[0:00]I went all in like 25k, and I lost 16 pretty fast. Bitcoins nothing, it's it's backed by nothing. I would never invest in Bitcoin. And I said all this without even 5 seconds of research. The game is really completely rigged against the average person. Money is a weapon, and that's a very unfortunate truth. They can just print money, buy all the weapons they want. That drives the cost of everything else up over time. I've grown to just loathe everything about the fiat system. No politician has the guts to do the hard things that are necessary. The writing's on the wall. I really do think Bitcoin is money. And that's where the real power lies with Bitcoin. Next time it takes off it's going to be pretty serious. I don't watch that stuff, I don't care about that stuff, but for those who do, the time is coming. Stack now.
[0:54]Today, I'm excited to welcome Richard, aka Truth Conspirata to the podcast. Richard is a Certified Public Accountant, Bitcoin Treasury consultant, who says truth is eternal and truth is the conspiracy. Welcome to The Bitcoin Edge, Richard. All right, thank you very much, Paula. It's a pleasure to be here and to be honest, your podcast is the one I watch the most, just because I love the variety of people you have and... I like the way you interview, it's a pleasure and an honor to be on your show. Thank you so much. It's good to have you today, and I'd love to hear about a little bit about yourself and what led an accountant to Bitcoin. Yeah, it's actually kind of funny that you lead it in that way, an accountant to Bitcoin because my first honest conversation with somebody about Bitcoin was, um, back in 2017. I left public practice for a little while and went to work for a tech company. And uh, we were developing tax preparation software, you know, and I was a subject matter expert that they brought on, along with several other CPAs. And uh, one day, the head of DevOps approached me, and he just said, hey, you know, you're the money guy. Uh, what do what do you think about this Bitcoin thing? And looking back, my personal hubris and stuff like that is actually quite embarrassing now. But uh, I immediately snapped back and just said, Bitcoin's nothing. It's it's backed by nothing. There's, you know, I would never invest in Bitcoin. And I said all this without even 5 seconds of research. And so, it's kind of embarrassing at this point. I actually reached out to the guy through LinkedIn a few years later after I was in and said, you know, golly, I feel so crazy that I responded that way. And he just laughed. He said, honestly, I don't even remember the conversation. And uh, I think it's funny because I think that conversation made an impression on me because I knew I was responding with hubris. Inside, I think I knew that I was spouting off about something I didn't really know the truth about. So, because you know, it was a really brief conversation, but yet I remembered it. And I remembered it for years before I even got into Bitcoin. So, anyway, it's kind of, I think, something spoke to my inner self that I said something I shouldn't have said, you know? So, do you think Bitcoin is a bit of an ego death that we have to realize that our system, or what we thought before, might not have been correct? Yeah, totally. And and that's kind of funny too, because, you know, way back when I was going to school, you know, my first economics class, they were talking to me about Keynesian economics of course, because that's all they teach. And then they were talking about the, the importance of, you know, 2% inflation and all this stuff. And back then, I didn't didn't make sense to me. I thought, this is ridiculous. What are you talking about? Why do we have to have 2% inflation to have a healthy economy and all this kind of stuff? And the teacher honestly could never really answer. All the other kids in the class were like, shut up. Let's just get on with the lesson, you know, and I, so I just kind of moved on. Anyway, I think, I think my initial story that I told you, plus, you know, why that made an impression on me, plus that experience I just told you about my class, I think all those kind of speak to kind of my name, Truth Conspirator and and truth is eternal. I think truth is eternal and I do think that our soul recognizes truth when we hear it. And when you fight against it, I think that speaks to your soul too. And so, you know, I'm not trying to get ultra religious on you here or anything, but I'm just, I just think that there's something about truth and we all have the ability to recognize it. And if we take the time and look and have an open heart, we can we can learn the truth about a lot of things. So, that's kind of where the name Truth Conspirator comes from. I've kind of become a seeker of truth. And that was before Bitcoin, but I think that's one of the things that enabled me to actually latch on to it eventually. I love that. Seeker of truth. And you know, I said that