{ "episodeId": "SLP61", "speakers": { "stephan": { "name": "Stephan Livera", "role": "host", "tag": "STEPHAN" }, "david_bailey": { "name": "David Bailey", "role": "guest", "tag": "DAVID" } }, "segments": [ { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "00:08", "start": 8.14, "text": "Welcome to the Stephan Livera podcast focused on Bitcoin and Austrian economics. This is episode sixty one. Before we begin, a quick word for my sponsor for this episode, Lolly. Lolly helps you shop online and earn an average of ten percent and up to thirty percent back in Bitcoin. The founder and CEO of Lolly, Alex Edelman, appeared on an earlier episode, SLP fifty-seven, and there's a great vision for how this can help Bitcoin adoption. Lolly have seven hundred fifty plus merchants, Jet, Overstock, SeatGeek, Priceline, Hotwire, Walmart, CVS, Best Buy, Gap Macy's, Hilton, Marriott. So go to lolly dot com, spelled l o l l i dot com, set up an account and install the browser extension which notifies you if that site gives you Bitcoin back. Also, this is a great way to help your no-coiner friends start stacking Sats. Tell them and let's gamify this idea of Bitcoin accumulation. So my guest for today is David Bailey, founder and CEO of BTC Media, the parent company of various properties such as Bitcoin Magazine, Why Bitcoin, the LTB Network, which is Let's Talk Bitcoin, and associated podcasts. So we chat about his history in Bitcoin, some of the earlier days, and what he's building up to now with a refocus on Bitcoin and the Bitcoin 2019 conference, which I'll be attending. David, welcome to the show. It's a pleasure to have you on." }, { "speaker": "david_bailey", "time": "01:34", "start": 94.46, "text": "Hi, Steven. It's good to meet you." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:37", "start": 96.73, "text": "Yeah, so look, David, I've seen you've been doing a lot of, stuff recently with Bitcoin media, and obviously you've got a, you know, long history with Bitcoin. So actually, let's, let's start with a little bit of that background and how you got into Bitcoin over the years." }, { "speaker": "david_bailey", "time": "01:52", "start": 112.25, "text": "Yeah, so I, I found out about Bitcoin in 2012, and I went into, went into it thinking Bitcoin was a scam, and I was gonna prove it was a scam. And so I had a whole list of reasons why Bitcoin could never work. And as I did diligence, each of those reasons I was slowly kind of checked off as of, \"Well, that's not a real reason why it can't work.\" And at a certain point in time, I couldn't tell you why it wouldn't work, and then that's when my thinking around Bitcoin started to Investment in Bitcoin, late 2012, was, got in very lucky timing to get in 'cause a few months later the, the start of the 2013 Bitcoin yeah, yeah, kicked in. And, I was, graduating from college and I was going into the investment banking world, and I was able to kind of take a second and say, \"Hm, you know, this was, I guess, April, April 2013, I've made enough money off this Bitcoin investment that I should, I should look into this more seriously.\" So I went to the first, kind of major Bitcoin conference, Bitcoin 2013. To just check it out, and I met the smartest people that I had ever met at that conference, and there was just so many signals that this was gonna get much bigger. Like, I mean, you had the smartest developers working at Google and Adobe and, you know, Apple, who were all sneaking away from their day jobs or calling in sick so they could sneak off to this conference and, and talk about the projects that they'd been working on over the weekend and, you know, working from on, from their garage, and it was like, wow, when you have thousand super smart developers in a room who are working on this for free, like how much more of a signal do you need that this has really legs to it? So I decided to just go all in, after that conference, and, I quit my, my investment banking, reality and, just went all in on Bitcoin. and I, you know, wasn't exactly sure what to do first. I, I first applied, to be an employee at Coinbase, employee number one. And And, they, they hired this other guy, Olaf, instead. So I was like, \"Alright, well, fuck this, I'm gonna, I'm just gonna start my own thing.\" So I, I went and started a magazine just to- Basically just be able to engross myself in the space and have some mechanism to meet people and try to create a tool that could be used to evangelize Bitcoin and, and make Bitcoin a little bit more, just easy to understand for the, the layperson. And so started a magazine called Why Bitcoin. That was all in 2013." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "04:32", "start": 272.07, "text": "And actually, I'd be curious, who were some of the notable people you met at that 2013 conference?" }, { "speaker": "david_bailey", "time": "04:37", "start": 277.39, "text": "Oh man, so, I mean, the, the very first meetup, so I-- this was, everyone was on the Bitcoin Talk forums at the time, so we organized a little meetup over Bitcoin Talk forums, and like, I think four people showed up to the very first meeting, five people, including myself. one of them was Andreas Antonopoulos. this was before he was kind of George Papa Giorgio, who went on to be the, co-founder and COO of a company called NeoNB, which was one of the, kind of a massive disaster that blew up, in two thousand thirteen. It was gonna be like the first, like, physical bank for Bitcoin. another guy named Adam Perllo, who was, from Israel, who went on to create a couple projects. Right now, he's running a project called Zen. and then another guy, Seth, Otterstad, who's a professional poker player and, And, so that was like the first few people I, I met. Then, like the next day, we had another meetup, and I, you know, met Charlie Lee, met, Jesse Powell I met Ifuguo, who's a super interesting character, who was the creator of the first ASIC chip," }, { "speaker": "david_bailey", "time": "05:48", "start": 348.04, "text": "just a, and still a bunch of people who are going by their Bitcoin Talk, handles as well. So, it was a super cool experience to just meet all these people in person and just, realize like how serious this was. It wasn't just something that was living on Bitcoin Talk forums, it was something that was happening, and, you know, Happening very quickly. and so that just, it was, it was a very inspirational event, and I've, I, like, to this day, I think back so fondly on, on that event, 'cause I can remember, like, when the, the, kind of the last night or whatever, everyone went to go see Star Trek, which is just such a nerdy, nerdy thing to do, I guess, but like the whole conference went to go see Star Trek. and we came back and it's like 11 PM at night or 12 Like three or four people, and they're all just conspiring together about some awesome thing that can be built on top of Bitcoin, and, you know, you hear, \"I'm gonna start an exchange in China, \"or, \"I'm gonna start an exchange in India, \"and just like Just so much excitement, and it was just, I, it, a very special moment I feel like in, in not just crypto history, but as, as Bitcoin, takes over the world. Just history in general, and so, that's, that was Bitcoin 2013. It was awesome." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "07:09", "start": 428.96, "text": "Yeah, and I think my recollection of that time is that there was a lot of, like you mentioned, there was a lot of kind of palpable excitement about all these different concepts, because many of them hadn't yet been tried and failed. So, for example, things like, there was a lot of excitement about colored coins and different, all these different concepts that kind of, we only had a very basic understanding of, but no one had actually taken Taking the time to go and try and prove these out." }, { "speaker": "david_bailey", "time": "07:34", "start": 453.68, "text": "Yep. And the, the first ICO had just happened, which was Mastercoin, and the, you know, first, first venture investments had just happened, bid incident had just raised money from the Winklevoss twins, which I think was the first ever venture, deal within crypto, You know, it was, it was a, a, a, a special time. And, you know, what was also interesting is like, it, it, the space was so immature that you could very easily see like all the different waves of constituents and stakeholders that make up Bitcoin. So you could see like, all right, there's the cypherpunks that are like, you know, the, the, the true, blooded, you know, know what they're talking about guys. Then there's like, all right, the ideological libertarians that come in later, the, the Austrian guys, you know, then there's the kind of, darknet market guys that come in at a certain stage, and then I was part of maybe the first wave of business guys, starting to come in. And so it was interesting to see all these people with very different backgrounds, but all just completely on the same page about building this alternative financial system and how important it was that this happened. So really, really kind of a, a time where the market was just innocent and naive, you know?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "08:52", "start": 531.71, "text": "Yeah, that's right. And I suppose then over the years there have just been a lot of kind of failed projects and so on, and in my view really, Bitcoin is the main one that has lasted all this time." }, { "speaker": "david_bailey", "time": "09:01", "start": 541.42, "text": "Yeah, no, it's-- you know, that's one of the things that's been most interesting for me to, to watch in the space is," }, { "speaker": "david_bailey", "time": "09:12", "start": 551.65, "text": "you know, just watching people" }, { "speaker": "david_bailey", "time": "09:16", "start": 556.36, "text": "just the resilience, the resilience of Bitcoin and the unexpected resilience of Bitcoin. Like I, I still very much believe that, that we- We haven't seen at all Bitcoin's true form. I, I think, we don't really understand Bitcoin very well, and, the more you know about Bitcoin, even the, the less you kind of feel as understood. And we apply like all of this language to make it easier for people to conceptualize, but the language is actually very misleading, like, you know, the, the very idea of like what a wallet is. Alright, well, a wallet makes it very simple for a consumer to understand, like, alright, this is where I'm gonna keep my money. But if you really think about it in terms of a wallet, then you're, you're, you're really kind of pigeonholing yourself into a, a framework to how to view these things that is limiting in a lot of ways. And so, I-- It's been interesting to just watch the evolution of people's understanding of what Bitcoin is, which maybe is kind of was best kind of brought to the surface with this whole, Bitcoin, Bitcoin Cash civil war that, that happened, but, You know, there's just-- there's so much to, there's so much to learn about Bitcoin. There's so much to learn." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "10:30", "start": 629.96, "text": "Yeah, yeah, I, I agree with you totally around the whole wallet thing. I think I've seen some chatter talking about this idea that it might be more accurate to term it something like a keychain, and instead of addresses, to call them invoices. But obvi-- but obviously, sometimes the ship has already sailed on some of these concepts, and we're just, we're stuck with them, right?" }, { "speaker": "david_bailey", "time": "10:49", "start": 649.29, "text": "Right, right. Yeah. And, you know," }, { "speaker": "david_bailey", "time": "10:56", "start": 655.54, "text": "You know, I, I also feel like people, you know, part of this is a, a cultural issue, part of this is just a, a lack of understanding. But as this kind of, debate, you know, wore on about, you know, how do we make Bitcoin have more utility and more functionality and, and what does it mean to, to hard fork something and, You know, I, I feel like people have unfairly said that Bitcoin has all these limitations, and that's why we need all of these other protocols, that's why we need all of these, you know, smart contracts, and it's like, alright, well, you know The simplicity of Bitcoin is the beauty of Bitcoin, and from that, those simple rules, really all things can be-" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "11:41", "start": 700.63, "text": "Oh, sorry, David, you just got cut off there, but, you were just mentioning around the beauty of Bitcoin is the simplicity of Bitcoin." }, { "speaker": "david_bailey", "time": "11:47", "start": 707.36, "text": "Yeah, it's, it's the simplicity of Bitcoin, and I think the, the simplicity is what gives it so few places to potentially fail. And, so, so few attack surfaces. But I don't think that the simplicity is limiting, 'cause, you know, in the same way, if you look around you, all the complexity that you see, if you go to the beginning of, of the universe, the beginning of time, the universe was very simple, and with entropy and, and some very simple rules, all things were manifested. And so I think that that's similar to where we are with Bitcoin, where the rules of Bitcoin are very simple in of themselves But the things that are manifested from those simple rules can become unbelievably complex." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "12:33", "start": 753.39, "text": "Yeah, that's very in line with that whole concept that people talk about in that sort of Unix philosophy of do one thing and do it well. Each tool should be built to do one specific thing, and then you build other tools that are sort of modular on top of that. One comment I've commonly seen from some of the kind of Ethereum people is that they seem to want more out of the system, but I suppose that again exposes what we really want out of Bitcoin. So someone like myself, who comes up at it more from the sound money angle, I just want it to be sound money. I don't really want more than that." }, { "speaker": "david_bailey", "time": "13:08", "start": 787.84, "text": "Yeah, well, I mean, all right, it, it sound money is the first step towards building a, a complete financial system. I mean, look at the financial system, the analog financial system that we have today, our, that starts with sound money, and then every financial product and tool that you can possibly imagine was built on top of, on top of that. So, everything from fiat and, and, you know, paper currency to banking as we know it to any sort of financial product that exists, it all- starts with that store of value. So, you know, just saying just a store of value, well, that might be a simple request, but it enables so much to become possible. You just have to," }, { "speaker": "david_bailey", "time": "13:52", "start": 831.78, "text": "and m- imagine it within the rules of the system. And so, I feel like we just have a lack of creativity, in terms of figuring out, you know, how do we, how do we work within, you know, Nakamoto consensus and, and work within the limitations that we have. I mean, math It has a lot of rules, is-- you can't break the rules of math, but with those rules, you're able to create a lot of things. So I think, you know, it's, it's been interesting that, you know, a lot of the excitement and a lot of the, the builders out there Left for these other protocols, but, you know, there, there hasn't been really, a ton of success to be able to be point, to point to on those other protocols, and so I think we're gonna see a lot of those builders Come back to Bitcoin if we can, showcase a different path towards building, and I think Lightning is one of the, the first real innovations that has kind of, demonstrated that there's a lot that's possible within the rules." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "14:51", "start": 890.94, "text": "Fantastic. And you, you, I think some of the, some of the, you know, media properties that you have, like Bitcoin Magazine, have been doing a lot of articles around Lightning Network recently as well, so I've found, them to be quite informative." }, { "speaker": "david_bailey", "time": "15:03", "start": 903.22, "text": "Yeah, yeah. I mean, so, I, I- I'll, I'll tell you this too, you know, I'm not a, a journalist. I consider myself, a propagandist. I, I have an agenda. Like, I'm a true believer that we need an alternative financial system, and I'm a true believer that, that Bitcoin is the tool to make that happen. And so I have, I have an agenda. I'm not objective. I'm not trying to, you know, is Bitcoin going to work or not going to work? I'm trying to- To do everything I can to help Bitcoin succeed. so, you know, we have an, we have an agenda, and I think, you know, showcasing the things that are being built on top of Bitcoin is the way that you inspire other people to also participate in building. Like, if we need, we need Bitcoin to grow exponentially, and so, you know, we need to showcase the most interesting ideas that are out there, to lay a path for other people to follow." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "16:00", "start": 960.02, "text": "Exactly, right. And I think maybe we can now get into how you got into doing Bitcoin media and Bitcoin propaganda, if you will." }, { "speaker": "david_bailey", "time": "16:08", "start": 967.61, "text": "Yeah, yeah. So we started with White Bitcoin, and, White Bitcoin was just a print magazine that we printed huge quantities of. We'd print them in like fifty thousand or sixty thousand magazine print runs, and it was a free magazine, and we would just drop these things all over the world, conferences, street corners, incubators, we had people who'd go in and put them in, in bank lobbies, et cetera. And that's where we got our start. there was another company at the time, Bitcoin Magazine, that, had a great history but a very amateur approach to business. And so over time, as we kind of built out our customer base, we kind of had the financial wherewithal in order to acquire Bitcoin Magazine during the, the last crypto winter. and so, we kind of bought that business from, really kind of a lot of, entrepreneurs, it, it's, it's, interesting story in and of itself, but Bitcoin Magazine was owned by Vitalik Buterin, another, another guy named Mihai, Trace Meyer, Charlie Lee, one of the guys behind Butterfly Labs, just a very interesting cast of characters, and so we, we bought that business and, kept, kept growing it, in two thousand and fifteen and two thousand and sixteen as the The enterprise blockchain scene started taking off, we, built another media property, called Distributed to cater to that market, and that, that- business does events, it has a website, it has a magazine. then we, ended up acquiring a, another business called the Let's Talk Bitcoin Network, LTB, which was run by Adam Levine and, and Andreas Antonopoulos and, we acquired that business in two thousand and sixteen, I believe. and then we have a Chinese media property, called Chain B, and we have a Korean media property called, BIPs. Block and Press. so yeah, we have a, a portfolio of different media companies that we've kind of acquired over the years, and really, you know, we, we're trying to just position ourselves in the center of the conversation so that we can meet the most interesting people, so that we can hear the most interesting ideas, and, and we can have an information advantage in terms of where this whole ecosystem is, is going. You know, the, the Bitcoin, the Bitcoin, the promise of Bitcoin has always been our true passion. So we've kind of begrudgingly built media properties that cater to other markets, but it's, you know, very much we're open-minded people, like we don't pretend to know where all of this is going. you know, we, we are, Skeptical people, but we've been wrong on enough things that we've, we've realized that we have to just be open-minded, and so we, we very much have a, approach of, you know, show us something working and, and if it works, we'll support it, And so we, we started in, we started in media, we acquired, this, this portfolio of media companies. In two thousand and seventeen, we started branching out from just media. So we had some client services businesses that were doing, marketing services for companies in the space, and then we started getting into some technology businesses as well. So, we owned an ICO platform, which for, time was the biggest ICO platform in the world, out of China, that was, shut down by the Chinese government in September Of 2017, and we also, built a project on top of Bitcoin that we did an ICO for called Poet, that, raised, I think, ten million dollars in its ICO and, for a very small amount of time was a, a billion dollar project, which, we looked at as a major indictment of the entire ICO world, which, yeah, I think we had like eight people working there at the time and it's valued at, at a billion dollars and we're just like, \"Wow, this is" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "20:15", "start": 1215.04, "text": "ridiculous" }, { "speaker": "david_bailey", "time": "20:16", "start": 1216.48, "text": "Completely ridiculous. So, you know, we've, we've, tiptoed into a lot of different things. you know, I think at our peak of our business in early two thousand eighteen, we were about eighty-five people across the company. you know, we, we spread ourselves really way too thin, and so, by the end of two thousand and eighteen, I'm spending the vast majority of my time dealing with Investors and HR issues and just like all of this grind, that's not really the reason why I got into the space in the first place. And so I, I basically, basically guess Q3 of last year, just said, \"Fuck it.\" I wanna do Bitcoin stuff, and so we are just going to take this business and focus on the things that we enjoy and focus on having maximum fun, and we're gonna focus on Bitcoin. So that's what we've been working on doing ever since, and repositioning our media properties to cater to that, and, and, selling off some of our assets that aren't aligned with that vision." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "21:20", "start": 1280.28, "text": "Fantastic, love to hear that. I mean, for myself, I was very skeptical of the ICOs and all the altcoins and just really not a fan of any of that, and some of this enterprise blockchain stuff as well. So definitely, you know, interested to see the switch back towards Bitcoin and kind of that's really where the fun is, and that's really where I believe the future of our financial services and financial system will be built on top of. but yeah, we've got a few different topics in there that we can sort of pick- Apart, I think it might be a good one to touch on this enterprise blockchain thing. So I've been skeptical of that for some time, but, curious to know your thoughts there, David." }, { "speaker": "david_bailey", "time": "21:58", "start": 1318.2, "text": "Yeah, so I mean So the, it's-- the first suspect thing about enterprise blockchain is that when it came about, it came about at a time where companies that were Bitcoin companies had to basically raise additional venture funding and all their KPIs were down because we were in a crypto winter. So it was very hard to go out and tell the same Bitcoin story when your, you know, growth has, has gone negative and the, you know, activity per user has gone negative and, you know, your business is losing tons of money. And the price of Bitcoin's down eighty percent. It's just a hard sell. So that's really when the enterprise, you know, blockchain, not Bitcoin story took off. You know, we, we were very skeptical in the beginning, but we saw so much corporate interest for it, and we thought, all right, well, this could be a really a great Trojan horse to get Bitcoin into these companies and to get them evaluating the space. And so, you know, we, we launched a distributed pro-property to cater to it, and we started hosting conferences that catered specifically to certain niches within the, enterprise blockchain scene. So we did the first- You know, blockchain supply chain conference, we did the first healthcare blockchain conference, we did the first, you know, a, a bunch of stuff, and, you know, we, we- You know, I, we, we couldn't really be much closer to the enterprise blockchain scene and, and talking to more companies than we have in that, in that market. And as time went on, and we, you know, failed to see a single product being used in the market, we just grew increasingly skeptical of the space. And, you know, now here we are, I guess, four years deep into enterprise blockchain. And we don't really see a single product that's being used in any production environment at all. so, you know, I'm, I, I'm very skeptical of the, of the space as well, but, you know, I, I'm, I'm a big believer, like I said, you gotta give people the ability to go out and, and prove what they're trying to build. And, you know, if, if enterprise blockchain was working and it was helping people and it was powering, you know, some acceleration of this new financial system, we would, we'd" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "24:18", "start": 1458.38, "text": "Right, and, and I wonder what was it that attracted some of these companies? Was it that they were kind of getting sucked in by all the excitement to Bitcoin, but then some enterprise blockchain salesmen were basically affinity scamming and saying, \"Oh, look, my thing is sort of like Bitcoin, so you need to have a blockchain strategy.\"" }, { "speaker": "david_bailey", "time": "24:37", "start": 1476.95, "text": "it was, it was that all of these companies were looking at Bitcoin and h-having to face that there was something innovative happening there, but, It was kind of, you sounded like the smartest guy in the room to s-- kind of scoff at Bitcoin and be like, \"Yeah, that's a libertarian dream.\" And so it was, you just, you didn't sound smart within your organization saying that Bitcoin, you know, really had a chance at success, and so it was just this quest to tap into the, quote, \"innovation\" that Bitcoin brought, but without the, the asset that is, you know, so volatile that everyone can point to. and, you know, there was- Still at this point in time, the ecosystem was so immature, there was still a lot of sketchy behavior in the space, that just scared away the corporate world. And, you know, they hear Silk Road and they kind of go running for the hills, so to speak, and, you know, it, it's taken Bitcoin becoming much larger for corporations to really realize that they don't really have a choice about participating or not. just, I'm, I'm sure the internet had the same kind of adoption issues in the early days as corporations are looking Look at and they're like, \"Huh, this is a some, some dream, and, you know, we don't wanna be affiliated with some sketchy internet technology where there's, you know, pornography, et cetera.\" But the reality is, is you don't really have a choice." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "26:00", "start": 1559.75, "text": "Right, it's-- you just have to do it eventually. And I think the other thing with some of these enterprise blockchain, so on, is there's a lot of hope and dreams being sold to people. I think, you know, they say things like, \"Oh, look how cool it'll be for whatever, for trade finance,\" and \"Oh, wouldn't it be nice if we had this consortium of whatever, ten different trading companies who all use the same blockchain together?\" And it's a bit, it's a bit of this weird kind of pipe dream, that doesn't actually play out" }, { "speaker": "david_bailey", "time": "26:29", "start": 1589.33, "text": "Yeah, totally, totally. I mean, the intention is, is good. I mean, the people who are working on these products, they're really trying to build products they really do believe that they can build, build these tools. I, I think the reason that these tools are being imagined in the form of these consortiums is, again, just a lack of imagination about how do we build useful products within the rule set that Bitcoin has. and so I'm, I'm sure that this is the same kind of thesis that went into all of the companies that tried to build private internet- That's, you know, in the nineties. They just kind of failed to understand all of the different, elements of what makes Bitcoin tick and work. And, but they, they, they did sincerely believe in a, in a future that, you know, they were excited about. I mean, it's not like these guys have ill intent, it's just misguided." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "27:24", "start": 1643.58, "text": "Right. And I suppose in some cases, it may be a question of technical competence as well. Do you have any thoughts? What's on that?" }, { "speaker": "david_bailey", "time": "27:30", "start": 1650.05, "text": "Sure. Yeah, and but it's, it's not just technical con- competence from a developer standpoint. I mean, there's so, like, to understand Bitcoin requires profic- proficiency in so many different disciplines, and that's something that's also very unique about it. I mean, if you're just a computer science guy You don't think Bitcoin's gonna work, you know, if you're just an, economics guy, you don't think Bitcoin's gonna work. Like you have to have a, a view into the multiple different kind of facets of what makes Bitcoin Bitcoin, which is why I think, you know, s- We understand so little about it. It's way more complex. It's, it's ideological, it's philosophical, you know, it's, it's monetary, it's, it's technical, it, it, it's so many different things." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "28:21", "start": 1700.91, "text": "Right, and I think the other component is just the, it's that it, it takes some level of imagination to see what Bitcoin could become much longer, much further down the track, but also not falling into sort of these siren songs of, you know, shitcoins and blockchaining that kind of seem like they're painting this vision, but actually they're not as compelling a vision, in my view." }, { "speaker": "david_bailey", "time": "28:46", "start": 1725.7, "text": "Yeah, totally, totally. I, I mean, and if you talk to, like, if you go and, and talk to the guys at Hyper- Taproot ledger. Those guys are really smart. I mean, they are, from a technical perspective, Brian Balendorf is, is a genius. But that, that's exactly what I mean by, all right, just be-- because you're technical, it doesn't mean that you can have the imagination to see the full picture. and so, you know, I-- R3 has a lot of really smart people working there, but they have a lot of really smart people working there who are blinded to, you know, one attribute or several different attributes. Attributes of the technology. So, but yeah, I, I agree, I agree with what you're saying." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "29:26", "start": 1766.16, "text": "Fascinating. Okay, well, look, let's go back to, you know, what you've been doing with kind of Bitcoin media and Bitcoin media over the years. Have you got any highlights that you can tell the listeners?" }, { "speaker": "david_bailey", "time": "29:36", "start": 1775.81, "text": "Yeah, so, you know," }, { "speaker": "david_bailey", "time": "29:41", "start": 1780.88, "text": "you know, it, it's been very interesting to just see the evolution of, of Bitcoin, of media in and of itself, because as this enterprise blockchain scene took off and as this- you know, other protocols, other tokens took off. You know, when it started, all media was Bitcoin media because there was only Bitcoin. But over time, you went from, all right, ninety percent of your content is Bitcoin related, ten percent of your content is, is other, to then all of a sudden it's fifty percent of your content is Bitcoin related and thirty percent of your content is, is enterprise blockchain related and twenty percent of your content's Ethereum related, to before you know it The vast minority of your content becomes Bitcoin related, and this was just like a natural progression that happened. It's not like anyone sitting around in their, in their boardroom being like, \"Yeah, let's, let's stop writing about Bitcoin.\" It's just this energy and excitement shifted away from Bitcoin, and the, the story and narrative around Bitcoin just got diluted by all the, all the noise. And so, you know, we, or, you know, earlier this year, when we were, or I guess late last year, when we were looking at making this, this move back to focus on Bitcoin, we were really looking at the media landscape globally, and there's really not a single media outlet in the space that's dedicated on covering Bitcoin. The only one that you could really point to is Bitcoin dot com, which went all in on Bitcoin Cash. And so, there's a really Really big void there, and, that's where, you know, we're trying to fill that void now. That's, that's what our goal is, and we're trying to build, bring back some of the, the excitement and some of the, the, you know," }, { "speaker": "david_bailey", "time": "31:27", "start": 1886.85, "text": "I guess just the, the excitement that, that existed in 2013 and 2014. You know, if you go to, DevCon. Stephan, have you ever been to a DevCon before?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "31:38", "start": 1898.43, "text": "No, I haven't." }, { "speaker": "david_bailey", "time": "31:40", "start": 1899.65, "text": "I, I highly recommend doing it. you know, whether-- no matter what you-- however you feel about Ethereum, the, the excitement at a DevCon is palpable. the, the community is really an organic community of really smart people who really believe in Ethereum. I mean, they-- there, there are some people there who are just pursuing money, but there are, the vast majority of people are really excited about what they think can happen there. We need that same cultural attitude within Bitcoin, and Bitcoin used to have it. So, you know, how, how can we foster and encourage that type of environment within the Bitcoin ecosystem? How can we get more- Wacky ideas out there that, people can, you know, and have an environment where people feel comfortable bringing those wacky ideas up and, you know, kind of bring the most interesting ideas that are viable to the surface and get people building on them." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "32:39", "start": 1958.61, "text": "Right, yeah. So I think there's a couple things to kind of pull apart there, because one of them is just that this is just gonna take time. So no matter how many people are excited, it's just gonna take a solid amount of time for people to get into it. But then the part where I do agree is that really we are seeing potentially with Lightning Network a massive potential for online gaming and online streaming and all these new kind of things that weren't possible before and we can monetize, you know? Different, what you can sell content in different ways now with the Lightning Network. So I think that there's some real potential there. And then from a financial point of view, you can look at things maybe back at more of a Bitcoin level, you can look at things like, you know, some of the things that companies like Casa are doing or Unchained Capital or BlockFi, they're doing some of these more financial or vaulting type solutions as well." }, { "speaker": "david_bailey", "time": "33:26", "start": 2006.04, "text": "Yeah, and, and, and like, you know, I, I, it's interesting, everyone's trying to build decentralized applications. You, you don't need decentralized applications if you can just have a decentralized system, a decentralized infrastructure in which you can build a centralized application on top of. So I think BitMEX is an awesome company. They're running a derivatives exchange that they're using Bitcoin as their plumbing to move money in and out of that centralized solution, and they have a multi-billion dollar spec product where people go and, and speculate, speculate. Running on top of Bitcoin's plumbing, and it's like, you just need a few thousand of those types of things. You know, BlockFi is another great example, I mean, another centralized solution, but running on top of, of Bitcoin's plumbing, and, and, you know, if they had to build a, that centralized solution on the analog system, it just wouldn't be possible. So, those are the types of applications that we need in order to make, I think, Bitcoin more useful for people to be able to engage and do something with every day. not that Bitcoin Like it's just discovering what those new use cases are and, and, and, you know, utilizing them." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "34:36", "start": 2076.16, "text": "Yeah, fantastic. And so I guess bringing it back to Bitcoin media and just some of the, you know, your journey over the years, do you have any regrets?" }, { "speaker": "david_bailey", "time": "34:45", "start": 2084.92, "text": "Oh yeah, dude, I have so many regrets. I mean, so I," }, { "speaker": "david_bailey", "time": "34:54", "start": 2093.93, "text": "yes, you know, I, I honestly, if I knew how everything was going to develop I probably would have made the, the focus on Bitcoin much earlier. you know, we've, we've been a part of a lot of hype cycles, I guess, and it's like if the hype isn't real, then all the energy and time invested is wasted. And so we've wasted a lot of energy and time, that could have been better applied. you know, there's also businesses out there that we had the opportunity to invest into or- businesses that we had the opportunity to buy that we, we, we missed, partially 'cause we just didn't have enough money at different points in time, but also partially 'cause we're, You know, we've been, we've been too skeptical about certain things, and I wish we hadn't, hadn't done that. But I guess the skepticism, skepticism has saved us in other circumstances, so it's hard to kind of Monday morning quarterback that. and, you know, I, I wish we had bought more Bitcoin. We got it. We did alright there too, yeah. So yeah, I mean, I, I, I wouldn't-- there's a lot of things we could have done better, but that's all part of the journey. It's all part of the lessons learned, and it, it, that's all part of the learnings that we have to use to kind of chart what the path going forward is. So, you know, if, if we hadn't learned painful lessons, then we were just gonna have to learn those lessons in the future at a much bigger expense, you know?