Bukele’s Blind Spot: New Bitcoin Mining Tech That Can Turn El Salvador Trash Into Digital Gold | Dusan Matuska

Mike Peterson sits down with Dusan Matuska to unpack Bitcoin adoption in India while UPI dominates daily payments. They discuss why Bitcoiners call UPI “governmental lightning,” what that suggests about transaction monitoring, and how self-custody becomes a defining decision for anyone who cares about privacy and control.

Dusan Matuska explains how a circular economy forms through local Bitcoin trade, merchant acceptance, and community trust. He shares why non-KYC habits and small networks matter, and how these patterns can scale through educators who know how to communicate without losing people.

Dusan then gets specific about sustainable mining, including why miners move, how electricity price increases can erase margins, and why Amity shifted from Paraguay to Ethiopia. This section stays focused on operations, contracts, and the kinds of constraints that reshape mining strategy overnight.

The most disruptive threat is waste-to-energy Bitcoin mining in Uganda. They dig into plasma gasification, syngas quality, feedstock consistency, and the economics behind waste reduction when municipalities do not pay. The conversation also hits the grid problem and why mining can act as a buyer of last resort when excess power has no market.

Dusan closes by connecting adoption to education through an educator academy built on soft skills training. They talk about analogies, objection handling, and teaching frameworks that make Bitcoin understandable in normal conversations. Subscribe, share, and comment with the point you disagreed with most, then tell us whether you would rather run miners on surplus power or drink bone broth for seven days.

-Bitcoin Beach Team

Connect and Learn more about Dusan Matuska:
X: https://x.com/dusan_matuska
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@dusanmatuska-bitcoin
Website: https://www.dusanmatuska.com/
AmityAge (His Company): https://www.amityage.com/

Support and follow Bitcoin Beach:
X: https://www.twitter.com/BitcoinBeach
IG: https://www.instagram.com/bitcoinbeach_sv
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@livefrombitcoinbeach
Web: https://www.bitcoinbeach.com 

Browse through this quick guide to learn more about the episode:
00:00 Intro
06:40 What is India’s UPI system? Why do Bitcoiners call it “governmental lightning”?
12:55 Can Bitcoin mining work in India? What is stranded energy for Bitcoin mining?
19:30 Why did Bitcoin miners leave Paraguay? Why did Bitcoin miners move to Ethiopia?
26:10 Why did Ethiopia raise electricity prices for bitcoin miners? How do PPAs affect Bitcoin mining profits?
33:05 Can waste-to-energy power Bitcoin mining in Uganda? Is waste-to-energy bitcoin mining sustainable?
40:45 What is plasma gasification? Can syngas from waste power Bitcoin mining?
47:20 Why can’t Uganda sell waste-to-energy power to the grid? Why is Bitcoin mining the buyer of last resort?

Live From Bitcoin Beach

Transcript

Dusan Matuska: 0:00

So I'm excited for these types of projects. This is kind of what MIT stands for. You know MIT, as the word translates into cooperation, fellowship, friendship and harmony and peace. And we see Bitcoin as a tool that can really get us to the age of peace, to the age of MIT. And these projects are really, in my opinion, like fulfilling this premise, this mission, that they can help to show that Bitcoin is a tool for this cooperation. You

Mike Peterson: 0:56

Dusan, I'm here with you on the the other side of the world from where we were just a couple couple weeks together there in India.

Dusan Matuska: 1:02

That's true. That's true. We traveled quite far from that. And pleasure to be here again in the Bitcoin country. And thank you for invitation.

Mike Peterson: 1:10

Yeah, did you come straight here from the in India, or did you have a stopover somewhere?

Dusan Matuska: 1:17

I did a two day stop over in Slovakia, okay, in our in our base with Diana, and Diana stayed there. She was like, I don't want to travel anymore. I'm like, I get it. I get it. So I just go alone. And, yeah, but my mental, you know, clocks are still little bit shifted from all the all the time changes, but it's getting better. Yeah.

Mike Peterson: 1:36

So I was, I was kind of surprised to see, I think was before the conference, I saw that you were going to be a speaker there in India. I didn't, I didn't expect to have anybody there that I that I knew. So what? How did that happen? I know I think you were there like the the week before the conference, doing workshops and other things. So explain to me how that all came together and what your involvement is in India.

Dusan Matuska: 2:01

So few months ago, I would never say that I will do some education in India, or I will go there for Bitcoin related things. But so far, we are working. We have four Indian colleagues in the company. So India started to be in a place where we were like, Okay, let's, let's do some education there. And we got together with people from bitscaler, from from bitplex, and we decided like, Okay, let's do an academy together. So something that we are doing for more than a year now, that we did also here in Salvador, the Bitcoin educators Academy. So that was a three day Academy, but we piloted a new project as well, called Bitcoin mining Academy, which was a three day, again, dedicated, very intense Academy about understanding mining from all the perspectives, the good and the bad and the ugly, and doing all of calculations, basically understanding logistics, hardware, software, everything that comes, comes in it. We had 25 people there. So it was a big success three days, then the conference, and then three days the educators Academy. So I was pretty drained, yeah, after that, but it was super worth it. You know, seeing people excited about education. And some of the participants did both of the academy. So they did, like, seven days of self teaching. I'm like, guys, like, I respect you so much. Like, you put so much effort into that. So, yeah, there was, there was why we came. And I became very bullish on India and Indian Bitcoiners. I had amazing conversations with people. They were asking very deep questions, asking for like the mentorship devices. I saw a huge dedication in them that they want to grow, they want to learn, and that filled me with with a lot of hope that India can be a place where next wave of adoption can tremendously happen.

