Ledger, Self-Custody versus Collaborative, & Exploring Bitcoin Well’s US Expansion w/ CEO Adam O'Brien
Jun 03, 2023Season 1Episode 86
Brad Mines
What if you could use Bitcoin for everyday transactions and bridge the gap between native adoption and practical use? Discover how Bitcoin Well, led by CEO Adam O'Brien, is revolutionizing the world of Bitcoin in this eye-opening episode. We discuss the upcoming Bitcoin halving, the company's expansion to the United States, and their innovative direct payment feature, which allows you to pay your bills with Bitcoin – making Bitcoin more accessible for daily use.
But what about the future of Bitcoin and artificial intelligence? Our conversation with Adam delves into the fascinating world of non-custodial Bitcoin and the potential role AI could play in enhancing the Bitcoin experience. Gain valuable insights on the ever-evolving trends in cryptocurrency, and learn how education plays a critical role in fostering innovation.
Navigating the unpredictable landscape of Bitcoin politics, we explore the macro and micro-movements of this powerful cryptocurrency. We tackle the Twitter beef between James Lopp and Jason P Lowry, examining the importance of finding a middle ground in Bitcoin adoption. Plus, we discuss the need for Bitcoiners to better communicate the value of holding one's private key and even touch on the surprisingly contentious debate over stainless steel versus cast iron pans. Don't miss this enlightening episode that will leave you eager to join the Bitcoin revolution!
Chapters: 0:01 - Bitcoin Growth and Savings Technology 8:28 - Bitcoin, AI, and the Next Halving 15:59 - Navigating Bitcoin's Political Landscape 27:11 - Bitcoin Wells' Product Development and Collectibles
What if you could use Bitcoin for everyday transactions and bridge the gap between native adoption and practical use? Discover how Bitcoin Well, led by CEO Adam O'Brien, is revolutionizing the world of Bitcoin in this eye-opening episode. We discuss the upcoming Bitcoin halving, the company's expansion to the United States, and their innovative direct payment feature, which allows you to pay your bills with Bitcoin – making Bitcoin more accessible for daily use.
But what about the future of Bitcoin and artificial intelligence? Our conversation with Adam delves into the fascinating world of non-custodial Bitcoin and the potential role AI could play in enhancing the Bitcoin experience. Gain valuable insights on the ever-evolving trends in cryptocurrency, and learn how education plays a critical role in fostering innovation.
Navigating the unpredictable landscape of Bitcoin politics, we explore the macro and micro-movements of this powerful cryptocurrency. We tackle the Twitter beef between James Lopp and Jason P Lowry, examining the importance of finding a middle ground in Bitcoin adoption. Plus, we discuss the need for Bitcoiners to better communicate the value of holding one's private key and even touch on the surprisingly contentious debate over stainless steel versus cast iron pans. Don't miss this enlightening episode that will leave you eager to join the Bitcoin revolution!
Chapters: 0:01 - Bitcoin Growth and Savings Technology 8:28 - Bitcoin, AI, and the Next Halving 15:59 - Navigating Bitcoin's Political Landscape 27:11 - Bitcoin Wells' Product Development and Collectibles
What's up everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the having report podcast with myself, your host, brad Mines. The price of Bitcoin is approximately $27,000 and there's 325 days left until the next Bitcoin having. For those of you who don't know, the initial block rewards for Bitcoin was 50 Bitcoin. Now it's 6.25. When the next Bitcoin having occurs, the Bitcoin block reward will reduce to 3.125. Today we have Adam O'Brien back on the show. Adam is the CEO of Bitcoin Well. Bitcoin Well is a Canadian company that very much keeps up the ideals of Bitcoin. Bitcoin Well has just started its expansion into the United States. We're super excited to have Adam back on the report and talk to him about everything from Bitcoin savings technology to the great AI push. Without further ado, everybody, welcome Adam O'Brien to the show. Adam, welcome back to the having report podcast.
