{
  "episodeId": "SLP675",
  "speakers": {
    "stephan": {
      "name": "Stephan Livera",
      "role": "host",
      "tag": "STEPHAN"
    },
    "fernando_nikolic": {
      "name": "Fernando Nikolic",
      "role": "guest",
      "tag": "FERNANDO"
    }
  },
  "segments": [
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "00:00",
      "start": 0.16,
      "text": "Bitcoin has always been this place where there's a lot of disagreements, and I think that's one of the strengths, early strengths of Bitcoin, and, you know, that's something that I hope we don't lose, that, that we still have factions that are Fighting about things that, you know, some people might feel is totally irrelevant or not important at all, but still like this, this agreement eventually makes the, makes the protocol harder, I, I would say."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "fernando_nikolic",
      "time": "00:33",
      "start": 33.26,
      "text": "Hi everyone, welcome back to Stephan Livera podcast brought to you by Bold. For American listeners, this is a Bitcoin banking platform where US listeners can buy Bitcoin for the- The industry's lowest fees and earn the highest Bitcoin back rewards with the bold debit card. Now, rejoining me on the show today is Fernando Nikolic. He is VP of Marketing and Comms over at Blockstream and the founder of Bitcoin Perception. Fernando, welcome back to the show."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "00:57",
      "start": 56.9,
      "text": "Thank you so much, Stephan. Always a pleasure to be chatting with you. So, yeah, looking forward to the next hour."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "fernando_nikolic",
      "time": "01:01",
      "start": 61.3,
      "text": "Yeah. So, look, I know the big thing you wanted to talk about today was around, kind of how narratives are going, and, you know, I think maybe many of us, let's say, kind of hardcore Bitcoin people We've been kind of bewildered how things are playing out this cycle, right? Like it's, it's been maybe playing a lot, playing out a little differently to past cycles. So let's get your initial reaction on that."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "01:27",
      "start": 86.98,
      "text": "Yeah, I guess, and I tweeted about it just like thirty minutes ago, and I think the, the big difference that everybody's feeling, right now is that like retail are no way, nowhere to be seen. I think, You know, the normies are just like not, they're, they're totally checked out and they're not really, part of this, you know, bull market that we're all currently, experiencing. And I think, that speaks volumes to just, you know, kind of my thesis, which is in its core, is that like Bitcoin adoption at this point isn't no longer like a mass conversion event, it's more like a narrative, convergence engine. So it's, it's, it's everything that's, is happening is happening in parallel Anymore. And I think, you know, comparing this cycle right now, I think we, we today as we speak, you know, we saw another A, ATH, and I'm thinking like this cycle compared to 2021, for example. it's different in, in terms of like twenty twenty one, in my opinion, is likely the last time that both institutions and retail, consume the same Bitcoin content at the same time through like overlapping channels. we already saw it in twenty twenty one, but I think in twenty twenty five it's even worse in terms of like the media landscape has just become so fragmented that like, shared Bitcoin moments Are kind of the exception, it's not the norm anymore. So I think that's the big differentiator this time around."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "fernando_nikolic",
      "time": "02:53",
      "start": 172.99,
      "text": "Interesting. Okay, yeah. Okay, so my first kind of reaction is, I think I remember in the earlier years, people sort of said, \"There is no Bitcoin community. You know, it's just kind of-- just 'cause someone else is a Bitcoin doesn't mean they're your friend, et cetera.\" But there were still, let's say, shared moments that kind of people had, or there were kind of things that were happening online,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "fernando_nikolic",
      "time": "03:14",
      "start": 193.65,
      "text": "you know, just 21 cycle or these kinds of things that everyone was sort of paying attention to or different cycles kind of had a, a, a main character, right? Like in the early years it might have been like Roger Ver or in other years, you know, Michael Saylor or, you know, other people who were kind of around. So is it just you're-- as I'm reading from you, it sounds like you're projecting out that it's just gonna be kind of more splitting out, like a bifurcation or different communities, right? Not one Bitcoin community, but M- many kinds of communities, and maybe we're gonna have like the cypherpunk maxis who are all like, you know, privacy focused, not your keys, not your coins, and, you know, the paper Bitcoin, treasury company side of it, the ETFs, and, you know, the corporate, the suit coiners, and then maybe you'll have like the developer, technical circles, and like the mining people, and how are you seeing it though?"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "04:09",
      "start": 249.21,
      "text": "Yeah, I mean, I think, I think that's exactly right, and I think, you can extrapolate this as much as you want to, because in my opinion, this is like a global phenomenon that really touches everyone nowadays, so we can go deep into that as well. But if we wanna keep it in the, in the Bitcoin sphere, You can see there's like a pretty linear progression from when people talked about Bitcoin in one place back in twenty ten, twenty eleven."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "fernando_nikolic",
      "time": "04:36",
      "start": 275.88,
      "text": "Right, like Bitcoin Talk forums and mailing list and maybe the IRC, yeah."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "04:40",
      "start": 280.36,
      "text": "Yeah, maybe IRC, but Bitcoin Talk was like the, the place, and all the conversations, everything that happened, happened there. Any moments that was shared, was shared, at, in that forum. And then, you know, Reddit Came along and that started the splintering and then, you know, Bitcoin Twitter and now X and, you know, Noster and I mean, you name it. Over time, things have just splintered into different factions, and I think,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "05:08",
      "start": 308.18,
      "text": "What I see is that usually the platform kinda like dictates the message. it's kinda like a we-weird thing, like the same way, you know, more left-leaning, people jumped to Blue Sky after Elon acquired X, right? It's, it's like you, you, you-- people are increasingly jumping to platforms where they think, \"Oh, my people exist here.\" And essentially what that creates when you extrapolate that into the entire world and how, you know, humanity consumes content and gets influenced By certain things, essentially it creates different vacuums of, you know, information that the people who are influencers within that pocket are just kind of pandering to the audiences, right? Like they, they, they wanna build audience, and they wanna pander to them because they feel like if they talk, speak their language, then they're gonna get that response back. and I feel that you know, as a society, you can probably talk to your parents, and they can tell you about a time where like, okay, everybody used to see the same headlines. You know, water cooler talk was the thing, right? Like, you saw something, and the next day, everybody at work had seen the same thing, and you had something to talk about. You know, now, I, I go to lunches with different people, and I see something that went viral, or I read a book, from an author that I know have sold millions, and I ask And so many times I get like a no, like they're total nobodies, in their minds, but for me, they're like, they're huge. So I think, we, we are now at a place where, you know, algorithmic feeds have kind of killed the shared media moment, but then also us bitcoiners from our own, like, own judgment and/or our own choice, we have now splintered into different groups where we feel like, okay, this, my people are here, the other people, they, I don't wanna be around them. This proof of that, but I think it's just like a, it's an, it's a bigger thing that is happening right now."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "fernando_nikolic",
      "time": "07:07",
      "start": 427.36,
      "text": "Yeah. Okay. So, I mean, I, I think you're mostly right there, but let's put it this way, what about the potential for some of these groups to end up still talking to each other or even conflicting with each other or at some of these larger shared events, right? Like imagine like the big kind of Bitcoin event. Now, of course, not every Bitcoin user goes to a Bitcoin conference, just as not every Bit- BitTorrent user went But at least there are ways that these people will interact, no?"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "07:40",
