{ "episodeId": "SLP427", "speakers": { "stephan": { "name": "Stephan Livera", "role": "host", "tag": "STEPHAN" }, "cory_klippsten": { "name": "Cory Klippsten", "role": "guest", "tag": "CORY" } }, "segments": [ { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "00:08", "start": 8.45, "text": "Hi and welcome to Stephan Livera podcast, a show about Bitcoin and Austrian economics brought to you by Swan Bitcoin. Today I'm chatting with Cory Klippsten, co-founder and CEO of Swan Bitcoin. We're chatting about this idea of the race to avoid the war. So there's a race on to grow Bitcoin's adoption and improve its defenses. such that the world is able to benefit from Bitcoin adoption, and we chat a little bit about what could happen with obstacles and hurdles on the way, as well as ideas on how to contribute if you aren't a developer. Now, a message from the show sponsors before we get started. Pacific Bitcoin is coming up. It's on the 10th and 11th of November in LA, California. So if you're in America or if you're, traveling from even further, this is a great opportunity to learn about Bitcoin, network, and meet some of the best people. in the space, whether they are speakers or just random Bitcoin people from all over the world, it's a great opportunity to build your connections in the space and also learn a bit more about Bitcoin. There are going to be three tracks in terms of multiple stages going. There's an awesome lineup of speakers, there's going to be a VIP party for premium ticket holders as well as a Saturday after party. Michael Saylor has said he thinks this will be the event of the year, so don't miss it. Go to PacificBitcoin dot com, use code Livera. mempool.space is a great tool to use when you are about to send your Bitcoin transaction. You can check and target your fee based on what priority you need for your transaction, whether it's high, medium, or low. So mempool.space is great with fee estimation, and they are covering the Bitcoin ecosystem from a multi-layer perspective. So this includes the mempool, this includes the blockchain, this also includes second-layer networks like the Lightning Network, so you can use the Lightning Explorer, you can explore the different- Lightning nodes out there, see the channels, and even see the channel points. You can see the actual UTXO associated with that channel in terms of layer one on chain. Now with Mempool.Space, you can host it yourself, or you can use the easy full node distributions like Umbrel and Raspiblets. Now if you're with an enterprise, Mempool.Space offers customized instances with your company's branding and increased API limits. Go to Mempool.Space/enterprise. And now onto the show with Cory. Cory, welcome back to the show. Good to be here, Stephane. So, lots happening in the space, and, you know, it's one of those things where it's just-- There's always so much going on in Bitcoin, and I think maybe in a way that's what's, it's so intriguing because there's so many things changing about it, even in a supposed bear market and, at a time when, of course, we're out here trying to teach the DCA or auto DCA message, but I guess there's different aspects to This, and I know, this is something, you're writing a piece about this as well. So, yeah, why don't you tell us a little bit about, what you're writing and what you're working on?" }, { "speaker": "cory_klippsten", "time": "03:11", "start": 191.05, "text": "Yeah, sure. So it's, it's something I've been tweeting about in different forms really since publishing the mission statement of Swan, ten million Bitcoiners, back in the beginning of twenty twenty. So this has been kind of out there. I'm just finally putting pen to paper and got a first draft, and I should get it out around the time weeks. Loosely, it's, it's the race versus the war, might end up being titled, the race, the race that avoids the war or something like that. We'll see what Tomer makes me do, he's our editor in chief at Swann, but, anyway, it's this concept that if you win the adoption race, and you can define that a few different ways, and we'll obviously get into how I define it and what I think actually matters for, for this concept, you can avoid fighting a war. Over Bitcoin. And it was really nice to see, Michael Saylor crystallize this concept as well in his recent keynote speech, at the Atlas Society Gala. and he basically termed it, \"You don't wanna be a martyr, you wanna be a winner.\" You know, and it's kind of like, so it's all sort of, and there's a lot of people that are reaching kind of the same conclusion that we have this opportunity where every bit of effort that we do to sort of steel Bitcoin, S T E E L, to prepare it for a potential war is a, a defensive maneuver that makes it less attractive to attack. And then from the other side, you have all of the adoption going on with the people, the ten million Bitcoiners that we need for an intransigent minority in the United States and at the company level with the banks and the corporations, you think of like what Nighthawk does or what, you know, Swan Business or Swan Private Client Services does, and then think of, all of the efforts of Sat Center and OpenSats and BPI and all the people sort of, you know, picking up from, from where we got dropped by the Blockchain Association and Coin Center, which obviously don't really care about Bitcoiners, and we- created our own, our own groups to go and, and sort of sway the minds of legislators and lawmakers. And so attacking on all these fronts while also building up the, the privacy tech and the custody tech and everything that you need on the tech side for Bitcoin and advancing there, these things are kind of working in, in, they're pinching out any opportunity that the only entity that could ever- Really make life difficult for Bitcoiners, the US government, pinching out the opportunity that, that the government in the United States might have to coordinate some kind of massive global- headache for Bitcoin and Bitcoiners globally." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "06:07", "start": 366.51, "text": "And while we're there, I'm curious your view, why specifically the US government is-- Do you believe we are at the point that, let's say, the Russian government or the Chinese government or some other government, they're still not powerful enough to have that same kind of impact?" }, { "speaker": "cory_klippsten", "time": "06:20", "start": 380.42, "text": "Well, they never have been, and the US government is kind of like a, it's a figurehead for the system itself, right? The system potentially defending itself. this is the, the base currency of the globe today and the global- system is US Treasuries and represented by the US dollar, and so that's what you're looking to, for some number of years or decades, coexist with as an asset or another asset, a global asset, one that has uses, and then I think eventually, unseat and become the global standard, which I think we all believe is, you know, well, if you're listening to Stephan's show and have been for quite some time, you'll probably understand that folks like us believe this to be inevitable. So when I talk about this war, a war versus Bitcoin can't be won. It's actually inevitable that you'll lose, but you could delay The opportunity for this generation, or our children, or our children's children, to live in this, you know, this bright orange future that we always talk about, or, you know, sort of post Bitcoinization, where Bitcoin is kind of used broadly and is ushering in an era of greater productivity and, and prosperity for, for humans around the world. And, and that's what we wanna see. You know, there was this, I'm pretty sure it was an Andreas video from twenty fifteen or sixteen or something, and, and essentially it boiled down to If Bitcoinization can stave off one incident of hyperinflation, fiat hyperinflation in any country around the world, then we all essentially have a moral imperative to try to make Bitcoin, Bitcoinization happen as fast as possible. This is why I've never been in the camp of like, \"Oh, you know, cheap sats for me. Oh, they're stamping out Bitcoin in some country. Well, cheap sats for me. Like, I'm not down with that. I think that's, you know, that's fine.