WBD338 Audio Transcription

Strike Launches in El Salvador with Jack Mallers, Miles Suter & Michael Peterson

Interview date: Friday 23rd April

Note: the following is a transcription of my interview with Jack Mallers, Miles Suter & Michael Peterson. I have reviewed the transcription but if you find any mistakes, please feel free to email me. You can listen to the original recording here.

In this interview, I talk to Zap CEO Jack Mallers, Square Crypto's Miles Suter, and Bitcoin Beach's Michael Peterson. We discuss the Lightning Network, international remittance and how Strike solves problems for people in El Salvador.

“The world now has an open monetary network, it’s the first one of all time, and throughout the history of the world, open networks really defeat closed networks and usher in a lot of change and innovation and disruption.”

— Jack Mallers

Interview Transcription

Peter McCormack: Mike, Miles, Jack, good to see you all.  Rather than have you all shouting at once, I think I'll work it through.  I'm going to start with Miles.  I've been bugging you for God knows how long saying, "Come on the pod, man; come and do a fucking show with me" and finally we get you here, so I'm very proud and very glad, because I think you're one of the most amazing unsung heroes of Bitcoin and not enough people know all the good shit you do.  So, thank you for doing this, man.

Miles Suter: Thanks for having me, Peter.  You've been a great friend over the years and excited to do my first podcast with a trusted friend like you, so let's do it.

Peter McCormack: Good to see you, Jack; we've done a few of these now, mate.

Jack Mallers: Yo, yeah, you can't get rid of me, buddy; sorry!  This is like number five!  Good to see you though, man.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, I don't intend to, man.  Good to see you; they go down well.  And Mike, good to see you, man.  Last time I saw you was in El Salvador myself.

Michael Peterson: Yeah, I wish you were here in the room with me instead of across the world, but it's just good to be able to connect.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, well listen, if we weren't in prison here in the UK, I would have flown out and done this in person and hung out with you guys and eaten some of that good local food.  I love El Salvador.  The two times I've been, it's been amazing, the people are amazing, the food's amazing; it's just a really great country.  I guess, Jack, you've got a good feel for El Salvador now you've been there a while?

Jack Mallers: Oh, I love it.  There's a lot to love; obviously the weather and the food, but the people and the culture in particular.  It's particularly motivating, especially the macro environment and all that's going on in the world.  It's been an experience I'll never forget, so I'm a big fan and I'm really thankful for Mike, man.  It's why I'm here and I think I can speak for Miles as well; just super supportive of everything that's going on down here.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, I mean Mike's another unsung hero.  I can't even remember when it was.  Was it 18 months or so that I came down, or was it two years ago?  I struggle with time now because we've been in this prison for so long.

Michael Peterson: It was December, I think, so it was 15 months ago, or something like that.  It seems like a lifetime ago, but it was back when we were all free.

Peter McCormack: Yeah.  You were running your Bitcoin project; I came down to see it.  You had your little community that were basically building this kind of circular Bitcoin economy, which was very cool to see.  It was just such an amazing experience.  Do you want to update me, since I've been there, what's been going on with that project, up until the point you got in touch with Jack?

Michael Peterson: Yeah.  I mean, it has really been amazing.  It has grown so much.  I think when you came, we only had a few businesses accepting Bitcoin.  I think now, there are about 40 businesses in the area that are accepting Bitcoin.  For a lot of them, they do the majority of their sales in Bitcoin.  We've partnered with GaloyMoney to develop a Lightning wallet that's specifically for the community and people can now purchase directly from a map within the wallet; they can do Pushpay, so it's actually a lot quicker for them to transact in Bitcoin over the Lightning Network than it is even in cash.

So now, I don't want to steal his thunder, but now that Strike is coming down here also and we'll have the remittance aspect, it's really blowing up.  We've been in touch with people from all levels of the government.  They're getting super excited about what they're seeing, about the potential for jobs in the Bitcoin space to move into El Salvador and for it to potentially be a hub in the world.  We're trying to push on the President here to actually make El Salvador the first country that adopts Bitcoin as an official currency.  We haven't succeeded yet, but I think we have pretty good odds to make that happen. 

We have probably 100 people in the community that are actually getting paid in Bitcoin; they're earning their salaries in Bitcoin.  Some of those are in the project working for us, but others are working for other companies, construction companies, local stores; and they've told their bosses, "I prefer to get paid in Bitcoin.  It's so much easier; I don't have to deal with the banks; I can send local payments to the businesses here" and so it's kind of turned into a pretty crazy big thing here and it's fun to just be in the middle of it.

Peter McCormack: Well, it's incredible.  It's probably, I would say, one of the most interesting projects happening right now in Bitcoin; this is a real project.  Just remind us though, Mike, I know we covered this before and maybe the answers will have changed, but just talk me through the pros and cons of creating this circular Bitcoin economy; what works well; what the challenges are; and specifically, any difficulties you've had with educating people on Bitcoin?

Michael Peterson: I think the difficulties become less and less.  The overarching difficulty is people are just creatures of habit, so they're used to dealing in dollars here; they're used to thinking in dollars; so to get people to change the way they do things, even if it's easier, sometimes you have to push them a little.  But, once they start transacting in Bitcoin, specifically using the Lightning Network, then it's really easy and the problems have been basically non-existent.

The stores, instead of us having to go to them and ask them to start accepting Bitcoin, they're coming to us wondering how they can start doing this.  They feel like they're missing out on customers by not accepting Bitcoin; they see the ease of not having to deal with the banks; and so, the more it grows and the network effects, just the easier it gets.  Like I said, with Lightning Network, it's just amazing; it makes everything just work pretty seamlessly.

Peter McCormack: And, are they holding Bitcoin, Mike, or are they instantly converting everything to dollars; because the only thing I would think would be a slight challenge potentially on a local level would be the volatility?  That's the only real challenge I could see that would be for some of the locals.  If there is a 10% or 20% price drop by Bitcoin, that can be a bit of a concern for people.  How have you dealt with that?

Michael Peterson: They've learned to navigate the volatility.  For a lot of them, they're saving in Bitcoin for the long term, so they're not as worried about the weekly or monthly gyrations.  Also, for a lot of them, they're just spending and interacting in Bitcoin on a daily basis.  So, it's just a lot easier for them.  Now they can pay their electric bill with Bitcoin; they can pay their car insurance with Bitcoin.  We've developed some partnerships where there's pretty much nothing that they can't do with Bitcoin now and so, for them, the volatility, they view it mostly as a positive because, yeah, some days it goes down, but it goes up more than it goes down.