      "start": 459.58,
      "text": "Yes and no. I, I'm, I'm not like, I'm not trying to like be all binary about this thing, but I do feel like, for example, a lot of the criticisms that you find on Noster It's about other people that aren't in Nostr, whereas in Nostr, majority seems to agree. Maybe that speaks more, maybe that's a reflection of like how small the, the, the entire protocol is and how few apps or like social media apps are, are built on top of the protocol, and, and maybe that will change as the protocol grows in, in, in user base, but it's like The people that go to one place and agree with people in that place usually don't get outside of that vacuum and go into, I don't know, en-enemy territory to, to say it like that. I think the, the disagreements and the type of, Well, yeah, the cri- the critical conversations are just gonna be about, among people who already agree, about another faction that isn't really in the room with them, if that makes sense. A-and maybe, you know, meet space will be that place where these different opinions collide, because that's where people meet. But that's a big ask, you know, like, you know, to, to travel somewhere, to be physically in the place, just to kind of like catch, capture those type of conversations. It's a, it's a big- ask for most people. So I think a lot of people will just default back, to, you know, their online pockets of the internet and, and be comfortable with that, because I also feel like, you know, humans in general, we're all busy, we have family, we got, you know, some people, majority of people, they have two, three jobs. there's so much time in each day for people to actually like jump out of their like narrative vacuum or echo chamber, whatever we wanna call it, to get, you know, You know, opinions that differ from their worldview. Human, humans are essentially wired in a way that we need to create our own lens of the world and, have our own understanding of the world just to survive, right? Because if you were supposed to take all the information that exists out there and process all of that in order to get a nuanced perspective, you literally don't have the time to do it. It's the equivalent of like having the superpower of reading everyone's mind and then going into a room with twenty-five people and you hear All their, all their thoughts at the same time, you literally will go insane. So I think there's a real limitation to the capability of us really understanding and getting opinions from other people and even being interested in getting that, opinion from other people and give them a chance and even listening to them. But I don't think that's going to happen a lot. I think what you're talking about is going to be a very small minority who have the luxury to kind of like jump in and out of different eco-chambers and be able to have a more three sixty degree view of what's Bitcoin included, but also apart, apart, outside of Bitcoin as well."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "fernando_nikolic",
      "time": "10:34",
      "start": 634.39,
      "text": "Yeah, gotcha. And so, yeah, and I mean, we shouldn't be too sort of, let's say, insular and kind of inside baseball about it, like, yeah, 'cause what matters is how do you, how do you grow the pie? Like, if you're trying-- or assuming you're trying to grow the pie, for some people they're not even trying to do that, right? but or, or maybe they would frame it more like, I only wanna grow it in this particular way"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "fernando_nikolic",
      "time": "11:01",
      "start": 660.97,
      "text": "TFS or things like that, they might be like, \"No, I just want this kind of peer-to-peer, self-custody only sort of aspect of it.\" So, you know, there'll be different a-aspects of that, so I guess echoing a little bit back to, you know, what we were saying, the, I think our, our first podcast where we were talking about this idea of, \"Hey, is Bitcoin not for everybody?\" Like, is that You know, is that gonna be controversial? Or in what way is it not for everybody? Like, is it more just like not everybody is gonna use the chain per se, but they're just gonna use some other kind of product? Or, I, I don't know. I, let me give you a quick analogy and see what you think of it. Yeah, go ahead. in the Linux world, there was kind of like a while, oh, this, the year of desktop Linux, a-and so it kinda, it, it kinda didn't happen that way. It sort of happened in And whatever, and now Windows has this Windows, Linux thing, and, you know, so it kind of, Linux kind of did win in a way, but not in the way that people thought it would. So I'm curious, do you think Bitcoin is gonna be in a similar-- Is Bitcoin a parallel to that? Like, is it gonna win, but just not in the way people thought it would?"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "12:10",
      "start": 730.18,
      "text": "Yeah, I mean, Bitcoin technically has a lot of like parallels with Linux, so it's an interesting example. The narrative layer example of that is something I really haven't thought about to be I think, I think, you know, you know, back to our previous podcast that you mentioned where we were talking about like, okay, orange-pilling in a, in a, in a rigid way is just not effective, right? And kind of like, at sometimes it might be detrimental for the wider adoption because if you feel like once Bitcoin is clicking in your mind and you have understood it from your own principles, that doesn't mean that your friend or your family member or anybody else that you're trying to orange-pill are going to understand Stand Bitcoin from those same properties, right? Like, for example, myself, I'm from Argentina, I knew about inflation, way before I discovered Bitcoin, and before I discovered Bitcoin, because I was interested in finding out like, why the hell is inflation a constant problem in Argentina? That led me to Austrian economics from that perspective. Once I got introduced to Bitcoin, it clicked in my head because of Bitcoin's monetary properties. Didn't care about the tech, didn't care about the cryptography, didn't care about any of those things. It came through that specific door. That doesn't mean that if I'm trying to orange pill my wife, I should be all about like, \"Oh, you need to read Hi Econesis and then the white paper.\" She might be interested in something completely different. And I think that is, still relevant, today, but I would add the following that- If you wanna default to talk about Bitcoin in the way that you have understood it and the way that it clicked in your mind, okay, that's fine. You will run into these limitations that I just, explained. But you will probably-- and this is more of a just, just a numbers game-- you, you go on with that, that arsenal of arguments, and you wanna orange-pel hundred people, you might orange-pel five out of those hundred using the same argument every single time. Now That five per hundred, that five percent can grow incrementally if you still find a hundred more, a hundred more, a hundred more to still try that argument, with, and that might give you a little bit of a Audience, right? So I'm talking about like an influencer who is trying to orange bill and trying to build an audience and stuff like that. This person might very well be the, you know, the cold storage, you know, Maxi, and that's completely fine. He will- Help Bitcoin adoption through that realm. But as the Bitcoin cold storage Maxi will build his audience, the paper Bitcoin Maxi is going to build his or her audience and grow it too. And in parallel, all these very contradicting, right, arguments, one is about cold storage, another one is about, you know, having a third party custodian hold your Bitcoin for you, essentially, both of them are gonna grow, both of them are gonna intrinsically- Understand Bitcoin, but from very different perspectives, and I think this is kind of like the, the, the image of Bitcoin adoption, today and, and for the future, just a, a growing pie of very different and often con- what do you call it? Contradicting, contradicting, arguments that still is good for Bitcoin. I mean, Bitcoin adoption will grow as a result, but not grow because of one Dogma or one real way of understanding Bitcoin, if that makes sense."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "fernando_nikolic",
      "time": "15:36",
      "start": 935.67,
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    },
    {
      "speaker": "fernando_nikolic",
      "time": "16:59",
      "start": 1019.08,
