In this episode, Nathan sits down with Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites), founder of Thank God for Bitcoin (TGFB Media), to discuss Bitcoin from a Christian perspective. Jordan shares his journey from missionary work in Uruguay to becoming a leading voice in the Christian Bitcoin space. The conversation covers currency debasement, ethical investing, practical Bitcoin adoption for churches and families, and how Christians can build financial sovereignty. Jordan also discusses his work helping churches, nonprofits, and families understand Bitcoin's non-intuitive benefits beyond "getting rich quickly." This is a deep dive into money, faith, and preparing your family for an uncertain economic future.
https://www.spearing.co/bush
Twitter: @jmbushwrites
Podcast: Thank God for Bitcoin Podcast
Thank God for Bitcoin (2nd edition releasing soon)The Orange Umbrella (Children's book - available for pre-order)Gospel-focused Bitcoin resourcesCash App - Custodial Bitcoin wallet (easy for beginners)Blue Wallet - Non-custodial hot wallet (recommended for self-custody)Cold Card - Hardware wallet for long-term savingsStart Nine - Private server solutions for Lightning nodesRiver.com - Bitcoin-only exchange (1% fees)AZTeco - Bitcoin vouchers (non-KYC option)Square/Block - Bitcoin payment processing for merchantsLightning Network - Second layer for fast, cheap Bitcoin transactionsModello - Steel seed phrase storage deviceThe 4-Hour Work Week by Tim FerrissThank God for Bitcoin by Jordan Bush and co-authors00:00:00 - Introduction and Jordan's Background
Growing up in a Christian familyDrifting from faith in high school, returning in collegeThe missions conference that changed everythingMoving to Uruguay as a missionary in 201500:06:00 - Discovering the Currency Problem
Venezuelan refugees flooding UruguayLearning about currency debasement and hyperinflationHow governments fund promises by printing moneyThe connection between monetary policy and human suffering00:08:00 - The Path to Bitcoin
Opting out of Social Security as missionariesLooking for ethical investment alternativesThe Coca-Cola dilemma: profiting from selling sugar waterFirst hearing about Bitcoin in 2012 (and not buying)Finally buying Bitcoin in 2017-201900:12:00 - Going All In on Bitcoin
Putting 85% of liquid net worth into Bitcoin in June 2019Why Bitcoin solves the Venezuela problemThe philosophy behind Bitcoin: sound money that can't be inflatedWriting "Thank God for Bitcoin" and outselling the Pope00:19:00 - Bitcoin vs. Crypto: Why Bitcoin is Different
The "telos" (purpose) of Bitcoin vs. other cryptocurrenciesHow altcoins are pre-mined and benefit foundersXRP and the permanent seller problemWhy every crypto trades against BitcoinThe insider trading nature of most cryptocurrencies00:24:00 - Learning from Others and Making Decisions
Tim Ferriss's approach to political decisionsMichael Saylor and spending 1,000 hours learning after age 40Trusting people who make sound decisionsThe importance of mentorship and wisdom00:26:00 - Historical Perspective on Money
The Roman Empire's currency debasementHow sound currency makes civilizations strongThe British pound as a literal pound of silverThe U.S. dollar's gold-backed originsWhy soldiers refuse debased currency (historical pattern)00:32:00 - Gold, Silver, and Bitcoin
The physicality problem with precious metalsVenezuelan refugees and the theft problemBitcoin's portability: 12-24 word seed phrasesCrossing borders with wealth in your headSEER training and torture-proof wealth storage00:37:00 - The Canadian Trucker Protest Case Study
Being declared enemies of the stateBank accounts frozen by government$900,000 in Bitcoin that couldn't be stoppedWhy churches need to think about this NOWPastor Doug Wilson interview and the question: "What if you're cut off tomorrow?"00:40:00 - Practical Bitcoin for Churches
Starting with a men's group chatCreating a church economy (raw milk, chickens, services)The importance of practicing with people you trustBuilding a skills directory in your congregationLearning together as a community00:43:00 - Square, Cash App, and Lightning Network
Custodial vs. non-custodial solutionsSquare's Bitcoin payment integration (3% savings for merchants)Lightning Network as the "PayPal of Bitcoin"How to send Bitcoin invoicesThe trade-offs between convenience and sovereignty00:49:00 - Bitcoin as Money: The Maturity Process
Why Bitcoin isn't "use money" yet (and why that's okay)The baby analogy: growing into purpose over timeStore of value vs. medium of exchangeWhy you should start saving in Bitcoin NOWThe seeds analogy: you can't wait until you need them00:56:00 - Addressing Volatility Concerns
The marriage analogy: short-term vs. long-term thinkingThe children analogy: dealing with volatility to get the benefitBitcoin's growth from less than 1% adoptionNetwork effects and the runaway trainThe orange tree analogy: seasonal cycles are natural01:04:00 - Bitcoin for Minors and Families
Eli's question about buying and storing Bitcoin as a 16-year-oldCash App custodial account limitationsBlue Wallet for self-custody"Not your keys, not your coins"Hardware wallets (Cold Card) for long-term savings01:09:00 - KYC vs. Non-KYC Bitcoin
Know Your Customer laws and their problemsBuying Bitcoin from miners (no paper trail)AZTeco vouchers (Bitcoin gift cards)Churches mining Bitcoin with solar panelsSending Bitcoin to persecuted churches overseas01:15:00 - Fees, Trading, and Long-Term Strategy
Why Jordan doesn't day tradePaying for services vs. being the product (Gmail example)River.com: Bitcoin-only exchangeThe 1% fee for ethical business practicesAvoiding the "get rich quick" mentality01:19:00 - The Greatest Time to Be Alive
Tucker Carlson interviewing Rich LuskThe church can't be stoppedOpportunities for faithfulness in our generationBuilding the kingdom where God has placed us01:20:00 - Where to Find Jordan and His Work
Twitter: @jmbushwritesWebsite: TGFB.comThank God for Bitcoin podcastBooks: "Thank God for Bitcoin" (2nd edition coming)"The Orange Umbrella" children's book (illustrated, rhyming)Becoming a nonprofit to serve Christians betterJordan Bush (@jmbushwrites)
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): And when people criticize Bitcoin for not being able to, pay, for their haircut and Bitcoin, I'm like, you're totally missing the picture.
You're missing it. How? Like, how these things become money. We're watching in real time for the first time in a very long time. Something becoming money, this maturity takes time. It takes time for people to understand what it is, to be able to understand how to use it.
Nathan: So just got off of a interview where you got to ask me a bunch of questions and I was excited that I get to ask y'all questions. So give, uh, give life on target listeners your background, if
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Sure.
Nathan: uh, Christians that have been living under a rock.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Oh yeah, because that's the only, the only way you could possibly not have heard about me is if you were living under a rug. Yeah, right. Uh, so, no. So my, my name is Jordan Bush. Uh, I grew up in a, in a Christian family. Uh, my mom was a barely second generation Christian. My dad was a, was a first generation believer.
And so, you know, my life growing [00:01:00] up was going to church and had parents who, you know, had us in church whenever they could. And, uh, worked for a Christian, they worked for a Christian nonprofit organization called Word of Life. And so I grew up, uh, there and um, and so yeah, grew up in church, uh, made a profession of faith at a young age.
Uh, and then kind of as I got into middle and high school, uh, just got to the point where I just really wanted to be liked and really wanted just to be normal, was at a public school and, uh, and so just kind of drifted away from the Lord. And, uh, and then it was near right bef near. Come about a year and a half before I graduated.
Uh, the Lord just kind of really just stepped in and opened up my eyes and still wasn't perfect, but I definitely had a, a Christian trajectory. So, graduated, uh, went to Bible college. Knew that my parents were gonna make me go for at least one year, so ended up while I was there. Um. I was not, I'm not, just to give you an idea, I'm not a morning person whatsoever.
Just under normal circumstances. And, uh, and during this Bible college, like the Lord just was [00:02:00] opening up my eyes and, and just giving me new desires. And so we had to wake up, I think at like six 30 to do breakfast and all this kind stuff. I was waking up at like five on my own to go get alone and pray and read the scriptures.
And so just, and I'm just reflecting at this like, Lord. Checkmate atheist like me up at five to do this. Like, there, there's no other way to account for this. And, uh, and so, so that's kind of what was going on. And, and about halfway through the year, uh, the, the college that I was at did a missions conference.
And so again, I, I was a basketball player. I, I did not, I'm like, I'm not a missionary, you know, if you would've asked me, I couldn't have articulated for you what a, what a missionary was. I just knew that I wasn't one because I played basketball and didn't like to live in tree houses. So, uh, so, so we, you know, went to this missions conference and long story short, there was a guy there who was about, uh, five feet tall who grew up in the jungle tribe in the Philippines.
Uh, his grandparents were head hunters and just told the story of how when he was a little kid, this, uh, white [00:03:00] guy walks into the tribe and, uh, and just basically says that he's got a more important message than they've ever heard before, and that he wants to move in and live with them. And so long story short, even though they'd chased off people in the past, they allowed him to come in.
And, uh, so again, long story short, he ended up. The guy ended up preaching the gospel. Almost everybody in the tribe becomes a Christian. And this guy who was, you know, grew up and was teaching, uh, or sharing his story, ended up becoming a Christian, went to college in the United States. Whole, whole crazy story.
So he ended up, finishes his story, and he's talking about how he actually was the person, he became a jungle pilot, ended up flying in the first shipment of Bibles in his people's own language back into them in the Philippines. And he's just, as he's flying, he's like, I'm flying across these jungles and I'm just blown away by the Lord's kindness.
You know, just, and I'm like, who, who am I that, you know, I have, you know, that I have the ability to fly these in? Who are we that we're gonna have Bibles in our own language? Uh, and he just talked about how he just was overwhelmed thinking about like, what if this guy who, the missionary who would come in, uh, to, [00:04:00] to share the gospel with him, what if he just decided to do something else with his life?
And so as I was listening to that, uh, I just was thinking, you know, just. I just was thinking, Lord, I've wasted so much time. I grew up with 50 Bibles, couldn't give two craps, you know, like just could not care less. And, uh, for most of my, most of my growing up years. And so I just basically, as he's kind of finishing, I just said, Lord, you know, please let me go, you know, please let me go, go be a missionary.
Like, I don't wanna stay here in the States. Like, I just want to go, like if there's really, and, and his kind of climactic thing was he had this, you know, like the old printer paper where it's like connected on the ends and it's got the little stuff on the sides you rip up. So he basically, he, his climactic thing was, there are still, as of this was 2000, early 2007, there are still 6,000 languages that have no scripture in their language.
