Starfish Cast #5 - Gonzalo's Crazy Inflation Stories from Argentina

Yeah. The banks are like the service providers of, and, and, uh, the base settlement network.

That's right. And then I, I, I just Googled that and I came up with, um, with Saifedean's book. And that's how I really got into it because before that it was only like superficial knowledge and I didn't really know much about how, like, how safe was the, how, how safe the cryptography was or how well aligned were the incentives to keep it secure and let's say honest. So yeah, it's not like I had a great idea, but I, I, I, I, I, I'm somewhat proud that I, I came upon Saifedean's book wanting to know about that premise, you know, that, that, that's the premise of his book, you know.

One thing that strikes me really interesting is that you are, um, you're a software engineer, but you came to Bitcoin from the economic side, Austrian economic side. That's really interesting. And, and then to some extent, political side. I guess being from Argentina has something to do with that because probably you were looking for some, some answers to that before Bitcoin. For me, it's like, I don't know, I think it is nerd money. I mean, still like it's, it's quite a nerdy thing to be interested in, in magic internet money, to be completely fair and accurate. And that's how I got into Bitcoin. I didn't know anything about economics. I didn't care. I was just interested in the technology and what you said about the, the transaction capacity, stuff like that. They, they actually made me dismiss Bitcoin amongst other things, like maybe it will be hacked and stuff like that. For a long time, I, I, I thought that it's going to be a real problem and, and that was because I didn't have the, the economics background that you did. Like you said, you know, immediately you realized that it doesn't need to happen on the base layer. Like all the transactions are not just like in gold standard, they're not going to happen in, in the settlement layer. And now we have Lightning Network, which, which has been in development for like around 5 years already. And, and great development have been made in the layer 2 solutions. So there you go. Same way as fiat was a layer 2 solution for gold, moving gold, and, and the Lightning Network is the same, does the same for Bitcoin. So. Great foresight there. That's impressive. And then, um, yeah, from there you, you got into, into Bitcoin and into Bitcoin books. That's really fascinating.

Yeah, from, from there on, I'm, I'm just repeating whatever it's already been, what, whatever is already, has already been said, you know, it's like I'm not going to pretend I, I am a great Bitcoin researcher or whatever, you know? And I, I just tried to stay humble and, and yeah, listen to podcasts. I, I started listening to podcasts, reading books, and getting to know more about this. And yeah, I remember that Saifedean was quite important in, in that regard, but also people like who are, I don't think they're as popular now, like Andreas Antonopoulos, you know, he had great videos about like, what if this happens in Bitcoin? And yeah, it made you feel more secure about putting money on it, you know? And

yeah, Saifedean has been praised a lot in this show as well. And, and yeah, has, has to be mentioned again as huge impact in, in all of our, our work and our lives. And obviously ConsenSys Network wouldn't, wouldn't probably have happened without the, without Bitcoin Standard. That's how we got started. So definitely worth to mention and, and huge kudos for him to, for writing that book. I wouldn't say like, you know, it's not necessarily the best Bitcoin book out there, you know, if you know what I mean. It just happens to be extremely well positioned book with, you know, all those kind of like nuggets of information and the way he tied them together and made it make sense so that the things that we kind of already knew, at least for me, suddenly, you know, the pieces locked in and, and the picture became clear. So I think in that it's, it's a very, very good book indeed. And by the way, the Fiat Standard that you mentioned, I, I think we're clear on the, on making the audiobook of that. I, I know that you're interested in, in working on that as well. So, so that's going to happen at some point. That's going to be cool. What else can you tell about kind of like the Starfish organization? Like what, what's your experience like when you got in, how, how the work gets done? Try to get a little bit of a unique perspective from, from within. How, how is it to work in kind of like this Bitcoin? leaderless starfish chaotic organization.

I, I'm just going to forgive you for saying that Saifedean's book is not the best Bitcoin book, but okay. In my opinion it is, but—

All right, let, let me, let me clarify myself. So I don't want to offend anybody. Like, it's a great book. It's just that, you know, it's not really a Bitcoin book, right? It's a money book,

right?

It's money and economics book. Like, when, when I grabbed it first time and I thought I'm going to read a Bitcoin book, It wasn't, it was a full education about the history of money and Austrian economics, and that pushed me to the whole Austrian rabbit hole. So very valuable book. Just, you know, my point is just that there's better books to explain Bitcoin from a technical, technological perspective, such as, I don't know, Inventing Bitcoin, for example.

