There's power in contrast, and this episode of our podcast exemplifies that. We're thrilled to have Hermann Viviers, a key player in the Bitcoin world, join us as we dissect the distinguishing principles between Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. We discuss the Bitcoin-only Global Bitcoin Summit and a recent curious incident in shitcoinland, wherein a man live-streamed his arrest while attempting to steal a Lamborghini, highlighting the stark differences in ethos between Bitcoin and 'shitcoins'.
As we navigate the South African landscape, we delve into the importance and challenges of creating parallel institutions. With Bitcoin potentially leading the way towards a brighter future, we discuss the resilience of those unable to leave South Africa, the essence of self-organization, and the significance of carving out alternatives to the state. We also shed light on Solidariteid's Soltech college in Pretoria, built completely on donations, and we ponder on the possibility of its members being co-opted by the government.
In closing, we bring the focus back to South Africa's current predicament, touching on the threats of balkanization and civil war, fueled by the ruling criminal organization. We underline how Bitcoin remains the only secure asset that can be taken out of the country, especially in the face of imminent monetary collapse. In anticipation of the upcoming Bitcoin Conference in Cape Town, we discuss its potential role in preparing for the country's possible outcomes. Join us for this riveting discussion and unravel Bitcoin's pivotal role in shaping parallel institutions and its future in South Africa.
There's power in contrast, and this episode of our podcast exemplifies that. We're thrilled to have Hermann Viviers, a key player in the Bitcoin world, join us as we dissect the distinguishing principles between Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. We discuss the Bitcoin-only Global Bitcoin Summit and a recent curious incident in shitcoinland, wherein a man live-streamed his arrest while attempting to steal a Lamborghini, highlighting the stark differences in ethos between Bitcoin and 'shitcoins'.
As we navigate the South African landscape, we delve into the importance and challenges of creating parallel institutions. With Bitcoin potentially leading the way towards a brighter future, we discuss the resilience of those unable to leave South Africa, the essence of self-organization, and the significance of carving out alternatives to the state. We also shed light on Solidariteid's Soltech college in Pretoria, built completely on donations, and we ponder on the possibility of its members being co-opted by the government.
In closing, we bring the focus back to South Africa's current predicament, touching on the threats of balkanization and civil war, fueled by the ruling criminal organization. We underline how Bitcoin remains the only secure asset that can be taken out of the country, especially in the face of imminent monetary collapse. In anticipation of the upcoming Bitcoin Conference in Cape Town, we discuss its potential role in preparing for the country's possible outcomes. Join us for this riveting discussion and unravel Bitcoin's pivotal role in shaping parallel institutions and its future in South Africa.
Hello and welcome to another episode of Buy the Horns. Today I'm speaking to Hadaamon Fafiatis from Bitcoin Eccasi about the upcoming Adopting Bitcoin Cape Town Conference. The conference is running from the 26th to the 28th of January 2024 and Hadaamon is part of the organizing committee who's been planning the event. The theme of the conference is all about parallel institutions and how they could work with Bitcoiners to further the cause of self determination and sovereignty. Hadaamon is a returning guest and it's always such a pleasure having him on the show.
Speaker 1:Before we get into the interview, here's a quick word from our sponsor, bitcoin Only. Have you ever tried to import a hardware wallet into South Africa? If you have, then you know it's a slow and expensive process with many hidden costs and risks, like the post office losing a package. Well, I'd like to tell you about my new company, bitcoin Only. Bitcoin Only is your one stop shop for all high quality Bitcoin hardware wallets in South Africa. We stock BlockstreamJets, holdcards, seedsigners and more. We also offer Bitcoin consultations if you need any advice on your self custody solution, or we'd like to set up a Bitcoin wall so your family can get hold of your Bitcoin if something unexpected happens to you. Head over to BitcoinOnlyio and apply the code BTC at checkout to get a discount on your next purchase. That's BitcoinOnlyio, that's Bitcoin for the sovereign individual. And we're live Adman once again. I think you are the number one returning guest on the show. Welcome back, man, good to see you.
Speaker 2:Ah, I don't know that Short man thanks, yeah, awesome.
Speaker 1:My pleasure. I think it's between you and Cardle Cardle de Villiers, one of the Cardle's in here. I mean, if you add, all the Cardle's together.
Speaker 2:It's not a fair contest. There's like five of them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we've had like at least 10 Cardle's. Yeah, yeah, how you been there, man. You've been travelling a lot, haven't you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I've been doing quite a bit of travelling. If you ask my wife, it's way too much, but no, no, it's been a pretty intense period. I'm not used to travelling so much, but super exciting.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, when we first met, you were living in Wasseldine. You were running the surf charity. And now fast forward, maybe two and a half years later and you're travelling around the world doing Bitcoin evangelism. Life comes to fast, eh.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, things changed a lot since that. I mean, when we did the first interview with Bitcoin and Cassie, it did not even exist in the idea. It wasn't even an idea yet. Yeah, life happens.
Speaker 1:The best part is that surfboard behind you hasn't moved the entire time.
Speaker 2:No, it's been there all this time. It's a very pretty board but not very functional.
Speaker 1:That's how they ever get surfed. I was about to ask.
Speaker 2:I surfed it a couple of times. But it's a beautiful, beautiful design, but it's just a horrible shape.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So what have you been doing in the last couple of months? I mean, our last interview was probably six months ago, so you've been in El Salvador. Have you been back to West Africa again? Where have you been.
Speaker 2:I've been to more recently. I was in the States that's the one I just came back from recently, the Global Bitcoin Summit that was hosted by the HRF, and before that I was in Prague for BTC Prague, a fantastic Bitcoin only conference, and before that, just after that, was the Oslo Freedom Forum, which wasn't a Bitcoin specific conference, but they had a financial track. Those were the only three conferences I did this year. I did a couple more last year El Salvador, ghana. That was all at the end of 2022.
Speaker 1:All right, what was your experience of going to a Bitcoin only conference versus going to some of the other conferences that have got some shitcoin re-involved?
Speaker 2:I think the biggest takeaway from BTC Prague for me was that everybody was saying, leading up to the conference, most people I spoke to was like, look, you can't do a conference for more than a thousand people if you keep a Bitcoin only. But Bitcoin Prague obviously disproved that. They had an attendance of I think it was more than 7,000, almost 8,000 people and it was only Bitcoin. There was even with the booths, all the booths, which is basically carries a large part of the conference in terms of paying for having that booth space. There were maybe two booths in the entire conference that wasn't specifically Bitcoin focused. The rest of them were all pretty much Bitcoin only. So, yeah, I think that was very interesting, fantastic experience.
