WBD444 Audio Transcription

2021 Bitcoin Review with Matt Odell

Interview date: Friday 31st December

Note: the following is a transcription of my interview with Matt Odell. 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.

To round off 2021, I talk to Matt Odell, co-host of Tales From the Crypt and host of the Citadel Dispatch. We discuss everything in Bitcoin in 2021, from the Bitcoin podcast space, price action, Elon Musk, El Salvador, Web3 and a Bitcoin Football Club.

“Bitcoin was a hacked together project run by a nym…why don’t we see web3 projects done the same way? Because they can’t raise a shit ton of fucking money from American venture funds, and those American venture funds are the vulnerability because they will get pressured and they will censor things.”

— Matt Odell

Interview Transcription

Matt Odell: And we're live.

Peter McCormack: And we're live.  Yeah, I'm sick of tech issues when doing remote shows.  I'm going to try and get as close to 100% live shows next year.  I can't fucking do this, it does my head in.

Matt Odell: Yeah, I mean in person is always better.  I was bummed that we couldn't make it work this year.

Peter McCormack: Well, listen, I'm not going to dox you, but I am going to be near you someone soon-ish at some point in the future between now and the end of life, somewhere in the world!

Matt Odell: Fuck yeah.  Let me know, and we have a spare bedroom at our house if you need a spot to crash.

Peter McCormack: Well, that would be very kind of you.  How are you doing anyway, man?  I think, is this the fourth year in a row we've done this?

Matt Odell: I was thinking back.  The first one was 2019, so this is the third one.

Peter McCormack: We didn't do it in 2018?

Matt Odell: I think it was New Year 2019 was the first year, we did it with Neil Woodfine.  

Peter McCormack: No, that wasn't an end of year one, was it?

Matt Odell: Yeah, it was, wasn't it?

Peter McCormack: I can't remember.

Matt Odell: It was a January episode, 2019.

Peter McCormack: Let me look it up.  Let me go to the Matt Odell page on What Bitcoin Did.

Matt Odell: Yeah, I think so, because I had just started Rabbit Hole Recap.  We've done a bunch of other episodes, but in terms of the end of the year, we did our first one 2019 with Neil Woodfine, and it was because I was specifically thinking about how much has changed over the last three years, both with Bitcoin and the world, but also just with us.  And I remember Neil gave me a little bit of a lecture.  He was like, "You started a podcast.  What else have you done for Bitcoin?"

Since then, I've just made it a mission to do as many things in the Bitcoin world as possible, and try and further this mission.  A crazy three years.

Peter McCormack: We're kind of both right.  That was 8 January 2019, and that was a Predictions for the Year, with you and Neil.  Then we did a 2019 review at the end of that year, and then we did a 2020 -- year, you're right, it's three.

Matt Odell: Is there a third end of year one?

Peter McCormack: Third annual review?  I think I'm getting confused, because we did another one in New York one time, didn't we?  That was with Marty.

Matt Odell: No, but we also did an in-person at my old place in New York.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, we did.

Matt Odell: That was the 2020 year in review.  No, 2019 year of review, at the cusp of 2019/2020, right before all the COVID craziness happened.

Peter McCormack: Then last year was the one where we got really drunk!

Matt Odell: We got trashed in the middle of all the lockdowns, yeah.

Peter McCormack: I didn't even remember the last 20 minutes of that one.

Matt Odell: Yeah, I'm going to try and stay a little bit sober.

Peter McCormack: I forgot to send you a drink as well.

Matt Odell: I have really good Kentucky whiskey.

Peter McCormack: Well, I owe you a bottle, I said I'd send you one.  I didn't, because I'm useless.

Matt Odell: Actually, I haven't finished the bottle you sent me last year.  I've just been sipping on it for special occasions

Peter McCormack: It was a good bottle.

Matt Odell: But it didn't make it on the move.  I don't know where it is.  I mean I think it did, but I have boxes all over the place right now.

Peter McCormack: We've got two Peter Schiffs as well now.

Matt Odell: I know.  You're stacking Schiffs!

Peter McCormack: Stacking Schiffs!  I did an interview with Cullen Roche in New York and he brought one, he brought me another Schiff.  So, I'm going to be challenging people --

Matt Odell: That's your thing now.  Now people are just going to bring you Schiff portraits.

Peter McCormack: I'm going to have a room of Schiffs.  I'll have to take a suitcase of Schiffs with me all round the world.  But yeah, I did this sprint recently in Miami, DC and New York.  We did 18 shows in two weeks, and that's six weeks of shows.  Then, I'm going go out to some place, I'm not going to say, because I don't want to dox myself where I'll be, Matt, because that would be irresponsible as a bitcoiner, but I'm going to be in a couple of locations for two weeks.

I think I'm going to do the same, every six or eight weeks, I'm going to go out and do two weeks of shows and get them all in person.

Matt Odell: I like that strategy, that's a good strategy.

Peter McCormack: That is the way.  Anyway, man, love you, man.  Big year.

Matt Odell: Cheers!

Peter McCormack: Cheers!

Matt Odell: To an even better year this year.

Peter McCormack: Next year.  Well, this year for when it's -- oh no, when this going out?  This is coming out Friday.

Matt Odell: You're dropping this on Friday?

Peter McCormack: Yeah, Friday, 31st.

Matt Odell: New Year's Eve.

Peter McCormack: New Year's Eve, it's coming out, man.

Matt Odell: Let's fucking go.  Happy New Year's Eve, everyone.

Peter McCormack: Happy New Year's everyone if you're listening to this and you're not out there drinking.  Do you know what the weird thing is?  I checked the download stats for Christmas Day.  There were like 12,000 downloads or something on Christmas Day.  I was like, "Fucking nerds are listening to a Bitcoin podcast on Christmas Day!"

Matt Odell: No, you know what it is, right?

Peter McCormack: What's that?

Matt Odell: The same thing happens on Thanksgiving.  It's people are driving to family.

Peter McCormack: What, on Christmas Day?

Matt Odell: I guess, yeah.  Some people will just come for Christmas dinner and they're driving in the morning.  They won't actually stay with family, they'll go, whatever family's house they're doing Christmas at.  And that's why.

Peter McCormack: Still.

Matt Odell: Alternatively, maybe they just decide to have a Bitcoin Christmas and didn't have family around, or something like that.

Peter McCormack: They should have a break.  They should be listening to Wham!

Matt Odell: Maybe you have such dedicated listeners that they go over to their family, and they take their phone and they press subscribe and auto download!  It's just downloads, but not listens.

Peter McCormack: Dude, I have dedicated listeners, man.  Four of them turned up at my football match today.

Matt Odell: What, Liverpool?

Peter McCormack: No, Bedford.

Matt Odell: Are you guys actually already playing?

Peter McCormack: Yeah, we played a game today.  We drew 1-1.

Matt Odell: Do you own the team yet?

Peter McCormack: I own a team.

Matt Odell: It's pretty cool what you're doing man.  I'm rooting for you.

Peter McCormack: We can talk about that in a bit, man, but let's talk about your year.  What's been the highlight; have you got a highlight from the year?

Matt Odell: I've been doing so many different things.  One highlight is I got out of New York, which I had already done, but I was just a nomad.  But now I actually have a proper roof over my head, so that feels good, actually getting my brain sorted, on a personal note.  But this year, I mean we launched Open Sats for open-source development.  Citadel Dispatch started after our show last year; it hadn't started yet.

Peter McCormack: It's about a year though, right?

Matt Odell: It's been a year, 48 episodes, skipped a couple of weeks there, just took a holiday break for that.  Rabbit Hole Recap is over three years, haven't skipped a week yet.  Finally brought on a producer.  We're working on a venture fund that's Bitcoin only that I'm really excited about.  Doing it the right way, rather than all these a16zs and Polychains, etc.

My work with Bitcoin Magazine has been absolutely a crazy journey over there.  I joined them in October of last year and there were seven employees, and now we're past 60, I believe.  We threw a massive show for Bitcoin 2021, and now Bitcoin 2022 is going to be absolutely fucking insane.

Peter McCormack: Dude!

Matt Odell: BitcoinTV.com launched, taking on YouTube, they can go fuck themselves.  It's been a whirlwind of a year personally.

Peter McCormack: How are you keeping on top of it all; that's a lot of stuff?

Matt Odell: Yeah.  I'm doing my best. 

Peter McCormack: Have you got yourself an assistant yet?

Matt Odell: No assistant, I do not have an assistant.  Those sats go straight into my pocket.

Peter McCormack: Dude, you should get yourself an assistant.

Matt Odell: I know, I'm actually considering it.

Peter McCormack: It will make you infinitely more productive.

Matt Odell: Yeah, I should probably do that.  I mean, just email addresses alone, I'm at eight or nine email addresses I have to check on a daily basis.  It's getting pretty exhausting, but it's good productivity.  I completely left my fiat job.

Peter McCormack: Yes!

Matt Odell: I had to make the transition fully into Bitcoin, which is something that I preached against for a long time.  But at the end of the day, it's something that I truly enjoy and it's a mission I want to support, and I was fucking done with New York, so it had to be fucking done.

Peter McCormack: Man, New York's weird now, I've been a couple of times.  I had one weird trip, but I did have one good trip.  But I had one weird trip where I was like, "What the fuck has happened to this place?"  Everything was weird.  You were seeing people in a really fucked mess, just like around places like Times Square, just off their face, laying on the floor, pissing themselves.

Matt Odell: You mean like homeless people?

Peter McCormack: Yeah, open drug dealing in Times Square.  Like literally, "Do you want to buy weed and coke?"  Not that I have an issue with people selling drugs, I would be a hypocrite.

Matt Odell: Well, I'd say the drug sellers is the least of it.  The homeless situation's gotten completely out of control over there.  The mayor's office basically told the police not to enforce anything, same as graffiti and minor offences, and it's just been a massive slippery slope.  I mean, I don't really care about politics, I think it's a waste of time, but we do have a new mayor coming in in January, so it can't be much worse.

Peter McCormack: Eric Adams?

Matt Odell: Yeah, I think that's his name.  He likes to say the word "Bitcoin", so the bitcoiners will rally, but he's going to do the shitcoin thing as well.  But it's a low bar to be better than our previous mayor, or existing mayor right now.

Peter McCormack: Well, he's a centre-left guy.  I think he'll undo some of the bullshit.

Matt Odell: That's what I'm saying, it's a low bar.  But the problem is, once you get started down this path, it's going to take a while, and I definitely was not down to -- life is short, I'm not going to wait that out.

Peter McCormack: Life is short, man.

Matt Odell: I have no doubt in my mind that New York will rise again, it's just a question of how long it's going to take, and it could be quite a while.  In the meantime, I'm in a place where I have a lot of good friends, restaurants are open, crime is low, no income tax, and really strong Bitcoin community and I'm looking for land.  I want to build my citadel somewhere.

Peter McCormack: You're going to build your citadel; you're going to do your Citadel Dispatch from the fucking citadel?

Matt Odell: That was the whole point of Citadel Dispatch, from my citadel to your citadel.

Peter McCormack: Well listen, let's talk about Citadel Dispatch.  You've done 48 episodes, you've done a year.  What have you found doing it; have you enjoyed it?

Matt Odell: It's a passion project for me, I've thoroughly enjoyed it.  One thing I've experimented with Citadel Dispatch is, I fucking hate the advertisement model, the sponsorship model.

Peter McCormack: It fucking works, dude.

Matt Odell: Well, Dispatch is completely audience funded, partially through Podcasting 2.0, and then also through one-off donations of Lightning or on-chain payments, all Bitcoin.  It's just completely audience funded through Bitcoin.  It's definitely a way harder monetisation path than ad model, but in a lot of ways it's extremely rewarding and we've had really great conversations.

The goal of the show is freeform.  We have a live audience that participates in the chats, so they can really participate as the show's going on.  The shows are very open-ended.  A lot of them went three hours.  So, even though it's 48 episodes, probably over 150 hours of free Bitcoin content, all focused on Bitcoin.  We get into the nitty-gritty, get really deep, technical, but also have a great beginners' episode that I did with BitcoinQnA recently, that's just two hours of straight from zero to one, getting started with Bitcoin in what I think is the right way, and what BitcoinQnA thinks is the right way.

