RECAP WITH JACK MALLERS AT OSLO FREEDOM FORUM 2024.
https://primal.net/JACKMALLERS
[00:00:00]
Unknown:
I wanna introduce Matt Odell and bring Jack Mahlers back onto the stage to do a recap of the day. And I also wanna shout out everyone in the back. We got some open seats in the middle here, so come on come up come up and sit down, but Jack, Matt, thank you so much.
[00:00:19] ODELL:
What is up, Oslo? Hey, guys. My name is Matt O'Dell. I've had done a lot of things, in the Bitcoin space. I'm, managing partner of 1031, a venture fund, that supports Bitcoin companies, including Jack's, company, cofounder of OpenSats, which is, a 5 0 1c3 organization that's a 100% pass through, runs on a Bitcoin standard, and supports open source contributors. And I've had the honor and privilege of working with the Human Rights Foundation on their Bitcoin education now for a little over 5 years. And I will say that every time I work with the Human Rights Foundation, every time I work with, all the amazing activists around the world, It's it's it's inspiring. It's it's motivating. It it reminds me. It reminds so many people why this work is so important and how much work is left to be done.
I'm I'm grateful. I'm humbled. And, we have really tough act to follow here, Jack. An impossible one. This graphic is overwhelming me. I know. It's a little bit overwhelming. No kidding. I mean, I think, an interesting place to start here is, your announcement, with with Cali up here about e cash and and and the new foundation that is starting to to help distribute funding, throughout the protocol among all the developers. You know, you're up here briefly, but I'm kinda I would I would love to just jump in a little bit further in this idea of, you know, profitable Bitcoin businesses, contributing to open source, whether that's through direct development or whether that's supporting developers, and how how you think about that?
[00:02:19] Jack Mallers:
Yeah. I mean, in hindsight, it makes all the sense in the world. Right? Like, we have a vested interest in Bitcoin being successful. That's part of the game theory that makes the whole project work. And so no matter your role, we're all on the same team. If Bitcoin's better, we're all better off for it. In hindsight, that makes sense. At the time, though, as the CEO and founder of a regulated company, I unfortunately took the really lazy approach of, well, you know, I hope you guys figure out the privacy stuff. Looks challenging, but I can't I can't do it. I just go I go straight to prison. I might as well just walk myself to Manhattan District. So, that was unfortunately the approach until I did some work with Alex and the Human Rights Foundation and realized that, I feel almost a moral obligation as a business. Because, listen, I sell Bitcoin, and it's a great business. Like, running a BTC USD product is a phenomenal business, and, it's a it's far more though, self interested, admittedly, in running a corporation than something like what Cali is doing. And so through my work with HRF and coming here, there is a a duty that I have to making sure Bitcoin is successful, although not maybe in my shareholders, in my corporation's immediate interest, if that makes sense. You know, in in traditional business, you would never take corporate cash flow and give it to some developer in their parents' basement to try and build, you know, David Choms. I actually don't know where Cali works. It's probably not his parents' basement. But, you wouldn't you wouldn't take, like, cash flow and and go to the board meeting and say, hey, guys. We're gonna take, you know, all this cash flow, and instead of giving it to shareholders or dividends or investing in future growth, we're gonna give it to this anonymous dude who's gonna take David Chaum's vision and change the world with it. But because of Bitcoin, it all works out, and we're a way better company for it. And so I would encourage other businesses to go through the mental exercise and challenge themselves in that way, because it is it is, in my opinion, lazy. Like, if I'm critical of myself, it it was very not cool of me for my approach. And, at Strike, we we hold ourselves to a pretty serious accountability. We have a 501c3 now internally at the company. We've never made it very public, but we set up a lot of infrastructure so that we could take cash and give to Bitcoin in ways that as a business, we can't.
But that's still a responsibility we share. And I hope we inspire other businesses like Jack. The other Jack inspired me in in this way, and I hope a lot of the other companies in the space, as number goes up, can find themselves, whether it's working with Alex and HRF or specific efforts. We could talk about privacy, but
[00:04:51] ODELL:
yeah. The other Jack. Yeah. I mean, I think there's there's something to be said here. Right? Because just just the power of open source software, that open source software is not owned by a single individual. It's not owned by a company. It's in the comments. Right? It's in the comments. It's available to everyone that they can they can build on. They can monetize. They can use. They can ship. They can modify it to their heart's content. And as a result, it's viral in nature. It outlives all of us. And it's really easy to think of it's really easy to fall in the hole of thinking of Bitcoin as as a tech project. I mean, ultimately, it, you know, it is this software tool. It's this software package that that people can use.
But it's also it's also a movement. And it's a movement of of individuals around the world that that are that are pushing forward every day. And they're using this tool, and they're using other open source tools available to them. And this greater open source movement, and you you mix that in with with this freedom movement of people and empowering those people. And it just starts to compound in in in ways you can't even comprehend. You know? It's incredibly easy to come here and be frustrated. And, you know, there's so many authoritarian governments, and and people are, you know, getting beat up and thrown in jail and killed. That hope is lost.
But real progress is being made every day, And and it it just compounds over and over and over again on the work of others, and it's it's just incredibly powerful.
