{ "episodeId": "SLP279", "speakers": { "stephan": { "name": "Stephan Livera", "role": "host", "tag": "STEPHAN" }, "michael_peterson": { "name": "Michael Peterson", "role": "guest", "tag": "MICHAEL" }, "nicolas_burtey": { "name": "Nicolas Burtey", "role": "guest", "tag": "NICOLAS" } }, "segments": [ { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "00:11", "start": 10.53, "text": "Hi, you're listening to Stephan Livera podcast, a show about Bitcoin. How many times have you heard people say, \"Oh, Bitcoin is only for savings and it can't be used for payments, and very few people are even using it for payments, and yeah, Lightning exists, but there's not that many people using it.\" Well, I think that's not really true. Bitcoin Beach is one example. This is a citadel by the sea in El Zonte, El Salvador, and so Michael Peterson and Nicolas Burtey join me to talk about their project showing how a whole town could go Bitcoin and Lightning native. Now, this show is brought to you by Swan Bitcoin. 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For years, we've heard mining was only profitable if you're investing tons of money, but now Compos is making it easier for everybody to tap into those economies of scale and access reasonably priced hardware and cheap industrial power rates. So if you are unsure about how to get started, Compos offers hardware and hosting bundles, so you don't need advanced technical knowledge, you can quickly get started. So visit them, Composmining dot io, and start mining Bitcoin today. Michael and Nicholas, welcome to the show. It's great to be here." }, { "speaker": "michael_peterson", "time": "02:59", "start": 178.97, "text": "Thanks for having us." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "03:00", "start": 180.39, "text": "So guys, I have been keen to get you on for some time, but we just couldn't make it happen for a little while. I know you guys have this awesome project going on. tell us a little bit about yourselves, and, you know, how you got into Bitcoin and all this stuff." }, { "speaker": "nicolas_burtey", "time": "03:14", "start": 193.62, "text": "You wanna go first, Nicholas?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "03:15", "start": 195.02, "text": "you can start." }, { "speaker": "nicolas_burtey", "time": "03:16", "start": 195.94, "text": "Okay. So, this is Mike Peterson. I've actually been fascinated the, by Bitcoin since, Of it and this new digital currency that was created, that wasn't controlled by any country or any state. And I was an economics major in school and always been kind of fascinated why, why some countries are successful and, you know, create wealth, while others seem to just stagnate and the people are mired in poverty no matter how much aid comes in and how much government programs come in. And so to have somebody do something unique and have this currency that wasn't controlled by the government that grabbed my attention. And as Nicholas will tell you, I'm not a tech person. So it took me like six years to be able to actually like purchase any Bitcoin and, and hold it, myself. But," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "04:02", "start": 242.37, "text": "unfortunate." }, { "speaker": "nicolas_burtey", "time": "04:03", "start": 243.03, "text": "I was definitely fascinated from the early days." }, { "speaker": "michael_peterson", "time": "04:06", "start": 246.19, "text": "Yeah. And Nicolas, tell us about yourself. Yeah, hi. I'm Nicolas Burtey. so on my side, I come more from a tech background, so I went to the, I would say blockchain space in twenty seventeen. After I started on the, on the economic part, I decided to move full time in the Bitcoin space, about two years ago. And now I'm working with Mike on the wallet that he's deploying in El Salvador in El Zonte." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "04:31", "start": 271.09, "text": "Awesome. So, yeah, let's hear a little bit about how this whole project got started, as I see it's like trying to build this citadel by the sea. And as, as my regular listeners know, I'm all about Bitcoin citadel, so I'm very happy to, hear about it. So let's hear it from you, Michael. What, what is this project?" }, { "speaker": "nicolas_burtey", "time": "04:47", "start": 286.96, "text": "Yeah, we've been liv-- I've been living in El Salvador" }, { "speaker": "nicolas_burtey", "time": "04:52", "start": 292.38, "text": "for, you know development, initiatives, and kind of in a parallel path, I was, you know, going deeper down the rabbit hole with Bitcoin and more and more fascinated by it, and an opportunity came up with, you know, one of the, the donors that wanted to support some of the economic and educational programs we were doing, and he wanted to invest in them, but he wanted to use Bitcoin, and so he kind of put this challenge out to me of, \"How can you use Bitcoin in real ways? He didn't want it just kind of converted to, to fiat.\" And so, you Into that aspect of our life, but it was, you know, it was kind of two separate things. And so once I started thinking about it, I got more and more excited and, you know, I started telling my wife, and she's like, \"You're crazy, that's, that's never gonna work, you're never gonna be able to start this economy from scratch.\" And but luckily the, the, the donor was more excited about it than my wife was at the time, and so, he, he gave it the go ahead. Yeah. So we just started from" }, { "speaker": "nicolas_burtey", "time": "05:56", "start": 355.58, "text": "You know, from the community or doing other service work, we were paying them in Bitcoin. Then we had to onboard the first store to accept Bitcoin, and, you know, from there it grew to, to more, programs within the community and more businesses accepting, and to this point now we have about, forty businesses in El Zonte, which is only a town of thirty, of three thousand, so it's a pretty small town, but there's forty businesses accepting Bitcoin, and I think there's eighty to a hundred in El Salvador now, and probably have five hundred family In the community where we're at using Bitcoin on a regular basis, and I'd say in El Salvador as a whole, you know, it's probably triple to, you know, five times that, it's, it's kind of been growing exponentially, much faster than I ac- actually expected." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "06:39", "start": 398.53, "text": "Yeah. So your website mentions three phases of growth or stages. Can you tell us a little bit about that?" }, { "speaker": "nicolas_burtey", "time": "06:46", "start": 405.98, "text": "Yeah. The, the initial stage was us, you know, obviously just trying to introduce it and just getting general usage, you know, this is people are creatures of habit. So just getting them to even consider that something else could be money, that was actually the most difficult stage. We thought we would start with adults because we, you know, thought, well, for, for the younger people, this is gonna be too challenging, let's start with the, the adults and, you know, then we'll work our way down. And I should have known better just by the fact that I have to have my kids help me, you know, set the, the DVD player or get a movie playing or anything like that, knowing that, I was totally Like, what, what do you mean we're gonna use this magic internet money and we can buy things with it, and we have to hold our keys? And, it didn't go over very well. And so we kind of, not even purposefully, but just at the time we had some programs going on with youth, and so we switched over and we started funding those, and they grabbed it right away. I mean, they're used to using their phones for everything, to them it just made sense. They do everything on their phone, so why not be able to transfer funds? And, The other kids that didn't have it, they