And so, and he basically said they're on these, on this piece of paper, and he threw the first piece of paper off and it grabbed the second and pulled it off, grabbed the third. It just kept pulling it. And there's like nine or 10 pages. And so I'm just [00:05:00] like staring at this from the front row and I'm just like, man.
All right. Like if that's true, I, you know, if that's true and there's people who have no access, they have no access whatsoever, then, then please let me go. The Lord was doing something very similar in the heart of, of my who, my future wife, and, uh, and so long story short, we ended up getting married, knowing that we wanted to be missionaries within about a year and a half of getting married.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yeah, she was at the co at the college. She was at the, we ended up being there at college, at senior and uh, and so we, we ended up getting married a few years later. And, um, and then within a year and a half of getting married, we started raising support to go be missionaries, uh, in the country of Uruguay.
Uh, so in 2015 we moved to Uruguay and, uh, and helped plant a church there. And so we were reformed Baptist at the time. Uh, ended up planting a, a small Baptist church. And, uh, and again, the Lord, the Lord was super kind to us. Um, we, we initially went there. Uruguay is a very secular country, uh, more than about half of the people, the population of [00:06:00] three and a half million would claim to be either atheist or agnostic, which is the highest percentage in, in South America.
And so we went there anticipating in 2015 being the Uruguayan Tim Keller, uh, you know, of going there and being very winsome and, and, you know, reaching the city. And, uh, and so then within, within I mean weeks we came to realize that, uh, as we were preaching the gospel, the, especially in the beginning, the overwhelming majority of people who were coming to our church weren't uruguayans, but they were Venezuelan immigrants.
And so there was just 60,000 Venezuelan immigrants that poured into the country over the course of a few years. And so I knew nothing about geopolitical happenings or, you know, why they were there. We just were trying to minister to them and their need. And so over the course of the next couple years, I started, I started to learn a lot more about just what had been happening in Venezuela and why people were leaving.
Uh, and just that at root, a lot of what was happening was a result of currency debasement.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): you know, the, in a world [00:07:00] where the currency is just either paper or digital representations of paper, uh, you know, the way that you get elected in democracies is to promise free stuff to people. And whoever promises the most free stuff wins.
And, uh, and so that's, and so
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): never, no, we're way better than that. Uh, and so then, uh, over time, the way that you, especially in a place where you don't have the world reserve currency, uh, the way that you fund that free stuff that you promise to give people is just by printing more money. And so we started to see, you know, the effects of that.
And then me as like a philosophy nerd and as a, you know, somewhat, you know, financially interested person. We just started to think about the consequences of this on everything from missions to, you know, just churches back in the states and all this kinda stuff, and just started to go down the rabbit hole of trying to understand, you know, monetary history of, of the, of the world and especially the last a hundred years.
And, um, so yeah, so that was kind of a, a big as I'm just pastor, you know, helping pastor this small church and just, you know, just blatantly in the [00:08:00] background. I'm just kinda learning about that and just chewing on that. And uh, and then as of right now, uh, we ended up launch was short, ended up leaving Uruguay, uh, partially because we became Presbyterians, partially because, you know, other, a number of other things.
Uh, but one of the things that we, you know, that I just got into, uh, was bitcoin. I got into Bitcoin in 2019 and, uh, just started, it, started doing it because after being a missionary for four years, uh, I hadn't even looked at our retirement account. I hadn't even thought about it. Uh, our mission organization, thankfully forced us to have some sort of, uh, retirement account through a fidelity and, uh, so it was like a 4 0 3 B is their equivalent of a 401k.
Uh, and so I, I hadn't even looked at this thing in four years. And so in 2019, I just thought to myself, well, this is, this doesn't seem very responsible, so I better start, try to, you know, start trying to understand investing and, uh, talk to some family members. They were like, Hey, get some good dividend stocks, get Coca-Cola, get some of these [00:09:00] things.
And um, as I was thinking about that, I just was thinking about the prospect of investing in Coca-Cola and I was like, so if I'm gonna look back in my life, uh, you know, I'm gonna get to the end of my life and look back and realize that, okay, I was able to retire because I made money off of selling sugar water to poor people.
I was just like, I don't wanna do that. You know, and so just this, I, the concept of ethical investing just, you know, really began something that I began thinking about. And right around the same time I started looking for other things and ended up finding Bitcoin. And so as I was just trying to study it and understand it, um.
I started thinking about it, not from the standpoint of how, you know, can I get rich quickly, even though obviously for everybody, that's where they initially, you know, are looking at it. Uh, but over a relatively short period of time, I started thinking about it, uh, from a number of different lenses. And that led to getting involved with other Christians who were into Bitcoin.
We ended up writing a book called The Gospel according to Bitcoin, which just basically gives a, a, you know, a history, brief history, ninth grade level, uh, history of what money is, how it [00:10:00] works, why it matters, uh, and so anyhow, that, that just ended up being where I go. And then from there, the book ended up selling way more copies than we thought the claim to fame as it came out the same week as a book by the Pope.
And we were outselling the Pope. We said, take that Bishop of Rome, uh, you have no authority here. Uh, and then the Lord's just done some crazy stuff. So today, I, I run, uh, it's called Thank God for Bitcoin, uh, or TGFP media, which exists to help Christians. Um. And, and others understand and use Bitcoin for the glory of God and the good of people everywhere.
So, um, so we write resources, write books, and do events designed to provide opportunities for churches, nonprofits, and anybody in between small businesses to understand the non-intuitive reasons why they should care about Bitcoin that have, that have nothing to do with getting rich quickly, so,
Nathan: Yeah. So, you know, just pulling up, I don't know what month you said you got in 2019, you know, that looks like it's hovering, uh, at the beginning of 19. You know, [00:11:00] it's at, uh, three grand a Bitcoin, you know it, and towards the end of 19 it's, seven. So even in that 12 month period over. Over a seven.
So even in that 12 month period, if it's the beginning, you're doubling your money. then today, like at this moment, even at the kind of a low for the last month, we're at 93 a Bitcoin. So if you can, you know, buy in at that and then hold, you know, which is, is the, is the way
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yep.
Nathan: Um, it, it is, uh, very, was very profitable.
And then, you know, I guess the discussions, one of the things I'm curious about is the, you said you kind of just like, I, I found Bitcoin and it ended up buying it. So like what talks, let's zoom in on that
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): yep,
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): yep,
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): yep.
Nathan: I like [00:12:00] to try to do with this podcast too is I, I know that financial, this is not investing advice.
This is not, you know, at your own risk, blah, blah, blah. Um. of our listeners are, have agency and, and all that.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yeah.
Nathan: I really like to understand, you know, what specifically you did and why, like, 'cause that's your story.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yep.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yep,
Nathan: things. What you, you have all these experiences. Why did you do it?
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): yep. Yeah, so good. Great question. So, uh, again, I, I mentioned, I mentioned this basically my, my wife and I, um, when we were, when we were missionaries. One of the cool things that, uh, working for a nonprofit or especially a religious nonprofit, uh, gives you the opportunity to do is opt outta social security.
So like if you become, if you become a pastor or a missionary or something like that, or work for a Christian organization, you have from the beginning you have a two year window with which to, to file for, to, you know, [00:13:00] opt out of social security. So we ended up doing that. And then the, our, that was not our, our missions organization was not happy about that decision.
Uh, but they were like, Hey, this is your decision. If you're gonna do that, you need to start saving money every month. And it was like a pretty good chunk of money relative to what we were making. So I just, you know, we just started living frugally and I just, you know, we're saving, um,
Nathan: basically gave you a Christian discipleship not consume everything and,
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): correct. They, they basically just said,
Nathan: that you weren't giving it to the government. That's obviously gonna
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): yeah. Yes, ex. Exactly. Well, well, and to be fair.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Correct. But to be fair, what I will say is the, their, their, their motivation. So like, they didn't necessarily have like the first principles, see the big picture of where this is going. What they were looking at was, we had missionaries who opted out of social security back in the forties because they were dispensationalist who thought the rapture's gonna happen, we're not even gonna need to save for retirement.
And so [00:14:00] they saw a lot of people get wrecked that way, who they, they got to the end of their life and then either
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): and the world didn't end. And so they had, they were reliant on, you know, just people to continue supporting them. Um, and so, so that was, that was part of what was motivating them. But in, in my case, again, I'm sitting here like, you know, I, I'm looking at this a hundred, you know, 70 years later from, from when they're at number or 80 years later.
And I'm just like, guys, like this is a Ponzi scheme. Like pon, social security's a Ponzi scheme, but it's gonna run out. Money's gonna run out in 2030 according to their own numbers. So
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): just like, this doesn't make any sense. So we ended up just taking, you know, setting aside from like 20. Uh, man, 20, I guess 20 14, 20 15.
Just started setting aside money every month and, uh, ended up, oh man, it's painful. I ended up, there was a couple times where we, you know, took a few thousand dollars and invested in, in something, uh, that if I, I'm like, oh man, if I would've bought Bitcoin with that, I would've had a lot more, a lot more Bitcoin, uh, but just ended up just sitting on a lot of it.
Uh, which again, was not very smart, [00:15:00] just keeping it in cash. We were getting murdered, purchasing power, but I didn't know any of that at the time, so we're just like saving up money and just setting it aside. And so, um, when I, when I heard about Bitcoin, I heard about Bitcoin in late 2017. That's the first time I actually bought some, I'd obviously heard about it before that.
Um, I think my first touch with it was 2012. Uh, I had heard about it on the news and then went into a silver broker, uh, in Florida to get, uh, with like a 2,500 bucks to get silver. One ounce coins.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): I walk in the door, there's a girl sitting behind the computer. This is 2012. It's a girl sitting behind the computer with a, with a buy Bitcoin sticker on the back of the old gray computer monitor.
I walked, I looked at it, looked at her, walked right by her, talked to the guy and said to the guy at one point, uh, as I was buying my, uh, maple leaf, uh, silver, one ounce coin, I said, Hey, so Bitcoin, huh? And he goes, it's really interesting. I think Bitcoin was around two or 300 bucks at that point, and I [00:16:00] just had no framework for owning it.
I'm not a technological person, uh, by nature. And
Nathan: said really interesting, you didn't buy.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): no, I did not buy, I was just like, Hey, that, yeah, I agree. It's interesting. Now give me my, you know, give me my 35 silver ounce coins or whatever.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): And, uh, and so then it was, so I ended up. Not buying any until 20, 20 17. Still only bought like a couple hundred bucks worth also bought, you know, $50 worth of Ethereum, $50 worth of, uh, you know, uh, not Doge, what's the other one?