\" Fine if that's, that's how you roll, but like I really am in this to try to make it happen faster than it otherwise would." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "08:21", "start": 501.29, "text": "And I, I think this is, which we could arguably say is a bit of the, the romanticism of people who are into Bitcoin, right? That it's not just this purely neutral and dispassionate thing, although certainly you could look at it that way too, but as you say, really, really bad things can happen when there is high inflation or hyperinflation in the fiat currency. So maybe you wanna at least- Elaborate a little bit on that, like what does a failure mode look like? What are some of the bad examples or maybe any historical examples that you think are relevant for us?" }, { "speaker": "cory_klippsten", "time": "08:56", "start": 535.66, "text": "Yeah, sure. I mean, I, I think it'll be more interesting for me to get into some of my own personal experience over the last decade, because I go to Turkey every year. So I think that'll be kind of interesting, and I'll share some of that. But, you know, probably the one that's catching my eye right now is people posting pictures of paying for things, In Argentina, because they still have, you know, five-hundreds and thousands in circulation, but a lunch costs, you know, hundreds of thousands of, of, of pesos. So these, these giant cash stacks that you're having to pay for things with are, are getting pretty hilarious and out of hand. In Turkey, it's really started to kick in in a big way in the last two or three years and becoming noticeable. But when I first went there in 2010, it was one point eight lira per dollar. And now it's eighteen point five lira per dollar. And when you don't have a stable currency and it's just kind of running away from you, and I think the official statistics are eighty-two percent, I know Steve Hanke has, you know, his method of, of measuring it and thinks it's more like a hundred and forty or something like that, even a lot of Turks, that are running their own numbers in, in country with various offices are thinking it's about ninety-nine or a hundred percent annual inflation right now. So, you know Not crazy way more hyperinflation yet, but way more than enough com- to completely disrupt how things work. And so maybe it'd be helpful to just give a few anecdotes just to kind of- Yeah, sure. Let you understand. So, real estate in Istanbul has more than doubled in price, and this is adjusted for inflation in the past three years. So it's just pricing tons and tons of people out of their homes. Like, imagine if, in inflation-adjusted terms, the average house, house price in the US went up from like, you know, two fifty to five hundred in three years or something like that. It's just, it's really fast to make that kind of adjustment, and this is just people fleeing the currency. And putting it into whatever they possibly can that's not lira. So they're stacking flats 'cause they don't know how to stack sats yet. They're, they're just buying apartments, right? not unlike what you see, the Chinese population doing, which is probably the biggest bubble on the planet today, is, is obviously Chinese. apartment buying essentially. So that's one major distortion. And so what else? You've got a lot of efforts by the government to try to offset the effects of inflation. So you have, you know, this, this desire to keep rents low, you can stay in real estate for a little bit, and so they have crazy rent controls that basically make it really cheap to stay in your house. And so owning, owning a lease Like a long term lease on an apartment is, more, it's better than owning a house in many ways if you have it for a number of years, not unlike a rent controlled apartment in, in New York City. If you're ever a Seinfeld fan, you know that they're like sitting around at a wake or something and they find out somebody else is dying and four people say, \"What's the rent?\" 'Cause you're just so excited to take over a dead person's rent controlled apartment in New York City. So it's like that throughout all of Turkey now. And what You can no longer leave your house to take a job somewhere else because you can't afford a new place. Because if you move into a new place, you have to pay the market rent. And so imagine that, like, you really have to stay within commuting distance of your home, or if you take a new job, you have to accept maybe a disastrous commute that's just terrible, and you're going from like the European side to the Asian side, fighting that bridge traffic, whatever it is. okay, and now on the employment side And they're suffering, obviously, they're getting squeezed, everything's costing more, so the companies aren't raising wages willingly. And so the only way to get a raise is to leave your job and join another company. And so people in their thirties and forties, like mid-career, are jumping jobs every six months, every twelve months, just so that they can go and be able to afford their lives and feed their families, not because they wanna leave, not because they wanna walk out the door with the most important source of capital Of a company has, which is the knowledge and relationships and know-how that you've accumulated while you were there or in your career prior, and that just walks out the door like a revolving door constantly so that people can keep up with inflation. And they have to balance that with, you know, you can only do that, or for a job that's close to your house, 'cause you can't leave your house. So look at all this friction that's being introduced in the real estate market and the labor market because of inflation, and think about how that affects the productivity and the profitability of Turkish industry. And" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "13:51", "start": 831.04, "text": "I, I imagine as we get to more advanced phases of this inflation, you start to see breakdowns in terms of what products are available on the shelves. And from what I've heard and what I've read as well, there are examples where governments try to do price controls. And of course, anybody who studied Austrian economics and generally free market economics in general te- teaches us why that's a bad idea. But unfortunately, governments still try it, and unfortunately, people still suffer, don't they?" }, { "speaker": "cory_klippsten", "time": "14:20", "start": 860.02, "text": "They do, yeah. And we'll see how this one plays out. It's usually been bread, like literally your daily bread, bread and circuses, like it's always bread, 'cause that's the cheapest thing that you can possibly produce that sustains human Essentially, in, in mass population centers. And so that's been the one thing that they've kept the price low on traditionally, so they basically subsidized the means of production of bread and essentially sell it at cost or slightly below cost, you know? And they c-- looks like they kinda got saved this year, 'cause the expectation was that there was gonna be kind of