Something about ₿itcoin
I chat to fellow bitcoiners about how they found bitcoin and why they encourage others to look at it. I want to expose my friends and family to the wider world of bitcoin. For those who know the basics, I want to encourage them to go further down the rabbit hole and explore how fiat is destroying not just our money but our healthcare, education, food and right to be left alone.
Something about ₿itcoin
Bitcoin as Money: Living on the Bitcoin Standard | Keith Meola | Episode 4
What does it truly mean to live on a Bitcoin standard? Keith Meola joins us to share his remarkable journey of embracing Bitcoin not just as an investment, but as his exclusive currency for daily life. Keith has experienced firsthand the growing Bitcoin circular economies in places like BTC Isla (off the coast of Cancun) and El Zonte in El Salvador. His experiences reveal both the challenges and triumphs of using Bitcoin as an everyday medium of exchange. Beyond simply spending his own sats, Keith actively works to expand adoption by creating educational materials for merchants and consistently asking everywhere he goes: "Do you accept Bitcoin?" This simple question plants seeds that may bloom into future adoption.
#Stacksats
#Studybitcoin
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⚡ Get in touch with me:
https://x.com/conormc_ardle
Email: somethingaboutbitcoin@gmail.com
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⚡Get in touch with Keith:
https://primal.net/keithmeola
https://www.instagram.com/keithmeola/
https://keithmeola.com/
https://www.btcisla.xyz/
https://keithmeola.com/bitcoin/bitcoin-is-for-everyone/
so for the next episode, we have keith mayola. Am I pronouncing that right? Yeah, keith mayola. And keith is a bitcoiner, a traveler, a lightning engineer and a writer, I suppose, yeah, I found your website from btc isla and then I found your writings, found your instagram, which are pretty cool, so I asked you to come on and have a chat and, um, yeah, I suppose you can take it over from here if you want to just tell us how you found bitcoin and a bit about your journey, traveling around and using bitcoin yeah, sure, yeah, um.
Speaker 2:So, as you said, I kind of do a lot of things, um, like career-wise. Yeah, I do. I work in the entertainment industry. So this year I'm kind of taking a pause to do a lot of traveling and living abroad. Right now I'm actually in Italy and throughout the way I'm always trying to incorporate Bitcoin and I guess I can get into that in a bit.
Speaker 2:But I guess I started my Bitcoin journey I guess I don't know if you say unofficially or officially, but back in 2021 is when I first bought. Mean, when I first bought it but I didn't actually like understand it or what I was doing. It was more so like kind of I was in it for like the meme of it all because, uh, I've been like a long time redditor and, um, I actually didn't find like wall street bets until the whole gamestop thing happened. But uh, obviously, just being a long time on reddit or bitcoin is always throughout the year, is always, you know, you run into it every so often via memes or whatever. So I kind of just got into it or started buying it a couple purchases here and there as an investment, kind of for the meme.
Speaker 2:This is also getting into an, I guess, traditional investing around the same time during the pandemic and such, and then uh, but it really wasn't until about a year ago, right around the time that Bitcoin Atlantis happened in Madeira last year, in 2024. So it was around March, February, that I would say I truly went down the rabbit hole, as we like to say. And yeah, since then I've kind of just been obsessed. I have a bit of a obsessive personality, so when I like find something that I like, I like, just go hardcore like I like it happened with the italian language, it happens with rock climbing, uh, and that happened to get a bitcoin.
Speaker 2:So it's like just consuming it. Um, just reading about it, you know, watching videos, listening to podcasts, started writing about it. Now I'm involved with, uh, as you said, like btc isla, which is a bitcoin circular economy, and he's on the head, which is off the coast of cancun, mexico. So, yeah, the past year it's like kind of just been like eat, sleep, breathe, bitcoin, and then again also, which branched into noster. Um, obviously, it's a bummer that I didn't really go down the rabbit hole in 2021 when I first started buying it. Um, but, like over the years, me, my dad and my brother they're also bitcoiners um, via, we kind of all got into it together, but I'm definitely a bit more obsessive and much more hardcore about it, like living on the bitcoin, the full bitcoin standard and like all that good stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it must be nice it must be nice having your dad and your brother as bitcoiners as well, because I think for me and probably most bitcoiners starting off, you find this thing and then you're like, do I really understand this? Could this all be true? Is it as good as what I think it is? And then maybe you want to start talking to people without sounding crazy, and for me especially, I didn't really have anybody, so it's nice. Did you get into bitcoin first and then you brought them in, or were they already in the space?
Speaker 2:no, I, I, I guess I I started it and then, uh, I guess back in 2021, we used to um when I was, when I was still living at home uh, we would do weekly dinners at my grandpa's house me, my dad, my brother, my grandpa so we always have um, obviously see each other weekly um, because my dad doesn't lives a little further away, but it was always a time to uh, it was just obviously chat about what was going on in our lives around the world, and we used to always kind of have cnbc on in the background at times, um before dinner, so, uh, and obviously at that time, a game stop and obviously bitcoin, more and more so, is prominent, so we used to talk about it.
Speaker 2:I used to like joke with them. I kind of like would, I guess, act as a bitcoin maxi in an ironic sense, kind of like for the meme of it all, like telling them oh, you guys need to be buying like all of your, like just throw all of your money into it, even though I wasn't doing it. I was kind of just like joking around with them in a sense. But, um, but obviously now, um, they're much more, they reconsider themselves, uh, definitely, uh, so pretty hardcore bitcoiners and it is nice to have them to talk to, um, because, uh, yeah, obviously a lot of with with nostre and with, obviously, the internet. Well, I have a lot of friends that are to bitcoin, but it's mostly online friends, um, so it's nice in real life to have some people and, uh, yeah, plus, we have a group chat, obviously the three of us, so it's nice to send, you know, some names back and forth and just like text about what's going on or if there's, you know, news or anything, or yeah etc.
Speaker 2:So but it is nice to to have them and to chat about it with them definitely it's.
Speaker 1:Uh, it's very hard to keep up with all the news, isn't it?
Speaker 1:um, because I'm in a few different groups and sometimes they just mute them and then other times I'm spending literally like an hour just trying to get through them and just going to the latest message, and it's very hard to keep up with stuff. So it's good that you have people there that you know and you trust and you can send stuff back and forth, because they know what you're interested in, what you're not interested in, um. So I suppose whenever you get into it, for me it was more like a store of value thing. It was a long-term play. It was like a 10 year plan, then it was like a retirement plan. So I know you're um quite active, uh, spending your bitcoin and using it as a medium of exchange. So when you started out, was it just like this meme thing that you always wanted to spend and use, or was it like a store of value thing? And also, have you and your brother and your father always been on the same level when it comes to you know whether you're spending or holding hardland, should we say?
