[00:00:00] Chris Blec: Hey, it's Chris Blec. On this week's episode I'll be speaking with the controversial Udi Wertheimer, he's one of the founders of Taproot Wizards. They're huge proponents of the Ordinal protocol on Bitcoin. We're going to talk about what his real motivation is with Ordinals and whether he sees this as just like a modest experiment or a protocol that could really fundamentally change Bitcoin.

So stay tuned for that. First, BitRefill is making this episode possible. Come to BitRefill.com, take a look at the gift card selection. It ranges from Amazon to Mastercard to DoorDash to Instacart to Xbox, it goes on and on. Mastercard is definitely one of my favorites. Come here, add it to the cart after you choose the amount.

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Okay. We're live and I appreciate you being here. let me tell you why I invited you first, and then we can just chat. you're 

[00:01:52] Udi Wertheimer: Low on potential guests. 

[00:01:56] Chris Blec: No, it's funny. It is, it's a big pool out there. I've been doing this like one a week and I, find that when I stopped trying to confine it to just Ethereum or just Bitcoin or something like that.

the world opened up, because there's all these people that are like on the fringes. I feel like I'm on the fringes. Not the fringes of, the fringes of what's acceptable, in the world of crypto. Really, all of us are. 

[00:02:26] Udi Wertheimer: This entire industry is on the fringes of what's acceptable, 

[00:02:28] Chris Blec: right?

Yeah, that's what's hilarious, because we're all unacceptable to mainstream, but then some of us are unacceptable to others within our little corner of the universe, which is weird. But but Mr. is Wertheimer, right? I want to say it correctly. Yes. I listened to Bankless and he kept saying Wertheimer and I wanted to smack him in the face.

I don't even know what the right way to say it. Really? Ah, you just gotta go back. No, 

[00:02:58] Udi Wertheimer: I mean I can, not in American English. 

[00:03:02] Chris Blec: Okay, where did you come from? I'm originally from Israel. And now you're in the States, you're an American? Yep. Okay. I'm in the States, yeah. You're in the States, okay, illegal, I got you.

I was interested in speaking with you because, I've never been able to really put my finger on, I understand what you do, but I've never been able to put my finger on why you do it or what your, motivation is, and I think that's important. I think we're all here for different reasons, I think, I mean myself, I've said over and over, I'm here primarily for, freedom. I want to detach from the government, I want to, have liberty. I want to be sovereign, with my money, and I understand that money. Is everything these days, we're not farming, we're not hunting, we're living in cities, and if you don't have money, you can't eat, you can't get healthcare, you can't get clean water, so to me, that's, paramount, and that's why Bitcoin to me is, has been such a, Important part of feeling that way, it's like what else do we have really right now that separates us in that way?

So why do you do what you do? are you on the same wavelength as me? Do you feel like in other Bitcoiners or do you feel like you're somewhere else on the spectrum? Yeah 

[00:04:42] Udi Wertheimer: thanks for asking. I've been involved in Bitcoin for, I think, like 10 years now, and, I think, look, obviously I'm very bullish on Bitcoin, right?

Long term. and, I think, A lot of Bitcoiners are, right? and to me, I can say about my own journey that my, not only did my understanding or my perception of Bitcoin evolved over the years. But also, the ways that it's useful to me personally is, evolved over the years. And I think, at least to me, it's I'm like, there's probably many ways this could be useful to people.

what you're describing is, an important part of it. And there's probably more, to me, it's not necessarily these days, the, drive to, free myself from the government. I don't feel like I'm beholden to the government, if the government is there to do what it does and I'm a separate individual, right?

But, I think that, it is, mostly about, the practicalities of freedom to me. for example, when I, my first interests in Bitcoin were due to, I was interested in online poker at the time, right? And probably I was interested in online poker probably a couple of years before I heard about Bitcoin.

And I, lost interest by then, but, I saw, one thing I saw very clearly is how difficult it is for poker players to transfer funds to and from those poker websites. So that was one thing. And the second thing was, is some of them collapsed. and it turned out some of them were actual Ponzi schemes.

it became obvious that. At least to me, that the fact that you see a number on a screen, as your balance does not mean that this is actual money that exists or that you own and those concepts. So both of these concepts became clear to me early on in that way. I was like, one thing, the money I have in my bank account, it's not really mine because I can only move it.

I can only transfer it when the bank agrees. And the second thing is when I see online a balance somewhere, it might be meaningless. so then when I heard about Bitcoin later, it just clicked. It just made sense. I was like, you know what? It seems to solve both of these problems. and of course that relates to why?

Why were poker sites so difficult to use for many reasons, because the government didn't want you using them. So, yeah, it relates to the issue of freedom for government, but to me, it was also just a practical thing. but it made a lot of sense and it was obvious to me why it's useful. And as years went by, and I think I've seen a lot of other people using Bitcoin in very interesting ways.

it just became obvious that when you don't have to ask for permission, there's going to be, There's going to be surprising unexpected use cases that might be interesting to some people, maybe not the majority, maybe not the mainstream. Maybe yes. it's hard to predict when or why certain groups will find a reason to, want to use Bitcoin.

So it's, less of a political thing for me and more, more of a practical thing. And I do, I just think that, humans. Turn out and end up being like surprisingly, capable when, limits are moved. So I'm, interested in the practical sense, and the, and it's very close.

I think it's, very, close to what I, but what you're talking about, it seems close. I find really interesting is when you say, are you, are your interests in Bitcoin different from the interests of. Other Bitcoiners, and I, think like Bitcoiners is a very, diverse group. especially as, as someone who grew up outside of the U.

S. So I'm, I would say I'm much closer to, definitely Middle Eastern culture, but also just Eastern culture and I've seen the ways that people use Bitcoin in other countries outside of the US for many years. It has been Up until I don't know. Let's say 2017 2018 it has been probably way more popular outside of the US than in the US right and I think a lot of things shifted around that time and accelerated later there are many ways that people use Bitcoin that are very different to, that kind of libertarian, ideals that a lot of people in the Western world have about Bitcoin.

not that I disagree with them, I do, but I just think a lot of people that consider themselves Bitcoiners do not see it. You're not seeing it necessarily through a political lens. It's 

[00:10:28] Chris Blec: interesting because, the, foundings, like the root of Bitcoin, from the first block, was separating us from government run banks and from fiat.

but at the same time, to declare that, Satoshi inscribed. in the Genesis block, what he inscribed, and so it's, it brings it full circle. I guess what I was asking before was, it seems like the culture for many years has been, and obviously more so back in like the mid, like, 2015, 2016, 2017, It really was like Bitcoin was synonymous with as a libertarian kind of political movement, right?

And then things started to change as money started to come in, right? And people started talking about all these different use cases for it and I think that when I was saying like, are you thinking differently from other Bitcoiners? It wasn't meant to be like all Bitcoiners, but it's definitely a fringe thing now You would agree because you get a lot of pushback like it's fringe to think about Using Bitcoin block space for purposes other than money.

It's still like a fringe thing It's not common in the development space definitely not common in What people are looking for from Bitcoin as an investment or anything like that. So You're fringe in that regard right and you've gotten a lot of crap for it 

[00:12:02] Udi Wertheimer: that's one way to look at it Another way to look at it is that in the last year that view has grown Exponentially, right?

