Note: This transcript was automatically generated by artificial intelligence (AI) and therefore typos may be present.
Rob McNealy
Today I have the excitement because I’m talking to truth Raider. He is a pretty big Bitcoin advocate and influencer in the crypto space. So I’d like to welcome to the show. How are you today? Truth Raider?
Truth Raider
Hey, doing pretty good, Rob.
Rob McNealy
Well, good. Well, I really do appreciate your time and coming out with us. I know you’re really busy. I was having some illness this week. So it kind of was a little hard to get everything scheduled out. But so. So for some of our audience, which is not 100% crypto focused. Tell us a little bit about your background and how you kind of came into the crypto space.
Truth Raider
So I’ve been in I’ve only been in Bitcoin and crypto for about three years. I’ve kind of followed the evolution of it although with the dark web and deep web and I’ve followed peer to peer networks. Everything from back in the day with Napster and limewire for us wire I mean, peer to peer is something that’s not new. And I think a lot of people that have been kind of messing around with this technology Bitcoin was kind of a natural evolution. And so that’s kind of how I I knew about Bitcoin since its inception but really never got into it till about 2017 and now I’m here for the ride.
Rob McNealy
Well, it’s kind of funny you must be close to my age when you start using words like Napster I think a lot of these young guys at a millennial type so talking but I do so just you don’t have to doctor yourself or whatever but what what can what’s your your main type of occupation?
Truth Raider
So right now working on a basically, I’m working with a company here at a mining store. It may not have it’s a Bitcoin mining company, based out of Houston, Texas, and then we’re basically partnered with them, and our company based out of Pittsburgh. And right now our big focus area is we’re working on bringing foreign miners into the states, essentially, that’s kind of mine and my partner’s big play right now is trying to get a lot of the foreign mining into the United States, because right now our we only have about 5% of that entire market in the world. So it’s, it’s kind of that’s kind of the focus for me and the company I work for, essentially.
Rob McNealy
So, how is a minor? Say, I’m a minor and I’m in a foreign country, why would I want to come to the United States to mine? You know, from what I understand, it seems like, you know, other places like China, it’s a lot cheaper to get the electricity. What would be the appeal of being a minor in the United States?
Truth Raider
So there’s a lot of reasons why. It kind of covers the gamut. So you’ve got regulations are becoming more friendly. Because of the so you, you kind of got like this, this merging of. So the reason why Texas makes so much sense is because of the oil and natural gas industry. So you’ve already got this infrastructure in place, and certain places like Texas or Pennsylvania, where we’re at more New York, Washington state, where you’ve got everything from hydro electricity to natural gas to existing factories that can scale and do industrial scale Bitcoin mining. Solar is becoming a new play, a wind is becoming a play. And so you have you already have the companies that basically can go from doing what they do naturally, and just saying, hey, we’ll also do Bitcoin mining, or will do or will provide energy for your Bitcoin miners, so it’s kind Like it’s almost like a natural transition for a lot of these energy companies and US based companies to just say, Hey, we’re open to providing you lower costs, and using our infrastructure to just mine. So that’s why you’re seeing like, right now, you’re not seeing a lot of it in the news. But for example, yesterday, it was in the news of a one gigawatt facilities opening in Texas. You know, it’s going to be the largest one in North America. It’s opening, you know, they just started literally 24 hours ago. And then you’ve got company. Yeah, one gigawatt, which is massive, you know.
Rob McNealy
Like a nuclear power plant?
Truth Raider
Yeah, it’s essentially this scale. That’s why basically they took over an old plant that was already being used for within the oil and natural gas industry and just are converting it essentially to new Bitcoin mining, you know, and that’s, that’s one way that it’s going to scale in the US. But additionally, you’ve got companies moving into Texas and Arizona and different places in California even, they’re going to do solar and wind. And then hydro is also going to start growing. So people think that energy is really expensive in the United States, but it really isn’t. When you think about the fact that we already have the infrastructure, it’s just a matter of the old school miner, or the old school energy guys saying, Yeah, we’ll do Bitcoin too. And that’s slowly starting to happen. It’s kind of an education thing.
Rob McNealy
You know, have you looked at anything up in like, Gillette, Wyoming, and, you know, wyotech mines that are up there, by chance as a possible location. I think Peabody Energy is one of the big energy companies up there.
Truth Raider
Not Wyoming. We’ve got a couple places in Iowa, North Dakota. Like I mentioned, Pennsylvania, Maine, New York. There’s A few places that we’re looking to set up shop. But right now, those are usually a little bit smaller in scale, whereas in Texas you have the access, potentially to an unbelievable amount of energy to produce, you know, for these for these foreign miners and so most people just they’re not paying most people right now, like if you look at the Bitcoin or crypto space, what is everybody looking at today? On November, whatever Today is November 21. What do people give a shit about right now today? know the price of bitcoin? That’s it. That’s it, right? Like I’d say 99% of the people in the space. All they do is follow charts and pay attention to what the price is doing. You know, meanwhile, the 1% which is the people like the article I mentioned today, which was, you know, companies dropping 150 million dollar investment into Texas to build a warranty. gigawatt a Bitcoin mining farm, you know, so on on a day where the or the bitcoin price dumped? I don’t even know what it dumped 5% 6% Today, I’m not sure but it wasn’t a good day. However, people that have basically vision are saying, you know, what, who cares about short term price points, let’s let’s look at this as an industry and, and I think most of the crypto space is missing the big moves, you know.
