Transcript 0:00 [funky music] That's right, we are back for Bitcoin Season Two: Writer's Room. 0:25 I'm Charlie and this is- Colin. What's going on, Charlie? Hey. Whereas I like to call you, sometimes to your chagrin, Chuck. How you doing, Chuck? Oh, my God. [laughs] Don't do this to me, Colin. 0:38 I have to find some dumb nickname for you, but unfortunately, Colin- Just call me Colin Yeah, Colin. [laughs] Yeah, okay. Well, there we go. You just served it up to me. Um, yeah, Bitcoin Season Two, welcome back. 0:49 It's from Blockspace Pod. You know the drill, but, uh, the main thing is that Bitcoin, uh, Season Two: Writer's Room is a little bit different. This is Colin and Charlie. We're the screenwriters for Bitcoin Season Two. 1:00 We're, uh, we're, uh, in the arena, trying out different topics, and this is a little more editorialized of a broadcast. 1:09 Bringing you the freshest angles, the most degenerate takes, the most regarded commentary, depending on the subject. [laughs] And we've got a pretty regarded show for everyone today. That's right. 1:22 We, uh, we've come up with a Bitcoin spectrum. Colin and I both are probably on the spectrum somewhere, but we're gonna put everyone [laughs] else in Bitcoin on a spectrum. 1:32 But before we get to that, we gotta have a word from our sponsor. Bitcoin Season Two is brought to you by BotaniX. 1:38 BotaniX Labs is pioneering a new direction for DeFi with the first EVM L2 running on Bitcoin that's built to be forward-secure, decentralized, and share gas fees generated by the network with users. 1:52 See the future of DeFi at BotaniX, botanixlabs.xyz. Okay. 1:59 Uh, so I guess before we get into the exactly the spectrum and we start ranking people, um, the first person on the spectrum is, we're gonna tie it in somehow, is Michael Saylor, who had a viral clip this week. 2:12 And do you wanna kinda summarize that for me, Colin? Yeah. Should we, should we maybe try to find the clip? Here, let me see if we can- Oh, I was not prepared here. 2:20 You can, um, here, you can riff while I d- while I do this. I think I can find... Here we go. Um, let me, uh, let me find it really quickly. So i- it's basically, it's, he's in this interview, 2:33 um, with someone, I- I don't know who he's, he's interviewing with, but he basically makes the case, like, almost against self-custody, saying that it's kind of this crypto anarchic fantasy. 2:46 Um, and I actually found the clip, unless you already have it. I am also finding the clip too, so here we go. Yeah, you should, you should go ahead and, yeah, you should go ahead and sh- and, and share it. 2:55 'Cause it's one of those things where, um, before we p- play the full clip- By companions. What risk- Can you pause it really quick? Does that pose? Heather? Yeah. Okay. Um, so some background to this. 3:06 Most people know who Michael Saylor is, um, the infamous Giga Chad [laughs] according to a lot of laser-eyed folks. 3:16 And there's always kind of been this conspiracy surrounding him that he's a spook with, like, certain, uh, uh, you know, within the more paranoid subcultures of Bitcoin. There are a number of reasons for thinking this. 3:30 One of the pieces of evidence that's often levied is that the MicroStrategy office is, like, 15 minutes away from a CIA office or the headquarters or something like that. Yeah. 3:39 But, but he could, he could, he could fight back against this by just stop saying things that a spook would say. That, this is very true. 3:47 And so this gets back to the core of it, too, right, is this idea that he's kind of been intermittently throwing out these posts about how, you know, eventually, Bitcoin's only gonna scale through institutions custoding it, how that's just more desirable than people holding their own keys, et cetera, et cetera. 4:01 So all that being said, um, perhaps a piece of evidence in the annals going against his cypherpunk, uh, chops, which he doesn't really have any, and perhaps maybe bolstering- Yeah... 4:15 the conspiracy tinfoil, um, you know, uh, complaints against him. So let's go ahead and just play this. Okay. Held by fewer large institutions. 4:28 Does that increase the risk of seizure and confiscation like we've seen with gold? And is that not exactly what Bitcoiners don't want to happen? No, I think it's the opposite. 4:37 I think that when the Bitcoin is held by a, a bunch of crypto anarchists 4:44 who aren't regulated entities, who don't acknowledge government or don't acknowledge taxes or don't acknowledge reporting requirements, [laughs] that increases the risk of seizure. 4:54 You have an OG crypto community who's very hardcore about it, but if you look at where all the money is, 99.9% of the money is actually in the traditional economy. 5:05 If you consider the Great Depression, I mean, people thought that their gold was safe in banks until the executive order of 1933. Good question. So- Mm-hmm... we're not entirely safe. 5:12 I mean, I know that's kind of a wild- How do you-... thing to suggest- Gotta love the Australian accent... given how Bitcoin sees itself. Yeah. I do. So people's Bitcoin wouldn't be entirely safe. 5:19 It's not- People say that, but mostly it's, mostly it's paranoid crypto anarchists that say that, okay? Because it's, it's a, it's a myth and a trope that goes on over and over again. But first of all- Wait, hang on. 5:32 Can we pause this? People don't seize gold. Can we pau- can we pau- okay. Okay, he's saying he didn't really seize gold. Um- Yeah. Okay. 5:41 Like, that's kind of irrelevant, because there was an executive order demanding people turn in their gold. 5:48 So, like, whether or not, you know, there were troops in the streets knocking on doors, taking people's gold up from under their mattresses and, you know, taking their family heirlooms, whatever, that's completely irrelevant to the fears that people have that are completely legitimate. 6:02 [laughs] Like, the American governmentThroughout its history has a long list of abuses against its own citizens and against foreign nationals. Like, this is not a paranoid thing. Yeah. And so... Sorry, go ahead. 6:19 I'll, I'll let you answer. I'm gonna cut you off there, 'cause I wanna get into this really quick. 6:23 [laughs] Basically, yeah, you're right, and, and the thing is Michael Saylor did try to throw the self-custody advocates a bone, 'cause this, uh, this got him some heat this week. 6:32 But let, let's just get right to it, because we all know what you're gonna say, and I think everybody watching this is, like, with you, Colin. We're all just, like, chomping at the bit. 6:40 But the thing is, this, uh, is kind of a jumping-off point for us- [laughs]... to s- to, like, ask this question, well, okay, how influential is Michael Saylor? 6:50 And then, like, is he, does he represent, like, a niche of the Bitcoin community? Um, like, where does he fall into? 6:57 And I think this generated some interesting discussion that we've been having off and on over the past half year, which is, like, 7:04 Bitcoin used to feel kind of like a monoculture where we had shared myths and shared celebrities and shared narratives. 7:13 If s- if the, if there was a conversation happening in Bitcoin, it was pretty much shared by everyone who was participating in this, like, terminally online culture. 7:22 But in the past two years, and especially now, we've seen multiple, uh, like, information ecosystems, multiple, uh, news pipelines, and narratives which have no crossover, virtually no crossover from one kind of cohort of Bit- on, terminally online Bitcoiner to the next. 7:44 And this is one of those narratives where Michael Saylor did cross over between all of the different cohorts- Mm... and it kind of led me to think, what is an interesting thing we could talk about? Where could we start? 7:56 Could we just find, like, a spectrum, and to try to identify, uh, notable figures in the Bit- broader Bitcoin ecosystem, and to try to, like, somehow categorize them. 8:10 So this is kind of the- And typically categorize them based on their notoriety with this, like, kind of, I would say, a loosely defined spectrum that we have, because it is a spectrum. 8:20 But on one end, we have the pure-play degens, uh, you know, your, y- your Telegram- and Discord-lurking anons who are gonna ape, you know, $10,000 worth of Bitcoin into dick token or something. Exactly. 8:35 [laughs] With the hope that it's gonna moon. And then on the other side, you have the laser-eyed maxis, you know, seed phrase, um, ge- [laughs] you know, cut up and- Yeah... 8:46 you know, uh, dispersed around multiple different geographies. Maybe, you know, they only save in Bitcoin. They probably have 99% of their worth in Bitcoin. It's either their $200 or Bitcoin. Yeah. 8:55 [laughs] Well- Either $200 or $200,000. It's kind of this funny, you know, you get people all over the place. But- Exactly. And, and that's the ki- and that's the thing. 