      "text": "For PC or Nunchok on mobile, and you can dial it into the right level of security and complexity that you choose. If you want a simple setup, just use twelve words and single signature. If you want passphrase, easy. If you wanna add multi-sig or co-signing features, you've got those too. So go to coinkite dot com, use code livera to get ten percent off on your cold card or other devices and level up your self custody today. Okay, so the way I'm thinking about that is, in the earlier years, or at least when I sort of got into it, like the 2013 era, let's say, I would say the, let's say, the digital gold kind of idea wasn't as popular then. It was actually a lot of talk about things like remittances and like, \"Oh, the, the, the credit card chargeback fees and the merchants, and the banks aren't open, banks are only open nine to five kind of thing.\" And then Then in the, let's say the twenty seventeen-ish, twenty seventeen, eighteen era, that was really more-- I think that was like a really strong, let's say, resurgence of the more Bitcoin standard, Austrian hard money view. Like they were around, and, you know, I was one of those guys, but that view was just not as popular until the twenty seventeen, eighteen era, and then we sort of saw that cycle sort of play out. Then I think, you know, there's been somewhat of a baton passing a little bit each time, like I think- You know, the twenty twenty, twenty twenty-one cycle, you know, the, the Michael Sailors of the world were sort of very public, you know, thought leaders and influencers in that way, and then I guess what you're saying now is more like it's really just gonna go diffuse out. It's not just gonna be like one main character for the cycle, you know, and one particular narrative that's really dominant, but it's all these different- Narratives per se that are dominant and people latch onto whatever resonates for them. How are you seeing that?"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "18:48",
      "start": 1128.1,
      "text": "Yeah, that, but also, you know, apart from just stories, I mean, you, you could, you could really talk about like essentially what stories essentially create, which I believe is culture, right? So it's more like, you know, you talk to your parents and they talk about like these like moments, these shared moments in terms of like news that was happening, or just like events. That, that, that was happening, people had like two, three, max four, five different channels to get their information from, so everybody felt like they were part of that same thing, right? and that drives culture, to be honest with you. And what the things that you're talking about, I think is culture too. It's like- Bitcoin is no longer a monoculture, it's just a protocol that is interpreted through different subcultures, and that's not like delusion, I think that is That is durability, right? Like that is decentralization. It's not about nodes, it's also about the incentives and the players that are behind, not only the nodes, but just in terms of like holding Bitcoin, using Bitcoin, whatever their participation, level is at. All of that creates subcultures because all these people, they create different, d-different segments or cohorts within the entire Bitcoin, culture, and they have different beliefs. They see- See Bitcoin in different ways, and that's what I think is so cool about Bitcoin, is that it's, it's so total, it's like so, so encompassing of everything that, you know, a, a leftist or, or, or a far right, guy can still see value in it, even though they're, on paper enemies, right? And there's many examples of this as well. So it's, it's more about like the subcultures that are interpreting, Bitcoin and us Bitcoiners moving away from this mono- culture, which I think is great, it's also tells us like where we are in the adoption cycle in, in general."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "fernando_nikolic",
      "time": "20:48",
      "start": 1248.0,
      "text": "Yeah. Well, I think it's, it's kind of like, there have already been different groups inside of Bitcoin anyway. Like, I don't, I don't, I don't really agree that it- Was a monoculture per se. There were certain ideas and ways of thinking that were dominant, certainly. but, yeah, I just think, you know, you've got like kind of the progressive kind of Bitcoiner people, you've got like the people who believe in, you know, going to advocate publicly and lobbying and all this kind of thing, and you've got people who are like really into mining, and you've got developer, you know, you already have these kind of different worldviews, and certainly there are people who sort of go across, and maybe they Like another one might be like the human rights kind of angle. so I think there's already that, but maybe to your point though, maybe that's just gonna sort of, it's gonna continue that trend and it's gonna become more like that, and there won't be sort of a one, one, there won't be s-such dominant ways. But I think Before we go too far out on this idea of defusing the communities and so on, there are certain uses that just make a lot more sense with Bitcoin, right? Like hodling and saving, it makes more sense if you can save, you know? And, and of course, there are arguments even there about like hodling versus spending and replacing and so on, but Won't people fit into, let's say, you know, one or two of those categories, and from that, kind of, that drives their worldview? Like if you believe in the, let's say, the digital capital idea, the, you know, this kind of idea that, you, you might go down the path of the, the paper Bitcoin, right, the treasury companies and so on because- You know, that's your, that drives your worldview, and then maybe the other, another worldview might be the whole circular economy, and you gotta earn and spend, and you gotta, you know, set up your merchant shop and do merchant adoption and drive it that way. doesn't that just drive- You, you know, the way you think and act as a Bitcoiner."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "22:49",
      "start": 1368.66,
      "text": "Yeah, no, totally. And I think, just to, just to touch on what you said, I think, yeah, I, I agree with you that there's always been different sub cohorts, in Bitcoin as early as possible, people Bitcoin has always been this place where there's a lot of disagreements, and I, I think that's one of the strengths, early strengths of Bitcoin, and, you know, that's something that I hope we don't lose, that, that we still have factions that are fighting about things that, you know, some people might feel is totally irrelevant or not important at all, but still like this, disagreements, eventually makes the, makes the protocol harder, I, I would say. But what I'm talking about is like, you know, you and I, and, and I know I, I I know what I'm talking about when I say the word Bitcoin maximalist, right? And, and that's kind of like the, the monoculture that I'm talking about because there is, even though there are like different people that only care about mining, only care about cryptography, I would say the Bitcoin maxi, cohort would be the one that has had the most influence. I don't know if necessarily they have had the most influence because the, that cohort has, has had the biggest volume, maybe so, but it's def- Definitely has had the biggest reach in terms of influence and driving one culture forward, one part of Bitcoin forward, I would say. And I think we can probably, if we wanted to do a laundry list of all these properties that constitutes a Bitcoin Maxi, we could probably agree on what those properties are. So I'm talking about this particular thing being like less and less Relevant perhaps, and other, other ideas, other ways of looking at Bitcoin that is very antithetical to the Maxi viewpoints are going to be part of this as well, and I, I feel like it's a, you know, it's a net positive, even though we might not agree with these suit coiners or the paper Bitcoiners that are coming into, into, into this cycle, if that makes sense. So we're just basically talking about that,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "fernando_nikolic",
      "time": "24:47",
      "start": 1486.7,
      "text": "essentially. I see. So I think it's more just like people will have different ideologies That drive them, and there may be people who come not for that, quote unquote, Bitcoin Maxi ideology, and they're just using the tool in a neutral way that they see. Even though, I mean, look, everyone has some kind of ideology. It's not that, like, 'cause, you know, it's not that they have no ideology whatsoever, it's just more like they may not subscribe to some elements of the worldview of the typical Maxi, let's say."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "25:15",
      "start": 1515.39,