Rob McNealy
So the, you know, when it comes down to mining with a six the two bottlenecks that you know, keep a lot of people out or, you know, one access to, you know, affordable energy that make it, you know, profitable but the other part is the hardware of the miners. And it seems like right now, that so much of the that equipment is just, you know, kind of, you know, made by, you know, one or two companies. What do you think that effect is on the mining industry Do you think that’s going to like There’s gonna be more opportunities for manufacturers to, you know, create more competition to bring the price those basic type processors down.
Truth Raider
So I don’t. So what you’re going to have right now, what’s going on right now and the mining equipment sphere is so everybody in the United States essentially is using at minor s nines, you know, so that that’s kind of what the big, you know, the the most popular minor out there. But once the happening happens and kind of what’s happening right now, is everybody’s transitioning from the s nine to the 17th or Canaan’s got some new ones coming out or what’s minor, where you’re talking anywhere from 50 6070. Tara hash, you know, which is just dwarfs the S nine. So what you’re going to end up seeing is you’re going to see an unbelievable amount of s nines on the market that are basically not even useful to mind with. And so the basically the moral of this story is 2019 and early 2022, mid 2020 is going to wash out most of the the private personal miners. Most of these guys are going to get washed out because of energy prices as well as hash rate increases with the within these pools. And so profits are going to go down. So really what you’re going to see is like, like what I just told you, a one gigawatt mining farm opening with an ungodly amount of miners, you know, that are going to go into that facility. You’re going to see more of that in the States, you’re going to probably every couple weeks, or if not every month or so you’re going to see a story that says, hey, we just built a 500 megawatt facility. Here’s a gigawatt facility. You know, here’s some major companies that are coming in. So what you’re saying is all These small scale miners are going to get washed out. And it’s going to be an into institutional and a corporate play when it comes to Bitcoin mining. I think that’s what I see.
Rob McNealy
Do you think that’s a good thing for Bitcoin? I think, from a centralization kind of point of view,
Truth Raider
I think it. I mean, if you’re talking, I think it is potentially, if the you if us in North American companies, get on board, you know, if it’s just Chinese miners moving to the United States, then it’s really it’s a centralized play, you know, because what they’re doing is just gaining more access to cheap energy. But if you start seeing European and American companies and North American companies saying, Hey, this is a smart idea, why don’t we set up shop and do our own thing? Then I think it’s a good thing in a decentralizes the mining space, but there’s a The problem is that China makes 100% of hardware right now. Right? That’s, that’s the, that’s the issue that the overarching issue is, we really need like a Germany or somebody who’s really good at technical manufacturing, you know, at an industrial scale, we need like a Germany to come online and makes a version of a six miners or, you know, or or some other country to make hardware. That’s what we need.
Rob McNealy
You know, that’s one thing I haven’t figured out is, is, you know, I can see, you know, power plants would that have excess capacity and things, you know, you go talk to the guys with the tall hats and and you just give them a spreadsheet and the chart and they can they can make the they can make the connections right and see the opportunity. It doesn’t make sense to me. Yes. I don’t understand enough about chip manufacturing. It seems like there should be a lot of opportunity in the hardware space that other companies popped up to do that. And you know, is it just that the the chip manufacturers that there’s no is there nobody in the United States can even make a chip? Is that kind of the issue with that right now?
Truth Raider
I think it’s, um, it’s a matter of scale. So there’s a city in China called shins in. And I probably put I probably butchered the name
Rob McNealy
sounds good to me.
Truth Raider
So, basically, this city is a very good example of the way China does business is they’re just they’re out to just mass produce everything. In at scale, so for example, bit main is like everybody knows bit means like, big player, right? Well, I’m a competitor that’s up and coming is a company called Canaan, right? Who they just did an IPO for like 100 plus million dollars in the States. But they’re going to compete very, very heavily with bit main, but the thing is, Kanan has the Same business model is bit me. It’s just mass produce just mass produced in mass mind, Bitcoin. It’s a very simple model. It’s not a very innovative model, as far as the industry goes, but that’s why you don’t see American or European companies competing with them is, for example, like, like I said, with the ant miners, you know, like they had the S nine. Now they’re going to have the 17. They’re just looking for new ways to increase the hash rate for mining. And basically what it does is they’re able to mass produce those devices, those that hardware, and no American or European company can keep up with the pace. That’s that’s the overarching issue. And I don’t see it changing. To be perfectly honest, you know, on the hardware front, on the mining front, I think we can catch up. Or we can bridge the gap. We can’t catch up but we can we can We can close the gap.
Rob McNealy
For that you that location down in Texas, how many you know how many actual miners are going to be running in a facility like that with a gigawatt of power?