exact thing to Jeff Booth in my first interviewed him and didn't completely understand, but I could hear that he was telling the truth. And I said, you know, when you hear the truth, you know it, even if you don't understand why it's the truth. And I do believe that too. And you say that truth is the conspiracy though. What does that mean? Well, I said, I said it's the conspiracy I want to participate in. Okay. There's a little bit more that gets cut off that's not immediately readable unless you open up the whole thing, but I say truth is the conspiracy, I want to participate in. Yeah, I get that. You also had an Altcoin journey. Tell us a little bit about that and why Bitcoin eventually stood out. Yeah, that's another embarrassing story, but okay, my son was into Bitcoin a long time before me, a long time. And uh, we don't talk finances too much because I'm the accountant dad, you know, kind of thing, but anyway, he was into Bitcoin and he made a lot. I mean, he he made a lot and then in late 2021, he was kind of celebrating that win, you know, and and he was moving on to greener pastures because he had made some good money in Bitcoin. And so now he was going to catch some of the newer uh digital assets and catch some of that money go up. And he and he's like, well, if I get in earlier, I'll even make more money kind of philosophy or thought. And so I was just, yeah, I'm gonna follow your lead, you know, and let's let's do this. Without any research at all, just jumping right into some really horrific Altcoins that were 100% scams. And I won't even mention their names because I just, I have too much pride. I hate to admit it. They were horrible. But anyway, so I, so I went all in and I, and I didn't just DCA a couple hundred bucks or whatever. I mean, I went all in like 25k, and I lost 16 pretty fast. And I thought, well, I think this digital asset thing is important, but I probably should learn a little bit about it. And so I started educating myself, and you mentioned James. I, I listened to James, uh, invest answers every single day for over two years, and learned a lot. Still played around with all coins quite a bit, but then eventually kind of understood that, yeah, you might get lucky in your trades, you know, by timing the market. Uh, you might make some money, but that's just going to add to your hubris and lead to a bigger downfall. At least that was the case for me. And so eventually I just kind of got away from all the digital asset fiat games, that's how I refer to it nowadays, and I just figured, I'm just going to go all in on Bitcoin. You know, I, I read Safedean's book, I read several other books. I, I just became a voracious consumer of anything digital asset initially. But then, I, I moved on and and understood Bitcoin for what it is. And, you know, it's it's monetary properties are indisputable. You know, the fixed supply, the perfect portability, the phenomenal divisibility. All those different, you know, different attributes that make up sound money, the verifiability. All that just spoke to me. And, um, perfect portability is probably my favorite. I just love the idea of being able to take my money with me anywhere I go. I've always been a bit of a independent person, somebody who believes heavily in self-sufficiency, maybe a survivalist kind of mentality a little bit. And so, I think once I understood Bitcoin, I saw how that fit into that picture perfectly. Yeah, and a big shout out to James because he is a wonderful investor, a wonderful person. If you trade options and learn from him, you can make a fortune in the fiat world. But not everybody is cut out to do that, and he also understands Bitcoin very well. But he tends to go towards the ETFs and the Treasury companies because of the dangers of self-custody if you do not hold your keys safely. Whereas that appeals to many of us, because those of us with uh, governments that might not be favorable, or if you have to, like you said, move your money, then it is one of the best ways to have it in self custody.
[9:51]And we'll get into that more, but what about the volatility of Bitcoin? You know, we're in a bit of a bear market. We have lots going on. How do you handle that? Basically, I probably quit worrying about price over a year ago. I, I was reviewing my 2025 goals at the end of 2025. And I noticed that my goal had been to increase my dollar denominated portfolio. And I and for 2026, I didn't want to do that. I was kind of like, I got to measure things in sats. And so, you know, even though I had kind of made that mental adjustment, I guess I didn't make it at the beginning of 2025 when I was, you know, writing down those goals. And so, anyway, now I'm way more focused on just sats. I, I stack sats every single day, and and so that's that's my goal. You know, but I'm, but I'm not a purist, okay? I mean, I, I actually recently sold close to half a Bitcoin. I, I left my employment as as an employee. I started my own CPA