Twitter Spaces: Bitcoin and Blockchain with Ashton Addison

Synopsis: ‍

Host of The Crypto Coin Show Ashton Addison joins Will Szamosszegi and Kent Halliburton to discuss Bitcoin, alt coins, and future applications of blockchain technology.

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Link to Audio: https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1OdJrzYQPZlJX?s=20

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Transcript:

Logan Chipkin (00:00:54):

Hey, Ashton, uh, let me bring you on stage.Oh, here we go. We'll start at three 30, by the way.

Ashton Addison (00:01:11):

Sounds good.

Logan Chipkin (00:01:13):

How are you today? Three

Ashton Addison (00:01:14):

Very well, yourself.

Logan Chipkin (00:01:16):

Can't complain. It's pretty, uh, darkand rainy here in Philadelphia, but it's nice, huh?

Ashton Addison (00:01:21):

Yeah, I, I, I would say the same forCancun, but it's, uh, it's sunny here.

Logan Chipkin (00:01:26):

<laugh>. Nice. Nice. That'sawesome.

Ashton Addison (00:01:29):

As, as mostly always

Logan Chipkin (00:01:31):

Very nice.

Ashton Addison (00:01:32):

I'm just gonna join on my, uh, cryptocoin show, just as a Sure. Just as a muted guy as well, since I normally use mycode coin show, but I thought might as well join my personal account. Sure,

Speaker 3 (00:01:48):

Yeah.

Logan Chipkin (00:01:57):

Hey, will.

Will Szamosszegi (00:02:00):

Hey, what's up guys?

Ashton Addison (00:02:02):

Hey, will.

Will Szamosszegi (00:02:04):

Hey, how you doing? How

Ashton Addison (00:02:06):

You good, man. Good to hear from you.

Will Szamosszegi (00:02:08):

Yeah, good to hear from you too. Ithink we're, again, yeah. Have a fun spaces ahead of us today.

Ashton Addison (00:02:13):

Yeah. Thanks for setting this all upand planning it out ahead of time, and I'm excited to dump some wisdom,

Will Szamosszegi (00:02:25):

<laugh>. Oh, I love it. Yeah.Well, it, it's gonna be interesting this time cause because you're gonna be theone answering all the questions. And <laugh>, I'm really curious because,you know, when you listen to someone on, on a podcast and there's always theside where there's one person who's being interviewed, and then the intervieweeand Uhhuh <affirmative>, you can always get a sense for the otherperson's beliefs, but you, you never really get the full picture until they'rethe one in, in the seat, uh, talking through everything. Uh, so I am very, veryexcited for, uh, for this one here today.

Ashton Addison (00:02:57):

<laugh>. Awesome, man. Yeah,I'm looking forward to it.

Logan Chipkin (00:03:02):

Great. So we can go ahead and getstarted. Hey everyone, my name is Logan Chikin. I'm the content manager for SAMining. I've been a writer professionally for many years, uh, having done somejournalism work, having written some books and articles and this sort of thing.And now I'm very proud to be working with SaaS Mining and creating a bunch ofthe content that, uh, we love to share with the audience. Uh, today we'rejoined by Ashton of the Crypto Coin Show. Of course, I'll let Ashton introducehimself, but before we do that, will, would you like to say a few words?

Will Szamosszegi (00:03:31):

Yeah, thank you, Logan. Uh, helloeverybody. My name is William Sam Masei. I'm the CEO and founder here at SaaSMining. I know Logan's got an awesome show teed up for us today, and, uh, gladto have you on Ashton. So, with that, I'll pass it over to you.

Ashton Addison (00:03:46):

Yeah, thank you so much, will. And itwas a pleasure having you on, uh, our show, uh, one of the 1200 episodes thatI've done since 2014. Um, and I'm always fascinated when I hear about Bitcoinmining because it's not one of my specialties, um, as it's a whole nother worldwhen you get into, uh, uh, the electricity and the economies of scale ofmining. Um, but I know that it's so important to, to the Bitcoin industrybecause there would be no Bitcoin transactions without bitcoin mining. So thankyou for doing what you do. Um, I would love to just give a small back backstoryon myself and, you know, started up Crypto Coin show in in 2014. Uh, it wasactually an inspiration from my father who was in the tech, uh, industry inthe.com boom and still is involved in tech. And, and I was studying finance atthe time, and it only seemed like a logical conclusion, uh, when we heard ofBitcoin in 20 13, 14, that it was gonna be the future of, uh, of money.

(00:04:42):

And then who knew when Ethereum cameout and, and smart contracts started taking the world by storm, that it wouldbe the future of almost, I think a lot of the industries it's gonna toucheventually here. I still believe we're pretty early days at actuallyintegrating this technology into the real world outside of Web three, but Ithink it will revolutionize the entire world. So, um, yeah, I, I reallyappreciate you guys having me on, and I'm still as passionate about, uh,cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies as I was in 2014, and I only thinkit's gonna get better.

Logan Chipkin (00:05:16):

Fantastic. I definitely want to getinto your passion for blockchain and crypto and how that's kind of changedsince 2014, but I see, uh, Kent has joined. Kent, would you like to say a fewwords? Welcome.

Kent Halliburton (00:05:28):

Oh, I don't mean to interrupt theflow here today. Yeah, I just got caught on another call with the customer. Um,but, uh, pleasure to have you on here, Ashton. I, uh, I operate as thepresident and COO and managed the internal operations for the company. Um, butvery much interested in hearing, uh, somebody that has been in the space longerthan me at your thoughts and, uh, and, and what you've seen, uh, in your tenurehere, tracking, uh, Bitcoin in the blockchain space.

Ashton Addison (00:05:58):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. ThanksKen.

Logan Chipkin (00:05:59):

Yeah. So Ashton, you had mentionedthat you first got into this space 20 13, 20 14, I think you said. So how haveyour views on the potential for blockchain and crypto evolved since then, if atall?

Ashton Addison (00:06:13):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, no, it'sa great question because the industry was very different back in 2014. Uh, Irecall, you know, checking on Coin market cap, I think it was still, that wasstill the go-to at, at the time. It was, you know, there was barely anything.It was, it was bi, the Bitcoin blockchain, uh, Ethereum hadn't come out yet,and there was a bunch of other blockchains, and it, it was well understood thatBitcoin, uh, as a, as a currency and the blockchain was going to become, youknow, sort of the same thing that it is today. I don't think the narrativeschanged surrounding Bitcoin, that, you know, it's the tamper-proofdecentralized currency of the people. And, uh, and you can see the convictionin that since then, you know, hundreds and of, uh, major corporations aregetting involved, millions of people around the world are understanding thesame idea.

(00:06:59):

Uh, that hasn't changed. You know,when my father and I first heard of Bitcoin, uh, back in 2014, it's, we'repretty much in the exact same thought process as we were back then. Uh, but forthe other blockchains at the time, you know, there was, Dogecoin was around andthere was many, many other ones that, uh, they don't really exist anymore, oryou haven't really heard of them. There's a couple that are still around. But,you know, the, I think everyone was trying to figure out what are these otherpotential use cases for this technology besides Bitcoin, obviously, clearly asa peer-to-peer currency, you know, how do we expand on this? Um, it wasn'tuntil Ethereum came out, um, and even then, that was just the idea of Hoya. Wecan use smart contracts and turn complete programming languages to createautomation. Um, so, you know, when that came out, and I was actually followingEthereum when it, when it launched, when it was 30 cents and 60 cents right atthe very beginning, uh, we didn't really understand the potential of Defi NFTsand, and the use, the, the primary use cases, at least so far, that would comeout of, uh, smart contract platforms.

