{ "episodeId": "SLP530", "speakers": { "stephan": { "name": "Stephan Livera", "role": "host", "tag": "STEPHAN" }, "stephan_livera": { "name": "Stephan Livera", "role": "guest", "tag": "STEPHAN" } }, "segments": [ { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "00:00", "start": 0.18, "text": "So it's important for the newbies to see that, there's a new kind of money and you can have the custody of it. So it's important for us to, to, to spend the Bitcoin, to, to, to teach and for the long-term use, you know?" }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "00:31", "start": 30.99, "text": "Hi everyone, welcome to the Stephan Livera podcast, a show about Bitcoin and Austrian economics, brought to you by Swann dot com. Today I'm joined by Fernando Motolese, the founder of Bitcoin Beach Brazil and also the creator of the Bitcoinize app. So firstly, first of all, welcome to the show." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "00:47", "start": 47.3, "text": "Thank you for having me here, Stephan." }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "00:50", "start": 50.16, "text": "Yeah, so let's hear a little bit of your background. I, I want to hear a little bit about how you, got into Bitcoin and what you're-- how you got into this, idea. I, as I understand, you started with Bitcoin Beach Brazil first before doing Bitcoin Eyes, right? Yes," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:03", "start": 62.71, "text": "yes. First, I am a musician, a developer, and a cybersecurity researcher. I am from São Paulo, and from the last, for the last eighteen years, I have been, running a audio production company, specialized in voiceover services. And, in two-- I met Bitcoin in two thousand and thirteen, and but I started to look deep into it just in two thousand and twenty. And, when I, when I moved to Jericoacoara, the Bitcoin Beach, Brazil, Jeri is one of the ten most beautiful beaches of the planet. So I moved here to start To look into, to have a better quality of life, and I created this, experiment called the Private Bitcoin Brazil in two thousand twenty-one, and in two thousand twenty-three, I founded the Bitcoinize dot com to sell the Bitcoin POS devices." }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "02:06", "start": 126.14, "text": "Fantastic. So let's hear a little bit about, sta-starting Bitcoin Beach Brazil. I presume you're inspired by the El Zonte Bitcoin Beach." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "02:16", "start": 135.72, "text": "Yes, of course. When, Bitcoin become a legal tender in, El Salvador, I decided to replicate the Bitcoin Beach experiment here in Brazil. So I understood how, Bitcoin, they started to use Bitcoin Coin there, and then I, I created a kind of similar initiative here in Brazil, inspired in Bitcoin Beach in El Zonte, and then, after six months, onboarding merchants and locals and, sharing, small amounts of sets with them, doing real transactions, I got engaged with the, public school, and then I started to create a real circular economy Economy, following the four pillars of the, the circular economy, the education, technology, the education technology, spirituality, and, entertainment. So I created this program with the school. We, we, we activated the, the lab, the computer lab of the school, and then we gave to the kids some tools to them to use Bitcoin, in daily basis, and then, the, the Bitcoinized machine emerged." }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "03:43", "start": 223.1, "text": "Right. And so tell us a little bit about your experience trying to grow a circular economy, as I understand, in the- In the case of El Zonte, there was a, a donor who put up some money anonymously to sort of seed the project and help get the thing started so that people could get paid in Bitcoin. Yeah. How-- what did that look like in your case for Bitcoin Beach Brazil?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "04:06", "start": 246.24, "text": "In my case, I just started with zero dot zero two BTC at the beginning, at the, at that time was around one thousand US dollars, and then, you know, was- It's a really small initiative at the beginning, because, you know, there are-- Bitcoin is, it's very huge, you know, when you start to use Bitcoin as money You need to understand how to do it in the right way, right? So, here I started using mainly on-chain wallets at the beginning, but at some point we discovered that, was necessary to use Lightning. So I started to raise funds, through our node using BTC Pay Server, raising donations to do our local infrastructure to, to buy the equipment, to, to make the, to pay our offs here, and, so we, we did totally different because we didn't had a, a, a big donor at the beginning. I started by fundraising it with my own resources, but after one year running the initiative, the, the, the Bitcoin Beach donated the big It's, the, the, a big, did the first big donation and, it was around zero dot one BTC to, give some T-shirts and some paper wallets to the kids to understand, and then we started to attract another, other donors to help us to build our- local, circular economy here. So I engaged with the school and with the community council to build this kind of circular economy here, giving tools to the merchants and