This conversation was recorded at Bitcoin Park’s December 2022 Open House, a monthly meetup event at Bitcoin Park in Nashville, TN featuring panel discussions on various Bitcoin-focused topics.
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December 2022’s Open House topic: Bitcoin and Ranching
Recorded: December 7, 2022
Bitcoin Empowers Ranchers, Farmers, Producers, and You
Fireside Chat with:
- Matt Odell, Bitcoiner
- Texas Slim, Founder - The Beef Initiative and Food Intelligence
Resources:
The Beef Initiative: https://beefinitiative.com/
Bitcoin Park’s meetup page: https://bitcoinpark.co
Bitcoin Park is a community supported campus in Nashville, TN focused on grassroots bitcoin adoption and a home for bitcoiners to work, learn, collaborate, and build.
[00:00:07]
Unknown:
I have our good friend, Texas Slim, here of the beef initiative. Raise your hand if you're already familiar with the beef initiative. Okay. We got, like, about half. I think a a great place to start is, first of all, Slim, you wanna introduce yourself and then explain what the beef initiative is and and why it's
[00:00:29] Unknown:
important. Thanks, Matt, and, thanks for, Josh, Rod, Matt, Mills, everybody here in Nashville. This is my 3rd or 4th time here. First off, how many of y'all thought that when you first saw Odell that he was intimidating? Raise your hand. Come on. Come on now. Whenever I, came into, Bitcoin, I saw Matt, and I was like, man, he's from he's from the north. I'm from freaking West Texas. Right? You know? It's like, I'm watching Matt. I was like, man, he's got some snap to him. He knows what he's doing. And all of a sudden, I say, man, he he's one of the most humble guys I've ever seen.
So I kinda like him. But I better prove myself a little bit before I approach him because I don't wanna larp into the space because he has a lot of people that watch him that are very intentional. And so that's what I wanted to kinda grasp this thing called the beef initiative onto. It was an effort to get in front of a certain crowd of people that know how to focus a little bit. They're kinda intentional with their lives and with their truths, and, they have kind of a pretty big yearning to basically build relationships. And I saw that the beef initiative, everybody's always asking me, hey, man. What's the beef initiative?
Is it like ButcherBox? And I say, hell no. ButcherBox. Do you know where ButcherBox gets their beef from? Prison. Prison? What do they what do they actually what do they do? What do they do? They captured the COVID fear porn market, and what did they do? They they they act like they're basically all about regenerative farming and ranching in the United States of America. Where do they get their beef? Well, a lot of people don't know. We'll just leave it at that. Supermarket. Supermarket. Yeah. Well, I heard someone say Australia. Isn't that where they get their beef? They get their beef from Australia. And so that beef should be staying in Australia.
And the only reason they can ship that beef to basically United States is because, well, where's our beef gone? Nobody knows. So what I knew what we had to do within the beef initiative, the beef initiative is about building relationships with people that actually know what the hell is going on in the beef industry. What better people to start with than you in the Bitcoin crowd? Because you're looking for truth, honesty, transparency, and authenticity. So and here we are. So whenever I met Rod, Matt, I knew for a fact that we were gonna do something in Tennessee because I built a relationship with Matt, Rod, Josh, Kim, Louise, everybody in this Bitcoin community.
That was I don't know. That was back in May. Since May, I've been driving the country, and I've driven over 40,000 miles now. And I've seen this country. I've met I don't know how many ranchers. I don't know how many people I've come in cross with that are looking for something different. And what they're looking for is they want to build relationships with the people that want to feed them. So what we've done in the beef initiative is we built an index that was voluntarily for the producers to come into our index so they could have a voice and they could start building relationships with people like you.
And so when we started in Kerrville, I had my first summit or whatever. It was a convention. It was an event. But we had, like, a 100 people show up. And I think at that time, that was in April, we had 3 producers in the index. And then whenever we went into, I believe no. That was back in November of last year. We had 3. Kerrville, we had 8. Well, I checked yesterday. Now we have a 110 ranchers and producers in the United States that are in the beef initiative, and they're saying, hey, we're over here. Where are you guys?
We wanna feed you. Where are you? And so what we've done is we built a collection of people that want to feed you across this nation, and they want to be heard, and they want to have a relationship with you. So with that saying, these relationships that you have through the beef initiative are something that is based on something that you both complement each other. And what they understand, a lot of them, is what Bitcoin is because it's based on decentralization. And that's one thing our ranchers and our producers understand. That's where my grandfather came from. That's where I came from in my little crazy ass mind.
We think decently. We think about 2 party systems. We think about, you know, peer to peer contact, shaking hands, looking at each other in the eyes, and basically being real, we can't find that anymore. What you can find is something that has value. And so the beef initiative is a lot of things, and I want you guys to figure out what the beef initiative is for you. I know what it is for me. I know where it came from, and I know exactly in my heart where I think it's going, but it's gonna basically be very dependent upon you making sure that you tell other people that there's people out there that want to feed you.
So we have a base basically a new beef industry that we're gonna create in the United States of America, and we're gonna do it with Bitcoin and relationship building. So that's kinda short. Thanks, Lynn.
[00:06:27] Unknown:
So I just wanna it's been a long, very good day. So I just wanna apologize ahead of time that I'm moving a little bit slowly. I do wanna thank Tom in the back. Forgot to thank Tom. He's our producer here at Bitcoin Park. Thank you, Tom, for doing the audio and recording this. And, Slim did mention Josh. Josh is our operations manager here. He handles everything at the park. So if you end up becoming a member, you will interact with him daily. The guy's a machine. He's absolutely amazing. He's not oh, he's in the room right now. Josh, raise your hand. That's that's our man over there.
So those who haven't been here before, the format's relatively simple. It's going to be a half an hour conversation between me and Slim. Get your questions ready, and at the end, we're going to do about 15 minute q and a. I really love the q and a. And the q and a is is a special part of what we do here, and that is not put on the podcast feed. So if you wanna be a part of the q and a, you gotta you gotta come and show up and and show a little proof of work. So, Slim, you like to talk in circles about what the beef initiative is. But when I first met Slim, we had about a 2 hour conversation. And by the end, it was just like, you gotta figure out what the beef initiative is yourself.
And me and my lady, we actually drove 22 hours to Colorado, very long ride where we got to really think to ourselves what the beef initiative is and why it's important. So, Slim, when you when you think about the beef initiative, I mean, to me, like, the the main the main thing is education. Everything comes down to education. And something I've seen firsthand working in Bitcoin, working with activists, now working with ranchers, is education is everything. There's there's a there's a massive shortfall in education across society at every facet.
So when you think about education, how how do you think about how how you're approaching it, how the team at the beef initiative is approaching, and how the community at beef initiative is approaching it? Sure.
[00:08:33] Unknown:
And that that's a good question because I look at education totally different. And, I would I never went to university. I got into I went you know, I kind of snuck into college when I wanted to to take classes, and I taught myself technology. So I always did technology and everything that I've done, and I've learned from grandfathers throughout our agricultural family, blue collar style, was observational science. And so you hear every time I talk to a rancher, you know, the one thing that was especially in the regenerative space is I say, what do you want people to know? And they say that I'm an educator first.
They come from that type of observational science that takes proof of work every day of their life. They watch the earth grow. They watch the earth move, and they find out ways to make it better and how to get energy out of the soil. Having that observational science is 10 times different than any type of education than a lot of our general public is used to. And so that's what we're bringing back is that this is a lifestyle. Style. It's not going to class. It's not going and sitting and listening to a professor. This is basically about going out there and becoming part of where you came from, and they have such a poetic way of teaching that education.
[00:09:54] Unknown:
It's it's kinda it's a back to the roots. It really is. And that's how human connection.
