[00:03:23] Rod Roudi: And then we moved to a more topic focused meetup, which was kind of like in the, in between of a social meetup and a BitDevs. Where I think it was October, and I purposely did this because I knew the Bitcoin magazine guys were doing a, a quarterly offsite. So I knew a lot of people were going to be in town.

[00:03:41] Rod Roudi: And I actually, there was another like, freedom festival. Anyways, the Stephan Livera was in town and then Matt Odell was in town. And I was like, Hey guys, why don’t you guys join me for a panel and let’s talk about Bitcoin? And they’re like, yeah, sure. We jammed on it and then we had like maybe a hundred people show up for that.

[00:03:57] Rod Roudi: Wow. So 200, which was kind of impressive. And then next thing you know, this thing snowballed and every month since we’ve been having a different topic focused Bitcoin topic each month, and I think it’s been pretty special. I’ll say that.

[00:04:12] Preston Pysh: No doubt. So talk to us about the leap. I mean, this is like, so we’re talking about a hundred people, you’re on park benches and like doing this kind of just ad hoc to, I mean, really going all out and, and really kind of talk about the facility Rod because for people-

[00:04:29] Rod Roudi: Maybe I’ll tell you a couple stories that’ll lead up to this, which is pretty fun.

[00:04:32] Preston Pysh: Please do, please do.

[00:04:34] Rod Roudi: So Jackalope Brewery, shout out to Steve, the owner and their entire team. They were so kind. This was, you know, during Covid, you know, looking for a dedicated space such that we can host people. And this is out of our own, you know, out-of-pocket expenses. And this is a, a pro tip for any meetup organizers out there.

[00:04:52] Rod Roudi: Get your cost to zero because then it’ll be a burden on yourself. So Steve was kind enough to give us a dedicated space in Jackalope on Wednesday nights, and I was like, Hey, what’s your least traffic night? And he is like, oh, Wednesday nights. I’m like, done. We’ll do Wednesday nights and we’ll do the second Wednesday of every month.

[00:05:09] Rod Roudi: We had our own space. They actually had a projector and, and so on. They had AV equipment and they gave us a, a bartender, no minimum no anything. I just said, Hey, we’ll bring people there. Next thing you know, people start showing up buying beers, and we drove revenue to the the establishment. But more importantly, people started traveling to Nashville for these meetups, which was really cool to see.

[00:05:32] Rod Roudi: We kind of outgrew the space. We outgrew the space, a number of people, and also what we wanted to do there, we wanted to make it as free and open as possible. One time, I think in December, mining was the topic, and it was December, I want to say 2021. Harry Sudock, Kevin Zang, I mean Econ Alchemist, Diverter, Colin Harper, list goes on. Max Gagliardi, Marty Bent, Matt. All these people came in town and it was like a mini mining summit. We had 250 plus people hanging off the stairwell and so on. I’m like, dang, we probably need a, a larger space. And also we need a space to do what we want to do. Then fast forward to, well, June, I want to say of 2022 or May in June of 2022, and we took the crazy leap, which I do not recommend unless you’re crazy and got our own dedicated space, which is now Bitcoin Park.

[00:06:27] Preston Pysh: Tell people about the space. This is unreal.

[00:06:31] Rod Roudi: Yeah. The space. The story behind the space. So there was a band, a country band, and they were breaking up, well, actually, let me back up for a second. My background, I was in tech for a number of years and did angel investing and then did some real estate, both residential as well as commercial.

[00:06:48] Rod Roudi: I like to simplify my life and identify like really top level people in each of these different disciplines, whether it’s legal, accounting and real estate, commercial and residential, and just work with them and they know exactly what I like and I know how they operate. One of the my friends now is my commercial broker, and I was like, Hey, here’s a unicorn idea and property that over the next few years I would love to look at.

[00:07:12] Rod Roudi: One, it needs to have its own bar. Two, it needs its own coworking space. Three, it needs its own event space. So I can host these meetups. Four, it needs areas or rooms to record podcasts and so on. And this is one of my good friends and he never sells me on anything, but he is like, Rod, I literally may have something for you.

[00:07:32] Rod Roudi: And it’s like off market. These guys are breaking up and they want to do something like very under the radar. And the next thing you know, in the heart of Hillsborough Village, which is walking distance to Vanderbilt and Belmont University. We have Bitcoin Park, which is these, and you know, and I really appreciate you pressing.

[00:07:49] Rod Roudi: I mean, you’ve been up so many times and supporting us and just participating, which is awesome. So I’m speaking of the choir, but they’re two dedicated buildings and they’re beautiful. They’re really well designed, classical, the furniture, everything stayed with the place, which is also kind of amazing as well.

[00:08:06] Rod Roudi: I actually don’t even like talking about it because I don’t do it justice until you experience it yourself.

[00:08:12] Preston Pysh: To include the Starbucks level coffee machine that was required that you take it upon receipt of the building, correct?

