rev (00:00)
Alright, local Bitcoiners, welcome back. Rev Hodel here, and once again I'm here with Reed, my fellow co-host. And tonight we have BTC Wrestle from Columbia, South Carolina. but before we get talking to BTC Wrestle and what's going on there, as usual, I'm gonna talk a little bit about my most recent meetup adventure, and this

Most recent meetup, there's actually been two meetups since the last time we re recorded. the the first was the South Bend meetup, my meetup, ⁓ which was pretty chill. Had a lower turnout. That's fine. It's always good to get real up close and personal with just a couple of people and get deep into some conversations. I grilled some burgers, we had the the fire at the fire pit. And that's what makes that venue so cool is that we have kind of the freedom to do our own thing there and nobody bothers us too much. But the second meetup was yesterday and that was at

Two guys brewery ⁓ in Grand Rapids. That's the they host that meetup the second Monday of every month. And that's a social meetup. So that's at the brewery. And so the previous month I had delivered a a full load of compost to one of the attendees there. And this guy wanted a a second load and he actually wants a third load. So it seems like every time I'm going to Grand Rapids now, I'm gonna be bringing as much compost as I can fit in my little Chevy Volt electric hybrid. I the the car is like

riding on its on the on the wheel wells almost loaded so full with compost. And so it's cool to to be able to spread the natural capital around like that. And I also I've mentioned this in the past, but I offer ⁓ the yurt and the tiny house here at the homestead up ⁓ on the first Thursday of every month for the South Bend Meetup and then the third Thursday of every month for the Southwest Michigan meetup half price. So if you want to come go to that meetup and and have a place to stay, if you're coming from a ways away, well you've got this option. It's pretty cheap.

And so this has been the second person now that's from that meetup. I someone was interested. And so they they took me up on that. And so next Thursday, they will be staying at the yurt with their family and coming to the meetup with me, which is pretty cool. They're gonna get the tour of the homestead and see what's going on here. ⁓ but the coolest thing about this Grand Rapids meetup was that there was a a a couple that came and they they had never been to a meetup before. And they're they had this amazing story about how they found it.

'Cause they were talking that they'd heard about all the Michigan meetups, things were going on in Michigan. They're they've been in Bitcoin for a while, but they ⁓ you know, were really just getting started ⁓ as far as it as far as their interactions with Bitcoin and Bitcoiners goes. And so the woman said that she actually used AI to help her find the meetup because it was so difficult just doing Google searches and everything to find us.

And so it led her on sort of a a wild goose chase where she ended up getting some email address that she reached out to ⁓ and then got the information about the meetup and showed up. And so from there she was like, Why is this so hard to to find the meetups? This this should be everywhere. And and I'm like, Well, I I'm trying to h work on this, you know, we're trying to make this easier. It's very ⁓ decentralized the way that all these meetups are marketed and promoted. And that's both a good thing and a bad thing, I think, but

so then I got her hooked into had her download signal, ⁓ got her hooked into a couple of the other Michigan signal chats and so and sh immediately she's been active in there asking questions and really excited to finally connect with the local Bitcoiners. So just one another great example of of just keep holding that keep holding that door open, even if there's not a lot of people coming. You never know when someone in your local area is gonna gonna find you and really get involved.

So that that's my most recent meetup adventures. I think Reed, you had your meetup. So do you wanna give us the lowdown on what what happened there?

Reed (03:46)
Yep, yep, yep. So we had our meetup this past Sunday. And so third meetup at the new place, which is going really good. And just as we I guess I talked about last time, I wanted to try out that new format that you had just told me about. which I think at least I'm calling it like a round table. And ⁓ so I actually I did come prepared to talk a little bit of Socratic Seminar, which is like our normal style. and honestly, we didn't even really use it.

Because everybody was really just digging the sitting around in a circle and ⁓ it was super productive. everybody liked it. Everybody was contributing ⁓ even much even more than they do during the Socratic seminars. and like I came prepared. I thought we'd be talking all this like big time bear market vibes and I'd be trying to pull people up out of the gutter, but it was no, no, it was none of that at all. You know, I started it I kind of started out the conversation with that and we like immediately pivoted.

And we were talking about the website and how people are posting stuff and like what kinds of things we should post. We had people asking questions about if they can put like services for sale on on the little website thing. And I was like, yeah, definitely. So we started talking about that. we started talking about like new meetup formats, like if we were gonna have ones that are more beginner friendly and how we might go about doing those. and then we had one of our attendees

And I didn't even really know this, but we found out because we were doing this new style. He's a retired ⁓ doctor, like medical physician. And so he started telling us about crowd health and talking about how to like argue down your medical bills, which he says basically everyone should do every single time, like insurance or not, like you should just call up and say,

Like he told us to ask for like the Medicare cash price, like every time. It's like the lowest price you can get, and they almost always agree to it. and so anyway, he sent us out like this FAQ about how to haggle your medical bills, which was pretty cool. So yeah, so we talked about all kinds of different stuff. It was great. And and, you know, I went down to the Connecticut meetup last month and three of their guys came up to our meetup this time.

So we're already starting to kind of cross pollinate a little bit. so the last thing I wanted to talk about, I wanted to shout out two additional meetups that are near me. And I was actually planning on going to both of them, but they're I found out they're the same night. So I hope they're not the same night every month. I'll have to find out. But so the CT Bitcoin meetup number two is coming up June seventeenth at seven PM at Conspiracy in Middletown, Connecticut.

And then the other one is the Albany Bitcoin excuse me, Albany Bitcoin Group. And their June meetup is at Broken Loop Brewing Company, also on June seventeenth, Wednesday, June 17th, 630 to nine. So a few of us, a few of the people said that they wanted to start going. And so I said, you know, I'll drive and ⁓ we'll get a group together and go. Apparently we're gonna have to choose one or the other. But yeah. So that's what

We did this past month and what we got on the horizon. So But welcome BTC Russell. Welcome to the pod. We're very glad to have you. ⁓ do you wanna just introduce yourself for a minute and tell us a little bit about your meetup?

btcwrestle (06:59)
Yeah, what's up? I'm ⁓ BTC Russell. I ⁓ host the Columbia, South Carolina ⁓ Bitcoin meetup. We started in August 2024, so almost two years. and started out. ⁓ it was literally just me and another guy for probably four or five months and just kept doing it and

Usually we probably have between like five and ten people. Some people bring their spouses and that kind of gets us closer to the to the ten people mark. ⁓ and it's either the third or fourth Saturday of every month, ⁓ at a brewery in town. And it's just a social and we also do we've done a handful of workshops. We're doing one tomorrow actually on privacy. and then we've also done some some gun range days, which are a lot of fun.

And ⁓ and yeah, so I mean ⁓ kind of my inspiration for starting a meetup was I just I didn't have anybody in person to talk about Bitcoin with and I'd been thinking about it for a while and I was like, I just I d I don't know enough about Bitcoin to be able to host a meetup. and then ⁓ I met one Bitcoiner in person and I was talking to him and he's like I was like, I just don't feel like I know enough about Bitcoin. He's like, You know enough about Bitcoin. I was like, Okay, well

I guess that's all I needed. I needed one person's confirmation to basically put me over the edge to to ⁓ to start a meetup. And I mean I went to I've been up to Charlotte a handful of times. That was the first meetup I went to and that's two hours from here. And it's a great meetup, great people up there, I really enjoy it. And I I try to go up there when they do their sats market and then I try to bring some Columbia people with us. but I mean two hours away, I can't go there every single time ever every month. ⁓ and so

that that was a lot of the inspiration as well. It's like I I'd lo I'd like to try and find people here and there was a there used to be, like in twenty twenty, a Columbia Bitcoin meetup, but since I got into Bitcoin in twenty twenty one and ever since then it was all Zoom calls and I'm like, I kinda I mean, I talk to people online all the time. I don't I don't need to talk to people online. I'd I'd much rather start one. So I messaged the guy, I was like, Hey, I'm gonna start an in person thing. I don't wanna step on your toes, but

⁓ I'd I'd think it'd be a lot better in person. So So we start doing it and kinda it it's been good. I mean it's been consistent. ⁓ haven't missed one and and I I mean it's it's really good. I look forward to it every month, seeing everybody.

Reed (09:29)
So you started it then? Is that you say in twenty twenty one?

btcwrestle (09:32)
I did not start I s I didn't start the one in twenty twenty one. ⁓ somebody else started one in Columbia. ⁓ but I I got into Bitcoin in twenty twenty one. ⁓ but I started this in twenty twenty four. So it's a different meetup, same city basically.

Reed (09:46)
Gotcha, gotcha. Yeah, before the ⁓ before the call I was checking out your website. Dude, you have ⁓ that's a ridiculously nice website. There's all kinds of stuff on there. just ⁓ educational tools, but also like you have a whole section dedicated to like the other meetups in your area. It's such a good idea. Like I love learning stuff from other Bitcoin meetup ho organizers to try to adopt some of the stuff for mine. I think that's a that's a really good idea.

btcwrestle (10:13)
Yeah.

Will Will is the guy, he go he's in our meetup and he ⁓ that was kinda his passion project. Like he ⁓ he we had the idea of of doing the the website, ⁓ because I ditched meetup. I've been doing all my stuff on Luma and I kinda don't have a way other than if you search Columbia Bitcoin meetup t you'll find it on Luma, but it's probably like way at the bottom of the page, so

He really wanted to do that and he like took it and ran with it. And it's a it's an incredible resource. Like you can probably find anything on there. and like yeah, the the nearby meetups and like the BTC map stuff, that that was something that I really wanted to add 'cause like the like a ⁓ an idea or a goal that I wanted to have was kind of having all the South Carolina meetups maybe once a year or something come together. And I mean we haven't been able to do it yet, but I got

I at least contacted all the other organizers and got us in a group chat so we can kind of brainstorm and figure that out. So the like I've got people that come from forty five minutes away to here. ⁓ it's their closest one. ⁓ but the idea is that we just try to create an entire community on top of the community we already have, to just more like minded individuals, just Bitcoiners, it's ⁓ is the hope.

But and maybe a couple meetups a year. Like like I said, we go up to Charlotte ⁓ sometimes, but I'd like to do maybe one big one.

Reed (11:36)
Yeah, that's such a good idea. Go ahead, Rev.

rev (11:37)
Yeah, Charlotte's

got they've been doing it for a long time. and so they they've got a lot of experience and they do a lot of different things up there. And then we just talked with SourceNode in Greenville, and I don't think that's too far from Columbia. what's in in gr ⁓ SourceNote also mentioned that like Atlanta's not too far from Greenville. Now from Columbia, that's probably a hike. But ⁓ what are some of the other ones in the area besides those those two, the the Charlotte and the Greenville?

btcwrestle (12:05)
⁓ so Columbia's smack dab in the middle, two hours to Greenville, which Greenville is like near the mountains, two hours to Charleston, which is the beach, and then three hours to Myrtle Beach, which there's another meetup there. So Myrtle Beach, Charleston, Greenville, and then Savannah, Georgia. I think they've been doing a meetup a long time. and that's three hours from Columbia as well, and then Atlanta is four hours. and then Asheville,

is two and a half, three hours ⁓ from me. and I think they've had a meetup a while as well. ⁓ so there's some good ones in like basically in in driving distance. ⁓ but the only one I've been to is ⁓ is Charlotte.

rev (12:44)
So yeah, if you're in South Carolina or even Georgia, there's a lot of a lot of meetups. People I think they just don't know that they exist, right? That that there's probably a lot of Bitcoiners in that whole area that just don't know that if they look any pretty much any direction you go, it sounds like in in a couple hours you can land at a meetup ⁓ at the farthest, right? You a lot of times you're probably gonna be in the middle between two and be kind of like Reed where you can do carpooling and

btcwrestle (12:58)
Yeah.

rev (13:12)
and go back and forth. And that's I that's kind of one of the reasons why we wanted to sort of link all the the these Carolina meetups together here on the show is like, you know, started with Johnny and Charlotte and then we talked to SourceNode in Greenville. Now we're talking to you in Columbia. And so hopefully, you know, if people are listening, they can see like, man, if I'm in this area, I got meetups to go to and ⁓ really join in on the party. I feel like the meetups at the culture has grown it it

When we started the podcast, the culture was seem like felt like it was dying. I think people are talking about the same thing with Noster right now. Noster's dying. But, you know, in reality there's there's a lot of stuff going on that people just don't see and know about. And so it's like how do you get the the word out and connect everyone together?

btcwrestle (13:57)
Yeah, well it's like ⁓ it's like it's probably based on price why while ever why everybody thinks Noster's dying. everybody thinks everything's dying 'cause of the price. But I mean like I think like despite that, like meetups and how how much they're growing and how big they're becoming, in my opinion, is like probably one of the bullish things there is. It's like 'cause I don't really care as much about like ⁓

Reed (13:58)
It's

btcwrestle (14:24)
I don't care that much about the price, I care a little bit about the price. But it's like seeing like these communities grow, like real Bitcoiners, like people who actually use Bitcoin, like these meetups popping up and more people coming to the meetups, that is actually what gets me fired up. ⁓ and so like yeah, I mean like everybody thinks the world's on fire, but then you look at these these things that are happening and and that's really not the case.

rev (14:49)
So you got the privacy workshop. Is that tomorrow? That's tomorrow that you're gonna run that. And so, you know, you haven't Reed got a good litmus test ⁓ at his at his meetup, how how the the locals are reacting to the price. They don't care. Bullish. Everyone's bullish. You know, at this Grand Rapids meetup, we didn't talk about the price one time, you know. No one cares about the fact that it dumped. I mean, it's it's once again, yeah, like you say, it's these are people using Bitcoin. And if you use Bitcoin

btcwrestle (14:52)
Yeah. Yeah.

rev (15:17)
when the price goes down, that's an opportunity for me if I'm selling compost. Guess what? I just got a lot more sats for that compost. And ⁓ a lot I think a lot of people that are using Bitcoin still have fiat. I still have fiat, right? It'll be all use fiat. And so, like that compost transaction was fiat through through strike Bitcoin to me on lightning, right? So now he didn't care about the price to make that Bitcoin transaction.

