'FINDING HOME': BITCOIN, FOOD, FREEDOM, & FAMILY | AVI BURRA

Summary

Podcast Summary: "FINDING HOME": BITCOIN, FOOD, FREEDOM, & FAMILY | AVI BURRA

Podcast Information:

• Title: THE Bitcoin Podcast
• Host: Walker America
• Episode: "FINDING HOME": BITCOIN, FOOD, FREEDOM, & FAMILY | AVI BURRA
• Release Date: July 29, 2025

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Introduction

In this engaging episode of THE Bitcoin Podcast, host Walker America welcomes Avi Burra, a passionate bitcoiner and filmmaker, to discuss Avi’s innovative project, "Finding Home." The conversation delves into the intersections of Bitcoin adoption, storytelling through food and travel, the Nostr protocol, and the profound impact of parenthood on personal philosophy.

Bitcoin Adoption and Emotional Appeal

Avi initiates the discussion by addressing the prevalent sense of despair among individuals across political spectrums who feel helpless about the future. He emphasizes the importance of providing hope through storytelling rather than purely intellectual arguments about Bitcoin.

Avi (00:00): "I want to show people that there are these people living incredible lives of hope, of creativity, just building things because they love what they're doing… appealing to their emotion, I think you get a lot more."

Walker complements this by highlighting the challenges of reaching beyond existing echo chambers and contemplating strategies to introduce Bitcoin to a broader audience.

Walker (02:44): "We need more Bitcoin podcasts… If you want to help people, you want to spread the good word about Bitcoin, but most people just can't be bothered."

Launching "Finding Home"

Avi shares the genesis of "Finding Home," inspired by Anthony Bourdain's approach to food and travel shows. The pilot episode, filmed in a Somali restaurant in Harlem, showcases the lives of Bitcoin-accepting expatriates, intertwining their stories with culinary experiences.

Avi (19:16): "I wanted to help people find a sovereign home in Bitcoin… telling expat stories as a parallel to finding a physical home."

The pilot, launched on Indie Hub, aims to blend high-quality production with authentic storytelling, setting the stage for future episodes in diverse locations like Paraguay.

Avi (24:32): "Indie Hub is a lightning-enabled pay-per-view platform… there's going to be a lot more episodes filmed."

Nostr Protocol and Community Building

The conversation transitions to the Nostr protocol, a decentralized social network initiative spearheaded by Jack Dorsey. Avi and Walker discuss its potential to revolutionize social interactions by fostering authentic connections and mitigating algorithmic censorship.

Avi (06:12): "The beauty of Nostr is it's so easy to build these things… with AI-assisted coding, everyone’s a dev now."

Walker reflects on the early adoption phase and predicts that Nostr will attract users both seeking freedom from centralized platforms and those drawn by its inherent fun and authenticity.

Walker (80:04): "Nostr was like this innocent fun… it's the most fun place on the Internet."

AI, Vibe Coding, and Bitcoin Integration

Avi introduces the concept of Vibe Coding, an AI-assisted method for developing applications on the Nostr protocol. He highlights projects like Shakespeare and Routesta, which facilitate anonymous AI usage by leveraging ecash tokens instead of traditional API keys.

Avi (11:04): "Routesta allows AI model calls using an ecash token, enabling no KYC AI usage… built on Nostr."

This integration underscores the synergy between Bitcoin, decentralized protocols, and emerging AI technologies, paving the way for innovative applications that prioritize privacy and autonomy.

Avi (10:49): "There's an incredible confluence happening at the intersection of AI, Bitcoin, and Nostr."

Personal Stories: Finding Home and Fatherhood

Avi and Walker delve into their personal journeys of finding home, both geographically and ideologically. Avi recounts his move from New York to upstate New York during the pandemic and his continuous search for a sense of belonging, which he ultimately finds within the Bitcoin community.

Avi (25:45): "I never felt fully at home in India… finding home in Bitcoin gatherings and conferences was transformative."

Walker shares his experience of fatherhood, emphasizing how becoming a parent deepened his understanding of long-term thinking and reinforced his commitment to Bitcoin as a means to secure a better future for his child.

Walker (66:03): "Becoming a father was a light switch… it’s a completely life-changing experience."

Future Plans and Collaboration

Avi outlines his ambitious plans for "Finding Home," envisioning multiple seasons with diverse episodes showcasing Bitcoiners from various backgrounds. He discusses the challenges of funding and production, leveraging platforms like Angor for self-custodial fundraising.

Avi (36:13): "I'm using Angor for fundraising… trying to create a high-quality product on a shoestring budget."

Walker expresses enthusiasm for potential collaborations, including featuring renowned establishments like Beefsteak or Tahinis, and offers to facilitate introductions to expand Avi’s network and reach.

Walker (61:50): "Have you thought about making that a recurring theme with different filmmakers? Let's make it happen."

Bitcoin Strategies: Holding vs. Staking

The hosts discuss various Bitcoin investment strategies, advocating for holding Bitcoin as a store of value over speculative ventures like Bitcoin treasuries or staking. They caution against introducing counterparty risk and emphasize the importance of self-custody.

Walker (75:56): "Stay humble and stack sats… chasing get-rich-quick schemes can lead to significant losses."

Avi (98:51): "Spend Bitcoin at merchants that accept it… the medium of exchange is the killer app for Bitcoin."

Conclusion

As the episode wraps up, Avi reiterates his goals for "Finding Home"—to create compelling culinary cinema that subtly integrates Bitcoin narratives, thereby fostering emotional connections that can drive mass adoption. Walker encourages listeners to support Avi’s project through platforms like Indie Hub and Angor, while also promoting Nostr as a robust, decentralized social network.

Avi (71:09): "It's about being the lighthouse, not the tugboat… leading by example."

Walker (105:31): "Thank you to everybody on the live stream… you can experience this show live and in color on ZAP Stream."

Listeners are invited to connect with Avi through his website and various social platforms, ensuring ongoing support and engagement with his innovative ventures.

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Notable Quotes:

• Avi (00:00): "I want to show people that there are these people living incredible lives of hope, of creativity…"
• Walker (02:44): "We need more Bitcoin podcasts…"
• Avi (19:16): "I wanted to help people find a sovereign home in Bitcoin…"
• Avi (11:04): "Routesta allows AI model calls using an ecash token…"
• Walker (66:03): "Becoming a father was a light switch…"
• Avi (36:13): "I'm using Angor for fundraising…"
• Walker (75:56): "Stay humble and stack sats…"
• Avi (71:09): "It's about being the lighthouse, not the tugboat…"

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Final Thoughts:

This episode offers a deep dive into the innovative ways Bitcoin can be woven into personal narratives and creative projects to drive adoption. Through Avi’s "Finding Home," listeners witness a unique blend of food, travel, and Bitcoin storytelling, underscored by the supportive and decentralized ethos of the Nostr protocol. The heartfelt discussions about finding home and fatherhood add a personal touch, making the technical aspects of Bitcoin more relatable and emotionally engaging.

For those interested in exploring Bitcoin beyond the usual discourse, "Finding Home" presents a refreshing approach that combines passion with purpose, illustrating how Bitcoin can be a beacon of hope and creativity in a rapidly evolving world.

Links and Resources:

• Avi's Website: casanostra.ink
• Nostr Handle: @primal.netai
• Indie Hub: indiehub.com
• Angor Fundraising: angor.com
• "Finding Home" on Indie Hub: [link in show notes]

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This summary encapsulates the essence of the "FINDING HOME" episode, providing a comprehensive overview for both avid Bitcoin enthusiasts and newcomers alike.

Transcript

[Avi]

There is no hope for them, right? They're living in this world of anger and despair because they're like, well, we're screwed. Like, what can we do? And there are other people like that on any side of the political spectrum right there. I like to believe they're all good people. Some of them might be misguided, but a lot of them are in despair because they don't see the hope with finding home. And because I'm not emphasizing bitcoin all that much is really a food and travel show. And yes, bitcoin's in the background. I want to show people that there are these people living incredible lives of hope, of creativity, just, you know, building things because they love what they're doing and they're having these rich experiences. And when people watch that and they're like, how are they doing that? My life sucks. And that's where the bitcoin comes in and say, oh, wait a second. Maybe there is hope, I think, for bitcoiners who think they understand, as you said, low time preference and all the philosophy that we spout all the time, having a kid just makes you realize what it all means. It really falls into place. So just going back to the earlier point, without maximal adoption of bitcoin, the revolution has failed and our children will not be living in the world that we want to give them. So this is my way of telling stories, of appealing to people's emotions, because I think that is what scales adoption more than appealing to people's intellect. You can lecture them on Austrian economics and do distributed networks and what have you. And you know, you'll get a few people, right? The more cerebral kinds you might get them, convince them through the subtle art of argument, but appealing to their emotion, appealing to their soul, I think you get a lot more.

[Walker]

Greetings and salutations, my fellow plebs. My name is Walker and this is the bitcoin podcast. Bitcoin continues to create new blocks every 10 minutes and. And the value of one bitcoin is still one bitcoin. If you are listening to this right now, remember you are still early. Find me on [e-mail] Walker and this [e-mail] Titcoin on X, YouTube and Rumble. Just search WalkerAmerica and find this podcast on X and Instagram. Itcoin podcast. Head to the show notes for sponsor links. Head to substack.comwalkeramerica to get episodes emailed to you. And head to bitcoin podcast.net for everything else. Without further ado, let's get into this bitcoin talk. How many episodes now of Pleb Chain radio have you guys done?

[Avi]

121. Yeah, that was the last one.

[Walker]

Dude, that. That is. That is awesome. Like that. It's incredible. And you guys have done such a nice job with that show, and just like, I don't know, it's great to see. We need more bitcoin podcasts. We need more Nostra podcasts. Although I've also been debating recently. I'm like, God, you know how this is. It's so hard to reach outside the echo chamber, right? Just whether that be the bitcoin echo chamber, the Nostr echo chamber. It's so hard to reach outside of it. And, you know, part of me is like, you know, what always works for people is fucking political podcasts. Like, for some reason, people flock to those, like, I don't know, flies to shit. And part of me is like, you know, maybe I just need to start, like, a political focused podcast and get a couple of episodes where I'm just, you know, ranting and doing the whole political political thing, then start just inserting in bitcoin stuff kind of subtly, you know, in a sly, roundabout way. Because it's just like, man, you want to. I mean, you know this feeling, you want to help people, you want to spread the good word about bitcoin or about Nostr, and it's just like, most people just can't be bothered. But then I come back to, like, maybe it's not our jobs to save them, but I want to. And I don't know if that just makes me naive or what, or too, you know, too caring. I don't know. I don't even really know what I'm saying. More than just, it's like, man, I wish people gave as much of a shit about monetary and communication freedom as they do about the Real Housewives of Insert City. Maybe that's a losing battle, though.

[Avi]

Well, I think you're right. It is a challenge. And you can get lost in that frustration, right? Frankly, it's hard to break out even within our little niche, right, with the Twitter or the X algorithm. Like, you post something, it goes into the void for the most part. Even on Nostra, right? There's no algo. It's a chronological feed. But you've got to keep. If you're producing something that's meaningful and you want people to see it, you've got to go and keep reposting it. Be your own algorithm. Otherwise it's just lost.

