Imagine IF With Special Guest Rod R. Ep. 247

Join Bob and guest speaker Rod as they discuss the Imagine IF conference

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Thank you.

(00:30):
All right, good morning, everybody.
Hopefully that sound came through a little bit better.
Testing out devices, but welcome, welcome.
Thank you for joining.
I see we have Rod, our special guest in the audience.
We'll get him an invite here in just a second,

(00:52):
but did want to say good morning to everybody on this bright and beautiful Wednesday.
And we are back at it again. Thank you guys for joining Bitcoin Veteran Spaces number 247.
And looks like we got a few people up here this morning, but we will rearrange the stage and getting some invites out here.

(01:17):
All right. Good deal. Well, my name is Bob Van Kirk, if you didn't know.
And I will be your host, joined by a Texas host.
We have Neil up here, BFP, Pubby.
And hopefully we can get some more of you as we interview our guest.
He will join us.
I hope we can get him approved here.

(01:40):
And we'll also be joined by Kyle.
Coming up.
And sorry about that, Echo.
Okay, just playing around with stuff.
All right, so today is Wednesday, August 2021.
5th, 2025.
And let's look at the time chain today.
We got TC, his time chain calendar up.

(02:00):
And it looks like we are Bitcoin block height number 910,889.
With the Bitcoin price diving down to $112,600,
which means you can pick up Tao's favorite number, 888 sats for each US dollar.
And with that, I got a couple of announcements.

(02:20):
As you guys know, if you've been listening, we have the Bitcoin Veterans Second Annual Summit coming up right around Veterans Day, November 10th and 11th in Nashville, Tennessee at, I guess it's near Bitcoin Park or at Bitcoin Park.
We'll get into that.
But day one is going to be the conference and day two will be range day.

(02:42):
So we're looking for people to get involved.
If you are interested, please visit BitcoinVeterans.org forward slash Summit 2025.
Looking for speakers, panel topics, volunteers, and attendees.
So if you want to just come hang out, learn some stuff, meet some people, that would be awesome too.

(03:02):
So again, BitcoinVeterans.org forward slash Summit 2025.
As I've been saying, we have Rod Rudy from Bitcoin Park.
We're trying to get him back up on stage.
And we'll hop into it with him here in a second.
Last announcement.
I did get one person to step up for producer.

(03:25):
So we'll see if that one works out.
But if you are interested in getting involved in the back channels of the show,
please do reach out.
We do have a signal group if you want to come up with topics or better space names.
But, yeah, guys, we do this every weekday, 10 a.m. Eastern.
Pleasure to have you all.

(03:46):
And give me a second here while we get Rod up here.
But I want to say first, good morning to Texas Toast.
How are you, sir?
Morning.
Love the title.
You know, imagine if that was the top.
Imagine if we're going into a two-year bear market.

(04:07):
And imagine if all the treasury companies, MicroStrategy,
gee, everybody kind of gets what they deserve.
You know, everybody gets humbled a little bit.
Imagine if.
Hey, can you guys hear me okay, by the way?
Hey, mic check is perfect.
Thanks for coming up.
Yes, sir.
Good morning, Rod.
How are you?

(04:28):
I'm doing great.
Honor to be here and love that intro, by the way.
Yeah, thank you, sir.
Some people complain about it.
So either you're being nice because you're a guest
and you'll send me some mean backchannel messages later, or hopefully you did like it.

(04:48):
I'm going to go around the horn rod and just say good morning to some others,
and then we'll hop into an introduction of you, and yeah, we'll just take it wherever we want it this morning.
So, Neil, good morning, sir. How are you?
I'm doing great, Bob. Thanks for having me, Evan, and thanks for bringing guests on.

(05:09):
I like to listen.
Yeah, and guys who are up here, feel free to hop in on questions and things like that.
I'm sure we'll have an interesting space this morning.
BFP, how are you?
I'm well, Bob.
Thanks for having me.
Appreciate the time you guys spend on this.

(05:30):
It's a fun little space.
I enjoy it.
Good stuff.
Good stuff.
And, Pubby, how is your coffee this morning?
Coffee's going good.
And, yeah, imagine if people didn't chase yield on MSCR, Misty,
and just bought Bitcoin in self-custody.

(05:51):
Imagine if.
That's beautiful.
All right.
We've got some others coming up.
It looks like Captain T.
Yeah, Captain Trips.
Sorry, we're going to have him up here in just a second.
We'll say good morning to him.
and just getting the stage rearranged here this morning, guys.
Appreciate the patience before we hop into it with Rob.

(06:15):
Captain T, if you're up here, can you say good morning to everyone?
Okay, he's new.
I won't give him the chirping.
So let's hop into it, Rod, and we'll get Captain up here in a second.
But, Rod, yeah, thanks for joining us again.

(06:37):
Appreciate you being here and wanted to just, yeah.
Why don't you start out with your story?
Tell us about Bitcoin Park, your involvement, how you got into Bitcoin.
Yeah.
And can I just jump in and make a couple of comments?
Because I heard the custody or the treasury side, which is I kind of align with some of the comments made.

(07:00):
And that's why I do think the conversation, especially as it relates to treasury,
It's interesting because I've been a big proponent of businesses, obviously, and individuals holding Bitcoin on their own personal and business balance sheet.
And now this is like on steroids with these shell treasury companies popping up all over the place and creating financial engineering to acquire Bitcoin.

(07:25):
I think that's totally like a whole nother conversation.
But that's why we're doing a custody and treasury summit at the park to really emphasize the importance of having both in the conversation.
Because if you're talking about treasury, undoubtedly, you're going to be talking about custody as well.
And there's a lot of different flavors in that regard.
So I do think, you know, as these companies are announcing crazy purchases and so on, I love the trolling.

