Latest / Bitcoin for Financial Services Podcast / Why Your Business Needs An Anti-CBDC Strategy Now
Transcript
- 0:00We're trying to provide an escape hatch for people as fiat collapses around us.
- 0:07But more specifically, I think it can be said that we're trying to build an anti-CBDC.
- 0:14And that's kind of our core mission.
- 0:17I personally think CBDCs are going to continue to become more pervasive.
- 0:23They are. They're growing all over the world.
- 0:26Now the question is, is a CBDC coming to you?
- 0:29Is it coming to us here in the United States?
- 0:32I believe it will someday.
- 0:33I don't know how long that's going to be,
- 0:35but it could be sooner rather than later.
- 0:37And I want to make sure that I have a product
- 0:39that is prepared to withstand that storm.
- 0:42Bitcoin is a currency on the internet.
- 0:45If you don't trust any other currency,
- 0:47this is where you go.
- 0:48It's going to outperform everything.
- 0:49Bitcoin can eventually be worthless.
- 0:51Every day is a good day to buy Bitcoin.
- 0:53Bitcoin reached its highest price to date.
- 0:55Bitcoin getting a new high.
- 0:56it really has reached escape velocity.
- 0:58There is no second best.
- 1:00Who cares about Bitcoin?
- 1:01It's the only secure database that's ever been invented.
- 1:04Antisocial.
- 1:04Bitcoin is the real deal.
- 1:06Stupid.
- 1:07Everything is bullish for Bitcoin.
- 1:09Immoral.
- 1:10It's going up forever, Laura.
- 1:12Fix the money.
- 1:13Fix the world.
- 1:26and does not intend to make an offer or solicitation for the sale or purchase of any specific securities,
- 1:29investments, or investment strategies. Investments of all risk and almost otherwise stated are not guaranteed.
- 1:32Information expressed does not take into account your specific situation or objectives. It is not intended as a recommendation appropriate for any individual.
- 1:36Listeners are encouraged to seek advice from a qualified tax legal or investment advisor to determine whether any information presented may be suitable for their specific situation.
- 1:40Past performance is not indicative of future performance. Any statements or opinions are subject to change without notice.
- 1:47Welcome to the Bitcoin for Financial Services show, the podcast where sound money meets professional services.
- 1:52We explore how to build the financial services industry within the principles, ethos, and values of Bitcoin.
- 1:58And today we are joined by Adam Semecka, the founder of MANA, a self-custodial Bitcoin spending wallet that's built for everyday use.
- 2:06And they're also building out merchant tools and point-of-sale solutions to make spending sats seamless on both sides of the transaction.
- 2:13All right, let's get into it.
- 2:14hey y'all welcome back to another episode of the bitcoin for financial services
- 2:23podcast today we've got adam simeka the founder and ceo of manna bitcoin uh a self-custody wallet
- 2:32and the point of sale system we're super excited to have adam on and kind of just talk through
- 2:37all the things that manna supports and some things that they've rolled out in the past
- 2:41six to 12 months. So Adam, thanks so much for making the time today.
- 2:46I appreciate it. Thank you for having me, guys.
- 2:49Yeah. So maybe start off, I know you've been in the Bitcoin space for quite some time. A lot of
- 2:54the people that we end up talking with are part of that like 2020, 2021 class. One thing I really
- 3:01love about you is you go back a bit further. So maybe give everyone in the audience kind of your
- 3:07background how did you stumble into bitcoin um yeah what did that look like for you because i
- 3:12know it's a little bit further in the past stumble is a great word i uh i actually found bitcoin
- 3:18through ethereum so uh the short story is i was in the air force deployed over we'll have to bleep
- 3:24that out jordan yeah just bleep that out i actually i don't i don't remember who it was
- 3:31there's some big podcast that i started listening to a long time ago and i wrote them a message i
- 3:37like hey you know it'd be really cool just like for marketing purposes just like bleep out every
- 3:41time somebody says crypto or any altcoin there you go i love it it would catch on for like a pretty
- 3:47fun uh shtick for somebody but um no anyway uh back to the story i uh was in the air force deployed
- 3:55overseas so i had some free time i was a firefighter i was working 24 hour shifts so 24
- 4:00on 24 off so every other 24 hours i had a lot of free time and so i was doing some studying
- 4:06learning about stocks mostly. So I started investing in the stock market, wanted to find
- 4:15a way to preserve my wealth into the future and start saving something and something that wasn't
- 4:21just dollars. Because at the time, I didn't really know why. But of course, at this point,
- 4:27come to learn that the incentives of fiat essentially create this mechanism of a requirement
- 4:34to do something else with your money.
- 4:35So we have to financialize and monetize
- 4:38a non-monetary asset, so to speak,
- 4:41in order to preserve our purchasing power,
- 4:43which now that we have Bitcoin,
- 4:46they can be one and the same.
- 4:47Your money can also be your savings,
- 4:50but we're disincentivized to save our money in fiat.
- 4:56So I was just doing a bunch of research on some stocks
- 5:00and I got a targeted ad
- 5:02because of course I was searching,
- 5:04putting all these search results
- 5:06or these search terms in
- 5:07and Investopedia targeted me for a targeted ad
- 5:11and it was about Ethereum.
- 5:13Fortunately, the article was specifically
- 5:15about proof of work.
- 5:17And so as I'm reading through this,
- 5:18I was able to see what proof of work was
- 5:20and it blew my mind.
- 5:21And so I realized that like,
- 5:23that was a really big deal.
- 5:25I didn't know what Bitcoin was at the time, of course,
- 5:27but I went back to my room
- 5:30or my little trailer that I was like a little section inside of a trailer
- 5:34in the middle of the desert in the Middle East where I was staying.
- 5:38Had a little nice little window unit air conditioner.
- 5:41So it was actually pretty comfortable.
- 5:45Yeah, so it wasn't too bad.
- 5:46But I was just doing some more research and I decided like,
- 5:51hey, I need to sell all of my stocks and I need to buy all of this new thing.
- 5:56Right. At the time, it was just crypto to me.
- 5:58I didn't really quite understand, you know, what all the differences were.
- 6:01But fortunately, a big part of that investment was in Bitcoin.
- 6:06So at least by day one, I knew that I should buy Bitcoin.
- 6:10Over time, I realized a lot more about, you know, the overall environment and what Bitcoin was specifically and how it was different from, you know, Ethereum specifically.
