{ "episodeId": "SLP102", "speakers": { "stephan": { "name": "Stephan Livera", "role": "host", "tag": "STEPHAN" }, "jimmy_song_alex_gladstein": { "name": "Jimmy Song & Alex Gladstein", "role": "guest", "tag": "JIMMY" }, "guest_2": { "name": "Guest 2", "role": "guest", "tag": "GUEST" } }, "segments": [ { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "00:09", "start": 8.55, "text": "Hi and welcome to the Stephan Livera podcast focused on Bitcoin and Austrian economics. Today for episode one hundred and two we are talking about the Little Bitcoin Book. But first, let me introduce the sponsors of the podcast. So firstly, look into Kraken. Over my years in Bitcoin, I've been really impressed with the way Kraken operate. They have a really strong focus on security, they've got Kraken security labs, they're acting ethically in the space under Jesse Powell's leadership. They are one of the longest standing Bitcoin exchanges, and they're consistently rated the best. They've got a really high quality platform with some of the best liquidity in the industry. They've got high trading volume and low fees, with no minimum or hidden fees. Kraken have twenty four seven support, and on the institutional and business solution side, they are providing best in class accounting, reconciliation, and reporting services for crypto. Cryptocurrency hedge funds, asset managers and fund administrators, Kraken have an OTC desk for those higher touch large block trades. They offer five fiat currencies and they also offer margin and futures trading. To learn more and sign up, go to the Kraken link in the show notes. Next, look into Unchained Capital, they're a Bitcoin financial services company and they're offering a two of three keys multi-signature vault product. It's really easy to set up, you can use Trezor or Ledger wallet And remember, you still maintain control because you have two of those three keys, and that multi-signature helps you distribute the keys and, in some sense, helps protect you against that proverbial five dollar wrench attack. Unchained also offers Bitcoin collateralized loans, so you can get USD liquidity without selling your bitcoins, meaning you don't trigger a capital gains event. So this might be more tax-efficient for you because you can keep holding rather than selling the bitcoins. While that loan is outstanding, your Bitcoin is stored in a dedicated multi-signature address under what's called collaborative custody with Unchained. So to learn more and sign up, go to the Unchained capital link in the show notes. Alright, so my guests today are Jimmy Song and Alex Gladstein. Now, Jimmy Song barely needs an intro, but just for the newbies who might not know, Jimmy is a globally recognized leader in Bitcoin education. He is teaching developers how to code Bitcoin, and he also wrote Programming Bitcoin. Now, Alex Gladstein, so again, many of my listeners- would know who Alex is, but just in case you don't know, Alex is the cso of HRF, Human Rights Foundation, and he's a well-known advocate of Bitcoin from a human rights perspective and also does Bitcoin education himself. So this episode is about the little Bitcoin book. There's a really interesting story of how this book came about and how it was written. So it's a great book, and I'm sure you guys will enjoy listening to Jimmy and Alex's perspective on it. Welcome to the show, Jimmy and Alex. Thanks for having us. Thanks for having us on. So guys, I know you wrote this book recently, I had the chance to read it, I really enjoyed it, I think it's a really great book for giving to a newbie. I think it'd be best to just start with a little bit around why did you write this book? Jimmy, you wanna lead off?" }, { "speaker": "jimmy_song_alex_gladstein", "time": "03:20", "start": 199.6, "text": "I, I guess I can. so we, we, Alex and I were talking about possibly doing a book That would appeal, I guess, more, to the mainstream than I, I think the books that were out there. we, we both love Safdie's book, The Bitcoin Standard and everything, but, you know, I mean, there's a lot of economics in it, a lot of Austrian assumptions sort of built into it, and we wanted to present the case without having to present the economics necessarily. I mean, there, there's a lot of economics in the book, obviously, but we wanted to have a book that would appeal to the mainstream Dream and just sort of, you know, I, I don't know anything about Bitcoin, but now after this book, I know that it actually matters for, you know, human civilization and human rights and all these other things. So that, that was the, that was the basic idea." }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "04:13", "start": 253.01, "text": "Yeah, and from my side, you know, a lot of the materials that are out there to help people learn about Bitcoin are very technical, which of course are, are very useful and important, but, but I really wanted a book to help create a book that would be- For like the kind of person who reads the, you know, traditional average newspaper, who reads, whether it's the Wall Street Journal or the New York Times or The Economist, I wanted to help create something that would be on that same level of approachability, where you don't need to be like a specialized technical person or have a specialized viewpoint on, on already on the way that money works, to be able to understand this pretty magnificent technology." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "04:51", "start": 291.4, "text": "Fantastic. And I think the point that I would also raise is that there is a lot of material- out there, quote unquote, for newbies. But the problem with a lot of it is fundamentally that it's wrong, or it is too much of a blockchain focus or cryptocurrency focus, whereas this book has a very specific focus, and I think that's why this book is superior to basically many of the other kind of intro to Bitcoin, books out there. can you tell us a little bit about some of your co-authors as well, because I think that matters in terms of getting a certain level of technical accuracy and precision in how the book is written?" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "05:27", "start": 326.86, "text": "Yeah, let me just, give you the sort of backstory. Obviously, Jimmy and I had first had a conversation in March with Alexander Lloyd, who's a, a VC in Silicon Valley, who's very interested in this topic, and we were like, \"Hey, maybe we can write a book together.\" And then, a couple weeks later, Jimmy and Alexander were both at this event that my nonprofit produces called the Oslo Freedom Forum, which is like a global gathering point for human rights activists and dissidents, mainly from authoritarian countries. And- And several other Bitcoiners and, and people in the cryptocurrency space were in attendance, and, you know, one night we, we all kind of got the ability to get together and, Elena Branova, you know, from, from Casa currently, who obviously has a lot of perspective on, the development of Eastern Europe, you know, coming from what was then the Soviet Union, Alejandro Machado, who, you know, has a background from Venezuela and has, you know, unfortunately watched this tragedy unfold in his country, which has been primarily, you know, Timmy, Ajibuye, who is a newer friend of mine who, who went through Y Combinator with his cryptocurrency exchange, and now is basically running one of the top ways for Nigerians to acquire Bitcoin, on, on his exchange. As well as Luis Buenaventura, who, who's a, a pretty well-known Bitcoin, in cryptocurrency entrepreneur, from the Philippines, and then Lily Liu, who I, I got the pleasure of meeting, in the last year, obviously who spent a lot of time, in, in, in China, a-and has that perspective. so, so that, that was really exciting for me to, to, to help bring all these folks together. I don't know, Jimmy, what was your, your take on that?" }, { "speaker": "jimmy_song_alex_gladstein", "time": "07:08", "start": 427.6, "text": "Yeah, Right? It's, it's really about, knowing what's actually happening on the ground and getting all of these perspectives, about what's actually happening in these places, and Alex obviously knows a lot more about the specifics than I do. that was very important for us to, give sort of a non-first world perspective, if you will, 'cause, a lot of the material, like you said, isn't just wrong, like, you know, talking about blockchain this and blockchain that. but a lot of it is just completely focused, like, almost exclusively on Silicon Valley. And, you know, there's a much wider world out there where this sort of stuff matters, and bringing that perspective was very important to us and, being able to, you know, just sort of wake people up. You know, I'm, I'm a dad, so for me, it's, it's very important to give my kids a lot of perspective, and that's something that we also wanted to do with this book." }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "08:09", "start": 489.35, "text": "Yeah, and for us, this is first and foremost About technology, and I think that's what a lot of people get hung up with, like, like in San Francisco, in New York, in London, you know, they think Bitcoin is, you know, a technological innovation, and, and in some ways it is, but more importantly than that, it's a monetary innovation. And, you know, I think that we wanted to have people as part of the authoring process who could, who could bring firsthand experience about what has happened to money, whether it was in, Africa, Asia, Latin America, you know, the That is, is something that honestly, you know, a lot of folks who are in the current Bitcoin or cryptocurrency community, you know, don't, don't think about a whole lot." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "08:53", "start": 532.61, "text": "Fantastic, I love the approach there because really that is, we must think of Bitcoin first as a money rather than the typical, technology ways of thinking about it. and another thing that's remarkable about this book is the way it was written. So Jimmy, do you wanna just lead off and tell us a little bit what was the process and what was the way this book was written?" }, { "speaker": "jimmy_song_alex_gladstein", "time": "09:14", "start": 554.43, "text": "Yeah, so I, I mean, I, I've written another book, Programming Bitcoin, and I published that with O'Reilly, and that, that thing took fourteen months to do, and that, that just-- that was such a slog. Like, one, one of the benefits of debating Roger Ver on that cruise was I basically locked myself in the room for the rest of the time and wrote, and, you know, like I kinda had to Hard because like going outside my room at the cruise meant like running into kind of crazy people. So that, that w- that's the sort of lengths that you have to go to to write a book. and when I had heard of this idea of book sprinting, and that, that's something that I, I heard through some other authors that I knew from O'Reilly, I, I was seriously intrigued, and they were saying how they made, they wrote, you can write a book in a week with any- Anywhere from three to fifteen experts on the topic, and, it's something that I really wanted to try, and, it, it's, yeah, I, I, I talked to a lot of friends about it, I, I tried to convince them to do it. The, the big thing that turned out to be difficult was coordinating it and getting, everyone to take like a week off and do, do all of that. so when this opportunity with Alex came, to write a book that's more focused on money and- On human rights and how it can, you know, change the world and how it is changing the world. it, it's, it, it was like a really good match, and that, that's, that's where we, you know, came together and, you know, basically spent a week in a really nice house and, you know, cooked our own food and wrote like basically all day long. So, it, it, it was a really fun experience, and" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "11:03", "start": 663.22, "text": "I was pretty surprised that people actually came, you know, like we had this, we had this kind In late May, and we were like, \"Ooh, wouldn't it be fun to do that?\" And I kind of thought that it wouldn't crystallize and actually happen, so I sent out this email and people were like, \"Yeah, I'm booking my flight.\" And I was like, \"Wow, like, Luis is coming from Manila, and he's, you know, he's coming, and Alejandro at the time was coming from Spain, and, Timmy was coming from Lagos, and, you know, Elena was coming from...\" Eastern Europe, so, people were really serious about it, and when we got there, it really felt like-- and Jimmy calls it like the CrossFit phenomenon, like when everybody else is like trying really hard, you, you want, you don't want to be the one who's like slowest, right? So it, it created this phenomenon where like from the moment we started formally, like it was a Sunday morning with kind of the design sprint aspect where we were like thinking about what we wanted to write about before on Monday morning starting the actual writing, we were all pretty locked in and I, it, it really blew me away how we were able to actually get it done. I mean, I really thought that it, it, there would be, you know, maybe like insurmountable arguments about certain things 'cause we all have such different backgrounds. I mean, we talked about the geo, geo sort of political backgrounds, but we come from different backgrounds, period. Like some of us are, investors, some of us are- People from that sort of Silicon Valley realm, some of us like Jimmy are educators, some of them are rights activists, some of us are researchers, so we come from like really different backgrounds, you know, from an industry point of view too. So the fact that we all kind of come together and just the fact that everybody was so kind, I guess, through the process. And, you know, when we had an argument, it was, it was a healthy intellectual argument, whether it was about the Oxford comma, which we would all, all make fun of Jimmy for, or more serious role of potentially the role of Bitcoin in addressing, you know, the downsides of fiat money systems, allowing governments to, have more prolonged wars, which I think was kind of one of the biggest things we argued about. I, I think it was super healthy, and I, I would, it's fair to say I learned more in that like four-day period than, than I normally do in like four months, and I, I would highly, highly recommend people to do this kind of like book sprint process for, for other things." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "13:18", "start": 797.52, "text": "Fantastic. And another thing that I noticed from the write-up on how this book came together, and Jimmy, perhaps you can touch on this, is how you brought almost a development principle or open-source development principle of, you know, you can edit whatever you want and you can add or you can remove. Tell us a little bit about that, Jimmy." }, { "speaker": "jimmy_song_alex_gladstein", "time": "13:37", "start": 816.72, "text": "Yeah, so I, I think we've all sort of done like superhuman things in like a week before with a group, and, at least for me, those are some of my most satisfying- Times in life, right? Like where, where you have to just compress the hell out of something. I don't know, maybe you were in a band or something, you can't play the song right, and then like, you know, a week later when you're about to do the show, you, you just get it perfect, you know? Like, those ten, ten, those things can happen, but it, it, it requires sort of like, a, a higher level of like almost living and breathing and being, and, and that, that's what this I've done that before, at different startups where I was under a lot of pressure, but so was everybody else around me. And you-- and there's like a bond that grows out of that, there's a respect that grows out of that. So I, I, I brought a lot of those elements into the book sprint, you know, including, you know, like getting all the ideas out, like having real brainstorming, having real sort of like user stories and having, you know, like we, we wrote the reviews of what the book would be before we wrote the Our acceptance tests, right? Like those are, are unit tests. Like, th-this is exactly what I would do in any sort of like coding sprint. So having something like that, the, the process I was very familiar with, but applying it to a new realm, I, I, I was surprised at how well it worked, honestly. And, you know, same conflicts that would happen in a coding sprint, right? Like, oh, you, why, why are you throwing all this away? I spent so much time on" }, { "speaker": "jimmy_song_alex_gladstein", "time": "15:15", "start": 914.9, "text": "it. Or, you know, like, You know, like having that focus and doing all of that, it was, it was immensely satisfying for me." }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "15:22", "start": 921.63, "text": "Yeah, and just to color, you know, briefly, the process which worked surprisingly well, again, I, I mean, on Sunday we sat down and, and Jimmy encouraged us to write our, you know, predictive, reviews which would be published in mainstream media after the fact, right, if the book was successful. And this helped us understand our audiences. So we each-- We had eight audiences, right? Everybody had their own audience. And I remember when Jimmy first told me about Idea, he was like, \"Look, I'm a tech, tech, technical libertarian, you know, like I'm, I'm someone who probably is similar to like point five percent of humans or something like that. Like, I, I, I want to get this idea and understanding and appreciation for Bitcoin to like the other ninety-nine percent, right? \" so I think that's, that's what he was thinking about with his audience, and then someone else wanted, you know, their parents to be able to read it, and someone else wanted, like, you know, a particular part you know, well-educated kind of person who might read The Economist or The Financial Times, who's kind of maybe arrogant about Bitcoin, I wanted them to, to kinda maybe look at this as a challenge and read it to, to be, you know, assuming they could dismiss it, and then kind of hopefully get sucked in. So I'm hoping we get some of those folks. but after that, we started just like writing down literally all the things we wanted to write about to achieve those goals on post-it notes, and then over time, we like hung them up on walls, and, chapters. and, you know, by the end of Sunday, we had a skeleton of, of what we wanted to write about, and I thought it was really cool that we agreed that the first chapter should really be about, why money is, is sort of broken in today's world, and I don't even think we mentioned the word Bitcoin once in the first chapter, and, and that's to me a proper introduction for this topic." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "17:07", "start": 1027.2, "text": "Yeah, that reminds me of how, you know, if you look at Safdie's book, The Bitcoin Standard, he doesn't necessarily mention Bitcoin at the start, it's about monetary history, right? And so in the same way, the start of your book actually goes into border crossing with life savings, and you've got some examples there from Manila, Lagos, Venezuela, Shanghai. Did you wanna touch on some of those? Maybe Alex, you could start with some of that" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "17:29", "start": 1049.06, "text": "for us. Well, you know, what was interesting is that on Monday morning when we started writing, everyone took a stab Luis, took-- he was the, you know, the, the first person to, to draft the first chapter. And, you know, we basically gave ourselves, I think it was something like, you know, two PM deadline to have the first chapter done, first draft style, right? So you're talking like twenty, twenty-five pages of writing, so it's pretty ambitious. But we, we did get, we sorta got there. And when we looked at Luis's chapter, I was really happy the way it came together, 'cause he basically, he started to interview some of In that first chapter, you've got, you know, Philippines, Nigeria, and Venezuela, for example. And, and in his, in his own telling, I mean, when he was born in 1980, Luis's parents, you know, had a money. They had, they had a peso, which was, you know, seven to the US dollar, right? And that, that's kind of what guided their savings and, you know, assumptions about what they needed to do to save money to, to put their, their kid through school and things like" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "18:36", "start": 1116.44, "text": "Ensuing two, two, three decades, you know, the peso really, really, devalued against the dollar to the point where as, as of the time of, you know, about ten years ago, You know, there were fifty-two or fifty-three pesos in, in, in the dollar, right? So we, we have these like first-person perspectives of how money has just depreciated, as a result of Governments, you know, you know, increasing the money supply and, you know, the impact that that has on people i-is a serious one that often people in countries like mine, being an American, i, i don't really notice so much, right? Like I do notice gas prices, real estate prices, but, you know, we don't really notice it. It's sort of like the frog boiling in water issue. so I really, I was happy to get, those, those stories as well as stories about How difficult it is to send money across borders, and, and most importantly to me as a human rights activist, stories about, intrusions on our financial privacy in the age of digital money, you know, whereas before, you know, everybody used paper money, you know, for a long time, or at least paper and metal money, and, and most transactions were, you know, with bearer, you know, sort of bearer assets, and there wasn't a lot of metadata about what we were doing with merchants, right? There wasn't really an ability to do that, and even, even when There wasn't enough like big data analysis or AI tools that could actually, you know, make sense of all these things, but in the last two decades that's started to become the case, and we're definitely heading to a, a very, very, you know, Orwellian reality, you know, some people are already there, as in the case of China, like we described, but the whole world's heading there unless we preserve a digital form of cash, which is one of the reasons I'm such a huge fan of Bitcoin and what, what Bitcoin might be able to become in the future." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "20:24", "start": 1224.46, "text": "Fantastic, Jimmy, did you have any comments to add on that idea?" }, { "speaker": "jimmy_song_alex_gladstein", "time": "20:27", "start": 1227.06, "text": "Yeah, I, I, I really enjoyed, like, one of the things that I learned during this was all of the stories and just how impactful all of this was. I, I, I think I knew it in theory, and, you know, it, it's one thing to know it in theory and then to actually hear the stories, and it connects a little bit differently, right? And, and that's why we're hoping that this book comes across as-- It's, it's one thing to know, okay form or its redistribution or something like that, but to actually see it happen. I, I mean, what, one of the, I, I remember Timmy told me at one point we were, we were talking about like the, the, I think we were arguing about the dollar hegemony actually. And, and Timmy at one point says, and we were like, \"Yeah, I mean, the U--\" And somebody said, \"Hey, US dollar isn't that important around the world.\" And Timmy's like, \"Are you kidding me? It And I was like, \"Oh, yeah, that's right. Like, I, I, like, I-- it's, it's crazy to think, but that's how pretty much everyone around the world, for them, like, that, that's how important the dollar is because it is sort of the standard.\"" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "21:39", "start": 1298.83, "text": "And that was a big debate, right? Like, w- essentially, has the dollar hegemony been a positive force for the world? I think, I think was something that I, I hadn't really wrapped my head around too much before, like obviously Jimmy had, I think, in" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "21:54", "start": 1314.48, "text": "The dollar hegemony has enabled like this sort of fifty-year period of like unprecedented prosperity and, you know, commerce and, et cetera. And you can also say, depending on where you live, that it's ushered in like an age of, reliance on a single point of failure and like, you know, unprecedented failures in, in local currencies over time as they struggle to keep up with that. I don't know, Jimmy, you wanna add color to that too?" }, { "speaker": "jimmy_song_alex_gladstein", "time": "22:19", "start": 1338.51, "text": "Yeah, I, I def- I, I've been thinking about that quite a bit, and there, Kantilane effect. I, I, I mean, we do touch on the Kantilane effect, but this, this was one of the parts that got cut, which was that, you know, if, whoever gets to spend the money first gets a lot of the benefits, and, if it's the dollar standard, then who's printing the dollar? Well, it's the US, who gets to spend it first, it's the, it's people in the US, and people in first world countries, it's, it's the poor suckers" }, { "speaker": "jimmy_song_alex_gladstein", "time": "22:51", "start": 1371.03, "text": "in You know, talking about that, I mean, unfortunately this got cut a little bit. I mean, we, we still mentioned the word hegemony in there and, you know, talk about how we're all on that standard, but, but yeah, there, there's, there's a lot of that that's happening in the world that isn't sort of in the consciousness of a lot of people, with respect to money. You know, why is the US so successful? And people say, \"Well, US exceptionalism, there's a lot of talent here, we just work harder There's also this giant advantage that the US has with the dollar standard, and, and, you know, it's, it's something that is, I think, a problem with money. It isn't necessarily something that people," }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "23:37", "start": 1417.02, "text": "know about. But, and at the same time, I think something I've really been thinking about since writing the book is that, like, quite obviously, you know, the dollar is like the hardest or soundest fiat money that exists. I mean, it's something that's very desirable for people, who have really, really bad currencies that depreciate" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "23:54", "start": 1434.1, "text": "On my interest in helping educate and spread the word about Bitcoin so that more people can understand that they can permissionlessly acquire this thing. you know, it got me thinking about projects like, you know, that aren't really related on a technology level to Bitcoin, but, but maybe similar in terms of getting a, a hard currency in the hands of more people, like, like Libra, which I'm sure people are worried about from a surveillance point of view, but let's, let's face it, if, if, you know, something like eighty to ninety percent Book, and all of a sudden they can get, they can get essentially US dollars, you know, what do you think they're gonna store their wages in, right? So I think eventually a lot of these folks are gonna realize they should acquire Bitcoin, but in the meantime, I think some of these corporate projects are gonna be interesting, because they're gonna start mixing in people's ability to acquire harder money, and it's gonna cause some very interesting conversations in the world about what money is and where money comes from. And I've been thinking about that a lot since we wrote the first chapter" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "24:54", "start": 1494.02, "text": "I think one typical thing that, you know, a fiat economist might say is, \"Well, what's the big deal with low and stable inflation? Don't people just invest in equities and bonds anyway?