(07:53):
I love the comments. And I do think a part of that, we should just dig in and say, how are you custodian your Bitcoin? What's the strategy there? And really amplify that such that the individuals, plebs, small business owners, and so on know that there are other ways, whether it's multi-sig, collaborative custody, to single-sig, to hot wallets, cold wallets, and even to a degree, full custodians,

(08:22):
like a river and a strike that offer different solutions,
especially from a management side.
There's just a lot of different flavors
that we want to just make sure we're talking about.
And it's not just, oh, Coinbase is custodying all of their Bitcoin.
They can just custody mine.
Yeah, great points.
And really, Rod, we can take this anywhere you want it.

(08:45):
Sorry, I just got that off my chest
because I know that's like a lot of people talking about that right now.
And I do think having that conversation and nuance, especially with folks that are getting into Bitcoin now, which I do think is a lot of people, custody is not as daunting as it was back, at least for me, back in, I don't know, 2017, 2018, when I was looking at a small ledger screen, trying to like say, okay, BC1956, I got to verify this dang address.

(09:17):
I mean, the tooling in the UX is exponentially better and easier to the point where my grandmother can custody her own Bitcoin.
So if my grandmother and I'm on the left side of the bell curve, I'm like not that smart and not that competent.
If I can do it, anybody in this world can do it.
So full stop.

(09:38):
So stop saying it's like difficult or, you know, just it's easier to custody with a third party and having that trade off.
just try it. Catan just had a great post that I retweeted just now, going through step by step,
starting with a small amount of Bitcoin, downloading Sparrow Wallet on your desktop,
and then custodying it yourself. So, you know, January 3rd, 2009 is coming up, you know,

(10:02):
not many people know, but that's not your keys, not your coin day in Bitcoin. And it would be a
cool day to kind of resurrect that and really push the community to learn and push the custody
of their own Bitcoin. Yeah. So is that a little bit of a, I don't want to say pivot, but is it

(10:23):
just something that you guys want to focus in on now at your summit? And can we talk a little bit
about all those things? Yeah. Yeah. So, so we're actually doing two summits at the park and, and
sorry, let me back up cause I just jumped right into it. So yep. Rod Rudy, co-founder of Bitcoin
Park. I co-founded this with Matt O'Dell about three years ago now, three plus years ago. And

(10:44):
it started with just a simple meetup and it's grown beyond my wildest imagination. We've now
hosted hundreds of meetups, workshops, and summits and welcomed thousands of people from
all over the US and the world to Bitcoin Park here in Nashville. And now we've taken over the

(11:06):
operations of the commons down in Austin and added a second campus there, which is really exciting.
Shout out to Parker and the entire Austin community. The density of developers, engineers,
and entrepreneurs in Austin is unbelievable in the Bitcoin and Freedom Tech space.
So yeah, this has just become a passion now. And we have a great team with Jack,

(11:28):
Andrew, Rob, and Julie working with us. And now instead of going the big way, Bob, of like big,
massive conferences, and look, I'm not no shade on any of those. Everyone creates what they think
is the best experience to make money, to spend their reputation on. But for my time, capital,

(11:49):
and reputation, what gives me energy is curating really amazing experiences and bringing a solid
group of the best and the brightest together and then coupling that with an audience that
could maximize their time with that group of people.
So for example, we're doing two summits, 28 days and 30 days from today.

(12:15):
One is the Bitcoin Custody and Treasury Summit.
This one kind of popped up in the last like 90, 60, 90 days, I want to say.
I mean, it's been on our radar to create something, but in earnest, based on these treasury conversations and what's been talked about, it's been lost on me that we're not talking enough about on the custody side, as well as what are some treasury strategies?

(12:39):
A little bit of a tangent, but at Bitcoin Park, early on, we were only accepting Bitcoin.
And we're like, all right, we're going to be a Bitcoin company.
And I think the price of Bitcoin was like $45,000 or $50,000 at the time.
And then it precipitously dropped to $15,000.
I'm literally trying to sell microwaves and everything at the park.

(13:02):
And members and also Josh, who was working with us at the time, was like,
buddy, we cannot sell everything here.
But I'm like, well, we got fiat denominated bills to pay. So I share that story because
it's not as easy as, oh, you just make money as a business and then you hold Bitcoin. Well,
no, there's your majority of my bills are fiat denominated. So I need to figure out a strategy

(13:27):
as it relates to treasury management that's disciplined that I can then forecast against
my fiat denominated bills. And so I've done an okay job of that over the last three years.
And that's something I want to learn more about from the community. And we got guys like Drew
D'Agostino from Crystal Nose to a number of other folks. We have actually family office folks that

(13:48):
are going to be participating in the Custody and Treasury Summit. So I want to hear from them.
So it's really just like, honestly, it's super selfish of me, but it's scratching my own itch
and getting folks like Preston and Parker Lewis and Adam Back and Sean Bill and these other guys
that are just massive big brains that are doing big things and saying, all right, here are a couple

(14:08):
questions that I have on my list that I want to open this up to 100, 150 people that we've curated
to be in this audience today. So that's on the custody and treasury side. And then I can go
through Imagine If, which has been this three plus year imagination of mine or vision of mine.
And finally, this becoming a reality on September 19th and 20th.

(14:32):
Yeah.
Why don't we, if we can, let's camp out for a second on the challenges that people have with custody.
So, yeah, a little bit.
But, you know, as you go into, you know, there's obviously it's much easier now to self custody for individuals.
But when you get to organizations, family offices, those types of things, what challenges do you see and what types of solutions are maybe going to be presented at the conference that will help people?

(15:02):
Yep. Thanks for that.
And so one of the things that we have a mantra, we have a number of mantras.
One of them is no gatekeepers, which is we want to connect people and directly with service providers, people so they can build those relationships.
that's number one.
Two is we realize we have another mantra,

(15:23):
locally produced globally distributed So we want to produce awesome highly curated content such that and I say this at the beginning of even our open free and open meetups which is I take a lot of pride and responsibility in making this the best Bitcoin and Freedom Tech experience you have all year even in competition with our previous experiences that we create

(15:44):
So one thing we're going to introduce, and it's going to start with our OpDaily subscribers, it's our email list, is a custody white paper.
And so Rob Warren's leading this, and we've basically written out what's the custody landscape in 2025 as it is today.

