Straight, No Chaser
Understanding Freedom through Money, Technology, Economics and Philosophy
Straight, No Chaser
Jabu Jakes - Bitcoin Works Because Nobody Owns It
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A government can threaten bans, taxes, and capital controls, but what happens when the thing it is trying to control is just code running on a global, decentralised network? We sit down with Jacques “Jabu Jacks” Strydom to get past the noise and talk about Bitcoin in South Africa the way business owners, engineers, and everyday people actually experience it. The conversation starts with identity and lived experience, then quickly lands on a practical question: how do you fit Bitcoin into the real world without turning it into another hype product?
We unpack why a single Lightning Network transaction often becomes the true “aha” moment, and why guaranteed settlement matters more than most people realise. From buying a cold drink to paying suppliers, moving value across borders, or avoiding proof-of-payment fraud, we explore Bitcoin as a payments rail and as digital property you can verify, not just trust. Jabu Jacks explains the technical and philosophical edge that separates Bitcoin from other crypto assets, and why self-custody is not a fringe idea but a core safety standard for anyone putting Bitcoin on a balance sheet.
Then we bring it home to South African governance: collapsing municipal service delivery, rates disputes, and the hard reality that citizens struggle to “vote with their wallet” when billing is bundled and transparency is weak. We discuss how multisig custody could help communities coordinate funds responsibly, and why the current regulatory push around capital flows runs into an enforceability problem when the network does not have a head office to serve papers to.
If you care about Bitcoin regulation, financial sovereignty, the Lightning Network, sound money, or simply keeping your savings safe in an uncertain system, this one is for you. Subscribe, share with a friend who still thinks Bitcoin is “nothing”, and leave us a review. What would need to happen for you to trust self-custody?
https://x.com/jabulanijakes
https://www.linkedin.com/in/strydomjacques/
Links:
www.bitcoinforbusiness.io
X: @gavingre
X: @BTC_4_Biz
Primal: GavinBGreen@primal.net
NOSTR: npub12qv07tpwk8x8fy2uuqczghpappap395npuxvsx8pgksh97pezv7s8r7qta
Can Government Tax Bitcoin
SPEAKER_01Or how you need to use this tool called Bitcoin that we're all learning and understanding together. So, so if anything, they need to make it so that the individual rights of Bitcoin are protected. Because functionally, there's not much difference between this thing being a fundamental human right. It was released without a government, created without a government, maintained, built, and proliferated without a government. So to now have a position where it's like no government say they must tax you on this stuff. You tax us on other things, and you're supposed to deliver fixing potholes and stuff like that, but that's not happening. And this is something where we all know, and even you know, that you had nothing to do with this ever. So to argue that you have a divine right to now tax this thing, which came from the community as a barter tool, um, that's a bit of a stretch, in my mind.
SPEAKER_00Hey there everybody, welcome back to the show. This is the Straight Note Chaser Podcast, where we talk about human freedom through money, technology, economics, and philosophy. Today's guest is Jacques Stratum, otherwise known as Jabu Jake's. Jacques is an Eastern Cape farm boy and spends his time between the Eastern Cape and Johannesburg, has lived and worked throughout Africa, he's got a background in engineering, project management, property, uh putting deals together, business turnaround, uh quite a diverse background. Even though he studied accounting, that is not what he ended up doing. And uh anyway, we have a great chat about uh municipalities, governments, uh the promise of Bitcoin for business, this crazy new world that we're entering into. So the talk is a little bit all over the show, a bit of a fireside chat, but a really, really good one. I absolutely enjoyed it, and I know you guys will too. Uh good morning. Uh Jacques Stradum. Uh I'm looking at you here, and I see uh instead of Jacques Stradum on the screen, I see Jabu Jacks. Now, when I look at your uh anyway, before I go on, welcome to the show, my friend. Good to have you here.
SPEAKER_01Thank you very much, Kevin. Good to be here.
How Jabu Jacks Got His Name
SPEAKER_00So, Jacques, when I look uh at your sort of LinkedIn profile, which you kindly shared with me beforehand, um I see uh Jacques and Sabisi Stratum. And I know you told me I've butchered that. So give me give me the pronunciation right there.
SPEAKER_01Another one of the names given to me, like the two you see on the screen, pretty much.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so um let's just start right there. Um you're a South African guy, obviously. Um you have an uh traditional Afrikaans. I mean, it's like John Smith in English, Jacques Straightham, you know, it's like the Afrikaans version of John Smith. Uh but yet job or jokes. Where does that come from? Tell me a bit about yourself. I see, you know, uh yeah, just talk generally your background. Um I I know you've got a big property um uh like professional career background as well, but you know, just personally, where are you from, uh where you grew up, uh just a little bit about yourself and where did job or jokes come from?
From Accounting To Project Management
Fitting Bitcoin Into Real Businesses
SPEAKER_01Sure, man. Um I guess it's just it's it's part of it's it's the story of life, really. Uh things things find you. Um nothing about the way I've chosen to execute you know anything since school has been traditionally orthodox, suppose you can say. Um so kind of very much went the headstrong do my own thing route. Uh started off straight in the traditional TradFi route. I mean audit accounting, be a rec, baby. Let's let's get this thing done. And now I think I got to I got to the first the first um the first time I went to go and work at an accounting firm, and I I guess I learned there that it was just the numbers only, it's just not for not I have too many other things going on and creative and so on. So even though I can do the numbers, uh didn't want to do that. So I ended up dropping out of the B Act thing and started getting into like work, got into project management, started working in like software, hardware, cloud-based, project management projects. I got into mining logistics supply chain. Uh I worked in a uh I did a turnaround for a um uh chicken franchise once, 2010. It's a youngster, uh, got thrown in the deep end there and said, listen, hey man, come do the thing. And and I guess when you come from a farm in the Eastern Cape and you're working in a in a in a franchise shop, uh, I mean, the language, the being able to speak TLSA is probably one of the single biggest advantages um I've had in my life, and I just grew up with it because I grew up on a farm, so I grew up immersed in it and just kind of never let it go, you know. So in this space, I then the name Nebisi found me because the people I was working with were like, listen, you this thing of you not having a proper TLSA name doesn't work for us. And so so anyway, so so so the name then emerged from the cultural environment that we were sort of just uh party to, being Eastern Cape and and I mean at that point in time Stellenbosch um from varsity days. So so that name found me um through through these traditional channels, and um, I mean the correct term is uh is is how they came to be where no like Nebisi is a name that suits you, and that's the thing about naming culture in African culture, not just in South Africa, is that names carry meaning. So often this is why somebody has a name like beauty or hope, right, or passion, whichever. Um advisor, is what it means, and mdisi means helper, and these have different so call it uh spiritual connotations in terms of who you are, like for example, n means lucky, so the lucky one, and and there are lots of reasons for getting these names in, but this is sort of just how names have found me, and then as time went on, uh um, I mean I did a mining logistics project in Eswatini back in 2020 to 14, 11 to 14, and in that one, this name Jabulani also found me there because I'm quite a chatty, smiley, joyful one, and that's what Jabulani means. So I didn't take too much because ah it's Eswatini and I'm from South Africa, so it's ah, you know, it didn't say, but then the the name Jabulani found me in in Johannesburg again, um uh just through cultural cultural cultural norms, and uh and people then started calling me Jabulani. So in my in my Twitter profile, uh there's there's makulu there, Maslori. And and so she then also then said, No, but this name suits you, and and that's the thing about African culture is that the matriarchs are are traditionally very involved with the naming um uh of anybody in the culture, and so she was then like no Jabulani, this thing suits you, and so then it's stuck, and then people just kind of say, Well, it fits, so wear it, you know. So that's where the names found me. But the work career has been has been pretty much um project management direction focused. That's what emerged. So when I went uh became a student, um project management was not a field of study, it it wasn't a career, it wasn't part of the BCOM routes that you could choose or any of the other you know uh um practices that were going on. People were typically finding their way into project management, that's the way it usually found. But then because I was pretty much only in projects, and then uh project management started becoming a sophisticated field, a studied field, something you could work on and become accredited in. I then went that