The First Bitcoin Miner: What the Debug Log Reveals
Transcript — TFTC
Article: https://www.tftc.io/first-bitcoin-miner-debug-log-hal-finney-alex-waltz
Transcript page: https://www.tftc.io/first-bitcoin-miner-debug-log-hal-finney-alex-waltz-transcript
Published: 2026-08-05
Machine transcription, lightly cleaned; may contain errors.
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[0:07] Alex Waltz: You've had a dynamic where money's become freer than free. Let me talk about a Fed just gone nuts, all, all the central banks going nuts. So it's all acting like safe haven. I believe that in a world where central bankers are tripping over themselves to devalue their currency, Bitcoin wins. In the world of fiat currencies, Bitcoin is the victor. I mean, that's part of the bull case for Bitcoin.

[0:32] Marty Bent: If you're not paying attention, you probably should be. Probably should be.

[0:34] Alex Waltz: Probably should be.

[0:36] Marty Bent: The hottest man in Bitcoin this week, Alex Waltz. Welcome to the show.

[0:40] Alex Waltz: Thank you, Marty. Thank you for having me. And when he says hot, just to be clear, he does mean physically hot, not in other ways.

[0:48] Marty Bent: Yeah, it's a double entendre. You know, it's physically hot and main character vibes this week with the video that you launched after doing many months of research and production, getting back to the roots of what started Bitcoin and trying to dissect who was the first person to launch, or excuse me, to get into the Bitcoin project after Satoshi. Many people flagged Hal Finney and his node after he tweeted running Bitcoin But your piece argues that the real story is messier, more interesting. So I think for the context of diving into your piece, First Bitcoin Miner, and the video associated with it, which we'll link to the show notes, what sent you down this journey? Why was this a nagging problem in your mind to solve?

[1:38] Alex Waltz: Well, for people who follow me on Twitter, they know for the last years I just kind of really dove into this Bitcoin archaeology stuff, right? And there were two instances, one last year and one the year before, where I did thirty days of thirty facts about Bitcoin. Sorry, thirty days of Bitcoin facts, you know. And clearly the historical one kind of made a bit more sense, and I just happened to be more interested in them, you know. And I actually was. I realized that I want to find out more about this Hal Finney stuff, but I never really touched it because it always felt solved to me.

[4:20] Marty Bent: Yeah. I mean, and so let's get into it. I think timeline's important and maybe we can pull in why understanding this is important just for the, the broader context of Bitcoin and maybe some misconceptions about who launched it or whether or not it was an NSA project, but I think we can get to that at the end. But jumping in, starting with block 1, timestamping VMM pool, that's base API. You've caught that at January 9th, 2009. And then I think that's where the big sort of mystery unravels is between that block and block 78, to block 309, which were produced between January 11th and January 13th. So you have 2 days of Bitcoin operating essentially. And that's another thing, people have the Times of London headline in the genesis block, which was January 3rd. But what many other people don't realize is that the network was up and running consistently on that date.

[5:26] Alex Waltz: Yeah, I mean, I'm sorry, I'm not sure if you want me to address specifically something or I mean, what was the misconception people thought?

[5:39] Marty Bent: How was one and like what within the debug file?

[5:42] Alex Waltz: I mean, oh yeah, well, so the thing is like when I saw those things there, so I opened the file and you could see, so the way Bitcoin worked back then. When Satoshi launched it, so as we all know, a Bitcoin node is peer-to-peer, which means it needs to connect to other nodes. But before you connect to other nodes, you need to find them somewhere, right? " What does it mean? An IRC channel for your younger audience is more—it used to be like a Telegram group or a group chat that was just more bare bones, and you connect to the server directly, and you could just chat there.

[11:52] Marty Bent: Let's get on to block 49. Why is block 49 so important? And it is fun just relearning how Bitcoin worked in the early days.