\"" }, { "speaker": "jimmy_song_alex_gladstein", "time": "25:07", "start": 1506.7, "text": "Yeah, I, I, this is, this was the topic of my talk at Bitblock Boom actually, and, and, you know, I, I got overshadowed a little bit by, Michael Goldstein. But the whole, the whole, idea behind, you know, like being able to store value, right now in the current system today, there really aren't that many good places to store value, and they, they purposefully make it that way because, the economists- That run the central banks and so on, they're all Keynesians, and they, they need velocity of money, they need, you know, everything to move constantly. and as a result, if you park your money anywhere, they don't like that, because that means that the money isn't moving through the economy and causing prosperity somehow. So, you know, Bitcoin gives you sort of that parking place, right? Like, it's kind of like the game of Monopoly, like towards the end of the game, you just want to be on free parking or in" }, { "speaker": "jimmy_song_alex_gladstein", "time": "26:05", "start": 1565.34, "text": "Like land on somebody else's property and pay lots of rent. that, that's kind of the situation that you, you wanna be, you, you end up being in, is that, you know, pretty much any asset that you put your money in, it's either risky or requires a lot of research or, s-something to that effect where it's hard to store your money. Well, Bitcoin gives you that, and it's absolutely fair 'cause it's fungible, right? Like, two pieces of real estate, very unfungible, two different stocks, very Non-fungible, and there's a lot of research involved in making sure that you get the better on end of the bargain and all that. with Bitcoin, it's fair, right? And it, it, it all goes up at the same time or all comes down at the same time, and that, that's a very fair currency, and I, I, I think people will see more of its value as it goes. And like Alex was saying, you know, people will learn more about what hard money means, right? once, once they, they already They already know the dollar is very, very valuable, and that that's the absolute last thing that you spend. but, you know, once, once they learn about Bitcoin, you know, Bitcoin will be the absolute last thing that they'll spend. Yeah, and that'll, that'll be accreditation." }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "27:19", "start": 1639.35, "text": "I think from a progressive point of view or sort of a, sort of, let's say, center-left point of view, I think what's interesting is that, you know, a lot of people rally against, rail against the current system being unfair, which it is, in, in Like invest in companies or, you know, you have to have a sizable amount of liquid to even buy blue chip stocks and of course, real estate. but with Bitcoin, you know, people around the world get an opportunity to permissionlessly, again, without needing to prove their identity or bank account, acquire, you know, an asset that can't be devalued, and I, I think my appreciation for that aspect of this has- grown a lot. And, and something else that was interesting that made it into the book from a human rights perspective is, I think you can picture, like, running, you know, a fiat economy kind of like, you know, like a waiter with like, two gigantic plates that he's balancing while he's riding on a unicycle, right? And, and it's really, really hard to do. And, and it really only is possible to even, like, do it temporarily if you have a free and open country that's, that's like, not a dictatorship. And I So dismissive or skeptical or uninterested in Bitcoin, who, who come from places like the United States and Northern Europe or maybe Australia, is that they happen to live in one of those pockets in the world, the small pockets, where there is relative freedom and, and property rights and free expression and separation of powers, but like, that's just not the case elsewhere, and there's like no separation between money and state, like, at all. Like, at least, like, there, there is the, the, the appearance of it, if you will, or even more so than that in But like if you're in Saudi Arabia or in Turkey, or, or in Iran or, you know, Zimbabwe, et cetera, you know, the, the executive, the, the dictator or the tyrant or the, the, the people who rule, they literally can just print more money whenever they want. There's no check and balance against that, and that leads to such devastating consequences. And I, I think it's only because I've had a lot of experience working with people who live under authoritarian societies that I've come to that particular appreciation." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "29:23", "start": 1763.12, "text": "That's a fantastic point, Alex. And look, so obviously I'm with you guys, right? I'm on your side. But a common objection or something that might, come up, let's say, that a Bitcoin, a question that a Bitcoiner might have to answer, right? Someone who's a listener, they might be trying to talk about Bitcoin, and someone might come with this question, they might say, \"Well, okay, well, it's all well and good that you guys talk about Bitcoin, but...\" For example's sake, how many Venezuelans have a phone capable of using Bitcoin and Lightning?" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "29:52", "start": 1792.0, "text": "Yeah, I mean, it's a great question. I, I'll give you some numbers to give some context. according to a study done by the big telecom companies in the emerging economies, which is, I think, you know, similar to what Jimmy was saying, or like what we would consider the, the third world. In emerging economies, by the end of next year, more than two thirds of people in those emerging economies are, are predicted to own a smartphone. And that's pretty mind-blowing. That, that's two-thirds of people in emerging economies. in Venezuela, access to a, I guess we could call it a dumb phone, i-is very, very common. and a lot of people are like one step away from someone who has something like a smartphone, or, or a computer at home. and that has led to the situation where And, and this seems very like Snow Crash sci-fi, but like the, the amount of Bitcoin traded in Venezuela today, by, by dol- you know, if you look at it from a dollar perspective, is like many, many times that of what's traded on the Caracas Stock Exchange. And that's obviously just a shocking paradigm shift. And, you know, I don't think it'll be the first country, that, that ends up going through that transformation. And, you know, probably it'll, you know, long term, I, I would, I'd Long term, more Bitcoin gets traded in every country, you know, compared to the \"quote unquote\" stock exchange may take fifty years, but I'd be willing to bet that, and we're starting to see that world start to emerge, which is one of the reasons I, I really wanted to write this book." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "31:23", "start": 1882.85, "text": "Fantastic. And how about this is another scenario that I've seen come up in developing countries or emerging countries, is they get confused between, say, the Petro, or they confuse Bitcoin with all of these other cryptocurrency, with these kind of cryptocurrency scam projects?" }, { "speaker": "jimmy_song_alex_gladstein", "time": "31:40", "start": 1899.88, "text": "Yeah, that, that's a big problem. and th-this is one of the reasons why we wanted to write this book is to sort of give people the, you know, reasoned, very logical case for Bitcoin, with enough stories to make them remember all of the, all of the details. but yeah, there, there are a lot of other books and there are a lot of scammers out there that are saying we're the real Bitcoin or, you know, we're much better than Bitcoin or something like that." }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "32:10", "start": 1930.06, "text": "let me just add some color to that exact point based on, based on what Alejandro told me. So obviously, so Alejandro has been running with Jill Carlson and some other folks at IEO a, a project to, interview Venezuelans who've escaped to Colombia about the way they use their money. And it is really prevalent, like, like Venezuelans know about the petro, like, like they-- it is really well known and it is really unliked because essentially the government has tried to, in some instances, tried to pay people in it instead of the bolivar, right? Like this Actually, something that's, that's happened. so people are really confused about the difference between the petro and Bitcoin, according to their research, and, and this is like a huge problem. So, you know, getting back to Jimmy's point, one of the reasons that we want to- do this book, and I have like, a really awesome, impact of the immediate im-- you know, the immediate influence we're having, i-i-in as much as we just got this email from a friend who said, you know, he reached out to his brother once he saw the book, and he's gonna donate the Spanish translation as a contribution to us. so we're gonna have a Spanish version of this book, soon, and we're gonna get it into Venezuela. you know, my organization is pretty expert at doing this. We drives of outside information into countries like North Korea and Cuba. So, we, we know how to do this. So we, we, we're gonna have, you know, a mechanism for getting this book in different languages into some, some very remote parts of the world, and I'm, I'm really excited to, to work on that." }, { "speaker": "jimmy_song_alex_gladstein", "time": "33:40", "start": 2019.73, "text": "Yeah, and getting translations, especially, I think that's going to be awesome, and we're, we're right now, and one, one of the things that we agreed as authors, which I, I think speaks to the heart of" }, { "speaker": "jimmy_song_alex_gladstein", "time": "33:55", "start": 2034.94, "text": "Take a lot of the profits and put it right into translations, right? Like, it's like, it's not available in Farsi, let's go and, translate this thing into Farsi, get a high quality Farsi translation, and get it" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "34:05", "start": 2045.22, "text": "out there. By, by early next year, there will be, let's say by springtime next year, there will be Korean language versions of this book circulating inside North Korea. That's pretty cool, right?" }, { "speaker": "jimmy_song_alex_gladstein", "time": "34:17", "start": 2057.09, "text": "That, that would be amazing. yeah, I, I, I'm working on a Korean translation, but we'll, we'll see if, the same publisher wants to do it." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "34:26", "start": 2066.3, "text": "Very nice. And, so look, we've talked about sort of the monetary component of it, but let's also now talk a little bit about the privacy aspect of it as well. So now, I know Alex, you recently wrote a fantastic article on this, and it's related as well, is the moral case for Lightning and privacy. So can you set the scene for us a little bit With today's payment system." }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "34:49", "start": 2088.57, "text": "Yeah, I mean, and this is, this is definitely a forward-thinking piece because, you know, obviously as, as your community knows, we're not, we're not quite there yet, with Bitcoin as a privacy tool. However, I do wanna say, and I, I get, I get into a lot of like- Conversations with Monero and Zcash people about this, and they're kind of like, \"Well, Bitcoin's totally worse than everything. It's so public.\" And I'm kind of like, \"Obviously not. Like, obviously it's better to have good operational security and use Bitcoin than to use like Bank of America or whatever.\" Like, like, like the government can just call the bank and get all of your information as opposed to having to hire a chain analysis company to like figure out what you're doing. Like, obviously one thing's harder than another right now, and I think given the Going both on-chain and, and with liquid and lightning and all these different second layer technologies is gonna get a hell of a lot harder. So I do think it's gonna be a privacy technology, and the reason that's important is because even in free countries, like I would say America is a free country, a democracy, we have no financial privacy, you know, and it's not just the Bank Secrecy Act, it's also, intrusion from a corporate perspective. And one of the stories I tell in the book, is my own, is like, you know, when I went You know, not an online purchase, like I used my Chase Visa card to buy something in a store, and it happened to be like a pet store, and I was buying some dog food, and I bought some dog treats on it. And like twenty minutes later, after I left the store, I checked Twitter and I had received an advertisement for like an eerily similar, dog treat, same shape, et cetera. So, you know, this wasn't because my phone had, you know, revealed my geolocation, it was, you know, that's too broad. It was, Shouldn't surprise those of us listening, but, you know, Chase just divulges your, payment data to everyone else when you use it as, as your payment processor, right? and of course, I'm sure I signed away that right when I bought, when I signed up for the Chase credit card, right? In all that fine print. I went back and I looked at it, and I, I did do that, right? So, the fact is, whether or not I, I technically, legally agreed to it, I, you know, I, I didn Cards don't realize what's happening with their payment data, and that, that, that's a slippery slope that leads to some pretty scary situations. I mean, if we allow that to continue without, like, checking it in, in some way, it will end up certainly in a more like Chinese situation where, basically government and corporate kind of complicity lead to a situation where your payment data, which says more about you than your words, allows the government to have like a micro understanding of what you do during your- Your day, and then can both like use carrots and sticks to kind of incentivize you to be loyal, as well as like punish you when, you know, you do something critical of the government and take away your financial freedoms. Like the story I tell about this young woman who, who literally just got like a message from a friend who got in trouble for smoking pot, and like, you know, that alone, that little message that she sent led to her losing like a lot of her abilities to use the, the dominant, WeChat financial service. So That, that is something that could come faster than people think to a society like Australia or the United States, where, you know, our governments aren't so friendly towards cryptography and to, to privacy, and a lot less friendly than, than I think the average person thinks. So, we gotta fight, for these things. And I do think Bitcoin is like the best, most feasible technology out there that gives us the roadmap to have private transactions where, like, I could conceivably in a year or two buy something on, s-a-com, you know, for example, Amazon full identity stack or go to a store and buy coffee or subscribe to a podcast or, you know, buy a book or make a donation to a political party or get a medical procedure again without revealing my full identity stack. I think it gives us the best shot, and I think that's why it's so important to talk about." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "38:46", "start": 2325.53, "text": "And what about the chilling effect as well? That's another factor that we may, in some ways, self-censor ourselves because we're afraid of what will happen if we do speak freely." }, { "speaker": "jimmy_song_alex_gladstein", "time": "38:59", "start": 2338.72, "text": "Yeah, that's definitely happening. I, I, I would like to point out, like with respect to all of this, that if you read the white paper, the abstract, it's, it, it, it speaks, and I, I read this recently, so it's fresh on my mind, it, it speaks exactly to what Alex is talking about with, the financial intermediaries. And the reason why Satoshi Nakamoto made a lot, made, made Bitcoin was to take out that intermediary, was to take out that middleman that's sitting in between every transaction And sort of censoring it and, you know, adding cost to the system, making everything more expensive and so on. and, you know, I, it's-- there, there's a whole censoring, issue with fungibility and all that, which we could get into with Lightning. But, to a large degree, what, what Alex is saying is right. This, this is way, way better than Chase having all of your data or Bank of America having all of your data or Visa having all of your data, and all of that data just sort database that's like just ready to get hacked or turned over to the NSA or, you know, you know, provided to some other government or something like that. It's, it's really a terrible situation when you have financial intermediaries. And, and to give" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "40:13", "start": 2413.03, "text": "listeners like a real world example of, like, why you would want financial privacy, you know, or the chilling effect that you speak of, think about in Hong Kong right now when people are wanting to go protest peacefully against, what their government is doing in terms of- Like acquiescing to the Chinese Communist Party, right? So they want to go protest in the street, so they use the public transit system because it's a massive city, it's a super city, and people use public transit to get around. And they get to the subway, and they take out their, like, you know, octopus card to pay, and then they like hesitate and they realize, \"Wait, if I use this card, the government is gonna know exactly what, where I'm going and, and they're gonna know if I get off at the, at the Like normally there were like never queues for like, you know, people buying like, you know, burner kind of tickets where you'd use cash to do it, but as the protest started, you know, there's this one reporter, Mary Hui, who, who reports for Quartz, and she's been like on this case, like, and sharing this on Twitter, which has been fascinating, but, you know, there, there emerged massive queues of people to like buy these like cash, you know, use cash to buy these tickets so that they wouldn't have their, location tracked. And then Burner tickets as gifts on top of the machines. It's fascinating. and, and that's, that's something that is a really clear demonstration of if you want to exert your, your political rights in a society, you're gonna need privacy, and think about it this way in- In ten years, you know, Hong Kong probably won't have paper metal money, right? So we really, really need to develop, the tools to continue to allow us to be full citizens, now. I mean, if we wait five years, it'll be too late." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "41:55", "start": 2515.25, "text": "Fantastic point. And I, I might just add there as well, there's also the risk there of collateral damage. You might not even be going to the protest, you might just happen to work in that same area, and now you've got, you've been swept up into that net. Yeah, I mean My listeners or you guys might face when you're t-talking to people is they might say, \"Hey, I've done nothing wrong, I've got nothing to hide. Why should I care about your Bitcoin thing?\"" }, { "speaker": "jimmy_song_alex_gladstein", "time": "42:24", "start": 2543.55, "text": "I mean, why, why do you lock your doors at night, right? Like, there, there's a, there's a lot of people that don't, s-sort of value security or privacy until, you know, they, they're faced with their own security or privacy being violated. first of all, they're more or less the same thing if your privacy is violated, that's a security leak. when, whenever somebody knows that you have, like, you know, a lot of money or a lot of bitcoins or something valuable or some, some information about you, it can always be used against you in some security setting. So, you know, i-- it's really the same question as, \"Why do you lock your doors at night?\" Well, you lock your doors at night so, you know, people don't walk in and take your stuff." }, { "speaker": "jimmy_song_alex_gladstein", "time": "43:11", "start": 2591.12, "text": "and it's, it's your, your Who you are and what you do and what you buy, and what you buy, tends to tell a lot more about you than almost anything else. If, if, if you reveal any of that stuff, it can be used against you, in one way or another to manipulate you, to cause you to do certain things, to, take stuff away from you, to blackmail you, whatever. There, there's so many ways in which that information can be used, as a security threat. So from a technical perspective, privacy leaks are security- Security leaks. So it's this, like people have security because there are bad people in the world, and, you know, including, oftentimes our own governments. So you have to protect yourself. And," }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "43:55", "start": 2635.07, "text": "and it may not be so obvious in an open society, but I'll, I'll read a quote from Phil Zimmermann, the famous cryptography pioneer that, that Tour actually shared today on Twitter. \"If we do nothing, new technologies will give the government new automatic surveillance capabilities that Stalin could have never dreamed of. The only way to hold the line on privacy is to...\" In the information age is strong cryptography. And he said this in nineteen ninety one, and it remains equally as important today. And I think something that relates to this is, as Jimmy was saying, kind of security and privacy kind of blend together. Someone once told me this, and I thought, it's always stuck with me. They said something very simple. They said basically that like ever since the age of the caveman, the, the, the person with the bigger stick could kind of like beat the person with, with the smaller stick and take their stuff, right? And, and Bitcoin is like the great Okay, like, you know, the, the wrench attack or whatever, but generally speaking, Bitcoin is way more censor-- you know, sort of confiscation resistant than any other asset, and it's way more liquid than, than like something like gold or real estate. Like, it, it can really, like, allow you, to have much more sovereignty, over your, your belongings. And I, I don't really see why that should matter whether you live in, Oregon, you know, or, or whether you live in occupied Crimea, you know, like this Talk a little bit about" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "45:14", "start": 2714.44, "text": "the possibility with Lightning and privacy as well, and I think I really enjoyed in your article, The Moral Case for Lightning, Alex, you were talking a little bit about what it might look like in twenty twenty-five or twenty thirty. Can you paint a little bit of that picture for us?" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "45:28", "start": 2728.27, "text": "Yeah, well, something I've been thinking a lot lately about is the gift card economy. So like even in the United States, like a large percentage of people, you know, don't, don't have full access to financial services or, you know, don't sign up for a bank account See your supermarket, there's a really large, selection of gift cards which people use cash to buy, and then they buy their online purchases that way. And of course, this affords-- they don't, this isn't desirable from like a perspective of, well, if they had more money, what, the unfortunate thing is they would make trade-offs, and, and they would, they would, they would, you know, trade off that privacy for convenience. But the fact is, when you live that kind of lifestyle, you're very private. Like, when I'm buying things with a, and this is obviously Bitrefill, the company's kind of like, strategy here, and people around the world use Bitcoin to buy Amazon gift cards, for example, using Bitrefill, and then they buy stuff, like Venezuelans do this, and it's really interesting to think about. But my whole point was that that's currently seen as morally and legally fine by police, by regulators, by everybody in the United States. Like, this is, this is cool, that you can do like small retail transactions, relatively small retail transactions with, like, basically total, pretty much total, privacy. and I, I just think that it should be possible for us to, you know, maybe working with groups like Coin Center, like basically convince regulators, like this isn't a problem, like people should be able to do, daily small transactions with basically total privacy. and, and I think that, you know, if we just do it the right way This will be an evolution of that, meaning, using Lightning to, to do retail payments with Bitcoin, for example, will be an evolution of like the gift card economy, which is of course an evolution of the previous economic world where we all used bearer assets. I mean, I don't know what your thoughts are on that, Jimmy." }, { "speaker": "jimmy_song_alex_gladstein", "time": "47:16", "start": 2836.34, "text": "I, I mean, I, I think that this is the world that Satoshi Nakamoto envisioned. if, if you read the white paper, again, it's, it's all about not having that intermediary there. And in a sense, with surveillance, they become sort of like an intermediary, and they, and the party that's sort of like looking in, they, they have information that they, they maybe shouldn't. and the, this is sort of like the last part of, of fulfilling that, w-which is, you know, taking So away, and that's mostly on the