[00:08:21] Rod Roudi: Correct. And there’s a funny story with that. So we take over the place in June or May, June, and I forget what the price of Bitcoin was, but it was definitely higher than it was today, and we drop down to whatever it was, 15k.

[00:08:33] Rod Roudi: Somebody told me that espresso machine would fetch anywhere from 10 to 20,000. I was literally this close to be like, get it outta here. We’re selling that, we’re taking a Bitcoin, but there were so many members that each morning were making their own espressos and really appreciated the quality of the machine.

[00:08:50] Rod Roudi: I couldn’t pull the trigger and, and sell it, even though-

[00:08:54] Preston Pysh: Boy, that’s going to be a painful less than 10 years from now.

[00:08:57] Rod Roudi: It will. But I will say this, which is probably a not unpopular opinion. There’s going to be a lot of painful, oh, I, you know, spent, you know, 3000 SATs on buying stickers at the Lightning machine too.

[00:09:08] Rod Roudi: A number of these other things, I think using Bitcoin. Over time and finding joy will be better than any of those. Like, oh, I wish I just held it, if you will. So maybe it’s like a, a joy versus want.

[00:09:23] Preston Pysh: No doubt. Yeah, no doubt. Here’s the point that I, I want the listener to really kind of take away from this conversation, not just us kind of oozing over the, the Nashville location.

[00:09:34] Preston Pysh: This is really about education. This is really about how can you, in a cellular kind of way in your local community that maybe you love, just like Rod loves the Nashville area, take away this conversation to help educate your local domain where, where you love to be and the do’s and don’ts, the the importance of such a mission.

[00:10:01] Preston Pysh: How you can find fellow bitcoiners, things like that. So like when you look at that broader mission of what we’re trying to accomplish and educate people on, what are some of your top kind of takeaways from what you’ve learned doing this in style in Nashville, Tennessee.

[00:10:18] Rod Roudi: So it’s, I’ll say the TLDR, then I’ll go into a lot of detail. Yeah, the TLDR is, it’s very easy to do, very hard to be consistent and even harder to make it unique and excellent. And we’re still learning on those last two areas a lot and tinkering a number of different things. It’s easy to do in the sense that the tooling in the audience and the community’s support is there.

[00:10:39] Rod Roudi: You just got to do it, meaning, and don’t over-engineer it. Don’t think like the end product is a Bitcoin park or a Bitcoin commons, or a pub key, or a Redding Bitcoin Center or any of these other third spaces. It could be just you and your friend sitting at a bar. With, you know, less noise around you, bothering you and just enjoying a beer and talking about Bitcoin and the latest developments in the Bitcoin space, whether it’s on the economics and incentive side, on the technical side, whatever your specific passion around Bitcoin, follow that and then, create a meetup page.

[00:11:14] Rod Roudi: Still we need to like use meetup. It’s kinda like YouTube and so on. They just have the distribution. Then go from there and then, you know, tag me. We have a telegram channel with almost 200 Bitcoin meetup organizers and supporters. I’ll say the hidden sauce, especially for Mills, Matt, and now Harry, who’s joined us.

[00:11:33] Rod Roudi: Is there’s a small group of just dedicated Bitcoiners that just want to help in your community. We have an unbelievable one in Nashville. I can just go down the list of folks that have just been there to help set up the AV, to help take out the trash, to help clean up after folks. Although I will say Nashville’s a little different.

[00:11:53] Rod Roudi: Everyone cleans up after themselves, which is just awesome and just starting. And you’ll be surprised by the number of people that. You know, come outta the woodworks, like a Preston pitch that you’ll meet in the courtyard and have a beer with until 11 o’clock at night and be like, wait, you’re that guy on that investor’s podcast, right?

[00:12:12] Rod Roudi: What are you doing here in Nashville, Tennessee, Rod?

[00:12:16] Preston Pysh: So as you look at your mission and what you guys are really trying to accomplish there. Walk people through just so they can kind of get a feel of how you’ve laid it out and what you’re trying to like, maybe short term and then long term objectives with the park.

[00:12:31] Rod Roudi: So simply Bitcoin Park is a community supported campus here in Nashville, Tennessee, and we’re focused on grassroots Bitcoin adoption and a home for Bitcoiners to work, learn, collaborate, and build. I think I have an a somewhat unpopular take and the, and I’m nuanced in the wording of this, which is hyper Bitcoin ization versus grassroots Bitcoin adoption where yes, hyper Bitcoin is great and it could happen, but I.

[00:12:56] Rod Roudi: You know, I’m a big compounding interest guy and a compounding of my time and reputation and capital. I think with grassroots or grassroots Bitcoin initiatives in your local community, that’s the best thing you can do in terms of fostering education amongst your local community. Because yes, number go up and Bitcoin, all the economic properties, but you also want to support your local community and educate them because that’s where you’re raising your family.

[00:13:22] Rod Roudi: That’s where you’re putting your roots and hopefully looking out 10, 20, 30 years. I know my wife looks at me like, perplexed a lot of times. But one time in particular, I was like looking at one of our kids and I was just staring at her and I was like, I can’t wait to give your toast at your wedding.

