0:00 You don't have to be any sort of like extremist in terms of your, you know, 0:06 crypto anarchist views or your libertarian views or your high risk tolerance for speculative investments or 0:13 new technology. At this point now, it's like you got with bitcoin for those reasons in like 2015 and now it's it's 0:22 mainstream enough that you get with bitcoin because it's aligned with everything else you believe. So, you 0:28 know, I thought it just made sense for there to It's like there's a movement happening and bitcoin is a big part of 0:35 it. 0:40 [Music] So, we are here for the first ever live 0:46 medium of exchange recording. I'm here with my good friend Bill O'Connor, the founder of HODL Hats. We're going to 0:53 get into that. Bill is hardcore bitcoiner. orange pill to the fullest. I 0:58 would say my good friend and I'm really excited for this conversation, man, because we've had some really like 1:05 insightful talks over the last few months. Um, everything that you're doing with these hats, with the, you know, 1:12 bitcoin meditation site that we were talking about before this uh, recording and I'm just excited to learn more about 1:19 how you've been building in both the bitcoin space and advancing bitcoin culture. So, Bill, welcome to the show. 1:26 Thank you, man. I'm excited. Thanks for having me. So, HODL Hats, that's where I want to 1:32 start. Can you just walk me through what brought you to create what I think are 1:38 some of the coolest hats and bitcoin merch out there right now and 1:45 just everything that's happened with HODL Hats over the last few months? Yeah, it's been a kind of uh I don't 1:52 know, the story has like chapters, I guess. So, I started it um 1:58 in 2023. I was uh in between jobs and I'm a web developer professionally. So, 2:05 I was like, you know, I'm getting into bitcoin. I'm uh want to work on a little 2:12 project. I'm growing out my hair and I need a hat to get me through the awkward phases and I'm looking at the bitcoin 2:20 merch and I'm just like not loving all of it. Um and so you know I discover the 2:27 different uh tools to build uh custom e-commerce site and in particular uh the 2:34 tool where I can pick products, upload simple designs, never touch inventory. 2:41 So I'm kind of like, hey, why would I not do this? It cost me nothing basically if I can get the website up. 2:47 Um and I I never really took that anywhere. I kind of it was just always like, 2:53 "Yeah, it's just there. It's just my little project that I did." Um, and then 2:59 essentially I got to a point where I had designs in mind, that one in particular. 3:05 Um, and then the other one that's just like the classic HODL patch where it was like, "Yeah, this uh Printull is the 3:14 name of the platform that does the made to order stuff. It it's just too much The Journey of Creating HODL Hats 3:19 for Printull. like they can't handle the detail of the stitching, they don't do patches, they don't have the the hat 3:27 that I want. Um, so I kind of got to decide like do I want to actually like 3:33 kind of send it and because if I actually find an embroider and, you 3:39 know, get these real hats, then I have to buy them and stock inventory 3:44 inventory and SKS and all. Yeah, exactly. So now, yeah, uh, you know, I was like, you know what, these 3:50 designs are worth it. I'm going to send it. Let's see if we can do something. Um, and you know that I kind of hung out 3:59 there with like a few boxes in my house and I'm trying to, you know, start selling them at Awesome bitcoin Club and 4:08 um, a little bit online. And then I uh you know have this uh I this is like a I 4:16 don't know almost like stereotypical like hilarious uh kind of founder story thing but uh you know after we were 4:24 talking about you you you were talking um about a 72-hour fast you were doing and I was like man I got to do one of 4:30 these soon. And um I think it was President's Day maybe one of those 4:36 three-day weekends in February. Uh my wife had friends coming over uh that 4:41 they were just going to have, you know, girls weekend and I was like, you know, the week arrived and I was 4:47 like, "Oh man, I don't even have any plans. What am I going to do?" Uh I think I'm just going to go out to Marfa 4:52 by myself to West Texas and fast and like basically just, you know, go out to 4:59 the desert and just like be alone and like a vision quest pretty much. Yeah, a vision quest. And I 5:05 had some like life things that I like wanted to sort out. And one of them was 5:11 like kind of how much where where do I want to be directing my attention outside of work. 5:17 And uh yeah, like while I was on one of the goals for the trip was like I want to 5:23 spend a lot of time like in meditation and stuff like that. And I kept getting distracted by like new ideas for hats 5:31 that I was like these are the best ideas I've had. I'm like, you know, forget the meditation. I gotta like tap into 5:37 whatever's happening right now. That that is meditation. Yeah, exactly. I'm just like, I'm just 5:43 gonna like keep just like flow state right now. Yeah, exactly. Just let this stream keep flowing. 5:49 How many hours into into a fast at that point? Yeah. Like 40. Yeah. 5:55 Like burger versus brain. Like it's kind of the balance. And yeah, I that's 6:00 hilarious. Yeah. I mean, so what what is or what 6:05 are some of the uh designs that came out of that? Because um for those who don't know, like HODL hats, Design Inspirations and Market Response 6:12 this is the no second best design. It's my favorite. There is no second best in 6:17 my opinion, but they're all great. Yep. In terms of designs, that that one make money hard again. 6:23 Yep. I'm sure it's potentially triggering for some folks walking down the street, but even the what's the eat beef and the 6:29 fed? Yeah. Eat meat and the fed. Yep. But so sorry to cut you off, but what what were 6:37 some of those designs that came across from that vision quest or that fast? Yeah. And then and this was in February time 6:44 frame, you said? Yep. Okay. So, and now we're in end of nearing the end of June. Yep. So, almost 6:49 four months ago. So, I'll say uh many of them are in the backlog and will hopefully come out 6:54 soon. I kind of um you know I'm at a point right now where I'm like I've I 7:02 wanted one one thing that I wanted when I was like all right I'm taking this serious I'm sending it is like I want 7:07 there to be a selection of hats so it's not like I have that one hat because 7:13 like just stylistically speaking and I even had someone say it one time when I was selling hats here was like they were 7:19 like which one is which one's the least popular cuz I want to buy a hat that everyone else isn't wearing. wearing. 7:25 Um, and it has just proven to be true that like there are a couple standouts 7:31 that have like sold out a batch, but mostly people it's like kind of evenly 7:37 distributed a lot of hats selling a little bit. Um, so it kind of like validated the idea that like yeah, there 7:42 needs there needs to be kind of like a handful of styles and messages represented. Um, but I took the steady 7:51 stream of ideas uh and put them in the backlog and took it as a sign like 7:58 I'm just inspired about this. And so like in terms of like what I'm trying to do with my attention outside of work, 8:04 like this is a good place to direct my attention because this is something that uh clearly like when I kind of shut 8:11 stuff off and like get out, it's like this is like kind of moving in me. Yeah. And I mean that's that's amazing 8:17 because I can already see where most of bitcoin draw into that and I definitely 8:23 want to dive deeper into that. And I think one of the first conversations I 8:30 remember having with you of when you were selling the hats at an Austin bitcoin Club event, uh, I don't even 8:35 know how many months ago at this point was I was talking to you about how like 8:42 bitcoin and culture feel like they're really integrating. Like being a bitcoiner is a verb. Um, and it's not 8:50 just, yes, it is, you know, a money that you save in, but it's also kind of a 8:55 dose and a mindset that has really started to permeate through society. And you alluded to it where a lot of the The Integration of bitcoin and Culture 9:04 merchandise that was on the market felt almost cartoony like it was very me it was very meme 9:11 focused which I think was really good for the time of you know like the shirt that just was big block letters HODL 9:18 or like or I'm trying to think you know ask me about bitcoin like like these shirts that were very much just uh 9:25 billboards. Yeah. For bitcoin. Totally. whereas these hats and your style, what stuck out to me was like it 9:32 was a little bit more subtle. And I think that's kind of as we get into the maturation phase of bitcoin where you 9:38 know it's not just like it's not just 9:44 HODL and number go up. It's also how you act every day and how you present 9:50 yourself in a much more low time preference horizon. And that's kind of what you were saying about about, you 9:58 know, putting those designs in the backlog. I I see I kind of see what you're getting at there. Um, just the 10:04 undertones of that uh that bitcoin ethos. So, I guess to to kind of take 10:11 that step back is like how did you get into bitcoin? What what was like 10:17 something that stuck out to you in terms of, you know, whether it was the white 10:22 paper or whatever it may have been that started you on this journey of now, you 10:28 know, selling these hats and running around running around the conference in Vegas where people are literally chasing 10:33 you down trying to trying to purchase them. Yeah. Uh it's 10:39 honestly kind of I mean I'm not there's no shame but it has kind of been shamefully slow and gradual at first. So 10:49 uh it started in for me in in 2017. 