[00:06:25] Jack Mallers:
You know what what's interesting though is, I haven't found a way to articulate this yet, but the Bitcoin fixes the physical monetary bear instrument of Bitcoin fixes this problem. You know, the Internet, you know, Google doesn't have as much of a vested interest in the success of the open web. And but as a Bitcoin company, I do in Bitcoin. And, I think it is fundamentally because Bitcoin allows the free market to value the project in the form of a monetary instrument, where if if the people, if the individual had a way of selling or buying the open free Internet, I think it'd be a lot different of incentive structure for some of these, like, really big Internet corporations to invest more in the success of the overall web as opposed to their own self interest. And so, I I think that that is has to be said out loud as well. This is very unique. Open source software,
[00:07:26] ODELL:
you're a 100% correct. But then even on top of open source software, Bitcoin open source software is very special. We talked so much that you answered the question that I hadn't got to ask yet There you go. Which was I mean, I kinda think of Bitcoin as, like, the shared equity. Right? And it's and it's not just shared between founders of of profitable businesses, but it's also shared among open source contributors. Shared among freedom fighters, and it's pretty pretty crazy how that Yeah. Works out. And in theory, like, if you believe in free markets,
[00:07:56] Jack Mallers:
you believe that they are the judge. Right? They hold us all accountable. You know, if if we need another barbershop in town, then someone can create it, and the free market's either gonna let it stay in business or it won't. Right? And so I think the free market allows it holds holds the industry accountable, in my opinion. I think we've seen businesses like Coinbase lose a lot of I mean, arguably, Stripe has an opportunity to be a company because Coinbase screwed up a lot, in not supporting Bitcoin, in the ways like, I'd love shout shout out Brian Armstrong. You should, fund Cashew and and Cali. Right? So there's a there's a way, yeah, there's a way for us to Bitcoin allows the free market to hold corporations accountable because it is so grassroots.
So
[00:08:41] ODELL:
I love it. Well, thank you for supporting open source. I, one of the one of the trends that we've seen over the last 2 days, or this is day 3, but over the over the course of this week, is this trend about, the the power of of of using these these social media networks, using, using Twitter. You know? There's there's a lot there was so many talks where it was like, everything I do is on Twitter. I owe to the only reason I'm standing on the stage is because I'm on Twitter. Mhmm. I mean, I actually think, like, our friendship started because of Twitter as well just to add that in there. But I wanna bring up Noster. I wanna bring up Noster. You mentioned the other Jack. He brought it up on stage. Mhmm.
Where does Noster fit into all of this? I mean, we're talking about Bitcoin. We're talking about Bitcoin as a shared equity. Like, why would people support Noster if there does isn't like a, you know, token attached to it or, like, Bitcoin's its token, I guess? Yeah. With my Noster shit coin. Yeah. They that'll get Andreessen out of his pants for sure.
[00:09:53] Jack Mallers:
Why do people support it?
[00:09:55] ODELL:
No. Where does Noster fit into all of this? Like, why why is Noster important? Why should people pay attention to it? Well, there's clearly value in free speech. Yeah.
[00:10:05] Jack Mallers:
Like, obviously. And, as that is challenged or and maybe Jack said yesterday to quote him, maybe it's more free will. But as that's challenged, then the market is going to value and place a premium on technologies that protect and afford it. And so I think, you know, no no. No. Sir, it's interesting because, it isn't necessarily a technological innovation. As I used I used to write code, believe it or not, and it isn't a lot. There was no Byzantine generals problem that was solved necessarily. It is more of a movement. I think when Jack talked about the early days of why he found it so exciting was the energy. It was the energy of Bitcoin combined with open Internet enthusiasts.
And so I think Nasr is where the market is gradually placing a premium on, free will and free speech. That's is my basic answer.
[00:11:01] ODELL:
Yeah. I mean, I think it just it kind of goes back to this, you know, this idea that all this open source work kind of compounds on top of each other. Right? And you have, like, this communication protocol on Nasr. You have this freedom money in terms of Bitcoin. You have this in both cases, they rely on cryptographic signatures and public key, private key pairs.
[00:11:22] Jack Mallers:
So they're verifiable. I'll ask I'll ask you a question, because I talk about this all the time. I don't have a good answers. What do you think we do about adoption? There's so many, keynotes we went to and saw yesterday that cited Twitter and x as taking their account down, censoring local government being able to take away information from the populace strategically. And I'm sitting next to Bitcoiners, like, these guys wanna download Primal or, and it and it is. It feels like we have a solution, that either, you know, is it a marketing problem, is the desire for the tech? What do you think, you know, the the difference between today's world and a better world because of this technology? What's the delta in your opinion? I mean, I think it's similar to Bitcoin in that. Right? It's like open source protocols don't have, you know, a centralized marketing budget.
[00:12:15] ODELL:
They don't have a centralized dev team. Like, things things take time to build out. I mean, Nasr's way younger than Bitcoin too. Nasr's about 3 years old at this point. It's it's it's barely beginning and move it's moving fast. But even in Bitcoin terms, I mean, we we had we had a whole conversation about the spread of CBDCs. Like, what Bitcoin adoption, you you've I suppose when you come to these things, you're like, how are more people not using Bitcoin up until this point? And I think a lot of it is need. As people realize the need, they will search out the tools, that empower them and and solve that need. That's one of the reasons why, working with HRF is so fulfilling because, I mean, you don't have to explain the need to, people that that are living in adversarial environments. Like, they they wholly understand that need. They're just like, how do I solve that need? What are what are the tools available to me?
And I I I think, I think, Nostar, it it's it's it's gonna be interesting because it's it's this whole idea of a web of trust. Like, people I think the web of trust aspect is what is what people don't realize is is so powerful about the whole thing, especially when you combine it with Bitcoin. And cryptographers and cyberpunks have been trying to make web of trust a thing for decades now. But I think what we needed was we needed the be the ability to shitpost our way to web of trust. And I I I think that's where we are at Nosta right now. And so it's gonna start with shitposts. It's people building out their their social graphs, you know, which which private keys they trust, you know, who they follow, who they who follows them. And then all of a sudden, you're gonna start to see really powerful content. You know? You know, speech that cannot be stopped combined with money that cannot be stopped, and the ball will just start rolling. And it'll just compound, and and then and then the rest will be history. Yeah. I I think it's interesting.
[00:14:17] Jack Mallers:
One of the ingenious insights that Satoshi had about, Bitcoin was bootstrapping a network. It's very difficult. I mean, we're all speculating and it's based on our own interpretation, but the way I look at havings, I mean, I grew up in Chicago from agriculture commodity markets, and I think of havings as an inventory reduction. So it's not priced in or not priced in. You're just reducing the inventory of the finished produced crop by half. You know, in in the drought in the late eighties, that my, dad and grandfather went through, inventory was reduced by, like, 15%.