route and said, I've got work experience and um I've done some studies, and so now I can go in and uh study, write the test, prove that you've done it. Your work is peer-reviewed essentially. Um, hell of a test here, right? But I got the P and P accreditation, and then that was just a way of saying, Do you know what? I've I've been doing projects, I'm a project manager, I manage projects, but there's no formal classification or understanding for it. So as I went through that project management course, it was just really great because it could just place everything that was in my mind like a mess for all the projects and things you're working on. It's a it's a skill you apply to any industry, whether it's software and you like constantly iterating and new releases monthly, or in the mining and the logistics game, where there's long lead times, planning, preparation, construction times, building, and then operation and execution is typically at handover. So seeing the realm of project management, coming from a farming background, having worked in fast food retail, having worked in software, a couple other things, you know, it's it's you see how the puzzle pieces fit together, and then you just naturally. I just always been entrepreneurial. I'm the guy who sold stuff to his friends at boarding school, right? Little brand new tuck shop kind of always something, you know, and looking at opportunities and things like that. So so yeah, being that way inclined, it's like you can apply the project management skill to any business management skill as well. Um, and that's probably been the single most magnificent outcome from how that sort of journey of mine has been, is that I've been able to say that the project management skill is probably one of the most valuable skills because you can apply it anywhere. But then also in the way things are working today, where so much can be done by agents and so on, is like you need to project manage your own setups and environments and workflows, doesn't matter where they are. So, I guess this type of systematized thinking and and and doing things and how things fit together has always been um just the way my mind has worked with work, and so when the business the the the Bitcoin you know industry finally got to a point where it it it kind of opened a door for me to step into where it's like, well, I mean, my background is as you said, real estate and project management mining to just like I mean, built environment stuff, working with anything from banks to bricks and mortar at some point, right? And and people in the middle of nowhere to then step into the Bitcoin thing and start piecing things together is you start seeing how things fit and you start looking at things in a systematized way. And so I've just been sort of unpacking and piecing Bitcoin in all its glory, um how it fits into the business environment, the technical environment from a project management lens. And so that's where it's like, okay, if this is a rule here and it doesn't break here, why not? What cause you know? And so just testing all those things and coming to a point where it's like, wow, Bitcoin, the project management approach inside Bitcoin, the project management approach to using Bitcoin in a business. I mean, where do you want to, how do you want to go with this thing? So I'm now at a point where it's like I've been able to look at what I'm studying in Bitcoin, compare it to everything I've learned about business and governance and what people in the board have to decide and how they have to handle these things, because you can fit Bitcoin anywhere in a balance sheet, it it really does fit anywhere, and so it's been uh come to the point where it's like, what do I know from work and experience that I have, and how do I overlay project management over it? That was the one thing, but now with the Bitcoin thing, is how does Bitcoin fit into all of this stuff? And so I'm looking at these different layers in the different places, and then it just helps you to then picture this thing and how this thing fits into business uh practically, um professionally as well, um, in this environment. And so fitting these puzzle pieces in a way that makes sense. It's now like, what do I know about real estate and property development and taking a piece of land and and and figuring out what's valuable, how what you build on it, it's now the same with Bitcoin mining sites. What do you have? How much is there available? And it's all just puzzle pieces you fit together, like you study zoning in real estate, you do your mathematical calculations with uh Bitcoin and Bitcoin mining, given the energy that you can produce or what's available to you in that space and how you fit things together. So I've just been playing in this space and working with people as the network is grown, and people inside the network are coming to grips with Bitcoin. I've been the one who's having that conversation and helping people just understand this thing a little bit better because I mean, Gavin, you understand when you get to understand like learn Bitcoin as a newbie, you can understand it philosophically and get a pretty good grip of what this thing can do and mean and so on, but then there's so much more you can dig into on the technical side of things, um, which is not so much interpretive um philosophically and emotionally, uh, from what people think Bitcoin is sound money or how we justify or you know, do that. But I mean to look at it and say uh this is a functional tool because it is literally digital property in the in the truest sense of physical property, in that I can digitally transfer it in the same way that it's physically you can transfer a piece of paper or this mug, for example. Like you can do that, and there's nothing else like it. There's it's the only uncopyable digital item on the planet. Like I can screenshot, take a photograph of something I'm not supposed to or not allowed using a second phone or whatever it is, but I can also copy Bitcoin, but then that is not the actual Bitcoin that's cryptographically locked in the background, so it's like this this gap of but it's digital, I can't touch it in Bitcoin. It doesn't quite work because yes, it's digital, and so everybody thinks, man, it's digital, I can't touch it, there's nothing there. But what is it that actually going on in the background of my FNB when I send you money versus my Bitcoin when I send you money? And what's the actual tangibility of it in the background? Like the Bitcoin is locked to kilojoules through the Bitcoin mining network, which fiat currency at whichever bank, whichever country around the world, none of them are. Um, they're supposed to be locked by gold in the background, but most of that's disappeared. Other people, and in South Africa, we're down to two and a half percent only. So in this realm, it's like what's behind it is if you understand a little bit about the computer science and how the electricity works in the functional built environment process in the background, that's Bitcoin, and that's again ultimately what separates Bitcoin from all the other crypto-insure coins that are out there. Um, that's just one of those things. So, I guess I mean, what is it that I do? I help people understand this thing, and I work with businesses and I and and I from a from a real estate environment and from a project management environment, but primarily from a business owner, business like organizational manager, and by like like like like perspective. That's that that that's that's where I find myself now, you know, aside from you know keeping my projects and things that I've got going and so on, it's like this Bitcoin thing is uh I need to be having conversations with more people to help them understand. It's just an inevitable part of what I do. So accountants, lawyers, anyone else that I work with professionally or engage with suppliers, uh clients, um whichever, whichever way it sort of it comes, uh uh I'm working with people to help them understand this thing and how to make this thing fit, but looking at the the actual numbers, so you can drill a site down to the kilojoul of what you're going to produce, and that gives you a lot more predictability in your long-term project cash flows, which is something that doesn't currently exist in many of the bigger infrastructure development projects. It's how do you project and protect yourself from the currency fluctuations over the next decade and two and three, which is partly why like building like a cousile or a Madupi or any of it is so difficult because it takes long, cost of capital changes, okay. So I'm fiddling with interest rates the whole time. So it's like my 10, 15, 20 year you know, project lifecycle funding, funding arrangements, like this is this is what's inevitably holding up a lot of these things. And so, and so we're now getting to a point where guys are looking at it in the small modular reactor side of things to say that wow, Bitcoin gives us a 10, 15, 20 year uh monetary forward view with clarity, that that we know what's coming, and so if we incorporate this as part of our project funding mechanism or at least strategic understanding, uh this can have a uh drastic uh uh impact on whether or not your you you you do can determine early if your project is going to be feasible or not. So this is that space where it's like not many people are playing in this realm or thinking about business in this realm in the Bitcoin context, but they are in every other business context. So it's like how do we go about bringing Bitcoin and overlaying it into existing business in the frameworks that they are, and then people can carry on and building building their own business, understanding this tool for what it is and what it can do in the context of global finance, local finance, savings, inflation, political ideology, the works. Um, so as a business person, this is this is all we're doing right now.