(16:04):
I'm actually holding a BitKey right now.
I'm just playing with it.
It's like one of these disk signing devices.
Back even five years ago, there was no even BitKey.
there was just cold cards and treasures basically and a ledger which were our signing devices.
Now the competition is amassing all these different form factors that you can do.

(16:27):
Even from the, I mentioned Sparrow Wallet before, there's Unchain, there's Casa,
there's all these collaborative custody solutions. There's other collaborative multi-six solutions
like an OnRamp. It's unbelievable and it's so amazing. And then there's full custodian
solutions from the ground up that built their entire stack from river and strike.
So what we want to do in this white paper is just showcase as cleanly as possible where

(16:52):
we are today and explain what are all the other opportunities.
So in case you're not in person to review it with some of the people that are mentioned
in the paper, as well as the solutions, as well as those providers, you can hopefully
learn.
And then if you're a family office, if you're an institutional investor, if you're even

(17:12):
a single mom at home, it is, in my opinion, I also have the tangent, the domain, not financial
advice.com for this very reason, which is I go on these rants and then I say, just learn Bitcoin on
your own. I'm one node in many nodes. So do your own research. But I just, I think the solutions are

(17:33):
to the individual, to be honest with you. So a family office flavor, it's not like a make and
model, right? It could be a family office that has, I don't know, 10 billion AUM, 100 billion AUM,
and their use case is just to buy and hold it. And they have an inheritance plan with their
trust attorneys and so on. So they have a different multi-sig level solution versus

(17:58):
a family office that actively uses Bitcoin. They may have multiple custody solution providers
from hot wallets to cold wallets, single SIG to collaborative custody with, you know,
like let's say an unchained or whoever, or maybe even a full custodian solution with a river or
strike because their business needs the account, like the cost basis reporting and a bunch of other

(18:24):
tooling that makes it just easier for them to do. So that's me on my freaking soapbox. So apologies
if I just went on a little bit of a rant there. No, that's cool, man. We can take it wherever
you want. People are pretty chill in this space.
Except for if we do something where we can get TC up here to yell at us.
So far, so good. Again, we can really take it wherever you want.

(18:46):
Texas, I did see your hand at one point. Did you want to chime in on anything there?
Or should we let Rod keep going on his train of thought with the
Imagine If Summit? Yeah, we can go ahead and hit that.
I was just going to echo
what he had to say.
So he pretty much covered the question that I did have.
So good to go.

(19:07):
But I'm going to have to step off here in like 10 minutes.
So if I slip off, just see you tomorrow.
Sweet.
By the way, one point of clarification at the beginning.
You know, at the park, we host a lot of majority,
I want to say 90% of the things we do are free and open to the public.
So you just got to RSVP on our meetup page.

(19:30):
and super honored to host the Bitcoin Veterans Summit.
And so that is going to be actually at the park that first day
at Bitcoin Park Nashville.
And you guys are just with Andrew on the operations lead here
at Bitcoin Park Nashville.
I think that's going to be a special day.
And it's my hope, like any of these things,

(19:52):
I'm truly thinking in decades, not even in years or even months
as it relates to these type of experiences
and who the park and the team extends partnerships with,
but we execute with urgency in days and minutes, if you will,
if that makes sense.
So again, super honored to host you guys,

(20:13):
November 10th and 11th, I believe.
Yeah, that's great.
And we really appreciate that.
I do think what I was doing was getting confused
with the Imagine If Summit,
which we'll cover here in a second,
where you guys are actually having it at a,
was it a music hall maybe um but before yeah before we get into that rod i did want to remind

(20:35):
people in this space just to uh repost the space uh if you guys want to come up and ask her out a
question would love to have you hit that microphone button in the bottom left otherwise if you can't
come up and speak or you're too shy hit that purple pill in the bottom right and as i always say
leave your comments your questions your snide remarks and your memes and we will try to get

(20:56):
to them during the show. Go ahead, Rod, and tell us a little bit about the Imagine If Summit,
which is slightly different than the other meeting you were talking about.
Yeah. So I do this monthly Bitcoin podcast with Kathy Wood, who's the founder and CEO and CIO at
ARK Invest. And it's been really cool. We've been doing it for almost two, I think it's now two years.

(21:21):
We're up on episode number 18 together, and it's been amazing.
She hasn't missed one episode together, which has just been awesome.
And just participating with her and then seeing where Bitcoin has kind of evolved with the developments in AI,
the need for more abundant energy, and the need for more open source freedom tech solutions.

(21:47):
I can just see this convergence, especially with Bitcoin, the monetary network happening.
And I want to help play a small role in amplifying that conversation such that, and I love a good echo chamber.
Don't get me wrong.
So I'm definitely not perfect.
I got 99 things I'm really dumb at and maybe one or two.
I'm like, okay.

(22:08):
And this one or two is like curating different experiences such that I think can resonate with a group of people, not everyone, but maybe a group, a solid group of people.
And so my vision with Imagine If is this summit of summits where we we talk about the convergence of Bitcoin, AI, energy and freedom tech.

(22:30):
And what I mean by that is, you know, there's an arms race in terms of getting as much energy as humanly possible right now across the board, whether you're an AI manufacturing, Bitcoin mining, you name it.
Everyone's trying to go and procure energy.
Well, how cool would it be if we had folks and Tennessee has an unfair advantage because we are investing in nuclear.

(22:56):
We have a nuclear fund at the state level, as well as a number of nuclear-focused companies here that are in and outside Oak Ridge Laboratory in East Tennessee.
So I want to really bring a lot of those folks to the experience.
I want to have them have natural collisions with some of the top Bitcoin miners in the world.
So we're going to have folks like CleanSpark, Core Scientific, and that bunch being in attendance.

