It's Friday! Ep. 249

Join us for a very special Bitcoin Veterans Space this Friday

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Thank you.

(00:30):
Yo, is this thing on?
I think we lost Bob in the music cutout.
But that's fine.
Good morning.
We're here to pick up the ball, Texas Toast.
You got me?
Are you still here?

(00:52):
Maybe it's on my end.
Can anybody give me a reaction in the crowd if they hear me?
Okay.
Cool. BFP. Thanks, bro. All right. Well, we're going to keep rolling forward because nothing stops this train.
And we are just a small caboose of this train. Train being Bitcoin. It's the new mission, in case you haven't heard.

(01:15):
But first shout out today, we're going to start with the Bitcoin Summit, right?
We've got Bitcoin Summit coming up. The Bitcoin Veterans Summit. Apologies.
The Bitcoin Veterans Summit, November 10th and 11th. Guess what? That's Veterans Day.
surprise it happens every year. This year, we want you to join us in Nashville at Bitcoin Park
for a two-day event. First day is going to be workshops, speakers, small, tight-knit group,

(01:38):
no more than a couple hundred people, just of extremely high signal, actionable advice,
and all the different topics that we have been covering here at Bitcoin Veterans.
It's going to be a lot more than what you get in the spaces. We're going to have workshops,
hands-on workshops. We're going to have speakers. We'll have panels. And most importantly,
the people in the space that desire liberty, freedom, and these ideals that are what I

(02:00):
believe the true American way will be there.
The builders will be there.
The people that are curious will be there.
So come and join us in Nashville, November 10th and 11th.
For more information, bitcoinveterans.org slash summit 2025.
bitcoinveterans.org slash summit 2025.
Texas Toast, you got me now?
Are you able to say anything?

(02:21):
I'm back in the truck.
Good morning, brother.
Sweet.
Good morning, bro. How are you? I'm doing all right. You caught me off guard. Bob usually doesn't let me talk for like five minutes.
Something caught Bob off guard. I don't know what happened, but he shows us a listener on my screen. So I guess we're just running it live.

(02:41):
The first thing, if you saw a recent repost by none other than BV Tim Niemeyer, he will be speaking, representing the Illinois Bitcoin Council.
This is a BB, right? This is a BB-led initiative, an individual BB doing his own thing on the mission, building in the space for the state of Illinois.

(03:03):
But he'll be speaking Saturday, September 6th at 310 about economic empowerment with Bitcoin.
And so this will be a talk about this is at the first annual Kansas City Bitcoin Summit.
Again, it's obviously in Kansas City, Missouri.
But yeah, one of the BBs there is going to be speaking.
And I think you're going to see this across the space as these smaller events and more localized events, which you'd love to see at all the various citadels across the nation and across the world, start popping up.

(03:32):
You're going to see BBs there contributing, speaking, and just generally being on the mission.
Do you know Illinois' mining footprint overall, like compared to Texas?
How many is I mean, I in the heartland there, there's huge opportunity.

(03:53):
You got the Mississippi going there. I can see, you know, I drove by a coal power plant when I was up there recently.
And it was just about coal right next to the Mississippi. So it's really efficiently transported.
And I thought to myself, why isn't there a miner on this? You know?
Yeah, I have no idea. I mean, Illinois politics, I don't know anything about.

(04:16):
But the rumint that I have heard is it's just extremely, it's one of the more swampier places in the world when it comes to politics.
Chicago.
Bingo.
But there's a great crew of Bitcoiners out in Chicago, right?
So Illinois is a state.
They've got Chicago.

(04:37):
And, you know, there's Chicago BitDevs.
There are people, there are companies in the Bitcoin space, good companies that I believe are operating on a Bitcoin standard.
out of Chicago. So don't fade the state of Illinois. We just need that Bitcoin insurgency,
that Bitcoin orange party to grow in size and strength. And I think Tim is one of the people

(04:58):
leading the charge of that Illinois Bitcoin Council. It's pretty cool to see.
Yeah, Jack Mallers needs to not leave. He said he was going to leave because the politics was
going to drive him out. And hopefully that's not the case.
Yeah, no, definitely not. And welcome to stage, BFP. Good morning to you, sir.

(05:22):
Good morning. I missed the last 15 seconds because of the delay.
You can just imagine autistic screeching, and it's probably about the same.
Welcome, Publord. Welcome to the stage. Good morning.
good morning ladies and gentlemen good to see you find us off to a fantastic start here hope

(05:47):
everyone's well and uh yeah um still trying to find the bitcoin price like coinbase account is
down at the moment thank you oh man good call the best place to find the bitcoin price at the
beginning of each morning is going to be on the bitcoin veterans website under the daily
intelligence bulletin or following here on shitter or on nostr which is better because you can get

(06:12):
sats for shit posting like if you haven't figured out that life hack i mean come on figure it out
asvab waivers and bitcoin veterans have figured it out so it's not hard but anyway daily intelligence
bulletin for bitcoin veterans block height 911 178 22 august where's that bitcoin price that's
what you wanted. I know that's what you wanted. Oh, weird. If you have not, all right. If you guys

(06:36):
have not checked out the opportunitycost.app, it's this browser extension that if it sees a dollar
on the page, it just puts the Bitcoin amount on it. So what I'm looking, what I'm looking at the
prices of the DIB here on Twitter with opportunity costs on, uh, it has 24 hour high of, uh, 113,

(06:56):
969 cuck bucks or roughly 1.01 btc and then it has a low at 1 btc so we're at an all-time low
of 1 btc everybody congratulations time to change your node to 0.1 if you can no i'm just kidding but
hey good morning everybody and uh thanks for filling in guys i am having one heck of a time

(07:20):
with the space this morning, but we're here and want to be the first to welcome you to
Bitcoin veteran spaces number 249. Thanks for coming in. Please repost the space. Let's get
some more people in here. We have, well, let's just say this. Thank God it's Friday and it is

(07:41):
August 22nd, 2025. Wow. Time keeps flying by and the time chain keeps on ticking. We are at
Bitcoin block height number 911, 188.
And you can pick up some corn for $115,000.
And that means you can still get 870 sats for each US dollar.

