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Hi guys. We got something special for you today, actually bringing it from we're going to be on the beach. We interviewed a number of the different Circular Bitcoin Economies from around the world.
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They came into El Zonte for a summit that we put on, and we had a chance to talk a little bit about what's happening in their community. So really looking forward to this episode, and hope you enjoy it as much as I did doing the interviews.
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All right. Well, welcome back. We are continuing the Bitcoin Beach Circular Economy Summit Live stream here with our first special guest, Uncle Rockstar Dev. So how are you, Rockstar?
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What do you mean?
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First special guest, like these two are the most special guests.
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So, so yeah,
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We live here.
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Doing good, man, doing good. I always enjoy coming to Bitcoin Beach and, yeah, spending time in this place that helped create so much history in Bitcoin. So yeah, I love it, man.
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I have a question about your figure, your action figure here, as you continue to increase your muscle size, are you going to release new additions?
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That's a good question, because what actually motivated me to start working out more was we did the action figure, and someone complained that it's more masculine, right?
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So now I've upped the game, like, if I get more buffed and figurine like that will be a good we're gonna upgrade. Yeah.
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Okay, so can we, can you tell us a little bit about the the workshop that we had at the at the summit? First, thank you. Thank you for listening, and thank you for, like, get the call and say, I can build that need, you know, and that future.
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Yeah, man, I can talk a little bit about that, because the great thing about BTC Pay Server is that it's fully open source. The not so great thing about BTC Pay Server, for many people who are not cypherpunks, technical is the fact that you need to self host it, so it's not a service to which you can subscribe, and because of that, we really depend on circular economies like yours. Like all the leaders that came here to Circular Economy Summit, there's they're the ones hosting BTC Pay Server instances, and then in conversation with you, you're telling us about, hey, when people come in, they pay in Bitcoin here at merchants. It's also great if they can buy Bitcoin from merchants, and then if merchants can decide whether to sell, depending on whether they need dirty Fiat, cash, whatever. So when we started collaborating on this man, like, what I love is that we're building open source technology and give it to people to use that technology in their daily life. And, like, completely own it. So it's not, you know, we're for profit, startup, VC funded or whatever, and we need to make profit. But no man create technology, open source it, give it to people exactly in the way Bitcoin was done. And it's been amazing, collaborating with Bitcoin Beach and you on this, because I did the first version of plug in a while ago, but I really waited like, what is the great opportunity to launch it?
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And we did it, and I couldn't be more satisfied.
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Thank you very much. And before we get a little bit more into this new plugin and the workshop and the overlap with circular economies, for anyone who might not know, could you tell us a little bit more about the backstory of BTC Pay Server and what the main use cases you see for it in the real world?
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Well, BTC Pay Server started initially as a reaction to Bitpay supporting SegWit2X Fork and Nicolas Dorier, the founder of BTC Pay Server, had this legendary tweet that said they posted a tweet saying everyone needs to update to bit core like SegWit2X and he replied with this is, lies my trust in you is broken. I will make you obsolete. And started coding BTC Pay Server, and it really became first drag and drop replacement for Bitpay, allowing anyone that was merchant on bit pay to switch to their own instance, be sovereign and get. To decide what is Bitcoin for them, because Bitpay was using the fact that merchants were using them to switch everyone to support something that was not meant to be supported. And ever since, it became just this crazy Bitcoin open source project that has inspired so many other Bitcoin projects. And now it's, you know, voucher platform. It's a POS platform. People are using it to pay their vendors and contractors accept invoices from them. There was a recent case study with BTC Inc. They paid over a million dollars worth of Bitcoin transactions using vendor pay and BTC Pay Server.
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So, yeah, Mike, I should have said what like 12 Bitcoin. Yeah.
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So sorry.
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Got a denominating SATs or unit of account Maxis, as well as medium of exchange Maxis here. And thank you so much for sharing. I love the Cypherpunk roots of BTC Pay Server, and I know for Mike and many Bitcoiners, I often hear them talking about how freedom, like freedom money, is the reason why we all care so much about Bitcoin and Circular Economies. And so my next question is your experience with this summit, you've been here the past two days, hearing from all these leaders, including many adversarial contexts where their governments don't want them using Bitcoin. So could you talk maybe a little bit about why Circular Economies are important to you, and kind of just they'll overlap with the Cypherpunk leave those.
