This is the AI-generated transcript of Bitcoin Infinity Show 132 with Rigel Walshe! # Welcoming Rigel Walshe **Luke:** Rigel, welcome to the Bitcoin Infinity Show. **Knut:** Thank you for having me on. Yeah, it's, finally!   **Rigel:** I think we talked about this like two years ago or something, you were like, want to do this? And just I think too busy doing different things and never happened, right? **Knut:** But we figured we'd do an in person one, **Rigel:** Mm-Hmm. **Knut:** Because I remember the first time I saw you back in 2019, like, the starting gun for me for all of this crazy life that has followed on later. So, and here's this guy on stage, playing death metal songs for **Rigel:** All. **Knut:** finance and nerd people. **Knut:** so yeah, I'm not the only metalhead in here, like, **Rigel:** I remember when I put that in the presentation, I was like, is this going to go down? And then everyone clapped after I played that video. I was like, oh, cool. **Knut:** No, it was super based. **Rigel:** Thank you. **Knut:** what's the name of your band again? **Rigel:** so I play in a band called Diocletian. I used to play in a band called Dawn of Ezel, but the band I play in now is a band called Diocletian, which is like, I guess you would call it like the, you know, metal's got like a zillion sub genres and stuff, but like, you would call it like war metal, I guess. # From Metal to Bitcoin **Rigel:** Yeah. And, what's your story? Like give our listeners your story. How, who are you and, what turned you on to death metal and what turned you on to Bitcoin and is there a connection between the two and all of **Rigel:** Oh my God. Okay. This is a very long winded. How do I summarize this pretty well? Okay. So yeah, I'm Roger Walsh. I go by Coinsurance Ed on Twitter and Telegram and these, a lot of these kinds of platforms. yeah, I mean, played music and stuff since I was, 17 years old, you know, been a band where, you know, I'm from New Zealand, that's where that was from. **Rigel:** We were the first metal band to ever get out of the country, really, even like Australia, let alone, Europe and the States and things like that. So, you know, we did quite a few, albums, I think it was, with my old band Dawn of Azel before we split up, in New Zealand it's quite a bit bigger than we were, outside of that, and certainly Europe or the States. **Rigel:** the same time, when I turned 21, I joined the police. I was in the police for 10 years, at the same time as this was going on, and if you search my name, you'll find some interesting news reports about some trouble I had for that kind of reason. so that's maybe my background. we'll shift forward to maybe when I first got into Bitcoin in 2014, and so for me, what got me interested in Bitcoin was, as I said, I used to be in the police, and one day, you know, I think I've heard of Bitcoin thrown around, I just I was reading a news article about the, Silk Road trial, and this is when Russell Brook was getting sentenced, and this is like after I left the police and things like this, and it just blew my mind when I read that, it's like, because I think most people don't really, or didn't, or can't quite grok maybe the way that it makes It's me, in the sense of like, you have this drug market selling. **Rigel:** whatever you liked, you know, under the eyes of the FBI and all these guys, and there was nothing they could do for years, and this, I was like, wow, man, this is going to be straight away, I thought this is how Russia and North Korea are going to get around sanctions and stuff, as it seems they are doing today, you know, so to me this is like nuclear weapons grade money. **Rigel:** So my interest actually was, was in Bitcoin, but also in the darknet market, so I just got on there and had a look, And that was what really interested me, but of course, like most people that play around in the darknet markets, you start, okay, what is this Bitcoin thing that I'm using and sending and start looking into it. **Rigel:** And look, I'd never been a finance kind of guy. I mean, like I said, I joined the police relatively early on. They've got a very good superannuation scheme where, you put in a dollar, the government puts in two dollars. And so, to me, I'd looked at investing and shares and things a couple of times, and it never made sense because I've got the best There's no better place that I could do is just put more money in that fund that the government will match dollar for dollar, right? **Rigel:** So this is the first time I've ever looked at anything Really about investing and you know and obviously as you start thinking about this Well at that time when I got into Bitcoin and bought my stuff was around 200 bucks It just right at the end of the 2014 kind of crash and you know at the time I thought like wow man this might be worth a thousand dollars some years later, right? **Rigel:** You know so so I started putting pretty much Everything I had which the time was not a lot because this is after I left the police and I actually quite a bit of trouble Transitioning from that into like some sort of civilian career. I was like I found it quite hard to find, like, work, and so I was working self employed, and I didn't have a lot of money, but I put everything I had into Bitcoin, because to me, it just made total sense, **Rigel:** So yeah, that was 2014, fast forward a couple of years, 2017 is around, and now Bitcoin is there. Close to 20 grand, you know, I've got, I'm fucking rich, so what I did is I was like, man, I spend so much time thinking and talking about Bitcoin, I really want to get involved in the space, but, I'm not a software developer, what can I do? **Rigel:** So I actually ended up buying some Trezors, and just through good luck, when I bought them, Bitcoin was around 10k. and I bought like, 200 or something treasures and ledges, and I sold all of them in a month in New Zealand, which is a tiny country, which blew my mind, So then that happened, and this was like February, I remember it was December, I had massive orders, January pitted off, and then like February, there was just nothing, and the price is going down, so I was just in the right place at the right time, and got lucky, and I had all this money and it was in a business account that I'd have to pay taxes on, obviously, if I didn't get rid of it, right? **Rigel:** So, to my thing as well, I could pay myself a salary and pay tax on it, but what's smarter is, hmm, how can I use this money to make the next step and jump to the next thing? So I thought, well, let's go to a bunch of Bitcoin conferences and see if there's any match for my kind of skills, right? So I'd never, I'd never gone to, I've been to like meetups in New Zealand, but I had no idea like what it really looked like out there in the real world, right? **Rigel:** So I went to, like a couple of, I went to like an Australian big Crip, blockchain one, which was like just total trash. And then I went to, token 2049. You heard of that one? It's like a still going. It's like a real shit coin kind of conference thing that was in, **Knut:** rings a tiny bell. **Rigel:** it's in, it was in Hong Kong or something, right? **Rigel:** and I remember I went to that and it was cool, right? But it was still, you know, I was still in this world where, obviously I was familiar with Bitcoin, but I dabbled with, altcoins and stuff like this and perhaps the way that you or I would look at Bitcoin now, I think was still quite a new thing. **Rigel:** New idea in those times, right? There wasn't this really well nuanced ideology about how to view this kind of stuff. So I went there and I was kind of figuring this out The next one I went to was like Konsensus