Mike Peterson: 3:44

Yeah, there was, I definitely sense that while I was there, but I sense two things that that also maybe question, like, how quickly adoption will take off in India. So one was that just a general sense of fear of the government there, and kind of a hesitancy, like, because the government has been pretty negative on Bitcoin, and I think, you know, we face that thing, same thing in the US, but I think Americans are generally like when the government tells you not to do something that makes us want to do it more. And in India, it seemed a little bit of the opposite. It seemed like, generally, people, you know are more compliance minded, so curious for your take on that. But then also, when they have the what's their system? They're called the UPI system, the like governmental lightning, the governmental lightning, yes, I like that. So yeah, they have their their system that basically allows them to do electronic purchases without any all the small stores have it, the government basically subsidizes it. You know, it's free, but we all know nothing's free, so free lunch that that the cost of that free system is the government has totally control and knows everything people spend, receive and so and. Look to me, it's like a backdoor cbdc. So I'm just curious as to your thoughts on those two aspects, and if that gives you any pause, or if you think, no, it's that's all positive, just with the technical capabilities of the population there and the forward thinking, you think that the Bitcoin adoption is some going to happen quickly.

Dusan Matuska: 5:21

I don't think it will happen quickly. I think as precisely as you said, people are slightly afraid, and they are aware that the government is not fully on board. When I spoke with them, they they want to build. They are really like learning, self custody, non KYC approach, building the little circular economies. So I feel that they still want to do things and develop kind of under the radar in some way. You know, the biggest conference will be there next year, and in January, there should be a conference namaste Bitcoin, which would be a Bitcoin only. I think Bitcoin magazine is doing something there as well. Oh, really, yeah. I mean, I had no idea, but on their website, it says 50,000 people are already registered. And I don't I think today I was speaking with Sunil, is our colleague from India, and he told me there's already 70,000 is there

Mike Peterson: 6:13

like for in person, or is this people that are online, com?

Dusan Matuska: 6:18

It seems in person. I don't believe it, honestly, but that's what the website says. So I'm like, let's find out. It's 1.5 billion people exactly, exactly. So it might be possible, but kind of fitting that many people into some kind of venue, I don't know. So I think generally the population is super interested. The regulation is not very favorable, favorable right now, but within the Bitcoin community, there is something called the Bitcoin Policy Institute coming together, which they are putting ideas towards the government of how we can do mining. And Sunil is our head of mining, and he's the main guy leading the mining initiatives. And he written a paper how the mining can be utilized in India and and so on. So I see hope, and I think the upcoming months, maybe next year, can tell us more about if it's more, if it's going to be expanding more, or if we need to wait a little bit more. So I'm bullish for the people, not super bullish on the government. I mean, let's see what, what

Mike Peterson: 7:17

will happen as the electricity costs. Are there places in the country where mining is feasible?

Dusan Matuska: 7:24

Within India, yeah, depends on the state. So funny thing happened to us that one of our students of the mining Academy, he came to us after he said, like, hey, Dushan, you know, I'm working in this in this company, and it's a pretty big family office, and I don't want to tell you who we are, but Sunil would know, and we are interested in doing mining, because we have excess amount of electricity, and I'm talking in 1000s of megawatts, so insane amount. So this family is pretty solidly big in India. We met with them, so they invited us on a meeting, and they told us, Hey, we are very interested in using our X amount of electricity to do Bitcoin mining. Let's figure out if it's possible, how it's possible, if you can help us with that, I'm like, wow. Like, this is serious. Like, they are not a small guys, yeah. So I think it's doable within these kind of relationships that somebody already produces electricity, they cannot use it in terms of daily or regular retail price, not doable very much. I think it's over 10 cents. So not very suitable for regular mining from the grid. So I think you need to, you need to find some stranded energy, and that's the way to do it. So we want to explore it, see if it's doable or not, then we're going to tell

Mike Peterson: 8:42

Okay, well, we kind of jumped right into things. I know you've been on the show before, and a lot of people know you, but just for people who who don't know you and what you guys do, give us, you know, just a two minute you know, synopsis of who Doosan is and what you guys do.

Dusan Matuska: 8:58

Okay, so, yeah, I'm Dusan Dushan in Slovak language, Dushan means Seoul. So I am a soul guy, and I'm a Bitcoin educator for nine years already, and basically we are as an AmityAge, as a company that we founded. Our aim is to bring or welcome 100 million people in the Bitcoin rabbit hole. How are we going to do it? Through education, helping new educators come into the space, give them tools to educate better, to scale it up and become sustainable. My background is in teaching. So I was teaching math, physics and English before, and I just fall in love with the premise of teaching, right? So anything I learned I was passionate about, I was trying to, kind of teach it. It was dancing, sailing and all of that. So when I get into Bitcoin, I just like, This is my thing, and wanted to scale it up. We started Bitcoin mining. Currently we have it in Ethiopia, opening Zambia and Norway,

Mike Peterson: 9:53

maybe India. Have you guys totally moved out of Paraguay? Oh, yes. Okay, yeah.

