0:00

My experience I noticed like one thing that's been working in Africa

0:03

with business owners, just from a mining perspective is mining is legal.

0:07

Just explore, how much electricity do they have?

0:10

How much electricity do they consume? the cost of electricity.

0:12

Convince them to put a miner to transform a cost center into a

0:16

profit center in their business. the adoption, it's.

0:18

is accelerating from my view for the small to medium business owners,

0:23

in Africa and the Middle East. no one heard of ordinals in Africa.

0:26

But the impact of the ordinance and the transaction fees.

0:29

They know of that. They don't want to dive into the intricacies of lightning

0:34

Opening channels, et cetera. No. they heard that Bitcoin has a, they can transfer money for cheap,

0:38

they can wait 10 minutes or like 15 minutes or whatever for, to get

0:41

their $101,000 or, or 10 K or 20 K.

0:44

They want that and they hear it's, it's been the most secure

0:48

network to transact on for them. They don't care about the speed, as long as it's cheap and secure.

0:53

But with the ordinals, it only made that more difficult.

2:43

Sooly Kobayashi, welcome to the Freedom Footprint Show.

2:46

Thanks for joining us. Thanks for having me, Luke, Knut.

2:49

Yeah. Nice to see you, Sooly. could you start by giving our listeners a little introduction through to yourself?

2:55

Give us, give us the TLDR on Sooly Kobayashi, please.

2:59

sure. SuSoolyLebanese born and raised.

3:03

lived through the Lebanese public corruption before all the inflation and

3:10

Lebanon getting into the mainstream media. Uh, worked into international NGOs, uh, United Nations humanitarian

3:18

development programs in Lebanon, uh, working with ministries,

3:21

working with cash programs, etc.

3:24

I've always been an IT geek since seven, uh, when I disassembled the first PC.

3:29

And then, uh, yeah, 2014, I moved to Europe, to the corporate world,

3:35

where it happens just moving.

3:37

I hear about something called Bitcoin. Didn't really, Look into it.

3:42

That's my, my 10 year anniversary memorial, uh, since 2014.

3:47

and then, um, yeah, I started traveling to Africa, uh, Southwest Africa and

3:52

the Middle East for the last decades, every six weeks for three weeks.

3:57

and Just before the inflation that hit Angola in 2016, I had started to

4:05

dabble into the TradFi kind of trading traditional finance just as a hobby.

4:11

2016, I am in Angola, the, there's all this inflationary syndrome that the

4:17

country is going through from capital controls to prices to, uh, price controls,

4:23

to the banks, not transferring money, um, outside the country, et cetera.

4:28

And then, yeah, that's, just wanted to, to, to share that because for me,

4:32

as a Lebanese, I saw that in 2016 and as soon as it started 2019 in Lebanon,

4:38

uh, I saw a lot of similarities. Now, um, through my Bitcoin story, just 2017, I told you 1,016, I started

4:45

like stratify, um, Bitcoin, uh, um.

4:50

It happened that I picked up Bitcoin on my, investing, trading

4:53

radar, just like any other asset.

4:56

I didn't know what it was, just traded it just like that.

4:59

other funds and oil and metals, et cetera, had no cloud bought custody.

5:04

and back then I was like, I was proud that, yeah, I started, uh, I

5:09

own some Bitcoin on a trading app. I thought it was like mine anyway, in the first place.

5:14

and then 2019 is where I really started to realize that this is very time consuming.

5:24

I was lucky that I, unfortunately, the only thing I lost was

5:28

time and time preference.

5:31

and I only realized the, the, the importance of time preference in

5:36

2019, where it was affecting really my life, uh, family, friends, work,

5:41

because I was doing this on the side. And, You have to follow the news, um, Asia, Europe, uh, the States, uh,

5:50

having two or three screens, uh, on and like trying to understand graphs and

5:55

astronomy, um, so it was quite a thing.

5:58

And then I noticed that everything followed Bitcoin, uh, for a reason or another.

6:02

So that triggered my curiosity, and frankly, I, I go through these

6:09

annual self reflections, uh, where I had to change something in my life.

6:13

Uh, everything was okay except sleep and like quality, uh, relationships.

6:18

I was like, you know what, uh, I'm going to convert all these

6:21

top 30, 40 crypto to Bitcoin.

6:25

I did that, 2019, just at the beginning, even though I started

6:29

dabbling because like I always followed Buffet's, uh, advice on like, always

6:34

buy when there's blood on the street. Uh, I understood back then that Bitcoin was, uh, an asset that had

6:41

some legitimacy, uh, even back then, and then converted to Bitcoin 2019.

6:46

And I started entering the rabbit hole, uh, 2019.

6:50

I meet a great guy, Bitcoiner and a friend, Marco from Lebanon, who's the

6:55

founder of the biggest, Bitcoin community in Lebanon, education community.

6:59

And we started, I remember like, Like for weeks debating about like, you know, he's

7:05

a maxi, he was a maxi, I wasn't one then.

7:08

Um, a money maximist, let's sound money maximist, let's keep it, uh,

7:12

let's clarify it now, it's 2024, we need to, we need to clarify, I guess.

7:17

Um, and then I realized like, wow, this is really something.

7:21

And I started converting all my other trad5 holdings to Bitcoin.

7:26

Um, 2020, unfortunately, it was unfortunate for the COVID, uh, syndrome

7:32

and impact on the world, but, uh, being home without traveling, made

7:36

me discover that there was something called Clubhouse, which was like the

7:40

early generation of Twitter spaces.

7:43

I got educated by Max Hillebrand in a toxic way that I really loved it, man.

7:48

I loved it. I loved every single hour, like it was like, it was like, I was so

7:53

thirsty for learning and, um, started organizing sessions on Clubhouse

8:00

for, to educate Bitcoin and Arabic 2020 weekly with Marco, that's.

8:06

took off. And then, uh, back then I didn't know that, uh, Swan was, uh, on

8:12

one of the clubs and they saw that I was organizing these sessions

8:15

in Arabic every, every week. And they reached out and asked me how it's going.