(00:08:05):

Um, but we understood Bitcoin thathadn't changed. And I think the other projects were trying to figure out whatthey were going to do, uh, how they were gonna use the technology to actuallyrevolutionize the world. And it wasn't until Ethereum came along when theyrealized, Hey, we should probably, you know, follow what these guys are doing.And the ones that, uh, were able to survive that long are still around today,and they're trying to implement these different technologies like Defi, NFTs,and other real world use cases. Uh, but a lot of 'em just did survive. Um, but,you know, following along from Ethereum, 30 cents all the way up to $20, Iremember a pivotal moment when I was watching in 20 15, 16 when, when the Dowcrash happened, and I thought it was all over, you know, uh, little did I knowwhat was to come when Ethereum had dropped from $20 to $10, and I was like, oh,there's a 50% drop.

(00:08:57):

It's probably going to zero. This isprobably the end of, you know, smart contracting platforms as we know it. Um,but I was wrong. And, um, I, and I'm super excited about not just the e theoryof ecosystem, all the other ecosystems that have popped up that are, uh, doingsmart contracting, decentralized applications in these different use caseindustries. And I'm all, while I understand the finance industry, I think it'sgonna become first and it's one of the most important for this technology usecase. I'm just super fascinated at, uh, all the companies that I've spoken toon my interview platform of different ways that they're using this technologyto make other industries that you wouldn't even expect, uh, have anything to dowith Web three a better place.

Logan Chipkin (00:09:40):

So it sounds like you're definitelynot a Bitcoin maxi, so I just wonder, first of all, what does that term mean toyou, if at all? And, uh, what would you say to the typical arguments you hearfrom Bitcoin Maximalist that basically all other are shit coins? Pardon mylanguage, in that you shouldn't even, uh, bother playing with them?

Ashton Addison (00:10:01):

Yeah, no, I wouldn't consider myselfa Bitcoin maxi, you know, um, to my knowledge, Bitcoin is obviously, it'sgreat, right? It, it has its function and it does it the best. Um, but it can'tdo things that Ethereum and Polygon and, and Avalanche and these other smartcontracting platforms are meant to do, right? And when we, when Bitcoin cameout and before Ethereum existed, we were thinking, okay, this technology, youknow, it's gonna revolutionize the, the stock market, the finance industry, buthow, how can Bitcoin do that by itself? You know, you have to build all theseside chains, defi on Bitcoin, all this stuff. It's not meant for that. So Idon't think being a Bitcoin maximalist, uh, is for me is good in that sensebecause it's, it's obviously, it's a great pres, uh, preservation of wealthand, uh, a transfer of value.

(00:11:00):

But how are you going to revolutionizethe entire financial industry with Bitcoin by itself? Uh, I don't think youcan. And for that reason, that's why I'm so bullish on these other smartcontract stream platforms, um, that actually, and, you know, when Ethereum cameout, it was, it was tough to see exactly how the exact steps that it would taketo revolutionize the finance industry and make the stock market go onto theblockchain, right? And it wasn't until Defi started emerging when we startedseeing the first steps, and that took quite a few years, you know, afterEthereum was launched, um, for three, three or four years before even the firstnotions of a Defi application came onto that. And now we're starting to see it,and I still think that we're, there's a long way to go before we tokenize theentire stock market, but, um, that I, I understood that Bitcoin wasn't thesolution for all of these other problems in the world. Um, it has its purpose,and that's why I wasn't a Bitcoin Maxi phone in the beginning.

Logan Chipkin (00:12:02):

So, is it fair to say that there'ssomething being lost in translation? Because I, I suspect, well, the way I'dphrase it is Bitcoin only, the only cryptocurrency that can ever be the globalNext Global Reserve asset is Bitcoin. But then on top of that, if you'relooking for other functionalities, then all bets are off in terms of what othercryptocurrencies can do. Would that be fair?

Ashton Addison (00:12:25):

Yeah, I, I think so. You know, thatI, I don't see anything competing with Bitcoin in, you know, what Bitcoin doesbest. Uh, there's, there's no, there's no competition between saying, you know,we're gonna use Bitcoin cash or Light coin or some other solution to be, youknow, the global reserve currency. Uh, Bitcoin is, is the one. Um, but forthose that argue that, you know, Bitcoin should be the only cryptocurrency and,you know, Ethereum is useless, uh, and it's never gonna work, or it's a Ponzior something like that, you know, there's obvious, obvious, uh, programming andsmart contract functionality that has value in that. And I think that that'swrong to say that.

Logan Chipkin (00:13:01):

Yeah, fair enough. So we're, whilewe're talking about Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies applications to variousproblems in society, besides being the next Global Reserve asset, as wementioned, what is the connection between cryptocurrencies and defi? And maybebefore you even answer that, what exactly is defi

Ashton Addison (00:13:21):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>? Yeah.Well, you know, how I would explain Defi is obviously it stands fordecentralized finance. It's being able to bring financial functionality to yourassets in a decentralized way. You know, and the example that I like to give iswhen you have money in a bank and you have it in an interest account, you know,there's some financial functionality that the bank is doing to give youinterest. You know, where does that extra money come from? They're taking thatmoney, they're lending it out to other people, they're getting some extra moneythat, you know, they owe interest on that, and then they're paying you some ofthe interest, uh, for you letting them borrow your money. And most peopledon't, you know, if you haven't done a degree in finance, you don't really knowwhere that money is coming from. You're just like, oh, the bank's just givingme some of their, some of their profits, right?

(00:14:09):

Not realizing that they're probablytaking most of your money. And, uh, if you go to withdraw it all at once, itmight not be there, right? So, uh, with decentralized finance, it was aboutfinding a way to build a technology that can do something similar, where we canlend out money on our own behalf and earn interest on it, or take a loan out,uh, without having to go to the bank. Uh, and obviously this has great usecases for people that are in countries that are underserved for banking. Youknow, in North America, it's pretty easy to go, uh, to the bank and get a smallloan compared to some other countries where, uh, if you don't have an id, evenyou, you can't even have a bank account. Um, so I think, think, you know,having that, uh, analogy and understanding of where does the interest come fromyour bank account interest savings account, uh, versus how, how can you lendout, uh, money or get a loan in, uh, decentralized way using cryptocurrencies?Um, and where does the, the interest come in that sense? That's, once youunderstand that, then you can understand defi a lot more.