Dusan Matuska: 9:56

I think when we were last time on the podcast, and we were mostly in. Paraguay only in Paraguay. We left Paraguay and 1000 machines, 400 moved out. 600 we sold. So it was

Mike Peterson: 10:10

a just become the governmental structure. There was

Dusan Matuska: 10:14

a mix of things. So one thing was that the price increased twice, and it started to be already painful, already like, very low margins. And if clients had machines with us, and they need to make money, we need to make money. So suddenly the margin starts to be, like, unreasonable, yeah. So plus, you know what we learned is that the government will, let's say the President is not very Bitcoin friendly, although there are meetups right now happening, big ones, and there's a lot of Bitcoiners that have moved, yes, yes, exactly. So I hope it will change. I mean, in the long run, I think it will, but short term, upcoming year, 123, for us, it wasn't feasible anymore. And in Ethiopia, we got much better deal. And just the cost to move the machine will be returned, or was returning like two months, okay, right? So it was more, more, you know, easier for us to move, plus, from Slovakia, we're a core team, you know, CTO is there, so they just have a direct flight Vienna to Addis Ababa. So even logistically, it makes more sense. If we need to travel back and forth, makes sense. So, yeah, we are there with couple of 1000s of machines there right now, and

Mike Peterson: 11:21

we still, and that seems to be like, the major hub for mining now is, well, Ethiopia. There's a

Dusan Matuska: 11:26

there's 1000s and 10s of 1000s of machines. But there are, again, there were some changes recently, just two weeks ago, that the main power company, EEP electric Ethiopian electric power, they increased price basically, end of October, they said, Hey, from December, there's, there's this new, new price list, and we are increasing the price by 30% and you're like, What are you talking about? It's crazy for us miners. And what they said, next year, we're going to increase another 25% and next year, another 25% so suddenly people are like, What the heck? So it doesn't make economic sense, because if they push miners out, yeah, they're losing dozens and hundreds of millions of dollars of us revenue for them, it's, it's a, it's a blot for the economy, because they cannot buy things outside of the country without dollars. So eep became the biggest central bank of dollars for the whole country, which is crazy. So there is a huge oppression against it. Like, Hey, come on, guys. Like, why are you doing that?

Mike Peterson: 12:29

We have Do they understand that miners will leave.

Dusan Matuska: 12:33

Well, I would say there are some conspiracies. And again, I don't know we are investigating right now, but some people say that what might happen is the government tries to push miners out, and they will buy cheap machines, and they will mine on their own right. That's one way to do it. EU, which is a utility Electric Company in Ethiopia, didn't increase the prices. We have contract with them, and in their PPA agreement power purchase agreement, they say, if we increase prices, we need to do it one year in advance, so that gives us more control. And we ask them, like, Hey, are you also going to increase prices? Like, No, we're good. Okay, so we should be fine, but it's turbulent. And this is when a miner, you know, if there are some miners listening to this, they probably will feel it. I love this quote that we didn't start mining because it was easy. We started mining because we thought it will be easy. And I feel it day to day. You know? I mean, I feel

Mike Peterson: 13:31

like miners, that you guys, they love, you guys, had to move more than then. Then tether did as far as I feel like tether was chased all around the world. Miners are chased all around the world. Don't tell anybody by the prices,

Dusan Matuska: 13:44

like it was crazy. So imagine we have clients from five years ago, when we started mining and we started in Slovakia. Then the situation changed. We needed to move to a different location in Slovakia, the same machines. Then the price increase and war in Ukraine came in, so we needed to move again Czech Republic, then we moved again to Paraguay, and then we moved again to Ethiopia. So these machines traveled more than a lot of people in their life so far. So our clients are like, Hey guys, please don't do it anymore. I don't want to do it, but I want to give you the best surveys and the best options, and this is what I can do for you. So it is. It's not an easy task, and I feel already fully committed. Like, okay, these clients, trust us, they bought machines we host for them, and I just cannot, just, like, turn this off like that. So I feel I want to give the best, and that requires traveling. And so, yeah, it's, it's a painful thing. You know, we miners. We love to suffer.

Mike Peterson: 14:47

So have you spent much time in Ethiopia?

Dusan Matuska: 14:49

Not that much, honestly, altogether, maybe two, three weeks. Okay, so we have a local team there. We traveled recently. I was there, like, what about two months ago? So we are opening a new site. So actually, yes, right there we see it. If people go to mth.com and go to white to mine, if you click the button, you will see our new site. So they're our local partners, Sunil, the head of mining, next to Homer, CTO Arman, another Indian guy is amazing guy. So, so that's our local team, or just part of it. So yeah, we did Ethiopia for a few days, and then we went to Uganda, which is another interesting journey, because we came there to solve a waste problem with mining. Okay? So they asked us to come to build a technology, or to bring the technology that called plasma gasification, that can turn waste into energy and into Bitcoin. Because what happened there last year, in August, their largest landfill in Kampala collapsed, and it killed 30 people. So very minute collapsed.

