{ "episodeId": "SLP372", "speakers": { "stephan": { "name": "Stephan Livera", "role": "host", "tag": "STEPHAN" }, "sergej_kotliar": { "name": "Sergej Kotliar", "role": "guest", "tag": "SERGEJ" } }, "segments": [ { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "00:08", "start": 8.47, "text": "Hi, you're listening to Stephan Livera podcast, a show about Bitcoin and Austrian economics. Today, Sergej Kotliar is rejoining me. He is the CEO of Bitrefill, so they are a long standing company that you can use to pay for gift vouchers with Bitcoin, and now they've got a new announcement around bill payments in the US with Bitcoin. And so Sergej is joining me to talk about that. Talk about this, as well as some thoughts around where the Bitcoin space is, the use of Bitcoin for convenience, and culturally, what does it take for Bitcoin adoption? We also get into some of the payment and technical aspects around what's going on with Lightning payment versus on-chain, BIP twenty-one payment volume breakdowns, capital gains tax laws, and, and just that broader social awareness aspect of building the Bitcoin economy. Are you looking for easy ways to help onboard your friends and family? Well, with my sponsor, Swan Bitcoin, you can easily do this. Swan dot com slash gift is an easy way to give the gift of Bitcoin to your loved ones alongside Swan's world-class education and customer service all at the same time. 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So what we're doing here is you're putting up your Bitcoin into an overcollateralized loan and you still hold one In that whole deal with Lend at hodl-hodl, all deals are happening directly between users, and you and the counterparty are choosing your own terms. You basically put up an offer or you accept an offer that's already there in terms of how long you want to borrow and the interest rate that you are looking to pay. So go and check it out, that website is lend dot h o d l h o d l dot com. And now onto the show with Sergej. So Sergei, welcome back to the show." }, { "speaker": "sergej_kotliar", "time": "03:27", "start": 206.69, "text": "Thank you Stefan, always a pleasure to talk to you." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "03:31", "start": 210.53, "text": "Yeah, I'm, I'm a big fan of Bitrefill, I love what the company is doing, and, yeah, I'm just keen to chat and hear a little bit from you. Obviously, there's been a lot going on Bitrefill, I've seen you recently did a rebranding, so you got a whole new logo and everything, and also you did the El Salvador thing recently as well, so I'm sure there's interesting stuff. so from" }, { "speaker": "sergej_kotliar", "time": "03:55", "start": 235.18, "text": "We've, reached, I think, a very interesting point where, you know, we're-- I mean, we are the number one thing that people buy, you know, with Bitcoin, like even including, you know, all of, like the merchant processor companies, like we, we, we outdo, most of them by quite a bit. But it also brings the realization, and many important realizations for us in terms of that it's time for us to, to kick in, a new gear. With, with what we're doing, because, it's not enough for us to, to think about like our direct competitors, like the ones that people would think would be a competitor, but really about, that, we need to grow the pie. we need to grow, the group, of people that live on Bitcoin, that live on crypto, and, that make transactions on a regular basis, and, and that's, I mean, that, that's always been, the main challenge, but now You know, stable and steady company with revenues, meaningful, a big team, I think, capability to do stuff, but it's also time for us to tell the story, and, to, to make it an engaging thing, y-you know, and, because a, a big chunk, of our users aren't people that are, steered by necessity, you know, it's not that there, there's no other way, than Bitrefill, it's people that have plenty of different choices, right? And, and many alternatives This and that, and, and, so, so we've been spending a lot of time over the past year going through brand and PR and similar topics, and, some of these things have already, resulted, in things that we've rolled out, and there's quite a bit more, in the pipeline, in the coming weeks in that regard. But in general, I think that we, and by we I mean both, both Bitwifu, but also like the whole circular economy Community, need to be better at telling the story and, and why and, having people to care. Because at the end of the day, I'm a firm believer that, all of the things that we're building with Bitcoin and what people are building in other crypto, it all kind of falls apart if it's everything is always reta- reliant on, on banks in the end, and centralized exchanges and banking relationships and those things. So I think it's super important for all of Of our, our visions, and there's many different ones, but I think it's, it's important for all of them that Bitcoin is used as money, with everything that that entails, big and small and everyday and so on. And, you know, we want to get to a world where people open their Bitcoin wallet as often as, they open the regular wallet, right? and, and we're not quite there yet. We're there with a certain audience, which is a small subset of, Bitcoin users, and, That and, and to make it into a thing." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "06:57", "start": 417.45, "text": "Right. It's one thing to simply hoddle, but it's another to actually spend and use it, even if you are-- Potentially, you might be in a situation where your, all your income is in Bitcoin, and then you obviously have to spend out in Bitcoin. And so this is obviously for a lot of Bitcoiners, they can use Bitrefill and the cards to be able to spend. So, you know, and obviously there have been a lot of discussions over the years about hoddling and spending and, oh, you know True hodler and so on, but I think it is about also that group of people who have to spend because they earn in Bitcoin or it could also be a bunch of people who maybe they took a punt, right? They kind of were punting on, you know, crypto years ago and now they're, they're just trying to, they're like, \"Oh, hey, I can actually spend at these sites, so here we, here we go, I'll just use someone Bitrefill.