CREDITS
Hello, spheroidal Earthers.
Welcome back to the show.
Today we're going to be talking about two of my favorite topics at once, education and Bitcoin.
And I'm bringing in my new friend, Aladdin Flynn, whom I met the other day during a business meeting.
And we won't talk about the business for now.
We'll talk about his business for now.
But what I really loved was hearing about his perspective on education.
So as you know, I like to bring in as often as possible a discussion on education.
I haven't done it as much as I'd like to.
But here we go.
Aladdin, how are you, sir?
Doing great.
Thanks for having me, Matthew.
Absolutely.
So I'm going to start off first by telling everybody, you know, or by showing everyone, I'll let you tell everybody what it is you're doing.
And then we can then we can move into the education stuff.
But I did bring up I I saw that you're on the Bitcoin Wiki now at this point.
So, you know, tell tell the audience what this is.
What are we talking about here?
All right. Yeah, I created Bitcoin trading cards.
It's been a passion of mine.
I've been working on for four years and we launched last November.
So a long, long process to get where we're at now, but there's so much that goes into this.
And I wanted to make sure that when we finally released, it was as as clean and set as possible to do so.
So I get the main concept of this is a proper orange pill in a pack and making Bitcoin as fun and simple as possible.
I got into Bitcoin 2016 and found the hardest part was getting my friends and excuse me, getting my friends and family interested in Bitcoin.
And a lot of that I use this reference a lot.
There's a lot of red pill that goes into the orange pill that I don't think we consider that much.
And getting people to digest that red pill is very difficult.
So it's not so much catching them with that number go up.
There's so many things that go into it on why we need Bitcoin.
And for a few years, it was all I could do is talk about Bitcoin with everybody.
And that discussion was difficult many times because of the topics I had to bring up in order to to get them to understand why Bitcoin is so important beyond the number go up.
Because to Bitcoiners, once you get in and you get hooked, it's not number go up.
It's we can change the world with this.
So in doing all my discussions and talking to all my family, I get rejected many, many times.
And a lot of it also is we're incredibly passionate as Bitcoiners.
And sometimes that passion goes a little overboard for people and it scares them away.
So I wanted to come up with a way that was really simple, really fun.
And if anything, a subliminal orange pill, one where they're learning about Bitcoin.
They're they're taking on those those little elements and they don't even know they're doing it.
And it also allows me to shut up and just hand them a pack of cards and let them go at it.
And I think that's really been the biggest success with this is not having to have a long discussion with them and explain all of these complicated subjects,
but actually just hand them a pack and then let them come to you and ask you questions.
And so far, it's been a major win with almost everyone that I hand a pack to.
They're immediately coming back with really brilliant questions.
So it's been wonderful so far.
And to create a collectible, I think a lot of people sort of immediately recognize something different, you know, when they hold a card in their hand.
Right. I actually I went 37 years without buying a pack of sports cards.
And actually, I just did that this January.
And mostly just having a little bit of fun with hockey cards.
But there's something about learning who the players are.
And I'm sure anybody who's bought some sports cards before knows this.
You open up a pack, you look through the cards, there might be one or two that you're excited about.
Right. But you know who people are, you know, when you watch the game, you know what you're thinking about in a little bit of a different way.
And there is a game going on with information. Right.
And I think none of us even know how to describe this game.
None of us are even sure how much the authorities care about Bitcoin or want or don't want Bitcoin.
Like there's so much interesting things to think about in terms of of which players might want a different outcome, economically speaking, as we we're going through a wormhole.
You know, and and that's I think that's clear to more and more people.
So this is probably a good time. So you said November of 2022 that he has launched it with Pacific Bitcoin Conference.
Yeah. So when did you start the process?
When did you go, OK, I'm going to make these cards. And then how long did it take before that launch?
So I came up with the idea around twenty seventeen, but then pulled out the whiteboards in twenty eighteen.
And it was it was all me at that point. Didn't have anyone helping.
Really didn't know many Bitcoiners. I had my one buddy that we got into Bitcoin around the same time.
And I would go visit him and bring him stacks of scribbles on paper with the idea.
And I've just shut down by so many people in so many ways with this project over the years.
So I took it as maybe I just need to continue to polish this as much as possible before even showing anyone my ideas.
So twenty eighteen was whiteboards all year. Twenty nineteen was taking those whiteboards and actually putting it on the screen.
I computer time is something I don't like. So I'm as old school as it gets.
So pen and paper and my whiteboards is where I feel most at home.
But then I finally had to throw it on the screen, start really mapping it out.
And then around the end of twenty nineteen, I decided that in order for this to really be as amazing as it can be, I need more general public feedback.
I need to know what the no coiners are saying and not just my friends and family, but anybody and everybody that I can talk to.
So I became a major ambassador for Bitcoin in the way that I never shut up about Bitcoin.
It doesn't matter where I go. Almost everywhere I go, people know me as that Bitcoin guy because I'm almost always wearing the hat, the shirt, something to spark the conversation.
And there's never a point, almost never like for real that I check out at any store in any situation and don't talk about Bitcoin.
I've got two teenagers and they're so tired of me and my wife the same because everywhere we go, we're checking out and they're like, OK, get ready for the Bitcoin speech,
because I always got to let them know right there at the counter when I'm checking out that their money is now almost worthless and bring up the inflation
and always talk smack about the fact that I just spent three hundred dollars on one little grocery cart.
So I've got my little ends that I use on just about anywhere I go.
And with that, I was able to start soaking in as much feedback as possible.
But then my wife jumped my if I can cuss on here, so I'll keep my cussing jump my butt.
And she said, if you're going to be talking to everyone about Bitcoin all the time, then you need to figure out a way to monetize this.
And I know you're working on the cards, but like monetize it sooner than later because I'm a bit of a perfectionist and she knew it wasn't coming for a while.
So I started the Bitcoin life raft.
And this was a Bitcoin consulting company that I started just so that I could charge people for their time on teaching about Bitcoin and no financial advice whatsoever.
It's strictly just Bitcoin education. And I tested myself as hard as possible. And I said, OK, well, I'm going to go to the banks and I'm going to stand in line.
And this is where I'm going to pick up my clients because what better place to pick up clients than the banks.
So that's what I started doing. I found excuses to go to the bank and deposit a couple of bucks or whatever I could do to just stand in line.
