Reliability Ep. 237

Join Bob and company as they discuss how reliable and resilient Bitcoin and the network is.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Thank you.

(00:30):
Rookie mistake.
Should have put myself on do not disturb on my phone.
So sorry about that, guys, for the fun interruption this morning.
But excited to talk to you guys.
And yeah, it's another great morning.

(00:53):
So welcome, everybody, to Bitcoin Veteran Spaces number 237,
where we commonly talk about Bitcoin.
And my name is Bob Van Kirk. I'll be your host this morning.
I think that Texas Toast is out getting coffee again,
but I'm pleased to be joined by Neil.

(01:14):
And if you would like to join the show,
we'd love to have you come up here as we talk today about Bitcoin's reliability.
So we'll get into that in just a couple of minutes.
But before we do that, let's take a look at the Bitcoin network stats.
It looks like today is Wednesday, August 6th, 2025.

(01:35):
And we are at Bitcoin block height number 908,873.
And the blocks keep on coming.
Bitcoin is just above 114,000, which means you can still pick up 874 stats for each U.S. dollar.
and yeah guys keep stacking we got a market cap at just over 2.25 trillion dollars

(02:00):
and let's see announcements again before we get into this topic a couple of announcements
tomorrow we're going to have rob warren on the show to talk about bitcoin park and their imagine
if summit in nashville tennessee this is going to be september 19th and 20th so join us tomorrow

(02:22):
10 a.m. Eastern. To get all the details on that, we'll talk to Rob about this idea of Imagine If
and what this summit is designed for at Bitcoin Park. So excited to have him on. Should be a fun
discussion. And not to be outdone, the Bitcoin veterans are also having a summit in Nashville,

(02:42):
Tennessee, a couple of months later, November 10th and 11th. And it'll be a two-day conference.
Day one will be more of the conference, and then day two is range day, and they will supply some ammo that you'll probably have to pay for, but they'll have some firearms, too, if you can't travel with yours.

(03:03):
They're looking for people to get involved, so please do visit bitcoinveterans.org forward slash summit 2025.
Looking for speakers, panel topics, volunteers, all of the above.
And if you'd just like to attend and hang out, would love for you to go check that out as well.
So, all right, that's it for announcements.

(03:25):
I don't think I'm missing any, but I want to introduce the topic this morning.
And there's plenty of news, but I think we've been having fun talking about some of these different topics.
And this morning, I really wanted to talk about the reliability of Bitcoin.
I think we're seeing more and more adoption. And when you really think about it, reliability leads to trust. Right. And so this network is becoming more and more trusted. The asset is being more and more trusted. People are finding different ways to use it in their daily lives, whether that's just as a savings technology or anything else.

(04:08):
But one of the things that's really, I think, quite remarkable is how this decentralized network has such an incredible uptime.
So if we're comparing it to other networks, maybe like ones that people rely on all the time, the financial system, the Fed, AWS, maybe like you guys could think of a lot of different things, I'm sure.

(04:35):
And maybe we'll get into those things today. But there's uptime. There's, I think, predictable monetary policy, right? We know there's a known supply. There's global accessibility. So, you know, we know that the U.S. financial system is not accessible to everybody. And it's censorship resistance for Bitcoin.

(04:59):
So I think there's a lot of things we can dive into, a lot of topics, maybe even some rabbit holes that we can dive into.
Again, guys, we'd love to have you come up on stage, hit that microphone button in the bottom left.
If you have a question or a comment or a funny meme, put it down in that comment section with the purple pill.
And yeah, so, you know, I guess maybe we can start.

(05:21):
And Neil, since you're the only one up here right now, we can start this kind of wherever you want to.
But for me, I was trying to compare it here to, you know, the downtime or the uptime.
And so a lot of these networks, again, are measured by uptime.
And maybe we can start there.
I know it's more statistical, so we don't have to camp out on this one too long.

(05:44):
But Bitcoin has had an incredible uptime since it started in January of 2009.
It's only really had two known downtime events in 2010 and 2013.
totaling about 12 to 14 hours. And so as the time keeps on ticking, and the blocks keep on coming,
that that number gets better, right? Because it's averaging out those those couple of times of

(06:09):
downtime. But the most incredible thing about it maybe is that no centralized intervention is
ever required for Bitcoin, at least at least now, right? And so I think it's something we should
discuss something that people maybe forget about because I think a lot of people are too fixated

(06:30):
on price. And so today I wanted to really, again, introduce this topic and just kind of get us
thinking about why more and more people are adopting this network and this asset and cover
this topic on reliability. So hopefully I teed that up well. I do see BFP up here. Maybe he's

(06:51):
got some birds for us. But Neil, I see your hand. How are you this morning, sir? And what
would you like to say about my topic of the reliability of Bitcoin?
Yeah, it's been a good morning. And I like how you teed that up. For me, like, as a lot,

(07:11):
I approaching, you know, Bitcoin, everything kind of from the philosophical end. So like,
I don't even care about comparing it to other particular cryptos.
Like Bitcoin, you can compare it to the ideal, like come up with a theoretical, more reliable system.
Like you can't like that's in reality for human beings, creating tools, creating systems.

(07:36):
It's like I don't I can't come up with even like a theoretical better application to like how how would if you're trying to do it?
to maximize a reliable system like you would you would just arrive at bitcoin like bitcoin is that
solution when you just take reliability to the end like that's as good as it's gonna get like i don't

(08:02):
so like even like i don't even care about if it has some down time because like they they talk
about like okay so some global you know emfp or whatever like attack like all the electricity all
that everything goes out everything's black it's like well that doesn't even i mean that kills
everything but as soon as anything comes back online we're just back at it again you know so

(08:29):
it's like that's not even kind of a i don't even think that's a a negative like you because you
would if you can throw that attack at everything then it really isn't not a it's not really an
issue. But it's like, I don't know, I don't, I think that when you're thinking about Bitcoin,
and when I'm looking at any material attribute, material characteristic of the monetary object

(08:53):
that is Bitcoin, like, it has everything maximally, like, you can't even like,
you can't even come up with a theoretical better thing. So I don't know, that's, that's why I call
myself a maxi because I just I acknowledge the maximal potency that Bitcoin has for its material

(09:17):
attributes. So I don't know if that's helpful or insightful. Yeah, I think no, I think it's really
good. And here's what's fun about this topic, guys, we can come at it from all kinds of different
angles and viewpoints. And so I really like the way you're thinking about it, Neil. I do think,
again, I'll point to another thing on what I said, which is that usually you see networks'

(09:42):
inability to scale. And so downtime becomes a problem because they meet some sort of limit.
And so what I think is quite remarkable is there were things in the early days that needed to be
fixed, right? There were bugs and it was handled. And ever since then, as this network has grown
and adoption has grown, this is why Bitcoin is reliable.

