Straight, No Chaser
Understanding Freedom through Money, Technology, Economics and Philosophy
Straight, No Chaser
Monthly Roundup 2: The Rise of Bitcoin Warlords
Currency failures are sweeping the globe at an alarming rate. In August alone, we witnessed the North Korean Kwon collapse, Iran's real lose 99% of its value, and multiple countries hacking zeros off their denominations in desperate attempts to mask hyperinflation. These aren't isolated incidents—they're symptoms of a fundamental breakdown in the fiat system.
What's particularly fascinating is how Bitcoin fits into this new geopolitical landscape. Countries traditionally labeled as "rogue states" may be the first to fully embrace Bitcoin out of necessity. North Korea's state-sponsored Lazarus Group has already stolen billions in cryptocurrency, reportedly funding their nuclear program. Iran, facing both currency collapse and military pressure, could follow a similar path—using Bitcoin to preserve economic power despite international sanctions. As one host provocatively suggested, the formula for national sovereignty might be reduced to "nuclear weapons and Bitcoin," with Bitcoin being the more accessible of the two.
Meanwhile, governments worldwide are cracking down on cryptocurrency—Burma banning VPNs, Algeria outlawing all crypto activity, and Turkey even detaining an academic for writing a research paper about blockchain. These desperate measures reveal growing institutional anxiety about losing control over financial systems. The podcast takes a philosophical turn, questioning whether democracy itself is fundamentally flawed as a mechanism for decentralizing power. Small, self-sufficient communities like Urania in South Africa might represent a glimpse of the future—places where people bypass failing governments altogether.
On the technical side, Miniscript (BIP 379) is revolutionizing inheritance planning by allowing programmable spending conditions without lawyers or third parties. However, a concerning trend of sub-one-satoshi transaction fees raises questions about Bitcoin's long-term security model as block rewards diminish. Will the system remain secure when miners rely primarily on transaction fees?
Ready to dive deeper into how Bitcoin is reshaping our world? Subscribe to Straight No Chaser for monthly roundups of the most impactful developments in the Bitcoin ecosystem and beyond.
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Hello everybody and welcome to the show. This is the Straight no Chaser podcast, where we talk about human flourishing through money, technology, economics and philosophy. This is our monthly roundup, episode episode number two, and we talk about all the events Bitcoin related that have happened in the previous month. We have a full house today. Ricky, okun and Harriman.
Speaker 1:We start the conversation off talking about four or five national currencies around the world that have suddenly experienced massive deflation in a pretty short space of time. We talk a little bit about political crackdowns, countries around the world that are trying to clamp down on this crypto and bitcoin thing. This is normally quite a tech heavy episode, the monthly roundup but this time we really do talk a lot about the state of the world at the moment nuclear issues between countries, bitcoin issues between countries where we feel things are not going well, chat about hopes for the future. We do chat about some tech issues as well at the end, so do stick around for that, but it is a great show. It's good to have everybody on board and I know you'll love it. Good morning, welcome guys. Herman, ricky and Nikolaj, welcome to the episode. Awesome to have you guys here Full house and just from the topics that have been posted around for today. It's going to be awesome.
Speaker 2:Anyway, welcome guys. Thanks, Gavin, Good to be here, Great to see you.
Speaker 1:The one hacking with the podcasting software for once it's such a relief to be on the receiving end the struggle is real. Every day there's a new button to click.
Speaker 4:I don't know what they think they're doing great to be back, guys, great to be back yeah, it's been a pretty interesting month.
Speaker 1:There's always something on the go, so it's great just to review back and see what have been the news items that have come through. I sort of kind of like to quite sort of stick them around like three basic topics happening, something in the tech side that's happening as well, and then anything that falls sort of in between economics or whatever relevant things come through as a matter of interest. Just on the currency failures I noticed in the month of August, we have had four fiat inflations of note that have taken place. I'll quickly read off here. North Korea the Kwon has fallen from 8,301 to 30,001 per US dollar in 18 months. Iran the real has lost 99% of its value. The government is docking four zeros of their currency. Bolivia annual inflation at 25%. Cuba 25% devaluation to the US dollar They've lost 94% value against the USD in the last few years. And Syria is hacking off two zeros from their currency 99% loss in value since 2011. That is the month of August. Welcome to Fiat World.
Speaker 2:Wow, fiatworld, wow, you can imagine what.
Speaker 1:Christmas is going to be like what.
Speaker 2:Christmas, the North Korean currency has been so resilient. Also, who's buying North Korean currency for dollars? Who's actually making that trade?
Speaker 1:I have no idea. I mean, I would be surprised that they can even get US dollars and the fact that there's an official number. But I suppose it goes to show it doesn't matter what the government says. People in the street are desperate and people in the street will do what they need to do. There must be a black market for US dollars there, there. I'd hate to be the guy caught with the award full of us dollars in my pocket, uh, but I guess there's a, there's a market with that real.
Speaker 3:I mean it lost, lost. It's lost 99.99 of its value. Over what period of time do you know? Uh, let me have a quick look um I mean like 99.99 is so close to 100 that yeah how how does it exist?
Speaker 1:uh, no idea. So they basically said a 10 000 real note is going to become a one real note. That's how they're taking four zeros off. So I think they just extrapolated and said I don't know what period of time that is. I'll have to go and check the report on that it doesn't make any sense.
Speaker 3:I don't understand it.
Speaker 2:Can we just go back to the North Korea one before we jump into Iran? I call bullshit on that story because North Korea has got zero trade with the USA literally zero. But they have recently got a lot of trade with Russia. Russia has signed a security agreement with North Korea and Russia has got. Russia is buying ammunition, artillery shells from North Korea. They've got a military cooperation. I mean, north Korea sent a bunch of troops over into Russia to fight in the coast. So I think, if anything, there is probably a black market with the Russian ruble happening in North Korea, and we also know that North Korea is probably the most active nation state user of Bitcoin as well.
Speaker 2:I do not know if you guys are familiar with the Lazarus Group. The Lazarus Group is a state-sponsored North Korean hacking group. State-sponsored is the wrong word for it. It is a full-on army unit within the North Korean army and they have been hacking people, exchanges, companies since 2011. They started out their big, infamous hack was they hacked Sony when Sony released that movie, the Interview. It was about to release the movie the Interview with Seth Rogen and James Franco, where they go and assassinate Kim Jong-il Kim Jong-il, whichever one's the guy in charge now the third generation, one, and they got wind of this.
Speaker 1:The one with the killer haircut.