firm. And, yeah, I needed some capital to do that, and and that's what my capital is for, to to use. I'm also a huge fan of bind and replace. If there's a client, uh, a customer, I know who, excuse me, not a customer, but a vendor I know who, who accepts Bitcoin. I'll convert fiat to Bitcoin before I make the transaction. I'll I'll always convert a little more Bitcoin than I need for the transaction. So it's kind of like a stack in using replace at the same time. But, um, I'm all in, but I don't have rigid laws about that, you know? Yeah, I, well, I think that's important. You invested in yourself. And to sell Bitcoin to invest in yourself is absolutely nothing wrong with that. And we know that Bitcoin needs to be a medium of exchange to survive as a store of value. You know, good for you. You said you don't like debt. So that's one of the reasons you didn't want to take on debt. Tell us a little bit about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Could have got a small business loan, but I, I don't do that. You know, I, I owe maybe 3% of the value of my home and on on the mortgage. That will be paid off this year. I, I don't own any any debt on cars or credit cards or anything else and, um, you know, and a lot of people would would encourage me to take on some fiat debt to increase my Bitcoin holdings. And that probably is a super smart numbers idea to do. It's just not what I do. And and the main reason that I don't do that is because, you know, me and my wife, we make our our financial decisions together. And together as a couple, we don't leverage and that's that's our plan. And is it also because of the way the system is set up? I mean, taking on debt really strengthens that system and that's how they make all their money. I can see a reason for it for some people, but I can also understand not wanting to take on debt. Yeah, really, I've I've grown to just loathe everything about the fiat system. And so, I do everything I can to avoid anything fiat related. I mean, obviously, the majority of my clients still pay me in in fiat. My day-to-day is way more fiat than I want it to be, but I just don't want to do anything to enhance the fiat system. I don't love any type of fiat game. I just I want to store my wealth in a hard asset. And I want to grow that hard asset, and I want to eventually convert my whole life to that hard asset. Holding your Bitcoin in self-custody is an important step towards self-sovereignty. But writing your seed phrase on paper is risky. Paper can burn, fade or get lost. Microseed helps you stamp your seed phrase onto a small steel washer. Buy the device once and use it forever. I love it. It's durable, precise and easy to transport. Use my link below for 5% off. Any tips for people filing taxes with Bitcoin? Because right now we don't have legislation. It's still taxed like a commodity, is that correct? We we all need Bitcoin accountants by the way. Yeah. Obviously, I don't tell anybody to cheat on their taxes or anything like that. That would just be suicide in my career, right? But uh, there is a method of reporting your exchanges. It's instead of like first in or first out or last in or first out, you can do specific assignment. And that's what I do personally. And so, like I said, if I'm doing a transaction, I'll buy that day the Bitcoin I need to do the transaction, then I'll sell that day. So the gain or loss is very minimal or negligible. So that's my strategy. If anybody else has a strategy they want to discuss with me, I'm happy to discuss and help them formulate a plan around their strategy that is best for what they're trying to accomplish. Just one question because you know, I pay my editor in Bitcoin. So if I buy, and I saw you, you ditched Coinbase, but let's say I buy on Coinbase or River, and I want to send spend and replace that directly to my editor. Often they don't take that Bitcoin because it's not okay to send out yet. Yeah, I know that's a big problem. So, once again, it's specific identification. You don't have to spend the Bitcoin you just purchased. You can spend other Bitcoin that you acquired at kind of the same price at a previous time. Right. So that's that's that's the way I work around those type of freezes on your Bitcoin, temporary freezes. Yeah. You've also said that Bitcoin is sound money and true hope for humanity to have an equal monetary playing field. That's a big idea. That's equal monetary playing field across the whole world. Why is that important to you? Well, I, I think it's important because I, I care about humanity as a whole, and not just in it for me. And it's super important that everybody have the same opportunity in my view. And that's one of the arguments that people say in this whole Bitcoin versus not, core versus not debate and stuff. People say things like, things that I view is kind of silly. They say, well, hardware's getting cheaper. You know, go ahead and buy a bigger hard drive and you can store all the spam you