(08:06):
All right.
We're going to go to mining goblin for a couple of announcements.
We talked about the summit.
We did cover the summit already.
Was there another announcement that you had in mind?
Oh, yes. Did you talk about Tim Niemeyer and Gabe Ward?

(08:27):
He's leading the charge for the Orange Party in the good state of Illinois.
Sweet. All right. Perfect. Okay. See, I'm just late to the party. Well, I have one more announcement.
The Mayan Bitcoin Conference is going to be on with us next Thursday. So looking forward to having them join us.
And, yeah, this is a fun morning, guys.

(08:50):
It feels like a Monday for some reason.
So we're going to get our producer on board in about a week.
Not next week, but maybe the week after.
And then there'll be no excuse for this and these shenanigans.
But this morning, guys, we can really take this anywhere you want to.
One of the topics I like to bring up on Fridays has been the tradition is we talk about freedom tech.

(09:17):
And so I wanted to ask you guys about hardware wallets.
What's your favorite?
Have you tested any out?
At what point should people be considering getting a hardware wallet?
Should they start out with that?
or do they need to have a certain amount of sats that they want to protect in order to want to spend the money on a hardware wallet?

(09:45):
So this is open season on this, and we can also talk about many other topics today, but curious to hear the panel's thoughts.
I'm here for whatever. I was just tuning in to Preston Pysh on what Bitcoin did.
for anybody that doesn't know Preston is a Bitcoin veteran, whether he chooses to be or not.

(10:07):
He was on What Bitcoin Did with Danny Knowles.
And I got a great education on why all of you bulltards in here were so excited over MSTR.
It's like Saylor just is using AI to issue in synthetic stablecoin with yield on the SEC chain.
That's what Saylor's doing.
So I just needed to put that into like engineer speak.

(10:28):
it's still it's a shit coin but it was a fantastic understanding of like the trad fi
engineering thing uh with preston's just you know he has he has a great way of like putting things
into into uh an understandable manner and i'm sure that's no doubt from his robust military training
it's being able to talk to the lowest common denominator

(10:52):
yeah i mean the like asvab waivers have figured this out right it's like we've got the 99 asvabs
and we've got the asvab waivers we've got like the west point grads and we've got like the
community college officers too it's fantastic the mid curves just they're they're slow to
come around you know what i mean but they'll get there
we've got the remedial swim squad

(11:19):
yes exactly yeah pete you had your hand up though sorry and uh we don't have to talk about that
today i'd also be happy to rant about vibe coding which has been a passion of mine lately
yeah i i was just uh gonna talk about the hardware wallets that bob was mentioning

(11:41):
And no big thing.
I was just going to say Cold Card Q is pretty much the way to go.
Well, I mean, that's my opinion.
I haven't tried every hardware wallet.
But if you don't have enough SATs and you're just starting out,
I would just get a blue wallet or something because Cold Card Q will set you back,

(12:05):
I don't know, $100 and something.
I can't remember how much.
But if you don't have over, you know, 500 bucks in Bitcoin, then probably should just keep stacking on a regular Joe hot wallet or whatever you got.
Yeah, like the cold cards, the Mark IV is like your gold standard, I think.

(12:28):
Like just it's a very familiar device.
Lots of people, lots of guides out there.
Pressers.
Those are pretty good.
Like you'll see those getting issued from your like unchained with their like IRA products.
It's interesting.
If you're a DIY tinkerer, the seed signer is a cool one.

(12:49):
It's like a DIY build it yourself sort of ephemeral sort of key hardware wallet.
Yeah, all kinds of that.
BitKey is good.
Like BitKey is an interesting one too because it doesn't interact with other hardware wallets.
but I would refer probably BitKey for non-technical people.
I have a BitKey and had problems with it because my fingers, I have not the greatest skin.

(13:15):
So I couldn't get my 500.
I had 500,000 Satoshis, like 500 bucks, but couldn't get it for months.
and I was going back and forth with their customer service for,
it had to be a good six months or more.
But I finally, that finger healed up and I got it out without having a deal.

(13:40):
But I never could get it from customer service and all that.
So I don't like the BitQ, but I think you're right.
It probably does work for the remedial.
I like to have a seed praise.
Yeah.
Wow.
That's a crazy,
I had never thought of,
you know,
because the fingerprint reader is on the bit key itself.
And if that's not working,

(14:01):
then the key on that bit key,
like you can't,
it won't work.
Like it's the whole by design.
That's,
that's very interesting.
And you,
you weren't able to use bit keys like cloud server to,
to sign for those sets.
No,
I couldn't update the device.
I couldn't do anything.
I just kept going back and forth with email customer service and never could solve getting my $500,000 out.

(14:28):
And I had gotten the cold card queue during that time, and I was just putting all my stats on that.
And I wanted to get that over, too.
And now my BitKey is just a paperweight.
I don't use it.
Wow.
So Hunter, I see you had your hand up.

(14:50):
Sorry.
Hey, good morning, Goblin.
So, yeah, I've got a hardware wallet question.
My current setup is the Passport wallet by Foundations.
And what I really like about that wallet is it came – it was accompanied by a mobile wallet called Envoy.
So I have a view only wallet on my phone and I really like to be able to just easily send, create a receive address and receive sets on my phone.

(15:22):
But yet there's no way to send it without bringing in the actual hardware wallet device into play.
But after that passport wallet was came out, foundations came out with another product and they started getting into altcoins.
And I've really lost faith in that company.
I only want to do business with Bitcoin-only companies, so I kind of want to transition back to the cold card.

(15:46):
But I really do like the UI that I've gotten used to with this Passport wallet.
And so I guess my question to you Goblin or anyone else that can answer it is can you talk a little bit about how I can recreate this system with like a view only wallet that can accompany the cold card Because when I used to have the
cold card wallet before this, I had it just on my desktop computer using Wasabi. It was very clunky,

(16:10):
inconvenient, and I've gotten spoiled with the ability to view it on my phone. So I want to
recreate Passport, what they've created for me, but with cold card. Yeah. So I don't know the
Hey, Hunter.
Oh, go ahead, BFE.
No, I have that.
I wanted to say something because I have that actual device,
and in the same way I got away from it because I didn't like the fact that they went into the, you know,

(16:35):
junk coins or the trash coins.
But I did like being able to see my sats on there, and that's why I got the cold card Q,
and I have it paired with Nunchuck.
But TC made a good point last time I talked about this.
I had a totally similar experience when I realized all the reasons why using Ledger was really a compromised situation.