8:20

And like, if I'm interested in like, to do something further and back then, really,

8:25

like even now, I don't, I, um, I work in a, in a family business, um, and I don't

8:31

have time to do any real operational work, but I was like, I was so frustrated

8:36

back then, you know, like you just like swallow the toxic orange pill where you

8:40

see the, you're, you're, I think toxicity levels decreases over time and you keep,

8:47

at least for me, uh, um, uh, a switch.

8:51

Where you can switch it on. Uh, this is how I do it.

8:53

I think like you can be a maxi gentleman, uh, without using the

8:58

toxicity left, right and center. And then I was like, uh, what are you doing in the Middle East and Africa?

9:04

Since you're asking, because like I, I know the market quite well.

9:07

I know the, who are the players, the exchanges, the applications,

9:12

and I know what's happening. And I was like, I ranted and vented and vomited it all on a call.

9:19

And the guy was like, uh, maybe I think you should talk to Corey.

9:23

I was like, okay, and taught me that you create your own reality, uh, in

9:32

the sense where that's years ago, fast forward today, I do Bitcoin consulting,

9:40

business consulting, uh, for, Bitcoin companies wanting to work in the Middle

9:45

East and Africa, but most of my work is to onboard non Bitcoin companies onto

9:50

Bitcoin through, um, acquiring Bitcoin, custodying Bitcoin, um, mining, point

9:56

of sale, um, a la carte menu, kind of, if someone needs it, just because like

10:01

during, through my work, which is, um, a fiat job nowadays, the, we're entering

10:07

the, we're, we're diversifying into a Bitcoin, uh, business unit as well.

10:12

That's all that I'm handling, but it exposes me to a lot of

10:16

manufacturers, supply chain distributions, business owners.

10:21

And yeah, it's been really mind blowing how you tell me like, what's the TLDR?

10:27

It's just like how it all started.

10:30

And Bitcoin just gives you, um, I mean, first off, you just want to do

10:34

something a Bitcoin and, um, By the way, I did give a talk on the, one of the

10:41

European meetups, the Antwerp Belgium meetups about how to find a job and to

10:45

create your opportunities in Bitcoin. Like everyone wants to work on Bitcoin.

10:48

Everyone wants to go on the website to look for jobs and Bitcoin companies.

10:54

The best way, frankly, is to create your own.

10:57

Um, because we're, we're not too many and we need each other.

11:02

Um, and one thing that the TLDR of this thing is that basically every company

11:08

would need someone who believes in a goal and an area, if you have an area

11:14

of spec, uh, specialty of expertise, really just go do your homework

11:19

and not start knocking on doors. If one doesn't work, the other will.

11:23

That's it. Sorry for the longer TLDR.

11:27

no, this is very interesting. There's a lot to unpack there.

11:30

First of all, I'm curious what brought you to Angola in the first place.

11:35

It's not a country that you just happened to end up in, I guess.

11:39

Like, what brought you there? my fiat job is, I'm going to try not to talk myself much about this topic.

11:46

It's just like Angola, uh, and the surrounding countries, Sub Saharan

11:50

Africa is, um, is one of the operations we have, um, in my fiat job and,

11:58

um, it's all supply chain based.

12:01

Um, so yeah, this is, this is why.

12:03

Um, like I'm based in Europe where the head offices are in Europe,

12:07

but, uh, the arms of the business are in Africa and the Middle East.

12:11

Okay, we won't dox you any further. Uh, I mean, that could mean literally anything from oil of

12:17

Yulee to Barbie dolls to whatever.

12:20

I don't know. Uh, so, uh, So let's not go there.

12:23

Um, another thing that interests me, like the, the little I know about, uh,

12:29

Islamic banking or, or like Arab banking is that, uh, I think it's taking interest,

12:36

interest is sort of a sin in Islam.

12:38

Isn't that the case? And it's, it's forbidden to, to, uh, give out loans and,

12:43

uh, require interest payments.

12:46

How does that work? so it's three parts or like, let's say four parts for first, Halal money in

12:54

Islam is like avoiding Reba or interest.

12:56

Like you mentioned, second is, um, this money to have

13:01

an ethical business practice. Third is transparency and fairness.

13:08

Transparency fourth and fairness, uh, sorry, transparency

13:11

third and fairness fourth. So if you notice, like, if you, if you draw similarities with Bitcoin, if like

13:19

from the creation of Bitcoin, from the code, the code is written in a fair way.

13:24

The proof of work mining is done in a democratic, fair way, especially

13:30

with the difficulty adjustment. Um, and the ethical business practices today, we know the illicit practices

13:36

on fiat compared to Bitcoin, how it is and why Bitcoin prevents those illicit

13:42

practices from, uh, from happening. So, so would you say Bitcoin is halal money?

13:47

Yes, I say this, even though, disclaimer, I'm not a sheikh,

13:50

even though we have a sheikh in the space called Muawiyah Tucker.

13:53

You need to definitely, I don't know if you spoke with him. Uh, he's He is an official sheikh a teaching Sharia, et cetera.

13:59

That's something else. Yeah. This is, this is, there's a, there are, there are a couple.

14:03

There's also, uh, also, um, another, uh, bitcoin in this place called, uh, Muslim

14:09

Bitcoin, who's also, uh, advocating a lot.

14:12

And they both, both been, uh, writing papers, blogging, blogging about this.

14:17

and there are even like, uh, I did some just by diving into the rabbit hole.

14:22

Because, you know, when, when you just discover Bitcoin, you start asking

14:25

questions, obvious questions, at least for me, like, why is the logo orange?

14:29

Um, is it halal? Is anyone like, uh, has any sheikh or like any priest or any

14:35

rabbi spoke about Bitcoin before?

14:38

What did they do? Et cetera. And there are, um, there are a couple of, um, None, um, uh, let's

14:44

say a couple of sheikhs and Islam, I think in Saudi Arabia and in Bahrain

14:48

who have done lectures on YouTube about Bitcoin being halal in Arabic.

14:54

And one of them has written a paper that I can share with you after the pod.