We're talking corn and wheat, and they everyone freaked out. Market shut down. So here's this commodity. It's inventory reduction by 50%. It's like, my goodness, Satosh. You're gonna make out all of us puke all over ourselves. The chart's gonna go, and that's exactly what it did. But it's the idea that, and I I personally think that was intentional, and it was to bootstrap a network. It's how do you go from 0 to the reason you don't you you leave Twitter. You don't leave Twitter unless you're you is because there's a network there. There's a network of of people. And so how do you rebuild that network effect? Bitcoin's so unique and that it's it's bootstrapped on a monetary asset. So you'd you would I would leave Bitcoin if the network was only 2 people, because then I'm getting in at, you know, 1 penny. I wish I could. Right? So solved that very hard problem that I think Nasser is gonna have a tough time with. And I'm hopeful that I I wonder if Bitcoin can help bootstrap other Freedom Networks. Does that make sense? I wonder because it is a movement.
It it really has become a larger than life idea. Like, if for whatever reason Bitcoin were to technically have an issue, I don't think it can fail. It's, like, an idea whose time has come. And it's so unique that a software project can solve the network problem and build on network effects with no marketing, with no anything, and that you have an incentive to join the network even if the network's 2 people because it's it's a money. And I do I'm hopeful, but cautiously optimistic that other Freedom Tech can borrow from the network effect. That's how I view Nasr's initial success is a bunch of Bitcoiners that are just not going to let this idea die.
[00:16:34] ODELL:
Does that make sense? Yeah. So when I when I first got into Bitcoin, like, 11 years ago, one of the things that everyone always said was, you know, Bitcoin we're all gonna get wealthy, and then the Bitcoiners are gonna spread their ideals around the world, and it's gonna fix everything. And, you know, I think people tend to lack nuance and go to extremes about pretty much everything they talk about, but there's something there, and and so Nasr to me is this first child project of Bitcoin. It was birthed by Bitcoiners. Bitcoiner founded it. He launched it as an open source protocol. It's being seeded by Bitcoiners.
Bitcoiners are leaving Twitter and going noster only to to jump start the network effect. They're building it out. And that's also kinda how I see Open Sats, and that's how I see HRF Dev Fund, and that's how I see, your company's support of open source software. I mean, OpenSats specifically and by the way, I I think we have, like, 30,000 people watching this live stream right now. So if you are an open source contributor around the world, go to opensats.org/apply. Consider it. We would love to support you. But, like, Open SaaS couldn't run without Bitcoin, period. Like, not only is the board all Bitcoiners, but our treasuries held in Bitcoin. All the payments are are are made out in Bitcoin. The grant payments are made out in Bitcoin. I mean, we're sending nearly a 130 grant payments a month as monthly payments, almost like a payroll. It's like we're running like a Bitcoin standard payroll.
Imagine if and I don't know how many countries it is. Don't have the stats in front of me, but let's just say it's 40 countries. Imagine if we were sending out a 130 payments as wires to 40 countries. I don't even know if that's possible to do that. I I wouldn't why wouldn't be bullish on it? No? I mean, I I would be pulling my hair out. I'll tell you that much, if it was even possible. So I I think there is something there about about, you know, kind of like Bitcoin. You know, the open source movement has always been strong, but but just really, like, pouring gasoline on the fire and kind of just, like, supercharging and making it move quicker because especially when you come to these events. Right? It's like time is of the essence. I feel like we we need all this stuff yesterday. I agree. I mean, Bitcoin's the biggest wealth transfer
[00:18:52] Jack Mallers:
in at least modern human history. For people that are like, you know, price doesn't matter, I call bullshit. Price matters a lot. I mean, price to me is is the most active index we have on how much of the world is using the money. And I think it's really important that there is a transfer of wealth. I mean, it's demonetizing. I mean, there are people with a tremendous amount of wealth that's been passed down Manhattan real estate for 4, 5 generations. That guy's not he's not funding Cali. He's just not. And so I think it's important that we're demonetizing that wealth and putting it into active hands of people that are in this conference and in this room. So, I couldn't agree more with you. I I think that's right. I I mean, I said earlier, I think Bitcoin, is pure humanity.
I really do. I think the human story is engineering a better world, and the human story is commercializing energy from the sun. And Bitcoin is energy money. It's literally that, and it's literally an engineering product product project. It's our first engineered man made money. And so being bullish on Bitcoin's being bullish on humanity and placing a premium on the future. And so I think if we're able to capitalize on this wealth transfer, it in theory, it would be a much better world with wealth being with this room versus, I don't know, Jerome Powell or whatever. I don't know.
So let me, let me pivot this because I wanna just light a little fire. Do you mind? Yeah. Go for the pivot. Okay. Thanks for having me as your guest. I took over. So you recently, got in a fight on the Internet with Michael Sailor and, Butch is which is, which is in a good place. Right? Can I say real quick? I I ask you a question, won't let you answer. For all of for for the Bitcoiners out there, either in this room or on the Internet that, you know, adults are gonna fight about important stuff, and it doesn't mean that they don't like each other, and can't get along. If this is the most important thing that we're all working on, like, grow up. You're gonna disagree. So let me say that. I'm poking fun at you, but hopefully people understand that context.
I just went through my 3rd having. Adults fight all the time on this stuff because it's that important. So people should grow up. It's okay. I mean, I know you and Sailor respect each other, and if you wanna comment on that. But the actual question was more, as I as I listen to these talks, there's a lot of things Bitcoin doesn't solve yet. And there's this idea of ossification and going slow versus using engineering and software to solve problems. Given the context of you in the last month, I will would be curious your on the record opinion, at this conference. Are you looking at me like that for?
What do you think? Where do you stand?
