{ "episodeId": "SLP639", "speakers": { "stephan": { "name": "Stephan Livera", "role": "host", "tag": "STEPHAN" }, "ethan_timor": { "name": "Ethan Timor", "role": "guest", "tag": "ETHAN" } }, "segments": [ { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "00:11", "start": 11.19, "text": "Hi everyone, and welcome back to Stephan Livera podcast, brought to you by Bold. So for American listeners, go to getbold.io, you can buy, sell, or store your Bitcoin there using your own two or three multi-signature vault over at getbold.io. Now, joining me on the show today is Ethan from Bitaroo. Now, Ethan Ethan is the founder or co-founder of Bitaroo and, also involved in, you know, Bitcoin in the Australian community. So, first off, welcome to the show, Ethan. Thanks, Stefan. Thank you for having me. So, you've been, running Bitaru for a while, and, you know, it's, sort of known as one of the, the Bitcoin only options in Australia, in terms of an exchange that people can go, obviously, buy and sell their Bitcoin. let's start with a bit of, you know, kind of where things are at in Australia with Bitcoin generally, just for, you know, from your perspective. do you think it's growing as a, you know- You know, as a community, are the businesses in Australia growing? Just a bit of an overall sense of it. Sure." }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "01:18", "start": 78.27, "text": "well, look, yeah, a-as look, as adoption goes, definitely, you know, I think, you know, Bitcoin, you know, it's more adoption as we go. I think, ETFs made things very interesting. I think, you know, for years we knew that Grayscale, Grayscale is trying to do, you know, ETFs, and we always thought, oh, institutions, you know, they're you know, boomers also like it, and zoomers even like it, you know, because it's so easy, you just do it on your app, you know, with your other stocks and bonds and so on. So when that happened, that changed, you know, a lot of things for us, you know, on, on the exchange level, we kind of start adding more services that, we believe, you know, to kind of show the difference between actually holding Bitcoin versus, you know, buying a, you know, an IOU, I think we're seeing a bit of a shift in the, in the retail demand. It looks to be, you know, more subtle and, you know, more, more moderate, let's say, not as crazy, you know, as it used to be, you know, in the previous, bull run. So I think that change, but there's more and more people that are looking into it. we're seeing more merchants adopting it, that's also why we launched the, the point of sale. you know, there's, as far as the" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "02:40", "start": 160.48, "text": "so Bitcoin Alive, I just wanna make sure that what's the website? Bitcoinalive dot io, isn't it? Yeah, Bitcoinalive dot io. So I guess while we're here, just quickly mention that, so that's, you know, Bitcoin Only Conference, March eighth. I won't be there, but, you know, I, I, I know, you know, some of the guys running it, and, so for any listeners, if you are, you know, thinking about it, now's a good time, Bitcoinalive dot io, or just" }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "03:10", "start": 190.32, "text": "Bring international speakers, you know, because of the distance, but they do manage to bring some. I have to say about something about, you know, the Aussie community, I, I miss them, you know, like, like you, I haven't been in Australia for a while. I, I visited actually, you know, a few months ago, but that was like first time in years. and, you know, I miss the Aussie community. It, it's, it's so Bitcoin only and so toxic about it. I mean, you know, we, we both travel the It's not, it's, I think it's the most, you know, Bitcoin only toxic community that I know, and I, and I personally love it. You know, it fits my character beautifully. So, so I think that's happening. There's other meetups, there's of course the, the world famous Bush Bash, you know, that happens now even four, in four states, you know, where it started in one state and moved to three, and now it's in four states, and you know, hopefully, you know, more states will, will join soon" }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "04:11", "start": 250.88, "text": "Every state has its own, bush bash organizers. So I think there's a lot of good things happening, you know, as far as the, community and as far as, you know, Bitcoin adoption. So, you know, on, on the people level, I think things, you know, is going up, you know, as far as Bitcoin in Australia. On the government level, I'm sorry to say that that's not the case. it's not coming a hundred percent, you know, the, from the government, it comes, you What is happening, you know, by FATF, you know, so the, Financial Action Task Force, FATF, which we've done episodes" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "04:47", "start": 287.33, "text": "on that. Listeners can check out my recent episode with, Open State, it's probably a good one for that one. so yeah, but go on." }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "04:54", "start": 294.23, "text": "Yeah. So your listeners know all about it. I, I have to say that, like, you know, the main thing that bothers me with them is their, recommendations. You know, it's a mafia-style recommendation where if you don't follow the Australia is now, unfortunately, is bringing the travel rule, and they, they said very, you know, clearly on their paper that, it's because, you know, FATF is making them do it. So travel rule is coming to Australia, KYC on Bitcoin wallets is coming to Australia. So like, not even touching fiat, not even touching the US dollar, but they want to bring KYC because, they're saying that, KYC, wallet basically is transferring value, and if you're the- The one transferring it, as the custodial, the custodial wallets, then, they want to do have KYC on that. So that's very alarming for us, when we pointed out that this isn't, not okay, and anyone can just, like, you know, download, another app from the app store, and instead of the revenue going to an Australian company, it will go to an overseas company, they told me not to worry because this is a globally coordinated effort. So that made me very relieved and happy. but so, so there's like Force, financial services license, which is very expensive and very hard to obtain and very expensive to hold, again on centralized exchanges. So the good news that I, the only I can bring from this is that the government, the Aussie government, is actually Pushing centralized exchanges to become self-custodial, so, so, you know, self-custodial exchanges. That's a good, good thing. It will change, how, things are operating. So if, for example, we think about, you know, wallet of Satoshi, they, you know, might have to become, a self-custody wallet, you know, same as Breezr. So it's very interesting and very, exciting, I guess, you know, news in that sense. we just You know, the, the, the trend isn't, isn't great. The good news I guess is coming from the states, you know, so you know, the, the US administration is very, very, pro Bitcoin and, and they're more advanced already than the Aussie government, so we're hoping that with time, you know, this will also come to, you know, to other countries and of course, including Australia, where the government is gonna put more difference between Bitcoin and crypto, you know, like with the FSL, it's funny, the Australian Financial Services License that they want So, you know, they're saying, \"Look, they, they, they're saying, the government is saying, you know, the attorney general office is saying that they don't think that crypto is a financial product, but they want to regulate it as if it is.\" So they're creating like a special crazy hybrid. And we, you know, as a Australian, back then I was also, you know, a director at, the Australian Bitcoin Industry Body, we met with them and, and we told them that we're gonna solve all their problems. Crypto is" }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "07:57", "start": 476.8, "text": "It is being, you know, issued by companies. It is, there, it is a financial product. So, we, we really like that idea. They didn't, they're treating all of crypto as one basket, which as I said, US is already more advanced, 'cause US is looking at Bitcoin, at, you know, art securities, NFTs, at privacy coins, at, at scams. They are looking at the different baskets more and more, and we believe that this trend, trend will continue and hopefully it will come to Australia soon" }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "08:27", "start": 506.82, "text": "A few of these pieces," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "08:28", "start": 507.67, "text": "right? So as you mentioned, kind of the travel rule, I think that's pretty much been done to death on this show, so maybe we, we won't need to cover that as much. But, the, I guess high level of that is Financial institutions who are helping facilitate these transactions between them, one financial institution and another, they need to exchange information, and that might mean things like the customer name, customer address, and, you know, the amount