14:58

Um, yeah, it's, it's quite interesting.

15:01

I think today there's a lot.

15:04

Uh, happening when it comes to, I mean, if you go to Dubai, you can see like

15:08

from the airport, you see the, the, the crypto shitcoin area ads, um, welcoming

15:13

you at the airport, uh, the highways.

15:15

If you go on Twitter spaces, you see how Saudi Arabia, despite the non

15:20

legislation is like booming when it comes to trading, et cetera, just because

15:24

today they're using it as a property. Uh, not as, so today it's kind of, uh, unspoken halal property that everyone is

15:33

using to trade regardless to huddle or to trade, like really, um, short term.

15:39

Um, but you don't find any, anyone talking about money.

15:45

And, uh, I know for a fact that I don't want to mention someone if they don't

15:52

want to be mentioned, but I know for a fact that the mainstream media in the

15:57

Arab world is refusing to talk about Bitcoin, comparing it to, like, talking

16:02

about sound money on mainstream media. They are able, they are ready to speak about Bitcoin, the tech property,

16:10

but don't bring up the sound money. yeah, there's, uh, proven, proven, uh, incidents or events where, um, people

16:18

who went on TV shows who were able and more, more than capable to talk about

16:23

the subject, they were requested not to speak about the sound money aspect of it.

16:27

100%. that problem is sort of everywhere.

16:32

I know they're for like, uh, this week when we reached a new all time high and

16:36

stuff, the Bitcoin was mentioned in Sweden as well on, um, public service media.

16:43

And, uh, of course they, they never talk about the, the sound money aspect.

16:48

That's, that's just, it's mentioned like Bitcoin is a cryptocurrency, like

16:52

implying that there are more, and this is purely speculative is something they

16:57

say over and over again, never realizing that everything is purely speculative,

17:01

uh, since value is subjective, right?

17:04

So, so you never hear these, um, Other takes, you only hear it

17:09

from the perspective of a statist Keynesian mindset, I guess.

18:08

Hey, so maybe you can take us through a little bit about your experience

18:12

with the general MEA Middle East Africa, um, kind of adoption there,

18:18

because I know that that's one thing that you're heavily involved in here.

18:22

Maybe, maybe a quick question. Sort of a combination for some, some background, like, like, what's

18:27

your, what's been your experience with, with, uh, Bitcoin in, in these

18:32

regions that you're working with? From a grassroots project, there's a lot happening.

18:37

Um, and there are, evolution and challenges at the grassroots level.

18:42

And we can dive into that. Uh, from a institutional level, there's a lot of evolution.

18:48

Um, and from a regulatory point of view, there is, unfortunately, not much

18:52

evolution except, um, in some of the, like, Dubai like cities, uh, we're talking

18:58

about Bahrain, we're talking about Dubai, um, in particular Abu Dhabi and the UAE.

19:03

And you have the religious perspective as well.

19:05

now it depends if you're talking about the Middle East or Africa, that's about

19:09

the, from the religious perspectives, mainly the Middle East, but for Africa in

19:14

particular, man, the evolution happening there and the progress is mind blowing.

19:20

Um, I mean, we met in Lugano, Knut, and compared to the African

19:25

conferences, um, the, the conference I attended in September was in Ghana.

19:31

The amount of energy people want to work on, on, on Bitcoin, the amount

19:37

of developers working on Bitcoin, the, the initiatives of like.

19:42

Coding, like incentivizing people to code on Bitcoin and to create like

19:47

on ramps, off ramps is mind blowing.

19:49

Um, so I would start with Africa.

19:52

Africa is I think that the leading, leading continent in

19:57

adoption, but also development.

20:00

Um, and this comes from a simple idea is that if Bitcoin is stopped

20:06

for any reason, In Europe, from a legislation point of view, I'm

20:12

talking because it cannot be stopped. We all know that, uh, or in the West, nothing will change for the Westerners,

20:18

but if, uh, Bitcoin is like, let's just, from a legislation point of

20:24

view, try to be stopped in Africa.

20:27

The Africans won't allow it to stop.

20:30

Um, today they need Bitcoin more than anything else.

20:33

They, I mean, there's today also the, the split between some are like,

20:38

uh, complete hodling and some are like with the medium of exchange.

20:41

And Africa is needs Bitcoin as a medium of exchange, uh, more than a store of value.

20:47

Of course, store of value helps you in a highly inflationary environment.

20:52

But if, for example, like Angola or Sierra Leone or South Africa, 70 percent

20:58

of the market is informal markets, which means, um, you have most of the trade,

21:04

commercial trade, the food and non food. It's happening on the streets, on tables, on the ground, like the mamas and papas

21:10

are just like putting their shampoos next to their oils and cereals, etc.

21:15

And you go buy from there. This is what 70 percent of the population does.

21:20

And you have public markets everywhere. Now, the governments want these traders or these ladies to register

21:29

their VAT or their tax registration.

21:33

And they want them to start invoicing customers.

21:36

Some have, believe it or not, those ladies that might be selling something on a table

21:41

might own multiple shops in the back, and they have a lot of money, and they

21:45

can afford going through the registration process, but this is the minority of

21:51

those, um, traders on the streets.

21:55

What I'm trying to say here is, like, as a medium of exchange, these These traders,

22:00

these commercial business women and mainly ladies in Africa, they cannot register

22:09

for taxes just because they live in the slums and every time there is rain, they

22:15

will be changing their house every season.

22:18

This is how informal the African continent still is, even though

22:24

you go as a tourist and you go, you see the nice places, et cetera.

22:28

But Africa has so much potential and they need Bitcoin.

22:32

And this is why M Pesa exponentially grew there.

22:35

This is why you see all these innovations on Bitcoin using mobile

22:40

phones in Africa, because this is really the core need for Africa today.

22:45

So from an adoption today, it's It's very, um, it's very young.

22:50

Um, I wouldn't say premature to try anything at this stage.

22:55

I think there's a lot of innovation and development happening.

22:58

Like if you see a Cassie in South Africa, or if you see, um, a Bitcoin

23:03

Dua in Ghana or a Bitcoin Dada in Kenya.

