{ "episodeId": "SLP695", "speakers": { "stephan": { "name": "Stephan Livera", "role": "host", "tag": "STEPHAN" }, "andr_loja": { "name": "André Loja", "role": "guest", "tag": "ANDRÉ" } }, "segments": [ { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "00:00", "start": 0.08, "text": "Are they, you know, are they loving it, being able to earn and spend Bitcoin? What's the, what's the vibe like there?" }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "00:06", "start": 6.2, "text": "Yeah, the, as I told you, the community is growing. Everybody that came is loving it, which is great. Everybody that came to visit wants to repeat, which is also great, because it's not only Bitcoin, but that is special, you know, you, you mentioned the views and this and that, but but that is, we, we are very fortunate. we are, a very high quality of life, you know, place Of culture and it's not a this far away remote island where you can't access culture and restaurants and so forth, because Madeira was very touristic since ever, it's very cosmopolitan. You can truly live, on a Bitcoin standard in Madeira nowadays. We have Bitcoiners around in the community that don't touch fiat, which is amazing to see. Most of the businesses, of course, some businesses see more customers than others, but most of the businesses, you go there, you ask to pay in Bitcoin, and they don't even blink. It's just a payment It's a" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:00", "start": 60.42, "text": "normal thing for them." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:11", "start": 71.21, "text": "Hi everyone and welcome back to Stephan Livera podcast. Today I am joined by André Loja. Many of you will know André from his work on Free Madeira. Madeira is this, you know, this, as I understand, I mean, you correct me, it's this autonomous island off of Portugal. Yeah. and it's- It's, really interesting from a Bitcoin adoption perspective, and so, yeah, interested to chat with you. So, welcome to the show, Andre." }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "01:38", "start": 98.37, "text": "Thank you for having me, Stefan. it's a pleasure to be here. and yeah, we've been working in, in Medara, on the Free Medara project for a while now. it's been, I think, almost three years now that we funded the project, so time flies. Yeah, yeah. So give" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:54", "start": 114.12, "text": "people a quick overview, like what is Free Medara?" }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "01:57", "start": 116.9, "text": "So Free Med Economy project, education and adoption of Bitcoin, first and foremost. We started as a nonprofit association almost three years ago. We introduced the project, I think in Bitcoin Amsterdam at the time. It's, it's very fuzzy now, you know, time flies, but you know, in Bitcoin years, it seems like every year is seven years, so much happens. So we're working on, on adoption and education of, of Bitcoin, foremost, that's what, that's the goal, but we are- We have a lot of other projects ongoing, so again, so starting with edu-education and, adoption, we've, we have, Enrique, which is our education, volunteer, but the lead of the education part, and we've been doing many workshops in Madara for, privates and also, businesses, and it's been very su-successful, and now we launched the, we finally launched the, the My First- Bitcoin, a diploma in Portuguese, and we started a ten-week program that has almost fifty people on board. So it's really great to see the, the adoption going on. I actually have a-- I'll show you our, our copy of the, of the diploma in Portuguese." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "03:14", "start": 194.34, "text": "Excellent." }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "03:16", "start": 195.78, "text": "And now we are actually in, in, conversations with the, with the secretary of, the secretary of education on the island, to put the PDF as, as an optional, course on all the tablets of the students of Madeira. So hopefully we can, we can do that. and of course it's all open source, all free to take over. It's on our GitHub online, so we are spreading also to the other Portuguese-speaking countries like Mozambique and all. And, and Brazil, of course, although Brazil is more advanced and they have a lot of other projects like, like Kaka, for example, and, and, you know, the audio Bitcoin guys there in, in Brazil, we work with them but yeah, so the education is, is flying. merchant adoption is also a big thing here. we are, we have Charlie, which is our, merchant adoption rabbit. He goes everywhere on the island helping people, you know Have, we have Bitcoinized POS machines that we, bring to the merchants all over the island, and we have, I think, almost one hundred and sixty merchants now, from supermarkets, pharmacies, you know, restaurants, you name it. So it's actually so cool to see that after two odd years of launching this project, you can truly live, on a Bitcoin standard in Madeira nowadays. We have Bitcoiners around in the community that don't touch fiat, which is a- Amazing to see. And, I can tell you what, what makes me the most proud is now that you, you-- most of the businesses, of course, some businesses see more customers than others, but most of the businesses, you go there, you ask to pay in Bitcoin, and they don't even blink. It's just a payment also-- It's a normal thing for them." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "05:06", "start": 305.69, "text": "Yeah. Yeah," }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "05:06", "start": 306.21, "text": "which is great to see. And Bitcoiners are still shocked with that because, when they come and visit, and we've been having a lot of visits from, from people Some decided to stay, which is also part of the, the project, like to, to, you know, increase the community and attract people to come and stay, yeah. People to come and businesses and so on, and so on, we'll, we'll speak more about that. they're still shocked because, you know, they go to BTC Map And shout out to, to Nathan Day and, and the great work they, they're doing at BTC Map. We've been partners for, you know, many years. I'm actually going to Bitfist in Manchester with, with them, in, in End of November. we're also gonna introduce sovereign engineering there, which is, a thing that we'll speak, afterwards, I guess. Yeah, yeah. but people are still shocked that they go to a business, you know, first time they ask for Bitcoin and they just pull the POS machine payment and they don't even discuss about it. And the Bitcoiners are like" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "06:01", "start": 360.85, "text": "What? Yeah. Right? Because the typical-- Because what's the typical experience people have is like, \"Oh, I heard you take Bitcoin. Do you take-- Do you still take it?\" And then they'll be like, \"Oh, no, like, the manager has to deal with that.\" Or like, \"Oh, it's on this other tablet. Let me go and get that.\" And then they pull out the tablet and it's not charged or like the guy doesn't know how to use it or it's just sort of-- And" }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "06:23", "start": 383.48, "text": "sometimes it still happens," }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "06:28", "start": 388.41, "text": "but it was So Charlie is always taking care of the, of the merchants, and whenever we have a big Telegram group, for example, with all the people, you know, that love Freemadara, that live here, and- And, they keep things updated. If, if for some case, you know, some bitcoin goes to a, to a business, and that happens, he immediately says, \"Look, this, you know, and we send Charlie, you know, take care of this. Like, either you accept it or not. Like, don't, don't make the things, you know, you have to put it properly.\" and now it's even more easy because we got a grant for the Bitcoin Lightning machines. We have a lot of them, so we're putting them on the, the, On the merchants that have more, you know, regular payments. So it's great to see they put the machine, the ticket comes out, everything's very, you know, formal and normal." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "07:19", "start": 439.45, "text": "Right. And the, the cool thing with the Bitcoinized machine is it just looks like a standard credit card machine, right? So to the everyday fiat normie, it just looks like a normal payment ta-terminal thing. So it's very similar to what they've already used, and it's just now it can also do Bitcoin, right? And so that's the cool thing. and of course On the web, btcmap dot org is the website for that one, and basically you can go there and you can find out, like, if you're into earning and spending Bitcoin, btcmap dot org is a great resource. They've got an app and they've got a website where you can find, you know, whatever, coffee shops and restaurants and, not just that, but other things also. and so that's a really cool thing. Of course, I've got an episode, in the, you know, in my back catalog somewhere, with Nathan chatting about some of" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "08:09", "start": 489.32, "text": "What's happening in Madeira, I'm curious your take on this. Like, do you think it kind of-- Okay, so let's put it this way, do you believe it has attracted people to the island? What, what has come from, you know, doing this project? What kind of benefits have you seen by doing this project?" }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "08:26", "start": 506.05, "text": "Oh, absolutely. Since, especially since the, the conference, because, well, we can, we can go there for, for a bit just. We, when we launched Free Madeira, and we have a- I'm very fortunate to have this big advisory," }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "08:45", "start": 524.88, "text": "board with a lot of good people in the network, people like Jeff Good, Daniel Prince, you know, Knut, and many, many others. So it's, it's great. And they all helped in the beginning. We had some advisory meetings and so forth. And on the first meetings, when we were still, you know, designing the path and the objectives of the association, I put it out there to, you know, we should, we should do a conference, like to, to- Bring awareness to the project and so forth. And my idea was to do a small conference, so we would bring, bring the advisory board, you know, bring some, you know, start some relationships with the government and institutions and business, like a small thing. But it totally went out of proportion, because Jeff, Jeff, for example, was, you know, monumental at the time, and he started inviting some people, and then we got Jack Dorsey, and then we got Michael Taylor, and then we got this and that, and, and suddenly we got this huge conference with two hundred speakers from all over the world and three thousand attendees and in a, in a full stadium, and it was- Yeah. For a" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "09:49", "start": 588.74, "text": "first time event, which is really hard to do." }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "09:51", "start": 591.34, "text": "Yeah, I still, I still don't believe it. Year and a half, after it happened, how magical it was, because as you, as you put it out, you know, very well, it was a first time event on this small island in the middle of the Atlantic, and, it turned out to be this magical week, full of Bitcoiners, full of the highest ranking people in the, in the space, and, and it was, I think, the best, initial bite we could have made ever on Freedom Data Association, so it was great for awareness. And it helped a lot in the beginning, right? Because then we got a boom on, on interested people, interested businesses. There was a lot of, as I usually say, because at one point I thought I was the only Bitcoiner in Madeira, but I wasn't. There's always people around. But when you put yourself out there, suddenly you attract, you start with the meetups, you start with the, the conference, of course, was really big, and then it starts flowing and it's just this wave of, of, you know, people coming and helping and visiting the It created a lot of awareness for Madar, it's still ongoing. many people decided to live here, so we have a lot of expats, related to Bitcoin that are now living in Madar. The commu- the local community is also growing. We have monthly meetups, where we introduce projects, and so, so there's always movement around and, visitors also like the traditional tourism, they come a lot because of Meda. That's no- it's very clear. I get messages every month of people that are visiting, people are- just now on Twitter, I was replying to this guy that, you know, said that he was, he loved Meda, he came because of Bitcoin, he spent two weeks here on vacation, and he's already planning a It's, it's, it's great to see." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "11:38", "start": 697.92, "text": "Yeah, and I can say, like, from my visit to the island, you know, back at that time for Bitcoin Atlantis, I think this is like early twenty twenty-four, right? So this is sort of a year, a year and a half ago, right? beautiful island, really nice views out to the sea and things like this. yeah, really nice, it was a really nice visit. I, you know, I only had the time to just kind of quickly come in and out for the conference, but, you know, I had a great experience there. you have to return for vacations, bring the family. Yeah. Yeah, well, lots of places to go, but, it is cool to see, and I definitely love the, you know, that-- Because it's one thing to kind of get a lot" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "12:20", "start": 739.72, "text": "Of how you have to keep them is they need to see enough payment volume, right? I think this is like a trap that's happened in some circular economy attempts before where maybe they onboard too many merchants and there's not enough, put it this way, there's too many merchants, not enough people buying things with Bitcoin to sort of keep the flow going." }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "12:37", "start": 757.11, "text": "Actually, this was a big conversation in the beginning, before the conference, you know, Charlie, of course, was, which I understand, he was very excited on here, but, you know, we, we, we will need to onboard" }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "12:50", "start": 769.64, "text": "Man, take it really slowly because it needs to grow on par with the demand. because then you'll have just, you know, paym-one business that doesn't see a payment for a year, that doesn't make any sense. Of course, the mobile phone will be, w-in dust, you know, disconnected somewhere in the cabinet. so it needs to grow on par with demand. After the conference, it helped a lot, as I said, with the awareness, with the adoption, and so we, we're growing steadily. now we have a big base of businesses at Sold you, you know, I think one hundred and sixty odd something right now. And, and they see regular payments, one more than others of course, but they see, and this is the way we wanna keep it, so now we, we kind of reached, I, I wouldn't say a plateau, but growing steadily with, as, as long as the community understands it more and, you know, or, or, and grows. So we need to be careful on that." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "13:43", "start": 823.01, "text": "Yeah, I'm curious if you've seen, you know, like in years gone by, it might have been, oh That's when a lot more people wanna actually earn and spend Bitcoin. Have you noticed that pattern or is it more just kind of just, secular growth trend? Is that what you've seen?" }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "13:59", "start": 839.42, "text": "Honestly, I don't think so. I think it's more the, the, the la-the latter. So, and especially now, I think it's lo- a lot more about, especially from non-non-Bitcoin, those who didn't, you know, aren't there yet, I think businesses just wanna weigh out Right. They wanna save, they wanna save the money. The, the, the basement, the, the, the fiat-debasement, syndrome is very deep now and, and in the normies even, like on all, all the general population, because it's, you know, you know, right? Because the cost" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "14:35", "start": 875.23, "text": "of living is going up pretty much anywhere around the world. Especially after" }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "14:38", "start": 878.41, "text": "COVID, it was so eye-opening for, for a lot of people. So I guess it's more that, than the price of Bitcoin itself, which is great." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "14:47", "start": 887.47, "text": "Yeah, I think things have shifted, you know, in earlier cycles it really was kind of all correlated to the price, whereas now, yeah, it seems like it's more just kind of an adoption, you know, and I think, to me, if I just kind of zoom out, I think that kind of looks at like, you know, power law, adoption rates and things like this. so what's the attitude like, you know, Bitcoin is on the island, like, are people, you know, especially the ones who live there, what is it like for them? Are What's the, what's the vibe like" }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "15:19", "start": 918.95, "text": "there? Yeah, the, as I told you, the community is growing. Everybody that came is loving it, which is great. everybody that came to visit wants to repeat, which is also great, because it's not only Bitcoin, Madal is special, you know, you, you mentioned the views and this and that, but Madal is, we, we are very fortunate. we are, a very high quality of life, you know, place to be. The, the life here is amazing, the weather is great, you know, but you, you still have a good mix of culture and it's not a, this far away remote island where you can't access culture and restaurants and so forth, because Madeira was very touristic since ever, it's very cosmopolitan We have not only the two hundred and seventy-something thousand inhabitants, there's also a big community of people from all over the world at all times. A very connected island, we have direct flights to all over Europe, even America, New York, and so it's very well connected, so you don't feel like you're lost in space, and you wanna reach somewhere fast, it's very easy to travel. so people who came are loving it, and, and you know how Bitcoiners are, so Bitcoin is in, in, at the head at all times, in your head at all times. So they start businesses, they start projects, we have a lot of now collateral damage, as I would say, out of Free Medara, on satellite projects or, well, independent projects, but I like, you know, the, the Free Medara was the spark for them to, for that explosion to happen, right? And they have a educational project like a place to be, which is an unschooling project. We now have a, we have, we now have a big, a big group of people that bought a big plot of land in a, in an amazing place in Foshay Island. They're doing this sovereign space, there with horses and houses, and it's, it's an amazing project that will, you know, it's still ongoing, but, it's gonna take a while, but it's being already built. we have the software engineering project, we have the Basalto fund that I created on the side, so it's certainly a lot of options happen because of what we're doing with FreeMeda, and that was also one of the goals, attract people, attract businesses, you know, bring more, Awareness to matter also on the financial and the economic activity that can happen because of the Freedom Data project." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "17:42", "start": 1062.4, "text": "Gotcha. Let's jump into the sovereign engineering because I know this is an interesting one. can you give us a bit of an overview there, like what is this project? and, yeah, just overview it for us." }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "17:55", "start": 1074.51, "text": "So sovereign engineering is a bit hard to explain, and I'm not technical, so I'll just put it out there. but of course, you'll know very well the names of the people involved. So we, we founded the project with Gigi, Pablo Fernandez and Martijn, and of course, Pablo and Gigi are very, very, you know, deep, deep on the technicals, and they, they wanted to create this kind of brainstorming cohorts along the year to bring developers, together to create freedom tech. And it started as a project, and it was really It, it evolved a lot since, the first cohort. we just finished the, the, the fifth cohort right now, so this was the shirt for the fifth cohort, actually. Nice, nice design by No Good, actually, let me put it out there. Beautiful shirt. Oh, that's cool. Hahaha. And, no good, those amazing designs and," }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "18:54", "start": 1134.48, "text": "so the first edition was just before Bitcoin Atlantis, and it finished with the demo day In Bitcoin Atlantis, on the last day of the Bitcoin Atlantis, I think Jack Ma was there, was there to see it, Jack Dorsey, so it has the support of a lot of, big names as well. And I think now with the evolution that came out of it, especially now after this fifth cohort, and now we have Yo, shout out to Yo running, running the show, full time. it's more like, I think, I think, Gigi had a conversation with Jeff but the other day, and they got to a name that I think it's more explanatory. It's more like a, open source incubator. So it's not for, it's not like the traditional incubator where you got a share and it's all about, you know, profits and so forth. the goal of this is to involve the people in, in deep conversations to guide them on, on, on creating great open source freedom tech, projects. And a lot of it, you can go to our website on sovereignengineering.io and they-- there's a lot of explanation there, and you'll see all the projects that they- That already came out of it, like Blossom and Netsubs and a lot of the eCash, stuff, and then we got a lot of people that came as well, like Caillou Justin Moon, you know, and many others that came and are repeat now, they are kind of part of the SEC, as we call it, SEC, so Sovereign Engineering Cohorts alumni, and the idea is now to keep it ongoing, all the way around with fresh ideas so people can keep building and, and, and putting stuff out there, shipping stuff out there, so." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "20:41", "start": 1240.75, "text": "Excellent, yeah. yeah, it's cool to see, because I think, as you said, it's freedom tech, so it's not only Bitcoin, it's things like Bitcoin and Nostra and maybe eCash and other related ideas. It's very focused, it's very focused on" }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "20:54", "start": 1253.69, "text": "protocols, right? On, on, on free open source protocols. Nostra is a big part of it, but also of course, Lightning and eCash and all, all related technologies." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "21:05", "start": 1264.78, "text": "Yeah, interesting to see because I think we're seeing, a lot of, as people sort of come down the Bitcoin rabbit hole, they sometimes, but not always, get an interest in some other related ideas, things like Maybe decentralized or encrypted communications or, you know, other, sort of things that kind of are adjacent with Bitcoin, let's say. so it's interesting to see that. I know, as an example, even people like, Jack Dorsey, I think he's kind of continually been big on this idea of, \"Hey, what if we could have like some kind of decentralized GitHub instead of everyone relying on github dot com slash bitcoin slash bitcoin to host the Bitcoin, core repository?\" This kind of thing. So, it's interesting to see that. The goal is very," }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "21:47", "start": 1306.57, "text": "it seems like, you know, a very this crazy, you know, project and so forth, but the goal is very big actually. They want to make the internet better in the end. And, bring it back to some of the, the in-the initial foundation ideas of the internet that were, you know, captured along the time with this, you know, silence that, you know, capture your attention as a currency. So they want to help and accelerate the projects that can bring us out of it, basically, to a, to a deep more, a more deep, personal human decentralized, you know, free, free internet as, as the initial idea was." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "22:26", "start": 1346.08, "text": "Yeah. so then how, how does some of this stuff get funded though? Because is it like a paid thing or is it just like, it's sort of just funded, like, essentially or what?" }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "22:36", "start": 1356.35, "text": "So that's the thing, like, we funded the, the, the founding fathers, you know, funded the projects, since the beginning, and, we're just, you know, open to donations. some people helped, shout out to the HRF, Human Rights Foundation, so they, they, they did help the project You know, studying, continuing, continuing their help. but we're happy to keep this going, you know, for a long time. It's, it's, we see a lot of value on it, and now we're- And attracting" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "23:10", "start": 1390.09, "text": "developers and talent to the island, this kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah." }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "23:13", "start": 1392.77, "text": "And I, I think some, some people will help us. W-will be fine. We're, we're, we're fine for the next years, like we, we really want to, to bring this, you know, we're keeping, Making it even better, on the, the next following years, and a lot of, good things will come next year as well with Yo now full time as well. So, yeah. And, and it mixes with, with the space, and I can mention that, you know, because it's also part of the FreeMadera goals. it mixes with SEC as well on having a physical hub in, in downtown Frisco as well for, for, for all the people." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "23:47", "start": 1426.94, "text": "Excellent. And then on the, I guess, 'cause I guess you've got a few, 'cause I guess you're a bit of a serial entrepreneur, right? So you've got a few things going at the same time, right? As I understand, you have a- My wife" }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "23:58", "start": 1438.11, "text": "doesn't enjoy it a lot, but," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "24:01", "start": 1440.87, "text": "right? Yeah, 'cause she wants you to spend time with the family, right? I guess a lot of people are in a similar camp there, but, so I, as I understand, you have also a, like travel and, holiday Freemadere as well as doing the Basalto fund, right? Yeah, I'll focus on that. I guess how would you, how would you split your time nowadays? Like, where is your time spread across those different projects?" }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "24:26", "start": 1466.43, "text": "On all of them, you know, I just juggle the best I can. Of course, you know, on the fiat side of businesses, because I had businesses before, not related to Bitcoin, of course. All of them now are related to Bitcoin, you know, even if it's just accepting Bitcoin for payments, but of course, all, in all of them, right? But I had, I had several businesses before. For example, I own an island apart, which is a vacation rental management. we manage, properties all around the, the island. and it's been ongoing for sixteen years now. It's a, it's a great project. We're actually in the office of an island apart. I have like Thirty-six people working on an island apart, so, so it's doing very well. I have cowork for shell, which is a coworking space in downtown for shell, that also accepts Bitcoin for a long time, and that actually was a, a, a very good spark to the initial, of idea of bringing the president to Miami and so forth, because we had, you know, a long time ago, I was very proud to have Bitcoin accepted on the wall of cowork for shell, you know, in the beginning of all of this. I have Manta, which is a design agency, we have, Archipelago Investments, which is a consulting firm for, businesses and individuals who want to move to Madeira and wanna buy property or want to establish a business. So we have many collateral things that we can mix and, and But, you know, I would say that I'm very, very-- most of my time now is very focused on, on the Bitcoin related stuff, because it's not only free metadata. it's also Monstera Books, because we have a publishing company. we translate all the best books, in the Bitcoin space to Portuguese. And now we expanded, you know, since last year, we expanded to Brazil and Angola and Mozambique, because we want to create a Portuguese-speaking country community on, on Bitcoin and have all the best. We have Jeff But, Linal and You know, many, many books, translated now in Portuguese, and, and some are coming now, like Larry Lepper, like, even, even Safin, we're talking with Safin for, for the last book as well. So, so many, many, many books coming. We just translated Alex Gladstein's books, for example, which are also very cool for, for Mozambique and Angola, because they touch, especially the relationship with the IMF and the World Bank there, and we do so. we, we- You are publishing a lot of books now, and it, it connects very deeply with FreeMada because it's also part of the education, right? So we have the books on the FreeMada shop, we have a store online now, and also we want to make a physical one here on the, on the future hub. and it's been going great because we sell wallets, we sell, books, we sell many things, online, and it's been surprising we've been selling cold cards like, popcorn, which is really great. Because it funds the Frimadara project as well. Yeah. Like all money reverts to the work we're doing with Frimadara." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "27:35", "start": 1654.98, "text": "This episode is brought to you by CoinKite, the makers of my favorite Bitcoin hardware wallet, the Coldcard Q. Now, some people think self-custody is too hard, but it's really about taking responsibility for your Bitcoin wealth and understanding that self-custody gives you a true feeling of liberty. The Coldcard Q has a full keyboard and big screen. It's got two secure elements and a true air gap, allowing you to go fully air You can power the device using three triple A batteries, so you don't even have to plug it into the wall for power. You can easily use it with Sparrow Wallet 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 passphrases, easy. If you want to add multisig 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 That's fantastic, and I'm, I'm actually curious to hear, obviously you're a comp- an accomplished entrepreneur, but also who's obviously very deeply orange-pilled. How do you think about that question? Because a lot of people might think, \"Oh, well, just, you know, just hold Bitcoin, and you're not gonna beat Bitcoin return,\" you know? But at the same time, I see clearly you're running different businesses, and you, you see it as part of your operation. So how do you kind of do-- how do you kind of wrestle with that trade-off of Bitcoin versus actually do operational businesses." }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "29:00", "start": 1739.5, "text": "I don't, I'm not on that camp. I think money is to be used to do stuff and to, and to grow and, you know, and, and, and, of course, I huddle, for my personal savings, e-even all the companies now, I'm, I'm completely orange-pilled since, you know Four years ago or five years ago, and even before I doubled in, yeah, I had all the shitcoin phase of course and all that story, but you know, fortunately I paid my tuition there and everything, it's gone now. the savings The goal of all the businesses, in the end, it's also, it's of course to have more sets and earn more sets for the business and save it for the future and so forth. But I think Bitcoin is, It's meant to be a medium of exchange as well, and I truly believe that. So I use Bitcoin on my, on my day to day. I'm very, I'm a very big fan of Spend and Replace. I, we actually created, I can mention that as well, it's not launched yet, but we have a new project as well, which is a wallet that automates Spend and Replace, because it was actually a need that we found within the community, actually a need that I had myself. So I wanted to scratch my own itch, and we created this wallet called SatsFlow. It's, it's not online yet, but I, I don't know if I should mention this. It's a scoop. Alright, let's go. It can be, it can be one of those announcements of announcements that never comes, but." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "30:29", "start": 1829.31, "text": "So, okay, so tell us how the spend and replace works then. So let's say you go to buy the coffee or whatever, like, do you have a hookup with an exchange somewhere that auto-buys" }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "30:38", "start": 1837.68, "text": "like how to get? So, in the, A spend and replace wallet, so you go to, to a restaurant, whatever, you buy a meal, and there's actually a lever so you can be a psychopath. It goes from 1x To 10x even. Still didn't, we still didn't decide." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "30:58", "start": 1857.91, "text": "As in 10x the cost of the meal to buy Bitcoin?" }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "31:01", "start": 1860.57, "text": "Yes, so you go there, you, let's say the meal is twenty euros, right? If you're on 5x, it automatically, automatically replenishes the wallet with fifty euros. Well, not fifty, if you're on 20, one hundred euros, right? Yeah. So it's also a way to DCA by spending." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "31:20", "start": 1880.48, "text": "Yeah." }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "31:21", "start": 1880.82, "text": "Because you're getting more Bitcoin. And of course, at one point, the idea is it goes on alert and say, \"You have too many Sats, just bring it to cold wallet.\" And you just, you know, and the cool idea is you, you can't even accept Sats on that wallet. It just connects your bank account. automatically replenishes the sats, and the only way to get sats there is by spending." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "31:43", "start": 1903.0, "text": "I see. And so I guess you've gotta have like some kind of exchange connection and all that aspect of it, so then I guess it just, it just," }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "31:53", "start": 1913.09, "text": "you know, it just, every time you spend, it automatically knows how much you spend, uses your lever, goes on the background, exchanges, buys sats, and sends it back to you. I see," }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "32:02", "start": 1922.06, "text": "I see. And then what countries is it gonna-- is it mainly just for use in the US? Island or is it just used in Europe or just in general and it's just a general wallet that will, you know, re-buy? It's a very personal" }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "32:13", "start": 1933.32, "text": "project. It's not launched yet, so there's a lot of regulation stuff also in the middle that we're navigating. Yeah, gotcha. but the goal is to use it for myself and for the community here. But I believe if you could do a good work here, it will be helpful for a lot of people elsewhere as well. And now, right now, because we are part of Europe, I guess all the but yeah, well, we, we, we pretend to make it available worldwide if you can. So it's, it's just a very simple wallet for spending replace. I wanted to scratch my own itch and, Enrique, which is my partner at Monzera and the education guy on, on Fimadera, and also it's being designed by Skyler, which you probably know. And Skyler, yeah, yeah. And Paul Miller was also helping us on the, on the back, back end of it, so. Oh, fantastic. Yeah, I mean, that's great." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "33:07", "start": 1987.28, "text": "Yeah, I, I mean, for me, obviously, I'm happy to earn and spend, you know, Bitcoin, I, you know, I- But I just, I probably my difference is I acknowledge I'm ideological about that. I understand for a lot of people, they will just spend fiat, and that's just the way it is. of course- Which I truly" }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "33:24", "start": 2003.61, "text": "understand." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "33:25", "start": 2004.63, "text": "Yeah." }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "33:26", "start": 2006.01, "text": "But, you know, it's the same in the end, right? Because if you spend Bitcoin, it's just the cost of opportunity is the same. If, well, if you spend fiat, the cost of opportunity is the same. You could have bought Bitcoin with that money. So I think the reasoning is a bit-- Nathan is actually from BTC Map. Nathan is very good at explaining that. We went to a conference in Curacao, together. we met Peter there, and it was a great trip. and, Nathan's presentation was actually just about that, like Bitcoin first, like the, the, the fiat, right? But it's actually the same, right? You're, you're, if you're spending the fiat, you're just, you know, not buying Bitcoin with that money anyway. So I think actually the spend and replace where you can buy even more kinda, kinda creates a feedback loop which is even more interesting" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "34:14", "start": 2053.99, "text": "Yeah, yeah, I think it, it just kinda, it sort of is, i-it is a little bit case by case, because maybe for some people, they, they just, you know, they're just not a, a, a, in that place of life, or maybe it's just like a mindset or mentality thing. So maybe for them, it is easier to think of it as like, \"Oh, spend and replace,\" or just, \"Oh, when I buy, whatever, I buy that meal for twenty, twenty euros, I need to rebuy twenty euros worth of Bitcoin just so In Bitcoin terms." }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "34:44", "start": 2083.91, "text": "Also in many places, the opportunity isn't there because there's no merchants accepting Bitcoin and so forth. So ev-every reality is different, of course. that's why we wanted to design a wallet that could serve our needs as a community, because we have so many merchants around, our needs in terms of, easiness of process, because nowadays when I spend some sat and I want to replenish, I need to go to the wallet and, you know, send back, you know, do, do all that process manually, which would also bother Because just, just busy. And, just, we wanted to create a, a seamless project to, you know, just spend and forget. i-if you do the live or it's even good, like it's a way to dca because you're getting more Bitcoin than, than you're spending, and it's great that way." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "35:30", "start": 2130.44, "text": "Yeah. Let's, switch to your Basalto Fund. So, as I understand, this is like another new thing you're doing which relates to investing, in either Bitcoin or Bitcoin, companies? Is it, so actually, can you just give us an overview what is Basalto Fund?" }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "35:47", "start": 2146.58, "text": "Yeah, so Basalto Fund was- An idea that I had with Jeff for a long time. Since we started the Freedom Data project, we thought about doing a fund in Portugal for real estate investment in Madeira. That could mix Bitcoin, like there's, there's some project in the States that do, there's Grand Cardone that in, invests in, in real estate but buys a share of Bitcoin for the long term and so forth. You know that kind of, of, of, organization? But at one point, and this was mixed with the Golden Visa program of Portugal, that it's been ongoing for many, many years, which is a way to, it's a residency by investment, citizenship by investment program, right? That Portugal has for a long time, and that has been very successful, because there's a lot of demand for Portugal. It's a great country to live. There's, you know, the crypto rules are, are, are good, because if you hold for over one year, there's no taxes on, on, on Bitcoin and Let's not mention the word crypto anymore." }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "36:51", "start": 2210.67, "text": "unfortunately it's all in the same package as, as you can imagine, but, but at one point because of the housing prices and inflation and all of that, and you know our politicians and the local, people, they confuse stuff, so they stopped the real estate path out of the Golden Visa. So you couldn't-- there, it wasn't allowed to buy property, and, you know, get citizenship by investment through real estate. So we kind of stopped the project for a while, but then I saw some people launching, oh, and let me put it this way, so the, the, the Golden Visa was only eligible now for, if you invested on, funds, so investment funds, right? And there's funds for many things like solar projects and this and that and, you know, all, all kind of funds, but they're all fiat based, right? So I, I didn't see any interest in the, interest in that at all. But then a few months later, I saw these guys launching, an investment fund in Lisbon that supposedly was Bitcoin, a Bitcoin investment fund. And when I started researching, it was- Yep, they weren't lying, but not, not in a way that a Bitcoinner like me would, would appreciate. Like they, they get the money, and the minimum capital you need to be eligible for the Golden Visa is five hundred thousand euros, right? So they would get that money, and they would, would invest sixty percent in, BlackRock ETF, so iBit, right? Yeah. And the other forty percent, they said they are going to invest in crypto companies in Lisbon and, and so forth. Right. So I was like, you know, not enjoying that process. But it got me thinking on, you know, if this guy can do this, maybe I can create a better option. So I started working with a, with a partner of mine that is a big shot Tax lawyer in Lisbon, and we ended