Speaker 2:uh, oh, yeah, I would say, um, uh, well, yes, yeah, we all, the three of us. So I guess me. We started as more of an investment tool. They, they also see it more as of an investment. I don't think they're entirely opposed to spending it, but they, um, obviously just buy and hold and, yeah, treat it more so as an asset to it to acquire and to spend or that's what it. Sorry to save. Um, but yeah, I and like in October I went full Bitcoin standard. Um, thanks to strike and their, their, their services. So now I like live full Bitcoin. So I don't, I don't have any like Fiat money, but uh, it was a bit of an adjustment period. I say so like I'm forced to spend it because it's all. That's all I have, um, but it's I I really enjoy using it as money.
Speaker 2:That's what? Obviously what it is. Yeah, um and uh. I think slowly but surely, my, my dad and brother will start spending it as well yeah as it becomes obviously more accepted. But I like to go out of my way to find places with ptc, math and such yeah, so you've burnt the boats.
Speaker 1:Essentially you've burnt the boats.
Speaker 1:There's no going back yeah, well, I don't plan to yeah for me, it's actually only recently when I started to look at places like el salvador and listen to more podcasts and find out that people were actually using it more as money because, like, when I'm trying to, I was obviously using it as a store of value, as a long-term thing, and then when I'm talking to my friends and family I'm saying, you know, you can keep this as a, you know, like a pension plan or as a retirement fund or as a just as an asset you know to hold long-term or whatever. But then people would say, but you can't use it. And my thing would always be coming back to them Like people are spending it, coming back to them like people are spending it, people can't use it to buy stuff. And they'd say like, well, what have you bought with it? And I was like, well, nothing.
Speaker 1:So, uh, I started, I started looking at that and and when I started to, you know, branch out and, uh, sort of look deeper into it, I found that there was obviously countries in uh, african countries that were using it, and they were using it because they had to, because their money was inflating at such, a, such a massive rate, and then obviously, all the stuff that's happening in, you know, latin america as well.
Speaker 1:So that's what this past couple of months I've just been following more of those podcasts and those people on instagram and stuff that are actually using it and trying to trying to, um, you know, create these circular economies and stuff and I thought then I had this idea that maybe that's what I should be doing here, because, um, I think, if, if I'm able to go to, say, my hairdresser or my butcher or my green grocer and say, you know, can I pay you in bitcoin, that might get them interested. Um, and then if people can see me using it, they might actually say, okay, so this is a like even you did. This is a cool meme. This is a thing that we can. You know, something that's fun that we can do. It's outside the system or whatever and hopefully, by maybe using it, then start to learn. You know, actually, if you hold on to this stuff, yeah, it could be worth a lot more in the future.
Speaker 1:So, um, I'm just getting into that whole idea of spending it, because I was just hodl, hodl, hodl, hodl, um, and I kind of was like I would call myself a toxic, but kind of, because when people say, you know, when are you going to sell it? And I'm like I'm never going to sell it, but then, like you said, it's, it's money and, uh, you know what do you do with money? You save it for a certain time until you need it and then you spend it. You know you can't hold on to it forever. So I'm just coming around to your way of thinking now and, um, I'm starting to think that maybe I should be moving towards a bitcoin standard, although it's, it's very hard um, I can't get my employer to pay me in bitcoin but I've started to think now maybe there's something else that I can do, a service that I can offer, and and you know how people pay me in bitcoin. Um, so what's your experience been of traveling around and using your Bitcoin?
Speaker 2:Also, I agree with pretty much everything you just said, and I do have, like my main I pretty much treat it as like my savings, my main stack that I will never actually spend or touch. But then I have the money that I live my life with which I am constantly spending. But, yeah, so I've been atime traveler for a while, I guess, yeah, ever since I graduated college back in, maybe around eight or so years ago by now. But I travel a lot for work as well. But it was around the middle of last year that I decided that I need to travel long-term. It's something I've always wanted to do, live abroad and it was either like I just turned 30 in January, was up at the end of november, uh, for my apartment. So it was like clear that I was at a crossroads. All right, I either gotta like commit to the travel thing and actually do it, or just not do it, because for years I've been in between of like trying to do everything, like trying to travel a lot, trying to progress career, trying to, you know, establish roots and build a good life at home. But uh, yeah, it was time to to make the decision. Obviously, I made the decision to travel. And uh, it was, I guess, in no october, september, ish.
Speaker 2:Um much for listeners would know that you have a c-aware btc isla isla, which is island in spanish. I found the founder of that Her name is Isabella Santos on YouTube and she also does a bit of work for Bitcoin Magazine. But I pretty much saw she started a YouTube channel for the island and she was saying that it was kind of hard and just talking about the struggles of it. So I just straight up, just messaged her on Noster. I was like, hey, I'm thinking about traveling all next year. Um, I'd love to, you know, come down to the island and just like help you out with whatever I could be of use for. And uh, she was like, yes, please, of course, come on down. So, um, I went down there in january this year for two weeks on the island. Um, it was a great time.
Speaker 2:Orange built a couple of merchants, but I also built the website and built some other stuff. I pretty much developed this I don't know what they call it like a flyer, like an eight and a half by 11 piece of paper or which I guess is in your some kind of a size. I'm not sure. Anyway, let's say, a piece of paper, um and uh, to hand out to merchants. That would essentially just explain what bitcoin was from a merch, from, like why it was good for a business standpoint, and actually, bitcoinrocks. I don't know if you know the website, but they also have a flyer that you can order in a pamphlet, um, and I kind of just took that info and made it into something you print out at home, because they're pamphlet you can't really print. Um, then I translated into spanish and made some like qr codes and like also added a couple other auxiliary info to it and uh, so that's been helpful. And now actually I'm also working, reworking that in italian and in english and really also working on like a master document, but a little topic, but, um, yeah, so I, I traveled, uh, two weeks in in BCC Isla, uh, I, I, I think I spent like 700,000 sats over the course of two weeks on the Island.
Speaker 2:Uh, at the time, only like 15 merchants were accepting. Now it's about 10 more, so it's growing. Big things are happening down there and, um, it's still quite young. It was, uh, created february of 2020 well, february last year, 24, so just over a year old, and she's making great progress. I guess we're making great progress because I'm still considering myself part of the teams. I'm still still involved and I I run the Nostr page and I also help with the Twitter page a little bit.
Speaker 2:I'm mostly Nostr and I also have an open map I forget what it's called, but the open source map that BTC map uses. I have made an account so I edit that directly and constantly add new merchants and stuff. But outside of BTC E isla um. I did find one place in belize that used it, um, and I that I accepted bitcoin jack, accepted it on chain, so I still paid and I was like trying again to accept uh, to to use lightning and like teaching him about it and hopefully he did it, but uh he was obviously like, oh, I need to look into it.