(23:23):
and then also just some of the best Bitcoiners in the world.
I mean, from like Adam Back to Odell,
you have these type of people
and then you got guys like EconoAlchemist,
Scott9000, Ryan Gentry
and there's a lot of people
that have not been named thus far
and we're going to create one track basically.

(23:44):
We're going to have a separate stage
that's in this beautiful ballroom.
You alluded to it, Bob.
It's not at Bitcoin Park, Nashville.
It's actually going to be at the Fisher Center
for Performing Arts, which is this beautiful theater.
It's a bit intimidating when you go on this beautiful stage,
but it's a theater style because I really,
I do think like an Eco and Odell and Adam,

(24:06):
even a Matt Pines to Kathy, Dr. Laffer, Parker Lewis,
there's some other special guests as well.
I think providing them a stage and opportunity
to create an evergreen position on where we are today and where the future can be across these
specific areas, I think could resonate and be helpful for a number of the conversations and

(24:34):
the circles that we're in so that they can naturally collide and we can level up the social
discourse and conversation, if that makes any sense. Yeah, it gets me thinking of a couple of
different things. One, I agree with the fact that you're going to have more conferences,
a little bit smaller, and people get to choose based on their interest level and maybe their

(24:56):
connections. But one thing I was going to ask you about is, can you talk about the difference
between Austin and Nashville, just in terms of Bitcoin Park and how you guys see the spaces
being utilized and those types of things?
Yeah.
So the Bitcoin Park Nashville and so Parker's probably one of my closest friends in Bitcoin.

(25:21):
Parker Lewis, who's now the head of business development at ZapRite.
He started the commons.
He helped really grow the Austin BitDevs meetup.
And I learned so much from him.
I was flying into Austin during COVID and just going to Bitcoin meetups there.
And I was super inspired by him.
So we have a dedicated physical space here in Nashville with two really nice buildings,

(25:46):
walking distance to Vanderbilt and Belmont University.
We have actually a great relationship with the hotel, with discount links for members
as well as guests that come in.
There's like even Airbnb hookups that we have in and around.
So I say all that is I want to create that kind of same experience for the Austin community
as well.
So right now we have a good office space that's in a really good area in kind of downtown

(26:09):
Austin area with some of the best Bitcoiners in the world that are part of that. And so I can see,
and there's a lot of support and community support in and around that space. What I mean by that is,
actually, it's happening, what day is today? Wednesday. So there should be, we're not going

(26:33):
to have the Austin Bitcoin Club meet up tonight, but tomorrow we have the Austin BitDevs. Last night,
we had, I always mess this up, Austin Design Bitcoin Club, ADBC. And then the previous night
was LitDevs. So there's always something going on in Bitcoin one week out of the month in Austin,
which is just freaking phenomenal. And that's kind of the same MO that we want to do across both

(26:58):
Austin and Nashville. It's an easy flight. I've been doing it now since February 1. It's like an
hour and a half and then a 15 minute Uber. Um, so I fly in at the 5 AM and I'm in bed,
uh, fly into Austin and then in bed by like nine, nine 30. Um, when I do the, do the day trips,

(27:18):
but I think the, the communities are very, uh, there's a lot of similarities, but right now,
and I don't want to say this too loud for the Austin community because I love Nashville, but
the developers and entrepreneurs and engineers that they have there are unfreaking believable.

(27:39):
And I think that where Bitcoin's this gravitational force, pulling in some more of the tech scene
into what we're doing, as well as the AI scene, and we're going to be doing more AI-focused
meetups at the Park Austin, the commons, which I think will be a cool convergence as well.
And so you didn't ask me this, but I think where the park can go in the future is there's going to be a lot of mini parks pop ups across the US and a lot of these focused Bitcoin experiences with a little bit more on the freedom tech side.

(28:15):
Because, you know, on the AI side is really interesting.
You know, we highlighted the treasury companies and we put a big spotlight on them.
I think the next spotlight needs to be on AI in general and how we're using that and what type of LLMs we're using, whether they're closed source or open source, whether we own the data or not, whether who's tracking the data and how are they leveraging this.

(28:37):
These are all good questions you need to ask yourself in order to create the best possible experience for yourself and understanding those tradeoffs.
Yeah, that's a really good differentiator.
differentiator. We're getting a little bit of popping on your mic, so I'm not sure if it's the
connection or just high gain or something like that, but maybe we can iron that out here as we

(28:59):
go. Wanted to make sure everybody else had a chance that's up here to ask Rod any questions.
I don't want to hog them all. Does anybody want me to play cricket or does someone have a question
for Rod. Everybody's asleep at the wheel except for me, Rod. So just you and me, buddy.

(29:24):
All good.
Keep your eyes locked in right here. We're just going to keep her going. So now, again, guys,
if you're just joining us, Rod Rudy from Bitcoin Park, talking about all things Bitcoin Park,
the Imagine If Summit, all of these really great things that they've been coming up with.
Go ahead, Captain.

(29:46):
Oh, hey, thanks, Bob.
Just want to thank Ron for the work he's doing at the park.
Ron, my real name is Kyle.
I'm in the full with the Bitcoin veterans, but I'm also affiliated with Satoshi Pacholi.
So Joe, I'll let him know you were over here talking to the veterans on Twitter.

(30:07):
And I'm sure you guys will see each other next month.
Thanks, man.