[Walker]

You know? And it's funny too, Like, I for a while, like, was not reposting any of my own stuff because I was like, somehow had this in my brain from the, from the centralized algorithm platforms. Like now, you know, reposting your own stuff is lame or cringe or something like that. Then I was like, okay, on Noster, it's kind of a necessity because it's like you need to. If you, like, you want people to see the work that you're doing, you do the work, presumably because you believe it has value. And that's why I know you do the work that you do. That's why I do the work that I do. But it's like, so, you know, just kind of get over yourself and hit that renote button over and over and over again until it gets out in the. The space more. But I am glad to see that there's more algorithmic choice happening on Noster now. Like, and I mean, just like some even, like, stuff like this isn't algorithm based, but like the follow packs that, that Callie had developed, like, just. I also love that it's like, oh, yeah, I'll just, you know, Jack said the one thing missing from Noster that that Blue sky has was follow packs. So I guess I'll just do my cyberpunk thing, code up some follow packs and like, just. I don't know. It's incredible.

[Avi]

Yeah. Yeah. The beauty of Nostril is it's so easy to build these things. You have an idea and you build it. Right. It's a. It's a fairly simple and composable stack. And now with some of these vibe coded solutions that are out there, it's everyone's a dev now.

[Walker]

What's the one? Shakespeare. That's part of this thing Jack's funding, right? Shakespeare. That's like, basically sets you up to be able to vibe code Nostr app specifically, right?

[Avi]

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. It started off, yeah, that the and Other Stuff initiative. I'm sure you know this Walker, but maybe for folks who are unfamiliar, the. So Jack set up this initiative called and Other Stuff, and there are five pillar, four or five pillars in it. One is around privacy. I think Kali is leading that. There's another one that Jeff G. Is leading. Rabble's Got Communities. And then the fourth one is AI, which is what Alex Gleason's leading. And then they launched this thing called MK Stack first or MK Stacks about a month or two ago where you can vibe code basically in natural language using something that looks like Goose build Nostraps and then Now Shakespeare is sort of the next iteration of that.

[Walker]

I, I love it and honestly like, you know, people I, I still see people on because I'm. Yes, I'm still a, you know, a cuckoo's on X. Right. I'm still using it but I, I see people on there all the time just really like attacking Jack a lot and there's probably some fair criticisms in there from prior stuff. I think people also underestimate how much power the CEO of a publicly traded company actually has when the government comes knocking at your door. And it's like I, I love to see what he's doing now. First of all, he's not only is he funding awesome open source development, but he's back to coding himself now. You know, bitch at for one, the you know, Bluetooth mesh network completely offline. Which again, to give Callie another shout out, he ported it over to Android from iOS, started sending E cash over it like within hours and it's just like wow, you've got to love the pace of open source dev. And then he did another one. The. It's. What is it? I think just sun or I don't know, I've been using it actually like.

[Avi]

Or the sun timer. Right.

[Walker]

Sunday, Sunday. I've been using it literally actually every day because I was just like curious and it's kind of fun and I spend a lot of time outside unless I in my, my dark room here. So yeah, it's, it's, it's great to see. I think that's a vibe shift. Is, is Jack getting back into, into coding? It feels that way, yeah.

[Avi]

Yeah, I think for and for sure. And I think more broadly with AI assisted coding. Right. A lot of semi technical people or lapsed engineers, myself included by the way in that list. There were so many ideas that folks, you know, semi technical people have and they have had over the last whatever five, 10 years and it's like, oh yeah, it would be nice if I could raise some money to hire the devs to build this. And now you're in a place where you can vibe code it. Now it won't be a full production thing necessarily. Right. But you can fast prototype it, get people to test it and then potentially if you have the money like Jack does, you can hire the team to build it out or you can. It's much easier to raise funding as a solo entrepreneur now because you can have these quick prototypes.

[Walker]

Yeah, you can get to an MVP with never before seen speed.

[Avi]

Oh yeah, that's the Nobel.

[Walker]

Yeah. And decent quality like. Yeah, it's not going to be perfect. It's an mvp, but it's, it's on the right track there. And that's just like. Yeah, I feel like that's this word gets thrown around a lot, but it's very democratizing. You know, it opens up doors to a lot more people. And I mean as like Jeff Booth always likes to talk about the marginal cost of production trending towards zero thanks to technology. It used to cost you a lot of money to get to a minimum viable product for an app. Now it's like the cost of your chat subscription or you know, you can use. There's a number of free tools, like depending on how much what you need. Like so many open source tools, like all of these costs are trending towards zero essentially. And that's when priced in fiat. And then if you check what's the marginal cost trending towards when priced in bitcoin, it's accelerating towards zero even faster. And so it's just, it's, it's cool to see. It's, it's a, it's a chaotic time, but it's a hopeful time. Avi.

[Avi]

Oh, it certainly is. And you know, I don't think a lot of people realize what an incredible confluence is happening at the intersection of AI, Bitcoin and Noster. And I throw ecash in there as well. I don't know if you've seen this. This came out a couple of months ago. It's something called Routesta.

[Walker]

Have you heard of this? No, I have not heard of this.

[Avi]

Okay, so there's this guy, Srumenick, young guy, and I actually met him when I was in Prague last month. But he developed this thing called Roster. It's built on Noster. And so if you take a step back, right, if you are a developer who's trying to make API calls to AI engines like ChatGPT or whatever it is, you have to go to OpenAI, right? And this is a little, the API subscription is a little different from your regular membership or whatever. Your regular subscription, you have to go there. Now OpenAI makes you do full KYC, like full. You have to hold your phone up, record a video of yourself, take your driver's license to get that API key from them. And the others do this too, by the way, Anthropic Claude. So Routesta, this guy came up with this genius idea. I don't know how he did this at the back end, but you get an ecash token, right? You get an ecash token and you paste that in the place where you would put your API key behind the scenes. Everything is taken care of. So it's no KYC AI usage. You can call any model using an E cash token instead of an API key.

[Walker]

Wow. So he's basically taking the KYC on himself, taking that presumably to at least port into all of these different models. And then an has made it so that basically all you need to do is stay Anonymous, drop an eCash token in there. I mean, that's incredible.

[Avi]

Yeah. Because he's building this on Nostra. You can be a provider, meaning you can be the entity that takes on the kyc. So you're essentially arbitrage and kyc. Right. And based on. And eventually the way I see this evolving is you, you'll pick your provider based on Web of Trust or nostril. Like, yeah, this guy has. All the people I know have. Are friends with this guy or whatever are in the Web of Trust. So I'm going to pick this provider. No kyc I can call any AI model. Now, obviously you have to pay for the compute, which is where the ecash comes in. Right. So, yeah.

[Walker]

Well, I think it's fascinating too, with ecash, because this is something that, to your point about Web of Trust is going to be kind of vital for. For ecash for people like. Because, I mean, and Cali himself has said this, like, he said this on. He was on the show maybe almost a year and a half ago now, talking about Cashew in its slighter earlier days. Like, so much has been built since then. But he was saying, look, this is not layer one bitcoin. You can get rugged. Like, yes, you should know that up front. But, like, when you incorporate the Web of Trust into that, then it becomes, okay, I'm decreasing my rug risk. Because, you know what? Avi is somebody that I trust. He's connected with a lot of people that I trust. If Avi rugs this mint, well, like, I'm gonna make a stink about it. Other people are gonna make a stink about it. That's gonna ruin his. His reputation. And your reputation is ultimately worth a lot more than a few sats. I mean, hopefully for somebody like you, it is, you know, for sure.

[Avi]

And I think there's something really interesting coming down the pike here, Walker. And so there's this company, Fanfares, they're about to launch their version two in the next month or two, and they're making the case. You mentioned reputation. Right. It's pivoting the attention economy, which is what we've been plagued by. Right. With advertisers and everything else flipping the script and making it a reputation based economy. So any content you consume comes from a source you consider reputable. And that source, if they want to maintain their reputation, whether it's through to be a provider for no KYC AI, whether it's to run a mint on cash or whatever it might be even, it could be book or movie recommendations even, they have to think long and hard about their reputation and the risk it could take or the hit it could take if they recommend something bad. And so you can actually cut advertisers out of the mix and move to a purely reputation based system. So That's FanFares is one. It's an all noster based by the way that's coming. And there are others who are thinking along these lines as well. Sort of move from the attention economy to the reputation economy.

[Walker]

Well and I think in an in let's call it the post AI future, you know, where AI is ubiquitous and we're, you could argue that we're already there. I mean I think people may debate this but you know, the future is here. It's just not evenly distributed yet. But it's in some small part it is at least here. But in that future reputation starts to matter so very much because when everything is. Is forgeable, when everything and everything is infinitely replicable, when any. You have to doubt any interaction you see online and wonder did this really happen or is this, I mean like the even I was just messing around with, with Gemini and VO3 and like it's crazy how good it is already and it's, it's getting better and even, you know, mid journey now has the ability to animate stuff. Like there's so many different tools you can use and it's all accelerating and at a time when this is happening and it is, we are still at the infancy. Like it is going to get to the point you're like, I can tell that, you know, it's. You can't even tell based on the fingers anymore. You know, that was like the dead giveaway for a while was like, well there's 18 fingers on one on that woman's one hand. Like that's obviously AI now. It's like the fingers are good, but there's still little things. It's like, you know, we're somewhere in that weird uncanny valley where you can like it's pretty realistic but you can still kind of tell. But it's going to get to the point where even a trained eye will have a lot of difficulty and so what matters in that post AI future where you don't know what is real and fake? Well, you can't tell unless something is cryptographically signed. If it is not cryptographically signed, you should not trust it. And so then that reputation, the reputation of you hold being the key bearer of that cryptographic signature, that matters a lot because that's proof of humanness without doing the weird world coin eyeball scanning, which is like their whole thing too. Sam Altman like, oh, wow, that's funny how that worked out. Like he's taking away the ability to distinguish who's a human and not. But he provides a perfect solution. Just let me scan your retina real quick. It's not a big deal.

[Avi]

Right? And proof of humanness manifests itself in two ways, I think two very key ways. One is what you just said is that cryptographically signed events, right? And you tie your reputation to that. The second is authenticity in a world of slop, which, and let's be honest here, I mean, if you look at some 99% of images and videos on X especially, but even on Noster up your slop, and that human creativity expressed through authenticity, I think will stand out. That's my bull case anyway. Or we just go into this dystopia, this brave new world where we are being fed slop in our brains, eating, watching, whatever it is. But no, I'd rather, as a bitcoin, I'd rather stick to the bull case.

[Walker]

I'm with you there. You know, bitcoiners are nothing if not optimistic. We're incredibly realistic also, because you have to be in order to see how kind of fucked up the world is, right? And without bitcoin, you'd probably go from realism to nihilism. But because bitcoin exists, we bitcoiners get to be optimistic about the future. And nostr exists. So I'm even more optimistic. And people like you exist who are not producing AI Slop, but perfect transition are producing really incredible film. And that's why, that is why you're here today. Let's let, let's talk about that a little bit because I want to make sure we get into that and then we can come back to all manner of things AI related. But this is certainly not slop. You've got a pilot episode out of your new show, Finding Home. Let. Let's talk about this, because this is a. This to me seems to be bitcoin content that's not about bitcoin, but has a little bitcoin heartbeat. Going along it. So talk to me about it. What is it? First of all, how did you decide to even start doing this?

[Avi]

Yeah, the origin story is interesting, Walker, because you are tangentially involved in this. You might not remember this, but it was at BTC Prague in 2023 where you and Carla were there.

[Walker]

And.