- 6:23and just the overall environment of really what the technology was
- 6:30and what solutions it was solving, what problems it was solving.
- 6:36And, I mean, it probably took me a few years to really actually understand.
- 6:40In fact, I would say it was probably not even until, like,
- 6:42after the COVID era where it really fully clicked for me.
- 6:46I thought it did before.
- 6:48I went to, you know, schools and I did a ton of study.
- 6:53In Bitcoin, I did some study under Andreas Antonopoulos in the University of Nicosia, if you know who or what that is.
- 7:02It was called a digital currency program and basically went through Bitcoin.
- 7:10It was essentially mastering Bitcoin in a course form.
- 7:14So the purpose of it was like to come in from nothing.
- 7:18And by the end of it, basically being able to build Bitcoin, like create Bitcoin from the ground up with, you know, all the open source architecture that it has.
- 7:28And so it wasn't only technical, it was also, you know, some idealistic as well.
- 7:34Some of the philosophies about Bitcoin and really the money aspect of Bitcoin, too.
- 7:41So it took me a few years, but I eventually figured out that Bitcoin was the signal and everything else had insiders, basically.
- 7:49That's kind of my background and sprinkled in there.
- 7:52I did some other things.
- 7:53I started a mining company in Wells.
- 7:57It was actually pretty, I started working on that mining company pretty soon after I started learning about Bitcoin.
- 8:03This was in 2017.
- 8:04I don't know if I mentioned that.
- 8:05So I started building my first Bitcoin business in 2017.
- 8:10created a plug and play Bitcoin miner that we sold for a number of years,
- 8:15which was just basically a box, an ASIC that you buy and it ships to your home and you plug it in
- 8:21and you turn it on and it starts mining Bitcoin for you. So no setup required,
- 8:25which was pretty novel at the time. A few months after we came out with that,
- 8:31there was another company. They got pretty popular, but they actually died probably.
- 8:36I don't know if they were still even around by the time you guys were in the space, but
- 8:40I'm trying to remember the name of them.
- 8:42It was like CoinMine, I think is what it was.
- 8:47It was a different, but it wasn't just Bitcoin.
- 8:52It was like crypto, right?
- 8:53So that's why they failed.
- 8:56And I mean, there's a lot of reasons behind why, you know,
- 8:59crypto companies never last.
- 9:02I don't know how far you want to go down that rabbit hole today.
- 9:04But just to finish up my background,
- 9:07I kind of just continued on that path for a while.
- 9:10And then most recently, it's been a little over a year and a half ago, I started working on Mana, which of course is a self-custodial Bitcoin payments app with the wallet function as well as point of sale and also has some other pretty cool features as well.
- 9:27But my theme has basically been taking Bitcoin, making it palatable for the average person, even the no-coiner, right?
- 9:38So going and creating products that you don't necessarily need to understand Bitcoin in order to start dipping your toe into the water and building them in such a way that you don't really necessarily have to compromise.
- 9:50And that's a big deal for me because as I'm building MANA, there's a lot of other options out there that are easy.
- 9:57They work well.
- 9:59Behind the scenes, they're very reliable to a degree.
- 10:03But the caveat is there's sometimes some sacrifice or some compromises that are made.
- 10:10For example, a custodial wallet generally works really well, but you are giving up a lot of the benefits of Bitcoin in doing so.
- 10:19So I wanted to make a product that was as easy and as fluid to use as a custodial wallet without that tradeoff.
- 10:28Sorry for the long intro, but that gets us caught up to today, I think.
- 10:33No, man, that's great. I appreciate it. A handful of interesting things in that.
- 10:40And I'll just start by saying I'm a patriot. So because Jordan Dent, I'll thank you for your service.
- 10:45um you're welcome thank yeah and uh i do you think this is interesting thread i've kind of noticed
- 10:53is as i've talked to more service members in the bitcoin community and if anybody has seen some
- 10:59content on this i'd be definitely interested in checking it out but i'm always curious in how
- 11:03people come to bitcoin i think service members specifically kind of have this innate sense where
- 11:09it's like yeah maybe don't trust these guys or this fiat slop is just slop um so i think that's
- 11:16interesting um and then the targeted ad you know for ethereum i think that's also interesting
- 11:22because that's almost a meme in itself you know bitcoin doesn't have a marketing department
- 11:25nobody should be pushing you things you know it's aggressors movement you gotta come to it
- 11:29um yourself as opposed to it you know you know coming to you unless you're you're getting orange
- 11:34billed by a good friend in which case they are a good friend but specifically when it
- 11:37it comes to man, I'm excited to get into like this non-custodial aspect of things. Because as you
- 11:44know, we're talking to other advisors, CPAs, you know, the whole works, like there's a lot of
- 11:49legalese that go into, you know, what kind of products you can offer your clients. And, you
- 11:53know, is this custodial? Do you have certain responsibilities and obligations because it is
- 11:57custodial? How do you guys facilitate that framework? Yeah, so there are a lot of services
- 12:05out there, especially exchanges. That's probably the main one people have exposure to just because
- 12:10a lot of people get their Bitcoin from buying it through an exchange. And most of these exchanges
- 12:15are custodial, meaning that there is a custodian that is taking custody of your asset. In other
- 12:24words, it means it's not really your Bitcoin. What you have is an IOU and this company has promised
- 12:30you to give you that Bitcoin at some point when you ask for it. Maybe. In fact, a number of years
- 12:36ago, a lot of the popular exchanges that were coming up were not even able to give you the
- 12:40Bitcoin. So PayPal, Robinhood, PayPal and Venmo, Robinhood, a lot of these, you know, pop up Bitcoin
- 12:49exchanges allowed you to get price exposure. You could, they would tell you they were selling you
- 12:53Bitcoin. But really, all you were doing is giving them some of your fiat money, and then they would
- 13:00essentially lock your price in and then you could sell it again back to them and they would give you
- 13:06the fiat back. So they didn't allow you to interact with the Bitcoin network natively in any way.
- 13:13And so that's just, you know, one example of many of how this whole custody situation works.
- 13:21So that's why you hear a lot of people say, you know, not your keys, not your coins.
