{
  "episodeId": "SLP127",
  "speakers": {
    "stephan": {
      "name": "Stephan Livera",
      "role": "host",
      "tag": "STEPHAN"
    },
    "ben_perrin_btcsessions": {
      "name": "Ben Perrin (BTCSessions)",
      "role": "guest",
      "tag": "BEN"
    }
  },
  "segments": [
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "00:08",
      "start": 7.95,
      "text": "Hi, you're listening to the Stefan Livera podcast focused on Bitcoin and Austrian economics. Today, for episode one hundred and twenty-seven, we've got Ben Perrin. But first, a message on behalf of the show's sponsors. First up, Kraken, one of the world's leading Bitcoin exchanges, one of the longest standing Bitcoin exchanges with a strong reputation in the industry. Kraken have a high quality platform, high trading volume. Volume and low fees. They also offer twenty four seven support and just recently they've announced Kraken Pro mobile app, which you can find in the Google Play Store or Apple iTunes Store. Kraken Pro delivers all the security and features you love about Kraken Exchange, beautiful mobile first design. You can set the permissions on the Kraken website and generate an API key to sign in on your mobile app. Kraken offer margin, long and short up to five times and Kraken also have futures, up to fifty times leverage. Don't forget there's Kraken OTC desk for those who want a more private, personalized service for large block trades. Go to kraken dot com to sign up. Next is Unchained Capital. You know I like what Unchained Capital are doing in terms of providing Bitcoin financial services, but also making a lot of valuable open source contributions. They are empowering customers with unprecedented financial freedom and control, and their products and services are built on the foundation of multi-sig, so they offer collaborative custody, giving users control over their private keys, as well as the benefit of a financial partner and financial services. Unchained offer two of three multisig vaults, these are a great option for those thinking about how best to secure their Bitcoin for the long term, and if you ever need to access liquidity but you don't want to sell your Bitcoin, Unchained's collateralized loans offer a unique option. All Bitcoin is stored on-chain, dedicated multi-signature addresses, the Bitcoin is never rehypothecated, and you can share in the security by holding one of three keys. Unchained are offering excellent services, they're releasing valuable content and open source tools such as Caravan Partnering with them as well. So learn more at unchaineddashcapital dot com. Check out GiveBitcoin dot io, just recently went live. It's the easiest and safest way to get your friends and family into Bitcoin. Take it from me, I've given Bitcoin to people before and they lost it, they just didn't know what they were receiving. So GiveBitcoin can help change that equation because you can give, you time lock, and you educate, and you can time lock that between one to five years. And in terms of education, GiveBitcoin is delivering a lesson from a world class curriculum, Such as Safedine, Matt Odell, Jan Pritzker, and others. I'm also an advisor with a small equity stake assisting with the curriculum, and it's Christmas coming up, so you can give and also get Bitcoin as a present. So put Bitcoin on your wish list at GiveBitcoin.io. I really think GiveBitcoin.io can have a positive impact on Bitcoin adoption and understanding, so I'm excited to have them as a sponsor. Last but not least, CipherSafe. They are producing the CipherWheel product. Are you keeping your Bitcoin seed backed up? Is it done in a way that's Waterproof, rustproof, petproof, tamper evident. If not, look into Cypherwheel. It's in the pre-order stage right now, it's a new product. It comes in a wheel shape and it masks the words of your actual seed unless you open the tamper evident seal. So make sure your seed is backed up to help you in case your paper seed gets waterlogged or tampered or goes up in a fire. Make sure your loved ones have access to your bitcoins if an accident occurs. So go and check out the website cyphersafe dot io. So today my guest is list of BTC Sessions, a YouTube channel talking about Bitcoin and educating new Bitcoiners. So in this discussion, I chat with Ben about how he got into Bitcoin and taking some of the insights from his prior career as a dance teacher and helping beginners avoid common errors, and we talk about Bitcoin tools and wallets, running Bitcoin nodes and comparisons of some of the node products, and finally with an update on Bull Bitcoin and twenty-one x. Here's the interview. Ben, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. Look, it's, it's always a pleasure to see you around at the, Bitcoin conferences and obviously online on Bitcoin Twitter or on your YouTube channel. I know you're doing a lot of great work in terms of, helping educate, beginners into Bitcoin and teach them, okay, you gotta hold your keys, you gotta run your node, those sorts of, kind of basic steps that we need to try and educate people on. I'd love to hear a bit more about your story. How YouTube thing."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "ben_perrin_btcsessions",
      "time": "04:27",
      "start": 266.55,
      "text": "Yeah, so I, I, I started hearing a bit about Bitcoin in two thousand thirteen, you know, the headlines as it started its parabolic rise from, from the last mania, and every time I saw it, I was like, \"Oh, I, I've missed the boat,\" you know, \"Oh, it's, it was ten bucks, now it's a hundred, no.\" \"Oh, it's a thousand, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly,\" as, as everybody does. but when it, when I figured, okay, well, there, there must be something here. It's either like a, a big Ponzi scheme or there's, there's something to it. And so I, I started reading. it was a little bit harder to get your hands on easily accessible information back then, as, as I'm sure many people would attest to."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "ben_perrin_btcsessions",
      "time": "05:16",
      "start": 316.1,
      "text": "yeah, so, you know, I started trying to parse through everything I could, you know, in the early days, I think everybody kinda gravitated towards, people like Andreas Antonopoulos. I actually found a really good, especially back then, I found a good series on, on, I think it was, Udemy, and it was like, how to, stop worrying and, and, and love Bitcoin or something like that, and it had like a multi-part, forty-five minute each series on, on how Bitcoin worked and what could go wrong potentially. And so I, I probably spent about three months, diving into everything, trying to digest as much as possible, and, you know, I, I- Understood as deeply as I, as I could at the time, looking back, I really knew nothing, but, I was confident enough to, to dabble and start, you know, okay, maybe I'll buy fifty bucks and, and see what happens. And so, my first purchase, was from a, a local Canadian site. It was called like Quick BT, and you could buy it with debit, and it'd get sent to a wallet. I had to download, Bitcoin QT on my, on my Laptop and took like two days to, to load up and, yeah, so it was, it was a process. And when I finally made my first purchase, the next day Mount Gox collapsed. Perfect timing. Yeah. And, you know, the, the messages, 'cause I had started talking about it to my friends and like the messages from, from some of my friends, \"I hope you didn't buy any of this trash.\" And, you know, like, you know, my Facebook feed was littered with, with headlines And, you know, so, but I was lucky enough that I had taken those two, three months to actually read enough to understand the difference between the currency collapsing and just a poorly run business. and so I was, I was kind of insulated from that, so like the, you know, asymmetric, information, I suppose. And so I, I continued, and, and I always said to myself, \"Well, if, if the principles that I got into this for were compromised, then I, I would step away. But if nothing has changed, then it, it would-- it seemed to be just...