want and blah, blah, blah. And I'm just like, that's first world thinking. You're thinking about life in America and how easy it is to buy an extra $100 hard drive for your node. Well, not everybody in the world has the spare $100 to throw around. And we and in my view, we need to make node running as easy and inexpensive for as many people as possible. I think the last guy that you had on your interview said, we don't need 25,000 nodes, we need 250,000 nodes. Well, yeah, I would agree. We need 100 million nodes. And I think that's where ultimate self-sovereignty comes in. And we need to lower that barrier for everybody. And we need to lower the rate of increase, because that that barrier's going to go up over time anyway, just with regular monetary being added to the blockchain. So, we need to slow the rate of increase and make it as sustainable for as many people as possible. I agree. And because Bitcoin is a monetary, it's a monetary, it's a monetary protocol. Well, and and it it it's in the title of the white paper, peer-to-peer electronic cash. I mean, there's you can't get more plain than that. There was nothing about peer-to-peer arbitrary data storage. It's I don't know, to me it's such a crazy conversation. You know, people argue that that's that's restrictive. If you restrict things being on on the network, then it's restrictive. But just like you said, what's the purpose of having arbitrary data on the network? And it's stopping other people all around the world and the plebs running nodes because it's clouding up. Here's my thought on that. All code is restrictive. Okay? Find a technologist to disagree with that, and I'll bow out. All code is restrictive. The whole purpose of code is to enforce a specific set of rules. And so, I mean, I'm a CPA. I'm not a coder, but I did work at a technology company. You know, for people to say it's restrictive is a disingenuous argument, or, or an argument made based off of naive conceptions. Not everybody's disingenuous. Yeah, that's right. Well, when you started studying money, what surprised you when you went down that rabbit hole? The list is long. I would say just how completely contrived the whole system is. That that's the main thing that I understood. And how the game is really completely rigged against the average person. So, sounds kind of doomsdayer, but you know, that's the truth. And it's a weapon. Money is a weapon, and that's a very unfortunate truth. Well, how is money used as a weapon? You mean a lot of these wars are fought over money or money enables them to go to war? Well, let's just, you can even just take it broader. I mean, I hear people say that a lot and sure it's true. Um, you know, they can just print money, uh, to to buy all the weapons they want, then, of course, that drives the cost of everything else up over time. And yeah, yeah, all that works, but even just let's look at the tax code for a second. The whole tax code is used to incentivize specific behaviors. Buy this electric vehicle and we'll give you a multi thousand dollar tax credit, you know, install solar panels on your home and get a multi thousand dollar tax credit, contribute to charity. You know, and I'm not saying that's 100% wrong. So that's just an example of they, they use all aspects of money to try to form behavior. And and when when they hold the purse strings, they can do that. And other thing that we've learned is also taking out debt is one of the ways to get ahead in this world is to take out debt on assets, or to buy assets that, you know, are closer to the money printer, or stocks or real estate. And we all know that that's the way to get ahead in the fiat world, but now we have Bitcoin, which you can just buy, hoddle, spend and replace. And you can have a much simpler, peaceful existence. For sure. Yeah, and that's what I'm shooting for. I'm just, I would love to move as far as I can into the Bitcoin standard. I mean, I got my first client to pay me in in Bitcoin this year. And I'm hoping to, I have a specific goal of number of clients and payment I do want to receive in Bitcoin for the year. And I'm hopeful to eventually be in a place where that's all I accept. I'm kind of lucky because my particular practice, I work a lot with expats, people who are located all around the world, but they still have US tax filing requirement. And so, because they're all over the world, for a lot of them, they're already involved with Bitcoin or or something like that. And so, I think it's a natural fit for my business and, uh, I'm hopeful that I can move there faster than the average CPA firm could. I'm sure you can with your knowledge and the fact that you offer it. It's the next step. It's funny too because I, I have it kind of built into my invoicing system to where there's a option to pay. And sometimes when I'm sending an invoice, like just yesterday, I sent an invoice to one of my friends who I talk to about Bitcoin, but it's, you know, it didn't go very