[00:21:50] ODELL:
Gotta love on the record opinions. Yeah. I mean, you can respect you can disagree with people you respect. Like, I think that's lost on a lot of people, especially in the era of, like, social media drama. And I will say, to me, it was always less a fight. Like, I don't think we ever really fought. I think it was just me making public that he was telling firms not to support open source contributors while I was doing the opposite and trying to fight an uphill battle of convincing the very few companies that are are graciously supporting open source. And I didn't you know, in general, I think that these conversations should be out in the open. I think that's why NaaS are so important. I think that's why events like this are so important.
Because, you know, there there is a time and place for closed door meetings, and backroom discussions. But but there needs to be light on something as as important as this. I will say that, first off, you know, it it it depends on on the project. Right? So, like, when you look at open sats, we have a $130, about $130, slightly less than that. 12 of them are working on pick Bitcoin Core directly or or right next to Bitcoin Core. The rest are working on all these other projects that are surrounding Bitcoin. That that Bitcoin is is is made more robust as a system that people rely on to use Bitcoin, whether there's wallets or lightning development, NOS or Tor, Graphene OS. Right? And And with those things, you know, you're not building the basis of a distributed global censorship resistant financial network.
So you can move faster on those things. Like, one of the I think one of the breaths of fresh air that for a lot of Bitcoin developers is you're working on, like, this on Bitcoin, you're working on this, especially on the protocol level, this this generational project that that intentionally moves slowly and is is very conservative in development because you don't want to break it. And then you get to something like Noster, and you can just you just ship in development. Like, you're just like actively just modifying things, breaking things, and you have nothing to worry about. Because at the end of the day, like, you know, especially if you're an app developer in Nostra, at the end of the day, they can just take their private key and go to someone else's app if your app breaks that morning.
And, like, maybe they can't ship post that day. You know? It's like not the it's not the end of the world. So I think there's nuance here. I will say that there's a tendency of people, especially in the era of social media, the Instagram era, the TikTok era, of seeing other people do things and then deciding to themselves that they don't have to do something. That, you know, I I always go back to, like, George Bush on the aircraft carrier, like, mission accomplished. Like, they see they see, you know, maybe you support Cali, or they see OpenSAT send send, you know, grants out, or or they see one of these activists, you know, successfully navigate a protest movement. And they're like, okay. Like, we solved the problem. Like, it's solved.
And on open source specifically and Bitcoin development specifically, it is so far away from being solved or oversaturated. Like, these open source contributors have very little support. They have more support than they've ever had before. But it's not just money. It's also burnout. Like, the burnout is real. And the the the navigating, especially on the protocol level, like, navigating the the hard conversations potential protocol changes or how you would activate it. It gets it gets very it gets rightfully, I think, fierce out there. Right? Like, people get into very heated arguments. They and there's a lot of personal attacks that happen. So I just I think it's it's important for people to realize that. It's important that we have more support. I think every profitable business in the world should be supporting open source contributors. I definitely think every profitable Bitcoin business should be supporting open source contributors, and I think it's gonna be a it's gonna be a long it's gonna be a long marathon. It's not a sprint. Right?
[00:26:12] Jack Mallers:
Yeah. I agree. I I think, the way I like to think about it is that, you know, Bitcoin has everything to lose with every decision. You know you know the phrase like, well, what do you have to lose? You know, it's very rare that when you're making a decision on a technology that you have everything to lose all the time. It's like, you know, sailor, draws the analogy to an airplane. It's like, oh, why don't we try this new feature on the wing of the airplane? I was like, well, because you might kill everyone. And so when you have a technology where you have everything to lose, what do you do? You probably take your time.
Right? And you you probably make sure you got it right, because there's never going to be the r and r. The risk reward is never gonna be your favor. Right? Which is interesting. It's just a reality of the project. But every time, I'm able to be in the room with activists and, folks from not America, generally speaking, but, Africa is a continent I've been focusing on a lot. It's clear that Bitcoin doesn't fix everything. So it's an interesting it's interesting. There's gonna be debates and disagreements, but, I'm hopeful we'll find our way, which I was gonna ask you one more on the back half of, of this is, what do you think for a lot of what we've heard today, on use was, I I'm gonna botch the quote, but it was about a. It was like, don't start another wallet or another fund. Right? It was like utility. It was we we need to make this thing a lot more useful. There's problems that can solve, Given the context of building on a protocol where you constantly have everything to lose, what do you think adoption wise in that realm of Bitcoin, which I obviously have an opinion, but I'm curious of yours first. I don't really follow what you Do we do like, for utility on top of Bitcoin, do we need new features, new technology?
Why haven't we solved the problems we've heard today? And given if it is a bunch of new features and new technology and capabilities, are we gonna be able to achieve that soon, later ish? Do you have an opinion on on that? I mean, I I think
[00:28:21] ODELL:
we shouldn't rush into any kind of major changes with Bitcoin, period. I think, you you know, Bitcoin needs to be simple. It needs to be robust. Like I said, the base of a global financial network, distributed, censorship resistant financial network. Especially when you when you were were in the realm of you know, in that kind of situation is is in your threat model at the protocol level is is nation state threat threat modeling. Right? It's, you know, does a major nation state try to break this thing? And what you need there is you need basically 2 core things. You need, first of all, people to be able to interact with the network without trust, be able to And I don't think that's nest it's it's it's an unsolved problem. And, like, one of the things that is, really powerful about something like Cashew is it just doesn't require a protocol change, and it it makes custodial Bitcoin better. Right? It it adds it adds privacy. It makes it easier for people to use custodial Bitcoin to launch other competing custodians and have, you know, a free market or whatnot.
But to me, that is not the, you know ultimately, it would be great if if the user experience for self custody could be, more competitive with the user experience of custodial. And and we don't know how to do that yet. Alright.
[00:30:01] Jack Mallers:
Yeah. Good answer. I agree.
[00:30:05] ODELL:
Awesome. Jack, thank you for having me on your show. Yep. You're welcome. Guys, thank you for joining us. Here all week. And, huge huge thanks to the Human Rights Foundation and and all the people, on the ground that make this movement possible. Thank you, guys.