Truth Raider
I’m not sure like, I mean, you look at, for example, we’re working with a company that’s trying to they’re trying to fulfill its I think it’s 4000 t 17 miners, and that’s about 10 megawatts, you know, so for about 4000. So, I mean, we’ll do the math on, you know, on what it takes to get you to a gigawatt. It’s a shitload of miners, you know, like, it’s a lot so.
Rob McNealy
So, I was at World Crypto Con in Vegas a couple weeks ago and they had, you know, the whole mining area down there and there’s some innovating stuff, innovative stuff from the standpoint of cooling and and, you know, keeping the, you know, the packs of miners, the racks like really more tight together. So they figured out different ways of cooling and there’s Seems to be there are some interesting efficiencies that they could probably gain, you know, with the cooling side of things as well. So the question I have the havening that, you know, you’re hearing about this a lot, and, you know, everybody’s got a different opinion about it, what it’s going to do to the price. And my concern is Ben, you know, you know, you can’t necessarily say that Bitcoin is going to do what it did four years ago because the entire crypto universe is very, very different now. The markets very different now. regulations are very different now. There’s thousands of new projects that came and went and are still in operation now. So you know, past performance is not always indicative of future you know, results but the question is, a lot of people do think that bitcoins gonna pump and everybody’s going to get excited about the halvening I mean, what’s your take on that? Do you think people are gonna is it gonna pump or do you think it’s just gonna happen?
Truth Raider
I’ve my personal opinion is that I talked to a lot of people on Twitter just going back and forth on predictions and stuff. So, like, for me, I, I think Bitcoin at $10,000 is an amazing price. Like it’s a it’s a stable price, whether it goes from 10,000 to 100,000, or 50, or whatever the number is 10,000 is a psychological number. When people you know, that are out there in the space, say, you know, how much is Bitcoin, right? And you tell them it’s 10 K, they’re just like, what? It just it blows their mind they don’t understand that like it because what’s the price of a physical, you know, of gold, the gold spot price, you know, it’s it’s nothing. So I think it’s a it’s a psychological game. So when the when the block happening, happens and it goes down to 6.25. Essentially, I don’t think that’s going to create a bull run. I think we’re still going to be in a bear market until probably the end of 2020 2021 maybe somewhere in there. I mean, We may go up, you know, we made two or three x the price, but I don’t think the real I personally don’t think the real bull market starts until you have things like ETFs that are that are open, you know, like, you’ve got a multiple ETFs out there, you’ve got multiple institutions that are trading. They’re using Bitcoin openly. And I think that I think we’re still we’re still like two years away from even the beginning of that, from my opinion. So that’s why I think end of 2021 probably is more realistic for a lot of these companies to onboard into bitcoin right now, nobody knows about Bitcoin, you ask 10 people, if you go in the street or to university and you ask 10 people what is Bitcoin? What does it do? You’re going to get 10 probably nine out of 10 people are going to stare at you like you’re crazy.
Rob McNealy
You know, play that game, actually. And my results have been very different. Everybody I asked has heard the word Bitcoin They don’t get it. Like what it is they think that they understand internet money. And that’s about where the extent of it, but the name recognition I find is pretty, pretty prevalent among the people that I talked to. Now their opinion of it is they don’t understand it. Or there’s a negative connotation with the being scammy or rip off. That’s kind of what I’m seeing out there.
Truth Raider
I agree with you. I agree with you that they all have heard of it. But there’s a difference, I think between like I play poker with 12, my buddies, you know, I brought as an experiment, I asked him that question. Hey, guys, you guys know about Bitcoin? Like, yeah, we all heard about it, you know, we saw it on TV, you know, that’s a huge difference from I understand what it does, what the functionality of Bitcoin is, as well as how do you physically use it? Like, that is a huge educational gap for probably 95% of the people in the US. You know, I would say
Rob McNealy
Try explaining a decentralized organization to someone on the street that’s a little more complicated.
Truth Raider
Or even not even trying to explain the the core about Bitcoin, but just how do you physically use it? How do you physically transfer Bitcoin? Most people will look at you like you’re crazy. Just even if you just said what I just said, How do you transfer Bitcoin from one person to the next? Show me how to do it.
Rob McNealy
What I kind of tell people, you know, when it comes to crypto, I always kind of put myself in, you know, in the person’s mind, right? And with our project, I actually am out there talking and doing sales already with our project. And I’m in retail stores talking to retailers. In fact, we started talking to retailers before we coated anything because we built it for a purpose. And what I explain when it comes to crypto is like, it’s like it’s like cash app or Venmo. But it doesn’t use dollars as the underlying value. And they’re like, Oh, I get that. And then in them when I say, you know, there’s no Corporation. It’s the Z centralized project. What I have found is that if you say it’s kind of like a nonprofit that’s built to run this project, you know, project and people seem to could they can wrap their head around that. You know, now I don’t I know it’s not technically a nonprofit, because that’s a corporation too. But, but when if you say it like that, you know that there’s no Corporation, but it’s more like a nonprofit group that runs this. People can make they can make sense of that, I think. And that’s seems to work pretty well, when I talk to people.