Mike Peterson: 15:54

It just just slide. Is just collapsed. They build. There was air pockets in it, and it just,

Dusan Matuska: 15:59

it was a, it's a big mismanagement, you know, they were just piling everything up without a proper compaction, yes, and proper planning, and suddenly, just there were like, cracks appearing in the whole structure of the landfill in, like, June or July last year. And people were like, hey, something's wrong with this. And the government was kind of like, and don't worry, don't worry. And August, it just one little village, or one little area was just covered with that, and 30 people died there. So very terrible accident. So suddenly it became a topic number one. And I met with my friend, who is an ambassador from Slovakia to Uganda. He told me that this is the issue. I told him, there are some projects around the world where Bitcoiners turn waste into Bitcoin. Was like, dude, let's tell it to the ambassadors. They will be here next week. Come to the dinner and tell them. I'm like, okay, so we did a dinner, and I told them, hey, this is how mining can help. I explained them. I did the presentation, and they were like, one lady was there. She's from a Ministry of Energy. And she was scrolling her phone, like, hey, you know, I have this binance. And I thought, like, yeah, Bitcoin is just about trading, but now when you explain the whole energy thing, like, it makes total sense we need this. So they invited us to come. We they took us on landfills and places where we can take the waste from. We told them how the technology works, what type of waste we need, and right now, we're in the process of assessing the waste quality, if it produces enough, something called a syngas

Mike Peterson: 17:29

and what is, what is the waste quality like, how does, how does that?

Dusan Matuska: 17:33

So for the special specifically for this technology, for the plasma gasification, you mostly need a high ratio of plastics, cardboards, paper or wood. This is the best source you can dump in anything into it, because this burns at the temperatures one and a half 1000 degrees and above. So very high temperatures. It can burn anything. And what cannot be burned, it just melts. And you can put it aside so you can create and you need to create gas, and the more gas you have in the best quality, the more megawatts of energy, of electricity you can produce. So we are right now assessing that if we do a project that will decrease the waste by 150 tons a day, that will be our intake. In the best combination, we can run a farm of 12 to 15 megawatts, right? If the quality of waste is not enough, if we cannot get to a ratio that's, that's, that's good, we cannot run, you know, let's say 10 megawatts or six megawatts, at least. It doesn't make economic sense to even start a project because it's a huge financial investment. So, yeah, that's kind of the phase that we are at right now, and

Mike Peterson: 18:41

are there existing operations that are that are using this technology and mining from it? Not yet. Okay, not yet. I know there was someone else that actually approached us about doing something, you know, similar along those, those lines, on a very small scale, so, but I'm always like, I don't know. I feel like this could really be done. I'd hear about it being done somewhere else. And so I'm always a skeptic.

Dusan Matuska: 19:05

It's definitely, actually, it's not a it's not a complicated project. It just requires couple of things. So you need to have, again, the proper feedstock, proper quality of waste, ideally very homogeneous, so it shouldn't vary from day to day. So let's say, if we consume 150 tons every day in the best possible way, we should get the same ratio or similar ratio every day. That's one thing the other. If these projects, generally, they the governments or municipalities pay you for the waste that you reduce in Uganda, sadly, they don't have budgets for it. So they tell you, Hey guys, I'm sorry, here's the waste. You can take it, but we cannot pay anything. I'm like, so suddenly that revenue stream is not there. So the only revenue stream for us is the Bitcoin mining, and that's where we need to do a proper calculations and risk assessment, if it even makes sense. But we found in Uganda that there is a private collector. Who's collecting medical waste, which is, you know, glass vials and a lot of plastics as well. And he's paying to burn this to get rid of this waste, $300 a ton, which is significant amount, if we if he pays to us just $250 and he doesn't need to travel 200 miles to dump the medical waste, about 30 tons a day. We can get the medical waste, and that suddenly changes the game. So this is where we are right now, like looking at the sources of waste. So and yeah, just two revenue streams, Bitcoin mining and paying you for reduction of waste. You just put it together, you do some risk assessment, you see how the difficulty might scale. And if it makes sense, long term, you put you look at your capex, your OPEX, and you can go for it, but you need to. It's operation that runs 24/7, these plasma gasifiers, the guys actually building this. This is crazy. They are Bitcoiners. So one of the founders, Edward, his ex brains, guy from a slush pool, originally, he left to us, started this company. They produced these gasifiers so they understand all the Bitcoin mechanics. And they are doing a pilot project right now, in January, will be open in us. So we would be probably, if we go for it, it will be the first one that really connects mining with the waste reduction. And I already got approached by different countries that if it succeeds in Uganda, they would like to have it as well. So let's see. This might be a project for us. I would love to see Bitcoin helping in the environment this way. But there are a lot of risks with this, you know, into so.

Mike Peterson: 21:39

So if Uganda, you've already run into this that they they can't pay other than potentially this, this medical waste provider. Why? Why specifically look there? And I'm just curious, why not El Salvador? I mean, El Salvador is a small country where waste is an issue. Just because the land is all in use. There's not, you know, areas that just bury it, and it's a pretty densely populated country, and they definitely produce a lot of plastic here. So I'm curious if you guys looked at all at El Salvador,

Dusan Matuska: 22:11

honestly, not yet. This is a topic that's basically two months old. Okay, so it really happens everything very fast. And since we are opening sites in like Zambia and Norway, the Uganda is kind of slowly going. We are doing the assessments and analysis. But I didn't have the capacity to be like, oh, let's take this and search different places. So for us, the main part is like stability, the legal stability. So if we bring technology for 10s of millions of dollars, we need to make sure that this technology will be maintained properly and the rules will not change. So if Salvador, I mean, I can totally imagine it in Salvador. You know, one more reason to come here and enjoy and spend more time in Salvador.

Mike Peterson: 22:52

Well, and they're, they're looking to do mining here in El Salvador, but it's the one of the challenges is electricity prices are high in El Salvador, and so I think the something like this that reduced waste but also produced cheap energy, I think the government would get behind it for a number of reasons. I mean, even just narrative wise, it's a win for the government if they were leading the way in doing this in a way that was helping the environment and producing Bitcoin. So totally, yeah, I would, I would definitely,

Dusan Matuska: 23:24

let's figure it out. If naive, if you're watching, I mean, come on, we can, we can do something.