And here I am ⁓ earning Bitcoin a lot more Bitcoin because the price is down. So it's like bullish. It's good.

btcwrestle (15:46)
Ha!

Reed (15:46)
So one of the things, you know, and Rev kind of mentioned this in in in his little opener, right? Where he somebody who's having a really hard time trying to find the meetup. We hear this all the time. and you know, the first thing Rev said is like, Well, you know, we're decentralized, like we don't have a a common place to go to like find all this stuff. And like we've been trying to push Naster as like a a good kind of discoverability layer where it's like, well, at least if it's on Naster, everybody can find it.

It's not behind a paywall or anything like that. but one of the things that you know, I think we both have been trying to push is this idea that yes, we are decentralized, but that doesn't mean that we have to be disorganized. So but like I put together and I put it in the show notes every time, and I think I mentioned it in the in the outro too. Like I have a GitHub repo for Bitcoin meetup organizers that people can go to to try to learn.

tips and tricks and other things that we've just picked up on from this podcast or just from other Bitcoin Municipal organizers. So, you know, we've talked a lot about, you know, your region and and some of the things that, you know, you guys are trying to do to get connected together. You mentioned getting everybody all the organizers together in a group chat, which is a great idea. do you have other ideas about how Bitcoin music organizers can come together and try to coordinate, collaborate, you know, learn from each other.

btcwrestle (17:04)
I mean like I mean specifically I guess ⁓ like our website that Will made, he used a lot of a lot of the like he has a link to the resources that you created and and his he has that w whole website open source on GitHub as well. So I mean that that is one that's one way. ⁓ but and the same thing with the workshops that

that I've been doing. I mean those are all on the website. All the all the content is. So I mean like having having stuff that other organizers can use and and use for their meetups is is huge. but I mean collaborating together and going to those other meetups like you're doing is is also ⁓ is also really cool. but the kind of my my goal or vision ⁓ would be that we would we'd be able to work together to to have one big community in South Carolina and then

grow from there into the southeast and then obviously like nationwide and then I mean worldwide obviously but but nationwide and region like grow from each ⁓ grow from each small community into a slightly bigger community and create create basically like a basically a way that we can have a a network to cr to trade peer to peer and and trade goods and services stuff like that and not have to use

fiat at all because I mean like nobody I mean other than my my Bitcoin meetup, nobody really uses Bitcoin. ⁓ but the the more you connect all of these communities, the more people that you know that use Bitcoin and that that you can if you need to if you need to make a big purchase, you can sell some Bitcoin to somebody for fiat. And like that the larger that that network grows, the more realistic that becomes to completely opt out from fiat.

Reed (18:24)
Yeah.

rev (18:45)
Are you seeing a lot of ⁓ cash trades go on at the meetups in your area?

Reed (18:45)
Hell yeah.

btcwrestle (18:50)
⁓ a little bit. I mean I went up to like ⁓ the WebWipe privacy meetup up in Charlotte when they came down and I I did one there. and I I've done a couple at my my meetup. I really try to like like I think for somebody who's just on Bitcoin Twitter, or just it just depends on the way that people come into Bitcoin, the way that they think about it. But I I think sometimes it's hard for them to to ⁓ for people to

⁓ like think about actually trading peer to peer because the way that people come into it is like, okay, I just set up my DCA on Stripe and I'm just saving money every week. which is not a bad thing. But it's like that that's not what I mean, that's not completely what Bitcoin was for. I mean Bitcoin is peer to peer digital cash. So it's like, I mean, I try to push the envelope in the sense that like I'll ask, I'll say, Hey, does anybody want to sell any Bitcoin? Does anyone wan wanna buy any Bitcoin? And

I mean, I think that's a good thing for an organizer to do because like it a lot of times like it's not in the forefront of people's minds depending on where they how they got into Bitcoin in the first place. So I mean, I try I try to ask every now and then. I mean and I mean my AC unit died the other the other week and I'm like, I don't know how the heck I'm gonna pay for that. And luckily it was just a like a fan blower motor and it was like five hundred bucks. but like I mean if I had to spend seven grand on a

A C unit or eight grand or whatever it was. I mean I'm I'm reaching out to everybody I can reach out to so I can sell some Bitcoin. 'cause that's the only way I'm gonna be able to pay for it. So it's like I mean, that's kinda where my mind goes, 'cause I mean I mean, I get paid in fiat, so I have fiat to pay my bills and stuff, but if I'm gonna have to pay for something like that or get a new truck or something like that, I'm gonna have to sell Bitcoin. And it and that that's to me where the importance of growing a larger network ⁓

Yes.

rev (20:40)
So it sounds like you're you're pretty experienced then in in doing these peer-to-peer trades. And so a couple episodes ago, ⁓ I talked about kind of how I do it at the meetups and everything. ⁓ and we we were talking about in that that episode as well about maybe some of the fear involved and it it's a it feels a lot safer just to s to put the Bitcoin back on the exchange and sell it there. And when you do that, you're paying, you're you're paying the exchange, you're paying a transaction fee anyways to get it on there, and then you're paying the exchange their their spread and their percentage points.

Reed (21:06)
Mm.

rev (21:10)
get the the fiat. but in my instance because I skip all that I get to actually charge a premium. Do you how do you feel about premiums? Do you charge premiums? Do you have any feelings on on ⁓ adding some some cash trade convenience premium to it?

btcwrestle (21:24)
I I don't I mean like I haven't bought I haven't bought KYC sats in like I don't know how many years. A while a long time. So it's like every time that I buy on RoboSats or Bisque, I'm paying I'm paying a a premium anyway. So it's like I it's that's normal for me. So no, I don't I don't think that there's really any issue with that. And yeah, I think it's I think it's a good mindset to get people in that like you're buying

no KYC sats or your like because and they're worth more. I mean they're they're not ⁓ I mean Bitcoin's fungible, it doesn't matter either way. But it it's a good good way to get people thinking about no KYC versus KYC.

rev (22:04)
If you're really after the the no KYC, you got cash, right? You got some cash, you wanna buy some Bitcoin. it's actually pretty difficult to to line up that the ability to to acquire the Bitcoin if you don't go through RoboSats or BISC or something like that. and so yeah, I think usually I think I mentioned it that people are often very interested. There's a lot of demand for if you're a if you have Bitcoin and you you need fiat, ⁓ there's a lot of people that want it. And so

People are kind of fighting over it, to be honest. It's just so it makes sense that it would command a premium because the demand is there. The local price of Bitcoin for cash is higher than what's available.

btcwrestle (22:41)
Yeah.

Reed (22:42)
That's how it is at our meetup. Like we we've been so now that we've got the marketplace stuff going a little bit in our meetup, it's been a a very popular topic of conversation every month is no KYC sats. just like you said, BTC Russell, like just getting people's minds accustomed to you know, you don't just have to go on the exchange in DCA or whatever it is that you normally do to buy your Bitcoin. Like this is actually a much more like sustainable and and grassroots way to do it.

But at the same time, you get all these benefits of having the no KYSAT. so this is probably like the perfect time to pivot to start. I I have a bunch of questions for you, and I think Rev does too about this privacy workshop that you've got coming up. So you already mentioned Robosats, BISC, stuff like that. Is is are those the kinds of topics that you are gonna talk about? Like are you gonna do like demo transactions or how how are you approaching that workshop?

btcwrestle (23:37)
Yeah, I've got kind of like a kind of like a step by step kind of thing. So like KYC versus no KYC is like kind of the first thing I'm gonna go over and ⁓ the privacy implications there and then ⁓ getting no kyc sats, ⁓ running your own node and the privacy implications of not running your own node. then

Talking about fungibility like on chain versus lightning and so like ⁓ I mean maybe buying your buying your ⁓ no KYC sats on chain, but then using Lightning to spend them and stuff like that. UTXO is how they were UTXO management, and then the common input ownership heuristics, like spending two inputs together, and then not reusing addresses, ⁓ Ashigaru Whirlpool, CoinJoin,

Page join. those are that are kind of gonna go down the list of basically how you buy it, ⁓ how you transact, and then the different pieces within transactions that you can leak privacy or where you can be more private.

rev (24:38)
So when you're when you're ⁓ working with your own flow or whatever your stack, what do you find I I mean, I it's hard to say what's most important, right? It's all important. But what do you find the most interesting or or when you're when you're thinking about how to how to use your Bitcoin and be aware of the privacy implications, what what really gets you thinking a lot ⁓ in that direction?

Reed (24:39)
Yeah.

btcwrestle (25:00)
I guess I mean first and foremost, not buying from an exchange. ⁓ and then basically if I'm not buying from an exchange, what is the history of those of those trend of those UTXOs that I'm then buying? And then erasing that history, so using Whirlpool and then spending it. I'm basically opening a lightning channel to then spend the sats because

then whoever I'm spending the sats to doesn't know what UTXO funded the funded the the lightning sats. So that's kind of the way that I look at it because I mean I I used to use samurai before they got arrested and then with Ashigaru ⁓ they've got Whirlpool now. So I still use it. and I think that that is probably one of the best ways to transact privately. Obviously you're

Reed (25:46)
Okay.

btcwrestle (25:48)
If if you have any intention of ever selling those sats to an exchange, you can't do it on chain because they're probably gonna freeze them because they went through Whirlpool. But that's kind of like one of to me, one of the coolest things about Lightning is they don't know what UTX have funded that that Lightning channel. so you can then spend them. And I haven't tested it, I haven't sent it to Cash App or Strike or anything like that. But theoretically when I go to a Square Merchant,

They're not gonna not accept my sats because they came from a whirlpool ⁓ cycle. So

rev (26:21)
Why do you think it's important to try and avoid touching the exchanges?

btcwrestle (26:25)
Because I don't want anybody to know that I own Bitcoin. So I mean like you you guys know. I people online know because I post about it and stuff like that. But like I don't want my name tied to ⁓ my Bitcoin. and I mean obviously in the past I've bought I've bought on an exchange. but going forward in the future, like I I don't want to ever have to check the box on the IRS form that says yeah, I bought cryptocurrency. So I mean like

I I want it to just basically t for nobody to know unless I reveal it.

Reed (26:55)
So just like we were talking about a minute ago with like let's say no KYC sats versus KYC sats. And so I you know, this has been great for me at my meetup to be able to talk to people about that and you know, meet people where they're at, which is most of the people in my meetup are just buying it on the exchange. So I guess, you know, y now that you're running this whole privacy workshop, like I guess I suppose anybody who's going to this meetup is gonna care more about privacy. But

btcwrestle (27:13)
Right.

Reed (27:24)
Like how would you go like if you're gonna talk about it at your meetup or like you I'm sure you do all the time, how do you get people to kind of care enough to go to actually take the, you know, their time to jump through all these hoops and to learn all these new software things and you know, it's it's asking it it can be kind of asking a lot of of people. So so I guess what what's your go to to try to get people to kind of care about that?

btcwrestle (27:44)
It is.