      "text": "Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think though, when it comes to like adoption Like the next phase of Bitcoin adoption, we are now entering, you know, institutional mainstream, you know, media space, and I think the-- I think adoption is gonna look very different because the same kind of splintering and like infighting that we had within our own community, I think we're now going to like take that to another, a new, another new level and kind of like fighting against people that have never been part of the in-group, if that makes sense. And I think that, that really has a spillover effect to, social media, different pockets of the internet like communities and Noster and stuff like that, and also like, legacy media, financial media, and how they are, framing Bitcoin essentially. And I think that maybe, if, if you're cool with that, that could be, another topic to dive a little bit, deeper into in this call because I do feel like, Mainstream media, especially, are going to bring the normies, in, in the future, and I think they aren't also splintering. There's a lot of, there's a lot of outlets that have done a pivot, and, you know, they have moved on from like a history of, of, covering Bitcoin negatively over the, over the past few years, and then there's others who just can't, they double-triple down in their negative coverage, and I think it's interesting to maybe talk about like the why, like why certain Other outlets are just, you know, not, not trying to hear it and just stay, stay in their lane."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "fernando_nikolic",
      "time": "26:51",
      "start": 1611.27,
      "text": "Well, yeah, let's get into that. So I know you obviously the BitcoinPerception dot com, and I was having a quick look as well, you've got here kind of like a mainstream media coverage and a crypto media coverage. So do you wanna just tell us a little bit about? Your, your work there, what's, what are you seeing more recently?"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "27:07",
      "start": 1627.46,
      "text": "Yeah, I think it's, I think it's pretty interesting. I mean, the more you zoom out, the more, you know, the, the, you, you see what kind of trend and like how kind of, how big of a change and how big of a pivot certain outlets have had I, I collect data, about Bitcoin's coverage essentially, all the way back to 2011. And, you know, for the past year and a half, I have, I've aggregated like a lot of data points, from, from X and, and social media. what you can see is that, you know, in twenty eleven, it's just exactly like we were talking about, like very, very, very little volume of mentions, very few people outside of, of the, you know, the Bitcoin, circle were really paying Bitcoin any attention. You saw perhaps some tech outlets, go early, early in and start doing some coverage. And then the earliest mainstream media coverage, I think, only started in thirteen and fourteen, which is pretty early, but, you know, obviously, you know, half a decade after it actually was news, if, if you wanna, if you wanna, you know, treat the, the, the first block and the inception of Bitcoin as newsworthy, then they came a half a decade later, right? and, lately, I think, from twenty twenty one ish this pivot that I'm talking about in the legacy, more like financial media happened with the, institutional, institutionalization of, of Bitcoin. But what's interesting, apart from just seeing the actual pivot in itself, is the, is the fact that just so many, so many outlets that have, covered Bitcoin exclusively negative, in a negative way, they just continue to do so, no matter how many all-time highs we see, no matter how many positive- Narrative stories, other outlets are, talking about from, you know, renewable, energy mining in Africa to, you know, remittances or just people in the global south, becoming emancipated because of Bitcoin. Like, it doesn't matter how many of these stories is out there, there's certain outlets that were just, they're just perambles for life. I think it's very interesting to like, oh,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "fernando_nikolic",
      "time": "29:25",
      "start": 1764.75,
      "text": "perambles for life, you mean? Yeah."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "29:26",
      "start": 1766.29,
      "text": "Per, yeah, sorry, sorry, perambles. That is very interesting to me. See like exactly why, try to figure that out."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "fernando_nikolic",
      "time": "29:32",
      "start": 1771.79,
      "text": "This episode is brought to you by Galloy, builders of banking software for the Bitcoin age. After years of risk and uncertainty, Bitcoin and banking are colliding. The regulatory environment is rapidly shifting in favor of Bitcoin and digital assets. FinTechs and crypto-native companies can become chartered banks, and traditional banks and credit unions will launch Bitcoin products. But the legacy core banking software that many financial institutions run on wasn't built for Bitcoin. The Galloy banking infrastructure stack delivers all the The key elements of a modern core banking platform with cloud native infrastructure, event based architecture, and robust APIs coming together to meet the security, scalability, and reliability needs of banks of the future. Whether you are launching a modern financial institution from the ground up or you are adding Bitcoin backed lending or payments to your product offering, talk to the team at Galloy, visit galloy dot io, or reach out to the team at b i z at g a l o y dot io. Yeah, I mean, I think there's a few things. I think sometimes it's like- People, it's like, people use, people like to use this term, audience capture, right? Like maybe people just wanna be told, they wanna be reaffirmed in their beliefs, and maybe the audience of those outlets You know, they, they just kind of come from the worldview that is still skeptical or is still, having fun staying poor. So, you know, they're just gonna-- they want that kind of coverage. Whereas maybe others, one thing I'm noticing, and I'm curious to get your reaction on this as well, is that there are more journalists Even from mainstream media who are actually interacting with us at the conferences and things like this, like with the kind of Maxi Bitcoiner types in the, in the conferences and whatever, and then they're going away and writing stories and doing video and reporting on it From actually a more informed perspective. And so this is just what we're starting to see now, and I'm seeing as an example even some kind of-- I, I'll give you another example. In the past, when there were like people writing on Forbes, let's say, we in the Bitcoin online community wouldn't have known them. Whereas nowadays, there's actually a bunch of these people who are writing on Forbes who we know. They're kind of from kind of Bitcoin online circles, so we kind of know these people. They kind of already are bullish themselves on Bitcoin. And so that's one thing That has shifted, right?"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "31:46",
      "start": 1905.64,
      "text": "Yeah, it's kind of like the equivalent of like, you now see decision makers at important companies who grew up like listening to Wu-Tang Clan. You know, it's just like, this, this, this little thing of ours that is now growing up and becoming mainstream for real, are now like, kind of like slowly, you know, invading these little pockets that previously, was very skeptical about Bitcoin or was outright hostile towards Bitcoin, right? So, and I think, you know, the, the likes of Forbes, and, you know, I see a lot of like CNBC reporters, you know, I saw a bunch of people, of them in Prague and, and, and so many conferences that is Bitcoin only, and then I see, you know, people like David Pan at Bloomberg, who is essentially just writing about Bitcoin mining. So he's like, he has a mandate from Bloomberg to cover a very specific section of the entire industry, so not Bitcoin as a whole, but a very specific segment. of the Bitcoin industry. And, and, and from a publication like Bloomberg, I mean that, I think that speaks volumes, right? And, and I think that's really, that's really great. But the thing is Forbes, CNBC, Bloomberg, and other, other, legacy media that you might have seen, you know, starting to cover Bitcoin more positive way, they have the luxury to pivot and be, and, and admit that they were wrong, because Their audience is, less ideology, ideology, oh man, they, they, they're not, they're not a victim of ideology, their, their audiences. And also the fact that they have treated their audience with more sophistication and more intellect than to essentially brainwash them over time, right? Because, I think a lot of people who might have had a hostile- reaction to Bitcoin initially isn't only reported. I think you and I probably, you know, I think it's very common that in, in the individual Bitcoin journey, yeah, you discover Bitcoin, you hear about it, and you kinda ignore it, at the very first touch point, right? It takes a while before you actually come back and, and, and are ready to kinda like take it all in. So I think this is, this is one side of the more like- intelligent, you know, pocket of the media, who also aren't audience captured, so they can actually make the decision of like, \"Hey, let's, let's dig into this Bitcoin thing and let's, let's cover it,\" you know, you know, the positive as, as well as the negative as well. They don't, they won't lose that much of an audience if they do that pivot, whereas other outlets like, you know, the infamous BBC or something, and mostly, you know, state- State ran, outlets, they don't have that luxury, because their audience is dwindling down, and if they were to pivot about something like this that they have over times been genuinely hostile about, then they're gonna lose that little remaining piece left that they have. So they just, they don't have the, they don't, can't afford that luxury in a way, so they just have to double and triple down no matter what. And I think that's super, super interesting because I, I come from a music business, background, so I started, you know, my My professional career, working at Universal Music as a product manager, and that was in the like the mid-late aughts when, you know, the Pirate Bay and torrenting like really became a, a serious movement and affected the music industry pretty, pretty crazy, like turn, they turned it upside down essentially. And I saw that some labels, you know, started like doing M&As and buying up indie labels and trying to really, kind of like swallow the entire industry just, just as a last desperate attempt in staying relevant. But then others embraced streaming and will eventually embrace Spotify and other like underlying technologies that came from the torrenting and the streaming, you know, space and adapted. And I think that's exactly the same thing that is happening with media outlets, with, with the, you know, with, with everything that Bitcoin is, is, is, disrupting."