{ "episodeId": "SLP246", "speakers": { "stephan": { "name": "Stephan Livera", "role": "host", "tag": "STEPHAN" }, "mandrik": { "name": "Mandrik", "role": "guest", "tag": "MANDRIK" } }, "segments": [ { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "00:10", "start": 9.91, "text": "Hi, you're listening to Stephan Livera podcast, a show about Bitcoin and Austrian economics. Today, we're talking about how earning Bitcoin will change your life. Mandrik, an OG Bitcoiner from 2011, joins me to share some of his stories and what was going on in those days, libertarians and Bitcoin, early wallets, working at some of the Bitcoin companies. In those days, and of course, why earning will change your life. This show brought to you by swanbitcoin dot com, the fastest way from zero to Bitcoin. Swan Bitcoin offers really easy sign up, there's no altcoins, they're really cheap, they are available in all states in the US. They're a great place to send your friends and family when they are ready to start buying Bitcoin. 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So with this platform, you set your own terms and put up offers depending on how long you want to borrow or lend and the interest rates. Go check it out, lend dot hodlholdl dot com. Onto the show. Mandrik, welcome to the show." }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "02:45", "start": 165.07, "text": "Hey, thanks for having me on. I'm really happy to be here. it's, it's nice, you know, you always have these intellectuals on and it's nice you have a change of pace here with this episode." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "02:54", "start": 174.18, "text": "Well, mate," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "03:00", "start": 180.0, "text": "Like the anti-intellectual thing, you know, there are these people with these fancy degrees and whatever, and yet people who, who, people can be like a high school dropout or a uni dropout, and they played their cards correctly with Bitcoin, they could have well outperformed their, university-credentialed brethren." }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "03:18", "start": 197.75, "text": "Yeah, I'm a college dropout, so" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "03:19", "start": 199.17, "text": "I would qualify there. Well, there you go. So, Mandrik, I know you have been around the Bitcoin space for a long time, can you tell us a little bit about how you got into all this?" }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "03:29", "start": 209.0, "text": "Yeah It was an interesting year for me, two thousand eleven, that's when I first heard about Bitcoin, and it, it was the hardest year and probably the best year of my life, really a challenging year 'cause I was laid off from a job that I worked at for a decade early in the year. So I was, I was with this company for ten years and they laid me off, and then, I went through a divorce a couple months later, and then I moved to New Hampshire as part of the Free State Project, which is a bunch of libertarians and AnCaps living there Another big thing, I was obese all my life and just changed my diet to a more keto focused diet. So twenty eleven was a busy year, and then I moved to a new place I'd never lived in and trying to figure out how I'm gonna get by, you know, and I was trying to live my ideas of liberty and trying to come up with, accepting alternative currencies, and there was a good friendly crowd of people up there who were up for that, and, you know, at the time it was silver and gold, but by the end of twenty eleven, I heard about Bitcoin when Selling baklava on the internet, I was just doing whatever I could to make some extra dollars, and I always grew up cooking, and so making baklava was just kind of natural, and I was selling, shipping it out, but yeah, I was offered, some Bitcoin to sell to Roger Veer." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "04:43", "start": 283.41, "text": "Wow. So that was your first exposure. Up until then, you'd never heard of it?" }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "04:47", "start": 286.85, "text": "I'd heard of it earlier in the year, but with so much going on, I just didn't have the-- I wasn't in the mindset and ready. So like beginning of And I'm really glad I didn't, because that summer the price shot up to like thirty-some dollars and then dropped to four, three or four dollars, something like that, and I got in right after that happened, and I feel like If it happened, if I got in right as the price was going up and then it crashed, it would have just-- it probably would have, I wouldn't be here. It'd be like a completely different life. I, I really believe that, 'cause I just wasn't in a sp-space where I could afford, afford that to happen." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "05:26", "start": 325.81, "text": "Yeah, and you were already a libertarian as well, right? It's not that you came into Bitcoin and then became a libertarian." }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "05:31", "start": 330.89, "text": "No, I mean, I, I, I was woken up by the Ron Paul movement" }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "05:38", "start": 338.48, "text": "in two thousand seven, two He's just, he's just an absolute legend, and, it, it's like so much respect for the man. but yeah, I was one of those people who heard of him and, I'd already liked gold and silver at the time, you know, back then, 'cause my dad taught me the value of gold and silver when I was a kid, so I always ha- I had a couple silver coins, you know, he gave me like a older, you know, ninety percent silver quarter when I was a kid, and I thought it was so cool Also, I loved playing video games. I was a gamer all my life. So the idea of a digital currency made sense too. Yeah. A lot of pieces just kind of fell into place. I, 'cause I think to, to fully grasp Bitcoin, you have to, to be in the right mindset, especially in twenty eleven." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "06:26", "start": 385.91, "text": "Yeah, for sure. That's so early. And I, I'm curious as well. So in some ways, it's like, you know, Vijay's multiple touch point theory, right? So the first time you heard about it, you know, it" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "06:43", "start": 403.02, "text": "It actually took. So what was it about the second time that made you actually go further into it and see the value of Bitcoin?" }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "06:50", "start": 410.31, "text": "just the idea that I could use it as an alternative currency to the dollar when, at a time when I was trying to figure out, I wa- I was in that p-place where I had just lost that job and I wanted to live amongst other libertarians, you know, work with them and do business with them and try to come up with ways to accept different payments other than the dollar, so Bitcoin seemed like the perfect fit, and also- Also, I was, at the time, I was converting a lot of it back into dollar, and it was cheaper to do that than to just get paid in PayPal. There were, there were less fees, you know, I could just sell to somebody in person. which sounds insane now, 'cause you're like, \"Oh my gosh, you were...\" You know, my first order of baklava was fourteen Bitcoin, liquidating it for some cash 'cause I, you know, I gotta pay my rent or whatever, 'cause I'm still just trying to figure out how to get" }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "07:42", "start": 462.34, "text": "Caps were getting on board with Bitcoin and they wanted to use it, and I was there and I was like, I was willing to accept it as payment, I was still accepting silver, but I was happy to accept Bitcoin. And the more I started accepting it, the more I realized, I'm like, hey, this is really cool, like, maybe I should start holding onto this, you know, 'cause this is like, this is like a really cool thing. Like, and we, we didn't have all the memes back then, we didn't have, you know, number go up Later. I think it took a lot of time." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "08:14", "start": 494.12, "text": "Yeah, for me, anyways. Yeah, for sure. And I think it's like the earlier libertarians who got into it as well, some of them had the, their focus more was the algorithm aspect as opposed to the thinking of it more like a long-term savings and a settlement layer, explanation of Bitcoin's value that was to come later. I'd love to go further into what was the context at the time Bitcoin-wise, like as an example, you know, the mining, I'm sure So the what people were using for mining was not, ASICs might not have been a thing yet at that point. the, the software that you would use, I mean, nowadays we think of it like, hey, it's the ideal ways to run your own, you know, Bitcoin node and ideally have a hardware wallet and so on, but there weren't no hardware wallets at that time. Can you just set the scene for us in terms of how you used Bitcoin back in those days in late" }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "09:06", "start": 545.76, "text": "2011? Oh yeah, sure. And this is great 'cause it's Super technical. I mean, I, I, I worked customer service most of my life. I grew up in my dad's diner, you know, so I dealt with customers like that, and I worked in a call center for a long time, and I did do tech support stuff, you know, and I put computers together, things like that, but I wasn't like super duper technical enough to fully understand the importance of securing your own Bitcoin, running your own node, that wasn't really something that was as obvious back then to, to those who weren't as technical, I think" }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "09:42", "start": 582.24, "text": "It's just, I would just keep my funds on Mount Gux. That's where they would sit. I, I had some kasachus rounds that I, that at first, you know, they were the physical, the original physical bitcoins. People would, we had a bunch of those up there, they were being passed around for all kinds of food and stuff, and I peeled like eleven or twelve of those and just put 'em in my Mount Gux wallet. It was just easier. I was like, I don't wanna lose this, so I'll just trust 'em with Mount G" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "10:07", "start": 607.0, "text": "I mean, it's funny how things, you know, the, the thinking shifts and people learned. Now, I guess there were a few parts to this, right? So if you wanted to actually just literally just run, Bitcoin Core, or actually, funnily enough, it might not have even been called Bitcoin Core back then. I think it was just called Bitcoin." }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "10:22", "start": 622.49, "text": "Yeah, it was just Bitcoin, I think." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "10:24", "start": 623.9, "text": "Yeah, it was Bitcoin QT or Bitcoin, and you could-- Now, I guess one advantage then is obviously the blockchain was a lot smaller then, and so you actually" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "10:37", "start": 636.66, "text": "You people who did that, right? I'd done it myself, but" }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "10:40", "start": 639.89, "text": "it didn't click with me. I, I consider myself a bit of a slow learner. Sometimes I just, I just need to be in my own space, in my own head, to just mess around with something, 'cause it doesn't always click with me the first time. So I tried to use it, but Gox was just convenient. I was just like, \"Oh, this is-- again, this is insane to say these things now, but, yeah, I'm, I'm not ashamed of it. I," }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "11:07", "start": 666.68, "text": "Very good. It wasn't as friendly, I don't know. And the idea of self-custody, like, I, I already at that point, I remember in twenty twelve, I already had friends that had lost funds to forgotten passwords and things like that, and that was scary." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "11:18", "start": 677.71, "text": "Yeah, for sure. And I certainly, I'm not like, the, the aim here isn't to kind of judge you or whatever for what was-- This, it's just to set the historical context that this was a normal, this was a normal practice in the earlier years of Bitcoin. I mean, even from" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "11:37", "start": 696.74, "text": "wasn't as understanding around it wasn't as strong then, and the tooling we had, in fairness as well, the tooling wasn't as easy as kind of the stuff that we have now. I guess back, at least in the times that I, you know, the earlier days, I knew there was this idea of Armory, and you would use Armory offline wallet, and that was like, that was like the main thing. So you would have Bitcoin, well, Bitcoin QT now Bitcoin Core, and that would be your online computer, and then you would have an offline" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "12:07", "start": 726.88, "text": "Like that was kind of like your hardware wallet back then, before hardware wallets." }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "12:10", "start": 730.19, "text": "Right. And I remember trying to set that up. I had a friend show me. We used to, I mean, we started having Bitcoin meetups in New Hampshire as early as, twenty twelve, we were having them. I'm trying to think, I think it was like mid twenty twelve they first started. and I remember somebody bringing a laptop and showing Armory, and I just thought, I don't know how I would ever set this up, like, I, I don't, I don't feel We're hearing it from, like, the bigger, the people who, who got us into Bitcoin, I guess, they were recommending, \"No, just use Gox or use InstaWallet.\" I don't know if you ever heard of InstaWallet, but that was like a-- that was basically a, you would go to a web-- their, their website, and it would generate a, a unique URL for your wallet, and basically if you lost it, but the problem is Google started caching the URL. So kind of a neat concept, but a complete disaster as, people's funds started getting stolen. I, I had friends lose funds to that, and then never got back into Bitcoin. They feel like that they lost everything then, and it's cri-- it's crazy, like the, the, the history of people losing Bitcoin and just feeling like it's too late now, you know, Bitcoin's twenty dollars or thirty dollars, and I lost it all. But that was, that was the beauty of twenty twelve for me, like I'm so glad I, I had the time to mess around and There wasn't the idea of Bitcoin going to the moon or whatever, I mean, it was kind of-- the meme was there even back then, but it was just, it was more like a joke. I mean, we didn't really think that would actually happen. It's just, Bitcoin's gonna be five dollars forever, you know? And that's-- and it's fine, it was, it was fine, like it wasn't a problem. That was, it was a thing of beauty in this small community, people using these five dollar bitcoins. I mean, for me, like, no matter, With this news coming out now, how is this even remotely scary at all?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "14:02", "start": 842.22, "text": "Yeah, for sure. I, yeah, just, I mean, even from my experience, coming in in, in the twenty thirteen days, it was like, oh wow, I couldn't imagine Bitcoin being ten thousand dollars. That was like a big deal, right?" }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "14:14", "start": 854.02, "text": "It's incredible to think now that it's like, now it's like, oh, the price drops into the low thirties, what are we gonna do? You know, in the low thirty thousands, it's the end of the," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "14:28", "start": 867.71, "text": "Big difference is spending Bitcoin, right? So back then, I think, it sounds to me like it really was seen more like a day to day transactional- So can you tell us a little bit about the, the thinking and the mindset back then versus what it is or how you view it now?" }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "14:41", "start": 881.38, "text": "Well, I mean, that's, yeah, it was used that way. transaction fees, you could, you could get away with zero fee transactions, they'd get confirmed. I mean, that, that was how it was, because there just wasn't much activity on the blockchain. The, White Mountains of New Hampshire every, every summer, and it's a great festival, and I, I cooked there four years in a row. We had, my buddy and I had a food stand there, and we accepted bitcoins, we accepted bitcoin the last two years we cooked there, which were, twenty, thirteen and twenty fourteen, were the two years we accepted bitcoin. Oh, I'm sorry, twenty twelve and twenty thirteen. And in twenty twelve, I remember the activity was enough to people noticed like a peak in transactions because of all the bitcoin transactions that were happening at the festival, like A peak that weekend, we're talking a few hundred transactions. I mean, it wasn't really much, but, but like you could notice a, a noticeable bump. So yeah, I mean, it was easy to use for day-to-day transactions. You know, you could send a couple dollars and you didn't have to even include a fee. It was almost like the fee was like a tip almost. I remember thinking of it that way, like you were tipping the miners for, for including your transaction, but it was optional. I remember that's how it was explained to me at first." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "15:53", "start": 953.49, "text": "That's" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "15:58", "start": 957.71, "text": "Thinking on that has shifted, and in fairness, in the early years of Bitcoin, the block subsidy was so much greater in Bitcoin terms, obviously, in fiat terms isn't it? Yeah, yeah," }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "16:07", "start": 966.82, "text": "yeah, it's huge. You got fifty Bitcoin, I mean, now that's insane." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "16:10", "start": 969.66, "text": "Yeah. So I think there's a big potential around this idea of earning Bitcoin, and this is something that you have very much been a proponent of. So why is it important to Bitcoin?" }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "16:20", "start": 980.39, "text": "Well, for me, I, I always wanted to get away from the dollar. I, I, I was trying to Being a libertarian or an ancap or whatever, you have these ideas that you know they make sense, you wanna live your life in a principled way, but it's nearly impossible in this world that we live in, right? Like, how are you gonna fully commit to this? So you have to, it's like the rational side of you is like, you know, I still need dollars, I still, you know, I'm still gonna drive on the roads that, whatever, the taxes, and I'm gonna pay my taxes 'cause I don't wanna go to jail, things like that. You" }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "16:58", "start": 1018.01, "text": "But it was easier to earn Bitcoin because there were people getting into it and they were excited about it and they wanted to use it, and I was happy to take it. So for me, that's, that became my goal. It's like, how can I move away from the dollar as much as possible for my salary, for whatever income I'm generating? I, I didn't have a salary, you know what I mean? But yeah, so started out, at first, you know, maybe a portion of my, my income was, Bitcoin. I'd still get some silver from people that" }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "17:28", "start": 1047.71, "text": "The focus for me was, especially by after, after that Pork Fest, after that summer, that festival we cooked at, I had said by the end of the year, I want a hundred percent of my income in Bitcoin, and I gotta figure out how I can do this. And I was, you know, I started cleaning houses for some people up there and who would pay me in Bitcoin. For me, it was just, it was just more rewarding to see my pay- my, my salary in Bitcoin, and I was also going through that phase where I realized I wanted to keep a hold of" }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "17:54", "start": 1074.09, "text": "it." }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "17:58", "start": 1077.87, "text": "I was earning Bitcoin, and it's like, \"This is the coolest money ever,\" and then it's like, \"Oh, I gotta pay my bills.\" So now I have this amazing thing I don't wanna get rid of it, so I'm spending way less than I ever would if I was earning dollars. Every, every purchase is now, I have to think about selling Bitcoin, and I don't wanna sell it, you know, or trade it or whatever, and it's like, \"How, what, how can I live my life without having to do that?\" So it's really, it 2013. I don't think I, I fomoted in the April, April bubble. I fomoted in near the top and then got wrecked when it dropped to like sixty bucks, but still held. But yeah, but I didn't, I didn't actually buy, I didn't actually spend money to buy Bitcoin until then. I mean, I, that was almost, almost two years later, a year and a half later." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "18:44", "start": 1124.14, "text": "Yeah. So it was primarily earning for you. And so then you were also working in some of the very early Bitcoin companies, such as Bit" }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "18:58", "start": 1137.83, "text": "Just through my connections with, in the Free State project, cooking, selling baklava, and I, I'd done a couple podcasts too with some, some people just like co-hosting and stuff. I'd made it public, I was-- People pretty much realized I was trying to come up with ways to earn Bitcoin because I loved it so much, and I wanted to be involved. Bitcoin was my life, you know? It's like, how can I make this a bigger part of my life? So it's just connections, just people you know, people in the industry, which I knew Eric Vorhees, h- obviously had a, a hand in, BitInstant and Satoshi Dice at the time, but, he introduced me to Charlie Shrem, and, and sometime around like, well, I met Charlie over the summer, in food, but at the end of twenty twelve, they connect, I, I was connected with Charlie, and he was like, \"We're looking for customer service people, you know, we'll pay you in Bitcoin, you can work remote, and then, you know, your answer, your answer support tickets for BitInstant.\" And" }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "19:58", "start": 1198.15, "text": "I love going into a role and not really understanding it and having to learn it. It's, that's, to me, I love that challenge, like it's a lot of fun. So it was a great experience, you know, working-- I started working there and I was there in the office when the, the early April 2013 bubble happened. You, you said you got involved in 2013. What?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "20:16", "start": 1215.68, "text": "Yeah, yeah, so I was around start of twenty thirteen, basically. So I experienced the March and April run up, and then the November runoff and all that. Yeah." }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "20:23", "start": 1223.26, "text": "Yeah. And the, and the-- I think the over-- the April run up is overshadowed by a lot of people. I think they look at it as like one big, one bubble twenty thirteen was its one, like, one thing, but really for those who lived through it, it was like two, two events, you know? Yes. April one. Absolutely. April one wasn't as big, but it was big," }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "20:45", "start": 1245.36, "text": "thirty dollars, and then March it was taking off, and then it broke a hundred dollars, and it was like the craziest thing ever. I mean, that's when FOMO was just kicking in so hard for so many people. And I was working at BitInstant, it was, it was insane because I was working with BitInstant, a lot of our liquidity was going through, the exchanges we used were Mt. Gox, BTC, and Bitstamp. Bitstamp's still obviously around, but like we were dealing with, whenever Mt. Gox had a problem," }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "21:15", "start": 1275.3, "text": "were shut like we couldn't do business, and it was insane. And there was a week where I, the week that it peaked in April of twenty thirteen, I was in the BitInstant office. They went, you know, they brought me down for the week just to hang out. the film crew was there for the Rise and Rise of Bitcoin documentary, which is like the first big Bitcoin documentary. It's, it's great, everyone should check it out, it's free on YouTube to watch. They were in the office recording, perfect time, 'cause it was just the peak of everything." }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "21:45", "start": 1305.32, "text": "Well, this isn't getting a hold, getting a hold of the returning of the calls or whatever. It was just insane, and it's so cool. Like, in my mind, I never wanted to be the guy running a company. I, I was just happy to be on the rocket ship, you know, just in a very small role. I'm, I'm fine being on the rocket ship, cleaning the bathrooms. It's, it's great. I'm on the ship, like, I'm, I'm here. I got this great seat to the show, you know? I don't" }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "22:15", "start": 1335.3, "text": "Opportunity to be there to see things like that while earning Bitcoin, like, I don't know, that's more could I want in my life? I don't, that was, that was so awesome to me." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "22:23", "start": 1342.8, "text": "Yeah, that's really cool. And I know, there are, you know, stories floating around and even companies like Kraken who, you know, were paying, I think there was like some early Kraken employee from like twenty twelve who took all their pay in twenty twelve in Bitcoin, and then I think they were retired from like twenty thirteen or fourteen" }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "22:43", "start": 1362.61, "text": "onwards, all right? So Seen as an investment early on, but over time, obviously the value versus dollar, and the, the, it's a huge role of it, especially as you've seen it just go up just orders of magnitude, it, it's such a huge part of what Bitcoin is. You can't, you can't really deny that, like it's just incredible. All this flood and everything, and it's still just like every, you know, every few years, it just wakes up again, and it's like, here we go, it's craziness. And yeah, a lot of people did get wealthy On a bigger level than, than I was, they aren't necessarily wealthy today, or they, you know, they don't, they're not into Bitcoin anymore. There's just so many, so much that can happen between then and now, between like health, health problems or just, just dealing with the despair of just watching your, your net worth drop by eighty percent. I mean, it's really hard when, when that happens, 'cause you, if you're not in it for the right reasons and if you're not in a healthy place physically, financially, and, and, you know, mentally You know, this, these Bitcoin just dropped, just from a thousand to, you know, a couple hundred bucks or back in April, it was in April twenty thirteen when it was like two hundred some down to like sixty, it, it's just, it's painful, it's, it's hard." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "23:57", "start": 1437.38, "text": "Yeah, that's, that's the mental part of hodling, which is very difficult in the early days when you're first learning how to do it and you're certainly going through big swings. So I guess for a lot of those early people, they didn't have, as you mentioned, Kind of health about them, it might have been hard to huddle, and also, I think the other reality is people still had living expenses as well, so they were still spending down, coins to obviously live. So, yeah, I guess that was also a, a, a big factor for a lot of early Bitcoin people." }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "24:32", "start": 1471.87, "text": "Yeah, and for me, I think this is another thing that I really love about earning Bitcoin, and I didn't realize this, I, I didn't realize this isn't why I wanted to earn Bitcoin, I just, to me, it was an alternative currency," }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "24:45", "start": 1485.32, "text": "It's like I'm living a part of my belief. I realized how cool it was to, when you earn Bitcoin and the price drops, and you're earning in a bear market, mentally, from my point of view, it was like I was getting a raise. And then when we were in a bull market, I was getting paid less. Like, I, I remember when I, I was cleaning houses in, in twenty twelve for Bitcoin, and at the time Bitcoin was like five or six bucks, I think I was charging like maybe a hundred fifty dollars to clean houses for like, to clean like a Like six or seven hours worth of work, so it's not like a ton of money, and being paid in Bitcoin, and I remember earning those Bitcoin at that, at that value, and then the price went up to like twenty bucks, and I felt so disappointed at how few Bitcoin I received for the same amount of work. You don't really, you don't really experience that if you, if it's just an investment for you. It's just, it's just a different way of thinking, I think, when you look at Bitcoin as an investment. It was like your life like that. It was" }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "25:45", "start": 1545.38, "text": "On payday, you were so happy, 'cause you're like, \"Yes, I get more Bitcoin.\" Your goal's is to accumulate Bitcoin. It wasn't-- I, I don't know. So it's like to me, like being in a bear market and working for Bitcoin was just the greatest opportunity. I, I loved it. I, I would never tell anybody who's, anyone who wants, is thinking about earning Bitcoin, it's like, you know, if you, if you wait for a bear market and start doing it, you're gonna love it when you see how much you" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "26:15", "start": 1575.38, "text": "You know, you should have been earning and-- or buying as many bitcoins as you could during the bear market. But I, I think the other point was, in the earlier days, there wasn't such a strong level of confidence that Bitcoin would go back up to the level that it was once at." }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "26:31", "start": 1591.45, "text": "Oh, absolutely not. I mean, we would, we would go to Bitcoin meetups and talk about this all the time. And we had, we had talked about other things too, like government bans and all the, all these things. Bitcoin when it was in those early days, and it was an even You know, the, the real OGs were talking about it. But for us, it's like, yeah, that, there was that fear. So having seen this happen so many times now, I think it-- at least from my point of view, I mean, I have the luxury of saying it's easier to hold now than it was back then. But it's probably not the case for somebody just getting in, who just got in at twenty seventeen, and then the price shoots up, and they're all excited, and then the price takes a dump, and through their first bear market. Even though Whether it was your first bear market was twenty twelve or twenty eighteen." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "27:20", "start": 1639.94, "text": "Yeah. And what about the different thinking? I mean, I'm sure in some ways we are just seeing, right? It's the same things that come up every few years, whether it's energy, whether it's, you know, quantum computing or, you know, it's Tether or it's something, you see the same things just keep coming back, again and again. So what was your experience like with that stuff?" }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "27:39", "start": 1658.71, "text": "with, with the FUD, you know, being, being surrounded by people That affected us, but when, when I started working, so I, I was at BitInstant, and then they, they closed down by the summer of twenty thirteen, and I started working at Blockchain dot info, Blockchain dot com now, whatever. I started working there September of, twenty thirteen, August twenty thirteen, something like that. It was right before a big, the big bull market, you know, right before the price shot up to like twelve hundred dollars, the bear market of twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen. Yeah, there was a lot of FUD, there was a lot of There was just all kinds of stuff, and I, and I realized like in the industry, earning Bitcoin, I feel like it would have been the hardest bear market ever to go through, because being on the front lines and talking to people and answering, just, I mean, I was just answering support tickets at, at Blockchain, that's, that's what I did for years, and I liked it, I liked interacting with people, I liked helping them with their problems. It, it served as both a distraction from all the negativity, and allowed me to focus on the positive things of Bitcoin and that They're still using Bitcoin, it's, it's just because there's a lot of negative news doesn't mean Bitcoin's dead. I had that luxury of being able to work in the industry and see, you know, just kind of like laugh at all the negativity. It's like, you know, that's not what's happening, you know? And, and when you work in industry, you talk to other people at other businesses and they're all like, \"Yeah, we're busy, you know? We're building. That's what we're doing. That's what bear markets are for. They I read it and things like that, like it was legit, there was just, it was just a bad time, but I'd positioned myself well professionally, so I-- for me, it wasn't, it was still hard, but, even my wife, like my wife, she worked at the company too, like she's-- I was the first employee, she was the second at blockchain, and working with her from home together, like we would just see a negative story and just kind of laugh at it, it's like, yeah, whatever, we gotta get back to work." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "29:37", "start": 1777.19, "text": "Yeah And in those, in those kind of twenty fourteen, fifteen days." }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "29:49", "start": 1788.6, "text": "Well, back then, a lot of people don't know this, but back then, blockchain dot info was a very respectable website and company. I mean, this is before the SegWit two x drama, whatever it is now, i- the company, whatever it is now, I don't even, I don't really have any comment or really care about it, I don't even think about them, but it was a different, it was a different time back then. So the tickets we dealt with were, we But the tickets we got were everything from just basic questions about the wallet to very, very advanced things about Bitcoin that I had no idea about. And when I started the job there, it was me, Roger Veer hired me there, 'cause he had invested in the company, he was, he was investing in every Bitcoin company back then, and, and Ben Reeves, he was the founder of the company, of, of Blockchain, bringing on, Nick Carey, who was the CEO for a while there, I think he's still there, he's one of the founders," }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "30:44", "start": 1843.79, "text": "but they were And I have no training, like I don't, I don't know, like I thought I understood Bitcoin, I didn't realize how much, how little I knew until I started answering support tickets at Blockchain, because the just, just the, the amount of questions, the range of the questions were just, it, it was crazy, 'cause it was just, it wasn't just like, like a BitInstant as an example, I was answering tickets specifically about orders, you know, they weren't a web wallet, they weren't a, a block explorer, it was just, this is where" }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "31:15", "start": 1875.3, "text": "It's the general Bitcoin stuff. So when I started a blockchain, it was, it was just this wide range of questions related to, \"Hey, you know, look at this transaction, there's all these things here.\" I had to learn as I went, 'cause Ben Reeves, he was so busy, I'd email him or message him, and I'd be lucky to hear back from him, he was just a busy guy. And that's a name probably no one knows, and I'm sure Ben's probably really happy with that, but Ben was a legend back then, so I'm," }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "31:42", "start": 1901.85, "text": "I" }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "31:45", "start": 1905.34, "text": "To get paid to just learn all about Bitcoin and spend all day reading and, and helping out users with it, and it was a very different, yeah, very different vibe back then. And with, when the bear market hit, ticket volume definitely slowed down and gave us time to catch our breath and just, and just, you know, just work on building company and answering tickets in a timely fashion. But I wanted my life like, I, after, after spending a decade at another company doing a job that I didn't really care about, just doing the, you know, the nine to five bullshit" }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "32:15", "start": 1935.42, "text": "Just that middle whatever, where it's like, yeah, you have your weekends and, Being able to break free from that, when I, when I, being able to break free from that and just do my own thing, even though I had no money, and just build on that was just the most rewarding thing ever. Like I tell people, I started out in Bitcoin selling food and, and I say cleaning toilets, I mean I was cleaning houses, but, and that's, this is what I was doing to earn Bitcoin. Like this is, this is all I could find to do at the" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "32:43", "start": 1962.8, "text": "Back to the show in a moment. Cyphersafe dot io are producing metal backup seed products like the Cypher wheel, and they've got a product called the Bitcoin Recovery Tag which specifically helps with recovery. So this is an extra stainless steel tag with information like the original wallet gap limit, derivation types, scripts used, and there is a recovery tag type for each of the different major hardware wallet types. So you attach this to your seed word backup with a stainless steel cable, and this website link for Recovery will actually help you or your heirs with recovering those coins on Elektra, so it really adds that value of helping you recover in practice. It works with any seed word backup device, you can go and buy yours at cyphersafe dot io and use the code livera for a discount. 