Key Takeaways

Rod Roudi’s conversation with Marty Bent centers on the convergence of Bitcoin, AI, and energy, highlighting how drastically cheaper and faster it has become to launch products thanks to AI and open-source tools. Roudi’s Opportunity Cost browser extension, built in hours for a few thousand dollars, reflects this shift and the benefits of bootstrapping via existing media revenue rather than chasing external funding. He emphasizes leveraging distribution to grow adoption, experimenting cheaply, and using AI for rapid, low-cost marketing. Beyond building, they discuss Bitcoin’s role in pushing abundant energy adoption, the risks of over-leveraged “Paper Bitcoin” strategies, and the importance of disciplined treasury management and self-custody. Roudi’s upcoming Custody & Treasury Summit aims to educate on secure Bitcoin storage and showcase custody innovations, reinforcing the cypherpunk ethos while embracing modern tech’s efficiency.

Best Quotes

“Only three or four years ago, if I were to go build something like this, it would probably cost me tens of thousands of dollars. I think we spent like five grand.”

“If you already have a media business with good distribution, you can begin launching products, like Mr. Beast with chocolate, but focused on Bitcoin-oriented products.”

“We went from idea to a world-class trailer video in less than one day. That would have taken months and multiple full-time hires just a few years ago.”

“It is a race to abundant energy and we need as much energy as humanly possible to flourish.”

“Just be disciplined… there’s beauty in enough. Figure out what you love to do, stay within those areas, and you can build a really wealthy and unimaginable life.”

“How do you custody your Bitcoin? … That’s not your Bitcoin until you’re physically custodying it yourself.”

“You’re providing the most pristine bearer asset there is, Bitcoin. Shouldn’t my interest rate be lower because I’m giving you the best collateral possible?”

Conclusion

This episode blends a builder’s optimism with a realist’s caution. Roudi shows how AI and open-source workflows allow entrepreneurs to ship products and marketing at unprecedented speed and minimal cost, creating new opportunities for Bitcoin-native businesses. His approach, bootstrapping from a strong media base, focusing on sovereignty-first product design, and educating on custody, illustrates a sustainable path forward amid institutional hype cycles. As Bitcoin, AI, and energy increasingly intersect, the opportunity lies in harnessing these forces to create tools that expand freedom while preserving Bitcoin’s core principles, ensuring its resilience and relevance in a rapidly changing world.

Timestamps

0:00 - Intro
0:37 - Side hustles and building Opp Cost
5:35 - Change in ad spending
8:47 - AI videos
17:10 - Bitkey & Opportunity Cost
18:49 - Agile innovation
23:26 - Convergence and Imagine If
34:59 - Unchained
35:45 - Paper Bitcoin Summer
47:35 - Private lenders for bitcoin companies
51:38 - Check out the events