Truth Raider
Well, if you try to break it down in its core, right, Bitcoin is software. Like if you just said, If you and how do you explain the fact that Bitcoin is software like that, literally, that’s what it is. I mean, it’s only money because we’ve monetized it. But essentially, is just a software that’s constantly running. And so nobody’s ever going to understand that, you know, like you because then you start getting deeper and deeper into how does it work, you know, and then you start talking about blocks. I mean, try explaining blocks to somebody on the street.
Rob McNealy
You know, I don’t know if I can explain to them myself half the time. But here’s the thing is that try to explain how settlement happens on swift with debit cards, nobody knows. They use the debit card, they know how it works, they know that it works, they trust that it works, they have faith that it will work. You know, I don’t think the average person you know, this is I think we’re you know, engineers kind of ruined everything you know, is that engineers the build it they will come mindset doesn’t work. And I’m not picking on engineer that worked around engineers my entire professional life. So I love engineers, but you don’t want the engineer in charge of marketing neither. But what you find is that people you know, engineer types really want to get their really excited and geek out about the technology or the features, you know, that kind of thing. Whereas people don’t care about features as much as they do about benefits. You know, if this solves a problem for me, show me how it solves my problem. And that’s all they care about, you know, when I started talking to retailers, and that’s my focus is talking to retailers and getting them on boarded into crypto, you know, they want to know, how do I deal with taxes? How does it integrate with my point of sale? And how easy is it to work? And is it safe? That’s what they want to know. They don’t care about servers and miners and block producers and whatever else, they don’t give a shit. And one day anymore? No, because it doesn’t matter to them. They want to know that they can cash out is there you know how valid they are. You know, a lot of the retailers I talked to they are concerned about volatility. Well, it goes up and down. Well, when you cash out quick, you just don’t sit on it if you don’t want. But I think that’s the thing. People get lost, they get lost in the technology and the average person, if you’re trying to say adoption won’t happen till the average person understands finance, economics, the Federal Reserve System, inflation and fiat money, and you have to educate the entire planet on those things. And that’s what adoption you’re never going to get Adoption will never happen. One, most people don’t give a shit. And people don’t give a shit until they have a problem, you know, a recognized problem. And I think that’s where that’s why I think like a lot of people, they’re struggling to get adoption because they still think like, oh, people need to come up in this level of knowledge. And I don’t think they do. I don’t think they need to come up with that for there to be adoption of crypto. I’m sorry.
Truth Raider
No, I agree completely. You’re 100% right. I mean, the problem that a lot of us get sucked into myself included is, you know, because the more I research it, Bitcoin, the more I study it the more I try to educate myself, you fall into a trap of over explaining the simplicity of it. It’s, it’s a natural thing, because you’re so interested in how it works. So you, you tend to oversee, you know, so here’s, I think, the way it works in a very simple manner is like to try to explain to somebody is I guess it’s like Western Union. PayPal without the third party involved. So you’re sending, you’re sending, you’re sending your currency to another person without the third party, but it’s very similar to PayPal, except for you don’t need a bank to settle the payment. It’s just a direct payment between you and another human being, you know, without that third party, and I think, because people know how PayPal works, you know, you got your email you sent to somebody else’s email. And somehow magically, the banking system settles, right. It’s the same as PayPal without the banking system, essentially.
Rob McNealy
And I think even going that deep is probably unnecessary. Interesting story. So my day job a long time ago, I used to be a contractor. And I don’t hide this, you know, I’m very public about my, my, you know, I have a real day job. I’m an entrepreneur and I have a day job and I have our crypto projects so i don’t i don’t hide it on my LinkedIn, whatever. I’m totally docs, but you know, I found when I was this is probably 15 years ago when I thought started getting into sales of I my business. I would try to educate my clients and everything they needed to know to make the best buying decision and my average sales time with these people are 45 minutes to an hour. And I call people back like a week later and they’re like all I want with somebody else but thank you I loved your presentation. What do you mean why didn’t you go with Well, they were cheaper than you. And what I found and and i over I was over explaining what I was doing. It was I was giving me I was doing my job and giving them everything they needed to know to make a really informed decision and be really smart about it because I wanted them to be smart. And what ended up happening is I wasn’t closing sales. So what I ended up doing I found out is I cut my sales pitch by pitch to half the time to a half hour and I doubled my sales in true story, true story and and it was hard for me to wrap my head around it because I was trying To educate people in a way that I wanted to be sold, right? Yeah, the problem is, most you know, and I find this, especially with guys like that are smart. And most the people that I know that are in crypto are smart. Okay. You know, they’re curious, they’re smart. They’re questioning, you know, I haven’t run into too many stupid people in crypto, at least that are working in crypto. And, and so, as smart people, we want to have respect for other people’s intelligence, I think where we’re like, Hey, I think you’re a good person. And I want