Rev (00:01.905)
Yeehaw! Rev Hodel. Back again with my co ho co-host Reed. And on this episode of Local Bitcoiners, we've got SourceNode from Greenville, South Carolina. We're going to hear all about what's going on in Greenville, South, South Carolina, and learn a lot about all the cool stuff that SourceNode has going on. He's a very interesting fella that I've been hanging out with on Noster for quite a while now. And

Before we get started, as usual, I got a some stories about the meetups that I've been recently attending. And I had this last week a back-to-back meetup week where I went to the western suburbs of Chicago meetup in Elmhurst at Bottle Theory. and there it was pretty cool. We finally, the weather was good enough. We got out on the patio and we we managed to get a table where pretty much the whole meetup could sit at this one table and sort of

share conversation amongst each other. and I brought I thought I brought more eggs than I could sell. And I ended up selling all of those eggs. And now I know that I need to bring more to this meetup, which is great. There people are kind of starting to plan around me being the guy to show up with the eggs that they can buy with Bitcoin. And there was an opportunity for somebody to make their first transaction in Bitcoin buying these eggs.

And that's always a cool thing about when you when you show up to the meetups with some product, something to sell, is that it gives people an opportunity to build this experiential capital of actually getting to use their Bitcoin for the first time. because I think a lot of people aren't necessarily often presented with the opportunity to spend Bitcoin. They're more having to seek it seek that out. And so I also got to hang out with an old friend there. and so we caught up and that was really cool. And then the next day.

I was I turned right right back around. and for me, you know, this trip to Elmhurst is about a two hour eat one way. So it was like four hours of driving that night. I got home super late. The next day I turned right around and went back to Chicago because I've been dead set on checking out this new place in Chicago called the Chicago Bitcoin Collective. And so they were having a bit devs there. And I had actually sold a lamb to someone in that that Chicago community. And so I was gonna double up and

Rev (02:26.567)
you attend the bit devs and deliver this lamb. Well, the scheduling of that all didn't quite work out and it wasn't so great. So I didn't get to leave the homestead quite as early as I wanted to. And I ended up having to meet the guy that I was delivering the lamb to, not at the bit devs, but at their place in Chicago, and drop the lamb off and head to the bit devs from there. Well, by the time that all happened, the bid devs was like pretty much over. And so I'm messaging the group on signal and I'm like, hey, I'm I'm still in the neighborhood. Should I just swing by? And they said,

Yeah, we'll be here. Come on by. And so I got there and the lights were turned off and everything was kind of shut down and over. There was one pizza piece of pizza left on the the in the box of pizza. And and so those guys were were very cool and generous and they they did buy a bunch of the stuff that I had, the the people that did stick around waiting for me. and then they got a little tour of the place and we hung out for a beer or two, just just hanging out talking Bitcoin. It was I definitely did not attend the bit devs, but it was so cool that they hung out and

waited for me to to check that place out. I I cannot tell you how cool it is in there. It's a very the the they've really done a great job decorating and setting up the vibe and I'm looking forward to going there much more often as time goes on. But so that's that's the recap of my most recent meetup adventures. Reed, what are you what have you been working on with the meetups?

Reed (03:51.077)
Yeah, man, always always great to hear all your all your different meetup adventures. Eventually, you know, I I think I mentioned on the last episode that I'm gonna start making making the journey here. My a lot of the other meetups that are near me are not super close, like between two, two and a half hours away. But it's been a while, you know, since I've made the circuit. So hopefully this summer I'll have some additional meetup stories. But for right now, I'm just looking forward to our meetup is coming up this coming weekend.

Sunday, June seventh, six PM, Heavy Culture Cooperative in East Hampton. So our same I keep calling it our new location, but this will be our third our third meetup there already. so we're we're already finding it like home, which is great. And I'm already starting to talk with some of the some of the other meetup attendees about what what else can we do here because this venue is is so amazing and I'm pretty sure we can get it more than one Sunday a month. Like they don't have a lot going on on Sundays, so

We're already starting to talk about you know, we mention on this show all the time about there's consistency, which is super important for Bitcoin meetups, but also variety. So maybe have like I I'm really solid now on doing the Socratic seminar formats. So maybe we could have another meetup, like maybe we do every other week instead of every four weeks, and then we could throw have a completely different type of meetup there. yeah, and I and actually

I was gonna actually ask you about it or ask you to explain it 'cause we were just talking last night, Rev, about a different type a different kind of style f of meetup format where more like a round table where you just kinda sit in a circle and and talk about whatever you're gonna talk about. And I'm thinking that might be something that we wanna try. Did did you wanna explain that real quick?

Rev (05:35.603)
Sure. So in in at the Southwest Michigan meetup, I think this is one of the the best examples that I've been to of this round table format. And the way it basically works out is that everyone sits at a in a in a space where they can really see each other. It it it I think the shape of the the seating arrangement is pretty important. as long it it's a lot of times you'll end up in a conference room and it'll be this really long table and you kind of have to crane your neck to to see the person at the other end or whatever. It's much better if you can

broaden that circle out and give everyone a clear look of each other. But everyone sits in a circle and maybe th there's usually in at the Southwest Mich Michigan meetup, there's you could say like three moderators of the discussion or guiders of the discussion. And so maybe one of them will will start off with some sort of topic and

You just basically create space for everyone in that circle. You might know them a little bit. Someone one of these moderators might know that this person one of these people has knowledge about some of the topics. And you actively try and tease that that person out to to offer what they know and and contribute to the discussion. Make everyone feel comfortable enough to speak

to contribute to it. And so you just kinda go around and around until everyone's kind of had enough. And usually that takes about an hour to an hour and a half of just kind of spinning around the table having this meandering discussion. And so the job of the moderators, you know, and this is not like a hard fast rule or anything. It's just kind of a a position that through attending the meetups, the regulars kind of fall into these positions of being kind of the the person when somebody starts veering off topic and start telling a story about their grandma.

you kind of figure out a way to veer the conversation back in the direction of something that's a little bit more productive for everybody. And that that format tends to yield a lot of food for thought, which then once the round table is over, then we kind of go and hang out and we do our wheeling and dealing and do our transacting and then people continue those con discussions in smaller groups after the fact. And it it's it's a really fun format.

Reed (07:42.181)
Yeah, man, that that honestly that sounds like something that I think we might try in Western Mass. So yeah, I was I was definitely glad to learn that and and hopefully our listeners, if you attend a meetup, you know, that's a format that you can think about. and I guess for my upcoming meetup, so this will be the Socratic seminar format. I haven't done all my preparations for it yet, so I I I don't have too too much to share. I have a few ideas, but maybe you'll hear about those more next week.

So I think this is a good time for us to introduce SourceNode a little bit more. you already kind of floated it a little bit there, Rev, but SourceNode, really glad to have you and why don't you take a few minutes and introduce yourself and tell us about your meetup.

Sourcenode (08:23.48)
Thanks for having me on, guys. And yeah, I want to start out with some shout outs to several of my favorite Bitcoin hubs. Bitcoin Jungle down in Costa Rica, Bitcoin Helsinki in Finland, Bitcoin Chiang Mai with Jimmy. They're crushing it. Lab 484 in Austin. just talking to Polycarp a couple minutes ago. ATL Bit Lab, Bitcoin Charlotte, and Fork and Coin Chicago that you just mentioned, Rev. some of my favorite places.

I I'm so pumped that all these places exist. Most of them are just in the last couple of years and they're all growing. I mean, it doesn't matter what's happening in the world. The these people are focused on this. I got into meetups because of you, Rev. I wasn't thinking about it, wasn't thinking about participating, wasn't thinking about driving two hours to go to another meetup, and I started doing it and I've met some really amazing people in you know, I'm right in between basically. I'm here in Greenville.

Right in between Asheville, Charlotte, and Atlanta. And so I can get to those meetups pretty well. Just recently I had somebody meet reach out to me from Columbia, South Carolina to organize all the meetup hosts in South Carolina in a group chat. So now we're all talking. One of the guys from the low country is moving up here. So I'm maybe gonna have a co-host soon, which is great. And yeah, it's it's it's thriving. You know, I I really wanna see the peer-to-peer

parallel networks start to emerge out of this. And I think that as much focus happens with with Twitter and with the Bitcoin conference, which can be kind of contentious and and and dramatic and kind of low signal at times, you know, with like being screened by Secret Service to go watch somebody talk at a Bitcoin conference. Not my favorite experience.

But these meetups, you got people that can can really talk and get along and plan things out and build a future that's real, that's not just memes on the internet, you know. And Rev's doing that. He's actually putting it into practice. And this podcast is helpful to that. So yeah, my meetup is pretty informal. It's just a a group of people that like to talk about Bitcoin hanging out. I'm qualified to host a meetup because I run a node. I have self custody.

Sourcenode (10:51.53)
experience and I have a little sign with a B on it so people know who to talk to when they walk in. And we've got a steak and shake where I live. So I hosted at the steak and shake, you know, we don't require reservation. Nobody gets irritated when we hang out for two hours. the staff is friendly, although somewhat confused and doesn't always know how to use the iPad. But it's okay because we'll like walk them through it. It's it's not a big deal. And and people can see right there that they can spend Bitcoin actually buy something they can eat. So

It's been a great experience. I've met some very, very cool people that I never would have expected to. And it's really nice when I meet somebody out and about in town because I can say, hey, listen, there's actually a physical event with real people that you can go to, you know, coming up within three weeks, and you could actually learn about Bitcoin in person. It's not this weird abstract thing where you're watching YouTube videos all day. So yeah, I've just loved it. And I'm glad to be on the podcast.

Reed (11:49.817)
Yeah, we we we've noticed actually a a lot of the people that we've talked to so far on this podcast, but even outside this podcast, we're finding that like almost all the meetups that we can think of are somewhere between like five and twenty people is like the regular. And I think that's the magic number. I think that's the sweet spot. It's like, you know, on on the topic of like big conferences being a little bit overrated, it's it reminds me of like we we in Bitcoin with

you know, all the social media and YouTube and stuff like that. Like we have the one to many. That communication route is on we got that on lockdown. Like people can get as much of that content as they want. It's the personal stuff. That's what you miss from all the online content. And when you have a meetup with like a hundred people at it or you go to a conference with thousands of people at it, you're not getting that necessarily. Like you might just in passing like conversation

But to really start to get to know your community and to like have long term relationships, the meetups is where it's at. That's what we've we've come to that conclusion for sure.

Sourcenode (12:57.215)
Absolutely.

Rev (12:59.901)
So when you you so you're doing this meetup at Steke and Shake in Greenville, but you it sounds like you've attended some meetups prior to that. were the meetups that you went to the inspiration for getting started there or what what actually caused you to to set up a meetup in your actual backyard?

Sourcenode (13:22.136)
So I wasn't the original person to set it up. There was a couple that lived here before I even attended that was running it. They moved to Nashville. I never met them, so I'd love to meet them. I don't remember their names. then it was me and one other guy that were pretty consistent for a while. And then I actually moved to Texas for a year. So I wasn't here. And when I came back, I started it back up. It's it's basically all mine at this point. And

Yeah, we've had different a few different locations. We've tried different places. Steak and shake is great. I I really prefer to hold a meetup where the vendor accepts Bitcoin. I think that that's like a kind I wouldn't say it's a minimum because I was doing it without that for a while, but it really ties the whole thing together. It makes it more real. So yeah, that made it a lot easier. And we're seeing more pop up now. Like there's a cafe in town now that I think

They may have accidentally activated Square. Who knows? But I'm gonna go in there and orange build them if they're not already orange billed and maybe start hosting the meetups there. We'll see. Cause steak and shake's cool. I love the tallow, but like I would I would prefer to use a local business if I could.