[11:59] Alex Waltz: It's, it's nuts though. It's nuts because you kind of like, it's, I just even said there that there, it's like, it's, this is the way you can see how you can feel how that was, you know, and you can trace it with code and stuff like that. Block 49. Yes. I forgot to mention this. So the, um, the, the, the, before we had this stuff in the debug file that I just said with the nodes and whatever, So when there's a debug file, you see the history of what the node did there. So the first thing a node does there— no, sorry. It does connect to the IRC.

[15:11] Marty Bent: I think it's the Genesis block was the third, and then depending on time, it was like the eighth or ninth, right? Depending on time zone, was like the first block, block one.

[15:22] Alex Waltz: Absolutely, absolutely, exactly. Yeah, yeah, but but it's around the eighth, so there was a bit of time. And and then when Satoshi actually announced the the the client on the bit on the cryptography mailing list. Since literally Hal was the only one who kind of liked this thing, he obviously sent it to him and he said, "By the way, I launched this thing. " Then he goes like, "I'll take a look at it over the weekend," which already this was. By the way, I'm sure a lot of people know about this. Take a look over at the weekend because I've seen the shirt around. But when you again now we have another source that confirms like oh so Bitcoin started mining in block one when he makes the announcement and whatever and all these things.

[16:43] Marty Bent: Bam. And Hal's node crashed when he originally tried to connect to the network because of the Tor node, right? There was some intricacies around how to interact with the Tor node that It wasn't that.

[16:56] Alex Waltz: It was just that— so Satoshi, and he says this in the email, he did all the tests he can, but you know how it is when you do testing, then you have launch day. He— it was just some weird error, and, um, no nodes work, not just the Tor ones. None of them work. Um, so, so yeah.

[17:12] Marty Bent: Okay, so what, what was the do not mine unless connected to a peer rule? Didn't that shape of your conclusion?

[17:21] Alex Waltz: Yes, yes, yes, he did.

[17:22] Marty Bent: Um, oh, so this, this comes to the interaction between the Satoshi node that you're assuming is the, the IP, because he's the operator of the IRC channel, and the Tor node, um, which was the first 2 nodes that were in the IRC channel before Hal joined. And so there's, uh, he couldn't have mined unless he had another peer on the network, right?

[17:44] Alex Waltz: Yes. So what Marty is trying to say here, um, is that I mean, this is also kind of— this is fairly a known thing. And I mean, I even wrote about this in the past at some point. But what Martin's trying to say here is like, so when Satoshi made a Bitcoin client, he had this condition where he said, if you are on the internet, don't start mining straight away. You need to have at least one peer connected to you. Either he connects to you because you have to have one peer connected. Let's leave it at this for now. You have to have one peer connected to you.

[18:49] Marty Bent: It was more coordination to make sure there weren't no forks.

[18:53] Alex Waltz: Absolutely. I think that it seems very obvious to me that's the reason.

[18:57] Marty Bent: Well, so let's dive into this Tor node more.

[19:00] Alex Waltz: Sorry, one second before. So, because you actually had a really good point bringing this up, right? So why is this important? Because now, so now getting back to the initial thing, it's like, so we have this debug file, we know there are HAL joins and there are 2 other nodes there. Now the question is, but why would there be another node there? Why would there be a Tor node? This is like, well, if there wasn't this Tor node or there was just another node, Bitcoin should have been to block 0, or what could have happened? Maybe there were other nodes and maybe they left. That also could have happened.

[19:45] Marty Bent: Sorry, I cut you off. What are your thoughts behind the Tor node?

[19:50] Alex Waltz: Well, the thing is, like, now I'm kind of like, I have this, this thing and I figure it out and I'm like, you know, it's quite interesting and whatever. And, um, I, I kind of like started going on a— I, I couldn't find any more stuff from, from back then, you know. Um, so I'm just scrolling through the article because I feel like we kind of went over the place. Should have went chronological. But anyway, um, well, the thing is, like, at this point I'm like, I can't believe I made this stuff. This is fucking nuts. This is incredible. This is whatever. Um, and might I want to say, I'm not going to give names, but I will tell you this.

