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Join us on the Disruption Now podcast as we challenge the status quo and advocate for digital equity, ownership, and responsible technology.
not a straight path that's for sure
but I'd always been interested in Bitcoin
bitcoin as a financial tool was very interesting
from a sound monetary policy perspective
I noticed that over the last hundred years
the systems that we created
really devastated
those parts of the country that my family is from
this idea was moving through me that I couldn't ignore
I knew that I had to move on
and so I left my job in April
it creates a finite resource
in a way that we've actually never had
in the history of the world
the current system that we have
requires the trust of a lot of central institutions
that have shown that they're not always
necessarily trustworthy
the agentic a
I's are going to eventually be paying other agentic a
I's or paying other businesses essentially
and they're going to need a mechanism to enact
that payment process
we have to be able to find like
what's true and what's not
we can actually use blockchain to help verify this too
it behooves you to understand every month that you wait
you are getting further and further behind
I think we are in the pivot
I think
we are at the point where things are going to go
exponential I think it is unavoidable
welcome to disruption now
I'm your host and moderator
Rob Richardson
we always host here about ways to improve the world
through technology and today I'm talking about um
blockchain and crypto actually my
my first kind of really deep dive into technology
I obviously do AI now too
but I'm here with Andrew Birchwell
who is the leader of the Ohio Blockchain Council
he's been an innovator for a long time
but before we get to him
I wanna make sure that you all are subscribers
if you're watching this here on YouTube
please hit that subscribe button you know
90% of you are not subscribers
so how more people can learn about
ways to disrupt the world
is by actually becoming subscribers
that allows us to expand our reach uh
impact more people
and make them understand the power of technology
that is is nothing to be feared but to
but to be embraced and to learn so uh
if you get a chance please do that as always
we appreciate you and keep disrupting but for now
of course
I wanna get on here and talk to our guest here
Andrew Birchwell
who's a friend of mine who has been uh disrupting in
in um in crypto and blockchain for a really long time
back in the days when everybody thought
anytime you talked about crypto or anything
it was a it was a scam you know
now we've we've thankfully come a long way from that
and we have a long way to go uh
cause
there's still a lot of people that are still kind of
learning and figuring out what this really means
for their lives
but Andrew really appreciate you taking the time
brother of course
happy to be here yes
so I always like to understand the origin of people
hmm
what brought you to do the work you're doing now
great question not a straight path
that's for sure most people don't recognize
my early career was in energy technology
so it wasn't an intuitive leap necessarily
I was working at a company called Matel
that was doing research
development to commercialization
and novel technologies generally
but mostly focused on energy
but I'd always been interested in bitcoin
from very early on actually in the process
and of course I think
like a lot of people wish
I would have acted on that a little sooner than I did
you know
it don't always have as much as we would want in the
in the realm of cryptocurrency
but Bitcoin as a financial tool
was very interesting
from a sound monetary policy perspective
just as a personal interest
it was about 2020 2021
when my professional career
had a direct intersection to that
through crypto mining bitcoin mining specifically
and when I was looking for kind of
new and adventurous things to do with my time
bitcoin mining became really interesting to me
from a commercial development perspective
in doing that starting in 2021
we recognized pretty quickly that
you know
just like the nature of decentralized technology
is going to empower people
at more local levels of jurisdiction
and it allows you to empower yourselves as individuals
I recognized that states
we're going to become very important jurisdictions
and policy in ways that we wouldn't necessarily want
federal policy to be a one size fits all solution
exactly before you get into that sure
cause I I do wanna hear about your exact path
but I really want to know more about like
why you chose this path what
what inspired you why was it you that chose this path
good question um
humbly I will suggest that at that time
there was nobody
else that wanted to do this type of work
and I just happened to be uniquely positioned to do it
right so
I like to say that the work was waiting for me to
kind of show up
and realize that it needed to be done
I would say behind all of that uh
truly my faith in god LED me on this path
and I think in that way it really uh
a light was shined on what I was capable of doing
in ways
that were not necessarily what I had been doing
or what I was trained to do
but I really felt like I was
put in a position to affect this work
because this is very meaningful work
and because you know
frankly I felt like this was my work to do this
this was the way I could contribute to the ecosystem
and to the people that could use these tools
and a lot was Learned along the way
but it really was that sort of
faith that LED me to take a leap
I mean ultimately
I left a very solid career behind
to do something that was uncertain
but I felt like it was very important
and I felt like you know
Covid we Learned a lot
and I yeah
life is short and we might as well
do what's meaningful with our time
and this felt like
the most meaningful thing that I could do with my time
yeah Covid was one of those uh
moments in time that were
that were just really
kind of critical moments for really generations
I I said this on my last podcast though
I think you know
millennials and now to some
