Starfish Cast #4 - Arnold, the Nomadic Dutch Editor

Yeah, that was amazing actually that we, you managed to, uh, navigate your way around that team cuz it's 15 people. I mean, we, we learned a lot during that project and a lot of it was like how not to do things. And that's how to maybe be more efficient. Not to say that it wasn't, it was quite efficient for, for that kind of thing. Like, I think the smallest contributor contribution was, uh, less than a percent, 1% of the book. Like, we have this, uh, this sheet that, uh, that we track the, the work of everybody. So I think the smallest contributors were just doing like one, less than 1% of the book.

Yeah. And I think it was the first Dutch book as well that's been delivered. And it was quite a success as well. So we did something very well looking back.

Yeah. Yeah, definitely. And, and we have the results to show that it's, uh, it's still, um, I believe it's still the, the best-selling book of ConsenSys Network. So kudos on that.

Yeah. Yeah. Kudos to the whole team.

Yeah. I mean, without, without the Dutch, Dutch Bitcoin Standard, we wouldn't, we wouldn't have been able to grow so fast in, in '21. Of course, the bull market helped, but it was kind of like a perfect storm of, uh, having good content and having interest in the topic and in a good region. I mean, uh, Dutch region is, is quite, uh, quite Bitcoin-oriented, I would say.

Yeah, there are several strong communities and once they start embracing projects, it's like, not the sky's the limit, but it, it will spread very fast and people like orange peeling with for example, book as gifts or, uh, even contributing, 'cause that's why there's such a big team of interested people as well. And that's how I got it. I got involved in it as well eventually.

So let's, let's, uh, journey back a little bit and, uh, you said orange peeling, so maybe, maybe you can say a little bit about your orange peeling story and how did you, uh, get involved in the whole Bitcoin scene and then, uh, How did you find, uh, find ConsenSys and decided to contribute to the project?

Yeah, well, I think for me it didn't start as orange pilling. I was being shitpilled, whatever you call it. It was in 2016 talking with some friends about the whole crypto scene, uh, all projects that were appearing with the ICO phase and et cetera. And I think in 2017 I really joined the communities, um, started contributing with some articles Writing, uh, blogging actually about the projects. And then I graduated 2018 from, uh, my studies, product design. Did not work a single second on it as a product designer, but moved on to my hobby, which was writing about Bitcoin and back then also, uh, other cryptocurrencies. And as everyone, you slowly move towards Bitcoin only. Yeah. That makes the most sense. It's, uh, All the puzzle pieces fit together. It's the only puzzle that like will be a real puzzle eventually. And, um, yeah, so over time you started working on more and more projects. Started with copywriting and writing about the news. I made some little booklets, uh, of course to explain people about Bitcoin, a magazine, and eventually I think, yeah, on Twitter. I found ConsenSys. You were looking for, uh, an editor for The Bitcoin Standard. And since I've been working with tech and Bitcoin a lot and education, I was like, yeah, maybe this is something I should do. Also because I, I, I was, as I told, told you, I was graduated but trying to make money in the Bitcoin space as a freelancer and just doing what I love. And editing books was a good match in that. So. Yeah, I think we came in touch, got introduced to the team, and then from there everything else happened over the years.

So how was the experience, uh, like joining the team? You, you were one of the, I think, the last, last ones to come into the team because that's usually how it goes. Uh, we need somebody to run the teams as the editor and take care of the quality control, and you stepped in. So how was it when you arrived and, and there was like, uh, 14 or 15 other people in the team.

Yeah, so, so there are several phases of translation, from raw translation to a first big proofread based on this first translation, and after that, uh, there are more suggestions being done. And then the 4th phase is— that was my job as an editor, uh, to make everything as one book. Uh, so yeah, you got introduced to like the team, you join a Telegram chat, you start reading what's being done. And where the project really is. So at that point, many people had already been working on it for a while. I don't even remember when the project really started, but feels like it was already a half year. Um, but you know that better. So, and then once I joined, basically all the chapters were in Dutch already being translated by others, and it was time to make one final version that's print ready, has consistency between all the chapters. The same style of writing, um, get out all the typos and grammar errors, do some typesetting as well. And then I remember we had to reach the deadline of Christmas because of course we want to have it under the Christmas tree. So then everything came together with a deadline, all the work that was being done by other people before me, and one end result.