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Yeah, I mean that they are actual users of technologies. Because, you know, we can have cypherpunks like me, right? If there is no Chimbera, there is no Mike to actually work with community and get people onboarded on technology, it's like, what's the point?
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Right? I know my fellow cypherpunks will say, like, yeah, the point is, we are private. You know, we are secure, like we stack Bitcoin.
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You're out of the system, but I really wish that we onboard as many people as possible onto Bitcoin. And as Chimbera, so well said at the summit, it was like Bitcoin is an opportunity for people who never had an opportunity, right? Like if someone is born now here in El Zonte, that person has a different access to global financial system than someone born in Chicago, Illinois or New York or San Francisco. So Bitcoin changes that Bitcoin, us in Bitcoin, especially people like Chimbera, like Mike, they help change that game and be like, okay, it doesn't matter where you were born if you want to contribute to financial system of tomorrow. Now you have way through Bitcoin. And I think this summit also was a great showcase of, hey, you take care of all these leaders like you get them here you cover their flights, lodging, and then with people interacting and bringing what is unique to their community, they get to share with others, and then take also their learnings back to their community, and We build, you know, iteratively, like step by step.
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I do believe and that Bitcoin Circular Economies are the realization that Satoshi talk in the white paper. You know, where we we will live in a decentralized war, but we're seeing in the small communities, right where you come and El Zonte Bitcoin Beach is one of those places that we have here people, the only thing that they touch is SAT, you know, and it's like, it's so, so unique when people come here pay everything in Bitcoin when they get back to Europe or Canada, it feel like if they're getting back to the past, you know? And this is a funny story, but it just happened last week with Archie BTC Archive, right? We were having a choco banana around 9pm at nine, we're sitting outside my house, and a lady from Europe came to buy a choco a Nano, and the guy, the kid, maybe 13, 14, years old, giving her the choco a Nano, as her Papa got in Bitcoin. Like, are you gonna pay in Bitcoin? And the lady just saw you, like, what is Bitcoin?
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You know? So those are the things that it's unique what's happening in Bitcoin Circular Economies. You know.
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It's amazing when even the merchants are asking, that's just like an expectation.
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And yeah, same with Berlin. And I know you visited Berlin, so actually, that's a question for you. How many of these circular economies have you been to around the world? How many times have you been San Salvador now and what's kind of your experience? It's actually using Bitcoin in the real world.
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Yeah. Now I'm trying to remember all the circular economies I've been to Yeah, two times in El Salvador, three, four man, I think, more than four times. But now the anytime I visit circular economy, it's seeing Yeah, those unique moments that you were talking about Chimbera, and then also realizing how, yeah, this is the way we only had central banking as a technology, because we didn't know as humanity how to implement financial system at that point of time, like better, it was okay, we we're going to delegate money and all things money to these people. They will take care of us. They will, you know, take care of monetary policy and this and that, and that was the best technology at the time. Luckily, thanks to Bitcoin, now we have technology with which we can, you know, obsolete central banks and, more importantly, separate state and money the same way that state and church were separated and religion. Yeah,
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I have a special request for Rockstar. I think for the next summit, we need to try to get Jack here, Jack Dorsey, because, like Jack, to me, is the only person at his level that understand that Bitcoin need to be money, you know. And he's the only person like fighting this, saying that if Bitcoin only become a minister of value, Bitcoin will fail, you know, because the real freedom came from using it. You know,
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I think Jack, if he would watch this video, he'll be like, No, guys, you got to do it. I'm too busy. That will be the response. But now my thing will be exactly that is like, I think Bitcoin has empowered all of us enough so that we take the next steps and we don't need to depend on anyone individually we like, take what we have and build like what is the next thing to build and next thing to build and keep going. And that's exactly what I see that you guys are doing, is you had an opportunity to be bit like Bitcoin Beach, the circular economy, but you resisted whatever it was like, I don't even know if there was temptation, Mike. But it was like, let's build in decentralized way. Let us not get the funding and be like central point of failure. But rather, let's empower all these people share the knowledge and they can take on and lead forward, right? Mike,
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Yeah, no. We didn't want to just replicate the broken NGO model, where they just try to get bigger and bigger and suck in more. We we want it to be decentralized. We want to see other people doing things differently than the way we would do it, because that's how we learn better. If everything kind of flows through us, it's the innovation is going to be stifled. And so, yeah, it was never, at least for me, it wasn't a temptation. I didn't, I didn't want that responsibility, and I also didn't think it would turn out well. And so I thought, hey, the best thing is to empower all these people around the world, share with them what has worked for us. You know, partner with them when we can and do events like this, where we can bring people together, they can share best practices, what's working for them, what's not but then knowing that everybody is kind of self sovereign out there with their own projects.