to some extension
z's are having these like moments all the time
it's like he used to be like just one in generation
we have like three per generation uh
which I find very interesting
but I wanna hear more I wanna
we're gonna dive more into the crypto sure
you told me that your faith inspires you
I like to ask this another way too
uh what is your story hmm
okay and
and when I say what is your story
I'll give you my example of my story of who I am right
you know I'm
I am still that kid who's
who parent not whose parent
excuse me I'm still that kid whose teacher told them
there was no way
you're going to be able to achieve your dreams
because you're not a good student right
I'm that kid that not is proving her wrong
but proving myself right defining myself
no matter what I do I'm always that person that's
that's really my story what's your story
I was that kid that was told from a very early age
that I was um
gifted and I think
like a lot of children
who find themselves on that path
you can uh
think that that is an easy way through in life
and then was met with the challenges of
the realities of the world
but I think behind that
I'm rooted in this understanding of where my family
comes from and
and the development and history of their legacy
particularly in the Ohio River Valley
the Appalachian region
and what I started to tell as far as my story goes
as to why I'm doing this
the why is because I noticed that
over the last hundred years
the systems that we created
really devastated those parts of the country
that my family is from and I
I looked to the example of where my grandmother grew up
on the Ohio River and when you go to that town now
it is underserved it's impoverished
it's largely decimated by what we've done
as a global society for the last 80 hundred years
but I have to imagine that when she was a kid
and when she was growing up there
that was actually a really tremendous place to live
I mean
when you look for what makes a place great to live
its natural resources its industry
its the ability to have a strong community
and there are thousands of those communities
particularly in this region
that were devastated by the decisions that we made
I would say
largely from a global monetary policy perspective
also from a global industrial perspective
where we push things out to the coast and then overseas
and then everything that we were doing
that really served
the foundation of the industrial heritage
of this country and particularly this region
we're left behind and those people were left behind too
so not only from a monetary perspective
but from an energy and a resource perspective
I noticed
that there was a lot that needed to be reversed
and I felt like these tools
the the reason why I think these tools are so impactful
is because I think that
they are the thing that can uplift those communities
again and I think
bring us back to that holistic sense of
building meaningful communities
and building them everywhere
and not just in big cities or on the coasts or
or elsewhere it really was for me a
an undoing
of the things that I saw happen to those communities
that my families are from
so yeah
so you were disrupting the status quo
I love it and definitely a disruptor
so take me back to that moment
so it sounds like the critical moment was during Covid
and you got involved with Bitcoin mining
and that suddenly change your trajectory
and you left the safe job
walk me through
when you knew that it was the right decision
or you just took that leap of faith
you knew it was time to take the full leap of faith
leaving something that was secure
into something relatively
nothing's really secure honestly
if you look at it but it feels secure yeah
what made you how did you
what made you take that leap at that moment
I give all credit to god there
because it felt like something was moving through me
in a way that I I could not understand
but at that moment in time
and I'll remember I
I took a trip to see my sister in Albuquerque
New Mexico and I had a
a 10 day trip
where I was really able to reorient myself
it was a hard year through 2020
everything 2020 was a hard year for everybody
and we were kind of seeing ourselves come out of it and
and in a new way I
I really was I struck by how powerful it was
just to be there with my siblings
as adults
really for the first time meaningfully in our lives
and I just have this epiphany that
you know everything that I was chasing after
whether it was accolade or credential
whatever it might be
wasn't as fulfilling as
just the time that I was spending with them
and I came back from that trip
and I knew that something had to change
and then there's no way that I could have planned
or expected for things to unfold the way they did
but within a matter of a month
this idea was moving through me that I couldn't ignore
I was I was waking up early every day in ways
I'm not an early person
but something was getting me up and moving
and I was
I was struck by this need to participate in something
and and this bitcoin mining aspect of it
coalesced very quickly at that time
because it seemed like everything
that could be accomplished
through the monetary perspective of digital assets
necessarily
required that hardware and energy component to it
to ensure the security of the broader system
and again
if the monetary policy of Bitcoin is true and correct
and as good as I think it is
it required that participation
and it just so happened that I had a skill set
and a background that could meaningfully
participate in that and you know
I gave myself this would have been around March of 2021
I gave myself until the 4th of July
I thought that was a good sort of you know
a time to say
that's my sort of day of freedom in general
I was gonna look to you know
leave my job by then and figure things out
by the beginning of April
I knew that I had to do this as soon as possible
because it was just so obvious to me
what needed to be done from a big picture perspective
and I I couldn't spend time at the old job anymore
I just I wasn't there anymore
I knew that I had to move on
and so I left my job in April
we started a company