I'm just working through the kinks there.  I don't want to ever really put ads on that show.  I'm kind of treating it as an open-source project, because that's what it's focused on.  It's focused on Bitcoin, but also the wider, free open-source movement, and those developers don't have easy paths to monetisation either; and part of my focus with Open Sats is to help give grads and funding to those types of developers.  And I feel like it's important to me that, at least with one of my projects, I go down a similar path as these dedicated contributors.  Because, what they do, if we didn't have these open-source projects and contributors, Bitcoin would not be anywhere close to where it's at today.

Bitcoin Core alone is obviously a free open-source project, but stuff like BTCPay, SeedSigner, RaspiBlitz, RoninDojo, LND, c-Lightning, if we didn't have these projects and contributors, Bitcoin wouldn't be a success, Bitcoin wouldn't be as robust as it is today, and it's important that we start to try and really figure out different ways to make those kinds of projects sustainable, so they can grow and get more robust over time.

Peter McCormack: Can you talk about any of the numbers behind running it as audience funded, so people can get an idea of the grind?

Matt Odell: We have the ad model on Rabbit Hole Recap weekly show, and then I have Citadel Dispatch, which is also a weekly show without the ad model.  Rabbit Hole Recap gets slightly more listeners than Citadel Dispatch, but they're very close in listener numbers and my total yearly return, in terms of audience funding, is a little bit more than my cut of one episode of Rabbit Hole Recap.

Peter McCormack: One episode?

Matt Odell: Yeah.  And we just recently passed that.  Dispatch just recently passed one episode of Rabbit Hole Recap.

Peter McCormack: So it's one-fiftieth?

Matt Odell: Yeah.  You see, I think part of it is we need to develop -- the ad model's tried and true, it's an obvious path.  It's been ironed about by people before us, you know how to monetise the ads.  This idea of having people contribute value directly to the creator to support the project, is something that hasn't been ironed out. 

So first of all, Podcasting 2.0, the apps are starting to finally get there.  Stuff like Fountain Podcasts, very easy-to-use interface, it feels like a mainstream podcasting app.  You can make it very easy to support your show, and what I've noticed is a lot of people want to support.  They believe in the mission, the question is reducing the friction to make it as easy as possible for them to do that.  And there are lot of things that still need experimentation that I haven't really done, and that's on me.  I'm pretty busy and I have every intention of continuing Dispatch, even if I don't get that financial support for it, but things like QR codes embedded in the screen. 

A lot of these things are what we're working on at BitcoinTV.com to make it easy for creators to just plug in, so that they don't have to think from the ground up.  I need to figure out how to make this audience supported model work.

Now, one thing that is interesting is John Carvalho's show has that crowd paywall thing, which is an interesting concept where the show doesn't unlock until a certain amount of sats have been donated.  I personally don't like paywall, so I just won't do that, but that is another model that could potentially work.  I mean, the show literally does not launch unless the crowd pays for it.

But these are all things that need to get worked out, and it's a chicken and egg thing.  They won't get worked out unless someone actually tries to make it work.  But ultimately, the way I look at it is right now, if we can get to a point where the majority of Bitcoin content, the majority of content in general that people consume, is supported directly by the audience with Bitcoin, then you have a direct incentive basically; you have a direct incentive to do best by your audience, and they're the ones funding you.

Every time I talk about -- we talk about every topic on Rabbit Hole Recap, on Dispatch, no topic is off limits.  But every time a sponsor comes up, it automatically puts you on this weird footing, "Oh, disclosure, disclosure.  They're not saying enough.  Is this sponsor doing this, is this sponsor doing that?"  So, I would much prefer to be in a situation where we don't have to rely on big companies in the space to basically fund our work, and that we can just be completely funded by the audience.  That's a goal that I continue to strive for, both with Dispatch and with BitcoinTV.com.

Peter McCormack: Well, commendable, man.  I commend you for it.  With my show, you can subscribe as a Patreon and get the show without ads.  I think it's like $5 a month minimum.  Or, I used to do a thing where you could pay me $60 on Lightning Network, and that would get you it for the year without ads.  And I think it's like 15 people have done that, of which this show, I think we're tracking it at something like 11.1 million downloads for the year; 12 people.  I could not make it work, man.

Matt Odell: Right now, it could be worse.  At the end of the day, the not closely guarded secret is that people can skip the ads if they don't want to listen to the ads.  The scary thing for me is what happened with Joe Rogan, where he signs an exclusivity deal with Spotify, he leaves an open system, he goes to a proprietary system, because they're going to pay him more.

Peter McCormack: Deletes 25 episodes.

Matt Odell: Deletes 25 episodes because of censorship, which is one of the key issues with the advertising models, that you have a strong company that is pulling the strings that can try and censor what you're saying, which is what we see on mainstream television and stuff, where they don't want to scare off their commercial providers.  But podcasting has always historically been this open system of RSS.

But now he moves to this closed system of Spotify.  Then from there, they algorithmically put in ads, just in the middle of the conversation, an ad just comes on.  Then you can kind of skip it, but you're only skipping that one little algorithmic ad and then it hits you again.  If it's in your pocket or something, you can't skip it.  They make it as difficult as possible to skip it.  The natural progression there is they're going to remove the "skip" button altogether, and it's basically the Netflixisation of podcasting, and that seems to be where the industry's going.

So, if we can have a counterbalance, where creators can go and basically say, "No, fuck this, I'm not going to do the closed system.  I'm going to do the open system, no paywall, and I'm going to get direct support from my audience".  The platform, it doesn't take a 30% cut like Patreon does, or whatever Patreon's cut is.

Peter McCormack: I think it's 10%.

Matt Odell: YouTube takes a fucking cut when you do the Super Chat and all those different things, and the audience just supports you directly.  That could give, especially early creators and early shows, a footing to get a foot in the door and do it in an independent way.  So, it's a necessary counterbalance, because the way the industry's going, it just does not look great.

Peter McCormack: I think it's good that we've got all these different options for content creators, like you can try the John Carvelho model, you can go for your model, you can go for the ad model.  I mean, the good thing about the ad model is it gives you the funding to really do interesting things.  The production on our thing now, I'll give you an idea.  We're going to go and do a whole month in Texas, we're going to do a whole month there, and the travel costs, cost while we're there, cost of the team, it's getting close to a $100,000 operation for the month.

Matt Odell: Damn.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, because you've got to rent a place for the month, and you've got to rent somewhere that's decent enough.  It's really weird.  We were on Airbnb trying to find a place.  The first thing we're looking for is the table that we're going to record at!  Every single property, we're scouring the tables, "Is there a good table?  Great.  Is there a good backdrop?  It doesn't look comfortable".  But we've rented a place in Texas, in Austin, for a month and it's £13,500, so what's that?  $18,000.  Add in flights, add in food, add in equipment.  Maybe not $100,000, maybe $60,000 to $80,000, but we couldn't do that before.

When I first started this, dude, it was just me with my little case with my equipment, doing it in a hotel room or in your house, or something.  But the production has grown with the revenue from the sponsors that allows us to do things like that.  We want to go to 100% in-person interviews, and also I am paying for guests to fly in now as well.  So, when we were on this recent sprint, there were a couple of people that were like, "Can we do it remotely?"  I was like, "No, but I will pay for your flight and your hotel.  It's no cost to you, but you get to come in and do the show", and that worked.  We had three people fly in.  Brandon Quittem flew in, Mark Moss flew in, somebody else flew in.

Matt Odell: I love Brandon.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, Brandon's great, Brandon's amazing.  But I couldn't do that on --

Matt Odell: Yeah, I agree, and I think there's a place for high-production shows and high-production content.  But as you said, options are good.  And I do really think that when you look at the metaphor, because ultimately as bitcoiners, we're part of an open-source movement.  And if you look at the open-source movement, it's a very similar situation, where we have a few developers that are getting $100,000, $150,000 a year from the Krakens and the BitMEXs, and the OKcoins; and then there are a bunch of others that can't pay rent.  The overwhelming majority can't pay rent.

I think it's very important that we have a sustainable funding model for that other 98%, whether that is a content creator, or whether that is an open-source contributor, it's very important to me and for this movement and for free open information and tools, etc, that those other 98% have an ability to do it in a relatively independent fashion, and connect directly to their audience or users, or whatever that may be.

Peter McCormack: Do you think it reflects the Bitcoin world, in that there are two worlds that overlap?  There's the world of people that care about RaspiBlitz and SeedSigner and listen to Citadel Dispatch and understand what an xPub is and run a node, and all that.

Matt Odell: That's what we got into an argument with last year!

Peter McCormack: Was it xPubs we got into an argument about?

Matt Odell: It was xPubs, yeah.  We were pretty drunk.

Peter McCormack: It's funny we should about that, because I actually did have to go and get my xPub off one of my --

Matt Odell: I just derailed you.  Are there two different types of bitcoiners?

Peter McCormack: Yeah, what I'm saying is, there's that, that kind of hard core, into the tech, into that world, totally get everything.  And then, there's this other world where maybe they use Gemini or Coinbase, and maybe they use a Ledger hardware wallet, because Coldcard they maybe think's a little bit too complicated, and maybe they don't even run a node or they don't custody.  It's those who want to get into the weeds and get deep down the rabbit hole, and there's those who just want Bitcoin, but don't want to deal with all that.

My show reflects one audience and yours reflects the other, and there's that overlap, but that's kind of those two worlds.  You're definitely in that more purist place, where it's, "I'm going to make this work.  Audience contributions", etc.  Whereas, I'm like, "Fuck this, give me the ad dollars!"  It's like two different worlds.

Matt Odell: First of all, that's one of the reasons why it's important that we do so many shows together, because I think both of our audiences can benefit from the different perspective.

Peter McCormack: I think so too.

Matt Odell: But I mean, there's more than two different types of bitcoiners.

Peter McCormack: I know.

Matt Odell: There's millions of different bitcoiners of all shapes and sizes, right, and it's easy to get pigeonholed whatever side you're on, whether you're on the Udi, super mainstream kind of vibe going on, or if you're on the Bitcoin purist vibe, or you're like, "If you don't hold your own keys, you don't use your own node, you're not actually a bitcoiner".  And then there's a million of shades of grey in between.

Ultimately, what I think is powerful about this movement is independence, personal responsibility and self-sovereignty.  I think that's what makes it fundamentally unique and special.  That's what differs it from trading stocks on TD Ameritrade, or using Venmo to make payments with your friends, or PayPal to make payments with your friends.  And I think hidden inside of everybody is the potential to seek out that personal responsibility and self-sovereignty.

So, to me, I don't have -- everyone's going to take their own path, it's going to take people different amounts of time; but I think ultimately, 90% of people can get to a relatively self-sovereign personal responsibility kind of place at least in Bitcoin, because there's such a focus in this industry to make it more attainable and more accessible.  And you see that path starting to really develop and get more robust, stuff like the Umbrel node, where a purist is like, "You shouldn't use Umbrel, it's not proper free open-source software, they used a restricted license", but it's your own node.  It's your own node that you can use and you can run your own apps on it.  And instead of using the Cloud, which is someone else's computer, you can use your own computer for it.

It's that path, and there's going to be all different projects in between that basically facilitate that path.  But ultimately, I think most people can get there.  Where they end up and where their final destination is is going to vary as well, but it's just we live in a world where the overall majority of people have no personal responsibility.  They have no awareness and they are just marching around, doing what they always do, and not really thinking about it.  And I think me and you, as independent media people, as independent show creators, education providers, in a lot of ways, it's up to us to help provide them some objective information that they can go and decide what to do with that themselves.

I'm not going to tell people what to think, I'm not going to tell people how they should do things, but if they're ready, if they're looking, they can take this information and they can draw conclusions themselves.  I feel like a lot of the issues we've seen with media, especially modern media lately is, "This is how you should think".  Corporate media, "This is how you should think, this is how you should act.  Anyone does the opposite of that is a fucking enemy".  That's the wrong way to approach things.

