{ "episodeId": "SLP115", "speakers": { "stephan": { "name": "Stephan Livera", "role": "host", "tag": "STEPHAN" }, "trace_mayer": { "name": "Trace Mayer", "role": "guest", "tag": "TRACE" }, "guest_2": { "name": "Guest 2", "role": "guest", "tag": "GUEST" } }, "segments": [ { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "00:09", "start": 8.63, "text": "Hi and welcome to the Stephan Livera podcast focused on Bitcoin and Austrian economics. Today I've got a really special guest, he is Trace Mayer. But first, let me introduce the sponsors of the podcast. So firstly, Kraken, one of the world's leading Bitcoin exchanges, renowned for their focus on security and acting in a principled manner in the space. They're one of the Longer standing Bitcoin exchanges that consistently rated the best, they have 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're providing best in class accounting, reconciliation and reporting services for cryptocurrency hedge funds, asset managers and fund administrators. Kraken have an OTC desk for large block trades, they offer five fiat currencies and also offer margin and futures trading. To learn more and sign up, go to kraken dot com. There's a link in the show notes. Next, Unchained Capital. Have you listened to my recent interview with Drew Banzel from Unchained? We talk about some of the Unchained products, such as the two of three keys multi-signature vault product, and also the Bitcoin collateralized loan. So with the vault, you can use Trezor or Ledger, Coldcard is coming soon, and you can split up your keys rather than creating a single point of failure risk. Also, with the Bitcoin collateralized loan, you can get USD without selling your bitcoins. While that loan's outstanding, it's stored in a dedicated multisig address that you can see on the blockchain under collaborative custody. So get in touch with the guys. Go to unchained dash capital dot com. There's a link in the show notes. So the episode today is with Trace Mayer. I assume most of my listeners know very well who he is, but just for those who are newbies to the space, Trace Mayer is a highly influential investor. Writer, speaker, and podcaster in the Bitcoin world. He's been around Bitcoin since the early days, and more importantly, he wasn't just early, he was right on basically every call he made. So his perspective is highly valuable, and I'm sure you'll enjoy listening to him on a range of topics in this interview. Trace, I'm a big fan of your work, I know you're, you're very influential in the space, in the way that many of us think about it as well. I mean, you're responsible for popularizing many different ideas, such as, you know, the seven network effects of Bitcoin, hodlers of last resort, so it's a great pleasure to welcome" }, { "speaker": "trace_mayer", "time": "02:38", "start": 157.99, "text": "you to the show. Oh, thanks so much, and, and also December 23rd, 2015, I talked about the impact of stock to flow ratios on the price of Bitcoin So, been talking about that for a long time too, and I'm really glad to see Plan B's work in that area." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "02:54", "start": 173.9, "text": "Oh, fantastic, yeah. I think, you've got a really great framework for thinking about Bitcoin because obviously you're known as a very early investor in Bitcoin. You invested in some of these early Bitcoin businesses and projects, such as, Armory and Kraken and BitPay. can you give us some insight into how you came to Bitcoin so early?" }, { "speaker": "trace_mayer", "time": "03:16", "start": 196.39, "text": "Yeah, so I had- Studied money, always been interested in it, and when I say studied it, it was at the graduate level, and then as I pulled on those threads, I found myself, in Rothbard and Mises and whatnot. So I had the philosophical foundation, the understanding of the economics, when I ran into Bitcoin, in addition to having plenty of experience with, things like eGold and PGP encryption and, you know, Napster And then Kazaa, LimeWire, and, BitTorrent, you know, these, peer-to-peer networks that came on the scene that were censorship-resistant. So, you know, having been in the, the digital or the virtual currency space for a couple decades, you know, it, it, I could see that it played a-- it, it definitely solved a problem that the world needed solved. and then also my understanding with GADA, the Gold Antitrust Action Committee, and just the interference that the institution of the state has done in terms of censoring interest rates. So, you know, all of that kind of combined together so that when I came across Bitcoin, I was like, \"Oh my gosh, this is gonna be huge.\"" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "04:31", "start": 270.64, "text": "That's fantastic, and I think the other thing about it is, not just, it's not just that you came to Bitcoin early, there were others who came to Bitcoin early, but then they sold out. What was it that made you have such a level of conviction about Bitcoin?" }, { "speaker": "trace_mayer", "time": "04:44", "start": 284.05, "text": "Well, I just thought about it, you know, I think, I think, and we often get distracted by various voices, and we lose our ability to kind of think and do our own economic calculation. And because I had this, Background, all of these skills that I developed, I'd been doing all this research, you know, Safedine likes to talk about the concept of time preference. You know, a lot of people watch TV. when I left, to go to college, at, you know, at sixteen, I never had a TV in my house since I went to college. Like, I don't watch TV. And when you don't watch TV, you have a lot more free time. You can, you know, you can exercise, you can, exercise your body and you can exercise And, and so, w- and when we're talking about time preference, you know, the greatest investment you're gonna make is going to be in yourself, and that education is a key to opportunity. And you never know when the-- all of this knowledge that you can accumulate is actually going to become applicable. And so, you know, that's luck is when opportunity, meets, meets preparation, right? And so, you know, I'd been honing in on little- Little threads, little voices here and there all throughout my life, and so, you know, when, when the time was right, like I was able to capitalize on it. You know, would I have been able to do that if I'd been sitting around like watching TV a lot more? Probably not. You know, probably not. And so, you know, a lot of people are like, \"Oh, the, the early Bitcoiners just got lucky.\" And I suppose some of 'em did, perhaps. But, you know, time, time preference begins to sting with opportunity. Cost. 'Cause think about how much money some of these people spent on Silk Road, right? Like they were, they were listening to wrong voices and they, they allocated their capital and they lost a ton of, they lost a lot of, of the resources that their future self would have had they had the discipline and the time preference and, and all those things. So I think that's a very important component is, you know, I didn't just get lucky, you know, I developed that human capital. And we're seeing it even today. I mean- I mean, Bitcoin's been around for a decade. I mean, I've got friends that, that have liked Bitcoin and bought it, you know, since it was triple digits, and they're still storing it on Coinbase. Like, w- Why aren't they developing the human capital? Like, what's the deal? I don't understand. So, you know, like, whatever, you're gonna get wrecked, one of these days if" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "07:20", "start": 440.07, "text": "you're doing that. It's a great point you make about building our human capital, and I'm wondering, do you have any suggestions on good resources? And how do you find out what's a good topic to go and research? What's a good book to read? What's a good podcast to listen to? How do you think about finding the good resources?" }, { "speaker": "trace_mayer", "time": "07:39", "start": 458.93, "text": "Well, I mean, you You're passionate about and what you love, and so because that's