So I mean, at least for the privacy workshop, like my thing is like take one thing away from this. Like if you take this entire workshop and then you go home and you try to digest it and try to do all of this, you're never gonna do any of it. So it's like take one thing and like see how you can gain a little bit of privacy from what you learned, but one thing. And then maybe next month you try the next thing. You can't do all of it at one time. It's

It's overwhelming. I've tried to do it. But I mean like it took me like years to like step by step try and do some of these things. So ⁓ basically try try to do one thing at a time. ⁓ and then try how to make people care. ⁓ I think like most people who understand Bitcoin they can they can see why you need privacy. Like they see that like the system is broken and corrupt.

And they can see why, okay, I can see why I would need privacy from X, Y, or Z. So I mean, it's not a stretch. ⁓ but at the same time, it's like if you only care about number go up, it I mean, I'm not gonna be able to convince somebody to whirlpool all of their Bitcoin because then they're not gonna be able to sell it on the exchange. And I mean, I wouldn't, if that's all you care about, I wouldn't tell you to do that. But th they can at least get something out of it. Like if they're if they're withdrawing.

into cold storage, don't reuse your address every single time. Like give the give a new address every single time. That's it. That's I mean that's one good step and it helps everybody who's using Bitcoin. So I mean just just one thing that they can take away and it will it that can help your privacy. that would be kind of my advice.

Reed (29:28)
Yeah, and then like easy logical steps from there are starting like the and it almost it mirrors almost ⁓ the journey I went on with this all this stuff. Like you said, no address reuse, and then it's like how to keep track of your UTXOs. Right? Like if you if you have two UTXOs that you don't want to get mixed together, don't mix them together. But you gotta remember which one's which and stuff like that. But I I guess ⁓ like one one of the things in this this

Not in this context, but this did come up at our meetup this weekend, so maybe that's why it's top of mind. Like one one of the things that I've been trying to get people to at least come to grips with is and and okay, this is just my theory or whatever, like my prediction. I I I predict it you know, if the fiat experiment starts really going down the drain, there will be a point where we are blamed.

Like Bitcoiners, like they'll be like, This is all your fault. Like if we hadn't given people this exit, the whole thing would have kept going. And it's a you know, it's a lie, of course. But I just I just imagine, you know, right now things are good and like, you know, they're not I know the stuff with the samurai guys is a tragedy and should be corrected, but for the most part, individual Bitcoiners, you know, we're not being targeted. But that could change. You know, you you get the wrong

person in in a place of power and it doesn't just have to be in this country, it could be anywhere. and and now all of a sudden all the citizens of that country are at risk. And so that's that was, you know, one of my talking points a little bit for the No KYC is like, you know, maybe you should start have having a little bit of an an exit plan. But at the same time, it's all trade offs. Right? It's it's no you know, no solutions, only trade offs. So I guess

btcwrestle (31:12)
Yeah.

Reed (31:14)
If I'm gonna turn this into a little bit of a question, do you have thoughts, speaking of trade offs, on the trade offs between like Lightning versus eCash versus some of these other second solution or second layer solutions that are coming out?

btcwrestle (31:27)
I've never I've never used e cash. ⁓ I've only ever used Lightning. so I mean I don't I typically don't I try not to use anything that's custodial. so ⁓ like my lightning node broke or my node broke for however long and I just didn't use lightning for a while. So I mean I mean the reason that you use Bitcoin is because it's

peer to peer digital cash. So it's like if I'm using a custodian, like the egg to me it kind of it kind of breaks the reason that I'm using it in the first place. And like I I mean you I I'm kind of an on chain maxi. ⁓ I'm I'm kind of forced to use lightning for for like if I'm gonna buy something at square I get a haircut, I pay he he's got square, I ⁓ I pay a bitcoin and he saves all the Bitcoin that I give him. but

But I mean, other than that, I use on-chain more than anything. And it's cheap. It's cheap to transact on chain right now. So I mean, I mean, we're not I don't think we're at the point in history where we need to be using a custodial solution. Like it's cheap to transact on-chain. And I I don't think it's that hard to get a start nine or an umbrella and run a lightning node. that that was one thing I forgot to say, but part of the privacy part was I mean, if you're coming to these meetups, you've been buying Bitcoin for

two, three, four years. You can afford to get one of these plug and play nodes if you don't know how to do it on your own computer. ⁓ so I mean like that is another good step towards being private is running your own node. Like if if you're not running your own node then you're using someone else's and they they have your X bub and they can see all your transactions. So I mean for the second layer stuff, like I said, I I haven't used eCash. ⁓ I like the new thing where they said blind admits. ⁓ I saw that ⁓

I saw Cali post that and to me that's that's pretty cool. so but like I said, I haven't used it and I and lightning works. lightning works for me and ⁓ if I'm not using if I'm not using on chain, which is probably ninety nine percent of the time, I'm using lightning.

rev (33:30)
Done some presentations at ⁓ meetups locally here and and kind of much talking about the my flow and how I the considerations that I have when I'm transacting on-chain. And I think a lot of people are not really aware of this this issue with with consolidating UTXOs, especially consolidating change outputs, because that's where you and if you're spending a lot out of your cold storage or you know, your your on-chain wallet, whatever,

You end up with all these change outputs. And I I don't think people the I I sort I I hate to scare people when I give these presentations, right? And talk about the implications of linking all that stuff together. but they don't realize like when when you link those change outputs together and then you go send spend that UTXO now, whoever's getting that can see all of the they get to see everything. Like they get a huge visibility into your stack and what you've had in the past and all this stuff. And so I think that's like

On chain while it's cheap, there is ⁓ this issue of being aware of UTXO management. And and it sounds like you're gonna go into that in this workshop, but what what are some things that you would recommend as far as ⁓ being aware of UTXO management and and ⁓ avoiding linking these change outputs together?

btcwrestle (34:43)
I guess my suggestion would be having your UTXOs and denominations that are that are around what you pay for stuff. So I mean like keeping it in like fifty thousand sats, a hundred thousand sats, two fifty, five hundred, million, so on. keeping it in s try to reduce the amount of change you're gonna have. I mean if you have change, like I try to I try to have a small amount of change and I might just

send it and donate it to somebody. Like I might just send it off. I say I have five thousand, ten thousand sats left, I'll just send it to an address of somebody that is asking for donations. Like I I try not to have much change left over. ⁓ but you've got to have your UTXOs in a way that makes that possible. ⁓ but that's kind of how I think about it.

rev (35:31)
And so that gets into like how do you even end up with these UTXOs in a clean way. Sure, you can send a transaction to yourself and and break up a one million sat UTXO that you withdrew from an exchange and ⁓ make it into, you know, basically make change for yourself right in your wallet. So you you could think about it as having five dollar bills, ten dollar bills, twenty dollar bills, so on and so forth. But if you're starting off with a one thousand dollar bill, and all of those other bills get linked to it, it's it's challenging

to get to those smaller denominations in the first place. Do you swap out of lightning? do you just try to acquire these like when you're buying on BISC or something, just buying these small amounts for the purpose of knowing that you're gonna spend it in the future?

btcwrestle (36:09)
I would say like when I'm most of my spending, like if I'm obviously I if I'm moving stuff around it's it's ⁓ it's on chain. But if I'm spending specifically, it's probably gonna be on lightning. ⁓ unless I'm buying like like something big. if I'm if I'm trading for a decent amount of cash or something like that. So it's like

Was your original question?

rev (36:33)
Just how do you end up with these these different UTXOs in your wallet that are clean? I I would assume that it's maybe a a a Whirlpool output, right? If you're using a Whirlpool.

btcwrestle (36:36)
Yeah, but

Right.

Yeah. Yeah, I mean but right now there's only two denominations and that's two point five million sats and twenty five million sats. So you're you've got two options. ⁓ and I I'm not using the twenty five million SAT pool. So I mean you're breaking down a two point five million ⁓ sat UTXO. but I mean if you're getting it from a no KYC source and then you're whirlpooling it, I mean there's really n

not much of a way that you can link it. You can link it in the future, but you're breaking the link from using the Whirlpool.

Reed (37:13)
So one of the things I when I was first starting to look into some of the privacy stuff, I started getting a little bit worried about like foot guns. So like how you know, how can how how am I gonna shoot myself in the foot here? Like I'm trying to be all careful with my privacy, but you know, I am I leaking my IP everywhere? Like how am am I actually being private or do am I just are there things outside of my knowledge base? And so I because I didn't really know.

Like whenever I would even start trying to do research on this, I'd always like connect through a VPN and try to keep like a as minimal of a footprint as I could and just to keep myself off of the radar of, you know, whoever might be trying to figure out what's going on. do you so do you cover, you know, it it 'cause honestly, it's kind of advanced, in my opinion. Like using some of these tools, this is not like beginner stuff. It's not beginner friendly at all.

So I guess since you're covering it in your privacy workshop tomorrow, like what what kinds of disclaimers or do you do you try to inform people like, hey, you're gonna have to do a little bit of research and you're gonna have to be like pretty comfortable with how all this stuff works or how do you approach that?

btcwrestle (38:26)
Well, you're you're also getting different levels of people ⁓ of like Bitcoin knowledge coming to the to the ⁓ workshop too. So you've got some people who are familiar with this stuff and some people who've never even thought about it. So it's like you're kind of hoping that someone picks one thing at d each different level. but obviously like y

every wallet that you use ⁓ if you want to be private is gonna connect over Tor. ⁓ so I mean and that obviously your UX is gonna degrade. ⁓ but ⁓ the revolution's not gonna have good UX. So but yeah I mean basically that's your starting point is you're using you're using Tor like your your own node connected over Tor ⁓ with ⁓ connected to Sparrow or whatever you're using. and

Most I mean all the wallets that I that I use have Tor and I'm I'm used to it now. I don't I don't ⁓ I don't know what it's like using ClearNet. At least for my wallets.

rev (39:23)
So yeah, that this

is a revolution. From my my perspective, that's why that's one of the most attractive things Bitcoin brought to me was this idea that now I have real power to make change. and to to change the way that things are going on that I don't like and to be able to not participate in that. as far as like the reasons why you are attracted to Bitcoin and this revolution concept,

Where do you what what do you really think this this whole Bitcoin thing is allowing for? What where do you think it's headed?

btcwrestle (39:55)
So I mean, just the the thought about w what got me into Bitcoin. Like I I came into Bitcoin in twenty twenty one. Y'all remember the the GameStop ⁓ thing with Robin Hood where they shut off the buy button? I was buying GameStop whenever they shut off the buy button. and they they wouldn't like I bought it like two days before, so everything that I bought like went way down. And I'm like, dude, this is a absolute scam. And so like I'm on Reddit and everybody is saying, Buy Bitcoin, buy Bitcoin said they can't turn off the buy button. I'm like

So that's what got me into Bitcoin to begin with. So I was like completely on one side of of like basically just number go up. But then the other part of me where I'm like, This this whole system is screwed. and it kind of that's kind of where I started with it. And then it like you buy all the shit coins and then eventually ⁓ I listened to ⁓ a Barstool sports podcast ⁓ with Marty Bent on it in twenty twenty one and I sold all my shit coins and I bought Bitcoin.

and so, what was your original question?

rev (40:55)
Well just like I run doing these meetups and everything, right? Like we ⁓ we're trying to build a real culture, a real economy. You know, th we can't transact peer to peer if we don't know anyone around us. And ⁓ then if there's no one around us to transact with, then we can't actually force the change that we want in the world. and so fr from my perspective, that is the big thing, you know, it's like the ⁓

the revolution is just being able to operate in a parallel system. And we know each other. I this is you're we we know each other from the Meshadel chat, right? You're a Meshadelian and the big thing with the Meshadel is creating these parallel systems and not just talking about it, but like really doing stuff. And so like you're running the meetup, ⁓ I'm running a meetup, Reed's running a meetup, we're trying to do it. ⁓ but it's just challenging to get all these other Bitcoiners out there that are that are isolated to join us.