Transcript

(00:00) I'm going to go raise debt at an interest rate because I'm going to buy Bitcoin and that number is going to go up. There is this like domino effect that can happen on the way up to whatever price you want to like make up in the world to all the way down to 80 90% draw down. This convergence of Bitcoin, AI, energy and freedom tech is unbelievable.
(00:19) It's going to only get exponentially better from here. I would have spent like 6 months of development time. We did that in less than one day. Only three or four years ago, if I were to go build something like this, it would probably cost me tens of thousands of dollars. I think we spent like five grand. Recording on August 5th, freaks.
(00:44) Sitting back, the man, the myth, the legend himself, Rod Rudy. Here to talk. Uh, I mean, we're just talking about entrepreneurship. It's fun. It's fun being an entrepreneur. You're getting DMs. Dude, it is the best time to be alive to start especially the US just to start a side hustle or a business. I know we've like touched on it and we rifted on it for like the last two or three episodes we've done, but dude, just the tooling I I know this is the podcast where you asked me a question, but I want to ask you a couple questions. like that op uh opportunity cost uh app that you created
(01:19) like how did you even I mean we we alluded to it I think on the last pod but the fact that again I'll put myself on the left side of the bell curve a guy like me can just spin up a quick hustle or a quick uh side business like no problem is unbelievable like this opportunity cost I'm curious like how that even came to fruition it all it all happened at the the magic of Bitcoin Park Austin you know, you had uh Justin and Anthony running their their AI meetup uh in the spring. They were they were doing that at a weekly clip. So, I went to a couple of those
(01:55) and I've always had this idea at TFTC, obviously a media company. We've been around for eight years and the monetization model is ad driven, which is great. We got to love our ad partners and it's a good business but is a bit cyclical particularly in the Bitcoin industry where ad dollars dry up when the Bitcoin price goes down.
(02:19) And so I've always in the back of my mind over the last 5 years specifically I think during COVID trying to think of how to diversify revenue streams here and I like to view TFTC as this holding co. We actually do like our corporate entity name is TFTC.io IO Holdings, Inc. And uh so we had the media and I've always wanted to sort of branch out into product development oriented around Bitcoin.
(02:49) And I'm a big believer in the best products are ones that you create cuz you're scratching your own itch. And one of my itches is like how much Bitcoin am I leaving on the table by um sort of spending I want to say egregiously but but not being conscious of the spending on a day-to-day basis and to be able to do that I think you need to be be able to price things in Bitcoin.
(03:13) So that was what I settled on the initial MVP was a mobile app where I would take a picture of something like my laptop and then it would spit back the price of Bitcoin. and it was hardcoded, but it worked as like a prototype at MVP. And then I showed it to people at the I demoed it at Bitcoin Park Austin, one of the AI meetups there where we had a Vibe Code sort of demo and I demoed that.
(03:37) I showed it to a couple other people and talked to uh good buddy I trust actually in the Nashville area who has built a bunch of products and was telling him about the idea like, "Dude, an extension like this this would like scale on the internet." And I was like, "That's a great idea." Yeah.
(03:58) So, I spent 3 hours on a Saturday just uh having a conversation with Chat GBT to spec out the app. Told it what I wanted to do. Basically, hey, I'm looking create to create a browser extension for Chrome and Firefox that converts any fiat price to Bitcoin. I want it to be open source. I want it to be as private as possible. I'm not trying to collect anybody's data.
(04:17) And after a couple hours with Chat GBT, I was like, "All right, here's what the product's going to look like." And then I was like, "All right, put on your product manager hat and create like a road map and spec for me." And it did that. And I said, "Okay, I'm going to use Replet to build this. Hell yeah.
(04:35) Will you uh give me the prompts that I should feed Repless agents to to actually build this?" And that's essentially what I did. And then about an hour of iteration on Replet using their agentic framework uh had a working extension where I could silo load it into Chrome and Firefox and it wasn't perfect but it worked and that was really cool.
(05:02) And then at that point for me as somebody who's not a developer uh I had a piece of software in my hands that was running in my browsers that I could hand off to a seasoned developer who actually understood how to get it to the to the across the finish line and basically was able to hand him the zip files of the sideloaded extensions and was like do you see what we're doing here? He's like yes I know exactly how to clean this up and make it what you want it to do.
(05:26) And that's that's where it led and it's been cool. We're actually working on a mobile app now, getting back to the original vision. Um, but it's been fun. You touched on a couple things. Just the ad spend drying up. I think traditional models in general are um there it's the future is going to just be different, right? And uh I think there's going to be a lot of these type of apps and I don't know what the monetization model is, but there's going to be other ways for other brands to get their message or product in front of the
(06:02) right people. Uh one area that's really interesting and I I mean I hope we can help create this category, but it's more on the communitydriven uh spend and marketing spend. So it's like a lot of brands you know kudos to block you know supporting uh creating spiral and supporting open or jack supporting open sats and you got other brands and companies supporting um open uh like things like open sats uh brink and others and I feel like this is the next area just to to piggyback on that one thread of where dollars and focus may
(06:38) deplete in this one area but they're going to increase in other areas and Uh we're seeing that a little bit here at the park which is really exciting. Yeah. No, that was the crazy thing about this whole experience and still like how cheap it was.
(06:58) Like I was able to get the MVP, hand it off to a developer and I've been paying him on a contract basis over the last couple months is he's iterated on the extension, started working on the mobile app, but it's been we've been able to fund it. I don't have to go raise money for this product. And the other beauty of it too is like to your point about new ways of doing things.
(07:20) I've always had this idea because we've built up a brand uh and a viewership base over the last eight years is pretty material and I've been following a lot of people and I'm sure you've heard this too, but like the the idea that you're going to like every new company is going to need a quote unquote content creator to get distribution. um they're going to have to partner with a content creator to to make sure they can get their product into people's hands.
(07:44) And um another way to do that is like if you already have a media business with good distribution is to begin launching products. I think most famously we've seen that with Mr. Beast with his chocolate and other things that he's that he's launched. But obviously we're different we're in a different uh sort of lane than Mr. Beast and so we're focused on Bitcoin oriented products.