to treat you with respect, and I want to value your intelligence. So You two must want to have this knowledge. But I don’t think the average person does. I think you lose them. I think it gets complicated. And I think if you know, you have to recognize that there are different people have different you know, they kind of perceive the world differently. They have the world and the average person has an average IQ. So right I mean, that’s not mean Yeah, it’s not mean. But that means but in the United States, right? The average IQ in the US is about 100. Okay, yeah, that means half the people you run into at Walmart or at the mall or at the bank, have below average IQ. That’s how averages work, you know? So you got to just You got it. I don’t mean to dumb it down, but you gotta, you gotta explain things in a way that makes sense to them. And you gotta always have it I always say, you know, you have to sell people in a way that they want to be sold. Don’t sell people on how you think you should be sold. And I found that that made a big difference in my success in business is that you just have to kind of evaluate who you’re dealing with and and make it make sense for them. And and that’s not insulting is just, you know, if you try anything with this way, right, you’re I can tell you’re a smart guy, and I read your Twitter so I know you’re a pretty smart guy. You know if you go in as a smart guy to Someone who maybe is just average. And you try to explain all this technical engineering kind of mumbo jumbo. How they might take that as you think you know it all right? I mean, that happens or if they’re a woman, maybe now you’re mansplaining. You know, there’s all these kind of an end as a smart guy, you’re like, No, I just I don’t think like that. I’m not mansplaining and I don’t think I’m the smartest guy in the room. I just know excited about this. And, and I think that’s where a lot of guys in crypto miss it, because they don’t have a hard time with that. And they do. I have a hard time with it too. But I think that, you know, as we’re trying to get adoption, we just need to be cognizant of the world is not who we are typically, you know, and we’re thought you know, with we’re pioneers right now, people like our thought leaders, they’re, they’re early adopters, early adopters are different than average people. Most people don’t early adopters are the early adopters won’t be a thing. Right?
Truth Raider
And I agree with everything you’re saying, Man, and like it’s hard for me. Like I said, I got it in 20 17 so it’s really hard for me to look at myself as an early adopter per se. I mean, because I’m, I came in years and years after all these guys. But then, like you said, like, I’m not an early adopter, but I got into it fairly early, you know, essentially, because when you talked to people about Bitcoin, they’re so lost, and just the basics of it. So yeah, I’m very new. I’ve only been at for three years, I’m fairly new. However, there’s a huge knowledge gap between somebody that’s never touched Bitcoin, and somebody that has been using it for a while. So when I was I was in Malta a couple of weeks ago, and I was doing I was on a panel for talking about Libra and lightning and da O’s and stuff. And I basically was defending lightning. And so I was looking back at some of the clips of when I was talking, and I was like, probably in that room in that conference room. There was probably like six dudes that understood what the hell I was talking about. The rest of them were all just like, yeah, lightning sounds like it’s a good thing. Because I was I was basically defending lightning because I’m a huge fan of lightning essentially. And, but at the end of the day, like you said, people just want to know that lightning either works, or it doesn’t work. That’s really the that’s the crux of it. And so, I think sometimes people like me and other people that really want to defend it. We get so caught up in the logistics of it all, you know, so.
Rob McNealy
Well, well, it’s interesting because, you know, I and I’m not here just push on what I’m doing. But you know, I’m not I’m working on a crypto project. That’s not Bitcoin. Yeah, and a lot of maximalists and I’m not a maxi though, just so for all transparency. Of the four main projects that I have personal investments in our Bitcoin, a theorem, Raven, and Tusk, which is my project, so I am an investor in all those projects. So understand I’m not here hating on anybody. But, you know, when we started our project two years ago, I mean, lightning was still you much earlier on. And you know, everybody’s like, because I get, I mean, as a project, I mean, you’re in the mining side, but you know, I’ve been in this project for a couple years, almost and you wouldn’t believe the hate that you get for being a project from the Maxis and the different communities it’s pretty awful at times. And one of the person said, Why don’t you just do what you’re doing on Bitcoin? And I said, well, bitcoins not designed for retail never was intended to block work.
Truth Raider
And I agree, I agree the current format your.
Rob McNealy
You know, Bitcoin Cash, and again, I am not political, I’m not in any of those communities at all. But Bitcoin cash is actually more would be better for a retail environment than Bitcoin to court, just what is just not there. And so, but I said this, and someone said, What about lightning? And I said, well, and this is about eight weeks ago on the lightning Twitter long timeline, and this is just like eight weeks ago from now, right? They posted on on the lightning network Twitter, do not or I’m sorry, timeline on Twitter, do not put any more money into the lightning network and still software could be buggy and don’t put any more money into the lightning network that you’re not willing to lose. And that was on their own Twitter account. It’s still there. And, and and I pointed out to this guy, I go, Okay, well, if I’m going in and talking to a retailer and I’m trying to solve a problem with crypto, whether it’s mine or someone else’s, I certainly can’t go and tell them to do Lightning when that’s what’s on Lightning’s Twitter timeline just a few weeks ago, that tells me that it’s not ready for it’s not ready for prime time even yet.