in New York, which was at the time, that was the biggest Bitcoin crypto conference you would say ever. **Rigel:** And there was like, 3, 000 people or something. And I remember at that conference, there was a lot of, you know, all sorts of Ethereum and things there, right, but there was a blockstream room at this conference. And I remember, I felt like, man, this place feels so sleazy and so dirty and everyone seems Super sketchy, but then you go to the Blockstream room, and I was like, these are the guys that, you know, I just clicked, like when you meet them and you see this, and so I think this is a really important thing for people that don't go to conferences, that when you come, a lot of this stuff, when you just see it with your own eyes and talk to people directly, it makes a lot more sense than online. **Rigel:** So I went to that, and then I met, what's his name, Erik, last name is sketchy, but he's, works on Bitcoin Fabric, used to be at Blockstream. He told me, go to Building on Bitcoin and go to Honeybadger. And so from then I started going to conferences, when I went to building on Bitcoin, I kind of talked about this in my talk today, it was like I wasn't a software developer, but I saw Adam Fiskor and Nicholas Doria presented Wasabi and BTC Pay Server, and I realized like, wow man, I thought before that Bitcoin software development is all about like some super computer nerd guys and like Bitcoin core and only this real high level stuff. **Rigel:** But I realized, man, these guys just made their own app on Bitcoin that really made a real difference. And wow, you know, I could do that if I were to put my mind to it. So I came back straight away, got into a Python coding course and just like really, really luckily, you know, I went really crazy on this. **Rigel:** then come December, Jimmy Song came to Australia to do the, the programming course. **Rigel:** I applied and got on that, and I was like really out of my depth, but I managed to keep up enough to write it. and so this was like maybe six months after, six months ago, I didn't know anything about coding or anything like that. And so just by pure luck, I was relatively well networked in the New Zealand, Auckland Bitcoin scene, and I went to a meetup and there was a guy there who I knew kind of loosely, that I knew had a really small exchange in New Zealand, and I was talking about, he's like, Oh, what are you doing? **Rigel:** I was just building this API in Python. It's like, Oh, we're building out our API. Do you want to come and help? And I was like, Yeah, so at the time I was working a job where I'm working four days a week and I had the Mondays off. And so I just started working there on Mondays and then split with the ex girlfriend and I was really happy in New Zealand and felt like I've really got to get out of here, right? **Rigel:** So I was thinking even if I have to like sell Bitcoin to leave, I've just really got to get out of New Zealand because I feel like there's just no future for me here. So I said to them, okay, look, hey, I had a friend that was living in Bali. I said, look, hey, I'm moving to Bali. I really don't want to leave this job. **Rigel:** And I really Appreciate what you give me, but I've got to do this. If you let me work remote, I would really happily work remote, but I understand if you don't. They're like, sure, yeah, have a full time job. So I did that, started doing that, COVID happened, ended up in Mexico as a cause of that, and in, the Jeremy Songz course, there's like an alumni telegram group, Jan Pritzker jumped in there and he said hey, we're looking for developers at Swan, and I said, hey, I do that, and the tech stack was very similar to what I was already working on, and, I got a job there, and up until, three weeks ago, I was working at Swan for three and a half years, I think it was employee number, 10 or 11 or something there. **Rigel:** and that's pretty much it. I think I covered all the bases there. And then I give some talks at conferences here. # Conference Experiences **Knut:** Yeah, it's a great story. And there are many similarities to mine. Like I also have experience of the shit coin conference before I went to Rega in 2019, but were you here in 2018? **Rigel:** Yeah. That was the first, because was, when I said when I met, Eric, he told me building on Bitcoin and then, honey Beg are the ones, so I, I pretty much, that was the last of the company money was that one there. And that, that one they were talking about HCPP and I was like, oh, can I go to that? Flying home, New Zealand, which is like a two day journey, then coming back two weeks later and paying for all the stuff, I didn't manage to make it, but like, that was the first, first time, the last conference I went on that thing, and that really, I mean, it was an amazing conference. So this, this has always been an amazing conference, you know. **Knut:** I saw your talk here last year, and it was really, really good, like awesome about Bitcoin cultures, right, and different subcultures and, what these subgroups and what happens in a decentralized system, and also like we've been chatting during this conference about, these effects, like how we find our own in groups and how people cling onto the extremes here and there. **Knut:** can you expand a bit on that and, what do you think is missing from conferences in general and what makes Honeybadger stick out as a high signal one and all of that # Bitcoin Psychopaths vs Bitcoin Sociopaths **Rigel:** I mean, okay, so three questions there. So to talk about the talk, it's called Bitcoin Psychopaths vs. Bitcoin Sociopaths, and if you Google it, you can find the written thing and the video and view it yourself. But basically, what I talked about is, when I started coming to these conferences, I realized how much the Bitcoin world had in common with the music world in the sense of, The personalities, the little subgroups, the way that things evolved, like I just saw a lot of things that clicked because to me really like Bitcoin is like a Harley Davidson for computer nerds, right? **Rigel:** It's like this kind of subculture where people are involved in and I feel like a lot of people who are in Bitcoin, like I have this experience of being these weird kind of outside groups and how this works. I think a lot of people that are in Bitcoin this is the first kind of really different thing they've had in their life and they, you know, they're like blows in mind. **Rigel:** They're like, wow, this is so cool, but they don't realize how a lot of these idiosyncrasies are very much the same. I'd imagine the same if you were like a Trekkie or you're into something like that. There's a lot of the same sort of politics, so the talk is really talking about how, Bitcoin, in my opinion, is like a subculture or counterculture, the same way that, metal music would be an example, there's plenty of things like this where people have a niche interest, but it's also kind of a little bit against society, the whole idea of Bitcoin is you're trying to defund the state, and so it's kind of like, it's not like a really dangerous out there kind of thing, **Knut:** It's not in total alignment with society, inherently contrarian? **Rigel:** Exactly, yeah, exactly, which does attract a lot of contrarians, right? so the whole talk was looking at, okay, if you look at subcultures, how do they get involved or immersed in the traditional system, right? **Rigel:** Let's take rap music, for example. You know, where you had, Dr. Dre in, NWA, and now he's like, selling Beats headphones and a very nice commercial established businessman, right? Or another good one that I like to use is like, weed, or like the gay community, right? At