\" Bitcoin being Bitcoin and the markets being the markets. and so I, I kinda, I bought the two year long dip, is what I did. but over the, over a couple years, I, I kind of came to see that, education was a spot that could be worked on. And, so in 2016, I started a YouTube channel, called BTCSessions, and I just, I said, \"Hey, I'm gonna...\" Make a, a weekly video at the time, on whatever I feel like, whatever I feel like is worth looking at, learning about, basics, how do you start a wallet, how do you secure Bitcoin, how do transaction fees work, little things like that, bits of information that I had found useful, initially. And, and, I started and, and I just didn't stop, and I'm still here. the channel's been around, you know, since beginning of 2016 roughly, and it's had, it's getting pretty close Three million views right now, which is insane. It's crazy to think about, right? So, how many subscribers do you have now? over thirty-one thousand. So, and then there's, you know, the transients that come in and out and, and, and watch but don't subscribe. So, you know, I just, I'm wagging my finger at you guys, hit that subscribe button."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "08:54",
      "start": 534.1,
      "text": "See, and that's the thing as well, like I'm always trying to drive people towards what, who I think are good, solid people in the space, Tell them about my podcast or Tell them from the Crypt or Noted, right? Yeah. Because there's a lot of charlatans, right? And especially on YouTube, you got all these like crypto-pumpy moon Lambo boys, right? And so I, I do my best to try and drive, you know, newbies and beginners towards good solid channels as opposed to the pumpy Lambo boys."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "ben_perrin_btcsessions",
      "time": "09:23",
      "start": 562.66,
      "text": "Yeah, and I've found that the, the education infrastructure has been built out much, much better over the past few years. Like, there's so many great quality- Podcasts and YouTube channels and, and just walkthroughs and Medium articles and just so many fantastic educators have come and, and it's great to, to see that kind of proliferating. Right."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "09:49",
      "start": 589.28,
      "text": "And the thing is, there's always common beginner mistakes, right? So shitcoining, right? That's a common one, right? So, so, you know, I'll try and get a beginner in, and then at some point they will start asking those questions around, \"Oh, do you only buy Bitcoin?\" Do you have all some of these other coins, and then at that point you've gotta sort of take them down that rabbit hole. How do you approach that?"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "ben_perrin_btcsessions",
      "time": "10:10",
      "start": 610.09,
      "text": "It's, so it's, it's a, a, a, a tough one, and I've tried to tackle it. It's, it's really difficult to give a, to paint with broad strokes and say this will work for everybody, because obviously everybody gets into Bitcoin for different reasons. I find that, oddly enough, even though this narrative gets pushed a lot Not a lot of people come to Bitcoin because they think, \"I need something that's faster than my debit card.\" so, so again, I tend to ask, \"Well, what interested you about Bitcoin? What, what did you see that you thought, 'Wow, this changes a lot?'\" and a lot of the time it's Either the sound money aspect of it or the censorship resistance or kind of like the, you know, sticking it to central banks, a, an option outside of your local currency. a, a lot of those narratives are what sparks people's interest. And so when I say, \"Well, then why, why are you looking at...\" Whatever coin, this coin, they say, \"Well, it's, it's even faster.\" I'm like, \"Well, was, was speed what you came for? Was that what really drew you in?\" you know, 'cause I mean, if, if you tap your debit card and you're going, \"Oh my god, this is incredible,\" then wonderful. but Things, I, I think we've come to learn what Bitcoin's strengths are at its base layer and, and what kind of those hard promises of monetary sovereignty, Huh, you know, why, why people value it. And, you know, it, I think it's time to move beyond the Roger Veras of the world that are, it's twenty nineteen and they're still doing videos of like scanning a QR code and having their mind blown by zero confirmations. Like it's, it's, it's, it's time to dive a little deeper. And I'm not saying that necessarily for brand new people. Yes, sure, show them, show them a lightning transaction, because it, it's cool, it's cool to see initially, but, I think drawing, drawing their eyes to the important aspects of why Bitcoin was necessary in the first place. So I, I did a me-- a medium article, i-- at some point this year, quite a bit earlier in the year, and I, I called it My Path to Bitcoin Maximalism. I read that, that was a great one. Yeah, yeah. So I-- and it was just, it was more to outline, Kind of the ethos, or at least the things that drew me to Bitcoin and, and why I've, you know, I started with Bitcoin, and then obviously you get started and, and there's the inevitable skew into shitcoinery, as, as ever, everybody dabbles in certain amounts, I imagine, even whether it's looking or holding or, or trading or whatever, but then obviously the more I learned, it actually drew me back. So I wanted to draw this thing out and kind of point to the fact that, Bitcoin maximalism isn't close-mindedness, it's, it's actually the more I educated myself, the more my focus came back to Bitcoin and realized that All of these other coins are in some way not checking a particular box, and, and so yeah, I, I think that's important. And so I kind of drew out those arguments in that Medium article. the, the Cryptonomi did a, a reading of it. So if anybody's not, down to read a long Medium article, you can always audio that."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "13:58",
      "start": 838.0,
      "text": "Yeah, that's great. And, that, that reminds me a little bit of my earlier chat with Matt Odell, where he spoke about how a lot of shit coins market themselves by- Not telling you about a certain trade-off that they have made, right? Somewhere along the way, they made a deal with the devil, right? And they did something in some way that impinges on its centralization and so on. So I think that's, something that you're speaking to there as well."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "ben_perrin_btcsessions",
      "time": "14:21",
      "start": 861.28,
      "text": "Yeah, I mean, the, there's a lot about it, so a lot of these projects pride themselves on being able to make quick changes in the name of innovation, but really, if you think about it, Bitcoin is built upon hard promises of sound money, of, immutability and censorship resistance, and when you can- Turn on a dime to change the base layer protocol and change those hard promises, then those hard promises are worth absolutely nothing. and so the, these, these snap decisions to hard fork when it comes to Ethereum or I-- What did I see? I saw something from my, I think it was a quote from Vin, Vin Armani, the B-Cash guy, the, the B-Cash guy, and he was talking about how, he was talking about how every six months there should be a hard fork, even if there's nothing to do, just Just, just to prove that we can innovate and, and something, he said something about governance, and I was like, \"Oh, god, like that is so missing the point. We need to put in place these hard promises that can't be screwed with, so that down the line, when you get somebody in a position that wants to do something like increase the supply cap, it's impossible for them to do it. The sooner Bitcoin ossifies, the better, for me.\" Right. And, so let's say"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "15:45",