23:06

They're doing great work. Uh, each of them is trying to educate and trying to, to work around, like to create

23:13

a circular economy where, where, where they're working and they are progressing,

23:18

but without the support, of the rest of the Bitcoiners around the world, this

23:22

is not really gonna take off, I think.

23:25

Um, and this is another story, but yeah, this is for, for Africa

23:29

from an adoption point of view. yeah, I don't know if you want to learn more about, uh, the Middle East, we

23:34

can, but I think Africa is the most interesting developing, um, location

23:39

for, for Bitcoin adoption nowadays.

23:42

Yeah, yeah, and, uh, uh, Africans really have the chance to leapfrog everyone else

23:48

here by, by, by being faster on the ball.

23:51

It's, and it's a, it's beautiful because it's, uh, Uh, well, for lack of a better

23:58

word, revenge for 50 years of failed politics trying to solve their problems.

24:05

Um, so, um, uh, yeah, a lot of exciting stuff happening there.

24:11

And, and these, uh, miners, Providing electricity to places that otherwise

24:17

wouldn't have any chance of getting on any type of grid, I find that

24:22

extremely fascinating too, and as you say, it's going fast, and I think

24:27

we've just seen, like, the snowball start to roll down the hill, and it's

24:33

only gonna get bigger, and it's gonna

24:36

Absolutely. Um, talking about miners, uh, when you, when you see what, uh, gridless is doing

24:42

in Kenya and Africa is amazing, but it's unfortunate there's a divide between West

24:48

Africa and East Africa from a regulatory maturity in my opinion, or wisdom.

24:54

Uh, for example, Angola. who has 97 percent of Angolan energy is hydro.

25:02

More than 65 percent of the Angolan energy produced from hydro is in excess

25:08

abundance, so no one is, uh, absorbing it.

25:12

And they banned proof of work in December 2023.

25:16

So, this is just an example. of a country that had one of the cheapest electricity on the globe in abundance,

25:25

where it can serve the rural and the urban areas because in Africa, even the urban

25:31

areas need some development, et cetera. What you're saying is that is indeed fascinating for the governments who

25:38

really, understood the benefits from it.

25:41

But, uh, some other countries with greater, unique value proposition

25:47

or advantage to start mining. are just like shooting, shooting their, their selves in the foot, unfortunately.

25:54

Malawi, uh, same, uh Latitude as Angola.

25:59

there's a facility there, I know.

26:01

Uh, a couple of our friends were there visiting, uh, and

26:05

they started up something. So, things are happening all over the place, it seems.

26:10

Yes, Bhutan, Bhutan is, is growing big time as well.

26:14

Like Ethiopia, uh, Ethiopia is also, I mean, Hashlabs, the guys are doing great,

26:19

great work in, in Ethiopia as well. Um, I mean, everyone is scouting, right?

26:23

Everyone is scouting for countries with cheap electricity, but the

26:27

many, few, or many are scouting for, for cheap electricity and

26:32

few are scouting for cheap.

26:34

properties, real estates with like, uh, really like a waterfall or some

26:39

green energy kind of, innovation they can build on to, to mine and really

26:44

develop the area where they will be based

26:47

Yeah, fascinating continent. It's a land of opportunity.

26:50

Uh, always has been in a way, but especially like in times like

26:54

these when, when there's a whole new industry to be explored here.

26:58

Um, fascinating.

27:00

percent. Um, like for me, um, the, um, My experience, like when I go, I

27:07

started like orange Bitcoin left, right and center like all of us.

27:10

And then I noticed like one thing that's been working in Africa with manufacturers,

27:17

um, or business owners, just from a mining perspective is mining is legal.

27:22

Just explore, um, the, the homework of like, to know how

27:26

much electricity do they have? How much electricity do they consume?

27:29

How much, the cost of electricity. And just, Convince them to put a miner to transform a cost center into

27:35

a profit center in their business. One miner becomes two and two becomes five and five becomes ten.

27:41

And then I was like, Oh, I need to buy more Bitcoin because I don't

27:43

have space for miners in my business.

27:46

yeah, this is, I think the, it's unfortunate.

27:49

Like the, the adoption, it's.

27:52

is accelerating from my view for the small to medium business owners,

27:57

um, in Africa and the Middle East. Um, uh, but not for the individual.

28:02

I'm talking from a mining perspective. Fascinating you should mention Bahrain there before.

28:08

I spent some time there, but my family used to live there, and I used to

28:13

semi live there, or I was on and off.

28:15

I was working on boats at the time, and so I was like out for six weeks, and then

28:20

I spent like four weeks in Bahrain maybe, and then two weeks in Sweden or something.

28:25

So, and it's a fascinating place.

28:28

From what I know, they recently converted from an emirate to a kingdom, I think.

28:34

Uh, so, so, um, what do you know about the regulations and stuff there?

28:39

It's, it's a bit more liberal than Saudi Arabia.

28:42

I know that much. It may be not as liberal as, as Dubai, but, uh, somewhere in between.

28:48

what, what's going on? Uh, from a liberal point of view or liberalism, uh, is something,

28:55

liberty point of view. listen, uh, I once heard like one saying, like, if you don't have a gay

29:02

parade on the street of a country, that means you don't have liberty.

29:06

Um, and, uh, at the same time, uh, liberty, uh, sphere of speech, et cetera.

29:13

Now We're going to talk about what's happening in the region.

29:17

Today. Um, there is a competition between Dubai or the UAE and

29:23

United Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

29:26

Okay. So Kingdom Saudi Arabia decided, uh, last year to have this vision that they want

29:31

to be the leading city in the Middle East.

29:34

Um, like one of their regions, uh, one of their areas in the, in Saudi.

29:39

Um, they want to convert it into really like a mind blowing

29:42

futuristic kind of city. Um, and of course, before that vision, you had Dubai in the Middle East

29:47

that had a similar kind of view. And today you have a competition between both.

29:52

Um, Neom, right? yes, correct.