10:55 I had a friend from high school who's basically just like kind of an early adopter personality and I had graduated 11:03 from college in 2015 and uh some of this group. This was a group of friends from high school that they were uh one and 11:10 two years older and we had all kind of converged in Dallas and one of them was like, "Hey, did you guys hear about 11:15 bitcoin in college?" And we're kind of like, "Eh, yeah, I don't really know 11:20 what it is." And he's like, "Well, uh, it's a big deal, but there's a new one that's even better called Ethereum, and 11:27 it's like this massive opportunity." And, uh, 11:32 basically I was like, "You know what? I'm game. I'm like interested in, you know, just this idea of kind of like 11:39 decentralized money and uh basically like I don't even remember what site it 11:46 was. I think it was Kraken, but which is obviously very legit at the time. I get 11:51 on there and I'm like never heard of this site. UX is, you know, it's a baby and they're Personal bitcoin Journey and Radicalization 12:00 asking for pictures and my driver's license and my social security number. I'm like, "Dude, hell no." Uh, and uh, 12:07 you know, at the time I think I wasn't even looking at the prices then cuz I didn't know about it, but I'm pretty 12:12 sure like ETH was, you know, whatever 80 bucks. And uh, the next year, 2018, I'm 12:19 like, "All right, I've sat out for too long. I'm I'm seeing this is happening." And so I'm, you know, buying bitcoin and 12:24 ETH and um, not plugged in at all. I'm not on Twitter. Uh, so I'm basically 12:31 just getting all my information in in this group. Um, and then I think 12:38 I when I started, so like I said, I'm a developer, so I was kind of like after a couple years, I was like, I should start 12:45 looking into what that means in these spaces. And so I started learning more about bitcoin and Ethereum and how they 12:51 work. and um picked up the bitcoin standard in 2020, which I did not know 12:59 at the time that bitcoin maximalism was even a thing. and get to the end of the 13:04 book and he's like doing it's the the last chapter is like FAQs or something and uh asking about other blockchains 13:11 and other uses of the blockchain and he's like there is no other economically valid use of the blockchain and I'm like 13:18 wait a second that means no Ethereum what's going on here and uh you know 13:23 just kind of like follow that trail and like right after that I think all this like Austin bitcoin stuff kind of kicked 13:29 up in 2021 and I was lucky to have basically one of my best friends in Austin. His um one of his old fraternity 13:38 brothers uh who lives here as well was like deep into bitcoin uh and bitcoin 13:45 maximalism. And so my friend Enrique was like, you know, Devid is inviting us to 13:50 this uh this party and uh this block party. And so we went and that was kind 13:56 of I was like, dude, this is freaking sweet. This is just awesome. like all these people talking about bitcoin and 14:02 that's when I get plugged in there that everybody kind of just the vibe helps me 14:08 isue my uh shitcoinery. Um, and at that point I'm still kind of just like 14:14 bitcoin is like, you know, an awesome investment. And then I read uh Eric 14:22 Yakes's The Seventh Property and just like found that was I read it basically all on a plane and the chapters about 14:30 the history of central banking. It was just so scandalous to me. I was like, "Holy cow, I'm getting freaking 14:36 radicalized." Uh, next book I read was Alex Gladstein's. 14:41 And then I was like, dude, I'm not doing this right. Like, I'm supposed to be this is so important and I need to get Developer Perspective on bitcoin Adoption 14:47 involved. Um, and that's when, you know, I was like, I I'm a developer. I should 14:53 be working in bitcoin. Um, so I ended up getting a job in bitcoin. 14:58 Um, and you know, basically from then it's just like just like turbo. I was 15:04 basically like before taking that job, learning about bitcoin, before I 15:09 realized just how important it was, it kind of felt like it was a hobby. And so 15:14 it was like, how much time do I justify allocating to bitcoin just cuz I think 15:20 it's cool and interesting and kind of important. And then when I am like, oh no, this is super important. I'm getting 15:26 a job in bitcoin. And now that I have a job in bitcoin, I'm kind of like it's my 15:31 career. So, I'm like kind of justified like I spend all my time. I'm just reading bitcoin books all the time. 15:37 Yeah. 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No, I mean that's the rabbit hole sucks 16:38 you in, right? like it's it's it's such a trope, but it's also so true because of how just 16:44 how many different avenues you can go down from the philosophy side, from the economic side, from just the history 16:50 side of like what's actually going on. And I think it's it's it's always unique 16:58 when talking to somebody who has that developer like skill set because I don't. But you're you're a front-end 17:04 developer. So So you create or design or build 17:10 the the aspects of the of the tools that like I interact with, right? So that's why I like talking to front-end devs, backend devs, I just get 17:16 lost conversation and I'm like I'm like, "Oh, so like, you know, I try to find my my nerd snipes where I don't sound too 17:23 stupid." But like I I really like talking to front end uh web designers because at least like I feel that I can 17:30 contribute to the conversation. And one of the things that you mentioned around, you know, even going on Kraken back in 17:37 2016 or 2017, whenever that was, of that UI experience and just how much better 17:43 bitcoin UI has gotten totally design in general from the tools online to the physical tools that we have like 17:49 these hats. Um, not to shell the hats again, we're gonna come back to the hats because they're great. Uh, so I guess 17:57 it's just uh my my question really is like as a as a dev, what what do you 18:03 take into approach from knowing all of the like all the important pieces of bitcoin, right? Like all of the the 18:10 special principles and qualities that it has between, you know, it's not like we call them wallets, but it's really an 18:16 address, right? Like it's it's these weird offiscations that we have to balance with the user. Um, so from an 18:24 adoption perspective, how do you view that of making it so somebody doesn't 18:29 feel like they're getting scammed when starting to enter their own ra uh 18:34 journey down the rabbit hole, but then also not losing some of the uh core principles that you were alluding to and 18:41 that you know we allude to on this show. Yeah, I, you know, recognized that my 18:46 journey was so slow and gradual and that it proved to be the case consistently as 18:53 it does in so many people's journeys that the more I learn, the more 18:58 passionate I get. It's like such a freaking like indicator of you're getting you're getting to some truth. 19:04 You know what I mean? It's like every time you learn a little bit more, you're you just my god, this is so much more Navigating bitcoin Education and Information 19:11 important than I thought it was. Um, and so once I got my job, once I started 19:18 working at Swan, I basically was like, "Okay, well, now I work in bitcoin." And before that, I was kind of like, uh, I'm 19:25 not trying to tell people that I trust and that trust me. I'm not trying to tell people what to do with their money, even though like I have my strong 19:31 opinions, but you know, writing out the post FTX crash was just like so 19:36 grueling. I'm like I I cannot I don't want to be on the hook um for telling 19:43 somebody. And then once I start working in bitcoin, I'm like, I mean, yeah, we're talking I'm talking about it with 19:48 everybody. We're talking about it now. Like before I was kind of like, oh yeah, it's just my little thing. And now it's like, no, we're talking about it because 19:55 it's like obviously what I'm doing. Um, and so that led to, you know, a lot of 20:02 conversations with people who were kind of like, I don't know, varying levels of interest in bitcoin. Um, and the people 20:11 that were initially super receptive that it was a lot of people it's just kind of like, oh yeah, I hadn't given that a 20:16 good look. You're working in it. What's going on? Um, you know, I don't want to say like I convinced them to buy 20:22 bitcoin, but basically like when I told them about it, they're like, yeah, okay, I want some. Um, and knowing how long 20:29 and gradual my journey had been, I'm like, "Yeah, we got to get you some, but we're like not done here." Uh, like you 20:36 we just getting zero. Yeah, exactly. Getting zero. And I That's the hardest part. Totally. 20:42 I took responsibility at that point for like I brought them to bitcoin. 20:48 I need to kind of like shepherd these people. Um, and so I started a newsletter that I like basically I don't 20:56 really pump. I just like send it to 30 people that I know every week. Um, and 21:01 it's just all I'm doing is sharing highlights from bitcoin Twitter and like 21:08 commenting. Um, and I use that as my way to kind of like steer 21:14 the person's kind of like bitcoin exposure toward the important principles 21:21 and like what's actually happening because I I don't really I don't know if 21:26 there's a single source of bitcoin news that I would trust to just give it to you straight. No hype, no like just like 21:34 education plus news plus not trying to get you like to buy something. 