Latest / Simply Bitcoin / North Korean Hackers Target U.S. Bitcoin ETFs | EP 1068

Transcript

North Korean Hackers Target U.S. Bitcoin ETFs | EP 1068 · Simply Bitcoin

• 0:02
  It's all going to zero against Bitcoin.
• 0:06
  It's going up forever. You're.
• 0:15
  Against Bitcoin, you're against freedom.
• 0:22
  Clearview of where Bitcoin is going over the next five years.
• 0:26
  Let's take a look at the last five, right?
• 0:29
  The last five, Bitcoin has been an outsider in the finance
• 0:34
  business, becoming closer and closer and closer.
• 0:39
  Right now, there's an ETF just starting to go a little bit
• 0:44
  mainstream, maybe a toe in the water of mainstream, but banks
• 0:49
  still can't clear it. Banks still can't transact in
• 0:52
  it, banks still can't custodian it, banks still won't transact
• 0:56
  in it, and they won't finance say it yet.
• 1:00
  I think people misunderstand traditional financial service
• 1:03
  companies. They want to transact in
• 1:06
  Bitcoin, They want new asset classes to transact it.
• 1:10
  That's just a good thing. But they need the regulator to
• 1:15
  say it's OK right now, today, right?
• 1:19
  If a bank were to hold your Bitcoin, they would have to set
• 1:24
  aside their own money equal to that amount in in sort of like
• 1:29
  in the jail. I mean, you'd say so.
• 1:32
  Well, that's crazy. The answer is that's why they
• 1:35
  don't hold it. But if you let them hold it, if
• 1:38
  the regulatory environment was good, you will see all the
• 1:42
  traditional financial service companies, the big banks, the
• 1:45
  big brokerage companies, they're all going to go head first into
• 1:48
  Bitcoin. Pound.
• 1:51
  That's what's going to happen and it's coming.
• 1:54
  It's a slow, steady process, but eventually there's going to be a
• 1:58
  CFTC chair who says, you know what, Bitcoin is a financial
• 2:04
  asset, and we're going to treat it as such.
• 2:06
  And when that happens, you're going to see Bitcoin move in
• 2:11
  very, very strong, positive direction.
• 2:14
  So that's why I'm a fan of Bitcoin.
• 2:16
  It's going to go much higher. It always bounces around like
• 2:20
  any other financial asset. But ultimately, over the next
• 2:23
  five years, as it gets invited into this party, up we go.
• 2:29
  Yeah, we're going to see the Bitcoin live.
• 2:31
  Your number one source for the peaceful Bitcoin revolution
• 2:33
  cover. You can use culture and matic
• 2:34
  warfare. We will be your guide through
• 2:35
  the separation of money and state, starting with the cold
• 2:38
  opening strong Howard Lepnick, I hope I pronounced that
• 2:41
  correctly. The chairman and CEO of Counter
• 2:44
  Fitzgerald, Connor Fitzgerald is one of the world's largest
• 2:47
  global financial firms. They offer services like
• 2:50
  trading, investment banking and real estate.
• 2:51
  Let's just say they've been around for a very long time.
• 2:54
  And when you have someone of that caliber in the traditional
• 2:58
  financial world talking about that, about Bitcoin, I think it
• 3:03
  tells you where this is going. And and of course, connect the
• 3:05
  dots with what Larry Fink is saying as well.
• 3:08
  I think it's just a matter of time before you start to hear
• 3:12
  you start to see this tremendous amount of institutional adoption
• 3:17
  in regards to Bitcoin. Now, I think that's we can all
• 3:20
  agree that's positive for the price.
• 3:23
  But from a revolutionary standpoint, which we we focus on
• 3:27
  on this show, the revolution is self custody.
• 3:30
  The revolution is buying spot Bitcoin put into self custody.
• 3:34
  If enough individuals all around the world do it, we win.
• 3:37
  There's nothing they could do about it.
• 3:39
  Like we effectuate change. But from a price perspective,
• 3:43
  yeah. I mean, the fact that you have
• 3:45
  Howard Lupnik saying that, the CEO and chairman of Counter
• 3:48
  Fitzgerald literally telling you he's full, he's bullish about
• 3:51
  the future of Bitcoin, I think speaks volumes.
• 3:54
  And of course, you have Larry Fink in this camp as well, but
• 3:57
  he's also identity defied the problem, which is the regulatory
• 4:01
  issue. And This is why the current
• 4:03
  election in the United States, specifically the one upcoming,
• 4:07
  is going to be so consequential at least from a regulatory
• 4:10
  environment here in the United States for the Bitcoin industry.
• 4:14
  And of course, the election that's coming up is Donald Trump
• 4:17
  versus Kamala Harris. Kamala Harris hasn't vocally
• 4:20
  come out against the industry, but if you take a look at her
• 4:24
  actions, for example, the bill that would ban central bank
• 4:29
  digital currencies was essentially split along party
• 4:32
  lines. The Republicans made it part of
• 4:35
  their official party platform that they would support the
• 4:39
  right to self custody, the right to mine, all of that stuff.
• 4:43
  Democrats didn't mention digital assets in their party platform,
• 4:46
  but I heard rumblings the other day coming out of Coinbase
• 4:49
  specifically that apparently the the Harris campaign and and the
• 4:54
  Biden administration are playing ball.
• 4:55
  And of course, you have videos of Senate Majority Leader Chuck
• 4:59
  Schumer saying that, you know, he would be positive towards he
• 5:03
  would take a more positive stance towards the industry.
• 5:06
  But let's see what happens. Overall, I think this is
• 5:08
  incredibly bullish. I think this is bitcoins
• 5:11
  incentives playing out in real time.
• 5:13
  I don't think people like Larry Fink or Howard Lupnik would, you
• 5:17
  know, just say these beautiful things about Bitcoin out of the
• 5:22
  goodness of their heart. I think they're attracted to the
• 5:25
  incentives, and that's why Bitcoin is ultimately going to
• 5:28
  win because of its incentives. In other news, the headline of
• 5:31
  today, this is fascinating reading this article, breaking
• 5:35
  news, the FBI reports that North Korean hackers have been trying
• 5:40
  to essentially hack into the Bitcoin ETFs and steal the
• 5:45
  coins, which I find absolutely hysterical.
• 5:47
  Not because of the whole stealing thing, but like, yes,
• 5:51
  you did create one of the largest honey pots in the
• 5:54
  history of the world, like 8 out of nine Bitcoin ETFs or all
• 5:59
  cussing their Bitcoin with Coinbase and, and including a
• 6:03
  lot of the public companies too. Like they don't, they're not
• 6:06
  custodying their Bitcoin. They're relying on cut on
• 6:09
  Coinbase to do the custody for them.
• 6:11
  So yeah, it creates this giant honeypot.
• 6:14
  What do you expect? Do you expect hackers and
• 6:18
  malicious actors to just say, OK, you know what?
• 6:21
  Let's just not try to break into this thing.
• 6:24
  So I find that I find that a little bit funny, not
• 6:29
  surprising. At the same time, we're going to
• 6:32
  dive into the details and I think it also emphasizes and
• 6:35
  highlights the importance of individuals taking self custody
• 6:39
  and also entities as well. Eight out of the 9 ETFs don't
• 6:44
  self custody their Bitcoin, but Fidelity does, right?
• 6:48
  And I believe it was Square, it was block that released like
• 6:51
  they open sourced how to custody Bitcoin on an institutional
• 6:57
  level. So it's not that it can't be
• 6:59
  done, it's that these institutions have chosen not to.
• 7:05
  And of course, that creates a honeypot not only for hackers,
• 7:08
  but potentially even governments down the line.
• 7:12
  And that's just like common sense.
• 7:14
  I mean, at least it is for us Bitcoiners.
• 7:16
  Maybe we spent a lot, maybe too much time down the rabbit hole.
• 7:20
  But anyways, it's going to be a great show.
• 7:22
  We also have a very special guest for today, and I'm going
• 7:25
  to totally butcher his name pronunciation.
• 7:28
  We yeah, we have Michelle from from CEO of bit refill.
• 7:34
  Thank you so much for joining us bro.
• 7:35
  Co founder Sergey is the CEO on the C video Potato Potato.
• 7:39
  Did did I pronounce it correctly?
• 7:41
  Did I butcher it? No, you didn't butcher it.
• 7:43
  It's Michelle. Michelle Gustavo.
• 7:45
  So it's a Swedish European little mixture.
• 7:48
  I got it right. Oh man.
• 7:52
  Oh. Man, it's always Michael or
• 7:53
  Mitchell normally, so it's fine. So but but when he joined the
• 7:57
  stream initially, I totally just said, hey Michael, how you
• 8:00
  doing? And but on on on live.
• 8:04
  I got it right, which this is what's important.
• 8:05
  Anyways, I do want to bring up my Co host Optimist Fields.
• 8:09
  He's semi optimistic today he's smirking.
• 8:11
  What is that smirk coming from that Opti go on a date with
• 8:15
  Christine Lagarde last night? What is going on?
• 8:18
  No, it's Janet Yellen. It was Janet Yellen.
• 8:20
  But yeah, everything's good, man.
• 8:23
  Everything's good. Doing it for the people.
• 8:25
  Yeah, I do this for the culture. This is not about me here.
• 8:29
  I am the sacrificial lamb here. Everything is great, man.
• 8:32
  Life is wonderful. I, I got a, I actually ran out
• 8:35
  of coffee this morning, guys, so I had to run to the store and
• 8:38
  get coffee, But I, I got a delicious butter croissant this
• 8:41
  morning and I'm feeling pretty good about it.
• 8:43
  So I am pretty happy, Nico. I'm pretty happy though, as much
• 8:48
  as I love seeing Howie Leutnik, you know, say some bullish
• 8:51
  things about Bitcoin, I don't know, my Mark Goodwin Radar's
• 8:54
  going off and I am, you know, my tinfoil hats are coming on here.
• 8:58
  But that that's for another discussion.
• 9:01
  Totally off topic here. No, no, no.
• 9:03
  You should totally drop it. What what?
• 9:04
  What are your concerns? I.
• 9:06
  I can't break it down like Mark and Whitney Webb, but if you
• 9:10
  guys know, go check out their work and no, no, no you.
• 9:13
  Can't reference something else without.
• 9:16
  Just know you know that Howie Lutnick is one of the main dudes
• 9:21
  named in all of the stuff that Wendy Webb and Mark Goodwin I've
• 9:24
  been talking about. What are those things, Opti?
• 9:27
  The the Bitcoin dollar system, you know the Bitcoin dollar and
• 9:31
  the potential Co opting of Bitcoin.