29:55

Correct. Neon is one of the, yeah, is, is, is DCT that got the marketing and the, the

30:01

spotlights about how things are, um, expected to be, et cetera, like you have.

30:06

Like, I don't know, like flying cars and like schools and hospitals, like

30:11

above each other on a horizontal line in the desert, like really mind blowing

30:15

from an architecture point of view. But let's see about that with like all like the budget was

30:19

about like 60 billion or something It's a very fiat y project though.

30:24

It's like central planning all over the place, right?

30:27

a hundred percent, like, okay. So, um, I don't think the, the Middle East or Africa is getting

30:37

away from central planning. Any time soon.

30:40

Okay. Unfortunately, uh, from a freedom footprint point of view, I think

30:46

things are getting better in some areas that have witnessed already some,

30:51

um, uh, oppression over the years.

30:54

However, There are other areas like Lebanon, Syria,

30:57

Palestine, Egypt with Sudan.

30:59

Things are getting worse and worse. And you have the oil rich countries like Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the UAE

31:07

that are really working on the regulatory point of view that to actuate and open to

31:11

absorb basically the international, uh, investment, um, when it comes to Bitcoin.

31:17

Bahrain is one of the leading ones, I think, after the UAE.

31:21

So you have Dubai first, Abu Dhabi second, Bahrain maybe third, but despite

31:27

all the, what you read on the media, that even Dubai, let's talk only about

31:33

Dubai just because for you to understand what I'm talking about, today you have

31:37

Bitcoin companies who've been, who went and opened offices in Dubai a year ago,

31:42

recruited, uh, opened bank accounts with a lot of like, um, headache doing it,

31:48

and they still didn't get their license. And it's been like 360 days since they applied.

31:54

Now today in Dubai, and we're talking about the most open city slash, um,

31:59

country in, in the world that should be really absorbed, be open minded

32:03

about, about Bitcoin and absorbing the, the businesses and individuals.

32:09

Today, if you are a business, and I spoke with compliance departments

32:12

and banks trying to convince them of like Bitcoin, et cetera.

32:16

You have, you might read that a bank is really Bitcoin friendly.

32:19

You go, uh, they tell you, yes, it's crypto friendly or Bitcoin friendly.

32:24

You open a bank account as a business. I'm talking at the moment, you're going to receive a transaction, from,

32:30

um, A buying or selling Bitcoin.

32:33

Let's say you have sister companies in Africa and you want to just

32:35

transfer because like doing your own treasury management.

32:38

you go through, um, a very long, difficult process.

32:43

now apparently there are some new banks that are trying to make it easier

32:48

for you, from a banking perspective. From a licensing perspective, Today depends what you want to do.

32:53

Um, and it applies also the same in Bahrain.

32:56

today you have, and you can notice from the couple of exchanges in the region,

33:01

you have a couple of exchanges that are, you don't have Bitcoin only exchanges

33:06

for a fact, unfortunately, not yet. but the exchanges you have, uh, have only few as a few, like

33:13

couple of crypto and only Bitcoin. Um, if you want to.

33:17

Uh, open a business today in the Middle East, um, you need to really

33:20

find, uh, because you have, uh, it depends on your business model

33:25

that you have different licenses. and if you read just the law, it's, it's really crazy how they've,

33:31

they're, they're trying to regulate everything from wallets to exchanges.

33:36

To if you're minting or not, if you're holding custody or not,

33:40

if you, if you are just a normal startup, you're not holding custody.

33:44

If let's say you're creating a Bitcoin app, right, where you can integrate

33:48

with other applications, um, you can't open a normal bank account.

33:53

You need to go through a specific directory. a process.

33:57

So it's still good, better than other areas where they really don't

34:00

allow you to do anything, to be fair. Um, we're still early because when you talk to banks, they don't have a clue

34:06

still about what we're talking about.

34:08

Um, but yeah, I had the same conversation with Portuguese banks,

34:13

uh, of companies operating in Angola, trying to move their liquidity through

34:17

Bitcoin, with a Portuguese bank that they have in Angola and Portugal.

34:22

And the Portuguese bank didn't. like new or at least they didn't tell me that they acted really idiots

34:28

not understanding what, uh, what's the Portuguese, crypto legislation.

34:33

So I went on online on chatgpt for like three hours meeting with the

34:37

CFO of a company and the compliance department in Lisbon, Portugal, copy

34:41

pasting their own legislation, telling you, like telling them, listen, guys.

34:45

Your country has some legislation about cryptocurrency and you can apply that.

34:51

And they started asking about like, how can you trace Bitcoin transactions?

34:54

Like things are, and, and, and I was like, even, um, having a conversation with your

35:00

friend, Jeff Booth, Knut, asking him like, are they stupid or are they playing dumb?

35:07

And he was like, I think they're playing dumb just because

35:10

a bit of both I think. but when you're talking about with like people, uh, that are not boomers who've

35:18

been in this space and who have read few things, you imagine there's a minimum.

35:23

Um, I think today that the world don't, I mean, as much as they have

35:29

the ETF and they're happy with the ETF and the banks are gonna, are

35:33

marketing Bitcoin as a good thing. I'm, uh, more on the conservative, pessimistic side from a

35:40

legislation point of view. Um, I'm Over time, long term, as much as I'm hugely, um, uh, bullish on

35:50

Bitcoin, I am, uh, I'm a sole money maximalist, uh, but I'm very pessimistic

35:56

about the future, unfortunately, when it comes to real legislations, et

35:59

cetera, and seeing the CBDCs happening.

36:02

Abu Dhabi, for example, is working on a CBDC to go hand in hand with the

36:06

Chinese CBDC in specific, for example.

36:08

And Abu Dhabi has the central bank of the UAE.

36:10

And you keep thinking about all these things, like how, like, okay, we're happy

36:14

with the price going up great, but like

36:17

There is another perspective though, and that is that these regulations

36:20

are, are forcing people to actually adopt a Bitcoin standard and do

36:25

business on Bitcoin without involving banks or governments or anything like

36:29

that, because a business on a Bitcoin standard doesn't have to be a Anything.