[00:13:37] Rod Roudi: She’s like, she’s three years old. What are you talking about? And that gives you a sense of my low time preference of how I’m thinking about these things. And so, similar in that vein with Bitcoin Park, we, we do a number of things that are just completely different. We we max have about 200, 250 people that can attend ’cause of the limited space.

[00:13:56] Rod Roudi: We have a no social media, no photos, policy, where in this day and age and no knock, it’s just differentiates ourselves so that we can have. More intimate conversations and deeper conversations, which I think are, and more importantly, in real life, which are lacking in general. So, long story short, I think you can start within your community in a number of different ways.

[00:14:19] Preston Pysh: So I was up, this was probably, I don’t know, six months ago with my family and we were just kind of sightseeing around Nashville and one of the big sites to go see is this Parthenon. And yes, I said Parthenon for people that aren’t intimately familiar with Nashville. So back in 1897, There was like this fair that was happening in the Nashville area and there was this major called his name was Eugene Lewis, who really kind of doubled down on this idea that, that Nashville was branding itself as the Athens of the South.

[00:14:57] Preston Pysh: And so this major was like, we need to literally build a full scale Parthenon in Nashville. And so they did. They built this thing, you know, over a hundred years ago. I was reading when I was up there visiting. We, we visited it as a family. I was reading about this major who brought it there, and this idea that Nashville was, they were branding it as the Athens of the South.

[00:15:21] Preston Pysh: And later that weekend I was over at Bitcoin Park and I’m talking to Rod and he says this phrase, him and Matt are standing there and you guys go, yeah, we, we want to brand Nashville as Sovereign Valley instead of like Silicon Valley. And it was just too coincidental for me as I was literally touring this Parthenon the day before and then branding Athens of the South.

[00:15:44] Preston Pysh: And then you and Matt are standing there saying, yeah, Nashville’s going to be Sovereign Valley. So for people that aren’t intimately familiar with what you’re doing there, you are truly making this happen with this brand. And where I see it most, rod, is you’re actively involved in the political environment in Tennessee, in Nashville.

[00:16:05] Preston Pysh: I mean, I’ve gone over there and I’ve seen literally senators, us federal senators walking around the park, and I’ve heard from the governor’s office that they’re involved and that they’re going over to meetups and you’re just acting on this idea of Nashville being Sovereign Valley. There’s a question where I’m going with this.

[00:16:26] Preston Pysh: A lot of Bitcoiners, they don’t even like the idea of interacting with politicians. They’re like, well, Bitcoin’s going to be successful no matter what. And I think you see it differently. I know. I see it differently than that opinion, and I won’t say my reason why, but I’m going to ask you why. Why do you engage in the politics when you and I both know Bitcoin doesn’t need the politicians.

[00:16:48] Preston Pysh: It’s going to be successful in the long run one way or the other. But why? Why would you engage in politics like that?

[00:16:55] Rod Roudi: So you said the word active. I wouldn’t say I, I just slight reframe. I would not say I’m active, but more reactive and now I am. Yes, correct. Engaging a little bit, even clicking up a little bit.

[00:17:06] Rod Roudi: I, I think we’ve been fortunate to welcome all sorts of people to the park and that makes it super special. Going back to that meetup back in August of 2021. We had yeah, like grandparents. Even after that, grandparents, high school students, one high school student, now he’s at Vanderbilt, would take two buses when his parents were outta town just to come to the meetup and he’d bring his math books in front row and he just, I was like, I’m investing in you, by the way.

[00:17:31] Rod Roudi: Stay close to me and I won’t docx him, but I’m definitely going to be investing in that kid. We had a number of different types of people. It, there was no. Make and model of a Bitcoin. In, especially in Nashville, Tennessee. There’s no sub mining in, I mean, although now mining is very prevalent here, don’t get me wrong, but there’s no, oh, there’s, it’s tech focused.

[00:17:50] Rod Roudi: It’s this focused, we’re just Bitcoin focused here in Nashville. Yeah. And at first, I’ll be honest, you know, when the, a number of these teams would come and engage us or try to engage us, I just, I didn’t know what to talk to them about, so I just politely declined and very, very fortunate and a huge shout out to the Bitcoin Policy Institute.

[00:18:08] Rod Roudi: Grant, David and Steven who work out at Bitcoin Park, at first I mentioned a couple of these meetings and they’re like, please take these meetings. Let’s jam with these folks. So I just bring them along and, and then they’ve been great to follow up and engage with these folks. I guess my long story here is it’s not proactive.

[00:18:25] Rod Roudi: It’s more reactive in the sense that what’s the end game? The end game is to drive even greater local Bitcoin adoption and then hopefully influence some policy makers who carry a lot of weight, fortunately or unfortunately around educating them on Bitcoin and the values around freedom, censorship resistant and permissionless freedom money, and I think we’ve done an okay job.