9:05 So we're thinking, okay, so there's figures, and we're not classifying how the figure themselves behaves, r- but rather how well known that figure is among a spectrum of, of, like, types of Bitcoiner. 9:21 And so we have, if you're watching this, visually what you're seeing when I show the screen, visually what you are seeing is on the left you have the laser eyes, and on the right you have the dirty, dirty degens. 9:38 And this means that if a figure is over on the far left, they are most [laughs] likely to- [laughs] The irony is not lost here. Triggered. 9:47 [laughs] If a fi- [laughs] if, if a person is on the far left, they are w- uh, known exclusively in the laser-eye circles, and if they're on the far right, they're known exclusively in the dirty, dirty degen circles. 10:01 In the middle, they are known in equally, en- they, they walk in both realms. And I have a less important access, axis on the Y axis, which is how influential are they in the Bitcoin discussion? 10:18 And, uh, so with further review, we want to- I would actually argue that's, that's the most i- I actually argue that's more important than whether or not they're known within these respective communities. 10:28 Well- But it's all so highly subjective, all of this, is based on our own- Yeah... you know, understanding of the landscape, so. Exactly. And honestly, we should probably redo this. 10:37 By the way, if you're watching this, feel free to type a name in the chat. We'll take a look at it. We might, uh, hot add that person- Yeah... 10:47 into our Also, if you think we're being regarded with our placement, let us know. And if, if you are being personally spoke for, if you're up here on this panel and we pissed you off, that's a good thing. 10:58 Let us know about it. And I apologize in advance for any transgressions. I don't apologize. I'm in here, uh, just to offend people and create spicy takes. Okay. 11:09 Well, speaking of spicy takes, let's just start with, uh, the king of spicy takes and pissing people off. We have Udi Wertheimer here. [laughs] Yeah. A man who exists to throw salt on the wound- [laughs]... 11:22 and to farm outrage. Um, I feel like s- just firmly in the middle. Yeah. You know? He, every chat that I'm in is an Udi chat. 11:33 Um, whether or not he's in the chat or not, they are talking about him, and he is just embedded like a worm, a mind virus, in everybody's brain. They cannot stop talking about this guy. No, they can't. 11:46 They can't stop talking about him. I feel like if we were having this conversation in the bear market after the 2017 bull, I think he would be firmly in the laser-eye camp. Yeah. 11:57 Because that was his ETH-hating era- Mm-hmm... where it's like every post was about how shitty Ethereum is. 12:04 But now with all of the Taproot Wizard stuff-Um, with a lot of honestly just maximalist bashing that's kind of become his brand- Yeah... over the last few years. 12:15 Um, you know, I, I feel like he's definitely, um, endeared himself to the crypto community at large. Yeah. And- 12:25 And if we were gonna pu- roll the clock back, say, again to '18, '19, I would say he was a little influential, but not very influential. He was kind of like- Yeah... a niche topical celebrity. 12:37 But I would say he's probably mid-tier influential now, um, because he's injected- Oh, I don't know... 12:44 he's injected this topic of a soft fork and a man- Well, that's why I think he should actually be maybe a little bit higher, because- Okay... that's the one thing, I think that's probably fair. Yeah. Yeah. 12:55 Because that's, and, you know, uh, maybe we should, you know, give Eric and, um, Reindl and, and all the other Taproot Wizards folks- Yeah... 13:03 a little more due here, but really, the Taproot Wizards company is almost single-handedly responsible for pushing Op_Cat to the top of the activation discussion. Yeah. 13:13 Um, I think much to the a, um, kind of confusion and anger of a lot of people- Yeah... although I think more people are warming up to Op_Cat. But I've, I mean, we've talked about this before. 13:22 I've always kind of fallen into the camp of this seems ridiculous to me when CTV has been on the, on, on the board for years now. We, but we could, we could go around- I know... and around about this. 13:35 We, we could, for sure. But- So maybe we should... 13:37 this is one of the things where if a soft fork gets, if a soft fork happens and Cat's part of it, Udi will catapult to top and center of, you know, top five of most influential people. 13:48 But right now we're, I would just say he's, uh, well-known everywhere, and he's decently influential. Yeah, I think so. 13:55 And, and he's also decently influential just for the fact that every time he shit posts, it becomes a topic on Bitcoin Twitter, people retweet, people get outraged. Yeah. He's amazing at farming engagement. Yeah. 14:07 I think he's disingenuous a lot of the time, and, um, he knows what he's doing, and I, I don't necessarily really like a lot of the things that he posts or even how he comports himself. 14:17 But you can't, uh, deny the fact that the guy is great at marketing stuff. So- Yeah... yeah, I think he's probably in a fair place. 14:24 Now, another man who is terrible at marketing things [laughs] Worst marketer ever- [laughs] But also just as in- as infamous, we have Luke Dash Jr, longtime Bitcoin Core contributor, and, uh, recently 14:41 the savior of Bitcoin or the, uh- Or the filter of your JPEGs... the, the, the failed JPEG filter- [laughs]... push of 2023 and 2024. I don't, this is a tough one, because- This is a tough one, yeah... 14:55 I don't wanna cop out and say that, like, he's deserves to be in the middle as well, because the filter debate has made him known in circles where no one would know him at all. 15:03 Um, again, and this is really an, I think an interesting point that we'll come back to during this whole exercise. This time, the, this spectrum would shift radically depending on the year- Yeah... 15:14 but we're using 2024 obviously- Yeah... as our reference point. I would place him maybe a little further to the left, but not much. Which is funny, because I would place him further to the right. This is my- Really?... 15:26 thought. Yeah, this is my thinking. So, um, uh, I think that, uh, a lot of, like, the, the DCA crowd, um, does not really pay attention at all to Bitcoin development, 15:40 and they only listen to the Bitcoin ideologies. And whereas there is not a single JPEG person who doesn't know Luke, whereas if I, I'm pretty sure, like, I'll go to Bitcoin meetups, and I will- Mm... 15:54 reference Luke Dash Jr, and they will not know who that is. But I talk about Luke in, like, a Discord and everyone, like, knows con- uh, context and everything. That's an interesting distinction. 16:05 My one counter to that would be there is this new class of, like, DCA Bitcoin maximalist who might not be plugged into these things, but for a lot of the, like, I would say thought leaders within the laser-eyed community and a lot of the most active members, 16:25 like, Luke Jr. is, um, tantamount to, like, Paul the Apostle or something. Yeah. I mean, like- Yes, he is... he's, he's one of the most- He's considered, yeah... influential. And that's why you gotta give him credit. 16:36 He is one of the most prolific and important developers in Bi- I, like [laughs] so we've got a bifurcated Luke. I think this is [laughs] kind of perfect. He's on either, L- Luke exists in superposition. 16:48 Um, uh [laughs] He's, like, equally balanced out. But, you know, you gotta give it to the guy. 16:54 He's, he's been one of the most important developers, but truly, I think he's kind of had some pretty unhinged takes recently. I mean, like, the fact- Talents... 17:02 he's comparing s- you know, what he calls spam, which is a total semantic argument that has no bearing, I think, in actual, you know, technical merits. 17:12 He c- he compared it to rape, and, and I just, you just, I, that is so far beyond the pale. Oh, like whoa. 17:17 Even for a retail like me, who loves dabbling in analogies and loves thinking abstractly, that's like galaxy away of abstraction. I, I just can't, can't, can't stomach it. Bro. 17:29 Okay, so we put Luke, uh, both on the left and the right a little bit either way, and, uh, as highly influential. So now we have Matt Odell. Daddy Odell. One of my favorite people in Bitcoin. Yeah. Yeah. 17:42 Um- Pro respect on the name. Yeah, one of the most respected people. He's pretty hardcore. Like, he's pretty laser-eyed, but, like- He is, for sure. So- But he's, he's, he's ideologically consistent. 17:54 He, he's like, you know, he's like the Ron Paul or the Bernie Sanders of, of Bitcoin influencers. 