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EP 684
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3 Currencies of Life: Time, Capital, Reputation

with Rod Roudi

DATE 13 August 2025
DURATION 01:03:44
GUEST Rod Roudi

Stephan & Rod Roudi discuss the importance of building Bitcoin communities, the evolution of Bitcoin narratives, and the future of Bitcoin custody and treasury strategies. They explore the role of local meetups in fostering Bitcoin adoption, the significance of educating the next generation of Bitcoiners, and the impact of events on the Bitcoin ecosystem. Rod shares insights on upcoming events, including the Custody and Treasury Summit and the Imagine IF Summit, emphasizing the need for high-signal Bitcoin information and community engagement. Takeaways 🔸Building Bitcoin communities is essential for fostering connections. 🔸Local meetups can significantly impact Bitcoin adoption. 🔸Education is key to helping newcomers understand Bitcoin. 🔸The narrative around Bitcoin has evolved over time. 🔸Custody and treasury strategies are crucial for Bitcoin holders. 🔸The future of Bitcoin security involves innovative solutions. 🔸Raising the next generation of Bitcoiners requires engagement and education. 🔸Events play a vital role in Bitcoin advocacy and education. 🔸Community organizers are becoming influential in the Bitcoin space. 🔸More Bitcoin signal is needed to counteract misinformation.

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To me, it's like, it reinforces the Bitcoin Maxies who are basically saying, "Look, you need a reason to hold the token. Bitcoin has a reason, because it's the future of money. There's only twenty-one million of them, and these altcoins, this utility token thesis is bunk." That's how I see it.

So you said it much better than me. Competition is such a good thing, and that's where I say, "Okay, if, you know, going back to the earlier point, is this a good thing for Bitcoin and all this stuff? Every-- Like all We need to be more vocal about preserving our ability to self-custody Bitcoin, to transact permissionlessly, as well as as censorship-resistant as possible, and all those properties. We need to defend fully-throated

Hi everyone, welcome back to Stephan Livera podcast brought to you by Bold. For American listeners, you can buy Bitcoin at the lowest fees available in the industry and of course, use the Bold debit card and get the best sat back available. Now, joining me on the show for the first time is Rod Roudi. You might know him from, Bitcoin Park and of course, has various, you know, many- Many ventures I probably couldn't list them all. He's doing podcasting with, you know, the Shard256 and all, all, all this stuff, but I know, you, of course, you are organizing some events coming up also, and, yeah, let's, well, first off, welcome to the show. Dude,

Stephane, they-- I, I know everyone says this, I'm honored, big fan. Literally since, I think,

twenty seventeen,

twenty eighteen? I don't know, when did you start the pod You were at like, you were helping out with Bitcoin Magazine and their conferences and like for the, you know, San Francisco Bitcoin twenty nineteen when a lot of us all met for the first time there, right?

Wild, wild. We, we put Odell and Marty for their, I think their first or second live rhr on the rooftop. We helped, like, I mean, just like little things that now you guys are all blown up rightfully in such an awesome way that looking back on Bitcoin twenty nineteen in San Francisco is just like, it's some great memories. Come back.

Yeah, exactly. And I don't know, you're doing a lot on, you know, building communities and things like that. Obviously, I've been-- I think we're both, we've both been very, you know, big on that. Like, I've been trying to help organize meetups and things like that back when I was in Sydney and elsewhere, you know, just whenever I go to places. So, I know obviously you've, you've done a lot to sort of help grow the Nashville scene also with, Bitcoin Park. So

Yeah, it's, it's really interesting. I mean, actually, if I could tell a story and you're in, you're in this. Oh, sure, alright. It was, so we started Bitcoin or started the meetup, I wanna say it was August of 2020. Actually, that was when you came. It wasn't twenty twenty-one, may have been twenty-one, but it may have been twenty, actually may have been twenty-one. Anyways, I'm getting my years messed up. Yeah, I

think it's probably twenty-one, 'cause I think that was when, that was when I first, I think that's actually when I visited Nashville for, actually, a libertarian conference, right? That's right, that's right. And we had like a little small thing, I think it was like Odell and me and maybe a

couple other people

We had no idea if like, you know, one person, two people would show up. my friend Mills and I, we organized it, and next thing you know, we had like, I think fifteen or twenty people. It was raining, it was at this like brewery right in the WeHo area, and it was awesome. I mean, somebody was like traveling in from, I think Philly, and they had been at a conference, they saw the meetup, and they were just like, "We gotta go to a Bitcoin meetup. " And, there was a bunch of other people in Organizing this, my wife thinks I'm crazy that I'm the only one in this town that like, likes this Bitcoin thing. So the fact that there's other people like me is just so, is so great. And then, I think you or I saw maybe online, you hit me up, you're like, "Hey, I'm coming to Nashville." And then I think I was like, and I knew Odell was coming, and I was like, "Alright." So I, I moved the meet up back like a week, and I'm like, "Hey, do you guys

I mean, it was like a hundred plus people in that room, and it was off. Ever since then, Stefan, not to like boost your ego, like it was like a rocket ship. We got, I think Andrew Yang came in, and then we'd talk about custody and, other things, and then December we focused on mining, and we did a number of panels like Harry Suda, Kevin Zhang, Econo Alchemist, like drove it. It was like, it was so amazing and brings back so many fond memories, and that helped like leapfrog or catapult us into where we are today with Bitcoin Park.

Well, hey, thank you, man. I appreciate it, but I mean, yeah, I mean, I, I can't take the credit for it, but, you know, great job, building a community and, you know, I think that, I think that's really, as you said, a lot of people feel like they're alone in this, right? They can't meet other-- Yeah. 'Cause like, you feel like, are, are you just part of this community of internet coin weirdos, and now,

Remember the times like when FTX was happening and Luna coins happening, and still, even-- That's why I'm like very anti-the altcoins, shitcoins, meme coin stuff. It's just, you know, that meme, it's, it's all so tiring. Because undoubtedly, you know, I've been Bitcoin focused for whatever, twenty seventeen, so I don't know how many years that is, and I'm literally just saying the same thing over and over, like, "Learn Bitcoin, learn Bitcoin, learn Bitcoin." I actually even have the domain stephan now, notfinancialadvice Tired of just saying, by the way, disclaimer, not financial advice, I don't know what you're gonna do. Just learn Bitcoin, buy a little bit, and then continue to learn. But anyways, I say all that is, People just need the community just to be able to really discern between the signal and the noise. And like, by the way, I actually at our meetups, I say, "Hey, go and learn about all these other things that you wanna learn about, cryptos, altcoins, NFTs, LFTs. More power to you. I'm not here to judge. But at this meetup, at this summit, at this workshop, we're focused on Bitcoin the blockchain, the monetary network to serve eight billion people, as well as Bitcoin, the reserve asset that, in my opinion, preserves my Better than any other investable asset ever created. And how cool of a time do we have right now to be living in this? And it's just like, that's where all my time, capital, and reputation could even focus in on. And then when people bring up this investment opportunity or that investment opportunity, I'm like, guys If you just-- Do you own Bitcoin? No. Great. Okay, let's start by learning and owning a little bit of Bitcoin, and then tell me about your investing strategies and all this other stuff that you're so much smarter than me. Which ninety-nine out of a hundred people are smarter than me, but I think this, the Bitcoin thing, I'm, I'm pretty good at.