blockchain, obviously." }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "47:49", "start": 2869.34, "text": "And, and the reason this is possible, and I, I was listening Stephan to, to one of your other podcasts, with some lightning developers, this week. And I think one of the reasons this is possible is like in the current financial system, the incentive is just to sort of make as much money as possible and figure out how to like exploit as many people, people as possible, I mean, to be brutally honest, and, and I think we all recognize that, I mean, that, that's Trying to figure out, for example, you know, how to reduce centralization in the network, like that's a huge goal of theirs, right? And that's just such a difference maker, like the, like the people designing the fin- this financial infrastructure have totally different values and goals than the people designing the existing one, and it just fills me with great hope, you know?" }, { "speaker": "jimmy_song_alex_gladstein", "time": "48:36", "start": 2916.0, "text": "Yeah, the game theory behind Bitcoin is just so different than almost everything else, because the previous fi- the current financial system is built so that everybody in between, you know, if I'm sending some money to somebody in the Philippines or whatever, if I did that through the traditional system, like there are so many people that take a tiny cut, right? It could be like point one percent or lower, but there are so many people, and they, they, they make all of their money on the volume that goes through, and it's, it's a- That's on everybody. It's, it, they don't really add anything per se. I mean, to some degree, there's maybe some justification with dispute resolution or, you know, fraud, investigation or something like that, but really they, the, their game is to get as many transactions through as possible, without regard to, you know, the quality of the transactions or whether or not those actually are beneficial." }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "49:31", "start": 2971.08, "text": "And again, it's not just privacy. I mean, I was talking to someone last night who's from Zambia, right? So I'm in San Francisco. Just go at a dinner, and he's telling me that, I'm like, \"How do you send money to your family? \" He's like, \"Oh, I have to use Western Union, it takes several days, and it, it costs me about thirteen percent. \" And I'm like, \"Wow, okay, so not only is it very expensive, not only does it take a long time, but you're also ceding all power and control to these like arbitrary companies in the middle. \" I mean, and we were looking at it, and like, there is a market for Bitcoin in" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "50:06", "start": 3005.54, "text": "That's the thing is like we're so early that like the vast majority of people who could actually use Bitcoin to their benefit simply just don't know about it yet. And, and that's one of the reasons I hope we can, we can get this book out there as, as far and wide as possible." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "50:19", "start": 3018.95, "text": "Yeah, that's really excellent. That's a great example, Alex. And let's talk a little bit then about what's recommended for the listener, or maybe not my listener, but say my, you know, people give it to their friends and they're new and they're trying to come into" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "50:36", "start": 3035.52, "text": "Like should they go consume further other resources? oh, and by the way, thanks for listing my podcast in the, further recommended resources, I appreciate that. But, yeah. So what, what's your hope then for someone who reads the book and then they do" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "50:50", "start": 3049.97, "text": "afterwards? Maybe Jimmy, you can give like the hope for like the more technical person, and I can give the hope for the more kind of like, you know, non-technical person?" }, { "speaker": "jimmy_song_alex_gladstein", "time": "50:58", "start": 3057.93, "text": "Yeah, I, hopefully it gets people thinking, number one, like, at least here are my goals, right? number one, I want them to think about money differently, see the world a little bit differently, whether they're from the United States or from, you know, Lagos or, you know, Caracas or whatever. Like, I, I want them to see the world a little differently and say, okay, well, money actually does, you know, is broken in many ways, and this is why, and this is how Bitcoin fixes things." }, { "speaker": "jimmy_song_alex_gladstein", "time": "51:28", "start": 3087.59, "text": "Nitty to buy Bitcoin, but that might not be possible wherever they live, in which case I'd, you know, I mean, like, go bring it in and, you know, like work with people to make that happen or, you know, learn more about it, especially technically, there's plenty of resources, hopefully they can go and learn how to code in it so that they can maybe bring an exchange to, you know, wherever they're at and so on. but the, the big thing I want them to walk away with Is that the current system's majorly broken and that there's a solution out there in Bitcoin that can really change things for the better." }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "52:06", "start": 3125.72, "text": "Yeah, I mean, I think again, the target for me is gonna be people maybe who work at big tech companies, for example, and I've talked to people who are gonna help us get this book, you know, into Microsoft, you know, into YouTube, et cetera, and, and just kinda get, get, get the conversation going. I'm gonna be giving a talk at Google at some point in the next few months through the help of I think people building the current technology infrastructure, once they start, start to see kind of like the real value of Bitcoin, I think it'll really change their viewpoint on a lot of things, including maybe hopefully, you know, how they're building what they're building. I mean, it's not a zero sum game, we don't need to-- it doesn't need to be all or nothing. If education about Bitcoin makes people want to add more privacy and, and sovereignty into whatever they're building, that's like a, like a massive benefit. So, I, you know, I hope that We, we intentionally tried to make the book not like a \"How do you buy Bitcoin?\" book. Like, I, I don't want, I don't necessarily want people to go and buy a bunch of Bitcoin after reading the book. What I do want them to do is go down the rabbit hole that I went down, which is, \"Wow, this is really cool. Let me spend the next year or two of my life learning about this thing as a, as a hobby and, and be immeasurably richer mentally and, and, and sort of spiritually and intellectually as a result of that" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "53:28", "start": 3207.73, "text": "Out, you know, three or so, I let's say three years ago, which is, which is, you know, a clear and concise like, \"Here's why Bitcoin matters,\" whereas I had to root through dozens of nonsense videos about blockchain. And, I mean, even like Harvard Business Reviews thing, it's like all nonsense, like all of it's just so misleading and so confusing. And, and if you don't know that, like, if you don't have Jimmy's like perspective or whatever at first, it takes so many months to, to gain that knowledge. It's like very hard Right? And I wanna make it a little bit lower hanging fruit for people." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "54:01", "start": 3241.47, "text": "Obviously, it's early days so far, but what has the reception been in terms of reviews on the book and how's it going?" }, { "speaker": "jimmy_song_alex_gladstein", "time": "54:08", "start": 3248.34, "text": "Well, so far, we have three reviews on Amazon, they all seem very positive. I, you know, gave out copies to a bunch of my students and they, most of them have liked the book, a few had like corrections which we've incorporated. the reception has been really fantastic so far. I think it was number Number one in digital currencies, category in Bitcoin, like beating like the Winkelweib book and many others that, you know, had a lot more, money and marketing behind it. So I, I, I'm really excited, you know, obviously being on this podcast, I, I think will help out, hopefully a lot of your listeners, would, you know, buy it for their parents or their, you know, like uncle that's curious about it or, you know, I mean, there, someone was telling me once, When you start talking about Bitcoin to somebody, there's already like a tax that, in time that, that you're sort of committing to by talking to them about it, because like they're gonna come to you to explain about all sorts of stuff. this hopefully, this book hopefully reduces that cost or burden on, the person explaining by saying, okay, you know what, just go read this book. It's, it's pretty easy. It's, you know, a hundred fifteen