18:00 Yeah, that's- Like, you just look at his track record throughout the years, well, maybe Bernie's kind of fallen off recently. He's kind of- [laughs]... become something of an establishment shill. 18:07 But at the end of the day-Highly consistent with his views, and I do think that that's probably good placement for him. I don't think many people in the degen crowd know who Matt is, and that's probably for the best. 18:19 No, absolutely none of the degen crowd know who Matt is, and it's also even- Mm... more like that because he is, ah, he left Twitter for Nostr, so he is, I would say, almost- Oh, right... 18:31 about as far, uh, left, and known by the laser eyes as you can possibly get. Yep. Um, but- Where do we put him on the influence scale? 18:40 That's a- 'Cause that's an interesting- That's a hard one, because I would actually say he's very influential in privacy, but I don't know if he's that influential in, like, Bitcoin discourse. I think, um, yeah. 18:54 Yeah, it's, it's, it's an interesting question, right? 18:57 Because we almost need to have, like, two different axes for influence, where you have Luke and Udi right now on the board, where in terms of Bitcoin development- Yeah... they're very influential. 19:08 Um, or at least pushing conversations in that way for Udi. For, for Luke, legitimately making changes to Bitcoin and- Yeah... being the most prolific developer, one of the most in recent memory. 19:18 But Matt, like, is extremely influential culturally. Yeah. 19:22 I mean, from everything from Citadel Dispatch to, like you said, a lot of his comments on privacy, I mean, he is kind of the cypherpunk ethos embodied in a Twitter or now Nostr- Yeah... uh, account, right? 19:37 But- I'm gonna put him at medium influence because 19:41 I wonder, like, if he had a strong opinion on, like, what Bitcoin should look like in the future, I wonder if he would have- Would he actually be able to move the needle, yeah. Yeah. 19:49 No, and I think that maybe should be the litmus for this. It's like how- Yeah... influential are they for the future of Bitcoin, right? Yeah. 19:57 And, and I don't know if Matt is for that in terms of, like- I think he's trying not to be, so- I think so, and that- Which, honestly, respect... that's, yeah. Again, put respect on the name. All right. 20:08 [laughs] So if we're gonna take respect off the name- Mr. OnlyFans. [laughs] Mr. OnlyFans here, we have Robert Breedlove. And so if you're watching this, you probably have no idea who this guy is. 20:18 Um- This, like, Abercrombie model. Um, he's, a, a little background on him, I believe he's from Cha- Chattanooga or Knoxville, Tennessee. He's somewhere from Eastern Tennessee. Yeah. Shout out to my home state. 20:30 Um, he looks like he's from there, and, and I don't know if you know what I mean by that, but this, you know, people from, uh, Eastern Tennessee and Appalachia have this kind of Scotch-Irish look. But- But, um- 20:42 Poster child for- Yeah, I don't know... poster child for Bitcoin think boy, non-technical, I'm going to- They al-... open up the Bible and tell you how Bitcoin works kinda guy. Yes. Yeah, very much so. 20:54 Um, you know, he's a part of this class of podcaster from the last bear market, and really before then. Yeah, I think he really started having his come up right before 2020. And, um, you know, his podcast got really big. 21:07 The, I think it's what, Money Sh- the Bitcoin Money Show or- I don't even know what it is. I don't- The Hard Money Show... it's so low signal that I, that it doesn't even pop. I don't even know what it is. 21:15 But, you know, he's kind of become persona non grata after, uh, after some weird family drama with his baby mama, which we won't get into- Yeah... because we're not a gossip column. I'm, I, can I editorialize this? 21:26 I think he's a shitbag, but, um- [laughs] Yeah. [laughs] Yeah. Yeah. I'll just be straight up about that. Um- But, but do, but do the dirty degens know who he is? No. 21:37 They have absolutely no who this person, uh, no idea who this person is. Yeah. Okay, well, I think firmly, yeah, and I think that the influence thing is, is, is- Yeah. 21:47 He's, like, virtually not, yeah, I don't think he's very influential at all. Okay, now this one's gonna get us in trouble. [laughs] Money Skeleton. It's Money Skeleton. [laughs] Vitalik. 22:01 Famously argued on Twitter that he could, uh, make an argument that child porn does less harm than heroin. Bro, that was eight years ago. It still happened. But yeah. It still happened. It still happened. Um, [laughs] 22:16 not an indictment of his character, I'm sure. Yeah. I think, I think people, uh, I don't think, I think people think that Vitalik is probably way more calculated than he is. 22:27 I think he's this, like, super weird, uh, online cat guy. He's, he's an autistic savant. Autistic savant. And so he doesn't, you know, I often have this same thought about, um, about Elon Musk too. 22:40 It's like, you thought the dude trying to go to Mars was gonna be normal? Like, you thought that his online presence would be, would be kosher? 22:48 Um, you know, and, uh, sim- similarly with Vitalik, I think that's a good point. So, but I- I think, you know, firmly, [laughs] when we have Charlie say- Skrilla Skel... Skrilla Skel, he is very skeleton-like. 23:01 Um, is, and, and also, I guess, looks like Skrilla, uh, Sk- Skrilla? Maybe. I don't know. Um, be firmly in the middle. Yeah, firmly in the middle. He's well-known by everybody. 23:12 But, but here's the question with Bit- Bitcoin influence, though. I mean, can we make that argument? Probably not. 23:18 I would say he's very, he has very, very low influence currently on the, what the future of Bitcoin looks like. 23:26 But invariably, if he comments on Bitcoin, it is in every news publication, it is circulated, and everybody sees that comment. That's true. But it, it's just not influential, I would say. 23:38 But he's just like the- That's very true. I think people think that he's not a big megaphone, but he is. He's probably, outside of Saylor, the biggest megaphone. Oh, wow. You think that, that, that big of a megaphone? 23:51 I might, I might, I might say that, yeah. I would put him smack dab in the middle for influence. Yeah. Um, just because nothing he says is going to 24:04 really move the needle for development or for adoption of Bitcoin, I really don't think, 'cause, I mean, basically everything, more or less everything that Eth stands for at this point is kind of completely diametrically opposed to a lot of the values, I think, that drive Bitcoin development.I would agree P- proof of stake and just blockchain bloat, I think are the two biggest, you know, kind of bellwethers there, so- Yeah All right. 24:28 M- your Cyber Hornets fan- Michael Saylor, I feel like we don't even have to, like, really talk about. I think he's the most well-known person and probably the most influential. That's crazy to me. Yeah? Do you disagree? 24:42 Or what do you think? No, no, no, no, no, I don't disagree. I just find it wild. Yeah. I mean, it's like- Yeah, it's wild. He showed up like four years ago... 24:49 because like all, like, you know, all he does is go on podcasts. He's like, "Bitcoin is digital energy. It's a thousand million Cyber Hornets acting in unison, making this beautiful sound money." Like- Yeah... 25:01 um, but I guess that's- What it ta- you know, all it takes sometimes Yeah. He just, he's the king of aphorisms and tired analogies, but, like, God, at least- The aphorism is, is, is good Yeah. 25:15 He's so influential because- Oh, I love Luke, though. Okay, I, I think, again, we need to clarify what the influence means, because I think- The influence of the fut- of Bitcoin today and the future of Bitcoin. 25:27 So if Michael Saylor came out super hard on anything Bitcoin technical, uh, if he, he's going to be, uh, any time that he wants, um, if the government, whatever, government wants to, like, reference- Okay. Yeah. 25:40 All right. That's fair... what the corpora- corporations are doing, he's the guy. Well, and if other, you know, corporations adopt the master strategy, or the, the MicroStrategy, excuse me. 25:50 I call it master because every time I see the acronym- But they're, they're doing that. Like, that's what's happening right now... sort of. I mean, it's like we haven't really seen the dominoes fall yet, right? 25:59 Like, if Microsoft does it, then, like, 100%- Yeah... completely, um, a, a game changer. But do you know what I mean? It's like it hasn't- Yeah... been, Saylor's the Coldplay of Bitcoin [laughs] The Coldplay Holy shit. 26:13 [laughs] That's a good one. Thank you, Charlie, for the comment. That's really good, because you know, that's, that is actually perfect. He's so polarizing. People either love or hate him, much like Coldplay. 