[00:10:01] Unknown:
Yeah. And, you know, I was sitting in because I, you know, I did a lot of food intelligence before I went in and did the beef initiative, and I was sitting in a bunk in the middle of North Dakota. I was on a harvest that I kinda embedded myself in to get a little bit deeper in the food intelligence, and I said, because you can go at this very midstream. Right? And you got up here. You got y'all ever fished midstream? You're not gonna catch any fish. You gotta get to the source of the seed. And I said, that's it. It's the source of the seed of where we came from. Who's doing that? And it's it comes from my grandfather. He basically he was the source of the seed of our family, of of all of the land, all the animals, and, you know, every everywhere that, you know, that I remember as a child that was always put your hands in the earth.
[00:10:50] Unknown:
So, I mean, before we move on, how do you embed yourself in a harvest?
[00:10:56] Unknown:
Well, I grew up in West Texas, and I grew up doing a lot of different things, cowboying, definitely doing combines, tractors, and, you know, we did we did that that type of hit West Texas life. And so I had a really good skill set, and that was one. And so I can know combines, and I know how to do harvest. I've done a lot of them. So So whenever I was doing food intelligence, once again, I woke up at 3 o'clock in the morning, and I said, man, I gotta put myself in a harvest company because I come from big tech, and I ended up being a research analyst. And so I'm gonna put all my skill sets together, and I'm gonna go embed myself in a harvest company
[00:11:35] Unknown:
so I can go And you just, like, show up? You're like, I'm gonna harvest with you? Well, I wrote a very good email. I can write.
[00:11:41] Unknown:
Okay. Perfect. It was I'll tell you what, man. I can bullshit, man. I'm a damn good bullshitter.
[00:11:48] Unknown:
Watch out because I'm always playing poker. Okay. So, I mean, you touched on this because I think your personal journey is really interesting. So you grew up in West Texas, just straight country. Yes. And then you ended up in tech. Yeah. Ended up in tech. So you were just, like, deep in the underbelly of modern culture and society. Yeah. And then what? There was just a wake up call, and then you you came back to the roots.
[00:12:14] Unknown:
Had to. It was it was fascinating because what happened to me being the cowboy, you know, kinda I grew up breaking shit, and I still break I broke my other damn phone on this trip. My truck is broken down. Are always broke. I know. They're always broke. I break a new one. Exactly. This is yeah. It is. I'm trying I was making sure that my open node had the authenticator on there. Have y'all ever used open node? Not yet? Bitcoin payment processor. Oh my gosh. Y'all are catching up. Alright. Here we go. But as as far as that is is that I break a lot of things.
But I, I've had over 20 bones broken, 14 pieces of metal in me. And so I got really busted up about 3 years ago and I damn near died. I mean, I went down and I hit the pain while I had an internal injury that basically made my kidney shut down. I got down to a £121, and that was my wake up call saying, okay, let's start being intentional about what we're going to consume. And so everything that I consume changed. My consumption model changed. And so I had to they gave me 6 weeks to live. And so I basically listened to the doctors, and they were giving me bad advice. The nutritionists were giving me bad advice, and that's when I said, okay.
We're gonna go on a journey here. We're gonna get back to basically the source of the seed of who we are. Where did we come from?
[00:13:40] Unknown:
And that that's where food intelligence was born, which was essentially an on the road research
[00:13:44] Unknown:
project. Right? Yeah. It was. I went at times, I was feeding communities. I would go into, homeless shelters. I was feeding, like, 250 people at a time once. We went through the church systems. I went and checked in with health clinics. I embedded myself in a harvest company. I made relationships with doctors, and started getting a pattern of, you know, metabolic failure in this country. And then then I just I knew that I had to start writing about it. And I had to, at one point in time, basically provide a solution because we can point fingers all day long, but we've got to give people market access to a better way of basically living.
[00:14:25] Unknown:
I mean, that's one of the things that I love about the beef initiative and why, I mean, you said I was intimidated. Obviously, most people in here didn't think I was intimidating. But Well, they're not gonna raise their hand. I I was I was, you know, I was pretty intimidated by the beef initiative movement at first, and that's part of what what what drew me to it was very similar to Bitcoin is is this it's a movement of radical personal responsibility. It's a movement of no excuses. Like, you can't you the only person to blame is yourself. You have to pick yourself up by your own bootstraps. And I like the challenge. The challenge is really interesting. Right? And, you know, someone I've never did not grow up on a ranch. You know? I I went to, like, petting zoos when I grew up.
And, I remember when we pulled up to Jason's Jason's ranch. Right? I was like I was like, are you know, I'm just gonna be a complete outsider. But when I when I left, these were my people. Right? I was part of I was part of this movement. And I I basically and, I mean, my wife, she was there already, to a degree, and and she's she loves the movement. It's very much a family first movement. Where am I going with this? Personal responsibility, that's one of the key tenants that it shares with the Bitcoin movement. The other thing is people one of the things I often hear, and I'm sure you hear it a lot, is beef initiative. It's called the beef initiative.
But it's not it's not just beef. It's so much more than beef.
[00:16:04] Unknown:
Beef is a tool for what we're doing. It's energy. It's basically it's a direct focus of basically starting over, and that's all it has to be. It doesn't have to be about consumerism. It's a value for value exchange that you're operating with with the rancher. The cow is basically a land tool. And for, you know, for ancient civilizations, we've always worshiped the cow. It's a starting point. If you know history, humans have always, from every religion every religion, the cow was always worshiped. Why is that? Well, it's because it bonds you with the earth. And so if you really kinda get deep with it, you can go a lot of different directions as far as is it just about, you know, being like ButcherBox?
No. It has nothing to do with that. Beef is a tool for the relationships that you build to tear down all these you know, Bitcoin has no borders. Right? When I first started, everybody's like, is this the Texas beef initiative? And at the beginning, it was because I'm from freaking Texas. And so I said, well, you know, I give people's attention. I'm Texas Slim, Texas Beef Initiative, but then it became United States. Well, now it's about basically, the beef initiative is a global movement to start building relationships again. Bitcoin is there to teach us how to do it because what it is based on, it's ethos, and the beef initiative has the same ethos.
[00:17:38] Unknown:
Right. I mean, a lot of people think you're the leader of the beef initiative, but I think it's very similar to Bitcoin and that there really is no leader. Right? No. There's no individuals everywhere. It's a grassroots leader. Everywhere.
[00:17:49] Unknown:
And that's what's so great about it and confusing about it because people are just like, what the heck? What? And and what especially if you volunteer with the beef initiative, you come in and you're you're used to the centralized type of thinking. And we're like the Grateful Dead, man. You want you wanna use our logo? We'll let you download it. Go make your own damn t shirts. Make your hats. Go out there and help these ranchers have a voice because, you know, that's the way we're gonna do it. We're gonna Grateful Dead it. I love it. A little bit before my time, but I do love the dead. It's kind of the philosophy behind it. It's always fun with you, Slim.
[00:18:35] Unknown:
So where do we wanna go from here? You came to us with like a pretty bold proposition about Tennessee as an expansion plan to this movement. You know, I am Tennessee's home to me now, but it's a new home. When you look at so we have all these people in here that are mostly from this area. I guess, raise your hand if if you live more than 8 hours away from Nashville. Okay. So it's mostly a local community here right now. What if there's if there's one thing that all the individuals here can take away from tonight to support their local communities, what would it be?
[00:19:23] Unknown:
Well, you always look at if you know anything about the United States, you look at Texas and Tennessee. We always have a strong, strong relationship. It's always been like that. A lot of Texans, you know, work from Tennessee. And so there's something that's very strong historically and within heritage with where I come from. And everybody loves the Smoky Mountains. Everybody loves this part of the country. To me, it's a no brainer. It's how I was raised. You know, it takes 2 to 2 steps, Texas to Tennessee, And that you look at the agricultural world and you look at the diversity of basically where we all come from as far as, you know, this type of terrain and the Texas terrain that I come from all the way from West Texas all the way to east.