teaching them how to use Bitcoin, you know, not only Lightning. Here we have, our merchants and everyone, they receive a training to receive small payments using- Growing, and then when they have enough, they send these payments to their own wallets that they have the keys. So, and at the beginning it was a really small initiative, but, this year during the carnival, we did our first conference, and we, with around one hundred, people were attending the conference, and, it was amazing because You know, here we have thirty merchants and the people using both cards and the, and the, the POS machines, and we have a pretty advanced community here, so everything that we did Was receiving donations and, building your own tools." }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "07:16", "start": 436.15, "text": "Great. And so you mentioned you have thirty merchants. What was it like getting merchants on board in terms of getting them over that initial hurdle? And then, I guess the other aspect that I've heard of is, it's one thing to onboard a merchant, but then it's also A, an aspect of keeping that merchant and have, making sure they get enough actual volume, because otherwise they might just sort of give up on the whole Bitcoin thing." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "07:40", "start": 460.35, "text": "Yes, yes, it's It's very difficult on board Marsians, but, you know, when you, have this long term goal to keep the Bitcoin side of the community, so, you, you have the right motivation from board Marsians. So in, in the beginning, my motivation to use Bitcoin in the community was to be able to instead to sell the Bitcoin, use it as a- As a payment method, right? So, I decided to onboard merchants that was necessary for the community. So we have the, the bakery, we have the, the small market, we have restaurants and the, the, the ice cream shop and other places that, they are useful for the community and they have a volume enough To keep the merchant running and, you know, accumulating sats, because the, the, the main part to receive, the, the main, reason to receive Bitcoin payments here in Jijikwakwara for the merchant is a kind of marketing tool. At the beginning, they don't understand how Bitcoin works and why to receive Bitcoin, but when they start to receive and collect sats, and they understand That they can have the custody of that funds and it's a kind of Plan B, you know, a kind of alternative currency that they are holding for the long term. They figure out that, Bitcoin's not only a cash system, Bitcoin is a saving technology. So they start to save for the future. So here we have this statistics that fifty percent of the merchants, they are holding for the future. Twenty-five percent is Spending, you know, they receive, they go to the supermarket, to the restaurant, to the coffee shop, and they spend, and twenty-five percent is cashing out. So When they, start to use this, this kind of money and, benefit from the marketing, that, you know, they attract new users to paying their, stores that, you know, and they start to save that money for the future, so the- Our merchants here, they are engaged to keep growing with the ecosystem and holding for the future, and if they don't want to hold, they can expect." }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "10:30", "start": 630.24, "text": "Yeah, that's great. And so in terms of those merchants being able to directly spend or even- Sell back to fiat. How, how are they normally doing that? Is that just one, you know, the owner is just taking the sats and buying products themselves or just selling for cash or how does that operate? How does that work? Yeah," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "10:52", "start": 651.7, "text": "so, so this is, where the Bitcoinized machines and the tool that we created, they, fit perfectly. So here, private Bitcoin acts as a kind of community bank, right? We have this- Merchants, this local, the group of users, the kids of the school, the members of the community council, so to onboard these people and to make them, be ready to spend or to receive, we created two Two, basic tools. The first one is the paper wallet. It's a kind of piece of paper that there is the, the seal here to protect the private key. There's a seeding phrase and the xpub inside of the paper wallet and a Bitcoin address. So, in the, in, in the back, you can check the, how do I say, the, the balance of this wallet and the don't- Download the codes that where we created this wallet and also the check or experiment here private Bitcoin. And this, they received that to understand how the main net works, right? So they can see their payment, their, their private keys when they open the paper wallet, they understand that they can import the seed phrases, and that's it. And the second thing is the bold card. So when a merchant receive a pay- Payment in their POS devices, it's connected with their both cards, so they receive these payments, it's inside of their wallet in the community console, in this community bank, this community Bitcoin bank, and then they are ready to spend with their cards So, the boat card is a kind of, new technology created by, by, Peter and the guys of Coin Corner that, allows you to use Bitcoin through Lightning just, as a normal