(10:06):
It's resilient.
And the attacks on it have failed thus far.
And as it gets bigger, there's this built-in resilience, right?
This reliability that continues to persist.
And so I know this could be a little philosophical, but really, again, we can look at the data.

(10:28):
We can see that as the time chain ticks on and blocks are added, more and more miners come on, more and more hash rates there, more and more capital comes into this system.
Again, we can look at it from a lot of different ways, but I really am excited to have this discussion today, guys, because we can take it anywhere we want.
Neil, I know we only have you for a little bit because you got to bounce, but I did want to get to BFP and Rico.

(10:56):
What do you guys think about this topic and how would you approach it as you're talking,
either in a group of Bitcoiners or maybe to some new people in the space who might be trying to learn
and understand a little bit more about this network and this asset?
Yeah, Bob, thanks for having me.
Neil I got your book so thanks for that

(11:19):
by the way
I just want to say the
reliability of the
mnemonic phrases
the 12
words
so I have a quick story I had a
played around with it
with one of the old
cold cards and

(11:40):
this is right when I got into
Bitcoin and was like gung ho
and trying to scream to the world.
And I was playing around with all the gadgets,
and I put $1,000 on one of those cards,
and it kind of disappeared.
I think I had it in, because you can have multiple wallets in there.

(12:05):
I had my seed phrase, though.
And down the road, I was trying to get it off there,
and I was at a Bitcoin meetup,
and a guy told me to just enter that into the blue wallet and your stuff should come up.
And I did it.
And reliability was there.
I had my $1,000 back, which was more than $1,000 then.

(12:29):
So it was pretty cool.
And I learned not to play around with such high amounts.
Now it's $20, $30 when I test.
yeah and so bitcoin is a rules-based system right and you know again you guys can take this anywhere

(12:49):
you want so jump in but um it's it's a system of rules not rulers and so we can compare and
contrast it to uh the existing financial system we can um look at each individual rule and why
it's important. But if you guys are enjoying the space, please do share it. You can hit that purple

(13:11):
fill and then repost the space so we can get more people in there here. Hopefully this is a good
topic for you. Rico, what comes across your headspace when we're talking about reliability of
Bitcoin? Well, first of all, guys, welcome in. Good morning. Sorry, it's like four o'clock here.

(13:31):
So I want to go back on just the word reliability.
It's the idea that we can rely that thing to come through.
And usually we had a thing in humanity that I think didn't exist anymore, which is trust.
And something that I was always taught as a kid was if you give your word, people are going to expect you to go through with that word.

(13:53):
We don't have that anymore at the highest levels, whether it's your presence, whether it's, you know, the police and the law or the banking system.
And so the reliability doesn't exist.
Its trust has been broken.
And so we need a way to verify things and not have middlemen.
And I like the fact that Bitcoin, as big as it is and how the most secure system in the world, it allows an individual to also participate at the lowest level, at the transaction level, and be able to confirm with their own node on a privacy level that the transaction is going to go through.

(14:30):
And it might take a little while, but the fact that it must be lightning, of course, or other layers.
But I like the fact that it brings back something that has been destroyed.
And, I mean, for me, it was the 90s when I started to realize that the world wasn't the way it was and really the 2000s.
And I think everybody at this point just doesn't trust anybody.

(14:53):
I think people have lost trust for themselves, the decisions that we made.
So I think it just instills something that hasn't existed really or has diminished to like dollars value is just zero.
So that trust and reliability, that value doesn't exist anymore.
And we need to rebuild that.
And so we need a trustless system. And that's why I like Bitcoin, because it brings back something that is pretty much the basis for all relation in society is trust.

(15:23):
And over time, you build up trust, but it can be broken so easily.
And I like the fact that with Bitcoin, it is expensive, but it always works.
And when you put your transaction through, if you, you know, you go through a banking system, you have to wait for these middlemen.
if you're using like international
transfers you have to wait

(15:43):
and with Bitcoin
you're the one running it
we're each running it so we're trying to build
back that trust, that reliability
and it just
pains me that we don't have that
anymore and we all pretend
to, we all just
trust that the person in power is going to do
what's best for us when it over

(16:03):
our entire lifetimes
it's been just destroyed
stepped on and really it's just
It's a, yeah, you just, you're taking away that relation.
There's no trust.
And people feel hurt.
They feel disgusted.
They, you know, in a sense, they become enraged and anger.
And that creates this ongoing animosity that's always going.

(16:28):
And we're just kind of running around, climbing all over the top of each other.
And Bitcoin's the opposite.
It just kind of, in a sense, allows those who got in early to take the responsibility
to build that trust back.
And I think that's why I like a lot of these Bitcoin companies because they're really trying to do something that hasn't been done, which is build trust, not for themselves, but like the overall larger ecosystem.

(16:53):
So I like the reliability and more sense of like a trustless world where we need that because trust has been broken.
yeah i like that take and it just gets me you know you hit on some of the things that we can
solve maybe a little bit with bitcoin which is transparency and and censorship and we can talk

(17:16):
about any of these different things guys but neil i still see your hand and did want to say
good morning to dark side thanks for coming up sir but neil go ahead yeah that was great stuff
rico uh i just sparked one little idea in my head like the one of the best things about that is like
Bitcoin when you have that reliable level of society that just lets you offload so much useless anxiety like how much energy how much how much of our time and energy are we spending to have it to deal

(17:48):
with the, like, I can't trust the system. I can't trust each other. Like, so when we solve for that,
like that just unlocks so much more latent human potential that you can invest in your family,
You can invest in your neighbors. You can invest in your community. You know, I just that's like that's the awesome upside to like it's not just like, oh, wow, I can have a reliable payment.