⁓ and so that that was kind of my question is just like how how do you see the the revolution unfolding in your neck of the woods? Is is ⁓ is there momentum behind it?

btcwrestle (41:57)
Well, I mean, the dream is all these spread out meetups that started from people like us who are passionate about freedom and passionate about Bitcoin, like somehow they can they can interact and network and like create a a massive parallel system. but because it's so spread out and decentralized and like like

I mean you guys are doing a great job of connecting all the all these different ⁓ nodes basically from around the world, around the country. ⁓ but connecting those is is in my opinion where where there's a lot of power because then you've got instead of just your group chat online or your your meetup with ten to twenty people, five, ten people, whatever it is, you've got this huge I mean

Like worldwide Bitcoiners is a ton of people. So you've got this huge network effect where you can actually operate in a parallel system. And I mean, hopefully eventually we don't ever have to use fiat anyway. ⁓ the dollar dies. But like I mean, until then you y we'd like to build something outside of that that we can that we can basically opt out and say we don't want to be a part of that anyway.

rev (43:12)
Man, my hope is that I'm already there before the dollar even dies. You know, that if if we can get enough of an economy going and enough people in in our local areas and then we can we can link up with these other big regions close by, then we can be living on a Bitcoin standard while in totally in parallel with fiat. And we still get to take advantage of all of the the whenever we want to use fiat, we can choose to do that, but it's a choice now instead of a a necessity.

Reed (43:38)
Yeah, I I guess ⁓ I wanted to riff for a minute on the Meshadel stuff, but ⁓ I just first wanted to say I so I so remember when that GameStop thing was going down. And, you know, I wasn't in on that trade or anything, but I was watching it as an outsider. I think a lot of Bitcoiners were watching it as outsiders, going like, man, like these people, they're gonna learn. This is gonna be their this hopefully will be a big teaching moment for them.

And so to hear from your perspective, going from that world and hearing the message on Reddit and then hearing Marty Bent on Barstool, it's like, wow, it it worked, at least for one person, you know. So if it happened for you, I I hope that that was, you know, that was just such a perfect teaching moment for what the hell is like how are you putting all of your like everything, your e putting everything into this one system that you can just be rugged from at any time. So

I just l I love hearing that story. Okay, so back to back to the Meshtidel. so I I'm almost thinking at this point, and and I know n none of us are really prepared for this, so this can be maybe even like a brainstorming session, but and and Rev, maybe you're the right person even to start this thing off. But so if if we're gonna be using, let's say, the Meshtidel concept to start connecting all these nodes, all these

You know, we're talking about Bitcoin meetups, but Bitcoin meetups aren't the only nodes. So like what ideas do you guys have? Like how can we actually start coordinating? Like there's like some Telegram and signal groups right now. We have this podcast, which is great, like you said, for Bitcoin meetups. But again, this is just ⁓ this isn't like w we're getting to know people and we're putting people on the air, but it's not necessarily connecting people. So I don't know, like what what do you guys think?

Like I guess for either one of you. Like what what what are some good ideas, some low hanging fruit to help get us all connected?

btcwrestle (45:33)
I mean like I said, like my my idea or w my starting off point was I was like I was like I'm I'm not a I'm not a techie guy I don't know how to do I don't know how to do a lot of technical stuff like the one thing I do know that I can do is I can get people together. I can at least go into meet space and like meet people. So I started a meetup and then from there once you start a meetup you're like okay well

I want to do more than just have a beer with these guys. we need to learn about different things. And then from there, you're like, okay, well, we need to make this bigger. And there's probably only however many peop people who are into Bitcoin in Columbia. So it's like, I need to try to figure out how I can connect these these people in my state. Because I mean, if I reach out to a Bitcoiner, they're probably gonna reach back out to me. like they they they understand, they they probably are interested. So

I mean, that's that's it. That's where I'm at as far as I'm like I wanna get the South Carolinian Bitcoiners together and ⁓ at least meet once a year. 'Cause I mean, we can talk about it all we want online and that that's only gonna get you so far so far. It's like meeting in person is where is where things actually happen and like relationships relationships actually can like grow and you can meet these people. 'Cause I mean like you can trust people that you talk online.

talk to online a little bit, like depending on how long you talk to them. But until you meet them in person, you can't really build much trust. And really like any kind of parallel system like that is gonna be built on a lot of trust. ⁓ so I'm ⁓ that's where that's at least in my mind where I I'm thinking about starting. It's just in South Carolina. And then from there, I mean like like we were talking about earlier, Georgia and N North Carolina have really good meetup cultures. So it's like from there you have

⁓ in Tennessee for that matter. But ⁓ like you have a good region of these Bitcoin meetups where you can reach out to them from there. And then like I said, meeting in person somehow, whether it's once a year or something like that, once every two years, something where we can interact and actually talk in person, meet and have and grow relationships.

rev (47:44)
So like what are some of the do you have any good examples of of connections that have panned out to be more than just ⁓ hanging out and drinking a beer like turned into some kind of productive thing? Obviously you're getting liquidity, right? One way or another. If you need fiat, you can sell your Bitcoin locally. and maybe if you need Bitcoin, you might happen across somebody else selling it, you can buy it. in in Michigan, we've got a lot of ⁓ people really working on actually

btcwrestle (48:05)
Yeah.

rev (48:08)
selling their goods, selling their services to each other. We're actually trying to build these economic ⁓ this economic activity around it. But it goes beyond that, right? In in Michigan, we've got people now we're like people come over to the homestead here and they help me develop the homestead. And in exchange, I'll go over to their place and help them develop what they're doing. And we're really starting to work together. Do you have any examples of how that's starting to to pan out? ⁓ after the, you know, you've been running a meetup for a few years now. Like you said, it got started slow.

but do you have any any cool stories about relationships that have really flourished into something more than just a friendship?

btcwrestle (48:46)
Honestly, don't I mean I mean I don't I can't think of anything outside of us hanging out at the meetup or some or a workshop or the gun range. ⁓ so I mean we'll go up to Charlotte and stuff like that on occasion to those meetups, but I don't have anything anything substantial beyond just just friendships that that I've made.

Reed (49:07)
Those friendships can be powerful. I was trying you know, as you were saying that, Rev, I was trying to think too, 'cause I was like, man, I've got to have something. But honestly, I've formed some really strong, great friendships to the point where we're all talking with each other. Like we got ⁓ meshastic devices so we could like stay in touch, like in case the comms go down, you know? And like we talk about this stuff. Like one of my buddies is big into having like a lot of the ⁓ like he's a little bit of a let's call it a prepper.

So he's got like the foods, you know, the long term food storage and stuff and he's like trying to get like he's selling some of it to us for SATS so we can all kind of start having stuff. And so we you know, we talk a lot about how hey, if hit if shit hits the fan, like you guys are my guys. Like this is where we're going. And so I think even just those friendships, like those are those can be quite valuable, especially when it's other Bitcoiners. Like these guys, you know, we all like we get stuff done.

Like, you know, th we're not just hanging around watching Netflix and stuff. You know, these are these are movers and shakers, people who know how to get stuff done. So I think that can be a good one.

rev (50:16)
Well yeah, having those connections

is like that's when when the opportunity arises, should should things get squeezed in that direction, now you've got somewhere to start. If you know if you're not going to the meetups and you don't know any Bitcoiners and now you're getting squeezed, what are you and and the the on ramps, the exits and on ramps get shut down from the exchanges and everything and you're stuck with this Bitcoin and you don't know anyone to actually use it with.

What good is it? And so that's I mean, there's a huge benefit in just knowing the people to begin with, even if these relationships like I'm talking about haven't really started to flourish in that direction yet. I'm I'm willing to bet that it will happen, especially once you guys get the the regional stuff going a little bit more. It sounds like the source note was just saying on the l on the l the last rul episode that you guys are just getting that started. So it's it's pretty cool to hear.

Reed (51:06)
All right. Well, ⁓ you know, we're hitting we're just coming up on the hour mark here. So maybe this is a good time for us to start thinking about you know, if you had and I don't know, BTC Russell, if you had any key takeaways or final thoughts, I mean I I can go a little bit and and give my kind of key takeaways from this real quick is there's there's kind of a there's a lot to being sovereign, right? In in

Making sure it privacy sure is part of it, but it's honestly to me it's it's almost not so much that you are trying to be private. It's just that you're trying to be sovereign. And and sovereignty means having control. And it's you're choosing right, I I forget exactly what the quote is, but like privacy is the ability to selectively reveal yourself or something like that, right? And it's like, well, if you're not sovereign

How could you ever selectively reveal yourself? And so there's just a lot of responsibility that goes into it. You know, maybe that takes a lot of learning, but I think that maybe comes with the territory. So I'm I'm really excited to hear all the the cool stuff that you guys got going on. I think this privacy stuff, like having that workshop is it's a good call, I think, to to other Bitcoin muta organizers and maybe also to myself. Like I've done stuff on self-custody before, but I've really never gone too much into privacy outside of no KYC.

⁓ so I think it's really awesome what you guys got going on. All the regional stuff, ⁓ really good to hear. So how about you, BTC Russell, you got any anything you didn't say that maybe you wanted to bring up or any kind of key takeaways from this discussion or

btcwrestle (52:41)
I guess ⁓ kinda like ⁓ kinda like the the privacy workshop tomorrow. I mean ⁓ you you can't do everything all at once. do one thing, try to learn one thing and and integrate that into what you're doing and then and then try to become a little bit more private as you go. ⁓ self custody, no KYC and running your own note is i are the are the ⁓ the three

best first steps. And I think I think most people who go to meetups can at least understand that and then dive into that more. so I know you do the zap splits. ⁓ so my it's gonna be hooked to my pub and my ⁓ my MPub the zap address is Bill and Keoney at getLB dot org to to support the the samurai guys. So just ⁓ any zap is gonna also support them. And

Yeah, I mean I I'm really really appreciative of you guys ⁓ doing this podcast 'cause I think it is ⁓ it is a crucial part of my forty hours per week. and I look forward to it every week. And yeah, like I s I like I told you guys before we started recording, I missed one and I didn't realize it and I listened to it today. So ⁓ just ⁓ appreciate you guys and what you're doing and amplifying all these meetups 'cause I like I said, I think it's

To me, it's like one of the most bullish parts about Bitcoin.

rev (54:03)
Yeah, d to piggyback off the the samurai stuff a little bit, it's it's awesome that you're ⁓ willing to to actually put the sats down to help these people. Because when honestly when when this whole thing went down, I was like not very concerned because in the in the the circles that I hang out in, everybody loves those guys and a lot of people use it. Personally I never really used samurai. I don't use whirlpools at all. I I don't mix like that, but

I d I have a lot of respect for people that do and and ⁓ that what they were doing was creating great tools for people to use and and and a lot of people were using them. Sh a rabbit hole recap, right? Every every single week they would talk about the the unspent capacity in Whirlpool. It was a it was a an aspect of the Bitcoin culture, in a very big way. And so I thought, okay, these guys got it. The beautiful thing about Bitcoin is that anyone from all over the world, nobody can stop you from

from helping them from from injecting financial capital right to their benefit. And so I was thinking, great, they these I I don't have a lot to to offer. and so maybe, you know, whatever fifty dollars that I could have sent maybe would have made a difference. But I was thinking, you know, somebody there's people out here that are using it that are, you know, they're they're spending ⁓ they're they're using it to obfuscate their their to break the links of their transactions with a lot of Bitcoin.

You know, they had they were using the service and it was doing a lot for them. And it seemed nobody, it su it seems, came and and took advantage of this ability to help them. And ⁓ I was I was kind of shocked when that happened. that they just they they were left with no other recourse but to do a plea deal. They could not actually challenge the system because they didn't have the support from the people that were using their products and and their their the stuff that they were building. And so it's really

very important that even in small ways like what you're doing to give now now it's like the the damage has been done. Now we can just help them recover from this this horrible thing that happened. but yeah, ⁓ it's it just goes to show ⁓ when you when you get this one to many like Reed's talking about, where there's information coming out from one source, it's going to many people, it creates the illusion that there's a lot more people involved.

Than there really is. Like ultimately, the amount of people that are using Bitcoin in the way that we do is ⁓ is a lot smaller than I think a lot of people can imagine. And so it is very important when when you see shit like this go down that you do something. ⁓ and it's also important that you can move the needle, especially locally, by starting a meetup, going to a meetup, participating, meeting your local Bitcoiners. Cause like I said, there's not a lot of us and if

We all join together, we have a lot more power that way. And so that's kind of the biggest takeaway that I have from this conversation is like just getting started. and and these are common themes. This comes up at every episode, but it's it's worth reiterating. We everyone should hear it every single time that you get a lot out of participating, meeting your local Bitcoiners. And it might not seem like much other than having a beer when it just first gets first gets started, but after years of doing it.

Now you've got a whole network and community of people to cooperate with and you have a you a way to get way more utility out of your Bitcoin and you have power to help stop the system from encroaching and stopping us.