So I would say if we were talking more than, in 2021 about using Bitcoin in order to, inscribe data and trade NFTs, you would absolutely be laughed out of the room, and now, yeah, it is, a fringe use case, but it is a use case, and it's a real use case. Where, every block between 20 to 50 percent of transactions are of that nature.

every single block. That's a lot, right? So, yeah, is it, the majority use case? I wouldn't say so. But it's, grown to, to be pretty substantial. And I, do want to clarify though, I still view Bitcoin as money. I think it's still like store value is still the main and most important use case for Bitcoin probably.

I, don't actually think that storing JPEGs is going to be more important or more revolutionary. when the digital gold use case, but I think it is actually it is almost to me, it seems almost obvious, right? That there's this very large group. and I think both you and I are part of that group of people who are just sentimental about Bitcoin.

It's beyond, just the mere practicality. I know I talked about being practical before, but it's beyond just that. Because we know that there's a large group of people who, they have Bitcoin tattoos on their bodies, they, define them, so they identify as Bitcoiners, all of their friends and family know them as the Bitcoiner of the family, right?

We know a lot of people like that, many people like that. And if you ask them like, Who are you? What are you in this world? They'll say, I'm a Bitcoiner. And that's not just the LaserEyes and Bitcoin Maxis. There's a lot of people who don't identify that way. But they believe that Bitcoin is the most important thing that they can be involved in.

So for that group, and that's not a tiny group. That's a substantial group. For that group, I think that, interacting with... Collectibles that literally live on the chain that they love. I think it makes sense. there are people who collect other kinds of stuff related to other stuff they're interested in.

People collect stamps and people collect Because they love history and there are people who collect things on Bitcoin because they love Bitcoin. To me, it makes perfect sense. I don't think it's going to be the main use case of Bitcoin at all. 

[00:14:56] Chris Blec: I think, I've had, I initially had a very negative reaction to Ordinals.

I've always had a very, I've always, had a very negative reaction to you. and you to me, which is fine. We're being civil. That's good. I like it. no offense. I'm, kidding. I know, to get the message through on Twitter, you have to be a dick. It's like the only way to get things across sometimes, especially in this, in the Bitcoin space.

I said, but at least you can build, see, I can't even build stuff. So it's I'm, I have to scream even louder sometimes. But, so the negative reaction, for me, and I think for a lot of people comes from the fact that, we recognize that Bitcoin is, a, I can't think of a better way to put it right now than a mass delusion in a way, like Andreas Antonopoulos is talking about this a lot and so have others where it's like.

Money is what we believe it to be, right? it's whatever we come together and say it is. And so we've come together and we've gotten the world to come together, through storytelling to believe that Bitcoin is, one of the hardest forms of money on the planet. And, is the most, freely transferable and censorship resistant and on and a large part of that, story has revolved around the fact that it simply doesn't have another use. this is the use of Bitcoin. Bitcoin is this. And a large part of why I think Ethereum hasn't, despite all the memes and stuff like that, hasn't Caught on in the same way.

It's caught on in a much different way. But it's caught on in a different way because it has so many different use cases, and it serves so many different masters. And my initial reaction, and my, I continue to have this negative reaction in the sense that I don't think that it should stop being built.

I think if you can build it, you should build it. But I do think that it, it, hurts the narrative, which I think the narrative is such an important part of the, story, We have to be looking behind the scenes at the story that we're telling, because this is, the way it is, So first of all, does that part... Make sense to you and have you given that consideration or from my point of view, you and Taproot, Magician, Magicians or Wizards or whatever it is. Taproot, sorry. you guys are just full steam ahead on looking to get into any crack in Bitcoin that you can.

Which makes sense, But, have you considered the narrative side? Do you care about it? Do you think it's a factor? I care about it a lot. I'm a 

[00:17:47] Udi Wertheimer: narrative person. that's... That's the one you said that I can build. I can't build to save my own life. I, sometimes I'm lucky enough to, work with people who can, but, I, what I do is I tell stories.

and I think that, yeah, I would say I think about it pretty much every waking moment. And I agree with you, that it matters. I think that, the, story or the narrative behind Bitcoin changed a lot over the years, right? Like we're talking today about store value and I, and I think it's a very good narrative. it is a big part of why I am bullish on Bitcoin myself, but it hasn't really always been the case. And especially in the early days.

it depends on what you consider early. I said I've been in Bitcoin for 10 years and I consider myself late to Bitcoin. But, but back then, most of what I've heard people talk about was, mostly payments. and I think it was this period of time when people were discovering kind of what Bitcoin is and what can it work best for.

And it was mostly around payments, maybe not necessarily payments for coffee. although that was something that people were hoping for too, were like saying, one day everyone will use Bitcoin for payments in, in, in, physical stores. But even before that, there was the, maybe digital commerce online, maybe paying, contractors with Bitcoin, a lot of stuff like that, that I feel over the years became.

it's maybe more popular in absolute numbers, but as far as mind share is concerned, it's not as popular. And, there's been a lot, there's been a lot of other stuff. There's been, RSK rootstock used to be a very popular narrative when Ethereum started, a lot of people were saying, We don't need Ethereum because we're going to have smart contracts on Ustock with Bitcoin. That never fully materialized, but that was something people have been talking about a lot. That was a pretty dominant narrative at the time. and you've seen a lot of this. I think those things change very often.

And to arrive at the digital, store value narrative, We, needed to try a lot of things, a lot of other narratives to arrive at it. And, while I think that it is, a good narrative and I think it is a good reflection of reality too. I, don't think that every single person is going to find that appealing, right?

I think it's a difficult conversation to have with most people. the conversation about, the role of money, how it works. Like a lot of people don't want to talk about that at all. They don't want to hear about it. I would say that's probably the majority of people, the vast majority, really.

It's just not, they don't want to. And I think one thing I was, you've seen my bullshit on Twitter over the years. I've used to be extremely critical of Ethereum, extremely critical of NFTs. and I think something changed specifically with NFTs. I think something changed when I saw how passionate people were about them.

And of course, a lot of it was entirely about, just this boom and bust bubble of 2021 2022. And people saw an opportunity to make quick cash. Of course, that was a very big part of that. But, I've, seen a lot of boom and bust cycles in crypto over the years, and I thought there was something special here, like people beyond the fact that of course, their main motivation was, of course to make a quick buck, but still they, became, they started identifying with those things very quickly.

And that to me was very interesting. And you, started seeing communities form around those things. You saw a lot of people who use self custody for the first time in order to use NFTs. So what, ended up happening is that NFTs were not really supported by most of the kind of centralized custodial exchanges.

The only, realistic way you had to really trade them was with Self custody tools and wallets and a lot of people, the first time they got exposed to self custody and learn about seed phrases and so on was through NFTs, probably, very large number of people actually, in the millions, I guess so, and looking back at how difficult it was for me over, a decade to convince people to go to self custody when they were motivated enough to care about Bitcoin, right?