Speaker 2:Well, they all had killer haircuts in their defense. So they got wind that this movie was being released and they hacked Sony, and they went so far as to commit credit card fraud on contractors ID numbers or social security numbers that they had managed to hack from the system. That's how hard they went. They got the ransomware back from them, from Sony, and still just proceeded to fuck Sony up. So that's where they got started.
Speaker 2:They then hacked crypto. They hacked the central bank of Bangladesh to the tune of something like $400 million no, it was in the billions actually. They also then hacked over 1000 ATM simultaneously in India around the same time, and then only did they get into hacking crypto exchanges, and I think the Singaporean exchange, okex, was the first one that they hacked. So, anyway, north Korea has been very active in stealing Bitcoin since then, and that was around about. I think the OKEx hack was like 2018. So, to tie back to the USD thing, I don't know where that number comes from. That was probably an American who made that number up, but if anything, their currency is probably going to be pegged to bitcoin at some point.
Speaker 3:Um, because that's really how they get forex and, like their, their hacks have been funding the nuclear program, so I just uh I just had a thought pop into my head as you were saying that I, what, what you, what you were describing there, I thought, thought to myself I mean the first people to use Bitcoin.
Speaker 3:The first major use case was obviously Silk Road. The first major application of Bitcoin as a form of money was to buy drugs Obviously most of it illegal drugs. It kind of makes sense that the worst countries in the world will be the first ones to adopt it. I wouldn't be surprised at all if places like North Korea have been stacking Bitcoin and getting their hands on as much of the stuff as possible for as long as possible, and that the cleaner countries the so-called cleaner countries are going to be the ones who hang on for as long as possible and try to do without it, like Germany. Yeah, exactly that's what just came to mind. It's a good thesis. It kind of mirrors the whole adoption curve on a personal level, if you think about it, the way it started off in Silk Road and so on.
Speaker 2:Anyway, and it's working out terribly for Germany and it's working out really well for North Korea. Like, north Korea is on the global stage is ascending, not descending, and you know this is not an endorsement of North Korea. I think their system is absolutely an abomination. But you have to make the case that North Korea is on is on the rise. You know they are punching above their weight, for where they are, they have nuclear weapons. They haven't been bombed like iran has and, if anything, they've set the example that, listen, if you want to be able to hold your own against the world's superpowers that are surrounding you, the way to do that is through acquiring nuclear weapons and stealing bitcoin. Yeah, like, that's the example that they're setting right, and and you can you can argue that if iran had have taken that, that process, that approach, they would not be in the position they're in today. And I think the you know this is a good segue into iran.
Speaker 2:But I think the, the hawkish voices within iran, are now saying look, we told you so, we told you you, you, we should have gotten nuclear weapons, because, look, israel is bombing us and I'm fairly certain that campaign is going to start again, and they were not pursuing nuclear weapons, at least explicitly so by the Supreme Leader, I think, in 2003,. He already said so, but now the case has to be made that if they don't pursue nuclear weapons, they're going to get fucked up by the US and by Israel Like no one. The US would not have bombed them if they had nuclear weapons. And that goes back to their currency collapsing. If they had nuclear weapons, their currency wouldn't be collapsing because they wouldn't have been bombed as much as they were. Uh, there would be more faith and stability in the country. Um, yeah, so you know, the virtual devaluation is one thing, but but I think security kind of plays into this as well.
Speaker 1:Sorry, gavin no, I think I've just got the title for this episode, and that is um, if you want to stand up, it's nuclear weapons and bitcoin, and it's just easier to get the bitcoin for now, for now, and and okay
Speaker 2:so this? This ties into like so not so. Iran has got an, has got some options on the table right now. They have all this enriched nuclear material that they have that was enriched to 60%, that they need to push up to 90% and then they have enough they can make bombs. But we know that Iran was mining Bitcoin and they've got all this oil, and we know that there's a state that has nuclear weapons, that accepts Bitcoin in North Korea, and that those two have been pushed together now, and so there's a case to be made that if Iran in the position that Iran is in now, they need to acquire a nuclear bomb ASAP to deter Israel from attacking them again. They can just go to North Korea and pay them a Bitcoin for a nuke Like. That's where we're at.
Speaker 3:I was listening to Netanyahu on what he's done. He's done a round of podcasts recently to try and improve the image. I suppose Was he on Benchpress. I don't know, but I heard him on the PBD podcast, peter Bet David, and he was already talking about the next round of bombings and and how they have to follow up this action with more strong action. And I mean, it hasn't even been what. How long has it been?
Speaker 2:three months it wasn't not even. I mean, it was july, not even, yeah, not, not even um.
Speaker 2:And yeah, I did anyway, sorry I mean if we're gonna delve into like and yeah, dude, anyway sorry. I mean if we're going to delve into geopolitics as a favorite subject of mine, and the game theory that's playing out here, with Bitcoin in the mix, is amazing. For one, the Israelis went for a decapitation strike on Iran because they knew, now or never, we have to decapitate the leadership of Iran, because clearly they were concerned that something was happening where they would not be able to do that again in the future. Right, they took a shot at the king and they missed. So they are never going to have that element of surprise again to be able to try to pull off that operation. Because, like for the first 12 hours of that attack on Iran, they were trying to. 12 hours of that attack on Iran, they were trying to kill the Ayatollah, the Supreme Leader, and they were trying to decapitate the military. And it went so far as to say that they were reaching out to all the high-level military leaders in Iran and saying, if you do not turn on the leadership, we will kill your family. Like, I know it's war, but, like for the most moral army on earth, that doesn't sound like a very moral thing to do, you know, but anyway, it's war, that's how it goes. But so they've lost that element of surprise.
Speaker 2:And now the Iranians have are acquiring air defense systems from the Russians and they've got tight relations with the Chinese. And I don't think that the Israelis, they'll have to move very quickly because if they don't, they won't have the opportunity again, because the biggest chink in the Iranian army was the air defense. Right, the Israelis basically got freedom over the skies to conduct air raids, but the Iranians had freedom over the skies to conduct missile raids on Israel as well, and that's what we saw, we were seeing. Well, the Israelis clamped down on the media, so you did not really see what was happening, how much damage was done, but the word on the streets is that there was a significant amount of damage done to Israel.
Speaker 2:And what you also must understand about Israel is it is the size of Kruger Park, whereas Iran is the size of South Africa. That is the difference. So Iran's things are all underground, all of their missile bases are underground. You cannot put an air base underground. So Israel's biggest assets are sitting above ground air bases where they're launching all the airstrikes from, and Iran's are sitting underground.