Yeah, and I mean, it brings up all kinds of things like, you know, even this whole Bitcoin Treasury Company stuff, the, you know, "quote unquote" paper Bitcoin, of

course.

Well, at, the recently Baltic Honey Badger as well, but I think, you know, what would be good to touch on is narratives that have changed over time, right? Because I, I did a post about this recently on my Substack as well. I was commenting about, and I think this is a common sentiment, I'm not saying this is like unique to me or whatever, but the point is, Bitcoin is winning Arguably,

yeah, but

not in the way most of us thought. Totally. Most of us kind of in the earlier years, or especially in that twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen sort of era, definitely the cypherpunk and libertarian ethos is quite strong in the kind of online Bitcoin circles, and I think many of us thought, "Oh, the way it's gonna happen is like people are gonna buy, you know, go on either buy it peer-to-peer, no KYC, or..." They're gonna go buy it on a KYC exchange and withdraw to their cold card or whatever hardware wallet. Exactly. You know what I mean? Like that was what most of us thought, right? And there was kind of these examples of, oh, Mt. Gox or QuadrigaCX or in later years, obviously FTX, BlockFi, whatever, Celsius. The list goes on, right? But then actually in practice, what's happened is Paper Bitcoin, right? Bitcoin ETFs, Bitcoin treasury companies, and offering this indirect means of exposure rather than a direct exposure. So it's kind of like, there's what we thought would happen, and then there's what really did happen. I wanna get your reaction on that.

Yeah. So, I'm, I'm a eternal optimist. So I think there, and, you know, going back to the nostalgia, you know, I, I think we still celebrate Not Your Keys, Not Your Coins Day on January 3rd, 2009, but I remember back in Just rally around, we would be trolling the exchanges and be like, "Look, let's liquidate them. Let's see if they actually have the Bitcoin. " And do a bank run. And it would just be

a Bitcoin bank run.

Yeah, a Bitcoin bank run. And it was just like the coolest thing. I mean, I remember at first I had a ledger, and I'm like, "Guys, I'm literally looking at the, the address on this small, device. " You know, now obviously I've upgraded my security, but,

it was just so fun Happened in Bitcoin, we could have a whole nother podcast just on that, Stefan. But, but to your point is, I think that's why it becomes even more important for podcasts like yourself, Odell, Citadel, The Dispatch, Marty's TFDc, Preston's, podcast, Danny's What Bitcoin. I mean, these podcasts that continue to do the signal and stay like with it, and BTC Sessions is doing some great stuff. And, and actually, I do think, you know, there's a meme of like, Podcomp or something like that, I'm a believer in more podcasts, 'cause we need more niche, like the home mining podcast. You mentioned our pod two fifty-six, like some of these other podcasts. I mean, dude, I do a freaking, more fo-- institutional focused Bitcoin podcast with, Kathy Wood every month called Bitcoin Brainstorm. Yeah, that's right. So we need all these, thank you. We, we need all these avenues, but I think it comes back to the core, which is like- You know, what makes Bitcoin special, in my opinion, the fact that it's like, not to be explicit, it's, it's truly like freedom money, and it's like "fuck you, money." That we, for the first time in my life, we have that, such that we can either participate with what we believe is our, you know, local currency and so on, more power to you, or we decide to take that power into our own hands and have some accountability to third parties, meaning like we're custodding our own Bitcoin, we're monitoring, running our own node to Bitcoin and, and, and, and the monetary network, and there's just so many other just cool things, about Bitcoin, right? That you don't need to have these other trade-offs. Now, now let me go to the other side, which is now all the avenues to come into this summer pay- paper Bitcoin season and so on is just like exponentially, increased, you know? I, I, the, the TradFi world of what they're doing and like, you know, hey, I'm issuing these bonds and doing this, well, way above my pay grade, so I'm not gonna even speculate on, on like what I know about that. But what's really cool to me, and what's really cool to see, is the small business owners that are taking, Bitcoin on their, as a treasury strategy and holding it on their balance sheet. And then more and more companies, Stefan, I'm seeing at least, you know, through various conversations Globally, I mean, that's where if you, if you're looking in the right places, like Calle is like the best follow right now on Twitter. I mean, the stuff that he is, shipping with, Cashu and what he's doing with BitChat and Jack is just so freakin', it, it feels like twenty seventeen, twenty eighteen to me, the cool stuff that's b- being built. And that's where, at the end of the day, it's all gonna even itself out if Bitcoin's gonna win in the long- term as the monetary network for eight billion people and the reserve asset for you, our respective families and for generations to come, it's gonna need these type of challenges. Now, the other question I have, like maybe I'm curious your thoughts, do you think there is going to be another Quadriga, another FTX, another Mt. Gox, and at the scale of like a, a, you know, and I don't wanna name exchanges, but like one of those bigger exchanges that are custodding all the Bitcoin?

I mean, elephant in the room, Coinbase custody, right? Yeah. They hold, I, I don't know the exact number, but people have said maybe it's like two million or maybe more than two million BTC. That's the obvious elephant in the room. But I think it's like, what is it? All but one of the US Bitcoin ETFs are cussating with Coinbase custody, many of the large treasury companies and things like this. So obviously You know, we would like to see-- obviously, many of us would like to see further decentralization there, obviously self-custody, or even if not that, at least decentralizing out to more professional-grade, institutional-grade custodians. At least that would be an improvement than having so much centralization at the Coinbase level, right? So if something catastrophic were to happen there at Coinbase, I mean, who knows, right? But now as a

fiduciary, right, Stephan, playing that out, and I think Fidelity, and I, and I don't wanna speak for Fidelity, They're custodding now their own Bitcoin potentially, I think.

Yeah, I think they do have their own, their-- they were, I think it was their ETF was, I think one of the major ones that didn't use Coinbase custody, because obviously they have their own custodian, right? Because they have been around in the w- in the space for a while, they have a well-known custodian, so they were kind of one of the few who didn't.

