All Episodes
Previous Next
Aug. 23, 2023 - Health Ranger - Mike Adams
57:44
Episode 10 - Aug 21, 2023 - Eric Poliner with MI Lightning Rod for point-of-sale crypto integration
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
Music. Music. Music. Music. Music. Music. Music. Music. Music. Music.
Thank you.
Alright, welcome to today's episode of Decentralize.TV. I'm Mike Adams, the founder of Brighteon.com, a free speech video network.
And with our new show, Decentralize.TV, of course, we're talking about real-world applications of cryptocurrency technology so that you can have more control over your life, your money, your finances, and, well, many other things.
And so we're all about practical applications.
Now, I'm joined today by my co-host Todd Pitner.
He'll be jumping in in just a second.
And our special guest today, who is Eric Polliner.
He's the head of vision and strategy for an interesting company that we're going to learn about today called MI Lightning Rod, or at least that's their project name.
That's the website also, milightningrod.com.
And this is a technology, as I understand it, that enables faster, more rapid transactions on top of the Bitcoin network To help make Bitcoin more applicable to, let's say, point-of-sale transactions, which currently Bitcoin itself is kind of slow at achieving.
So, welcome, gentlemen, to the show.
It's great to have you all on.
Hi, Todd, and hello, Eric.
Hola, hola.
Hello.
It's great to be here.
Thank you.
Okay.
Yeah.
Welcome.
Yeah.
You're all coming in loud and clear.
So yeah.
Welcome, Eric.
It's great to have you on.
And as I said, we're all interested in real world applications.
This is not a show about speculation on FOMO and FUD and Bitcoin prices.
We really don't care about that.
We care about how people use it.
So go ahead and give us a briefing, if you would, about your project and how it makes Bitcoin more useful.
Sure.
Yeah, so Bitcoin was the first cryptocurrency and it was revolutionary and has brought a lot of new techniques out into the world.
But it did have some limitations.
So people recognize that.
And the Lightning Network is a second layer that was built on top of Bitcoin over the last five years.
And that inspired a lot of us out So we're really focused on bridging the gap between the digital side and the actual real commerce side.
So that's what inspired it.
So the users of your tech, are they merchants?
Are they brick-and-mortar retailers or online or all of the above?
So both.
What we're really doing is we're taking different open-source technologies.
So we're taking Lightning, and we're taking a payment gateway that someone can run called BTC Pay Server, and we're bringing it into an open-source business software called Odoo.
Which allows point of sale or e-commerce with traditional payments and we're bringing cryptocurrency into that.
Our company uses Odoo, by the way.
Awesome.
Yeah, and in fact, my team was debugging something in Odoo this morning.
They were like, you have to write code or, I don't know, some kind of process.
But the Lightning Network, and Todd, you can jump in at any time, by the way.
Do you want to jump in right now?
I will say that I came prepared for this interview.
Do you have a list of questions?
No, with a pen and paper.
I'm going to be in note-taking mode, but I'm really interested in...
So this is the foundation of MI Lightning Rod is you are trying to bridge the Lightning Network, right, that came after Bitcoin.
To be able to try to make transactions faster, as I understand it, right?
And cut down on the transaction speed, the cost to be able to send transactions.
And you are then making a gateway from the Lightning Network because it's a layer, right?
On top of Bitcoin.
That's what you're integrating into POS retail.
Do I get that right?
Yeah, you're correct on the overall stack.
We focus on just bringing existing technologies together.
So we didn't develop Lightning, we didn't develop that Odoo software for BTC Pay Server, but we're allowing it all to talk to each other.
So you're an aggregator of all of them and you add your value by being, you can speak fluent in all of them, yeah?
Yeah.
I think so.
BTC Pay, by the way, that's one of the tools that our devs are currently looking at right now because it also supports Monero.
Yeah.
But let me ask you about Lightning Network because, Eric, and honestly, I think both Todd and myself, we don't really know that much about the Lightning Network except that I've heard, the rumor is that not much of the Bitcoin traffic is yet using it.
Is that true or is that changing or is my perception wrong on that?
I think there's a very large amount of transactions actually occurring on Lightning.
Okay.
That's part of the reason why the fees on the Bitcoin network have been pretty manageable lately.
Lightning is a very decentralized technology as well, so we can't actually get a measurement of the total amount of transactions going through it, but it does seem very active.
I'm actually speaking to you from the power of Lightning Summit.
Oh, wow.
So all the builders in America, well, a lot of the builders in America are here in Nashville, Tennessee, trying to push the edges of Lightning.
We want to learn about, then, like who, what is necessary for a merchant to use this?
You know, what do they need to do?
Let's say a point-of-sale merchant.
Do they set up?
Absolutely.
Go ahead.
Yeah, go ahead.
So there is a tech stack, as we kind of mentioned.
We can accept Lightning or on-chain with the acceptance of Lightning that does add an extra layer.
But let's kind of work backwards from what the merchant's interacting with back to the Bitcoin network.
So the merchant is going to be running Odoo, as we kind of mentioned, as the business software that's going to provide the graphical user interface And it's also going to provide the database that stores information locally for them and kind of the logic layer.