[00:18:49] Rod Roudi: I think there’s still a lot of room to go, but I will say, on the legislation side, one of the areas that I’m really interested in is driving Bitcoin entrepreneurship here in Tennessee in general as well as, specifically in Nashville, you know, 10 31 doubling down in Nashville, other Bitcoin investors doubling down here in Nashville, other Bitcoin entrepreneurs moving from wherever they are to Nashville, Tennessee.

[00:19:15] Rod Roudi: That’s just going to compound and attract even more talent, more developer talent. We’re doing even more things like in the open source community. Big shout out to Steve Myers. We have Matthew Ramsden, who just recently quit his job and got a grant from Spiral working out of the park. I mean, Preston, like, I have goosebumps talking about this kind of stuff because it’s like an honor and a privilege to like host these folks and be a, a vessel for them to build and create, collaborate and learn here in Nashville.

[00:19:43] Rod Roudi: And the best is yet to come.

[00:19:46] Preston Pysh: Rod, this is what I think is the essence knowing you, right? Having gotten to know you. This is the essence to your response. You love Nashville, you love that area. You don’t want to leave that area correct. You want to make sure that the people around you that are in your vicinity get it right, and that’s why you’re involved in that way.

[00:20:07] Preston Pysh: And the only way to actually involve yourself is through education. You don’t care if it’s Republican, democrat, or whoever. You just want to make sure that they actually understand what the hell they’re talking about when they talk about Bitcoin. And all these ancillary alt coins that are a disaster and that they actually understand what they are, right?

[00:20:28] Preston Pysh: Like that’s why you’re involved is because you don’t want it to go to some other jurisdiction or domain. You want it to be in your domain where you want to live, and-

[00:20:37] Rod Roudi: 100%

[00:20:38] Preston Pysh: Right, like that’s it. And so I, I guess I get a little frustrated with folks, and I think what it does is it actually speaks more to maybe their dissatisfaction with where they actually live than anything else.

[00:20:51] Rod Roudi: Yeah, a hundred percent. And, and I’ll say this, one of these well-known politicians, you know, said to me, I want to be on the right side of history here, so I want to do the work to learn about this. And I was like, you and me, both my friends, you and me both. I’m putting my time, capital, and reputation all in on this Bitcoin, the capital B, the monetary network, and Bitcoin, the lowercase B, the reserve asset.

[00:21:12] Rod Roudi: I think Bitcoin, the capital B monetary network, is going to serve as the money protocol for 8 billion people across the globe. I think Bitcoin, the lowercase B in one sentence, it preserves my future purchasing power better than any other investible asset ever created and a story. So with those two, as I’ll say constants or knowns, how do we go and build from there?

[00:21:34] Rod Roudi: Well, it’s, we’re around, recruiting developers, recruiting entrepreneurs, recruiting users, recruiting all these people, and then what’s the common denominator amongst all that? It’s education, you know, and education is, in my opinion, is by doing. And so here at the park, you know, we accept Bitcoin. So it’s one of the coolest things when you know, some of these folks that are whatever, back in 2013 or even 2017, when they’re like, can you buy a cup of coffee with Bitcoin?

[00:21:59] Rod Roudi: Well, when you come to Bitcoin Park, I’ll buy the cup of coffee for you with Bitcoin. And they see their eyes light up. And then I’ll like point over to the lightning vending machine and I’m like, hey, would you like to buy a sticker? And they’re like, zap you know, well not zap, but use lightning and buy a sticker.

[00:22:14] Rod Roudi: And they’re like, what? What? Where am I? And I’m like, Disneyland for Bitcoin. That’s where you are, dude. It is better than that.

[00:22:19] Preston Pysh: So when I was up there, you have this video game that’s set up what’s the name of the one that’s like the snake where it’s like going after the, it’s like this old, oh, chain dual.

[00:22:27] Preston Pysh: That’s another cool game. So there’s this game chain dual like. Full arcade style there at the park. And I was there I was playing with Mags and so Mags is like, Preston, you want to play this? I was like, yeah, how do I play? We basically put, I don’t know what it was, like a thousand SATs on deposit, 10,000 SATs on deposit on each of our sides of the, she was player one.

[00:22:48] Preston Pysh: I was player two. We both load the thousand SATs into the game. We play the game, I won, of course, and at the end there’s a QR code that pops up. And it’s like, claim your, your SATs, which, you know, if we, I don’t remember what we loaded into it, but let’s just say it was a thousand each. There was like 1,900 SATs that I could collect after the game was over.

[00:23:11] Preston Pysh: So I just pull out my Bitcoin wallet, I scan the game and I got 1900 SATs on my phone. The other a hundred SATs, some of went to Bitcoin park and some of them went to the developer of the dang game.

[00:23:23] Rod Roudi: How awesome is that?

[00:23:24] Preston Pysh: It’s unreal, and it was a blast. Like we’re, we’re competitively playing against each other.

[00:23:29] Preston Pysh: You get paid, the developer gets paid and the winner of the game gets paid. And I’m just like, looking at this, I’m like, there’s something big happening here. Like, this is just wild. For people to be able to experience some of these things that you have on display there, just it’s, it’s wild.

