Twitter Space: Bitcoin as Pioneer Species w/ Quittem

Synopsis: ‍

Swan Bitcoin's Brandon Quittem joins Will Szamosszegi and Kent Halliburton to discuss his thesis that Bitcoin and Bitcoin mining can serve as a pioneer species.

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Link to Audio:

https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1LyxBqZpwDPJN

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Transcript:

Logan Chipkin (00:01:22):

What's up Will?

Will Szamosszegi (00:01:23):

Hey, what's up Logan?

Logan Chipkin (00:01:26):

Nothing much. Just grinding, baby. Ilove it. Thursday grind.

Will Szamosszegi (00:01:32):

Thursday grind.

Logan Chipkin (00:01:33):

<laugh>.

Will Szamosszegi (00:01:34):

Very nice, man. Very nice. I feellike every single day we're getting like a week's worth of work done.

Logan Chipkin (00:01:45):

<laugh>? Yes. Uh, alright,Brandon, welcome.

Brandon Quittem (00:01:55):

What's up

Will Szamosszegi (00:01:56):

Gentlemen? It looks like he's still alistener. Oh, there we go.

Logan Chipkin (00:01:59):

Nah, he's here. What's up? We'regood. How are you? I'm doing

Brandon Quittem (00:02:02):

Well. I'm just shoving some meatballsin my face in between, uh, work meetings. So <laugh>, excuse me for aminute here.

Logan Chipkin (00:02:10):

That's okay.

Will Szamosszegi (00:02:11):

And go ahead. Get, get that nutrient,those nutrients in, man. <laugh>. So Logan, how were those, uh, chickenthighs yesterday?

Logan Chipkin (00:02:24):

Oh, they were amazing. <laugh>.Uh, of course, I, you know, as is always the case, after I treated myself tosome cheese, I hated myself for a few hours, but it's okay. We're back on theballgame now. We're on it. We're all good to go. But it was good.

Will Szamosszegi (00:02:39):

Yeah, the, the cheese always knocksme out. I actually saw, I

Logan Chipkin (00:02:43):

Know cheese,

Will Szamosszegi (00:02:44):

I, as much as I love it, I know thatif I have it around that I'm gonna eat it and then I'm going to feel awful forthe next few hours. So I've just made the decision that I'm not gonna buy itanymore. <laugh>.

Logan Chipkin (00:02:59):

Yeah, I hear ya. Um, all right, well,let's go ahead and get started. I see we have some listeners here, and ofcourse, as always, uh, our Twitter spaces will be recorded and we'll upload thetranscript as well, uh, eventually. So with that, hello everyone. My name isLogan Chikin. I'm the content manager for SaaS Mining, and this is our weeklyTwitter spaces. Today we're joined by actually one of sa Mining's advisors,Brandon [inaudible], uh, of Swan Bitcoin. And I'll let Brandon introducehimself. But first will, do you wanna introduce yourself to the audience?

Will Szamosszegi (00:03:33):

Yeah, definitely. Thank you, Logan. Iappreciate you setting these up every week. Uh, hello everyone. My name'sWilliam Sam. I'm the c e o and founder here at SA Mining, and very excited forthis particular conversation. Brandon's actually been a guest on Sa Mining'spodcast previously, and I mean, Brandon, you're working on so many incredible,incredible things and leading a lot of conversations in our industry. So, umm,happy to have you on myam.

Brandon Quittem (00:04:02):

Hey, appreciate that. Will, yeah, wehad an awesome conversation maybe six months ago, maybe more at this point,maybe Q1 of this year. That was awesome. Yeah, thanks for having me guys.What's up Amanda? What's up, progressive Horner? Shout out to a couple friendsin the audience. Yeah, I'm excited.

Logan Chipkin (00:04:22):

So, Brandon, before, so I definitelywanna talk about your idea of Bitcoin as a pioneer species. Um, but, but beforewe do, uh, what exactly you said you were, uh, shoveling meatballs down yourthroat between meetings, so what do you do on a day-to-day? What do you do on aday-to-day basis in terms of Bitcoin?

Brandon Quittem (00:04:38):

Yeah, absolutely. Um, I fell on therabbit hole in 2017, traded Chico Sotos, a genius, lost all that 2018 rebuilt,had to learn Bitcoin, economics, money, all that stuff from the ground up.Found Bitcoin as to be the most important, uh, thing in the whole industry, andthe rest is more or less noise or nice to have. Um, and then I dismissed miningfrom 2017 until 2020, I would say, and then all of a sudden, okay, I studiedall the rest of Bitcoin. Let's forget what this mining thing is. Uh, I firstthought it was just like a service provider, kind of boring. And then I quicklyfound out that it merges energy mining incentives. And then I sort of went downthe energy rabbit hole, the mining rabbit hole. And now I would say Bitcoin.Mining's probably the most interesting part of what's going on in, in all themining world.

(00:05:30):

And from a professional standpoint,I, I work at Swan. I've worked there since 2019. I do, uh, growth marketing,email marketing, uh, communications, stuff like that. Um, so absolutely nothingto do with mining professionally. I just nerd out on it. And I'm most wellknown in the Bitcoin space for sort of blurring the lines between biology andtechnology. And so writing about Bitcoin as a living organism, I wrote a bunchof essays on that and, and similar topics. And then most recently, uh, kindathe topic of this conversation was exploring bitcoin mining as a pioneerspecies, uh, which we can kind of get into what that means, but that's probablya good enough background, eh?

Logan Chipkin (00:06:10):

Yes. That's, that's an excellentbackground. Um, it's interesting, you and I kind of sounds like have similarroles, but anyway, that's another, uh, story. So regarding your idea ofBitcoin, miners are kind of a pioneer species. It sounds like you've beenthinking a lot about, uh, the parallels between biology and technology for awhile. But how did you first come up with the idea that not only do bitcoinminers and bitcoin mining have kind of bio biological parallels, but they'reliterally like a pioneer species? How'd you come up with that very particularidea?

Brandon Quittem (00:06:41):

Yeah, absolutely. So I actually<laugh>, I checked this this morning. Um, I had a LinkedIn message to aguy who owns a French mining company, and they went over to the drc, the DemocraticRepublic of Congo, and they were doing microgrid solar in the mountainousregion there of a national park called Barunga. And it's essentially a reallyimpoverished area where the locals are cutting down trees to heat their homes,um, which is obviously really bad for child mortality cooking with, uh, biomassindoors, obviously bad for the environment, et cetera. And so what this miningcompany did was they helped bootstrap these micro, uh, hydro plants, and theminers are obviously the, the first customer. So the second year generatingenergy, you're able to sell that to the Bitcoin network. And that sort of, uh,allows the startup cost to be less easier to, uh, allocate capital to thatproject.