Speaker 2:
My man, it is great to be here. Thank you so much for having me. I feel honored twice. I get to make a duel. Is this two or three? I get to be a duel of this is our second time.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, no, this is our second time recording together. It's definitely an exclusive club to be on the having report twice, where we're happy to have you on. You were pretty awesome last time. I think you even had a couple of Michael Saylor moments. We made a couple of reels, tiktoks, that went together pretty cool. hoping we can have another great conversation today. I want to start by asking you about Bitcoin. Well, you guys have expanded to the US. If you could tell us about that and what you've noticed so far?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, man. Well, so official expansion actually is taking off this week, which is good We've got we were. So the way that we're doing it is like to go to the States. In Canada, for example, when you sell Bitcoin, you're licensed by kind of a governing body across the country, with the exception of Quebec, because Quebec just does a whole bunch of things weird, and so you have to get like two licenses basically to sell across country in the States. You need 50.
Speaker 2:
And so we did it with a partner in the States to kind of get our feet wet and help us understand a little bit of what the market is going to be and just help us, you know, you know, grow fairly organically in there.
Speaker 2:
So, working with the partner, we've been integrating with them for almost six weeks now And actually, like today, the live test is presumably having gone through like any moment now, and then we'll be launching in beta. So if I guess if anyone's watching and they want to be a part of the beta and they're in the US, then you can reach out to me at adam, at Bitcoincom, and then, once the beta is good to go, probably about two weeks, we'll spend in beta like just cleaning some last minute things up and then boom, we'll be live and right away. So the first iteration is just basically, like you know, sign up, link your bank account and then you can buy Bitcoin super, super basic, immediately withdrawn, self custody, all the good stuff. Then we'll be working on recurring by and the goal is to launch recurring by this like early summer for both Canada and the US. So that's kind of what we're like driving towards for a big summer launch to get those DCA, get that Bitcoin savings plan fully installed for Canadians and Americans.
Speaker 1:
Awesome man. I'm looking forward to a hot Bitcoin summer. You know, last time, last time we spoke I don't know if we spoke about it, but you guys also do direct payments. You can pay your bills in Canada with Bitcoin. Do you mind touching upon that a little bit?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, that's really cool one. This is actually, i think, the product that I use of ours the most, and also the one that I'm is, i think, one of the most unique things that that we do So functionally. There is no way to pay your visa with Bitcoin, because visa doesn't take Bitcoin. There's also no way for you to buy, like, a pizza from your pizza shop with Bitcoin, unless you're living in 2010 and buying a Papa John's from England. There's no way to buy Bitcoin with pizza or pizza with Bitcoin, because pizza shops don't take Bitcoin. And so what we've developed is a function where you can pay for that pizza with your visa card and then go to Bitcoinwallcom, slash bills and you can pay that bill off with Bitcoin, kind of like, ideally within that 28 day window where you have that interest free grace period from your credit card, so you can kind of use visa's money to pay for things and then give all that money back in visa. And the cool thing about that we've built this is much like our e-transfer platform, where you don't have to log in to use it. You can just send an e-transfer and receive Bitcoin to your to your Bitcoin address, the same thing with your bill payment address. So we kind of give you a static address for that visa card and then you can just keep sending Bitcoin and every single Bitcoin that touches that address on the blockchain boom automatically converted, automatically payment is made towards your visa card. So pretty excited about that.
Speaker 2:
I think this is kind of like the next step towards Bitcoin usability. Right now our organization is like that middle point between native Bitcoin adoption in the real world and like being able to use Bitcoin for Nixon, naxx and stuff that you want to use Bitcoin for in your daily life. So kind of a nice hybrid situation there. And yeah, it's been, it's been pretty cool. It's kind of a slow start. Like paying paying, like paying your hydro bill in Bitcoin sucks when you know transaction fees are 10 and $12. Paying, you know, a couple hundred dollars in fees for a for a hydro bill doesn't make a lot of sense. So I think we'll see that, like we'll see, we'll see usability of that come a lot further when we've got better layer two solutions as well as when the fees come down for sure, and probably as price go up too, i would imagine.
Speaker 1:
I mean what type of people are using would want to use those services at this point? people that are kind of hodled for a long time and just want that direct transfer out of their Bitcoin account?
Speaker 2:
Well, yes and no. I think it's funny. I have this conversation a lot with people. Joey and I from the CBP had this conversation and I called him out on it and I I'll happily do it again. He was like I never sell.