The correct way, the productive way to approach things, the ethical way to approach things is, you provide the resources, let people look at those resources, let people make their own conclusions themselves and everyone's life is different, everyone's perspective is different, and they're going to use that in different ways.

Peter McCormack: This rise of independent media people is fascinating.  You mentioned Rogan earlier, I talk about him a lot, because the influence he has now with his show, I think did somebody say his show with that doctor the other day had 40 million people watch it or something?  Incredible.

Matt Odell: Is it still on Spotify?

Peter McCormack: Yeah, I think so.  But look, I've got two views on it.  I think it's amazing we've got this rise of independent media, because it gives people a chance to, if they trust this person, to actually listen to a conversation which isn't part of some corporate media agenda.  But I also think at the same time, there are independent media people who are falling into the same trap, and I think they're falling into the audience capture trap, whereby they build up an audience around a particular part of the political spectrum and then they appeal to that audience.

I found quite fascinating the to and fro between Tim Pool and Claire from Quillette recently.  I'm not siding with either of them, and sometimes I thought Claire had a good point, sometimes I thought Tim did; but seeing them fight, especially Tim Pool, there seemed to be some audience capture going on, and I wonder if it can end up becoming the same fucking problem.

Matt Odell: Yes.  But in a lot of ways, it can become even more amplified, it can become even more of an issue, because there are more sources.  This is why I keep coming back down to personal responsibility, because ultimately at the end of the day, a lot of this stuff is going to come down to both personal responsibility from the content creator, and also personal responsibility from the viewer, to actually understand their sources, understand biases.

When you look at independent media, we see a lot of the same tactics that we see in corporate media.  We see the use of fear, we see the lack of factchecking, because going crazy with headlines and going crazy with your takes gets you more engagement.  We see paternalism, where your audience isn't smart enough to think for themselves, so you're going to tell them exactly how to think, because they want you to tell them how to think.  You get a bigger audience if you tell them how to think.

We see a lot of these same tendencies, and also we see a similar revenue model, which is the advertisement-based revenue model, which is why I think, just to go back, it's important to also have an option for people to fund themselves directly via the audience and circumvent that same model.  But yeah, we're going to see a lot of the same things that people complain about with corporate media happening in independent media. 

The benefit, the main overwhelming net benefit, is that there are way, way more sources, you have way more places where you can get your so-called news or discussion or education, whatever you want to fucking call it; and hopefully, people will use multiple sources, they will move around more, there's less lock in.  Historically, you turn on the news, you had four news channels to check.  Now, you have a fucking million different podcasts to check, a bunch of blogs, Twitter personalities, everything.  But you have to remember, at the end of the day, everyone's human and this whole rise of the influencer class and stuff.

The influencer that is the most effective at influencing is someone who makes you rely on them, and they try and monetise your relationship to the fullest.  That is not a person you should be listening to, but that is the person that's going to have the largest audience.  So, it's going to come down to a lot of personal responsibility on the viewer's side and the person who is actually consuming the media, and there's no clean answer there.

Peter McCormack: Well, I think it depends on -- look, you're right.  There are a lot of sources, it's finding the right ones or the right places to give your time to.  I bring him up so often, and you brought him up a moment ago, but I bring up Rogan so often because the one thing he's done, I genuinely believe, whether I agree with him or not, and whether I think he says something smart or dumb, or he has a guest that I like or don't like, I always believe he's searching for the truth; I always believe that, I always trust him.  And when he says something, I trust he believes that, rather than appealing to the audience.

Matt Odell: He might be wrong, but it's not intentional.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, he might be wrong and it's not intentional, or he might just be trying to find an answer, but I don't think you can ever pin him to anything politically.  I mean, he often talks about being a liberal, but he has a lot of right-leaning people on his show.  I think we need more people like that, more people who are just authentically themselves, searching for the truth.  You can disagree with them, but you trust that the opinion they're giving is what they honestly believe.  We need more of that.

Matt Odell: Yeah.  I think someone with his level of platform, he does a very good job of trying to remain as ethical as possible.  I would say, and obviously he is the godfather of modern, independent media.  He showed that there is a successful path there, and that it could be very massively successful.  I'm a bit torn on him lately because of the whole Spotify deal.  He both helped birth open podcasting as a medium, and then was the first one to put the nail in the coffin for it, by signing the exclusivity deal with Spotify.

Peter McCormack: Which it turned out at $100 million. 

Matt Odell: I don't know, I'm not going to pretend that I have the answer to that.

Peter McCormack: I want my fucking payday, Spotify, come on!

Matt Odell: If I was Rogan, I mean Rogan was already bringing a lot of money.  I mean, I don't know.  I'm not going to pretend to say what my decision would be, but it definitely felt like it hurt.  It hurt seeing him go to this exclusivity path.  I tend to believe that I would never go, I would just stop doing shows, rather than go down an exclusivity path.  I like the open nature of the platform of podcasting, I like the open nature of -- I think all information should be open, I think tools should be open; that's something I feel very strongly about.  That's one of the things that attracted me to podcasting in the first place.

I mean, my grandmother, she's like, "I don't know how you're still allowed on the radio, you curse all the time", and I keep explaining to her, "I'm not actually on the radio, that's just how I say it to explain it to you".

Peter McCormack: Hold on, was that your grandma who was listening to my show independently of knowing we're friends?

Matt Odell: Yeah, she listened to --

Peter McCormack: Defiance, wasn't it?

Matt Odell: Yeah, I forget which episode it was.  But she was listening to Defiance, and she sent it to me as a recommendation!

Peter McCormack: That's so fucking funny, man!  Alright, what about BitcoinTV, what have you learnt with that?  I haven't got any of my shows on BitcoinTV yet.

Matt Odell: You're not on BitcoinTV, bro, what gives?

Peter McCormack: No.  What are the rules?  No ads?

Matt Odell: No, you can have ads on your actual show.  We're not, as a platform.  So, when you're on YouTube, not only do you have your ads, you have YouTube's ads.  YouTube's whole business model is surveillance capitalism.  They're surveilling people, they're manipulating people, they're controlling people, that is their business model.  And, they're not just controlling the audiences, they're doing it to the creators as well.  You're completely at the whim of the creators.

So me, Wiz and Bitkite, three bitcoiners, said, "We're fucking done with YouTube".  So, we took PeerTube, an open-source alternative to YouTube; we spent too much money on the BitcoinTV.com domain.

Peter McCormack: How much did you spend on the BitcoinTV.com domain?

Matt Odell: I'm not commenting.  And, we launched BitcoinTV on our own servers.  We have servers on two continents right now that we host ourselves that are not located in Cloud servers.  So, we don't have to worry about Amazon, etc, censoring us.  And, we are loading it up with the best Bitcoin content we can find.

The goal is right now, we're making no money whatsoever, we're losing money.  I mean, we just dropped $8,000 on a new server.  It's very expensive to host things.  The goal is to integrate Bitcoin across the whole stack so you can support your favourite creator easily, with Lightning and on-chain Bitcoin, through various different methods; and at the same time, support us in a similar fashion as an open-source project.

Hopefully, we can get to a point where you can host instances of BitcoinTV yourself; maybe not all the videos, but you get to pick which videos you host.  And the idea is basically just a platform, so right now it's Bitcoin only.  We will never have shitcoin content on it, but I do think there's a place for all other types of content that are funded by Bitcoin.  So, the Bitcoin in the handle to me means funding content directly from the audience with Bitcoin.

We have some of the best Bitcoin content out there right now.  Adopting Bitcoin in El Salvador is exclusively available on BitcoinTV.  We didn't pay for that or anything, they love our mission, they made it happen.  Everything is RSS feeds, it's open, similar to podcasting, so other apps can actually integrate directly and stream our content directly into their apps.  We're going to add a pub key in there just like Podcasting 2.0, so you can stream sats from other apps.  There's a bunch of different things we're going to do to try to integrate Bitcoin across the whole stack. 

Peter McCormack: It's a beautiful website.

Matt Odell: But basically the idea was, I mean look, we're seeing the YouTube censorship issues, and as bitcoiners, we tend to get trapped into this whole "decentralise everything".  This is not a decentralised project.  Do we hope that you can run your own BitcoinTV instances in the future?  Yes.  Can you federate with other PeerTube instances?  Yes, so other instances can help provide -- you can do that.

But it's a centralised project, but it's one that's hosted by bitcoiners for the world.  And as the YouTube censorship gets out of hand, I mean there's a very good chance that by this time next year, by this time in two years, that the overwhelming majority of Bitcoin content is not available on YouTube.  I mean, TFTC I think we're allowed to post now.  For the last five days, we haven't been allowed to post on our YouTube; we got our first strike.

Peter McCormack: What happened; what for?

Matt Odell: I mean, Marty interviewed LaserHodl and they were talking about depopulation or something.  But my point remains the same, that YouTube has a very heavy hammer on their censorship and there's no real judicial process.  We saw Pomp's channel got taken down.  It's the most mainstream, least controversial thing ever, and that's going to happen more often.  Is the answer another centralised video platform?  No.  But the answer is many video platforms, that ideally allow creators to get funded directly from their audience, and we hope to be a small part in that mission.

Peter McCormack: You want to kind of Pirate Bay it, so even if it does get censored in some way, there's different instances everywhere.  I mean, I don't know what the tech behind that kind of distribution is, but hey, it's a cool looking website.  I should put my shit up there.

Matt Odell: Yeah, well we'd love to make you a channel.

Peter McCormack: Let's do it.  I'll speak to Danny, we'll do it, and I'll make sure I get rid of my ads.  We'll make it ad-free.

Matt Odell: I mean, that would be awesome.  But like I said, people still have ads up on there; just we're not monetising the ads, and we're going to make it easy for creators to get funded directly from their audience with Bitcoin, and we will not be taken a cut.

Peter McCormack: How are you going to cover the costs?

Matt Odell: It's an optional cut, they'll be a slider bar.  If you want to give us 5% so we can run our servers so we can keep it going…

Peter McCormack: Yeah, but eventually if it's successful, it won't survive on being a voluntary contribution.

Matt Odell: I'm ready to prove you wrong, Pete.

Peter McCormack: Well, look, I hope you prove me wrong.  But yeah, I think it's fair to give a cut.  You provide the platform and the tech, we provide a cut of the income.  I think that's just a fair model.

Matt Odell: Look, it goes with a similar philosophy that I've been embracing this year, which is that I want to put myself in the same shoes as open-source contributors that are providing so much to this space.  And BitcoinTV.com is always going to be an open-source project.  It is currently a fork of PeerTube, which is an open-source project.  We are going to contribute back to that project.  We are going to add plug-in support, so anybody running PeerTube is able to add our open-source plug-ins and be able to support content creators directly with Bitcoin. 

We will see if we can make a grants and donations approach to making this project work.  I think we can, I think it's a harder path, but I think it's possible.  We might have some live events, in-person events, stuff like that, that can also provide some funding, without necessarily baking it into a business model, and we'll see how it works out.  It's definitely going to be the harder path, but I do believe that we will see…

One of the cool things that people have talked about Bitcoin for a long time is that, as Bitcoin appreciates in purchasing power, we will see these ideologically minded bitcoiners, that believe in open information, that believe in censorship-resistant tools, that believe in individual empowerment, that believe in personal responsibility, that will flex their wealth to a degree.  I am fortunate enough to be in the situation where I can dogfood and experiment with Citadel Dispatch, with BitcoinTV.com, and try and do it in a way that I feel furthers that goal, and that has been part of my focus this year, a very large part of my focus this year as a result.

Peter McCormack: Well, I salute you, brother, very cool.  Hopefully I can make a contribution towards it.  I'm sticking with the ad model, it works for me.

Matt Odell: I mean, look, if you get banned from YouTube and the majority of people are watching your videos on BitcoinTV.com, you will have a very strong incentive to support the project.

