Is Bitcoin inevitable?
Bob Burnett, CEO of Barefoot Mining and I discuss the critical importance of terminology in the Bitcoin space and the often-overlooked topic of ASICs.
Bob, a holder of 8 US patents and a veteran in the technology sector, shares his journey from Gateway to Bitcoin mining.
The conversation delves into the top five threats facing Bitcoin's future, including ordinals, centralization risks, block space scarcity, government attacks on coin joins and self-custody, and the looming threat of CBDCs.
Bob emphasizes the importance of proper terminology to avoid regulatory pitfalls and the need for a decentralized mining ecosystem.
He also highlights the role of organizations like Satoshi Action Fund, Digital Chamber, and Bitcoin Policy Institute in advocating for Bitcoin-friendly policies.
Tune in for an enlightening discussion on the challenges and opportunities in the Bitcoin landscape.
✅ Follow Bob:
www.barefootmining.com
www.cardinaltheory.com (coming soon)
https://x.com/boomer_btc
🔥 LISTEN TO EPISODE HERE
(00:00:02) Introduction and Guest Overview
(00:01:31) Bob Burnett's Background and Mission
(00:06:17) Top Threats to Bitcoin's Future
(00:06:39) Understanding Ordinals and Their Impact
(00:19:10) The Ethical and Technical Issues with Ordinals
(00:27:23) Centralization Risks in Bitcoin Mining
(00:39:08) Mining Pools and Their Influence
(00:50:07) The Importance of Language in Bitcoin
(00:57:03) Privacy and CoinJoin Concerns
(01:04:32) How to Support Bitcoin's Future
(01:13:00) Closing Thoughts and Future Outlook
❤️ SUBSCRIBE to the LOVE Warrior Newsletter
https://djvalerieblove.com/subscribe
🧡 SUPPORT THE SHOW WITH TIPS - Thank You!
https://getalby.com/p/djvalerie
💛 SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST
YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/@djvalerieblove
WEBSITE: https://djvalerieblove.com/podcast
FOUNTAIN.FM: https://fountain.fm/show/761jhxFiibErm7eZZdlt
APPLE: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bitcoin-for-peace-dj-valerie-b-love-friends/id1441540841
SPOTIFY: https://open.spotify.com/show/6kZfzFZ3wKmWiljDajrJZ5?si=a9433473b06f464b
RSS: https://serve.podhome.fm/rss/4996bcea-e098-5a89-ac63-af7a3df7cb5d
💚 FOLLOW DJ Valerie
X - TWITTER: https://twitter.com/djvalerieblove
FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/djValerieBLove
INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/djvalerieblove/
LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dj-valerie-b-love/
NOSTR: npub184cwc849sejs5pr566zcg4pqn53zzk85q70gmwqx7qt77h3suansvet30s
🩵 DJ VALERIE’S FAVORITE TOOLS
AUDIBLE - Get 2 FREE Audiobooks https://www.audibletrial.com/bitcoin
SHAMORY - Have Fun Learn Bitcoin 10% Discount shamory.com/love
REAL MUSHROOMS - 25% Off 1st order https://shop.realmushrooms.com/?ref=1232
PODHOME.FM - 3 months FREE Podcast 2.0 Hosting https://www.podhome.fm/?via=valerie
NUBYEN - Natural Beauty 15% OFF Code "DJVALERIE15" https://nubyen.com
PAY WITH FLASH - Bitcoin Payments https://app.paywithflash.com/login?ref=7c443b63f7eb784403ec7f0a093950c542275095607be6aab76ce433f116887c
PODCASTING INDEX - https://podcastindex.org/
SATSBACK - Get Bitcoin rewards when you shop https://satsback.com/register/Ezv2VLwKXgLd8X4Z
PERPLEXITY AI - Get $10 OFF https://perplexity.ai/pro?referral_code=U661YIKD
HEATBIT - 5% OFF Code = PEACE -Earn Bitcoin & Save $ Heating Your Home https://heatbit.com/?ref=LOVE
BTC TRADING CARDS - Have FUN + Learn Bitcoin https://btc-tc.com/LOVE
💙 DJ VALERIE’S FAVORITE EVENTS
https://b.tc/conference/2025/ Use code LOVE for 10% OFF
https://www.adoptingbitcoin.org/ Use code DJVAL for 10% OFF
https://sovereignminds.ca/
https://baltichoneybadger.com/
https://bitblockboom.com/
https://unconfiscatable.com/
https://bitcoinunconference.com/
https://afrobitcoin.org/
https://oslofreedomforum.com/
💜 BUY, TRADE, STORE, MINE BITCOIN
HODL HODL no KYC https://hodlhodl.com/join/NMKLQ
SWAN - Get $10 FREE Bitcoin - Dollar Cost Average - https://swanbitcoin.com/djvalerie
RIVER FINANCIAL Buy Bitcoin Safely -Get Up to $100 in FREE Bitcoin https://partner.river.com/LOVE
BITCOIN ADVISER - Estate Planning and Key Guardian for Bitcoin https://content.thebitcoinadviser.com/valerie-b-love
TREZOR - Get 10% OFF Trezor 5.0 and Onboarding Call https://affil.trezor.io/SHcT
COLDCARD Discount 5%- Promo Code “CKBTC” store.coinkite.com/promo/PEACE
SAZ MINING - Get $50 OFF your Bitcoin Mining Order https://app.sazmining.com/purchase?ref=DJVAL
BITCOIN MENTOR - Learn Bitcoin Self-Custody-Use code LOVE30 for $30 OFF https://bitcoinmentor.io/aff/love/
🩷 DJ VALERIE'S FAVORITE IDEAS
WHAT IS VALUE FOR VALUE? - ADAM CURRY https://value4value.info/about/
Hey, aloha. Do you guys understand terminology and why words matter with Bitcoin and when we're thinking in terms of, influencing folks, educating them, helping them understand why Bitcoin is a superior tool for peace. Bob Burnett is my next guest. You guys are gonna love him. He's the CEO of Barefoot Mining. And we discuss something that most Bitcoiners don't talk about and I have included in that, which is definition of Asics and why it's very important that we look at, is that the right way actually to talk about minors? And so, you guys are going to have an interesting surprise in this conversation. So please tune in. I really, really admire Bob for his ethics and his courage and how he educates and what he stands for.
You guys are gonna love this episode. He's a badass. All right. Thanks. Tune in. Hey, aloha. Get ready for an epic episode. And if you love it, please share it. You know why? Because you got the love. Enjoy, my friends. I guess not minutes. Hey. Aloha, love tribe. Welcome to Bitcoin for Peace. I have somebody here who is a holder of 8 US patents. He is a Bitcoin educator and the founder and CEO of Barefoot Mining. Welcome, Bob Burnett. What's up, my friend? Hey. Great to see you, Valerie. So glad you're here, and thanks for taking time to talk about all the things that we mentioned. We're gonna be talking about the top five threats that we think are facing the future of Bitcoin.
And, Yeah. Let's get started. Do you wanna just share a little bit to the audience, like, who you are? What's your scoop? What's your big mission on planet Earth?