Reed (14:27.931)
So when a local business pops up, right? Because we've been we we actually we added a map to our meetup website and I put the map up at the meetups so people can see, like, hey, by the way, you know, these are the local businesses that are accepting Bitcoin. so when you like you when you just said, We're gonna I'm gonna make sure I go there and and orange pill them, like how do you approach that conversation? Like we've asked a few different meetup organizers this, but I'd love to hear like how do you approach that situation?

Sourcenode (14:41.283)
Mm.

Sourcenode (14:54.088)
dude, this is my bread and butter. I I was in sales before I became a philosopher. And all I do is orange pill people now. I mean it's literally the only thing that I do. and it's different with every single person, but I usually I started off with a question, what do you know about Bitcoin? You know? And if they're honest, they usually say nothing, you know. if they say, I know it's garbage, it's like, interesting. What why do you think that is, you know, and kind of go.

It's like a flow chart in my head and I follow it in different directions based on who I'm talking to. and then I try to figure out what matters to them and then talk about that, right? Like if they're a a rancher and they're interested in sovereignty and maybe like not worrying about the IRS, then like I can talk about that. Or if they're interested in like the the they're an engineer, they're interested in the power grid, I can start talking about like the symbiotic nature of mining and supply and demand on the on the wasted energy.

You know, it just depends. But basically I just read every book I possibly could, so I've got all these avenues, you know.

Reed (15:58.331)
Forty hours podcast a week or something like that.

Sourcenode (16:00.734)
Something like that. Yeah. I mean, really what it comes down to for me, and this is like a spiritual practice, is knowing exactly where I stand on the topic and not get caring at all if the person agrees with me or not, just being respectful and like sharing truthful information. And if they don't agree, then like I don't get bent out of shape. I just kind of move on.

Reed (16:25.307)
Gotcha. But like from a practical standpoint. So like you're l like maybe this business, like you said, accidentally clicked the I accept Bitcoin button on their terminal. And you know, I don't know, maybe you're talking to just a teenage cashier. I don't you know, maybe it's not the business owner. Like how do you like how how do you try to encourage them? Like how do you show them how to accept Bitcoin? How do you get them to, I don't know, maybe keep it as Bitcoin instead of flip it to fiat? Like do you how

Sourcenode (16:39.862)
Mm.

Reed (16:52.581)
Do you try to contact the owner? Like what what's your method there?

Sourcenode (16:54.87)
Yeah. Yeah. I d I do try to at least make eye contact with the owner and like let him know that I enjoy paying for his services in Bitcoin. my hit rate on Square Terminals has been atrocious. I've been working with Sovereign, the Bitcoin consulting company. And you know, we're we're working on orange peeling businesses. One of the things that we could offer is just explaining to them why Bitcoin's important, you know.

And so when I go into these places that have square terminals, they're not turned on. I often try to start the conversation with the cashier. And I have observed this at least what not to do. Don't reach across the counter and touch their screen. They don't like that. It's like a it's like a very I've done it several times already because they just look confused when I ask them about Bitcoin. I was like, Do mind if I just look for the payment option? It's like, it's not there. It's like seven times it's not there. Okay. Well

Jack made a big announcement and I was hoping that it was going to be a little bit more impactful, but it's okay. It'll take time. So yeah, don't touch their screen. But generally just ask them, what do you know about Bitcoin? and are you interested in learning more? a lot of times they're not. I I there was some recent market research done. It said 20% of the country owns qu owns crypto, whatever that means. There's a wide variety in there. Then you've got 20% of the country that's like interested in crypto.

Doesn't own any yet, and but they want to see more safety and regulation around it. So there's that portion. And then you've got 60% of people who don't care about it at all. They don't want to hear about it. They don't like it. When I hit one of those 60% people, I just move on because you can see it in their eyes. And you're like, they're not ready. They don't want to be ready. You know, if it's somebody I really care about and I I have a lot of interactions with them, I'll just like slowly kind of wear away at it until they switch into the other group.

But otherwise, there's no reason to waste any time. But it's better to talk to the business owner because they've got stake in the game. So if I can, I try to do that.

Rev (18:58.931)
And so like I in my experience it's been not you you can't one shot it. I in my in my experience it's very difficult to show up at at some place, place that you like, you know, even maybe you've even been there a bunch of times and they kind of know you, and then you bring up Bitcoin and expect them to immediately just have the light bulb turn on and they start figuring out how to do it. In my experience it takes sometimes years of

Mentioning it, trying you just keep being persistent about it. And once again you all you you still have to filter these are the people that have already passed that sixty percent filter. These are the people that are like somewhat interested and it still takes that much time in my experience. so it's it's a but the the cool thing is is that I've been doing it for years now and it's paid off because now I've got a whole

Sourcenode (19:46.029)
Yeah.

Rev (19:56.551)
whole bunch of connections and and relationships where I can use my Bitcoin and skip fiat altogether. the other thing that you kind of mentioned you know the the Columbia group and the Charlotte group and and I I actually didn't realize that Atlanta was so close to you as well. But so now that you've got this kind of coordination this group chat of all of the organizers in that region, let's say

Because we just talked to Johnny from Charlotte, with the hot with yeah, with Del Galas Fuego hot sauce. And we're gonna be talking to BTC Wrestle next week from Columbia. And so we've got like kind of the region here of of that area covered. And so have you noticed like beyond beyond yourself, right? Cross pollinating, are are there people from Columbia coming to to Greenville? Are there people from Charlotte coming to Greenville? Are you

Sourcenode (20:29.154)
Johnny's a man.

Rev (20:53.863)
the the regulars at Greenville going to these other ones. How how much are people kind of cross pollinating, so to speak?

Sourcenode (21:00.416)
Yeah, so BTC Russell's the man also. just recently got in touch with him. He's a he's a real organizer, bright dude. So yeah, I've had people from Asheville come down. Their their meetup has been a little slow lately. They've had some like issues with scammers in the group chat that became a problem. But great people up there. And I've had two of them come visit me down here. I've had the organizer from Charlotte come and visit me here.

I know that BTC Wrestle's been to Charlotte. I don't know nobody from Atlanta's been up here yet. And I don't know if anybody from Charlotte's been to Atlanta. Charlotte to Atlanta is like a four hour drive. So, you know, it's sort of like I'd love to make it out to Raleigh. I know that the swans are out there and you know, like I'd love to to see them. but Raleigh's like a four and a half hour drive or something for me. So haven't made that work yet. Although I am buddies with with Captain Sid.

And he's been all over the country, all these different meetups, you know. I went on his motorcycle tour in Thailand. That's how I met Jimmy at Chiang Mai. so yeah, it's like it's it's kind of random and sporadic the way the nodes connect, but it's it's happening gradually. I'd like to assist in that process, you know, like them I'm I have the tendency to connect people, so I'm doing my best with that.

Rev (22:22.417)
Yeah, this idea I think is just getting started where people are starting to realize like, hey, I've got this meetup and there's a meetup not too far and we can even do more if we start to try and figure out how to cooperate together. And Reed and I talk a lot on on this show about these I this idea of the regional meetups, where you can kind of have a Lake Satoshi style event, a Nakamoto to Nakamotown style event. and and sort of because now the

everyone's aware of each other that they exist. You can sort of get everybody together a c from a whole region into one spot and really see what everyone has to offer. The so you s you know, I have a funny story about Sid. Captain Sid. So I built I built a yurt here on the homestead.

And Sid was the first person to stay in that yurt. Now I let him stay for free, but you know, if if if I was charging, he would have been paying me in Bitcoin, no doubt. He bought some lamb for me and paid in Bitcoin during that stay. And so I've been in touch with him ever since. And that was on his his whole adventure, the the the whole cross country trip. And so actually because he came through our meetup.

Sourcenode (23:15.83)
Ha ha.

Rev (23:39.123)
another guy from the Southwest Michigan meetup actually did that same ride of passage event. I'm I might be the same tour that you were on.

Sourcenode (23:48.354)
I don't think so. We didn't have anybody from Michigan. He must have been on the first one. But yeah. Sid is the man.

Rev (23:51.835)
Yeah, maybe it was the first one. Yeah. But that talk about an interesting meetup format. Ca do you do you wanna go into that trip a little bit and what that was like?

Sourcenode (23:58.678)
Yeah. dude, the ride of passage was phenomenal. So okay, what was it? Seven Bitcoiners from all over the world arriving in Thailand with varying degrees of motorcycle experience. riding on the left, mind you, in a place where turn signals are kind of optional. And you can even ride on the sidewalk if you really have to. And you can like split lanes in oncoming traffic and all that. And we're all on cardo headsets, so we can hear each other.

And and I don't know, within three hours of riding, we're all best friends, you know. Like one guy, a guy from Australia is like watching the price go up while we're riding through the the rice patties, you know. He's like, All right, here we go, you know, sixty three, sixty four, sixty five, which were exciting numbers at the time. not today. But yeah, it was it was fantastic. And then we just went all over the mountains of Thailand.

Just great times, a lot of of of interesting interest connections, like the guy from Chile is really into permaculture, you know. And it's it was fun. It was so fun. It was so much fun, in fact. Actually, Sid proposed to his girlfriend on that ride, and she said yes. And he was so excited that she said yes that he invited all of us to the wedding one year later. And I would imagine he probably thought.

that was just a nice thing to do. All of us came back. So one year later, we're all back in Thailand on the bikes, riding again. and we all stay, we're in a group chat. It's one of the more active Bitcoin group chats I'm still in. And there was some death-defying stuff happened on that trip. Sid was an excellent safety coach and and leader. And despite that, you know, we still had some some like learning curve experiences, but nothing too bad.

One guy did drop a bike on himself and he's he's good. He's better for it. he he rides every day now. another guy learned to ride from that trip. So he was like riding on the back of a bike and now he rides all the time and he's like in Vietnam and and whatever. So it was phenomenal. I mean, it as far as Bitcoin experiences go, the comparison between doing that and going to a conference is not even close. I I mean

Sourcenode (26:22.644)
Sid had been living in Thailand for several years already. So he knew all the restaurants, all the hotels, all the routes to take, all these cool, weird things. We went to we went to the Golden Triangle. He was like explaining the history of the opium trade there and like these weird sort of sovereign Chinese cities in Laos and how they're like these lawless crime centers. And then later, like more

news came out about the pig slaughtering and we were like, we've been there. Like we know exactly what they're doing. They're basically kidnapping people by taking their passports away, and then keeping them in the city. fascinating. I mean, yeah, it's it's it's easy to kind of forget what's going on in the rest of the world when you don't leave the country. So yeah, it was phenomenal.

Reed (27:13.071)
Yeah, hearing about man, that sounds just like a ridiculous the whole experience must have been amazing. It's you know, Rev and I were actually a little bit in preparation for this show, but we were just hanging out last night talking and I was talking a little bit about my journey, which was I very much went from like so starting this podcast is kinda like my first time being like more public and you know, having an actual voice you know on the internet, so to speak.

And really what jump started my ability to do that and my ability to actually make and form a lot of these connections was when I first started going to the grassroots event. That was kind of like the I had never been to a big Bitcoin conference. I had just I had been to my meetup and to a few other meetups. But then once I started to get to know the other meetup organizers, it's like, man, you you know, you have one dinner with somebody where you sit next to them and get to know them and talk to them and you can form a bond with that person.

That would take years and years to develop if you just know each other from what, like Twitter or like Noster or something like that. yeah, IRL is is that's really the place for if if you're looking for your Bitcoin tribe, it's you're gonna meet them in in real life, in these real life experiences. And man, like a ride like that is just you know, the the cooler the experience. Like you said, a few hours in, you guys were all best friends already. It's so crazy.

Sourcenode (28:39.138)
Yeah. Yeah. It was unbelievable. And talk about trust. Like there were times when we're all in the headset, right? And we're going through windy mountain roads and one guy would get ahead of a truck and then he'd say, Okay, it's clear, you guys can pass. And so the rest of us are passing into blind turns because we know the guy ahead is like watching out for us. You know, I mean that it's it was a squad. It was so real.