Peter McCormack: I want to support it anyway, because it's you.

Matt Odell: But I'm expecting creators to already be supporting the project.  We already have Nico from Simply Bitcoin, he already reached out.  He said, "Next time there's a server, I would love to front the cost of the server", because Simply Bitcoin hosts all their content on BitcoinTV.  They had an episode with our boy, Aleks Svetski, the other day.  They finished the episode and Nico was like, "If I post this to YouTube, we are going to get a flag!  We're going to get a flag, we're not going to be able to post for five days, it's a daily show, I need to fucking do it", and they made it a BitcoinTV exclusive.

So, I think there is demand there.

Peter McCormack: I haven't had a YouTube strike.  I'll front a server for you.

Matt Odell: I'll hold you to it.

Peter McCormack: We're always -- I say "we", we do make a lot of donations.  I think we've given out about $130,000 on projects this year.

Matt Odell: Let's stream Bedford FC to BitcoinTV,com.

Peter McCormack: That's a fucking good idea, because we're going to start streaming games early next -- everyone wants to stream it.  Part of me is nervous about doing it, because I'm like, "Are these people who watch the Premier League, and they've got this idea that I've bought --"

Matt Odell: We watch the MLS in America.  I'm sure Bedford could compete with NYCFC, or whatever.

Peter McCormack: Dude, this is weekend football.  I'm very proud of the team and I'm very excited about where it could go, but it's low level.  But whatever, there's so many people behind this team now that there's hundreds of them who would have probably watched it today if we'd streamed it. 

Matt Odell: I would have watched it.

Peter McCormack: Let me find out, because I want to get the games streaming next year.

Matt Odell: Let's make it happen.  We'll be the exclusive streaming -- unless you want the money grab and you want someone else to pay.  We won't pay you for it.

Peter McCormack: No, I mean we're going to pilot test it next year anyway, but at some point we'll charge for the streaming, because we've got to cover the costs; there is a cost to streaming the games. 

Matt Odell: Are you going to charge the end user, or are you going to charge the streaming provider?

Peter McCormack: The end user, because there's a cost to us to stream the game.  We have to have a team to come in with cameras.

Matt Odell: Yeah, I'm aware, you have to have television cameras and stuff.

Peter McCormack: Yeah.

Matt Odell: Well, look, stream through us, we won't charge you anything.

Peter McCormack: I said we will test it anyway.  I'll do it for free the first -- any game this season, the rest of the season, that we stream --

Matt Odell: Well, what about the ad model, Pete?

Peter McCormack: Potentially.

Matt Odell: Just have the stream brought to you by "company".

Peter McCormack: Yeah, maybe.  Well, anyway, I'll look into it.  But I'd like to stream it through your thing.

Matt Odell: Well, anyway, we have the capabilities of streaming it.  Like I say, we have two very high performing servers in two continents right now.

Peter McCormack: Well, listen, there's loads of other stuff to talk about, I've got a big list here, man.  Pricewise, let's not talk about price too much.  We're basically at the same price as February.

Matt Odell: The basic cycle's broken, I think.

Peter McCormack: I think it's broken.

Matt Odell: We're in new territory.

Peter McCormack: Which is cool, which is good.

Matt Odell: It's kind of interesting. 

Peter McCormack: We're basically, I think, flat since February.

Matt Odell: We've never had a top like this in the four-year cycle, or whatever.  And, I'm the first one to admit that I was basing a lot of my thoughts on previous cycles.

Peter McCormack: Our price right now is the same price it was at 9 February.

Matt Odell: But when we recorded last year, we were at like $20,000.

Peter McCormack: So, that would have been released -- maybe a bit higher.  Hold on, end of the year.  I don't know when -- let me see when we recorded it.  So, we released it on 1 January, but we recorded it on 30 December.  No, dude, we were higher.  30 December, we were at $27,000.

Matt Odell: Damn.

Peter McCormack: So, we're double, not even double actually.

Matt Odell: No, it's less than double.  What's the current price?

Peter McCormack: $57,000. 

Matt Odell: Double would be $54,000.  I have a BLOCKCLOCK right over there.  I unplugged it when I moved, and I haven't plugged it back in yet, because it's at $54,000.  It's just sitting there at the wrong price!

Peter McCormack: I've got mine here as well.

Matt Odell: There you go.

Peter McCormack: 2,102 sats a dollar.  But fuck price.  I think the cycle's broken; I'm okay with the cycle breaking.  The cycle breaking is a good thing now, because it's means now we're eternally in different territory unless, like somebody else has said, "It's not broken, it's just being lengthened".

Matt Odell: But if it's being lengthened, it changes everything, because the previous cycles have been very attached to the halving, and we're getting closer and closer to the halving.  We've never had a top like this before.  It doesn't feel like this is the top of the cycle.

Peter McCormack: But the halving's like narrative now, because miners are not selling, etc.

Matt Odell: There are miners that sell.  I mean, look, a lot of miners have fiat costs.  They have rent, they have employee costs, salaries.

Peter McCormack: The big miners, some of them are accumulating and buying.

Matt Odell: Look everyone talks a big game when the price is up.  I would like to see what some of these new corporate cuck miners are going to do if we have an 80% drawdown.

Peter McCormack: I just don't see an 80% drawdown from here.

Matt Odell: Usually what happens in these cycles is you see the 80% drawdown and everyone panics, and I think on the corporate miner side, what you see is going to be similar to what happened in Ethereum last cycle.  All the ICO teams were like, "No, we're going down with the ship, we're good".  Then, as the price dipped further, they all panicked and just dumped their massive bags of ETH.  We could see that kind of situation.  Then what happens is, the halving comes in, almost as the backstop.  It's like, "Okay, everyone fucking panicked, and now there's less Bitcoin to go around per block", and sellers dry up and then we move back up. 

But we'll see.  It seems like we're in uncharted territory right now.  I remain as bullish on Bitcoin as I've ever been, and it's weird that people are disappointed and we're, as you said, last time we recorded, we were at $27,000.  Couldn't even dream of $48,000 or whatever the fuck we're at right now.  Look at us!

Peter McCormack: It's because I think most people thought we were going to break $100,000 this year.

Matt Odell: I mean, I had $200,000 by Conference Day.

Peter McCormack: Okay, well I mean, I've won my bet off HODL, I've won another 0.5 Bitcoin for him.

Matt Odell: Yeah, I mean that was a good bet.

Peter McCormack: That was a good bet.  I think that was an easy bet to take, but I offered him another good bet.  It was about two or three months ago, I texted him.  I said, "I think I've won this bet, but I've got another bet with you".  I said, "Under/over $100,000 by the end of the year, double or quits".  He didn't take it, but I think that would have been a good bet as well.  I actually thought there was a chance I would lose it.

But when we got up to $69,000, my expectation is we were going to go up higher.  The fact that we went there and back down again, I was a bit like, "Okay, interesting".

Matt Odell: Still a bit weird.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, a bit weird.  All right, man, so much other shit to talk about.  Let's talk about Elon Musk; he was a big deal this year.

Matt Odell: It's been a long fucking year.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, but Tesla comes in.

Matt Odell: When was that, February?

Peter McCormack: Yeah, buys $1.5 billion of Bitcoin, it's like, "Woah, shit!"

Matt Odell: Caught us all off guard.

Peter McCormack: I never saw that fucking coming.  Even though he was engaging with Saylor, I didn't -- I mean, if they'd have come out and said, "Yeah, we've bought $100 million", yeah, great.  $1.5 billion, I was like, "Fucking holy shit!"  That's a big buy.

Matt Odell: That's a little dip your foot in!

Peter McCormack: Yeah, and I know he rug pulled us a little bit, but at the same time I thought that might be the trigger for others.

Matt Odell: Yeah, I mean it was an S&P 500 company.  They weren't in the S&P 500 yet, they got in shortly after that, which is, as you know, top 500 companies graded by someone.

Peter McCormack: Standard & Poor's.

Matt Odell: Yeah, whoever, but Standard & Poor's is owned by a conglomerate or something, I don't know, whoever owns them.  One of the most valuable companies in the world, one of the richest men in the world runs the company, presumably he bought some himself.

Peter McCormack: One of the most famous people in the world.

Matt Odell: Yeah, it was a big fucking deal.  And it was a leapfrog, right, because you see a small tech company like MicroStrategy, run by a billionaire, but a lower-tier billionaire, buy Bitcoin, and that's what we always see.  You always see the challengers.  It's always the challengers that get started, right.  I'm sure we're going to talk about El Salvador; it's always the challengers.

Peter McCormack: We've got three now.

Matt Odell: It's not the ones who are in front.  You don't see Google do it, you see MicroStrategy do it.  You don't see Venmo do it, you see Cash App do it.

Peter McCormack: You don't see the US do it, you see El Salvador do it.  You don't see Manchester United do it, you see Bedford fucking FC do it!

Matt Odell: Fuck yeah, exactly, or like Perth Baseball Team, the Perth Heat in Australia.

Peter McCormack: They fucking front ran me.

Matt Odell: Yeah, they front ran you a little bit, but you were already thinking about the idea at that point, I remember.  Anyway, it did leapfrog a bit, but also at the same time, Tesla and Elon aren't really in the financial community, they're treated differently.  They're not really treated, and rightfully so, I would say, like an old-guard blue chip.  If a GE or someone did it, it probably would have been a bigger deal, and we didn't see people follow suit.  We didn't really see other companies follow suit.

We saw small companies, like Tahini's in Canada, but you see small companies do it.  But we didn't really see -- I didn't expect Tesla; and then after Tesla happened, I expected a whirlwind, and we got nobody.  But at the same time, eight months later, ten months later, all of a sudden inflation's a mainstream topic.  Saylor's being invited on all the mainstream shows.  He was on Tucker Carlson, which is the number one news show in America, for better or for worse, and that interview seemed to resonate with a lot of people.

I mean, I guess the one aspect of this is that the accounting is kind of fucked up.  So, if the price goes down, they have to mark it as losing money; but if the price goes up, they can't mark it as a profit on their corporate balance sheet, which is malicious regulation, who's surprised with that.  But in general, I would say, at the end of the day, if you care about the little guy, it's better that this didn't cause a cascade yet.  There will be a cascade at some point and there will be a FOMO and a rush to the onramp of Bitcoin to get out of fiat; but the longer that lasts before that happens, and the little guy, we can keep stacking and keep accumulating Bitcoin, the small businesses around the world can start accumulating Bitcoin, the better. 

We don't really want -- I personally do not, I won't speak for you, I personally don't want these large companies to have massive Bitcoin holdings on their balance sheet sooner.  I'd rather wait.

Peter McCormack: Ask me, "Do you want Bitcoin to go to $300,000?"  Of course I do.  But do I care?  No, not really.  I'm okay now.  Life's good, I can travel to the US every six weeks, I can make my shows, I can go on holiday with the kids.  I talked about it on the show before, Matt, I think there's a thing with money, once you've covered the bases, you can do what you want.  You can go and get your weekly shopping and not worry about your budget, or if you need to get on a plane tomorrow, you can buy that plane ticket. 

Everything else that you need money for after that is just lumpy shit, like property, helicopter, car, lumpy shit.  Once you've got to that point…  So, I'm okay, man.  Bitcoin can do whatever, I'm fine now, I'm happy whatever happens.  But I'm with you, I actually want the little countries to get in a bit more.

Matt Odell: Yeah, little countries, little companies, little people.  The little guy should have a little bit more time.  And I don't make the rules, I don't know how much time they have.  I feel like time is of the essence, you've got to rush in.  I still feel FOMO, I'm basically all in.  I'm as all in as you can be without leveraging yourself.

Peter McCormack: Don't do leverage, kids!

Matt Odell: Exactly.  But the more time the better in that regard.  The longer it takes a Goldman Sachs to start accumulating Bitcoin, the fucking better, and I think that should just be consensus opinion.

Peter McCormack: Fuck you, Goldman Sachs!  Okay, let's talk about El Salvador, you brought it up.  We don't need to do too much.  It's probably been the most talked about --

Matt Odell: It's the biggest news of the year.