[Avi]

Morning of, I think the first or second day, I was just sitting and thinking, you know, wouldn't it be nice to do something truly original? And it also has to be something that I enjoy doing. And I was still in the process of writing my book at that time. It's a bitcoin novel. So, yes, I suppose you could call that original as well in the bitcoin world. But I said what would be cool and what I'd really enjoy doing is making an Anthony Bourdain inspired food and travel show with bitcoiners as a sly, roundabout way of orange filling. Because everyone loves food, everyone loves travel. No one did it better than Bourdain. He was a philosopher first and foremost, more than a chef or whatever it was. Right? So just take a leaf out of that book. Obviously, there is only one Bourdain. So really view him more as a North Star or an inspiration and try and pay homage to that. So this was over two years ago, June of 2023, in Prague. That evening, if you remember, we were at a group dinner. Joe Nakamoto, his now fiance, Sophie, you, Carla and I, and a couple of others, where they had these fire breathers or fire downstairs and whatnot, fun dinner. And we were sitting in the patio after we'd finished eating and I'd mentioned this to you guys, we'd had a few drinks about them. So I forgive you for not remembering.

[Walker]

I'm remembering it now. And it was more than a few. I think, to be fair, it was a fun atmosphere.

[Avi]

It was certainly a fun atmosphere. I had the idea that morning and I mentioned it to you guys, and he said, yes, absolutely, you should do it now. These things take time. And part of it is you need. Yes, it was an idea. Yes, it was something that I was excited by, but at least for me, I need to get to a point where the mindset shift happens. And saying, you could just do stuff, because here's the problem, right? The mind, the cerebral cortex can come up with all sorts of reasons why something can fail. And I listened to that for a long time, saying, yeah, you know, it would be amazing, but you got to get it funded. You know, I'm not. I don't want to do A simple iPhone production. I want to, you know, have. Make a proper production with actual cameras and Netflix quality. Where am I going to get the money for it? I have a fiat job, you know, all of that stuff. And finally I reached a point maybe a year afterwards. I was at the Bitcoin Film Fest in Warsaw in April of last year, 2024, and I bumped into Parker Worthington Webworthy. He's the filmmaker for BTC Pay Server, works very closely with Rockstar and others. And we got. And they were premiering their film there. My trust in you is broken. And he. He directed that. So we got chatting and I told him about the idea. I said, this is amazing. I want to help you out. So it took us a few months to identify the right target. And then we found this place in. In Harlem, Somali restaurant called Safari. The owner is a bitcoiner. They accept bitcoin. I said, let's film that. And by then this is what the idea had become. Originally it was, as I said, Bordain inspired show, but with bitcoin as a sly roundabout with orange building. But I thought it would be really cool to tell expat stories. Not just any bitcoiners, but bitcoiner expats or bitcoiner immigrants, because there's a parallel story to be told. Just as the expat or the immigrant is finding a new physical home, because they're bitcoiners, they're also in the process of finding a sovereign home in bitcoin. Right. So that's what the story devolved to. So Shakib was from Somalia originally. He'd moved here over 20 years ago to New York. So yeah, filmed there. You know, it took a while to get all the editing and everything done. Parker is an incredibly busy man with all of his BTC pay and other commitments and then had it ready. Ironically, I wanted to find a home for the show itself, looking for studios and. And so on. And obviously it's a pilot. I have no. I'm an engineer for heaven's sake. Right. I have no sort of history making anything like this. But yeah, eventually got it in front of a lot of people in private, got their feedback, tweaked it a little bit, and then launched it on Indie Hub. As of last week, Indie Hub is this lightning enabled pay per view platform. So this is just the beginning. The pilot was just me getting comfortable with the format. Right. And the storytelling and so on. But. But yes, there's going to be a lot more. Filmed a second episode. When I was in Prague last Month. That's going to. That's in post production now and a few others planned.

[Walker]

I love it, actually. I hadn't used Indie Hub before until I paid with lightning to watch the film, which I like, I love, and the opportunity to pay with bitcoin. And of course, if anyone from the IRS is listening, I'm definitely reporting all of those transactions exactly as I should, naturally.

[Avi]

Of course. And your zaps, too, let's not forget on Noster. Right?

[Walker]

All of them, yes.

[Avi]

You write them down on a piece of paper, right?

[Walker]

Yeah, yeah. And I mean, those are actually donations to my personal 501C3. So it's okay. I get a lot of money from USAID as well. But no, I digress. So I love the first episode and I, again, I love this idea of bitcoin content that's not explicitly about bitcoin. It's part of the story. It helps you. It helps you make your decisions about, like, for you, I assume, you know, who are you going to talk to next? Who are you going to cover next? That's. That's part of it, right? It's leading you in the right direction. But it's not just this, you know, it's not a bitcoin podcast. It's something different. You're eating good food, you're talking. And I'm curious, too. I mean, can you maybe share a little bit of just your story? Like, what. What does finding home mean for you? Because I sense that this is also a deeply personal question.

[Avi]

Yeah, it certainly is. So, you know, I was born in India and spent my childhood there. And I came here for grad school a long time ago, actually, a few months after 9, 11, interestingly enough.

[Walker]

Really?

[Avi]

I moved to New York. Yeah. When everyone said, why you moved to New York, that's crazy, I said, hey, it's. That's what I'm gonna do. And, you know, I never felt fully at home in India, which is kind of odd. Growing up there, I had friends, I had, you know, obviously, family. But much as I love the country, much as I love the food and the people, never felt fully at home. New York City, I would say a few years in, was the closest I felt to being home. But even then, I was still, you know, I was a foreigner, especially my first few years, moved in there. And then, you know, the pandemic hit a few years later, five years ago, and I had. We had. We had. Our son was nine at that time, and we had to leave, my wife and I, and because it was just not safest New York City went nuts during the pandemic, as a lot of the big cities did.

[Walker]

We left Chicago, too. So I feel you there. We were like, get us to bumblefuck nowhere and fast. We'll just stay for three weeks, though, till this blows over. And then it was like, three years later. How'd that happen?

[Avi]

That is exactly what it started with. An Airbnb in the middle of nowhere in the mountains of upstate New York. And next thing we knew, we put an offer in for a house, and we're here. But even here, I. I mean, this more so I. Culturally, I do not feel at home. I mean, it's nice. It's lovely. The nature is amazing, and it's. You know, we have pets now. So incredibly grateful for everything that we have here, but I just don't fit in, you know? And, you know, bitcoin happened shortly before we moved there. So as a bitcoiner, you're around people who have no clue, right, of what's going on. And there's a lot of. A lot of good people here in the community, but a lot of despair because they understand the problems and they just don't see the solution. And I've tried to talk to them about bitcoin, and they don't get it. It's like, oh, no, it's digital money. We understand cash. And I'm in a very. Let's just say, rural part of upstate New York in the mountains, and a lot of despair here. And, you know, where I do feel home is at bitcoin gatherings, at bitcoin conferences. And it's a fleeting, ephemeral thing, right? You're there, and it's just incredibly intense thing. I mean, you know, we have dinners like the one we were at in Prague. Every conference is like that. And it's like, wow, I actually belong. These are my people. This is my tribe. This is. You know, bitcoin is a country in some sense, but. But, yes, finding home for me, I don't know if I've ever felt fully home in a physical space. Fully home. Right. Maybe partly home, but not fully, but certainly in the sovereign sense, I am home in bitcoin.

[Walker]

You know, it's. It's so funny what you say about the. That fleeting, ephemeral feeling that you try to. You try to hold on to after a bitcoin conference, being around people that get it. And it won't always be this way, right? When bitcoin is ubiquitous, of course, it won't be such a great filter for people. But right now, it is. It's a great. Like, I have met. I've met more people than I can possibly count that I just have admiration for, have respect for, have love for. I didn't realize I was going to meet so many people. Like, at this point in my life, I'm not that old. I'm in my early 30s. But still, you. It gets harder to, like, meet people that you actually click with and you want to spend time with. But through bitcoin, that has happened for Carla and I, and I. I just. I feel so grateful, and I. I have to think it's. It's almost. It's similar to that experience when you go to a bitcoin concert and you come back to the real. You know, quote the real world, whatever, Normy land.

[Avi]

Right, Normand.

[Walker]

And. And you're still kind of. You're kind of high off that experience, you know, but it's like you're coming. It's like you're coming out of a trip, right? And the. You know, the high is starting to fade because you're realizing that reality doesn't look. It doesn't look the way you want it to you because you've seen how reality should look, and you wish it could stay that way, but it's. It's just not the case. And you try to hold on to it. You try to. You know, you try to orange pill your friends. You try to do these things, but it's. It's just not quite the same. But again, I think we're. That's the beautiful thing, at least at this time. About bitcoin conferences, about noster conferences or unconferences, it's really special right now. It was that quote from the office. It's like Andy's like, I wish there was a way to know that you're in the good old days when you're in them. It's like, we're in them, guys. We are in them right now. Cherish these moments because it will not always be this way.

[Avi]

Yeah, for sure, actually. By the way, Walker, you made a Freudian slip, and he said bitcoin concert. And it's funny.

[Walker]

Did I really? Oh, excuse me.

[Avi]

You did. It's. No, no, no, no, no. But maybe I said that because I said the same thing. I made the same Freudian slip earlier today, two hours ago, and I was talking to my wife. I said, bitcoin concert? And she said. Did you just say bitcoin concert?

[Walker]

Well, well, well.

[Avi]

Yeah, exactly.

[Walker]

We're gonna have to have a talk after this for a Planning session, but okay, I digress. Um, okay, I want to know more too, because, like, I watched the episode, I liked it very much. You're first of all from. From a guy with, dare I say, a great voice, if I'm not being too bold. You have an incredible voice. You've got the perfect voice for this kind of show. For anyone that hasn't checked this out, you can go on, Go on Avi's Noster. You'll see the links. I'll drop the links in the show notes afterwards. You should watch this. 30, about 33 minutes or so. Perfect length for an episode. It was just enjoyable to watch. I love food. I love to cook, I love to eat, I love to hang out and try new foods. And that was this show, like you captured. Yes, Bourdain is Bourdain, but you're Avi is Avi, and you captured something. I think that felt really special. It seems like the response has been overwhelmingly positive and supportive. Fair to say?

[Avi]

Yes, absolutely. I mean, this is new, right? There are a lot of podcasts and they're excellent podcasts as well. And I think this is, I mean, it's not quite a podcast, but it is, you know, there is a 15 minute conversation over food in the, in the episode. So I think it is an interesting twist and people, you know, have appreciated. And also food is so primal for. For people that it almost, you know, when you're eating especially, you're sort of out of your conscious mind. Yeah. You know, especially if you're eating something you really like, you're no longer, you know, your brain isn't working. It's your soul and your. Whatever it is that. That your heart that's there. So, you know, and some. You can get that even when you watch people eating really good food. Right. You can briefly step out of that thing. So my, I guess, slightly insidious idea here is when I get people out of that, if I can get them into that state where there's not fully in their brains, but more in their heart and their soul, you slide bitcoin in into that slightly ajar door to their subconscious mind. Yeah, look, and one thing I'll say is this episode was just the beginning. Right. It's me getting used to the format. I think you'll see, once the Prague episode is out, and then I'm filming the third one in Paraguay in September, the narrative arc is going to become a lot more cohesive. I don't think I'm going to do like a 15, 20 minute stretch of Just non stop talking. It's going to be cut in with a lot more. You know, with New York, we had one day, so we had about three or four hours of footage and boom, we were done. I think the way to do this is film over three or four days, which is what I did in Prague, get about 10 hours of footage in various different locations so that you can keep the action going, not in just one place over time. So yeah, it's fun, man. And, and the food part, certainly as a food lover myself, it's great.

[Walker]

I mean, three or four hours of footage for over 30 minutes of finished cut is actually that's, that's a wild ratio for this kind of thing. Like that's, that's super impressive because it's still it. I didn't ever feel like it was dragging or anything like that. So that's, that's really impressive. You guys. You guys did a quite a condensed effort on that one. That's, that's awesome.