one point, these were very out there things, and now they're very normal and very accepted, and they're almost like Almost a little forced on you, right? **Rigel:** In a lot of ways, as opposed to like being an outcast. So, you know, when things become normalized and when they get bigger and bigger and bigger, if they catch on, eventually they kind of get watered down as they get integrated into society. And the same thing I think is already happening in Bitcoin, and it's affecting the culture of Bitcoin. **Rigel:** And I don't think you can really change that, you know, it's inevitable, but it's something that I think we need to discuss and look at, okay, well, if you Some of these other things there, how they lost, what made them powerful and transformative in the first place, because they were kind of revolutionary movements, right? **Rigel:** And they got watered down and commercialized, right? So I think the same thing is happening to Bitcoin right now, and you can't really stop it. This is, if you just look at history, this is what happens, but there is a conversation to be had about how can we navigate this as best as we can, right? **Rigel:** Now, what was the, **Knut:** Yeah, **Rigel:** was the other two **Knut:** of a long question. **Luke:** maybe we can just stay on **Rigel:** Are you asking about conferences? # Baltic Honeybadger **Rigel:** Like you said, what I think about Bitcoin conferences and what I think I like about HoneyBadger. Well, what I like about HoneyBadger is that, the conference thing, kind of to speak to what I just was talking about, right? **Rigel:** As this gets bigger, it becomes more commercial and, things get kind of watered down for people that are, Casual participants, right? The people early on in the movement, like, if you're there in 2017, 2018, you're really hardcore, right? But if you look at the way they're doing, say, Bitcoin Nashville at the moment, it's a very different thing. **Rigel:** It's very not watered down, very commercial, and very one kind of one minded, right? And what I like about Honeybadge and what I have so much respect for with this conference is that, remember in 2019, that was the biggest Bitcoin conference in the world, and I think there was probably 600, 800 people, right? **Rigel:** things have got bigger since then, and maybe, this could have been a bigger conference, certainly you would imagine it could have been as big as, BTC Prague right? but they seem to have had the idea of, let's just keep it at a particular level and not go too far and too hard, in my humble opinion the Bitcoin National Conference is an absolute abomination, it's a circus, **Knut:** And it's all there just to, like, make it as loud and big as possible, but what is the message that is getting diluted and what is getting presented to these newcomers there is, to me, is very much getting away from what I believe the message of Bitcoin should be, right? it's inflation, **Rigel:** it's dilution inflation. It's the same thing as when it happens to your money, it happens to culture. I mean, I've never thought about that, but that's a very good way to phrase it, I think. So, you know, when it comes to conferences, beyond the fact of just making it big and watering it down, the other thing I think is, like, the narrative is very, very stale, right? **Rigel:** it's all about the narrative. Sound money and the moneys of Bitcoin. Which of course it is. in my opinion, the best money in the world. But I think, we've still made those arguments pretty well by this point. **Rigel:** Right. You know, there's so much stuff that's been written and I think it is really good stuff. Right. They're all good messages. But, they've been said, they're done, they're written, right, you know, and you don't want to hear the same guys giving the same talk every year over and over, which is what these conferences are, I think it's like the Rolling Stones, you know, playing their greatest hits, right, the Rolling Stones have some really amazing songs, but if you've gone and seen them play live, playing their greatest hits ten times, you're going to, I think I'll skip it this year, right, **Rigel:** So, to what I see happening here, if you want this movement to succeed, and you as a conference promoter want people to come to your conferences, you've got to keep it new and interesting and shift things up, right? And so you've got to find people out there in the community. **Rigel:** in the community out there who aren't speaking at conferences, aren't big, aren't famous, right? If we were to turn the analogy of a music, festival, there's bands that aren't known, but if you gave them a chance and used your festivals as a way to expose them to more people, they could get bigger, and it's in your interest, because if you're having the same bands play every year, people don't want to come to your conference. **Rigel:** But if you can help this new blood come up, then it's in your interest because you can put them on the stage and you can bring people to your event, right? And I think the same thing should be done, for this. I mean, obviously, I think it should be done for the good of Bitcoin, right? **Rigel:** There's many different aspects to Bitcoin. It's a very interesting, you know, I say it's like the, Rorschach's test, right? Like what you see in the inkblot reflects more about you and I, but we can look at the same thing and see two totally different things, right? **Rigel:** Yeah. So I think it's in the interest of Bitcoin to get people to flesh these out, these narratives, and give them an opportunity to do it and to get it out in people's heads and for them to hear this. But it's also in the interest of them as conference promoters. Like I said, if it's just the same people all the time, it's going to peter out. **Rigel:** And I feel like Honeybadger is one of the few places that's trying to do that, **Luke:** Yeah, and I mean, in my perspective, HoneyBadger, two years ago, was my first ever conference, right? And so, I mean, that's already my newness in this space compared to you guys, but still. HoneyBadger has been fantastic for me from that perspective, and like, the signal, that's the focus. But we talked to Max Kai about this not long ago. **Luke:** About how is the Latvian community doing and Honeybadger hasn't really focused on growing the local community. It's been bringing the signal into one place and everyone learned from each other and all this and it's a fantastic event for Bitcoin, And then there's these other ones that are all about, I mean, the American ones, especially like the Nashvilles and all this, those are, you know, these entertainment fests and all this, and I think they've also brought this to Amsterdam here in Europe, but I think Prague and Madeira here this last year were both examples of conferences that went a bit bigger, but have also have a layer of the local adoption, and I think those types of conferences are important for a different reason. **Luke:** Like the, the one that, Bulgaria is the example that I use, I use a lot, they do a good thing there to build the local adoption. And so get some speakers, get some international presence to sort of show here's what this is, right? but focus on the local side of it and building the adoption in that locale. **Luke:** I think that's quite the idea. **Knut:** on diversity and inclusion, **Luke:** That's so **Rigel:** I think it's true, as a New Zealander, we're in this interesting position where, it's a very Western culture, but we're somewhere in between Europe and America, right? So, if you're European, you're biased and polarized to a European way of doing things, Americans are the other, and we're somewhat in