26:24 But everybody listens to him. But everybody listens to him, that's true. Is Coldplay, are they a British band, or are they an American band? They're British. See? Okay, never mind They've transcended, uh, nationality. 26:35 That's how big they are. Okay, all right. Um- Here we have, um, here we have Brian Armstrong- Mr. Armstrong... CEO and founder of Coinbase. I mean, firmly in the middle two. Maybe- I would put-... a little more... 26:49 I'd put- Yeah, maybe a little more to the degens... Armstrong a little more known in the dirty degens. Yeah. And I would put him as very, very, very influential- Yeah, 100%... for crypto. Baldilocks. Hey, so- Sovereign. 27:02 It's good to see you, man. [laughs] It's been a while. I hope you're doing well up there in the Great White North. Yeah. Um- Welcome, Sovereign Stoic. Baldilocks, there we go. Yeah, I think that's fair. 27:13 I mean, he is the CEO of the largest financial, Bitcoin financial institution in the US. Um, conceivably, I mean, you might even argue in the world in terms of actual legitimate volume, right? Um- Yeah... 27:26 Binance probably still ahead, but regardless, one of the largest exchanges turned financial institution in the world, only publicly traded exchange that deals with crypto assets. 27:37 Um, you know, he's probably been at n- numerous talks with regulators and with officials and politicians about Bitcoin. Yeah. Um, definitely someone to be reckoned with, I think- Yeah... on a national scale. 27:48 For anyone who's just joining, this is a spectrum of how well-known each of these figures is among these different camps. We're not classifying Luke as a dirty degen. 27:59 We're rather just saying, he's pretty well-known in the degen camp. Um, so on to the next one. I wanna try to get this tighter. We have, uh, Jack Dorsey. Jack Dorsey. Um, yeah, this is a good question. 28:17 Prob- yeah, I think so. I think probably no, that's maybe a little too far. Yeah. Okay. Eh. Yeah, I think that's probably right. It's funny because, like, the degens will know who Jack Dorsey is from Twitter. 28:28 I would think- But they don't know about Bitcoin involvement, yeah... exactly. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's probably true. I would also put him, I would bump his influence up probably, I don't know, you can't really say... 28:42 Well, I don't know- I think he's tr- I think, I mean, he funds a lot of, he funds a lot of stuff Yeah Like, he's the largest funder of any, of all Bitcoin core dev stuff. 28:50 But I think he's trying to be as, like, removed from, from influence as possible Yeah, 100%. 28:57 Um, I think, though, with Cash App and the fact that he founded one of the largest social media networks that is kind of the n- um, nucleus of discussion for all of the talk re- regarding Bitcoin, right? 29:11 I mean, I don't think you can find a forum where Bitcoin is discussed more than, than Twitter. Yeah. 29:18 Um, now X, obviously, which is monumental from the- But his time is spent on Nostr, the great irony And also, but I, I would bump him up a little bit higher than that, honestly, just because, like, yeah, maybe he doesn't have as much say, um, 29:35 he hasn't been around as long and doesn't have as much say, maybe, as a Brian Armstrong, but, like, he's one of the most well-known and powerful social media moguls in the world. Yeah. 29:45 And he also, I mean, not just Cash App, but his company Block, I mean- Yeah... they are building an ASIC chip. They're like, they have their own ASIC miner manufacturing biz. They've got, like, R&D for Bitcoin software. 29:59 I mean, you know, they're doing a lot of stuff behind the scenes. Uh- Yeah... so I think that, yeah, definitely more influential than not. Oh, man, a blast from the past. Andreas. Andreas Antonopoulos. 30:12 Who doesn't love Andreas? I feel like every single person got their start listening to him and then strayed from Andreas if they, he said the wrong thing. 30:22 But this is a guy who's done his own thing for forever-I would say this. If we were to roll the clock back seven or eight years, whatever the Laser Eye camp would be, he'd be influential and well-known. Yeah. 30:35 But today, not very well-known. He, he, he got excommunicated after writing the, um, the, uh, Mastering Ethereum. Yeah. Which I- I think is, um, a, a, a totally shortsighted move from a lot of the... 30:49 And, and kind of a damning thing for the thought, you know, um, class of, of Bitcoin maximalists because I get it, like, you don't like Ethereum, you think it's a scam, whatever. 31:02 The, the guy's an educator, and he was talking to rooms of, like, three people [laughs] about- Yeah... 31:07 Bitcoin consensus and how all of this works before i- i- before your favorite podcaster even decided to pick up a mic. So- Yeah... I definitely think- The funny thing- Go ahead... 31:18 he, he still talks to em- kind of empty rooms. He streams to a, like a very modest few hundred people on Twitter today. Hmm. That's interesting. I didn't even know that. So he's so far out of the discourse at this point, 31:33 um, I feel like that is really indicative of the point in time we are. Yeah. To, to borrow a phrase from Kamala Harris, let's talk about the importance of the passage of time. 31:43 [laughs] Um, I think that that's, like, super indicative of where we are in this current moment. 31:47 The early adopters of Bitcoin were fastidious in their study of how it works, and obsessive over the technicals of Bitcoin, because there was never anything like it. Mm-hmm. 31:59 I think that now that the community has been really diluted, it's much more difficult for the average Bitcoiner to wrap their mind around a lot of these things. 32:07 It's much easier to talk about, um, economic philosophy, number go up, social ramifications, things like that. Which Andreas kind of also does. Yeah. He just didn't- Yeah... 32:18 do it in the way which was as memetic to the, to the modern face of Bitcoin. All right, so Charlie, uh, my question is if, uh, if Andreas is Paul McCartney, who is John Lennon? 32:31 [laughs] Um, I'm gonna say Lop is John Lennon. Yeah. I think it works really well. Well, except- And, but he's-... but he's not that much of a dick... Lop will wife. [laughs] I also don't think Lop would beat his wife. 32:40 I don't, I don't see that from Lop. [laughs] Lop, I would say, is, like, true neutral in Bitcoin, if we're gonna make a, uh, an alignment chart. Um, he's just as OG as Andreas. He is, yeah. He's just as technical. 32:54 He's really, really important in the discourse, but I would say he's not as infl- I would say he's actually still probably better known in maxi camps, although I think that could change. 100%. 33:05 I, I think- Uh, maybe it could change. I think that he's... Yeah, I would even maybe put him, yeah, like right there maybe. Yeah. 33:12 I mean, if, if you went to a JPEG salesman and asked them, [laughs] like, what, uh, do you know who this guy is? They might know, maybe just because of the Taproot Wizards profile. Yeah. 33:23 But- Well, and that's the irony is he's got a Taproot Wizard, but he, he's not as well-known really in the JPEG crowd. Yeah, yeah. I would bump up his influence a little bit, though. Yeah. Like, he's not very high, 33:34 right? Um, I don't think that he carries the weight that... Yeah, that's probably right. I don't think he carries the weight that, like, a Luke or a d- a, a or a, uh, you know, a Jack Dorsey carry. 33:45 But, I mean, y- I would put him in a class of, like, this guy really knows what he's talking about when it comes to Bitcoin. Yeah. He doesn't re- he doesn't do core development. Mm-hmm. 33:55 You know, he was a s- a co-founder I think, and CT- he's the CTO of Casa. Um, I could be wrong about those titles, but he's been involved with Casa since the beginning. And, um, he just really has the technical chops. 34:07 Yeah. I mean, like, he's definitely in, like, a top 20, top 10 in terms of, I think, Bitcoin developers. Yeah. And he's built a lot of custom tools to track Bitcoin. Yeah. 34:17 Like, if you need, if you have a question about something happening on Bitcoin, he's probably got a dashboard for it. Yes. Ansem, who you- All right, you had the-... 34:28 added to I have no idea who this was, so I guess y'all can see where I fall [laughs] more on the spectrum here. Um, th- first of all, the, is that actually him? That's actually him. That picture's hilarious. Yeah. 34:40 Um, I love his energy just looking at this. That's how most people feel. So, uh, the thing is, I put Ansem into the Bitcoin narrative, uh, camp because he has always been along Bitcoin, he's always been pro-Bitcoin. 