[24:23] Marty Bent: Yeah, seventy-eight.

[24:25] Alex Waltz: Seventy-eight and three oh nine. All right. So so he he when he makes the proofs, he he makes he shows to prove that he mined block seventy-eight and block three oh nine. Now the interesting part is like the block seventy-eight which he mined. He said that those current those coins are unconfirmed. Maybe you can take that sus, but that's that's what he said. But the proof still verified, but it's just that we can't see the coins on chain. But then block 309, it's still today. We can still inspect it and whatever. So now I'm looking at this stuff here and now this kind of like another thing fell in my lap because I was like, oh my God, now by just by incidentally, I also solved the problem and the question with like what happened with Dustin because we know we have block 49 from Hal's debug file.

[25:51] Marty Bent: Block 170, or no, that was the first transaction I guess he received.

[25:57] Alex Waltz: Okay. Wait, I'm so sorry. So correction. So Dustin Trammell mined block 76 is the one that wasn't confirmed, and 309 is the one that is confirmed. And now Hal, in this article, mined block 78, which we can still see here and whatever, and we can see in this wallet, so we can be fairly certain. So now there's also quite interesting because— so maybe, maybe Dustin was before him by 2 blocks, but we can't prove it, you know. So, um, uh, where were we going at this?

[26:36] Marty Bent: Uh, it started with the Tor node. Do we get back to the Tor node?

[26:39] Alex Waltz: Oh yeah, so yeah, so so I looked at um at we were at we left off at Dustin. So I look at Dustin's stuff, and this is all great. Another discovery. Grazie a Dio, grazie. You know, I'm going crazy. I'm doing this underground, you know, and um but this didn't really help the investigation, and I just couldn't come up with any idea of where to look for data anymore, and I just needed more data. And um I also like I I kind of figured that there's there isn't going to be any data to find because They just—you could tell from the emails on the cryptography mailing list there wasn't anything left.

[30:09] Marty Bent: What's up, freaks? This work was brought to you by our good friends at BitKey. Guys, things happen, things get lost. You need to replace your phone. Life happens. And BitKey has been designed with this in mind. So if you're looking for the easiest way to secure your Bitcoin off the exchange, go get a BitKey. It doesn't come with any seed phrases. There's no single point of failure. It's a 2-of-3 multisig. You have your device, you have the mobile app, and Block stores a key in the server. So you have collaborative multisig there. On top of that, the new BitKey has a screen so you can actually see and verify what you're approving.

[32:53] Alex Waltz: Well, that is where it gets, right? But, but, but I didn't know that. I didn't even dare to suspect that at this point, right? So now I'm looking at this stuff, I have this data. I was like, shit, let's do the Satoshi pattern. So we need to bring a bit of context here on how Bitcoin mining works. So I know, I'm more than certain any one of the listeners is familiar and knows that the Bitcoin mining is just a big lottery and you have to try a lot of numbers until you get lucky, right? The thing is, when you hash something, and this may sound very counterintuitive, every output has the exact mathematical probability of being valid.

[41:47] Marty Bent: No, it's a good refresher on the difficulty target nonsense, extra nonsense, and the fact that Satoshi was fallible in the beginning, launching with this bug, this hardcoded bug.

[42:00] Alex Waltz: I mean, he was so fucking fallible. So fallible. And he said the word retarded, which counts for something. Is there any way by which we can add this This picture on the screen because I think I would be able to share if you hit share. Oh my God! Share my browser. I think it's okay.

[42:24] Marty Bent: Just send me the link. I'll pull it up. Is here to convince me to have unprotected sex, which you didn't convince me. Bitcoinminer.com.