Yes, you're right. I'm biased because I, Coming from a, an independent, let's say Austrian background, uh, I really liked the book. Uh, and I was thrilled. It didn't matter to me that by, I, I, I don't remember in which chapter he mentioned Bitcoin for the first time, but it was very late.

It was 8, chapter 8, I believe. That's the digital money chapter. So the, the first 7 chapters is not even about Bitcoin at all.

Yeah, that's true. So yeah, returning to, to my beginning in ConsenSys, I, I'm, I'm noticing that I'm coming out as a, a very huge fanboy or Saifedean's fanboy, but I, I swear I'm, I'm trying to dial it down. So yeah, I, I think I missed, I sent a cold email to Saifedean after reading The Bitcoin Standards. Because I knew he was writing a new book. Um, I was eager to help him with whatever, his podcasts or maybe, uh, his courses. If I can get to translate the, the, his book, I will. I, I was, I was going to do it. And he, yeah, he connected me to you. It seems like you already had That idea before, before me, you, you won. But yeah, luckily I was lucky that you, you got in earlier because you, you had your whole operation, your all, your operation going and it was like formal. It was for real. It was like, I, I, I, I, I think I thought I was going to do some of the translation. And maybe it would end up as an ebook pirated by some, you know? And the way it ended up was so much better. I mean, still pirated, I guess, I suppose, but at least we, we got to see a, I got to see a physical copy of it translated. Yeah. At the beginning, I just, I was a newbie. I didn't know, I know how professional translators work, I just knew that I knew some English and some Spanish, so I, I guess I could do it. Uh, and yeah, I remember we had long conversations with you, Niko, just because I didn't really understand the whole operation. And yeah, I was curious about like the other projects and, and all that. But yeah, with time I, I realized that was the the most neurotic member of the translation team, so that made me a great candidate to, for being the editor. And in ever, I, I think in the beginning I wanted to be the editor, but I felt I wasn't good enough because I was just a newbie. I just, I just wanted to contribute. So I remember We had to book which chapters we were going to translate. So I booked the, I think I booked the longest ones and it was, it was 3 of us and yeah, I got most of the chapters, but it was fair, you know, it's like, yeah, there, there was, there was, it was obvious that one of us would end up translating more. Well, Since I got earlier there, I was like, okay, I'm going to do it. And by the time we ended, I, a lot of them left and I ended up doing most of the work. But yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm grateful for the people that stayed because they, they made great contributions to the book. And in that, in the process of translating that book and being the editor, I learned a lot about how to manage like a project and how to like deal with people, but not in a, uh, bossy way, you know, because it's not like we were getting a salary, monthly salary. I mean, we were doing it because it was our passion project. So yeah, it was going to be hard to make— I mean, it was impossible to force someone that didn't want to join in. It was just— Making sure that if you're in, you're in, and if you're not, please let me know because it makes it so much easier for me. So yeah, and that was our first book. Um, yeah, and from then on, I just kept translating and I, this, I noticed that the, the, the more people we got in a project, the less productive we were. So, I sort of, I think we had a conversation about this and I suggested that we, that we have people take over the role of editor for each book so that they own what they translated. The previous system had this problem of many, having many translators that did a, let's say, that might do a, a regular, I mean, a mediocre job and some, and other translators that did it really well, but they were not, no one was really incentivized to do their best, you know? But if you are the editor and you own the book at the end of the day, You are going to translate your best. You're going to do your best. And that's why I, I decided to, to manage Spanish books like that, uh, after that book, to make other people, uh, let, let other people assume the role of editors, teach them how to be a, like, how to assume that role. And let them own the book. If that means that maybe, uh, let's say a, a natively, uh, a Spanish, uh, like a, someone from Spain will use more Spanish words, like native Spanish words, not let's say Argentinian or from Latin America. That's fine because he's the editor, you know, and he, that's the way He owns the book and he does his best. You know, if I were to tell him, no, you should translate this way, let's say, because I'm selfish, I just say the Argentinian way, it wouldn't be, he wouldn't be doing his best. He wouldn't be so passionate about it, at least in my opinion. And yeah, that was it.