21:40 Yeah, there's a ton of noise out there and it's hard to know who to trust. I 21:45 will say I got to give a shout out to OP Daily and the the daily newsletter that bitcoin Park puts out. Uh shout out Rob. 21:52 Um because that for me has been like it's just four bytes every day of The Challenge of bitcoin Information Overload 21:59 pure signal and you know it's bitcoin and Freedom Tech related but there's there's not really opinions that are or editorials 22:07 that are embedded into it. just four of the biggest stories. But that's I mean 22:12 that's that is the biggest issue I think. But between just the sheer volume 22:18 of everything that's being produced on the internet and then also like when you 22:25 factor in AI on that and how much easier it is to produce content. Yeah. I don't even know honestly now. I 22:33 feel like maybe I got unplugged from something or uh maybe it's changed. But at that time, that was in uh like fall 22:41 of 2023, I was pretty concerned with 22:46 the like if you just Googled bitcoin or you want to learn anything about bitcoin and Google's your starting 22:52 point, you're just going to get blasted with like moonboys basically talking 22:57 about why the price is going to a gazillion and why you should also get XRP and like right and and that's I think where over 23:05 the last four years, we'll call it, the success of bitcoin maximalism has been a 23:11 clear delineation, yeah, of bitcoin and crypto or bitcoin, not crypto. And I 23:17 think that's been super helpful for the bitcoin industry. uh because 23:24 it's it's starting to move the conversation away from just number go up, which number go up is great and I 23:30 understand why it's such a strong marketing play because it it it so plays 23:37 on somebody's emotion of like that adrenaline you get when you see, you know, just a you're up 23:43 20 25% in a few weeks. You're like, "This is incredible. I'm getting rich." like you like you start thinking of all 23:49 the things that you're going to purchase and your mind runs crazy. What is it the reality is when you think 23:57 over a long enough period you're like okay you might have some days of of 24:02 choppy movements some days of volatility but then you'll have a lot of days of just kind of flat and like it's interesting seeing where we are in the 24:09 cycle right now because some people will argue that we're actually not in a bull market even though we hit all-time high 24:14 like what was it a week ago? Yeah. So that's been that's been a really just 24:20 interesting uh change in like perspective and how I've changed in of 24:25 how I like orange pill and try to get people to adopt uh bitcoin because are 24:30 you going to get rich from it overnight? No, I don't think so. Unless you like do 24:36 some leverage play that I would not recommend. Yeah. You're also I I think kind of 24:41 inviting them to shitcoinery if you try to sell them on that 100%. Versus it being a better savings Onboarding New bitcoiners 24:48 technology where it preserves your wealth over time and your time and energy because then you can start to 24:56 like think longer term. you can start to brainstorm or build out, you know, 25:02 future plans for a business or a side hustle that you're working on and like have the confidence that you'll be able 25:09 to bring it forward down the road whenever that time comes. And this kind of transitions to what we were talking 25:14 about right before the the show because we need more bitcoin podcasts. We need more bitcoiners. We need to onboard the 25:20 next, you know, million, 100 million, ultimately 8 billion people into bitcoin. And how do 25:27 we do that? And there the ongoing meme on bitcoin Twitter right now of we need 25:33 more bitcoin podcasts. Everybody should have bitcoin podcast. I think there's a key missing word there. 25:40 I think we need more good bitcoin podcasts. But I just want to hear your perspective on 25:47 what what is the best approach to onboard people to get them familiar with bitcoin and to really just like 25:55 get somebody to say, "Okay, yeah, I'm I'm ready to start learning more and ultimately then let bitcoin do the work 26:02 because bitcoin sucks people into it." Yeah. Usually at this point, you know, 26:08 when I'm talking to someone about bitcoin, it's just so different than it was a few years ago because a few years 26:13 ago it was like kind of like my friend, right? You heard about bitcoin in 26:19 college, right? Like, oh yeah, you heard about when bitcoin did that crazy, you know, bull run or whatever, but like 26:26 it was kind of like for a while you could be introducing 26:32 somebody to bitcoin and now everybody's got an opinion on it and obviously more 26:37 or less well informed. Um, usually when I'm talking about bitcoin now with 26:44 people who aren't bitcoiners, it's mostly like you were talking about about, you know, we've got this this 26:50 culture vibe shift happening and bitcoin's uh I I wouldn't even say it's 26:56 aligned with the culture. It's honestly feels like it it is the strongest maintainer of the principles that are 27:02 kind of like it feels like making a comeback. Um, and I just like I feel 27:10 like my job is to help people see that bitcoin is aligned with the stuff that they the principles that they already 27:16 try to maintain. Um, whether it's and this this was something that um we keep 27:22 talking about bitcoin is Venice like that that book just like I don't know 27:28 it's just so clearly elucidated for me. It's like all the good stuff, 27:35 good principles in business, agriculture, just like any, you know, like uh 27:42 personal virtues and um principles around resiliency and sustainability 27:48 and honesty and all these things. It's like, yeah, no one want you want that in The Cultural Shift Towards bitcoin 27:53 your money and no one you just point out a couple simple things about how like basically 28:00 corrupt and abominable fiat is and like 28:05 my experience has been that people get with that. And it feels like in Austin, 28:12 I definitely recognize that there's a lot of casual bitcoin maximalism. Like a 28:18 lot of people in Austin know bitcoin not shitcoins even though they're not just 28:23 like you know I'm all bitcoin all the time. It's like you know starting to become a thing that people are 28:29 recognizing that bitcoin is what's aligned with a worldview that appreciates you know all those things I 28:36 just said. Medium of exchange is sponsored by Polaris Payments. Let's 28:41 face it for now businesses still need to accept fiat and credit cards. Polaris 28:46 Payments helps with all your credit card processing needs using a consultative approach. Think of Polaris like a 28:53 performance coach, helping take your business to the next level when it comes to accepting all forms of money. For 28:59 more information about Polaris Payments, visit polarispayments.com. Now, let's get back to the show. 29:06 Yeah. No, I I couldn't agree more. And I think that that's 29:11 to your point when everybody already has an opinion on it. It's just you need to find the the connective tissue of what 29:19 that person values and how bitcoin can help them. And like one of the things 29:24 that I think is so just it's so cool to follow as like this global movement just 29:31 continues to increase and grow of different use cases, people finding 29:37 bitcoin to fit into like their interest or their, you know, business or service or good or whatever it may be. and 29:44 you hear them explain it, you know, something that I have zero familiarity with, you know, like homesteading, for 29:52 example, as we've talked about, uh, where then they start talking about, 29:57 you know, self-sufficiency and and like decentralization and all these things, you're like, "Oh, these are match made 30:03 in heaven." Yeah. And that's super niche, right? But then you start going up to some of the the 30:08 higher like more mainstream type of um businesses that are coming out. I mean, even not like not to [ __ ] on all of the 30:16 um all of the current happenings in bitcoin, like the treasury companies, 30:22 they're doing the logical thing. Totally. They're doing the logical thing of of oh, I have a business where I take debt 30:27 and I buy something that increases in value. That's like that's that's good fiat business. Yeah. Is it sustainable 30:34 over the long term? Like I mean, I guess we'll wait and see. Um, I have my thoughts, but uh, but like there's just 30:42 so many intersections to the point where you just start to see the world through a lens of orange. Yeah. 30:48 For better or worse, and you can't unsee it. So, it's just I guess I don't even 30:54 really have a question there, but just to riff off that like that's where that's where I see the world of like The Aesthetic of bitcoin Merchandise 31:00 okay everything gets consumed by bitcoin and bitcoin consumes everything and then 31:06 here we are living in I guess Venice, right? bitcoin is Venice. Uh which is a book that I do 31:13 need to read. I I need to I think there's a copy back there. There's one across the hall. So, I'll have to I'll 31:19 have to get my hands into it. Yeah. But yeah, that's that's uh all of that is kind