well. And uh, and so I thought, well, I should remove this from his invoice. I'm like, no, no, he needs to know that I accept Bitcoin as payment and that I'm serious about this. Good for you. I got kind of decided, I'm not going to change that for anybody. Good for you. And I thought, I, I want to start giving my friends, if I give them a gift, give them a wallet with 12 seed words in a card. Because then that's one way to get people interested because, you know, they they're different ways we can do it. And I, like you, kept saying, no, I'm not going to do that, they're not Bitcoiner. But that's the gift I want to give once in a while. I think I can do it. I think that's a great idea. I think Terrence was talking about how he, he uses, I think he said the moon wallet to and he just will create a new account right away. And then have them install the app on their phone and he'll transfer from one of his moon accounts to his new one that he just created, and then it shows up in their wallet too. He says, if they use it, great. If they don't, well, then I know they forgot about it. Take it back. Or something like that. They said, I don't don't quote me. I'm just paraphrasing what. That's why I got the idea from Terrence. It's it's a great idea, and I think the more we do that, the better we get it at creating wallets for people and moving around this this new system. With Cash App coming out, a lot of merchants now are accepting Bitcoin, whether they know it or not, about 4 million. So that's something else we can also look into. Yeah, I've been thinking about the whole square thing, and uh, I think it's great. I mean, obviously, for him to be putting all that effort into helping everybody accept Bitcoin. I was thinking too, yesterday, I was thinking, man, this is probably one way for him to build his, his own company stack because I think the default is for for the Bitcoin to be converted to fiat immediately for the benefit of the of the merchant who accepted the Bitcoin. But, um, so I think that that could be a way that he could up his his own company's Treasury quite a bit, which good for him. You know, he's providing a service, and he's probably providing a way for himself to stack his Bitcoin more. Yeah, it's incredible. With so many smart people out there using Bitcoin, continuing to grow the space. Despite the price being very low now, so we don't have a lot of new people coming in right now because number go up brings people in. Yeah, for sure. But, but I think this is the time for learning and growing. I think yesterday on next, I saw somebody say something about, this is like buying in the 20,000s, like a year ago or a couple years ago. And I'm like, yeah, that's true. You know, it's because the next time it takes off, it's going to be pretty serious. You know, I don't watch that stuff. I don't care about that stuff, but for those who do, the time is coming. Stack now. Yeah, and and even if it didn't, I, it's still a better money protocol, like you said. But it's likely that it will because of the money printing coming. For sure, for sure. Yeah. I think it's become really painfully obvious that nothing stops this train. You know, Lynn Lynn Alden is is 100% accurate. No matter what your political position is. No politician has the guts to do the hard things that are necessary to get the debt under control. And money printing is going to continue and escalate, and it's the writing's on the wall. And so, obviously, you know, The Big Print by Lawrence Leopard is accurate too. I mean, those two sum it up so beautifully. And the difference between them is Lawrence Lepard says that it'll come all at once. And Lynn says that it will happen slowly, but however it happens, they're both saying the same thing in the long run. Yeah. And, I, I do think the rate of printing is increasing, so, yeah. They're both geniuses. So, I'll just leave it at that. Yeah, so that's devaluing all of our dollars, right? As they print, yet most people don't realize that's what's happening. They do see inflation. They just don't see the solution yet. Yeah, I think that's a real issue, and that's what I try to help people with, as much as I can, is to help them connect the dots. Because they don't really understand, and with the education our government provides, you won't understand. You have to go out and you have to dig on your own. Yeah. And even though we likely don't have CBDCs coming, Europe seems to have them coming, right? They're coming, and that is a form of control over the population. For sure. We could have them here one day. Right now, I know Trump has said we won't, but going forward, I would say Bitcoin is the only way to escape that. Yeah, for sure. And, and, I, I think it's coming because I think that the party that's not currently in control will again be in control. And that's that's right up their alley, that type of monetary control. To be honest, it's probably up everybody's app, uh, the the reality is, there's probably just a uniparty and not a right or left. Yeah, that's probably right. Hi everyone. I'm excited to share that I'll be a speaker at BTC Prague 2026. The biggest and most influential Bitcoin only event in Europe. 