a, a crappy wheat harvest and maybe not a second harvest because of Ukraine and Russia, but essentially everywhere other than Russia and Ukraine had, had- I think a massive bumper crop, and so a lot of these forecasts for what might happen, you know, bringing about like Arab Spring on a grand scale, and Turkey would have had its, you know, its own pressures with, with increased cost of inputs, was put off by, it looks like a year or six months or something like that. But it's this risk that's just kind of hanging out there when you have, essentially subsidizing half the population or two thirds of the population just to feed them. and you can, we know where that goes eventually. All these years of, Erdogan, the head of, AKP, the, the ruling party, you know, seems like he's been there forever. Well, guess what? He's been there forever. It's twenty years next year, and there are elections in June of twenty twenty-three, and he's not been able to put together any sort of coalition that makes it look like he will be in power anymore. So now you've got inflation and all this- Disruption and all this friction in the economy and all of the geopolitical stuff happening on their doorstep, and you have, you know, probably a transition of power, unless scarily enough, he figures out some way to stay in power in the next eight months, and you see a lot of saber rattling going on with, with Greece and other neighbors and, and, you know, trying to figure out some reason to, maybe gin up some reason to have emergency powers or something like that. But, yeah, it's all basically inflation is Such a key part of this story and what's happened, it's, it's just been fascinating to watch over the last ten years." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "16:36", "start": 995.85, "text": "Yeah, and I, and I, I'm reminded here of how, I think there's a Hayek quote about he sai-about how he's saying, \"It's not an exaggeration to say that a lot of history is actually about inflationary stories.\" And of course, it may well be that high inflation drove- Politicians or other conditions to occur that then maybe the story was about something else or maybe in the same way that a magician tries to distract you, that they, they sort of try to cause some other issue somewhere else to say, \"Oh, that's, you know, distraction from what's, you know, the domestic problems happening back locally,\" which, you know, we, you could argue that's happening in many places around the world. And, yeah, I, and I know in some Asian countries, so for example, in Sri Lanka, they will sometimes set the, they will set the price of" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "17:21", "start": 1040.73, "text": "Do this kind of thing. And the broader problem is that we're seeing this breakdown in society, as you mentioned, right? Like jobs, people are turning over jobs super quickly, making it difficult for businesses to operate. We, we see some really bad things. And so for listeners who haven't already, I recommend checking out these books. it's When Money Dies, and I'm sure you've read that, Cory. and another good one is When Money Destroys Nations, which is on the Zimbabwe hyperinflation. so those are a few examples. samples, and we, we start to see some really bad things happen. So I guess that's probably the, you know, the path we're trying to stave off or at least trying to avoid that. What does the brighter pathway look like? So from here to there, before we get to the hyperbitcoinization, what, what kinds of things would that pathway look like?" }, { "speaker": "cory_klippsten", "time": "18:10", "start": 1090.5, "text": "Yeah, I mean, I think we kind of, there are, there are certainly dreams and writings from, you know, Nick Bata and Safe and some others talking about the potential for kind of a soft landing for the dollar. system that we kind of coexist and sort of more slowly see Bitcoin rise in market cap and value, purchasing power versus the dollar. Probably hard to do much about the purchasing power thing, that's gonna probably continue to explode. But, you know, I think it's true that as demand for Bitcoin increases, you would see both demand and supply fall for the dollar and kind of the dollar system Broadly, and so you maybe wouldn't see, you know, massive hyperinflation, possibly, if they are smart about it. But being smart about it means them not being scared of what's replacing it, and that's where all the education and all the, you know, evangelism and sort of teaching about, about Bitcoin comes in. That's why we're doing this, right?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "19:14", "start": 1153.68, "text": "Absolutely, and I think the argument goes essentially that because we're living in a fiat fractional reserve system, part of how- Our money is created is when loans are taken out, and I guess the argument that I've seen people like Safedine make is that under a Bitcoin parallel system, there might actually be less demand for credit, and so therefore, as you said, there's gonna be less US dollars effectively created through the, the magic of, fractional reserve banking. And so, yeah, maybe if Bitcoiners do the job right, we build the community, we try to, we build good tools, you know, there's code, there's code review, there's all these- things, then maybe there's somewhat of a softening here of bad things that are about to happen, and it, it feels in a way maybe a bit morbid or a little bit, you know, unpleasant, but I think this is the, this is the way to stave off the worst of it in a way. So in that sense, what are some of the, let's say, obstacles or hurdles that we might be facing on the way as Bitcoiners? What, you know, I, I know, you, you've commented a lot about, for example," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "20:21", "start": 1221.45, "text": "or the orange washes. What are some of the obstacles and the hurdles that we might face along the way?" }, { "speaker": "cory_klippsten", "time": "20:27", "start": 1226.83, "text": "Yeah, I mean, I, I, so this is kind of, if the framework is anything that you can be doing to shore up Bitcoin's defenses or sort of put it on offense and increase its, its speed essentially is helping win the race, then anything that is working to slow Bitcoin down, to slow down Bitcoin adoption, is giving the contra Bitcoin forces more- More time to sort of catch up and get their shit together, and if there are forces that want to work to defend the existing shitty system and, and try to thwart the advance of Bitcoin, then anything that slows down Bitcoin adoption is essentially helping the other side. And so that's what I think is going on. Like, I'm not gonna, you know, take some dude out of a four-on-four basketball game who I know works for an altcoin fund and be like, \"Dude, you're an enemy of humanity.