Kent Halliburton (00:15:18):

Hey, Ashton, I was, uh, I wascurious, you know, from where I, I sit, I got into crypto, uh, in, in 2015, andI think my personal position was much more aligned with, um, what you'vedescribed, where there's all this experimentation going on and we should allowit and shouldn't be maximalist about any of that. And I, I think the last cyclehas really humbled me and made me think, not that I, I'd classified myself as amaximalist, but I, I do question the capability of, you know, actual, uh, valuebeing created in this space outside of Bitcoin. And, and the, the thing that Iget worried about is the distraction that, that, um, a lot of the otherprojects create from, uh, Bitcoin and, and that's for new entrants in the spaceso that they don't understand the, the properties and value of money. So Iguess from where I sit, I'm, I'm a little less optimistic about otherblockchain technology at this point, and that's not to discount it in thefuture, but it's at, at a specific moment in time right now, um, that I worryabout that. And I, I'd be curious what your take is on that, and if your, ifyour perspective on any of this has shifted over time, or if, if you still seeit the same, um, anyhow, I know that was a long-winded question, but justcurious your take.

Ashton Addison (00:16:52):

Yeah, no, great. Uh, point of view,Kent, and studying finance and watching, you know, investors, long-terminvestors, 20 to 30 years in the stock market, and also global macro investors.I try to take the perspective of some of these, uh, people that really saw, youknow, the previous cycles in the.com era and where the fundamental value wasand where sort of the games and, you know, the distractions were. And I thinkthat there's a lot of overlaps between that. Um, obviously there's a lot ofsmart contracting platforms that come out, uh, and not all of them are gonnamake it, right. Um, and back in the, in the.com days, how, who could havepredicted, you know, to just by Google stock, Microsoft stock and Apple Stockand not touch anything else, right? Because there were so many differentplatforms coming out, different operating systems that we're trying to competewith, with these giants.

(00:17:45):

Uh, but who would've known who was towin, right? And especially, and then to go even further on that, uh, to see allthe companies just throwing.com in their name and, uh, or blockchain in theirname, and there's an instant in increase in valuation. There's a lot of, youknow, games surrounding that. And, uh, not a lot of fundamental value. I thinksome of these macro investors that have seen the cycles before, they really doa lot of due diligence, obviously, to, uh, in where they're allocating theircapital into these projects, and they can be optimistic that they're using thetechnology for, for the better. But there's a lot of factors, um, that, uh,could knock any of these pro projects out. You know, even in, in, as of recent,and as you said, you know, through this last cycle, the downturn, especially, youknow, when you see in, in Defi on Solan Solana, for example, you know, the, thetotal value locked is down over 90%.

(00:18:43):

And then there could be a, a BlackSwan event where, oh, a lot of Solana ecosystem coins were held by ftx, youknow, and all of a sudden they have to liquidate, and there's a cascading, uh,uh, because of the amount of people that were invested and leveraged and, andso excited that they didn't have proper risk management, all of a suddenthere's a cascading effect where everything sort of crumbles to zero, eventhough the underlying technology might be great, there's all these peopletrying to play games on top of it, and you really need to be cautious, uh, andthink like a smart investor, not just, you know, the fact that Ethereum isgreat, so we should buy it at $5,000 when it's at maximum height, right? Youhave to think of all of these other, uh, perspectives of, of the cycles of themarket and, and where the technology is at compared to what the stock market isvaluing it at. Right? And we see the same in the.com days with Amazon, Google,most of the stocks were also down over 90%, 95% for Amazon yet, and now it's atrillion dollar company. And I think that could very well repeat with some ofthese, uh, layer one protocols. And it's, it's very hard to nail which one'sgonna be worth a trillion dollars, but, uh, the ch there's a chance that that'sthere.

Kent Halliburton (00:19:58):

Yeah, I agreed. No, that's, it'sfascinating to hear. And actually, I see Brian, uh, Dement on the call, and,and, uh, I, this was actually a topic that he and I wrestled with a little biton a podcast I had with him, um, a few weeks ago. So, nice to hear another, uh,veteran in the space perspective on this. And, uh, yeah, I just worry about,uh, the distraction, um, from, uh, from the adoption of Bitcoin by these otherthings that look like they, uh, they could pro produce more value, but then inthe end, wind up collapsing in, in, in the next cycle. So anyway, we'll see. I,and I think pain is part of the adoption process in crypto in general, anyhow.Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.

Ashton Addison (00:20:40):

Yeah, I agree. And, you know, there,there's even, uh, you know, to go to the furthest extent of that, th there,there's, you know, all these meme coins and projects that we just know from theget-go that they don't have any fundamental value, really. They're just, youknow, people playing games or pumping up and things like that. But sometimespeople hear about, you know, these, these projects, and then they getinterested, but then they actually, that leads them to Bitcoin and the actualones that have underlying value. And sometimes it works out in that, in thatfavor. You know, I've, I've seen a lot of people join the industry from coinsthat they thought they were gonna get rich, um, that ended up going to zero,and then they learn those lessons that, Hey, you know, I should have investedin these other ones because now I realize that those ones actually have value.

Will Szamosszegi (00:21:30):

You know, Ashton, uh, actually onequestion that keeps popping into my mind, uh, hearing you talk, uh, a lot of,uh, I guess every other person on, on this panel here, um, from SA Mining, wevery, very deep in the Bitcoin ecosystem. Uh, we understand the thesis and, andso, so do you, but I would say that you come down a lot more from theperspective of, um, seeing more potential in things in the ecosystem outside ofBitcoin mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so that begs the question of puttingyourself in the shoes of someone who understands the value proposition ofBitcoin is extremely bullish. And I think we all agree that the Bitcoin is inits very early days and has a strong value proposition. If you were to putyourselves in the shoes of someone who's very bullish on Bitcoin, what do youthink the biggest thing that the Bitcoin maxes are overlooking when theyevaluate the rest of the crypto or blockchain ecosystem? Um, and, and the mostcommon answer outside of just like, oh, well, there are all these possibilitieswith, um, with defi and smart contract functionality. Um, I, I know that that'sa common answer to that question, but I'm wondering if there's something elsethat you believe, uh, is important that the Bitcoin community just, uh, overalloverlooks

Ashton Addison (00:22:53):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah.No, um, that's a great question. Will, and, you know, I, I love Bitcoin and,uh, I, it, it was the thing that got me into, uh, blockchain space as a whole.Um, but, and, and I understand it's potential, and obviously it's, it's the,the number one to now already be adopted by small countries, and it will be thegateway to the rest of Web three. Uh, I think why I'm so excited about speakingabout the other platforms is, uh, the, the infrastructure layer that's sort oflaid out for the future of, uh, business on the internet and internetorganizations. Uh, you know, I think one thing that maybe not as many peopletouch on, which I think is very early days as well, is, uh, internetorganizations like DAOs, right? And, um, if you're gonna have a, a internetbased company that's fully global and they're transacting with Bitcoin andusing it on their balance sheet, using it as a store of value, uh, they'reprobably gonna have some kind of decentralized organization mechanism as well.

(00:23:57):

And I don't think that that's gonnabe Bitcoin based. It's gonna be some other web three technology based, um, and,you know, just the, to the infrastructure of, uh, wallets and, uh, trading and,uh, you know, decentralized exchanges and the Nasdaq, the commodities exchange,all of this stuff, I think it's gonna be built on, you know, sort of like anEthereum like technology. And I'm very fascinated about that because it, it's,you know, even earlier than, uh, you know, Bitcoin is still small, but it's thebiggest of the, the pot, and we're back at 1 trillion market cap for the entirecryptocurrency market right now. Uh, but, you know, tapping into thosepossibilities of what it will become is a quadrillion dollar opportunity.