(18:13):
You know, there's so much more. You can take it so much deeper. I just wanted to add that.
yeah really good and so guys if you're just joining us uh we are talking about bitcoin
reliability and i've said it multiple times we can take this anywhere you guys want to but um

(18:35):
you know and i'm kind of peppering in some of these ideas but uh when you think about it from
a reliability standpoint like if we go all the way back to the beginning of bitcoin a lot of people
took notice that this network was unleashed onto the internet, onto the world in 2009,

(18:57):
right after the great financial crisis. And if you know anything about that history,
or you were paying attention, or maybe you've heard some of it, obviously there were bailouts,
Right. So Bitcoin doesn't need to be bailed out. Bitcoin doesn't need to be helped when there's exchange failures or government crackdowns or any type of attacks.

(19:25):
And I mentioned that a little bit earlier. So we can we can talk a little bit about that if you guys want.
I know DarkSide has some ideas on this, but then also if you look at it, you know, in 2009 in particular,
I would just remind us that there were, you know, since then there's been over 500 banks that have failed.

(19:47):
And, you know, we saw that in 2023 with Silicon Valley Bank.
We saw a large, real large financial institution, Credit Suisse in Europe, go down and get gobbled up and force merger, all of those things.
And there were hundreds during the great financial crisis.

(20:08):
And so Bitcoin stands alone.
And, yeah, I don't know.
These are just some of the notes that I was thinking about this last night preparing for the show and wanted to get us thinking and talking about.
So let's see.
Got a couple hands.
I think I saw BFP first, and then we'll go to Rico.

(20:29):
It was actually Rico first.
But I was just going to ask.
Go ahead, Rico.
I just want to add on to what Nate had said.
I know he left, but the idea of unlocking value and unlocking potential, I don't think people have really understood that.

(20:50):
I mean, I have friends who got in really early and they've unlocked a whole other life for themselves, which I'm so happy for them.
But I'm talking about each other.
Even for myself, Bitcoin brought me back to society.
I had no faith in humans and humanity and the system.
And I still don't really.
but I have hope.

(21:12):
There's a little bit of hope.
And so I think it unlocked that for me.
And it unlocks a bit of, I like to be more private,
but I feel like we need to play our part in the world.
And so it unlocked this potential energy for me to go out
and force myself to try to onboard people and start a podcast.

(21:33):
And I've been doing this since back in 2016 cycle.
And I'm kind of tired of all that now,
but I'm just saying it unlocks so much potential,
whether it's capital or individual potential.
I don't think people understand what it's unlocking.
I just would be on the throw on that.
Yeah, after 16 years, we're just starting to see it, right?

(21:55):
So I think this is, it's so multifaceted.
It's almost mind-blowing.
But go ahead, BFP.
I was just going to go back to the trust thing,
and I lost all my trust in the old system.
on the GameStop thing.
And I'm actually wearing a shirt that says hope
with the Bitcoin B in the zero of it.

(22:17):
And it's faded and rough.
But when I was walking my dog one day,
a guy came by and he's like, hope.
He's like, what's hope?
I'm like, hope.
Hope for humanity.
And that's what Bitcoin gives.
Hope for humanity.
I think you need to go back and listen to yesterday's space where we talked about personal security and not wearing your peacock Bitcoin swag and telling everybody they're Bitcoin.

(22:47):
They're just rags.
All good. All good. I'm teasing you.
But if you did miss that, guys, that was a good space.
Darkside, did you have any thoughts?
I know you joined us late, but any thoughts so far here on what you've heard or ideas about Bitcoin reliability and the network and the asset?
Yeah, thanks, Bob.

(23:08):
Good morning, everybody.
Reliability.
Well, let's talk about the GFC for a second, right?
We learned that the entire system was built on lies, right?
Bitcoin is built on truth. Just to kind of zoom back to 08, what we learned was that financial institutions like AIG, which never really gets the focus it deserves, was perpetuating a gigantic fraud.

(23:44):
They were selling insurance on bonds, but they were selling more insurance on a particular bond than the number of bonds that existed.
And, of course, then we learned that Goldman Sachs had been buying up all of this insurance, and then they had been writing derivative contracts with counterparties based on the fact that they were insured on these bonds.

(24:13):
So they were writing more and more CDS, credit default swaps.
And it turned out that the system had created essentially a weak link in as much as there wasn't – the insurance on the bonds was greater than the number of bonds that existed.

(24:37):
And therefore, if the bonds failed, the insurance companies would fail, in this case, AIG.
And then Goldman Sachs would fail and then everybody would fail.
So we had to bail out Goldman Sachs.
We had to take Lehman into the town square and shoot it.
Not sure why we had to take Lehman into the town square and shoot it.
That was never made clear to me.

(25:00):
But maybe they just didn't like Dick Fold.
Right.
Everything in that situation, everything in the GFC, right, was never actually made clear to us.
We found ourselves back in the trust me, bro, world of, you know, we can fix this problem.

(25:20):
And they papered over a lot of the problem, but I'm sure most of it still exists in the system today.
And then fast forward to GameStop, which, you know, doesn't get the attention to the point the speaker just made.
It doesn't get the attention it deserves because GameStop really showed that the system, again, was being taken advantage of by a small group of players.