(00:07:36):

And then, okay, now you're, you'regenerating energy and it's subsidized by Bitcoin miners, and now you can shipelectricity to the locals so they can heat their home that way rather than cutdown trees. And so it was essentially an example of something pro-environment,uh, ProHealth pro economic development, et cetera. And that's just a massivenarrative violation of what the, let's say New York Times would describeBitcoin mining as. And so the na the narrative violation is what caught me. Andit, it gave me an idea about, uh, my, you know, I have very little professionalbackground in biology as well. Um, but I'm aware of the pioneer species, whichI'll explain quickly now. Um, so the famous case study is a volcano erupts innear Iceland and it kills all the life on the island, right? However, is that,is that just gonna be a rock forever or is there a way to, uh, recolonize thatisland?

(00:08:30):

Okay, enter the pioneer species,they're usually really hardy species that either, uh, either plants or fungi ora combination of the two. And they might be transported there by a bird. So abird eats a fruit, drops a seed on that island, that seed, uh, takes fruit andgrows, or it might be a, a type of plant that can travel through the oceanwaves and it just accidentally lands there. But essentially that organism'srole in ecology is to bootstrap new ecosystems. So, uh, it's typically a liken,so it's a symbiosis between a plant and a fungus. They land on that rock, thefungus uses chemistry to literally digest the rock. And then the, the plant oralgae matter are little solar panels, right? So they're taking carbon dioxideoutta the air, they're taking photons from the sun energy, and they're, uh,essentially combining that to make fats and sugars, which feeds the plant andfeeds the mushroom and the mushroom anchors on and trades minerals to theplant, right?

(00:09:30):

So they essentially establish alittle, little base on that rock, and they slowly start turning that rock intotopsoil. And as that process, which is called succession continues, uh, overtime, more complex life, uh, shows up. So let's say a few years later, littleshrubs show up 10 years later, giant trees show up, and then all the birds comeback, all the animals, and it goes from a bear and rock to a complex ecosystem.So that process of succession is, is kicked off by, uh, the very simple pioneerspecies. Now mapping it on to Bitcoin miners, right? They go to VGA in thatmountainous region, very poor, and, uh, they work together, the Bitcoin minersand the ener energy industry or investors or whatever, they work together to,uh, generate electricity site made possible by the Bitcoin miners. And thenthat new, that net new energy asset is then, um, bringing prosperity whereverit goes, right? So the, the poor people outside the national park now haveelectricity, um, they have more job prospects. Electricity allows you to, uh,manufacture things. So maybe there's more jobs, and if there's more jobs,they're producing things, maybe they can export goods, right? So you can kindof see that slight shift of new energy asset in the region spreads prosperity,just like the pioneer species lands on the desolate rock, and it, it spreads,uh, biological prosperity there over time. Um, does that make sense that I,they get that analogy out, right?

Logan Chipkin (00:10:57):

Yeah, it definitely makes sense. Uh,there's a lot there, like for example, even for kind of people like us who workat the intersection of Bitcoin mining and energy, uh, the idea that it's apioneer species, that's kind of a novel economic idea in the sense of, um, itdrives other industries into where the miners are going that intrinsically havenothing to do with Bitcoin at all. And then one of the ideas that I find mostfascinating of your essay is that, um, let's say other industries enter thearea following the pioneer species that is Bitcoin miners, but then basicallythey demand energy more than the Bitcoin miners do, and they basically outbidthe Bitcoin miners for energy, and the Bitcoin miners just pack up and gosomewhere else. So I thought that was a very fascinating idea. Was that, um,original to you, or did you come across that elsewhere? Because to me that'slike, um, I think not enough people appreciate that idea that like Bitcoin, Imean, we all know that Bitcoin miners are the buyers of last resort, as I thinkyou said, but not only that, they're literally willing to pack up and leave ifthe community outbids them for energy.

Brandon Quittem (00:12:02):

Yeah, correct. I don't know,<laugh> so funny point, did I come up with that idea? Uh, the lines arevery blurry in Bitcoin. I find, um, I'll think about something, I'll readsomething on Twitter. My idea has changed. Six months later I write aboutsomething and then I realized five years earlier, uh, someone else alreadypublished on it. So I don't wanna take credit for any of these ideas. I justremix them, uh, to keep myself or to to be conservative. Let's just say I remixideas, um, with regards to the minors coming and going. Um, yeah, that's justsimple economics, right? In order to be profitable, they need the lowest costenergy. So you could call it wholesale energy costs, where a retail consumer tokeep my home, for example, I'll pay way more. And so obviously I can't outbidretail consumers. And the exact same thing happens in ecology, by the way, assoon as that Barron Rock turns into a mature ecosystem with trees and all theother organisms, the pioneer species itself can no longer compete in thatenvironment.

(00:13:02):

So they have to hopefully reproduce,send their seeds or spores somewhere else, and then go bootstrap a new Barronwasteland. And I, I see the same with the miners, right? So let's say you startout with new gen technology and you're on a, you can essentially afford arelatively high energy cost because you have the latest machines, and so youhave a high capital cost and they're hyper-efficient. So, uh, the newestmachines can mine at, at a higher energy cost, right? But let's say five yearsfrom now, those, uh, s 19 s are now, uh, older generation, so they'rerelatively inefficient compared to the new machines. They can no longer affordthat large energy glut, uh, or sorry, the high energy prices because they'rejust no longer efficient. So what you could do is you could retire those minerssomewhere else where the energy is essentially free.

(00:13:55):

And so that sort of defeats thee-waste narrative, right? You move those asics into a retirement home somewhereelse. Um, yeah, that's how I think about that. And y all you also mentionedfirst resort, last resort. Um, I see that as most people know last resort,right? If you have, if there's excess energy or stranded energy, then great.The miners just show up on site, they co-locate and they monetize any extraenergy. And embedded in that is the understanding that energy production mustmatch the consumption more or less so because energy doesn't travel well, it'sexpensive to move and inefficient to move, and it can't be stored becausebatteries are too expensive. And so that means the matching of production andconsumption always has to be more or less one-to-one. And because of that,there's always gonna be excess energy in the system because we have to plan forthe days where the highest peak demand is, or the time of day with peak demand.