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "36:25", "start": 2184.96, "text": "Yeah. And I think in fairness, some of this is- We kind of reflect what the, ev- we've sort of reflect what everyone else is doing, unless we're very sort of hard headed and strong minded about, okay, Bitcoin only, then it's very easy to kind of go along with what everyone else, the crowd is doing, and then if the whole crowd is going into this whole shitcoining and ICOs, then it's kind of, you have to play to that, or many people play to that. Yeah." }, { "speaker": "david_bailey", "time": "36:53", "start": 2213.22, "text": "Well, and, but I will, I will differentiate one thing, like, it's one thing to be a Bitcoin- Maximalist. I really do believe in people being Bitcoin maximizers, and what that means is that if you build a business, you build a business that caters to all the different, market segment opportunities that you have for your business to be successful. I mean, we're not-- people aren't running charities, they're running businesses. and so I feel like there are a lot of great Bitcoiners out there who have been kind of ostracized from the community because- They've, their businesses have, have grown to cater to more, more cryptos that are out there. And it's like, all right, as long as you're counting your profits in Bitcoin, then I don't have a problem with people going and, and, and doing that. And so the, the finances of the world or the shapeshifts of the world or, you know, I mean, basically every exchange that's out there now, I don't know of an exchange that just trades a, a Bitcoin pair at this point in time. like, I, Those guys for, for, pursuing where there's just a market opportunity." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "38:05", "start": 2285.18, "text": "Right. I think I would probably agree in the sense that it's fair enough that they try to offer the services that they think people want, and if people wanna gamble on, you know, altcoins or whatever, you know, I don't blame them, but I think the part where I get a little annoyed is companies like, say, Coinbase who kind of actively try to email people and say, \"Hey, do you wanna turn your Bitcoin into some of these other shit coins?\" And it just, to me, it just comes off very-- they're pumping this kind of multi-coin worldview when, in my view, it's just unlikely that such a world makes sense." }, { "speaker": "david_bailey", "time": "38:41", "start": 2320.59, "text": "Right. I agree. Yeah. I mean, it's not impossible that that world exists, but it's, as the more time that goes on, the less likely it becomes. I mean, it's, unless something materially changes. but, you know, I, I think the Bitcoin community is, is, is bad about that. I mean, there's- I've talked to many great Bitcoiners, I mean, people who are die-hard Bitcoiners, who have grown bitter against Bitcoin because they have- Been so strongly attacked for, their, their multi coin worldview or their open mindedness, and it's, it's, that's the toxicity that doesn't do Bitcoin any, any favors. The, the civil war that happened with Bitcoin, the civil war needed to happen, but there is, blood on both sides of that argument, and there are people who are, are-- people who have done lots to make Bitcoin what it is today who literally feel like they can't even contribute to the Bitcoin community anymore because they're just not welcomed, and I think that's, that's a shame, and we, we shouldn't, we shouldn't behave like that." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "39:52", "start": 2392.02, "text": "Right. Okay, yeah, I think, yeah, so I guess, you know, people can-- Yeah, I guess it's kind of like people-- There's nothing stopping someone just buying Bitcoin and just kind of holding Bitcoin, but obviously what people care about more is feeling like they belong in that certain community, and if- They are getting rejected out of it for some of the ideas that they're pushing, well then they're not gonna be so happy to be a part of that." }, { "speaker": "david_bailey", "time": "40:18", "start": 2418.16, "text": "Yeah, I mean, I, I, so, you know, I guess I have a- What would be an unpopular opinion on crypto Twitter, on some of this stuff, but, you know, we've been in Bitcoin so long, and being in media, you, you talk to so many different companies. I mean, you know this experience, you, you have a podcast, you talk to someone who has a different company, you know, every other day. So we've talked to companies, I mean, we've seen companies from their birth and their genesis, such as, let's say, Bitmain. You know, we, we started, working with Bitmain in two Born basically. And at the time, the Bitcoin mining was dominated by a handful of very greedy, mining companies, Some that were also naive mining companies that didn't realize that they were doing stupid stuff either, but like the Butterfly Labs and the KNC miners and the, the CoinTerra, et cetera. And people were constantly worried about mining centralization and how mining was becoming only for, for big miners only, and there was really no profitable miner that anyone could run at home anymore. And here comes this little company, Bitmain, started by just a handful of people, that built a great product that was the First product that, quote, I, I even remember their tagline, it was, bringing mining back to, bringing mining at home back. That's what their, their initial like slogan was or marketing campaign was. And they, they created a product that was actually pro-profitable to run that home miners could buy. And they were beloved within the Bitcoin community because they were seen as a force that was decentralizing Bitcoin. And so, you know, as time went on, the perspective within the community changed, of course. And Jihan was not actually a pro-Bitcoin Cash person to begin with. I don't know if everybody knows the history, but like Bitcoin Cash was really kind of the latest iteration of what I think started with Bitcoin XT or Bitcoin Classic, I can't remember. There were so many different flavors of, of, let's, you know, fork, and change the block size. And so Jion was really kind of just a passive observer of this, until, you know, he started kind of having people come and petition him and having people come and really trying to convince him why we needed to change the block size, and then he expressed a little bit of interest in it, and then people started casting stones, and so he started becoming entrenched into his position, and as he became more and more entrenched- And she started isolating herself and only talking to one crowd of people, and then it, people basically just split into tribes, and then all of a sudden it's not just about increasing the block size, but it's all of these other elements like the centralization of, of, the development community or the centralization of X, Y, or Z, and, you, you, you force people down a path that they don't necessarily have to go down. And so even today, you know, Bitmain is very ostracized from the community. People don't know that Bitmain, there's actually several Bitcoin core developers that are out there that Bitmain sponsors and effectively just supports, just because Jihan wants to see, wants to support Bitcoin core, which I know people would like not believe that I'm saying, like, they wouldn't believe that, but that's actually true. There's, there's two developers that, that Bitmain just sponsors out of charity effectively because, Bitmain believes in Bitcoin, you know? People may not believe it, but, Ji-han translated the white paper into Mandarin. I mean, you know, Ji-han is a hardcore Bitcoiner, but, you know, just the, the political divides made it so that, things got really messy. And so, you know, we, we need to create a community where You know, people like Jihan don't feel like they have to be anti Bitcoin, pro Bitcoin Cash. They need to feel like, \"All right, well, they're welcomed in Bitcoin, but they're only welcomed to operate within Nakamoto consensus.