Mike Peterson: 23:29

Let's mine Bitcoin in here. Let's get rid of some trash. Yeah, get rid of the plastic.

Dusan Matuska: 23:33

I mean, you know how it goes. I don't know if, when you were young, what profession you wanted to be when you were a kid, astronaut, or,

Mike Peterson: 23:41

I can't even remember, too old now, I want to be a football player one time.

Dusan Matuska: 23:47

I mean, in Slovakia, a lot of kids, including me, wanted to be like these dumpster guys that are riding the dumpster van in the end. You know, just like working with trash. Yeah, and I'm laughing, because when we started mining, we were turning cow shit into Bitcoins. We were a proper shit.

Mike Peterson: 24:02

Yeah, go back and watch the previous episode. We did yes on we talked about that exactly.

Dusan Matuska: 24:08

So now it's kind of getting back again. So my childhood dream is being fulfilled because we're gonna be a Trash Trash company turning trash into Bitcoin. So that might be, that might be the destiny where we're going, and all this project that connects the the Bitcoin as as a technology, with something that people can very easily see that it's helping, like reducing the waste. I mean, if you reduce the waste by 150 tons a day. I mean, that's significant, right? And you can scale, actually, this technology, you can go from 50, that's one unit, 50 tons a day of of input, you can go to 20 units in a row. So you can go into 1000 tons a day, which is significant. And if you can prove that this is possible thanks to Bitcoin mining, because that pays the bills, and that makes it all possible, it's a beautiful case. My.

Mike Peterson: 25:00

A pushback. And the skeptic of me would say, Okay, if this is so feasible, why aren't they just doing it is for pure electric generation. And all you know, a lot of these countries that have trash issues also have, you know, not enough electrical capacity. And so what is keeping them from just instead of building a new power plant, doing this and kind of killing two birds with one stone,

Dusan Matuska: 25:25

I will tell you. And Uganda was a specific case for that. I was this was exactly my question and concern, like, why Bitcoin mining? You can just put it to the grid. And they said exactly, not because our grid is over capacitated, like there's more supply and it already the grid is, first of all, is not very well maintained, so there are outages. If we if this energy from this, these gasifiers will be put into the grid, it can destabilize the frequencies, so they cannot actually put it to the grid. This is the problem. This is what I was speaking to them like. This is why a lot of

Mike Peterson: 26:03

is it different than if they just added another power plant? Are you saying it's just because the grid's already at max capacity, or the type of energy produced by this process is somehow less usable by the grid?

Dusan Matuska: 26:17

It's a combination of factors. So why? And I was speaking with the with the municipality and the government, like, why nobody did it. Because, first of all, the grid wouldn't pay enough to justify the whole capex, the long term ROI would be very, very long. Plus, if the government cannot pay for the trash, I mean, in Kampala, in the main city, they told us they can in a different city, where we went to a smaller one, they told they don't have a budget. So it's a combination of various factors. And the energy factor was that they told us the grid wouldn't like it if I simplified, right? Because they have a huge surplus from hydro. I mean, this is new thing for me. Like, the more I travel to Africa, the more I realize, like almost, not almost every country, a lot of countries are huge on hydropower, which, in my child mind before, I was like, oh, Africa, it's dry, not enough water. It's desert, right? Years ago, but African countries, especially right now, Ethiopia is 95% hydropower. Uganda is selling its electricity to countries around they have excess amount, right? That's why they don't need to put anything more into the grid. They need to get rid of it. They need to sell it somewhere. They need consumers. So we, I already told them that, hey, with mining, we can even scale more megawatts that will not come from the trash reduction, but it will come from the grid we can consume. And some people, okay, that makes sense. And another crazy thing in Uganda is that normally, the relationships between the government or power production and the user is that they provide you power. If you don't use it, you are still paying some reserved capacity. In Uganda, it's opposite, so you as the user. So basically, government, if they don't consume what they contracted, they pay penalty to the to the private energy producers. And people are super pissed because they're like, Hey, you miscalculated your consumptions. Now you're paying penalties from our own taxes. Like that doesn't make sense, so we told them, like, Hey guys, instead of you paying penalty for not, especially if they're paying penalties for not using exactly, can you imagine? And instead just giving us, giving, give it to us for free, you don't need to pay any penalty. We consume anything you give us, and problem solve. And they're like, huh, that makes sense. So the this is a problem like people, especially in government, they don't understand Bitcoin, first as a technology. They and even deeper level is understanding the energy aspect of it and how it can integrate the what benefit it brings. And I'm not blaming them. They have different things to do, right? But once you explain them, and you have compassion and patience to explain it, suddenly they're like, Okay, this can solve a lot of our problems, plus a PR. Of course, that's what populist want in the end, but they understand it can solve a lot of problems with the grids, if they see it as a consumer of last resort, if they see it as a battery, right? So I think we need to be more patient with them to explain them. Hey, this is what it is. This how it can help you? Let's figure something out, right? So, I mean, let's see how it goes. Maybe next year, when I come we will already be doing that, maybe in Salvador, you never know. So I'm excited for these types of projects. This is kind of what MIT stands for. You know MIT as the word translates into cooperation, fellowship, friendship and harmony and peace. And we see Bitcoin as a tool that can really get us to the age of peace, to the age of Amity. And these projects are really, in my opinion, like fulfilling this premise, this this mission, that they can help to show that Bitcoin is a tool for this cooperation.