Speaker 2:And so there's a discrepancy here, and so, basically, this is stacked against Israel. This is a fight they can't win, because they can bomb the mountains all they want, but they don't have the bunker bus, the bombs, the B2s that America does, and in fact, there's not enough of those to destroy all of Iran's missile bases in the world, and Iran has a large amount of missiles that they can destroy all the air bases in Israel, and that's basically why America had to step in to try to stop this thing. So if you're Iran now, you look at your currency devaluing, you're like cool, we need Bitcoin. We obviously can't use USD, stable coins or whatever. We need Bitcoin to be able to preserve economic power, we need to be able to trade with all our partners and we need to get nukes.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's going to get wild Solid. It's that meme of the aliens looking at us like these guys are going to bomb each other. We gave them technology and look at what they're doing that meme.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's, it's. It's crazy, and so the thing that one thing we should look at is what's happened to israeli shekel over the this time frame as well. Like inflation is ripping in Israel too. It's obviously not as bad as Iran, but who's buying Israeli shekels outside of Israel? You know, like there isn't a big demand for the currency and they've had periods of massive inflation for a long time. They've had like three iterations of the shekel. It's like a persistent problem in Israel and I don not really see a way out of this for them. They have one nuclear power plant at Dimona. They do not have any oil themselves gas. That is why they are trying to get Gaza, because there is a gas offshore. So you know, energy is kind of the most important thing here, and if you are Iran, you can take out their energy facilities very easily with the hypersonic missiles they've got, you know. So it may seem like Israel actually was on the front foot with that attack on Iran, but I actually think strategically, israel's on the massively on the back foot here.
Speaker 1:I do not even know what to say to that. It is, uh, I mean thoughts that come to mind is you know jason lowry's soft war thesis about? You know we've gone to the nuclear level, which is one step too far, that mutually assured destruction. We now need to step it back. And kind of funny that bitcoin is the the next level, or in his thesis anyway. And now you're saying the nuclear and the bitcoin together seems to be the two big things in the in geopolitics.
Speaker 1:Um, I see there's been a bunch of political crackdowns on crypto as well. I'll just quickly run through burma. They've got some new cyber security law where they outlaw vpns, and they've even got illegal social media such as Facebook, twitter and that sort of thing. They can search your phones in the street and arrest you if they find those apps on your phone. Like the UK, yes, algeria's got something they ban all crypto activity. And then there was an interesting one. Turkey detained this Argentinian ETH developer. I don't know if you heard about that one. Uh, the guy wrote a research paper, academic paper, on something to do with ethereum and blockchain and crypto, and he lands in turkey, gets arrested because the government says your paper went to assist other people to commit crime or something. So I think that you know we've got this devaluing fear yeah, crazy man. We've got this devaluing fear thing on the one side crazy. And then we've got political crackdown against the crypto space. It's a wild world. Yeah, there was a.
Speaker 4:But this isn't just political crackdown on the crypto space in general. This is a political crackdown on a writer that did a research paper on you know. An asset clause Like that's just that's beyond insane.
Speaker 2:Who's not a citizen of the country that he was arrested in and didn't publish it in that country either?
Speaker 4:In that country, write it about that country, Like maybe didn't even mention that country in the entire research paper. This is insanity. Like first you're putting developers in jail for making software, just literally for writing code, and now you're putting because again, code is like speech, right Now people that are literally writing research papers using normal speech are putting no, that's crazy guys.
Speaker 3:I think this is a lot bigger than most people are realizing the latest what Bit Coin Dead episode, where Danny interviews a guy that talks about Pegasus and related software developed by Pegasus was developed by the Israelis, but there's other versions of it out there and I mean we know I knew about it. That's not the first time I heard about it, but this person has done extensive research on this type, on this type of software that that that governments use to compromise your phone. But what's what's interesting about about his description of it is that he he describes how the process works and it's it, it. It sounds. It sounds like you're signing up for a Canva account, man. It's like you buy seats, you know and, and, and, and. This is how it works. He literally you know and this is how it works. He literally says that this is how it works.
Speaker 3:Government would go and it's a government who's got very little money would go to one of these companies and say, okay, you can buy so many seats and so many compromises that last you over so many hours and then you got to pay your next subscription to get to so many. And I sit there, I listen to this. I'm like this is insane. This is like signing up for a, for a fucking google workspace account or a or a or a. I mean I've got my, I've got my team members and I buy one seat per person and I can get. I can get so many activations and so many in 30 days and so many activations.
Speaker 3:And it's like the level to which this has been um, I don't know what the right word is. Commercialized is the wrong word, um, sort of just streamlined, I suppose, is a better word where it's kind of like walking to the local corner store and buying your preferred surveillance software off the shelf and it comes ready-made. All you need is an email address to sign up and an OTP. It's just insanity. Yeah, I don't see where this goes from here, but it's not going anywhere good, that's for sure.
Speaker 4:Oh, it's going to be bad.
Speaker 2:As terrifying as that is, we do know that the Israeli cyber unit was taken out by a series of hypersonic missiles during the 12-day war, and so someone must just check if Pegasus is still all right, because Pegasus might have been reduced to dust a few months ago actually still all right, because pegasus might have been reduced to dust a few months ago actually, they'll tell you it was reduced to dust while they do some crazy things with it.
Speaker 4:But also, have you guys seen that the new iphones they're they're speaking about, uh, in development will be internally chargeable or some weird thing like that? So, literally, firstly, they took away our ability to take out the batteries, you know, so that these things can't listen to us all the time. Now they're gonna make it that it can maybe be remotely charged, just so you know. Hey, we're listening. I know you thought your phone was off, but, uh, hello crazy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, guys, I've. I got a new device the other day and it can charge other devices just by holding it, holding the devices back to back. So if you've got like a set of wireless headphones, airpods or whatever, you can put it on the back of the device and if it needs battery, it can piggyback off the battery off your phone and charge it. So okay, like what you're saying here, it's not too. It's not that wild of a hypothesis. Does tech exist? Obviously you've got to bring it close together, but I mean, who knows, they're zapping you from space with, like a micro yeah, the commercial, the commercial versions work like that, but the ones that they're actually developing those things probably charge like.
Speaker 4:That's what I love about sci-fi movies they've never laid to us. It's just a little bit wonky.