and really started that development
and what that development really ended up being
was a development of the relationships
with the people that are in this industry
that motivated me
and inspired me to really go further with my thinking
which was I thought I had a good idea
but there's so much that you don't know
and the people were what inspired me to keep going
because you know
when you start a new endeavor
it's not easy at first
and that first year can be make or break
I'm not sure if it's easy ever
but yes yes
particularly but the first year is very
very rough and it was uh
what have I done what am I doing
you know a lot of it didn't make sense
but the people kept me in it and
and I think getting through that first year
allowed me to have the perspective
that this is a long term game
and that there are many things we need to do
along the ways that aren't just specific
developments of specific sites
and infrastructure and things of that nature
and that's what LED me to the policy
in the Blockchain Council yes
the other things that we did
which really started in 2022
and I had no idea that
that was going to be the path when I first started
and I just knew there was something there
and I knew I had to participate
and I just had to keep following the path
yeah I think in this age when we
we think about starting a business right
and particularly with the technology we have now
AI blockchain and other things um
the best way to find product
market fit is to actually do
like people think it's like alright
let me go and plan and I'm not saying you shouldn't
you shouldn't plan at all
you definitely should
but the best plans are discovered through action
yes right
and you and you Learned and you
the path is never linear people say it's rarely
it's never I don't know anybody that started off
this is what the idea was
this is how I envisioned it
and this is where it's gonna be
and it ended up exactly on that path
so yeah it never I mean
so I think you know
the the beauty of where we are now
I won't say it's easier I just
I would say it's more accessible to do uh
to build a business
to have an opportunity if you're willing to
you know work hard and also
also connect with people
let's talk a little bit about blockchain in general
and let's talk actually about bitcoin
describe to me for people
explain to a someone with no education of bitcoin
what is bitcoin and why does it matter
if you can explain it like you would to an 8th grader
bitcoin is better faster
more secure money and I think
there are a lot of reasons why that is the case
and you can get lost technically very quickly
but I think if you just stay there
you can recognize that there is a system of money
that we have operated under
our whole lives and I would say
most people have never thought about or questioned
because it just is there and it exists
and it works
the problem is that it works until it doesn't
and I think the nature of Bitcoin is that
it's unique monetary policy
that is hard coded into the software
and has been since inception
as such that it creates a finite resource
in a way that we've actually never had
in the history of the world
even gold is not a finite resource
we could find an asteroid tomorrow
that could quadruple the amount of gold supply
we have on the earth for instance
and I would say even the supply on earth is
is probably not uh
you know finite in the way that we would
want it to be from a sound monetary perspective
but it's kind of the best example that we have
in terms of what makes something a good store of value
and I think for bitcoin why it is good money
is that it is a good store of value
meaning that if I place my wealth
and resource and value in it
I can assume that it's not going to be depreciated
because of the nature of inflationary
politics and policy
which is what every currency that has ever existed
has suffered from in history
and because we live under the dollar system
we have not experienced that in our lifetime
in our parents'lifetimes
you'd have to go back to really the Great Depression
and and I would say
most of those people are no longer around
and don't have that living memory anymore
of what that was actually like
when a currency destabilizes
and when things get really wonky within the markets
and so because we've lived under that security
for our whole lives
we don't necessarily think that it's possible but yeah
it's always possible and if of course
if you think that it's not gonna happen to you
you just have to look at the history of every
currency that's ever existed
especially the ones that are considered the monetary
hegemony of the time and I think you could look today
to examples that are real
and in current Lebanon
Argentina for instance I mean most other uh
I would say currency regimes
are suffering under the weight of
the nature of
what it takes to actually keep a currency afloat
and the things that we've had to do to keep the dollar
as the strong monetary policy and
and uh
let's say just hegemonic force in the world
look like military intervention
and some other things of just global geopolitics
that we also consider unsavory
and so
while we've lived under the blessing of the dollar
it also comes at a cost and I think that cost is
maybe not directly realized by people
but I think it is necessarily true
and as such we exist right now
in a time where the dollar that you earned in 2020 is
through inflation now currently in 2025
worth 20% less than it was
and if you would tell any person that
the amount of money that they made in 2020
just slash it by 20% off the bat
and that's the realizable actual value you're making
most people would be up in arms about it
but it happens slowly yeah
it's a it's a slow killer
yeah that people never see
like inflation is one of those things
that people don't recognize
how much it takes of your money
yeah and so
like beyond whether you think
I think we can have that debate
and I'm not necessarily having it
cause I I agree with a lot of what you said
but if you think like you
know the
the dollar is something that you should just keep it
and invest in and you just have that
