{ "episodeId": "SLP457", "speakers": { "stephan": { "name": "Stephan Livera", "role": "host", "tag": "STEPHAN" }, "stephan_livera": { "name": "Stephan Livera", "role": "guest", "tag": "STEPHAN" }, "guest_2": { "name": "Guest 2", "role": "guest", "tag": "GUEST" } }, "segments": [ { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "00:08", "start": 8.45, "text": "Hi, you're listening to Stephan Livera podcast, a show about Bitcoin and Austrian economics brought to you by Swan Bitcoin. Over at swan dot com or using the Swan app, it's a safe and easy way to buy Bitcoin. You can do this either with a recurring purchase plan or using one-time buys, also known as smash buys. Swan offers free custody in your own legally owned trust account. Account with free automatic withdrawals to self custody, and of course, not your keys, not your coins. Now, if you are a high net worth investor or with a business, consider Swan Private. You have a trusted partner on your Bitcoin journey. You will get a dedicated Bitcoin expert, access to exclusive events, support for retirement, trust and corporate accounts, as well as original Bitcoin and investment research. So if you want to sign up with Swan, go to swan dot com slash livera, and you'll get ten dollars of Bitcoin dropped into your account when you start stacking with Swan. Huge Bitcoin event is coming up, it's called BTC Prague. It's going to be the biggest Bitcoin event in Europe. It's happening in Prague, June 8th to 10th. I'm gonna be there, I'll be one of the MCs, so I'm really excited for that. Michael Saylor is coming, and he's coming in person, so this will be an excellent opportunity for those of you who are in or near Europe to come along, meet some of the Bitcoin stars. There's a range of people coming, people like Alex Svetsky, Jocko M" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:30", "start": 90.06, "text": "These are the industry or whale tickets. So with the industry pass, it's an extra one day business conference, it's more business focused, and for those of you interested in the whale ticket, you'll get access to four unique whale zones with a stylish environment for relaxed networking and meetings, with premium food and drinks throughout all three days, as well as an exclusive party event. So if you wanna get your tickets, go to btcprague dot com, use code Livera for a discount. Mempool.space is my favorite Bitcoin block explorer. You can use this to search transactions, or you can even use Is it to target your fee rates, and of course, recently the fees have been a little bit higher, so it's actually been a quite useful tool to go and see what kind of fee rate you want to attach to your Bitcoin transactions. Mempool.space is a comprehensive explorer, it covers the mempool, it covers the blockchain, it even shows you second layer networks like the Lightning Network. With Mempool.space, you can host it yourself, you can run it on your own Raspberry Pi or other full node using distributions like Umbrel, Raspiblitz, and others. Now, if you're with Offers customized mempool instances, you can have your company's branding, increased API limits, and other features and services are available. Go to mempool dot space slash enterprise. So for episode four hundred and fifty-seven, my guests are Bill Hill from Pouch, Bitcoin Island in the Philippines, and Malcolm Wead from NeutronPay. So they both are able to offer some insights on Bitcoin in Asia, as well as various topics around merchant adoption, Bitcoin remittance corridors, Bitcoin and Lightning. companies collaborating as well as their upcoming events, so LightningCon and Bitcoin Island Retreat. And now onto the show. Bill and Malcolm, welcome to the show. Welcome. Hey, thanks. Thank you. Thanks for having us. So I know you guys are both obviously focused on Bitcoin and Lightning in Asia. You both have events coming up, so I thought it would be great to chat with you guys, hear a little bit from your perspective, what's, what's the adoption like, b- and of course, we're all fans of Bitcoin and Lightning here, so we've got to chat about what's happening on that front also. So, let's just first hear, you know, just take a minute and introduce yourselves each. So, Bill, do you wanna start?" }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "03:38", "start": 218.04, "text": "Sure. this is Bill from Bitcoin Island. I've been the lead on the ground here getting all of our merchants onboarded on Boracay. It's a small island, about ten qu-- square kilometers, with only about a third to a quarter of that where the tourists are, and we've got about two hundred and fifty businesses that accept- Bitcoin via Lightning right now. So it's entirely possible to have a three day vacation, that's the average vacation on Boracay, without spending a single peso." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "04:12", "start": 252.38, "text": "Fantastic, and Malcolm?" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "04:14", "start": 253.91, "text": "Yeah, no, thanks for having me. So, yeah, so Malcolm Weed, Chief Operating Officer at NeutronPay, and then also, you know, NeutronPay were the organizers of LightningCon, LightningCon Vietnam, which is the conference that we're gonna be hosting in Da Nang, from like March 22nd to 24th. so yeah, that's, that's been, my main role at the company and the organization." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "04:36", "start": 276.12, "text": "Fantastic. So, yeah, I'm actually going to be attending both of your events just for listeners so they're aware. So I'm gonna be at, Dhanang for LightningCon and then flying straight over to Boracay for the Bitcoin Island Retreat. So I'm looking forward to all of that. but yeah, let's, let's hear a little bit from you guys in terms of what it's like on the ground in terms of Bitcoin in Asia. So maybe if you have any high-level thoughts about Bitcoin in Asia, now I would be, you know, interested to" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "05:06", "start": 305.66, "text": "Yeah, for sure. I mean, so in terms of NeutronPay, I mean, NeutronPay's been on the ground in Vietnam for about four years now, right? So, you know, my business partner Albert, so me and him go back about ten years now, so we used to work together at a payments company here in Canada called, Hyperwallet before it was acquired by PayPal. So we kind of have like a, a large payments background. So, you know, he's Vietnamese, he's Canadian, I'm sure everybody n-is aware of him. He in, in the, in emerging markets would be greater. So, so he, you know, so basically four years ago, on the ground, onboarding merchants very early on, primarily in Ho Chi Minh City in terms of like, brick and mortar businesses, but also, some online businesses. So, onboarding merchants in Vietnam has come with, you know, it's, it's, it's issues as well, right? Like, Vietnam isn't exactly the most, loving and open arms country to, to Bitcoin as it is in, let's So there are some hurdles that we, you know, experience that are maybe more cumbersome than maybe some people in other countries, right? So, but that's fine, we're totally, you know, willing