Peter McCormack: Well, it does at the moment; exciting times right now.  Okay, so how did the connection happen with Jack?  Jack, how did you end up down in El Salvador?

Jack Mallers: I think this goes back to a podcast we did, Peter, in Boulder.  We spoke about the project a long while back and I didn't understand it.  And I think Mike reached out on Twitter and said, "Hey, I'd like to address some of the questions that you've had on Peter's podcast" and we had a little bit of a dialogue and I got to know the project more and more.  And then with Strike in particular, it became painfully obvious to me that I need to make the trip. 

I think, to make a super long story short, one of Strike's core nucleus thesis that we hold is that Bitcoin, as a monetary network, compared to the Square Network or the PayPal Network or the Visa Network, we think that it retains all the properties required to give a great financial experience and it's also inherently global and it's extremely inclusive.  One of the things that's great about this network is it works everywhere, and so you can give people in El Salvador that don't have a way to invest or generate yield on savings, for example, the best savings instrument of all time. 

You can give them connectivity and final clearance and cash finality in transacting without the need of trust, credit, counterparty risk, or any form of counterparty assessment with someone in America, and do free and instant remittance.  You can give them an experience like a P2P digital social payment application.  These people don't have P2P like Venmo or Monzo or Cash App; they don't have savings accounts that they can invest in stocks or in high-yield products like Bitcoin; they don't have access to remittance.  The remittance story here that I've been told is it's about a half day's shore trip; it's about a six-hour, in total, trip to Western Union to physically collect the cash and sometimes it's upwards of 30% on. 

So, yeah, it's very interesting what we can do in the US and in Europe, but one of the amazing things that's in line with the thesis of the company is, the monetary network works just as well here and we think there are probably about 4.5 billion people that don't have the same level of financial access that everyone else does.  So, there's no better place to visit.  These people are very educated, they're extremely passionate, they care, they work very hard.  We're now actually employing a lot of them and so, it's a very special place and these people are very motivated to drive change.

So, for all of those reasons, I've been here for like a month!

Peter McCormack: And, Miles, how come you ended up down there, mate?

Miles Suter: So I mean, I'm always obsessed with how people are using Bitcoin around the world, whether that's in Hong Kong during the protest, or I was in the Philippines, right, as COVID was crashing down last February.  I'm obsessed with seeing how people are using Bitcoin around the world and what use cases are growing and ultimately, how can I help spur this growth even further.

I truly believe that getting Bitcoin into the hands of more people is how we start to fix a lot of these problems in the world.  And so, wide distribution of Bitcoin and usage is something near and dear to my heart, so whether that's with Cash App in the US, or going and visiting really interesting experiments, like what's going down down here.  When I heard about it, I knew I had to be here to see what was going on and ultimately see if in the long run, there are ways that I can help accelerate this, or perhaps replicate it down the line.

So, it was last Fall, I actually really wanted to get down to Buenos Aires, because I think that the people of Argentina really need Bitcoin and I wanted to see how it's being used in the Cuevas and how it's integrating into this culture of money changing and black market dollar prices versus the official government dollar price.  And it's clear that I wasn't going to be able to get into Buenos Aires.  When I talked to Bitcoin people down there, they'd say, "You're crazy, why do you want to come here; Everybody's trying to get out of Argentina?"

So, I've been following, since early in the summer, what Mike was doing down here with Bitcoin Beach and I just slid into Mike's DMs and said, "Hey, I'm really interested in what you're doing down here and I want to come down.  Mike immediately invited me to come stay with his family and I stayed with him for a few days before I was going to take a two-week vacation and dived into what's going on down here and tried to get integrated into the local community.  And, Mike did that immediately.

But, as I spent time here and as my vacation turned into -- it was hard to step away from work fully, even when I was here, so I was like, I'm just going to spend a little longer.  I went home over the holidays and I've done some back and forths, but it's been a really, really powerful experience to get to spend time here and watch the programme grow, just in the six months since I first saw the programme live, in terms of the number of people using Bitcoin; in terms of the amount of external awareness of what's going on down here; and also, just the impact that it's had on the people using it every day.

So, I feel really blessed to be down here and to me, it's one of the coolest things happening in the entire world.  So yeah, big shout-out to Mike and all the local people here, working super hard daily to grow this thing.  And I do want to mention, it's also growing organically on its own.  We're seeing businesses in San Salvador constantly reaching out to Mike and businesses also setting it up themselves, sharing Bitcoin QRs on Facebook and Instagram.

A new Bitcoin ATM opened up at the beach 20 minutes down the road, so it's really cool to see what a really committed core can then spread organically down through the rest of the country.  So, I'm super bullish El Zonte; I'm super bullish El Salvador; and as Mike said, I think we've got a shot at getting Nayib Bukele to buy some Bitcoin here, so we'll see how that goes.

Peter McCormack: Incredible.  Okay, Jack, we're obviously in a bull market at the moment, which means that every week, month, I've always got new people joining the show.  They won't be aware of the previous shows we made; they might not have heard the previous show we made specifically with regard to Strike, so I don't want to make that assumption.  Can we just assume there's going to be a bunch of people listening now, this is the first time they may have heard of you or may have heard of Strike; can you just give a breakdown of what Strike is and what you're trying to do with your company?

Jack Mallers: Yeah, oh boy.  So, Strike views Bitcoin in a really interesting way.  Obviously Bitcoin, the asset class, and the monetary policy that is representative of one of the harder assets of all time and is designed to appreciate against the dollar in the dollar's current form, or any inflated asset, that's obviously very interesting and I'm a bitcoiner; I've been a hodler since 2013.

What's interesting about Strike is we're very interested in Bitcoin, the Network; so Bitcoin, the Network and the Lightning Network.  So, to do away for a second with Bitcoin going up in price, or the fact that there's only going to be 21 million of them, or the fact that there's a halving every four years, we don't necessarily care about that at all.  What we think is really interesting is what facilitates this money to be able to be used.  It turns out there's a network. 

It's a network that achieves things like identity within the network; it achieves a standard to send a payment; a standard to receive a payment; a standard of trust between two peers; a standard of final clearance and what does finality look like.  And when you think about that holistically and you think, "Well, how do other monetary networks operate?", Visa does the same thing within their network.  Visa defines identity; how do I know that this is my Visa card and that's Peter's Visa card?  There are certain numbers on it, right; and you have a certain account; and, how do I send and receive; how is credit, how is settlement done?

We think that not only is Bitcoin better, cheaper, faster and more global than any other monetary network, but most importantly, it's open.  And when it's open, open networks, excluding money, just generally, always win.  Open networks have defined economies of scale and network effects that are immensely powerful.  And so, if you think a competitor were to come into a network; on an open network, every new participant is additive, it actually strengthens the network.  So, competitors actually are "good for your business". 