of why I wanted to create 31:25 HODL Hat is basically like you don't have to be any sort of like 31:31 extremist in terms of your, you know, crypto anarchist views or your 31:36 libertarian views or your high risk tolerance for speculative investments or 31:43 new technology. at this point now it's like you don't get you got with bitcoin 31:49 for those reasons in like 2015 and now it's it's mainstream enough that you get 31:55 with bitcoin because it's aligned with everything else you believe and so you know I thought it just made sense for 32:03 there to it's like there's a movement happening and bitcoin is a big part of it and so the merch doesn't need to be 32:11 as kind of like bitcoin and feely, you know what I mean? It's like can kind of 32:17 uh have a more it a more natural aesthetic, I guess. Um, and I just was 32:23 like I want people to I don't expect that like I wear a bitcoin hat, a huddle 32:29 hat, and some stranger on the street is like, "bitcoin, dude, I was wondering about bitcoin. Tell me about it." But, 32:36 you know, I'm wearing my hutle hat, my friends are wearing our hutddle hats, other friends are like, "All right, 32:42 what's going on here?" You know what I mean? And uh you start a lot of conversations with people that you kind of already have some rapport with very 32:49 easily. And I mean I think I told you about my 32:55 tic-tac-toe pictures around Austin, right? And I've worn this hat a few times around my tic tac-toe. For those 33:01 who don't who don't know, uh I also have a newsletter that I'm that I'm trying to onboard normies uh to get introduced to 33:08 bitcoin called the Bridge Report. And I was thinking of what's something that's super approachable to 33:15 get a conversation started. And I was basically walking around the city of Austin for I guess now three months or 33:23 almost four months uh playing people in tic-tac-toe, just a blank whiteboard. And after the game, I would, you know, 33:29 I'd ask them questions and then I would ask them to subscribe to my newsletter. And they would always say, "Oh, what's your newsletter about? bitcoin and 33:35 bitcoin adoption." Now, every time I was wearing this hat, they would like look at the hat and be like, "Oh, that kind 33:41 of makes sense." Like, "That's a bitcoin hat." Which I loved because it's one of those things where when you see it, you 33:48 don't necessarily know right away. It's subtle that I mentioned before. But I think what's cool about the design pieces and and shout out to uh Skyler 33:56 from from Finite Supply who's been, you know, parading this too with just beautiful design work and and digital 34:02 graphics of bitcoin deserves beautiful design because because bitcoin itself is beautiful design from a technical level. 34:09 Um, and bitcoin has attracted some of the, you know, most beautiful people in The Community and Future of bitcoin 34:15 terms of like diversity of thought and just willingness to go out and like make it happen and take this magic internet 34:22 money into a now north of $2 trillion asset that's eating away at the at the 34:28 global financial system. Yes. So, like it just makes sense. But it that means that you have to put in the 34:35 time and the effort to actually like create something beautiful because you can just take a paintbrush and start 34:40 throwing it at a at a blank canvas. And you know there's a there's been a lot of commentary that that's fiat paintings. 34:47 Yeah. Like like those things that sell for millions of dollars. Like dude like my my four-year-old cousin could have 34:54 could have painted that. So like, so that's what's cool about like, you know, being able to just pause and think about 35:03 it through not just a lens of how can this benefit me 24, 48 hours in the 35:10 future, but how can this benefit me two to four years in the future, 10 years in the future, how can this benefit my 35:15 kids? And you know, as somebody who doesn't have a family of my own and 35:21 doesn't have kids yet, it's changed the way that I view on what that future will 35:27 look like for me versus, you know, when I was I mean, when I was super young, but like before 35:34 I knew what bitcoin was, right? Like I didn't I didn't think about any of that stuff. Yeah. 35:39 Yeah. I want to go back real quick. you were talking about, you know, all the um 35:45 intention and the intentional people in bitcoin and that was one of the things that I kind of like when I was in the 35:52 desert like no dude I just got to go harder on HODL hat is like re 35:57 recognizing that it is already obviously you know I don't think uh most of us 36:04 spend enough time marveling at the uh statistical improbability of our like 36:11 exist distance as humans on this planet. Um, and then beyond that, you know, so 36:16 many layers before you get to and we're alive and young and energetic for 36:23 bitcoin. And if like bitcoin's going to do to the course of humanity what we all 36:29 think it's going to do, that's the coolest thing ever. Like there's not a time that I would want to be alive for 36:36 more than for this. And so it's like I'm not trying to wear a Dallas Mavericks 36:42 hat, dude. I'm I like the Mavericks, but I'm freaking pumped about bitcoin, dude. I'm trying to wear a bitcoin hat. This 36:47 is awesome. And all the people in bitcoin, like just have met so many 36:53 amazing people in bitcoin is like, dude, team bitcoin is freaking legit. Like, if there's a team I'm trying to rep on my 36:59 hat, it's team bitcoin. Couldn't agree more. I love that because like on one hand you're like okay it's 37:07 kind of weird that you know this money has a culture but then when you actually start to study the themes around the 37:12 money like forget the money for a second because if bitcoin didn't exist and there was something else that just brought people to uh you know instead of 37:20 Austin bitcoin club if it was Austin Beef Club right like if it was people who are just like super passionate about 37:27 like intelligent food uh and you know eating healthier or whatever then you 37:32 would get a similar crowd, right? But it just happens to be bitcoin, which has 37:37 this crazy history and it's much newer. And like I love the meme of, you know, we're too we weren't born in time to 37:43 explore the the new world. Uh, and we probably won't be able to explore, you know, new galaxies and universes in our 37:51 lifetimes, but we are able to explore bitcoin. And like that is the the next frontier of this just you know 37:58 50 to 75 year financial uh fiat system that has been so integrated into 38:06 everything. Yeah. That like it's exciting. It's a because solving problems is fun. It's hard. It's 38:13 not easy but it's fun. Especially when you start to see like you know adoption numbers go up. And the other thing that 38:19 you know I want to make sure that I touch on is you're mentioning the bitcoin community because we still are 38:24 relatively small, right? So just how supportive bitcoiners are of 38:29 like that idea that a rising tide lifts all boats is really encouraging for somebody 38:37 getting started like you or or even myself. Yep. because it's it's a high quality of 38:43 people and when you're committed and dedicated and willing to put in the work then it feels like the sky's is the 38:50 limit. Totally. And also just from a kind of like business perspective, I guess it's 38:57 obviously for me like HODL Hat's just a little side gig. You know, selling something to 39:04 bitcoiners is like you said, it's a relatively small group, 39:10 but it feels really good to sell something to people that they appreciate and like you just like respect what 39:16 they're about, you know what I mean? And then, you know, you get all the the positive feedback like people reaching 39:22 out and being like, "Dude, I freaking love this hat." And um, you know, getting to use it as a tool to meet more 39:28 bitcoiners like we were talking about in Vegas just like running around with my backpack and like, you know, uh, 39:34 sometimes just getting mobbed by people seeing the I actually saw in Vegas in the expo 39:40 hall. you were just like walking in whatever direction and I saw somebody like come out of nowhere just running me 39:47 like huddle hat like hot hats like I want a hat. I was like I was like that 39:53 is awesome like that is because that is just like so grassroots and it's it's 40:00 been you know not it it's been a two-year journey like you said or over or over over two years now where you're 40:08 iterating and you're learn I'm sure you're learning a ton of running a you know e-commerce 40:14 website that's now you have all this inventory and you're coming to ABCs and 40:19 and selling them just like out basically the trunk of your car. Yeah. Like like all these things. So just what are some 40:26 of the kind of to take it away from bitcoin for a second and just go and put on like your your founder business hat. 40:32 What are some of the things that you've learned about, you know, operating um a e-commerce business uh that 40:40 you maybe surprised you or that bitcoin has helped like Yeah. get you through the the some of the pain 40:46 points? Yeah. Uh, do you know who Steven Presfield is? The Journey of HODL Hats 40:52 Yeah, of course. War of Art. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Nobody wants to read your [ __ ] is an is the title of one of his other books. 