experience, the the, the people who have created
29:53
their own wealth. People who built a business and
29:58
know how hard it is to create value, they get Bitcoin and they
30:02
will respond to incentives much quicker than say someone that's
30:06
either inherited wealth or somebody that works in the
30:10
financial system that the system's you know kind of like
30:13
they're they're they're almost incentivized to have their
30:16
blinders on. But that's somebody that that's
30:19
run a business that's had to like fight tooth and nail to to.
30:23
To get everything they've gotten that has every interest to
30:25
preserve that wealth, that it's actually the people that have
30:29
wealth and something to lose. In my opinion, like if money
30:33
stores value over time, I like to say like the developing world
30:36
probably has the most to gain. Well, the developed world has
30:39
the most to lose. And generally in my experience
30:42
that that the people that have something to lose, that's
30:45
actually a greater incentive because if money's storing
30:48
value. That that like if somebody's
30:51
life is generally improving, that's marginally less of
30:55
incentive than someone's going to have everything taken away
30:58
from them. And so I don't really think that
31:00
it's developed versus developing.
31:02
I think that it it's more just that like it's a hard problem,
31:06
people don't know how good they have it or don't know how good
31:08
they could have it if they don't have a good form of money.
31:11
And so that that it's really a function of education and that.
31:16
That the way to communicate the people on either side is that
31:20
the people in the developed world is like needing to
31:22
understand that they they have a problem and if they don't solve
31:26
it, they're going to to they have they they stand to lose a
31:30
lot. And then the other side, it's,
31:32
you know, in the developing world, like, hey, there's a tool
31:34
that can help you improve, you know, more than you could think.
31:39
Without this and and you have more to gain.
31:43
You have you have a lot to gain. So I think it's you know the
31:46
reverse side of the same coin and that everyone will benefit
31:49
but that that understanding what is money.
31:51
I think we all anybody who's gotten on the other side of the
31:54
Bitcoin chasm accepts that if you could go to your former self
31:57
and before that it clicked. Recognizing that it's incredibly
32:01
difficult problem to 0 in on, like being able to see Bitcoin
32:05
for what it is and just accept that that's true for everybody
32:08
and that everyone's going to get.
32:09
There and the more that people educate and talk about the
32:11
importance of sound mind. Like what is true is that people
32:14
don't unget Bitcoin. They don't see Bitcoin and then
32:18
not see it and that every day it's just stacking.
32:22
More people are getting it, you know, Yes, somebody can go awry
32:26
and start, you know, doing shit coins after being the, you know,
32:30
Quasi Bitcoiner, but they were probably were never a bitcoiner
32:32
in the 1st place that they did. But what's probably more true
32:35
is. Every day somebody is falling
32:38
down the rabbit hole. We just can't see it observably
32:41
day-to-day. But it's absolutely happening,
32:43
because knowledge distributes as a function of time.
32:46
So it's not that they don't care, it's just that they don't
32:49
know because it's either been taken for granted or it's not
32:52
resisted before. And it's just, you know there's
32:55
no shortcuts. Yeah.
32:57
And and no and and the reason I, the reason I I framed it the way
33:00
I did Parker is is just based on the stats right.
33:03
Like I there was a headline the other day that's like 52% of
33:06
Turks have have it you know to to use the articles on words
33:12
have invested in cryptocurrencies.
33:14
You see the numbers coming out of Nigeria, it's the high 30s.
33:18
You see the numbers coming out of Venezuela.
33:20
You see the numbers coming over out of Argentina.
33:22
It's very, very high compared to the developed world, which is
33:27
why I asked. I asked it the way I did.
33:30
But I agree with you, I think that there's it's, it's it's
33:33
it's equal opportunity 1,000,000%.
33:37
But it just doesn't seem to that.
33:40
It doesn't seem to worry you that that you you're, it seems
33:43
like you're confident in the developed world that they're
33:45
gonna pick it up because they have the most to lose.
33:48
Yeah, and they also have access to the most information, right?
33:51
If you look at. If you look at a node map or
33:55
density of nodes where you know like it maps to that and also
33:59
makes sense. I think a lot of times people
34:00
like want to show up to the to the shores of Venezuela and be
34:03
like Bitcoin will solve all your problems and and people are like
34:06
I need to figure out how to eat and get power and get clean
34:09
water and they're like what is this Bitcoin going to do for me,
34:12
right. Like it's not going to deliver,
34:14
you know it's like and it's and it's a long game, but the the
34:17
the reality is like imagine somebody who can go home
34:20
tonight. And under a a good roof with
34:26
reliable either air conditioning or heating and clean water and
34:31
food and sit down and be like okay, I'm going to take an hour
34:36
or two to read an essay or a book and think about this
34:39
problem. What is money like?