There's something in Tennessee that is a centralized, basically, thought process of a destination, and Nashville is the perfect place for that. I come from Austin. I moved to Austin when I was 19, and I left Austin for a reason because now it's, you know, it's it's a different place that I fell in love with. It's not talking anything against people that live there because there's some fantastic people doing fantastic things. But when I come to Nashville, it feels like it's it's kinda got this eloquence to it that I really do love. But one thing I really love about Nashville is the organization, the people that are ready for community, the people that come out. I mean, this place is absolutely beautiful.
You know? This is something special, and I just know that, you know, this is where logistically that we need to be within the beef initiative. And, one of the reasons is because I think Mills wants to call me a Tennessee
[00:21:08] Unknown:
slam. I think I coined that term. I think you did. I'm gonna take I'm gonna take credit for that.
[00:21:14] Unknown:
That was mostly to be provocative to all of our friends in Texas. It is, and that's what we got going on. That's why I like it right there. We've got this thing called a friendly competition.
[00:21:23] Unknown:
Gotta love it. Not a competition.
[00:21:25] Unknown:
No. It's not. Of course not. But what it is, it's a gay it's it's very to me, it's very cowboy. I mean, we cut up at each other, man, and you guys never get offended with me, please. Okay? I am a smartass, and if I get under your skin a little bit, man, it's nothing personal. I grew up a boy named Sue in West Texas, And so I learned how to fight a little bit. We learned how to play poker with you. So you've come across these cowboys and these ranchers that are the same. It's a lifestyle that you enjoy, and you got to have proof of work even when you're communicating, because you're going to get your shit called real fast, and then they're gonna mess with you. So we don't like it whenever people aren't, you know, authentic.
And so a lot of like Cole there in Las Vegas right now, He's messing with some, you know, some of those cowboys that really don't work as hard as him. And he knows that. He's roping. Yeah. He's roping. He's I learned that term today.
[00:22:23] Unknown:
Rope. Gonna use it in my natural conversation now. He's a he's a he's a
[00:22:27] Unknown:
he's a he's a champion team roper too. There you go. Yeah.
[00:22:31] Unknown:
I I thought I was teeing you up for a shake the rancher's hand comment, but that was a very great Well, let me tell you. I have a story. I have a lot of stories. Okay. And everybody's like, you know,
[00:22:42] Unknown:
what, you know, what did it take? How much money? All this kind of bullshit about how it starts, how you start a business in this country. Whenever I was in Austin and I learned technology, I taught it myself. I was in a startup company. It's called Cybercore. We started with $1500. I was, you know, pretty early on. But what we did is we know we knew how to innovate. Right? And so I learned and I was very lucky to work in a startup company that actually sold to Charles Schwab. And I learned so much from that startup company during times of innovation. Whenever I decided to go ahead and I was going to basically start the beef initiative, I went up and shook 1 rancher's hand. I had one damn conversation with 1 person.
That was in November of last year. So over a year, that one handshake turned into a 110 ranchers being in the beef initiative. We don't have any capital money. We don't have any BC money. What we have is a lot of people working together, and they they definitely want you to come shake their damn hand.
[00:23:51] Unknown:
Yeah. I mean, you can do it. I mean, the shake of ranchers hand Yeah. Every good meme is based in reality. You know? That that's why that's why they're viral in the first place. And and shake a rancher's hand, actually go up, look them in the eye, shake them in their hand, shake their hand is is is fundamental, beyond beyond the beef initiative. Right? I think it embodies this this issue that we see in society where everyone's more detached. Right? People are looking at their screens. They're constantly on social media. We are more connected than we ever were with people, but we're so much more disconnected than we are with people. Yeah.
[00:24:37] Unknown:
One thing that I saw whenever I was in technology, I was in telecommunications, and I'm in my fifties. And so, not that much older than you guys. But one thing I did, I was, decided to write it or I was assigned to write a research paper, and it was called the division of interpersonal communication in this country. This is when we were texting, and everybody's like, what's going on here? We're talking differently. We're and they wanted to know telecommunications wanted to know how many devices they could get in people's hands. Well, that led into where we are now. We have a division of interpersonal communication skills in this country. And so from where I came from in West Texas, whenever you can look somebody in the eye and you can shake their hand and you can look at them and have a conversation without looking around, without looking down, with not having basically a bold integrity to you, then you know that other person's got some issues.
And so whenever you go shake a rancher's hand, it makes you better because they're gonna test you. They're gonna see who you are because they've been manipulated so much in the in my lifetime, especially. So it's a special bond that you create to that handshake.
[00:25:52] Unknown:
You're just communicating with your fellow human. Like, working together. It seems so simple, but it's extremely powerful. And I feel like it definitely it needs it needs repeating. That's why you repeat it so often. I mean, that's why all of us repeat it so often is because it's almost contagious once you start to hear it. Yeah. I I mean, it's it's it's pretty amazing what simple connections with people in your local community can do to empower the whole community, to help yourself, to help them. It's not completely altruistic either. Right? I mean, one of the key aspects of the beef initiative to me is, you know, I want my family to have good food. And you start, like if you start reading labels on things in supermarkets, that's a pretty dark hole you go down real quick. And and and how do how do you solve that? You solve that by supporting local
[00:26:42] Unknown:
producers. Yeah. And and that's that's the perfect point because people don't know how to wrap their head around the deceptions of our labeling laws in the FDA. I mean, I could sit here up for 4 hours and tell you everything that's wrong with our food. Do I have to? Do I have to tell you that the FDA won a lawsuit to put 2,000 chemicals into our food systems this year? Do we all need to keep on saying that? No. They get away with a lot of things that makes us very unhealthy. And so, you know, we've got to stand up, and whatever I like to say is that quit validating the damn deceptions.
What makes it so okay to basically validate what you know is a lie? Whenever you can look at that within your food, do you really think Taco Bell is not dog food? Seriously. It's the same ingredients. They just use different names. So whenever you quit validating the deceptions, then you are now obligated. Oh my gosh. I'm gonna live in truth with my consumption from video to audio to your food. Once you can make that agreement with yourself and you say, I'm not gonna validate these deceptions anymore because it's killing our children. Our children are helpless, and they're dying because of a human consumption model that is pushed upon them.
You don't have to have kids to give a shit. If you don't have kids, then you need to learn extra hard so you can go teach those people that are about to have kids. This is no bullshit anymore in our country, and everybody's come to a sense of complacency because it's convenient, and it has nice labeling laws. And it's got a pretty little cartoon on the package, And that's what it is. Food is nothing but a cartoon marketing plan, and we need to quit validating the deceptions.
[00:28:54] Unknown:
Well said, Slim. So what we hear a lot is well, what I hear a lot we're at Bitcoin Park right now, and what I hear a lot is, oh, beef initiative. Like, how is it connected to Bitcoin? I think part of it is is is what we've already touched on, which is this idea of personal responsibility, this idea of essentially consent by design, opting out, choosing to to leave a corrupt system. I think there's a lot of similarities in that, you know, you you have to you have to choose to do it, and this idea of and I get into a lot of fights with Bitcoiners about this. This idea that you need to, like, push someone into Bitcoin when, really, people will discover the need themselves, and you just need to have the tools and education available to them. And I've heard you say this many times. You don't go to a rancher and tell them what to do. Right? You go you talk to them. You listen to them. You have a conversation.