Will Szamosszegi (00:24:49):

Yeah. It, it's interesting hearing,hearing you talk through it. Uh, it reminds me of that, um, that, that saying,you know, when you're early on in a company, you wanna move fast and breakthings, because in that time, you wanna try everything and see what works, seewhat sticks. And it's not like you have a lot of users early on versus later onwhen you're very, very big, you don't necessarily wanna take that approach ofmove fast and break things, uh, because every single time you break things,you, it, it has, uh, disastrous results. Like, you don't want to innovate onplanes by moving fast and breaking things, for example, <laugh> and,yeah. And, and so this is the first time, I guess I've verbalized this out loudon the idea of Bitcoin, but what a lot of the people in, in the Bitcoinecosystem tend to think is that Bitcoin is like the move slow and be right typeof approach, whereas you have a lot of these earlier, uh, projects, um, thatare not necessarily built on Bitcoin going through the process of moving fastand breaking things. And I'd be curious to hear what your thoughts are on thepotential in the future for things being built on lar on other layers ofBitcoin. So not necessarily like the base chain, but things like lightning orlayer three and potentially layer four, layer five technologies. Is thissomething that, that, uh, you've, you've spoken with anyone about? Or what areyour thoughts on, on that piece?

Ashton Addison (00:26:20):

Yeah, no, um, I love, uh, findingother ways to add functionality into Bitcoin itself. I think that, uh, it'ssomething that, that should happen. You know, if we can bring that smartcontract, tech, smart contracting technology, um, or better payments ontoBitcoin, uh, then let's do it. Right? I've ac I've been to, uh, Bitcoin Lake inGuatemala. I've been to Bitcoin Beach in El Salvador. Um, I've been to Bitcoinjungle in Costa Rica. I'm looking at places in where, you know, if there's ashop that's accepting Bitcoin, I'm going in there to buy something, uh, justfor the sake of it, right? Um, and to support the ecosystem and to support themfor supporting innovation. Um, so, uh, speaking about payments and lightningspecifically, I'm, I am very bullish on, uh, layer two solutions and finding away to use Bitcoin, uh, for, for cheaper and faster costs, right?

(00:27:15):

It's been, that's been one of thearguments that I guess, you know, I, I got tired of, uh, of explaining that,you know, we can't buy a coffee at Starbucks, uh, with Bitcoin, you know, forso long, because it's gonna take 10 minutes to confirm, and it's gonna be a fewdollars, and all of a sudden your coffee's doubled in price. Um, so how can wesolve this problem, right? And I think Lightning Network's a great solution tothat. And I have used lightning at all those different places that are startingto adopt it. And, uh, when I, whenever I go traveling around, I'm like, I'malways advocating for, hey, you know, are you guys accepting cryptocurrencies?And if the reason is that Bitcoin's too expensive or volatile, then, you know,use a layer two solution or use some kind of stable stats and, and other waysto take advantage of this technology to make it easier to do commerce, youknow, peer to peer.

(00:28:01):

So, uh, I'm, I'm, I'm bullish on thatfor sure. Uh, and I'm looking forward to hopefully seeing more of that on, onTwitter with Elon Musk, uh, integrating some cryptocurrency payments. Uh, we'llsee if Dogecoin gets in there or not, but I know SATs, uh, I've, I've alreadyseen some of the functionality where you can tip people in SATs, and I thinkexpanding that out into social media where if you make a post that's great, orif you want to tip people per, per video or per post or thread that theycreate, I think, uh, layer twos for Bitcoin is a perfect solution for that. Interms of, uh, decentralized finance or other functionality besides just thepayments. I'm also very excited, and I saw quite a bit of that when I was in,uh, El Salvador, uh, at the Bitcoin conference, uh, last year's conference.

(00:28:50):

Uh, there's no, there's protocolsthat are building out Defi on Bitcoin. And, um, it, a lot of it was, I, thesense that I have is a lot of, it's sort of Latin American based because ofroot stock, uh, is a Latin American, uh, organization, and I'm following that.And I don't think that they're marketing, uh, or the, the hype has, has done aswell to attract the people that are, you know, using defi on, on these VMcompatible chains. Uh, but I think it's something to watch for sure. I thinkit's gonna continue to grow, and it'll probably become, you know, a part of theprimary families of, uh, protocols, so to say, that are, that are doingdecentralized finance. So, I, I'm bullish on, uh, other use cases for Bitcoinbeyond, you know, just, uh, just

Logan Chipkin (00:29:40):

Having the layer one. Brian, thanksfor coming on stage. Do you have a question or comment? And before you ask,just to let the rest of the audience know if you have any questions orcomments, you're more than welcome to raise your hand and we'll bring you up.Uh, with that said, Brian, good to see you again and, uh, go for it.

Speaker 6 (00:29:59):

Hey, can you hear me okay? I'mdriving right now.

Logan Chipkin (00:30:03):

Yes. Yep.

Speaker 6 (00:30:04):

Okay, cool. So, uh, Ashton, thanksfor, man, this is fun, fun listening to you guys talk. Um, and will, I reallylike that, uh, that analysis of the difference between Bitcoin versus the, youknow, the other coins move fast and break things. I, I, I, I think that's apretty apt, uh, apt analysis. Um, real quick, so Ashton, you're talking aboutthe, one of the, like, the cool features on, on tipping people in SATs. So Iwanna do a little experiment cause you have like, what, like a few minutes leftbefore the end of the show. I'm gonna, I'm gonna retweet just a 10,000 satgiveaway for people to come into your guys' space. Just watch, watch how manypeople come in. Like, it's really cool to see how we disintermediate, likeTwitter, if, if we put a, a 10, whatever, 10,000 SATs is like, what, a buck orsomething, like a couple bucks or something like that. If we paid Twitteradvertising in SATs, we would get no feedback. But if we tip it directly to theconsumer and disintermediate Twitter's ad model watch, I bet like 15, 20 peoplewill pop in this, this space. So I'm gonna jump off and let you guys talk, butI just wanted to throw that out there just to see this little use case. It,it's, it's kind of fun to watch.

Logan Chipkin (00:31:14):

That sounds, that's awesome. Yeah.That's cool. Brian, by the way, we have another, uh, half an hour we're not,um, about to end the call. So yeah, go for it. We have time. Uh,

Speaker 6 (00:31:22):

All right, good, good. No thanksguys. Hey, I always love your guys' face. These are so much fun. Um, it's, it'salways really edifying, so I love just sitting back and listening. Yeah.

Logan Chipkin (00:31:31):

Thanks Brian. We, we appreciate it.

Kent Halliburton (00:31:33):

Yeah. And thanks for minding with ustoo. If, uh, if this hack works, we may be using it more often on our side.

Speaker 6 (00:31:40):

<laugh>, you know what? It's,uh, that's actually funny you say that. I should've, I should've mentionedthat. I don't know why. I've been taking a portion of my, uh, the stats thatI've been getting with mining, with SAS mining, and I'm taking, like, I have itallocated to give that back out to my Twitter following. So, like, my, myTwitter followers are like, they're, they have like, like I, I don't like theword stakeholder, but they're like stakeholders in the mining thing. So I justtake a portion of it and, and yeah, it's all SAS mining sat that are gettinggiven out. So there you go. Full circle.