Speaker 2:I was like, okay, like I'm gonna pay you anyway and like I'll eat the the fee for buying this coffee. So I bought coffee on chain like four times yeah it's like sorry, I was just gonna say so.
Speaker 1:You mentioned their nostre and you also mentioned the lightning network. So, uh, you've actually been helping me try and get set up in Noster.
Speaker 1:I have an account now, but I still don't know how to use it. But I've been trying to get on there for like a couple of weeks now, so thanks for helping me out there. But for anybody. So this is people are probably going to know what Bitcoin is, but I'd say most of the listeners aren't really going to know what Noster and they're probably not even going to know what the Lightning Network is. So I want to just touch on those.
Speaker 2:Sure, yeah. So to make it at least a lightning brief, because technically it's a bit complicated, I need to definitely do my homework on the Lightning Network from a technical standpoint, essentially because Bitcoin is a protocol. You can build upon it in layers, much like the internet that we use, I think, is layer seven, which is the TCP IP protocol. I could be wrong. Well, the TCP IP is the base layer, I believe, and the internet that we use is the HTTP layer.
Speaker 1:I think.
Speaker 2:Obviously, feel free to do your research and correct yourself. Correct me. Nonetheless, you can scale bitcoin into layers. On the base layer, like when you say we talk about blocks and, uh, on-chain versus off-chain, on-chain is the blocks, the base layer, bitcoin there's transactions or blocks are, on average, um created every 10 minutes, which means transactions get put into blocks, which means transactions gets gets get confirmed on average every 10 minutes, but there's always a waiting pool of transactions, so it could take. If you make a transaction on chain, like when I bought this coffee, um, it took a couple hours for the guy to actually receive the money, however, and that obviously, if it's taking a couple hours and you're paying a fee, it can't scale to a global population.
Speaker 2:But people are developing other protocols that use Bitcoin, one of them being Lightning, which I think I'm pretty sure is the largest. Yeah, that'll be the largest implementation. It's on layer two. It's essentially a way to use Bitcoin for everyday purchases via your smartphone. You scan pretty much someone generates a qr code for you with an invoice and then you just scan it and you just confirm the amount, you send it and they get it instantly. Normally there's no fee, but if there is a fee. It's literally fractions of a us cent, a couple of sats, which, uh, when bitcoin's at a hundred thousand000 USD to a coin, it's 1,000 sats per dollar, or 10 sats per US cent. So even today actually, I had to get some cash and I didn't want to withdraw it, like sell Bitcoin to withdraw from my bank. So I'm here in Rome, so there's a big what's it called Bitcoin meetup group and I texted someone, or texted the group. I was like hey, I don't want to sell me euros, I'll obviously give you Bitcoin. So I actually bought like 500, 450 euros worth of Bitcoin today. No, via the Lightning Network, which is the largest I've ever done, and it was zero fee and it was instant. But essentially, lightning is just the way to use bitcoin for everyday transactions. Like you would buy, pay for your coffee on the lightning network, or just they give you, they give it that way, like in the future. Well, I guess, even now, if you're going to like buy a car in bitcoin, you would do it on chain and you would pay a little bit of a fee and have to go into a block. But if you're just doing your everyday transactions, you use the lightning network, um, and I think that's probably all there is to say at this point, essentially just the way it's part of Bitcoin, but it's a different layer, different way to scale it, and it's also incorporated into NOSTR, which is an acronym for notes and other stuff transmitted over relays.
Speaker 2:It's essentially a decentralized, open source kind of like new internet in a way. Right now the main applications are a lot of social media based, like most people, I would say, use it as kind of like a Twitter alternative, like microblogging. But there's and I think there's about 70 apps total. If you go to Nostra apps, n-o-s-t-r, appscom, there's about 70 and you could see them all and definitely not the best at explaining Nostra. I definitely not the best at explaining Noster. I don't understand it the best from a technical standpoint.
Speaker 2:But essentially it's a decentralized, different internet that's based on value for value. So it has Lightning and Bitcoin integrated into it and so there's no data harvesting for the social media side of it. There's no ads, there's no algorithms, there's no data harvesting, so it's all based on engagement and interacting with other people to kind of grow. So it definitely is, definitely does take a bit to actually to actually grow and gain and gain followers and the like, because there's no algorithms pushing your content and there's, you're not being like, suggested to like people like you like by going viral or whatever. But essentially it incorporates bitcoin in a value for value way. So if you find value in something maybe somebody wrote a long-form blog or made a video that you liked, or a podcast, for instance um, you can just zap we call it, they're called zaps. You can just send the creator directly bitcoin instantly via lightning, so it could even send down to one sat like literally fractions of a penny or a couple pennies worth or a couple dollars worth, or really however much you want.
Speaker 2:But essentially it's very young, it's still. It's a grassroots movement. I think there's probably now it's about 18,000 daily active users. I think, yeah, but I really like it, I enjoy it. It's. It's about 18 000 daily active users. I think, yeah, um, but I, I really like it, I enjoy it. It's. It's good vibes.
Speaker 1:It's very small, it's very niche but, I think there's a lot of room to grow would, would you say, then is not the way I think of nostre is it is essentially censorship resistant, would it be?
Speaker 2:is that true, because it's decentralized.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that's that's what. When I started reading about it, I seen actually a lot of people had lost their profiles and I was like, why do all these people have it? Maybe I should be looking into this. But, like you said, about the algorithms that get pushed on, like you know, normal social media, traditional social media, like your instagram and facebook, like we're all being, I see it as manipulated and almost socially engineered and it's kind of it's not really fair because they're taking our data and stuff and we have no control over it, you know. So if Nostra is sort of the cure for all that, you know, if people can move to Nostra and post whatever videos they want and say whatever they want and say whatever they want and they're not being manipulated into. Oh, you should watch this or you should, you know, follow this person, which is traditional social media, is very much. You should follow this person.
Speaker 2:You should watch this, you know.
Speaker 1:So if it's the opposite of that, um, then it would be be brilliant, you know? Uh, because I've seen that even with the presidential election and stuff For the last one, there was a lot of that, you know, like manipulation of people's views and stuff, and I suppose a lot of people went to Axiom because it's supposed to be more non-biased, isn't it? But Nostra seems like a pure form of that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's great, and I thought I should also add that, um, it's all based on a private, public key cryptography. So, essentially, when you create your account, you're essentially creating a private key for yourself. That's very similar to bitcoin. Essentially, if you're public in your private key and whenever you post anything, um, you're signing every. You're signing everything you do on nostre with your private key. And whenever you post anything, um, you're signing every. You're signing everything you do on master with your private key.