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[28:19]Why do you think people play fiat games with Bitcoin and why doesn't that make sense to you? I think it's, I think mostly it's just because they're trying to get rich quick. You know, it's everybody wants to accelerate their their stacking ability. And like I said earlier, I think that on paper and numbers can make it make sense. And, um, I think the main reason why I don't really get into that myself too much, number one, because, like I said, me and my wife have a plan together. And then number two, is that I don't have the time to try to time the market. I'm more of a spend time in the market kind of guy. And so, I'm doing my my day-to-day fiat job that I'm trying to convert to a Bitcoin job. And I'm running my craft, right? And so I'm not going to be watching charts all the time and timing the perfect market or setting the perfect call or put or whatever you want to call it. I, I just I've tried that. I've made some money at that. I've lost some money at that. I just not investing my time on that anymore. Yeah, good for you. And just the other day, somebody was talking to me and they said, well, you know, you should take out, you know, maybe 50% of your equity in your home. And and you should buy some Bitcoin, or, or buy some stretch or whatever they're calling that thing that Microstrategy's doing. It's paying 11.5%, and, you know, you're, your home mortgage loan's only going to be, you know, 5 or 6%. So you're going to net 5% blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, yeah, you know, you're right. On paper, it makes so much sense. I'm not going to do it. Just not my cup of tea. Yeah, good for you. And good for you to for standing for what makes sense to you. And is your son a Bitcoin now, or is he still dabbling in everything? I actually don't know if he's doing anything at all right now. It's funny, when when Bitcoin reached 125K, I sent him a text message and I said, today is a very good day for you, isn't it? And he said, what do you mean? I said the Bitcoin price. He says, oh, I sold all my Bitcoin. And so, I haven't got back into that with him if if he's getting back into it or not. Yeah, I don't know. But that's something I, I kind of learned recently, actually, if you don't mind a little detour. Yes. Early doesn't mean that people understand. Sometimes, I mean, one of my clients, the guy who paid me in Bitcoin this year, he's been in Bitcoin a couple years before me. My son was into Bitcoin several years before me. But I don't think either one of those two really understand the power and the independence and the freedom that Bitcoin represents. The guy who paid me in Bitcoin, he paid me through Coinbase. He doesn't self custody. My son never self custody. And I, I think that's where the real power lies with Bitcoin.
[31:31]Yeah, I agree. I'd love to understand more what makes some of us so freedom loving and sovereignty loving, but others don't see it right away. Do you think it's a curiosity that takes us there or a need? Because I had a need. I had a big need for it. But then as I went deeper, I saw, no, this is more than just number go up. That self-sovereignty is getting out of the banks. All money's not actually there. That was huge. It's not your money, they say. Yeah, I, I think that it really is a pain issue. If you haven't had the pain, you don't see the need a lot of times. There are those exceptions, obviously, there's some people who've had curiosities and things like that. I know one of my lessons came through PayPal. I had a pretty good amount of money on PayPal. I was trying to move it to to time a a particular trade. This is back when I was doing my timing thing, right? And they froze my account for like 90 days, and there was no reason. I didn't even mistype a password. I did not do a single thing. And there was no reason, no explanation ever provided. And they just froze my money. And it it wasn't a huge amount, but it was it was a significant amount to me. And so, that was something that really opened my eyes to the pain. That's like, look, these people can do whatever they want with your money. If you don't hold your keys, you don't hold your coins. And it was dollars, but like I said, they froze my money for zero reason. Well, and it took 90 days. You couldn't get them to release it for 90 days. That's incredible. Well, they they said that that's what it was going to take. Eventually they got it done in, uh, I think for about 40 days. They probably thought, oh, well, underpromise and over deliver, you know, or whatever. It's still they held my money for a long period of time and I lost the trade that I was trying to do, uh, which kind of snowballed and caused me to lose