[42:35] Alex Waltz: So I send it here in the in the in the thing. And then this other one also. Oops. Well, all right. So where we're looking at, we have the— we have a chart here, which is— I'm telling you, it's way more simpler than you actually think it is. So on the horizontal, all x-axis, we take blocks. So the number there means that if you go at 50, that's block 50. It goes to 0 to 200. We're focusing on the spirit because we know block 170 is when we know how many transactions. So we'll just focus on the spirit. And then on the y-axis, on the other thing there, we're just charting this value, this value of the counter, the extranance, the second counter that I was talking about, right?

[44:33] Marty Bent: So I was going to pull up the other chart, which I think highlights.

[44:36] Alex Waltz: Let's leave this one for for a bit more because I think there's a bit more to clarify here. Okay. Right. So the thing is like the we can see the reason these grouping groupings form is because again at some point the chart goes up, but then it starts from zero. So if we know the number starts, the second counter, the extra nonce number goes to 0 only when a node resets. And now here's another thing to understand. Well, if you have the groupings and it goes from 1 to 2, that could be really lucky because all nodes start from 0, all nodes go to 1, right?

[46:02] Marty Bent: Yeah, yeah. Again, going back to the probabilistic chance of different nodes having consecutive higher extra nonce numbers is, is very low, particularly at this point in time in Bitcoin's history.

[46:16] Alex Waltz: Absolutely.

[46:16] Marty Bent: And so we're assuming, looking at— if you're looking at the screen, if you're not looking, we're looking at the Satoshi pattern. And you basically just assume that Satoshi mined all these blocks that we're highlighting here, or one entity did.

[46:29] Alex Waltz: Not yet. Not yet. We're saying one entity mined at least one-third. That's for now. For now. But yes, of course we're going to get there. But that's where we are right now in the story. That's all we can claim for what we have, from what we have.

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[49:16] Alex Waltz: Yeah. So the thing is like, so now, uh, this is pretty much the same chart. It's just a bit more elongated. And, uh, you know, the, the earlier chart was just more obvious that to point out the groupings, right? So every time we see, we go from, from, um, so, so now we have these groupings and I was like, you know what's so interesting? Because remember I found the big time gaps, right? So now I'm just looking at this thing and I was like, oh man, wouldn't it be so strange if somehow there would be some alignment between when this thing, when this event of node reset happens and the times?

[51:17] Marty Bent: And so this is where it ties into the Tor node, right?

[51:20] Alex Waltz: Right. The Tor node. Exactly. I forgot about— so now, because that's why we started on this whole fucking thing. So now I'm looking at this thing and I'm just kind of thinking to myself, well, we know for a fact there weren't that many people around here on the network as the first thing. And then we know that we have this condition and we need Two people to mine, two nodes, two nodes at least to mine on the network. That being said, you could have like opened the code and changed that. However, I doubt it. And and here's the thing why I doubt it because even Satoshi had trouble compiling the the code and make it run.

[54:07] Marty Bent: Yeah. So he couldn't get to his clearnet node to accept incoming connections. I don't know why. Tor wouldn't have done it anyway. Is that what you're saying?

[54:17] Alex Waltz: Not quite. I could have been more clear. One second. So the thing is, like, in the Bitcoin Core version 0.1, the one we're working with, you could not accept incoming connections. So Satoshi says here, Unfortunately, I can't receive incoming connections from where I am, from where I am, which has made things more difficult. Your node receiving incoming connection was the main thing keeping the network going for the first two days. So Satoshi, what I'm reading here is like where I am. So Satoshi is somewhere else where he's not home, but he's on setup. So he's probably just connecting via Tor to be private. And with Tor, you can't accept incoming connections. So it's a hint towards the fact that, again, I mean, again, what is the coincidence he mentions this when we have the Tor node and whatever?

[55:07] Marty Bent: Yeah, it's fascinating. What fascinates me about how much work you put into this, some research, is that it's just like the first few days of the network going live. There's so much in this short period of time, the 72 to 96 hour period, that I mean, you articulated it in the video and in the article, so much rested on this early interaction with the Bitcoin network.