40:58 Okay. Uh, and that is a concept that like basically 41:03 I've feel like I've had to learn it a few times and I only can learn it by like trying to sell my [ __ ] You know 41:10 what I mean? It's like I'm like at first I'm like, "Oh my god, dude. I had this idea for a hat. This is going to 41:16 freaking blow up. And like blowing up looks like, you know, I sell I sold uh 41:24 25 of the Eat Me and the Fed hats over the course of a month, which was awesome. And no other hat has done 41:31 numbers anywhere close to that. You know what I mean? Uh so it's like pretty small time. Uh, and eventually like you 41:39 know why I was thinking about this in the desert is because it was kind of like 41:47 I'm not going to like learn some probably learn some vital 41:53 business lessons making in you know an optimistic case 41:59 like a few thousand bucks selling hats in a year and I'm not certainly not 42:04 that's not big bucks. So, I'm not making big bucks. I'm not like learning a lot. 42:10 So, why am I doing this? Um, and basically it was like, you know what? I 42:16 am doing this because it's like almost like if I'm being super 42:23 pessimistic, it's like I would do this for charity because I think it's important to 42:28 get those conversations started and give bitcoin some visibility and like kind of 42:33 like contribute basically to the cultural movement that we're talking about. Um, 42:40 but it's ultimately proven to be the case kind of that like I love this because I love like it's so grassroots 42:48 like you said like I meet everyone I sell to and they're bitcoiners and we 42:53 love bitcoin together. You know what I mean? So it's like awesome meeting people who love bitcoin who think the 42:59 hats are cool. It's like, okay, so we've got like something kind of like fundamental, 43:05 foundational uh really in common. And so it's great to connect. Um, but I would say I guess 43:13 what I've learned. Uh, well, I don't even want to say too much what I've 43:20 learned because I honestly feel like sometimes I haven't um haven't quite 43:25 tried hard enough to learn anything for certain because I'm kind of like keeping it on the side, right? Um, so I've 43:33 certainly learned that it's difficult to um like sell to a small audience and um 43:43 you know to find people online and stuff and find people. bitcoiners aren't trying to spend a lot of money either. 43:49 You know what I mean? Um so it's just been kind of like hard. But it's like been way easier as you would imagine in 43:56 person cuz I can kind of connect with the person beforehand and then it's like, you know, people just like buying 44:02 from someone that they have a connection with. Um, but yeah, I'm I guess uh yeah, 44:11 it's just been a little slow online. And like that's kind of something that I'm trying to continually kind of like 44:16 figure out, especially like this dynamic that I've realized is I'm doing I'm trying to do this on 44:22 Twitter and uh Primal because that's where bitcoiners are. 44:27 You got to go to where your people are to sell to them. However, people don't get on Twitter to shop. You know what I 44:33 mean? People are on Instagram and Tik Tok shopping, but the bitcoiners aren't on Instagram and Tik Tok. So like 44:39 uh it's kind of just like a tough I guess uh rock in a hard place kind of 44:46 deal. I mean that's super interesting but also the I love to your point like the 44:51 inerson connection and like you know basically buying from a friend. Uhhuh. Exactly. 44:57 It it it becomes a not just a oh yeah that's a dope hat I want it but also I want to support my friend. Um, and I 45:04 think that's where bitcoiners are a tough customer because to your point, we don't want to separate from our sats. 45:10 And we're but we're willing to separate from our sats for high quality goods. Mh. 45:15 So it's like the ultimate feedback loop. So it's really hard to get flywheel, but 45:21 then it's like, okay, I'm going to ride or die for huddle hats. That that's what has proven to be the case. It's like, dude, my customers are 45:27 enthusiastic, which is just freaking fun. I mean, there was a tweet that I saw last week of someone who has a 45:33 pretty big following on bitcoin Twitter wearing the I believe it was the Make Money Hard Again hat, and I just saw 45:39 like a thousand It wasn't a thousand, but it it was it felt like a thousand replies of where do I get this hat? 45:46 Where do I get this hat? Yeah. So, like it's I mean, that's where it starts. And like 25 of one type of hat in a month is 45:53 no joke. That's almost a hat a day for sure. No, that and you and you know what's what I keep continue to remind myself 46:00 because of all the like business and entrepreneur content that I've consumed over the last you know year and a half 46:07 is that growth will not be linear. Yeah. And you just need to remind yourself and that's where the low time 46:12 preference gets really hard being a bitcoiner because you're like, "Okay, I have my bitcoin that I want to hold for 46:18 the rest of my life and pass down to future generations, right? But then I also need to 46:24 like pay my bills and the only way to pay my bills is by having SATS or cash 46:31 flow, right? So if you're So it's like so so you have this weird like opportunity cost and and everything of like of of 46:39 what exactly you can push and not push. So um and that actually was kind of like 46:44 points to part of why I was like you know what no I'm going to do this. I'm going to spend the money, stock the inventory, get the better designs, all 46:50 that stuff. Because um there's this kind of like Jordan Peterson idea that's 46:57 basically like, you know, how he's all about kind of like, you know, you find meaning through responsibility. And um 47:04 like in one of his books, he's got this chapter that is basically saying like if 47:09 you see some problem in the world or in your life really, like bring it local. you see some problem in your family or 47:17 in your company or whatever, the problem is persisting, it's either because other 47:22 people don't have time to solve the problem or they don't recognize it as a problem. So, if you see that as a problem and no one else is going to 47:28 solve it, that's that's your problem. Like you're the chosen one basically for that problem. And 47:34 you can replace problem there with opportunity. Exactly. That is where I where I got with HODL Hat was I was like 47:41 I mean no one's doing what no one's making the hat I want and uh I understand basically like this 47:50 is tough to sell to. So like no one's going to say oo dude business 47:55 opportunity selling better hats to bitcoiners you know what I mean? It's like yeah they're not going to do that 48:00 because it's like it's tough. And so you know I've got my income from my job. 48:06 I've got the web development skills to maintain the website so I don't have to pay someone to do that and I've got, you 48:12 know, enough skill with some of the graphic design tools that I can make my designs and like 48:19 yeah, for lack of a better phrase, like feeling like, well, this is my problem, so 48:25 I got to do it. Well, and I mean there really aren't that many other 48:31 bitcoin apparel companies right now, right? Like I think the other company 48:36 that comes to mind and they're not an apparel company at all is Strike. Like they do good merch, 48:42 but they do like, you know, limited edition drops and things like that and 48:47 it is by no means their core business. Yeah. And it doesn't seem like they're signaling that they're going to 48:53 same deal, right? Store. It's not my not not my primary business either because it doesn't work as a 48:58 primary business yet. Yeah. But at the same time, you know, 49:03 thinking on along the lines of like better quality goods, I mean, this is like a quality hat. Like if I if I 49:09 gifted this hat to somebody who is not a bitcoiner, then, you know, maybe they won't wear 49:16 the make money hard again hat because they might disagree with the that design. 49:22 There's a lot to have with this political spectrum. But this one, I mean, this is harmless, 49:27 you know? Or the huddle hat or the I love the one with um with the uh what is it with the bull and like kind of the 49:35 laser eyes and and the match like like So that's where you start to you start 49:41 to kind of Trojan horse your way into into non bitcoin world. 49:46 Yeah. Of like no, this is a quality hat and it's a cool hat. It's it it it aligns 49:54 with all the trends of hats that people are wearing now. And it's very funny that like, you know, we're talking we're going deep into the the design of hats, 50:01 but like hats are I mean my shelf right now I have so many goddamn hats. I mean, 50:06 it was something that I basically realized like like I said, I was I've grown my hair out a few times and I just 50:13 knew like, yeah, during that phase from like whatever 8 months to 16 months 50:18 after my last haircut, got to have a hat on like all the time cuz my hair just looks stupid. 50:24 Uh, wasn't really like a huge hat guy, but I definitely was just picking up. It's like, dude, that's like a big part 50:31 of like men's fashion now is like hats. Like people get not like dressed up but 50:37 like trying to be stylish to go out on the town or whatever. They're wearing a hat usually. 50:42 All right, I'm gonna ask you a super specific question. How deep or what can you teach me about 50:48 just like hat design? Like not like necessarily the graphic design, but like the actual like bill and you know um 50:54 like the the snapback versus versus uh what's the other one? The adjustable. 