(17:03):
I think that you're dead on as far as that feeling of being uncomfortable if you're using a product for Bitcoin that's provided by a company that is not exclusively working on Bitcoin.
It's really a problem.
I've worked for a lot of tech companies, so I know from the inside what it's like when a company has divided attention on different products, let alone different technologies and networks.

(17:32):
And it's really something that is a deal breaker for me at this point.
But here's the good news. The good news is that your hardware, whether it's cold card or foundation or, you know, a seed signer or whatever it is, that's not the wallet. That's not the wallet. The wallet is the private key.

(17:58):
so here's the question you want to ask yourself if you have you know created your private key in
an air-gapped fashion and kept it air-gapped always you can think of it as a safe wallet
because nobody else at that point should have even had the possibility of getting access to

(18:21):
that private key that's the whole point in the sort of air-gapped approach so the cool thing is
is that you can just take that key
and you can just start using it like right away
on different hardware and software.
If it's Bitcoin compatible,
like the seed phrase, the private keys,
all these things are absolutely transcendent

(18:43):
of the devices that they're made on.
So what I did back in the day
when I was moving away from Ledger,
and at that time I was moving to Coldcard,
I just literally like never touched the ledger hardware or software again.
Once I had decided I didn't want to use it anymore.
And I used my seed phrase that I had generated from the ledger.

(19:07):
And this is an interesting story because like I considered that wallet basically not totally trustworthy for the long haul.
So I wanted to migrate to a different wallet.
But what I did is instead of like using the ledger to send.
Hold on, be specific. It was not to a different wallet, a different key.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
Exactly. That's what I'm saying.

(19:28):
I wanted to generate new keys.
I wanted to migrate those UTXOs from the addresses tied to the private key that I made with the ledger.
I wanted to move them to a new private key that I created with air-gapped best practices and all that stuff.
But my point is that you don't have to use that old tech.
You can just literally take your key and start using some new setup.

(19:50):
And what's really cool is if you like the cold card, use cold card, check out Sparrow.
Nunchuck's a neat wallet for the phone if you want to actually like carry around your X-Pub with you on your phone.
I'm not really that hot to –
What is an X-Pub?

(20:11):
Ooh, good question.
But, you know, basically, like my point is, is that you can just start adopting new gear and a new setup right away, especially if you've got an air-gapped, you know, private key already.
So if you use the foundation and you did everything in a disconnected from the Internet way and your keys are cold, you can just like start using those on a new device.

(20:39):
You can get a cold card and you can insert that seed phrase into the cold card.
Obviously, you don't want that cold card connected to the Internet.
You know, if you do get the queue and even I think with the MK4, I think there's some NFC.
I always initialize with that disabled just to make sure that it's just not communicating with anything else.
But you can load your your your seed phrase in there and you're rocking and rolling at that point.

(21:03):
You're now like using a cold card with that same wallet.
And then you export.
all this in parallel too with absolutely the same out absolutely will give you the same addresses as
the cold card absolutely look that's the magic that's the point i think it's like a it's like
a breakthrough conceptually when you get it that it's the it's the cryptography it's the actual

(21:25):
like private key that is your wallet and this hardware that we use and the software that we use
are just tools to both create wallets and also manage and do signing with our private keys.
Those activities are what you're doing with these tools, but your wallet transcends any

(21:48):
manufacturer or any device. And so it's funny, we kind of like build this mental model about,
oh, I put these SATs on this device. No, you didn't. What you did is you created a private
key with that device and you're putting sats on chain onto the addresses tied to that private key
so um it's interesting in this parallel that you're talking about is very like if you're a

(22:09):
veteran out there listening to this think about to your comsec guys your commo guys that had to
carry around that little green thing with like the crypto comm stuff on it on deployment it was
always like two-person integrity and like they never plugged it into shit and like it had to be
guarded that's this is like a very similar parallel where except it's instead of commo
like radio crypto stuff for like encrypted comms it's your bitcoin keys but the same

(22:33):
like thought process applies like you don't plug it into devices you keep it air gapped right and
there's like special ways to do transfers on and off and then the second order of this is what he's
talking about the seed phrase which is like if your wallet that's one of my other criticisms of
like the big key is like they don't have seed phrases so you can't move it you have to like
send the funds out well that's that's like where it gets like really kind of like interesting and

(22:57):
you start actually defining these things when you think about it right because the seed phrases in
a way it's just a translation of the the private key that's really what it is it's a human readable
form factor of your private key um your private key is actually you know a very long number that's
That's a result of combining all those seed words in the correct order and mapping them to the right values.

(23:23):
So what's a trip is that there's a point where your thinking should kind of shift to a next level.
And now you think of these tools as just that.
They are tools to help you use this technology.
And you can think of your wallets as really being like Bitcoin wallets.

(23:46):
And it doesn't matter what device you've used to make them.
What you want to really focus on is those best practices, things like air gapping, which means the point at which you created that private key when you generated those seed words.
That was a very important moment.
That's the moment at which it matters were you connected to the Internet or not.

(24:08):
And that's why I believe anyways, you should also, just like we talked about, you probably want to stay away from companies that are not Bitcoin exclusive.
You definitely probably want to stay away from hardware devices that are not air-gapped.
It's like if you want a really good job done at your house, you can get like a specialist.

(24:28):
But if you just need like a repair or something, get a handyman, you know, low things.
But like if you're building a citadel for the future and you're securing generational wealth that is going to 100x in the next decade, too, like you need to treat it as such.
And that's why these key ceremonies are so important to understand.
It is a ceremony.
It's a protocol.