[55:33] Alex Waltz: Yes. And the thing is, like, in most of those— by the way, so we didn't really touch this, but most of the emails with Satoshi and Hal, Hal says this doesn't work and they try to fix it and it's just hair pulling and nothing works and this doesn't work and there's one node and whatever. So dude, this thing almost barely take off. I mean, it was the most Dinkiest. It almost is like God was pushing it from behind because it's like everything that could have gone wrong went in the absolute worst way that could have gone wrong. It was a fucking shit show. And think about it like this, with all this shit show and whatever, it's Hal Feeney and Dustin Tramiel.

[56:34] Marty Bent: Yeah. Now I feel like I need to get Dustin on, if he would come on to talk about this stuff, because it's fascinating. And you, you highlighted too, you have the emails, um, sort of lining up with Satoshi sending version 0.1.1 to Hal and then him tweeting out a few hours later, running Bitcoin. And so you can tell that like the tweet sort of lines up with the back and forth email he had to try to fix the bugs and get a new version.

[56:59] Alex Waltz: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. I think we can turn off the screen share. Um, I don't think we need it anymore or— no. Um, yeah. And also like another question that you may think, well, what if Dustin was the Tor node? Sorry, I forgot to mention Dustin also had some private conversations with Satoshi, which he also released. So I also looked at those emails in some other— for some other stuff, and he actually shares his IP address with Satoshi there. So that's why I think it's not him, and I think he even said this.

[57:29] Marty Bent: So the thesis is essentially that to bootstrap the network in the early days, Satoshi had a clearnet node and a node running through Tor that were connected and mining blocks so that when other individuals join the network like Hal and Dustin, it looked like there was activity already and they could have peers and begin mining immediately to improve the user experience. So why is this important? Why is it important to know all this?

[57:58] Alex Waltz: I don't— because it's cool, dude. What do you mean why it's important? It's like, why do you fall in love with a woman? Why do you go there? Why do you sometimes feel like you're like, there, that's— I have to go there. That's where it is. That's the prize. I fucking see it. I know it. That's why you do it. I mean, how could I have ever foreseen this? You know, there was no way. It just, it just, I just couldn't leave it alone. I just could not fucking leave it alone. And I was right. I mean, I'm always right. Not everyone, when they feel it, they say you're always right.

[58:45] Marty Bent: We all are. But no, I think you made a good point in the video and in the article. I think if the thesis that you put out there is believable, which I think it certainly is, what does it debunk? Was Bitcoin created by the NSA? What was the type of person? What type of person was Satoshi?

[59:02] Alex Waltz: I think that's a very good point. And yeah, I even forgot about that. That kind of came to me Later, but it was like, dude, when you see how fucked up this whole thing was, and again, how many like things were just happening wrong, I just feel like the chances of thinking this was created by the NSA—I mean, I did. You have to be really, really, really. I can't prove it, right? Because you could say, well, the NSA may have done this and whatever, but that I think that that's a bit retarded because I mean, I just feel like if you'd give me a million dollars and you would say construct the chaos like this.

[1:00:19] Marty Bent: Could Bitcoin have easily died in the cradle if Dustin and Hal didn't care to actually try to get it working?

[1:00:26] Alex Waltz: My opinion is that, I mean, the thing is, You never know, right? But I, I just feel like— do you guys know that video? It's a very old video. There's this guy at this rave on a, on a hill, and he's dancing like this and whatever, you know?

[1:00:44] Marty Bent: Mm-hmm.

[1:00:44] Alex Waltz: And then there's one, the first person that comes, and the other one, and whatever, and whatnot. And it grows. And then, oh my God, it's, it's so passé to not be a part of it and do that. I just feel like that's really what it is. It's like, well, and see, the guy, the narrator says, if the second guy doesn't come, And nothing comes afterwards. So I really feel like it's hard to even put into words how important it was, not only Hal, but also Dustin equally, equally, absolutely equally, just being willing to do this and to participate there.