34:41
Think about that person, and then think about the person that
34:44
is in, you know, hyperinflationary Venezuela
34:48
thinking. Okay.
34:50
I don't have access to clean water.
34:52
The grocery stores are empty. I I, you know, I don't have
34:57
reliable healthcare or power and you want me to sit down and and
35:01
think about you know how I'm going to you know how sound
35:05
money is going to better me. I'm thinking about tomorrow, the
35:08
next day. So my point is it's actually
35:10
easier for people that that have that.
35:13
Time and comfort now it's going to benefit both both sides
35:17
equally and and that's why it is like it's not like creating
35:20
chasms but it is fundamentally harder when when you are in an
35:26
environment where things are less stable economically to
35:32
adopt something like Bitcoin. So I'm just like being realistic
35:35
that where it's like, hey, there's there's no shortcuts to
35:39
to to bootstrapping an economic system.
35:42
And that where there is, you know, knowledge and technology
35:46
more you know, like you look at the you look at how it how any
35:49
form of technology is adopted and then distributed through the
35:53
world. It generally goes one way from
35:56
the developed world to developing.
35:57
I believe the same thing will be true even if you know certain
36:02
developing parts of the world might skip over other forms of
36:06
technology, like sitting down, understanding Bitcoin and
36:09
running nodes and getting hardware wallets.
36:12
And you know, building mining infrastructure, things like that
36:16
that will naturally happen in certain places the world and I
36:18
do think that's OK. It's like the the entire world
36:21
is going to get there and we don't necessarily need to focus
36:25
on. Kind of 1 segment or the other
36:28
it's like hey putting the BAT signal out of like hey this
36:31
thing. Bitcoin is great for everybody.
36:33
Anybody who wants to to to learn about it equal opportunity, opt
36:37
in. If you're a CEO, great.
36:40
If you're going to build a small business of Venezuela, great.
36:43
Here are the tools to to to learn about it.
36:46
Gotcha. Oh, really?
36:46
Yeah. And.
36:47
And I'm glad you brought Venezuela up.
36:49
I'm originally from Venezuela, my parents.
36:52
I didn't know. So yeah, it's.
36:54
I love that you use that example.
36:56
But yeah, I I, I agree with you. You know, if you're hungry, if,
37:01
if you know, if you don't have, if you don't have, you know, if
37:05
you don't even have you know, a way to pay for food.
37:08
It's it's difficult to think about other things.
37:11
Yeah, and the other thing I do want to say is like.
37:13
One by no means is like Bitcoin's still the only path
37:15
out for writing hyper inflation. So, like, people ultimately have
37:20
to figure out how to do both, which is like, I got to figure
37:23
out how to eat and I got to figure out how to say Bitcoin.
37:25
So I'm not saying like, well, like, and they shouldn't learn
37:28
about Bitcoin. I'm just saying that like
37:30
there's certain. Things about the reality of that
37:33
situation that should actually make it easier for somebody in
37:37
the develop world to do it. But the other side of the coin
37:39
is true too, that they feel this sense of comfort that they don't
37:42
have a problem. So it's not as front and center.
37:45
So they're like, you know what, I'm not going to pick up the
37:47
book and read about Bitcoin today.
37:50
But yeah, I just want to make that kind of clear that it's
37:52
like, hey, it's not that that, you know, kind of the developing
37:54
world and places that are going through, you know, economic
37:57
instability and currently hyperinflation aren't going to
38:01
have to figure out how to. Not a hard money standard or
38:03
going to have to are going to have to adopt A Bitcoin center.
38:06
They are. It's just to say like, it's not
38:08
as easy as some people and they're kind of glass towers,
38:12
ivory towers are. We might want to think about to
38:13
be like, oh, just adopt Bitcoin and Bitcoin will fix it, Of
38:16
course. Yeah.
38:17
No, of course. I completely agree with that.
38:20
Parker, you had an amazing presentation at Bitblock Boom.
38:24
Opti and I were hanging out backstage and we were, we're
38:27
holding down the news deck. So we were we watched the the
38:29
entire thing through video. It's called Beginning of the
38:32
end, if I'm not mistaken. Where are we in Bitcoin adoption
38:38
in your view? So it's beginning of the end
38:42
game and beginning of the end game.