more. But anyway, um, yeah. I hear you. I've been through some of those too, and there's part of me that gets drawn back into that sometimes, but I'm like, no, that just causes stress and it's not my expertise. Yeah. Well, and I think, the way I view it too, is I, I paid for my formal education. You know, losing money and doing some of this other stuff that I've done, feeling some of these other pains, those are other tuition fees I've paid. And I'm fine with that. Yeah, that's a good attitude. Why is being truly self-sovereign so important to you? I mean, you've you've given me quite a few examples, but with self-sovereignty comes responsibility. We got to keep our keys safe, we got to keep ourselves custody safe. Tell me a little about that. I think it really just boils down to independence. Go to another country, or I want to do anything I want to do, I don't want to have to ask anybody's permission. That's really all that boils down to is I want the freedom to use my stored energy, my stored years of labor, as I want, when I want, how I want. And I guess it's maybe a little selfish, but you know, I think it's fair too. I think it's also a human right. Like you said, we worked for it. We've paid our taxes. We've done what we needed to do. I, I feel like it's a human right. I do. I do too. Yes, for sure. And that that actually kind of segues into something else I'd like to talk about if you, if you don't mind. Absolutely. I'm a big fan of kind of being creative with your stacking. And a while back, I was working for an accounting firm, and I had a 401K with them. And I, and I wanted to invest in Bitcoin on some level. But it turns out, because I, because I started looking into the investment options, they had. I couldn't even invest in Microstrategy. I couldn't even invest in in any of the other stuff. This was before Microstrategy became as big as it is now. I knew about them early because of James.
[35:59]Yeah, me too. But, but anyway, so I was kind of like, man, I, I'm so limited with this, with this 401K. I got money here, but I can't put it where I want. Yeah, keep it in. I, I couldn't even do it in Tesla to be honest with you. But anyway, so finally I just said, you know what, I'm going to go find a different job. I can cash out my 401k. Well, or not cash it out. I can roll it over and do whatever. So I did it. I went job searching. I found a better job with better pay. Boss that I liked better. And it was like a win-win-win. So, I'm not saying people should just randomly quit their job and take their 401K and go buy Bitcoin. No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying be thoughtful, be strategic, plan, and be creative. And so that's what I did. And, and when I quit my job, I rolled my 401K into a Bitcoin IRA. And and now I'm actually taking it to the next level because with a Bitcoin IRA, I don't hold the keys, okay? But there are vehicles out there, it's called because I'm now self-employed, I can create what's called a Solo 401K. And with that, you can buy real estate, you can you could buy all kinds of different assets that you can't buy through a traditional 401k or IRA or whatever. And so, I'm in the process right now of setting up a Solo 401K, and I will roll my money from my Bitcoin IRA to my Solo 401K, and I will hold the keys. And that way, if there's some kind of crazy, um, government collapse, or apocalyptic situation, I have the keys. And that's what I think is the key. Do everything you can to hold your own keys. And that's one reason why I, I struggle with all the Bitcoin Treasury companies. In my mind, those they're not Bitcoin Treasury companies, they're Bitcoin IOU Treasury companies. They don't hold Bitcoin, they hold IOUs. And don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to slam on certain people that are amazing and have great reputations. It just, it's just not my style. And I'm happy to help people who want to set aside some of their personal wealth or their business income in real Bitcoin Treasuries. That involve real self custody and, you know, maybe we do multisig amongst all the partners or something like that, but we'll figure out the solution that's best for them. But I will encourage people to do self custody always. It's a learnable skill. Don't be intimidated. Absolutely. We, we can definitely learn it. Yeah, it's it's just a little bit of practice. And it can be done. If you truly understand Bitcoin, you know why it's so important to be your own bank. Without full self-custody, you're trusting a third party that knows who you are and how much Bitcoin you hold. Bitcoin is about eliminating counterparty risk. It's about self-sovereignty. The Bitcoin Way is the best way to learn the skills for this level of freedom. Their one-on-one approach teaches you how to take self-custody without ever needing to know who you are, or how big your stack is. Go to The Bitcoin Way and book a free 30 minute consult. Don't delay. Your freedom is at stake.
