0:00 so people traveled so that they can pay in  bitcoin we got like 20 businesses on Rainy Street accepting  bitcoin through 0:06 the Oshi app we had around 500 people five or six hundred people show up on 0:12 like a Wednesday evening to like get out there and like pay with  bitcoin they want people to earn it as easily as 0:17 possible then just with the transactions they already do no coffee points no miles punch card stars it's SATS 0:25 whenever customers make a purchase on let's say either their point of sale or their website they immediately get uh 0:31  bitcoin rewards via email in one hand you're able to attract customers that maybe don't know much about  bitcoin that 0:37 would love to get free stats effectively for the first time ever like people actually seek out these these businesses 0:43 that are offering  bitcoin [Music] 0:49 rewards medium of Exchange is sponsored by Polaris Payments let's face it for 0:55 now businesses still need to accept fiat and credit cards Polaris Payments helps with all your credit card processing 1:02 needs using a consultative approach think of Polaris like a performance coach helping take your business to the 1:08 next level when it comes to accepting all forms of money for more information about Polaris Payments visit 1:15 Polarispayments.com now let's get back to the show just to kick us off here so really 1:21 excited to welcome Michael Atwood to the Medium of Exchange podcast Michael you're the uh founder uh and CEO of Oshi 1:29 as well as the um head organizer of the awesome  bitcoin club so really excited for this conversation today um to talk 1:37 about  bitcoin and  bitcoin community and of course  bitcoin becoming that medium of exchange uh so really just to start 1:44 it out I want to continue ripping on what we were just talking about of how your  bitcoin journey has evolved from go speaking in Nashville to where you are 1:50 today you said things have changed for the better uh and I would love for you to kind of expound upon that oh man yeah Reworking  bitcoin Rewards 1:57 so where do I start um man that's that's a that's a big question so let me just 2:03 take it piece by piece um yeah yeah you know what we were what we were discussing a bit is how you know 2:09 whenever I was kind of uh doing my speaking circuits I guess you could call it and going to different conferences 2:15 and podcasts and everything um I was obviously very very very passionate about the  bitcoin circular economy 2:22 getting out there and spending your  bitcoin and I still am and I want that to come to fruition completely um but I also uh was 2:33 humbled dramatically by like kind of how uh OSHI first began and what what our 2:38 focus on that was we we can get into that um at some point but um ultimately 2:45 you know what I learned is I think from the the medium of exchange I think it's very worthwhile to like be accepting 2:51  bitcoin to be paying with  bitcoin and to keep driving that forward and kind of like shooting your best shot um but I do 2:58 think uh at least for me like I said it's going to take a bit longer than I initially thought so um yeah that's kind 3:04 of my journey i haven't really spoken too much about it actually um not not that I've just been keeping 3:12 the information I learned to myself or anything but I've just been putting it into the product that we built you know 3:17 just to kind of take a little one step back to try to meet people halfway a bit more but yeah yeah that's that's kind of 3:24 the gist of it so I guess in spirit of taking half a step back or maybe a full step back can 3:31 you explain Oshi and the product that you're building and the company that you've uh that you've been working on 3:36 for the past however many years yeah absolutely so I guess I I guess it'd be 3:42 good to start with how it was initially founded uh so initially you know let's 3:49 set the stage right it's like 2019 2020 3:55 there were you know uh  bitcoin became legal Tinder in El Salvador i don't know 4:01 if that was was that May 2020 or maybe early 2021 i don't maybe it was 2021 yeah um but anyway like everything's 4:09 leading up to hey Lightning Network  bitcoin payments we can do this it 4:14 scales like we don't have to worry about use anything else right and I was kind of going down at this point I was 4:20 already very deep down the bitcoin rabbit hole but I had finally come to the conclusion that it was like bitcoin 4:26 or nothing and around like mid 2018 let's call it so immediately I I was 4:32 looking for different you know business ideas and how init Oshi initially started was about it was about you I was tinkering with lightning nodes like in 4:38 2018 2019 I was like oh this is so cool let me build an app to help people 4:43 promote their products and services um and they can accept payments in  bitcoin 4:48 so over lightning but then we came to the conclusion that well you know it's 4:54 you know obviously there are people that are very ideological about this they'll pay for  bitcoin on various products and 5:00 services just because right it's like I want to make my first lightning payment i want to buy something and kind of 5:05 stick it to everyone all the naysayers like no see I I use  bitcoin to buy a coffee after all um in fact I bought a 5:12 whole bag of coffee um and so you know that's how we started it was really cool we got a lot of great feedback and uh we 5:20 also realized that you know you it's it's good to provide a little bit of incentive there as well because there are still a lot of people that are like 5:25 I don't want to spend my bitcoin like why would I spend my bitcoin so we did this stats back thing just like cashback I mean obviously bitcoin rewards is 5:31 pretty ubiquitous now um and it's growing you know you have you have fold publicly traded company now and it's 5:37 really kind of uh leaving its mark on on the reward space and so that's what we 5:43 did um but again we were pretty much all like  bitcoin and lightning native And so we would get the businesses set up to 5:48 accept  bitcoin payments on the back end and then customers just pay them uh in the app and we would have some janky 5:54 integrations into like how we can help them fulfill the services once they got paid but and then of course the customers earned a lot of SAS and so you 6:01 know everything from whole cows literally to you know bags of coffee or 6:06 you know various other things so um so that's kind of how it started right and um as the hype obviously that cycle that 6:15 that bull cycle kind of came to an end um and you know you're in the depths of 6:22 the bare market and uh you know bitcoin payments uh although it's still exciting 6:28 and we're still happening were happening uh far less frequently than we would have liked and we're like okay uh we 6:35 need to and obviously there there were limitations and stuff and things that we learned along the way we're like "Okay I think we should probably um transition 6:42 to something that we do now where you know we just integrate directly with the business very easily through their own 6:47 websites point of sale systems and offer  bitcoin rewards to people as a loyalty and rewards program regardless of how 6:54 the customer pays pay them  bitcoin awesome they pay with their debit or credit card great whatever you get 6:59  bitcoin rewards either way um to kind of uh again like we said initially like 7:04 take one step back to kind of allow people uh to bridge 7:11 that gap that chasm that is actually a bit wider than we had initially thought 7:18 that was during the like Jack Mer's NCR announcement we're going into Walmart 7:23 we're going into all the national chains right everybody was full yeah like every 7:29 like I'm telling you i mean yeah i mean you guys probably Yeah i mean you clearly remember it like it was hyped i 7:34 mean we're talking you know  bitcoin payments in El Salvador  bitcoin Beach 7:40 like um yeah like you know the they're now um legal tender bitcoin is now legal 7:47 tender in El Salvador like I went to El Salvador multiple times um just to learn kind of how they were doing things down 7:53 there and uh it it was super exciting and but ultimately yeah I think kind 7:59 of I I don't want to blame just the bare market but let's say the bare market sucked a lot of that wind out of the 8:04 room real fast um but yeah you know NCR