Speaker 2:So, since there's there's no like, really there's no verification from a central authority, because there is a central authority on like on twitter or instagram or all the other garbage out there um, so, and you will see people definitely like every so often like maybe someone that's big in the space will get a follow notification and then it's like instantly go to their profile and see it's not actually them, because it's just some bot or some scammer. But what's cool about it is because you can also, once you post something on Nasta, you can't modify it and you can only delete it. It can only be deleted if you ask the relay you posted to delete it, but they're not obligated to do it.
Speaker 2:But, what's really interesting about this is that if you're a journalist or somebody else in the public face, or even just a regular person, if someone posts something, you can go to the post and verify that it actually came from that person, especially in the day and age that we're in now, with the rapid improvements in AI, like when you see a screenshot of something, like a screenshot of a tweet or whatever, like you have no way to know if one it's real, obviously, if the person posted it, if it was modified, if they deleted it, like it's very easy now to fake screenshots and such. But with master, if you post something like, for instance, I don't know if I posted something, and then you could verify that it was me by quickly just going to the post and seeing that it's actually came from my public key, which belongs to my account. And another thing that ties into all this not to get too technical, but something that's really special is that it's all because it's like an ecosystem that works together. You take your private key with you and you can plug it into all the various apps built on Noster and everything, pretty much like all of your following, all of your followers and all of your social graph and everything done on Noster is tied to your private key, just called your NSEC, and your public key is your NPUB and pretty much you have control over yourself, because on Instagram and Twitter, you can request your data, I think, but you don't own your data.
Speaker 2:But on Nostr, you actually own your data and like from like the micro blogging applications, there's maybe five or ten different apps and anyone create an app. It's open source. You can create it right now and launch it immediately. But, like if, if the app that I use, they make some kind of update or whatever and I no longer want to use the app. Instead of, like, if I jump ship to a different app, it's not like I lose everything. I just plug my, you know, bring my key with me and everything's still there. So it's really interesting. So everyone's kind of using different clients to interact. Uh, it's really amazing and uh, there's definitely people that can explain it better and uh, I think, uh, much like bitcoin, the the future of this is, I think, uh, extremely positive and extremely powerful and we're going to use it, hopefully, in ways that we can't even imagine today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's like, even with the even with the, the money, it's just. All the problems come when the power is centralized, isn't it?
Speaker 1:and yeah, that's that's a big thing that, uh, once you see that, you can't unsee it. But I think it's hard for people that haven't looked or gone down the rabbit hole to understand just how much of a problem that is with our money. And I suppose the problems with social media come from the centralisation of those things too, and like, if you say something wrong on Facebook, say, you could have your account, you could have your account banned or whatever you know. So it's definitely, it's definitely the way forward, I think. So I'm gonna have to get, uh, get researching more and figure out exactly how to use it yeah um, and I suppose, uh, what else have you been doing?
Speaker 1:you're saying that you're you had translated your leaflet into spanish. Do you speak spanish? No, italian, italian, italian italian.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm bilingual fluent in italian.
Speaker 2:Um, so, yeah, I'm in Italy right now. I guess I tie into the travel. So, pretty much, yeah, I'm living in Italy now for a couple months and while I'm here, I'm doing some Bitcoin stuff. Went to the meetup we go into BTC Prague in June. I mean, it's not here, it's in Prague, but I'll be using being so close to Prague to go there. I'll be using being so close to Prague to go, and there's actually there's like only one place in Rome that really accepts Bitcoin. It's like a bar, which is which the Italian bars are kind of like a cafe for everyone else.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I've gotten there and I'll definitely be going back a bunch. But whenever I and this is true for when I'm in the U? S or no matter where I go essentially every time I ask somebody. Every time I'm buying something or at a restaurant or whatever, I always ask oh, do you accept Bitcoin? I already know the answer is no, but I ask anyway, kind of to tie back into what you said earlier. I think it's important just to plant the seed. Yeah, and I always well, at least when I'm home, or I guess in Italian too, because when I'm in a, a spanish-speaking country, I just ask you know, in spanish they accept it, but I don't really go further than that. But if I can express myself more, then I'll be like oh well, like you should let the owner know that, like somebody was asking about it. And uh, occasionally I'll even have my pamphlet with me, my little flyer, and I'll like hand them out as well and uh, sorry, go ahead I don't know.
Speaker 2:sometimes people laugh or whatever, and they're like, no, it's dumb, or something like that. And I've actually just recently started, uh, adding on when they say no, I'll be like, oh okay, well, you will in a couple years, and um, but yeah, so I ask, no matter what, even though I know the answer is no, just to plant the seed, get people thinking about it. But occasionally, like I like to go to coffee shops and stuff, and sometimes people ask follow-up questions, like while they're making the coffee or whatever, they'll be like, oh, like what exactly is that? Like I read about it or I see it in the news, but like, what is that? What? What is that? And then, uh, that's always fun for me to you know obviously try to contain myself a little bit.
Speaker 2:Have a brief little like one minute interaction and try to explain what bitcoin is in a minute.
Speaker 1:As we know, it's kind of impossible you just uh wheel in a whiteboard and start yeah, exactly but um, but yeah, that's what I, that's what that's what I do.
Speaker 2:And, uh, I went to my first bitcoin conference in el salvador in jan which was really fun at Plan D, because after BTC Isla, I went to. Where did I go after that? Oh yeah, I went straight to El Salvador and I went to Bitcoin Beach, el Zonte it was the world's first Bitcoin circular economy Spent a lot of stats there and it was great being there because most I'd say maybe 75 75 of the places except bitcoin. So when you have this choice, you can um at least in my case, like if I went to a place or a shop and I didn't accept it, I would just leave and it's nice to have that power to be like, oh, do you accept it?
Speaker 2:and like no, it's like okay, bye. And it's like because I know I'll, obviously you can go somewhere else buy the same thing paying bitcoin. And hopefully they the person that says no, they realize oh, I just lost a customer because I'm not accepting yeah there's money, um and uh, yeah, so I've been traveling a bit using bitcoin when I can.
Speaker 2:I wish I was doing more documenting, um, I guess tying into what I'm doing in the greater picture with my website, which is, I guess, a bit because you mentioned yeah, you read some articles uh, my website, which is my name, keithmiholacom K-E-I-T-H, not K-I-E Keith is E before. I don't know if it's a problem in Ireland, but all the time people at home in the US spell it K-I-E. That's Bitcoin. I write about travel, mostly Italy-based stuff, because I love Italy so much and I've spent a lot of time here and I know the country extremely well. But I would like to find more.
Speaker 2:Essentially, what I'm doing, what I'm trying to do in the Bitcoin space and in Oster, is really just find a, create, I guess, a space for myself, my own niche, my own corner of the greater community. Yeah, um and uh, eventually maybe get some income via and transition into more ways to, I guess, make money and, uh, be less reliant on, on my career, which is very physical, not visible. Yeah, I have to be physically, I know, at the theater, in the arena, but it's also at the mercy of a lot of external factors that I don't want to be at the mercy of Like during the pandemic.