I wanna introduce Matt Odell and bring Jack Mahlers back onto the stage to do a recap of the day. And I also wanna shout out everyone in the back. We got some open seats in the middle here, so come on come up come up and sit down, but Jack, Matt, thank you so much.
[00:00:19] ODELL:
What is up, Oslo? Hey, guys. My name is Matt O'Dell. I've had done a lot of things, in the Bitcoin space. I'm, managing partner of 1031, a venture fund, that supports Bitcoin companies, including Jack's, company, cofounder of OpenSats, which is, a 5 0 1c3 organization that's a 100% pass through, runs on a Bitcoin standard, and supports open source contributors. And I've had the honor and privilege of working with the Human Rights Foundation on their Bitcoin education now for a little over 5 years. And I will say that every time I work with the Human Rights Foundation, every time I work with, all the amazing activists around the world, It's it's it's inspiring. It's it's motivating. It it reminds me. It reminds so many people why this work is so important and how much work is left to be done.
I'm I'm grateful. I'm humbled. And, we have really tough act to follow here, Jack. An impossible one. This graphic is overwhelming me. I know. It's a little bit overwhelming. No kidding. I mean, I think, an interesting place to start here is, your announcement, with with Cali up here about e cash and and and the new foundation that is starting to to help distribute funding, throughout the protocol among all the developers. You know, you're up here briefly, but I'm kinda I would I would love to just jump in a little bit further in this idea of, you know, profitable Bitcoin businesses, contributing to open source, whether that's through direct development or whether that's supporting developers, and how how you think about that?
[00:02:19] Jack Mallers:
Yeah. I mean, in hindsight, it makes all the sense in the world. Right? Like, we have a vested interest in Bitcoin being successful. That's part of the game theory that makes the whole project work. And so no matter your role, we're all on the same team. If Bitcoin's better, we're all better off for it. In hindsight, that makes sense. At the time, though, as the CEO and founder of a regulated company, I unfortunately took the really lazy approach of, well, you know, I hope you guys figure out the privacy stuff. Looks challenging, but I can't I can't do it. I just go I go straight to prison. I might as well just walk myself to Manhattan District. So, that was unfortunately the approach until I did some work with Alex and the Human Rights Foundation and realized that, I feel almost a moral obligation as a business. Because, listen, I sell Bitcoin, and it's a great business. Like, running a BTC USD product is a phenomenal business, and, it's a it's far more though, self interested, admittedly, in running a corporation than something like what Cali is doing. And so through my work with HRF and coming here, there is a a duty that I have to making sure Bitcoin is successful, although not maybe in my shareholders, in my corporation's immediate interest, if that makes sense. You know, in in traditional business, you would never take corporate cash flow and give it to some developer in their parents' basement to try and build, you know, David Choms. I actually don't know where Cali works. It's probably not his parents' basement. But, you wouldn't you wouldn't take, like, cash flow and and go to the board meeting and say, hey, guys. We're gonna take, you know, all this cash flow, and instead of giving it to shareholders or dividends or investing in future growth, we're gonna give it to this anonymous dude who's gonna take David Chaum's vision and change the world with it. But because of Bitcoin, it all works out, and we're a way better company for it. And so I would encourage other businesses to go through the mental exercise and challenge themselves in that way, because it is it is, in my opinion, lazy. Like, if I'm critical of myself, it it was very not cool of me for my approach. And, at Strike, we we hold ourselves to a pretty serious accountability. We have a 501c3 now internally at the company. We've never made it very public, but we set up a lot of infrastructure so that we could take cash and give to Bitcoin in ways that as a business, we can't.
But that's still a responsibility we share. And I hope we inspire other businesses like Jack. The other Jack inspired me in in this way, and I hope a lot of the other companies in the space, as number goes up, can find themselves, whether it's working with Alex and HRF or specific efforts. We could talk about privacy, but
[00:04:51] ODELL:
yeah. The other Jack. Yeah. I mean, I think there's there's something to be said here. Right? Because just just the power of open source software, that open source software is not owned by a single individual. It's not owned by a company. It's in the comments. Right? It's in the comments. It's available to everyone that they can they can build on. They can monetize. They can use. They can ship. They can modify it to their heart's content. And as a result, it's viral in nature. It outlives all of us. And it's really easy to think of it's really easy to fall in the hole of thinking of Bitcoin as as a tech project. I mean, ultimately, it, you know, it is this software tool. It's this software package that that people can use.
But it's also it's also a movement. And it's a movement of of individuals around the world that that are that are pushing forward every day. And they're using this tool, and they're using other open source tools available to them. And this greater open source movement, and you you mix that in with with this freedom movement of people and empowering those people. And it just starts to compound in in in ways you can't even comprehend. You know? It's incredibly easy to come here and be frustrated. And, you know, there's so many authoritarian governments, and and people are, you know, getting beat up and thrown in jail and killed. That hope is lost.
But real progress is being made every day, And and it it just compounds over and over and over again on the work of others, and it's it's just incredibly powerful.
[00:06:25] Jack Mallers:
You know what what's interesting though is, I haven't found a way to articulate this yet, but the Bitcoin fixes the physical monetary bear instrument of Bitcoin fixes this problem. You know, the Internet, you know, Google doesn't have as much of a vested interest in the success of the open web. And but as a Bitcoin company, I do in Bitcoin. And, I think it is fundamentally because Bitcoin allows the free market to value the project in the form of a monetary instrument, where if if the people, if the individual had a way of selling or buying the open free Internet, I think it'd be a lot different of incentive structure for some of these, like, really big Internet corporations to invest more in the success of the overall web as opposed to their own self interest. And so, I I think that that is has to be said out loud as well. This is very unique. Open source software,
[00:07:26] ODELL:
you're a 100% correct. But then even on top of open source software, Bitcoin open source software is very special. We talked so much that you answered the question that I hadn't got to ask yet There you go. Which was I mean, I kinda think of Bitcoin as, like, the shared equity. Right? And it's and it's not just shared between founders of of profitable businesses, but it's also shared among open source contributors. Shared among freedom fighters, and it's pretty pretty crazy how that Yeah. Works out. And in theory, like, if you believe in free markets,
[00:07:56] Jack Mallers:
you believe that they are the judge. Right? They hold us all accountable. You know, if if we need another barbershop in town, then someone can create it, and the free market's either gonna let it stay in business or it won't. Right? And so I think the free market allows it holds holds the industry accountable, in my opinion. I think we've seen businesses like Coinbase lose a lot of I mean, arguably, Stripe has an opportunity to be a company because Coinbase screwed up a lot, in not supporting Bitcoin, in the ways like, I'd love shout shout out Brian Armstrong. You should, fund Cashew and and Cali. Right? So there's a there's a way, yeah, there's a way for us to Bitcoin allows the free market to hold corporations accountable because it is so grassroots.