Kent Halliburton (00:32:10):

The circle of life is complete. Iabsolutely love it.

Will Szamosszegi (00:32:14):

<laugh>. Yeah. That, that'sawesome to hear, man. Like, truly incredible. And, and yeah, this, uh, this newhack, I'm excited to see how it goes with, with the sat. That, that's a greatidea. <laugh>.

Logan Chipkin (00:32:27):

So Ashton, uh, we spoke aboutalternative, uh, or alt coins. We spoke about Defi. Are you also bullish onNFTs? And, um, also with respect to that, what were your thoughts on kind ofthe big bubble of NFTs that emerged? What was the 2021 or so mm-hmm.<affirmative>, and then obviously the kind of popping of that bubble.

Ashton Addison (00:32:47):

Yeah, for sure. I, um, in, in termsof NFTs, I think it's a great, uh, use case to bring in other industries thatare, you know, sort of the non-finance industry, uh, what we saw with theexplosion in, in art and, and bringing artists in and, and, you know, distanceinter remediating the old school way of, of trying to break through into theindustry, whether it's, uh, uh, fine art artists or mu musicians, you know,they're, they're really getting screwed by the traditional industry. So I, Ilove it. I think it's a great solution to, uh, bring more value back to thecreators themselves, right? Um, a as a, as an investor, uh, I personallyprefer, you know, the protocols, these kind of, um, operating systems as youwould say, like the layer ones that have decentralized applications on top ofthem. Um, and also, you know, they're hosting the NFT technology on top of it.

(00:33:41):

Uh, in terms of, you know, investingin, um, specific, whether it's a NFT marketplace or NFT specifically bythemselves, um, I, I've been pretty, uh, cautious of, you know, what exactly amI investing in or am I just buying a picture of a dog cuz it's gonna go up fromprice later and then sell it. Now what's the actual underlying value? And forme, it's easy to understand the underlying value of layer one protocols. Sothat's why I've been sticking to that. Um, but I did, I have purchased a few,uh, NFTs and, and looked into, you know, the communities behind them. Uh, someof them moving, uh, beyond just artwork, right? Whether it's access or a clubor some other kind of functionality. Um, uh, I, I've looked into a few of thoseand, and I'm interested. Um, but I think the, the, the phase of, you know,here's a 10,000 profile picture collection, um, those will be around, butthey'll not really be worth anything, right?

(00:34:41):

It's great to mint NFTs, uh, evenwith the recent partnership of Polygon with Instagram, I think that's a hugestep forward in bringing NFTs to the mainstream and to the norm. Uh, you can,you know, you can mint any of your Instagram pictures into NFTs, where you canmint NFTs right on Instagram and through, through Polygon. It's almost, youknow, graphically free, you could say to mint it. So eventually ev if everypicture becomes an N F T, you know, it's not gonna have that huge premium justcuz it's an N F T and not a, an, you know, an off chain image. Um, so I didn'tget caught up in that hype myself, um, because I, I'm not one to just buysomething to, to flip it later. I was looking for the underlying value of it.And obviously there are, uh, great value propositions for tokenizing real worldassets, right?

(00:35:32):

And that's something that has yet tocome to fruition in, uh, you know, a specific industry where, like, obviouslyart, if you have a physical piece of art and you want to tokenize it, uh, andtransfer ownership of it around without having to move the art, uh, from itsphysical location, that's a great use case. Um, but one, one of the, uh, in, inindustries, I guess you could say of, of NFTs that I was super interested in,uh, last year during the NFT craze was these financial NFTs, uh, which isessentially taking, uh, you can bundle anything together, uh, on, on the stockmarket or any kind of other commodities and turn it into a non fungible tokenand then trade that around. Um, and as we will see, as it continues to grow,you know, real world assets, whether you're tokenizing your car or a buildingor, you know, a real estate investment, uh, of, uh, a skyscraper and you wannabe able to tokenize it and, and turn it into a project that more people caninvest at a lower price point, I think that's a great use case for NFTs muchmore than animal pictures.

(00:36:42):

Um, so I've sort of been followingalong, uh, as that, you know, initial hype goes up and down, and then wheredoes the real value sort of come in once the hype is faded away? Or where canpeople introduce NFTs in a way that people are actually using it because itprovides, uh, extra values to that industry and not, you know, without theovervalued hype behind it.

Logan Chipkin (00:37:04):

Have you noticed any culturaldifferences between, let's say, NFT Maxis, for lack of a better phrase, versusEthereum Maxis and Bitcoin Maxis?

Ashton Addison (00:37:15):

Um, I think it's, it's a differentkind of investor or collector. You know, you have these people, if you look atthe old world analogy, you know, you have people that are looking for the next,in the.com day, they're looking for, you know, Microsoft or Google kind ofoperating system play to invest in. And then you look at the people that areinvesting in the things that they like, they're like the hobbyist investors,they're buying the Pokemon cards, or they're buying baseball cards or hockeyjerseys, things like that. And that's how I equate, you know, sort of these N FT Maxs, they're, they're collecting all of these different, uh, collectiblesthat they think, you know, uh, will have value for one reason or another.Whether it just the, it gets popular and becomes a namesake, or it actuallyprovides value as a club and, and they're actually changing the world.

(00:38:03):

Um, I think I maybe need to dig pastthe, you know, the sort of graphical, front facing part of the value of NFTsand say, okay, it's, it's easy to see a picture of an NFT and be like, okay,that's what that is, but what does the club actually represent and what arethey doing to bring value to those holders and to bring value to the world?And, uh, that it takes a little bit of extra effort, but, and the crypto worldis growing so quickly that I get caught up in all of the, you know, the financeplays and the protocols coming out that it's hard to manage, you know, you sortof play your strengths, right? And for me, it's hard to manage all thesedifferent N F T projects coming out, um, when there's so many projects comingout in every industry.

Logan Chipkin (00:38:52):

So we haven't talked too much aboutblockchain quite yet, and of course, it's kind of a through line of everythingwe've been talking about, but I wonder what innovations do you think need tooccur with respect to blockchain for people to stop dismissing blockchainentirely?

Ashton Addison (00:39:07):

Hmm. Yeah. Uh, that's a greatquestion and I think maybe to narrow it down a little bit further, right? Um,people, they don't need to necessarily understand how blockchain works to beable to send Bitcoin, right? Just like, um, most people that use the internetdon't understand how the internet works. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> in termsof the, the http and the protocols and where the server farms are, they don'teven realize that, you know, all their files on the cloud are, they're not evenowned by them. They're somewhere in some warehouse that Amazon or Google owns,you know, uh, somewhere else. Um, and so I don't think that it's actuallypeople needing to understand blockchain for people to start using it becauseotherwise people, you know, would need to understand the internet to startusing it. Uh, and it's more so just the, the, the one, the main thing is gonnabe payments and commerce and doing business with each other, right?