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So there's a whole range of features there, and of course, they've got all sorts of content on their blog as well if you're interested in that. So go to unchained-dashcapital.com to find out more. Back to the show. Yeah, and I certainly like the, the humility you show with that aspect of it as well, that, you kind of, you're not too proud to just say, \"Hey, this is what I did,\" and, \"Hey, well, look, it, I think it worked out pretty well for you.\" So I, I'm also curious, I know you were talking about this, on Twitter recently, you shared a, a little picture with s-some luminaries in the industry before they became, well-known names. So we've got, They became the names they are now." }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "34:55", "start": 2095.05, "text": "Yeah, well, that, see, that's the thing, back then, if you, if you really wanted to work in the industry and you really put yourself out there, you would land with one of the few companies, you know, around, 'cause there weren't a lot of options. And Blockchain at the time was one of the biggest. I mean, even BitPay back then was still well thought of and, and a big company, they were growing. But like working at Blockchain at the time was so cool and, yeah, so it's like, that With CZ, Andreas, and Dan Held, you know, they're, they're joining the team as I go, but, yeah, yeah. So it was like, it was really cool. I remember Dan came on in early twenty thirteen, and working with him was great. I think he was like the, the product lead at the time, and, you know, Andreas was brought on for security. Even with Andreas, at the time it was, it was understood, you know, it was like kind of like a part-time kind of thing, 'cause it's like he was, 'Cause Dan had, Dan had been with Zero Block and Zero Block was acquired by Blockchain, so that's what brought him on. And Zero Block, for those who don't remember, was, it was basically an app, it was like a price tracker app slash, place to go to look up for Bitcoin news all in one place. And it was a great app, it, everybody was using it back then, it was beautiful. I wish, wish Blockchain, Blockchain just didn't let it go to waste 'cause it was, it was a cool app. I mean, there's a And price in one place, which just wasn't, there weren't a lot of options for that back then. So he joined the team from that acquisition. Another card, business card, I didn't have, Clark Moody also joined the team too. He's, he's another absolute legend of Bitcoin. So the-- and then Andreas joined, like I said, as part of the security team, and it's really cool to have worked with them. Now, I, I worked remote, some of them work more in person with each other, so I didn't have a lot of personal interaction with them" }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "36:53", "start": 2212.95, "text": "With everybody there, for the most part, I think. CZ was, was-- I think CZ had a lot of ideas that he wanted to implement that just didn't go through, and he was probably frustrated, and he went off and did his own thing, I guess. I guess it kinda worked out for him." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "37:07", "start": 2226.74, "text": "Also, in terms of your thinking about Bitcoin and how you yourself learned about Bitcoin, what were the resources that you used? Was it, you know, Bitcoin Talk forums? Was it Reddit Bitcoin? Was it Bitcoin Twitter? Was it, you know, the books, the podcasts? What" }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "37:23", "start": 2243.25, "text": "Bitcoin Twitter wasn't established like it is now. Reddit was really the place people were going, and BitcoinTalk dot org also was still the must go, you know, like there, there was just so much information on BitcoinTalk, but, you know, like for forums, forums is just an old way of looking at information and it's not really efficient, and even back then, it kinda sucked, but I would still use it because there would be a lot of information on there that would help me with, even with helping users solve their problems in my tickets, 'cause there's just so much about Bitcoin I" }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "37:53", "start": 2273.05, "text": "org was a great resource, Reddit was, was very helpful as well, and then the fact that I lived in New Hampshire with very, very intelligent people who were super technical and, and, and like way into Bitcoin, that was a huge plus as well, because I'd go to these meetups every week and meet with them, we would meet in Manchester, New Hampshire, and, and we would talk and, you know, have some drinks and hang out and talk about Bitcoin, and I could pick their brains about stuff. I mean, I can remember a meeting in twenty-- I, it was Dice for, you know, this is a thing now that people do, but back then, I, I don't know, like I, I don't remember hearing anybody else talking about that, but, you know, like there was a guy there who was talking about, you know, like, \"Oh yeah, I generate my entropy with dice,\" and I'm like, \"What? Like, what, what did you even say to me?\"" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "38:41", "start": 2320.59, "text": "Yeah. and in terms of like, I guess, yeah, just mindsets around, spending as well, right? Because I think, as, as you were saying, it was, it was seen more like a day-to-day thing, whereas I think now the, the, the thinking is shifting to more like, it's long-term savings. and, you know, if you wanna do day-to-day spends, probably use Lightning for that, I guess. That's, that's something that's kind of shifted over time. but I guess for people who are Coming into it today, they might be thinking about, okay, hey, should I try to earn Bitcoin? whether, you know, that's a question I sometimes get. I get people who are, who are asking me, hey, you know, I re- I really love Bitcoin, should I work in the industry or should I just keep, you know, earning fiat and buying Bitcoin? How would you approach that sort of question if someone asks you that?" }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "39:29", "start": 2369.02, "text": "Well, I think everybody's gonna be different here. I wouldn't, I, I don't just black-blanket recommend go Opportunities than any of us ever did, you know, handful of years ago. There's just, there's just so many options now. It's, it's, it's probably still not easy, but it's much easier than it's ever been, and it's only gonna get easier, as more and more companies come up. it is, I guess there is the extra challenge now where we didn't have this problem back then, but now it's, it's hard to find a Bitcoin only company. So if you're picky, which you should be, I think, Some, you, some shitcoin support or something. I don't, I don't know. Like, there, there are a lot more companies, but sadly fewer Bitcoin-only companies versus, you know, the number of just like crypto companies." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "40:20", "start": 2419.86, "text": "Yeah. A-and I guess for, I mean, maybe, the person thinking, they might be thinking, okay, my skill set only really works in the normie fiat world. So maybe for them, it, maybe it doesn't make as much sense, or maybe they, you know, if they've got a certain skill set that you kinda Make as much sense, right? And for them, it's better to just buy or get, get Bitcoin in some other way." }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "40:44", "start": 2443.89, "text": "I think there, it depends. Like, I, I had my normal job in two thousand and nine when I decided to start selling baklava, I was doing it as an agorist business, and it wasn't really earning me much, but it was a way to do something, you know, like my beliefs, I guess, you know, like to kind of put them into practice. I was still working a normal job, but I also was doing that, and" }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "41:09", "start": 2469.23, "text": "You don't have to go, you don't have to quit your job that you're at, that, that you're very comfortable with, that, you know, that you even maybe you love it or something, I don't know. I would say if you're in a normie job and you hate it, Bitcoin has nothing to do-- like, not even talking about Bitcoin, like, what are you doing there? You know, fig- maybe figure out something that you love, and if you can incorporate Bitcoin into that, great. I mean, that's, that's a whole other thing, but Even if it, it doesn't have to be life-changing amounts of money, it could just be a little bit, and you could just say, \"Okay, I'm gonna do this. This is gonna be my method of earning Bitcoin.