Rev (29:03.867)
Yeah, the the the opportunity for intimacy there and and it's over time too, right? It's not just one evening or a couple of evening, it's a whole adventure. I it's probably a hard form as far as a meetup format goes, probably a hard one to pull off. even in a a small like a much smaller, slower scale context than that. But super interesting,

that he's been able to do these rides and that they've been so impactful. Every basically everyone that I've talked to that has done one has it said it's been a like kind of a life changing trip, like one of the best trips they've ever done. I've been so I've been digging into your your kind of lecture series that you did a couple of years ago, as a podcast format. And in that lecture series you talk about right at the beginning sort of well, not may maybe it's it's loosely brought up, but

Bitcoin as like a a psychedelic, you know, as Bitcoin provides these this a similar mind opening experience as you could get when you tr when you experience some kind of psychedelic drugs or whatever. and so I think that might be something interesting to dig into a little bit as an organizer if you start to think about Bitcoin having this kind of an effect on the the attendees of the meetup. And and kind of at getting back to this like

Sourcenode (30:01.322)
Mm-hmm.

Rev (30:27.059)
Twenty percent of people really have Bitcoin, twenty percent of people kind of are t toying around with it, and then 60% of people don't care. Well, the same thing is kind of true at a meetup, right? Where there's like the new person who's just looking to come and and get just get information, and then there's the person that's like been activated and they're looking for some guidance maybe, or or some some way to really cooperate and deepen that experience. Is there anything that comes to mind in regards to that?

Sourcenode (30:56.288)
Yeah, so I've I've made parallels between psychedelics and Bitcoin several times. one of one of which is in a Forbes article. If you Google psychedelics and Bitcoin, you can find my real name, hint hint. But yeah, there there is a a growing coordination behind the scenes of people that are interested in both topics. I'm not gonna name drop any of the organizations, people or

or events that are coming up here, but there there are things in the works. the paradigm shift that happens when people first experience something like LSD, for example, where you start to question things that were just taken for granted, is similar in many ways to understanding Bitcoin.

It's it's certainly not a one for one. I don't think that one is required for the other or anything like that. But I think there's a lot of synergy to be found between the neuroplasticity required to understand Bitcoin and the neuros neuroplasticity that is granted by psychedelic plant medicines. Yeah, I mean, I could I I I've talked about Bitcoin as a psychoactive software.

Because it acts on human psychology. You know, if it didn't, we wouldn't be having this conversation and nobody would be holding Bitcoin. So it's it's a symbiotic software that that operates on our psyche to reprogram the way that we see the world. it doesn't do the same thing for everybody. And and as you mentioned, you know, everybody kind of has their own journey. Mine, I think, was pretty standard in a lot of ways and and totally unique to me in in other ways.

And my personal path into Bitcoin was through psychedelics. So for me, there was never really a division. Like I I saw psychedelics and Bitcoin as like these partners in in a unfolding renaissance, which is the title of the lecture series, the Holotropic Renaissance, which is how I how I see things. but yeah, I mean, I don't know. It's it's really difficult to encapsulate my thoughts on that. I'm writing a book that's gonna

Sourcenode (33:16.098)
do my I'm gonna do my best to do that, but it's it's ongoing.

Sourcenode (33:33.14)
Am I muted or are you guys muted? Okay. No worries.

Rev (33:36.147)
Sorry, sorry, that that was I do this all the time. I apologize, guys. but so th the thought never really crossed my mind that like Bitcoin acts it kind of can have the same impact on somebody's life as if they have their their first psychedelic experience. and so a lot of times, especially in that lecture series, you you kind of talk about the importance of having a guide, so to speak, in in that.

as as things are unfolding and and you're you're having this experience, the guide can play a big role in what you can take away from that. And so as a meet meetup organizer, it's I've started to think about myself maybe as that shaman or something. like, okay, now I have this ability to when somebody's in there in this meetup and they're they're you can see that they're they're one of the ones that that is activated. You know, you can much like you tease out what their what their real rabbit hole is with Bitcoin

you can help to facilitate and deepen that for them.

Sourcenode (34:39.104)
Yeah, I mean from a from a psychedelic standpoint, the idea of the guide is to continuously enable the individual to figure it out for themselves with unconditional positive regard and presence. And so

It's not about the guide. It's about the individual. It's similar in therapy. It's like a good therapist isn't ever going to tell you what to do. They're going to let you figure it out. but there's lots of distractions and there's lots of road signs that we're very familiar with. And when these things come up, we can gently, you know, steer them back in a good direction, right? Like I had some the part of the reason that our

meetup here in Greenville took some time to get off the ground is because we had like a major shit coin infestation. And I was trying to navigate that externally and internally at the same time. yeah, I ended up kind of blowing up on a guy actually, which I feel I have mixed feelings about, you know, like it was it was it was right in some ways and it could have been done much better in other ways. So I apologize, Skylar, if you ever hear this

But he's probably listened to a shit coin podcast, so probably not.

Reed (36:03.663)
Yeah, I I I wanted to ask a little bit about communication too, because I was I mentioned on during the pre show I I listened to a few of the y your recent podcasts and one of the things you were talking about with with Avi Burra was this idea of the nonviolent communication. And you know what's so funny? That was the note that I took was I was like, How do you practice this during during your meetup? Like, for example, if you have some shit coiners who start attending your meetups, which

I've had to deal with that too before. And I told this story on one of the other episodes. But man, I was trying to be like as patient as I possibly could and like going through the whole thing and just explain taking what he's saying and trying to ask him questions and really forced him to dig deeper. And like eventually, like I just ran out of steam. And I was just like, Look, man, this is a Bitcoin meetup. We're here to talk about Bitcoin. And I think I I I did like a chess versus checkers kind of thing. Like, dude, we both use the same

You know, I I realized that the board like looks the same, but it is not the same game. Like we're all here to talk about one thing and you're here to talk about something completely different. And so anyway, like to pivot a little bit, maybe into nonviolent communication, have the maybe you'd like to explore or explain to the listeners like what that is, and then if you've ever if that's ever come up during a meetup.

Sourcenode (37:23.416)
man, I mean, as as like the biggest proponent of nonviolent communication that I know, I practice it so poorly at times, you know. I I it's so hard to put it into practice when you're actually pissed off. But yeah, I mean, i there's two layers to that, right? The first layer is the internal, introspective, spiritual integration. And I hadn't fully acknowledged my own frustrations with shit coins.

At the time when that guy was doing what he was doing, which was ultimately just hijacking the conversation with a bunch of newcomers and like steering the conversation around in bad directions, and then acting like he was a Bitcoiner when I would question him about it, you know? So, like that was there were many layers to why that was irritating. And no, I did not practice nonviolent communication at the time. so NVC as it's abbreviated, and the the term nonviolent was very popular in the 60s, it's not anymore.

Especially among Bitcoiners who have read software, you know, it's like this. Or you're you're copping out of of a necessary human process. Yeah, I mean the idea of nonviolent communication ultimately is just to cut through all the bullshit and really get to what matters so that you can resolve a conflict without compromise on either side. That's ultimately the goal. And it's about individual sovereignty.

not taking responsibility for other people's feelings and not forcing anybody to take responsibility for your feelings. That's what it comes down to. And as simple as that sounds, it's unbelievably hard. It's like learning another language. But it's a really simple process at the at the outset. It's just four steps. You take an event that's actually happening. Like right now, we are having a conversation on a podcast. That's a fact. This it's not something that like different people interpret differently, right?

You take the observation, then you talk about the feelings that are arising around that, right? So like right now, I feel gratitude. I feel at peace. I feel like I've I've okay. If I say I feel like, then I'm already adding interpretation. So I feel gratitude and I feel at peace. Those are feelings, right? Then you can get into like what needs are being met by this conversation. A need for community, a need for progress, a need for collaboration.

Sourcenode (39:45.354)
yeah, camaraderie, all these things are are like needs that are being met. Of course you can do this in a positive direction or in a negative direction. So at the time that I was talking to that guy, like I was feeling incredibly irritated because he was talking about some shit coin to newcomers. So I was frustrated. I was pissed off. I was indignant is probably the right word.

Because I have a need for honesty, transparency, clarity, truth, and also to stay on topic, I guess is maybe yeah, some something along those lines. And instead of communicating that, I told him that I wasn't going to put up with it and and that if he's he was gonna continue to act like that he needed to leave. So I was enforcing my will on him, which is not a nonviolent thing to do.

But that was the best I could do in that moment, you know. So the best thing if you want to learn about NBC, go read Mark Rosenberg's book. It's fantastic. I really genuinely would love to see more Bitcoiners read it because just the amount of pedantic, childish drama that I see in the Bitcoin space can be cut down w a lot by that book if people took it seriously. And and at first it reads like postmodern hippie mumbo jumbo.

But when you get into it, it's deeply libertarian. it's it's super, super sovereignty oriented. So I I love it. And I do talk about that on the lecture series in the communication episode too, just as a crash course.

Rev (41:30.003)
So there's a lot of a lot of sort of controversy bubbling up i like topically like very recently too. Just I I just feel like, you know, when the price goes up a few percent, people are riding high, and then as soon as that price turns around and goes back the other way, even though it's like we were old we were back at the same prices we were just at, guys, now everybody's like feeling some bad emotions about it. And so I th I feel like th there's a lot of words that people use

Sourcenode (41:55.64)
Yeah.

Rev (42:00.235)
that cause this this that amplify this this emotional response to the price action, right? Words like we, they need, like we need to do something about this. They it's all there, like they all these they're out there. And then like the the need of like this needs to change like this this is a necessity. And this is kind of gets into like the forks too. There's a lot of different fork talk going on right now.

Sourcenode (42:16.259)
Yeah.

Rev (42:27.875)
And I I found myself frustrated by it all. And my response is like, well, what can I do? What what you know, and trying to take responsibility and sort of lead by example. Now, I don't know if this is necessarily related to nonviolent communication or anything, but certainly nonviolent communication can be if if people were more thoughtful about the way that they were putting this their their emotional responses to the price action out there.

And especially when it is related to like the things that are going on on Noster or the the broader culture in general, I think that we could have more productive discussions. And granted, like Noster is a much more productive place for these discussions than Twitter, I'd say. But regardless, the the words that people use are it I think we're we're not being thoughtful. And there we there I go. We, you know, but I maybe I'm not being as thoughtful sometimes, right?

Sourcenode (43:23.352)
Mm-hmm.

Rev (43:26.063)
About the words that I use.

Sourcenode (43:27.712)
Right. Yeah. I mean, I certainly am not. And I wouldn't even know what it's like on Twitter. I haven't been on there since it was called Twitter, so I can't really even speak to it anymore. But the energy that I get from it is mostly through talking to people that still use it. And what I observe is a much greater

Dysregulation of the ner nervous system. Like people that use Twitter a lot often fall into these cycles of the current thing or whatever everybody else is upset about, they're also upset about. I think it's the algorithm, but I can't show you that on paper. So I have no idea actually what's causing it. What I do remember, because I used Twitter for years before switching to Noster, was that it was a lot of gotchas and a lot of like.

Posting stuff in order to get a rise out of people. And there's a certain way of communicating that's really good for that. And there are people who are really good at that. And I do admire it in a way because it's it's kind of amazing. It's like a marketing thing, or it's it is brilliant. I was never very good at that. but

In transitioning into like a new way of living, which is I think what Bitcoin can represent if you want it to, then it's best to leave some of that stuff behind, right? there's a famous, it's it's a really short management book. it's called something like what got you here won't get you there. And I feel like we're experiencing that in the Bitcoin community. What got us this far so up to this point is mostly arguing.

And bickering and telling people to have fun staying poor. And all of that was really fun and necessary at the time in a way, but I don't think it's going to take us the extra mile that we need right now in terms of the cultural social layer of Bitcoin. That's my opinion. I'm saying we and need and all that. that's that's totally my opinion, but that is also what I'm living, and I'm doing my best to try to carry that out, at least as as an individual.