transferred and things like this. Yeah. and there are some of these, I guess, in the US, some of these travel rule protocols that are, you know, in play between big KYC exchanges. That's kind of on one side of it. On the other side, you mentioned the AFSA So this relates more to not as much about the AML and the KYC and the sanction stuff, this is more about being a regulated financial services entity, right? So can you just explain a little bit about this AFSL part, what and what will it mean for the Australian Bitcoin industry?" }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "09:27", "start": 567.28, "text": "Well, the FSL, i-is, is a license that, currently is only imposed on, on entities such as banks. they want, you know, to impose it also on- On centralized exchanges or, or custodians basically. they're saying that, you know, if you're holding value, this is the new terminology they brought into play. They're, they're not even, they're not even saying, \"Oh, it's crypto or it's Bitcoin or it's fiat,\" they're just saying it's value, okay? So they're saying if you're holding value as a custodial, service, then you need to be regulated, you know, more heavily. Now, the FSL is hard to obtain because it's not just, oh, you just pay a fee and that's it. You also have to prove that you have qualified staff with banking experience and so on and so on and, and that staff, you know, is, is usually, you know, not, not, not cheap. And the second thing is that then in order to, to, and then it, it costs, you know, quite, quite significantly to, to hold it because there's also insurance involved and the insurance is also very, very expensive. These costs amount to the This is, you know, presented, and becomes law, the Bitcoin industry in Australia, as we know it, will cease to exist. we currently have five Bitcoin only exchanges, four of them are brokers, one of them is the full order book exchange like Bittrex, and out of those five, five, four are custodials, one isn't. so all of us will either cease to ex- or the other four will either cease to exist or what will probably happen will become self-custodials. Self-custodial is, is right- Relatively easy for a broker, it's virtually, I think, impossible for a full order book exchange. we'll have to see if we could still maintain the trade page, but if not, we'll continue to operate, you know, with the buy and sell and the other services we have, the spend, the pay, the vault, the, the point of sale and so on. So this will morph the, the Australian Bitcoin industry into being self-custodial because only the big crypto exchanges will be able to afford the, the costs of, of, of maintaining the- The AFSL. this is something that was discussed, like, I don't know, like a couple of years ago, then it like kind of went to bed, and then it surfaced last year again, and now again they're talking about it. So we don't know if this will happen, but it is a great, a great concern, mainly because, as I said, like a lot of our users, look, a lot of users aren't Bitcoiners. I mean, you know, you, you and me are Bitcoiners, and I guess most of our listeners are So they prefer to s- to keep it with us. Some of them even, you know, pay us, you know, fees, in order to keep it with us, the custodial, the vault fees. So they prefer that over taking self custody. So forcing them into self custody, I don't think that this is good for, for many of them. some of them, you know, might be, you know, unfortunately better off with ETFs, you know, because there's less chance of losing it, less, chance of being scammed and so on Government, the government, you know, nodded, but, I don't think, you know, that really, changed their minds. the only thing we can hope for is that, like, you know, we were able to influence a few key people there that maybe changed something, you know, maybe made a dent, maybe slowed down the process a little bit, and we'll just see how it all plays out. So yeah, okay. That's kind of interesting." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "12:58", "start": 778.49, "text": "And just to clarify, this, change coming through you're mentioning, is this something like," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "13:08", "start": 787.89, "text": "More like delegated legislation, it's something that's gonna be changing, you know, at a specific regulator level, not at the legislative level." }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "13:17", "start": 797.3, "text": "This is something that currently the attorney general office is working on. So, this is something that coming from the government that they want to see. This is all post-FTX blow-up, you know, I mean, if you remember, I mean, before FTX blow-up, there was the trend was actually getting easier and easier, you know, to, to be with Bitcoin and even to be, you know, with crypto You know, the, the, the disgusting C-word, word. and if you remember, like, you know, CBA, the biggest bank in Australia, was about to launch on their app that you could buy Bitcoin and three other, cryptocurrencies on their app. And then once FTX, once FTX blew up, they went, you know, hundred eighty, they completely, you know, canceled, those plans and instead imposed a very heavy ten K limit rule that no matter who you are, no matter how much money you have, you can only send to" }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "14:09", "start": 848.69, "text": "so they went, you know, from like, you know, from being very advanced and very, pro, Bitcoin and crypto, they became like very anti. So this is still happening. I mean, th-those waves are still happening, and this is what we're, we're dealing with. as I said, we just hope that it will happen so slow that by the time that it will reach a more advanced level, you know, the trend will change. Again, you know, we're, we're hoping that, you know, this, The world takes lead from the US one way or another, so, we were hoping that, you know, the US will maybe introduce, you know, more, more and more friendly Bitcoin, regulation, and then the rest of the world will just look silly that, you know, that they're, they're doing anti, anti-Bitcoin regulation and the US is doing pro, and eventually, you know, and more and more business is just gonna flow there." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "14:58", "start": 898.43, "text": "The lead sponsor of this show is Bold, the best place to buy, sell, and save Bitcoin. For listeners in the US, Bold lets you secure your financial future with complete peace of mind by integrating a low fee Bitcoin only brokerage with next gen multisig vaults. With Bold, you can smash buy Bitcoin or set a DCA plan for only zero point nine nine percent fees and seamlessly deposit the Bitcoin direct to your Bold Vault. The Bold Vault is a two or three collaborative multisig where you hold two keys and Bold holds one as a redundant backup. Backup, protecting against loss or theft. You can use Trezor, Ledger, or cold card hardware wallets to spin up a Bold Vault in just a few minutes, and the Bold Vault is the only collaborative custody vault available with zero monthly fees. They're also offering zero fees on your first ten thousand dollars of Bitcoin buys and twenty-five dollars of free Bitcoin when you buy a hundred dollars of Bitcoin or more. Try Bold today and upgrade your stacking experience over at getbold.io. And now, back to the show. I see, yeah. and so the main-- so as I understand then the- The main one you're talking about is this AFSL component. Are there any other parts of, let's say, Bitcoin regulation that are, you know, coming?" }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "16:08", "start": 967.91, "text": "Well, there is the, as I mentioned, the KYC on, on, Bitcoin wallets. So, again, this is more on the end, on the end side, right? Yeah. Yeah, that's on the main, that's coming from AusTrac, you know, from FATF and, from AusTrac. Yeah. And that basically is a change of terminology where they're saying from, you know, to and from, you know, different users, then, you, you need to, you know, to know, you know, who these users are. So they want to bring travel rule and KYC on Bitcoin wallets at the same time. This is expected to happen, next month, but with one year adoption period. So this will be in effect from, somewhere like April 1st," }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "16:56", "start": 1016.35, "text": "2026. until then, if this will- Happen and probably will, then what's gonna happen is that, as I said, I just, what I think is gonna-- I look, I hope none of the current biz-- Bitcoin business will, you know, decide to close shop. I believe that all of us will just morph into, self custody." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "17:16", "start": 1036.12, "text": "yeah. But as an example, like, if you think about a wallet of Satoshi, right, based in Australia, they are obviously gonna be impacted by this because part of what made that wallet so simple Well, is that it's just very quick and easy to sign up, and that's why a lot of people use it. So I wonder what'll happen there if this would impact their model in, you know, April 2026. Yeah. as I understand, like- They, you know, the reason is the, the guys behind that wallet, they love Lightning and they really wanted to just make something to be able to, for people to be able to easily use it, right? Of course, I understand there are criticisms of it being custodial, but also on the other hand, that wallet started, I think, in twenty nineteen or like at that time, it was a lot harder to do a self-custodial Lightning experience with, with a good experience, and that's, I think that's why so many people went to that wallet. Now," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "18:10", "start": 1090.3, "text": "of course, you Changes things, but it will obviously raise the bar in terms of which users can afford to do that and, let's say, not just affording to do it, but kind of from a UX and a slick, easy experience perspective, right?" }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "18:29", "start": 1109.2, "text": "Yeah. So, Voltus, as you already know, actually are powering our Lightning solution in Bitterroot, so we have very good relationship with them. Great, great, great team there, you know, you know, Bitcoin only, toxic, maximalist, beautiful people. we spoke obviously about the upcoming, you know, changes to regulation. I'm happy to-- I hope you don't mind me saying it, but, you know, I'm happy to say that they, they, they have like zero intention to become KYC and they have zero intention to, to close shop. So, they will have to look at becoming self-custodial, which again, as Bitcoiners, we, we agree that this is the way, you know, we just, we are custodials because it's easier for our users. We, you know, Don't do it, for, for their own reasons. So we, we provide a service that we think is good. if we have to change to self-custody, something, something you already brought up with, you know, with Ostrek is that we want to give our users a backup option. So the backup option will be when you download our app, we give you twelve words, you write them down, but you can-- there is a box, and then if you lose it, you know, that, that's on you. But we want to give them like" }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "19:42", "start": 1182.48, "text": "And they agree that their seed, is being sent, you know, encrypted and so on to three different companies, and be-virtually creating as if a multisig, of the, of their, of their, of their seed. Not exactly multisig, but that's how Astrack sees it. and then like nobody's custodial of their, seed, but if they want, they can call upon all these three companies and co-recompile their seed so their funds aren't lost. So this is kind of" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "20:11", "start": 1211.2, "text": "like in the middle between- During, as opposed to a multi-sig, right? But okay, exactly. But" }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "20:16", "start": 1215.53, "text": "Ozark doesn't know Shamir, you know, they know multi-sigs or using terminology that they're, you know, comfortable with. But, that, that's exactly the idea. Ozark is looking into that. they're not sure, I mean, 'cause it's a gray area now. I mean, let's say there are three companies, none of us are actually holding the seed, right?" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "20:34", "start": 1234.5, "text": "Yeah." }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "20:35", "start": 1234.7, "text": "Exactly. But is it a crypto or not? I mean, we" }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "20:44", "start": 1243.88, "text": "but this something that, you know, we need cl-clarification from Oscar. We think this is for the client benefit because if customers lose their twelve words, it's, it's gone, you know, and not nobody in the world can help them. But if they tick that box and, and those companies can come to the rescue, that's great. I think that's a bit similar to what Ledger had in mind, you know, with their," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "21:05", "start": 1265.06, "text": "it was a bit of a controversial feature, but it was called Ledger Recovery, and I think there were That and look for good reason. I'll," }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "21:14", "start": 1274.37, "text": "I'll tell you my two cents about it. I, I told this to Ledger as well. I think they, I get where they're coming from because we're seeing the same issues that they're seeing of people losing their seeds and then crying about it and so on. So I understand where they're coming from. I think Ledger's, I mean, Ledger made, I think, a lot of mistakes, you know, during their life, but I think the big mistake with the recovery was, d- in my opinion, they should have- introduce a, a brand new hardware wallet and say that that wallet has that feature, not that all the wallets now have that feature. You know, I think that's what, what freaked, you know, a lot of Bitcoins out. It's suddenly like you're looking at your ledger and think, oh, they could, they could get into my seed, you know? That what freaked, I think, people out. If they would introduce a new hardware wallet, say, look, this hardware wallet for noobs, people that are afraid and they, they have the option" }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "22:03", "start": 1323.17, "text": "They introduced it to all their hardware wallets. I think that's what, you know, caused a lot of the damage. But yeah, look, it's closed source, you know, we don't know what's happening with all the closed source, you know, software. and as I said, like, you know, we, we know that, you know, Ledger got hacked, you know, with their, customer database, and they weren't, I, I think they weren't like fully transparent about it. And, and so I think they It stops there, it's funny. they are still, I think, the biggest, and I think they, they still have, you know, at least the will, to, to change. but yeah, look, they're very, very crypto. I mean, I think they have like one guy only working there on Bitcoin, all the rest are working on crypto. It's, it's very weird. but yeah. So, but the, the idea that said is good. I mean, if the customer has an option, if they" }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "23:03", "start": 1383.19, "text": "For many of our users, those, those that wouldn't want it, of course, you know, don't tick the box and nobody has a copy except them, you know, same like, Blue Wallet and same like Breeze." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "23:12", "start": 1392.08, "text": "And it does bring up, You know, right now fees are relatively low, but let's say fees rise again, it does kind of bring that concern about can people afford to be doing every withdrawal from the exchange in a self-custodial way? Because, I mean, the typical rule of thumb people have been saying is like To keep yourself safe in future high fee scenarios, try to make each of your UTXOs greater than one million sat or greater than point oh one BTC. At today's prices in US dollar terms, that's about eight hundred and sixty dollars. So, I mean, it would mean that when people wanna stack, they only withdraw if it's above eight hundred and sixty US dollars worth of Bitcoin. And so that could also present another concern. And I, I understand, maybe if I think about bull Bitcoin Bitcoin, right? In Canada, they are using and playing around with the idea of doing L BTC, and I think the idea is that you would have like L BTC, which is a side chain Bitcoin, right? To be clear, there's trade-offs to that. It's custodial in the sense that the Bitcoin are custodied by the, twelve or fifteen, you know, multisig functionaries or whatever. But point is, maybe that would be like the staging ground for people before they get enough to justify doing on-chain Bitcoin withdrawal. I'm curious what do you think about that?" }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "24:30", "start": 1470.06, "text": "Yeah. Well, Our solution or our, you know, con- idea of the solution is, a bit different. we're thinking that the users will, you know, they download the app, they, they write down the twelve words, and those twelve words are both on-chain and lightning. So if they're making like small amounts, it will go to their lightning, unless like specific they choose that they wanted to go to on-chain. If you go to their lightning, wallet, if they want larger amount, it will go to the on-chain. So our app will like automatically choose the default, So if you just want to stack ten bucks, you know, obviously it will withdraw to your Lightning. If you want to stack, you know, a thousand bucks, it will by default go to on-chain, but, as I said, you can put that on Lightning as well. But then it's like different" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "25:12", "start": 1512.47, "text": "trade-offs around having, inbound liquidity, right? Because if you're-- Then you need to have, because if you don't have enough inbound liquidity, you're doing another on-chain transaction fee, and then you're paying on-chain just for like ten dollars might not be worthwhile," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "25:31", "start": 1531.1, "text": "The other trade-off is, okay, pay a little bit upfront and have like two