So we think, if Bitcoin is this open monetary network and it's going to be here for a long time and things like Lightning Network are going to be successful and be able to add to the properties and achieve things like final cash finality, instantly and for free, then there is going to be this dematerialisation of this open network really swallowing up the existing closed monetary networks; and we want to be a part of it.  And we think there are going to be many winners, we think there's going to be a lot of disruption; but that's the Core thesis. 

The world now has an open monetary network, it's the first one of all time and throughout the history of the world, open networks really defeat closed networks and usher in a whole lot of change and innovation and disruption.  I spent a lot of time working on the Lightning Network and even have a few contributions to Bitcoin Core and I have the level of confidence that this monetary network is not going anywhere; in fact, it's here for centuries.  And it gave me the conviction to start a company on top of it.

The company's sole purpose is to deliver the best user experience on top of this open monetary network.  In open networks, it's a race to the bottom, it's a commoditised business.  So, we don't care about pricing; we don't have any fancy revenue stream; in an open network, it's a race to the bottom.  We want the best experience, the best team and the best brand; and so, we try and make your interaction with this open monetary network as good as it can possibly be.

That's it; that's the core product.  We want to make your usage of this monetary network great.  And the very first iteration of that is being able to link your checking account and use it.  We found out, we being me, working in the Bitcoin community for a long time, is the reason that this monetary network, which is so powerful; it's global, it's open, it's accessible to 7.5 billion people, it has inherent network effects and economies of scale, instant global cash finality with no credit, no counterparty risk, no anything; so why isn't it being used today?  I identified really four things.

One, you have to use it with Bitcoin and no one wants to use Bitcoin, because if you just hold Bitcoin, you're just going to get richer and you should just hold it, so you're not incentivised to use the monetary network.  The second is the regulations' taxes behind it.  I'm really burdened by spending it and the IRS; I'm a target to the IRS.  The third is volatility; it's not a great experience and people don't traditionally enjoy volatility in everyday commerce.  And then, the fourth is you have to be fairly technical.  And to deliver the premier experience, you kind of have to know a little bit of tech.

So, the initial product at Strike is, we had this grand thesis and it was, "What if we could take an experience, like what Miles did at Cash App, which is just link your checking account, pay your friends, scan QR codes, move money around; what if we did that with the Bitcoin network?  What if all I had to do was link my checking account and I could scan QR codes, I could do free and instant remittance, I can pay a merchant with no chargebacks, no interchange fee; Visa couldn't bully anybody?" 

And, we would do the hard work of turning your dollars into Bitcoin, doing all the hi-tech stuff, the accounting, the taxes, all of that, and deliver the best experience that people are akin to and familiar with in the developed world, with the Monzos and the Cash Apps and the Venmos and the Visas; what if we could do that on top of the Bitcoin Network?  I hold the opinion that would be an amazingly powerful experience.  So, that was a little bit of a rant, but that is the introduction!

Peter McCormack: No, but it's good.  But, let's explain what the product, "Strike", is.  So, if you have the Strike app and I have the Strike app, talk me through the experience so people understand.

Jack Mallers: What's super relevant here is that we've connected a bunch of financial institutions all over the world over the Lightning Network.  So, what we do for here in El Salvador, we work with a few institutions that are solely responsible for us interfacing with El Salvador citizens and custodying assets and money for El Salvador users.  Then, we also have the same thing in the United States; we also have the same thing in the UK and in the EU and in Australia and in Canada.

So what we do is, if I'm a US user and I've got my Chase checking account currently linked to my Strike account and I want to make a payment at a Bitcoin Beach merchant, what actually happens under the hood is when I scan the QR code and click "pay", and I don't have Bitcoin on Strike, there are no fancy satoshis or channels or anything, it's just my Chase checking account; I scan a QR code and I click "pay" for this Gatorade, which actually here costs $1, which is just a God's gift!

What happens is Strike debits my checking account for $1.  Under the hood, unbeknownst to the user, it's going to convert it to Bitcoin on the fly and then it's going to send the Bitcoin, from our financial and regulatory compliant relationships in the United States, across an ocean and across borders and be received in another country, across another border, across another ocean, instantly.  And then, we're going to convert it back to euros or pounds or Aussie dollars or stablecoin. 

So, that's what's happening in real time here in El Salvador for the remittance part; it's debiting and crediting different currencies against Bitcoin.  And, we're able to achieve physical clearances; this is a physical digital commodity that can move at the speed of light anywhere in the world in real time, and it also has this sufficient liquidity profile in any currency you'd ever want. 

So, we're just swinging these Bitcoins all over the world, converting it back and forth between local currency, and that is the famed remittance use case that we're using and it's getting a little bit of attention and traction here in El Salvador.  I think we have a couple of hundred people now that are using it pretty actively at this point.  I think we launched a week ago, so I'm hoping to grow that pretty aggressively.

Peter McCormack: So, is it like an international Venmo which has essentially got no geographical restrictions; it's an international Venmo that uses the Bitcoin Network as the payment rail?

Jack Mallers: Yeah.  So, some of the deeper insights that you have to gather here is that first of all, Bitcoin itself is a physical asset.  So, there's no sense of credit, there's no sense of balance sheet flow; you're not borrowing money from anybody.  The actual physical value is travelling in real time.  It's going to take a second for physical value to go from Chicago to El Zonte, El Salvador; it's going to take a second and it's going to cost us nothing.  That in itself is a massive step forward for money as a technology.

The other insight is that this commodity now is a trillion-dollar asset class and it has the liquidity profile in any currency you'd ever want, so you're never stuck in Bitcoin.  You can always trade it for Aussie dollars, US dollars, British pounds, euros.  So, you can use it as an instrument to just move value around the world.  By the way, there's no counterparty risk.  By the way, there are no reversals.  By the way, it's the only instrument that can achieve global cash finality instantly and at no cost.

So, one of the questions we pose at Strike is, "Why does it cost money to make a cross-border payment?  Why does it cost money to interface with any other financial institution?"  Cryptography solves a lot of the problems that are justifiable for intermediaries and fees.  Now cryptography, maths and science has totally ruled those requirements out.  So, that is our first big use case; let's just launch everywhere and tie a bunch of different banks.

A Mexican bank gave me a call, "We have 1.5 million users and we want to make free and instant remittance inbound from the US dollar.  Here's our Lightning node".  And so, that's it; done.  We don't need to assess any credit, I don't need to sign an MSA, I don't need to get to know the founder.  Now, we just scan QR codes to this bank; the bank's going to receive Bitcoin in real time in less than a second at no cost, convert it to Mexican pesos and then despatch it to the user's bank. 