Mike Peterson: 29:59

I love that. So tell us what is going on with all the educational initiatives. I know we were scrolling through the website here, and you've got, I mean, all over the world, you guys are doing trainings and so tell people a little bit more about that. I'm just

Dusan Matuska: 30:15

looking at the pictures right now and smiling because I remember all these moments. So September, Bali, Indonesia. It was our largest cohort, and we had two groups. There, 17 people

Mike Peterson: 30:29

wanted so bad to go to the that was tied to the conference.

Dusan Matuska: 30:32

There, yes, yes, yes. And we already realized that it's the best thing is to do it before the conference. And the reason was that out of 17 people, eight of them were speaking at the Bali conference, and they came to us after their speech. They're like, hey guys. No, we applied what you told us. It was amazing. It worked. I felt amazing. I didn't feel stressed. I was understandable. I used the analogies. And they came with with this, you know, spark in their eyes, like, oh, what you told us these last three days really works. And I'm like, yes, there was amazing. So that's on.

Mike Peterson: 31:05

Let me just, I just want dive into that a bit, because I think that's one thing a lot of people don't understand. You guys aren't just teaching people about Bitcoin. You are explaining to them how to be teachers. So it's not so much the Bitcoin concepts themselves, but the whole theory behind teaching and what allows people to learn, because a lot of times you're just very smart Bitcoiners, but you talk to them and you're like, I don't understand anything you said. It just all went over my head.

Dusan Matuska: 31:29

It's like letting you drink from a fire hose. It's like, boom, all the facts, all the technicalities. So this is where I felt that we Bitcoiners, you know, need to have more knowledge and communication and get better with communication skills, because there's a ton of great resources for learning. What is Bitcoin, how it works, and all the tech, everything and economics around it. But I didn't find the resources. Was teaching, okay? And this is how you teach it to others. This is how you communicate it in a way that it's understandable. And my background, when I said I was in teaching, I was also doing train, the trainer academies. So I was traveling around the Europe as a student teacher, and I was teaching students to do trainings and public speaking. So I took that knowledge, mix it with Bitcoin, and created the Bitcoin educators Academy. So this is exactly a soft skill Academy. Actually, on the website, you can read that this academy is not about learning what is Bitcoin. It's about learning how to communicate Bitcoin efficiently and in simple terms. So we are having sessions on how to use analogies, how to create them and use them, how to debug myths, how to handle objections. This is my most favorite session objection handling in a different way that we are taught it in the schools or in our daily lives, that you can take it and apply it in your daily life, for your partner, communication, raising kids within your company, with colleagues, with your boss. So a lot of frameworks that we teach on ba are transferable to a daily life. And this is what people come when they come after some time. Actually Dimas, he was one of the participants in Bali. He was right now teaching with us in Goa in India, and he told me, Hey, Dushan, you know, I learned about his handling objections, and then I applied it with my son, and our relationship changed completely. I'm like, Man, I love to hear this, like, it's so beautiful when, when people come with, like, Wow. I applied this with my relationship, with my with my wife, man, it's like a new life of like, yes. So this is beautiful, you know, it's, it's not about teaching, because there is, there are amazing resources. You know, Mi Primer Bitcoin, the Bitcoin the Bitcoin diploma, and they're building new things. Plan B has ton of resources on the network. So when we were designing the projects and programs, I was like, I don't want to recreate the wheel. Like, why we should be competing again with, oh, this is how we teach Bitcoin. You know, there's already a ton of stuff, yeah. Like, let's focus on something like the niche that is not fulfilled yet where we can add the most amount of value, and that was educating the educators. So this is our flagship project. Everybody who goes through the program becomes alumni, and they are automatically in our ongoing learning program, which is an online program where we offer more workshops. They have chance to practice their public speaking skills, get a feedback. So it's a lot about interactions, feedback. It's a very intense Academy where we don't use computers, we don't use phones. It's very offline. You have a paper and a pen. We work in groups. There's a lot of interaction, lot of public speaking feedback. So it's, it's very immersive experience for people and and, yeah. And then we, we practice it as the year goes by. You know, with every month some sessions and so on. Currently, we are already having 160 alum eyes from last year and this year, in December, actually, in few weeks. Weeks we are doing the first be a 2.0 which is the same three days that we taught, but going deeper, going even more into self discovery of your educators niche, giving you more personal branding as an educator, how to become sustainable, like if you want to live as a Bitcoin educator and do it full time, here are the steps how you can do it. This is what works for me or for others. This what can be done, plus other stuff, more psychology, self awareness, as an educator, what triggers you when you're speaking to shit coiners? You know? Why are you so clinked into like, oh, I cannot speak to them because I'm threatened about they having Ethereum. And I tell Okay, so instead of you slapping their face with like, Oh, your shit corner. Like, look inside of you. Like, what triggers you? Like, Are you unsure that you're sitting on the right chair? Are you unsure that you're doing the right choice? Like, where's the fear coming from? Why are you not calm and just trying to understand from a curiosity perspective, why that person has a theory. So this is kind of the the idea of the BA teach, teaching people to be more self aware and become better humans in the end. Because, you know, there is this fix the money, fix the world. I see it more as fix ourselves, fix the world, if we will be better human beings. I think we can fix the world much faster.