Speaker 2:They charge off the hate generated of X on your phone, but you know. Just to step back to this currency thing, so there was a big, big move that happened this past week where the Russians came out and said they called out in public what America is doing. And they said America is using the stablecoin system tether primarily, and stable coins that are proliferating. They are using that as a mechanism to distribute the us dollar, maintain dollar hegemony and then their plan is to devalue us debt once they've achieved a saturation point. So the russians are calling them out openly about this now, which is which is very interesting, because obviously the russians have known about this for a long time. They know this is the place, like the fact that they're mentioning it in public, like the Russians don't do anything without calculation, right. So it's very interesting that this is happening. And, just as an anecdote, like, I was at a conference in Joburg yesterday and the day before and stable coins are like the number one topic that all the payments cross-border people are talking about, and they were like yeah, we need to figure out how to use stablecoins for our cross-border solution and, as you guys know, I run a company called Orange and we use Lightning for cross-border payments, not stablecoins. And the reason why I think stablecoins are not going to work long-term is because the US is just pushing their inflation out to the rest of the world and they're using stablecoins as another mechanism for purchasing US debt, so buying US treasuries to act as a way to securitize the stablecoin. But so they now have an offshore dollar and this is what they're trying to do. Right, they're trying to just push dollar hegemony, but it's not going to work because the dollar it doesn't matter. If you wrap it in a stablecoin, it's still a shitcoin, it's still the USD, it's still going to inflate and they have inflated it massively. And the only reason why the US dollar hasn't inflated more at home is because they've managed to offshore so many dollars and that inflation is experienced by everyone else around the world now.
Speaker 2:So we've seen they've tried to cut spending with Doge. Didn't work. I mean they try to get a trillion. They'll be lucky if they get 150 million out of this. I mean 150 billion in savings out of this.
Speaker 2:Like it's ridiculous, to quote Lynn Alden like nothing stops this train right, like they are so addicted to debt they cannot stop it. Politically it can't be stopped, and so they're just going to keep pushing out the US dollar. Everyone else is going to experience all this inflation, and then other people are going to be like, well, the dollar is devaluing my stable coin. Cool, I've got this rail I could send value on by the dollar, but it's still just devaluing. It's now turning into the North Korean Kwon, right. And then they're going to come back to Bitcoin, because, fundamentally, that's the value prop of Bitcoin. It is a store of value and it is electronic, peer-to-peer digital cash, which means it can do payments. And this is what Lightning is, right, it's a payments network on top of Bitcoin, and so that's your solution to your inflation problem and that's your solution to cross-border payments.
Speaker 4:Right, there is Bitcoin on the Lightning network, yeah, but here's the problem with that, ricky. Like when you're talking about a consumer-based economy like the US, right, debt is king. Like to delete debt. They need people to buy into something right for them to be able to use that to then purchase bitcoin. Like all of these big companies, what are they doing? All of them that are selling stable coins, all these guys that created their own uh, blockchain. They sold and bought more bitcoin for themselves.
Speaker 4:So now the problem becomes how do Bitcoiners release Because, again, bitcoin, you can't print more, so, like it has to come from somebody that either they're going to have to like they did with Ross, where they took yeah, they gave him freedom, but they didn't give him back his Bitcoin. They kept all of that right, so they're just going to keep locking up people that have Bitcoin and, just, you know, accumulating it. That way is what I'm seeing or they're going to release things like the trump coin and all these other coins that people are going to be like oh great, there's a way for us to make money and then take that money and then go buy more bitcoin. Like the cycle continues. But at the end of the day, my problem with the wording of stable points is that it's stable.
Speaker 4:Stable to what? If the goal of bitcoin was to to like, say, hey, we don't have to deal with the us dollar anymore and the us dollar is going to die, how are we then using something that's pegged to the thing that we're here to help destroy? You know, the control factors of? I just don't get it. It's like a misnomer for me.
Speaker 3:Somebody needs to explain the logic in that I mean, they're not stable coins, they're crypto dollars. That's what they should be called. They shouldn't be called stable coins, because I just wanted to say there's one upside to the proliferation of stable coins, which is that I can't wait for the day that the market cap of Tether flips the market cap of Ethereum. It's going to be a glorious day, because it'll just prove the point that there's no reason for any of that crap to exist, other than the proliferation of so-called stable coins, and those things are temporary anyway. So I mean, what more do you need to know than that? The other thing that's interesting I don't know if you guys saw, but I briefly saw this headline. I don't know how much substance there is to it.
Speaker 3:I briefly saw this headline. I don't know how much substance there is to it, but the ANC was calling for the South African Reserve Bank to. I don't know if they wanted to prioritize the creation of jobs over the stability of the currency, because we've had a relatively stable currency in South Africa compared to many other places in the world, and I think one of the reasons is because the Reserve Bank has prioritized the stability of the currency over the creation of jobs and the ANC has called for them to do the opposite, which in my understanding. I don't understand these things as much as some of you probably do, but in my understanding that basically means we want you to print money so that you can create the illusion that the economy is growing, because we can't grow the economy on our own, because we're too useless. Um, and that's basically money printing and inflation. That's how I understand it yep, yeah, totally so.
Speaker 2:So once again at this, this conference I went to um, the seamless conference in joburg shout out, great conference held. But like it was like a payments conference and it was just full of bankers and central bankers and payment bros and like this is the narrative that they're all spinning here. Right, it's like we need to use stablecoins for payments, we need to use CBDCs, and like so they've all come to realize that they need to have some kind of digital money, right, and in fact they love it. They love that idea because it means they can control the inflation. The central banker loves the idea of a CBDC. It disintermediates commercial banks. It means they can go direct to consumers so they don't have to have a B2B to C model anymore. They can have a B2C model. Right, that's what the central banks are after.
Speaker 2:But the bigger you know stuff, but the bigger you know picture for us as individuals is like the freedom versus tyranny kind of matrix and where we want to fall on this. And so like countries like Turkey arresting people for free speech in another jurisdiction, that they think they can just arrest someone and they come through their country, like it becomes a really scary authoritarian world. So, like, where do we find pockets of freedom? You know, like what was the name of that place in Atlas Shrugged, where all the value creators went to Gold's Gulch Gold's Gulch, yeah, that was the name of it when they all fled to because it, you know, promoted freedom and let businessmen do business. Like for every kind of action, there's a reaction, and I think we're going to see more and more places pop up that provide security and freedom for people and it's going to be like an attractant for people with capital. So Bitcoiners, you know, because there's just this long trend of just things going to shit and people doing politicians doing dumb things and fleecing everyone, and like it's nowhere is it more apparent in, like big conferences like this.