Yeah. So I think over time, you know, that's why I'm like really interested, you know, in

Actually hosting a custody and treasury summit, and we're gonna do that in September. But one of the areas why I wanna do this is I wanna, I wanna piggyback off the energy of the treasury, conversation, which is a good conversation to have. And so to, to delineate between, you know, this is a treasury company that all, that it's like, I don't wanna say a shell company, but that's all they do is just acquire Bitcoin, and that's it. Okay. I'm gonna put those folks to the side. But then there's also some treasury companies

Other ones, right?

Exactly. But that, that's, I think custody and treasury need to go hand in hand in a conversation. If you're, have treasury strategies, it's like the next step is like, the first step is like, how are you custodying this? Such that two things. One, Custody at such, you know, you don't have, you know, third party or limiting your counterparty risk, but two, more importantly, is eventually you, you should want to use that Bitcoin. So like, how do you have different cust- custody options such that you're able to activate and use the Bitcoin in payments, in, you know, in a number of different ways? So, we're actually Rob Warren, who's on my team, he does research, education, and, programming at Bitcoin Park. He's, working on a custody-focused That, we're gonna release on September 10th and give physically to each of the, attendees for the Custody and Treasury Summit, which will be cool.

Yeah, fantastic. I think, I think it's a important conversation. Of course, there's a lot of, you know, there's so many things happening in the space, but getting the right people in the room together, certainly can, be very valuable. And also just give people a sense of like, okay, what are other people doing here?

and, you know Be like, well, what's the everyday man on the street meant to do when he's self-custodying his Bitcoin? What's like, a family office, a small private company, a public company, even a, a state government or a national or a federal government, what are they meant to do with Bitcoin custody? What is best practice, right? Like, I guess these are some of the questions that need to be asked and answered, and for people to sort of be savvy with what, what does good look like? What's professional? Totally. I know there Kinds of things, o-obviously the pro level custodians have to answer these kinds of questions like, okay, SOC two reporting or what other, whatever other kinds of internal controls they need to demonstrate. Do they have penetration testing? Do they have this? Do they have that? Do they have, you know, address whitelisting? Do they have, you know, all these kinds of controls and things like this. You know, this, this is all gonna form part of the conversation.

Yeah, could, could I double click into, each one of those, scenarios All banks. It's really interesting because, okay, so each has a, a custody and a treasury strategy, but they can have unique different levels of custody. So let's say you have, a-a, I'm always curious to know when I ask people this question, I'm like, okay, you have, you know, let's say a hundred Bitcoin, of which how, what percent goes into co-deep cold storage that, you know, jurisdiction, multi-jurisdictional- you know, it takes like a week, weeks to, to access, twenty percent, thirty percent. Okay, why? Then there's like maybe single sig, you know, cold storage that, you know, you can access that you need to use on a monthly basis. Okay, cool. And there's like a hot wallet for actual live payments that you're using, you know, day to day, maybe weekly, ad hoc payroll to, freelancers all around the world, whatever that may, may, may be. You know, one thing I don't advocate is, and if you do use a full, if you use a custodian, understand, hey, how does custody work at your brokerage or exchange? If they-- if the answer is, "Oh, we outsource it to, X, Y, Z," I would recommend, my opinion, not going with them. Like, I would go with somebody that's got their own full-grown stack, you know, that's custing their own, you know, the, the Bitcoin, so that you're limiting, even That risk. So I'm really interested in how people think and how people use, their Bitcoin within their own use cases, and that's what I wanna amplify and platform, Stefan, is, hey, here's a case study on our workflow that, you know, that, that's what we wanna do at these meetups, workshops, and summits, and then we could either not, produce 'em and publish 'em, or we could produce 'em and publish 'em and share with the, the, the broader global community.

Gotcha. Yeah. I mean, I think this Because in earlier years gone by, you would hear like, you know, the most unprofessional would be kind of like funds who just literally had like, I don't know, a treasure in the drawer kind of thing. And it's just like, guys, you know, a-and a-and or, you know, even worse than that, you know, and then you'd hear like, okay, exchanges, they might keep some in the cold and some in the hot wallet, and, you know, that's at least, you know, that's a good start. But then it's like,

Really to a very deep level, if you're talking at like a professional level versus just kind of like the conversation that we would have if we were just kind of two everyday hodlers who were just like, "How do we secure our cold storage? Like, it's a different thing, right?

Totally, yeah. No, I love it. And, and, man, the UX, the number of entrants, go to my glass half full side. So since twenty-seven, twenty-eighteen, you know, we had Trezor and Ledger and Coldcard basically. Now we have a number of new entrants in the game. We have a number of new, collaborative custody and multisig options. I mean, Sparrow is freaking phenomenal. Craig Raw, you are a genius, and thank you so much. I mean, there's just so many solutions out there that If you're a Bitcoiner getting in right now, it's so cool, like the UX is so much better right now than it was back then.

Yeah, exactly, and especially the, the multisig flows are much, much better nowadays. Like, I think there's been real advancement there, and of course, like all the Miniscript stuff, right? Like, Rob and AnchorWatch guys are all over that, but of course, things like, Lianna, like Kevin and the Lianna team, Wizards Adine is a company name, but they're, they're Kind of what they're doing also, so that's kind of really setting up interesting things for like inheritance or kind of, giving you redundancy in your setup using Miniscript to give you kind of more advanced- Yeah, ways of, you know, securing your stack, and that can be applicable again at individual or at corporate level.

You, you know, not to take you off on a tangent, but you know, one of those sayings, like, what's something you believe in that a lot of, that most of the world doesn't believe in, or like that Peter Thiel, question? Yeah. So I'll, I'll say one, which is, and you may not believe me, but I, I believe it to be true, which is, I don't think I'm

How come?