• 9:33
  So, you know, things that I always say here on the show,
• 9:36
  everyone always asks me, is everything good for Bitcoin?
• 9:39
  And as much as I do believe almost everything is good for
• 9:42
  Bitcoin, I also think it is very important to keep our heads on a
• 9:45
  swivel. And Mark Goodwin and Whitney
• 9:47
  Webb are on the front lines of that.
• 9:50
  So I I'm not going to butcher their what, you know, literally
• 9:55
  like textbooks about this and they're 20 hours of content on
• 9:59
  the Internet. I can't just distill this in one
• 10:01
  minute, but just know that there's some concerns there and
• 10:04
  you should go check out their work.
• 10:05
  Anyways, off topic, Nico, we're going to, you know, let's let's
• 10:10
  let's plug Michelle a little bit.
• 10:11
  So we're going to talk about bit riff though today.
• 10:13
  You know, the origins of it, the the literal impact of it in the
• 10:16
  in the total Bitcoin and crypto markets and why you as a user
• 10:21
  will probably want to be using bit refuel.
• 10:23
  So we we got a great show, man, jam packed show Nico.
• 10:26
  So I'm I'm geek, man, I'm geeked on some coffee and some butter
• 10:29
  croissants this morning. I'm doing great.
• 10:32
  It's full of Yeah, we have full of.
• 10:33
  We're full of content for you guys today.
• 10:36
  Opti's had a butter croissant, I'm sure served up to him hot
• 10:40
  and fresh by Janet Yellen when Opti was waking up in the
• 10:44
  morning with with the class origin.
• 10:47
  There's a good. Comment in here but there's a
• 10:48
  friendly family show. Shout out the BTC believer in
• 10:51
  the chat. But anyways, I do want to give a
• 10:53
  shout out to Michelle. You told us that Bit Frill is
• 10:56
  turning 10. That's insane.
• 10:58
  I mean, I don't think you guys understand a 10 year old company
• 11:02
  in Bitcoin is like the equivalent of like a 75 year old
• 11:06
  company in traditional sense. That's what I would say more.
• 11:10
  Or less, yeah, yeah, I always reference it like in normal
• 11:13
  terms. It's like Dog years or Gandalf
• 11:15
  or something if you you want to have some more.
• 11:19
  Yeah, 100% dude, dude, like a year in Bitcoin, like it's it
• 11:22
  reminds me of that that meme of like that like 90 year old guy.
• 11:25
  And it's like, hi, I'm into Bitcoin and I'm like Frank, six
• 11:30
  years old, you know what I'm talking about.
• 11:34
  Yeah, I mean, dude, that's crazy.
• 11:35
  But good for you guys. Congrats.
• 11:37
  That means that must mean you guys have an amazing team, an
• 11:40
  amazing product I'm excited to talk about during the culture
• 11:42
  segment. Of course, guys, we got an
• 11:44
  amazing show lined up for you guys today.
• 11:47
  But before we jump into it, I do want to give a very special
• 11:50
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  numbers. Usually when you buy a harder
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  generational wealth. And it's not going to be
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  generational wealth. If you write it down on a piece
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  No, it would be terrible. Do you want to keep the
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  Bitcoin price is $58,440. That's per dollar 1711 block
• 15:02
  height 859,858 blocks to having 190,142 having estimate March
• 15:11
  23rd 2028 Total lightning network capacity 4945 BTC
• 15:17
  capacity value 289,000,000 Realized monetary inflation one
• 15:22
  point 4% market capitalization 1.15 trillion Bitcoin verse gold
• 15:29
  market cap 6.7%. Anyways, I did want to talk
• 15:34
  about the cold opening that we played for you guys in the very
• 15:38
  beginning regarding the counter Fitzgerald CEO.
• 15:44
  Apparently Opti already has a nickname for him, Howie.
• 15:47
  But anyway, so Howard Lubnik predicts that there's going to
• 15:51
  be a regulatory shift which will firmly integrate Bitcoin into
• 15:57
  the financial mainstream within the next 5 years.
• 16:01
  I mean, you heard him talking about it.
• 16:03
  That was a fully produced video with music, multi cameras.
• 16:08
  Like this isn't just something that he did on his iPhone.
• 16:11
  He put a lot of, they put, they put effort into that and I think
• 16:14
  they're trying to send a very strong message in regards to how
• 16:19
  counter Fitzgerald views Bitcoin.
• 16:21
  And of course Larry Fink has been sending that same message
• 16:25
  throughout the year. So I think in the next five
• 16:28
  years or so, you're really going to see the next evolution in
• 16:32
  Bitcoins history. I think you're going to see
• 16:35
  Bitcoin being adopted as a mainstream traditional financial
• 16:40
  asset, which it's not. I think for most Bitcoiners, I
• 16:44
  don't think we see it that way. But I think that, you know, if
• 16:47
  you're these banks or these financial institutions, it's
• 16:51
  irresistible. You can't resist Bitcoins
• 16:52
  incentives. Like you're seeing what Michael
• 16:54
  is Saylor, what Michael Saylor's doing with the Bitcoin strategy,
• 16:59
  that micro strategy has adopted and how he's literally
• 17:02
  outperformed everyone, including NVIDIA.
• 17:06
  And everyone's probably looking and they're like, OK, maybe
• 17:09
  that's not such a bad idea. Maybe I should go look over at
• 17:12
  that thing. So I think that's what, you
• 17:14
  know, Howard Lepnick is predicting and not I think that
• 17:17
  is what he's predicting. Feels he he I know that there's
• 17:20
  been pictures of him meeting with the Bitcoin president,
• 17:24
  President Naimbu Kelly of El Salvador.
• 17:26
  So yeah, man, I think this is pretty crazy.
• 17:29
  And also pay attention to when the Flack is heaviest over the
• 17:32
  target. I remember back when the anti
• 17:36
  Bitcoin senator, Senator Cynthia Lummis was very upset when
• 17:40
  Fidelity, one of the companies that are are offering the ETF
• 17:46
  was planning to allow Bitcoin investments for the whole 4 O 1K
• 17:51
  thing. And and Elizabeth Warren came
• 17:53
  out and she said, no, we can't do that.
• 17:56
  That's going to hurt everyone. That's just that's very
• 17:59
  dangerous. It's you know, it's dangerous to
• 18:00
  democracy, it's dangerous to society, etcetera, etcetera,
• 18:04
  etcetera. And also, I remember the bill
• 18:08
  that Biden vetoed, which was SAB 121.
• 18:14
  And essentially what it is, is oh, God, it says the US House of
• 18:20
  Representatives recently failed to overturn President Joe
• 18:23
  Biden's veto on a bill that would have allowed banks to
• 18:27
  custody Bitcoin and crypto assets.
• 18:31
  The legislation, the legislative action revolves around the SEC
• 18:35
  Staff Accounting Bulletin 121 imposing stringent accounting
• 18:39
  requirements on banks holding Bitcoin and crypto assets.
• 18:44
  So I think this is what Mr. Lutnick was talking about in
• 18:48
  terms of the regulatory environment.
• 18:50
  I mean, you don't only see it from the Biden admin, you also
• 18:54
  see it from Elizabeth Warren as well.
• 18:57
  There's obviously some regulatory hostility.
• 18:59
  This should not come as a surprise to any single one of
• 19:02
  you guys have been tuning into simply Bitcoin for the last year
• 19:05
  or so. Operation Choke .2 Point O the
• 19:07
  proposed 30% Bitcoin mining tax, the attack on self custody, the
• 19:12
  denial of of Caitlin Long's custodia, the denial of a
• 19:16
  federal banking charter for Caitlin Long's custodia bank
• 19:20
  coming out of Wyoming. So many things that have come
• 19:23
  out that have just showed by action that the current
• 19:27
  administration is not exactly very friendly towards the
• 19:31
  industry. Which is why we've been making
• 19:33
  the case on Simply Bitcoin for quite a while now that this
• 19:36
  upcoming election will have consequences for the regulatory
• 19:41
  environment, at least for the next 4 years for the Bitcoin and
• 19:45
  crypto industry in the United States, right?
• 19:48
  So I don't think that this has ever happened before.
• 19:50
  We've never had a Bitcoin election.
• 19:52
  Bitcoin was like playing in the shadows.
• 19:54
  I would even make the argument that it was, it was attacked by
• 20:00
  both political parties and by both administrations.
• 20:04
  But I think now that a mainstream, which is the key
• 20:09
  here, a mainstream political party.
• 20:12
  Has taken an official stance and a positive stance towards the
• 20:16
  industry. I think that if that party wins
• 20:19
  in November, I think it would be pretty good from a regulatory
• 20:22
  perspective here in the United States.
• 20:25
  You don't want more Lightning wallets and more Bitcoin
• 20:28
  companies leaving the US and going to friendlier
• 20:32
  jurisdictions, at least if you're in the US.
• 20:33
  If if you're overseas that that's, I guess good for you.
• 20:38
  And then that's where the Bitcoin game theory plays comes
• 20:40
  into place. Because even if you know the,
• 20:43
  even if Harris wins and, and, and it's a continuation of
• 20:47
  Biden's policies, that's where Bitcoins game theory comes in.
• 20:51
  You know, you have other friendlier jurisdictions like El
• 20:53
  Salvador, like Dubai, like Singapore, and I'm sure you'll
• 20:57
  have other jurisdictions competing for the business of
• 21:00
  Bitcoiners and Bitcoin holders and Bitcoin business owners.
• 21:05
  So, yeah, I mean, I think this is a positive overall.
• 21:09
  And that's a pretty crazy, like video coming from someone of
• 21:12
  that caliber who is that influential in the traditional
• 21:16
  financial world for him to say those things about Bitcoin and
• 21:21
  what he believes is going to be the future of Bitcoin in the
• 21:23
  next five years or so. So I want to get Opti's thoughts
• 21:26
  and then we'll pass it on to Michelle.
• 21:29
  Yeah. I mean, I think we've seen this
• 21:30
  play out for a long time. You know, sailors been on this
• 21:33
  this vein for, I don't know, at least all of this year and part
• 21:37
  of last year that the traditional financial world and
• 21:40
  traditional financial institutional managers, they are
• 21:43
  all looking at Bitcoin. But they just have to go through
• 21:46
  so many regulatory hurdles to actually get Bitcoin, either
• 21:50
  hold it themselves on their balance sheet or even until the
• 21:54
  ETF, you know, invest into Bitcoin as an industry.
• 21:59
  And I think this is kind of where we are.