(00:40:08):

One, I think the turning point for,you know, the.com days was, you know, first people could find information,which is great. Uh, but, but second, once they, once they realized that, youknow, and this took a while, it took a long time to realize that e-commerce,uh, was going to be, you know, once I got past the sketchy part of it, uh,where like, I didn't wanna put my credit card on the internet, or I guess the,the today's analogy was I don't want to, you know, use a cryptocurrency that'sused by criminals is what they think. Uh, once they realized that, hey, I can,you know, I can buy something on Amazon, uh, and, and with one click and it canbe at my house in the same day, you know, there's obvious value in that. Uh,and when you equate that to the Bitcoin standard, it's, I, I can send $100million worth of Bitcoin to Australia in a couple minutes and have a cost, youknow, a dollar or less, uh, or I could use the traditional banking system and,you know, have tens of thousands of dollars of costs and weeks later and phonecalls and banking hours and all of this stuff.

(00:41:05):

Uh, once people realize the value ofthat, um, that's when they're truly using blockchain is when they're, they're,you know, they're, they're using Bitcoin as the vehicle, uh, to utilize thebenefits of blockchain being distributed around the world to send value totheir friend in Australia within minutes. And when you extrapolate that out to,uh, the, the, the greater ecosystem, uh, they're going to realize that, uh,not, not only are they able to send value to their friends, but when they receivesomething from their friends, they're holding it, you know, and the bank isn't,uh, they don't have it in the bank and they're not getting 0.1% interest. Andwho knows what the bank's doing with their money, they're actually holding itand they can utilize it in any way they want. They can, if they wanna, youknow, be a finance expert and start lending it out, um, on, on secure platformsas they continue to grow out these defi platforms, they could be making, youknow, five, 6%, um, or they can use this blockchain technology as it, as wedevelop more of these other use cases like decentralized identity, uh, tomonitor, monetize their own personal information and their digital assets, andto be the owner of their own world, right?

(00:42:19):

Um, and all of these different sortof use cases are still pretty early stage, but I think, uh, once people seethat value, then, you know, how does it benefit their, their life and, and theyfinances and, and they way of living, then they'll use blockchain and theywon't need to understand the difference between Bitcoin and Ethereum, or what'sthis consensus versus that consensus. They're just doing it because it's fast,easy, and better for their life.

Logan Chipkin (00:42:46):

Yeah, I agree with you. I do love theclassic analogy of the internet cuz it's true. Most people really could notexplain to you how the internet works at a fundamental level. And yet peoplehave no problem using the internet almost every hour. Well, maybe not everyhour, but every day basically, of their lives. And I think that's very, that'sa very persuasive argument.

Ashton Addison (00:43:06):

I completely agree.

Logan Chipkin (00:43:08):

Do you follow at all, um, do you keeptabs on which politicians are pro blockchain and crypto and which are not? Ordo you kind of keep out of that

Ashton Addison (00:43:15):

Uhhuh <affirmative>? Um, I, Isee through the, through the Twitter news and, and Reddit news, you know, I'mnot going to the, the CNN website or, you know, traditional media to, to seetheir propaganda <laugh>. But I, um, I I, I, we hear, you know, obviouslyif, if you're in the Bitcoin community and you're like, Hey, you know, thesepoliticians are, are speaking about Bitcoin, um, what their narrative is, or,you know, what their motive is is another question. But, um, we've definitely seena little bit of it, you know, in, uh, I, I'm bullish on, um, the, the Wyoming,uh, senators and, and what they're doing, uh, in the states. And, um, I thinkthat that's really good for, for, for crypto. Uh, in, in Canada, theconservative, uh, opposition leader, uh, Paul, uh, Olivier, he, uh, he wasalways, you know, touting, you know, Bitcoin, um, we should, people should beusing Bitcoin.

(00:44:12):

Uh, but like, it's hard to, you know,where's the line of like, are they just using it to, uh, swing, uh, the favorof the sort of the people that are, you know, I guess you could say, againstthe system, or do they actually think that theres fundamental value in it, orare they just trying to get votes and they're actually not gonna use it? Youknow? And, and that sort of happens once people get into power. Um, it doesn'tmatter if it's red verse blue, it's, it's a state versus u So, uh, once they'rein power, do they actually do anything? Do they actually, you know, doanything? Um, and it, I guess you could look at, you know, the world politicsof where is Bitcoin becoming, uh, uh, a government currency, and why did theydo that? Right? And you look at El Salvador, um, and the people that went therein the blockchain industry, like, um, uh, like, like Max Kaiser and, and SamsonMao, and these people that, you know, they obviously have a huge motive to growBitcoin because they've been in it since a dollar.

(00:45:06):

Um, and once they got other people onboard, uh, the, the president of El Salvador, he's probably benefiting a lotpersonally from making Bitcoin, uh, uh, a government currency. But at the sametime, it looks like it's really benefiting the, the country. You know, the GDPis up over 10%. Uh, the overall, it seems like the crime rate is, is lesseningand people are becoming happier, um, overall, so it seems good. Um, but I'malways, you know, I, I think most people that are deep in cryptocurrencies arepretty, um, they're pretty cautious of like, looking at the context of wherenews comes from rather than the content, you know, who put this out? What istheir motive? Uh, and they're really doing critical thinking behind it. Sowhenever you see that from a politician, you have to really think, you know,what is the context behind this?

Logan Chipkin (00:46:00):

Yeah, fair enough. I don't know ifyou read Alex Gladstein's new book, or I don't know, maybe it's a year old, uh,still pretty new, but he presents both sides of that argument with respect to,uh, El Salvador. It's, it's very interesting, if you haven't read it yet, um,you know, there's, there's the optimistic take if he understands Bitcoin andunderstands it's good for the people, but then there's kind of the more cynicaltake that he's playing politics in order to kind of be a more local dictator.But, you know, as you imply, we'll see.

Ashton Addison (00:46:26):

Yeah, no, it's, um, I think thatthere's definitely arguments for both, you know, and it's not, uh, althoughBitcoin has value and blockchain has value, just as we see with, you know, memecoins and pump and dumps, there's always people that are trying to take advantageof a good thing, uh, for, for personal benefit.

Logan Chipkin (00:46:44):

Yeah, absolutely. Uh, so we'reobviously at the beginning of the new year. Last year was a very interestingyear for Bitcoin and crypto more generally. Uh, what are you most excited aboutfor this year in particular? Not the long term, but this year, uh, regardinganything to do in the crypto space.

Ashton Addison (00:47:00):

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah.Um, well, it's off to a great start so far. You know, uh, a bit of a marketrecovery. Um, I have, I, I know people made millions, uh, in, in the firstthree weeks of the year. So I think, uh, people are optimistic. And it's funnyhow the sentiment changes. You know, we're, we're down for a year straight andthen two weeks of, of recovery, and it's like, we're back. It's like the, it'slike, you know, it's never, it, it's like the, the bad times never happened.Um, there, i i, it seems like there's going to be more regulation, or at leastproposed bills about control, you know, and as the, as the dystopian societycontinues, um, whether it's cbd, cs, or, you know, further, hopefully not, um,you know, further recessions or depressions, money printing and, um, uh,there's gonna be, it is sort of like a, a, a ba a freedom battle or like aspiritual war of like people owning their own assets and trying to, uh, get outof, uh, this impending cycle of inflation and poverty.