\" Like they don't understand it, and I don't expect them to see it through that framework. But, you know, probably the, the worst single- Entity acting against the interests of Bitcoin today is probably Andreessen Horowitz, the venture capital firm. Like, that's probably the number one enemy of Bitcoin. And whether they see it or not is kind of beside the point. It happens to be true, because they're the ones that are sucking the liquidity away from Bitcoin using the words that originated in Bitcoin to market their pump and dump scams like Axie Infinity and Helium and all these bullshit projects, Worldcoin, Eyeballcoin, whatever they were doing with the retinas, like over and over again, like these things just come out of this shitcoin factory up on Sand Hill Road at Andreessen Horowitz, an otherwise venerable Pretty solid venture firm, that's really good at marketing, and they grabbed the Web3 term and they pumped NFTs and, and they, all this DeFi crap, and they were the big, the big driving force behind Solana sort of sucking a lot of the juice out of the bull market last year that should have been going toward Bitcoin, and all the noise with Solana this, that, the other. Like Solana's bullshit, they dumped, they dumped almost a year ago, they dumped eleven months ago, and it's like nobody cares about Solana. Solana today. So all you were doing with all that noise about all these future problems being solved by crypto blockchain magic was just bullshit to line your pockets. And like, do you ever step back and look at the opportunity cost of the capital, the forty billion dollars that's gone into Shitcoin VC in the last two and a half years versus, you know, a few hundred million toward the Bitcoin ecosystem, and look at the dramatic underallocation toward- Building on Bitcoin that exists, and just in the sucking in of all this capital and all this resource and all this talk time, just trying to get people to trade crypto. You know, like we gotta like look at Matt Damon and Tom Brady and shit on, on the Super Bowl talking about get into the crypto casino, where it's like it's not even-- Fortune favors the brave was their line, right? Man, it's, it's not, it's so much worse than a zero sum game because way over half the economy- economic value is already taken by the insiders, and then the sophisticated participants in the market, the FTX, I'm sorry, the, the Alamos and the Jumps and the, you know, the SACs and all these guys that are participating, that are laughing at click traders. Click traders, someone who enters a trade with a mouse or a keyboard, they laugh at them, right? It's a derogatory term. And So you're already starting with like fifty out of a hundred, and then those guys aren't regulated and can do whatever they want. They can paint the chart, trick you, all the stuff that's actually regulated in, in stock markets, they can get away with willy-nilly with no repercussions. And so the returns are more like power law distribution, you know, one percent taking all the money from ninety-nine percent versus maybe like twenty or twenty-five percent taking from the rest in stock day trading, plus that pa-that pie is actually expanding because Stocks grow in value because they have revenue, because they're productive. These cryptos are already, again, huge haircut off the top. It's a race to, race to the bottom because, as we know from the research that Sam Callahan, head of research at Swan Private, and I did over the summer, you know, only three out of twenty-two thousand altcoins have ever had a new all-time high in Bitcoin terms three or more years after their first all-time high, and those three, it's just Doge, Ripple, and, and BNB, have bled out significantly since and will never ever hit that all time high again. So it's just a race to zero in Bitcoin terms, no matter what, for all these altcoins. so it's just, it's just fake, it's pretend. SBF is a villain, Brian Armstrong is a villain, Andreessen Horowitz is a villain, Paradigm is a villain, all these guys are just, you know, Wasting our time with this chatter and this noise and keeping people away from the signal that is Bitcoin." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "25:42", "start": 1541.59, "text": "And I think you're right, I think there's been so much fakeness, fake decentralization, over marketing, overhype, dishonest, deceptive practices all around the crypto, quote unquote, crypto world. And so, look, I, I think, I, you know, I basically agree with you, but I think one other question I would pose, I wonder, is there also just a broader problem of- Let's say apathy. Is it just that the average person, like, as an example, right? So the quote-unquote crypto market, in the recent, let's say, twenty twenty-one, you know, tw-uh, early twenty twenty-two bull, bull cycle, had a peak of, let's call it three trillion or so, which is still tiny compared to the global market for bonds or the global market for property or stocks. Is it also just around apathy and lack of knowledge in the broader market, like even excluding the quote-unquote crypto?" }, { "speaker": "cory_klippsten", "time": "26:32", "start": 1591.81, "text": "Yeah, I mean, it A drop in the bucket, and this will be a much more interesting conversation with Bitcoin at ten trillion, obviously. So, you know, they're twenty X up from here or something, four or five hundred K Bitcoin will be in every conversation all the time at that point, and I don't think we're that far away from that. That's, that's this decade, in my view. So, yeah, I mean, some of it is, some of it is patience to some degree as far as like wishing that that were here immediately, but it's not gonna happen without people working on it, without People telling their friends without educating, without understanding better for yourself so that you can go, you know, deeper into your own portfolio, you know, responsibly. Yeah, I just, I just think that a lot of people have kind of given these, these counter actors a pass, and they shouldn't. They should understand exactly what's going on here, that we do have an opportunity to bring Bitcoin all the way through to trusted store of value, widely used- Mediumo exchange and at least dual unit of account by twenty thirty five. Like, we race hard, we can get this shit done in thirteen years. If we fail and we don't win the adoption race and the existing system, you know, led by actors in the US government and probably, frankly, with, with a lot of co-option by Consensys and FTX and all the crypto folks and Andreessen Horowitz, like, they may not realize it, but they will To survive, end up working contra Bitcoin, because they will be-- they are by nature political, because they are centralized and centralizing over time, so it introduces politics into it no matter what. Well, the end game of politics is getting involved in politics at the US government level to survive. And just like a dictator who may have come into some country, you know, wishing the best for the people, once you cut a few deals with a few shady people, few, few shady characters for the good of the people, now there's dirt on you. Now you've gotta start paying people off, now you've got a patronage network, now it's like the health and safety of your children depend on staying in power and you follow the path of every dictator. Well, that's exactly the path that these crypto casinos follow. They start off not making a judgment, just saying, \"Hey, let's not be tribal, let's let a million flowers bloom,\" and not ex-- not actually exercising sound judgment and making a determination that Bitcoin is different from these shit coins and these scams and the- The end game of that is desiring to be co-opted by government and the banking system and becoming part of it and working contra Bitcoin." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "29:12", "start": 1752.17, "text": "Back to the show in a moment. CoinKite dot com is the place for Bitcoin hardware and security gear. They sell the Coldcard MK4, so this is the newest version. It has two secure elements, it's got NFC support, it's got more RAM and CPU, and it's a very reliable performer. So make sure you are using some reliable hardware as part of your Bitcoin. Coin security setup. When you take your keys off the exchange or take your coins off the exchange into keys that you control, CoinKite has a range of tools that can help you, whether that's the cold card or you want to use some of the new NFC TapSigner features or even the Sats card, which is like the new openDime. You can find all of this over at CoinKite dot com. Get a discount on your cold cards with the code Livera. Now, when it comes to software wallets, check out Green. This is Blockstream's industry-leading Bitcoin and Liquid wallet Green has powerful features such as multi-signature security, full node verification, and Tor support. So with Blockstream Green, you can choose to use it in single-signature mode or multi-signature. You can secure Blockstream Green with multi-signature where you hold one key on your device and another on Blockstream's servers, so you can protect your wallet with two-factor authentication. Blockstream Green also has integration with hardware wallets like Blockstream Jade, Ledger, and Trezor devices, giving you the best of both worlds. Cold storage of your Private keys combined with Blockstream Green's full suite of features and multi-signature security. Blockstream Green gives you a balance of convenience, security, and control, and is available for iOS, Android, or desktop over at blockstream dot com slash green. Don't worry about what could happen to your Bitcoin cold stack. Unchain Capital can help you by upgrading your security to multi-signature. They can walk you through the process of creating a two of three vault where you hold two keys and they hold one key. Now Unchained have a concierge onboarding program that can walk you through this process, so you can buy this service on their website, they will ship you the hardware if you need it, they'll do a call with you and walk you through the setup of your vault, then they'll also walk you through withdrawing from an exchange or a custodian or a single signature hardware wallet or device into your vault. This will give you that additional peace of mind, and while you're with Unchained, you might choose to access any of their other services such as the loans feature Or their trading desk feature, which is available in multiple US states. So if you're interested, go to unchained dot com slash concierge, use the code livera for a discount there. And now back to the show. I couldn't have said it better. I think that was an excellent explanation of the dynamic that is likely to play out with some shitcoins, that the likely outcome for them isn't necessarily that they just all go to zero in this big, blaze, is that some of them end up getting captured by the government, and that is-" }, { "speaker": "cory_klippsten", "time": "32:04", "start": 1923.85, "text": "Yeah, and again, it's, it's the, it's the players in the ecosystem, it's the big trading firms, it's the Alumitas, the Jumps, it's, it's the, the exchanges like Coinbase and FTX, like and Binance, like those are the entities that actually accrue all the lasting value or all the, all the longer term value in the crypto space. It's, it's the picks and shovels, it's the casinos themselves that control the market, and they don't actually care, as you know from Sam Bankman-Fried himself, In the black box or what's in the magic box at all. It's just something that can be traded and thus will be traded as long as it's allowed to be traded. They don't actually care what it does or even know what it does. Like that guy doesn't understand Bitcoin, he openly talks about not understanding Bitcoin." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "32:48", "start": 1968.22, "text": "Yeah. And one other question I'm curious to get your thoughts on, given we've been through various cycles in Bitcoin, now it doesn't necessarily have to be four-year cycles or whatever, but I think most people agree we-- you know, we've seen these sort of bull If it wasn't for so much of this, you know, quote unquote, crypto nonsense, like if we could just wave that magic wand and say, \"Okay, no, you know, crypto nonsense,\" do you think we still would have had cycles?" }, { "speaker": "cory_klippsten", "time": "33:17", "start": 1996.64, "text": "You know, I don't know. I don't know if we'll be able, be able to see until we're like way past it, you know, and, and what defines the end of these, you know, so we had like a two-year cycle from '11 to '13, and then a four-year cycle from '1 four-year cycle from '17 to '21, sure as hell looks like we peaked in, you know, fall of '21, and would I take another four-year cycle that ends in a rip-roaring bull market in twenty twenty-five? Sure, I'll take that guarantee. But I'd also love to see this thing shoot past, you know, way past all time high next year, and then, you know, settle back a little bit and shoot up more, and just kind of like get out of those cycles and, and just kind of have more of a random. I think it's better for Bitcoin in the long run to have kind of a, a random walk. Upward, that isn't so tied to that, 'cause, you know, I just, I just, you know, the meme is probably not, doesn't really have much of a rational basis, and so seeing it die, I think would probably be good, but we'll see. It may have legs yet. Yeah." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "34:23", "start": 2062.61, "text": "Yeah. And, I mean, typically I'm not saying it's like, oh, it's, it's preordained to be some four-year halving cycle. I just mean more in the sense that, even, l-let's say we could Third momentum, you know, crash, and, you know, I'm not saying every four years, but w- maybe that would have been the case anyway." }, { "speaker": "cory_klippsten", "time": "34:44", "start": 2084.02, "text": "Yeah, I think it's, I think it's orthogonal. I don't think it's necessarily tied to each other. If anything, there's a huge incentive for the altcoin promoters to promote pump cycles so that they can get a bunch of dog crap off the ground, you know, according to the latest memes, you know, saying, \"Hey, the halving is com-come-coming and alts always perform better than Bitcoin.\" Bitcoin in, in, in bull markets, and the bull market's definitely coming, so buy my shitcoin. So I think, I think that type of, that type of, numerology or astrology or whatever is, is much more useful to pump and dump promoters than it is to promoters of sound money." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "35:28", "start": 2128.2, "text": "Of course, yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, we are I think many of us are clear-eyed about what our end goal is. It's, you know, to price things in sats. We wanna reprice the world into sats, and I think to your, some of your, some of the earlier points as well about avoiding capture of the system, I think that's probably one other question that's still in people's minds around things like KYC, right? Now, I have my own thoughts on this as well, but I'm curious how you're seeing that. Do you see KYC as being like this big existential risk to Bitcoin," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "36:02", "start": 2161.96, "text": "That we would like it to be, or how are you seeing that?" }, { "speaker": "cory_klippsten", "time": "36:04", "start": 2164.37, "text": "I think this kind of fits into the race versus the war, to me. I think that, people who are staunchly- In favor of, of no KYC coins or just, you know, peacefully building their, their own large, not KYC'd stack or, you know, mining without having their name on the internet or whatever it is, you know, I think that's the type of thing that makes Bitcoin look really, really difficult to attack. Which is amazing, but it's also wildly positive for Bitcoin's chances in this race to avoid the war. To have the price of Bitcoin go way, way, way up. This is a monetary protocol. This is about sucking