[00:23:44] Rod Roudi: Yeah, even another one.

[00:23:46] Rod Roudi: So we, we hosted the Lightning Summit here in July and thanks again for coming up. And we wanted to bring Lightning to life and a huge shout out to George Vaccaro. He created from scratch. A Bitcoin park kiosk arcade. You just play arcade games that EPA via lightning, you can toggle different screens within that arcade game.

[00:24:06] Rod Roudi: It’s now affixed to our wall with beautiful bitcoin park branding. I need to take another photo and just post it on Twitter, but in noster it shows Bitcoin stats like Mepo and Clark Moody’s dashboard and then time chain calendar. And it’s now like a really fun member benefit. They can use it as an entertainment center.

[00:24:24] Rod Roudi: There’s videos, there’s memes, it’s, and it’s got like a nice track ball with a joystick. Human ingenuity is just so amazing in the Bitcoin space. The people that are creating this kind of stuff, like the lightning sticker vending machine I mentioned before. You know, massive shout out to Tommy and Joe.

[00:24:40] Rod Roudi: They’re the creators of this. With Sam from Lightning Store. You just did I go and say, Hey, can you do this for me? Like selfishly, they, you know, they brought that idea to us. We’re like, of course we’d love to be the vessel or the platform for you guys to demo your beautiful games or your beautiful creations and try it out with the community.

[00:24:59] Rod Roudi: I think that’s where this third space, which one of Bitcoin Park could go eventually is within those local communities. It’s like your own like mini demo days and mini workshop areas. Where, Hey, I’m tinkering on this idea. I want to go and see if I can find my first customer or find my first couple users.

[00:25:18] Rod Roudi: Yeah, we, we have now our meetup page is over, I want to say 13 or 1400 people. We post a little workshop, you know, X, Y, Z, and then we get anywhere from 10, 15 to a hundred people to show up and it’s like, whoa, this is amazing.

[00:25:33] Preston Pysh: I’ve got a question for you on Nostr. So I’ve been up to the park a couple times and you know, you are hyper-focused on Bitcoin, right?

[00:25:43] Preston Pysh: And then there’s this noster like social media, decentralized social media thing that Bitcoiners are also, I’m going to use the term obsessed with and it keeps coming up. At Bitcoin Park, but it’s not Bitcoin. It’s this other thing. It’s this like free speech platform, and it seems like everybody at the park doesn’t mind getting away from Bitcoin to talk about this noster thing, this decentralized social media communication layer.

[00:26:12] Preston Pysh: Why do you think that is? That Bitcoiners are so willing to give up their time focusing on building and talking about layer two or whatever they are on Bitcoin to talk about this communication layer.

[00:26:26] Rod Roudi: So I think the underlying or the, I keep using the word common denominator is around freedom tech, and I think we’re going to see more freedom tech movements.

[00:26:34] Rod Roudi: Bitcoin is the money protocol for Freedom Tech, in my opinion. Then there’s going to be social protocols around the Freedom Tech stack, and of which I think no’s fantastic. Jack Dorsey was on Jack Mahler’s podcast. The Money Matters Podcast and eloquently laid this out in terms of the stack from money to social and then to messaging with Simplex.

[00:26:59] Rod Roudi: I need to do a little bit more on Simplex as well, and I. Taking the principles of what makes Bitcoin great and applying it to all these other areas that have been captured. You know, your audience already knows like how the internet is structured with TCP IP and HTTP and SSMTP and FTP, but those protocols are super lean and the application layer has taken over and monopolize and become super centralized.

[00:27:24] Rod Roudi: So it’s, this is again, going back to the low time preference to going back to doing my daughter’s speech at her wedding. This is a super, super long game and put on comfortable shoes, everybody, because it’s going to be a long freaking game as we are redoing. Unwinding a lot. Not even unwinding, just going to another stack of amazing technology.

[00:27:46] Rod Roudi: It’s just going to take time. It’s not going to work perfectly, but I think it’s going to be working better. And that’s where to answer your question directly. That’s why I think a lot of folks, especially in the Bitcoin community, are super enthusiastic around these other freedom tech oriented platforms.

[00:28:02] Preston Pysh: It almost seems like a coordination layer.

[00:28:05] Preston Pysh: You got Bitcoin, which is this ultimate exchange of energy. So like you perform work for me and I need to pay you for that work that you performed. We want to use Bitcoin ’cause it’s the most secure, immutable ledger of this energy exchange that has taken place between the two of us. But in order to coordinate that, where I put the request to you through a communications channel.

[00:28:32] Preston Pysh: In a way that can’t be destroyed or screwed with or controlled by some outside entity. We need some type of layer that’s not happening on that money layer, but that’s happening on, on a coordination layer. I don’t know if that’s the way that you would define it, and maybe that’s why Bitcoiners are so.

[00:28:53] Preston Pysh: They can see that harmonious relationship between the need to coordinate and the need to exchange energy. And they kind of like go together like peanut butter and jelly. Is that how you view it?