million sats of inbound capacity or something like this, right? Yeah." }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "25:38", "start": 1537.79, "text": "Yeah. Well, we're, we're, we're probably gonna, yeah. look, there's what Breeze is doing. Breeze has a solution for that, which, you know, as I'm sure you're familiar with. So that's like one option. Another option is that as like our Lightning currently is powered by what Satoshi, and we hope to keep it that way, so we'll see what they," }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "26:01", "start": 1561.18, "text": "Yeah, look, it, it's all, it's all about, you know, doing what we can. This is exactly something that we told Ostrack. We told us, look, some of our users, they want to, like, buy, you know, five dollars every hour, you know? It's impossible to do it as a self-custodial, almost impossible, and it's very easy to do it as a custodial. So we, they understand that like not all of the users, will benefit from what they're doing, but unfortunately, you know To, to represent Australia there, but it's not the same, you know, as, as going to one of their meetings. But when you think about Ostrakh, many times, like you think of this, like, you know, faceless, you know, big body that maybe, you know, is, is, is, you know, sees Bitcoin as the enemy and so on. But then when you sit and meet with them, you know, in video meetings and so on, then these are just, like, you know, good people, you know, they, they, they, they we, we believe that some of the things that they're doing is actually harmful. I mean, you know, I mentioned to them more than once, nineteen eighty four. I mentioned to them more than once, you know, Giacomo had a great speech, you know, I keep quoting it about, about KYC, and I said, like, imagine if I have a petrol station and you come to fill, you know, petrol in your car and I said, no, no, I have to see your ID and every ID and everyone has ID that is in Ridiculous when you think about petrol, you know, KYCing petrol, but I mean, why KYC Bitcoin and not KYC petrol? And, and why does in Australia, you know, you can buy gold five thousand dollars a day with no KYC, you can go gambling ten thou-- and win ten thousand dollars a day with no KYC, but da-- but Bitcoin from the first cent, you know, KYC, you know? So there's all these things that we're bringing, you know, to them. Some of the things, unfortunately, most of the things You know, they, they're saying, \"Look, this is what FATF wants, and, you know, we have to, you know, follow their recommendation.\" or this is the bill that was introduced, you know, passed in parliament, and we have to, you know, build regulations around it. So many of the things that we whinge about, aren't, you know, not something that they can control, but at least I think that, you know, as the Bitcoin industry body, we are, making a dent and, and at least Bitcoiners, I know, have very, very different opinions on, on things. Right. Because crypto bros" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "28:34", "start": 1714.45, "text": "wanna make, you know, shitcoins legal, right? And they wanna make, you know, shitcoin scamming li-as legal as possible, whereas Bitcoiners are sort of more interested in this idea of, hey, let me self-custody, don't impinge on, you know, those aspects or, you know, yeah," }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "28:48", "start": 1728.14, "text": "yeah. So it's very interesting meeting with them, and I hope we're, we are making, I think we are making small differences," }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "29:01", "start": 1741.16, "text": "For you to, to be able to, you know, to carry on, I guess, and, and that's what we're hoping that, you know, they won't kill the whole thing and just leave us with the, you know, three, four big crypto exchanges and nothing else." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "29:13", "start": 1753.14, "text": "Yeah, it seems a bit-- Yeah, I, I think that's one of the challenges with some of these organizations, right? Like, because there'll be some Aussie Bitcoiners who are like, \"You know, screw the regulators, screw the government, be cypherpunks, do everything peer-to-peer, and just never even talk to the government.\" Good, good. That's, that's one side of it. And then on the other side, it's like, there may be others who see it like- Well, how much money or how much resources are you asking for to try to go lobby the government when actually you're being really ineffective and you haven't stopped? The KYC, you know, as an example, right? And the answer will be, okay, look, actually there's a lot of things that are above that person's pay grade, but nevertheless, is it worthwhile putting money in to try to lobby to at least- Lower or minimize the level of, government regulation, wha-whatever, whatever is coming." }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "30:10", "start": 1810.37, "text": "Yeah. Look, I, I think so. I mean, we had this objection when, you know, first, came, that like was first founded, some Bitcoiners said, \"Oh, we shouldn't cooperate with the government, shouldn't play their game, just do Bitcoin and that's it.\" But look, it's true for Bitcoiners, you know, I always said like, no KYC Bitcoin is better than KYC Bitcoin, which is better than no Bitcoin, It is super important, although from what I'm seeing, you know, I think most people will never self-custody Bitcoin, you know, I think most people will use some custodial, you know, whether it's gonna be, you know, an institution like a bank or, or it's gonna be an exchange or custodial services. I mean, look, even exchanges don't custo-custody most of their Bitcoin. I mean, that, that, that's many people don't know that. I mean, they, they're talking about, you know, a fractional reserve of exchanges. I mean, some exchanges have zero reserve, zero. All of it is with some, you know, third-party custodial services, you know, such as BitGo, for example, and that's it. They don't even custody none of" }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "31:13", "start": 1873.27, "text": "their Many people don't use it. Now, ABIB is there mainly to give a voice to the Bitcoin industry body. The Bitcoin industry body, you know, is obviously KYC and compliant and, you know, and, and works within, you know, the law and it does try to change the law, on a few things. But also when new law and new bills are being introduced, it is, you know, giving, it's making submissions, it's giving its opinion. Again, we don't know how much that helps. From what we're hearing, it does help a bit Some point of view or some argument that they didn't hear from the crypto bros or didn't think of themselves. so I think we are doing some good, and I think some good is, is better than, you know, than not doing anything at all. but it's-- but I think Bitcoiners have to make a difference between, like, you know, the industry and the community, you know? And the community, of course, I mean, you know, as people, we should be rebellious. The government should be afraid of us, not we should be afraid" }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "32:16", "start": 1935.93, "text": "It's the other way around. I mean, the company isn't afraid, and I mean, the government shouldn't be afraid of companies, you know? Companies should be afraid of the laws of the government, you know? So I think there is a difference between companies and, and people, and, and people, you know, as I said, like, you know, the government serves the people, it doesn't, it doesn't need to serve the companies, it just need to facilitate some environment for the companies to flourish in order to provide services again to the people. So I, I think" }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "32:46", "start": 1966.09, "text": "Let's try and Bitcoin" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "32:47", "start": 1967.07, "text": "industry body just for people, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I keep" }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "32:50", "start": 1969.67, "text": "mentioning that. try and Bitcoin industry body, you know, so, yeah, we've been around since I think twenty twenty-one, and until then, the Bitcoin exchanges had no voice, you know, like Ostrakh used to meet with, with the crypto, industry body and, and, and with their members, but not with us, not with the, because we didn't even know these meetings are happening. and then one The crypto, industry body and invited me to a meeting with Ostrack, and I can't-- went to that meeting and asked Ostrack, \"Why you meeting with them and not with us?\" And they said, \"Oh, we're just meeting with the industry body, and the industry body invites their members.\" I said, \"But we're not a crypto industry, we're a Bitcoin industry.