Yeah, that's, um, that's kind of like the key. I wouldn't say problem, but yeah, some, something that I've noticed that, uh, once you can see when somebody takes ownership of a project, that's, that's like, I, I love to see that. Like, that's what we need in every project. When there's no, uh, no, nobody raising to the occasion and taking ownership of the project, kind of like this role of a project manager. Um, projects take long months. The longest ones we've done is probably like 18 months before publishing because nothing happens. Like, this is what the, like, leaderless organizations kind of like, uh, a bit of a downside, right? I mean, because it's not clear. And by the way, I have to say, like, this is the first time I've heard anybody describe our organization formally. I don't think it's that that formal. But yeah, I get what you mean. Like, at least we had an operation that had been running for quite a while. We've experimented with the model, so it wasn't like we were— it was the first project that we did. So maybe that's what you meant. But yeah, this is something that I don't consider it as a downside or a problem necessarily. It's just a trade-off that you have. I mean, like you said, we don't pay anybody. We can't offer a salary. that is competitive in translation industry. Yeah, for 2 reasons. The first reason is the quality concern. Well, the first reason is really the cost concern because we don't have the money and we're not profitable yet, but the even more important reason in my opinion is the quality. Like you said, once you take ownership of the project, you put your name and your reputation at stake, you want to do your best and that's kind of like the power that we— the trade-off that that you get from using a starfish organization. Sometimes it's chaotic, slow, um, you know, some, some messages get lost in translation and people don't communicate well. And it's a, it's a process, but once you make it work, you get really efficient, uh, really top quality, uh, products at, um, almost no upfront costs. And this is like, this is the sweet spot we want to hit with every project. It doesn't always work, but, uh, eventually people like you, they tend to step up in, in all these language regions. And it's, uh, it's a wonderful sight to behold, to be honest. Like, it's, uh, it's humbling to see like how, how this kind of like crazy vision that I had after reading that book, uh, Starfish and Spider, that I can't stop talking about. I, I had this vision of, of a starfish organization, and this is, by the way, the 3rd one that, that I tried to start. And the first one that has, has been successful. So finally I have some validation to these ideas and, and these, uh, these methods that it can be done and it has been done and it's only gonna get better and stronger. So yeah, thanks for being a big part of that. And, uh, to that end, maybe, maybe we can also talk about your other roles. Like translation is not the only thing that you do anymore in, in ConsenSys, right? One of the most important things that is very close to my heart is the typesetting. I know typesetting doesn't sound like much to anybody, or it's kind of boring. It's, it's basically, it's the job that is the most thankless because if a typesetter does their work well, nobody notices because the book reads so wonderfully. There's no problems with the flow. There's no issues with the margins. The fonts are correct. and all the gaps are, are right, nothing bothers you. So then nobody notices that the typesetter did a good job. So maybe talk a little bit about that because I, that's, that's one of the, my favorite things about making books.

Yeah. Yeah, you're right. Um, thankfully it's something I didn't have to learn on my own. You, you were, you were there to To provide the tools and the patience, you know, to teach me, uh, the basics of it. Um, yeah, it's, I instantly liked, uh, doing typesetting because it, it's such a, I, I, I think it's similar to developing frontend apps or, yeah, applications for mobile. Coming from a developer's perspective, but because of how quickly you can see how your code changes, changes the look of things and how, uh, yeah, how easy it is. It's like, it's not like it's something, it can get hard sometimes, but it's so, when you know what you're doing, it can be so easy to just change the style of the whole book. Oh, um, yeah. I mean, you can, and, and I never, I, I, I never had that power with, let's say, Google Documents or Word documents that I, I mean, I, I think I wrote my thesis in, uh, my dissertation in, in Google Docs and I cared about making it pretty, but I, I, I never, I, I, I, and I did put the effort, but I never Really like the end result. And that didn't happen when I started typesetting books for Consensus. It's like, yeah, you have all the control and you make it look as you want it. You need to put in the proof of work because sometimes a minor typesetting error might take you hours. And yeah, you should. Yeah. As I think Thibault said, you sometimes you just need to stop and maybe not ignore it, but find a workaround that doesn't include that pretty little detail that you want in your book and just do something else.