• 22:01
  We we constantly tell you guys on the show that the financial,
• 22:05
  traditional financial world are the big institutions.
• 22:07
  They don't just drop on a dime and switch everything up.
• 22:11
  Like there's a lot of due due diligence that they have to do
• 22:14
  to get exposure to Bitcoin. But now those hurdles are kind
• 22:19
  of melting away right now. And of course, as like a
• 22:22
  Bitcoiner, whenever we hear like Bitcoin needs more regulatory
• 22:25
  clarity, we, we kind of, we kind of get that like cringe in the
• 22:28
  ick because we're just like, let us do our thing and Bitcoin is
• 22:33
  going to perform well. And the more yellow tape or red
• 22:38
  tape you put around Bitcoin, the harder it is going to be for
• 22:40
  normal individuals to invest in Bitcoin.
• 22:43
  And it's really not that hard on an individual level to invest in
• 22:47
  Bitcoin, just buy it on an exchange or peer-to-peer and
• 22:49
  take it into self custody. But on a corporate and
• 22:52
  institutional level, there is a lot of red tape that they have
• 22:56
  to go through to get exposure into Bitcoin.
• 22:58
  And This is why we're probably seeing such a delay from these
• 23:02
  institutional managers to get into Bitcoin.
• 23:04
  But this is all going away pretty soon soon.
• 23:07
  And and let's not forget just how hard it was to get the ETF
• 23:10
  in the 1st place. Gary Ginsler didn't want to
• 23:12
  approve that. He basically did.
• 23:14
  It took his as his sweet time and tried to avoid it for as
• 23:18
  long as possible. And then it finally happened and
• 23:20
  now we're kind of like, OK, that was cool.
• 23:22
  This is the industry maturing. But now you're seeing that there
• 23:26
  is a lot of interest in Bitcoin and everyone wants to get some
• 23:30
  Bitcoin some way, somehow. They all want some exposure to
• 23:33
  Bitcoin, especially when you're seeing Michael Saylor and Micro
• 23:36
  strategy just absolutely outperform everyone that like
• 23:40
  anyone with a brain is looking at micro strategy stock and
• 23:44
  being, I want this for my company.
• 23:47
  Like why is there why is there so many hula hoops that I have
• 23:50
  to go through or obstacles that I have to jump over to just get
• 23:53
  Bitcoin on my balance sheet or get exposure to Bitcoin?
• 23:56
  And now that that is getting cleared out, I think we will see
• 23:59
  a tsunami, tsunami of capital finally get into Bitcoin.
• 24:02
  And I, I think that's what Howard Lutnick is kind of
• 24:05
  saying, obviously as a paranoid bitcoiner, you know, tinfoil
• 24:09
  rating, tinfoil hat bitcoiner. Any time I hear someone say we
• 24:12
  need more regulation for the industry, I just think it's, we
• 24:15
  have enough already. Just let the free market do its
• 24:18
  thing. But hey, I think it's something
• 24:20
  you always say, Nico, on the show that the traditional, I
• 24:24
  would say the standard status quo of the Fiat world is
• 24:27
  incompatible with Bitcoin and you're seeing them try to figure
• 24:30
  out ways to get exposure into Bitcoin.
• 24:32
  I think that's what we're seeing right here. 100% anyways guys if
• 24:36
  you guys are enjoying the show roughly the 1000 of you guys
• 24:39
  watching live between YouTube rumble and X, make sure to smash
• 24:43
  that like button. I think on YouTube I only saw 75
• 24:45
  likes we got. We got to pump those numbers up,
• 24:48
  help us break 100 likes within the 1st 30 minutes of the show.
• 24:52
  Anyways, I want to pass it on to Michelle.
• 24:53
  Michelle what what? What's your take on this
• 24:55
  specifically from someone that has been in the industry for a
• 25:00
  decade? But back in, you know, back
• 25:03
  then, I, I don't think there was even any good hardware wallet
• 25:07
  solutions. Like there was none of this was
• 25:09
  built. It was like the beginning of
• 25:12
  everything. Everything was so new.
• 25:15
  There was like the paper wallets like, could you ever have
• 25:18
  imagined the industry coming this far?
• 25:21
  And are you excited for Bitcoin essentially growing up?
• 25:26
  Well, yeah, definitely the the main thing is for people who
• 25:31
  weren't around that far back, don't understand not what a mess
• 25:34
  it was, but just how how difficult everything was.
• 25:39
  I'm still shit at everything when it comes to Bitcoin, right?
• 25:41
  And but back then being shit and not just dev heavy or tech savvy
• 25:46
  would make you lose everything you had in a second.
• 25:49
  So for me, when you, when you talk about like regulatory
• 25:51
  clarity, which it, like you said, it's equal word for, for
• 25:54
  our community. But it's something that's needed
• 25:57
  in, in the sense where I look through the glasses of, of
• 26:00
  running a business in this space, you can tread on minds
• 26:06
  that you didn't know were there and blow up your entire company.
• 26:09
  Not because the, the product wasn't good or you didn't have
• 26:11
  users or customers, just because there was no clarity around how
• 26:15
  to operate. In that sense.
• 26:16
  We, we've done a thing with our company since day one where
• 26:20
  we're incorporated in Sweden, we fall under the European Union
• 26:22
  and all that stuff. There are so many more what's
• 26:27
  called countries, NGOs we could incorporate in that would make a
• 26:30
  lot of things way easier. But with that comes also like
• 26:34
  stigma. Because if you you base a crypto
• 26:37
  or Bitcoin company out of the Seychelles or Caymans, it's
• 26:40
  going to be harder to work with blue chip brands or larger
• 26:43
  companies in the space. And we've always wanted to be on
• 26:46
  the forefront. Instead taking the fight with
• 26:48
  those types of people, getting them on board and then creating
• 26:51
  a long lasting working relationship.
• 26:52
  Working relationship then you you kind of have to.
• 26:56
  Absolutely. And let me ask you something too
• 26:58
  like what it it, when he talks about, you know, the, the
• 27:04
  essentially the parting of the ocean, the regulatory
• 27:07
  environment is going to improve in the next 5 years is as a
• 27:10
  Bitcoin, as a successful Bitcoin entrepreneur, someone who's been
• 27:13
  running a Bitcoin company for a decade now.
• 27:18
  What? What would like?
• 27:19
  What would you like to see from regulators?
• 27:23
  Well, the the country that makes it the easiest being that less
• 27:28
  red tape, less hurdles just to get started, I would say would
• 27:33
  be the dominant force very quickly in the world with
• 27:36
  anything big correlated. You don't need to worry about
• 27:39
  what happens once you're reaching Unicorn status or above
• 27:43
  with these companies, because then you have your own in house
• 27:46
  lawyers, you have your own departments of, of finance, you
• 27:48
  have outside counsel, You have all the things where you could
• 27:51
  actually both fight and discuss whatever might go wrong.
• 27:54
  But let's say the smaller entrepreneurs who have usually
• 27:57
  the better ideas for them not to have to have a degree in law to
• 28:01
  be able to start the business would be fantastic.
• 28:05
  That's probably the main, main concern.
• 28:07
  And I got to say like I've never been more bullish than I am
• 28:10
  right now. And that says a lot because I've
• 28:12
  been bullish and not been wrong, but been burned many times.
• 28:16
  But the, the way everything is shaping up now that the volume
• 28:19
  in the market, the participants in the market and very big
• 28:23
  household names and banks and institutions are not only moving
• 28:27
  in, but they're kind of fighting for space I feel like, which is
• 28:30
  really cool. Didn't think that would happen,
• 28:33
  that at this space, at this pace and this quickly 10 years ago.
• 28:38
  And do you feel like the the best years in Bitcoin's history
• 28:44
  have have passed us, or do you think they're still to come?
• 28:48
  Oh, definitely still to come. But I had a funny conversation
• 28:50
  with Sergei, the other one of the other founders about this.
• 28:54
  Where when we've been to conferences lately, this year
• 28:57
  and the year before, I'd say as well, all of our friends that
• 29:01
  have been in the space for a long time as well.
• 29:02
  We're all kind of like not old now, right?
• 29:04
  But I'm, I'm 35, I'm 3036. I got kids.
• 29:07
  We started in this space like when I was 20 something still
• 29:11
  idiot, but even more of an idiot, right.
• 29:14
  So, so a lot of the things that needed to be done the last 10
• 29:17
  years to big move this space here by all the people that's
• 29:21
  poured blood and tears into it. You need like the, the young
• 29:25
  revolutionary type people to do that.
• 29:27
  Like now we're still trying to fight our fight, but we're also
• 29:30
  like older, we're a big company. We, we try to like, use our
• 29:33
  influence and wait in good ways where we see fit.
• 29:37
  But I, I'm waiting on like the next wave of the 2025 year olds
• 29:42
  with fucking amazing ideas and things to do to not only show up
• 29:46
  and push forward and not just to gain monetary value, but because
• 29:49
  they have something worth building.
• 29:52
  You know what I mean? Gotcha.
• 29:54
  Gotcha. Yeah, man, it's, it's, oh man,
• 29:56
  that I'm, I'm excited too. And you and you see these two
• 29:59
  like I'm coming from the media perspective and like from the
• 30:02
  media side of the industry and just seeing, you know, the the
• 30:05
  younger guys just coming up with the type of content that they're
• 30:08
  innovating and the type of content that they're creating is
• 30:11
  like it's, it's nuts. It's gnarly, you know, and, and
• 30:14
  you love to see that. So, yeah, I agree.
• 30:17
  I think we need more revolutionaries, more people
• 30:20
  that are are, you know, they really want to change the world
• 30:23
  for the better. And I think Bitcoin is, is the
• 30:26
  perfect tool for them to to really to really do that.
• 30:30
  Because I, I think like even, you know, not to bring on, not
• 30:34
  to bring up Elon, but I'm going to anyways.
• 30:36
  Like, you know, they came up with the idea of PayPal, which
• 30:40
  the original vision of PayPal was essentially so that everyone
• 30:43
  around the world could have money using the Internet.
• 30:47
  But the reason that it wasn't able to take off is because it
• 30:50
  was eventually captured from a regulatory perspective.
• 30:55
  What happened when Facebook tried to launch their own
• 30:57
  cryptocurrency, Same thing. But with Bitcoin, because it's a
• 31:02
  protocol, because it's decentralized, you can build on
• 31:05
  top of it and you don't run those risks.
• 31:09
  Would it would it be safe to say that Michelle?
• 31:12
  There's no company to sue, there's no founder to jail,
• 31:15
  there's nobody to attack in that same sense, so it wouldn't have
• 31:19
  worked otherwise. Yeah, I, I, I absolutely agree.