(00:48:06):

So I think there's definitely gonna bemore people that are waking up to, uh, owning digital assets where theyactually have control of them. Uh, and in part could be because of moreregulation, regulation or proposed bills about controlling those assets. Youknow, I think there was supposed to be one, uh, department of Justice, youknow, clamped down on, on cryptocurrencies yesterday, but it turned out to be anon-event. Um, so I think that, uh, even just with the FTX at the end of theyear in 2022, they're gonna be like, oh, any, all of these are great excusesfor politicians to take more control over people's assets because for theirprotection, right? You don't want ftx, uh, happening to you again. Um, but Ithink defi and, and or more decentralized exchanges and decentralizedapplications, uh, at, they're going to build more security, uh, functionalityand access controls.

(00:49:01):

Uh, I'm pretty bullish on, uh, I justspoke with the company Odyssey Network. They're building a, uh, what's called adynamic wallet or wallet infrastructure that can be used in, in trading thatessentially allows you to trade on a centralized exchange with, with thecentralized exchange only having access to your coins to trade, but not be ableto withdraw and do all these other things. So just further security and accesscontrols for, uh, for people's wallet infrastructure. I feel like that's gonnabe a major upgrade, uh, for 2023. And on the, you know, the regulation side, Iguess there's also more innovation coming on the opposite of that, which issort of like more privacy financer. There's a, uh, sort of a sub narrative ofdefi that I've been following called Profi, where, um, how can we bring, youknow, the, the technology of, uh, privacy coins into protocols, uh, and defifunctionality overall so that we could take, uh, Ethereum or some of the majorcoins and integrate that privacy technology into a protocol to be able to havemore privacy over your assets and, you know, not for, uh, for, for criminalpurposes.

(00:50:11):

Um, just for, you know, for example,for businesses that don't have their, you know, hedge funds or, or privatefirms that don't want to have all of their transactions just laid out in publicon the blockchain. Um, or, or people that just want to, you know, have personalprivacy when they send somebody Bitcoin and then that person can able can lookinto that person's wallet, um, to see the, you know, who, what address sent theBitcoin. And obviously see, uh, your, your transactions from <laugh> thebeginning of time and essentially your bank account balance. Um, that's thisare sort of major, uh, privacy flaws in mainstream blockchain right now. So Ithink cry is gonna be a huge narrative. I, I think happened this year. It'sdefinitely gonna happen. Um, I'm hoping it happens this year as regulationincreases. Um, and we'll see about, uh, other stablecoin innovations.

(00:51:02):

I, I, I am I think something willhappen with regards to stablecoin this year. Uh, you know, they're probablymore of a clamp down on some of the centralized ones, like, like U S D C andCircle. They've already been blacklisting, you know, certain, uh, locations orplatforms, you know, like, um, tornado cash, they sort of blacklisted all thosecoins. So, uh, and, and there're, there's bands coming out, I think aroundalgorithmic stable coins or stable coins that aren't backed by US dollar orsome paper, uh, paper controls or something like that. So those are sort of themain things. I think there, there's probably many more. Um, oh, I guess Ishould also mention AI narrative. Uh, I actually just, I have already writtenabout this in my last newsletter. I'm doing a, a weekly newsletter for thecrypto coin show that has, uh, the best videos that I've done of the week andthe, the major news.

(00:51:54):

And obviously with chat G P t takingthe world by storm, at least taking crypto Twitter by storm, uh, it seems likethe AI narrative is strong in how AI will merge with Web three. So some of theproject that I spoke about in my newsletter were, uh, the graph, uh, G RT andfetch.ai, and also one called Peak Network, which hasn't launched yet, butthey're bringing AI into, uh, auto automated, um, IOT devices and likeself-driving cars, things like that. So I think AI will continue to grow thisyear. Privacy regulations, staco, those are my bets. <laugh>,

Logan Chipkin (00:52:35):

Very interesting. Yeah, I, I'mdefinitely looking forward to, yeah, I wanna read your newsletter about the AIangle, um, cuz that's something, you know, I think it was Peter Teal who said,AI is the technology of communism and crypto is the technology of, uh,capitalism or individualism. I don't know if I quite agree with that dichotomy,but we'll certainly see how it plays out.

Ashton Addison (00:52:58):

Yeah, definitely. No, that's, uh,it's, I think we're yet to see, you know, the capabilities of ai, especiallywith these physical robots that are coming out. Uh, they haven't really takenthe streets yet, but, uh, that could very well happen overnight. I think asquickly as, as Bitcoin can rise or fall, uh, AI could take over the world

Logan Chipkin (00:53:17):

<laugh>. I hope so. Um,<laugh>, I know, I know that's heretical in some circles, but I'm, thisis a little bit tangential, but I'm really not on board with Andrew Yang sayingbasically we need a massive welfare state because AI's gonna replace everyone'sjobs. We want more automation that frees us up to do more creative tasks.That's a good thing.

Ashton Addison (00:53:37):

Definitely. Yeah. And we just sawthat with, uh, when, you know, chat, e p t came out and some of the schools,they, you know, the first instinct was, we need to ban chat G P t and ban AI sothat students can't use it. And it's like, no, you need to teach things thatthey, that you can't just copy paste from ai. You know, you need to re relearnthe curriculum and how to teach and what to teach, and yes, figure out what arethe jobs that people are gonna use, uh, and, and where's AI gonna replace themand, and how can people still maintain jobs, uh, that, you know, you're gonnahave to pivot to something else. So I think, uh, they, they, they're gonnafigure that out soon, <laugh>.

Logan Chipkin (00:54:18):

Yeah. I mean, imagine schools banningthe use of Microsoft Word because they want to teach kids to continue to learnhow to use a pencil. I mean, that seems ridiculous to us now, but the logic isthe same today.

Ashton Addison (00:54:29):

I agree. Yeah. So, uh, we, we'll seewhat happens when Tch e p t comes out with their, their private, uh,professional version that's coming out and other competitors and, and howGoogle and these search engines will react to, you know, it's like, it's abetter Google, you can search anything. Yes. And, uh, and it comes upinstantly. So I think that that search engine industry, which is, you know, oneof the biggest gateways to the internet is going to be revolutionized by thistechnology. And I hope that blockchain plays a big role in, in it as well.

Logan Chipkin (00:55:02):

Sure. Yeah. You know, related, I, uh,I skimmed an article recently about how, and you probably know more about thisthan I do, the search engine industry for the first time is actually facingcompetitive pressure, by which, I mean, Google's basically had a near monopolyfor however long. Um, and now as you say, the AI technology is finally gonnaput some pressure on it, which is good because this is anecdotal, but I knowthere's certain, I won't even be specific, but there are certain searches thatare patently ridiculous, and that clearly Google is kind of manipulating thealgorithm for ideological purposes. But if that's not popular, then they'llhave to change their tune in the face of competition.