Reed (57:24)
Hell yeah, man. Yeah, I think that this this episode, ⁓ I guess we're gonna talk about it more when we switch over here to the next part of the show, but this will go, you know, letting people know that for episode fifteen, so a third a third of your an anything you boost the show with, a third of that is going to the samurai guys. And yeah, just helping them rebuild at this point is it's such a terrible thing, you know, that happened to them. And and just the

The way the whole system is is is really just rigged against us is kinda sickening. So definitely really appreciate you doing that. That's actually pretty huge. So we're more than happy to to to dedicate those stats to to that ⁓ that cause.

All right. Well, with that, I think we're ready to transition, right? To the next part of the show. So, BTC Russell, I think we said in the pre-show, you're welcome to stay. I think you said you'd like to. So feel free to chime in. Feel free to to chime in on anything. You know, this is our value for value section. So we like to spend, you know, actually what turns into probably quite a bit of time and we've got some really cool things going on with the podcast. so we've got some big shake ups on the leaderboards to talk about. We've got a lot of really cool boosts that came in.

btcwrestle (58:20)
Yeah, but I'll say.

Reed (58:38)
And so this is our time to kind of shout out our community and let everybody know what they have going on. So let's start with our leaderboards. So like I said, big big changes here. We're going to be hearing a lot about ⁓ Sovereign coming up in this, but we like to start with our first leaderboard is the episodes that have received the most sats of all time.

And so again, I will say it again, just like I always do. If you haven't listened to all of our episodes, and probably at this point, you know, with fourteen in the bag, it might be kind of a big ass. Go back and listen to them all. So these episodes are pretty evergreen. Like we it's not like we're talking about the news or anything. We're just kind of educating people on what everybody's got going on at their meetups. So if you want to go back and listen to a few, this is probably a great place to start. As you can check out this leaderboard.

And find out which episodes our members found the most valuable. So we have a new number one. Number one overall is our last episode with Source Note, episode 14, permaculture for Bitcoin Culture with Source Note from Greenville, South Carolina. And that episode is cracked 100K before any of the other episodes. So we're up to 108,804 sats on episode 14. right behind it.

Is episode nine with Sir Spencer, which was previously number one for quite a while, is now number two at with 98,000, so just 10k sats behind. 98,124 sats. And episode nine was growing slow, build small communities, KC Bitcoiners. Third place is episode five with Augie, another KC, and that's sixty-four thousand six hundred eighty-four sats.

And episode five was titled The Meetup is the Farmer's Market, Kansas City, Missouri. fourth place is episode one, always a classic. talk about a lot of good stuff in there about how to start your meetup. that is at 60,143 sats, and titled Starting and Growing Meetups, Western Mass and South Bend, Indiana. And finally, rounding out the top five episodes is episode two with GC and James from Jersey City.

with forty seven thousand three hundred sixty nine sats. And that episode was titled Meetups Are the Ultimate Web of Trust, Jersey City, New Jersey.

So we got some we got some big changes here. we're gonna hear more about how episode fourteen rocketed to the top of this list here ⁓ in a second. any thoughts on this one, Rev?

rev (1:01:08)
The the the the number one episode with Source Node and the top three in general with the KC Bitcoiners, the common theme actually in there is that Bitcoin, while it's a digital system, operates very much like a natural system. And meetups, we're all part of nature, right? We're people operating in the world. And so the it seems like the most

The most valuable content is realizing like when you have these meetups and you have these connections with real people that you you actually get the ability to wield everything that nature affords. Nature is the the highest the pinnacle of technology. We have not been able to replicate nature. The closest thing I would argue is that Bitcoin. Bitcoin is the closest thing to replicating nature in ⁓ a man-made way.

And so going and listening to those three episodes, you'll get a big kind of an overview of how that actually takes place and and pans out.

Reed (1:02:07)
Yeah, and since we didn't really talk about it, you know, we in the past we spend more time talking about each one of these episodes. ⁓ but since we've gone over them so many times, I I have streamlined it a little bit. But yeah, our last episode, if you haven't caught that one with Source Node yet, you know, it I realized that it rocketed to the top here because of mostly from one big boost, which we're gonna talk about in a minute. But, you know, this was a really good episode. we talked

We got into we did get a little bit more into some of the permaculture stuff, which is cool. And we're, you know, we all continue to learn from Rev here on a lot of those permaculture principles and how they tie into Bitcoin and also Bitcoin meetups. So but yeah, we talked about a lot of good stuff in that episode. So if you haven't heard it yet, definitely go check that one out.

rev (1:02:52)
How to talk to how to talk to your meetup ⁓ attendees in a way that, you know, when you get shit coiners showing up, how to not just dismiss them, but inc incorporate them in a thoughtful way, using being thoughtful about your communication. So many good, ⁓ just very practical ways to actually interact with the people that are coming to your meetups. And then beyond that, Spencer's meetup or Spencer's episode with ⁓ talking about how you can't

And BTC Wrestle kind of echoed this is that he did it for a long time with just a few people showing up, but he stuck with it small and slow. And now it's turning into it the whole he's he's connecting the whole region together. He's responsible for that, but his meetup is still s a small one for the region. And so you can you can have a big impact growing sm small and slow. and finally the with with ⁓ Augie's episode, the Bitcoin meetup is the farmers market.

Now there's you can realize that there are things you think that you don't have anything to offer to the circular economy. But sure enough, you you if you go listen to that episode, you'll get like many, many ideas of how you can actually participate in your local meetup culture and earn some sats, provide value and get the the wheel turning so that way you can start to have access to being able to spend your Bitcoin at the same time too.

Reed (1:04:11)
Honestly, it took ⁓ that episode five or the epis yeah, episode five with Augie. That was the episode two that made me realize, man, like, you know, we don't have the circular economy thing, that must just be for somebody else. And it was just I was like, my god, we could totally do this. This there's there's such great ideas. I was taking notes the whole time. And so here we are. So now we are actually implementing a lot of these ideas. You know, it took a few months. I had to get, you know, we only move w

you know, one one meetup at a time, one month at a time here. So but yeah, that's great episode to to learn how to get a circular economy started.

All right, more shakeups on the leaderboards here. So this one, so the second leaderboard here, ⁓ it's limited to the top three. ⁓ perhaps we could expand that. Maybe I'll give some shout-outs here because we have them all listed on our website now. get to the yep, okay. So this is these are our ride or dies, right? So this is the listeners who have boosted the most number of episodes all time. So this has nothing to do with.

How many sats have been sent? This has to do with lo loyalty of listeners. So have you listened to the episodes? Have you boosted all the episodes? and this is our way of recognizing our our ride or dies here. So still, number one overall, Matthew D, 14 out of 14 episodes, a hundred percent. Matthew D continues to shine in this leaderboard. and he is also one of our top overall supporters of the of the show. So thank you again.

Matthew D. I I realize I've been saying it for months now, but we do we I swear we do have ideas. We just haven't implemented any of them yet. We're getting there. We're getting there. It's a long list. so first place, Matthew D, 14 episodes. And then boom, brand new num number two overall here. ⁓ shot up. I'm not exactly sure where he was at before, but Permanerd has taken over the number two spot. He's up with 12 episodes.

So Permanerd, Permanerd's kind of catching on. I think we finally said it enough times during the boost. You know, there's if there's a if you're into the gamification piece, our website sure does make it easy because we list every episode and in every episode there's a boost button. So if you just start boosting all the episodes, you're gonna climb this leaderboard pretty quickly. And I'm pretty sure that's I think I'm actually we'll find out when we get to the boost, but I think all these came in from our website.

So thank you, Permanerd. And ⁓ just to give him a quick shout out, so Permanerd's got SatsforSnacks.com. That's the number for. So Sats, the number for Snacks.com. I am a loyal customer of his. I've actually ordered stuff from him multiple times. Definitely can vouch for the tastiness of his freeze-dried fruit. I haven't tried some of his other stuff yet, but definitely the freeze-dried fruit is is fantastic.

⁓ all right, and then rounding out this leaderboard is Shadrach. Shadrach's in third place here with ten episodes boosted and continued support from Shadrach. Shadrach's been a a a long time ride or die. He's been boosting us ever since episode one. And so we we see you, Shadrach. Thank thank you for your support. It goes a long way.

rev (1:07:22)
So yeah, ⁓ so we didn't meant mention we should mention that Matthew D has white paper soap and I do buy my soap from Matthew D. I have not been able to do any transactions with Perma Nerd yet, but it it sir sure is getting enticing, you know, to ⁓ this whole value for value concept, right? Is like all right, Perma Nerd if you're you're hooking us up. ⁓ supporting not only local Bitcoiners and once again when you

if if you just go back and blanket boost every episode to get on this leaderboard, what you're really doing is you're both supporting the podcast. You're gonna get recognition on the leaderboard, but you're you're supporting Bill and Keone, right? Like you're supporting Samurai, but because a third of those sats will go to them. And you're supporting all the other guests that we've had on the show. ⁓ whatever they're doing, their local meetup culture is getting a little bit of sats from this interaction as well. And so it's a good thing to do, right? It it's it's you're you're

You're being generous not just to us, but to everyone that's participated. You're boosting meetup culture in general by ⁓ going back and and getting on these leaderboards. And Shadrach is I I mentioned it on the last episode, but I was recently on Shadrach's podcast ⁓ with Rayo 2. that's the the Vanu Paznia Radio Network. And so I I'll I'll have to to link ⁓ the episode that I was on.

But that's a that's a really good show. If you're interested in this concept of the Meshadel, in parallel systems, that is that that podcast covers that in great detail. you're gonna learn a shitload of stuff if you go back and listen to the to the Pazni Radio Network and get involved with those guys.

Reed (1:08:58)
We're gonna have to come out with like a pod roll, right? Isn't that what the the bowl after bowl guys do that? I think it might be actually of a podcasting two point feature. Maybe I don't know if it's actually podcasting two point but the pod roll because we we talk about a bunch of you know, we've talked about and actually permanerd, right? We've we've talked about the Yada podcast. That's Perma Nerd and Oshi. do that one. I was actually listening to it today. so yeah, a lot lot of good

other podcasts to listen to. And we we've talked about that too on episode nine with Spencer, is the idea that, you know, Bitcoin meetups have their own benefit as like a communication and a a a way of building community and connection. but podcasts, there's something about podcasting too. It's the RSS, right? It's the unstoppable nature of the RSS feed where it's it's something, it's it's a place that it does tend to bind together all these

You know, if you hang out online on Noster versus maybe on Twitter versus who knows, like somewhere else, or maybe you're not even really on social media, 'cause maybe you think social media sucks, which in a lot of cases sometimes it does. But you still listen to your podcast. And so podcasts are a great tool. And so I actually haven't listened to Paz New Radio Network. I'm gonna have to get that on my list actually.

rev (1:10:13)
Yeah, there's another ⁓ show that they do called Cloak and Dagger, which goes into a lot of ⁓ practical techniques, ⁓ privacy stuff. A lot just t if you want to try and operate in a parallel system, and you wanna bring that into your meetup, that podcast will give you a lot of ideas about how to how to think about that, how to do that. another cool thing about the ⁓ the RSS feed, it's much like Noster, right? You can't

No one can like shadow ban your podcast. Like if you're if you're making a podcast and you're only putting it on YouTube, for example, and you say the wrong thing on YouTube, they can just stop give you the strikes and stop your visibility and shadow ban you. But this podcasting 2.0, guess what? If if one podcasting 2.0 app says that we're not going to display this podcast anymore because we don't like you talking about Bitcoin or anything like that, guess what? It's gonna be everywhere else still.

And n you you can't actually because you can you have the ability to host this stuff yourself if you want to go to that level. I mean, I th I think Sir Spencer is is getting there. it's unstoppable. No ster is unstoppable. You these kinds of things, this is these are the kind of this is the kind of technology we need to to continue to to keep the channels open and continue to create the connections between all the regions of the Bitcoin meetups. This is an important element to it.

the communication across space. So that's it.

Reed (1:11:39)
That's right. Podcasts. It's it's part of the comms. Gotta get the comms going. so actually before I go to our final leaderboard, that we post and and all of our leaderboards we post as kind one nostril notes. so those get broadcast out to all of our followers there. but we also have the website. And so a lot of actually all of the information in the leaderboards is also on our website in a much more complete manner.

And so you can find all that from localbitcoiners.com forward slash stats. And so on our stats page, we also list our streamers. And so I want to give a quick shout out to our streamers. And I think we have a new number one streamer. So it's not super hard to climb right to the top of the list here. So we have a new number one streamer of all time, which is logs. Logs, right? Not logs. I think I said it. It is logs. man.

rev (1:12:29)
Logs, Logues. It it is Logs. Yeah.