[00:02:07] Unknown:
Sure. Sure. Well, I'm an older member of the Bitcoin tribe. Yay. I've Me too. Yeah. Yeah. I've been, involved in technology related stuff going way back into the eighties, even the early part of the eighties. I probably most notably spent time, with Gateway, the personal computer company. Mhmm. For those of you who are around in the nineties. I remember Gateway.
[00:02:33] Unknown:
Yeah.
[00:02:33] Unknown:
So we, you know, we were known for our cow spotted boxes and, but I was I was blessed to have an opportunity to be there for 14 years, served as the chief technical officer there. So I I led the product development, not just for computers, which I think what people remember. But we did plasma TVs. We did, MP 3 players. We did little cameras. And so was really a blessing to have lived through what I believe to be one of the most, oh, important technological inflection points in history, which are the personal computer. Because you can argue, which we won't today and it's not the topic of today, but if you look at technology technology inflection points, the Internet doesn't happen without a personal computer.
So, I mean, I I would make the argument I was involved kinda with both, but without the penetration of 100 of millions of personal computers around the world, the Internet never has its base upon which to grow. And I actually kind of view for a lot of the Bitcoin folks here, it's it's very I think the PC is kinda was like the base layer of the Internet in a way. Mhmm. And much like, you know so it's not it's not surprising I live in the mining world, at the base layer. Right? So that's what I do. I'm sitting at the base layer. So for whatever reason, I think I've always gravitated to kinda those foundational pieces of of technology that other things get built upon.
And I've been in Bitcoin since 2017, and, Barefoot Mining, we're, we're kind of a contrarian mining company in that, I believe public public mining is actually bad, that it it it's a bad course for the industry. I, I will not take my company public. And I say that, by the way, as a person who was part of taking Gateway public, and we became a Fortune 200 company. So 25,000 employees, 10,000,000,000 in revenue when I was there. For those of you who don't know how big we were, but it was a big company. By the way, that our company alone, and I don't mean this in, like, a flex or anything, but just to put the perspective in that the the gateway gateway's maximum revenue was equal to the entire mining industry in 20 in other words, gateway's 1 year of revenue is equal to the entire mining industry, all the companies public and private combined.
So that's, you know so I think we think in our Bitcoin world about the big companies, but there really are no big companies yet. But, anyway, our company is a small privately held company. I believe in small scale mining. So our mission is to build as many small sites in what I call the horse class size, over the world using different energy sources. And we think it's a great way to make money, but we also think it's a great way of creating a level of defense for the network, that is much less exposed and much more, you know, resistant to attack than, let's say, the big guys.
[00:05:55] Unknown:
Totally. Well, it's interesting when you're just mentioning about, you know, the Internet wouldn't be what it is without, you know, all these millions and millions of personal computers, and I think about nodes, and I think about, obviously, all the miners. And if there's just one chunk, then it's not gonna be this big decentralized safer network for everybody to participate in. And so I I see that analogy for sure. Let's let's get into the 5 things that we're gonna, you know, think that are, you know, threats for the future of, you know, the the viability of bit Bitcoin. Originally, I'd I'd pinged you. You know, we were talking about ordinals.
So you wanna let's jump into that first and we'll take maybe 10 minutes on each of these, you know, subjects if that's okay. So let's, you know, for for people who don't, you know, folks who are listening who may or may not understand what's an ordinal or an inscription and why it could or could not be a threat for the future of Bitcoin. Maybe you wanna let's talk about that.
[00:06:54] Unknown:
Okay. So the concept of an ordinal is based on a belief. We'll talk about why this is not true in a minute, but the Mhmm. I'll do my best to give satoshis, can be identified individually Mhmm. And also ordered. So the word ordinal is actually a mathematical term. So if if Valerie and I, do a 100 meter race and she beats me, she came in first and I came in second. So that that word first is really account it's a it's a it's a way of ordering things. So you can come in 10th place. It could be your 10th wedding anniversary, you know, whatever. The that type of word is called an ordinal word. Mhmm. K? Okay. The the there's another type which is called a cardinal word or a cardinal number. K? Okay. So a cardinal spelled like, the bird or a Catholic, you know, a Catholic cardinal spelled that way.
That is a number like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. It's a counting number, and it it refers to, the size or amount of something. K? So so you have these two things. Now in the, in general, you can only be one of the 2, like the the they're they're somewhat mutual. Something is either cardinal or ordinal.
[00:08:30] Unknown:
Okay.
[00:08:31] Unknown:
Yeah. So in other words, if I say I weigh £200, that that 200 is a cardinal number. Right? And it's expressing my weight. If if, I guess we've said it before, but if if there's a running race and somebody comes in 3rd, the third is an ordinal number. K. So there's there's a belief by a certain contingent of people that we can apply a system going back to the beginning of Bitcoin from the very first block, and we can say all the sats that have been generated can be uniquely identified and placed in an order. So it is an attempt to put an ordinal quality, hence the term ordinals Mhmm. To sats, to satoshis.
[00:09:31] Unknown:
K.
[00:09:32] Unknown:
And then by extension, there would be a belief that certain sats that are aligned with certain events, may have certain qualities or value that different from other ones. The most notable recently being, well, the the having occurred, so, quote, unquote, the first set of that block has a huge value. Somebody bought it for 33 Bitcoin. Right? That I know. It's like And I think that was the I think the tweet storm that you talked about that I found myself in the middle of, was because and this is a good transition point because I said no. Yeah. This is I said this is sad. I can't remember my exact number, but this is sad. And by the way, it's wrong.
Yeah. And and it's, I got myself, you know, in a tiff with a bunch of people about it and because, you know, first, they tried to tell me I'm wrong, and I'm summarizing my perspective of this, but I think some people tried to say I was wrong, then they kind of backed off of the you're wrong to, well, we believe it to be true. It's an our our abstraction, leave us alone. K? To which I responded, no. I will not leave you alone. And Yeah. The re the reason is, and by the way, several others, I think they'd be okay with me saying it. People like park Parker Lewis, and I are very aligned on this. Mhmm.
Marty Bent, Matthew Crater from Bitcoin University, Jimmy Song. So anyway, I I I don't wanna go on and on, but there are people. I'll let each of you decide individually whether or not the people I just mentioned, you can throw me in or out, whether we're coming from a a proper understanding of Bitcoin and a the right ethical moral perspective of it, which is what I believe this is, that this is an ethical, moral issue. Yep. And and so, you know, so, basically, you know, why do I care? Why do I care? So kinda step out of it a little further. So I had a I think this is the best way to phrase it. I had a, a chance about 6 months ago, which is something I hadn't done in like 45 years, and I reread 1984.
Cool. Orwell's 1984. Okay? Uh-huh. And a lot of things struck me. And if if you look at 1984, kind of central central theme within the book is newspeak. And so a lot of you may not have read it in a long time. Yeah. It's been a minute. Yeah. But I but I really, by the way, highly recommend you do it. It's not a long read. You can do it in one weekend. And if you're a Bitcoiner, you're gonna read it, and I think you're gonna go, wow. Like, you know, you may have read it when you were 17 or 22, and and, you know, now you read it however old you are, but maybe through the lens of Bitcoin, it's gonna strike you in a different way. I promise you.