They already realize, you know, that the world is is filled with corrupt, broken institutions, and and and they're looking for ways out. But that is almost more of a philosophical attachment connection, but there's a more strictly technical connection with Bitcoin, and that mostly revolves around this idea of processing centers. And before we wrap up the conversation today, like, I really wanna talk about processing centers and how they're essentially being used to crowd out small family ranches, farms, producers amid this whole, you know, system.
[00:30:30] Unknown:
Well, what you have I'll give Texas as an example. We will try to make it pretty clear but concise. Texas at one time had Texas has 254 counties. Right? At one time, Texas had 254 microprocessing centers in the state of Texas. What does that mean? Well, every county could process their local beef in that beef state within that local community. Pretty simple. Right? Well, now across the United States, we have 4 multinational processing centers that process 80% of our beef in the United States. They have control of that distribution of beef basically overseas.
We don't eat a lot of our beef in the United States anymore, and people don't know that because they really don't have to tell you. And so by saying that, you know, what we've done in the beef initiative is like, okay, you're gonna do what you do. It's it's multinational global corporations that have a switch, the on and off switch to your nutrition. It's a bottleneck that we've never seen in this world, and they're very good at doing what they do. During, COVID, JBS is one of them. They got out of court settled for $56,000,000. And the government said, hey. Look. We're fine. You know, you gotta fine here. Got it. They made $500,000,000 in profit during COVID by price manipulation.
You guys don't know that because they don't have to report it to you. And so what they're doing is they're basically able to manipulate the rules and regulations, the regulatory capture in which the local rancher and used to be processor were able to work around. What the beef initiative is doing now is we are connecting people through beef and through basically a decentralized vertical integration back from the soil to the cow to the rancher processor to distribution, to you. And not too many people have been able to do that. Within a year, we've done that in the Beef Initiative. We have 2 processing centers in Texas. What we're gonna do is we're gonna start basically consulting and advising on processing centers in the state of Texas and across the United States.
And that's kind of a multiyear plan, but we're off to the you know, we're we're moving forward right now. But in general, I mean, it's this idea of of kind of
[00:32:57] Unknown:
of decentralization,
[00:32:58] Unknown:
of distribution. Right? It's a 100% because those processing centers, basically, they'll take that cow at a certain age. Right? And the rancher has to sell it. They get that cow from that point on, and they'll harvest the cow. They'll basically have full access to sell that cow anywhere they want. That rancher basically makes $400. That processor ends up making $1500, and they don't even do much work. And then if the processor cuts you off, you're just completely You're gone. Yeah. You're done. You don't have places to process your cattle. You have to make dates that are 18 months out. That's not the good, you know, good plan when you're raising cattle. You know, that's not something you're letting the processor dictate the the quality of your beef.
[00:33:42] Unknown:
100%. So, I mean, I know you're a big fan of of telling people that they should find their own journey into beef initiative, but I'm curious if if my take on on the beef initiative movement, what do you think of it? So I think it's 3 pillars. I think it's education. Education is always the most important in almost every facet of our lives. Always be learning, always be humble enough to realize you don't know shit, and you get can continue to improve yourself, help other people. Community, standing up with with other individuals, empower each other, work together. And then the third is essentially this idea of a distributed type of tech stack where people are actually able to ranchers are able to connect with consumers.
There's people that that want good meat. There's people that want good produce. They don't have a way of getting it. There's small producers that that are looking for ways to be more financially sustainable, to to diversify their revenues, to actually reach out to these people, and Bitcoin kind of interconnects amid that tech stack. It provides a money that's independent of corporations and governments and allows people to actually transact freely in that kind of environment.
[00:34:52] Unknown:
That last part is what I knew from the beginning that I wanted to happen. And just to give you perspective, at this point, we've built a technology stack. We've partnered up with Oshi. We've partnered up with Ibex. We have a full on technology stack that ranchers are out there using. You don't going back to your point before, the philosophical difference, you don't go up to we're not used car We we're not we don't go up there, you know, act like we're selling Bitcoin. What we do is we go up there and just find out who they are, what are their pain points, What you find is these ranchers wanna earn Bitcoin. And so once they find that we're using a decentralized tool, this is a peer to peer transactional system that actually has a store of value that they can leverage and so they don't have to pay the decentralized banking system.
You know, it's it's really that's what's fascinating because you've even said it. It's like the balance between Bitcoiners and ranchers, the education swap and everything, it's just completely balanced, and it's equal. And that's what you find every time within the beef initiative. One thing is going back to your first point, these ranchers are educators, and what we're gonna do, what I've done, and you'll see this at the micro summit if you're coming. We're gonna basically we've created a foundation that I put up one full Bitcoin for. And what we're gonna do is this year, we are gonna give it to Jason, Jason Rick of Rick Ranches in Colorado. So what it is, it's I am Texas Slim Foundation, and what he is and what he wants to be as an educator.
So that allows the beef initiative basically to grant Jason Rick a $10,000 grant this year. He's designing plans that he's gonna invite people onto his ranch, and he's gonna educate either as internships, apprenticeships, or anything like that. But it's gonna take us understanding that this is the way that we give a rancher a voice. This is how we basically get new people into regenerative farming and ranching, and we do it with the combination of beef and Bitcoin.
[00:36:58] Unknown:
I love it. You said you're gonna give him a Bitcoin. Right? Well, he gets access to that Bitcoin that is now custodialized with Unchained Capital. Okay. So we've not because it's not custodial. It's Well, no. It's not. I'm sorry. Collaborative custody. Yeah. It's exactly. We don't want Jason to get rug. Exactly. But you did say $10,000. We're not that low yet. Right. Exactly.
[00:37:17] Unknown:
But what it'll always do, it'll always have that one Bitcoin
[00:37:22] Unknown:
that is basically the foundation layer of that trust. Yeah. I mean, I Jason's amazing. I love the idea of this endowment Yes. In general. I mean, I'm doing everything possible to support support the endowment. I think it's an important mission. And that's one thing. Quick, Slim. Yes. Slim mess mentioned this micro summit. It is sold out, so it's a little bit of a tease if you don't have a ticket, But we will be doing more of them going forward, so just keep an eye out, and definitely come in, but now you can continue. Do you remember what you're gonna say? Almost.
[00:37:51] Unknown:
Almost. But as far as if anybody wants I get probably a 100 emails every week. How can I help the beef initiative? I wanna go play with the rancher. I wanna go work. You know how many times Cole Bolton down there in Texas is you got, man, would you tell this Bitcoiner to leave my ass alone?
[00:38:13] Unknown:
Like city slickers.
[00:38:15] Unknown:
Exactly. Exactly. And and so there's a lot of demand for it, and these ranchers understand that demand. Guess how many revenue streams Jason Rick has? How many you think a rancher? How many how many different points does does he get to make a revenue to where he can survive and feed his family? A rancher that is an educator that that understands knowing how to grow soil and animals. He has one revenue stream that is basically a prohibition against him having any freedom anymore because the power has been taken away from him. He needs to have a voice.
So I have all these city slickers that wanna come out and play on his ranch. But what they're gonna do is they're gonna come learn. There's a lot of people wanting to know how to do regenerative farming and ranching in the United States. Whenever we support this foundation, we give him a voice. He's working with politicians in Colorado. He's working with the school systems. He wants to have a voice. We give him a media channel. We give him a podcast. We let people get on to his land so they can go out there longer than 2 days. He educates a new generation.
We have to lead that. We have to. It's not some stupid little freaking giveaway nonprofit that you see these multinational corporations that come up with, like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. That's a bunch of bullshit. You wanna get real? Go give the rancher a voice, and you're gonna do it through the foundation.
[00:39:49] Unknown:
Cheers to that. So we're giving a lot of love to Jason, but I just wanna continue the love. He's an absolutely amazing human. His family is amazing. We were hoping he was gonna be here today, but he's gonna he's cutting in tomorrow morning.