Truth Raider
And that was my argument in Malta. And I’ve never I argue this that that what you just said it’s still in beta, you know, it’s like it’s like an ever I argue that it’s that it can it can be something amazing. I don’t argue that it that it is exactly success experiments experimental right now,
Rob McNealy
You know, once you know crypto is experimental, and this is what I tell people, you know, and and, and I’m kind of agnostic. I know I I it’s funny because with this with even with my, you know, podcast here I interview all sorts of projects in crypto. And then it’s not even though I’m I got my own project, you know, I’m here I want to talk to other people because I, I’m excited about the space and in my happy world, I don’t believe there will be nor should there be just one crypto for the planet. I think that’s actually dangerous inherently centralizing. And to me, it’s like, there will be multiple kryptos and in fact, I would rather there be 200 dozen my own, you know, ideal place. There’s 200 really, really well designed communities around 200 different block chains that all seamlessly coexist and atomic swap between one another. To me, I think that’s actually much safer than having like, you know, fewer and fewer crypto projects that are more and more centralized behind them. And to me, I think that long term that would actually be better for society, because of the beauty of what I see as crypto is that You know, we talked about the honesty and the transparency and the scarcity and, you know, and inflation rates that are known in the open source nature of crypto makes them superior to Fiat. Right. They’re not necessarily subject to governments, politicians whims. But what I see is that the other benefit of kryptos is that you can tailor them and program them for specific purposes, regions, industries, companies, and we don’t talk about that enough that there could be a know maybe there should be a crypto for the shipping industry. Maybe there should be a crypto and you’re starting to see more of that. But I don’t think we talked about that enough. And because there’s so I think, I mean, you’re out there probably more than I am, but it seems like a lot of these projects are really trying to like, oh, our project is the greatest and you know, we hate that community over there and they fight and it’s all stupid, and I’m like, Look, there’s no reason why Bitcoin can’t do one be one thing and This other crypto projects do this other one thing, and they could work together on that. And to me, the ultimate goal is to decentralize and free people from the state as much as possible. What do you think about you know, the idea of that, you know, there can be kryptos for specific purposes and industries.
Truth Raider
Oh, I mean, I’m very extremely libertarian. So I mean, I’m all about the, the decentralized approach, but I don’t disagree and and I’m not a Bitcoin maximalist. I’m a Bitcoin realist. Like I in the fact that I’m a firm supporter of Bitcoin, I will be now and I’ll probably be 20 years from now just because it has its place. However, I agree with you as a realist. Let’s say lightning becomes amazing. It’s the greatest thing ever. Okay, well, that probably only let’s say, let’s say it does just as a use case, that only that would only solve a problem of speed, right? Because what lightning promises millions if not billions of transactions and capability, okay? Let’s say that happens. Well, I guarantee if lightning can do that there will be 100 other kryptos that figure out how to do the exact same thing and to move really quick and move really secure. So I agree with you, there will probably a blockchain project that that does really well in the medical arena. You know, that’s really good with medical blockchain and a shipping blockchain and aviation blockchain. And a I mean, you name it, there’s probably going to be another blockchain That’s better. Even if lightning succeeds or fails, there will be something better that does a specific task retail manufacturing. In real estate, I mean, there’s probably going to be like you said, hundreds of them that are really good at doing something that’s very specified. And meanwhile, bitcoins going to be sitting on the shelf just saying, Hey, keep it out. Guys. Keep going, you know as a store of value and pop Possibly a transactional crypto with lightning. But I think even if lightning succeeds, we’re going to have everything you just mentioned, hundreds of blockchains with a purpose, you know?
Rob McNealy
And we really we already have an analogue for that. Right? If you think about it, I mean, pretty much every government has in the, in the world, every country, every government has its own fee, there’s 150, or whatever, how many countries there are. And they technically seamlessly swap between, you know, between one and are we already have an analogue for that. Yeah. And if you think about it, that makes sense, right? People are no, well, you know, so you can say, look, well, you know, the United States has a coin, right? Switzerland has their coin, or currency, and then they trade and you can go with any airport and swap between one now and you explain, oh, well, can that make sense? So I mean, there’s lots of ways that you know, when you’re talking to the average person, you can explain these concepts went away that they might be familiar with, you know, and say, Look, there’s you know, hundreds of currencies around the world. You know, and they all talk to each other, and really kryptos like that, but just more in the digital format. And you take out the middleman and like, oh, and, you know, and, and I think that that makes a lot of sense. And I like that future better. I think that, I think a lot of maximalists and, you know, especially the old school guys, and you know, I used to be very active, actual big l libertarian politics. And one of the things that I find with being an ancap or being a libertarian is that whenever you get around activists of any hilke they tend to be the roughest around the edges, you know, what I’m saying is the earliest activists, the ones that really are the ones that spend years getting the ball rolling and making stuff happen and promoting it. Those guys do necessary work, right? That’s that’s how they start. But is like as these movements change and get more mature, different people come in, and in some ways usually take over the ones that have better social skills. They They have the ability to see things through. And I think maximalists and a lot of cases tend to be those guys, the earliest activists. So, you know, there’s a, there’s a saying that I’ve heard that I like that says, you know, pioneers, take the arrows and settlers take the land you know? Yeah. And I think that’s, I think that’s pretty true with you know, all these, you know, you know, the cannabis industry is like that, too. It’s like I was, you know, I’m pretty, you know, involved in politics in Colorado, especially during, you know, 10 years ago when they were, you know, getting it law medical and then legal for recreational use. And it’s interesting because the earliest people that were pushing it were literally the stereotypical hippies dude all the free the weed those kind of guys. And now you go to Colorado and in that industry, and it’s funny, because the regulations and a lot of ways pushed all those guys out to anyways, you know, one of the interesting things in Colorado with that is that you couldn’t get a license to work in any marijuana or cannabis related business. If you’ve ever been busted for Drugs.