what's without question is that if you don't
think about your money strategically right
it will slowly disappear on you
just because you have a savings and
and I think going back to the point and this goes to
you know a lot of people are first generation
be they you know
if uh
this is the first time anybody's had any type of assets
if you're from Appalachia
you know if if you're a first time immigrant
if you just don't come from a place
where you've Learned about the strategy of money
you it's foreign to us and right
and at the end of the day
I think what's unquestionable about um
bitcoin is that
but it's an asset that's risen in value and it
and it's created it's
created opportunities for people to generate wealth
in ways that saving your money never could
yeah right
and but there's a fear there of the unknown right
there's a fear because
if you come from a place
where you had to work all your life to
let's look a mass like let's just say $100,000
which that's still like it's a lot of money for people
right uh
if you've saved that you feel
you feel some type of Protection of that
how do you walk people through that
that have a fear that how don't I know
like
the next day that this is just gonna disappear on me
how do you how
cause I know the fear is what holds people back
and we're not just talking about crypto
this is also with blockchain everything with AI
it is something that see people don't understand it
they assume it's something that is uh
could be harmful to them how do you walk people through
when they sometimes are afraid of this
or say like
this is not real money well
certainly the first question most people excuse me
will have uh
is is how do we know
you know how can I look into the future
and be sure that this isn't going to go to zero
and I think one that's an understandable perspective
that's always where I start
absolutely you're not wrong for asking that question
no not at all
I would say most people's fear
comes from their lack of understanding about what
specifically is valuable
about the these technologies
and I would say the other part of that is that
when you have an open source technology
what you'll end up with is a lot of experimentation
and a lot of funny games that are played
and a lot of frankly
scams and other aspects
that are in the system
that we have to be realistic about
and you know what
I try to get people to realize
is that there are things we should be focusing on
and things that we should
not be focusing on but
we shouldn't necessarily be trying to prevent
experimentation by saying
you can only do it this one way
this is the nature of an open protocol
as we are going to try things
but you know
specifically as it relates to Bitcoin
you know I would say most people will ask well
why does it have value right
and I think most people
when they look at the Bitcoin ticker
on the bottom of CNBC or whatever it is
they're thinking about it in terms of dollars
and so they think well
this is only valuable if I can relate it to dollars
and if I can sell it for dollars
and therefore I'm making a speculative
investment on something that I'll sell for dollars
at the end of the day
most people miss that the technology itself
inherently performs a function
it has a utility
that utility is the transference of value globally
and instantaneously and at low cost
and as long as you stay there
you'll realize there is a utility that is actually very
very useful so why do people want bitcoin
why do they pay so much money
I mean bitcoin being $100,000
is a hard unit of denomination to get your head around
why would any one
piece of digital code be worth $100,000
it's because then I can use that protocol
the infrastructure the rails of Bitcoin
to transfer that value globally
and instantaneously and at low cost
yeah and that utility
and coupled with the finiteness of Bitcoin
means that there's only so much that's available
at any one time and therefore
the ability to transfer that value is also scarce yeah
and so if I want the ability to transfer
a lot of money quickly and at low cost
I need to have access to this protocol
and I need to have access to the tokens themselves yeah
so I need to own Bitcoin in order to use Bitcoin
now we're stuck in this paradigm of
I want to own the bitcoin
but I wanna hold it and I don't wanna use it
because I think it's gonna keep going up in value
and so you end up in this and
and nothing will completely go up in value forever
right that
that's fair too and I think
you know we have to be looking long term
but we do have to be thinking about
how can we move the needle in the next five to 10 years
and if I assume
Bitcoin's gonna continue doing what it's doing
I'm actually incentivized not to use my bitcoin
which is tricky
the middle ground there and this is something that's uh
I would say happening very quickly and very recently
is that uh
we're recognizing that the
the protocol itself is valuable
even if you're speaking
the language of other currencies right
so I can pay in dollars wait
back up there cause you said a lot here
so I wanna break it down for for the viewers
like some are technical but you know
a lot of people get lost on blockchain
even people like it's
it's a it's it it feels like a complicated technology
it's not as complicated as people make it
but how I would simplify it is
why it's valuable is because people
it's one word really I mean
speed is a part of the optimization
but it's trust right
it's trust it's the ability to say because you know
governments manipulate money
others can manipulate money
and no one has ever hacked the Bitcoin infrastructure
ever that's correct
like say that the no one's ever hacked it
think about what you can say of
what system has never been
it's never been hacked right right
um
now it doesn't make a guarantee you'll never be hacked
but the fact that it hasn't been hacked should
should really tell you something
cause it's been around for a long time
and believe me people have tried right
there's a and it's a system that you know
very quickly I wanna say this you know
money is valuable because we trust in the system right
and and because like it has value