Speaker 1:Wow, I mean, the industry has come such a long way. Things are built in the bear markets and to have 7,000 people attend a conference as Bitcoin, only in a bear market, well, things have changed compared to the bear markets in 2018. You would never have seen that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I think it's incredible and also it just feels to me like the sort of the mission of Bitcoin and the reason why people go Bitcoin only as opposed to crypto, whatever. It's just diverging in two completely different worlds. We don't even speak the same language anymore. It's just two completely different reasons for getting involved. I mean, other than the fact that there's a common theme of cryptography involved, there's nothing else that the two worlds have in common.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so Bitcoin just went to jail yesterday. Speaking of shit. Finally, so this idiot live streams himself going to someone else's house to try to steal his Lamborghini, get that part right, and then the cops rock out. He's got his mistress in the back along with a bunch of drugs and again, and then live streams himself while it's happening and the cops are like who've you got in the car? And he doesn't want to admit because he's on the live stream. And then he's like it's my mistress, Idiot.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man.
Speaker 1:Didn't you come out he was asking for donations. And then CZ from Binance was like no, why are you asking for donations? You got a bunch of money in your BiDance account.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know, it's just something else I don't know. I don't like seeing people go to jail but then at the same time he's been warned so many times to stop that nonsense.
Speaker 1:He's a scammer. He's been scamming people, you know, like shilling no, 100%. He's where belongs. And it just comes back to the ethos of Bitcoin versus shitcoins and it's just becoming more and more painfully apparent, and thank goodness because we didn't have to keep telling people this anymore. Like people can now see it firsthand, the shitcoin is going to jail because they are scamming people and the Bitcoin is going to jail because the state's coming off them like Rosalbricht. It's a different set of values. People are getting shut down for different reasons, but, that being said, bitcoin is not really going to jail Not in mass anyway Whereas I think the SEC is going after a lot of shitcoiners now and there's going to be a weeping and a gnashing of teeth going forward in that space.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know it's an interesting conversation.
Speaker 2:I was talking to someone about this the whole like shitcoin scene, and it kind of feels like it's a, it's a test of maturity for Bitcoin to have to go through this.
Speaker 2:It's kind of you got to, you got to have this technology, because I mean, that's one of the most for me, one of the most valid criticism against Bitcoin is that you can copy it, and if people can copy it, they are going to copy it. And if they are going to copy it, then they're going to create a plethora of imitations and shitcoins for all the different reasons that you can possibly conceive of. And if it is an open technology, then that's going to happen and it has to happen. And Bitcoin has to go through that and prove that it can withstand that onslaught of shitcoinery, and I think it's done pretty well so far. I mean, the Bitcoin dominance is still hovering around 50% and it's been. It's been at that level consistently for four years. So it's not. It's not going anywhere, despite despite the onslaught, and the longer it stays at 50%, the more likely it becomes that the rest of it is going to become irrelevant.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, absolutely, and you know, for me it's a free speech issue, but coin is built on free speech. The code is open source, anyone can inspect it and the only way good ideas went over bad ideas in an ethical manner is by competing and by adoption. So, yeah, there's no way that we can stop shitcoinery in an ethical manner, so we can't coerce people to stop to stop their shitcoinery. The only way that we can hope that Bitcoin wins out is that the battle in on the battlefield of ideas and the idea of Bitcoin is stronger and people eventually you know they're the reach a shilling points on this and understand that Bitcoin is the only cryptocurrency that matters. And they naturally adopted them. And I think that's what we see playing out.
Speaker 1:And the dominance, the Bitcoin dominance thing the 50% is, in my mind, a bit of a misnomer because that's my market cap, so money flows around, sloshes around all the time.
Speaker 1:That's just showing that 50% of the money is currently sitting in Bitcoin.
Speaker 1:But if you look at it from a hash rate perspective and why I like to use hash rate as a proxy is actual physical work that has been done, effort and jewels of energy, like putting not putting your money where mouth is, putting your energy where your mouth is. And if you look at it from that perspective, from a hash rate perspective, bitcoin is like 90% dominant Because there's so few proof of work coins out there actually that I'll have have any kind of hash rate behind them. I mean, what's the biggest? The biggest one behind Bitcoin is probably like coin on Monero right in terms of hash rate, and those are, you know, I don't want to show them an arrow too much because that's the one old coin project that I actually think has got some, some utility. But I mean Ethereum has not moved to proof of stake, completely captured in my opinion. But I mean, yeah, so the dominance I give me is like how much work has actually been done in the background in there, but quite is absolutely crushing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean that's the other 50%. I mean, if you look at the market cap dominance and Bitcoin sending at 50%, the other 50% isn't even really competing with Bitcoin. It's just that there's there's money in it, but there's money in it because people are opportunistic and they're looking for a quick buck. But they're not. I mean, they're not even really competing with with Bitcoin, but but even even so, the fact that it is at 50%, measured purely by market cap is, is kind of like. I mean, they're not even competing with Bitcoin and Bitcoin is still out competing. All of them, based even on on a metric. That is kind of almost irrelevant, because if you look at Ethereum, for example, it's not, it's not even the same thing. So why would you compare the two market caps? It's too. It's two completely different things, and if you talk to people who are developing on Ethereum and people who are developing on Bitcoin, their motivations are completely different. There is, there is no, there's no commonality between why people are developing on Ethereum and why people are developing on Bitcoin.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so yeah, yeah, exactly. And the other interesting thing I saw was like obviously we've been saying this from the start with about NFTs, that we were like listen, nfts are a scam developed to take your Bitcoin from you and another hype cycle. And I saw a post the other day that 98% of NFTs have literally gone to zero, you know, lost all of their values and obviously the winner's vote could be the case. Why would a pixelated picture of a monkey smoking an energy be valuable? Well, it's not. Shock and horror.
Speaker 2:No, I don't. I don't. I mean personally I don't. I don't understand the idea of digital collectibles. For me, the collectible has to be something physical that I can touch. I like collecting certain very specific things. I'm not a collector by any measure, but I've got a couple of very, very special items that I treasure and it's. But I value them because I can touch them. They're physical, they're real. It's not like why would you want to collect something that digital? You're never going to touch it, you're never going to smell it, you're never going to feel it.