contactless card. But, there's a, there is some, something special in this card because every time you tap- It, you get a random signature, so it's impossible to clone the boat card. So, the, the merchants and the users that they are onboarded here in Shariqakara, they receive this too. So it's very easy to them With, fifteen minutes training to understand, to spend they use Lightning, to receive they can use Lightning too. In the back of the card they have this UID here, and then if they, it's a kind of Lightning address as well. So they, they type the, the number of the card and the, the address of the server, and they can receive payments as well. And if they need to save For the future, they use their own chain wallets. We, we teach them how to create and how to use it using the paper wallet. And, so we, we created this kind of future for the user to instead to sell and tell to the government and to, you know, that you, you had this Bitcoin, you sold it, and now you have the, the, the bloody money in your hands It's much better spend using Bitcoin, so it's challenging because we need to provide the infrastructure, but this community bank was, really, important for the community because we provide everything they need to start their journey into the rehab whole." }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "14:55", "start": 894.68, "text": "Gotcha. And speaking of the tech stack that you are using, what are you using to provide? I g-as I understand, it's a custodial wallet to start with? For those merchants, and then they can sweep out into their own on-chain wallet that they hold the keys. That's kind of the rough idea." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "15:12", "start": 911.65, "text": "Yes, yes, but, at the beginning, I will-- there's a lot of users here using different tools, right? But the Galois stack, we have, a lot of users using it. We, have, some merchants and some, The other local workers using the Galois tech, but to provide these tools as the both cards, we are running our own node, right? So we teach the user at the beginning using our local server, and then they start to use other tools as they want. So there are users using Breeze Wallet, other users uses, using Phoenix, wallet of Satoshi, Blink, so depends on the user and their needs, the wallet they will want to use. We don't force anyone to use any solution, and we have the cards mainly for these four hundred kids of the school and for the merchants that use the community console server. So the, the idea here Is to, teach and to teach the user and to make Bitcoin be, here forever. Don't depend of anyone else, you know. But our tools, of course, they help the, the, the users keep transacting it, because it's not easy to transact on chain. but, Lightning helps it a lot. So pro- by providing our own infrastructure and our own community bank, we have this kind of, advantage. We are using the cutting edge technology. We was the first community to experience the, the bolt card effect, the, this kind of make Bitcoin easy to spend, you know, rather you have a fiat card, you can do it with your Bitcoin. So it's very useful for the user when- When I go here to, to, to the night, I don't, need to care my mobile phone, I just go there with my card and then I pay, it's beautiful" }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "17:39", "start": 1058.85, "text": "Great, so let's talk a little bit about the user experience side. We've spoken a bit about the merchant side. On the user side, can you tell us a little bit about what people are typically using and who are the typical users? Are they Kids in the, in the local area, are they tourists? Are they, you know, other people in the area? Can you tell us a little bit about that side?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "17:58", "start": 1078.06, "text": "Okay. So, when the tourists come here, they have all kinds of wallets. The, I saw tourists using Zelenn. the interpolar-- interpolarity of Lightning is amazing, you know? It's like, here, as we have our own node and a nice liquidity We are, we are the second biggest node of Brazil. so, we, we have a nice experience, you know, you can use your node, you can, use, Oh my God, every wallet you want, you just need to, how do I say, to have the channels and, and your Lightning wallet running. But in the merchant side, we have mainly merchants using, the, the BTC Pay server that we provide and Blink Wallet for the swaps, and, they use their own" }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "19:09", "start": 1149.07, "text": "Back to the show in a moment. This show is brought to you by CoinKite dot com. If you need to secure your Bitcoin private keys, a great way to do that is to use hardware devices above a certain threshold for increased security. So most notably, the Coldcard from CoinKite dot com is a great tool. I use it as part of various setups in my own Bitcoin security setups. I find it a phenomenal tool because of how reliable it is and how How functional it is in terms of the different features you can use with the cold card. So if you're a beginner, just get a cold card and get a USB-C cable and you can directly plug it into your PC, your laptop or your desktop and use it easily with desktop apps such as Sparrow or Specter