Um, XRP, all these ridiculous things like, like a sprinkling and all these things. And, uh, and so then obviously the Bitcoin crashed in December of, you know, went up to 20,000. Uh, in December of that year crashed down to I think like nine or something. And then shortly after that, after it crashed, uh, I was, I was the, at that point, the very content number two guy in our church.
There was another, uh, man and family who was kind of, he was the, the main pastor. And so they had a family emergency in early [00:17:00] 2018. Ended up having to leave to go back to the states. And so I ended up over pretty much overnight becoming the, the only pastor of this church. And so pretty much for about a year, everything just went, got put a year and a half, everything just got put to the side.
I didn't even think about Bitcoin, didn't think about, you know, any of these other things and just focused on trying to pastor the church in Spanish, deal with all the, all the crazy things that went with that. So by the time 2019 came around, Bitcoin was kind of had woken up. Um, I started really buying it in 20, in May of 2019.
So it wasn't quite at three. I think it had gotten back up to nine by the time I was looking at it again. Um. So I, I just started doing some investigation. Uh, I was like, what is this thing? Uh, you know, again, I was a philosophy major, so just trying to understand. I like to understand a little bit of everything, uh, just to be able to have, just to be able to get my hands around it.
Just, you know, get my mind around it. Like what, you know, what is this thing? Why does it exist? And, um, and so I just started doing some basic research there. There was a couple podcasts that [00:18:00] were out, uh, that I just found that were at, right at the right time that were helpful. And so within, again, we would not recommend that necessarily everybody do this, but this is, this, again, you asked me for my story.
Within about a month, I had put about 85% of our liquid net worth into Bitcoin. I did like a month worth of, of deep dive. And then was like, all right, this is, I, I buy in completely to the thesis and uh, and I'm in.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): in like June, June, 2019. I, I had like 85% of our liquid net worth and, uh, which again wasn't much 'cause we're missionaries re remember,
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): but just, you know, had conviction.
Nathan: It's returned a little better probably than Social security investments.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Just, just to touch. Yeah. Yeah. So, so did that. And then, um, and then just had more, I had like some more cash. I, I think I had like an ounce of, of gold. Um, you know, just again, we're overseas so that the precious metals thing was complicated. Like it's, it's gonna be difficult for us to cross [00:19:00] borders through the airport with large amounts of that kinda stuff.
So Bitcoin made sense in that front as well. Um, but really I just, I just had more money that I just was like kind of playing around with. So I, I had like a short crypto phase where I was do, trying to do some trading. Uh, messed around with 20 x leverage, uh, got got wrecked and that ended up, don't do that.
Uh, by the way, uh, so just ended up playing around. Still knew, knew that Bitcoin was the only thing that mattered, uh, or the only real thing in the crypto space, but
Nathan: of the things, 'cause you said XRP, that craziness or
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): yes,
Nathan: like, so talk to, talk to
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): yes, yes.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yeah.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yes. So, uh, so much of this comes down to, again, like the, so t telos is a, is a word. I mean, just like, what is the end goal?
Why does this thing exist? And so what, what you find out is that Bitcoin was created and, and kind of the connection to my world was. After I'd already bought some and was already kind of sold on it. I started thinking about it and just realized that like, okay, so wait, Bitcoin was [00:20:00] created to be money that a government couldn't hyperinflate, that a government can't create more units of the way that governments can create more units of fiat currency effectively.
Endlessly. And so that when, when that clicked for me and I realized like, okay, wait. This is actually a totally unique thing. It's like a technological achievement. It's like a, I mean, I think Bitcoin's gonna win a Nobel Prize or some sort of equivalent prize someday just because of all the different disciplines and what a revolution it is.
But one of the things that I realized was. Holy cow. Bitcoin was created to solve the problem that destroyed the lives of all these Venezuelan brothers and sisters of ours who had to flee their country. And so just the, the real world application and, you know, resolution of this problem, it just blew my mind.
And so as I started to, to look at all these other cryptocurrencies, I started to realize, wait a second. They were not all created with that end in mind. And so the way that you can see this, the way that you can, I can prove this is because every other cryptocurrency di wasn't created until 2011. So [00:21:00] Bitcoin had about like a two and a half year head start.
And the reason why that date of 2011 matters is because the first time Bitcoin monetized was in 2011. The first time anybody used Bitcoin to buy, uh, actual real world, you know, goods somebody used, they paid 10,000 Bitcoin for two pizzas. And so it was right after that happened where it clicked with all these nerds.
Who could, I mean, you could spin up a cryptocurrency in 15 minutes. They just realize, wait, we can, any of us can create our own currency and basically be, we can basically be our own federal reserve. Why would we not do this? You know, we can make it, we can basically make ourselves create our own currencies and be millionaires within minutes.
And so that's where you start to see the explosion of all these other cryptocurrencies from Ethereum to XRP, to all these things. They, they weren't, like, they have, there's people who will defend them and saying, oh, this is programmable money, or this is, you know, the future or whatever. But in all of these cases, they [00:22:00] all have pre minds.
Okay. Which means that, you know, they create a fixed amount of the supply. So they create like, let's say a billion tokens, and then they, they give two thirds of the tokens to the founders, to the early developers, and then to some celebrities or people who are well respected in the hope of pumping these things.
And the whole time they ended up, as it starts to pump, they start dumping their own, their own shares. It's effectively insider trading. So they're like dumping their own shares onto the market.
Nathan: So everyone is like that.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): That, that's, that's literally how all of them work. So like XRP, they're guys, they're, uh, I can't remember. Uh, Brad Garlinghouse is one of the founders, isn't it?
Joe? Something is another one. These guys are permanent sellers of XRP. They will never purchase XRP, and they're, and so what are they doing? They're, they're pumping, they're telling, oh, we're, we have all these things with these banks. They're gonna start using XRP, or they're doing these things. Oh, look, look, there's, we're waiting on this news.
And so you just get in now and then just get, you're gonna get a pump. And in reality, everything in the crypto world trades off of Bitcoin. Everything. [00:23:00] People, everyone, all the traders, everybody, the game in town is accumulate Bitcoin. If you don't realize that's the game. It is the game. Everyone know, like all the guys who are the founders of all these other projects, they're trying to accumulate Bitcoin.
And when they sell, when these guys garlinghouse, all these guys, when they sell, one of the things that they're buying in addition to yachts, in addition to all these things is Bitcoin. Because they understand, they, they, they don't buy their own propaganda, the vast majority of them. Uh, and so for a lot of people, like that's Bitcoin is the real scarcity.
Bitcoin is the real thing that has censorship resistance that's been demonstrated for 16 years by the fact that China's tried to ban it seven times and failed, uh, because they can't enforce the ban. And so there's just a whole, a whole bunch of reasons. And again, I get a hundred percent I sound like the the crazy person.
Yeah. You've drank the Kool-Aid for just Bitcoin. And yet over and over again for the six years that I've been in this industry, I've seen the people who are in here. I've seen the incentives and every single time the incentives go exactly how you would expect them to go if Bitcoin's the only game in town.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): yeah.
Nathan: that's essentially, um, whenever I read four hour work week, right, they say, you know, he said, Tim Ferris said, and I think that guy has a lot of.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yes.
Nathan: Uh, good things that are thought provoking from a philosophy
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yep.
Nathan: things. Even though we can acknowledge, hey, like his, he, he, he looks at things from a different angle and I like reading things that then
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yep.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Challenge.
Nathan: my own universe. And one of the things he said, he is, I never consume any US presidential, political, stuff ever.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yep.
Nathan: He's, I just, he's like, it's so much theater, it's so much. So what I do is I call people When it's time to vote, I call five people and say, who you voting for? And then I vote what they say, you know, and he is like, I, I basically outsource five get to
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yep.
Nathan: so much [00:25:00] time and energy into, and so for me, in a lot of ways, I, I don't have time right now to spend months researching
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yep. Yep,
Nathan: I can listen to. know, was it Michael Saylor
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): yep,
Nathan: and say, that guy thinks about the world
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): yep.
Nathan: a lot of the ways I like to think about the
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Mm-hmm.
Nathan: And I heard him say, who after age 40, spends a thousand hours learning anything new
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yep.
Nathan: in the population. And I think it's probably half a percent
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yep,
Nathan: the population that will spend a thousand
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): yep,
Nathan: like, I've spent whatever, 10,000 hours
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): yep.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yep.
Nathan: and this is it. You know? And so it doesn't mean that like, I guess I'm okay with, um, I'm okay with, uh, talking to people that I like, can look at the, their life and be like, this person makes [00:26:00] decisions in a sound way.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yep.
Nathan: And so, and they've made this decision
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yep.
Nathan: I don't have, and we have to do that, I
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Everyone does this. Whether they recognize it or not. Everybody does this, right? Yeah. It's just everybody.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yeah.
Nathan: 'cause I want to know, like, what is it for you that made you say, I'm
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yes,
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): yes. And so some of this, again, there's, there's a positive case and then there's a negative case, right? Like the same way if somebody asks you, you know, what's the great commandment? Okay. So like, you know, there's a positive answer. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself.
And then there's the negatively framed version, which is the 10 Commandments. Like, don't do these things. And so part of the, part of the thing is just, I mean, part of my journey was just. Recognizing the lay of the land of just like, okay, so what are the, what are the threats even before Bitcoin ever exists, even if you don't like Bitcoin, let's just put that aside for now.
Like, what are the problems that exist that you have to reckon with, even if you think, even if you don't agree with Bitcoin, even if you don't think that that's, you know, you got one of, you're afraid of solar for layers, or you're afraid of [00:27:00] getting hacked or, you know, whatever. Like there were still as, as I was researching, there were just a bunch of problems that are just, that are just out there that have been problems for thousands of years as, and they've been one of the big things that leads to the end of civilizations.
So including the, the most important ones, the, the biggest ones, the most powerful ones that have ever existed. And so. Part of the thing that I went part of the rabbit hole was like, okay, so the Roman Empire, why did the Roman Empire collapse? There's a whole bunch of reasons. There's like, you know, societal degradation, degradation and all kinds of stuff.
But one of the reasons why they collapsed is because their currency collapsed. And one of the reasons why their currency collapsed is because in order to like pay off their debts, in order to try to, you know, do, do all these kind of things, they, they started introducing, uh, non precious metals, a greater percentage of non precious metals into their monetary supply.