SPEAKER_00So just to go back a little bit on something that you said there, um I just want to ask you, uh, you know, everyone I speak to, the topic of Bitcoin comes up. Um, and uh everyone's got a story about what they first heard, what they first thought. They sort of looked at it a bit. Most people seem to dismiss it uh initially in the beginning, and then something happens, they see it again, sometimes it's three, four times, eventually something flips, uh something is said or they discover something. Um I want to find out from you two actually, it's a two-part question. Number one, what was the thing that made it flip for you? And number two, is that the thing that is helping you drive what you're doing at the moment, speaking to businesses and trying to help them incorporate this?
SPEAKER_01Uh can you just clarify the second part? So the first the first question is where where did the the what flicked the switch?
SPEAKER_00Yes, what flicked the switch? And then the the thing that flicked the switch for you, is that the driving force behind where you are uh heading out into the world and saying, hey, business, this thing can solve something for you because it's flipped in your head. Is that what the driving force was? Or or was it through discovering uh uh more about Bitcoin that you saw an opportunity that was missing? I'm just kind of curious if there's a link between the two the two items, like the the Genesis, uh you know, the alpha and the amiga almost are are they the same?
SPEAKER_01Got you. Okay. Um the the most amazing thing for me about Bitcoin is that uh all the knowledge that I've accumulated, whether in little stickies along the way, 2013, 15, wherever it was, um everything that I sort of did in 2018, 19, 20, it builds on top of that. And now in the 20s, the stuff you learn builds on top of those things as well. So we're not losing the knowledge that we that we accumulate in Bitcoin. We we we can build uh systematically all the new stuff that comes in either fits with everything else or it doesn't. And so we we're building out um something stable that knowledge isn't changing quickly, so it means people in the states and South Africa can very quickly come to a consensus and in three months' time, six months' time, maintain that same consensus because you're building on the same foundational framework. So that unchanging that that part doesn't change. So you always whatever you're adding new for me is just new stuff extra on top. And so I I I will say there's there's a couple of clear distinct moments in my in my Bitcoin journey, one of which was beginning of 2023, um where I saw um not 23, 22, I believe. Yeah, where I I saw Pago della India. He's got a uh uh Giza fund running at the moment with his book and so on. So Pago came to South Africa and I saw what he was doing is like he's traveling the world on Bitcoin and he's traveled to Africa, and because I've done lots of work in Sub-Saharan Africa, like rural, like logistic stuff, put to port things and and right. I have an understanding of what life is like in sub-Saharan Africa. Maputo uh uh did a big project there, Sortini, Lusutu, right? But so I neighbor like so I I understood and when I saw how he's moving through Africa using Bitcoin, I was like, wow, okay. Uh this is this is this is something, this is quite something. Then he came through Joe Burg and I just missed him in that in that in that December when he came through. I just missed him. And then um and then he ended up going past Bitcoin Ecasi, and then when I saw that there was obviously workable, this is the closest accessible for me. So the next time I found myself driving past um Mosel Bay, I phoned the center, just Google Maps, just click the button, click call who Arman answered and Saturday, and he came to meet me and we had a talk, and then um uh uh uh um you know I I I I managed to go through and and Luc Lucangele Mai took me through to go and buy a little cold drink from North Ethio's shop. And um that that for me was the the last sort of that that was the the one to say, listen, this thing this thing is now here and it is now Functional, like like you could this is now properly, properly usable. Before then, in my mind, it was very difficult. You had to have obviously your trad pipe banking, um, some sort of exchange or something. Um, I I guess I always struggled a little bit with with the full-on peer-to-peer things where you're sending money overseas, and so when that's if I go back, that's one of the reasons why I didn't get too into Bitcoin in 2017-18, other than through the exchanges again that made it super easy. So buying and living, and it was all in the crypto stuff. I was mining Ethereum even back then because Bitcoin miners were then just too expensive, they just they'd already left that thing where it's like you can still home mine, and so we wanted to mine, and it the whole ideology was hey man, we're gonna do cool things, and then obviously, I mean Ethereum is just not what it was, and none of the others are, and it just you eventually get to that point where it's like I understand why Bitcoin only makes sense, and that moment for me was also uh um the the the Africa Bitcoin conference, which I went to in December 2023, because that's where the decision was if it's looking this good in South Africa at Lightning Neville, I want to see what's happening in Africa because these are the people who are doing business, they live in that space, they work in that space. So I went there, I could see, and I saw how the technology works, I saw the companies, I saw how lightning was sort of just reshaping the whole thing. And that for me was where it became clear that man, this thing, this thing changes, this thing is is is it has left the station, changing the game entirely. Like, like you have to understand how this thing works, it's fundamentally changing the game. But now also people can see that and see, yeah, but it's cool payments technology. I can just use Pay Sharp, it's also instant and free, and what have you, and so on. And that's true, but this is where my genesis is is is then uh plays a part of the story because up until that point I had come to know of Bitcoin uh round about the time when it crossed the the first big milestone hundred dollars, guy made the video, nobody really did anything. It's like 2013-ish, that side of the world, 1213, early days. Um, and that was only because I was plugged into online blogs and technology and um uh fintech, because fintech wasn't yet such a big thing, but as an entrepreneur, you want to build cool stuff, you want to be in that space. So I understood what what Bitcoin meant from a cyberpunk perspective and from a perspective of decentralized, independent digital currency, not controlled by any government. So I caught Bitcoin from that perspective, not centralized, not controlled, independent, free people, free market money. Right? That's what that was the most important thing for me. But being a young guy, working hard, I mean traveling, so like Africa, yeah, like life was good, man. So the head wasn't in the in in Bitcoin, and I didn't quite click why it was so special. I just knew it was special, but it was like I couldn't quite get to it yet, and it was a bit too much, and didn't do the work, didn't get it at the price, didn't deserve it at that price. It's just how it, it's just how it is, right? But then um, I mean, so it was like I I came from that perspective. I guess one of the things that's also very important in in in my life is is as a teenager, I was reading lots of those entrepreneurship books and and those kind of things. So I was understanding business and and entrepreneurship and why those things matter, and in this realm of studying real estate, property, reading books like Rich Dad, Poor Dad, Cashflow Quadrant, especially that one, um, and other books on real estate investing in South Africa and why that was it was it was about escaping the rat race, um getting out of the feared rat race where you're just stuck in the and and the way you do it in in real estate is you trade currency debt for bricks and mortar, and the bricks and mortar carry value in time. And I mean every location is different, so real estate is is very nuanced, and and there's I have my own opinions on what whether or not you should or how and when to invest in in real estate or what to buy in terms of property because again it's a tool, but for other reasons. But now it's like Bitcoin does a lot of those functions that that we used real estate for because real estate is the OG speculative attack, really. I mean, you are borrowing currency, which gets weaker in time, and you've traded for bricks and mortar, which get more valuable in time. And so this is the foundational thesis of all the Bitcoin treasury companies in those things. It's like we have an asset which's got asymmetric upside, whatever, it's finite, digital, hash locked, electricity currency. And so now people are trying to play this game of where can we sort of get dead credit leverage and you know borrow in currency and buy finite hard asset and you know that formula for success. Um but it's so much more than it's so much more than than just that, and that's what makes this thing so magical because you can use it in the payments space, whether you're a spazar shop, whether you're doing a Facebook marketplace trade with somebody selling golf clubs or an old toaster, who knows, man? Any of this stuff. It's like it's so ideal to be used in that little which is micro payments back and forth, mini payments back and forth, but then you can also use it as like you know, savings tool for storage. Um, so it's both a product a product in that sense that it's not a product, uh the the payments tool, yeah, yeah, infrastructure letting us down.