36:34

You don't have to do any paperwork. It can be a Telegram group or a Nostr chat, you know?

36:39

So, uh, uh, So, it is unstoppable in that sense.

36:43

If you, if you, if you really use it, the way you can.

36:48

And there are tools like Wasabi, for instance, and CoinJoints and stuff.

36:51

You can, you can be completely private, and you can be completely independent.

36:57

And that, uh, At the end of the day, that's the point of the whole thing,

37:01

because it can't be permissionless if it needs permission from people,

37:05

like, either it is permissionless or not, and, uh, it can't really compete

37:11

with any other currency or, or asset.

37:15

If it isn't, it needs to be outside of the law.

37:19

It needs to be independent from what any human being, regardless if it's

37:24

an emir, a king, or a president, or a, you know, a prime minister.

37:30

Bitcoin needs to not give a fuck about that.

37:34

Like, and, uh, and that's, that's a feature, not a bug.

37:38

So, so I think what they're, what, what they're really achieving with all of

37:42

this, especially when the threatening with CBDCs and stuff is that they're pushing

37:46

everyone with a brain out away from.

37:50

The legacy systems and on to this new standard.

37:53

and I, uh, I take the, the more optimistic view.

37:58

We have, you know, these, uh, Riverside here, or Zoom calls or video

38:03

conferencing, we have social media, including Nostr, which is sort of

38:08

unstoppable, uh, and we have Bitcoin, which is very much unstoppable.

38:12

Um, so we're unstoppable. They, they can't stop this from happening.

38:17

And sure, they can make martyrs out of this or that bitcoiner.

38:23

They can imprison this or that guy, but on the whole, uh, there will be a

38:29

segment of the world population that just don't have to care about this.

38:33

laws and regulations. Just as, um, I guess the, the, uh, central bankers and, uh, quote unquote

38:42

diplomats of the world don't have to care about laws and regulations right now.

38:46

Like the, the so called elites, which is just basically the

38:49

most successful thieves. Uh, but we're, we're creating a new global class of citizenry here that doesn't

38:58

have to care about Um, what about laws the way, um, you know, legacy people do?

39:04

a hundred percent, a hundred percent. But I think my frustration comes from stems from, um, the lack of the effort.

39:13

I mean, there, there are a lot of efforts. Don't get me wrong.

39:15

Just like. There's a lot of development happening.

39:18

Like, yeah, we need to develop this, wallet 2.

39:22

0. We need to develop this, uh, solution, uh, second, third layer, etc.

39:28

It's all good for Bitcoin. But when it comes to Middle East and Africa.

39:32

When I talk about Middle East and Africa, I'm not talking about the rich

39:35

countries like Nigeria, the, or I'm talking about Dubai or Saudi Arabia.

39:40

I'm talking about really the poor countries that really

39:43

need Bitcoin as Bitcoin. today, in order to, use Bitcoin or to feel To build resilience for the people

39:52

because we understand Bitcoin, but like it took you thousands of hours or hundreds

39:56

of hours to be where you are today, but the normal business owner convincing

40:02

him today with, um, with Bitcoin, it got much more difficult with the ordinals.

40:09

Uh, that's one thing. Um, second thing, um, we need to, like, in order to, like what you said

40:17

about like, um, Bitcoin doesn't care, doesn't, doesn't give a fuck by design.

40:24

if those individuals can't spend their Bitcoin to buy their needs, they really,

40:31

they don't really need to see the benefits from it other than store of value.

40:35

Remittances, yes. To receive it from their diaspora from outside their continent where they

40:40

have billions, millions and billions. Yes. Okay.

40:43

But today it's very crucial to really accelerate a circular

40:47

economy for these areas. And I think there are a couple of initiatives happening around the

40:52

world that would only help that.

40:54

Once you have a circular economy, um, I'm not talking about the on

40:58

ramps we have, like Bitrefill. I'm talking about really the, like normal businesses.

41:03

Yeah. To really accept, uh, Bitcoin for, from anything to anything really,

41:08

that would help and they would, that would help feel the communities that

41:12

they can adopt Bitcoin and to use it without going through the fiat on ramp

41:17

until we get that, we still rely on the continent, still rely on the region,

41:22

still rely on the banks, even like today you have unbanked people in Africa,

41:28

but some share, uh, M Pesa account.

41:31

Some share a SIM card today. In Africa, just because they can't handle the fees, et cetera.

41:37

So, self sovereignty, they need to feel like they can survive.

41:42

They can thrive from medical services to foods, to travel using Bitcoin.

41:48

if they don't know about Bitrefill or any other, uh, option, that's, that's

41:53

also, um, a problem until today.

41:56

Yeah. So, um, that's like, we have to keep pushing the mantra, accept

42:01

Bitcoin for your goods and services. That's, that's the most crucial thing.

42:05

if you do, then you help people. Then you help this thing happen, regardless of where you're from or

42:09

where you happen to be in the world. So you mentioned that, you mentioned the, the ordinals thing being a barrier

43:33

to adoption for businesses, like they see that and it makes it more difficult.

43:38

Can you explain that a little bit? I mean, uh, they don't, like, no one heard of ordinals in Africa.

43:45

I mean, at least the people who I see and work with.

43:49

but the impact of the ordinance and the transaction fees.

43:52

They know of that. And, um, of course now that it got better than before, because like

43:58

the, with the hype a couple of months back, it was just ridiculous.

44:02

Yes. It was an opportunity to onboard them on Lightning and to explain

44:05

what Lightning is, et cetera. But frankly speaking, When you're talking to a business owner who's like

44:10

in his 40s or something, his 20s or something, but when you're talking for

44:14

someone in his 60s, just explaining something very simple, you don't

44:17

want to, you want to keep it simple. They don't want to dive into the intricacies of lightning and if

44:25

they need privacy for liquid or not.

44:27

And they're like, Opening channels, et cetera.

44:30

No. So they, they heard that Bitcoin has a, they can transfer money for cheap,

44:35

they can wait 10 minutes or like 15 minutes or whatever for, to get

44:38

their $101,000 or, or 10 K or 20 K.