pages and it, it'll answer- Answer a lot of the questions that you might have and maybe some that you haven't even thought of. And that way, you know, we can make, the spreading of this knowledge a lot easier and, less burdensome." }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "55:41", "start": 3340.64, "text": "Yeah, and, and, and it's-- I hope it can be a sort of a phenomenon. I've already observed something that's really interesting. People have told me they bought like, you know, fifteen to twenty books for their office or for their friends or, you know, my brother just messaged me and said he's gonna buy, you know That doesn't happen normally with books. So" }, { "speaker": "jimmy_song_alex_gladstein", "time": "56:00", "start": 3360.03, "text": "I wish that, I wish that happened with my book, man. Nobody buys twenty copies of my book. Well, it's gonna" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "56:06", "start": 3366.48, "text": "happen with your next book, with your current book. you know, and, and, and that was the idea that it can be this like little gift kind of, and the fact that it's easy to read and short and comprehensible to, to someone who, who, you know, reads a newspaper, I think is really gonna help. And again, people that are elderly, people that are very young, I mean, You know, at the end of the day, you know, even if someone leaves unconvinced that they, they finished this book and, and they, they're unconvinced, they're gonna, they're gonna have their head spinning with all kinds of interesting, provocative questions about the way money works. So, you know, even if we don't, con-convert them, quote unquote, to, to someone who's like, a, you know, a Bitcoin evangelist, which I certainly don't expect, what I do expect is that they, they leave the book and" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "56:58", "start": 3418.07, "text": "Yeah. Yeah, that's, I fully agree with that. And, I mean, from my perspective, it's a short book. It took, you know, depending how fast you are as a reader, it's maybe two or three hours. It's a pretty cheap book as well. You can buy the Kindle for like seven or eight dollars. So I definitely encourage my listeners to have a, have a read. Obviously, read it for yourself, make sure you're comfortable with it and you, you like it yourself. I, I've had a read of it and I would be very comfortable" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "57:28", "start": 3447.75, "text": "Where can they get the book?" }, { "speaker": "jimmy_song_alex_gladstein", "time": "57:30", "start": 3450.25, "text": "Well, the first place that you can get it is Amazon, and depending on your country, it might be a little bit more difficult to find or, less difficult to find. but, search for The Little Bitcoin Book. It's available on Kindle and it's also available in paperback. I believe you can buy it on barnesandnoble.com. I'm, I'm still kinda confused as to how it got on there, 'cause we did everything through Amazon and yet it's on Barnes and Noble somehow. Well," }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "57:58", "start": 3478.05, "text": "the, the power of modern publishing is incredible. I mean, and just, just as a note, like, you know, when you normally sit down to write a book, as Jimmy knows, and as people listening who are authors know, I mean, it's a many-- several year process usually for people. So the idea that we could take and synthesize like a, a, a really powerful idea and basically get it done in like two weeks from, from soup to nuts is, is just such an exciting thing to do. and it's really empowering the way that you can Possible is like the democratization of publishing, right? So I don't have to go a-and like bow down to HarperCollins or whatever like I might have had to do forty years ago to get every-anyone, like literally like anyone in the world to be able to buy this book. I mean, now we may not be guaranteed placement in certain stores, but if we're effective enough with a media campaign, which I think, you know, thanks to you and many other in-inquisitive journalists, I think we will be, they'll, they'll kind of, you know, want to" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "58:58", "start": 3537.55, "text": "Exciting to be alive in this time when, like, we can, you know, we can just publish an idea and, and get it out there so fast. So, you know, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and pretty soon, I think Jimmy, some of us, some of the co-authors are working on a way where Folks will be able to go to the, to our website, which I believe is like the little bitcoin book dot com, and, and buy, buy copies from us directly with Bitcoin and, and Lightning. So that, that, that I think should be up and running in the next couple weeks, so keep posted for that." }, { "speaker": "jimmy_song_alex_gladstein", "time": "59:25", "start": 3565.44, "text": "Yeah, I, I love how everything's like democratized. Like, you know, thirty years ago, Steven, you, you would have had to like beg every radio station to get on. now, now you have your own, podcast that's very popular around the world, right? Like, similar thing with YouTube, nobody has to go and beg people, beg TV stations for a slot or something like that. You can make your own show. same thing with books, same thing with, software, same thing with almost everything. I, I, You know, money to some degree, like we, we have this decentralized money now, and, it, it makes it-- it's empowering, it's personally empowering, and that's a, that's a very good trend." }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "01:00:04", "start": 3604.52, "text": "Well, the fir-- the first stage was, was building that infrastructure, you know, the internet and Amazon, all these things. The next stage is being able to interact with these things in a way that doesn't violate our privacy, and, and that's what I really believe in, in Bitcoin as, as something that can be a possibility, whereas, you this idea of democratizing knowledge and, and the ability for people to publish work like ours and the ability for people to buy this book without, again, disclosing their entire personal history. I mean, I think that that's gonna be really fun. 'Cause unfortunately, folks, right now, when you buy it from Amazon, you know, unless you're using a gift card or some intricate kind of like method, you know, you're probably, you know, alerting like many, many third party companies that you're buying our book. But you know, i-it's okay for now. We'll," }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "01:00:52", "start": 3652.62, "text": "we'll allow" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:00:53", "start": 3653.1, "text": "it for this book. Yeah, so look, guys, I think that's been fantastic. Lastly, before we let you guys go as well, just, let, let, let the listeners know where they can follow you and find you." }, { "speaker": "jimmy_song_alex_gladstein", "time": "01:01:04", "start": 3664.57, "text": "I'm on Twitter as at jimmy song and, my website is programmingbitcoin dot com. I do education and other stuff. yeah, so that's where you can find me." }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "01:01:17", "start": 3677.3, "text": "And I'm I'm at, my last name Gladstein, G L A D S T E I N, on Twitter, and you can follow, me there a-as well as my organization, the Human Rights Foundation, at H R F. We also have a conference series called the Oslo Freedom Forum, which is at oslo f f on Twitter, and we have upcoming events in New York and in Taiwan and in Norway and In Mexico that you can learn about, and I also do some teaching about Bitcoin for, Singularity University, and I'm gonna be coming to Sydney, on October 22nd, to give a talk about Bitcoin and the future of money. so I hope some of your listeners who are Australians can, can come and hang out with me when, when I get there." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:01:58", "start": 3718.1, "text": "For sure, that'll be great. That's, that's pretty much it for us. So once again, thank you for joining me, Jimmy and Alex. Thank you for" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "01:02:04", "start": 3724.98, "text": "having us." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:02:07", "start": 3727.36, "text": "I hope you enjoyed that insight into how this book came together. If you're listening to me, chances are you're the Bitcoin guy for your family and friends. I think this is a great resource to give your pre-coiner family and friends to get them started the right way, rather than letting them fall victim to misinformation, which is unfortunately rife in this industry. So get the book from Amazon, there's a link in the show notes, show notes, and you can find the links to subscribe to the podcast on my website, stephanelivera.com. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you" } ] }