Ashton Addison (00:55:40):

Definitely. And I think, you know, AImight just be the cherry on top, and this has already been a falling that'sbeen happening. And this is why, you know, blockchain advocates, at least Ihope, um, are like me. And, and don't use Google search or, or try or even takethat even further and try not to use Google products. Uh, because, you know,not only do they sort of manipulate the results on what they want, but theytake your information to to, to sell stuff to you, right, and make you theproduct. I mean, you're just a little barcode number. They don't care about youindividually. Um, so, um, that narrative where, you know, they, they, theycensor the results. I, I think that's gonna continue inside of, uh, chat G P T.You know, I've asked it some interesting questions. People have been able todup it a few times, or if you ask it anything that's sort of outta themainstream, it says, no, I can't answer that for you.

(00:56:28):

Or it gives you just a, you know,what they want you to say, uh, or what they want you to hear. Um, so I thinkthat we need, uh, blockchain decentralized versions of, uh, these chat G P t,that that holds nothing back, you know, where's the one with the esotericknowledge? Um, or like the, you know, no, no shit's given about, um, politicsor sort of mainstream narratives. So, um, uh, hopefully something comes out in,in, uh, with respect to that in a decentralized way. But I think, yeah, there'sa multitude of reasons and I read, um, uh, what was it, life After Google, uh,which was a book came out four or five years ago now, just talking about how itwas predicting this whole thing, you know, how, how Google's gonna fall. And itactually mentioned Brave Browser and some of the other, uh, sort ofdecentralized platforms that are, that they think will be the future. And itessentially, it says Blockchain's gonna replace Google. That's what the booksays. Um, so I'm looking forward to it.

Logan Chipkin (00:57:25):

<laugh>, as am I, uh, so weonly have a few minutes left. I just wanted to reset the room quickly and saythat you're here with SaaS mining. Uh, we have a weekly Twitter spaces at, uh,Thursday, three 30. Uh, if you go to our website, www.saasmining.com, we makerenewable Bitcoin mining accessible to regular customers all around the world.And you may have seen Bitcoin Magazine featured us recently because we'recelebrating the, the launch of our, uh, hydro powered facility. So we are doingour part to make the Bitcoin network even more, uh, renewable than it alreadyis. So feel free to check us out and get to mining as soon as possible. Uh, weonly have five minutes left, so if anyone in the crowd has questions orcomments for Ashton or for Will or Kenter may, feel free to raise your hand,uh, and we'll be happy to bring you up. And if not, I have a question. So,Ashton, we talked about the short term, what you're most excited for, what'syour kind of hot take on a long term consequence of living in a world of cryptoand blockchain that is unpopular amongst your peers, let's say?

Ashton Addison (00:58:36):

Hmm. Um,

(00:58:39):

Well, obviously with Bitcoin, youknow, just continue down the same path, uh, where every, everyone's just usinga currency that you don't have to, you know, worry about foreign, a currencyexchange or, you know, just essentially global e-commerce, but also in person,you know, if you're, uh, if you travel to a different country or if you're adigital nomad, you can be free to roam the country as you wish and be able topay, you know, within seconds and without any cost. Um, just breaking down allfinancial barriers, uh, that, that's something that I'm obviously super excitedabout. Um, and, and then just making the world a better place, uh, throughhopefully, you know, beyond the financial industry, obviously the financialindustry, um, it's a bit of a, uh, a love hate for people that, um, you know,people that make money from it love it, and people that aren't involved with itor they see that, um, you know, the, the people that run essentially thetraditional financial industry, um, they're, some of them aren't that nice, um,that's gonna be revolutionized by, by all this technology.

(00:59:46):

It's just a matter of, uh, when andhow. And I think the people that sort of run the tech, the, the industry now,they're, you know, they could just take advantage of this technology to make itbetter and faster for themselves, but it might not make the world a betterplace. Um, but there's a lot of other, uh, things especially for, you know,people that are underserved and underbanked, you know, like people, we alreadyhave it good, uh, the people that are in North America. Um, but for people thatneed, uh, micro loans or need access to capital or to pool, uh, their fundstogether, or to not have to, you know, go to these, um, uh, these moneyremittance ATMs that give them 10% to send money to their family, that's wherethe real value's gonna be for the world is, uh, in emerging countries where,uh, the, the financial industry isn't that good.

(01:00:40):

And, and, and it's, it's gonna make aworld of difference, uh, for people that don't have to go to the bank onbanking hours and line up after their paycheck to deposit it, um, and then gothere anytime they want money. And if they want too much money, then they don'tgive it to their own money to them, right? I think just revolutionizing, um,emerging economies, uh, through decentralized technology where people can takeadvantage of their own finances to make their life better is what I'm mostexcited about. Just for, not for myself, you know, just for the world.

Logan Chipkin (01:01:13):

Yeah. Very well said. Um, I agreewith all of that, of course. Um, in fact, I think that's something that we'veseen over the last year. It's really the humanitarian angle of Bitcoin reallycome to the fore, which is fantastic. Um, we had a question from, uh, Andre,but I guess Andre's no longer on stage, unfortunately. Uh, so Ashton, do youthink crypto in general will play this humanitarian role, or do you see thatmostly going to Bitcoin?

Ashton Addison (01:01:41):

Um, well, I think Bitcoin's gonna bea major player in it. Um, we've definitely seen little spurts of, of, you know,humanitarian aid from, from other projects, uh, whether they're doing it justbecause they're, they're, you know, truly altruistic or, you know, they'retrying to help grow their own communities, I don't know, but they're helpingpeople, right? Yeah. You know, um, I, I guess one of the crazy craziest exampleswould be, you know, the Dogecoin community. They really funded a, a lot ofdifferent unique, uh, opportunities to, to help countries out. Like, you know,there wouldn't have been a, a Jamaican bobsledding team if it wasn't forDogecoin funding the Jamaican team to like make it to the Olympics, right? It'slike weird humanitarian initiatives, uh, like that. Um, but I think maybe notBitcoin specifically. It might be Light Lightning or some of these other, youknow, layers on top of Bitcoin that really make the, make it better for, youknow, as I was mentioning, the people that are underbanked that need to, uh,take control of their finances, I think it will be Bitcoin.

(01:02:49):

Um, there may be some kind of stable,decentralized stablecoin that comes out that will take the world by storm that,you know, beats all other stablecoin and allows to move in and out betweenBitcoin or other cryptocurrencies easily. And we'll see, hopefully it's not theCBD CS that that does it, um, because obviously you wanna have all those otherbenefits besides being able to move the currency, um, like having control ofyour own finances and being able to spend it with on what you want. But I'mpersonally bullish about Bitcoin being the gateway and these other protocolsbeing the technology, uh, for other use cases. Uh, but in terms of the, youknow, the payment of what coin's gonna gonna make it happen, you know, I don'treally, as long as it's helping people, I don't really care what coin it is.

Logan Chipkin (01:03:34):

That's definitely a fair perspective.Uh, with that, I wanna thank you Ashton, very much for joining us on the weeklySaaS mining Twitter spaces. Thank you, will and Kent. Uh, next week we'll haveBeja of Renew en Energy, so we'll, uh, we'll talk some solar energy, Bitcoinand bitcoin mining like we did a few weeks ago with Ali. So I'm looking forwardto that. And with that, I wanna thank everyone for joining and participating. Ihope y'all have a great rest of your day. We'll talk soon.

Ashton Addison (01:03:59):

Thank you so much.

Kent Halliburton (01:04:02):

Thanks, Ashton. Pleasure to speak with you. Thanks guys.