Hummingbird: The Bitcoin Jungle Story shows a community coming together around new monetary ideas.
It began as a five-minute film about bitcoin in Costa Rica. It became a full-length documentary called
Hummingbird: The Bitcoin Jungle Story.
In this week’s episode of of
Privacy Podcast, host
Ben Schiller speaks with
Paul Keating, one of the creators of the documentary about the people and ideas behind a growing Bitcoin community in Costa Rica and what happens when the principles of Bitcoin move from the internet into the real world.
Keating’s own story is part of that experiment. After leaving California for Costa Rica near the end of the COVID era, he found a community of Bitcoiners and eventually began living almost entirely on Bitcoin, converting his paychecks and later being paid directly in Bitcoin.
Hummingbird draws its title from the prophecy of the eagle and the condor, representing different cultures and ways of understanding the world coming together. The film asks whether Bitcoin can provide common ground between communities that might otherwise appear very different.
Merchants in Costa Rica can accept Bitcoin, how users can move between Bitcoin and local currency when necessary, and why adoption doesn’t require people to first understand every aspect of monetary theory.
The conversation then expands beyond money into another form of sovereignty: social media.
Paul discusses his work with Primal and his belief in Nostr, an open social protocol designed to give users greater control over their identity, content and connections.
Instead of rebuilding a social network every time someone joins a new platform, Nostr makes that identity and social graph portable across compatible applications. For Paul, the philosophy behind it closely parallels Bitcoin: users own their data and maintain sovereignty over their stack.
In This Episode
Ben and Paul discuss:
- Paul’s decision to leave California and build a life in Costa Rica
- What it’s actually like to live primarily on Bitcoin
- How Bitcoin Jungle developed in Costa Rica
- How a five-minute video became Hummingbird: The Bitcoin Jungle Story
- The meaning behind the film’s hummingbird metaphor
- Why Bitcoin adoption can look different outside the United States
- Using Bitcoin for everyday purchases
- Streaming Bitcoin payments directly to filmmakers
- Why Paul believes Nostr could provide a better foundation for social media
- Taking ownership of your identity, followers and content online
- Primal and the emerging Nostr ecosystem
- Why decentralization still faces a major mainstream adoption challenge
- What living in Costa Rica taught Paul that “Bitcoin Twitter” couldn’t
Watch Hummingbird
If you enjoyed this conversation, be sure to Like, Subscribe, and turn on notifications so you never miss future episodes of The Privacy Podcast.
About the Show
The Privacy Podcast by Miden explores the intersection of privacy, identity, and emerging technologies. Hosted by Ben Schiller, the show brings together builders, regulators, and thinkers shaping what comes next in a world where data is power.
Executive Producer Michele Musso
Edited by the
Musso Media Team
Music: licensed.
All rights reserved. ©2026 Musso Media
What is Privacy Podcast?
The Privacy Podcast by Miden explores the future of privacy, identity, and trust in a digital world being reshaped by blockchain and AI.
Hosted by Ben Schiller, The Privacy Podcast dives into one of the most critical questions facing technology today: How do we build a more private, secure, and trustworthy internet?
A former journalist with over a decade of experience covering crypto and emerging technologies, including six years at CoinDesk, Schiller brings a sharp editorial lens to conversations at the intersection of privacy, blockchain, and digital rights.
At its core, this podcast is driven by a simple idea: privacy is not optional. It is foundational to the next phase of the internet.
As blockchain technology moves from experimentation to real-world adoption, privacy becomes essential for onboarding institutions, enabling enterprise use cases, and unlocking the full potential of decentralized systems. At the same time, it addresses a deeper, long-standing issue. The modern internet was built without effective privacy infrastructure, giving rise to what is often described as a surveillance-based economy, where personal data is exchanged for access to services.
This show explores how that model is changing.
Produced by Musso Media, The Privacy Podcast features conversations with leading builders, researchers, policymakers, and thinkers shaping what comes next.