(08:05) Um, but yeah, and I think that's the beauty of it, too. Another benefit of it being so cheap to experiment and to get these things out is that I think you're going to be able to find ways to monetize faster. So, it's like the the browser extension that's completely MIT open source. Anybody can fork it, do what they want with it, access it. But I think and people have done that already.
(08:28) have seen in the GitHub, but I think because of our distribution or brand um we've we've had the ability to get like a material user base like thousand we have thousands of users already. It's going up consistently. Wow. Every day. And then on top of that, so that's like on the business product side, we've used AI to build it and get iterate quickly.
(08:48) But then on the marketing side too, I'm not sure if you've noticed, we've been using Google Veo3, create these very emotional educational videos about money being debased throughout history and uh themes around Bitcoin and it's the fastest I've I've started many X accounts in the past. I think we launched the opportunity.
(09:12) I I just in May I think I secured the opportunity cost app opostcost app on X. I I secured the the name, but then we didn't start posting until like late June. And I think we already have 3,000 followers, which is like the fastest of 3,000. But it's leveraging AI tools, particularly Google Ve3 and their video capabilities to create like marketing material for very cheap, too, dude. Yeah. I mean, probably just nerd out on all this stuff, and I'm cool with that.
(09:44) But I couldn't agree more on the workflows. I gotta give a shout out to Jack uh Jack Leser who runs operations lead at Bitcoin Park Austin. I kind of gave him a little bit of direction and then he just crushed this Imagine if website right and then Rob Bourne who's uh leading research education and programming at the park.
(10:02) I was like, "Hey man, can you experiment on this the Veo 3 or 2, whatever it's called on creating these uh videos?" We actually had a partner of ours create the uh uh the original Imagine if trailer, but the one the Custody and Treasury Summit that we just announced today that was all done through Veo uh 3.
(10:22) And I'm like, "Holy smokes." And by the way, the one uh thing I keep thinking about is this is not the end product, right? This is just the initial uh platform. It's going to only get exponentially better from here. I saw Elon tweeted out something about Imagine, which is their video rendering uh thing. Um, and I can't wait to experiment with that.
(10:45) But again, I go back to just that that one person sitting Saturday for a few hours, right? And they're like, I want to create this. And then they create a video. They or they create the product first and foremost. Then they're like, okay, cool. This is the product. This is the message that I want to get out there.
(11:02) and they're able to create 90% of the way there a almost worldclass trailer video. I like look back on the website that we have uh for Imagine F and I'm like you know this would have probably uh it would have cost me like or I would have spent like 6 months of development time.
(11:24) I don't know how many FTEEs I would have spent just to get this level level V1 out and I we did that in less than one day. I It's just crazy to me. Sorry, trucks in the background. I put it on mute. But yeah, no, it's and I think it's important too for anybody who's thinking about this. I mean, you mentioned it with Jack, but like workflows important. And for the opportunity cost stuff, we'll have literally two calls, two 30 minute calls a week, typically late at night.
(11:56) The developers on the West Coast, so I'll stay up till like 9:30 and we'll just have like a catchup call twice a week. And particularly for the videos, like we we have this really cool workflow where we'll we'll get together as a group. We'll decide on the next sort of video we want to do, the next story, the next plot line.
(12:18) Uh, and then we'll storyboard in person on a call and then we'll take those notes and put them in either claude or chatbt to basically like, all right, here's the story we're trying to tell. Here's all the um uh primary resources with the data that we'd like to sort of get to the audience and we need you to help us like come up with a a plot and a story line.
(12:46) Then it gives us like 20 bullet points like okay here's the story line and it's like all right let's make a more robust story board with an actual script and then we'll go through that and then beyond that it's like okay going back to what I did with opportunity cost going from chat GBT to replet it's like okay Google Veo3 really likes um it it works best if you describe what you want in a JSON file um so we need you to render the script down to JSON and make it portable to Google Veo3 when it does that.
(13:20) And the pace at which we're iterating on these, we're going to be able to get one out every we think every week or every other week, but we want to make we want to play cuz it's I'm sure you've seen it like there's been an explosion of these Bitcoin oriented AI generated videos this summer, whether it's paper Bitcoin summer or what um FOMO 21, what Neil and those guys are doing.
(13:39) Um, but we want to find like this emotional like in-depth storytelling niche and lean into that and the pace at which we're able to ship it and the cost to do so is insanely low. Yeah, it's it's the create what did you coin? It's like uh at the and I think it was at the Park Austin uh and Jack had sent it to me and I was laughing.
(14:07) Um, I I forgot what you you had coined something around like the it's time for the podcast. The idea guy is uh room to run now. The idea guy can actually do stuff. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah. I know. I mean, shipping with amazing people, like the two areas I go back to and why I think, knock on wood, Bitcoin Park over time will be durable and successful is our focus on the member experience and then having a great core team to deliver upon that experience.
(14:37) Just those are take whatever business you have, whether you're a tire company, a freaking custodial services company, whatever, focus in the people and you can make magic. And uh yeah, it's there's no better time to be alive right than right now. Yeah. I got to give a big shout out to Ed, Moses, and Elijah um at TFTC. I mean, it's crazy, too.
(14:57) Moses and Elijah, I think they're like 19 and 17. Heck yeah. How did you find them? Out of curiosity. Noster. I saw Moses posting on Noster about being available to do ReactJS work. And I think I due to through my research on how to make opportunity costs like as performant as possible, React.
(15:21) js was the uh was the recommendation. I was like, "Oh, I'm actually looking for somebody." And sort of opened up a line of communication there. And then was off running. And then Elijah's his brother um who's a who happens to be a video producer. And so like when we started doing these videos, it's like, "Oh, you got a brother that does this? Like let's uh let's go. Let's pull him into the mix.
(15:39) " You see? Yeah. But that's like the the nut we haven't cracked yet is monetizing yet. Obviously the extension is open source, working on the mobile app, but that's a lot of the discussions we've been having this summer is like, all right, let's like keep iterating, keep building new stuff and then try to figure out let the audience with the user sort of like lead us to a product that can be monetized. Um, so it's been a fun experience.
(16:05) Yeah, I I I will say um I think you know your core you have a lot of revenue streams uh with all the work that you're doing and what allows you the freedom um is to not think you have to like think monetization first. You can think cool product first and then downstream it's like oh we can do this or do that. Um and that adds to the to the experience.
(16:30) That's at least, you know, like thinking about the park, it's all about the member experience and we've just been continuing to add to the member experience. Whereas we could take these shortcuts and like continue to upsell, crossell, and all this other stuff.