K. But Newspeak was the attempt to, co opt the language, literally co opt the language. And there was one an attempt to dumb down the language. So, you know, what they were trying to do was reduce the vocabulary. And, then there was this concept of, double think, k, which is simultaneously believing 2 mutually contradictory ideas. K? Okay. And by the way, this is where this is where I sit right here. That ordinals, what they're trying to do is they're trying to say they can create order in SATs. But the truth is, there is no such thing. And I know this will be, for those of you who haven't studied this, there is no such thing as a sat.
A sat is a unit of measurement of the value of a UTXO. K. So in other words, maybe to put it more in simple terms, I said earlier, I weigh £200. K. Well, a pound and a sat are the same thing. It's a unit of measurement. K? So when I say I weigh £200, there's no way of dividing up my £200. Right? I am I am a complete body of £200. A UTXO of 1,000 SATS is just that. It's not 1,000 individual items which are satoshis. It is just a a a single entity valued at 1,000. Maybe I should stop there, and and I I don't know if there's anything that lacked clarity
[00:14:58] Unknown:
there. No. Okay. So then, yeah, I I I'm getting the difference. But so let's talk about, like, why is this why is this a threat? Like, why is the concept of having ordinals being, you know, some people are saying spamming, you know, the blockchain. It's saying that it's, you know, forcing people to put things on their, you know, that they don't want to. So Yep. You know, why why could this be a problem? Like, when this first came out, you know, what was it, a year ago ish ish or maybe more, I remember getting on spaces with Casey and some other folks because I wanted to learn about them. Like, what is this? Is this something that could be cool and beneficial? And I thought to myself, I was like, well, what if someone's creating this, you know, a JPEG of child porn or something negative that could be, like, all of a sudden, everyone's getting forced to put this on their nodes, and then all of a sudden, the government comes in and says, you guys have to shut the whole Bitcoin network down because everybody who's running a node now has a JPEG of child pornography or something like that. That was my biggest fear, you know, right when this first started.
And so can you speak to that? And is there is that the something related to the issue, or, like, what is the biggest threat that ordinals face gives to the the future of Bitcoin?
[00:16:15] Unknown:
So to me, the biggest threat I'm gonna go back to the the double think. K? Mhmm. So if what gets perpetuated to the 99.9% of the people who have yet to enter the Bitcoin world
[00:16:34] Unknown:
Mhmm.
[00:16:35] Unknown:
Is an understanding that Satoshi is not a unit of measurement, but that it is a thing and it has ordinal qualities. Okay. That is a definition of Satoshi diametrically opposed to the way that Bitcoin really works. So it is in 1980 like I was saying, in 1984 terms, it is an attack on the very understanding and terminology of the network, and it prevents people from understanding how Bitcoin really works. It creates confusion. So to me that we start there. Like Okay. If if what we're doing is we're creating something that perpetuates a lie, then we're really in trouble. Now we we can go to the next stage about spam and all the other stuff, but let's just start there. Like, an ordinal is an attack on the vocabulary and the ability of the world to understand Bitcoin properly.
So the the reason my voice is becoming more forceful with this is that I'm seeing too much of it. And in fact, a lot of what's interesting is the proponents of ordinals, whether that's Casey or Udi or some of these other people Mhmm. I'll say this. They are not technically illiterate people Mhmm. Who don't understand what I just told you. They are deciding to promote an understanding that's contrary to the mechanisms, and they are they are doing so under the guise that they can just say, well, this is an abstraction. That's how they respond to me. Well, this is an abstraction. It's so if we believe it and go away because people are believing in it and investing in it. I feel badly for the people investing it because I think they're gonna get wrecked. Yep. But what I but what I really care about is the people that they're bringing into the Bitcoin world are being sold a perspective of Bitcoin that's completely inconsistent with the way it it actually works.
Number 1. Obviously, I I I care about people getting wrecked. I care about now some of the things you asked about, like, when you start throwing JPEGs and you throw these things, which is more the that's more the inscription side. Mhmm. So but inscriptions are built on ordinals. So you kinda have this stage that the ordinal is kind of the base layer of what they do and then the inscription and a lot of these other things, rely on that base. Mhmm. So but what an inscription is doing is it's throwing extraneous data into the network that is clogging the network. It it it can bloat.
It can make it so that it gets more and more difficult to run nodes in the future. But I'll tell you the thing that really bothers me the most about it, and I'll have I I I mean, I feel badly saying this because I I've always respected, Saylor and MicroStrategy. Their announcement yesterday really bothers me about this identification because the the reason it bothers me the most is they have decided to exploit I don't know. I don't know why to say it. They've the what's often called the witness discount, which is they're gonna shove this data into an area of a transaction and pay, in my opinion, 1 fourth of what they should be paying even if they're I might even setting aside moral judges about what's right or wrong, whether they should be doing it. If they are doing it, and I would say this to the Inscryption guys, come on. At least have the gumption to not rip off the network and pay for the services that the network is providing to you.
[00:20:40] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. That that's ultra disappointing, and I feel, you know, I talk obviously, this podcast is called Bitcoin for Peace. Right? And I do believe Bitcoin is a tool. Sound money is a tool for a peaceful world. And if we're running on a violent system of fiat and endless centralized money printing, we can never have a peaceful world ever. And Yeah. I don't believe so. And when I see humans, even though, like, a lot of people think, oh, Bitcoin's this end all, be all. It's gonna make the world a better place. Yes. And human nature still exists.
Greed still exists. Stupidity is rampant, unfortunately. You know? And so I I hear you. When I hear when I heard that, and I'm like, oh god. It's just disappointing because I think, you know, I came into Bitcoin because of the human rights use cases. And learning from Alex Gladstein and Human Rights Foundation, I was like, woah. Okay. Yep. Let's focus on how to use this thing to spread, you know, freedom and opportunity. And so when I see people, I get number go up, Yay, let's do that. But then when you start seeing it bastardized, you know, and that's just like, Oh, God. How do we help people get back into their hearts and into a place of understanding what the true essence of why Bitcoin was created as a peer to peer, you know, system. And so it's it seems like it's blocking the peer to peer functionality, you know, what we saw when the the, when the having happened and all those the the prices went up for for fees and everything. And I'm just like, how is this helping somebody in a developing nation who needs this as a tool for life or death? You know? And and so I want to, like, appeal to the people who are, you know, the speculators and the the spammers and the people who think, like, oh, this is just for us to go make a bunch of money. And I'm like, this is a revolution, you guys. Like, I don't know. So it it it is Yeah. It it it kinda breaks my heart
[00:22:42] Unknown:
to see that. Does I mean, I think, you know, I've been around the block a long time, and you're obviously, you know, a a a mature person who's lived life. You know, we we're not gonna get there on some primrose path without challenges. Right? So I I I really like the title of your show, and I I like the perspective about approaching peace and doing it, you know, with with peace as maybe a central theme. I think that's a key piece of what I want. You know? I want I want peace for my grandkids. I want freedom for my grandkids. Yeah. So I do a lot of what I do, come on shows like this, to fight for it. Yeah. And I think there's this interesting thing that I found, the tweet that started, you know, and connected you and I, which was about the ordinals. It was it it got for me, I don't have this massive, social media footprint.
But it was probably one of the larger responses to any tweet I've I've done. And I think the predominant messaging I got even like DMs on a private basis was, don't worry about it. You know, even people that were supporting me so there's there's kind of like 3 camps. Right? There are the people who were vehemently opposed to it. Like, Udi, for instance, got very aggressive to me. He's and by the way, go for those of you interested, you can find it in my in my, my feed. But like, Udi comes out and says, this is an attack and you are losing.