- 13:26you need to take custody, self-custody. It's very, very important because all of the benefits of what
- 13:31Bitcoin offers can't be utilized unless you actually hold the Bitcoin yourself. So the
- 13:38permissionlessness, the trustlessness, you know, the immutability, the censorship resistance,
- 13:44you know, these things don't come with an IOU token, which is what happens when you hold your
- 13:51Bitcoin on an exchange or in a custodial wallet. And that's a big reason why, you know, I do what
- 13:56I do. And it is to try to make it easy for people to take custody of their own Bitcoin. So from,
- 14:03you know, a tax perspective, an accounting perspective, the onus really is on the,
- 14:11you know, end user. And of course, it's always helpful to have somebody there with you to help
- 14:16guide you through that process and help show you how you can do your accounting properly.
- 14:20and remain compliant if that's what you want to do.
- 14:24Certainly there's people out there that are, you know, against that sort of thing.
- 14:28And, hey, I commend them.
- 14:29But I definitely don't recommend, you know, doing anything to try to avoid, you know,
- 14:34anything that you're legally obligated to do.
- 14:37So I'll just leave it at that.
- 14:38But my point is on MANA, the way that it works right now is just like you would expect with
- 14:45any financial product, there's a record that's easy to be exported.
- 14:50And so as a Manna user all you would need to do is export your transactions and share them with you know anybody that is helping you with taxes or financial assistance
- 15:02So if you've got, you know, a CPA, they have easy access to all of your data that you want to share with them.
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- 15:39And you guys do multi-sig, I assume, right?
- 15:41So there's single-sig setups and multi-sig, right?
- 15:45Yep, yep.
- 15:45Yeah, because I think that that's honestly, you know, that's the path that I think everyone is ultimately going to need to go down for all kinds of different use cases built on top of these wallets.
- 15:58Like, for example, I was even pitched. These guys have been pitching me for a little bit. I won't out them, but they've been talking to me about this, like lending, you know, desk that, you know, and I go into each of these conversations like, okay, well, if you want me to talk to my clients about this, like, I've got a lot of questions.
- 16:15Right. And and main the main one is what is the custody like?
- 16:21What's the custody set up in the background?
- 16:23Because if someone's going to send their Bitcoin over to you or post it to you and now you're able to go run wild, like that's what we ran into with the FTX.
- 16:32And so I guess maybe I don't just speak on that a little bit.
- 16:35I know FTX was just this, it was a terrible event that scared a lot of people.
- 16:42And I think a lot of people never came back after that because they just figured, oh, Bitcoin's a scam because of this, because of what happened with FTX.
- 16:50Maybe for a new user who just read a few headlines back in 22 when that all went down, maybe talk through what exactly happened there and why that wasn't a failure on Bitcoin's part.
- 17:02part that was a failure on the custody that um and the trust that those users were putting into
- 17:09a third party like ftx and then adam just before you you answer that i want to want to build onto
- 17:15it because and probably then to something you just mentioned too and to jordan's point i think
- 17:21us as you know professionals and advisors in this space this custody question and your due diligence
- 17:27process is probably the most important and something that just resonated with me that
- 17:31you brought up adam i remember it's like when i was first getting into bitcoin like the people
- 17:35um i had known that had you know bought or traded bitcoin or whatever were predominantly using
- 17:40robinhead and i remember at the time learning that it's like you can't even withdraw it's not
- 17:44even real bitcoin it was like this you know fake paper whatever the hell it was and it was just so
- 17:49shocking to me it was like oh wow people are actually doing this sort of thing like that's
- 17:54crazy you can't even get your bitcoin like that's where all your bitcoin is like holy smokes
- 17:58oh yeah uh i mean yeah i remember that very clearly um and i mean in the total bitcoin
- 18:06fashion you know you if you were on bitcoin twitter at the time of course you would get
- 18:11made fun of like that's just how bitcoiners lovingly fix all these problems we just make
- 18:16fun of people until you fix your issues uh i promise we we love you we do it out of love
- 18:22um and we don't want to see you guys get rugged because i actually i have a thread
- 18:27that I made a number of years ago.
- 18:29And it had a running list of every centralized custodian
- 18:35that had rugged their customers.
- 18:38Basically, they collapsed
- 18:39or they just straight up stole their customers' money.
- 18:42It's a pretty long list.
- 18:44But I could honestly name more failures
- 18:47of custodial solutions than I can successes,
- 18:51which is really sad.
- 18:53And obviously, you brought up FTX Jordan.
- 18:55That's a great example.
- 18:56of course that was probably the biggest although I'm not sure if you would qualify like any of the
- 19:03hacks because there have been plenty of hacks as well that have been massive as well so the scale
- 19:09I'm not 100% sure of but FTX was a very noteworthy one it's very public and that's the one we all
- 19:16know and recognize there's a lot of layers to that and why that happened I'll just like I don't know
- 19:23how deep you want to get into it, but one of the solutions that we have to preventing things like
- 19:28this is proof of reserves. So it's something that I'm a big advocate of, but at the same time,
- 19:35I'm also skeptical and cautious about because it can be false sense of security. So proof of
- 19:43reserves, all it does is basically attest to the amount of Bitcoin they have in a public fashion.
- 19:50So if you're holding Bitcoin on behalf of somebody else, especially the public, I think it's important for you to be able to share that information with the world or at least, you know, your clients.
- 20:02There are a lot of people and businesses that still don't.
- 20:06So I think that that really should be the standard for anybody holding Bitcoin in a custodial fashion.
- 20:12there are a lot of also a lot of great businesses organizations and even governments that do
- 20:19disclose those proof of reserves so river's really good at that they're kind of a pathfinder
- 20:24so shout out to river they're they've built a lot of technology that has made that easy and
- 20:30they've made it available for other people to use as well so um you know lots of credit to those guys
- 20:36um you've got el salvador you know a country that is publicly disclosing their bitcoin holdings so
- 20:42You can go, anybody can audit their treasury, their Bitcoin treasury at any moment.
- 20:47You have Tether, which, you know, that's kind of a little bit of a tangent subject, but they're holding Bitcoin and they're also publicly disclosing that.
- 20:56So it's really not hard to do, in my opinion, for the trade.
- 21:00You know, it's not much of a tradeoff.
- 21:02And I think everybody should do it.
- 21:05Rewinding a little bit more, Jordan, you're asking about multi-sig.
- 21:08And I think, I don't know if you've said these words, but it sounded like you were maybe insinuating or implying some degree of collaborative custody.
- 21:17So collaborative custody would be a multi-sig setup where somebody, a third party, holds one of your keys.