Payments And Savings On Lightning
SPEAKER_00Yeah, sorry, man. You were busy talking about uh micropayments, um, and then from there you were chatting about you know savings and all that sort of thing as well.
SPEAKER_01So, yes, it's like okay, you're a you're a small person, small individual, sole proprietor, you can use it for small payments. Uh, if you're selling things online, you can use it for payments. There, it's just very easy to it's just very easy as far as as far as technology is concerned, there's nothing cheaper and faster. And it's so simple as well. So, so just straight up technology versus existing existing technology in in monetary framework sense, it's like there's a better one. Um people understanding this is a different is a different story, but then of course you can use it for for just for savings things, depending if your business is not necessarily in an environment where Bitcoin is flowing uh um regularly. But then also if you're doing uh business and you you've got to buy things all over the world, or you are selling things all over the world, it's a it's a method of getting guaranteed settlement. It's a it's a it's a tool that ensures guaranteed settlement. I've got so many people that I know who doing business overseas where payments get lost, or or nobody they they lose eyes of it because it's gone to this bank or and it moves around. And sometimes people, there's a lot of fraud. I mean, the majority of the fraud is is um proof of payment fraud. Or or in Australia, it's like over$10 billion a couple years ago of the fraud where they hack the agents and then get into the email, and then when the buyer wants to pay the deposit, the details have been changed, and then it just you know you you've done that. And that's how Ethereum has been hacked the last couple of times, right? That big one of 1.5 billion that they took the Bybit hack last year was literally that. Um the the Ethereum moduleist doesn't can't tell you the truth of what you're dealing with in the background, and so that's where the guys did. They told the person whose eyeball was eyeballing it, told him one thing, meanwhile, in the background he was doing something else. And this is the fundamental thing which Bitcoin gives us is that we can check this the whole time, and we can't do the same with anything else, and that's obviously as we understand why we have currency devaluation, what the problem is. So, in this realm, it's like what do you need in your business? What's your biggest stumbling block around payments and and money on and finance, whatever the case may be, and then how does Bitcoin fit into that particular space to make your life easier? Because it can do that, right? Um, and and and I mean this has got great positive implications for business, but here we are dealing with a situation where regulatory environments are struggling to catch up, and this is the same the world over. So we're not we're not special, like we can't we can't blame the ANC for this or political part, anybody for this, because the Americans uh I mean they might even be doing worse than then we oh no, no, not at no, not with the way our guys are trying to ban it.
Guaranteed Settlement Beats Bank Delays
SPEAKER_00Well, I mean, that's uh uh I definitely want to go and talk a little bit about that as well. But before we move on to sort of the legislative side of things, regulatory, all that sort of thing. Um, just another question about so your background, property, mining, project management, real-world stuff, built, you know, the built environment, I think is uh the way you phrased it. Um so you've got that on the one side, and now you've got this Bitcoin thing, which is neither any of those things in terms of built environment, the touchable field. So when you're talking to people, how do you reconcile that? Because you kind of are looking at it from both angles. Um and what do you find resonates with people when you talk to them about this? Because I'm guessing if you're talking to an engineering guy, he's a physics, math, numbers guy, strengths and stresses and run times and cost of energy and blah, blah, blah. That's what he's worried about. Um I know there is an engineering element to Bitcoin. I mean, there is the protocol, which is fine, but there is also the mining thing, the energizing it, uh, the chase for cheaper uh energy all the time. Uh so there is definitely an engineering element to it. Uh so I'm just kind of curious uh how do you bridge that gap when people say, yeah, but you know, it's not tangible. Uh it's uh it's nothing. Uh how do you speak to them in their language?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, no, it really, it really it really comes down to the person in front of you, and that's and that's what in in many respects the ADHD loves that because you every conversation is a surprise. The questions that come from perspectives and reasons why. Um, but it is a common one. People are like, bro, but it's just nothing, it's just a digital thing, it's nothing. Um, and that's only because there is a old switch that was flicked way back in the day, which is no, the the the numbers on the banking app that I see are real because it's connected to the real paper that I have. So in your brain, that number is real because I can also see it here. But Bitcoin doesn't have this little the paper to wave around. So that's the only disconnect that's made there. But then the thing is like the minute you touch to you talk to that person, you say, Listen, thermodynamically sound electricity currency manifest is the only scientifically measurable definition of finite on earth, uh, and why? Because computer science is mathematics expressed in code because every bit and byte is a one or a zero. So that's where it drills down to like all the code, everything drills down to that. And Bitcoin gives us the most sovereignly independent audit of that whole ecosystem, what you see in the screen in front of you versus what's happening at the bits and bytes level. There is nothing else where we can audit it so well the whole spectrum through. And so it comes down to making that connection for a person. If they're uh an engineer or somebody who understands um like the physics of electricity on motherboards and computers and how those relationships all like work, then they they'll make that connection. Because now they know okay, I have to go, I have to go and study that because it's so easily to it's so easy to disprove it. And then when they go and look at that to go and look for that that disproof, the negative proof, then they see that okay, this is actually undeniable. And that's and that and that's the and that's the thing is so I tend to try to focus my conversations on bringing people to that fastest point of undeniable. And sometimes, I mean people come people come at Bitcoin through the conspiracy theory element as well. I mean, that's a big one, is like, no, somebody's in control of the whole thing, and they you know they want to keep us poor and so like I mean it's a big system, and the incentive in the system is you've got the guy at the reserve bank thinking he's doing a stand-up job, you know, drafting regulations the best he can, getting his salaries bonus, like he thinks he's doing a good job, but he doesn't have that understanding of well, in that ecosystem and the way we look at it as Bitcoiners, you're creating this devaluation cycle, and that's problematic because we're Austrian economists as hearts, and so we can surmise as to why. And so the person doesn't realize they're doing something which is a net negative on humanity at large, but that's just because they don't understand this bitcoin thing. So I really just try to work with who I've got in front of me, but understanding that Bitcoin literally you can go and verify it down to that bits and bytes level, means you can engage somebody who is very skeptical and coming from a highly technical background, you can engage with them and speak their language quite clearly. And in actual fact, that's almost some instances easier to get somebody to understand the power of this thing, but because if they have that understanding of what makes physics and that that that relationship thermodynamically sound, and then you give them the Bitcoin puzzle pieces, they take the Bitcoin puzzle pieces and overlay it over the other puzzle pieces that they already have, because all the principles in Bitcoin come from everything, like everything else, it like it these and you can approach it from all these different different elements. Um, and there's enough people who've written about their own journeys from their perspectives, which eventually everybody then starts arguing about and cross-referencing, and so and eventually we end up with the best ideas that sort of stand, and this is where we are 17, 18 years down the line, is that oaks have hammered this thing enough from an economics perspective to have a really good understanding of where it does or doesn't fit, and and those who know what they're talking about can see when somebody is um missing something or potentially fabricating a bit, but human nature and protecting your ego and not wanting to come across as stupid as human nature thing. And this is the the other thing about Bitcoin, which is probably the single most difficult hurdle to cross, is you've got to be able to park your ego. Because you can get proven wrong, you can get you can get shown up for something. Um, if the network or the system does change, you have to have that ability to say, what did the facts say? What am I looking at? And and was I wrong? Do I need to adjust here? Because everything eventually comes down to those bits and bytes, which is a scientifically measurable finite. And we don't have that with anything else on this planet.