[00:29:05] Rod Roudi: Totally. Wherever there’s a middleman, a bitcoin is ready to go and blow it up. And honestly that’s not providing a ton of value in the brokerage side.

[00:29:14] Rod Roudi: So one of which is on the Facebook, the Twitters, the Instagrams of the world. Again, this is going to be take a long time. I’m not saying this is happening tomorrow. I will say with Nostra adoption, and you’re getting folks like the Jacks of the world, the Prestons of the world, the odells of the world and so on behind this, and where they’re investing their time and energy and making this their primary platform.

[00:29:35] Rod Roudi: I think it’s got a faster adoption curve, if you will. And then the best marketing is around when people get canceled, censored or booted off any of these platforms, then they realize that. Even though they still need to use the platform, it’s they’re building their business and their potentially livelihood on quicksand.

[00:29:57] Rod Roudi: Someone going back to the money side, I think like pay, I haven’t read up on this, but PayPal introducing their stable coin and now they can just freeze or delete the dollar stablecoin in their balance. People are going to get a rude awakening in terms of when they cannot use their money and it’s just a, a painful lesson.

[00:30:16] Rod Roudi: But I guess Preston, a lot of folks just need to touch the stove, including myself, to learn and really drive. I. Personal responsibility and personal adoption. And I think it’s just so fascinating. Like I’m a big class half full type of person. And selfishly, by the way, I’ll finish this thought and I want to tell you about why Bitcoin Park is also the most selfish thing I’ve ever done.

[00:30:36] Rod Roudi: But it’s surrounding myself by all of these builders that are building so much amazing tech. Like the Mutiny guys are a great example. That progressive web app that they’re building around. You can just take 12 words, pop it in, and you have your whole lightning wallet. Full stack, ready to go. No one’s going to mess with you and you got to go take that wherever you want to go in the world.

[00:30:58] Rod Roudi: And how cool is that? And we’re just at the beginning, I remember when we were doing the dang lightning torch pass with Jack and all these other folks, and you know, you had to go into the command line to, you know, basically send a lightning payment. Now we’re bitching and moaning from Wallet of Satoshi being too centralized versus like, now being too centralized to now mutiny being the, the next best thing.

[00:31:21] Rod Roudi: How awesome is that, that we’re having those type of debates? Yeah, so I’ll leave it there and I’ll then maybe I’ll come back to the most selfish thing.

[00:31:30] Preston Pysh: I know whenever I come up and visit, I just, I kind of look at all the panels that you guys are having and the people that are coming into town to speak at the park.

[00:31:39] Preston Pysh: And I look at you and Matt and I’m saying these guys are just hearing such deep conversations around the engineering and the tech that I think most are not getting access to. I know it’s way deeper than the stuff that I cover on my show personally. What is something that you have seen in maybe the last six months that.

[00:31:59] Preston Pysh: You just kind of went home at night and you’re like, wow, I just saw, I saw the neatest thing in the world today at the park to your wife.

[00:32:07] Rod Roudi: Yeah, so the, this is a good segue because Bitcoin Park is literally the most selfish thing I’ve ever done before in like twenties, I was traveling around to meetups, conferences, just to go hang with Bitcoiners.

[00:32:19] Rod Roudi: When Matt was in New York, I would fly to New York to do cold court workshops with him. And learn like about how to use cold card, then go to BitDevs and, and it was a lot easier when I had zero kids. But flash forward to today with like, you know, four kids all very young. I am glued to my house. That changes, that changes things.

[00:32:37] Rod Roudi: It does. And and by the way, this was like, you know, 2017, 2018 when I got into Bitcoin. So kids happen fast and, and been awesome. So not some Bitcoin OG or anything like that. I was like, okay, this is a, another constant, which is probably limited tr not probably, it is definitely limited travel. What can I do to, because I love meeting people.

[00:32:58] Rod Roudi: I love hanging with you, Preston. I love sitting out in the patio and just jamming on life, Bitcoin and everything. Like how do we do this? So we did the meetups and it’s like, all right, we’ll do a monthly cadence and we’ll invite our friends to come and talk on a panel and we did, and people flying, driving and so on and coming into town.

[00:33:17] Rod Roudi: So that’s why it’s the most selfish thing I’ve ever done is because it’s about them coming to us here in Nashville rather than us going to them. And I’ll never forget that around some of the panels and some of the things that has blown me away, a slight reframe on that, and I’ll answer it directly, but the people that I’ve been able to meet that I otherwise.

[00:33:37] Rod Roudi: Would either not have met or maybe have met at like a, at a conference or just passing through for like a quick drink where I can have deep, meaningful conversations. Whether it’s just, you know, a number of plebs to even you and I getting a much deeper relationship. I mean with this six or seven times where we get to see each other per year, which is just awesome to a number of other Bitcoiners.