(30:39):
two, three years ago by just Joe going around to meetups.
Yeah.
I mean, that guy was just going around to meetups and meeting people and being like,
hey, I'm a Bitcoiner.
I like to do your taxes and I can help you manage the Bitcoin side of things And people were like you can Oh man I need that And then next thing you know he builds this awesome brand He now hired a number of people and his businesses from the

(31:06):
outside looking in is great. I'm a happy customer and client of his. And it's just so, it's so dang
cool to see a lot of folks, especially in the Bitcoin space, choosing their mission and choosing
their path because of Bitcoin. Absolutely. Absolutely. Ron, just to speak candidly from

(31:30):
the inside of Satoshi Petroli, but I keep seeing this with, because it's been growing fast, right?
I'm number five or six out of eight. And, you know, three years ago, it was just Joe Wood.
The Bitcoin effect that Peter McCormick used to talk about with businesses,
where it's like, you know, Satoshi Petroli, I mean, good CPAs, bookkeepers,
But I mean, they're not like the best CPAs in the country, right?

(31:52):
It's because they share that ethos with Bitcoin.
So we got people coming in, hey, like my CPA doesn't really agree with this or he doesn't
know how to deal with, you know, crypto Bitcoin.
So they come or they're Bitcoin based businesses.
So what are you going to do?
You're going to work with people who share your values.
So I see it's there's probably a lot of businesses that can make that same, I guess, niche first

(32:13):
mover advantage of being, you know, the Bitcoin plumbers or the Bitcoin whatever.
dude totally and and by the way this may sound like i'm telling you not to do this but i would
caution folks just to give up their fiat jobs uh to go and jump right into it i would start with a
side hustle and i don't know if joe was did this or not but like i know a number of other bitcoiners

(32:37):
that have their fiat job while starting a side hustle and scratching their itch
and the unsolicited two sats I'd give them is
whatever provides you energy in whatever you want to work on in Bitcoin,
go and do that on the side and carve out one, two, three hours
because you'll be surprised how quickly you'll be able to figure out

(33:00):
whether that actually is something that becomes economically sustainable.
And then all of a sudden you're like, wait a minute, I could do this full time.
And then you're hitting the ground running.
sale early, sale often, whatever book that's from.
Yeah, I do see Neil's hand.

(33:21):
Neil, go ahead, sir.
Yeah, I just had a question that just sparked me from talking about these businesses
and the products and services side of it.
So, like, do you think that that's actually, in terms of adoption and pushing,
like, you know, creating the, you know, the ideal circular Bitcoin economy?
Do you think that people creating businesses, like Bitcoin-only businesses, pushes that faster than hoping that traditional stuff adopts it?

(33:51):
Or like, I don't know, are they both equal or is one the cart and one the horse?
I guess there's another way of asking the question.
So in my opinion, I think it's all converging on just Bitcoin becoming the standard.
and hear me out for a second, which is Square introducing that all their terminals now will

(34:13):
be accepting Bitcoin. You got merchants that'll wake up and then they're going to get content
and they're going to get information that says, wait a minute, if we turn this button on,
we can remove the 3% tax, which is the credit card processing fee. And we can get near instant
final settlement with our customers, such if they do pay with this currency called Bitcoin.

(34:39):
And so we don't have to worry about chargebacks, which is a portion in their line item of their
P&L that is an issue. So the merchants will wake up and then they'll have an incentive to then
train their staff. Then the staff will be like, okay, I got to learn how to just... And by the
way, training the staff will be that much easier. It's not like they have to get it set up with a

(35:00):
separate terminal and then open up a QR code. It should just be part of the natural flow of
accepting Bitcoin. And then on the payer side, which is using Bitcoin, as people go more and
more, there's going to be more incentives at the merchant level to pay in Bitcoin as this goes.
So I just think the more businesses, for us, for example, and I think Parker has a webinar on

(35:25):
tomorrow. I think it's Friday at 1130, which if you're interested in ZapRite, it's more on the
ticketing side, but I use their invoicing and it is a godsend for me. And not just because Parker's
my boy and like ZapRite's like, you know, I liked the Will and John and so on, but it just makes it
so much easier where I can, while I'm keyboard commandoing, you know, doing whatever I can pull

(35:50):
up, send somebody an invoice for their membership renewal. And it's kind of set it and forget it.
And they could pay me with fiat, which is totally fine because we charge a 4% premium associated with
fiat because there is work for us to do on that end. And then we don't charge a premium for

(36:12):
sending us in Bitcoin. And then that goes back to my treasury strategy, which is getting paid
in Bitcoin as well as fiat.
I think each business owner and person
needs to just set up the parameters and discipline
around what percentages they want to be holding
in liquid fiat

(36:33):
and then what percentages they want to be holding
in somewhat liquid Bitcoin,
liquid Bitcoin,
and then deep cold storage
such that that's your savings.
Again, that's my two stats.
thanks that's uh i like listening to you talk about that type of stuff i don't really know a

(36:58):
whole lot about you know the business side of all the bitcoin stuff so it's cool to to get some
insight yeah because back in the day i mean it was crazy like you would just go into a lightning
wallet and then have to set up a specific invoice amount and then ask the person to be like can you
pay this right you'd call them and be like hey can you pay this right now and they're like no in an

(37:19):
hour. Then you'd have to set a reminder and be like, okay, let me send it because it's going to
expire. Now I just have ZapRite invoices and it just works and it's just awesome.
And then their ticketing side is just freaking cool. I mean, the stack of Bitcoin services
is getting better and better. And I just think that's going to be the default.

(37:40):
Even if you're not a Bitcoiner, you're going to be wanting to use this. And so there's going to be
a gradually then suddenly moment in the circular economy world where more and more, it's just
better money with better tooling. So you're just going to naturally want it. Like I look at my kids,
I have four young kids and I just keep thinking about what type of money they're going to be using

(38:03):
and how they're going to use it. And I just don't see a world where the way we use fiat today
is going to be how they're going to be using it.
Like they're going to go around with plastic cards
and swipe it or tap it.
I just, maybe with their phones still,
they're going to be tapped to pay.