Okay. So everyone's like, "Oh, I'm, I'm, you know, acquiring Bitcoin for my kids and all this stuff." I'm like, "Guys, how many effed up kids are there that got a boatload of money as part of a trust and all this other stuff?" And, and look, it's implied that they'll learn how to use Bitcoin or, or teach them about Bitcoin. I get that. But I guess my mindset is like, "Dude, if you're just gonna give them, like, and I think one Bitcoin is like what your Joke like, okay, how many kids do you have? Okay, great, that's how many Bitcoin you should have. At least one kid should have one Bitcoin of the twenty-one million, and whatever it is by the time, you know, whatever. And then they should be just like passing that Bitcoin down and whatever. But I'm like, man, if one Bitcoin is like ten million dollars or a hundred million dollars, and then, okay, you pass away, and this kid that's twenty, thirty years old is like, hey, I just got a hundred million dollars. The incentive to work,

I, I think you could be possibly doing a disservice to the, to the, to your son or daughter. So I think this is the

thing, this is a big conversation, like even, kind of, fiat Families have to deal with this. The, the same

thing as a fiat family, like, oh, I created a trust that you got like ten million bucks, twenty million bucks, great. And it's like, wait a minute, I'm at a job that's making sixty grand, I'm literally working six days a week. Now, the glass half full is like, now you can go do something that you're passionate about and like so on. Glass half empty is like, alright, I'm gonna go drink beer and just freaking like bet on DraftKings and, you

know, whatever, fuck I think I haven't, I've read some of these books and a few things here and there, and also from discussions with other people who have read some of those books, they've said some of these families do things a little differently, so they might sort of have certain structures around how they manage this, or kind of groom the children to sort of be a successor and to kind of, manage the family wealth, this kind of thing. So I'm curious, have you explored any of those things?

So, not so much on the pla-- I mean, the, the planning More about the usage side, Stefan. So like, I mean, my kids are super young, and, I have a messed up brain that is always thinking about like the future, meaning like, I'm like, "Oh my gosh, they just ate that one thing, and they're probably, like, you know, fifteen years it's gonna affect them." But it's like, okay, how do I get them excited to use Bitcoin or learn about Bitcoin just in general? Should the one day that they or then wanna go and work in X, Y, Z industry or create Y,

That they wanna be like, "Oh yeah, I need to earn my money, my money is in Bitcoin, not in this fiat currency, and so on, and then be able to learn about Bitcoin rather than just being given the Bitcoin, you know?" 'Cause, i-think is the, is the key nuance in, in, in the, in, in the inheritance conversation, I think is the key nuance.

Yeah, I think it's, I think it comes down to how well, obviously how well you raise them. Obviously, most of us don't wanna raise like a spoiled brat, but obviously easier said than done, right? If you, very easier than done, you know? But, I guess you, you have to look at how have, you know, fiat families done that for the last few hundred years, right? And I think there are some who've done it well and some who haven't. And, but the majority have failed. That's the

thing. Like, I, I think if you look at history, and that's my point, where like, yeah, Sources, such that you make the decisions on your own accord to go live the life that you have always imagined.

Yeah. So I think, I think it just comes, yeah, I think part of that is, you know, some of these families maybe they send their kid off to work in one of the companies that they own. Yeah, yeah. But they sort of try to groom them and sort of make them work for it and sort of work their way up. Totally. or sort of say, okay, if he's done really well, here now promote him to some other role somewhere else and You could try, again, like I said, it's not a perfect thing, but the idea is you're trying to tip the odds in your favor here.

Totally. And, and, and to go continue that thread, especially thinking about the park, so the park is this physical place here in Nashville, and a place for Bitcoiners and freedom tech enthusiasts to work, learn, collaborate, and build. In Austin as well, now we're gonna take some time before we like go into other locations, but I think by the time my kids, you know, in like fifteen, twenty years that are in the workforce, it would be so cool if we had multiple park locations, and I'm like, "Hey! " You're gonna go spend the next two years in Cheyenne, Wyoming, or in, Saint Pete, Florida, or Raleigh, North Carolina, and you're gonna go be the assistant operations lead, you know, to this person, and you're gonna learn how a Bitcoin Park experience functions from every step of the, the way. And it'd be so cool if, then if they like, like it and continue to move up, then they're like, "Okay, now you're gonna go-- We are opening a new campus in, you know, Madrid, Spain, I'm making it up. You're gonna go to Madrid for the next two, three years, and it's like they got all these experiences, but they're earning it along the way. so then, 'cause like, I don't-- Yeah, go ahead.

So, I mean, I agree with you in the kind of the idea, but I'll tell you what In twenty years' time, maybe thirty years' time, it might be done. There might not be a point of, you know, Bitcoin Park might just be like Money Park at that point,

you know what I mean? No, no. Oh, can I, okay, so completely agree. And, and there is a-- and I don't think I've ever told this publicly, but there, there is a High probability scenario, the brand will just become the park. So, right. So then

it becomes a gen- generic thing, but maybe it's like about some other thing.

It'll be more focused on-- So, I'll tell a quick story. you know, everyone's like- It's interesting to see the policy folks really into Bitcoin now. Back in the day, it was like we were laughed at and ridiculed and, you know, so on. Like everyone, even the current president said Bitcoin was a scam and now rightfully has learned about it and so on and now is really supportive of it. But like, again, back in the day, everyone was like, "Daggers out, like, Rod, are you a con artist, scammer?" And I'm like, "What are you talking? You've known me for how long? What are you talking about?" Anyways, the, but those, folks on the, on the policy side, have been coming to, our meetups, the teams have, and especially here in Nashville, in, in Tennessee, there, there's, so many amazing people, and I, you're probably gonna be like, "Really?" But in our public office, there are really good people, like in Tennessee. I can't speak for other areas, but across the state government, the ECD, The mayor's office even, both our senators, their teams, AG. Anyways, one of the teams came to our office and was like, "Rod, we wanna help make, this place, Silicon Valley two point oh." And I'm, "In Nashville?" And I'm like, "I'm not on board for that." so you got-- "Cool, good luck, but that's not for me." And they're like, "Well, why? You got all this tech talent, people are flying in, and so on." I'm like, Dude, we wanna make this Sovereign Valley, not Silicon Valley. We wanna make this the best place for freedom tech enthusiasts. So, dude, they started changing their like, like, the messaging and so on. It, it was actually really, refreshing just to have the conversation and just make sure we're aligned on these different areas. But to go back to the park area, I could see, and that's where one of the reasons why I wanted to do this, Majnif, Stefan, which was because I do think Bitcoin is gonna blend in In my opinion, like these different protocols of the internet. Like, we don't talk about SMTP, we don't talk about FTP, we don't talk about HTTP. It's just like the inner workings of the internet. We talk about the application layer and so on. And Bitcoin, the capital, the blockchain, I think could blend in there, and we're gonna still talk about Bitcoin, the reserve asset, until there is money on the exchanges such that it's fiat-denominated. But I think there's so many cool things that are converging within the Bitcoin space, and three in particular are AI, energy, and the freedom tech tools that are being built on top of it. I mean, it is just freaking awesome.