44:42

They want that and they hear it's, it's been the most secure

44:47

network to transact on for them.

44:49

They don't care about the, the speed, as long as it's cheap and secure.

44:53

They don't wanna trust a third party. Great.

44:56

But with the ordinals, it only made that more difficult.

44:59

Now, yes, maybe history and block size war taught us that it only accelerates

45:06

the development of layer 2s, layer 3s, to make things better, blah, blah,

45:10

blah, yes, yes, yes, and all the above. But frankly speaking, on the ground, we still, we're still not there yet.

45:16

Well, the ordinalist problem seems to be solving itself now if you

45:19

have a look at the mempool, because like, if I switch to the data, you

45:24

know, visualization here on mempool.

45:27

space, it's not at all as bad as it was like a month ago.

45:31

So there, they might be finally running out of money, this.

45:34

That's just for any given block, though. I mean, like, and I empathize with your point here, Sooly, that like, what

45:43

I've seen as being the biggest problem is that it's contributed to create

45:47

basically a minimum price right now.

45:50

I mean, the ordinals are adding just enough demand that

45:53

the mempool isn't clearing. At, at all.

45:56

Like it, like it used to say six months ago or, or a year

45:59

ago or something like that. And, and there can be an argument that maybe that's a good thing, right?

46:04

But, uh, the, the, the thing is, uh, the, the combination of that Binance comes in

46:09

and does, uh, a batch of consolidation transactions that's going to fill up

46:14

20 blocks and then, and then you have these, these spiky fe it still happens.

46:18

That, that there's a, a big. Spike, and it's all from some kind of, uh, inscription mint or something like that.

46:25

And so those spike for a while, and so those, those Binance

46:28

transactions don't get dealt with. It takes, it takes longer, right?

46:32

And, and I mean, I think the, uh, the thing that, uh, I, I appreciate

46:37

you saying is that there is an effect on the ground, right?

46:40

The, the problem solving itself, okay, I, I, I can kind of see that to some extent.

46:44

It's certainly not as bad as it as it was three months ago, for example,

46:48

but higher fees are higher fees, and it prevents users from transacting,

46:57

actually transacting money like a monetary transaction at the at the

47:03

fee rate that they could if here, I'll, I'll, I'll Um, maybe try to be

47:09

a little more succinct about this. There's no such thing as waiting for a couple of days

47:14

for fees to go down anymore. It's just that fees sort of have this floor, and you put a transaction

47:21

in, you have to do it above that floor, or you have no idea.

47:24

How long it's going to transact from.

47:27

So that floor used to be one sat per vbyte.

47:30

Now it's something in the realm of 12.

47:34

It was 20, uh, a month ago or something.

47:37

Right. So, so it's just raised the floor. It's raised the ability for someone to, to transact.

47:42

Right. So yeah. What, what do you think about that?

47:44

Is it that, is that really having an effect? I mean, three months ago, it was an issue.

47:48

And people just like, especially like, you have a lot of crypto bros

47:53

trying to enter the market, especially after the finance shake last year.

48:02

There's a lot of opportunities in Africa. And they keep, for me, it's like Bitcoin in a way or marketing

48:11

Bitcoin over other shitcoins.

48:14

I mean, of course, going through the The basics, uh, but when it comes from

48:18

a transaction point of view and the fees point of view, that was an issue.

48:21

Now it's no longer the issue. and education is key.

48:24

At the same time, the more you educate the better, um, the more chance you have

48:28

to educate, the more time you have to educate depends who you're talking to.

48:31

If you're talking to a family office, with a board, you need

48:35

to pick the youngest age group. If you're talking to, um, a um, a barber.

48:41

In Africa, uh, who's in his sixties is going to be just tough.

48:45

You need to download, download, unfortunately, a lightning wallet

48:48

and transact, uh, on, uh, what if Satoshi to convince them

48:51

and then orange them this way. Uh, so things change.

48:55

Uh, there isn't, yes, it affected the, the, the education.

49:00

Um, just like, you know, when you were orange billing.

49:04

For a long time, using the same techniques, you don't have to

49:08

worry about the fees, and from one day to another, fees are up.

49:12

You need to change the whole, I mean, for me it's a bit, I'm a bit OCD, I'm a

49:18

perfectionist in the sense where Yes, of course you can pitch for the lightning.

49:22

But lightning has its weaknesses as well.

49:24

I don't like to pitch something, um, that I'm not 100 percent sure of.

49:31

I'm 100 percent sure of Bitcoin today. Am I 100 percent sure of lightning in a controlled environment?

49:37

Yes, I am. Um, like I know people who and I even encouraged and did some some

49:43

presentations where they had different offices across different countries.

49:47

They have different nodes and they can transact their own channels,

49:50

um, in a self sovereign way. But this is not your typical.

49:53

business owner today. And if we're going to drive adoption, I think there's a lot of,

50:00

I mean, despite the development on L2s and L3s, and it's fantastic.

50:05

L1 is still the way to go, in my opinion, for Africa when it

50:09

comes to, I'm not talking medium of exchange, just to teach about

50:13

A bit, a bit of a historical perspective here, though, from, from, uh, like,

50:17

having lived through the segwit, um, the, the fork wars back in 2017.

50:24

So there was a period, like, before the fork, but also after, like,

50:28

during 2018, where no one thought the mempool would ever clear again.

50:34

But it did. Like, it took months and months, but then it cleared up again.

50:39

And, uh, and, uh, same, same thing in, uh, uh, when was that?

50:44

Like, 2021? We had high fees for a while, like, the fir I think this is the, like, the first

50:50

Ordinal type, if it's even that, but then it cleared again, and now we're having

50:56

this spike, and it's going down again, and we can think that it's never gonna clear

51:03

again, but we don't really know that.

51:06

We'll have to wait and see, I guess. Bitcoin doesn't care.

51:11

We don't. you don't, the funny part is like, really, this is like the whole, we're

51:17

entering the ordinance topic, just like in Africa or the Middle East, it's a, it's

51:23

a region that needs really sound money for the characteristics of sound money.