Yeah, that's, that's really, I, I already forgot about that. You're right. It was almost done. Like it, it must have been about 6 months before you came in and, uh, that makes it even more impressive because right now, like, we've gravitated towards having the editor first so that, uh, they, they can, um, the editor can kind of, uh, look at the quality as it's been written rather than, than, uh, working on, on the already made.

Yeah. And since the Bitcoin Standard, I've been working as an editor on 3 different books as well, and the process was already different indeed. Maybe because I was already involved in consensus, but also like best practices, figuring out what works. And I think even at our last book, Pride of Tomorrow, we may talk about other books later, but we already did like something different in the editing process as well to engage all the translators to make an even better version, to see what is being improved in that phase. So people also really know what's happening in this last step where they usually were not involved in anymore because they did their Part of the contribution.

So did, did you find it difficult to put together kind of like more than 10 different people's work? I, I don't remember how many raw translators we had. I wanna say we probably had 4 or 5, so it must have been very different, uh, writing style. Did you have to rewrite a lot of stuff or, or was the, was the content mostly good already?

Well, there was a lot of, you could see the differences between chapters that were delivered. And I remember everything had, like from when I started the editing, it was late October, I think, and late November we wanted it to be done. So I had 4 or 5 weeks back then to make it, like read everything, but not once, not twice, but like 4 or 5 times. And because of this kind of pressure, I was being helped by some of the translators, the other translators as well in that process. So obviously by everything you're doing, people could help. And when I'm figuring out something like, wait, this chapter is really different compared to number 1, 2, and 3, 4 needs some more attention, there were already always people to help. And even when you say like, okay, this should be the 95% version, it's in PDF, typesetting is done, and you share it, of course other translations that translators that have time, uh, help in that process again. And that was I think because there was the advantage of more people that were helping. So you have this second eye or these fresh eyes, not really fresh, like it's a different, you have more people that can help in this last phase as well. Um, so I think that's, that's, that's really cool that you're also working on it together. It's not, you give it from A to B and from B to C and then it's done, but it's, it's like a project with all of you together. At the same time, and no one is really leading. Um, of course there is some organization happening, but, uh, I see it as a project, uh, achievement or like a, yeah, a team achievement.

Yeah, definitely. That's, that's the whole point of a starfish organization. It's like leadership without the, um, top-down traditional structure. So the leadership happens from within the team, you know, working in the trenches together as a team. And that's, I think that's the strength that, that also breeds better quality because people, people want to contribute. Everybody's putting, putting in their proof of work. And I, my feeling is that, you know, people don't want to let other people down either. So everybody's kind of like pulling their weight and doing their best. And that's just—

Yeah.

Don't really experience that in, in fiat life. It's, it's something unique to Bitcoiners specifically, I think.

Yeah. And, and I think it's really cool that everyone is also working asynchronously. So one is working on this evening and the next day someone else continues with proofreading what's been done and everyone basically working on it whenever works the best, which I think also makes product better instead of putting people on a project that has to work certain amount of hours on a day. To like get the task done. Um, yeah, I think that's also a really cool process to see. It's like an organism, like everywhere, you know, and in all places and all times it's being worked on.

Yeah. So we, with like the way the process works is that we have really rough basic guidelines of, of how to, how to approach the work. But then from there on, the team kind of just makes it their own and grows into the project. based on their specific skill sets. How did, how did you find that approach, like with, with the guidelines? And, uh, maybe, maybe, uh, since you've been so long with us, well, how have you seen that kind of like framework develop? And, and maybe if you have even some, uh, some development suggestions, that would be cool to hear, probably.

