How a nomadic family is orange-pilling the world | Interview with The Bitcoin Family

So I'm here today with Didi Tayyutu, who is husband and father to the bitcoin family. Didi and his family rose to fame in the bitcoin and cryptocurrency space in 2017 when he saw the light and sold all of his family's possessions, and his own possessions too, and put it all into bitcoin. They also committed to a world traveling and nomadic lifestyle. And ever since, the bitcoin evangelists, as I'm going to call them from now on, have covered the globe, spreading the bitcoin message effectively orange pilling the world. So, Diddy, hello. Or Bomdia to the bain.

Yeah, Bomdia to the bain. See?

Yeah.

Thank you so much for having me, man. That was a beautiful introduction. I mean, I'm starting to blush now.

Thanks, man.

All good over here? Yeah, we just arrived in Portugal and yeah, it's amazing to be back in Portugal again. So we discovered all sides of Portugal and every time we come back, it feels like home. It's beautiful.

Could you just briefly walk us through that sort of 2014 to 2017, those moments, those life events you went to before you went all in on bitcoin.

I didn't want to work for a boss. I quickly realized that I can't work in a centralized organization where you talk to bottom level. So I started my own company and I started to put all my efforts in that. I built up two companies. One in the Netherlands, which was an IT company. And during that period in 2013, there was this guy coming from a school and he needed to have an assignment at a company. And I said, okay, let's do it over here. And he told me about bitcoin and that was the first time in 2013. And I said, what do we need to do? He said, yeah, you can mine bitcoin. Okay, that's your job now. You start to mine bitcoin. So I gave him €40,000 to buy Bitcoin equipment, like motherboards and all the stuff and the graphical cards. And I stepped into it to become a millionaire. Of course that's why you started mining. But of course, because of educating myself, I saw that changing into a revolution that could change the whole monetary system in a very peaceful way. So on that beach, I started to realize, wow, this is happening now. So I start to go into the forums again in 2016 and check everything up. Is it growing? What kind of community do we have? And of course I see, wow, this is. This is becoming massive. So that is the moment I walk in the Next day on the beach, I go to my wife, I give her some Mai Tai's, I drink a Bacardi Coke. I tell her, what if we just keep living this life? I have never been this happy before. We just started with five backpacks. I don't have any cars, motorbikes, nothing. And I'm happier than ever. And she agrees. And at that moment, we decide to break that chain, start to lead by example for the kids and show them it's all about accumulating happiness instead of accumulating wealth.

How does the decision making process come about in the bitcoin family?

So in the beginning it all was really easy because my kids were very young. So for them it's all an adventure. Just imagine you being a normal kid in school and your dad tells you, we are going to explore the world. And now the moment they grow older and they get older, because we've been traveling for five years now, of course there is some shifting. We are a digital nomad family and we travel and we still travel, but now we shifted from like quick or fast traveling to slow traveling. So now we stayed for the last three and a half months we stayed in Mexico and now we are back in Portugal again. And so there was a lot of dynamics that changed in the last couple of years, which is very beautiful. But people also need to realize the pictures on Instagram, of course, if you look at them, it's the most beautiful life ever. But we are a family, a family with ups and downs. And sometimes we have downs and sometimes we have ups and sometimes the kids are happy in Mexico, sometimes they hate Mexico. How are we as a family shifting from that moment, living on a campsite all the way now, to having a 16 year old that wants to taste their own independency and freedom in life? And they only have bitcoins, no bank accounts. So how does that work?

You touched on an important trend there which seems to be growing within the bitcoin community. The rise of digital nomadism with, you know, remote jobs. There might be web developers and marketers or whatever that slowly sort of morphed into the crypto community as well. But families, you know, this is still quite, quite new. Have you met other families along the way? Are there other people doing as a family the similar thing?

To be very honest, I think there is now about six families that followed in our footsteps, that we met that really sold their house as well. You know, there's one family, a German one, they called me, I think it was 20, they said we just sold Our house in Germany, should we go all in Bitcoin? I didn't know them, I'm like, yeah, go all in. Why not? Said it's going to go to 50k, maybe even to 100k, let's see. But you will make profit and it's the most easy way to earn money as a digital nomad. So without even thinking they did. So of course they have a nice capital now. They've been traveling the world already for two and a half years now and we meet them here and there and there are two other families that are doing that as well and that we met and then a few that milled with us. So I think in total six. And now the last time in Mexico, I flew over my brother and my sister to celebrate Christmas and New Year and in that period I orange pilled them completely. So they sold their house now in the Netherlands and they are going to go all into bitcoin as well. So we'll be one big happy bitcoin family. Which also is nowadays the goal. We started as a five headed family, but we want to create the biggest bitcoin family all over the world that has the same mindset and that becomes a digital nomad because we think that the future will look completely different as the people might expect. In my opinion, a decentralized lifestyle is a decentralized digital nomad lifestyle is the future. I think ownership is heavily overrated. I think ownership will even lose value in the future. We won't be owning houses, cars, bikes anymore. These will all be own entities on the blockchain and we will just be making use of those entities for a certain time and only paying for that certain time by paying them in cryptocurrency. I think it will be a very technical future which maybe I don't really love to see because I would love to see human beings contacts as well. That decentralized future where ownership is not important, important I think is going to be massive. Now I would say if you see the vision of the world by 2030, you won't own anything, but you will be happy then. My conclusion is you need to bet on the right side.