\" So there's, you don't have to fully commit, you can just dip your toes in it, and, you know, give it a try and see what you think, because it is a different, it's a very different mindset of earning Bitcoin versus buying and investing in Bitcoin. At least it was for me, that's my experience, and that's why I'm" }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "42:09", "start": 2529.13, "text": "Humble as well, because, yeah, watching your net worth drop and being a true believer really, it's tough, you know, when those things happen. But" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "42:16", "start": 2536.01, "text": "yeah, for sure." }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "42:17", "start": 2536.97, "text": "I would always recommend just dipping your toes in it, give it a try." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "42:19", "start": 2539.41, "text": "Yeah. And you mentioned earlier as well, because, you know, Bitcoin can go through these big ups and downs, people might be worried about the boom-bust nature of the industry, that if they go and get a Bitcoin job in a Bitcoin company, that maybe if they went through a bust, that they would lose that job, and then I suppose you, you managed to weather the storm as well through those years." }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "42:43", "start": 2563.15, "text": "Yeah, and, and Bitcoin enabled me to do what I want, and that wasn't the goal. Like, the goal of Bitcoin, when a lot of us got into it back in the day, wasn't to be like, \"We're gonna make all this money off of it.\" I mean, if it was, we would've, we would've just thrown all of our money at it, you know? Like, nobody was thinking that back then, at least not so much in New Hampshire. So holding on to Libertarians and, and the just like normie world where these people are buying Bitcoin and what, like, they're using it for different reasons, and that's okay. Like, when you talked about how the earlier days, you know, the big thing was on using Bitcoin, you know, that's not the case anymore, and that's fine. You have to, you, you can't be this person who just thinks you know what's best for Bitcoin, and if it doesn't do what you think it's supposed to do, then it's failed. I mean, how many of those posts have" }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "43:39", "start": 2619.27, "text": "Stuff like, there's just been so many instances of these individuals who think they know what Bitcoin's supposed to be, and they, they get to decide that it's dead. But nobody, you know, like, they don't get to make that decision. And people who think that way and are very public about it, they're gonna go from hero to villain. That's what happens. And I think that's a big part of why you need to stay humble and acknowledge that, hey, you know, maybe, maybe it's okay if, if what I thought Bitcoin was at one time, it" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "44:09", "start": 2649.15, "text": "That's a lot of, self-reflection and self-awareness required to, you know, be that way. And I think you're, certainly you're right, like you have to have a, a good level of humility about yourself and understand that no one of us is important to Bitcoin, right? You could be the most important, you know, but ultimately it's a movement and it's a technology that is going to proceed without any individual one of us. And so I think when people talk about being a long-term hodler, sometimes there's this idea of, \"Oh, you had to And I, I've noticed your perspective is maybe a little bit different. I think your perspective is more like, yeah, you almost had to be a bit more of a stubborn ideological person to do it. Why do you think that?" }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "44:48", "start": 2687.93, "text": "Absolutely. I, I, I mean, yeah, that is definitely my point of view. Like, the fact that I was stubborn and ideological made it a lot easier to hawl. Because I feel like if you were smart investor type, you wouldn't, you, you would've looked at Bitcoin and just laughed. You wouldn't have bought back then. At least not in First got into Bitcoin, and I remember mentioning it to him, and he kinda, he was like, \"I've never even heard of this.\" And then he got back to me later, he's like, \"Don't put your money in this. This is, this is like a scam.\" Because they're, they go to these schools and they learn economics and, and a way of thinking that it's just not, doesn't, doesn't really mend with, or doesn't, you know, doesn't really mesh with like the Bitcoin thinking. The fact that I didn't have that education, I think" }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "45:39", "start": 2739.17, "text": "It really put me in a place to understand Bitcoin better. Back then, it, that just wasn't seen that way. Bitcoin was just seen as a scam or whatever tool. This, it's the same crap they say now, they were saying it back then." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "45:51", "start": 2751.12, "text": "Of course. Also related to what you were saying, the whole libertarian, voluntarist, agorist focus, and of course, I'm, I'm a libertarian myself, and I know you are also. What's your view on how that has evolved in the space? Do you think number of people who are libertarians in the space has You think that that represents a problem for Bitcoin or do you just think, hey, that's just, it's just gonna have to go that way?" }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "46:15", "start": 2775.25, "text": "Well, I, I've come to acknowledge that Bitcoin is for my enemies too and my friends, so I'm okay with status buying Bitcoin or whatever. I mean, I can't stop it anyways, and in some ways, it's almost like they're being infected by sound money. Their brains are being infected with this new thing, they don't even realize it, and I wonder what kind of impact that's gonna have on them long term as they, as And I don't know whether they're actually holding Bitcoin or they're, they're buying it through something else. It's gonna have an impact on them, whether they know it, they fully realize it or not, and, and that's fine. Like, I, I don't know, like, you, you just can't stop the growth, and at some point, it, it had to break outside of the libertarian bubble. I mean, I remember, I remember going to my first meetup where I'm talking to people, and I'm like, \"These people earn to Bitcoin, and they're not This is so weird. There's, there's people from these other industries that are getting involved in this now. Like, wow, this is, this is just kinda--" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "47:16", "start": 2835.59, "text": "It was just felt weird. I don't know. Did you notice any people who, after buying Bitcoin or earning Bitcoin, that they then became libertarians?" }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "47:25", "start": 2845.0, "text": "I think that's happened a lot, right? I think we've seen that happen over time, 'cause there are, there are a lot of people who say that, like, \"Oh, came here for the money, stayed for the, for the, I don't know, Like their Ron Paul moment, I guess, that I had. They had it with Bitcoin, and I think that's great. I think that's, that's why I'm okay with my enemies having Bitcoin, because their brains getting infected with this, this idea that's just counter to what they were told in, in school or whatever. That's just counter to Keynesian economics." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "47:54", "start": 2874.38, "text": "Of course. And I think in many ways, Bitcoin makes it a lot more possible to actually, you know, see that as a real, realistic future that we might move into. Like maybe we won't get the full" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "48:09", "start": 2889.43, "text": "If it forces the government to be smaller, well, I think anyone who's a libertarian would have to say, \"Hey, that's at least an incremental step better. That's at least an improvement on what we have now.\"" }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "48:19", "start": 2899.09, "text": "Yeah, when, when I, when I reached the point where I was earning a hundred percent Bitcoin, working in the industry, I realized it's like, \"Yeah, I'm living in New Hampshire, we're trying to make it a more libertarian place,\" and that's a very lofty goal, when-- 'cause when you're, when you're like a-- when Or not necessarily the world, but like how you should be able to at least try to have a community that's voluntary, you know, that you just like, hey, just give us this plot of land and let us figure it out. We don't need to change the whole world, let us just start with this community. But realistically, that's never gonna happen. I don't, I don't think, like at least not in my lifetime, it, it's a really hard thing to find a place on this planet where you can just try, just try that as an experiment, right? Like, This is like an example of that. It was a small community, people on the outside saw it who weren't necessarily, you know, libertarians or an-caps or, you know, cypherpunks or whatever, like they were just, you know, Wall Street guys or whatever, just from all walks of life who are seeing Bitcoin and they're getting involved with it for different reasons, and they're like, \"Hey, I wanna be a--\" They're basically saying, \"I wanna be a part of this community, I wanna be, I wanna be involved with this.