[00:40:07] Unknown:
Actually, he's getting in, probably in about 2 hours.
[00:40:11] Unknown:
Okay. Well, if you come to the park tomorrow, you can probably shake his hand, so just keep that in mind. Slim, this has been a fantastic conversation. Can everyone thank Slim for joining us today?
I have our good friend, Texas Slim, here of the beef initiative. Raise your hand if you're already familiar with the beef initiative. Okay. We got, like, about half. I think a a great place to start is, first of all, Slim, you wanna introduce yourself and then explain what the beef initiative is and and why it's
[00:00:29] Unknown:
important. Thanks, Matt, and, thanks for, Josh, Rod, Matt, Mills, everybody here in Nashville. This is my 3rd or 4th time here. First off, how many of y'all thought that when you first saw Odell that he was intimidating? Raise your hand. Come on. Come on now. Whenever I, came into, Bitcoin, I saw Matt, and I was like, man, he's from he's from the north. I'm from freaking West Texas. Right? You know? It's like, I'm watching Matt. I was like, man, he's got some snap to him. He knows what he's doing. And all of a sudden, I say, man, he he's one of the most humble guys I've ever seen.
So I kinda like him. But I better prove myself a little bit before I approach him because I don't wanna larp into the space because he has a lot of people that watch him that are very intentional. And so that's what I wanted to kinda grasp this thing called the beef initiative onto. It was an effort to get in front of a certain crowd of people that know how to focus a little bit. They're kinda intentional with their lives and with their truths, and, they have kind of a pretty big yearning to basically build relationships. And I saw that the beef initiative, everybody's always asking me, hey, man. What's the beef initiative?
Is it like ButcherBox? And I say, hell no. ButcherBox. Do you know where ButcherBox gets their beef from? Prison. Prison? What do they what do they actually what do they do? What do they do? They captured the COVID fear porn market, and what did they do? They they they act like they're basically all about regenerative farming and ranching in the United States of America. Where do they get their beef? Well, a lot of people don't know. We'll just leave it at that. Supermarket. Supermarket. Yeah. Well, I heard someone say Australia. Isn't that where they get their beef? They get their beef from Australia. And so that beef should be staying in Australia.
And the only reason they can ship that beef to basically United States is because, well, where's our beef gone? Nobody knows. So what I knew what we had to do within the beef initiative, the beef initiative is about building relationships with people that actually know what the hell is going on in the beef industry. What better people to start with than you in the Bitcoin crowd? Because you're looking for truth, honesty, transparency, and authenticity. So and here we are. So whenever I met Rod, Matt, I knew for a fact that we were gonna do something in Tennessee because I built a relationship with Matt, Rod, Josh, Kim, Louise, everybody in this Bitcoin community.
That was I don't know. That was back in May. Since May, I've been driving the country, and I've driven over 40,000 miles now. And I've seen this country. I've met I don't know how many ranchers. I don't know how many people I've come in cross with that are looking for something different. And what they're looking for is they want to build relationships with the people that want to feed them. So what we've done in the beef initiative is we built an index that was voluntarily for the producers to come into our index so they could have a voice and they could start building relationships with people like you.
And so when we started in Kerrville, I had my first summit or whatever. It was a convention. It was an event. But we had, like, a 100 people show up. And I think at that time, that was in April, we had 3 producers in the index. And then whenever we went into, I believe no. That was back in November of last year. We had 3. Kerrville, we had 8. Well, I checked yesterday. Now we have a 110 ranchers and producers in the United States that are in the beef initiative, and they're saying, hey, we're over here. Where are you guys?
We wanna feed you. Where are you? And so what we've done is we built a collection of people that want to feed you across this nation, and they want to be heard, and they want to have a relationship with you. So with that saying, these relationships that you have through the beef initiative are something that is based on something that you both complement each other. And what they understand, a lot of them, is what Bitcoin is because it's based on decentralization. And that's one thing our ranchers and our producers understand. That's where my grandfather came from. That's where I came from in my little crazy ass mind.
We think decently. We think about 2 party systems. We think about, you know, peer to peer contact, shaking hands, looking at each other in the eyes, and basically being real, we can't find that anymore. What you can find is something that has value. And so the beef initiative is a lot of things, and I want you guys to figure out what the beef initiative is for you. I know what it is for me. I know where it came from, and I know exactly in my heart where I think it's going, but it's gonna basically be very dependent upon you making sure that you tell other people that there's people out there that want to feed you.
So we have a base basically a new beef industry that we're gonna create in the United States of America, and we're gonna do it with Bitcoin and relationship building. So that's kinda short. Thanks, Lynn.
[00:06:27] Unknown:
So I just wanna it's been a long, very good day. So I just wanna apologize ahead of time that I'm moving a little bit slowly. I do wanna thank Tom in the back. Forgot to thank Tom. He's our producer here at Bitcoin Park. Thank you, Tom, for doing the audio and recording this. And, Slim did mention Josh. Josh is our operations manager here. He handles everything at the park. So if you end up becoming a member, you will interact with him daily. The guy's a machine. He's absolutely amazing. He's not oh, he's in the room right now. Josh, raise your hand. That's that's our man over there.
So those who haven't been here before, the format's relatively simple. It's going to be a half an hour conversation between me and Slim. Get your questions ready, and at the end, we're going to do about 15 minute q and a. I really love the q and a. And the q and a is is a special part of what we do here, and that is not put on the podcast feed. So if you wanna be a part of the q and a, you gotta you gotta come and show up and and show a little proof of work. So, Slim, you like to talk in circles about what the beef initiative is. But when I first met Slim, we had about a 2 hour conversation. And by the end, it was just like, you gotta figure out what the beef initiative is yourself.
And me and my lady, we actually drove 22 hours to Colorado, very long ride where we got to really think to ourselves what the beef initiative is and why it's important. So, Slim, when you when you think about the beef initiative, I mean, to me, like, the the main the main thing is education. Everything comes down to education. And something I've seen firsthand working in Bitcoin, working with activists, now working with ranchers, is education is everything. There's there's a there's a massive shortfall in education across society at every facet.
So when you think about education, how how do you think about how how you're approaching it, how the team at the beef initiative is approaching, and how the community at beef initiative is approaching it? Sure.
[00:08:33] Unknown:
And that that's a good question because I look at education totally different. And, I would I never went to university. I got into I went you know, I kind of snuck into college when I wanted to to take classes, and I taught myself technology. So I always did technology and everything that I've done, and I've learned from grandfathers throughout our agricultural family, blue collar style, was observational science. And so you hear every time I talk to a rancher, you know, the one thing that was especially in the regenerative space is I say, what do you want people to know? And they say that I'm an educator first.
They come from that type of observational science that takes proof of work every day of their life. They watch the earth grow. They watch the earth move, and they find out ways to make it better and how to get energy out of the soil. Having that observational science is 10 times different than any type of education than a lot of our general public is used to. And so that's what we're bringing back is that this is a lifestyle. Style. It's not going to class. It's not going and sitting and listening to a professor. This is basically about going out there and becoming part of where you came from, and they have such a poetic way of teaching that education.
[00:09:54] Unknown:
It's it's kinda it's a back to the roots. It really is. And that's how human connection.
[00:10:01] Unknown:
Yeah. And, you know, I was sitting in because I, you know, I did a lot of food intelligence before I went in and did the beef initiative, and I was sitting in a bunk in the middle of North Dakota. I was on a harvest that I kinda embedded myself in to get a little bit deeper in the food intelligence, and I said, because you can go at this very midstream. Right? And you got up here. You got y'all ever fished midstream? You're not gonna catch any fish. You gotta get to the source of the seed. And I said, that's it. It's the source of the seed of where we came from. Who's doing that? And it's it comes from my grandfather. He basically he was the source of the seed of our family, of of all of the land, all the animals, and, you know, every everywhere that, you know, that I remember as a child that was always put your hands in the earth.