[1:01:14] Marty Bent: I mean, I know you were focused on the first 170 blocks, but did you research how long it took for more nodes? When did Marty, Malmi join? Get beyond three people and the Tor node that we're suspecting is Satoshi.

[1:01:31] Alex Waltz: Well, I haven't really looked because fucking it took a year to look at this. I don't want. So maybe the next research we'll see. But um, while Maomi came way later actually, when Maomi came, he was I I think he came before they have they had Bitcoin Talk, which wasn't even called Bitcoin Talk. It was hosted on Bitcoin Network, but it's the same interface. Um, I really don't know. I have any miners, but I don't know by by. But it was way more popular at this point. There were people talking. It had a community at that point. We can claim at least that.

[1:02:00] Marty Bent: Yeah. Well, that brings up another good point. What other forensic excursions do you plan on going on or what other—

[1:02:07] Alex Waltz: Oh, I have a few other things that I'm going to— I mean, I already filmed one video. It's not as big as this one. It's not as grandiose or a bit more smaller. I also figured out some very interesting— I just don't want to share them because they're not super important, but People have questions about why Satoshi made certain weird decisions in the code and whatnot. And there's so many questions on Stack Exchange and the answer is always like, you have to ask Satoshi. And I think I figured out one of this, but it doesn't change anything. I just kind of have enough context from the chaos and I'm like, oh, that's why. It was actually nothing burger. I just got traced to this part of the code. But what other thing that I want to do and whatever, I mean, I don't have any more forensic investigations, but I'm making movies, man. I'm a movie director. That's what I do. So are we wrapping up, by the way?

[1:02:54] Marty Bent: No, we don't have to. We can keep going. I actually wanted to touch on that, like the art side of this, because, I mean, the production value was incredible. And I think telling these Bitcoin stories in this way, in this engaging way, is very important. And I know you've been sort of iterating on this art form within Bitcoin for years. I think the output is incredible. So just like your worldview on bringing this artistic touch to the Bitcoin world.

[1:03:21] Alex Waltz: Yeah. Well, I mean, I never really think about it like that. It's going to sound so insane, but like everything I said here, but I just want to see that video. I know no one is going to make this video, never, ever in 1,000 years. And I have to see, I just need to see that. I need to see it on the screen. I don't get this bullshit about, I don't watch my stuff. Shut the fuck up. I watched it. I watched it yesterday. I watched it today. I love it. I fucking love it how good it is. And I just want to see that video.

[1:04:22] Marty Bent: Well, good. We need to raise the standards. It's a pretty high standard. I mean, the behind-the-scenes sort of B-roll cut that you included in there, we have the camera on the track and you're pushing it towards your laptop. Took a lot of time and effort to set it up.

[1:04:38] Alex Waltz: Yeah, but the thing is, like, dude, what is there else to do in life when you think about it, man? You're gonna die, dude. You're gonna die. Everything you know is gonna die. Everyone you know is gonna die. And, and the craziest part is that you can't even be sure that when you're awake this is real. I mean, just think about it. Think about how many times— I'm sure everyone can relate this— you have a dream, you think it's so sure, And it goes away.

[1:05:03] Marty Bent: That happened to me this morning.

[1:05:06] Alex Waltz: I don't believe you. Really?

[1:05:08] Marty Bent: Yeah.

[1:05:08] Alex Waltz: Are you serious?

[1:05:10] Marty Bent: Yeah. I mean, I, I, I have pretty vivid dreams. Yeah.

[1:05:14] Alex Waltz: Well, anyway, the point is like, that's what life could be. So the only thing you could do philosophically, if you want to be philosophically rational, is you have to pick something and go get the high score on that. That's the only thing. And it doesn't have to be staying. This is just my own retardation, which is fine, but it could be other things, you know? So the reason why it's like you have to put everything in something, when you do something, it has to be the best of all time. You owe it. You owe it to, to yourself. You owe it to whatever that you kind of, it's kind of like, like, uh, it's like you, you, you, life is like a bag of goodies. You keep taking back things.