I didn't do shit!  That's not a competitor either.  Again, new participants to an open system are additive.  There are network effects built, so if Strike can just be a good experience, there are going to be hundreds and thousands of financial institutions that join.  So, it works!

Peter McCormack: I'm not having you say you didn't do shit; fuck off, mate, come on; you did a lot here!  Mike, let's talk a little bit specifically about El Salvador.  Let's talk about specifically the state of the country economically.  It's a dollar-based country; what that means; what the relationship is between the population of El Salvador, but when I was with you, you talked about a lot of people actually live in America and are sending money back.  Just give me a holistic view of what's going on there.

Michael Peterson: Yeah, because of some of the tragic history in El Salvador, they went through a brutal civil war.  Just in recent history, they've had a number of natural disasters and more recently, they've had a huge issue with the gangs.  Fortunately, that's really curtailing and we're seeing a lot of improvement in that, but they've kind of had one tragic and hard circumstance after another; and because of that, a lot of Salvadorans have made their way to the US. 

Almost every Salvadoran family here has some family members in the US that they rely on, to some extent, financially.  Actually, I believe the latest figures, it's about 22% of El Salvador's GDP comes from remittances, which I mean that's just crazy.  It is their number one earner, or their number one area of their economy is money coming in from remittances.  So, the problem with that is a lot of that gets syphoned off along the way, so I think the World Bank has done studies that show it's usually between 5% and 10%, on average, of remittances get syphoned off by the financial institutions.

But, it's not just the amount; it's also the inconvenience, the lost time and the fact that people can't send small payments.  In order to send a remittance, you really need to send at least a few hundred dollars to make it worthwhile.  But now with Bitcoin, somebody can call their son in the US and say, "Hey, can you send us $3 in Bitcoin?  Can you send us 100,000 satoshis so that we can go buy some milk?"

Wherein the old system, the son would never send that amount, because he'd have to go get in his car, go down the Western Union, send the money; she'd have to take the bus for a couple of hours to go pick it up, pay all these fees.  Now, he can just say, "Sure", send it right to her and then she doesn't even have to leave her house.  She can then send over the Lightning Network a payment to the local store and have a little local delivery boy come and drop milk off at her house.  It is literally the difference between this whole thing taking 30 seconds and it taking over a day of two people's time to get money.

So, we're seeing just a huge transformation in the efficiency of the way things happen here and as a by-product of that, we are seeing El Salvador start to lead the way in Bitcoin uptake and I think Jack and Miles would both concur with this, that they're just shocked at how seamlessly the local kids, the elderly lady who's living in a tin shack with a dirt floor, can whip out her smartphone and make a Lightning payment for 25 cents' worth of tortillas.

I would say the people here use Bitcoin more seamlessly than the majority of bitcoiners that you see at a hardcore Bitcoin conference; I mean, they're using it on a daily basis.  So, we see a real economic opportunity for companies to come in and start employing these hardcore bitcoiners who understand how it works on a real level, and we're super excited that Strike's already made progress on that and they're going to be hiring a number of people here in the community. 

So, instead of these people working a job where they're going to be planting a corn field, or a fisherman; now, they're in an air-conditioned office, they're helping Strike with their different back-office things, they're helping Strike operate more efficiently as they roll out in the other parts of the world and giving them insights in how people who really need Bitcoin are going to use it; not the way engineers think, or not the people with millions of dollars think it's going to be used, but the people who make a couple of hundred dollars a month and rely on it for their daily payments.

So, I really think that countries like El Salvador are going to lead the way forward and I wouldn't be surprised if ten years from now, we see just the whole economic standing of El Salvador upended because of that.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, so Miles, what has it been like to see?  Obviously, you said your interest is you've been travelling the world, you want to see how people are using Bitcoin and now you're actually seeing a real use case.  What's it been like to see; has anything surprised you; has there been anything that you've seen that you didn't expect; what's that experience been like?

Miles Suter: It's been amazing, honestly, and it's the most grassroots activity that I have seen.  So, I've seen everything from my fairly upscale hotel that I stay with accept Bitcoin, to the little lady on the side of the road selling pupusas; and there's everything in between there.  I think maybe my favourite use case that I've seen develop, as the wave has been growing throughout the community, is every morning at the point -- I mean, there's world-class surf here and a really strong culture that unites the community and local communities and is a big part of the way of life along the coast. 

But, every morning there are photographers out there taking photos and then, when you get back in the water they say, "Hey, look, you got two waves; here's six photos [or] two videos", or whatever the numbers are.  And previously, you'd send them WhatsApp, they'd come find you and then you'd meet up and hand over cash.  Now, it's like you just give a pound when you come out of the water and by the time I'm back to where I stay, I have a WhatsApp message with five videos and a Lightning QR code, and I just fulfil that right there and that is done.

So, it's good to see local entrepreneurs finding new tools to make them more powerful and scalable.  I think my favourite example of watching the community grow and get more comfortable in the times that I've been here is the local coffee shop, a man named Enzo.  It's been interesting to watch how he behaves as the money that he's brought in has appreciated. 

So obviously, October/November is when things really started taking off and the price appreciation has been growing substantially since then.  Nicolas of Galoy was here for a while as well, so between him and I and local people, he was collecting, maybe getting $15, $20 a day in Bitcoin for a week or two weeks, or whatever.  Essentially, he collected $400 worth of Bitcoin or something over some period.  And in February or so when I was back, all of a sudden he was looking at me and he's like, "Dude, I have $1,500" or whatever that was.

So, it's been interesting to see people try to manage -- how do you manage your business when some of it's in cash and some of it's in Bitcoin?  He thinks of the Bitcoin as purely a savings and access to international capital markets.  Whereas, if he's rerouting 10% of his orders, or 20%, 30%, whatever the number is, to Bitcoin throughout the day, he's still able to have enough cash flow in dollars that he doesn't really have to worry about that; he can park it away. 

But, it's really interesting to note that he always understands his cost basis and he knows at what price, if Bitcoin went down to $28K, all of a sudden he's now in the red.  So maybe, if it was going down, he would start selling.  There have been times where he's like, "You know what, Miles, I think it's time where you give me five $20 bills and I'll Lightning you $100 just to take a little off the table". 

But, it's been really interesting to hear him talk about trying to pay his suppliers in Bitcoin; it's been really interesting to watch him begin going down that Bitcoin rabbit hole and watching podcasts.  He's told me he's listened to some of your podcasts, Peter, so shout-out to Mr McCormack, Mr International!