Truth Raider
Seriously?
Rob McNealy
Yeah. And so think about that, right. Everybody who was in that industry was busted for drugs. That’s why they’re in the industry.
Truth Raider
Yeah, that they got into it because they wanted to try to find a way to get legal after all the drama.
Rob McNealy
And so so it’s interesting but if you go to Colorado now it’s it’s it’s there’s it’s still kind of an edgy industry but it’s very it’s very much corporate that it’s gotten a lot more mature and you know, you’re dealing you know, you still edgy like coat you know, crypto still edgy even the guys that are corporate II, you know, that came out of you know, traditional finance, there’s still the edge lords of traditional finance that are kind of showing up at the conferences, right. You know, they’re the ones that are like, I’ll still wear suit, but I can not wear a tie that’s edgy for them. But, but I think that’s the good I think that’s going to happen in crypto too. And I think eventually, five years 10 years from now the no one’s gonna know who most of the maximalists are, they won’t remember them because they’re going to be so I this is just because I see this with other political other people. Political and in paradigm movements is that those early activist and generally get washed out in the noise once things take off. And so I try not to take those guys too seriously. But I think they still performed a really important thing. And I totally have kudos and shout outs and respects to those guys because they did something important. But they also can be their own worst enemy as well. You know, I always say, say your retail, and I always kind of looking at it from the retailer standpoint, and I own a retail store before so I know a lot about retail. And, you know, say, I want to accept Bitcoin into my, my business. Where do you start? crypto Twitter right? Now, if you’re, you know, the business owner, you’re not maybe super technical, but you want to try something new. you’re frustrated with, you know, VESA screw, and you’re over whatever. And you go land on crypto Twitter, or Bitcoin talk or somewhere else and you run into maximalists. And you have a question about all this. Ch looks interesting. It’s faster than Bitcoin Core or what do you think about that? What do you think the responses to that poor retailer trying to learn? And put all those questions and and they’re going to run away.
Truth Raider
They’re gonna get nuked by 100 trolls getting all this stuff that they’re talking about it, you know,
Rob McNealy
Yeah and and so, to me that is actually an in my opinion one of the impediments right now of crypto is that I think in some ways it’s its own worst enemy and, and I and the bums me out because I mean I sought to up and people like oh you’re gonna do this project I’m like, oh, you’re a scam? What? I didn’t sell anything I didn’t nicey Oh, how am I a scam? You know? I don’t hide who I am. But it’s pretty funny. So, you know you I follow your Twitter and that’s how I actually found out about you originally. And you got a pretty big following on Twitter. What do you How did you get such a big following?
Truth Raider
Would you do so I started doing Lot of like I said, I used to be big into libertarian type conversation. Back in the day and my account I started my account 2015 I used to do more libertarian political type, like I’m pro I’m a pro gun guy. I got a shitload of guns I used to I used to be an ffl dealer back in the day. Nice. So like I’ve, I, I kind of was on that, you know, on the, to a spectrum libertarian guy. That whole, you know, area in it kind of has his place in Twitter, and then it kind of 10 you know, that I kind of just moved into crypto because it was a natural progression. You know, I think there’s a lot of people like me in that in that way. You know, libertarian guys that were looking for something that it was part of that you know, it was I don’t know, it’s it’s, it fits into the mold, really well. The whole decentralized decentralization and libertarian kind of, if you believe in both of those, it kind of go together a little bit. I would say,
Rob McNealy
I it’s funny, they bring up the gun thing. So that’s our, I don’t know if you know what we’re doing with TUSC, but we are focused on the gun industry with our project and then so it’s funny because I, you know, I go I spend more time in gun related conferences than crypto conferences. And I’m the only guy there talking about crypto, because there’s no one from the Bitcoin company or the Bitcoin project at gun things. It’s kind of funny, but you would be surprised, you know, because the gun industry has a really big problem with payments. really recognize problem and I always say this is that for adoption to happen, you need to focus on industries that have recognized problems. If you try to tell Grandma that she needs to go use Bitcoin to buy something at JoAnn Fabrics. And then by the way, it’s going to take maybe an hour or two for that to confirm. Oh, by the way, it’s really complicated. Oh, it’s expensive to that makes zero sense that for Grandma to do that you’re creating a lot more work and trouble and you’re going to stress to your poor grandmother out. But on the other hand, if you go talk to a gun retailer who the fact is they’re completely barred because of politics from using PayPal Venmo cash app, coin payments, token pay bit payments, or any of the other type of digital payment processing things and you talk about crypto, you would be surprised at how open they are to that concept of not getting their business shut down and being able to conduct business online. You know, and to me, there’s seven industries that have a recognized problem in the United States right now with traditional payments, and they’re all distasteful to somebody. And I have to point that out. So but and