Sourcenode (45:38.284)
And I am seeing other people kind of figure this out as well. And I see a lot of people that are stuck in the old way too. I I posted something on Nostra that said maybe the biggest threat to Bitcoin is Bitcoiners not being able to cooperate. And I it's sort of a joke. It's also not like we do need to be able to build parallel systems and to trade at least, you know, to to have peaceful trade with each other.

But yeah, some somebody responded, he said, I think that's the best thing for Bitcoin is that we don't get along because it makes it harder to enact changes on the protocol when people won't agree with each other. So I can see the argument, but at at some level to some degree, we do have to cooperate at some point. Like how are you gonna have a citadel by yourself? You know?

Reed (46:25.381)
So that actually maybe is a it since we're talking about the social media stuff and and stuff like that, like all three of us are are very big in into Noster. I think none of us are really on Twitter. I s I do still have a Twitter account, but it's I haven't used it since it was called Twitter, for the most part. And so we lean heavy into Noster. And one of the things that we have talked about on this podcast a bunch of times is that me hey

you know, meetups should re you guys should really lean into Noster. And we have a bunch of tools on our website to have to help meet up organizers, you know, post their meetups to Noster. and we try to, you know, like espouse the values of Noster and explain how it's a little bit different and how that because it's free and open, it's so much easier to post content there and to find content there. we say that posting your meetup there it's not for where normies are going to find your meetup.

But it's great for like discoverability. Like when you find these I can't remember some of the names of the sites, but like some of the sites that go and try to collect all the Bitcoin meetups. Not do Noster is like one of the easiest places that they can pull from. So we we've been trying to convey to other Bitcoin meetup organizers like the the values and the benefits of you know leaning into the Noster community. but you as a meetup organizer and who's someone who spends all their time on Noster also.

you know, at least for social media. Like what are your thoughts on that? Like do you feel like there there's good opportunities for meetups to to lean into Noster?

Sourcenode (48:01.066)
Yeah, I mean, I've noticed that the tone, like I was saying earlier, the tone of the meetup participants that spend a lot of time on Twitter versus the ones that are mostly on Noster is very different. I I don't usually I'm not big on purple pilling non Bitcoiners just because most normies are not willing to put up with the imperfect UX, you know? I it's it's still imperfect.

Even if you're using Primal, like Primal has its own challenges and it's technically using a centralized database, which I'm not gonna knock it. I I think everybody should be able to do whatever they want. but yeah, I I love the idea. I mean, personally, my dream is to literally never use meetup.com or Facebook or Twitter or any of these big tech platforms, LinkedIn, any of those ever again.

I would like to interact with every single person in my life over a mesh network using open source technology, including the hardware. You know, that would be my dream. And so I'm just living that now. Is it limiting the scope or limiting the reach that I have as an individual? Temporarily, yes, but it's based on my principles. And I think in the long run it's gonna pay off. this week it it doesn't feel like that's happening, but next week, who knows, you know?

Reed (49:26.267)
Well it's also like who you're connecting with, right? Because, you know, like, okay, yeah, my reach has diminished, but maybe that's a good thing, right? Like maybe this is just this is your, you know, web of trust. Like if you have gone this far, if you are on the mesh network with open source technology, the you're probably a guy I wanna hang out with, you know, or a person I wanna hang out with.

Sourcenode (49:28.27)
Yeah.

Sourcenode (49:45.11)
Yes. Yeah. If you're prioritizing using Noster, you're at closer to my wavelength than anybody who's not. And I've made some really incredible, life-changing personal connections over Noster. And I can't say that for Twitter personally. I know people do that, but yeah, it's it's there's there's a principle that is baked into the Noster ethos.

From the first conference that happened in Costa Rica that hasn't left. And even though it's a little chaotic, especially when people are upset about their funding or whatever's going on this week, it doesn't really matter because we're all trying to work it out. And and and d to varying degrees, everybody cares about the open source parallel system approach.

Rev (50:42.759)
Yeah, Noster is a place where you it's additive in its participation. You know, the more people that use it for whatever reason they use it for, however they want to do it, it creates a broader area in which people can a more surface area for people to interact with it. And so this comes into like the this whole idea of permaculture where it it's it allows for these these systems to be

integrated together to be cooperative. The the output of one system can be the input for another. and you kind of mentioned permaculture at the beginning from the the there's a guy in the rite of passage who is into permaculture in your your your holo holotropic renaissance series you mentioned permaculture are you so are you someone who's like practicing permaculture are you interested in permaculture do you have

Do you take the ethics and principles of permaculture, apply it to the way you interact with Bitcoin, with Noster?

Sourcenode (51:44.504)
So in 2010, somebody at my college introduced me to Sepp Holzer and I read his book and I could not put it down. It just blew my mind and it was so aligned with my personal values that I never forgot it. And I do practice it in my own on my own property, which is quite small at the moment, but in the long run I'd like to apply it more.

I I like to say that I have the the principles memorized and and you know that I apply them all the time. I probably don't. I will be incorporating them into my book, but I think that the sort of small scale, sustainable permaculture way of producing food where you're you're working with the plants, you're working the land directly, it's so sovereign and it's so real.

I was just watching the hummingbird tribe movie that Paul from the jungle just put out. And Govinda was talking about permaculture, and I was like, yes, dude, like this is it, you know? And I've seen it in practice, I've seen food forests and all that. I'd love to get more involved hands-on with it. What I've done personally is pretty minimal, but I do like to observe nature rather than imposing myself on it.

and let it show me what it wants to do. I like to do that with people as well, as best I can, you know.

Rev (53:10.515)
Well and you can take that and apply it to Bitcoin, right? And you can observe what Bitcoin is doing, how people are using Bitcoin, and instead of trying to say, I don't like that, mm further just observe it and try and gain an understanding of why it's happening and figure out how you can respond and use the the problem is the solution in permaculture is is a phrase. An another permaculture kind of word is this word po

polyculture, right? When we're when we're designing food forests and we're trying to figure out ways of of choosing plants to interact with each other to create a a holistic ecosystem of of food produ a food producing system that is holistic. each plant has its own special role and each plant provides a yield. And when I go to a Bitcoin meetup, I think of all the attendees as this polyculture. Every attendee is is has got their different skill set and their different thing to offer to the table.

And so I'm often trying to figure out ways to link those people together and and basically make the system more ad additive so that that information can propagate and really flow through that whole meetup more cohesively and holistically. I permaculture is definitely like a a it's it's a it's a design framework for working with and analyzing complex systems and and a social group is definitely a complex system. Bitcoin

is certainly a complex system. And so there's a lot that we can learn from permaculture and nature and apply it to Bitcoin and then take what we learned from Bitcoin and the meetups and apply it back to nature. And it's it's a reciprocal process.

Sourcenode (54:47.618)
That is beautiful. Yeah. I mean, I I think that a lot of Bitcoiners, well, I shouldn't say a lot of Bitcoiners, but some Bitcoiners have this tendency to want everybody to be every plant at once, you know, and they can kind of fall into this social justice warrior position where it's like, if you don't agree with me on this niche topic, but you agree with me on everything else, then you're a terrible person, you know? And I interestingly, that's a very postmodern.

approach to argumentation, like if you're not if you're not with me or against me kind of thing. and and the permaculture movement largely is a very postmodern thing. And a lot of these people that I meet that are just working the land and kind of like walking around barefoot, they don't want to hear anything about money. And then the really hyper rational Ayn Randian Bitcoiner person doesn't want to hear much about nature and the value of like putting your feet on the soil with the

plants that you're growing. And I think there's a lot of overlap to be found there that's that's integrating. It's it's it's coming about. It's happening in little pockets here and there, you know.

Reed (56:00.357)
So this is this is our this is our fourteenth episode. And I'm I'm I'm pretty sure I did not go back and look at the transcripts, but I'm pretty sure Rev finds a way almost every single time to bring up a permaculture principle. And I'm thinking, Rev, actually now that we brought it up again and we're talking about it again here, this is something I really feel like should be developed into like a long form Noster note. And n I you know, maybe you've done something like that already for Bitcoin in general, but I think we there's a lot

Sourcenode (56:12.269)
Okay.

Reed (56:30.253)
Of you know, you've taught me just through these podcasts, like so much, like all these permaculture principles that we apply to like they're really good to apply to Bitcoin meetups specifically, right? Like we say them all the time, like this building small and slow solutions. like what else? Like non-extractive behavior, like you all of a sudden just start rallied off like one thing after another after another. It'd be really good, I think, for us to collect all those in one place and and put them down because

There's just so many parallels between that and what we do with the Bitcoin meetups.

Rev (57:05.181)
Well so all permaculture really is is a it's it's a framework, right? You just by knowing the principles and being aware of the principles and aware of the ethics, you're everyone is already doing this stuff, but when you recognize it, then you can actually wield the power of it. And so that that's the key is just educating like showing that there is this framework that you can let run at as part of the operating system in the back of your mind. And and when you are making your decisions, you you're you you become

instead of actively filtering like, what permaculture principles am I gonna apply to this design or am I gonna apply to my meetup tonight? Instead it's just a way of being that you just it flows through. And the more people that are aware of this, the the easier it becomes to yield the the benefits from those interactions.

Sourcenode (57:56.61)
Yeah, it's brilliant. I I'm I'm yeah, I I've been waiting for the Bitcoin per permaculture book. Like it hasn't really hit yet. I know this guy, Ben, who's writing a a Bitcoin permaculture book. I think he said it's he's at 80,000 words and we'll see. We'll see if he can narrow it down to something palatable. But I I I know there's a lot of Bitcoiners in it into permaculture, and if you look at

Noster search permaculture, you'll find a bunch of people that are running homesteads and stuff. there's plenty of room for for integration of both systems.

Rev (58:36.189)
So speaking of integration, there's a this is kind of like the final part of your your holotropic renaissance series is going over this these these levels. And this gets into this is a permaculture concept as well, this idea of succession, right? You have to in order for a system to reach its maturity, there are necess there are steps that are necessary to take. And you can't skip one. you just have to kind of process where you're at.

evolve to the next step or or learn enough to get to the next step and move on through until you reach the full fruition of the production of the system. And I and we talk about meetups as following this process a lot of the times. Now with it sounds like in this region that you're in, you're in the middle of a phase shift of the the successional process where now the the meetup organizers are starting to communicate together and starting to get organized on a regional level beyond just the local level.

are there any other examples that you can think of of how the the meetups maybe meetups in general, not just your meetup, but like what you have you observed any of these successional steps taking place as far as the the local interactions, the the fit the peer to in in-person interactions of people at meetups.

Sourcenode (59:54.38)
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think first it starts off very informal and people just meet up at the meetup and and that's that. And then gradually you make friends and you start staying in touch outside of the meetup. And that grows and then they start pulling other people in, everybody's out there orange pilling, and the meetup starts to gain some steam. Once you reach a a certain critical mass, and then I think there's an NGU component as well, like somebody in the area will

will float the idea of building a brick and mortar location of some kind, you know, and that is what I'm seeing like several of the places I mentioned. Let's see. One, two, three, four, five, six of the seven places I mentioned have a brick and mortar location where you can actually go and there's people there almost all the time now. and that's a big piece too, because then it's not, I'm directing you to an event.

That you can come once a month. It's no, I'm directing you to a place where you can go anytime, and there's always somebody there who's willing to talk to you about Bitcoin. And I think that that's probably where we can start to integrate with businesses and even local politicians on a face-to-face basis. however, one might feel about that, I think that it's gonna be part of the process, is like orange peeling your local area.