Speaker 2:
I got diamond hands and I was like, oh, if you're not selling Bitcoin, then you're not all in. If you, if you don't need to sell Bitcoin, you have too much fiat. If you're like, if you're like, oh, you know, i've got it, like you have to spend to live, you have to eat, you need rent or a mortgage, maybe your kids play sports, like whatever you absolutely need to spend money to live. And if you've got some spare fiat kicking around but you can use to to fund your lifestyle, well, that spare fiat is dead until you use it. And so my, my take is that if you're not selling Bitcoin to fund your lifestyle, you are not all in on Bitcoin. And so it's those people that are using the service, them it's miners, you know, like, like I'm largely debanked, so I kind of am forced to use that service to a to a lesser extent than than than others, but it those are the kind of people that are using it today and then, you're right, as number go up, we're going to see a lot more adoption.
Speaker 1:
I would think of of people using Bitcoin to pay for things right now you're getting a lot more into the content creation I've noticed, so I wanted to ask you you know what's, what's your big push in that direction and what have you learned from doing it so far?
Speaker 2:
it's way different than when I did it in 2017, 2016 I if you go on my youtube channel, you'll see a lot of non-Bitcoin related content from ages ago. I kind of vlogged my life in like 2015, 16, 17, and it was a completely different game, so I've noticed like I'm falling into some old kind of 2015 2016 youtube habits that I have to just eradicate and like change for this, the new algorithm, i guess. The end game there, though, is purely education. I think there's I think there's a pretty significant I don't want to say there's a gap, because I think that the the current Bitcoin content creators, influencers, are doing a really, really good job of like spreading the good word and and what's out there, but I don't think there's someone with my experience that's that's done this like I've got.
Speaker 2:
I've been in this business for 10 years. I, you know, built up basically like Alberta's first Bitcoin ATM, saskatchewan's first Bitcoin am. We were the first publicly traded non-custodial Bitcoin company we're launching into the States. Like I know what it's like to be debanked. Like I've been debanked from dozens of banks I am. I've got a wealth of experience that I think can be beneficial and can help people, and then and then also, too, i want people to be invested and get them involved in what we're doing and what we're building. I think it's exciting and it's my job now to help them find the company. And then you know I believe in what we do.
Speaker 2:
I'm a strong believer in non-custodial Bitcoin. I'm a strong believer in people taking direct custody of their Bitcoin, immediately and by default, and then learning how to use a hardware wallet, learning how to set up a node, learning how to transfer money from peer to peer, learning how to live on Bitcoin, learning how to securely store their private keys. What do I do? how do I? you know? a question we get asked all the time how do I put it in my will? like people have like straight up written private keys in their will and just give it to the lawyer like no, no, no, no, don't do that.
Speaker 2:
You can. You can actually do stuff to protect yourself and and, like you know, here's a dead man switch or, like you know, that's that that's a pretty extreme case, but I think that education is is so crucial and we're an education first organization. We always have been. I'm super lucky. Now we have an amazing team that's able to handle all of if not all the day-to-day operations, and I am here to just tell the story of Bitcoin well and and educate about Bitcoin, and that's kind of where I belong at this stage of my career just kind of circling back.
Speaker 1:
I've seen so much about artificial intelligence now and AI push. Are you interested in this? are you incorporating it? do you think this is something you may use in the future?
Speaker 2:
great question, man. I think that AI and crypto are pretty like good together. Ai and Bitcoin Like Bitcoin, in my mind, is a savings tool which is inherently boring, like your savings should be so, so boring, because they're they're automatic, there's there's very little volatility and It's kind of like preconceived, like you know exactly what you're getting from your savings account. So we're not here like Actually this. Today I was on another show and we were talking about Where we were talking about this movement towards trading engines and how there's like lots of trading engines and that's just not what we are. We aren't some like crypto casino. Take your position, take some margin, close your position. You know, here's a short squeeze, let's, let's ride where AI really thrives in that environment. We're like a sound money shop. It's like, okay, set up your Bitcoin savings plan, 50 bucks a week going into Bitcoin. Like brush your hands, get some TXID management. When you've got You know when it's appropriate and and off you go. And so I don't. There's not a lot of room for, for you know, hardcore AI or generative AI within our platform today, but in the future and down the line, like I can certainly see a case where artificial intelligence Enhances your Bitcoin experience. That said, anytime you give control to a robot, you're exposed to the person that wrote that robot, and so I would be very, very cautious about platforms that you know you're effectively giving your money to, giving your the keys to the kingdom To, in order to save yourself some education or save yourself some time.
