Cypherpunks Write Code: AI, Meetups & the Meshtadel | Ep. 004

Welcome to LocalBitCliners, podcast about Bitcoin units in this episode, Read and Rev.

Talk about their meetups, AI, and the mesh detail.

Welcome back to LocalBitCliners, RevHotel here with my co-host Reed and we don't have

a guest tonight, so we're just going to talk Bitcoin meetups and see where we go.

But we like to start the beginning of the podcast off, kind of going over some stories

from the meetups that we've attended recently or talk about our most recent meetup or

show the upcoming meetup.

And so since the last recording, I have been to several meetups, but the coolest one in

the most recent one that I was at was in Grand Rapids.

The Grand Rapids meetup has switched from their founder's location for their social meetup

to this brewery.

I believe it's called Two Guys Brewery and it's a pretty cool place.

There was good food, pretty good turnout, and I finally had something other than a

Bitcoin mining space heater to show up with to share with the group and that was my Bitcoin

assisted maple syrup.

I use a Bitcoin miners to help me make this maple syrup.

I produce here at the homestead and so I had that with me.

I did have a miner with me as well and sold the miners sold some of the syrup and I was

also able to buy some cookies and cupcakes and stuff.

There's a woman there selling some baked goods, which was cool.

And it's really fun when you go to these social meetups at the bar or whatever and people

are kind of busting out stuff out of their bag and there's this exchange is happening.

You don't necessarily draw a lot of attention from other people in the place, but it just

feels cool.

Like, hey, we're in this place and we're taking it over and we're doing our own thing here.

And so a lot of the discussion in that meetup was around AI.

I think AI has really taken a big prominent part of the discussion in the Bitcoin culture

and community lately with open claw and these advancements with clawed and vibe coding

and everything.

So we just couldn't help ourselves, but spend a lot of the time talking about that.

But tomorrow I am going to be going to the Chicago bit devs meetup and I'm sure that we

will not talk about AI nearly as much because that's focused more on the technical developments

of Bitcoin core and everything like that.

How was your meetup experiences since we've last talked?

Yeah, so I've been to know meetups since we last talked, which I think was just about

a couple weeks ago.

I love hearing, you know, it's incredible that you have so many meetups that are taking

place so close to you.

Yeah, I don't know.

I like hearing the stories and I'm always so impressed with these communities of people

that come together and actually have goods to bring and share and sell.

And using Bitcoin as money is like the thing.

I feel like that's like, you know, if you're going to go around promoting Bitcoin as something,

we should be promoting it as money.

And I mean, that's what you're supposed to use money for.

So I don't know, I love to hear it.

And I think we've gotten some other pretty good feedback here and about your halls you

always walk away with from all these meetups.

So yeah, so I haven't been to a meetup since, but our meetups come up this weekend.

So Western Mass, this is our, we meet in at our normal spot at Peppa's Pizza in East

Long Meadow.

It'll be Sunday, March 15th.

And we, I'm still getting prepared for it a little bit, but I did, I picked our two.

I usually cover one technical topic and one Bitcoin history topic.

Those two things got a little bit blended this time because at our last meetup, it wasn't

something I really was super looking forward to talk about.

But last meetup, we talked a lot about BIP 110.

That was like, on everybody's mind, and I got a bunch of people asking questions about

it beforehand.

So we talked about BIP 110.

So this, this month, we're doing a history of taproot.

And there was a couple of points I want to make there, like the reason why I wanted to

cover a history of taproot, especially in the wake of, of talking about BIP 110.

Like, I sort of want, like a lot of the people there, you know, they weren't around when

taproot, or don't remember, or weren't plugged in, or weren't paying close enough attention

when taproot got activated.

But it was, it was two years between when it got a BIP number and when it got activated.

And that was for like, it was like the least controversial, like, software for Bitcoin.

In fact, it had 99.7% of miners signaling, 99.7%.

So this talk of like, oh, we need 55% might, like, this is nothing compared to how overwhelmingly

supported taproot was.

And you know, when before it got activated or leading up to its activation, some of the

points that I remember, we were promised things like more private and more efficient lightning

channel opens.

We were promised more private and more economical, multi-sig transactions.

Those are things that I think are starting to come around now.

But this is years and years and years after the fact.

And so what did we actually get?

Like we got a whole bunch of slop, like added to the blockchain.

And so the whole point, the underlying point I want to make with the covering taproot

is just, can we just be humble?

Like can we all just admit that we don't actually know what's going to happen?

Like after we decide altogether to change Bitcoin, even we're all positive, it's all

going to be rainbows and sunshine and all this great stuff.

Like, can we just like take a step back and realize we don't actually know what's going

to happen?

And it just takes a while for all that to work itself out.

So I don't know, I'm looking forward to it.

I think it's going to be a good discussion.

I think a lot of people in my meetup at least aren't going to know a lot of those things.

So then there'll be some other stuff we cover too, some new stuff that I haven't actually

prepped for yet.

But I think it's going to be a good, I think it's going to be a good meetup.

I'm looking forward to it.

Yeah, with the taproot stuff, man, I feel like it just takes time for people to write

the code and maybe, well, and this vibe coding stuff, it's not safe to, I wouldn't consider

it safe to be using for this sensitive stuff like money and long, Bitcoin transactions

and lightning splicing and all that stuff.

But I mean, Async did get that channel splicing integrated, and that's been a lot better.

It's upgraded my experience using Phoenix, and I think that the, I, you know, I'm not

an expert, but I think that the frost, multi-sig stuff was enabled by taproot and the mini-script

stuff as well, right?

I'm not sure, because taproot has tap script, and I'm not a technical enough guy to know

if the differences between tap script and mini-script, I think mini-script might have

been around, but I'm not positive about that.

I guess the point is, regardless of exactly what has been taken advantage of the taproot

software, it takes some time for people to develop the tool.

And then it also takes time for people to find it and start using it and for it to gain,

you know, traction.

And so it's very easy for all of that work to get overshadowed when somebody, well,

Casey Rodamore had this, this ordinal's idea, and it was very quickly, there was a lot

of excitement around it, and so people started using it a lot, and it overshadowed all this

other stuff that taproot enabled, and makes it seem like taproot was a bad idea, but

I think if we're patient, we're going to find that all of the fruits of taproot will

be continuously, what it has to offer is going to continuously show up.

There's a lot more that it can do that we haven't even explored yet.

Yeah, no, I totally agree.

Yeah, and I'm not trying to be a taproot bear here.

I'm mostly just trying to point out that for a software that had such an overwhelming

support, like the biggest debate during taproot was like the activation method, and it

was like, you know, how bold can we be?

Like no one disagrees with this, so, you know, what type of activation method can we actually

go with here?

And so, you know, we touch on that a little bit, but you know, the point is, is that anytime

you make a change to Bitcoin, like everything changes coming out the other side, like that's

one of the big things about Bitcoin that is such an improvement over like this fiat

system that we're in today is that the fiat system, they just change the rules all the

time, you know, as soon as something starts going against the, you know, let's call them

the elite or the powerful or whatever, they change the rules, you know, and so anytime

you can just change the rules, willy-nilly, you know, the whole economy has to shift

after the rule change, like everything about the way that money works has to change after

the money changes.