to take on a very challenging, market, right? So, you know, and it makes sense, you know, I mean, the, the, you know, we're dealing with a, you know, a socialist regime, right? I mean, it's not to the point where it's China, where they outright banned it, right? Obviously, it's, you It's not legal, it's not illegal, it's very much in a gray zone when you're onboarding merchants, so it's just wrapping your head around them feeling comfortable with accepting Bitcoin. And there's, you know, and I get it, you know, they, you know, the government doesn't want Bitcoin to be a quote-unquote direct competitor to the Vietnamese dong, you know, and, and, and I get that, right? So there's ways of onboarding merchants to get, make sure that everybody's feeling comfortable from the government side to the, the merchant side and, and," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "07:06", "start": 425.6, "text": "Oh," }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "07:06", "start": 426.5, "text": "great. So, yeah, I got to the island about seven, eight months ago and just hit the ground running, onboarding as many businesses as possible. The first two months were the slowest. It took about two months to get our first thirty businesses. After that, we really started to figure out what was going on and we had a lot more social proof, and from there, it ballooned up to, the three hundred We do a sweep of the island from time to time, and fifty of the more remote businesses, they kinda dropped out, they didn't do the training or whatever. So as of last sweep, we're at two hundred and fifty. So we're, selling Bitcoin purely as a, utilitarian thing. We're not getting into the philosophy of Bitcoin. For a lot of our vendors, accepting Bitcoin is just another payment system. It's an e-wallet that- Foreigners like to use, and that's probably about the extent that they think about it. However, this is a way to get them with a Bitcoin wallet in their hands, and then eventually start getting them to do more. I've taught some of them how to do self custody, and now one is saving on chain rather than just self custody in a Lightning wallet. So it is a progression, and that progression is going well." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "08:34", "start": 514.3, "text": "That's really interesting to hear And I think I'm, I'd be curious to hear from both of you as well, because depending how long you've been in Bitcoin, if you're around or you were paying attention to the space in the twenty thirteen, fourteen days, there was this whole notion of merchant adoption back then also, and people were just paying on chain before we had Lightning, of course. Now, one common story that we saw at that time was maybe people would yell at businesses or bars or restaurants being like, \"Take Bitcoin, take Bitcoin,\" but then there was also this movement of, like, \"Oh, don't spend Bitcoin, so then people didn't actually go and spend at those restaurants or bars or hotels, and thus you could argue maybe it wasn't sustainable to push them all to accept Bitcoin, because what happened in practice is not enough people were paying with Bitcoin to, to kind of keep it regular so that people knew, okay, how do I accept Bitcoin payment? Maybe the guy who knows how to accept it is out of the shop, or I need to get the manager, or maybe the machine isn't charged up. You got all these kinds of issues that came up. So I'm curious, but from both of your How you're seeing that this time around in twenty" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "09:40", "start": 579.84, "text": "twenty-three? Yeah, I mean, I mean, I can take that question first there. so I, I first wanted to kind of comment on what Bill said around like foreigners and, and, and, and, and foreigners making Bitcoin payments. I hundred percent agree when it comes to The, you know, when we're trying to onboard merchants, trying to get them to care enough to wanna like accept this new payment method, right? And also it's kinda like, well, how many payments a month am I really gonna see? And, and I'm, and I'm totally honest when I tell them, like, you might see one payment a month. Like, I, I don't, I'm not gonna sugarcoat this, I'm not gonna tell you that you're gonna see ten thousand dollars worth of volume coming in the next month, 'cause that's, I don't wanna And what I do is I educate them on how big the economy, is growing. So like I talk about-- and, and I, and I focus a lot more on Lightning as opposed to Bitcoin, for example, right? So I kind of, I kind of show them like, \"Listen, there's the Cash App, there's Strike, there's all these different Lightning wallets from around the world, you know, you know,\" and I kind of target a lot more the expat areas, right, where a lot more foreigners are going, because local people, they have solutions, right? Like Cash, the locals, especially in Vietnam, QR code payment methods is like rampant, right? So like, you have Momo, you have Zalo Pay, like we already have QR code, so like when you go to the merchant, you already see like three or four QR codes already up there, right? So like, QR code payments to them is like second nature. You go to Europe and you go to America and it's like, what? QR code payment? Who does that, right? Like, maybe you have WeChat or Alipay. So over there, a QR code payment, thank God So that's, that's great. That's a, that's a, a nice barrier to have to like, not have to struggle too much to get over, right? But the second barrier is, who's paying with Bitcoin and who's paying with Lightning and why should I care and why should I accept this form of payment? So we've primarily been saying, like, listen, you know, you have a lot of, you have a lot of expats that come in here? Yes. Okay. How do they pay? With cash? Okay. You know, well, what if you had a solution" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "11:52", "start": 711.67, "text": "Or wherever, maybe they have a pouch app, maybe it's somebody from, you know what I mean? Like, there's so many different apps now that they're, that people in this environment are probably holding in their wallet. So, you know, if you were to put up the QR code saying that you accept Bitcoin or that I accept payment with Lightning You know, you will get people who will use it, you know, but, I mean, and over time, that adoption will grow, right? So, so they, they're aware of that, and these businesses who are s- primarily kind of servicing the, the expat community who are, you know, pro-- doing tourism in the industry, they wanna make it as easy as possible for foreigners to buy whatever goods and services that they're, that they're supplying. So providing them with an additional payment rail makes sense to them. So So that's kinda like the education part that I've kinda been doing is, I try, I try not to come at it so much from like a, hey, you need to accept Bitcoin. It's more like, you know, there's Lightning, there's this, there's, there's, you know, 'cause really, a lot of the Lightning apps, like us included, and I think Pouch as well, and Strike, you're not really paying with your Bitcoin. You're paying