And so, for example, Bitcoin Charlotte has this initiative to onboard a hundred vendors within a year or something like that. And if you can really create that, it's not a circular economy, but it is a place where people can spend Bitcoin. So if you can take your area, if you're passionate about where you live, you can take your area and you can try your hardest to make it a Bitcoin hub. I don't think there's ever gonna be one Bitcoin hub. There shouldn't be. You know, there was like a debate between

is it Nashville? Is it Austin? Is it Prague? And like that's cool. Like go for it. Do your best. But at the end of the day, it should be everywhere. It should be the whole planet. It's just some places are gonna pop off before others.

Rev (01:02:05.701)
Everywhere needs a Bitcoin hub, right? That and and those Bitcoin hubs need to overlap and intersect. And and so I I think about it as the way these things the way the successional process is developing is it's starting off as these super small hyperlocal groups that once enough time passes they realize that they can cooperate with a larger part of the region. And then like you said, that that ultimately the the ultimate fruition of that succession of that system

is a place where there is just now activity happening all the time. And once that's happening, then it's like now there's a des now it's a destination, right? So people from somewhere else can know that they don't have to plan their trip around a specific once a month meetup. Like if you're taking a road trip, for example, it w like in the example of Sid, it was very difficult for him to coordinate how to hit the meetups as he was traveling because the meetup schedules were very

few and far between. and like it when he came to the Southwest Michigan meetup, we just put on a meetup just because he was coming through town. but if you could imagine if there is a place now that has this stuff always going on, then you can do a whole, you know, journey through across all these places or whatever. And yeah, it's very it's very cool to see that this it becomes very unstoppable, you know.

Because even if that that central hub gets shut down, there's still the the small meetups that are orbiting around it happening anyways. There will always be meetups.

Sourcenode (01:03:42.028)
Right. Right. Yeah. I used to use couch surfing. That was something I used when I was traveling around a lot and I would host people and stuff. And unfortunately, couch surfing kind of fell by the Wade side. I think a combination of factors like Airbnb came out. They integrated with Facebook. It just became uncool very quickly. And

But now when I go to a new place, I reach out to Bitcoiners. I'll post something on Nostra. I'll go on Orange Bill app, I'll talk to somebody who knows somebody. For example, I had a 20-hour layover in Helsinki when I was coming back from Pen from Bangkok, and it was on New Year's Eve. So I was arriving at 3 p.m. on New Year's Eve and I was gonna be there for 20 hours. I was like, I don't know what the hell I'm gonna do. So I reached out to somebody in Sweden. I was like, hey, do you know anybody in Helsinki? And he reached out to somebody, and that guy reached out to somebody.

And somebody was there at the airport. There's two guys there at the airport to pick me up and show me around Helsinki and just take me to hang out with other Bitcoiners and go to their hub. And it was one of the best New Year's ever. And I had no plan. And I was wearing like totally inappropriate clothes for that time of year in Helsinki. but I had an awesome time and I and I ate reindeer and I had like a real local experience. I sat in a sauna. yeah.

And I orange pilled this guy's dad, and he'd been working on orange pilling this guy forever. stepdad, not dad. Yeah. Anyway, it was fantastic. I and I'll go back. Like I I didn't really plan on going to Finland, but I want to go back now just to see those guys.

Reed (01:05:18.127)
Yeah, I've I so I went through a period where I was traveling a lot for work. that was actually how my meetup journey started is while I was traveling for work, I decided, my God, there's actually a Bitcoin meetup nearby while I'm gonna be at I I think it was in in Jacksonville, Florida was my first one. And you know, that was my first Bitcoin meetup. But then after that, whenever I would travel for work, I would just reach out to

Bitcoiners in the area. I would just go onto meetup.com and if you if then if they didn't have a meetup, I'd reach out, I'd find the organizer, or I'd ask around and find the organizer, or find Bitcoiners who are in the area. It was so crazy. Like all my coworkers, they're like, Wait, you have friends here too? I'm like, Yeah, I'm gonna go hang out with friends tonight. And they're like, What? Like, you how do you have friends here? You know? I'm like, Yeah, I have friends everywhere. You know, because there's and yeah, it's the best. You can just anywhere you are.

Sourcenode (01:06:03.512)
Ha ha.

Reed (01:06:11.309)
you go and you literally have an immediate friend group always available. And those hangouts are are they dude, they're genuine genuinely the best.

Sourcenode (01:06:20.428)
Yes. Yeah. And and you just bypass a lot of small talk and get right into what ma what matters with Bitcoiners. It's like we already have a lot of the same baseline assumptions, so we can kinda just have a good time, you know. I don't know if it's always gonna be that easy. Like there could be a time when we live in a world where everybody's pretending they've always been a Bitcoiner and you have a lot of like scammers and grifters and whatever. But at that point I think the nostrw of trust is probably gonna come in handy. You know, it'll it'll be

Reed (01:06:49.275)
Absolutely.

Sourcenode (01:06:49.346)
built out by that point.

Rev (01:06:51.699)
Well and there already is this this web of trust through the grapevine, right? You you're you're reaching out to somebody you trust for them to find somebody that they trust, that they find somebody that they trust, and you ul ultimately end up with somebody that, you know, is like three steps removed from that initial connection or whatever maybe. But ultimately that can they're still connected through the grapevine to the ultimate source where you reached out. And if that person does you wrong

Well, now there's many layers of people that are gonna have to deal with the the ramifications of their social capital on leading you in down a bad path. And, you know, as you say, like as it gets bigger and bigger and it it's it's less of a subcultural thing and it becomes just the culture, sure, there's opportunities for people to take advantage. But we're already vigilant. I think that it's it's just by the nature of of

getting into Bitcoin and all of the scams around it and everything else, it it is very important when you vouch for somebody that you're sure that this person is not gonna affect your reputation negatively by, you know, introducing them to somebody else.

Sourcenode (01:08:05.602)
Yeah. I I had to give two references to Sid before he let me on the rite of passage. Even though we met in person in Brague and we were already on the level, but he still called my references, two people that he would have known of, you know, that he knew were legit Bitcoiners to to vouch for me. And I think that's a really good system, you know.

Reed (01:08:25.979)
Hell yeah. So we're coming up. We we just passed the hour mark. so I think we're we're gonna probably start getting ready to transition to the second part of the show, which is our value for value section. but before we do, one of the things we like to do is just kind of stop and and make sure that we all have a chance to say kind of final thoughts or key takeaways or mention anything that we missed. You know, I I mean, just to get it started, I think one of the the big like if I'm gonna kind of summarize or have some key takeaways from this episode.

You know, Rev, I think you mentioned it on the last like Rev and I recorded I think by ourselves last week, and you mentioned it on the last one, Rev, is like there's so many signs that Bitcoin is more like an object in nature. Like it's its own living thing. and I don't mean like the software, I mean like the culture and the community. And I feel like we hit on so many of those topics during this episode, right? Like that's how we know, why are permaculture principles so applicable here?

It's like, well, because it's kind of like a living, breathing thing. There's all these complex different layers. you know, we mentioned the psychedelics that came up on this episode too. Again, these are things from nature. so those are some of the the kind of the key things that I took away from this. But maybe to kick it back to source node, you know, did you have anything, any final thoughts or key takeaways or maybe anything you wanted to miss, anything that you missed that you wanted to to mention on this episode?

Sourcenode (01:09:53.454)
Gosh, there's so many things spinning around in my mind right now because I'm I'm writing this book. I'm putting integral theory as the as the first chapter, which is like this philosophical framework to organize philosophical frameworks. And I'm seeing so much of that come out here. I think I'm gonna incorporate a lot more permaculture into the last chapter. It's so it's so important. It is like a it is a philosophical process and practice. I am

simultaneously excited and completely confused about the direction that all of this is taking. And that is because I'm just one individual. And there's tens, hundreds of thousands, millions of us now that are all working this out in one way or another. And I'm watching it unfold and like, yeah, I'm along for the ride. So I appreciate you guys doing this podcast. I'm gonna stay on for the for the shout outs, but

That's all I've got for now.

Rev (01:10:56.091)
And I guess I'll I'll close it out with the final thoughts here and I guess from what I've I'm synthesizing out of the discussion is that it seems that the more that you it beyond just going to your local meetup, but if you just try and participate and reach out to local Bitcoiners elsewhere, they're there, you know, and they're happy to involve you in whatever's going on.

And because when you and when you do that, you you actually bridge the cultures. You you create the overlapping of the territories. The territories are not they're not lines divided by a river or a mountain range. They're lines divided by us and our willingness to go over and and interact with somebody else, with some other culture, some other group.

And when the connection gets made, now those two groups get linked together. Because when you end up in Helsinki, because of all of the other connections that you've made, right, now you've got this this grapevine, this, this, this territory that you have access to that now leads you to this this great New Year's Eve experience. And I think that there to me that is like one of the biggest takeaways of this this discussion is that as you participate in Bitcoin culture.

the the relationships that you make are important and especially if they're relationships that you make that can t that can link other groups together because this is a big part of what is gonna help hyper bitcoinization, you know, whatever, d grow the the whole culture holistically as a whole. So yeah, that's it.

Reed (01:12:46.533)
Yeah, sweet man. I feel like that's as Bitcoin meetup organizers, it's just that's kind of like our role in this whole thing. Our we're we're like the connectors.

All right, shall we transition here to our value for value section? All right, so yeah, so source node, we're glad you're hanging out with us here. And it's you know, this almost everybody here is, you know, these are boosts from people who are on Noster. We have a lot of Nasser integration tools. and so people's N pubs and stuff get all linked and I'm like what I'm gonna start with here are our leaderboards, and our leaderboards I'm just reading off Noster notes that I hit publish on right before the show started.

so that's what we like to start our value for value section with is our leaderboards. So our first leaderboard is these are our top boosted episodes. And so I like to repeat myself when we go over these leaderboards. So I'm gonna do that here. And you know, this first leaderboard, the reason why we have this leaderboard is because maybe this is the first show you've listened to. And maybe you're thinking, wow, I bet a lot of these podcasts from the local Bitcoiners.

These are kind of evergreen topics. You know, I should go back and listen, but you know, this is our 14th episode, so that's kind of a lot to add to your queue. So maybe you don't know where to start. Well, a great place to start is our top boosted episodes of all time, because that's clearly those are the episodes that at least our fans or our listeners have found the most valuable. So on this list, I don't think there are any changes since last time. although I will say episode nine continues to climb.

So episode nine is our number one episode. last week, it's up a little bit from last week, and we're it's now at 95,976 stats just on episode nine. And so that episode was with Sir Spencer from Kansas City, and it was growing slow built com strong communities. So definitely check out episode nine. next on the list is episode five with Augie, another Kansas City.

Reed (01:14:50.867)
that continues to be one of our most listened to episodes also. the meetup is the farmer's market. And so that was with Augie. third place is still episode one. is hanging out up there at 59,934 stats. Definitely a great place for you to start. there's no problem at all with if you did want to go back to the beginning, we cover a lot of the great basics for how you start a meetup, what kinds of things that you need to think about.

a lot of the best practices, lessons learned and stuff like that that we've gotten over the years, and what we've learned from others. And so that's episode one. And that is our third place. fourth place is episode two. That was with GC and James from Jersey City. Another excellent listen instant classic as our second episode and continues to be one of our most popular. and that was Meetups are the ultimate web of trust from Jersey City.

And finally we have episode seven. and that was the one where Rev and I really started to get into some of the value for value stuff. I think it was right around then that we started doing a lot of the splits and a lot of the more podcasting two point zero friendly you know tools and and we're that's what we're trying to do. And Rev and I continue to learn, we're gonna continue to talk more about podcasting two point and we're gonna continue to try to learn how to take advantage of a lot of the tools that already exist.

you know, and in addition, do kind of our own thing, which is, like I said, leaning into into Noster. So yeah, but that's our top five breakdown. And so Rev, I don't know if you've got thoughts on that. I tried to run through that a little bit quicker since there weren't too many changes, but

Rev (01:16:37.211)
All great episodes to to start with. If you're just here in the show for the first time and you wanna you don't know where to start in the back catalog, you know, check out those episodes on the leaderboards. especially if you're looking to to start a meetup or attend one. This is the you're gonna get a lot of good information in those. So start there.