Explaining Bitcoin To Skeptics
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you know, um, in all the people that I've interviewed, both for the show and then just you know, face-to-face conversations on the street uh in in the Bitcoin space, uh the one common thread is that there's this technical and philosophical understanding as to what Bitcoin is, but almost without fail, every single person's aha moment has been a transaction of some sort. Either they've bought the Coke at one of the little shops that you mentioned when you went to Bitcoin Ecosity, uh, or you've said to someone, let me just send you five bucks. Uh and hey, you don't need a bank account, just download an app. There's 20 of them. Just take your pick of anyone you want, and I'll send you five bucks. Um, I had a well, I not had, still have a friend of mine who's got a coffee shop, and I was chatting to her about, hey, you should think about taking Bitcoin on. It's quite a cool little marketing thing. Um and I could see she was quite nervous to have the conversation and she sort of put it off, put it off. And eventually she's like, okay, fine, come talk to me. And she had her guys, sort of her crypto advisors were there at the table and checking this whole thing out. And at the end of it, I just said, look, can I just send you? I'm just gonna show you how it works. She downloaded a blink wallet. I said, I'm gonna send you 10 bucks, boom. And that little green check mark on the screen when the 10 bucks went, and instantly it appeared on her phone. And she said, Is that it? Is that as simple as it is? Um so yeah, these days, I mean, it's it's great fund mental gymnastics, having conversations with people and rebutting arguments. And I mean, it's it's always fun, especially if you've had a beer or two, then you have a whale over time. It gets really, really good. Uh, but at the end of the day, I just say to someone, can I send you five bucks? Let me just show it to you. Uh, and that's is a great figure. But yeah, for sure. But uh listen, um, you mentioned something about regulatory uh politicians, and uh you in a prior conversation you had mentioned something to me about you had had some experience with two different municipality areas, and there was a bit of a battle going on about rates payers being unhappy about their paying rates, they're not getting any services back. Um and I just thought that was pretty interesting. You know, won't you just talk a little bit about that? Because I think that's a real issue. I don't think there's a single South African, uh, unless you happen to live in Stellenbosch on Dorf Street or in Cape Town in the CBD in the city ball. Anybody outside of those areas has got a gripe with their local municipality. Um, and I think that'll be a good way to just sort of get the audience into the idea of okay, regulatory legislation is one thing, but what can we as individuals do about that? So maybe just quickly talk through those two scenarios.
SPEAKER_01Sure. This is um yeah, this is like the Bitcoin is money, conversation is is vast, varied all over the place. And I mean, hands down, the best way is just do a transaction. You don't you don't go back from that. If you see freaking pay, done. Uh this like you say, can't go back from that. And so people in the public narrative can easily get lost or left only in that section of oh, it's this investment thing, the numbers going up and down, and that's all we see on the news. Nobody really shows it. So people just leave it as being that thing. And so this is where when you have those technical conversations about what is actually behind the scene because it's nothing, but it's actually not nothing, is that that element of that the the nothing, all that infrastructure and so on, how that plays together and what that means gives you certain rights and rules inside the software that that that you can then do. Right. And and in many respects, in the real world where we live and work with our with our regulatory environment and our legal environment and our business environment and everything we want for life, um, there's there's that that reality and that that disconnect between what's what we believe and perceive, what's happening, what we're told versus what we understand for what's happening on the ground. And and I mean we see this very clearly in the political environment, municipal environment, because anywhere in this country that you sort of out of the Western Cape or whatever, or some of the major metros, you can see um infrastructural decay, uh challenges, right? And it's it's everywhere. It's everywhere. We've heard the stories as somebody who doesn't live in the Western Cape. I'm I'm at Johannesburg and and Eastern Cape, right? So so that's my perspective. Joburg and Eastern Cape. So I've seen Joburg, Chauteng over the past 15 years, right? That I've been uh uh Joburg, and the past five years I've seen a pattern that was similar to Eastern Cape, my Makanda home municipality, um where you can see the municipality is not keeping up with the maintenance is supposed to do. And this is inevitably like we can approach this super harsh and say, no, well, that's just failure and they're just stealing from us, but on the other hand, it's also like this is that incentive, this is that system where things are incentivized to work a certain way, and then the currency is also eroding underneath it. So even though the efficiency is not being done like like like the maintenance, the municipal efficiency is not there, right? Um, where was I gonna go with that one?
SPEAKER_00The you were talking about the currency devaluation.