They reach out to me to say, Hey, you're the Bitcoin guy that I know in my circle, tell me more about Bitcoin. And I tell them, yeah, you should get like a self custody wall and buy some. And they're like, freaking out and ending up leaving their coins on Coinbase. Best case scenario.

Worst case scenario. They're like, this seems too complicated. I'm just not going to do it. Then you, move to NFTs and these guys are. Using the worst tools ever made, but, self custody, they go, they jump through all the hoops because they want to be part of that NFT mania. And so I'm like, okay, there's something here, it's, it does something to people.

And I think what we've seen, so what I wanted to do is to see if we can. take that energy and make it useful for Bitcoin. Can we grow the Bitcoin pie that way? And that was, I didn't know, that was an experiment we wanted to run. Me and Eric Wall and Far, who's the artist who made the type of wizards, we've been talking about this For six plus months before it all started, right?

So last year, last summer, we've been like working on how can we make this happen? We've been working on the art. We've been working on the narratives, but we didn't have the very important technical piece of itself. And when Arnold's popped off, we were like, before they popped off, really, we were like, okay, we're gonna we this is this is perfect.

It's the technical part. And it fits the narrative we wanted to build. And let's give it a shot. And what we found is there's a lot of people in the NFT ecosystem in the larger crypto ecosystem. Who care about Bitcoin in the sense that they, think it's at the very least intriguing. They think it's mysterious.

They, think a lot of positive things about it actually, but they were pulled away from it because one, they didn't have anything. They felt like they didn't have anything to do with it. They felt like they can't really be a part of it and there's nothing appealing for them to do with it.

And, the second thing, I think the community has been. At least the loud parts of the community has been very, negative towards them. So they were just not interested in being part of that. And I, once we flipped the script on both of those things, we said, One, here's something you can do and that can be interesting for you.

And two, we're going to be welcoming to you. We're not going to say, hey, you're idiots, you're scammers, you are, evil, whatever, we don't want you to be part of that group. And instead, we're going to be inviting. And what we found is, during the depths of the bear market, we had tons of people from other ecosystems, from Solana ecosystem, from the Ethereum and NFT ecosystem, who were like, you know what, this is the first time I'm going to look at Bitcoin ever.

[00:26:03] Chris Blec: But they came here for, to make money, right? They came here to trade tokens or trade ordinals or whatever it might be. They didn't, that's part of, I think, the pushback is, they didn't come here to, try to separate themselves from the evil Fiat, right? They didn't come here to, try to beat the man, the banks and stuff like that.

They came here to, mess around the same way they're doing on Ethereum and Solana, right? Which is what they're doing there too. 10 

[00:26:36] Udi Wertheimer: years ago. I came to Bitcoin 10 years ago to make money, I, saw an opportunity. I also had no idea what I'm doing to be clear, but I thought I did. and I, thought I saw an opportunity and I was like, yeah, let's, go, let's get into it.

And, there was a promise of the, or, there was at least the potential of. Of, of very high returns over time. And through that, I learned more about what it is, how it can be useful beyond that, why I think it's an important invention for basically humankind. but I didn't know that from day one, I needed to have like a bait.

To get in. And that is a story that I've seen repeated many, times over the last 10 years. And I think most people, not everyone, but I think most people will probably get into this ecosystem for that reason. But hopefully we get them to flip or at least we get them to get it. And what I've seen, Ordinals like everything else had this like big hype cycle.

Everyone was talking about it for a few weeks or months. And that hype died down a little bit, right? Like it's not as Yeah. It's not on top of people's minds in the same way it was, let's say in May or April, but, but it's still there and there is still a significant community. We talked before about the data there's, we're talking about seriously 20 to 50 percent of every block, is Ordinals transactions.

There is this strong base of people who work and build on Ordinals every day. I would say for bear market, it's, way beyond what my expectations were. And those people now care about this coin, and I think they get it for, it's, actually really interesting, like ordinals are not NFTs, they're different from NFTs, inscriptions are different from NFTs in, in, material ways.

That i think really align with the story of why bitcoin itself is special so one thing is right like you inscribe on bitcoin it's there forever it's not gonna it's not ipfs or some web server that has images on it that can be changed or removed the the properties of those ordinals are set in stone too so you can't have an issue or show up later and say, Hey, actually, I don't want you guys to trade on, on, on Magic Eden because they're not paying me my royalties or something.

So I'm going to remove Magic Eden or Blur. I'm going to remove Blur. I'm going to, whatever, all of those tricks that issuers do on the NFT side of Ethereum, they're not possible on Bitcoin because the, owner owns their, or no, it's theirs. It's truly, there's just like with, Bitcoin, and I think that people who interact with this ecosystem understand that now, especially if they saw that in NFTs on Solana and Ethereum first, then move to Bitcoin, and they're seeing the difference, I think they get it.

And then they, through that, they understand why Bitcoin is special too. And and I've seen this a lot. This isn't something I'm making up. I really was. I was very reluctant about doing anything with Ordinals in the beginning, even though we were working on this project before it all started. The beginning was like, yeah, I don't think this is for me.

But as I started learning about it more and we tried to do it very quickly in a week, but as I started learning about it more, I was like, you know what, this is actually, this seems different. And, I, think, people are. seeing that, so in my experience, yeah, it did take, of course, the main reason people started and wanted to be interested in Ordinals was because they were looking to make money.

But I think that as they got into it, they learned, at least those that stayed learned why. Why Bitcoin itself is special and one thing that you see, I think is really, interesting. I've, my big like bull market that I've seen for the first time. there was, just as I joined, there was like the 2013 or 14 bull market that ended with the collapse of Mt Gox.

But I was, Way too young and stupid to understand what was going on the first one that I really fully experienced was the one in 2017, the ICO bubble and all of that stuff. what was really interesting in 2017 is that a ton of people who wanted to participate in the ICO stuff, what they end up doing most exchanges.

only supported Bitcoin at the time, most like on ramps. or, maybe not most, but many of them. So what a lot of people end up doing, they would transfer their own ramps by BTC, take that BTC, transfer it to their own Bitcoin wallet. Then use that, maybe convert that to Ethereum or Ripple or something on some other exchange.

They would have to go sign up for another exchange, deposit the BTC there, convert to some of those other altcoins. And then maybe from there participate in the ICO. So they, they used Bitcoin. They very frequently ended up with having, they would buy some Bitcoin, put it in their wallet, leave it there.

At least some portion of it and, take the risk and gamble with, ICOs. But they, at the end of the bull market, when most of those ICOs went to, zero, at least they still had a Bitcoin wallet and at least they had some BTC in it. And over the years that ended up being worth something, even though everything else they did was, bad investments.

At least they ended up with some BTC. in this last cycle. You barely saw any of that. almost no one of the new people who wanted to participate in the DeFi stuff and the NFT stuff, almost none of them got Bitcoin what they did. And that was to me, that was honestly, that's when I flipped and I was like, wait, something is going on here that is bad, that is very concerning.

and it's not because Yeah, a lot of people would say even back then, it doesn't matter because NFTs will go to zero and DeFi will go to zero. So who cares what people are wrong and they'll realize that they're wrong. And, yeah, they were mostly wrong and they did realize they were wrong.