(24:48):
And veterans, we understand protocol.
We understand standard operating procedures, standard operating protocol, whatever you want to call it.
It's well documented, lowest common denominator.
This is not rocket science, folks.
Like this magic that is the keys, you can do this.
Well, it's definitely not rocket science.
It's literally like this, the ownership of Bitcoin comes down to keeping a secret.

(25:13):
Like you want to create your secret in privacy.
You don't want anybody else overhearing it or intercepting it.
And that's what AirGapped is about.
That's it.
And then every time you use your private key, your secret to sign a transaction, you do that in an air-gapped way as well.
And as long as you do all of those things, you can sleep at night knowing you're the only human on planet Earth that can move those coins.

(25:39):
Like that is the ultimate ownership paradigm.
And that's what's so important here.
You know, Bob, you started out by saying like, you know, what would you recommend to people who are starting out and something like that?
And, you know, for me, I think back about all the things I've learned through making mistakes.
And that would be the main thing that I would recommend to people is like, take your time and actually don't rush on chain.

(26:05):
Figure this stuff out because it's actually that that is the moment where a lot of these things come into play.
all the issues of KYC, all the issues of, you know, like your security as far as air
gap goes, like that, that initial step, when you maybe move some, some sats from an exchange
onto an on-chain address, that's the moment where you have the most ability to, you know,

(26:30):
afford yourself, uh, privacy and flexibility in the future.
So I would actually recommend people like take their time and like experiment and and learn and figure out the landscape and then make their big moves once they've got a handle on on these concepts.

(26:52):
You briefly mentioned the NPUB. Is that like the view only address on a mobile device? And are you against that? Is that for like privacy concerns?
So yeah, it's XPUB.
NPUB is a Noster thing, but it's the same concept.
It's the public side of the private-public key pair.

(27:13):
So mental model time, the private key is the wallet.
That's like your seed phrase.
That's like the secret.
You have to keep safe and keep secret.
The other side of that is the public key, and those things are cryptographically linked uniquely.
that public key, that XPUB derives all of the receive addresses that that wallet will ever use.

(27:38):
So if your XPUB is shared with a third party, they not only know all of the activity you've
done so far on that address, but they will have visibility into everything you will do
with that wallet going forward into the future because that XPUB derives all of the addresses,
The ones you've used, the ones you haven't used yet.

(28:00):
So it's something to, you know, don't have a heart attack about it.
But long term, you do want to be clear about what the privacy implications are about sharing your XPUB.
Now loading that up into a wallet on your phone, a little app on your phone so that you can, you know, check your balance.
You can go and get the next unused receive address.

(28:22):
That's an incredibly convenient and useful thing.
You just need to be careful about it.
You know, um, I know there's services out there that offer like auto DCA features and
stuff.
And all of those are powered by, you know, you providing an X pub.
And so basically those are situations where people are, you know, looking for a convenient

(28:43):
service so that they don't have to like every day go do, you know, X and buy, you know,
X amount on, on a platform.
They like set it to automatically do that.
And then what that platform is doing is taking their, their X pub and just sending UTXOs to like the next address and the next address and doing that automatically.
There's actually a lot of reasons not to want to do that.

(29:05):
But, you know, to me, like I've just come around to the point of view these last couple of years where it's just like, I don't want to give that away to anybody either.
And it's not near the level of, you know, sort of paranoia, so to speak about like, you know, don't let that get intercepted.
It's a privacy issue.
It's not a security issue directly in terms of moving the coins.

(29:27):
That's your private key.
But there are privacy implications to your XPUB falling into the wrong hands.
And the idea is you just want to be careful with it and be aware that that does lead to basically a treasure map of all your transactions past and future.

(29:48):
And this is speed versus security is one thing, right?
you can go tomorrow on strike river, whatever,
just start buying Bitcoin and it will be fully KYC.
It will be linked to your identity,
but it is an initial on-ramp to, to this ecosystem.
You could also go shit post on Noster and get zapped to earn KYC free
Bitcoin. You can mine to earn KYC free Bitcoin.

(30:08):
That takes like a little more friction to do, right?
But as with everything,
and especially military veterans should understand this is when you need to
hard point in a building because you're taking fire out in the fucking field,
you're not like doing a big assessment.
Like you're kicking in the fucking door and doing it on the fly until you can
get established a fighting position.
And then you can build your security posture from there.

(30:29):
Right.
So like if you're in a hurry,
if you're feeling under fire,
if like,
you know,
there are like quick solutions to get you onboarded to Bitcoin.
And the beautiful thing about the protocol is you can go set up a strike
account.
I just did this.
I finally unlocked the magic of like,
I'm already in the KYC system.
I'm W2 worker,
right?
Like the IRS gets my income every,
every year.
that's not going to change anytime soon just because of like the status of me and my family,

(30:53):
right? It's like, I still need a W2 fiat job. So in that interim, I can get, I paid my Chase
credit card for my strike Bitcoin balance, right? I just tested it out because like the plan is,
I want to have as little dollars as possible. I want to have as little exposure to the fiat
system as possible and keep everything in Bitcoin until the point that I need to liquidate it,

(31:13):
Right. And I understand this is a full KYC system.
So the goal is to establish myself a position and then build and iterate on the security and the skills and the knowledge to harden my posture.
And part of that hardening is the privacy thing. Right. Sun Tzu, art of war, deception is like key to all warfare. Right.
That part of that is privacy and privacy is selectively being able to reveal yourself.

(31:37):
So if you are coerced or enforced to reveal some aspect of your identity in the system that requires none of it, you do not have privacy.
Privacy allows you to selectively reveal yourself. It's on your terms, right? You don't fight on somebody else's terms. You fight on your terms.
So if you want to expose yourself by becoming the head of the Illinois Bitcoin Council or running a local meetup right that is a consideration that you can selectively do And we as veterans we understand that security comes in depth

(32:05):
There's all kinds of things that comes to this that I think is critical for Bitcoiners and just for the general population to understand.
Hey, a little quick, like useful tip maybe is like maybe instead of loading your XPUB into a mobile app to carry around, if you did that at home on Sparrow and then maybe just grab a dozen addresses or even, you know, 100 addresses, which you can.