(38:24):
But is it going to be with dollars
or is it maybe it's with stable coins, you know?
But I do think there's going to be an incentive
for merchants and the counterparty to say,
I, you know, I'll pay.
This is the Bitcoin amount,
but if you want to choose to pay me
some other currency like stable coins or whatever, it's, you know, 4%, 5% more just because I need to

(38:47):
have a conversion fee back into Bitcoin. Yeah. On that point. So people have this, um, idea that we
might be having, how do I want to say it? That we have these big treasury companies, the ETFs just,
going

(39:07):
and buying up all the Bitcoin.
And so what it's doing is
maybe making freedom money not as
available to
everyone else. Curious to hear
your thoughts on that, especially since you've
kind of been focusing a little bit
on the treasury space.
So I don't know
if that made sense, but I'm dealing with

(39:28):
some audio issues over here.
Yeah, yeah.
So just to recap
So let me see if that works.
Okay, that works.
Okay, cool.
I'm getting a little bit of an echo, I think.

(39:53):
Let me try.
Is this good?
Okay, yeah, that's much better.
So yeah, the treasury companies, look, I mean, at the end of the day, they're buying Bitcoin and they have a strategy and they're executing on it. There's a finite amount of Bitcoin. I think you still need to be able to hold the Bitcoin.

(40:17):
meaning okay um if you again i'm on the left side of the bell curve so i don't know the
ins and outs of the financial engineering but at the end of the day you have to have a sustainable
business such that you don't go into your uh reserves so are you creating a product
a financial engineer product that is continuously providing fiat-based returns to acquire more

(40:41):
bitcoin and then what is the downside risk such that that downside risk then you have to
liquidate that Bitcoin. And I think ultimately, I think there will be a scenario where some of
these companies will not be sustainable. They don't have solid businesses that have
sats flow or cash flow, and they will have to sell off assets or go under like any natural

(41:04):
business, by the way, forget this treasury company, just business in general, you got to
survive. It is very hard. And I'm speaking my own book. It is very hard to run a business in general.
And so what happens in the scenario where they have to liquidate the business or liquidate
the Bitcoin?
And what does that do on the downward pressure on the price?

(41:25):
So I don't think like all Bitcoin is just going to be consolidated and held at just
treasury companies.
I just, I don't see that as a scenario.
They got to also use that Bitcoin.
They got to, they're going to try to figure out ways to get yield on their Bitcoin.
And there's going to be other things that just naturally blow up.
This is not a shade of any one company or in general.

(41:47):
I'm speaking in generalities as associated with what could happen.
I mean, I've seen from FTX to the Luna thing to a lot of, you know, yield is a hell of a drug and greed is a hell of a drug.
And at the end of the day, it's just, as Matt says, stay humble and stack sats.
and so i do i i'm kind of indifferent when it comes to these treasury companies just accumulating

(42:14):
a bunch of bitcoin because there will be a way that it comes back into regular bitcoin holders
hands and that's why i think it's really important with what the work bitcoin veterans is doing
what the work meetup organizers are doing what the work of even like curated summit organizers

(42:35):
are doing like nifty with her base 58 the learning bitcoin conference which was just held in vancouver
just to be able to explain to the local communities how important it is to custody
their own bitcoin and why this is so important to have this fairer asset that you're able to
store over time and space and preserve your future purchasing power and it may feel good

(43:00):
right now you're getting fiat denominated returns based on some stock price or you have exposure in
your brokerage account or whatever that may be, but it's just not the same. So it reminds me a lot
of Bitcoiners, including myself, explaining the difference between Bitcoin and crypto and then be
like, oh yeah, you're into crypto. It's like, well, no, Bitcoin, the capital B, the monetary network.

(43:24):
And I think it'll serve 8 billion people. And that's the money protocol of the internet that's
missing, as well as Bitcoin, the lowercase b, the reserve asset. There's crypto, altcoins,
NFTs, LFTs, and now I add in shell treasury companies that you're more than welcome to talk
about, but it's just not at our meetups. It's like our meetups are focused on Bitcoin. You know,
there's other meetups and conferences and so on that, you know, you can discuss that.

(43:46):
So, um, and then just like going back to the salute, like that's where it is so dang cool.
All of the solutions that are out there. Um, and I see Becca's in the audience, like anchor watch,
I even touch on that as one of the custody solutions.
We now have an insured custody solution.
How freaking cool is that?
If you're at the institutional level, like, okay, you're custodying a bunch of Bitcoin

(44:10):
with your whatever treasury company and you're custodying a boatload of Bitcoin.
Well, me as a shareholder, what's the insurance policy associated with the catastrophic risk
of being hacked or losing the Bitcoin?
Well, I want like an anchor watch or some type of solution to be joined there as well.
So I'm so bullish on what the future is for Bitcoin and for all of us with people like the Beckas and all of you guys that are building in this space.

(44:42):
Yeah, really good answer.
It gets me thinking to like people from the outside.
I'm sure they're thinking different things about Bitcoin based on their touch points.
You mentioned some failures in the past and we've all heard of the scam and frauds and all those things.
But one thing that I really think is cool with what you guys are doing at Bitcoin Park is it does normalize it a little bit.

(45:07):
It's like, oh, these people have their own place.
And I think also you're seeing right on the ground, you're seeing all the development that's happening, right?
all of the tools that are going to come to market to help it be easier for people to adopt Bitcoin.
And it kind of reminds me of the Internet.
And I just wonder your thoughts on is the development going fast enough?

(45:32):
Are we bringing products fast enough to market to keep the adoption curve going on the pace that it has been?
I don't know the answer to that.
I think, again, I'm playing around with this BitKey in my hand.
And I think it's just been better.

(45:55):
Year over year, the tooling and products are getting better.
I don't know at what speed is necessary.
I think at the end of the day, Bitcoin is this gravitational force where it's just going to continue to pull more and more people in,
which then the market will justify what tools and services are necessary.
And I would say we need to continue to remain vigilant on what makes Bitcoin special.