[Avi]

Yeah, yeah. No, and Parker, all credit to Parker for that, who unfortunately is so such a busy and in demand man that he. For the next two episodes, it's not going to be him. However, for. For the Prague episode, I found a really talented young filmmaker. He's a bitcoiner guy called Kyle Huber and he is. He was on his way to Bulgaria and he's filming his own bitcoin documentary there. But he made a stop in Prague and he helped me with the filming. And it's being edited and directed by. I'm really excited about this by Lahav and Noah. So Noah Grumman is the lead singer for the metal band Scardust and they're big on us. You know, they did the Satoshi video from a couple of months, two or three months ago, and Lahav is the filmmaker and their partners, Noah and Lahav, and amazing director. So I'm really looking forward to what they come up with.

[Walker]

That's awesome. I mean, have you thought about obviously for. In this case it happened just because of scheduling, but have you thought about making that? Just a recurring theme that you have different filmmakers, different directors come in, add their spin to each episode while you still obviously have the, you know, the vein of yourself running through it all. But is that something you're toying around with or will you. Okay, it might happen. I like that style. Okay. Necessity is the mother of invention, right?

[Avi]

It is. Because the thing is, look, if this was a well funded project, if I had an executive producer putting in 100 grand or even 50 grand, per episode. Then I could hire a team, especially at the 100 grand range. I could hire a permanent team. Right. Directors, editors, social media, all of that stuff. Now, first two episodes completely out of my pocket, which is not really sustainable, by the way.

[Walker]

I can imagine.

[Avi]

Yeah, right. But what it's going to have to be is so for Paraguay, the third episode I'm filming at the Accelerating betcon conference and I found an amazing subject for that as well. Another finding home story there in Paraguay. I found an executive producer who's put in a, you know, who's been very generous, but obviously we're not talking about 100K. Right. And I'm actually using this platform called Angor. It's a fully self custodial fundraising platform that's built on Bitcoin and Noster. It's kind of really cool actually. And I've raised some money on that.

[Walker]

I just saw this that you posted about this or reposted them on Nostr. I hadn't heard of them before, but I was like, oh, this is, is really cool.

[Avi]

Yeah, it, it's really cool. Right. Again, it's new, right. So I'm helping them out by trying out something new and they're helping me out as well by putting it out there. So yes, I have to fundraise. But all of that to say because this is. I'm trying to create a high quality product, a Netflix quality product with a, frankly, a shoestring budget. I'm going to have to do it with different teams. Right. Because I cannot have. So what I end up sacrificing there is potentially visual cohesion because it's different people filming it and they're going to have slightly different angles and slightly different way they think about how light hits subjects and things like that. So I sort of forego that visual cohesion. But what I will have to do, and I am going to do this is tie together with the narrative, the storytelling cohesion, because I'm going to be there. Yeah, yeah.

[Walker]

I mean, and honestly, I think that's a, it's a cool way to be able to, you know, perhaps unintentionally so, but necessarily so have a lot of visual diversity with as you're having a lot of different culinary diversity, right. You're, you're doing different types of food, all this, you're going to have a slightly different vibe to the film style for each one of them. Honestly, I think that plays really well. And, and even if it, even if it didn't, it's what you got to do. So you may as well make the, you know, make the best of it. I think, I think that's, that's great. And I saw your. Yeah, I think I saw Angora. You posted it. But people can support you. They can become an executive producer or an associate producer or like honorable mention on the show as well if they want to send some sats. And I think that's awesome too. I might have to, you know, do a little zapvertising of the podcast on there maybe.

[Avi]

Love it. Yeah, no, Angor is great. It's all on chain by the way. Right. So I think Geyser is great too. And that supports lightning and on chain. I think the difference is this is fully self custodial so the funds are time locked using bitcoin script. And, and then every fundraiser is its own noster gets its own npub. So if you actually search for finding home episode 3, you'll find its own NPUB on, on Nosto and I. Some of these fund this funding happens through reputation scores on or at least that's the plan anyway. Right. So if, if you invest and then you take advantage of the time lock and you rug pull as an investor, you're. It's on dumpster that you've done that. So your, your reputation is going to take a hit. Similarly, as a. Yeah, that, I mean.

[Walker]

That, that's, that's pretty interesting honestly. Like it's, it's. I love, I love that these new models are emerging like at a time when they're very much needed again. You know, necessity is the mother of invention. It's just a bunch of people getting together and hacking stuff together and making it work because we have these incredible open source tools at our disposal which now make it possible. And the fact that there's a, you know, not a social credit but just a social proof of work aspect to this, let's say. I think that's, that's, that's, it's really powerful.

[Avi]

And this is organic and emergent. Right. You can call it social. I mean social credit is the phrase is lost, it's toxic now, but it's done. But this is an organic and emergent property in these networks which is you are fully responsible for your reputation. You mess it up, you've impacted your score to the extent that you can put a number on it. But uh, it's all on you. This is not some central party giving you a number saying that's your credit score. Uh, so I'm all for it.

[Walker]

Yeah, I mean like that's the thing. It comes Back to trust, right? And you need trust to build society. Like, that's how society. That's how community is built. That's the, that's the whole point of it. It is the point and it is the way you need trust to build community. And having trust is the point of community so that you can live in a small village and not need to lock your doors because you're not worried about your neighbor coming and robbing you because there would be extreme consequences for doing that. The risk trade off is just. Is not there. You have trust in people and it's like we have these, these trustless tools. And I think sometimes people get it mixed up where they think, well, we don't need trust at all anymore. But it's like you need trust now more than ever. It's just that there are actually more pure ways to build that trust that are now available to us because these tools are trustless. It's counterintuitive. But we don't even know what kind of incredible things are going to emerge from this yet. We're seeing them now. We're seeing these embers come to life. But I just think it's going to get so much better because again, the incentive model is different and incentives matter. And we're seeing that right now in real time. I don't know what a time to be alive again. I'm grateful.

[Avi]

Oh, yeah, for sure. And thank God for Bitcoin and Noster.

[Walker]

I honestly, I would be. I would. I would be extremely nihilistic. I think at this point, if I knew what I know now, but I didn't. But just you take Bitcoin and Nostrade, the equation. Forget the fact that bitcoin is the way that I found a lot of these things out because of going down various rabbit holes. But take that away, hypothetical. If I didn't have bitcoin in Noster and I had all the knowledge that I do now about how fucked up the world is, oh, man, I'd be in a very dark place. So I'm glad that's not the case. I'm in a very light place right now.

[Avi]

Oh, yeah. And likewise. And so actually that's another motivation behind finding home, which is we talked about the folks in upstate New York. There's even the people who can see the problems, who can acknowledge what's wrong, There is no hope for them. Right. They're living in this world of anger and despair because they're like, well, we're screwed. What can we do? And there are other people like that on any side of the political spectrum. Right. I like to believe they're all good people. Some of them might be misguided, but a lot of them are in despair because they don't see the hope. And with finding Home and because I'm not emphasizing bitcoin all that much is really a food and travel show. And yes, bitcoin's in the background. I want to show people that there are these people living incredible lives of hope, of creativity, of just, you know, building things because they love what they're doing and they're having these rich experiences. And when people watch that and, and they're like, but how are they doing that? My life sucks. And, and that's where the bitcoin comes in and say, oh, wait a second, maybe there is hope. Right. So that's, if I'm successful doing that, that would, that would, yeah, this shows a success, if that can happen.

[Walker]

So you quit your fiat job. Right. You are now like, you're, you're, you're off the rails and into bitcoin and Nosterland full time. Yeah.

[Avi]

Yes, pretty much. As of July 4th. Yes.

[Walker]

Thank you. On, on the, on the 4th of July, too. Independence from, from the fiat job and from those totalitarian British bastards. You know, I, I, I'm pretty sure they, they had quite a hand in your home country as well, you know? Yeah, yeah, I can imagine. I couldn't guess at all where your accent comes from, for example, you know, who could know? But no, you know, I love this and I'm curious too. Do you want to keep this indie? Do you want to keep it kind of grassroots funded? Or let's say Netflix sees this tomorrow, comes to you and says, we want this show, we're going to throw a ton of money at you. Well, maybe there's two cases there. There's the case where they say, don't change a thing. Keep doing it. We love it. And there's the case where they say, yeah, we love it, but we want, we need you to just adjust this a little bit because this doesn't quite align. Where are you at with that? Have you thought about that at all? Is it still too early stages? I have no idea how this stuff works with getting shows picked up.

[Avi]

I've thought about it, and I think that the truth is, Walker, I want as many people to see this. Right. Because my goal is to get people into bitcoin and if I, if I make money along the way, great.

[Walker]

Capitalism is okay.

[Avi]

Yes, that's right. Yeah. And if Netflix or Hulu or Apple TV or whoever comes and says, yes, we want this on a network. Now, the best case scenario is they say you have full editorial control. We just love the show. Keep doing what you're doing. Here's whatever, 100k, whatever 500k per episode. Knock yourselves out. Knock yourself out. I take it, much as I'd love to keep this on a lightning enabled pay per view platform like Indie Hub. And by the way, shout out to Zach Mahoney. He's built an amazing product there, but if.

[Walker]

Super.

[Avi]

Oh, it's great. Yeah. And it's, you know, he's been working on it for a while now as well. Zach. So thank you, Zach, for everything you do. But if one of those big studios were to come and offer me a large sum of money, I would take it. Firstly, because, you know, I don't have a fiat job anymore. I'm kind of living off my savings right. Right now. And I'd like to not do that if possible. And the second is, I do want to get this in front of people so that, that would just get me the distribution right off the bat. Now if they asked me to bring in now, for example, if Coinbase came and said, here's, you know, a million bucks, go and make season one, and they said, keep your editorial integrity, I'd have to think about that because it's Coinbase. But if they said you could just do what you're doing, I might, I might do it. If they say, oh, you got to include crypto in there, I don't care if it's 10 million or 20 million or a billion dollars, I wouldn't do it. Right. And same goes for any of these other major places like Netflix. The money doesn't matter if it stops being bitcoin. Only if I have to compromise my ethics or values. There's no money in the world that'll help me sleep at night.

[Walker]

Amen to that. And I mean, the lucky thing there is that there really aren't a lot like, bitcoin is accepted in a lot of places. A lot of what you're concerned about, with, in this case restaurants, the places where crypto is accepted, it. They are far fewer because it turns out, a lot of it. Who knew? Obviously this is going to shock you, but a lot of it is just vaporware meant to enrich the founders, which.

[Avi]

No way.

[Walker]

I know, it's crazy, man, you wouldn't believe it, but. Yeah, so, I mean, at least. But I, I hear you and I respect that 100%. It's like if you get to keep your editorial, your editorial decision making capability, then great. But like, if not, it's like, it's, you know, wouldn't be worth it. You'll have to. You have to stick with the plebs. But honestly, this show has a vibe where I'm like, man, this seems like I've watched a lot of food shows because I, I like food. Like Carl and I like watching food shows and you try to make stuff that you see. Like, remember when, when Chef's Table first came out and I was like, oh.

[Avi]

Like this Vivaldi slow motion. Oh, my. There's. Yes, I.