Speaker 2:
Bitcoin is Is a time storage vehicle, and it's appropriate that we invest our time to learn how to how to use it properly. I mean taking email as an example. If you don't learn about email And you don't learn about the dangers of email, and some guy named Adam O'Brien emails you and says hey, man, i want to give you a million dollars, just just give me your visa card and your SID numbers so I can do that. And you're like, oh, this is Adam, because his name Says Adam, so it must be all good. And then you just like, do, do, do, do, handle all the info, while you're screwed like that's, that doesn't work. That's just not good. So I definitely think that there's there's room To learn about Bitcoin, there's room for AI, but I would much rather a society as a whole Learns how to use Bitcoin first, and then we can find little ways to make it a little bit more efficient.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, definitely seems to. Seems to be a big push right now. You know 2023 has been much about it. I think I saw you know Google's gonna be integrating AI. Rather than having web pages popped up, it's gonna be like a Google interface.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, they have already, and I also saw you remember paradigm. I think they were the largest crypto fund, crypto and web 3 fund in the world, raised like a two and a half billion dollar fund. They have like Completely switched gears over to AI, like I mean, it's very, very apparent just how much of a buzzword and how much of like a you know that was a top top top for like this crypto web 3 Kind of narrative. It's like, oh, we were web 3, but without now we're AI, like like here We are, here we go, and it would be interesting to see the next six months. Are we still AI or are these like, are these VCs, like these trendy VCs, just ripping down the line of whatever is hot, kind of in the moment?
Speaker 1:
Yeah, very much, very much a possibility. You know, like you, we like to educate here on the having report. We obviously Try to make the having and the cycles Sort of like an awareness campaign for for my podcast. Here We are, i think, 48 weeks away roughly from the next Bitcoin having. Now, how do you see, how do you see this next having playing out in regards to the price of Bitcoin?
Speaker 2:
great question, man you got. You always got good questions. I. I think price will be less affected than it has in the past because, while the Straight-up economics of the having are the same, you know, power stays static or energy consumption stays static, reward gets cut in half. The difference between, like, 50 to 25 Bitcoin is so much greater than than six and a quarter to three point one, two, five and so, in my mind, like right now, all the miners that are mining, like all the big institutional miners, the ones that, like really truly set The price of Bitcoin, they've all been in the game for five or six years now and they've all stalked Bitcoin from like we'll call them, we'll call them cheap blocks or we'll call them, you know, big blocks or whatever you want to call them, but from from blocks when they were mining, you know 12, getting 12 and a half Bitcoin per block. So I don't think the price will go as like Parabolic as it has, strictly because of the mining. But I like the having does have an effect on price strictly because You have the same costs and you get half the product. So what happens? the product has to double like.
Speaker 2:
That's just the math and that's the macro math. That's the long-term economic macro math that that helps me believe in Bitcoin. That gives me 100% certainty that Bitcoin is the only place, the only secure place to store the value that I create with my time. But on the micro, who knows man? and it's also it's like it's coupled with market FOMO. It's coupled with debt ceiling being raised every six months. It's coupled with bank illiquidity. It's coupled with, you know, el Salvador's debt bond or Bitcoin bond, like we have all these other factors and now we have the having, and it's like What's gonna contribute to it? Like it's just, it's like Bitcoin is just this ball of energy And we're just ready to just like, just explode. So that's to put it very technically. That's how I would say it.
Speaker 1:
Chipped in gears a little bit. I wanted to ask you if you saw the Bitcoin Twitter beef between James Lopp and Jason P Lowry over his critique on His thesis soft war.
Speaker 2:
No, i didn't. I thought when you talk about Twitter beef, i thought you were gonna go into Rodolfo and Francis about stainless steel and and and cast iron pans. But no tell in light me on the beef. Between between J Look it up here.
Speaker 1:
Yeah for sure. So while you're looking it up, i'll just give you a quick rundown that Jason P Lowry has released this thesis. It's like a textbook Based on Bitcoin and its national strategic defense, and he's I'm not finished the book yet. It's a long read and tough to get through. He doesn't start talking about Bitcoin until you know way beyond the point I'm in. But James Lopp I'm sure you've heard of him. He's written a critique about it. However, he hasn't actually read the book. He was saying he couldn't find a free PDF version. He was refused to pay the $40 for the book, wrote a critique on it and they were just kind of beefing back and forth. I think Jason's blocked him at this point. I think, yeah, i was just curious if you went down that rabbit hole at all and what you thought about Jason's thesis. But maybe it's something we can come back to on your third time on The Having Report.