Speaker 2:We see, like all the intelligentsia of these, you know this like accumulation of bad ideas in one place. You know, just preaching how we're going to. These bad ideas are going to solve our problems and no, they're going to make it infinitely fucking worse. You know, but people are going to shrug, they're going to leave, they're going to move. People with capital are definitely going to move, but the question is, how do you move without being nabbed in the middle? You know, on your way to this better place. So I don't know, I don't know where I'm going with this point, but like things are going to change rapidly.
Speaker 1:So the good news is we have Bitcoin. You know that's at the end of the day. It's the 12 words in your head. You get on the plane, you get out of it, and I think we all agree it's the first time in human history that has been an option for people. So I don't know where to go to, though I might just add that, because it does seem to be a lot of bleakness out there. The so-called western countries, which are supposed to be the, you know, the top tier, are crumbling. We're seeing the end of the, the us sort of empire, um, I mean even um.
Speaker 1:I saw a headline yesterday about uh malay in argentina that his party has just suffered a massive loss at uh at some election thing. Now it's it must be too soon for a national election. I would guess maybe it's a provincial election, but you know his party got 30 something percent and the left-leaning uh peronist guys have, you know, got 70 percent of the vote. So that that, to me, is it's the scariest news I've actually heard for a long time, because there was one guy who not only talked the talk but he walked the walk and he had huge improvements in the economy. And yet with the improvement.
Speaker 1:Obviously, there were enough people suffering with the changes that he had to implement to pull them right, and those people have now just gone and they're voting for the, the far lefty socialist guys again that are going to promise something for nothing. It's, it's frightening. Um, I'm actually it was quite depressing to hear that news because if that happens there, what hope do the other so-called first world countries that are trying to incrementally make change? Uh, and you know, you mentioned doge gave it a good crack, very public and miserably failed. So, um, at the end of the day, it's depressing crack, very public and miserably failed. So, at the end of the day, it's depressing news out there and Bitcoin is the flight to safety. I think we all agree on that.
Speaker 2:Democracy is a scam man. So listen, if government is for the people and by the people, but the people are retarded, what are you going to get?
Speaker 2:Retarded government, dude yeah exactly which is what we have man Like. Democracy is the god that failed to quote Hans-Herrmann Hoppe, you know, I think that when you have people that are able to print money from nothing and dangle a carrot in front of poor people that have been made poor by that same government, then you dangle a carrot to be like here's some free stuff, even though we ruined your life, they're going to go for the free characters. People respond to incentives like that's a downward spiral, like I don't see how democracy can self-correct. Like. If you look at the western democracies in the world right now, they're in absolute shamblesles, none more evident than UK, which I just spent two months in and just came back from.
Speaker 2:There is a great replacement taking place in the Anglosphere in the West right now, where people are being imported en masse, and that is because these aging populations in these Western countries are not producing enough children and these Western countries have blown up massive, massive bubbles in uh, obligatory spending for pensions etc. And they don't have the youth and they can the the economic activity to to pay that. So they need to bring in more young workers to do that, and that's really what they try, I think, in the best case, the best interpretation of what they're doing that's what they're trying to do is to bring in more people to come and, you know, pay for those things over time. So the system doesn't collapse. But the system is going to collapse because the culture that they've imported is incompatible with the culture of the UK. Those people are not working, they're all on benefits and, in fact, they're dangling a carrot of benefits to get them there.
Speaker 2:So it just seems to me like they're trying to collapse the society. So I think that the solution here is maybe not a solution. I think what we might see is a mass period, very large period of instability and fighting, and you might see the emergence of Bitcoin warlords, and then maybe we get a Bitcoin king and we get a Bitcoin kingdom that can offer protection to Bitcoiners, and maybe he buys nukes on the black market for the North Koreans, and then that's how you get stability. But Bitcoin warlords, you had it here first.
Speaker 4:I think okay, firstly, Bitcoin warlords is hilarious but, like I think the problem here is globally. But, like I think the problem here is globally, governments all around the world have for too long kept the people in the dark about things like inflation and what is actually happening, to the point that now, as Ricky said, you've got a bunch of people that have no clue what's going on voting for other people that have no clue what's going on. It's the blind leading the blind in many, many societies around the world not just in Africa, just globally and what's happening is the chickens are coming on two roosts in the fact that there's nobody to be able to keep up the facade in a way that is still sustainable. So now everything is crumbling, because it was always going to crumble. The question is like how do you save it? Is bitcoin the savior or is why bitcoin exists the saving grace?
Speaker 4:Like, if more people are talking about, okay was created, but it's still just the tool. Why was the tool created? What does it actually solve beyond? Just monetarily, but even just in the way that most Bitcoiners change their lives and and what they aim at and how they spend time with their family. All that changes because Bitcoin is more than just money. It's it's about why. Why? Why do we need a better money than what was there? What was the problem with people being in charge of every little aspect of how you can spend or loan or any of that?
Speaker 4:It's also transferent on. Should people be able to tell you where you should live if you want to live somewhere else, or should you be able to have the opportunity to then move? And how does that come about? Should you be able to teach your children the way that you think would better serve them in the future, or must you go along the rules of a mandated system? And why so? These are the things that I think Bitcoin brings along. Is the questioning of the norm and the status quo to say, wait, but does it really have to continue to be that way? And in that I think we can reset a lot of what has been done. But again, is it in the interest of governments and central banks to say, hey, let's take the shackles off our people and allow them to actually understand what's going on, or are they just going to keep doing this until Rome burns? Good question.
Speaker 2:No, they're going to keep doing it until Rome burns. I have zero faith in politicians. Let us take COVID, for example. They locked us in our houses for varying amounts of time depending where you are in the world nowhere more so than Australia, melbourne specifically but they locked us in our houses. There has been zero accountability. Not one of those politicians have been held accountable. I haven't seen any tar or any feathers, and I want to see tar and feathers Like this is not. None of this has happened. You saw what they did in Nepal yesterday. They dragged the Minister of Finance through the street in his underwear. Like that is what can happen when people get hurtful. And you know they burnt down the Prime Minister's house. You know they burnt down the two opposition parties. Leases houses, burnt down parliament that's what can happen when things bubble over. Not necessarily calling for that, but all I'm saying is like this is what can happen.
Speaker 2:But we live in a system where politicians are incentivized to keep making kind of, making things worse because they just want to keep the status quo going, but they will err on the side of authoritarianism, not freedom, when the rubber hits the road. Not one government in the world erred on the side of freedom during covid. I mean they're all marching in lockstep. You can make without what you will do. You think they all got orders issued from the same place? I kind of do, but no accountability and the fact that we had bitcoin protected us against inflation from that and the subsequent knock on effects economically from that. The four of us can all attest to that. Most people were wiped out financially, but our freedom was still taken away. But if we had a strong Bitcoin warlord, that wouldn't have happened.