Speaker 1:I mean, digital money makes sense, but a digital collectible, no, I mean I could see the use case for digital collectibles, but not in the value sense that they weren't a lot of money, like, for example, putting your, putting your university for three years. You'd rather have the digital as a PDF. Well, you like the physical thing, obviously, but it's much easier to have the digital as well because you can send it around. And if you can prove somehow that that is not fake it's difficult then that makes sense, right, and that can be a blockchain. But that's not worth a lot of money. That's not something you can buy and sell. That's a utility type thing.
Speaker 1:And the angle that they took with NFTs was a speculative one, obviously. That's normally how these cycles go. So I still see that there probably is a market for NFTs, but it's not going to be a speculative moneymaking thing. It's going to be a utility thing, because some forms of certification you need to have proof of but we already have that With TLS to get some stuff on the web, like those things already exist. I just don't see the gap with the NFTs really. Maybe I'll be proven wrong in a few years' time, who knows? But yeah, speculative assets no.
Speaker 1:And the argument that's like sorry, they were saying these are things you'll be using, games, and you can use your digital collectibles and games for skins and guns and different things. Games, I mean sure, but that's kids using their parents money. Well, they're playing games in the basement, right? How big is that market ever going to be really?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and do you really need those things to be on a blockchain? I mean I don't know, I doubt it. I mean it's funny Like I went through my own shit-quenching phase and it's kind of been a couple of years since then several years and the first thing that I've seen that really makes sense to me where a similar type of technology is applied is Nostr, and I've gotten really into Nostr and I love using it and I love seeing how the technology is emerging and how people are building and how feverish the development is and how passionate people are about building it. And it kind of uses similar technology to Bitcoin similar underlying not technology, but more sort of the general structure. It resembles the Bitcoin network in many ways and I think it's very telling that.
Speaker 2:I've always thought that there will be more applications of the kind of technology that Bitcoin uses, but I don't think there's going to be currency involved because we already have the currency. The currency is Bitcoin. Now you're going to take that technology and you're going to apply it to communications and so you see Nostr emerging and it's a similar type of technology, but you're not going to have the Bitcoin technology applied to communication with a shit-quen currency involved, because you already have the currency. You just need to build out the technology for communication specifically. And so maybe with things like NFTs like what you're saying is it does make sense to apply that in certain areas, but not the speculative hype cycle where there's all this money being thrown at it. It all makes sense for things like university degrees, tickets for events or whatever. That kind of technology maybe makes sense there, but it's not going to be this thing where everybody's got to have their own fucking shit-quen on a blockchain. It's all hype cycle and speculation. It just doesn't make sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally. I mean, it all comes back down to network effects, right? If you're building money and communication networks the two best examples of network effects and why the biggest wins, and there is no second place If you can build a money that is universal, that people can use with very easy on and off ramps and Bitcoin obviously has met those criteria then the next thing you do is a communication network, because then those two can build them on layers and stop each other. And it was interesting because they try to build that on top of the Lightning network. They try to build some remember there are a few projects that try to build communication networks on top of Lightning and they never really wins anywhere. And I think probably one of the reasons was Lightning was too immature and probably still is too immature and it was never built for communication networks. It's built for transferring value, small packets of data around.
Speaker 1:I think I was having a conversation with Carla CoCo and about this and she was saying back then and I didn't quite grasp it, but she was saying listen, like Lightning's meant to send small packets of data backwards and forwards, it's not meant to transfer large data size. And with communication networks you're transferring large packets of data. So you're going to end up spamming the network and spending a lot on fees. You know your nodes going to need more storage space and all kinds of stuff, so there's problems there and here we are a few years later and we have Nostra now, and you're right. Like Nostra is absolutely. It blows my mind what people are doing there and having the world's first truly censorship-resistant communication technology is. This is powerful and it couldn't have come at a better time, because we are just seeing attacks on free communication from the nation's data level happening all around the world simultaneously and we need to build free and open communication networks, like our lives dependent because they do. And yeah, I think if you're concerned about free speech, you should get on Nostra, because that is the one place where you're not going to be censored.
Speaker 1:And I mean, look at what's happened to Russell Brand. Now the UK Parliament wrote a letter to Rumble to try to shut him down because obviously YouTube bent the knee, immediately Shut him down, demonetize him, and then Rumble took us down and they were like no, we're not going to do that, but you're still relying on a company to do the right thing. You're still relying those people. Leverage can be forced onto the CEO of Rumble, like they can go, and if they really wanted to which they do shut up Russell Brand they will get Rumble to bend the knee. It's a publicly traded company, like there's people that you can leverage. So ultimately you need a free protocol that no one can, there's no people to censor or there's no people to apply pressure to and that's what we have with Nostra now. It's great and the user experience has gotten a lot better here. Like it's not that hard to use anymore. It's getting much easier, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know it's a lot better then, and I think it's a very important point to say that, and I was kind of watching Russell saying this too and I was like, yeah, dude Rumble is only in favor of free speech. For now. It's only a matter of time. It's if it can be pressured, it will be pressured, and if they can censor it, they will censor it, and it's a company and it's a centralized service. So it's only a matter of time and if they're desperate enough, it'll happen. It's almost unavoidable If it becomes big enough and if they become desperate enough to want to do it. So I think things like Nostra is absolutely crucial, and I mean I think Nostra will become perhaps even bigger than Bitcoin faster, because I think people are shut out of communication before they shut out their bank accounts. They've taken Russell Brand off of his platform and disconnected him from his audience. Before they shut down his bank account, the next step is to maybe shut down his bank account. So there's even a more desperate need for open communication.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, 100%, absolutely, absolutely. I've been saying this for years If it can be co-opted, it will be co-opted. So we have to build censorship-resistant tools and the one thing where they can always stop you is in the physical meat space, like if you look at David Ike, for example. You've got to take the extreme examples first, because that's where they'll push it to. So David Ike is the guy who came up with the listed people concept. Personally, I love that concept. I think it explains politicians extremely well.
Speaker 1:But they shut him up so he's not able to speak. He was removed off Twitter, removed off platforms like that, same as Alex Jones not let back on again, unbanked him, his ability to transact removed so he can't create a living for himself, which is by speaking and publishing books and talking, and I can't market himself and I can't transact because they shut his bank accounts down. And now they've revoked his ability to travel through the British, the British citizen, and he can't travel through Europe now and obviously they use the charge of his anti-Semite that seems to be the go-to these days. And so now they've literally locked him in that muddy little island of England and that's where he's kind of stuck, where he's being politically persecuted Muddy Island. I just spent two months there. I can't confirm it. It's a muddy place and that's kind of like what it paints the picture. What happened to the rest of us and it's not just. We are all, Alex Jones.