[Walker]

Chef's Table is the reason I have Vivaldi in my, in my. In the intro to every show, you know, because, like, I love. Because it's, you know, different, different. Different part of Vivaldi's seasons, but Vivaldi nonetheless. But it's like, there's something about food and hearing people's stories and seeing like, seeing it all happen at the same time that like, like it just to what you were saying earlier, like, it tugs at something in our, in our primal brain. And it just, it's amazing. Like, and it's, it's also, it's its own form of artistry as well. Like, food is just really delicious edible art. And like, you see that people's love and passion comes through their food. Like, whether that be in your family or at a, you know, a lovely restaurant or at some hole in the wall on the side of the highway where you have the best tacos you've ever had in your life. Which is the story for me, literally, best tacos I've ever had in my life were in a Midwestern gas station. Well, there's a little taco shop attached to a gas station, family run. And I'm like, where has this been hiding? How does this exist here? This is insane. I digress. Again, but food, Food and stories, like, I don't know, it's just like, that's kind of just what life's about, right? That's. That's every night at the dinner table, right?

[Avi]

Oh, yeah. And, you know, Chef's Table, another one of my favorite shows. That is, you need a very expensive setup for that. I now what I. I wanted to make something like Chef's Table, but that like the camera set up and you have to like, shut the restaurant down to get all of that. So may maybe if the funding's there at a later point in this season or maybe season two, I do. That is the aesthetic I'm going for for the food shots. Right. I do want that chef stable vibe. Maybe if I can get someone to play Vivaldi for me so that I don't have to pay royalty to whichever musician you actually.

[Walker]

There are a lot of open source or not open source, but royalty free cuts of Vivaldi out there because the music itself is like it's old.

[Avi]

Right.

[Walker]

It's past like you can't, there's no copyright on the music itself. Unspecific for performances. There may be, but there are tons out there that are complete like royalty free licenses. So just, just gotta find a good one. I'll, I'll send you a couple after. Throw some Vivaldi in there. We all need more Vivaldi in our life.

[Avi]

Yes, absolutely. Especially the winter suite. But. Oh, I, I, yeah, yeah, I love.

[Walker]

Me a little summer as well, don't you know. Don't get me wrong. Yeah, I, I love the, the, the whole thing, let's be honest.

[Avi]

Yeah, yeah, but, but there's something, just going back to that, watching people eat food, it's almost like you're eating it, especially if it's well shot, right. And the food looks good and plated nicely. And then hearing their stories and you know, any expat or immigrant story is almost always going to be interesting because it's a story of travel, it's a story of trying to find something that they couldn't find. Or it's a story of finding something but trying to recreate a piece of that childhood there because you know, there's always something fascinating. And so you pair those two together and you have some nice music. You know, you have a nice sort of background vocals saying something philosophical. It's almost always guaranteed to be a hit.

[Walker]

Especially you've got such a, you have a perfect voice for saying philosophically minded things. It, it's really an unfair advantage. You're playing well.

[Avi]

Thank you. But, but yes, so I've heard of course, Walker coming from a man who's claimed to have the best voice in bitcoin, that is high praise.

[Walker]

Many, many people are saying it. I can neither confirm nor deny. Lot lot of good voices in bitcoin. But yeah, on the American side, I mean, it may be true, but you know, folks with none of American accents, you have a, you have an unfair advantage. I think, at least for us, our American ears, we, you know, we, I think we still have a little bit of generational trauma of being subjugated by the British. And so I think, I think that's what plays out. We view The. The British or pseudo British posh side accent, not like a good old Cockney accent. But we view the posh accents as, like, well, they must be smart. And, you know, you got to train yourself out of that, I think.

[Avi]

Let me ask you this, Walker. Do you. When you listen to your voice played back, do you like it, or are you like, oh, my God, who the hell is this pipsqueak?

[Walker]

Tough question. I. I used to not like it when I hadn't. Like, I wasn't really recording my voice very often. If I occasionally heard my voice recorded for whatever reason, I'd be like, the. That's what I sound like. It was super strange now because it's like. It's almost like exposure therapy. Like, you're. When you're editing your own show, you're forced to listen to yourself more than you might want to. And so I've kind of just, like, gotten over that. I almost. It's almost a little, like, maybe a little out of body, too. Like, when I was doing Lawrence Leopard's book, that was little. That wasn't even a podcast episode. That was like, I need to edit this audiobook that's 13 hours long in terms of finished read. And that was like, I just had to take myself out of it. I also had to raise my voice a little bit. And basically, I should have honestly filmed myself doing the read because I'm literally. I'm trying to. I'm trying to brighten my voice and speak up here a little bit more. And the only way to do that is to raise your eyebrows and to smile, because one of the biggest things I get, like, on YouTube is people being like, yeah, great, great, great podcast, but why are you doing this fake Batman voice? And I'm like, well, I don't know. I guess it's just my voice, bro. Like, I don't know what to tell you. So I was like, okay, got to brighten the voice up. Don't want this to be a detractor from Larry's incredible book. So, yeah, that was. That one was easier to disassociate, I think, because I was already doing a slight affectation to raise the pitch of my voice just a little bit.

[Avi]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Walker]

What about you? Do you like your voice? I like your voice.

[Avi]

I. I used to hate it. I was like, what the hell is this guy? But then you kind of get used to it. Yeah, you. Like you said, it's you when you're listening to yourself. Especially when I do the written. Written scripts. I write the script, and I Read it. I can be slow and deliberate and, you know, you don't have the pauses and the ums and ahs. Right. Because you're doing it off a script and then you listen to it and you cut pieces. Yeah. I think I finally got to a point where not just tolerated. I listened to a few things and I'm like, oh, yeah, that wasn't too bad. Yeah, reasonably well done.

[Walker]

It's fun. I think it's just part of it is just like getting over your own ego, you know, with so many things in life too, just can you kind of have that. That ego death, which great. Greatest name for a venture firm ever shout out to Jeff Booth and Lynn Alden and all of them. Uh, but if you. If you have that ego death, you're just. Then it just. You just don't. You just don't care. It's just like, yeah, what. What's the big deal? Like, if. If other people like it, why are you being so hard on yourself? It doesn't mean you can't improve what you're doing, but, like, don't have some weird aversion to it just because it's. You. Like, get over yourself. You're not that important. Like, you're a little speck of stardust on a ball orbiting around a giant nuclear reactor. Like, it's. It's all good, man.

[Avi]

Oh, yeah, yeah, for sure. I think it's just. Yeah, you're right. It is ego death. It's like not caring whether you're cringe or whatever it is. It's just that. And honestly, for most people, that just comes with doing things over and over again. The first time you do it, you're self conscious. You're like. Same thing with public speaking as well, right? It's. You just get over it after a point.

[Walker]

I think it's such a. An important thing for people to realize that, like, nobody thinks about you as much as you do. No one. Like, it's just. It's just not possible. Like, you think about yourself more than anyone else. Most people, the people you're passing on the street, they do not care. There's that. The great word sonder from the dictionary of obscure sorrows, which is the essential idea that every person you pass in the street is living a life just as colorful and vivid as your own. They're the main character in their own movie. You're just an extra passing in the street. They don't care. They don't even notice you. Just like, you don't even notice them unless you have that wave of sonder where you start to pay attention to these things. But I think it's so easy for people to get trapped in their own heads and think that everybody cares about what they're doing and, and what, you know, how they sound, how they look. They think that they care about it more than they actually do. People just do not care that much. Like, and that's okay. Like, so just you, you can be free. You don't have to be scared.

[Avi]

People are way too wrapped up in their own lives to think about. Yeah, that's. And on the topic of sonder, you know, when I first moved to New York, I used to love going to Central park and I used to sit on the, you know, a 20 year old or 21 year old back then. But one of my favorite activities was in, you know, late evening as the summer twilight is setting in. Just sit on the park benches on Central park west and look at the buildings right across the street. And you'd have these, you know, they're not like very large or very high buildings. They're seven, eight story building, beautiful, beautiful architecture. And then you'd see all of these windows and the lights would just come on and there'd be people like one window here, one person be doing something another person would do. Right below them, someone else doing something else. Completely different things. I'd be sitting there saying, all of these people doing all these things, none of them has a clue what the person below them, above them is doing. It's. They're all leading their lives without any idea about the other person's existence. And meanwhile, here I am, I have a full view of all of their existence. It's an interesting thing to ponder. Sonder.

[Walker]

Oh yeah, exactly. It's. It's been a while since I've gone on the Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. Are they still, are they still updating that site? I think, I think so. I hope so.

[Avi]

I haven't checked recently.

[Walker]

No, I'm gonna, I'm gonna have to check after this. Okay. So, I mean, I gotta say I, I always love, I love chatting with you because I never know what direction it's going to go in. And I'm curious too, you know. Okay. Have we, is there anything that's related to the show that you want to make sure that we cover that? We haven't yet as far as, like before we get, you know, we've still got some time before we get too deep into the weeds on other things. Like, I want to make sure that you get that chance. The One thing I'm still curious about on the show is how are you going to go about picking your next subjects for the show? Do you have a plan for that? Are they already lined up? And if maybe there are like some chefs out there that accept bitcoin at their restaurant, should they get in touch with you? Like, can you tell me anything about that?

[Avi]

Yeah, absolutely. I'd love to talk to more folks. I mean, right now the idea is to tell the dual story, the parallel story of finding home in a new land. And then, you know, how bitcoin, the finding home and the sovereignty that comes with bitcoin. So I'm looking for folks who are, you know, either expats or immigrants. Bitcoiners. Right. Restaurant tours would be amazing because then you get full access to the kitchen. But even if it's not restaurateurs. Right. The Prague episode wasn't. Was with Grafton, who's from Vexel, so he's, you know, cypherpunk guy. But we had a lot of food at a lot of amazing restaurants there. And Paraguay is going to be something similar as well. It's a Czech expat who lives there who's moved there. So it's going to tell her story. And then I have. So those are the ones that I've been able to. The first two self funded. The third one, I've. I have an executive producer and I've raised some on Angor. The ones after that I think. Hey, anyone listening? If you'd like to be an executive producer, you know, reach out to me. I'll. I'll be setting up Angor funding for those two, but I have a few. There are some amazing characters in bitcoin and I don't want to go to the famous people. That's the one thing I'm trying to avoid. The well known bitcoiners, I think their stories are pretty much out there. They're on the podcast, they're completely out there. There are some remarkable bitcoiner stories and I have three or four candidates for the next episodes beyond Paraguay that I have lined up. I've talked to them, they want to do it. It's just a question of working out the funding for it.

[Walker]

Daniel just asked in the chat on Zapdot stream, can we get Ali from Tahinis on your show? Is tahinis an option? I don't know if you know him. Awesome people. I still haven't eaten there, but I'm foaming and watering at the mouth to do so.

[Avi]

Fantastic idea. I would love to do that.

[Walker]

Now we can make it happen.

[Avi]

We'll make it in Toronto. And that's a shot I can actually about Toronto is a bit. Or somewhere in Canada. Right. I'm assuming on the Montreal, Toronto, wherever.

[Walker]

Well, the great, the great thing about Canada is that 90 of their population lives within 100 miles of the US border. So, like, you know, you don't have to go too far unless you've got to go, you know, all the way over to like, Vancouver. Then that's, that's, that's far for you. But yeah, no, I think that would be awesome. I mean, the great thing is that you do have a lot of options. Another one that comes to mind. If we're talking incredible food, boy, you almost need to go to a beefsteak, because away slice does. He's a man who knows his food. He knows his meats, let's say, and just an awesome dude as well. But yeah, I mean, you've got a lot to choose from from like. And yes, like, this is still a very small community, but it's like you have options. That's, that's pretty cool.

[Avi]

I, I have three seasons, at least of 12 episodes each because there are so many remarkable stories to tell here over food and on the topic of waste life. So I, I know of him. We follow each other on Noster. I've never met him and I've heard all about the beef steaks and everything else. So, yeah, I think make a really good episode.