Rates Revolts And Broken Municipalities
SPEAKER_01So you got the municipal efficiency that's not quite there, but then you've also got the currency, which is highly inefficient as well, because it doesn't store any of the value long term. So whatever there was there last year that maybe wasn't enough is now not going to be enough in the next year because costs have gone up 15 and everything else has only gone up, you know, receipts are only going up seven. And so trying to then try to get eight and six, and people are arguing, but then real costs have still gone up more. So you then you you're behind. So now you're not only the efficiency, you've you're not only dealing with the efficiency gap, you're also dealing with the currency devaluation gap. And those two things together just compound in time. So everywhere it just gets every year, it just gets further like they're just digressing further, diverging further from each other as as time goes on. And so this is how inevitably businesses don't realize that they are dying. And this is also why, in the historical business context, when they say if you're standing still, you're dying, if you're not growing, you are dying. And that Because the currency devaluation, if you're not growing faster than what the currency is devaluing, you are not ahead, and every business is different in how you have to measure that, and in individual savings, you also then have to how you measure that is then is then where people then make the decisions like, Oh, this is why I don't want to hold currency, I want to buy real estate. There's people who just believe in real estate, people who believe in gold, people who believe in land, whatever the case may be, and now Bitcoin also comes in the space because it it plays that game. So in the municipal framework, it's like you can watch this stuff happen and there's very little you can do about it. So now you're gonna start getting to the point where you want to be an activist and you want to get involved and do things in some municipalities, they do this and they try. And there's some interesting things to consider in this space, which is the Umgeni municipality, which was a few years ago during um during COVID times. Um, they overthrew the municipality and the DA was able to come in and change things around. And I mean, this is applicable for any political party who who's dealing with a um incumbent and who's maybe not performing. But what was interesting there is that they were able to conduct a um uh uh a rates dispute, or what some people like to call a rates revolt, right? Where they withhold rates um and and as part of their negotiation for service delivery. And and what was what worked well for them in that environment from our conversations with people who were who were who were connected in that space, um, was the fact that they had separate ESCOM to municipality, so they were able to continue settling ESCOM whilst withholding payment from the municipality, which you have to keep, right? You can't just not pay it, you have to keep it somewhere because if that dispute doesn't go your way, you need to have the funds available to to settle. But I mean, this is like that that's that's part of that process. Now, in that environment, the only reason they were able to achieve a successful outcome changing uh service delivery provider in that case was because they were able to still keep their electricity while holding their their rates back. Now, majority of municipalities, your electricity is sold by your municipality, so your rates, your electricity, and your water, everything comes in one bill, which makes it very difficult for you to now um do a tougher negotiation for the service delivery you want as a collective group in a decentralized manner. And this has always been a challenge because now you who's keeping the funds, how do you keep the funds? That's always a challenge in in building these sort of community-led organizations, and I think Bitcoin um can bring some interesting use cases or solutions here because we can have a multi-sig that's sort of running as a pot and and and holding funds for a group, and there can be people that we know, and we can make sure, and we can all see that oh, we believe this is a safe way of doing multi-sig for what we're trying to achieve here. This is where we can verify on chain what's done, and and and this is who's executing. So we can we can really like have control over funds in this way if we wanted to go that way, but also, I mean, you didn't you didn't have to go do things in that way because every municipality is also then very different, where in the Makanda municipality, they actually went through the whole process and eventually went through the courts, got the high court to overthrow and kick out the the the defunct municipality, the whole thing was disbanded. Um, and then what happened is that the provincial legislature has to then decide who are the people that must replace the the the disbanded and dissolved municipality, and so then it's like okay, you know, the town was then in a situation where it's like we've solved this problem, we've fought this problem as a community through the legal process, and in the end, the result is that it's just more of the same. It's it's still the same municipality, it's still the same thing. So even though a lot of this work and energy was spent, the outcome is vastly different to the Mgeni municipality outcome, where they were able to achieve and and change that working relationship, their service provider, service delivery provider relationship. And and and these are the elements that are at play, because you can't uh push from a whether it's civil disobedience or or any sort of activist challenge kind of way. I mean, there's there's certain things inside the law that you must follow and must do in order to do these things effectively. But the point of this is just to say that if you have certain conditions inside your local municipality, it becomes very hard to do these kind of things. But now this is then a situation where it's like the big problem is we can't get control over the money, and and we we need to control the money because when you just give money to somebody who's not spending it well, it's just gonna keep disappearing, and so the only way to actually affect change is to vote with your wallet, but now no municipality can vote with their wallet unless they have certain very specific conditions in in play. But this is now the municipal solution or situation in that way is is a different one. If people are gonna do what they're gonna do and and and and and write, that's up to like the town in in that specific environment. But if it's it's quite similar to Bitcoin in the sense that as Bitcoiners, we have the ability to manage money ourselves without the need for the government, because what is politics if not different parties arguing over who's going to manage the money better at the end of the day? The the money printers, all they end up in control of, and so that's what they're vying for, and that's what they argue about, and that's what they propagandize and publicize, and what everything's sort of centered around. So now, in in the Bitcoin sense, it's like we're all citizens of Bitcoin Town, and we need to decide well, how do we use the tools at our disposal to achieve a result that that we kind of collectively understand to be good for business, good for society, good for savings, um, good for just everything, right? Um in given given what's going on what's going on in the world. And so we then have to look at this and say, uh, how do we approach this? Because we can just keep self-custody and stories ourselves, but we're now in a situation where the people who are supposed to be in control are telling us that this makes you a criminal. And so then it's like, well, I mean, where do we as a citizen actually have control over what's going on and where don't we? Because if we can't actually use our thumbs to get our municipalities right, then what's left and and how do we go about using our wallets to get our money system right? Um, and so these are the are the worlds where where Bitcoin traverses, if not to say no, Bitcoin is a silver bullet for people who want to want to change their rates environments and so on, like like I mean, there's applications there for sure. Um, but it's not a silver bullet, it's not just something you just poop and plug in and it's there. Like you you you must understand what it is you're working with here, because you you have to be in in responsible for what you have, because you can control something and uh at the bits and bytes level. You audit it the whole way through, in the same way that a municipality should be auditable the whole way through. Like the money comes in, we know where it goes, we know it's spent on, the waters, the water gets fixed, the potholes are done, and the electricity is working, kind of thing. And so, and so that's kind of the principles and fundamentals of transparency and how money is used and where it can and can't flow, and and and so on, is then in the Bitcoin realm, it's like, well, as we study Bitcoin and as we study our Bitcoin inside our political environment and our financial banking environment, how do these things sort of change the power dynamic between citizens and their governments? And this is all over the world. So, this is where those worlds are like we have very real built environment things which are problematic for us, um, and but but the reason we can't really do much about them is because we don't actually have control over the full all the moving parts of the system. And Bitcoin kind of brings that into the conversation. So now it's part of the conversation where it wasn't before.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think it's like really interesting uh the way you've said it. Um, you know, technology is supposed to make things better, faster, cheaper. And you know, as citizens of our municipalities, we seem to be concerned with water, potholes, and electricity, which was a problem that was solved like over a hundred years ago. That problem was solved. Um we're not talking about building bridges and we're not talking about building dams or building you know a new football stadium. We're literally talking about water, electricity, and potholes. I mean, it's kind of tragic that uh you know there's this definite regression going backwards. Um but I did just want to uh you you mentioned a you know uh attack on Bitcoin. And earlier you mentioned it's clear to you the trainers left the station in terms of this is a technology, it's free, the genie's out the bottle, it's in the real world, people are using it everywhere for, like you said, micropayments, buying a coke, or saving money, or even I mean, you can buy cars with Bitcoin, you can buy plane tickets overseas, you can book accommodation, you can actually do anything with it. Um, clearly, uh the state has twigged onto this idea that the train has left the station. Um in my mind, uh it's too late. They can't put the genie back in the bottle, but they're certainly going to try. Now, there is a uh, I'm not even sure the name of the draft regulations, but it's something about uh capital flows or capital controls amendments. Uh I know it dates back to a 1961 regulation, and those regulations date back to a 1933 act uh or 1932 act. So um anyway, uh there is this grab. Uh the state at the moment is attempting to grab all assets. Uh it's not just a Bitcoin thing, uh, any asset that can be converted into currency, I think is the terminology that they use in the draft regulation, which is literally anything. It could be even be your house, because you can sell your house for money. So it's house cars, you know, artwork, gold, and uh obviously Bitcoin falls into that. So um comments from your side. I know there's been a lot of movements behind uh the scenes, uh, a lot of guys are talking. Uh articles are probably I'm seeing three, four articles a day in uh media outlets coming up talking about this. Um it's clearly a grab for a money pot of some sort. I mean, it's actually the the entire money pot, it's not just a money pot, it's the country's money pot. Um, I mean, just give me your thoughts about this.