the middle, **Rigel:** we see them both. From different angles, and there's pros and cons from both, and I'm sure I'm going to offend some American people saying this, but I'm just going to say it. European conferences are a thousand times better than American ones. And I've seen almost none that I feel like really did a good job. **Knut:** I think something like TabConf does it well, but I think technical conferences are a slightly different kind of thing, different beast. **Rigel:** all there about technology, but if you're trying to do something where People talk of talking about more general people stuff, right? **Rigel:** Like, big and commercial and plastic. No soul, and I feel like Europeans just seem to be able to do that much better. Sorry to any Americans watching this, but that's been my impression. **Knut:** Honey Badger clearly has the soul, and I mean, the local adoption thing, that's not a dig, it's just not what they've decided to focus on, so it's, I think we, I hope, I hope this conference, I'll be attending every year, Yeah. And that's why I love to see so many Americans over in Europe, like this last year, first of all, Madeira, a ton of Americans came over, both speakers and attendees and also. Prague, and here, like, you have, quite a few here too, and quite a few high level ones, and it's good to have them here to give them a taste of what this is like.   **Rigel:** I'm a guy that likes to have a drink and hang out with people and things like that, so, you know, it's a big party, really, a conference, in a lot of ways, I think I enjoy that element of it, but again, you know, I think there's just so much value in, You know, we all talk online and stuff and I see what you're writing to someone else and things like that. **Rigel:** But to be able to humanize and talk to some of these people, and some of them you meet them and you realize, oh, this guy isn't actually such a dickhead after all, I guess, or the opposite, right? This person that you think is really high integrity or whatever, and you meet them, you're like, man, this person, I have a very bad feeling about this kind of person, right? **Rigel:** So I think that's a very important thing if you're really enmeshed in this world, I think you owe it on yourself to go and physically meet people and there's just such a value in that which is difficult to articulate, you know? **Knut:** hard to find new ideas and new angles to view this. I had writer's block for the longest time before starting the new book and before I had ideas good enough to pursue. And it's getting increasingly harder with each book, of course, because there's only this so many times you can say the same thing, # Speaking at Conferences **Rigel:** I know the feeling of, you know, like I'm thinking about, because I've been invited to speak here every year. and so I'm thinking, okay, when I went to about next year, I'm like, Oh man, like what to do two or three things, right. It's like to avoid just repeating it or slightly changing or morally saying the same thing is like, it's a big ass to do, but I mean, I think that's, that also is a way of, of rather than. **Rigel:** you're right thinking that we've got to write the whole story ourselves and it's on you to come up with new ideas for 10 years in a row. It's more like you have your little thing and it's best just hone that message really, really well. And this is how I feel about it is I used to think with conferences, no, I never want to give the same talk twice. **Rigel:** I want to do it, you know, once and something every time has to be something new. But I kind of realized after doing a bunch of them is like, well, most people aren't going to see you talk anyway. All right. Or they're not going to. You know, take the time to or they're not gonna appreciate in the moment that that it was right then right and there's real value not just for you personally in terms of like, when you give a talk once, it's probably going to be better the third or fourth or fifth time that you give it, right, but there's also value to repeating the same message, right, which to me almost felt like false or a cop out, but no, I think now, after doing it a while, there's actually something to be done with that, which is take one small thing and focus on that small area and don't try and be like, completely reinventing yourself, like, tomorrow you're going to be talking about some weird economics and then you're How bitcoin is art, or something, you know, I mean like, just take one thing and build your little notice around that and really, really hone that particular message, because like we've done with the economic stuff, right, I think we've really steel manned that idea, and there's just anything, any objection that someone could have about the money stuff, someone has written just the best thing and you're just like, bam, and you haven't asked your every question. **Luke:** There's real value for us as a community in doing that, but that just comes from a small amount of people focus, doing focus work on one particular thing, That's funny, that reminds me of comedians. comedians are like some of the most visible people on podcasts because for some reason people like to listen to funny people be funny but you hear about their process of literally going around and touring and working on their jokes the same ones, they don't do a new act Every night, you know, they work on it and then eventually they record it and everything. **Luke:** That's actually not a bad model for this **Rigel:** I think a good analogy, right? I mean, like, you can't tell the same joke for 10 years, but you wouldn't want to try and rewrite a whole new, like, half an hour comedy skit every, you just, I mean, trying to write some of these talks takes months, right? **Rigel:** and when I do it, I've just got, like, pretty much memorize half an hour of stuff and then practice it so it becomes more natural. But I mean, like, trying to do that. You know, if I was trying to do this like six times a year, I stick to like three because it's too much for me, right? But imagine trying to do it six times a year. **Rigel:** You just can't do that alone unless you're full time working on it. So, there's lots of reasons why I think just one small thing repeated it actually has some value. **Knut:** Yeah. # Dangerous Narratives in Bitcoin **Knut:** do you think there are any like narratives around Bitcoin or, thoughts around it that are actually dangerous? Like the people are on the wrong track? **Rigel:** I mean like the stuff I talked about before, right, where I think the message is being deluded and it's dangerous and that like the analogy which I was supposed to make in this talk but I actually kind of like As you do, you know, skip over or like move around some things that you were going to say, but you didn't say. **Rigel:** The thing like, the real risk to me is that, if we don't change people's view on what technology is. Like, people want something that's familiar. They want to recreate what they know. It's human nature, right? And so, for you as a business owner, or someone that's creating something and trying to get more Bitcoiners on board, which I think there's maybe a little too much emphasis on, it's just more people in the door, so the number can go up. **Rigel:** The more you do that, the more people try to make it understandable and relatable by people, so they make it more like what it already is. And by making it more like what it already is, the whole idea about Bitcoin is changing what it already is in terms of money and things like that. I think the risk that we run is like recreating the existing financial system with an orange coat of paint, right? **Rigel:** The