Yeah, sometimes there's still my dirty hacks from the early days that are transported to the new fork templates and they cause problems. But yeah, it's a process. It's, uh, And yeah, by the way, it's worth mentioning that we use LaTeX for the typesetting. So that's like meant for mainly technical publications actually, such as Satoshi's whitepaper that was done in LaTeX as well. So we also did the whitepaper translation in Finnish using LaTeX, and we do all of our books, most of our books, unless the book has a lot of graphics and stuff, then we might use InDesign. But majority of the books is, is done in, in LaTeX. And, uh, for those who don't know, it's, uh, it's, has been in development for, I think, 40 years. One of, one of the, the oldest tools for making publications. And, and, uh, in opposition to Google Docs or, or Microsoft Word or Pages or any, any of these traditional, well, traditional Word processors, they are what we call what you see is what you get. So you'll work on the document and you all the time you see what you're working on and that's the end result. LaTeX doesn't work like that. You actually compile code. So you, it's, you, what you mean is what you get. That's LaTeX. So like you said, like you have full control in good and in bad because it can be tricky to resolve some, some issues and it involves a lot of Googling and trial and error. But once you find those correct words to tell the compiler how to exactly make the document, it'll be perfect every time. And then you can replicate the template and fork it to another book and then just change a few things. And this, I think, has streamlined quite a bit of our production because we can just take an existing book template, fork it, And then just change the, the key details to, to customize the template.

I, I think coming back to the, to what you were, you were saying previously, it's funny that, uh, yeah, I, I always thought of consensus as something formal and I, I, it was like, I laughed when you said we are Prof— uh, amateur professionals, was it?

Professional amateurs.

Professional amateurs. Well, the other day I, I told Thibaut that, I don't know what we were talking about. Ah, yeah, we incorporated like some structure to the organization, um, by using, uh, uh, yeah, some software to create boards and tasks, uh, be more organized with the, at least with, at the beginning with the Spanish projects and it's like, yeah, the professional amateurs are, yeah. I mean, we're going the other way around. It's like we are, we're not professionals, but we are only beginning, you know?

Yeah. And it's funny because like anything that we develop in the company, it's, uh, it's done with the starfish mentality. So It all stems from the fact that there's not really traditional leadership hierarchy and there's no salary. I think the key is that there's no salary for anybody, so there's no expectations that we can impose on people. So we must rely on everybody identifying their specific skill sets and working on what interests them the most. So I don't even know what's, what's, uh, what are all the developments that are happening, because all the teams, they kind of like work on what they feel that is the most important part. And, and, uh, a lot of good stuff has come from there. Like all, all of the features that we add to our books and our websites and everything is a product of the collective starfish mind or, or hive mind that is comprised of individuals acting on their own personal interests. And that's, that's one of the big strengths of a Starfish organization.

Yeah. It almost feels like this is what the DeFi people dream of, you know? It's like, this is what they meant, but they, they will, they, they wouldn't be able to achieve it through crypto, blockchain, and all that crap, you know? It's like, this is the way to do it.

Yeah, it's all, it's all talk about these things and, and to mask the, the same old protocol of, of, you know, the fiat mentality of getting somebody, moving somebody else's money into your pocket one way or another by using these smokes and mirrors and, and double talk and fancy words and piggybacking on the terminology of Bitcoin. And Well, in, in our organization, nothing works without proof of work. So, and people actually have to, have to do the work and we rely on them, the, the people alone to do that. We can't, we don't, I don't have any desire to impose my will on anybody. It's more like, here's what we've been working with and these are the tools and, you know, what do you think? What do you think you can do with this?

Yeah. Yeah. It's like the, it's like that petition to change Bitcoin's code to make it more environmentally friendly, supposedly, you know? Um, yeah, it's like, don't you know it's an open source project? Open a pull request and wait for the approvals, you know? It's like, yeah. Try to, try to merge it to the, to the repo, to whatever repository. And yeah, try to, the, the, the real thing is try to make people run your code, your version of the code.

Yeah, exactly. Like if you, if you make something that is clearly better and more efficient, there's no need. I mean, there's no need for any kind of voting or dis— discussion or, you know, permission asking. It's just, uh, it's obvious, so just do it. What do you, what do you, what do, what are your like future projections on this kind of like Bitcoin almost circular economy and, and, uh, you know, working in Bitcoin in, in opposed to working in fiat? Maybe that's something that we can also talk about because, uh, you, you have a fiat job still, right?

Yes.

Like, like, uh, like most of the people that are working with us because the bills must be paid and, and, uh, as mentioned many times, we don't really have salaries, not, not yet anyway. Uh, so how, how do you see kind of that, like this whole exit fiat thing and what would you like to do?