So what we've done is connected Odoo to BTC Pay server.
So they would have to have BTC Pay server either running on the computer that they're using or remotely.
If they are running Lightning, then they would also need a Lightning node to be accepting the payment through BTC Pay Server.
If they want to accept just on-chain, they can do that with basically their Bitcoin address.
Okay, but all these things can be running on one system right there at the point of sale, correct?
That is our vision and goal is to make every merchant a node and to give them true worldwide financial sovereignty.
What's most appealing to merchants at this point is to run it off a cloud.
I understand.
Yeah, and a lot of point-of-sale systems are not computationally very capable, let's say.
But yeah, perhaps that will change over time.
So then what are the advantages to the merchant in all of this?
So Lightning has very low fees, and the fees are paid by the person sending the transaction.
So, in terms of electronic payments, they are eliminating that credit card fee.
There's a general financial sovereignty aspect.
So, depending on how the business operates, if they're having issues getting access to banking services, this could be very attractive to them as well.
And if they're just supportive of the technology and they want to be an early adopter, we think that this is the most accessible way that gives them the full business functions.
So cannabis, for example, right?
The cannabis industry has had a lot of difficulty accessing traditional banking.
Are you seeing a lot of interest, perhaps?
Because cannabis has been legalized in, it seems like, half the country at this point, if not more.
But they still have trouble getting banking.
We are interested in that.
In the cannabis industry, if they're operating in the regulated market, they have an additional seed to sale database that they're working with.
As part of their state-like regulations.
So we would need an integration for that, but that's something that we'd like to do eventually.
Okay.
So then who are your maybe areas of top interest right now?
We're most interested in restaurants because we'd like to facilitate the social aspect.
Of bringing Bitcoiners or other cryptocurrency or decentralized living enthusiasts together in a location where they can have a meal or share drinks and kind of practice what they're thinking about and want to see happen in the world.
I love the fact that you just used the phrase decentralized living.
What do you think, Tom?
I love it.
Isn't that great?
I gave him a plus on that.
Yeah, you're getting some love over here.
We're all about the same thing.
So, Todd, what are you thinking or what questions you have so far?
My question is, for my day job, I had a partnership development for a company and I know ultimately You can have the technology, you can have the great ideas, but ultimately to be able to get widespread adoption, you need to be able to have some feet on the street, some people that are going out there and selling it.
So how do you, in a decentralized community such as Bitcoin, how do you go about that to be able to get the focus, once you have the tech, of being able to go out there and how would you incent people like that to do that?
I'm just thinking about that last mile.
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah, good question.
Go ahead, Eric.
That's definitely a challenge.
We are following the models of open source technology.
So our modules are available on GitHub.
So anyone that wants to experiment with it can go and do so.
We're also participating in meetups and summits and trying to connect with the actual interested people that are out there doing things and trying to connect with each other and just letting them know our approach.
There's other approaches out there as well.
It's been great to meet my competitors, if you will, and share ideas and talk about Where we're specifically trying to apply our approaches.
So you talked about restaurants.
I apologize, I don't know the status of the project, but are there restaurants that are using this right now?
That's our next step.
We're a fairly new project.
Basically started at the beginning of the year.
Got our software operational In April and May.
Started building the team in May.
And so we're looking for our initial beta testing locations.
Oh, okay.
Wow.
So what if there are people watching this show that want to do this with you?
Maybe the restaurant owners.
What's the best way for them to reach you?
They can go to our website and fill out a contact form.
Or they can email me at info at milightningrod.com.
And if they want, they can also find in the contact section a way to schedule a meeting with me if they just want to have an initial discussion and find out if we would have the right approach for them.
So, okay, that's great.
And the website, folks, again, is milightningrod.com.
Now, so as a restaurant owner, you're going to save the merchant fee, the credit card fee, which is often 3% or 4% typically it can be.
So that's a big deal for a restaurant.
Often their profit margins are within that number, actually.
So that's a very big deal.
But secondly, imagine if you're a restaurant owner and you announce this, like, we're going to accept Bitcoin.
You're going to get so many Bitcoiners coming in to eat at your restaurant just to demonstrate the technology, right?
Isn't that part of the attraction?
That's a big thing that we want to offer is...
What we call niche marketing.
So as we are very active in the grassroots of this field, we would let the Bitcoiners know And get you on the actual maps that exist, like BTC map.
And we would do everything to promote the restaurants and bring in the consumers to them.
What has the reaction to your project been in the Bitcoin community so far?
Because it's a very large community.
I know a lot of competing voices and so on.
What are you getting so far?
It's been all positive so far.
Good.
BTC Pay has a lot of fans out there.
A lot of people use it.
There's a lot of consideration in how do we onboard merchants and what sort of system is going to work best for them.
That's really how the project started was I was at the meetups and we wanted to have, you know, use this cryptocurrency at the locations that we're going to.
And the businesses had a couple reasons why they didn't want to.
They wanted an integrated system that could accept traditional payments alongside the cryptocurrency payments.
So that's really what we're trying to address.
Hey, Eric.
Yeah.
Part of your roadmap.
Do you envision an actual POS system that you would install, not in lieu of, but in addition to?