Speaker 2:
Oh man, getting an advanced invite is that's an honor? Yeah, i don't have a ton of thoughts on that.
Speaker 1:
You would be the only one.
Speaker 2:
I haven't read the book, obviously, so not a huge. I don't have a massive opinion on it. It's funny that we take, though, just societally, and this is kind of where I feel like education needs. That's the important debate within the Bitcoin community, but I seem to think that we're going to lose normies in that important debate, and I've actually been working on a talk for Bitcoiners and to speak of at Bitcoin conferences about how to orangepill a normie, because I feel like we're kind of We as a collective, as Bitcoiners, we all want the same thing, which is hyperbicoinization, and we've kind of camped ourselves into different paths. We've got like have fun, staying poor, not going to make it. Basically, screw you, i don't have time for you, see you later. And we take that from Satoshi's comment on the Bitcoin talk forum. I don't have the time to explain it, so see you later. And that's one side, and I think that's one of the things that's really important about this ultra-inclusive.
Speaker 2:
Well, cbdcs are a gateway into Bitcoin, so those are fine. No, no, no, no, no. That's also not fine. Cbdc is the death of freedom and will not increase Bitcoin adoption. Cbdcs are meant to trick people into getting those instead of Bitcoin. So we've got to find this middle ground of like mom and dad shouldn't fight at the dinner table The example of this beef and again, i didn't read it, i didn't see it, i don't know what the full intents are, but at first glance that feels like mom and dad fighting at the dinner table And we should be focused on how do we collectively make Bitcoin more accessible, easier to use, and how do we get people who are currently afraid of holding their private key?
Speaker 2:
How do we explain to them that it's not that scary? How do we explain to them that it's a necessary thing to do for your sovereignty? We have people who are massive risk-takers that refuse to hold their private key because what if I lose it or what if something happens? They don't trust the protocol, they don't trust themselves, and I think that we need to focus our efforts driving down that path, in my opinion. Now, again, i didn't see it, i don't know, that's just kind of my thoughts at first glance.
Speaker 1:
For sure. And what was the other Twitter beef you were talking about? I'm not aware of that one.
Speaker 2:
That was just a joke. I think it was Francis who Francis is founder of Bull Bitcoin and NVK from. He's from Quinkeit. He's the founder of Quinkeit. They were talking about pans And I think Saifadeen was the first one to come out and say stainless steel pans is like superior to cast iron, which sparked some drama in the Bitcoin community. And then, i think recently, nvk has come out and said the same thing. I'm trying to find it here but I can't. But yeah, anyways, it's just ingest. It's all pretty useless and fun, but it's funny. Man, if you ever need a good laugh, ride down the stainless steel versus cast iron pan like Twitter whole of just useless debate. It's pretty funny.
Speaker 1:
Definitely will do, but, like you mentioned, though, like mom and dad shouldn't argue at the dinner table. That's a really good comparison there And it's funny And it's like even two Bitcoin maxis going at it, right. So I see this a lot in the community. I find a lot of people in the Bitcoin community very well educated on Bitcoin and economics, but sometimes I find them to be a little bit extreme in their political views. Do you see that as well, and how do you kind of navigate the space with all the polarization?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, man, i definitely see it. I generally don't love polarization. I think that Bitcoin is so political by the nature that it's so freedom focused And, like all politics, is just varying levels of trading freedom for protection. So, like Bitcoin, by giving up most freedom and eliminating most you know kind of higher power protections, is already so so political And, by nature, just attracts those kinds of people.