• 31:22
  Anyways, guys, we have a hell of a show lined up for you, so stay
• 31:25
  tuned. We still got the news.
• 31:27
  We're going to talk about the North Korean hackers and how
• 31:29
  they've been targeting the Bitcoin ETFs.
• 31:32
  But before we jump into it, guys, if you're enjoying the
• 31:34
  show, make sure to smash the like button.
• 31:36
  Really, really helps with the algos and helps us push the
• 31:39
  orange signal forward. All right, everybody, let's hit
• 31:41
  the news, the Daily News. I want to give a shout out to
• 31:49
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• 31:53
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• 33:07
  Anyways, I do kind of want to show this because I find it
• 33:09
  quite interesting. No one is ready for the biggest
• 33:13
  hack in history. And this guy's just kind of like
• 33:17
  pointing to all these companies and institutions.
• 33:21
  It's BlackRock, it's Grayskill, it's ARC, it's Bitwise, it's Van
• 33:26
  Elk, it's 20, it's it's everyone, it's MicroStrategy,
• 33:29
  it's Tesla, it's SpaceX, it's it's HUD 8, it's Cleanspark,
• 33:34
  it's bit Farms, it's Coinbase. It's like all these things and
• 33:38
  they're all under Cleanbase management.
• 33:41
  Coinbase holds 2.2 million Bitcoin on behalf of other
• 33:47
  parties. So I mean, like, that is the
• 33:50
  like if you were to look up the definition of a honeypot in a
• 33:57
  dictionary, there wouldn't even be an explanation.
• 34:00
  There would just be this picture.
• 34:02
  And it would they would just expect you to put the pieces
• 34:05
  together yourself because of how incredibly obvious this is.
• 34:09
  But anyways, I've heard from a reliable source that Brian
• 34:14
  Armstrong, actually what he does for cold storage is on his night
• 34:20
  stand, he has a Ledger and he just keeps everyone's Bitcoin on
• 34:25
  that Ledger in his night slam. That's what I've heard.
• 34:28
  And he doesn't stamp his seed into titanium.
• 34:32
  He writes down the seed words for the each individual company.
• 34:36
  So it's it's organized, right. You know, he'll write BlackRock
• 34:40
  for the Black Rock one and he'll those will be the seed words,
• 34:44
  you know, and he'll also rely on on on, you know, on on the
• 34:48
  hardware wallets to create the entropy.
• 34:49
  Like he won't do it himself. But that is extremely secure and
• 34:53
  and I trust it. But no, I'm just kidding.
• 34:56
  That's that's. A yeah, that sarcasm, guys,
• 34:58
  That's that's. Sarcasm.
• 35:00
  That's a terrible joke. I'm a new dad.
• 35:02
  It's a dad joke. But anyways, let's get into like
• 35:05
  why I'm making these types of jokes in the 1st place.
• 35:08
  So obviously a tremendous amount of centralization, truth be
• 35:14
  told, Coinbase is, is known for for their security of of of of
• 35:20
  the assets that they're holding under management.
• 35:22
  They use Faraday cages, they use these very sophisticated
• 35:26
  methods. So but still right, like, like
• 35:30
  even with all the sophistication, all the
• 35:33
  technology, I'm sure that they've developed like very
• 35:37
  innovative ways to keep massive amounts of Bitcoin in a very
• 35:40
  secure fashion utilizing multi sig, etcetera, etcetera.
• 35:44
  Still not your keys, not your coins, you're still trusting on
• 35:49
  a third party, right where you don't have to do that.
• 35:52
  You could trust yourself. And there's 2 examples of
• 35:56
  companies that have done this, whether it's Jack Dorsey's block
• 36:00
  or whether it's Fidelity. So it is possible, but it looks
• 36:05
  like the vast majority of either ETFs or publicly traded
• 36:08
  companies, just they would rather rely on on, on on
• 36:12
  Coinbase for their custody. Anyways.
• 36:16
  So moving on. So this is the article today.
• 36:19
  I want to talk about it, especially with the panel that
• 36:22
  we have today. The headline is written by our
• 36:24
  boy Nick Hoffman ahead of news at at at Bitcoin Magazine.
• 36:28
  And the headline article is FBI warns of North Korean hackers
• 36:33
  targeting US Bitcoin and crypto ETFs goes on to say today the
• 36:38
  FBI issued an alert warning that North Korean hackers are
• 36:41
  targeting US crypto ETFs in a bid to steal digital assets.
• 36:46
  The hackers are using advanced social engineering techniques to
• 36:50
  breach the security of companies associated with these financial
• 36:54
  products, the FBI stated. Could you imagine that like
• 36:58
  Brian Armstrong's Twitter inbox, instead of him getting like the
• 37:03
  hey, if you send me one Bitcoin, I'll send you 2.
• 37:07
  It's probably like, hey, if you send me 1000 Bitcoin, I'll send
• 37:10
  you a hundred 100,000 Bitcoin. Like his Twitter DM inbox must
• 37:14
  be nuts. It must be gnarly.
• 37:17
  Anyways, it goes on to say here's the official FBI
• 37:20
  statement says North Korea aggressively targeting crypto
• 37:24
  industry with well disguised social engineering attacks.
• 37:29
  The North Korea is conducting highly tailored and difficult to
• 37:32
  detect social engineering campaigns against employees of
• 37:37
  decentralized finance, cryptocurrency and similar
• 37:40
  businesses to deploy malware and steal company cryptocurrency.
• 37:44
  North Korean social engineering schemes are complex and
• 37:48
  elaborate, often compromising victims with sophisticated
• 37:52
  technical acumen. Given the scale and persistence
• 37:55
  of this malicious activity, even those well versed in cyber
• 37:59
  security practices can be vulnerable to North Koreas
• 38:02
  determination to compromise networks connected to
• 38:05
  cryptocurrency assets. N Koreas North Korean malicious
• 38:09
  cyber actors conducted research on a variety of targets
• 38:12
  connected to crypto to to the crypto ETFs over the last
• 38:17
  several months. This research this research
• 38:20
  included pre operational preparation suggesting North
• 38:24
  Korean actors may attempt malicious cyber activities
• 38:27
  against companies associated with cryptocurrency ETFs or
• 38:31
  other cryptocurrency related financial products for companies
• 38:35
  active in or associated with the cryptocurrency sector.
• 38:38
  The FBI emphasizes North Korea employs sophisticated tactics to
• 38:42
  steal cryptocurrency funds and is a persistent threat to
• 38:45
  organizations with access to large quantities of
• 38:48
  cryptocurrency related assets or products.
• 38:51
  The announcement includes an overview of the social
• 38:54
  engineering tactics North Korea's state sponsored actors
• 38:58
  use against victims working in defy cryptocurrency and related
• 39:02
  industries. Potential indicators of North
• 39:05
  Korean social engineering activity, mitigating measures
• 39:08
  for those most at risks and steps to take if you or your
• 39:12
  company may have been victimized.
• 39:14
  So I mean, this is pretty gnarly, but at the same time,
• 39:17
  like if when you see stuff like this, this like it doesn't
• 39:21
  surprise me, it doesn't surprise me at all.
• 39:23
  Like that's a very, very big pot, you know?
• 39:26
  And it's, it's not like they're going to be able to sell those
• 39:29
  coins either, though. Like, what are they going to do
• 39:31
  with it? Like they're going to take them
• 39:34
  and what are they going to do with it anyways?
• 39:36
  But yeah, I mean, it's it's not surprising, I would say.
• 39:40
  Not your keys, not your, not your Bitcoin.
• 39:42
  Take self custody. Stop relying on a third party.
• 39:47
  Time and time again, Michelle, you've seen this, You've been in
• 39:50
  the industry for a decade. You've seen multiple exchanges
• 39:55
  go down because they've either they've been hacked or they've
• 39:58
  been selling paper Bitcoin and they just don't have that
• 40:02
  Bitcoin that they've been selling.
• 40:03
  And then everyone starts to withdraw at the same time.
• 40:06
  The best person to trust is yourself.
• 40:09
  But with trusting yourself comes with a tremendous amount of
• 40:12
  responsibility. But I mean like, look, if you
• 40:15
  can make a sandwich, if you can take care of a child, you can
• 40:18
  write down 12 to 24 words. Even better, don't write it
• 40:22
  down. Stamp it into titanium using the
• 40:25
  stamp seed promo code simply and stop having stop.
• 40:29
  Stop having to rely on other people with your money.
• 40:33
  I think that's as simple as that.
• 40:34
  I think Bitcoin gives you the tools to do that in a convenient
• 40:39
  and effective manner. I think that before Bitcoin, if
• 40:42
  you're going to custody a large amount of cash or a large amount
• 40:46
  of gold, it was impractical to do it yourself unless you're
• 40:50
  going to build like a vault underneath your house.
• 40:53
  I think most people couldn't do that.
• 40:56
  But I think with Bitcoin, you know, theoretically,
• 40:58
  theoretically you can. You can memorize 12 words and
• 41:02
  you could store 1,000,000 billions, trillions of dollars
• 41:05
  in your mind. It makes storing large amounts
• 41:08
  of wealth pretty easy and it also gives you the ability to
• 41:12
  send that anywhere around the world without having to ask for
• 41:15
  permission. So with Bitcoin, like there's
• 41:18
  two things. There's what Howard Lupnik was
• 41:21
  talking about. There's what Larry Fink is
• 41:23
  talking about, which is the benefits of Bitcoin and the
• 41:26
  number go up sense. But then there's the
• 41:28
  revolutionary aspect, which is the take self custody of your
• 41:33
  wealth, empowering yourself in the process.
• 41:36
  Because let's say you live in an unfavorable jurisdiction and
• 41:41
  they pass certain types of laws that are unfavorable for you.
• 41:44
  You could not only vote with your wallet, but you could also
• 41:48
  vote with your feet and go to a more favorable jurisdiction, but
• 41:52
  only if you take self custody of your Bitcoin.
• 41:54
  And I think that's really the game changer.
• 41:56
  The game changer is you can custody your wealth and an
• 42:00
  effective manner and it moves the balance of power from the
• 42:04
  state to the individual. Those are my two Sats.
• 42:07
  Mitchell, I want to get your take on this.
• 42:09
  The North Koreans are trying to hack into, you know, using
• 42:14
  sophisticated. And you know, what's really
• 42:16
  interesting about this is the social engineering attacks,
• 42:20
  right? The social engineering attacks
• 42:21
  are fascinating because these are the types of attacks.