[Walker]

Oh, man. Okay, I'm, I would be happy to connect you guys because he's awesome. Truly just a savant when it comes to preparing meats and like, and it could be cool for you to do like a beefsteak, like to cover that as an episode because it's just, it's such a vibe at these things. Like, it's, it's a bunch of people eating a lot of meat with their hands. Usually some libations involved, a great atmosphere. He's very conscientious about the vibe, curation about the music, about the, the venue, about everything. And so it's, it, it's, it's a whole sensory experience and it's, it's quite lovely.

[Avi]

I, yeah, I'd love to do that. Maybe the next beef steak.

[Walker]

We're, we're going to make it happen. Okay. I'm putting a, putting a pin in that over here to help make that connection. But so, I mean, let's assume you like, you have continue to have funding for this. Obviously you can't bootstrap this yourself forever, hopefully. People. I encourage people to go on Indie hub again. I'll drop the link in the show notes for anyone watching live. Just go to Avi's Nostr, grab that and spend some sats to watch this to support this filmmaking endeavor. But, you know, I mean, what's the, how far do you want to take this? What's. What's the ultimate goal? Is it, is it to. Is the ultimate goal to Orange peel is the ultimate goal to just. To just create a, you know, a beautiful piece of culinary cinema? How do, how do you see this in terms of like, what's really driving you?

[Avi]

I think it's both. It's to create a beautiful work of art, right? That, that is culinary cinema. And also highlight stories of these remarkable people. Right? And then the second part is yes to orange pill. Right? I mean, and let's be honest here, right? We are all in on bitcoin and nostalgia and freedom tech. But this revolution is only going to be successful if there's mass adoption. Otherwise it's us having. We've had a really good time at conferences, at all of these dinners, whatnot. But I think thinking five, ten years ahead, and here's another thing, Walker and you, I'm sure, are acutely feeling this, having become a father last year. I've been a father for slightly longer than that, but once you have a kid, it's no longer about yourself. It's like, what kind of a world do I want my son to live in? And I don't want to want him to live in this fiat cocked world that I had to grow up in. And I have the tools, I have the ability. So it's on me as a father to at least try to create that reality for him.

[Walker]

I could not agree more. And it's one of my largest realizations. Becoming a father was. First of all, it's a light switch that once it's turned on, it's not going off. Like you are forever changed for the better. And that's wonderful, but you cannot. I mean, unless you're like a psychopath, like a literal clinical psychopath. Like, you're not turning that off. You know what I mean? And the other was just that I had no idea what true low time preference meant. I actually had. No, I thought I did, but I only had the. I had the academic conceptualization of it. I didn't have. And you know, as much as I could feel, yes, I'm trying to think long term, relatively speaking, to where I am now. No, I wasn't Even close. It's hilarious, honestly, to think of the fact that I even believed that I had a low time preference. It's like, no, no, no. That is a switch that flips hard and you realize, oh, no. Like, what does. Like, this is what generational thinking means. It means this beautiful child in front of me that did not exist before that. Now myself and my wife have a responsibility. Responsibility toward. It's like. And American Hodl. Pardon me, as he identifies. He told me something one of the last times he was on the show, which is like, every. Like, a boy doesn't become a man until he becomes a father. And I think that's actually really spot on and true. As mature as you think you are, as enlightened as you think. Think you are, as much of a man as you think you are, it changes. And there's. There's a different side of you that gets flipped on when you actually become a father. And as usual, you know, American Hodle. Hodle being either intentionally or unintentionally quite profound as. As he is also being flippant. He has a quite a gift for that.

[Avi]

Oh, yeah. I. And you can say, tell people this who are not parents yet that you don't understand when you have a kid. That's when you truly grow up. You're a kid until you have a kid, right? To rephrase what Hodle said, but those are just words. You need to experience it. Let me ask you this. When. When your son was born, were you. You. Presumably you were in the delivery room and you were. And you saw the baby come out and the baby made eye contact with you for the first time, right? How. How was that? What was what? How was that feeling?

[Walker]

I remember, like, the first time, like, this little hand, like, grabbed Carla's thumb and then, like, grabbed my thumb as we're sitting there, and it was just like my heart is, like, so full. But at the same time, I have all. All the, like, these incredible, like, protector instincts are kicking in at a level like I've never felt before, like, that I have with my wife. But there's like, something different because look at this tiny little baby and how defenseless it is. And like, it needs us. And like, it. I feel like it kicks you into, like, a different gear as a. As a man. I'm not a woman, so I can't speak to women. They. They're the ones who do the. You know, women don't do too much work in the, The. In the creation process. We. We've. We've got A short. A short cameo at the beginning and then, you know, once. Once the baby's born. But like, man, it was. I mean, at the risk of sounding cliche, it was truly life changing. And I'm sure it was the same for you. You see that and. Yeah, there's no going back. Like, you're. You are changed forever. You switch on, flip the switch on, rip it out of the wall, throw it away, it's gone. Yeah, it's just the lights on forever now.

[Avi]

Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think it's even more powerful for people who are bitcoiners who become. And I guess as in your case, Walker, right now, I became a father. Interestingly enough, my son does have a block height, but it was just shortly. It is a five digit block height, but he does have one.

[Walker]

Wow.

[Avi]

Wow. But. But I knew nothing about bitcoin back then, but I think for bitcoiners who think they understand, as you said, low time preference and all the philosophy that we spout all the time, having a kid just makes you realize what it all means. It really falls into place. Just going back to the earlier point. Without maximal adoption of bitcoin, the revolution has failed and our children will not be living in the world that we want to give them. So this is my way of telling stories, of appealing to people's emotions, because I think that is what scales adoption more than appealing to people's intellect. You can lecture them on Austrian economics and distributed networks and what have you, and you'll get a few people, the more cerebral kinds, you might get them, convince them through the subtle art of argument, but appealing to their emotion, appealing to their soul, I think you get.

[Walker]

A lot more appealing to their stomach.

[Avi]

Their stomach too. Yeah.

[Walker]

Yeah, it. It makes a difference. And I agree. And I think this is something Carl and I have actually just talked about for a while because, you know, there's that. There's that tendency when you first get into bitcoin and you start going down the rabbit hole and you're like, oh my God, like, I need to tell all of my friends and family about the. About this right now, and I need to make sure they get it because like, holy shit, I can't believe I didn't know this before. My eyes are open, a different sort of switch is flipped, you know, and you can't shut your eyes after that. And then after a lot of orange pilling attempts, many of which are probably failures, you start to get a little frustrated. You get a little bit, you know, a little bit disillusioned. And you realize, like, okay, you know, I'm trying all these different ways of getting to people, and you get to some. And hopefully you get to the people you care about most because you lead with love. And they realize, look, this person loves me. I love them. They wouldn't try to lead me astray. So if they're saying this, you know, it must be true. But for a lot of people, it's like, especially, you know, friends or, you know, extended family, whatever it may be, it's. It's harder. And then at least Carl and I got to a point where it's like, well, maybe the best way that we can orange pill is just by living a life that we love and that other people would want to have as well. And that's the best thing that we can do is just truly leading by example, as they would say. And I feel like that's kind of what you're doing with this show is it's leading by example. It's showing. Look, yeah, we're going to mention bitcoin. We're going to talk about bitcoin. It's a part of this. It's not the central thesis, but it's also what made this possible. It's part of this story. And if you like where this story is going, maybe it's worth checking out for yourself too, right?

[Avi]

Absolutely. It's about being the lighthouse, not the tugboat. Right. And I think this is a journey a lot of early bitcoiners go through, which is they get so excited because they've gone down the rabbit hole and they want to help everyone and they try to be that tugboat. And at some point you realize, you know what? Let me just live my life. Let me just be the change. And sometimes when I've been in situations where I've seen at conferences and otherwise, I've seen bear corners argue with. They corner some poor Nami at a bar, and they're yelling at them, saying, hey, man, you got to get into bitcoin. And so there was in fact, one specific event. This was in Warsaw at the film fest last year. And I. This bitcoiner called me because he'd cornered this poor guy.

[Walker]

And as he had cornered this person, like, he was on the phone with you mid corner.

[Avi]

No, no, I was there. We were at. So he just called me over. He said, come on in. Okay, talk to this guy. He's not getting it, man. And. And I looked at the poor guy. He. He looked completely flustered. And I said, hey, are you happy with where your life is with your investments. And he said, yeah, I think I'm happy. And I said, then you don't need bitcoin. You don't. You're happy. You don't need bitcoin. And then he was like, wait, I don't. I said, well, if you're the kind of person who feels that there's something off maybe, and you want to see why something's off for the world, then maybe you should study bitcoin. But if. If you say you're happy, then, yeah, you don't need it. And the guy was like, wait a second now, tell me more. So part of it, we get into this as early bitcoin, as into this thing of I have to let people know I am the savior. I'm going to save my friends and don't be the savior. Or at least that's not how you're going to be the savior.

[Walker]

I mean, it turns out a lot of the cliches in bitcoin are cliches for a reason. They're true. It's like everyone gets it at the price we deserve, right? Like, I don't know about you, but for me, I ignored bitcoin. Oh, yeah, Multiple times. I ignored it in 2014 when somebody brought it up to me and I was like, I don't care about that, man. Like, back to whatever Fiat I'm doing. Ignored it in 2017 when it started running, and I was like, I can't afford a full bitcoin. So I guess I'll. I don't know, I guess I'll just buy a couple of these litecoin things. Big mistake. Still don't think litecoin has come back to the 2017 peak. I could be wrong. I don't really look at it anymore, but no, it hits. Did it. Did it go back?

[Avi]

No, it did not. Because it went. It went. And I remember this with like, it crossed 300 back in 2070. And I was kindning back then as well.

[Walker]

That was like right when I. I mean, as toppy of the top as you could have gotten. That's when, like, I was like, I'll just buy, you know, two litecoins, because that's. That's what I can afford right now, you know?

[Avi]

Yeah. The funny thing happened at the absolute tippy top of Litecoin. The founder, Charlie Lee, he sold everything he knew somehow.

[Walker]

Well, probably because he created the tippy top by. By selling a massive, like, just dumping liquidity in the market. But yeah, so like, so I have empathy for people because then it wasn't until, like, Covid started up that I actually started looking into this again and actually taking the time and putting my ego aside and realizing, you know what? You actually have no idea how money works and how any of this works. And why don't you, like, you got the time now it's weird lockdown. Like, look into this more. But it takes multiple touch points for people. And I think finding ways, when it comes to artistic creation, content creation, whatever you want to. To call it, you know, podcasting as well, all these things, they're all. They can all represent touch points for people. And it's going to take a couple touch points. It is very rare that somebody hears about bitcoin for the first time. Okay, got it. I'm a full on bitcoin, max. It just. It just doesn't really happen these. Not these days anymore. You know, maybe back in the day when it was just bitcoin. But, like, people go down different roads, right? And so I think creating these. These different avenues by which people can be exposed to bitcoin in a way that's not just Elizabeth Warren screeching or the New York Times writing a dog article. I think that's so important because you never know which positive touch point is going to be the one that sends somebody on that journey down the rabbit hole. There's no way to know. It's going to be different for every person. But creating more opportunities for people to do that, and again, I think through food and through storytelling is such a powerful way to do it, because it's just, you know, it's natural and it's not a. It's a. It's a foot in the door versus a door in the face. Like, it's. It's a soft sell.

[Avi]

Yeah, yeah. Or a foot in the face.