Peter McCormack: It is, and the most talked about news of the year, and we got a Citadel Dispatch hat in the President's office.

Matt Odell: Fuck, yeah!

Peter McCormack: You're welcome, brother, got it in the photo.

Matt Odell: We had to sit on that together, because we both went to the Indy 500 with the Strike team.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, we had to sit on that news.  I had to sit on it, because I was filming it.  I've got a second interview that I'm waiting to get out with Bukele, but the film I made has been delayed.  I saw the cut today, so it's going to come out in January.  Once that's out, I'm going to release the second interview, because it's a more challenging interview with him.  I asked him some tougher questions.

Interesting situation, interesting country, interesting leader.  There is definitely -- I think, do you know what it is?  What's the question I want to ask?  Are we as bitcoiners sometimes, and when I say "us", are there people who are slightly hypocritical with El Salvador?  Do we want it to be such a success, and I don't mean you, I just mean various people, that we're not actually being as critical as we should be? 

I felt the pressure, right, having a relationship with the President, which is by the way fucking weird.  To turn around and go, "Yeah, I've got a relationship with this President", doesn't make any fucking sense.  But I've done two interviews and I want a third one.  I felt, when I went to do the second one, I felt under pressure.  I was like, "Wait, if I piss him off, does that mean I never get a third interview?"

Matt Odell: Do you feel like you're watching yourself right now when you talk about it?

Peter McCormack: No, I'm okay with it now, I've come to terms with it.

Matt Odell: A little bit, just a little bit?

Peter McCormack: Yeah.  But no.  I came to the terms that I don't know if I'll ever go again.  I want to go again, but if doing my job properly means that I wouldn't go again, I accept that.

Matt Odell: That's good.

Peter McCormack: Because, I've been there, I was the first to go, I went when no one gave a shit, and I kept going back and I did my interviews.  But it was when I was doing the second interview, I was really fucking nervous, because I asked some tough questions.  I asked him, is he a dictator, and I challenged him about some of his stuff.

Matt Odell: Because every dictator just says yeah!

Peter McCormack: Yeah, but it was more of a case of, I was accused of being a softball.  I got threatened with violence and accusations from people out there, because they said I was in business with him.  I felt a lot more pressure on the second interview than the first one.  But I've come away thinking, I still like him, I think he's definitely going to run a second term that's clearly against the Constitution, but it makes sense because I don't think one term's long enough.  Does he do a third or a fourth term?  I don't know.

But we've hero-worshipped him, and in some ways rightly so, he's done some amazing things.  Massively bold to do what he did with Bitcoin, that's a massively bold thing, and actually he has delivered change.  Look, I went down to close to a red zone in El Salvador, somewhere you don't normally go to, and admittedly had armed guards, but I asked the people there, I said, "What's it like here now?" and they like, "You can have your phone out of your pocket in the streets now".  You couldn't do it before, someone would snatch it or fucking shoot you.  The murder rate has massively dropped, violence has massively -- he has definitely delivered for that country in certain ways.

Matt Odell: Benevolent dictator, type of thing?

Peter McCormack: Potentially.  But don't all dictators start out as benevolent?

Matt Odell: Not the bad ones.

Peter McCormack: But the bigger question is, some of the Bitcoin stuff's a bit shit.  The Chivo wallet is a bit shit, what's been going on with that?

Matt Odell: So, I get shit from a lot of people in the Bitcoin community, because I've been very critical of Bukele.  I 100% agree with you, extremely bold what he did in the first place, accepting Bitcoin as legal tender, being the first country to do it.  Now, there's other countries that are stacking Bitcoin, stacking sats: Venezuela, North Korea.  They don't let their people also get the benefit of Bitcoin.  In Venezuela, they steal people's money.

Peter McCormack: They fucking steal it!  People have fled their country because of it.

Matt Odell: Exactly, and then they release a shitcoin and try and make their people use the shitcoin.  So, it's important to realise that he's done a lot of good for his people.  It appears that way to me, as someone who unfortunately has not been down there yet, I need to make it down there.  I've been dealing with a lot of my own personal things and travel bullshit, etc, I've not made it down there yet and I need to.  But as someone from the outside looking in, he has done a lot of good.

At the same time, first off, he didn't have his own currency to begin with, he was using the US dollar, he was using someone else's shitcoin, so he didn't lose any element of control adopting Bitcoin as legal tender.  The second thing is, the Chivo wallet itself is a classic --

Peter McCormack: Can I cut in there?  He didn't, but he put himself at loggerheads with the most powerful government in the world with the biggest army.

Matt Odell: 100%.

Peter McCormack: So, he might not have, but he got a lot of leverage and a close relationship with the US because of that.

Matt Odell: Well yeah, I mean everyone, all small countries and large countries are worried about America.  America, we throw our dick around, we attack countries, we're unjust and it is what it is.  People are scared of America's reach.  So I mean, look, everyone's scared of the United States.  We're the land of KYC, especially when you're doing finance things, they're going to fuck with you.  They went after Arthur Hayes and BitMEX, etc.

The thing is, so they didn't have their own currency, they were using the US dollar, they were using someone else's shitcoin to begin with, they add Bitcoin as legal tender; but they also, at the same time, are basically attempting to digitise the whole economy of El Salvador.  That was a very cash-based economy that he wasn't able to track. 

The Chivo wallet is basically that classic central bank digital currency strategy, which we're seeing China try and implement, we're going to see America try and implement, we're going to see Europe try and implement, where they can track, control, trace, seize, block everyone at will, inflate it all at will, do all kinds of funny business.  That's the beauty of these central bank-controlled currencies.

The Chivo wallet basically is a vessel for that in a better form, because it is supposed to work with the greater open monetary network that is Bitcoin.  Now, it doesn't really work that well with the greater open monetary network that is Bitcoin, but I think that is mostly due to, he decided in three months he was going to fucking implement this thing.  I've talked to some of the teams involved; they had like six days' notice to make it happen, and it's probably mostly incompetence.  But it is something to keep an eye on.

We also don't know what the ownership of the Chivo wallet is.  It's owned by some LLC or some company that is probably tied to the administration, that is going to make a bunch of money off of it.  But that is the biggest pain point to me.  The biggest pain point to me is, I mean I talk in my book, I care about Bitcoin users having good privacy and having a centralised custodial wallet, that is always going to be able to outcompete free open-source solutions, sovereign solutions, because they can waive fees, they're like government.

They can say, "You can instantly convert into US dollars and you don't have to pay any fees", and they can encourage them, basically through their government mandate, to use their wallet over some other wallet.  They're going to have more control there, and that is something to keep an eye on.  We're bitcoiners; to me, we're not supposed to be trusting politicians at their word.  You should be verifying.  Don't trust, verify.

Peter McCormack: I've got whiskey, man, I can join you in the whiskey now.  Salute, brother!

Matt Odell: Cheers.  Is this your first whiskey of the episode?

Peter McCormack: Yeah, because I had a wine.

Matt Odell: This is crazy.

Peter McCormack: I haven't been drinking a lot recently and I'm careful.  I don't want to get as drunk as we did last time, because we just fucking shouted at each other!

Matt Odell: I know, but we're an hour and ten minutes in, cheers.

Peter McCormack: I know, but I'm drinking wine, mate.  Cheers.  I think this will be Eagle's Envy?

Matt Odell: Angel's Envy?

Peter McCormack: Angel's Envy.  What's the eagle one?

Matt Odell: There's an eagle -- I don't know.  There's an eagle one though.  

Peter McCormack: I was in Texas, Austin, when we hit all-time high.

Matt Odell: Is there an Eagle Eye?  I don't know what it is.

Peter McCormack: Maybe, yeah.  When we hit an all-time high, I had to go and get my hair cut and there was a place next door that was like a whiskey bar.  I went in and I was like, "What's the most expensive whiskey you have?" and there was a $300 glass of whiskey.  I was like, "Fuck it, I'm doing it", when we hit $69,000.  I was like, "Fuck it, I'm going to do it", and I had a $300 glass of whiskey.

Matt Odell: You caused the dump!

Peter McCormack: Well, I caused the first dump when I called out Elon, and I caused the second dump with my $300 whiskey.  I've basically caused every fucking dump.  But in my head, I always wanted to know, "Really, is there that much of a difference between a $5 glass and a $300 glass?"  I'm assuming once you get above $25 a glass, you can't fucking tell.

Matt Odell: Yeah, there's a plateau spot there.

Peter McCormack: No, I tell you, this thing was awesome.  Every sip was an experience, because you just felt it go through your body.  Fuck knows what it did to my liver.  But anyway, back to Bukele.

Matt Odell: My sweet spot's the $70 bottle; I like the $70 bottle. 

Peter McCormack: Well, when we're in Austin, I'm going to take you for a glass of this stuff, my treat to you, man.  But listen, Bukele, I think there's a few things that I think he should do, and this is based on the decision to run my football club as a Bitcoin company.

Matt Odell: Is he an investor in the football club?

Peter McCormack: No, man, come on!  I did tweet him, asking if, like I'll basically take the team out to El Salvador.  I want to play in the national stadium against San Salvador, and I think we call it The Volcano Cup.  I think we do that shit.

Matt Odell: You can get like the best players from El Salvador to join the team.

Peter McCormack: Well, maybe.  But anyway, there's a few things I think he should do.  Firstly, I think they should retire the Chivo app and bring in a good Bitcoin company to migrate people across, I just think people should do that, get rid of Chivo.  That's cool and just allow people to accept if they want to buy or sell, there's a spread; just deal with that.

Matt Odell: Okay, continue.

Peter McCormack: That's the first thing.  The second thing --

Matt Odell: So, let me counter the things individually.

Peter McCormack: Okay.

Matt Odell: The issue there is, if you're going to force everyone to accept Bitcoin as legal tender, then the government should give you a government subsidised way of converting that into US dollars.  There is a solid argument for why Chivo exists in the first place, right.

Peter McCormack: No, I get the argument.

Matt Odell: Every merchant has to accept Bitcoin, so every merchant should have a low-fee way of converting that to dollars if they don't want to accept Bitcoin.

Peter McCormack: All right, privatise it.  Get someone like ibex to run it, and they suffer the cost.  But take it out of control of the government, so the government just aren't involved.  I think that would be a smart move.

Matt Odell: I would prefer that, I agree.

Peter McCormack: So, I think he should make the government's wallet address public.  Now the reason I say, I've done that.  Did you see the tweetstorm about the vision for my football club?  You probably didn't read it if you did.  I did a tweetstorm and I put the presentation out slide by slide, but in one of them, I was like, "This is our bank balance, this is what we've got coming in on invoice, and this is our Bitcoin treasury, and here is our wallet address". 

It's very hard to allow people to do that with your bank account, because all you can do is take a screenshot, right.  But with our Bitcoin treasury, "Here's the wallet address, and I think that address should be public, and I'm going to tell people how the multisig works".  I'm going to do this as transparent as possible.  I just think some more transparency's needed.

Matt Odell: Well, you don't want to say who holds the keys.

Peter McCormack: No, I'm going to talk about not who holds it, how we do it, what's the service we use, etc.

Matt Odell: Yeah, I like that idea.

Peter McCormack: A bit like, you know when I used to do those transparency reports for the podcast?

Matt Odell: You did a great job with that.

Peter McCormack: I got rid of them though, I'll tell you why.

Matt Odell: I know, it was this year.

Peter McCormack: Yeah.  I was out with Jason Williams and American HODL and Sean Culkin shooting shit in the desert, and they were like, "Just take that off there.  You're giving yourself risk that you don't need to".  I liked being open, but I was just like, "Fuck it".

Matt Odell: I thought it was one of the best parts of your show and your brand.

Peter McCormack: Behind the New Year's shows with Matt Odell?  But yeah, I liked doing it, Matt, but it just brought so much heat on me and then anger and jealousy and shit.  It worked for a while.

Matt Odell: I know, I'm a hypocrite, right, because I don't have the transparency reports for my show, but I appreciated yours.