And so by the end of it, the money, I mean, their, their currency barely had any silver at all in it.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): this is just something that happens as cultures decay. Uh, you know, they're, they're founded on these things that make them strong. One of the [00:28:00] principles that makes nations and, and Empire strong is a sound currency.
So, you know, the United States reached, uh, global reserve currency status because, uh, they had a fully gold-backed currency. Uh, they had a number of other advantages as well on the, on the heels of World War ii. And so, um, even though there were people who didn't trust them, you know, it there, you know, the United States with their, you know, the lion's share of the world's goal at that point, uh, was the 900 pound gorilla in the room that made the decision that everybody else went wrong with?
Um, the same thing. If you go back another generation, another a hundred years, this, this is true of the British Empire, right? Like they had the strongest currency in the world. The British pound was literally a pound of silver, uh, you know, like a, a big, a big block of silver, what, you know, amounted to one pound.
And so they had their, one of the strongest currencies in the world. You go back before them to the Dutch, you go back before them. Like you can just follow this, this is a, this is a universal, uh, principle of money. Money, and, and. Civilization is whoever has hard currencies, sound scarce [00:29:00] currencies, currencies that are backed by something that is scarce, that's, you know, real, that, you know, people value.
Uh, those, those currencies and those civilizations are going to be around a lot longer than those who don't, uh, because fundamentally sound currencies or scarce currencies, they, they put a premium on the value of your work. Right. Like they, they basically treat your, your work as if it matters. Um, and rather than just basically saying, you know, uh, in the case of fiat currencies, the government can just create effectively a trillion units out of nowhere and steal purchasing power from you by virtue of doing that.
Um, and so the more that I, the more that I researched the history of this, I realized, oh wow, okay. So this problem that Bitcoin is purporting to solve is not a novel problem. This is a thing that's been happening for literally thousands of years. We can, we can demonstrate through all, all through history of where this is a problem that ends empires, empires get, you know, get, have too much debt.
Their currency gets to the point where in the case of, uh, in the case of Rome, that their, uh, their soldiers refused to accept, uh, the, the [00:30:00] currency anymore. It got so debased that they refused to accept the currency. And so you can imagine, you know, you can look at, this has happened with other empires.
This happened on the, uh. You know, a number of places around the world. But so like one of the ways, when I look at, you know, what is the, what is the root of the, of the United States strength right now? It's in large part, there's multiple answers, obviously, but the United States military, right? We have a geopolitical presence all over the world.
Well, as like the, the debate of the United States currency and the weakening of the currency is, it's an existential threat to that, that strength all over the world. And so as that strength breaks down and you have an ever increasing, uh, you know, your liabilities in terms of like pensions to your soldiers and all these kinds stuff, as that starts to whittle down and the soldiers start realizing, they start realizing, wait, dude, like we're getting paid money.
That's, that doesn't have anywhere near the purchasing power as it was, as it did when we signed these contracts. You just have people who, you know, this, this starts to, starts to decay and starts to break down and ends up [00:31:00] being a Trump, you know, a big fall historically. And so I just looked at this and I was like, okay, that's, I see that.
Like I see that that's a real problem historically. This is a problem. This isn't the Bitcoin bros making this up in, you know, trying to act like this is, you know, this is some bitcoin, some novel solution to this novel problem that we've never seen before. This is a problem we've seen over and over again, uh, that's born of hubris and born of, you know, governments try acting like they can, they can avoid the way that God's designed the world to work, which is sowing and, and reaping.
Um, so that was, that was one big thing. Another thing was just practically, uh, I, I mean, as missionaries we had to deal with moving money and the challenges of moving money around the world. It's a big problem for hundreds of millions of people all over the world just trying to move money. Whether, whether you have family who's moved to a different country and you're trying to send money home to your home country.
Or something along those lines. It's, it's a very difficult problem. Um, currency, the basement, every country in the world really is, is on a, is on a fiat currency. Uh, and so their money is [00:32:00] losing pur purchasing power, uh, over time and for everyone, but the dollar, it's, it's happening a lot more quickly than it is to Americans.
And so these are, these are all real problems that, um, that exist that you have to find some solution for the solution that probably I would imagine many of, of your audience and, and a lot of you know, Christians.
So it's, it's one of these things where gold and silver are great.
Nathan: you for a second.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Oh,
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): can you hear me?
Nathan: I saw you reach up and do something and then you came back, so maybe
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): good.
Nathan: the last 15 seconds or so.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Perfect. Yeah, so, so basically I would imagine that a lot of your audience would've, you know, they appreciate gold and silver, and gold and silver is one way to, to opt out of some of these problems, right? So you can, you can take your fiat currency, your paper currency, and then you can buy, you know, solid real world scarce gold and silver.
That's great. That's far better than, than paper currency. And, you know, especially in these kind of, uh, late stage, uh, you know, late stage [00:33:00] currency moments, uh, the problem is. Again, it's not an existential problem, but there are shortcomings to gold and silver. Um, there's a reason why we don't use gold and silver as money right now, and part of the reason is just because of gold's physicality.
People, many people will look at gold and silver and they'll say, well, that's the, that's part of the value proposition is that it's physical. And I say, you are correct until it's not. Because the real, the the real reality is that it, there's not, there's not good or bad when it comes to currencies.
There's trade-offs. And so one of the things that you get with gold and silver is yes, it's physical, and so you can bury it in the ground and nobody knows you have it, but it's also physical. And so if you're gonna carry it somewhere, it's gonna be very evident that you're carrying that, you're carrying it somewhere.
And so the example that I use was, you know, specifically for our brothers and sisters who were trying to flee Venezuela, they had to walk across the border. And so there were lots of, there were two groups of thieves. There were government sanctioned thieves who were soldiers who knew that there's people leaving the country on foot with all their belongings there.
Were looking for [00:34:00] people. With heavy bags full of gold and silver to rob or to, you know, charge taxes, make them pay, you know, extort them to get money like that. And then on top of that, there's just normal thieves who knew, who know that people are leaving on foot with all their money. And so then this same thing, even if you're not in a, in a, you know, um, immigrant situation, there still is plenty.
I mean, if you're, if you're using a physical currency, you have to physically transport it. You need a physical place to put it. And there's just different challenges. Um, whereas with Bitcoin, I mean, I can memorize a 12 or 24 word, seed phrase or put it on, I can put one, one word on each page of my, of my, my webpage.
And now I've got those things on there. I can cross any border in the world, access that information, either remember the, the past phrase, type those 12 or 24 words into an an, an app that I download on my phone and plug those in there. And I have access to all of my money up to, you know, effectively trillions of dollars I can have access to just by virtue of, of memorizing a, a, a seed phrase.
Nathan: a way [00:35:00] to, you know, I go as a soldier who's been through seer.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yes,
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): correct.
Nathan: literally don't know it.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yep. Exactly.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yep,
Nathan: it's, it's, I sent it ahead
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): yep,
Nathan: and there's no way I can retrieve it
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): yep,
Nathan: nobody else. Like, it's, it's like essentially making sure that, that you're just like, look, there isn't an option to
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): yep.
Nathan: Like, it's, it's there. From a human
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Correct, correct.
Nathan: do you literally make it safe?
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yep.
Nathan: say like, I'm eminent, it's eminent, you know, or here's how you access it in
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yep.
Nathan: that to somebody else, you know? And that's, the, the, it's, there's so many, you know, different ways that you have, you have to think about this when you're not in the us,
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yes.
Nathan: And, and that's, I have a, with 12 combat deployments, I, I have seen societies[00:36:00]
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Correct. Yes.
Nathan: when there isn't money.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Correct.
Nathan: when the currency is guns
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yep.
Nathan: person with the ability to get the most guns to follow them
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Correct.
Nathan: what that can equal as far as oppression and things like that. And I feel like I talk about this a lot of times with people that they just haven't traveled the world
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yep. Yep.
Nathan: to to, to even be able to conceptualize how bad it is
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): To to borrow our enemies. To borrow our enemies framing. Uh, they have a, an American privilege that they have not checked, you know?
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yeah. And so,
Nathan: And it, it is, it's true. And you have to, you have to. But when you, and we, we were talking, my wife and I were talking about this morning, it's one of the reasons why you have your kids read really old stuff is to get outside of particular point in history.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Your set of biases. Yep.
Nathan: there are patterns and, and you know, as it Mark Twain is like, it rhymes,[00:37:00]
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yep,
Nathan: rhymes. You know, it's, it's being able to recognize that and then use that to make decisions now
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): yep, yep. A hundred percent. And I mean, one, I'll say one other thing. One other thing that I, that is, is a related point, um, is in one thing. So the first episode we did on my podcast, uh, I host the thank God for Bitcoin podcast. Uh, I interviewed Doug Wilson,
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): and I've been thinking about Doug for five years.
Yep. First one, like, reached out to him, had a connection to him somehow, and, uh.
Nathan: how I knew you were legit 'cause you were, weren't afraid to say his name
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Let's go. No, I, I'm, I'm not ashamed at all. Uh, and so I interviewed him and so the first 45 minutes we just talked about economics more broadly. I'm like, I, I don't want him to think that I'm a crazy raving lunatic, even though I am. Uh, and then got the last 15 minutes and we talked about Bitcoin and one of the things that I said to him was, I said, pastor Wilson, I've been thinking about you in relation to Bitcoin for the last four years.
Uh, because in the last three years, I think at that point, because, [00:38:00] um, you know, I had the privilege to interview BJ Dictor, who's the spokesperson for the Canadian trucker protest. And so these guys, these truckers were, they were declared enemies of the state, uh, by virtue of not wanting to get an experimental, uh, you know, poke in the arm.
And the thing that he testified to was, he's like, we had people in the States and in Canada donate to us millions of dollars, millions of Canadian dollars, but. The government declared us enemies of the state and cut us off from any of those money from, we couldn't access any of those money. We couldn't access our own bank accounts.
And so what he said is the, the only money that we were able to access was the $900,000 that people donated to us in Bitcoin. That was customed in such a way that didn't, it couldn't be intermediated by the state. And so that money actually made it to real people. And so you have this real world situation in which a totalitarian government, you know, uses its full force and they can't stop Bitcoin.
Uh, and so I, so I said to him, I was like, I, this is before this is 20 to 2020, uh, and this is, you know, Biden era. And I, you know, [00:39:00] things were looking bleak. And I just said like, I don't think, I think we're past the point where Christian, you know, churches can afford to. Put all of their eggs in the basket of trusting the legacy financial system.
I just said like this, this, this just seems irresponsible to me. And I said to 'em, basically like, if you were cut off from your bank account tomorrow, like up to this point, largely, you know, the, you know, the courts have been a, a batching of sanity. Like they've been, you know, a, a place where we can retreat to, but that takes time.