\" So that, that's probably also a, a factor. But I think you're also seeing, to The company, right?" }, { "speaker": "sergej_kotliar", "time": "07:56", "start": 476.08, "text": "Yeah, for sure. there are people that, that do, and, and again, like for some, it's a necessity, as you mentioned, but for a lot of them, it's a choice. Yeah. And it becomes, yeah, this is why we, we started paying a lot more attention to our branding and graphical profile and things like that. For, the bulk of it, of people, it's a choice, it's a statement, it's something that, you know, same as okay, you have" }, { "speaker": "sergej_kotliar", "time": "08:26", "start": 505.5, "text": "and it's a choice, and it's because that I think it's a great example, 'cause the, it's one of my favorite projects in the space, shout out to all of those who are involved, but, you know, getting to the point where your brand is something that people want to wear on a T-shirt in a podcast, right? most brands aren't that, you know, even the big famous companies, but like nobody would want to wear a Facebook T-shirt, today, right? Or a, Uber T-shirt or T-shirt, you know, it's, it's unthinkable, it's, it, it gets funny, but certain companies reached to the state to the point where it becomes a, a lifestyle brand, a statement that I am the kind of guy who, who lives on Bitcoin and, uses, uses my wallet and the things like Bitrefill and other things, and, and then it needs to look cool, y-y-you know, like we have a lot of things that, you know, the, I mean, Bitcoin has a very strong brand, and it, but And sort of, you know, printed t-shirts, with orange stuff on it, maybe the occasional hat. It's not really, you know, stuff that, I mean, it's stuff that will make you maybe a little bit cool in, in the Bitcoin conference, but, it's not really, you know, nightclub level cool. And, and that's where we set the bar, you know, and that's kind of also how the whole BitSnakes thing, happened to me. You know, because like there's things that we find cool, in our little bubble, like, you know, hey, running a node, on your Raspberry Pi, like I think is cool, you probably also. But it's not nightclub. You can't bring your Raspberry Pi to the nightclub, right? And, and you shouldn't. and, and, and so I, I think it is important, especially now, that, that I think we are getting to the point where, where the Bitcoin Group is, is a meaningful subset, of the population, and, it's time, to start thinking about, y- I, I hate the word adoption, but like, y- mainstream societal, behavioral change, and that's a big thing, right? how do you do that? and, and that's a, a big challenge." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "10:40", "start": 639.54, "text": "Yeah, I think for some time in the Bitcoin world, there's also been, I mean, obviously there's all kinds of different things going on. In some parts of the Bitcoin world, there's been almost like a, maybe So thing, there's like a bit of a flexing culture of like, oh, Lambos and whatever. And then on the other side, you've got like people who are more like, no, like, you should be saving and you should be like, reducing your extravagant expenditure and things like this, and sort of anti-flexing culture, if you will. But that's it. I mean, the Bitcoin branding doesn't necessarily have to be about flexing per se. I mean, it's, it's just a t-shirt, right?" }, { "speaker": "sergej_kotliar", "time": "11:14", "start": 673.7, "text": "I don't think it's-- I, I don't A rich people's thing, it's not okay, it became a little bit a crypto thing for a while, and it's, it's a little bit funny and this and that, but, there's quite a bit more. And, I mean, yeah, you know, maybe there will be about one point, Bitcoin for sports car, but we're quite, quite way off of that. We, we barely, barely made a sneaker with, with LED display," }, { "speaker": "sergej_kotliar", "time": "11:42", "start": 702.22, "text": "you" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "11:43", "start": 702.84, "text": "know, so let's, let's not get" }, { "speaker": "sergej_kotliar", "time": "11:48", "start": 707.64, "text": "too a Bitcoin sneaker, it's, it's a modified, sneaker that has, like a, a LED grid display, has a little microprocessor, a little computer in it, in the, in the heel, with a little battery and the, and the 3G chip, so that it, it gets, things like, the Bitcoin price or the current block height, stuff like that, that it's like we built like a very special, like low-data protocol for that We, we, we nerded down, unreasonably far, in building it, but nerding down is also a bit, of what makes it cool because there's a lot of, craftsmanship, it's, it's up at bitsnakes dot com, we launched it with, in partnership with, Spencer Dinwiddie, Dallas Mavericks, NBA player, and, and yeah, I mean, it's like, you know, it's, handmade, so it's not going to" }, { "speaker": "sergej_kotliar", "time": "12:50", "start": 769.82, "text": "I call it, sweep stake out, one of the shoes and maybe sell one to the highest bidder or something like that. We'll see. I mean, it's proof of concept, right? But it's, it's a celebration of all of the things that Bitcoiners build that aren't unreasonable, by design, you know? But, and, you know, with a nice nod to, like, the block clock and things like that that, that did go out into, into the mainstream as well, with the Moscow time and all of that." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "13:19", "start": 799.0, "text": "And I I'd like to point that out because I think even people like Jack Dorsey with Cash App have been very attuned to this idea of social and cultural cachet, right? So even there are rappers who sing about Cash App, right? So it's like this kind of idea. Yeah. So I think maybe it's a similar kind of idea here with like Bitrefill and telling the story of living on Bitcoin and being able to earn and spend Bitcoin." }, { "speaker": "sergej_kotliar", "time": "13:39", "start": 818.98, "text": "Yes, that's what we're, we're trying to do, and, yeah, it's, it's a bit of Barely works, but it does work and get the people that desperately needed to use it and so on, into making, a really slick product, I mean, first and foremost, but, but also the fact that, I guess this is also like a big topic, but like that we're Exciting technology, by definition, what makes it exciting is it doesn't really work yet, right? That is where the excitement comes from, because you, you triggers imagination of what if it worked, then it would be really cool, right? Whereas we're in the, normally, in the opposite business, where we want something that people can rely on, you know, that, hey, the Betrifle is always going to work, my Lightning payment's always going to work. and so we're in the business of making it unexciting, making it Boring, as fact, also by, by definition, yeah, right. But that doesn't get you into, into mainstream media if it just works, right? It's not newsworthy that the thing that always works, it continues to work today also, right. So, so part of it is also like to, to see what we can do to, to generate some excitement around the values, and