Peter McCormack: But we're going to do exactly the same for the football club, and that's a different thing, because that's a different entity; it's not just a podcast.

Matt Odell: Well, why is that not a negative for the football club, but it's a negative for the show?

Peter McCormack: Because I think the show is me and therefore it's seen as me, and every dollar it makes is seen as my money.

Matt Odell: But you want the club to be a community thing?

Peter McCormack: Yeah.  I'm not going to get paid by the club, I'm not going to take a salary, I'm not going to get paid by it.

Matt Odell: You're not going to get any money out of the club?

Peter McCormack: Look, if I get them in the Premier League --

Matt Odell: You're just going to have the private jet!

Peter McCormack: I'm not going to get paid, right, I don't need a salary; but if we got them in the Premier League ---

Matt Odell: $300 glasses of whiskey, but not going to get paid!

Peter McCormack: No but if we're successful and somebody tries to buy the club in 20 years and I'm like, "You know what, I'm done, let's hand it over", yeah, I mean my shareholding will be worth something.  I can sell it to some Saudi Prince.  But right now, I'm going to do exactly the same transparency reports.  It's going to be more transparent than the podcast; the podcast was a good test.  But what I'm saying is, I think if you're going to operate a Bitcoin treasury, be that kind of company and be bold, it's good to be transparent and I think Bukele needs to be a little bit more transparent on that.  That's another thing I think he needs to do.

Matt Odell: But he's not going to be.

Peter McCormack: I know, but these are just the things I think.

Matt Odell: This is the politics dictator playbook, right.

Peter McCormack: Then, I think he should be transparent about his future, what he's going to do, "Yeah, I am going to run one more term, because I think I should".

Matt Odell: That's how it starts.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, I know, "And we're going to change the Constitution so I can have a run again".  My worry is that it becomes a third term, fourth term, dictatorship bullshit.

Matt Odell: Brings his sister in, his sister does a term, then he comes back for a term, then his brother takes a term.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, because there's a high risk this becomes a big stain on Bitcoin, right, if it goes bad?

Matt Odell: Yeah.  I think the stain is individual stain.  Look, Bitcoin's for enemies, we can't stop anyone from using Bitcoin.  North Korea, like I said, North Korea, Venezuela, Russia, they're already using Bitcoin.  We cannot stop them.  We hear this about the far right in America; they're using Bitcoin.  You can't stop them, that's the fucking point.  Someone who is hiding the fact that they're gay in Iran versus a far-right person in America, they'll both use Bitcoin, and the Iranian's can't stop the person who's pretending to be gay, and we can't stop the far-right person in America.  That is the beauty of the whole, fucking system.

Peter McCormack: Pretending to be straight, I think.

Matt Odell: But the important part, I think, is that people that are influential in Bitcoin should be consistent with that, that we have no control here.  There is no person that can decide, or entity that can decide who uses Bitcoin, who doesn't.  And the stain will more be on people who decide to blindly associate themselves with certain entities.

Peter McCormack: Well, we're going to have him at the conference.

Matt Odell: So, I've never said this publicly, I tweeted about it kind of, so El Salvador has two sets of Bitcoin.  They have Bitcoin held in Chivo; we have no idea where that's held, there's some suspicions where it's held.

Peter McCormack: What are those suspicions?

Matt Odell: There are certain companies that are running those wallets.  I don't want to blow up those companies' spots right now, but there are certain companies that are running those wallets.  Then you also have him tweeting out, "I just bought the dip".  The "bought the dip" is a different wallet.  That bought-the-dip wallet, I have on very good record, is held by an American custodian, American-regulated custodian.  I know the regulated custodian, I think it's uncouth to say which one.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, I think I know who it is.

Matt Odell: Does that change -- it's weird, right, because you said it yourself.  You're like, "Okay, he was using the US dollar, and now he's against using the US dollar with this independent currency that is separate of world governments and corporations, Bitcoin".  And he tweets anti-American things sometimes, but then he keeps his country's Bitcoin, his Bitcoin, in America without holding his own keys.  That's weird; there's something weird going on there, right?

Peter McCormack: Well, I mean everything's speculation unless you know.  But I think I know what your speculation is and I think it's right.  But at the same time, I wonder what checks and balances they've got to protect themselves from that.  It's not like the UK, which holds Venezuela's gold and is just refusing to give it back.

Matt Odell: That's exactly what it is.

Peter McCormack: Well, it's slightly.  We're holding their gold as a government and refusing to give it back while Maduro's in power.  This is a company, and we don't know the redundancy they've got in place for what happens to that Bitcoin, like if someone comes and knocks on the door and says, "You have to give it to us", they might have to say, "Well, we can't, because one of the keys is held here".  We don't know, it's all speculation.  If it's completely, 100% held by who I think you think it is, where I think it is, yes, it's a risk.  It's a different kind of risk, but it's a risk.

Matt Odell: It's weird, right?

Peter McCormack: Of course.

Matt Odell: He's better off just having a Coldcard and just holding it on the Coldcard.

Peter McCormack: But are they custodying it, or are they just buying the dip for him?  Is he texting them and saying, "Send me this, buy some of this, we'll wire the money"?

Matt Odell: My understanding is, he buys his Bitcoin on his phone and they hold custody for him.

Peter McCormack: Is he like Degen leverage trading on BitMEX?

Matt Odell: No.  I think you know which company I'm talking about, but it's an American regulated company.

Peter McCormack: We'll talk about it afterwards, we'll confirm companies.  Actually, I'm going to text you and you can just give me a nod if I'm right.

Matt Odell: Wow, you're such a boomer, it takes you forever to text!

Peter McCormack: No, I had voice chat, so as I was typing, it's written out some of the stuff I was saying to you.

Matt Odell: Nope.

Peter McCormack: Oh, interesting, hmm.  I thought it was the first one.

Matt Odell: But either way, it doesn't really matter if it's one or the other. 

Peter McCormack: Whichever one it is, it's the same point.

Matt Odell: Yeah.  My point is that there's an American regulated company holding the country's keys.  And I could get in shit for this, because I've asked Saylor, does he have a fiduciary responsibility to MicroStrategy's shareholders to control his own keys; and maybe MicroStrategy has less of a fiduciary responsibility, because if the US Government decides to fuck with them, they're a publicly traded company, they're going to get fucked with, regardless of how they hold their keys.

But with El Salvador, it's different.  El Salvador, it feels like the Venezuelan gold in the UK, kind of thing, where the UK won't give Venezuela their rightful gold right now, billions of dollars.

Peter McCormack: It is slightly different from asking the Fed to custody their keys, and a private company.

Matt Odell: Just a little bit different, not that much.  It's just one extra phone call.

Peter McCormack: If they know where it is.  You and I thought it was two different companies though.

Matt Odell: No, but I'm right and you're wrong. 

Peter McCormack: But I think you're right.  Now you've told me, I think you're right, but not who I thought it was.  I don't know, man, I think the whole thing's weird.  The thing with Bukele, right, he is surprisingly very Bitcoin, but disappointingly not enough Bitcoin in some of the ways he's doing things.  So, he speaks the right language when he's on Twitter, he's been very bold, there hasn't been too much shitcoining; we know there's a little bit, but there hasn't been too much.  And it is the Bitcoin law, etc.  He promotes Bitcoin at events, he's coming to Bitcoin 2022.

Matt Odell: Keynote.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, keynote.

Matt Odell: First sitting President to ever speak at a Bitcoin Conference.

Peter McCormack: Well, he shouldn't be doing a presentation, that's for sure.  It definitely needs to be a fireside.

Matt Odell: Yeah.  Who do you think should be doing the fireside?

Peter McCormack: I should fucking get that, and I think that's obvious!

Matt Odell: Well, I'm not in charge of programming, I just advise.

Peter McCormack: I will make my views.  But I think it would make sense, me and him, to rattle through it.  I know him and he knows me, etc, but that's by the by.  He does all that, but then there's just these other bits.  I'm probably going to run through how we run Bitcoin within the football club by you, you're the guy, right, and I'm going to say, "Look, Matt, this is how we're going to custody it, this is how we're going to run our treasury, this is how we're going to accept Bitcoin, etc, are we doing this right; are we being a beacon of what a Bitcoin standard company should be doing?"  You would be a good person to test it by.

Matt Odell: Yeah, I'm 100% down to do that.

Peter McCormack: That's the bit they're missing.  They're not a beacon in terms of execution.

Matt Odell: That's what's weird.  But the weird part is, so I tweeted out, "I have it on good authority that Bukele is keeping his keys in America in a regulated company".

Peter McCormack: Did he reply?

Matt Odell: Of course not.  I tagged him.

Peter McCormack: Does he follow you?

Matt Odell: No.  But I had bitcoiners come out like, "Who the fuck do you think you are that he should tell you how he's storing his Bitcoin?" and that was not my point.  I don't think he should tell me how he stores his Bitcoin if he doesn't want to tell me how he stores his Bitcoin.  I intentionally did not publicly broadcast who he was storing it with, because I respect that.  But between me and a shit ton of other bitcoiners, there are plenty of us that area willing to sit down and discreetly help store it properly, and store it in a way that respects his citizens of his fucking country.

He's got 7 million Salvadorans that are going to rely on this nest egg of Bitcoin.  I thought that's why bitcoiners were excited about El Salvador buying the dip in the first place, it's this idea that this country is going to have this endowment forever of Bitcoin that is going to help create a Bitcoin city, and create a flourishing Bitcoin country and make it into what it's going to be.  So, the help is there, the help is available, make it happen.

Peter McCormack: Matt, it's like the Elon Musk thing, right, where people are like, "Shut up, don't insult Elon, don't piss Elon off, he might dump".

Matt Odell: Yeah, it's ridiculous.

Peter McCormack: It's like, "What the fuck?  Who the fuck are you?"  Yeah, it's great that he's in Bitcoin, but he's fucking pumping doggycoin and he's rug pulling Bitcoin on the ESG stuff.  His one good Bitcoin thing is, they bought $1.5 billion of Bitcoin.  Everything else has been fucking shit.  He is a terrible bitcoiner outside of that $1.5 billion.  He's a worse bitcoiner than me.

Matt Odell: You're so proud!

Peter McCormack: There's not many, dude!  But he's been shit, but people are like, "Shut up, don't piss off Elon".  We've got people like Max Keiser going out and doing the F*ck Elon Tour, which is great.  I think Bukele is one that really splits me, because I listen to Alex Gladstein and I'm like, "Yeah, I can't disagree with anything you're saying", and I listen to you and I think, "Yeah, I can't disagree with what you're saying as well, in terms of custody and shit".  But I also think, if gets this right, if he really nails this, how good it will be.

So, I don't think it's a F*ck Bukele thing, like it's a F*ck Elon thing, it's like a, "Come on, Nayib, let's get this shit in place.  You be the template for every other country, you be the change that we want other countries to see".

Matt Odell: I would like to live I n a world where the first country that accepts Bitcoin as legal tender doesn't lose it due to custodial risk.  Bitcoin will be fine, but that would be fucking annoying.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, fuck yeah.

Matt Odell: I prefer not to, "Oh look, the same thing that happened with gold happened with Bitcoin", you know, it got seized.  He decided to talk some shit and boom, US Government seized it.  I prefer that didn't happen.  But I would go further and say, if Elon wanted help with his Bitcoin understanding, I would sit down with him.

Peter McCormack: Course you would.  I mean, it's Elon Musk, of course you would!  "What are you doing Friday, can you come down to Austin?"  You'd be like, "Sorry, Elon, I'm busy, man, I'm recording the Citadel Dispatch".

Matt Odell: Okay, that is fair.  But my point is is that there are a shit ton of bitcoiners that care that want to see things being done the right way, and whether that's Real Bedford, or whether that's El Salvador, or whether that's Elon, that's the case.  And has Elon's shit with dogecoin been fucked up?  Yes, 100%.  He's also shouting on Web 3.0, right.  He could be worse, our bar is very low.  We have a very low bar for billionaires, we have a very low bar for presidents.