Yeah. So, well, the first book, Bitcoin Standard, I joined when the first phases were done and it was up to me to finish it. So there was not much space. Uh, and also not tied to discover what works the best or to explore within what needs to be done. And so that was the Bitcoin Standard. And after that, I worked on Thank God for Bitcoin. Um, I think with a team of 5 people, so it was already less. And since this is a book that's written from a Christian perspective, there was also like a different motivation for the translator, I think, to work on it. Um, because there's not a lot. Written about these 2, um, religions. There's a religion too, I think it is sometimes. Uh, so that's already— the team was different, it was smaller, and I was there from the beginning as well. So you can guide everything also, like let's try to finish the, the raw translation in months, let's say April. So I have one month to like see who can do the chapters, what chapters for the proofreading. Et cetera. So you can already set some more, yeah, not deadlines because it's not set in stone, but guidelines. That's a better word. And the book was also written very differently because the Bitcoin Standard is like Saifedean, he can write beautiful sentences, but they're long and sometimes tough. And also the, the terminology is not always easy to, to translate. So there is a lot. You need every sentence, you need to read it like 3 or 4 times to really get the best way to put words in order, uh, in the right order. And for 10 Gods for Bitcoin was already very different. It was easier to read. It's not 400 pages, but maybe 100 and something. So that was already totally different. And then after that, I did Fiat Standard editing, which we go back to long sentences. But a smaller team. I don't remember with how many, but I think it was also 5 people, uh, maybe, maybe 4 or 5. And in these projects, we also had more time to do some fresh eye reading. So you recruit outsiders to read the PDF before it's being printed, which we also did not have in the first, uh, in The Bitcoin Standard, if I, uh, remember that correctly. So yeah, I think over time the team became smaller and then we added some more fresh eyes readers, like after the, the final version to improve it. Then lastly, that's some months ago, 3 months ago, I finished The Price of Tomorrow from Jeff Booth, also with a smaller team. And we did exactly the same also with the fresh eyes at the end. I think it was 1 or 2 people doing that. Yeah, it, it evolved a little bit with, with like how it's being approached, but also maybe because the first one was unique. I joined later. It's a con— it's a difficult book. It was a big team. And from there it was, yeah, moving into the better directions.

Yeah. And from many perspectives, that, that was like the quintessential trial project for, for ConsenSys. We, we did some projects before where, where we kind of established this framework, but that was like The first really big project with a big team and a big goal as well. Like you said, we wanted to get it out for Christmas, which we did eventually. And by the way, I think we all caught our, our pants down a little bit with, with the sales because it was so overwhelming. Like, uh, we actually had to, we actually sold out within like 2 weeks because I only ordered 1,000 copies, I think, for the first run. And we already pre-sold around 400. Yeah. Throughout the year because we started presale a little bit earlier.

Yeah. And also the timing was perfect. Uh, not only Christmas, but also like in the hype cycle and—

Yeah, it was, it was the perfect storm. Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, so we ended up actually selling out. We sold, I think, more than 1,000 copies in, in December 2020. Yeah. That's, that's what, that was the—

I think many preorder as well. Yeah. Already. Yeah.

So, so yeah, actually we ran out and then we had to wait for, for the new batch, but that arrived early January and that, that's the only time in ConsenSys history that we ran out of stock on a book to this day. That was pretty cool. Yeah. But yeah, and then, and it continued to sell because the, the bull market kept, kept on going. Uh, there was a lot of interest, um, on, on that book. So that was a really, really cool experience to see. Kind of like this, uh, starfish-produced, you know, sweat equity-funded projects take off that way. Yeah. Amazing.

Yeah. And then I think I haven't mentioned it, but I think so far, at least on the Dutch side, Bitcoin Standard is also the, the only book that has a revision, a version, uh, 1.2 or 2.0, whatever you call it. So then with a small team, we did the whole another layer of reading, I think it was half a year or maybe a year after to improve it. Um, because it was not perfect and it's, it's, it's like if you read it 10 times, you think you found all the small minor mistakes or whatever errors there are, or even like how a sentence is made. You can write the same words in many different orders. So then we made a second revision, a new version, and I think also a hardcover later. So that was also being improved because, yeah, it was a success as you mentioned. Yeah. And I was also part of the, the editor team or role, um, with some others together. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. There was also, uh, the original was revised, uh, with a new foreword by Michael Saylor. Oh yeah. The original one had the, um, the one with Taleb, which, which was not that great. So later, uh, versions have that removed. And, uh, there's, there's something else special about the first version and it's out of production, by the way. You can't have it anymore. Like, so, uh, congratulations if you did snatch the first version because it is a special one because it actually has the 13th chapter that is removed from the, from the version 2.

Yeah, right. Yeah.