the thing that we are trying to build and the broad societal change, that we're- We're, we're trying to be a force of" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "15:09", "start": 908.66, "text": "yeah. And, so in terms of the new stuff coming out, so as I understand, you've got a new feature coming out, that's gonna hopefully help some more people live on Bitcoin. So do you wanna tell us a little bit about that and, you know, what, what should we be anticipating there?" }, { "speaker": "sergej_kotliar", "time": "15:28", "start": 927.63, "text": "Yeah, so we're rolling out, bill payments, in the USA. This is something that we've had, in El Salvador for six months now. that has been very popular, growing, at, you know, hundred to hundred percent every month. In practice, what this means, is that if you are a US, Bitcoiner, you'll be able to pay, you know, your mortgage payments, your credit cards, your social security, your student debt, your, municipal taxes, utilities, like there, there's like twenty thousand things that you're going to be able to pay, with Bitcoin, with Lightning, with all Of, I think, best-in-class payment experience that we have in, in, on Betway Phil, in, in a warm and familiar way to the users that we have. So that features going out today, there is, currently a waitlist, mainly because, there are certain things that, are new for us, like, unfortunately, this product requires account verification, it's done in partnership with a financial institution. Yeah, and, e-everything like that. So, so we, we have to do that thing, and it's new, and we're sort of making sure that, we are able to, to scale it, and we're going to be letting in people as fast as we can, basically, but, constrained a little bit by, the outside world. It's gotten really positive feedback from, from the early testers. it's something that, I don't even know why, nobody's really But so it's going to be something that is a first for us, or, we will be the first, to, to offer this to, to Americans, as far as I know. To me, it's pretty cool that, we are executing on the, the plan for El Salvador, which was always, that we use, El Salvador as, you know, a beachhead. Yeah. We do things there first, try it out, figure it out, learn the ins and outs of, of the product, but also of Marketing related stuff, right? And I, I always keep talking about that, you know, we're a tech-heavy community, but the big challenges that we have, are fundamentally not technical. There are technical challenges, I enjoy it, I'm a techie myself, you know, I know that, Stefan and Vera is a tech-centered podcast, this is why I listen to it as well. But there are really important challenges that are, again, the broad societal change, and those are, in many ways, marketing related, and You know, yeah, it's not, always about, the, the exciting new Lightning feature, it's about getting the features that, we already have and trust and out into the hands of as many people as possible, and to get them to want to use it." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "18:22", "start": 1101.64, "text": "Yeah, and I think that's very much a social, cultural question as opposed to the technical aspects, which obviously we talk about it here a lot on my show. I mean, to be fair, we even do talk about the economic aspects also. But, you know, I, I think to this idea of using Bitrefill for bill payments, I certainly, I think that's, that's cool. Certainly, those people out there who are earning Bitcoin now, they can live on Bitcoin more easily because up until now, there's often been a point where people, maybe they could do most of their payments The vouchers, but w-without being able to do bill payments, this is kind of like another sticking point for people, and so this is kind of helping them close out that loop a little bit, even more, because more than they could previously. so I think that part of it's definitely useful. Obviously, I'm sure some listeners are thinking, \"Oh, hang on, Sergej, what about capital gains? Does that mean users would have to be calculating capital gains? Do you have any thoughts around that, around whether that might be more of a barrier in the US as opposed to El Salvador" }, { "speaker": "sergej_kotliar", "time": "19:21", "start": 1161.44, "text": "the, the capital gains is, orthogonal, like, no matter, it's, first of all, it's different from country to country, right? And I guess we're talking about the US. Whenever you sell, Bitcoin, you have to do capital gains, even if you exchange it for, for goods and services, and, and we're no exception in that regard, and so we're, we're, we're no different in that sense from using an exchange or anything. it's still, in practice, you To file their taxes, on their own, and so, we don't, let's say, capital gains is not a benefit, of, the bill payment offering, the benefit is convenience. The benefit, a big benefit I think is that we still have a world where people get in trouble for, hey, you have a transaction here from a Bitcoin exchange, what is that? Let's close your account and hassle you for a week. Y-you know, stuff like that, that, now people can, live a little bit The coins." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "20:22", "start": 1222.26, "text": "Right, right, certainly, and I think this might reduce the amount of, let's say, selling on whether it's a platform, an exchange, or even peer-to-peer, because if they can just directly pay Bitcoin to pay their bill, then, well, through, through the service." }, { "speaker": "sergej_kotliar", "time": "20:37", "start": 1236.55, "text": "I mean, it is still selling, right? I mean, at the end of the day, y-y-you know, your utility company is going to get paid in, in regular dollars, right? So the same amount of coins would be sold in e-either case. It's about convenience," }, { "speaker": "sergej_kotliar", "time": "20:51", "start": 1251.42, "text": "yeah, being able to keep, your, your funds in your wallet, a little bit more, not getting, hassled, by, by incumbent industries, things like that." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "21:02", "start": 1261.77, "text": "For sure. Yeah. And I, I also see it like we maybe in those countries, because Bitrifill is around all these different countries around the world, I wonder if maybe you would be more inclined to see like growth in the countries that don't have a capital gains, tax or as much of a ta-capital gains tax implication, let's say the El Salvador's of the world, maybe the Singapores or, maybe Germany if you've held for more than a year or Portugal, things like that. I'm curious if you see that kind of thing as well." }, { "speaker": "sergej_kotliar", "time": "21:31", "start": 1290.81, "text": "It's very hard to tell, to be honest. and I mean, I think that, again, like for whatever country, there's no fundamental difference, between, us and some other service, right? And it's still the case that most exchanges aren't going to report you to the tax authorities just because you And so if you want to, not report capital gains, you know, you, you are able to do so, but then the, the system has ways of finding that out and so on, and it's illegal, and you shouldn't do that. And so, you know, I mean, you, you have to keep in mind that, that, you know, everyone's an individual and they have their own context, right? And whatever the capital gains thing is, that is the factor that decides, for them, and, and that's always equal, right? Of course, it, it becomes easier, for people to take their salary in Bitcoin, for example, in locations where there are, capital gains laws, but there's also so many ways around that stuff now with, you know, things like, stablecoins or stable value accounts, your, your strikes and, and cash apps and, Shiva wallets and things like that. So I think that it's, it's mostly, solved the, enough, I would say problem, but it's going to get even better." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "22:54", "start": 1374.23, "text": "Yeah. That's" }, { "speaker": "sergej_kotliar", "time": "22:55", "start": 1374.85, "text": "all. It's more of a, you know, again, convenience, lifestyle, and so on, and, you know, money in the bank is an expression, and, and that's kind of the, the stuff that we're struggling against." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "23:06", "start": 1386.13, "text": "Yeah, sure, sure. So I think, like you said, it's the technical part of it and maybe the logistical aspect of it And maybe the convenience factor, to your point, is probably more important in that social and cultural change and shift that we're seeing as the world goes to Bitcoin. Also, I'm sure some listeners will be curious to get your thoughts on, like payment breakdowns between, let's say, how many people are doing Lightning stuff, how many people are doing on-chain stuff and other stuff, if you have any comments to share for listeners there." }, { "speaker": "sergej_kotliar", "time": "23:37", "start": 1416.65, "text": "Yeah, well, I, I mean, I think that Lightning payments are still a niche even among Bitcoin payments. I think that Out of Bitcoin payments, but we are at, you know, maybe fifteen percent of Bitcoin payments are happening with Lightning, right? So, a-and it is growing at a steady pace. I'm always frustrated, because I always wanted to go faster. you know, I always say that if you're tracking something that has a exponential growth curve and you're somewhere, not at the top, not at the bottom, then you can, you can make a very eloquent case for why it's insanely great, and you can also make a eloquent case for why, why it No, right? They're both true, because you're at an exponential, growth trajectory and you're not, on the, on the moon yet, and, and, and Lightning is in, in something like that. I think that, Lightning does, have a marketing problem in the sense that it is, primarily marketed to people that, are enthusiasts and, care, and love, Bitcoin as opposed to people that use, Bitcoin, and these groups overlap a little bit, obviously, but they overlap less than m-many people think, right? And, I always bring up the BitTorrent analogy that, you know, I, will use BitTorrent to download a Linux distribution, let's say. but I don't hang out in the BitTorrent community. I don't have a Bitco- a BitTorrent emoji in my handle, or I don't wear their t-shirts. I don't have a strong opinion on which implementation of the BitTorrent protocol is the best. I use it As a tool, I don't love it, and, and, and most people that use Bitcoin use it as a tool as well. And, and I think this is, important to understand, and I think that, that's a big realization for us is that we're not in conflict with the people that say you should hold, stash assets and so on. You should do all of these things. These are great things. We're not in, in any conflict if you don't, want to use, your Bitcoin to buy stuff, that's great." }, { "speaker": "sergej_kotliar", "time": "25:45", "start": 1544.64, "text": "Use Bitcoin and, and to provide them, a valuable offering. And, I think that, that's been like a big, it took a while, to sort of, because like when you are, like us, like so deep in the community, hanging out on the Twitter, on the conferences, and so on, you're always sort of surrounded, by this community of people, and, and some of them are users, but many of them aren't, y-y-you know, and there's this tension in Yeah, it's important for us, to sort of be mindful of who does use Bitcoin to, to make purchases, and, and what kind of other things do they use, y-y-you know, and, and paint a user persona and a profile, and so on. And like simple control question, that we can ask, and maybe the audience can ask themselves, is like, when did you last open your wallet and make a transaction? Right? And if, if the answer is, I did it two months ago to buy a ticket to Well, then you're, you're not, you know, a heavy, heavy transactional Bitcoin user, right? You're a hodler and hodling is using as well, and that's great, you know? But there are people that do make transactions on a regular basis that pop up their wallet and so on. And, frankly, a lot of these people also use other crypto, and, and, and this is, I think the essence of Lightning's marketing problem is that because Lightning is so sort of, you know, for historical reasons with the block size war And, and altcoins and all of that, which, you know, I agree with on a values level, but it's also the case that, people that, that deal with, tokens, that do the, those sort of things, are also likely to, to be living in crypto, and, and because of the way that we're, we're presenting Lightning, there is no good option for them, yeah, right? Because Lightning isn't in any of the wallets that they use, and, why, you know, and it doesn't have So it's not, there's no token, so there's no incentive for, for the casinos to, the, the token casinos to, to integrate it. And so it, it sort of ends up building its own, little, circular economy, which is sort of free from all of these things, which is great from a value standpoint, of course, because, you know, there is still no Ponzi schemes on Lightning and stuff like that. Yeah. So, and so it's great that, that, that is happening, but then it becomes a separate island, that doesn't, interact, with the broader crypto world, and, and, and that's, I think, a, a question that one can land at different decisions, you know, but, but it's important to be aware of it, and, and decide, not just ignore. Simple things like, you know, we talked about stable coins, people who get paid in, in crypto will often want to get paid in stable coins, right? 