And I usually would go on first of the week or not for the first of the month because I knew the line would really long and I would have time to stand in line and talk as loudly as possible about Bitcoin.
And some of these I wish I recorded because I would literally get into the World Economic Forum. I would get into the CDDCs.
If people were shutting me down, I would start talking about how they would own nothing and be happy. It was working really well.
I would almost always come out with a new client and I would have a handful of business cards in my pocket to make sure that as many people as I could, I could get those cards out to.
But, you know, it's funny that you just said that. I'm sorry. I'm jumping in here and interrupting because I've actually I've actually thought to myself, what if Klaus Schwab is a secret Bitcoiner?
What if what if he is being put up to all this in order to sell the next thing for somebody? Right.
And you might not even know who that somebody is. It may or may like that.
I personally think he's probably in the in the pen of people who want central bank digital currencies, which I do not.
I've been trying to help people understand that that's very, very different than Bitcoin. Right. Like a lot of people don't even know that already.
Most dollars are digital. They just they don't know. They don't know what it means yet for like what is the transition between that and central bank digital currency and what is the difference between that Bitcoin?
But it's it's a matter of decentralization. But you know what? And we could talk those details, but I'm going to do something different because everybody else, everybody else can find this discussion on another podcast starring you or starring one of the other Bitcoin educators.
But what really what I really loved about meeting the Latin was that he is an educator, that that is a focus of his and that he is he's not just doing like trading cards.
I mean, those are fun. And and I have some coming myself. In fact, I bought his last retail box of the of the series one and a box of the series two.
So I will have some some Bitcoin cards myself. But what I thought was really cool was that his his real focus is on education.
And he's talking about that. You're talking about that a little bit. Maybe before we move on from that, actually, I do have a question specifically related to the cards, which is just how many different artists did you get involved in in doing this?
Well, that was a big part of what took so long to get this project up and going because I was doing all the art myself in the beginning.
And then I had to realize everything's a learning curve with this thing has never done anything like this before.
There's no way that I was going to be able to pull off all the cards needed and especially going into series two and series three and so on.
I couldn't produce everything in time. So I started taking my sketches and just accepting the fact that I have to be more of an architect than the carpenter.
So that's what I just merged myself into was focusing primarily on the conceptual artwork, getting sketches out, getting the main ideas of what I'm trying to pull off.
And then over the couple of years, I was reaching out to artists all over the world and finding people in areas that were really hit by inflation and a lot of government strife, which is everywhere.
But some places are a lot harder than others because I figured that if I find the right artists in those areas, they're going to be able to pull off my my concepts the best because they're living.
And so I used in the first series around 25 different artists. And one of the great things about that is being an artist myself I understand that everyone has a different idea of what art is to them and what really good art is to them and I didn't want it to be the
style across the board. I wanted this to be done in a way where there is a style for everybody. And you may not like a lot of the cards because it's just not your style of art that you're into.
But with all the different artists we have in there, most likely we're going to capture you with one of these cards, and you're really going to be into the artwork and that's really the main thing we needed was to just grab your interest with at least one card.
Series two moving forward the cool thing is I was able to actually start getting to work with a lot of Bitcoin Bitcoin artists, and some of the top Bitcoin artists out there, just a lot of fun.
So I was able to add for new Bitcoin artists in the series to, and hopefully that can grow some more as we move on and, but yeah having multiple artists is really important for this project.
So it was clearly important for you for the cards to tell a story, and to be conversation starters and for people to learn from those conversations.
But you're going a step further. You told me about other projects multiple projects that are going to be upcoming that are in the pipeline now.
So go ahead and tell us. I remember, I can't remember the names of all of them, Heritage, and I'll let you tell us.
So one of the big things we got on the feedback is, there's a lot of, so the main series right now is highly collectible.
We have one of the scarcest trading card series ever printed series to proper orange pill in a box is the flood busters 21,000 packs, and with the orange pillow in a pack series we will never do more than 21,000 packs in any new edition that we do with that
series. So we've changed the theme up for every new edition so that there's an educational theme for each new series comes out. What's the highest price that a card has. I see them on eBay.
What is the hot. Excuse me, what is the highest price that one is sold for.
I think the knowledge, the only one that because I know there's one of ones out there that I created and those have been sold peer to peer, and I think the price has been at a high enough point that the people don't even really want to mention how much it sold for.
So, we worked with scare city, a week and a half ago, and a one of one wasn't number one of 100 I think it was like number 57 of 100 and Max Kaiser did come in and offer to go to lunch with the person that bought the card, which really helped hype the price up.
And so, as everyone knows, I don't have anything to do with the secondary market, and when it comes to pricing, that's not in my interest. I sell the cards for what they are the education is where my heart lies, whatever happens with the cards after that.
That's out of my hands and I don't pump it promote it, or anything when it comes to pushing the price up I don't want to be a part of that, necessarily at all.
So, the card sold for around $5800. Yeah, I know that that our mutual friend Andrew had offers in the 4000 something dollars for two or one each I think of the, the of 21 cards where there are 21 of them printed so the one of ones I'm sure you know go for more than that
and a week after I bought the last retail box.
There was an auction where a box sold for something like 3300. And the original cost of a full box was 500. Is that right.
So, yeah, clearly, people have already gotten excited about this.
So, so you have you told me about these larger cards, like maybe like Tarot size.
A lot of the feedback was, what if we don't want to collect the cards what if we're not like into that the whole collect ability, but we love the way these cards educate.
So we came up with something called a pop box that is a proper orange pill in a box. And that's where you're going to get the tarot size cards they're going to be larger.
The text will be easier to read the artwork will be a little bit bigger and at the same time, all of these differences in them will help to have nothing to do with the scarcity of the other cards which is really important and collect ability.
But these will be at an incredibly reasonable price, and we plan to do a lot of donations with these boxes, and you'll be able to get a whole box with 52 cards in there and get a huge dose of the education that comes in a series in one box.
And then that's really good to be able to give away to friends and family. A lot of people were buying the collectible packs and with the price going where it was going outside of the original price we had it up for a lot of people didn't want to give
away their packs as a gift to somebody to teach them about Bitcoin. So, and with that being the main reason for me starting this project is the education.
We started working on coming up with a way because I was not expecting the secondary market to be anything like this whatsoever. So now we're in the works of hopefully having this proper orange pill in a box come out over the next couple months, and people can pick
those up at an incredibly reasonable price. And again we'll be doing as many giveaways and donations with those as possible because if we can saturate as many places with these educational boxes.
