{ "episodeId": "SLP441", "speakers": { "stephan": { "name": "Stephan Livera", "role": "host", "tag": "STEPHAN" }, "hermann_bitcoin_ekasi": { "name": "Hermann (Bitcoin Ekasi)", "role": "guest", "tag": "HERMANN" } }, "segments": [ { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "00:06", "start": 6.16, "text": "Hi, you're listening to Stephan Livera podcast, a show about Bitcoin and Austrian economics, brought to you by Swan Bitcoin. Today my guest is Hermann from Bitcoin Ekasi. So for those of you who don't know, this is a town Mossel Bay in South Africa. They have a Bitcoin community where there are some swim and surf coaches earning Bitcoin and also kids who are spending- Bitcoin in the town. So this is a really interesting story of actually banking the unbanked, and we get into some examples on how and why that is the case, and I'm sure you will appreciate the insights from this episode. 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It has a range of features such as multi-signature security, it's got full node verification where you can connect this up to your own Electrum server and use your own full node, and it also has Tor Those of you who want to use the privacy preserving features of the Onion Router, Blockstream Green has a multi-signature shield. You can, if you want, use it in single-signature mode, but the multi-signature shield has a feature where you can keep one key on Blockstream servers and that acts as a two-factor authentication, and you can also use time locks or a third backup key to ensure you retain full ownership of your funds. It's also integrated with hardware wallets like Blockstream Jade, Ledger, Trezor, and so there's a range of features. It's multi-platform, you can Or desktop, go to blockstream dot com slash green. And now onto the show." }, { "speaker": "hermann_bitcoin_ekasi", "time": "03:05", "start": 184.7, "text": "Hiram, welcome to the show. Yeah, how's it, man? Thanks for having me." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "03:09", "start": 188.57, "text": "Yeah, I think you're doing some cool stuff, and I thought this would be a really cool story for listeners to hear about. So, yeah, do you wanna just tell us a little bit about yourself? I know you're doing, you know, I had the chance to bre-meet you just briefly at, El Salvador in, at adopting Bitcoin, and, you know, I was really interested So, do you wanna just give us a bit of a background on yourself and, how, how you came to be where you are?" }, { "speaker": "hermann_bitcoin_ekasi", "time": "03:36", "start": 215.74, "text": "yeah, man. Well, I'm in-- I'm, I'm based in a, in a town which is about four hours east of Cape Town. So we're based in Mossel Bay. Been using Bitcoin, as a means of payment since about two thousand and fifteen. We, we were hit with sanctions, in our business. we, we cater for, for overseas tourists. Our market is primarily in Russian Years now. So, yeah, and when the first sanctions started to hit, we, we started using Bitcoin 'cause we couldn't receive payments via bank transfer anymore. And I've just been obsessed with Bitcoin since then because I thought to myself, like, this is a wonderful, wonderful technology that allows you to, to do what you wanna do without governments, you know, for some ridiculous arbitrary purpose cutting you off. I mean, we had nothing to do with, with the hostili-hostilities there, but we were prevented from doing business as a result of it. So-" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "04:28", "start": 267.94, "text": "Yeah, and with the sanctions, You telling us a little bit about how that happened, is it mainly just that you couldn't get access to normal banking or that you couldn't receive payments from the customers? Is that what was going on?" }, { "speaker": "hermann_bitcoin_ekasi", "time": "04:38", "start": 277.93, "text": "Yeah, pretty much, I mean, sort of the stuff that's happening now between Russia and Ukraine, it-- there was a precursor to that, which, you know, that sort of started in twenty fourteen, I think, with the annexation of Crimea. So there's been a long history to it. The stuff you see now hasn't just popped out of nowhere. And so, you know services. I mean, ironically, the first payment we received in Bitcoin was from Ukrainians, not from Russians. So they obviously were banking in Russia despite being Ukrainian, which is the case for a lot of people there. And yeah, it's just, I'm, I'm just so grateful that we, that, that we had a way to circumvent that." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "05:18", "start": 317.95, "text": "That's great to hear. And so you, I think in your article, you mentioned you started accepting Bitcoin in 2015. So it's been some time, right? It's not like you just came to" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "05:30", "start": 330.02, "text": "An opportunity to use Bitcoin where you had been shut out of the fiat financial system. And so I'm curious as well, like even back in those twenty fifteen days, were you experiencing resistance from customers? Were they saying, \"Oh, I don't wanna, you know, I don't wanna go and get Bitcoin, why can't I just pay you with cash or fiat?\"" }, { "speaker": "hermann_bitcoin_ekasi", "time": "05:49", "start": 348.97, "text": "Yeah, I mean, I think, I think there was less resistance then than, than what I'm experiencing now, 'cause people probably didn't know about it. I mean, hardly anyone knew about it. We had to sort of People when they, when they reached out and they wanted to pay, and we said, \"Look, we can't take fiat payments, and we have to sort of, you know, direct them towards resources where they could go and learn.\" I think today there's a lot more sort of knee-jerk, resistance towards Bitcoin. I think a lot of people have come to hear about it and they don't like it for other reasons, like, you know, they, they, they don't trust themselves or they don't trust, you know, they want to trust the government, and for that reason" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "06:31", "start": 391.42, "text": "That's fascinating to hear, because you would think after seven years, we've gotten better at teaching people what Bitcoin is, but it, it, in a way, there's maybe some emotional or psychological barriers that were even more difficult to surpass than just the initial hurdle of just knowing what Bitcoin is and how to use it." }, { "speaker": "hermann_bitcoin_ekasi", "time": "06:50", "start": 409.53, "text": "Yeah, I mean, the, the people that, that we received our first payments from were very quick to, to sort of become enthusiastic about it. it just solved a practical problem, you know, and they had a practical- problem, they wanted to come on holiday and they wanted to come on holiday with us because they liked the stuff that we were doing and putting together, and they couldn't pay us because their banks had shut them out, and Bitcoin solved that problem, and it was just a practical circumvention of that. I think today, like you say, a lot of people have, you know, emotional issues with it and are actually rejecting the wrong thing, they're not rejecting Bitcoin itself." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "07:21", "start": 441.39, "text": "Yeah, that's unfortunate, but hopefully people do learn. So tell us a little bit about what you are doing, as I understand you" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "07:30", "start": 450.0, "text": "Exactly, are you selling on that side, and then we'll get into, the Bitcoin Ekasi project as well." }, { "speaker": "hermann_bitcoin_ekasi", "time": "07:35", "start": 455.46, "text": "yeah, I mean, like on that side, we're basically just a regular tour, tour operator. I mean, we put, we put trips together for people that wanna come to South Africa, they wanna come on a surfing holiday, they don't wanna bother with organizing the thing themselves, you know, which is can be quite a hassle if you're going to a new country for the first time, if you just wanna sit back and relax, you wanna make sure We put, we put the holiday together for people, and, yeah, we, we organize, you know, seven-day, ten-day, fourteen-day trips, whatever the pe- whatever the group wants specifically, and, yeah, it's nothing, nothing special about it, it's just basically surfing holidays." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "08:14", "start": 494.35, "text": "Fantastic. Okay, so let's get into the Bitcoin project aspect of it. Now, I know you were inspired by Bitcoin Beach, so can you tell us a little bit about, like, what was your experience there, getting inspired by Bitcoin Beach, and then going on to start your own project?" }, { "speaker": "hermann_bitcoin_ekasi", "time": "08:28", "start": 508.04, "text": "Yeah, I mean, I've, I've been pretty much obsessed with Bitcoin, you know, since first getting into it because it just, it's just this incredible thing. You know, I'm, I'm not super tech-minded. I mean, I, I try my best to keep up with the technical" }, { "speaker": "hermann_bitcoin_ekasi", "time": "08:44", "start": 524.13, "text": "Well, but I've always wanted to contribute in some way, and when I heard about Bitcoin Beach, I thought to myself, \"You know, well, this, this is a way in which I can contribute. I've been running this little organization, you know, as a sort of a side operation to our business. it's a little nonprofit organization, and we work with kids from a really poor community, try and, you know, teach them a constructive skill, and, you know, we use surfing, and it's, it's better than them running around causing shit, you know, and That I could contribute to the Bitcoin ecosystem by, you know, demonstrating that Bitcoin can be used as a form of daily money, and because, I mean, at the end of the day, that's what will have to happen, you know? I'm not, I'm not saying that Bitcoin is ready for that today, but eventually, if we want Bitcoin to become this, you know, global, you know, this global asset that people use on a daily basis, then, you know, someone has to start somewhere, and I think Bitcoin Beach did that, and they demonstrated that it's possible, But you gotta start some way, and, yeah, that's basically what we're trying to emulate, trying to showcase that it's possible in another location, not just in one." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "09:52", "start": 591.92, "text": "So can you set the context as well for us? In the town you're in, what's it like there? Unemployment, illiteracy, h-housing, running water situation? Can you tell us a little bit about that?" }, { "speaker": "hermann_bitcoin_ekasi", "time": "10:02", "start": 601.98, "text": "Yeah, so it's, it, you know, it's, it's a typical South African township. You know, South Africa has this fucked up history. Sorry, situation of, of racial segregation, that, that this country has, and, you know, the townships are a sort of a hangover from that period, you know, where people, people congregate in, in large communities, sort of slums outside the big cities, and it's a sort of a situation you have in many other countries around the world, but, you know, and, you know, education is a big problem, illiteracy is, is a massive problem, a lot of people live without running water, you know, houses are constructed What people pick up off the side of the road, you know, you'll have, you know, some of the kids that, that we recruit, they, they live in, you know, there's like seven, ten people living in a one-bedroom, structure, you know, so there's no, there's no sort of privacy, there's, there's a big issue of fatherlessness because the, you know, the parents tend to go away and find work somewhere else and then start another family and never come back. So all, all the social issues that you would associate" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "11:14", "start": 674.19, "text": "And so as I understand, then the idea is you're trying to, in a way, with this project, you're helping show people that even under these conditions, Bitcoin still makes sense for people, and in some cases, it's the only alternative, right?" }, { "speaker": "hermann_bitcoin_ekasi", "time": "11:29", "start": 689.0, "text": "Yeah, a hundred percent. I mean, you know, I, I, I thought to myself when, you know, when I came across Bitcoin Beach and I heard what they did, I thought to myself, \"Well, you know, that's great because it shows that Bitcoin really starts at a ground level, you know?\" And I figured, demonstrate that Bitcoin works here, then, you know, there's no practical reason why it can't work anywhere else. I mean, I know a lot of people are gonna say that they prefer not to use it, and that's fine, you know, when no one's gonna force this on anyone else. But there's no, there's no practical reason why someone can't use it if it works here, like, you know, if people generally have the excuse that it's too complicated or it's too volatile or, you know, blah, blah, blah, whatever. And like, well, It's become a lot more difficult to justify, if you know what I mean?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "12:17", "start": 737.37, "text": "Yeah, sure. A-and so in terms of ability to use Bitcoin, basically, I've seen some of the videos you've been posting and stuff, so I presume most people have a phone and they're able to, you know, a smartphone." }, { "speaker": "hermann_bitcoin_ekasi", "time": "12:28", "start": 747.96, "text": "Most adults, yeah, most adults have smartphones. We, it's, it's very, it's very rare that we come across someone who, who don't have a smartphone. I mean, the phones are very low end devices. You hardly ever see iPhones. most You can pick one of those up for, for really cheap. I mean, and, generally the problem is does the phone have enough memory to, to load a new application? So, you know, if, if you have a Bitcoin wallet that takes up a little bit more memory, then you might have to start deleting other apps. That's actually the biggest problem that we have." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "13:00", "start": 780.32, "text": "Yeah, and, you know what, that's something I've noticed even, when I talk to Sri Lankans as well, that, that can have a, it can be a similar situation where they've So can you tell us a little bit about what that process has been like onboarding people into Bitcoin under these conditions?" }, { "speaker": "hermann_bitcoin_ekasi", "time": "13:20", "start": 800.32, "text": "I guess the one thing that we've done, it wasn't really planned, like, you know, a lot of the stuff we just kind of started talking to people and see how it goes. And I think the one thing that we found is just like, you know, demonstrating the, the practical use cases, like, you know, I don't, I don't show any particular products or services, but I've gotta say that Bitrefill has been one of the most magical" }, { "speaker": "hermann_bitcoin_ekasi", "time": "13:44", "start": 824.17, "text": "Could have found because, you know, it's sort of like, it, it's kind of funny, like I was just in Ghana recently for a conference there, and, and the same thing happened when I was, talking to people there about Bitcoin too, like we met some fishermen on the beach, and it's a very similar situation, you'll give them a couple of sats into a wallet, and they'll be like, \"Ah, yeah, this is kind of cool,\" and then, but the moment you, the moment you, show them how to convert those sats into They've just bought, you know, phone credits using digital tokens from their own phone, and, and that's kind of when it goes off like, \"This is, this is real money.\" Like the moment you can demonstrate it's real money, that's when the light bulb goes off. And, and generally, you know, using something like Bitrefill is the best way to do that because it's, it's, it's instant, you know, the value, a value that they're used to is instantly delivered to their phone, and that value is phone credit, and it's a very valuable" }, { "speaker": "hermann_bitcoin_ekasi", "time": "14:44", "start": 884.03, "text": "Commodity there. So yeah, that, that works really well, I think that's one, been one of the main ways we've, we've approached people. but to be honest, that work wasn't done by me, that work was done by the coaches who work for the organization, you know, because generally I'm from a much more privileged situation, I have an education, I've got a sort of a background in business and so on, and, you know, I've, I've tried my best to, to have the coaches from the community itself be the ones it's, I mean, you, you would have seen this in some of the places you've traveled to as well, where it's hard for an outsider to come in and sort of start helping people, you know? It's, it's, it's better for a person from the community. Yeah." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "15:26", "start": 925.86, "text": "So then I guess in a way, it's about that initial onboarding that you might have had to do with some of the coaches, and then eventually they are skilled up enough now to go out and actually do the teaching themselves. So I've seen, you've got a bunch of videos where Groceries at the, at the shop with Lightning. So tell us a little bit about how that came about." }, { "speaker": "hermann_bitcoin_ekasi", "time": "15:49", "start": 949.18, "text": "Yeah, well, I mean, so, you know, so, so we've got this group of kids that have, you know, been coming to our, our after-school program, you know, they, they attend five days a week, and, we try and encourage them to come down and, you know, and learn something useful. And so, I mean, we've started giving the kids who show like a regular attendance, we started giving them small rewards in Bitcoin, It's actually something that was suggested by Michael Peterson from Bitcoin Beach, you know, I was a little bit reluctant to do that, but, you know, I trusted his sort of guidance on this, and it's worked out really well, you know? and the way we approached that is kind of like, I mean, we've never given the kids money, you know, f-for as long as we've been running this, this organization, you know, it's been, it's been more than ten years now. I started-- we started the underlying nonprofit in twenty ten, and I've, And generally handing out free stuff isn't a good way to do that. Like, you don't, you don't hand out food, you don't hand out clothes, you don't, like, teaching someone a skill, that's a good way to learn, as, that's a good way to help poor communities, you know, teaching skills, but handing out free stuff, that generally, generally creates a toxic relationship. And so I was very reluctant to do that, but, you know, Mike explained to me that it's a very valuable thing to have because generally the children will attract more curiosity from people And so where adults might be reluctant to engage with another adult when they encounter this new technology, they'd be more willing to engage with a child and ask them, \"Hey, what are you doing? Like, what's this? You know?\" And they'd be more open to receive new information when they're talking to a child rather than being orange-pulled by an adult. And so it's been quite effective, you know, we've had people approach the kids asking, \"Like, hey, what the hell you doing here? What's going on? What's this?\" And then that sort of like sets You know, we're giving these kids these rewards, and they have to earn it. I mean, we don't just hand it out randomly, you know. We'll give kids the rewards if they've really shown sort of a level of commitment to the program and, and learning something useful. So, I mean, I mean, these kids, these kids showed up five days a week, after school, and, and that's, that's generally, you know, not easy for a child to do, you know, if they're just fucking around, then they'll probably go and do something else" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "18:14", "start": 1094.11, "text": "Like trying to get some shops onboarded in the town so that there's actually some circular economy growing there." }, { "speaker": "hermann_bitcoin_ekasi", "time": "18:21", "start": 1101.44, "text": "I mean, getting the, getting the shops on board is obviously the most difficult part of the whole thing, you know, like it's generally quite easy to, to tell someone, listen, you know, we're gonna be paying your salary in Bitcoin. I mean, 'cause they get paid on a weekly basis, so the sort of the volatility wouldn't affect them too badly, you know? and, and, and the amount of their salary is tied to fiat, so, you know, Adjusted for volatility on a weekly basis, but getting the shops on board, that's, that's quite tricky 'cause they're the ones that are sort of like, how can I put it, left with the hot potatoes at the end of the day, you know? So it's, it's been, it's been tough, and to be honest, I think I've seen it adopted in ways that have surprised me, you know, like we've, we've got, we've got ten shops that are accepting Bitcoin, and surprisingly enough, three out of ten is, is holding, holding on," }, { "speaker": "hermann_bitcoin_ekasi", "time": "19:14", "start": 1154.47, "text": "First, in August, last year, so it's been just over a year. she's holding on to a significant amount of Bitcoin, and she's seen the, she's seen the price go from around forty thousand dollars all the way up to sixty-something, and now I've seen it come back down to sub, you know, below twenty. So, I mean, it's, it's interesting to see people adopt it in that way, and it's, it's been entirely, I mean, we've been really careful not to push this onto people that don You know, we will be accused of as irresponsible, being irresponsible, you know, pushing a volatile asset into a poor community. So we've been really, really careful to, to, to keep it like as voluntary as possible, and which is part of the reason why we haven't expanded to more shops, you know? We try and keep it small because if something goes wrong, I guess at least the damage can be contained if, if we stay small." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "20:06", "start": 1206.25, "text": "Yeah, and I think it's also fair to say that you want those shops to have a chance of actually earning revenue, and if you, if there The shops, then it's not really as sustainable. So if, if you've only got a few shops and everyone's, everyone with Bitcoin is going to those shops, then there's a bit more of a, you're gonna, they're going to get a bit more Bitcoin revenue coming in. but I'm curious how some of those shops are dealing with it, because as an example, if they have to then go pay their suppliers or at staff or, or rent, how are they dealing with that? Or is it just more like they're treating it like, \"I'm gonna keep some of" }, { "speaker": "hermann_bitcoin_ekasi", "time": "20:44", "start": 1244.07, "text": "Cashing out, they, they'll, they'll, you know, for them it's sort of like a long term investment, so the money that they do have in Bitcoin is something that they don't need to cash out anytime soon. But that's only three out of ten, the other seven shops are, are all cashing out, and I guess for them, you know, for them, from, from what I've seen, it's more like a interesting sort of experience, it's, it's something new that they've, you know, I mean, 'cause I, I just spoke to and, we were dealing with a shop now again recently where the owner of the shop doesn't have a bank account, and we've been trying to find ways, okay, so how can we help him cash out? eventually, you know, we got to a point where it's like, okay, so his girlfriend, she's got the necessary papers, and so we can open a Paxful account using his girlfriend's papers, but the, but the shop owner himself. So it's kind of like, you know, it's, it's finding creative ways in which they can cash" }, { "speaker": "hermann_bitcoin_ekasi", "time": "21:44", "start": 1304.03, "text": "It's not circular, but it's one, it's one small step at a time, you know? We're not gonna, we're, we're not gonna close the loop overnight. And so, so far, so far seventy percent of the shops are cashing out, but we have seen a small percentage of shop owners actually going and then using their Bitcoin, so taking that, taking those Sats one step further. So we'll have one or two of the shop owners, for example, that's going to cut their hair at another shop that also accepts Bitcoin, and now there's a Bitcoin transaction happening So each time that thing happens, the sort of, we get closer to closing the loop. And so I think for them, for the most part, it's just an interesting experience in being able to make digital transactions, which, which they generally have, haven't been able to do, which is pretty cool." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "22:28", "start": 1347.84, "text": "Yeah. And of course, they can use the likes of Bitrefill, right? Like, so they could be using Bitrefill to get phone credit, and that's one of their ways to, quote unquote, cash out, but actually they're spending Bitcoin. So that's interesting" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "22:43", "start": 1363.29, "text": "to Any of them Bitcoiners and spending Bitcoin at the shops?" }, { "speaker": "hermann_bitcoin_ekasi", "time": "22:47", "start": 1367.07, "text": "Well, you know, I, it's, I guess it's an interesting question. I mean, especially now more recently, like now with, with what's happening in, in Russia in the last sort of, you know, half a year or so, that's been a little bit more than half a year now. I mean, the last couple of tours we've had, hundred percent of payments have come in in Bitcoin, 'cause now really there is no other way. Our market is still primarily Eastern Europe, and Russia, I mean, I guess in a nutshell, we've never really been pushing tourists, w-we've never really wanted to take tourists, tourists into these poorer areas. I mean, a lot of tour operators do that, but I don't like the sort of like drive-through-the-township type, type tourism. And we've, we've, we've always used the nonprofit to give people a taste of South Africa, 'cause we'll, we'll have tourists and kids surf together, but then it's like a constructive environment and it's a level playing field, you know? But now since we started the Bitcoin Going on up there, I see the coaches walking around with like Bitcoin t-shirts and stuff, and so we've ta- we've taken people up there, and it's, you know, it's surprising how many people are like interested in crypto and stuff, but they have no idea about the Lightning Network, for example. And so it's actually been, it's actually been interesting to see that, that this is sort of like becoming an educational project for people outside of the project as well, because now you've got this, this little project in this little unexpected environment that's using Bitcoin, and everybody knows Bitcoin Like get a better understanding of maybe what this is all about. So yeah, we've had people interested in what's going on there, and it's, it's fascinating to see that new connection between tourists and, and, and people on the ground in South Africa." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "24:24", "start": 1464.48, "text": "Yeah, and I think, I think you make a good point about, the so-called crypto people as well. Like oftentimes I'll be, you know, if I'm out at a meetup or I'm chatting with people, there are times when I'm chatting to a quote-unquote crypto person, and then, you know, not working and whatever, and then it's like, no, I'll actually demonstrate. Seeing is believing, right? So if you can show them, oh, hey, you can buy this thing on Bitrefill, or you can, you know, you can buy products, real world things with it. But I think you're right that a lot of people, even the ones who we would think might know, people who are brought, you know, in the broader, quote unquote, crypto world, again, quote, crypto is in quotes, right? Crypto means cryptography as far as, as far" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "25:12", "start": 1511.95, "text": "as transaction, but actually many of them have not. And so I think it's really fascinating to see. So it's one of those things where we, we have to get really good as a community at marketing and showing people, hey, this Lightning, it works, it's real, it's here. Here are some videos of me doing it. Here's, you know, here's a picture. Here are some people. Here's an island who do it. Here's a town who do it. You know, all of these things, we can't see enough of them." }, { "speaker": "hermann_bitcoin_ekasi", "time": "25:33", "start": 1533.36, "text": "Yeah, no, hundred" }, { "speaker": "hermann_bitcoin_ekasi", "time": "25:41", "start": 1540.79, "text": "percent He was telling me how CZ from Binance came to, visit El Zonte, and he'd never made a Lightning transaction before, you know? And it's kinda like, I mean, as, as far, look, I don't like, my, like I said, I'm not, I'm not super technical, but I've done as much work as I can, and as far as I can tell, like, I think Lightning is by far the most exciting thing happening in the entire crypto space, you know? Like, there's nothing more exciting than that because I think this is how You know, like if we've got a couple of hundred thousand people playing around with this technology, it's not really going to accomplish what, what we hope it can. So Lightning is a super exciting development, and then a lot of people like actually haven't seen it work in real life, and I think that's a very valuable thing that, that should be demonstrated, like in, in, you know, I mean, the coaches who earn their salaries, I mean, they, they're using Lightning like a normal person would use a bank, bank card, on a daily basis, they're literally buying their Every single day on the Lightning Network, and I know it's some, you know, a lot of it's custodial and so on, but it's early days, you know? these things are going to develop, and I mean, the development we have seen in the last, you know, three, four years have been incredible, so just imagine where we will be in another three, four years from now." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "26:57", "start": 1616.62, "text": "Back to the show in a moment. The lead sponsor of the show is Swan Bitcoin, and Swan has a service offering called Swan Premium, which will be launching quarter one or quarter two next Included will be exclusive research reports, educational content, discounts on Bitcoin products, and you'll also get privileged access to Swan events. So typically going to cost twenty dollars a month, but it's free if you sign up for a limited time if you join the waitlist. That waitlist is over at swan dot com slash premium. Are you ready for something big? BTC Prague is coming in June next year, June eighth to tenth. Prague is a beautiful city, it's a great spot, it's very accessible, and you can do some tourism and at the same time hit a Fantastic Bitcoin event. This is going to be a huge event. There will be a lot of Bitcoin newbies as well as whales, business insiders, developers, and you can connect together at an awesome networking opportunity. There'll be more than sixty world class speakers. I'll be one of the hosts, I'll be emceeing the main stage, and, you know, just come along and expect a fantastic summer atmosphere. There'll be some famous Czech beer, but don't get me to pour it for you. And you can go to btcprague dot com to get your tickets. Use code Livera for And lastly, when it comes to Bitcoin transactions, mempool dot space is my favorite Bitcoin blockchain explorer. It covers the multiple layers of Bitcoin's ecosystem. You can see the mempool, the blockchain, you can see second layer networks like the Lightning Network, and you can search and browse the Lightning Network and see all the nodes, see which nodes are well connected, see what channels they have, all kinds of fantastic information, and you can use mempool dot space before you target the fee for your Bitcoin transaction. Now, if you're with an enterprise, mempool dot space has custom mem- Mempool instances, you can have your cust-your company's branding, you can have increased API limits, you might get priority with the feature requests. There's all kinds of things available there. Go to mempool dot space slash enterprise. And now back to the show. Yeah, I think, I think that's totally fair as well. I think it's the right tool for the, for the job, right? So if I'm talking to somebody in the Western world, I'll basically one hundred percent of the time point them to a non-custodial app. But I, I can understand totally for" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "29:12", "start": 1752.29, "text": "point of view, look, you, you, it's, it's hard, it's gonna be hard to tell that person that they must use non-custodial apps. So I think as so long as that's seen as like the smaller spending money amount, and, you know, once they stack enough that it's worthwhile, okay, now it's time to go non-custodial. Okay, now maybe you even think about a hardware device, right? Like, and there are low-cost hardware devices, you know, like the, you know, as an example, there, there are these, you Blockstream Jade, these are some examples out there that are like low cost devices. So I'm curious, has that been something you've had, you've had that conversation then with any of the coaches or anyone, or they're not at that level yet?" }, { "speaker": "hermann_bitcoin_ekasi", "time": "29:53", "start": 1793.42, "text": "Yeah, we've got, we've got all our coaches onto hardware wallets for what they're saving long term. we've also got the shops, onto hardware wallets if they are, you know, holding for the long term. Like I said, most of them are actually cashing out, but the three" }, { "speaker": "hermann_bitcoin_ekasi", "time": "30:12", "start": 1812.29, "text": "Just sort of responsible way possible. I mean, you know, it's, it's really opened my eyes as well to see like on the ground one sometimes have to be like, you know, you've got to be aware of, of the realities of life, you know, like we've had, we had one coach who, who backed up his seed phrase, and unfortunately this was in the very early days, so he had very little, had very little Bitcoin saved, but the, the backing up process again and again, you know, writing on twelve words, we actually had to stamp it into metal, With his backup and it was missing some of the words, and he just hadn't written down all twelve words properly. And obviously, you can't have someone watching, looking over his shoulder when he's doing the backup process, 'cause that's part of the whole idea is that, you know, you do your own backup. Like if I'm doing the backup for him, what's the point? You know? I might as well keep it in a wallet that I control. So, like the, the, these are the realities of life on the ground if you're dealing with communities like this, and one" }, { "speaker": "hermann_bitcoin_ekasi", "time": "31:13", "start": 1872.83, "text": "Like the reality is that these things happen slowly, and if you're gonna do it res-in a responsible way, it means that sometimes the more responsible option is actually a custodial wallet before you get into the nitty gritty. but we are definitely, definitely pushing in that direction of, you know, being, being self-sovereign and control of your own keys, as far as possible." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "31:36", "start": 1895.58, "text": "Yeah, and I think that's a fair position to have. I see it like many of us will make mistakes. I mean, I, I made mistakes when I was new new to Bitcoin, and I'm sure you have, I'm sure probably most listeners have made a mistake at some point in their Bitcoin career, maybe lost some sat or done something stupid, sent something to the wrong address. You know, you know, we've all made these kinds of mistakes, and really, that's what makes us learn. So, you know, it's kind of, it's difficult to walk through life and think, \"Oh, with enough preparation, I can avoid every little error.\" Like, that's just not, that's just not realistic for, for you or for me or" }, { "speaker": "hermann_bitcoin_ekasi", "time": "32:06", "start": 1925.8, "text": "for Time right at the beginning. I think it's, I think it's a learning process, and I'm still, I'm still learning, you know, it's been, it's been however many years, and I'm still trying to figure out how to run a Lightning node. And it's, it's tricky, you know? It's, it's tricky. I'm, I'm using Lightning in a custodial way despite having been in Bitcoin for a while, and, you know, I consider myself relatively okay in, in the technicalities, but it's, it's, it's Yeah, I think as long as you recognize, you know, that it's a learning process, one, one step at a time." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "32:49", "start": 1968.81, "text": "Yeah, sure. I'm curious from your perspective, w-what's been the issue for you, like, with using, as an example, the likes of Phoenix or Breeze or like Moon Wallet or any of those kinds of wallets, what, what's been for you the main holdup, like, compared to using a custodial?" }, { "speaker": "hermann_bitcoin_ekasi", "time": "33:04", "start": 1983.82, "text": "Phoenix was actually one of the first wallets that, that, that we looked at when, when we started off." }, { "speaker": "hermann_bitcoin_ekasi", "time": "33:12", "start": 1992.31, "text": "Project using apps that, you know, you can download of the app store." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "33:16", "start": 1995.55, "text": "Yeah, sure." }, { "speaker": "hermann_bitcoin_ekasi", "time": "33:16", "start": 1996.21, "text": "So, you know, Phoenix was one of the first ones we looked at when Moon came out, that was, you know, also like pretty awesome. I, I love the simplicity, especially the in-- you know, the, the interchangeability between on-chain and, and Lightning. But at the end of the day, the one thing that, that the wallets we use have to have is a static L N URL address. I see. Because that's the most practical way of- Of paying salaries. Like if, if you're gonna, if you're gonna be paying salaries on a weekly basis, like every, every Monday I've got to sit down and pay the salaries for nine people, and I've got to do all of that over Lightning, then it's unrealistic to expect those guys to all send me a invoice, a Lightning invoice for the salary amount all at the same time when I have a thirty minute gap to sit down and do the salaries." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "34:08", "start": 2047.6, "text": "Gotcha. So it's the, it's the invoice timeout and the expiry window that's making it difficult for you there? Yeah, yeah. Gotcha. Yeah, interesting. And I, I mean, this is, I think this is actually just feedback for probably developers and people and builders listening, they might be thinking about ways around that. So as an example, there's, you know, lightning addresses and, I mean, there's all kinds of ways, around that, but yeah, some of them are custodial, but hopefully this is seen as like a, a stepping stone and eventually it gets to a state where, you know, they are able to do it non-- like everyone can do" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "34:42", "start": 2082.41, "text": "You're on that track. So, I, I, one other interesting point I wanted to bring up, I know you were tweeting about this, from your visit in, it says you were in Ghana and there was a village chief expressing like skepticism about Bitcoin. So, can you tell us a little bit about that? What happened there?" }, { "speaker": "hermann_bitcoin_ekasi", "time": "34:58", "start": 2097.88, "text": "Well, it turns out it was actually a chief from a neighboring village. So, one of the issues was that there was also a bit of jealousy involved. But, I mean, basically, so at, at the conference in Ghana, I went with a So some of the pe-people that were speaking at the event, and we visited a new education center that was, opened by, built with Bitcoin and Paxful. I mean, both of those organizations have been, I mean, especially like, you know, Paxful, who's backing the whole operation. I mean, in, in terms of like education, I think they're just heading in the right direction. They're heavily focused on educating people. and so they, they were opening this new education center, and this guy showed up, and he walked in with a You know, entourage of people, and he seemed to be the most important person there, and, I incorrectly assumed he was the chief from that village, but it turns out he was a chief from another village. but, but that's sort of besides the point, 'cause the point still was, and the point that I was trying to make with that tweet was that, you know, there's this perception that Bitcoin might be a scam because of all the scams associated with the quote unquote crypto space, and there's, there's a hell of a lot of stuff in the crypto space As, as something that it's not, you know, and it just, it just really, it just really kind of frustrates me, you know, I've, I've adopted the stance of being a Bitcoin maximalist purely for practical purposes, like I don't even want to bother looking at any of the other stuff because ninety-nine point nine times out of a hundred it's gonna be a scam, and that's just based on the experience of the last however many years. I was actually, I was actually very curious and excited when Ethereum launched back in the day, and I was like, \" See what's gonna happen, yeah? And like over time, with the whole ICO craze and stuff like that, like how, how many of those projects are just like gone? You know, like they launched with this whole big fanfare and whatever, and they're just, they're just gone. So, you know, this chief was, was skeptical. I think actually the guy, I think he actually might have lost some money on FTX, which also, is also why, why he was sour. And so he actually said in his speech that, you know, we should be careful, we, thing because Bitcoin might be a scam, you know, and I can understand why he says that, but obviously once you've, you know, educated yourself on Bitcoin, it becomes pretty clear that there's no way it can be a scam, like it's just a protocol. Like, how is that a scam? it's used by scammers and particularly scammers who create things that look and smell and feel like Bitcoin, but is in fact something completely different. And so it's kind of like sad to see that there's all these projects like riding on Bitcoin's success, you know, and Yeah, so I, I think, I think some people might have misunderstood that tweet, but like, like from a purely practical perspective, I think Bitcoin maximalism, maximalism just makes sense for people in my position because, like, if, if you're working in a community like ours where you're already struggling with basic education, like, you know, a lot of people struggle to read and write, where, where are you going to begin explaining the difference between the twenty thousand different shitcoins out there? Like, it's a hopeless task, like, so it's just the easiest, best, most practical And, and that's it. It just makes more sense, man." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "38:16", "start": 2295.55, "text": "Yeah, and as you were saying, it's-- there's all these, crypto clowns who are basically scamming and riding the reputation of everyday, of riding the reputation of Bitcoin to try to, or riding Bitcoin's coattails, right? And then they're, in a way, it's tarnishing Bitcoin because \"crypto,\" quote unquote, crypto fails, and then they, they blame Bitcoin and say, \"Oh, we need more regulation. Oh, I see, look, you toxic," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "38:42", "start": 2322.33, "text": "One, well, you know, the people who stuck with Bitcoin, they, they're able to, you know, and the people who particularly listened to the advice about not your keys, not your coins, they didn't get scammed, right? They've, they've got their coins. Yes, the, the paper value, the price of Bitcoin is down from the all-time high, but that's, that's al- that's always gonna be true over certain periods of time. So I think that's, you know, that's kind of where that lies. But I'm also People talking about, oh, do we need stablecoins? Do we need some kind of stablecoin on Lightning? E-e-things like this. I'm curious if you have any reactions to that being where you are." }, { "speaker": "hermann_bitcoin_ekasi", "time": "39:22", "start": 2362.43, "text": "Yeah, I mean, look, the volatility, obviously that's, you know, that's one of the first things people, people often ask me about, and I think if you're cashing in and out of Bitcoin on a regular basis, then I don't think the volatility is an issue, obviously." }, { "speaker": "hermann_bitcoin_ekasi", "time": "39:37", "start": 2377.32, "text": "You know, and because, I mean, if, if, if you're being Then if there's some volatility to the downside, then next week, you know, it'll, it'll bring you back up to the level that- Yeah. Yeah. And, and, and that sort of over a week to week basis, there's volatility to the upside and the downside, so the coaches have never really had an issue because they earn on a weekly basis, and, you know, the shops are also cashing out on a, on, on, on a, on a regular basis, where volatility isn't issue is sort of like over a month to month basis. But then we've been Cash out immediately. If you don't cash out, make sure that this is something you're gonna hold for several years. And I think by taking that stance, you can kind of like mitigate most of the volatility risk, because look, I think if you look four years into the future, probably Bitcoin is gonna be worth multiple times more than it is now. So don't worry about the price if it's four years from now. And if you are even slightly worried about the price, cash out tomorrow. Like, don't even, don't even think about holding it for another month. And I think that's That's how we approach that. But ju-just to get back to your previous point, I wanna ask you something if you don't mind. Yeah, sure. So, this is, this is one of the things with this whole Bitcoin maximalism and the crypto space thing, like, actually to a large extent, this project sort of turned me into a Bitcoin maximalist. You know, before this, I was kind of like, this project and the twenty seventeen ICO craze. And, and I think this is, this is something that a lot of crypto people don't, don't realize," }, { "speaker": "hermann_bitcoin_ekasi", "time": "41:13", "start": 2472.61, "text": "I encountered Bitcoin and then I encountered Ethereum and then I encountered one after the other and slowly but surely, slowly but surely, all the crypto scams out there turned me into a Bitcoin maximalist. and I think that's a similar journey for a lot of people, but I'm, I'm, I'm curious to know how you got to that, 'cause I know you're, you're a Bitcoin Maxi too. I'm curious to know what, what turned you into one." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "41:36", "start": 2496.08, "text": "So my story is probably a little atypical. I basically got into Bitcoin, was interested in sound money and I really got into altcoins, right? So I started, so, I mean, I've mentioned a few times, but basically I really got fascinated by Bitcoin in December twenty twelve, you know, bought some my first coin in early twenty thirteen, and was obsessed with Bitcoin ever since. And so back in those days, people who were writing content and, you know, back in those days, who were the, you know, influencers back then, Andreas Antonopoulos, Tua Demister, Trace Mayer, my friends, Michael Goldstein, Pierre Rochard. People like that, Conrad Graf was around in those days, and so for me, I just kind of came to Bitcoin from that view, and I was already a libertarian, right? I was already anti-central banking, already f- anti-feudal money, you know? So for me, it was just like Bitcoin is the most important thing, and I just never really got that interested in other coins and tokens and so on. And I sort of, I saw it like, look, if you wanna do equity, issue actual equity, if you wanna do debt, do debt, but Bitcoin is meant to be" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "42:42", "start": 2562.33, "text": "I guess I, I just kind of came to it and that was what I was most interested in. Maybe, maybe we could say that. Now, to the point where, let's say, quote unquote, the Bitcoin maximalists are criticizing all the crypto projects, I think it's often out of wanting there to be truthful reflection of what that thing is, whether it's like false marketing about, you know, this idea that some altcoin can do more transactions per second than Bitcoin, and of course, now we have Lightning, so that's basically totally gone. Or, things like, Well, now, you know, over the last few years, people would say things like, \"Oh, but we need some kind of more expressive smart contracting and this and that.\" And at the end of the day, I think what matters is having a robust, scalable, decentralized, verifiable, open, permissionless-- all, all of these aspects, and scarce, and, and you need it to be all of these things. And just beating, like, even if you can beat Bitcoin in one of those areas, you're probably not beating Bitcoin across all of them or across multiple- People of those areas, and that's really what it is, and it's about accessibility also, right? So even for people, the everyday person, to be able to run their own Bitcoin node, that's something that Bitcoin people have been very-- we've all been very much focused on that idea, that it should be accessible to the everyday person, like, you know, that they can run a Bitcoin node, and that's why you see all this old Raspberry Pi thing. Although, I-- Nowadays, I would pretty much tell people, look, if you can afford to just buy an old laptop or use" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "44:13", "start": 2652.53, "text": "Yeah. So I'd say those are probably the key reasons for me, but I know my journey and my story isn't exactly typical, but I, I think it also is a journey of learning, right? As you learn more about the technical aspect and the economic aspect, you sort of start to get to that point. And I think if you think about name brand and recognition, right? If you search, like, even if you look at Google search trends, you'll see Bitcoin is just so far ahead because if, and if somebody knows the term cryptocurrency, they also-- they generally they know that word Bitcoin, they don't necessarily know a lot of the other ones, and there's something to that. That this network is hard to beat, and the grassroots is hard to beat. There's, you know, you don't really see like Ethereum Town or like," }, { "speaker": "hermann_bitcoin_ekasi", "time": "44:55", "start": 2694.86, "text": "no, no, no, no, I think there's a reason for that. There's" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "44:59", "start": 2698.8, "text": "Bitcoin Beach, I don't see Ethereum Beach, you know, or there's no, and, and Ethereum is number two on the, on the, you know, on the shitcoin list or whatever. Yeah. So if you go even further down" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "45:12", "start": 2712.33, "text": "Other coins, so, you know, that's kinda how I'm seeing it." }, { "speaker": "hermann_bitcoin_ekasi", "time": "45:15", "start": 2715.45, "text": "Yeah, to be honest, I think there's no Ethereum beach because I don't really, I, I don't think they really care about anything else. There's no like wider reference for them, it's just crypto bubble and that's it, and whatever you can do in the crypto space, that's what they care about. But there's a Bitcoin beach because Bitcoiners care about practicality, you know, like this thing has to have a real use case in the real world. And it's, it's interesting that" }, { "speaker": "hermann_bitcoin_ekasi", "time": "45:42", "start": 2742.29, "text": "Especially the ones