- 21:24So real quick to break that down, just in case there's anybody listening that doesn't know what multi-sig is.
- 21:28Multi-sig is just an arrangement of the keys that you hold to access your Bitcoin where you have more than one signature.
- 21:38Now, multi-sig could be with yourself. You could have more than one key with yourself. You could have multi-sig in an organization where, you know, certain key players in the business or organization have a key. And it's kind of like, I think of like the nuclear launch codes, right?
- 21:55So you've got these nuclear launch codes that are distributed among all these military generals and the president and everybody.
- 22:02And the correct amount of keys have to be inserted and turned at the same time in order for the nuke to launch.
- 22:09So it's kind of like that where you can't actually send a Bitcoin transaction unless you get approval from everybody, a minimum quorum of the people that you have predefined.
- 22:20so it is uh fairly customizable in in how you do multi-sig but again keep in mind there's a total
- 22:29number of keys and then a minimum quorum so you could have a two of two multi-sig which just means
- 22:35there's two keys and it requires two signatures you know one signature from each key in order to
- 22:40send a transaction you could do a two of three you could do a three of five i mean there's really
- 22:45not really any limit um although i you know you don't want to get too carried away because the
- 22:49more complicated and you make it, the harder it's going to be to spend that Bitcoin. And if
- 22:52something happens, that Bitcoin could get locked away forever. So just keep that in mind. It's not
- 22:58a beginner setup, I don't think, in my opinion, unless you have a third party involved. And so
- 23:05there are a lot of good services out there that can do collaborative custody, which I think is
- 23:09good for some people. I don't recommend it for everybody, just because there are trade-offs.
- 23:14the main trade-off being you are giving up your privacy pretty much entirely. So if you have a
- 23:21collaborative custody set up, just understand that whoever the third party is on the other end of
- 23:25that, they're going to be able to see all of the activity on that wallet. So yeah, again, I just
- 23:34want to make sure that it's clear that it's not like a silver bullet, but it is a good solution
- 23:39for people that want to be able to have kind of a better, more of a handheld experience.
- 23:46And if you have somebody who's very well experienced and knowledgeable in the Bitcoin space,
- 23:53you know, one of these companies or an advisor that is able to join you on that journey and you
- 23:58trust and you're okay with giving up that privacy, then it's a great option because they're able to
- 24:04help you with you know the the the tracking of all of the financials and everything like that so
- 24:11yeah and i think the other thing you know we say keys i think maybe let's go down that path just
- 24:18to touch just to just to kind of say exactly what it is right because it's not it's not exactly like
- 24:24a key like you used to you know put into your toyota camry right it's i guess maybe adam talk
- 24:30through the different devices that are that have a key stored on them and what that technically
- 24:35looks like so a key in very simple terms is basically a password right um you have in bitcoin
- 24:43you have public keys and you have private keys and you need a public key and a private key in order
- 24:48to spend the bitcoin um the public key can be shared with other people um and that's part of
- 24:56what would be required to receive a transaction.
- 25:00But, you know, it's not something that you would want to just disclose
- 25:03to the whole world all at once.
- 25:05You don't want to keep, you know, both keys relatively private to a degree
- 25:09unless you have a reason not to.
- 25:10So an example of this would be, you know, El Salvador
- 25:13providing its public wallet address to the world.
- 25:17They made that decision to do so.
- 25:20The alternative example would be like strategy.
- 25:22Right now, they don't publicly disclose their address
- 25:25or their addresses. And so as an individual, most people don't have a reason to share
- 25:32that level of information with the world. I don't want everybody to know how much Bitcoin I have,
- 25:37so I'm not out there sharing all of my public keys with everybody.
- 25:41And so these keys, again, it's just a set of characters. It's a password, if you will,
- 25:47in a very simple way of looking at it. And that is how you access your Bitcoin. It's kind of like
- 25:54how you log into the to the time chain, so to speak. It's how you prove that you are the owner
- 25:59and you're able to move the Bitcoin to where it needs to go. And it's stored on a device, right?
- 26:05So when you actually go to go like spin that Bitcoin, it's you're physically picking up
- 26:10a device, right? And then you're either using a SIM card into your computer or you're plugging it
- 26:16into a cord with a cord. And that is basically signing it from us. And that's the whole thing
- 26:22with the cold storage, I guess, versus the hot wallet as well, which we could go down that path
- 26:26as well. Yeah. So let's talk about the different ways that you can store or manage a key. So
- 26:33really the standard, the best way to hold a key is offline, meaning that your keys are not on a
- 26:43device that touches the internet. That would be what we call cold storage, right? So this would
- 26:49be like you buy a hardware wallet or, you know, it's kind of what we call them. I don't think
- 26:55hardware wallet is actually a good term for most of these devices. I agree. I agree. It's a huge
- 27:00misnomer. That frustrates me. It's a misnomer. What it is, it's they're usually key wallets,
- 27:06right? So you're actually, it holds your key, but it doesn't hold the Bitcoin. It's not a wallet
- 27:10itself. It's not a Bitcoin wallet, right? Most of these, I mean, some of them have Bitcoin wallets
- 27:14built in. But for the most part, these devices are not actually wallets, at least not for the
- 27:20Bitcoin. They're just they just hold the keys and allow you to sign transactions. So when I can,
- 27:26when I have the opportunity to, I typically just refer to them as signers or signing devices.
- 27:31I think that's a much more appropriate term for what these cold storage devices are. But you don't
- 27:37actually even need to keep your key on the devices. So there's another method that would allow you to
- 27:43keep your key offline. And some people have created like QR codes that they can scan,
- 27:49this would be how something like the seed signer would work. So seed signers, what's called stateless,
- 27:54stateless just means it doesn't store the memory of the key inside the physical memory of the device.
- 27:59So if somebody steals the device, there's literally no way they can extract your key.
- 28:04Now, obviously, there are trade offs with with everything you do. And so you still have to have
- 28:09the key in an accessible format. So either you would have to enter the key in the device,
- 28:13or you could scan one of these QR codes. But at any rate, you would have a key either,
- 28:21most of the time, written down in a 12-word, what's called a BIP39 mnemonic seed phrase.