I think it's going to be a major benefit for a lot of people.
And I see this is what I look forward to is, is, you know, having bought like packages of these and just being able to hand them out. You know, like not have to think like it's it's very difficult when you when you find out, oh you know, some of the cards in these packs maybe
one of ones and people are already trading these things for thousands of dollars, because there's only a limited number of them and people love their Bitcoin stuff period.
But to be able to have something that you can just hand out to people. That's something that I look forward to, you know, I would, you know, I actually have just, I have some business cards that just say a few words about Bitcoin on them, and I actually
keep a box of them in my car, just because I do like to give them away and I don't think about it often enough.
But I but I'd like to have, you know, some of these just to just to hand out to people. Is there any kind of a game that can be played with those or is that just, or are those just purely like educational props, and there's another game coming in the future.
So those are purely educational props. Those are just something to give away to anybody and everybody can think of because hopefully that price point is so low that it's like buying a soda, and you can just give it away to anybody and everybody that have a stack of those
kind of like your business cards. One of the big things that I've noticed, especially when it comes to just the collectible industry period, and the trading card industry. They call it ripping wax. So that's when you're ripping a pack open, and that experience of ripping the pack open is 90% of the trading card experience
because you don't know what you're going to get in there. So that's where the heritage pack comes in and we are going to change the name we're just right now. It's such a new concept we're working on we haven't locked in the name of what this is going to be yet, but this will be a mass production of the trading cards, and it's going to be primarily common cards, there will only be what they call a chase card which is a foil card, a special rare card.
You're only going to find one of those in every around 24 packs. So again, it will not hurt the scarcity of the main series orange pill in a pack at all it will keep that highly collectible. But at the same time you can hand someone a box of the trading cards for that big lump of education and there's going to be a lot of people that are really interested in that but if you got younger kids you got a lot of people that are just not into Bitcoin at all, and handing them a box is not going to be a big deal.
So if you're going to get a box is maybe not going to interest them. There's 52 cards in there are they going to spend the time to sit there and go through 52 cards if they're not interested in Bitcoin at all.
So, what I've been able to get back in the feedback is if we can get the same packs out, but mainly common cards and have a chase card here and there, then people still have that experience of ripping the pack, and especially for kids that's going to get them interested in looking at every card, because which one of these cards is going to be that rare card that might be some special bitcoiner or just a really special card that might have value to it down the road.
More than the cardboard it's printed on.
So that's a main focus of what we're trying to do so that eventually we can get to target. We can get to Walmart we can get to these brick and mortar stores and general public stores that it is nearly impossible to find anything about Bitcoin in and get people seeing Bitcoin on the shelf and the more that Bitcoin is normalized to the general public, the more of a chance they're going to give it, because that's the biggest thing we're battling over.
The biggest thing we're battling over is the mainstream media, shutting Bitcoin down as much as possible. Bitcoin is a benefit to the human race, and I'm one of those type of people that will admit, I don't think the general public has not general public I don't think the mainstream media is mainly focused on the benefit of the human race, that's just my own personal opinion so whatever we can do to battle against that and get Bitcoin out to the masses and teach them these basic concepts.
Is going to be a win for every new Bitcoiner is just that much more hope for my children's future, and the rest of the children are.
Yeah, I think I told you a little bit about my, my background as an educator.
I started my adult career working, you know, doing statistics work and then working on Wall Street in finance trading and whatnot. But then I, you know, one of my plan had always been to be an educator after that, and I spent probably spent about 15 years total, my adult life, building
educational programs building brick and mortar schools, different, different things. One of the things that struck me, especially after having worked on in financing going, going to education was how bad finance education is.
And I really felt like, you know, in the same way you said you don't think the media has her best interest at heart I think that there are a lot of factions and education that don't have her best interest at heart.
And it feels like finance is one of the most important and fully sacrificed disciplines that you would think every child should grow up, you know, making constant graduated steps in but, but there's almost nothing and and the questions that people have walking
into a bank are at such simple levels that you would think well you could know this at the age of 12. Right, or you know this could be something that is part of your natural process of thinking already but, but that it's not.
So, I think that this is, this is an even more important educational step than, than, you know, even like, you know, the average big pointer might imagine, I always think a lot of progress is made when you start putting things in the hands of kids directly.
We can be on podcasts all day long being listened to by adults we can, you know, write articles or get into newspapers and reach adults. But the fact of the matter is, it's what kids grow up doing naturally and ordinarily that becomes more firm
and more part of culture civilization at the next level. So I think that, you know, your idea of, of a Pokemon style game. I think is perfect I'd actually and you know like I mentioned I actually, I certainly hadn't taken the steps to sit down and,
you know, and think, you know, can this be done like, like you did. But I actually I thought of something like a Pokemon style Bitcoin game just because it does totally it fits to me.
You know it makes total sense, and I think that that that that a game like yours we can look back at that like in 20 years I think that it will be a tremendous benefit.
So I you know I would like to you know, aside from the trading cards themselves and that's fun and neat and and you know I'll be a collector but I think that the game itself will be momentous so I would encourage people you know if you have kids out there
out there that are interested in games always parents constantly asked me about my educational opinion about games, and it's really tough because you don't want kids not to have games to play. And yet, you know, if, if it's all just an extension of the
techniques that we're making sort of, you know, infused into pop culture infused into movies infused into games, then you're not making the progress that's possible. So I really like the sound of that here that.
So have you started making the first game set.
Yeah, we are working on that. We call it Satoshi heroes, and we are going. We're doing this in the same manner that really works for the general public.
In order to really break through the many many years of indoctrination and everything that we have to break through in order to get Bitcoin into their heart and mind.
And to get their own level. And that's where we're creating this in a very similar style to Pokemon. We're starting with a comic book series called Satoshi heroes.
Been working on this for about a year now.
And it's going to be a really fun dive for kids basically just the main concept of it is some kids that find a rabbit hole underneath their grandparents bed where they used to store their money, and they travel through that rabbit hole into different times
in history and learn different facts about monetary history. But at the same time, it's going to have a lot of really fun aspects to it.
And so you know that the best teachers that you'll ever have isn't necessarily on the funnest subjects. It's the teacher that can make any subject fun.
And those are the teachers that we learn the best from. You can literally take the most boring subjects and throw the funnest teacher in there.