that have made a bit of progress, like Bitcoin Jungle, Bitcoin Lake, Bitcoin Beach Brazil, there's a couple of others too. And the interesting thing is that none of them had much contact with each other before starting off, but the one thing they all do have in common is like, they don't tolerate shitcoins, it's Bitcoin and Bitcoin only. And it's an interesting, it's an interesting correlation between, between them. And I think maybe, maybe eventually we will see an Ethereum Beach, but so far, so far that hasn't happened, and I, I think I can't put it into words so well, but I think the observation that Bitcoiners have given, you know, birth to this like community effort is kind of, it's kind of telling, you know, because at the end of the, at the end of the day, that's what it's all about, you know, it's like we wanna make money that's usable by everyone, you know, and I think that's quite important. But yeah, I mean, I think, I think your story with how you came to be a Bitcoin Maxi is maybe a little bit atypical, You know, we, we nice, we nice people, you know, it's just, it's just that we, we get toxic towards people who portray themselves as doing something that they're not really doing, you know? And I think that's where a lot of the shitcoin projects really, really start to piss me off, when they talk about things and I'm like, wait, hang on, what's really going on here? You know? Yeah." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "47:02", "start": 2822.4, "text": "Yeah, well, there you go. and so then while we're on the whole topic of education, I'm curious, ha-ha" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "47:12", "start": 2832.31, "text": "Stuff have you used to teach them? Have, is it been like, do they listen to any podcasts, or do you give them a book, or like, they read an article here and there, or is it just all kind of, you know, whatever you teach them in person and show them in person?" }, { "speaker": "hermann_bitcoin_ekasi", "time": "47:24", "start": 2843.78, "text": "So, so we've had some books donated, and we've, we've employed a-- we've employed a full-time teacher. this is also largely thanks to, to Paxful and Built with Bitcoin. it's an education center that we opened recently. You" }, { "speaker": "hermann_bitcoin_ekasi", "time": "47:42", "start": 2862.29, "text": "Yes, but as far as I'm concerned, education is like the bedrock for freedom, you know, 'cause, 'cause freedom is all about making your own choices, you know, making voluntary choices, and I, I very, very strongly believe in that. Like I believe people should make their own choices. I don't, I don't think there's any future where we have a, a sustainable situation of government telling people how to live their lives. I think the moment you introduce government, you inevitably always end up with auth-authoritarianism. That's just human nature. So, and, and Choices, like a choice is only voluntary if it's well-informed, right? Like if you don't know what you're talking about, how are you gonna be able to make any choice whatsoever? So, you know, education is one of the first things we focused on, and in terms of resources, there are some, there are some sort of like, I don't know if, if it's too early to call them canonical, but there are some texts that I consider really important. So we've, we've got the Bitcoin Standard donated, that's sitting in the library, we've got" }, { "speaker": "hermann_bitcoin_ekasi", "time": "48:43", "start": 2923.11, "text": "And I think Bitcoin Magazine has been a really good source of information for myself, so I'm constantly sending articles to the coaches, on Bitcoin Magazine. But, I mean, as far as the coaches go, like the, their literacy skills are relatively good, but the wider community, sometimes we struggle with that. So we've actually produced a little ten-minute, like a ten-minute documentary in the local language, which, which is T'Kosa, and that was done with the help of Betriful, so we, we did the footage, Betriful paid for the, another local project in South Africa did the translation from En-English to Tswana, and that's something that we take to people and we show them, and with it being audiovisual, it's really engaging. Like it's sometimes in areas where, where literacy levels are quite low, it's really difficult to spread education with written material. Like even like a little pamphlet becomes pretty much useless if you, if you have people who struggle to read and write. So that audiovisual thing, so a lot of YouTube videos, like there's a lot of really useful things out there in terms of that. There's a lot of content. I think the biggest problem actually isn't the lack of content, the biggest problem is filtering out the noise and focusing on the stuff that's valuable. And I think, I think for that reason, like if you're gonna do something like this, you know, with Mike Peterson and El Salvador or the other projects, they all have like someone who's got some experience in Bitcoin, you know, leading it, because like it's really difficult filtering out the noise. I think that's, that's the big challenge." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "50:06", "start": 3006.5, "text": "Yeah, that's a really interesting observation, because, There's a range of stuff, even twenty-one lessons, that's actually available for free now at swan dot com slash two one lessons. People can get that, the electronic version for free. But, yeah, it's all out there, and it requires a lot of curation. I'm curious as well, in terms of any other learnings that came from your discussions with the other communities, like what were their, were there any other big similarities or differences that you noticed?" }, { "speaker": "hermann_bitcoin_ekasi", "time": "50:35", "start": 3034.8, "text": "I think some of the similarities are, is that, I mean, there's, there's at Sort of like underdeveloped communities in terms of socioeconomic development. So, and then there's communities like Bitcoin Jungle that focus on the expat community, and I think those are two of the important use cases for these types of circular economies so far that I've seen. You know, so it's interesting to see these two different use cases developed, where on the one hand, on the one hand, you can use Bitcoin to, to uplift people who are coming from a previously disadvantaged situation because they don't have access to banking and finance, and on the other hand- You can use Bitcoin to, to help expat communities, you know, be in a situation where they aren't as hampered by, you know, regulations against moving money across borders. Because let's face it, the banking system in most developed countries work pretty well until you have to cross a border. Like when you cross a border, it doesn't matter how well developed the banking system in your home co-home country is, the situation becomes horrible once you have to start moving across borders. So, so those are the two interesting- Interesting use cases I've seen developed amongst the circular economies. I, I know the big ones in Bitcoin Island, for example, they've got an integration with Strike, and that's made remittances really easy, and now Strike is also integrated with, Bitnub, which serves West Africa, and again, that's making remittances really easy because, you know, it's like Jack Ma says, like Bitcoin can basically be a central bank for the world, you know, where you can have the settlement system where two companies in two completely different jurisdictions, as long Because they both speak the language of Bitcoin and Lightning, and there's no reason why they can't interoperate. so yeah, that's, that's a really interesting use case. Because obviously our situation is more aligned with Bitcoin Beach Brazil, you know, where we're using Bitcoin to, to try and uplift a, a previously heavily disadvantaged community where people don't have access to basic finance or even bank accounts. So, and, and I think, I think it's, I think it's a really valuable thing. I think people, people underestimate the power that you can give to a person by By giving them access to digital money if they've never been banked before. You know, like this, this whole thing of banking the unbanked, there's been a lot of criticism. Like I, I specifically remember this one panel at Bitcoin Amsterdam where, wha-what's the, I think the lady is called Jemima, Jemima something, something. This is the" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "53:02", "start": 3181.54, "text": "infamous panel, yeah. So this is the journalism one. There was, Joe Hall from Coin Telegraph, Pete Rizzo from Bitcoin Magazine, what's that other lady's