      "start": 945.1,
      "text": "I'm a beginner and I- I come to you, Ben, and I say, \"Oh, Ben, but I, I heard there's this other coin and it does governance better. W-w-why shouldn't I buy that coin?\""
    },
    {
      "speaker": "ben_perrin_btcsessions",
      "time": "15:54",
      "start": 954.05,
      "text": "Oh,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "15:54",
      "start": 954.41,
      "text": "g-d, well,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "ben_perrin_btcsessions",
      "time": "15:55",
      "start": 954.99,
      "text": "so-"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "ben_perrin_btcsessions",
      "time": "15:58",
      "start": 958.04,
      "text": "I, I typically point to the fact that, that, people aren't perfect, and so when, when you're relying on really any government, if you give that government a lot of power over, say, the, the money supply, sure, at the time Those people in a position of power may do the right thing, but what about the next guy or the next guy in power? Like it's, it's an inevitability that at some point down the line, somebody will- Do something that's probably against everybody else's best interests, but is in their best interests. And so when I look to Bitcoin, it is incredibly difficult to get these, these changes put through. I mean, getting a backwards compatible, upgrade to the protocol that allowed us to have more transaction throughput and fixed a malle- transaction malleability was damn near impossible. Like to get SegWit through was a battle, and, and, but that's the way it should be. That's good, that's a great thing. when you, when you see these kind of quick changes, again, it just- When you look at any type of governance beyond me choosing to run my own node and set my own rules, if you're pushing any of that responsibility to a third party, you're losing power, you're losing your own sovereignty. And so I, I typically say, the easier it is for you as an individual to have as much power over your own money and your own monetary supply as possible, the, the better it is for you in the long run. And so when, a coin comes along and says, \"Hey, look how quickly we can do things,\" \"Hey, look at our fancy governance model,\" I don't, I don't think that's interesting. I don't think that's a place where I wanna go. So, it's, it's, it's difficult to convey, but it's, a necessary hurdle that have to-- people have to get over, 'cause they're so used to worshiping Politicians and, oh, that's my guy. That's the guy who's gonna get my vote because he's gonna do the right thing, and then, you know, they never do. And so it's, it's, it's very- I mean, Bitcoin does, I suppose, have governance in a way, but it's just messy as all hell. And that's, that's kinda how it should be, right? Like, you, you don't want it to be easy. If nobody's happy, then you're probably in a good spot. If everybody's, if everybody's angry and fighting and can't get anything through and it's a pain in the ass to change, then we're probably sitting in a pretty great place, to be honest."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "19:00",
      "start": 1140.24,
      "text": "Right. Yeah. And I think, the best- First on this is, a tweet by our friend Michael Goldstein, he's got that, the Mexican standoff, and there's like three guys all with like guns pointed at each other, and he says, \"This is Bitcoin governance, right?\" So,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "ben_perrin_btcsessions",
      "time": "19:12",
      "start": 1152.31,
      "text": "a hundred percent, it's, it's beautiful because- Ev-Everybody has power, but they don't. It's, it's this weird kind of dichotomy of like, \"Yeah, I, I get to say how things go, but, but kinda not. It's, it's, it's weird, but it, it works. It's, it just works, right? We've-- It's coming up on eleven years, and it has worked. In my opinion, beautifully. I wouldn't have it any other way. and it's also kind of, it's, it's lent itself to, a mindset of questioning everything, and, and people tend to shit on Bitcoiners for just being, really abrasive and in your face about their views. you know, you see the back and forth with, like, Wasabi and Samurai, you see teams attack- Hacking each other and calling each other out. My boss, Francis at Bull Bitcoin, is, is no stranger to just shit talking all over Twitter. But it's, it's kind of a beautiful thing in its own right because, as much as people get stressed out because of it, it, it solidifies the hell out of what Bitcoin is and, and it's just this Bullshit-averse group of people that will stop at nothing to make sure shit is fair, and I love it."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "20:40",
      "start": 1239.59,
      "text": "Yeah, right. Yeah, everyone's calling each other out to try and, and look, again, people have their own, interests in it as well, right? People have products to sell and so on, but at the same time, people try to keep each other honest. Another topic that I think is common for beginners, and I get this often, is people who come to me saying, \"Oh, man, it's like, it's dro- it's View on that, and how do you explain that when a beginner comes to you and says, \"Oh, Ben, I, I wanna wait for it to come cheaper before I buy any\"?"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "ben_perrin_btcsessions",
      "time": "21:11",
      "start": 1271.35,
      "text": "Well, so a, a lot of those people, they, they come to me and they, they spout the, you know, buy low, sell high. Everybody knows what they should do, nobody does what they, what they, I guess technically should do. and so, and, and so a lot of the time when, when people- come to me, and they say, \"When's a good time to buy?\" I'm like, \"Okay, so what got your interest? What, what, why are you asking me about this now?\" And a lot of the time, the answer will be, \"Well, I saw the price go up.\" I'm like, Okay, so, so you're looking at it now, you're looking to buy because the price is appreciating. And you're-- And so, what do you think you're gonna do if you buy only because the price has gone up? What do you think you're gonna do when the price goes down? You are going to sell. If the only reason you bought is because the price is going up, you're going to sell when the price goes down. So I typically say, your level of investment or, how much capital you allocate to something like Bitcoin should more or less directly reflect your knowledge of the underlying asset. And so, I say, you know, if, if you're just getting started, start with a small amount, you know, maybe fifty bucks or something, and, and use that to play around with some real capital, so there's a little bit of money on the line, but learn, learn about a wallet, test sending it around, start to ask some questions when you come across, well, what the hell does this mean? What, what is, what's this fee that's attached? How does that work? It, just doing- That will make you ask some questions, but it also gets you learning at, at the same time, and it puts some money on the line. And, and I try to get people actively learning with, with a, a minimum amount of money into it, before they start diving in. And then I say, okay, if you feel like you've learned something and you feel like you start to understand, maybe every time you have like an epiphany, maybe s-start to Allocate a little bit more that, if you're comfortable. but, but take your time. and I think that's, it's a, it's a huge inverse to what people hear when they start shitcoining, right? Because if somebody's, somebody comes out, they're like, \"This one's going to, it's gonna hundred X, \"and they're, you know, \"Buy, please buy my bags, please, God, buy my bags,\" is basically what they're saying. And, and so, to hear the opposite when somebody comes- I'm, oh, should I, should I buy Bitcoin? And I more or less say, \"Well, not much, definitely not much right now, and then as you learn, maybe.\" and I think more or less that actually makes people a little bit more confident because it's not the scammy shillfest of, \"Oh, buy this, you're gonna be rich.\" it's more the- Let's take a reasonable approach and actually learn. And I'm, you know, I'm always confident that in doing that, people will be more convinced than saying, \"Oh yeah, buy a ton because it's probably gonna go up.\" Like that's what, that's what people wanna hear, but that's not what I'm gonna tell them. I'm gonna say, \"Well, what, what do you think?\" Or like, \"Why do you think this is important?\" And I want them to ask me the questions of, \"Why is this... Why is this not a scam? Why, why This, so I, I wanna hear those questions and I wanna guide people towards those kind of tentpole moments where they suddenly realize why somebody can't just go and change the ledger and change their balance, and I want them to have those, those epiphanies on their own accord, but I wanna lead them in that direction."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "25:16",