Um, I, I, I always say jokingly that I have a fiat job, but I, I, I, I like being a software engineer. I like coding. I like what I do. But yeah, it's, it's just that it's not Bitcoin related. I, I would say, maybe to be fair, it's not like when we say that's a fiat job, meaning that it wouldn't exist without fiat. You know, my job would probably, no, will definitely exist without fiat. But yeah, it's not, I'm, I mean, you couldn't blame me for not being as passionate about it. I mean, if it's like, I'm, it's not like I, I like translating too, but I like coding more. But if it's, if the translation project is about Bitcoin, I, I, I am more passionate about it.

But if you could choose, uh, like to work as a software developer for, uh, Bitcoin, Bitcoin project and get paid in sats. I mean, wouldn't you be interested in that?

Yes, sure. That's, that's the end goal, I guess. But I, I think I have a long career ahead of me. I just need to find the right time to do it. I feel like I would be risking it too much when in reality I could stay at my regular job. And just stack more stats, sats, you know? But yeah, it's, it's, it's something I contemplate all the time. It's not like I'm, I'm rejecting Bitcoin, the like positions as a developer in projects related with Bitcoin all the time. It's not like I'm getting it. That's, that, that's the thing. It, and it, and less so in a bear market like this one, you know? But I don't care about that.

Yeah. Bear markets are great for building, grounds out the noise, and only, only the proof of work people are, are the ones that remain. And yeah, there's, uh, something to say, to be said about stacking sats. That's, that's great. Like, I have nothing against people having a so-called fiat job just to accumulate fiat to turn into Bitcoin. I mean, that seems like a pretty good bet at this, this point in time when we are transitioning towards maybe something that we envision kind of like this Bitcoin-driven economy where we can actually start earning sats from different streams of different projects, which ConsenSys would be one of those. And maybe that some development projects and stuff like that, and then slowly transition into being less dependent on the fiat paycheck. I guess that's the point I'm trying to make. So, but yeah, it's a long road ahead of us and a lot of work to get there. But yeah, that's, that's at least what I'm working for every day to try to, try to reach that position and also to help other people to reach that position. So it's, it goes, the mission goes beyond simply educating people about Bitcoin. It's also about enabling people to, to transition into Bitcoin economy and, and also like, you know, offering, offering our books. to be bought with Bitcoin. That's a big part of it. I'm showing merchants, uh, the way, like 30% of our, our shop sales are in Bitcoin already, which to me it's, it's already quite good. I'm quite happy with that number. But the, yeah, 60% is still fiat. So in that sense, you could make a case that we are, we are a fiat company as well. Um, and in, in, in, in the literal term. But of course, I mean, you can't really put a value on the infrastructure and the library that we are building, 'cause it's impossible to say what the true implications of that, that are. And I think they're going to be probably much more significant than we can, we can surmise here. I mean, well, we'll just doing our best, I guess, doing what we like and see where it goes.

That's right. Maybe returning to your point about being an Argentinian, uh, yeah, I don't know if you heard, but we won the World Cup. That was good. Um, yeah, I just think like the, the current government, socialist one, is, is very lucky. It's like they are having, they are developing the worst crisis. in Argentinian history. I mean, it's going to happen anytime soon. And they get this joyful moment for the people out of random, like, pure coincidence. And yeah, it's like, we don't really, I don't really feel, maybe I'm biased because of the city I live in, but I don't, we don't really see. this sense of dread, you know? And yeah, but the, the numbers do reflect that. I mean, I think we are having like 50% inflation and at a minimum, you know, annually. Yeah. It's not like it's getting better. It's not like Well, this is not something most people would agree on, but it's not like the politicians are getting more financially conservative. It's like they're spending more and more, they're printing more in whatever way, like, you know, it's like, it's not like literal printing, but yeah, it's tough, but I think Uh, the only, the good thing about that is that us Argentinians, I, I believe we are great. I, I was talking about this with, with my girlfriend the other day. We are great speculators because we lived through so many hyperinflations and bad moments, let's say bad times that, yeah, it, It has a dark side. The ones that survived, we must be at least somewhat good at adapting, you know, and foreseeing, like, planning for the future inflation, you know? Yeah, I think it's, I don't really have specific numbers. I'm not into politics anymore, but I think the Argentinian currency has degraded in value throughout its history, something of the, on the likes of 13 orders of magnitude, something on those lines. You know, it's like that. It's 10 to the 13th power. It's like at the point I, in this, at this moment, Argentinians Saving dollars, and they don't really care about the CPI being high. Let's say we don't consider that high. You know, it's perfectly fine compared to our bullshit currency. So yeah, it's in in a way we we will be satisfied with having dollars. Let's say as a currency. But there's a lot of people who saw the trends, saw how politicians rob us of our wealth through inflation, and they went ahead of that. And they, and they, they are into Bitcoin, you know. They, they— well, there's a, there's— I think there's a lot of people following Austrian economics recently. Um, yeah, there is a Libertarian Party That arise. I don't really follow politics. I, I, I believe they all get corrupted in the end, so I don't care. But at least you can see that there's somewhat of an awakening. I don't know, maybe in 10 years they go all red, back to red, you know? But like the, the, the whole country back to voting. Socialist leaders as always. But yeah, at least I, this is what Bitcoin provides. It's like the escape for libertarians so that we libertarians don't need to argue anymore, you know? And we don't need to convince anyone anymore. It's like we just do our thing and the market will, will, will do its thing and Yeah, it'll be just like gold.