Speaker 1:At the end of the day, if you, once, this censorship industrial complex gains more and more momentum, that's what they're going to be doing. So, yeah, it's vital that we are able to transact, and then the one place where they will stop us they've got it stitched up is free movement. It's ironic that if you are a illegal immigrant, you can come right in, but if you are someone who's trying to stand up against the state, they'll use every single tool they can to stop your movement. Don't travel on a plane, travel on a boat is apparently the message they're sending here. So, yeah, interesting times, which actually segues me very nicely into this project you and I have been working on. I mean, we started the conversation beginning of this year about a Bitcoin conference in Cape Town along the lines of what we're speaking about right now. Yeah, it was in January.
Speaker 1:Maybe in the last year.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was around there I think it was when I came back from El Salvador in November. December, we started throwing the idea around, so it's been almost a year.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so this is what we are now. I mean, you've taken the lead on this with Quetzalco from Machinkura and Max, but Bitcoin conference in Cape Town it's happening January next year.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, yeah, it is an interesting segue into that topic because, unfortunately, I think the as much as I like this country and as much as I like living here, I think the situation is on a precarious trajectory and we are not heading in the direction that El Salvador is heading in, although a lot of people have their criticism of what's going on there too. But just when you go there, you feel this positive vibe, you feel this positive energy. There are places in the world that is on that sort of trajectory very few, I suppose, but South Africa is definitely not on that trajectory. It feels like we're heading down this sort of very dark avenue of I don't know more authoritarianism, confiscation of sort of personal wealth, just blatant corruption. Things are falling apart, but it's not a particularly positive feeling and that's sad.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I think my initial motivation was to do a conference to try and do something about that, because I think that Bitcoin has a role to play there.
Speaker 2:I think it has an important role to play there and, yeah, I think I'm excited it's going to be interesting to see how we can incorporate Bitcoin into trying to make a better situation out of a bad one, because there are people building alternatives, and those alternatives are going to need money.
Speaker 2:That's uncentrable. We haven't seen massive devaluation in the South African currency overnight yet, and we haven't really seen massive confiscation of private property just yet, but it's definitely something that the government here has been talking about more and more and more and sort of moving in that direction, and seem to have a complete disregard for the reality that that could lead to, and I have some personal experience with family moving abroad. It strikes me that anyone that can afford to is thinking about leaving South Africa, and people who cannot afford to leave South Africa is thinking about relocating to the best place within the country possible. But it's not like people are positive about the future. They seem to have a very adversarial stance and, yeah, someone has to try and do something about that, and I'm hoping that this conference can make a contribution.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and I mean the theme of the conference for those who don't really know yet is the confluence of parallel institutions and Bitcoin. And the reason why we came up with this quick, for why it's so important, is because, luckily, there's people in South Africa extremely capable, well-organized, competent people who realized, long before we even were thinking about this kind of thing, that South Africa needs a solution and that solution is not going to come from the state and it's not going to come from politics, and the solution is rolling up your sleeves and doing it yourself. And there's, I think, we. In my personal opinion, we are among the world leaders here in South Africa of parallel institutions, of people who formed organizations and they clumped together to self-organize, who are building alternatives to the state in every different avenue you can imagine. It starts with filling potholes, but then it moves to building your own schools, building your own universities and colleges, your own insurance companies. You're in firefighting departments, private security, farm watch, everything and these guys people might know I'm talking about the likes of Afriforum and Saakiliqa and Solidaritate, but there's a bunch of smaller institutions as well that are doing similar things, and these guys have been doing it for, in the case of Afriforum almost 30 years and they have been extremely successful and they've realized.
Speaker 1:You know this, ruslan Berti, who's one of the keynote speakers at the conference. He wrote an article about this by a year and a half ago and he said it's time to dig your trenches Because, like you say, people, every South African has thought about leaving. Who has the opportunity to leave? But where do you go? Because COVID has shown us that the grass is not greener and there's tyranny and authoritarianism creeping everywhere. Like Australia, in my opinion, handled COVID horrifically, it showed its true face, for, you know, turning into police state, new Zealand, even worse, america, depending what state you're in, you know, arguably even worse. England was bad. The whole of Europe was bad. So where do you go? And I think Ruslan Berti's answer is you don't go.
Speaker 2:El Salvador?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you go to El Salvador, but there's a cultural issue there, right, because El Salvador is a Spanish-speaking country and they've got their own Catholic and they've got their own culture and specifically no one no refugee ever wanted to leave their country. You know People like where they are, they've got their family ties and I mean you could be from Eritrea, you could be from Ghana or Libya or South Africa, like it doesn't matter. Most people don't want to leave where they are because their family is there, their network is there, like they have a love for the land. They don't want to go, and I think this is what Afroforum and Sartilex, etc. But right, and they're like guys, don't go.
Speaker 1:You need to build alternatives here Because you can flee and if you flee, you're going to be even more divided in a country that you've got no real momentum behind you to make changes and you could end up in New York City, for example, living in your authoritarian nightmare, or California. So the answer here is to build your own alternative and that's what these guys are doing and have been doing extremely successfully. I mean Solidaritate built that college, trade college in Pretoria. That is so successful. I mean the biggest single donation they got was 10 Rand and they got thousands of donations from all their members, but the biggest individual donation was 10 Rand to build that thing and I built it all on donations. It is a chill thing. These guys no corruption, built on time under budget and they've already. I think they've got their second batch of graduates out in the workforce already and because it's part of Solidaritate, which is a trade union, they've got almost guaranteed jobs where they're going. And the Solidarity trade union is very different from the trade unions that we think of, which are like these socialist movements, where the Solidarity trade union is more a Christian trade union in the capitalist sense, which is a whole other discussion by itself.
Speaker 1:But the point is I've been hammering on this for a while these guys have achieved so much success and they're doing great. But if their ability to trade is so great, they're going to be able to do a lot of things and the ability to transact is taken away if they become such a stick in the eye of government. Obviously, if it can be co-opted, it will be co-opted and the government will come after them and you and I, being in the Bitcoin space, have seen this you will be unbanked. I mean, I ran, I ran, I was running Bitwise myself and Brandon. We got unbanked by Netbank. They were like we're giving you three months, we're shutting down your accounts, you guys being unbanked and now starting my new company.