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Yeah, and I just want to say, like, that's the biggest message I would like to send from from here to those watching, is, you know, use events like this, use opportunities like like this to get inspired yourself. You know, like, come to events like this.
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You guys organize meetups here.
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Like every week, every month, there is something. So I really encourage everyone watching this to be like, Hey, if you're unsure how you can contribute to Bitcoin, you don't need to figure it all out alone. Like, come to one of these events, come to Bitcoin Beach, come to Berlin. You have tons of events.
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And as you interact with fellow Bitcoiners, or even, like, if you're not Bitcoiners, interact with fellow freedom lovers, you will figure it out. But yeah, people need to come to these events.
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And for me, one of the most exciting moments where we had a panel during the summit with with Ovi, Roy, and Bitrefill, right? And then Aaron from Goa was asking, like, what you guys are doing to fix this?
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And then Roy get the mic and say, What are you doing, how you are addressing those problems?
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You know, now you have the technology. She just she'll see where. Is working where it's not working. And if you struggling with something, then you come because back into the point like so many people are just waiting that the perfect technology, the perfect person, the perfect moment, and it's never gonna be like this, right?
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Yeah, you need people going out and actually using the technology in the real world. And so, because we have so many leaders here, so many interesting perspectives, we are going to start winding this down, but I do have one kind of final question for you, Uncle Rockstart Dev. So you often say everybody wants to be rock star until it's time to be a rock star. I was going to ask you what you actually mean by that, but no, I'm going to use our precious time for a serious question. So as you know, a developer, you see all this technology being used in the real world, and all these different circular economies have different contexts. So you know, you mentioned Jack Dorsey square, that's empowering a lot of new circular economies in the US some places, obviously here Bitcoin Beach, they pioneered the Lightning Network. They actually had to build their own lightning app, Bitcoin Beach wallet. What are you seeing like in Indonesia using Fedi in an innovative way? What do you see as a developer in terms of, like, getting feedback from people using products in the real world? And like, how should people reach out to BTC Pay Server if they have suggestions or things like that?
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Yeah. So as for my saying that everyone wants to be a rock star until it's time to be a rock star, I think it's self descriptive, like people get it. As for the serious question. I just see, man, I see empowerment of individual.
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That's, that's the name of the game. And the question is, as Chimbera said, What will you as individual do to empower yourself? Because now, thanks to Bitcoin, you no longer need to depend on central banks and governments to issue you money.
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You know, you can have freedom money thanks to AI. Now, everyone will be a developer.
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Everyone will code, or people will use that technology to entertain themselves, and then, you know, they won't produce anything. So really, the name of the game is you using technology for empowerment of individual.
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So do that like people watching, use the technology empower yourself, and then as you gain more power, the question is, how will you hold that responsibly, and how will you empower others?
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And if you struggle with any step, just come to events like this and interact with people, and it will be way easier for you to figure out what are the next steps.
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And I want to stand up and say, Thank you, Uncle Rockstar, thanks for everything, brother, always, always. Thank you.
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Hey guys. You know we don't do commercials here at the Bitcoin Beach podcast because we want to keep it focused on what's happening here in El Salvador, but we have something special that we're promoting right now, because we have the Stay at Bitcoin Beach project that's just been launched. We've always wanted to make sure that when Bitcoiners come to El Salvador, they have a truly Bitcoin through and through experience in their accommodations, in being able to stay at a place that mostly has other Bitcoiners. And so we came up with this idea, and I actually found my buddy Peter here to take the bull by the horns and then make it happen.
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So Peter, tell us what you got cooking for us.