But at the end of the day, they, their DeFi stuff went to zero. Their NFTs went to zero, but they still have MetaMask and they still have some ETH in there. And the ETH didn't go to zero, it lost 50%. Fine. It's. It's still there and, they consider themselves Ethereum people now, and as the next bull cycle starts, they're like, I'm going to learn more about Ethereum.

I'm going to learn about being an Ethereum developer. Maybe I'm going to learn about whatever. they never interacted with Bitcoin. They don't have a Bitcoin wallet. They don't have any, tiny, the tiniest fractions of BTC. They don't have any of it because they were never, they never had a reason to.

I was like, man, that's a problem because in 2017, and if you talk to a lot of the, Bitcoin Maximalist and the Laser Eyes today, they will tell you that the way they became Bitcoin Maximalist is because in 2017 they played around with shit coins, lost all their money, ended up with some BTC in their wallet, so decided to learn about it.

That's how, they became best Bitcoin maxus. And that funnel is not happening in 2021 and 2022, it's just not, why 

[00:34:30] Chris Blec: does that bother you? Now you sound like a maximalist. Like, why do you care if, people stay on Ethereum, if they want to just mess around with stupid tokens and stuff like that?

they don't 

[00:34:41] Udi Wertheimer: anymore, right? So that's the thing. You become a Bitcoin maximalist, and I've seen this time and again, and they admit that you're themselves, you learn about what makes Bitcoin special through that experience with shit coins, very often, and you understand why, shit coins are maybe not the best, but, More importantly, you end up having some BTC in your wallet. Maybe it's just a fraction of what you had before, but you end up having some BTC in your wallet, and you have a BTC wallet. So you're like, okay, you know what, I'll learn about it. And I've seen this time and time again. A lot of the, again, a lot of the Bitcoin maximalists will tell you openly that's how they became Bitcoin maximalists.

And that includes the people who are building on Bitcoin today, the developers. the, podcaster, that's how, if you go and ask Peter McCormick, how he became a Bitcoin podcaster, and we'll tell you, I started with shit coins. I lost all my money. I ended up with a small chunk of Bitcoin in my wallet.

I was like, let's see what that thing is. And, that, that is a very, typical story in that group. And I'm thinking, okay, those people who build out the community started. Through that funnel, if that funnel doesn't exist anymore, how are they ever going to end up with, how is anyone going to end up in Bitcoin?

Now, the, problem I see with Ethereum, look, it's not that I have something against Ethereum, but I'm a Bitcoin person. And what I'm seeing is that people are... I have been in 2021, 2022 onboarding into Ethereum and today after the bear market and after a ton of them left, the ones who stayed and they did lose a bunch of money, but they stayed because they believe in the deals similar to the ones you talk about.

and they look at Ethereum and they're like, okay, let's make it better. I want to be part of this industry. I want to be part of this community. Ethereum is the thing that I understand. I'm going to work on making it better. Bitcoin needs those people. We can't not have those people. We can't just be like, Oh, we have a lot of smart people from 20...

Who else is going to build it out? have those people. We can't just be 

[00:36:52] Chris Blec: like... This sort of goes to the heart of... 2012? who's going to do it? It goes to the heart of what we were saying before though, where you're talking about trying to, increase adoption by people who, who haven't bought into the narrative that I described initially, right?

You want to bring people into the ecosystem who want to use Bitcoin for different purposes or, and hope that eventually maybe they figure out the rabbit hole, and fall into the sovereign money mindset and stuff like that. But 

[00:37:26] Udi Wertheimer: it's based on experience. It's not based on hope.

It's based on, 

[00:37:31] Chris Blec: I think we're dealing with different breed. I've seen people joining Bitcoin. I think that the people, what I've seen, I overestimated the, intelligence and the, the, desire for freedom of a lot of people who came into Ethereum in 20 19, 20 20. I think that a lot of people.

DeFi was initially described as we're gonna, this is the, you don't need banks anymore. We're getting rid of the middlemen, etc. And then it evolved, obviously, like all, yeah, everybody realized that they were lying. But the people who were there for that were like 1 percent of who ultimately came in to DeFi, right?

In order to, to, for the yield and the tokens and stuff like that. And these are people who don't care about, hard money. They don't care about any of that, they just want the gains. Especially when we're talking about the big money, like the VCs and stuff like that, who are just here to make money.

but also there's a lot of little players who came in just, We all have family members who were trading Doge and who trade garbage coins on Ethereum and stuff like that. I'm not convinced that these are the, people who, I think maybe a very small percentage of these people would ever see, what Bitcoin really is capable of doing.

It's a small percentage. Let's say it's 10%. I think it's even less, but I think it's but I think that what people see with ordinals and with what the messaging you guys use is that you're trying to bring in the people, the other 90%, and you're trying to bring them here to hang here and stay here, for this sort of alternate purpose, hoping that they fall down the rabbit hole.

But what if they don't? what if this becomes a much bigger thing that changes the narrative of Bitcoin? In a way that sort of hurts what the rest of us want it to be, which is this hard money. and by the way, the reason I get concerned about that, and I want to get into this with you. that's, what I want to talk about too.

I, over the past like year or so, I've started to realize more and more that the Bitcoin, the Bitcoin blockchain, is whatever we think it is as well, right? we've seen forks, we've seen narratives shift. Now we're seeing all of these different forces come into Bitcoin, ranging from what you're working on, to what, BlackRock is working on, to what, all these different things that are looking at Bitcoin, and Sort of salivating and seeing ways to profit or achieve other objectives and it's becoming clearer and clearer Especially when we see mining turning into this sort of, like two giant mining pools Control over 50 percent of the hash power and both of them are now requiring KYC on miners to receive payouts and We're seeing this sort of shift towards compliance, right?

We're seeing a shift towards compliance. So how long is it from, one thing that I, tweeted a while ago that got traction was, about BlackRock, in their terms of service, they say, if there's a Bitcoin fork, we decide which one is real, which one's not, right? We decide which one you're going to get in the ETF, and then the other, we're just going to dump.

They decide 

[00:41:04] Udi Wertheimer: for the ETF users, yeah. 

[00:41:06] Chris Blec: exactly. But what happens when the ETF becomes, the biggest single holder of Bitcoin? what happens when the ETF users aren't going to care about decentralization? They're not going to care about the stuff that we care about. They're going to care about, getting a return on their retirement.

Savings and stuff like that. if they become the largest holder, they decide, okay, guess what, this proof of stake fork is now the Bitcoin fork. They turn the media against us and the stuff we're working on. And so it's these kind of narrative shifts that I see as really dangerous if we can't all stay on track with the right.

Narrative, and I think because at that point it's us against the world like we're like 2 percent and all of a sudden BlackRock is like turning the media, they have backing on governments and stuff like that, to hijack the whole thing. So it's thinking we need to start thinking about Bitcoin more as this narrative that's like needs to be bulletproof rather than just this blockchain, that sort of, mind and just, it's, a bigger thing.

And I think that's what maximalism tries to do. But in a, toxic weird religion kind of way. And I want to try to find new ways to, for us to think about this. and I just see ordinals as distracting from it, so I want to hear what you have to say on that. But something else I want you to think about or address 

[00:42:34] Udi Wertheimer: is...