Reed (1:12:33)
Okay.

rev (1:12:34)
And so I did remember l well go g continue. We yep. Logs.

Reed (1:12:37)
Yeah, so

Lo Lo Logs streamed us ⁓ 7,106 sats via fountain. we also have I'll list ⁓ a handful here from the top few. So second place is We All Eat, and We All Eat s has streamed us five thousand seven hundred and twelve sats and has been doing that for a number of episodes. and Chad F, who always streams us from Castomatic, and he has streamed us five thousand five hundred thirty six sats.

but he is a frequent booster as well. And so we get a bunch of boosts from Chat F. others here ⁓ used to read a lot, Hot Wax Social Club, Julio, Eric PP, and a bunch of others. So thank thank you to our streamers. We want to make sure we give you some shout outs.

rev (1:13:22)
And Hot Wax so Hot Wax Social Club, I did I finally went and figured it out. Hot Wax Social Club is Logue's podcast. So if you wanna, you know, s send some value in Logue's way, go listen to his podcast, boost it, interact with it over there. Yeah.

Reed (1:13:30)
⁓ gotcha.

Another podcast.

Sweet. All right. So on to the final leaderboard. And so, so this final leaderboard, we read these off every single episode. And these are our top boosts of all time. So these are the single biggest boosts ever sent to the show. And because we reread the boosts for every single one of these, we've been referring to this almost as like our ad reads, right? Because we don't have ads.

You know, why would we ever do that? We want to promote either our stuff or the stuff that our actual listeners are listening to. ⁓ or in this case, we have actually one, two actually all of these people have been on the show. So there you go. So these are all our guests. So we're we're showing their stuff too. So number one is a brand new biggest boost of all time.

From Sovereign. And that's 100,000 sats were boosted on episode 14. Boy, it really makes me wish I had like the sound the soundboard, you know. That this deserves a sound effect for sure, but I don't I don't have one. so let me read Sovereign's message here. So this was via localbitcoiners.com. And here's the note. It says, Here's what I'm thinking.

Sovereign focuses on helping individuals, families, and companies integrate Bitcoin into their personal and professional lives with confidence, recognizing the crucial role it plays in the broader economic picture. If you want to dig deeper into self-custody, node running, or point of sale implementation, Sovereign has your back. Thanks to all the meetup organizers out there for keeping the grassroots Bitcoin ethos alive. Go to sovereign.io, spelled S-O-V-R-E-I-G-N, for support.

on your Bitcoin journey. And of course, that was boosted to Source Node's episode, and because Source Node works at Sovereign. And that would be permaculture for Bitcoin Culture with SourceNode. Greenville, South Carolina, episode 14. So there you go. So there's the story about how episode 14 rocketed to the top of the list. And also huge thank you to Sovereign. That covers multiple months of expenses for this podcast.

So you are helping this podcast continue to to go. you know, and you're giving back to to podcasts everywhere. So thank you very much.

rev (1:15:55)
So ⁓ one thing to also note about Sovereign, ⁓ Brandon Carpellis is also involved with Sovereign and he does a really great podcast that I I listen to. We've been on or I've been on that show ⁓ a while back now, but it's called it's it it was called the Bitcoin Business Podcast, but now it's be called it's it's they're changing the name to Becoming Sovereign. And that podcast is great because

If you like if a lot of our listeners are noster folks, right? We're we're all in this Noster thing doing this this cool noster vibe together. Brandon has on a lot of great people from the Noster culture there. And so you can you can listen and hear about people actually using Noster to earn Bitcoin. and you hear a lot of great stories. The the the Becoming Sovereign podcast is a great one to listen to. And and the the services that Sovereign offers.

⁓ they were originally trying to just get businesses to hold Bitcoin as a treasury and all this stuff, but now they're pivoting into just generally helping people that are are using Bitcoin ⁓ as as it is intended as peer-to-peer digital cash to harden their stack and actually accomplish earning Bitcoin. there if if there's any technical barrier there for you, sovereign are the people that will help you overcome those technical barriers and actually start.

maximizing the the SATS flow that you can get.

Reed (1:17:21)
And you know, this is so this is the biggest boost that we've ever gotten, by quite quite a substantial margin. and I have a feeling here that Sovereign is gonna get their money's worth because we're gonna be talking about them for quite a long time on this show. So thanks again to Sovereign. And yeah, we will we will be talking a lot more about you in the future. All right, that takes us to our number two.

And number two is one that we have talked about quite a bit before. And this was from Sir Spencer. 42,069 SATS via podcast guru. his message is thanks for having me on. Hope to continue to improve bowlafterbowl.com and continue to evolve alongside your local Bitcoiners.com site. Iron Sharpensiron, and I greatly value hearing what you guys are discovering on your value for value journey. Long live the value chain.

And of course, that was boosted to episode nine, growing slow, build strong communities, KC Bitcoiners. And so that was Sir Spencer's episode. but yeah, I mean, again, we're talking about podcasts, again, we're talking about Sir Spencer's episode. But also, go to bowlafterbold.com. You know, we're learning a lot from their site as well. ⁓ actually, one of the features I just implemented over the weekend, I kept pointing them to both to

Boost boost me bitch, but also to bowlafterbull dot com for example implementations. and I said that probably kind of funny because really what I meant was I told my agent to go check out their websites to find out how to do this stuff.

All right.

rev (1:18:51)
Yeah,

so bowl after bowl is if you're interested in this value for value ⁓ way of doing, no sponsorships, you know, operating in the value for value ⁓ mindset, that podcast is a shining example of that. they're they're implementing as many ideas and and cool things that you could think of to accomplish that. In addition to that, it's just a really fun podcast to to listen to and participate in.

Much like our podcast, if you interact with that podcast, they're gonna interact back with you. And it's a lot of fun.

Reed (1:19:23)
Absolutely. And they have so many different ways you can boost their show. Like we we like to brag that we've got our website. Dude, they have like thirty different ways that you can boost their show. It's pretty cool actually.

Alright, so on to number three. So number three is also a new boost that we haven't read off before. And so this would be for twenty two thousand two hundred twenty four sats also via localbitcoiners dot com. And this is from SourceNode. And SourceNode's message is short and sweet. Johnny's hot sauce is the bomb. And so this was boosted on episode twelve, leveraging social capital in Charlotte and Peru.

Charlotte, North Carolina, episode twelve. And so that was with Johnny. so his is Delgados Fuego. And so he didn't he didn't include it in the boost here, but you can find Johnny's hot sauce for sale at delgadosfuego.com. So go make sure you go check that out.

rev (1:20:20)
You can buy it with Bitcoin, obviously. BTZ Wrestle, have you ever tried Delgalos Fuego?

btcwrestle (1:20:26)
I have. I got the I got the hottest one and it's hot. and I I only bought one ⁓ one jar, but I ate the whole thing and it's good. I love hot sauce though. I'm I'm a big spice guy.

rev (1:20:39)
So do you you know Johnny then? You've you've met him?

btcwrestle (1:20:41)
Yep, I met ⁓ I met him a couple times. I play that ⁓ the frog game. ⁓ what's it called? Sapo. I try to throw the the ⁓ coin in the frog's mouth. It's freaking impossible. There I mean I don't know if I've ever seen anybody do it. But it's fun. I he does it at those the markets up there.

rev (1:20:59)
Yeah, so not only is Johnny's hot sauce fun, but he or not not only is Johnny's hot sauce hot, but he knows how to have fun too, right? Like the that's one of the greatest things I think that that whole area has going for it is that you guys know how to have fun over there. if you're in the area, you know, and you can get your way to any of these meetups, I'm sure you're gonna have a great time. ⁓ but yeah, Delgados Fuego, man, I my my ⁓ yeah, ⁓ they I bought it some hot sauce from him and and

it didn't last very long. I got all all three of the the levels of hot and I just, you know, used it for different, you know, whatever whatever dish I was needing to add the spice to, it it definitely hit the mark wherever I needed.

Reed (1:21:41)
So the guy I brought down so I I brought with me one of the guys from the meetup when we went down to grassroots this year. And ⁓ so he Johnny had his hot sauce and he tried he tried some of it and ⁓ he was immediately hooked. And he's just so he ordered from Johnny I s I'm gonna guess he ordered I don't even know, like twenty of these bottles 'cause he just wanted to do one massive order to get himself like a year supply.

⁓ yeah, that was like two months ago. He's already halfway through it. He's gone through way way more of it than he thought. He's like, Now I put it on everything. He's like, I don't know what else to do.

Alright, moving on to our fourth highest boost of all time. so this one should sound familiar. So this was from fifteen thousand sats via fountain. 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.

Well there you go. Yeah, and now we got ya on the show. So thanks for coming on. And of course, ⁓ I guess this was on sorry, this was on ⁓ episode eight. Right. So there you go. So well episode eight was making meetups fun and sustainable. What a transition.

rev (1:23:02)
So that was a long time ago at this point. BTC Wrestle's boost has been on there for several weeks, ⁓ a mu over a month. Is that

Reed (1:23:11)
Yeah, April

twenty third.

btcwrestle (1:23:12)
boosted anonymously like four or five times before that one, ⁓ through fountain. And so I don't get credit for any of those because they're anonymous, but I I think I linked my MPub in that one and I get credit for that one.

Reed (1:23:26)
Yeah, no, that was that I actually talked about it a few weeks ago. That was my bad. That was it was it was a problem with the you know, some sometimes it makes sense to filter out the the anonymous boosts because, you know, they all get aggregated to like if you're gonna add them all up, it doesn't make sense because they're coming from all different but in this particular leaderboard, we should have never filtered out the anons. And so as soon as I I took off the anon filter, I saw it on there and I took it off, and then bam.

Your boost was like number two and I like, my god, we've been skipping this boost for weeks. So yeah, you've been on here for a little while, but yes, at the beginning you were you were you were skipped unfortunately for the first few weeks.

btcwrestle (1:24:06)
Yeah.

Reed (1:24:06)
All right, and our final boost here is twelve thousand twenty sats, and that was from Bitcoin is for everyone, May twenty second, May twenty third, twenty twenty six. So ⁓ I think no sense in in reading off the discount code. I think that's that's gone past here at this point. However, you should check out Bitcoin is for everyone dot com and maybe they'll have some updates for us at some point, either a recap of the event. I'm not sure if they have anything posted on YouTube.

⁓ maybe we could get Bitcoin is for everyone to ⁓ boost us again and let us know how it went and maybe we could find out more.

rev (1:24:44)
Yeah, I mean, even if you didn't make it this year, I'm sh I'm pretty sure that they're probably gonna do another one. And so it's definitely ⁓ if you're on the West Coast, it it kind of is the conference for the West Coast at this point. And so it's definitely something to to, you know, pay attention to, be aware of. It's gonna come up. I'm not sure if they're gonna do it at the same time next year or what, but I'm I'm

pretty positive they'll be doing another one. So Bitcoin is for everyone. It's good conference to check out on the West Coast. They've got what six six meetups over there in Portland anyways. So if you're in the area, you will find a meetup to go to. You you have no excuse at this point. They're they're pretty much any day, any week of the month, you can find a way to get over to a meetup over there. So

Reed (1:25:18)
That's right.

All right, well that takes care of our leaderboards. So again, thank you so much to all of our supporters. You guys are what keep this show going strong. And yeah, we hope you're liking some of the gamification aspects of of what we're trying to put out there.

rev (1:25:46)
Yeah, I guess the last final thing to note on that on that last leaderboard is that you can boost anonymously and get on there and promote something, right? If if you're if you got something that you want an event coming up but you don't want to say it's you or you wanna, you know, shout your support, like tell people to go support Bill and Keone, and and drive some some attention in that way, but you don't wanna put your put your name out there.

You can do that and and we will get the word out. So I'm gonna get into the boost now. And so the first boost is from from me. ⁓ I'm just trying to showcase here some of the the cool features that we have when you do use our website or or otherwise. if you if you add the ⁓ your your if you if you were making your meetups on Noster.

Reed (1:26:15)
Good.

rev (1:26:32)
And you you add that event string into your boost, it will show up on our website and it will ⁓ go out to our NPUB and it will kind of broadcast that signal. as I talked about at the very beginning, this woman had a hard time finding the meetup to begin with. And so we're trying to to create some solution to this problem, you know. but so I I boosted the South Bend Indiana Meetup meets first Thursday of every month at Lang Lab at 6:30 PM

And I've got a link to more information. the note that you can find all the exact details about the South Bend Indiana meetup. Next, we've got a boost from for 500 sats via fountain from code with no comment. And that boost was on permaculture for bitcoin culture with source node, episode 14. And I think code has boosted in the past, and so we appreciate the continued support there, code. ⁓ feel free to add a message. You know, you say something, we'll we'll we'll let you know.