what's going to power you through and give you that desire, to, to do the reading and do the studying and, and stuff like that, you know? So, so you have to find something that you enjoy, something that you're passionate about, even better if you can, mix that with something that's going to be helpful for other people, because, you know, that's where we really find joy if you're just doing it for yourself, you know, that's gonna so, you know, that's, that's where I'd start, like, figure out like where your emotions are at, and then you start figuring out, the wisest way to go about, acquiring that knowledge. And so for me, I like to go to like the best, you know? Like, I, I don't wanna just listen to anybody, I wanna listen to the best. And so, you know, it doesn't take very long, you can sniff around in any particular area, and hopefully, you're able to find the best, within a or two, and then once you've found the best, you gotta start reading all that stuff, you know, which is a lot of stuff, because the best are often very prolific, in their writings. so, you know, I mean, we're talking about the polymaths, like the DaVinci's and the Newtons, the Guttes and the Swedenborgs, the, the Jeffersons, the, you know, the-- these are the best in their, in their different areas, and in some cases, they were masters of all the areas, you know, people So, you know, I think that's important. People like Tesla, you know, it's important to, to hone in on the best, but it takes a lot of-- it, it takes a lot of grit to be able to do that, a lot of discipline and, you know, you gotta find balance in your life, but at the same time, like- You know, people sitting around like watching TV and just like, \"What are you spending so much time on this stuff for?\" You know, another one is interruptions. people, I think greatly underestimate the impact that interruptions have on your ability to accumulate human capital. 'cause if you think about these people who were the best and the type of world that they lived in they weren't getting interrupted very often, right? They could like sit down and they could focus their mind and like read the book all the way through. They weren't getting text messages and phone calls and emails, and they just weren't distracted in so many different ways. and I think that's, you know, I think a lot of people today, we have a challenge, a lot of people just have the attention span of a goldfish, like they really have no discipline of their mind, and as a result- Result, they can't like sit and think about something, and then they exacerbate it by the stuff that they eat or, or drink. You know, they, they're drinking coffee. I don't, I don't drink any coffee. Like, I, I don't know, I don't know why people need coffee. Like, I, I, I sleep like four and a half, five hours a night, I got tons of energy all the time, I never get sick. Like, you know, why do people need coffee? I mean, if you eat right, I don't" }, { "speaker": "trace_mayer", "time": "10:53", "start": 652.97, "text": "you know, this stuff tends to exacerbate feelings of like anxiousness and having to do stuff. You, you see people who drink this and they're always like tapping their foot or, you know, they're nervously twitching or, or all of this stuff. And, y- and then there's, you know, other stuff like alcohol that's even like more damaging to your ability to concentrate and sleep well and stuff like that. So, so, you know, I think, I think that that's a, it's a large combination of all of this stuff. You have to get your condition, you gotta get your mind in the right condition, you gotta get your emotions in the right condition, and if you're out of order, like you're, you're gonna get disciplined, it's probably gonna be through a form of debt. You know, you're gonna get yourself in debt, and then you're gonna get disciplined externally, by the creditor, or, you know, however else our modern society tends to discipline people who can't discipline themselves. And so, you know, it's much better, in my opinion, to just discipline yourself and do the work. Like, you know, then have somebody kind of force you into economic circumstances where you're now the servant to the lender, right?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "12:00", "start": 720.26, "text": "Excellent. And, I'm interested now to talk a little bit around If, if you've got any views around jurisdictional competition around the world, so I know you have, you know, you're doing some work with Wyoming, for example, do you see in terms of Bitcoin and jurisdictions around the world, so let's say jurisdictions that, for example, have no capital gains tax laws or, you know, other examples like that, do you see a potential for competition there? Oh," }, { "speaker": "trace_mayer", "time": "12:29", "start": 749.0, "text": "yeah, there's, there's definitely gonna be competition here because, you know, we've got this monetary asset that we're able to transfer value over. Over communications protocol, so it becomes much more, portable than gold, for example. And, so, and whichever nation state adopts the hardest soundest money or individual for that matter has a tremendous competitive advantage over somebody who's fighting the economic war with inferior- Tools, like it's just the way it is. And, and so, you know, Singapore's been very progressive on this front. the United States is pretty much middle of the road, but they've got a lot of stuff where we-- where, where the groundwork is now being laid. You've got the BitLicense in New York, which I'd stay away from anything New York related, but then you got Wyoming. I've actually helped craft some of the bills and the banking rules because we're gonna be able to create a special purpose depository bank Bank, full fledged bank in Wyoming that's regulated by the banking commissioner, passported into forty two states. I mean, that's a huge deal. It can custody digital assets, we have property rights on the digital assets. one of the things I got in was a lien cleansing provision on UCC liens. I mean, that's huge. Like, if you buy Bitcoin from somebody, you wanna know you have clear title to it, you know? Because the legal system doesn't recognize the Bitcoin network any more than the Bitcoin network recognizes the The legal system. And you might have a technological fortress, but wouldn't you want a legal fortress also? And so, you know, these Wyoming laws are-- those are laws that a hodler of last resort would write, in my opinion, or, or get, got as close as we could, and then you've got other jurisdictions that are just going the other way. They're banning it, you know, they're trying to ban Bitcoin or, like, look at India, you know, you can withdraw a hundred and forty dollars from your safe- Things account like, oh boy, this is, that's a confidence-inspiring. And so, you know, when capital is so much more portable like this and can't be confiscated through inflation, can't be confiscated through, traditional means, you know, like ask the Incas about getting their gold confiscated, right? Like, they could kill you and take your gold, but like in Bitcoin's case, it's, it's more difficult than that. so, you know, I think that we're definitely going to be seeing jurisdictional arbitrage the US overall and balance seems to be the best jurisdiction so far. We've got the CFTC that's, started handing out swap execution facility, derivatives clearing organization, and designated contract market licenses. We've got Wyoming with the special purpose depository bank, we have New York with the bit license, we have trust company charters in various states, we have other model legislation coming up in many of these states, Rhode Island Ireland, for example, is working on perfecting security interests, so, you know, that six network effect of financialization of Bitcoin, not only with the puts and calls and the futures, but also with, security, interests in order to start using it as collateral. You know, all these things are, are instrumental in its path towards world reserve settlement currency, which ultimately is where I see it going, as its destiny, you