(25:45):
Right. And, you know, we ended up in a position where we had to turn off the ability for market participants to buy a particular security.
But, of course, they were able to sell it. That's that's as ridiculous as it sounds.
And of course, that didn't solve the problem

(26:08):
So then we had to find out that somebody tapped the board or the CEO on the shoulder
And said, you need to sell billions of dollars of common stock to stop this problem
And of course, the board did
And the market makers crushed the stock into what would be a gigantic secondary

(26:30):
none of this is reliable right none of this gives you a sense of security it's all just
games being played by the global elite at the expense of the common man so where what are we
left with we we now have bitcoin bitcoin was born out of the shenanigans of the gfc and today we have

(26:59):
a security or an asset, I should say, that provides us an off-ramp to the entire bullshit
system, excuse my language.
But with Bitcoin in self-custody, you essentially depart from the entire Federal Reserve banking

(27:19):
cartel system, and you hold your wealth in an asset which lives outside the system.
But, of course, as any corrupt system will do, the system is trying to co-opt Bitcoin, right?
We've launched ETFs.
We have treasury companies.

(27:40):
We have all of these different representations of Bitcoin, but that's all they are, right?
They're just representations of Bitcoin.
And if you lived through GameStop or Porsche Volkswagen or any number, I mean, I could go on for hours talking about different securities frauds, Bernie Madoff, right?

(28:01):
If you've lived through any of this stuff, then you know that in any time of crisis, all of these representations of Bitcoin will end up belonging to the state in any which way they so choose.
they certainly will change the rules of the game right in the middle

(28:24):
as they have countless times in the past,
and you'll be left with fiat at the very time in which you need Bitcoin.
So I guess the moral of the story is own Bitcoin in self-custody
because that's reliable,
because you don't have to rely on anybody in the financial system.

(28:46):
to secure your future.
You can secure it yourself.
And that's the promise of Bitcoin.
All of this other stuff that's being generated by a corrupt system,
in the end, will leave you without Bitcoin, in my personal opinion.
You will end up having some representation of or exposure to number go up.

(29:13):
But when you need the Bitcoin the most, they'll give you fiat in return and take the Bitcoin.
So, yeah, TikTok next block every 10 minutes on average, almost perfectly reliable, right?
Since, well, actually perfectly reliable since the Genesis block.

(29:35):
It's an absolute miracle.
And, you know, let me just pump one more thing.
For those that have never seen it, TC, who's sort of a Bitcoin legend around these spaces, he has a website called timechaincalendar.com.
And it's an absolute beautiful graphical representation of the Bitcoin network.

(29:58):
You can see each block.
When it's been mined, you can go back in time.
You can actually see the network working.
and he has all of these different graphical representations
of all of the facets of how the network works.
So I encourage everybody to check it out.
It's timechaincalendar.com.

(30:21):
I'll land the plane there, Bob.
Thanks so much for having me.
And thanks to all the veterans for everything you guys have done.
Without us, I mean, without you,
we are not in the world we're in today.
And much love to all of you.
Yeah, I really appreciate those comments. And also just, yeah, taking us back again to that great financial crisis and kind of bringing us up to today. BFP, you, I think, still have your hand up. Is that correct? I know spaces can be buggy.

(30:55):
no okay otherwise uh black swan good morning thanks for coming up to the station uh if you're
just okay if you're just joining us we are talking about bitcoin reliability so um i see you're
emoting quite a bit would you like to come off mute and chat with us about the reliability of

(31:17):
bitcoin bitcoin's reliable as fuck sorry i'm just like a um a drunk australian being obnoxious and
i'm like just spamming each of the emojis in order so there's like the happy face the shocked face
the sad face and then the well good evening to you yeah good evening bro

(31:43):
um i do think like there is there is this uh thing that i'm reminded of i mean we have rico
up here is in europe black swan is fucking legend i love rico what a what a fucking face legend
yeah what's that black so good to see you and we have an australian up here and obviously a lot

(32:07):
of Americans, but it's crazy. You look at this global network and I think too often, especially
in the West, we get caught in our own little world and we think, oh man, the US has the greatest
financial system in the world and we have access to it, a lot of us. And we tend to forget that a

(32:29):
lot of people are barred from using it. And a lot of people can't move value, can't trade,
uh, cannot travel. Um, and so there's just all of these different, um, you know, all of these
different things that Bitcoin solves. And one of them is that Bitcoin is censorship resistant,
it's transparent and it's global. And so it's cool to be able to come on a platform like this

(32:54):
and share in, uh, if I need to transfer value to Rico, I can do that in a matter of minutes.
It's fucking amazing, man.
Honestly, I think about the agricultural revolution,
the industrial revolution,
like Gutenberg's printing press,
the separation of church and state,

(33:15):
the declaration of independence
and the United States Constitution
and the founding or the creation
or the discovery of Bitcoin.
And I see them all on equivalent sort of like,
if you think about it from like the human civilization,
civilizational perspective like the the the united states you know constitution is like a

(33:41):
groundbreaking it's a remarkable document and um gutenberg's printing press like the the industrial
revolution and and the the cyber revolution that we're like all experiencing right now and and
and the creation of bitcoin they're all like equally you know of such historical importance

(34:01):
and yeah it's fucking amazing
it is amazing
and like do not give up your guns
fucking stay true
keep your guns and fucking fight
for your human
libertarian rights
and Bitcoin I guess is just
like
a result

(34:22):
of those things
so yeah it's awesome
yeah Texas Toast and Black Swan
thanks for that
Texas Toast did want to say good morning, sir.
Glad you finally got your coffee.
Wanted to say hi and see if you had some thoughts on Bitcoin's reliability.
And you can talk about it in contrast to gold.

(34:44):
I think you've had some recent experience.
Maybe if you want to share a little bit about that.
Auditability, transferability, security, all those things.
So go ahead, sir.
Hey, good morning.
Yeah, it's about as reliable as my co-host duties.
I'm over it at the in-laws taking care of 10 different kids.