The next boost, which we've already covered, is the 100,000 sat boost via local bitcoiners.com from Sovereign. And so this is actually SourceNode did boost it from the Sovereign NPUB. So you can go on Noster. you can go on our NPUb and and find this boost and and follow Sovereign and and keep up to date with with what they're doing. but I I won't reread that. We've already heard about everything that Sovereign's got going on. It's a cool place. Good to get going if you want to.

get more earn earn some Bitcoin in your business. Next we've got

Reed (1:27:57)
You know, we ha

actually can can I pause you right there for one second? So you know, we haven't really talked about and we didn't even really talk about it too much with with source nodes. So are there opportunities like if like let's say you're a Bitcoin meetup organizer, right? Like many of our listeners might be, i are there opportunities to like I'm not exactly sure. I I guess I'm gonna a as the show continues here, maybe we're gonna have to brainstorm about like what what are some ways that Sovereign could either help out

rev (1:28:00)
Sure.

Reed (1:28:25)
Bitcoin meetups or, you know, ha maybe they have some products that could help out like our attendees or even the organizers themselves. ⁓ have you dug into any of their products or anything yet?

rev (1:28:37)
Well, so if you go to their website, they do have some free material on there. it's a it's a PDF you can download that I think has some some information, just kind of the the if you want to kind of try and do it yourself, they've got a little bit of a walkthrough there. And you can try and then if you if you get if you run into trouble trying, then that's when you can reach out to and and and help the they'll help you actually keep moving forward for wherever you're getting hung up.

⁓ and so yeah, just go check out the sovereign website. They they do have resources on there for you to get some ideas about how you can utilize their services more effectively.

Next up, we got 121 sats via fountain from Noster Gang. Noster Gang says, Thank you. Orange Heart, Purple Heart. So she Noster Gang likes ⁓ Bitcoin and Noster, so do I. And Noster Gang actually popped in. So Noster Gang's been hanging out in some of the Meshadel chats. And we did a Meshadel call yesterday, and Noster Gang came in there and and said hey, and and that was cool. I I really appreciate you coming in and participating in that, Noster Gang. and I do appreciate

you boosting all these episodes, you're I I think we didn't get to any of the the like fringe shout outs on the leaderboards, but you're right there, getting into the top three, boosting every episode seems so keep it up. I do appreciate it. You're supporting Bitcoin meetups everywhere by boosting the show week after week.

And next up, we got 500 sats via fountain from Battersea Bitcoiners. Battersea Bitcoiners says, great episode as always. Bitcoin Bitcoiners really do have friends everywhere. The organizer of Savannah, Georgia, that came up in this episode. the Bitcoin meetup organizer of Savannah or or Georgia reached out to me when he was in London and we met up. It was amazing. Hope he's listening. And so there you go. Even across the pond.

Over there in London, you can you can go anywhere. And this kind of came up in the SourceNode episode where you can you can go ⁓ somewhere across the world and if you're connected into this Bitcoin meetup ⁓ grapevine, now you've got access to Bitcoiners locally wherever you go. And that was on ⁓ permaculture for Bitcoin Culture with SourceNode episode 14. Battersea Bitcoiners has been boosting ⁓ pretty much every episode. I think on the last episode they were questioning

you know, hey, I I think I've been boosting a lot. why am I not on this leaderboard? And so if now when you go on the website, I think you can kinda see how close you are to to getting there, to to getting on the leaderboard.

Reed (1:31:11)
Yeah, shows at least it

it shows the top ten and Battersea Bitcoiners is up there now. So Battersea Bitcoiners has boosted five episodes and so that puts them in seventh place on the website.

rev (1:31:25)
And once again, ties are obviously because we only have a limited amount of episodes, ties are relevant here. So, you know, you you just keep boosting and eventually you get on there. next, we have a string of boosts from Perma Nerd. And so this is how Perma Nerd got on the leaderboard. And first up, we got a thousand sats via fountain from Perma Nerd. he says, great discussion.

Someday I aspire to be as smart and well spoken as these three. Although I have ridden a motorbike in Thailand quite a bit. This show must is a must-listen if you want to get smarter. And that was on Permaculture for Bitcoin Culture with Source Node. And so he's referencing Source Node's stories there on his ride to passage with Captain Sid and how ⁓ amazing of an experience that was. And I'll just kind of

Quickly go through all these other boosts that Perma Nerd has has graciously sprinkled out here across all the other episodes. So and and these are all from now. So actually this next episode, Perma Nerd went on to our website. So 209 sats from some loc from localbitcoiners dot com, boosting every episode. And so that he started with episode one. Then he did two hundred and fifteen sats from local big bitcoiners dot com and he said

every episode. Then he br boosted episode two, Ultimate Web of Trust, Jersey City. And the next one, he did 212 sats. You can't stop me. Meetups and podcasts are the signal from ⁓ Ottawa. And so this is the this w so Boomer this episode three I think is like maybe one of the most underrated episodes that we've done. And and Boomer has a really cool podcast with

Reed (1:32:56)
This is awesome, Permanid. That's great.

rev (1:33:09)
business cat called the 49th parallel. You should go check that out. And and go back and listen to episode three. ⁓ because Boomer has got a lot of cool stuff going on. That dude is super dedicated to Bitcoin. And if you're in Canada, you should know that guy. next we've got 209 sats via localbitcoiners.com from yet again from Prima Nerd. Still going. Cypherpunks write code, ⁓ AI meetups and the Meshido, episode four.

Next 212 sats via localbitcoiners.com. Permanerd, I'm on fire. The beat the the meetup is the farmers market, Kansas City, Missouri, episode five. Three hundred and thirty-nine sats via localbitcoiners.com. Permanerd, I am man. Grassroots recap, Philly suburbs and Bitcoin Park Nashville.

330 sats via localbitcoiners dot com from permanent yet again. Hear me roar. How meetups can benefit value for value, noster and value chains. 215 sats via localbitcoiners.com. Again, meetups making meetups fun and sustainable, Bitcoin Bay. Three hundred and twelve sats via localbitcoiners dot com. And this is anonymous, but I'm assuming it was well no, actually maybe this is

This is somebody else that that snuck in there between Permanerd's boost ⁓ boost sprint here. So 312 sats via localbitcoiners.com, anonymous, and they just say yo. And that's growing slow, build strong communities. KC Bitcoiners episode nine with Sir Spencer. And so thank you for the anonymous boosts and yo, right back at you. Next we've got 212 sats via localbitcoiners.com. And this is anonymous, not even tired yet. So actually, maybe that was.

Reed (1:34:24)
yeah.

rev (1:34:45)
Maybe it was Permanerd and somehow his N pub got disconnected or something. ⁓ 'cause he was a couple shy of being had a perfect score. Yeah. So all right, Permanerd. Somehow something happened in there, I think. ⁓ but he says not even tired yet.

Reed (1:34:48)
Yeah. Yeah, I'm wondering that same thing. 'Cause that was he was a couple shy. Yeah. And I

Yeah, maybe this is some

maybe this is some live it could be some bug testing on our end. I'll have to ⁓ dig in and see if we can figure out what ⁓ why his n pub isn't linked. 'Cause it sure does look like those two are from him.

rev (1:35:15)
Yeah, yeah, it makes sense, right? It's all right in order. Nine, ten. And then so now he's back with his NPUB linked. Permanent 212 sats, localbitcoiners.com. Let's go, boys. Attendee to organizer to conference host, Portland, Oregon, episode eleven. and then so he boosted episode eleven again, two hundred and twelve sats. Did I boost this one already? Well, let's do it again if I did. Well, thanks for the double boost there, permanent.

Reed (1:35:17)
Yeah. Yeah. We'll we'll we'll check we'll check on your stats. Yep.

rev (1:35:42)
Next 212 sats via localbitcoiners.com. Up to twelve. Leveraging social capital in Charlotte and Peru. ⁓ Charlotte, North Carolina. Episode 12. 209 sats via localbitcoiners.com. Permanerd. Almost there. Big upside, small risk. The value of Bitcoin meetups, episode 13. 212 sats via localbitcoiners.com. Permanerd.

Waiting for the next episode to boost. Permaculture for Bitcoin Culture with Source Node, Greenville, South Carolina, episode 14. So you boosted that one twice, permanent. Thank you very much. And two neck again, here we go. 209 sats via localbitcoiners.com. One more generic one for good measure. And he just boosted, I think, generically ⁓ on the website, boost button, no episode, but just boosting the show in general.

Reed (1:36:30)
Yep.

rev (1:36:30)
And so that's that's the end of Permanerd's boost sprint there. Very impressive, Perma Nerd. I hope you're not exhausted. You might need some recovery after all of that boosting.

Reed (1:36:31)
Yeah man, I'm in a That was great.

Yeah, plus that's honestly like lot you know, you clicked on every boost button on the whole website, I think. And so that's fantastic testing for us and I super appreciate it. And maybe you uncovered a couple a couple problems we might be having, so I will follow up on that.

rev (1:36:49)
Yeah.

We might need to go back and look at those

two that went in anonymously and I wonder if the if someone el we'll have to test it and try it and see if they boost anonymously when we do it or something. And there's an issue there.

Reed (1:36:57)
Yeah. Maybe. Yeah.

rev (1:37:02)
So definitely go check out the Yada podcast. Perma Nerd and Oshi are doing a lot of cool stuff over there. We're we're building it's it's kind of cool. We're building a friendship through boosting each other's shows and interacting with each other. And we're we're all playing around in nos dir together and and really doing value for value. And so it's a lot of fun. Thanks a lot, Perma Nerd. Sats for snacks.

Reed (1:37:22)
You know, and they've been to actually I I

I I noticed too, I ⁓ I think it was their most recent episode I was listening to. they've been talking a lot more about meetups recently. ⁓ I think that they both have meet ups that they attend locally. And at least Oshi was talking about one on on his most recent episode. So always love to hear about about other people's meetups on on other podcasts. Hopefully we're changing the ⁓ changing some narratives here.

rev (1:37:48)
Yeah, they talk about permaculture over there. They talk about value for value. They talk about earning Bitcoin and and how what it's like to to offer products up for Bitcoin, selling it over Noster. ⁓ very much aligned with what we're doing here. ⁓ and it's cool how these worlds really overlap. This is this is a whole culture we're b we're building, guys. You know, this is ⁓ this is the glue that ties aga ties us together from Canada to the Carolinas. I th I mean Osh Oshi is I think close enough. He's he's talked about going to Charlotte. Do you Oshi?

Reed (1:37:51)
That too.

Definitely.

rev (1:38:17)
BTC Russell.

btcwrestle (1:38:18)
I don't.

rev (1:38:19)
Well maybe you should ⁓ Oshi, if you if you're listening, go go to the Columbia meetup and bring some hottle butter and see if you can ⁓ get some sales over there. You know, meet those guys.

Okay, next up we got a hundred sats from Boost Me Bitch from Chad F and 33 others testing Spark. And so I actually Boost Me Bitch is Chad F's site where it's really cool. You can go on there, search up a podcast, get a bunch of information, a lot more if you're into the technical stuff, you can see all that stuff on there. ⁓ you know, it whether the the

The lightning addresses are key send or LN URL, cool stuff like that. You you get all the show notes, all the information, very much like in the the universe of the the podcast two point sphere there. And I've been trying I've been having an issue with fountain, right? In order to boost from the local Bitcoiners NPUB.

I'd have to log out a fountain from my N Pub, log into that. It's just like it's just too much of a pain in the ass. So I've been trying to figure out a way to boost a bunch of these other podcasts that we like from the local Bitcoiners N Pub and and get some of that those sats flowing out of our ⁓ out of our shared primal wallet back out to some of the s people that are supporting us and and and s and boost the signal for these shows that that we're talking about all the time.