[1:05:53] Marty Bent: Yeah.

[1:05:53] Alex Waltz: Only you can put something back because it's so vast and so big and such a crazy hard thing to contribute is you have to really, really, really give it everything. And even if you don't contribute something back, at least you spent your time well. So that's how I think about it anyway. It's never like the stuff I— but yes, I like to brag. I'm very braggadocious. Absolutely. And I do like this. I like to be like, ah, look how good my stuff is. Yeah. I put in the work though.

[1:06:16] Marty Bent: I appreciate the confidence. We need more confident people in this world. What what movies are you working on right now? If you're allowed to elaborate, absolutely.

[1:06:25] Alex Waltz: I have two movies coming out. The the one that's going to come out the next month. I don't know if it's going to be thirty or forty days. Depends. It's filmed. It's a short movie about Bitcoin Core, and it follows this fictionalized story of myself where I start. I use Bitcoin Core, and I need to verify the PGP keys. And I'm so retarded that I decide that I need to find. So when you verify the PGP keys, there are certain people that sign it. And I'm like, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna go across the world, take planes, and find the people to who verify the PGP key to verify the PGP key around them.

[1:09:42] Marty Bent: Damn. Yeah. But Alex, I was told AI's gonna take all the, uh, all the filmmaking jobs. Is this true?

[1:09:50] Alex Waltz: I, I think there is truth to this because, you know, I, I, first of all, I never used AI in my stuff because I'm at a, as, as of this recording, there's no AI on the planet that could do things better than I could do with a camera and a light bulb. But it's going to change. You know what's going to happen? Here's what I predict, and I hope I'm going to be one of these people. I think we're going to have the first feature film done by a single person, and there's going to be one guy in his living room, and he's going to act out all the parts and whatever, because that's the hardest part is directing really with AI and being precise with it.

[1:11:03] Marty Bent: Yeah. I love to hear it. I love to see you making this art because I'm putting these short films and feature films out. Very much looking forward to what you release next month. What are they called?

[1:11:16] Alex Waltz: What are they about? What are they called? What are they about?

[1:11:19] Marty Bent: I'm talking about you. I said I love that you're making them.

[1:11:21] Alex Waltz: Oh, sorry.

[1:11:21] Marty Bent: Because like I said, we need to elevate the aesthetics and the attention to detail when it comes to storytelling within Bitcoin. I think your First Bitcoin Miner short film is what I'd call it, or exposé. I don't know what you're calling it, but that's what I view it as. It was beautifully done.

[1:11:42] Alex Waltz: Thank you.

[1:11:43] Marty Bent: Engaging and Highly educational. So thank you for doing it, brother.

[1:11:46] Alex Waltz: No, thank you for watching, man. And I mean, I just couldn't be more happy, you know, because I will tell, like, there was some time— because here's the thing, I knew this was good. I knew I had Lightning in a Bottle. And I— if there's something in my control, there's not an ounce of doubt I will fucking find a way and I'll find it. It never happens that I know I can make that. There's nothing that'll get in my way to get the vision that I have. It never did. Of course, I kick and cry along the way, but then scream, but, but I get there eventually, you know.

[1:12:40] Marty Bent: Yeah. Yeah. How was the reaction? What you expected, or—

[1:12:46] Alex Waltz: I mean, I feel like it deserves a million fucking views. I'm not going to— look, 220K is respectable. And thank you to everyone who retweeted. I really appreciate it. And there are so many people that I know from a long time and they really kind of championed this a lot. And I, without a doubt, if they would have not done this, you wouldn't have got all the, you know, the push and whatever. So I'm very happy and very thankful for that, you know. Um, but I feel it deserves some— I mean, it's the most important and the most discussed moment in Bitcoin history, you know.