And so with Bitcoin, it's always been like, don't change the money, just leave it alone.

And I'm, please don't take it like I'm saying, we shouldn't, you know, maintain Bitcoin,

obviously, it should be maintained, and there are changes that are going to need to

be made, but I'm just saying like the underlying properties, I think we should be as conservative

as we can with how this thing goes.

And so yeah, so I guess that's the, those are some of the key takeaways that I'm going

for at this meetup.

We'll see.

I mean, it's a secretic seminar, so, you know, we'll be, I'm sure we'll be fielding

a lot of questions.

We had some really good interaction and debate at the last meetup, and I'm hoping that

continues into this one, so, and actually, you know what, so the other, I, that's our

Bitcoin history topic.

We're also going to talk about Spark a little bit, which I don't know, I am sort of getting

a little bit more excited for now.

I remember when it got sort of like announced a little bit, like, oh, hey, this is going

to become a thing, but it's always different when you start to see it get implemented,

you know, and it kind of hit my radar again when, you know, it got integrated into Cake

Wallet recently, and so, you know, got to listen to Seth for privacy, talking about

that a little bit.

I actually didn't even realize that it was already in Wallet, so she, that's pretty

cool.

And then I saw the Daniel on, on, on Nostar, he vibe coded or something, he came up

with a really quick lightning wallet, like PWA, that you can just spin up almost

instantly, and it gets you a wallet that you can use for whatever temporary or whatever,

and that uses Spark.

So I don't know, it seems like it could be, could be kind of interesting.

I actually haven't dug into it too much yet, but interested to learn.

Yeah, the more, the more options we have for how we can use our Bitcoin, the better, you

know, it's what's, you know, trade everywhere, trade off, trade off, trade off, but if

there's the more choices you have and the more trade-offs you can make to tailor your

usage of Bitcoin to exactly what you need, the better off you're going to be.

It's, it's really just about taking, taking thoughtful and slow steps towards integrating

new things into your stack.

I'm not very quick to, like, this mini-bits e-cash wallet that I've been using for Nostar.

I started off, man.

I would use, like, I would have, like, five K-sats in there, and I'm like, this is all

it.

They rug me.

They're only going to get my five K-sats, and I'll get to play around with this, and

that was, at the time, I was really looking for a Nostar wallet connect wallet, and that

seemed to be one of the easier ones to use.

And it's been good, but then I'm glad I didn't, like, lean into it so hard, because here

comes Zeus a few, like, a month or two ago, with their Nostar wallet connecting.

And I'm like, well, now I finally have a good reason to start to play with Zeus, so I can

get off Phoenix, and then Zeus wallet can be a wallet that I use for my transactions

at the meetups, and I can use it for my Nostar stuff.

And so I'm excited to just try Zeus, but I'm obviously not, like, when I start to switch

over to Zeus, I'm certainly not going to just

immediately close my nice, fat, Phoenix wallet channel.

I want to keep that available as well.

And so as time goes on, even existing wallets, they get better and better.

I mean, that cake adding, adding lightning, I mean, it's crazy to me that cake hasn't

had lightning all this time.

And so it's a, I mean, a successful process, you know, these, yeah, feeling like

Bitcoin wallets, it's, it's, it all gets so personal in my opinion, because everybody

uses Bitcoin differently, you know, like if you're a merchant, and so you're, let's

say you're receiving a lot of sets, well, it's hard to use lightning when you're receiving

a lot, like if you're receiving more Bitcoin than you're spending, because, you know, you

got to keep opening up more liquidity, you know, or dumping like the sets somewhere, like

you can't just accumulate in a lightning wallet forever.

And so, you know, and people who use Noster, like that's got its own whole set of things,

right?

Like Phoenix doesn't work for that, you know?

And so there's all kinds of different, like weird, like intricacies that you just, it

just feels very personal, like how you decide what your final implementation is.

And of course, it's changing constantly, because new stuff keeps coming out.

But that's why we go to the meetups, right?

We go to the meetups to find out what other people are doing, and as new wallets come

out and new features come out, we like to talk about them, because hey, maybe it's going

to work for somebody, for somebody else, or maybe it's going to work for you.

So yeah, looking forward to the meetup this weekend.

So I sort of want to take this opportunity to pivot a little bit, because this is the

first meetup coming up that I am starting to use AI to help me prepare for the meetups.

And I'm not going to lie so far, it has not been faster, it has been slower.

I think the final product is, it's probably an improvement, like my slides and stuff,

I think look a lot nicer.

But I'm also sort of figuring out the flow, you know, like I tried one thing, it wasn't

really work in.

And so I switched something else that was like a little bit easier, but so I do feel

optimistic about using AI to help me prepare.

But I've been sort of coming out, like, especially over the last few weeks, like I've, you

know, not going to lie, and you can go check my notes to confirm this, like, I've been

a little bit of an AI bear, I'm not going to lie.

Like I've been like, I don't know if I'm like buying the hype.

And for me, it wasn't, I totally get the fact that it's like an extremely powerful

tool.

I'm not saying it's not going to change the world, and I'm not saying it's not going

to have a huge impact.

I'm saying for like the plebs for the pioneers or whatever, like for those of us who are

just like, right, you know, we're not build, like we're not developers, you know, we're

not running software companies, we're just hanging out and running Bitcoin meetups and

doing what we do here.

This stuff is expensive.

You know, you listen to the stories and everyone's like, wow, my thing is so cool.

I've got it tracking all the prediction markets and pulling all this data together for me

and going through backlogs of podcasts and, and yeah, and it's, oh, yeah, it's costing

me like a thousand dollars a month, but it's so cool.

And it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, pump the brakes.

How much did you say?

Are you really getting, and so this is my thinking was, are you really getting a thousand dollars

a month worth of value out of this thing?

Or is it just like, you know, pretty cool?

Because, you know, I don't know if I'm buying it like pretty, it's pretty cool.

I don't know if that's quite enough, like maybe I think that you're going to have to

go a little better than pretty cool.

But I, I, I, I eventually sort of caved and, and really what I did was I wanted to wait

in very slowly, mostly financially slowly.

So I did get like a cloud AI, like the anthropic, there's, it's 20 bucks a month, which wasn't,

you know, it didn't seem like crazily expensive compared to some of the other ones.

And I was able to do some pretty cool stuff, again, pretty cool, not anything like it's

going to make me a bunch of money or something, it was just pretty cool.

Did a project with one of my book clubs, doing like pulling stuff, pulling data out of

the government stockpiles, wherever they have all this stuff.

We were reading the, the fourth turning.

And so I ended up pulling all this government data on and doing this whole little, I guess,

presentation type of thing on how the generations have shaped like politics going back to like

1900.

So that was pretty cool, a kind of little fun little project.

But you know, it took a bunch of time, but that kind of turned me on to how good it was

at like doing HTML and doing like this front end design work, which is kind of what gave me the

idea to start using them for my Bitcoin slides.