• 42:25
  And I'm sure that you've guys have gotten emails or phone
• 42:27
  calls along these lines. And they can get really
• 42:31
  sophisticated and complex because they might know your
• 42:35
  your family members name or they might know some detail about you
• 42:40
  that makes you trust that e-mail or makes you trust that phone
• 42:44
  call. But remember, like no matter who
• 42:46
  it is, don't give them your seed words, right?
• 42:49
  Don't take a picture of your seed words and put it on your
• 42:52
  iPhone. Like stamp that into a piece of
• 42:55
  titanium and put that in a very safe place and don't let that
• 42:59
  ever touched the Internet type of thing.
• 43:01
  So anyways, I want to pass it on to you, Mitchell.
• 43:03
  I'm sure that this is something that you've experienced over the
• 43:06
  last 10 years that you've been in the industry.
• 43:08
  And I also want to get your opinion on, you know, this
• 43:10
  recent news of North Koreans trying to hack into the Bitcoin
• 43:15
  ETFs. Yeah, well I actually I read
• 43:19
  this when I came out and I had to like game theory it a little
• 43:22
  bit in my head because there's also the the instance now where
• 43:26
  when does something reach too big to fail.
• 43:28
  Like I don't think Coinbase failing would make the coin
• 43:31
  fail, but it would be a complete cluster of if it happens in the
• 43:36
  sense where a lot of it would take a lot of time to recover
• 43:40
  from it, which is really bad when 1 entity in the space can
• 43:44
  have that type of impact. We've seen it happen, light
• 43:46
  versions of it before I'd say compared to if this would
• 43:49
  happen. But the, the main thing that
• 43:52
  scares me when it comes to this, if you look at the social
• 43:54
  engineering attacks, it's normal banking systems with a lot of
• 43:58
  like hurdles and checks and balances and things.
• 44:02
  They get social engineered now with deepfakes, a voice, voices
• 44:06
  and AI. Where I, I read something a
• 44:08
  month ago where they stole like a few 2030 million from a bank
• 44:12
  executive because his boss called him up on FaceTime and
• 44:15
  told him to approve this transfer and it was him he was
• 44:17
  talking to. And that's with all of the extra
• 44:19
  hurdles to get through. If somebody gains access to and
• 44:24
  not gains access to, it's not only with the social engineering
• 44:27
  when it's this much right, it's also an attack vector.
• 44:31
  Or if we think it out where, how much threat slash danger would a
• 44:37
  person have to be in to give up keys or give up access?
• 44:42
  So sure, I'm guessing that Brian has like a a shit ton of
• 44:47
  security. I would in his situation, but
• 44:50
  there are people around him he cares about.
• 44:52
  That's also an attack vector. When there's like a one point of
• 44:55
  failure that's this big, it's kind of scary because with a
• 44:59
  bank transfer with Fiat, there's always a different type of paper
• 45:04
  trail. If you try to steal these large
• 45:05
  amounts where you would be able to somehow prevent it or catch
• 45:09
  the people doing it, I think at least, right?
• 45:12
  But whereas if you actually breakthrough and you get access
• 45:15
  with Bitcoin, it's just gone, right?
• 45:17
  It's not yours anymore. So I don't really have a
• 45:21
  solution for it. Just when I game theory it out,
• 45:23
  it's like a hell of a lot of risk to have A1 entity, one
• 45:27
  point of failure or one person or a few per people.
• 45:30
  Yeah, 100%. I think that's, that's an
• 45:32
  amazing point, right. And I think that like if you're
• 45:36
  an individual, right, you should definitely look into multi sig
• 45:39
  and, and geographically separating your seeds.
• 45:42
  Those are all things that you can use to your advantage.
• 45:44
  But you got to use the tools. Like if you don't use the tools,
• 45:47
  then there is no point. Yeah, I, I, I, I bet you they've
• 45:51
  spent a tremendous amount of time, you know, and if I'm Brian
• 45:55
  Armstrong, you know, like he's essentially holding the faith.
• 45:59
  Like, you know, Michael Saylor, like at MicroStrategy, it's
• 46:03
  like, yeah, they have Bitcoin, but it's Coinbase that has that
• 46:07
  Bitcoin. It's really Coinbase that has an
• 46:10
  IOU for MicroStrategy. I'm sure they have their own
• 46:13
  dedicated address. I, I, I, I'm, I'm, I'm not
• 46:15
  doubting that whatsoever. They're definitely not re
• 46:18
  hypothecating that. But how would you know, right.
• 46:23
  So, but let's just say they have their own dedicated address for
• 46:26
  it and it's secure etcetera, etcetera.
• 46:31
  It's still not Microstrategies, MicroStrategy like Coinbase has
• 46:35
  an IOU to MicroStrategy. I don't think there is any type
• 46:39
  of legal protections like in for example, like in the US bank
• 46:43
  deposits are protected up to a certain amount, right.
• 46:47
  I don't think those those types of protections exist for this
• 46:51
  type of setup. It's kind of like a trust me
• 46:54
  bro. And I'm not saying I'm not
• 46:57
  saying that it's not a strong trust me bro.
• 47:00
  I'm not saying that. Like, of course, Coinbase
• 47:02
  definitely has sophisticated custody solutions for sure.
• 47:07
  I'm not doubting that whatsoever.
• 47:09
  But still, it's it's what Michelle says.
• 47:11
  Like why would you want to put so much trust in the hands of
• 47:15
  such few people? 2 million coins is a lot of
• 47:19
  coins. Like that's a lot of Bitcoin.
• 47:21
  Can you imagine if that just went whoop, you know, And it was
• 47:24
  and it was like the North Korea, I don't know what they would do
• 47:27
  with it either. Like what would they?
• 47:29
  Do with that, everybody gets a cow.
• 47:31
  Everybody. Gets a cow like what would they
• 47:32
  do? Would they just send everybody
• 47:34
  like like massive wealth or distribution like everyone just
• 47:38
  send everyone a Bitcoin? But and then what would happen
• 47:41
  there from a legal to legal perspective?
• 47:44
  Like it would be such a shit show in my opinion.
• 47:47
  Anyways, Opti, what's your take on all this bro?
• 47:50
  Yeah. I mean, first, I think we got to
• 47:54
  clear the air. I know we were trolling Coinbase
• 47:56
  in the beginning of this, but you'd have to suspect that they
• 47:59
  have a very secure storage set up there.
• 48:02
  They're obviously been in the game for a long time, so I'm
• 48:06
  pretty convinced that their setup is pretty secure, at least
• 48:09
  internally. But I think the biggest signal
• 48:13
  here for the fact that there's 2 million Bitcoin being held by
• 48:17
  Coinbase in custody via all the different ETFs and all the
• 48:19
  company is really just kind of pointing out that most people
• 48:24
  that are in the traditional financial world just don't
• 48:26
  really want to actually custody their own assets.
• 48:28
  At least that's what I've heard coming from traditional
• 48:31
  financial people. And we kind of get that same
• 48:34
  trend from from people like the, you're going to yell at me
• 48:37
  because I always say boomers here, but the boomers don't want
• 48:39
  to custody their own assets that we've seen this play out for a
• 48:42
  long time. And I think we're kind of seeing
• 48:44
  that play out right now with Bitcoin and crypto at large.
• 48:48
  But I also think it's kind of a regulatory thing.
• 48:51
  Howard Lehtnick said it in the beginning.
• 48:52
  Michael Saylor's kind of been saying this for a while as well,
• 48:55
  that custody Bitcoin right now if you are a corporation is a
• 48:59
  hard thing to manage. There is a lot of paperwork and
• 49:02
  a lot of obstacles that they got to go through.
• 49:05
  So it's not as cut and dry as someone that's an individual
• 49:10
  would think. That's just like, dude, bro,
• 49:11
  just take your Bitcoin in custody.
• 49:13
  It it's, there's still some hula hoops or obstacles that people
• 49:17
  have to go through if you are an incorporated business.
• 49:20
  So I, I think that's one of the things that are playing or maybe
• 49:22
  both of those things are playing out right now with the regard to
• 49:26
  so many companies holding their Bitcoin with Coinbase.
• 49:29
  Maybe there's also really when you think about there's not that
• 49:32
  many competitors right now in the in the industry that are
• 49:34
  doing custody of Bitcoin for companies spend these ETFs.
• 49:38
  So there's a lot of things at play right now and I think those
• 49:40
  will get figured out in in the short term or maybe in a couple
• 49:43
  of years or whatever it is. With that being said, of course,
• 49:46
  all the coin being held by Coinbase is a concern, at least
• 49:50
  if you have Bitcoin exposure with any of these ETFs or any of
• 49:53
  these companies. I think anyone that is actively
• 49:56
  thinking about the attack vectors is has thought about
• 49:59
  this and it's got to keep them up at night a little bit like if
• 50:03
  you're not thinking about it, then you're not thinking clearly
• 50:05
  about this. So This is why we're, we're
• 50:07
  always telling you, at least on a personal level, custody of
• 50:10
  your Bitcoin is the revolution and the outlier.
• 50:14
  And it's the outlier in traditional financial world
• 50:16
  right now. Like this is the revolutionary
• 50:18
  aspect of Bitcoin is that you can actually take your wealth
• 50:21
  into custody and you can send it wherever you want.
• 50:24
  Permission lists with the censorship resistant properties
• 50:26
  of Bitcoin. All that being said, on to the
• 50:29
  North Korea hack stuff. Personally, Nico, this feels
• 50:33
  like a little bit of fun. I'm not going to lie.
• 50:34
  Like I, I, I know, I know it sounds kind of legitimate coming
• 50:39
  from the FBI. But again, maybe it's my tinfoil
• 50:43
  hat radar going off and it just feels maybe like some
• 50:47
  misdirection. Obviously, I think we can all
• 50:50
  agree that Coinbase probably gets hacked or at least tries to
• 50:53
  get hacked a lot. It it it is a honeypot.
• 50:55
  And so the hackers out there, people that are, are trying to
• 50:59
  socially engineer and get a big pot of Bitcoin, they, they
• 51:02
  obviously have to be attacking Coinbase.
• 51:04
  So there is a possibility that this is happening.
• 51:07
  I'm, I'm not saying that it's not happening.
• 51:09
  I'm just saying when it comes from the FBI, I'm like a little
• 51:13
  maybe, maybe, maybe there is some sense of legitimacy here.
• 51:16
  But I think the point still stands that all that Bitcoin
• 51:18
  being held by Coinbase is a concern.