Desktop. If you are an intermediate or advanced user, you can use the micro SD card feature, which you use to get transactions in and out, as well as take the public keys in and out of your cold card. So that's a great feature that you can use to improve your security. A range of products available over at coinkite dot com. Use code livera for a discount on your cold cards. Also mempool dot space. Mempool dot space is a Bitcoin and blockchain visualizer. So if you're trying to send Bitcoin transactions today, you can see that the fees are rising, but with mempool dot space, you can use the fee targeting feature of low, medium or high priority depending on how quickly you need your transaction to be confirmed. Over at mempool dot space, you can view past transactions also, so you can view the block Blockchain. You can see various flags and other informational aspects of transactions that you have done or other transactions that are just there on the blockchain. For example, things like the RBF history of a particular transaction. Mempool dot space is a great tool that I use regularly whenever I'm about to send a Bitcoin on-chain transaction, and of course, keep an eye out for their upcoming mempool accelerator feature which is coming. So go to mempool dot space to find out more about all of that. And now back to the show. Okay, yeah, so you are running a BTC pay and you have underlying stores under which each of those shop owners or merchants is Managing their store, but then they're also using Blink for swapping in and out. That's kind of at a high level what they're doing." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "21:22", "start": 1282.2, "text": "Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And then sometimes, they, they select to auto forward, when they, they, they select to auto forwards," }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "21:33", "start": 1292.76, "text": "right. It gets above a certain threshold and it withdraws out to their own chain wallet, something like that. Yeah, yeah," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "21:38", "start": 1298.33, "text": "yeah." }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "21:39", "start": 1298.79, "text": "Yeah. Great, okay. And so in terms of, so you've mentioned a little bit about how when tourists are calm, they've got Phoenix and Zeus and Breeze and whatever else, what about locals? What kind of spending experience and apps and experiences that been like for the locals?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "21:58", "start": 1318.0, "text": "The locals, they, they use the card, you" }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "22:00", "start": 1320.18, "text": "know? Okay, so they're, they're pretty much bolt carding. Okay, so they've all just got their own bolt card. Basically, that's like a custodial lightning account, and they're sort of, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "22:14", "start": 1333.6, "text": "yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah And then we have, some users that they are running their nodes and, and they are holding their funds, but mainly they, they are using the boat card. The locals use the, the card because it's easier for them. And also there are a new version of the card coming that will come with QR codes to receive payment and to, oh my God To receive payments and to, make the, to, to check the balance, that will be easier for them to, to keep transaction with the card. But it's hard, you know? We need to inject money in the economy. So I hired these locals to make works And mainly the merchants are the spenders, you know? Remember, we have twenty-five percent of people that is receiving, is spending. So it depends on these people to, to make the, the thing grow. Happened here." }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "23:19", "start": 1399.0, "text": "On the earning side, so when it comes to users getting Sats to spend, how are they doing that? Are these people who are earning Bitcoin for their job or are they buying it somehow? You know, I've heard in other different circular economies there are different setups where maybe some of them are earning as part of their job and then they're also spending. What's the setup, for you?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "23:41", "start": 1421.26, "text": "Yes. the kids of the school, when they receive the card, they receive a small amount of sats, because we have this program in the school called \"Fruits for Sats,\" that they can buy fruits for ten sats. So the kids, the four hundred users of the school, they receive a card with two thousand one hundred sats. That's enough to buy fruits for the entire year. And then they can buy Bitcoin. We have the second pro-uh, program called the pig bank bailout, that we go to the school and we told the kids to bring pig banks that we gave to them to, collect some coins from their parents and doing their volunteer work for their parents. And then, they, we exchange these coins the, these Fiat coins for Bitcoin once per month, so we have around one hundred kids buying Bitcoin on the monthly basis, and when they have, enough They, they change, they send this, this Bitcoin for their own chain wallets. And, the, the third kind of user is the user that