(32:31):
You can grab as many as you want off of the wallet and put those in a little, you know, text note or something on your phone so that you have some addresses available to use out and about in the world.
Like that's maybe something I would do rather than just loading my XPUB only into a mobile app.

(32:58):
I love the vibe.
Go ahead, BFP, but I did want to get to Sal, too.
He had his hand up.
Mine's a real quick question for TC and Mining Goblin.
What do you guys think of that new BIS about the KYC AML?

(33:21):
If that takes hold and gets implemented, do you think we're going to have more valuable Bitcoin that's KYC AML or more valuable Bitcoin that's not KYC AML?
What's your time frame?
10 years.

(33:42):
Non-KYC Bitcoin would have a premium, in my opinion.
I have no idea about premiums and what's going to be worth what, but I'll tell you, I think it's clear that we're not out of the woods as far as the war against the incumbent fiat system.

(34:04):
And there's going to be some nasty stuff ahead. And I do think that we will see the pendulum swing politically at certain times. And it's not going to surprise me if non-KYC sats are just not – you can't send them to financial institutions that you're basically blacklisted.
So I think the takeaway for plebs is diversify. You should have a KYC stack. You should have a non-KYC stack. You should be able to have those choices because if you're going to be maybe buying a house or you're going to be doing something really significant in your life and you're forced to interact with regulated financial institutions, it might really behoove you to have a choice.

(34:53):
over which sats you're sending.
And then that touches on all the issues of coin control
and understanding how to actually track all this stuff
so that you can use the right UTXO when the time comes
and have clarity on what you're holding.
So yeah, that's my thought.
Local circular economies are probably the best way

(35:15):
to even if you have KYC coins, right?
Like if you have the keys, you have control.
So even if for whatever reason,
And you can't, you know, finance your mortgage with your with your non-KYC Bitcoin, nor would you want to.
Right. You don't want to introduce non-KYC Bitcoin to the KYC system.
You can still go spend that at your local farmer's market.
If you orange pill your rancher, your milk person there, you know, your vegetable farmer, whatever, like all these people, any of the people that you interact with on any businesses that you interact with on a daily basis, you orange pill them.

(35:46):
You teach them how to set Bitcoin. You teach them how to accept them in a self-sovereign way.
and now you become a source of,
like they don't want to turn away customers.
Like times are hard.
Small businesses especially,
they'll take all the customers they can get, right?
And as you continue to succeed
due to this Bitcoin thing,
you can be an example to these businesses
and eventually be like,
hey, you guys want to accept Bitcoin yet?

(36:07):
It's like, well, my local gym owner was finally like,
hey, Gary, we need to get set up
with that Bitcoin stuff.
And I'm like, yeah, let's do that.
Good stuff.
Hey, Sal, your hand's been up a long time.
What's up, man?
Hey, good morning, all.
Sorry I had some difficulties logging in earlier, but I'm super fan of the space.

(36:31):
I try to make it as often as I can.
Sorry I've been a little MIA.
But so a couple of questions on my end, and I would love to get some feedback.
I'm open sourcing my research.
I had earlier, I believe a few minutes ago, somebody mentioned as far as Michael Saylor
and why he can be so effective.
and I think that some folks said he has the ability to sort of connect with PLEVs,

(36:52):
folks from the academy, just kind of, you know, with everyone, right?
And I'm actually doing research right now on the emerging voting block of Bitcoiners, right?
There's crypto and then there's Bitcoin and obviously Bitcoiners in and of itself.
I provided some research on the nest.
Please look at it if you have time.
And I would love to get some feedback, open it here to the community.

(37:12):
My DMs are open as well.
I'll reach out to a few of you all just to kind of get some perspective.
But I'm specifically sort of creating a profile of veterans and Bitcoin and what, you know, within the coalition building for elections, right?
There are specific priorities that Bitcoiners, we sort of advocate for, right?

(37:33):
The right to self-custody.
I hear the conversation about is there a premium for KYC or non-KYC Bitcoin, right?
The right to transact, right?
The right to open source.
So within that context, I would love.
You're right.
Absolutely.
So, you know, my question to the forum is, and again, just, you know, not to hijack the combo, but I would love to get it either here or I'll DM some of you always.

(37:58):
What are the top five characteristics that you have seen that makes veterans distinctly interested in Bitcoin?
Right. And I would love to get I have my own sort of analysis.
I've interacted here during my time at Cornell MBA with a lot of folks from Westbourne, the Naval Academy for Annapolis that pause their career, come here for two years, get the MBA, use the GI Bill, and then they go into industry.

(38:23):
But that's just part of the military, right?
There's a National Guard.
There's officers.
There's enlisted.
So just what are the top three, top five characteristics that you think from what you have seen from your interactions?
I hear some folks are going to the Illinois Bitcoin Council.
That's incredible.
I love it, right?
So what are some of the top three or five characteristics for veterans that make them interested in Bitcoin?

(38:43):
And again, that's sort of like a longer conversation, but just want to get the convo going.
And again, super huge fan to everyone here, AC, Bob, everyone.
And thank you for your time.
I look forward to getting your feedback.
Thank you.
I'll give you my perspective unless somebody else wanted to jump in.

(39:07):
So I think they're, at least in my commonality, like the Bitcoiners, right?
Like the people you talk to and you have that instant connection with in Bitcoin veterans, right?
And I consider this the core of the Bitcoin veterans group.
The people that understand it, that are on the mission of Bitcoin, because to myself, and I think I speak for at least several other Bitcoin veterans, this is a mission.

(39:29):
This is an education mission.
This is a mission.
A lot of us volunteered to join the military.
It's a volunteer force still in the United States.
So you have a common thread, I think, of veterans of voluntary service to others, right?
And then you can couple that with sort of the camaraderie that's built just within the warrior culture, right?

(39:52):
So we want to serve others.
We want to serve our brothers and our sisters because a lot of times, even for the guys that realize, you know, maybe war is a racket, as I think Smedley Butler is quoted saying.
There's great writing on that if you haven't checked it out.
But once you realize that, too, and you understand that you still have brothers and sisters on your left and your right that you're fighting for and that you're trying to protect.