So
[00:08:41] ODELL:
I love it. Well, thank you for supporting open source. I, one of the one of the trends that we've seen over the last 2 days, or this is day 3, but over the over the course of this week, is this trend about, the the power of of of using these these social media networks, using, using Twitter. You know? There's there's a lot there was so many talks where it was like, everything I do is on Twitter. I owe to the only reason I'm standing on the stage is because I'm on Twitter. Mhmm. I mean, I actually think, like, our friendship started because of Twitter as well just to add that in there. But I wanna bring up Noster. I wanna bring up Noster. You mentioned the other Jack. He brought it up on stage. Mhmm.
Where does Noster fit into all of this? I mean, we're talking about Bitcoin. We're talking about Bitcoin as a shared equity. Like, why would people support Noster if there does isn't like a, you know, token attached to it or, like, Bitcoin's its token, I guess? Yeah. With my Noster shit coin. Yeah. They that'll get Andreessen out of his pants for sure.
[00:09:53] Jack Mallers:
Why do people support it?
[00:09:55] ODELL:
No. Where does Noster fit into all of this? Like, why why is Noster important? Why should people pay attention to it? Well, there's clearly value in free speech. Yeah.
[00:10:05] Jack Mallers:
Like, obviously. And, as that is challenged or and maybe Jack said yesterday to quote him, maybe it's more free will. But as that's challenged, then the market is going to value and place a premium on technologies that protect and afford it. And so I think, you know, no no. No. Sir, it's interesting because, it isn't necessarily a technological innovation. As I used I used to write code, believe it or not, and it isn't a lot. There was no Byzantine generals problem that was solved necessarily. It is more of a movement. I think when Jack talked about the early days of why he found it so exciting was the energy. It was the energy of Bitcoin combined with open Internet enthusiasts.
And so I think Nasr is where the market is gradually placing a premium on, free will and free speech. That's is my basic answer.
[00:11:01] ODELL:
Yeah. I mean, I think it just it kind of goes back to this, you know, this idea that all this open source work kind of compounds on top of each other. Right? And you have, like, this communication protocol on Nasr. You have this freedom money in terms of Bitcoin. You have this in both cases, they rely on cryptographic signatures and public key, private key pairs.
[00:11:22] Jack Mallers:
So they're verifiable. I'll ask I'll ask you a question, because I talk about this all the time. I don't have a good answers. What do you think we do about adoption? There's so many, keynotes we went to and saw yesterday that cited Twitter and x as taking their account down, censoring local government being able to take away information from the populace strategically. And I'm sitting next to Bitcoiners, like, these guys wanna download Primal or, and it and it is. It feels like we have a solution, that either, you know, is it a marketing problem, is the desire for the tech? What do you think, you know, the the difference between today's world and a better world because of this technology? What's the delta in your opinion? I mean, I think it's similar to Bitcoin in that. Right? It's like open source protocols don't have, you know, a centralized marketing budget.
[00:12:15] ODELL:
They don't have a centralized dev team. Like, things things take time to build out. I mean, Nasr's way younger than Bitcoin too. Nasr's about 3 years old at this point. It's it's it's barely beginning and move it's moving fast. But even in Bitcoin terms, I mean, we we had we had a whole conversation about the spread of CBDCs. Like, what Bitcoin adoption, you you've I suppose when you come to these things, you're like, how are more people not using Bitcoin up until this point? And I think a lot of it is need. As people realize the need, they will search out the tools, that empower them and and solve that need. That's one of the reasons why, working with HRF is so fulfilling because, I mean, you don't have to explain the need to, people that that are living in adversarial environments. Like, they they wholly understand that need. They're just like, how do I solve that need? What are what are the tools available to me?
And I I I think, I think, Nostar, it it's it's it's gonna be interesting because it's it's this whole idea of a web of trust. Like, people I think the web of trust aspect is what is what people don't realize is is so powerful about the whole thing, especially when you combine it with Bitcoin. And cryptographers and cyberpunks have been trying to make web of trust a thing for decades now. But I think what we needed was we needed the be the ability to shitpost our way to web of trust. And I I I think that's where we are at Nosta right now. And so it's gonna start with shitposts. It's people building out their their social graphs, you know, which which private keys they trust, you know, who they follow, who they who follows them. And then all of a sudden, you're gonna start to see really powerful content. You know? You know, speech that cannot be stopped combined with money that cannot be stopped, and the ball will just start rolling. And it'll just compound, and and then and then the rest will be history. Yeah. I I think it's interesting.
[00:14:17] Jack Mallers:
One of the ingenious insights that Satoshi had about, Bitcoin was bootstrapping a network. It's very difficult. I mean, we're all speculating and it's based on our own interpretation, but the way I look at havings, I mean, I grew up in Chicago from agriculture commodity markets, and I think of havings as an inventory reduction. So it's not priced in or not priced in. You're just reducing the inventory of the finished produced crop by half. You know, in in the drought in the late eighties, that my, dad and grandfather went through, inventory was reduced by, like, 15%.