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "fernando_nikolic",
      "time": "35:52",
      "start": 2152.44,
      "text": "Yeah, so as I'm reading it, then some outlets just can't afford to pivot. That's kind of the short, version of it. and then who would you say are the most negative outlets and who are the most positive outlets? Like just if you had to list a few out. Or, I mean, we talk about positive, who are some of the most negative outlets?"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "36:11",
      "start": 2171.36,
      "text": "Yeah, I mean, the, the most negative is definitely the British financial, media, press, like,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "fernando_nikolic",
      "time": "36:18",
      "start": 2177.76,
      "text": "what's it, FT, Brit, the UK FT."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "36:20",
      "start": 2179.72,
      "text": "Yeah, FT. But the thing is, is that their volume is also incredibly low, which I think is extremely interesting. you know, Wall Street Journal in the US also has that. Not only is it negative for the most part, but they barely cover Bitcoin. Which is, you know, insane when you think about it, like you're supposed to serve in, in, you know, investors who wanna see what is the best performing assets out there. They wanna get alpha, right? And the fact that they have ignored Bitcoin and are literally like ostriches with their heads buried in the sand is insane to me. And then the fact that few times that they do actually, cover Bitcoin, it's all negative. It's all the same Same recycled FUD pieces that you've seen a thousand times. So there's really nothing new, they're just recycling FUD, and it's embarrassing at this point in twenty twenty-five to still be doing that. At least come up with something new if you wanna do something negative, but that's the, that's the thing, right? They can't find any new negative stories, so that's why the volume is low to begin with, and when, when they do publish, it's recycled. so I, I would say The Guardian is also there in terms of just constant FUD, their volume is a little bit higher, but yeah, FT, Wall Street Journal, outlets that you suppose should be covering because they cover Penny stocks, from, retail companies, you know, more than Bitcoin, which is absolutely insane. and then I would say, you have the Bloomberg's, the CNBC's, the Fox News. And Forbes, and, I would say, yeah, those are kind of like the clearest in terms of being positive, that used to have a more negative slant, like five, six, seven years ago, that is now really covering Bitcoin well in volume, but also in terms of balanced perspective. Like, they have positive stories, they have neutral stories, but they also have negative stories, because, you know, let's be frank, it's, you know, Bitcoin isn't perfect, there's always going to be- Some negativity, to, to, to cover, and they do that. I think that is the most important thing because you can't be positively leaned or only negatively leaned. You need to bring Both the negatives and the positive into the, into the mix, and I think, you know, CNBC and Bloomberg, they do that pretty well."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "fernando_nikolic",
      "time": "38:52",
      "start": 2332.47,
      "text": "Yeah. And now, what about in the, quote-unquote, crypto world of, you know, crypto media, what are you seeing there in terms of coverage, who's b-constructive and who's, negative?"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "39:06",
      "start": 2346.06,
      "text": "Yeah, I mean, you know, Bitcoin Magazine is just always going to be Perma Bulls for life. That's just not going to, that's not going to, change at all. but let me pull up, let me pull up the latest Q2 report that I, that I am- Oh yeah, yeah. I'm looking"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "fernando_nikolic",
      "time": "39:22",
      "start": 2361.81,
      "text": "at it now. We've got, Decrypt is a, balanced and critical, Blockworks, balanced and critical, being crypto- and then on the, yeah, on the constructive side, you got Bitcoin Magazine, The Defiant, and Crypto News."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "39:36",
      "start": 2375.92,
      "text": "Yeah, and I think, you know, I think volume plus optimism is kind of like the, the, the thing that, you know, up outside of Bitcoin Magazine b- makes The Defiant the most bullish in terms of like the overall crypto media. but if I, you know, if you go back, 'cause, 'cause I do these quarterly reports, I've been doing them for a little while now, and also, you know, The application, you can, you can actually see the data. And that same pivot that I've been talking about in terms of the mainstream media, pivoting on Bitcoin has also happened in the crypto media as well. I would say crypto media has been way critical of Bitcoin when, I guess, they thought Ethereum was going to flip, Bitcoin, and now they have come to their senses and kind of like, okay, now our mandate is to just cover the cool things that is happening in Bitcoin because, you know, essentially the rest of the space is struggling. against Bitcoin. So I think it's interesting to see that the same pivot has also happened in the, in the crypto media, which you would think, you know, they would have, a little bit more of a balanced approach than, you know, mainstream and legacy who are like, kind of like noobs coming into the space, for the first time. but they have been kind of like biased towards Ethereum and other blockchains for a long time, until recently, which now, you know, they're Bitcoin, they're Bitcoin, and the coverage is way,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "fernando_nikolic",
      "time": "41:00",
      "start": 2460.24,
      "text": "Yeah, it is interesting, 'cause I, I remember in the years when it was sort of, \"Oh, the flippening is on, is upon us,\" and all the kind of the breathless coverage they would give about, you know, staking or whatever, or whatever other thing was happening in, in shitcoin land. And, yeah, and then now it's sort of become much more clear that, you know, like Bitcoin is here to stay, and some of these coins, they can sort of fight it out, but, you know, these utility tokens won't necessarily accrue value Starting to see that. It's still, you know, although that is a little-- that's a little bit of an inside baseball point still, like most people don't really get that idea. Like if you talk to the average man on the street and spoke about like, \"What's a utility token? And is value gonna go to-- \" No, like they wouldn't have any idea about that. This is like, inside the crypto and Bitcoin world, we would have these arguments about that."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "41:50",
      "start": 2509.57,