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For PC or Nunchok on mobile, and you can dial it into the right level of security and complexity that you choose. If you want a simple setup, just use twelve words and single signature. If you want passphrase, easy. If you wanna add multi-sig or co-signing features, you've got those too. So go to coinkite dot com, use code livera to get ten percent off on your cold card or other devices and level up your self custody today. Yeah, as you said, I think, there is gonna be, I think, you know, we might reach a point where twenty or thirty years from now, maybe Bitcoin has already taken over, but the question then might be more about How do we protect our rights in the digital age? Right? Like already we're starting to see a lot of this conversation now. Well, the latest one is kind of, "Oh, you need to KYC because we've got to protect the children," right? Like in the UK and in Australia, this is becoming a thing. and so obviously this is like the typical excuse for government control, right? Because people know, you know, many of these nation states aren't really doing a lot to protect children, but now all of a sudden they're pretending this is the way to protect children,

It's, you know, historically, you know, people didn't need to like KYC to do all, do all kinds of things, right? But now, because things are done online It's become kind of this authoritarian status nightmare, or that, that seems to be the direction we're going, isn't it?

Yeah. Well, hopefully not here in the United States. I'm not privy to like what's happening around the world, honestly, I'm so like focused on health, family, and Bitcoin Park and just like this Bitcoin world, so I've tried to neutralize as much of the other, and by the way, that's like rightfully in your wheelhouse because both, you know, you're from Australia and so on, but what, what What I'll say is this to, to any of these politicians as well. I, what I would do is I would imagine, okay, who's my worst enemy and in four years or whatever period of time, they're gonna be in my seat and in this seat. How do I limit their- A potential abuse of power, okay? Not like, give more power to me, because I'm literally gonna give it to the next guy or girl who's coming in, who's on the other side of the aisle in terms of against me. So it's like, how do you just limit it such that it's more working for the local person? And that's where it's, it's been crazy to see my own personal evolution. You know, it's probably s-- center left for sure growing up, and now just to be this Uncategorized area where I can just speak to every little thing and they're like, "Well, you, you said this over here and you said this over here, that doesn't, organize in this specific box." And it's where, and I, and I think more people are waking up to that. And Stefan, to go back to that point, that's where the freedom tech side, the tooling is so important. Why is it important? Having Noster, being able to have freedom of speech, should you wanna use that or not. Having Cashu. And eCash, being able to use, having BitChat as an example, like without internet communication and so on, just assuming, and, and I love my bi-- Bitcoin friends 'cause they're like six, and scary, they're always like six to twelve months ahead. They're like, "All right, internet's going down, we need this," or "This thing's going down, I'm like, holy smokes, guys!" Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. let me jump, jump in with a few things there. So, yeah, I think, I actually had a quick chance to play around with BitChat recently at, Baltic Honey Badger. Right? Kale was there and a bunch of us were playing around with it. I, I mean, I, I think it was really slick and fun to kind of play around with, but I'm not sure it's gonna hit the mainstream anytime soon. I think there are open questions on like, how exactly does this protocol deal with spam, right? Yeah. Obvious example. And I asked Calle that, like, to be honest. I'll be having him on the podcast soon as well. We'll, we'll chat about that. Oh, good. yeah, to be fair, but, you know, let's see what happens there. But Mr. Politician, you should think clearly about this because remember, the other side is gonna have the same power that you put in now. But this kind of brings us back to the, and I'm sure you've heard it, the classic C.S. Lewis, right? It's, of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victim may be the most oppressive, right? There's kind of more to it, but, but the point is, some of these politicians, and not just that, the people who vote for them, genuinely believe it's a good thing,

And whatever side of it, we have to help change hearts and minds, right? So that the average person doesn't think, "Oh, it's a good thing that Mr. Government, Mr. Regulator, Mr. Spy Agency is allowed to kind of just..." Have this kind of unilateral surveillance and control power over everybody else, because that's, that's really part of it. Yes, of course, the freedom tech is important, we need it, but we also have to sort of shift hearts and minds, right? We have to move that over to a window, and I think that's also a part of this conversation.

Totally. And that's where, you know, you may not think that meetups in real life scale or are even worth the time, but I would make the argument that they are argu-arguably The most important thing you can do within your local community, because if you're consistent about providing high signal Bitcoin information, and you get it out to your local coffee shop owner, your local veterinarian, your lo-just the local community that are around you, and you strengthen those ties at a local level, you can do much more impact over time, in my opinion. And, and that's where the key is. So, because that- That's where, you know, we, we're talking about like state and these bigger treasury companies and the ETFs. That's cool and that's fine, but like where I, I see this thing going up into the right continuously and it's not stopping. And, you know, there is some narrative at the, you know, the, the, the new pleb level, which is like, "Oh, I missed the boat. Oh, I just missed the boat." It's like, "No, no, this is the boat. Like, you gotta, you should participate in one way, And get out of the shackles of the fiat hamster wheel.

Yeah. so let's talk a little bit about, you know, growing communities and things like this, and, and maybe even the narrative as well, because this is an interesting point that, you know, we, we should also consider, right? Coming back to what I was saying about, you know, Bitcoin winning, but maybe not the way we thought, you know, like just, you know, honestly asking, and I'm curious to hear how you would answer this, right? Is it possible that we aren't as important

But like, yeah, you know, that we think this meetup we're organizing or these podcasts or articles or whatever we write and put out there, you know, that, it, this thing is just kind of, it's a train that's been set in motion, you know, nothing stops the train, kind of like that. So maybe there's a little bit of that, and maybe there's only so much influence you and I have, I don't know. but at the same time, it's not gonna stop me trying to grow Bitcoin communities and, you know, meet

Local, how, how would you answer that in terms of local or global Bitcoin communities mattering or not?

So, my time, capital, and reputation is all in in growing my local Bitcoin community and producing high signal, Bitcoin, content globally.

Yeah.