Toast they were all kind of looking to 8:10 tiptoe in well and I think part of this like you know I like that you use the 8:18 the word bridge because that's kind of I've been using that term as well recently and one of the things that 8:24 Jason and I and I have talked to is like that chicken and the egg problem of getting people onboarded because you can 8:29 have a business that's onboarded but then you also need the customer so there's that two sides of the marketplace um so can you talk through 8:36 like your thinking there in in that pivot of how you're able to you know just accept any type of payment  bitcoin 8:42 or fiat and focusing more so on potentially the business or or the customers who are demanding the SATs 8:49 back and how that strategy came into came into your um your you know last few 8:55 years in in iterating on on the product yeah absolutely so I guess uh first let 9:02 me just say that I didn't really have many issues i mean I was like going  bitcoin Jesus on this thing i didn't 9:08 have many issues like going just door-to-door business to business business to business um you know pitching him on hey like 9:16 we'll get you to accept  bitcoin we'll put you in this app people will you know 9:21 discover you you know  bitcoin's getting hyped up right now people are looking to get involved 9:28 and kind of our first debut um of this was on Rainey Street i believe it was 9:33 like December 2021 if I'm not mistaken um I just went 9:39 down Rainey Street up and down Rainy Street for over the course of like a week and I just talked to all these different food truck vendors and businesses there and we got like 20 9:45 businesses on Rainey Street accepting  bitcoin through the Oce and uh we had 9:53 around 500 people five or six hundred people show up on like a Wednesday evening um to like get out there and 10:00 like pay with  bitcoin at all these different businesses right and so that was that was really cool 10:06 um again that's that kind of speaks to like the hype of the cycle too like people were traveling for this just to 10:12 like get that experience and people still come up to me this day and talk about like dude that was epic like that 10:17 was so cool so hang on so people traveled so that they can pay in  bitcoin yeah yeah 10:24 exactly yeah i'm not even That's amazing yeah it was like this big call to action again 10:31 the vibe during that time people were so like enthusiastic and ideological and 10:37 just the world  bitcoin payments are going to take over like everybody was in this mindset and it made so much sense 10:43 like it really did like yeah we were a little you know we were all hyped up like it was bull market maybe we're 10:48 running on fumes but I mean we know that it makes sense to do this but it doesn't 10:55 mean that you know people don't necessarily understand what makes sense these days you It's like it takes time 11:01 to change human behavior right i just have this like mental picture of you know people traveling to like pay with 11:08 Visa or pay with Apple Pay or so it's just like you know now nowadays it's just so embedded in our financial system 11:18 um it's just such a normal thing to do to just like tap your card or all these different ways to pay um but 11:27 yeah times times have changed you know they getting through the the bare market and everything and fast forward to today 11:34 yeah yeah exactly yeah that's a good that's a good point you bring up yeah where I mean but to with that being said From Payments to Rewards 11:41 I mean people basically uh made pilgrimage to  bitcoin Beach in El 11:46 Salvador i mean they it is the same kind of vibe like I I showed up uh there like a week after Mallers's uh announced the 11:54 you know  bitcoin legal tender bill was like working its way through El Salvador um you know that iconic uh you 12:02 know pre-recorded Na Boulli video now we have like Donald 12:07 Trump like you know live talking it's just insane how far we come it's crazy um but uh you know and I went down there 12:15 a week or two later and uh it was just I was surrounded by I was still kind of 12:20 like breaking into the space I guess you could say like I knew a lot of people but I hadn't really met a lot of them yet in the space and just so many people 12:27 were there you know big names I was like oh my gosh like I was kind of starstruck at that at that time and people just 12:33 came and and like the payments were flowing right people were bullish um in 12:39 any case so going back so We're on Rainy Street we got all this stuff set up uh 12:45 they were all set up to accept  bitcoin payments after that event though there was just such a crazy precipitous drop 12:52 off in the number of payments that those businesses right like it's like people wanted that experience at first um and 13:00 they were willing to go to great lengths to to get it almost right but over time like there was just there was just a 13:06 drop off so what I what I learned um it was very easy to get businesses 13:12 set up to accept it and again I want to I want to paint this picture like they 13:17 should it's fairly easy all things considered especially with the tools today um and it can really just be a set 13:25 it and forget it thing but I then realized that even if you get all the businesses on the consumers at that 13:33 point and I think it it's still partially true today but it's it's growing every day most consumers aren't 13:40 ready yet even even  bitcoiners they're like it's tough especially if we're talking about locally um to like get uh 13:48 perhaps the the relatively speaking small number of  bitcoiners that are willing to pay in  bitcoin in that geographic location to do it um online 13:56 is much better and it's also much easier to accept like if you're e-commerce but um in any case so that's what we learned 14:03 we learned like I think um it was just a bit early again that was four years ago three years ago three 14:10 and a half years ago um but uh yeah that's that's what we learned so to bridge that we said look clearly 14:18 um I want people to get more exposure to  bitcoin I think if they 14:23 do they'll probably be more willing to pay with it and I want people to earn it as easily as possible then just with the 14:30 transactions they already do and I also want to make sure that whenever we set up a business to accept  bitcoin I want to make sure that it has more of like a 14:38 long-term uh benefit well let's say immediate benefit and long-term 14:44 regardless of whether or not anybody pays in  bitcoin bitcoin is the future people are going to pay with it but I want to bridge that right so yeah we set 14:50 up the loyalty and rewards program everybody that shops with these businesses get  bitcoin rewards and you know we hope that uh well they're 14:57 already doing it in some cases but over time more and more people will take those rewards and they'll they'll pay 15:02 with  bitcoin right so that's kind of kind of where we started where we're at 15:08 so walk us through Michael how does your app work today is this uh mostly a 15:14 reward system and integrates on the back end with some kind of like  bitcoin payment rails or is this like a  bitcoin 15:20 payment system that merchants can just set up like like let's take the merchants perspective for one second how 15:25 does it work for a business and they want to accept  bitcoin and use the Oshi app yeah so we're we're kind of 15:33 revamping the app completely but it's uh the So let's just talk take it from the merchant perspective um we integrate SATs as Loyalty Points 15:40 with Shopify Square Woo Commerce Stripe Zaprite we integrate with these 15:46 different you know payment providers and u whenever customers make a purchase on 15:51 let's say either their point of sale or their website as long as we get you know an email or phone number or they opt into their rewards program whenever 15:58 they're making their standard purchase they immediately get uh  bitcoin rewards via email and uh so this  bitcoin rewards 16:05 um as a loyalty and rewards program so VIP tiers referral bonuses you know 16:11 first purchase bonuses you know stuff like that um and so it acts and functions just like an everyday loyalty 16:18 and rewards program except the the points are SATs so no coffee points no 16:23 miles punch card stars it's SATs and what this unlocks is