And the kids are going to love that subject and they're going to love that class.
And then you have the funnest class with a teacher that doesn't know how to make things fun. And you just took an incredibly fun subject and ruined it for the kids.
So that's where this has to be a really good match up of both in order to make it work.
And then from that story of Satoshi heroes will come the game and the characters in that story will be in this game.
And it will be very similar to Pokemon style with hit points and the magic points and everything else that you'll have to use in order to play this game.
A lot goes into creating a good game. We are working with a lot of people that have been collecting and playing these games for years.
I've got a really good Magic the Gathering group that I work with, some friends that have been playing Magic the Gathering since it came out.
And they're helping me to master this game. So again, when it comes out like the trading cards, it's as prepped and ready for the general public as possible.
And we really hope to reach as many people with this as we can.
And the greatest part about it, Matthew, is we were able to capture the same printers that print Pokemon cards and Magic the Gathering.
And I'm not sure if any of the listeners know four years of this project trying to find a printer was by far the hardest part of this entire thing.
And you don't just call these companies up and get them to print for you.
In 65 years, this company has never printed a small project. I do think that we've got some Bitcoiners on the board of this company.
I'm just imagining because they are very excited for this project and they're with us 100 percent to build this thing out and grow it as big as we possibly can.
And that's our biggest win right now, Matthew, is having the best printer in the world backing us in this project.
I could not be more pumped for what we have coming for that reason alone, because without the right printer,
it's the biggest struggle in the world. And with these guys behind us, oh boy.
That's good to hear. I didn't I didn't I know that you'd mentioned to me your quest for a printer when we talked previously, but I didn't know that they were the same people you mentioned.
And, you know, well, I know that your your first series one printing costs were pretty high. So they have like, you know, multiple types of like cut like you can make the game card for a whole lot less. Right.
So it comes down to volume and it comes down to your foils. Foil is not cheap, especially so it costs almost as much to make 21 of one card as it does to make 2100 of one card.
So that's a really big one there. So then again, that's where when you start to get to mass production, the price comes down dramatically because it costs about the same to print a small run as it does to print a really large run.
And with us, I'm self-funded. I don't have investors. We don't have a big team pushing behind this.
I've just started establishing a team over the last few months of some amazing Bitcoiners. But this is definitely a teared out project and it's grassroots all the way.
But with them behind us, as we grow, I think we're going to be able to knock this down to where we can get better price points out.
And when it comes to the Pokemon series, say Pokemon series, I probably shouldn't even use that word. I want to get myself in trouble.
But when it comes to the fun gaming series, we'll be able to get the price point down at a really reasonable price and compete with a lot of the other trading cards and gaming cards out there, which will be really fun.
Very cool. So how many cards are going to be in the first game set?
We're looking at around 120, most likely 121 just to make that number.
I've never played a game of Pokemon myself, but a few years ago I did learn how to play Magic. Somehow that game escaped me in childhood.
It turned out that I had friends who played for years, but I just I didn't even know. Actually, it's probably the case that that I heard about it.
Oh, we just flipped in and out.
But I learned how to play.
And for those who are uninitiated, you have some cards like lands or mana that are involved in the game.
Is that 120 include that or is it like or is it like creatures and spells?
How does it break down?
It's going to include all the cards. So as we grow this project, then we can add new characters, we can add new spells, we can add so many new elements to it. But we want to start out with the main set to be able to just get people interested.
And then from there, it's really about collecting those those extra pieces and extra characters to it.
So you really don't want to come out with everything all at once. You want to be able to start simple and build up.
Exactly.
All right.
Well, we're OK.
So when I think about a game like this, I think one of the things I thought when I learned magic was, wow, this is an economic game.
Like already to me, it felt like, OK, this is an economic game.
I haven't played Pokemon or what is what is the other one?
Oh, Yu-Gi-Oh!
That is very popular. I've seen the cards, I've seen people playing, but I haven't stopped to see what the mechanics are, you know, how that goes.
But I assume that these games have their own sort of economics involved, like their energies, manas, lands, and you have like certain amount to spend in order to make moves.
Right. So it seems like an economic game already. Like already, I could, you know, I could see this being better than than a lot of finance education that happens in school.
What do parents tell you when when you talk about this with them?
So I homeschool my kids and the parents that I really primarily hang around are also homeschool parents and they're very interested in this.
And I mean, none of them are orange pill. None of them are into Bitcoin.
And this has been a great door opener to discuss that with them because we do a lot of homeschool programs with these parents.
And we're very involved in a lot of homeschool communities and groups. I don't want to over push my interest in Bitcoin and getting them involved because a lot of people have their reservations about someone that is approaching them about Bitcoin, which really brings because of the number go up.
Because I mean, a lot of people, honestly, I'm not sure if you got this one, Matthew, or if the listeners have gotten this, but it's incredibly common. And that is you just want me into Bitcoin because it's going to help bring up the price of Bitcoin for you.
That just shows right there. Yeah.
The level of broken economics in their head to think that their buy in is going to actually pump the Bitcoin bags. Yeah, a friend of mine and I were invited to give presentations on Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies.
I'm more of a Bitcoin or myself. I'm not quite a Bitcoin maximalist, but I'm in that vicinity. And he is more of he thinks that the altcoins will succeed first, or at least the proportion of them that are reasonable.
And I won't get into details about that, but we were invited to speak and we get done. We gave a presentation, the very first person who wanted to like speak basically said, every time I hear somebody talk about Bitcoin, I think, you know, sleazy scammers or something like that.
It was just like, you know, like, wow, you know, really like we were just invited to give an educational presentation and you're going to begin that way. But it's there's something, you know, it's money.
And so people's emotions are so very high. And there are so many stories about scammers. It really is an environment that because it's new and involves money, it will absolutely invite the worst people involved.
And one of the things that I like, like about, you know, meeting somebody like you, who's doing something that's just fun with it. It's like, okay, you know, like, okay, you can sell these make a living at it. But, you know, I guess people could say that you're just trying to pump the price.
Hmm. Hmm. It just feels so innocent to me. You know, it may maybe that's the thing to focus on. Like the moment you're talking about game pieces, doesn't even matter if it succeeds, if Bitcoin succeeds or if there is something that winds up being an improvement on the whole process.