Mike Peterson: 36:23

So I'm curious if there, I know kind of your, I don't know if it's still your main headquarters, but kind of where you guys really started was there in prospera, in Honduras. How are things in Prosper any updates on the legal side? Does it still exist? What's, yeah,

Dusan Matuska: 36:42

what's the update? There still exists, I would say, still thriving.

Mike Peterson: 36:45

And just maybe explain to people that don't know what prospera is. Yes.

Dusan Matuska: 36:49

So prospera is a private jurisdiction on the island of Roatan, which belongs to Honduras. It's a small place where you can run is the only jurisdiction in the world where you can run your company fully on Bitcoin, meaning you can do accountant accountancy fully in Bitcoin, so you don't need to account for dollars or Fiat anymore. I'm paying my taxes as a company in Bitcoin. So when you type in your income, it asks you, Hey, do you want to pay with credit card or with Bitcoin? Click, Bitcoin over, lightning. Boom, paid. So two minutes my tax return takes so it's a very interesting place, very freedom focused. You can set up a company in 15 minutes. You can set up your residency in 15 minutes. And three years ago, we set up a Bitcoin Center there to help prospera get more into Bitcoin, but to help educate people on Roatan outside of prospera as well, get them more educated on Bitcoin in school. So we work with schools businesses. We onboarded 70 businesses there. So for me, prospera is is the best example of a private jurisdiction experiment. And what I tell to people like, one of the best things about prospera is that it can go bankrupt, and people are like, What do you mean? I mean, if something can go bankrupt as a business, you think differently. Because normally, if governments cannot go bankrupt very much, they just spending like crazy. But if you're a business, then you suddenly think about your customers as customers. So the most refreshing thing when I came there was the feeling that I'm treated as a client, as a customer. You know, I'm not a tech slave here. I'm a co creator, and this is why we decided to set up the business there. So, yes, there was this issue, the political issue, you know, government being socialist doesn't like something as capitalist as prospera, of course.

Mike Peterson: 38:39

So they try to established in a prior administration. Yes, the current one is exactly

Dusan Matuska: 38:45

and the thing was that prospera legally has a 50 Years of freedom to exist, and this is tied into on their own constitution and international treaties. So even the government cannot just change it like that, although they pretend they can, but they cannot. So what happened? There was tension. They closed one buildings because, you know, bunch of things, but legally they cannot cancel Prospero. Prospero is like, Okay, guys, you know, we would love to resolve it peacefully, but socialists didn't want to communicate. Right now, in November, there are elections. The guy who seems to win, he has the biggest following, the biggest support. He was already in prospera. What about two years ago? One year ago, and this cab, the Media head he was wearing international TV when he was giving an interview. So he had a Bitcoin logo on his head with MIT logo here. So he was very interested in Bitcoin, and I'm curious some people see him as a populist, because his career is he's a TV commentator on sports. So he doesn't have, like, a political background, which can be good as well. So if he went. Should be good for prospera, for Bitcoin, for the for the people. It's still a politician, so I'm being very careful with giving him support, like, hey, that's the guy. But it seems that the socialists will not win, and if they don't prosper, should be very much thriving again. And there are a lot of investors waiting on the sideline to put capital in, to invest after this administration comes in. So let's see. So I'm just flying there today, actually, in the in one hour, I'm going to the airport to

Mike Peterson: 40:31

hopefully your Uber gets here on time. We don't make you miss your plane.

Dusan Matuska: 40:35

If I miss I come and we can do episode 2.0 so I'm going there. I haven't been there for a few months because I was in Europe, traveling, doing education and India and everywhere. And again, we go there in January for four months as every year we go. There's a time of year where I love to spend time there, because it's winter in Slovakia, and I love to get away from there. My dad is coming as well again. So he loves it there. He's taking this little boat we have there a customer, and taking people, they pay him with Bitcoin. So, so I'm excited. I mean, it's moving slowly. It's going there are new people coming in. We have to make who's a great guy, the co founder or organizer of Bitcoin Film Fest, great bitcoiner, and he's building a Bitcoin district in Prospero. Bitcoin what? Bitcoin district? District? So it's a mixture of events, mixture of real estate called Orangeville. Okay, so you can, you can buy your little property there, which should be mostly for Bitcoiners. We want to organize a conference. So actually, the day, the day officially, actually 17. Today, officially starts the bit chill, which is a two week retreat on the RAT for Bitcoiners in January. There is a conference for Bitcoiners com called bitcoinville, so we start to do more things. And I'm happy that I'm not alone there anymore with my team, with Ariana and others, but Tommy came in to support, to help, you know, prospera get more orange. So, so, yeah, it's slowly going. I mean, there are issues. So we are solving some transportation issues on the island, which is not so easy to get around, but it's getting better and better. So yes, I mean, it's still some people, when they come, they expect, oh, it's already built out. Everything is working perfectly. Like, guys, this is not how it works. Like we come to build we're not come to like everything is solved.

Mike Peterson: 42:29

Well, just like they expected in El Salvador, it'd be overnight everybody using

Dusan Matuska: 42:33

Bitcoin, yes. So that's not the case, yeah. So we tell them, hey, you know, we set up the expectations properly. You know, you don't expect everybody accepts Bitcoin. It's a journey. It's a work. So we continue the work, and it's slowly getting for the better. People listen to it more and and I'm super excited to come there for four months in January to, like, again, get to the frontier, yeah, get to the ground, and just help, help the team

Mike Peterson: 43:01

to do it. I'm curious if, with Honduras being, you know, a next door neighbor here to El Salvador, and El Salvador, you know, is kind of booming right now, and I think a lot of other places in the region look to naive bukele and his style of leadership, and want something like that. Are you seeing any impact in Honduras, them, them being neighbors. As far as the Honduran people want, you know, saying, hey, we want to be more like El Salvador. Oh yeah.