      "start": 1516.23,
      "text": "Right, yeah. And so let's talk through your process with a beginner then. So what are some typical tools that you might recommend? Are there any wallets that you like to tell them about, phone ones, hardware ones? Where, where do you start?"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "ben_perrin_btcsessions",
      "time": "25:29",
      "start": 1529.18,
      "text": "So, so I put together, a little blog post with a, a ton of tutorial videos that I've done. now it's, it's kind of geared towards, I, I suppose, Canadians because, because some like the buying and selling videos, I can only work with stuff that's available in my country. But, so I tend to funnel people towards right now, Blockstream Green. I like that as a mobile wallet. it's pretty simple to operate as far as a, a regular wallet goes, but it also has some of the advanced features for down the line, like you can connect it to your own node, very soon Simply and, and so you're running it trustlessly, but, you know, I'm not, I'm not getting an individual to do that two seconds out the gate from learning what Bitcoin is. Now, one of the, yeah, so I guess I'll, I'll start with that. Blockstream Green, I typically, I like to drive people towards Coldcard as, as a storage hardware wallet solution, But I'm al- I'm also a realist, and I know that a, a brand new beginner isn't necessarily gonna understand, UTXO management. That's, that's not something that it took, it took me years to even know that Bitcoin wasn't just sitting in, as a balance in your wallet, but it was actually-- Yeah, it's not an account. It's, it's, you know, there's, there's UTXOs, bits, tiny pieces of Bitcoin that still remain separate until they are combined into a transaction. A lot of users aren't gonna understand that, and, and so I, I suppose my tactic tends to be incremental wins and what I mean, and people are probably not, not going to,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "ben_perrin_btcsessions",
      "time": "27:29",
      "start": 1649.32,
      "text": "like this initial thought, but, but stick with me. people shit all over, custodial, any sort of custodial solution, and so do I. But as a demo, sometimes I will utilize that as that initial wow factor of, \"Oh, that worked quick.\" So you get something like a blue wallet or a wallet of Satoshi, where it's like a lightning custodial, and they tap a button and there's a wallet there, and then I send them a hundred Satoshi's and it pops up in a half a second, and they go, \"Oh, that was easier than I thought.\" And And the difference there is that the initial sit-down time to get them slightly interested was way less than, okay, so we're gonna write down this twenty-four word seed, and then we're going to practice a backup, and then we're going to, send a transaction, and we're gonna wait on a confirmation so that you can then send back. And so it, it gets me in the door. And that- That allows me to then have the conversation of, so this is a custodial wallet and, you know, not as good for, you know, financial sovereignty or whatever kind of angle I wanna take with it, but it's, it's, it's better to do it trustlessly on your own. And then I can go down that segue of, well, why is that bad? Well, you know, bank accounts can shut your accounts, and just kind of draw- Drawing those comparisons. So I like to go for those incremental root wins. Okay, great, you used a custodial wallet. What does it mean to hold your own keys? And then they go, \"Oh, oh, so like I actually have power over my money when I do this.\" And you start to guide them down that path. And Some people might not like that approach of starting custody, and I don't always, it depends on my timeframe. But as an example, there's, there's a good friend of mine, I've known him for years, his name is Dave. he was actually in, if, if any of your viewers have seen it, but I did a, a, a, an ad for Bull Bitcoin that was like a, an ode to shitcoiners that have been wrecked, and, and it's, so it's like, it's a bunch of like homeless-looking dudes in Lost their money on like B-Cash and Ethereum and Ripple. And, and so he's the guy in the ad that's the Ethereum guy. so, so, so if you, if you search up that, that bull Bitcoin thing, you'll see him. But anyways, so he was one of my biggest skeptics. He's one of the guys that emailed me after Mt. Gox collapsed and was like, \"I hope you didn't buy any of this shit.\" and so, but he gradually came, came around. And so- He, he got himself a non-custodial wallet in like 2015 and, and but then deleted it or something and, and so further cemented his, his disdain for Bitcoin for another couple years, and, you know, made the beginner mistakes but gradually came around. Now through Osmosis, just from being around and having the opportunity to say, like, \"Okay, try this,\" and then he sees me doing something, and he goes, \"Oh, that's cool. What, what is that? Why is that better?\" And so he's gone from, \"I have a wallet on my phone,\" to, \"I, you know, I bought myself a Trezor,\" to, \"Oh, wait, now I actually want a cold card.\" \"Oh, wait, now I wanna play around with Electrum.\" \"Wait, maybe I should mix my coins Just set up. Why is it important to have a note? And he starts asking those questions, and so he's gone from plunking down and being convinced that he wants to buy bags of XRP and TRON To now sitting down with me, setting-- he's in the process of, he's gonna be grabbing a node and setting it up himself and linking his hardware and software, mobile wallets and everything to the node and having like full financial sovereignty, and he's Bitcoin only, and he's gone through this incredible transformation and education in like a year and a half. And, and it blows my mind because it's, it's so much faster than my learning curve was in the early days. And I think it's, it's the approach that has been taken of, of getting the person curious and then letting them know that there's a-- there's an incremental, easy to achieve next step to be even more sovereign and be even more- Solid to have that base, that, that like impenetrable fortress of, of monetary sovereignty. And so I, I think people need to do, to indeed, go after those incremental wins. I think too often- Being hardened maximalists and Bitcoiners, we think, everybody out the gate better run their own node and be learning command line. but like, let's be real, we gotta think, what's the goal here? What is the goal? We want this system to be as robust and decentralized and trustless as possible. And how do we get there? If a newcomer comes in and you, you go over and you're like, \"You idiot, you can't, you have to run a node.\" And like, if, if we, if we're out the gate with that, we've already lost that person, 'cause they're just gonna go grab a custodial wallet right away and never stray away because we've just inundated them with too much initially. But if you say, like, \"Yo, like, cool, you learned how to do a transaction, maybe try this wallet out instead, because it More control over your money. And then, you know, then go down the, the path of, you know, maybe let's look at privacy, maybe let's look at cold storage, let's look at-- So, there, I think there's a path to get there, and it's incremental, and not everybody will go all the way down the path, but I think more people will go further by attacking it that way."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "34:00",