(00:14:53):

So there's always gonna be a placefor last resort energy miners, uh, bitcoin miners. But then, and that's evenmore important with renewables, by the way, um, than the next, the thing that Ireally tried to hammer home here is the energy buyer of first resort, which isessentially before there's any downstream retail customers or industrycustomers, the miners go directly on site right before you build out the highvoltage transmission before the aluminum plant is built in before the cityreaches maturity, et cetera. Um, and that's sort of helping bootstrap the net newenergy assets. And it just does that by decreasing the cost of capital,decreasing the risk, decreasing the time to return on investment, et cetera.Um, and that's what the pioneer species does. And then yeah, spreads prosperitywherever it goes. Just like the organisms.

Logan Chipkin (00:15:43):

Yeah, exactly. So they're the buyersas buyers of first resort. They're basically, uh, what I like to think of as avoluntary subsidy of the entire energy industry. Um, and so not only do theyrender, potentially render renewable energies profitable that would've otherwisebeen unprofitable, but like we almost got into a science fiction realm, which Ithink you've also vaguely written about, where all sorts of energy sources tobegin with that people wouldn't have even conceived of are now suddenlyeconomically viable. So that's very cool. Um, I wonder if you can talk a littlebit about your analogy to the moose, moose and wolves on Island Isle Royale andhow that relates to Bitcoin mining. Cause I thought that was pretty, uh,amusing and informative.

Brandon Quittem (00:16:28):

<laugh>. Yeah, so Isle Royaleis an island in Lake Superior, uh, very close about three hours from where Ilive. And it's a famous ecology study because, um, I think it was about ahundred years ago, the Lake Superior froze. And so it created a land bridgefrom the continental US to this island. Spring came, land bridge disappears.And so you essentially have an isolated population of wolves and moose, andthat there's like smaller animals there. But essentially the wolves eat themoose, the moose eat the grass, and they try to run away from the wolves. Andso what's cool about that is you can track the population over time and startto learn about population ecology. And I, I tried to use this as an example toexplain the difficulty adjustment, which is a roundabout way of explainingdynamic equilibrium, right? The, anyways, let's explain it.

(00:17:22):

So the wolves are the miners and themoose are the prophets, okay? And just looking at it from an ecologystandpoint, if there's too many wolves and not enough moose, then the wolvesare gonna starve, right? Cuz they're going to eat all their food, or there'snot gonna be enough food to support the wolves. And if that happens, the wolfpopulation will plummet, put it, and they'll put less pressure on the moosepopulation, so then the moose population will rebound, right? So what does thatmean for Bitcoin miners? Um, if there's too many wolves, aka too many miners,which is more or less what's happening right now, there's not enough food forall the miners to eat. So what we're seeing is the weakest wolves die out,right? The least profitable miners shut off. And then what, what happens there?Okay, least profitable miners shut off. Now there's more food for the wellcapitalized miners, and then they go eat all the moose, they take all theprofits. Um, and that just is a dynamic equilibrium with the difficultyadjustment, uh, just rebalancing over time. Does that make sense?

Logan Chipkin (00:18:27):

Yeah, it definitely does. Uh, thanksfor that. Um, so beyond the moose and the wolves, uh, another ecologicalparallel you talk about is the two niches that Bitcoin miners satisfy. So Iwonder if you remember what exactly those are from your piece and how theyapply?

Brandon Quittem (00:18:48):

Yes. Uh, as I quickly control f thearticle <laugh>, uh, let's see. Oh, it's essentially, oh, okay. I'mpretty sure the answer is just first. Um, sorry. Minors are first resort orminors of last resort, right?

Logan Chipkin (00:19:06):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.

Brandon Quittem (00:19:09):

Yeah, I think that's the same as whatwe described earlier. Um, yeah, I, I'll, let me go off on this wolf thing onemore time. I have another idea to add here. Um, this is sort of related toproof of work and proof of stake or centralized systems versus decentralizedsystems or nature versus, uh, like engineering, man's engineering or somethinglike that. But essentially what happens if a wolf dies, or sorry, if a wolfcan't find a meal, what happens? It dies, right? There's no way to revive thewolf in, in nature, and that's a necessary process because the weakest wolvesget cold and the weakest wolfs die out. That leaves more food for the rest ofthe healthy population of wolves to survive, right? So if the wizard shows upand revives all the fallen wolves, so now all the wolves are immortal, theyjust essentially out, they eat all the food eventually leading to the wholeextinction of the species, right?

(00:20:10):

Does that make sense? So we need tohave individual wolves dying. They, they're getting squeezed out in order forthe whole population to survive. Uh, the same thing happens with restaurants.You need restaurants to take risks and go off and you need restaurants to diein order to keep the whole restaurant industry, uh, going. And the same exactthing happens with central bankers bailing out zombie companies, right? If wehave low interest rates, uh, essentially artificially keeping companies alive,then all we have all this bloat, all these zombie companies building up in thesystem, which is essentially just hiding risk and waiting for that extinctionmoment when the whole system collapses, which creates excessive damage. Whereasif we would've just cleared out the unhealthy companies over time by havinginterest rates fluctuate in the market rather being manipulated, um, then wewouldn't have that, that systemic risk. And so it's sort of like short-termpain to keep the whole system going long-term. And I just think that's a goodanalogy for proof of work versus proof of stake or, um, a free market versus aplanned economy.

Will Szamosszegi (00:21:18):

Yeah, definitely. Uh, it'sinteresting hearing you talk through a lot of these points and, uh, theenvironment that we're in today with the industry versus our last conversationbecause a lot of the things that you're mentioning are what we're seeing inreal time, uh, whether it be what's happening with FTX versus a lot of theseBitcoin miners or the, the wolves, so to say, not having enough profit or ormoose to go after in the marketplace. So the, the difficulty adjustment is oneof those things that I think makes Bitcoin mining, uh, so ingenious and, and,uh, really like the most true free market out there. Um, one piece that I wantto ask you about Brandon, that I don't think I've gotten to ask you about, uh,on any of our calls is what you mean when you talk about the term the greatspreading out that Bitcoin miners will drive. Uh, I think that this is aninteresting concept that you're the first person that I've heard speak aboutbefore. So I'll, I'll leave it open for you to address however, uh, you wannaaddress it.

Brandon Quittem (00:22:20):

Yeah, absolutely. So just to frame itup on my thinking here, um, I did all this analysis from an ecology standpoint.So small incentives of bitcoin mining, what are the, what are the implications?What can we forecast based on the fact that Bitcoin mining is now part of theenergy market and the incentives are quickly harnessing energy anywhere can bemonetized, existing energy assets are more economical and the cost of capitalfor net new energy assets has decreased. So essentially we're gonna have moreenergy in the future because, um, there's an incentive to do so, right? Andthen I start looking ahead 10 years, a hundred years, a thousand years at theend of the essay. And I just start to have fun here and I'll just list off afew predictions. One of 'em is the great spreading out. So the first one is Bitcoinmining leads to energy abundance.