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Thanks, Mike, Stay at Bitcoin Beach dot com. This is the website and the brand that we started that it will host a growing number of Premier properties that we have, both in the Punta Mango area and here in El Zonte. The first is Punta Mango villas, which was the original place that Mike, you and I bought 16 years ago, and it's been newly remodeled six villas that sit upon the best break my opinion in the country, but stunning. The pool has been redesigned. We've got a bar on the cantina. The full restaurant Casa Agua Fria is a small, little cabin in the same area, and it sits right on the Agua Fria Beach, a little bit more intimate. It's great for families and they want to go out and kind of get away. And then here in El Zonte, there's three properties. First, it's Citi Del Mar which Mike you put your heart and soul into. We're sitting here now in the podcast studio that has two main houses overlooking the the break of El Zonte. Beautiful infinity pool gym just got a first class place to stay, and then a new condo that just got released in the Barefoot project that's on the other side of the river, fifth story, overlooking the ocean.
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Again, beautiful, two bedroom, and then seven suites that we're opening up called Bitcoin Beach Suites, that is really close to where a lot of the Bitcoin Beach story started. So when you come, you can use Bitcoin to book your stay right on the website. You also can use it for transportation, for food, for all the services that we continue to add to to the business. So we'd love to have you please go to Stay at Bitcoin Beach dot com. You'll see pictures, you'll see all the different descriptions and information of the properties, and you can hit us up, either on our web page or on Instagram, and we'll get back to you. We'd love to have you out. Please come to Stay at Bitcoin Beach.
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We're here in Bitcoin Beach, in the global Bitcoin Circular Economy. And we have here Zach, Brandon, and Jethro that we want to say, thank you guys for all the hard work that you have been putting we know even in our white paper, the Bitcoin Beach white paper, we talk about the marketing side, how important is that you build you do but you can communicate it in the best way.
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In the last four months, we have been having Zach and Brandon and Jethro have been here longer, but you guys are always doing marketing and talking about Bitcoin. So thank you for that.
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Yeah, well, thank you Roman and Mike for having us here. It's great to be in El Zonte, Bitcoin Beach. You know, I came here close to five months ago with a one way ticket and a mission to shoot a documentary about the grassroots Bitcoin.
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Well, actually, I think I have one on the way, so, but anyway, so my first Bitcoin purchase was at camera, and it's because I came here. I wanted a mission. I wanted to integrate with the Bitcoin culture, and I met you.
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And so from zero to hero, we've been creating so much, you know, just being out there for that adventure driving Bitcoin adoption and education and to share that with the world. You know, together with Brandon, we've been riding around the country and the Bitcoineta with our Salvadoran brothers, Fred and Brian, and it's just been an honor. I'm overwhelmed. I can't believe I'm sitting here with the likes of with you guys, you know, it's, it's, it's exciting, and so, yeah, it's, it's, and what?
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Why do we do this? Well, we do this because we have a great responsibility. You will own Bitcoin, and you will be happy, and we're here celebrating that.
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This is the Zonte Economic Forum. We have to broadcast that message, that message to the world. We have to compete with the other globalist movements and show them that we're going local to global. And, yeah.
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Thank you. Thank you. Brandon.
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Hey everybody.
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Brandon Martin, you could follow me on X at L Brandon Martin and, yeah, this is like my fifth month down here at Bitcoin Beach, working with the guys Zach had mentioned. You know, we've been traveling all around El Zonte and El Salvador in search of Bitcoin Circular Economies to promote and advertise for what's going down here. What's going on down here?
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I came down here to do some independent journalism and reporting on this movement because mainstream media has failed us. And you know, it's up to us, the plebs, the people that are involved with real life scenarios that come out and see for ourselves. You know, the proof of work that's happening all around El Salvador. And you know, being at Bitcoin Beach, it's one of the first circular economies to help start and show people how it's like to live peer to peer, instead of through a third party, corrupt banking systems, extorting people to death. So, you know, being a Bitcoiner, there's no better place to learn from people than El Salvador, people that have been coming down here to, you know, show people what it's like to live on a Bitcoin standard.
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And, you know, being in El Zonte, there's so many more people down here living on a Bitcoin standard, you know, to show what it's like. And you know, at the Global Bitcoin Circular Economy summit, the last couple days, we've had people from all around the world that have came here to see what it's like to teach and to learn and to be, you know, start their own operations up as a worldwide movement.
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And we're super proud of you, Brandon, you came here. You find a wife already.