Like that takes months, years, whatever to get to get your court, you know, tried and then to, to basically find out that it's non-con, not constitutional. And so I just said to him, I was like, well, you know, what would you do if you were cut off from your bank accounts tomorrow? How would you pay your staff?
How would you pay your missionaries? How would you, you know, and like, again, in, and I even said to him, I was like, in your case, you guys are well known and you guys probably have diversified stuff and you have a, a big community of people who could rally to your aid if you, if you wanted to. Uh, but again, then they could start targeting those people.
And so if they're, if they're,
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): [00:40:00] yeah.
Nathan: have to back to when we talked about it is this is, um. This is just like seeds. You just can't have 'em in your closet and whip 'em out and have food.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yes.
Nathan: I use the analogy of the one guy at our church saying like, look, you, you can't just have a ham radio
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yeah.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): You need to practice. Yeah.
Nathan: programmed and have backup comms if the cell network goes down.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yep.
Nathan: I mean, to that end, I guess I would say, um, if I wanted to and, and how I approach this podcast is first and foremost, you have my son listening and me learning from you. But I immediately am thinking like, can you talk me through if I went to, so we have a men's group chat say, Hey, let's try as a church to only deal Bitcoin amongst ourselves. And it's not, you know, we have somebody that sells raw milk in the church. We have somebody [00:41:00] that does chickens. We have like, let's, let's try to set up. A economy where we interact and exchange with each other. Not large amounts of money,
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yep,
Nathan: like our families, our wives, our, our sons and daughters can interact and share value in the different ways.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): yep,
Nathan: and can bar like, 'cause some of it is they're just bartering,
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): yep,
Nathan: like, Hey, I'll do this in exchange for raw milk or whatever, but like, how, talk me through
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): yep.
Nathan: just as in as much detail as
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yep.
Nathan: over the last, you know, 20 minutes or so how my church and anyone else who is in a group. And I, I think the church is such a great way to do it because, um, you also know you could go to that guy and be like, I accidentally sent you a thousand dollars, know, get, and for a gallon of milk, can I get that back?
I didn't mean, you know, and you're not like, there's a [00:42:00] some side of a, a safety net.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yep.
Nathan: Um, in, in practicing
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yes.
Nathan: some, 'cause it's not like, I don't, I don't think I could go and get my session build a, i, I think I'm immediately thinking when I'm in charge, uh, and whatever point, and we can vote on it and say, look, we have this much cash.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yep,
Nathan: Um, it's smart. Um, what percentage should be in a, in, in, how should we hedge the church's resources
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): yep.
Nathan: a way? And, and acknowledging that like, as we look at things, it's probably, we're not trending towards more fiscal responsibility no matter who's in charge.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yep.
Nathan: just say, um, we want to try to practice and, and, and realize that how do we do that? I got 10, let's just say 10. 10 11 deacons. We're gonna get together and say, Hey, we're in charge of, of, you know, the church's [00:43:00] budget. Um, let's try it with our own money first, learn this system, the 10, the leaders,
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yep.
Nathan: and, and develop a report that we can give to the session that says, let's, let's disciple people
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yep,
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): yep.
Nathan: uh, in, in value.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yes. And this is, this is honestly what we're working on. This is part of what TGFB is gonna be working on. So we are, we're actually becoming a nonprofit. We've been, we've been trying to make it work as a for-profit for the last three years. And it's just one of these things where our largest market is Christians who are not yet Bitcoiners.
And so to try to get them to pay a couple hundred bucks for an event ticket, it just like, doesn't make sense. And so we're like, we're like rethinking stuff. And so this, that, this actual conversation is something that we're gonna be doing a lot more of. Um, but so what, the first thing, before I answer the question directly, the thing that I, I, I'm anticipating an objection from some people and they would see, they're like, okay, yeah.
So, but Bitcoin. It still is this novelty because I can't go use it to pay for stuff. Uh, I can't, I can't use it at [00:44:00] the grocery store. I can't use it
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): at, at,
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): exactly, yes. So do, so then you could look at like something like, uh, like a Square and w Liquid Square just did, so they just turned on Bitcoin payments for a whole bunch of anybody who uses the Square platform.
Um, you can do that with like two clicks, three clicks on your, on your computer, and then you can either decide to keep that in Bitcoin as people pay you Bitcoin or you can auto convert to dollars. So the tools are there, I mean, there's, there's, again, there's a, there's a level of depth here. So you can, you can have like what's called a custodial route, which basically means it's kind of nerfed, it's kind of, you know, it's a, it's a centralized solution, which means it's super convenient.
It's really easy. Uh, but.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Ultimately, if the government wanted to lean on Square, they could, they could do that and then still get your money.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yep. Square would cave. And so that's, so that's one thing. Like that's, so there are, you know, easy solutions, but the easy solutions, uh, also have the trade off of being able to be, you know, the government could come after them.
There's ones that are a little bit more complex, not much more complex, but there's ones that are a little bit more [00:45:00] complex that don't have the level of custodian, uh, they don't have a custodial wallet, so there's no third party to intermediate to kind of come after your funds. Um, and so again, it's just a process.
It takes time to do that. Um, but the, the one thing I want to touch on is the, the assumption that because Bitcoin isn't use money yet, that. People should just not pay attention to it until it is that, and the, the illustration that I use is, okay, you, you mentioned about, um, you know, if you don't, you mentioned seeds, which is a fantastic example where it's like, all right, so if you're, if you're not planting seeds before you need seeds, you're never gonna be able to, you won't have seeds when you need seeds.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): I do this, I do the, make the same comparison between, uh, Bitcoin and basically how things become money. Uh, we have this expectation that something should just be fully matured money right from the beginning. And the reality is that doesn't happen when you have a free market chosen money. You know, basically every Bitcoin transaction in the world right now [00:46:00] is a free market decision.
No one is forced to use Bitcoin, unlike they're forced to pay taxes in dollars or Canadian dollars, or, you know, whatever it is. Every Bitcoin transaction is a freely chosen thing. And so, yes, right now, right now, basically because we have the dollar, even though it's losing value, it is an awesome, uh, medium of exchange.
It's fantastic. And fiat currencies make great medium mediums of exchange. What? They don't make good, uh, they don't, they don't make good stores of value.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): that's really the value proposition that the vast majority of people, especially in the United States, are looking to Bitcoin to solve, is, hey, they look at the, look at their currency and they're like, our currency is, is becoming more worthless with every data that goes by.
We need someplace to be able to store value that won't lose its value. Uh, and so they're looking to Bitcoin for that. And so Bitcoin is, is, you know, has served to be a very good store of value, uh, over the course of its lifespan. And so the thing that I compare this to is children. [00:47:00] Okay? The process of something becoming a money is like the process of someone becoming a person.
Okay? Now again, we all acknowledge the dignity of the unborn, okay? As soon as that baby's in the, in the thing, okay? As soon as this baby's in his mother's womb, is it a human? And we would say, or is it a, is it a person? We would say absolutely. Okay. Now imagine some smart ow kid. We don't know any of those, but imagine some smart al kid came to you and said, yeah.
But, uh, in Genesis one and two, God tells people what to do and he tells them to be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue and exercise dominion and to garden, keep the garden. Babies can't do any of those things. They can't reproduce. They can't be fruitful and multiply. They can't exercise dominion.
And so he thinks he's smart by raising this objection. And you go, well, no. But again, when the baby is born, he can't do these things, but he grows up into these things. This is a natural progression of maturity that happens over time. And when people criticize Bitcoin for not being able to, for not being able to pay, you know, for their haircut and Bitcoin, I'm like, you're [00:48:00] totally missing the picture.
You're missing it. How? Like, how these things become money. We're watching in real time for the first time in a very long time. Something becoming money, uh, you know, in real time. And this, this maturity takes time. It's gonna take, you know, it takes time for people to understand what it is, to be able to understand how to use it.
And so, so what I would say is right now, I say all that to say this. If you're a Christian and you're a church, the best thing that you can immediately start doing is saving some of your money in Bitcoin. That would be, that would be the first thing that I would do is like, just take a percentage, whatever it is.
What I always just tell, I never give people an exact answer. 'cause it really depends on your age. It depends on how much extra income you have. It depends on a whole host of factors. Um, but just start saving nothing. The there's start more than nothing. Something more than nothing. Um, start saving. And then if you have people who want to just do this experiment, who, you know, they want to do this experiment of, alright, we wanna try to see if we can do this.
Well then, yeah. So then there's, there's plenty of options of different, they're called, [00:49:00] um, yeah, this is a more complicated thing, but there's, there's two ways you can send Bitcoin. One of 'em is just, it's called on chain Bitcoin, which is just basically, you're, you're doing this in a completely non-custodial way.
Uh, there's no intermediary, there's no nobody who can stop your transactions from happening. Um, then there's another way to use Bitcoin that's on what's called a second layer. So the, the, uh, dollar system equivalent of a second layer is something like PayPal. So PayPal, the way that PayPal actually worked, your experience of PayPal is that you send money and you get it immediately, or somebody sends you money, you get it immediately and you can spend it immediately, whatever.
What's really happening on the backend is that PayPal, like twice a day, they do batches of transactions. So like functionally, there's, let's say there's 50 banks in the United States or more, but like let's say there's a hundred banks, there's only a certain amount of transactions that are actually going to happen between banks to settle up at the end of the day.
'cause you're gonna have Wells Fargo who [00:50:00] ultimately at the end of the day, or at the end of, you know, halfway through the day, owes JP Morgan XX amount of money. And so they send one check to finalize that, that amount of money, and then they do another thing. So our experience of it, we experience, oh wow.
It goes quickly, immediately in reality, the reality is more complicated. That same system there, that same principle happens with Bitcoin. And so the PayPal version of Bitcoin is something called the Lightning Network. So the Lightning Network is great for small transactions and you can do bigger transactions, but it's, it's perfect for smaller transactions.
And because there's no fees involved, it's basically free. And so that's something where I use this all the time. Um, I use, I use this to send people money. I use this to pay invoices. It's super quick, it's super easy. Um, there's a variety of applications that you can use. The, the easiest one, honestly, in terms of the, the usability and the, the, the way that it interacts with the, the legacy banking system is probably something like Cash App.
Um, I, I think you [00:51:00] can also do it with Venmo. I think you can also do it with some other things, but cash apps. The its interface is just so sweet. It's, it's awesome. And so that would be what I would recommend is just, you know, you can send people invoices. You can tell me, Hey, how much, how much do you need?