is, is, is, is already, receiving other services. So as we have twenty-five percent of the merchants spending, they are the main spenders of the community. So they spend, and then other users receive And then we keep, you know, flowing sets. And I am the, the main spender of the community. I pay the renting from the community council, I buy the fruits every day for the Fruits for Sets program. we have, two employees here that receive Bitcoin salary, so the circular economy is like, kind of, it's not so big, but it's, we are- We are making maybe hundreds of transactions per day." }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "25:52", "start": 1551.61, "text": "Interesting, yeah. So, certainly it has to start from somewhere and, let's talk a little bit now about your Bitcoinize POS device. Now, people may have seen this on social media. I, I think I've had a couple opportunities, in various places to actually spend into it. Can you tell us a little bit about the device and what you're hoping to achieve there?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "26:14", "start": 1574.12, "text": "Yes, at the beginning, of the bolt card Last year, in August last year, the Bolt card came out, right? And then this Bolt card is this NFC card that allows you to, link your wallet with the card. And then I saw a small kid making a payment with a POS machine in Europe, so, this- gave to me an idea to start to provide fruits for the kids in the school and to use the both cards to teach them how to use Bitcoin and how to, you know We start to, to use it in the daily basis. So I started to talk with some factories on China if they agree with me to make some changes in the operating system, in the device itself, to, and the opening and the styling to, to make a Bitcoin optimized device. So I started to buy a lot of devices, and then I figure out that all devices Who had some kind of problems and, they aren't ready to receive, Bitcoin payments and, also there are Some safety concerns because mainly all kinds of POS devices they have, old operating systems. So we-- I had this kind of, how do I say, you know, click To talk with the factory to change some things in the operating system and build, and I, my build a prototype of the, the this machine here. The Bitcoinized machine. So, I created a kind of prototype to, start this program in Brazil. Yeah, yeah, prototype. And then I, I started to run this program in Brazil. And a lot of people start to ask, \"Oh, how can I get a machine? how it works? How it, how it's programmed?\" And it, there's, because of this opportunity, there's no other Bitcoin, optimized The Bitcoin machine to receive payments. Actually, the Bitcoin machine is an Android tablet with NFC capabilities, and, this new version is running Android 12, but, the prototype was, Android 8. So basically, you can, embed a link to a BTC pay server or other kind of solution like I- X or, Bitfinex Pay or, many others, and then you, you, you looks like, very similar, to the fiat experience, and then you, you can use the cards. So that's it. And then I bought these machines from China, and I, and the factory agreed with me to make all changes that we requested to provide a kind of safety for these payments." }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "29:38", "start": 1778.09, "text": "That's great. And so, can you tell us a little bit, so you touched on this before, but in terms of connecting it with that merchant's store as an example, because they would need to buy the device and connect it to their store in some way, you're saying it would be done through having a link to that person's BTC pay server or to their merchant solution, because many of the merchant providers, let's say the payment processing providers, have an app that you can just- It's all on the phone, let's say, or on the Android device." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "30:09", "start": 1808.55, "text": "Yes. Should they, the main, user of the machine are the payment providers, right? They buy the machine and then they put their solution in the machine. We, we don't provide any solution, but there are other solutions, very, very easy. To use as the wallet of Satoshi, this, ca- this, POS of wallet Satoshi is just a Lightning address, and then it's, it's like there's nothing side of the machine, it's just the Lightning address here And then you, you, you generate invoice and when you, you, you receive the payment, it's not inside of the machine, it's going to their wallet in their mobile phone. So it's not only For the payment provider, the machine, you can use the wallet of Satoshi POS, the Bolt Card POS, the Breeze Wallet POS. You have a, a lot of solutions that you can use to make the payments, very easy." }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "31:20", "start": 1879.91, "text": "Great. Okay, so there's, there's different options there that the merchant can use to hook up to different providers, and as you're saying It doesn't have to have the private keys living on the device, it can be elsewhere, so that, you know, let's say the shop owner has multiple term-payment terminals, maybe it's a big shop, maybe they're running multiple shops, in that case they can, they can do it like that and have multiple- terminals that all tie back to the same account." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "31:48", "start": 1908.15, "text": "Exactly, exactly. And also they can, run their own nodes, they run infrastructure. This is the idea where as we provide just the hardware, we don't, have a specific-- But the best use case is to run dtpay server and, you know, in our own node and it's like remarkable." }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "32:13", "start": 1932.62, "text": "Yeah. And just for people, I'm sure People will wanna know how much is the device if they wanna buy the device." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "32:18", "start": 1937.65, "text": "It's one device is one hundred and ninety-nine dollars and but if you have, if you buy one hundred devices, it's, we can make around one hundred and ten dollars each." }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "32:29", "start": 1949.47, "text": "Okay, gotcha. So there's a discount for bulk buying basically. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So that's, that's great to see. And, I guess, are you getting a lot of interest already in terms of communities around the world or even just businesses who wanna take payment?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "32:43", "start": 1962.82, "text": "No, we sold more More than five hundred devices and, you know, mainly for the payment providers and conferences, but there are Bitcoiners giving the machines for the businesses because, you know, when you, give a kind of gift Like that for the merchant, and they start their journey. It's a kind of investment of the Bitcoin in their own circular economies. Because if they have their-- if you, you can pay with your Bitcoin in your community." }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "33:19", "start": 1999.47, "text": "Interesting, yeah. Okay. So yeah, it's, it's kind of like the same way people might gift a copy of the Bitcoin standard to their friends to try to teach them. You could give them a, a Bitcoinize, payment terminal to try to get them to start taking Bitcoin in their business. And, that's an interesting idea, I like that. And I, you know what, it's kind of an interesting one for communities, Bitcoin meetup organizers, people like that, you might be interested to look at this kind of idea For this exact same reason that, you can try to get some, local merchants adopting, Bitcoin payments. And I guess the cool thing is there's flexibility on their side because they can choose different providers, right? They don't, they're not locked into one particular provider. They can just sort of have the device and hook it up to whatever they want. So that's actually, that actually offers you a lot of flexibility." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "34:06", "start": 2045.78, "text": "Yes, yes. there are some merchants here, they use the machine to other purposes as well. They are using- Using it as a music player or to print receipts in the keychain or to, you know, get other requesters. So, you know, the two brand high food or, you know, the boat thing in El Salvador, there are some drivers. So, we- The machine is an Android tablet, so you can use it as, as you want, and it's important for the machine always to be charged because if there, there's not a lot of Bitcoin payment, so it's a device that can be useful for the merchant as well." }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "34:54", "start": 2094.2, "text": "The lead sponsor of this show is Swan Bitcoin. Over at swan dot com or using the Swan Bitcoin smartphone applications, you can buy Bitcoin and also learn about Bitcoin. With Swan, it's easy to set up an automatic recurring purchase plan, and with Swan, it's free automated withdrawal to your own self custody. Swan wants you to self custody, and to add to that, there is Swan Vault, which is recently launched and announced at Pacific Bitcoin twenty twenty-three. Swan Vault is a multi-signature product. Where you hold two keys and Swan will hold one key. And in this setup, it makes it more secure for you because you are taking away single points of failure. You have a setup that allows you to spend unilaterally, but also having support from Swan. Now, if you're interested in this, you can go to swan dot com slash vault and sign up on the list there. The current setup is to use two Blockstream Jade devices, but support will be coming for more devices soon. So- If you're looking to start stacking Sats 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. And now back to the show. Gotcha, I see. Yeah, and that's a good point. I mean, you've probably picked that up over the years as well, because some merchants, if they don't get a lot of Bitcoin payments, it, it sort of the payment terminal for it can languish and then it's just not used, and maybe the staff forget how to, you know, how to actually take payment in Bitcoin 'cause not enough people come in and pay with Bitcoin. So it's sort of, a downwards, a bad spiral that can happen there if, if it's not done the right way." }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "36:35", "start": 2194.94, "text": "Big insights that you would say you've learned in the process of trying to set up and support a circular economy or in creating this device?