Like like and and he's referring to this is an attack on Bitcoin. He they are openly admitting that what they are doing is not in the best interest of Bitcoin.
[00:24:34] Unknown:
So Go ahead.
[00:24:36] Unknown:
Yeah. So you guys go I mean, you make your own decision, but they're overt about it. Right? Number 1. So but there's a group of people who think it's good or they wanna participate it or no, and I'm wrong. K? Fine. There's another group like Parker that jumped on to what what what I was saying, and he's got his own strong voice and been very supportive. And we've we've done some things together to fight it. But what's interesting is, you know what the biggest group was? The people the people in the middle who would maybe like my tweet and then send me a DM or a private message of some sort and say, I hear you, Bob, but don't worry. It's all just gonna go away. These guys are gonna run out of gas, and they're gonna run out of money, and you don't have to worry about it. Go, well you know, the theme of this show was about attacks of Bitcoin. We didn't even put this on the list. Right?
Biggest one is apathy.
[00:25:39] Unknown:
Like Yeah. Like, if yeah. That's a it'll be a big thing. Yeah. Yeah. If you if you think
[00:25:48] Unknown:
that not that it's not gonna be necessary to fight and just because, you don't think they have a great case that it'll evaporate? That's that's the danger, you know. If you look at any I spent all my background is technical primarily. Right? But if you if you talk whether that's in, digital security, Internet security, or even normal physical security, you know what they'll say is the point in which the most you're the most exposed and the most dangerous is when you have that feeling that you're invincible. Like, that's that's when you're really exposed.
[00:26:28] Unknown:
Yeah. I hear it. And and I think about a lot of folks, it's like Bitcoin is not a certainty. Nothing is a certainty. And so when people get they rest on their laurels and they think, yeah, no problem. It's just, Bitcoin doesn't care. TikTok, next block. Yes. And we have to keep moving forward to defend. You know? And I that's what I'm Right. I'm an adversarial thinker for sure and I'm somebody who doesn't I mean, as much as I'm all rainbow and all the good stuff, it's just like I'm this way because this is a vision I wanna help create and build, but it doesn't come without a lot of proof of work and effort and, you know, making sure you're not just, doo, doo, doo, everything's just great. Like, anything needs to have maintenance and it needs to have forethought and it needs to have diligence and and cooperation, you know, to make it go forward. So, okay. So let's talk about so number 1, we were talking about ordinals. We were talking about, you know, how this could be a threat. So the 4 more, we're talking about centralization risk. We're talking about block space scarcity. We're talking about attack of the government on coin joints and self custody, and then we'll talk about CBDCs.
But I love apathy. That's a that's one of the biggest things. I think in anything, You know, we're seeing this obviously on all these college campuses all over the country. You know? Oh, it's no big deal. It's like, no. This is a big deal, guys. So alright. Let do let's let's jump into centralization risks. Sure. Sure. So you wanna share, like, why is this you know, obviously, you're a proponent of, you know, not big, you know, public companies for mining. Like, what let's talk about centralization and why that's just such a big deal. Yeah.
[00:28:08] Unknown:
You know, one of the the core tenants of Bitcoin obviously is decentralization. Right? And there's this design, if you're familiar with the block, the blockchain trilemma, with decentralization and security and scalability. Right? Mhmm. And Bitcoin Bitcoin being, at least to my knowledge, the first time in history that the trilemma was solved with centralization decentralization as the key attribute. Security is kind of a given, you know, foregoing, at least at the base layer, scalability. However, the world pushes towards centralization. Right? And that I think unabated, not just Bitcoin, but, I mean, everything I think Yeah. Pushes itself toward it. It's not typically the natural course of human societies and structures.
So that's certainly true in mining. Mining started some of you may not know this, but historically, if you go back to the beginning, there was no difference between a node and a miner. Those were exactly the same thing. So all, and what ended up happening was so everybody was a both a miner and a node. Then over time, as the economics of mining got more difficult, some of the people essentially turned off they had the capability in their system, but they would turn off the mining part and just become a node. And then that then that kind of changed where they they traditionally became 2 pieces of hardware, 2 different hardware. The node became one piece of hardware and the miner became other.
And but all through that period, it really wasn't something that commercial enterprises largely pursued. Mhmm. It was done at the individual level. You read Satoshi's early works. While he did have the concept of farms and things potentially coming, his vision, I think he was a little wrong on it, it's okay, was that his view was that millions of people would be heating their houses with their mining equipment. Mhmm. And that the network would stay decentralized because of that. What has happened in large part since the China mining ban. So this is kind of one of those interesting things, I think.
The unintended consequences of of events. Right? So when the Chinese mining ban happened, I think a lot of people look at the first order effect of it, which was we move from 50 to 62% of the hash power being in China, which most of the people in the western world look at skeptically. Mhmm. But caution. And it moved it into other markets that they feel more comfortable. So that was really good. It also led to a massive period of profitability in the mining industry, and then a massive scramble to raise capital to get big as fast as possible. K? So because these and and so the the what I would call the traditional capitalist, I think if you look at the public mining companies, I'm not saying this with in this vein as a criticism, just stating it factually.
The the people and the impetus behind most of the public mining companies were people coming from Wall Street, finance, capital backgrounds Mhmm. And a couple from the energy sector. But they're kind of big so if if I if you'll indulge me, they're largely Wall Street capitalist kind of people. Mhmm. Not the plebs who were doing the early mining. K? The the plebs in the early mining in the early days of mining were all very Ethocentric people. These people were looking at it as a way of justifying massive capital raises, and it led to a whole bunch of companies going public very quickly.
And more than we have time for today, but it led to them, in my opinion, going public way too quickly, not being prepared for it. Evidence of that would be what happened with Core Scientific, The largest mining company going bankrupt less than a year after it went public. But public companies in today's world, the way the market reacts today, their stock price has very little to do with their profitability. In fact, they're almost all very unprofitable. It has to do with growth. The market responds to growth. So their market cap and the executive incentives that go with that are all tied to stock price and market capitalization, not to creating sustainable, profitable operating entities.
Additionally, they have nothing to do with whether or not the Bitcoin ethos is adhered to. So I'm gonna roll back to ordinals and inscriptions to a certain degree. Mhmm. K. The basically the public mining companies to a t have all been, either supportive or silent about that vector, about about what's happening with ordinals. It has led to a great rise in fees, and it has driven a lot of mining revenue. So all of these forces though push push, capital at a massive rate into a small number of companies, and this creates imbalance within the hash rate of the industry.
Mhmm. I wrote an article. We won't, have time for it today, but those of you who wanna search for it, it's in Bitcoin Magazine. It's called Satoshi's Heel, and it talks about the risk of of that. But it basically creates a capture opportunity for a nation state down the road. We're not there today. I don't want anybody to lose sleep tonight. But we need to make sure that we have balance that the the plebs the pleb miners that I call rabbits and the horses, which would be companies like Barefoot, medium small to medium sized commercial miners, have a certain balance in the ecosystem relative to the elephants, which is what I call the big guys. Right?
[00:34:57] Unknown:
Mhmm.