Yeah, the market will be the final judge in a free market society. And I guess like that's the wet dream of libertarians that we kind of want to see. Unfortunately, reality and history does provide clues to us that something terrible must happen to people before some kind of awakening happens or revolt or people demand options. And, uh, yeah, I mean, just the fact that dollar, US dollar or even euro can be hard currency to some people in the world, it's, it's quite an appalling vision. If, if you think about like Bitcoiners often talk about dollar being in high, in, in, uh, hyperinflation soon. So imagine if that's your hard currency, like what kind of a situation is that? I mean, just, oh, or euro. Like I, I made a video, I remember I, I made a video in 2019, the early days of ConsenSys Network, and I was still in Finland and we used to have this cool thing called €1 cheeseburgers from McDonald's, one of my favorites. And I was very offended by the fact that they raised the price to €1.10. And so I made a video about it and this whole rant about inflation and how this is so bad. And obviously nothing compared to Argentina or any other countries with severe inflation. I mean, I was lucky to be able to use euros at least. But yeah, I just found out today that now it's €2, and that was 4 years ago when I made that video. So I mean, it's not that great. I mean, it's the hardest currencies of the planet are quite, quite bad.

Yeah.

Quite weak. So yeah, I'm, I'm kind of afraid that there's, there must be, before this kind of awakening happens and we can, we can kind of like, in a way Bitcoin affords us that optionality to opt out, but it does not afford us the optionality to opt out of the reaction that other people are going to have to the poor situation that they are in. Like we may be able to bail ourselves out, But the calamity and the collapse around us, I don't think we are able to insulate ourselves from the effects of that. So that kind of like a, it's a little bit of a scary thing to think about. Certainly I would hope that people would wake up, wise up. But like you said, the soccer thing, like people are very eager to grab any opportunity or feel feeling happiness and feeling content about the situation. Basically circus and bread, which is like the age-old trick of keeping people happy when, when things go to the shitter. And, um, the inconvenient truths have never been in favor of, of the people, never in, in the world history. And I don't think this time is any different. What is in favor of people forever is the comforting lies. So whatever ever gets you through the night to fight another day, that's the, that's the go-to answer. And yeah, a lot of people are not willing to do the proof of work, not willing to face the personal responsibility of actually learning about these things. And that's, that's a big hurdle. And that's, that's, I guess, where we can try to provide some answers, but you can't really wake up a person who wants to stay asleep. Right? I mean, they're just gonna get annoyed with you and aggressive towards you if you try to do that. So the next best thing is to make the information at least accessible, and that's where translation work comes into play, having this knowledge available. So when something bad does happen and people are looking for those options, at least they can be educated at that point, but it's up to everybody. on their own. It's, it's not up to us to, to chuck this, uh, idea down their throats when they're not ready to face it.

I think good ideas must survive. There's no other way. We, we wouldn't be here if, if it weren't for great ideas surviving and winning over not so good ideas, let's say. But yeah, let's just hope.

Yeah. Let's focus on the positive things. Uh, uh, before this takes a dark turn.

Yeah, no, I, I think it's more, it's not, uh, productive to think a lot about the downside, you know, about how dark or how bad it could go, badly it could go if, let's say, people keep, uh, uh, voting corrupt politicians and making them, letting them print and yeah, spend, uh, money like it's, like it's free, you know? And it's not. Uh, but I think, as I said, good ideas survive. And this is where I became like, I always consider myself a libertarian. But I, when I, I encountered the term agorist, I think I identify more with that term. It's like, it's like a libertarian that doesn't want to force it on others. It's, he just wants to do his own thing, even if it means like using black markets and going against the government, you know? It's like, yeah, you gotta do what you're gonna do.