know, and as you alluded to, those- Seven network effects are in full swing, and barely just growing out right now, but like this thing's an un-- it's got some unstoppable momentum to" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "16:09", "start": 968.98, "text": "it. Fantastic. And I'm curious as well, with the Wyoming work that you're doing, is there any risk there at the federal level in terms of, federal government regulations, or impacting on the freedoms that you're trying to work towards with Wyoming? Yeah," }, { "speaker": "trace_mayer", "time": "16:28", "start": 988.41, "text": "so this is a somewhat- Nuance point when you're dealing in American law. So under, under American law, you've got the federal government and under Article one, Section eight, it's got specific areas it's able to, legislate in, and then you've got the states. Well, one of the, one of the provinces of the states is property rights. So guess what? One of the first things we did in the Wyoming legislation, we, we called these digital assets property. Okay. Because the, the states, you know, why, why, well, back in the day it was New York and Virginia and everything, they formed the federal government. So the states are sovereign and the federal government is sovereign. And if there's a case or controversy between a state and the federal government, it goes right to the US Supreme Court, of the, of the US Supreme Court. So I mean, like the states are sovereign in this regard, and that's one of the reasons, like with Wyoming, the first thing we ran out and did was we, we said that these digital assets are Property, and defined by state law, you know, and we mapped on a taxonomy onto the UCC in order to do that, 'cause Caitlin's brilliant and that's what she does, right? And so, so that's, you know, I think that if the federal government did try to get into this, they're going to run into, they're gonna start running into constitutional challenges. I mean, we've put a bunch of different landmines like that into the Wyoming legislation. Property's just the biggest one, I, you know, I wanna- point out, but there are a lot of other smaller, sneakier ones. For example, under federal law, a bank holding company, the bank has to be a bank and lend. So a Wyoming special purpose depository bank is prohibited by statute from lending. Therefore, a speedy bank in Wyoming doesn't count as a bank under the Bank Holding Act. Which, which really, you know, for investors and stuff out there, I mean, that's a big deal. So, you know, we put different landmines in there and everything, you know, being able to avoid the FDIC, since they, like to engage in financial repression and banking blockades against things like, WikiLeaks. You know, well, guess what? This speedy bank can ha- gets a Fed master account. Oh, and like a lot of these exchanges, they need to do stuff internationally, right? Well, guess what? With a Fed Master account, you can have dollars and you can have euros. Alright? So like, I mean, there's just a lot of really cool, sneaky stuff that we put in that, you know, when, when a lot of these companies realize what we've done in terms of laying the foundation, 'cause you-- in order for there to be large capital, you've gotta have certainty for the investors, and that's what Rule of Law does. And- And so that's what this foundation does, is it lays a foundation for, you know, this human action and this cooperation to take place through the, the institution of a corporation. And, and, you know, that's-- otherwise, you're not gonna have the certainty and you're not gonna be able to grow or scale in terms of the social scalability and the growth and the size of the companies, without it. And so that's what we've really done with the Wyoming legislation is we've been laying this foundation, to be able to take Bitcoin to a whole new level, In terms of integration or backwards compatibility with the current institutions and structures, that humanity have used, to form themselves and, and do corporate governance and capital allocation and all that stuff." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "20:03", "start": 1202.62, "text": "I really like the point you were making around regime uncertainty and doing what you can to allay that uncertainty so that Bitcoin businesses, entrepreneurs, investors can feel more safe as they enter the space. Do you have any views on what jurisdictions a-around the world, what can people do to outline that and spell that out as well, like not just for Wyoming, but just to outline that, look, if you come out and put these laws that are very anti Bitcoin, you're basically shooting yourself in the foot." }, { "speaker": "trace_mayer", "time": "20:33", "start": 1232.8, "text": "Yeah, I mean, and it's not just Bitcoin, right? Like, how solid are your property rights in Argentina or Rwanda? Like, when those property rights aren't very solid because there's not very much confidence in the rule of law, then the assets that are in those jurisdictions get discounted relative to a safer jurisdiction. And what Bitcoin does, in my opinion, is it, it enables us to acquire property rights at a much lower cost. Because we're, we're, we're effectively able to acquire protection of our assets or our purchasing power that we store in the Bitcoin just with a private key. And okay, so we're getting it inflated by new mining rewards, but everybody knows what that is, so that gets discounted into the present price anyway. So really, you know, when we're looking at what, what would the negative interest rate be on storing capital in Bitcoin, it's going to be lower, than other assets, Because the other assets have counterparty risk, they have-- now they have negative interest rates in the bank accounts, you know, and I'm not-- I mean, it's not really apples and oranges right now because Bitcoin's just so small, relative to the other ones, but, you know, when Bitcoin becomes its own storage tank, right now it's empty, but when it's filled up and then capital's moving between the different storage tanks and, and I mean, the different types of assets that the world has to store capital in, that's when we're going to see Bitcoin really Because it's this global monetary unit can't be inflated, hardest money ever, the, the new risk-free asset, because there's no counterparty risk, and what I mean by that is there's no financial ability to pay, there's no performance risk if you're, have your own full node and, and holding your own private keys. I mean, you're really, you're really removing all the risk, away and, and starting from a first principle, and that becomes your risk-free asset and your risk-free rate. And then you move out from there, and, and, in order to move out from there, yeah, you're going to start assessing the regime risk or the uncertainty, that you're gonna get bailed in, for example, or that the bank will get bailed out, or that your property's just gonna get confiscated, or maybe it's a piece of real estate in Chicago and your property taxes are gonna have to go up in order to pay the, the unfunded pension liabilities or, or whatever it is, right? With Bitcoin like, Bitcoin And fixes this, like it fixes all of this for, for people who are trying to perform economic calculation. it's, it's got a specific definition that's enforced by our network, and all the full nodes, and, you know, once we have that definition, because dollars, US dollars aren't defined, euros aren't defined, Australian dollars aren't defined, like none of these things are defined. They're, they're all just ephemeral illusions. I mean, even under federal law In the US, dollars are defined as different things that are unintelligible. For example, one ounce of fine silver is a dollar, and one ounce of fine gold is fifty dollars, but fifty ounces of fine silver is not equal to one ounce of fine gold. On the periodic table. That's unintelligible. Like if you tried to build a building and you were performing mental calculations of length with that type of unintelligibility, your, your buildings would be falling over. So, I mean, it's not any wonder that the financial