The key thing here is that while you might be using services, you are owning money, owning the hardest money known to mankind. And that's the key thing, right?

I think bitcoin is becoming a very important player in this market. The Russians now made it legal after banning it like a month ago. United States, it's still not a legal currency. This is changing the whole world economy and all the Countries with it. I can't imagine anything bigger than this.

Let's touch on that charity element, because I was reading that you give something in the order of 40% ish to charity every month or every year. There's this giving element. Which charities do you give to? Is it because they accept bitcoin? What's your thought process?

There's my thought process. Is there that exactly what is on my T shirt? It's about to be or not to be. And a bitcoiner should be caring about the world and caring about the economical status of all the people of the world. Bitcoin is being created to have all the people in all classes being able to be connected to the new monetary system that we are creating as a community. That means everyone with a heartbeat and a telephone should be able to transact value all over the world. If bitcoin is slowly being converted into enrichment tools again, then those people will not get that access through bitcoin. And Bitcoin, in my opinion, is still the king and still the most decentralized one that there is. So for me, the revolution of bitcoin and giving those people the opportunity to accept bitcoin as a payment and also use it as a payment tool or a savement tool, whatever they prefer is still very important. So the moment I saw that all the bitcoiners, the most of the bitcoiners started to buy Lamborghinis again and all those cars, I'm like, that is not the reason why we are supporting the revolution. Yes, you can make a shitload of money, you become millionaire in this industry, but keep thinking about the core. And the core is helping other people get happy because of wealth as well. I still think that wealth doesn't make you happy. But those people that grew up in those poor countries, they only see television and media, that people are happy when they have wealth. So they need to be connected a little bit more to the top. We need to come down a little bit because we need to realize that like 2 million or 3 million is enough, like all the rest you can share. So that is the moment I thought again, why don't I lead by example? I can tell the story or can just start to do it and maybe some people will lead by, will follow that example. So that's what I did. I just started to share our profits that we made with trading or profits that we made with the links, you know, the affiliate links that you do as a digital nomad, selling of the books and of the T shirts. And we start to Put that into real life. Charity. So we are now building a school in Mexico for about 50 kids. We are, we bought an orphanage in Venezuela for about 20 kids. So we keep distributing a big part of our profits to those people. Also again, to teach my children, enough is enough, you can help a lot of other people and that makes you internally way more happy than the new iPhone or, or Lamborghini, which only a short term happiness. You know, in the long term you can see this school still there and you can see 100, 200, 300 of kids being educated and prepared for this new future that we think it will be. And so that's the stuff we have been doing and we keep doing.

Was it paid for in bitcoin? I mean, did you have to orange pill a charity in order to be able to, you know, get the building materials? How did that go?

Now the same thing. What we do there is we, we don't work with centralized organizations because then again, the CEO of the centralized organization will be driving a big BMW. We don't want that. We do peer to peer. So we find other orange built people in Mexico that believe the bitcoin message that now are taking care of everything over there. And that goes into steps. Because the first step, they won't believe you. They will be like, nah, that's not possible. We cannot build a school with bitcoin. So the first step is you teach them how to receive bitcoins and how to exchange those bitcoins into Mexican pesos. So step three is now we need to convert all those restaurants there in Mexico and shops to start accept bitcoin. And that is what I did this year. This year I went there and it's like, I think 12 restaurants now imply the common that is directly accepting Bitcoin payments. One restaurant is only accepting bitcoin. You cannot even pay with pesos anymore. And now when that adoption grows and the small grocery stores start to accept bitcoin like El Salvador, then those builders will start to use the wallet to pay directly with bitcoin.

How long can I give it before I can turn up in some random bar or restaurant in Valdobl and I can start paying for things in bitcoin. Given how your success rate in converting restaurants and bars to accepting bitcoin, how many have you orange pilled? Just in the past 48 hours.

In the last 48 hours, I didn't yet because I had a huge jet lag and I'm still working. Like, for example, like last year we stayed in Lagos. In Lagos, by now you can pay like 3, 4 restaurants now with bitcoin. The sailing club is now accepting bitcoin. The beach bar is accepting bitcoin. So everything I go, everywhere I go, I just, you know, we have my bitcoin cap and they recognize me. And then I just tell them, okay, I would like a Bugatti Coke or something else. And I drink and I drink, and then I tell them, can I pay with bitcoin? They start to laugh. What is it? And they mostly show the article, and they are like, wow, yeah, maybe I should be doing that. And then you slowly convert him, and at the end, you will be paying them in bitcoin. And you invite your bitcoin friends to that bar. You say, hey, this is a new bitcoin bar. And everybody starts to pay him in bitcoin. And a year later he's like, wow, I made even more than I thought I would make because the bitcoins went up in value.