      "start": 2040.19,
      "text": "Yeah, that's a great way to think of it. I think the incremental approach is definitely, a good one. I've in the past had difficulty where pointers, but I wouldn't like actively work with them and actively step them down that journey, whereas nowadays that is what I'll do. If I'm working with someone, I'll actively say, \"Hey, hey, where are you at now? Okay, next step. Here, here you go. Let's get you on a cold card. Or, hey, next step, let's get you on a node. Things like that. Now, one thing that's a little difficult there is Technical precision versus ease of explanation, right? So in the past, we have, you know, there have been a lot of inaccurate analogies made, and sometimes that's difficult because- You're, you're trying to simplify it for somebody, but then at the same time, that can lead them astray later on. So for example, addresses as an account, right? Because it's an imperfect analogy, and that can lead to conceptual errors, privacy problems, address reuse. What's your view around navigating that?"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "ben_perrin_btcsessions",
      "time": "34:57",
      "start": 2096.57,
      "text": "it, it is a tough one because the inclination is to, use the easiest explanation at the time to get through it. And, and it's a tough one because, there's no one size fits all. For this, you need to look at the individual and, and almost, this sounds bad, but almost gauge how stubborn they are. 'Cause like, if you tell somebody one thing and they're gonna be like, \"Okay, this is what I believe, and I'm just gonna stick with that,\" and they're not gonna be capable of, of being like, \"Oh, I have more information, and so my views can now be altered, and I, I can move forward with this new information,\" and, and... And adapt to it. if they're not gonna be capable of that, then, then you might need to say, \"Okay, we'll, we'll tackle this little bit, give them a bit of information, but if it starts being too much, you need to...\" Have that finesse and that, that know-how to, to say, okay, your eyes are glazing over a little bit, don't worry, I know this is too much right now, so focus on this little bit of information. So like when somebody says, \"Oh, why, why did my account change?\" when like a, a new address pops up, you'd be like, \"Well, it's not exactly like that. Think of it like there's, there's a, a master account, and for privacy's sake, every time you receive money, it's like having a new, a new temporary account address, I suppose. and, and it's not a good idea to reuse those because you could compromise, how much money you're holding. And, and, and that's enough. They don't need to realize that every, every received transaction is sitting as a separate, sum that can be combined or, or, you know, split into separate UTXOs. You don't need to dive into that yet. Just say You know, it's one master account, you're gonna see all the Bitcoin that you have here, but there's a new address every time, and it just helps with privacy. You don't need to dive that deep right away. And so, again, it, it, it beckons to that incremental approach, where how much can somebody handle in one sitting? And it's, it's not a lot. so I, I should-- one thing I wanna say is a lot of the reason for my approach is because of a bit of my- My, my background prior to Bitcoin. and so I, I, before Bitcoin I used to teach, school children how to breakdance. So, so, so let me, let me explain why this actually lent itself, to, to this kind of where I am now. so The first time I started teaching dance to kids, I went in with some like jam-packed, super-intro-ke choreography, and I was like, \"Well, if I just teach it slow enough, they'll pick it up.\" And even though the dance is, is fast, I can just-- I'll just like slowly go through the moves, and then when I play the music, they'll be fine. And it was an, an absolute train wreck, and it was like the worst-- it was a terrible job. And so over the years, I learned that you really need to break things down to their lowest common denominator. it has to be bite-sized, it has to be way slower than you think necessary. And the transition from teaching dance, from teaching school-aged children complex dance moves to teaching adults complex technology is actually a lot more similar than you would think. 'cause as long as you have an understanding of what's underneath and you have an understanding- of people's thought process and what they can handle in a single sitting and what you have realistic goals of what you wanna accomplish, you'll have a much better time making progress than if you just try to blow through it all in one sitting. and I think not enough Bitcoiners realize this. So, so start small, start easy, start incremental, and that's kind of what has guided my way of explanation."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "39:13",
      "start": 2352.88,
      "text": "Right, yeah, I, I love that approach, and I think there's, there's definitely a lot of parallels there. one and other kind of related idea is sometimes in Bitcoin there are what we might think of as application level controls versus more Bitcoin and cryptography, right? So the app might have a PIN on it, but that's not re-necessarily related to the underlying twenty-four word seed and passphrase, right? And for a beginner, again, that can be super difficult, right? Because they think, \"Oh, I just remembered my PIN, that's all I need,\" right? But it's like, no, no, actually, you need your passphrase and the seed to have the backup. So how do you navigate that?"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "ben_perrin_btcsessions",
      "time": "39:49",
      "start": 2389.18,
      "text": "Yeah, I mean, you could say, I, I guess there's a few different ways you can analyze it. You, you can, you can say that obviously your, your path, your, your twenty-four word or twelve word seed is, is kind of like the master key to, to your-- And I know people don't like the, the word account, but I, I, I- I always allude to that because it's some- it's something that people are familiar with. So I say, \"Well, this is, this is the key to your account, your, your more or less your account, even though it's not an account with, with a company or anything. Just imagine there's like this...\" Giant safety deposit box in the sky. And this is, this is your key to, to the account. so you need this. It's, it's just like a key. You can create a copy of it. but if you only have one copy of this key and you lose it, nobody else is gonna be able to get into your account, including yourself, ever again. when there's a PIN number, in addition to that, I could say like, \"Well, that's the PIN number just to get in the door to...\" To get access, the safety deposit box, on your phone, but, again, it's, it's just, I think it's easy to separate out the PIN number for the app versus the actual, you know, the, the actual twelve word phrase. I've never had too much of an issue with that. I just say, well, you know, if, if somebody gets your phone and they-- you don't want them to get into the, your app very easily, you put a PIN on it, right? That's, that's the security there. Passphrase, they can still sweep your account, they don't need the PIN number, that's kind of universal. And, and I can, when people start asking about, \"Well, what-- I don't understand, this, this app...\" Holds my money, it doesn't. It's, it's more like a browser. You know, there's, there's Chrome, there's Firefox. A browser gives you access to the internet. This application is one option of many to give you access to the Bitcoin network. and so when I start to explain it like that, it tends to be a little bit clearer. but you gotta attack it from whatever the problem the person is having."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "42:05",