(46:20):
You know censorship resistant properties permissionless properties using Bitcoin any which way however I want to use it however you want to use it however that may be across whatever geography or state that really important And I just think the tooling is
just going to get better, like going to an insured custody solution, like AnchorWatch creating that

(46:44):
new category. I didn't think Rob and Becca thought of that two or three years ago, and they did,
and they made it a reality. Same thing with a number of the next companies that are building
in the lightning and payment space.
I think that's going to be really, really interesting.
I mean, heck, we didn't even touch on Noster yet
and seeing the development in that world.

(47:04):
So I think in general, a lot of us could be,
including myself, maybe impatient and say,
oh, we need to just develop more and faster.
I would just probably make the suggestion
is similar to the kind of these summits
that we're creating at the park,
rather than like bitching and moaning and saying

(47:24):
someone should do this or someone should do that.
We're just creating the reality that we want to live in.
And I would suggest if you got that skill set experience
or just want to do it, freaking do it.
No one's holding you back.
Yeah, it's a really good point.
And the way I think of it is kind of like a flywheel, right?
Because as people gain exposure to Bitcoin,
they start learning about it.

(47:46):
The price does go up inevitably.
People have more capital or more access to capital.
to invest in businesses and opportunities.
So it's kind of an interesting dynamic.
If you're holding long enough,
you can maybe use some of that capital,
not just to be the wealthiest man in Babylon,
but also to contribute to this network

(48:11):
that has maybe brought you some wealth.
Do you have any agreement or disagreement on that one?
No, totally.
And honestly, there's actually
good economic incentive alignment too. For example, Jack Dorsey, they spun up Spiral within
Block. It's its own business unit that is just self-funded by Block. Again, I'm not in the

(48:35):
business or from my cursory understanding from the outside looking in, Steve Lee and Haley and
those folks just run it and work on Bitcoin full-time with no strings attached. And the
incentive for Jack and Block team is they're not only contributing back to Bitcoin, but it's helping
inform their Bitcoin related products across the entire stack. I was super fortunate with me,

(49:00):
Eco and Scott 9000 from the BitX project to go to the Proto, which is one of Block's newest
divisions, their announcement of their new Proto rig. And I bet, I mean, I feel like Spiral played
a role in that in terms of helping them figure out from stratum v2 and a number of different things
just working on bitcoin open source bitcoin to inform another whole business unit that can help

(49:25):
strengthen the bitcoin network while being a profitable line of business so i think that's a
really interesting area in my opinion is seeing and i'm surprised more companies are not doing this
where they have their own kind of R&D department
that just works on Bitcoin full-time with no strings attached.

(49:47):
And then it's like, all right, we can take that kind of knowledge
and then apply it to maybe whatever business that we're working on.
Yeah, so that made me think of something else.
What do you think about layer twos?
Is the development good?
And, you know, you just look at the on-chain fees being so low,

(50:08):
you know it's still pretty easy to move bitcoin as of right now but yeah what are your thoughts
about the developments on layer two and maybe the low fees that miners are able to to get at this
current time yeah you know i don't we're going to have a bitcoin payment summit i think it's going

(50:29):
to be in march of next year so i'm after imagine if i'm really interested in doing the white paper
with Rob on that and then going deep into ARK, Lightning, and a bunch of the different
layer two solutions.
So right now, I'm not as well versed on it all.
In general, I do think it's a really healthy competitive environment at the layer two area

(50:52):
and not dubbing a winner, I think, in my opinion, is a good thing.
And at the end of the day, layer one Bitcoin is the best Bitcoin.
like if you want to send instant final transaction just use layer one bitcoin and just use bitcoin
but you know i um my primary wallet by the way is interesting it's primal now so uh at first when

(51:17):
a mutiny wallet went down i was like oh snap i need a new like lightning wallet um and then i
was like wait a minute like my primal wallet is basically my lightning wallet anyways and my
Bitcoin, my hot wallet. So I just might as well just use that. So I feel like there's going to be
a lot of products and tooling that are just going to be Bitcoin layer two native that is just going

(51:40):
to make it obfuscate any of the complexity of just using Bitcoin. And so going back to my kids side,
I mean, they're going to know Bitcoin, obviously, because their dad's into Bitcoin.
But I think a lot of these kids, especially young kids, are just going to use internet money.
They're going to pass it around their games.
They're going to pass it around to the friends and so on.
And it's just going to work so freaking well for them.

(52:04):
Whereas all of us on this space are going to be like, back in my day, I had to open a channel and I had to wait for my friend to confirm that he was going to accept that payment.
So that lightning invoice didn't expire.
And it's like, wait, what, Dad?
I cannot believe you were within the first 15 years of Bitcoin's existence.

(52:26):
Tell me how old you are again.
But long story short, I don't really have that strong of an opinion other than competition is good and everything is good for Bitcoin.
Yeah, thanks for that.
I did have another question for you that I was thinking of earlier, which is, and not to jump around, but what's next for Bitcoin, Parker?

(52:49):
Are you guys going to expand?
Are you just focused on the two locations?
What's the strategy here?
What are you guys doing?
Yeah.
So right now is full on doubling down on Nashville and Austin.
We've got to get a great spot for the Austin community,
and we're working really hard on that.

(53:11):
It's continuing.
Our focus, 100% our focus is also on the member experience.
So we are very fortunate that individual members pay an annual fee and they are the ones that make our ability to host these amazing meetups, workshops and summits, as well as to be able to have awesome spaces for Bitcoiners and Freedom Tech enthusiasts to work, learn, collaborate and build.