So, so the, the original version 1 is the most comprehensive version. Yeah. It doesn't have Sailor's Forward, it doesn't have all the All the revision done on it, but it, it has the most content because there's an extra chapter about scaling and Lightning Network, which is later removed because Saifedean released the fiat standard that, that goes through that topic. So it made more sense to, to condense the original book, but there are some versions around with, with the 13th chapter and also the Finnish version. That was the first one we, we, we put the extra chapter in. And I think the finished version is on version 1.28 or something like that. So the, the, these are like rolling projects. I think maybe we reached a point where, where there's no more updates expected for, for this specific book, Bitcoin Standard, and we will focus on new books. But yeah, it's, it's interesting. Like we, we published it as a, good enough version. It's not perfect. And, and we knew that. And, and also we, we got a lot of feedback from the readers, but the, in general, the feedback was very encouraging and, and good. And there was not a lot, uh, that needed to be fixed. So you did a, a good job on that because it's not easy to specifically Saifedean's book. I personally, I'm a big fan of his writing style, uh, but it is in terms of translation, it's quite difficult to work. I would even say that AI translation is pretty useless, uh, against Saifedean's writing because, um, his sentence structures just don't translate, uh, into other languages. Exactly. Like, unless you read it, understand it completely, then explode it into atoms and then put it back together in your own language and kind of like rewrite the whole book. And I think this, this process happened at least in the Finnish version, and I think in, in the Dutch version as well. And those are the books that we've gotten the most positive feedback as well. So while I think that is inevitable that AI will kind of like overtake the raw translations, it seems that way. There's still a lot of value in the manual labor, and I don't think that's going to be replaced anytime soon. And of course, different books are like you mentioned, Thank God for Bitcoin, very different book indeed. Books like that are way better suited for automatic AI translations that then you can clean up and you can shave off a lot, quite a bit of time from the raw translation, but yeah, just need to, and that's also the key role of the editor to make those calls, right? I mean, when can you use AI and when you shouldn't do that?

Yeah, and sometimes you see some people do use it or they use Google Translate and the other use DeepL and then it's already a different style translation with AI. And for example, I remember in The Bitcoin Standard, we had some Dutch translators and also one or two Flemish, which also is a little bit different. So yeah, it's good to maintain the quality and try to get the best for the book. Then yeah, maybe a bit more work where you have to choose or you have to, uh, mention it. Uh, need some more double checks, but eventually the, yeah, it's about the result. I guess. And, and what you mentioned, it's, it's funny because positive feedback, I heard it as well. Um, for example, when you're talking on meetups or with even Bitcoiners in El Salvador, Dutch Bitcoiners, they mention The Bitcoin Standard, the Dutch book. Like, ah, you should really read it. It's like, yeah, I was one of the translators. I've been working on it. My name is somewhere in the front. That's it. It's about the result. It's about Bitcoin. It's about the book and it's not about like the whole team behind it. Essentially. Uh, and that's fun to hear that people are also promoting it. Like, yeah, I'm, I, I love Bitcoin and you should read this book. It's like, yeah, yeah, I know, I know what's in there.

Yeah. I mean, isn't that the best compliment though? Like the, you know, you know that it's going to be genuine because if they don't even know the, you, you were part of the project. Exactly. Yeah. And they're basically marketing it to you on your, on their own. So that's, uh, that's wonderful. Uh, yeah, I run into that from, from time to time. Like people are starting to find our books on their own, maybe through traditional channels. Or whatever. They don't even know who we are. And, and that's kind of like the point also. Like, of course I take pride, and I think I'm sure that all the teams take pride in their work and having their name there and being a part of that and being recognized. But also, that's not the, that's not the point why we're doing this. The point is exactly to inspire people and, and educate people. And when people do that out of their own free will and, and pay for a service that, uh, that we made with their hard-earned money on their own in the free market. I mean, that's, there's no better compliment than that, right?

Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

What about the future? How do, how do you see your, your, uh, day-to-day role in the ConsenSys or, or your development ideas? You, you mentioned that you're working, working on a couple different projects already. Do you have anything else in the, in the horizon that you want to talk about? And, and not only, uh, necessarily ConsenSys, but, you know, other, other projects as well. If it feels—

Yeah, I was about to say, like, I, I started, uh, doing Bitcoin stuff after I graduated and do as many cool projects as, as possible to have some cash flow. So translating books is one of it. And then, uh, besides that, I did different things. I once made, uh, magazine, educational one. It was not with Consensus because I think, no, I was approached by someone else for, uh, some, a course that I already made. So I made the write-up and they did the print. And currently we're, uh, thinking about a magazine. Um, it's like we're, we're, we're having some ideas if it would be possible to make magazines for the Dutch market, but it's, work in progress. There's not a lot to be, yeah, that can't be said about it yet. Um, so that's something that's, I'm exploring right now. Um, besides that, I know there are many books still talking about consent that are still also work in progress that needs an, that need an editor or need more translators, but I'm not sure if I'll, I'll focus on that right now. Um, I just finished Price of Tomorrow, so. Usually when I have really a need for an editor, I'll, I'll appear somewhere when I have time. But I think—

You rise to the occasion.

Yeah, exactly. So, but for now, I think focus will be on, um, this Dutch magazine, uh, perhaps. Let's look into it. And I'm also, uh, working on, uh, a Bitcoin board game at the moment, which hopefully will be out in the public very soon as well. I made a documentary about Bitcoin Island. in the Philippines, um, see how the circular economy is doing. Um, building Bitcoin Focus NL, which is a pay-per-view media publication, um, where people can buy content like with individual Lightning payments. So that's cool. Yeah, a lot of different things. It's all Bitcoin related and kind of education and, and sharing knowledge and, and the Bitcoin work with communities, and, and ConsenSys is one of the, the funnels for that.

Yeah, that's, that all sounds amazing. And there's no shortage of work in Bitcoin. Like, uh, whatever your skill set is, you will find, uh, find a place.

The only thing we need is proof of work.

Exactly. I mean, yeah, I mean, it's the, the moon is not going to build itself. Like, that's what I keep telling people. Like, you know, people like to say, You know, it's just stack sats and stay humble. But that's, that's not the whole story. Like, who's going to build all the, all the cool stuff that we want to use and who's going to make the world better? It's not going to be only about stacking sats and, you know, grinding in your fiat life. It's also taking these huge personal risks to realize the visions that, that we all want to see for our, our grandchildren. Basically, that's, that's my view on it. So I, I, I keep telling people like, you know, just stacking sats is great, of course. I mean, there's, there's nothing wrong with that. I'm not saying that. It's just that it's not everything. Like it's, we need builders, we need proof of work, we need people to start projects and help with projects and fund projects. And yeah, to that end, you mentioned the board game. What, what's the name of the, Uh, board game.

It's Block Hunters.

Block Hunters.

It's been, uh, in, in the, uh, we're working on it for 2 or 3 years now and it's like, it, it used to be an Albee project. It doesn't have a website yet. It's not in the final version, but we're trying to, to raise some, some funds at, for example, Geyser, um, with the grant where I think you, you guys are also applying for, uh, the translations.

Yeah.

Part to make this final step happen towards like a real design and the graphic design that's, that's like professional and not me, I'll be amazing in some Illustrator, uh, tools. And then also to be able to make the first print. So with testy prints, and then once that's ready, yeah, we can put it out in the public with some high quality. Branding and, um, yeah, and hopefully try to orange pill our families, friends with a fun game instead of like reading materials. Because that's also a bit where it came from. Like everything on ConsenSys is, um, you have to read books or maybe magazines, which is more based on pictures and, and, and illustrations. But not everyone is learning through reading. So yeah, I think there's more to be explored in that sense as well. You can make, for example, Bitcoin-only board games in which you explain the essence of scarcity and not your keys, not your coins, um, holdings. Like, why is, is there not more Bitcoin? And what if the game runs out of Bitcoin? Where does it come from? Well, that's reality. We're not going to make more. There's, it's not Monopoly where you can always take more from the bank. And, and all those kind of things. Like, what is mining? Is it making calculations? No, it's doing random guesses with random numbers. And if you can guess the most, you're more likely to make the block and all those kind of technical concepts to make it fun for people to comprehend, basically.

Yeah, that's, that's something that I'm really interested in too. Like, we kind of already have the Bitcoiners, like we have the era of Bitcoiners. But, uh, we are kind of small population globally, so it's not also, it's not going to be enough to just pander to that existing audience and just service them. We need ways to break through to the mass markets, and I think something like a board game seems like, uh, a really good way to do that because, um, not everybody's interested in nonfiction books. Maybe majority is not, especially books about money, economics, technology. They're all kind of like fringe. Uh, in, in, in the, the mass perception. And to that end, we also are expanding to fiction books. I don't know if you heard about the project of, uh, 21 Futures.