38:44
Yeah, So the end game in my view, is Bitcoin as the primary
38:52
currency that's facilitating day-to-day transactions,
38:55
facilitating direct commerce. Currently, Bitcoin is kind of a
39:00
nascent and volatile store of value.
39:05
The end game is it's being used in direct commerce to buy
39:09
groceries at the grocery store, gas at the gas station,
39:13
healthcare, power, water, everything being traded for
39:15
Bitcoin. So that's the end game.
39:17
What that end game ultimately means is that it's a unit of
39:19
account. Or said more plainly that it's
39:21
the it's the currency that everything is denominated in.
39:26
And not not just exchanged in, but also priced in and
39:29
denominated. So Bitcoin has a price system
39:33
where everything in the world is priced in.
39:34
Bitcoin is the end game. And the reason why I say, you
39:38
know that that we're entering the end game or that that that
39:40
the end game is beginning or it's the beginning of the end
39:42
game is that from my own vantage point, both from the kind of.
39:50
The fragility and instability of the Fiat system, as well as just
39:55
what I'm seeing day-to-day amongst Bitcoin are in the focus
39:58
of the infrastructure that's being built.
40:00
Is that we're at the point where a much larger percentage of
40:04
people are not just going to be storing a small amount of wealth
40:08
in Bitcoin, but that more people are going to be proactive in
40:11
starting to receive Bitcoin as payment in exchange directly for
40:15
goods and services. Rather than just convert Bitcoin
40:20
for Fiat currencies that you know, for me kind of seeing that
40:25
the rapid bank failure, seeing the increase in inflation all
40:29
over the world, those are all signs of the Fiat system
40:32
failing. And kind of thinking about the
40:34
mentality of what would you do or what would you build if your
40:38
access to your bank was no longer there or reliable access
40:41
to the bank. And the Bitcoin is much more
40:43
than just a speculative asset, it is a better form of money.
40:47
And we're entering the stage where I think in a much more
40:50
broad based way people are going to start saying, you know what,
40:54
I'm not willing to take that the risk and it's not to say that,
40:57
that the dollar is going away tomorrow.
40:58
I just think it's going away a lot, a lot sooner than than than
41:02
people might think. And even if it doesn't, that
41:05
the, the, the, the point of where we're at in terms of
41:08
Bitcoin's maturity of what I'm seeing, you know, with my eyes
41:11
every day is more people trying to figure out how to adopt
41:14
Bitcoin. That's currently what I'm
41:15
working on at ZAP, right. So that that is, that is the end
41:20
game and it's kind of, you know, 2 two sides of the same coin.
41:23
Fiat instability, Fiat fragility, bank failures,
41:27
inflation, general sign that things aren't working for people
41:31
and saying okay well, if these things are as fragile and and
41:34
and unstable as they are, we need to start building
41:39
redundancies and and and building the infrastructure that
41:43
can allow us to really freely facilitate exchange with Bitcoin
41:48
and not having to route through financial institutions.
41:53
So my, my, my, my question to you Parker would be it.
41:59
It. So it's transitioning store
42:01
value as currently seen transitioning to a medium of
42:04
exchange. Now what the, the main talking
42:08
point from central banks, it literally doesn't come out of my
42:11
head. It's just it, it's too volatile,
42:14
right. And also volatility to to the to
42:16
the to the to on the way up to people are not really
42:20
incentivized to. To to to spend their Bitcoin.
42:24
What what what would you what would your response to that are
42:27
are are you saying that over time the the volatility will
42:30
will will decrease. I'm saying well in an end state
42:34
yes the volatility will be gone when the entire world is adopted
42:38
Bitcoin and like I mean think about imagine 1% of people have
42:43
adopted Bitcoin which is not true probably like it's less
42:47
than that. But what that means is say
42:51
there's 8 to 10 million people which I think is also too high
42:56
that that grok Bitcoin. Let's just like be honest and
42:58
say that there's less than a million people that grok Bitcoin
43:01
in the world. Maybe maybe it's five I doubt it
43:05
if you just pull test the people in in your daytoday life.
43:08
But my point is that if Bitcoin adoption is going to increase by
43:11
1000 X OK, Bitcoin adoption is increased by 1000 X or 10,000 X,
43:16
then the marginal adoption from there is going to be very
43:20
limited. But once the entire world has
43:23
and the point where the entire world has adopted Bitcoin, not
43:25
going to be volatile just like it.
43:27
It's going to be, you know back when money used to be stable,
43:30
you know, it's hard to claim that the dollar is stable today.