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Yeah,
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I came down here last year for the Max and Stacy Invitational, and it was such a cool event. You know, I fell in love in El Salvador. I met my fiance currently, you know, just, you know, last year, and we've been staying in connection all year long. And you know, the last five months getting to know her better. I proposed to her on Christmas Eve night, you know, it was a special occasion for me, you know. And so now I'm going to be, you know, I'm engaged to a local Salvadorian woman. And you know, their morals and values and the respect of this woman is just the most substantial thing I've ever came across in my life. So if it wasn't for Bitcoin leading the way for the future of humanity, I wouldn't have came down here and seen what it's like.
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No, well say Brother, thank you.
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So just add a few more nice things about these two guys, because you already heard about me a little bit so Brandon Martin. Max Kaiser has called Brandon Martin his favorite artist in the world. You may know the Book of Max, that cover art that was done by Brandon.
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Most of the memes you'll see about Max and Stacy, their events posters, that's all Brandon. And then Zach, of course, fluent in multiple languages from Sweden, but also fluent in Spanish, and actually working with the beef initiative. Little over a month ago, the Minister of Agriculture of El Salvador came to visit Texas Slim in Texas, and they needed somebody who was both fluent in Spanish and highly skilled with the camera.
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They're not really happy with the Spanish side. I hear,
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Oh, you may have to answer to that one, Zach, but yeah, just huge shout out to the work that these two do. And personally, for the many interviews I've done for the Bitcoin country podcast for Stacy in the Bitcoin office, most of those have been produced by one of these two, depending on the event, but amazing work in addition to further the Bitcoin PhD.
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But thanks you too, Jethro, I say, but the work that you're doing with helping Berlin, helping Stacy, the Bitcoin, Bitcoin Country podcast, is like I told these guys, I have this conversation with Brandon and Zack like guys, there is one day per week that you need to be off, not Twitter, no social media. And they look at me like if I'm saying something that they cannot do, you know, but I have to say they're getting better.
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It's good to have some young blood in here, because Roman thinks he's still young, but he's starting to get old, and so we need some younger blood in here, you know, livening things up again.
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He's younger than I am, you know?
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Well, we know who is the older here, guys, and we're not talking here about age. We just want to say we're really grateful for for you three and let's keep building.
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Yeah. Well, I just want to mention one more thing, and it's, you know, the three of us, we traveled around the world together. We went to Mauritius for the Africa Bitcoin Conference, where we also held the Bitcoin Circular Economy summit Africa, where we saw 15 African leaders come together for the first time to share their projects, to show to, you know, learn from each other, the challenges, the opportunities, and to I like the analogy of like we're All creating these local circles, you know, Bitcoin circular economies. But in the end, what we're going to do is we're going to connect all those and create one big flower of life, and for you guys to bring me to that and to be able to document that entire journey and to produce a documentary film that we actually premiered here, yes, on the summit. It's been a great honor. It's been so much fun. And, you know, I can't believe I bought a camera, you know, four months ago, and here I am, four months later, premiering a minute documentary with the likes of you guys. So thank you for that opportunity, and stay tuned. We'll, we're gonna premiere it now for the plan B conference and so so that everyone can take part of it at the Bitcoin beach YouTube channel.
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Thank you. Thank you guys. Thank you.
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Yeah. One more thing, you know, what Bitcoin Beach has done for people around the world is inspiring people to come down and to blossom themselves. And you know, what you guys are doing is great, what all these other people are doing is great. But what I've noticed is there's a great word called synergy, where it's just, you know, if you got 100% out of Bitcoin Beach, 100% out of me, or 100% out of anyone here, when we're all together, it amplifies each other by 1000 times. So as someone like this, from people all over the world, not only amplifies it 1000 times from peer to peer, but it amplifies it 1000 times every person that's introduced. So we're getting 100,000 times more signal than we would just individually. Besides Bitcoin Beach you.
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Let's go. Thank you.
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Let's do it.
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We're better together.
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We're better together.
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Hey guys, as we wrap this podcast, we want to let you guys know about an effort we have to support Andy's family, something that we decided we wanted to do because of how much Andy was a part of.
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Everything was as we open the Bitcoin beach suites, we are going to give 100% of all. The revenue that comes in in the first two months to Suez and Maven to make sure that his family supported. And so please keep remembering them and your guys prayers. But also, if you get the chance to come here to El Zonte, this is a way that you can help support their family by by booking over there at the suites. And we'll make sure all that revenue goes to them, paid to them in Bitcoin. Yeah.