And, so I'm biased in my answer what I'm about to say, which is, I don't think me as an individual matters at Any point in scale. However, that shouldn't stop you from doing it. Meaning like, if you get paralyzed by like, okay, my blog post that I wrote on Substack, you know, gets like ten views or whatever, or maybe it gets this, and I don't know if it, like, I, you don't need the con- the constant like feedback loop of likes and retweets and all this other stuff. I think if you're solving for the, the, the one individual, which is like yourself, at least this is how I think about it, which is, all right, I wanna do this. That's what I like, honestly, with imagine if, and not, not just to use that as an example, so imagine if there's a summit of summits at the convergence of Bitcoin, AI, energy and freedom tech. I'm just so curious about all those different areas, and I think like the TED talks and these other like single conferences, they're just like missing the point a little bit and not just focused on these areas, especially as it relates to freedom tech. So I was like, alright, how do I, for my- My own itch that I wanna hear from great people like you, which I'm super honored that you're coming back to Nashville for, to participate in both, to a number of other people like Kathy Wood, Dr. Laffer, Adam Back, Odell, I mean, Parker Lewis, like the list goes on, to be like, alright, let me ask you this one question. Imagine if, you know, Bitcoin does become the monetary network of the world, what does the world look like? And so then it's like, alright, we locally produce that Answer to that question, which is my own itch, which I, I am a nobody, but that's just something I'm curious about. And we produce and distribute that globally, and I'm very thankful for Kathy and the whole ARK team for partnering with me and, and lending their, their distribution arm and, and a number of other things. But then there's other people like you, you guys, you have such a strong voice and such a strong brand just to help get that message out there so that somebody that's sitting there and being like, "Wait a minute, hold on a second." I just bought this Bitcoin ETF. I don't have Bitcoin right now. I don't get that. What do you mean? Like, what, they're, they're, now they're talking about this "not your keys, not your coins" thing. Okay. Now let me go down this next thing, and then the next thing, and then all of a sudden, I do think Bitcoin's this gravitational force that will get you to the, get you to the end point, of being a sovereign individual, especially as it relates to Bitcoin. So, that's a long-winded way We don't matter, however, we still need to do the work that is, gives you energy and gives you purpose that you want to see in the world.

Yeah, I mean, I, and I, I think, I think you've got it right. I, the way I, I guess, let me give my take or my spin on it. I would say It matters to the extent that you can influence influential or elite people, right? Because, you know, if you can influence sort of someone who can, who can really move the needle Then maybe you did move, then maybe you really did help, in some marginal way, right? Like if, so,

you

know,

let me go on the flip side there. Okay. The, I'll tell another story. Yeah. We, we started the park, and then, some of these Vanderbilt students started coming, and they actually had a really strong Vanderbilt blockchain club, and I was like, "You guys are the only ones that can say 'Vandy blockchain' at Bitcoin Park. I'm not gonna, like, you know, troll you guys and so on. And these kids were just sharp, I mean, super sharp. One of them, Stefan, goes and gets, an internship with Summer of Bitcoin, and then goes and works on Payjoin and, BDK, for the summer. Yeah. Then goes and gets an internship in New York at Wolf, which is just freaking phenomenal, and then now has graduated from Vanderbilt and is working full time at Galaxy. Dude, this guy knew nothing about Bitcoin, comes to Bitcoin Park, running, you know, said, "I gave him a cold card, a shout out to NVK for giving us a handful to give out to students," and he's just like, "On his own mission." I mean, these younger kids, they dabble into the meme coins because it's just fun, it's like, you know, it's like I mean, it's just like, if you-- as long as you can discern between like, okay, that is just straight gambling, and then this is like sovereign freedom money, you know, that's, that's the key. So I'll say this, like that one, I keep going back to that, oh, and then another one. And, you know, say what you will about Coinbase, he's now the product manager at, Coinbase, working on, like, has a pretty big role as a young guy. And like, and then there's like, I can go That they've just come to the park, that they're not influential, they're just random plebs like us. That's a fair point. And now let's

say they later went on to be influential, you know what I mean? Like it's, you influence this person, and they went on to become influential. That's why

I don't think at the qualification level, Stefan, that you need to overemphasize, in my opinion, so it'll be like, okay, I, I need to go talk to the president. I'm not gonna talk to anybody. Of course, of course You energy. At the end of the day, don't do stuff that takes away your energy. What fills your cup? What, what gives you energy? Me around amazing people that make me better, that make me think better, that make me a better husband, make me a better father. Those are the people that I wanna continue to surround myself by. And for the most part, that, those are just Bitcoiners. I mean, straight up. And so that's why I love going to meeting Bitcoiners and hanging with them.

Yeah, and I mean, I'm with you there. I think, Sometimes I get jaded about it, right? Because I've been around for so long and I feel like, "Oh, I, I barely get to anyone." But then I just keep putting out podcasts and articles and whatever, and somehow, magically, people end up-- you know, 'cause you never know who's listening, you never know who's reading, and sometimes it's like, even if you didn't actually get like a very high number of downloads or listens or reads or whatever hits on an article, actually you reached someone who really did matter, and they really did move the needle somehow.

That Worlds where, especially Bitcoin, giving you the, the financial freedom not to worry about being beholden to these like-- And look, you should have your own personal KPIs and dashboards of what your own goals are. That, that's amazing. But you don't need to be like, "Oh, man, I gotta get to a hundred thousand downloads, or I gotta get to this number." So then you kind of cut corners that takes away your energy or your focus. But if you can compound on the things that you're focused on that give you energy and that you really truly love, that Work will, a, be differentiated from anybody else because you can't be-- beat up, like, what's the quote? Maybe it's Mike, by Mike Tyson or somebody. It's like, you can't beat somebody that doesn't give up and that loves what they're doing. Like, you just can't beat that person in that field. They're just not gonna give up and they love what they're doing. And if you don't love it, you're gonna probably give up. And so for your podcast, which I am just such a fan of, and all the stuff, I'm, I'm just gonna tell you emphatically, you're crushing it, and you gotta keep, keep going.

Hey, thanks, man. well, yeah, I mean, I think, and I think it's gonna be a similar thing with Bitcoin Park, like you're building up a brand over time, you just keep, keep showing up, and you just sort of build up a brand over time, and pe- people know you, and then that- You're sort of trading off your reputation, and on that, people will be like, "Okay, yeah, they did a good job with this other event, so I'll give them a chance, I'll come to this other thing, or I'll support them in this other way, or I'll become a member, or I'll do something to help out, right?" And so that's, that's kind of how, you know, it, it, it often happens because it's like consistency, longevity, quality, these things really matter, right? If you've, if you've done that. I'm starting to see now, some of these stablecoin companies actually launching their own chain, right? Because you were touch- you were talking about the Blockchain Group at, Vanderbilt, right? So Tether, Circle, and Stripe. Have all kind of recently, somewhat recently said, "Hey, we're gonna put out our own chain." What do you think this means for, various altcoins, and what do you think it means for Bitcoin?

So

if you haven't done-

On the fir- I mean, I don't really have that big of opinion, I haven't like re-researched much about it, but I did see something along Stripe doing their own like, I think it's called Tempo or something like that. I think,

but yeah, go on, yeah.