same thing, but yeah, just with different words, different wardrobe change, right? So I think that's probably to me the most dangerous thing where, I know I'm someone that's like very much the privacy, freedom, self custodial kind of thing, and very anti KYC, all this kind of stuff, but you know, having worked at companies like this, I understand why these things are necessary, and there is also an argument why you would say, well, sure, it's KYC, but if a lot of people buy Bitcoin, it doesn't matter if it's KYC, because we've defunded the government, you know, so there is a middle ground here to be found, But I think probably that's what I'm getting to the real point is like a nuance, right? **Rigel:** You know, somewhere in between those two polarized things, there's the right way to do it. And it's probably not going to be universal in all situations what it is, but there's just a real lack of. intellectual rigorousness in this space, right? I think, the best book on Bitcoin is, Erik Voskiel's Crypto Economics, because, I largely agree with almost everything he says, not everyone does, but I don't think that you can argue that that is the most rigorous Comprehensive body of work about this is what bitcoin is and this is how it functions. **Rigel:** You know these axiomatic truths as he describes it It's a it's a whole system that all links together and to return to like the religion talk I gave last year It's like if you look at Christianity, right, you know, you have like baptism, Catholicism, Protestantism all these kind of things right and they're it's so detailed. **Rigel:** It's like well because in Ephesians 12 16 Jesus said this or that or whatever you should only wear a red shirt on Tuesdays or something It's that level of detail of like They've thought about every aspect of the Bible and what this should mean and they have like this detailed view. And I think there's a lot of value for that because as I said, there are many different views in this spectrum about what works for Bitcoin and I think we win by having this marketplace of ideas, but we don't win if they're like very pure. **Rigel:** They're very poorly fleshed out ideas and they're very kind of naïve or immature by all these different schools of thought having the most rigorous, intense, deep body of work to help explain and understand why you should look at Bitcoin from this angle or see it this way or why it should be done this way.   **Rigel:** you're the second person this week to say crypto, It's great. It's just crazy. it's a pretty dense book, right? You know, it's not for a beginner's book, but it's crazy that it's not bigger in my mind, you know. **Knut:** someone should write a, new version of that. **Luke:** yeah, very much **Rigel:** I mean, but this is the thing, right? it's rigorous because I think, and why I really like it as well is it's the only book that goes that level of depth and is thick and is, really deep on this kind of stuff. And you see Erik on Twitter, he's very much, he's like such a pedantic motherfucker about trapping someone down about the way they say particular words, because it matters, right? **Rigel:** It does matter, right? Like these loose definitions of what you think this word means, what I think it means, makes me think that we're talking the same language, but actually you, I haven't communicated to you effectively what is inside my brain, right? And so like this level of detail is really important for something like Bitcoin, because like imagine you're navigating and you say, oh, it's, it's, it's that way, a hundred meters, it's fine. **Rigel:** But if it's like, 300 kilometers, you can end up in a very different place than if you said these grid coordinates, you know, this GPS coordinate, stuff like that. So specificity is really, really important and language is the map, the navigation system we use to arrive at an idea in the future. **Rigel:** And so, I think there's value to that. **Knut:** Yeah, and I think this is, human action by Ludwig von Mises is dense and very meticulously written for the exact same reason, right? You need this rigorous thing. And I know from writing a smaller book on praxeology, it's really hard because you have to be very, very careful with your words to get it right, which is why I like writing, Something like the Inverse of Clown World more because I can be more expressive, you know.   **Rigel:** man, I've thought about doing the book thing and maybe one day I will, but I'm like, oh man, I just, I can't imagine what you have to go through to produce something of like this size, which is not the largest book, like man. Wow, you know, hats off to people that write a book, right, because, like I said, I've thought about it, but when I've looked at what's involved, I'm like, **Rigel:** send us a DM and we'll help you. maybe they will come about, I need to write more, this is the way they say you do it, right, is like you write a bunch of articles and you turn the articles into a book, right, so I've kind of thought about maybe I can go down this road, but we'll see. **Knut:** Oh, looking forward to it.     # Nostr **Luke:** So what, what do you think of, of Nostr? the, the whole, the combination of this Nostriga and Honeybadger. First of all, that was, it was a brilliant move, I think, to attach the two together. there's talk that the next time they'll do that is they'll attach it to, also Freedom Forum, which is also a very good idea. **Luke:** A different angle, but very good idea. But Nostr and Bitcoin are becoming really intertwined these days. many, many applications that were Bitcoin applications have now. Also become Nostr applications and yeah, what do you see Nostr in the space here? **Rigel:** Difficult for me to say because like I've really wanted to sit down and really get my head technically around Nostr and I haven't, right? You know, like I understand basically how it works, but as far as like there's some critiques on Nostr which I would like to have a more informed opinion on than I do. **Rigel:** And, like, I know Peter Todd reasonably well, and like, last night we were, I was saying, like, basically, okay, just tell, tell me, you know, like, tell me what things is, so at least when I get to look at this, I've got, because he's kind of anti, or anti a lot of aspects of it, right, he thinks it doesn't work, so, I mean, based on that, like I said, it's, it's not a nuanced, informed opinion, but I think, my concern, perhaps, is that, like, It's actually not that good a protocol on the, on the base level for certain things. **Rigel:** Like it's ability to deliver decentralized Twitter, all the millions of applications we have on mine for Nostr at scale is going to be possible. And again, I can't say One way or the other, but that's my concern about it. And, and one thing that returning to what I was talking earlier about the subcultures and things like that, fortunately in the Bitcoin space, I think we've got a little tendency to be overly supportive and overly passionate. **Rigel:** You want the space to be something where people come from the outside and they feel like this is full of energy and love and happiness and good times and smiles. That draws people in. And if it's the opposite and people are too cynical or bitter or tough, right, it's not going to pull more people into the space. **Rigel:** That's what we need. But again, you know, I think there's a bit of a lack in the space of people who are willing to Call out, you know, say a spade's a spade. There's a problem here. We need to fix this. There's a bit of a lack with that and that that would be the only thing I feel with Nostr **Rigel:** And I, my only concern that I see as an