But, it's something that I've always said, is that Bitcoin is this fractal rabbit hole.  Once you get a little bit of it, you want to get to the bottom of it.  The moral of the story is, nobody can and you'll always be finding related topics that you also are searching for internal consistency with, or it makes you think about not just money and Bitcoin differently, but a lot of other topics as well.  So, I found it super, super interesting chatting with him about philosophy, about the technical properties of Bitcoin and also, just life.  So, yeah, shout-out to Enzo!

Peter McCormack: But it also sounds like with that, there's almost a secondary network effect being built, because Bitcoin has been so successful, it's allowed Jack to build his product because it has this network effect.  Jack talks about the liquidity in all these different countries, but if you've got a guy who's now accepting Bitcoin and he maybe wants to pay his suppliers in Bitcoin, you actually have this secondary network effect where it's like a circular economy network?

Miles Suter: Yeah, absolutely.  One example that I like is that there's a real estate shop in El Tunco that has properties and they're listed in dollars.  But for fun, I wanted to ask the guy, "Hey, would you be willing to accept Bitcoin?" and the realtor initially said no but then he flagged it up the chain to the owner of the company who was well aware of what was going on in El Zonte and he was pretty much like, "You know what; I think we'll make that work".

I later found out that the construction company that are building these condos or whatever are getting paid in Bitcoin as well.  So, if the property's getting bought in Bitcoin, you're paying the workers that are building it in Bitcoin; all of a sudden, you're operating on this parallel system that we've all been dreaming about for some time.  So, this is the most in actuality I've seen it and it just filled me with joy.

Peter McCormack: What do you think's unique about what's happening there and why the adoption is happening down in El Salvador?  Is it just because you guys are there pushing it with Mike originally pushing it and creating this community and you've just come and added on to it; or, is there something unique about El Salvador that it doesn't have its own sovereign currency and therefore, it doesn't have that kind of loyalty to a sovereign currency, it is, "Well, this is just another currency we can use alongside the dollar"?

Miles Suter: I think it's partially that, but I think it's also just people experiencing Bitcoin that are on the lower rungs of the economic ladder, who are unbanked and don't have access.  The reality is, Bitcoin has predominantly been adopted by people with resources at this point.  So, I think this is really the first experiment where it gets Bitcoin into the hands of the people that it was designed for; the people that have been left behind by the current financial network.

So, I do think that the fact that they don't have their own currency is helpful, because you don't have the resistance from the government, you don't have those other concerns; but I think it's really just Bitcoin and Bitcoin, once people get into it, they rarely get out.  And we've seen it really reshapes people's whole paradigm on spending and saving. 

I know there's a lot of debate within the community of, "Why would you ever spend Bitcoin; that's stupid?" but I would really push back on that.  I've seen, when people are spending in Bitcoin, they're much more conscientious about how they use their money, because every time they make a purchase they're like, "Okay, do I want to spend $10 on this stupid trinket, or do I want to keep this in Bitcoin, because I think it's going to be double, triple, ten times, five years from now?"

So, we've seen people who've never saved in their lives and they are maybe only making $300 or $400 a month, so it's very understandable that they've never been able to save.  But, now they're finding a way to save because they want to hold on to this appreciating asset, and they really evaluate, each time they make a purchase, whether or not it's worth it.

So, I push back on people who say that Bitcoin shouldn't be used for spending.  I think, when you use Bitcoin for spending, it sets everything right.

Peter McCormack: Nice.  So, Jack, in terms of the product, let me just understand something, because I haven't had a chance to really play with it yet.  Am I able to hold dollars and Bitcoin in the same wallet and move between the two, or is it just dollar?

Jack Mallers: In about a month you will be.

Peter McCormack: In about a month; that's the one.

Jack Mallers: That's a little secret that I might get pretty blasted on Twitter for that, but yeah, pretty soon.  For now, it's just dollars or euros or…  We're in Canada, Europe; I think we support four currencies right now, privately testing everything outside of the dollar, but I think the Europe will be our next big currency.

Peter McCormack: Okay.  So, in terms of your rollout of Strike in El Salvador, specifically what is it you've been doing with the product?  Have you been making iterations based on usage there; what have you learned about the product there?

Jack Mallers: I actually have pretty profound thoughts on the topics that were just discussed here.  I think El Salvador is the perfect place for this exact type of beta in learning and iterating and understanding how Bitcoin can be the most impactful.  There's a future employee, I think he signs his contract today, of ours who's not just a dear friend of mine; I think he's one of the better human beings I've met in my life. 

One of the first times we sat down and had lunch, he explained to me, Bitcoin to him is hope, because what we're accustomed to is you go to university, you get a job, you work your way up to where you have capital that isn't needed for everyday life and then you invest it and it compounds and then you retire.  I don't have access to that; I don't have access to a way of investing and generating yield on savings; I don't have a way to save and grow wealth.  I also am not necessarily included in the financial axis that you guys have.

One of the stories that I think is super interesting, they say Robinhood is a great -- sorry if this is a changer, but what's a really interesting story about Robinhood is when I was talking to the founders.  When they first pitched it, a lot of the extremely wealthy investors that they were looking into said, "You guys are nuts.  Nobody cares that you're saving a little bit of percentages on trading, because I trade $500,000 at a time, so I don't really give a fuck if I'm paying $1,000 in fees or $2,000 in fees; it doesn't matter".

What they didn't understand is there's actually a market of people that would trade $10 per trade or $100 per trade, but the fixed costs of brokerages eliminates that opportunity to them.  I think that was the first thing I found really fascinating in El Salvador is when people are like, "What does it matter?  If I'm making a $500,000 remittance payment to Europe or to Central America, TransferWise isn't that bad; it's like 4%, 3%, but on $500,000, who cares?" 

It's like, "No, you understand there's a market of people that make $100 remittance payments; they make $10 remittance payments, but there's a fixed cost of executing those remittance payments that is like $30, so that's where you get your 30% fees".  They're not charging 30% fees on $500,000; they're charging 30% fees on the people that make weekly $100 payments to El Salvador.

So anyway, long story short, we get into this conversation where he's like, "Bitcoin for me is hope, because now I've been able to grow my wealth.  I know kids that are looking at buying property now.  I know kids who are looking at buying cattle now.  I know kids who are looking at investing.  There are people in this community that believe in a future that lives outside of the vicious lifecycle of just being a surf instructor, or just being a café, or whatever else. 

So, I think the people here, how inclusive it is, it gives them access to the best savings account in human history; it gives them a monetary network with no fixed costs; global inclusivity; and instant and free finality.  It gives them access to the open network that we all use.  He said to me, "I scan the same QR codes you do and when Bitcoin goes up, I'm making the same amount of returns you are.  When has that ever happened?