'Cause you don't want your monthly paycheck, Up and down in value, on a day-to-day, basis. And okay, now there are some projects, to build stable coins with Lightning, I think it's incredibly encouraging. but like in the status quo, you're going to use a wallet that, that enables you to use, stable coins, and today that wallet doesn't have Lightning, and so, then you need to have a separate wallet for your Lightning, and then it becomes, it's living in two different worlds. Again, it, it's, it's a Or Bitcoin part is part of like a, like a galaxy that spins around a black hole, right? And that go-black hole, called the casino, like in the, the abstract, sense that the, the speculative, aspect is at the essence of, of, a lot of things. Even, even buying hodl, right? I mean, you hodl because your bitcoins are going to be worth more in the future, which is a speculative investment and so on. So it's just different flavor, different strategy. of it all, and, and, and, and this is, this does permeate, permeate, our, our space. And so it's important to be mindful of what to do with it, you know, if you want to build your own galaxy that is entirely outside of that, or do you want to find ways to, to interact with, with the force, that is happening and try to, into a more constructive, yeah, constructive direction?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "30:11", "start": 1811.18, "text": "Back to the show in a moment. We all think about our Bitcoin security and it's important to remove single points of failure in our setup. With Unchained Capital, you can easily create a multi-signature vault. This means you hold two keys in different locations and Unchained hold the third key. So with this setup, you can do it on your own or you can use the concierge onboarding program where they will ship you some hardware wallets. You pay them upfront, obviously, and then they will do a call with you to get you set up and there's even some ongoing support. Port associated for this, so don't feel like you're going into this totally on your own, you are being guided in the pathway. So with Unchained, they will also then deposit a thousand dollars of Bitcoin in your vault, so this is an easy way to get yourself started with multi-signature and remove single points of failure. So that website is unchained dot com. The Coldcard MK4 is now shipping out from CoinKite dot com. This is my favorite Bitcoin signing device, that's the new terminology that NVK and the team are using, so get with the program. This signing device can be used to store your private keys and also sign Bitcoin transactions. You can do it easily with wallets like Specter or Sparrow or even Electrum or BlueWallet. There's lots of options and lots of possible ways you can use this. You can use it with BIP85 and have different child seeds. You can use Use it as part of a multi-signature setup, you can just use it in single signature, or you could perhaps use single signature with a passphrase. There's all kinds of options, and there are guides on the website. So that website is coinkite dot com. Back to the show with Sergej. So I think you make a good point, and in fairness to you, you have been making this point for probably multiple years now, this idea that Bitcoin Twitter isn't necessarily Bitcoin, right? So that they are different groups of people and the kinds who are spending- Yeah." }, { "speaker": "sergej_kotliar", "time": "31:58", "start": 1918.45, "text": "Also goes for Shitcoin Twitter, by the way. Yeah. Yeah. That's, you know, it also applies equally, to those things, for" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "32:06", "start": 1926.45, "text": "the same reasons. Right, that the users aren't necessarily the same as the vocal online posters, right? And yeah. I mean, for me personally, I, I do actually use Bitrefill, so I'm actually in the user camp myself, but I can appreciate where there are a lot of people who aren't. And I don't know, it, it's maybe, is it a, is it a question of values? Is it a question of, I guess, hypocrisy? Is it, I don't know. or is it just kind of, they're just valuing different things?" }, { "speaker": "sergej_kotliar", "time": "32:35", "start": 1954.81, "text": "I, I don't think so. And, and, again, like I'm, against trying" }, { "speaker": "sergej_kotliar", "time": "32:45", "start": 1964.98, "text": "You know, everybody should do what they want, and if you want to hold your bitcoins, that's great, you should do that. Again, like, you can be a friend of Betriffel without being a customer, that's fine, right? And, and we have a lot, like, we've observed that, many times, like, from our Twitter presence, like, I can post, like, \"Hey, y-you know, I need, an intro for a translator into Aramaic,\" you know, and within five minutes Because we have a fan base of people that care about us, about Lightning, and so on, it's not always as easy if we say, \"Hey, you know, yeah, here we have a product you can buy in Armenia.\" There's a different environment because, again, the people that, that use the stuff are sometimes different, from, from the people that, see it as belonging, in, in a community. but I mean, they do overlap, so I'm, I'm, I'm exaggerating a little bit," }, { "speaker": "sergej_kotliar", "time": "33:45", "start": 2024.72, "text": "Focusing on, or the way we do it is like focusing on behavior, right? what kind of things, does, the customer persona do? Like their demographics are less relevant to, if they are a boy or a girl or tall or short or whatever. yeah, it's, it's the behavior. And so, we're, you know, we're looking for people that open their wallet, every day. Yeah. Yeah. And we're looking to grow that, that audience, and we're not gonna get there Or by, you know, taking conflict against the HODL gang. I don't like this peddler thing. It's like, come on, you know? Like, it's reactionary. Like we, we need to create, our own, let's say, movement, I guess, or like, behavior type, and it needs to stand on its own and not be in a reaction to, to something else which we don't even disagree with." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "34:41", "start": 2081.05, "text": "Of course, and I think the other aspect of it is that Lightning is still early days, right? Like it, it has only been mainnet for what, four years? That's still like relatively young, and we are now starting to see some other services that are plugging in and turning it on. So obviously, Bitfinex has been around for ages. I mean, Kraken have recently turned it on, Cash App are turning it on, Robinhood have promised that they'll turn it on, Paxful, Cheevo, obviously. I mean, once you add all of" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "35:11", "start": 2110.87, "text": "Lightning, yeah, just to, you know?" }, { "speaker": "sergej_kotliar", "time": "35:13", "start": 2112.67, "text": "Yeah, but, but then you still need to, again, it's-- there's a lot of, sort of, there's chicken and egg type problems, right? And it's great that we have some chickens, now we just need to figure out how to market the egg to them, so to speak. But there's a, there's a self-reinforcing, dynamic with these things, and, and it does require, marketing and storytelling and all of these things to, to That is the new things, have and what it can add to their life." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "35:45", "start": 2144.63, "text": "yeah, yeah. Are you seeing things like, in terms of like, as far as like adoption, or at least in terms of Bitrefill users, are you seeing that, is that waxing and waning along with bull and bear cycles in Bitcoin, or is it kind of independent of that? You're just seeing like independent, like, growth, let's say, of people adopting and using Bitrefill platform?" }, { "speaker": "sergej_kotliar", "time": "36:06", "start": 2166.36, "text": "It's both, I mean, obviously when there's a bull cycle and the, the Bitcoiners are, are rich, the more people are, are considering, buying something with their coins, of course, but we also see a, a, a, a slow and, and steady growth over time, and so you see higher highs, higher lows, but yeah, it does fluctuate, a little bit. I, I mean, we've been through a period now, for half a year where it's been relative price stability. And, I mean, I'm a, I'm a fan of price stability or, you know, the slow and steady growth, in, instead of these crazy hype cycles that, you know, steer, focus to, to the wrong things and create a bunch of other issues and stuff." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "36:51", "start": 2210.62, "text": "Yeah." }, { "speaker": "sergej_kotliar", "time": "36:51", "start": 2211.04, "text": "So, so yeah, it, it, it is both, I think," }, { "speaker": "sergej_kotliar", "time": "36:56", "start": 2216.26, "text": "and we see more of everything, like of course, when p-price is high, we get, you know, better conversion rate and higher average order sizes and everything, yeah. I mean, that's not, I think, hard to understand. I mean, same as on an exchange, when price goes up, there's going to be higher o-order volume because more people are looking to sell. This is why the mempool clogs up when the price goes up, is because a lot of people are moving coins to an exchange or between one exchange and another. Yeah. But a Where I get off, you know, and they're sending their coins to the, to an exchange. And every time that somebody buys a Bitcoin, someone else sells a Bitcoin. The amount of Bitcoins bought and sold, are always the same, and all Bitcoins are huddled, by somebody at all times. that is in the design, I guess except for within the mempool and whatever, but let's not go into that. Yeah, but as a general, as a general rule, all Bitcoins are being huddled, right? And selling your The hodling rights to, to somebody else in exchange for, other, values, such as usually fiat." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "38:02", "start": 2282.05, "text": "Right. Yeah, of course, of course. Yeah, so I think it is an interesting point there around, let's say, as you were saying, kind of the inconvenient truths about Bitcoin payments that, it doesn't always align up exactly with who's vocal on Twitter or whatever other online platform or forum, but it can also just be people who are using it and they're not really as plugged into that online scene, maybe they even know about it, but- They're just not that interested in kind of following the Bitcoin Twitter scene, they just use it because, hey, my wallet has this thing." }, { "speaker": "sergej_kotliar", "time": "38:31", "start": 2311.49, "text": "And I mean, I, I, you know, like now we have, on the site, we have, wallet selector, on the, on the payment experience, which is like, optional feature, but if you use it, we, we adjust the experience to make sure that we reduce the risk of something, you know, making something wrong, like we use the BE So stuff like that, right? and so we, we, we get the usage data from which wallets that, that people use, and it's always, i-it's very interesting because like when I talk to our customers, they usually can guess very easily because they, they're statistically they're likely to be one of the, in one of the bigger categories, whereas if you ask people from, like, on a conference and so on, they usually have a hard time guessing, you know, what the top wallets are, and often they don't even know what, which There are shitcoin wallets, that don't always subscribe to, to the core, to all of the values or maybe they're not open source or something, there's some centralized element to it or something like that. I see. Yeah. But, but it is sort of telling, I think that even when it comes to Bitcoin, ma-many, big, big chunk of those, transactions are being done by people that also, deal with shitcoins. And, I mean, a-and it's not even that, I mean Even at a conference, if you ask people, sort of, okay, outside of the maybe, ultra die-hard group, there's quite a lot that are going to be, you know, there's always, even like at, at the Bitcoin conference, that is like very clear, no, no crypto, no NFTs, no nothing, nothing, but there's still, you know, people, but we're doing this thing, you know? So, I mean, if you look at the broader perspective, there, there is a sort of to, to distance ourselves from that as a community, let's say, many ways I think that ship has sailed. many of the investors in the Bitcoin space are also in, investing in the shitcoin space, and so on, and even in, in the companies, if you look at, who ended up investing in, in companies that are very Bitcoin, only staying true to the cause, but if you look at, you know, where the capital is coming from, A little bit this and that. And it, it, it is what it is, sort of. I'm not, myself, a, a big fan of all of these things. at the same time, may, yeah, I don't know, let's not go" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "41:10", "start": 2469.7, "text": "deep into the, the altcoin. I don't think, yeah, I can add anything to that discussion that hasn't already been said so many times. Yeah, sure. I think it's, yeah, like to, to what you're saying, it's like you might Other wallets have been around for a long time. They are