How much do you want me to pay? And then you can either send a request or I can just, you know, you can do it either pushing or pulling. I can request that you send me, send you an invoice so that you send me some money, or I can just send it and you can receive it. Um, and so again, there's just, just a bunch of different ways you can do it, um, that, that will enable you to have, you know, independence from just the legacy, uh, the legacy payment system and, and the ability for your transaction to be, you know, intermediated by a government or a bank or you know, something because of some opinion that you have that they deem, uh, unthinkable.
Nathan: So does Cash App make it than than Square? Because it's lightning and it's
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): So.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): So Square, so Square and Cash App are owned. They're basically, I don't think they're owned by the, I think they might be [00:52:00] owned, both owned by Block, which is like a parent company. So they're, they're very, it's basically the same, same program. Um, so basically Lightning, the Lightning Network can be, anybody, can, can set up a Lightning channel is what it's called.
And anybody can do this. So you can do this. Uh, I mentioned like you can have a private server. Uh, there's some, a company called Start nine that's doing some really cool work. Um, and so they have these private servers where you can set up your own cloud service, uh, for not too expensive. Um, and you can run your own what's called a lightning node, which basically means you can set up a channel where anybody who has access to this channel can send and receive money in there.
Um, and so you can do that. So basically there's, there's custodial lightning channels, and then there's self custody, lightning channels, so square, um, uh, cash app, all those things. Those are called custodial lightning channels because again, there's, there's a custodian who at the end of the day is controlling what's going on there.
Uh, the benefit is it's super slick, super, you know, convenient. They've done a great job with the UX to make it super easy to [00:53:00] use. The downside is. At the end of the day, the government could still put a thumb on them and, and, you know, force them to cut you off as a customer or whatever. Whereas, and this is kind of more what you're getting at, is you can set up your own, uh, self-hosted custo, uh, self, self-hosted lightning channels that you are in total, total control of.
And the government can't just come and can't, can't shut it off. They don't have access to it. You could custody it in such a way that they wouldn't be able to, to, to shut you off from it or shut off anybody from it. And so the long term and the, you know, the kind of the counter insurgent, uh, circles that, you know, that we're looking at and just trying to provide, uh, future proofing or, you know, just, uh, sovereign, more sovereign options, even though sovereignty is, you know, it's like a sliding scale, not some sort of utopia that you reach.
Uh, but like these, these. These ideas of, of being more sovereign and taking more responsibility and maintaining more responsibility. There's ways that you can do that with Bitcoin, um, in, in ways that a small community could do this in a way that multiple communities could do this to interact and, [00:54:00] and, uh, transact with each other, uh, in all kinds of, you know, ways that are much healthier and, and cheaper is the other thing.
So, uh, we, you mentioned a couple weeks ago, or we guess a week ago, uh, square announced that they were adding Bitcoin payment services to any of their merchants who has the square terminal. So you hit like, I think it's like three or four taps on your screen and boom, you're able to receive it and you're able to accept Bitcoin payments.
And one of the benefits of it is, and this is like a, this is a, a benefit is, I mean, with every transaction you pay with a credit card, you are forced to pay 3%, if not more. In some cases now they're raising them, but 3% to either MasterCard or Visa with bitcoin. Those fees are much cheaper and at the most expensive, it's usually around 1%.
Um, square has basically said for the next 12 months, we're going to remove any vendor fees. So basically, if you're a merchant, you're gonna make 3% more off of every single transaction if you accept [00:55:00] payment in Bitcoin. Than you would if you were accepting in, you know, with, with MasterCard or, or whatever.
And so then after 12 months, that drops down to 1%. So you're still saving 2%, uh, if not more, uh, if you're, if you're accepting payments in Bitcoin. And so as things get tighter and tighter due to inflation, all this kind of stuff, I think that more and more, like basically more and more, uh, business owners and stuff like that are gonna be incentivized to accept Bitcoin because 2% of a million dollars is actually a meaningful amount of money.
2% of, you know, half a million, whatever the, you know, money that your business is making, it's, it's gonna be an actual meaningful amount. Um, so again, all these things take time to learn, but it's really not anywhere near as hard as, as people would imagine. Um, if you can use Venmo, you can use Bitcoin.
That's it's super simple.
Nathan: Yeah, and I guess I, I'm immediately wanting to go full, you know, custodial, there's not a
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): hat. Yeah,
Nathan: Like, and, and I, I know for sure that there is at least one guy in our church that can
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): let's go.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yep.
Nathan: I guess that's the other side of it that we, I, when I talk with Joel s and he is like, Hey, you needed to develop a skills directory. And the things that people in your congregation are good at
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yep.
Nathan: who to be able to search it and go to people. And that's, you know, and John Moody's talked about it too, and the Amish are just
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yep,
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): yep,
Nathan: keeping it in-house. And this just seems like a good way to, at the same, we were already developing this in-house with our church.
We have a, you know, a form and people are, are putting their stuff on there, um, to where we can search,
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): yep,
Nathan: for these particular skills and say, Hey, you know, um, how do we incentivize at the same time? Like, let's try to do this with Bitcoin too
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): yep,
Nathan: and let's try to, you know, and I think that that's just, you have to do this
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): yep,
Nathan: and transact with people you trust and learn it,
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): yep.
Nathan: learn it together.
I think there's just tremendous possibilities
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yes. And so this, and this is one of, oh, go ahead.
Nathan: I was gonna say too, just. The [00:57:00] volatility, obviously, like and I both acknowledge, we've talked about this before, like anytime you're willing to hold something forever. I think I, I shared mine, you know, I bought it like 48,
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yep.
Nathan: thousand and it tanked for three and a half years, you know, uh, and, but ultimately it's more than doubled
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): yep,
Nathan: bought it in even with the, the, you know, crash that's
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): yep.
Nathan: right now. It's, it's nowhere close after it went. It has not been below, where I bought in, uh, since like right after, you
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yep,
Nathan: and, and even looking at it, like, it's just crazy to me to think that I could have bought at 16,
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): yep,
Nathan: but even just the, the, uh, reality that I just had all this money get cut to 25%. So that, that if, if you remove short, short term gain. From the equation, which is something that plagues our
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): A hundred percent. [00:58:00] A hundred percent.
Nathan: it's o it's obvious. But is there something else more to, because I've also heard people on your podcast say, Hey, like it's still mimicking the s and p or they're still
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yep.
Nathan: a hedge by these financial institutions and we see the Trump's talking about it 'cause they
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yep,
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): yep,
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): yep,
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): yep.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): The,
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): yep. So the, I mean, the principle, it's, uh, you know, wealth gain little by little, you know, will, will grow. And, you know, wealth gain hastily, if you're looking for short term, you know, if you're looking to make money quickly, you're gonna get wrecked. I mean, this is, this is, it's the proverbial wisdom here.
Um, and so I just. Again, you could do this with a hundred things, right? Like if I were, if you were to, if you were to go short term and look at your marriage, you know, like all of us have had mo I would say ma, most of we've had moments in our mar Yeah, exactly. Yeah. We're pretty perfect. But other than, other than us, uh, you know, like you have these moments where you're like, man, this is hard.
You know, and it's like if you were, there's plenty of people who just sell, [00:59:00] you know, they, they, they, they have a dip in their, in their marriage and they just sell, like, they just, they just get out and they, they wanna move on. And so I just think like, this is, so basically the volatility of Bitcoin is due to a whole bunch of different factors.
And the response to volatility is not to to totally, you know, cash out and not do anything with it. It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, basically, it should force you to size in appropriately. And so the, and again, this is why I think chil children are a great example of this. Okay. So. If you're sitting there, imagine you're talking to your friend who's 35 years old and has no kids, and he goes, yeah, I, I don't, I just don't wanna have kids.
They're just so volatile. And you look at him and you go, bro. Like if you don't have kids and deal with their volatility in the beginning, you're never gonna get the benefit of what kids turn into when they're less volatile. Like, this is just you, you have to do this. And so I think the, the same thing both in my own experience and just logically like this, is this is how you think about Bitcoin.
Like Bitcoin is currently only owned by, I think less than 1% of the [01:00:00] world, less than a quarter of 1% of global wealth is in Bitcoin. And so, and yet ev everyone who has internet, which I think is like 60% of the world, has the ability to, to use it and is incentivized to understand it so that they can't be robbed by their governments in, in the banking system.
So like, again, all of the things, Bitcoin's been growing exponentially for 16 years. There's all these things where, you know, the adoption and that, that was even before you had things like, uh, the government talking about establishing a strategic Bitcoin reserve, which is just would've sounded like a, you know, Bitcoin or Fever Dream three years ago.
Um, but like these are things where. Again, if you look at, if you look at how networks work, uh, you know, the, there's the network effects. You know, when, when you reach a certain critical mass or something like Facebook or something, all these kind of networks, once they reach a certain point, it's like there's like a runaway train.
And Bitcoin is at this point where there's millions of people who are using this thing and they're just continuing to, like, the, the case for Bitcoin just gets stronger with every day that goes by. Um, and so yes, there's going to be [01:01:00] volatility because you have people who've been holding Bitcoin in some cases.
You know, you have people who've been holding Bitcoin since it was a penny. And so, so these guys are getting, I mean, a lot of these guys are in their fifties now, and they're sitting there like. I'm a billionaire, and so I'm gonna go dump 10,000 of my Bitcoin because I, I want to enjoy my money between, I, I wanna enjoy, like, money doesn't just exist for its own benefit.
It exists for, you know, to, to get us things that we want and need. And so it, like you have these periodic sell-offs where people have held, held Bitcoin for a certain period of time where they've reached, reaped a huge benefit of it. And so, again, this is not a bad thing. Like this is, this is a totally normal thing that happens in all markets.
Uh, and, and so I just think like volatility is the price of life. Okay? If you want something, if you wanna avoid, all volatility will then go die, right? Because then that, then you'll, then you're protected from volatility. But like, volatility is a sign and symptom of life. Uh, and so again, the fact that Bitcoin every, you know, every few years, like [01:02:00] it has these downturns and then again, just because of, you know, just the way that things work, it comes back to life because the incentives are still there.
Um. This is just how this works. It happens with Bitcoin, it's happened with a whole bunch of other things. Uh, and so you need to be in things for the long haul. You like, this is, I am, I'm allergic to, to a fault. I'm allergic to buying things because I think I can make money short term. Like I'm not a, I don't own tons of stocks.