And then the other thing is, this country, of all the fucking stimulus cheques all my high school friends are getting, those clowns that work in sales jobs at Yelp, getting stimulus cheques, buying whiskey shots; how many stimulus cheques do you think land here in El Salvador?  Fucking zero.  That's bullshit; that's absolute bullshit.  Over 25% of the existing US dollars in circulation were minted in the last 12 months and do you know how many of those dollars people here got?  Not a lot, Peter, not a lot.

Peter McCormack: But they're getting debased?

Jack Mallers: Absolutely.  As a country, it's not fair to them and as individual human beings, these people are passionate, they're extremely caring, they're some of the better people I've ever met; and when it comes to hiring them, they're some of the most overqualified people.  They know Bitcoin like the back of their hand, they're extremely passionate and they believe Bitcoin can make a material difference in their everyday lives, and I can't say that for a lot of job applications I get from people in New York and San Francisco.

Anyway, I think it is that perfect, like that Robinhood, that $100 remittance market; eliminating the fixed costs, given them access to an open monetary network that holds the properties that can allow them to act financially, just like the people in New York and London do; and given them access to the best high-yield savings account of all time.  Who needs Apple stock if you can own and hold Bitcoin?

So, I think it's the best place to run a lot of these experiments and engage with the people that will likely be the forward-thinkers to change the world and have the incentive and the initiative to do so.  And the on the back half, you'll get all the Silicon Valley entrepreneurs who'll pick up on my blog post and copy me and shit, but I think it has to start somewhere and I have full confidence that this is one of those places.

Peter McCormack: And, what is the rollout status in El Salvador; you're obviously testing?  Are you at that point where you're saying anyone can now download Strike; anyone can use Strike?

Jack Mallers: Yeah.  It's publicly available in the App Store.

Peter McCormack: Have you launched?

Jack Mallers: Yeah.  We're rolling out a referral programme tomorrow so that referrers get $5, referees get $5.  I'm employing some people down here, meeting with an ATM company later this afternoon, potentially talking to some government officials and some banks.  And yeah, I mean listen, I think my number one job here is to be a good listener.

For example, a lot of people use Strike as an exchange because El Salvador, they don't have an exchange.  And as much as there is a circular economy and people can and do spend Bitcoin, an asset that incurs that much volatility, people do want to speculate on it or take profit or not hold all of their money in it, and that was something I didn't expect.  I didn't know that there wasn't an exchange here.  I didn't know that everyone's downloading Strike to take a little bit of profit, or do the opposite; take a lot of their dollars and mark it by Bitcoin when it's dipping.

So, my job here is just being a listener and trying to integrate with businesses and government and banks and such.  But, we are available and people are using it for remittances, slowly but surely.

Peter McCormack: That $5 signup could spread like wildfire?

Jack Mallers: Yeah.

Peter McCormack: I just checked; the population's 6.4 million, so that could cost you -- oh, I'm not sure because it's the $5 each way both times, so I'm not sure how the cut works.  But that could -- is it $45 million to get the whole country?

Jack Mallers: If we onboard the entire country, I'd gladly pay for that; no problem.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, that's amazing.  Jack, you're doing amazing work, dude; it's very cool.  Okay, Miles, so as you've said, you've been travelling the world seeing this stuff.  Every now and again I do interviews where I leave and I'm a bit like, "Oh, shit, I need to go for a walk and have a real think about the consequences of this, because this isn't a minor deal".  Tell me how your head is spinning, what you're thinking with regard to this; like, are we blissfully unaware of how big a deal this really is?

Miles Suter: I think that what is going on down here is super, super important and I think that it needs to be replicated in many other places around the world.  When I think about Bitcoin companies going to launch a foreign country, what can have more of an impact: £500K in Facebook ads; or injecting this into the community along with building up a community centre and teaching English lessons and teaching Bitcoin courses and encouraging local workers to get paid to work for the local lifeguards or anywhere else in between?

So to me, obviously you need another Mike in these other places, which is no guarantee.  You need someone who's been in the country for a long time, who's passionate about Bitcoin and has the tools and the connections and the friendships and the trust in the community to try to build this up.  But knowing Mike, if there are other people out there who are passionate about trying to get something like this going in their local community, I'm sure he would be all ears.

I personally feel really inspired.  I think the timing is really good here right now as well.  In 2019 we did, what was it called, Jack?  Not the Lightning Challenge; the Lightning Torch, and Lightning was very much at its beginning stages then.  Even someone who spends all day on this stuff, to me it was quite challenging.  And for a lot of people around that time, it was like, "What do you mean, I need inbound capacity?" and all these different things.

I think in the last six months, there's been a lot of progress for Lightning-related wallets and apps.  Obviously, Strike is really killing it; but I've seen, for example, the non-custodial app Muun.  It's really, really interesting to me recently, where you can fund it with an on-chain transaction before it's even confirmed, you can send and receive on the Lightning Network; all in a non-custodial manner.  So, there has been a lot of innovation and I feel like a lot of these apps just work now.

If you're going to be kicking off a circular Bitcoin economy, these apps have to work and you can't be worried about funding channels and liquidity management; it's just too complicated for 90% of the people sitting within Square and so obviously, going anywhere else in the world, it's going to be equally as challenging, I believe.

One of things I've learned, I've really tried to just be a good observer, help accelerate the programme where I can, but really tried to learn from how people are using this and what is valuable to their current situation.  And so, with a lot of things in Bitcoin, there are certain points along the spectrum of usability and security and you're constantly making these trade-offs.  So, seeing where things are landing here and seeing what's necessary to bootstrap adoption and usage and finding those optimum trade-offs is something that I personally find very, very helpful and intriguing.

At Cash App over the last eight years, we've tried to do a lot of those same things; abstract away complexity to the point of a great user experience without sacrificing any of the ethos.  Our mission is to redefine the world's relationship with money; and so whether that's been the first public company to offer Bitcoin, we've always offered Bitcoin withdrawals and deposits, because we believe controlling your own keys is a big part of the ethos. 

But, as Jack was saying, there's this huge opportunity for letting the people have access to investments.  I believe Bitcoin's firmly for the people, but we also were the first people to offer $1 trades of Tesla and we had just a whole suite of financial products where we didn't really find product market fit in San Francisco, LA and New York; and in many ways, we still haven't yet.  Those are still the more coastal, affluent tech people that use Venmo, but we really focussed on people that were underserved and often, underbanked and in less prominent regions.  We're really big in the South East and Texas, and slowly this wave has taken over the different states, which is because we provide a service and a focus for people that weren't being served.  In the end, that served us really well.