43:33
It's still more quote stable than everything else but it's
43:36
it's it's stably losing its value right at an increasing
43:41
rate. That my point is that that end
43:45
state when the whole world's about the Bitcoin and
43:47
everything's priced in Bitcoin. Bitcoin's the not volatile
43:50
thing. Everything else is volatile.
43:51
Bitcoin isn't it's the true like one Bitcoin equals one Bitcoin.
43:55
So that's the end state. Bitcoin isn't volatile and
43:59
Bitcoin will be freely traded even in the interim of us
44:01
getting there. There will increasingly be an
44:04
incentive for people to trade in Bitcoin.
44:07
There's certain and. And the point the talking point
44:09
that I had in the presentation was that it's going to be the
44:12
merchants that drive it. It's not going to be the
44:14
consumers that say I want to pay you in Bitcoin.
44:16
It's going to be you saying, no, I want to be paid in Bitcoin.
44:19
Like, no. Like if you want to pay me a fee
44:22
out, fine, but I'm going to charge you more.
44:25
If you want to pay me in Bitcoin, I'm going to give you
44:27
an incentive to. But that in that world like
44:31
there's like, like I talked about the specific thing in the
44:34
presentation. It's like it's on one hand, it's
44:38
irrational to spend an asset that's appreciating when you can
44:42
spend an asset that's depreciating.
44:43
So it's more rational to spend a dollar than it is to spend a
44:46
Bitcoin. That's in kind of the
44:48
theoretical world. But if I have a critical quote
44:52
supplier that I need to be around, like my rancher and my
44:57
rancher here in Austin says I'm willing to accept Bitcoin, I
45:01
would like you to pay me in Bitcoin, I'm going to.
45:03
It's perfectly rational for me to pay my rancher in Bitcoin
45:09
because I actually need food just as much and maybe, if not
45:13
more than money. The point that I have money is
45:16
to be able to get food. So if I save all my Bitcoin and
45:19
spite my rancher, and then my rancher goes away, we we are
45:24
both worse off in that equation. But in a more broad principle,
45:29
if somebody that you expect wants the Bitcoin is saving in
45:33
Bitcoin and they give you the option to pay you in Bitcoin and
45:37
you don't, you're going to have a moral dilemma on your hands.
45:40
You're going to know that a Bitcoin business asked you to
45:44
pay them in Bitcoin and that you were too selfish to do that and
45:49
that you thought, well, no, you should get the Fiat and then go
45:51
through the problem of converting it to Bitcoin.
45:54
I I won't do that for you. I won't just pay you Bitcoin
45:57
directly when you've asked me to do that.
45:59
And and so a great example of this was and I talked about this
46:02
at the. Yeah, the the incentive
46:04
structure, right. I I love, yeah, well, right.
46:07
The incentive structure of being able to charge more, but also
46:10
even without that Jimmy Song was at Bitlock Boom selling his
46:13
books and he gave people the option to pay him in Bitcoin or
46:17
side by side to pay him in Fiat without any incentive.
46:21
And 85% of the sales were in Bitcoin.
46:24
So. So when bitcoiners walked up to
46:26
that table and they had the ability to pay dollars, which
46:30
would be less friction for themselves, value for value,
46:34
mutual respect, they overwhelm and said, you know what Jimmy
46:36
wants dollars. Jimmy the, you know, author of
46:39
Fiat ruins everything and you know Bitcoin in the American
46:43
dream. Thank God for Bitcoin.
46:44
Am I really going to like am I going to stare at this guy and
46:47
show him that I'm paying him in in in dollars?
46:50
Do I, do I not have enough mutual respect for him to to pay
46:54
the man in Bitcoin when he's saying pay me in Bitcoin?
46:56
So it's both rational to do that.
46:58
And there's this moral dilemma that once Bitcoin, now it isn't.
47:02
If you think that the guy on the other side is just going to
47:05
convert it directly to dollars, pay the people in dollars.
47:08
There's no sense if I have dollars and somebody else wants
47:11
dollars for me to go through the morass of paying them in
47:15
Bitcoin. But if there's a Bitcoin or a
47:17
merchant on the other side, and that's where I think it will be
47:18
driven from, it will be the merchants that are delivering
47:21
value to figure out why Bitcoin, the sound money and why the
47:24
dollar is working against their interest that say pay me in
47:26
Bitcoin, Bitcoins will pay them and that, and it is rational to
47:30
do that. It's rational to have your
47:31
suppliers that you're going to rely on, like my rancher, be
47:34
around in five years, 10 years, because you're spiding yourself.