51:00 Yeah, dude. Honestly, I just basically go on vibes. Like I kind of think of the 51:05 design and just like am just kind of in my head thinking about the types of hats 51:11 that I've seen people wearing. Like whether or not it's the trucker hat with the plastic mesh or the nylon or like a 51:19 more kind of like baseball cap type of fit with the different color bill. and 51:25 just like thinking about how some of the, you know, design ideas for the 51:30 front, what kind of hat they might look good on. Um, because the the corduroy hats too, those 51:36 are pretty unique. Those those are unique. Those I feel like you see those few and far between and it always feels like somebody who's a that's more like 51:43 hipster vibe. Yeah. Uh where they're probably going to, you know, I I I don't wear that style 51:48 because I don't think I could pull it off. Uhhuh. But when I see somebody who's who's repping it, I'm like I'm like, 51:54 "Okay." Like I kind of I get the vibe that this guy's doing. Your favorite barista wears a corduroy hat for sure. 52:00 No, that's great stuff because Yeah. The each every hat like it it feels like you 52:06 have a different use case for it, right? Like you depending on, you know, if you're going 52:12 to the beach versus if you're going on a run versus if you're going to work. Y versus if you're just like 52:18 waking up and you don't want to fix your hair. Um, so yeah, that's hat talk. Uh, but no, it's it's great. It's it's great 52:25 because like it so many people to say again just they 52:30 use it. It's it is a utility, right? Yeah. Totally. Like it makes it like I get value of because 52:36 when I when I bought this hat, I paid you in bitcoin and I get value from the sats that I paid this hat. 52:41 Yep. Yeah. I uh you mentioned all those different use cases for hats, which is 52:47 like so true. and like I don't know, wouldn't have thought of it before, but it's like yeah, I got my hat that I wear 52:53 when I do lawn work and I got my hat that I wear when I'm working out and I got my hat that I'm wearing when I'm lounging, whatever. Um, and if I 53:01 actually wanted a hat for all these use cases, this is why I basically was like, dude, I got to start this cuz like what 53:06 hat? I'm not going to go out I'm I'm not trying to shop for a hat and just like pick some random hat that I think looks 53:13 cool. I don't know. That's just like not my style. Like I'm not going to get a random hat. not gonna get my sports team 53:20 hat. Um, like I don't know. bitcoin's the thing that I like want to talk about 53:25 and like care to promote. No, it's a it's a great signal. It's a great signal to to represent that type of Meditations of a bitcoiner 53:32 brand because people, like you said, they wear their sports teams religiously. 53:38 Most probably the most commonly worn hats in the country are uh Red Sox, 53:44 Yankees, or Dodgers hat. Yeah. If I had to guess. Yeah. So, well, soon it'll be this one. 53:49 But, but so I I do want to kind of switch gears a little bit because that was, you know, Hat Talk, that was great. 53:57 I learned a uh or I discovered rather a website that you created. I had no idea 54:04 that you created this uh earlier today. Meditations of a bitcoiner. It was one of the coolest sites that I've seen. uh 54:11 just like a wealth of resources that were, you know, intertwined in in a way 54:16 that I I haven't gotten introduced to on online. 54:22 So, just tell me about Meditations of a bitcoiner. Like, tell me about first off 54:28 the name, where it came from, and then kind of what you were uh what the 54:33 intention of the site is. Yeah. Um, so I when I first joined Swan 54:40 and I was like starting to go deeper on bitcoin, I had a quick realization just from 54:46 listening to people like Tor uh talk about bitcoin and share videos and 54:51 stuff. And it's like, dude, this is like a really spiritual thing. Like it's it's, you know, going past like, yeah, 54:58 it's not just an investment. It's not just, you know, Alex Gladstein like 55:03 humanitarian pro-social tool. It's like very spiritually impactful to people who 55:09 interact with it. And I was thinking like, man, there's got to be some kind 55:15 of like um well, I guess to to jump ahead, the name meditations of a 55:21 bitcoiner kind of was like inspired uh meditations like Marcus Aurelius, like 55:27 uh just kind of like short little bits of wisdom. And so I was like, man, I bet there's there's some kind of like uh, 55:34 you know, spiritual wisdom revolving around bitcoin book to be written, but I 55:40 don't know what it is. That this was the idea that I had at the time when I first started is like, I know that's there. I 55:46 just don't understand bitcoin well enough yet. Uh, but I'm going to just like stuff 55:52 that idea for a little bit. Um, and then, you know, fast forward maybe like 56:00 nine months and I had read a bunch more books, been working in in the industry 56:06 for a few months, met a lot of people. Um, but again, mainly it was like I 56:13 almost feel like everything I think about bitcoin is in bitcoin is Venice. And uh you know when I first read that 56:19 and I started talking about it, I kept coming up against people being like, "Dude, I couldn't understand it. It's 56:26 just like too dense." And it is very dense. Not in the sense of like dry, 56:34 but in the sense of like every every word and every sentence is like really 56:39 doing a lot of lifting. And so it's like just a lot there um that it's just like 56:46 I don't know I guess some people had a hard time with it and I'm like but that is just so fundamental for me for 56:52 understanding bitcoin's importance in the world and I'm like I need people to 56:58 get this and um I had thought about like 57:03 oh should I write like a blog series that's like basically you know how I'm just like the ideas from bitcoin is 57:09 Venice that resonate me. Um because I know like these are the things that are going to kind of like bridge the the 57:17 chasm, the things that are like, you know, you could go to a normie and be like, "Hey, do you care about this, this, and this?" And then be like, 57:22 "Absolutely." It's like, "Okay, well, that's all bitcoin." you know, like that's uh 57:28 so much of uh bitcoin is Venice was like pointing to that for me of like so many of the kind of like obvious problems 57:36 with unobvious causes in the world that everybody can agree with. It's like you 57:42 know lays out clearly well that's how that came from fiat kind of thing. Um that's just like you know there's all 57:48 kinds of stuff not just pointing to fiat in bitcoin is Venice but anyways you 57:54 know I was like should I write or something blah blah blah and then I just like randomly one night was like 58:00 oh what about that idea I had like for the meditations thing and I couldn't sleep so I was like I'm 58:06 just going to write down what some of those ideas would be and like you know wake up in the morning with a note with 58:11 like 50 different ideas and I'm like oh dude I know how to do this now like I know what the ideas are and um 58:21 basically decided like well that's the um kind of the medium where I can 58:27 express these ideas about how bitcoin ought to resonate spiritually uh even 58:34 with people who aren't into bitcoin. It's just like you know so profound uh 58:40 beyond knowledge of economics or interest in investing. Um, 58:46 and so at first I started writing and um, I'm like I would say I'm not a great 58:53 writer. I'm a decent writer when it comes to very clearly expressing an 58:58 idea. Poetry not my thing as much. Um, and 59:05 so I was like, I'm going to write it and then I'm going to give it to Chad GPT. see if it can like kind of fluff it up. 59:11 Make a custom GPT that's like told to be kind of like write like you know the 59:18 psalmist or uh lau and tauchqing and like basically it's just some of these 59:24 kind of uh traditional spiritual uh poems 59:30 and it was so good at it that I pretty quickly was just like oh I got that 59:35 backwards. you write, I edit. Uh, chat GBT. And so then it basically 59:41 was like I've got, you know, a massive backlog of ideas where I'm just like I'm typing in, you know, 200 words 59:48 describing like some uh random thing about how um like one of my favorite 59:56 ideas from the book was this idea of toxic bigness and how fiat fuels toxic 1:00:01 bigness in all these different ways all across, you know, society, whether it's 1:00:06 government, businesses, academia, all these things are like big in a way that 1:00:11 could never be sustained on a sound money standard and in a way that has uh 1:00:18 truly negative consequences locally. Uh and so I'm like, "Yeah, everyone can get 1:00:25 with that." So, you know, I tell chat GPT basically everything I understand about toxic bigness. And then I'm like, 1:00:31 "All right, go write the verse." and uh it writes the verse and then I take the 1:00:36 verse and give it to a different GPT that I've told basically a style of art to try to mimic and it'll give me an 1:00:43 image uh that kind of represents that meditation. That is sweet cuz the site is really 1:00:51 cool. And what I like about it too is like you can basic it's like a random there's a randomness uh or a random 1:00:56 button and it just generates like a a different you know poem or little apherism of just something that it does 1:01:06 have a very philosophical lens to it which is cool. Um and I I had a hunch that it was kind of a nod to Marcus 1:01:11 Relius but I didn't want to I didn't want to assume. Um but that's sweet because I read it I forget the name of 1:01:18 the title. It was like Satoshi's gamble or something. Uhhuh. I read that one earlier and I was like, "Oh, yeah. Satoshi's wager." 