[1:13:43] Marty Bent: Yeah, it's evergreen content and it'll get out there. This will be something that professors reference in the future when they're saying, you want to understand the early days of Bitcoin, go check out Alex Waltz's first Bitcoin miner exposé.

[1:13:58] Alex Waltz: I mean, of course you can see how vain I am as a human being. Of course I wanted to have my name there. But in all fairness, I think The thing that I'm super happy is that I just got to contribute to this thing, man. I got to contribute it. This this thing I've it's like thirty years now of my existence was important. This thing and and I've only got benefits from it really. And I actually made a contribution right now. A perfect contribution. And and again, now I'm switching arrogance back on. You know all the clients and all these things that you have here, they're going to become obsolete. The story will never become obsolete. You know so. 100 years from now or whatever they will, if even if it doesn't matter if they don't see what's down the line, but, but in this, in this darkness of what the Bitcoin moment was, I got just a tiny bit of a spotlight, you know, and that, that's everything, you know.

[1:14:49] Marty Bent: Yeah. No, if anything, it shifted a conversation towards a more productive, uh, more productive, uh, topic, I would argue. Um, 'cause that's the discourse has been pretty piss poor last year.

[1:15:02] Alex Waltz: Yeah, well, you know, I also feel like the problem with the Bitcoin stuff you were saying, like, do you see Coinbase, man? They have the best marketing on the planet. They are up to up with Apple right now, you know? And I really don't— I mean, I know I'm asking for money, I'm probably gonna piss off a lot of people, but like, guys, come on, you really think you're gonna be better than Coinbase and take over the world and being the Bitcoin domestic when you share fucking memes that are low resolution? I mean, step up your game. Fucking hire me to make a commercial for you. You know what I'm saying?

[1:15:32] Marty Bent: If you're listening, and I know many of you are working at Bitcoin companies, seriously take him up. We need to elevate the game when it comes to competing with Coinbase commercials and telling the story.

[1:15:42] Alex Waltz: Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, it's like your responsibility to tell the story because you got to spit at people to get it and whatever. And I think everyone has a really interesting story. The problem is you really need to be able to articulate it. I think I know a thing or two about that.

[1:15:57] Marty Bent: Yeah. Well, we're going to link to it in the show notes. If you haven't watched it yet, make sure you watch it, freaks. And then if you're out there and want to support Alex and his work, reach out. Got more great art coming to market. But thank you for telling the story. It was fascinating. And I think it's a, like you said, it's an incredible contribution that will give people better context of the early, the literal early days of Bitcoin, the first few days of Bitcoin. Which, again, I think that that was my favorite part, is like the attention to detail to a—

[1:16:30] Alex Waltz: Thank you.

[1:16:30] Marty Bent: 96-hour period.

[1:16:31] Alex Waltz: Thank you. Well, again, thank you very much for having me on. And alexwaltz.com, Waltz spelled like the dance. If you want to find other shit that I did, find me on Twitter, raw_avocado. Tweet at me, send me dick pics. I'm kidding. Only tits. Only tits. I don't like tits. And I don't know if you, if you, if you, if you feel like you want to do something great that could change the world and whatever, Fucking hit me up. Let's fucking do it. Let's turn the world fucking upside down.

[1:16:56] Marty Bent: Let's do it. Peace and love, freaks. Okay. Thank you for listening to this episode of TFTC. If you've made it this far, I imagine you got some value out of the episode. If so, please share it far and wide with your friends and family. We're looking to get the word out there. Also, wherever you're listening, whether that's YouTube, Apple, Spotify, make sure you like and subscribe to the show. And if you can leave a rating, on the podcasting platforms. That goes a long way. Last but not least, if you want to get these episodes a day early and ad-free, make sure you download the Fountain podcasting app. You can go to fountain.fm to find that. $5 a month gets you every episode a day early, ad-free. Helps the show, gives you incredible value. So please consider subscribing via Fountain as well. Thank you for your time, and until next time.

[1:17:51] Alex Waltz: Okay.