- 28:27It's just 12 or 24 words sometimes. It's just a series of random words that actually
- 28:34decrypt your key, which is just an unreadable set of characters. So BIP39 was a standard that
- 28:43was put in place to make your key human readable. So you can actually, you know, say it, you can
- 28:49speak it, you can see it, you can read it. Because if it's just completely random characters and
- 28:53numbers, it's a lot more hard to work with. So either you have a BIP39 seed phrase, or you have
- 29:00that in a QR form. And so there are a lot of devices that can do that stateless. I know
- 29:07SeedSigner, of course, that's really all it does. It doesn't ever store your key. There's
- 29:12Blockstream Jade that can also operate in a stateless fashion. I think the new Coldcard Q,
- 29:19I think that can also do stateless with scanning because it's got a camera on it now.
- 29:24So there's a number of them.
- 29:28But my point is, you don't even have to have it on the device if you don't want to.
- 29:33I would say a very popular method of key storage is on the physical device where you're keeping the key in the memory of the device.
- 29:42But some people advocate against that.
- 29:44You can also keep a key on your phone.
- 29:47Like this can be a signer It can also hold the software for the wallet And that would be what we would call a hot wallet So MANA is a hot wallet because your keys are on the phone
- 30:02And it is not as secure as cold storage because it is only as secure as the device in which the keys are on.
- 30:08So if you want ultimate total security, maybe you've got a lot of Bitcoin you need to keep safe.
- 30:16The best and most secure way of doing that is in cold storage.
- 30:19meaning your key has not been seen by a device that touches the internet.
- 30:25You know, so you can even have paper wallets.
- 30:28I guess we'll just wrap up with that real quick.
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- 31:08Well, I think it's helpful because, you know, I think a lot of the time, if you've been in the
- 31:13Bitcoin space, if you've handled key, uh, these, these signing devices and you've configured
- 31:18wallets, you kind of, at least in my head, I kind of assume, oh, everyone, everyone's done this.
- 31:24Everyone knows what we're talking about. And so I know it feels a little elementary to kind of go
- 31:27back and walk through some of that, but I think it's, it's important. I don't know if Wyatt and
- 31:31I have actually gone down that path with any of our guests and, and the first eight episodes. So
- 31:36I really, I appreciate you doing that, Adam. Yeah, absolutely. Um, I'll also just say, um,
- 31:43This is kind of a unique time.
- 31:45If anybody's watching this, you know, in, let's just say, 30 years from now,
- 31:50I'm pretty sure this won't be useful to them
- 31:53because I don't actually think that normal average people
- 31:56are going to be using Layer 1 in 30 years, at least not directly.
- 32:01It'll be, I think, indirect just because Layer 1 can't support planet Earth.
- 32:06It just can't mathematically.
- 32:07so with that said that's a big part of you know how we're building mana as well because we have
- 32:16you know a higher layer like a layer two and you could even consider mana a layer three because it
- 32:21it's interoperable between different layers it's kind of built on top of lightning and liquid
- 32:27and bitcoin but it allows you to I mean and that's why that's why we have it on the phone
- 32:34It's simply just because that's the easiest way to do it and with the least amount of tradeoffs, I think, in my opinion.
- 32:41And the purpose of it is to be a spending wallet.
- 32:43Now, we talked about the misnomer earlier, Wyatt, with these wallets.
- 32:48Now, MANA, I think, is actually what we would think of when we think of a wallet.
- 32:53It's like the billfold that you carry around on you.
- 32:56Maybe it's your purse, whatever.
- 32:57But it is a spending mechanism, right?
- 33:01It's not necessarily to replace your retirement.
- 33:04That's not where you put your retirement savings, in my opinion.
- 33:07It would work for that, and people use it for it,
- 33:10but it's not the best use case for MANA.
- 33:13So again, right now we have the benefit and the luxury to use Layer 1 fairly easily.
- 33:19Fees are pretty low, and we all have access to it.
- 33:22And so my general recommendation is if you've got a lot of Bitcoin
- 33:25and you want to store securely for a long time,
- 33:28I definitely want to probably put that in cold storage.
- 33:32So yeah, just kind of the different mechanisms
- 33:35and ways of using and storing Bitcoin.
- 33:39Yeah, I'm glad Wyatt.
- 33:42Yeah, a couple of things on that, Adam.
- 33:44So one, maybe we talk about the secure element
- 33:49with phones and hot wallets and why that's important.
- 33:52And then two, you kind of brought up the future.
- 33:56One of the things I get excited about with these non-custodial collaborative custody technologies that, you know, we thank you for developing is specifically the types of financial products that can be built with that kind of core infrastructure and technology.
- 34:13And, you know, one that comes to mind, you know, instantly is, you know, lending.
- 34:17I'm seeing a lot more, you know, lending products kind of utilize this setup.
- 34:20up. So have you kind of thought the second part of the question, have you thought in the future,
- 34:25you know, what this kind of technology facilitates in terms of financial products and services?
- 34:32Yes, I have, in fact, from day one. And I don't want to disappoint anybody just because
- 34:38it sounds like you guys, you know, are, you know, have a particular stance on this. And so do I,
- 34:46but I think I think I might have a different one than you guys do.
- 34:48um let's hear it we love controversy on the podcast yeah so so a big part of of why i built
- 34:56mana and why that why the team is behind me is building mana alongside me is um you know we're
- 35:03trying to provide uh an escape hatch for people as as fiat collapses around us um but more
- 35:11specifically um i think it can be said that we're trying to build an anti-cbdc and that's that's
- 35:18kind of our core mission. I personally think CBDCs are going to continue to become more pervasive.
- 35:26They are. I mean, that's an objective technique. They're growing, you know, all over the world.
- 35:35Now, the question is, is a CBDC coming to you? Is it coming to us here in the United States?
- 35:40I believe it will someday. I don't know how long that's going to be, but it could be sooner rather
- 35:45than later. And I want to make sure that I have a product that can, that is prepared to withstand
- 35:50that storm. And part of that is I want to build tools and products that, um, that provide humanity
- 36:00with more freedom, not less. And so we've taken a very specific, um, direction in doing our best to
- 36:11not promote or propagate that fiat system. So lending is something, you know, specifically that
- 36:18we have decided not to build. Because, you know, my personal belief is that further entrenches us
- 36:25into the central banking fractional reserve, rehypothecated system. So, and those are things
- 36:32that I think are a detriment to society. So yeah, yes, you can build lending products into
- 36:38really easily onto open source architecture, which is great.