Yeah. With the contributions from many different people, right?

Yeah. The idea is to open it to submissions for everybody. Um, but, uh, the end goal is to have just interesting, uh, fantastic stories that are set in or around, uh, the Bitcoinverse, kind of like look through the lens of Bitcoin. So not really like Bitcoin content per se, just interesting stories that happen to introduce these elements that you mentioned in, in the board game as well. You know, this concept of scarcity and, and how those may affect, you know, humans' lives and what kind of futures might result from that. So I think that kind of fantastic stories can be a, a portal Or, or like a, a gateway to, you know, towards the rabbit hole. And then, and once people start to arrive, it'll be much easier to tip the scales and, and for the people to fall into the rabbit hole. Absolutely.

So

I, I think this kind of bridge is missing right now in the Bitcoin world. We're, we're still very much catering to our like hobbyist community and, and I want to try to change that. So, Yeah, that, it's really cool to hear that you're making the board game. I'm really interested in, in—

I think, yeah. And I think on top of that, um, it's amazing work to have explanations written in like new languages. So let's say the Bitcoin standard to like 7, 8, 9 languages, that everything, then it's limited to this new language. And I think board games are kind of universal. Um, so if you have, and Sun is universal as well. So if you have some elements or like items or pieces of a game, And you can use that to explain things and also at the same time have fun. It works like everywhere on earth for people that are like older than 12 years old. And you don't need to read a book on your own. Uh, is that not for you? Like you, you can reach so many people on a fun way. Yeah. Using, so for example, board games, but I'm pretty sure there are many more other ways to, to do this orange pilling. in like with, with a smile and a laugh instead of piece of paper or, or whatever else it can be. So I'm pretty sure if we can be very creative and try to come up with more beyond, uh, books with the same goal, uh, there's, there's still a lot that can be done.

I'm trying to find the page on, uh, Geyser, but I can't find it. Can you, can you share the link with me? I'll, uh, I'll be happy to show it on the video here and make a bit of a contribution. And yeah, by the way, Geyser is a great way to find these projects and support them, sling a little bit of sats and help these projects get off ground. So let's do that if we can here. There you go. So it's called Block Hunters, geyser.fund/projects/blockhunters. I'm just gonna Go ahead and share my screen. Let's do a bit of a demo of how it works. Hope, hope we don't run into demo effect though. Can you see it?

Yeah, I do.

All right, so Block Hunters Bitcoin board game. Not gonna read all this. You can do that on your own. There's one question.

If you go to the, to the entry below. Yeah, I just published it like, uh, yesterday late. Um, so this is actually the very first time actually it's, it's also Being shared somewhere. Yeah. So here you got a picture of some testing. We did those several testing with both Bitcoiners and non-Bitcoiners. And basically what you see is everyone together is gonna make a chain of 10 blocks in which there are transactions with a color. So on the bottom right, you see, uh, a purple one and a yellow and orange. And there are also private keys, um, that you should of course keep secret. And this picture is the end of the game. So the blocks are being made already, all 10 of them. And the game is over. But once you start with only block number 1 and you try to allocate your color in the block with coins on it, and then, for example, block number 1 has a 1, a 3, a 2, and a 10. And then everyone starts mining with some mining cards that you also have in your hand, the nonces. And the one that's the closest to the sum of block number 1 is allowed to make block number 2. And you can put your coins and your colors and, and, and these transaction cards in the next block number 2. And by doing that, you'll receive a reward, which is coins, which is the halving, like, uh, 8 coins in this case. And, and so by doing this, uh, everyone is always Making a block, so it's mining. Everyone's always doing transactions, so you're a user. Everyone is verifying the, the calculation, so you're a node. Everyone has a private key that you have to keep secret, and everyone has coins. And there is also like all these elements of Bitcoin are put together basically without language, but the concepts are there. And yeah, like it's, it's, it's elaborated a bit more and even better than what I try to explain right now on, on this page. And, and yeah, currently it's the, like, I think the last and final prototype. And it's, it's fun to see that if you play it with precoiners, I think there are no more no-coiners. Everyone's a precoiner or a bitcoiner. And, and they start to ask questions like, wait, what if I reveal my, my, the color of my private key accidentally to like my fellow players? Yeah, well, that means you're gonna lose your Bitcoin because they can, at the end of the game, take yours. And for example, like, what if I try to cheat with this game and I, I'm just pretending that I can make a next block? Like, that's impossible because everyone else here is verifying what's happening in this chain. So it's in the public, you can see it, you cannot cheat. Or like, what if there's, what if we run out of coins? So like, why, why? If I don't have enough coins in the beginning, like it's very hard to win the game. Like, but that's the essence of scarcity. Like what's gonna be in circulation is gonna be less and less as long as the game is happening. And then this circular economy is gonna happen. That's how you can get coins and all these kind of concepts. Um, yeah, they'll be, they'll come back in this game. Yeah. I hope to, to, to make this, like put it into the public and A real version because right now it's prototype and that's why it's on Geyser to make that happen.