      "start": 2524.72,
      "text": "Yeah, no, I love that. That's great advice. And, you mentioned this earlier, but, there's this Beginners to Bitcoin will be brought in via Lightning, just directly into Lightning, or whether they come into Bitcoin. Now, there's a couple different things to think about here, because obviously if you're bringing up Lightning, now you've got to think about channel management, submarine swapping, inbound liquidity, are you running it off your own node? I mean, there's all these things that you could explore. So what's your view about getting somebody in, into Lightning straight away or into just standard on-chain Bitcoin transactions?"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "ben_perrin_btcsessions",
      "time": "42:41",
      "start": 2561.15,
      "text": "It depends on our timeline. Like at the time of recording this, I think both are probably fine. Lightning is, Lightning would, would have the wow factor of it's instantly there and instantly spendable. So if that's kind of, if you just want that, that cheap thrill that sometimes lights up the eyes of a newcomer, then yeah, that's, that's wonderful, that's great. But, right now, a regular Bitcoin wallet that is a full, you know, you have your backup phrase and everything, and it's main chain, I think that's fine right now We will hit a point where it's not, and then we've gotta consider what is, what's the onboarding method. Now, there are some great, non-custodial Lightning wallets on, on mobile. So, one awesome one, and TFC, Matt Odel, did a, a video on this one, Breeze, B R E E Z, so it's non-custodial, it goes through Neutrino, so, you, you're actually running a Lightning node on your, on your phone. But they also give you inbound liquidity right away. Now, I don't know how scalable that is, but while they're still doing that, that's a great solution, and hopefully more solutions like that will pop up so it's instantly usable and you get inbound liquidity, but it's non-custodial. I'd love to see a lot of that popping up. So then, if there's not those options, if that's not scalable, then for onboarding newcomers, we've got to start to look at The realistic picture of, of how do we get these people started? Do, do we get a newcomer in and, and in an instance where channel management hasn't been abstracted away? Is that realistic to start with? especially if on-chain is too expensive for quick demo transactions. 'Cause the last thing we wanna do is demo with shitcoins, because, you know, because they don't, they don't have as much tra- you know, they don't have as much on-chain traffic, and so the fees are still cheap. We don't wanna set that precedent for onboarding people for demos, because it's just, it's, it's, you're, you're going to drive that person towards shitcoins when you're just trying to get- Get a quick demo in. So what's the trade-off? Do you do a demo with Litecoin or do you do a demo with a custodial Lightning wallet? so it's- Again, and it's gonna be different for, for everybody. There's gonna be some people listening to this and, they're already sharpening their pitchforks at the mention of a custodial lightning wallet. But in a world, again, where on-chain is too expensive for a demo transaction and where lightning requires, channel management before even getting set up, what are you gonna do? so hopefully, I, I'm really hopeful that by the time there's a- Another crazy mania, we will have some solutions that have abstracted away that channel management or where there's, there's auto in-incoming liquidity provided by some of these companies like Breeze. So I, I guess we'll see. It's, it's ever changing. It's so difficult to say how you're gonna teach this stuff in the future, and that's, that's the challenge of being a Bitcoiner, right? You gotta adapt to whatever the hell's out there and say, okay, this is what I'm going with for now, and then you gotta be ready to- Inform the people of why that might have changed later on."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "46:19",
      "start": 2779.36,
      "text": "Yeah, right. Yeah. So, a, a couple points there. So, firstly, yeah, Bree's great, example. I interviewed, Roy Scheinfeld on episode ninety-four, for any listeners, listeners interested. And, also, there's an interesting one by Asynk coming out called Phoenix. So I think that one is gonna be a really interesting model as well. So what it is, is a phone quick setup model, and you would do, I think, one on-chain payment to the address on Basically, submarine swap it into, I think it's got like a route hint to a channel that doesn't exist yet for this newbie, and it will say, \"Do you wanna create a channel?\" And then, boom, it'll like take that money and make it into a channel, and it is non-custodial with incoming liquidity and somebody else. Like, now you would have to fund that channel. So if you're working with a beginner, you would maybe send them ten dollars, right? Or maybe they would give you ten dollars, and you would just open a channel to, you know Low, but yeah, that's an, that's an option. but I guess just more broadly, even if we were to, abstract the like not worrying about the abstracting away the technical part of it, what's your view around driving the Lightning adoption versus teaching more of the hodl mentality before getting them even in? What's your view there?"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "ben_perrin_btcsessions",
      "time": "47:33",
      "start": 2852.86,
      "text": "It's interesting because Lightning inherently is very transactional. You just-- you want to use it, right? Like you wanna, \"Oh, I gotta give this guy a tip,\" \"I'm gonna, like,\" you're just Dicking around opening channels and sending back and forth just 'cause it's fun, like it's, it is, it is a fun thing to, to, to do. And again, I, I think it is dependent on who you're talking to. What is, why are they here? What drove them to come here? Are they the, the sound money, screw central banks? I mean, I think everybody eventually kind of leans towards that if you're into Bitcoin, anyways. So, I mean, there's gonna be an element of that, I think where I'm leaning towards is your, your, your long-term hodlings end up being like on-chain, you know, your cold card, that kind of where it's like, \"This is my vault,\" and then my day-to-day is like a Breeze wallet or, you know, if you've got like a Casa or something. there's, there's your day-to-day spend- Finding easy Sats app, stuff like that. I think, there'll, there'll be two, and, and in doing that, it becomes this illusion to today's like checking and savings accounts, right? Like, except for with no negative interest rates."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "49:05",
      "start": 2944.7,
      "text": "Yeah,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "ben_perrin_btcsessions",
      "time": "49:05",
      "start": 2944.98,
      "text": "great point. Yeah, yeah. So I, I think, I think that'll end up being it. Like, here's, here's your cheap to send, easy to purchase, you know, you wanna buy a coffee, here's, here's your coffee chain, and, you know, and then here's your, oh, you wanna actually save and, and It'll lend itself to that over time too, if p- that's the way some people are, are holding, because if on-chain is a bit more expensive, then it al-also encourages you to be a little bit more careful for when you use those on-chain like long-term holdings and move them around, and, and you're a little bit more conscious of that. So you just have a well-connected Lightning wallet, and you're like, \"Oh, here's my, my spending cash,\" and when you pull money from Lightning and settle and- And put it into a cold card when on-chain is a little bit more onerous, you're less likely to spend those savings in the future. So it's almost like this layered approach is As if Bitcoin didn't already encourage saving enough, this approach will further encourage it, in my opinion."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "50:12",