Speaker 2:I didn't work for 18 months because entertainment was the least necessary thing to be happening. So I want to I guess be prepared for the next time something happens. But that's what I'm doing right now with Bitcoin. That's about travel, working on this big Bitcoin document. I guess to that when I hand out the flyer or when I get people a qr code to learn more about it, they can scan it and go to this document and kind of get the rundown on what bitcoin is. Yeah, whenever you get that finished.
Speaker 1:That'll be something good to send me, because that would be that would be helpful for me when I'm trying yeah, because like you said it's, it's hard to go into somewhere and just be like, oh, do you accept bitcoin?
Speaker 1:because they might laugh at you or whatever. But, um, like you said, it's just planting the seed, isn't it? And I've seen I said, did I watch a video or did I read somewhere that somebody was doing, um, like you know, for your normal debit card that you would have? So it was like a cover, like a sleeve, and it had like a bitcoin logo on it, and so the guy would go into the shop and he would say, oh, do you accept bitcoin? And they would say, no, I don't think so. And then he would take out the card that had the cover, the bitcoin symbol, and he'd say, oh, let's just check, let's see. And he would just tap the card and he'd say, oh, it looks like you do so. Then he's going away and that person's like do so, it's another cool way to plant the seed. But yeah, the leaflet would be something cool.
Speaker 1:I could spread around and, yeah, you're traveling about and stuff, but I suppose at the minute, you're just creating. You're trying to create value, which is a thing that's common in the Bitcoin space. People learn about this and then they think, oh, I have to do something more. That's kind of what I'm doing. I have to do something more, have to do something more. Um, so what was the kind of moment where you were like, okay, I'm going to go from traveling and doing my job and holding bitcoin or even spending bitcoin, to being like, oh, I'm going to write a bit bitcoin and I'm going to create a website and I'm going to talk about it?
Speaker 1:what was that? What was that moment?
Speaker 2:uh, I think it was just. I've had the website for a bit. I also have a youtube channel which it's my name, but, fair warning, it's all in italian.
Speaker 2:It's kind of just my life, but um yeah, I was kind of just like many different um, I was, I've always been interested in doing a lot of different things at once and, uh, I guess, to use like the sailor analogy of like, when your energy's like as a light, you know if you're a floodlight, your energy's going everywhere, but if you focus down your laser, you can really hone in on something and do it really well. Um, so that's what I, that's what I decided to do with the website and, uh, I, I once I still need to think, be more niche, or maybe I don't, I don't really know, but, um, I decided, okay, like what can I write about that? I guess people aren't really doing a lot about or writing a lot about, but, most importantly, what do I like and what will be enjoyable for me? I don't want it to be a job per se, obviously, and I was like, well, I love traveling, I love Bitcoin, I guess I'll just write about them. Like, well, I love traveling, I love bitcoin, I guess I'll just write about them. Um, and plus, by writing about a bitcoin, I kind of just write about right now, at least, I'm writing about it from the perspective, just trying to spread awareness.
Speaker 2:I guess, like, kind of what you're doing with the podcast, but just write content that people that are in the bitcoin space can read and uh relate to and appreciate in a way, because there's already a ton of people in the space that have a lot of experience and maybe specialize in computer science or the economic part of it all or whatever it may be, and they do put a lot of great content. I don't think that's necessarily the avenue for me because I don't. I don't have the specialization, but I think it's still. It actually ties into like I do get frustrated. I wish I could actually build like a program. I wish I had coding experience, but I don't have any coding abilities or anything like that or any kind of like business degree or financial teachings or whatever. So like looking at all like the Bitcoin jobs that you could get, everything like requires like having business degrees or being a computer science you know a programmer or something.
Speaker 2:So, like I kind of feel helpless at times and I really want to be working on something and building something and like helping bitcoin. So I I kind of just realized, well, education is really important and that's obviously probably one of the biggest hurdles right now is just, uh, awareness of bitcoin and educating people on it. So I decided, okay, I'll just start uh just writing on Bitcoin in a way that people can read it.
Speaker 1:That aren't in the Bitcoin sphere.
Speaker 2:They don't know who all the big podcasts are and the big names are and have no idea what it actually is. That's what.
Speaker 2:I've been doing. I did some pieces on BTC Isla because I was trying to give them some exposure, because if you Google BTC Isla, there's nothing about them. I wanted to do that and actually, maybe two hours outside of Rome, there's a new Bitcoin little community growing in a little town. It's called Fornelli, and I'll be going there. Actually, they just revealed one of the Satoshi statues that they have in lugano, and they also have an el salvador now, so and the guy's making great progress. It's like just this one guy, little town, but I just looked today on btc map. He has 30 merchants already, so I'm planning to go there, uh, sometime soon and uh, just see what, how it's going, and probably do a little bit of writing about it. I'll obviously spend a lot of bitcoin, support the economy and, um, yeah, that's kind of. That's kind of, I guess, how I decided to end up on bitcoin and travel. Just want to do something that I liked, that I wouldn't be annoyed or tired to write about, and the really ultimate thing that I'm passionate about cool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I uh this past while I just been sort of looking at what conferences I could go to as well and I think dugana was one that I was looking at and actually I'm I'm learning spanish at the minute so I thought maybe I could, just maybe I could go to south america, maybe, maybe I could go to one that far away and practice my spanish and learn a bit as well. But, um, I know I was in italy once and my wife is always trying to get me to take her to Italy, so maybe I could go there and go to a few conferences there or see that circular economy, I suppose.
Speaker 1:how are you finding you know when you're traveling around, even in Italy, how are you finding talking to other people that aren't Bitcoiners about Bitcoin? Or even if you're meeting friends and going out for coffee, what are they receiving it like?
Speaker 2:In Italy, at least from a merchant standpoint, it's not accepted, unfortunately. I still ask anyway, but obviously I think a lot of my friends these days, especially the ones I talk to often know that I'm really into Bitcoin and I try to talk to them about it. I one of my, one of my best friends into it. Um, he views it as an investment, uh, but it's still good that he, he he's part of it now and, um, I don't know, some people are open to it. Some people are kind of mad when you try to talk to them about it, which I don't get. Like. Why are you getting so upset?
Speaker 2:I actually wrote an article about this on my website about sometimes the hostility you'll face just bringing up Bitcoin to people. I guess they have their own reasons. It makes sense. Over the years there's been a lot of misinformation about it and if you don't know what it is, you might think I'm just some kind of crypto bro trying to get rich, but obviously it's not the case, because you know bitcoin's not crypto and um, nonetheless, yeah, so for people who generally I guess it really depends on who you're talking to but merchants and people don't? They just here, here in italy, they just say no and they don't seem interested in knowing more about it. But some of my friends are. They may not ask about it, but I'll talk about it a little bit. And they don't seem interested in knowing more about it, but some of my friends are. They may not ask about it, but I'll talk about it a little bit.