Oh, it's called ARC. I, I don't know what. Yeah, I mean,

I'm just, I'm asking now because it's topical, right? It just came out, right? Now, I mean, I'll g- I'll give you my answer if you, if you're interested. Like, I think it's basically bearish for the so-called utility token thesis of Ethereum or Tron or these various things, right? Because if, because Paolo came out the other day from Tether saying, I think it was like forty percent of the transfers on these shit chains is Tether

Stablecoins, but the stablecoins are like, hey, we're gonna create our own chain. What does that mean for these utility tokens? To me, it's like it reinforces the Bitcoin maxies who are basically saying, "Look, you need a reason to hold the token. Bitcoin has a reason because it's the future of money. There's only twenty-one million of them." and these altcoins, this utility token thesis is bunk. That's how I see it.

So, you said it much better than me. competition is such a good thing, and that's where I say, okay, if, you know, going back to the earlier point, is this a good thing for Bitcoin and all this stuff? Every-- Like all these areas to attack Bitcoin are a good thing to make it, to strengthen Bitcoin, right? And so I think we need to be more vocal about preserving our, ability to self-custody Bitcoin, to As well as, as censorship resistant, as possible, and all those properties, we need to defend fully throated. But get your popcorn out, because it's freaking awesome to see these other, like, chains to compete against, you know, the Ethereum, Chainlink, and all these other guys that, that pontificate about, you know, that their chains and the usage and utility of those changed, chains, because they're gonna go compete directly there, and they're gonna bring down the fees, there's gonna be less adoption, less usage, because they're gonna just go Amongst themselves and just build a better experience. And so it's just all about competition, like what, what are you competing for? And Bitcoin is competing in an eight billion person TAM, total addressable market, that is around two things, a medium of exchange and a store of value. For eight billion people, I mean, when, when, when, when invest-- like people are like, "Oh, you should invest in this, or invest in that." I mean, now I don't even like, I don't have the time, mental time to even think about it, because I'm just The TAM is too small and the opportunity is just too small compared to Bitcoin, just straight up. so I'm not, I'm not, you know, we'll see how that all plays out. I, I actually am becoming a little bit more bullish on, Lightning and then all the ways that Lightning is being implemented across, the board. that's really interesting, like even with, with what Primal's doing, with, yeah, it's just, I, I'm, I'm more bullish on that, on that front

Yeah, I think we're seeing the rise of real L2s. Like I commented on this in my recent Substack post, but we are now starting to see production L2, other than production L2s other than Lightning. So we're seeing ARC and SPARK, and different visions of ARC as well. So I think the interesting thing, I might just share this as an update for listeners, is at Baltic Honey Badger, they were trialing ARC in the background for some of the merchants. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, tell me about that. So for the, He just has like a simple, you know, ARC or Arcade wallet, and basically on the front end for the end payer, the user who's buying his coffee or whatever, he can pay a Lightning invoice or directly pay with ARC if, if they choose. And in the background, what's happening is Boltz dot exchange is swapping that Lightning into an ARC VTXO virtual transaction output, and it's kind of held in that way. And then what the merchant can do later is when he's exiting to main chain- Bitcoin to get a UTXO, a Bitcoin UTXO, he can kind of batch exit. So, but look, but the point of all this is like, look, I'm explaining some of the, you know, kind of the interior stuff of it, but actually for the end user, it's very simple. Like the complexity is in the background. You just hit send, you just hit receive, and it's done. You know? So these are some of the things that we're seeing now, and we are gonna start seeing, you know, and it uses, it kind of Human language or the way to send things across different L2s, but it's allowing a much better user experience, and I think that's also a really cool thing. And, I think Spark is gonna be an interesting one also to see. There's been some chatter about that. Obviously, the Lightspark, and I think it's a sub company of them who are making Spark, which is kind of like a, a special version of a state chain with certain different assumptions and things like that. But point is, we're seeing better ways to even do mediated exchange, right? So I And medium of exchange for Bitcoin. Totally.

So this goes back to the part, like, okay, you just mentioned Ark, you mentioned, Spark, you mentioned, like, I mean, there's so many things, I can't even keep up with it. But what do I do? I, I'm on the left side of the bell curve in terms of smarts, you're on the right side, no, no, no, I'm on the left side. So I'm like, alright, you know what? How do I, get concentration here of the best people

and In March of '26, right now or maybe April, I forget which month, we're planning the Bitcoin Payment Summit. It was like our version of the Lightning Summit. We're making that the Bitcoin Payment Summit, such that bring the arcs of the world, bring the like, like all these folks, and then like, there's gonna be show and tell, there's gonna be panel discuss, like all of that stuff, but very curated just on this, topic, and have like about a hundred fifty of some of the best people in the world, there. So that's what we

And then, and, and that's where we're just, you know, even the grassroots behind me, which is the meetup meetup organizers. I think there's just the focus there on that so that we're not going all-- into all these different rabbit holes in Bitcoin, 'cause it's so amazing. I mean, like, we can go into so many rabbit holes at any conference, but at a summit, you could just stay in this area and just be like, "Okay, I'm gonna really deep dive into this, over these two days."

Yeah, I'm, I'm, I You know, there's all kinds of reasons for different events, right? And I think there are so many, and I think that's probably another elephant in the room for you to address just for listeners as well, because they might be like, "Oh, what, another event? Like, there's how many hundred Bitcoin events now every year? What, what's special about this one?" you know, and to be fair, you know, different geographies, different specializations, different, you know, you know, there's different ways to slice and dice these different events. You don't have

And the, let's say the USP of some of the events that you're organizing.