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "36:44", "start": 2203.77, "text": "Yes, the key is the education, you know. The device brings this message that every, mobile phone can process Bitcoin payments, but when you have a device dedicated to receive this payment and it's auto-mail, it's, Configurated to, make it easy, you know? They know that you can go there and the machine will be there, and they know how to use it to receive the payment is better, you know? Because it feels" }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "37:19", "start": 2238.79, "text": "just like a normal payment terminal or like a smartphone app that, you know, nowadays everybody's used to using smartphones, and so I guess you're kind of leveraging that factor that, you know, seeing is believing, and once they've seen it on a terminal that you press the button, then you, you know, it seems pretty obvious, whereas if you just- Just went to somebody without showing them, they might be like, \"Oh, what, what's this Bitcoin thing? Is that another whole thing I have to learn?\" And maybe it just becomes too confronting for somebody who's not already into it or already understands how it works. So I'm curious to get your thoughts. Sorry, go on." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "37:50", "start": 2269.9, "text": "I would like to recommend a film. That's very, inspiring for the circular economy founders. The name of the film is Bank of Dave. It's the story of a guy who created a Bitcoin, created a community bank in England, and then it's very similar with the story that I am living here. Because by running this kind of community bank and helping the merchants keep touch, you know, collect some coins and save for the future and have their own keys and learn about money What happens? We are creating wealth, we are creating a better community, and this film show us what's A bank or a kind of initiative that is community-driven, is able to help a small community to grow. So now I have merchants here, holding half coin, you know, just selling ice creams, you know, and maybe this is the only investment they have, you know, so with a custodial way. So this film will, will show For your audience, how it's important for a founder, for the Bitcoiners to start their circular economy, start their Bitcoin banks, as they've did in their small town, where I did here in Jiripacuara, where Juan did in El Zonte, Brindon is did, is doing it in Kampala. There's a lot of people creating this kind of community initiatives and They, they act," }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "39:45", "start": 2385.27, "text": "they act like a community bank. Gotcha. Yeah, that's interesting. I've heard of this movie, Bank of Dave. I haven't seen it, but I understand there's a guy in the UK and he goes to set up a bank, and it's kind of like he's trying to set up a community bank, but it's all the struggle of trying to get a license and all this stuff because there's so much regulation and so much, you know, existing financial, elites who are trying to stop him and stuff like that. So interesting." }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "40:11", "start": 2410.95, "text": "I You know, and they're not that opposed. I think the way I've-- I would explain it is that hodling is the most powerful network effect. That's probably what will happen first. Though I'm personally not opposed to sort of earning and spending, and I do earn and spend Bitcoin, I just see it as that's maybe that's gonna come at a later stage. But at the same time, I can see there are these circular economies, of course, you're, you're helping support one, and Deselzante and, and many others around the world, and so I'm curious to hear your perspective on, you know, the hodling and spending aspect of it, that, you know, can, can the, you know, can you grow enough of a circular economy that it, it, that it becomes a sustainable thing?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "40:58", "start": 2457.53, "text": "Yes, the point is, we have all kinds of users in all, you know, in all kinds of social positions, right? So like maybe eighty percent of the Brazilian population, they can't save for the future, right? So sometimes To define if you will be a holder or a, a spender, depends on your social position, right? Because I, I have users here that they sell, they receive and they sell immediately because they need to, to pay their, pay their bills and use that money, right? So what happens? It's a natural division, right? So by spending You helping the holders, you know, the long term holders to, save, you know, so like here, the supermarket sell all their Bitcoin, right? Then I buy it You know, because I am the holder of the community, right? So when the supermarket sell their Bitcoin, I go there and I buy it. And then I go there, spend again, and then I buy it again. If I keep buying and keep, holding, is, as a spender, it, makes me believe that when I was just a holder, I didn't had enough contact with Bitcoin. The daily basis, and now by being an expender, I have, you know, cash out ramps that allows me not to sell, but to spend. And at some point, when you are leaving the Bitcoin standard, you need to spend, you know, you pay your bills. If you are not receiving cash and just receiving Bitcoin, at