So wait, the, the... concern that you have about ordinals is just that it's distracting or is it something else? 

[00:42:41] Chris Blec: the other thing I want to ask you and maybe you can just address all of it You've talked about Bitcoin about ordinals as like a tool for adoption, right? to increase adoption to get more people to try Bitcoin, but you've also like I heard you guys talk about it as You know a tool for identity And a tool for, tracking important records and sailors been out there saying, there's, it's interesting because, I can own my identity and stuff like that.

Yeah. So like, where do you stand on that? Because that's the kind of stuff where. When we're not even sure who's going to control the Bitcoin narrative in 10 years, like I get nervous about anything other than money, being on this chain, but where do you stand on like the future of it? I don't know 

[00:43:27] Udi Wertheimer: the future.

I think that, I think that Bitcoin, I think that Bitcoin has a complacency problem and that's not Bitcoin itself. That's the Bitcoin community, right? Bitcoin. It's just, it's just the numbers on the computer. But I think that the, community around it, at least the loud community has a complacency problem.

I think that, I think that people think that the, The prophecy will just come true. They don't need to do anything about it. They just need to sit around on their coins and wait. and I think that there's still a lot of things to do. That does not mean that I know what those things are that need to be done.

I do not. The only thing I know how to do is to experiment and try things out and see you know how the world reacts to your experiments and double down on things that work and forget about the things that don't work. And, that I have no answer to you on what the future is going to look like. I think that in order for Bitcoin to fulfill its, potential, people who use Bitcoin will have to experiment with things.

I, I think it's unlikely that we have. Discovered all of the best optimal use cases for Bitcoin. I think that's probably not the case. So, for that, we need to experiment and, we are experimenting with Ornel stuff and other people are experimenting with other things. and, that's great.

I will be happy to fail that is completely fine. I think that, the reason to be bullish on Bitcoin is because it allows you to try a lot of things without asking for anyone's permission, including other holders, some of them may not like it. That's okay. I, I didn't ask for their help, they, can just sit idly by and watch.

And if they think that what we're doing is stupid, then they know it's destined to fail. Then they have nothing to worry about. that's it. I, think that, with ETF stuff and the mining centralization stuff. Those are, concerns that people have been talking about for many years, many, literally since the day I bought my first Bitcoin.

I've, seen people, talking specifically about mining centralization and about ETF. Believe it or not, people have been talking about ETF at least since I joined in 2013, probably before that too. And they thought it was imminent back then too. but we are 

[00:46:21] Chris Blec: closer now, obviously it 

[00:46:23] Udi Wertheimer: is, it is definitely closer now.

Yeah. I, now even I think that it's imminent now, but it's funny because yeah, Bitcoin has always thought it was imminent, so that's a funny thing to remember, but it seems like this time it really is. so those are concerns that people always had. and, I, think, they're very serious concerns.

but also I think, we, we need to be able to present compelling, not only arguments, but compelling realities to people that will make them choose to, choose self custody and choose self sovereignty. not all of them are going to choose that, but we have to at least, be compelling enough so that some people choose it.

And if. If Bitcoin is just destined to be in ETFs, then I guess it is what it is, even, in that scenario, there is the nice thing about it, is that you could have many ETFs, you can have many ETFs in many different jurisdictions, and those can compete with each other, and they don't need to ask for permission from the central Bitcoin authority To become an ETF, of course, in the U.

S., they need the SEC's permission and in other countries, they will need their own. But, but at least there can be many of them and they can compete similarly to how, Coinbase competes with Binance and with other exchanges. And yeah, maybe many people keep their Bitcoin on Coinbase, but at least they have a choice.

I think that, that is just part of being that type of decentralized asset. it does allow you that type of choice. Hopefully those things become competitive enough with each other that you don't have BlackRock controlling the whole thing. I'm pretty optimistic that's probably what's going to end up happening.

ETFs are going to be popular but not, maybe not a single one. and also ETF as a vehicle will probably not be the only vehicle that people will use. Look, I, Hal Feeney talked on, on, on the very earliest, conversations on Bitcoin talk about how, people will probably have their Bitcoin in their bank account.

just like they have a US dollar balance, they'll have a Bitcoin balance and they'll use it. There is what he expected would happen. And I, still think that if Bitcoin does succeed. And that might be one of the main ways that people interact with it. but the important thing is they have a choice.

They can choose which bank. They can choose maybe they want an ETF and not a bank account. They can choose to withdraw and hold it themselves. They can use Lightning. They can use all of those things. I think that adding ownerals to that list of things that they can use is also useful. there's there's this Very interesting comparison that I got from Eric Wall.

most people, their main interaction with gold, and gold is very similar to Bitcoin in many ways. Of course, it's more primitive and ancient. But, it's very similar to Bitcoin in many fundamental ways. And the main way that most people interact with gold, it is not, it is not by just buying gold and holding it in a vault in their home.

It is also not the gold ETF. The gold ETF is popular, but it's not the most popular way that people interact with gold. The most popular way that people interact with gold is through jewelry. Tons of people on this planet own jewelry, gold jewelry. It's a status symbol for them. It's a way to flex. It just, for some of them, they collect it.

they just think it's beautiful. Sometimes they don't wear it at all. people get married and give each other gold rings. it is, it is, It is, something that, almost everyone in the global culture and interacted with, even if they don't own it, they know people own it.

it's very, popular. I think that almost have a potential of being that it's, it's. like Bitcoin jewelry. It's like a way to say, yeah, I, see value in Bitcoin. maybe not as a financial thing, but as a status symbol is a way to flex. And I, see the value of owning it. there is the potential.

I haven't seen a lot of people doing that, but there is the potential of having actual BTC inside the ordinals, right? So ordinals are made of fats. Technically, the, nominal amount is usually almost zero, but, technically you could have an ordinal that is made out of one BTC or more, and maybe that is a thing that will become popular.

Also, inscriptions themselves are made out of Bitcoin block space. That's not the same as BTC, the asset, but they, take up actual Bitcoin block space. the first Tepco wizard we made is a four megabyte transaction, was the first four megabyte transaction in the Bitcoin history. We had to pay for a full block in order to do it.

Whoever owns that knows that they have, this piece of, block space. They cannot reuse it. it's not when you buy a gold, ring, you can melt it and use the gold for something else. You cannot melt the block space and use it for something else, but it, still shows, it's like this sort of status symbol saying, Hey.

I have this thing that is forever on the Bitcoin chain. It clearly took work and money to create it. And it's there for everyone to see. I think it has that sort of similar value to what jewelry is. So I think a lot of people will, we don't know, maybe I'm wrong, but I think there's a good chance a lot of people will, interact with Bitcoin in that way.

similarly to how they interact with jewelry. 

[00:52:42] Chris Blec: It's an interesting comparison. I haven't thought about that or in that way. I think as you're saying it, it's starting to. become more and more apparent to me. And it has been, like I was just saying, like over the past years or so, Bitcoin as an asset and as a, trustless protocol is so much more fragile than gold when it comes to the fact, and that'll trigger a lot of people, but, I really believe that the future of Bitcoin is up for debate as far, as far as the trends that we're seeing, going back to what I was saying before.