\" And that's when I understood we have to have our own industry body, and that's how it happened, you know? And then we teamed up with, you know, Daniel from what Satoshi In Australia joined as members, and now there's even non-exchange members, and there's more and more, sponsors and, even Cobra, you know, from, Bitcoin, dot org g-gave his blessing, and he's like, Bitcoin dot org is a global supporter of a Bib, which, you know, something that I'm, you know, it, it, it's, it's sentimental, but you know, I'm very proud of, and the Bani is now the CEO, and he does an amazing job, and Media, they're talking more with government. It comes to a point where government now introduces, legislation and they approach a Bib asking for a comment, for a submission, you know? So, so I think it, it is good that a Bib exists, and I think more and more Bitcoiners are seeing it. And, and, and as I said, like, you know, we, we just do what we can and hope that, you know, that, that, that, that it's, it's enough and it's better than nothing." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "34:40", "start": 2079.96, "text": "I see. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, interesting. so, yeah, hopefully, people can push back on it. I think it's gonna be one of those things where it's, it's a bit of a long slog. the analogy, or at least the way I'm thinking about it, is kind of like how, you know," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "34:56", "start": 2095.94, "text": "They probably think AML laws, if they even think of AML laws at all, they think they're just kind of benign, right? They don't really think, \"Oh, they're massively costly and they are impinging liberty and unethical.\" A-and there's not as much of a willingness to just sort of go full against, fully against them, right? So when something goes wrong, what happens is maybe as an example- The people who don't know any better will sort of say, \"Oh, look at this bank, they were found to be doing money laundering, therefore you need to do more money laundering, regulation and more legislation and da da da da da, and so on.\" And then it kind of starts this bad cycle where maybe the politicians, say, \"Okay, maybe we need to do more AML laws,\" and then Oztrak and the other regulators say, \"Okay, well, we need to put in more, blah, blah, blah,\" and then, and now the banks and all the Where, I mean, from the principled libertarian view, it's like, \"No, just abolish all AML laws, full stop.\" but, you know, that's, that's gonna be-- it's gonna be a while to sort of shift public opinion, but it can happen, right? Like, look at how Ron Paul was talking about, you know, end the Fed for so long before anyone would listen, and now it's become a big thing, and now people are sort of-- they know to sort of be skeptical of the Federal Reserve, you know, as an example. And" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "36:16", "start": 2175.72, "text": "thing to that, right, that right now there's not a lot of us who are sort of against it right now, but over time, if people sort of start to understand, okay, here's the threat, here's actually the way it's not helping society, here are the massive costs society is paying in terms of compliance and people who just can't access financial services or Bitcoin because of it, Yeah, so I think," }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "36:43", "start": 2203.43, "text": "I think it's, it's just gonna, there's gonna, there's gonna be a, a few years where it really sucks. Yeah There, there is, you know, there, there was this, you know, TV show, and, I forgot the name, but, but he said there, that, you know, people were, instead of being, you know, reminded that they are warriors, they're being told that they are sheep, and then when the wolves come, they're calling the shepherd instead of defending themselves. And I think that is a bit of the issue in, in Australia where people just love the nanny state, you know, a-a-and if something goes wrong instead of taking responsibility For more regulation. I mean, we're seeing this with our users, you know, that we, we think they're being scammed, so we're asking them, you know, more enhanced, you know, due diligence questions. They're lying to us, you know, they're, they're lying to us, and then later they get scammed, and I ask them, \"Why did you lie?\" And they say, \"Oh, I was told that I should lie because everyone lies.\" I was like, \"But man, yeah, I mean, why would you trust a stranger over the phone" }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "38:05", "start": 2285.2, "text": "Regulating the banks and the exchanges harder. So instead of, you know, taking responsibility for their own actions, they blame everyone else. And that exactly, as you said, is causing then the government to say, \"Oh, okay, we need to govern, you know, things, harder and, and, and to govern the people harder.\" So I, I think it is like, you know, a vicious cycle that, That, that just gets, you know, worse, again, but, you know, the, you know, the tide could shift and it will get, better. yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. I think it's an interesting" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "38:36", "start": 2316.22, "text": "point, but I mean, maybe you, you might wanna-- This is interesting to me because I also understand, and you touched on this earlier, that some Australian banks are blocking transfers to the Bitcoin exchanges, and I, as I understand, some of that is, you could argue Some of them mean well, right? Because there is this kind of elder abuse or elder scams with old people who don't really know or kind of non tech savvy people who are getting scammed. And a common vector for that is the scammer tells them, \"Hey, go send money to this Bitcoin exchange, buy Bitcoin, and send it to me as part of, you know, as part of their scam or whatever.\" there might be some gift vouchers or some, some other steps to that story, but that's part of it, right? I'm curious if you can elaborate a bit on that And how much of that is legitimately trying to protect the customer and how much of that is, you know, blocking the exit ramps and let it's blocking the fiat exits." }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "39:34", "start": 2374.24, "text": "Yeah, yeah. Well, look, that, that, that, that, that, that's a great one because, you know, a lot of Bitcoiners think, \"Oh, you know, banks hate Bitcoin, that's what they're doing it.\" Yes, maybe, but not a hundred percent, as you said. I mean, we, we also understand why banks are doing what they're doing. you know, the In order to discuss those things, because according to the ABS, far as I understand, they already know everything, so they don't need to waste their time, you know, sitting with us, which is very annoying. but we understand where banks are coming from with their concerns, we've seen this happen. I mean, we, we've seen people lose significant am- amounts of money because they lied b- to us, to the banks, you know, and they lost money. So we, and then they turn around to the banks, and the banks," }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "40:24", "start": 2423.63, "text": "Money from checking accounts and eventually, you know, they just have all this drama to deal with, and they're afraid of then governments, you know, regulating them harder because of the, those issues. So we understand, you know, where they're coming from. We don't underst- we don't agree with the tools, okay? So, I think, for example, what CBA is doing, and we said it from day one, is just, you know, it's just like a hammer approach," }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "40:49", "start": 2448.59, "text": "you know, it's like, oh, ten grand, that's I don't think that that's correct because if you, you know, if you, if you have only twenty grand, then, okay, maybe you know, ten grand is too much for you, but you have like millions, you know, with CBA, then ten grand is nothing, you know, it's gonna take you like, you know, over a year to buy one Bitcoin, you know? So, so that, that's silly. we think that there should be some more middle ground, a-and maybe some, you know, special application, maybe even" }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "41:23", "start": 2482.51, "text": "People to pay with, they understand that if they're being scammed, that's on them. Now, the banks, again, if they, if they had more trust with us and would see more, they would see we also do our enhanced due diligence when we think something is wrong. When we think something is wrong, we also ask questions. If they come back with like horrible, you know, answers, then, you know, sometimes we even close the account because we, we, we know this Yale's scammed at us, just Yale, we know it is going, is getting scammed, and Question, this, and, you know, in your previous, but the tipping off, right? It's, it's, it's not allowed for us to tell, hey, we think you're getting scammed, because then they could turn around to the scammer and, and tell them the scammer will learn from next time. So we have to, I mean, be a bit, you know, more subtle about it. Although obviously if we close the account, the scammer understands that something triggered our system, but doesn't know what." }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "42:17", "start": 2536.8, "text": "so, so as, as going back And look, Ostrek also, as far as I know, Ostrek also disagrees with that approach. Ostrek made a guide, wrote a guidance to the banks and told