Speaker 2:
I don't think we need to lean into it, like, i mean, who was the Democratic candidate that was announcing like presidency at Bitcoin 2023 this year? It's like, do we need politicians at our Bitcoin events? Like, is this, is this what we've come to now? is or or can we be better than that? I feel like money and state need to be decoupled, and when you bring politics into, um, into the money, i I guess we just run the risk of of driving those kinds of fiat practices. And so that's my like, my, my caution. How do I navigate it? I don't like I'm I'm pretty apolitical myself. I don't really care one way or another. I'm a freedom Like. I like freedom through and through. I believe in personal sovereignty and I believe in, uh, people doing good things because they believe the world should be better, and so, um, i guess, by virtue of those things, i'm put into a certain political camp, but I try to kind of, like you know, especially in Bitcoin circles, i personally, i think I I tend to draw closer to, uh, high, high level.
Speaker 2:
How does this help people? Um, what's the alternative to what I'm suggesting? and then driving down the route of why do you believe that? Why do you believe that? Why do you believe that? Right, oh well, we should freeze all the bank accounts, okay, how does that help people? Oh, well, then, money laundering wouldn't happen.
Speaker 2:
Well, to find money laundering for me, well, it's obviously this and this, okay, well, who makes those rules and who should have the ability to change those rules and and who should have the ability to make that decision? And it's like, oh well, the government should. It's like, well, what if it's a government that you don't like? right, cause we live in, we live in a democracy, and so you have a 50, 50 chance of getting a government that you want. And what if the government changes and then they have the ability to to change? is that what you want? Well, no, actually, that doesn't sound very good either. And so we just kind of run it down from this like why do you think that?
Speaker 2:
And then drawing scenarios from why that's important, and like the answer always comes back to Bitcoin. The answer is always more freedom is better, uh, but we have, we give the Bitcoin community have to understand there's a, there's a collective um, like a Spider-Man great responsive or a great power comes great responsibility. There's power in freedom, money. There's power in Bitcoin, and we have a responsibility to educate people about how that power can be used. And so it's like yeah, it's a tough thing to navigate, but I think it's. It's like one of the most important things we could possibly do. Like we're literally watching money and state be decoupled before our very eyes. My kids will not know what a federal reserve is, uh, and I'm fully confident in that. And so we, while this like limbo period happens, which is going to be full of peril and decimation of savings accounts and like very, very bad economic times, we have to educate as many people as possible so that that period is as harmless and as short as can possibly be, and Bitcoin is the only way for that to happen.
Speaker 1:
Adam, you're super eloquent when it comes to explain to Bitcoin, So it's a really good thing that you're in the Bitcoin education space, but I wanted to ask you What resources do you like to use in this space? You know how often do you use them.
Speaker 2:
That's a good question. I probably don't read as much as I should I would like to, but I would say that the like my Bitcoin knowledge, my technical Bitcoin knowledge, comes from our team here. They spend more time researching and playing with with Bitcoin than than I do. We actually toyed around the idea of making a a bit a few weeks ago. We've added it to like OK, you know, down the line, if we have some free time, here's what we're going to spend a couple of weeks really really buttoning up Dave, who's our chief revenue officer at the organization. He's about as OG as they get. Poor guy is terribly ugly but very, very smart, so we keep him around for for that reason And and and he knows his stuff about Bitcoin. So him and I definitely chat a lot about technical Bitcoin stuff, but I'd say what I found success is in seeing the philosophy behind Bitcoin and relating it back to the philosophy of current events and of the world, and you'd be hard pressed to send me a topic or ask me about a current event And I wouldn't be able to pull the philosophy from from Bitcoin and apply it to fixing that current event, and so that's kind of where I spend my time.
Speaker 2:
You know, right now we're building products for normies. We're building products like I want Bitcoin well to the place that people go, because they have the ability to learn about and use Bitcoin for the first time, and we're a safe, kind of open place to have them ask questions and to have them truly understand the value of Bitcoin. And so we need to be on the up and up in having real world applications for Bitcoin. And that's kind of where I live right now And and that's kind of where I would say my time is spent to kind of develop those resources And and and when I don't have an answer, right, if you have a topic for me and I was like, oh man, how does Bitcoin fix us, then that's where I get to dive down a rabbit hole and really investigate and learn a little bit more about, about what's going on there.