assets into Bitcoin that, you know, that value is, is better stored in Bitcoin than it is in these inferior asset classes. And, you know, that's gotta be meeting people where they are. That's, that's, you know- Obviously at Swan, we do everything we possibly can to encourage self custody, and we write all kinds of, you know, articles and do podcasts about coin joins and mixing, and, you know, like we promote all kinds of services. You know, I probably searched my handle and the number of times I've sent people to Bisk over the years when they're asking about no KYC coins, like, check it out, if that works for you, then you should absolutely do that, and if that's how you wanna roll. I think the Azteco guys are doing cool stuff with vouchers. Where if you, you know, if you have the time and like a big stack to you is like a few thousand or something, like, and you're gonna go and go visit a bunch of stores and use vouchers to build your stack, like, by all means do it. But, you know, when you're talking about people buying, you know, tens of millions of dollars, like, you just can't do that. Without it, and frankly, we want those people on our side as staunch Bitcoin advocates, and we want them not to abdicate their role in the system. We want them to flip the system from the inside. Right. So I think they're both advancing the cause of Bitcoin and advancing the speed that we're running the race so that we don't have to fight this war." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "38:13", "start": 2292.76, "text": "Right, and I think that's a fair way to put it. I understand, and, you know, I face criticism on this point also. People say, \"Oh, look, see, you're supporting a KYC exchange, or you work with a KYC company.\" But here's how I'm seeing it as well. I think, would I rather somebody hold some KYC coin that they self-custody or hold zero? I would rather they hold some coin than zero. So, and that person is still helping. They are still helping the overall cause, as you were saying, they Stand, people like us, you and I, Cory, we might face criticism for, you know, working with the KYC environment, but I still believe on net we are in a world of overall surveillance, and our best chance at improving this overall thing is to bring about a Bitcoin standard or some kind of world where people can just transact natively in Bitcoin. And I believe that we can, if we bring more people into our system, into our world, into our parallel financial system of Bitcoin Bitcoin, we're helping speed that process. But, you know, it's one of those things where there is a bit of a heated debate, and we see this back and forth, but I still believe getting more people into the system is helpful, and I think perhaps that's, maybe that's where the, that kind of disagreement lies, because sometimes people would say, \"Oh, well, see, that, you know, that KYC hodler is not helping the censorship resistance,\" but I actually do believe in some small way they are, but, you know, let's see." }, { "speaker": "cory_klippsten", "time": "39:42", "start": 2382.38, "text": "I mean, listen, shout out to the anons that do DM me, many of whom are very, very staunch no KYC people, and they at least admit that, you know, I and Swan are good for Bitcoin, even if we disagree on a few points. So, you know, you-- there may be just a few of you that have written, but it really means a lot 'cause, you know, I know how passionate, some of these folks that are, that are, you know, coding amazing shit around privacy tech and, and the fact- fact that they can actually reach out and, and drop a note, you know, you know who you are, there's only three of you, so, but I appreciate it. Yeah. it's, it's been a rough year, I've been in a lot of fights this year." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "40:25", "start": 2425.15, "text": "Yeah, I mean, look, there's a lot of fights all the time in, in, Bitcoin land, but at the same time, let's, also remember to zoom out, right? Because if we look at, you know, I can imagine what someone like Jeff Booth might say I can imagine the way he might explain this as well is to sort of really zoom out and remember the bigger picture. There are a lot of people who just literally have, you know, all of their money in, let's say, stocks and bonds, and they have zero Bitcoin. And right now, Bitcoin is this tiny, tiny thing. If we're able to grow it, we are able to effectively grow the size of our quasi-army, right? We're not like actually going to fight, but in a sense, we're going to push an idea, an idea whose time has come, this idea Idea of a money that's outside the control of any central bank, any government, any corporation. And so, you know, I think that's really how I'm seeing it, but I can understand, right? There are privacy and security concerns. You know, actually, here's another interesting one. How public should we be about our Bitcoin use? Like, should we walk down the street with a Bitcoin t-shirt? how do we balance that sort of privacy, security concern, but also we wanna advocate, we want to help normalize Bitcoin, don't we?" }, { "speaker": "cory_klippsten", "time": "41:39", "start": 2499.12, "text": "Yeah. Yeah, it's an to make for themselves, you know, cat's out of the bag for me. so I have more incentive, you know, than most to make it completely safe and normal to be a Bitcoiner, and I think that's, that's a decision that I made pretty early on, obviously, deciding to be the face of the company and, and, and get going. And, you know, it, there are trade-offs. You gotta think about it a little bit, you know, you gotta think about security, you gotta think about, you know, Where you are, like getting recognized in public is a weird thing, and it's happening like increasingly, which is disconcerting. Like, yeah, I don't know that I'll ever get used to it, and I feel for these frickin' LA celebrities more than I ever have, and I don't think I'll ever say hi to one again 'cause it's such a weird, fucking thing. you know, it's like, I don't know, some guy came up, and super nice guy, and, you know, wanted to take a picture of me with his, you" }, { "speaker": "cory_klippsten", "time": "42:43", "start": 2563.29, "text": "It was like freaking out that I was like that Bitcoin Corey guy, and I was like, \"Ah, man, this is super weird. I'm never, ever, ever doing anything like this to any other human.\"" }, { "speaker": "cory_klippsten", "time": "42:55", "start": 2574.54, "text": "So, yeah. You know, but, I think, but I think it's important, you know, I look at, you know, Matt O'Dell putting his face out there and making that decision to, to be public and just like, my God, how important that has been to so many tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of, of new Bitcoiners, having his voice and having him stand behind his words and kind of just be out there with his name and his face and, and just the, the little bit of extra credibility that comes with it. That, you know, or just, just the, the different channels you can talk through once you're willing to be on camera and things like that. So, you know, again, it's a decision that everybody has to make for themselves, but some people are kind of called to do it and they, they feel up to it and they, they make that decision. I hope we don't get burned, you know? And I'm trying to make sure we win, win this damn race so there's no war on Bitcoiners. So that the-- that we don't have to pay for these decisions for some dumb reason because of some horrible Gestapo-like government actions in the future." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "43:53", "start": 2633.49, "text": "Right. And it's also probably fair to say that maybe if Bitcoin is so normalized, it'll eventually just be like, \"Oh, there walks Cory, or there walks Stephane, they are internet users.\" Well, okay, yeah, it's, you know, it's twenty twenty-two, wake up, everyone's got an email, everyone's got internet, like, I mean, I think if, if Bitcoin gets normalized to that degree, Such a big deal to be known publicly as a Bitcoiner, because eventually everyone will be a Bitcoiner. I mean, I guess, and that's what I want." }, { "speaker": "cory_klippsten", "time": "44:24", "start": 2664.27, "text": "Yeah, just, just, it's just money. That's what we wanna get to. And I think we have-- I think we actually have this timeframe of, you know, the next decade and a half to two decades where we can win this race And again, never have to fight the war. Yeah, so you asked about the article, it's almost done. Tomer gave me some notes. Unlike the one, the mission statement, the ten million Bitcoiners article, which like, I was just, I channeled that one. I literally wrote it down straight, whatever, six hundred words, didn't edit a single character, and published it. this one, I don't know. It's taken a little while, 'cause I've been thinking about it for so long. There's so many things I wanna fit in, but I want it to be short. anyway, I'm gonna give a speech version of it, at Pacific Bitcoin, so I think I'll do it on Thursday, November 10th, but, I'll kinda talk about this concept at PB." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "45:19", "start": 2719.13, "text": "Fantastic. And so this is another common question, and I received this question also. People ask me, \"What are You would suggest if somebody's listening now, they wanna get involved and they aren't a developer, what are some of the ways for them to get involved?" }, { "speaker": "cory_klippsten", "time": "45:36", "start": 2736.08, "text": "Well, there are so many different ways. I mean, you can, you can write, you can join a customer service team part time remotely for many of these Bitcoin companies. You know, we've had people just, you know, come on part time for ten hours a week and end up on the team, you know, a year later full time, things like that. Bitcoin companies are really used to working remotely. Very few of them have Have like a central location with all their employees in one place, so you can kind of be anywhere, which is nice, especially for people that live out of expensive population centers, because Bitcoin companies, again, because all of this venture capital gets sucked up by the, the crypto scams, most of the Bitcoin companies are fairly lean and aren't paying, ridiculous salaries. And so we actually lean toward, hiring remote in many cases because the cost of living is so much lower there, it makes running a Bitcoin company a better value prop because we use remote workers. So that's something to keep in mind. I think all of the Bitcoin companies and projects are looking for some proof of work. That can be an active Twitter handle, that can be a newsletter that you write for your friends and family, that can be just a blog that you start. The quality is really easy to see. Getting involved in a meetup, organizing meetups, joining-- I mean, I don't think there's This, Bitcoin meetup that couldn't use another organizer, you know, or another person that's actually gonna do some work to help with the meetup. And a lot of these connections get formed, you know, you hang out in Minneapolis and get to know Brandon Quidam, and there's something that you do in Bitcoin, like he'll hook you up with the people you need to know to, to apply your skills and desires to the Bitcoin ecosystem. You're in the Kansas City area, and you go to some meetups and meet Brady and you meet Don Stewart, like they will hook you up with Win Bitcoin, and it's like that in sort of every city. So I think it's just a decision to, to do it. And then I'd say the, the other thing is pronounce the podcaster names correctly. Like, that's that proof of work, right? The proof of, proof of listen is actually knowing, you know, who these people are and having some favorite episodes and being able to recommend some articles. Like, when, when people make it through three or four interviews and get to, you know, get to, you know, an interview with me where I'm screenin- I'm usually just asking them about like Bitcoin media and content and asking for their favorites and asking them to describe why, 'cause that's how I can tell if they're actually on the mission or not. And, you know, I find those people that have like deleted blockchain from their resume a week before very, very quickly, 'cause they don't know shit. You know, and you won't last, like, you just won't last at, at these Bitcoin-only companies like Unchained and Swan, like, you just, it's not gonna make it unless you actually give a shit." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "48:32", "start": 2912.01, "text": "Yeah, there's a very marked difference in the culture, the way of thinking. It, it's, it's difficult to exactly put your finger on it, but when you're talking to some- Order, you can sort of, you can pretty quickly figure that out. So let's chat up a little bit about Pacific Bitcoin, it's coming up. Do you wanna tell us a little bit about what you're looking forward to?" }, { "speaker": "cory_klippsten", "time": "48:52", "start": 2931.51, "text": "Hell yeah, man. as, as quite a few people know at this point, I had, some family health issues the last couple of years that really made it very difficult for me to travel. So I still haven't been to a big Bitcoin conference since, twenty nineteen in San Francisco, where I met you. Yeah. If you remember that, June 26th and 27th, I think. So yeah, so I'm really excited about this. I'm, I'm psyched to be going to Miami for the Bitcoin Magazine conference in May. It's May, right? Yeah. in Miami, so that's gonna be awesome. And then we're doing our annual conference now in Los Angeles, Pacific Bitcoin, which Swan is organizing, and obviously a bunch of other companies are, are chipping in and sponsoring and, and doing their own parties and things, but it really is gonna be pretty amazing" }, { "speaker": "cory_klippsten", "time": "49:42", "start": 2981.78, "text": "We take a lot of pride in making it fun and cool and having a lot of good entertainment. There's three stages for seven hours a day, both days, so that's, that's twenty-one hours a day, of course, of, of Bitcoin education and fun across the three stages. The Swandome is back. So if you remember the Swandome from Bitcoin twenty twenty-one, we had that out in the, in the outside of the Bitcoin conference, so we've reconstructed a bigger Swandome for this one. The conference itself is in the, the Barker Hangar at Santa Monica Airport, which is an awesome venue. You can really dress it up and make it amazing. They've done, you know, MTV Movie Awards and all kinds of film premieres and things like that in this space, so the production company is fantastic and, and I just think it's gonna be an awesome time. And then there's obviously great parties and events. The VIP experience at this conference is gonna be one of the best things that, that I can imagine participating in around Bitcoin. we have obviously like a great experience for the VIPs there at the conference, but then also VIP party on Thursday night, like six to midnight, full buyout of one of the best bars and restaurants in LA right on the, right on Ocean Ave. and then a wrap party at a, at a beach house mansion with panoramic, unblocked ocean views on Saturday after the