\" And they're joining But you know, it's been cool to see that happen, just see it grow to more than just that, 'cause it's, it's as an ant-cap, your idea of a voluntary society is probably never gonna happen, maybe in space or something, I don't know, but on this planet, it doesn't seem, doesn't seem very likely. I wish that wasn't the case." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "49:53", "start": 2992.74, "text": "Yeah, of course, I, I, yeah, I'm probably in a similar camp to you there. So I'm curious as well from your perspective, why aren't more libertarian people into Bitcoin? There's a few reasons that, at least in my experience, I'm curious what you see. So I've seen them say things like, \"Oh, no, I'm more into gold, \"cause I follow Peter Schiff. Or some of them might say, \"Oh, yeah, I mined some in the early days, \"or \"I bought some in the early days, \"and then I sold it. \"Or, \"Oh, you know, I was on the cyberpunk mailing list, \"but then I never actually bought any Bitcoin. \"Uh, like these are kind of the answers that I" }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "50:39", "start": 3039.09, "text": "I first got into it, e-everybody I knew in per, you know, all the, all my friends, we were all gold bugs, and we all questioned Bitcoin. Like, we, we were like, \"How is this not a scam? How?\" You know, like we, we went through all the same thing that all the no coiners go through now. We went through that, but we're, we were willing to say, \"Oh, wow, maybe my way, you know, maybe what all this time, like, my way of thinking is, is wrong here, like, And we, but, but over time, you know, and if we're using, you know, trying to use it and, and learning more about it and realize the value of it, we gave it a chance, you know, that's the difference. Some people don't wanna do that, some people are just, you know, you know, gold is money, that's, that's what I want. My dad was the same way, he's always been a gold bug, and now he's a Bitcoin guy, so, and he's in his, he's in his seventies. I think Happen or even, you know, like when the price jumped from five dollars to five hundred dollars and most money you've ever had, and you could just pay off all kinds of things, logically you should probably sell, at least, at least back then. Like, I can understand, I can empathize with why somebody would sell because it's like an investment that goes from such a small amount to such a large amount, life-changing money, that you could pay off some things, or, you know, it's like, oh, I can finally get whatever I needed, things I needed. Like That you, you made a bad decision or like you're, you're doing it, like you'll never have as much as you had before, so it's not the same, you know? It's like, oh, I once had-- Somebody might be like, \"I once had fifty Bitcoin, now it's like I'll be lucky to get one.\" I don't know, like, I, I can't really relate to that. Like, I, I just feel sad when I hear stuff like that, because to think like, \"Oh, I missed the--\" I hate when" }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "52:35", "start": 3154.95, "text": "I hear, I don't know." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "52:40", "start": 3160.27, "text": "Yeah, I think you make a lot of good points. I think you-- there's a certain level of open-mindedness you have to have to see Bitcoin for what it is, otherwise you get stuck in your Goldbug world or you're stuck in the fiat no coin world. The other point I think that you made very well is that really you have to have humility, that you have to be able to swallow your past errors and say, \"Hey, you know, in that example, let's say you had fifty bitcoins and then you sold them because, you know, oh, I It's humility, right? It's thinking, \"Oh, well, see, I'm worth having fifty bitcoins, and I don't wanna be buying back in to only have, you know, not even one coin or whatever.\" And it's an error of thinking about what this thing is and where it's going over the next ten to twenty years." }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "53:23", "start": 3203.42, "text": "Yeah, I mean, I, I think back to like, there's so many opportunities where if I really wanna beat myself up, I could just dwell on all the times that I sold Bitcoin and, and did things and just think, \"Oh, I'd For fourteen Bitcoin, I blew it all on Seals with Clubs. It was an old poker site back, you know, that you-- was the Bitcoin only poker site. It was great, I loved it, but that was part of my experience. Brian, Mike on right? Yeah. Yeah, it was great, like, but that was part of my Bitcoin experience. Like, if I didn't do that, I'd, I'd like, I don't know, like, I don't regret, I don't regret ever spending a single Bitcoin, and I've probably spent more Bitcoin, like, I" }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "54:09", "start": 3249.47, "text": "I was earning all my salary in Bitcoin, so it's like, yeah, of course I gotta spend some of it, you know? Like, I, I still gotta pay these things in dollars or whatever." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "54:16", "start": 3255.71, "text": "And I think all this kind of chatter about, I mean, the obvious story everyone brings up is the whole ten thousand bitcoins for two pizzas thing, but I mean, the reality is, whatever it was worth in fiat terms at the time, thirty-five bucks or whatever, whatever it was in fiat dollars, surely that person could have just re-bought, and so all this discussion about, \" And that was really the error, right? Of course, yeah." }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "54:43", "start": 3282.51, "text": "And really, people, people always want to talk about Laszlo, buying the pizza with this Bitcoin. I, I'm celebrating the guy who sold the pizzas for the Bitcoin. That's who I sell-- as, as a former merchant of, selling food for Bitcoin, that's what I celebrate. That's Bitcoin Pizza Day to me. It's the guy who earned the Bitcoin. Yeah. I keep a, I have a Casasius round, I keep on my wall, probably not for much for a" }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "55:09", "start": 3309.13, "text": "I earned it, you know, selling a sandwich, and I, I look at it daily, and it's like, it's like that reminder of that time period. It's like, this is what Bitcoin was at the time, you know, like, and I have like this proof that I've, I've huddled for almost a decade, you know, like, this is what this is. And to me, it's like, it doesn't have a monetary value, it has, it has like that value of, like, of the work that I put into it. So it's like," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "55:39", "start": 3339.09, "text": "I guess bringing it to the topic of spending Bitcoin, then, can you give us a bit of your thoughts on how you think about spending bitcoins now, whether that is, you know, buying it directly on the website or it's using, say, a voucher website like Bitrefill dot com or perhaps some of these bill payment sites. What's your thoughts on spending Bitcoin?" }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "55:57", "start": 3356.82, "text": "These days, I spend way less and less Bitcoin. it's just, it's just too good to hold, and I'm not earning Bitcoin anymore. Now I'm just, I've just been out of work, On, on helping to raise my daughters, and, you know, they're, they're teenagers, and it's like, you know, they only, they're gonna be out on their own soon too, so it's like I'm in a spot where I can, I can optimize that time and spend time with my wife as much as I can, you know, as I want, like, that's great to me. So with, with, with that in mind, it's like, okay, I, I cut my spending way down, it's just a better way to live. I still enjoy" }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "56:39", "start": 3399.21, "text": "Like I like to joke that CoinKite's gonna end up with everybody's bitcoins because they make the coolest shit ever, and you just, you just can't resist buying more. It's like, do I need another cold card? Well, yeah. Well, I might, if I'm ordering, I might order some open dimes. Like that. Like, I don't mind using Bitcoin for Bitcoin companies like that. It's like, it's almost like you're saying, hey, thanks for doing what you do, because there aren't a lot of Bitcoin-only comp-- you know, Bitcoin-focused companies I'd-- those are the types of companies that it's like, I like to spend Bitcoin with, or even to just like get friends involved. You know, if a friend's like, \"Hey, I just wanna get some Bitcoin,\" selling them, you know, selling them Bitcoin just peer-to-peer, where I'm just like, \"I don't really wanna sell Bitcoin right now, but you're finally-- you know, after all these years, you're finally gonna buy some, buy it from me, go through the experience of, of no KYC buying Bitcoin the way it should be, it's" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "57:40", "start": 3459.75, "text": "Yeah, that's cool. a-and I mean, it's about kind of trying to grow the, you know, the, the base of Bitcoiners out there as well. So I think that's, worthwhile where you can do it, so long as it's responsible, right? Within a responsible range. and I guess I'm also curious whether you play around with Lightning and Bitcoin nodes or any of those, Raspberry Pis and things like that. Do you play around with that stuff?" }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "58:02", "start": 3481.68, "text": "I had, there was a lot of standalone, I know now it" }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "58:09", "start": 3489.31, "text": "I bought, for a while there, I was buying all the, anytime somebody put out like a standalone node, I would, I was basically, I just wanted to support it, their effort, so I would buy like the node. And I've, I've run so many of those, but I ended up just getting a, Linux box, and I just, I just run, I, I basically have like a server now that I run, Bitcoin on, and I use Specter Wallet a lot. Like, I like, I like to play around with, with the different And using that with your own server is, it's really hard when you're not super technical, and I don't consider myself super technical. I still end up, even when I set up my server, I'm just like, \"Well, I'm gonna be spending this day just screwing everything up about twenty times, but I'll learn, you know, I'll figure it out, and that's cool. Like, I enjoy that.