a kind of a a 16:30 marketplace where all these different businesses uh their rewards unit of account is SATs so you know in in one 16:39 hand you're able to attract uh customers that maybe don't know much about  bitcoin but would love to get free uh you know 16:46 free sats effectively love to get exposure uh to  bitcoin by shopping um 16:52 without really changing their behavior whatsoever just they just shop at these businesses they discover these businesses and then on the other hand 16:57 you can kind of consolidate all these rewards from all these different businesses that you've earned at into like a single place like an app or web 17:04 um based kind of uh app and uh yeah it's like kind of a it's a you know a unified 17:12 loyalty program where the SATs are the rewards and uh it's available global and 17:20 it's uh actually valuable outside of just that business alone so it actually unlocks a customer acquisition channel 17:27 as well because nobody's ever going to shop at your business they're like "Oh this place offers uh coffee points i'm 17:34 so there." No one's ever going to say that maybe they're already shopping there and then they're like "Oh I got some coffee points so let me shop a few 17:40 more times let me buy a few more you know and then I'll get a free coffee on like my fifth visit." Whereas this you're actually attracting customers who 17:47 maybe wouldn't have known about you otherwise but because they want  bitcoin they're like "Oh immediately they're like hey I like this brand is cool i'll 17:56 shop I'll shop at them over another business perhaps." So basically that gets into what I was 18:04 going to kind of th pull on on on loyalty right and 18:09 explaining what happened in on Rainey Street which for those who are not familiar Rainey's like a very uh you 18:14 know outgoing street with a with a ton of bars here in Austin Texas um and 18:19  bitcoiners are loyal right and there's we see these little circular economies starting to pop up even if the hype 18:26 might not be as loud or as noticeable as it was four years ago it's still happening um 18:32 and I the the the question or or basically the point that I'm trying to 18:37 get across here is is when you are a business and you open the door to 18:43 providing this for  bitcoiners who either want to earn more STS or want to even spend their SATs then it creates a whole 18:51 another way for you to engage with people um businesses and customers alike 18:57 and then from there you start seeing this  bitcoin thing going directly peer-to-peer and you're like "Oh that 19:03 actually is a little different." Like maybe I should maybe I should learn more about this and then what's the best way 19:08 to get more SATs it's to accept it as a payment and I think that's the that's 19:14 the you know step back if you will the bridge of of just opening the door for 19:19 people to to see it in action uh in a you know relatively seamless and easy 19:24 way that's right yeah exactly and I'm I'm more and more of the opinion that uh Spending SATs Before You Understand Them 19:30 the people that are going to be spending their SATs the most in the short term are those that probably just earned it 19:36 for free and perhaps they don't um as a consumer i mean there's a million different ways like if you're a 19:41  bitcoiner to spend SATS and then you can spin and replace like it's it's very easy if you know what you're doing but 19:47 if you don't one you might not really see the value in it yet like you know it's exciting because it's like it's 19:53  bitcoin and even if you don't know much about  bitcoin it's like intriguing at least kind of captivating better than coffee points um but you'd probably also 20:01 be more likely to uh you know spend them in the sense of I want to redeem these 20:08 SATs for a coffee or I want to redeem these sats so in the app that's another mechanism where people can redeem their 20:14 SATs for various goods and services from businesses um and uh we haven't fully 20:20 launched that PC yet it's it's in progress but uh we're anticipating people are going to redeem a lot of SATs 20:26 and especially people that don't fully understand what  bitcoin and SATs are yet 20:31 which is which is great that's exactly what we want and it's crazy to think but perhaps the people that don't understand 20:37 the value of SATs in terms of like mass scale they they're going to be 20:43 um effectively spending their sats to redeem things for products and services more than the actual  bitcoiners which is 20:49 exactly kind of what I want i don't need to convince the  bitcoiners like the value of  bitcoin and like hey they 20:54 should spend their SATs i want to get people that have no clue that can really move the bar and move the needle for 21:00 these businesses like um you know could could actually maybe really show up on their bottom line if they're because you 21:06 know  bitcoiners are a small subset an important subset of of the total customer base and a and a you know very 21:13 ideological and uh you know they're they're going to bring you uh bang for your buck but uh what's really going to 21:21 move the needle is like the everyday person that just got some sats and they're like I want to like I'll use 21:26 these i'll send these back to the business to redeem for something it's a very bottomup approach too you're not 21:32 you're not trying to educate them with books and podcasts and knowledge it's just like it's practical it's useful 21:39 yeah here's some stats do you want them great you don't that's fine don't take don't accept them and they'll go back to 21:45 the business owner you know after like 30 days if you don't if you don't want to all you have to do is just claim them 21:50 like if they get an email or a text that says "Hey claim your sets." And they don't want to then that's okay too but 21:56 we have about we have a fairly high claim rate so they like the sets yeah i mean I think something else to consider 22:01 that I highlighted a bit earlier is um the standard loyalty and reward program Loyalty Points Are Dead. Long Live SATs. 22:07 like one I said you know it's not particularly exciting enter  bitcoin and it becomes a bit more exciting um you 22:14 know a bit more modern um better for you know especially the younger generations that are they're highly attached to like 22:22 brands like brand identity like they're they're they're super attached like an influencer says "Hey buy this." And they 22:28 buy it you know they trust that brand and then they trust the brand that that their influencers like it's very very 22:34 brandoriented um and so hey like this brand gives you  bitcoin that's cool but 22:40 a whole another element of that is as I said is it opens up for a loyalty and rewards program for the first time it's 22:45 actually a customer acquisition channel so these people that like  bitcoin can discover you and that's effectively what the app is doing the app is effectively 22:52 um showing you all the businesses where you can earn  bitcoin and all the special deals they have to earn it and then even ways to redeem it places to spend it and 22:59 so on so So basically Michael the customer can pay in fiat or  bitcoin if 23:05 the merchant accepts  bitcoin right correct and and then do the does the customer 23:11 opt in to the reward like let's say I'm a merchant i've got a WordPress site 23:16 using Woo Commerce with Oshi integrated how does the customer and let's say the 23:21 customer comes to my site they're buying some some widgets um do they just 23:27 automatically get opted in and they just get an email from both me and your app 23:33 as a rewards platform or how does that work yeah so currently uh if they opt into marketing um in your business so 23:39 they check that box during checkout or or at least they don't uncheck it then um you know yeah this acts as just kind 23:46 of like a marketing uh email so they'll receive an email from you for the purchase and then they'll receive an 23:51 email immediately thereafter that's completely branded for their business and says "Hey like you're in  bitcoin rewards in this purchase click here to 23:58 claim." And and by claim it's just like literally just click it to say you want it you can save it as long as you want 24:05 they don't expire they're sats you know they uh uh and they're good anywhere  bitcoin is