So, I find it really inspiring to see -- to me, that was always the dream for Bitcoin, is to do the same thing, so I take a lot of inspiration from what Jack's doing and I can never move as quickly as Jack and Strike.  We joke a lot about this, always over the years, but I'm always keeping an eye on him and I'm always his biggest fan and supporter behind the scenes and it's been a really great experience using Strike down here, alongside other Bitcoin wallets.

One of the biggest problems here is there's no regulated exchange and you can't get the good -- even if you try to connect to Binance or something with your Salvadorian bank account, or debit card, it just gets denied.  They're not trying to work together.  By bringing an app like Strike, that is powered by stablecoin behind the scenes, or connects to the Bitcoin Network via Lightning, but holds the dollar balance via stablecoins, if I had both these apps and I'm a local Salvadorian, all of a sudden I have an American bank account essentially, where previously I was always Bitcoin and paying for things in Bitcoin. 

But, if I want to take some off the table and I don't want to go to the ATM, I don't want to pay the fee of ATM, I can send $10 over the Lightning Network to my Strike app, but now that's held in dollars.  Now I'm long the dollar and if I send it back to my Bitcoin app, then I'm long in Bitcoin.  So, it's a really useful tool and that was kind of a lightbulb moment for me on the power between the interoperability of these Networks and the tools it can provide to people that previously didn't have them.

Peter McCormack: That's so cool, man, that's so cool to hear.  Listen, Jack, the big block shitcoiners always want to point at the Lightning Network and poke fun at it and say it's still not delivered, etc; do you want to shut that down forever now because of what you've achieved on the Lightning Network?

Jack Mallers: Yeah, I mean it's a waste of time!  I don't entertain those people now.

Peter McCormack: All right, fuck off!  No, but even outside of them; I mean, other people might be like, "Is it ready; are we still being reckless; where are we at?"  I don't fully understand.  Tell me what you've managed to achieve with Lightning.

Jack Mallers: Ready for what?  Those people can fuck off!  Ready for what?  It's been an argument used to justify a narrative that totally exists in another universe.  Ready for what?  How about the fact that there is an economy here and I can launch an app here that's natively interoperable with everything else they've been able to use.  They can pick it up from day one.  I didn't know anyone here, I didn't establish a relationship, I didn't sign a document, I didn't start a bank.  It's an open specification of instant cash finality on top of the world's first open monetary network and it works.

I'm building a massive business on top of it and if people knew our fundraising and our valuation, how many people are employed here, I mean we're not a joke anymore.  So, no, I don't entertain people trying to use a lot of the good, hard work that this community has done in scaling this asset class and providing some of the additive properties to make it a really useful monetary network.  People are using that to justify really scammy investments.

No, I think people are going to be surprised.  And incentives run the world and if there is an opportunity here then people are going to make a lot of money and there are going to be more and more folks like Cash App and bigger companies that will come join and there's going to be a network effect; so I have all the confidence in the world.  I think we'll see how the next few years play out.

But, I don't know, man, I'm too busy nowadays.  I stopped paying attention to that shit.  Honestly, it's not worth anyone's time, especially yours, Pete.

Peter McCormack: Well listen, I've got to ask the question.  Miles, is Jack -- have we got the Bill Gates of Bitcoin here?

Miles Suter: To me, for years, Jack has been the one leading the charge, tirelessly behind the scenes, laying Lightning infrastructure.  I mean, it's not the first product he's launched, but it's the first one that feels like the sum of all the parts of previous iterations and is now finding product market fit and is super, super exciting.  So, I couldn't be more proud of Jack.

Jack Mallers: I joke with Miles all the time; I'm his Trojan Horse.  I just throw my head against the wall and just get concussion after concussion and just try shit and then eventually, I'll figure something out and then Miles can take it to the finish line.  So, that's how I view myself; I'll just be bedside with ten concussions, but together we'll figure it out as a community!

Peter McCormack: Dude, you're crushing it, man.  I was actually in touch, I reached out to Cookie last time after our last chat and had a little conversation with her and just said, "This is fucking amazing; I'm really blown away by it all", so I hope I'm not embarrassing you too much.

Mike, one question I do have, it's an important question and just tell me if I'm off the mark at all here; but, one thing that came to my mind when I was down in El Salvador was thinking a little bit more about security, how people manage their private keys.  It's a very different environment.  For example, if someone's holding a decent amount of Bitcoin, considering if they wanted to do a multisig setup, it's a more complicated scenario than maybe I have here; how are you guys approaching that; how are you considering that?

Michael Peterson: Yeah, we're helping people scale their security as they scale their holdings.  So, for a lot of people, they are using it transactionally, so they're holding it the same way they would hold cash.  A lot of them are holding it within a custodial wallet and we push people, as they become more comfortable, to begin to understand how to hold their own keys and especially for what they're holding for long-term savings, to move in that direction, we've started bringing down Coldcards and training people on how to use those.  So, as people start to accumulate a sizeable stack, we help them scale along the way.

But, it's interesting, because a lot of people ask, "Well, are you worried about the security, because bitcoiners usually want to be all secretive about that they use Bitcoin at all?" but it's not like that here at all, because everybody uses Bitcoin.  It's like saying, "Oh, I use Uber [or] I use Cash App", or any of those things.  It's not necessarily associated with having a huge amount of wealth; it's more associated with, "Hey, I can just transact on a daily basis".

One of the things that's been really fun that we've done in the last month here, and I'll let Miles talk a little bit more about it, but we've actually come alongside the El Salvador international surf team.  El Salvador landed the final Olympic qualifier for the Olympics in surfing; it's going to be in El Salvador in a month from now.  It's been a huge thing for the country here, a huge point of pride and there are 11 individuals that are training hardcore for that to hopefully make it to the Olympics. 

We just actually put a deal together with the Surf Federation a couple of weeks ago to sponsor these individuals so that they no longer have to work for the next few months.  They can focus full time on training and they're being paid in Bitcoin.  It's not a huge amount, but they're getting a Bitcoin stipend every month that's enough to cover their expenses and it's the first time any of them have had that time of support; and I believe it's the first surf team anywhere that's been sponsored in Bitcoin.

So, it's been super exciting and just a super amazing thing for the community.  And then, unfortunately, after we signed this, there was kind of a tragedy that happened and we're trying to rally the Bitcoin community around that, but I'll let Miles talk a little bit more about that, because I know that this is something that hit him really hard and he's really passionate about.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, I know what Miles is about to talk about, because it came up on the news here; it hit the major news here.  Katherine Diaz, right?