\" So yeah, like at this point, I just have a full, full computer dedicated to Bitcoin only stuff. I play around with Join Market, I like Wasabi Wallet" }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "59:09", "start": 3549.09, "text": "Bitcoin's still my life, just 'cause I'm not working in the industry, it's still just, you know, everyday." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "59:13", "start": 3552.99, "text": "Yeah, that's really cool. And so I guess in terms of what you're looking out forward, what, what are you looking forward to in the Bitcoin world? Whether that's, you know, from a technology point of view or maybe from an adoption point of view, what are you looking forward to?" }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "59:27", "start": 3566.74, "text": "Well, you mentioned Lightning. I'm, I'm actually not running, any Lightning implementations on my server right now." }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "59:35", "start": 3575.47, "text": "I have used it in Too lazy lately to, to set something up. I know, like when, when Casa Node originally launched, it was-- they had their hard work, they had like their hardware, their node, their standalone node, and it was lightning oriented, and I, and I used that, that was cool for a while. I think lightning has a lot of, lot of growth ahead of it, and that's great. Like Bitcoin has taught me patience, unlike anything else, and that's fine. Like it doesn't need to be, it doesn't need to be rushed. Things like this don't need to be" }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "01:00:09", "start": 3609.09, "text": "changes to Bitcoin, unless it's absolutely necessary, like, you know, maybe taking a more conservative, approach is, is the better one. And I think that's a lot of us went through that who initially got into Bitcoin for, using it as a currency, using it, you know, all the time, the day-to-day life. You know, you, you kind of grow and you realize that." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:00:27", "start": 3627.16, "text": "Yeah. So have you, got any thoughts on like things that you want to see come to Bitcoin? Like, do you care as much about having Taproot and some of" }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "01:00:39", "start": 3639.11, "text": "Yeah, I was happy with what it was years ago and, and I think it's grown into something even better today. Yeah, like the, the, the, the future updates of Bitcoin are exciting. I think that's, that's really cool. A lot of them, there's nothing like really specific, i- other than more focus on privacy. I think privacy is probably my, my biggest issue, like, finding some way to increase privacy on the base layer or, or wherever. Like, like I said, like I, I, I like using Joy Market. It's, I think privacy is, is gonna be our biggest challenge ahead, especially as these people who don't care as much about privacy are involved in Bitcoin. I, I don't know, I, I feel like it's-- there's gonna be a, an event in the future that it's, it's gonna get really ugly and it's gonna make SegWit2x look like nothing. I, I don't know, I just, I just kinda feel that way. Like the political atmosphere around Bitcoin, you know, they're-- we're already hearing it lately where it's like, \"Oh, it I do have some concerns around that," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:01:41", "start": 3701.61, "text": "Yeah, so I wonder if maybe we end up seeing-- well, who knows, right? But, but what if we see some kind of, you know, government KYC fork versus the sovereign freedom Bitcoin fork, and, you know, then there's like another battle to come. I don't know, who knows, right? I'm just kind of speculating, but that's, I guess, that's something that is on people's minds, right?" }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "01:02:00", "start": 3720.76, "text": "Right. And I think the one thing Bitcoin has going for it-- Well, there's a couple" }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "01:02:09", "start": 3729.09, "text": "He has no leader, you know, Satoshi's gone, please don't ever come back, like that's fine, like he did his, he did his thing, it was great, but he's complete, he's, he's, he's irrelevant at this point as far as like the future of Bitcoin, right? Like, him, him staying irrelevant is the best thing that could happen, and, and, and, and stay for Bitcoin. So we, we have that, you look at something like Ethereum that had the DAO, the DAO hack and, and, and that like their Or would be a lot easier if there was a history of those changes being easier, you know? The fact that it hasn't been, I think, I think that's a good thing. Like, I'm, I'm still very positive on Bitcoin, and I think the more that people get into it now, the, the hard, the, the, the less likely they'll be wanting to change it, especially if you have politicians who are super status but are holding Bitcoin, they will maybe less likely to wanna make drastic changes that will cut into their bottom line, you know, for greed reasons. I don It, it's just gonna, it, hopefully, it's harder to make huge, drastic changes or, or attacks on Bitcoin." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:03:16", "start": 3796.35, "text": "So I guess if you had to leave as a closing thought for any listeners, maybe, many of whom aren't as, OG as you are, have you got any tips for them on weathering the storm and kind of riding the ups and downs and just any tips for them to think about from a, you know, Bitcoin perspective?" }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "01:03:33", "start": 3813.56, "text": "Yeah, I think being plugged into a Bitcoin community really helps. Bitcoin Twitter's a lot of fun. It's also Teeny tiny fraction of Bitcoin users, most Bitcoin users aren't on Twitter, and that's fine. but having friends, having positive people around you who are, are into the same kind of thing you are, I mean, this goes, it's not just for Bitcoin, but really for anything, but, but like people who are on the same page, people you can weather the storm with, makes it a lot easier, you know, like through bear markets with my wife, who's also, she's just, just as much a Bitcoiner as I am, she got into it, you know And just being alone, not having anybody to talk to and just dealing with the hard times of Bitcoin, 'cause right now it's the good times, right? And we've, we've been through the good times, the bad times or whatever, and, and just stay focused on why you're in Bitcoin, 'cause if you're in it just for money, I, I don't know, like, if it's just about making money, you're, you're never gonna-- I don't know, like, are you ever really gonna be happy? But it's important, I think. Have more freedom in your life, like that's, that's incredible, and you don't need boatloads of money for that. You could reach a certain point where you could be like, \"Oh, hey, I have enough Bitcoin, and, you know, I could, I could get by on this, you know, take a couple years off or something, and just, you know, with, with, with my savings plus whatever I'm h-hauling and just, just kinda just relax and help myself or whatever, or I don't know, or just keep grinding it out and earning Bitcoin" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:05:05", "start": 3905.13, "text": "or I'm not sure if you want people to follow you, but, your Twitter is, at Mandrik. Is there anywhere else you'd like people to follow you or anything like that?" }, { "speaker": "mandrik", "time": "01:05:15", "start": 3915.65, "text": "No, that's, I mean, that's pretty much it. I, I mostly tweet about Bitcoin and, and meat, 'cause meat's my, meat's my one passion, I'm more passionate about than Bitcoin. I, I can't, I can't stack if I'm dead." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:05:24", "start": 3924.96, "text": "Yeah, the Bitcoin carnivory is definitely a strong theme in our world, and, you know," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:05:39", "start": 3939.09, "text": "Have me on. Make sure you subscribe to the show and get the show notes at stephanelivera dot com slash two four six. Thanks, and I will see you in the citadels." } ] }