I don't own tons of these things because I don't wanna buy something unless I actually believe in it. I don't wanna breathe life into something if I don't actually believe in it. Um, and so this is how I think about, I think about Bitcoin. Um, I guess the last, the last thing I would add on that is when I, when I, to try to help people think about this, I'm like, okay, imagine, imagine the aliens came down and they, a, they saw you eating in orange, and they're like, what is that?
And you're like, oh, this is an orange. And they're like, well, well, what is it? And then where did it come from? And you go, well, I had these seeds and I stuck them in the ground, and I sprinkled some water on them, and I just let the sun just kind of [01:03:00] shine on them. And then over time, the seed grows into a tree, which produces thousands of these, of these oranges.
And the Ian goes, wait, what? He's like, that's like magic. That's incredible. And you're like, well, yeah. I mean, it is kind of like magic. It is pretty amazing. Right? And so he goes, well, so then what happens? You know, they, they grow and then you, you get 'em off and you eat 'em, and then what happens? And he go, well, yeah.
And then all the trees die for about three or four months, you know, three months. And he goes, wait, wait, what do you mean they die? And he goes, yeah, yeah, no, they die. And, and he goes, well, well, how do you know they're gonna come back? And you go, well, you know, I, I, there's not some contract that I've signed with these trees that they're gonna come back.
But that's just the nature of, of how this works. And, and sometimes they don't. Sometimes the trees die. Uh, but in the vast majority of cases, this, there's a seasonality here that is totally predictable, understandable. And I would argue the same exact thing happens with Bitcoin. There's predictable cycles because of, you know, the cycles you can predict based on how long somebody's been in and they sell off, and there's more people understanding it.
So they're getting into it for the first time. Um, and again, [01:04:00] all of these things, this, this is totally normal, totally cyclical. Um, Bitcoin is just par for the course along with many other things that we just, many of the other volatilities that we take for granted, uh, that exist in areas like our food system or like our growth cycles of our kids, or any one of a number of other things.
Nathan: I guess, uh, if you have a little bit more time to
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yeah.
Nathan: to, I was gonna the mic to Eli if he's here.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Go Eli.
Nathan: we're facing is he's 16
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Mm-hmm.
Nathan: and with the Cash app, he could get a custodial account. He can't send and receive, I think once he buys.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Okay. Yep.
Nathan: one of the things that I've done on his behalf is just buy for him
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Boom. Let's go.
Nathan: hold it in somebody in, in custodial or whatever.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yep.
Nathan: he's, he's sold some of his stuff to get his car, you know, he,
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Cool. Let's go.
Nathan: car, so he had it. Um, you know, and I, one particular moment for me with, as a father is like, we, we watched live it [01:05:00] break a hundred thousand,
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yep.
Nathan: and, and just like had that moment, father and son, and, and he's been hollering out Bitcoin prices to me across the house for the last, you
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Oh,
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): don't do that, Eli.
Nathan: As we're tracking. And it, it's, it's, it's fun though. And I know my wife's like, you guys are nerds, but I'm glad you're nerds, you know,
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yep.
Nathan: um, so yeah, I just want to give him maybe the mic if he's there and just some him ask some questions about it too and how how he can, can, can in this or some specific ways as we're trying to teach our children
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yep,
Nathan: manage it themselves.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): let's go.
Elijah: everything you said. Up to
Elijah: all great stuff. Um, but like, I'm just kind of wondering what are the best and safest ways for me to, as a miner to buy and store Bitcoin? Because most of these things I've signed up for and you get part of the way through and then even like, it'll just [01:06:00] say you have to be 18 to buy and exchange it.
And so far what I'm doing is, like he said, the cash app, custodial account, but that has a cap that's not super high. And even then, like very removed. Like it's not really mine, it's just looks like it's mine basically. So,
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yep. Yep. Yeah, the thing, so what, in your case, what you're, what you're gonna look for, you want a non-custodial wallet? Okay. So basically there's the phrase, have you heard the phrase, not your keys, not your coins. So that's basically okay. So basically what it is it, so whoever, whoever's controls the, either the 12 or the 24 word seed phrase, they're the ones who actually hold the Bitcoin.
So when you have your money on something like Cash App or like Coinbase or any one of these platforms, like when you hold your money with them, you're actually entrusting your money with them and you're entrusting that because they're scared of paying fines or scared of going to jail, or scared of losing their business because they're, [01:07:00] you know, if they would rip people off that they're not gonna rip you off.
Uh, and that's a pretty safe set of assumptions and, and, uh, incentive structure that's set up. But in, in your case, if you're sitting there like, Hey, I just really want to have the Bitcoin under my control, um, you want a self custodial wallet that allows you to be the one who controls those keys. And so there's a, there's a variety of of ways you can do this.
There's, there's, um, there's something called like, uh, hardware wallets. Or signing devices is what they are. Uh, and so there, there's something called like the cold card, which that, so these are varying levels of complexity and cost. And the bigger the cost and complexity, the more you want to treat it, like, uh, your long-term savings.
Okay? So like a cold card for example, is like this, it's like a physical device kind, looks like a calculator. Um, and I think those range anywhere from like probably 200 bucks to 400 bucks depending on how they work. And so you don't wanna be, you don't wanna buy one of those just to tool around and you know, like make, send 25 bucks to your buddy or something like that.
But if you're gonna be [01:08:00] storing. Thousands of dollars that you're hoping to use to buy a house someday or something like that, then like that would be something where it would make sense to use. Um, the, the more, probably this is brought kind of more the sweet spot of what you're looking at or look what you're looking for.
There are, there are applications, uh, they're called Hot wallets. Uh, there's something called, there's a, there's one called Blue Wallet, which is the one I recommend. Super easy to use. Um, but it allows you to custody your own keys and so you can transfer your Bitcoin from Cash app or from, you know, whatever your platform you're using.
You can transfer, transfer it from there to Blue Wallet. And then you have your keys. You're totally in control. There's nobody to, to, you know, to take nobody. You don't need to ask permission from anybody. And those are not KY ced, which is the process that you're looking at. So, KYC laws are know your customer laws.
Uh, they're nominally designed to protect us from terrorism and from all these kind of things. Really what they do is they prevent normal people from getting access to their money while allowing, uh, money [01:09:00] laundering for, I mean, like Jeffrey Epstein, JP Morgan, banked Jeff, Jeffrey Epstein. They knew everything he was up to.
They hit it all because they were making millions of dollars in banking fees. The, these effective, these, these laws are worthless. They don't actually stop the type of thing that they're stated, uh, to do, and they make lives more difficult for normal people like us. So. Blue Wallet is an example of a non-custodial wallet.
You don't need to ask permission and you can just download it on your phone. Uh, set it up takes just a few minutes, and then what you wanna do is when you have your those, um, what you wanna do is when you get those 12 or 24 seed words, you want to, you want to put them in a safe place pro, ideally a couple safe places.
Um, and just you wanna protect those words because those words are effectively your access to Bitcoin. If you lose those 12 words and you have a self custody wallet, there's no calvary to come and help you. So what you can do, uh, there's a number of different devices that can help you store your, your seed, uh, words.
So what basically the cheapest [01:10:00] way that people do is they take those 12 or 24 words and they, they look at them. And then basically you can take like a, like a dye set where it's got like letters. Uh, and you can take like a washer, take like a, a long bolt in a set of washers and you can stamp. The, you know, the whatever, the four or five letters in each one of these words or the, or the first three letters of each word or whatever on these little washers in a way that, like, you do that for each word.
You, you know, put the washers together, you throw 'em in a fireproof safe. And then even if your house burns down, even if your're fireproof safe, like there's stamped on there in steel. And so there's no way for, for you to lose access, um, to them. So there's other, there's other cooler, um, I'll show you this one.
So this one is called, uh, a Medullo Modello. This thing is, this thing probably weighs seven, eight pounds, if not more. Um, it's like machine steel. And what this guy does, this is, this is, if you're super into programming and stuff, he made this, um, come on. He made this [01:11:00] thing. And so what it has. It's got like the, it allows you, you can unscrew this thing and then each one of these little dunno if you can see this, each one of these little things represents the binary code.
And so you can basically put, put, put your wallet on here or put your seed words onto here. And then again, you could have World War four and this thing's gonna be fine. You can have a nuclear bomb and this thing's gonna be fine. Um, and so there, there's all kinds of, this is like a super technical one, but like, there's all kinds of ones like this that are just designed to make it easier for you to, to handle your seed, uh, your seed phrase to keep it, prevent it from being able to be stolen, keep it from being able to be, you know, burn up in a fire or anyone of a number of other things.
Um, so that, that'd be probably blue wall would be what I would recommend. It's kind of the, the happy medium of what you're looking for. Um, that's, I use it, it's great. Um, yeah, I can't recommend it enough. So.
Nathan: My guess Eli, is that you're gonna have to send your Bitcoin to me and we're gonna have to help you set up multiple, [01:12:00] we'll set up multiple blue wallets, that one that's technically yours. 'cause you probably can't set it up and send it with Cash app. You probably have to let your dad help you with that.
If it's like that, hop from him.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yep.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yep. Yeah, that, that's probably being what you're gonna have to do. And it's probably gonna take you a little bit of time to do it if there's a cap on how much you can send and stuff like that. Um, the other thing, okay, now this is the other thing that I would really recommend, and especially as like a, uh, for Christians and for a whole number of reasons.
So, so Bitcoin is an open monetary network, okay? So there are, it's like every transaction that's ever taken place in the Bitcoin network is, is public. It's like a public ledger. You can go on there and see it. Now again, it doesn't have your name attached or anything like that, but if you know what you're looking for and depending on where your Bitcoin originated, uh, you know where you purchased it from, there might be a, a trail attaching your name to this amount of Bitcoin.
The exception is if you buy Bitcoin directly from a Bitcoin miner.
Elijah: So there's all kinds
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): That doesn't require any [01:13:00] KYC, that doesn't require any, any knowledge that you know, that any, any paper trail to you. And so there's all kinds of reasons that you might want to do that. Now, buying bitcoin from a miner usually comes at a premium.
Usually pay like anywhere from two to two to 5% more. Um, but depending on why you're doing it, it could be very, very worth it to you. So one example, I've got a buddy whose, uh, church is starting to mine Bitcoin with solar panels that are put on their, on their roof. And so one of the reasons why they're gonna be, why they want to mine Bitcoin is because the mined Bitcoin, it doesn't have any paper trail attached when, when you mine it.
And they can use that and send that to churches in the, in the Middle East or around the world without it having any way to be traced to the United States to, you know, quote unquote Christian countries or what or whatever. Um, and so. Again, that's something, another thing I would recommend is, and I can connect you to people who, you know, who pe to miners who, you know, are constantly looking to, to sell SATs and, you know, sell [01:14:00] Bitcoin to people.