Speaker 1:So, guys, do you think that we've reached a point where people are now going to be just doing it for themselves? You know, there's a meme going around you can just do things. I see that on the NOSTA, a lot Everyone's just posting stuff like that. And an example that comes to mind is Urania, that little community. I couldn't even find it on the map. To be honest, I don't quite know exactly where they are map. To be honest, I don't quite know exactly where they are.
Speaker 1:But it seems to me that there's a bunch of people that have realized there's nothing they can do about the macro economy and the larger scale political realm and they've kind of just said stuff it you guys do what you want to do, we're going to do what we want to do. And they've just made this little community and they are building roads by hand, they've got running water, electricity, sewage systems. They manage it themselves, they don't need anything from anybody else, and I actually respect that. I mean, I'm not talking yeah, I'm not interested in the politics behind the thing but a group of people who've just decided we're just going to take care of ourselves. Do you think that we're moving into that now? Because clearly, governments cannot do it. Politicians can only lie, governments can only fail, fear it can only go to zero I mean no, sorry, go for it again no go ahead man I was gonna, I was gonna say very quickly on what ricky said earlier, which is democracy.
Speaker 3:Uh, democracy being a scam. I think democracy is a failed attempt to decentralize power. I think, ultimately, the only successful way to organize a fair society is a way where power is so far decentralized that it becomes impossible for human nature to do what it ultimately wants to do. I mean, this is again the, this person that talks about this, um, I wish I remembered his name, but I'm so bad with names but um, the the guy was talking about that the interview on what bitcoin did, about pegasus. Uh, he, he, he constantly references human nature and he says that it's it's just, it's just in human nature to want to control things. That's just how it is. It's how we are wired.
Speaker 3:Any one of us would probably make the same decision if we were in that position of power, and so, unless you figure out a way to decentralize power, what you're going to end up with is exactly what we have at the moment, and I don't think it's going to moment, and I don't think it's going to happen voluntarily, I don't think.
Speaker 3:I think it's going to happen rather chaotically, but what we'll end up with is either a sort of apocalyptic world or a world where people figure out a way to decentralize power, and I think that's what Urania is, and I think that's what democracy is a failed attempt at. I don't think democracy actually succeeds in decentralizing power, but I think places like Urania, communities like that that's ultimately the only way that people really can live successfully is in small groups. This idea that you can group 50 million people together and somehow appoint 500 people to manage the interests of 50 million people it's just absurd. It's very beneficial for a small group of people to do that, because they gain huge power, influence and money, but it's absurd to think that you can manage the interests in the interest of the ordinary person if you jam people together in groups of 50 million or more. It's just insane. So that's probably where we'll end up. I just don't know how we're going to get there.
Speaker 2:I totally agree with you. It's a ridiculous notion and to add insult to injury is that we've been lied to perpetually about it and about freedom. So, for example, people get lied into wars all the time under the notion of freedom, right, like that's their favorite one, especially America. They love doing that, you know. Like why are you invading Iraq? Oh, because the Iraqis hate our freedom. Why are you invading Iraq? Because the Iraqis hate our freedom. Why are you invading Afghanistan? Because they hate you, because they hate your freedom. Like so much ridiculous thing. They're invading Afghanistan to control the heroin routes, right, like that's why they invaded Afghanistan. And so they will say they, the people in power, will lie all the time about freedom and democracy and, you know, decentralization.
Speaker 2:But that doesn't change the fact that the long-term trend over the past 300 years has been towards decentralization, right, and so I guess the bigger picture is like what has happened within the past 300 years that has led to that? It's not been us organizing and taking power back from the oligarchs and the aristocracy that controlled us. I think that plays a role, but it's not the causal factor. I think the causal factor is technology that we have created that has led to the decentralization. Obviously the printing press was one, because that decentralized control of our minds, away from the church and the religious organizations that previously controlled knowledge Distributing the ability to read obviously follow that, and then people can make up their own minds on things. And so Bitcoin is obviously a rapid, like a radical step function in, like distributing value and how you store value, and it's built on top of all these other technologies, and so the knock-on effects of that are kind of unquantifiable. But I hope that that will lead to greater freedom over time maybe not in our lifetimes, but definitely over time and we can push back the Leviathan, which is the state that is ever encroaching, and the best opportunity we have that is within a weak state framework.
Speaker 2:So let us take the Oranje example during lockdown. If Oranje wanted to, during lockdown they could have said locally listen, guys, there's no lockdown restrictions here, we're not doing this. But the police would have probably have rolled into Iran, because Iran is still part of South Africa and the police would have rolled in there to enforce those things. But if they had have just quietly not enforced themselves in Iran and not told anyone, and no one made any posts about it, the police would not have known and that people would have enjoyed a lot more freedom in Iran. And we do not know for a fact, we do not know what happened. That might have been the case because they live in a little enclave, but they have their own values that tie them together, and I think Iran is a great case study for the rest of the world of what you could do when you share common values and you can build something around yourself like that. So I mean, yeah, it can definitely be done, and it's kind of the use, it's kind of the blueprint for how we build citadels for ourselves.
Speaker 2:You know, and that's why I think I'm bullish on South Africa as a geographical region for us to do this, because we have a retarded state that is largely incompetent and may not have the ability to levy force like they used to or even presently do, when they're coming up against a group of individuals that are highly motivated and have a large amount of resources, especially with the changes in asymmetric warfare that's developed, as we've seen in Russia, ukraine, drones kind of have changed everything and ultimately, what it comes down to is the state is there.
Speaker 2:In asymmetric warfare that's developed, as we have seen in Russia, ukraine. Drones have changed everything and ultimately, what it comes down to is the state is there to enforce, has a monopoly on violence, and if anyone wants to push back on the state, they need to have the ability to enforce violence themselves and push back. And this just ties back to the Bitcoin warlord story once again. But this is where this, like this, is where kind of this can all go. So I'm kind of bullish in South Africa that we can build our own future here, as the world is kind of falling apart. Let me tell you, I don't think it's going to be in the collective West where this stuff happens. The government's far too strong, the people are far too psyoped, things are too far gone In South Africa. We're like in the Goldilocks position here. So, yeah, I'm hopeful that you know we can build our own kind of Bitcoin-orientated future here where people can thrive, build their own gold skulls, you know.
Speaker 1:Well, talking about building, sorry, Nikolai, you go for it.