34:54 He loves to talk about it, but he's most known as being the Solana and meme coin king. So right now, all the meme coins happening out there, they all, they're, he is the hegemon of this entire meme coin movement. 35:10 And therefore, because the meme coin movement is significantly affecting Bitcoin's block space dynamics, he's very much related to this, although he doesn't talk very much in da- in detail about Bitcoin itself. 35:26 Um, so the thing is, everybody watching this from the hardcore Bitcoin camp has probably never heard of this guy, so he's about as far- I, I-... on the degen spectrum I think so. I think that's fair placement. 35:37 And I don't- And with regards... Yeah, like, no influence. Um, w- with regards to influencing Bitcoin, not at all. Obviously, if this were about shitcoins and meme coins, 35:49 he would probably be, you know, up at the top as- Yeah... some of the most influential. Yeah. Exactly, and it's funny, I almost think of him as the diametric opposition to Robert Breedlove. 36:01 [laughs] So this is, this is an interesting, uh, critique, right? Because a lot of the anon degen shitposting traders really just have fun and they don't take themselves seriously. Yeah. 36:18 And I think that that's what a lot of the Bitcoin podcasting circuit needs. It's like, 36:24 the, it's like almost this existential problem that you're trying to solve, right?And people treat it as such with Bitcoin, that it's this, you know, skeleton key to unlock all the goods in the world and to make everything better. 36:38 Yeah. And it's treated with the fervor and the ideology of, honestly a lot of stuff that I see from fringe political circles. Like, be that anarchist or communists, right? Yeah. 36:51 Okay, next one is one of my favorite wordsmiths, and, uh, one of my favorite people in, in like as Bitcoin Twitter was coming up is American Hodl. Um, he's really on Nostr these days, and- [laughs]... 37:06 he's never been, like, much of a podcaster. He's more of just like a talking head guy, and he would be the person who talks the most, and also he takes himself very seriously and not seriously at the same time. 37:21 A part of me loves him because he's so- He's the every man's- He- He's the every man's Bitcoiner. He, he is- He is- He is the stand-in for the average pleb who is just trying to escape the fucking Matrix, bro. Yeah. 37:37 He's just trying to stack enough Bitcoin so that they can have a better life, and so that they can save money for the future and not have their savings debased. Yeah. 37:47 I think that where you have him- Probably- Is probably perfect... probably top 10 people to get a beer or 10 beers with in Bitcoin. Oh, definitely 10 beers, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, 100%. 37:58 Um, ZK, uh, who we talked about on this before, kind of the, one of the rising stars in this post-Ordinals world, creator of the Ordinal Maxibis. 38:10 Uh, I would say they're like, it's the neo-laser eyes, but not with less, with le- with less baggage and a l- It's, it's- And a little- It's laser eyes that are shitcoin curious. Yeah. [laughs] You know? 38:21 They're, they're okay. It's k- [laughs] it's like- Yeah... like the libertarian compliment to, like, r- uh, old-school Republicans. It's like, "Got similar leanings, but we also are okay with pot and gay marriage." 38:33 [laughs] Yeah. Exactly. Um, yeah. Um- I love ZK, but he's, uh, what's funny is, like, I would say he's highly influential in, um, Ordinals because he says so little, and when he does, it becomes, like, a thing. 38:49 He's very much a man of, a man of action, and then it becomes a, a narrative or a thing. Um, I don't think he's that influential in the Bitcoin discourse yet, but it, he, he, he could be, and I think he wants to be. 39:06 Um- See, I think it's gonna be hard. I honestly think, yeah, that's probably good. I, I don't think any Bitcoiners, like, hardcore know who he is. No. 39:14 I think anyone involved in Ordinals and inscriptions are gonna have a really hard time breaking into Bitcoin thought leadership. Yeah. For be- for better or worse. But do they need to? 39:24 'Cause the thing is, like, it's all about top of funnel. I don't think so. I don't think they need to. I, I would also just make a, a point, and sorry, not to belabor things- No... but I know we need to get through it. 39:35 But- [laughs] The way that, uh, the Bitcoins com- uh, you know, all of these subcultures have evolved and the fact that the Bitcoin community has become more fragmented and, and, and fractured is a good thing. 39:45 You know, I think actually a- as long as, as people are united around the core ethos of, "Don't fuck with our coins, make sure we have the right to self-custody, make sure we have- Yeah... 39:56 the right to run our own nodes, make sure that we have the right to use Bitcoin," as long as that, everyone is, i- is, rallies around those problems, if the push ever comes to shove with institutions and governments, then that's fine. 40:09 But I think this is actually, all of these different subcommunities mushrooming is, is an indication of health. We don't wanna- Oh, yeah... 100%. This is agreed. We talk about this. Yeah. 40:18 Okay, I'm gonna skip past, uh, Pierre Rochard, OG, o- one of the first, like, Bitcoin think boys where the, his words have stood the test of time pretty well. Yeah. 40:30 Um, but, uh, he's fallen off a little bit, uh, in the t- in terms of, I would say, like, influence, and, um, he's not known at all among the degen crowd. Not known in the degen crowd. 40:44 I think Pierre is still firmly, um, pretty firmly known within the Bitcoin crowd. I, I, I would put him neutral in terms of influence. 40:53 Like, for maybe- Because of his, like, now he's involved in, like, the min- like, high-level, like, Bitcoin mining world, right? Um, partially, yeah. I mean, so, like, Pierre's trajectory has been interesting. 41:03 He kind of started out, I think he was a developer at some point. I could be totally wrong about that, but a lot of really good resources in the early days of Lightning. 41:12 Like, his guide for setting up a Lightning node- Oh... is still one of the, like, best that you can find. And, um, you know, obviously he and, um, Michael Goldstein, am I, th- that's right, right? 41:25 Um, the, uh- Goldstein, yeah. Bitstein. They had... Huh? Bitstein, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, I think it's Michael Goldstein, but anyway, Bitstein, they had, um, they had a podcast for a few years. 41:36 Like, maybe they still do it. 41:37 But now he works at Riot, and he's done a lot of, [laughs] you know, he's always, I always love it because whenever there's any news item about Bitcoin's energy use, he's in the comments section. 41:47 Um, my favorite line of his is, "Bitcoin doesn't, uh, release emissions," which is, [laughs] which is, is technically true. It's just such a hilarious way to troll and, like, kind of rewrite perceptions. 41:59 But yeah, because of some of that stuff, um, and just because I do think that he still carries a lot of weight with some maximalists in terms of what he says, I would put him firmly neutral in terms of influence. Yep. 42:12 Um, let's do Leonidas. Um, one of the most terminally online people. He is basically synonymous with the word, with the term Ordinals Twitter. Um, 42:26 but he's a fair- he's, he's pretty much a newcomer post-Ordinals, and, um-Has since literally day one had the biggest platform for talking about Ordinals stuff on Twitter, and he's probably the largest funnel through the Ordinals show of, like, new crypto people look- having their first conversations in a Bitcoin, 42:51 Bitcoin-only, Bitcoin space. That said, um- I don't think a lot of Bitcoiners know who he is. They don't really know... They, they... If they were to be like, "Who's a person in Ordinals?" They'd probably think of 43:04 him and maybe Udi and Casey, but- Yeah... I still think, I think he's, um, probably moderately influential just because he kind of commands the ho- the minds and brains of everybody in Ordinals right now. 43:21 He just, I just don't know if he knows what to do with it, so. Yeah. Specifically within that niche though too, right? Uh, I don't think- Yeah... that any, any, you know, influence over Bitcoin in general. 43:34 Yeah, very little. But it's funny because I know, like, he wants to have Opcat as a fork. He just [laughs] doesn't think... He, uh, he doesn't know any of, like, the core developers. 43:44 He doesn't know really anything about, like, who's doing what on Bitcoin. But he wants to, which I gotta give him credit. Um, Casey. Okay. Probably one of the most controversial figures of the last few years. 