(35:07):
So we're.
It all good Yeah no i was auditing um my a gold board and the fort knox thing
had me you know kind of gave me the idea that hey i've never seen this um you know a company

(35:32):
basically has uh is supposed to have it and so i sat down and went through it all and looked
is anybody else losing texas
yeah i lost him yeah it was me

(35:52):
maybe uh sure sure that connection come back
you uh while we wait for texas toast to
sure up his connection how are you doing this morning sir thanks for joining us
sorry were you talking to me
yes sir sorry yeah no sorry it cut out a little bit just as with with texas toast coming in and out

(36:16):
maybe it's best if he uh at least mute his mic because it can cause interference
um yeah so the thing with reliability to me and i kind of want to build on what
Black Swan was alluding to. Bitcoin is the first process, man-made process that ever came to be

(36:40):
that's unstoppable and therefore reliable for forever. But it's more than like gold is beautiful
and it lasts forever, but it's inert. So it doesn't do anything. Bitcoin is doing something
all the time. It's this process that Darkseid was talking about just as he was finishing off,

(37:03):
and I joined in and talked about how reliable it is, how the network's never down, how it keeps
doing what it does, which you can describe as this graceful, elegant dance with the entirety of
humanity interacting with it, using it reliably to store and transfer value across time and space.

(37:24):
and it is as unstoppable and therefore as reliable as the integrity of gold is for gold's
inner activity. I mean, gold is held together by the subatomic forces and Bitcoin's held together
by math and physics that will always adjust to keep it going as long as there's a human being

(37:51):
around who wants to keep it going. So it doesn't require a ton of people involved in it, maintaining
it, working in it in any particular roles. It just requires that there's some process somewhere
mining it. And it doesn't require gigawatts of energy to mine it. If it turns down to single
watts, the difficulty adjustment will adjust accordingly and the process that is Bitcoin

(38:16):
will continue. And it's that and a bunch of other architectural decisions or design decisions
that make Bitcoin this completely reliable process. And I think that's the difference between,
this is when we try to use all these words from the physical world and even abstractions from the

(38:38):
physical world. So like, is it a commodity or is it a security? And it's completely different
in some respects than either of those things.
The fact like a commodity is not a process, right?
A commodity is meant to be a fixed good.
It may, some commodities like pork bellies
and wheat degrade over time,

(38:58):
but that's not the process of them being,
that's not the valuable portion of their process
that they degrade, right?
We'd ideally like for these things to last forever.
With Bitcoin, the process is the continuity
of the valuable aspect of it and it's an unstoppable process.
And, you know, so reliable may be an understatement.

(39:20):
We just may not have a better word for it.
It's like the most reliable thing, the most reliable process we've ever invented.
And when you understand how it works, you can understand why that is.
It's not just some influencer on Twitter making, you know, exaggerated comments.
comments it is it is between the nature of that difficulty adjustment and how all the cryptography

(39:44):
secures everything that's secured within it and and connects it in a way that uses energy to
reinforce its indestructibility of its records which are essential for the process to move forward
then that that's when you get this awe inspiring sense of reverence from so many people like wow

(40:05):
I've never seen anything like it before.
And as I understand its mechanisms and its processes,
I can understand why it is so incredibly reliable.
I'll land the plane there.
Yeah, I really like that.
And did want to say good morning to AC.
Welcome back to Texas Toast.

(40:26):
Did either of you guys have comments
or thoughts on reliability?
Yeah, I'll just,
No, he won't.
No, he will not.
I will note that as the resident Bitcoin Twitter Bcash shill, I will note that Armory Sashay,

(40:51):
the Bcash developer discovered the inflation bug in Bitcoin in CB 2018 17144 in September
2018 and alerted the Bitcoin core developers.
when he discovered that inflation bug.
Bitcoin's not necessarily immune to network outages

(41:14):
or service degradation or any of those particular things, right?
It's the collective will of the broader developer
and stakeholder community, which really keeps Bitcoin alive.
And that's what sort of is magical about it.
It's like Linux, right?
You have these monolithic giants like Microsoft and Google and Apple

(41:37):
that try and control and suppress and orchestrate the digital,
the internet economy, and you have these social media giants
like Facebook and Twitter and whatever else.
And it's people like Linus Tolvalt and the Linux kernel developers.

(41:59):
It's people like Satoshi and the Bitcoin core contributors that really provide like an alternative reality to that system of control.
And, you know, Bitcoin's not perfect.
It has experienced periods of outages and instability and degradation and inflation bugs and all the rest of it.

(42:22):
But it's the broader Bitcoin community that keeps that dream alive.
And realistically, that's so much more powerful than any one institution or conglomerate or corporation.
So, you know, Bitcoin is money for the people, by the people.
And that's fucking amazing.
Yeah.

(42:45):
Yeah, thanks for that.
Tomer, I think your hand's up again.
And Rico as well.
So, Tomer, if that's true, we'll let you go.
And then we'll go to Rico.
I haven't raised my hand.
And I'm walking past a couple of tractors.
So it's noisy.
And so I can be available in a couple of minutes, but not right now.
Sounds good.
Well, I just want to jump on what Black Swan said.

(43:06):
Like the participation is so important in life and in society and community.
And we see two groups of people.
We see the poor, which is the majority, and we see the super rich.
And if you're not part of that, then you're trying to climb up there.
And so I like the fact that Bitcoin allows anybody who's anybody to participate in the world settlement layer for money in the future.

(43:34):
We shouldn't give it just to the super rich, the elite have all their best interests in each other's pockets.
They're all just working together to collaborate and collude and keep everybody else below.
And I like the fact that Bitcoin allows anybody who's anybody, whether you're a developer in Africa or you're living in Malta or if you're in Europe or you're living in the Bitcoin jungle in Central America, what I'm trying to get to is we get to participate in this.

(44:05):
And through your action, by spending the money, you're participating in society.
And if you don't like the society, then maybe you should stop using their money.
And the money has brought us to here.
and we see the unspeakable things that this money has done
and how it's paid out, all those on top,
and the cantillionaires and the money printers
that they get to have all the money first.

(44:28):
And I have a huge problem with that.
I think everybody has a huge problem with that,
even the people who are a part of the problem
because they have to continue going back
and do these unspeakable acts
and continue to support a system
that is encroaching on everybody's natural rights.
So I like the fact that Bitcoin brings back the privacy, the freedom of speech and transaction and censorship resistance.

(44:52):
And I like the fact that everybody gets to participate.
If you want to go full all in and go mining and start a company and create layers and run liquidity, that's totally your choice.
And if you don't want to, you don't have to.
You can just go and disappear, run your node privately and leave the world behind until it fixes itself.