\" You know, I mean, like that, that needs to be like the, the, condition in which people participate. And I think that we could make Bitcoin go a lot further, a lot faster if we didn't make people feel like- You know, they, they can't contribute." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "44:44", "start": 2683.83, "text": "Right. So I think I would say there's some element of fairness there that, like, you know, if you propose an idea and everyone else doesn't like that idea, I can see how people would- Resent you, and then you might feel, you know, this person who presented that idea might now start to go off and think about doing a fork or making their own coin and so on. But I suppose there are good examples as well. I mean, you know, the fe-- one famous example obviously is Luke Dash Jr. who, you know, who everyone knows, he wants smaller blocks, but he's willing to work within the system, you know? And I think that's probably a good example, you know, he's a good example of someone who's, who-- he, obviously, he has a view, and he has a certain perspective that he tries to argue, but then he still understands that what's m-more important is kind of going with the overall kind of Bitcoin You know, vision." }, { "speaker": "david_bailey", "time": "45:40", "start": 2740.33, "text": "Totally. And, you know, I, someone else I wanna give a shout out to that on is, is BlueMat. you know, we, we have a Shanghai office and, and we're very plugged into the, the, Chinese crypto community. And Bitcoin Cash is very popular in, in, in China. And, BlueMat, Matt Corallo spent a, bunch of time in China just going and talking to people and- Not being judgmental and doing meetups across the entire country and trying to engage the community in a productive way. So there are definitely people within the community that do it right, but then there are others who just, they know if they throw stones and they're sarcastic or mean, that they're gonna get a lot of likes and retweets and like, that's all they care about. So, you know, that's, that's a challenge that we have." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "46:29", "start": 2789.1, "text": "Right. I mean, another example might be even with this whole B Foundation. So if you know about how Jukamoe and some of those other guys were looking to start that, and then they got a lot of pushback, right? So I suppose that could be another example where- They, if the reaction from the community was s- very strong, they might then have felt a bit like, \"Oh, hang on, these guys don't actually, you know, like me, or they don't want me to be part of this.\"" }, { "speaker": "david_bailey", "time": "46:54", "start": 2813.81, "text": "Right." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "46:54", "start": 2814.19, "text": "So that's another, probably another example of this kind of thing. But I suppose what's important is that people work within the rules to try and change something, and if they-- if, if there's not sufficient support to change, then you've gotta b- make your peace with that." }, { "speaker": "david_bailey", "time": "47:09", "start": 2829.34, "text": "Totally. And, you know, I, I Like that's the one, the biggest thing that we got from the Civil War is the importance of Nakamoto consensus. Like that is a critical thing. And, and, you know, for those that haven't come to terms with it, like the Civil War is also over. Like the Bitcoin SV fork, Bitcoin ABC, Bitcoin SV, like Bitcoin Cash is done. And that whole experiment, we need to learn a lot of lessons from, and we need to let all the people who are part of that community who, who went down that path because they didn't know where that path led, we need to let them be able to change their mind and come back to Bitcoin. and it's like, alright, come back to Bitcoin, just follow Nakamoto consensus." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "47:53", "start": 2873.47, "text": "Yeah, look, I think I would, you know, it's, it'd be great if people were willing to come back, but I, I just guess one slight pushback I would suggest there is that some of those people don't want to come back." }, { "speaker": "david_bailey", "time": "48:06", "start": 2885.64, "text": "They, if they don't wanna come back, then that means that they're giving up on, on this whole revolution, and I don't, I don't think that they, that's really what they intend to do. Like, I, I, There's a reason why they got into it in the first place, and it wasn't to get in fights over little technical elements and how those technical el-elements manifest in important ways. Like if, if Bitcoin is all that there is, and that's the way that they build this system, they're gonna wanna be a part of that" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "48:36", "start": 2915.73, "text": "Right, yeah, look, I, I agree. I think that's a good point you make. It's just that, I, I wonder if the reality-- And look, obviously what would be ideal is if people can, you know, accept, accept that, you know, you need to kind of stay with the overall kind of way we do consensus in Bitcoin. but I, I wonder whether, you know, in the back of my mind, whether some of those people who went off to Bcash and to SV and so on, whether they, they might just kind of turn against all of Cryptocurrency in general, or just get stuck with their own kind of irrelevant fork." }, { "speaker": "david_bailey", "time": "49:10", "start": 2949.78, "text": "Yeah, well, that'll, that'll-- I'm sure that'll be Craig Wright, if you're, if you're a bad actor, that, that's what you're gonna do. But, you know, otherwise, I feel like people will come around. And, you know, that, that's part of what we're trying to do with this focus on Bitcoin, is like, how do we create a positive message, a positive narrative that's not looking at the past and not looking at all the baggage" }, { "speaker": "david_bailey", "time": "49:35", "start": 2974.59, "text": "But like, how do we take the lessons that have been learned and look forward with those lessons? And how do we focus on things that are exciting? And, you know, I, one of the, the people that I most admire that, that brought me really helped me find Bitcoin much earlier is Ron Paul. And this is, you know, something that Ron Paul talks about all the time is that it's not about compromise, you shouldn't ever compromise, but it's about building coalitions and it's about finding the places that you can agree, that you do agree, that you can work together on towards But that doesn't mean that you have to agree on everything. And so, you know, we need less compromise and more, and more coalitions." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "50:13", "start": 3012.92, "text": "Yeah, that's a good way to put it. I think now might be a good time to talk about, 'cause some of these themes you're mentioning here, it sounds to me like that's very much in line with the whole theme of Bitcoin 2019, the conference. So tell us a little bit about that." }, { "speaker": "david_bailey", "time": "50:26", "start": 3026.23, "text": "Yeah, so we're, we're trying to bring back an annual Bitcoin conference. So there used to" }, { "speaker": "david_bailey", "time": "50:35", "start": 3034.59, "text": "It's kind of a, an ode back to the original conference. we are trying to create an event that is fun, like people actually have fun at it. So not a corporate shill fest, not a whole bunch of IBM suits, but something that really, brings together all the different com-parts of the community, and all the different types of stakeholders that make up the community, and really tries to identify content that, that can help create That positive message that inspires people to create new things. So this conference specifically is very lightning heavy, and that shows people how they can use these things. So we're gonna have like lightning arcade games at the event, we're gonna have light, a store where people can buy a whole bunch of swag with lightning. We're, Gonna have like all these interactive elements that I think are gonna be fun, people are just gonna enjoy. we, also have something that we're calling the Bitcoin Games, not the Bitcoin Olympics, we're not allowed to call it the Bitcoin Olympics, we'll get sued, but the Bitcoin Games. Go on. That, is kind of a, a new twist on a hackathon. So there's a Lightning hackathon that we're doing, but we wanted to engage more parts of the community, so we also have a growth hack challenge, which is basically film Film the Bitcoin Super Bowl commercial. So make a sixty-second to a minute and thirty-second commercial for Bitcoin, and the person who makes the best commercial, we're gonna, do a marketing campaign around, they're gonna win a ten thousand dollar prize, and we're gonna bring them to the conference. And so we're gonna have a kind of a series of different challenges that, that interact with different parts of the community so that it's not just developers who can get involved building cool stuff. and then, you know, on the content side, we're, we're We're trying to have a very open event. We're not trying to gatekeep the event. We're trying to make one where we have people from all around the world able to participate, and we're trying to let people who maybe, have been ostracized somewhat from the community have a path so that they can reengage in a productive way. And so, for example, we have Erik Voorhees speaking, who I'm a huge Erik Voorhees fan, if you've ever read his blog, it's- Money in state. Yeah, Money in State, he has a great blog, and he's a die-hard Bitcoiner. you know, we want to kind of reframe the narrative where, you know, Shapeshift is able to say, you know, we're a Bitcoin-first company, and that, you know, Eric can be engaged and involved in a, in a way that, you know, is, is productive for BTC. and so we're gonna have some faces that maybe are a little bit controversial, but all of them have been prepped that they are here to Nothing else. and then we're gonna have, lots of, well-known faces from the BTC community, Bitcoin maximalist community, and then we're gonna have lots of new faces as well. And so one of the, one of our goals is to try to foster like a next wave of thought leaders within the space. And so we've been doing a lot of sleuthing on crypto Twitter, trying to find people's really interesting medium blog posts. we're gonna have a stage that's just for ten-minute presentations of super interesting ideas, to try to help Develop some of those new thought leaders. and, we, we're gonna have just, we're gonna have a great time. I mean, that's-- we're trying to have a festival type feel, and I hope that when- After this event is over, that we've really helped create a, you know, instead of Bitcoin versus Ethereum or Bitcoin versus Bitcoin Cash, this, this community vibe of Bitcoin versus the world, and we want this event to be a beachhead where the Bitcoin community can set a narrative about what it is that we're doing and why it matters and why Bitcoin is needed and why a new financial system is needed. and so we're gonna have a, some- occupy Wall Street elements to the event. We're gonna have, we're gonna have something for everyone. I mean, I'm really excited. I'm spending about, forty percent of my time focused on this event. So, we have some great speakers, we have some surprises lined up that we're gonna be announcing soon, and I'm just, I'm, I'm repped up. I h- I hope you're gonna be there as well." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "55:03", "start": 3303.3, "text": "Yeah, yeah, so I'm excited to go. it's in-- so just tell, tell the listeners about the logistics as well. So it's in, SVN West, San Francisco, end of June." }, { "speaker": "david_bailey", "time": "55:14", "start": 3314.05, "text": "End of June, yeah. I think it's June 25th and 26, but let me, let me look at this before I say." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "55:20", "start": 3320.0, "text": "Yeah, 25th and 26. Yeah," }, { "speaker": "david_bailey", "time": "55:22", "start": 3322.06, "text": "yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm checking it now. Yeah, June 25th and 26. And the, we've set People at the event, and we're gonna be raising ticket prices just so that we can create some urgency for people to register, but I think at the door the ticket prices will be two ninety-nine, so it's still extremely cheap tickets, but get your ticket now before they, they go up." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "55:50", "start": 3350.11, "text": "Fantastic. Alright, and I suppose, just tell them, tell the listeners where they can go. I think the website is, I hear it's, bitcoin2019conference.com. Anywhere else you'd like, the listeners to go and check out?" }, { "speaker": "david_bailey", "time": "56:02", "start": 3361.97, "text": "Yeah, and check out bitcoinmagazine.com, follow bitcoin magazine on Twitter, and, you know, just- Be more engaged and involved in the Bitcoin discussion. I think, Casa had a really great, I don't know if it was a blog post they put out, but they, they talked about their kind of, approach of Bitcoin first, and I, I think that that's a really great message for, people throughout this ecosystem, how they should be looking at this space, you know, be looking at everything, be open-minded to everything, but be Bitcoin first, and, and, Be engaged." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "56:43", "start": 3402.98, "text": "Fantastic. Alright, well, look, thanks very much for coming on the show, David. I think it's been a interesting conversation about kind of what, you know, Bitcoin over the years, I've enjoyed discussing with you, so, thanks very much for joining me." }, { "speaker": "david_bailey", "time": "56:56", "start": 3415.77, "text": "Yeah. Thank you, Stefan. Catch you later." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "56:59", "start": 3418.6, "text": "Hope you enjoyed that conversation with David. While I'm anti shitcoins, ICOs, and enterprise blockchain projects, I definitely appreciate David's refocusing of BTC Media back to Bitcoin and the effort to put on a conference that helps refocus the attention to Bitcoin first, and looking forward to meeting some more Bitcoiners in real life in San Francisco in June. If you enjoyed this material and wanna help me improve the podcast further, I have a Patreon at patreon.com/stephanelvera. Paid supporting members get access to A private Telegram chat group where I share inside info on my upcoming guests and you get to have input on the interviews. Big thanks to my existing Patreon supporters, you guys are the best. Alright, that's it for this one. Thanks for listening and speak soon." } ] }