      "text": "Yeah, and I think it's, you know, I think we're probably going to have to accept that these like inside baseball topics are just going to remain, remain that, yeah, and not ever touch the mainstream, and that, that the mainstream, the normie NPC understanding of Bitcoin is gonna be extremely limited compared to that, compared to, you know, the Bitcoiners who are like chronically, online and just like talk about stuff all the time. I mean, their understanding of Bitcoin is gonna be way more complex and nuanced Compared to just a normie, entering the space for the first time, no matter if they're like a, a, a German dude just, you know, trying to DCA into Bitcoin or a South African juice vendor trying to survive or, or a suitcoiner from, Chicago who's just trying, who's, who's coming in for, for a number go of technology only, All, all of them are going to be very limited in terms of their understanding of Bitcoin, and I think us as Bitcoiners that have been in the game for a while, that has gone through so many online and meet space discussions and debates, and kind of, we really have a deep, deeper, understanding of Bitcoin, I think we need to be okay that the future Bitcoiners that are coming in are gonna come in from like a super, superficial, place and probably remain There for a good while, because again, we are now entering a future where there are pockets of the internet just at war with each other, trying to just, build our audience, but through extreme views, very polarizing views, because there's this information overload nowadays, and we need those like controversial hot takes, those punchlines just to, to be able to understand from a very superficial perspective what the hell whatever topic is about, right? So Influencers that will influence are going to be, responsible for a lot of new Bitcoiners being mentored that just barely knows about anything. But I think it's our kind of res- Responsibility because of this macro trend, to understand that Bitcoin will be one of the most misrepresented players in the arena, like in terms of everything that's happening on, on a global scale, and we have to think about like the mission It's not to protect, one narrative only, but it's to make sure that we can have like narrative pl-plurality still possible, if that makes sense. We need to be able to accept people that have very weird understandings of Bitcoin and treat them as a Bitcoiner, if that makes sense, and have these conversations and, and invite them in and not think that, oh, we gotta protect one narrative only and, and exclude everybody from coming in."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "fernando_nikolic",
      "time": "44:46",
      "start": 2685.93,
      "text": "Well, I think it's, it's hard to gatekeep anyway. I mean, at the end of the day, you can't stop people using Bitcoin, can't stop people talking about Bitcoin, they can organize their own events and their own media and their own whatever, and so- Yeah, I, I, I think it's, it's just gonna, like, and I think the broader, if I, if I really just zoom out, a lot of this stuff, it's just Eternal September, right? Like, and I think this has been happening for, yeah, many years. Like, people would say, you know, even people who came in, you know, at twenty fifteen, are still Eternal September, or people came in in twenty twenty, Eternal September, a-and, and so on and so forth. And so, you know, so be it watering down or dilution of certain aspects, but at the same time, will a lot of people end up using Bitcoin? Yeah, and will Bitcoin get built into a lot of the products that people use? Yeah. so I guess the other interesting question a lot of people have on their mind is, where's retail, right? And I, I was noticing this, there's almost been a funny reversal, right? Because in 2017, many of us were sort of saying, \"Oh, yeah, bro, d-institutions are here, they're coming,\" and now people are wondering if or when retail will even show up. and so it's kind of funny to see the reversal in that trend, but I've seen other points- People make their as well. People say, \"Well, what about Bitcoin ETFs? Aren't-- Isn't that also retail demand?\" so where are you at on that? Like, do you think, retail is coming?"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "46:21",
      "start": 2780.59,
      "text": "Yeah, I think, I think to be honest, I think, the, the ET, the ETFs is some of, of retail, but I'm thinking, when I think about retail, I think about like younger people, you know, the Gen Zers, Gen Alphas, you know, they seem to be kind of like not really here, and they are the ones that should be kind of dictating, dictating the culture of now, right, from a retail perspective, from a consumer consumer and, perspective. Those are the ones that I definitely don't see. I think there's a lot of like normies who have like a little brokerage account in some kind of a, you know, bank somewhere and, they, they have some exposure to, to, Bitcoin through the ETFs. That's probably like, you know, a lot, a lot of volume, but they're not Those aren't like cultural moments, which are the things that we are, that's the one, that, that's the thing that we are seeing now that is lacking, right? Like, where's that cultural moment? Where's like Tom Brady with laser eyes, like we saw in twenty twenty-one, right? And I think, the culture is just like not- Not here. And I think, that's the most concerning thing to me because those are the ones that, you know, will have future decision-making, you know, roles at companies, and I want them to, you know, be orange-pilled, I want them to believe in Bitcoin, like crazy. But then the flip side of it is maybe they're using Bitcoin without even knowing it, right? Like they, they have Cash App, they have all these apps that are very adjacent to Bitcoin, but- They're, they're kind of like closer than ever. but I think to be honest, I think, fiat culture is really dominating everything right now. things are just getting increasingly harder, for people to really get ahead. So there's some nihilistic, you know, mindsets that is dominating the younger people nowadays, which is something that we need to, you know, we need to, we need"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "fernando_nikolic",
      "time": "48:19",
      "start": 2899.4,
      "text": "to"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "48:20",
      "start": 2899.5,
      "text": "try to fix. And Bitcoin Bitcoin is really hard to understand right away, right? So, I just don't think younger people really have the mind space to really get into it. And I think twenty twenty-one was an easier play because of the likes of Elon and Tom Brady coming in, but right now, yeah, it's pretty quiet. So, yeah, but maybe, but maybe"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "fernando_nikolic",
      "time": "48:42",
      "start": 2921.51,
      "text": "they're just, we're just not there yet. Like maybe that is coming later, you know? Maybe that, they're gonna come towards the end or the top of this cycle before we, you know, we have another bear cycle and we Maybe they're just not here yet, and, I think, you know, maybe it just, it's just gonna mean a bit more number go up, a bit more excitement, and maybe, whatever, ETFs and treasury companies and things like that are gonna drive interest in their own ways, and that's, maybe that's where the next cultural moment comes, in terms of like, kind of a big moment, right? like, I don't know, like, I would say kind of similar to that cultural moment also was, even in the twenty-one cycle was El President Bukele going laser eyes and a country, a nation state, like at that time, that was like such a huge moment for everyone because, you know, it was just such a big moment. And so now, in some ways, Bitcoin's becoming, quote unquote, boring. and maybe that's, you know, maybe that's okay, you know, it's sort of like people need to save. It's a good thing that saving, you know, it's there and you can just do it, and it's, it's normal and it's accepted. but maybe Later in the cycle when, who knows, Bitcoin goes to, whatever, two hundred and fifty k or whatever, maybe around then that's when this kind of big, kind of retail phenomenon, Spawns a new cultural, news item."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "50:08",
      "start": 3008.18,
      "text": "Or maybe, maybe the culture moment was here and, and it's gone and it's very hard to get back on the, on the saddle because, you know, Larry Fink and BlackRock and the institutional movement is great, you know, for number go up, but it's still pretty boring people, right? Like they're not really-- Right. They don't get anyone really excited. And a lot of the other excitement that we have kind of like had in the twenty twenty- Five cycle are kind of like just for us and don't have that, that co- like you said, like the bouquet thing was insane, like, maybe that moment is gone, maybe Bitcoin isn't for everyone and retail isn't coming back and it will be institutionalized and very professional and the only retail action will happen in very sporadic small pockets of the world, but not like richer"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "fernando_nikolic",
      "time": "50:59",
      "start": 3059.21,
      "text": "retail, let's say, or like, so, you know, not kind of d- Like the kind of degens who are gonna gamble really hard on things, but more like, you know, person buying ETFs on his stockbroking app, retail, like that, that kind of retail, as opposed to, yeah. So I don't know, I mean, none of us knows. My, my guess would be that, you know, when Bitcoin gets to a certain price, none of us knows, but a-- above a certain level that will kind of have that same sort of moment or, you know, maybe it's like nation states start stacking, And that maybe that drives something, yeah. But, but I mean, more broadly, if we zoom out a bit and think about what are the young things, young people things that, you know, things like- I don't know, certain slang terms and things like people talking about like aura farming, like, so I don't know if you saw recently, there was the funny one, it was like this Indonesian boat racing thing with a kid who's like in eleven, they have like a kid standing on the front of the boat and he's like, he's sort of helping motivate them, but people, the, be- it became a meme that this kid was dancing in a certain way and he became sort of like, yeah, he's like an aura farmer and, you know Certain, you know, slang and certain cultural things like that, maybe s- eventually someone will do something like that around Bitcoin, and that'll be like another cultural moment."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "52:22",