47:38
If you're. If you're not, you're you're
47:39
being high time preference. And man, I love the way that you
47:43
broke it down. Yeah, I completely agree.
47:46
You know, it's so interesting because we outsource a lot of, a
47:51
lot of our media and to contractors all around the
47:54
world. And there's a very interesting
47:55
phenomenon, which is we don't even, we don't even need to know
48:00
these people's names, right? Like we can just go by their
48:03
handle. We could judge their proof of
48:05
work. You know, we could send them
48:07
Sats because they're contributing to us and we don't
48:09
even need to really know their identity and stuff.
48:12
And that wouldn't be possible with Fiat.
48:15
You know, like the maybe you could say it's possible, you can
48:19
maybe set up like an e-mail account or something like that.
48:23
But what I'm trying to say is it's definitely not as easy.
48:28
No, it's not as easy. And it's like when you're paying
48:30
people out in Bitcoin, like you're doing it because
48:33
someone's delivering value to you.
48:34
And if someone's delivering value to you, it's like you
48:36
could figure out, you could be selfish and be like, you know
48:38
what? I'm going to pay you and I'm
48:39
going to figure out pay, you know, send me your personal
48:41
information. I'm going to send you, you know,
48:43
your your dirty fee out. But you're like, no, you're
48:45
Bitcoin and you're delivering value to me.
48:47
Yeah I'll, I'll, I'll deal with the the friction of like having
48:52
potentially a tax and they're figuring that whole thing out
48:54
because what's most important is I, I I give you value for value.
48:58
I I respect kind of this mutual idea of creating value.
49:03
So in honor of you being here, Parker, I'm going to pull up
49:06
Opties in the chat going wild. We're going to charge extra for
49:10
merge payments and Fiat. That's right.
49:13
We're going to change our payment structure.
49:15
I'm going to charge 10% more for a merch.
49:17
If you guys pay in Fiat, we'll take that out.
49:21
Parker this was a question that I got at at at Bitlock.
49:25
Boomers like, hey, are you going to, like, give people the option
49:28
to have a discount if they pay in Bitcoin?
49:30
I think I said I said yes, but with this very important
49:34
distinction, which I think we really need to reframe this,
49:36
it's it's not I'm giving a discount to pay in Bitcoin.
49:39
It's like I'm charging a premium if you want to pay in Fiat
49:43
because there's actually more friction to me if you customer
49:47
want to pay me in Fiat. And I got to go through the
49:49
morass of getting through the dollar financial system, paying
49:52
all the fees, you know, dealing with the holes, dealing with the
49:54
charge back to, then get it back over to to convert it to
49:58
Bitcoin. Please, just pay me a Bitcoin.
50:01
But if you don't want to, you can pay 5% more, 10% more, 20%
50:05
more. You're basically able to signal
50:07
to your customer, hey, this is the price of the good.
50:09
But if you want to pay in Fiat, it's actually more.
50:12
That's different than applying a discount because it's like, why
50:15
would why should someone pay like pay less for a better form
50:19
of money? It's no.
50:20
You're paying more for Fiat because you're delivering me
50:25
money that has greater friction that I'm going to have to go do
50:29
more work to get it into Bitcoin, which is what I
50:31
actually want. And so I do think it's like it
50:33
might seem subtle, but it's actually the right framing of
50:37
like the price of the good is X if you're paying in Fiat, it's
50:40
actually 10% more whatever you think the trade off is.
50:44
Alright, well opt. You heard that.
50:45
You heard that. We got we gotta, we gotta, we
50:48
gotta charge a premium. People pay in Fiat.
50:51
No, no. Bitcoin discounts Surcharge
50:54
Premium If You're Paying in Fiat.
50:56
Search, I love that. It's not and it's not related to
50:59
it's not related to a car. It's it's the it's the currency.
51:01
You gotta you gotta be specific. It's about the currency you're
51:03
paying in. Like, you know, that's that's
51:06
the that's the limiter. I love that.
51:08
All right, we're gonna put all caps, no discounts, Bitcoin pre
51:12
a surcharge for income for the Fiat inconvenience.
51:16
I love that. Absolutely nailed it.
51:19
So, Parker, I was a huge fan of your work at Unchained.
51:22
A lot of the articles that were dropping there, I know you were
51:26
there for for a while and you're with ZAP, right?
51:29
Is that correct? That's correct.
51:31
So what where where is Parker Lewis these days?