Speaker 2:They don't immediately shut me down but, um, whenever I get the opportunity like for example, I was especially it's always like trying to pay friends back and stuff, and it's just like this is so simple if you just one, if you had an officer, because I can just pay you on your via your profile without you even like needing to send me anything. I don't need your permission to pay you. And um, two, especially because I have a lot of international friends.
Speaker 2:It's like you know this money exists, that like we can just send it to each other for instantly, for no fee and like there's no settlement time so I don't have to like have my bank well, I don't have to sell bitcoin to put into dollars to then have paypal withdraw it from my bank to send it to your paypal account, to put it through your bank to end up in your, in your hand and have everybody take their cut. Let everybody know that happened. Meanwhile, I can just like take it directly and it's, it's just better it's just.
Speaker 1:It's just electronic cash. That's what white paper calls.
Speaker 2:It's electronic yeah, exactly, yeah because I like it.
Speaker 1:I know I would have a few different friends and in some countries they use certain apps and in other countries they don't use apps and it's like you're trying to pay them. It's like I don't have any cash so I have to download this app.
Speaker 1:But if it was just done with bitcoin, it would be so easy yeah uh, I think just the, the utility of it, the pure utility of it, will help it grow and adapt and never mind this, the store value you know um yeah, and that's what I do, um, at least like in btc, isla isla, mujeres, that's.
Speaker 2:I mean, I don't really speak spanish but, uh, I kind of do a mix of a little bit of spanish and I inadvertently just convert to italian, but uh, and also merchants, but definitely down there I spot um trying to orange fill merchants, hand a flyer out. It's like I explained it as oh, it's cash, but digital, um, cause that's what it is, and uh, I think that's probably maybe one just kind of have people visualize it. But then obviously one of the main things people say is oh, but I can't touch it or I can't feel it, so it doesn't exist and it's like, well, that's not true. But I understand that it's a massive mental block to get over the physicality of it and, I guess, trust in technology. But I think I always tell people, because everyone likes to rebuttal with oh, well, if the internet goes down, or blah, blah, blah, like all your Bitcoin's gone, then I always say, well, also, anything that's not in cash that you have is also gone if you have no internet and also the money's not even there because it doesn't actually exist.
Speaker 2:And I also obviously just described like obviously the world we're ever becoming more and more digital, like the like it's, like we're so digital now five or ten years ago and I'm sure it's going to get more and more, more digital. And, uh, I also depending on how in depth I don't know, I I'll go or how receiving they are, I'll explain that like, yeah, but if, if by some magic like the network does go down, at least there's a point like we, at least we know that there's a ledger that's accurate, that um, that the whole world can agree on through consensus of you know the blockchain that we're all following, because with all the other ones, if they go down, you don't know which one's the real one. But with Bitcoin, you do know which is the real ledger to follow to restart the network. But unless there's a global energy outage or massive internet outage globally, I don't think that's ever going to go down at this point.
Speaker 2:It's just too big um yeah, okay, so we're back.
Speaker 1:I've um had a change of wardrobe so did I. We had a bit, I had a bit of an interruption there, so I had to a cut the call short, and now we're back again a few days or possibly weeks later.
Speaker 2:So welcome back, keith um yes, thanks for having me back.
Speaker 1:So we were just, we were just. Obviously, if you're listening you, you know exactly what we were just talking about. We were talking about, uh, you being in italy and, um, adoption and using bitcoin as money and trying to get that, trying to get that point across to people that it actually is digital cash and, um, people usually say, like they can't see it, they can't touch it, so you know it's not real, but obviously it is real and that's one of the hurdles that people have. So, yeah, was there anything else that you wanted to add on to that point of trying to encourage friends or people that you come across?
Speaker 2:I think probably the biggest thing when it comes to this is to have an open mind when it comes to Bitcoin and when it comes to what it.
Speaker 2:To have an open mind when it comes to bitcoin and when it comes to what it is, because forget if we mentioned previously, but bitcoin is something completely different that's never existed before.
Speaker 2:Um, so nothing to compare it to, there's nothing in our history books to compare it to and there's really there's nothing in our in our human history to compare it to.
Speaker 2:So to really truly understand it does require a different way of looking at things and different way of just like understanding things. So I think this whole physical barrier thing just requires a new way to well, just think about it and just look at it and if you look, like into the code, if you like it really technical, you can see that like, yeah, your bitcoin exists in code, which obviously you can't physically touch it, but you can see it. You can see it in the blockchain and you can see all the code and you can verify that it's real and that it actually exists. So I think the biggest barrier to really overcoming this is just having is opening your mind to things being different than they've always been and, I think, embracing the future of just the few, just everything becoming more and more digital, because it's, it's inevitable, um, and yeah, I think that's by the biggest, biggest advice I could offer people yeah, that is.
Speaker 1:I think that is a big hurdle, but, um, I suppose the way I try to explain it to people is just everything's going digital. Everything has sort of already gone digital, like music and your tv and videos and all that stuff. We don't. We don't go to a get a vhs anymore, we just have netflix. Or we don't go and buy a vinyl record unless we're collecting them. We just have spotify and we don't use a google map. Sorry, we don't use a paper map, we use google maps.
Speaker 1:So everything's just going digital, you know so it's. Uh, it's to see that money's going to go digital too.
Speaker 2:You know so and it's effectively already been digital. I mean, it has been for decades, obviously. It's just finally we have a good money. That that is. That is purely all digital. And, um, I think another thing with adoption is truly well it just if people truly understood the money and how it is. It's not how bad it is and how broken it is. It's so obvious that Bitcoin is such a superior thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if you understand money and you understand Bitcoin, it's like I'll make the bet a thousand times out of a thousand that you will want Bitcoin and use Bitcoin yeah, definitely, I was actually trying to talk to somebody who was asking me about bitcoin the other day and I had actually just come from we had a the bitcoin ireland conference and we had bitcoin vegas.
Speaker 1:We had a lot of I had a lot of bitcoin stuff going on, and so it was kind of very much in my own bitcoin world. And this person was asking me, but asking me about bitcoin, and he was trying to get the basics and I kind of just took for granted how much I understand it and I've kind of lost the touch of trying to explain it to him in simple terms. And uh, he was like he was doing the same thing. He was like I can't see it. And uh, and I was trying to explain it. You know, I was so how, I was so superior and how this was freedom technology and I just had to stop. I was like I'm, I'm too far for this guy.