      "start": 3141.84,
      "text": "I think that, that's the actual, that's the actual response to this question is that the memes are going to take us higher. It's,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "fernando_nikolic",
      "time": "52:31",
      "start": 3150.96,
      "text": "yeah,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "52:32",
      "start": 3151.55,
      "text": "the only thing that will, that has the ability to penetrate cultures, penetrate, penetrate age demographics, and it's just the best format for- Or just like explain something super complicated in such a simple way that just like penetrates through everything. And I think that's it, we have to, we're in the hands of the meme lords to do their duty and bring us back, to mainstream relevancy."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "fernando_nikolic",
      "time": "52:56",
      "start": 3176.46,
      "text": "Yeah, like, I mean, even- I can't remember what-- this might have been like eighteen or nineteen, there was, Christian, you know, the, the Buy Bitcoin sign, with, Janet, behind Janet Yellen, you know, that was like another cult-- kind of cultural moment, at least in our little echo chamber circles. So I don't know, maybe something like that, But it's obviously none of us can predict how, how and when that's gonna happen. but maybe something like that, you know, just kind of at that time, the culture, the, you know, the media, the, the, there's just sort of a moment around it, right? Or even, who was that, it was kind of like a redhead, country singer guy singing about, you know, no co-yeah, like that kind of moment, like he, the guy goes viral for something or like the \"Hulk Tour Girl\" or whatever Things that just kinda go viral and it's just a moment and people just sort of understand it from then."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "53:53",
      "start": 3232.94,
      "text": "Yeah, no, that, that, that red-haired guy, I can't remember his name, but damn, he fumbled the ball like crazy. He could have been like such a good, such a good mainstream, you know, crossover Bitcoin appeal guy that, I don't know what happened, but, yeah, I think that was a lost opportunity. He, he really fumbled the ball. He could have been one of us, man."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "fernando_nikolic",
      "time": "54:14",
      "start": 3254.15,
      "text": "Could have been, yeah, who knows. Alright, well, on the, on the Blockstream side of house, what's, what's happening there? What's kind of the latest? I know you guys, recently rebranded Blockstream Green now to the Blockstream app. anything else you wanna share?"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "54:31",
      "start": 3270.62,
      "text": "Yeah, no, I think, on, on a, on a larger scale, what we announced in Vegas, was that, but also our kind of like, restructuring of our company, in terms of different business units that are focused on, you know, the segments that we are serving. so we announced together with the rebranding of, of Green to, to the app, you know, us, Blockstream now being, divided into finance, enterprise And a consumer product. so I, I think this is like a reflection of where we think, Bitcoin is gonna go in the future, and we wanna position ourselves, internally, to, to serve all, all the different, cohorts that these three business units represent. And then also, it's a reflection of where we wanna take our products as well, and starting with, with Green becoming the blockchain app, it's a reflection of like our, our focus on, that particular audience in, in, in- Making Bitcoin more accessible, for the consumer, for, for retail. So we simplified a lot of things in the, in the wallet. We added some, you know, really important features for people that are, getting started in their Bitcoin journey, which is obviously a buy Bitcoin, feature. So we're just trying to just like slowly, you know, acclimate, our products and our internal structure at the company, just to cater to the, the, the most important cohorts that will come Sound like the, you know, the future wave of, users of Bitcoin, whether they are institutional, enterprise, down, all the way down to consumer, I would want to have something for everyone. A-and that's kind of what, Vegas, was really about, what Adam went on stage, to, to announce. And yeah, so there's a lot of stuff to come, in the, in the next two, three quarters, there will be a continuation of, you know, what, what we are now focusing on, Coming out of a string of products that will come in the future."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "fernando_nikolic",
      "time": "56:33",
      "start": 3393.33,
      "text": "Interesting, yeah. And I, I recall there's also a little bit, you know, as you said, more of an institutional offering at the, like, at the investment level, so I think that's also- I, I guess that's also partly what you're getting at there, like at the institutional level."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "56:51",
      "start": 3411.3,
      "text": "Yeah, no, for sure. I think, the institutions are kind of like the, the new coiners of, of this, of this cycle. And, I think they, just as a regular Joe that is also entering Bitcoin for the first time, there's a lot of, a lot of education, a lot of hand-holding, you know, multi-touch, long-ass, sales cycles, and, we want- we want Blockstream to be part of that, you know, initial journey when they get started. So, we're, we are there not, not only to, to offer, our products and services, but also to offer, you know, education and high signal. And I think, you know, we've, we put Adam and our, CIO, Sean Bill, on a friggin' world tour, the last six to eight months, just showing up at all these relevant conferences and events where this type of audience, education. so yeah, it's, it's more than just products and services, but also kind of cementing our brand, in front of these people so they, so they don't get distracted by, you know Other, other shit chains, other, other companies trying to also fight for their attention."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "fernando_nikolic",
      "time": "58:04",
      "start": 3483.6,
      "text": "Yeah. on the liquid side, what, what are you guys seeing there? Like, I, I think years ago it was like, you know, liquid was seen as like- No offense, but it was seen like a ghost town, right? Like not many people were really using it. Whereas now, actually, I think with things like Aqua and obviously Blockstream and, you know, we're starting to see actually, and I, I would say Boltz dot Exchange have probably also been really pivotal in this because they have helped provide this kind of swap layer that is now being used by, whether it's Blockstream or whether it's Breeze or it's Aqua or someone else. There's like a lot more of this swapping volume going on, so- Yeah, I'm curious what you're see, how you're seeing, liquid use and adoption these days."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "58:47",
      "start": 3527.08,
      "text": "Yeah, no, and I, and I just, I totally understand where, where, you know, the angle, that you came from. I think it's, you know, for something as, as, complex as Bitcoin Layer Twos. And yes, I know that there's also a debate whether what is a real layer two or not, that's a different discussion. But I think just conceptually, from white paper to prod to actually- Having something that people can actually use, there's, there's a lot of i-iterations, a lot of time, that goes into that to make it accessible for even the most like, you know, hardcore cyberpunk developers, you know, if I'm going to be very realistic about something, is that Liquid as a protocol compared to other protocols might have not been like the easiest, thing from a technical perspective to just start using, you know, in terms of like- Libraries, are, are available and stuff like that. So this is like over time, things that has been improved over time, from, from, from the Liquid Federation and everybody involved in, in, you know, the, the technical, the, the development of, of Liquid. So that's on one side. I think if you are a startup today and you wanna build on Liquid, it's way easier to do that now than it was back in twenty nineteen, twenty twenty. So that's, that's one. And I think people like BOLT, Bull Bitcoin, Are building these libraries and making, you know, these, these, these libraries available for other people to just like plug into is huge. That how, that's how, you know, people like Blitz Wallet and others have come about, you know, just like young people taking these libraries that are made by the community and just like plug in a-and start, and start creating stuff. So that's one, and that's, I think, has been A, a pretty significant bottleneck, throughout the years. But then, through the, the, the, the, the marketing and the services that these companies like Bolt, like Bull Bitcoin, like, Jan three with Aqua and more, the fact, the, these use cases that they, I mean, yeah, these use cases and value props that they have kind of like introduced to the market are just Amazing. So a lot of people, they just, they wanna use Aqua, they wanna use, Bolts, because of, because Aqua and Bolts are awesome, not necessarily because, oh, they're built on Liquid necessarily. so I think the, the combination of like things being easier to onboard as a startup and then these startups actually creating cool stuff that is actually valuable and resonates with the community, I think those two things are clicking now. And"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "fernando_nikolic",