I was like, you know, this thing is pretty good.

I can just kind of give it, hey, can you go do a little bit of research for me and put

together a chart of like how all this stuff actually works and pull some data.

So like for my taproot slides, you know, I had it pull like it's using, like I wanted

to know how did the fees change over time and how did the block data change over time.

So it's got charts in there of like bar charts and stuff of how it changed like before and

after taproot, like I didn't have to go and dig up all that data and I didn't have to

go put it in, I don't know, Excel or however I would put it together and it looks a lot nicer

than I could do. So that's how I sort of started waiting in to the AI stuff.

Yeah, there's like this permaculture principle that I think kind of rings true here and a lot

of what we've talked about so far already is like and it's called slow and small solutions.

And so with with Bitcoin, when we want to fork do soft forks and do all the stuff,

it's better to just start small make make small small changes and take a long time thinking

about it and doing and talking about it before we decide to implement it or each individual,

each minor or whatever decides to adopt it. And then when new Bitcoin, while it's come out

and new feature new like eCache and all this stuff, it's like start using eCache a little bit.

And learn about it and work with it small and slow in this AI stuff. You can see the example

of the people who have gone big and fast and they ended up spending thousands of dollars

because they didn't necessarily realize that this little clawbot could gobble up so many tokens

on such simple tasks if you're not careful. And so small and slow solutions seems to be like

in this ever-changing and fast-paced development world now, it's good to step back and just

observe it for a while think about how you want to step in and step in slowly. I think there is

this feeling especially when it comes to the AI stuff if I don't learn about this now and don't

do everything I can, I'm going to get left behind. But at the same time like I've been kind of

chilling back waiting because I feel like to the point of the money and everything like

I'm not going to have to spend the tokens in the learning process. I'll let other people

make those mistakes and I'll learn from them and then I'll jump in once there's some more

best practices around how to use these tools in order to do it efficiently.

Yeah, so you know efficiency. So that's what I started to learn right away was I don't exactly,

oh I know it was on that do pull in the government data and stuff like that. That was like one of

the first things I tried to like use the claw thing for or not claw sorry that's different thing.

The like just the clawed AI just like on the website or whatever you know not an agent running

around doing stuff for me yet. And so it was all of a sudden absolutely ripping through my usage

like there's a little usage meter like to tell you like how much you use and I'm like whoa whoa whoa whoa

like maybe I need to start thinking about how because I like ran out like in the first session

or whatever. And so I was like okay well I guess I'm taking a four hour break while my you like

usage thing resets which wasn't the worst thing in the world. I mean get a four hour break from

project that's you know it's okay. So then I started paying way closer attention and in fact when

the next session started up I decided to start asking the AI about token usage. I'm like well

what what happened you know can you like explain to me like how do I limit this so I don't blow

through my tokens like so quickly. And so then everything kind of came and then I started getting

okay there are some like best practices here for like how to use this like a little bit more

efficiency efficiently and it's like hey how about instead of you going and pulling all of this

data and trying to compile it yourself. How about you just write me a Python script and I'll run

it on my computer and I'll just give you the output. And then that way you don't have to comb

through all this stuff. You just write me a script I'll run it and I'll give you the output. And

then that was really what we started saving a lot. When all I just had to do and I didn't know how

to do all this stuff. I'm just like how do you run a Python script and they're like oh you just

do this you know and I'm like oh well I didn't know that before and now I know and so now I can

yes now I can effectively copy and paste into the terminal you know it's not the end of the world

who knew. So it's like a fast track it yeah it's you can even ask it like why yeah how to help

explain to you how to use it better and eat like for what you're doing. And asking

if those questions probably doesn't cost very many tokens. Right and so spending a little bit more

time just getting to know the system will save you in the long run. I'm taking notes man I'm

going to get I'm surely going to do something with it here in the future but don't quite know

exactly what yet. I just this this vibe coding stuff so cool to me because

when noster first came out and I started to think about what what the implications were of like

anyone can run a relay and all these clients are open source and so effectively you can like

create these closed ecosystems of the siloed into particular relays that maybe a local

community are running or whatever and then fork the client so that it's you can adjust it to match

whatever you would need for that local community. And I was thinking that was going to take year I

mean it's been a few years but like it seems like now there's all these like very specialized

clients coming for these coming up for these very niche uses and people are vibe coding all these

really very particular noster apps and here we are it's like you're going to be able to use

you're going to have a noster app to do anything you want and it's not it's the development process

is quick now. So I had this is I'll I do want to maybe I'll just I'll skip to it now because

that was kind of a good segue right. So noster is one of the things that was immediately on my mind

that this is obviously if I'm going to do some sort of vibe coded project like it's going to be

a noster because it's the thing that you can just plug into you know like it's going to be all

the stuff is all open source so there's a million repos out there to learn from and you can just

plug into the protocol you don't need permission right there's no you know you just hit the relays

and you're good to go and so you know you know you're bringing up special building specialized

communities and stuff like that and so this idea that I you know I had talked to actually I'd

mentioned it to you a little bit because you know I started to learn more about the circular

economies and stuff that you're running and you know we're starting to be in a lot more of the

same telegram groups and you know I get to watch you drop these messages into the chats all the time

about hey I'm coming here I'm going there here's the stuff I'm going to bring you know let me know

if you're interested and you know I have sold stuff as well like one of like early on and

and I mean it wasn't that early on like back in let's say like 2021 I got a laser engraver

and just started making stuff with Bitcoin on it you know it wasn't I wouldn't call it art

necessarily it's just fun stuff that people who thought was kind of cool and it was a cool way

for me to like bring in some sats you know and then I was I was able to pay for the whole laser engraver

that I bought which was pretty neat and got to learn a whole new skill and that was fun

and so I have also like I bring stuff to my meetups to sell and that's like tailed off a little bit

because I sort of sold stuff to everybody who comes like all the regulars but yeah so you know

as we started talking I started thinking more about well it sure would be nice if rather than

dropping you know random things into the group chats if we just had a place for our meetup

that people could just post stuff that hey I have all this stuff if you want me to bring it to the

meetup I'll just bring it you know like you know nothing big this doesn't have to be like a big

online sales platform or something like that just like hey I have this stuff for sale

and if you want it just let me know I'll bring it to the meetup we don't have to do payments over the

app we don't have to shipping we don't have it's not like Facebook marketplace right we where you

have to like organize like a meetup time and figure out if it's going to be some sketchy person

coming to your house or if you're going to go meet them somewhere else or lots of scammers in

the chat that you have no idea like where they're coming from or whatever um if it's your meetup

group you're all going to be in the same place anyway you already all know each other and so like

how hard is it just go like I have a couple things in my office that it's like you know I'm not

going to sell this on Facebook marketplace but I can bring it to the meetup if somebody wants this

yeah like five ten bucks who cares I'll sure I'll bring it to the meetup I'm not certainly not

going to take the time to do that otherwise so if anybody's interested just let me know and so

that was kind of the idea like could could I make a master app that was a marketplace that was

private and local and so you know I started messing around with Shakespeare Shakespeare.DIY

um because that is like I guess the place you go to if I have code noster apps and um I had already