because we assign it value
we're able to tell
the transactions that everybody has had
and we know that at the at the end of the day
whether the Bitcoin today is worth 15,000 100,000
we know for sure
whatever it's worth at that time when it's
when it's transferred from X to y
it's transferred
and we know that that person once they send it here
it went there we know that for sure
you can't really say that with any other system
so it's really about trust and of course
being able to send it quickly
without having to go through
you know 10 weeks
and talking to a bank and getting this person approved
this person that person approved
but it it comes down to trust right
and you know people are hesitant to trust it
but once people understand the technology of it
it's easier to trust yeah
and I would say there's a tremendous incentive
to have hacked the network
just given the fact absolutely
the network and so
the idea that it has been hardened and secure
for its entire lifetime is
a point to note and also in that trust environment
the current system that we have
requires the trust of a lot of central institutions
that have shown that they're not always necessarily
trustworthy correct
also comes at a cost right
with that middle sediment layer of banks
and visa and Mastercard
etcetera is a 3 to 5% fee on every transaction
absolutely and now we have a protocol that does that
inherently by nature has solved a very deep
technical problem
about how to ensure that I'm not sending you money
and sending that same money to somebody else
at the same time and it does it quickly and
and we'll get to why that speed matters
as it relates to AI later
I'm sure but yeah
in terms of the trust of the system
it is purely auditable and by anybody and at any time
and I think that
you don't have to be a software engineer
to know that there is trustability and audibility
and this is where we've made a lot of progress
with serious political stakeholders
because they recognize that auditability
creates transparency and transparency creates trust
so that's a really good transition
thinking about auditability
being able to audit what's in front of you
um specifically
and also verify ownership time and stake
all that stuff
I think this is a really good point when it comes to AI
I I've said this often
that blockchain is an essential component to AI
for trust and really amplification of community right
because AI is really great at rapid speed
right in terms of
it's really good at that learning uh
but what it's not so good at is trust
we don't know where it came from
we don't always know if it's trustworthy
um and it feels like blockchain is a really good
I think a cousin and partner to that
if you can tell me what you see as the
as the natural kind of intersection between the two
and how they might play together between the
the specifically the natural uh
the natural intersection between AI and blockchain
and why these two
technologies are actually complementary opportunities
I think
there's two primary ways that I'm thinking about this
right now in terms of real world application
one of them is something that we're going to
become more familiar with
is agentic AI's
and the ability for them to act on behalf of interests
but on their own and uh
according to their own rule set
and as such they uh
the agentic AIs are going to eventually be
paying other agentic AIs or paying other businesses
essentially
and they're going to need a mechanism to enact
that payment process and
the speed and throughput
and veracity of
the blockchain is going to be a unique tool
for it to be able to do that
at those speeds and at those volumes
because you can imagine
you know if we have the speed of AI
working
at the speed of the traditional financial system
it would never be able to actually perform
what it's able to perform
and even at the level of thinking about micropayments
so the US dollar for instance
goes down to two 2 decimal points
the penny which we're not making the penny anymore
so maybe there's a different way we can think about it
but ultimately our
our accounting goes to two decimal places
bitcoin for instance and I would say
you know generally most cryptocurrencies are
are suboptimally divisible
in a way
that allows them to go to eight decimal places
for instance so all of a sudden
I can think about what it means to make a payment in
in US dollar parlance
a fraction of a fraction of a penny
it's never been necessarily capable before
but now we have that ability
and you couple that with the speed
and the volume of these transactions
you can imagine we would require a digital system
that would allow us to be able to do that efficiently
and with the trust that is inherent
so I think agentic payments are gonna be one
where there's a natural complement to blockchain
and digital assets
the other side of that is the trust of information
in general
and so I think that's the bigger deal actually
I agree and that's yeah
I saved it for last um
and I think you can see this in examples
where an early proponent of this technology was tried
as it relates to auto titles
so our current senator Bernie Sanders
you know created a startup champ titles with others
and their conception was
let's digitize a very bespoke paper process
and create an efficiency and trust
by using a portion of the blockchain
and now
their solution works from a digitization perspective
I wouldn't say it's purely a blockchain play
but they have the idea in place
and I think that idea can go further
and I think that's where we can start to see
as AI creates information that is not real
or not generated factually by human
we're going to need to understand what's actually real
exactly and in that way uh
even a simple um a
the process of timestamping allows us to
to understand where a document came from
and at what time and we actually have a
a friend of ours coming in from Guatemala
he has a company called Simple Proof
and I just want to give him a shout out
because Simple Proof is doing uh
as is in the name
a very simple concept of proving documents to be true
and at the specific time that they were created