[00:34:58] Unknown:
If you have a world of only elephants, one of the things I'll say about elephants is they're they're easy to identify. They're easy to hunt. Right? So, so and that could be shut them down. That could be force OFAC compliance. It could be like those sorts of things that become very easy within the industry. Now there's a second layer though, which is mining pools. So this will sound funny. We call companies like Riot or CleanSpark, mining companies, but the reality is they're not miners. They are And there's a distinction. A hasher in today's world simply is renting hash power to a public to a mining pool.
The mining pool is actually the one that connects to the Bitcoin network. The one that finds blocks, collects block rewards, and the the I'm not saying this is actually happening, but a company like Riot really doesn't even know what work the pool is giving them. Means they they know they are being assigned work. They really don't know what that work is. It could be Bitcoin Cash. It could be Bitcoin. It could be something completely unrelated to Bitcoin. They're getting compensated based on the performance of the Bitcoin network, but they really don't even know what they're working on. So at the pool level, there are only about 15 pools in the world now.
And 90% of the hash rate is attached to 6 of them. Wow. And those 6 companies create what's called the block template. So in every block, somebody has to pick for that pool what transactions they're gonna try to process. K? So if if the mempool has 200,000 transactions that need to be put into a block to to be confirmed and and and, add to the chain, in any one block, about 4,000 are gonna go in. So somebody has to pick the 4,000. They have to have a criteria by which they pick the 4,000. Now some people will call that filtering. Some people call that censoring. I call that filtering. You know, just there has to be decision criteria by which you pick 4,000 out of the 200,000. And, as in my mind, as long as you are not directly violating the property rights of an individual or maybe stated a better way, if you're not excluding transactions because of who is sending them, then you're not censoring, then you're filtering. If what you're doing is saying, well, I don't like Val, I'm and I I can associate these addresses with her. I'm not gonna I'm never gonna pick her. I don't care how much fees she puts in Mhmm. Or attach to that fee. To me, that's censorship.
And but if I don't pick it, if I don't know who you are or care who you are and I'm just picking it based on an economic reason or, you know, I could pick whatever criteria I want though. But I guess to get back to the theme, these six places, this is way too many. Those six companies are, by the in the US, Foundry and Luxor, And then 4 Chinese pools.
[00:38:35] Unknown:
See if I can get them.
[00:38:38] Unknown:
Antpool, Poolin, f 2 pool, and, Binance. So, what's even more scary is it appears that while there are separate the Chinese pools, it appears they are separate. They pick exactly the same block templates. So there's a belief that they are at a minimum cooperating in somewhat of a oligopoly type arrangement.
[00:39:09] Unknown:
Mhmm. And,
[00:39:12] Unknown:
so that's very scary. To me, this is very scary. My, I am on the board of directors at Ocean. I'm an investor in Ocean, and I don't want this to be an Ocean pitch, but I'll just say that. It's okay. The reason the reason that I did that, obviously, I think we can make money. I think we can do well. Right? So I'm an investor too. But we can help solve this problem. And, but I want other pools too. I hope there's somebody out there right now saying, I have an idea for a better way to do a pool. Wonderful. Do it, please. We need it. So so this is an important one. This this probably presents the the near term the highest near term risk to Bitcoin, in my opinion, is this. This. And, yeah, and it's not existential to Bitcoin. Like, Bitcoin won't work, but it's existential to Bitcoin maintaining all of its qualities of Mhmm. Borderless and, you know Uncensorable and
[00:40:16] Unknown:
to centralize everything. Yeah. Yeah. That part. Yeah. And especially if it's underneath the Chinese at this point. I mean, I'm not interested in having them in any of my transactions in my life. Yeah. But I know they are. Yeah. And, yeah, that's that's a terrifying thing. And so Yeah. Ocean, you're saying what Ocean is up to is helping to create a near term solution for this.
[00:40:42] Unknown:
Yeah. And what we will do, I know it's a little bit technical, is instead of right now, Ocean offers 4 different templates instead of just all the none of the other pools even publish what their template is and their decision criteria. You just sign up and blindly allocate your hash rate. You don't even know what their decision criteria is. Wow. In the short term, Ocean publishes 4 different templates and each with different criteria, and each miner that comes into the pool can decide which of the 4 they wish. And one, by the way, filters out all the spam.
Another one, by the way, lets it all in. So even though Ocean and people like me that are associated with it are very anti spam, if you wanna mine with our pool, you can pick one that essentially will almost maximize spam. Because we believe the freedom and importance of being a block template creator and diversity there is even more important than the threat of the spam. So, you know, and and, you know, for us to be it would be improper for us to be the final arbiter of all this. So we express our opinion. We'll tell you why, but but still you get to make the choice. In the long run though, and by the way the long run, I mean like a little bit later this year, instead of Ocean picking the templates, each miner can pick their own. So Barefoot Barefoot will have its template and, you know, we have hundreds of other miners in the pool already.
They can each pick their own. Well, then we start building some censorship resistance. Right? Because and and no no outside entity can even go to Ocean and say, hey. We want you to enforce a certain type of template. All they can say is, well, you're gonna have to go find the other 500 people mining with our pool and talk to them. And by the way, Ocean doesn't collect any information. So when you sign up for the pool, all you do is you, give us the the address that you want your rewards directed to. So there's really nothing that Ocean can do to help anybody identify any of the individual minors.
[00:43:06] Unknown:
Good. And are you seeing anything with, you know because I always you know, again, I'm I'm I'm not a miner and but I thought about, okay, I live in the cold. You know, I live in Colorado and I'm like, okay, great. I wanna have, you know, the Bitcoin heaters and all that, you know, and I see some companies popping up with some home heating. I mean and obviously, it's tiny bit of hash rate compared to what you're looking at, obviously, at a big, you know, facility. Do you feel like we have an opportunity with these types of, you know, projects that could, you know, get into people's houses, get into, you know, a gym where they're gonna go use the heat for the sauna or the laundry mat or the Jacuzzi or any of that, like, heat repurposing.
Do you feel like we have an opportunity here that really is gonna put a dent in this?
[00:43:58] Unknown:
The opportunity exists. It will require to to really hit scale and be meaningful.
[00:44:08] Unknown:
Mhmm.
[00:44:09] Unknown:
It's gonna require, in my opinion, more ASIC participants. And by ASIC remember when I talked about language, the importance of language? Here's Here's something I've been talking about for several years. ASIC, the term that's used. I I wanna put you on the spot. Right? But when I say ASIC, what do you think of?
[00:44:29] Unknown:
A Bitcoin miner. Okay. I mean, I just think of that type of specialized computer for that particular purpose. I don't think of any other
[00:44:38] Unknown:
uses for it, but yeah. Okay. So please know I'm not picking on you because No. You're not. It's okay. I'm not. I wouldn't. Yeah. So so so it's a really dangerous term. Okay. And it's being used improperly. Okay. Okay. So the common usage is exactly as you've said. People think of an ASIC as what I will call a server. K? Which is an entire system. K? And what that system is like an s 19 or an s 9 Mhmm. Is really another term I would put to it is it's an entropy engine. I know it sounds a little technical, but what it does is it hashes. It doesn't care what it hashes.
It
[00:45:23] Unknown:
kinda hashes. It's a Hash monster.