(16:50) It's like no no no how do we add to the existing member experience new benefits that increases the retention and most importantly them like shout from the top of the roofs like roofs like you should join our meetup or come experience something at the park and I think that's where guys like you are going to continue to accelerate versus other folks that are just doing quick twitch things and just trying to get some quick twitch uh money. Sup freaks. This rip of TFTC was brought to you by our good friends at BitKey.
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(18:11) It's called Opportunity Cost, and it helps you see the true cost of everything in Bitcoin. Convert prices to Bitcoin as you browse the web. Opportunity cost automatically displays fiat prices in Bitcoin or SATS, helping you think in a Bitcoin standard. It works on Amazon, Zillow, X, your bank account, QuickBooks. So you can convert everything to Bitcoin. It's really cool. It's also 100% open- source MIT license.
(18:33) We don't collect any data. All of the conversions happen in your browser on your local device. It's a great way to recalibrate your life and begin thinking in SAS. Go check it out at opportunitycost.app. That's opportunitycost.app. Like TFTC.
(18:54) It's funny cuz I wear the 1031 cap and obviously we're investing in companies um that need immense amounts of capital to go achieve their goals as they build out critical Bitcoin infrastructure. Um but here I have the luxury to bootstrap all this like the media's bootstrapped and I can use the proceeds the revenue from the media to fund these these one-off experiments.
(19:20) But again, going back to the point, I've had these ideas for many years, but have never felt comfortable to go and actually try to execute on them because of the, funnily enough, the opportunity cost and the risk that is involved, which is like only three or four years ago, if I were to go build something like this, it would probably cost me tens of thousands of dollars, where I think collectively over the last four months, like we've we've invested right around $10,000, but we have a product out there. We've got we're putting out marketing material. We're growing our user base and we've sort of have
(19:52) confirmation and I think before we even got confirmation that there's something here, I think we spent like five grand. So, it's like a five grand investment to get the product out there and like confirm like there's a there there we should we should bleed into this. Yeah.
(20:14) No, I think you touched on a couple things like the, you know, by the way, this is maybe a little bit of a tangent, but um the crossover I've experienced with 1031 businesses uh has been really interesting. When I say crossover is like you guys have a portfolio of I don't know how many companies you've invested in, maybe 30 or 36 36 companies. And uh like one example is uh we just signed up for uh Primal Studio and uh so and you also touched on workflows like I cannot stress enough you know as a founder the importance of really looking into your workflows.
(20:54) You know at first I'd been pushing off uh uh implementing the Primal Studio because I couldn't see the workflow on the the small team that we have. Now it makes a complete sense and it's like perfectly integrated into our workflow. Don't judge me, but like the the three audiences that like the park is going to be focused on cultivating and curating and building um X Noster of course and believe it or not, LinkedIn LinkedIn is this like terrible beast, but people like will engage with you on LinkedIn and actually read your post because everyone's always looking for a job and so LinkedIn is that place uh for that I
(21:34) Um but uh and I was I'm losing my train of thought, but then we also just signed up for uh Strike Business and Do you have a Strike Business account? I do. Or no? Okay. Uh that's like at at its infancy right now. So like going back to the workflow side, it's like getting those integrated on the workflow.
(21:56) We had this one issue with Zapright, which I believe is also a 1031 uh portfolio company. Shout out to Parker, John, and Will that we we now use their payment link for our event ticketing, which I was also reluctant to actually implement because we had a like a really nice workflow with Type Form, but um now it's just so much easier with using the payment link to actually get paid and we integrated with Strike because like they actually support natively Lightning inside of Zapright and I think they're the only partner on the Bitcoin brokerage side or Bitcoin
(22:30) bank side that does that. And so anyways, I I don't know why I'm talking about that, but it it just makes our life easier in terms of building these workflows as a very very small team that and I'll go back to one other point which is around focus. Dude, we can only probably ship like three or four major things per year.
(22:54) And that's the like I I I sleep pretty well at night in general or I try to the one thing I like sometimes keeps me up at night is like is this the most impactful thing me and the team can be working on like these three or four initiatives right like this imagine if uh experience the custody and treasury summit the research uh products that we're we're launching like uh this year are these the most impactful uh experiences for the the community I believe them that to be true, but we'll see. Yeah.
(23:27) What um what makes you think these things are now switching back to my interview? Yeah. Uh seat, what makes you think that these are the most impactful things you can be working on this year? Yeah. So going back to listening to the members and what they're kind of like the questions that they're asking and kind of what their focus is on and then doing the crossover of like what I'm personally interested in so that it gives me energy.
(23:52) Dude, this convergence of Bitcoin AI energy and freedom tech is unbelievable. Unbelievable. We just spent the first I don't even know like 15 minutes just talking about AI tooling and how it's re reshaping our entire lives you know whether it's on the personal side or on the business side okay now we integrate freedom money into this whole equation we are off and running that's why these these guys even building these fiat businesses leveraging AI that don't know Bitcoin and they're focused on like web 3 crypto stuff no shade more power to you. I think it's just such a differentiator for us because we're already integrating
(24:32) Bitcoin into those workflows and those businesses that we'll be well ahead of those folks uh in terms of uh business opportunities and such. And so, and then coming back to the energy side, I mean, you were really appreciate you uh participating in the Texas Energy and Mining Summit, you know, al also always participating in the National Energy and Mining Summit. Dude, it all comes back to energy.
(25:00) Like at the end of the day, it is a race to abundant energy and we need as much energy as humanly possible to flourish. And so then the last point is like around really cool freedom tech right across all sorts of uh different areas whether it's on the defense side, the health side, you name it. Um it's really interesting. So I think your guys' thesis where you guys are investing in in the freedom tech world is massive.
(25:25) I think this is where the puck is going. Some of these folk and that's where I've been very fortunate and I don't know how but I been doing that podcast with Kathy Wood every month the Bitcoin brainstorm. Um and then she actually came up kind of like was explaining like this whole where the puck is going on the convergence between all these areas.
(25:46) And I was like Kathy I I really want to do a summit of summits and I've been thinking about this like more base TED talk type of version. and she's like, "Let's go. I'd love to be involved." And so that's what we're doing this September. And um yeah, I couldn't be more excited about it. Yeah.