and so you can take a document a PDF
you can create a a hash out of that
you can put that on the blockchain as a transaction
and all of a sudden
I can now go back in time and I can say
I know exactly when this document was verified
and I know exactly what document was verified
and therefore
voting records for instance are a good example
that's a great example
how you can basically ensure that nobody tampers with
a result and you can do that
for the pure volume of any election
or any process
this could be true for any government record
essentially
and you've created a time stamped mechanism
of assurance that that has not been tampered with
and if it has been tampered with
I can prove that it's been tampered with
so obviously when we're concerned about AI doing this
I think we should also just be concerned
that humans are capable of corrupting information
absolutely yeah
and I think both are true
and I think especially as AI really grows
we're gonna find ourselves
unable to actually determine what is true
what is real you know
I think we're getting to the point now
I think we're pretty close to there
I would say today you could look at a picture
and you could not necessarily be true
that that's a real picture anymore
we live in a post reality era
we do we live in a post reality era of
understanding what's true in front of us because um
AI is trained to speak to our biases like
and so like we
we know that's true and
and so I think they're you know
blockchain and verification are gonna be extremely
important um
mechanisms for really kind of verifying and checking it
with AI there was just news November 13th
a few days ago
that we had our first state sponsored agentic attack
through um
uh
what they pretty
well confirmed to be a Chinese state sponsored attack
using anthropic right
and they were able to go and
and some I think they penetrated some uh
large organizations we don't know who they are
uh but we know that anthropic discovered it and they
of course countered with AI
and that's how they discovered it
but this is an example that even within their own layer
it got around their safety
protocols so we have to be able to find like
what's true and what's not
and really verify things um
outside of AI I think there's gonna be AI too
but what I don't hear enough talked about is that
we can actually use blockchain to help verify this too
and not just rely on AI singularly
because to your point humans can do it
but AI
will be able to do it at scale that humans never could
like so this
this attack was the first time we had a genetic attack
that was totally it's about 90% done by agents
Only 10% of human effort
which tells you the future of what is not coming
but what's already here if that's already possible
we know that the democratization of AI means that um
low level teams will be able to do this very soon
so we have to really be thinking about security
at multiple levels
and I think AI plays a big role there
well I think any technology can be used for good
or can be used for evil and I think in that way
we have to recognize that the moment
is ours for the choosing in terms of how we approach
how to use these tools but you can also imagine
these on their own are very technically complex topics
yes so
getting
a person to understand one is a tremendous feat
now understand both
and then understand how they intersect and relate
yeah I mean
I hope we tried we tried
they are hard problems yeah
exactly and I
so I think in that way
we need to have the courage to try
to figure out how to use these tools for good
because we can be certain that these tools are
gonna be used absolutely against us
absolutely yeah
so if you had to say
when people think about crypto and blockchain
what do they get wrong most often I
I think they miss that this is not a speculative game
this is a game of utility
and I I
it goes back to what we were talking about earlier
that most people think that um
these things are mostly funny money
and don't have any inherent value or use
and I think that could be true
for a significant portion of the broader
crypto ecosystem yeah
I want to talk about that
after you get through with that
I would say it's mostly noise right
yes mostly noise
in terms of the volume of things that exist
and of course we have very bad examples of people doing
horrible things
that aren't necessarily even related to the technology
itself FTX was a good example of pure fraud
that had very little to do with digital assets
or their potential or things of that nature
um you know
you could see what happened with Silk Road
for instance
and this is actually true of a tornado cash
and some other examples now
where the code and the people who develop the code
are being punished for the ways in which people use
the code and I
I think we have to be very careful
I agree with that because you know
there are some arguments to be made that
that code is protected as speech
should be protected in certain ways
and that we shouldn't necessarily punish people
for creating something that somebody else used
for harm yeah
you punish the people who did the harm but you know
yeah what's your view on that
do you believe code is speech
I think it I'm not a lawyer
I think it could be argued
I think just just a point of view
I don't know if I have a point of view
I'm just I'm curious what you think
it feels like a natural analogy
I don't know that it is as hard and fast
I think ultimately we use speech to accomplish goals
in the way that code is done again
it's the hyper optimization of using
some type of text input you know
to create an outcome I could make the argument
but I'm not the one that's gonna make that argument
but I think at the end of the day
the principles of being able to
create a technology should be inherently allowed
within an open society
and I think we should encourage that unfortunately
you know like we saw with Ross Ulbricht and others
people are punished for creating something
and being a little early to something in ways that yes
you know you can be out in front of
and the tornado cash is a good example of this
is
they are not necessarily creating a tool for terrorism