Mining becoming, primarily controlled by KYC compliant, government compliant pools. the majority, more and more Bitcoin being held by custodians. A higher percentage every passing day, pretty much. more and more people getting involved that really don't care about decentralization a bit.

Countries getting involved and, looking at it and, obviously not caring about decentralization but just looking for ways that they could hurt privacy on it and hurt other, the, of these aspects of it that we need and that we appreciate. The trend is going in a direction where the narrative could end up getting hijacked.

Not for me, not for you, and not for people who've been here from the start. But again, we're like 1%. Of the world, if that, and the other 99 percent of the world, primarily, most of them will just follow whatever narrative is fed to them, so if a different narrative is fed to them about Bitcoin, they're gonna believe it, and if they're pushed something that we don't think is Bitcoin, if they're pushed something as Bitcoin that we don't think is, they're gonna believe it, so if there is a hijack, like a, fork down the road where, you Okay, somebody's gonna fork Bitcoin.

It's a proof of stake fork, validators controlled by, by white listed, companies like BlackRock and Chase and, governments and whatever it might be, and okay, this is Bitcoin now, and everybody who had Bitcoin before, you still have Bitcoin on this chain. so you have nothing to worry about.

And by the way, the value of this is going to skyrocket because we control it. And the value of your other garbage chain is going to go to zero because we control that too, basically. I see that in the future. That couldn't happen with gold, right? Gold is, physical. You hold it in your hand, you have a necklace and nobody can take it from you.

without a gun, with Bitcoin, it's different. There's different ways that they can take it 

[00:55:25] Udi Wertheimer: from us. you could have, you could have, if, you BlackRock could come and say, Hey, all of you guys were owning the gold ETF, just so you know, we did some research. It turns out that, what we thought is gold is actually not gold and actually Play Doh is gold.

So we're replacing all the, all of the gold in the safes with, Play Doh. That's gold now. That's what gold is. We were just wrong. It wasn't, the gold molecules. It wasn't the gold atoms. It's, this is gold and, they could try that. I think they will fail spectacularly and be left out of the room because in fact, they do not control 

[00:56:08] Chris Blec: the gold supply.

For different reasons though, because people know what I think it's similar reasons. People know what gold is. Cause they can hold it in their hand, they can, they have it around their neck, they have it, they have gold coins. People know what gold is. People don't know what bitcoin is. most people holding bitcoin don't know what it is.

That's the big difference. And they can never hold it, and they can never wear it, and they can never touch it. Yeah, I 

[00:56:33] Udi Wertheimer: think, I think, I don't want to, I don't want to try to sound too self important because I don't think, I'm going to say that Ordinals fixed this, but I, want, I don't, I, it's a joke. I don't actually think that Ordinals are going to fix this, but I think the Ordinals helped, because.

I think that people who interact with Ordinals interact directly with Bitcoin and learn and understand what it is as opposed to people who buy Bitcoin on Coinbase or in the future buy the Bitcoin ETF, they, I agree with you, will probably not know anything about what it is. they don't know much about what it is today when they buy it on Coinbase and they will probably build lists when they buy an ETF.

but when they interact with Ordinals, they, they do know. And again, they're interacting with it daily. They show it to their friends. They say, Hey, this is my ordinal. I think that kind of interaction is what gets people to understand what a thing is. I don't know that we can get it to become as mainstream as an ETF.

Maybe not, but, I do see potential. I think it's possible. and I think if, we can, I think it would help. Is it going to solve the problem on its own? Probably not. I think a lot of other people need to do a lot of other things. I think there's going to, again, there's, going to need to be a lot of experimentation, we, but having reasons for people to interact with Bitcoin, I think is going to be useful.

You need it to be understood, not just by the core, community that cares about privacy and understands privacy and all of that stuff that is. Look, I am part of that community. I am that kind of person. I also know that it just cannot grow anywhere near as fast as we need it to. Is it important? Yes. Do we need to keep doing that?

Yes. It's just not going to grow nearly as fast. it's just not, so what do we do about it? are we yelling at people on, on, on, on, the Matt O'Dell and Marty Bent podcast? Is that going to help? I don't think it is. I think it's not going to help. So that's why I don't want to do it.

I understand where they're coming from. I understand why they think it's important. I think they're right. I think that there is a group of people who do connect to that kind of, rhetoric and, that's great. I don't see how I can help there. I think the way that I can help is by trying to, bring it to new audiences and to get them to see, at least partially, What I see is special on Bitcoin.

I think it's helpful. 

[00:59:30] Chris Blec: Where do you stand on the proof of work versus proof of stake debate? Or do you? 

[00:59:38] Udi Wertheimer: Proof of stake is the... It's the kind of thing that I wish... I wish that what I... That what we would see more from Bitcoiners is like this more nuanced approach where... I'm happy to say about proof of stake that I would, be happy if it worked right.

If it could work in a way that is decentralized and that maintains the immutability that we want from Bitcoin. I would love that. Okay. I think it would be great. That said, I'm entirely unconvinced that is possible. I'm happy for the Ethereum people to try it out. that's fantastic. I don't want them to not try it out.

And that is something that I find appalling, really, in the Bitcoin community. That, that, let them try. They want to take the risk. Great. It's fantastic. Hopefully they come back, in five years and say, we figure it out. I don't think it'll happen, but maybe. And, and then, maybe we can do something about it.

but yeah, I'm not particularly optimistic. I look at it and it's Yeah, there's a lot of problems like there's like you said there can be concerns with proof of work to like proof of work is not perfect And the way that it is currently Implemented is not perfect. So Going the extra mile and being like we figured out proof of work Let's not do a proof of stake and it's I don't know I think it might be I wouldn't want to do that on Bitcoin definitely not anytime soon, but if they figure it out Maybe 

[01:01:21] Chris Blec: I think that the debate is often over what success really means too, though.

Like it's we want to think success means a bulletproof decentralized, system that can't be manipulated or gamed. But that's like the definition of success. That's what I'm worried about across the board. Like we could say proof of work is, is failing because of the. the way that Bitcoin mining is trending and because of, stuff like that, but somebody could make the case that it's succeeding because it has more of a risk of becoming compliant and that, it might be safer.

It might be more eco friendly. It might be, better if, the government had more control over it. And then same with proof of stake, it's like. I think that Proof of Stake, is going to succeed for a lot of people if it becomes more controlled by the big money and by, by, all the things that we think are bad.

I think that, same with DeFi, I think I've said from the start, a lot of these projects kept their centralized control, their keys, whether it's through like an admin key or through a DAO that's, Like kind of a phony DAO with, big players just controlling the votes. They kept that on purpose because they knew that their project would be more valuable if it was compliant.

it's you lose value when you become this pirate ecosystem that, governments frown on and that run counter to laws and stuff like that. You lose value, so it might be better for freedom. But it's not better for the pocketbooks of, the investors and stuff like that. And every token holder is going to vote in their financial interests all the time, and people just want to preserve their wealth.