(45:13):
And I think that's the most important part is participation in a world that doesn't, you know, doesn't, unless you're going to participate to support an evil system, your participation is nil.
Your votes, they don't mean anything.
And I like the fact that we're changing that.
And it takes all of us to do that.
And little by little, that's the beauty of Bitcoin.

(45:34):
If I could jump in now, back in the forest, I think that what Rico is talking about is what does Bitcoin provide reliably?
And the thing that it provides reliably is freedom and fairness.
In the realm and context of money, it's permissionless, it's censorship resistant.

(45:58):
These are the things that allow anyone, anybody who's anybody, to use Rico's words, to participate.
however they choose to according to bitcoin's rules but the rules are a very limited set like
if you have the private key your keys your coins not your keys not your coins that's that's the
rules of spending bitcoin and then there's a few rules to bitcoin mining the heaviest chain wins

(46:19):
no double spending right and that's and that's it like that's that's the that's the rules that
everyone including the elites have to play by there's one thing that rico said that i uh disagree
with, but I don't think it affects his argument. But I thought I'd point it out because it was one
of the first points he made. And if people thought his arguments are built on it and they disagreed
with it, they might disagree with him. But he said that the elites are all in cahoots with one

(46:43):
another. They're all coordinating to protect one another. I don't think that that's necessarily the
case. And it certainly doesn't make a difference for whether or not Bitcoin gives freedom to
everybody else. But before democracies took over, the elites were like the monarchs, the royalty,
And they weren't always in cahoots with one another. They often went to war with one another. But under a hard money standard, they ended up exhausting their resources eventually and having to settle their disputes. Then whoever formed the central bank probably blindsided a whole bunch of other elites. And we don't know that they get along with each other.

(47:21):
they may be in some kind of continued power contest to protect their power, their elite
status versus others.
But I don't think it matters.
What we have in Bitcoin is a system without elites and with only peers whose rules are
transparent and clear and accessible and must be obeyed by everybody, including someone

(47:44):
who might call themselves an elite.
But in Bitcoin, they're just a peer.
And that's really the most essential aspect of it.
it's a meritocratic system right it's like it's it's a system where if you provide more value for
your your local community or or the the broader international um economy that you like do better

(48:07):
than others and like you contrast this with like the fiat institutions and you look at like
some of the biggest fucking fines that were levied against some of like the us and european
banks you know bank of america is 16.65 billion for misleading investment investors prior to the
gfc jp morgan chase 13 billion you've got fucking deutsche back 7.2 billion city group 7 billion

(48:30):
and you compare that even to like the the amount of inflationary and and then the monetary
the policy of the european institutions that led to some of the greatest like wars in human history
and the greatest loss of life in modern history.
And it just pales in comparison.
Like, yes, Bitcoin is a meritocratic system.

(48:53):
Yes, there will be people that are stronger,
they're more agile, they're faster,
they're more innovative,
and they will accrue Bitcoin at a faster rate than you will.
But, like, at the end of the day,
what it does is provide, like, a level playing field
where everyone, you know, meets on the same rules,
the same laws.
And it's like, you know, if someone is someone who sells other folks great than you do, then so be it.

(49:18):
That's just the way it is.
No doubt it is a great equalizer.
It's not perfect, but it does give people some abilities that they might not have otherwise, especially as, you know,
I think one of the big themes today that we've kind of talked around, or at least people have mentioned as we've brought up the different aspects,

(49:38):
is that people fail.
People fail other people. People can be dishonest. People can manipulate. Institutions or groups of people can manipulate, can fail.
And so, you know, I know we don't tend to focus or I don't tend to focus on the negative, but I think by looking at the negative, we can understand why Bitcoin stands out as a beacon of hope for a lot of these things to overcome these things as these institutions fail us, these people fail us.

(50:14):
And I will let us go to, oh, go ahead.
them. Yeah, I think what you're speaking to, just again, to try to keep it on your topic, it's
people are unreliable. They fail for all sorts of reasons. They're corruptible. They can get sick.
They can make genuine mistakes. They age and lose their faculties. They succeed and become lazy and

(50:38):
bored. Bitcoin not being a human being and not being governed by human beings is reliable in
in that sense. Like it'll continue to do what it's doing forever. It's set up to do what it's
doing forever. It's very, very hard to change it. That's an understatement, just with two,
only two varies in front of the hard. And so that's, that's the sense of reliability. Like

(51:02):
if you invest in Bitcoin and set it aside for your great, great, great, great, great grandkids,
it'll be there for them and it'll be valuable. And if you figure out the key management,
then they can have access to it exclusively.
So that's what makes Bitcoin so different from any other human-run institution.

(51:25):
You have all this human fallibility risk in any other type of organization
because we might elect a bad leader for it or appoint a bad leader for it.
Bad people might mislead the leader.
The leader may not have enough intelligence to make the right decisions.

(51:45):
And Bitcoin is only making two types of decisions.
Is the transaction valid?
Like, does it have a valid key?
And is the proof of work for the next block valid?
And that's it.
And those are purely mathematical determinations.
I guess the other decision it makes is what will I set the difficulty at every 2016 blocks?

(52:10):
But it's not making a lot of other decisions.
And the fact that it can't change the rule set that it's making its decisions by makes those decisions reliable.
And so, again, we have this word reliable as something that we contrast to unreliable.
unreliable.

(52:31):
And when we think of the unreliable,
we're often thinking about the man-made things,
you know,
but to some degree,
you know,
the weather's going to be unreliable because it's unpredictable.
Bitcoin's really predictable,
right?
And so reliability comes down to predictability.
And the longer you can predict something out to be consistent,
the more reliable it is So I just keep trying You think about like the central bank like the central banking system that was imposed upon us and these like lofty

(53:00):
elites that set that monetary policy and the rate of inflation that basically
undermines like global economies and sets boom and bust cycles and all of
these things, right?
You're basically putting in the hands of a very small group of individuals,
the livelihoods of billions of people.
So, you know, you talk about how reliable...