- 36:44As far as, you know, from Mana's perspective,
- 36:47you know, at least, you know, with us officially,
- 36:50we don't ever intend on, you know,
- 36:53building out any type of a fiat product inside of the app.
- 36:56It's all Bitcoin.
- 36:57And that's kind of part of our brand as well.
- 36:59No, that makes sense.
- 37:02And I think the lending is,
- 37:05it'll be interesting to see how it all plays out.
- 37:07I mean, right now, again, we're getting pitched on a bunch of different products and most of them saying I can't wrap my head around how you guys like, for example, one comes to me that's like, oh, we can do it at a lower interest rate.
- 37:20And anytime someone who comes in and says, oh, you do it at a lower interest rate than what Strike is offering, for example, I'm like, I mean, 99% sure that I could never tell my client confidently to go use this.
- 37:35and so I think it will be interesting to see how it all plays out because you know there are like
- 37:40and I want to get into the small businesses that are able to use your tool with point of sale
- 37:44but there is like mismatch I guess if I was to try to steel man it between cash flow coming in
- 37:51the door and cash flow going out the door and so even you know a line of credit for a small business
- 37:57makes a lot of sense you know for a very short-term cash needs but I totally understand
- 38:02your guys stance of like, that's just not us. There's products out there that you can go to
- 38:07utilize that solve that problem. That's not MANA. I guess if we wanted to pivot maybe over to the
- 38:14point of sale, there's all kinds of hubbub in the Bitcoin space right now about this whole treasury
- 38:21versus payments. I think it's probably both, but I'm sure you guys both saw the controversy that
- 38:27happened, I guess, earlier this week when the Sailor Danny Knowles podcast was released. I guess,
- 38:35Adam, I assume you have some strong opinions about that exchange and what was spoken there.
- 38:41Maybe give us your spicy take there, and then I'd love for us to go down the path of
- 38:47Bitcoin payments and how you all are supporting small business owners that are onboarding there.
- 38:51Sure. I'll get into the Sailor Danny thing here in just a second. But I wanted to recap on something just a moment ago that we're talking about, about how MANA has taken the specific direction of non-incorporating fiat products.
- 39:04honestly one of the biggest reasons for that is simply regulation and and you know requirements
- 39:11and compliance um once you touch fiat you have to have all sorts of licenses and uh lots you know
- 39:18all sorts of different certifications for the compliance uh side of things so it's really it's
- 39:24also just not practical for us at our size to even incorporate that so i just wanted i didn't want
- 39:29that to go unsaid so let's get back to the question uh the one that everybody's wanting to
- 39:34hear, you know, my opinion on Saylor and Danny. Of course, there is a infamous interview between
- 39:41Daniels and Michael Saylor on what Bitcoin did. So my opinion on that is before I,
- 39:50before I, you know, roast Saylor, so to speak, I'll just say, I love Michael Saylor, probably more
- 39:58than, you know, a lot of people around me. I mean, people are just generally either, you know,
- 40:04for him or the critics of him. I'm definitely for Michael Saylor. I actually truly believe that he
- 40:10is a massive net positive in Bitcoin from a traditional finance perspective, as well as,
- 40:17you know, this emerging, you know, freedom money perspective as well. So I think that
- 40:23Michael Saylor is fundamentally putting more energy toward hyper Bitcoinization. And I would
- 40:33even go as far as to say as ending central banking than any other human. So that's my argument
- 40:42against the hardcore, diehard Bitcoiners that say, you know, sailors just building these fiat
- 40:48products and making the fiat world stronger and taking away people's sovereignty by offering these
- 40:55securities. Here's what I'll say to that. If you're in that camp, don't buy stocks, just buy Bitcoin.
- 41:02In fact, Michael Saylor himself has only ever advocated to buy Bitcoin.
- 41:07Really.
- 41:08I mean, he's never said to buy his sock over Bitcoin.
- 41:11Not once.
- 41:12So just keep that in mind.
- 41:14Like, I think he's actually a good guy.
- 41:16I don't think he's against the Bitcoiners.
- 41:19With that said, you know, all those compliments.
- 41:22I do think that he could have handled the situation in the interview a little bit better.
- 41:27I did not like his response personally.
- 41:29I will say we are all human.
- 41:31I have certainly also had my fair share of exchanges that I wish had gone a little bit differently from my side.
- 41:38And I think he just had a moment.
- 41:40That's what I'm interpreting this as.
- 41:43He just had a moment of being human.
- 41:46And I think a question was asked that struck a nerve.
- 41:51And it was a very simple, I think, honest question from Danny.
- 41:55I don't think he deserved the lashing that he got.
- 41:58and I'm glad they kind of were able to resolve it.
- 42:03I've also seen a lot of criticism on the Danny side as well
- 42:06and I've been sticking up for Danny online
- 42:09just because people are saying he's been a pushover
- 42:13to put it lightly in the PG version for this show.
- 42:17But yeah, I think it's unfortunate
- 42:20that we had an interviewer go into somebody else's home
- 42:24and people are criticizing him for not being,
- 42:27you know pushing back harder on Michael Saylor I don't think that's right I think I think he
- 42:32handled it well um I think Danny was very respectful um and uh you know apologetic which
- 42:39I think is actually pretty important to uh find common ground in people you have to be a little
- 42:43bit empathetic uh to the other side of the the the other side of the argument I guess in this case
- 42:49so well and Adam just for for the the audience why don't we get some background like the specific
- 42:54a question and response uh yeah so as best as i can remember i only watched it once but
- 43:00danny nobles was basically uh asking a question of you know why would anybody invest in some of
- 43:07these other bitcoin treasury companies you know what is like what is the reason basically and i
- 43:13think that it was a like i said an honest question um and i think michael saylor took it as him
- 43:20criticizing these
- 43:22treasury companies and saying,
- 43:24I think Michael Saylor heard
- 43:25these other treasury companies shouldn't exist.
- 43:28I think that's what Saylor heard.
- 43:29I don't think that's necessarily what Danny was asking
- 43:32or saying, but
- 43:33I think in Michael Saylor's mind, Danny
- 43:35was saying, you know, these companies
- 43:38shouldn't be adopting Bitcoin.