(00:23:10):

So essentially zero marginal cost ofenergy. And the reason why this is gonna happen in my belief, is very similarto how demand for online streaming services drove investment into broadbandinfrastructure, right? So now that Bitcoin creates a demand for energy and efficientuse of energy, that's gonna drive more investment into energy infrastructure.And that flywheel over time will lead to an, a total increase of humans, uh,energy that humans harness at a very, very fast rate over the long term. So ifwe have more energy at a lower cost, we can now unlock all these newtechnologies that couldn't previously exist, right? We could, we could takesalt water, apply energy, get fresh water, right? That will solve lots ofproblems. And there's many other examples of this. We can colonize space, wecan maybe create molecular refineries. We can do, we can do all kinds of stuffwith cheap energy, essentially, um, eliminate po, eliminate poverty, whatever.

(00:24:11):

There's lots things. The nextprediction that I made is that the early adopters are gonna leapfrog thelaggard countries, right? So just like the early internet, the first countriesto mind Bitcoin will be re rewarded with that energy abundance and more wealthgenerally for their people. And same feedback, more energy is more wealth,because if you have cheap energy, you can build things, um, you can have cheapgoods locally, you don't have to rely on imports. Um, you can have, yeah,everything's cheaper. So you're more competitive globally if your energy costsis low. And one important point on that, the US compared to, let's say, uh,pick a random country in Africa, the US pays, or Africa countries pay like fivetimes as much for energy cost, right? So that forces them to import all theirgoods cuz they can't build anything with that high input.

(00:24:59):

Look at Germany right now, thehundred year old, 200 year old companies are going bankrupt because this momentin time, the economic conditions are, are so bad for them. Like how crazy isthat energy costs go up and all the manufacturing base in Europe is destroyed.That, that's horrible, horrible, horrible. Um, okay, so that's that one. Ithink countries like El Salvador for example, if they do this volcano bond,which has a lot of question marks around it, but let's just use that as anexample. Let's say they mine their volcanoes, which is a natural resourcethat's untapped, then all of a sudden they're gonna have more energy, they'regonna attract more investment and they're gonna have more prosperity comparedto let's say Costa Rica who doesn't do any mining, right? So over time,leapfrog, uh, the countries will leapfrog. Uh, if we look at Africa, which hasa ton of untapped energy, uh, geothermal, hydro, many other types, the medianage in Africa is like 19, 20 years in the US it's 38, right?

(00:26:00):

So if you start applying, um, earlyadopters in Bitcoin widespread and cheaper energy, we could see some majorshifting like bottom of the barrel countries are now all of a sudden mid-tier,which is pretty cool, um, for taking risks, for leaning in for innovation, allgood things. And then the final point to your actual question, <laugh>,sorry, I'm getting long-winded. The great spreading out. So setting contexthere, historically, um, humans built civilizations alongside rivers or oceans,right? Access to water is for transport, for energy, for food, uh, drinking,water defense, all those things are strategic. Um, and then in the industrial revolutionwe doubled down on this and we essentially put all the factories, also you wantrivers for factories. So then we urbanize and now we went from a farmingsociety to all of a sudden this industrial society people left the, the ruralareas for more opportunity in the cities.

(00:26:57):

And we've, since then, we've beenrapidly urbanizing since the industrial revolution. And we still are, by theway, globally, uh, less so in in the developed countries, but the, we have tonsof countries that are still developing and they're still rapidly urbanizing.Um, that's a trend raw. Now. However, I think bitcoin mining offers anincentive to start to shift that trend, uh, towards the great spreading out.And how do we do that? Well, there's all this untapped energy assets around theworld. Natural energy assets like geothermal or hydro. However, we can also putnuclear reactors pretty much anywhere. And the newest nuclear reactors, whichare still in prototype gen four, therefore like a couple hundred thousandpeople. So relative to the, the large scale reactors, that's tiny. So thinkBitcoin miner, uh, Bitcoiners buy, uh, Texas or some random country or randomplot of land for cheap.

(00:27:55):

When some country fails, we move in,throw a nuclear reactor down in this scrub land and Bitcoin miners are, arepart of the plan from day one, subsidizing that investment, um, reducing the energycosts of the local people. Now all of a sudden you have, um, Bitcoiners who areideologically motivated maybe for reasons like they don't want to follow thegreat reset narrative maybe cuz they wanna be in a more like gugul free markettype situation. And now all of a sudden you have these little startup cities,uh, or startup cities are all of a sudden now more, uh, feasible because energyand money is available, right? You combine that with remote work, uh, bitcoin,the asset being, uh, non sovereign. And you add all these things up togetherand you have this ability where humans can just, uh, pop a nuclear reactor downand just leave the city cuz we no longer need it for work.

(00:28:50):

Uh, we no longer need it forsocializing. We no longer need it for energy assets, et cetera. And I thinkthat that alone, I mean, number one, it se it scratches my itch of, hey, Idon't wanna live in the world economic forum, mega city, fully surveilled, youknow, eat your bugs and get free internet. I don't want that world<laugh>. So part of me is excited about that personally, but also I thinkthe incentives there, and it's good for humans as well because we're gonnaexperiment with governance and that's important, right? There's no new land,we're not really iterating on government or governance. And so I think creatingthese special economic zones, potentially future states is good for humans. Youcan call 'em citadels and I think that they have an important duty as well. Andthat duty is to preserve the, the spark of freedom.

(00:29:40):

Um, if we look, if we zoom way outfor a second, I see a period of the state, uh, losing control of this in, okay,we're in information age now. So the industrial age states, which rule theplanet today, they're starting to lose power on their populace or control overtheir territories, and they're starting to flail. And what happens when, um,you're backed into a corner, you get defensive. So I, I see states essentially,uh, grasping for more power through financial surveillance, through, uh,physical surveillance, cbd, cs, uh, cameras everywhere, uh, et cetera, etcetera, et cetera. And that is a really shitty world that I don't want anythingto do with. And so I see these startup cities as preserving freedom in a way,and I don't wanna say freedom in like the beat my chest America way. Uh, Ithink freedom's actually really practical.