now it it is a tool that terrorists could use
but are you gonna really terrorists
terrorists use money too so well
trust me I mean like I mean
really really when people tell me that I'm like yeah
like you know
there's a lot of banking systems that have
that have funded cartels too yeah
I mean what are we talking about here
like that's right we're gonna
all of a sudden be against dollars and cash like yeah
it's a hard problem but I think
you know in the case of tornado cash for instance
it's um
a tool that can be used for privacy
is all of a sudden being created
as an argument
that privacy is only for people who do harm
and I think that's fundamentally untrue
and I think that's the danger of
where we're at right now is that
there are good reasons
for regular people to want privacy yes
I would argue it's the reason we wear clothes
there aren't things necessarily
that should always be open
and made available to the public
and I think in that way
privacy is an inherent human right
and tools that allow us to have privacy
aren't necessarily tools that people are gonna
use for harm yes
it's just because that
I don't want you to know everything about everything
and I think that's right
just and I think that's something we should protect
what's the cost benefit analysis too
there's probably harm that can be prevented from
I guess um
invading privacy if you will or being more uh
intrusive with things but you know
you have to balance which one is more important
and I lean your way
like I think privacy is extremely important
I do think we need regulation on some things
that doesn't mean we remove privacy from it
of course um
so with that kind of point about regulation
you you mentioned earlier
when you talked about some of the speculation in the
in specifically
I'm thinking meme coins and a lot of stuff right
um NFTs in the air yeah yeah yeah
and I was and I was and I was NFTs had it
but it was it it overall
how they were used definitely was a lot of fraud yeah
there's just no getting around it sure
I would say how do you
do you have any concern that you know
the market is hot right now
and you mentioned 1929
and that was when everybody had access to
to stock and everybody
everybody thought their stock was going to the roof um
do you have any concern or what is your thought that
there could be a crypto winter
if that happens at a large enough scale
what's your thought about that
and how should we think about that as a society
it's a good question I I think ultimately
we saw this in a small example just recently
there was a huge market
crash that maybe had to do with the way that
in which some exchanges were handling the
let's say the balances
of real value versus the speculative assets
and I think for most people
the answer is that you should not be
speculating on things that you don't understand
by nature yeah
and that would
probably encompass most of the things that aren't
some of the pure plays which are you know
I think you could look at the top 10
and stay there and be fairly safe Bitcoin Ethereum
Solana agree you know
Tron stable coins etc
as soon as you go out in the weeds
and you're investing in you know
Melania coin or Costco hot dog coin or whatever it is
you're
you're all you're really saying is you're gambling
you are gambling and I think that's okay clearly
we think gambling is okay and we allow people to do it
and I wouldn't suggest that we should
you're probably gonna lose that gamble though
unless you're on the inside
and that's right and I think in that way
people should be worried about this get rich
quick mentality which is
I think what captures the attention of most people
and when I hear people say Bitcoin's too expensive
what's the next one that I should be investing in
all they're really saying is that
I'm looking for that quick 100 x
and I'm not really thinking about the inherent value
or utility of these things
and I think
that's where most people will get in trouble
yeah and
and again we can't nanny state people
to the point where we
protect them from every decision that they make agree
so in an open society and markets
we are going to have people that make speculative bets
and lose and that is unfortunate
but I think at the end of the day
you have to really start with what is real
and what is true
and what is valuable and what is most known and
and trusted and like we said
you know
bitcoin is the place I would say everybody should start
work your way out from that
absolutely I agree
I mean the power laws apply Andrew
when I tell people um
you're using the technology right
and it can now do things more efficiently
but this but the same things that always apply
common sense apply if it seems like it's not right
and it's too good to be true
take that times 100 because this now moves at the
at the speed of innovation
so you can lose your money now instead of in a week
you can lose it in two seconds
correct right
if you get into something you don't understand
and you are speculating you know
you're literally doing that
so it is uh
the power laws of everything so uh
I would also say
it's incumbent upon you to learn about blockchain
and AI cause these are technologies that
not only aren't going anywhere
they are how the world is gonna work one way or another
I'm not exactly sure how blockchain and
and tokenization will look in the future
in terms of exactly how it will look
but I am certain
that it will be a part of our global financial world
without a doubt unavoidable right
so like it behooves you to understand to make some
I'm not giving financial advice
but think about where
you might want to make some strategic investments
nothing's completely safe
but overall what's more reliable right
yeah um
and then with AI it
it there's no disadvantage to learning right now
because every year that you wait
every month that you wait
you are getting further and further behind
and both AI and crypto are
are fast moving trains that are going at their slowest
right now yeah
it's the worst the technology will ever be
and yep that's scary and exciting at the same time
it is alright
so I want to hear a little bit about