Dusan Matuska: 43:29

Oh yeah. I mean, when we speak about Bitcoin to locals, many of them are like, yeah, bukele Salvador. Like, they know that Bitcoin and Salvador are somehow connected and and they see Salvador as a role model for them even. And this is crazy even the socialist president that's right now, Xiomara Castro, she sees, and she publicly said that Salvador and bukele is role model for for Honduras. So even the socialists admit it. It means that it should help, and it is helping, already to create this narrative of like, okay, it's a next door neighbor. They are doing pretty good. They are somehow connected to Bitcoin, so I see that it is helping with our education efforts quite a lot.

Mike Peterson: 44:19

That makes a lot of sense. Well, I don't want you to miss your your Uber ride. Is there anything else you want to make sure we cover before you end we get you to the airport?

Dusan Matuska: 44:29

Yeah, I would be just going renting for forever. But no, I was just right now on a meeting with with friend of mine, with Jess and her partner, and I was just telling them that this year, Salvador trip, adopting and unconference and everything was, for me, very beautiful experience, because I spoke with a lot of people out we had very deep conversation, not like a shallow one, like, Hey, how are you? What's up? But we spent talking about non Bitcoin things in. Some way. And I used to tell that the best conversation I had with Bitcoiners were not about Bitcoin, and we were speaking about the cost consciousness and and self awareness and education and being more present, so very kind of a broader general topics and very spiritual things. And I'm so excited that the US Bitcoiners, or the people I categorize as Bitcoiners, we are, once we get bitcoin to a certain level and of understanding, then we are taking that knowledge or that framework and applying it for different areas of our lives, like health. You know, I spoke with a guy who's five years carnivore, eating only lamb. He told me this infinite amount of energy. He fixed his knee problems, back problems, joint so many things. So I

Mike Peterson: 45:49

mean, I've been doing carnivore diet for the last two and a half months, and I feel so much better. It's amazing. It's shocking. Because in your mind, you think like, oh, that sounds so unhealthy. But I kept seeing so many Bitcoiners, and the ones that, most of the ones that were in very good shape, very energetic, were living on a carnivore diet. So I was like, Okay, I've got to try it. And I've got to say, Yeah, my knees don't hurt anymore. I used to be when I wake up in the morning, I just like, get out of bed. Like, now I'm like, It's been amazing, man.

Dusan Matuska: 46:16

Love to hear that. And yeah, I was 10 years vegetarian, and I got to meet two years ago, and my mind functions on a different level already, and I'm not a pure carnivore yet. Maybe we'll get there.

Mike Peterson: 46:29

But I was few weeks that would be very there a great story going from vegetarian to carnivore.

Dusan Matuska: 46:34

Like, I was, like, honestly, like, it's a big story I will tell you next time. But immediately after finishing my vegetarian career, I I spent one week actually drinking bone broth only. So I for for seven days, I didn't eat anything solid. I was like my morning was half liter of bone broth. Lunch, the same, dinner, the same for seven days, and I was like shit. After one day, I'll be hungry like crazy. Seven days in, I never felt hunger. My mind was like next level, like a laser focused beam that I can just sit and focus on thing, and I go on for hours. I slept like maybe five, six hours energy, next level thing. And then I spent a couple of next weeks as a carnivore as well, which my mind gets so much better, because I had a mental fog before, a few weeks before, I couldn't remember some words, like I was like, What is going on? Like the mental like mood changes and anxiety. So then, for logistical reasons, I stopped being carnivore because I was traveling. It was kind of tough. It's definitely some work. It is, it is, it requires some effort. So, so yeah, work for me great. And I'm super happy to hear that that works for you. And what I wanted to get to is like, Bitcoiners are applying these frameworks for different parts of life. And the biggest is kind of like, who are we? How the world works, like consciousness, like self awareness. So, so these kind of very spiritual topics. And you know, last few days, I had such an amazing conversation with Bitcoiners about these things that this trip for me was very amazing, very great. So you're leaving encouraged. I'm living very encouraged. I definitely am coming back, either for conferences I'm coming in January, and for a circular summit that we do. Pretty excited to do it, and maybe I come back. Also for the waste reduction and plasma gasification one day. Perfect.

Mike Peterson: 48:35

No. I mean, I think that there's huge potential here, and I think that's something that the government would get behind. And the great thing about is, when the government here gets government here gets behind something, they like, they make it happen. I'm sure you can see that just by, oh yeah, driving around the country and seeing everything

Dusan Matuska: 48:49

that's not a safety. I came for the first time in 21 and just seeing the or my feeling about moving around and feeling safe is like, it's it changed significantly. Do you feel it since you live here? So already that thing is, like, tremendous success, right? So let it be Bitcoin or not. Bitcoin just solving the security and safety issue is one of the best thing for the country that happened. So, yeah, I'm, I'm excited. Awesome.

Mike Peterson: 49:15

All right. Well, let's, let's get you on your your Uber so you don't miss your flight. But it's great. Great seeing you again this on it was fun seeing spending some time with you in India and and back here, and I still need to get over there to prosper us, maybe in January.

Dusan Matuska: 49:31

Perfect. Thank you, Mike. You.