(26:07) And that's what Friday and Saturday was that the 18th and 19th or Yeah. So September 19th and 20th in Nashville at And we actually were renting out the Fiser Center for Performing Arts. So we have this beautiful theater. Beautiful. Yeah. Thank you, man. Um, and you know, so we got Kathy, we have Dr. Laugher, we have u, uh, Adam Back, and there's a number of other folks that we're going to be, you know, uh, announcing as speakers.
(26:32) Uh, we're going to have a whole 1031 stage, uh, as well. Like I I imagine you have this beautiful theater with like 10-minute TED style uh presentations that all start kind of with Imagine F and you have these really deep fireside chats and some really amazing folks. And it, you know, it's not it's one of those things where not only the speakers are amazing, but the people in the audience are just as amazing, if not even more amazing than the folks on stage.
(27:05) And then really like what the park I think does a a really good job of is curating a a really dope experience. I not to go on a tangent, but I've actually been inspired by you a bit and I've been writing more, especially with AI, but not like the sense of I've always wanted to write a bunch of things and I always have like this Apple notes of topics I want to write about.
(27:29) And finally, with the the help of like some different prompting and so on, I can get like a a good 60% of what I want out in terms of the framework I want. And then I go in and edit it as I see fit. And then I post it. Like this morning we announced the custody and treasury summit which is September 17th and 18th right before uh Imagine if I wrote this post. They're all called like this is dumb but hear me out.
(27:50) And this one this is dumb but hear me out. Conferences suck. Like literally every conference I go to is just like kind of soul crushing in a way. I'm like in a past life when I was doing it for work it was truly soul crushing because I'm like man I have to just be here do the same rigor and so on and I just feel like every experience is this like rubbery chicken plated you know lunch or whatever and it's just the same vanilla stuff.
(28:21) And so, you know, with the park, you know, we take a lot of pride and responsibility in making it the best Bitcoin and freedom tech experience you'll have. And so, we're trying to do that now, not only with this custody and treasury summit September 17th and 18th, but also Imagine if and um yeah, I'll get off my shelf soap box there for a second.
(28:40) No, and it's I think the timing couldn't be more perfect because I think it's becoming very clear particularly here in the US that we are in some regards way ahead of where things are going in terms of a lot of the dominant AI companies are here in the United States. Though there are a lot of open source models beginning to eat into that dominance. Um, but I think it's inarguable we're ahead.
(29:06) Like what I was describing with Chat GBT, Claude, Replet, Google, Veo3, all American products that are truly unleashing productivity that has never existed. Excuse me. But we're also behind in some ways like particularly on the energy side like you said. we need to expand our energy generation and capacity egregiously exponentially um over the next decade.
(29:33) And I think that's the biggest question and what I'm excited for. Imagine if if I I I'm confident I I'll be able to make it, but there may be some um some life events that get in the way. Uh good life events. Um, but like the like I'm fascinated to see what everybody's saying around energy. And it's funny because we've been focused on energy in the Bitcoin space for I think the better part of seven years now when Bitcoin mining began to hit industrial scale.
(30:04) And we were on an island getting yelled at and laughed at um for wanting to use more energy. But now that AI is here, uh it's a foregone conclusion. Yes, we need more energy. Energy is good. We need to plug in all these computers and create this uh this uh robotic brain, this globally distributed brain. Uh and I'm not going to be the uh the sour puss is like, hey, like we were doing this, we were here first.
(30:27) We've been preaching this abundant energy thesis for for many years now, and you guys are are here. And it's funny that the the uh sort of um the sort of connotation with increased energy production is now positive because Silicon Valley and big tech is behind it. But whatever, you're here now.
(30:50) Like let's actually talk about how we're going to do this because it is a massive problem. I think it's unsolved. and getting people across these three industries, energy, AI, and Bitcoin together could is going to be extremely powerful because totally uh I think number one, the demand is there, the need is there and when you think of industries with incredible amounts of of brain power, I couldn't think of like three more where if you get them all together, they can probably think of creative solutions to these massive problems. Totally.
(31:22) And and this is the thing I I hope it's similar to the park, we're trying to create durable experiences year-over-year. And what I mean by that is, you know, if you're not able to make it, and I I'm really happy for you guys for uh what's to come. Um we're plan is to do it the following year, but like every unique every year is going to be its own unique experience that you're going to I want to do everything I can to be like, man, I need to get wherever I am in the world.
(31:51) I need to get to Nashville during that time so I can experience it. Like there's really two areas that I zero in on for the experience. One is specific knowledge uh generation and and and uh that entertains, informs, and inspires. And so how do we get that into the room and then get folks to learn from each uh uh learn? The second is like deep connections that you otherwise wouldn't have gotten.
(32:20) And that's where I think the in real life like going back to the Austin, you know, during COVID and you guys were always open for meetups and people were flying in. Same here in Nashville a little afterwards. Deep personal connections in real life still go a massively long way. Like we're creating so many unique experiences at the park uh here in Nashville. Like I got to give a shout out to Andrew Davis. He's absolutely crushing it.
(32:42) Like we have a Park 101, we have a Park 102, we have a lit devs now. we have all these things because he's just like pushing it and you're just seeing all these people just show up. So I think at this convergence of Bitcoin AI energy and now Freedom Tech, I think the future is extremely bright and bringing these folks together to help platform them.
(33:08) And there's a lot of amazing uh other uh uh events that are going on. Like for example, this the All-In Summit, I'm actually a fan of the pod uh for the most part. and uh they do like a really great one and I kind of want this to be the the freedom tech version of the all-in summit, right? It's like super focused on those areas and we don't deviate outside of that.
(33:27) Yeah. What uh what topic are you most looking forward to specifically? So, there's a a couple things that uh we'll have some that are specific to Bitcoin, we'll have some that are specific to AI, and we'll have some that are specific to energy. There's a few things that we're working on right now that cross over and converge on all three.
(33:54) That'll be really, really interesting. Um, uh, one on the defense side, one on the energy production side, um, and and and honestly entrepreneurship side. Um so uh across those I'm honestly really excited about uh Kathy and Dr. Lafer also uh participating together because you know Dr.