You can come in, be an absolute dictator, have massive, horrible COVID policies; if you decide to make Bitcoin legal tender, all of a sudden bitcoiners like you.

Peter McCormack: We have a very low bar for Bitcoin podcast hosts!

Matt Odell: Very low bar!

Peter McCormack: Very low bar!  Hey, listen, let's segue there.  Do you know why I like doing interviews with you, Matt, because it's not really an interview and we just talk.  We've done an hour and a half with barely thinking.  But let's segue, because you mention Web 3.0 and I want to talk about Web 3.0.

Matt Odell: Web 4.0 is the future.

Peter McCormack: Dude, and I just want to make a point, because some guy was saying to me the other day, "You're just copying Jack".  I was like, "Look, motherfucker", and I showed him the tweets, "I've been on this since 2019", and I was having a pop at Tushar from Multicoin about it early 2020.  This Web 3.0 stuff is pissing me off, it's pissing me right off, because it's basically the new ICO, right?

Matt Odell: Well, I mean ICOs are part of Web 3.0.

Peter McCormack: There was no Web 3.0 in 2017.  They've been retrospectively fitted to Web 3.0.

Matt Odell: No, I think there was.  I mean, I was getting slides about Web 3.0 at that point.

Peter McCormack: My first things I heard about Web 3.0, bear in mind I owned a web company when we transitioned through into the Web 2.0 period, was Web 3.0 will be about decentralisation and data ownership, that's what it would be about.  When it was first discussed, there was no real crypto talk back then.  I mean, Bitcoin existed, but nothing else.  There was no infrastructure like this.

I got married in 2013 and my company quit in 2014.  So, back in 2010, 2011, 2012, that was when the first Web 3.0 stuff was discussed, it was like, "What's coming next?"  Decentralisation and data ownership.  And now, Chris Dixon, a16z, are massively pushing this.  And I don't know why Chris Dixon hasn't blocked me.

Matt Odell: Did you see the tweet he did?

Peter McCormack: No, what did it say?

Matt Odell: He deleted it six hours after, it was like, "Read, write, own keys".

Peter McCormack: Read, write, own keys?

Matt Odell: It was just funny because he deleted it.  In Web 3.0, the VCs get to delete their tweets.  So, the whole point of this concept of Web 3.0 is this idea that Web 2.0 is a situation where you have Twitter and Facebook, etc.  And Web 3.0 is this idea that you own your own data and you can move with it where you want to go.  And it's brought to you by the same people who branded using someone else's computer as the Cloud.

Peter McCormack: And you get a share of the upside, because you can own the tokens.

Matt Odell: But the key aspect is, own your own data, but yes, then they also show you the token and say you can own the token as well.  It's a marketing term, it's bullshit.

Peter McCormack: Yes, but it's a co-opted term.

Matt Odell: It's the same thing as Web 2.0.  The VCs own everything.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, but Web 2.0 wasn't about it being Twitter or Facebook, that wasn't what Web 2.0 was about.

Matt Odell: It wasn't called Web 2.0 at the time.  Web 2.0 was only called Web 2.0 for Web 3.0 to exist.

Peter McCormack: Right, listen, I'm going to tell you the fucking tweet I put out, because I was quite proud of this, to be honest.  Right, here we go.  So, Chris Dixon put out the quote, "Tokens are the native asset class of information networks - BradUSV", and I put, "Tokens are the native asset class of venture capital bullshit".  This guy was like, "Peter McCormack plainly copying Jack's narrative.  Have an original thought for once" so I was like, "Fuck you, I'll prove it".

So, this was a tweet I put out 9 September 2019, "Anyone defining Web 3.0 usually has something to sell.  Web 3.0 will reflect the buyers, not the sellers.  It will only be defined in retrospect.  Don't trust funds defined in Web 3.0".  I'm basically saying what you just said there.  It's like, "We will know it once it's hit".  But here we are, where Chris Dixon is trying to define what it is, because that's where they want to put their money, in these fucking projects where they get to IPO at the same stage as they do their seed investment, without proving product market fit.  Solana is a great case study.

Matt Odell: Yeah, I mean they singlehandedly made Multicoin what Multicoin is.

Peter McCormack: But it's annoying, because they're not driving what they think --

Matt Odell: The problem is, Pete, the whole revolution that's happening here is censorship resistance, specifically state resistance; this idea that, what are we seeing with Twitter right now?  We're seeing that Twitter showed that they have control over their platform, so regulators and people that are pressuring the regulators want to see Twitter censor people that they disagree with, because they can. 

So, the biggest issue with "Web 3.0" is this idea that venture capitalists in America, venture funds in America, can monetise these networks and they can make an ROI.  Those venture funds themselves are the weak point.  If you have control over a network, if you're something like MakerDAO, or you're something like Ethereum, or you're something like Solana, and a venture fund is able to actually get a decent ROI on that, Return On Investment, they are the pressure point that can get poked.

You have to ask yourself, when we're talking about ICOs, why were there no real Nim ICOs?  Bitcoin was a hacked-together project, run by a Nim, who we have no idea who he is.  Why don't we see Web 3.0 projects done the same way?  That's because they can't raise a shit ton of money from American venture funds.  And those American venture funds are the fucking vulnerability, because they will get pressured and they will censor things. 

The whole value prop is at risk because of that centralisation risk, and the venture funds will never admit this, they will never say it out loud because if they say it out loud, it can be used against them.  So instead, they deny that it exists, they lobby the government for a favourable result, and if something happens where they get pressured, they'll just be, "Well, no one could have seen it coming".  That is their business model.  And their incentives are set up in a way that they will just lie through their teeth until the day they die.  That is what is going to happen, that is what has been happening, it is extremely frustrating.

The real movement is one of free open-source software that is not controlled by any single entity, that is replicable, that people can share that code around the world, they can self-host it, they don't have to rely on you.  A lot of it is using Bitcoin as a monetisation.

Peter McCormack: Supported by advertising!

Matt Odell: Sometimes; that's up to them!  But that's the point, it's up to them, it's up to the user.  It's not even a fundamental misunderstanding, because the real fucking scam of it all, and I don't like saying the word "scam", because I think it dilutes the power of the word and I don't call everything a scam; the real shame of the whole thing is they know better.

The guys that are making fucking $400,000, $500,000 a year at a16z, they know exactly what they're doing, but they will never say that out loud, because that hurts their interests.  And I have to applaud Jack Dorsey for going at them hard about that, and I respect that he had to wait until he left Twitter to do that, because they have control over Twitter, but it's a shame to say it's going to continue for a long fucking time.

Peter McCormack: Well, at least he's getting memed the fuck with it.  I mean, Elon called him out, Jack's calling him out, fucking Keanu Reeves is calling people out.  I mean, at least there's people out there going, "This is just fucking bullshit.  Shut the fuck up".  I wish Chris Dixon would come out, like I've offered him up.  I said, "Come on the show, let's talk about it, explain Web 3.0 to people".  I think he should do a debate, but he's not going to do it.  There's no incentive for him to do it.

Matt Odell: My favourite is when they block us.  I have Web 3.0 shills, I have a16z people that have me blocked.  I've never interacted with them in my life.  They just pre-emptively blocked me.  My blocklists are empty, no one's blocked, I have nobody blocked.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, I still don't get that.

Matt Odell: Well, that's fine, but if you're going to talk about the uncensorable web, Web 3.0, the web where no one can stop, but you like deleting tweets and blocking people and stuff?  The hypocrisy is so fucking obvious.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, it depends the reason you're blocking for.  If Chris Dixon or Marc Andreessen are blocking people who are challenging their narrative, fair.

Matt Odell: Pete, I have people blocking me that I didn't even know they existed, until I see the response where I can't see the response, and I look them up in a private browsing mode, and I'm like, "Who the fuck is this person?"

Peter McCormack: If you don't listen to me, I'm going to tell you again how I don't understand xPubs.  Listen.

Matt Odell: Okay. 

Peter McCormack: I think it's why you're blocking people.  If you're pre-emptively blocking Matt Odell because he's criticising Web 3.0, or you're Marc Andreessen and you're blocking people because they criticise a16z, that is hypocritical.  I block anyone in my timeline who promotes HEX.com, because I just don't want that bullshit in my timeline.  It's the same reason I won't let morons in my house.  It's a different reason.

Your blocklist is zero?  Commendable.  I fucking block people who promote HEX.com, people who shill Cardano, any of that bullshit is gone.  Anyone who's abusive is gone and they're different reasons.  I don't see it as the same.  I don't want that shit in my timeline.  I don't think it's censorship to be sat at dinner and someone sits down at your table and starts abusing you, or giving you shit.  Getting rid of that person at a dinner table is the same as blocking someone on your timeline.  I've got no shame in that.

Matt Odell: I defend your right to block whoever the fuck you want to block, but it's important to me that every single time one of these insecure motherfuckers decides to block me, they can know that I have a zero blocklist, that there's no shades of grey.  My blocklist is empty, my mute list is empty, I see everything except when you block me, because you're a weak motherfucker.

Peter McCormack: Shades of Grey is this amazing song by this band called Biohazard, who are from Brooklyn, New York.  It's a fucking great song.

Matt Odell: I'll check it out.

Peter McCormack: Biohazard was the first band I lost my shit for.  I was playing my daughter them the other day, Punishment and Shades of Grey.  There'll be 0.01% of people listening to this right now who will be nodding going, "Yeah, Biohazard", they get it.

Matt Odell: Let's fucking go!

Peter McCormack: Yeah, man.  Well, listen, I'd love Chris Dixon to talk.  I've offered it up.  He replied to a tweet, he said he would.  I think he should do it, he's not going to do it, because there's only downside for him to do it, so I'm just going to fucking call him out until he blocks me.  I can't believe he hasn't blocked me yet, but I expect it's coming.  Whatever, Chris Dixon, fuck you and your Web 3.0 bullshit.  I don't know where we're up to next.  I'm starting to get a bit drunk.  What do you want to talk about?

Matt Odell: I don't know.

Peter McCormack: Shall I tell you about my football club?

Matt Odell: Yeah, let's talk about the football club.

Peter McCormack: I've got to talk to you about this.  This has been a childhood dream, dude, to own a football club.  I think I've got something here, I was talking to Pomp about this earlier, there are two things that are really important in my life: Bitcoin is one and Bedford's the other.  There's other shit, but I think I can leverage Bitcoin for the benefit of Bedford, and I think I can leverage Bedford for the benefit of Bitcoin; I think it's symbiotic.  What I mean by that is, I love where I live because I love the people, I'm very proud of it.  But it is a small town.  It's not a New York, it's not a London.

Matt Odell: What is the population of Bedford?

Peter McCormack: 174,000 people.

Matt Odell: Oh, it's a city.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, but it's an area that has --

Matt Odell: It's like a "city"?

Peter McCormack: No, it's not a city, it's a town.

Matt Odell: Yeah, it's a city.

Peter McCormack: It's a town.  But it's an area of depravation.

Matt Odell: In America, we call those cities.  I mean, it's bullshit, as someone from New York City, that's bullshit.  But it's a city.

Peter McCormack: It's definitely not a city here.

Matt Odell: But the population of Boston's like 400,000.

Peter McCormack: Really?  I'm not going to buy that, hold on, what the fuck? 

Matt Odell: Google it.

Peter McCormack: Boston.

Matt Odell: I know it, because I always give them shit.

Peter McCormack: 684,000.

Matt Odell: It's rounded up 400,000!

Peter McCormack: Three-and-a-half times the size of Bedford.  But it's an area of depravation and it hasn't got a lot going for it.  We used to have some big companies here, Texas Instruments, Granada, London Brick, it's all gone.  There's no known thing here, and it just doesn't have a lot going for it.  I was always like, "I want to do something".

We've never had a league football team, and what league football means is, there's four professional divisions: The Premier League, The Championship, League 1, League 2.  And I always said to my dad as a kid, "I want to do this", but I never knew how I could.  I've got one thing that no other local football team -- every local football team, their catchment area is the few miles around where they live, how many people they're going to get to the ground to pay £5, £10 to go in, sell them a shirt and sell them a burger.  That's what they survive on.  I've got this thing that they don't have, is I've got this group of whatever, 100 million, 150 million people --

Matt Odell: A global community.