[00:10:50] Unknown:
So, I mean, before we move on, how do you embed yourself in a harvest?
[00:10:56] Unknown:
Well, I grew up in West Texas, and I grew up doing a lot of different things, cowboying, definitely doing combines, tractors, and, you know, we did we did that that type of hit West Texas life. And so I had a really good skill set, and that was one. And so I can know combines, and I know how to do harvest. I've done a lot of them. So So whenever I was doing food intelligence, once again, I woke up at 3 o'clock in the morning, and I said, man, I gotta put myself in a harvest company because I come from big tech, and I ended up being a research analyst. And so I'm gonna put all my skill sets together, and I'm gonna go embed myself in a harvest company
[00:11:35] Unknown:
so I can go And you just, like, show up? You're like, I'm gonna harvest with you? Well, I wrote a very good email. I can write.
[00:11:41] Unknown:
Okay. Perfect. It was I'll tell you what, man. I can bullshit, man. I'm a damn good bullshitter.
[00:11:48] Unknown:
Watch out because I'm always playing poker. Okay. So, I mean, you touched on this because I think your personal journey is really interesting. So you grew up in West Texas, just straight country. Yes. And then you ended up in tech. Yeah. Ended up in tech. So you were just, like, deep in the underbelly of modern culture and society. Yeah. And then what? There was just a wake up call, and then you you came back to the roots.
[00:12:14] Unknown:
Had to. It was it was fascinating because what happened to me being the cowboy, you know, kinda I grew up breaking shit, and I still break I broke my other damn phone on this trip. My truck is broken down. Are always broke. I know. They're always broke. I break a new one. Exactly. This is yeah. It is. I'm trying I was making sure that my open node had the authenticator on there. Have y'all ever used open node? Not yet? Bitcoin payment processor. Oh my gosh. Y'all are catching up. Alright. Here we go. But as as far as that is is that I break a lot of things.
But I, I've had over 20 bones broken, 14 pieces of metal in me. And so I got really busted up about 3 years ago and I damn near died. I mean, I went down and I hit the pain while I had an internal injury that basically made my kidney shut down. I got down to a £121, and that was my wake up call saying, okay, let's start being intentional about what we're going to consume. And so everything that I consume changed. My consumption model changed. And so I had to they gave me 6 weeks to live. And so I basically listened to the doctors, and they were giving me bad advice. The nutritionists were giving me bad advice, and that's when I said, okay.
We're gonna go on a journey here. We're gonna get back to basically the source of the seed of who we are. Where did we come from?
[00:13:40] Unknown:
And that that's where food intelligence was born, which was essentially an on the road research
[00:13:44] Unknown:
project. Right? Yeah. It was. I went at times, I was feeding communities. I would go into, homeless shelters. I was feeding, like, 250 people at a time once. We went through the church systems. I went and checked in with health clinics. I embedded myself in a harvest company. I made relationships with doctors, and started getting a pattern of, you know, metabolic failure in this country. And then then I just I knew that I had to start writing about it. And I had to, at one point in time, basically provide a solution because we can point fingers all day long, but we've got to give people market access to a better way of basically living.
[00:14:25] Unknown:
I mean, that's one of the things that I love about the beef initiative and why, I mean, you said I was intimidated. Obviously, most people in here didn't think I was intimidating. But Well, they're not gonna raise their hand. I I was I was, you know, I was pretty intimidated by the beef initiative movement at first, and that's part of what what what drew me to it was very similar to Bitcoin is is this it's a movement of radical personal responsibility. It's a movement of no excuses. Like, you can't you the only person to blame is yourself. You have to pick yourself up by your own bootstraps. And I like the challenge. The challenge is really interesting. Right? And, you know, someone I've never did not grow up on a ranch. You know? I I went to, like, petting zoos when I grew up.
And, I remember when we pulled up to Jason's Jason's ranch. Right? I was like I was like, are you know, I'm just gonna be a complete outsider. But when I when I left, these were my people. Right? I was part of I was part of this movement. And I I basically and, I mean, my wife, she was there already, to a degree, and and she's she loves the movement. It's very much a family first movement. Where am I going with this? Personal responsibility, that's one of the key tenants that it shares with the Bitcoin movement. The other thing is people one of the things I often hear, and I'm sure you hear it a lot, is beef initiative. It's called the beef initiative.
But it's not it's not just beef. It's so much more than beef.
[00:16:04] Unknown:
Beef is a tool for what we're doing. It's energy. It's basically it's a direct focus of basically starting over, and that's all it has to be. It doesn't have to be about consumerism. It's a value for value exchange that you're operating with with the rancher. The cow is basically a land tool. And for, you know, for ancient civilizations, we've always worshiped the cow. It's a starting point. If you know history, humans have always, from every religion every religion, the cow was always worshiped. Why is that? Well, it's because it bonds you with the earth. And so if you really kinda get deep with it, you can go a lot of different directions as far as is it just about, you know, being like ButcherBox?
No. It has nothing to do with that. Beef is a tool for the relationships that you build to tear down all these you know, Bitcoin has no borders. Right? When I first started, everybody's like, is this the Texas beef initiative? And at the beginning, it was because I'm from freaking Texas. And so I said, well, you know, I give people's attention. I'm Texas Slim, Texas Beef Initiative, but then it became United States. Well, now it's about basically, the beef initiative is a global movement to start building relationships again. Bitcoin is there to teach us how to do it because what it is based on, it's ethos, and the beef initiative has the same ethos.
[00:17:38] Unknown:
Right. I mean, a lot of people think you're the leader of the beef initiative, but I think it's very similar to Bitcoin and that there really is no leader. Right? No. There's no individuals everywhere. It's a grassroots leader. Everywhere.
[00:17:49] Unknown:
And that's what's so great about it and confusing about it because people are just like, what the heck? What? And and what especially if you volunteer with the beef initiative, you come in and you're you're used to the centralized type of thinking. And we're like the Grateful Dead, man. You want you wanna use our logo? We'll let you download it. Go make your own damn t shirts. Make your hats. Go out there and help these ranchers have a voice because, you know, that's the way we're gonna do it. We're gonna Grateful Dead it. I love it. A little bit before my time, but I do love the dead. It's kind of the philosophy behind it. It's always fun with you, Slim.
[00:18:35] Unknown:
So where do we wanna go from here? You came to us with like a pretty bold proposition about Tennessee as an expansion plan to this movement. You know, I am Tennessee's home to me now, but it's a new home. When you look at so we have all these people in here that are mostly from this area. I guess, raise your hand if if you live more than 8 hours away from Nashville. Okay. So it's mostly a local community here right now. What if there's if there's one thing that all the individuals here can take away from tonight to support their local communities, what would it be?
[00:19:23] Unknown:
Well, you always look at if you know anything about the United States, you look at Texas and Tennessee. We always have a strong, strong relationship. It's always been like that. A lot of Texans, you know, work from Tennessee. And so there's something that's very strong historically and within heritage with where I come from. And everybody loves the Smoky Mountains. Everybody loves this part of the country. To me, it's a no brainer. It's how I was raised. You know, it takes 2 to 2 steps, Texas to Tennessee, And that you look at the agricultural world and you look at the diversity of basically where we all come from as far as, you know, this type of terrain and the Texas terrain that I come from all the way from West Texas all the way to east.