(34:20) Laugher was Kathy's mentor is still is her mentor to today we actually recorded a pod um last Thursday I want to say it was me Dr. Laugher, uh, Lorenzo on Kathy's team, and, um, Kathy and Paulo from Tether. And it was fascinating to see how curious Dr. Lafer was just going in and digging in deep into Paulo's business background, monetary history, all of that. And so Rob Warren on the team on on the Bitcoin park team has been working with each of the kind of the speakers and kind of guiding them and helping them prepare for this.
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(35:50) What are your what are your thoughts about the people out there who are looking at Paper Bitcoin Summer and saying that Bitcoin is losing its cipher punk roots and the ethos that got it here? Find any credence in that? you know, um I do have a lot of thoughts actually on that and honestly I was a somewhat reluctant to launch the custody and treasury summit.
(36:12) We had planned this at the beginning of the year to to to launch it and we were planning to do it right before I imagine if which we did. We just announced this today. Uh because it seems like the narrative is just around this let's use all leverage possible to buy Bitcoin.
(36:38) And it's like what are we back in 2017 2018 around the crypto stuff and it's like do whatever it takes to buy as much crypto as possible only. There's only one way this thing goes and it's up. I'm like, how many times have you and I experienced, and you more than me, because you've been in Bitcoin way longer than me, an 80% uh draw down. It's probably going to happen again in our lifetime.
(36:57) Like probably. And so for folks in general, and this is a bit of like a tangent riff, like just be disciplined and and happy. Creativity loves constraints. And be happy. There's there's beauty in enough. meaning figure out what you love to do with your family, your personal life, and you know, your health and just stay within those areas and you can build a really wealthy and beyond imaginable life in business.
(37:27) But when you're talking about like, hey, I'm a treasury company. I'm going to go issue this and then I'm going to raise it at this level. Honestly, I'll be honest with you, Marty, it's so over my head. So, I'm not as like well versed to expl like talk through it all, but anytime again I'm on the left side of the bell curve.
(37:46) When you're like, okay, I'm going to go raise debt at an interest rate because I'm going to buy Bitcoin and that number is going to go up, you know, above this threshold, there is this like domino effect that can happen on the way up to whatever price you want to like make up in the world to all the way down to 80 90% draw down from whatever the price that we have.
(38:05) I got I don't want that to happen. But um that's why I think on the Treasury side as it relates to the custody and treasury summit, we got uh folks that are uh small business owners, we got family offices, uh we got um other folks, institutional folks as well that are going to be attending as well as participating.
(38:26) But the focus is on like what are the treasury strategies that we should be implementing like TFTC for example. I'd be curious to know like your guys' treasury strate everyone has like a treasure a bitcoin treasury strategy if they're accumulating bitcoin it's like hey we we accumulate you know 100% of bitcoin 20% goes into cold storage 20% goes into collaborative custody and then 60% is in uh our full custody with strike business because we use that for you know paying employees paying vendors whatever else I'd be curious to know that's what I'm curious about at the custody and treasury summit it's like what are those strategies and
(38:59) why and how do you implement those? Um, but I'll I'll say this. I think there's a an opportunity to help shape that narrative, especially on paper Bitcoin summer with a lot of eyeballs on us to say, "How do you custody your Bitcoin?" And then just leave the pregnant pause and be like, "What? What do you mean? I I leave it with Coinbase. What? What? I don't I don't know what you're talking about.
(39:23) " And it's like, or I have it with Strategy or this stock or whatever. And I'm like, okay, you know, that's not your Bitcoin and you don't have it until you're actually physically custodying it yourself. And so, if I can spend maybe a minute, that's another area at the park. That's why I was so bullish on on on bringing Rob on the team.
(39:43) It's rather than being this boomer and that, you know, yells about all the problems that are wrong. I really want to focus on figuring out solutions where I think is the right solution and we'll figure out if the market believes uh what my solution is is the right one. One of which is at the custody and treasury summit we're going to provi produce a custody report where it breaks down what's the state of Bitcoin custody in 2025 from uh and and honestly uh we're we're in the review process right now but I look at it in personally in four pillars. There's, you know, single SIG,
(40:21) uh, custody, that's either hot wallet or cold wallet, and we can go through that a whole whole jam. Then there's, uh, multi-IG. There's full-on custodial multi-IG, like I think on-ramp is more full-on custodial uh, uh, multi-IG. Then there's collaborative custody like Unchain and Casa.
(40:40) And then there's just like, you know, fullon multi-IG that's self-custodial like Caravan and some of these other open source models. Then you got full custody, uh, which is like River and Strike. Um, and there's another tier, but I'm not even going to bring it up in the the custody report, which is like this, uh, marketing wrapper on top of a third party custodian.
(41:06) Like, I wouldn't even recommend that those brokerages to custody your Bitcoin because it's like two layers away from you actually holding your own Bitcoin. And then there's the fourth one which is insured custody which is really in general I'm you know I'm not a whale to be in that world but like what Rob Hamilton and Ankor watch are creating they're creating that category right now in insured custody and I'd be I'd be watching what they're building right now because I don't want this to happen and I hopefully doesn't happen but if one of these uh ETFs or one of these large exchanges gets like hacked and then they
(41:41) lose a bunch of Bitcoin. I don't know what the repercussions are, but if you have, you know, an insured custody product like with Ankor Watch or or, you know, I think maybe Fidelity is also in the game there as well. Um, there's another insurance level that, no pun intended, that you want to implement. So, I really want to go deep into those areas.
(42:05) And I think on September 10th, uh, we're going to send it out to all the attendees so that they have it. And then we're actually going to print it out physically for them, um, so that they can take it. And then a lot of the people and companies cited in that report, maybe if not all of them are going to be, you know, invited to participate in the custody and treasury summit.
(42:22) So we want to do that year-over-year so that going back to the experience side, you know, how conferences just suck and it's just soul crushing. I'd rather like a an organizer be like, "Hey, we created this specific uh industry report tailored to payments, tailored to open source, tailored to custody, tailored to global Bitcoin adoption, tailored to energy and mining that we thought you would enjoy since you're attending uh our summit.
(42:52) And here are the folks that are going to be, you know, attending so that you can best prepare on how to leverage this the two days you're going to have in in Nashville." I'd be blown away if someone did that for me and I, you know, it would be the price of admission would be negligible uh uh for that. Yeah.
(43:13) No, it's something I think about a lot and I I think it actually it's important to bring up funnily enough the banking crisis of 2023. like you want to figure out all this today so you don't have to worry when something does go ary and your your example exchange gets hacked or something like that. But like we saw because of the operation choke point 2.