Miles Suter: Yeah, correct.  So, the same day that the Salvadorian Surf Team was able to sign their contracts, the first contracts ever paid in Bitcoin; as far as I know, they're the first national sports team ever, anywhere in the world, to be sponsored in Bitcoin.  Later that day, at a sunset surf session, this freak storm came down from the mountains and Kathy was struck by Lightning and killed.

She was the 22-year-old Olympic hopeful, one of the best females in the country, kind of the face of El Tunco.  And other Central American surfers were debating, "Hey, am I going to Costa Rica; am I going to El Salvador?" they'd come to El Salvador because of Kathy and the energy and passion she brought to the community. 

So, I'll never forget that evening, just the mourning throughout the coast and throughout the larger surf community as a whole.  As you mentioned, Peter, it rippled throughout much of the western press, just because it's such a tragic story.  What I don't think the press really realised was that there was this additional Bitcoin component.  This was supposed to be a really, really happy day for the entire community. 

So, I felt personally charged to try to do something to help.  And so, it feels like with all the great work Mike is doing and also with Jack launching El Salvador and so many good things happening, it feels like El Salvador is becoming this country, this small Central America country, that this global Bitcoin community is rooting for.  It's an unlikely base of Bitcoin.  And, I want to do the same thing with the Salvadorian Surf Team.  There's no capital city of Bitcoin; there's no sports team that we all root for; but I want to set us a goal, and I'm going to kick off this fundraiser, of raising 10 Bitcoin to essentially endow the Salvadorian Surf Team with enough Bitcoin to build a permanent training centre in Kathy's honour.

You wouldn't believe the state of where they train, compared to what they should be using, because these are world-class surfers, but they don't have the funding and they don't have the attention to go to the next level.  Even to go to Nicaragua or Guatemala for a surf competition, they're getting on the local buses that are packed to the gills and driving 36 hours with two surfboards between their legs with the fins off.  A small collective effort from a lot of us in the space could have such a big impact on their ability to get publicity to do training in other areas and to really honour Katherine's legacy. 

So, I'll be putting more details out on Twitter in the days to come.  Cash App's going to contribute; Strike's going to contribute; and I'm going to hopefully rely on all your listeners to have us go knock on some doors of other Bitcoin companies or people in the space who have benefitted so, so much from this recent price appreciation that hopefully, we can all give a little bit back and turn the Salvadorian Surf Team into this global group of amazing people who haven't been able to realise their dream, because of lack of opportunity and resources. 

I feel like now is our moment to honour Katherine and to help them get to the next level, as they're about to host the final world qualifier before the Olympics; and it's the first Olympics that surfing has ever been a sport.  I mean, there's an amazing VICE piece about Bryan Pérez.  He's the number one surfer, he's 22 or 23, but there's a great VICE piece on how surfing literally saved him from joining MS-13.  And I think alongside Bitcoin, surfing and Bitcoin together are both really powerful uniters of this community and keeping people on the right track and inspiring hope in a country that often didn't have hope.

So, the reason I brought up Bryan is because I can't imagine how cool it would be if he's out there winning the final qualifier at Sunzal or Punta Roca in front of his home crowd in Kathy's honour and getting a bid to the Olympics.  So, that's something that I'm working on, something I'm passionate about and I hope your community and the Bitcoin community can help us make it happen.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, definitely.  Look, I'll contribute.  I'll give you the ad revenue from this show when it goes out; you can just take all the ad revenue.

Miles Suter: Thank you, Peter.

Peter McCormack: And also, I'll promote it as far and wide as I can; you just reach out to me and let me know.  We'll get that money raised.  Jack, before we close out, anything you want to add; anything you want to throw in before I close out, man?

Jack Mallers: No.  I appreciate the opportunity to talk about Strike's effort here, but I came on this podcast with the intention of just being supportive of the country, the specific town of El Zonte and Mike's efforts; that's the reason I'm here, so I just want to thank Mike for getting this started.  I'm humbled to be here and be learning and launch products that are hopefully helpful.  And I think it's a really good thing for Bitcoin; I really do.

So thanks, Mike, and all the people here.  I hope they listen to this; they deserve an immense shout-out for some of the work they're doing for Bitcoin.  It's never going to be seen on Twitter, but it's amazing; so, that's all I have to say.  I think El Salvador is going to turn into a country that is going to lead and be a hero.

Peter McCormack: Amazing.  Well listen, dude, you know I love everything you do.  I think you're an amazing human.  The show's a permanent opening for you.  If you ever want to come on and promote that stuff on here, you just let me know; you've got a permanent invite.  I love you and your family, so thank you.

Mike, mate, I think I would have seen you again if it wasn't for this lockdown.  You know how much I enjoyed both my visits to El Salvador.  Is there anything else you want to add in?  People are listening; anyone you want to reach out to; any messages of support you want to ask for?  The floor is yours, dude.

Michael Peterson: It's so fun to be here with the three of you because, Peter, you were the first one from the Bitcoin community that came to El Salvador, when we met in Uruguay and I said, "Hey, come and see this", and you said, "Okay, I can be there in three days"; it's so awesome and you really helped set off a lot of this, set off the interest in the project and so, I'm eternally thankful to you.

Then, just these last six months, just having Miles down here; it's been so awesome.  He showed up, my wife's like, "Who's this guy?"  "Oh my God, I met him on Twitter".  She's like, "Seriously, and now he's staying in our house with us?"  "No, that's how the Bitcoin community is, man; we're family".

Peter McCormack: It's a good guest house, man.

Michael Peterson: Yes. Peter's slept there, so hopefully there'll be many more bitcoiners that stay there over the years.  And then, just having Jack come down and launch the whole initiative here of being able to employ people in El Salvador in the Bitcoin space; I mean really, for me, this is just a huge dream come true, just seeing the impact and the young people here being able to dream and think of the future. 

So, for other people in the Bitcoin space, we would love to have your companies.  Come down here and hire people in El Zonte and El Salvador to help make this the centre of the Bitcoin world.  We have passionate bitcoiners here, so I will treat you.  You come down here, I will buy you lunch in Bitcoin and get you started and probably, like Miles and Jack, you won't want to leave once you're here.  So, everyone is welcome.

Peter McCormack: Amazing.  Well listen, look, love you all, hopefully I'll see you all soon, whether it's in El Salvador, Miami, wherever, man.  I miss seeing you all in person.  As I said, you've all got a permanent invite.  Whenever you want to use the show, just let me know; you can promote anything you want on it.

Miles, it's great to actually get you on finally; I've been bugging you for ages.  So look, love you all, wish you all the best and just stay in touch.