51:35
What is ZAP right. For anyone who who doesn't know
51:38
you know why we're we're I'm. I'm just curious.
51:42
You know, I, I, I, I love Unchained.
51:44
I I think it's an amazing company.
51:47
And So what brought How did your heart take you to ZAP right?
51:53
What made you? What Eureka moment did you have?
51:56
And before you answer that, what is ZAP right in the 1st place
51:59
for anyone who doesn't know? Yeah, so one ZAP right's a
52:03
payments company. We help businesses, individuals
52:07
who may, businesses that are selling good services online or
52:12
or invoicing other businesses or individual contractors invoicing
52:15
businesses to receive payment in Bitcoin.
52:17
The key thing is that we never touch our customers money.
52:21
It's a sad surface. We're wallet agnostic.
52:24
Basically we run the server, people are able to connect
52:27
wallets, either non custodial, custodial, lightning on chain to
52:32
basically be able to receive Bitcoin payments.
52:34
So they can either issue a business invoice for services or
52:37
they can create a payment link to sell a good or good or
52:40
service or like an event ticket something like that online.
52:43
We basically make it easy for them to do and then create the
52:45
business recordkeeping, reporting tools, fulfillment
52:49
management systems to to be able to to shift to a Bitcoin
52:52
standard. So it's not a lightning company,
52:54
it's a Bitcoin payments company. Focus primarily on two types of
52:58
payments, ecommerce and and business invoices.
53:02
So but the path to getting there really I stepped back from
53:06
Unchained late last year so over nine months ago I really did
53:10
that to focus on turning graduates and suddenly into a
53:13
book and just kind of get a little bit more control over my
53:16
kind of day-to-day and being able to get that out.
53:19
One of the one of the realizations I had was that I
53:22
would never have gotten The Graduate and suddenly book done,
53:24
which is going to be formally in print next month.
53:28
And so it's all kind of related. It was like when I when I step
53:31
back from Unchained, there was no inkling that I was going to
53:33
work on ZAP, right? It was that I was going to work
53:36
on my book, which I did. In the process of working on my
53:39
book, I wanted to drop a new article, which I did, which was
53:43
called Bitcoin is Not a Hedge. And at that time, I wanted to
53:47
receive Bitcoin payments through my blog and I just thought what
53:51
I wanted to exist didn't exist. Or I didn't think that what I
53:54
wanted to exist didn't, and what I thought should exist didn't.
53:59
And that's what ultimately led me to talking to John McGill,
54:04
the the founder of Zapright. And Zapright was probably
54:09
closest to to what I would have built if if if building from
54:13
scratch. And the idea was Zapright runs
54:17
the server, we can bring our wallet.
54:20
Like what I thought should have existed was I connect the way to
54:23
receive lighting payments. I drop in an X pub as waited to
54:27
ride Bitcoin addresses that go directly to me.
54:30
And basically you make the complicated part of running a
54:32
server easy for me, but you make the Bitcoin go directly where I
54:36
want it without getting in the flow of funds between me and my
54:39
money. And so just kind of a line
54:42
behind, you know, kind of the vision of ZAP, right, being
54:46
really focused on enabling payments.
54:49
But enabling payments for Bitcoin does not mean needing to
54:53
quote process payments or needing to kind of be burdened
54:59
with all the regulatory costs and the the cost of privacy if
55:02
all you want to do is start receiving Bitcoin payments
55:05
online. And so kind of a line behind
55:07
kind of the product strategy with John, the founder and also
55:12
my good friend Will Cole who's also working.
55:14
He's had a product functionally and I'm head of business
55:17
development kind of kind of like taking ZAP right to market.
55:20
But in short, it's like anybody who's small to medium sized
55:23
business contractor selling a good or service online that
55:26
wants to receive Bitcoin payments, we can help them
55:30
without being a payment processor and I can do that in a
55:33
way where they can they can bring their own wallet and and
55:37
that we're wallet agnostic. So really it's kind of, you
55:41
know, eating our own dog food. I wanted to be set up to to
55:43
receive Bitcoin payments on my blog.
55:45
I adopted a method that I thought was a little bit more
55:49
complicated and more frictionful than than than most people would
55:52
be willing to do to do the same and we wanted to help solve that
55:56
problem. So our goal is to help, you
55:58
know, not be competitive, but to to help expand the market 100 X
56:02
1000, the next 10,000 X in terms of the number of people that
56:05
will actually say pay me in Bitcoin and enable them with the
56:09
tools to do so. Gotcha.