[00:34:00] Rod Roudi: But I’ll say, so we started with the meetup. We expanded to the BitDevs now monthly BitDevs, which is the Tuesday before our monthly meetup, which is Steve Myers and Matthew Ramson host that BitDevs and they do an amazing job. But then we’re also doing these workshops, one in particular, Craig Raw from the founder and lead developer of the Sparrow Wallet.

[00:34:20] Rod Roudi: Man, you want to talk about big brains Preston, that guy is a big brain. And he just did a, basically a 15, 20 minute demo and then stumped the Bitcoin and took, you know, another 40 minutes to an hour of questions and it was just awesome. Another one, whizz has always been great. Always comes through the park multiple times a year.

[00:34:40] Rod Roudi: And we’ll always do a mem pool space and our own chain analysis demo, and I’ll send a transaction and he’ll follow the transaction along, which is always, always fun. Other ones like NVK, doing a tap signer demo to the community, like bringing the Bitcoin to life and showing it with the founders, I think goes such a long way.

[00:35:01] Rod Roudi: Where then after they’re done. Somebody can come and shake their hand, buy the product from them directly, or just ask a follow-up question and then I will make one more point and then I’ll stop rambling, which is, I think the other thing about what makes the park unique, but also other meetups as another just pro tip is around allowing open questions to be asked and not recording those questions so that.

[00:35:25] Rod Roudi: Our meetups. I mean, another good one was back in June of 2022 when we, our topic was investing in building in Bitcoin, and we had a panel with you, Marty, grant Gilliam from 10 31 and Larry La Parte, and you guys went just deep and wide. And the questions that were coming from that packed room, again filled to the brimm.

[00:35:50] Rod Roudi: We’re freaking awesome, and I love that about the intimate conversations we can have amongst each other around Bitcoin. Otherwise, you would not have on Twitter when you’re doing your keyboard commando or on a space when you’re doing, you know, your telephone tough guy type stuff.

[00:36:06] Preston Pysh: So you got an issue next year, next summer, Bitcoin Magazine is coming to Nashville, and that’s amazing.

[00:36:14] Preston Pysh: I think you’re going to have a lot of people that want to come over and see the park, but there’s only so much space of how in the world are you going to handle this?

[00:36:20] Rod Roudi: We are working on it and workshopping it, which I’ll give the honest answer, which is, I really hope everyone comes and visits us 11 months out of the year.

[00:36:29] Rod Roudi: You know, our, we have a free and open meetup. You go to meetup.com or bitcoin park.com/meetup. Just join and you can stay up to date. We have the free BitDevs, we have free workshops and so on for the Bitcoin conference. They’re probably going to have 20,000 people plus more maybe attend that conference, which is so amazing.

[00:36:49] Rod Roudi: And it’s going to be down in downtown Nashville at an awesome venue with all the bars and so on. Downtown. We’re not that far away from the, I mean, it’s about two mile walk. We are probably max capacity, 200 to 250 people, max. We’re tracking to have 200 members pressing. I’m honored that you’re one of the members and we’re going to make it like a member benefit and member focused time at the park.

[00:37:11] Rod Roudi: And it’s not excluding anyone, it’s just we have limitations around size. And by the way, it’s me, Matt, Harry, and Josh, that’s Bitcoin Park. So we don’t have a team or anything like that. So we, we need to do a couple updates. We will, you know, we’ve been toying around a temporary fence, which we need to do for a number of reasons.

[00:37:30] Rod Roudi: Maybe even building a beautiful wall as well. But long story long, I would just highly recommend taking a visit. Here’s another pro tip. Go. And, and this is what I always tell my Bitcoin friends to come to Nashville and, and jam with us at the meetup. I’m like, let’s just say nobody shows up to the meetup and it’s a terrible topic, and I suck, which all high probabilities, go and find a band that you like and they always undoubted or undoubtedly, you know, come through Nashville and then go and see them or go and be like, you know what, I’m going to go downtown to the honky tonks for the first time and, and enjoy that.

[00:38:04] Rod Roudi: Or, I’m going to go to this amazing restaurant or experience Nashville.

[00:38:07] Preston Pysh: And stay at the Gaylord. It’s a very nice hotel with beautiful plants and whatever inside. And there’s tons of things to do in Nashville.

[00:38:16] Rod Roudi: Yeah, there really are. There really are.

[00:38:19] Preston Pysh: So don’t come during the conference. Come some other time for one of the meetups.

[00:38:23] Rod Roudi: So definitely go to the conference, ’cause the conference is going to be awesome. But definitely come for one of our other meetups for sure. And I will say even the week before that, we’re going to have the, by the way, I don’t think we’ve announced it yet, but we’re going to have the Lightning summit the Thursday, Friday before the conference.

[00:38:40] Rod Roudi: So that’s going to be 200 folks ticketed, folks, and we’re going to run that. The Lightning Summit back. That was one of my favorite summits, by the way. Yeah. Yeah. That’s awesome. And then yeah, it’s going to be, I mean, I hope over time we can, I don’t even know what the right word is, but to your point around noster and Freedom Tech and a number of these things, it’s like ingrained in the, the Tennessee culture, I’ll say.