(40:15):
And, you know, whether you were sold short on the ideals that you were fighting for when they sent you overseas or not, you still had that inclination to service.
And so for me, and I think for several others, it's now there's a tool that is peaceful, because peace is ultimate. For many veterans, especially of the forever wars, we saw firsthand what non-peace looks like. We saw what war is, and war is hell, right? That is a commonly known saying for a reason.

(40:45):
And so the fact that there is a tool that you can use to serve your community, to serve yourself, protect yourself, protect your family, protect your community, and it doesn't cost you your soul because you're not out there taking lives.
You don't have to kinetically engage with another human being that has the families and the origins that are not too dissimilar from yours, maybe just from a different part of the world.

(41:09):
the ability to have a tool and grasp this tool.
And it's, it's simple, right? It's, it's simple. It's not hard,
but we're used to not doing hard things or not doing easy things, right?
We're used to grinding out the hard work.
That's another thing that you'll,
you'll see is I think a lot of the Bitcoin veterans were, you know,
some of this like sled dogs, I'd call it. You know, they were in, when,

(41:32):
when you were in, you worked your ass off 24 seven.
It's part of the culture. And then you get out and like, there's,
there's not a lot of work to be done. There's not a lot of people that you end up losing things
that you lose the accountability of your brothers, right? And so the Bitcoin veterans not only has
all those other traits, but it's also, you know, it's a fellowship of individual like-minded people

(41:54):
that understand where this future is going, right? It's almost like having a crystal ball into the
future. You've deciphered through all the noise and all the bullshit, having crystal ball into the
future, see where this is going. And you understand also the military side of it, right? Like there
is strategic, there's tactical thinking. And we as veterans have that like distinct ability. So now

(42:14):
we can put it in this Bitcoin lens and man, is it just like, it's a superpower, right? So it's like,
if you can understand even just the military doctrine of it all, and you look at it and,
you know, like Jason Lowery is one of the more famous, like initial veterans that was like,
hey guys, look at this crazy thing called Bitcoin and look what it can do in a military context.
It's not for everybody. Nobody, you know, a lot of people shy away from violence and war as it

(42:37):
should be, but those that choose to face it and take it head on, when you realize you have a tool
for peace that works, I mean, that hits harder than anything else in the world.
Love it. That's incredible. And I actually quoted Jason in my thesis during the time of Cornell,

(42:58):
so I'm pretty familiar. And some of my best friends are vets. And I think that this is exactly
sort of the nuance that I'm looking for, right?
And I do agree.
I think you speak for some of the folks in this club
and in this sort of community.
And obviously it's a spectrum, right?
It's a complete spectrum of people that are zero government.
You know, let's throw out the government.

(43:19):
Let's keep Bitcoin.
There's folks that are saying, hey, no, let's try to coexist.
And there's folks that say, hey, let's just ban Bitcoin.
It's a scam.
So this is super nuanced.
And this is exactly sort of what I'm looking for, you know?
And again, just grateful for the feedback here.
DMs are open.
And I always try to join, obviously.
But thank you all for this.
And, yeah, I'll go back on mute and just continue processing and digesting all this.

(43:42):
Thank you for the space and sharing all these insights.
I really appreciate it.
Here's another personal anecdote.
If you look at a veteran population crossover with maybe the Ron Paul crew, you'll probably see some similarities if I had to take a stab in the dark.
You're not far off.
Yeah, I agree.
Yeah, I mean, from my perspective, it's, you know, most people that join the military, you would see that they have, you know, high levels of patriotism.

(44:10):
A lot of the stuff they learned growing up, you know, and latched on to was this idea of America learning about the founding fathers, learning about the principles, learning about Christianity, all these things.
And then Bitcoin comes along and kind of you see some of those things.
It's like a mirror almost.

(44:30):
You see those in there.
And, you know, on this Freedom Friday, I think it just kind of calls to the pulls on the heartstrings and and pulls you towards it.
And then you learn about it.
So I think that might be part of it, too.
Do you think there's an element of something that I've been, you know, the feedback that I've been getting so far as I write this piece on this research is to accommodate the spectrum of folks engaging this, right?

(45:00):
veterans, non-veterans, white collar folks, blue collars. There's sort of an arc of people that
love Bitcoin because they hate losing their purchasing power. They hate losing their
privacy. They hate losing all that. But then you're right. The opposite, the other side of the
coin is there's people that like Bitcoin because they like winning and they like just literally

(45:23):
just in it to increase their purchasing power. You know, it's like, is the glass half full or
half empty. And I think that that can be very up-putting too. There's a whole tribalism, right,
of sort of, you know, fuck fiat. I hate that it is being debased. But then there's people that say,

(45:46):
you know what, I don't care about fiat. I just want to make more money, double it in four years
and go, you know, right off to the sunset with 4x from my fiat gains from Bitcoin, right?
And from the perspective of analysis, right, and coalition building, both camps sort of converge on defending Bitcoin for different purposes, but still they want to support the network.

(46:08):
And obviously this will translate into strategic engagement, like the veteran going to the Illinois Bitcoin Council, right, the Illinois Council, right?
Like that's the specific tactical kinetic engagement.
So where do you think is that within the veteran community?
Is it 50-50, 60-40, as far as, hey, we're veterans and we're in it to win.

(46:33):
We want to win Bitcoin to win and secure these things.
Or is it, hey, you know what, overall, we are veterans and we love Bitcoin
and we want to defend and protect our life and our values, whatever.
So where do you think from what you have seen your engagements?
Where do we fall within that same coin, different size?