with fiat over the Lightning rail, right? So like, you're not, you're not actually taking Bitcoin Dollars, converting it to Bitcoin, sending it over the Lightning Network, and then what we're doing at the merchant side is that incoming Bitcoin is we're converting it auto-automatically into Vietnamese dong. So, you know, it's-- so, you know, you, you need to let them know, like, no, you're not actually receiving Bitcoin, it's happening over Bitcoin rail, or people who are paying with Bitcoin can pay with Bitcoin, but you're getting dong. Don't worry about it, you're getting dong, you're gonna be made whole, you're just allowing a new" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "13:35", "start": 814.62, "text": "rewarding in terms of like onboarding merchants. Bill, I-- Like, what do you think about that?" }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "13:39", "start": 819.22, "text": "Yeah, yeah. I, I think it's a little bit philosophical. Is someone paying with Bitcoin? Well, yes and no, right? If it came from my stack and it's been Bitcoin for a while, is it Bitcoin? If it just came from Strike, is it Bitcoin? It's, it, you know, it, it gets to be a little bit of, well, how do you wanna define this? But it's definitely going in and out of, Ecosystem as Bitcoin on Lightning. But yeah, everything you were saying there absolutely makes sense. One of the things that is also interesting here is the remittance rails. So in the Philippines, a hundred million US dollars a day comes into the Philippines from overseas foreign workers. We've seen estimates that about seven percent of that is lost in fees. So getting the locals to start understanding and accepting Bitcoin is getting them a step closer to avoiding that seven percent in fees." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "14:45", "start": 884.85, "text": "That's a really good point to make as well, and I know this is something people have been talking about for years and years and years with remittances, or stylized as rebittance, but I think maybe one difficulty has been on the other side, when you're sending the Bitcoin back, how do they get that back? Now, in other countries, they may be using OTC or traders to sell Bitcoin back to the local fiat, but in this case, for example, in the Philippines, they have Bitrefill. There, you know, there's Bitcoin Island, right? Like there are, there are ways that people who have relatives overseas, and I, I know that's quite common, for Filipino people to be overseas in other countries and then sending money back home as well. I'm not sure if that's as much of a thing in Vietnam, maybe it's also there, in Viet-- Vietnam also." }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "15:27", "start": 927.16, "text": "Yeah, I mean, it certainly is. World, yes, Philippines is one of them. You have India, and there's other markets that are like USA to Mexico is one of the largest remittance markets, right? So, you know, generally you're seeing, you know, remittance volume, you know, originate in the, you know, in the developed world, like, like Canada, USA, Europe, and Australia and so forth, and going back home to their family members. So, a hundred percent, you know, there is remittance volume that goes into Vietnam. Like, there are, just to give you an idea, so we We also have our own app, in-- which went live about a month ago in Vietnam and in Canada, right? So our initial market that we focused on is the Viet-- the Vietnamese population in Canada. So there's about two hundred thousand of them, right? But obviously the largest overseas Vietnamese population is in America, right? So there, there's two million Vietnamese Americans who regularly send money home as well, right? So now that we've, you know, send globally, right? I think we've all kind of seen what that is, right? So Strike and Coin Corner and Plug Obviously, we're not, you know, we're not lost on that. No, we haven't made any announcement p-publicly yet, but obviously there are conversations going on about that, right? So, you know, send globally into Vietnam is obviously gonna be a thing, right? And so, you know, we want to encourage and, you know, the whole reason why we're into this movement and into this technology is that we wanna be more competitive than, the remitties, the wises of the world, you know, Instagram and Zoom and all those other remittance apps You know, they kinda showed up on the scene and they kinda were like, \"Hey, we're the new kids on the block, you know? F you, Western Union and MoneyGram, you know what I mean? We're the new cool fintech companies.\" Well, now it's twenty twenty-three and it's our turn, right? So like, you know, the strikes, the bitnobs, the pouches, the, you know, the NeutronPay, the iBees of the world, you know, once we completely become interoperable and start sending value through the send I really think the remitties and the transfer wizards are gonna wake up and kinda go like, \"Oh shit, like these guys are doing remittances for like two percent or less, and, and these guys are like really eating into-- you know, like we're not causing a huge dent in their market share today?\" But like fast forward one year from now or two years from now, you know, things are gonna be changing, and they're gonna be changing really quickly. So as Bill pointed out, the remittance market is a huge thing that obviously we're very aware of. we obviously pay attention to the, the total addressable market all over Southeast Asia and understand that market very, very, closely. So, I think now that we're all kind of collaborating together, so it's nice to see the Lightning community kind of come together and not so much like we're competitive editors, in terms of like, hey, you know, strike, you're in America, and we're in Vietnam, and we're fighting over the same market share. I think the fact that in the last couple of months, we've decided to kind of all step up and choose to kind of collaborate together to kind of, you know, we all-- 'cause when lightning rises, we all rise together, right? And so working together, I think this has been the, the best thing for the lightning ecosystem that has happened in years is the fact that send globally, functionality, I think," }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "18:41", "start": 1121.26, "text": "My Strike account in America to my girlfriend's bank account here in the Philippines. Before I could change the app to check that it arrived, it was already there. Right? I mean, that's, that's just awesome. And it really increases the usability. So the person receiving in the Philippines, like, you know, like you've been saying, doesn't need to understand the technology or anything else They just check and it's there. So the, the less education that is necessary, the better. They can always drop back to lightning to lightning and then spend it. But if they're comfortable with the traditional finance, this remittance corridor will work really well." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "19:30", "start": 1169.91, "text": "I'm curious your thoughts on the price swings of Bitcoin because I know this has historically also been a big onboarding, in terms of Bitcoin exchanges, they have seen there's- The biggest, it's basically an extremely lumpy thing that when the price is running up, that's when everyone's running to the Bitcoin exchanges. But you guys are a little bit different, so I'm curious if the price swings have been impacting for you guys as well. Is that when you're seeing a lot more volume coming through?" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "19:57", "start": 1196.55, "text": "To, to that first, the answer is no. Like, I, you know, like the, the price swings have not impacted us whatsoever, but I do agree, like having my, my previous startup was a, was like basically a Bitcoin brokerage, Flat was when we saw the least amount of volume. We either wanted price to drop dramatically or go up dramatically, 'cause either people are fomoing to sell or fomoing to buy. So for the Bitcoin world, you want volatility, right? Volatility means more revenue for your exchange, right? So 100% agree with that. but for us, because it-- tech-- because technically in our app, you can't just like buy Bitcoin, you know? That might be a feature that we add at some point in time, but right now it's just really, Well, I, I haven't, it hasn't exactly changed any volumes that we've seen. The only thing that maybe it changes is you having a dialogue with that particular merchant, right? Because if all of a sudden the FTX collapses and all this other sort of craziness happens, then, then they kinda go, \"Oh, Bitcoin,\" and then immediately their ears are up and they're on their back feet and they're like, \"Ah, I don't know if I really wanna touch this, right?\" So I generally don't enter a conversation with a merchant right away saying, \"Accept a Bitcoin Navigate around Bitcoin because, you know, A, we're in Vietnam, but also B, there's so-- once you start talking about Bitcoin, it just raises so many additional hurdles, but if you kind of stick with more, I like to stay more with like, Lightning. You know, it's a QR code payment rail, it's a, it's a Lightning rail. Yes, it's powered by Bitcoin, yes, you can accept Bitcoin, but like, I've been, I've been seeing personally more, traction when I kind of, you know, I don't put Bitcoin front and" }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "21:41", "start": 1301.08, "text": "So to me, the Bitcoin aspect of it, when I'm going to onboard the businesses here as part of the Bitcoin Island project, really just doesn't matter. We use TCP/IP also, but I never man- managed to mention that in any of my onboarding either, because it doesn't matter. One of the big phrases that I use is, \"What you invoice is what you keep.\" It doesn't matter what the exchange rate between the US dollar and the peso is or Bitcoin and the peso or anything like that, so it's just not part of the conversation. I'll gladly talk to them about Bitcoin, but the only time I really mention it is that when I say this can accept payment from any number of Bitcoin wallets." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "22:27", "start": 1347.38, "text": "Yeah, that's an interesting and good point to make. I really like the interoperability aspect of this, that this idea that anybody, you can, you can scan it with any Lightning QR, because there are some people in the broader, let's quote, quote- \"unquote crypto industry who, let's say, have a custodial platform where you may only pay through that custodial platform, it's not an open lightning network payment. That's more of an issue, right? Because what we want is, like you were saying, all these different companies are collaborating, but they have open lightning QRs, so any wallet can pay any wallet, instead of trying to force people inside of a walled garden, which is, not gonna be part of the-- it's not really helping with the overall Bitcoin vision.\" Yep." }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "23:10", "start": 1390.02, "text": "Yep. Yep, definitely. Open standards win. Yep, definitely agree with that." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "23:14", "start": 1393.87, "text": "So I'm also curious as well, maybe this is more, you know, we talk about the Bitcoin community, but there's also this idea, as you were saying, Malcolm, this idea of a, let's say, a Vietnamese Canadian community or a Vietnamese American community. I think maybe that's part of the opportunity is where- The diaspora of a particular country, inside those communities, if, if you can build a product that they will be shilling to each other, then that's really where you start to actually get some traction in terms of, oh, now we're gonna really start using Lightning a lot more because maybe the fees are cheaper, the experience is better, these kinds of things." }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "23:50", "start": 1429.75, "text": "Yeah, no, no, a-a-ah, absolutely. So, you know, we are taking, like part of our marketing strategy definitely is winning over the overseas, Vietnamese community. you know, because at the end of the day, they're the ones who are sending the remittances back home, right? So they're the ones who already have the remitly downloaded on their app or their transferwise. But to be quite honest with you, a lot of the people who-- like the people who are generally sending money home, when you take a look at it, it's not the American born or the Canadian born Vietnamese person who's sending money home. You know, they're too busy on their Instagram and they're more connected with, like, with, with like America No big connection home to their family members, it's more the generation who like m-immigrated over here, who were born there, right? So those people are generally like fifty, fifty years old and over, right? They're the ones, or they-- I mean, they could be younger, but they were born in Vietnam and they have family in Vietnam who they're directly connected to, right? So the community who generally send, who sends remittances home, and I'm sure this is the same for the Philippines and Vietnam and India and so forth, it's, it's people who are actually born And for them, they generally will, 'cause when they, well, let's say they land in Canada and they go, \"Where do I remit money home?\" Right? Their first thing is, \"I'm not gonna go and download Remitly or TransferWise,\" right? I mean, definitely some of the s-more savvy ones do, but generally what they do is they have their preferred in-person merchant that they go and see, right? So they have, like, let's say you're in Edmonton or you're in Montreal or you're in Vancouver or you're in Los Angeles or San" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "25:30", "start": 1530.5, "text": "Where do you go when you send money home? Where is the lowest price store that you get when you go to send your money home? Oh, it's that guy at the corner of 6th and Broadway? Oh, okay. Well, I'm gonna go see that guy because that's where all the people, all the other Filipinos or all the other Vietnamese people that I work with go. And so that's what we find is there's still the vast majority of people who are going to a brick and mortar location, and generally that brick and mortar location unfortunately has been won over by, let's say Western Union, and they're providing the, you know, they're the brick and mortar merchant, but really it's, the volume is going through Western Union, but they feel m-much more comfortable still dealing in like cash Cash, right? for that particular, like, demographic." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "26:14", "start": 1574.11, "text": "So it's like a bit of a physical hurdle as well for some people. Maybe it's an age thing or, you know, that could also play into it as well because maybe the way they grew up. and I think there's an interesting point there as well because for some people who immigrate, right? Let's say you're born in one country, you immigrate to some other country for economic opportunity or otherwise, and then often, not always, but often as they age, then they, they start to think" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "26:41", "start": 1600.88, "text": "And that's, that seems to be a common story, whereas maybe their children might be happy living in Australia, America, Canada, and just living their lives there. But it's interesting the, the social element of this, and then arguably the, the physical element of having something physical to give, and doing it in a physical shop and a store. so I wonder what, what, you know, f- Bitcoin and Lightning entrepreneurs can do to overcome those hurdles. I believe they will, but it's interesting to see. Is the answer to have physical locations? So Bitcoin remittances, I don't know. Yep, yep, yeah, oh, is it exactly? Go ahead, Bill." }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "27:16", "start": 1635.51, "text": "Well, well, Pouch is just onboarded, cash out rails all across the Philippines, so Pouch can send to LHMulier, Palawan Pawn, LBC, so it's getting that brick and mortar feel. The expensive part of remittances tends to be the crossing of national borders, so even- And if there's a hybrid solution where Filipino are sending from Strike to Pouch and then Pouch to a one of these pawn shops, it's still cheaper than what they're currently doing, and eventually they just start saying, \"Well, why am I doing this? I can just go shop with, with Lightning in the first place and not pay this at all.\" And so it's, it's gonna take a long time for the ecosystem to support that. Here, myself as a dedicated Bitcoiner, I don't cash out, I just go shopping with, with Lightning. And from talking to merchants, I'm not the only one that's spending at these little local stores. Someone's doing it, I don't know who it is. That, that's the, the nature of an anonymous payment system. But yeah, someone else is doing it, I'm not the only one." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "28:37", "start": 1716.56, "text": "So that's, that brings up an interesting question I have for you as well. Then on the spending side, is it generally like, is it a Bitcoiner per se, or is it just like curious tourists who maybe they have some Bitcoin on their phones? I'm curious what you're seeing in terms of the spender profile." }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "28:51", "start": 1731.45, "text": "So there's two kinds of Bitcoiners that end up here on the island. The purposeful ones, and then the people that just showed up and realized the ATMs and getting money here is a pain. They see The big Bitcoin sign in the middle of town, find my phone number on the door and ask me if I'll take USDT or whatever, because Bitcoin is just seen as international money, and so they call up and want to cash out. So I end up, even the people that are purposeful Bitcoin tourists, I'm amazed at how many of them don't self custody, have not heard of Lightning yet, and so I end up, you know, showing them how to do these things." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "29:41", "start": 1780.72, "text": "Back to the show in a moment. As Bitcoin's price rises up, it's time to think about our security. With Unchained Capital, they can help you upgrade your security to multi-signature. This can give you massively improved peace of mind because you know That you have removed single points of failure from your setup. So in this setup, you hold two keys in different locations, and Unchained holds the third key. Now, for those of you who are beginners and you're not sure how to get this set up, they have a concierge onboarding program. So go to unchained dot com slash concierge. You can buy a program, they will ship you the hardware if you need it, they'll do a call with you and help you upgrade your security so you can take your coins off an exchange or off a custodian or out of a single This can give you massively improved peace of mind, so go to unchained dot com slash concierge, use code livera for a discount there. Build on L2 is a community for Bitcoin builders by Blockstream. The Build on L2 initiative is a community led effort by contributors and companies building on core Lightning and the Liquid network. So this includes a range of technologies, things like confidential transactions, federations, simplicity, covenants, elements, miniscript, just to name a few. So whether you are a product manager, a designer, an engineer, you can come together through events, joining mentorship program to fast track your success or just have a community space to learn something new alongside other Bitcoiners building the future of Bitcoin layer two. Sign up now over at buildonl2 dot com. And finally, when it comes to Bitcoin hardware, CoinKites dot com is my favorite place. I, I'm a big fan of the Coldcard. It's a fantastic device. It's very reliable and it can be initialized without phoning home to the company servers. So it's a great device that you can just plug into the wall. You can use dice rolls to increase entropy or even bring your own entropy. You can use it in a range of configurations, whether that is single signature or as part of a multi-signature setup, and it's a very- useful device, it's well known and well supported across the ecosystem. So in my view, it's a great choice for those of you who want to secure your coins, as we say, not your keys, not your coins. CoinKite can help you do this with a range of tools and accessory devices that they have. They have the seed plate also for those of you who want to do a metal seed backup. So go get your gear over at coinkite dot com and get a discount on your cold cards with the code livera. And now back to the show. That's an interesting point also, because we have our online Twitter and echo chambers and things like this where we all know all about Lightning, but there's a lot of people who maybe they've heard about Bitcoin, maybe they, maybe they even have a small amount, but it's on an exchange somewhere or it's in a hardware wallet somewhere, or hardware signing device, but quote unquote in the wallet, you know what I mean? Yeah. And they've never even thought to use Lightning. So I'm curious, what kind of stories-- Are you seeing the similar kind of thing, Malcolm?" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "32:32", "start": 1952.15, "text": "Yeah My friends have, you know, I'm obviously that Bitcoin guy in my friend circles, and, and I, I've, I've tried to, stop talking about Bitcoin so much when I meet people, but like now I'm kind of like the-- I'm not just a Bitcoin guy, I'm the Lightning guy now, right? So it's like, you know, so all my Bitcoin conversations have now turned to Lightning conversations, right? So, but yeah, but like, but like you mentioned, you know, even within the people that own Bitcoin, if you were-- I'm Even aware of what the heck Lightning is, and that's a shame, right? And so we need to do a better job as a community to get Lightning more, to be more universally known. And one of those things is, it's because not enough exchanges have Lightning, right? You only have like OKX, Bitfinex, Kraken, those are basically the major ones that have Lightning, right? So, you know, if an exchange doesn't have Lightning, that means their users who are depositing, Bitcoin to and from the exchange aren't even aware Lightning. So I think if exchanges were to-- 'cause there are a lot of times that first step where that first touch point between, the end retail customer and, and buying Bitcoin, right? So if let's say overnight Coinbase were to launch Lightning and, and other large exchanges were to launch Lightning, Binance and so forth, you guys need to get on board here, like, you know, like, do it, and the Lightning adoption would- Triple-fold, five-fold, ten-fold in the next couple of months. So I would really love to see, and I put it out there as a challenge to like other exchanges, get fricking on Lightning. Like, you know, I don't know if you guys are just trying to like earn your Bitcoin fees on the, on the withdrawals, but like, you know, let's make it easier for people to move their money in and out of the, in and out of the exchange, launch Lightning services, to bear market, build, build some fricking things, and like, 'cause I think that Possibly do. I actually think, like Albert was telling me earlier today, like maybe an hour ago, and I haven't even taken a look at it yet, but I supposedly, Cash App just put out a, a commercial. I don't know if you saw it, I haven't seen it, but like talking about how they're all talking about Lightning now, right? So like Cash App, you know, sixty-five million users in the US, thank you very much, now is- Putting forth, clearly they've had some chat internally on a marketing strategy, and they are pushing Lightning, so that's good. We need more mainstream companies that have already done massive user acquisition to start talking and indoctrinating people about Lightning, because when you think about us, right, in terms of like Pouch and us and HiveX and, you know, you have, you have Strike that has, according to their app store, like two million downloads, let's say. So like they have the most users, right? But- Cumulatively, across all of the apps like Moon and Phoenix and everything, we don't have like this impressive user base yet, right? So we need the cash apps of the world and the, and the online centralized exchanges to kind of- Push Lightning more, and that will help the Lightning ecosystem as a whole. A-anyway, what, what do you think about that bill or- Yeah." }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "35:36", "start": 2136.46, "text": "Yeah, yeah, more, more Lightning is better. You know, here on the island, I don't think people realize, there is on-chain. It's just, oh, this is instant, this is what Bitcoin is, and that very well might be the future where a lot of people, as they get onboarded, that- You know, on chain thing is just not something they think about. So" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "36:00", "start": 2159.53, "text": "one area or maybe one hypothesis I might pose here. Now, of course, I'm a Lightning user, I love using, you know, earning and spending Lightning wherever possible. I think for a lot of people, once they've got their first setup, they then don't upgrade that, right? So for example, people just kind of have like a hardware de-device and then they don't later upgrade that to multi-sig. So in a similar way, when they're sort of going around spending, maybe there's not as You know, maybe they just have a, a wallet that's only on chain. But, yeah, I think I agree with you though that there are a lot of big players in the quote-unquote crypto world who, if they were to adopt Lightning, it would massively move the space forward, and not just like the Lightning part of it. I think it's the more people would use any form of, you know, they would use Bitcoin, and I think it would grow the overall space so much more because of the instant transactions part. I think it-- for, for a lot of people, seeing is believing" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "36:55", "start": 2214.85, "text": "Actually do a Lightning transaction in person at a shop or even on a website, it's another whole thing altogether. So Bill, I'm curious, are you seeing an up-- any kind of patterns in terms of tourism, on Boracay?" }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "37:11", "start": 2231.33, "text": "Yeah, yeah. So we are definitely getting the purposeful tourists, and I absolutely love it. We get the digital nomads that might come for a few weeks, a month or two, and so that's always nice. It, it starts to build a community. It's a rotating community. Right before the Christmas holidays, our Bitcoin meetup, I believe, had nineteen people at it. That was, that was a record. And now we're getting-- I think we've got two Two or three Bitcoin couples here on the island right now. So it really just depends. I suspect that we're going to actually see a lowering in the number of Bitcoin tourists for a while because everyone is saving up that trip for coming during Vietnam, coming during our retreat." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "38:02", "start": 2281.86, "text": "Yeah, that makes sense." }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "38:03", "start": 2283.08, "text": "So there, there'll be some pen-- We're gonna be shifting demand for vacations on white sand beaches for, for a little while." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "38:11", "start": 2291.45, "text": "Yeah. No, well, that's cool. I mean, yeah, I, I was keen to come along, and then obviously I saw the retreat come up, I thought, okay, well, this is obviously gonna be the, the time for me to come and see, see the place for myself. I'm definitely keen to, yeah, see what it's like on the ground. I think that's, it's useful for people, at least to- Go in person and then at least I can share that perspective, so then people who haven't been able to go themselves, they can at least get some second hand point of view. So do you wanna tell us a little bit about the structure of the retreat and what you guys are planning there?" }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "38:45", "start": 2325.24, "text": "Sure. So th-this is going to be a two-day retreat. Yeah. So there is a main stage going on the entire time, and then there is a education parallel track that is getting at the fundamental skills of a Bitcoiner that are necessary. Given the number of people that were motivated to come to Bitcoin Island but had never taken their Bitcoin off of an exchange, I see that, you know, there's gonna need to be a self-custody aspect And we're getting some donations of hardware to do, a ho-- hardware signing device section. We're talking about how to back up your seed and, just general lightning usage, things like that. So we've got a full day of education that someone is going to be running, and then we're gonna repeat that twice. On the second day, it's going to be the same thing, and then we've got something that we really are curious about. It's going to be birds of a feather talk, where there is going to be a topic every, I believe, twenty minutes in a lounge type area that if you wanna talk about Self custody. You wanna talk about informal fiat rails for growing Bitcoin communities. there'll be a new topic every twenty minutes. Some of these will have natural leaders that would lead the conversation, others are just more-- everyone comes together and has a conversation. For some of the speakers, it'll just be set up that after their main stage, they come into the lounge, have a beer with people, sit down- at the couch and just discuss. We see that a lot of times after a main stage, everyone mobs the, the speaker. Wouldn't it be nice if they just, you know, held court in the lounge for, you know, twenty minutes afterwards? So we wanna set things up like that also." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "40:53", "start": 2452.9, "text": "Excellent. Well, yeah, I'm, I'm looking forward to it. So it sounds a little more in the unconference style, so that'll be, a good way for people to informally chat. With people. Malcolm, do you want to tell us a little bit from your side, a little bit about LightningCon, what's the structure, what can people expect here?" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "41:10", "start": 2470.45, "text": "Yeah, no, yeah, I mean, we're pretty excited about, about LightningCon. I mean, it's like, it's our first time ever putting on a conference, and, I'm sure it might be the same for, for the guys over at Pouch, you know? So, a lot of learning. It's been, it's been a, a great learning experience, But yeah, but in terms of the conference, the, the first evening, basically we're gonna have like a little, like a, like a beach party. We're, we're, we're renting this, Da Nang's amazing, I, I love it there, to be quite honest with you, it's beautiful. I love Boracay as well, Bill, like I've been there a few times, I'm probably gonna pop over for a visit as well, right after our conference. So, like, so yeah, it's absolutely beautiful, so" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "42:01", "start": 2520.7, "text": "I do Which is actually like waves that you can actually surf. so anyway, we're renting out one of them, so we're gonna have a little like pre, you know, day zero little event for cocktails, for people to like hang out, chit chat and whatnot. So, and it's like literally a twenty minute walk or a, a two minute, Grab ride. So, you know, mental note for everybody, there is no Uber in Asia, right? They didn't succeed. So you need to download either Gojek, well," }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "42:34", "start": 2553.66, "text": "Download the app, 'cause when you, when you, when you land, Gr- is Grab pretty big in, Philippines too, Bill? Or is it, It is, just" }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "42:40", "start": 2559.77, "text": "not on the island." }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "42:41", "start": 2560.95, "text": "Oh, not on the island? Yeah, yeah, okay. so yeah, so you ne- you need a Grab, right? So download Grab app, it's amazing, like it's so inexpensive. But anyway, so at the event, it's a beautiful resort, we're like absolutely super impressed with it. I mean, it's literally" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "43:00", "start": 2580.34, "text": "right on Doing like a, like a, like a one person kind of, speaking to the, the, to the crowd, or there'll be like some fire, you know, like, panels and so forth. So it'll, it'll be a mixed bag, but it'll just be one room, like one room with maybe, I don't know, call it two hundred and fifty seats available for, for sitting down. Like if anybody went to Adopting Bitcoin, like the most recent one, it'll probably have a look and feel sort of similar to that one, right? We" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "43:34", "start": 2613.66, "text": "Tons of on-tinkering, so we are having people like Dred and some other people who wanna do some like workshop-ing, so there will be some workshop stuff happening there as well. And then basically, w- you know, once, you know, five o'clock or six o'clock rolls around, you know, like, you know, that part of the conference is over and it's gonna be more like socializing and having drinks and getting to know each other over by like the pool and the outdoor area and, and everything will be set up, so you'll be able to, you That you're using from home, we wanna make sure that everybody can use their Sats to buy food there and buy drinks and, and all that sort of jazz, right? You know, and, and I'm also thinking about maybe we wanna have a couple of like little mini events planned, so maybe on the Wednesday evening or the Thursday evening we'll gather some people who maybe wanna go and have like a real, like, more authentic experience, like not like on this like very westernized resort on, you know, in Da Nang. I want people-- Vietnam's amazing, like, I mean, I I don't want people coming there and just going, \"Yeah, I, I was in and out in three days and I went to a conference.\" Like, I want people, like, I encourage people come for like a week ahead of time. It's so inexpensive to be there, work remotely for a week, you know what I mean? Like, enjoy it for what it is, spend another week in Boracay if you, if you decide to like pop over to, to their conference as well, and really experience what like the countries have to offer. So, I think that was another reason why" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "45:04", "start": 2703.66, "text": "country in Southeast Asia. I'm a huge fan. I want people from like the Western part of the world to like come to the East and like experience the, like the lovely people, the beautiful weather. It's such an incredible place, especially for like people who wanna like work remotely now. Like, there's no better place for your money to go, you know what I mean? Like, you can, you're spending like a thousand dollars on your apartment for the month and you're, you're living pretty lavishly. So, you know, I want people to like come for more than just a conference I'll go to the conference and like, let's go, I like to have a good time, you know, and I wanna show people a good time, that's just my personality, so I'm gonna definitely be like, \"Hey, guys, like, let's go to this local bar thingamajigger and let's go, like, hang out with, like, you know, in the local community as well.