[00:39:03] Rod Roudi: That’s why I think I’ve gravitated and assimilated myself so well to the community here. Sovereign Valley man, sovereign Valley, and I think by doing, we’re going to accelerate that more and more. I think it just takes time, you know, being a small business owner and now I have a newfound appreciation for other small business entrepreneurs around payroll, utilities, taxes, licensing, all the BS that nobody really talks about.

[00:39:31] Rod Roudi: That takes up too much mind share. And then you sprinkle in and say, oh, and by the way, you should accept Bitcoin. They’re like, dude, I’m barely trying to survive here and you’re telling me I got to adopt this like new technology. But I will say, I think there’s paths to drive further Bitcoin adoption here in our local community.

[00:39:49] Rod Roudi: And over the next number of years, I’m really bullish on that. One of which hopefully is an accelerant, is the conference.

[00:39:55] Preston Pysh: Last thing I want people to know is you have teamed up with Cathie Wood and Ark creating some media, what is it like once a month? And I participated in this last conversation that you, that you released and just really bringing on some brilliant thinkers and it’s really neat that like how did you link up with Cathie and like put this together?

[00:40:19] Rod Roudi: First, thanks for joining that. That was awesome. What, what’d you think about It was awesome.

[00:40:23] Preston Pysh: It was, it was just, yeah.

[00:40:24] Rod Roudi: Tell me your perspective.

[00:40:25] Preston Pysh: No, it was, it was just a, it was an awesome group. We had Mahler, Obie and some others and it was just an awesome group to kind of jive on where we kind of think some of this is going and maybe why on the, one of the things I remember is like the immediate settlement side, like why isn’t that moving faster?

[00:40:43] Preston Pysh: Like what are some of the incentives that are driving that? And it was just a great chat in general and, and really a lot of fun bit.

[00:40:50] Rod Roudi: Yeah, yeah. Big shout out to Cathie and, they’ve been believing in the Bitcoin park mission for quite some time. So the idea which was proposed to us was around all these great monthly topics that we’re bringing and having in-person conversations around how do we leverage arcs production team and distribution, and then combine it with us creating and curating the content.

[00:41:13] Rod Roudi: And if that, you know, that worked out where we are able to create a different topic each month. So it’s called the monthly Bitcoin Brainstorm. We just released episode number one. We did have, yeah, Preston was on, Jack Mallers was on, Cathie was on, we had Obie, we had Harry Sudock on, and it was just an amazing discussion around a few different topics and so, or a few different subtopics.

[00:41:36] Rod Roudi: The overarching topic was building and scaling, and then each month, go forward. We’re going to do this hopefully the last week of every month we’re targeting and whether we’re going to curate a different conversation. So we have some ideas around Bitcoin and the economics and incentives of Bitcoin. We have AI and Bitcoin and yeah, I’m just super bullish on Ark and the Bitcoin Park Podcast. And I’m cautiously optimistic on this partnership. And I think this audience that they have, which is slightly overlaps with the Bitcoin Park audience, which is around high net worth individuals, family offices, private equity, institutional investors. As well as just Bitcoin curious folks, we’re able to create that content.

[00:42:16] Rod Roudi: And the cool thing is them giving us the controls around making this Bitcoin focused. They have their other crypto and other investment vehicles around their disruptive technology mission, but we’re going to stay Bitcoin focused and produce it every month.

[00:42:32] Preston Pysh: Awesome. Alright, Rod, well we talked about quite a few different things there.

[00:42:35] Preston Pysh: We’ll have links in the show notes to the items that you mentioned, and if people do want to come visit the park, hopefully between now and the conference, we’ll have a link there where they can kind of go to the meetup portion and reach out. Any other highlights that you have or links that you want to highlight for people to, to follow you or the park?

[00:42:54] Rod Roudi: No, I mean, we’ll just put them in the show notes, but I, I just want to say thank you so much. I think this is my second podcast I’ve done. I just, it’s an seriously, an honor and a privilege. Preston, you’ve been doing this for so long and just to be a guest on your platform is truly an honor.

[00:43:09] Preston Pysh: Thank you sir.

[00:43:09] Preston Pysh: Thank you. It was wonderful having you and it’s been a lot of fun up there up in Sovereign Valley, so.

[00:43:15] Rod Roudi: That’s right.

[00:43:15] Preston Pysh: Alright, thank you for making time and coming on the show, Rob.

[00:43:19] Rod Roudi: Absolutely.

[00:43:21] Preston Pysh: If you guys enjoyed this conversation, be sure to follow the show on whatever podcast application you use. Just search for, We Study Billionaires. The Bitcoin specific shows come out every Wednesday, and I’d love to have you as a regular listener. If you enjoyed the show or you learned something new or you found it valuable, if you can leave a review, we would really appreciate that. And it’s something that helps others find the interview in the search algorithm.

[00:43:45] Preston Pysh: So anything you can do to help out with a review, we would just greatly appreciate. And with that, thanks for listening and I’ll catch you again next week.

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