actually the ones where a lot of the volume is coming from. So probably the, like, probably the common example is like the, you know, what used to be blockchain dot info, I think it's now blockchain dot com, that's an example where they actually, and some of that could just be a Lindy factor, right? Like just 'cause of so much time in the space, and so many people would just go there for their first wallet. I think, you know, even back in the day in like twenty thirteen or whatever, I So, yeah, I think that some of that can play out in that way also." }, { "speaker": "sergej_kotliar", "time": "41:56", "start": 2516.07, "text": "Absolutely. I mean, hey, most people, I mean, same way as you would install a BitTorrent client, you type it into Google or into the, App Store or Play Store. That's what people do. And so, I mean, a very simple exercise is type in Bitcoin wallet, into the, the App Store that you have on your device, and you can see what the top things that people recommend is, and the, you know, you, you get an idea" }, { "speaker": "sergej_kotliar", "time": "42:22", "start": 2542.07, "text": "Someone sees when they show up in the space, and if you take into account that they don't care about politics, of, of our community and stuff that happened five years ago, that some company did a thing that many people thought was bad." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "42:37", "start": 2557.26, "text": "So on, on the, just a-- out of curiosity, on the Bitcoin side of things, I'm curious if you have any thoughts on the whole BIP twenty-one thing. So for example, Cash App, they recently came out with their announcement, and I think as part of that, they were trying to go One QR code to kind of carry both a Lightning invoice and a Bitcoin fallback address, so that was part of their idea of how to make the standard so that people can just scan one QR. I'm curious, obviously you as a company would have done a lot of work on how to structure that because again, you have to support across all these different wallets and different customers who are some of them at a very advanced level and others at a very beginner level." }, { "speaker": "sergej_kotliar", "time": "43:15", "start": 2594.72, "text": "Yeah, I think it's, that's where it's going to end up, right? I mean, I think the, the end goal is that Lightning Be a consumer brand, it's just a way of how you transfer bitcoins, and that it's going to be the default way with fallbacks which then uses P21. I mean, the only reason why we didn't do that on, on Bitrefill, well, there's, there's a couple of reasons. the main reason is that, I guess we're getting into the technical stuff, but, it adds a lot of data to the QR code." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "43:44", "start": 2624.22, "text": "Gotcha." }, { "speaker": "sergej_kotliar", "time": "43:45", "start": 2624.8, "text": "it, it makes it, difficult, to scan and we have a lot of users in emerging countries that don't always have the fancy new iPhone. Yeah. And so we need to take that a little bit into consideration. I still think, that is where it's going to end up, and for us as well. Yeah. There's also the issue of, you know, that like generating a bunch of addresses is costly because we need to monitor them and so on. it's also something that people don't realize until they try to do it with millions of them, but like here, monitoring for a" }, { "speaker": "sergej_kotliar", "time": "44:22", "start": 2662.09, "text": "Sense to an address that they used once six months ago and they, want, need to get the money back and, it adds complexity and so we chose back then to, to have Lightning as a separate payment option. But yeah, I mean, it, it, it does get tricky and we see this in El Salvador, right, where people don't understand what is Lightning. I pay with Bitcoin, right? But what they mean is that they will pay with, with Bitcoin over Lightning, yeah? Because all of the wallets there are, Lightning enabled wallets, so we've had to do a little bit of custom, adjustments, there in different periods and so on and so. But yeah, I, I think that that general line of thinking is good. I think that backwards compatibility is super important. I mean, for us, like, we built the wallet selector specifically so that we can do the cool new stuff, for those that support the new stuff when there isn't, backwards compatibility. But, but that also, you know, cre- Creates, a cost, right? It, it requires a lot of software to build and to maintain and so on, and so someone just setting up pay payment with, with Bitcoin on their website wouldn't be able to do that in the same way. And it, it's tricky. At the same time, I think our industry has shown to be notoriously slow with, with upgrades of, of, technology. So, yeah, it, it's, it's a tricky subject. Yeah." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "45:47", "start": 2747.49, "text": "But I appreciate that it's like you're, you're, you're actually dealing Easy to be kind of on Twitter and be on the latest thing and always using this and, but I understand that, to, to the point we were saying as well, this isn't just a technical phenomenon, it's also a social one, and we have to think about what is it gonna take for more and more people to come in from that social, cultural consequence or cultural reasons. So I'm curious as well if you have any thoughts, just, you know, just broadly, as you look at people coming into Bitcoin around the world, what do you see as being like those big drivers" }, { "speaker": "sergej_kotliar", "time": "46:22", "start": 2781.97, "text": "That's an excellent question. Put me on the spot a little bit, don't get asked that so often. I mean, many of the core values, I mean, it comes down to, to freedom, but it presents itself in different ways, you know, freedom to work in a different country, right? If you're, as today many people work on their laptop to produce some kind of information, that, they get, get paid for, and so that creates, the freedom, of, Financially in other places. There is obviously, the speculative side is a big factor. I mean, I remember like when we were first time we were in El Salvador, and we were talking to, and that was actually the second time, we're talking to, we talked to all the taxi drivers obviously. I mean, yeah, we're very taxi driver driven, pun intended. And they, we talked about, \"Hey, do you have a Bitcoin wallet?\" \"Yeah, you know?\" \"And which one do you use?\" and so on. And he was like, \"Yeah, I said, \"There are some Americans, this and that, but like my wife says, I should save it, right?