I knew about flotilla uh which is you know for private groups and I said I I want a private group

experience like flotilla but for a marketplace and started kind of hacking around with it a little bit

and um I quickly found out it is uh much more costly to use that kind of stuff than it is to use the

$20 a month uh anthropic subscription so um it was fun experience I I have what I would consider

to be like a working like a minimum viable product like a working MVP which is pretty cool um

I'm going to show it to some of the guys at the meetup this weekend and like see if we can get

it to work but the idea is you just that all it is is it's a a PWA you open it on your phone

I'll bring I can you scan a QR code from my phone that gives you access to my relay at my house

it never hits the internet it never goes anywhere public it's a truly private little marketplace

so yeah so you know that's what I've been sort of working on most recently um I'm kind of

planning on taking a little bit of a break uh I'll you know full transparency this app like going

back and forth with the Shakespeare thing for I don't know a few solid sessions like ring me up

like 120 bucks so you know full disclosure right it's it's not super cheap but at the same time

it's like how much would it cost you know if this was a couple of years ago right how much would it

have cost me to go hire a developer to make me this custom app would have been insane like I don't know

much like like thousands of dollars so I don't know it lowers the barrier of entry to just try new ideas

and I and I think that's what that's one of the things that really makes Bitcoiners drawn to this

is it's like this is an opportunity to turn your ideas into reality at like probably a tenth of

the cost of what it was before AI so you know it's not free it's not like ridiculously cheap

but it's way cheaper than it would be otherwise so that's I don't know it that probably doesn't

fully encapsulate like my my AI sort of journey I've been on but like all this stuff I'm talking

about this was only over the last couple weeks so you know the learning curve like the AI really

it helps the learning curve itself because as soon as you get confused you just say okay pause for

a second I have no idea what you're doing please explain and then they'll explain it and then it

will start making more sense and if it doesn't you just keep asking questions so I don't know it's been

it's been kind of a cool experience I guess I would say I you know I don't regret it at all

it what it did probably cost more money than I was planning on spending um but you know I don't know

I feel like I've learned some valuable lessons and hopefully was able to bring some new ideas

into the world and you know I do think it will help me with my meetup in the longer term especially

if it can help me make my slides every month but it just takes all of that um the wheeling and

dealing a layer deeper into the the truly private realm because you know I I am saying like hey

I'm selling all this stuff on telegram and on signal and on no-ster and uh but really who I'm

talking to are people that I personally know for the most part I just know that they're gonna get

this message when I put it in this place but you know who else gets to see it everybody right and so

everybody knows what what level of economic activity I am doing and in these group chats there's

certainly not locked down to just the the communities locally there's people that find their way

in there from here there and everywhere else and you don't necessarily know who these people are

what their intentions are what assumptions they're gonna make about you when you start to

post this economic activity somebody might assume that I'm selling tens of thousands of dollars

of merchandise because of the frequency in which I'm constantly posting all this stuff

when reality it's very much less than that right um but if I can take that a layer deeper and

present these uh these offerings directly to the people and at the same time they can

find a way that I think you know there's some we we talk about it on the last several episodes

every time it's like people are sometimes uncomfortable about attending a meetup in the first

place because of opsec right so then if you if you expand that out to now I'm gonna not only attend

the meetup but try and market some good or service that I have um it might be uncomfortable to put

yourself out there to everybody that way and so having it into this more private space might allow

for more of this for for more of these economic circular economy juices to flow in that particular

local environment yeah and and I I think I just want to try it out like I think if it's if it's a good

idea I think people will like it and people will use it and you know I certainly will start letting

a lot more people like if it takes off at my meetup it's going to take off in other places too

you know and if it doesn't take off at my meetup that doesn't mean it won't work somewhere else but

um I still think that that's okay like I you know there's actually you know um

I think I I gave you some misinformation early in the episode because I told you that I

hadn't been to a Bitcoin meetup since the last time we talked but I forgot I was down and

Charlotte uh this past week and ended up hanging out with it it wasn't like on the meetup.com

schedule but I ended up hanging out with a bunch of the guys from that meetup so I feel like that

counts um and while we were there low and behold number one topic we talked about AI stuff

and so um I brought this point up with them as we were talking about it and and the more I thought

about it after I said it the more I think that it's true it's just like one of the like I said before

one of the reasons why Bitcoiners are like drawn to this AI thing is because it's like you know

empowering right and it gives you the ability to like bring your ideas into the world but I think

it might even be more than that because as Bitcoiners we all know cipher punks write code

and there's so many Bitcoiners out there who like me can't write code and now we kind of can

you know and so it's not exactly the same like I'm not like a cryptographer and I'm certainly not

going to be working on real important critical infrastructure stuff but I have a mechanism now

to bring freedom tech into the world right like these private marketplaces like maybe it's not

going to change the world that's okay but you know it brings another aspect of privacy and freedom

like two small groups of individuals and I think overall you know it's all open source

it's all on my GitHub like anybody can go take a look at the code and I can't tell you personally

like the cloud doesn't think there's bugs in it so far you know but I can't tell you that but

somebody out you can go out of it I guess you know maybe you're AI could tell you if there's bugs in

it I don't know so you know I don't know I think that's what it's one of the things that I think

is what drew me in you know is it's like hey this is an opportunity to participate in in the

Bitcoin community the Bitcoin culture in a different way than I've really ever been able to in the

past so I don't know I think it's pretty cool it's so profound man that you know all the sudden

right at every once all the pioneers fingertips we've all got ideas we all wish oh if only this

this kind of thing existed I could I could do so much more and now you can do that thing and

not only can you do that thing but you can tailor it specifically to your local use case or to

whatever use case you want and because in the past it was so expensive right to develop these very

custom applications or whatever and it took a lot of time and so you weren't going to spend the time

or money or effort to do it unless you're going to be sure you're going to get some kind of return

or some kind of adoption or some kind of something right but now you can just kind of play and

and say all right here check this marketplace out it might be like taproot dude where you like

unleash this thing on your local community and they start using it in ways which you never expected

and you're like holy shit more to this than I even realized and let's let's keep iterating on this

and make it into a tool that's even more powerful for us and before you know it you guys got like

the very like the thing that's perfect for your group to do what you need to do and empower each

other for when the shit hits the fan it's like we don't give a fuck dude we're fine we've got

this these tools nobody knows how we're communicating how we're doing our stuff we are operating

in a parallel system to the existing system and as it crumbles down we're we're left standing

because we've already built the the next thing we're in we're operating in the first turning right

to the to quote the bugle you know everyone's still running into the fourth turning and the pioneers

have already started realizing that hey we're in the first turning now let's let's go let's go

so I actually had something that I wanted to ask you about because so you you know right when we

started talking about doing this podcast one of the first groups that you invited me into

um was called the mesh to do and I will be completely honest with you I very much thought it was like

a mesh network group like maybe it was like a ham radio thing you know what I mean like it was

just like a radio like that's what the mesh was was from mesh networks um but now that I've been