accepted or exchanged you 24:12 know so um that's that's how that works and then whenever they click on that link it also shows other ways to earn 24:17 from the business so follow us on Twitter follow us on you know whatever and then uh refer your friends and get 24:24 commission in  bitcoin on their purchases and so on yeah i mean I'm a user of Oshi 24:29 and I've it's honestly it's seamless like especially especially when you pay in  bitcoin like do you see how easy it 24:36 is because if I have my Strike Lightning wallet and I scan a QR code through 24:41 Zaprite after putting in my email or phone number whichever one I immediately get that notification it takes me to the 24:49 site and then I just withdraw it to my Primal wallet because it's you know it's a I view the I view those SATs as like 24:56 okay now that's my reward stats i'm going to I'm going to use that circular economy to what you were saying of like 25:01 redeeming it i'm gonna use it on Nostr um but it's it it all happens in an 25:06 instant where it's just one very easy flow on your phone and you see the stats 25:13 show up you say you hit the three little buttons withdraw and input your Nostr Primal um Lightning wallet and it could 25:20 be obviously any any Lightning wallet but that's just kind of what I've been doing and it's to your point it's 25:26 exciting like it makes it feel like you're it's kind of you know there was the the whole girl math trend that went 25:32 around where like you feel like you're making money even though you spent money and it's just like it it doesn't it's 25:38 that whole um that's the excitement thing that you know when I got my my two 25:44 coffee points this morning uh from from a coffee town a coffee shop downtown I 25:50 was like okay like I'm never going to see those again I don't even know how to spend them 25:55 right Yeah yeah it's like it's Yeah the coffee points the airline miles the 26:02 stars the punch cards like it's it's over it's going to take a little time but it's over i mean you know um it's 26:09 almost like the internet versus the intranet it's like look you can either like confine these little points that 26:14 are only usable and spendable and earnable it's your business or you can like open up like open up yourself um 26:21 and maybe it seems counterintuitive at first but that also seemed counterintuitive again the internet 26:28 versus internet like they thought oh yeah we'll just use the internet like internally only because that's the way it should be done but they open up and 26:35 it it just blew the doors off everything you know it's like um and and again I think the main component there is for 26:43 the first time ever like people actually seek out these these businesses that are offering  bitcoin rewards 26:49 um and you know perhaps go uh so far as to say that if you're running a  bitcoin 26:55 rewards and loyalty program you're almost kind of like grooming your customers in the future to be customers 27:01 that might be more willing and able to pay with  bitcoin in the future as this trend continues and as more and more 27:07 people wake up and realize like one of course I should accept it why wouldn't I 27:13 and then over time consumers will just become more um you know more willing to 27:18 pay with it medium of Exchange is sponsored by the  bitcoin Payments Advisor if you own or run a business and 27:26 you'd like to accept  bitcoin but don't know how the  bitcoin payments adviser can help from specific software 27:31 recommendations and accounting implications to training employees and marketing so your customers know you 27:38 accept this new form of payment the  bitcoin Payments Adviser can help simplify your journey in accepting 27:43  bitcoin for your business check out bitcoin paymentsadvisor.com again that's bitcoin 27:49 payments advisor.com now let's get back to the show Michael I have a question um so 27:57  bitcoin Rewards like everyone listening to this podcast if you own a business you should you should sign up for the 28:02 app right um but in addition to this reward platform 28:07 for some of our listeners who are maybe not yet where you were when 28:13 you first got into this business when you were excited you're pumped you're like "All right medium of exchange." For 28:19 some of our listeners might be like "Well why should a business accept  bitcoin?" or why should a a person who 28:27 has  bitcoin pay with  bitcoin and I know those are different questions maybe you can tackle them one by one um but could 28:35 you share your thoughts on that yes um so why should a business accept accept 28:41  bitcoin uh initially I would have said that they should accept  bitcoin because Align with  bitcoiners, Not Just Payments 28:48 for let's say the more obvious reasons um I would have said well uh you're going to save on processing fees okay uh 28:56 chargeback protection okay um and then I would have said well obviously like if 29:01 you if you store it and hold it and like businesses that have accepted  bitcoin assuming they held on to it hopefully 29:07 they did that were using our app early on i mean they've seen a 20x in in the value of that purchase right and so um 29:14 you know because we first launched  bitcoin was like $4,000 it was like right during COVID and so you know like 29:21 right literally the day I was pitching this like at a local startup uh you know event uh it was the day that I think it 29:29 was like April 12th or something it was the day that all the markets just took a dump uh and  bitcoin went from like I 29:36 don't know 10K to 4K or 5K or something like that whatever it was like a 50% drop and you know people that that were 29:44 receiving  bitcoin during that time obviously again like that's like a 20x it's like what like VCs dream of that's 29:50 that's their Yeah yeah your coffee got a better uh return on investment than VCs do on their like I mean it's like Yeah 29:57 great like you're a VC now we're all VCs like so it's just it's interesting so 30:03 that would have been my main pitch whenever I first started getting into it 30:10 and all of those things make sense right makes perfect sense it's very reasonable 30:15 very logical still holds true today but I would tweak it a bit i would now turn it into it's more about just accepting 30:24 it and saying that you accept it than than anything else it's more about brand 30:31 it's more about aligning yourself with a particular type of consumer that sees 30:37 their purchasing power go up instead of down people that you know they hold more 30:42  bitcoin they feel better uh in economic uncertainty because you know they're 30:48 seeing 40 to 50 60% compound annual growth on their savings right like these are people that are a little bit less 30:54 price insensitive and they're the type of customers you want right and so that's that's what I would say now it's 31:00 like forget about even if they pay with it like just align with that type of customer for branding and the reason why 31:06 I I say that and again I'm not trying to like dog on  bitcoin payments but let's 31:11 let's go step by step and something I realized um you know not too long ago as I was 31:17 going through this process was that okay so you save on processing fees you know 31:23 let's say you're a local business um mom and pop shop wherever you know it's like 31:28 how many  bitcoiners that are willing to pay with their  bitcoin are near you statistically speaking not very many and 31:35 that's okay however let's say they do let's say $1,000 they over the course of 31:42 a year they spend $1,000 at you hey that's going to make a 20x one day it's worth it but if we're going to 31:48 say you know if we're going to say like processing fees you know you're going to 31:55 save not much you know right it doesn't matter it's negligible it's rounding error it doesn't matter if we're talking 32:01 chargebacks most businesses are like I don't even have chargebacks anyway it's okay or I do it just depends on the business obviously but generally 32:07 speaking so that I would just toss that out in in in the initial pitch to a business owner now um the whole store of 32:14 value thing perfect store it accept it it's awesome you can also just go buy it and 32:20 you know it's a lot more cool to accept it you can just buy it um just as effective generally speaking uh unless 32:28 you want to you