- 43:40And that's kind of what Saylor took
- 43:42off and ran with. And he's like,
- 43:44why are you criticizing Bitcoin companies? You should
- 43:46be criticizing, you know, the companies that aren't
- 43:48buying Bitcoin, which I agree with. I actually think both sides were right in what they were
- 43:53saying. I just didn't necessarily agree with the delivery from Michael Saylor. And I think that
- 43:57I think Saylor was talking past Danny. Yeah. So and the big thing, too, was that I think Danny
- 44:05was just making the point, you know, that you've got to choose where to put your money. Right. So
- 44:11you're going to put it in Bitcoin or you're going to put it in one of these treasury companies.
- 44:14and um and a lot of the people who put money in treasury companies have not been it's not been
- 44:21panning out well and and then when sailor said you know when he was like we don't compete against
- 44:27each other i mean i was like well of course you do because an investor is looking down a list of
- 44:32all these treasury companies just try to say and i think it's it's a bit shitcoin like behavior
- 44:39because they chasing what they believe to be our potential higher returns than what Bitcoin would provide And so I thought it was a real I just thought it was a super fair question And when he said we not competing with each other I understood in one sense what he meant But like from a practical sense of course you competing with where those dollars are flowing into whatever Bitcoin backed equity is in that bucket
- 45:07So, yeah, and I think that's a good point. I think that's really a big part of the problem is that from my perspective, and by the way, full disclosure, I hold micro strategy or strategy shares stock in a 401k retirement account that I have.
- 45:24So I am a shareholder of strategy. So take what I say with a group of salt here. But I think from my perspective, there's really two things that we're talking about here.
- 45:37It is the fact that what you just said, I think, is true.
- 45:42I think there is some competition among the Bitcoin treasury companies, right?
- 45:46So when you're buying a security and your goal is to essentially buy Bitcoin, maybe you can't buy real Bitcoin, but there's a large number of people who want Bitcoin exposure or think they're buying some form of Bitcoin, right?
- 46:04There is a specific category of that type of security. And I think that there is competition and who's going to be able to do that best and who's going to be able to attract the most capital. So I do think that that's true. But to Michael Saylor's point, I don't think it has to be true. Right. And I think the underlying point that he's really trying to make is that every company can benefit from buying Bitcoin.
- 46:25now i think it's up up for argument whether or not that these securitized bitcoin companies if
- 46:32there needs to be more than one or if there is you know where is the line on in the competition
- 46:38and when i say securitized bitcoin i just mean like i think there's a group of people that like
- 46:43i mentioned their goal is to buy bitcoin they can only buy a security right or it's the best method
- 46:48for them to get exposure and so what in their mind they're buying bitcoin but instead of buying
- 46:54real Bitcoin in cold storage, so to speak, you're buying a security-like strategy.
- 47:01And so I think there is a lot of overlap, right?
- 47:03And I think, honestly, the biggest tell of that was when we saw a lot of these Bitcoin
- 47:09treasury companies kind of take a nosedive, what happened in the altcoin space?
- 47:14And this kind of goes back to what you were talking about, Jordan.
- 47:16Altseason, so to speak, took off, right?
- 47:20So the treasury company started going down and the altcoins are going up.
- 47:24So it's just this group of people that are essentially gambling and chasing those fast gains.
- 47:29And that's kind of what I saw.
- 47:31And that is my impression.
- 47:32It is that this group of people went from buying these Bitcoin treasury companies and propping them up and even front running the IPOs and rotating into altcoins.
- 47:43It's the same game, in my opinion.
- 47:45I think this is really a big part of why Saylor might have been a little bit more on edge is because, and this was actually brought up in the interview as well.
- 47:53But the fact that the stock price has gone down isn't necessarily reflective of the performance of these underlying companies.
- 48:02The market can do as much damage as anything just by chasing these fast gains.
- 48:13So if you had all these pipe investors and everybody that was trying to get in before the IPOs and even buying the IPOs,
- 48:21they jacked the price up really high. They got what they wanted and they're tourists. So they're
- 48:25just, they're, they're just here for a quick gain and then they're out and they're moving on to
- 48:29whatever other investment or altcoin they're, they're, they're wanting. And so I think that
- 48:34that was a big part of the problem. I think that that's probably a big part of why Michael Saylor
- 48:37was a little bit, um, unnerved during this interview. Um, but, uh, just because I can relate,
- 48:45You know, as a shareholder, you know, I, you know, held the shares from $425 plus a share all the way down to, you know, $155 or whatever, whatever the bottom was.
- 48:58So, you know, I'm feeling some of the same things, sailors, not even on the same level.
- 49:02Of course, I'm not trying to compare myself here, but I can definitely relate.
- 49:09Yeah, okay.
- 49:09So our last, you know, few minutes here, I do want to get to like.
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- 49:45So obviously, like Wyatt and I, we work with a lot of small business owners, whether it's on the financial planning side, tax prep, tax planning, accounting.
- 49:55There's some different options that are popping up, whether it's a Square user or maybe they're an invoicing company.
- 50:02So ZapRite makes a lot of sense.
- 50:03I would be curious, just speaking to advisors on this show, what's the value prop with the point of sale software that Mana has put out?
- 50:15And what are you all seeing from the adoption of that, the users?
- 50:20Like, what's kind of the target market that you guys are going after to adopt the point of sales side of MANA?
- 50:27Yeah, so a lot of people ask me the question, how do I buy Bitcoin?
- 50:33Or how do I get Bitcoin?
- 50:35And my answer a lot of times to these people is, well, how do you get money?
- 50:39Because Bitcoin is money.