And would that require, which would I presume require hardware?
And I just know having dealt with retail for years and years and years, anytime you mess with any retailer's POS, it takes an act of God pretty much to get them to do it.
So...
Tell me about the software and hardware for your vision.
Yes.
So we are looking to replace current systems.
Some of the competing projects will integrate into current point of sales, but that's generally against the terms of service, and you basically have to be selected to build the modifications.
So we are looking at...
Bringing in a physical hardware system for them, whether they want a local system on a computer with a touch screen, we have a prototype of that.
What people are most excited about is a little handheld point of sale.
Basically, it fits in your hand and it prints out a receipt and we can either access a website through that Or if they were to be running it on their local network, that can be accessed as well.
So we do have the hardware to support it.
It's off-the-shelf hardware.
So yeah, we would supply both ends.
That's pretty cool because I can really see this being popular at farmers markets and food co-ops and trade shows or whatever, arts fairs, things like that.
People don't want to use the fiat as much anymore.
Especially since it keeps losing value every day.
I love the fact that you're on a solution here.
Do you have an ETA timeline on when something like that might be available for people to actually buy and start using?
So for a...
A person operating at a farmer's market, if they're comfortable accepting Bitcoin or Lightning or any sort of alternative currency on their phone, they can already do that.
And there's lots of resources on that.
And if they wanted to reach out to me and ask for a recommendation, I can talk with them and find out.
We're kind of focused on businesses...
Yeah, so we're running Odoo as an enterprise resource planning software.
So part of what we're trying to do is, as they bring in these transactions, to keep running the accounting.
And so we're bringing all that information into a single system.
And so we're a little above What kind of a solo proprietor that can just accept it on a separate device.
Fair enough, yeah.
And what I know about Odoo, yeah, the business logic.
So when you sell things and those products consist of components and those components have to be individually ordered up the supply chain and Odoo can then tell you.
And each of those components has a delivery time and an inventory level that's desired and so on.
So all that logic, Odoo can wrap its head around that and tell you what you should be ordering today instead of just waiting like, oh, the shelf is empty, buy more, because that doesn't work anymore.
Well, I want to shift gears here a little bit and talk about – first of all, Eric, I love the fact that you are about real-world solutions because I think Todd and I both feel like the crypto industry – Has been dominated for far too long about just price speculation types of conversations.
And you notice that's not a focus of our show.
We don't talk about it.
We don't really care about that.
We want real world use.
But do the other people in Bitcoin who are mostly focused on price, do they realize that the real value to Bitcoin comes from people like you and projects like yours that make it applicable in the real world?
What are your comments on that?
I think that as things become money, they go through phases.
So it starts as a store of value, and that's going to draw a lot of speculation.
But the next phase is medium of exchange, and that's what we're trying to transition to.
And then the final phase is unit of account.
That's where you start to think about the goods and services that you buy as a function of price, whether it's in dollars or the smallest unit in Bitcoins is Satoshi.
That's what I mean by Satoshis.
There is a strong HODLer spirit in Bitcoin.
Don't spend your Bitcoin.
You're just trying to stack it and save it.
But I think we are getting into...
A time kind of like based upon what's occurred in El Salvador where they made Bitcoin legal tender and they've built an economy where you have Bitcoin changing hands for goods and services that people are seeing that, no, you don't just put it under your mattress.
You want to go out to the farmers markets and you want to go out to the to the bars and restaurants and purchase goods and services, tip waitstaff, Just make it part of your day-to-day transactions.
Yeah, that's what we think, too.
I mean, if we can't really use it in a frictionless way, so to speak, then it's just speculation.
But we want to take it out of that world and into the real world so that you can buy things.
I mean, otherwise we're all just playing a virtual game that doesn't translate into reality.
But I've said, by the way, I think Bitcoin will be the world-reserved digital currency.
And the reason I've said that is because there's no government in the world that can stop the temptation to keep printing money and destroying their own fiat.
No government.
I mean, it just never happens.
I mean, all fiat eventually gets demolished.
And so an honest ledger like Bitcoin seems like it's going to have that global ability to be trusted where local currencies cannot be trusted.
And so, I mean, what do you think, Todd?
I mean, wouldn't nations want to trade with each other in Bitcoin or settle in Bitcoin?
I know the BRICS nations have their new...
They're going to announce a new gold-backed cryptocurrency, you know, Russia, China, and the BRICS nations, India, and so on.
But can't Bitcoin serve that role already?
I mean, I guess we should ask you, Eric, and then Todd for comment after that.
What do you think?
Yeah, I think the game theory will play out that way, that...
Nations will be forced to adopt it.
Some are going to be faster.
Some are going to be slower.
We do see some of the First Nations doing that.
As I mentioned, El Salvador.
That's been a really interesting few years where kind of out of the blue, it was announced that the president there and he had enough Other backing in the government to make it legal tender and they've done a wide education program for school children and really pushed merchants by providing them tools,
in their case the Chivo wallet and Chivo ATMs.
So El Salvador is leading the world in the Bitcoin Government adoption.
Meanwhile, we have Gary Gensler here.
Go America!