know stash it away and you know like it just depends unless you don't have any it's it's nice to do it 32:33 peer-to-peer let's say um so I would replace that with hey just accept it put 32:38 yourself out there and also it allows you to kind of practice with it and understand how it works and put it in front of your customers and just like 32:45 get the word out about it I think is very valuable and important to do yeah by and large I would I would today just 32:50 say it's mainly about aligning yourself with the customer that is going to be 32:57 that is valuable now and is will be more and more valuable as time goes on and they're a 33:04 passionate group of individuals and you want them in your corner so if you can not just accept it and just say "Hey I 33:09 accept it." But actually spend 10 hours looking into  bitcoin figuring out what 33:15 it's all about 10 hours isn't enough time but it's enough to get the gist all 33:20 right and accept it and put yourself out there put your best foot forward and people will be very receptive 33:26 and think about if the purchasing power of your customer 20xes the impact on your business that's 33:34 a good customer to have exactly so that's that's that's where I've evolved personally and my communication of it It’s Not a UX Problem—It’s Human Behavior 33:42 and understanding of it um and I would just say you know we still probably have 33:48 100x from here in the next decade I think and so you know it's never too 33:54 late and you know you should you should always just start familiarizing yourself 34:00 with it take the first step accept it it's you don't have to do something fancy you know you can literally just 34:06 download Strike or Cash App and just you know whatever have an iPad there at the 34:12 point of sale and just hear a pay you don't have to do anything fancy to get started but just take the first step i 34:18 love that take the first step yeah no that's that's great because I'm 34:24 also thinking about this from the like customer side too of of the customer 34:30 taking the first step and this is maybe a bit of a shift in gears but Michael you're also the main organizer of the 34:38 Austin  bitcoin Club and I think one of the parallels that I'm seeing of what 34:43 you're describing in in Orange Pilling Businesses and then also how you've evolved the Austin  bitcoin Club and many 34:49 of the topics that are discussed every month uh or events that you've helped put on um and you know I've been I've 34:56 been super uh grateful to kind of help and step into a volunteer and now co-organizer role to run this with you 35:03 um but I I'm curious to kind of flip the flip the other side of the coin there of 35:08 making it simple for you know the someone who might be  bitcoin curious uh but still feels intimidated and for me 35:17 what I just to give my perspective before I let you jump in not great 35:22 podcasting uh tactic but whatever um is when I moved down to Austin and didn't know anybody and came to the Austin 35:29  bitcoin Club I found it to be like the most approachable group of  bitcoiners that I'd ever been around and that was 35:35 so you know energizing to me because I was like "Oh damn people like me exist." Um so I guess the question to just bring 35:44 it back up again is your approach with uh what is your approach with the awesome  bitcoin club and how have you 35:49 taken lessons learned on both the Oshi and ABC side uh to to introduce more 35:55 people into into  bitcoin yeah well thanks for the kind words and that's exactly what we're going for uh 36:01 we want to make it super approachable i I you know whenever we think about topics I typically try to 36:08 um you know put together a panel or create a topic of discussion that could 36:14 bring in a different audience so we don't just go in there and be like "Yeah so here's how  bitcoin works what is 36:20  bitcoin 101?" We we really just jump right into it we're like "Yeah so this one's about health and wellness and 36:27  bitcoin and how they coincide this one's about fiat food in  bitcoin you know this 36:32 one's about you know it it changes like privacy in  bitcoin to bring together um 36:38 different you know demographics of people where with different interests where they can actually attach  bitcoin 36:45 to a specific topic as opposed to just throwing it out there and jamming it down their throats and being like you 36:51 know and it's really created yeah it's created like a cool community of people that you know don't necessarily come 36:57 there just to be like just to talk about  bitcoin and it's like the community and 37:04 you know everyone's living their best life and and doing whatever they're doing you know trying new things 37:10 checking out new things and bringing that all into the meetup so um it's it's 37:15 it's become less of a place to just talk about  bitcoin and more of a place to just vibe with with like-minded people 37:22 about various topics yeah and like I said I've been pretty pretty careful about that um I I really wanted to be 37:29 approachable as approachable as possible so yeah so I'm glad you you found that to be the case 37:36 100% and I think that that I agree with that and almost what you were saying of like businesses just accepting it it's 37:43 like hey this is a club that you know we all like  bitcoin but we like other things too so we'll talk about we'll 37:49 talk about interesting stuff that's going on outside of the  bitcoin world usually it you know just usually it 37:56 tends back towards  bitcoin because that's what we're all also interested that's the common denominator but I've 38:01 also had so many conversations about a variety of different topics that is just 38:07 ideologically aligned um and I think that's what's you know that's what's cool about this community aspect of 38:13 building uh the  bitcoin ecosystem is generally once people you know whether 38:19 it's that 10 hours that you're refer or if it's 10,000 hours they have that that 38:25 gist and that understanding of the foundational of 21 million and you know 38:31 decentralized right to right to privacy all that type of stuff yeah yeah 38:36 absolutely then kind of going back to uh Jason your your question like the other side of the coin of uh okay I believe 38:44 first we were talking about the business owner why should they and then the consumer why should they I think this is 38:52 an interesting thing I feel like there are some um insights uh into this as 38:58 well so I hear a lot um about you know 39:03 people are talk about Jack Dorsey Jack Dorsey saying like if  bitcoin isn't a medium of exchange then like it's going 39:09 to fail or something to that effect it hasn't fulfilled its purpose um I think that's going to come at some point like 39:16 there's there's no question in my mind that it will um so then people called him out okay 39:23 well you know put your point of sale where your mouth is you know right so now he's saying "Oh okay well yeah we're 39:28 going to implement  bitcoin payments uh we we we're going to try it." But I think um just reading into that language 39:35 he said "We're going to like" basically said "We're going to try it again." Right and he actually doesn't expect 39:40 many people to use it and something that I um I think a lot of people attribute 39:47 the lack of  bitcoin as a uh you know method of 39:52 exchange um they sometimes attribute it to oh the UX is just not there yet right 39:59 like the QR codes and like you got to scan or like you got ah it's just so 40:05 confusing i don't really think it's that i don't really think it's that at all um I used to think that and so we like 40:11 tried to make the uh the UX and kind of like pioneered um I make it sound like it's some grand 40:18 thing we kind of like pioneered you know a UX of paying with  bitcoin where you 40:23 know like you could select which wallet you wanted because there was a time whenever you scan a QR code  bitcoin QR 40:28 it would always pull up the whatever app uh  bitcoin payment app uh in in 40:35 alphabetical order so usually for people would be the breeze wallet and pull up and everybody's like oh I don't actually 40:40 use this that much like oh and so it was super anyway so so we we we were 40:45 focusing on the UX from the customer perspective for a while and um I didn't 40:50 really feel like it moved moved the