- 50:40and so uh you know it's it people have this mindset that bitcoin's like this other type of
- 50:46asset that it's not money and so they feel like they have to take what they understand as money
- 50:51and buy this thing um which you know for a lot of a lot of people that that's a good way of
- 50:57explaining a great way of accumulating and acquiring bitcoin but with bitcoin if bitcoin
- 51:04is fundamentally money you can get it the same ways you can get what you think is money which is
- 51:08fiat currency. I don't necessarily qualify fiat currency as money. I don't think it fits the
- 51:13definition personally, but I do think Bitcoin is money. And so in people's mind, that helps them
- 51:20frame how to acquire Bitcoin. You don't have to go to an exchange. You don't have to give them
- 51:25your fiat dollars or whatever currency you're using to get Bitcoin. You can earn it. You can
- 51:31trade for it for any way you get dollars. So for example, I have a full-time job. I go to work for
- 51:38an employer and they give me a paycheck. That is one way to get Bitcoin, right? As long as the
- 51:42person that you are delivering a service or your labor to or a product to is willing to give you
- 51:48Bitcoin, that is a great way to get Bitcoin. In fact, I think it's probably the best way to acquire
- 51:53Bitcoin because it is a lot more private. It essentially allows you to participate in Bitcoin
- 52:02in the ways that we were talking about earlier, where you have all those assurances that Bitcoin
- 52:06provides because you can accept real Bitcoin and not an IOU. That part's important, right? So it's
- 52:13not like you're getting paid on a centralized exchange where it's not real Bitcoin, it's just
- 52:19an IOU. You could and should just accept real Bitcoin. And that's a big part of what we built
- 52:24the Manna point of sale for was to allow businesses to be able to sell their products and services
- 52:30directly for self-custodial Bitcoin. You don't even have the option of going through a centralized
- 52:36party. It's literally from one person to you in Bitcoin, right? So over the Bitcoin network,
- 52:43Manna does some swaps and stuff to keep things easy and simple. But ultimately what you end up
- 52:50with is the ability to interact with Bitcoin with keys that you hold, which is the important part.
- 52:57And so there are a lot of other companies, like you mentioned, ZapRite. They do a great job,
- 53:02Square, we're not the only ones providing this service, but there is some differentiation between,
- 53:11of course, what all of us are offering. Square, for example, that is not an option that you can
- 53:18use if you're locked outside of the banking system. You've got to have a bank account,
- 53:22for example, to use Square. Square is not available outside of the United States. So
- 53:27that's another reason why you might need to use something else. BTC pay server also has some
- 53:34wonderful, great options too. And it's all just a little bit of a different approach. I think MANA
- 53:40is, in my opinion, by far, like exponentially easier and quicker to set up than any other option
- 53:46that is self-custodial. In fact, I did a demo in Las Vegas at the Bitcoin conference and showed how
- 53:54in 60 seconds, you can have this fully set up as a barber that wants to take Bitcoin for payment.
- 54:00So if anybody's curious, it's pinned on my X profile right now. But if you're a barber,
- 54:09you're a restaurant, a food truck, food trailer, whatever, you're selling knickknacks,
- 54:16you're at a farmer's market selling whatever products you have or offer, you can spin up
- 54:23a mana Bitcoin point of sale system in 60 seconds and start accepting Bitcoin payments on the spot.
- 54:30No ID, you know, no, no name, not even an email address, no phone number, none of that,
- 54:35no personal data collected whatsoever. And that makes it really fast and easy as well. But more
- 54:41importantly, it doesn't block anybody out. I love that. And that's, and it's on chain Bitcoin,
- 54:49as well as Lightning Layer as well
- 54:51if someone wanted to pay in Lightning
- 54:53at a farmer's market, for example?
- 54:55Yeah, so if you're running a MANA point of sale,
- 54:59you can accept Bitcoin through any of the major protocols.
- 55:03So we often talk about Layer 1, Bitcoin, and Lightning.
- 55:07Those are probably the two main ones that we use as payments.
- 55:11But there are a lot of other protocols that are emerging as well,
- 55:15like eCash, for example, is becoming popular,
- 55:18which is essentially kind of built on top of Lightning.
- 55:21I would say it's kind of like a layer three,
- 55:24depending on which protocol we're referring to.
- 55:27There's a lot of different methods.
- 55:30Spark is getting pretty popular.
- 55:32That's from LightSpark.
- 55:34There is, what else is there?
- 55:36I mean, Liquid is another popular protocol,
- 55:40which is actually where our app basically lives.
- 55:44It's basically a liquid wallet with interoperability with everything else.
- 55:50So the important part for MANA, if you're interested in MANA, is that you don't need to know about any of these protocols.
- 55:56They just work automatically, right?
- 55:58So if you're a vendor, if you just want to use the wallet, whatever, you don't have to worry about, you know, can I connect to this type of Bitcoin?
- 56:07If it's Bitcoin, it works.
- 56:10I love it.
- 56:12All right, man.
- 56:13Well, this has been great.
- 56:13I really I'm glad that we kind of covered a lot of a lot of just like basic stuff.
- 56:18I think that your background of running the meetup in Kansas City and you're just being in the space for as long as you have been.
- 56:25I think it's just it's just good background and speaks well to newcomers, which is one of the big parts of our audience.
- 56:32So, Adam, I guess the only thing that's left on my side is if someone wants to use mana, what's the best way to go about doing that?
- 56:43Well, fortunately, there's really not a long answer to that.
- 56:47You can just download the app on either the App Store on Apple or the Google Play Store.
- 56:51Right now, those are the two places where our app lives.
- 56:55And you just hit the button that says create a wallet, and you can have a wallet running in seconds.
- 57:01And then it automatically creates everything needed for the shop as well.
- 57:04And you can just add products, items, or services if you're a business.
- 57:08And I'll also say, you know, from, you know, a financial advisor perspective, you know, if I could, you know, have the, you know, opportunity to advise the advisors, I would just say it's a great idea to recommend people acquire Bitcoin through this method, just because it is one of the most freedom preserving methods of using Bitcoin.
- 57:34providing a service in the local economy um and even spending bitcoin i think that's important too
- 57:41uh to grow the to grow the bitcoin economy and help build out the infrastructure
- 57:44that comes back to my original purpose and that is to uh give people an alternative to cbdc's as
- 57:52they come so that's what i'll say i'll leave it at that love it man well and it's an amazing
- 57:58mission to try to fight back against the cbdc you know on so i i think will come in our our
- 58:04lifetimes that were appreciative of folks like you building that kind of technology. And yeah,
- 58:09one of the things I want to emphasize that you just pointed out there, Adam, is that I think
- 58:14in an advisor seat and you want to start talking about Bitcoin, one of the best ways you can convey
- 58:20confidence to your clients is to accept Bitcoin as payment and show them be a proof point,
- 58:26maybe be their first interaction where they're actually interacting with the blockchain or
- 58:32Bitcoin as a medium of exchange. And I think that's super paramount role for us as well. And
- 58:40it's great getting to know you, Adam, and Manam more and keep on building, man. We need more stuff
- 58:45like this and appreciate you coming on the pod. Thank you very much. The pleasure was all mine.
- 58:50Appreciate talking with you guys. Thanks for having me. Yeah. All right. Thanks, Adam. All
- 58:54We'll talk to you soon.
- 58:55Take care.
- 59:24from the front.