Speaker 1:Same story at Pemba Gateways. You got Bitcoin in your name, not serving you, and I'm like, hey, listen, but I don't sell Bitcoin, I sell computer hardware. It's like hardware, but it's don't care, don't care. So the like choke points are happening, and if AfroForum has to lose their ability to raise donations from their members, they will go bankrupt very quickly, and so this is why Bitcoin is super important, and this is what we try to achieve in this conference.
Speaker 1:Here is bring these guys who have the practical experience of building alternatives and building their systems at work in the most adversarial environment. You can not quite imagine, but it's a very adversarial environment where you've been called racist all the time, classic go-to you being. Your members are being attacked on their farms. You know there's quite a harsh environment to do things and the government's trying to stop you wherever they can, but still achieving success. But bring those guys together with the Bitcoiners who figured out how to build a censorship, resistant money, and I think you've got a very powerful, very powerful ally that can you know, can build a very powerful movement there.
Speaker 1:So, in a nutshell, that's what we try to achieve at this conference and what I see is that Bitcoiners from around the world have not got seen, haven't seen firsthand how things can be built, how parallel institutions can be built that you can use to effectively combat the state, but just the most likely scenario is just a stable decay around you, like South Africa, and you've got to hold that vacuum, you know?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, I think I think I think South Africa is a little bit further along in terms of its pro, in terms of the sort of the inevitable progression that a centralized entity like the state Sort of follows. It's kind of you know, centralization and it happens throughout history. It's happened very slowly, but I mean I'm trying to work my way. I don't get much time for reading with the kids but I read when I can and I'm busy working my way through a book that looks at and it's a very well explored theme, but it looks at the parallels between our World today and the Roman Empire and how the Roman Empire slowly over time just sort of degraded and degraded and how the role of centralization, how it's sort of this common theme throughout, the further along it goes, the more centralized the power becomes. The more centralized the power becomes, the more power it seeks, the more power it seeks. That even drive centralization even further and it sort of this. It goes back to human nature really, where you know you have power, you want more power. Nobody's ever gotten to a position of power where they say all that's fine, I've had enough, now you just want more and more and more, more typical, typical behavior for a drug addict also, and you just want more and more and more, and it's never enough. And and we see this in South Africa as well we, and I think I think in South Africa what's different is that it's happened a lot faster. It's happened way, way faster because it's essentially taken about 30 years for for a situation to go for, to go from the miracle of the world to being a Cessful of corruption and hopelessness. You know it's a very quick turnaround.
Speaker 2:When South Africa had its democratic election in 94 I mean, I'm old enough to remember that I was, I had, I had my, my mind and my Consciousness by that time. I have very clear memories and growing up as a teenager in you know, the immediate Post-1994, I was filled with hope and exuberance and I thought, fuck, this is amazing. You know, south Africa is just gonna, it's just gonna go incredibly well and and that that turned around very quickly and it comes down to. It comes down to people Not being able to handle power it's the world's most potent drive that there is and it's just turned a hopeful situation into a Cesspit of corruption and incompetence and and so the state Will collapse everywhere eventually because centralization it's built into it, but it's happened so fast, whereas if you look at countries like Europe I mean, you know, japan is a classic case where they've you know, I look at how indebted that government is and they just sort of found a way to to sort of you know, cruise along Europe sort of has a similar feel to it. It's such an old, old place and it just feels like they just sort of like cruising along, but it just feel.
Speaker 2:It feels like in South Africa, things, if things have accelerated and so you've seen a Faster buildup of Alternative movements and people. People have realized and it took them less time to realize that hey, we're gonna have to make a plan here. We're gonna have to make a plan because if we don't make a plan, the alternative is nothing. And so I think I think the conference has something to offer the rest of the world, particularly in Bitcoin, because we often like to talk about alternative structures. I mean, bitcoin itself is an alternative structure. Bitcoin is an alternative to structure, to to state controlled money.
Speaker 2:But what, what do? What do other structures look like? You know you can't. You can't drive your car on the Bitcoin network. You need a road to drive your car, and the classic question for libertarians is always well, who's gonna build the roads? And I think in South Africa we're gonna find out, we're gonna. We're gonna find out sooner than what people are gonna find out in other parts of the world. Who's gonna build the roads? Those types of questions. It's sort of like a running experiment. And but Quinn definitely has a place to, a place to to to be in that situation, because you cannot build that road if you don't have money With which to do it. If your money falls apart, you can have all the workforce in the world. You're not gonna be able to pay them, so are you gonna build the road?
Speaker 1:You know we missed it. We missed a trick when we were thinking of the name for this conference. We should have called it the proof of work conference, because the parallel institutions in South Africa are literally proof of work, like these guys have put in the absolute hard yards and their members because all of them are of like NPO is basically and their members funded, and People must understand that their members are normal members of South Africa who already pay taxes to the hills Remember, we're in a very highly taxed country, so they paying extra on top of their taxes to actually get things done and it just shows you like how low your tax rate actually needs to be to get stuff done, because these guys are probably paying single, single digits of their Of their off-the-tax income into these institutions to fix things and they're getting fixed roads, education and healthcare. All of that it's being it's being done by highly motivated, skilled individuals who just putting in the work. So for Bitcoin as to we all talk about proof of work in Bitcoin, to come and see real proof of work happening in the meat space In other avenues.
Speaker 1:I think that is a really, really potent thing that European Bitcoin is, for example, just haven't had to deal with, because things still function. We're functioning quite well in Europe by and large, and and now you can come and see it firsthand and and the other thing is is the guys on the other side of the fence, that parallel institution guys, like they all know about Bitcoin. Some of them are more orange-pulled than others, but but they not. The Rand hasn't let them down massively just yet. It's been the slow decline of the purchasing power, but they can still transact and they could pay contractors and they can. You know they can get things done. Our banking network works Well, so you know to move money around is really easy. So we need we need the Bitcoiners to come over and to speak to these parallel institution guys and be like hey, listen, come and look at this persecution that we've suffered in our countries, where the financial network has been weaponized against us and Bitcoin saved us Because we can still transact and like that meeting of the mines is what we try to achieve here and create a forum when these two groups can learn from each other, and I think it is just the best Melting part we can put together in the world for this to happen, and I think it you know it's got legs for each of yours to keep growing. And you know, in 10 years time we might be sitting out having this conversation where we've got 10 years of conference history behind us, and so the Africa could be the New York's Albert, or at least pockets of it.