Capital Controls And Enforceability
Self Custody Standards Over Fear
SPEAKER_01They are a lot. They are a lot. Um, and yes, I must say, look, the train has left the station. Look at the response. Look at the response. They they they're gonna ignore it and whatnot and so on, but look at the response. They they they kick the hornet's nest. I mean Satoshi at one point said, No, we kicked the Horness Nest, and so then he also part of the thing why he's left, he didn't want to unnecessarily poke the bear when things are too early. I understand that. But when you look at things away, Bitcoin is now with the amount of hash rate, the amount of global decentralization, there's no single government that can enforce any of its regulatory framework on any of the other governments because people can do what they want now, like nobody can tell Bhutan what to do anymore because Bhutan is sovereignly mining and living off of an independent currency outside of the IMF World Bank infrastructure Swift Network, right? Um, so that power dynamic is changing now. You can't force somebody to do something that doesn't fit with them, uh, whereas in the past it was like in order for you to do any trade, you have to go through our currency, and so gun points and trade points and hard locks and whatever it is, uh uh was the order of the day for shaping where people had to go. But today it's like because that enforceability is gone. This is what I mean when I say the trainers left the station. You can make Bitcoin illegal in the country, but you can't stop it from being used because it functions on the internet, it's bits and bytes. Anyone who's running a node in their house, if I'm running a node in my house and you're running a node in your house, I send money from Bitcoin from from a wallet that I control, which is words in the sky, essentially, like on millions of people around the world, like the hundreds of thousands of nodes around the world, uh, all keeping a piece of that. And so I tell all of them, hey man, I'm changing the rights of this one, I'm giving it to this, like this wallet address. Did that money leave South Africa? Did it leave Joberg and go to Pretor? No. Did it leave here and go to no, didn't it? It's on the network. I've just changed where the rights are given. So now it's like, okay, but that like this is how did you you you you sent the money? It's like, well, no, technically not. That's not how Bitcoin functions in the back end. You're not sending money, um, right? That's just not how it works fundamentally. Um, so if you study it at the computer science level, the argument then becomes, I mean, this is bits and bytes over internet, which is not touching the financial system, so it never was intended to be inside the financial system. So, where are we here? Right? Where are we in terms of how do we regulate, what do we control in this thing? And and I mean, I have a very simple thesis, which is that Bitcoin is a part of a tool more than anything else, because it's not it wasn't built as a financial instrument inside the financial industry, it was built as a tool which speaks to money in this context, but it was a creative computer science experiment to see can we do third-party list value exchange? It's a cryptographic experiment, computer science, right? Code. Um, the fact that people have started plugging it into monetary networks and things like that does not make it a monetary tool. It is a monetary tool, but it doesn't make it finance, it doesn't make it, but then also the thing is if you want to regulate or you want to control it or you want to change something about it, if it were an individual who built something or built a product or built this tool, you could go to them and say, We need to we need to uh uh uh lock this in and you need to do KYC here, and you have to do that because if you want to do business in our country, you have to give us this information. So that all falls away. It's like none of that has to be done anymore. So now it's like you can say it becomes illegal and you can and you can put it in your laws and so on, but you can't enforce it. Like everything in the fintech world is you enforce it through the banking system, through the SAR payments network, because everything has to go through the SAR payments network if money leaves this country. F and B will not let you send money overseas unless you go through the Saab network and declare and tick the boxes and go through the multiple emails and phone calls back and forth over three or four days to try and get your payment to like leave the country. I'm trying to pay for stuff, right? Everybody has this problem. So, again, this is just that thing of like the technology is so much better because 10-minute guaranteed settlement. I've got a shipping container full of high-value goods that needs to go to a foreign country. I do one shipping container a month of this or something like that. It's a few million rand, but it don't know when the money arrives or when it comes, takes long. I can get guaranteed settlement in business, guys. I gotta load your truck right now. Settle me. Here's the invoice. Boom, settle it. I get the notification, my node verifies the money is the value exchange has been done. Uh, I can release the load. Um, I can get a proof of payment, and it can be fake. Um, this kind of thing. So, in terms of trade leaving the station, there are too many people around the world who have the precise view that this is an independent, sovereign computer science, free tool, and there's too many countries that are quite free in how they approach this thing, treat it like a currency, tax-free status, all that kind of stuff, for any other ones to then come and force draconian rules on top of it because this is not like traditional capital where you can keep it in the country, like what the Reserve Bank's mandate has been since '71 is to keep the capital in the country so it doesn't flow out and disappear and just wipe everything light. But you can't keep Bitcoin. So it's gonna leak wherever. It's just gonna leak. You can tell FNB no, you're not allowed to make sure none of your clients, you know, sent sent Bitcoin. Can't they do that? They can't enforce it, they can't do it. And so, unlike any of the other cryptos where there's actually living founders, companies, boardrooms, sea level people, uh uh compensation packages, like whatnot, uh, you it for me, I look at all those things, it's like you're trading shares, it's just a new clever way of trading shares. You're buying Solana, there's a Solana phone, they're trying to make profit, they're trying to do this, that, and the other. And so, in that realm, it's like, how is that not a security? And then if you compare that to the Bitcoin network, where there's none of those same functional things which exist in every other company or corporate environment, Bitcoin is outside of that. So, this is where Bitcoin is sufficiently provable to be completely decentralized from any individual government or any individual entity or any individual person, right? And and this means that it's it's like it's not it's not something that any one government can take control over and define. All they can do is define the relationship of how people use this thing. And if you're gonna regulate something in Bitcoin, I mean we're regulating, we're already regulating what criminals are, what what what broken laws are in certain environments, and so now it's a case of I mean, if I use dollar to do business and and and I need to now get into a dispute or something, how does that work? If I used rands to settle a transaction and now there's a dispute, how does that work? But also I can use Bitcoin, it's just a currency, it's just a currency, and so now it's like well, our government is trying to negotiate with the rest of the world where Australia says it's a capital asset, but if you use it like a currency, then you can declare it as a currency and it's taxed accordingly. Give you the option in Dubai, it's just currency, and you know what? It's a currency that is not ours. So it's like South Africa now saying, No, we want to regulate the dollar. You can't do that, it doesn't belong to you. Bitcoin doesn't belong to you, it's a currency that is not yours, and so functionally trying to do anything about it and prevent the use around it just it it's unenforceable. You it's just not possible because now it's it's a foreign domiciled entity coming here, guy comes here on holiday, but he's got access to the keys. Now must he hand over the keys in South Africa? This is that travel, the travel rule, right? Where where now you're in a foreign country where it's taxed. Now, technically, must you pay tax, and then when you leave a week later, do they pay you it back and so on? So, this is where it's like how the different governments and everybody has to now agree with each other how we're going to do this thing. This is where the real challenge lies. But what puts diff Bitcoin in a different category to anything else we've done in the past is that nobody can stop you. Like you can't be prevented from. So now it's a case of saying, This is what best practices, this is what works, this is how we know to keep this tool safe, and this is and this is how we how we can step forward in a way that that people can use this thing, and the country can benefit from it, and the businesses can benefit from it, and every savings account that's sort of connected to a business that wants to thrive in this