(53:23):
They make the money unreliable, right?
Like the dollar is unreliable
and it's the most reliable of all the fiat currencies that exist, right?
But it's not that...
The longer a timeframe you look out at,
the less reliable it is,
the less predictable its purchasing power is.
And certainly as a store of value,
it's not reliable over long periods of time.

(53:45):
so yeah 100% and right you know like I was a proponent of Trump like early in his campaign
and then you look at the like political pressure that he's placing upon the United States Fed and
you think that the fact that the Fed exists and that the political pressure can be applied upon
that system and the fact that you know the U.S. Fed is not federal and it has no reserves and then

(54:11):
you think about the entire like you know central banking system and then you realize how fragile
and and um yeah it's just absolutely crazy and then well part part of part of the interesting
thing there is like you know the government as it as it stands now is also reliable in a sense it
it's it can't be changed it's reliable unreliable yeah it's reliably corrupt it's reliably

(54:37):
inflationary. It's reliably
irresponsible.
That's a bit of a perversion of the sense
of the word, but
it's naive to think.
I think this is from you to Elon
Musk to many of us,
this lesson has been learned
that it's naive to think
that you can make changes for the

(54:58):
better in a system that's been gradually changing
for the worse, whose incentives
are all high time preference incentives
and
it's been
in a state of neglect in a sense for a very long period of time hundreds of years they've trusted
that its mechanisms work and they don't and the mechanisms don't work right they don't work to

(55:21):
divide power decentralized power make the system fair or equal or meritocratic whatever nice word
you want to use and so there's like the system itself is conspiring to elect short time horizon
people have to console with that power yeah yeah right so like that this is part of the problem and

(55:45):
and and when you have like a machine that's reliably breaking down on you and cannot be fixed
that's when you have to like really give your head a shake and say I have to move to something else
that is at least a reliable starting position but if I can see that it's going to be a long-term

(56:06):
reliable position then I'm more enthusiastic about moving over to it and leaving the old
unreliable system behind and and so I do think all of these things you know people are always
contrasting Bitcoin to something else and when you contrast it not just to the fiat money but to
the whole fiat geopolitical democratic republic system, you see something that's emerging and new

(56:31):
and not with a long track record of history, but the historic track record of democracies
is not looking good right now. It's looking like they've essentially been corrupted and overtaken
by a number of different interests. And you can see that in the design of the thing,
the election cycles of short-term leaders who can't own any of the property of the government

(56:59):
so that they are only incentivized to harvest from the government rather than
short-term profit harvesting yeah so like the whole thing is the whole thing is not aligned with
a long-term stable human civilization of abundance and peace and property rights
Everything that every politician runs on in democracy is violating somebody else's property rights for the benefit of somebody else's rights.

(57:30):
Not rights, but for the benefit of somebody else unrightfully.
And that's systemic.
And that's not fixable.
yeah i i really uh i don't know about you guys but i'm really enjoying this topic and really
thankful for each of you guys for coming up here and giving your um your thoughts on this i'm going

(57:52):
to go back and listen to this one for sure or at least have ai pull out some some nuggets uh i do
see we have a couple of hands i know we're winding down the show but wanted to give bfp and rico
a little break from holding up their hands so bfp will let you go first and then rico here before we
close out the show. Yeah, I wanted to say something about what Rico said a long, long,

(58:14):
long time ago. He said, like, you're broke and you're aspiring to be super rich. And
I have a favorite quote in Proverbs. It's Proverbs 37 through nine. And I don't want to get all,
this is about money. So it's not like I'm going to preach here, but because I don't aspire to that.

(58:36):
And that's a projection.
But anyway, it's two things.
This is King James Version, so it's kind of a bear with me.
Two things have I required of thee.
Deny me them, not before I die.
Remove far from me vanity and lies.
Give me neither poverty nor riches.

(58:56):
Feed me with food convenient for me, lest I be full and deny thee and say,
Who is the Lord?
or lest I be poor and steal and take the name of my God in vain.
So I don't really aspire to be super rich.
I would like to have an abundance of abstract time and energy,

(59:17):
but that's just so I can spend it with my family.
But I don't prefer to be in that elite group or even super rich,
which isn't really an elite group.
I just would rather hang with the plebs and have some facts to kick around.
Yeah, those are really good comments.
Love the verse.

(59:37):
I think that that is what a lot of people begin to realize, that time is the real asset here.
And it's so funny that a lot of us have realized that it's a time chain.
That's what Bitcoin is.
It is a time chain.
Satoshi even called it that.
Go ahead, sir.
Well, I think they program us from day one, like kindergarten through senior year in America.

(01:00:02):
We are supposed to want stuff, but I'll stop there and I'll get along with it too.
And it's not hybrid most of what Rico says, so nothing.
It's because you are the prime consumer, right?
The United States citizen is the prime consumer.
And that's why Trump is able to implement these nationalistic trade policies with tariffs and all of the financial warfare that he is able to wield.

(01:00:33):
It's because the United States consumer or the United States citizen has been born to be a consumer.
and you know i i find it like really um reassuring is that like i see a lot of people in the united
states that now are turning away from that path like that that you know that i believe there needs

(01:00:54):
to be a resurgence of manufacturing in the united states and i feel that that's coming right whether
that's um you know the the resurgence of like the rust belt or whether that's in automation or
quantum computing or robotics or whatever it may be.
But like the United States population

(01:01:17):
has been born to be a consumer.
And I feel like that detracts so much
from like the humanity of like globally,
you know, especially given that like America
is protected by those property rights
and those civil liberties
and the constitutional protections.
And it's like, yeah, it's super,

(01:01:37):
like reassuring to me at least as an australian because you guys like protect the freedoms of the
of the free world like you are the shining fucking city for the united kingdom for canada for
australia for western europe and everywhere else so like fucking yeah yeah that's awesome

(01:01:58):
awesome yeah if i could just jump in yeah just so yeah i appreciate pgfp um for that i i don't
want to get religious either but um it's funny how in in the bible that's one of the things that
you see jesus actually doing something about it like literally showing his emotion and i think

(01:02:19):
that going back to where we're at now your your time is everything and they know that so what they
do is they trade your time for money. And that money is adopted internationally. So we can all
be on the same level. But the thing is that money is, first of all, it's corrupt, right? It represents
things that you don't represent and don't uphold. And on top of that, it's forced upon you. And

(01:02:43):
that's the hardest part is the fact that you have to use this corrupted system. And you know,
it's undermining you. So what it does is it turns you into an enemy of your own peer. And Bitcoin
does the opposite. It rewards you. And it forces you to use your brain in a way of, I don't want
to spend this because it's going to be worth so much in the future. Or fiat does the opposite.