Destroy innovation!
What is the adoption rate in El Salvador?
I have an El Salvadorian friend and he wasn't such a fan.
Is that right?
There will always be critics.
I think that it's going very well for the limited amount of time.
It was kind of a rough start with some challenges with the Chibo wallet.
The project or...
It was largely driven by grassroots out of a place called Bitcoin Beach, where they built a local circular economy based upon Bitcoin.
And then once the government saw that, they said, you know, maybe we can take this nationwide.
From my understanding, from people that have visited, I haven't visited myself, in the major cities, you can use Bitcoin to purchase most things that you would want.
In certain parts, it's still taking time.
But to go from a nation with very low internet access to leading the world with cryptocurrency for buying apples and bananas...
That's pretty amazing for a few years.
But this gets to the utility of your project in particular, because I can't imagine buying apples and bananas and waiting for five confirmations on the Bitcoin blockchain, right?
And paying the fees.
And paying the transaction fee.
So is El Salvador using Lightning Network or solutions like yours?
Yeah, they've got a couple different point of sales.
So the Bitcoin Beach, they have an app.
Now, the thing about the developing countries like El Salvador is they didn't have a lot of electronic payments going on.
That wasn't part of people's day-to-day transactions like it is in America.
So their merchants were very used to just having a cash box and they might have a cell phone.
Not a lot of barcode scanning and the complex systems that we're used to.
So we're solving some of the Western issues, development issues, to bring cryptocurrency into the world.
Kind of day-to-day transactions.
I also want to mention, I think, isn't one more advantage to the merchants that these payments are permanent, you know, whereas someone can always claim their credit card was stolen and they can attempt chargebacks.
I know it's difficult if they have an in-person scan, but they can still attempt that.
But with Bitcoin, it's done, you know?
Yeah, chargebacks are a huge deal for merchants and really that cost.
It goes into the goods and services that we're all buying.
So we don't really recognize the cost of that.
And in a lot of ways, the payment processors, they're kind of throwing their hands up on it now, where they're saying to merchants, like, we're going to charge you that dispute fee one way or another, even if we find that it's not an actually fraudulent The transaction will still give you the money, but we're going to charge you the fee that it took for us to determine that it was a real transaction.
Well, it just brings up, again, one of the core problems of fiat currency and the whole TradFi system is that it's just there's no permanence in it.
You really don't know that you can trust that a transaction is done.
And with different types of transactions, you don't know how long it's going to take, you know, for a check to clear or for a Zelle transfer to be good or even a wire transfer can be reversed.
I've seen cases where wires are reversed.
So, you know, if you don't have permanence, how can your economy function?
That is a function of it, that it can be changed at someone's whim.
That's pretty wild.
All right, well, Eric, any final thoughts you want to leave us with?
And we'll let you go, and then Todd and I are going to have a discussion about your project after you're offline.
And don't worry, it's going to be a friendly discussion.
But what would you like to leave our audience with today?
I would love if they checked out our website and if they have an interest to contact us.
Again, that's info at milightningrod.com.
Just send us an email.
But I would encourage them to just take a look at Lightning and Bitcoin because there's a lot of innovation happening.
And if they want to experiment, they can download like Breeze Wallet or Blix Wallet or Mutiny Wallet.
And give it a go.
And then they can go to btcmap.org and see if there's any local merchants in their area that they could support.
That's cool.
I'm gonna bring that up here, btcmap.org.
And I'm just gonna put in my vote.
Before you go, Eric, I'm gonna put in my vote.
I want a privacy version of your project called Black Lightning.
I love it.
It's like private.
It's the Lightning Network.
It's all private.
It's just on my wish list, so push that up the chain.
We want Black Lightning, totally private Lightning Network.
There we go.
I'll keep you updated.
Okay, yeah.
And also, by the way, also keep in touch with us if, you know, when you get more restaurants online and so on, and we encourage viewers of this show to join us on Telegram.
That's at Decentralized TV on Telegram.
If any merchants are listening to this program and you implement Lightning Rod, be sure to announce it to us on that forum and then we'll announce it on a future show.
How about that?
Okay.
Thank you, Eric.
It's been fun.
Yeah.
Thanks, Eric.
Thank you, guys.
All right.
Have a good rest of the show.
Enjoy the music tonight.
Yeah.
Thank you very much.
Have fun.
Enjoy your weekend.
Bye-bye.
Okay.
You too.
Bye-bye.
Join the official discussion channel for this show on Telegram at t.me slash decentralized TV, where you can ask questions or offer suggestions of who we should interview next.
Also be sure to subscribe to the email newsletter on decentralized.tv, where you'll be alerted about one day in advance of each new upcoming episode, before it gets published.
On decentralized.tv, you'll also find links to our video channels and social media channels across all platforms, including Brighteon, Rumble, BitChute, Twitter, Truth Social, and more.
Check it all out at decentralized.tv.
All right, so...
Friday in Nashville.
Oh, yeah.
I wouldn't be going back to that conference with a bunch of, you know, tech nerds.
You don't want to go out and party on the town.
Is that what you're saying?
I hear you.
I'm going to get on my cowboy boots and we're going to go.