1:01:24 Satoshi's wager. Thank you. Thank you. It's a problem that is worth the the 1:01:32 gamble. Yeah, that was basically like, you know, I just have moments where I I see I come 1:01:37 across something even if I've seen it before, right? Like this was inspired off of Pascal's wager, okay? Which is basically this idea that like 1:01:44 well if God exists and if he's going to send you to hell if you don't believe in him, 1:01:49 then if he like then you want to believe in him. If he doesn't exist and you 1:01:55 believe in him, well, you're going to hell or whatever anyway. You know what I mean? Like so you might as well believe. At least you're a good person. At least 1:02:01 you're doing you're living, you know, the quoteunquote right way, right? So yeah, it's like you might as well. So then I was just like, "Yeah, 1:02:08 dude. Same deal with bitcoin. You're suffering from fiat no matter what. So, you might as well get with the solution. 1:02:14 That's awesome. That's really cool. I didn't And the art on the site, too. I didn't realize that that was AI 1:02:19 generated also. That's that's dope. Um, so how often do you do you uh update 1:02:25 that because I'm going to try I'm going to start getting that site into like my, you know, kind of natural uh routine. 1:02:31 Nice, dude. I recommend all the listeners do, too, because it's just like it like one of my one of my favorite things to do. Um, and 1:02:39 is basically like I'll just take either the almanac of naval or the bed of 1:02:44 procrastudies by Nasim Taleb and just open a random page and just read their read their you know kind of wisdom and 1:02:51 what I think what you're kind of getting at is like kind of that version for bitcoin. Totally. Um, and I think we're so early 1:02:59 that that book will probably be written 50 times before like the best or or 1:03:07 quote unquote finished version is just because of all of the lessons and things that are going to change with this 1:03:13 massive transformation of, you know, living on a on a sound money uh financial system. Yeah, I that that 1:03:21 project kind of honestly goes handinhand with HODL Hat for me because they're both just like inspired by the notion 1:03:28 that like people already get with this. They just don't know that it's bitcoin that they get with and I want to help 1:03:35 people see that. And I feel like a lot of like like I'm a big fan of tauching. 1:03:41 Um but any sort of spiritual writing like that to me I I would characterize 1:03:47 it by its purpose. Maybe not its intended purpose but the outcome I guess being that it kind of like points to 1:03:54 something. It helps you see something but it doesn't like explain something in explicit detail. 1:03:59 And so much of bitcoin books is like, well, yeah, you got to explain because you're writing to somebody who doesn't 1:04:04 know how this new thing works. Um, but it's like, but there's so much of an 1:04:10 opportunity with introducing people to bitcoin of just like helping them see something that they can totally already 1:04:16 see. And that that's the balance that we have as like bitcoiners of like you don't want to you don't want to 1:04:22 overwhelm somebody. Yeah. Like when I have a friend who who asks me to, you know, help them get set up with a 1:04:28 wallet, I usually like will write out like a full paragraph of what they need 1:04:33 to do and then I erase it all of it and I'm like just download River like 1:04:40 like if you have any questions like hit me up. I'll talk I'll talk your ear off. But it's literally, you know, like one 1:04:45 of those memes where someone's like how was your weekend? And they go into all of all of the [ __ ] that you don't 1:04:51 actually want to or need to share. Yeah. And then they just delete it all and it's like weekend was good. 1:04:56 Yeah. bitcoin good. Y like it's it's 1:05:02 it's tough because of of that balance of you don't want to you don't you want to make sure that that people get onboarded 1:05:09 the right way to your point of like yeah not going down a route of you know shitcoins. That's why I always recommend 1:05:15 like a bitcoin only exchange. But um and even if you let people kind of like lead, they don't know what they want. 1:05:21 You know what I mean? Like someone is like, "All right, dude. I want to know how bitcoin works." It's like, 1:05:26 you don't want to know how bitcoin works. You really don't. Not yet. Yeah. I mean, well, because then they're always because then they always say, 1:05:32 "Well, what about mining?" Yeah. You're like, "Dude, like that's a to like you just don't need to know about that 1:05:38 right now." Yeah. That's level five. Like I still don't even know about mining and I've 1:05:44 been following bitcoin for so long. Like I I know some things, but I would I can refer you to a guy. 1:05:50 Yep. Yeah. It seemed like um honestly one thing that really appealed to me about 1:05:56 uh Eric Yates's The Seventh Property book was that it does do a little bit of both. It's like here's kind of the case 1:06:03 for bitcoin and here's how bitcoin works. whereas it feels like most books kind of are like doing more or less one 1:06:10 or the other. Um, and the here's why you should care about 1:06:17 bitcoin books. I just haven't found one that I would be super enthusiastic about 1:06:23 giving to someone who's lukewarm interested. Like if someone's interested, there's 1:06:28 great books, but it's like I don't know. I really like um Parker 1:06:34 Lewis's Gradually and Suddenly. Yeah, I've been rereading that. But it's just like it's for someone who's just like, "All right, fine. 1:06:41 What's the deal with bitcoin?" It's not like here's this book. It's like they're like, "I don't read." You know what I 1:06:46 mean? Or whatever. It's just like a lot of information. But that's that's also why we need more bitcoin podcasts because the the other 1:06:54 the other side of my love for that meme is when you go through the game theory 1:07:01 of bitcoin consuming everything then everything is a bitcoin podcast so we might as well just help accelerate 1:07:07 it. Yeah, that's that's like the other that's why that meme is so good. But but no, I 1:07:12 totally agree. Like if somebody says to me like, "Dude, how do I like I want to deep dive into 1:07:20 this thing? Like what do I do?" Like yeah, I'll get I'll send them, you know, a copy of the bitcoin standard. I'll 1:07:25 send them gradually then suddenly like I'll send them price of tomorrow and I'll send them all the podcasts of 1:07:32 those guys and and and all of the great work that they've done. But now it's 1:07:38 like when now there's a big uh kind of you know idea and marketing of like what's in it for me. So if I'm trying to 1:07:46 sell if I'm trying to orange pillar sell somebody on bitcoin for lack of a better term then it's like no this is how this 1:07:53 helps you. This is how like this is yes there is the the savings piece of it but 1:07:58 this will also create efficiencies reduce your reliance on you know XYZ 1:08:04 central authority. So that I think points to kind of a almost like what I'm 1:08:09 not doing with my projects is like there's, you know, helping someone see 1:08:16 why this is practical for them and then there's also like I'm just trying to 1:08:21 like help someone see basically get inspired. You know what I mean? It's 1:08:27 like that there's something amazing going on here and you should try to be a part of it or that like you know 1:08:34 everybody's got a lot of the same issues with the world and expecting the wrong 1:08:40 solutions. look in the wrong direction and look how clean this solution is and 1:08:45 look how world changing this movement is and all this stuff that's like kind of 1:08:51 you know we try to get them with both right like this can help you with that problem and like this is really 1:08:58 something like this is not just you should buy Nvidia yeah well that's I mean I think that's a 1:09:05 that's probably a um a symptom of fiat is complexity Right? 1:09:11 So, people want to think of the most complex way to solve their problem when 1:09:16 realistically the simplest way to solve your problem is probably go for a walk, get good 1:09:22 sleep, buy bitcoin, and you know, don't eat crap. Yeah. Like that'll solve a lot of your 1:09:28 problems just right there. And that's hard to do sometimes, but it's also on the surface really easy to do. Um, and 1:09:36 it is interesting to think about like it's it must be hard to do because people aren't doing it. 1:09:42 Well, there's so many distractions. I think I think what's hard is is the focus, right? Like I I was having a 1:09:47 conversation uh with with a friend in Nashville a few weeks ago and we were 1:09:52 talking about the eight sleep mattress. Um, and I watch I watch a lot of podcasts, not all bitcoin podcasts. Uh, 1:09:59 so my favorite podcast right now is, you know, Chris Williamson and Modern Wisdom and he's a sponsor. He he's a eight is a 1:10:07 sponsor of his. So I like hear the ad read. So like I know all like kind of information about about eight sleep 1:10:14 um and all the benefits and you know you should be investing in your sleep and it's you spend literally a third of your 1:10:20 life there at least, right? So all just there's mountains of evidence. 