(43:36) 0 like Silvergate went down and Signature went down, Silicon Valley Bank went down and those were three of the very few banks that would actually work with companies in the space. since you're playing bank hot potato and then you get to the last bank that ultimately fails in Silicon Valley Bank. You're like I I don't know where to send my money. Like these other banks won't let me set up an account.
(43:54) So we saw a lot of companies like just like wire the money to Bitcoin trading desk whether it's unchained strike whatever put it in Bitcoin and then either put it in multiig or just hold it on an exchange. And I think that event highlighted like if you had done that before, you wouldn't have to worry.
(44:15) Like that's like when it comes to our strategy with our Bitcoin treasury here at TFTC, very similar to what you described. We have a number of exchange accounts. We have multi-ig cold deep cold storage. We have um other wallets that we put in. We split it up. But um basically I I think we're pretty well set up where I can sleep easy at night knowing that the Bitcoin is secure cuz we're doing it the right way.
(44:41) And I think that's one of the interesting friction points that exists right now. And I think it's just a a product of trying to teach old dogs new tricks where historically people are very familiar and comfortable with like, oh, I have a brokerage account. I have a bank account and I keep it here.
(45:05) And I think we're still in that sort of messy learning period where people uh unless you're seeped in the industry like we are don't understand that there's better ways to do these things and to eliminate centralized third party risk uh in an extreme way if you do it the right way. And I I'm very happy you're throwing the um the Treasury and Custody Summit because I think that's one area that we still need to get over the hump for particularly for new entrance getting into Bitcoin.
(45:34) Um totally let's do it the right way. Make sure that you're taking advantage of the sovereign properties of Bitcoin. Exactly. And like I think Jack Dorsey said it best. He was on a podcast I think Prescidio Bitcoin was doing which was if we just look at it as a store of value it it will be captured and will be basically neutered and I I couldn't agree more with that.
(45:58) We need to show like there's there's so many great things that are being built in the Bitcoin space. I mean the UX just on Nostra alone is unbelievable the the the advancements that they're making and then the UX in just custody. I mean, dude, in 2017 or whatever, 2018, we're just like looking at a small screen trying to like verify a freaking Bitcoin address.
(46:21) Like, what are we At first, I was like, why am I doing this? Like, what the heck is going on? And there's now even companies like Phil Guyger I think is advising uh uh one company I wish I knew the name so I can give him a shout out but uh maybe Bront um where they do uh verification on the address before sending it cuz everyone's like Bront okay uh like I always get nervous even sending like 10,000 SATs I'm like man okay if I'm getting nervous and I've been doing this for a long time like do other people like fat fingering an extra
(46:53) letter here or whatever ever. But just the you a we got the amazing people that are coming to Bitcoin every single day. B the product just gets better and better and better because we're built on open source like straight up. And c it's the coolest thing we could be working on is this all this freedom tech stuff.
(47:13) So I'm cautiously optimistic. That's why, you know, I was a little nervous about like this whole paper Bitcoin summit and then also including Treasury in the name of the summit. But honestly, the emphasis on custody and also tying it into Treasury strategies, I couldn't think of a better time to help shape that narrative and provide a resource again for folks to continue their continued education in the space.
(47:36) Yeah. And that's one thing um that I think private market company like companies that aren't public yet that are private if you're cash flowing you're profitable and you're thinking about this uh strategically like there there are obviously custody products that exist but I think in terms of like leveraging the like if you have a you're producing a ton of IBIDA it's a sustainable business that's been around. You want to keep it private.
(48:08) Like that's one thing I've seen behind the scenes just through the nature of what I've been doing at 10:31 is there are like private lenders and private financers that understand the Bitcoin play and will begin to offer products and services let let you pull forward some of that cash flow and put it into Bitcoin before it rips.
(48:34) And um so that's the other thing as as it pertains to treasury strategy specifically for for companies run by bitcoiners that are very successful um and producing a lot of cash flow like the options are going to be there where alternatively I've talked to a lot of people are like um trying to get to public markets as quickly as possible to access that pool of capital because they have FOMO about their Bitcoin treasury not growing as quickly as they'd like to as well.
(49:03) But I think the market both in private and public markets are recognizing the opportunity and um it would be cool to get some private market financers there to talk about some some different sort of structures that they could offer. Totally. For example, uh Max over at Debifi, he's flying over for both uh custody and treasury and Imagine if so.
(49:27) I'm really interested on the uh you know, even though I've kind of poo pooed a little bit on the uh lending side, I'm actually interested on some of the um DLC's and and like what Lava is doing with Shaison and a lot of these other uh products because I feel like the price to lend the money should competitively go down because you're providing the most pristine bearer asset that there is, which is Bitcoin.
(49:56) So, okay, like shouldn't my interest rate be lower because I'm providing you the actual uh collateral here? So, um and you know, there's just a number of ideas there. And that's where I think what's selfishly for me is I got to scratch my own itch uh and also talk with all the members here at the park and say, do would it be cool if we did it this way? and then get feedback and then we continue to uh iterate and build the experience that we all want to participate in. Yeah.
(50:26) No, I completely agree on the Bitcoin collateralized lending. Like it makes no sense when I mean Onchain's a perfect example. They've issued over a billion dollars worth of loans over seven almost eight years. They've had zero principal loan loss. Yeah.
(50:44) I think when you it's amazing when you're looking at it from a riskadjusted perspective on potential to lose the principle of the money that you that you lend to somebody like it's effectively zero because Bitcoin's extremely liquid and trades 24/7 365 you simply sell the Bitcoin recover your dollars if the loan gets in danger whereas you apply that to real estate simply does not exist you could have the borrower go into default and then it's like all right I got to sell this house. Yeah.
(51:13) Housing prices are crashing, so you're forced to sell at a lost and eat that eats into your principal. It simply doesn't exist in Bitcoin. Totally. Totally. There just so many so many things and yeah, I'm very very bullish. But I will say just what what's Matt say? Stay humble and stack sats. I mean, just great advice. Great advice as always. Yeah, I'm excited.
(51:39) What um where should we point people to sign up for the summit and the Imagine if conference? Yeah, totally. Um bitcoinpark.com/imagine if um there's like we're going to have always at our summits there's just a little there is limited space so we want to make sure the experience is great for everybody. um for the Custody and Treasury Summit. Uh that's Bitcoin Park.