Speaker 1:You know, yeah, too, too deep, too deep yeah so, uh, I'd have to, um, I have to hone my skills and bringing it back to basics, and one thing that I'm going to use. So, in the interim there, you sent me across the document that you talked about, that you were using to orange pill merchants, and it's a little leaflet which is going to be so, so good for me explaining this to people in a quick, in a quick way, and then you've also got this longer document that you're working on that for for me. As far as all the educational stuff I've seen videos, books and stuff the amount of information that you have in there and how compact it is. It's just perfect because you cover all the basics, but then you actually have points in there where when, when people learn the the basics, they have these questions and you've got those questions answered in there yeah so that's.
Speaker 1:That's going to be really good as well, so hopefully we'll get a link, a link to that yeah and then, oh yeah, real quick I made yeah.
Speaker 2:Over the past couple weeks I made a lot more progress.
Speaker 2:It's actually probably by the time this comes out, this podcast episode, it'll be live.
Speaker 2:I'm pretty much just wrapping it up, but yeah, like you said, I tried to write it as a one stop for everybody to just read. I guess, because I forget, if I mentioned previously, my document had a lot of links. So essentially it's a pile of links but there's a lot of friction for somebody that's like not really truly into it. But I thought how can I make this just like one thing that somebody can read and not have to constantly be following links and having to commit a lot of effort, and just remove all frictions and also include like kind of reading it as if you're like you're on your own adventure with yourself, like I like, because all the questions that people typically ask and all the points of like, not debate, with all the just the points people don't have, you know, certainties or they have questions. I tried to include all that. So, as you're reading it, essentially it's like having a conversation with me um, yeah and uh, yeah, but it's uh I'm pretty happy with it.
Speaker 1:It's really well done, yeah, so hopefully you uh will be able to put the link or something in in the show notes then, and then, obviously, the show notes for you are all the links for yourself. So, um, I'll be keeping up to date with your writings and stuff and following your, your adventures on on instagram. Is there any other things that you would like to draw the people's attention or?
Speaker 2:uh well, since it, since it happened, we can quickly touch on pizza day if you want, that could be cool so it was, uh, may 22nd.
Speaker 2:Yes, if I'm not incorrect, may 22nd for people who don't know, is called pizza day in the bitcoin community, which essentially was, um in 2010, um 2010 yes, may 22nd 2010 was the first time that Bitcoin was used to actually buy something in the real world, which was two pizzas from Papa John's or 10,000 Bitcoin. It was a programmer by the name of Laszlo who did it in Florida and the U? S, and so it's a big day in the community and naturally, people want to eat pizza on Bitcoin beats today, like I did here in Romeome with uh, about 20 other italians, and it was really good. It was a good time, it's fun to celebrate, but uh, so I think just the importance of it is that we don't forget that bitcoin is money. It should be used as money and uh, sometimes you'll you'll be seeing like social media and stuff, um and like influences and people kind of like saying that lazlo was an idiot for like, like the worst trade ever, like 10 000 bitcoin for two pizzas, but um, it's actually shouldn't be taken.
Speaker 2:It shouldn't be thought about that way, because one that it was what 15 years ago? Um, so bitcoin, uh, yet was it to have an actual real world value. But Laszlo gave it a real world value by spending it, by choosing to spend it. So he saw the value in it, decided to take the leap, as we say, and actually transact with it and give it an actual value. So at the time, it was worth what he thought it would be worth and, um, I guess we could say, like, laszlo walked so we could run um, but yeah, we definitely shouldn't be. Uh, I think it's, it's bad, it's a bit. I mean just doesn't make any sense and it just just not good to be looking at it from the lens of oh, my god, he traded 10 000 bitcoin for two pieces.
Speaker 1:That was so dumb because he, he didn't, he didn't like that wasn't a bad trade, but until he bought those pizzas, like you said, bitcoin had never been used to buy anything, so it didn't actually have any value.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:He gave it value.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:So he was the spark that started this whole thing, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So that actually I just had a couple of questions that I was going to ask you and that kind of just leads me into one Just like a couple of silly questions, the questions that I was going to ask you, and that kind of just leads me into one just like a couple of silly questions. But it was. Do you know the? Uh, do you know the, the stages of of adoption?
Speaker 2:have you ever seen that curve where it's like uh, like the percentage, like from like the early innovators to early adopters, like the s curve, you mean yeah, yeah, so yeah, yeah I just actually.
Speaker 1:So we've got innovators, early adopters, early majority, early majority, late majority, and then there's a fifth one, which is laggards. So obviously, laszlo was right in there at the start because he didn't have anybody else to copy, so he was like he was the innovator, he was the one that says I see this as value, I'm going to use it. But my question was where do you think? Well, I suppose there's a lot of different people that are at different stages of this, I think, but where do you think Bitcoin in general is? Are we still in the early adopters phase or the innovators phase?
Speaker 2:I think we're in the early adopters phase for sure still. Yeah, I think we're probably past the early innovators phase, but obviously still innovating. It's still rapidly going to be growing and who knows where we'll be 10 years from now, but definitely still early adopter phase. If you just look at it from, I guess, a number standpoint, with the market capitalization of it all and if we want to think about it that way, in comparison to other assets around the world and all the money, all the quote stuff that exists, but also if you just think about it from, if you just ask 100 random people on the street about Bitcoin, I bet maybe five, if not less will actually be able to tell you anything of substance about it, and that's probably the best indicator to know where we are on that curve.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a good way to see it, because I've heard people saying that when your taxi driver is talking about it, it's too late.
Speaker 1:When everybody in the street is talking about it, then you're too late. And there's a common thing that we always Bitcoiners would say is you're still early because people hear about the price going up. And then they always say I should have bought it last year, I should have bought it five years ago. It's too late to buy now. So my question would be what would happen in the Bitcoin space where you would think we're not still early? Would it be that when your taxi driver or your Uber driver is talking about it?
Speaker 2:I wouldn't say that. I think that could happen, maybe towards the top of cycles, when it reaches that point would say there's a difference between talking about it from an investment standpoint and trying to get more you know fiat money out of it, versus talking about it and actually using it as money, like if the taxi driver was trying to, you know orange pill you about it as money and like why it's better and everything, as opposed to just like, oh, you can make a lot of money on this. I think that could be, you know, an indication of the, the average person, if it becomes more mainstream and talk about it in a way as money rather than as an investment. But I still think we're we're quite far off from that. But obviously this this year is rapidly a lot.
Speaker 2:A lot of things have been happening on the institutional level and the nation state level and, as is evident, like the Bitcoin conference is massive and it's kind of just like people I mean I didn't go this year, I've never been to the, the bitcoin 20, you know, the one that bitcoin magazine does but it's clear that it's kind of like completely taken off from freedom, tech and the plebs to more like for institutions and nations and politicians and stuff.