those are things like cannabis and guns and pornography and prostitution and gambling and pawn shops and refugees and immigrants. And those are the industries right now that have a problem. And to me, if you’re focused is on payments, which is what our focus is. You need to focus on those industries, because those are the places that actually have an issue that and they have a problem that needs to be solved that crypto does solve. And so far, we’ve had amazing response going and educating retailers. In fact, we got 15 retailers now that have already given us a verbal soon as our first payment gateways, that they’re going to accept us for payments. So we’re already real excited about this industry and 2020 is gonna be a really big year for us. So we’re pretty, pretty stoked. But you know, even if you’re in another project, you know, the main thing is, if it doesn’t matter, I mean, you need to focus if you’re trying to sell something to somebody, you need to sell somebody sell something to somebody, whether it’s script or anything else that has a problem and solve their problem. And I think a lot of these guys are like trying, especially engineers tend to fall into this building, they will come mindset, and that’s a myth building, they will not and you know, it’s great if you have an idea that You know, technologically might be amazing. But if you don’t have a plan, and way to put that solution to someone’s problem in front of the people who have that problem, I don’t think you’re going to get very far. And I think that’s what a lot of crypto people run into. But then again, most of the crypto people, I’ve Think about it, most of the crypto projects are led by developers. And there’s a huge least what I’ve seen with developers in general, is is a huge bias against sales and marketing people in general, they just don’t like sales, marketing. And I think that’s part of the culture. Developers are often introverted, and, you know, it’s not a bad thing. Our teams like the same way. I’m like, I’m the guy with the big mouth. So yeah, but it’s, but I think if people started opening their mind a little bit about what they’re trying to accomplish as far as getting adoption, if adoption is, you know, on the horizon, you know, you got to focus on solving people’s problems, and then you got to figure out a way how to get that problem, you know, solve for those people and put that in front of them. And that’s how you win and If you’re not doing that, then I don’t know how why it makes sense to me that there’s not a lot of adoption yet, is because people aren’t really doing that. You go look at the big projects out there and go look at their team pages, ones that actually have teams. And you will see, like, you might see a bunch of developers, but you really don’t see a whole lot in the way of the sales and marketing piece. Especially when you’re talking global projects where you might need, you know, you might need a sales leader for every country, you know, if you’re really trying to get adoption, I mean, that’s what it might take. But you don’t really see that being built out that way. So, where do you think the future is going to be if, say, I’m new, I’m coming into crypto, I want to get excited. I want to be a part of it. How would you recommend the average person who’s new to crypto to kind of get started and get their feet wet with this kind of industry?
Truth Raider
I would say if you don’t know anything about it, just go to go to Robinhood or coin base or an ATM. Just buy some Bitcoin and just try it out. Just test I mean, that’s, I think that’s step one is most people don’t know about that. Most people think it’s really complicated to to access Bitcoin. So I would say step one is if you know somebody that knows about it, just go get some. And that kind of thing that creates like a spark. So like my first the first Bitcoin I ever got was in Jacksonville, Florida at a Charlie shrem ATM and a gas station. I was like that was that that was my first gateway. And it was, it was because I just finished doing a shitload of research. I watch a lot of documentaries. I love documentaries. And I was just going through tons of them. And it just it kept popping up as a theme. So I was like, you know, I’ll go try this out. Let me just see what this this thing’s all about. You know, like I knew what it was. I knew it was used in the dark web with Silk Road. I know. I knew. I’d seen it on the dark web and the deep web. I’d seen you know people buying stuff and I never used it specifically. But I was super curious. And so finally I was like, You know what, let me just go to an ATM and buy it and I did. And and then it kind of you kind of go down a rabbit hole like you You started a project, you start you started the company started a project based on just that initial like, Hey, I think we have something here, you know, with with crypto. And I think that’s kind of what all of us we kind of went down that rabbit hole, you know, and and now we’re here and it’s an interesting ride because it it makes sense. At least to me, it really does. You know,
Rob McNealy
It made sense to me too. And that’s why I tell people I’m more I’m more bullish on crypto now than I was even two years ago when you know during the height of that craziness because but I agree with you and you know, I I’m real excited that you came on here I mean, this was a good conversation and and I’m happy to have you on anytime if you got something interest You want to share with my audience? Where can people find out more about you?
Truth Raider
I think the easiest way is just to go to either Truthraider.com I got a website just kind of shows the stuff I’m working on. Or just go to Twitter. At @TruthRaiderHQ is where I’m the most active. Thank you so much. I enjoyed this conversation immensely.
Rob McNealy
I appreciate it. Rob.