Speaker 1:You know, because I don't know, and this is what what the guys from From Afri Forum I've spoken to them have told me. It's like the whole of the country cannot be saved. You cannot save the whole of South Africa for him, so I can't help. They'll cannot save the whole country. You can only say people who want to be saved, and it's only pockets. It's communities that self-organize that can save themselves by using these, these frameworks and these toolkits that are there, and and Bitcoin as a toolkits, and and and self-determination as a toolkit. So It'll be interesting to see which pockets, the country decide to help themselves, and that's it's proof of work. It's what it comes down to at the end of the year.
Speaker 2:No, I represent, and I mean like I, I don't, I know I neither I neither support nor oppose this movement, this internal migration that has happened from the rest of the country to the Western Cape. Um, I don't, I don't want to see the Western Cape break away from the rest of the country, but I'm also Understanding that that is a possibility. It's like I'm not, I'm not pushing in either direction, it's more a case of I'm watching, as it happens, and I happen to live in one of the areas that have seen a massive influx of of people over the last two years, and the amount of development that's happening here is just, it's just insane. And you know it, two, two months ago, during the, during the June June school holidays, I took, I took my family on a on a road trip through South Africa and we drove through three other provinces, drove over 4,000 kilometers With kids. That's quite something, um, and it's, it's, it's, it's weird, it was, it is. It's almost weird to see that the only development that's happening in those provinces Is development, that is, that is funded through through debt, state, state level debt, and that's the sort of the, the kind of like highways, you know, where government can borrow money to spend on highways, but private development, where, where developers come in and they build houses and housing estates, and those zero, nothing Um, whereas it's the opposite in in the western western Cape, which is the province that that we're in, where Cape Town is the capital, where it's just a massive influx of people and and you know, when I said earlier that everyone that can afford to is thinking about leaving South Africa, everyone that can't afford to leave South Africa is thinking about moving to the western Cape. Um, and and again, I don't, I don't, I don't necessarily support that, but I don't oppose it either. I'm I'm more sort of observing it because I think it's very interesting and I think I think it's it's naive to deny the reality that, on the ground, the country is already dividing itself in two. Um, you have this part of the country which is seeing massive development and influx of people. Businesses are moving here, people are bringing their, their families here, even if they still work in the sort of the economic capital in Joerg or wherever. They're moving their family down here and they fly up and down or whatever.
Speaker 2:Um, and if that, if that keeps happening, the the national government has already expressed it's a dislike Of, and you know that dislike is not the appropriate word. They probably have more harsh words to say about it, but they, they've already expressed that this is not something that they Even want to acknowledge is happening, but it is happening, um. And so the question becomes well, if this, if this continues happening, and if there's nothing that can be done to stop this, then again, eventually, what's going to happen is people are going to have to find an alternative money system To go where they want to go. We've seen, we've seen the same thing happen in other situations around the world where, when it's when it comes to that point and you want to leave, the most difficult thing to do is to leave with your money. You're gonna, you're not going to be able to leave with your house. You're not going to be able to leave with your stock portfolio, you're not going to be able to leave with gold bars stuffed up your ass. You're not going to be able to leave with, with, with, with cash in a backpack, how are you going to leave? And? And so they.
Speaker 2:Bitcquen 2 has an important role to play, and I, I hope it doesn't come to that, um, but the trajectory is pointed in that direction, and the trajectory trajectory has accelerated over the last 2 to 3 years. It's been happening for for for almost a decade, but it's it's accelerated. And so when you talk about pockets of the country, that's that's. That's the kind of situation I think of, because I don't think this is the only part of the country where that could happen.
Speaker 2:This could happen in other parts of the country too, where you find communities pop up, um, where there's a community of people in a certain geographical area and they're all concentrated there, and it's the kind of community that wants to do something, um, constructive and positive, and they, they necessarily have to operate independently from the government because, um, they, they, they want to do things that government is not doing. And so in those pockets, the question becomes well, who's going to be doing that and how are they going to do it, and what money are they going to use to do it? Um, and those are Three questions that I think is central to to this conference. Uh, we want to identify the people that are going to be doing this and we want to look at at how they're going to do it.
Speaker 2:And we want to look at which money they're going to use in order to do this, because, in the long run, it's almost guaranteed that they're not going to be able to use state money to to do these sorts of things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you know, put Bitcoin aside. Imagine Bitcoin didn't exist at all. I think the South African Rand is doomed to failure even if the Bitcoin does not exist, because the South African government, on its current trajectory that it is on, is incapable of organizing a PIS up in a brewery, so it will not be capable of holding a monetary system together. There's no way that you could preserve the purchasing power of the Rand when you're running a criminal organization that is not even capable of covering up its own crimes. You know, these are not competent people. This is just a gang of thugs marauding and looting. And South Africa, like I say, on its current trajectory, is heading towards balkanization, and I don't say this with any realish. I wish this wasn't the case, because typically, balkanization is followed by civil war, because the central power doesn't want to give up control over its fiefdoms. And unfortunately, I think that is the direction we're heading in, and the only hope we can have is that the Western Cape can pull a Slovenia during the Yugoslav War and if people are familiar with what happened in the Yugoslav War, there was war that broke out between Croatia and Serbia and they were fighting each other and Slovenia at the same time was like OK, guys, we will be opting out of Yugoslavia as well, we're leaving, and they just seceded while the other two were fighting each other. There was 10 days of war between Croatia and Slovenia, because Slovenia sits north of Croatia and Serbia down below it. And there was 10 days of war between Croatia and Slovenia and then things were still heating up down in Serbia and Croatia, so they focused their attention there and Slovenia managed to exit with very minimal war. That actually took place in Slovenia and it didn't really get damaged so much in any 10 days, whereas Croatia and Serbia had genocides and all kinds of atrocities and the NATO game and it bombed it and it was an entire chit-chop. But so no one wants civil war. It's terrible. It's this massive destruction of capital, human lives, history, culture, everything it gets destroyed. But I think the best we can hope for is that places like KZN, the Zulu nation, secedes from the rest of the country before the Western Cape does, and because there's so many different cultural groups, they all kind of go in there and marry away and secede and that leaves the Western Cape, gives us the wiggle room to secede ourselves without civil war. But who knows? Who knows what will happen. I think everyone wants to avoid that if possible, but I think it's very important for people to realize that we're not cheering on secession with relish. We don't want this to happen, and the conference is not about Western Cape secession at all. The conference is about how do people self-organize and build solutions so that you're not just a jellyfish responding to stimuli when the state does what it wants to do. You actually have different cards to play and you can be the master of your own destiny here. I think that's what this is all about. So the situation is very real.