Maybe people debate that out. I kind of think that that a lot of improvements Bitcoin can just swallow and own, which is the value of being the network, the first network. There's if something else succeeds, it's going to look very different. But
Hmm. Kind of exploring this, like, you know, what, what gets people past cognitive dissonance? It might be, it might be when kids start picking up these cards on their own. As in, you know, they play the game with other kids. I, you know, I don't know how many parents are going to blame you for that, though. Are you prepared for that?
100% bring it. The more questions people ask, the happier I am. I've had a lot of people and they'll rip through the cards and I've got a lot of cards in there that really make you use your critical thinking skills. And even my father in law, he's like, well, how do I know this is real? How do I know this is true? The facts that you're putting on these cards, so do your own research.
All these cards are supposed to do is spark your interest. Yeah. I want you to question these cards. As long as you're willing to get up and do your own research, open up a computer, open up a book, whatever you got to do to go and study that topic. That's what I want. I don't want people to read these cards and go, okay, here's all the information I need. I'm done. I'm good.
Now take it the next step. Do your own research and learn for yourself because once you start opening that rabbit hole, almost anybody that has a soul is going to have to eventually recognize how broken the system is and they're going to have to wake up to it.
And ignorance is bliss. And if people want to sit there, more power to them. I'm not the type of person to tell somebody how they have to live one little bit. I just want people to hopefully the ones that can wake up to wake up in my office complex.
It's covered in financial advisors. These guys paid for a living to give financial advice to people that come in and have no other ability on their own to learn these topics. So they go find somebody and they give them access to their 401k to their life savings and say, well, you direct me on how to manage my future.
And when I speak with these very nice people, but I give them the cards and they're like, well, what's my incentive? What is in this? The main one that captures me every time he's holding the Bretton Woods card.
And this is a financial advisor that's been a financial advisor for over 35 years. And he goes, so what is, what do I get out of this? I said, well, you know what Bretton Woods is? He goes, no.
So then you're holding all the right there. Read the card. If you're a financial advisor for 35 years and you don't know what Bretton Woods is and you're literally advising people on how to manage their future.
This is their entire life. You obviously haven't even and it could be a school's problem. Well, obviously it's an educational problem, but it's the lack of try.
It's the I'm willing to just take what's handed to me and that's plenty enough and I have no initiative to go out on my own and learn beyond the book that was set in front of me.
Right.
That's a really profound point. I mean, I actually, I feel like I went through a dull period in my educational life.
And I'm going to admit to this and explain it right now, which is that I was a very active, engaged learner. Almost everything that I learned was, you know, I took it upon myself to, you know, find the book for whatever we went to the library, sat down, read books, the library.
But getting to high school actually dulled that somewhat because there was so much more time commitment thrust on on you at high school. And then I went through my own period of relearning in a sense that how to control my own education.
And I think because it like as I did, I didn't make as good grades and that and I had to learn to be okay with that. I would literally just skip doing assignments at school and then be okay with that.
But I was able to to sort of recondition myself. And now I'm somebody who can, you know, pick up books, get on the web, call people on the phone and find out things in a lot of different ways.
And so what I recognize about that is, is, you know, when people see it, they go, oh, you know, you're, you're such an engaged sort of self-learning. I realize how many adults are not.
I'm sort of fortunate. I'm blessed that because of a community that got built called Operation Uplift during the pandemic, people read a few articles that I wrote and appreciated them and came and started, you know, there were people who did their own research and put together a wiki, Campfire.wiki.
And, you know, those were engaged people. But, you know, we look around and we have to find ways to get people engaged and to take it upon themselves.
And I like that right there, financial advisor who doesn't know what Bretton Woods is. That is an example of a dependent learner. That is somebody who, who clearly never learned to engage with their own curiosity, even in the topic that was most important to their career.
And I think that anything that can be done that gamifies that I think gamification at the point of economics and finance is just is just awesome. And, and the same lessons that we learn in Bitcoin will be learned within education.
And here's what I mean by that. I've been trying to apply this idea as broadly as possible lately, because there's a conversation amongst researchers during the pandemic is, are people, is this person trustworthy? Is this media personality trustworthy? Is this leader trustworthy?
In Bitcoin, the Bitcoiners like to say Bitcoin is money for enemies. And, you know, what does that mean? I, you know, I'm not going to explain it fully because that's a, that's actually a long conversation where you have to get down to the game theory of it all, of it all.
And the effect of the Byzantine general problem that Bitcoin solves. But if you apply that to broader life, no, you should probably think that everybody is, is a sham or a scam or a con artist until proven otherwise.
And yet that's still okay. That doesn't mean that you're being mean or making enemies or something like that. It actually re-centers the way that you think about trust. And it does so in a way that can be productive once you get past this idea of it not sounding nice.
And, you know, like to me, that's a, that's a very profound reorientation. And, but I, but I think that it is a correct one and a necessary one for humanity to achieve its best potential to understand the value of the people around you that you really know that you can trust.
Because you know them, you know them personally, you have so much interaction with them, you read them well, you know, when they're deceptive and you know, and you know when little deceptions are actually a game that's being played, you know, like the way, you know, you can rib your friends growing up.
They can rib you, but it's not the same when you say that really awful thing to somebody you've never met before.
But I think that it is a whole general philosophical change and that can grow up through the children. I think, I think even we as the adults like sitting here, you know, we're the Bitcoiners, we already love it, we're already thinking about it.
I think that there's just enormous potential in putting this in the hands of kids. And I think, I think that may be when Bitcoin succeeds is when the kids play in a game like yours grow up. So you said it was heroes of Bitcoin, is that what you're calling it?
Satoshi's heroes.
Satoshi's heroes, excuse me, Satoshi's heroes. Is that the first set or is that the overall name of the game?
That's the overall name of the game. And then there will be themes off of that. The comic book series, each new series that we do with it, the kids will go on a new adventure and there'll be a new theme to that adventure.
But it's going to be Satoshi's heroes will be the primary name of the project.
Can I offer you a rabbit hole? The Wizard of Oz is a story about economics.
Yeah, absolutely.
Okay, so you've done your exploration of those themes. That's good.
We're going the right road.
Yeah, that's right. Yeah, the Emerald City, the color of money. And even, you know, who you can trust, there are people who wonder whether or not the witches who are supposed to be good are actually the bad witches, because they're the ones who manipulate Dorothy into taking out their adversaries.
Exactly.
It's a little bit, it's a little bit wicked to think the whole thing through, but there are, you know, some of the economic themes are simpler than others, easier to tell. But, you know, that could be, that could be cards.