      "start": 3011.9,
      "text": "yeah. No, a lot of great points in that. Let's talk about nodes now. So there's a lot of different node products, yep, and it's obviously also possible to just run your own command line, et cetera. So, you know, there's Casa Node, there's MyNode, there's Nodal, there's, there's, there's other guys, Raspiblitz, Raspibolt, Lightning in a What's your view? What, what are you using for yourself? And what's your experience been like with teaching a beginner how to run the node?"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "ben_perrin_btcsessions",
      "time": "50:39",
      "start": 3039.46,
      "text": "Yeah. So, when I first jumped into Bitcoin, I, I had to download QT. it was at the time when Apple had banned all Bitcoin wallets from the App Store, so I, and I had an iPhone, so I was like, \"Well, it looks like I'm running Bitcoin on my computer,\" and, and QT was like What you did, I suppose, Electrum seemed scary to me at the time. so, and, and that, you know, that synced the entire blockchain. I didn't even know I was running a cop-- like, I didn't understand what was happening at the time. now, I, I have a Casa that I use. I, you know, I have the Sats app set up, you can, I, I- Took off the autopilot on the channel management and, and manually, set up some channels myself, But then more recently, I also, grab, downloaded MyNode, and I've been playing around with that. Damn, that is, that is some impressive shit for some, like, it's free software. So like, I bought a Raspberry Pi 4. and just like a one terabyte drive, and I got some, I got these beautiful clear cases for them, and everything. That's, I, yeah, they're, they're purring behind me as we speak. and, and, yeah, so I, I set those up, downloaded the software, and it, it was actually It's, I, I did a tweet on it and, and, and said all the thing, I was like, \"Oh, I downloaded this, and I connected my Electrum, and booted up an Electrum server, and I connected my, my, whatever, you know, my Blockstream Green to my node.\" So I did this whole description and, and then- I think it was Alex Miller, the guy who originally did the \"Don't buy Bitcoin 'cause it's gonna crash\" video, which was like some viral, like making fun of people saying that it's always gonna crash 'cause it keeps on crashing up. he commented, he was like, \"Really, is it that easy?\" 'cause it was this like ridiculous long, complicated tweet. so it, it sounds more complicated than it was, but really it was It, it was a fun, easy project, honestly, for those that dive in, and I appreciate them for what they are separately. Like Casa is, is such a breeze, when it comes to somebody that gets to the point where I, you know, I have my own wallet, I, I have my own hardware wallet, and I wanna play with Lightning, but I wanna, I, I'm curious, and I wanna get my, get my toes wet. Casa's fantastic for that, because it's, it's not scary, it's so not scary. You plug it in, and then you go to like casa dash node dot local on your web browser, and you, it's just there, and it's just working. And You can autopilot things, and it's, it's pretty seamless, like it's not a difficult thing to wrap your head around. And what they're doing is, it's really beautiful for those, like I said, those incremental steps. And, and that's kind of what it was for me too, like it was, it was, oh, I'm gonna get some hardware, some dedicated hardware, and Casa was just like this beautiful step. But then I, you know, I get, I'm a curious guy, I like to play around, so the, the mineode thing, it's Everything, like so it, you know, downloads a, an entire copy of the blockchain. it has like a quick sync function as well, so that you can get started before the blockchain is completely finished downloading. It runs a lightning node. You have Ride the Lightning, L and D Hub. You, can run an Electrum server, which means you have your own block explorer. And a lot of people don't realize like how much information you could leak just by going to a block explorer on the web and looking up a transaction, but- Like you're leaking your IP address, and then you're looking up a specific transaction, and if you're looking up other transactions that are linked to that address, then somebody might get a pretty good picture of all of the Bitcoin that you own, and so- Having so, like, just so many things built in, and they actually, they just added, I think they just added, BTC Pay server?"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "55:03",
      "start": 3302.97,
      "text": "Oh, they're going to. So they've added Docker, and, Tay- I think Taylor is trying to do it in a sequential or incremental approach. So he'll first get Docker, and then he's gonna look at some of these things that require Docker, such as BTC Pay Server and also Dojo by Sam Riegel. Yeah, which is,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "ben_perrin_btcsessions",
      "time": "55:18",
      "start": 3317.76,
      "text": "again, like this one-stop shop for all of these things, and the dashboard is so nice and cur-compartmentalized, and you can go in and play around with settings, and it's just- It's great, and until you see that in front of you, you don't realize, like this, this incredible software stack, you don't realize how much of the, that responsibility you were pushing to third parties. How much of that information was just being routed through other people. and it's, it's like this liberating feeling of, \"Oh, I, this is me now. I am doing this.\" And, and I mean, you can dive even further, like you can, you can, you can be running everything, like something like a- Passed by Blitz and you're like doing command line and I'm starting to learn a bit of Linux and, so, it, for me, it was like the next incremental step and, and learning some, some command line and Linux is, is kind of my next step and Yeah, it's, it's beautiful. So like, there's, there's, like you were saying, there's a ton of options out there. the Nautilus guys are great, I got to meet them in Riga, and they're doing amazing things. I love that they're incorporating like the dojo stuff, Yeah, so there's no shortage of either plug-and-play or DIY solutions for running a node. And honestly, if, if you're listening to this right now and, and you feel like you've gotten to that cusp of, you're totally comfortable with your non-custodial- Bitcoin wallet, you have a hardware wallet, and you feel like you've kind of stagnated with where you've been learning. Run a, run a damn node! Like, start, just, just grab whatever, pick any of these projects. If you're really timid, get a Casa, and they basically handhold you through everything, and there's like a great team there that can, you know, Brian, God, I'm forgetting his name, Lockhart. Brian Lockhart, yeah, he's awesome, he's super awesome, and like you should give him a shout out on And, and he'll point you in the right direction. But there's, there's a lot of great guys there that, that will help you along. And like, the, the, the dude, oh god, I'm lo- forgetting, but Mineo'd, Taylor. Taylor, Taylor. Again, he's awesome, and he's done this Like it's, it's free to download. He has like a, a, a, an extra thing that you can subscribe to get some additional features. But, I mean, the, the amount of power and the, the incredible hardware or, or software stack that you can get just running your own, without having to pay anything is incredible. Or if you want them to build it for you, you have that option too, and it's just- I, I think it's getting easier and easier, and so, like, I don't know, I don't know about yourself, you've, you've done a lot of playing around with this kind of stuff too, is it, like, do you gravitate towards one or the other?"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "58:16",