I mean, that, that sounds amazing.

If I can add to that, um, I told, I was, I'm working on the pay-per-view, uh, media publication with Bitcoin Focus. We're the first one in Europe to, to do so. And this is also, we don't do it right now, but this is something we envision that hopefully, uh, this is gonna scale up. You can do the same with, um, authors that write an article, it's being paid for and a certain percentage goes directly to the creator of that article, um, through Lightning. Um, and then you have this circular economy where the platform is only facilitating, uh, or cool stuff that's being created. So,

exactly like that. That, that's like, that's what I want. I, I mean, that's something that we, we both already want. It's just that we still live in the fiat world. It's a transition period. It's not really super realistic, uh, yet, but, uh, we have to start somewhere, right? And, and

to be pioneering.

Yeah, exactly.

So people have to be the first and you find out that there are different mechanisms working in such an economy that you have to think about.

Right.

Um, whether it's like, wait, recurring payments don't work yet, but will it work? Is this the way to go? Uh, and like all these different things, like what's the right pricing for Different models. And, uh, yeah, it's really interesting and fascinating to work on that.

Yeah. And, and, you know, to be fair, like even, even at ConsenSys Network, from our shop, every third purchase is made by Bitcoin. Out of those, about 90% through Lightning. I mean, it's already amazing to me. Like I, I always chuckle when somebody says like, oh, but Lightning doesn't work. I mean, What do you mean? Well, we've been taking Lightning payments since 2019. Yeah. And now we are having our own self-hosted BTCPay server that just works. Like it just does the work in the background. Like you have your own payment processor that doesn't take fees. I mean, apart from the network fees, of course, which are quite low. And I, I mean, this is something also that I want, I want to kind of like help orange pill merchants, because especially online merchants, because it makes perfect sense. It already offers the superior user experience in payment, and also the merchant experience, which is even more relevant, because the user, the customer usually doesn't see that 3% or 2% credit card fee that goes with every payment that they've made. For them, it's like, yeah, it works great. I don't have to pay anything extra, but you are paying extra because guess what? All the costs that the merchant has, they will transfer to you in the product price, right?

Exactly.

So once you get rid of that, it's—

And that's about the percentage. In the Netherlands, there is Mollie, which is popular, but you pay €0.25 for every payment through that. So if you go towards smaller payments, for example, a pay-per-view, then it's already gonna be 10, 20, 30% of what you're trying to, to sell, which is profits that you're missing. It's like directly the profit. It's not like something part of a revenue or whatever stream it's, it's part of, but it's like you're gonna make more money by offering it with Lightning and trying to do it with fiat is possible, but not profitable.

Right.

So that's really cool.

Yeah. Micropayments and value for value is gonna be the future for sure. Like we are also working on, on making these, uh, ebooks available through, through Lightning. Lightning, uh, micropayments. So that also should increase profits because now people have the option to read chapter by chapter and decide if they like the whole book without buying the whole book. Even for the audiobook, like you can listen to 1 hour and then decide this is not for me, and then you only pay for 1 hour. I mean, that doesn't exist.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I heard this, this example of, for example, if you take a language course, you might not want to finish the course, but you want to see how far you got until you don't like it anymore. So you can buy like every chapter of a language course instead of the full one. And there's so many, uh, use cases in which it makes so much sense.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Well, this has been a fantastic conversation and thank you so much for joining and sharing your experience and Yeah. Awesome to hear all the projects, especially the, the board game that, that I'm really looking forward to getting my hands on and, uh, listing it on our, our upcoming merch shop. I, I wanna start a, start the Money Badger shop again, which I already started in 2019.