Yeah.
We've got a lot of ideas for going down many of these rabbit holes. I mean, Matthew, the thing is kids nowadays, they're they're highly intelligent. They have been dropped in so much more life experience at a much younger age.
I grew up in the 80s and 90s and I grew up on the farm and we didn't have a TV in the house. So I learned from life experiences. But what these kids have nowadays with a tablet and a computer and Internet access, the moment they're old enough to understand how to do a Google search, it's on.
Any of those questions they have normally they would have to learn from a friend that may not know the answer to ask another friend to maybe get to a parent if they trusted asking the parent. They don't have to do any of that.
Now they just go directly to the computer and ask that and all of the garbage that is on TV nowadays is really promoting children to be adults at age five and six. I mean, most of these shows that I see my kids watch once in a while. There's no adults. These are parent or children.
Acting as adults and I'd sit back and I watch an episode with them just to see what they're watching and I'm like, where are the parents? This is really strange to have a bunch of kids from age like maybe seven up to 12 years old living on this apartment or a cruise ship.
And you'll see an adult here and there but very seldomly they're thrown directly to adulthood at a very young age. They're highly intelligent and they're ready to soak up the knowledge.
And if we do things and we get creative and how we were coming out with our Bitcoin knowledge, like you said, they would like they're watching Wizard of Oz at eight nine years old. Most of these kids are far beyond that. They're like this is corny. I mean, my kids just did it for home school and they watched it and they were like, they were really into it.
We were teenagers, but we had kids from age like 10 years old up to 17 and they were not that into it. But I can guarantee you, especially the home school kids that my friend, my children hang out with. But if we can create even a Wizard of Oz, like you were saying and throw our own spin on it and throw the economics in it and throw all those little innuendos in there and that rabbit hole in there.
They're going to love it. They're going to eat it up and want it. And this is not just home school kids. Kids want to learn because they've been thrown into it so heavily so early. And you have propaganda in video games. You have propaganda in every single thing these children do.
I don't know if you've ever seen like YouTube kids, the commercials that come on in between the episodes that these kids watch is pure propaganda for these children. Really. So even just things that can get them to recognize propaganda would be amazing.
That's the one of the biggest ones for me is from a young age. But the more I started going down that rabbit hole deeper and deeper, the more I could pick up propaganda like that. Just holy crap.
That commercial was like just feeding our minds pure garbage to screw us up entirely. And there are ways to get children to recognize adults. Adults really need to recognize it because then maybe they can come in and pay attention to what their children are watching.
So it's really reaching across the board. And like we're saying with the financial advisors, Matthew, it's an ego issue. And a lot of these guys that I talked to after the Bretton Woods thing, it just kind of made them.
It sparked their ego really hard. Few of them were very interested, but a few of them were insulted by the fact that there is information in a stupid playing card that they don't understand yet. They've been a financial advisor for 35 years.
So it traps in an artificial narcissistic shell. Yes. And what we need to do is teach the general public that there is a happy balance of ego and you need to have your own ego that is a level that gives you the confidence to not trust a financial advisor that may not know as much as you could with a one good Bitcoin documentary.
I mean, there's some great Bitcoin documentaries out there that are about an hour and a half long. If you watch that Bitcoin documentary and you really soak it in and pay attention because they go from money at the beginning until Bitcoin today.
And if you really pay attention, there's a good chance that not on all points, but in a lot of points, you're already more educated than the financial advisor that's been a financial advisor for 35 years. So it's building the confidence up in the general public to say, just because this guy has worked on Wall Street, just because he has been in this spot for many years doesn't mean you can't show up with an equal level of maybe not total education.
But intelligence, because there's a couple key points that if you know these few key points and the financial advisor doesn't, you're already surpassing that financial advisor in your intelligence and economics.
If the financial advisor doesn't know how the Federal Reserve was created and that it's not federal and there's no reserve, but you do, you're already 10 times past that financial.
It's like having a weak foundation. Right. So I'm going to be the education historian here. And this is not something that I knew about when I first started. I thought growing up, I want to do something in education. I want to help improve systems, redesign systems.
And I thought that I knew a lot. And then, and then as I, you know, started writing textbooks and building classes, you know, just constantly read about education and find all of these rabbit holes that are just mind blowing.
And one of them is the Benjamin Bloom problem. I don't know if you've heard of this one before. In 1984, I'll go ahead and explain it one way or another for anybody watching.
In 1984, a researcher named Benjamin Bloom wanted to test the standard classroom model versus spending the same amount of teacher time working with students in groups of one to three.
So very personalized, if not one on one.
And when students did work one on one or one on three with the teacher, along with like, you know, basic reinforcement or like, you know, testing like mastery, testing just to show that they've mastered the basic skills.
The median student began scoring like a student in the 98th percentile.
The median student looked like a borderline genius. It was a two standard deviation shift of the normal distribution.
And I constantly tell people like, intelligence is not what we think it is. The way we measure it, it is way more malleable. So far as we measure it.
I think probably different personality types wind up developing different forms of intelligence when you see somebody who's a great athlete, you know, LeBron James of the world.
I don't know if you if you've seen I don't know if you're a sports fan at all. If you do you watch basketball or any of the sports?
Very little. I watch very little TV at all. My entire life I've been. Yeah, not not a big fan of TV.
Fair enough. That's that's probably a good thing. Ninety nine point nine percent of the time.
LeBron James and I barely watch TV at all, but I saw a clip that had been shared on the Internet where after a basketball game, he was asked, you know, asked about something about the game.
And he begins to name off the six times he turned the ball over. He lost the ball to the other team.
And he remembered every single one of them and exactly what happened and whether or not it was like a mistake that he made.
He lost his dribble or whether he was looking for a person who wasn't the place that he expected.
And so he was a little bit delayed and the ball got stolen.
But he knew well enough in his mind to recap all those things. And that is a form of intelligence.
The athletes have had their forms of intelligence. People who study a particular subject, we could say they have a form of intelligence.
And a lot of that is our personality interest, right? Our drives toward what we're good at.
People who are good actors, people who are you know, these are all forms of intelligence.
But once you learn the Benjamin Bloom problem and you realize that with guidance, almost everyone winds up very high on the ways that we measure that intelligence.
It tells you how much we are missing in the educational process. And it won't shock me at all if the Bitcoin revolution involves pieces like this that wind up changing education and that open up a further change in education.