conference. So kind of like a, a day party Bitcoin brunch. after just for the, for the VIPs. So, all of it's gonna be amazing. We've got, Lynn Alden, Michael Saylor, Jeff Booth, Fosse, Elise Kline, Stefan, Natalie, Peter, and Brady are the MCs. Each of you guys doing half a day. It's gonna be absolutely awesome. come meet all the Swans and friends, and we have some huge announcements. Oh, and I'm super psyched I'll get to meet some of the Spectre team in person for the- The first time, 'cause they're the, the latest additions to the Swansquad after, after we merged and joined, joined forces, about a month and a half ago. So that'll be really cool. yeah, just in general, like SoCal didn't go anywhere. It's still the only warm, dry coastline in, in the most powerful, wealthiest nation on earth, and it's a pretty fun place to hang out. So, yeah, hit us up. you can use, w-w-what do you have a, do you have" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "52:11", "start": 3130.84, "text": "a Mom, code Livera. Everything's code" }, { "speaker": "cory_klippsten", "time": "52:13", "start": 3133.12, "text": "Livera. There you go. You, use Livera. Always use Livera. I just put, I just punch in Livera now when I'm on like, you know, Groupon or, you know, Amazon. I'm like, maybe there's a different-- Just in case," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "52:23", "start": 3143.25, "text": "you know? No, I mean, I'm, I'm really looking forward to it. I think it's gonna be excellent. And the thing is, if you, like, honestly, listeners, check out the lineup. The lineup is incredible. Like, you just Call Signal," }, { "speaker": "cory_klippsten", "time": "52:42", "start": 3161.68, "text": "man. Like, l- no crypto speakers, no crypto sponsors. It's only Bitcoin. And I think that's something listeners can appreciate. Yeah, I think some, I think there's gonna be some magic that happens having a conference this size that's only Bitcoin. Yeah." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "52:57", "start": 3176.93, "text": "Now, one other point I often get, and I'm sure you've probably heard this also, some people say, \"Uh, conferences are a ripoff, or they're a waste of time, or, you know, you know, now one way I, I think about that is sometimes it would be I, I can listen to that artist on Spotify, why would I wanna go see their concert, right? It's sort of like, well, you're kinda missing the point, like you might actually really enjoy meeting other people who are into the same thing you're into, in this case, Bitcoin. And I think there's a real sense of community that you can start creating, and when you meet the right people, you can just make the right connections, and the value of that is just so, so much more than the ticket price. It's worth it, if, especially if it's a" }, { "speaker": "cory_klippsten", "time": "53:41", "start": 3221.2, "text": "Yep. Oh, I also, I would be remiss not to give us a shout out to, StackChain, which I think is one of the most fun little communities. It may be the first truly like decentralized community movement within Bitcoin that's like a subset of Bitcoiners that has like a positive vibe. I think that's what's kind of so magical and fun about it. Anyway, yeah, check out StackChain, just look for hashtag StackChain one word. It is not an altcoin. Thanks for your questions. but check it out on Twitter and, and learn about StackChain. But yeah, we're doing, we're doing a Lightning hackathon with Voltage and, and TBP, Chris Calicot and Dustin Trammell's fund, on Wednesday, the day before the conference, but also at the same time in the same space is a StackChain hackathon. So that should be really fun. but yeah, check that out. And DM me if you don't know what StackChain is, it's awesome." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "54:37", "start": 3277.18, "text": "Right, that's the other one. I see a" }, { "speaker": "cory_klippsten", "time": "54:41", "start": 3281.1, "text": "Best question. That's the best question. Yeah, I've had a couple people come at me and saying, \"Oh my god, you too, Cory? Not you? What is this StackChain crap?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "54:50", "start": 3290.05, "text": "Especially after you spent basically the last year going after the altcoiners yourself, right? you went after all these, you know, anyway, we're gonna get into all that now. \"" }, { "speaker": "cory_klippsten", "time": "54:58", "start": 3298.47, "text": "StackChain, StackChain, in case you don't get a chance to look it up, it's just gamified stacking. Somebody stacked five dollars worth of Bitcoin and then somebody else replied with a tweet" }, { "speaker": "cory_klippsten", "time": "55:11", "start": 3311.04, "text": "$2,200. The, the stack chain community has bought almost $2 million worth of Bitcoin. I personally sat down next to Michael Sailor last month when he was here in LA, actually just, what, two and a half weeks ago, and, and basically forced him to stack, I think it was block 2080. So Sailor's on the chain, Booth's on the chain, Foss is on the chain. anyway, it's, it's, it's quite fun and it's very, it's very meme heavy and it's very social" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "55:41", "start": 3341.18, "text": "Yeah, so it feels very much like a successor to the Lightning Torch from two thousand and nineteen, right? So that was, you know, one of the big ones from that year. so yeah, you know, I'm just looking forward to it, and I'm sure there'll be, all kinds of new memes and things that happen at Pacific Bitcoin, so you need to be there to experience it live. I think there's, there are just moments, there are just times and places that you just gotta be there. Yeah." }, { "speaker": "cory_klippsten", "time": "56:05", "start": 3365.14, "text": "It's gonna be fun. And by the way" }, { "speaker": "cory_klippsten", "time": "56:11", "start": 3371.04, "text": "Bitcoin Classics second tournament is at Pacific Bitcoin, plus we've got the Compton Magic coming by, we've got a bunch of NBA players coming, DelaVedova's bringing his Kings teammates, 'cause they happen to be in town playing the Lakers on Friday and they arrive on Thursday. the Professor, if you know, if you watch the N1 documentary on Netflix, this is one of the best ball handlers in the world, so he's coming and doing exhibition and hanging out, we've gotten to know him here the last few months in LA. so yeah, And this is basically like Bitcoin basketball mecca that you're about to walk into. All" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "56:48", "start": 3407.84, "text": "right, well, yeah, I think that's pretty much it that I had on, that I was thinking to chat about. So listeners, make sure you check out PacificBitcoin dot com. Cory, I'm looking forward to seeing you there. I mean, it's honestly, it's been a while since I've seen you in person, right? Like, you know, we've, long time. We've been chatting online, obviously we met in person all the, those years" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "57:11", "start": 3431.26, "text": "LA, November. Sounds good." }, { "speaker": "cory_klippsten", "time": "57:14", "start": 3433.54, "text": "See you in LA. I think this is-- That's what it is, right? Does that look like LA? Yes, it does. Yeah, yeah. Hold on. It's this way, right? Right. I don't know. One of those. Just reverse it. That's it. Take all right. All right." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "57:25", "start": 3445.17, "text": "I hope you enjoyed the show and get the show notes at stephanlivera dot com. Thanks, and I'll see you in the citadels." } ] }