We're talking corn and wheat, and they everyone freaked out. Market shut down. So here's this commodity. It's inventory reduction by 50%. It's like, my goodness, Satosh. You're gonna make out all of us puke all over ourselves. The chart's gonna go, and that's exactly what it did. But it's the idea that, and I I personally think that was intentional, and it was to bootstrap a network. It's how do you go from 0 to the reason you don't you you leave Twitter. You don't leave Twitter unless you're you is because there's a network there. There's a network of of people. And so how do you rebuild that network effect? Bitcoin's so unique and that it's it's bootstrapped on a monetary asset. So you'd you would I would leave Bitcoin if the network was only 2 people, because then I'm getting in at, you know, 1 penny. I wish I could. Right? So solved that very hard problem that I think Nasser is gonna have a tough time with. And I'm hopeful that I I wonder if Bitcoin can help bootstrap other Freedom Networks. Does that make sense? I wonder because it is a movement.
It it really has become a larger than life idea. Like, if for whatever reason Bitcoin were to technically have an issue, I don't think it can fail. It's, like, an idea whose time has come. And it's so unique that a software project can solve the network problem and build on network effects with no marketing, with no anything, and that you have an incentive to join the network even if the network's 2 people because it's it's a money. And I do I'm hopeful, but cautiously optimistic that other Freedom Tech can borrow from the network effect. That's how I view Nasr's initial success is a bunch of Bitcoiners that are just not going to let this idea die.
[00:16:34] ODELL:
Does that make sense? Yeah. So when I when I first got into Bitcoin, like, 11 years ago, one of the things that everyone always said was, you know, Bitcoin we're all gonna get wealthy, and then the Bitcoiners are gonna spread their ideals around the world, and it's gonna fix everything. And, you know, I think people tend to lack nuance and go to extremes about pretty much everything they talk about, but there's something there, and and so Nasr to me is this first child project of Bitcoin. It was birthed by Bitcoiners. Bitcoiner founded it. He launched it as an open source protocol. It's being seeded by Bitcoiners.
Bitcoiners are leaving Twitter and going noster only to to jump start the network effect. They're building it out. And that's also kinda how I see Open Sats, and that's how I see HRF Dev Fund, and that's how I see, your company's support of open source software. I mean, OpenSats specifically and by the way, I I think we have, like, 30,000 people watching this live stream right now. So if you are an open source contributor around the world, go to opensats.org/apply. Consider it. We would love to support you. But, like, Open SaaS couldn't run without Bitcoin, period. Like, not only is the board all Bitcoiners, but our treasuries held in Bitcoin. All the payments are are are made out in Bitcoin. The grant payments are made out in Bitcoin. I mean, we're sending nearly a 130 grant payments a month as monthly payments, almost like a payroll. It's like we're running like a Bitcoin standard payroll.
Imagine if and I don't know how many countries it is. Don't have the stats in front of me, but let's just say it's 40 countries. Imagine if we were sending out a 130 payments as wires to 40 countries. I don't even know if that's possible to do that. I I wouldn't why wouldn't be bullish on it? No? I mean, I I would be pulling my hair out. I'll tell you that much, if it was even possible. So I I think there is something there about about, you know, kind of like Bitcoin. You know, the open source movement has always been strong, but but just really, like, pouring gasoline on the fire and kind of just, like, supercharging and making it move quicker because especially when you come to these events. Right? It's like time is of the essence. I feel like we we need all this stuff yesterday. I agree. I mean, Bitcoin's the biggest wealth transfer
[00:18:52] Jack Mallers:
in at least modern human history. For people that are like, you know, price doesn't matter, I call bullshit. Price matters a lot. I mean, price to me is is the most active index we have on how much of the world is using the money. And I think it's really important that there is a transfer of wealth. I mean, it's demonetizing. I mean, there are people with a tremendous amount of wealth that's been passed down Manhattan real estate for 4, 5 generations. That guy's not he's not funding Cali. He's just not. And so I think it's important that we're demonetizing that wealth and putting it into active hands of people that are in this conference and in this room. So, I couldn't agree more with you. I I think that's right. I I mean, I said earlier, I think Bitcoin, is pure humanity.
I really do. I think the human story is engineering a better world, and the human story is commercializing energy from the sun. And Bitcoin is energy money. It's literally that, and it's literally an engineering product product project. It's our first engineered man made money. And so being bullish on Bitcoin's being bullish on humanity and placing a premium on the future. And so I think if we're able to capitalize on this wealth transfer, it in theory, it would be a much better world with wealth being with this room versus, I don't know, Jerome Powell or whatever. I don't know.
So let me, let me pivot this because I wanna just light a little fire. Do you mind? Yeah. Go for the pivot. Okay. Thanks for having me as your guest. I took over. So you recently, got in a fight on the Internet with Michael Sailor and, Butch is which is, which is in a good place. Right? Can I say real quick? I I ask you a question, won't let you answer. For all of for for the Bitcoiners out there, either in this room or on the Internet that, you know, adults are gonna fight about important stuff, and it doesn't mean that they don't like each other, and can't get along. If this is the most important thing that we're all working on, like, grow up. You're gonna disagree. So let me say that. I'm poking fun at you, but hopefully people understand that context.
I just went through my 3rd having. Adults fight all the time on this stuff because it's that important. So people should grow up. It's okay. I mean, I know you and Sailor respect each other, and if you wanna comment on that. But the actual question was more, as I as I listen to these talks, there's a lot of things Bitcoin doesn't solve yet. And there's this idea of ossification and going slow versus using engineering and software to solve problems. Given the context of you in the last month, I will would be curious your on the record opinion, at this conference. Are you looking at me like that for?
What do you think? Where do you stand?
[00:21:50] ODELL:
Gotta love on the record opinions. Yeah. I mean, you can respect you can disagree with people you respect. Like, I think that's lost on a lot of people, especially in the era of, like, social media drama. And I will say, to me, it was always less a fight. Like, I don't think we ever really fought. I think it was just me making public that he was telling firms not to support open source contributors while I was doing the opposite and trying to fight an uphill battle of convincing the very few companies that are are graciously supporting open source. And I didn't you know, in general, I think that these conversations should be out in the open. I think that's why NaaS are so important. I think that's why events like this are so important.