[Walker]

Yeah, yeah. There we go. Which, you know, some people might be into, you know, if Derek Ross is listening to this, but. Hashtag footstep, man. You know, I. Now we're really at the point where I can probably just like. You can probably just like, vibe code a standalone footstep. Huh? Maybe. Maybe I should. I should really do that for Derek. Of course. Just so he has. Yeah. Yes, naturally. But let's talk about. Well, first of all, before I digressed. Anything else, is there anything else with the film you want to make sure that we. We cover or we get into? I really want to make sure that, like, I want to encourage people. Again, go check it out. If you haven't 33 minutes of. Or 33 and a half minutes of your time, I believe. Very well worth it. You'll enjoy it. Maybe eat some food and have a drink while you're. While you're watching it or just. Or just hang out. But take a break from Your normally scheduled 40 hours per week of bitcoin podcasts and incorporate this into the mix. What else do you want people to know about this before we digress? Because I want to talk to you about Noster a little bit more too.

[Avi]

Yeah, yeah, No, I think we covered a lot about the show. Right. As I said, I guess a call to action is if anyone watches it and likes it and wants to help me make more episodes, please reach out. Happy to have you as an executive producer if you can help out that way. Or help me with the Paraguay episode. That's more of an immediate need. The link. And Walker, if you include the link for the Angor in the show notes, yeah, you can follow that. But yeah, I think we beat it to death. Walker.

[Walker]

The show, excellent. It's now ready to be filleted and cooked for us now that it is dead.

[Avi]

There you go.

[Walker]

Okay, so. So let's. Let's talk about Nostr a little bit more. You have been. You've been very active on Noster since the early days. You have Pleb Chain radio with qw, I think the longest running. No, you know, like Noster podcast. Obviously you guys talk about other stuff too, but I'd call it a, you know, a Noster podcast. You guys have been, you know, promoting it via Fountain and via Noster since the early days. You've been deep in this way. When did it. When did it click for you that this was something akin to bitcoin? That this protocol was something special, that this is like. This is where you want to focus your time.

[Avi]

Yeah. So Jack Dorsey posted about this on December 14th of 2022. I signed up on December 15th of 2022 and it clicked on December 16th, I would say of 2022. It was. And I don't know why it was. It was almost a magical moment that we. I mean, you were there too, Walker. Right in at that time, only a couple days before. Yeah, right. It was. All of these people showed up and there was. It felt like we were part of a magical moment in. In time. And I was captured at that point.

[Walker]

It was a really incredible vibe at that time. I remember Jack right after he got on, he sent out a note. I think I still have the screenshot of it somewhere that I took on Domus in Domus very early, rougher around the edges version. It's incredible the pace of development and how much more sleek and incredible these apps are now. But Jack basically posted that this is exactly what pre 5000 user Twitter felt like, but better, right? And I thought, like, what a statement. Like, what a statement for a guy that built arguably the most impactful social network of all time to say about this open protocol. What a, What a wild, wild thing to say. And what's interesting to me, too, I don't, I don't know, I've seen, seen some stuff recently about adoption metrics and whatnot, that a lot of it is kind of, you know, like, plateaued. And I'm, I'm personally not. I don't know about you. I'm not too worried about that. I'm like, to me, that's just, it's like, yeah, okay, you know, you all get Noster at the level of censorship and algorithmic destruction that you deserve. Like, I don't know. But where do you think we're at? What do you think brings in, perhaps a better question, what do you think brings in the next waves of people? Is it a pull because of the incredible stuff that's being built, which is inarguable? Is it a pull because people want that, or is it a push because they're, you know, are they running towards Noster or they're running away from these centralized systems?

[Avi]

I think we'll see a little bit of the running away. You know, we saw that when Brazil banned X. I can't even remember when this was. Six months, a year ago. Every now and then you see TikTok ban. Yeah, there was a TikTok ban and some people fled it. I don't think that's a particularly sticky wave of adopters because they're there because it's almost like a last resort for them. And they don't fully get the culture. Not all of them anyway. Some of them do stay, but for the most part, the running away crowd, you don't always get the sticky adoption. I think the one where you will get sticky adoption is people who, you know, it's like the meme of the, of the cat that's looking over the wall and saying, what are they doing over there? Right? It's. And it's like, wait a second. There's all of this incredible content. Let me go and see what's happening. So I think that's one way more on the cultural side, right? We're not quite there yet. There's some of it. By the way, Nostra is the Most fun place on the Internet. Part of the magic of that moment in mid December of 22 was, at least for me, I had stopped having fun on the Internet. Yes, maybe Twitter you could dunk on people, but it was mean. Noster was like this innocent fun, especially for the first four or five months. So I think that will be another allure as people become more aware of it, which is Noster is still the most fun place on the Internet. So you'll get more content because of that and you get the flywheel going. People realize it's fun, they come in, they start making their content, they get zapped for it, their fans come in, and so on and so forth. And then you'll have these reputation scores and webs of trust as they get built out, so you get more authentic content. Again, the AI slop. Right. Maybe nostril becomes the place where there's the humanness comes, like we discussed earlier, through the cryptographic signatures and through the authenticity. So people come for that. So that's on the one side. The other side is a slightly more boring reason. But Noster can act as a data coordination layer for a lot of B2B type use cases as well. Right. It's any industry in which suffers from siloed data, lack of interoperability errors. Human intervention. Yeah, exactly. Reconciliation, human intervention. Noster fixes all of that through just the way data interoperates. It's extensible. You can build new event kinds, you can build clients that support those kinds. It's permissionless. You don't actually have to get your. If you propose a new nip or a new event kind, you don't need to include that in the main repo. Yes, it's nice, but you can just write a nip, make a new kind, build a client that supports that and get people to use it. It's amazing. And with AI assisted tools and Vibe coding, it's getting easier and easier. So I think we'll see some of that, potentially some of that boring business adoption as well, that just people just come to Noster without even knowing it. Right. Maybe it becomes the identity substrate of the Internet. People realize that the usernames and passwords are irrevocably broken. So let's just move to keepers for that. So I think there's the fun way, which is through the arts and culture and content, and then there's the boring way. And I think we will see that playing out over the next two, three years.

[Walker]

Have you been vibe coding yourself?

[Avi]

I have, yes.

[Walker]

What are you Vibe Coding.

[Avi]

So I worked in health tech for the longest time. I used to run before I quit my fiat job. I ran an AI team at a large health tech company, kind of pretty close to the health insurance world. And I just saw from the inside how irrevocably broken that system is. Irreparably broken, the incentive structures and whatnot. And there is a better, especially in the US there is a better way. Right. We can have direct doctor to patient relationships if you can get insurance out of the picture. Right. Because that just messes up the incentive structure that brings in price transparency and all of that. So I've been playing around with a few prototypes that connect patients to healthcare providers. In fact, I actually launched a company or project, let's just call it, last year with Vitor Pamplona and John Gordon. It's called NOS Fabrica, which is, and we all have a healthcare background. It's to see how Noster fixes a lot of the healthcare use cases. Data interoperability and so, so yeah, I've been wipe coding some of that. I think the risk there is, because we're talking health data, by the way, this is a big risk with vibe coding in general. People are getting excited saying, hey, everyone's a dev. Now I just have to speak to AI. If you're dealing with financial data, if you're dealing with protected personal data, please do not send that into production. Do not, unless you know exactly what you're doing. Do not do that. That's highly irresponsible.

[Walker]

Yeah, maybe maybe have an actual dev audit your code and maybe, maybe do it, maybe do it a few times or. Yeah, you're gonna, you're gonna cause some problems. Yeah, I think, I think it's super interesting though. And it is to your point, from the kind of the beginning of this conversation, it's this opportunity for maybe non technical people who have had an idea in their head but don't have the budget or don't have the time or both to be able to actually bring this to fruition, to be able to go from idea to product or idea to something actually tangible in the cyberspace fashion relatively quickly. And I think we're gonna just, again, we're at the early stages of this. I think that's what's so exciting to me is that as incredible as these tools are, are right now, we're still, you know, we're still early, but like we really are still early. And I think to your point, you brought up earlier kind of this intersection of bitcoin, AI and No, and I want to, I want to tease at that a little bit because something that I've, I've heard a, I mean a number of people talk about is this, you know, idea that one of the big problems when it comes for, to paying for compute is that if you're paying, paying for compute with credit, credit that can be pulled away. And I mean like literal, like monetary credit. I'm not talking like you prepay for some tokens. I'm talking, you got a credit card hooked up, it's buying. Like that credit card can be canceled. That money can be clawed back up to what, 60 days later? That doesn't make any sense. In a system where you are paying for actual compute power. You are like, that is, you are paying for electricity, you are paying for the hosting. What you are paying for is real and physical. The credit money that you are paying with, the Fiat cuck bucks you're paying with, those are ephemeral. Those can be clawed right back at anyone's discretion. So it was that kind of what you were, what you were getting at earlier was this idea that like, look, this is going to be the obvious way that you should pay for compute, that AI agents will, will also interact with each other because again, same problem and they're going to be quicker at figuring out the solution than we humans are. Like.

[Avi]

Right.

[Walker]

I think that's fascinating where that's going to go and just how that accelerates also bitcoin adoption in probably a way that most people don't see coming yet.

[Avi]

Yeah, absolutely. And I think if, as we move into a more, more and more agentic world. Right. There will be a human in the loop, I think at some level for the next few years. But it's, it's going to become lighter and lighter touch. You'll have AI agents essentially talking to each other and transacting with each other. And if they're not, if they're allowed to do their thing, they will pick the best money. They will not pick fiat, they will pick Bitcoin, which is the best money. And then tying this back to Jeff Booth's thesis, right? As technological progress happens, and we're in an incredible period of acceleration, I think the likes of which we have not witnessed in recent history, with how much productivity AI is going to bring. I mean, just think about it. One person in one week can do now what 10 people would take two months to do. It's remarkable. Prices have to come down, but they're not going to come down, right, because they're going to print Just at least to keep that magical 2.0% number. So the US dollar is going to become toilet paper because productivity is going to go up 10x which means prices should at least proportionally come down. And they're not going to come down. And this is how Bitcoin wins. It's going to be. We start with Gresham's law. It's not really a law, but it's a heuristic which is people hoard the good money and they want to spend the bad money. But at some point the bad money is going to become so bad that the law, again not a law, it's a heuristic will come in where in an unbridled scenario where there's the government isn't mandating legal tender, the good money is what's going to drive out the bad money. And so I think Thia's law will kick in and AI is going to be the catalyst that does that.

[Walker]

It's actually super interesting about like the government is in my opinion, unknowingly subverting their own legal tender laws by not enforcing businesses requirement to accept cash for payments. There are, I'm sure we, we've. Everyone listening has been to at least one business either in the US or abroad where Cat, it's like, no, no cash, just, just card like that because you know, people don't want to deal with cash. Usually it's a, maybe a security issue. There's the other side of that where certain businesses are like typically like maybe smaller mom and pop shops are like, no, actually only, only cash. Or you get a cash discount because we're going to Pay, you know, 6% across the fee spread if you pay with credit and you might claw it back later because you claimed your card was stolen or whatever else. But it's super interesting to see that happen. Like, I don't know, cash is a. Cash may be trash from a store of value perspective, but damn, it's good from a anonymous medium of exchange perspective like it is still excellent. And I think that the we're. I mean we know that governments are going to try to get rid of it. Like they're already starting. I think Europe is, Europe is going to accelerate in that regard. Like they, they've already gotten rid of, they got rid of the €500 bill. What like was that €2 years ago, three years ago, something like that? They're like, no, this is, this is used for illicit finance too much. So they get rid of that.

[Avi]

Only we're allowed to do illicit finance.