44:02 Feels like- Voted the most important person in crypto by CoinDesk of 2023. Really? Number one. That's wild. Yeah. Also, one of the best podcasters in Bitcoin. Hell Money is great. Probably- Shout- Yeah. 44:19 Shout out to- A close second to Bitcoin Season Two. [laughs] Um, yeah, I, I think smack dab in the middle. I- Or maybe a little bit, uh- I think, yeah, probably- Yeah. Yeah... I think he- So I... 44:36 What's funny is, like, I think he's intentionally trying to stay as far away from any soft fork discussion or any about, any about, like, what Bitcoin should do in the future, but if we wanna talk about, like, 44:47 90% of the things happening on Bitcoin right now are literally things that Casey in a cave with, uh, just like Iron Man building his first suit, in a cave with a, with a, with a wrench, like, built, and now they're, like [laughs] 45:03 the entire Bitcoin economy. You mean provenance? No. I'm talking about Ordinals and Runes. Oh. But he's, he's- 'Cause I was- Yeah. I was gonna say, uh, 45:14 a lot of the discussion about the current soft fork activation I think is downstream of Ordinals and Runes. Um- Yeah... it got people excited with development on Bitcoin again. Um, I think that's about right. 45:28 Eh, it's a little too high. I don't think I'd put him above Luke. I don't think, I don't think I can, I don't think we can do that. He's not more influential than Luke or Brian Armstrong. 45:37 Definitely more influential than Udi, though. Maybe not. I don't know. I, I'm gonna put him a little, a little higher than Udi. Oh, Udi just got demoted. [laughs] Yeah. I just demoted you, Udi, so sorry. [laughs] Okay. 45:53 [laughs] That's funny, is it really even that far? This little cluster right here is weird. That far? This little cluster is weird. That far on the dirty degen side, though? 46:01 G- 'Cause I think a lot of Bitcoiners know him just out of spite. Yeah. Like, he's the man who destroyed [laughs] the fee market. But then came and saved it. We should, we should, we should talk about that. 46:13 But they don't view it like that. Yeah. He did save it, [laughs] but he did save it. He did save it with Runes. Which I always see these faces that say, "Runes were a mistake." I don't really understand that. 46:21 I think- Oh, it's a joke. It's a tongue in cheek- Oh... cheek joke. Okay, that makes more sense. That makes a lot more sense. Let's go to Preston Pysh, who- Preston. I have no, um, opinions about Preston. 46:35 Um- He's not known hardly at all. I would say probably he's around Pierre Rochard, and he's not influential at all in the future. 46:44 Well, I'd put him above Robert, 'cause he's really influential in like the Bitcoin investor class. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, he's got the... 46:52 I don't know if he peeled off from the, uh, what was that, uh, Billionaires N- what was it, what was the podcast, uh, uh- Oh, Invest- Yeah, the Invest Like, uh, Warren Buffett podcast or whatever thing? 47:04 No, it's like, um, We Interview Billionaires or something. It was like this whole- Yeah, but it was like in the style of, he got inspired by in- he's, uh, Warren Buffett, but he likes Bitcoin. That's the difference. 47:14 Okay. Anyway, good podcast. Um, interesting stuff to say. Definitely gives a nice kind of credence to a lot of the maximalist talking points from a more buttoned-up individual coming from more tradFi circles, so. Yeah. 47:29 On, uh, we have Jack Mallers, who I would actually kinda put as like, uh, Pysh but maybe a little more influential, 'cause he's done some notable, like- I mean, I would-... things. I'd definitely put him... 47:42 I think we have to put him not, not as much as... Yeah, you gotta put Lop a little bit for- Yeah, I think that's about right. Because at the end of the day, uh, like Jack Mallers, 47:52 um, I mean, you could argue, though, a lot of the stuff in El Salvador- His-... he had his hands in that. He, he gets to own the, uh, that, that early El Salvador narrative, 'cause he announced it. 48:06 Strike was- He w- the- Yeah. Strike was working with the El Salvadorian government to discuss logistics. I don't know if they contracted them to build Chivo. 48:15 I would have a hard time believing that, 'cause Chivo is such a trash app. [laughs] Um, and I just wanna say something about Strike too for a second. Strike, to me, is one of the coolest apps. Yeah. 48:25 One of the coolest wallets in Bitcoin. 48:27 I don't think people really appreciate, and there was a lot of hand-waving when this came out, but like you can use Strike right now to send out a remittance to your friends in Great Britain, and it settles instantly. 48:39 Like, there is nothing-There's no- like, it settles in pounds, and you can do it dollar-denominated. There is nothing in the world that does that, that I'm aware of currently. 48:50 Um, I mean, that's a pretty, that's pretty incredible. Yeah. Using lightning or- Strike one of the better... Strike consistently one of the best, like, sleeper, um, onboarding wallets. Yeah. Used to be Olympus. 49:04 I, uh, interviewed him a few times while I was at Bitcoin Magazine. Oh, yeah. Now we have Senator Todd Emmer, the k- the guy who- Representative. Representative, I think. Oh, representative, whatever. 49:15 I think he's a rep- yeah. The guy who in a room full of, like, Bitcoiners would probably not be recognized if he weren't wearing a suit. But- That's true. 49:24 But a, but a, a, uh, you know, I think it's, like, him, Warren Davis, and Cynthia Lummis have been some of the biggest champions of Bitcoin in Washington. Yeah. So- He's the House Majority Whip, and he knows Bitcoin. 49:40 He, uh, he knows Bitcoin really well. He's a, a very, very strongly pro-Bitcoin, and he's like... What? That's... Isn't that fourth in line for, uh, president? The whip? No, I don't think so. 49:53 I think it goes- I don't know... vice president, secretary of state, speaker of the house. Speaker of the house. Gotcha, okay. Never mind then. Whatever. I don't know this shit. I'm a Bitcoiner, so- [laughs] 50:05 He just- Or maybe it's not even speaker of the house. It might be something else. It is speaker of the house. Okay. But, like, I would say he's highly influential because anything... 50:16 He's one of the most influential people in... Anytime there's, like, a, a panel in DC on crypto, he's, like, the guy. He's one of the only people who has any productive conversations in that godforsaken city. Right. 50:33 So I need to correct something. It goes vice president, speaker of the house, president pro tempore of the Senate. Maybe that's just president of the Senate. Yeah. 50:39 Secretary of state, secretary of treasury, secretary of defense, attorney general, secretary of- Okay, the whip's not even on there. [laughs] Um, 50:49 yeah, so in terms of influence, this is in, this kind of raises an interesting question, where do we put political influence on this? Because certainly not nothing. I don't, I, I, I don't think you can say it's nothing. 51:02 Certainly not super influential, though. Um, at the very least, it's nice to have allies in Washington, you know? But I would put him higher than, like, most of the people we've put kind of s- slightly below half. 51:19 Like, I would put him as he's probably better known among the hardcore Bitcoin crowd. Yeah, 100%. 51:25 I don't think any meme coin trader- And he's not as influential as Dorsey, but, like, I think he's a little above average on influence. Yeah, I would say, I would say that's true. Yeah. Probably right there. Yeah. 51:40 All right. Okay. Mr. Obnoxious himself. [laughs] Mr. Obnoxious. Peter McCormick, the Adam Curry of Bitcoin podcasts, the Bitcoin podcasting podfather, um- One of the best podcasts in Bitcoin, I would say, ever. 51:56 Hands down. Yeah. Hands down. I mean, he's, he's a great host. He's got good energy. He's always had good conversations. 52:04 People criticize him for not knowing enough about Bitcoin after running a Bitcoin podcast for eight years. Probably fair. Um- It's a fair criticism. He doesn't really seem to try. Probably fair. 52:12 [laughs] Um, maybe it isn't eight years. It's since 2017 maybe that he started it, but anyway. Whatever. Um, firmly in the middle, I feel like. 52:21 I, I feel like every time a- I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say he's, uh, he, he pr- leans pretty, uh, pretty firmly maxi. But I th- Well, oh, but I think most crypto people would know who he is. Like- Crypto, that's true. 52:39 Like- That's true. Crypto people would know, but the degens don't know him, so okay, we're gonna put him maybe like, like, right here. Okay. Slightly. Okay. But as for influence- I don't think very much... 52:49 no, I don't think so. I mean, a great podcaster, had some amazing conversations. Definitely good at educating people on a bunch of different topics. 52:57 But, you know, like, if B- if, if Peter came out in favor of OpCat, I don't think anyone would care. Yeah. Nobody, it wouldn't change- You know? Like, no one... No, it would, it wouldn't change. 