      "time": "01:01:22",
      "start": 3682.85,
      "text": "that's,"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "01:01:23",
      "start": 3683.51,
      "text": "that's a positive, you know, feedback loop and that drives- Transaction and, and volume up. And then also one last thing, all of this is organic, right? We're not paying people to start building on Liquid, and that's kind of like the thing that has been detrimental to adoption and growth, because there's so many competitors that are just, they just, they have a pay-to-play. Yeah, they pay-to-play the tokenomics, right? So they print their own token, they, they cash that out for fiat, and then they pay a bunch of influencers and companies to build on that. That's, that's not the game that we play, Kind of like been the reason why it's taken so long, but I think, right now in 2025, it's really cool to see Liquid has come as far and, I mean, it's three, three billion t-tvl at this point. It's one of the, it's one of the layer, Bitcoin layer two that has the most Bitcoin locked up, you know, so those are two very important metrics that, you know, is a reflection of all of this. So, yeah, I'm super happy with it."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "fernando_nikolic",
      "time": "01:02:19",
      "start": 3739.44,
      "text": "Yeah, it's interesting. I, I think, what I would say just as a kind of, as I've watched the space, in the earlier years of Liquid, it was sort of, the way it was promoted and talked about, it was sort of seen as like, \"Oh, it's a trader use case, like, use confidential transactions to kind of not be front run on your transactions to and from the exchange.\" Like, that was the early narrative, and nowadays it's sort of seen more like- Oh, it's more like you can use it as this swapping layer to kind of have interactivity or kind of easy user experience for apps, and that's where like the Acquis and the Breeze SDKs of the world and the Bull Bitcoins of the world, I, I think they are having some traction there, and I think some of that is also on the stablecoin side of things as well, but some of that is also on the kind of swapping in and out of Lightning, and then, yeah, on the kind of L2 conversation, I think as long as people are honest about it You know, it's a multisig, it's a custodial, you know, federated sidechain, that's what the term means. It's, that's the industry term, federated sidechain. You shouldn't be under the misconception that LBTC is exactly the same thing as on-chain, main-chain Bitcoin, but you can swap in and out, and there are services to swap in and out. And, you know, I think it's okay, you know, for people, you know, so I'm more in the camp of, hey, let's just have lots of- these different layers or whatever we're calling them, whether that's Liquid, Lightning, and ARC and, you know, whatever, or even some of the state chain stuff, it's all gonna be out there, people gonna build, and whatever works is gonna work. And so let's see. But I, I just think it's, noteworthy that we are seeing, a lot of interest now in using some of these apps that use Liquid in the background or as kind of part of the swapping layer. Without necessarily having to show and expose all of that to the end user, which is interesting."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "01:04:09",
      "start": 3849.86,
      "text": "Yeah, I, I, I think so. And, and this, this is something, you know, that, that, that initial use case was like way back, and I think, I've been at Blockchain since 2021, and I think when I started, we started pivoting a little bit away from that into the kind of like the, the financial layer of, of Bitcoin, which I think is the reason why, you know, there's over three Right? But these aren't, assets that gets transacted a lot. You don't see a lot of activity, you know? It's just like, people allocate capital, they buy, you know, whether it is synthetic MicroStrategy stock or UST bills, from, from, and"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "fernando_nikolic",
      "time": "01:04:49",
      "start": 3889.95,
      "text": "stuff like that, yeah."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "01:04:51",
      "start": 3891.05,
      "text": "Yeah. They kind of like hold onto it and then that's it. It's really cool that you can trade on the secondary market instantly, twenty-four seven, and you can, have it in a hardware wallet, you know Incentivize transaction, that much. But on the other side, what you just said about like the swapping between Lightning and Liquid and kind of like fixing the, you know, the, you know, kind of like tedious Tedious work, for many people at least, to do channel balancing and, and, and all that stuff that requires, a lot of like technical know-how, in order to use Lightning, you know, in a non-paranoid way. even though there's like a lot of, a lot of, a lot of vendors that are simplifying that as well, of course. But I think the liquid swapping in and out is, is a use case that we at Blockstream have seen kind of like, this be a thing that we didn't necessarily promote. It has-- it was something that we learned, it kind of"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "fernando_nikolic",
      "time": "01:05:51",
      "start": 3951.01,
      "text": "organically happened, right? And I guess now you're sort of leaning into it because it just kind of happened and there's interest there."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "01:05:56",
      "start": 3956.54,
      "text": "Exactly. So, even though we see, okay, three billion TVL, which is a really important metric, the financial layer of Bitcoin, kind of like, marketing has worked, this, this, this other part that wasn't in our plans, that is like, holy shit, this is really, And we see some traction, hey, let's lean to that, of course, if, if this is something that is valuable for people. But that's what's cool about technology and especially like disruptive, novel technologies. You, you create something, you have a plan behind it, and doesn't necessarily turn out exactly how you planned it, 'cause you learn a lot from the audience and the people who are actually adopting your technology and, and they use it in different ways. This goes for Bitcoin as a whole as well, but also for Blockstream tech as well, and it's really cool to see that Every day, so it's really cool."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "fernando_nikolic",
      "time": "01:06:45",
      "start": 4005.01,
      "text": "Yeah, interesting. Alright, well, yeah, I think those are the key questions I had. So, just any last closing thoughts for people and where can people find you online?"
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "01:06:54",
      "start": 4014.46,
      "text": "Yeah, I'm, Fernando Nikolic. you can, you can Google me, a-and you'll find everything that's relevant. but I have a Bitcoin Perception as my, my newsletter. I gather data on Bitcoin's coverage from all sources. I have a hundred plus sources, which is Stacker News, Reddit, Hacker News, communities, social media, all types of legacy and global media. I take all that data and I analyze it. I, I take a look at the sentiment analysis, I take a look at the trends, and I write About it. So go to bitcoinperception dot com to, to sign up for that. And, on X, I'm, at based layer. So follow me if, you find my topics interesting."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "fernando_nikolic",
      "time": "01:07:35",
      "start": 4055.09,
      "text": "Excellent. Well, links will be in the show notes. And Fernando, thanks for joining me. I'll see you soon."
    },
    {
      "speaker": "stephan",
      "time": "01:07:40",
      "start": 4060.56,
      "text": "Pleasure as always, man. Thank you for inviting me."
    }
  ]
}