• 51:22
  And hopefully entrepreneurs and Bitcoin entrepreneurs out there
• 51:25
  figure out a solution to this. Because personally, and I've
• 51:28
  said this before and I know, I know we have the YouTube AI on
• 51:32
  us and stuff, but all the, all that Bitcoin held by Coinbase
• 51:35
  personally just kind of sounds like U.S. government coin as far
• 51:39
  as I'm concerned. So, you know, I wouldn't want to
• 51:42
  be holding my Bitcoin with Coinbase.
• 51:44
  But again, there's probably not too many mechanisms in the
• 51:47
  market for there to be diversification of of custodians
• 51:51
  holding Bitcoin. And I think that will get
• 51:53
  figured out in the future. But yeah, it feels like a little
• 51:56
  bit of FUD to me, Nico. But hey, what do I know?
• 51:59
  I'm just a guy on YouTube. Hey man, it's a great article
• 52:02
  dude. Like the North Koreans are, you
• 52:03
  know, trying to steal the Bitcoin ETF.
• 52:06
  Yeah, I'm. Not that's a great that's a
• 52:08
  great headline and and, you know, sprinkle that in with the
• 52:12
  FBI announcement, like who doesn't want to talk about that,
• 52:15
  you know? It's, well, I'm not.
• 52:16
  Yeah. It's like a mysterious country.
• 52:19
  It's a mysterious country, you know, like.
• 52:22
  Rocket Man bad. Like.
• 52:24
  They've. They've, they've, you know,
• 52:26
  they, they have a, a, a, a relatively unique economic model
• 52:31
  and, and, and, and unique form of government.
• 52:34
  So I think, you know, it is it we've, we've seen North Korea be
• 52:38
  used as a scapegoat before to justify the arrest of the
• 52:43
  Tornado Cash developers. So, you know, again, like it's,
• 52:48
  it's of course, I think you, you're, you're right to be
• 52:51
  suspicious in that sense. But I think it's, it's an
• 52:54
  interesting conversation to have.
• 52:55
  And I think we're, we're going to keep bringing it up, which is
• 52:57
  like coin base holds an F ton of coins for other people.
• 53:03
  And I think that number is just going to continue to grow.
• 53:06
  And if, if, if it just becomes like this model of, you know,
• 53:11
  people I like very wealthy older people or, you know,
• 53:15
  institutions basically saying, like, all right, we own Bitcoin
• 53:19
  and they just have it in Coinbase custody.
• 53:21
  It doesn't really change things. Like what really is going to
• 53:25
  change the world are individuals all around the world taking self
• 53:30
  custody of their own keys and their own wealth.
• 53:33
  That's what's really going to change the conversation and
• 53:37
  what's really going to change the dynamics of everything.
• 53:39
  If if it's just let me just trust this, you know, Coinbase
• 53:44
  or let me just trust this third party with my coins.
• 53:46
  I think it's just going to be a continuation of what we see
• 53:49
  today. The existing system.
• 53:51
  That's my two sats on the whole thing anyways.
• 53:54
  A little. Bit Nico, hold on trolling a
• 53:55
  little bit here. I think the real question is was
• 53:57
  Coinbase? Would Coinbase be too big to
• 53:59
  fail? How would they respond if the
• 54:02
  rug pull did happen anyways? Jump in Rochelle.
• 54:05
  I just, I had a little, little thought when you talked about
• 54:08
  insurance before as well, which like makes sense.
• 54:10
  There has to be someone trying to figure out a way where you
• 54:13
  could pay enough to to secure that if something happens, you'd
• 54:16
  be able to your losses, right? But it's kind of funny how we
• 54:20
  then segue from everything we talk about what's revolutionary
• 54:24
  and the unique point of Bitcoin into like normal ordinary Fiat
• 54:28
  world where they might say it's insured, but then in the end
• 54:31
  they're like, no, we just have to bankrupt our insurance
• 54:33
  company because we can't do this.
• 54:35
  It's like it would be relying on the old powers again.
• 54:39
  Yeah. It's an interesting situation,
• 54:42
  like we got to be able to bring it up and talk about it because
• 54:45
  it's it's interesting. It's it's interesting.
• 54:48
  Anyways, guys, let's get to the culture.
• 54:50
  We talk about talk with Michelle, CEO of bit refill.
• 54:53
  We're going to talk about bit refill, what they do.
• 54:55
  So stay tuned. Anyways, here we go.
• 55:00
  The daily culture. Alright everybody, I do want to
• 55:09
  give a shout out to our sponsor, the orange pull up stack Friends
• 55:12
  who stacks sats. The orange pull up is the
• 55:15
  Bitcoin social layer. It's a great resource when
• 55:18
  you're travelling or you're going to a new city for a
• 55:21
  conference and you know any Bitcoiners around you, you pull
• 55:24
  up the orange pull up and it will literally allow you to
• 55:27
  connect with them. You could send them Adm
• 55:29
  directly. It's also the number one
• 55:31
  resource for Bitcoin only events.
• 55:33
  So let's say you travel to a city for a conference.
• 55:36
  You stay at the city for a week, but the conference is only two
• 55:38
  days. What are you going to do all
• 55:40
  those other days? That's what the Orange Pull app
• 55:42
  is for. It's also one of the best ways
• 55:44
  to reach me directly. So if you want to contact me, DM
• 55:48
  me through the Orange Pull app. And every week or so, I make
• 55:51
  sure to go through every single one of the messages.
• 55:54
  So download Orange Pull App today, scan the QR code or check
• 55:58
  the link in the video description.
• 56:00
  Anyways, I'm excited about today's episode.
• 56:02
  Me and Michelle were actually on a panel at the Bitcoin
• 56:06
  conference in Nashville. I forget the name of the panel
• 56:09
  at this. What was the name?
• 56:10
  Do you do you remember? The name of it live?
• 56:11
  Something Bitcoin, right? Oh, should you spend it on
• 56:14
  Bitcoin? Should you spend your?
• 56:15
  Yeah. Should you spend your Yeah,
• 56:17
  should you spend your Bitcoin? It was a great panel.
• 56:19
  I really enjoyed it. I didn't I didn't, I didn't know
• 56:23
  Michelle before and then we were talking and he's like, dude, I'm
• 56:26
  I'm CEO bit for refill. I'm like, oh, I think I know
• 56:29
  that. And I'm like, I do Simpsons
• 56:30
  Bitcoin and then he's like, I think I know that too.
• 56:32
  So. I got to correct you, I'm CBD OS
• 56:35
  the cofounder, but the cofounder so much shit if I don't
• 56:39
  correctness. He's got a.
• 56:41
  Cofounder got it. Much more beautiful.
• 56:43
  Much more beautiful man. Cofounder bit refill I apologize
• 56:48
  for for mixing finals and I hope I didn't get you in trouble,
• 56:54
  but. Which Nico is known to do
• 56:57
  anyways. Anyways, Nico, Nico's bumbling
• 56:59
  on his words. You got him flattered.
• 57:00
  Over here. Michelle, I, I think, I think a
• 57:03
  good place to start here before we really talk about what Bit
• 57:07
  Refill offers on your website. I, I would love to talk about
• 57:11
  the fact that this is your 10 year anniversary and what was
• 57:15
  the origin of the idea for Bit Refill?
• 57:16
  Like what was the need that you you saw in the market and This
• 57:21
  is why you guys created Bit Refill in the first place?
• 57:24
  It's it's kind of not a shitty origin story, but it's not, it
• 57:29
  doesn't really have one of those Oh my God moments.
• 57:31
  It's Sergey and me, the one of the other founders and the CEO.
• 57:35
  He's probably the smartest dude I know.
• 57:37
  And we've done, we've been involved in three companies
• 57:40
  together, 2 before Bidderfill. And he's a fantastic man, but a
• 57:44
  very cynical man in the sense where not a lot of things
• 57:46
  impress him and most of the things he looks at he thinks is
• 57:49
  bullshit. So, so he came to me.
• 57:51
  I think it's like 13 or something, he said.
• 57:53
  I I found this thing. It's kind of cool.
• 57:56
  Which in Sergey talk is like, this is the most amazing thing
• 57:59
  I've ever seen in my life. And it was like Bitcoin and he
• 58:02
  shared the white paper with me. I read through it and I, I, I
• 58:05
  felt the same, but for different reasons than him because he's
• 58:08
  way, way, way more tech heavy. But I, I completely saw the, the
• 58:13
  possibilities and the, the what it could be if anything goes the
• 58:19
  way we were hoping. So we just looked pretty early
• 58:22
  on on like, OK, so this is supposed to be like magical
• 58:25
  Internet money, but you can't use it anywhere or buy anything
• 58:28
  with it. That's kind of shit.
• 58:30
  What can we do to fix that void? And what type of markets would
• 58:34
  be a good fit to put online with Bitcoin?
• 58:39
  In the beginning, the first thing we, we, we tried out was
• 58:42
  prepaid airtime. So you remember back in the day,
• 58:44
  you just got like scratch off tickets to, to refill minutes
• 58:48
  or, or texts on your phone. That was a market that should be
• 58:52
  online, but wasn't due to fraud. You couldn't basically have it
• 58:54
  online due to credit card fraud. But Bitcoin solved that, right?
• 58:58
  So we, we, we plopped up the first Gen. of the website with
• 59:01
  just prepaid airtime top UPS around the world and it kind of
• 59:04
  worked. Not heavy volume or heavy usage,
• 59:06
  but like some dudes in Africa, some dudes in the US, people
• 59:09
  just were using it pretty straight off the bat.
• 59:12
  We got shared a few times in the media because of it and that
• 59:15
  gave some more traction. So we started looking at other
• 59:17
  products that would be like actual spending, spending
• 59:21
  Bitcoin and living your life on Bitcoin, not just buying,
• 59:24
  holding and waiting for the future, but actually going into
• 59:27
  the circular economy of it. So so we started partnering up
• 59:30
  with brands and aggregators and, and anybody we could find that
• 59:35
  would work with us back in 16 ish in the normal gift card
• 59:40
  space. And over the years now it's
• 59:42
  built out to you can basically buy anything you could think of
• 59:46
  buying with Bitcoin through US, whether it be food or paying for
• 59:51
  trips or we, we don't do cars and big houses and stuff.
• 59:55
  But anything else in your everyday life, groceries and
• 59:58
  stuff, you can basically get through us.
• 1:00:01
  Love it. OK, OK, I do I, I, I didn't
• 1:00:04
  think about this before the show, but I, I'm, I'm thinking
• 1:00:06
  of this now and I think it's a perfect time to point out the
• 1:00:12
  flood of people saying, you know, Bitcoin's not money.