So, okay.
So, first of all, let me just repeat the offer to anybody listening.
If you're a business owner and you integrate this product solution or point-of-sale solution, be sure to tell us about it so we can talk about it on the show.
We're happy to do that.
We want to help people implement and have real-world solutions.
And that's why we invited Eric on.
You know, we didn't really know that much about this project.
We just knew that it was about point-of-sale solutions, and that, to us...
You know, I think, Todd, you agree with me that that sounds like we love to see these use cases, right?
We do.
We do.
Point of sale, though, man, that is biting off a lot.
I'm not trying to be cynical at all, but when you, again, when you think about just what has to happen, the act of God to be able to get an enterprise-type company to be able to do anything, Within their POS. And usually most of them are like a decade behind.
Yeah, that's true.
I've seen that.
Seriously.
So they have their bubble gum and band-aids that they're strapping together.
But there's going to be someone out there, whether it's MI Lightning Rod or Dash with what they're doing.
There's going to be somebody out there that's going to crack the code and there'll be a nice point-of-sale system that That I think the winner is going to be one that is crypto friendly.
It's not crypto exclusive.
So it's not going to all be about lightning or it's not going to be all about Dash.
But it's going to be one that if you have crypto, bring it on.
You know, kind of like Change Now.
I bet you Change Now is working on this as we speak.
Yeah, that's an interesting point.
I bet they are, too.
And I think there are a lot of innovators in this space that are looking at that last mile problem, as you describe it, which is how do we get merchants to be able to accept this in a way that is compatible with their existing financial systems or inventory systems?
I think that's a huge deal.
I'm thinking about grocery stores.
Their point of sale is tied into their inventory ordering system.
Right.
When you take something off the shelf and pay for it, you know, it gets reordered almost immediately because of the just-in-time, you know, delivery and inventory system.
Same thing is true with Walmart, right?
Yes, yes.
So, yeah.
So, point of sale is a complex issue, no doubt.
It's complex.
And, you know, the other thing I was thinking about just from getting retail adoption is you and I know how hard crypto can be, right, initially.
We say crypto is hard until it's not.
But initially, there's a huge learning curve, right?
It's kind of scary.
So I think about these people running these retail businesses.
And how busy their day-to-day life is.
So I can understand why adoption is really, really hard with something like this is because it's a whole entirely new educational process, getting people to think crypto versus fiat.
You're exactly right.
And I'll just add to that, that if you think about a lot of these retail establishments, Let's say the education level of the worker at the cash register is not necessarily very high.
So, you know, right?
If you have a college degree, you're probably not running a cash register, you know, at Walmart.
Unless you've got a degree in something weird like, you know, bonus hole theory or something like that.
I don't know.
But, you know what I'm saying?
Like, the technical aspects, the technical proficiency of these people, you know, it's got to be made super simple for them, is my point.
Yeah.
And that's why this is going to require hardware.
It's going to require something to where that's it's touch pad to where you'd be able to scroll on which crypto you want to be able to pay with.
And it's probably going to be something that you're going to have to be able to hold your phone up to it to go, you know, Right.
Maybe that's the solve.
Somebody's going to create a credit card with their crypto that would have one of those chips that would automatically transform it into whatever means of payment is required.
Getting over ahead of my skis.
No, but I think, like, doesn't crypto.com have a credit card that you spend fiat, but then it takes it out of your Bitcoin wallet?
I think that exists, but we want to pay in Bitcoin.
That's the thing.
We don't ever want to touch fiat in this process.
Right.
Right.
Gross.
Icky.
Icky, green, dirty dollars.
Because fiat cash is so dirty, it carries the next pandemic, the next boogie virus.
Apparently, yeah.
But it does have everybody's perfume on it, by the way.
I'm very sensitive to synthetic fragrances.
And a lot of Hunter Biden's nose hairs.
Yeah, there's a little trace of cocaine on all currency.
But you notice, though, that the banks don't care.
Whereas if your Bitcoin has ever touched anything, they don't like, oh my gosh, it's dirty Bitcoin.
But if your cash has been used to snort cocaine on the ass crack of a hooker, they're like, oh, that's fine, that's good here.
All the dollars are like that, you know.
Okay, so...
So, bringing things back here, the bottom line of today's interview is that Eric and his project, Michigan Lightning Rod, or MI Lightning Rod, excuse me, this is, I think, part of a wave of innovation that's looking at practical, real-world applications for, you know, on-the-street transactions of crypto.
Yeah.
Totally violates...
The BT Maxi's, you know, charge of hodl, hodl, hodl, too.
And that's what I think is really cool.
Yeah, I'm not a big fan of just hodl, hodl, hodl.
I mean, I think, again, we've got to be able to use it.
At some point, you've got to translate it into something else.
Yes, that's why I applaud what he's doing.
Fresh eggs at the farmer's market.
Or garden seeds, you know.
What's the point of money?
It's a medium of exchange.
So you have to exchange it for something.
Eventually.
And one day, if goods and services are denominated in Bitcoin, then it would be a unit of account, which would be pretty cool.
If that happened, that would mean that, you know...
Well, sats.