Speaker 2:So so we're rapidly, you know, blasting in and, as you see, every day. It was like it seems like there's a new company. That's like deciding to adopt the micro strategy or strategy playbook and adopting it as a treasury asset, even just like buying 10 Bitcoin. It seems like more and more institutions and companies are rapidly adopting it, and I think we still. It was obviously a massive, long way to go, but yeah, I think we're still pretty early, but I would say, once people start actually talking about it as money and rather than like using it to make more dollars or more euros or more, whatever it would be, when we are more in the middle of the curve, at least in my opinion.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's. That's kind of what happened. The regression for me is uh, you see bitcoin as a way to make more money and then eventually you get so far down the rabbit hole that you realize that bitcoin is the money exactly yeah, so like why am I going to trade this thing for something else?
Speaker 1:so yeah that's the thing, yeah, so whenever people, people start to realize that, then I suppose that's what you want to see, isn't it? So, yeah, I suppose the only other question I have is Wayne, what's your timeframe? Obviously, you're on a Bitcoin standard now. You're living Bitcoin's a part of your life.
Speaker 1:You don't have too much more to do in your own life apart from just kind of orange pill people around you to make it more convenient for yourself. But what would you in your mind? What is the next big event in bitcoin? Do you have a certain date where you think you know this is going to be big for bitcoin? Is it like the next cycle, or is it like 2030 or uh, I honestly couldn't really say.
Speaker 2:I just think as it becomes more and more mainstream and as more people start accepting it, more businesses, which we saw, block or Square I always forget. No, square is owned by Block, which is run by Jack Dorsey. They were recently I forget if it's live now, but pretty much they're going to enable natively on all of the Square terminals, lightning payments. So even if the merchant doesn't accept it, um, like, if they don't accept it in bitcoin, like people can still pay with bitcoin and you know they'll do something on the back end to convert it over to the currency if the merchant wants to accept. But I think that's a really massive thing because I think that in the us it enables like four million stores to accept it. So I think, just as we, more and more people and like Steak and Shake, a big fast food chain in the US, is also accepting it. So a lot of Bitcoiners are going there just to spend the sats. So I think businesses are realizing that people.
Speaker 2:But there's a market. It was a very large market for people Even though we're few, we want to actually spend the money, spend the Bitcoin, and I think naturally, people just want to attract more customers, and I think in the process they'll actually learn about it and realize oh wait, we actually want to be accepting it because we want the Bitcoin, not because we want more customers. And so I think the next logical step is just more adoption and more people, more businesses accepting it, more people slowly accepting it and just using it. I think that's the next big step, but I don't know, I have no idea when there's any numbers involved or any dates, but it'll be interesting to see what happens over the rest of this epoch until 2028 and the next halving.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's not too many places around me now where I can spend my Bitcoin, so I have a big uphill, uphill, uh. Challenge to try and get to convince people to to let me spend my bitcoin there. You know, I think of two of two places and they're both very, very far away oh no I think I'm really gonna have to travel more, like we were talking about the bitcoin prague conference, so maybe I'll have to just make an effort to go to those places and spend my bitcoin and yeah, and learn how I can orange pill these merchants, because, yeah, I know I never thought I would ever want to spend my bitcoin, but now, like you said, it's like it needs to be.
Speaker 1:That needs to be the next phase for people to learn about it and to adopt it and just to realize that bitcoin is the money and that they should accept the bitcoin, and then they should actually hold the Bitcoin and keep the Bitcoin, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you could always just if you're not living on a full Bitcoin standard, like I always tell people like you can just buy more of it, Like if you spend it, you can easily just buy more of it. You could even literally just replenish your stack right then and there, by just buying what you would have, you know like be buying the amount that you spent essentially in that minute.
Speaker 1:If you think about it that way, even if you know what you're going to spend in that day or that week, you just buy that amount of Bitcoin and then you spend that Bitcoin. So it works out the same.
Speaker 2:Exactly, yeah, it would probably be better in your favor in the long run, because you'll actually have more purchasing power over time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, favor, in the long run, because you actually have more purchasing power over time. Yeah, um, one. One final question before I let you go here um, with spending bitcoin. I know you're moving around, you're traveling, but the capital gains tax in most countries on spending your bitcoin how do you manage that? Or do you just dismiss that and think, uh, do you? Do you track your spending?
Speaker 2:um, I don't personally. Well, I don't personally do it, but I pretty much use strike.
Speaker 2:I forget if you mentioned that at all, but I use strike, which is a bitcoin only company, and, uh, they're a us company but they're like in 100 countries, but a lot, most of the features are currently native to the us. Last, since I do use them for pretty much everything. They keep track of it all and at the end of the year they give me a document that essentially says what my capital gain or loss was on the year and from there I can. I just plugged that number into you know the tax software and it tells me how much I owe. So.
Speaker 2:But I mean, if you're, if you don't have a company or software doing that all for you, then yeah, you would have to keep track of it all you know, it's up to everybody's discretion of how well they want to do that or what they want to think, but I live, even though if I don't agree with all the laws, I live within the laws because I don't want to have problems, obviously, down the line yeah, the the tax is one thing that you can't really get away with not paying, because they're going to come find you, aren't they?
Speaker 2:yeah, but it's good to pay taxes on your capital gain. We were kind of like think it's not good because it's like, oh no, you're, you're giving money up. But I mean, if you think about it, like if you're paying taxes, that means you made a capital gain, which means you weren't the base, which means you made a capital gain, which means you weren't the base which means you made money.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, you don't want to pay the taxes. It kind of sucks, but at the same time you made money. So it's a good thing to want to pay the tax Otherwise you would have lost money.
Speaker 1:You can think about it that way. It's not a bad complaint if you have more tax to pay.
Speaker 2:Exactly, if you just think about it ahead of time. And no, I guess you're gonna have to pay taxes, so you can maybe allocate differently or do whatever you want to do.
Speaker 1:I don't know, but yeah until we get to the stage where we're all in the bitcoin standard and we have signed money and there's no need for anybody to pay a tax yeah, exactly, exactly right, uh, that's brilliant. So I think we'll wrap it up here and let you go then. Um, one final word from you, or is there any uh links or your instagram or anything you want people to know to get in touch with you?
Speaker 2:uh, just my website, keithmiolacom, which I guess you'll put in the show note, and then, uh, I'm mostly very active on nostre um, which we go put my link or my n-pub, my link, I guess my link, my one of my links is obviously in the show notes. But yeah, those are pretty much the two main places can mostly be found, I suppose.
Speaker 1:But uh, yeah, that's pretty much it perfect, I'll get all the all the links in the show notes and people can reach out if they want yeah, sounds great thanks very much, keith cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you cheers good time bye.