needle that much i think if somebody wants to pay in  bitcoin they're going to pay in  bitcoin and I don't think uh it's 40:56 so much a matter of like the UX is too complicated or anything like that it's just it's just human behavior it's also 41:01 worth noting that people don't even use Apple Pay much in the United States i don't know about you i only started using it like a couple years ago and I'm 41:08 just shocked that it took me so long because it's all I use now i don't even bring my wallet anywhere anymore like I you know I've been caught many times 41:15 with my pants down on that like wait you guys don't take Well how do I You just take my ID like I don't know you know 41:20 like happens happens to me more than I'd like to admit actually um and that was 41:25 like over a decade probably i was probably like 201ish when Apple Pay came out yeah I 41:32 don't remember i used to know the all the stats but yeah it was a long time ago well and on top of Apple Pay coming 41:39 out a quick story from me is in 2020 I was in uh Australia and Australia is 41:45 actually pretty progressive in terms of their financial services and very innovative so all of their point of sale 41:52 terminals had tap to pay and the credit cards that I was using you know American Express Chase Bank they didn't even have 41:58 Tap to Pay yet so like when I asked when when I would like hand them my card to pay for a coffee or whatever just 42:04 through the US dollar like that was or whatever the Australian dollar conversion was they'd be like why are 42:09 you handing me this thing like I'm like well I need to put the chip in and then you know fast forward two years and it's 42:16 like tap to pay everywhere toast is taking over uh every every point of sale 42:22 but but that is that is a great point i never even I never even realized that the that that transformation has 42:28 happened so fast so it just it speaks it speaks volumes to how how early really 42:33 everything is yeah exactly um and I I think it's interesting too like there's 42:39 been more talk about like oh like you can just use like your tap signer card or like not tap signer but like a 42:45 lightning like tap to pay card and that's like the smoothest it's like it just doesn't man like people uh Apple 42:53 Pay is by far the best experience and like what like 50% of people in the United States have an iPhone and like 42:58 just preloaded on there and like they still don't use it like it's something I think like last year when I looked at 43:03 the stats it was like 5% of people which just sounds insane right like 5% of 43:09 commerce without pay like what 5% one in 20 what and it like it just blew my mind 43:16 i was like wow and it's been around for 10 years and it's already on everybody's phone so I guess t coming back here if 43:23 Square enables it or any point of sale enables it it does not mean people are going to use it it's already on they 43:29 have Apple Pay and they don't even use it and it's all pre-loaded ready to go on their phone so easy better 43:35 experience already they don't have to need to download anything and again I'm not bagging on  bitcoin Famous just 43:41 saying sometimes these things take time and then it just happens like it can 43:47 happen very quickly as well so it could be a gradually then suddenly but I think it's much more of a consumer behavior 43:54 and to your point about like Australia and Europe they're way ahead in terms of like they adopted tap to pay all that 44:00 stuff way before us like like you said it's like ubiquitous over there and we 44:05 were still we're yeah we're still like swiping over here while they're like um 44:11 I saw a tap to pay on a you know like a little air pressure 44:17 station at a gas station and I was like the future's here like we're we're good to go and just another anecdote because 44:23 I just love laughing about some of this stuff um it's like last year HB 44:31 um something somebody got some engagement from HB on on Twitter and 44:36 they said "Hey like you should accept Lightning Payments at HB like let's do it." And I was like 44:43 "Guys they don't accept Apple Pay yet 44:48 they don't have tap to pay i forget my wallet there all the time they do now they just did Apple Pay like six months 44:55 ago or like a year ago right so I'm just saying like we're just very early here and uh it's a great thing like Patrick 45:02 is on the back but it could happen fast like don't get me wrong so you know if 45:07 if Square enables  bitcoin payments they totally should do it allow the merchants 45:12 to just turn it on but um I don't know you know Cash App pay is on every terminal as well 45:20 and I never see anybody use it at all um so it's just something to keep in mind 45:26 just to stay humble and uh keep fighting the good fight and uh keep pushing the 45:32 boundaries but just you know live within expectations of of how long some of these things actually take but again 45:38 it's it's not to say that we shouldn't try and like we shouldn't push forward because these things can happen very 45:44 quickly um my main point is it's it's I don't believe it's a UX problem i mean I 45:50 could keep I could What do you think the tipping point is when we go from you 45:55 know use very often quoted gradually and suddenly but you know it's it's sort of under the surface and then very quickly 46:01 it's like the tipping point yeah i don't know i think about this a lot i wonder 46:07 um I think I think incentives are very important 46:13 i think incentives for paying with  bitcoin are very important and that's exactly why we made Oshi i Incentives Move Markets—Not UX 46:20 think you know giving people a reason to pay with  bitcoin um could incentivize them and I I just 46:27 look at this through like what little knowledge of payment history I have um whenever I was I was researching and a 46:33 bit a bit of it's fuzzy because I this was years ago where I dove deep into this as I was kind of forming my newly 46:38 found opinion through experience and through research and merchants uh merchants were were you 46:46 know the credit card was uh that took time uh and and the experience was 46:51 abysmal uh the the zip zaps as they called them the carbon copy machines uh 46:57 I like to like to I've got one downstairs yeah yeah i mean the experience isn't great okay like and hey 47:03 sometimes you still have to fall back on to it even today like we call them knuckle busters exactly yeah so like 47:09 literal pain perhaps whenever you do enough of these right pain is the  bitcoin experience worse than that hell 47:16 no it's a million times better right it's like we have such a good point we have to stay humble here and realize like look like it's not  bitcoin's fault 47:23 like there's just another element here that we just haven't quite cracked or people aren't quite ready to do it at 47:28 scale and it's like so yeah from the merchant perspective like oh my gosh it's so easy to accept  bitcoin like you 47:35 know um could if we said hey like like I said credit cards are ubiquitous and that's how they started and they caught 47:40 on pretty quick all things considered um but yeah literal pain from your staff if we're talking about pain for your staff 47:47 today we're like someone else wants to pay in  bitcoin I have to like punch in the amount and show them a QR code i 47:54 mean come on you know like I don't think it's that big a deal but that that can be a big deal for businesses sometimes 48:00 the employees are like h you know like it happens i mean my background for 48:08 almost four years was in change management and digital transformations you uh that is like the 48:14 least surprising thing I've I've heard because to your point like people just get so set in their ways that to get 48:21 them to change is really hard and what's very interesting about  bitcoin versus 48:27 like in the workplace is  bitcoin becomes a personal decision so in many 48:33 ways when that like agency is put back on the individual there is that light switch 48:40 moment so I think that's why it happens quickly versus like if a business if your boss is telling you to change then 48:46 you're either going to do it because because he's your he or she is your boss or you're not going to do it because 48:52 you're like "Ah this change is too hard like I don't really understand why we need to do