Reed (01:17:00.059)
So second leaderboard, this is our listeners who have boosted the most number of episodes all time. So this is I I will continue to refer to this as our rider dies. so we limited this, we're only listing off the top three here, but ties are included. So what that means is that we actually have four people on this leaderboard this time because there's a tie for third. In first place continues to be Matthew D, way out in front. He hit the last episode also, so he has a perfect he has boosted thirteen out of thirteen episodes.

thank you, Matthew D. You continue to be one of the premier contributors to this show. And believe me, every sat we we really appreciate every sat that you send our way. it's making a huge difference and you know we value a lot of the stuff that you bring to the table too. So we're again I I realize that we've said this the last few episodes, but we do have some ideas in the hopper here for how we can give back more to our top contributors.

but that and that's not only Matthew D, because next on the list is in second place yeah.

Rev (01:18:02.355)
Well, hold on one second, Reed. I wanna I wanna stop you right there b for a second, because Matthew D has boosted every episode and he's put a lot of sats down on the line to boost every episode. But what Matthew D has done, he's not given those sats just to us. Those sats, Matthew D has he's shown that he is willing to contribute to all of the Bitcoin meetup organizers, all of the guests on the show as well, because they're included in the splits.

And so when you boost all of our episodes, that means that you're supporting Bitcoin meetup culture in general. their your stats are not just coming to us, they're going to everyone that's been on the show.

Reed (01:18:41.339)
Absolutely. And on our website now, we actually in order to really put on display the fact that, you know, a lot of the stats that get boosted, okay, to be fair, more than half of every sat that we've gotten has gone to cover our costs. but even after you cover the costs, you know, a a big portion of those stats are going to our guests. and so yeah, so we have that on display on our website.

If you go to localbitcoiners.com forward slash stats, you can check out how the splits have worked out for our episode or for our podcast. So back to the leaderboard. Second place is Shadrach. Shadrach has boosted eight episodes. And so thank you, Shadrach. We really appreciate your content. And I think you've given us some actually really cool advice in a lot of your different boosts. Shadrack is the

in in many occasions in the past has boosted the same episode multiple times, which doesn't really come through on this leaderboard, but it is a fact.

Rev (01:19:43.877)
And if you don't know Shadrach, you should definitely pay attention to what Shadrach is is got going on because that guy is involved in a lot of the stuff that we talk about on the show. And c at stuff that's like on the bleeding edge beyond the bleeding edge. if you want the alpha, you can find it by paying attention to what Shadrach is is interacting with and doing.

Reed (01:20:06.619)
I think Sh Shadrach was recently on the No Solutions podcast, right? The one with Geezy from the yeah, from the I can't remember what they call that conference. Sovereign I can't remember what it's called. There you go. Sovereign Engineering. Yep.

Rev (01:20:17.287)
Sovereign Engineering in Madeira. Yep. So Shadrach was over at Sovereign Engineering, working on some stuff there. And you can hear what he's working on with Shadrach. It's the archipelago node. very cool stuff. Like I said, you gotta if if you don't know about Shadrach and you're not aware of what he's doing, go check that out 'cause it's amazing cutting edge stuff.

Reed (01:20:43.163)
Alright, and then tied for third place for our Rider Dies would be this is both with seven episodes boosted is Nostragang and God's Death. Both, you know, legends and Rider Dies for our podcast. So long time listeners, I'm pretty sure both have been listening all the way back since episode one. So always glad to hear all your boosts and get your feedback and we love reading out all the stuff you guys have to say every you know, every week here. So

Thanks to both of you.

Reed (01:21:17.455)
All right, and our last leaderboard, this is our sponsors. So we don't have real sponsors, we don't have corporate sponsors. you know, we're not finding the the product that we think we need to shill upon to our guests. No, our guests are our sponsors, and so that's why we have this final leaderboard. So this final leaderboard, these are our biggest single boosts ever sent to the show.

And the reason why we have this leaderboard, first of all, is to honor the fact that these folks sent us so many sats in a single giant boost. But also as a way for our community to advertise their own stuff. You know, we like to say, we we like to use our platform to use our podcast to show what we have going on, but this is your opportunity. You can show what you have going on. So, you know, maybe you are selling something at a bull at the bullish market on June tw or on yeah, June twenty first coming up.

Rev (01:22:13.511)
It'll come up, yeah. The the the bullish market will come up. Yeah.

Reed (01:22:13.561)
This would be a great time. There you go. You know, this would be a great time. Maybe you want to put a little advertisement out. Well, you know, all you have to do is get onto this top boosts ever sent, and we'll read it week after week. So this is like a an evergreen boost. All right, so let's get into the boost. So our top boost ever received was from Sir Spencer on his own episode, and it was for 42,069 SATS for 2069. And

To read out his message as we do every week here. It says, from Sir Spencer, boosted via podcast guru. Thanks for having me on. Hope to continue to improve bowlafterbull.com and continue to evolve alongside your local Bitcoiners.com site, IronsharpenIron, and I greatly value hearing what you guys are discovering on your value for value journey. Long live the value chain. So this actually reminds me so first of all, go check out bull after bull.

As we say every week, excellent podcast. I've been listening to it more. it is long, but it's high quality all the way through. You know, I've been starting to listen all the way to the end and they've got great stuff to say the whole time. But yeah, bowlafterbull.com is a fantastic website. And they have also lots of Noster and Podcasting two point zero and integration stuff. and Rev, I actually hadn't gotten a chance to tell you that, but we we actually got our first pull request.

submitted for our website and it was from Chad F. And so he's been working, I guess, with Oscar Mary on some tools to help get some better Naster integration features into Fountain and onto Boostme Bitch. And they want us to participate. And so I'm gonna be checking out that PR maybe even tonight after this show to see if we can get that integrated. But yeah, go check out bullafterbull.com and and thank you again, Spence.

Reed (01:24:11.439)
All right, second on the list is BTC Russell, who we'll be talking to next week. And he's boosted fifteen thousand sats on episode eight. and he says, To all the folks out there boosting and thinking about starting a meetup, I would highly encourage you to take the leap and start one. Seems intimidating at first, but if you build it, they will come. You may be surprised that there are other Bitcoiners in your area. It's easier to get attendance in more populated areas. BTC Russell.

So yeah, definitely looking forward to hearing more from BTC Russell next week. That's gonna be a good episode.

Reed (01:24:47.595)
And next on the list, as we have heard from many times in the past, this was actually our top boost of all time for quite a while. Bitcoin is for everyone, May 22nd, May 23rd, 2026. they are in third place and fifth place. And so again, we actually had an episode with Eric from Portland to talk about that conference. I actually I haven't heard too much about it now that it's over, but we should actually reach out and see if we can get some sort of a recap or find out how that.

How that event went. But I think I'll forego reading off his his full note here. but I will mention the fact that he sent his second note and just trying to get it to come up on the site. I'm not sure why it won't load right now. but basically his second note, you know, check out BTC or Portland Bitcoiners, they have six different meetups per month.

So and if you want to hear more about those, you can listen to our episode with Eric. and then the last one to mention on this list is from Cleveland Bitcoin, who boosted actually our show from our website. So it wasn't a specific episode, but it was for eleven thousand one hundred and nine sats.

And if you bear with me, I'll get to the message here in one second. Here it is. Cleveland Bitcoin presents Bitcoin Pizza Day 2026, Friday, May 22nd, 7 PM at Saucy Brewworks downtown. Free Pizza by Rhino Bitcoin. Venue accepts that's for beer. Win prizes, meat plebs. See you there. So many great pizza day meetups. Love to see it. And so thank you to to those big boosters. And yeah, we look forward to

Hopefully maybe people have in some other products they'd like to advertise on our show. And so the way you do that is just send a boost that's bigger than eleven thousand ten sats and you will be on the list.

Rev (01:26:47.687)
You know, source note, this is a good opportunity for Sovereign. I I you know, I I Brandon is in the Chicago community that I'm participating in. I've been on the Sovereign the Sovereign podcast talking there. And you know, this is a th I think what Sovereign is doing is is very much in line with with the audience that we're talking to.

And so this is my pitch to to Sovereign basically is like, you know, this is a an open ads. We don't do sponsors, but you know, if you wanna boost the show and and talk a little bit about what Sovereign's doing, we'll read it off as long as that that boost stands on the list.

Sourcenode (01:27:29.002)
Absolutely, man. Actually, it's funny. I I reached up to you, I reached out to you on Noster DMs when you first started this podcast with that idea. And I don't think the DM got through because you know how DMs are on Noster. but I had literally that same idea and I didn't follow through on it. But I did want to ask you how quickly you guys see updates on your zaps, on your boosts. Like, are you gonna see the updates that are happening presently?

Reed (01:27:55.763)
like so our the way our boost bot works is it'll pick it up every ten minutes. It posts so it's it's relatively live, it's just not instantaneous.

Sourcenode (01:28:00.801)
Okay.

Sourcenode (01:28:04.864)
Okay, cool. every ten minutes on average. Nice. That's perfect. Well, yeah. I'm

Rev (01:28:08.209)
And the the leaderboards themselves don't get published until the right the day b like right before we record. So yeah.

Reed (01:28:14.393)
Right before we record. Yeah. Well all all yeah, all the boosts are on the website. but yeah, the leaderboards get published as nostril notes and I publish those right before the episode which starts like right before we hit record.

Sourcenode (01:28:15.362)
The ones on the website. okay.

Sourcenode (01:28:25.72)
Cool. Cool. Nice. Well yeah, I'm gonna take you up on that.

Reed (01:28:32.035)
Yeah, that's awesome.

Sourcenode (01:28:32.236)
I'll just do it myself. That's how we're doing it at Sovereign. We just we're all self self funding.

Reed (01:28:37.999)
Yeah, I like to think I I look, I don't actually know how much it costs to advertise on a podcast, but a a one time ten you know, whatever, twelve thousand sat boost, that seems like a pretty good deal to me for a recurring ad spot.

Sourcenode (01:28:50.145)
Right.

Reed (01:28:53.797)
Alright, so that takes care of our leaderboards. And so Rev, I'm gonna turn it over to you to start reading through the boosts.

Rev (01:29:01.779)
Well can we do let's back up a little bit. We gotta shout out the streamers. Do you have the the streamers? 'Cause we

Reed (01:29:06.787)
Okay. Yeah, sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so the streamers, it's it's important to note, so we added some content to the website. So this isn't an official leaderboard, but it is on our stats page. And so we added a section called shout out to the streamers. And so this is as of right now, I just listed all of them because there's only I don't know, like fifteen or so. but yeah, I can read off some of the top streamers here. We've got we all eat.

continues to be top spot here with 5,712 sats boosted via fountain or excuse me streamed via s via fountain. We've also got Chad F. Chad F, I believe, was streaming an episode as we were hitting record. So he actually maybe could have the top spot right now. I'm not actually sure. Because he's really close behind 5,536 sats and he always streams and boosts for the most part via castomatic.

let's see we've got logs with thirty or logs, excuse me, logs.

Rev (01:30:09.755)
Logues. Logues. Yeah, I was corrected on that. From I've I've heard other people on other podcasts. Logues has been participating elsewhere and he's in he's an Indianapolis Bitcoiner. And I think Logues has a a a a podcast. It's a it's a fuck, I can't remember it. I'm sorry, Logues. Boost the podcast, let us know what what your what your show is. It's it's a vinyl review, like he plays a vinyl and talks about it.

Reed (01:30:19.237)
Gotcha.

Reed (01:30:39.627)
nice.