Speaker 4:No, I was just going to say for the listeners over there. Basically, what they're saying is everybody's gonna go back to living in villages and you're gonna have your village chiefs again and, uh, everybody will negotiate. I don't know how national resources are going to be negotiated amongst all these villages because, yes, bitcoin is is really important, but we still have to figure out who's going to have the fishing rights, who's going to have the mining rights between all of us within our own constituencies. So, yeah, I just think my comment on this is that we've never had a system that has worked. That's why we keep trying to evolve the system.
Speaker 4:I do think that there is something that could work, probably, but it would take human beings looking at each other as human beings first and trying to build for the human race, moving forward. Um, that's going to, as ricky said, probably not in our lifetimes, but um, um, yeah, time, time and and knowledge. So, um, open source everything, open source everything. That's my comment on this. Um, open source knowledge, open source technology, open source everything and's my comment on this. Open source knowledge, open source technology, open source everything, and we would probably get to somewhat of a manageable future like that sooner rather than later.
Speaker 2:That's what I wanted to say it's the only way we can push back against the oligarchs and the oligarchy yeah, nice man.
Speaker 1:Um, so I did want to just quickly fly through some tech bullet points. Um, we've had a great discussion about global politics and that sort of thing. It can be a bit of a depressing topic, uh, and I'd like to, you know, finish on a positive here. But so, uh, nicolai, you mentioned something about miniscripts, something that you wanted to chat about, fire off man. What are your thoughts there? All right, firstly, uh, something that you wanted to chat about Fire off man.
Speaker 4:What are your thoughts there? All right, firstly. So why I wanted to talk about this is recently, the debates on Twitter between different Bitcoin camps, as they always are, has been what people are terming the node wars between core and nuts. But I think what people have missed is some of the innovations that have come about that actually changed the way that we could do inheritance planning from here onwards out. I mean, miniscript allows you to let me actually just read from their own description of at its heart, miniscript is like a box of Lego bricks for Bitcoin spending rules. Each brick is a small, well-defined condition, such as a key must sign, a time must pass or a secret must be revealed.
Speaker 4:So what this means is, if the four of us are sitting here, it changes the way you can do multi-signatures, because you could say Herman and Ricky's keys can sign, but if none of them sign in 90 days, then Gavin or Oaken's keys can sign for this transaction to happen. So now you can say things like even if you look at Liana wallet, that was the first one to actually implement mini scripts and then in their product put it out. They have a way that says okay, my key for for like, my private key. If it doesn't sign any transactions in my wallet for six months, then my wife's key will be activated and she can now move the funds that were associated with my key. You lose your memory or something happens, you could still gain access to your funds, your bitcoin, because you've now made it that literally in the setup of your transactions and your wallets that you can have somebody else activate it after. So now you can literally sell your children you can. You can activate their key only only spendable when they turn 21 or 18 on that exact block. You know, and you can then.
Speaker 4:But now it's been made so easy that you don't have to write the scripts. It's literally like saying so and so you click, it's clicked on buttons. And I think this is more that more people need to be talking about the fact that we have these tools now that totally delete why you need to have a lawyer doing anything inheritance planning wise with your bitcoin at all. You do not need that third party there. And um, yeah, that was one of the the things I wanted to discuss. I'll stop there before I mention the other one oaken, is that so?
Speaker 2:that's just for the listeners. That's at a protocol level, right? So it's not like a wallet specific thing, it's not like just you have to use this liana wallet to do this in the future. You can set it up with Liana wallet, but that's actually attached in the data associated with that transaction when you broadcast that transaction.
Speaker 4:It's a BIP. It's BIP 379. It's a Bitcoin improvement protocol. It's miniscule. It's pretty awesome. You should read through it. You'll enjoy it, ricky, I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 2:I enjoyed Liana wallet it like, you'll enjoy it with you. Like, um, I really enjoyed it. Yeah, it's really I know what it's like and I'm shocked. So, like you know, so it's like at a protocol level, so it's like it means that these, these, these tools can be used on the protocol agnostic of wallets.
Speaker 1:You know, um, like you say, get rid of the fucking lawyers amazing I'm glad that they've got that down the protocol level because, um, it sounds a little bit. If you're not careful you could be like a monkey throwing your thumbs at nuclear launch codes. You know you don't want to stuff up a manuscript and you lock yourself out and you've got to wait until you're 90 years old before something can activate. So you know, awesome, awesome tool. But, Jeepers, I think I would sweat bullets setting this thing up. Lots of little tests. Have you messed around with it yourself?
Speaker 4:Exactly I have. I have Lots of little tests. You're right, gavin, that's exactly what you need to do. Be like okay, let's give it a week, please, let my money be, please let my money. Okay, my money is free, I can do it. I can do it now and then Again, my thing has always been I never mention tools that I haven't tested myself. If I haven't tested it out, like at least for a month, I'm not telling people about it Because just now it goes away or there's a backdoor that we just didn't find because I didn't test it. So, yeah, that's it. And the fact that Miniscript has been around. It's just that these are the only two wallets that said hey, I think this is a great thing and let's run with it. I think that's amazing.
Speaker 4:The second thing I wanted to discuss that nobody's talking about and that everybody should be talking about is the fact that we have blocks that are confirming with transaction fees that are less than one Satoshi. That's a problem. I think it's a really big problem, especially for miners, because miners are going to start merge mining and they're not going to just be mining on the Bitcoin blockchain if this trend continues. What happened the last time when inscriptions were around was fees were astronomical. It was like 100 and something 400 and something Satoshis to get a transaction through. Right now, the opposite is happening with this entire Bitcoin node war debate is that fees are dropping to the point where miners are picking up transactions that have minimal fees that are lower than one cent per virtual byte. That is something that we should be discussing as the Bitcoin community in.
Speaker 4:And what happens if this trend continues? What is profitability to miners? What does that look like? In a sense like that, because again, at some point right not in our lifetimes probably, but like in 2140, you will not have the Coinbase transaction coming through. You won't have that subsidy, it will only be the transaction fees. But if transaction fees are on a downward trend continuously and we don't do something to bring them back above 1 satoshi, what is the incentives for miners to continuously mine blocks on Bitcoin past that? I think this is also things that people need to start thinking about.
Speaker 1:So just for the audience, can you just clarify the one set per V-Bite? I understood that was the minimum. Anytime I've ever done a transaction, one set per V-Bite has been the lowest I've been able to spend on a transaction, doesn't matter what wallet I'm using. So how are the guys getting below that?