it anyways and I'm just going 48:57 to keep going until he either or she either forgets or just it it breaks anyways and and I'm 49:05 forced to do it." know that's that's kind of this this whole thesis of change of change management right and with  bitcoin 49:13 there's a little bit of that but at the end of the day one sing one single person can make that decision and then 49:20 that that creates the uh the avalanche um but no I totally hear you from a from 49:26 the employee training perspective and if if you're a business owner and you have to you you have to make it as seamless 49:32 as possible because it because it's something new because we already went through the pain of of adopting credit 49:37 cards or adopting credit cards and some people remember that you know personally I I've always been using a credit card 49:44 but I remember the change to Tap to pay and then to Apple Pay um and now there are people who are like what do you mean 49:51 you can't your wallet isn't your phone like your phone isn't your wallet that's not the same thing and it's like it's 49:56 like well no they are now so so that's that's the transformation 50:02 and that's why I think you know  bitcoin is such it's such a large scale transformation because you're literally changing the foundation of our entire 50:09 financial system so regardless of how that happens it's going to take time it 50:16 just it it's impossible not to because you have multi-billion dollar corporations that can't change a process 50:22 in less than eight months that's right and and again I I think I 50:31 really think it's all about the incentives like hey you're just spitballing here it's like hey whenever a customer pays with  bitcoin like 50:36 whichever employee accepted it gets a gets a little kickback of it you know that would be cool like little things 50:42 like that but in any case um you know I I think what really uh made credit cards 50:49 incredibly appealing um were were the rewards full stop all the influencers 50:56 were showing these rewards credit cards and I I I was like primed at that age like whenever I was kind of like old 51:02 enough to get a credit card like that's whenever it was all blowing up and I was like "Yeah I'm going to use this and pay it off every month get all this free 51:07 cash." That's why I got one i would have never gotten one otherwise like I would have just been like "Yeah whatever." Like who cares it's just another way to 51:13 pay you see what I'm saying it's like oh yeah  bitcoin who cares it's just another way to pay like what who cares i already 51:19 have my way that I pay so there needs to be different incentives whether it's through like a discount but I actually think that rewards work better just 51:25 generally um if if everywhere you went with your debit or credit card if it said "Yeah you get a 5% discount 51:32 whenever you use this card," I don't think it would have caught on as much i think it's the rewards and I think you 51:38 know people just love to some people literally use these rewards as like their savings account like that's their 51:44 you know that's part of my retirement is my rewards you know like I'm going to travel everywhere and you know whatever 51:50 so I think that's just the world we live in it doesn't always make perfect sense it's not always rational or logical but 51:58 um that's the world we live in i think the incentives are are going to be the driving force here as always really the 52:05 incentives and people have different attachment to different incentives but one thing everybody likes getting is a 52:10 little bit of free money um so yeah so I was thinking a lot about so I've been in 52:18 credit card processing since 2010 and I was initially deploying these 52:24 terminals called Verafhone VX510s those did not have uh what we called EMV which 52:31 is like chip card capabilities it was just swipe there's no tap to pay or 52:36 anything like that and the way they got merchants to upgrade is essentially by 52:44 forcing them uh because the security standards weren't up to par for the card 52:50 brands and Mastercard uh they basically said "Okay you can keep using this VX510 if you want to but if it glitches if it 52:58 goes down if you need to call tech support anything at all we're it's we're sunsetting this thing it's not compliant 53:03 we're not going to be able to help it help you out at all and then it would force them and and so I would always get 53:09 those calls that was a huge part of my role of onboarding all these merchants 53:14 to start accepting chip cards now this is pre-tap to pay this is just insert we switched the terminology from swipe to 53:21 dip and and so you you you know stick the card in the bottom of the terminal instead of swipe it through um but I 53:29 wonder what that is for  bitcoin where it's like merchants are like "Okay you know change is hard i guess I'll upgrade." You know is it uh bank 53:35 failures or uh political unrest or uh some kind of uh major systemic change 53:41 where the merchants kind of like like "Okay time to start accepting  bitcoin now you know I'm ready because I pretty 53:49 much have to." Yeah that's a good question i I really don't know i I mean obviously like if 53:56 any of those things happened to a point that really kind of you know pushed 54:02 people towards using it yeah but it's that's interesting yeah like an 54:08 upgrade in the in the you know payment uh the the hardware basically for as a Keep Wealth Local with  bitcoin Rewards 54:15 forcing function um perhaps yeah I I I really don't know like what all I think 54:21 all those things that you said could be a catalyst for it um but obviously you 54:26 know like I have this company that's doing this thing not just you know so it's because I believe that I think the 54:32 major forcing function is just the incentives um but uh I don't know how 54:38 high the incentives need to be i think perhaps a little bit of the catalyst that you described combined with a 54:46 little bit of the incentives it's like kind of meet halfway sort of thing but I think for for people to all of a sudden 54:51 wake up and be like "Oh my god I need to use bit  bitcoin and have  bitcoin and like convert all my money to  bitcoin and 54:57 now I can do nothing but spend  bitcoin because I don't have any dollars anymore because that's hyperinflating away." That's a dark that's a dark time um and 55:05 so I u like that's that kind of hyper bitcoinization right yeah it makes me 55:11 nervous man i kind of I Yeah that's a dark time i I I think it's far better to just kind of like you have 55:18 the pressures that you described all the catalysts over here that's kind of like squishing people pushing them towards it 55:23 and then you have like incentives like usability ideology whatever the case may be kind 55:29 of pushing this way and and I think they'll meet halfway and hopefully uh 55:35 the incentives and the ideology and the education on  bitcoin moves a lot faster than the political pressures the 55:41 hyperinflation everything so I I don't want to meet halfway i want  bitcoin to push like 75% of the way there so we 55:47 don't have uh as much chaos and I think that's ultimately I I view it as like 55:52 you know you're on two skis and uh you know we'll slowly uh kind of transition 55:58 to the other the other side over time you know well I for sure appreciate you 56:04 uh playing a role in that 75% push uh because to your point the UI the user 56:09 experience of Oshi is as I said before it is as easy as it gets um and you feel 56:16 like you're you're actually getting rewarded for spending and it's creating real loyalty uh not just with these 56:23 brands and businesses that are accepting but also  bitcoin in itself and playing with it and spending it and that is what 56:29 it's meant to be it is a peer-to-peer digital cash so um Jason unless you have 56:34 any other questions I can't thank you enough Michael this was uh this was a ton of fun um and happy to give you kind 56:41 of final word of you know where to find you and where to find Oshi uh and any other uh any other updates you you want 56:47 to share yeah I mean I guess maybe maybe we can touch on one more thing actually 56:53 let's do it let's do it i think that something the the issue with traditional cash back and rewards program uh it's 57:01 really just like this