Speaker 1:
Awesome, Yeah, And I mean I'm sure it helps having you know a very knowledgeable team there at Bitcoin Well, that you guys can sit down and you know, shoot these, shoot these conversations back and forth. Adam, you guys are very focused on self custody. Cold storage Ledger has been in the headlines lately for a vulnerability. I'm not sure how well versed you are in what's been happening there, But have you, have you seen what's happening there?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, man, yeah, so, like I'm assuming you're talking about their like recovery product, if you want to call it that. I think they're. They're on the right track to an extent. What they needed to do and where they messed up was they messed up And what they did was they exposed. They exposed all of their products by simply acknowledging and pushing an update that could expose the product later. So, like, the key point of cold storage is that no one, even the factory, can access your seed, and what they showed was, with an update, the factory can see or at least have access to your seed, and that calls into question a lot of things. It calls into question other manufacturers And also it calls into question what's been pushed that we don't know about. You know lots of the popular, lots of the easy to use hardware wallets are are a closed source. You can't audit the code, so it's it's definitely a bit of a scary and interesting time.
Speaker 2:
Personally, i think that they went about the right thing the wrong way Collaborative custody. As we move towards kind of more normie adoption, collaborative custody is going to be pretty important because of what I said earlier, because, whether we like it or not, bitcoin is a scary thing, and for first timers putting their wealth in Bitcoin, it's, it's scary to hold on their own. I have been beating this drum for almost 10 years and it's just been pushed back, pushed back, pushed back along the way. But what I found is people using a custodial solution, then moving to self custody kind of, over time, and so where they f'd up, in my opinion, is having it be pushed to old products, rather than just making a whole brand new chipset, a whole brand new product, and then they could say, look, this is the one that's exposed. This is because, if you look at like, there's a spectrum like this and this is security and this is convenience, you know, depending on where you are on the spectrum, it's like it's a perfect movement, and the closer you get to security, the further away you are from convenience, and vice versa. And so you know ledger needs to have products and all hardware wallets should have products on this scale, and like no, no, no, we're hyper secure, we're not convenient at all And that's our brand and we own it.
Speaker 2:
Right, look at the cold card. Like, cold card is scary. I'm a like I'm a. I'm an OG. I've been doing this 10 years. I've gone through plenty of cold cards. I've set them up. You know, dice rolls, let's go. I do that, like you know, multiple times a year. And still, when I'm setting it up, i have, like that, first transactions, like a little bit of panic, until you see it on the blockchain And you're like, okay, i'm good.
Speaker 2:
And so for someone who's just walking into this, as like, oh, i heard about Bitcoin two months ago at Christmas dinner And now I'm going to, like you know, snap my fingers and be a Bitcoin expert No, not going to happen. So we need products on that scale. They're like yeah, you know, look, we're not as secure as we can be, but we're pretty secure And we're very convenient. And if that's like a stepping stone, then then less good than like full on self custody, ultra, ultra secure, not super convenient, less good than that, but way better than like oh yeah, my coins are on Coinbase and this is perfect, like, so there's definitely some stepping stones to get there And and I think that I hope that societally, we will continually be moving closer to the future. We will be moving closer to security and away from convenience. Right, put the work in and be sovereign. Basically.
Speaker 1:
For sure. I think you know partial self custody at the beginning, to kind of learn how it works, And then, when you're ready to take that leap and you have a bigger chunk, more skin in the game, it's probably best to definitely best to take that leap, to go to full self custody in a very secure environment. Like you said, that takes time. You can't just be in the space for two months and feel super comfortable. Like you said, you've been around for a decade and you still get those butterflies in your stomach when you go to send that on chain transaction or a big transaction. Right, And I I certainly I've not. I haven't been in the space as long as you, but you know about five years and I definitely still get that feeling. Adam, last time you were on the on the show, we spoke about some of your Bitcoin, art and collectibles. I wondered if you have anything new, or maybe you could tell us about a favorite piece that you have.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, good question. Let me see if I can move this camera. I've got four pieces up here by Madex that are awesome here. One sec, so these, oh, you can't really see it in the one second mark. So this is kind of my work wall here. I've got Madex on the top there. So we've got Atlas Shrugged 21 million pretty awesome. A Don't Wait with a wicked car. We've got the Ohm symbol and infinity in the middle there Pretty sweet. A Hoda Lawn rocket ship and then Proof of Work bulldozer, which is pretty awesome. You can see I've got some children's art mixed in there as well, and then another Madex piece. This piece right here is another Madex piece You can kind of see. It says Don't Wait up there. I'm not sure if we had these last time or not, and actually this is an interesting one right here.