space, everybody can then can the downstream effects from this then then filter through. And this is where people need to say to the government, like, you can't say this because you don't control this thing, we control this thing, and so as citizens, what do we want? We want this thing to be understood so that criminals don't use this thing in a bad way. So if there's going to be rules, the rules should be if you're going to be handling somebody's funds, like what traditional brokers and bankers and so on do. If you want to do the kind of service where you're holding somebody's keys with them, if you're an attorney or an accountant, or you one of six people in a company who need to manage the funds, and so the keys for the company's Bitcoin are distributed amongst you as shareholders, like the way you navigate and control that, that's what should be regulated. There should be a certain standard there to say that listen, if you do not hold your keys in such and such a way, then you are at risk. And if the whole point of regulations is to stop people from getting in trouble financially or losing money or letting criminals take advantage of things, then this is the kind of stuff we should be teaching. We should be teaching uh smart self-custody so you don't lose it and you can keep control of it. Because let me tell you something: any South African company that thinks they're great because they've got their coins on an exchange somewhere controlled by somebody else, be it Coinbase, for example, like what a lot of the Wall Street companies are all using Coinbase, that puts you in a position where it's like American Bitcoin can take on a whole new meaning um overnight, and then and then how will Coinbase care about you and what you? You've got. So this is where the regulations should actually be like listen, if you're a starting company and you want to keep your Bitcoin safe, um do it in self custody in this way. Or our bankers or our accountants must understand that when they talk to their businesses and they're advising on this stuff, then it's like, hey man, you've got this capital gain happening in this business of yours and there, and this is income tax in your business here and so on. And here are the rules for how you need to protect your your your Bitcoin self-custody. I'm not the expert editor, so I'll farm it out, I'll get somebody to help you with it. But you as a business, you need to understand that this is the standard you need to attain if you want to keep your business safe. So this is kind of the direction where it should be going. And this is the only thing your typical Bitcoiner has like speaks about. They care that you can keep your financial tool safe. Um and and you can take that level of control and protect yourself from whatever may happen around the world. Because as much as you know, we want to root for the RAND and team RAND because it's our country and we feel like you know, but the RAND are not the booker. And it's it it the rand is is considering what we know in in the Bitcoin realm of how fiat currencies work, like the Rand isn't really there to try and make life I don't know, better for individuals, like in the same way that that Bitcoin is. Like we understand the RAND is part of the problem, but just in the way that the economic and functional incentives of the system play out in time, just politically pollinomically those two will smash them together, everything that makes all of that happen. So yeah, so we need to we need to use our voices, speak to each other, and get better at this thing because we can, because historically no government has really done this kind of thing for us. There's good things government has done, but in this instance, there is nobody who can give you in your business or in your individual life the the the correct framework for how you need to use this tool called Bitcoin. Okay that we're all learning and understanding together. So so if anything, they need to make it so that the individual rights of Bitcoin are protected because functionally there's not much difference between this thing being a fundamental human right. It was released without a government, created without a government, maintained, built, and proliferated without a government. So to now have a position where it's like no governments say they must tax you on this stuff, you tax us on other things, and you're supposed to deliver fixing potholes and stuff like that, but that's not happening. And this is something we we all know, and even you know, that you had nothing to do with this ever. So to argue that you have a divine right to now tax this thing, which came from the community as a barter tool, um, that's a bit of a stretch in my mind. I think they have to jump a lot of um uh definitions in terms of uh free speech and individual rights and sovereignty and individual rights and like compute, your right to compute, your right to speech, your right to type and code, what's in your mind. Like this is the realm that uh that's being that's being played with here. And that's that's because that's how Bitcoin works. Art, gold, all these other things are different, different, different category. And crypto also. There's centralized people involved. So there it's like just regulate them like you regulate fintechs.
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SPEAKER_00Yeah, I think this uh I think the space in the next month is going to be interesting as we see the closing comments for these sort of regulations. Um the one thought that comes to mind for me is that just I think governments in particular need to be really careful about uh when they decide to sort of ban things or get draconian about things. You know, our current government was a banned organization not that long ago. And here they are, they now run the country. So, you know, human nature is uh sort of one of those things where you tell someone you can't do this, people go, Oh, hadn't really thought about it. But now that you've said I can't do it, let me give it a crack and see why I shouldn't be doing it. Um there's lots of examples through history of this. Uh I remember reading about the Roman Catholic Church that was banning the printing press because it was dismantling their authority over what the Bible said and disseminating information. And the first thing the printing presses started doing was printing pamphlets on how to build printing presses and disseminated that as fast as they could. So the act of trying to clamp down and to ban something in many cases just accelerates it. Or if it does slow it down, it slows it down for a while, but then it tends to explode further down the line into a whole biggest thing that no one thought about because people don't do second and third order level thinking. Critical thinking is not taught. Uh, and people just have this I have a hammer, so every problem's a nail, and we're just gonna go for it. Um but uh Joba Jokes, uh, it's been awesome chatting to you, mate. Um for people that uh want to reach out and just follow you or just get hold of you, chat to you. Do you have any social platforms uh anywhere someone can reach out to you?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, like I'm not I'm not a professional at those things either. Uh, you know, we hoy we hoy intuitively and have conversations, but I mean, uh people I do business with, um I'm connected with, welcome to just hit me up on on X. I mean Tabulani Jakes on X is good. Or uh you can just post my my my LinkedIn in the in the comments and I I check that I check connections there periodically. I don't live and work and advertise on on LinkedIn, that's not how my my business typically works. But if you wanted to reach me, you can just reach out to me there or or or through through the network, you know, people who know me and that kind of thing. But those are the two the two ways. And I'm always open to having conversations and and being tested. Um nothing loves me more than someone saying, No, you're wrong. And then it's like, okay, why? Let's talk about this. Like, why? What's the what's the thing? And how do we how do we dig in and how do we dissect, disseminate, pull apart, rip it to pieces, break the Lego right down into stickies, and then put it back together again. And and in that process of breaking ideas down and building them up again, like we end up coming to to what makes the most sense in the end. And that's pretty much what I'm what I'm chasing in my Bitcoin, in my Bitcoin research. So always looking for the for the tests wherever they come from.
SPEAKER_00Brilliant, man. Well, I'm gonna put those links in the show notes. Um, I've already found my sample through the interview, um uh as the opening quote. So um I'll let you guess what it's gonna be and uh you'll hear it. But it's such a great one. It's gonna be a line that I've gonna remember for the probably the rest of my life. I love the way you phrased it, so I'll leave it as a surprise uh for you. But uh thank you. Thank you so much for your time. Uh it's it's been amazing, and uh I look forward to seeing you again and uh digging even deeper into those conversations. So thanks, my friend. Have a great day.
SPEAKER_01You too, and here's two more meetups around the country, bro. Like these the meetup groups. Um, shout out to the Oaks who run those. You guys are absolute champions. Thank you so much, and thanks, Kevin. It's been a real pleasure. I look forward to seeing you. Thanks, everyone.
SPEAKER_00Cheers. Ciao,