\" So, so we'll have, hopefully we'll have a very fun, there'll be a lot of learning, but" }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "45:52", "start": 2751.84, "text": "there'll be a good, people will have Entertainment in the evenings after the conference is wrapped up for the day. You could easily only go to our Bitcoin businesses right on the shore or more in town and have a great time." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "46:18", "start": 2778.09, "text": "Fantastic. And I'd love to hear a little bit about, the local Bitcoin communities as well. I know, there is like a Vietnam, like there are some meetup groups and things. I'm curious if you have any, you know, if you can share a little bit about that side, Malcolm?" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "46:31", "start": 2791.28, "text": "Yeah. So it's funny 'cause it's been interesting. Doing this whole conference and, and understanding and getting in touch with all the different Bitcoin communities, there needs to be more. My, my big realization is there's not enough Bitcoiners in Southeast Asia. That's been very apparent to me when trying to get speakers for this event and actually talking to the, the, the Bitcoin leaders and the respective communities, whether in Malaysia or Thailand or Indonesia or whatever, there needs to be more, right? So, and the same goes for Vietnam. So like the, the longest standing community is Bitcoin Saigon, right? So Bitcoin- Saigon has been around since basically twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen, you know, old school Bitcoiner, right, Dominique, so he is one of the co-founders of, of, of basically Bitcoin VN, and so, he's been having regular meetups for, I guess, nine, ten years to be quite honest with you, right? And so, that is definitely the longest standing community in, in Vietnam, so right out of like Ho Chi Minh City slash Saigon, however you wanna call it. So the communities outside of Saigon aren't as strong, so Hanoi, definitely not as strong. Unfortunately, and Bill can speak to this too, is like the crypto, poi-- the, the crypto poison runs deep in Asia, right? And so Asia has been like, you know, been so-- they love, I don't know, they just love crypto and they love the speculation of the EOSs, remember that, and like all those other crazy coins where, you know, they love to gamble on that stuff, right? And so Bitcoin, unfortunately, like sound money, has taken a- In the back seat to basically speculative gambling for a very long time. So are there a, a ton of like ETH communities and shitcoin communities? Way too many to speak of, right? So, you know, and, and, you know, and we're very clear that they're not really like wanted at our conference either, right? And they'll be asked to leave. Like if you're trying to come to our conference and you're trying to shill some sort, some sort of bullshit outside of Bitcoin, you'll be escorted out, right? So we're very clear about" }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "48:29", "start": 2909.48, "text": "that. I Anyone start shitcoining on stage, you know, hit the gong and run them out on a rail. so." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "48:42", "start": 2921.83, "text": "Yeah. So Bill, I'm curious as well, do you have anything to share in terms of, are there any Filipino Bitcoin communities or meetup groups?" }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "48:48", "start": 2928.47, "text": "Yeah, there's a big one in Manila, and so I will present there remotely. They're going-- They're sending some people over here, of course. So yeah, that, that's that. I've not been in Manila in quite a while, so I've never actually gone to it. But some of the Pouch team is in Manila, and I think they go to these meetups from time to time." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "49:13", "start": 2952.82, "text": "Fantastic. Yeah. And I've spoken to my friend Louis Liu, I believe he's, coming for the Vietnam event. I know he's, he's been keen to really grow the Bitcoin scene, right? Because similar to what you guys are saying, there's a lot of, quote unquote, crypto, and it would Have a more solid Bitcoin focused scene, right? Whether it's meetups, podcasts, newsletters, whatever, to have more like focus on the actual, \"Hey, we're trying to build sound money, we're trying to build this technology, we're trying to build this community of users so that we have this alternative, right? This true alternative to fiat.\" So I'd love to see that. I'm, I'm obviously keen to attend both events, so I'm looking forward to seeing you guys there. and so before we finish up, guys, can you, let everyone Where I find you online?" }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "49:59", "start": 2999.49, "text": "Sure, so if you go to pouch dot p h, right across the top or in the menu bar is going to be Retreat and Boracay. That's gonna find everything that you need for the Retreat and the Boracay." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "50:14", "start": 3014.24, "text": "Fantastic. And the dates for that is twenty, March 27th to 29th for Bitcoin Island Retreat. Now, Malcolm, do you want to, go, go on your side?" }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "50:22", "start": 3022.07, "text": "Yeah. So for, so for our conference, if you go to lightningcon dot org. So, That's where you'll see everything having to do with the conference, you know, ticket prices, went up just the other day, so, ticket prices went up on February one and they go up again on March one, so it's funny 'cause like as soon as you tweet out the ticket prices are going up? People buy tickets, you know what I mean? So we saw the majority of our ticket sales really come in like the forty-eight hours leading up to, to February the first, so, that's, it's, it's pretty hilarious, you know, so that, we, it's kind of funny to see that. also, you know, neutronpay dot com, you know, we just launched a brand new website, we encourage everybody to go check it out, we're, we just did a whole new rebrand, so I need to get you know, obviously I'm, I'm on Twitter at, you know, you know, malcolm, malcolm dot weed handle. you can also check us out on our, you know, Bitcoin Beach Vietnam Twitter handle, right? So that's at bitcoin beach dot v or, or Bitcoin Beach VN. That's the one that we've mainly been tweeting out about when it r- as it relates to the conference. So just follow that one and you'll kind of get all the, the latest updates on the conference and, and kind of" }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "51:37", "start": 3096.97, "text": "what's" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "51:41", "start": 3101.26, "text": "Okay, great. So all that will be in the show notes. Bill and Malcolm, thank you for joining me today." }, { "speaker": "guest_2", "time": "51:45", "start": 3105.12, "text": "Thank you." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "51:45", "start": 3105.48, "text": "Awesome. Thanks, Stefan. Get the show notes at stephanlivera dot com slash four five seven. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you in the Citadel." } ] }