(00:30:34):

And the reason is, and I'm borrowinghere from Matt Ridley, he had a recent book on innovation and he studied allthe countries around the world and he found that the countries that performedthe best actually were the most free. So measuring freedom of speech, how easyit is to start a business, um, can you, uh, speak bad about your government,things like that. So more freedom led to more innovation, shocking and moreinnovation led to more prosperity. Um, so innovation is the child of freedomand the parent of prosperity. And I would say that bitcoin and bitcoin miningand the startup city ideas, great spread out ideas, um, is actually a precursorto freedom. So Bitcoin enables freedom, which enables innovation, which enablesprosperity, right? So it's at like, sort of the bottom of the human prosperitystack is Bitcoin. And so yeah, that's just me playing around with incentivesand seeing where we go.

Logan Chipkin (00:31:30):

Yeah, Brandon, um, I think it's a,it's a very, very interesting thought experiment if only, um, because it's,frankly, it's realistically we can, we can see, see that soon. So before I kindof follow up on that, uh, first of all, I don't know what you're talking about,about not wanting to live under Klaus Schwab's utopia. I, for one, I'm lookingforward to living in a cardboard box where I don't own anything and he justfeeds me bugs and I can hang out and not think about anything. So, you know, wecan disagree there, but that's fine. Now regarding, cuz I agree with youactually in all seriousness, that, um, basically instead of, uh, aggregatingaround let's say rivers and those sorts of energy sources and founding newcivilizations and new societies around there, they'll be centered around anyreally enter any type of energy source wherever Bitcoin mining can go.

(00:32:19):

Um, and that in turn kind of has Iideological implications as you were saying. So do you think as, um, as Bitcoincatches, like it's, in other words, it's hard to get away from the ideologicalimplications of a world in which Bitcoin is the global reserve asset and it'staken for granted that Bitcoin mining is good for, for energy. I mean we're,we're basically saying in no small part, thanks to people like Daniel Batten,the anti-energy, uh, arguments against Bitcoin are just falling by the wayside,like almost literally as we speak. So do you see the Overton window on thingslike freedom and politics and these sort of things? Do you see that Overtonwindow shifting as we go into this world in which there's the great spreadingout and we have a, uh, Bitcoin Global Reserve asset standard?

Brandon Quittem (00:33:06):

Um, good question. I think the shortanswer is not anytime soon. Um, I think we're still in an increasingcentralization period. Uh, maybe we've already hit the full chrome, we'restarting to shift towards, uh, decentralization or whatever. But I think fornow, uh, it's gonna take a long time for the global population to get a littlecultural update here. Um, if we look around like Bitcoiners figured out thatbitcoin's good for energy like two years ago, right? And most Bitcoiners, if welook at total wallets, most people probably still don't know that. And so Ithink we should be realistic in how slow it's, it's gonna be, right? Um, very,very, very smart people who are pro climate and they claim to study this stuff,they still don't get it right. And so <laugh> they, and they should beable to understand this stuff. So I would say we should be cautious.

(00:34:01):

It'll take a while. Um, the state istrying to brand, at least in the West, is trying to brand freedom as, uh, likesome weird alt-right conspiracy free speeches, an AltRight conspiracy. Um, thisis crazy. This is absolutely nuts. And I think what we need to see is humansindividually realizing that it is not a left versus right red versus blue fighthere. Um, this is about centralized control or the borzi or the elites orwhatever we want to call that class versus normal people. And I think that isthe fight that we should be focused on rather than, um, you know, just tribalwarfare across cross party lines. And if we, if we use that framing, then allof a sudden free speech matters for both sides. And I, I don't know, like if welook around the world, China's a super state, uh, who can effectively pushtyranny on 1.5 billion people for a very low cost.

(00:35:00):

And I think as individuals we shouldbe looking at ways to increase the cost of tyranny. That's free speech, that's,uh, bitcoin, that's, um, you know, pi picking the fights that we can win and,and, and trying to, uh, defend our territory essentially. Or as Satoshi said,uh, Bitcoin's an advance, I forgot it's exact quote, but essentially it's likea temporary win in the arms race against the state's tyranny. And I thinkthat's the right framing. And what do I think it's gonna be changing theOverton window? Um, I think that that changes. I, or you could say people wakeup change Overton window, whatever, I think that happens through pain. And so Ithink the, the worse the economic conditions get, the more people payattention, the higher energy bills go up, the more people start to realizethat, uh, energy policy matters. And we can't do this on wind and solar. And soI, I still forecast, uh, a period of it getting worse before it gets better.Um, I think the Bitcoin community lives in the future, and so it's easy for usto look around and say, oh, <laugh>, everything's changing. But no, it'sjust a tiny percentage of, uh, of Bitcoiners who I would say who are seeingthis stuff. Um, yeah, that's kind of my rambly thoughts there. I don't know ifyou have any other comments.

Logan Chipkin (00:36:15):

No, it's interesting. I mean, um, youremind me how, you know, people often talk these days about how be carefulabout getting in your echo chamber. I'm probably in, not quite in a bitcoinecho chamber, but the people I talked to about Bitcoin, you know, were mostlyon the same page. So you definitely might beri like, you know, I was home forThanksgiving and <laugh> people were like, oh, Bitcoin's a Ponzi scheme,whatever. I'm like, okay, I'm not gonna get into it. So, you know, fair point.On the other hand, what I will say is if I think if you ask most people who areinto Bitcoin in 2012, if you ask them what the state of the Bitcoin ecosystemwould be by 2022, I think they'd all be blown away at how much progress hasalready been made. So, you know, there is a case to be made that the next 10years we could see some wild progress, which is a good thing.

(00:37:01):

And frankly, I think one thingBitcoiners really have going for them is, uh, we very much recognize that it'snot going to happen, uh, without us, like, it's not gonna happen on its own.Like we have to be proactive, we have to be pushing for it. We have to bebuilding technologically having conversations, you know, jockeying,politically, all that stuff. And I think Bitcoiners are extremely motivated,probably more than other kind of ideological factions, at least in the West,you know, I'm talking about the West. So, um, I think it's not a given thatwe're, we think that far into the future, but you know, your point is welltaken.

Brandon Quittem (00:37:36):

Yeah, and I think, uh, on your pointthere, I agree by 2030, that's the date that I have in my head. I think we'llknow Bitcoin's fate at that point. Um, I think in that time period we're gonnago through the entire, uh, end of this debt, long-term debt cycle. The majorityof countries are gonna attempt to CBD c whether it's like full totalitarianChina style or some like, uh, Western liberal version where it's like apublic-private partnership, whatever it is. I think the state is going to dothat. I think it hopefully will fail. And Bitcoin is the victor. Uh, my pintweets actually, uh, an essay in a very long Twitter thread kind of playingthat fight out through long cycles of history. And your other point about wehave to fight for this, it's not just gonna happen. I completely agree. Um, Ithink I view Bitcoin more as a idea or a political stance or a, um, yeah,something like that where we, we do need to adopt this thing. And I thinkluckily the context for Bitcoin to emerge is ripe for the idea of Bitcoin tosucceed. Um, you know, nothing's more powerful than an idea whose time hascome, whatever that line is. I think that's absolutely true. And so yeah,<laugh>, it's time to, time to work, time to build.