I think it would be sats because the value of one Bitcoin is so large now that, you know, sats become the...
Yeah, that's right.
The unit that makes it...
You know, it can be confusing to swap coins around with like.000027.
You're like, wait, do I have the right number of zeros in the Bitcoin?
That's why I noticed some other coins, they have a much larger supply, way beyond 21 million.
Like Beam, I think, has 260 million coins or something.
And at first glance, you're like, why?
Why so many?
Well, what if it becomes very valuable?
Then you have better divisibility in terms of integer units.
Right?
Yeah, I don't quite buy that.
No, you don't buy that?
No.
But I don't want to do a bunch of decimal point zeros.
Yeah, but those can be divided by 100 million, too.
You know what I'm saying?
Well, yeah, but again, it's hard to read it on screens and so many zeros.
Right, right.
I don't know.
It's hard to know the right number of coins for these projects.
And Bitcoin was so far ahead of the curve.
I mean, how could they have known what one coin would be worth?
Nobody knew back then.
CIA, man.
That's it.
No, but even...
Satoshi CIA. That was his middle name.
Okay.
You know there are some people that say that.
No, I've heard that.
Yeah, I mean...
Look, if you are the CIA and you want to move money around, Bitcoin is probably the best way to do it because the fiat currency system totally sucks.
And they're kind of proving the point.
But you know what you have to do if you're going to hold Bitcoin or any other coin, Mike?
You're going to have to learn your seed phrase, your words.
And I'm just teeing this up here.
If at any point in time you want to...
Okay, here we go.
Got a little wallet.
I brought a little stack of these.
I haven't really gone through them, but...
I bought a bunch of different metal wallets here that open up and then you can put all your letters.
If you have little tiny alien fingers, you can put little tiny letters in here.
So is that a bifodal there?
This one's called Keystone.
Keystone.
Yeah.
So you put your seed phrase in there, you close it up, done, and it's fireproof and whatever.
Yep, same here, except you engrave it with a Dremel.
Oh, that's an engraving one, huh?
Okay.
Yeah, and you have one side here, you have the other side there, so each one of these that you can get on Amazon, it ends up holding two sets of keywords, 24 each, and then you just put those bad boys in your...
In your safe.
In your safe.
Okay, I knew where you were going with that.
How dare you?
In your safe.
And even fire can't get them.
Okay, now...
I have a much...
Hold on.
Hold on.
Let me...
Let me get my karambit knife out here to open this thing up.
I don't know why it's packaged like high-security packaging, but this is an even smaller one here.
Oh, good.
Oh, my goodness.
Okay, this thing, whatever this thing is, it's called cryo.
That's tiny.
And I guess you have to unscrew it to open it or something.
These are worse than Rubik's Cubes at this point.
Like, I can solve the cube.
I don't know how to get this thing open.
But if you have really miniature fingers, you have to know somebody really tiny.
And then you could use a Dremel tool and you could etch your seed phrase into this thing and then put this somewhere.
I don't know why you can't just take a Dremel tool and a sheet of zinc or something and just...
You sure can.
Just do your own thing.
You sure can, yeah.
But...
Or do what I do.
I told you about my laser, my tabletop laser, which is all controllable.
It speaks code, and I use it to cut holes out of lids for the hydroponic systems.
Well, these polyethylene lids, you can also just engrave into them with lasers.
Because everybody has a laser in their backyard.
They're not that expensive.
I forgot the software.
The software is like $25 and you just put in the words, you just type it in and you hit go and then don't look at it because you don't want to lose your vision.
I don't know why you can't just get one of these tabletop lasers and you can engrave your seed phrase into steel or metal or whatever or any kind of material.
And the lasers are not that expensive these days?
No.
Is that what you were saying?
No, I mean, it's a few hundred bucks for one of these tabletop machines.
It's got the X, Y, you know.
Yeah.
It speaks the same language as 3D printers, except it's not an additive manufacturing machine.
It's a laser engraver, and it doesn't have a Z-axis.
Well, being the guy that...
I got a Dremel, and I'm the guy who set up all the wallets in my family, and I'm the guy who gave them all of my daughters and my wife and every these things with the seed words.
After me doing that for, like, days and going out of my mind, 200 bucks is nothing.
That's what I'm saying, man.
I'm going to research it.
I am going to research that now.
Oh, and here's something.
This is just a piece of metal with like 24 lines to pound in your words.
Yeah.
There it is.
You can kind of see the lines there.
But it's like, I don't need 24 lines on a piece of metal.
I mean, just use a piece of metal.
Doesn't everybody have metal lying around?
I mean, come on.
And do you know, just pro tip, those seed words, it's really only, I believe, just the four letters.
You're right.
The first four letters.
They're all four-letter words, ultimately.
Yeah.
Harder to memorize just four-letter words.
Right.
But, I mean, memorization, I think, should be considered one of the solutions here.
It's not that hard to come up with a crazy story that ties together all your seed word phrases into a narrative.
You know what, Mike?
I'm putting this out into the universe.
Okay.
Could your folks...
Reach out to somebody out there who actually instructs people on how to be able to do that.
And let's have a memory show.