1:10:25 But one of my favorite memes that I saw, this was kind of in response to the 1:10:30 podcaster bros all pushing the eight sleep and all of these, you know, uh, 1:10:36 optimization tools like Brian Johnson and those guys. It's like, yeah, you have a bell curve. You have the left 1:10:43 side of the bell curve of go to bed when you're tired, wake up when you wake up. You have the middle like 65 or 85% 1:10:50 whatever it is of literally what I just described like you know thousands of 1:10:55 dollars on a mattress like subscription to your freaking mattress. You you're literally paying $20 a month to your 1:11:02 sleep like you're going to bed or you're starting your bedtime routine by putting on 1:11:08 glasses and then you start your tea and then you turn off your screen. All these things da da da da da to the point where 1:11:13 you're like if you're if you're behind by 20 minutes you're stressed. Yeah. And that's the that's the middle like angry 1:11:19 angry meme. And then you have the guy on the right side, the like wizard, you know, genius of I go to bed when I'm 1:11:26 tired and I wake up when I when I wake up. Yeah. And it that just gets at that simplicity, right? Or and that meme 1:11:32 exists in the bitcoin world of left side stack uh stay humble stacks, middle, oh, 1:11:38 I'm le I'm high leveraged on MSTR and doing this and this and this and that. 1:11:44 And then the right side stay humble stacks. Y and it's so interesting because to your 1:11:49 point it is easy but it's not because for whatever reason we have this like 1:11:55 innate yearn to make it harder than it has to be when you know maybe one of the ways to 1:12:02 see that it is that simple is just like starve yourself for a few days go into 1:12:08 the desert do some I mean because like during my dur so dur during my three-day fast right like an hour probably like 1:12:16 60. I did a a breath work um session in my apartment and dude it was like 1:12:24 it was a a near psychedelic experience and I just like had this sense of 1:12:30 clarity of you know having the stamina to to 1:12:35 get through whatever the challenge in front of me was. Now in that particular instance it was making it through the 1:12:42 next 12 hours of that of that fast. Um, but then all of all of the other challenges that I've done this year, 1:12:47 both physically, mentally, and spiritually, it's just like, oh, just the only way out is through, 1:12:55 right? And like that's such a simple saying, but it's the truth. And I mean, I mean, we've kind of derailed. I don't even know if this is going to stay if 1:13:01 this is to stay in like now we're just riffing, right? Uh, but like it it goes back to the the just 1:13:09 to bring it back to bitcoin of like this idea of proof of work. Like it's just proving that you solved another block, 1:13:15 10 minutes, another block, another block. And at the end of the day, like that's it. It's just blocks and you know 1:13:23 a distributed ledger of transactions in transactions out like to this address 1:13:29 and that one public private key. Like that's kind of it. And it's hard to 1:13:35 grasp that simplicity. And that's why it's that's why it's so like mindbending 1:13:41 for me. Yeah. Yep. Did that make any sense of what I just said? Totally. I've got a uh I've got a verse 1:13:48 on meditations about uh like bitcoin as like a psychedelic thing. Just like 1:13:55 dude, it's just like I don't know. I think about every time 1:14:00 I've had mushrooms since getting into bitcoin now, I always think about bitcoin. I'm like, dude, what the this 1:14:05 is just the craziest thing ever. And that actually kind of was like I think 1:14:11 in 2022 like when I barely even knew anything about bitcoin. It was kind of similar to 1:14:18 the meditations thing where I like had this idea of like yeah this book needs to exist. This is an idea that's legit 1:14:23 but I just don't know the deal. I had the same thing on a mushroom trip in 1:14:29 2022 where I was like dude bitcoin's like maybe the craziest thing ever. I 1:14:35 don't really know how cuz I don't understand bitcoin well enough yet. But I think it might be the coolest thing ever. So that's actually when I first 1:14:43 discovered bitcoin back in I think it was in 2017 uh like the fall I think. Um 1:14:50 speaking about mattresses, that's how I conflated bitcoin. Not that bitcoin was 1:14:56 a mattress. No. So like I said, I listen to a lot of podcasts at the time. Every 1:15:02 podcast was advertising with like Casper mattresses. Yeah. Yeah. And it was direct to consumer. Like we 1:15:10 cut out the middleman, like we can sell it to you cheaper or at a better price. 1:15:15 Like this is more valuable because we're getting it straight from our manufacturer, right? And when I learned 1:15:22 about bitcoin, I basically conflated bitcoin as direct to consumer money, right? 1:15:28 So I was like, so I was like, "Oh, you don't need the bank. The bank is what's issuing the dollars." Now, obviously, 1:15:34 it's the Fed, but at this point, whatever. Um, and I was like, "Wait, so bitcoin just cuts out the middleman. 1:15:40 That makes it better, right?" Because like everything at that time was like, "Oh, direct to consumer. It's it's more we can we can make it better. We can we 1:15:47 can give you better value that way." And that was my that was my like initial like, you know, dose of the orange pill 1:15:54 of like, wait, this thing actually kind of makes sense. And that was before I went down deep the rabbit hole of 1:15:59 actually understanding this thing that I was buying. I was just buying it at that point. And I was just buying it as 1:16:04 something that I was, you know, kind of like using as a savings/investment vehicle. Yeah. 1:16:10 And then co helped accelerate the Oh, I I know that money printing is bad 1:16:16 and inflation is bad and when you print money that leads to inflation, ipso facto, super bad. 1:16:23 Yeah. So, I'm going to buy more bitcoin. But I was like, if I'm going to do this, I want to I want to start reading the 1:16:29 books. Like I I literally bought, you know, Andreas's uh textbook, Mastering bitcoin. I'm like, learned about this 1:16:36 stuff. Now, do I understand it still from a technical level? Absolutely not. But can I explain what the difficulty adjustment is? Future Endeavors and Closing Thoughts 1:16:42 Yes. And that helps me from a personal perspective, understanding it at a 1:16:48 foundational lens, but then I need to remember that people that that took me, you know, three to five, four years 1:16:54 before Yeah. before I even cared. So, like if I'm Exactly. If I don't 1:16:59 if I'm talking to somebody who's just like, "Why should I buy bitcoin?" Like, I'm 1:17:05 I'm not gonna I'm not I need to The answer is not in mastering bitcoin. 1:17:10 Yeah. Yeah. Just hand them a textbook. That'll be Yeah. That'll be uh that'll convert, 1:17:16 right? Yeah. That was kind of like the idea with meditations, right? It's like it's there's a piece of education that's 1:17:23 not like answering someone's question. And it's making them want to ask more 1:17:29 questions because unless they're sufficiently interested, they're not going to get very far. They when they 1:17:35 ask you about bitcoin, they don't understand how deep it goes and they don't understand that it took so long 1:17:41 for you to get to this point. Um like they're going to need some uh 1:17:48 inspiration if they're going to do this themselves. They're going to go very far. 1:17:54 Oh yeah, man. Well, I mean, this has been awesome. This has been a ton of fun. What's uh so just to like wrap, 1:18:01 what's what's kind of next for you? What can we keep a lookout for? And obviously tell us where where we can uh get some 1:18:07 great great hats. Yep. Yeah. So, uh I'm selling the hats at HODL.com. 1:18:14 Um I'm using my personal Twitter for all of my engagements there. So, that's just 1:18:20 bill_coner. The double underscore double underscore. Yep. Someone some 1:18:25 other bellow Connor took took my uh preferred uh I ought to go find him. But uh yeah, 1:18:33 and then I've got meditations of a bitcoiner. Um and there's a Substack 1:18:38 newsletter there too that I'll just send out a verse uh shoot for every week. Um and some 1:18:46 links. There's a concept on the website of a verse of the day that just auto updates. So, I'll send out, you know, 1:18:53 the verses of the day for that week. Um, and then if anybody's interested, I don't think, you know, bitcoiners aren't 1:19:01 my target audience for my newsletter, casual bitcoiner, casual bitcoiner.com. 1:19:06 But if you know somebody who like, you know, similar situation to what I was describing, it's like, hey, I told this 1:19:12 person about bitcoin and they need a steady drip. Uh, got that going. what 1:19:17 I've got coming soon. Uh, one of the hats that I've been really excited about that, um, 1:19:24 I think fix the money, fix the world is one of the most important and potent 1:19:29 messages. Um, and deserves a good hat, deserves good 1:19:35 design, and deserves a design that I don't think I could do. So, I've actually got um a friend that I met at 1:19:42 uh the cheat code conference in the UK last year who's an illustrator. He's 1:19:49 worked on a design for me and I'm kind of like, you know, collab. Yeah, exactly. A little collab. So, 1:19:55 hoping to put that out soon. And that street wear coming soon. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, there's uh 1:20:01 possibilities are endless. Couldn't say it better myself, dude. This has been great. Thank you so much. Absolutely. Thanks for having me. 1:20:07 100%. [Music]