\" so, so, I, I think like what I've found, is that people, especially when it comes to the, the Bitcoin stuff, people are very similar, even if they come from very different cultural or economical backgrounds. there's a lot of similar dynamics, right? Obviously, there's different, the commas are on different places in the wallet, but, but There are similar dynamics and, people definitely, more and more people are waking up to the fact that there is different kinds of inflations going on and prices are getting higher and something like Bitcoin is independent and you can, keep that and it goes up a little bit and als- as the concern, what if the price goes down? Yeah, all, all of these things. So yeah, and yeah, convenience, like being able to, to feel like you own the keys, to your own money, getting away from cash, has also pros and cons. I mean, we could talk about El Salvador if you want more, I mean, money there is literally pieces of green paper that you have in your wallet, right? And so it's a pretty big shift, to go from there to that money is a number that you have in an app on your phone. And what does that mean? And how does that work? And then there is also this weird association that Bitcoin is some- How part of the government, right? Because of how it was rolled out and so on, and so there's this association, and some people, don't always trust the government, even if they like it, it's like, \"Yeah, but better to keep my dollars with myself.\" So there's a lot of challenges, with, with these things, and, and, and th-those are like the things that, you know, now, you know, trying to figure out, throwing stuff on the wall and seeing how we can again shift those attitudes. I mean, we add a massive convenience factor to people, right? I mean, for Americans, paying your bills doesn't require go, li- going outside your door, yeah, but in El Salvador, usually it does, for a lot of people, right? So it becomes an errand, that you do. you would go into the, lo- commercial center, queue to the bank, submit the thing, pay them in cash, or to some other company that, does the bills stuff, and so it It's a big convenience that, hey, you know what, you're, you're sitting on your couch, and your data run out, and you can just click, click, and then it works again. But since it's not part of, you know, they also don't have the same, convenience enthusiasm that many Western countries have, where, so people like don't, they don't see it as, it doesn't offend them as much as it would, say, an American, that they would need to drive for half an hour, and but I think that it's going to get there, right? I mean, hey, why drive when you can't drive? right? But again, there's, there's a lot of these things and how can you get Bitcoin and do you wanna trust it? Do you wanna keep it in the Jiva wallet or not? Pros and cons, right? But the ATMs work with the Jiva wallet, well, the best, but there's also other cons and there's a lot of stuff, but it's exciting that it's all like kind of like boiling" }, { "speaker": "sergej_kotliar", "time": "50:52", "start": 3052.05, "text": "And Bitcoin people are doing their thing, so yeah, and there's a lot of stuff and there's good amount of people that use the Moon wallet. So there, there is, and, and it is sort of over time, like the, the percentage of non-CHIBO usage is increasing, I think for obvious reasons, right? I mean, the main feature of CHIBO was that you got free money there, and now that you don't get free money anymore, well, then you can use any wallet that you want and, and so There is a, a market of opportunity, that people can choose. So yeah, I mean, it, it's, w-w- it has been growing at a good pace, very steady pace, so the charts look really nice. but again, it's still, it's still early even for El Salvador. We'll see, you know, like the, the dark secret about, exponential growth is that it's always the beginning of an S curve, right?" }, { "speaker": "sergej_kotliar", "time": "51:49", "start": 3109.0, "text": "Yeah. Right. So, we, we haven't yet, Whether S-curve, fizzles out, and when it will be time to, to push it more, but at some point, I guess, it's going to get more challenging and Yeah, and some of these things are going to, to take a little bit of time." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "52:05", "start": 3125.45, "text": "Yeah, I think it takes patience, and as you were saying, like the social, to the social part of it, I think that comes down to enough people having an awareness about inflation and understanding what Bitcoin is. Of course, that will take time for them to learn. And then the point where Bitrefill can really help is, as, as you were saying, it's the convenience factor, and for some people, it's the necessity factor, right? That they don't have another easy way to use it Of different Bitcoin services that people can use, and, fundamentally that number is going to grow over time. I think part of it is also, like you were saying, it's, it's part of it, it's just gonna be a patience factor, right? Like there's a lot of impatience I see sometimes about why certain numbers aren't higher or why certain things aren't more advanced than they are currently, but I think it just has to be remembered how young Bitcoin is, how young Lightning is, that all these things will, just take time to grow." }, { "speaker": "sergej_kotliar", "time": "53:00", "start": 3179.75, "text": "I guess. I It's all relative, but, I mean, Bitcoin is, what, twelve now? Yeah," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "53:06", "start": 3185.91, "text": "like thirteen. Yeah, like" }, { "speaker": "sergej_kotliar", "time": "53:07", "start": 3187.17, "text": "thirteen. Yeah, like thirteen. Yeah, like thirteen. Yeah, like thirteen. Yeah, like thirteen. Yeah, like thirteen. Yeah, like thirteen. Yeah, like thirteen. Yeah, like thirteen. Yeah, like thirteen. Yeah, like thirteen. Yeah, like thirteen. Yeah, like thirteen. Yeah, like thirteen. Yeah, like thirteen. Yeah, like thirteen. Yeah, like thirteen. Yeah, like thirteen. Yeah, like thirteen. Yeah, like thirteen." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "53:32", "start": 3211.59, "text": "Fantastic. Well, listeners, make sure you check out, Bitrefill. Sergey, where can people find you guys?" }, { "speaker": "sergej_kotliar", "time": "53:38", "start": 3217.87, "text": "Yeah, bitrefill dot com is where you can find us and, and Bitrefill on Twitter and I'm at zigamon on Twitter. So reach out, and, tell me what you think. Yeah." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "53:53", "start": 3232.64, "text": "Excellent. Well, thanks, Sergey. What do you think are the big cultural drivers for Bitcoin adoption? Get the show notes at stephanlivera dot com slash three seven two. Thanks for listening. And I will see you in the citadels." } ] }