53:06 It'd be like, you know, it'd be like us coming out in favor. It'd be like, okay, cool. Like- [laughs] Like, cool, cool opinion, bro. You should put it on your trophy shelf. 53:14 Um- Exactly, with all the other ones, 'cause the man has won some trophies with his soccer team. Oh, yeah, Real Bedford. Uh, shout out to the- Men's and women's... Skeletons? Or currently men. What's their... 53:27 I don't know what their [laughs]... I don't know what their mascot is. But Peter has aspirations to make it to the Premier League. Um, never been done before. 53:36 Uh, Real Bedford was at the bottom of the, uh, of the league structure in the UK. I think it's, like, seven or eight leagues. Um- Yeah. I hope they make it. So- It'd be amazing- Yeah... if it happens. Yeah. 53:48 Also top five people to have a beer with. I've had many beers with him. [laughs] I think many people have. Mm-hmm. Um- Definitely a guy to have a beer with. Um, super fun. Definitely. 53:59 And shout out to his, uh, producer, co-host, Danny Knowles. Yeah. The whole gang. And if you, go check, and go check out his new, 'cause, you know, he sunsetted What Bitcoin Did. Now it's Mr. 54:07 Obnoxious, which is just so funny. [laughs] It's like the, the British l- uh, libertarian, uh, Joe Rogan. Kind of, yeah. Would we call him a libertarian at this point? People used to call him a statist. 54:21 I think, I think a lot of the arguments won him over, though. 54:24 I think it, I think he, he really made the jump when he, like, he had a tweet a while back, I think, where he was like, "Okay, now I'm starting to question taxes." [laughs] See, see the, I, the, I don't know. I... 54:34 Peter, I love the guy, but I think he, I think he's the great- the best example of audience capture, where I don't know if he actually [laughs] became libertarian. 54:43 [laughs] I think it's just his audience bullied him into becoming a libertarian. [laughs] Right. Right.Okay. Uh, Frank. DGODS Frank, creator of DGODS, and 54:58 um, one of the only, like I would say, success stories of the last bear market for NFTs. Frank was like the lone rising, uh, guy, and he's been really, really influential into NFTs. 55:13 Lately, uh, you know, NFTs are pretty vapid and change year to year or week to week. But he's, uh, you know, one of like the biggest names in the NFT world, and he's very pro-Bitcoin. 55:30 Um- Yeah, but I don't think Bitcoiners know who he is. I, I don't think- Nobody, none of the Bitcoiners know who he is. Uh- Um, I would put him a l- under-- He's gonna- Yeah... he'd be dying if you're watching this. 55:41 I'm gonna put him under ZK in influence. [laughs] Um, uh, but yeah. So- Yeah. One of the, one of the blue chip NFT collections, uh, he ported it to Bitcoin, um, last year, I think. 55:57 He made an Ordinals collection. Luxor was actually involved in that mint. Yeah. And, um, yeah, I, I think it's a, it's a step above Lazy Lions, but I, I honestly, I think they're so fucking ugly. Like I, 56:11 you know- Lazy Lion? [laughs] Do you, do you remember Lazy Lions from- Bro, yeah. I- There's some- There's some MicroStrategy suit giga- Gigabull guy who's got a Lazy Lion as his profile picture, and I just... 56:25 I don't know, it, it splits my brain. Wait, there's a MicroStrategy, like C-suite executive that has a Lazy Lion? No, no, no, he's become like, I actually- Oh, he's become a MicroStrategy Gigabull. That's so funny. Yeah. 56:36 Lazy Lions- All right... might be the most odious and offensive [laughs] NFT collection. You heard it here first. Lazy Lions- The worst NFT... dreamier-ass art. [laughs] Let's, let's do, uh, Adam Back last. 56:50 Let's do- Okay... Cynthia Lummis. Um, we feel kind of bad, she's the only, only girl on our lineup here. Wow, you didn't have to point it out. But I did. Now we're gonna get, now we're gonna get canceled. 57:00 Our Patreon's gonna get pulled. Just kidding, we don't have a Patreon. Just kidding, we don't have one. Ha, suck a hell money. [laughs] Definitely second-best podcast. [laughs] Um- Yeah... 57:10 yeah, Cynthia Lummis, again, just a, a really big champion of Bitcoin in the Senate. Um, she is, she's Bitcoin grandma. We love her. Um, probably similarly influential. 57:23 I would pr- honestly put her almost completely overlapping with Tom Emmer. I'd put her a little bit below- Maybe a little bit more influential... she's on the same team as him maybe. 57:31 I think a little more influential though. Yeah. Because she has been one of the loudest proponents, um, in, in Washington. Yeah. I would agree. 57:45 And she's on the s- she's on the stage of every Bitcoin conference, so she's- Yeah... probably a little more well-known than Emmer, who, 57:54 um, Emmer doesn't, like do a lot of speaking gigs, but Cynthia Lummis is pretty, like out in front, like, uh, on stages, talking panels, podcasts, that kind of thing. Yeah, agreed. All right. Okay. 58:08 Now for Satoshi Naka- Next one... sorry, uh, Adam Back, excuse me. [laughs] We should just bl- no, you should actually just make it that big. [laughs] The whole, the... Oh, man. 58:23 [laughs] So I, for the listener, I blew up Adam Back's face really big because- What's funny is, like, 58:36 respect to the guy, but he's kind of like old now, and I don't- Yeah... 58:42 like, he comments a lot of things, and I think he's really influential, but I don't know, man, he's like the, the most classic example of, like old guard Bitcoiner who's, like still around, 58:56 and- It's almost like if Jimmy Carter were to come back and start commenting- [laughs]... on American politics. [laughs] Like- Ex- That's a, such a... He's Jimmy Carter. 59:07 [laughs] And that's kind of unfair, 'cause Jimmy Carter is like 100 years old or something. [laughs] I will say, Jimmy Carter hasn't left, technically. Jimmy Carter's old as shit. 59:16 Um- Did you see the c- pictures of Jimmy Carter, like voting the other day? [laughs] No. Was it, like Weekend at Bernie's? [laughs] It looked like Weekend at Bernie's. Okay. Um, 59:29 so yeah, I mean, I think we can't make his influence zero, because this guy was cited in the white paper, and he still has technical chops that people- Yeah... really respect. 59:39 Um, like if Adam Back weighs in on something, and like if you go on Twitter, you know, like a lot of his stuff is, like bull posting. Um, it's almost kind of verges into, like Michael Saylor-esque kind of pump my bags. 59:51 Yeah. But when, when a technical topic is discussed, he weighs in, and you can just tell he's thinking about things on a level that most people just never will. That's true. So, um, 1:00:01 and interesting that you put him smack dab in the middle. I don't know if that's, that, maybe that makes sense. Um- He's probably more well-known. He's definitely, every- Yeah... 1:00:10 every, like laser eye knows him, and most- Yeah... most, uh, degens know who he is, but every laser eye knows him. Yeah. I think that's probably fair. Yeah. He notably, he's pro-Opcat, which is interesting. 1:00:26 Well, and you know, Blockstream has been pro-Opcat. I mean, Andrew Poelstra- Yeah... has been- Yeah... has worked on it. Um, yeah, that's interesting. 1:00:36 It, uh, the, the, the kind of surge of interest in Opcat has been fascinating to see. I don't have, I don't know enough about it to make an educated opinion, but- Yeah... it seems like a lot of people are pushing for it. 1:00:48 Obviously, Covenants are gonna be a good thing for Bitcoin, so it'd be nice to see something happen. I just- CTV when? Just activate CTV already. Activate CTV and Opcat. 1:00:58 Like, let's just like, let's get some, let's get some more funding into Bitcoin Core and get people working on these things. 1:01:04 Yeah.'Cause just to say something that we said on the podcast before, but wanted to circle it back to that conversation, the only reason CTV was really bike shedded, I think... That's the right term, right? 1:01:15 When you just put it in the shed and you forget about it, right? Isn't that- You put it in the shed 'cause you're gonna go work on it, and you never do. Okay. Right. 1:01:22 So it w- ended up being bike shedded because people had problems with how Taproot was activated. It had nothing to do with CTV. It was all, all of the debate was focused on how Taproot was activated. 1:01:34 Taproot was activated, and then how... And, and then also criticism h- of how Jeremy wanted to activate it. Yeah. He really messed up there. And then putting them way too fast, which- Yeah... is a different conversation. 1:01:44 I think that was probably a huge mistake on his part. He went to mining pools and asked, "Do you support this?" And then he had... But he was doing that in good faith, I think. 