Yeah, I'm I'm loving like one of the the side quests I now so source note, I guess I haven't mentioned it to you, so maybe you don't know. But our new meetup location that I was to I've been touting for quite a while now, it's a local music venue. And like they don't really have shows on Sundays, but they have a bar that's still open. And so we just take over the little concert area for the meetup and then we go hang out in the bar afterwards. Because they don't really book guests on Sundays, so

Sourcenode (01:31:00.931)
it's perfect.

Reed (01:31:10.371)
It's been fantastic. And so as we're starting to get to know the people, and the other thing too is it's like a a cooperative. So it's like a co-op, like it's co owned. Like the it it's a very grassroots kind of structure there. And they're very interested to learn more about Bitcoin and and we've talked to them about some of the V for V music stuff. And so my first homework assignment was I was like, boy, I need to go learn more about the V for V music stuff. So

I've been listening to a whole bunch of podcasts and things like that, so trying to get more in tune with what they've got going on, so to speak. And it's been very interesting to learn all that.

Sourcenode (01:31:45.27)
I imagine if you had if you haven't talked to open mic, he'd be a good person to chat with.

Reed (01:31:52.197)
Yeah, absolutely. I would love to talk to Open Mike. yeah, if I I would like to get a little bit more knowledge under my belt first because I think he would be really instrumental if I was serious about pulling the trigger on trying to actually schedule a real live event. I think I his input on that would be very key. 'cause he's pulled off a lot of the great shows.

Sourcenode (01:32:07.554)
Yeah, for sure.

Sourcenode (01:32:12.012)
Yeah, I went to an event with him. Derek Ross was there in Austin. There were there are a handful of other people that are pretty deep on that topic in particular. I'm sure you could get in touch with him. and if you can't, let me know. I'll try to reach out.

Reed (01:32:27.087)
Awesome.

And so I I won't go through the full list here, but I'll read off a couple more here. We got used to r used to read a lot, we got Hot Wax Social Club, Julio, Eric PP. And so these are our we do have a a whole section on our stats page on the website dedicated to our streamers. So thank you to our streamers as well.

Rev (01:32:49.767)
Thank you, streamers. You know, it's it's it's a different kind of thing, right? You're not sending a message in, but you're sending the message in by blowing up my notifications on my phone all day long as you're listening to the podcast, and it's a wonderful thing to experience. So I really do appreciate that. And once again, you when you're streaming the stats, it's not just streaming to me. It's the you know, the the guest of the show is also getting their phone blown up.

Reed (01:33:02.072)
Absolutely.

Reed (01:33:14.139)
Go on everybody.

Rev (01:33:18.115)
and it's it's a very cool thing to experience. So you're you're doing you're making somebody's day when you're you're streaming sats.

Reed (01:33:29.797)
Alright. So there you go. So yeah, we can we can add shout out to the sh I'll I'll remember that. We'll we'll add the streamers here. Every time we go over the leaderboards, I'll make sure we shout out the streamers. Alright. So there you go. You ready to go with the boost? Yeah.

Rev (01:33:39.921)
Love guys. Thank you so much. Let's get into the boosts. Yeah, I got it. And so I can't remember, I I can't remember if this boost we're going to start on was read off already, but I'm gonna read it again because there's some exciting updates from this booster. And so the first boost I'm gonna read off tonight is 2,221 sats via fountain from KT. And KT says, love all the work you're doing, pioneering in this space.

And so KT has reached out in the past saying that they want to start a meetup in Green Bay, Wisconsin. And I've been trying to help KT get that going. And it sounds like this is a thing that's gonna happen. a new meetup is being born based on somebody reaching out via the boosts on the podcast. And this is this is one of the big reasons why we're doing this here, guys, is is to to encourage and and and support and help you.

To get a meetup started. So if you need resources, this is we come to us, we can help you. We could we know a lot of people, we can guide you and helping your meetup get started. So thank you, KT, for the boost and the continued support. And I hope that the the Green Green Bay meetup gets going. Next, we've got 300 sats from Fountain via or f via fountain from Palmyra. And Palmyra says,

Crossing the Lake Satoshi Channel with Alice A was epic. Orangeheart, also, I love you. Thank you for your podcast. Haha. Purple Heart. Currently passionate about the No Ster Value Pack project and selling my natural deodorant Sats Pit. Bitcoin only. Find it at SatsPit dash Noester Value Pack. And so Palmyra sounds like has a product that they're they're starting to sell this or or they've been selling this deodorant.

Check it out. Paul Myra has been a supporter of the the podcast for a long time. And you know, this is this is another thing that we're we're trying to encourage here is that you you get access to this local Bitcoin culture. And we talk a lot about circular economies. And you know, you don't necessarily have to be producing the product in your local area. You can just provide market access to the product. And so if a lot of people in your area want to get this Sats Pit deodorant,

Rev (01:36:07.749)
you can hit up Paul Myra, buy a bunch of the deodorant and sell it at your meetup to the the participants at your meetup. And so thank you, Paul Myra, for the the support. and so Lake Satoshi. So yes, I I I have met LSA at Lake Satoshi last year. And so it's pretty cool that, you know, once again the grapevine is real, right? Now these these relationships are not just

On the internet, they're also in physical space as well. Next, we got 333 sats via fountain from Henrik Fleiman, and he's got three guitar emojis. And that was on local bitcoiners growing growing slow, build strong communities, Casey Bitcoiners episode nine with Sir Spencer. And so I'm assuming with the guitar emojis that

Heinrich is involved in some of the value for value music ecosystem. And so this is one of the cool things about how the these episodes can live on, right? The the the content can be evergreen. And we're getting boosts from episodes long ago because of maybe because of the leaderboards. I don't know. But thank you, Heinrich, for for bringing that that episode back up, you know, boosting that old episode. Glad you listened to it.

thank you for the three hundred and thirty-three sats. And some of that went to Sir Spencer. And so check out s Henrik Fleiman. I'm sure that they're doing some music because they're they're blasting the guitar emojis. Next we got yep. Yeah.

Reed (01:37:41.647)
You know what's you know what's cool too? Can I pause you there? So you know what's cool too, especially about so episode nine in particular, is when so when you send a boost to episode nine, so we get it and we read it out on our show. But what's funny is that Spencer also gets it on his node, and so when they're reading the boosts on bowl after bowl, they'll actually see the boosts from our show on his helipad, and they'll read out the boosts from our show on their show.

And so it just goes to it's just one more link in the value chain where you're boosting our show, but you're also boosting Spencer. And so Spencer's reading out on his show. And so you're getting, you know, kind of double coverage there. And yeah, episode nine just, man, continues to to live on. We keep getting more and more stats contributed to that every week.

Rev (01:38:32.914)
Well, and there you go. That one of the biggest per permaculture principles, and and one of the hardest ones to follow is small and slow solutions. Our our our tendency as human beings is once we get positive feedback, we tend to lean harder and harder and want more and more from that positive feedback. And the the idea with permaculture is trying to balance these extremes of volatility, right?

The volatility swings to one side or the other. we're we're trying to dampen that and s and hang out in the middle. And so the that episode nine is a good example of how these the value chain continues to react. Next we got one thousand two hundred and thirty-six sats via fountain from God's death.

And God's Death says, Thank you, gentlemen. Well thank you, God's Death, and thank you for being a ride or die. And you are certainly on the leaderboards and you'll stay there. we're glad to have you as a as a person who's listening to every episode and and supporting not only us but the people that are coming on here to talk about their local meetups and their local meetup culture.

Next we got a hundred and twenty-one sats via fountain from Noster Gang. And Noster Gang says thank you. And we've already said thank you, Nostra Gang. We appreciate the continued support. It's it's as simple as that, guys. You know, you you just just blast us a a a small zap, a a small boost, and say thanks. And that thanks not only once again goes to us, but it's thanking the the the guest on the show.

Reed (01:40:20.485)
Yeah, and that that boost, and and definitely thank you, Nasser Gang. And that boost, I think, was the first one we've read off from our last episode, which was called Big Upsides, Small Risks, The Value of Bitcoin Meetups. And, you know, we we hit on so many good topics on that one. And and I'm not even really sure when we hit record, when we started recording, I'm I'm not sure we would we would actually get to everything, but we really hit on a lot of the

Rev (01:40:32.275)
Mm.

That

Reed (01:40:49.519)
bigger picture benefits that you get from running a Bitcoin meetup. And it's a lot of things that people don't talk about a lot. so if you're interested about what some of the upsides are that maybe you're missing out on, that would be a great episode to go back to.

Rev (01:41:05.754)
And I do go into great detail in how I sell Bitcoin for cash at a meetup without bringing any Bitcoin to the meetup. So if you're interested in in actually getting some Bitcoin at a meet or getting some cash from your Bitcoin, 'cause we all need fiat every once in a while and you don't wanna get wrench attacked at the meetup, that's my I I lay out my entire s workflow there.

Reed (01:41:16.133)
Very ingenious way, yes.

Rev (01:41:32.271)
Next we got 500 sats via fountain from Perma Nerd. And Perma Nerd is I'm sure over time Perma Nerd is gonna end up on the leaderboard somewhere. We're I I I love the the Yada podcast, which is a podcast that Perma Nerd's doing with Oshi. But let's get into what he what Perma Nerd has to say. so much signal. This must this is a must-listen podcast featuring two forward-thinking bitsters, in parentheses.

A feeble attempt at combining Bitcoin and Noster. It is solidly in my podcast rotation. Cheers, guys. And that was from the last episode: Big Upside, Small Risk, Value of Bitcoin Meetups, episode 13. And so as I mentioned, Permanerd and Oshi have the Yada podcast. We mentioned them at the last at the end of the last episode as sort of some homies in the cohort of the the new, there's like a new

group of podcasters out here trying to do this value for value thing and and promote some ideas around local bitcoin meetups, circular economies and no stir culture in general. So check out the Yada podcast. thank you very much, Permaner.

Rev (01:42:51.099)
Next up, we got 333 sats via fountain from Wartime. Haven't heard from you in a while. Wartime, what's up, man? Thanks a lot, dude, for the boost. I hope, I hope I get to see you soon at Lake Satoshi. And and Wartime says, LFG beers cheers emoji. And that was on Big Upside, Small Risks, the Value of Bitcoin Meetups, episode 13. can't tell you, can't say enough about how much good times I've had.

Hanging out with wartime. Thanks for the support.

Rev (01:43:25.701)
Another boost coming in here. 500 sats via fountain from code. And code has no message. But thank you, Code. And that was from once again, big upside, small risks, the value of Bitcoin meetups, episode 13. Next up, we got 324 sats via fountain from Shadrach. And Shadrach says, keep up the great work.

Reed (01:43:34.089)
Thank you.

Rev (01:43:52.702)
Praying emoji, hashtag 40 HPW. And so it sounds like Shadrach has included us in his 40 HPW, and that means a lot because Shadrach is doing a lot of things. And the fact that he's taken his time to listen to us talk about what we're talking about every week means a lot. And you know, I I unfortunately I will not be seeing Shadrach at Lake Satoshi this year.

It sounds like he's got something else that he has to do that's gonna be mind blowing, much like everything else that he's doing. But you know, the one thing I was recently on Shadrach's show. He's got a new podcast on the Paznia Radio Network. and they do kind of like a monthly news show. And I was on there for about thirty minutes talking about permaculture and I really got into detail about my rabbit colony cannab cannabis garden on that that recording.

So go dig that up. Go look up Paznia Radio Network and see if you can find my recording with Shadrach and Rayo two on there. But thank you, Shadrach.

Reed (01:44:58.799)
I yeah, I I know I've heard about the the cannabis fertilizing rabbits from you, but I don't think we've talked about it on this podcast, so you'll have to save that for a future episode.

Rev (01:45:10.917)
Eventually it will come up. It's just not really the right format to to go into great detail about all of the weird permaculture systems that I've got rolling at the homestead, but you know, I'm sure that it'll come up. next we got five thousand sats via localbitcoiners dot com. All right, there you go. Localbitcoiners dot com. That's a place where you can boost the show. and that's from the one and only Matthew D. And here's the here's the the Lake Satoshi

Reed (01:45:12.825)
It will come up.