Speaker 2:
That's a check from a bank that debanks me And I was quite proud of how we handled the debankment, i guess, and so I hung that up for the memories. Probably I'm probably a little bit early. I'm still a little too reliant on the banking system for the business to go ahead and start outing. But that's going to be dude. I've got so much just receipts and the collateral damage from my banking experience, the phone calls, the recordings. I've got tens of hours And it's going to be an insane book whenever I'm ready to write that book.
Speaker 1:
Definitely. Well, you have to let me know when you start working on that. That'd be interesting to see. Adam, we've covered a lot today spitting questions out. You hear from one end to the other in the crypto, in the world of Bitcoin. Last time you were on the show, you left us with words of wisdom of cold storage and determining what you actually own. I'm going to open it up again for you if there's anything that you think that's going on in the world of Bitcoin that we haven't touched upon, or maybe some new words of wisdom for myself and my listeners. If not, just let us know where we can follow you and learn more, adam.
Speaker 2:
Oh man, you just had to run my mouth for a few minutes about all my thoughts. This is like the holy grail of Adam's brain here, i think honestly, something that I've been really, really passionate about lately is this concept that our money is just fake, and it's infuriating to me that people say that Bitcoin is not real or that Bitcoin is not backed by anything, and then they have the audacity to claim the US dollar or the Canadian dollar is backed by something, and it's verifiably false that fiat currencies are backed by anything in 2023. You could maybe argue it's backed by the GDP of an economy, but when you lead into the GDP of the economy, it doesn't accurately take in to a consideration the debt required to earn that GDP, and so if our dollar is truly backed by GDP, we'll call it net GDP. We're in huge trouble because the total supply of money backed by net GDP in Canada dollars are less than pennies at that point. So it's like I've got this real problem with people claiming that, and so I don't think that's anyone watching this show. If you're watching this show, i would expect or maybe not expect. I would hope that you've maybe at least come as far as to know that Bitcoin is simple algorithmic money storage or time storage, but what I would call you to do is I would definitely urge you to find good resources and find a good Script is the wrong word, but a good amount of thought put into why Bitcoin works. And here you go.
Speaker 2:
Let me offer something from Adam.
Speaker 2:
Bitcoin is backed by the energy in which it takes or it consumes, and the reason that's good and the reason that's not bad, the reason that's why it's a perfect relationship with our money is because your money, your time, the value you create with your time, is also backed by the energy in which you spend to create value.
Speaker 2:
If you lie on the couch 24 hours a day and do nothing, you will earn $0. If you go out and work for 15 hours, you will earn something. Even the guy on the street corner with a cup in his hand and a cardboard sign earns a dollarly or an hourly wage, and I think that we can then tie the value that we create with our time back to the money that we earn. And Bitcoin is the same thing. The difference is we spend energy, we give our energy to the protocol for it to then spit out, basically a fair value token, and when you consider money being that way, it just makes so much more sense. The math works, the science works, the physics works. Bitcoin is backed by the energy in which it consumes, and I think that's a very, very important detail in a world of fairy money and debt ceilings being raised and other problems like that.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, the relationship with Bitcoin and energy is just astonishing to me And I've been speaking to a few people, i've had a few people on the podcast talking about it but to really understand it and grasp it and how things are gonna change and how Bitcoin is already changing and incentivizing renewable energy and making use of wasted energy. I'm reading a book right now that just explains it so well And I'm so grateful to have this resource, to have this resource right now, but, yes, super interesting and great. Last piece of advice for us is to kind of pay attention to that. So, thank you, adam. It's always a pleasure to have you on the Having Report podcast, so we'll have to do it again. I hope you'll be willing to come on and answer my questions again and update myself my listeners, of course as well with the industry and everything that's going on with you, adam. So thanks for doing this today.
Speaker 2:
Amazing. thanks so much for having me man Looking forward to the next one.
Speaker 1:
Hey you thanks for listening to the Having Report podcast. If you like the show and want to support, subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and be sure to leave us a comment. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at Having Report. If you're a Canadian and you want to buy Bitcoin or cryptocurrency for the first time, get a $20 bonus when you go to bitbyca forward slash having. If you want $30 off the ultimate digital asset security device, bitfi, go to havingreportcom forward slash BitFi. for more information Until next time. I'm Brad Mines.