them not to debank, and not to limit too much because what they're causing is just to people to go to other avenues. So for example, if you cannot send money to the bank, okay, you withdraw cash and go meet somebody in some alley and buy Bitcoin there. So now you have like a, a, you know, a physical danger to, to you, you know, and it's the KYC And then, can I trace it, as easily? You know, so," }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "42:58", "start": 2577.85, "text": "I think this will-- I mean, hopefully, look, this will, you know, get a bit, you know, better with, with many other things. currently, since FTX, things are just getting worse. we haven't-- I don't know if it's in the bottom, you know, in this sense. I don't know if it's in the bottom yet. I, I hope so. I hope the bottom is near because, as I said," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "43:19", "start": 2598.96, "text": "Yeah, interesting. Yeah. Yeah, about, yeah, lots of interesting, yeah, it, it makes a lot of sense there, and hopefully things turn around on that point around the bank restrictions, and I guess for now, what are people doing? They're just going to another bank, or they're trying to use another bank to send to Bitcoin exchanges?" }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "43:37", "start": 2616.74, "text": "Yeah, well, look, that, that's exactly what, what people are doing. I mean, they're opening multiple banks, and then they're sending money from multiple banks. Now, sometimes that, that triggers us Because too many people are doing it for legit reasons, so we're no longer watching that as a red flag. and, and now the, the issue is that, like, you know, I mean, people asking, for example, on forums, \"Oh, which one, who's a good bank?\" And then somebody says, \"You know, bank X,\" and then they're going to bank X. Everyone is like piling out to bank X, and bank X suddenly sees a lot of new users and they're immediately like sending money from a different bank and immediately to a digital exchange" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "44:18", "start": 2658.48, "text": "Now we need to put in a rule, now ten thousand or whatever rule there, yeah." }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "44:22", "start": 2662.17, "text": "Yeah, exactly. So that's what happens, you know, the, the most friendly banks sometimes become, you know, the most unfriendly banks, and it just happens like that. So You know, we, we stack while we can, right? You know, and I think that everyone should have, you know, different, you know, options to stack, KYC, KYC free. I mean, we launched recently our KYC free version where anyone could just download our app and start sending and receiving Bitcoin, because, you know, we think that, you know, Bitcoin should be KYC free, we're hoping that, you know, one day, you know, there will be this threshold or, or the whole But I mean, we, we asked, you know, we asked Ostrac, and this also was asked, you know, on public forums, you know, in, in, on, on, in Congress and so on in the states, like, how many, how much, you know, actual money laundering did they stop with all this KYC? And they don't have an answer, they don't know, they don't know, you know? And, and, and there was this report last year by the European, police department, you know, the whole" }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "45:27", "start": 2727.14, "text": "like European, So they're not like, they're not return, retrieving funds, they're not finding it, they're not stopping anything. So why are we doing all this? It just adds a lot of cost, a lot of burden. And, and that's where I bring like 1994 into, into, you know, into the conversation. I'm telling officers, okay, I mean, there is crime happening in the streets. Maybe we should like have all the streets with cameras. And you know what? There's also domestic abuse. Maybe we should have also cameras inside the house. There is no So, I'm happy that, you know, there, there is a, you know, shift in government, you know, in the states where, you know, they're talking more about personal liberties. You know, it's obviously happening also in Argentina, in El Salvador, of course, as we know, it's happening in other countries as well. I, I hope that this, you know, winds of change will, you know, sweep and, you know, common sense and, and personal choices will, you know, sweep across the, the globe and will, you" }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "46:32", "start": 2792.38, "text": "Choice, we can have the banks, you know, be more, you know, treating their customers as adults instead of like kids that need to be protected from themselves. and, and event-- and eventually, you know, we will have, you know, the, the freedom and the kind of the world that we want to live, you know, you know, for the next generations, 'cause I, I don't think that, you know, this trend that is happening in the last few years, I don't think that this is what we want" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "46:55", "start": 2815.06, "text": "for, you know, for Bitcoin hardware security devices such as the Coldcard Mark IV and the new Coldcard Q. Now, we use Bitcoin hardware security devices to keep our keys offline, our private keys offline. Now, the way these work is you can do that setup, write down your twelve or twenty-four words on those, the seed word cards, and keep that secure. Now, you can use this device to interact with the Bitcoin network using software such as Sparrow Wallet, Electrum, or Bextra Desktop or Nunchuk, as if you Examples. Now, you have a range of security features that you can use with these devices, such as passphrases. You can use seed xpub, or my favorite is multi-signature. Now, if you're starting in a basic way, just start with the device and the USB-C cable, plug it directly to the computer, and use it that way, and then later improve your setup. But I believe these devices are great at helping secure your coins, especially as you start to migrate up into multi-signature security. But don't be disheartened So don't be, scared away, they are accessible, and I think you actually do learn about Bitcoin in the process. So to get yours, go to coinlight dot com, use code Livera to get a discount on your cold card. This episode brought to you by Galloy, they are building banking software for the Bitcoin age. So if you are with a bank, a FinTech or a startup looking to offer some kind of Bitcoin product, whether that is a Bitcoin collateralized loan, deposit accounts or payments, Galloy can help you. Their latest product is called LANA. It is a Lending management platform, and you can use this to come to market quickly and offer a loans, Bitcoin collateralized lending product for your customers. Now, Galloy have a lot of experience in the space. They started with Blink Wallet in twenty twenty, and they've since grown this to become a community favorite over time, and so they have a lot of experience making things work in a secure, reliable, and scalable way. So if you need assistance coming to market quickly with a Bitcoin banking product such as lending or deposits or payments, Talk to the team at Galloy, you can email them, the email is biz at galloy dot io, or go to the website galloy dot io. And now, back to the show. I think it's a good point you make about, trying to encourage self-responsibility for things that, if there's always this mindset of, \"Oh, daddy, mummy, government, come in and save me,\" it's just not gonna-- it's just not the, it's not gonna be conducive to sort of create an actual society where people- People are actually grown up and independent and resilient individuals, but instead we, we're, we're walking into this world where people are just all being coddled and, okay, yeah, now there's some pushback in some parts of the world, like in America, but it seems that other parts of the world are sort of full steam ahead on the coddling of the adult individuals, which seems crazy to me. on the BitRoo side, you mentioned a couple things. So you mentioned the, the app? That's KYC free. So is, is that for the merchant to use or can you explain a bit about that? Well," }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "50:08", "start": 3007.77, "text": "both, I mean, both. It, it actually did start from the merchant point of view, like we, we, we, you know, we launched the point of sale, where unlike, you know, there are a few points of sale already, you know, in the world and in Australia, and, and most-- I think all of them, or at least, you know, the, the, the bigger ones, I mean, you know, you go" }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "50:32", "start": 3032.38, "text": "Little bit different where when you set it up, the merchant can choose if he wants to immediately convert it into dollars. So if you paid five dollars for coffee, you paid with SAT, but he gets five dollars. And then he can also choose if he wants immediately to get it into his bank account, you know, those dollars. So these are both optional, but some merchants, you know, use it and love it because, like, you know, if you're, like, you know, have a pizza place and you just, you just like want, you know, the