I kind of have some some some close out questions
so if the next five years where a chapter in a book
what would that chapter be about for you and why I
think that chapter is called the pivot and I would say
uh you could think about this in terms of uh
so we have this thing called the s curve
which is a
a typical curve of adoption of most things over time
which is that it starts out really slow
and then it ends up curving it and you get this really
really exponential growth
and then it plateaus at some point
and the history of technology is that essentially
we have been jumping from s curve to s curve over time
right and and as things grow exponentially
we're
we're moving very fast and things can get very tricky
but they can also be very exciting and
and things can happen
much faster than we think they will happen
and I think that is the next five years
I think we are in the pivot
I think we are at the point
where things are going to go exponential
I think it is unavoidable like you said
but I think the momentum behind these ideas
is so strong that we can't
we can't pull that back any longer I
I think it's it's too known now
four years ago
we were still trying to get people to understand this
right from a policy perspective or otherwise and
and now
we're seeing nation state governments take this on
meaningfully in many of them
and all at once and I think in that way
it is going to become very fast
very quickly and I think in that way
we are going to see a very different future
five years from now
just based on the way this is already moving
and so I think that's true for us personally
as we are in the middle of these
and as we are early adopters
and champions of these technologies
our lives are going to get very crazy
because people are going to be looking to us more
and more and more
to help them through this
because this is going to happen so fast
it may be the fastest change in history
just based on the way history moves
and I think any technological adoption
is necessarily gonna be like that
but just imagine that
this is the fastest that it's ever been
because of what's possible with compute
AI and otherwise and so I think in that way
we need to be ready to be good stewards of communities
of society in general through these tools
and not fall victim to things that might be
sort of traps in the middle of that
and so I think for us it's it's recognizing the moment
recognizing
that all of the things that we've worked for
have gotten us here
and that it's only gonna get faster and crazier
from here so yep
you know I think that's exciting
but I also think it's gonna be work so yeah alright
what will we be celebrating a year from now with you
with the world whatever you wanna choose
I'm looking forward to uh
getting married oh
that's right fiance congratulations
we're gonna look forward to that
I think as a Cincinnati native now
I'm looking forward to
immersing myself in this community
and really allowing that to help me be a broader
stakeholder for the state of Ohio
as someone who's lived in Columbus my whole life
I'm excited for that
I think Cincinnati is a great city and it's
I think it's also on the rise
in ways that other cities are not
and I think recognizing that is an opportunity
to see that we can be part of some really pivotal
and transformational change
but I think at the end of the day
what we can look forward to in terms of digital assets
is that uh
we have a state that's really
meaningfully taking this on
I mean we've had some wins recently that are incredible
I just wanna highlight it please
uh we
we had the secretary of state
Frank LA Roe and the treasurer
Robert Sprague
come out in the spring and basically say look
we want to be at the forefront of innovation
we want to make it possible
for people to pay for government services
using digital assets like bitcoin
and those rules have gone through the board of deposit
they've been approved
and they are now going to become live
so if I want to start a new business in Ohio
I can pay for that in bitcoin
I think that's incredible progress
absolutely it is
I think we're only gonna go further from there
the next step will be of course
to get the state to hold and utilize these assets
themselves and I think there
there's real value and benefit to them doing that
and I think in that way create the trust and assurety
that the common person can have
that if these tools are being used by government
and creating efficiencies for government
that's a net good for everybody involved
because the government's wasting less money
and we're able to do things better
and faster in the future
so I think that's gonna be something we're gonna see
I will guarantee that
this is going to become a central issue
in our race for next governor
in Ohio and I think in that way
it's going to be something that's going to
become a kitchen table issue
and especially as the things we talked about
like inflation only get worse
prices are only rising at this point
and I don't know that they can put that
cat back in the bag so to speak
so I think
this is only going to become an increasing
topic of discussion
and concern for people who are in Ohio
and I think in that way
we should be encouraged by the fact that Ohio
and its stakeholders and state government
want us to lead
and want to be leaders in this nationally
and globally frankly
and so I think we can look forward to that
that again is going to require our participation
but I think we've come a long way this year
and I think next year
is going to be a very big year for these topics
alright Andrew Birchwell
I really appreciate all the work that you've done
I appreciate you being there
for the beginning of Midwest Con
and they could've been there just about every other
every single year we look forward to highlighting
all the work you're doing
and I really appreciate everything and
and congratulations on getting married and
you know looking forward to working together more now
now that you're here in our city
well I appreciate you taking the time and
for everything you do so thank you Rob
thank you brother
have a good one and as always
everybody keep disrupting