outsider with Nostr is that Is this like a science project where there's something where it's got a tiny amount of people and there's all this energy and noise, but it's, it's its own self contained thing, right outside this little bubble, no one cares and, and it's a bunch of people celebrating how great they are creating this thing for themselves, thinking it's a tool for the world. **Rigel:** So, I think it is great and I'm really interested in it primarily from the perspective of like, what to me is, this is kind of what my talk about was about today about Bitcoin as performance art. Bitcoin isn't just about money, it's also about telling a story, about showing an alternative narrative to what the governments or corporations give us. **Rigel:** And that narrative is about how we can use technology and open source and things like this to create our own better alternatives and we don't have to use what they tell us they have to use. And so I like Nostr in the sense that It's like the artistic inspiration of Bitcoin is created at Nostr, right, so we're spiritually inspired by Bitcoin. **Rigel:** It's like a lot of the lessons that we've learned from Bitcoin have been applied to how Nostr is created, right, it's kind of born of Bitcoin. And so to me, regardless of like the reservations or the possible issues like I talked about before, to me what's far more interesting is someone said, look, hey, Bitcoin works really well at prioritizing decentralized money. **Rigel:** How can we take the lessons there and apply that to communication and other things? And I think. To me, that is a more important thing, is like, if this can happen to many other technologies. It makes sense, right? Like, in my talk, I talked about the Liberator pistol being another example of this. Now, if you look at Cody Wilson, he said, like, it was supposed to be a toy gun, a prop gun. **Rigel:** It's not something where you really think it's going to be like an AR 15. But that wasn't the whole point. The whole idea is here's something. Where it's going to get all over the news and the media and people are going to start talking about and thinking, you know, that the wheels start to turn the head of, hmm, 3D printing and code, man, like, it's going to be impossible for governments to stop all this kind of stuff. **Rigel:** And when people start thinking about that, the world starts changing, right? So I think Bitcoin is amazing money and it's going to change the financial system, but perhaps what is better is that it gets people thinking of, wow, we created our own money. What other stuff can we create if we all work together and have a vision for the future, right? **Rigel:** So to me that's, in some sense, like, if Bitcoin failed as money, but it did that, I think that would be a better victory than it not doing that and just being sound money, right? So that's, an important part of Nostr and what I really look forward to with that is how that dynamic plays out. # Disagreeableness in Bitcoin **Knut:** Yeah, I think I've observed a correlation between disagreeableness and how early you were to Bitcoin. So like the first couple of years, you get your Voskules and your Kavaios and what not. And the further you go down the line, it isn't until like 2021, you get your Joe Halls and your, nice people, right? **Knut:** I think the thing that enables the happy people 10 years down the line is that the disagreeable people were so rigorous in the beginning. So you get the don't trust verify, and then it builds in layers and the happy people can join on the layers on top later on. **Rigel:** Yeah, yeah, yeah, **Knut:** so have you, what's your, what's your **Rigel:** Oh yeah, I mean, I think you're totally right with that. it's a little bit of a tragedy of the commons problem in Bitcoin, right, where, Zach, you said the people that are doing, like, open source development is perhaps the best example, right? **Rigel:** if we don't have, like, very smart, talented people working full time on Bitcoin, even if you think it can be ossified, like, just if you understand software, right, there's just this maintenance process that needs to happen, and there's not someone keeping a close eye on that. It's very easy for Bitcoin to break or to fall apart, right? **Rigel:** there's no business model for open source development or maintaining Bitcoin Core, right? There's no way, I mean, the whole idea of Bitcoin is that it should never be a revenue generative process as it is, right? So we need to think of an alternative model, because it's all in our interests for Bitcoin to succeed. **Rigel:** But we can't just create a business and let it self perpetuate itself. We've got to come up with a different model of how we can do that, right? So, you know, there's a little bit of, all of us are like free riding on the work of open source developers in that sense, right? And I think there's a little bit of that when it comes to all these, happy, joyous kind of people I think a lot of them, particularly if you've been here for a short amount of time, have kind of stars in their eyes or their rose tinted glasses on about, like, # Affinity Scams in Bitcoin **Rigel:** You know, one thing I would definitely say at the moment, and, you know, I've, I've obviously just, finished up working for a company, in the Bitcoin space is that, there's a lot of people, I think the idea of a Bitcoin scam is a relatively new thing that people aren't looking at, if you're charging 7, 000 to have a out of alpha male retreat, you know, because this guy is associated with Bitcoin, that's a scam, that's a fucking scam, I mean, like, hey, maybe it's being marketed honestly, but I mean, let's look at what's happening here, it's, association with Bitcoin. **Rigel:** it's, you know, there's the things like, I like Bitcoin, buy my shitcoin. It's like, I like Bitcoin, buy my other thing. Like, it's the next level. And so I **Knut:** why is that a scam though? **Rigel:** Well, I think it's a scam in that, If you look at the pricing of the resort that was involved, the tickets are like twice the price, right? **Rigel:** Yeah, it is in the eye of the beholder, right? If you feel you're getting value and you're happy to pay that thing, it's not a scam. But I mean, come on, there's other examples, where, there are things where people are, I think you see this a lot where, People are like, here is sound food, or sound diet, or open source this or that, right? **Rigel:** You know, where it's, I mean, it's not a scam, but you can see how this like, Bitcoin as a lifestyle brand is being created, right? And people are trying to market things which really have nothing to do with Bitcoin. And again, maybe they're saying this is Bitcoin, but I feel that there is a lot of people using that as a way to charge an overpriced price for an undervalued service, right? **Rigel:** And so that's something which I see kind of creeping into the space is a bit of that sociopath kind of behavior, right? And I think that's a bit of a risk. **Rigel:** The question is whether you draw the line though, like an overpriced thing is, is it really overpriced if people are willing to pay the price? yeah. This is all a factor of, as Bitcoin gets bigger, you'll see more and more of this, and it'll become more and more of a thing, you know, and you're right, like, what is the line, if people are willing to pay for this, and they're happy, and they don't feel like they're getting scammed, is it a scam, how is this related to Bitcoin, right, and there's many other things out there in the world that use, like, for example, ethical food, where they associate it with something, if you really were wanting to support this cause, you'd be better to