Portugal is increasingly a crypto or bitcoin hub. There's 0% tax on capital gains, and as long as you're not surpassing a certain amount, then there's no tax on bitcoin exchange or bitcoin transactions in Portugal. So as a result, you've seen lots of Ethereum conferences come to Portugal. There's some sort of more and more bitcoin interest as well. There's a few co working spaces dedicated to cryptocurrencies, for example. What was it that drew you to making Portugal one of your bases for the next three or so months?

So Portugal for me is the people, the weather, the food. It's all per. It's a perfect, perfect mix. I think of kindness and that climate that I need. Sun, beaches, you know, and also beautiful nature. I need to be able to go into the mountains or something. And it has like, everything like that. And then on top of that, it's. It's, I think, one of the cheaper countries of Europe. And still I see very happy people. So that in combined with, of course, the 0% tax, made Portugal for me just a beautiful country.

And in terms of all your travels here across the world, do you have like a top five list of countries or cities which are the most bitcoin friendly, to be honest?

If you go to Slovenia, to Ljubljana, which is the capital, it has a huge shopping mall which is called BTC City. I made a video about this, like, a few years ago. You can see it on my YouTube. The shopping mall has more than 400 stores accepting direct bitcoin payments. Everything worked. It was for me, the proof that if it can work there in the capital of Slovenia, then it can work all over the world. Then there is a small town in Italy. It's near Lake Garda. I think it's called Rovereto. That was the second place that I thought, wow, this is unbelievable. You just walk into a very traditional Italian city, like with the old stores and all the old buildings, and they were announcing it on their Internet as Bitcoin Valley. I think Bitcoin valley they called themselves. So I went there with the cameraman and let's explore bitcoin valley over there. We went there, we did an interview, and we went to visit the whole town. And there were more than 60 stores in the town excepting bitcoin. Just imagine this old butcher store where this old woman was working me selling homemade jams and marmalades and meat. And I went in, I'm like, this woman is above 65.

Yeah, there's no way.

There's no way, no way. And she looks at me and I say, yeah, can I have the gem? And then. And then. And then there is. On the register, it was, we accept bitcoin. I said, yeah, I would like to play with bitcoin. But I'm already thinking, this is not going to happen. She pulls out the iPad. She opens the app. She says, okay, no worries. And I'm looking at. Do you really understand how to. Yes. Okay. I scan, I pay. She laughs. I walk out. I'm like, wow. So then I discovered that in this town, you can pay the government taxes with bitcoin, the driving lessons. With bitcoins, you can buy the car, your motorbike, everything you want, you can pay with bitcoin in the town. So that was also a very beautiful town to explore. Then I think Thailand, where I lived most of my time, the island Koh Phangan. We built a huge crypto community there. So automatically because of that, the whole island got orange pill. So a lot of restaurants are accepting bitcoins. From the pizzeria to the grocery stores. Everybody was bitcoin minded at that point. So everybody want to accept bitcoin. We all had this mind. How do you say this, this huge crypto hub there where we start to think about building up companies and just people came flying from all over the world and we helped them set up those companies. And now they are huge crypto companies. But it all started on Copang, Thailand. So that's one Mexico, of course, number four. Very bitcoin attractive. There's a lot of OTC dealers. Yes, which, of course, change your bitcoins to pesos. But for us as a family, the game has always been, how do I surpass the classical banking system? And OTC deals is a way.

Presumably you're going to El Salvador at some point or the next nation to make bitcoin legal tender. Is that on the agenda?

It's on the agenda, but my passion at the moment is creating. You know, we see these bitcoin havens popping up all over the world except Europe. And I think as we look at the mining and the hashing rate and all the stuff and the transactions, then Europe is still one of the biggest parts of the world where bitcoin is massive. So why don't we already have this bitcoin heaven? So that's why I think, yeah, Portugal should become the new heaven for bitcoiners. And of course, at the moment it is. And a lot of bitcoiners, I know, the big ones live in Portugal already. They are anonymous. They are not like me out there, but they already are here. They are spending their money on houses. They are spending their bitcoins on everything. So Portugal should be smart.

Is there anything else you'd like to say or any other countries you'd like to be invited to as perhaps the last question?

No, I think we did 44 countries now with a family, and we are going to go skiing in Spain the next month. And then we come back to Portugal to really start to set up the village and everything. You know, we have a beautiful YouTube channel where you can watch videos every day on how I see the markets, but also how I see blockchain and life. And that's all very thankful that you had me on the show.

Thank you very much. That's great. Didi, lovely to talk to you. And I think we'll leave it there. Thanks so.

Much.