Yeah.

I sold only one coffee cup, but it was against Bitcoin, so it wasn't a total loss. Uh, but I think the time might be ripe for something like this, like, uh, a shop for you know, non-Bitcoin, I mean, uh, non-book Bitcoin stuff rather. So like we have the Bitcoin flag, which we are flying in the, in the Madeira meetup, uh, place right now. Uh, that's pretty cool. There's some, uh, Bitcoin Legos. There's going to be the Bitcoin board game, you know, all this kind of cool stuff that is, is not, uh, directly related to books, but it's directly related to awareness and education. And, uh, yeah, of course, t-shirts and stuff like that, you know, run of the mill. Yeah. But yeah. Yeah, I think that's gonna happen sometime, sometime this year, hopefully. So yeah, keep me posted on this project and, uh, any way, any way I can help.

And also thanks, thanks for having me here and also for all your work at ConsenSys. You've been doing an amazing job as well.

Thank you.

It must be said.

Thank you. Yeah, I appreciate that. It's, uh, I mean, sometimes you think your mind wanders like, oh man, should I go, uh, get a fiat job and stack some more sats? But it's just, uh, it's not happening. Like, I don't see it happening. It's too important in my opinion, uh, not to do it. It's the high impact work that I can do, uh, to further the, the progress towards the world that I want to see for my, my grandchildren. So it's just like, it's a trade that you made with yourself. And I understand the people choose to make the trade to, to stay in their fiat life a little bit longer and, uh, stack stack the cheap sats. Nothing wrong with that. I'm, I'm not against that. It's just, it's just something that I, I, uh, decided not to do. And that's also a, a vision for the, for Consensus Network, not only to spread the knowledge, but also, uh, offer people kind of a way to start easing out of the fiat life and into the, the Bitcoin standard life.

Yeah.

And that's, that's the progress that is ongoing.

It was for me a, a very good parts towards, like, like I told you, going from graduation in a fiat job, product design, towards full-time Bitcoin freelancing and entrepreneur and stuff. Like, it was one of the, the building stones towards that. So yeah, I, as people listening, I can really recommend to at least dive into it and explore the option.

Yeah. And there's, so like, you can contribute as little as you can, like, um, Most of our contributors, they do have a fiat job still, and they, they do this stuff on their free time because they enjoy it. And wouldn't it be nice to be able to, to, you know, offer, uh, the daily upkeep for these people for doing what they love as their hobby? Like, that's kind of like, that's where I want to, want to get as soon as possible.

Yeah. It's, uh, it's, it's, it's possible. That's, that's, I think the, the takeaway.

Yeah. It's just a matter of time. I think it's just a matter of time. All right, man. Thank you so much. And, uh, anything else you want to share here? Uh, where, where can people find more about your work and, and, uh, talk to you?

I think for Bitcoin-related stuff, I would recommend my Twitter. Um, it's Starnold with a 4 instead of an A, @st4rnold. Yeah. And, and so mainly about Dutch things, but hopefully this board game will be like for everyone. So. Yeah, I would say my Twitter.

I, I love the fact that it, it doesn't have language on it, like apart from block, what I can see. Yeah. But,

but basically, and then like the manual obviously can be in any language, but the game itself works for everyone.

That's brilliant. I love it. Just like Bitcoin is for everybody.

Exactly. Yeah.

All right. This has been the Starfish Cast. We are, our guest is Arnold. My name is Niko. And, uh, look forward for the next one. We, we have plenty of people, more than 50 at the moment working on this. So I'm, I'm looking forward to interviewing everybody. And yeah, do check out, uh, Arnold's board game Block Hunters on Geyser Fund. Support that if you're into it. Uh, check out ours as well. We are applying for the translation, uh, grant to help us scale a little bit more. Um, it's, uh, geyser.fund/ project/consensusnetwork, I believe. And check our Twitter, obviously, ConsensusN, and, and our, our Telegram group, Consensus Network. All right, thank you so much for listening. Thank you, Arnold, for joining in, and, uh, take care.

Take care. Thanks.