And then boom, you know, we're looking for all the right things. And as you said, you know, children are are, you know, so highly intelligent. And once once they're active and they get going, it wouldn't shock me if future generations just look so different than all these worries that we have over, you know, has scientific progress halted as technological process.
Will we not see gains in the economy? I suspect I suspect that we're just blind, that we're blind and that there is this mountain that we you know, maybe we're traveling through a tunnel on the other side, we're going to see how to climb the mountain again.
And so, like, you know, I'm just wonderfully excited about something like this, because I do think it is one of those steps. I think a game like this will will open up, you know, it'll be the right form of game will be the right amount of attention to do.
Attention and time that children can take to spark their interest.
Well, awesome. Well, do you have any thoughts? Maybe we wrap things up here or have we talked about your educational projects here or do you have anything else to open up for us? Yeah, I can give you a little bit more on it.
So when it comes to the comic book and Satoshi's heroes, we have big plans for this particular part of the project. We have the trading cards collectability and just being able to reach the general public in a really fun way.
We plan to do sporting events, concerts. This is a way to get Bitcoin out to the general public in ways that hasn't been able to be done yet. You're not going to get an exchange, a Bitcoin exchange or many Bitcoin projects right now to be able to put a booth together at a general public situation where you're going to get people coming over that are not Bitcoiners interested in what you're doing and asking questions.
Like you said, we talked about this one. You're a shill. You're trying to pump my bags to scam. Many reasons for them not to come over and pay you attention.
But with my creativity and pushing the envelope, when I set a booth up at one of these events, the booth is going to look just ridiculous and they're going to come over to the booth, not because of Bitcoin, because we'll barely have any Bitcoin elements at all.
They're going to come over to the booth because this guy gets standing behind me is going to be standing in front of the booth, taking pictures and chatting with everybody. And they're going to go, who the hell is this big, monstrous character?
And we're going to get Satoshi Nakamoto. And then they have to ask who is Satoshi Nakamoto. And with the artwork and everything else we're throwing into it, again, it's the subliminal orange pill.
Don't talk to about Bitcoin. Don't push the whole Bitcoin subjects and everything. Just let them find something in what you're doing that sparks their interest.
Let them buy a stuffed animal of one of the characters. Let them buy a little figurine, a pack of trading cards and don't really even get into Bitcoin.
It's just this is a really fun, new, collectible, awesome trading card project that's out and we plan to go really big. Start with that.
And then when it comes to the Satoshi's heroes, we have plans to the comic book, get the characters, get the storyline going and then take those characters the same way they do with Pokemon and bring them into the game.
Now they want to collect the characters that they have come to know in the comic book. And then from the game, they start playing and get more interested.
We're working on creating an entire curriculum that goes with comic book and the game. And this curriculum is going to be mainly geared towards home schools.
We want to get this out to as many home school communities and groups as we possibly can. We want to make it as nonprofit and free to these groups as possible because it's going to be something new and maybe they're not interested right away.
So if there's a way to get them a free trial and really just get them excited about it.
When you say curriculum, do you mean all subjects?
All subjects. So one of the things I didn't say Matthews in these cards, we have eight categories. So it's only 20% Bitcoin.
The rest that's in these cards that you're going to find is currency. There's a whole currency category that's going to break down everything from Bretton Woods, the gold standard, monetary history, all kinds of topics like that.
That is an entire category. So when you find the cards, you're going to find a currency card and then it'll have a currency topic on it. And then on the back of it, it's going to break down that particular topic.
Then my favorite category is freedom. So I'm in the freedom category. You're going to find all kinds of elements on freedom, decentralization, the
basic breaking down freedom in every way. What is the unalienable rights that we all deserve to have? What are concepts of freedom that have worked very well?
Anything and everything that promotes people understanding the importance of freedom.
Then we have the complete opposite of that, which is the tyranny category. And that's where you're going to find what is centralization?
What is communism? What is socialism? What is a dictatorship? Things that most people are getting manipulated to think are something entirely opposite of what they are.
And I've had so many people that come to me and say, well, we just haven't done socialism right. And they're putting it in all over the media.
Socialism is a good thing. We just haven't done it right yet. And most people don't understand because the media is not telling them how wrong it went in the past.
And do we even want to attempt to try something again that went so unbelievably wrong?
So having the tyranny category to teach all that and I can go through the other categories, but the gist of it is with each of these categories,
we can go through an entire day's worth of school just off of these cards and building out the curriculum off of the categories in these cards.
And there's Coach Carbon. I don't know if you heard of him, but he's a football soccer player in the UK and he has managed to take all different types of games that he created and football, soccer,
depending on where you're at, and teach math and teach Bitcoin fundamentals with these amazing games that you can go out on the field and play.
So being able to integrate some of the amazing, amazing methods and games that Coach Carbon has created and working with other Bitcoiners,
especially because we just have little bits and elements and then we're going to gather the Bitcoin community that specialize in what they do.
So instead of us trying to specialize in each one of these topics. No, no, no, that's not intelligent.
The intelligent thing to do is create a platform to where we can gather the people that do specialize in these topics and let them come in and really bring their focus and their incredible genius into each one of these topics
to make this game and this curriculum as powerful and amazing as possible. And the world is open and ready for it.
And the majority of people I talk to, they want this. There's just nothing available to them right now. So we just need to come together as Bitcoiners with the passion we have and find a way to tame our passion
that freaks a lot of the general public out and just give it to them and bite size pieces that they can come to us and ask the questions.
And that's the biggest thing, Matthew, is let's spark some critical thinking and we will all be amazed at the changes that are going to happen across the board, across the entire world.
Some critical thinking that has been missing and tampered down for so many years and all humans have the ability.
They've just been scared and pushed down to use that critical thinking skills. But the greatest part is there's nothing more empowering to any of us than starting to use those critical thinking skills.
And then figuring out that holy crap. I just figured things out that the majority of people don't know. And then like Bitcoiners, all we want to do at that point is wake more people up to it.
So it'll be a domino effect. And we are the starting dominoes right now. That is Bitcoin. And Bitcoin has so much more it can do than just changing the monetary system and becoming the gold standard for us, the Bitcoin standard.
It has the ability to wake this world up.
So this is fantastic hearing that I didn't know about this whole curriculum. We didn't get to this part of the conversation last time we talked, I don't think. Just to let you know, and I don't know if there's a collaboration opportunity here, but I'm trying to make it as open to that as easily as possible.