Logan Chipkin (00:38:54):

Yes. I'm pretty sure that's a RonPaul quote by the way. I don't know if you knew that.

Brandon Quittem (00:38:59):

Oh, I think it's, uh, from the forVendetta.

Logan Chipkin (00:39:02):

Oh. Oh, no way. Oh, my bad. Then Ithought Ron Paul said it, and maybe he also did. I

Brandon Quittem (00:39:06):

Don't know. Oh, he definitely did

Logan Chipkin (00:39:08):

<laugh>. Okay. Okay. I I'm nota big movie guy. Anyway, um, on that rather embarrassing note, um, I wanna

Brandon Quittem (00:39:14):

Say that it was a book, by the way,<laugh> <laugh> just to embarrass you further.

Logan Chipkin (00:39:19):

Nice. You got me. Um, I didn'trealize that. So, um, yeah, uh, if anyone in the audience has questions forBrandon, uh, feel free to raise your hand and, uh, we'll definitely take yourquestions. And before, uh, we go to the q and a, I just wanna say that SaaSminings, uh, bitcoin mining facility is already almost at capacity and we arebypassing our waiting list for the holidays so that if you go to our website, youcan purchase your mining rig directly and we're energizing our, uh, renewablehydro powered facility in mid-December. So time is running out, uh, it's thebest time to get started given that it's a bear market, and as we know,eventually the bear market will end and Bitcoin's price will go up. Um, so withthat, uh, yeah, if anyone has questions, feel free to raise your hand. Um, ifnot, I do have a another question of my own, kind of going back to talkingabout energy.

(00:40:09):

I know we wax a little philosophicalthere for a moment. Um, you mentioned something in your piece that, uh, I'vebeen kind of diving into recently, and I, I noticed a lot of people conflatethe two, which is, um, energy and electricity. And it seems like, uh, like I'veseen some debates between, um, kind of Bitcoiners and all sorts of, you know,the usual like Alex Epstein crowd and all these different people who havedifferent views on fossil fuels and this sort of thing. So why do you thinkit's so important for people who are passionate about the importance of Bitcoinmining as we've been talking about, to really get this right, that energy andelectricity are not the same thing?

Brandon Quittem (00:40:45):

Yes, totally. Um, I'd love to takethis, I just Googled it. Victor Hugo wrote the, what the quote originally, uh,French poet novelist, just to tie that off. Thanks. Um, energy and electricity.Okay, yeah, you, like you said, they're usually or often used interchangeablyby the naive. Um, but let's, let's try to break it down. So electricity is asubset of energy. It's a type of ener, it's a form of energy, but not allenergy is electricity, right? So energy can be mechanical, it can be heat, itcan be nuclear, et cetera. And those forms of energy are a little bit harder toharness or to actually use. And like, for example, what good is the sun'senergy if you don't have solar panels or you're not a plant, right? So whatelectricity is, is it's just a highly distilled, dense, fungible form ofenergy, and it, it's just electrons running over a wire.

(00:41:39):

Um, but because it's dense, distilledand fungible, it's really good for our grid. And so I think that's just onething to untangle. And then relating to Bitcoin, um, a lot of fud comes frompeople saying like, Bitcoin emits co2. Okay? Um, and my kind of point here isthat consuming electricity itself doesn't necessarily produce, uh, additionalco2. Um, that electricity was generated from any number of sources, which mayor may not have produced CO2 a lot or a little. And so it, it's just aconflation that is weaponized against Bitcoin that is very irritating. Um, doesthat answer it?

Logan Chipkin (00:42:25):

Yes, definitely. I think, um, yeah, abig point is that, uh, electricity consumption does not necessarily imply, uh,CO2 emissions. Um, it reminds me of a point that I've been making a lot andthat we at SA mining have been making a lot too, which is related but not quitethe same, which is even just because you consume um, energy doesn't mean eventhere's a net cost next, uh, external net externality cost to the environment.Um, again, bingo. Yeah, exactly.

Brandon Quittem (00:42:52):

Yeah. For example, waste energy,right? Or excess, exactly. Excess energy, which is guaranteed on any grid thatwaste energy already was produced at the source through whatever form ofenergy. Now it's on the grid, right? And either that energy is completelywasted, like literally shoot electrons into the ground, <laugh> or shootelectrons into a minor, right? But regardless, whatever environmental impact,whatever cost, whatever CO2 that had already occurred, whether Bitcoin minerspurchased it or not.

Logan Chipkin (00:43:24):

Yes. And I think I even saw someenvironmentalist group, I don't wanna say which one in case I got it wrong, butthey were responding to someone making that point and they were like, yeah, butit's still being created. It's like, what? So you're just anti-human now. Soyou would only be happy if humans didn't consume any energy at all. The logicalconclusion of which is just mass human extinction. But then you're left with, butthen you're okay. But then to those people, I would say, okay, they would alsoconcede that eventually the sun will explode and cause mass extinction onEarth. So, but if they care about preserving the biosphere, then surely theyhave to overcome that problem. And the only people capable of overcoming thatproblem, of course, in the long run is people, cuz only people can create thetechnology required to preserve the biosphere in the first place. So what arethey talking about?

Brandon Quittem (00:44:11):

Bingo. I think you just nailed areally, really, really deep truth that's sort of behind a lot of the ideologywe see today, which is the, the workings of Thomas Malas. So an economistseveral hundred years ago came up, he, he essentially observed nature. This isactually a nice fitting thing cause it's population ecology. He observedpopulations, let's say a population of elk in Wyoming. They run around and thepopulation grows and grows and grows until the population exceeds the caringcapacity of the environment. So they eat all the food and then the whole populationdies. Malus charts human population on a graph, and he starts to see it tickingup exponentially. And he goes, well, shit, if we keep growing, humans are gonnaconsume all the resources and we're all gonna go extinct. So we better controlthe population, right? A seductive idea makes sense if you realize that.