money now 'cause" }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "51:02", "start": 3062.38, "text": "Introduced that, but then we discovered that, like, you know, the onboarding is hard because first you have to do KYC, and if you're a company, that KYC takes like two business days, you know, for the whole thing. So, so we said, okay, that's no good, you know? So we said, okay, we should have like a KYC-free version so merchants can immediately start using the point of sale. Great. So once we introduced that, you know, we're thinking, okay, now we can take it globally, 'cause luckily for us, you know, KYC free, then we don't have to remain only in Australia anymore. So now we are available in a hundred and seventy-two countries in the app stores and in the Google Play's of a hundred and seventy-two countries, where you can just download the BitOre app and start sending and receiving Bitcoin KYC free. And then if you want to buy Bitcoin or, you know, to touch fiat in any way, then, you know You know, at the moment we can't. So, so the KYC free sat-- you know, ver-- I mean, the app is now, it starts with KYC free for everyone, and then if you want to get, you know, to buy Bitcoin, then you get, verified. So now, you know, look, Daniel might be upset hearing it, but for years, I was actually orange-pilling people using WOS, you know, I was, WOS Satoshi, I was just telling them, you know, download Satoshi and I So we used to have this, you know, I would use to orange peel people, you know, using, what Satoshi. this trick, by the way, I learned from the bush, from Sir William, 'cause that's how he taught me that he's, taught everyone that he's the, the, you know, orange peeling people, and I was like, that's genius, I just send them like, you know, a fixed amount of sats, you know, but that's silly because, you know, the sats remain sats, you" }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "52:50", "start": 3169.6, "text": "Now we're orange peeling them, obviously with Bitaru, you know, so like now you just go to anyone and be, you know, and, you know, say, oh, yeah, download Bitaru, I'll send you money, and Bitaru to Bitaru is free, you know, so we just like say, you know, I send you like one dollar worth of Sats, everyone is happy, and, and now if you want to get verified, then you know, you already, you know, you already have the app and you can, keep on going." }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "53:20", "start": 3200.14, "text": "You know, but, it's okay. We actually, we actually launched the KYC free a bit early, and we had because of like some minor bugs. Because we heard that Ostrakh wanted to have KYC, you know, on, on Bitcoin Wallet, we wanted to have skin in the game, and then we told us to Ostrakh as well to their faces, like, \"We actually launched early because we want to have skin in the game as soon as possible, because I think this, from an ideological point of view, I think this is wrong. I think, Alone, you know, that's kind of my, my, philosophy on this, but, you know, as we said, FATF and Ostrac disagree, unfortunately. so that's like, you know, one big thing that we launched with Biteroo. Another thing is the, as I said, like when the ETFs came out, and I started to see that all boomers and zoomers are using it, so okay, what are the points of difference besides the twenty-four seven, you know, like, you know, you can buy and sell Card with Bitcoin, we, we launched a guardian, which is like a, a multisig solution where you hold two out of three keys, we hold just one as a backup. We, we launched the vault where, you keep the coins with us and you can see them on the blockchain, so you know that, like, you know, your, you know, point five two three one Bitcoin are yours, you can see them on the blockchain. This way also, by the way, if something happens to us and we get hacked or whatever, you could see that your coins weren't affected" }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "54:50", "start": 3289.64, "text": "So there are advantages to it, people are using it for very different reasons, very interesting. Some of them as a state planning, they're just like telling their, you know, their state, if something happens to me, this is the, the address, this is the route, talk to them, and, and, you know, and you get your coins back, so you don't need to tell them how to keep your seed, you know? And some of them are happy to pay the fee, I mean, it's like, you know, for them it's, Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So it's very interesting, all these things are happening, yes." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "55:24", "start": 3324.0, "text": "Also, you may-- we were talking a little bit earlier about exchanges and how, you know, obviously there's been a lot of fraud over the years, right? The Mount Gooses and the FTXs of the world. Any thoughts on like proof of reserves? Do you think that approach could get popularized, at exchanges and maybe even with custodians around the world?" }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "55:45", "start": 3344.82, "text": "Yeah. Look, I don't know about custodials. I mean, I think maybe custodians, yes, because that, that's kind of their, their job maybe, I don't know. With exchanges, I, I don't think so because again, some exchanges are using, you know, custodians as their, you know, as, as their custodial service, so they can't prove that they have it because they don't do self custody themselves. Right. But then it would be a matter of" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "56:08", "start": 3367.88, "text": "like pushing their custodian to help them kind" }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "56:12", "start": 3371.62, "text": "of, yeah. Yeah. So I mean And, you know, how can any exchange that is using them give proof of reserve, you know? So I, I, and the thing is, look, with all this proof of reserve, all the solutions that I've seen to date, i-it's a bit, it's, it's interesting because if you're, if you're a noob, you don't care. Like, you don't, you don't check that, you have no idea, you don't care, she'll be right and so on. It's a big exchange being run for a while, I" }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "56:41", "start": 3400.7, "text": "don't" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "56:47", "start": 3406.94, "text": "I don't know, it depends, right? Because there would be, you might keep most of your coins off exchange, but there might be some, let's say, traders who keep some on the exchange for trading purposes. Yep. and it could also be kind of like a, you know, the savvy users Protect the noobs in some sense, because they're the ones watching and kind of making sure that these people aren't, running off with the coins or this kind of thing." }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "57:10", "start": 3430.33, "text": "Yeah, yeah. Yeah, look, look, may, maybe, I, I mean, like, I don't have a very, firm opinion about, about it. I just think, like, look, on a personal level, the best way to do proof of reserve is to withdraw, you know, and then, you know, you have your own proof of your own reserves, that number one." }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "57:32", "start": 3451.56, "text": "Your sats on the blockchain. I mean, there's nothing better than that. It's not like, oh, some kind of a code that tells you that your sats are part of the pile here. You know, you can actually see your, you know, your own address and your own sats, and then on the exchange level, I don't think it's easy. I don't even like personally on Bitcoin, I don't feel comfortable saying how many coins we have in custody. You know, I think that that's like, you know, an opaque issue. I mean Proof of reserves, I didn't look into it. I'm not a REVERSE user, obviously, so I don't know, you know, if I, how much I can even drill into it, but, I know that, like, you know, Binance was talking, I, I think they did it, as well, you know, and, and people were saying, \"Oh, yeah, there's proof of reserve, but there's no proof of liability.