[00:45:25] Unknown:
Exactly. Inside, if we're talking about, let's say, an s 19 or an s 21, there are several 100 chips. Those chips are ASICs. ASIC stands for application specific integrated circuit. So it's a sir it's a it's a small chip, typically, that has been specifically designed to hash really well. And you put a whole bunch of them into one system, and that that becomes the server. Now you could put you could have only 1 and some of, like, the small heating products are doing that sort of thing. But the reason I'm taking you down this is the importance of language. So when we apply the term ASIC to the system, k, what we are saying is that system is application specific.
That language becomes an attack vector. If you are a regulator or a a tax authority, and you say there's an s 19, It is an application specific device. It can only mine Bitcoin. We don't like Bitcoin, and so if you turn that thing on every watt that goes through it, we want a tax on it. Or we're not even gonna allow you to turn it on because it is application specific. The truth is that it's just a hashing machine, and there's lots of applications of hashing. In fact, I'm I'm gonna be launching here, like, really really soon several new websites that use the hash power of those machines in ways completely unrelated to Bitcoin.
Okay. Now I I do that for two reasons. I started this project because I wanted to create insulation so that if a regulatory body or some bureaucrat came in to whether it's one of my operations or one of the other miners in the world, even the big guys, that they could say, well, we're just we these are just hashing machines. In reality, they could be doing one of dozens of things. Yeah. And it's no different than your computer, which, by the way, you and I are both on computers at the moment. We could be mining Bitcoin on on our I have a MacBook. I could be mining on my MacBook Pro right now. Yeah. Wouldn't be terribly economically fruitful, but I could. Just like I can run Excel or PowerPoint. So if you wanna legislate, you're essentially telling me what software I can run on my computer and that you will tax me or imprison me or whatever based on the software choice I make.
I think that's a pretty tough nut to sell.
[00:48:15] Unknown:
This is so important. And so you're all also obviously on the board of advisors for Satoshi Action Fund, and so Yes. That is I love this this framing of this because you're right. I think people you know, these legislators don't understand and if they only think that it can only do this one thing, then they think they can outlaw it or regulate it in a way that's an unfair. Yeah. So so I like this this
[00:48:39] Unknown:
Yeah. So don't hand them on it. And I'm please don't I'm not picking on you because so many people do it, but I'm trying really hard to change the vernacular because it's wrong, by the way. So again, I'm not picking. It's wrong to call it an ASIC because an ASIC is just is a chip, an application specific integrated circuit. It's not specific to Bitcoin, by the way. ASICs. I I worked on an ASIC in 1988 for, charging control of a of a laptop. K. So a 6 a 6 are in every TV and every car and every electronics device has a 6 in it.
[00:49:18] Unknown:
And so what would we you know, instead of us calling these things ASICs, what's the right term? What do we say? You know, what do we start? How do we start educating ourselves and each other and our audiences so that obviously their legislators start understanding what they're, you know, dealing with? I think you can call it,
[00:49:37] Unknown:
generically a server. I mean, I think you can which which I think is a great way to say it because it's really just, not that different than any other computer in any other data center. If you wanna call it a hashing server, you can call it an entropy engine. You know, those are those are all terminologies I have. If you but I would stay away from ASIC, and and I have to help myself too because I have certain habits, I get caught myself. Like, I really don't even wanna use the word mining to describe it because that reinforces this application specific mentality.
So but but as a community, if what we do is all the literature and the vernacular of the community calls those hashing servers ASICs. I mean, you can you just imagine Elizabeth Warren is on some sort of panel or she's speaking in front of congress, and she'll use our old word our own words against us to say, hey, this person called that piece of equipment an ASIC. And by the way, did you know ASIC means application specific? And and and, you know, then so there's a there's a trail there. So language language is important. Right? Like, kind of a maybe a theme today.
[00:51:03] Unknown:
No. It's a super theme. I'm loving it because we're we're it it it is. It shapes reality, obviously, and it shapes our what we're thinking and acting upon. And so that this is extreme I love this. I love that you brought up 1984 too to talk about this. So, this is cool. We need to do some more like, maybe we could do spaces, you know, and talk about the vocabulary in ASICS and why this is an issue that we should Sure. Start to have more dialogue with with all of the the the folks that would benefit from I mean, obviously, everybody would benefit from shifting the the vocabulary concept, but I think if we really are gonna address this from that lens, I think there needs to be a lot more conversations, you know, and a lot more consensus around, like, maybe we should think this way so that we don't get stuck in a hole over here with miss Warren at all.
[00:52:00] Unknown:
Yeah. And by the way, in Europe, like, you know, you you mentioned coming at this from a human rights perspective. Well, I Right. I just, it was last week, I submitted a 20 page testimonial through
[00:52:13] Unknown:
the Open Dialogue Foundation. Yay. Lyudmila. Yeah. That's amazing.
[00:52:18] Unknown:
And, you know, they're they're doing great work on the front lines, but, you know, the the attack is on a the reason I'm saying this is it's not just Elizabeth. The attack is on a global basis. And the bullshit that we're fighting, and I'm because I'm I'm just one guy. I'm doing my best. But just our words are being critiqued continually. And if if you're somebody out there that has any prominence or voice in the community, they are watching you, and they are listening to you, and they're waiting for you to say the wrong thing. And they will twist it in really bad ways. So I, you know, I'm I'm doing my best, and then but but then again, we have to fight because the people like Alex Devries, the Gegeconomist guy. Mhmm.
You know, I guess this is another you know, we talked about the threats to the future of Bitcoin. I don't know if we can get to all of them, but there's another one. Right? I mean, we have these people who are spreading disinformation. Yep. We can't just assume it goes away. I mean and so No. It doesn't go away. Well and it it leaves it leaves a residue
[00:53:32] Unknown:
of FUD, you know, and I've been last year, I went to a lot of different environmental conferences with with my partner. And anytime we would bring up Bitcoin, people would freak out, and it's always the normal, oh my god, it's boiling the oceans and, la, la. And, you know, and I look at those types of things. Like, a a a lie is like a red drop of dye that goes into a clear glass of water. And it I like that. The whole glass of water is now polluted with this red dye. And so in order for us to get the water clear again, you have to constant you know, you have to put 100, a 1000 x of that clear water to make it appear clean again.
And so, you know, I think of adversarial conversations, you can just drop all those things out there and then they know that they're leaving us on the back foot going, Uh-oh, now we've gotta go get that 100x, 1000x of the truth to counteract. And so I feel like there's so much, and again, these are words. This is language. You know? Yeah. And it just takes a little bit of of the manipulation and the fear and the people who have certain incentives to take Bitcoin down, and not have a a a free way for us to exchange value as humans, it's it's a lot, you know, and I think young people need to really get that too because that apathy you were speaking of earlier, it's easy as a young person. It's easy as somebody who's, you know, full of vim and vigor and the whole thing, like, fuck the system. Blah blah blah. You know? It's just like, yeah. And Yeah. There's real people out there with real power and money that do not want this to succeed. That's why Satoshi said, bye bye. Right? And so Yep.