hanging out in this group for a little while it does not seem like that's what this is all about

uh so I don't know you why don't you explain a little bit about what what is the mesh to do

what is the concept and and what does that group all about well essentially the the idea of the

mesh to do is a distributed citadel because in um back in like the COVID time I think this this

meme of uh the citadel like the big coiners are going to be so wealthy and so powerful that they're

going to create these citadels these fortresses all all over the place and they'll be they will

be able to wall it off and keep all the shit coiners out and keep all the fiat out keep everything out

and we'll just do our own thing and um so I heard a podcast back then um I don't know if I heard it

the first time on you know I can't remember where exactly I heard it the first time but there's a guy

soul exporter him and his son started a game theory this idea they're like okay so if we have a citadel

and we got all these big coiners as wealthy big coiners in the place um what's going to really happen

here how do we actually protect ourselves from the whole world wanting to come and take us over

and they they came to the conclusion that it's effectively impossible and a better solution would

be to instead of having a big fortress uh on the top of the hill to be to have an invisible network

of people all cooperating together um to build their sovereignty and to operate in sort of uh

an invisible layer to the existing society and so this is what the meshedel concept is it's uh

it's a distributed mesh citadel where all of these people who are trying to to produce

their own stuff be so as sovereign as possible um can cooperate together and do so in ways in which

is invisible to the existing system um so therefore it's very hard to attack it's distributed

and hard to see um and so this meshedel group is kind of a group of people who are interested in

trying to explore and accomplish this this goal yeah I think yeah it's such a good point too

because I you know I remember the the the citadel like when everybody was obsessed with uh

trying to you know they were all dreaming of their future citadels right where I don't know we're

going to own an island or something like that and and you know all the big cleaners are going to go

there but you know all you know all of the current power structures and systems and you know

like violent war systems like they're all designed to attack and destroy those networks and so

that's how we ended up in this world with all the centralized power is because the only way you can

protect yourself in a world like that is to centralize everything as much as you possibly can to

stockpile as much defense technology as you possibly can into this one concentrated area

and I think as Bitcoiners we see the downfalls of centralization you know maybe better than any other

group and so yeah I I really like this idea and um I'll be this is the first time I had heard of this

so I you know this is an amazing concept um I'm not sure how this hasn't gotten more traction

I mean maybe I'm just out of the loop maybe maybe I'm the problem but I I mean it really does sound

like this is the way to go like if we're gonna if we really want to form these communities that

can't be disrupted by the current power structures well we can't just copy their power structures

like I just don't think that's gonna work I think we have to opt out just like we do in Bitcoin

you know opt out take away their power become you know become as distributed as possible

yeah if you if you get these Bitcoiners and this is kind of one of the criticisms I have of like

large Bitcoin meetups is that once it gets to be you know 100 people it's impossible to really know

who's alright and who's there from a levelant purposes and so if instead you get to the meetup

the meetup gets to be 100 people and you're like whoa whoa whoa hold on this is cool but like

is on this is out of control um let's just start instead of having a meetup once a month or

whatever let's have one a week and kind of trying to distribute the attendance a little bit more

or have instead of having one in the city let's have two in the city or three or four and

decentralizing as you because this freedom tech allows us like maybe through this marketplace app

that you've developed right it doesn't require us to all go to the same place at the same time

at the same frequency we can be everywhere all at once and coordinate our activity through the

freedom tech and that makes it very hard to disrupt because everybody's going like I'm going all

over the place going all these different things if one meetup closes down another one pops up

over here you it's it's instead of having one big fire that you call the fire department to come

put out you got thousands of fires everywhere and there's not enough firemen to to to put the water

on it you know it's impossible to stop all those fires and um and it's especially effective because

when it's small it's it's hard to detect anything going on to begin with in the first place

it's like nobody can hardly even notice because the trickle of this this economic activity this

informational activity this exchange or whatever is just like happening all at once everywhere

all the same time right in front of everyone's faces you know and what we're doing is not illegal

like the cartels and all these these like mobster guys they they I think this kind of these kinds

of systems operate in a similar fashion what we're trying to do I call it like a soft fork of society

or a soft fork of the existing system like we're doing everything within the rules of the system

and we actually have even tighter rules um around how we're we're cooperating and we're relying on

much more on reputation and social capital and all of this kind of stuff in order to ensure that

we don't have when when there's a thing that happens we don't have to go out to the actual legal

system we can work it out amongst ourselves and um once you have this stuff in place once if the

system that you kind of that you have is the fallback like the great thing is that we have a great

opportunity here because if this shit that we're trying to do fails completely guess what the

fiat system still exists and we still just fucking we just ride that down into into the the

burning flames of hell you know uh it's okay we I can always jump right back out and just like

you know use my real name stop operating under a name whatever and and just participate in

again yeah just go back to failed we'll just we'll just go back to fiat world yeah one in history

has that in the choice where you can like develop this this new system right underneath all of it

while it's happening and then if it doesn't work out you still can just like without any penalty go

right back into it the old system and so it creates a lot of flexibility and opportunity to to play

and explore and build yeah dude there there was so much good stuff in there you know one of the first

things you said that really started to get my gears turning a little bit is um it's so funny that

you should say that about how the larger meetups they're not this like it's not the same as the

smaller ones because I've been some I've been to some of the bigger ones you know like let's say

5200 people is like a big meetup and conferences right conferences are are way bigger you know even

small conferences are way bigger than like a hundred people um it's totally different

and from my experience like meeting other Bitcoin meetup organizers you know and I know we're

early in this show but we both know a lot of different meetup organizers from all over the country

all over the world like I don't I don't even know if I could put an estimate to it but I've got to

think like the overwhelming majority of Bitcoin meetups are like what like six to 15 people

like almost all of them just happen to be that size and I've never really thought about I always

just kind of thought about oh that just means we're early like oh these groups are so small it

just means that we're early but I wonder if it just means that that's just the right size

and like as they get bigger than that like other ones pop up like just naturally without even forcing

it um I don't know I it's a good question but it is kind of an interesting coincidence and when

you put it in those terms it almost makes me start thinking I wonder if there's more to it than

just like oh you know it's so early because we can't get the word out and we're not good at

advertising and all these other things that I think a lot of meetup organizers we like I know I do

like I sort of feel like this responsibility like I have to grow this group like I can't believe

more people aren't coming like we have to do more outreach we have to do more you know getting

involved with the community or doing more advertising or whatever it is but and and maybe some of

that we do need to do that maybe we do have a responsibility to like educate our communities

and and make sure that they understand Bitcoin but maybe we it's not our job to grow our meetups

from five people to 20 people to 50 people you know to 100 people like I don't maybe that's just not

the goal um so yeah I mean I don't know that was one of the first like I know you cover a lot

of different topics there but that was one that I don't know I had never really thought about

that way before it I think like um great meetup cultures tend to um a lot of the weight a lot

basically the the people and the person who's running it organizing it or the people who are

running it and organizing it and then like the inner group of like the regulars there's like

their homies the type the people who get tight in with the people organizing it a handful of people

right and I've noticed this you know where um if that person that's that's pushing doing that push