directly donate to this thing, right? **Rigel:** But they try and create this association to brand themselves, right? And as you said, it's not direct, but I think most people, if you explain this, they get what I'm leading to and they understand the problem, **Rigel:** But it is like quantum, this and that, you know, . Yeah. it's a difficult one to discuss, but this is obvious, right, is with anything as it grows, like all the other stuff we talked about, the scams are obvious and as they get bigger, the things are harder and higher to directly say it is, and you can feel something that's right off and wrong and not quite right, but it's a lot harder to articulate and nail it down. **Rigel:** the bigger and the larger, more complex it gets. The more involved the scams, if we're gonna call them scams, get # The Influence of Influencers **Luke:** No, I mean the tough part about you kind of finding that and actually this is a good example in this case because Rob brought a lot of people into Bitcoin with particularly his Sailor series and my first real touchpoint with like a real Bitcoiner was him on Lex Friedman. Literally, that was my first. **Luke:** Bitcoin maxi actually go down the rabbit hole thing and people coming into the space. And so then I have no idea that he's got this reputation under the hood that isn't isn't there, you know, and so it's just it's hard for people coming into the space to, I guess, to understand who is the Who is the right people and, and people with influence and influencers is the correct word here are are re regarded highly and, and they're, what they put out into the, the world by people who are new to the space is, is it's important to get the right message out there, you know. **Knut:** And I think you have to judge people from their, like. Are they a net benefit or a net detriment? Like, that's the key, but it's tricky sometimes because people are a bit of both. Of course they are, like, and I think to some extent, sort of everyone is guilty of that. Like, **Rigel:** and I agree and it's a great point, right? You know, the guy has a large reach and there are many such people, in the space where, in my personal opinion, it's just garbage, trash. You know, people that are Bitcoin but they can't actually talk in any sort of detail or articulation about what Bitcoin really is, right? **Rigel:** But then being presented as experts and these are The megaphones that people are hearing, right? there is an element of, it comes back to the same stuff as we talked about before, like, getting more people in the door is obviously, I think, a benefit, but at what point do you dilute the message such where, you know, let's take the Miami or Nashville conference as an example. **Rigel:** How many hours of talks are going on there and how many of them are really adding value and how many of them more just like here is a face and where this face brings people in the door, but what they said was just hot air, right? You know, it was garbage. And would that, I mean, if you ask me, these people should be listening to Erik Voskil and reading crypto economics, which they're not going to do. **Rigel:** but I feel like there is more a duty of stewardship from all of us. To try and steer in that right direction. Part of that is calling out things, which I think are clearly unaligned, **Knut:** Yeah, but there's a devil's argument to be made here too, because arguably, Bitcoin conferences in general have become more high signal over time. Like, in 2017, you had, like, there were no real Bitcoin conferences, there were just these blockchain bullshit **Rigel:** Mm hmm. **Knut:** So from a certain point of view, it is getting Like, the signal to noise ratio is getting higher. **Rigel:** Mm hmm. Yeah, I mean, it's a hard, and this is, I mean, the fact that we're discussing this, I think, is like the beauty, right? It's like, I have heard very, very few people having these conversations Maybe like kind of leading around this point, but not directly discussing this as like a analytically, objectively as a social phenomenon, right? **Rigel:** No, it's great. **Rigel:** and like, you know, maybe you are, you're totally right and I'm totally wrong, right? these people are, I should just stop being such a negative Nancy. And these people are good for things, right? but we need to have this discussion and decide, and better articulate what this happy medium between the two is, right? **Knut:** You know? And that, that's the thing which I think is missing. And just by having this conversation, discussing this stuff, getting it out and getting more nuanced, I think it's part of getting the job done, right? if maybe next time Robert Breloves does his Art of Alpha 2, I'm going to be like, Well, actually, when I look at it, it's a benefit because we had this conversation, right, Yeah, the sequel is obviously going to be named Art of the Beta. # The Importance of Integrity **Knut:** Well, anyway, I think it's a great discussion, and it's like, people should talk more about this. Because, yeah, there is a trade off, and I don't think we disagree, I think we're on the same page here. I'm just mostly taking the devil's advocate position to get the debate going because I think it's very much a subject that should be vocalized more and aired more. **Knut:** Absolutely. Because diluting the message is bad. And that is. Like, well, we talk about ethics and tactics and whatnot with the pod all the time, and what we agree on and align on so much, it's like, there is nothing more important than integrity, I love the Scarface quote, you know, all I have in this world is my word and my balls, and they don't break for no one, and I try to live by that, **Rigel:** Had I ever taken the bag of shit coins during these last five years, I would be nothing at this point. I've seen it so many times over and over again. People turning from intellectuals to ultimate fighters, for instance, with the same moustache. And it's, to me, it's crazy. It's crazy where, on the one hand, these people talk about Bitcoin is sound money for generations and this is a thousand year mission and they don't see them doing this stuff of like, yeah, to me, there's been many times where I thought, you know, like when I started speaking at conferences and things like this, if I really started going deeper on this thing, maybe I could make more of a thing of it or whatever, but I think I like, I want to slowly build my brand in that sense over like 10 years, like do things and do only do things right. **Rigel:** Exactly, exactly dude. That's like all these memes we throw around. But I mean maybe that speaks to, again, this whole point I keep returning to is like, they're all empty platitudes with people actually not deeply thinking about, you know, calling, having something that can clearly articulate and point out, this is in direct contradiction to this, but because the thinking is so sloppy, people don't even realize that they're doing that. **Knut:** Like people want the fast, fast buck. And it's like I think that's a real side effect or a result of the fiat mindset and the fiat rot in people's brains over so many years. **Rigel:** my mind so much in terms of like, I mean, I guess everyone's got to eat, right, you know, but, but, surely if you've got Bitcoin, like, you're good, right, if you really believe in Bitcoin, right, you know, maybe not now, but if you really believe in Bitcoin, then we're all going to be super fucking rich, right, in 10 years or whatever, and so in that 10 years, you know, if you got a little bit more money, it's not going to matter anywhere near as much as like, if people knew, if you had that old boys network of the people that are here right now in Bitcoin, and they knew that you were always a, you know, Trustable, a person with high integrity for 10 years over all these things. **Rigel:** Imagine the value. That is an incredible value, **Knut:** honesty and integrity are really, that's really the currency of the future. And that aligns with Bitcoin so well because, It is this base layer of truth. it is actually integrity quantified, if you will. so it aligns so well and I think that, reputation is everything and it's all tied to authenticity and integrity.   # Leaning In **Luke:** Well, and I mean, first of all, the one thing is that, that's the noster thing there as well. The Web of trust idea. I mean, IM implementation stuff. Is, is that's valid. Like if we've, we've had our own concerns about the architecture and, haven't really talked to any hardcore skeptics that, that actually have thought about this hard. **Luke:** But still the, the web of trust thing is, is amazing in terms of, in terms of this portable web of trust that you can take from application to application. And hold on to that. And so I mean, I think that's just going to amplify that effect. the talk I did at Noob Day was basically just leaning into Bitcoin, how to do it. **Luke:** Because for me, I've been in the space two years. so much has just happened from saying yes to stuff and putting in the work I'm not tooting my horn. Too hard when I'm saying that, but the point about it is just like, do the work, like you say, I mean, things can happen a lot faster than you **Knut:** and there are no shortcuts. **Luke:** just by having the integrity and doing the work with **Knut:** Yeah. And you can't just cling on to this or that influencers ideas. That doesn't work. you need to actually study the thing. And **Luke:** Slay your heroes. **Rigel:** Yeah, something I talked about in the talk that I did today is the whole idea of what Bitcoin is, is like a different philosophy around technology, right? You know, we have The systems view of technology and the tools view of technology is technology a system whereby you follow a more or less a recipe or a set of instructions and the software does everything for you and it's like pressing a button and getting something out the other end, right? **Rigel:** And that has its place, but I mean, I think Bitcoin is a different type of technology in that it requires, like you to learn to, to wield it, to understand that the value is in the, the, the time and energy that you have to invest to learn about it. Because if you don't learn it, then someone else is making these decisions for you, and the whole point of Bitcoin is, is to educate yourself and master it, right? **Rigel:** An analogy might be, you know, hundreds of years ago, slightly romanticized, example, but nonetheless, I think that the metaphor is, is there, that hundreds of years ago, like, to be able to kill someone, like to be a knight or whatever, you had to spend a long amount of time learning how to master a sword, right? **Rigel:** And what would work for you is one will exactly work for me. **Knut:** you would probably have to practice less, right? **Rigel:** but I mean, it's all about your, understanding yourself, right? And you're never going to be a better swordsman. I'm never going to be a better swordsman than you if I don't really understand myself. **Rigel:** And then to project myself through the sword, right? Now today, any moron in an hour can learn how to have a rifle and shoot people. And I think, again, it's somewhat romanticized, but I still think there's a good amount of truth to this. And that, like, I think we are in a much worse position by having the power to kill given to anyone who knows how to work a very simple machine. **Rigel:** Versus that being reserved to people that go through the work and therefore learn to master themselves and understand themselves. There's a degree of, you're never going to be able to kill people unless you're able to pass these personal tests and verse the effort, right? And I think the same thing should apply to technologies like bitcoin, like with our money, right? **Rigel:** Because when you don't do that, you're just a blindness follower of someone else's instructions. But when you actually have to sit down and learn, there's value to making people go through that process. And so I think, like, the whole idea of bitcoin is that it should be a little. Complicated and a little hard and you know you shouldn't try and dumb it down too much because there's a certain point where it kind of kills what the whole point of Bitcoin is which is to go through that kind of process and we will have a better world if everyone understands how to use Bitcoin. **Rigel:** But again, if imagine it's ten people in the world are the only people that really understand Bitcoin and everyone else is just using you know, Binance or something like that. Are we any better than we are now? I don't think we are, you know. So the whole point is making sure that everyone in the world or a much greater amount of people in the world Are the people who are able to be the banks and the PayPals and the things like that. **Rigel:** And I think that's the value of it. And part of that is forcing people to be responsible and to learn themselves. And if they don't go through that, we don't change anything. So it's a counterpoint. **Knut:** Are you familiar with the word Kdi Ling This, this is a word that our friend Ralphie told us in Prague, and the definition is to purposefully travel without any particular destination, possibly meandering. And, someone asked people on Twitter to, describe Bitcoin with one word. **Knut:** And I think that's a perfect word, it's coddywompling. It's purposeful, but you don't know where it leads. **Rigel:** yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, it's like these, all these now, you know, the journey is a destination, all this kinda stuff. But I mean, I think there is value, there's truth to that with Bitcoin, # Wrapping Up **Luke:** Rigel, this has been a great, discussion, lively, do you have anything else big on your mind that you're excited to talk about or share? **Rigel:** no, that's pretty much it. this has been a really good talk and I feel like I don't listen to too many Bitcoin podcasts these days, but I feel like. I don't think these sort of conversations are being had about these sort of things and, and just thank you for giving the opportunity to hopefully, hopefully whoever's watching this has shared similar, felt similar value from it, but thank you for giving the opportunity to talk about these things with you guys because they've been great counterpoints as well. **Knut:** Pleasure is, on our side, right back at you. so anyway, will you want to send our listeners, **Rigel:** no, just I'm on Twitter, and Telegram, if you want to get me directly, on Coinsure and **Knut:** Telegram. **Rigel:** yeah, yeah, yeah, hot topic today, isn't it, yeah, yeah, **Knut:** have gone **Rigel:** I'm trying to remember what my, I just added the, thing in, Signal. But anyway, you can get my Signal if you message me there. and my Nostr, I believe, is on there as well. **Rigel:** And if not, I'm sure you can find me through things on Nostr there. I'll tell you my input, but that's a little messy to, to say on a **Rigel:** We make, we make that joke sometimes, oh, you're not going to tell us your mPub? that **Knut:** Thank you, Rigel, for coming on to the Bitcoin Infinity Show. **Luke:** Thank you so much for having me. Appreciate it. Thank you. **Luke:** you. This has been the Bitcoin Infinity Show. Thank you for listening.Appreciate it. Thank you. Luke: you. This has been the Bitcoin Infinity Show. Thank you for listening.