Speaker 1:Here in South Africa, we are staring at monetary collapse. In my mind it's a given. It's just a matter of time, and who knows how long it could take? It could be two years, it could be two months, it could be 20 years, who knows? But it's going to happen and, like you say, you can't leave. We've already have capital controls in place. You can't leave the country with your house, your stock portfolio, all of those things.
Speaker 1:The Indian guy who found the gold and possessed like the metal detector will go off, and the last thing the government will do when you try to leave is strip everything from you, because obviously the rats are abandoning the ship. They're trying to plug the holes. They're going to try to rob everyone as much as they can before you go, and Bitcoin is the only asset that you can reliably leave the country with, because it's not anywhere. Since I was based, you remember 12 words. You're out of there, bro. You walk across that border stock naked. There's nothing I can do. But this conference is not about abandoning the ship. It's about plugging holes and building lifeboats and ultimately trying to build a whole new ship or fleet of new ships, smaller ones that go in their separate ways. So yeah, I mean it's going to be interesting, but it's real. It's not theoretical for us anymore.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I want to take a small step back, because it's kind of an interesting comment that you make. Like we're not I mean, like I said, I don't support, neither oppose, the secession of the Western Cape, but I'm observing the situation and observing it with a very sort of sober perspective. It's like, well, the most constructive thing that you can possibly do is to start from a point where you simply acknowledge reality for what it is. And the stupidest thing that you could possibly do is to start from a point where you so badly want one particular outcome that you don't acknowledge reality for what it is and you mistake reality for what you want it to be. And this goes back to a comment that you made earlier on with regards to and this is with the Bitcoin and the whole crypto, crypto, shitcoin industry, where the SEC, the Securities and Exchange Commission, is going off to some of these altcoin projects like Ripple and so on. And then one of the comments I see on Twitter is people shouting at Bitcoiners and saying, oh, but you guys are supposed to be all libertarian and so on, and are you cheering on the government? And it's like no, no, no, we're not cheering. At least, speaking for myself, I'm not cheering on the government. I'm simply saying that I told you so.
Speaker 2:Looking back several years ago and looking at the centralized nature of this project of yours, which you claim to be decentralized but which is, in fact, completely centralized under the control of a company, you could have imagined that, look, this is going to turn into a situation where are you selling securities, or are you not? And it's simply. Bitcoiners have been sounding the so-called alarm bells for many years, and now that's happening. And now we're saying, well, look, this is kind of what we said is going to happen. That doesn't mean I'm supporting the government going after these people, and it's a similar situation with what we find in South Africa, where it's a session or not a session, or whatever the case may be. I don't really support it either way, but the reality of the situation is what it is, and the best thing that you could possibly do is to acknowledge the reality and plan for the different possible outcomes. One of those possible outcomes is that secession does happen, and another possible outcome is that it doesn't happen, but either way, the situation is such that it's become very clear that we have an incompetent government and that it makes sense to think about building alternatives, because it's become pretty clear that government is failing at its own mandates. And the most obvious example is the one that we have with electricity in South Africa, where they've taken on the role of look, we're going to provide electricity for the country. Escom is entirely state-owned. We don't want private companies to come in and do energy generation or distribution, but they're failing. They're failing at the target that they've set for themselves. So it's just become clear as daylight pun intended. It's become clear as daylight that you have to put solar panels on your roof, otherwise you fuck. So it's not that I want state failure, it's just that I want electricity. And if that's what you want, then the reality is that you're going to have to make your own alternative plan to do that, and it's similar with other institutions.
Speaker 2:And the conference is not about cheering on secession of the Western Cape. It's not about cheering on state failure, it's not about any of those things. It's about recognizing the necessity for people to come together and make a plan and to do so in small but organized groups, because the larger political structure is not necessarily, I think in any case, the place where those solutions are going to come from. And that's what the conference is about. It's about bringing these groups of people together, and one of those groups is a bunch of Bitcoiners who understand the technology, the developers, the people who are using it on the ground. And another one of those groups of people are people who don't necessarily use or develop on Bitcoin, but they're building structures that we all need Alternative energy, alternative legal structures, alternative roads, security companies, fire all those things that generally is dependent on the state. And just to bring those groups together and say, hey look, the reality is what it is and what can we do to prepare ourselves for whichever possible outcome ends up happening, Absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, perfectly said, man. And the other thing that's included in the conference, obviously it's two days from the 26th to 28th of January next year, and the other thing that's included in the conference is taking people on a trip to Muscle Bay, down to Bedquenicaasie. What's on the agenda there for them when they get to Muscle Bay?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I think we basically just want to generally, when people come to visit the project, the aim is really just to show how Bitcoin can be introduced, how it can be used, and how it can be used even in circumstances where you wouldn't expect it to be able to work. I was having this conversation with somebody not so long ago and I was trying to make the point that it's not necessarily about the number of shops that we have on board, it's not about the number of transactions, it's not about adoption. Adoption does not necessarily translate into overnight. There's 100,000 people using it. It's more a case where what we're trying to do here is build a small proof of concept of what does Bitcoin adoption potentially look like in circumstances where you wouldn't have thought it could work?
Speaker 2:Because I think a lot of people are hesitant to adopt Bitcoin and they think well, maybe Bitcoin works for those people, or it works for those people. Or maybe Bitcoin works for that person because they've got a lot of money to invest. Or maybe this person is able to use Bitcoin because they've got a high level of technical skill. Or maybe this person can use Bitcoin because they've been in this space for many years, they completely understand it, and so on and so forth. What we're trying to do with Bitcoin is say no, look, you can adopt Bitcoin and you can use it even if you don't have any of those things. Even if you don't have a huge amount of capital to invest, even if you don't have massive technical knowledge, even if you don't have a large amount of experience in the space, you can still adopt it, you can still use it and it can still be beneficial.
Speaker 2:The idea would be to bring people to the project and to demonstrate that this is how we did it here. It could be done in other ways elsewhere, but the point is that it's possible and there are many benefits to taking that leap of faith, so to speak, and say, okay, let's try and introduce it, let's try and adopt it. If it could work in a township, then maybe it could work for my organization here or this organization there, but surely if it could work in a township, there's no practical reason why it can't work anywhere else. That's really what the visit to Ecazi is all about.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So if it can work in the most adversarial environment, basically known to man, it can definitely work everywhere. What's your excuse? If you can make this thing work in a township, you can definitely make it work in your suburb or in your town or in your home, Definitely. So tell me, where can people get a hold of tickets? What's the website for the conference and where can they get?