Yeah, I, I identify a lot with, uh, with agorism as well. And I, I call myself, uh, an ancap consensualist or some, something to that effect, which, which is pretty close to what you're saying there. Like, are we, I mean, we, we must, uh, defend other people's right to make incorrect decisions in our opinion and, and, uh, make bad decisions and carry the full responsibility and weight of those decisions and not try to interject because that would make us no better than, than any other inter— interventionist politicians. So all these like politics libertarian parties or what, whatever you want to call yourself, in the end, It's just a different brand of rulers that are, are going to impose rules on others. And that's, that's not something I want to see. So this has been a wonderful talk. Thank you for joining, Gonzalo. Thank you for having me. If you have any, any, any final closing remarks, maybe tell people if they want to contact you or follow you on Twitter or find out more about you.

Um, I guess I, I'm going to use this opportunity to shill my Lightning node. I, my alias is Gonan Edoowa if you want to connect to me and provide me with some inbound liquidity. It was more, more of a joke. I mean, I'm, I'm running my Lightning node, but I, I, I'm barely profitable. But yeah, it's not like I depend on it. It's not my, let's say my business too. But yeah. Yeah.

I mean, I, I guess you, you could run it as a, as a business in, at least in theory, but it's, it's quite heavily com— competed and I don't think running a routing node is, is not yet maybe a, maybe a serious line of business. It's more like something to support the network and most of all to how Lightning Network works. That's why I set up the consensus node myself. I had some help, of course, from, from more tech-savvy people, but I wanted to do most of it myself, including the channel balancing and all that, just as a learning experience. And I highly recommend it to anybody really, even, even if you're not that into tech, just to understand how, how it actually works. And once you understand how Lightning Network and Bitcoin works, then it becomes so much easier to explain to people why it's an important and interesting technology to pay attention to. So, um, yeah, do the work. I recommend it.

Maybe I should also do a shout out to Alberto and Dr. Jones who belong to the Spanish team. Also, also Colin there. I think there's more people, but they are newer. And yeah, they have been helping me a lot with all the Spanish projects. Uh, I, I think the 3 of them have, well, Alberto edited 2 books already. Um, he, he has done a great job and I'm, I'm glad to have met him. He's a really interesting per— uh, really interesting person. And the same goes for Dr. Jones and Connie.

Awesome. What are you working on now? Like what, what can the Spanish audience expect this year?

Well, most definitely the, the highest priority is The Block Size War because I believe that's one of the most important books, if not the second best regarding Bitcoin and titles that are close to to the deadline, let's say to the end line, uh, are Thank God for Bitcoin and Choose Life by Daniel Briggs. So yeah, it's, it's good. Uh, it's coming along. We are becoming more efficient with time. We are adding more translators, passionate translators every time. We're becoming a thing, I think. I believe.

Certainly seems like it. I, I have high hopes for the Spanish market and last year I think I, I felt like it really took off and, uh, you've been doing wonderful work there. Thanks to you and everything else that you do, do in, uh, ConsenSys organization. So,

thank

you. Yeah, let's just keep, keep at it and keep developing.

Yeah, we just need more, more Nikos and more Gonzas. I guess.

Yeah. Yeah. More starfish. Yeah. Just, uh, whatever your skillset is, I, I think, uh, you can be useful if not in, in ConsenSys organization, then you will find another organization. So, I mean, don't be shy, like be honest with yourself, who you are, what are you good at, what do you like to do? And then just find projects that you, that can support that and you can support them. That's where you do your best work and that's where you can be competitive. And that's kind of like what we see happening with all these starfish organizations.

Yeah. And I, I, I just wanted to, to tell you a story about my country because some people might be interested. And have you heard of Nigeria and how they banned people from acquiring more than $42? Was it something on those lines? I bet you. you read that tweet?

I don't remember that. Well, that sounds pretty bad.