\" I think REVERSE did, you know, one step better, which they actually provided proof of liabilities. Ultimately, because even if Bitaru proves to you that we have all the stats of all the users today, it means nothing about tomorrow, and it means nothing about, you know, that we can get hacked anyway. I think the best way that users can protect themselves is by withdrawing. The second best way is putting them in the vault, because the vault is hard to-- I mean, it's completely cold, it's three out of five, you know, it, it's, it's, you know, it's on the blockchain, so you can see like the address, you know, immediately, you Moved, you know, and, and, and you can know immediately that, you know, your sats are safe, 'cause you don't really care about other people, I mean, you care that your sats are safe. so I think it's, it's a bit, yeah, it's hard for me to see, Bitero doing this, for those reasons. And I don't see a lot of demand from it. I mean, I'm seeing it from Bitcoin Twitter, where, people, I mean, just love the idea, but for" }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "59:28", "start": 3568.1, "text": "them," }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "59:32", "start": 3571.56, "text": "This is a capital at risk, this is just something that could happen. We have personal relationship with them, I'm sure they will kick my ass if something will happen to their sats, but that's pretty much it, you know? hopefully that won't happen, a-and that's what we're working towards. I mean, look, BitTorrent always had the policy, like internal policy that if, if we get hacked, you know, we will do our best to cover it from our own funds, obviously, you know, this is the most important thing. If People will, pro rata share, you know, the damage. Those that are in the vault, of course, will be exempted because, you know, their, their coins weren't hacked. So anyone who is concerned about the reserve, I'm saying seriously, withdraw. I mean, you have Lightning, you can withdraw, to your own Lightning wallet or to a custodial wallet, you know, if you feel more comfortable with that than exchange, which probably is true. a-and that's it, you know. But, yeah, I don't know, pro That many coins, so it's a bit weird, you know, it's a bit scary. I mean, maybe, maybe I'll meet with, you know, with the guys there and talk about it and, and see how they deal with their paranoia, because it is very scary, you know. Look, before Bitaru, maybe like five people around the world knew I even have Bitcoin, you know? Now, like a lot of people know, a-and from day one, I was super paranoid about it, and we were super paranoid, but I don't touch the wallets. I mean, the ledger co-founder just happened to him, you know, and we don't know what they even wanted from him. Did they want his Bitcoin or did they want the ledger user's Bitcoin? I mean, it's all very, very scary, all those things. The best thing that people can do, you know, if you ask me, is self custody, ideally, you know, with multisig and passphrases, and there's no end to the paranoia. And the more money you have, the more, you know, you want to change," }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "01:01:26", "start": 3686.04, "text": "your," }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "01:01:31", "start": 3691.64, "text": "You know, like that's, you know, now there's like web, the web wallets and then the hardware, so I did single sig and then you move to passphrased, then you move to multisig. There's no, no end, you know, to paranoia. Today, again, you know, i-it's, it's always time that I review, you know, every year or two, I, I review, you know, my, my custody setup and, sometimes, you know, changes are needed because, because I know more or," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:01:58", "start": 3718.28, "text": "Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I think totally, fair advice around self custody. the proof of reserves, I did actually an episode with Alex Lishman for listeners where we spoke about their proof of reserves setup, so that's there for anyone interested. on the, I guess just adoption side, I'm curious if you have any thought, do you see it like, at least so far in this bull run, that it's mostly-- there's been a lot of ETF and, let's say, people buying micro strategy, Meta, Planet, and similar things? Scientific and, you know, these Bitcoin equities or maybe the miners, public miners, do, do you see it like maybe a lot of the new adoption of the new money has come in through that as opposed to the traditional onto a Bitcoin exchange or Bitcoin brokerage? And, you know, do you think that pattern will continue or do you think maybe like later this cycle, if things get really crazy, that's when things will really go bananas and you'll get crazy user sign-ups that, you know, retail, quote unquote, will really show up too?" }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "01:02:59", "start": 3779.23, "text": "look, the short answer is I don't know. the longer answer is that I, I look, I, I do suspect that, that ETFs are eating our lunch. Yes, definitely. You know, I think that, you know, in previous bull runs, when you heard, you know, Bitcoin in the news, the only way for you to obtain Bitcoin is either, you know, peer to peer or to go to an exchange, which was most people, what most people do, they did. You know, today, you just like hop on your computer and App and you just like buy the ETF, you know? So I think, the ETFs are eating our lunch, you know, it's something that, you know, we have in our, CSO, Chief Strategy Officer, Anya, and the something that we are talking about that, that the, where it's possible that this bull run and the next bull runs are gonna be more moderate, there's not gonna be the retail craze that, that we know from previous bull runs because of the ETFs. I mean, speaking of proof of reserves, I think that ETFs should start showing, you know, their, their proof of reserves. I mean, we don't know really, if they're really buying or, or this is like, you know, and what's happening with their SATs. Yeah. I think the only ETF, like, I think," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:04:09", "start": 3849.64, "text": "yeah, I know Bitwise does publish their addresses. Exactly, I was the only one that was good on them for that. Yeah. But, maybe all the other ETFs should be pushed. Any big public, any big public entity should be pushed to proof of reserves" }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "01:04:23", "start": 3863.03, "text": "or" }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "01:04:27", "start": 3867.71, "text": "You know, Bitcoin in huge amounts. I think it sits with BitGo. We don't know what's happening there, you know. I, we have to remember that like a lot of the coins that are being used are used for derivatives, and with derivatives, you know, as you know, like you can easily and safely, relatively safely, make one Bitcoin behave like five or ten, you know? and, and then like you can play shorts and so on, and I think a lot of the coins are being used for that. So people are buying Bitcoin, keeping service and those, you know, somehow reach into, you know, bybit, you know, that, that got just got hacked unfortunately for them, or other derivative exchanges, you know? So I, I think that, you know, this is, I mean, if we're talking about proof of reserves, I think like, you know, the big players are, are the more, you know, the, the ETFs, you know, are, are and the, the big custodial services are, are the one that really, really, you know, it would be good to have their proof of, 'cause I don't get it, I don't get how Strategy can buy so much Bitcoin and the price doesn't move, you know? A-and then like, some little macro, bad Price goes down, I'm happy. Price goes up, I'm happy. It's go- it's all good. But I just like, you know, I'm scratching my head, I don't understand how, you know, all these ETFs and, you know, and strategy are buying all this coin and, and like the price isn't like way, way, way higher. It's, it's a bit of a mystery. But as I" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:05:56", "start": 3956.38, "text": "understand, I mean, looking at what some of the on-chain analysts people are saying, it's, it's that, you know About their buying, and so maybe it's just as simple as that, and eventually the sellers get exhausted, and then you have another, you know, take another big move up. Who knows? but, interesting. Yeah, who knows what'll happen, and, you know, whether we're kind of just, you know, chilling here for, for a little while before the next big move up, or maybe we're having another bear cycle. I mean, who knows? No one knows. but, certainly interesting to chat." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:06:37", "start": 3997.43, "text": "a lot of, I Australian regulatory and legislative perspective is, if you can try to speak against some of these rules and laws that are coming that will make it harder for Bitcoiners, that would probably be a good thing. otherwise, of course, self-custody your coins. any, final, last thought?" }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "01:06:59", "start": 4019.38, "text": "Yeah, I mean, it would be great if more Bitcoiners will support the Australian Bitcoin Industry Body. So, you know, they have their website, and their Twitter account where you can easily join, you can support, you know, I think it's like, you know, sixty-one and a half dollars a year, and then you are invited also to the private Telegram groups where, they're sharing information, where you can help with submissions, where you get to know more about the internal workings of how, what's happening there. Sponsors after one year can also become" }, { "speaker": "ethan_timor", "time": "01:07:28", "start": 4048.94, "text": "Getting more into the inner circle and meetings with Ostrack if they want and so on. So I think it would be great if more Bitcoiners will join the Australian Bitcoin Industry Body. yeah, you know, stack Sats, stay humble, self-custody Happy and full of joy." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:07:44", "start": 4064.66, "text": "Fantastic. Well, thanks for joining me, Ethan. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it." } ] }