Because, you know, there there is a time and place for closed door meetings, and backroom discussions. But but there needs to be light on something as as important as this. I will say that, first off, you know, it it it depends on on the project. Right? So, like, when you look at open sats, we have a $130, about $130, slightly less than that. 12 of them are working on pick Bitcoin Core directly or or right next to Bitcoin Core. The rest are working on all these other projects that are surrounding Bitcoin. That that Bitcoin is is is made more robust as a system that people rely on to use Bitcoin, whether there's wallets or lightning development, NOS or Tor, Graphene OS. Right? And And with those things, you know, you're not building the basis of a distributed global censorship resistant financial network.
So you can move faster on those things. Like, one of the I think one of the breaths of fresh air that for a lot of Bitcoin developers is you're working on, like, this on Bitcoin, you're working on this, especially on the protocol level, this this generational project that that intentionally moves slowly and is is very conservative in development because you don't want to break it. And then you get to something like Noster, and you can just you just ship in development. Like, you're just like actively just modifying things, breaking things, and you have nothing to worry about. Because at the end of the day, like, you know, especially if you're an app developer in Nostra, at the end of the day, they can just take their private key and go to someone else's app if your app breaks that morning.
And, like, maybe they can't ship post that day. You know? It's like not the it's not the end of the world. So I think there's nuance here. I will say that there's a tendency of people, especially in the era of social media, the Instagram era, the TikTok era, of seeing other people do things and then deciding to themselves that they don't have to do something. That, you know, I I always go back to, like, George Bush on the aircraft carrier, like, mission accomplished. Like, they see they see, you know, maybe you support Cali, or they see OpenSAT send send, you know, grants out, or or they see one of these activists, you know, successfully navigate a protest movement. And they're like, okay. Like, we solved the problem. Like, it's solved.
And on open source specifically and Bitcoin development specifically, it is so far away from being solved or oversaturated. Like, these open source contributors have very little support. They have more support than they've ever had before. But it's not just money. It's also burnout. Like, the burnout is real. And the the the navigating, especially on the protocol level, like, navigating the the hard conversations potential protocol changes or how you would activate it. It gets it gets very it gets rightfully, I think, fierce out there. Right? Like, people get into very heated arguments. They and there's a lot of personal attacks that happen. So I just I think it's it's important for people to realize that. It's important that we have more support. I think every profitable business in the world should be supporting open source contributors. I definitely think every profitable Bitcoin business should be supporting open source contributors, and I think it's gonna be a it's gonna be a long it's gonna be a long marathon. It's not a sprint. Right?
[00:26:12] Jack Mallers:
Yeah. I agree. I I think, the way I like to think about it is that, you know, Bitcoin has everything to lose with every decision. You know you know the phrase like, well, what do you have to lose? You know, it's very rare that when you're making a decision on a technology that you have everything to lose all the time. It's like, you know, sailor, draws the analogy to an airplane. It's like, oh, why don't we try this new feature on the wing of the airplane? I was like, well, because you might kill everyone. And so when you have a technology where you have everything to lose, what do you do? You probably take your time.
Right? And you you probably make sure you got it right, because there's never going to be the r and r. The risk reward is never gonna be your favor. Right? Which is interesting. It's just a reality of the project. But every time, I'm able to be in the room with activists and, folks from not America, generally speaking, but, Africa is a continent I've been focusing on a lot. It's clear that Bitcoin doesn't fix everything. So it's an interesting it's interesting. There's gonna be debates and disagreements, but, I'm hopeful we'll find our way, which I was gonna ask you one more on the back half of, of this is, what do you think for a lot of what we've heard today, on use was, I I'm gonna botch the quote, but it was about a. It was like, don't start another wallet or another fund. Right? It was like utility. It was we we need to make this thing a lot more useful. There's problems that can solve, Given the context of building on a protocol where you constantly have everything to lose, what do you think adoption wise in that realm of Bitcoin, which I obviously have an opinion, but I'm curious of yours first. I don't really follow what you Do we do like, for utility on top of Bitcoin, do we need new features, new technology?
Why haven't we solved the problems we've heard today? And given if it is a bunch of new features and new technology and capabilities, are we gonna be able to achieve that soon, later ish? Do you have an opinion on on that? I mean, I I think
[00:28:21] ODELL:
we shouldn't rush into any kind of major changes with Bitcoin, period. I think, you you know, Bitcoin needs to be simple. It needs to be robust. Like I said, the base of a global financial network, distributed, censorship resistant financial network. Especially when you when you were were in the realm of you know, in that kind of situation is is in your threat model at the protocol level is is nation state threat threat modeling. Right? It's, you know, does a major nation state try to break this thing? And what you need there is you need basically 2 core things. You need, first of all, people to be able to interact with the network without trust, be able to And I don't think that's nest it's it's it's an unsolved problem. And, like, one of the things that is, really powerful about something like Cashew is it just doesn't require a protocol change, and it it makes custodial Bitcoin better. Right? It it adds it adds privacy. It makes it easier for people to use custodial Bitcoin to launch other competing custodians and have, you know, a free market or whatnot.
But to me, that is not the, you know ultimately, it would be great if if the user experience for self custody could be, more competitive with the user experience of custodial. And and we don't know how to do that yet. Alright.
[00:30:01] Jack Mallers:
Yeah. Good answer. I agree.
[00:30:05] ODELL:
Awesome. Jack, thank you for having me on your show. Yep. You're welcome. Guys, thank you for joining us. Here all week. And, huge huge thanks to the Human Rights Foundation and and all the people, on the ground that make this movement possible. Thank you, guys.
Introduction of Matt Odell and Jack Mahlers for a recap of the day
Matt Odell's background in the Bitcoin space and his involvement with various Bitcoin-related ventures and organizations
Discussion on the importance of Bitcoin work, collaboration with the Human Rights Foundation, and the need for continuous efforts in the space