No, I think we should have a seed phrase competition, frankly.
A seed phrase storytelling competition.
So, like, you bring some seed phrases.
Okay.
And then I'll make up a story live.
Okay.
And then I'll challenge you.
No, better yet.
What?
Now, we don't want real seed phrases, but anybody watching, go to our Telegram channel and enter in that you would like to provide 24 seed words that ultimately we're going to have fun with Mike reviewing those.
Okay.
We can't do everyone's, but if we get a half dozen in there, that would be kind of fun.
But you know...
You have to use profanity to make it memorable because the more emotionally charged the story and the more visually charged the story, then the easier it is to remember.
Mike, I have listened to your shows and I have listened to many bleeps.
So you can do that and your guys will just bleep them out.
Okay.
All right.
Well, we'll just call it the bleep phrase then instead of the C phrase because pretty much every other word is going to be a bleep.
Oh, I look forward to that.
It's like we heard that and we still don't know what the seed phrase is.
Okay.
All right, but getting back to our guest today and just kind of concluding our thoughts on this, I think we love the fact what Eric is doing, I think, is necessary and will add value to Bitcoin, for sure, and other coins, because I think once you nail that with Bitcoin, you can just fold in acceptance for lots of other coins.
And frankly, you and I, we don't want to use Bitcoin at a point of sale.
No.
I want to use something private.
Yep.
Right?
Yep.
Easy.
Yeah, I mean, I don't want somebody...
But I love the fact that Bitcoin, Bitcoin being, you know...
King Kong out there, if they can socialize point of sale, that would be fantastic.
They want to be the tip of the spear.
Well, look, I would swap into Bitcoin to use Bitcoin at a restaurant if that's all they take.
Right.
I would have to probably swap XMR for Bitcoin.
Right.
Take it out of privacy into Bitcoin so I can go eat at this restaurant.
But that's okay.
I'll do that.
I'll support the network that way.
And maybe, as Eric said, maybe over time there's more and more privacy innovation in Bitcoin itself.
Perhaps.
Although I think, man, they're going to have a hard time keeping up with projects like Furo.
I mean, I like Ruben.
This is like light years ahead of everybody on the Lelantis stuff.
That interview, wow.
Yeah, yeah.
Good luck catching up to Ruben.
Ruben doesn't mess around.
No, man.
And he's got that...
That PhD cryptography math genius guy?
Yes, yes.
I don't recall his name because it's not an American name, but man, good luck catching up to that guy.
And they have this quiet confidence like, Yeah, we've already won.
Yeah, I know.
It's wild.
But anyway, I'll just say this.
This is an exciting time to have this show, to be here.
What you and I are doing, Todd, is amazing, and we appreciate people like Eric coming on and joining the show and just spreading the word.
This is super exciting.
I feel like I'm at the beginning of the early pre-launch days of something amazing.
Of the internet.
I know.
It's wild.
It's like Bitcoin's been around for many years now, but it still feels brand new with what's happening now.
Total infancy.
Yeah.
For actual use cases.
That's right.
That's right.
And I almost feel like the whole FTX thing was a big help in the sense that it kind of blew away, I think, a lot of the FOMO speculation side of things.
And it got people to think about, okay, aside from just being numbers on a screen, what can we do with this?
Yeah.
You know?
Yeah.
I think it was a healthy kind of...
Yeah, and also, this whole topic of decentralization, since it's so broad, it can focus on science and medicine and health and food and education and everything.
So it's not like we're limited to just talking to people about crypto.
I mean, the Jim Gale interview is a perfect example.
Oh, perfect.
Well, I mean, the interview on energy, free energy.
Oh, gosh.
When that airs, it hasn't yet, but when that airs, man, people are going to be blown away.
Yeah.
No, decentralize anything.
Bring it.
If you guys have suggestions, decentralized TV, just search for it on Telegram.
And technically it wasn't free energy.
It was energy resulting from the conversion of mass to energy.
So it's not free.
You've got to pay in mass.
The mass just happens to be deuterium from ocean water.
That's all.
Yeah.
Look, I was raised Catholic.
I did have to pay in mass.
Believe me.
Okay, best joke of the show.
You just nailed it.
You did pay in mass.
Okay.
Again and again and again.
Redeemed.
Part of those edits you referenced, you took it for the team, but you know those are, you're editing out my bad jokes.
I edited out both of our bad jokes.
I mean, we put in what we think might work and sometimes it doesn't, sometimes it does.
That's all good.
Let me give credit to today's sponsor, which is the Satellite Phone Store.
The website is sat123.com, and they offer you backup solutions for communications, including, of course, satellite phones like these Iridium phones that work all over the world.
But also, these bivy sticks you can see here, they are two-way satellite text communication devices, and they just Bluetooth to your mobile phone, In order to compose and read messages, but they actually use satellites.
They talk to satellites.
They don't talk to cell towers.
You don't need a SIM card in your phone to use this.
And so these work everywhere also on the planet, so really good stuff.
These right here, these NMARSAT phones are sold out, so not available.
And then they have solar generators, power storage devices, you know, with panels.
They've got different bundles available so that you have power offline.
Because, you know, the problem with centralized power grids is that sometimes they break.