to like create this community and everything uh drops off the community falls apart and so if you

once again it's like if there's a thousand fires it's a lot harder to stop that that uh blaze

um and so if like one fire gets put out eat whether you know because the person can't do it

or anymore or whatever if if in in an area there's several other meetups to go to now that it

doesn't stop anything you know and the other thing is that people as a leader as a meetup organizer

you're essentially like a leader of your community um you don't have to take on that responsibility um

into what level you choose to like take that role seriously or not is up to you but like

ultimately people look up to you when you when you host the meetup and you run the meetup

they have respect for you and so a lot of uh if if there's many people that are leaders like this

of these small groups of people and once again the meshed out right if they're meshed together

if all these little meetups are connected now you have this like

it's it's it's once again another distributed system it's an ecosystem it's an ecology

of all these different opportunities and bubbles to overlap to intersect and um

it's one thing to be the leader of a hundred people versus being the leader of 15

right the overhead on in the leader of 15 is much less lower where like now you you're doing a

lot of work right to to develop all this educational content to use AI to improve the level in which

you can educate your local area and if you imagine the pressure if that was instead of for 15 or

10 or five people or whatever if it was a hundred you know that would become overwhelming and

beyond what you could do in addition to that would be your job you know uh it's not just a thing

that you do on in addition to everything else that you're doing your day job your family and whatever

and so it just makes it much more accessible plus it's it's so much less personal right like

there's there's so many opportunities right now for people to to learn and and get educated

and and these gigantic groups right like you can go watch a youtube video that has a million views

you know or like people with hundreds of thousands of subscribers and you know we are we already

have that not very personal uh like education sources like you don't need to come to my meetup to get

that um you can go to these conferences and watch you know I don't know like Jimmy Song talk to a

whole room of you know 300 people like that one to many thing like that's we already have like that

in spades like tons of that content what we don't have a lot of is this these close knit personal

groups and and that's what I mean like it was very early on maybe not very maybe like um about a year

so let's say 10 to 12 meetups into um might switch over to do an educational content

that I realized I this is this model where we pick one topic and I do this big presentation

and talk on and on about this one subject like this I you know I I don't think this is what people

want like this just isn't like there's so much better opportunity for me to use this small space

that we have right here and so switching to this acrylic seminar format is it's been fantastic

because it gives me breaks to pause and look around the room and say you know how about you like

what do you think you know and people you know as they warm up they chime in on on all kinds of stuff

and and I think that's what you don't get that from podcasts right you don't get that from youtube

videos you know you don't get that from going to a Bitcoin conference you know maybe inside discussions

like here and there um like when you are in a bigger group of Bitcoiners but there's something

cool about having like that core group who's always there that you know we're going to be there

that you get to know really well um and you get to trust and rely on in a way that you just can't

do in any of these other venues so that's kind of what I mean like maybe Bitcoin meetups were never

meant to grow beyond like 15 to 20 people let's say I don't know the ideal size is yet to be

discovered I think but uh and maybe it'll change over time but right now the small size meetups

are very powerful because like as we talked about we've got now at our fingertips this these AI

vibe coding tools where we can we can develop freedom tech directly for that that provides value very

specifically to the the few people this small group of people that we're interacting with

and when those small groups of people start to go in and interact with other small groups of

people and we can share this once I talk about it in terms of cultural capital right you're developing

a lot of cultural capital uh amongst this small group and you figure out things with each other

that are powerful and good and then all it takes is one person to go from that meetup to the next

meetup an hour away and be like yo over here we got this cool shit going on have you guys heard

about what we're doing and then they say oh we never thought about it that's really awesome uh we

should start using it too and then they say by the way we've got this cool thing that we've tailored

to our stuff and you say oh well that's that's a little different than um what we might need but

shit I could just fork that and uh clawed it up and and tailor it right to our group and you can

imagine dude no it's just like this not like an app that you're gonna go like that's on the

Google Play Store that the the the NSA can like shut down or some shit it's just all these little

tools that we're using and we're sharing with each other um and it just becomes in my mind just like

a truly decentralized unstoppable thing much like Bitcoin

yeah I don't know man first turning vibes feeling optimistic feeling like we're gonna win

we'll see yeah I mean I came into Bitcoin you know uh because this homesteading stuff that I do

the reason why I started homesteading in the first place was because I was very I felt like the

world was very uncertain and that uh I needed to insulate myself from all the all the potential

problems right so if if the food system was gonna have a problem and I was realizing that you

can't even I can't even buy the food at the quality that I want for any reasonable price so the only

choice is to make it myself to grow it myself and then that leads to like what else do I need to

do myself because this is all unreliable and the only thing I couldn't do for myself was find money

like money right having a good money and um when COVID happened and they started to air drop the

fucking steamy checks and all this shit I was like that it's overdue like this this system is

fucked up like the government can't just like give people free money because of like a virus or

something this is this doesn't make any sense to me I was like this is gonna cause inflation as a

business owner and I like I was just imagining like okay I got I got a free $1500 you got a free

$1500 I know everyone got a free $1500 um I know everyone's got extra $1500 to work with

doesn't even have to have like any like market uh pricing dynamics to get me to realize that

I could probably raise my price because I know everyone's just got free shit and they're gonna spend

it with me you know and so I I immediately saw that the prices were gonna go out of control

and I was like how can I stop that bleeding like I got savings and this this this

everything's gonna get more expensive overnight and I I was uh I meditated every day after lunch

I tried to at least and for about 20 minutes now I was I was laying down on this meditation

and I this this idea had been good was like churning in my mind and um I sat up from the meditation

and something told me check the price of Bitcoin and I checked the price of Bitcoin and it was like

3k and it had just come down from like 12,000 or 14,000 or whatever it was at um and I was like

well I had heard about this before and at the time I didn't have two nickels to rub together

to play around with it and it seems like now is a good opportunity to try and figure this shit out

because uh this is a money that I don't know I didn't actually exactly know but I had this

peripheral understanding that Bitcoin was this money that couldn't be fucked with right

and as I learned more I was like this is exactly the solution that I need

now I've got my sovereignty in my food my sovereignty in my power my solar panels and all this

shit I got my wealth I've got my you know I've got all this stuff and now I've got money that I can

just use outside of the existing system and so basically from the time that I learned about

Bitcoin to the time that uh about six months it took me about six months before I had no money

in my savings account anymore and I only had Bitcoin like I went all in immediately um

it's a lot easier to go to to take those kinds of rash moves when you don't have a lot

I think what Bitcoin really offered to was this idea that it's the renaissance of the

subsistence lifestyle um where the subsistence lifestyle used to be good uh the homesteaders

of the eight the late well the early I don't know in the 1800s you know the when the movement

west was going and these people didn't even have a lot of money um but they had a lot of sovereignty

right they had a lot of skills they knew how to take care of themselves they knew how to cooperate

with each other um this was this was giving me the same kind of feeling like all right now I don't

necessarily I don't need a lot of money to live because I'm producing a lot of my own shit and so

if I just use this Bitcoin thing now the little the little bonus on the purchasing power of my savings

is gonna enable me to do so much more with a meager income than anything else that was ever

available to me um and it's been working out like that you know yeah yeah that was a good time

for sure to to go in it's yeah it's funny I I feel like so many of us you know I was