system is all falling over because the fundamental unit that's being done, used by people to perform economic calculation is undefined and unconstitutional, and yet, you know, we're just all hobbling along because You know, these-- while there's no way to avoid the final crack-up boom, but we've seemed to find ways to delay it here and there, through all of this privatizing of the gains and socializing of the losses, and Bitcoin puts an end to all of that. Like, look at Mount Gox. You know, look at Quadriga CX. Look at, look at all these examples throughout Bitcoin history, where, you know, people, people took the losses. You know, they didn't get bailed out. And, and that's the type of mindset or mentality that the holders of capital on the other side of this golf are going to have" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "24:50", "start": 1489.79, "text": "It's a great point you make about regime risk, and I'm curious now just to ask if you see any existential threats to Bitcoin, perhaps, whether they are a state-sponsored attack or otherwise?" }, { "speaker": "trace_mayer", "time": "25:03", "start": 1503.28, "text": "Not" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "25:04", "start": 1503.56, "text": "really." }, { "speaker": "trace_mayer", "time": "25:04", "start": 1504.12, "text": "I mean, this thing is a, is a beast. as Mises wrote, ideas can only be overcome by other ideas. And so, you know, w-what, what could a, what, what could a state-sponsored attack actually do? Like, what are you gonna do? Get some, get some developers in there and try to compromise the code? I mean, we got, we got hundreds of eyeballs on that code with, with pull requests, in every new version that's coming out, plus You can run a version from years ago and it's still going to be in consensus, and you can't force anybody to run, run your code, you know? And there, with, with Guix, you know, it's making the build process even less trust involved, in the build process, you know, however small. so, I mean, what's a, what's a state-sponsored attack gonna be? You're gonna, you're gonna have like some rogue developer in there trying to compromise a constant like they did with, with Nick? Mist, when they compromised one of the constants in a, in a protocol that they then signed off as being secure, and so CISOs relied on it, and then they all got hacked because they were using a bad cryptographic standard. Like, there are just a lot more eyeballs on Bitcoin because there's, like, you know, how many billions of dollars at risk, you know? So people aren't, aren't taking any risk in that regard. So, you know, if you are a rogue developer that's trying to cause a stink, I think you've already got Ran out of town, and, and how do you get back into town? Like when the, when the wagons have circled, you gotta earn street cred. Well, how do you earn street cred? Well, it's been a decade. Like, it's gonna take, it's gonna take new people that try to get involved in this a while to earn street cred. And so that's on the developer front. And then, you know, a lot of, a lot of, different altcoin promoters and stuff, they, they really don't like Bitcoin maximalists. Whatever that's supposed to mean. And it's like, well, okay, well, that's the other realm of, of getting street cred. Like, what are you gonna be, some shady fly-by-night like altcoin promoter and- Or, or who you gonna listen to? Like, what you gonna do? Who you gonna listen to? You gonna listen to someone like me, who's had a consistent voice for pretty much a decade, for free, for everybody, and been right and called in advance like all the bull markets? Or you gonna listen to some flyby night shady like altcoin promoter who's just gonna pay his twenty-four million dollar fine to the SEC for doing an unregistered securities offering so that he could, he could flip a bunch of, bunch of money to- Peter Thiel and his other cronies, right? You know, 'cause Peter made like, over a hundred million dollars on EOS. So, you know, you've gotta be extremely careful like what voices you're gonna be listening to and why you're listening to 'em. and, and getting street cred in Bitcoin, I think, is going to get increasingly more difficult also, because, you know, just like with the developers, you're gonna have to get street cred, and how you gonna get street cred? You're gonna have to have a consistent voice that's kind of in consensus" }, { "speaker": "trace_mayer", "time": "28:19", "start": 1699.22, "text": "Like, I mean, I've talked about other coins and stuff like that, and I've even, you know, interviewed some people on my podcast about them when I think that there's interesting innovations, in the altcoins, but like, do I think any of those altcoins are gonna pose a serious threat to Bitcoin? Like, good luck with that. I mean, we got seven network effects. Like, show me where they're possibly like taking any territory in any single one of the network effects, let alone all of them at the same time. So, you know, I think, you know, threats to Bitcoin, it's, it's really hard, you know, we-- it's not, it's not Like it was, you know, back when I first started talking about it, where we were a small community of, you know, a very, very small community of, of an it, you know, just very few people. I mean, you probably could have, like, gone and rounded us all up one night, you know? But like, we're a lot bigger than that now. Like, the community's huge. I think thirty-five million unique AMLKYC accounts, at the end of twenty seventeen, based on one of the Bloomberg articles. I mean, there are two- Tens of millions of people all over the globe like working on this stuff now, like it's an entire industry, and there's a lot of money at stake, and, and the financial incentives and the game theory are just taking, taking root now, and, and it's all playing out kind of how a lot of these early consistent voices have said it would. And so, you know, the threat, the threats to Bitcoin, I think, are Are going to be in the realm of ideas more than, than anything else, really. And, you know, that's, that's gonna be for each of us to maintain vigilance, in that area. That's one of the reasons I-- last year I started Proof of Keys, you know, Proof of Keys dot com, because every year we're gonna have a global coordinated bank run on the asset that's strictly limited in amount. Right? Like we're gonna, we decapitated Quadriga CX last year. Nah, for real. Like they're, they're gone. I, I did Proof of Keys, a week later he met with his attorney to plan the will, a week after that he died in India, and then his wife like took his body from the hospital back to the hotel, like, whatever. but that, that bad actor is now out of the industry. They're gone. And, and that's, you know, that's the power that people get with Proof of Keys. Like- I, I talked with Peter McCormick over on What Bitcoin Did about this, and when he did proof of keys, he found half a Bitcoin in an account that he'd totally forgotten. You know, so having good personal hygiene, you're, you're gonna, you're gonna develop that human capital to run your own full node and have your own private keys. We've got resources on proofofkeys dot com to help people, you know, figure out the procedures, you know, like a purism laptop and smartcustody dot com and glacierprotocol dot org, you know, all this stuff because We have to help people get up to speed on developing this human capital, because when people are holding their own private keys and have their own full nodes, the, the Bitcoin network is so much stronger that way, because the technology can get monetary sovereignty out there, but it's gonna take the political will to keep it there, and that political will is gonna have to be in each individual, because their money's at stake now, and so they're gonna start making, they're gonna start making a, a, a stink with their policy. Politicians about this stuff." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "31:50", "start": 1910.22, "text": "do you see any threats around privacy on, in Bitcoin and individuals who, let's say, have performed KYC and now there's, there's any sort of, risks to those individuals if they're not careful around their Bitcoin privacy?" }, { "speaker": "trace_mayer", "time": "32:09", "start": 1928.82, "text": "Oh, yeah, I mean Like AML/KYC is a difficult one because, I mean, you're not gonna get any of these institutions unless people do that, and, you know, a lot of legitimate actors, quote unquote, like pension funds or whatever, they're, They're, they're only gonna really invest in this stuff if they have that legal certainty. So it becomes a requirement almost in order to get the large amounts of money. Now, where can- And, and as long as Bitcoin's got the lowest price in terms of time, money, and privacy, in a combination of that, it's going to be able to outcompete the other instruments there. So, you know, this, like at the fundamental level, I mean, it's really difficult to have that pure anonymity with Bitcoin because there's so much of an industry now built for- All this AML, chainalysis and CipherTrace and whoever these, these, these institutions are, you know, because they're serving a different customer. They're not serving you or me, they're serving a government. But guess what? Governments got like big sticks, and they can whack you with 'em. And so, you know, that, that's kind of what you gotta, you gotta- Deal with, and that's where I think Bitcoin actually could face a little bit of a threat, you know, where it won't necessarily have a hundred percent market share in all the different type of stuff, because, you know, with things like MimbleWimble, you know, we can have much more Private, fungible, an-an, anonymous, digital transfer tokens. And so I could see though, you know, I could see some of these more nefarious uses, use cases, migrating towards coins like that, instead of, using, Bitcoin. You know, I think that's already kind of been the case. You're seeing a lot of the, the markets move over to stuff like that. So, you know, that's, that's definitely something to be," }, { "speaker": "trace_mayer", "time": "34:18", "start": 2058.39, "text": "Cognizant of, you know, don't, don't do, don't do stuff that's gonna land you in jail for life with two, two life sentences with no opportunity for parole. You know, like how many bitcoins was that worth? And he's never getting out, by the way. The only way he'd get out is a presidential pardon, because he lost his appeal. I mean, he's done. So like, there's no reason to donate to, like, to, to free Ross or anything like that, like, 'cause he's done. He's never getting out, period. And that's, that's what you're- You, you know, people should value their freedom, you know, that's why I pay all my taxes. I might not like to, but I just don't wanna be looking over my shoulder in that regard. And I think that, you know, I think that everybody's got a different way that they're gonna interact with the institution of the state. but, you know, I'm just not one to go out and get shot in the chest in Hong Kong. Like, I'm gonna get on a plane and I'm gonna leave, and I'm gonna hopefully have my, my ability to maintain Land. And Bitcoin now gives us much more mobility in that sense, and capital, both human and economic, can become much more portable. So, you know, just avail yourself of that increased freedom that we've got." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "35:34", "start": 2134.4, "text": "And I guess one other point around, you know, threats to Bitcoin, there is discussion around, the centralization of mining, and it, it, it appears to me that it is increasingly decentralizing. What's your view around mining centralization and the theoretical risk, you know, reducing as it may be of mining- Centralization. Oh, sorry, c-censorship of transactions by a miner." }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "35:56", "start": 2156.2, "text": "Yeah, just, just ask Elon how, how much power he's got, right?" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "36:03", "start": 2163.28, "text": "Yeah, don't pick a fight with the hodler, so it's a bad idea, bud. yeah," }, { "speaker": "trace_mayer", "time": "36:08", "start": 2168.42, "text": "I, you know, I mined everything from, laptop to ASICs, and the miners Like I just, I, I really don't think that they have as much, they're, they're just really, I just don't really feel there's like a lot to be scared of there. Especially if they're playing a game where they're, trying to have an increased ROI in terms of Bitcoin, because, you know, large hodlers, they can step in and buy a, a ton of mining hardware if they want to, you know, to protect the network. So, you know, and, and what are the miners gonna do anyways? Like, are you gonna roll back a transaction? Like, that's it? You know? and yet there's a good amount of money to be made there with The block reward. And so as, as the ASICs have gotten more distributed, I think that we're seeing the power, yeah, there, there was a time where miners had more power, because of the centralization, a-and that, that happened when we shifted from CPU to GPU, also, by the way, and then from GPU to FPGA, and then from FPGA to ASIC. And, you know, now that we're on ASIC and we're on this, this- Particular hashing algorithm and, and more equipment is getting out there in a lot more different distributed hands, I think that the centralization of power with the miners is actually being spread out much more horizontally now. And so, and that overall, I think is a good thing, but It's difficult, like mining's a hard business, and like, okay, so you're mining and you're trying to get a return in Bitcoin, and yet you've got the, like, you wanna be nefarious, but you've got these hodlers that are able to get a return in Bitcoin by selling derivatives now. So, so hodlers are basically able to sell, sell covered calls and mine Bitcoin that way with just their Bitcoin, right? J-- you know, sell like a, sell an October twenty, twenty-five K strike, you know, very unlikely that it's gonna get exercised, yet you, you get a little bit of premium that way. so hodlers, you know, they, they're actually able to start generating cash flow in the derivatives markets. And so miners have to be cognizant of that also if they- We're to try to be nefarious or bad actors, and so I just, I think the game theory is just playing out the way one, should have expected it to play out and the way that it did, with Bitcoin Cash. And as far as I'm concerned, like, let's have more of this stuff. Like, that was great. Like," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "38:59", "start": 2339.4, "text": "I," }, { "speaker": "trace_mayer", "time": "39:00", "start": 2340.22, "text": "I'd like some more" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "39:01", "start": 2340.94, "text": "of that. So you mentioned ROI in Bitcoin terms. Now that's a challenge as well, because many people in this space, it depends what is their unit of account. Are they thinking in terms of fiat, right? US dollar? Or that-- and, and as you have mentioned, you can-- you compare from both a US dollar, gold, and Bitcoin terms, in terms of, am I making a profit on this deal or this investment? It, it has historically been very difficult for investors to earn In Bitcoin terms, you can probably count on maybe one, or maybe two hands, the number of Bitcoin companies who would have returned in Bitcoin terms. So in your view, does that represent a challenge for the space to grow? will people simply say, \"I, I'd rather just huddle my bitcoins rather than invest?