And the problem with centralized, you know, cell towers and AT&T communications is, well, sometimes they de-platform you from using their network.
Or their towers go down, the power grid goes down, what have you.
So anyway, SAT123.com, we thank them for their support.
And Todd, I thank you for your time.
It was another great show.
Indeed.
Thank you, Mike.
Wishing you a wonderful weekend on the ranch.
Okay, and Todd, I'll say, go pound steel.
Go pound steel.
Pound some steel, baby.
Get yourself some punch tools.
If one is good, two is better.
Oh, my goodness.
We know that.
I'm not actually a fan.
I'm not convinced that this is a revolutionary thing to pound your seed phrase into this.
I would never pound my seed phrase into it.
That would...
No way.
But a Dremel, you know, a Dremel tool, it can go off the rails and like...
It does.
That's the whole issue.
In a very, very small space.
Exactly.
How are you supposed to Dremel this?
It's not easy.
It's not easy.
I did it, but it was not easy.
You have to wear eye protection too with a rapidly rotating Dremel bit.
Yeah.
Then when you start going all Mike Adams and you download a thousand wallets, right?
And you buy a thousand different kinds of crypto and you have a thousand different keywords.
I know.
I think the move is to get the laser.
You know what?
The best tool for this would be actually is the Ghost Gunner.
You know the Ghost Gunner tool, which is a computer-controlled CNC machine?
No.
You never heard of the Ghost Gunners?
Uh-uh.
Oh, well, I've got a couple of Ghost Gunners.
So, you know, you take like an AR-15 lower receiver that's only 80% done, then you pop it into the Ghost Gunner, you hit go, and it grinds out the rest of it, and then you have a lower receiver.
Okay.
You've never done that?
No.
Man, you've got to come to Texas more.
We have fun.
I need to.
I need to.
So...
So anyway, why not just program that machine to just grind out?
Because you can grind out patterns.
You can grind patterns on frames of your 1911 pistol or whatever, or your AR receiver.
And you can just grind out your seed phrases on this with that tool.
Save you a ton of times.
You are always thinking, Mike.
Well, I hope I'm not the only one that's got a giant room full of exotic experimental grinding equipment and lasers and things.
I thought that's pretty common, but who knows?
It's very common, Mike.
Well, in Texas it's common.
It's like, oh, you have all these gun parts.
I live in Texas.
I mean, we've got to have spare parts.
It's a bolt carrier group.
Yeah, you need a spare BCG. Meanwhile, in your private rifle range...
Right.
You need those spare little tiny O-rings in the extractor on the bolt.
Everybody knows that, I thought.
But whatever.
This is not a show about guns.
It's a show about decentralization.
But spare parts are part of being decentralized.
That's right.
Or something.
There you go.
Hey, we're decentralized from the police, right?
Yes.
Now, we get along with the police, no problem.
I've donated to police organizations, but we don't always call them.
That's my point.
That's true.
Very good point.
Sometimes there are problems that you don't need.
You don't need to bother the police.
That's called decentralized home security.
Yes.
I do.
Not to humble brag, but I have donated to the police as well.
Lots of traffic tickets.
Oh, I see.
Those are your donations?
Yes.
Okay.
No, I donated ammo to the sheriff's group because the county wouldn't pay for them to...
They'd only give them 50 rounds a month to practice.
Oh, that's crazy.
For proficiency.
50 rounds a month of, like, cheap 9 mil.
And I'm thinking, 50 rounds?
Like, that's my warm-up round for the gun range.
I mean, that's just me making sure the mags work, you know?
It's like making sure the red dot sight is still, you know, lined up.
Yeah, 50 rounds, okay.
Anyway, whatever.
But we do need to decentralize everything.
Yes, we do.
Right?
Including home security and, you know, whatever else.
Money, finance, you name it.
So, good show today.
Lots of fun.
We got a little off track here at the end, but that's okay.
Yeah.
Well, I think Eric will forgive us.
Yeah, hopefully.
Hopefully he'll forgive us.
He's like, you brought me on to talk about point of sale.
You ended up talking about guns.
It's okay.
That's not on you.
It's on us.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
We take it down those paths, but...
Well, but his project is from Michigan.
Michigan's got plenty of guns.
Yeah!
So, you know.
Bottom line, Mike, who has more fun than us?
We've got to have fun.
I think no one.
Okay.
All right, so bottom line, folks, check out the Telegram group.
It's Decentralized TV. And also, of course, check out the website, decentralized.tv, to watch all the episodes, including the ones coming up that we have filmed and haven't published yet.
Some good stuff.
Thank you, Todd.
Excellent.
All right.
Have a good weekend.
See you, everyone.
You too.
Cheers.
Take care.
Bye-bye.
And thank you for watching.
Feel free to repost this episode on other channels and platforms as well.
And thank you for joining.
I'm Mike Adams, also the founder of Brighteon.com, the free speech video network.
Feel free to post your other videos on Brighteon.com as well, where you can receive tips in crypto.
By the way, we have a crypto tipping system in place right now on the network.
So check it out, and thank you for watching today.
Take care, everybody.
▲
Export Selection