(01:03:08):
You need to gain as much of that so you can be insulated from everybody else just in case.
And that's, I think, the weakness of it is that we just show our ego and we show how much we have
and we measure each other up on an economic level where Bitcoin is.
I mean, you never know who the person in the room is sitting with you,

(01:03:30):
how much wealth they have, either in their mind or in their holding,
because that's the future.
And the fiat is the short.
They're shorting you, your lifespan in this world,
and they've shorted it for so long that your minutes are left.
I'm going to say, did you read the fiat standard?
Hold on, hold on.

(01:03:51):
Let me finish that one.
Let me finish, please.
Thank you.
I appreciate it.
So I just want to say that the fact that the reliability is that you're going to show up there and you're going to be using this money and that you're going to uphold what the legal, we have to follow their laws.
But with Bitcoin, we can change it over time.

(01:04:12):
We can change the rules.
We need certain things to happen.
And we have seen in the past what has happened to make it stronger, to make it harder.
And that's a building that we all get to participate.
And it's a reliable system for us, where the fiat system is the opposite.
And the fact that you have to uphold its values if you don't believe it, you have no say.

(01:04:33):
So the reliability of your time has diminished to zero.
Whereas Bitcoin, if you got in early, the more longer you're in it, your reliability on the network and your net worth, it just Xs and Xs every year.
It just grows over time.
yeah i just yeah yeah yeah good stuff uh as we close up tomer do you still have your hand up i'm

(01:04:57):
really sorry sir if you yeah i i do all right i do it i have a couple of thoughts but i don't have
i don't have to share them it's all good okay i i think that the comment that i wanted to make
it's a bit of a reflection here but it's like when you zoom out on the course of history
people used to be a lot poorer than they are now and we had this great creation of a middle class

(01:05:24):
that took a couple of hundred years through the industrial revolution to create and it created so
much abundance that we got a little um arrogant about it and expected a consumption attitude
that was unstoppable and limitless.
And we ended up, to me, one of the hallmarks in history,

(01:05:48):
this is not a memorable TV show, but it's a hallmark in culture,
when the TV show Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous was created
and it had a guy with a South African accent narrating it,
and it just showed these fancy homes that celebrities and billionaires lived in.
And it made the way, and it created, like, I don't want to put it all on the shoulders of this.

(01:06:10):
I think it was reflective of the civilization's direction, but it's a nice, tight message that it was like there's no limit to how much wealth you can spend, how much consumption you can have.
In comparison to the verse that we just heard from the Bible that said in so many words, enough is enough.

(01:06:34):
If you know what enough is, you can enjoy enough.
And the truth of the matter is when you have enough, then you have peace of mind.
You're not chasing the much bigger diamond studded chandelier, which isn't going to provide any more light illumination in your life.
But the next door neighbor has one or you saw one on TV that was fancy.

(01:06:55):
And when you have and when you know you have enough, you get peace of mind.
And it also opens up your world to being charitable to others who don't have enough.
and for those who give charitably and have seen the gifts the benefits of the gifts they know
that it's much more satisfying to do something that saves somebody's life

(01:07:15):
dramatically improve somebody else's life than to do something uh frivolous that provides you a
short-term burst of enjoyment and then it's like what am i doing with this diamond chandelier that
I now have to ensure and protect and maintain and worry about and is giving me the joy anymore

(01:07:36):
at all. So there's just something to be said about that. And that's off track of the reliability
question. But I think it's just an observation line with the little reading that we just heard.
Yeah, no, Tomer, you nailed it. And I did say at the beginning, this could take us down so many
different rabbit trails. So really appreciate those words and that thought. Guys, I don't know,

(01:08:03):
this was really fun. I really enjoyed this one. I think, you know, especially on a slower news day,
we got sideways summer and Bitcoin. It's just one of those things that I think is good to talk
about for new people, for people who maybe have forgotten all of these great attributes of Bitcoin.
Hopefully this episode led you to think a little bit or at least to rekindle some of those old flames that made you first fall in love with Bitcoin as you began to understand it.

(01:08:34):
But yeah, again, this one was fun.
I think we'll try to do more of these and maybe we can go down some of these rabbit holes as we continue on.
But we do these every weekday at 10 a.m. Eastern.
and yeah, I hope you guys will listen back on this one
and reflect.
Again, we can do a lot more of these

(01:08:55):
and hopefully educate people and remind people
why Bitcoin stands as a beacon, like I said before,
against all these other problems that we see out there
in people and institutions.
And so I want to remind us,
we'll have a special guest tomorrow,
Robert Warren from Bitcoin Park to talk about Imagine If

(01:09:15):
And then I want to remind you guys to visit BitcoinVeterans.org forward slash Summit 2025.
That summit's going to happen right around Veterans Day.
We'd love to have you in Nashville.
And that's all we have for today, guys.
We'll do it again tomorrow.
Please join us.
And if you've got somebody you care about, please share this space with them.

(01:09:36):
I think this one was a good one.
This one will stand the test of time.
and I think this one is good enough where it got some people thinking.
We got a lot of emojis, thumbs up.
I got messages in the back channel.
So, again, we'll try to do these as we can,
but want to wish you a wonderful Wednesday.

(01:09:57):
It's Wednesday.
Tomorrow is Thursday.
And, yeah, I just want to remind you, too, don't shake coin.
It's like wearing cutoff jeans to a funeral.
People that use fiat currency as a store of value, we call them record.