56:11
And what is the differentiator between like for example like
56:14
cuz we went through this relatively recently when we were
56:18
setting up the Merge shop. Initially we were gonna do it
56:21
sovereign and we did. Eventually we did end up doing
56:25
with the help of Start 9 have I think I have the the peer
56:29
version or whatever. And we were able to set up a
56:31
sovereign version of receiving Bitcoin on chain.
56:35
But the Lightning man like that was like, it's not that we
56:38
wouldn't have been able to figure it out, but it is not
56:42
intuitive, right? It is not something that's like
56:44
plug and play. It is like, And I was telling
56:48
Opti out of frustration at the time.
56:49
I was like, dude, like if this is the best, like, forget about
56:54
it. Like we're in trouble, yeah.
56:57
So I'm really glad that there's people like you and just trying
57:04
to figure out that solve that problem because I think it is a
57:08
problem. So what would be the difference?
57:10
Go ahead. Yeah.
57:11
I mean I think that that's that one that problem is not easily
57:14
solved and that's not easily solved by ZAP, right or anybody
57:17
that's solved by the the entire market, I would say of different
57:22
parts of the value chain. I think that there's certain
57:25
positive developments where like if you think about the problem
57:28
and and this is also like why kind of why we're building ZAP,
57:32
right. We're not necessarily solving A
57:35
liquidity problem of of have sovereign lightning.
57:38
So I want to be clear about that.
57:40
But like what you're keying in on is like if you think about
57:43
yourself as a ardent Bitcoiner that is more technical than most
57:49
and you were kind of at your wit's end.
57:51
Then think about the next 100 people that aren't as
57:55
technologically savvy or aren't as ardent to be like, you know
58:00
what? I'm going to crawl through as
58:02
much mud as as I possibly can and I'm going to get to the
58:06
finish line that most people do not have that pain threshold.
58:09
And so you, you, you in order to to enable more people to receive
58:12
the coin payments you have to reduce the barriers.
58:15
And there is and and I'm not saying this in an excuse driven
58:19
way, but like if you start to understand the way that
58:22
Lightning works and the way that that liquidity works and the way
58:28
that people's customers pay them.
58:31
Like most people in a specialized economy, their
58:34
customers, the people who pay them are not the people that
58:38
they pay. And that it is very capital
58:43
intensive from like a Bitcoin balance perspective to have one
58:47
way payment channels that are never replenished.
58:50
And that that it's just going to like the idea that every
58:53
individual who pays a company is going to have a lightning
58:56
channel to that company. I think is like standing in the
58:59
way in terms of like the way that payment flows really work
59:03
that there's some, there's some challenge there and I'm I'm
59:05
hopeful that somebody will come with a solution.
59:08
But I think that there's certain ideas like what voltage is doing
59:12
on being an LSP where essentially you're able to like
59:15
control the keys or mutiny or green light from block stream
59:20
where it's like OK, let's start kind of like we don't have to
59:23
deliver all of this kind of value chain at once, which I
59:26
mean like with with something like green light where or mutiny
59:30
where you control the keys, so something in a lighting channel.
59:34
So you're you're in control of the wealth, but somebody else is
59:37
managing liquidity in and out, right.
59:42
Like that is better than just a full custodial solution, right.
59:46
But some people might say well that's not fully sovereign, well
59:50
that is a step towards that future world and we we need to
59:54
be okay with that. But we because if the bar was we
59:57
need to deliver the tools so that someone can figure out
59:59
their own liquidity. It's like that's not happening
1:00:01
today. That will be an evolution and
1:00:04
and we need to be okay with that and figure out how we can kind
1:00:08
of break down the barrier and take more offload because most
1:00:12
people who are running their business, they're running their
1:00:15
business and running a business is hard.
1:00:18
And then asking them to be a Bitcoin IT professional is where
1:00:23
most people shut down. And so I think it's it's to find
1:00:26
the right balance to enable Bitcoin payments in a way where
1:00:30
they control their wealth. And I and I and I put in my line
1:00:34
in the sand of like hey, if you can do it in a way where people
1:00:38
like where they're in control and a no take backs way of the
1:00:41
Bitcoin, let's start there. But also recognize that
1:00:45
custodial lightning will help enable Bitcoin payments and we
1:00:50
shouldn't you know stand in the way of of advancing those while
1:00:53
we're building and reinforcing other tools.