But I told you I built some education companies in my past. And one of them I've just been rebooting recently. And just in the past week or so, I thought, you know what, I'm against intellectual property rights.
I have published books, published textbooks, you know, there's a certain degree to which you sort of go along with some things defensively, right? But ultimately, that was never my goal. And I wanted my curriculum to be out there.
So I was just rebooting my education website, metaprep.net. And I was going to begin putting up, you know, both the PDF documents and the LaTeX is the type setting language that we use for mathematics a lot that makes the, you know, all the symbols and everything look very nice.
But basically, as we put it up there, it's something that you're free to use.
We're going to make it open source. So if it is integratable, or if we have lessons that you haven't written yet or built yet, you're welcome to them.
I love it.
In addition to that, if you want a place for them, we would be happy to incorporate yours onto our website because that's what we want to do.
Basically, the business model is simply going to be a simple locals.com community. And the community, you know, you have access to people at the community. So you can discuss things, you know, parents can discuss different ideas or, you know, how many of you use a co-op for which classes and how many days, you know.
I'm sure you know these questions well, given that you're in the homeschool community. So I just want to throw that out there. Happy to be sharing that.
And I did tell you I'd send you some of that material last time we talked, but I think it's more likely that we just get it on online in the next few days, actually, the first batch, at least.
So I'll send you an email when that's done. You know, feel free to, like, if there's some level of collaboration that you're interested in.
But like I said, you wouldn't even have to ask because we're going to make it open source.
I love it. That's how we're going to change the world, Matthew, is the collaboration that Bitcoiners have and the ability for us to come together. I've been in many industries over the years.
And the hardest thing is getting people to just work together.
Jeff Booth with Ego Death. I mean, the best name in the whole world. That's the more you become a Bitcoiner, the more you're able to to really embrace that ego death.
And that is where we come together as Bitcoiners like no other industry, like no other community that's ever been done before.
And we are able to make the changes that have been deemed impossible in any other time in history.
But this community, the way Bitcoiners work together, we've got some major potential.
I feel more hopeful for my children and their future than I ever have since really being able to embrace the Bitcoin community and the community we have behind these trading cards.
It's just incredible. It's only been a couple of months and it's just absolutely empowering in every way and inspiring to meet just incredibly beautiful people day after day after day and feel the passion and the camaraderie and collaboration that everyone wants to do together for one goal to make this world a better place.
I mean, I really look forward to pushing out this conversation. I've been involved in this, you know, pandemic research community just in general for the past several years.
And one of the things that I'm and I have to I have to recalibrate myself sometimes. But one of the things that I want to push back against is just the general fear.
And and there is there's so much uncertainty and doubt that it's an easy thing to folk the stuff Stoke the FUD at this point.
And there are a lot of changes coming in the world and there are a lot of challenges coming in the world and we do have to be active in solving those.
But like you, I feel I feel optimistic. I tell some of the people in this community, I feel oddly optimistic because there may be pain before getting to the next peak.
And yet there are things to to be excited about. And we need to we need to view it as an adventure. You know, right. We need to to maintain the positive attitude and spirit.
We can work hard. You know, we can enjoy it, too. Right. And so, you know, there can be a brighter future on the other side.
So thank you for that. Thank you for joining us. But thank you for that energy and spirit that you bring to the table. I think that's just awesome. And I'm just I'm so thrilled to find somebody like you in the Bitcoin community.
There's so many positive Bitcoin or so many smart people, so many people who are, you know, focused on doing great things. But to me, an educator, you know, because that's my passion as well.
So thanks for joining us and sharing your thoughts with us. Any closing thoughts or remarks?
I think we we went through it really well. I guess one last one. My job with these cards and what I'm doing is not.
So I'm hoping these cards can bring people into Bitcoin. And then again, talking about the community, it's the Jeff Booth, the sailor, the Matthew Crawford.
It's the community that's going to keep them in. And that's where all of us working together.
If there's anything I can say to anybody that is trying to work in Bitcoin, trying to most people, once you get in, you just want to work in Bitcoin. Find a way. How do I make my life Bitcoin?
It's so inspiring in every way. Find ways to make Bitcoin fun. Don't worry about having to be the final stage of the Bitcoin education.
When you're teaching someone about Bitcoin, when you're bringing up Bitcoin to friends and family, you're not trying to give them everything all at once.
That's only going to run them away. All you're trying to do is give them a spark. There are so many amazing educators out there.
You never know what that spark is going to be. It can be the just the amazing artists in Bitcoin have nothing to do with Bitcoin, but they love art.
And then they see the inspiring artwork that is coming from these Bitcoiners that's like nothing else seen before. And that's what brings it.
It can have nothing to do with monetary gains or values at all. And it's the freedom aspect.
So my biggest thing is helping people help people get into Bitcoin and just take your time with people and try and figure out what sparks their interests.
Like any kid that you're trying to educate, give them a little piece and remember that there's such a massive team in Bitcoin.
It's not your job to give them everything. It's your job just to inspire them enough to take it upon themselves to start to go down that rabbit hole.
You don't even have to go down it with them. And more than you trying to answer questions, be really careful to answer any questions they don't ask you.
Allow them to ask the questions, allow them to have the power when they come to you.
And that has been my biggest success is not me trying to explain to them my thoughts and feelings about Bitcoin,
but allowing them to come to me with their feelings and their questions and simply answering exactly what they're asking and then letting them come back with another and another.
And this is how we are going to reach our friends and family.
I love it. So for everybody out there, here's a closing thought.
If you're not sure about Bitcoin, maybe you're worried that it's going to be like central digital currencies.
Maybe you don't know the difference. Maybe you're just worried because you don't know how it works.
I would encourage you to seek out that spark or find your curiosity. Now, go to a local meetup. They're everywhere these days.
I used to get excited when there was a meetup. But at this point, it's which one am I going to go to?
So are you curious? Reach out, find out, learn a little bit.
There are people who will happily walk you through one question that you have. And there are going to be 100 questions.
But find a place, go ask a question, find a place online, do a little bit of basic reading, think it through.
Thanks so much for I have the feeling you're going to spark some curiosity among some of our viewers.
So thanks for joining us. And we'll wrap things up with some with some nice string music here.
And I'll see you next week or actually we'll see you tomorrow with Liam.
Bye.