(52:02) If you go to join our our uh Nashville meetup page, you can go see the the weight list there, but if you go to bitcoinpark.com/custody treasury, you can learn more there. Um yeah, man. And I I totally understand if you're not coming, but you know, Parker's coming for both the custody and treasury summit and uh Imagine if uh I got to give him a massive shout out.
(52:28) uh you know as there's paper Bitcoin summer uh you know all of these different um what do you call them seasons of Bitcoin and now we got the season of Bitcoin where Parker is now a podcaster which is amazing. I got to give him a massive shout out and also TFDC that he's under like the the TFTC umbrella. Uh I saw on Twitter uh him and Rob just posted there his the Parker's podcast is called Center of Hash.
(52:58) center of hash an homage to uh to Drew Bonsal's uh concept of the center of hash in his uh in his uh Bitcoin multi- uh multilanetary series. That's amazing. Well, and this is the the good what was sad for me was, you know, in 2017 and 2018 when I was really learning about Bitcoin. I was learning from about Bitcoin from you, Odell, and there was a number of other great Bitcoiners.
(53:26) I mean, you're still on Twitter, but like Matt's not and he's like on uh Noster only. And there's a number of people that just dropped off whether they got wrecked or whatever. But to your point around the cipher punk ethos, I mean, these guys were just like hammering the status and, you know, people to be like, "Oh, you're really gonna have full custody?" Yeah.
(53:48) GFY, you know, have fun staying poor and like all the the the funny uh in a in a good spirit uh funny uh memes. Now, it's like, "All right, I just joined this uh publicly traded company to be the director of Bitcoin strategy." And it's like more power to you.
(54:10) I'm not again I'm not trying to throw shade but it's just a different season of Bitcoin where I hope especially going back to these summits Marty it's like we focus with tight groups of people on a specific topic that we can build out like what Presidio Bitcoin is doing in like they got like a design week. They did a quantum computing. Like I love that in in the sense that we're we're tackling different Bitcoin and freedom tech topics with intentionality and like some specific purpose around a specific with a specific group of people.
(54:40) So, um it's I come all the way back to it's great to for Bitco uh Parker to be a a podcaster now. Yeah, we need more podcasters. That's right. That's right. Now to your point like paper Bitcoin summer public market treasury strategies definitely interesting definitely exciting to a certain degree but not my cup of tea.
(55:00) really excites me is the the freedom tech. And beyond that, like just building businesses that that produce products and services that people like and you can sell at a profit and then funnel those profits into Bitcoin and develop your Bitcoin strategy, your treasury that way. And a lot of people are fading or opining that the cypher punk ethos has been lost.
(55:29) But it's there if you know where to look. If you look what like Cali and the Cashi team are doing and what's happening on Noster and Callie's my replacement for Odell on Twitter. I just go back to him and I'm like dude this guy is just straight fire every time he posts. Knock on wood he you know he'll there.
(55:48) Yeah, we'll we'll see. Um there's folks like that that uh want to continue to support and not not me continue to support like just whatever we can do to freaking boost up guys like him and there's a lot of guys like Cali that are behind the scenes building really cool that is just unbelievable. Yeah. Like Evan and Zeus haven't stopped shipping. Mhm.
(56:15) You've got I mean I think the juryy's still out on whether or not rollups on Bitcoin will scale, but they're giving it a very good try over there like Starkware and Alpen Labs and they're launching stuff and Simplicity just got Yep. with Adam. I was just talking with the Blockstream team yesterday. Yeah,
(56:34) it's unbelievable. Yeah. And that's where if you're looking in the right, this is where I know we're about like an hour in. Um, and I don't want to tease something, but this is something we're going to be working on in earnest in 2026. Um, everybody and their mom is like, uh, you know, we have a lot and we're very thankful.
(56:57) Like there's a lot of folks that support the park that are well outside of Austin, Nashville, and they're they're members of the park. almost undoubtedly they're like, "Hey, I would love to have a Bitcoin park in my city." And I'm like, "Man, you know, how much capex and all the things." But now I'm like, "You know what? I think there's a there's a chance uh Marty that we're going to accelerate and start these popups across um the US.
(57:23) " And cuz I I what I want and I think I we need to do at the park is help get the messages out of like the importance of custody, the importance of like how institutions could be or should be thinking about Bitcoin as it relates to the amazing properties that make Bitcoin so special. Le explaining Cashew out there, explaining Fetty and how the usage of those uh uh federations.
(57:46) there's just so much more that we can do be doing and I think the ground game of getting out there supporting other Bitcoin uh meetup organizers. Uh we have a soft plan and a and a Q4 uh internal team goal to map this out. So if you're listening now, more to come on that front. We need a popup in Philly. We'll just say so there's 12 cities and Philly is on the list.
(58:13) All right, that's good to know. Well, I can't wait to help you brainstorm the uh the Philly popup. Heck yeah, man. I would love that. All right. Um I hate that we only have an hour, but I have to go pick up a car. I'm sure I don't know if you listen to Rapole Recap, but I had some car issues last week and I just got a text earlier this morning that it's ready.
(58:39) So, I'm going to go Are you buying a new car or are you getting your car back? I bought a new car and then uh it broke within a week. So, it's been great. What's the uh OP cost on that? Uh I I think they're comping the fix because it it had less than 200 miles on it when I brought it back. But uh it's uh it's manageable. It's manageable. I'll say that. Good deal. Good deal, dude. Marty, I I can't thank you enough, man. And keep killing what like across all the fronts, man.
(59:04) I'm super impressed and inspired by you. Yeah, the feeling is mutual, Rod. We're going to win. We're going to win. All right. Peace and love, freaks. Okay, freaks. Thank you for listening to the show. I hope you liked it. If you did like it, please make sure you subscribe, rate, review the show. It helps us out a lot.
(59:21) And also, if you like these conversations, I've come to realize that many people listen to the podcast. They don't know we have another sort of layer of this media company. We have the newsletter, the Bitcoin Brief. Go to TFTC.io. Make sure you subscribe there. A lot of the topics that are discussed on this podcast, I write about 5 days a week in the newsletter.
(59:41) We also have the TFTC elite tier. If you sign up for that, become a member. We have a private Discord server for the elite freaks out there where we're dropping adree versions of this show and having discussions about everything we talk about a day early. Logan wanted me to make sure if you want to get the show a day early, become a TFTC elite member. You will get that.
(1:00:05) We have our Discord server right now. conversation between myself and TFTC elite tier members, but we're going to expand that. We'll probably do closed Q&As with people in the industry. Uh I may be doing macro Mondays. So, join us. Go to tftc.io. Subscribe. Find the button in the top right corner of the website.
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