Um, but that'd be another thing, like if you wanna have like a, you know, if you wanna have, let's say, you know, 30% of your stack be non KYC Bitcoin that you bought from a Bitcoin miner that doesn't have any paper trail, or if you wanna buy all of it, or if you wanna buy, you know, whatever you can, you can kind of decide what you want to do to give yourself more privacy, more anonymity, uh, than you might otherwise.
Nathan: And what is, uh, just from a social, uh, decorum, if you
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yeah.
Nathan: if you don't podcast with Jordan Bush, what's the generally the. Like amount that a Bitcoin miner is gonna want to even talk about or whatever. 'cause I would imagine that it's, you don't want to be that guy that's like, Hey, I'm looking for five bucks,
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yeah, no, yeah, you don't wanna do that.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Don't wanna do that. I think I, I'm, I'm trying to remember the, I've, I've purchased, so there's a number of different ways so you can go, okay, so you can buy directly from miners. If you're gonna go that route, it's probably gonna, I would imagine no less than like 500 bucks.
Um, so again, it doesn't have to be thousands, but I would imagine no less [01:15:00] than 500 bucks. Um, the other way, the other way to do this, so there's a company, there's a company called, um, AZ teco. So it's like A-Z-T-C-O, I think it's like a abbreviated thing, but what they, what they do is they sell Bitcoin vouchers.
Okay? So you're not, you're not buying, so you, there's no KYC involved because you're not actually buying Bitcoin, you're buying a voucher. That's like a Bitcoin gift card. And so in the same way that you don't have to show your ID to get gift cards E Exactly, exactly. And so what you do is you buy the voucher and then you redeem the, there's like a QR code on, on the voucher.
You just scan the QR code with your wallet, and then you get access to the Bitcoin with no paper trail to you. So though, that's another way that you can do this. Um, and you can buy significantly smaller amounts, uh, with that. So you could probably do as, probably as little as, I would imagine, 50 or a hundred bucks.
Uh, but again, you're gonna spend, I think their, I think their fees are around 5%. Um, so different, different, there's just all kinds of different [01:16:00] possibilities based on your, your threat models, based on your desires and all kinds of things. So,
Nathan: Yeah, I guess I would say too, what is the, custodial side of that, the fees are obviously
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): yep.
Nathan: they keep you from day trading, small amounts or
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yep.
Nathan: Like how, what's the way that methodology that you approach the,
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yeah.
Nathan: side and the research? 'cause
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yeah.
Nathan: equated also to going broke, trying to save money,
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yeah. Yeah. So trading, I don't do trading. Uh, I know people who trade and who do it well, but like I just know way more people who've gotten absolutely wrecked by trading. So I, I don't, I just, again, treat it like long-term savings. I just buy and, and hold, and then when I need to sell some, for some, you know, some purchase that we need to make.
I, I sell some and I don't think twice about it. Like, I, I'm grateful that I, you know, have, have this and, and it's good. Um, in terms of the fees, again, my, my. My, my attitude towards a lot of these kind of things has changed dramatically because I, I think one of the things that we've gotten psyop into, uh, is just valuing free [01:17:00] services because it, again, it's nice, it feels good to get something for free.
It feels good to get Gmail for free. The problem is if something is free, you're the product. Google is selling your information down the river to people. And so I, I just don't wanna be anybody's product. So I've ceased to use, I, I use, uh, I pay for my email. I pay for as many things as I, as I can, um, so that I, to avoid giving away my data.
Um, our, our web store, I don't, I don't use plugins that'll, that force me to give away my customer data. I, I don't wanna deal with that. And so when it comes to fees, I'm actually happy to, to pay fees to the different, the businesses where I buy Bitcoin from. Um, if I'm, if I'm not. If I'm buying Bitcoin from a KYC location because I'm, you know, again, from, by and large, especially given the way things are going, I'm not super concerned about it at this point.
Um, I, I buy my Bitcoin from a company called river.com, uh, that only sells Bitcoin. They don't sell any of the other alt coins. And what that means in the short term is that they're turning down millions and [01:18:00] millions and millions of dollars in fees that they could be making by selling all these other cryptocurrencies in, in favor of only selling the thing that they really believe is the only thing that's actually gonna matter.
So with them, I pay a, it's like around a 1% fee and you can even get it cheaper than that if you do, if you sign up for like a, a monthly DC, a daily cost average or something like that. Um, but in that case, I'm happy to pay them 1% 'cause they're doing,
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): know, exemplary work. They're actually providing value to me.
And so I'm happy to, to compensate them for that. Um, so again, it just depends. There's ways where you can get it down, where you pay no fees. There's ways where you can pay more fees. Um, you know, there's other trade-offs. And so again, it just comes with the trade-offs. You know, what, what are you looking for and what are you, what value?
Nathan: I think all that's super helpful and I think we've officially got everybody else to stop listening. That's not really bought in, which
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): let's go.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): fine. That's right. Turn 'em all off. Let's go.
Nathan: if you, if you don't like this, go ahead and unfollow 'cause I prepare to get worse, you know?
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): If you, if we listen, and this is how I think about Nathan. [01:19:00] If you have more than 30 followers, you're compromised. Right? That's how I treat it. Like, if you have any more than 30 podcast listeners, you're doing something wrong.
Nathan: I told my pastor, I'm like, we're getting kind of big on Sunday. You need to preach on the patriarchy. And uh, and uh, he actually did Sunday, so I
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Let's go.
Nathan: I'm like, Hey, you're, uh, you're listening to my, uh, my church shrinking strategy. I'm a, I appreciate it.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Did you speak of that? Did you see the text I sent you right before we got on?
Nathan: I did. That's epic.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Bro, rich, rich Lusk recorded, uh, recorded a podcast with another guy, and then Tucker Carlson, the three of them in a room. Sign me up. I'm in.
Nathan: Yeah. And it looks like it's a, he was the guest.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yeah, I think Tucker was the guest.
Nathan: also, Yeah. Tucker, it, it's, it's, this is the thing about it is this, like we talked about on your podcast, like, this is the greatest time to be alive.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yep,
Nathan: have a media director for Theopolis
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): yep,
Nathan: something like that kind of real time you know, and that they're praying [01:20:00] and like, just, man.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): yep.
Nathan: it, the nobody can stop it. The more that they try to crush the church, the more it's gonna grow.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yep.
Nathan: Like, it's just, it's not gonna stop.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yeah. And it's, again, it's, it's, it's easy to think that, oh man, the greatest time to have been alive would've been like when Jesus was alive. Like, that would've been pretty sweet. Or the greatest time to be alive as an American would be like 1776. Like, how sweet would that have been? And then just like thinking about it, like, listen, the battles look different, at least right now.
But like, there's, there's still battles to be fought and there's, you know, there's opportunities for faithfulness and opportunities for cowardice. And, and so again, we're just out here, you know, we just, we ought to be out here just asking the Lord to help us to be faithful and, you know, to, to look for opportunities to advance the ball down the field.
Nathan: Well go ahead and, uh, let people, what's best way to
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): yep. Sure.
Nathan: with your philosophy and
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yep.
Nathan: you, um, in what you're doing?
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yep. Yeah. [01:21:00] So again, we're gonna be going nonprofit at the end of the year. Um, and so we're gonna be, have more information, uh, about where you can do that. But, um, you can follow me on Twitter. My handle is right there by my name at JM Bush writes. Um, then you can find out more about [email protected].
We've got links to our podcasts and links to a whole bunch of other stuff, including, uh, our, the various books that we've written. So I've got over this corner was the first book we wrote called Thank Out for Bitcoin. Uh, we're getting ready to release a second edition of that within the next two or three weeks.
Um, I wrote another book that's even, listen, if you thought a a, a book for Christians explaining the value of Bitcoin was niche. Boy, do we have another one for you over here, which is, this is basically mere Christianity, but for Bitcoiners, like explaining the gospel to Christians, uh, using, uh, money in, in Bitcoin.
Um, so that's another one I wrote with a buddy of mine. And then the thing that I'm most excited about is with, I don't have a copy of it yet, uh, but we have this kid's book that we wrote called The Orange Umbrella that doesn't explicitly mention Bitcoin. Uh, but that's just a [01:22:00] good, good kid story that kind of talks about, you know, the way that money works and compares it to umbrellas.
So that actually goes to the printer, uh, went to the printer this morning and we should have a few copies and have them, uh, able to be sold in about two weeks. Um, so that's already for sale. Self-published? Yep, self-published. Um, we're looking to get bigger distribution through like, uh, books A Million and some, you know, other, uh, bookstores that we're working on that.
But um, but yeah, you can pre-order that.
Nathan: have some, some, uh, past book
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yes, e exactly. And then.
Nathan: the Pope and stuff.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Exactly. And then, and we just have, there's people who are connected to us who have way bigger followings than I'll ever dream of having. So we've got a couple guys who have like 350 or 400,000 followers and another guy who was like 500, 500,000.
So, so just like leveraging those and um, yeah, so you can go, you can go pre-order those on our website. Um, we, we did basically it's the whole illustrated book. The whole thing rhymes. I wrote all the, the, the text, um, all the words and then how to actually, do you know Joshua Hames?[01:23:00]
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Yep. So Joshua's sister, Caris
Nathan: provocateur number one in the, uh, reformation world. Uh,
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Correct? Yep.
Nathan: I guess a non boomer provocateur. We got a,
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Correct.
Nathan: at Doug Wilson level yet.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): He's, he's not yet, but he's, he's going strong. But it's Josh's sister. Caris is the one who illustrated our book for, she did a fantastic job.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): Um, so yeah, so those are, those are available to pre-order on our website. And, um, so yeah, so we ended up, did, we did the color, it's a illustrated book.
And then, because we had all these, these illustrations, I was like, Hey, we should just do a coloring book too. And so we, we published a coloring book, like Work Twice Sell or Work Once, sell twice. Like let's, let's do this. So we've got a, a full, full book coloring book, 50 pages that we're gonna sell, uh, in collaboration with that.
So you can go, go pre-order that today, tgb.com
Nathan: All right. I'm gonna, I'm gonna pre-order it today before we, uh, before I go to bed, make sure I do that. Eli, thank you so much and looking forward to [01:24:00] continuing to build the kingdom where God has us together, man.
Jordan Bush (@jmbushwrites): a hundred percent. Man. We'd love to chat. We'd love to chat more. This won't be the last. And Eli, if you have other questions, man, hit me up. Happy to, happy to help.