I I had I had some Bitcoin um not a lot like before COVID um and I guess

I I did I had most look I had I had a small investment right and let's just call it cryptocurrency

right and okay a good chunk of that was Bitcoin but yeah like a good chunk of it was not Bitcoin

and you know this whole thing was just in my mind it was kind of like a gambling thing

but I also had this little thing in the back of my head and it's why I always made sure

the majority of my stack was Bitcoin was because I always had this feeling that hey if if

shit ever hits the fan like if this whole if our whole system here like starts to fall apart

this Bitcoin thing this is what's gonna be the thing that you were gonna want to have and so

I want to make sure that I always have some of that um and I can go gamble with all this other stuff

because I you know I don't know when any of it is anyway and then when when COVID hit

and the entire economy looked like it was falling apart and Bitcoin crashed with everything else

I was like wait a minute I thought this was supposed to be the thing that was gonna shield me from

this and it was that so I was you know beside myself contemplating what what is going on you know

my 401k crashed my savings like there was very little savings you know and the savings I did have

that was in this crypto stuff like it all crashed and so I was like very feeling lost and confused and

the only thing I could think to do because I just like you I was watching the price of Bitcoin as

it was crashing harder and harder and harder and the only thing I could think to do I was like I

you know I honestly I have no idea what to do right now the only thing I can think to do is buy more

Bitcoin that's all I can think of and so right then right in the in the heat of the dip I bought a

bunch of Bitcoin and you know that was a smart move in hindsight but really what I did was after that

I realized that this was the moment I must figure out what the hell just happened

because I didn't understand anything like I wasn't like a gold guy I wasn't like a sound money

guy like a lot of the guys on my meetup they were like oh you didn't know any of this sound money

it's like no I didn't know any of that I was very ignorant about money and investing I had never bought

a stock before Bitcoin I bought Bitcoin before I had bought any stock like it just wasn't a thing

that I knew anything about and so COVID was like I must figure this out and so I actually didn't

even start with Bitcoin I started with the figuring out how the dollar works and then I started

figuring out how Bitcoin worked and I also went hard down the rabbit hole in 2020 and yeah I would

not say that maybe even ever I got to the point where I had like no dollars or whatever

but you know I would say I took to the rabbit hole so to speak I honestly I never really stopped

I still like I just said in the opening I'm about to go down this rabbit hole to go learn about spark

because this is big it's just became what I do now is I'm so hooked I'm so locked in to this

to this new thing that I don't know I can't get enough I it's funny I was talking with the the

Charlotte Bitcoin guys and you sort of just made the same point to me that they made which is

I think that my meetup like we need to find a way to start distributing a little bit of the

the leadership let's say because I do take an extremely central role and I don't know I

think I'm just a psychopath like I put in yes I do I put in a lot of time into this stuff and I get

very little very little quote-unquote like out the other side at least very little that's

measurable right but I think I I am gaining a lot in this like what you call cultural capital

yeah and this comes down to the the number go up is one thing and a lot of people come to Bitcoin

for number go up that was I mean very enticing to me in addition to this idea that I could have

this money that couldn't be fucked with it's like oh wait you're gonna tell me I have like a lot of

freedom in my my money and at the same time this shit's gonna also just like explode and purchasing

power over the time over time as well sounds like a really cool thing to get involved with and

people that get attached to the number go up they probably just haven't gotten to the meetups yet

and realize like once you go to the meetups and you start developing a community in a culture around

your Bitcoin around Bitcoin in general the freedom go up is is like immense as well and this comes

into the when when you start like okay so you've got the financial capital figured out right we all

know Bitcoin is the financial capital that we all want we don't want anything else gold silver

whatever fuck that shit Bitcoin allows us to really do a lot more than all that stuff

and so it's like what kind of what forms of capital do you need to balance your capital portfolio

when it comes to these nine forms of capital well it's like you got to have social capital you got

to know people you have to have a community when you when you need to spend your Bitcoin if you

don't know anyone what the fuck you're gonna do sell it back on the exchange for dollars you're

fucked you know it is what it what you know what happens when the exchanges get locked down all

this K what the when their exchange gets hacked and all your financial information gets leaked

to everybody this is terrible and so you you you look for social capital you find social capital

the meetup you you start to meet the people you start to build a culture you build cultural capital

you build experience by going to the meetups you get to now have a great place to learn from everybody

about how to use the tools and what tools people are using and what's good for the you know what's

good for your local area and so by running a meetup you get so much you might not get a fight you

spend Bitcoin you spend financial capital in order to do it but you get so much more in return

over time especially lower your time preference right the meme lower your time preference

over the years at the first year you might not get anything out of it the second year you're

starting the ball rolling the third year the fourth year now it's like turning into something magic

you know and and everybody is winning you know the meetups I've just as as I've been doing this

I can't remember the first meetup I it must have been in 2021 or something like that right so

it's been for so years for five years I don't know that I've been going to these meetups and

to watch the community and all the people every it's just like everyone is a complete badass you know

doing amazing things and I get to like interact with these people on a monthly basis all the time

and then in addition to that more on the side and it just become like you just realize like wow

this is a these are powerful groups that are that are developing here and once again like back to

the very beginning of the podcast like oh taproot came out we didn't get shit but ordinals and it's

like yo yo just wait just wait a little bit and people are going to start to use taproot to do

amazing things and the same thing is true like oh I started this Bitcoin meetup and I've been running

it from a year and I didn't get shit and it's like just wait you know eventually as the the

connections get made and the interoperability between other meetups and stuff start the connection

start to form it becomes very powerful yeah man so speaking of of being powerful

and and being able to communicate messages with your with your money what do you think good

time to transition to boost sure yeah we could read off the boost we got dude we've been getting so

much good support we are joking at the when we started trying to do this podcast like you know

okay so it's just going to be the meetup organizers listening to this and learning about meetups

and the community on no stir and everywhere else has has told us otherwise like everyone's

coming in with boost it's amazing I really appreciate it all I very much assumed we would have

tens of users or tens of listeners to every episode and I have been very much proven wrong and so

yeah I think I've said it before it's the the amount of engagement we've been getting and the

support we've been getting has been literally amazing it's it's it's kind of blown me away

yeah and the the whole dream here is that I just want I think we agree like really what we want

people to realize is like by interacting with this podcast by by boosting your meetup by sharing

just commenting in general and just letting people know that you've got to meetup going on

when people listen to the podcast they hear the boosts they see the stuff on no stir it's just a

continuous reminder that there is a meetup going on somewhere close to you there's a lot of meetups

everywhere and meetup culture is really good and with that we've got oldest bitmire

he boosted four or 5,420 sats thank you very much and he says if I hadn't attended the southwest