Speaker 4:I wish I had an answer for you, gavin. I've been trying to look into what's exactly going on, because I also can't make a chance like from the software that I'm using. So either they're literally writing up the transactions themselves and not using conventional software, that we're using um to do this, or they're maybe going out of band and speaking to Miners directly and saying look, because if you look at the block that just confirmed uh, let me just get you that number. Sorry, it didn't just confirm, it's like it's now what? How many blocks are there? 91 914 044.
Speaker 4:If you look at the expected block and the actual block, there's like so much gap of nothingness. And then you go look at the, the transaction fees and the total fees right, okay, it's 0.018. But if you look at the actual um, so you go like something to something like time change stats and you look at the, the uh average fee rate, it's three sets, right. But then if you go even lower and you look at the fees versus subsidies and you start seeing almost half of these fees are at less than one satoshi. Now the question, as you've rightly stated, is how, why? This is my question too. This is what we should be figuring out and yelling around about on Twitter is how in the hell are people making this happen and what happens if this continues? What does it look like for not only the security of Bitcoin, bitcoin, but just continuous block propagations like how does this continue?
Speaker 1:I guess this brings us right back to the uh mining, centralization issue, because the only way people are able to uh put transactions through, get a monitor to confirm those transactions, uh outside of the network, is they pick up the phone and their phone foundry or their phone whoever these big boys are and say listen, guys, we're trying to do this thing. We know you're probably going to get the next seven out of 10 blocks that are coming through. This is what we want to do. We'll pay you out and about around the side a little bit of cash on the side of the table here and you confirm this transaction, and that is clearly not how the system's supposed to work I mean gavin, just to let you know, the block that just confirmed now again.
Speaker 4:Also, average fee rate 0.00 sets for virtual byte. What are we doing? And I hear you on the minor centralization, but it also goes to show how are people using the current layer one blockchain. If we're able to even get sub one set transactions through, that means that we're not using the layer one blockchain. Right, that's what it means, like as it's supposed to be used. That's a problem we're. We're saying we're because, yeah, minor centralization is a problem, but if everybody's using the same lightning service providers, lsps, right, and moving everything off chain, okay, it's good for instantaneous settlement, but what does that do for transactions on base layer, like, are there enough?
Speaker 1:The other question that people need to be asking so I guess it's you know, as you say, we've gone through stages where the transaction fees have been super high and then everyone's in a flat panic. We've got to get Lightning working properly. This is not working. We need all these other technologies. I mean, I know ARK in the month of August actually did their first real world test case and ARK is one of those. I don't know if you call them a layer two or layer three, but it's an idea, and the idea is to make Bitcoin transactions quicker and cheaper, and I think it's sort of spread the Bitcoin around a bit.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure how they handle the UTXO thing. I'm not that technical. So we have this thing with fees going up, then fees going down and all this tech coming in, and also one of the other things Jack Dorsey's block company has come up with, this proto rig, and I think that's an important thing because that's a change in the actual hardware infrastructure where you can start sliding damaged parts, worn out parts out and just replacing it, almost like a plug and play on a miner, um, so that's super positive to me as well. So there could be lots of things that are simultaneously trying to tackle this issue, and it's always driven by fees. That's the whole thing about bitcoin. It's uh incentives. When fees go up, everyone gets creative. When fees go down, everyone better get creative. Um, so is it something to worry about? Or, or, if we step back in five years and look back at this, is it like just a blip on this up into the right, uh trajectory?
Speaker 4:oh, I thought you were asking in general. Ricky, you want to take that one?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think, up into the right. The present situation we are seeing, with fees being as low as they are, I think, is an aberration from the trend. As soon as nation states start aping in, when this thing heats up, you're going to see fee rates back in the hundreds of sats provides again. I think fees are low at the moment because a lot of stuff has moved to layer two. I can attest this because I run a lightning company that does transactions on lightning and we see this big volume there. None of that shows up on chain. So you know that's definitely happening. It's definitely something that's happening. But yeah, I think fees. I think long-term miners will be getting their fees again because when North Korea needs to do a nuclear deal with Iran and when the Bitcoin warlords of Iran need to buy nukes from North Korea, they're going to do that on-chain.
Speaker 4:Good explanation. I like how you threw the Bitcoin warlords back in there. I think that's what this episode should be called Bitcoin warlords of the villages.
Speaker 1:We might be little warlords, but we're warlords, yeah yeah, but listen guys, I've unfortunately got to jump.
Speaker 2:I've got another meeting I want to slide into. So if you'll got another meeting, I want to slide into. So if you'll excuse me, I need to shoot.
Speaker 1:Awesome thanks, ricky. Yeah, we are slightly over time, guys, I do want to respect your time. Quick closing thoughts. Ricky, you feel free to gap it if you need to, but final round quick thoughts yeah, I'll just quickly leave my details if anyone wants to find what we're doing.
Speaker 2:My company is called useorangecom, so otherwise known as Orange wwwuseorangecom. And then my other company where I do sell Bitcoin hardware and do Bitcoin consulting etc. Is bitcoinonlyio. So if you've got any Bitcoin hardware requirements in South Africa, check out my website, hit me up. You can do a consult. So I've got a whole bunch of start nine servers coming in at the moment for running home servers. I can tell you all about start nine servers. Harman's on the receiving end of one of those servers as well. So, yeah, those are great. You should definitely get those, get your, get all your things off the cloud. Cool, that's me guys. Thank you very much. I got to shoot Cheers.
Speaker 1:Ricky Cheers, Ricky Cheers, dude Herman, some closing comments from your side.
Speaker 3:I'll just repeat myself and say don't use stable coins. Use Bitcoin. You're going to find yourself living in a world where you're no better off than you are today or with the CBDC, if stable coin usage becomes the norm. Use Bitcoin, try and use it in a self-sovereign way if you can, if it's at all possible, but try and avoid using stable coins because they're not actually stable.
Speaker 4:That's all Awesome. Okay, I agree with Herman. We should firstly rename stable coins so that they sound more like what they are. And my closing statement is open source everything. Open source knowledge, open source tech, open source everything. But remember to charge for your time. Your time is not open source for people. Your time is the most precious thing in the world.
Speaker 1:So open source, everything else, awesome, man. Yeah, the stable coin. We should call them guaranteed to go to zero coins. There might be an acronym we can come up with. That's a bit catchy, but who knows. Anyway, awesome. I appreciate your time, as always. Sorry for running a few minutes over, uh, but thanks for your grace. Uh, have a fantastic month and we'll pick it up and run through whatever happened in the month of September cool man cheersios.
Speaker 4:Have a good one, guys. Cheers, bye.