(00:45:06):

Or if you think that there's no suchthing as technology. However, what happened? Humans invented new ways toharness energy. We got more productive at producing food, uh, et cetera, etcetera, et cetera. So what do humans do? We actually increase the carryingcapacity of our species by altering our environment primarily throughharnessing more energy and using new technology and that Malthusian idea. Uh,and by the way, people like Bill Gates, world Economic Forum, tons of leaders,economists, like very, very, very influential people around the world, uh, theNazis, many others, they're all heavily influenced by malus. And they, theyseem to believe that he's right, even though evidence indicates that we usetechnology to get us out of our mess. And so I would just be, uh, be on thelookout for that type of, i ideology seeping into arguments. And it's verycommon in the environmental green people, whether they know it or not.

(00:46:02):

It's very common in any centralplanner types, imf, world Bank, um, et cetera. They, in my perspective, theymore or less view normal people as dumb sheep, and they're smart and powerful.So it's actually moral for them to make decisions that impact everyone becauseit's, uh, for the betterment of our species, right? I think that's very, very,very dangerous ideology. And there's actually, uh, an issue, a problem with itas well. So their entire logic is wrong because technology exists, number one,they're so, and central planning generally to solve the problem also isfundamentally flawed because central planning is not possible. Uh, theenvironment is too complex, the economy is too complex for old white guys tosit in the room and slurp up data and try to model it and try to makedecisions. But the reality is culture, economic society, these are complexadaptive systems. A tiny little change has outsized impacts. It's notpredictable. So I think, I think, uh, Hyatt called this the fatal conceit, butessentially central prototypes are wrong. Uh, they're doubly wrong for thosetwo reasons.

Logan Chipkin (00:47:09):

Uh, yes, two things. One, uh, youkeep bashing my best friends at the World Economic Forum. Uh, it's veryoffensive, but I'll let it slide. But more seriously. Yeah. So Hayek wrote alot about this, right? He, and he also talked about the local knowledgeproblem, basically, that it's literally impossible for a central planner toknow how to solve other people's problems. Um, I think it's not an accidentthat a lot of, of these, um, let's say anti-human and people who basically wantto control everyone's lives and wanna diminish our energy consumption, it's notan accident that they're always catastrophizing. Um, but I think the key isthat they, they make a logical error when they say, when they catastrophe. Sothey say, um, there's a catastrophe on the horizon and therefore you need tolet us centrally plan our lives. But to your point, the therefore doesn'tfollow. If anything, it's the opposite. It's like, oh, there's a really badproblem that's on the horizon. Oh, therefore let's allow entrepreneurs to be asfree as possible so they can solve the problem. And as, uh, multifaceted waysand diverse ways as possible.

Brandon Quittem (00:48:08):

A hundred percent. And the tendencyof centralized orgs when they're threatened is to centralize further, right?Nine 11 happens this weird, uh, well, let's just say the official narrative'strue <laugh>, let's not open that door. Um, planes bomb the World TradeCenter, oh my God, it's tack on America. What do we do? We create all these newregulations and rules. We decide it's now justified to spy on every individualever. We create the TSA whose express mission is to stop terrorism. Uh,nevermind. 21 years later, not a single terrorist has been stopped by, uh, tsaand we all get pat, get our junk patted down walking through the airport. Um,and so yes, centralized orgs get more centralized and their justifications arenonsense. The scary part about this is if the state can raise the, raise analarm for a state of emergency and then seize power steel liberties in responseto that, uh, temporary quote unquote emergency, that's really bad incentives.Cuz now the state can create problems, or as you said, catastrophize problemsmake the problem sound worse in order to seize more power, which, uh, theamorphous state, that's the incentive. That's the interest of the state, notnecessarily individuals, but the state as an idea entity, whatever, um, its jobis to grow just like a company is or just like whatever. That's the incentive.So very, very, very scary at this time.

Logan Chipkin (00:49:36):

Yes. But, and this kind of brings itback to Bitcoin and the ideological shift that Bitcoin can cause. It might not,but it can is again, the fact that cuz I think most people, when there is anemergency, they, they do give the government more allowance. They say, okay,fine, it's an emergency TSA after 2011, whatever. Um, you know, you can go downthe list. But the thing is, if people just, let's say new economics more, andwere like, oh, well actually the government literally cannot possibly solvethis problem. So given that it's an emergency, the government should shrinkthen I think the government e either would at least not grow, but it mightactually shrink during times of emergency. And that's something like, in otherwords, I, I wrote an article about this once, but basically Bitcoin raises thereturns on good ideas and raises the cost of imposing bad ideas.

(00:50:25):

And fiat is the reverse. Fiat allowsyou to, I saw someone, I forget who, someone tweeted something really, um,really nice today. I forget who it was, I apologize, but ba oh, it was, uh,yeah, whatever He was saying how fiat currency degrades language and it wasJimmy Song, fiat currency degrades language. And that like apologies mean lesson a fiat standard than they would on a hard money standard. And at first itkind of sounds like ridiculous and contrived, but then you think about it andyou go back and you read like what the founding fathers were writing. Not thatthey were on an infinitely hard standard money standard like Bitcoin, but stillwhatever. It was better than what we have now and just the beautiful writing ofthroughout the 18 hundreds. And now you have like, and I'm a fan of rap, butcome on, modern rap is nonsense. And it's like fiat has these culturalideological effects, I should say. The kind of money that we employ has verysignificant cultural and ideological effects. And so Bitcoin will bring, willbring back a, a, a strong moral culture of sound minds that will think criticallyrather than just, uh, let the government do whatever it wants.

Brandon Quittem (00:51:30):

Yeah, I think there's, I I generallyagree with what you said. Um, I don't know if we'll ever see a state where theaverage person, uh, has come to the conclusion that em emergencies equal lessgovernment. I think unfortunately our evolutionary biology is gonna be toostrong here, where number one, people don't have time to come to thatconclusion. It's probably 0.1% of the world knows that today, maybe less. Um, Idon't see it going up much more to that, to be honest. Um, and then the otherthing is, I don't know if a, I don't know if we can ever achieve that in aindustrialized nation state world where there's a couple hundred countries andthey're enormous and they're hypersexualized.

Kent Halliburton (00:52:14):

Yeah. Yeah. I think Bitcoin, cananybody die?

Brandon Quittem (00:52:20):

You wanna go on mute there, dude? Allright, cool. Um, I think the only way we achieve that sort of symmetry with thestate is if, yes, Bitcoin is heavily adopted, which will by design or bynecessity, shrink the size of the state, uh, eliminate or reduce centralbanking, bring economic reality in alignment with, uh, ac actual reality, um,then I can start to see that stuff culturally shift. But I view more like we'llfracture from, we'll go from 200 countries or 300 whatever, two 80 to 2000 to20,000, and if we break into that, then we'll have, um, yeah, more symmetry andpower between state and, um, populace, right? More like treating us likecustomers rather than like cattle. And also you can have more evolved forms ofgovernance that reflect the local will. So maybe there's an Austrian Bitcoinbeef, <laugh>, you know, oil state or whatever, and the people there mayhave that ideology that, uh, bigger problems equal smaller or yeah, moreproblems, smaller government. But I, I wish I was as optimistic as you on thelong term were on, on any large scale.