And so I was kinda a lot I was having some failed payments on Boost Me Bitch and I I was kind of messaging Chad F about that. And so I guess he's he's now trying to do some tests to see what the issue is there with the failed payments because ultimately the primal wallet is a spark wallet. So he's testing Spark there. There is a a way for you to connect a Spark wallet or or to generate a Spark wallet right there on Boost Me Bitch. So if you don't even have a Bitcoin wallet, you can go to Boost Me Bitch and load it build up

Spin up a wallet and and put some sats in there and start boosting podcasts ⁓ pretty frictionlessly there. And attach your NPUb, very much like our site, bowl bowl after bowl, boost me bitch, localbitcoiners.com. We're all kind of trying to embrace this ⁓ noster identity and and link the ⁓ the boosting mechanism in through that. Next we got a

Reed (1:40:28)
And just in general,

lower and just in general, just lowering the the friction, right? Like it should be easy. Like bo boosting episodes should be, you know, ex as easy as we can possibly make it. So having more options available, you know, letting people you know, link their NPUB if that's what they want to do. ⁓ you know, you can link your you know, like on our website and on Boost Me Bitch, like you can use your Noster Signer extension from the browser. You can pay invoices with that too.

So it's all it's just trying to lower the friction to to making these boosts.

rev (1:41:02)
And before that, it was like Fountain was kind of the only game in town. If you wanted to to use Noster and interact with Podcast Two Po, now there's other choices. You don't have to just use Fountain. You can use Boost Mean Bitch. You can well for our podcast specifically, you can use localbitcoiners dot com.

Reed (1:41:09)
That's right.

rev (1:41:19)
So thank you, Chad F for ⁓ for for playing with us and and really working through all this stuff. I will continue to give you feedback on Boost Me Bitch and and keep working at trying to get these other shows some support from local Bitcoiners and pub as well. Next we got 324 sats via fountain.com, via fountain from Shadrach. And Shadrach says great episode. Portland conference in 2024 was my favorite that year, Orange Heart emoji.

And that's ⁓ attendee to organizer, conference host, Portland, Oregon, episode 11. So Shadrach has been to Bitcoin is for everyone, and he can vouch for the quality of that conference. so thanks for that that feedback, Shadrach. Love what you're doing. Really appreciate all the continued support.

Next, we got 5,000 SATS via localbitcoiners.com from the one and only, the number one, Matthew D. Thank you, Matthew D. Environmentalism is knowing that fiat money is killing the planet. Fiat and I'll stop right there and just say, you know, fiat money is the most extractive system you can participate in. And if you want to ⁓ ethically align with the values of permaculture,

You should be making efforts to minimize your interactions with fiat. So environmentalism is knowing that fiat money is killing the planet. Whether it's exploit exploitation of the soil resource via factory farming or coercing global south into endless debt traps to finance unsustainable practices, we choose proof-of-work mining over proof of war. Every Bitcoin transaction heals the earth and moves us closer towards peace. And I couldn't agree with that more, Matthew D.

And you know, I'm just so grateful that you're you're here as a local Bitcoiner in Michigan and that we we share these values and that we are really doing what we can to make make the world that we want to see, you know, build the build the parallel system that we want to participate in that is not extractive, that doesn't allow fiat to fuck with us and heal the damage that's been done. And by healing it, we actually end up with a better.

better food and everything ⁓ everything's gonna be much better if we do this. And Bitcoin is the mechanism which will allow us to accomplish this. Permaculture never had anything going for it before Bitcoin. And so I think the the permaculture folks that don't know about Bitcoin really need to get involved because this is the way we're gonna accomplish achieving that goal.

Reed (1:43:48)
Yeah, and those that that boost is it's just extremely well said and it's it's a message that probably every Bitcoin meetup no organizer, if they don't know it already, and if they're not saying it at all of their Bitcoin meetups, or at least when they get challenged by people, you know, this is it's it's the the incentives are all messed up. Like it's it's only causing problems throughout the entire world. And

you know, hearing about just from the environmentalism side and some of the, you know, how I'm sure this is because we were talking a lot about permaculture in that episode, but there are just so many things that get screwed up because of fiat money. And we are done with that. And we're opting out. We have something better now.

rev (1:44:33)
Do you have anything

to add to that, BTC BTC Wrestle? Okay. Next up we got three hundred and twenty four sats via fountain from Shadrach. Great rip, gents. Love the energy and bless the message. 40 HPW. and that's leveraging social capital in Charlotte in Peru, Charlotte, North Carolina, episode twelve with Johnny Delgalos Fuego.

Next, we got 100 sats via localbitcoiners.com, anonymous. Bear markets are for building meetups. Big, big upsides, small risks, and the value of Bitcoin meetups. Episode 13. I agree. Now is the time to get any time is a good time, but in a bear market, as we talked about on this episode.

Nobody is bearish at the Bitcoin meetups. You want to go to a if if you show up to the Bitcoin meetup and you're looking at everyone crying in their bowl of cereal, no, that's not happening, dude. We're we're all building stuff. We love it, dude. We're we're here for Bitcoin, whether the price is up, whether the price is down. Sure, it feels a lot better when the price is up, but no one's complaining about it. We're just using it as an opportunity to get some shit done. Bear markets are for building building meetups. Build your meetup in the bear market.

Reed (1:45:16)
That's right.

Hell yeah.

rev (1:45:42)
Next, we got 221 sats via fountain from our our good friend Bullish Clips. Bullish. the June hashtag bullish market is coming up on Sunday, the 21st. The 21st of every month is the bullish market. Mobile support has been added recently to make it more convenient for shoppers to pop in and hang out. And

If you've got something to sell, there's still time to reserve a booth. The more vendors, the merrier. Save the date and bookmark. Bullishmarket.onrenderer.com. And that was on Permaculture for Bitcoin Culture with source node, Greenville, South, South Carolina, episode 14. Are you gonna are you gonna try and be in the bullish market this month?

Reed (1:46:21)
Yeah, so bullish

I will. I d I d I don't know, ⁓ I forget what time he does it on weekends, but I'm pretty sure I think it falls on a Sunday and I I'm pretty sure I'm available. Like I don't have a lot going on on S I think he does in the mornings.

rev (1:46:38)
Yeah, Sunday the weekends he said was was mornings and then if it falls on a weekday it's in the evenings, which makes a lot of sense.

Reed (1:46:43)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I do like that it's I mean, I we talked about it on other episodes, but I actually kinda like that it's on the twenty first. It's super easy to remember when it's coming up. I don't know. ⁓

rev (1:46:55)
Well, and like you said,

some if it's always on a weekend and you're always doing stuff on the weekend and you can never get to the bullish market, now you've got sometimes it's gonna be on a weekday, you can you can check it out in the evening, after dinner or whatever, and then, you know, on the weekends if you're if you're just hanging out and you got nothing to do, you can check out the bullish market. So

Reed (1:47:00)
Yeah, that's true too.

rev (1:47:14)
I am very close to getting this this allergy medicine tea together, which is gonna be kind of my first really consistent product that I'll have on offer on NoSter. I just I I I've been working with ⁓ Bitcoin account here, the the co-organizer of the South Bend Indiana meetup, and he's got this freeze dryer. So we we picked together a bunch of this purple dead nettle.

And ⁓ I harvested a bunch of mullen and he's freeze-dried that and I've been testing the ⁓ the right ratio of the mixture between the purple dead metal and the mullen. Basically, the purple dead metal tastes like spinach water. if you make it purely as a tea and it's not very pleasant to drink, it does an amazing job at curing ⁓ your allergy symptoms. And so I'm adding the mullen in there to add a little bit r robustness to the flavor.

And get that balance right. And as soon as I got that all figured out, I will be certainly at the bullish market with that LRGT as my first offering.

Reed (1:48:08)
Hell yeah, good to hear.

rev (1:48:09)
And

finally, we have 133 sats via fountain from Wartime. Wartime is a also a local Bitcoiner here in Michigan. ⁓ always have a great time hanging out with Wartime. And that Wartime says, I had to laugh when I heard the first thing I did was make a multi-sig wallet and like a hand over face kind of giggling emoji.

⁓ and that was on evolution and development of a of a meetup niagara canada episode 10 and so this is another episode with with sean summers that is i think a little underrated you know the the Canadians are dude the Canadian Bitcoiners I was listening to a podcast today ⁓ I can't remember which one because I the 40 hours per week they all kind of blend together. I've listened to fucking podcasts over and over again all kind all day long. But

⁓ the Canadian Bitcoiners, you know, even if you do touch the exchange, in in the US, we do not have this like buy Bitcoin and it goes right to your wallet. You know, there's no there's it's non custodial because yeah, like ⁓ bull bitcoin. And then I think it was Bitcoin Well, I I think was the other one that yes, and so and and I think ⁓ Sean mentioned Bitcoin well in there. And so the Canadians they do have some shit going on.

Reed (1:49:10)
Like the auto withdraw stuff, right? Yeah. Bull Bitcoin.

Bitcoin Wild does it too. Yeah.

rev (1:49:26)
If you go back and listen to the episode with Boomer, ⁓ which was what episode three or what what fuck what one was it? Episode four, I episode three, yeah. Episode three with Boomer and episode ten. If you're Canadian, check that out. You you can hear about what's going on in Canada and the Bitcoin meetups there. And so that rounds out the boosts, guys. Talk about ⁓ letting this ⁓ value chain concept react. All of these boosts go out to our ⁓ our NPUb on on Noster, the local Bitcoiners account.

Reed (1:49:32)
Yeah, episode three was with Boomer. Yeah.

rev (1:49:55)
I'm I'm continuously trying to interact with people there. if you say good morning, I'm gonna be zapping you 21 sats, you know. we're we're I'm I'm trying to find any any meetup, like if you're not not boosting the show with your meetup, if you post it and and it ends up in on my feed there, I'm gonna renote that. You know, I'm just trying to spread the signal on Noster as much as possible through through local Bitcoiners, NPUB. and so yeah, we let's just just increase the velocity here. The the higher the velocity, the

The more capital we can generate, the stronger the culture is gonna get, and the better off we're all gonna be ⁓ building this parallel system and being able to get the most out of our Bitcoin.

Reed (1:50:32)
Yeah, and the other thing, you know, you're you know, I I realize that we've already said this, but it's when you boost the show, you're you know, you're helping us out, right? You're helping us cover our costs. but you're also boosting like whatever episode you boost, it you know, the the the guest gets a split. And so you're you're helping out meetups everywhere, really, when you support the show because that's gonna allow us to have more people on and continue this thing rolling. and then, you know, you're

boosting whichever episode you boost, you know, you're you're contributing directly to that meetup organizer. So I think we're the only podcast in existence that ⁓ interviews exclusively Bitcoin meetup organizers. And so if you are a Bitcoin meetup organizer, we hope that you enjoy the show. And you know, anything that if you send us stats, you know, we're gonna make sure that we do everything we can to make sure people know about your meetup, where to find you. Rev and I have been talking about some more tools

to try to make it even easier to add your meetup to our website. You know, I know that there are some other tools out there that help aggregate Bitcoin meetups, but we're going to try to make our own little community here. And so hopefully we'll have some tools rolling out that'll help it make make it even easier to get your meetup added to our page. And we'll be talking about it if you do that.

All right, well we got BTC Russell, he's been hanging out, he's sitting here on mute, and so I don't know if you've got anything to add here, but thanks again for for coming on and for hanging out. And ⁓ you got anything else there? are you coming off?

btcwrestle (1:52:03)
Yeah, I guess ⁓ thanks for having me on. I thought I had a lot longer to think about my final thoughts. ⁓ but just on the on the boost, ⁓ my boost from whatever episode that was. ⁓ anybody out there who's thinking about starting a meetup or wondering about it, you definitely should do it. you get a lot of value out of it, meeting up with ⁓ other Bitcoiners and yeah, just take the leap. It's it's ⁓

It's kind of a little intimidating at first, but it but it's definitely worth it.

rev (1:52:32)
Yeah, shill your meetup one last time. Let everyone know ⁓ where they can go to find you and ⁓ how to how to get involved over there.

btcwrestle (1:52:39)
Yeah, so ⁓ Columbia, South Carolina Bitcoin Meetup. We usually do it third or fourth Saturday of the month at Savage Craft Brewery and or Savage Craft Aleworks in West Columbia. And ⁓ we post our our meetup on Luma and our website is ColumbiaBitcoin dot com. And we got an awesome website, check it out. and

We got a privacy workshop tomorrow. We've done a couple other workshops. You can see all the the ⁓ content from the presentations on our on our website.

rev (1:53:09)
So yeah, if you didn't make it 'cause they're the people listening, this episode will probably get out tomorrow sometime. so they're probably not coming to that if they're hearing it right then. But it sounds like that information, if you missed the the privacy workshop, will be on the website and you can you can dig in there.

Reed (1:53:25)
Awesome. All right guys. I think we're ready to close it out.

rev (1:53:29)
Roll the outro.