reappropriation of uh economic rents like these excessive 57:06 economic rents so ultimately the customer is the one who is paying for these rewards they don't realize it 57:13 there there was a study done by one of the Federal Reserve banks i don't remember which one it was but it 57:18 basically said "Look these people uh who get these cards uh they feel as though 57:25 they're like making money and earning all these rewards but really they're only recouping 30% of the payment 57:30 processing fees they're they're spending so they're just getting poor faster and then of course the issue is um these 57:37 these uh people that don't have access to uh the credit or debit cards or the 57:43 banking system at large or they just don't have let's say the I don't know the education or or you 57:51 know just to to understand these things they're all just paying cash whatever the case may be the the older 57:57 individuals so on that haven't haven't leveled up digitally 58:02 um they're they're footing the bill as well they're just paying uh more money 58:07 for these products and services because again it's not like something where the merchant goes "Oh okay." Like so this is 58:12 $10 for this but because of payment processing fees we need to make it like $10 plus 2.9% plus 30 cents or whatever 58:21 like that's not how it goes it just works its way in and they're like "All right here's our margins okay we need to keep this margin let's increase the 58:27 cost." So really we're just paying it's really what's happening is is we're just 58:33 enriching the payment processors which hey it's a valuable service precoitin 58:39 and lightning right very valuable um you know we don't have to get into 58:45 that but effectively what they're doing is they're luring you in with rewards 58:52 and cash back and incentives um and they're actually taking more out of your back pocket than 58:57 they're giving you and that's exactly what's happening and if we're talking about the ideological battle here between small 59:05 business you know local grassroots America or globally and you know the big 59:12 corporations who there's nothing wrong with making money like I'll die on that hill but it's like first and foremost 59:18 you know we should be able to thrive locally um and build great products and 59:24 services locally and and compete on on let's say an equitable not the co-opted 59:29 equitable term politically recently but just a more I know what you mean equitable playing field here 59:35 um you know I every single time you swipe that card that's money leaving your local economy 59:41 and going straight to you know the payment processors financial 59:47 institutions um and where is that money going probably towards stock buybacks 59:53 and financialization basically funding your competitors you're funding you know this 59:59 little mom and pop coffee shop is funding Starbucks every single time they switch and their customers swipe the card so if we're getting like really 1:00:05 ideological here it's like that's actually a whole another element and that's why what really led me to like no 1:00:10 like we have to get  bitcoin payments going small businesses grassroots bottom up like local spending you know creates 1:00:18 uh you know uh local wealth and  bitcoin helps protect wealth communities create like that sort of mantra 1:00:25 um but alas it's a bit too early but you know I I just think you know giving 1:00:31 businesses the ability to give however many rewards they want back using  bitcoin like they can't say "Hey I'm 1:00:38 gonna give you uh 1% cash back straight from me into your bank you just use this 1:00:45 Chase card like I cut a deal with Chase is this mom and pop coffee shop where 1:00:51 I'm going to give you more back." That's not even accessible to them generally 1:00:57 they can only give what coffee points stars they can't do anything else so 1:01:04 it's like this whole idea of kind of where Oshi came from and and you know 1:01:10 what we're trying to facilitate is this concept of like look uh you can reward 1:01:16 your customers with something real and and something that you've never really been able to do unless you want to pull 1:01:22 out the cash register and give them a dollar back every time or you know what 1:01:28 what's that anyway a cash register um or you know Venmo them or cash app them 1:01:33 like It's pretty tough to send them like 10 cents or something like that but with  bitcoin you can do it right so it's 1:01:39 really cool it's really interesting i'm not like a micro payment maxi kind of thing like I think that's a little 1:01:45 overblown but that's effectively what this is sort of it's like give people the ability and the optionality to do 1:01:51 something cool and reward their customers and and hopes that eventually these customers um not because they understand or truly 1:02:00 you know see the value and kind of what we just described um on these you know excessive economic 1:02:07 rents but because you know maybe there's some other catalyst or combination of the two 1:02:12 where they decide they want to start paying in  bitcoin and that's a world where wealth stays 1:02:18 local and of course if they're holding  bitcoin then uh small and medium-sized 1:02:24 businesses that are holding  bitcoin and earning it uh will grow uh faster and 1:02:30 their balance sheets will grow faster uh than other businesses and of course their customers will also become more 1:02:37 wealthy so that's the world I want to create and we're trying to do it we're trying to figure out ways to get that 1:02:43 done so yeah just wanted to touch on that a little bit 1:02:48 that was great yeah that was amazing one of one of our mantras at my payment processing company is that we move money 1:02:55 from Wall Street to Main Street amazing what you're describing though is on a 1:03:00 whole another level of moving wall moving from Wall Street to Main Street right you've like so many additional 1:03:07 layers like I'm just trying to do it through credit card processing for the last 15 years and I'm like you know like ultimately from a  bitcoiner standpoint 1:03:13 ultimately failing at that right because we're not accomplishing this beautiful goal that you're describing 1:03:21 and so and also I want to push back for a second you said we're a bit too early i think your expectations maybe when you 1:03:27 started you you were too high but we're not too early customers can pay with 1:03:32  bitcoin today through the Oshi app through all kinds of ways merchants can start accepting  bitcoin today and and 1:03:40 that is a a journey that I'm excited to see continue to grow each and every day 1:03:45 obviously um but the time is now yeah no you're right you're absolutely right i I 1:03:51 uh I stand corrected we're not too early it's never been a better time um you're 1:03:56 absolutely right my expectations were too high these things take time there's never been a better time it's 1:04:03 easier than ever i mean we're  bitcoin's everywhere right now i mean it's so 1:04:10 easily accessible like you know it's so easy to accept it generally speaking like you're absolutely right yeah um my 1:04:18 ideology got the best of me early on you know years ago uh thinking that everybody would see exactly what I saw 1:04:25 like as fast as I saw it and that's a silly thing to believe but yeah there's never been a better time i think the 1:04:32 rabbit hole is a one-way door um you can't unsee once you once you peer and 1:04:38 you you begin to peel back the layers and understand  bitcoin uh but it takes time for everyone to go down that 1:04:45 journey and and and and see that the the way our systems work and how much better 1:04:52 it is to use and accept  bitcoin and and the freedom and empowerment and all of 1:04:57 that um but yeah it it definitely takes a lot of time we're early and uh we have a long time horizon as as  bitcoiners so 1:05:05 that's okay that's right yeah if you're a business on the edge hey just start 1:05:10 accepting it so get you know there's still 100x left in this thing I think so in the next decade so hey you know get 1:05:18 those VC level returns for selling a cup of coffee you know 100% 1:05:24 Michael thank you so much for joining us my friend that this was amazing thank you all yeah it's been great a lot of 1:05:30 fun that was awesome thank you 1:05:35 [Music]