Michigan meetup I may not have met RevHotel today Rev helped me solve the mining issue not even AI

could figure out back to AI so there's some things AI I can't figure out and it turns out humans

are still the purest form of signal and meetups are the greatest place to find them and this is

from our last episode with Boomer which was titled what was the title meetups and podcasts are the

signal yeah yeah meetups and podcasts where the that was the topic yep yeah meetups and podcasts are

the signal and here you go a connection that I made with Otis bitmire at the southwest Michigan meetup

now he can call me for trouble that he's having with his mining issues and solve that and this

isn't a question that he could find an answer to on AI and so yeah super high value going to meetups

because then he meet someone like you or I who can help you figure shit out when you get stuck

next is Lonely Pumpkins once again Lonely Pumpkins from last week and Otis Otis was also on the last

recording so thank you guys for the continuous boosts and Lonely Pumpkins has 5,000 sats and he says

keep the pod keep in the pod high signal thanks for the shout out Gents

well thank you Lonely Pumpkins keep doing what you're doing keep running that meetup

the Pennsylvania I hope I can experience the Pennsylvania meetup culture someday it really sounds

like there's a lot of cool people hanging out over there Lonely Pumpkins you know maybe you guys

need to do like a a noster I don't know if Lonely Pumpkins is super heavy on noster or not but

it seems like when you do these noster meetups people show up to them there was are you talking

like a corny chat or no no like in state college I think in Pennsylvania those man I'm

I know Seth was doing one I think it's called noster valley there's like Seth and Pickle Dan

and a couple other guys from that area they do the they've done it twice now I think they have

this noster meetup and with content and everything but yeah put a noster meetups our Bitcoin meetups

and thanks again Lonely Pumpkins I won't go on any further next we got business cat business cat

also boosted last last episode business cat boosts 4,444 sets palindrome boost palindrome

boost also Pennsylvania right yep another Pennsylvania homie and he just says powerful boomer

bicep flex emoji next we got wartime 3,333 sets and he says banger firecracker firecracker pure

signal another one for more time he's got another 333 or 3,333 salute beers cheers emojis then we've

got boomer yes thank you wartime you know and I know wartime I like wartime he's a good friend

and so I really do appreciate the support wartime so you say boomer is next so boomer boosted his

own his own podcast that he was you know whenever I go on a podcast I tend to boost it as well it's

just a all right right you just got to keep the sat circulating around confuse the IRS as much

as possible it's like what the fuck you paid yourself to be on the ship like what's going on here

guys we you paid yourself 10 cents why this is a taxable event so and thankfully boomer is in

Canada so he doesn't have to deal with the IRS maybe it's much worse there I don't know so boomer's

got a thousand sets and he says it was an honor to talk to you guys about our new crew up here in

Ottawa or just well no not new crew about our crew and he says meetups are truly the social

layer to Bitcoin and I can't agree with that more because how can you get more social then

hanging out with people every month that you know and at the place where you know the drinks that

you know the food that you know and can't get much more social capital than than people right in

your your backyard yep thanks again boomer we got Shadrack and Shadrack is putting well first Shadrack

with 939 sats he says Bitcoin is backed by Bitcoiners in the first turning blood sweat and spring

get to work 40 HP W and so Shadrack is is putting on a really sick event at South by in tandem

with South by Southwest God he's gonna kill me because I can't remember the fucking name of the

the thing that he's doing but it's this weekend it's like I think it's starting on Thursday which

at the time of this recording is tomorrow so actually maybe by the time this recordings out this

thing will already have happened I'm sorry but I will be on one of the panels talking on this this

South by Southwest live stream thing it's super cool they're doing a bunch of they're doing live

acts they're doing pre-recorded acts everything's live stream over no stir it's all value for value

there's a bunch of panels and stuff being involved in this and so Shadrack just continues to

make he's one of these people that just is like dude Bitcoin number go up well guess what freedom go

up and I don't I'm just gonna do whatever I'm free to do I'm gonna build what I want

make the world I want to see so thank you Shadrack

next up we got God's death 237 sats he says thank you gentlemen well thank you God's death

God's death is another diehard podcast listener he's everywhere you can find him boosting on many

of your favorite pods and finally we have Jair with a hundred sats and he says three legends

so Jair must know boomer thanks I know Jair Jair is a he's from the I know him from the rock paper

Bitcoin he's a candy guy right I believe so I don't know from no stir yeah Jair sorry if we

doxed you I don't know are you in Canada or not let the world know and that's the boosts for the

the the last one so thanks everybody it's really cool this you know just I I want everyone to just

if you got to meet up boost the information you don't got a hundred sats what I think

fountain the minimum is a hundred sats if you boost through fountain but reads got a node that

all the boosts go directly to his node so if you if you send a message through a boost from another

podcasting 2.0 app we will see that and we will be able to read that so don't just think you need

to boost through fountain that we're like a fountain only podcast there's the if you want to if

you want to interact with us on no stir the local Bitcoin or local Bitcoin or no stir account

share your meetup on there as I just my goal and my hope is that at the end of these podcasts we

we read off like more meetups than anyone can stand now I want I want us to be reading off so

many meetups that you get tired of listening to the me read off the meetups and you turn the

podcast off okay so put your get your meetup out there everyone needs to know that these meetups

exist and that this stuff is happening and that this stuff is powerful you know this this is how

we're going to hyper Bitcoin hyper Bitcoinization starts at your local economy and your local culture

hyper Bitcoinize like hyper Bitcoinize your own world first and do that by boosting the podcast

and sharing that letting everyone else know we will amplify your signal to the best of our ability

right that's and and that's that's why we want you to boost it's we want you to boost to advertise

your meetup that that's what we want you know like we said we our our audiences is growing and so

you know the more boosts that we get the more meetups that we can read out you know the water the

our audience gets you know the more that uh rev will just completely put you to sleep

lead reading off meetup after meetup after meetup after meetup that's what we're going for

all right rev you got anything else before we wrap this one up or

I don't know I think the key takeaway from this discussion is that

even if your meetup is small it's super powerful give it time let it mature just like any good ecosystem

it takes time for a fruit tree to bear fruit and you just got to be lower your time preference

let it let it grow and you will reap the rewards from this and not only does number go up but freedom

goes up especially when you start to interact with your local Bitcoin culture and community

yeah and and and use the tools right and and I don't just mean AI I know we did talk about that

in this episode but uh you know use whatever tools that you have at your disposal to maximize your

ability to be a sovereign individual in in this world that that we have um and and one of those

tools is your local meetup so you know go meet your community um you know reach out um if you

have you know one thing that I think we say in in the closing um credits so to speak uh you know

if you'd like to come on the pod and talk about your meetup just reach out our meetup is right

our email address is right in the show notes so if you want to come on reach out we'll have

you on we'd love to talk to you about how your meetups gone we'd love to let you get your

message out and hear all the cool stuff you've been working on all right so I think we're ready to

wrap it up we'll talk to you next time see you rev bye episode complete if you run a Bitcoin meetup

you want to talk about it here reach out check the show notes for contact info link to meetup

organizer resources on get help and more send us a boost if any size and advertise your next

meetup we'll read it out on the next episode and remember attend your local meetup or start your

own local big winners are always just one meetup away