• 1:00:15
  You can't use it to buy things and it's OK, here we are.
• 1:00:18
  You can buy things in the real world.
• 1:00:20
  Is this proving that Bitcoin is money, Michelle?
• 1:00:23
  Completely. Yeah, definitely.
• 1:00:25
  We're at least a a good little sidestep until it's like it's
• 1:00:29
  kind of funny when you're hoping for something that would
• 1:00:31
  completely destroy your your business plan.
• 1:00:34
  But we are the the, the, the middle step to before the the
• 1:00:38
  actual brands themselves accepting crypto and Bitcoin
• 1:00:41
  payments directly, mainly Bitcoin then, but until then,
• 1:00:45
  we'll be here for them. That's basically the the the the
• 1:00:49
  thing. Love it, love it.
• 1:00:51
  And I, I, I am going to blow some smoke up up your ass a
• 1:00:54
  little bit here cuz when I did do a little research and we did
• 1:00:57
  talk about this earlier, so I'm not throwing another curveball
• 1:00:59
  at you, but it was very eye opening to me.
• 1:01:02
  The fact that bit refill is one of the biggest commerce
• 1:01:06
  platforms in the Bitcoin crypto industry and you know, 10 years
• 1:01:10
  building a company. So like, kudos to you bro.
• 1:01:12
  Like that's amazing. That's awesome to hear.
• 1:01:15
  I don't, I know you, you don't want to brag too much about it,
• 1:01:18
  but maybe you can touch on it a little bit.
• 1:01:21
  Yeah, no, honestly, I, I don't know how I got this, this lucky
• 1:01:25
  because I'm, we're, we have a company, I have a company with
• 1:01:28
  my best friends that we haven't diluted or, or done stupid races
• 1:01:33
  with. So we still control it
• 1:01:35
  ourselves. And we don't have VCs in the
• 1:01:36
  back that try to tell us what to do, which is I think is why
• 1:01:39
  we've survived as well. Because a lot of the choices you
• 1:01:41
  have to do and had to do during the last 10 years are not sane
• 1:01:45
  choices. They are not what a normal
• 1:01:47
  person would do in a grown up adult environment, but because
• 1:01:51
  we could do them and we saw them as the best bet.
• 1:01:55
  We've grown, prospered and survived right through a lot of
• 1:01:59
  bear markets and a lot of other companies going on there with
• 1:02:01
  really good ideas. But I don't know how to say it.
• 1:02:06
  It's a weird thing when you're standing here at 10 years later
• 1:02:08
  with a lot of the brands we work with that are big and global,
• 1:02:11
  where in the beginning they wouldn't even like take a call
• 1:02:13
  from us because all they related Bitcoin to was like Silk Road
• 1:02:17
  kidnappings and drugs. Whereas now we're like one of
• 1:02:20
  the most premier appreciated partners they have because the
• 1:02:24
  volume is good. And on top of that, the the
• 1:02:26
  consumers that come from the Bitcoin space are like the
• 1:02:31
  premier type of customers normally like the ones that
• 1:02:34
  spend a lot, they buy intricate things, they're good customers
• 1:02:37
  and not like the low shopping. And if you look at the
• 1:02:41
  e-commerce space. So that's been very cool during
• 1:02:44
  that journey, trying to hold hands with a lot of suits and
• 1:02:47
  explain to them why it's not dangerous for them to do this.
• 1:02:50
  And and actually another another question popped up.
• 1:02:52
  Sorry, *** I'm taking over here one more quick.
• 1:02:55
  Question, I have a question. I have a question.
• 1:02:57
  He you said you said something about the you didn't go the VC
• 1:03:01
  route, so you bootstrap this. Mostly we, we do have a few
• 1:03:04
  external investors, but very, we haven't done fundraising in a
• 1:03:08
  long, a long, long time. So we bootstrapped most of it.
• 1:03:11
  We also it's, it's, it's like, I would say a pretty big pat on
• 1:03:17
  the, not pat on the shoulder. But we, we, we were part of an
• 1:03:21
  incubator very early on from Draper VC.
• 1:03:24
  They had a incubator called Boost back in the days.
• 1:03:26
  Then I think we got like 50K US in Bitcoin from them when we did
• 1:03:30
  that. And we just kind of didn't swap
• 1:03:32
  it out of Bitcoin, which is like complete insanity if you look at
• 1:03:35
  anything with runway and trying to survive as a company.
• 1:03:37
  But that made it made it so we could segue into a few years
• 1:03:41
  without having to go for another race before we became
• 1:03:43
  profitable. So it was a huge, huge risk.
• 1:03:45
  But we believed in the ecosystem and what we're doing right.
• 1:03:48
  It's just not a a little bit. So yeah, it worked out.
• 1:03:53
  Legend OK, before I before I pull up the website and we can
• 1:03:57
  talk about the the services that you provide on bit refill, my
• 1:04:00
  next question was going to be you.
• 1:04:02
  You kind of mentioned it. What what is the response that
• 1:04:05
  you're getting today from companies when you reach out and
• 1:04:08
  try to get new gift cards? Are they more like acceptable
• 1:04:13
  accepting of it or are they still thinking like, I don't I
• 1:04:16
  don't want to get involved. It's too risky.
• 1:04:18
  Nowadays it's super good. It's actually them reaching out
• 1:04:22
  to us a lot of the times because we in both gift card space, but
• 1:04:25
  also e-commerce, like if anybody's buying anything with
• 1:04:28
  Bitcoin, it's 1/3 of the global e-commerce volume according to
• 1:04:32
  research, like Arkan research, I think it was is us.
• 1:04:35
  So, so like if you want to touch the space, but you don't want to
• 1:04:38
  carry regulatory and treasury risk, we're the the premier
• 1:04:41
  option for all of these partners.
• 1:04:43
  So, so it helps a lot that we have so much in our history now
• 1:04:48
  and we have so many of the large brands that have done both
• 1:04:52
  business cases on us and we can share what type of users, type
• 1:04:56
  of usage it brings in and volume for them.
• 1:05:00
  So now it's more of a like, oh, they see a untapped market
• 1:05:03
  because the normal e-commerce market is kind of saturated when
• 1:05:05
  you look at anything. So this is a completely new user
• 1:05:09
  cohort for them that they in a Safeway can get access to to us
• 1:05:13
  and users just love when we bring in new products, right?
• 1:05:16
  Because if there's a thing you want that you can't buy with
• 1:05:19
  Bitcoin right now, you tell us. And usually we we manage to
• 1:05:22
  secure it in a month or two. Love it love it.
• 1:05:25
  OK I'm going to pull up your website so plug TLDR bit refill
• 1:05:29
  what? What products and services can
• 1:05:32
  people use Bitcoin on on Bit refill?
• 1:05:35
  And then I do have one more question that it'll be a more
• 1:05:39
  spicy topic that I think you'll answer great.
• 1:05:41
  But I'm gonna scroll through the website.
• 1:05:43
  What? What can they buy on bit Refill
• 1:05:46
  with Bitcoin? It's gonna sound cocky, but what
• 1:05:49
  can't you buy? Like you couldn't buy a house,
• 1:05:52
  you couldn't buy a car. Like there, there are certain
• 1:05:54
  things that are way too big, but anything you've bought the last
• 1:05:57
  week that that's like food, groceries, travel, tickets for
• 1:06:04
  trains, tickets for airplanes, anything you've shopped online,
• 1:06:10
  I would bet it's on our site. If it's not, it's probably
• 1:06:14
  doable to get up there as well if it's a large enough brand.
• 1:06:17
  I have, I have a question. I have a question for you
• 1:06:19
  Michelle. So what happens?
• 1:06:22
  Like for example I fill up the Uber one with 500 U.S. dollars
• 1:06:27
  right? And let's say I use $497.00 what
• 1:06:32
  happens with the difference? So it depends on because when
• 1:06:36
  it's an Uber, for instance, you would just deposit it into your
• 1:06:40
  Uber account so you would have it as credits there.
• 1:06:42
  I think Uber is also one of the ones we work very we work very
• 1:06:45
  closely with them. So it's even deep linked.
• 1:06:46
  So when you buy the 500, you're paying 500.
• 1:06:49
  So there's no spread in forex and weird shit happening.
• 1:06:52
  It's just straight up. And when you click the link, it
• 1:06:55
  just, if you're on your phone for instance, it opens the Uber
• 1:06:57
  app, it's redeemed on your account and then you have 500
• 1:06:59
  bucks there to spend whenever you want.
• 1:07:02
  If it's a gift card that's instead like let's say you
• 1:07:04
  bought $100.00 of a gift card that you redeem when you're
• 1:07:07
  buying something. And let's say there's like 20
• 1:07:09
  bucks left. Well then you still have those
• 1:07:11
  20 bucks on that code that you can use for another purchase.
• 1:07:13
  And if it's not enough money, then you can just like get more
• 1:07:17
  and combine them or or add a dirty Fiat card to pay the rest.
• 1:07:20
  It's up to you. Oh, but you can essentially you
• 1:07:23
  could, you could do the difference, right?
• 1:07:25
  So like if there's like $0.69 left on a card, you're like, I,
• 1:07:28
  I want to put $0.69 on this card and then, you know, the, the
• 1:07:33
  rest, I'll, I'll pay with Fiat. OK, interesting, interesting.
• 1:07:35
  This is, this is, this is fascinating stuff.
• 1:07:37
  And this makes, this makes the life of, of people that want to
• 1:07:42
  live on a Bitcoin standard. I mean it makes it possible
• 1:07:46
  using this, so I find that really interesting.
• 1:07:48
  Yeah, and I actually have a similar question because I do
• 1:07:51
  have a lot of prepaid Visa gift cards on my phone.
• 1:07:56
  Do you know a way to like what it like the same the same
• 1:08:00
  question as Nico? Like I have, I don't even know
• 1:08:04
  how many Visa gift cards I have on my phone right now connected
• 1:08:07
  to Apple Pay that I have like 2 or $3 left in there.
• 1:08:10
  Is there a way to, I don't know, transfer that $3 or do you know
• 1:08:14
  anything like maybe I'll talk to you off screen because that's
• 1:08:17
  like an actual real life issue. That I have here with my Visa
• 1:08:20
  cards. Honestly, I think the problem
• 1:08:22
  you might run into depending on where you've bought them, is
• 1:08:26
  that different companies use different processors, which are
• 1:08:29
  the people who are usually the ones holding the hands with the
• 1:08:32
  Visa cards. So you can't really combine them
• 1:08:36
  unless they're from the same actual entity in the back, I
• 1:08:38
  think. At least I haven't really looked
• 1:08:41
  at it that deeply, but I I think it's the the closer you get to 0
• 1:08:45
  the better for you I guess. 100% I'm a maybe, maybe there's a
• 1:08:50
  maybe this is brainstorming of a new product.