(46:55):
I would love to get your take on that too.
I love winning, right?
Like I love number go up.
I love winning too.
And that's the thing.
It's like this is beautiful greed that is in a human that would drive you into Bitcoin,
but then it will radically shape your worldview and your perspective.
because from a rational standpoint,

(47:15):
fiat, like being on zero fiat
and denominating your life in Bitcoin,
prices go down, it gets cheaper.
Sure, your wages go down too,
but like the price is going to go down
a lot faster than your wages,
especially if you have your wages in fiat, right?
Now, like there's a whole dynamic there
we could talk about,
but it's, I mean, the number go up is fantastic, sure,

(47:36):
but it's all underpinned and run
by the people that truly understand the system
and that are on a Bitcoin standard, right?
Because the rational thing is,
is do you wanna pay more for goods
or do you wanna pay less for goods?
If you wanna pay more for goods, that's great.
Just stay in fiat.
The number's gonna go up.
You gonna pay so much It gonna be huge It gonna be fantastic Or if you want to save for the future you can pay less for goods by denominating your life in Bitcoin And the fiat number is just like

(48:05):
something to novel about and comment on. But like your life's getting cheaper, right? And that vibe
is going to translate to your community and the people you surround yourself with. Because
if your prices are getting cheaper, life is ostensibly getting easier for you. That's not
to say that it's not going to be an easy life by any means. Hodling is one of the hardest things

(48:26):
that a human can do, but the irrational ability for a human to hodl for the next century,
like, you know, we can wait out anything fiat related, especially if you're building the
physical layer zero infrastructure that you need to support yourself, your family, and your community.
Well, it's like, that's how it's supposed to be. Life is supposed to get easier as you get older

(48:48):
and you are able to have provided for yourself and your future.
You shouldn't have to be a 90-year-old working a bag checkout at a grocery store.
That dude should be chilling with his grandkids.
Now, maybe if it's something you do once a week as part-time just to interact with people, sure.

(49:09):
But to need to do that to live is wrong.
So I think Bitcoin will get rid of a lot of that.
I love it.
And something that I really appreciate here, and I even saw this, we sort of engage in veterans, you know, that took the time to get an MBA and use a GBA bill and the special forces all the way to non-special forces.

(49:37):
there's sort of
there's no
apology to wanting to win
right and saying no no no
I'm in it and I'm open to Bitcoin I'm interested
on proof of work which is distinctly different
than proof of stake and
there's sort of a propensity to understanding that
quite faster and quite easier
for veterans at least for my interactions
because

(49:58):
I've
seen sort of saying hey no
we like winning because out in the field
if we don't win we don't come back
and and then that that's such a kinetic reality that very few people can say right so well and
big like that's the thing at bitcoin regardless of whether you're in it for a fiat number go up or

(50:20):
not right like on a bitcoin standard in bitcoin terms if you blow up if you fail there's no coming
back from that right like the sats are gone and that that's for anybody institutions individuals
communities whatever like in bitcoin terms there are no bailouts for the bankers right like there's
no bailouts in Bitcoin. You can try, you can print the money, but like in Bitcoin terms,

(50:42):
if the Bitcoin's gone, it's gone. If you made a bad business choice, if you made a bad decision
as an individual, as an entity, a small business, or as an institution, like that's less Bitcoin on
your balance sheet in the future. So that's the, that's like one of the leveling things is like
this number go up, Ruth, this competition of markets, of economic markets is on a Bitcoin

(51:04):
standard, like you wash out if you fuck up, like if you don't get the Bitcoin back, it's gone.
Like, you know, good luck trying to get it back. It doesn't, it's not going to happen.
I love that connection. I literally am writing right now the key insights here. This is,
I love how you just connected that. And I think that, you know, to me, I've always, you know,

(51:27):
kind of engaging with bets and, you know, just kind of talking with them on what it means to
just not come back, right? They had many folks that they served, they went overseas, and some
of them just did not come back and serve the implications of what that means for the folks
that did stay alive, right? And I think that something that it's interesting to see, right?

(51:49):
It's like, hey, Bitcoin does not care, and Bitcoin is relentless. Bitcoin has been banned by China.
I lost track of how many times, but policy does care, right? And policy does influence
And can make it miserable for that last mile delivery of, you know, I think somebody mentioned here about 10, 15 minutes ago, hey, I want the right to non-KYC Bitcoin.

(52:13):
I want the right to self-custody.
And the reality is that within this construct of democracy in which we live in the U.S., regulators can make that quite difficult, right?
So having that tension, right, between the beautiful ruthlessness and resilience of Bitcoin as a technology and then the implications of, all right, how can we make sure we support that within the knowledge network, within like this, right?

(52:43):
Daily space hosting for Bitcoin veterans with no money.
Few people have the time or the willingness to do it, but you are doing it, which is incredible.
And I'm so it's just a testament to the resilience of Bitcoin that that duality is something that I'm investing, you know, hundreds of hours of my time on being nuanced and saying, hey, no, there's there's the veterans, you know, they do it because of this.

(53:08):
Right. And and there's the the non-veterans. Right. There's the the white color workers.
There's the blue colors. And this is why they're doing it. Right. Because ultimately, we want to converge on.
hey, you know what, we want freedom of speech, right, to transact, right, to, you know, open source development.
And it's messy. It's complicated, right?
And I'm sure many here remember the last administration.

(53:31):
It was pretty gnarly for Bitcoin.
So I really appreciate sort of these insights, and I agree with you.
I love how you connected, hey, with Bitcoin, if you screw, just like during service, if you screw, you might not come back.
It's final. It's definitive.
I'm taking notes on that one. Thank you for sharing that.
Well, who better to engage with the policy, right?

(53:52):
Like we're veterans. We signed up to give our lives.
And many of us had brothers that did give their lives in service of this thing we call a nation, right?
That's run by this government.
So when we come to operate and come to talk with government, like who better to give that platform to than to veterans and people who literally put their lives in line to do this.
And the great thing about Bitcoin is all we have to do is get up and speak the truth.

(54:16):
It is so easy to do.
There's no lies. There's no deception. It's like, here's the truth about this Bitcoin thing. Here's the truth about this money thing. And here's the problems we have with it. Let me offer you a solution.
as somebody that does believe in the American ideals,
the First Amendment, freedom of speech,
that I signed up to give my life for
and I took an oath to the Constitution for, right?