This is what we're seeing, obviously, right now, and I think there's a lot more, to come, you know. But let let's let's chat. Let's let's wrap it up with 2 other, you know, and these could obviously be a whole episode. It's all by themselves. So we can we can, we can thumbtack it and do some more down the road. But, you know, talking about attacks with coin joints and self custody and talk you know, which I think is gonna be an impetus to bring in CBDCs as an excuse, you know, down the road. So let's talk about the what's going on, obviously, with Samurais. We just now saw that wasabi Wallet is changing what they're doing. And, you know, I think I'm like, oh, if I go to Safeway and I give them some dollars, is there a cash register a coin joiner?
You know, it's just ridiculous, like, what's going on. But I understand the fear and what's happening here. So, you know, removing the ability for people to have private transactions and and less traceability is is is scary. You know? Because the people who are, whether you're human rights, person who needs Bitcoin that's, you know, to receive payments, like Open Dialogue Foundation and those guys, or whether you're a domestic violence person who is trying to escape a a partner who's beating them up. Right. Like, you don't want them to know that you're getting Bitcoin and moving all this stuff around. You need to have some level of of privacy. And so they don't seem to understand why this is such a a a big deal.
You know? Yeah. So you wanna talk about that?
[00:57:03] Unknown:
Yeah. I mean, obviously, it's a can of worms and, you know, we've seen even one step kind of removed from that. Not a fan of Roger Ver, but, you know, he, you know, he got arrested. CZ, not a fan of him either, but, you know, he he just got sentenced. Yeah. Some of these people, I'm not gonna say which ones, some of them probably did some things that were probably less than forthright or or, you know, on the up and up. But I also think that it's clear that the opponents of Bitcoin, the opposition of Bitcoin is stepping up their game. Yeah. That that, you know, the threat becomes more real, that it is more real. They will, be more vigilant, I think, in their attack.
This is I think they perceive this as one of the easier attack vectors. I think the problem the community has is one of education to a certain degree. I I don't think the community has a great grasp of what's really happening on the underlying layer, you know, whether it's a a coin join or there's techniques like there's something called a pay join. That's a really cool concept. At the end of the day though, I think what's very interesting is that the battle that we're talking about is one that's more like 50 or a 50 or more years old.
And it's about really what rights do we have, your human rights, like, what rights do we have as individuals to privacy? Why why have we tolerated as a society for 50 years? And go back to the Bank Secrecy Act of, 1970. Like, why why have why did we allow, here in the US at least, the presumption of guilt to be associated with certain actions because that's that's how I look at it. Like, so a cash transaction of $10,000 or more, there is essentially a presumption of guilt Yeah. That goes with that. And all of this stuff comes back to that. Like, you know, in other words, because bad guys, whoever they are, occasionally act a certain way, we will presume guilt on everybody who does something that acts that way and impose things, restrictions and barriers on their life.
And so I I'm hopeful that maybe the general public even outside of Bitcoin can somehow get riled up about that because that that's the basis of all that. They're taking what I think is an unjust law in the fiat world, and now they're trying to to come after us because they realize that, their ability to impose that same unjust law is more difficult. Right?
[01:00:23] Unknown:
I will yeah. No. Go ahead. Keep going.
[01:00:26] Unknown:
I believe that technically they're unfounded and that, I'm not saying just me. I think there are several people in the community. I think, you know, given the right amount of time to prepare a case, we could go in front of the Supreme Court, and we could explain to them why what their the the the criminal acts that they're trying to impose and the way that the way that wallet works, the way that Bitcoin mechanics work, these same things do not apply. For instance, like, here's a simple one. Like, none I'll get really abstract to a certain degree. None of us own any Bitcoin. Yeah. So we we only happen to know addresses associated with some Bitcoin.
I happen to know some. It's different than the ones you have. And my ability to guess where yours is is I'd I'd spend the rest of my life with all the world's computing power, and I still couldn't find it. But that's different. So I really don't own it. I just know where it is, and and that gives me the right to use it. But anybody else that figured out where it was could use it. So it's very different than I have $1,000 in my checking account. So, I I don't know if people followed me, but that's a very bit of an abstraction. So a wallet is really just managing, helping somebody manage those locations. It's really not doing anything else. So therefore, therefore, I think by extension, everything else is false. Like, the all of the the all of the basis that there should be some regulation of these wallets and that there's a transfer going like, so they use these words like, you know, you I think you saw that right by with the US a USB cable versus a iron pan versus The pan and the whole thing. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I think it all falls apart, but it's gonna be it's probably gonna end up in a Supreme Court. It's probably gonna end up there a long time in the future, And then the question will be because I feel a 100% confident that we are in the right. The question is, will the court still rule properly?
And we're talking about some things that are kind of a difficult abstraction, especially if you've you've lived in this fiat world in a certain way. So you have to I think it takes somebody being in the Bitcoin world probably several years deep in the rabbit hole to start grasping the abstract concept and then the technical mechanisms that support the abstract concept to say that they can't do that. And, you know, I I don't necessarily have faith that, for instance, the US Supreme Court, which is where I think it will ultimately land, is gonna get it in the end.
[01:03:25] Unknown:
Well, is there anything we can do to preeducate them a little bit more and, you know, like, get obviously, this is a big deal, and I just Yeah. I don't know the right answers, obviously. Not we're all trying to figure this out as we go, and we have to be mature about this. You know? This isn't just, okay, I'm gonna go, you know, saber rattling over here. Like, we're up against the powers that be that wanna stay in power. Yeah. You know? And then they've got all this support system that wants to keep them in power. And, you know, we can go down the whole rabbit hole of of how that all works, but that's that's another, I think, another conversation. But do you feel like we've got an opportunity here because it hasn't gotten that far? You know, obviously, with with Dennis and Satoshi Action Fund and everything that's going out there, like, what can we what can we do as individual plebs, you know, to help educate the people who are gonna start, you know, making different types of decisions?
[01:04:32] Unknown:
Well, in the US, I think there are 3 organizations
[01:04:36] Unknown:
doing very important work. You mentioned 1, Satoshi Action Fund, and I am an adviser. Mhmm.
[01:04:42] Unknown:
From day 1, I I I supported Dennis and what he did from day 1. Cool.
[01:04:48] Unknown:
The folks at the Digital Chamber, Perianne,
[01:04:50] Unknown:
and Yeah. They they do very important work. Maybe even a little in this case, maybe even more important because the satoshi action fund, tends to be a little more state local focused.
[01:05:05] Unknown:
Okay.
[01:05:06] Unknown:
The the the Digital Chamber and then the Bitcoin Policy Institute, all 3 of them. So to the degree, people can support those organizations financially, or, you know, look at them and the politicians that they are supporting. You know, because there are there are a handful that do get it, and it's very important that they rise up to the appropriate levels. And in Europe, you know, obviously, we have I I mentioned ODF and what they're doing, You know, the there's a massive amount of education there. And, like, just as an example, I said I wrote this testimony. I had to write a significant part of the testimony I wrote was because there is a major faction that's already infiltrated the EU and the ECB saying that proof of work Yeah. Can be completely supplemented by proof of stake because proof of stake does everything, equal to or better than proof of work without using any energy. K. That we are behind the 8 ball.
And and and as you said, I I really liked your analogy with the red dye. So people like me are in there working with, like, the ODF trying to push back. Dilute dilute the poison. Yeah. But and it's nobody's fault, but, you know, the the the the opponents are well funded, very motivated, and very connected. Right? So we have, you know, we don't have great rallying points. You know, it like, when I was at Gateway, we had a whole government relations group. Yeah. And I would work with them, but, you know, they were literally based in DC, and they were very well funded, and they worked with other lobby groups in the personal computer industry. And Yeah. It was very coordinated. We just we really don't have that. And so I hope we get our shit together, because it is it is a real threat.