wanted to be a part of it because, you know, it was this, this, you know, just kind of cool thing to be a part of. And they would actually teach their parents how to. And so that was kind of like the first stage, was just getting that initial adoption. And then the second stage was getting tourists and people to kind of come in and, and use it that are from outside the community. And so that's kind of the stage that we're in right now, and we're seeing a lot of adoption by the tourists. We Use it, that are Bitcoiners. And then the, the final stage is for us to be able to kind of pull back from the funds that we're injecting and for there to be enough coming in from remittances, primarily, but also people working in Bitcoin related companies, and we're already starting to see a lot of that happen. Strike is employing five, I think it's five people now in the community, and there's another company in Given who's hired a couple people, and there's a third company that's just started, and so, yeah, that's kind of the final stage us being kind of able to pull back, we wanna just be the ones that kind of get the ball rolling and prime the pump, but for it to be real, it has to be real. We can't be subsidizing it long term, and so that's what's exciting, is we're actually seeing that traction and seeing it look like it'll be at the point where we can pull back over the next year." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "09:13", "start": 552.54, "text": "That's interesting. Hey, so what would it look like then if you were to pull back, as in you think the community would be kind of more self-sustaining in terms of Bitcoin Down for various things." }, { "speaker": "nicolas_burtey", "time": "09:27", "start": 567.09, "text": "Yeah, I think right now we're employing a lot of the people we have, you know, we have a decent sized team that are doing stuff in the community, but our goal and what we've already been doing is for them to go off our payroll and not being paid by Bitcoin by us, but by being, by being paid by private sector companies. And so we, about two months ago, we had a big construction company come in and start paying all of their employees in Bitcoin, and so they're paying about forty people in Bitcoin. You know, as I mentioned before, the So we wanna see the majority of wages in El Zonte being paid in Bitcoin, we wanna see tourists coming in and spending Bitcoin, and then also we wanna see Bitcoiners buying, you know, first homes or second homes or vacation homes in the region and having this become just kind of a major Bitcoin hub, so that every time they're in, you know, visiting or if they're living there, they're gonna be spending Bitcoin on a daily basis. And so the idea is, is once we pull back and we're not injecting Bitcoin into the community, it won't really matter Because there'll be Bitcoin being infused in all these other ways. Cool, cool." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "10:30", "start": 629.83, "text": "And so, Nicolas, let's hear a little bit from you. Tell us how you got involved and what your part in all of this is." }, { "speaker": "michael_peterson", "time": "10:36", "start": 635.81, "text": "Yeah. So about a year ago, I wanted to start a project on Lightning and really about banking plus Lightning. I was thinking about launching something in the US, but I see that, it's actually pretty challenging in the US to use Lightning because of the regulatory and, you know, the tax burden and... So I was thinking there might be other places, you know, on the world that are maybe more suitable to start like a, a Bitcoin booking project. And so I hear about, Mike about a year ago, but, you know, this El Zonte project, and I was like, wow, I think it's a huge opportunity to, you know, bootstrap something. And so I reach out and, you know, I say, hey, Mike, you know, I'm, I'm working on Lightning. I, I see that you're using some wallet, but you have some challenges" }, { "speaker": "michael_peterson", "time": "11:26", "start": 685.62, "text": "Start a, you know, a local community bank wallet, and so this is what we have been working on since, probably last summer. So what we have done is we have launched, the Bitcoin Beach wallet last probably September, around September last year. This is a, a wallet that is-- maybe we can dive a little bit into it, but it's a shared custody wallet, so there is a, a, a lightning node, but there is also cold storage where the keys are shared among the members of the community. And the wallet have grown quite a bit, now there is About a thousand people using the way daily, you know, mostly in El Zonte, but, you know, across El Salvador generally, about five thousand user monthly. yeah, it's, a very interesting, wallet and project. Like w-when you're there, you feel like you, you are actually discovering the future of what the future could be if people start using Lightning for everything, right? And it's, it's very rewarding to, to, to work on this." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "12:19", "start": 738.72, "text": "Yeah, that's cool. So, probably the obvious question or point" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "12:26", "start": 745.6, "text": "Not your keys, not your coins, non-custodial and so on, but I think it's also a useful point for you to spell out and also from my recent episode with Jack Ma, as what we were talking about, you've got to appreciate the wealth and income level, of the people who may not be able to afford on-chain fees for channel opening and having the technical difficulties and dealing with all of that. So do you wanna just spell out some of that aspect, how you were thinking about element of it?" }, { "speaker": "michael_peterson", "time": "12:51", "start": 771.04, "text": "Yeah, yeah. So when you think about lightning wallets, right, you, Have your like LN node on your Raspberry Pi, you know, the most like self-sufficient way, and maybe you will connect to it to the Tor network, with your phone, right? If, if you want to have a little bit better UX and more usability, you can use a wallet like Breeze or Phoenix or Moon, which are like, you open the chain on the fly, and you know, you can use a phone, you, you still have some trust assumption, with the wallet you're using, but it's a lot, easier to use Maybe on the, you know, end of the spectrum, on the custody side, you can use like a wallet, like wallet of Satoshi or Cash App or like s-something that, you know, they take full custody of your fund, right? This is the spectrum that you have. And maybe you have a, a, another like one that would be the Uncle Jim model where, like, you-- someone would host a Wasabi Pi and maybe have a like LND hub, you know, you, you have a group of, you know, sharing maybe one node, right? This is the category of wallet, something that maybe doesn't take this much today, the idea is that we, creating, f-from the user perspective, it's, i-it's, a-a custody wallet in the sense that you, you open it and you can send money on chain and off chain and like, you know, it's a unified balance and basically you don't have to understand really the technical detail, detail behind it. but the interesting aspect behind it is, so on the backend, right, we have, some fund that is on LND to- To be able to transact on, on Lightning, but basically what we want is to have most of the funds that are, that are in cold storage. I, I, it's a bit like, you know, most exchanges today, a lot of exchanges, you know, they will have their hot wallet where they will put the fund, you know, used to, and deposits, but, they want to-- all the exchanges want to have the vast majority of their fund in cold storage because if, you know, something were to happen, like, you know, the fund would be safe" }, { "speaker": "michael_peterson", "time": "14:56", "start": 