(54:37):
Like who better to go talk to the people
leading the policy initiatives
and who better to stand up for the free speech rights
that are inherent in Bitcoin
and being able to publish a transaction
that is your speech through code.
Like veteran, that's it.
Veterans, we're the ones that can do it, right?
Like there's, I don't think either side of the aisle holds particular animosity for veterans

(55:01):
because at the end of the day, veterans were in service of that democracy or whatever you
want to call it, the Republic, if we would.
But some of these veterans are sick and fed up of the bullshit they were fed and some
of the lies they were fed and what it cost us.
And now that we have a tool to fight against this, okay, let's go educate.

(55:22):
Let's go talk to the policymakers, right?
Let's engage with our representatives.
But you don't have to do that at the federal level, right?
Like you might not get hurt at the federal level.
You can do that at the Illinois Bitcoin Council level.
You can go to your local county government and pitch them BitBonds.
There's just a video of that on the Bitcoin Veterans handle recently, right?
You can engage at any and all levels.
And because in veterans are trained to lead, right?

(55:44):
It's literally part of the training.
The state indoctrinated us and trained us to lead people into adversity.
so like times are getting tough and people are going to look for leaders and bitcoin veterans
we have a tool that you can use to prosper and i think the best among us are getting out there
forward and leading from the front amen i mean i i love it i uh huge fan and i think ultimately

(56:10):
also on on the context of you know federal state and local i i don't remember where i heard this
But, you know, Bitcoin is sort of a Cambrian explosion.
And that was Michael Seller, I think, of decentralized leadership.
Right. And I agree with you.
I mean, I saw the video of sort of going to the county and engaging them.

(56:31):
And then, you know, you have folks doing it at a state level, the Illinois Bitcoin Council and then in Canada and just so many countries.
Right. So to see that taking shape and within particularly in the U.S., right, this is a U.S.-centric perspective.
within the US democratic sort of system and two parties and whatnot.
To me, Bitcoin veterans are an,

(56:52):
it's an emerging powerhouse of rational decision makers.
Well, all of our friends are in the, in the government, right?
Like it's, you, you get out of military service and I would say a majority of the guys,
like that, maybe not the majority, that might be a different subsect,
but like the guys that I knew went into contract or went into like GS government service

(57:12):
or anything like that.
Right.
And so your friends, you know, like I know a Bitcoin veteran that's like friends with, you know, some head of some committee on Congress sort of thing, right? Like this is, it's not abnormal. The veteran network was an already well-established layer zero peer-to-peer network, right? Of dudes that served along each other, took an oath together, and went through some of the most grueling shit together that forged bonds that are hard to break, right?

(57:38):
And so when you go to your friends and you're like, hey, man, doing well with this Bitcoin thing, and they finally catch on and they finally start to understand, it's like that guy might be some governor of some state or might be some head mayor of some city or something like that.
So it's like the network of veterans itself and then us as Bitcoin veterans being a beacon for Bitcoin in that network, it's a natural sort of network connection.

(58:03):
It's a natural bridge from Bitcoin veterans to the broader veteran network, which so happens to be like pretty heavily into the government at multiple levels.
And, you know, there's a book and I'll post the link and I'll DM you the link.
It's to the point of Bitcoin being kinetic, but non-lethal within like compared to guns and bullets.

(58:27):
Right. That's such a unique vantage point that obviously veterans, I think, are uniquely positioned to speak of because it's sort of like and I remember I remember when Mr.
Saylor says something to the end of Bitcoin is distinctly unique that it can help solve the problems of the rich and the poor at the same time.
Like there's few technologies that can do that, if any. Right.

(58:48):
And within that context, I think that's another phenomenal point you're connecting off.
hey, you know what? Bitcoin for us and our vantage point, it's final and can be fatal because it would
achieve the solution, but without that potential of death. And Jason has been talking about it for

(59:09):
a while, but that is such a home run that I wish the series would be more relevant and more
highlighting. But I love this. I mean, I'm definitely taking notes and thank you for sharing
all of this. I mean, this is exactly
what I needed. So thank you.
You know what? This is
exactly what I needed too, my name Goblin.

(59:30):
What a morning. And
I want to give you the chance
to maybe give
some final thoughts. I really appreciate
the conversation. It was super great
to just sit back and listen
and hang out. But yeah,
wanted to, we're going to close up the show
and
yeah, wanted to hear some final thoughts.
No, thank you guys for hosting space and Bob keeping this Bitcoin veteran spaces porch burning super bright.

(59:57):
Sal, thank you for engaging for the questions.
It was awesome to have the questions to engage with, to like get the thoughts out of my head.
But yeah, you can just do things.
You can be peaceful and not harmless.
Your peacefulness is your capacity to change.
You look at physics, violence is a rapid change in state or something, right?
When we talk about be peaceful with Bitcoin, you know, it's a peaceful sort of ability to affect change that is restrained.

(01:00:25):
And it's a beautiful thing.
So thank you all for joining us this morning.
And check out BitcoinVeterans.org slash Summit 2025 if you wish to engage with us in the flesh.
Love it.
Bob, you know me.
I'm a huge fan of the space here and what each of you are doing.
So just grateful to always be provided the opportunity to be, you know, elevated to be a speaker.

(01:00:48):
Appreciative of everybody's service and the freedoms you guys have allowed us to enjoy in this country.
And, yeah, I mean, my DMs are open.
I'll continue to research, open sourcing my research.
And I'll be back as I make progress through this.
Thank you all for, you know, for hosting this.
Appreciate that.
Yeah, awesome stuff.
thanks to Texas Toast, AC, all the other speakers, TC.

(01:01:11):
I'm sure I'm missing some people.
But really appreciate you guys.
Join us on Monday, 10 a.m. Eastern.
We're going to celebrate 250 episodes.
It's going to be awesome.
And we are also going to celebrate you, each of you,
having another weekend, not shit pointing.
Don't do it, guys.

(01:01:32):
it's like putting whipped cream on a cream
I messed that one up never mind
you get sailor we're pumping Bob we're pumping
we're going to celebrate all time buys too
use fiat
currency as a store

(01:02:02):
Thank you.

(01:02:32):
Thank you.

(01:03:02):
Thank you.

(01:03:32):
Thank you.