There's something in Tennessee that is a centralized, basically, thought process of a destination, and Nashville is the perfect place for that. I come from Austin. I moved to Austin when I was 19, and I left Austin for a reason because now it's, you know, it's it's a different place that I fell in love with. It's not talking anything against people that live there because there's some fantastic people doing fantastic things. But when I come to Nashville, it feels like it's it's kinda got this eloquence to it that I really do love. But one thing I really love about Nashville is the organization, the people that are ready for community, the people that come out. I mean, this place is absolutely beautiful.
You know? This is something special, and I just know that, you know, this is where logistically that we need to be within the beef initiative. And, one of the reasons is because I think Mills wants to call me a Tennessee
[00:21:08] Unknown:
slam. I think I coined that term. I think you did. I'm gonna take I'm gonna take credit for that.
[00:21:14] Unknown:
That was mostly to be provocative to all of our friends in Texas. It is, and that's what we got going on. That's why I like it right there. We've got this thing called a friendly competition.
[00:21:23] Unknown:
Gotta love it. Not a competition.
[00:21:25] Unknown:
No. It's not. Of course not. But what it is, it's a gay it's it's very to me, it's very cowboy. I mean, we cut up at each other, man, and you guys never get offended with me, please. Okay? I am a smartass, and if I get under your skin a little bit, man, it's nothing personal. I grew up a boy named Sue in West Texas, And so I learned how to fight a little bit. We learned how to play poker with you. So you've come across these cowboys and these ranchers that are the same. It's a lifestyle that you enjoy, and you got to have proof of work even when you're communicating, because you're going to get your shit called real fast, and then they're gonna mess with you. So we don't like it whenever people aren't, you know, authentic.
And so a lot of like Cole there in Las Vegas right now, He's messing with some, you know, some of those cowboys that really don't work as hard as him. And he knows that. He's roping. Yeah. He's roping. He's I learned that term today.
[00:22:23] Unknown:
Rope. Gonna use it in my natural conversation now. He's a he's a he's a
[00:22:27] Unknown:
he's a he's a champion team roper too. There you go. Yeah.
[00:22:31] Unknown:
I I thought I was teeing you up for a shake the rancher's hand comment, but that was a very great Well, let me tell you. I have a story. I have a lot of stories. Okay. And everybody's like, you know,
[00:22:42] Unknown:
what, you know, what did it take? How much money? All this kind of bullshit about how it starts, how you start a business in this country. Whenever I was in Austin and I learned technology, I taught it myself. I was in a startup company. It's called Cybercore. We started with $1500. I was, you know, pretty early on. But what we did is we know we knew how to innovate. Right? And so I learned and I was very lucky to work in a startup company that actually sold to Charles Schwab. And I learned so much from that startup company during times of innovation. Whenever I decided to go ahead and I was going to basically start the beef initiative, I went up and shook 1 rancher's hand. I had one damn conversation with 1 person.
That was in November of last year. So over a year, that one handshake turned into a 110 ranchers being in the beef initiative. We don't have any capital money. We don't have any BC money. What we have is a lot of people working together, and they they definitely want you to come shake their damn hand.
[00:23:51] Unknown:
Yeah. I mean, you can do it. I mean, the shake of ranchers hand Yeah. Every good meme is based in reality. You know? That that's why that's why they're viral in the first place. And and shake a rancher's hand, actually go up, look them in the eye, shake them in their hand, shake their hand is is is fundamental, beyond beyond the beef initiative. Right? I think it embodies this this issue that we see in society where everyone's more detached. Right? People are looking at their screens. They're constantly on social media. We are more connected than we ever were with people, but we're so much more disconnected than we are with people. Yeah.
[00:24:37] Unknown:
One thing that I saw whenever I was in technology, I was in telecommunications, and I'm in my fifties. And so, not that much older than you guys. But one thing I did, I was, decided to write it or I was assigned to write a research paper, and it was called the division of interpersonal communication in this country. This is when we were texting, and everybody's like, what's going on here? We're talking differently. We're and they wanted to know telecommunications wanted to know how many devices they could get in people's hands. Well, that led into where we are now. We have a division of interpersonal communication skills in this country. And so from where I came from in West Texas, whenever you can look somebody in the eye and you can shake their hand and you can look at them and have a conversation without looking around, without looking down, with not having basically a bold integrity to you, then you know that other person's got some issues.
And so whenever you go shake a rancher's hand, it makes you better because they're gonna test you. They're gonna see who you are because they've been manipulated so much in the in my lifetime, especially. So it's a special bond that you create to that handshake.
[00:25:52] Unknown:
You're just communicating with your fellow human. Like, working together. It seems so simple, but it's extremely powerful. And I feel like it definitely it needs it needs repeating. That's why you repeat it so often. I mean, that's why all of us repeat it so often is because it's almost contagious once you start to hear it. Yeah. I I mean, it's it's it's pretty amazing what simple connections with people in your local community can do to empower the whole community, to help yourself, to help them. It's not completely altruistic either. Right? I mean, one of the key aspects of the beef initiative to me is, you know, I want my family to have good food. And you start, like if you start reading labels on things in supermarkets, that's a pretty dark hole you go down real quick. And and and how do how do you solve that? You solve that by supporting local
[00:26:42] Unknown:
producers. Yeah. And and that's that's the perfect point because people don't know how to wrap their head around the deceptions of our labeling laws in the FDA. I mean, I could sit here up for 4 hours and tell you everything that's wrong with our food. Do I have to? Do I have to tell you that the FDA won a lawsuit to put 2,000 chemicals into our food systems this year? Do we all need to keep on saying that? No. They get away with a lot of things that makes us very unhealthy. And so, you know, we've got to stand up, and whatever I like to say is that quit validating the damn deceptions.
What makes it so okay to basically validate what you know is a lie? Whenever you can look at that within your food, do you really think Taco Bell is not dog food? Seriously. It's the same ingredients. They just use different names. So whenever you quit validating the deceptions, then you are now obligated. Oh my gosh. I'm gonna live in truth with my consumption from video to audio to your food. Once you can make that agreement with yourself and you say, I'm not gonna validate these deceptions anymore because it's killing our children. Our children are helpless, and they're dying because of a human consumption model that is pushed upon them.
You don't have to have kids to give a shit. If you don't have kids, then you need to learn extra hard so you can go teach those people that are about to have kids. This is no bullshit anymore in our country, and everybody's come to a sense of complacency because it's convenient, and it has nice labeling laws. And it's got a pretty little cartoon on the package, And that's what it is. Food is nothing but a cartoon marketing plan, and we need to quit validating the deceptions.
[00:28:54] Unknown:
Well said, Slim. So what we hear a lot is well, what I hear a lot we're at Bitcoin Park right now, and what I hear a lot is, oh, beef initiative. Like, how is it connected to Bitcoin? I think part of it is is is what we've already touched on, which is this idea of personal responsibility, this idea of essentially consent by design, opting out, choosing to to leave a corrupt system. I think there's a lot of similarities in that, you know, you you have to you have to choose to do it, and this idea of and I get into a lot of fights with Bitcoiners about this. This idea that you need to, like, push someone into Bitcoin when, really, people will discover the need themselves, and you just need to have the tools and education available to them. And I've heard you say this many times. You don't go to a rancher and tell them what to do. Right? You go you talk to them. You listen to them. You have a conversation.
They already realize, you know, that the world is is filled with corrupt, broken institutions, and and and they're looking for ways out. But that is almost more of a philosophical attachment connection, but there's a more strictly technical connection with Bitcoin, and that mostly revolves around this idea of processing centers. And before we wrap up the conversation today, like, I really wanna talk about processing centers and how they're essentially being used to crowd out small family ranches, farms, producers amid this whole, you know, system.