up, building it. So the proposition is very easy, it's just an investment fund where you, you have to invest the minimum five hundred thousand euros but we invest in spot Bitcoin, so we buy the asset, we custody-- There's two things, so we buy at a minimum of eighty percent goes directly on the asset. Which we custody with Nidec in New York, Ross Steven Company, so shout out to them, they were partners since the beginning, which is great, we wanted a very reliable partner on, on the custody. And the other twenty percent or up to twenty percent, because it depends on the opportunities that arise, we invest on the Bitcoin ecosystem again, but through Egorade Capital. So Leonel and Jeff, Bill, Preston, and Nico and Andy, they're g-- doing great job there. Actually, they just closed the second fund on with over one hundred million, On the second fund, we are going to invest through them, on the Bitcoin ecosystem, on Bitcoin startups. and I wanted to design it this way because the fund has a maturity of eight years, so you have to keep the investment ongoing, eight years because of the golden visa process as well, because you get residency and citizenship, and we can go on more detail on how that process is as well. The idea is you keep the investment ongoing for eight years, and when we liquidate the fund in the end, I believe a lot of the work Egor that Capital is doing, and I believe will be successful enough that you can pay out the investors more Sats in the end than what they invested in the beginning, even with, even, taking into, into account the ma-the two percent management fee that we have along the eight years. So the idea was to create a fund, a Bitcoin fund friendly fund, that Bitcoiners could look with, you know, with, with, with interests not to lose main goals, do not lose expo-exposure to Bitcoin? As an asset during those eight years, right? That's the most important part. And B, Sat's flow positive, so that investment can bring you more Sat's eight years than what you put" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "41:04", "start": 2463.64, "text": "in theoretically." }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "41:05", "start": 2464.98, "text": "Yes. So that's the whole goal of the fund." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "41:08", "start": 2468.41, "text": "So as I understand, the Portugal Golden Visa, so as you said, it's a residency program, but my understanding is Portugal has these rules where I think it's after, what is it, five years? And there's certain requirements. I think you have to do from, I mean, you tell me the, you-- my understanding is it's like a week, a year, something like this, and then you also have to study to a certain level Portuguese and be able to pass a, a test and pass the language test, right? No, actually no." }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "41:30", "start": 2490.4, "text": "Actually, no. There's That's the good part. The golden visa path itself, it's rather easy, because of course there's a big ticket on the investment. We know it's a European country, so it's five hundred thousand euros. That's, that's the hard part. it's expensive, but then actually the golden visa process isn't that hard because you do have to spend, the, the rules are you have to spend fourteen days every two years, so basically it's a week per year in Portugal. You can also choose to live in Portugal, so you get residency, you can choose to live in Portugal for the duration, and five years later, you get access to the passport itself and also no- Not only you, your family as well, so your spouse and your dependent kids and dependent father, the parents if you do have them, right? So it's for the whole family. Of course, there's some extra costs associated with the golden visa process, but it's not much. It's just, just, the regular lawyer fees to take care of the process, and there's a government fee for the, for the golden visa, should set you up around thirty to forty K, depending on who you're working with, because that's another project on the side We can help with that as well through Archipelago Investments, but we, we usually recommend actually people to just, no, go with the experienced golden Visa firm in Lisbon that they can take care of all the process and we take care, take care of your assets on the long term. So it's a Let's, let's say it's a force hold all of your Bitcoin for eight years." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "43:07", "start": 2586.82, "text": "Yeah, I see. Okay, so, and then theoretically, I'm just looking up the numbers now, so as an example So you're putting up just over five BTC, I guess, five point two seven BTC in terms of what goes into the fund. Of course, there's some other fees and other parts to it, and then, as you said, minimum eighty percent of that will just be Bitcoin exposure, and then up to twenty percent of that could be Essentially VC e-exposure through Ego Death Capital. And so that's the part that's maybe a little more at risk, like you could lose a bit, but you could gain, and hopefully if you could gain a lot, you could lose everything." }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "43:49", "start": 2628.7, "text": "That's the VC game. But we do believe in a lot, a lot in the work they're doing. I don't think there, it's gonna be zero. I don't think at all. I think actually their hurdle rate, and they mentioned this a lot, their hurdle rate is the Bitcoin hurdle rate. So they want-- I think we're gonna have more, a successful exit, a liquidation, that will help us be such flow, such flow positive on, on, on the individual. Gotcha. And then what's the fee? Worst case scenario, you got a, a minimum of eighty percent on BTC directly, and that exposure you don't, you don't lose." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "44:22", "start": 2662.43, "text": "Gotcha. Yeah. Because I guess that would be people are thinking now, okay, they want some kind of EU residency right, and they would otherwise be selling Bitcoin to get fiat, right? Or maybe the other way would be if they borrow against the Bitcoin to get some fiat, and now they're paying interest. So I guess you've got to-- people have to do their own sums, their own analysis. Of course, everyone's situation is different. There's" }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "44:44", "start": 2683.55, "text": "also, there's also, there's also other things that come into equation, and I like to be transparent, like Because of regulations, we can't accept the five hundred k euros in Bitcoin, right? We have to accept them in fiat, which for some people it's hard because they have their wealth in Bitcoin and it's a taxable event in some places, like let's say you're a US resident. To sell, yeah. So we, what we advise is for people to look into their own, you know, situation. Some people can invest through, you know, those self-directed IRAs that they have in the states." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "45:15", "start": 2714.93, "text": "I see, yeah." }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "45:16", "start": 2715.71, "text": "And they have the self-managed super funds in Australia. Australia, and they have some equivalent, stuff in the UK as well. So that's better because it's not, there's not, it's not taxable, so they can move the investment. Right, because they might have a special" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "45:30", "start": 2729.88, "text": "tax environment, and if they can do it inside of that special tax environment, then there's less of a tax hit, so you're saving on the taxes there. There's no tax hit." }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "45:37", "start": 2736.87, "text": "So if, if they move the investment within the IRA to our fund, we have one investor that did that so-- that already, there's no taxable event there And also at the end, when the fund liquidates, for non-residents, actually that capital gains is zero. So when you get the, the capital gains in the end of the eight years, which hopefully in euro terms, in euro unit of measure, will be a lot, if, if Bitcoin continues to do its own thing. When we return the money back to the investor at the end of the fund, it's zero capital gain tax, so it's also a very good thing." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "46:14", "start": 2773.6, "text": "I see, okay. And so what's the fund, what's the cost, on the fund, on the Basalto fund side? Is it the two, you mentioned two percent, is that the fee annual?" }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "46:23", "start": 2783.48, "text": "Yes, so we charge, there's some smaller fees as well, like there's a three thousand fee for Stag, which is our fund managers that we work with in, in Lisbon to do all the compliance project and" }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "46:36", "start": 2795.55, "text": "thousand at the beginning of the fund, and then there's two percent, management fee along per year along the, the, along the duration. So I guess just simple, in" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "46:46", "start": 2805.62, "text": "simple terms, it's like five hundred K, two percent of that is what, ten K. So you can just kinda think loosely, ten K by eight years, so about eighty K euro. Well," }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "46:55", "start": 2815.11, "text": "the unit, let's, it's a percentage, so the unit of measure is euros. So if Bitcoin increases in price, it will be two percent of the assets under management. I see, yeah, yeah, our big ticket for us as, as, let's say the, the, the greedy part of doing this project on my behalf, like the investor side of it, of the Basalto Fund, is at the end, at the liquidation. We also believe Bitcoin is do-- is gonna do their work, is its work, right? And we do have a ten percent cut at the end on the gains. So it's two percent management fee plus ten percent cut in the end. Okay. So in the end, the unit of measure is euros. Let's say for, you know, simple explanation, Stephan Livera, you go into our, fund as an investor, you invested five hundred k euros. At the end of the eight years, just for accounting purposes, let's say it's worth, your position is worth one million, right? Double. We will pay you back the five hundred thousand euros clean. And then on the profits, on the other five hundred thousand euros, we will take a ten percent cut." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "48:05", "start": 2885.25, "text": "Yeah, I see. Yeah, and I mean, I, I guess it also, you have to think, what do you think Bitcoin is gonna do in that eight years time, right? Like if, if, if, like as an example, if I think on, you know Power law trajectory, let's say you hit a million in twenty thirty-three, it-- eight years, I mean, that's almost a ten x, almost a ten x in, that the Bitcoin would do. So that five hundred K that you put in Might be loosely kind of in the range of five million euros ish, now of course there's fees and other things along the way, and that would be a hundred percent Bitcoin. This is eighty percent Bitcoin, yeah, but anyway, the point is it I guess you, you've got to do your own, kind of estimate of where, 'cause for every Bitcoiner, you've got to think, well, where do I think Bitcoin is gonna be in eight years? Plus, okay, what am I paying on fees? What am, what am I paying on performance, et cetera?" }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "48:55", "start": 2934.71, "text": "All of it. And this decision for us was also very, you know- We had to think a lot about this in the beginning when we were designing the fund. I could have made it simpler and just put one hundred percent in Bitcoin, but I, I really wanted to, to be part of the moto of creating a cash flow positive business." }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "49:16", "start": 2956.15, "text": "Not for regulation processes, but for us, our unit of measure is sats. I want to be able by the end of the fund to pay out more sats to the investors that invested in the beginning and take a cut for myself and the other investments we have in the fund on sats as well and be successful on both. That's our all, all, all goal. And for that, we needed to design a process that was also low preference, low time preference, right? Our all goal is to be very successful, successful by the end of the eight years. People will get their nationality in the meantime, and their citizenship, and at the end, they will get their SATs back with the, with the, with more on top. that's the high goal. Yeah." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "49:57", "start": 2996.78, "text": "Yeah, and of course, it's, I guess, yeah, I guess for a lot of Bitcoiners They will want to maintain the Bitcoin exposure, right? Like if you're hardcore about Bitcoin, you wanna maintain as much Bitcoin exposure as you can, and I guess you have to think about, yeah." }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "50:12", "start": 3012.37, "text": "Yeah, I have no doubt that it's a, if you're a Bitcoiner and you're looking into this kind of investment for your own family, for yourself, for your family? It's much better than the other options available in the market. it's a very niche thing, it's for Bitcoiners, it's not for everyone, of course. Like the regular guy wouldn't invest in, in our, in our fund because I think it's crazy to put the eighty percent allocation on Bitcoin. He probably prefers some kind of solar panel installation somewhere. So there's a big, you know, there's a big gap in understanding there. But, you know, this is for Bitcoiners, for people who believe that, they want this, this, net- Nationality, they want the citizenship, and also they believe this is a much better product because they're not losing exposure to, to Bitcoin on this, at least on this capital of five hundred thousand" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "51:00", "start": 3060.19, "text": "euros. Gotcha. Yeah. now, I guess- Zooming out a little bit, but still on the topic of nationality, residence, where things are going. exactly how autonomous is Madeira from the rest of, you know, the craziness that's going on, you know, in Europe? You know, like, I, I kind of get a sense that a lot of the EU f-is very pro-regulation, pro-red tape, right? Obviously, you're closer to it than I am. But what's your sense of it? And how does Madeira compare with like what, you know, what's going on in the EU?" }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "51:36", "start": 3096.19, "text": "We have some freedoms within our regulations. We are, we are officially an outermost region of Europe. We are a semi-autonomous region of Portugal. we have our own president, our own government. but there's a set of regulations that still connect us to, to the mainland, and especially on the big topics, let's be honest, like taxes, you know, all that stuff, nationality and so forth. So we do depend still on, on the national government and on, on the national programs, and we are still dependent on the parliament of Portugal for the, you know, Very hard laws that, you know, that governments create. And let's not, you know, true, we are under the EU scope, and that's good and bad at the same time. There's also good things, there also, there's bad things, but then it needs to comply with most of the rules. there are some freedoms on the- Tax space, but, you know, for example, we have-- we can't decide our own taxes, but we can create a gap. So taxes in Madeira are better than the mainland, for example, thirty percent lower. For individuals and for businesses, for example. And this is important for the fund, because the fund invests in a, in a Madeira, business. So at the end, the number, the numbers will be better than other projects located in the mainland, because our capital gains tax will be lower by the end of the fund So there's good things and bad things, and we can do some individual stuff. Like, for example, I was mentioning the my first Bitcoin diploma, right, that we're gonna put on PDFs on the, on the tablets of the students of Madeira. This was not possible on the mainland. We have our own education secretary that has a lot of freedom on what he chooses to, to impose in, in Madeira. So, and also the good part is we're a small island in the middle of the Atlantic, so I guess they won't be worried about, you know- Our own stuff here most of the time, so which is great. We aren't very far away from the big capitals and the big, you know, stuff that is happening in the mainland." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "53:33", "start": 3213.21, "text": "Yeah. And so aside from the residence program and Basalto fund, people who just wanna move to Madeira, what does that process look like? Is it hard to get residency rights there? there's many options. How does it work? Yeah." }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "53:46", "start": 3226.16, "text": "There's many options. Actually, one of the good parts of the European Union is the freedom of movement. That's very good. So if you're You can move here at any time you want. There's, we have a lot of Bitcoiners from Europe that just moved." }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "54:03", "start": 3242.69, "text": "if you're from elsewhere, there's different programs. One of the options is the Golden Visa Fund, so you can invest in one of these funds, hopefully ours, if you're a Bitcoiner. but there's other options like the D7 Visa, which is like, A nomad kind of visa that gives you like one or two years, two years residency and some, and some benefits. There's also you can move and apply for a different kind of visa, like the visa for, if, let's say you're a bitcoiner, and you want to create a business, you can actually-- this is a welcoming thing for, for people to think about. You have a business elsewhere, you can locate your business in Medaera on our hub that we're gonna create soon. We have a co- Working space and offices, we're designing the whole thing. You can, you know, locate a business there, be, an employee of the business or the founding for whatever, have a salary there and apply for the visa with all that stuff as well, because if you do have a business and a salary in Portugal, you can apply for the visa for relocating to, to Madeira. Which is also a path in itself. So there's many, many different options, yeah. We can help with all of that, by the way, if you're thinking about it, just reach out, we can advise." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "55:20", "start": 3319.6, "text": "Yeah. So different pathways in, I guess, you know, everyone has to do their own kind of analysis where, where in the world do they want to be? Yeah. what places-- That's the most important part. You know? Yeah. And of course, you know, for a lot of people, whether they're bringing their wife and kids along or, you know, whatever situ- everyone's situation is different there too. But I, I think, yeah, it's interesting to see the competition now, for talent, for investors, for people to just come and set up and live somewhere. And one of the, there's," }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "55:51", "start": 3351.23, "text": "there's bad parts about, about being under the EU umbrella, but there's also very good parts. Like, the development that Madeira had for the last decades was incredible. Infrastructure here is amazing. digital infrastructure is amazing. We have, underwater cables for, from all over the world, so internet is great. Crazy fast and good and everything's 5G is all over like 100% coverage, like it's very good. And quality of life is through the roof, like we have schools, we have good, healthcare, we have good restaurants and arts and music and, you know, there's-- it's a very good place to live if you're not, and I respect it's a personal decision from, from everyone, right? But if you're not that guy that wants to go to, let's say, a good example, the, the work they're doing it in El Salvador, which is great, and I've been there and it's amazing and it's a lot of development ahead of them, but it's-- if it doesn't, if that's not for you and you prefer to be, you know, closer to Europe or, you know, but that is a great option, a very good, a very good compromise" }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "56:57", "start": 3417.16, "text": "Excellent. so just, I guess, closing up, what, what are you looking forward to over the next, you know, couple of years? And also, as I understand, Bitcoin Atlantis, you announced a little while back that it's gonna be not an every year conference, but a once per cycle conference. So I guess the next one's gonna be twenty twenty-eight. Yes. what, what can people look forward to?" }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "57:18", "start": 3438.07, "text": "So the decision to put it every four years was very interesting and, and actually a very, Let's say a very happy idea that I had, because look, I, I did the conference and it was amazing, it was, it was great. but it was a lot of work, it was a big conference, it was very hard to, to, you know, to arrange e-everything and, and to put it out there flawlessly. Well, it wasn't flawlessly, but for us, on our view, but for, for the most part, people didn't notice all the, the shit that happened, and it was a great experience. But if I did that every" }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "57:54", "start": 3473.79, "text": "because it's so much work to, to do that every year. So I had the fortunate idea to do it every four years, because it, by accident, it was an halving year as well. So it made sense, to kind of make the World Cup of, conferences aim to do a very good one again in twenty twenty-eight and even surpass the last one. and in the middle, we have time to do all the other work we want to, we want to do with FigmaDAO. And we're doing the meetups, we're doing the education part, we're doing, you know, contacts on energy. We didn't speak about that, but we're doing, we're trying to do a lot of contacts on energy and mining operations in Portugal and in Madeira and so forth. We even launched a smaller thing that we're doing every year, which is a free energy summit. So we do a smaller conference just based on energy, on mining and so forth. We did the first one in Lisbon this year in April, and we invited a lot, a lot of government officials and We had Daniel Batten, we had Eric from Gridless, we had Rachel from TerraHash, we had the twenty-one energy guys and so forth. It was very successful and actually it, it, it provided us with the, with the contacts now to do, to start some test runs with the wind guys and the solar guys and so forth to start really doing some energy projects in, in Portugal and in Madeira. You know, so while I was talking about everything we're building in Freemadara again, and the, and the big goal is to do the physical hub, as I told you. So we have plans for that as well. I'm visiting many buildings now. We want to put the headquarters of Freemadara there, the education room, the co-working spaces. We want to locate Sovereign Engineering there as a base for all the year and for the cohorts that come every now and then, to increase the awareness, have the storefront there as well, because now it's online mainly. have the store there with everything we have, a-and be a base, a physical space for the community, which I think it's very, very important to keep the, the, the dynamics of, of the community and all the projects that are already here in Medara and that we plan to invite to be more present in Medara. So that's, that's the big goal for the next year, I would say." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:00:05", "start": 3605.98, "text": "Awesome. Well, yeah, it sounds like, I mean, you've got, finger in, in many different pies, but it also is really, I think fascinating that you're really trying to, I guess, lead by example and show people, hey, you can actually set up these businesses and get people to earn and spend Bitcoin, in those businesses. So that's really cool. I hope, listeners check out what you're doing, whether that's on the free Mederis side or whether they check out if the Besalto fund is right for them or Bits and pieces here. so what's the best place for people to find you online and, you know, follow your work?" }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "01:00:41", "start": 3641.83, "text": "So if you follow Freemadara on the, on the regular places like X and, you know, Instagram and so forth, we are everywhere, freemadara.org. and also me, I'm, I'm on Twitter and Onstro, Andre Loja, just reach out, there will be, you know, I think that actually the best way to be updated about Freemadara is the newsletter. On the website you'll find that we Or every couple of months, it's not, we're not, not gonna spam you, but all the updates go there, beautifully. I have a great team helping me on that. yeah, just follow us, check the website, check all the other projects as well, Bazalto dot fund, Sovereign Engineering dot io, a place to be, all the projects that are, you know, in Medara, and, you know, reach out, we're, we're always here." }, { "speaker": "stephan", "time": "01:01:28", "start": 3688.5, "text": "Excellent. Thank you, André." }, { "speaker": "andr_loja", "time": "01:01:30", "start": 3690.32, "text": "Thank you, Stephan." } ] }