Peter McCormack: A global community of people that have Bitcoin that will get the fuck behind you.

Matt Odell: They have money.

Peter McCormack: They have money.

Matt Odell: Ideologically minded.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, who want this to work, because they go, "This is another win for Bitcoin".  A bit like, prior to the Bitcoin announcement, nobody knew who Michael Saylor was, not many people knew who MicroStrategy was.

Matt Odell: No one knew who fucking Bukele was.  El Salvador?  Most people barely knew it was a country.

Peter McCormack: They couldn't point to it on a map.  They'd probably point to fucking Brazil, or something.

Matt Odell: They still can't point to it on a map.

Peter McCormack: Bedford is the MicroStrategy, El Salvador of sports.  We're the hack.  So, I can leverage that community to commercially bring success to the team, which is good for Bedford.  But it works the other way round.  I can leverage Bedford for bitcoiners in that, if this works and I get this right, and we won't know for four years, we might get promoted next year, it's not going to make a difference.

Matt Odell: What, so you get promoted next, you go to League 2, or --

Peter McCormack: No, no, dude, we're in the 10th Division.  We're six promotions from the professional league.

Matt Odell: So, even if you win every season, you're still two decades away from the Premier League?

Peter McCormack: Well, it depends.  If we do it consecutively, we're nine years.

Matt Odell: Okay, so best case scenario, it's nine years.

Peter McCormack: Yeah.  But by the way, if we did -- I'm saying it, because it's really pissing people off in football, because they're like, "You're a fucking idiot, that's not possible!"  One thing is, I'm having fun.  But two, they don't understand Bitcoin, they don't understand bitcoiners.

Matt Odell: I love the Ted Lasso muse, by the way.  Believe!

Peter McCormack: Dude, he's made football cool for Americans.

Matt Odell: We already liked football, we just called it soccer.

Peter McCormack: So anyway, if I do this, I can leverage Bedford for bitcoiners; because if this works, this is going to teach a lot of people who like football about Bitcoin as well.  In four years' time, when our treasury does a 10X and suddenly we've got all this fucking capital that nobody else has, they're going to be like, "What happened there?"  I'll be like, "What I fucking told you what would happen, when you were all laughing in my face, calling me an idiot and a moron!"

Also, Bedford's the perfect place and the perfect team.  It's a shit town which no one gives a fuck about in the middle of England.  MicroStrategy wasn't a shit company, but it was a company nobody gave a fuck about, and El Salvador a country no one gave a fuck about.  We're perfect for this, and on the back of that, I get to see people all around the world care about my little town called Bedford.

For me, Matt, honestly I cannot tell you how happy I am.  Do I say this?  Yeah.  I nearly cried when it happened.  It's been a -- 29 years ago, I first told my dad I was going to buy Bedford.  I was 14.

Matt Odell: That's awesome.

Peter McCormack: And to actually think and to actually do it, and today I was there and I went to watch them.

Matt Odell: Is he still alive?

Peter McCormack: My dad?  Yeah, my dad's still alive, yeah.  He's so fucking proud.

Matt Odell: That's awesome.  So, what is his opinion?

Peter McCormack: Well, he just doesn’t understand the life I lead.

Matt Odell: Is he still confused, is he like, "What the fuck's going on here?"

Peter McCormack: Yeah, everything's confusing to him, because he doesn't understand what's going on in my life, but whatever.  The point being, I think this is a great thing for Bitcoin.

Matt Odell: That's awesome.

Peter McCormack: This works, this is great for Bitcoin, because we get to Trojan horse Bitcoin into all the people around the world who like football, to make them understand.  And not everyone will like it.  You'll get those fuckers who hate it, because it's like, "How did you do this?  It's not my club", but anyway, it's a big deal for me, man.  I'm going to tweet a lot about football now.  I'm going to lose some followers.

Matt Odell: Dude, cheers to you, man.  What are we calling it?  Is it Real Bedford or Bedford FC?

Peter McCormack: Real Bedford.  They're called FC, you can't change the name of a team mid-season.

Matt Odell: So, it's formerly Bedford FC, but now it's Real Bedford, right?

Peter McCormack: It will be Real Bedford.  At the end of the season, we will rebrand as Real Bedford, skull and crossbones.

Matt Odell: Why skull and crossbones; can we talk about that?

Peter McCormack: Yeah, I mean because skulls are cool!

Matt Odell: But that's new, right, that's a rebrand?

Peter McCormack: I've got a skull here on my hand, man.  It's here.

Matt Odell: But it kind of puts bitcoiners in a death light a little bit.

Peter McCormack: Not really.

Matt Odell: Just a little bit?

Peter McCormack: No, bitcoiners use the skull and crossbones for toxicity, right?  Doesn't NVK use it?

Matt Odell: Can't we just have rainbows?

Peter McCormack: No, fuck that shit, it's not Ethereum.

Matt Odell: No, I'm just fucking with you.  I like the skull and crossbones, I like Real as the choice of prefix.  There's like four you can choose from.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, what would look cooler on a T-shirt or a hat?  Skull and crossbones.  It looks cool on the Raiders, it looks cool on the Orlando Pirates.  Any team who does it, it looks cool on.  Bitcoiners are pirates, we're rebels, we're like, "Fuck you", so yeah, I'm happy with that.  Anyway, that was my little bit I wanted to get into my show.

Matt Odell: No, I mean I'm pretty excited, I'm very excited for you.  It's one of my favourite football teams now.

Peter McCormack: What do you mean, one of your favourite, fuck off; it's your favourite!  So, when are we going to get you to Bedford?

Matt Odell: I thought that's where you were going with it, that it's going to be a Bitcoin Beach style, we're going to all fly to Bedford, we're going to learn the language, we're going to fly to Bedford, and then we can just pay with Bitcoin at all the gas stations, I guess you call them petrol stations over there, and the grocery stores and the pubs.

Peter McCormack: You go to Millennium Kebabs, get yourself a special donor.

Matt Odell: You've got to get them all to accept Bitcoin.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, that's going to be a challenge.

Matt Odell: That's the play.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, well we'll see.  We'll see if I can get a meeting with the government.  I'm going to be reaching out to somebody in that, I'm going to try and make that happen, dude.  We haven't had an argument.  Usually, you're shouting at me for xPubs.

Matt Odell: Last year was a bad year, man.

Peter McCormack: Dude, you shout at me every year.  You've not shouted at me.

Matt Odell: You've been doing good.  I'm proud of you, bro.

Peter McCormack: All right, when am I going to see you next, it's midnight.

Matt Odell: You've been doing it right, you've been doing it good, I'm proud of you.

Peter McCormack: I've got to catch a flight tomorrow.  I can't say where, because I don't want to dox myself, but it's 12.10am here.  Shall we call it?

Matt Odell: Okay, we can call it.  Do we have --

Peter McCormack: Prediction for next year, man, tell me what you think is going to happen?

Matt Odell: I have no predictions.  I don't do predictions anymore after $200,000 by conference day.

Peter McCormack: We're going to get over $100,000 next year, and Real Bedford are going to get their first promotion.

Matt Odell: Yes, Real Bedford is definitely going to get their first promotion, because that's obvious.  It's very easy to go from Division 10 to Division 9.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, with a good Chairman.

Matt Odell: It's a very low bar.  Do you think a spot ETF in America will happen next year?

Peter McCormack: Do I think a spot ETF?  Well, I've had it on good information it's coming.  Just fucking Gary Gensler.

Matt Odell: Yeah, it's not going to happen this year.

Peter McCormack: No, I think next year it will happen.

Matt Odell: No, I mean the year to come, it's not going to happen.

Peter McCormack: You don't think we'll get a spot ETF next year?

Matt Odell: No.

Peter McCormack: I think we will.  But again, when I think about it, do I care?

Matt Odell: No, I don't care, but also it's not going to happen.

Peter McCormack: I mean, I care for my bags to go up, but what does a spot ETF actually mean?  It just means boomers can buy Bitcoin.

Matt Odell: Right.  I mean, they can already buy Bitcoin, they just have to go through a couple of extra hoops, that's all.

Peter McCormack: I care for my bags on the spot, but I don't care that much.

Matt Odell: Okay.  Do you think we hit $100,000 over the next year?

Peter McCormack: Yes, I think we do.

Matt Odell: Undeniably yes, right?

Peter McCormack: Yes.

Matt Odell: Do you think $200,000?

Peter McCormack: No, I don't. 

Matt Odell: Do you think we hit $200,000 by next halving?

Peter McCormack: I think we can hit $200,000 shortly after the next halving.

Matt Odell: Okay, so not by the halving.  You don't think we hit $200,000 by the halving?

Peter McCormack: I don't want any blowoff tops.

Matt Odell: There are going to be blowoff tops.  Do you think we're going to have a 60%-plus drawdown at any point over the next year?

Peter McCormack: No.

Matt Odell: We might.

Peter McCormack: I think 60%s are done.

Matt Odell: I think the leverage people, like using BlockFi and using Unchained and using Ledn and using all these different loan platforms, they're leveraged, so there are going to be cascading margin calls.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, man, I don't know. 

Matt Odell: That was a good rip.

Peter McCormack: We did all right, didn't we?

Matt Odell: I enjoyed this.  We can just carry it on.  Next time I see you in person, we'll just do a rip in person.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, so I'm going to be there.  I can give you the date.

Matt Odell: You're going to be in my hood?

Peter McCormack: I'm going to be in your hood, and I know the exact date.  Can I say it?  Is that an OPSEC problem?

Matt Odell: I think you can say the date, as long as you don't say where my hood is.

Peter McCormack: 1 March.

Matt Odell: Okay, I'll be here, let's fucking rip it.

Peter McCormack: So, do you know what happened?  I've got to go to Texas and I went to book a flight.  You can't book direct flights from UK to Austin yet, right.  So, I went to book it and the connecting flight, I've been using this website, Snaptravel, and the connecting flight was your hood. 

Matt Odell: Let's fucking go!

Peter McCormack: I was like, "Fuck it, I'll just get the connection the next day.  I'll come in and we'll have a night with Matt Odell".  We might not record shit, but we'll just hang out, whatever.

Matt Odell: Well, I'm definitely down to chill, but we should just rip, let's just rip it, we'll have a good time.

Peter McCormack: Well, my problem is, I won't have my crew with me.

Matt Odell: Well, I have a studio that's not this.

Peter McCormack: With video?

Matt Odell: With video, yeah.

Peter McCormack: Maybe we'll do it.  Otherwise, look, I mean --

Matt Odell: I have a fully setup studio, you don't have to bring anything.

Peter McCormack: listen, do you know what I'd rather do?  I'd rather just go and have a night out with you.

Matt Odell: I would give for that as well.  Fuck the audience.

Peter McCormack: And I'll be in Texas for the whole month.  I'll fly you in.  Come and make a show with me, we'll do one with Marty.

Matt Odell: Okay, I'm down, I'm down for that as well.  But like I said, when you're in the hood, you can just stay here that night.

Peter McCormack: Yeah, I mean, cool, I appreciate that.

Matt Odell: The room's right behind here.  I've got a king bed, it's very nice.

Peter McCormack: I can see the dogs.

Matt Odell: Yeah, I have dogs.  They're great dogs.  They're bitcoiners.

Peter McCormack: I like your dogs.  Well, listen, dude, I love you, you're one of my favourite people in the whole world.  Happy Christmas!

Matt Odell: Merry Christmas!

Peter McCormack: Happy New Year!

Matt Odell: Cheers.

Peter McCormack: And, I will see you on the other side, brother.

Matt Odell: Let's cheers.

Peter McCormack: Cheers.

Matt Odell: Drink up.

Peter McCormack: Drink up.

Matt Odell: Much love.

Peter McCormack: Peace out, brother.

Matt Odell: Until next time.