Rev (01:45:41.147)
chill for the night. Lake Satoshi tickets are are now up on the website. So if you go to I believe it's lakesatoshi.com, you can buy your tickets. And I was actually talking to PF who is a big organizer of the Lake Satoshi event and he's begging everyone please if you're attending just buy your ticket in advance so they know how many people are showing up so they can f actually figure out how much stuff they need to get and how much they need to do. So

It's the the tickets are twenty one dollars, guys. Just just go buy your ticket in advance if you're coming. Buy two, whatever. Just you know, just buy the ticket, okay? Please. and so that's Lake Satoshi is July 31st, to August 2nd. It's the Michigan Bitcoin gathering that you won't want to miss. And sorry, Reed, that you're gonna miss it. I guess, Reed, you can't come this year. But

Reed (01:46:37.307)
That's it. It's a bummer.

Rev (01:46:39.951)
Matthew D will be bringing soap. So you can actually buy Matthew D's soap in person and bathe yourself in Lake Satoshi with Matthew D's soap if you show up. And but please just buy your ticket in advance. I can't stress that enough. If you're coming to Lake Satoshi, just go buy your ticket right now. You can buy it with Bitcoin. You can pay fiat, whatever you want to do. there's a way to go. Lakesatoshi.com. Check it out. source note Are you coming to Lake Satoshi?

Sourcenode (01:47:11.618)
I really wanted to, but I'm not sure I'm gonna be able to make it this year, unfortunately. I just got too many other travel things and dogs and girlfriend obligations and don't think it's gonna occur. But if it does occur, it's gonna happen last minute. I'm gonna get my ticket the day before I show up. So for twenty one. Yeah, for twenty one doll. I appreciate it. No, I don't think it's gonna happen this year. It's just it's it's a bit of a mish from where I'm at.

Rev (01:47:30.385)
Don't worry, I'll buy a ticket for you right now and then you it'll be c it'll be covered.

Reed (01:47:30.661)
You and everybody else, I guess.

Rev (01:47:42.641)
Well, and that's one of the things about Lake Satoshi that's interesting is that it is, it's not exactly easy to get to from a major airport. And so you do have to and it's a camping event, so you have to kind of also schlep some shit with you in order to be comfortable.

Sourcenode (01:47:59.542)
I can dirt bag it. I would drive up with my camping gear, but then it's a much longer trip and I've got something else going on across the country also in August. So that's why it's probably not gonna happen, unfortunately. One day.

Rev (01:48:12.643)
One day. You well and you know, on on the flip side, you know, it sounds like the Carolina Bitcoiners need to draw us midwesterners out that direction.

Sourcenode (01:48:25.652)
Yeah, we're we're not working on that right now. We're working on coordinating, just talking to each other for the first time. and also there's some citadel conversations in the works. So we may have a venue coming up at some point, but it it could take a year or two. We'll see. See what happens.

Rev (01:48:46.161)
Hell yeah.

Reed (01:48:46.267)
thing to work on for sure.

Rev (01:48:48.999)
Alright, next up we got 500 sats via fountain from Batter C Bitcoiners. And Batter C Bitcoiners has been boosting a lot. And so I do appreciate the the continued support, Batter C Bitcoiners. This is the Battersea Bitcoiners is UK based. And so they say, great episode, guys. I learnt a lot, and I thought I there you go. I thought I zapped at least three episodes, but I'm not on the leaderboard. Could there be a bug? I guess I'll have to keep zapping and find out.

And so I wonder Battersea Bitcoiners, you can check this on our website. You can when you log in with your MPub, I think you should be able to see your your your boostage amount, that how many boosts you've done. but hopefully there's no

Reed (01:49:34.619)
So I just looked at our our I looked at our top our top ten list gets truncated for if it's four. So you gotta be at least four episodes to get onto the top ten list. And that's all I have on the on the website so far, so

Rev (01:49:44.623)
so

Rev (01:49:48.711)
Yep, Battersea Bitcoiners your one shy. Maybe this this next boost, this next episode, if you boost us again, you'll you'll find your way on there into the visibility there. But dude, I really do appreciate the support.

Reed (01:49:58.541)
And if you're looking for an easy way if you're looking for an easy way, if you just go right on the homepage of the website, localbitcoiners dot com, every episode is listed and ever next to every episode there's a little boost button. So just saying.

Sourcenode (01:50:13.003)
It works.

Rev (01:50:15.589)
Next, we got 100 sats via fountain from Batter C Bitcoiners again. Thank you. and they say P.S. Simon James is the meetup breakdown. So I couldn't remember on the last episode when Simon James boosted what his thing was. And so this is it the meetup breakdown. which as you say is the UK newsletter for all the meetups. So if you're in the UK and you're looking for the meetup information.

You should check out the meetup breakdown. That's where you're gonna find all of the shit that's going on in the UK about the meetups. Thanks for the info, Battersea Bitcoiners, and the clarification.

And finally, the last boost of the night, 221 sats via fountain from bullish clips, our great fent friend of the show, Bullish. And Bullish says the bullish market is on the twenty first of every month. If that falls on a weekday, the event will be in the evening, six to seven PM. And if it falls on a weekend, it'll be in the morning, nine to ten AM Central Time.

Been doing it all this way for almost a year. I know it's not consistent day of the week, but hopefully that means someone can make it on a weekend that couldn't make it on a weekday and vice versa. So I I think it's cool, bullish, that you just stick to the this certain day of the month and and see how it shakes out. I mean, whatever, man, it's on the internet and yeah.

Reed (01:51:40.699)
It's an easy day to remember. I always remember it's on the twenty first. It's a great choice.

Rev (01:51:48.669)
So

Reed (01:51:48.927)
And so so Rev, I hate to break it to you, buddy, but I think you're gonna have to hit refresh on your boost page because we got we we we got another boost that came in here just recently.

Rev (01:51:55.007)
did we did we get a new one?

Rev (01:52:01.957)
Loading, loading. Suspense is building.

And okay, so finally, finally, here we go. Twenty-two thousand two hundred and twenty-four sats via localbitcoiners.com from the one and only source node, our guest tonight. There you go. And he says, Johnny's hot sauce is the bomb. Delgalos Fuego. I

Sourcenode (01:52:28.31)
It is. Delvado Delgados Fuego's fantastic. I got this orange one. It's a per it's a Peruvian chili I'd never heard of before. And I put it on everything now. It's amazing.

Rev (01:52:43.387)
I so I bought so I I first met Johnny in at the grassroots event and I leading up to this event, I was in the telegram chat and I was like, All right, all you all you Bitcoin meetup organizers, everyone, wh who's w what what products you guys bringing to sell? Like, are we gonna do some fucking wheeling and dealing here or what? And it was crickets and then Johnny was like, Well, I'm gonna have hot sauce. And I was like, I'll have my maple syrup.

And Johnny and I ended up staying at the same Airbnb and we traded hot sauce and maple syrup. I left with he left with bunch of my maple syrup and I left with a bunch of his hot sauce. And guess what, man? That hot sauce was devoured so quickly. It's so I I had many jars, but I ate it up immediately. It was so damn good.

Sourcenode (01:53:29.868)
It's super good. And not only that, but he goes to farmers markets and he organizes markets and he's organizing the Charlotte market. I'm sure he talked about it on the episode. he can he can gather people together like nobody that I've seen. He's he's amazing. I gotta try your maple syrup.

Reed (01:53:48.987)
Yeah, that was a fantastic episode where that we got to talk with Johnny. And I was just actually I I was trying to cheat and look ahead here to find out how much that's gonna boost that episode right up right up the leaderboard list. So that was great. Great choice.

Sourcenode (01:54:00.024)
That was my plan.

Rev (01:54:03.645)
Well and this is kind of getting into the fun the gamification of it all, right? So so now potentially so the Kansas City guys have been on the top, right? They've had the top episodes. We've we've had two guys from Kansas City Culture on the show and their episodes are are reigning dominant. And now here comes the the Carolinas region and they're gonna start making their way into the leaderboards, right? So maybe the Carolina Bitcoiners are are the ones that

Reed (01:54:29.123)
Let's go.

Rev (01:54:32.625)
you know, want to be the rep be the ones that the local Bitcoiners podcast reps the most. Who knows? But this is what I'm saying. It's all just fun, guys. You know, the the this is all just ways of proving some different w some different techniques that we can use to get this information propagated. You know, it's the way that you s you w see if these tools and techniques actually work is to make it fun at first. Okay. And so that's the name of the game here. We're we're trying to have fun.

Let's play. Play with us.

Reed (01:55:06.459)
Hell yeah. That's a that's a great way to close it out there, Rev. any any final thoughts?

Sourcenode (01:55:14.146)
I wanna go visit Kansas City now. I'm gonna go say say hi to those guys. I'll do it at some point.

Rev (01:55:14.567)
Roll the outro.

Rev (01:55:20.401)
Well the Kansas City Kansas City offers

Reed (01:55:20.68)
sorry, could you say could you say it again, Source Node? I I I couldn't ha actually hear what you said. Where did you want to go?

Sourcenode (01:55:26.262)
yeah, I wanna get out to Kansas City at some point and say hi to those guys. I I have some friends that are not too far from there. There is a meetup in Fayetteville, Arkansas. it's not super far.

Reed (01:55:30.215)
yeah.

Rev (01:55:39.229)
So the Kansas City guys do well so keep an eye out for Nakamotown, which is gonna be at Augie's place, and that'll be more of a a Lake Satoshi style, more regional kind of event with with camping and you know, it'll it'll be more you spend the weekend just hanging out, right? But they but they do also do these block party events over in Kansas City where you can travel, you can make

a des it's it's it becomes a destination for the weekend, right? To to go to this block party event. And so there they do have opportunities for you to go there beyond just hitting their regular monthly meetups or whatever. And so check check out

Sourcenode (01:56:19.288)
Gosh. So much to keep track of. The the one person I know who has a list of all these events is Liz from Charlotte. And so sometimes I reach out to her. She's in she's in Florida now. But it would be cool if that was on your website. I know it's like, another feature. Yeah, no problem. Right. But having a map of all the meetups.

Rev (01:56:36.455)
Well, this is why we say put put all the meetups on Noster because then we can just like brand like we just aggregate it all. Like you you could put your anybody could put their meetup on Noster and then we could pull it into the website, no problem. You don't even ask for you don't have to tell us about it. Don't do anything. Just put it up there and we can aggregate it right there. And so that's the idea.

Reed (01:56:40.933)
So much easier to to yeah.

Sourcenode (01:56:53.806)
Do you need a certain hashtag or anything to do that? Like meetup? Hashtag meetup or no, it's just gotta say meetup and you'll find it. Okay.

Rev (01:56:59.953)
At at this point, no, because there's no spam, right? As soon as they're as soon as it gets to be noisy, right, and people are are just spamming their shitcoin meetups or whatever, maybe we'll need to to to narrow it down. But for now, it's like there's not even just the run of the mill Bitcoin meetups. We need more of right? We just put your meetup on Noster and we can aggregate it on the website.

Reed (01:57:23.803)
Yeah, and we've got we we we right now we do have some tools to get it onto our website, but it requires that you boost the show. But we're we're gonna we we've got some ideas to make that actually significantly easier. so yeah, we'll we'll be rolling out some tools there to filter through the noise and make sure we're only getting Bitcoin meetups, but but yeah, we're we're all on the same wavelength here. We'll we'll be thinking of some tools.

Reed (01:57:49.763)
Alright. Wanna close this out, Rev?

Rev (01:57:52.413)
Well, thank you very much, SourceNote, for hanging with us through the the Value for Value segment and giving us all your great insights on the Bitcoin culture over there in the Carolinas region. And with that, let's roll the outro.