\" What's your view there? Yeah, well, one," }, { "speaker": "trace_mayer", "time": "39:54", "start": 2394.23, "text": "I think it's great to just huddle your bitcoins, instead of invest in these. I mean, you have to, you have to pick very well, you know, you have chosen wisely. You've chosen poorly, right? Like you're gonna age a lot faster when you choose unwisely. you know, let's, let's look at Pantera or Barry Silbert, for example, you know, investing in a hundred and fifty plus like startups. I've invested in three. One of 'em was just 'cause I wanted cold storage software to be built, so that one doesn't really count. But even with my other two- You know, I'm, I'm, I'm mark to market, I'm up like in Bitcoin, but I have the liquidity, discount that needs to be applied, right? Because I can't just like sell my shares like whenever I want, like you can with Bitcoin, and I can't use them as, I can't use them to post as collateral to sell covered calls, you know? So I've got opportunity cost. And selling these covered calls, I mean, this is a beautiful tool for hodlers. because you're able to, you know, you take on some performance risk, you don't take on counterparty risk because they're not on the institution's balance sheet, they're held, in segregated off balance sheet, and, you're able to sell very far out of the money calls and you pick up a little bit of premium here and there. You know, because you're effectively selling vol. sure, you might get exercised, but the probability's very low, and even if you did, you'd probably be happy because the may or multiple would be excessively high, at that time, and so you'd be able to turn around and sell a put or something with the USD that you got. but, you know, this is the-- this type of financialization is increasingly going to be coming into the space. And the people who are managing the portfolios and managing the assets, large, large assets, you know, they're going to have to look at the Sharpe ratio, the risk-reward return on Bitcoin. They're gonna have to look at that. They're gonna have to decide, like, you know what, I have to be invested in this, in this asset class because of the Sharpe ratio. And okay, so they start getting invested in the asset class, like, how are they gonna do it? And if they're smart, they're, they're- They're gonna sell puts and then they're gonna turn around and sell calls, like when they get the, when they get the bitcoins. But for people on the other side, for hodlers of last resort, people who are, who have a conviction in holding the bitcoin Part of the problem when you're selling this wall is, okay, so you got three hundred dollars of premium, on the contract, but your collateral went down four thousand dollars. Right? Like, so you're actually down thirty-seven hundred, measured in USD, even though you're up, measured in Bitcoin. Right? So, so it's going to give people a lot of opportunity, based on how they'd perform their own economic calculation and what they prioritize, in terms of portfolio management strategy. I personally, I try to have a gain in dollars, gold, and Bitcoin. Like I actually keep my, I actually keep financial statements in all three of those every month, you know, and, and I'm, and I make fancy little charts and graphs and stuff like that, and so it, as we have this transition to a new world reserve settlement currency, that's gonna happen one by one, and there's seven billion people on this planet, so it's probably gonna take a while, you know, there's gonna be a lot of just different strategies that are gonna, that are gonna produce winners For two people, you know, one person's gonna be up in dollars, the other's gonna be up in Bitcoin, they're both gonna be happy, and, and, you know, everybody's gonna be going down the road. Now, who's actually going to be up in terms of purchasing power? That's gonna be the multi-trillion dollar question, right? And, and, you know, I would, I would argue that it's going to be, in the medium to long term, it's gonna be the holders of Bitcoin as opposed to holders of dollars. And What I mean by that is like a four year plus time horizon or greater. And so, okay, yeah, you can, you can, you might get a little bit of a dollar gain in the short term, but if you got this four plus year time horizon, y-y-you're gonna have to be in Bitcoin. And, and I'd really like to see, you know, some of the, some of these options be much more longer dated, because, right now we have twenty-- December twenty twenty is the furthest out option. options we can write. But I'd love to see like twenty twenty-two, twenty twenty-four, twenty twenty-eight, you know, and like just start layering out like calls all the way out there based on stock to flow, and getting all that USD in the present and like acquiring more Bitcoin in the short term. I mean, there's a lot we could do to manage portfolios. And also on this point Is going to be carry trade, you know, because we've got these negative interest rates on a lot of these currencies and negative interest rate debt, both government and corporate, almost twenty trillion or something insane, like why not borrow a bunch of these illusions that aren't defined, that aren't limited in amount, and buy something that's totally limited in amount that you can hedge, you know, by selling puts or, or covered calls or something on, you know, so you can generate a yield? the, you know, generate that positive yield in the carry trade, and that'll just suck more and more capital into this black hole on the world's, debt-based financial statements, i-that, that transports everybody into, into a new equity-based, dimension." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "45:51", "start": 2751.26, "text": "Excellent. Yeah, that's a-- there's a lot to take in there, and I think, it-- a lot of it also plays into this idea of how quickly will perceptions shift. So some skeptics right now might say, \"Oh, the government will sh...\" We shut down Bitcoin or, oh, it's just a bunch of Uber drivers who are trading and so on. But then the perception ch-changes, right? And so even now, there was the recent news about a Venezuelan state-owned company seeking permission or asking whether the Venezuelan Central Bank could use Bitcoin. So have you got any comments around how the perception shifts will happen over the next few years? Man," }, { "speaker": "trace_mayer", "time": "46:25", "start": 2784.7, "text": "never underestimate people's capacity to watch cat videos on the internet. Like, you know, it's just how, how people are allocating their capital. I mean, Bitcoin's been around For a decade. It's been major, majorly in the press like in, like two or three cycles now, you know, where everybody's heard of it, and yet people still haven't done their homework. They still haven't put in the effort to figure out how to use this thing, to buy it, to secure it. Even a lot of people in the space are still holding their keys on institutions, you know, not taking things like proof of keys seriously. and so, you know, we just keep having failure after failure, and people keep learning the hard way, getting their stripes. And, you know, I think, I think that's just gonna be how it's, you know, it's probably just gonna be that way, and it's gonna be a long, a long train- position, you know, a lot of people are like, \"Oh, I totally would have bought Bitcoin at ten dollars.\" Well, you would have sold it, you know, when it went to twelve, like, because you didn't put in the effort to figure out how to learn it and understand it and all of these things. And so I think it's very similar, you know, you look at stock to flow and- It's not going to be below a hundred thousand by December twenty twenty one, based on that model, which is co-integrated. I mean, co-integration's a big deal. And So, so what's Bitcoin gonna do? It's, currently most people think it's dead, and, and, and, you know, twenty-four months from now, it could be a, over a hundred thousand dollars. And yet people are gonna be like, \"Oh, I think I missed it,\" you know? And then like four years after that, it's gonna go to a million dollars, you know, and people are gonna think they missed it again, when, when really what they're, what they're missing out on is if it really does become world reserve settlement currency, and it becomes that risk-free asset That corporations are holding their retained earnings in, and all of this stuff. I mean, you're talking about-- this is, this is a claim on the future productivity of the planet in perpetuity discounted to the present. I, I'm, I mean, I, yeah, I think we, I think we really underestimate just how much governments through fiat currency have siphoned off the purchasing power of the average person. My father, for example, when he graduated from college, his first job, nine hundred, dollars a month. Twenty five point seven ounces of gold. That's like five hundred thousand dollars a year. For a brand new kid out of college. That's how much of a shortage we should have, when it comes to human labor in order to get people to actually go out and be doing stuff. But instead, you know, we, we s- all the productivity from the internet and spreadsheets and all this stuff just gets siphoned away into the military-industrial complex and the health-industrial complex and bureaucracy and all All this other stuff, they're primarily able to do it because of fiat currency and fractional reserve banking and, and being able to confiscate their inflation. But you, you take that ability away, and you have like- Self-reliance and economic substantive due process, and you have technological tools that protect and enforce it, and now the individual, you know, is able to keep the fruits of their labor. And I think we might be surprised at just how many fruits there actually are." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "50:03", "start": 3002.71, "text": "No, totally, I, I, I hundred percent agree with you. And, you made, you made a great comment about how we may be seeing the growth of this new risk-free asset and how it may be much more powerful in terms of being collateral. It may be the collateral demanded. Do you have any comments on how that may, how that space may evolve using Bitcoin as collateral?" }, { "speaker": "trace_mayer", "time": "50:25", "start": 3025.35, "text": "Yeah, I mean, I see it as the ultimate collateral, you know, because it's strictly limited amount, you can hold the private keys, you got your full node for consensus. a lot of the value for the dollar is that you have to get dollars to pay debt. There's like seventy-three trillion dollars of US dollar-denominated debt out there, so that, you know, you have to get a lot of dollars to, to pay that debt. And so the Fed, you know, what they really have is they-- it's like they have control of the throttle model, you know? But so they can change like the amount of, the amount of mixture that goes into the engine, but they can't really, you know, control what happens after that, as they're starting to find out with this repo market mess. But, you know, so I think that that's, you know, when we're talking about collateral and the ultimate collateral, you know, it's something that they can't print. You know, you gotta get stuff they can't print. And so then, you know, when you're- You're, you're talking about true liquidity. You know, okay, well, they can have an unlimited number of dollar liquidity because they can just print that to the moon. But to get actual real liquidity, you know, that's limited in amount, like how you gonna get liquidity for a proof of keys event? Fifteen or twenty years from now, you know, when, assuming we're still doing it, which I don't see any reason why we wouldn't, you know, and, and a lot of the Bitcoiners are gonna have more than enough money, kind of like Roger, to be having whatever fun they wanna have with their media properties, which Buffett says have value besides just their earnings, you know, 'cause media properties can be a lot of fun, as I'm sure you know, and, and so, you know, I don't see Bitcoiners like- Like, I don't see them being silent like fifteen or twenty years from now, and so they're probably gonna still-- I remember the first proof of keys when I was in a wheelchair or whatever, right? Like, you know, they, they're, they're just gonna have a much longer time horizon. They're gonna-- they're not gonna be taking people's crap because they grew up in the greatest depression, like, you know, with massive bailouts and huge amounts of student debt, and like, they had to claw their way out of this, and all they had on their side was And, and yet they were able to fix, you know, so many things because of, getting in on SoundMoney. And so that's just gonna change, you know, the, the culture and, and all that stuff. And, and so when it comes to liquidity and it comes to collateral, it's gonna be hard to get, hard to get these, people with this type of a mindset to actually be willing to take risk. You know, and lend people, lend people the ultimate collateral. Like, like the-- how's the person gonna actually be able to generate a return on that? You know, I mean, imagine if you took a, took out a hundred thousand dollar loan but denominated in Bitcoin three years ago, like bankruptcy, you know, you're done." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "53:25", "start": 3205.44, "text": "Right. And, you may-- and we were speaking earlier around stock to flow and what the implications of that are. So in my most recent interview with Plan B, we were talking about this idea of how many more cycles, and I think he was basically making the point that potentially after twenty twenty-eight, we may not-- it may not make sense to measure things In USD terms. But what's your view there around how many cycles, w- would you have any thoughts on that? Man," }, { "speaker": "trace_mayer", "time": "53:54", "start": 3233.64, "text": "yeah, after twenty twenty, something's, something's gonna have to give with this model. it'll probably be the US dollar, as you've implied." }, { "speaker": "trace_mayer", "time": "54:06", "start": 3245.77, "text": "but, but even that, you know, I twenty twenty-eight just seems way too soon. I mean, that's only eight years from now. I just, I don't really see society and Culture moving that much, that fast? but hey, eight years ago, like YouTube was just barely a thing, right? And now it shapes like presidential elections all over the place. And like twelve years ago, like Facebook was barely a thing, and now it's getting hauled into, hauled in as the boogeyman to, to Capitol Hill all the time. and, you know, eight years ago, Twitter was barely a thing. And now- Now, you know, President Trump, like Twitter largely helped propel him into the White House. So, you know, the rate at which technology can ch- can just- Man, it's just hap-- stuff's happening so fast. And that, that's what's really scary, I think, for, at least if you don't own any Bitcoin, because, I mean, it's all digital now, with 24/7 markets, that's how fast everything can happen. You could wake up tomorrow and like the dollar could be done. And the fiat system could be done. Like, that's just how fast everything moves now, you know? And so," }, { "speaker": "trace_mayer", "time": "55:26", "start": 3325.7, "text": "yeah, I mean, I, I don't think it'll move that fast. you know, you look at the, my book, The Great Credit Contraction, and what's at the bottom of that liquidity pyramid? It's, it's, you know, US dollars at the, you know, and gold and silver at the tip. Bitcoin, I say, I, I would argue, is increasingly becoming more of that tip at the bottom Of, the liquidity pyramid. And, you know, that, that, the fiat currencies, that will be the last layer to deflate through hyperinflation If you understand like the original Austrian terms, you know, deflation being a decrease in the money supply and inflation being an increase in the money supply, and so it'll be an increase in the money supply, through hyperinflation that kills the fiat currencies as capital burrows into the safest, most liquid assets, and so that'll actually be deflation because the, the size of the liquidity pyramid will be shrinking. If that makes sense. A credit contraction. A credit contraction. so I mean- I mean, that would be one of the scenarios where it could happen extremely quickly, like that, you know, we just all wake up and dollars and euros and yen are just all done. but I, I just don't really see that happening. I mean, pension funds move so slow, like so many people move so slow with, I mean, it's just, and, and those, those financial markets are so deep and they're so liquid. Like the US financial markets are so deep. You know, I just don't really see, I, I just don't really see stuff happening overnight. So instead, I suppose, you know, it'll probably just be a slow burn, kinda like it has been, which'll be plenty of opportunity to sell lots of covered calls and make a lot of money, you know, selling volatility, in this whole transition, you know, and, and give fund managers opportunity to outperform in USD terms or whatever, but not in BTC terms. You know, it's It's just, there's a lot up for grabs all at once, I think, in this big-- We're just in such an age of transition, political power, technological power, monetary power, like this is just such a huge upheaval, in, in terms of human history." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "57:43", "start": 3462.56, "text": "Yeah, I love that. I love the comments there. I think maybe sort of like a closing comment, what sort of things does Bitcoin need at this point? So some of, some of the ideas that you might hear in the Bitcoin community, they say, okay, what about education? More developers and code review, more Bitcoin businesses, maybe more development on privacy. Do you have any thoughts on that?" }, { "speaker": "trace_mayer", "time": "58:03", "start": 3482.86, "text": "Man, Bitcoin always needs more holders. Like ho-holders of last resort. That is like, that is the foundation of Bitcoin right there. It's people who will buy it when nobody else will, and people who just won't ever sell it, you know? And, and that's what, you know, that's what Bitcoin needs, and it needs its current hodlers to become even stronger financially, you know, which is, you know, selling, selling those covered calls, for example, that's a way that you can be taking territory on the Bitcoin blockchain and becoming stronger financially, without, you know You know, just getting your, your ultimate collateral to start working for you. y- and, you know, also the technological development is very important. I, I like the second layer, things that are happening like, Lightning Network, Simplicity, Schnorr signatures, Taproot, Graphroot, if we can get, you know, if we can get a lot of this stuff in, MAST, MimbleWimble, you know, that's kind of outside of Bitcoin, but, you know, 'cause I don't see that getting merged in anytime soon. But, you know, the financial innovation can still take place, over on other coins, and if it works there, then we can merge it in. Like, look at Litecoin, we activated SegWit there first. someone put a million dollars in an address, nobody stole it. You know, that's kind of a nice test net, right? So, you know, these are, these are the People who are just, they're, they're committed to the cause, you know? They're those hawlers of last resort. They get in, they start working on stuff. I mean, keep in mind, when you're educating people, you're actually training your competition for those, those scarce satoshis. you know, that might not be the best idea. I mean, I think the first decade was a decade of altruism, but this next decade, as Plan B talked about, you know, with the, with the black swan model, there was a decade where that, that model was able to be exploited before everybody kind of wised up to it, you know, and I think this decade might be that decade For Bitcoin. And so this might be the decade of competition. You know, the first decade was the decade of altruism, this next decade, might be the decade of, of competition for those Satoshi's. And, you know, and, and so, you know, we-- I, I don't know why people think that they need to spend a bunch of money like educating people for free to become their competition. I mean, I did it because I wanted to gather a core of gold- Bugs and libertarians so that there would be a particular political constitution among the main early adopters of Bitcoin. And then if they're the benefits, beneficiaries of this wealth transfer, then they're going to change the political constitution of the world, you know, because they're gonna have a lot of money to do it with, you know, so I, I had, I had ulterior motives, you could say, besides just, besides just, you know, spreading Bitcoin in that sense, I wanted to spread Bitcoin to particular niches of people that shared particular ideologies. but that, you know, now Bitcoin's kind of out there for everybody. I mean, do you really want a bunch of Bernie Sanders supporters to, to, to have a bunch of Bitcoin?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:01:27", "start": 3687.65, "text": "Right." }, { "speaker": "trace_mayer", "time": "01:01:28", "start": 3688.37, "text": "I, I mean, I just don't know that that's the wisest thing, you know, because now you're arming them with a bunch of, financial resources, you know? So at, at your own expense, you know? I, I, you know, what's, what's the, what's the age-old axiom, he Because the gold makes the rules, you know? So this is the age of competition, and so who's gonna have the bitcoins, you know, ten years from now? Like, who's, who's gonna have them? And, and who do we want to have them? You know, is another question. Who do you want? And so, oh, is it the same? Yeah, I mean, I, I mean, I want, I want Bitcoin hodlers to have them, I want people who understand Austrian economics to have them, I want people who have a, a, you know, good time preference, good sense of opportunity cost, who, who- I, I'd prefer they'd be self-made as opposed to some trust fund baby. you know, people who've really, you know, had to be scrappy, you know, those are the people that I wanna have the bitcoins, you know, instead of, you know, having 'em go to whatever trust fund babies, like, you know, we, we just don't need more of that. The sooner they burn through all the, that intergenerational wealth, and the sooner that intergenerational wealth gets transferred to a new generation who's got values that are more conducive to building civilization because of this time preference difference, you know, the better, in my opinion. That's who I'd like to see having the bitcoins." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:02:59", "start": 3779.84, "text": "These are the people you want as your neighbors in the Bitcoin Citadel, I suppose. But, yeah, look, I've really enjoyed chatting with you, Trace. Do you wanna just take an opportunity to tell my listeners, where can they find you and obviously tell them about Proof of Keys?" }, { "speaker": "trace_mayer", "time": "01:03:15", "start": 3795.88, "text": "Oh, yeah, so Proof- Proof of Keys, we mentioned it, it's gonna be super fun this year 'cause we're gonna, we're gonna have more than just three weeks of preparation. you know, already starting to beat the drum, I guess, now. proofofkeys dot com. Remember, not your keys, not your Bitcoin. and we'll be changing, little things on our Twitter handles to put like the key and the lock and all this stuff to raise awareness with that. I mean, I think we're ninety-five days out or ninety-four days out right now, you" }, { "speaker": "trace_mayer", "time": "01:03:46", "start": 3826.86, "text": "60 days out. yeah, so proofofkeys dot com, and then I'm on Twitter at trace mayer, and also I host the Bitcoin Knowledge podcast, so, www bitcoin dot kn, and thanks so much for having me. I mean, I really appreciate the work that you're doing. We need more people kinda carrying the, the standard, you know, waving the banner around. And so, so yeah, I'm, I'm really happy with the work that you're doing, and, and, just keep it up, you know, it Work getting all these interviews done and, and being able to prepare for them and stuff like that, and so give your props for that." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:04:22", "start": 3862.97, "text": "Well, thank you very much, Trace. It's, it's been, a pleasure to chat with you. So thank you for joining me. So what did you think of that? Do you think Bitcoin could someday be the ultimate collateral? I hope you enjoyed the podcast, just remember, share it with your friends and family. I truly believe it's one of the fastest ways for people to catch up and get up to speed on Bitcoin. The show notes, the transcript, and the links to subscribe are on my website stephanlivera dot com. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you in the citadels." } ] }