Speaker 2:tickets. There's a pinned tweet at the top of the Bitcoin Ecazi Twitter profile that gives the official conference announcement. The website's on there as well, but it gives a nice overview of the conference and the website is at adoptingBitcoin wwwadoptingBitcoinorg. Forward slash Cape Town dash 2024. So you just go to adoptingBitcoinorg. Forward slash Cape Town dash 2024. But if that URL is too long to remember, you can basically just check the Bitcoin Ecazi to the profile.
Speaker 1:I'll put it in a link in the description of the video as well. But we're still running specials for South Africans. If I recall rightly, there's different pricing structures. So if you South African, you can get a South African ticket. What's the? You just have to show your ID, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just got to show your ID at the door, but no one's going to keep a copy of your ID, so we don't take, we're not going to make a copy and keep that anyway. It's not going to be a sort of a KYC honeypot of data, so to speak. It'll basically just be a doorman at the door just to verify that you are a South African citizen and you'll be let in with your South African ticket. Just one other thing maybe worth mentioning is that the South African, the ticket prices for international visitors, will be going up at the end of each month. So the August prices went up at the beginning of September and the September prices will be going up at the end of September and then October, november and so on and so forth, but the ticket prices for South Africans will remain the same up until the day before the conference.
Speaker 2:That being said, if you are a South African, don't be South African and wait until the day before the conference to buy your fucking ticket. Buy it now, because we need ticket sales in order to put on the conference. And so if you are thinking of going to the conference, just buy a ticket, get it done with. Don't be a typical South African and wait until the week before the time to buy the ticket. The more tickets we sell, the further in advance, the more guaranteed we are of actually putting on the conference in terms of attendance.
Speaker 1:The other thing is, if you wait, you might actually not get a ticket, because we're very limited in the amount of tickets we're selling. This is going to be a small conference, specifically because we want to keep it intimate. We want to facilitate discussions between people and get people to actually form connections and meaningful bonds. And you can't do that with a thousand people at a conference, but you can with 350. So we're looking at these purposefully to keep it tight.
Speaker 2:Yeah, another thing that I definitely want to mention is just to add on to that is that there is a hard cap limit on the number of tickets that we can sell. The venue has a certain number of people that they will accommodate and we cannot actually sell more tickets. So it's not a case where I think we're going to sell 300 tickets. We can't sell more than 300 tickets, and if we get to the point where we've sold 300 tickets, that's it. We cannot actually accommodate more people. The venue won't let more people in than that. So if we get to 300 and that's it, then you've lost up that.
Speaker 2:And the other thing that's worth mentioning is that I had a recent experience in the US at the Global Bitcoin Summit, where the audience was much smaller. There was only about 150 people in attendance. Compared to the larger conferences I mean, even adopting Bitcoin and El Salvador, which is considered a small conference, it's a thousand people. It's a massive difference. You just have such a more intimate interaction with everyone there. You get to speak to people that you otherwise would never have the opportunity to speak to. We are going to have some headline speakers who these are the kinds of people who at one of the larger conferences somewhere else in the world, you probably never get the chance to go up to them and just have a casual chat, whereas if you're doing it in a smaller conference setting, you can actually do that. There is the time and they're not surrounded by a throng of people. They have more time available for the people at that conference.
Speaker 1:So it is a very different setting and definitely worthwhile getting a ticket as soon as possible and there's also going to be a couple of side events around it, like, for example, we're going to have the Bitcoin bribe beforehand. So if you're a foreigner, it's a great place to come and experience South African culture, have a bribe and actually get to meet these people before the conference and share a meal with them and have a chat. So it's going to be a very personal experience. The other thing I want to show a mutual friend of ours is this company. It's not even a company actually, because it's just a Bitcoin thing. It's called AirBTC and basically, if you're a Bitcoiner, it means you can go and stay with other Bitcoiners. So if you've got a property in Cape Town that you want to put on AirBTC, head over to his website list. Your property only accepts Bitcoin, so Bitcoiners get to stay with other Bitcoiners.
Speaker 1:So it's the perfect thing for the conference. You're coming from abroad. Come and stay with a local Bitcoiner. They'll show you around, you'll you know when you're ripped off in the waterfront. You'll be able to like actually experience South African culture and live with a local Bitcoiner. I think it's a great experience. So Andre has done a great job with AirBTC Super, super cool projects he's got going there. So, yeah, head over there, check it out. And then one last thing is if you are someone watching this and you are interested in sponsoring the events, reach out to myself or Herman. We're looking for a couple of sponsors. Still got a good opportunity to get an early, get your name out there and be part of something that we think is going to be very, very cool. So, yeah, reach out to us. It's a great, great conference to get involved in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, 100%. And I mean Cape Town itself is, if you've never been, it's definitely a must visit. There's nothing, there's nothing else quite like it. I mean, I'm obviously biased, but I have traveled extensively and it's, there's something unique about the city. It's just it's the combination of having this massive mountain that sort of hugs the inner city. It's, it does something. There's something about it that's. That's. That's just very different. And if you haven't been to Africa before and you're a little bit, a little bit sort of hesitant about whether or not I should travel to Africa, then Cape Town is a very, very, very easy entry point for your first time. It's super friendly, it's very accommodating, it's a very well developed tourism destination and you shouldn't have any hassles, even if you're traveling solo. So yeah, and I say that as someone who's worked in the tourism industry for more than 10 years it really is it really is something quite special.
Speaker 1:And the conference happening the best time of year, but in the middle of summer, in January. So the weather in the weather in the Northern Hemisphere sucks. It's cold, it's rainy, it's snowing, it's bleak. Your days are like 30 minutes long terrible. Come to South Africa for January. You can have a great time. It's cheap. Yeah, eat a lot of meat, a whole bunch of steak. Talk Bitcoin, talk about fixing the world will be great. Cape Town absolutely. Bitcoin conference 2024.
Speaker 2:All right, I think we're gonna leave it there, erman, thank you so much.
Speaker 1:I look forward to keep working on this project with you. It's gonna be very, very cool and, yeah, good to see you again, man. I hope to see you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, yeah likewise. We'll see you soon.