some point you will be, forced to spend. So So you can be a hodler forever, but at some point you will buy a Lambo or something else. So it's better for the world if we can expend directly and not sell to spend later." }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "43:23", "start": 2603.18, "text": "I see, yeah. So, I mean, the way I see it is, I would say when you are spending, that is also a kind of disposal of coins. It's just not selling for fiat directly, right? You're just buying whatever it is, food or airfa-- airfares or Lamborghinis or whatever it is that you're spending the Bitcoin on, but I would see it as like maybe sort of, it helps make it real for people that there's-- that, you know, like out-- people who are outsiders to this world, they see, \"Oh, wow Makes it more real in their mind. So maybe there's some element to that. I still believe hodling is the most important network effect, and I think it's gonna be like a state, it's gonna be like order of operations. We need to sort of see enough of a base of hodlers before it sort of makes sense for the average person to actually earn and spend this thing. But I am still encouraging, I still want to see more, you know, this kind of thing grow. I just don't see it happening sort of in a broad, widespread- scale soon. I see it as like a, you know, a, a process, let's say medium term." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "44:28", "start": 2668.2, "text": "Yes, yes. It's not, very fast, but as you see, Lightning is growing really fast. So, the, the- You know, onboarding merchants benefit our hodders, our ecosystem, every, everyone holding Bitcoin for the long term, this movement of payments Actually, Bitcoin is a cash system, right? So, the payment is inside of, this DNA, right? So it's important for the newbies to see that, there's a new kind of money and you can have the custody of it. So it's important for us to, to, to spend the Bitcoin to, to, to teach and for the long-term use, you know? Because if we keep ho-holding it, it's like my, that film, The Lord of the Rings, my precious. You need to, you, you need to- Well, I think" }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "45:36", "start": 2736.29, "text": "it's, it's, to me, I would explain that as, you know, different narratives will appeal to different people, right? There may be the, you know, the high net worth investor, the investor person who just wants to, they just want digital gold, they just wanna hoddle, right? And, you know, but, you know, the person who's actually earning and doing" }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "45:54", "start": 2753.86, "text": "So different narratives will appeal to different people, and so, you know, and that's okay." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "45:58", "start": 2758.47, "text": "And the most incredible thing that Bitcoinize bring to the table was that, that company that is selling the machines now was created without a bank account We paid everything. Yes, that's, that's all is paid with Bitcoin. We paid the fees to establish the company in Hazza Al Khaimah in United Arab, Arab Emirates. Right. We, we paid, the machines, we paid everything, and we received the payments. So we did this Jazer Cap Fund campaign that we, we raised three dot five BTC, and everything that- I did, was with Bitcoin. So" }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "46:46", "start": 2805.92, "text": "that's fantastic, yeah. Bitcoin native commerce." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "46:49", "start": 2808.76, "text": "Yes. So what, what amazing story, like people donated to us to buy the machines and to, give to other communities, so we, we delivered hundreds of machines worldwide for twenty-eight countries." }, { "speaker": "stephan_livera", "time": "47:06", "start": 2826.46, "text": "That's fantastic. And, to be honest, it sounds like, I mean, the way you've-- I didn't previously think of it before you explained that idea, but- Honestly, I might buy a machine or two myself just to, you know, have something to show or even, you know, try and gift to a merchant, let's say, nearby. so I think it's an exciting idea. I'm hopeful that we see more adoption of this. so let's, let's leave it there. L- listeners, make sure you check out Fernando's website, it's bitcoineyes dot com. I'll put all the links in the show notes and of course, check out Bitcoin Beach, Brazil, for anyone who might wanna Fernando, thank you for joining me." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "47:45", "start": 2865.18, "text": "Thank you, thank you very much, Stephan. I just need to tell something that I've forgotten, it's really important. Go on, yeah. Like the machine, the, the, the product itself was created, to attend the kids of the school, you know? And then, y-you, this project Completely changed my life and rebranded my entire community. We have around seven hundred users in the city, the third merchants, and all we started just because of the device, you know? Every day someone going to the school, bringing the machine, teaching the kids, providing the card. So it's At some point, the device is nothing special, right? Because it's just an Android device, you can buy any Android device and do the same, but with the logo" } ] }