And if they're given ways to do that, they're going to do it. And that's why miners are KYC ing too. it's the same thing. So Bitcoin holders do the same. Yeah, but they're, what can, they can't control the chain. They can control the narrative though, but they can't control the, ecosystem itself.

That's where it gets interesting because that's what I was saying before. If most Bitcoin holders are holding through an ETF and don't give a crap about decentralization, then they can take that narrative wherever they want to take it. so that's where I, get concerned. so in the little time we have left, I just wanted to get back to, what we were talking about initially.

And It sounds like your motives are, about growing adoption of Bitcoin. You want to bring more people into the ecosystem. We haven't even talked about, fees and stuff like that, which is such a bigger topic, I know you guys have talked about ordinals can help sustain the Bitcoin, proof of work system longer term, When, it's having to occur, If it's maybe not, but hopefully. but do you think that there's more to it? Do you, and I know you, before you said like you didn't agree with sailor or anything like that, do you think that it has a future that could be, this is where we have our car title.

This is where we have our, the D door house, Or do you think that's it's way too early to even consider stuff like that? Yeah. So I think 

[01:04:48] Udi Wertheimer: the Bitcoin main chain itself has limited capacity and I believe we'll continue to have limited capacity. so the idea of it becoming itself becoming the.

the dynamic that ends up happening is that you end up storing data that is valuable, very valuable, and to me, that would be one of two things. It's either like these sort of like repository for the world's documents seems unlikely, Collectibles, and those are not going to be mass market either, right?

It's not going to be like, there was a time when people were talking about Instagram, adopting NFTs, right? they had this small, test pilot thing that they, tried and they actually shut it down. But, There was a time where it looked like Instagram was going to adopt NFTs, and in a world where, potentially every single Instagram creator has an NFT collection with, hundreds of thousands or millions of units each, and they each cost whatever, 50 cents or something, this kind of mass market NFT vision, I do not think can happen on, on, on Bitcoin on the main, Chain, just because of capacity constraints.

So if people are going to use it for that kind of stuff, it's going to be only for things that they consider fairly valuable. 

[01:06:24] Chris Blec: Unless we have another big block debate, 

[01:06:27] Udi Wertheimer: I don't think so. of course it could, but I don't think so because it, doesn't, I think when you look into how people are using them, at least today.

It doesn't make sense for them to want it to become a mass market thing. Like the Bitcoin, all in all, the transcription thing seems to make a lot of sense for, or some sense for, high end luxury stuff. I don't know that it necessarily makes a ton of sense for mass market stuff, and I don't know that it's going to be a big war one day.

I don't think so. But, who knows. But my point is, I think it makes sense for those highly valuable things, either collectibles, or maybe, there's, this project that tries to inscribe, all of the WikiLeaks documents now, and I think Snowden has mentioned something about how for very, For types of documents that people really want censored, then that might make sense, and that makes sense to me, too.

But I don't think that's like a mainstream use case either, right? So you're going to have, whatever, once every few years, there's going to be this important leak, and people will want to use the Bitcoin chain for that. But not for everyday stuff. Very hard for me to imagine it will be used for car titles and so on.

Because again, those things, there's many other ways you can, both save and secure, distribute them. You don't really need a Bitcoin system for that. I think it, it actually works more for like sentimental things. Like where you didn't have to have it on Bitcoin, but you're like, I love Bitcoin.

So I want it to be on Bitcoin. people used to, before inscriptions were a thing and they used to put in op returns like, marriage proposals, for example, because they're like, me and my wife, we both love Bitcoin and, we want this to be there forever. And it's a very valuable for them.

It's obviously not valuable for anyone else. But, those kinds of things to me make sense. And some people will be willing to pay for them and most people will think they're silly and that's okay. 

[01:08:37] Chris Blec: Yeah, I think that, that's part of my concern about it is that if it does continue to grow, and blocks do continue to fill up, and if there's money to be made with this type of stuff, then it could ignite a new.

Sort of political war right over like how big should blocks be or how should we like it's that's what I meant by distraction before Distraction from the use case of Bitcoin as money, and Compromising and making trade offs that appease multiple parties, you know that aren't you know Not all of them are just strictly focused on Bitcoin as hard money That's where I get concerned.

And that's what I was talking about with distraction. It was, in those kinds of cases, which obviously if ordinals continue to take off, become a huge industry, the way that, that DeFi did at least for a while there, but there's still tons of money in DeFi and like the VCs start coming over and start to try to take this over.

it will be just a matter of time before you got Coinbase and you got all these other major players involved. Trying to capitalize on it. And then that's when you start getting trade offs, right? And you get trade offs, maybe we can make ordinals work and make it still hard money, but we just take a little bit of decentralization away, And how do you please all the masters? You can't please everybody. And that's what Ethereum has tried to do, and it's turned into this political boondoggle, right? Bitcoin is at major risk for going that route, and if it's not Ordinals, it could be something else. it's more and more, like I said before, it's becoming clearer and clearer to me that this narrative is really, it's fragile.

And Bitcoin is, we want it. I also caveat with this. A common thing I get back is, I'll just dump the shit cor the, crap fork for my fork and, I'll just always stay on my proof of work chain that, is free and stuff like that. But, if you're, if, first of all, if it's illegal, you're gonna have a hard time, and it very well could become that in the future.

It could be illegal to self custody in the future. A lot of countries are already trying to do that. but also, do you really want to be this one percent, on a pirate island somewhere? I know you guys think that you're gonna have a citadel, and you're gonna be all, but one, one, Patriot missile, and you're done.

it's you don't want to be an enemy of 99 percent of the world. And once 99 percent of the world thinks that the, if you're not using their Bitcoin, you're, the enemy. You're in trouble. that's where I get. I'm thinking, I feel like I'm, my view is so nuanced, it's hard to almost describe sometimes.

But that's where I get iffy on some of these side sort of ventures. I don't, I respect your right to build it. I think you should build whatever you could build. But I also wish that there was a way to, to block you. From the chain without inflicting just straight up censorship, but I realize straight up censorship can't happen But at the same time I just I see both sides of this and I get really conflicted.

[01:11:53] Udi Wertheimer: No, I understand. I think that those are views that again. I they're not even new I think that those are views that people have held for me for many years and you know I can I totally saw the point then and I still see the point now. I get it I, my view is just different. First of all, I'm, an optimistic person and some people might say naive, I'm just optimistic.

And I think that people, I think that humans figure things out. and maybe I'm, insane for thinking that this, but the second thing is. I think there are two possible futures for Bitcoin. one possible future is that nobody cares about it. And when I say nobody, I mean it remains this 1 percent thing.

And there's a bunch of like famous podcasters and they hop around between conferences. And, we talk about macro all day and how Bitcoin is going to save the world and how wars only happen because we don't have Bitcoin. We can keep talking about how wars only happen because we don't have Bitcoin for generations and that's it.

Of course there's another version of the future where those people are right and the world is going to shit, and all the governments disappear, and then Bitcoin turns up with the savior. I'm not, I'm just not interested in the future. It might be, it may be that, that I'm, just not interested in it. And then I think there's another version.