(53:36):
So Austin and Nashville are our primary focus.
i mean we'll announce it probably near the end of this year but i'll do it on this podcast just a
little bit which is we're going to have this um so we have so many members that are outside of
nashville and austin who travel in and just want to support the park and it's been awesome

(53:56):
but they're always like hey it would be awesome if we had a bitcoin park in x city or y you know
city and it's near impossible to do that for two reasons one capex like i'm not this is not a vc
funded business or there's no exit here for Bitcoin Park. This is a passion project of mine.
And then two is you can't manufacture community. You can't be like, all right, we're going to just

(54:21):
do Bitcoin Park and we're going to just figure out the community aspect second. You need the
groundswell of support locally, in my opinion, to make a Bitcoin Park or spaces like a Bitcoin Park
really sustainable. But with that said, we're going to introduce park forums next year where

(54:42):
we're going to go on a citywide tour. We'll do like half day pop-ups in specific cities where we
invite maybe one or two fireside chats, make them very intimate, like 50 or 100 people,
and see how those work out.
And then we could determine from there,
wow, in, I don't know, St. Pete, Florida

(55:04):
or Raleigh, North Carolina or Columbus, Ohio
or Scottsdale, Arizona or Dallas, Texas.
There's like a groundswell of amazing folks there
that could sustain a Bitcoin park.
That could be a leading indicator for a future location.
But with that said,
I don't see us
going full bore

(55:26):
in having
many more, especially
next year, but potentially
after we do these park forums,
I think we can get more signal and
insight, and most importantly, buy-in
from the community to make it
sustainable.
Yeah, that's awesome.
We're running up here

(55:46):
towards the end of the show. We usually try to keep them
about an hour, but really do appreciate you coming on.
I want to make sure people know how to follow you, follow Bitcoin Park, get plugged in.
Can you share a little bit about the membership?
Is there different levels?
Is it corporate, individual?
Just kind of give us your sales pitch here.

(56:07):
Yeah.
And to be honest with you, I would first and foremost just come to one of our meetups.
Don't even worry about the membership side because come in and experience one of our free and open meetups,
whether they're in Nashville or Austin.
So I'd go to BitcoinPark.com forward slash Nashville and then BitcoinPark.com forward slash Austin.
You can join our meetup page and see all of the meetups that we have going on there.

(56:31):
Honestly, I'm pretty proud that even our meetups are as good as some of the tickets that you would buy for some of these conferences.
That's the caliber of the folks that we have speaking and the curation of the topics.
And I think it's BitcoinPark.com forward slash members.
which is just our membership type form if you want to learn more about that.

(56:53):
But I would recommend coming to a meetup first and do it multiple times
just to see if this is something you want to kind of be a part of and support.
And then, yeah, and then coming to like our summits,
our summits are first and foremost for the membership and they get 50% off.
And then we open it up to select folks to kind of do that,

(57:15):
to come and experience it.
If you go to BitcoinPark.com forward slash ImagineIf, you can learn more about ImagineIf.
And then BitcoinPark.com, I believe it's forward slash CTS25, which is also on our meetup page.
You can learn more about it.
But long story long, no sales pitch other than proof of work.

(57:35):
We'd love to see you personally at either location.
and if you can just give us a follow
or subscribe to our email
OpDaily which is
BitcoinPark.com forward slash email
and you can just learn more about all the
great work me, Jack, Rob
Andrew and the team are doing
and that's one of the best ways to support

(57:56):
us so I really appreciate you Bob
and everybody on the Bitcoin veteran side for
having me
yeah thanks so much
did want to give one last opportunity to
Neil and
captain up here, Kyle. Do you guys have any final parting thoughts for the space or questions for

(58:17):
Rod? No, I don't have any question. I'm just, I don't know. It's just still kind of like being
exposed to all these new domains and Bitcoin and stuff just makes me really hopeful and
inspires me that just knowing that we got, I don't know, really fired up, motivated people
that are smart, doing really cool things.

(58:40):
I don't know.
I know the talent density is
unbelievable in this space.
The amount of intellectual firepower
and know-how
across
actual people.
It's truly
freaking unbelievable.
The Bitcoin Park

(59:00):
member community has fundamentally changed
my life. I've always wanted
to quit drinking. Here's a quick tangent
and then we can wrap.
But I'm like, you know, I'd have a couple beers
and then be like, man, I really,
why did I even drink those beers?
Like my sleep was crap and I just woke up lethargic.
I've always wanted to work out
and I've always wanted to eat better and so on.

(59:22):
Then all of a sudden I just snapped into it
with like the Bitcoin.
And truly, I think a big reason
is because of the Bitcoin Park community.
And it's been like, I mean, honestly,
maybe 600 days today, no alcohol, working out.
and we have raw milk delivery
from our local farmer to the park every Tuesday.
And I'm just like,

(59:42):
if you asked me like three or four or five,
even five years ago that this would be my life,
I'd be like, put a gun to my head
and just pull the trigger
because that's just not happening
or wouldn't be a reality.
And it's just so freaking awesome.
And I owe an insane amount of gratitude
to the Bitcoin Park community for that.

(01:00:03):
Yeah.
yeah awesome stuff
it's cool
well there's some guy that's like two hours away
yeah
there's so many now
he just delivers
he bought another cow

(01:00:24):
I think he's bought like
just because of the park
but
this has been great
I gotta roll too
I really appreciate you guys
and thank you so much
thank you Rod
yeah thanks so much Rod
really appreciate it we'll have to have you come on again

(01:00:45):
but guys that's a wrap
we do this every week
10 a.m. Eastern
and so we'd love to have you
thanks so much for joining us
listening to us
and hanging out
follow all the speakers that were up here
check out Bitcoin Park
and whether you're better or not
Do visit BitcoinVeterans.org if you need help on your Bitcoin journey.

(01:01:07):
Happy to get you plugged into valuable resources to help you along the way.
But that's all we have for this morning.
We'll see you again tomorrow morning, 10 a.m. Eastern.
I want to wish you a wonderful Wednesday.
And stay safe out there, guys.
Don't shit.

(01:01:31):
That's all I can say.
Just don't do it.
It's bad for you.
All people that use fiat currency as a store of value, we call them poor.
We call them poor.