• 1:08:52
  I can send you my Visa card and I can get points.
• 1:08:56
  Yeah, like say exactly and you can figure it out.
• 1:09:00
  OK, OK. But I'll talk to you off off air
• 1:09:02
  because I I don't want to derail the show on this.
• 1:09:05
  But. The the spicy question that I'm
• 1:09:08
  I'm hearing, I'm hearing everyone in the chat say it
• 1:09:11
  right now, which is why would I spend my Bitcoin when I should
• 1:09:15
  be huddling my Bitcoin? So this is actually a passion
• 1:09:20
  piece for me, right? Because being around as long as
• 1:09:23
  we have, we, we do a lot of customer both outreach.
• 1:09:27
  We talk to users at conferences like we, we, we've managed to
• 1:09:30
  build it out this service out as well as we have by actually
• 1:09:34
  talking to a lot of the people that we think use our service or
• 1:09:37
  that does use our service. One problem we ran into in the
• 1:09:40
  beginning that was so annoying is we listened a lot to Twitter
• 1:09:44
  with people commenting on things that they thought we were doing
• 1:09:47
  wrong or doing poorly or we should change how we do.
• 1:09:50
  So we started like of course, adapting to what people were
• 1:09:53
  giving us feedback on that we were doing wrong, but nothing
• 1:09:55
  happened. No volume happened.
• 1:09:57
  No, no more purchasing happened because of it.
• 1:09:59
  It wasn't until we stopped listening to that and started
• 1:10:01
  catering to like the people who were actually using the site
• 1:10:03
  that like it skyrocketed in a different way because there are
• 1:10:07
  so many in our space and it's not bad.
• 1:10:09
  You need believers in that sense to to have Bitcoin become what
• 1:10:13
  it has become, right. But somebody in the space that
• 1:10:16
  they never use it like they've never done a transaction or if
• 1:10:20
  they have, it's a peer-to-peer with a friend to show how cool
• 1:10:22
  it is. But they've they've never tried
• 1:10:23
  using it in real life. They've never spent money on
• 1:10:26
  with spent Bitcoin to get things they wanted or even needed in a
• 1:10:30
  situation where like they might have been stuck otherwise and
• 1:10:32
  Bitcoin could have saved them. They haven't.
• 1:10:35
  I hold no, I'll I'll grudge versus the non spenders.
• 1:10:38
  But if you want this to become the the dominant currency of the
• 1:10:42
  world, then it needs to be a circular economy.
• 1:10:44
  You don't only acquire it and hold it then and saving it.
• 1:10:48
  You also earn it possibly by doing different types of tasks
• 1:10:52
  and jobs. You also spend it for the normal
• 1:10:54
  things you want. I think a lot of people have
• 1:10:58
  this future where you won't have to spend your Bitcoin because
• 1:11:03
  it's going to be worth so much. But let's say in that final
• 1:11:07
  future where like all Fiat currencies collapse and it's
• 1:11:09
  only Bitcoin left. Well, then you'll have to spend
• 1:11:12
  it for the things you want, but it's everything's going to be
• 1:11:14
  denominated in the SAT's, but you won't have any experience
• 1:11:16
  with doing it because you've never done it.
• 1:11:18
  I think it's a really good thing to at least a few times a month
• 1:11:23
  spend some Bitcoin instead of your normal credit card and Fiat
• 1:11:26
  card. Another thing it's easier like
• 1:11:28
  going through us with gift cards and everything else.
• 1:11:31
  It's, I would say quicker than when you just use a normal
• 1:11:34
  credit card or other transactional means because you
• 1:11:37
  click on what you want and how much you want it, it's instantly
• 1:11:39
  redeemed and you're done. There's not a lot of dates and
• 1:11:42
  you don't have to share your credit card number and have it
• 1:11:43
  be scraped from a site or anything else.
• 1:11:45
  It's it's safer and it's quicker if you want to go the boring
• 1:11:48
  route. But if you want to go the
• 1:11:50
  idealistic, right, it's more like, come on now, you're in the
• 1:11:52
  space for a reason. If you're believing, use it.
• 1:11:56
  Yeah, I mean, dude, like spend your I've spent Bitcoin like I I
• 1:12:01
  like you just do it like it's like that's kind of like the
• 1:12:06
  whole point. I I think lightning has made it
• 1:12:08
  like the experience like that much better.
• 1:12:11
  Like of course on chain is still good for yeah, my my camera
• 1:12:16
  overheated. Yeah, it's hilarious when you're
• 1:12:19
  in the darkness. All right, hey guys, it's me,
• 1:12:22
  Nico. But but no, so like I would say
• 1:12:26
  that like, yeah, I mean, I, I, I think you, you should spend
• 1:12:30
  Bitcoin. I think, you know, I think that
• 1:12:32
  you should obviously don't spend your entire stack, but you know,
• 1:12:37
  like it is money. After all, I, I, when I, I, when
• 1:12:43
  I went up to Calgary with, with BTC sessions and he, he put
• 1:12:47
  together a SAT market, you know, for circular economies and all
• 1:12:51
  that stuff. I loaded up like a lightning
• 1:12:53
  wallet with like $300.00. And I made sure to go through
• 1:12:57
  each and every single vendor and pay them in SAT's 'cause that's
• 1:13:00
  the whole point. Like you, you want it to get to
• 1:13:03
  that point. So I would say like, spend your
• 1:13:06
  Bitcoin, do it responsibly. Don't go nuts.
• 1:13:09
  Like I've, I've seen horror stories of people say that they
• 1:13:13
  spend $1000, then they spend, they spend a thousand 1000
• 1:13:16
  Bitcoin buying an apartment. So like I've heard horror
• 1:13:19
  stories like that, like don't do that.
• 1:13:23
  Like I think that if you do it responsibly and if you do want
• 1:13:25
  to buy a house or if you, you know, you do want to buy
• 1:13:29
  something for your family and, or whatever, and it's, you know,
• 1:13:31
  a, a small portion of your stack, I think, I think that's
• 1:13:34
  totally OK. I'm totally, you know, I'm, I'm
• 1:13:37
  not, I don't, I don't come from that extremist perspective
• 1:13:41
  either. But maybe it's because I've been
• 1:13:43
  in the in the space for eight years.
• 1:13:44
  Maybe I'm a little bit biased in the beginning.
• 1:13:47
  In the beginning, I didn't spend any Bitcoin for at least at
• 1:13:51
  least a cycle. I didn't spend any Bitcoin.
• 1:13:53
  But after a while, you should spend Bitcoin.
• 1:13:56
  My opinion? Yeah, I, I, I feel like there's
• 1:13:58
  a few services now as well, not even us.
• 1:14:01
  Like I'm shilling shilling friendship companies now, but
• 1:14:03
  where if you really are that gung ho on never touching your
• 1:14:07
  stack, there are services where you with even self custody.
• 1:14:12
  I believe you can borrow against your stack and Fiat and then
• 1:14:15
  spend the Fiat. And if the future goes as we are
• 1:14:18
  envisioning it does, then sooner or later whatever you borrowed
• 1:14:22
  against it to maybe then buy that house or or or maybe a
• 1:14:25
  larger purchase might just be nothing.
• 1:14:28
  So there are options even when you don't want to touch your
• 1:14:30
  stack. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:14:33
  No, there there is the collateralized loans.
• 1:14:36
  You have to watch yourself on the margin call there like on
• 1:14:39
  the downside. But yeah, there there are
• 1:14:41
  definitely ways where you can utilize your Bitcoin and not
• 1:14:45
  have to sell your stack. But again, I think all this
• 1:14:48
  comes with responsibility and all of it comes with trade-offs.
• 1:14:50
  Like all there's all pros and cons to all of this.
• 1:14:54
  But anyways, I really enjoyed this episode.
• 1:14:56
  Wait, wait. One last question, again, I
• 1:14:58
  don't want to put you on the spot, but it's a good question
• 1:15:00
  in the chat to clarify things. What are what are the privacy
• 1:15:02
  concerns for people using bit refill?
• 1:15:06
  Well, I'd say none in in that sense.
• 1:15:08
  Perfect. So when, when it comes to
• 1:15:11
  thresholds, I don't know them by head now, but anything less than
• 1:15:16
  X amount, I, I, shit, I should have them in front of me now.
• 1:15:19
  But let's say I'm not 100% sure it's this amount, but let's say
• 1:15:22
  500 bucks. Anything less than 500 bucks per
• 1:15:24
  day per user is treated regulatory wise both in the US
• 1:15:28
  and EU and everywhere else as a cash purchase.
• 1:15:30
  Right is where a store where you buy things.
• 1:15:33
  So there's no need to like go through a lot of hoops and KYC
• 1:15:36
  and stuff for that. If you want to buy larger
• 1:15:38
  things, let's say you want to spend 1020 thousand bucks on
• 1:15:41
  like a big trip or something, then we have options where you
• 1:15:43
  could KYC optionally and then get access to higher amounts.
• 1:15:47
  So those are the things and we we would never either share or
• 1:15:52
  leak or do anything with personal information what level
• 1:15:55
  we might have unless under like criminal investigation of that
• 1:15:58
  person and subpoenas like everything you can imagine.
• 1:16:02
  Yeah, awesome. All right, man.
• 1:16:04
  Well, Michelle, thank you so much for coming on to Simply
• 1:16:06
  Bitcoin Live. Today's September 4th, 2024.
• 1:16:10
  Hope you guys enjoyed that episode.
• 1:16:12
  Make sure to smash the like button.
• 1:16:13
  Consider subscribing if you feel like we provided you value.
• 1:16:16
  Of course, I'm your host, Nico's, my Co host Opti and of
• 1:16:19
  course, our guest for today is Michelle.
• 1:16:22
  He is the chief business development officer of Bit
• 1:16:26
  Refill. I got it right that time, Booyo.
• 1:16:29
  Completely. Right, boom and.
• 1:16:32
  We're. We're honored for him to have
• 1:16:34
  us. Join us.
• 1:16:36
  Go check out bitrefill.com today guys.
• 1:16:39
  For our audio listeners, it's spelled BITRE fill.com.
• 1:16:45
  All right everybody, love you all.
• 1:16:46
  We'll see you tomorrow for brending episode of Simply
• 1:16:49
  Bitcoin Live. Thanks.
• 1:16:53
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• 1:16:56
  enable independence.