The third version is, the Bitcoin is going to be appealing for large groups of people that are, that, that, are currently not part of the movement. for whatever reason, and those people will, yeah, they'll have, they'll have different ambitions and they'll have different motivations and, it will create problems.

No doubt. hopefully we can grow this in a way that, that we keep this movement aligned at least to some degree. but also, yeah, we might fail, it, might actually end up blowing up just because it grew too fast. That's a possibility. I think you say you see that a lot of startups and companies, right?

Like they start with the small vision. You have this small group of maybe three, five people, that know exactly what they want. And usually they fail, sometimes rarely, they do so well that they grow really, fast. And then that ends up becoming a problem for some of them, right? Like the, they, end up blowing up because either they blew too fast, they grew too fast, or they, grew the way they wanted to grow, but, they were not able to manage it.

And they were not able to align all of the new people that, joined the team, turn it from a five person group to a 5, 000 person group. And they were not able to Tie everything together, and it's especially concerned with something like Bitcoin, where there is by design. No leadership, right?

yeah, I can see why that would be concerning, but I'm optimistic. I think that Bitcoin can grow, and I think that it's worth. worth trying if it ends up failing because we were not able to pull everything together as it's grow, that's a shame, but what are the other options to not grow that to me does not seem like a reasonable option.

yeah, we'll find out can Bitcoin grow while maintaining its kind of legacy and heritage. It will obviously change a lot, right? But hopefully it can, still maintain those things that we care about. But can it? I don't know. All I'm saying is, let's find out, Yeah. 

[01:15:47] Chris Blec: It's interesting. as you say, we have to grow it.

We have to grow it. and from the point of view, like from my point of view, Bitcoin does what I needed to do already, so it's, why do we have to grow it? Like I get it. I understand what you're saying, but it's, I think that's a perspective a lot of people have is that. If we're gonna change Bitcoin, we should make it harder to, to use or harder to, to, to change, and try to figure out the mining problem and try to, should we make it asic resistant?

Should we shrink that opportunity? I'm in favor of all of 

[01:16:18] Udi Wertheimer: that. I'm in favor of all that. If people want. I'm in favor of discussions about banning Ordinals. I'm in favor of all of those, of course, I'm in favor of, improvements to privacy, of course, I'm in favor of improvements to, mining decentralization.

My concern is that none of this is happening either. bring it on, please. I want to hear about how people want to fix those issues. Please. I'm very happy to talk about the issues that I see. I 

[01:16:46] Chris Blec: have this podcast and nobody listens to it, so I don't know what to do.

[01:16:53] Udi Wertheimer: Yeah, that's one of the things, I, think that, and we, talked about this before and I think you, you, do it quite well yourself to we, can't always just say what we think and what we worry about. There's a lot of, impact that, that comes from just the way you package things. and I mentioned before, Is, the strategy of Marty Bent, Matt O'Dell of yelling at people on podcasts. Is that going to be effective? I understand where they're coming from. I think they're coming from a very good place and I agree with most of the things they say. I just don't think that form of packaging is going to make the most impact.

And of course that's, that's why we're doing Taproot Wizards. We think that packaging messages in that way is going to be more effective, at least in this point in time. and maybe we're wrong. We'll 

[01:17:51] Chris Blec: see. final question. How do you make a living? Are you guys funded? Are you guys getting paid?

Taproot Wizards I'm talking about. 

[01:18:03] Udi Wertheimer: It's interesting, I have not gotten paid in a year since I started this. I think that, we'll probably talk about this in another opportunity. I think that, I think that there will be, a lot of, a lot of monetary financial opportunity in the Oral's ecosystem too.

but for me personally, since we started working on this, I have actually not taken a cent in salary. 

[01:18:35] Chris Blec: there you go. Have you, guys raised capital for this? look, 

[01:18:41] Udi Wertheimer: we, I think we'll definitely consider it. we, what we are right now is where we, want to see if we can use this concept of ordinals to, to build a community that supports the ideals of experimenting on Bitcoin.

That is really like the goal. if venture capital will have doing that, we'll do that. If otherwise we'll help doing that, we'll do that. The, point is, can we, take this like enthusiasm and the fact that people are, this group of people are actually using Bitcoin today, using like daily doing transactions.

Can we take that and turn that into a momentum of building a Bitcoin, and that into a momentum of building a Bitcoin. I think you understand already. it's that I'm sure a lot of people.

What we'll not like, but, but yeah, and we'll, if, we'll need funding, we'll get funding. I have 

[01:19:52] Chris Blec: nothing against that. Okay. Yeah. It's different coming from coming afterward. It's different from coming from before where I feel like, For instance, BIP 300 seems like it's very backed by a company that really wants it to happen, and is investing and is paying core developers to develop and, but you guys aren't, in that kind of position where you guys are just messing around literally.

The thing with 

[01:20:17] Udi Wertheimer: BIP 300 though, and I think I'm not, so I'm not personally a big supporter of BIP 300, I, but I, can appreciate the attempt. To experiment. I love that. and I don't know if it's good or bad, I think there's, it's a little unfair, I think the way that some people have talked about the VC funding that they have, because Paul, Stortz has been on it, on BIP300 for, what, eight years?

I remember meeting him in 2016 and, what, eight years? I remember meeting him in 2016, right? And, Longest sign, really, cannot think of any other project in crypto that held back on VC funding for that long, and eventually it did, sure, but like the idea of saying, oh, they're like, they're just pushing it because of the VC, whatever, Man, if anyone in the world can, argue against that, it's, Paul.

Paul really has been doing this for so long, and eventually, I think he was like, that's just what it seems from my perspective. Eventually, he probably was like, you know what? We need more resources to try to push this. I can't just do it on my own. And I guess that's why he did it. I don't know.

[01:21:35] Chris Blec: No, but it's still fair to help him. it's still fair, I think, to always look at. who, where is this coming from? It's it wouldn't, maybe the, market tried to tell him this is not a thing, and then it only can happen now with, this kind of backing.

It's, context. I think it's important. if you came and said, yeah, we, launched back by A16Z. I'd be like, okay. That's interesting. I think that, that's it is with this kind of messaging and, stuff like that. but but you answered that and I, get it.

listen, I've taken enough of your time, man. It's been a good chat. I think, yeah, some people will, I think that it's a small subset of people who would find this kind of thing interesting. But I think those are the people that I want to, that's the crowd I want to grow. I want to grow the people who are not afraid.

And to, look at Bitcoin from the outside, and look at it as what it is. It's a, planet hurtling through the universe. And there's comets coming in all the time that could fracture it or blow it up or, and it's like, how can we, protect it? I wish we could just put up a shield around it, but that's not a possibility.

But all right, man. thanks again. I appreciate the chat. I like you more than I did when we started and, I did notice your FTX glasses, didn't get a chance to comment. Oh, I wasn't sure if you'd 

[01:23:02] Udi Wertheimer: notice, yeah. 

[01:23:03] Chris Blec: I noticed them like halfway through. 

[01:23:05] Udi Wertheimer: I always, I always do a little, Easter eggs when I, go on the video.

It's beautiful. For the fans. For the fans and for the haters. 

[01:23:17] Chris Blec: Right on. Thanks again. Yeah. Thank you, man.