1:00:56
So I did want to say that and I'll, I'll, I'll answer whatever
1:00:58
question you have. But I did want to be kind of
1:01:00
clarifying on like where we we basically provide the front end,
1:01:03
we allow people to connect nodes, we enable people to drop
1:01:07
in X pubs so that we can basically focus on the payment
1:01:11
experience and have people receiving Bitcoin payments how
1:01:15
they would like to both custodially and not custodial.
1:01:18
Gotcha. Very, very well.
1:01:20
Very, very cool man. It's really exciting stuff.
1:01:22
I was the UI looks incredible. I love that from my
1:01:26
understanding what I was looking.
1:01:27
It's love that you can plug in certain wallets, you know, cuz
1:01:30
everyone has their, you know, their their their wallet of
1:01:34
choice, so to speak. I'm still an Electrum junkie and
1:01:37
people give me people give me crap for that.
1:01:39
But I like it. I know some people like Sparrow
1:01:42
and some people like Blue Wallet, etc etc.
1:01:44
Yeah, anybody who says Bitcoin doesn't have a good design needs
1:01:47
to get check out ZAP right. Once you see the ZAP right
1:01:49
payment link, you can go check it out.
1:01:53
Fiat ruins everything.com. You can try to be one of the
1:01:57
last people to participate in in in Jimmy's crowdfund which is
1:02:00
ending today. But but we are also helping to
1:02:03
to bring great design to Bitcoin.
1:02:05
Yeah, man, it it looks, it looks, it looks very clean and
1:02:08
and important. Good, good design is very, very
1:02:11
important because that's how you make it.
1:02:13
That's how you make it intuitive to people.
1:02:15
That's that's how people adopt it.
1:02:16
So we are at the top of the hour.
1:02:18
Parker and I want to be respectful, respectful of your
1:02:21
time. Thank you so much for joining us
1:02:23
on SBIRL. You guys could check out Parker,
1:02:26
his handle. Check out zapright.com.
1:02:30
And you also mentioned your book.
1:02:32
So that's really, really exciting stuff.
1:02:34
I did not know that. If I knew that, I would have
1:02:36
prepared questions in regards to that.
1:02:39
So if you wanna give a quick shout out and quick synopsis of
1:02:43
what it is and what it's going to be about and where people can
1:02:46
find it, yeah. So it's adapting The Graduate
1:02:49
and Suddenly series. All the articles that that that
1:02:52
you mentioned, adapting them into a book form, improving
1:02:55
them, kind of knitting them together better, also preserving
1:02:59
a lot of the historical context and spirit.
1:03:02
When I wrote the essays for those people who are not
1:03:04
familiar with my series, I wrote individual essays that that
1:03:07
could be read as standalones on on individual concepts like
1:03:11
bitcoins not too volatile or bitcoins not too slow or it's
1:03:13
not for criminals. But the idea being that like
1:03:16
sometimes people will read, you know, 10 pages about Bitcoin
1:03:19
rather than 300 page book and kind of creating their own
1:03:21
rabbit hole. So I've kind of adapted that
1:03:23
that framework of helping people understand Bitcoin zero to 1
1:03:26
into a book that will be published under the same title
1:03:29
gradually then suddenly and people can learn about it more
1:03:34
or participate in the crowdfund if they would so choose.
1:03:37
I've got a website called gradually then suddenly dot XYZ
1:03:42
and you can drop that in the show notes if if you would.
1:03:45
But people can can go learn about the book and the book and
1:03:48
print form will be be out in October.
1:03:51
So I'm in the design phase and then we'll be going to print
1:03:54
once the design is completed in in a week or two.
1:03:58
Awesome. All right.
1:03:58
So we will put it in the show, notes Parker Lewis, thank you so
1:04:02
much for joining us today. It's been an honor.
1:04:04
Really appreciate it. Hopefully we can get you back on
1:04:07
the show in a couple months or so.
1:04:09
And thank you so much, man, for joining us.
1:04:11
Appreciate it. Yeah, absolutely.
1:04:13
Thanks for having me on. Just let me know, I'll come back
1:04:15
on look. For it.
1:04:16
Thanks, Parker. All right, guys, thank you so
1:04:18
much for tuning in to another episode of Simply Bitcoin IRL.
1:04:21
We appreciate you guys. I won't be here for tomorrow.
1:04:25
Simply Bitcoin live. I'll be flying to Los Angeles.
1:04:28
But Opti will be holding it down.
1:04:30
I'll be back on Friday, live from LA.
1:04:32
But until then, love you all and I'll see you on the next one.
1:04:35
Peace out, everybody.