Logan Chipkin (00:53:32):

Yeah. Well, I guess, uh, time willtell and, uh, I see you have a question.

Kent Halliburton (00:53:42):

Yes,

Logan Chipkin (00:53:44):

Go for it.

Kent Halliburton (00:53:46):

Yeah, my question is that I boughtBitcoin with on 2019, so my wallet was hacked. Someone one hacked my wallet andI don't have anything right now.

Logan Chipkin (00:54:09):

I'm sorry to hear your wallet washacked. Um, I'm not sure. Do you have a, I'm not sure what your question is,sorry. All right. Well, um, that never happened before, but first time foreverything. Uh, does anyone else have a question for Brandon before we go? Weonly have a few minutes left. I see. We now,

Brandon Quittem (00:54:40):

Oh, what's up, Dustin? Blast from thepast. How you doing, man?

Logan Chipkin (00:54:50):

All right, well, if there are noquestions, Brandon, I wonder if you could tell us, and if you can't, that'sperfectly understandable. But I see, uh, I'm very impressed with what, uh, SwanBitcoin's been doing, uh, over the last year. It's very cool. Um, what do youguys have that's coming down the pipe in 2023 that you're allowed to discuss?Or, and or what are you working on regarding Bitcoin that you're allowed todiscuss?

Brandon Quittem (00:55:10):

Yeah, let's see. So yeah, I work atSwan, as we mentioned, at the top of the hour, uh, Bitcoin only exchange andbrokerage. Uh, we just sell Bitcoin lots of different ways. You can be a retailclient, you know, making small purchases, or you can be a high net worth individualwith a one-on-one rep at Swan, kinda like Morgan Stanley private clientservices. Um, you can buy Bitcoin through a retirement account. You can, uh,buy Bitcoin as a treasury asset for a business or give Bitcoin to youremployees as a fringe benefit, right? So just all these different wrapped waysto get Bitcoin in your hands. Um, what do we have coming up? I think what we're<laugh> what we're trying to do from my perspective is simplify a littlebit. We have a ton of products in a lot of different directions, and I wouldlike to see us focus a tiny bit more and refine products rather than launch newproducts.

(00:56:00):

Um, that's always a tensioninternally. Um, I think the, the most exciting thing in my mind right now isPacific Bitcoin. So we ran a conference in Los Angeles in November, which wasthe first time we did that this last year. There's about 1200 people there, um,generally speaking in big success, and we're gonna run that back again, uh, inthe fall again in Los Angeles year. So that's a big topic. Um, I would say, youknow, to brag a little bit, most people are, uh, cutting their staff, reducingexpenses, making hard decisions, like supporting Chico and Swan is still hiringand economically or financially healthy. And so I think Swan's going to gobbleup an enormous amount of market share during the spare market, and we're gonnabuild systems to grow like crazy, uh, once the price brings us back into alittle more bullish sentiment.

(00:56:56):

Um, personally, I'm writing an essayright now about, uh, exploring decentralized orgs, um, and how that relates toBitcoin. So specifically the Apache, which is a Native American, uh, tribe inthe Southwest, uh, I guess it's a name for loose tribes that share a lot ofsimilarities, but essentially it's a decentralized, uh, tribe, kind of like theDothraki or like the, uh, the, what's it called anyways, they're like horsepeople who follow the buffalo around and there's no rigid hierarchy. Theyessentially follow whoever they want. You can come and go into littlesubgroups. And what's interesting about them is, uh, Cortez, right Spanish, uh,came into modern day Mexico. He walks straight into 10 Oche Tek, which is ismodern in Mexico City. And he went to Montezuma, the leader and said, Hey dude,gimme all your gold. And he had like 200 men or something, and the, the leaderof this centralized hierarchy gave the keys to the castle over to theconqueror.

(00:57:58):

They took all the gold and then, andthen, uh, the conqueror killed everyone in the city took all the gold and justmore or less dominated the culture, right? So that's the example of acentralized hierarchy that had pyramids in great temples. They've been aroundfor 1500 years, but vulnerable by cutting the head off the leader. Then Cortezwent north into modern day Mexico. Found the Apache, killed the Apache leader,and turned around and went home, thought he was a genius. But what happened,the Apache split into two and then they went and killed those two leaders. Nowthere's four groups and the Apache were this hit and run gorilla group thatdidn't have rigid hierarchy and structure. And so every time you attack adecentralized org like the Apache, they become more decentralized, right? Youcould call anti-fragile. And it took about 50 years of Cortez and the Spanishfailing, and then 200 years of the Mexicans, them trying to take out the Apachecouldn't do it.

(00:58:55):

Then the Americans are moving westthrough manifest destiny. It took them a hundred years. They couldn't stop theApache. And ultimately the downfall of the Apache was giving them a bunch ofwealth. So essentially, Hey, here's a hundred head of cattle or a hundredhorses and you know, figure out how to distribute this amongst your people. Andthen the Apache made a mistake where, which was, they took all this wealth,they formed a committee, and then they, they decided who gets what. And thatwealth introduced in the system, essentially corrupted 'em from the inside.They broke from the Apache protocol and that was the downfall. And so I'm, I'mlaying that over a Bitcoin world and saying, okay, we're at a centralized org.You can't cut the leaders' head off and win, but how do you attack anessentialized org? And it's through changing ideology. It's through subversion,it's through corrupting the values, it's through wealth, things like that. Andso, yeah, that's kind of what I'm thinking about in my own free time.

Logan Chipkin (00:59:53):

Wow. Well that's, uh, certainly aproductive way to spend your free time. I'm a little bit jealous, but I'mdefinitely excited to read that essay. That'll be fun. Uh, so this thankseveryone for joining our weekly Twitter spaces. Uh, we'll have another one nextweek with Jason Meyer, who, uh, recently finished a manuscript for a book aboutbasically, um, the Bitcoin case for, uh, progressives and left-wingers. Sothat'll be very interesting. Uh, Brandon, thank you very much for joining us.Uh, we really appreciate it.

Brandon Quittem (01:00:20):

Yeah, thanks for having me, guys.Super fun.

Logan Chipkin (01:00:23):

Very fun. Take care everyone. Talk toyou later. Bye.

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