[00:30:30] Unknown:
Well, what you have I'll give Texas as an example. We will try to make it pretty clear but concise. Texas at one time had Texas has 254 counties. Right? At one time, Texas had 254 microprocessing centers in the state of Texas. What does that mean? Well, every county could process their local beef in that beef state within that local community. Pretty simple. Right? Well, now across the United States, we have 4 multinational processing centers that process 80% of our beef in the United States. They have control of that distribution of beef basically overseas.
We don't eat a lot of our beef in the United States anymore, and people don't know that because they really don't have to tell you. And so by saying that, you know, what we've done in the beef initiative is like, okay, you're gonna do what you do. It's it's multinational global corporations that have a switch, the on and off switch to your nutrition. It's a bottleneck that we've never seen in this world, and they're very good at doing what they do. During, COVID, JBS is one of them. They got out of court settled for $56,000,000. And the government said, hey. Look. We're fine. You know, you gotta fine here. Got it. They made $500,000,000 in profit during COVID by price manipulation.
You guys don't know that because they don't have to report it to you. And so what they're doing is they're basically able to manipulate the rules and regulations, the regulatory capture in which the local rancher and used to be processor were able to work around. What the beef initiative is doing now is we are connecting people through beef and through basically a decentralized vertical integration back from the soil to the cow to the rancher processor to distribution, to you. And not too many people have been able to do that. Within a year, we've done that in the Beef Initiative. We have 2 processing centers in Texas. What we're gonna do is we're gonna start basically consulting and advising on processing centers in the state of Texas and across the United States.
And that's kind of a multiyear plan, but we're off to the you know, we're we're moving forward right now. But in general, I mean, it's this idea of of kind of
[00:32:57] Unknown:
of decentralization,
[00:32:58] Unknown:
of distribution. Right? It's a 100% because those processing centers, basically, they'll take that cow at a certain age. Right? And the rancher has to sell it. They get that cow from that point on, and they'll harvest the cow. They'll basically have full access to sell that cow anywhere they want. That rancher basically makes $400. That processor ends up making $1500, and they don't even do much work. And then if the processor cuts you off, you're just completely You're gone. Yeah. You're done. You don't have places to process your cattle. You have to make dates that are 18 months out. That's not the good, you know, good plan when you're raising cattle. You know, that's not something you're letting the processor dictate the the quality of your beef.
[00:33:42] Unknown:
100%. So, I mean, I know you're a big fan of of telling people that they should find their own journey into beef initiative, but I'm curious if if my take on on the beef initiative movement, what do you think of it? So I think it's 3 pillars. I think it's education. Education is always the most important in almost every facet of our lives. Always be learning, always be humble enough to realize you don't know shit, and you get can continue to improve yourself, help other people. Community, standing up with with other individuals, empower each other, work together. And then the third is essentially this idea of a distributed type of tech stack where people are actually able to ranchers are able to connect with consumers.
There's people that that want good meat. There's people that want good produce. They don't have a way of getting it. There's small producers that that are looking for ways to be more financially sustainable, to to diversify their revenues, to actually reach out to these people, and Bitcoin kind of interconnects amid that tech stack. It provides a money that's independent of corporations and governments and allows people to actually transact freely in that kind of environment.
[00:34:52] Unknown:
That last part is what I knew from the beginning that I wanted to happen. And just to give you perspective, at this point, we've built a technology stack. We've partnered up with Oshi. We've partnered up with Ibex. We have a full on technology stack that ranchers are out there using. You don't going back to your point before, the philosophical difference, you don't go up to we're not used car We we're not we don't go up there, you know, act like we're selling Bitcoin. What we do is we go up there and just find out who they are, what are their pain points, What you find is these ranchers wanna earn Bitcoin. And so once they find that we're using a decentralized tool, this is a peer to peer transactional system that actually has a store of value that they can leverage and so they don't have to pay the decentralized banking system.
You know, it's it's really that's what's fascinating because you've even said it. It's like the balance between Bitcoiners and ranchers, the education swap and everything, it's just completely balanced, and it's equal. And that's what you find every time within the beef initiative. One thing is going back to your first point, these ranchers are educators, and what we're gonna do, what I've done, and you'll see this at the micro summit if you're coming. We're gonna basically we've created a foundation that I put up one full Bitcoin for. And what we're gonna do is this year, we are gonna give it to Jason, Jason Rick of Rick Ranches in Colorado. So what it is, it's I am Texas Slim Foundation, and what he is and what he wants to be as an educator.
So that allows the beef initiative basically to grant Jason Rick a $10,000 grant this year. He's designing plans that he's gonna invite people onto his ranch, and he's gonna educate either as internships, apprenticeships, or anything like that. But it's gonna take us understanding that this is the way that we give a rancher a voice. This is how we basically get new people into regenerative farming and ranching, and we do it with the combination of beef and Bitcoin.
[00:36:58] Unknown:
I love it. You said you're gonna give him a Bitcoin. Right? Well, he gets access to that Bitcoin that is now custodialized with Unchained Capital. Okay. So we've not because it's not custodial. It's Well, no. It's not. I'm sorry. Collaborative custody. Yeah. It's exactly. We don't want Jason to get rug. Exactly. But you did say $10,000. We're not that low yet. Right. Exactly.
[00:37:17] Unknown:
But what it'll always do, it'll always have that one Bitcoin
[00:37:22] Unknown:
that is basically the foundation layer of that trust. Yeah. I mean, I Jason's amazing. I love the idea of this endowment Yes. In general. I mean, I'm doing everything possible to support support the endowment. I think it's an important mission. And that's one thing. Quick, Slim. Yes. Slim mess mentioned this micro summit. It is sold out, so it's a little bit of a tease if you don't have a ticket, But we will be doing more of them going forward, so just keep an eye out, and definitely come in, but now you can continue. Do you remember what you're gonna say? Almost.
[00:37:51] Unknown:
Almost. But as far as if anybody wants I get probably a 100 emails every week. How can I help the beef initiative? I wanna go play with the rancher. I wanna go work. You know how many times Cole Bolton down there in Texas is you got, man, would you tell this Bitcoiner to leave my ass alone?
[00:38:13] Unknown:
Like city slickers.
[00:38:15] Unknown:
Exactly. Exactly. And and so there's a lot of demand for it, and these ranchers understand that demand. Guess how many revenue streams Jason Rick has? How many you think a rancher? How many how many different points does does he get to make a revenue to where he can survive and feed his family? A rancher that is an educator that that understands knowing how to grow soil and animals. He has one revenue stream that is basically a prohibition against him having any freedom anymore because the power has been taken away from him. He needs to have a voice.
So I have all these city slickers that wanna come out and play on his ranch. But what they're gonna do is they're gonna come learn. There's a lot of people wanting to know how to do regenerative farming and ranching in the United States. Whenever we support this foundation, we give him a voice. He's working with politicians in Colorado. He's working with the school systems. He wants to have a voice. We give him a media channel. We give him a podcast. We let people get on to his land so they can go out there longer than 2 days. He educates a new generation.
We have to lead that. We have to. It's not some stupid little freaking giveaway nonprofit that you see these multinational corporations that come up with, like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. That's a bunch of bullshit. You wanna get real? Go give the rancher a voice, and you're gonna do it through the foundation.
[00:39:49] Unknown:
Cheers to that. So we're giving a lot of love to Jason, but I just wanna continue the love. He's an absolutely amazing human. His family is amazing. We were hoping he was gonna be here today, but he's gonna he's cutting in tomorrow morning.
[00:40:07] Unknown:
Actually, he's getting in, probably in about 2 hours.
[00:40:11] Unknown:
Okay. Well, if you come to the park tomorrow, you can probably shake his hand, so just keep that in mind. Slim, this has been a fantastic conversation. Can everyone thank Slim for joining us today?