[01:07:14] Unknown:
It's a huge threat. And and is there anything that you've seen, like, to coordinate those these organizations in a more effective way and also to rally us plebs?
[01:07:28] Unknown:
Not yet. I I I mean, to be honest, I think this is an area that there's a lot of work required. What I will say though is there's 2 things. There's, you know, how do we fight it, like, at the nation state level? Mhmm. And I think those groups are the best chance we have of that happening. You know, I, I've I've worked with all of them at some level, made contributions to all of them, both financially and with, information or testimonials or things like that. So I would ask other people to do what you can. If that's sending them $5, great. That that helps.
But the other thing you can do is prepare yourself personally. I mean, so, you know, at a at a minimum, do that. So, you know, have good practices, you know. I I know it sounds very, I don't know, cliche at this point. Get your fucking keys off the exchanges. Yeah. Get your coins off the exchanges. Hold your private keys. Learn how to use things like like, go do a search on PayJoin as an example. K. And you can see that you, with just a little bit of effort, can create something that's like a CoinJoin that has none of the outside appearances of a coin join that is it you know, it's a beautiful concept. And if you start doing some of your on chain work using something like a pay join,
[01:09:05] Unknown:
you know, you you don't have the same exposures that maybe you would have. Alright. So keys off exchange, of course, that's we know that. Pay join, support these organizations, run a node. Well, thank you for saying that. Yes. Yeah. Run a node.
[01:09:22] Unknown:
Help be you know, become a miner. Yeah. You know, join us at Ocean later this year and create your own block templates. Help help pick the transactions you think are right. You wanna you wanna pick the ones that, are the oldest, the smallest, ones that are only initiated on Tuesdays. You decide. I don't care.
[01:09:45] Unknown:
You know, but but create a different decision set. Yeah. I love it. And then alright. We'll wrap up here. It but we'll we'll save the 5th one. We'll save CBDCs another time. I don't think that's the attack on Bitcoin necessarily. I just think it's going to be something that I I do believe it's an attack from the perspective of convincing the world this is good for you and Bitcoin is bad for you. And I think that there's going to be a lot of, more misinformation, more misleading, and, oh, Bitcoin is used for terrorists or all the shit that they're trying to do. Sure. You know? And I I think, you know, you had mentioned about why are people why do we let them do this thing with the the, you know, with the Bank Secrecy Act and the privacy and the property? I think people I have an old teacher. Like, I do a lot of meditation and personal growth and stuff. And one of my teachers, he was just like, you know, you know, their mommy. Where's my are you my mommy? Are you my daddy? You know, you know, their mommy. Where's my are you my mommy? Are you my daddy? You know, and we do. We, as humans, were going out there looking for that that security, that nanny, you know, that figure. Sure. And so whether it's what happened with COVID, whether it's what's going on with this and our our ability to have privacy and and property rights, they you know, people just wanna defer the responsibility to something and someone else that's perceptually bigger and more knowledgeable and more powerful, You know? Because like a lot of pope people think like, well, the doctors must know, so I'm just gonna do what they say, or the bankers must know because they're got 1,000,000 of dollars, and I'm just a guy over here working at McDonald's. You know? So Right. So we've given our our sovereignty and our minds over to this, you know, authority figure because of that umbilical cord being out. You know? And then we wanna just go get back to business and have a barbecue and drink a beer and watch, you know, Netflix. And that's by design to perpetuate that mindset so that we're not thinking clearly and standing up for ourselves. And so I think words are so powerful, and we need to be very masterful with them, you know, and understand this. And so I I love that you brought this up and I love how we're wrapping this up in words and our vocabulary. So we're gonna have some fun with with that on this this next round.
Do you have any final words for folks? I'm gonna so after this interview with you, which has been a blessing, and I'm so grateful we've got to spend this time together, Maya Parbo is gonna be on with me here in about 5 minutes, and she's a presidential candidate for Suriname, and she's also doing some stuff with Bitcoin and real estate and helping some people in in Latin America there. So I'm interested to see how this is gonna go with her. She's totally 2 very amazing people. So,
[01:12:47] Unknown:
yeah, that's wonderful. Well, I'm I'm anxious to see that one too because I actually follow her. Cool. I think that the development of Bitcoin in these, in countries like Suriname is is wonderful. I think that that, that is one of the greatest defense mechanisms we have, by the way Yeah. Is adoption, and especially in the second and third world. If the the second, third world starts saying fuck you to the IMF and the World Bank and the establishment system, just like El Salvador has. And Yep. My, my wife's home country is the Philippines, and and we're really hoping, like, that that country can can rally around it because we know it can lift them out of this.
You know, I guess you asked me kinda closing. I'll just say this, you know, I I do what I do because I believe we have a chance to create money for the next 1000 years. Yeah. And, you know, that is a system our grandkids, our great grandkids and generations beyond, you know, they can live in a world of freedom and peace and, you know, fairness. And, you know, that's, I think, the greatest gift we can give them. Yeah. I'm all for making money. I think, you know, capitalism done properly is great, but but, you know, I try to live the ethos of Bitcoin. I try to run my company in the ethos of Bitcoin because the end of the day, that that 1000 years of money is a lot more important to me than whatever I make.
And, you know, I hope I hope in general, the Bitcoin community adopts some sort of spirit like that that, you know, the people are here for that reason. Because I think if you take that mentality, then then then we're gonna win. And we taught with today's theme was threats. Take the threats seriously and fight for them, But, know that in the end, we do have the upper hand. If it if we screw it up if it gets screwed up and it doesn't work, it's it's our own fault. The the blueprint is there. We just have to not fuck it up.
[01:15:11] Unknown:
Excellent ending words. Yeah. We're not gonna they and I think thanks to people like you out there who aren't just backing down and going, it's okay. Don't worry. Like and you're obviously classy and intelligent in the way that you're communicating to to everybody, and that matters a lot. So, yeah, don't don't give up the fight, everybody. We're just literally getting started. Yeah. So, So, yeah, thanks again, Bob. I really appreciate what you're doing out there in the space and I want to keep, you know, supporting you in any way that I can and will keep rocking it out there and fighting the good fight. So, I got to get my home miner here set up. So, yay. Right on. Well, thanks everybody for tuning in and make sure you go follow Bob at boomer_btc on Twitter. And you guys can also go check out Barefoot Mining and learn more about Bitcoin. Check out, Satoshi Action Fund and Ocean, and we'll have everything in the show notes for you. But until next time, everybody, peace, love and warm aloha. And thanks again, Bob, for taking time to share what's going on here. And, we'll talk to you guys soon. Thank you.
Introduction and Guest Overview
Bob Burnett's Background and Mission
Top Threats to Bitcoin's Future
Understanding Ordinals and Their Impact
The Ethical and Technical Issues with Ordinals
Centralization Risks in Bitcoin Mining
Mining Pools and Their Influence
The Importance of Language in Bitcoin
Privacy and CoinJoin Concerns
How to Support Bitcoin's Future
Closing Thoughts and Future Outlook