51:29

And Ordnance is just another fiat centralized VC way of doing things.

51:36

Uh, it would be, yeah, creating hype and demand and adoption and blah, blah,

51:41

blah, getting people back or like someone really trying, liking, like the mind

51:46

blowing thing is just like today you have NFT artists claiming to be Bitcoin maxis

51:50

because they believe in Bitcoin network to be the strongest network on earth.

51:54

It's like, What am I doing here?

51:57

Yeah, we saw some real Bitcoin art at Bitcoin Atlantis, uh, Fractal Encrypt, uh,

52:03

tons of other artists, but Fractal's piece was the centerpiece of this art gallery.

52:07

Absolutely mind blowing stuff, just mind blowing, and that's

52:11

some real art right there. And not, not, not clogging the chain at all.

52:16

It's like even that Fractal works so hard on his art, so he doesn't

52:20

have time to do any on chain transactions, so he's even offloading

52:25

I have practiced work at home. I love his work, man.

52:27

Yeah. Um, uh, I, I wasn't able to make it for Atlantis this year, but

52:32

I only saw amazing reviews guys.

52:35

Well done. We had, we had such a wonderful time, and yeah, we're releasing a

52:40

lot of episodes from that right now. This will of course be released after that, so it doesn't matter to this show.

52:47

Anyway, Sooly, uh, tell us a bit about your, uh, uh, your current thing,

52:53

like, uh, the consulting you do.

52:55

Um, you, you consult Bitcoin businesses, you said, and like individuals as well?

53:01

Yes. Correct. So, uh, what I do from, um, from the Bitcoin space, um, I'm always

53:10

on the hunt to try to do my homework to see if there's any opportunity

53:16

for a Bitcoin only company, to find opportunities for Bitcoin only companies.

53:22

And the market in Africa or the Middle East.

53:24

So what I do is like I assess the market, and knock on their doors,

53:28

uh, proposing a strategy to work on.

53:32

so yeah, I did that with Swan.

53:35

Uh, I did that with Jam3, even though Jam3 and, um, Their perspectives

53:40

like, okay, but like, you know, for example, Dubai doesn't need Gen 3.

53:44

They have enough money for Gen 3, but this is exactly the point.

53:46

Like the whole region needs Gen 3 and we will see more of Gen 3,

53:51

I'm sure, uh, this year in Africa.

53:54

so this is what I do for the Bitcoin companies.

53:58

Um, now even like I expanded into, um, like there's a lot of services that

54:03

some of the Bitcoin companies, they don't have Pleasants in the Middle East.

54:06

I need to, run some, um, uh, some assessments, uh, some vetting

54:10

for partners, uh, et cetera. So I did that.

54:13

But the core is really onboarding individuals and businesses, um, high

54:19

net worth individuals in specific or business owners that are That can be

54:23

just a barber or like really nonprofits, Bitcoin organizations like Bitcoin

54:28

Dada in Kenya and Ghana, uh, just to see how can Bitcoin help them grow.

54:34

Because at the end of the day, I strongly believe that, um, like all

54:38

of us, like helping each other and helping Bitcoin entities thrive,

54:43

we will all benefit from it. Um, so yeah, what I do is like, it all starts with a, I call it the Nakamoto

54:50

approach where it's like, I divided the.

54:53

It's just a normal, um, thinking where it's, you do the assessment,

54:59

you have your white paper, and after the white paper, you do, basically,

55:03

the first step is a discovery call, getting to know the client, etc.

55:06

And then we do a preliminary deep dive of like the white, white paper

55:11

preparation where we go, um, we do a SWOT analysis of the strategy,

55:15

the vision of the person, et cetera.

55:18

Um, and then I write like a clear proposal to serve the,

55:23

the entity or the organization.

55:25

And by the way, I like, it's varies between, uh, all sectors, agriculture,

55:30

manufacturing and services. Um, as well, you have like great, um, business owners who've been building,

55:37

uh, or using Bitcoin in different ways. And for me, orange billing has been so Interesting is in the sense

55:44

where not convincing people to buy Bitcoin, just convincing people to,

55:48

to really optimize their operations.

55:51

Bitcoin brings you marketing today.

55:54

Bitcoin brings you a point of sale and less accounting heads in your

55:59

accounting department for less reconciliations during the day to do.

56:03

There's a lot of things and energy and mining.

56:05

So, frankly, Bitcoin is so easy to defend because it's so strong and amazing.

56:10

So, um, and then, um.

56:12

There's a session called the protocol alignment, where there's

56:15

a roadmap of what needs to be done milestones wise based on the business

56:20

or the high network individuals. And then there are checkpoints in between.

56:24

And then there's a block confirmation. I call it in the, in the process, the block confirmation is like

56:29

the strategy implementation, and there's a difficulty adjustment.

56:32

At the end where there is always a check.

56:35

So there's a timeline of a roadmap of different sessions.

56:38

I try to, I call it Nakamoto approach. It's very transparent.

56:41

This way it made me consistent with all the clients and to make

56:44

sure that everything goes well. And it's very transparent, very methodical and it works.

56:49

So yeah, this is what I do. And, um, Unfortunately, I haven't finalized the website

56:55

yet because sometimes I have a too low time of a preference.

56:59

My time preference is too low sometimes. Um, but yeah, um, I'll be launching this website very soon.

57:06

And just because I need, didn't need the website before, but now that with

57:09

all the hype and everyone wants more Bitcoin, it just makes more sense.

57:13

So, so where can people find you online if they can't find you on the website?

57:17

Uh, Sooly Kobayashi on Twitter, on LinkedIn.

57:21

And yeah, that's me on all platforms.

57:23

Sooly Kobayashi. And if they want your services, they can shoot you a DM, I guess.

57:28

Always open. Thank you. Sooly, this has been fantastic.

57:31

Thank you so much for joining us. Likewise.

57:33

Thanks, guys. Yeah. Take care.

57:36

Good luck with everything. This has been the Freedom Footprint show.

57:39

Like, subscribe and brush your teeth. Thanks for listening.