Totally. So, it's similar to the podcast, I do think more is better. And you'll be like, "Wait, that doesn't make sense. " You're the one that's hosting like hundreds of meetups, workshops, and summits every year. And I actually do think, more is better, because as a producer, your, your, your, what you're producing will either work or not work, you know? And I do think there's just-- There's so many About Bitcoin. So it's not like, oh, even if there's like conflicting dates and topics and so on, you know, ours at Bitcoin Park, we're limited, limited by the space that we have. So ours are, are probably maximum a hundred and fifty people at all times. So for me, I, I literally go and vet every single person that's on there, and I send them an invite, you know, to, to come. And it's not so much like, oh, you need to be this type of person or that, but I'm like, look, you're gonna Ticket, I wanna make sure this is the best experience you have, because even at our meetups and our summits, I always start out with my opening remarks and say, "It is-- I take a lot of pride and responsibility in making this the best Bitcoin experience you have all year, and here's why I believe that's gonna be the case for these next two days, boom, boom, boom." And so, and that's why I also like Stefan, that we have all these free and open meetups, such that you can get a taste and a flavor of all these great meet- like, Xpubs are comparable to paid tickets that you would go buy at a conference. And so I wanna have like different tracks for different folks to experience these deep, deep knowledge in these, areas. And then two is, you know, supporting the local communities. Like, I do think if you-- there's no experience that's local to you, you should kinda create, what's, what, what you want there, whether that's a meetup, workshop, or summit. And you're not, you know, yes, in Nashville it's really kind of a... Honored, that people fly in, you know, you're flying in from Dubai and like other people are flying in, so I, again, take a lot of pride and responsibility in making this the best time for you. You're sacrificing time away from your family, I, it's not lost on, on me at all. I think that's the area where it's like, okay, you know, you're in Cheyenne, Wyoming, or, or, or, you know, Dubai, or Madrid, or Prague, wherever, creating those local experiences to make it easy, but making it the best, I think, will go a long way. So, a-and, and by the way, we also need more Bitcoin signal. Like, you wanna talk about more-- There, there's a lot of Bitcoin events. There's probably a boatload of crypto, altcoin, whatever events that are happening across the board But I went to this event, and they're telling me about this yield product where I now just can-- what's called staking, and I could put this here, and but I just gotta, you know, KYC and, you know, give up this, and but I'm getting ten percent. It's like, I'm like, hold up, pump the brakes, you know? That's, that's, that's not the game. So, I would just say, you know, come out and check it out for yourself, if you have, if you

have And I think, there's a lot to, there's a lot of things that people can learn from coming to the right kinds of events, and that's where, you know, I think, you know, listeners and viewers, you know, make sure you share the events that you really think are valuable, because look, it's so easy for people to get sucked into some of these shitcoin rabbit holes. Think about how many of our friends, like, if you're a listener now, you've prob- you're probably a Bitcoin evangelist or someone who's like really into Or this other coin, or this other thing, or, you know, in the years gone by, like the BSV conferences and things like, they were massive conferences, right? Exactly. They got like thousands of people to these events. Meanwhile, there are like high signal Bitcoin events that can-- that's struggling to break five hundred people. You know what I mean? Like it's just, there's a massive disconnect, you know? Yeah.

If, if I can, and I'm curious to know your thoughts. So, You mentioned Baltic honey badger, I would recommend going to Riga once in your life, you know, if you can experience that, minimum once in your life. Nifty's base fifty-eight, I would recommend if you're technical doing, doing that one. Like these more, I actually wrote a post like, this is, by the way, I wanna write more, and we, like under this like first sentence, which is, "This is dumb, but hear me out," and it's like, "Conferences suck." And I kind of explain why I think conferences suck, because they just make 'em vanilla. But like if you do something like how Nifty's creating these themes in different locations and making it very for the technical community, that's freaking awesome. When you got like Honeybadger, which is like a core cypherpunk, like, really Bitcoin focused, experience, that is freaking awesome. I actually went to Prague, I thought those guys did a great job as well, the BTC Prague guys. So, to- To your exact point, the ones that are doing great job, I would just be singing their praises, you know, from the rooftops. and I think we all should be doing that as well.

Right, because, and, I mean, I'm with you there. Like, I, I'd slightly disagree a little on some of the big events. Like, I would say there's a reason for some of these big events too. Like, I just think everything has its place, because, you know, I see it like, I should go because, look- There might be a big event, there might be a big audience or people who might watch that livestream, and if they have a chance to hear your message, that might help them, you know? And look, here's the other thing, there is a bit of an eternal September problem, right? Like that's been around, and look, that's before you or I even turned up, it was eternal September in this space. So having people who are there to, let's say, reinforce the, hey, not your keys, not your coins, message, you know, that's valuable. Support the people who you think are doing a good job, and just try to share their events, their podcasts, their newsletters, whatever, or their communities. Like, just try to get people going along to them. You know, I think it, it'll, it'll help at least sort of maintain a certain kind of, ethos. Of course, some of that will change, and maybe not everyone's receptive to the message, so be it. But, you know, do what you can is how I see it.

Totally. And, and just to echo that, I think In life, there's time, capital, and reputation. Right. And I think we focus a lot on time and capital. And by the way, shout out to Juan Siscaseras, like he's one of those guys that really got me into like going deep into Bitcoin. Met him like once for like two minutes, but like his podcast early on changed my life. And, but like I think we dis- devalue the, the reputation part. Like we just throw that away. It's like, fuck it, you know, I'm gonna go here, pontificate about this company or that company, 'cause they're giving me, like, you know, a two dollar ref link. And I'm like, guys, you're-- Especially if you're a meetup organizer, you, you are, whether you like it or not, actually somebody sent me this article, which I kinda now believe, which is the new influencers are the community organizers You, Stefan, carry so much weight with this podcast. Odell, Marty, Preston, Dan-- I mean, the list goes on. And, I'm, I'm so proud, you know, the people you associate with, the, the mission that you're on, and so on. And look, it's tough, like, m-- I'm not gonna agree with all the things you, you, you think I like, like, I mean, you're not gonna agree with everything I like, but like, it's like rooted in a respect and, it's rooted in respect and like a more of a mission focused that, I'm a hundred percent on board with.

Excellent. Well, look, let's leave it there. Closing thoughts, and also obviously, tell people about, the upcoming Treasury and Custody Summit and Imagine If. Give us the dates for that and where people can, find you.

Absolutely. And again, Stephan, thank you for participating in both. Both are, you know, knock on wood, gonna be a banger. For the Custody and Treasury Summit, that's September 1 H, or actually go to the CusDy and Treasury, website, which is BitcoinPark dot, well, we'll put it in the show notes, but BitcoinPark dot com forward slash CusDy hyphen Treasury, or go to our Meetup page on Nashville, and then there's, like, just join the waitlist and then we'll go through that whole list. And then, and then imagine if it's September nineteenth and twentieth, so both are in Nashville, basically four days in

a row, right? Yeah.

Exactly. I wanna monopolize everybody's

Bitcoin, AI, energy, and freedom tech. It's in partnership with Ark Invest. So Kathy Wood, very kind that she's gonna be in town. So is Dr. Laffer, Odell, U Stefan, Adam Back, and a whole number of amazing other bitcoiners. So if you go to bitcoinpark dot com forward slash imagine if, you can learn more about the speakers, some of our topics. There's a request by, invitation, 'cause the ticket price is, the, the space is limited and the ticket price is a little higher than our other, experiences This is the right, experience for you. But, dude, this was so fun for being the first time on the, on your podcast, honored man.

Hey, man. Well, hey, I'm a fan of what you're doing. listeners, please do support Rod, check out the events, share this episode, of course. and, let's leave it there. Thanks for joining me, Rod.

Thank you, man.