      "start": 3495.82,
      "text": "Yeah, so for me, again, it's different strokes, different folks, right? I think of Casa, like, I like, again, like, I like all of these options. I have a Casa, I have a mine node, I have a Nodal, I have like a separate laptop"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "58:34",
      "start": 3514.15,
      "text": "And me are in this scenario where we need to be familiar with these because we're trying to teach people. Yeah. So for me personally, I, typically recommend them to go down, usually the Casa or the Mineo or a Nodal, depending on what sort of person they are and how much money they're willing to spend and how advanced they are. I think Mineo is great for like an enthusiast, someone who's gonna put in the time and the, the work and then, then, then they can learn a bit more as they do it. And then if they really wanna get even further Into, okay, I'm gonna learn command line, I'm gonna learn Rusty Bolt, yeah, I'm gonna do those setups. But for you, have, have you had any difficulty communicating why someone should run a node, especially if they're a beginner level person? And then have you had any experiences trying to guide them down that pathway?"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "ben_perrin_btcsessions",
      "time": "59:22",
      "start": 3562.46,
      "text": "you know what, I always tell them the story of, of node two x. So if, if somebody asks and they're like, \"Why are you doing this? \" I'm like, \"Alright, gather round, children, I'm gonna tell you a story. \" And so I tell them, I'm like, \"Listen, this is the power that a node gives you. Every major company in the space, ni- like ninety percent of all of the Bitcoin miners, like all of these massive companies, all of these like supposedly super important people and, and, and like all of the hash rate, like everything was- was against us, and everybody came together and said, \"Hey, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna fork Bitcoin, we're gonna change it, we're gonna change the underlying rules, which was like a direct compromise of like the hard promises that we had been banking on, and we're gonna install our own...\" group of developers that will take the project in whatever direction we please, which could be to your benefit or could not be. We'll see. And it was unprecedented, all people did was say, \"Hey, I'm running a node, and whatever you do, it doesn't matter, I won't listen.\" It's like this intolerant minority changed the course of the most important technology that- That will, will hit in our lifetimes. And that kind of power is, is, it was the single most bullish moment in- All of Bitcoin that I've seen so far, like to see all of those companies, all of those people that thought they had that kind of power back down with their tails between their legs and say, \"Oh, our bad, whoops, thought we could get away with it, guess not.\" you know, it's, it's like- It's kind of like, so not running a node is like letting somebody else tell you what Bitcoin is. It's like if you had money in the bank and you were like, \"I've got a million dollars,\" and then the next day the bank was like, \"You got a million, but it's actually a million Venezuelan bolivars,\" and like, and you were powerless to say no, and they've just said, \"Like, no, but this is what dollars are now,\" and you're like, \"But I didn't consent to that.\" Well, you kinda did, because you left the responsibility with us. And so by running your own node, you're saying, \"This is what Bitcoin is, and I'm not gonna budge, and nobody can tell me different.\" And a lot of people, they allude to it like voting, but it's not, it's not really voting. It's like if you voted in an election, and no matter who won, you still got to go by the policies of the person you voted for."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "01:02:13",
      "start": 3733.57,
      "text": "I like that, that's a good analogy. Yeah, sometimes you need stories and things. To help motivate peo-things for people as well. so look, we're coming to sort of roughly the end of time, but, I just wanted to get a quick update from you. What's the latest with Bull Bitcoin and, twenty-one X as well?"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "ben_perrin_btcsessions",
      "time": "01:02:28",
      "start": 3748.24,
      "text": "Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, Bull Bitcoin chugging away like mad. so those unfamiliar, it's, up here in Canada, basically an online, broker where you can buy, sell Bitcoin or spend Bitcoin on Canadian bills, things like that. we just launched Prime, and that's for like, people that are buying more than twenty-five thousand dollars worth of Bitcoin. It's like a, a personally tailored service where, you make a purchase and you have somebody like hold your hand all, all the, all along the way, you get like preferential, settlement, you-- there's a- Help with dollar cost averaging, so a lot of great things there. we just did a rebrand of, of Bitcoin Outlet, which is like our, our dope ass merch. so if you have, if you haven't seen it, it's like, I, I love, I, it's, it's slowly replaced my entire wardrobe, only wear, like, only wear bull Bitcoin stuff now. but, yeah, so it was called Bitcoin Outlet, we're gradually moving towards, it's twentyonex dot io. just a little bit more of, we found like an edgy feel to it, I suppose, but yeah. and lots of fun stuff kind of going on in, in the background with, with Bull Bitcoin. Cipher Node, a, a little project that Francis and some of the devs have been working on, open source project, for, for a full Bitcoin software stack, continues chug along. So if you haven't checked that out, cipher node dot io is another cool thing that you can look at. But yeah, things are great. The channel, yeah, the channel's been, been super awesome. There's been, I've, I've started to notice like a, a, a, an uptick of new people checking it out. and so I, I now I do the educational stuff, but I still do like, I do like, basically like daily news, like whatever I found interesting. So it's very Bitcoin-centric, but if there's like a funny shitcoin story, I'll throw it in. And, and I always do like the side chat. So as I air it as And, and get to talk with people about whatever's going on. So, yeah, it's been, it's been super awesome. I'm, have a blast."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "01:04:44",
      "start": 3884.02,
      "text": "Fantastic, man. Well, look, l-well, we'll put all the links in the, show notes and, look, thank you very much for joining me today, Ben."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "ben_perrin_btcsessions",
      "time": "01:04:51",
      "start": 3891.27,
      "text": "Yeah, thanks so much for having me, man."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "01:04:53",
      "start": 3893.29,
      "text": "Hope you enjoyed that discussion on helping newcomers learn more about Bitcoin. One other point just to add is you can also think of it like you should run the infrastructure for your family and friends. So for example, you might run a samurai wallet dojo and then get your family and friends to use the mobile app but paired with your own dojo, or you might set up an Electrum server for them to use their hardware wallets and then connect through to your Electrum server. So reminder for anyone who wants cold cards, you can use the code Livera at CoinCasa. site dot com to get a discount. if you wanna advertise on the show, email me, it's stephan livera at pm dot me. And also the show notes, the transcript, they're on my website, stephan livera dot com. That's it from me. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you in the citadels."
    }
  ]
}