895.68, "text": "You can create like a, a multi-sig and here because it's a very identified community, we, we can have different people in the community that have, you know, the signature, so that you're moving a little bit the assumption about, you know, the trust, because now you're no longer necessary trust to single entity, you know, to maintain the cold storage, but you're, you're actually putting trust in the community, and we need to educate people how to do it and how to work with a multi-sig, but, but it really reinforces this idea of a community wallet, the Yeah, gotcha. Maybe I can, explain a little bit of why I think this makes sense, in, especially in a, in a place like, El Zonte. So, Ma-Mike, tell me if I'm wrong, but I believe the average salary is, in El Zonte, is four to five hundred euro a month, dollar, a month, right? And so when you like setting, so the on-chain fees, you know, like if, if you, if you are like above hundred sat per byte, like, you know," }, { "speaker": "michael_peterson", "time": "15:56", "start": 955.58, "text": "I think wallets like, when, when you, you have to manage your own channel, even if it's like, a Phoenix or Moon or Breeze, you still have to maintain at least one channel and, and probably like two or three channel per, per user, right? and so this costs, this is an on-chain transaction, you know, for opening and, and closing, and so i-it's at the economy of like five or dollar a month, and when you, so the a-average transaction size we see today is like twenty thousand satoshis, right Yeah, the average balance is, is also about the same. It's, you know, a little bit more than ten dollars. So like, i-it's, it doesn't really justify, you know, setting up like a, a Lightning channel for, for this user because the, the amount being transacted are, are on the very low end. You know, maybe today it will make sense, with the current fee, but assuming the fee, you know, increase in the future, like, you, you will need at some point to be able to pool capital, if you want" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "16:56", "start": 1015.92, "text": "Explanation, because I think I've seen some discussion on Twitter where it's kind of been like, \"Oh, why you, why you promoting this custodial thing?\" But I, I, I think genuinely at, for certain people at that wealth or income level, it's just, there's no real alternative, right? Because if your income is five hundred dollars per month, let's say, or three hundred dollars per month, to pay, let's say, a five dollar or a ten dollar on-chain fee for channel open and close every time, it's just not feasible. And I think the other way If you are receiving a small amount on Lightning for the first time and you don't already have established channels, that first payment might get totally eaten up by on-chain fee. And so just the practicalities of this require that there are some users who are unfortunately custodial, but it's, it's at least a community custodial as opposed to, you know, putting it out there. And I think the other point that's probably interesting as well is just that it's still an interoperable Lightning network. So the QR codes that are being scanned are still scannable and payable by anyone in the Lightning network Network. so can you tell us a little bit what was going on at the start, where people just using wallet of Satoshi or Blue Wallet, and now they're transitioning more to using this kind of what we, what we might call community custodial Bitcoin Beach wallet?" }, { "speaker": "nicolas_burtey", "time": "18:09", "start": 1089.29, "text": "Yeah, so initially when the project started, we were doing all, on-chain transactions. At that time, the transaction costs were only about twenty-five cents, and so it was, you know, it, it still was a little bit of a ding if they were trying to do a two-dollar transaction, but, you know, And it wasn't the end of the world. Transaction costs kinda kept ramping up, and we were seeing, you know, three, four, four dollar transaction costs, and so at that point, we knew we had to shift something or else it just wasn't gonna be sustainable. And so initially, we went to Wallet of Satoshi, and mostly because, for, for the user base that we have, the-- and the people that we're working with, just the, the usability of it is super important. If it's too complicated, if it's too complex, they're just not It's, it's easier, and people are creatures of habit, and trying to get them to change their habits, you have to kind of take small steps. And so, you know, we, we're happy overall with, with Wallet Satoshi. There was some challenges when we, you know, when we needed support or we needed other things, just because a lot of times we couldn't get back to the people right away. And so, when we had the opportunity to work directly with wallet developers and to have specific features put in the wallet, we kind of jumped at that because a lot of times the people And who everybody says is going to be using Bitcoin longer term, you know, the people at the bottom of the economic rung, those are, they live in totally different worlds. And so what the developers think that, you know, people need and what the people actually want are two different things. And so for us to have the opportunity to, you know, work directly with the wallet developers and have them listen to the things that we told them people are wanting, and then we actually drug, Nicholas and, and his wife and his, his, infant child down to El Zonte And they spent, over a month there and just, you know, watching how people were using things. And I think even for him, a lot of things it was kind of surprising, like, \"Oh, wow, I never thought people would have that problem, \"or \"I never thought they would use it like this.\" And so, I'm-- We're definitely big believers that, that people should, as they progress, hold their own keys, that they should hold their, their funds and, and preferably in a, a cold storage, but we also- We both believe that there's kind of baby steps to get there, and if we, you know, insist that everybody makes that jump right away, we'll, you know, we'll eliminate probably ninety-five percent of the people the world from ever embracing Bitcoin. And so we see right now, even for a lot of the stores, they're taking, you know, transactions into a custodial wallet, but once a week they move that into their cold storage where they're holding the keys. And so it's, it's not a one or the other, it's, hey, let's use these products together" }, { "speaker": "nicolas_burtey", "time": "20:56", "start": 1255.66, "text": "Always with the goal longer term for people to go non-custodial." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "21:01", "start": 1260.51, "text": "Yeah. And I'm also curious, what were some misconceptions that you had before you actually hit the ground and saw people using it in the real world? What were some of the, you know, maybe even for you, Nicolas, as a, you know, developer and kind of thinking about wallets and stuff, what was, what changed when you actually were there on the ground and seeing people use it in real life?" }, { "speaker": "michael_peterson", "time": "21:22", "start": 1281.6, "text": "I can get started. a couple of example, initially the- unit of account was sats because I was like, \"Hey, we need sats,\" and, and actually people want dollar. Like, you, you should show how much sat is it, but like people think in dollar, you know, they have, you know, they want to send five dollars, they don't want to send twenty thousand sats. And so, you know, the first thing like have, have dollar, you know, everywhere and maybe have the, you know, the sub unit of account in sats, because otherwise, if, if they cannot send easily, First thing I, I learned is that like even if as a developer you start to think in cents and like actually people think in dollar, this is one example. Another example is the network connection, you know, we, we take for granted here i-in the US or in Europe that you will have like a, a good internet connection all the time and, and here actually in Zonte, I, I, I saw that sometimes there was a lot of requests that were sent and basically the, there was no response to it. And so from the wallet perspective, you have to, to change your assumption about like, if you send a request, like you, you should retry automatically, and, and it's something that I, I really had to be there to see the fact that the wallet was behaving differently if, if I were, like, you know, at home on a reliable, you know, internet connection or if I was in El Zonte where the internet connection was a lot more spotty. And so it, it's led to like a change of the network library we are using. And sounds because of that. And it's probably some things that you, you need to be in these places to understand this like subtlety about, like, you know, in, in, like, a network connection. Yeah." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "23:05", "start": 1384.85, "text": "Mike, anything from your side that you saw, that was different to what you thought, from, you know, when, or, or, or was it more like you were just spending a lot of time there so you were already familiar with what the people needed?" }, { "speaker": "nicolas_burtey", "time": "23:17", "start": 1397.42, "text": "I think I was kind of pleasantly surprised that, that the volatility wasn't as big of an" }, { "speaker": "nicolas_burtey", "time": "23:26", "start": 1405.62, "text": "Big drawdowns like we've seen in this last week, you have people that, you know, start to freak out a little bit, especially people that are fairly new to, to using Bitcoin. But the people who we've been working with for a year, you know, they kinda are just like, \"Well, this is, this is just Bitcoin, like it ran up, and so it's normal for it to have a decent sized pullback.\" And so they learn how to manage that volatility pretty well. Where I need to, I don't trade, I'm not a trader, usually them because they always seem to cash out like when it's, about to top and, that's when they go to, go to cash and then sure enough, like a day later, Bitcoin crashes. I'm like, the heck, how'd they, how did they know? So they've, they've become pretty adept at, at managing that and, you know, a lot of times if they have something that they need to pay next week and Bitcoin's run up, they'll, they'll put it in the dollars 'cause they know they have to make a dollar" }, { "speaker": "nicolas_burtey", "time": "24:26", "start": 1465.6, "text": "That's been a pleasant surprise, and it's, I think, like as Nick was saying, seeing though, even though they are using Bitcoin all the time, they still think in dollars, and so I think we're just creatures of habit, and so those things change slowly over time. I think it'll probably be five years before they start thinking in Sats or pricing in Sats, but I think that's okay. This is gonna be a gradual change, and I think El Salvador and El Zonte specifically are, are gonna be way ahead of the curve in the world, and so they'll be thinking Long before people in California are-" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "24:58", "start": 1498.03, "text": "Yeah, that's really interesting to think about this whole idea of thinking inside. And also in terms of learning from other people, I'm sure at the start it might, it must have been way harder to get people to change from using physical cash over to using your phone wallet, but now it's probably more easy for them to just like ask their family or friends, \"Oh, hey, how do you use this wallet thing?\" And then they can teach each other a lot more easily. Was that your experience that you saw?" }, { "speaker": "nicolas_burtey", "time": "25:23", "start": 1523.36, "text": "Yeah, I mean, initially we had the, We'd go out and we'd have to like talk people into trying it, and, you know, you, you kinda harangue the people that owe you favors or that are family members, and so you get them on first, and so, you know, the early days, it was, it was a lot of us having to go out and push on people to, to start using it. Now it's the reverse, like people come to them, like, \"Hey, how, how do I get into Bitcoin? How can I be able to use this? I see that you can, you know It's, it's actually made it a lot easier, you know, once that ball got started rolling, it takes very little effort on our part to keep it growing. And in fact, even if we wanted to stop the growth of Bitcoin in El Salvador, there's no way we could. I mean, it's, it, it's, it has its own forward motion now. And so, you know, that's, that's come actually much quicker than I anticipated." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "26:16", "start": 1576.1, "text": "Yeah, that's cool. And so you also mentioned the hope is that more tourists come along and spend their sats there Twitter, the Jack Mallers came down from Strike, Miles Suter from Cash App, and then I saw Peter McCormack was also down in town. So can you tell us a little bit about what that experience is like for Bitcoiners who are thinking to come and visit?" }, { "speaker": "nicolas_burtey", "time": "26:38", "start": 1598.29, "text": "Yeah, that's, COVID put a little bit of a damper on that, you know, a lot of people were a little bit restricted, but we've seen even in the last month as restrictions start to lift, people just show up. So it's, it's been a lot of fun. Well You know, I just came in from Guatemala or Jamaica or, you know, people are coming in from all over, and so, and I think we're just at the initial stages of that. It was just so fun to have, Peter and Jack and Miles and, and Nicholas was in, when he was there, and, you know, everybody just goes out to dinner together and you run into other people, and so I could see six months from now, you know, it being ten times that, and our goal is that for, for people like yourself, for podcasters, to come They can do a bunch of different interviews with a bunch of different people in one location without having to go anywhere. And so we actually, as part of the, Bitcoin Training Center, we built a podcast studio into that for that very thing. And so we think it'll be the, the place, especially, you know, in, in Northern winters from people from, from Canada or, or Northern Europe that wanna escape the cold, it'll be the place they go in December or January for people that wanna get a little surf vacation in, but also, you know, be hanging out with other Bitcoiners For people that are into yoga, and so, I think that it'll just become a natural place that, that people go, knowing that they'll be able to strike up conversations or have impromptu, you know, Bitcoin meetup, and we'll also have, you know, in the beginning stages of talking about hosting a conference in El Zonte, and, and not like a traditional conference where it's, you know, really focused on having, you know, ten different, speaking engagements during the day, but something where you had one or two speaking engagements, but just opportunities for people to And enjoy the, you know, community, and so that's kind of what we're looking forward to." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "28:31", "start": 1710.71, "text": "Yeah, I mean, I, I, I'm obviously still stuck in Prison Island, Australia, but when I can get out, I would love to come and visit. So just to whet the appetite for some of the listeners, what sort of things can they buy with Bitcoin when they're in town?" }, { "speaker": "nicolas_burtey", "time": "28:44", "start": 1723.86, "text": "I mean, pretty much anything. You can buy, you can do your surf lessons in Bitcoin, you can pay for your hotel, you can pay for, you know, any of the restaurants," }, { "speaker": "nicolas_burtey", "time": "28:56", "start": 1735.7, "text": "In Bitcoin, you can pay for your transportation in Bitcoin, you can get, pay for your massage in Bitcoin, your trainer in Bitcoin, your yoga classes in Bitcoin, pretty much everything." }, { "speaker": "michael_peterson", "time": "29:08", "start": 1747.81, "text": "If, if you use the wallet, there is a map on the wallet, and you can see all the business accepting, accepting Bitcoin and Lightning." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "29:15", "start": 1754.8, "text": "Awesome. And, so in terms of, I guess getting to the country and getting to Azonte, what does that look like for people who are interested?" }, { "speaker": "nicolas_burtey", "time": "29:22", "start": 1762.36, "text": "Yeah, it's pretty easy. They just fly into the San Salvador airport. Alzante is like a forty five minute, maybe an hour drive from there. So if you hit me up on, on Twitter beforehand, I'll set you up with a driver that accepts Bitcoin, as payment. We have lots of people that come to Alzante for, you know, they're there for a couple days and three months later they're still there. So, people just need to beware, if they plan on just dropping in, they, they might not wanna leave." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "29:50", "start": 1789.8, "text": "Back to the show in a moment. Now, ciphersafe dot io have got a new product. So we talk about backing up our seeds on metal, well, this is a new one, it's got two stainless steel plates for all twenty-four seed words, not just one plate of twelve words. It has privacy by default as the two plates are facing each other to hide your seed words, and the stainless steel hardware holds it together, and you can lock this with a padlock, and this is the best value in the industry, you get everything you need for fifty-nine dollars, you even get an automatic center punch provided and a tamper-evident seal. So the Safe Safe products are made from stainless Steel, they're fireproof, rustproof, and waterproof, so make sure you or your loved ones could access your bitcoins if an accident occurs. Go to cyphersafe dot io and use the code livera for a discount. CoinKite dot com are the creators of my favorite Bitcoin hardware wallet, the Coldcard. This is one of the most recommended hardware wallets by Bitcoiners. I think it is the best in the market. They've got all sorts of features. They are really staying ahead of the game in terms of security features, the ability to use this wallet in an air-gapped fashion So you can use a micro SD card to ferry things back and forth from the cold card to your computer and use wallets like Specter or Sparrow or Electrum. This wallet offers great security, it's very versatile, you can use it in a single signature or in a multi-signature setup. So go to coinkite dot com and use the code Livera to get a discount on your cold card. Have you been sitting on a single signature setup and you're thinking about multi-signature? Well, Unchained Capital can help you. They are building Bitcoin native financial services on the foundation of multi-signature. So they have vaults where you can, for example, buy two hardware wallets and they will be the third key in a two of three setup. They also offer a concierge service, so if you want a hand, if you want them to ship you two hardware wallets and do calls with you to answer your questions and walk you through that process and deposit a thousand dollars of Bitcoin. You can use this service and use the code Livera to get a discount there. Unchained Capital also offer loans and advanced business accounts, as well as a range of content that will help you either for yourself or for your friends on your journey of learning about Bitcoin. If you go to Unchained dot com, you can find all the material you need. Back to the show. What's it been like in terms of education in the, in, in the, you know, in terms of people learning about Bitcoin and learning how to hold their own keys and do all these, you know, things that we talk about? What's that been like for you guys?" }, { "speaker": "nicolas_burtey", "time": "32:19", "start": 1938.83, "text": "That's been one of the, the funnest things. We've, we actually had a, a partnership with, and I'm blanking on the, the name of them right now, but, there was a-- It'll come to me. But anyways, there was seminar for, for all our people, and they did like a, I think it was like a series of ten classes, and they went deep. I mean, in the things that, I mean, I was learning all kinds of stuff in these classes, and, and to see the, the people that were on our team, they were asking questions that a lot of times I didn't have the answer to, and so we've seen people really start to go deep, and we found the key is for them to start holding Bitcoin and transacting in it, and then their curiosity, you know, gets Focus too much on that upfront, their eyes just kind of glaze over and, and they're like, \"Oh, that just sounds too complicated.\" But a blockchain for humanity, that was the, that was the organization. I gotta make sure I get their name out 'cause they've been so wonderful, helping us. But, yeah, so they put on those, those organizational or those educational seminars for us. And so, so yeah, we're seeing people that are increasing in their knowledge. I think that was one thing that, that surprised Jack Maillers when he came" }, { "speaker": "nicolas_burtey", "time": "33:36", "start": 2015.66, "text": "These people know how to use Bitcoin, they like use it every day, and they understand what's going on behind the scenes, and so I think that's gonna lead to a lot of companies wanna hire, wanting to hire locals from El Zonte to, to work in their support units or their marketing units or any of those things. They, they live Bit- Bitcoin, it's not just something they talk about." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "33:56", "start": 2035.62, "text": "Yeah, that's great to hear. So what about in terms of, you know, people, I guess, storing their stuff as well? Is it most people, I presume, are just using And then maybe once they wanna start, like, let's say they are able to save up, then does that mean they start moving to like an on-chain cold storage wallet or like even a hardware wallet maybe? Or what, what's the kind of typical progression there?" }, { "speaker": "nicolas_burtey", "time": "34:18", "start": 2057.97, "text": "Yeah, that's, that's kind of the typical pro-progression. We've actually been the ones bringing down a lot of different, hardware wallets, and so, we, we've brought down a number of ledgers and some treasurers, and, and lately we've been, at, at," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "34:36", "start": 2075.8, "text": "Nice." }, { "speaker": "nicolas_burtey", "time": "34:36", "start": 2076.2, "text": "Yeah, that's, they're, they're hard for them to buy anywhere else, and so right now we're kind of the main suppliers of those, but we're hoping that as the number of Bitcoin users grow, that, you know, there'll be businesses that kind of start meeting that market organically." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "34:51", "start": 2090.89, "text": "Yeah, cool. And I think in some ways there are lessons here that can be maybe applied into other places that might also try and do a similar kind of project and, I guess, take some of the lessons from this. a-and even another example might be In a Lightning native environment is really cool, and then what are the practical implications of making that work? As an example, you might need to periodically flush out some of your Lightning balance and spend that into your on-chain, into your hardware wallet, as an example. And so I guess that's something you might have to think about, how, how do you swap in and out? And I guess, Nicolas, you're thinking about that, how to, how to support that on a backend for them to be able to do that, things like that, right?" }, { "speaker": "michael_peterson", "time": "35:31", "start": 2130.72, "text": "Yeah. So the wallets accept both on-chain and Is both for layer one and layer two plus there is a cold storage and so yeah, currently there is, you know, a threshold on the hot wallet and go to the cold storage and, you know, if, if money needs to be withdrew from the cold storage, then there need to be like a coordinated action from, some people in the community to do that. and yeah, there is also tool, you know, Loopy and Loopa that, you know, within the hot wallet, if you want to move on from on-chain to off-chain, we, we are using the tool" }, { "speaker": "michael_peterson", "time": "36:06", "start": 2165.88, "text": "I guess the challenge is like, i- assuming you want to have a large part in the cold storage, right? How, how, how do you manage the liquidity? It's, it's, it's, it's an interesting aspect because some days there will be a lot of payments, some days there will be less payments, so we need to be fairly active, you know, managing the liquidity. But some of the goal, you know, working with, with Mike and the community is to try to develop the, the software that basically automate most of it so that one, But it, it will be very successful if, like, there is a lot of community around the world that, you know, duplicate this project and start their own wallet. And so the, the wallet that we have been building is open source, we are open sourcing it this month, and so we, we want, you know, other people to use it and like ju-just deploy their own wallet like around the world, right? And, and especially in developing country, we think it makes a lot of sense. and so some other, we have four people that have reached out You know, in, in other country, so far we have not been able to, yeah, at the time, you know, to like create new wallet, but as the wallet will be open source, you know, a-anyone can just jump on it and, and contribute and, you know, fork it and like deploy their own solution wh-wherever they are, and we are quite excited about this. Yeah," }, { "speaker": "nicolas_burtey", "time": "37:24", "start": 2244.36, "text": "I think too, just the importance for people to see Lightning being used in real way. I mean, we have thousands of people that are using Lightning payments on a daily basis for I hear from Bitcoiners all the time that, like, \"Why would people wanna use, you know, Bitcoin to buy their coffee or to their tortillas or these small purchases? That's stupid. What are you guys doing?\" And I just have to remind people, like, you're coming from a very privileged point of view. You have all these other banking tools. The majority of the world doesn't have these tools, and without Bitcoin, they won't for decades still. And so Bitcoin in, in months and can open up networks that would have taken decades otherwise. And so now all these- These people are able to use mobile payments, they're not locked out of, you know, by banks that want certain documentation or income limits. And so I would just encourage Bitcoiners in general to, if you're not using Lightning, get out there and start exploring it, because it's a lot more robust and substantial than people give it credit for." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "38:25", "start": 2304.72, "text": "Yeah, and the other big story, as, I mean, and you mentioned this at the start, is it's not just the tourism, people coming and spending money, it's also remittance, right? So there might be someone from El Salvador Overseas and sending money home to their family as well. So can you tell us a little bit about that, you know, from the locals' perspective?" }, { "speaker": "nicolas_burtey", "time": "38:42", "start": 2322.11, "text": "Yeah, in, in El Salvador, you know, remittances is just a huge part of life, unfortunately, because, so many people have, have left El Salvador and because they feel like they can't provide for their families there. And so ultimately, we want that to change. We don't want them to be ten minute-- dependent on, remittances. We want the Bitcoin economy to grow there, that realistic that that's a little ways down the road. And so for now, we wanna make sure that the remittances that are being s-sent into El Salvador are not being taxed by Western Union or MoneyGram or these other companies that, that handle the remittances right now. If anybody's ever sent money with any of those companies, you know how the fees add up. You know, it, it sounds like, \"Oh, it's only five percent,\" but then there's a two dollar fee for this, and there's a dollar fee to receive, and if you want a receipt, smaller transactions, they can pay ten, twenty percent of, you know, what they're trying to send just in transaction fees. And so we think that Bitcoin's gonna turn that on its head, because how are they gonna be able to compete with this network where people can send it virtually free when they're using Lightning, and it goes straight to their phone, they don't have to go to anybody's office, they don't have to take the bus anywhere, they don't have to deal with any of the logistical issues. And so right now, Western Union and MoneyGram and those companies, they have a Because people are creatures of habit, and so people tend to just do the same things that they know how to do, but it only takes one or two people in their circle to start using Bitcoin, using, Lightning payments, using, an app like Strike, before they realize, \"Wow, why am I doing this? Why am I driving down to the Western Union office when I can just directly from my phone send this to my mom?\" And so I think it's-- I mean, I think in a year, you're gonna see, you know, those companies really hurt. I definitely wouldn't wanna be a, equity owner in, any companies that are focused on remittances." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "40:43", "start": 2442.65, "text": "So yeah, and, it seems from what I've seen as well, and from what I'm talking with Jack Malas, it seems that Strike is doing really, really well in the country, becoming the number one app and things. What's that been like? You know, in terms of, y-what you're seeing, are you seeing a lot of people sharing it around with their friends and family?" }, { "speaker": "nicolas_burtey", "time": "40:58", "start": 2457.54, "text": "Yeah, we're seeing a lot of people, sharing" }, { "speaker": "nicolas_burtey", "time": "41:06", "start": 2465.76, "text": "You know, it was, it was beating TikTok and, you know, Facebook and all those things. So that was, that was fun to see. And it's, it's so great to see people interact between the, the Strike wallet and the Bitcoin Beach wallet or the, the other Lightning wallets that are out there, the fact that there's not some closed system like there is with, you know, a PayPal or Venmo or something like that. These, all these applications can work together, people can choose what works best for them, and it's just making it real to them. There, I More developed world, we, we take all these things for granted. It's like, well, it's, we've already had this before that we could send money, so, you know, this is kind of cool, but I don't know if it makes a real difference. For them, it's revolutionary. They've never been able to send peer to peer before. They've never been able to send directly, you know, across borders for virtually free. And so it's, it's fun being there and just seeing how excited they are and realizing, man, the, the US and, and Europe We're stuck in this kinda so-so system and the rest of the world's gonna embrace Bitcoin and, you know, be leaps ahead of them." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "42:13", "start": 2532.95, "text": "Has there been a bit of a network effect around neighboring towns or areas, like people from the other, like, surrounding areas are coming into El Zonte, is that something you've seen as well or what's the experience been like there?" }, { "speaker": "nicolas_burtey", "time": "42:24", "start": 2543.58, "text": "Definitely, it's the, the Bitcoin usage has been kinda like spreading outward with El Zonte as the epicenter, and we've, and we've, we've kinda been purposely trying to target those areas also, but we Here to get stores to start accepting Bitcoin because they've already heard about it, they're already excited about it, they already want to be accepting Bitcoin. And so, it's been, been fun seeing the map within our, the Bitcoin Beach wallet. you can kind of watch within the map as these new stores and businesses pop up. And so, I, I joke that it's more contagious than COVID. It's, you know, it's just kind of spreading across, El Salvador. You see these little red dots, yeah?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "43:02", "start": 2582.38, "text": "Super spread that lightning network everywhere." }, { "speaker": "nicolas_burtey", "time": "43:05", "start": 2584.82, "text": "Super So you have these, red dots popping up all across the map and, you know, people we've never even talked to, people that, you know, I haven't even been to that part of the country and now they're accepting, you know, lightning payments for, you know, car wash or, you know, their little papusaria. And so, yeah, the, the cat's out of the bag and, I, I don't think there's any stopping Bitcoin in El Salvador at this point." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "43:30", "start": 2609.8, "text": "That's really cool to hear. And so one other question I Go up factor. Now, people know number go up. It's not, I'm not necessarily saying this is what we should be out there promoting, I'm just saying this is the reality. A lot of people come to Bitcoin because of number go up, and then that also causes, as my friend, Alex Gladstein might say, freedom go up or numbers of people going up, right? Because all the numbers are indexed, if you will, right? Just the price is running up, but that means there's more mining hash rate, there's more developer attention, there's more basically everything." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "44:06", "start": 2645.72, "text": "extremely strong in its up and down swings. How do you deal with that part of it?" }, { "speaker": "nicolas_burtey", "time": "44:11", "start": 2651.07, "text": "So definitely we've seen that when, when Bitcoin's on a run, there's more people that, you know, are clamoring that, that they wanna, you know, get involved, that, you know, they wanna, you know, they wanna start accepting Bitcoin at their store, they wanna know how they can buy more Bitcoin, they wanna invest, and so we, we do try to walk that line. We don't wanna create speculators, we, we don't want people that are gonna, you Peak and then they're gonna panic sell, you know, when it drops twenty percent or fifty percent, like we saw this, this last week. And so, you know, we try to walk that line, we show them, hey, this is the history, this is, you know, Bitcoin has steadily progressed upwards, but it does have these big drawdowns, so you need to be prepared to ride those out. We encourage people to, you know, dollar cost average and to kinda make sure that their position size is appropriate for their, their risk level. But the reality is when, when it's People wanna get in, you know, once, once it dumps, and even if they sell, they're usually still hooked, then they realize, I shouldn't have sold, and of course, then they buy back in higher. But, you know, I, I, I know I've done that, in my early days, and I think most Bitcoiners have, so that's just part of the, the learning curve. So I-- We don't focus too much on price, but definitely, it, it is a driver. I think it's, was designed that way Let, we let the price speak for itself." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "45:38", "start": 2737.97, "text": "Yeah, of course. And I, I don't mean necessarily talking about the price, but more dealing with, you know, teaching people when it can be so volatile, right? Now, those of us who are long time hardened Bitcoiners, we don't care that much, right? Because we're, we're thinking about it in terms of Sats, we wanna accumulate Sats, but for when we're teaching new people, you have to sort of walk them on that journey, and sometimes you've gotta hold their hand a little bit because they, you Messages from them all the time, oh, oh, what's this drop? Oh, what, what, is it okay? Is, you know, and they just-- and whether you are in Australia or the USA or El Zonte, you're probably feeling that same human emotion that we all feel." }, { "speaker": "nicolas_burtey", "time": "46:18", "start": 2777.99, "text": "Yeah, no, definitely. But I, I think that's part of the, that's part of the experience, and, and we give them that talk up front, but it, they don't really internalize it until they've woken up and checked their wallet and seen that," }, { "speaker": "nicolas_burtey", "time": "46:36", "start": 2795.72, "text": "You kinda have to feel that moment to really understand it, and so then we remind them, and they, when they panic call us, we remember what we talked about, that this is what Bitcoin does, and you said, \"Oh yeah, that's no problem, you know, I'm, I, I'm prepared for that.\" Well, this is that time. And so, you know, you're talking about wanting to buy more, you know, who knows, it could go down further, but this is a better time to buy than it was a week ago. So if you're gonna buy more And realizes what they're feeling is, is human, that we've felt it before, and so you, you kind of have empathy for them in that." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "47:13", "start": 2832.81, "text": "Yeah, that's a funny thing, and I think it's, I think this is one of those things I've heard financial advisors talk about where they say people often overestimate their risk tolerance or their level of ability to go through a drawdown. And then, and then you got Bitcoiners on this other way on the other end of the spectrum, some people who've been through multiple eighty percent drawdowns and having to deal with that is Definitely, definitely. It's, I," }, { "speaker": "nicolas_burtey", "time": "47:39", "start": 2858.67, "text": "I think it is good. I think, I mean, I actually like the drawdowns. I like it for our, for our program. I like them to have those gut checks and for them to remember what they're in it for and, you know, that it, it does allow all this freedom in actually transacting financially, it's not just number go up. And so I think that the periodic corrections are, are necessary to, you know, not just create a bunch of speculators that, you know, go out and, I don't know, I don't think anybody in our community is yet, but, you know, if it just kept going up, they'd figure out how to leverage it and how to get into one of these, you know, hundred to one, leverage positions. And so I, I like the drawdowns, it keeps people humble and keeps them like, okay, let's just slowly accumulate over time." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "48:23", "start": 2902.96, "text": "Cool. So can you give us a, a feel for what's coming next, in the community and with the project?" }, { "speaker": "nicolas_burtey", "time": "48:30", "start": 2910.42, "text": "Nicholas, do you wanna speak first about anything in the Or any of that, or I don't know if you're ready to put, put that information public or not. But" }, { "speaker": "michael_peterson", "time": "48:40", "start": 2919.73, "text": "yeah, sure. on the wallet side, what we want, one of the big feature I guess that we want to add is a proof of reserve. So the idea that, you know, if we want to have all this banking, project like all around the world, then, you know, where there is maybe more trust assumption than, you know, if you're self-custodying it, I think proof of reserve is really something we," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "49:06", "start": 2946.3, "text": "That's exciting. I'm sure our friend Nick Carter will be very excited to hear about this idea, proof of reserves. Can you tell us a little bit about what you're planning to do, like how, how to achieve that or what's the goal? so rather, what's the method?" }, { "speaker": "michael_peterson", "time": "49:19", "start": 2958.79, "text": "Yeah, so, you know, what is proof of reserve? Well, it's like you have assets and you have liability and want to show that the assets that you have, which are, the, you know, your ETHO, match your liability and liabilities like the money of the, Individual, user of the wallet, right? And so to actually prove, that you have the UTXO is not very difficult because basically you, you have, for each UTXO, you have private key with it and basically you can sign a message saying, hey, like I, you know, I, I have the key for this UTXO and the, the asset side is, is somewhat more straightforward than the liability side. The liability side, you know, typically the way it could be done is, from the wallet, y-y-you would have- Maybe a, a section where you say, \"Verify that my, you know, let's say I have hundred thousand satoshis in my wallet, you, you want to have a way to check that your hundred thousand satoshis, you know, are counted in the total sum of liability. And basically, if, if many people do this check, you know, basically you can check that hey, all the liability are being accounted correctly, right? And there is a bit of statistical game, but like people need to, to try to make sure that, you know, most of them are- Or at least a significant portion of them, you know, their liability has been taken into account, into the, the match between assets and liability. A-and yeah, I, I think very few people have, have work on this today, very few companies, but I think like this type of project makes a lot of sense because, you know, if we want to have this like, shared custody wallet, you know, being pop up all around the world, you know, I, I think as, you know, regulator will maybe have a look to this, like if you can prove that Or, type of, product compared to the existing Bitcoin, the existing banking system, like, you know, you, you can easily get a, a lot of traction, I believe, and, and maybe not pushback, right? So this is why I think it's, it's a very important, feature to add." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "51:21", "start": 3081.49, "text": "I like the idea, and it, to me, it's another one of those bugbears I'm often talking about, which is, you know, full reserve banking versus fractional reserve, and obviously this is a tool that helps people" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "51:36", "start": 3095.66, "text": "scenario where maybe not everyone can be an on-chain user because of their income or wealth level, now it sort of gives them a little bit more power back or a little bit more of a surety assurance back while still being interoperable with the rest of the Bitcoin Lightning network, which is all out there. So I think that's really cool, I'm excited to, see that, and I've seen, you know, some exchanges like Coinfloor, have been big on that, they've been one of the early ones who've been big on that idea, so I guess projects around the world or communities around the world to have their own little community custodial wallet, but also offer proof of reserves on that also. So yeah, that's cool. anything from your side, Michael?" }, { "speaker": "nicolas_burtey", "time": "52:16", "start": 3136.17, "text": "A couple exciting things. One, we, we have, kind of our Bitcoin training center, we call it Hope House, and we hold classes there, Bitcoin classes, but also English classes, computer classes, all those sorts of things, and we actually turned the upstairs level into a work share, location because we had companies like Strike coming in and wanting to- To employ people that were graduating from these programs, and so that's, that's always the, the hardest part of a development program is actually to bring real jobs in. And so we're seeing companies really interested in the, the people in the community and employing them just because they're so familiar with Bitcoin. And so we've actually already kind of maxed out that, and we're starting to look at building an additional building to use as workspace for companies that want to, and, you know, kind of employ remote workers than El Zonte, and so that's- Both, you know, local workers, but also for, you know, for expats that wanna live in El Zonte and be able to have a shared workspace to be able to work in. And so we're, hopefully gonna break ground on that second, building in the next couple months. And then we, we're, we still continue to push forward and are getting surveying done of we have a, a large tract of land that we're looking to, basically build a Bitcoin community in. And so the idea is, is that this would be a place for Bitcoin Winners around the world to have vacation homes or, or to move to El Salvador, El Zonte permanently and to be in a community where they could pay all their expenses in Bitcoin and all their neighbors will be Bitcoiners. And so, I'm hoping by the end of, the year we'll be able to have all the surveying worked out and, start releasing lots, but, you know, that's kind of a dream of mine to, to be able to, you know, have this be an enduring project. We need people that are gonna continually be injecting Bitcoin into it These things, you have that network effect, these things build on themselves, and so you get enough, you know, core group of bitcoiners there, then all these other bitcoiners are attracted to come in, and so we are, working on that, and it'll be called, Citadel by the Sea. So, that's," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "54:23", "start": 3262.78, "text": "I love it. Yeah, that's awesome. That's where we're going. I'm a big fan of the Citadel meme, and so, I'm excited to come down and visit sometime once, once I Who want to find you online, where can they find you guys?" }, { "speaker": "nicolas_burtey", "time": "54:39", "start": 3278.71, "text": "For me, the best way is just, hit me up on Twitter at at bitcoinbeach. I, I try to respond to all my DMs, sometimes I get a little buried, but, but I'd love to, to hear from bitcoiners and anybody looking to come to El Salvador and wanting to visit and needing help with logistics or recommendations, please hit me up." }, { "speaker": "michael_peterson", "time": "54:57", "start": 3296.54, "text": "And for me, it's also Twitter on nicolascburtey. And for the people that want to check out the code," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "55:06", "start": 3305.66, "text": "Thanks guys for joining me today." }, { "speaker": "michael_peterson", "time": "55:07", "start": 3307.16, "text": "Thanks." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "55:08", "start": 3307.94, "text": "Love it, thanks for having us. So what do you think of the Bitcoin Beach project? I'm certainly excited to go and try it once I'm able to get out of Prison Island, Australia. You can find the show notes at stephanlivera dot com slash two seven nine and make sure you share this episode with any of your friends who tell you that Bitcoin doesn't have people using it for payment. That's not true, we can show them that with this example. So that's it from me, I'll see you guys in the Citadelles." } ] }