name? FT, Isabella Kaminska, and then Jemima who is currently still at FT." }, { "speaker": "hermann_bitcoin_ekasi", "time": "53:16", "start": 3196.15, "text": "Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I was, I was sitting there listening to that, and I thought to myself, because one of the criticisms that Jemima came up with is like, like she, she's pushing back in her own-- I mean, I'm paraphrasing, but in her own words, she said she's pushing back against this narrative that Bitcoiners, you know, banking the unbanked, because, because she, she, she says that that's a, a disingenuous lie" }, { "speaker": "hermann_bitcoin_ekasi", "time": "53:42", "start": 3222.31, "text": "I was there, s- and I was sitting there thinking, thinking to myself like, you know, just in my little small project that I'm running, like, I, I don't have, you know, we don't have any massive influence or anything. It's a small little project, but in this little small project, I've seen numerous instances where a person has greatly benefited from having, digital payments, like they've, like, you know, we-- Just as one example, we, we had a coach who can't get a bank account He's got problems with his papers, right? His birth certificate has a fucking spelling mistake on it, so they won't give him a bank account, right? He was having his money stolen by family members who are older and wiser than him. You know, this guy's only-- he's still a teenager. He's only been working for a couple of years. We don't pay him a big salary, he earns a little bit, but that money is really valuable for him, and he was having his money manipulated out of him, 'cause there's only so many places where you can hide cash if A one-bedroom house with seven other people. So eventually they're gonna find that cash and they're gonna take it and they're gonna use it to buy cigarettes and alcohol and whatever. And when we started paying him in Bitcoin, man, all of a sudden his money was his, like no one could take it 'cause it was stored on a phone that was protected by a password and like they couldn't manipulate the password out of him, and that changed the family dynamics, and all of a sudden this young man was now in a position where he was responsible for deciding what's gonna happen with the money that he earned And that's a far more healthy situation, just in a social sense. And like, so I'm sitting there listening to this lady on this panel saying that, and I'm thinking like, like someone has to push back against that narrative, 'cause banking the unbanked really is quite powerful, and, you know, you're not gonna hear these stories because it's happening in situations where not many people are paying attention to, and maybe it's still isolated incidents, but I think, I think it's a really-- I, I actually do think that that narrative banking Online bank is, is, is a very powerful one, and it makes a massive impact on people's lives." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "55:48", "start": 3348.15, "text": "Well, yeah, I think that's a great example you've left there, and I think you've also made the point about getting the lifeboat ready before the ship goes down. So what are you getting at here? Why should we get the lifeboat ready before the ship goes down?" }, { "speaker": "hermann_bitcoin_ekasi", "time": "55:59", "start": 3358.74, "text": "I mean, look, the ship is sinking, right? And I think in a South African context, there's, there's a massive, there's a massive number of people who, who live with You've got massive inequality in South Africa, and unfortunately, unfortunately, the government here has made things worse, 'cause they've, they've made promises that they can't keep. And, just this morning, I was, you know, just again reading a little bit on South Africa's debt, and our previous president was making all kinds of new social grants, and he was doing this with borrowed money, right? 'Cause that's what politicians like to do. You know, they, they, they buy votes, and they buy votes generally from un, uneducated people who are going to give them You know, these politicians are driving the country into the ground. Like, I mean, you can't pay people social grants with money that you've borrowed, like, that's not gonna end well. I mean, I understand that you wanna help people and lift them out of poverty, you know, it's a, it's a natural human instinct to want to feed someone if you see a hungry person. But like, if you're gonna borrow the money to do that, that's not gonna end well in the, in the long run. So, you know, better find a better way of doing that." }, { "speaker": "hermann_bitcoin_ekasi", "time": "57:12", "start": 3432.29, "text": "I haven't got the financial background, but I just know that it's-- I, I just know that there's gonna come a point where this government can no longer afford to borrow money, and it's gonna have to cut back on something. Like, and if it, if it cuts back on the social grinds, it's gonna cause massive social unrest. I mean, if it cuts back on anything, it's gonna cause massive social unrest. Like, we had, we had big protests in South Africa last year because they wanted to put one of the previous presidents in jail. I mean, this guy was" }, { "speaker": "hermann_bitcoin_ekasi", "time": "57:42", "start": 3462.29, "text": "Will cause massive, massive unrest. And so if there's this lifeboat that can give people a bit of hope, maybe if we can demonstrate that this-- 'cause I mean, generally Bitcoin is perceived as something for rich people, but if we can demonstrate that, hey, poor people have access to this too, and like, you can, you can actually protect your own future even if you don't earn a massive amount of money, you can protect your future by saving in Bitcoin in, in the long run. Like, no one is gonna get rich from this overnight, but if the South African currency does go" }, { "speaker": "hermann_bitcoin_ekasi", "time": "58:12", "start": 3492.31, "text": "Inflation, like what we're seeing in Ghana now, you know, where I think they've got like forty percent inflation. If, if that happens to the South African currency and, and we've already demonstrated that, you know, this is something that poor people can use too, then, then that's a lifeboat for, for the masses, you know, where, where they've got, at least they've got something then, I mean, because look, what else are they gonna do? Like, you know, at that point, people, people with wealth and money are already moving overseas, you" }, { "speaker": "hermann_bitcoin_ekasi", "time": "58:42", "start": 3522.31, "text": "From a relatively privileged background, like everyone I know who can afford it is thinking about moving overseas because they see the writing on the wall in South Africa, you know, unfortunately that's the reality. But the people that don't have wealth, what, you know, what, what are they gonna do? Like maybe if there's this little bit of hope and like I think Bitcoin is hope, you know, and if you can give people a little bit of hope, maybe that will, you know, work to sort of mitigate a lot of the social unrest that we would see in an otherwise hopeless situation. 'Cause at the end of the day." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "59:13", "start": 3553.35, "text": "Yeah, no, I think that was very powerfully put. I think people should try to build out the lifeboat in whatever way we can, whatever way that means to you, listeners, go out there and build the Bitcoin community and the Lightning community, whatever we can do to get more people onboarded, ideally non-custodial, but, you know, if you've got to start them somewhere and then eventually get them into non-custodial over time, you know, it's gonna help. I think it all helps. So, Herm" }, { "speaker": "hermann_bitcoin_ekasi", "time": "59:43", "start": 3582.58, "text": "No, hundred percent, man. I think, I think the best place to go is Twitter. we've got a, we've got a handle on Twitter at bitcoin ekasi. otherwise, there's the website, which is bitcoin ekasi dot com. Generally, I reply to Twitter DMs, you know, unless it's clearly, a, a scam message, but if it's a genuine message, I will reply eventually, maybe not straight away, but yeah, that's the best place. Thanks for having me, I really appreciate" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:00:09", "start": 3609.85, "text": "it Ground perspective, so this is a great episode to share with your family and friends who don't believe you about Bitcoin banking, the unbanked. The episode and the transcript will be available over at stephanilivera dot com slash four four one. Thanks for listening, and I will see you in the citadels." } ] }