1:01:52 He wanted to say, "See, look, like miners are not going to neglect the upgrade, and then we're gonna have to have maybe a fork," right? Like, there's gonna be a contentious fork because miners aren't upgrading. 1:02:03 I think he was trying to do that to show like, they're gonna upgrade to this if, if we end up pushing forward a soft fork. Yeah. So... But, but definitely one of those things where just was not, seemed very, uh... 1:02:15 Or it was kinda clumsily done and, and was not... Didn't read the room properly, I think, at the time. I don't know. 1:02:21 My argument is that the room didn't, didn't want anything to be read, and the room, there was absolutely no way to do it the right way. That... My view is that there was absolutely no way to do it the right way. 1:02:31 I think that's probably true. I think people thought that it was too soon. We just had Taproot. Why are we rushing something else out? Yeah. 1:02:38 Um- I really think that the Taproot wizards approach is like one of the only ones that works, is you have to get a bunch of money, you have to activate a teeming f- uh, feral horde of cats, and you have to be kind of reductionist, and then serve up the top-tier technical talent to back it up. 1:02:58 But I don't know. Yeah. I think there might be something to that. Like, they understood that you have to win the culture war before you can win the technical war in a way. Yeah. 1:03:07 And that's where a lot of the marketing comes in, right? Like the Bitland thing, and their like weird, cartoonish, Rugrats-esque white paper. [laughs] It wasn't really a white paper. It's a storybook. Yeah, I know. 1:03:20 And that's, you know, I do think there's something to be said. Shinobi railed on them for that, and I think he's kind of right. 1:03:25 Like, uh, th- there's a certain level that we need to have in terms of the discussion, um, and that- that's not it. 1:03:31 One last thing to say about, uh, activation stuff, because it, I bookmarked it in my head when we were talking about Saylor. One of the things in that interview with him that is belied by his response is 1:03:46 one of the dangers of concentrating Bitcoin in the hands of institutions is that really, at the end of the day, the economic majority decides the, the results of a contentious fork. 1:03:58 You, we can screech all day about nodes, like having a vote and all that stuff, and that's true. If you run the code, you can have whatever you want, and you, you can pick what you want. 1:04:07 But if 50%, 51% of Bitcoin is held within major financial institutions and they wanna push forward a change, guess what? The market is gonna side with them- Yeah... 1:04:15 because that's where the economic value is, and I think that's one of the real dangers with the, that, that kind of, um, that kind of custodial talk, so. Yeah. The... 1:04:25 I feel like, like we're, we're gonna be talking about, uh, soft forks a lot. Um, [laughs] where are we gonna be talking about them, Charlie? I know. That's... It's call to action. 1:04:36 For the few, for the people who are still listening, we got you locked in. You can't escape. Make sure you head to opnext.dev, O-P-N-E-X-T dot D-E-V. 1:04:47 We have a conference, a Bitcoin scaling conference November 9th, Boston, Massachusetts. That's right, a Bitcoin- We're going to Boston, baby. We're going Boston in the fall. 1:05:00 And if you made it this far, we're gonna give you a super top secret discount code. You can use my last name- [laughs]... Spears, S-P-E-A-R-S, for 30% off your ticket. 1:05:14 That takes your GA pass down from $100 to $70. So November 9th in Boston. But I don't know, like, Colin, this is... We ha- We're at... Let's pat ourselves on the back here. This is a hell of a speaker list here. This is. 1:05:30 This is a really good speaker list. We've got Steve Lee and Ren talking about stakeholders in Bitcoin consensus. 1:05:37 Gonna be a really good talk about a paper that, uh, they put together with some, uh, in, with some other folks, including Len Alden, looking at how consensus on Bitcoin works, um, exactly what it means, how loose it is, and how it's coordinated. 1:05:50 We've got Portland HODL talking about do we even need a soft fork? We got Peter Todd talking about, uh, covenants and what they might do for the layer two ecosystem. We got Jeremy Rubin talking about Op CTV. 1:06:02 The Jeremy Rubin. The Jeremy Rubin coming out of hiding, [laughs] coming out of his hiatus- [laughs]... talking about Op CTV. Got Ethan Heilman gonna talk about Op Cat. 1:06:13 Brandon Black talking about collaborative harm reduction. I don't know if that has anything to do with Allen Hance. Got Rindahl talking about dev tooling post-covenants. 1:06:21 Uh, we've got Pete Rizzo giving a talk about the orig- the form of bitcoins for soft forks. Tadje Dryja talking about scaling Bitcoin and the hard fork. Tadje Dryja, the co-inventor of Lightning, mind you. 1:06:33 That's good plug. Thank you for the, the extra commentary there, Charlie. Uh, Robert Miller talking about Ethereum MEV, trigger alert. Uh, we got Rusty Russell- Hey... amazing, coming all the way from Down Under. 1:06:47 Well, he's- Uh, so I mean, he is, uh, the, he is, uh, video conferencing in. This is our video conference. But it makes more sense. Okay. Yeah. But still exciting. Right. 1:06:55 Rusty, one of the, one of the great, uh, Bitcoin developers. Um, lot of work on, on Lightning as well, talking about the great script restoration. 1:07:04 Then we're closing out with some amazing panels on activation-And other scary words, and also just the ju- what, what are we gonna get? Are we gonna get a soft fork or not? 1:07:15 Then we also have on the workshop track bunch of great presenters, uh, presenting a bunch of different soft forks- Brandon Roberts from Thundercore-... different applications from Shinigami- We got Alex B from ARC. Yeah. 1:07:27 Um, we got Paul Soares talking about, uh, BIP300 I guess or c- No, no, this is, this is, uh- What is it?... this is Core, uh, this is, uh, Core avoiding activated soft fork. It's like soft fork without Core. Yeah. Hmm. 1:07:43 Okay. Interesting. And yeah, so um, really great agenda we got lined up for y'all. We're really excited about it. I'm putting in a lot of man hours trying to get this all together. It's our first conference. 1:07:56 We're very n- we're, we're very self-conscious about it. We wanna make sure it's a good conference. Yeah. Um, and it's heavily technical focused as you can see. 1:08:05 This is not going to be your usual Bitcoin conference- Yeah... where people wax poetic about, um, ending the fiat standard and all these other things. No. 1:08:12 We're focused on soft forks, we're focused on scaling proposals, we're focused on layer two tech. We wanna have a heavy technical discussion, and we hope it's gonna be good fodder for discussion. 1:08:24 We hope to see y'all there. This is one which it's, we're not gonna, this is one where- Oh... if you're a JPEG trader, this is not where you come to. 1:08:29 However, if you are a degen who has a TCTO or like a dev you work with, you wanna send this person to the conference because it will give them the tools to, uh, navigate the very uncertain future of Bitcoin consensus. 1:08:44 100%. And so 200 for lunch, yes, we will be live streaming it on Twitter and YouTube I believe both. So, um, all the programming should come at you live. 1:08:54 We're working on getting that off the ground, and then you'll be able to find those recordings on the Block Space Media YouTube as well after the fact in case you miss it. Yeah. 1:09:05 So, um, without further ado, Colin and everybody, happy Friday. 1:09:09 Make sure if you're, uh, if you listen to this, this is a visual heavy, uh, one, so this is more of a throw it on the smart TV and watch it as you- Throw it on the smart TV. Yeah. 1:09:21 You know, uh, look, go on YouTube, make some hot chocolate after you carve pumpkins with your significant other- Yeah... or your cat. Yeah. Yeah. [laughs] But yeah, um, I guess that's a wrap, Charlie. 1:09:33 I hope y'all have a beautiful weekend, and we hope to see you next week where we will be talking about something, but hopefully it'll be in costume 'cause that'll be Halloween. Oh [laughs] we're committing to that. Okay. 1:09:45 I, I think we should. I think we should. Here we go. We gotta, we gotta have some kinda costume. I'll just do my normal Hunter S. Thompson crazy, uh, look. Oh, you do Hunter S. Thompson, I can do David Foster Wallace. 1:09:56 Honestly, [laughs] you... Oh my God, with a bandana? Let's, yeah, let's do it. [laughs] That's, that's great. That's actually amazing. With the circle glasses and you gotta like, talk really contemplatively. 1:10:05 [laughs] Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I love it. 1:10:08 Okay, until next time, see you later on Bitcoin- [outro music] 1:10:35 All right
