What a time to be alive.
Some of you may be aware of the fact that we've been leaning into AI tools here at TFTC to automate some mindless tasks so that we can make our operations more efficient. As we've leaned into leveraging AI to make our operations more efficient, we've also been exploring ways to use LLMs to aid in our efforts to get Truth to the Commoner. With the advancement in generative video AI models like Google's Veo 3, we've finally hit a point where we can use AI to expand the scope of our messaging techniques by venturing into compelling storytelling to get to the heart of "Why bitcoin?".
In an attempt to drive attention to our Opportunity Cost extension and grow the X account for that project, we've been making AI generated video advertisements that dive into stories that are, in our minds, under exposed. So far, we've created three "commercials"; one that dives into the debasement of the Denarius in ancient Rome, one the described how shell money contributed to the West African slave trade, and one that tells the origin story of the Federal Reserve (above).
These videos have gotten a lot of traction, with our most recent commercial on the origins of the Fed going (what I would consider) super viral. More importantly, the process of making these videos and the engagement that they've received have opened my eyes to how powerful these AI tools can be if leveraged intentionally and effectively. The quality of the models and the inexpensiveness of leveraging them is a weird combination of unnerving and exhilarating.
When you use these models and get good at using them, you immediately begin to understand that a lot of people are not prepared for how disruptive this AI wave is going to be for those who are not already leveraging them. Conversely, the potential to leverage your creativity and do more with less becomes somewhat boundless. While I do fear for the people who are asleep at the wheel right now, I can't help but be incredibly inspired and excited to continue to leverage these tools to accelerate the achievement of the goals I have for myself, TFTC and Ten31.
At the end of the day, what has become crystal clear to me is that these tools are an incredibly potent weapon in the Information War we are all currently engaged in. The Information War is being fought by those who would like to cattle herd us into a dystopian surveillance state and those of us who would prefer to live free and rid ourselves of the Nanny State. For the longest time, those trying to usher us into a dystopian hellscape have had an iron grip on the means of communication. That grip has certainly been weakened over the last twenty years with the emergence of social media, but it is going to take a bigger blow with the wave of AI tools that are hitting the market IF they remain somewhat uncuked. At least until open source models reach parity with the cutting edge closed sourced models that dominate the market today.
The capacity of these models to take rough ideas and turn them into high-quality freedom based and truthful propaganda is astonishing. The video we created on the origins of the Fed cost us ~$100 in tokens between Claude and Veo 3 + 20 hours of labor to produce everything into a coherent video with good flow. Three years ago, it would have cost us tens of thousands, potentially hundreds of thousands, of dollars and months of work (at least) to produce. If we price the labor that went into that video at $100/hour, it cost us about $2,100 to produce the two minute commercial.
The cost and time it took to take this from idea to end product would seem absurd to an ad industry producer only five years ago.
This two-minute commercial with high-def quality that took us $2,100 and 20 hours of labor from our do-everything-man (Ed) currently has 1.4m views, 14k retweets and over 31k likes. On top of that, the Opportunity Cost X account saw it's following jump from 2,800 to 8,100 in the 48 hours after it was posted. It would cost tens of thousands of dollars to get that same exposure by buying a 30-second spot on mainstream news outlets and the growth of the opt-in audience would not be guaranteed. As of right now, that ad campaign has a CPM (cost per thousand views) of $1.50. Advertisers would KILL for that rate if they could get it consistently.
The leverage the individual has to engage in the Information War has never been higher. With this in mind, the purpose of this letter isn't to brag about what we've done here, but to put out a call to action to ENGAGE. Whether you like it or not, AI is here to stay and it is only going to get more powerful moving forward. And whether you like it or not, the people who would like to cattle herd us into the dystopian hellscape will be leveraging these tools to propagandize you into accepting your fate as an "I'm doing my part by living in a 15-minute city!" cuck.
The only way forward is through. Embrace the emerging technologies and the benefits they provide with their potency and low cost and out compete those who would like to ration the amount of red meat you're allowed to eat per month. Use the tech to tell good stories. EMOTIONAL stories.
Luckily for us, the best stories have never really been told by the mainstream media or Hollywood. The Truth has been buried in a sea of misdirection that has been controlled by central authorities and their lapdogs. Get out there and tell the stories they won't tell by creating engaging and educational video content with the tools that are being rolled out right now.
We're smarter than the central planners. We're funnier than them. And, most importantly, we have the Truth on our side at a time when the world is starving for Truth.
Will you sit by and let the enemy use the weapons against you? Or will you pick them up and fight back?
ENGAGE.
Andrew Poelstra's decade-long journey with Simplicity reveals a fundamental truth about Bitcoin development: patience and mathematical rigor trump speed and feature proliferation. While Ethereum rushed to implement Turing-complete smart contracts with "terrible trade-offs" like invalid transactions in blocks and unpredictable gas costs, Blockstream has spent 13 years formally verifying every aspect of Simplicity. Andrew emphasized how Bitcoin would "never accept" changes that compromise monotonicity or introduce rich statefulness, protecting the $2.3 trillion network from the chaos that plagues other chains.
"We would never have accepted an extension to Bitcoin that allowed you to introspect a transaction in a way where if the transaction appeared in a block in a different order... it would suddenly become invalid." - Andrew Poelstra
This conservative approach isn't about resisting change—it's about ensuring every upgrade strengthens rather than weakens Bitcoin's core properties. As Andrew noted, even simple additions like OP_CAT require enormous mental energy to verify they won't introduce surprising behaviors. The payoff? A system where users can mathematically prove their code's behavior before deployment, preventing the catastrophic smart contract failures that have cost billions on other networks.
Check out the full podcast here for more on covenant implementations, zero-knowledge proofs and quantum-resistant signatures.
Lummis Says Trump Backs Bitcoin Purchase Bill - via X
Ryan Cohen Unfollows All Bitcoin Accounts - via X
Sacks Says Trump Orders Boost Crypto Access - via X
Get our new STACK SATS hat - via tftcmerch.io
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Ten31, the largest bitcoin-focused investor, has deployed $200M across 30+ companies through three funds. I am a Managing Partner at Ten31 and am very proud of the work we are doing. Learn more at ten31.vc/invest.
Final thought...
This has been a final thought before, but it's literally my final thought tonight because I'm going to visit my grandmother in the morning.
One time my brother and I locked my grandmother in a bathroom for 6 hours. God, please forgive us. Grandmom, please forgive us.
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