[Walker]

Yeah, only Christine Lagarde is allowed to be a convicted felon and print money. The rest of you, no, no, no. Not. Not allowed. God, what a, what a, what a joke this system is. Sometimes you have to like, you have to take a step back and just be like, dear Lord, like our world is literally just run by a bunch of criminals who even when they get in trouble, don't actually get in trouble because they're the ones who make the rules and they're the ones who print the money.

[Avi]

By the way here too, right? I mean, Trump is clearly front running the strategic reserve. His family is buying up bitcoin. I mean, good for us, right? But still we should call it out. This is not ethical behavior. His family's front running it and then he's going to announce a strategic reserve buy of a million Bitcoin and suddenly his family become trillionaires as a result.

[Walker]

I wonder how Trump Coin will perform during that time because it's not Melania Coin too. Maybe there'll be a Baron coin by that point. Who can say? It's all so absurd. That's the thing. And I think it would, it was only natural that politicians, that corporations would try. Well, politicians are kind of glomming on to this, right? And as they should, it's in their best interest to do so. This is what the game theory was always suggesting would happen. Corporations are doing it out of self preservation and also they're realizing, oh wow, I can, I can like my stock will get a lot more attention than it ever has if I announce a little bitcoin treasury strategy. A little, if I participate in a little paper bitcoin summer, you know, but, but wow, it's like there is no substitute for just good old fashioned bitcoin held in cold storage because they, it's, you know, it's hard money they can't with no matter what other shenanigans they try.

[Avi]

I, and you know, you mentioned paperback on some. It's, it's, you know, it's, it's fun. It's great to have a, it's a great, it's a great meme. It's fun to have a bit of a laugh about it, but I fear there's a rug or some kind of crash coming. Maybe not for the established ones, I think microstrategy is probably going to be okay. But some of these copycats, the newer ones, I hope they know what they're doing because I mean if a couple of the small ones go down, they could take the medium sized ones back with them. And before you know it you have a bit of a snowball happening contagion so I'm hoping that doesn't play out but man it's a bit scary to see. This is, here's the other thing that bothers me a little bit here Walker with paper, bitcoin and bitcoin treasuries. It's almost as if it's given some bitcoin maxis and certainly some bitcoiners the excuse to shitcoin right to get their shitcoin desires out without a repercussion. Because hey I'm, it's just bitcoin man. What are you talking about? I'm not touching Ethereum or Solana. This is all bitcoin and I don't know man, it's, it's a little concerning.

[Walker]

Yeah, I mean I, I feel that I'm, I'm, it's going to be hilarious to see what happens to these Ethereum treasury companies that have come out like dear Lord, what a, I mean hilarious to do that to try to institutionalize more, more custody of a proof of stake system. Like I don't think like and I'm sure the Ethereum foundation is giving some sweetheart deals here to folks like Tom Lee from Fun Strat, right who just.

[Avi]

Came out with that.

[Walker]

Like I'm sure there's some backroom things happening because it's a centrally controlled company already like but it's, I don't think they really thought through the game theory of that too much like what, what that means in a proof of stake network but whatever, it's going to be fun to watch it light on fire and burn down. But on the bitcoin side I definitely hear that and like you know this is why like I try to. First of all let me preface this by saying I think people should do whatever the fuck they want with their money. Personally though I would never ever recommend that if somebody is like a friend or family member, loved one or a random club on the street is ask or pleb at a bitcoin conference. I don't meet bitcoin plebs in the street. Usually the asking me like oh which like no, I'm never going to recommend a, a bitcoin treasury company that they do that because they should just hold, they should buy and hold good old fashioned layer 1 Bitcoin in self custody because you like, you know you are introducing counterparty risk like know that you are gambling if you are pursuing again do whatever you want. Like I, I, you know I have some micro strategy I have like a few shares in these other ones. But what do I save in? I save in Bitcoin. And that's what, you know, everyone, well, everyone who needs to, should do it. And everyone will need to eventually. It's just a matter of time if they don't, if they don't realize it yet. But yeah, get real Bitcoin, hold it in cold storage and go create value, right?

[Avi]

Because if you're in Bitcoin because you claim you understand it, then anything other than what you just said, Walker, defeats the purpose. You, you have this pristine digital bearer instrument with zero counterparty risk and you're like, you know, what would be, what would go well? Some counterparty risk? No.

[Walker]

A little spice. A little, little bit of spice on there. Well, you know, and it's like I again, I think that like these things were bound to happen. Like governments realizing that bitcoin is valuable. Like this is a symptom of bitcoin being successful. If bitcoin was going to, like bitcoin is winning, this was going to happen. If bitcoin was losing and bitcoin was fading into obsolescence, we wouldn't be having this conversation because companies and nation states wouldn't be trying to acquire it as fast as they can. So this is like what winning looks like. And that's great. And I think that honestly, like, like paper bitcoin summer is good for bitcoin to. Ultimately, this is like, this is all accretive to Bitcoin. This is bringing more value into Bitcoin that honestly, frankly probably would have flown into, flowed into shitcoins. It's also bringing in new capital that has previously not been able to have a way to get exposure to Bitcoin for whatever reason that may be, whatever institutional capital it is, whether that be in, you know, whether that be in retirement accounts, sovereign wealth funds, whatever it may be fixed income. Like there are all these different pools of capital that are looking for ways to get exposure. And people in a relative, we don't really live in a free market, but in a kind of free market are providing that to them through, you know, paper bitcoin, which is like, hey, ultimately it's good for bitcoin, but also a lot of people are going to get wrecked along the way. And that's why like, if you're just a pleb who is, you should follow Odell's advice. You should stay humble and stack sats. It is some of the most sage advice you could ever have and it will forever hold true. Like, that is the best way to do it chasing get rich quick. Well, chasing anything that's. That's not just bitcoin is. Has a lot more potential for you to get hurt. So do what you want with your money. I don't care. Neither does bitcoin. But stay humble and stack sats. And thank you, Odell, for creating such a great little hero stick.

[Avi]

Yes, for sure. And I would add, spend it if you on things you need at merchants that accept bitcoin. I think that's. Yes, I know it's. It's not as pithy as stay humble as tax ads, but I think there's spending bitcoin. The, the medium of exchange use case is. I think that's what is. Is the killer app for Bitco. Right. That's what makes it money. Yes. Store of value is great. Supporting local merchants, trying to get them to accept bitcoin. Right. Because part of it is you get into this chicken and egg, if you're talking about bitcoin adoption is you ask a merchant why aren't you accepting bitcoin? And they say, well, no one's paying in bitcoin. And you ask a person why they're not spending their bitcoin anyways. No one accepts bitcoin and I think the way out of that is to orange pill merchants and get them to accept bitcoin.

[Walker]

So yeah, that was one of the parts I loved about the episode was that he was saying gets. I think it was like 3% of sales are in bitcoin. And that bitcoin he just takes and. And keeps as an asset. He doesn't convert that to. To fiat. He just keeps it. That's. He literally said like, this is how I, how I'm saving for my business. I was like, that is amazing. I was like, my favorite part was just hearing him talk about sa. All the great food was nice and all, but as a bitcoiner, of course hearing that part was like, wow, he. He gets it and he's really using it in an intelligent way. And that, yeah, it's going to be a nice nest egg for his business as we go forward in the future.

[Avi]

Yeah, I mean if there's another shot, look, we potentially. New York City is going to have a communist mayo. Hopefully not. But there is a chance. And if he starts bringing in price controls and so on, I mean a lot of businesses will be out. And maybe Shakib, the proprietor of Safari in the episode with his little nest egg, maybe he's one of the few who might survive.

[Walker]

Let's hope so, and yeah, we'll see about New York's communist future, but man, what a time to be alive. The only good thing about that is that afterwards, after there's an insane amount of capital flight and destruction of the city's economics, maybe we'll snap back real hard in the other direction. The pendulum always swings back. It just depends how much pain you have to get on one side of that swing before you're, you're willing to swing it on back.

[Avi]

And New York City has always gone through these cycles. And my hope had been that Covid was the bottom of the, of the cycle, like 20, 20, 20 21. The crime was through the roof and, you know, businesses were shutting. It's terrible. And I thought maybe that's it. Maybe this is the bounce back. This is, you know, the city goes so far down south that price, people just leave. So prices drop, and then what happens? Then the starving artists can actually move back in because it becomes affordable. They come in, start making really cool art. Then the yuppies look at the art and like, hey, look at this. This is this culture in this place. They come in and then they ruin it. Right? There's a hard times create weak man meme in there somewhere. Yeah, that cycle there. But apparently, I hope I'm wrong. Maybe 20, 20, 2021 was not the bottom for New York. We might get this communist with price controls and could convert it into a true hellscape before it bounces back.

[Walker]

God, I mean, let's hope not. It's like it's a, you know, real, real communism's never been tried. We'll get it right this time, guys. And I promise it won't end in starvation and mass murder. I pro this time. It won't. We'll, we'll get it totally right. Don't, don't you worry. It's like, man off. Real capitalism's never been tried, you totalitarian twat. But I, I, I digress. Avi, to be conscious of your time here, this is the time has flown by with you as always. This was a great rip. Where, where, where do you want to send folks again? Just, I'll link everything in the show. Notes, I'll link up. But, but, but yeah, tell people again for those, for those listening.

[Avi]

Yeah. So if you want to connect with me on Nostra primal.netai if my website is casanostra.ink C A S A N O S T R A.in you'll find all my projects listed there. My book, the sequel that I'm working on, the show, all my podcasts. I actually have more than one, by the way, Walker. It's. I'm doing it. I started an AI podcast as well. Two AI podcasts. But we could talk about that some other time. But you'll find all of that.

[Walker]

We'll have to have you back on now.

[Avi]

But you'll find all of that information on Casa Nostra and, yeah, you can find me on Primal as well.

[Walker]

Awesome. Well, Avi, it's a pleasure having you on here. I wish you all the best with the show. I think it's fantastic what you're doing, and I'm already looking forward to the next episode, the one today. I shouldn't have watched it on an empty stomach because it made me hungry.

[Avi]

Well, thank you. Thank you for the kind words, Walker. Always a pleasure chatting with you. Maybe our path will cross at the next conference. I know we've been missing each other at. Very well. You. You've been busy for very important reasons as a new father. But maybe once you're out of that. I'm going to start. Now that I've quit my fiat job, I can start traveling again. So maybe you're going to be in the Ghana. I'm going to. I think Paraguay is around that time.

[Walker]

Okay. Okay. Okay.

[Avi]

Yeah.

[Walker]

Well, we'll. We'll talk. We need to find a way to. We can maybe do this in person. That'd be. Be a blast.

[Avi]

Yeah. Oh, yeah, that'll be good. Yeah.

[Walker]

And thank you to everybody on the live stream as well who. Who joined here on on Noster. And if you're listening to this after the fact and you're wondering what live stream, it's probably because you're not on Noster yet. So you should go and check it out. And then you too can experience this show live and in color on ZAP Stream.

[Avi]

Yeah.

[Walker]

All right. Thanks, man. Great talking to you.

[Avi]

Cheers.

[Walker]

Foreign and that's a wrap on this Bitcoin talk episode of the Bitcoin podcast. Remember to subscribe to this podcast wherever you're watching or listening, and share it with your friends, family, and strangers on the Internet. Find me on [e-mail] Walker in this [e-mail] Titcoin on X, YouTube and Rumble. Just search Walker America and find this podcast on X and Instagram at tcoin Podcast. Head to the Show Notes to grab sponsor links. Head to substack.comwalkeramerica to get episodes emailed to you. And head to bitcoin podcast.net for everything else. Bitcoin is scarce, but podcasts are abundant, so thank you for spending your scarce time listening to the Bitcoin podcast. Until next time, stay free.