Yeah. Yeah. Governments and their regulations, you know, in Argentina, in Argentina, sorry, the most egregious regulation that it's not so recent, but yeah, it's been a while. It involves people not being able to buy more than $200 every month. So if you want to save legally, you just, and if you have, and you, if you abide by some other rules, but they, those are not really important that they are only exceptions. You can only buy $200. So that's at most what you're going to save in dollars in Argentina legally. Of course, this is not how the market works. And we go, we, out of that policy, something arise, which is the, the blue dollar, dollar blue that we have here, which is of course a black market dollar, which has a different price as the official dollar. And usually it's around double, you know, because that's the truth, you know. Yeah. The government wants you to believe that the dollar is, let's say, 100 pesos, but in reality it's 200. I think right now it's 380. I, I don't remember. I don't buy dollars. Uh, but yeah, most Argentinians buy dollars. Um, the thing, the funny thing about Argentina, Argentina is that we have different, uh, Values for different kinds of US dollar. So if you want to use your credit card to pay for Netflix, let's say, you pay what is commonly known as the, well, let's say streaming dollar or Netflix dollar, which is the official dollar plus taxes that make it really similar to the blue dollar, you know? Then, uh, there was one thing that recently Coldplay came to, uh, to do some concerts in Argentina. And they also, that created another dólar, which was, uh, popularly known as dólar Coldplay, which was like a tax for the, for the people buying tickets to that concert, you know? It's like different kinds of dollars appear because they cannot really do it at the official rate because that's too cheap. But it's the way to, to compensate for that and to make it more similar to the real price, which is the blue dollar, you know? Um, yeah. So if you come to Argentina, I suggest that you, well, you, you'll find something when you come to Argentina. You'll find that everything is really cheap if you are from the US or maybe Europe. Well, if you do things right, it can be cheaper because you're probably using your credit card and that's using the, uh, official price of the, um, of the dollar. And that's a lie and they are stealing from you. You should find out how to get physical pesos for your dollars and Get a serious, like a real price, like the illegal price. Let's say it out loud, you know, the black market price, so that you get your the most out of your money. So yeah, I had some coworkers from the U.S. from my regular job tell me that they went, they came here and they didn't know all this, and they just wasted. a lot of money because they didn't know and they, they used their credit cards and yeah, they didn't get the most of it. So yeah, I, I, this is my PSA, my public service announcement. Just that. That's,

that's amazing. I, I knew none of that. Like, so, so basically they're, they're forking the, the shitcoin dollar into different versions of,

yeah, I mean,

and putting on a premium.

Yes. I mean, it's like their way to adapting to the, that egregious policy. It's like, it's unsustainable, but they make, by adding more patches, they make it work, you know? But even, I believe what the consequence, the consequences of this is that there are some people do like buy some things or services. that get benefited by certain dollars when in reality we should all be doing the same, using the same dollar price, which is the, the black market one, you know? But yeah, until they, if they don't unban people from buying more than $200, that's not going to happen. And there's going to be a discrepancy between the official price and the, the real price. I'm really sorry if I didn't explain it well. I, I mean, if there's an Argentinian here, please correct me, uh, in the comments or whatever. But yeah, um, it's, it's a mess. I think it's, it's quite interesting though. It's like, this will be really entertaining for Austrian economists because it's, it's the market, the market acting out of like, it's the grass that grows through mortar, you know? It's like, It finds a way, you know, it's an interesting way. It's not the most efficient, but it's the way that you allowed it to grow, you know? And that's how we survive, you know?

Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's like all, all these, uh, colors that you want to put on the money or the market, like black market, gray market, blue dollar, whatever, they're political constructs. And in reality, in true reality, there's only market. There's only one market. And there's actors that the market is comprised of that act in their best interests in order to alleviate their felt uneasiness by taking action. And you, it's unstoppable. Like, yeah, that doesn't matter what your credentials are. Doesn't matter. what your title is and how much you, you, um, point your gun at people, people are going to find a way. Life is gonna find a way, like in Jurassic Park.

Yeah. I mean, like, I believe it's all free markets in the sense of if you don't really care about the law, you find a way, you know, if it is worth it, if you're analyze risks and the reward, you might find that not following the law, it's worth it, is worth it. So yeah, that's the way the market found to some solution that just, that, that's a solution that the market found to some problem, you know? And yeah, I, I, it's going back to SafeMoon, it's really funny when I hear stories about, uh, Lebanon, you know, because it's like, I, I can totally see my country in those stories. It's like the, uh, I, I heard him talking about one, he was talking about how electricity was subsidized and how it would, it would work during the day. They were on all day, but they would turn off during the night because it was impossible to meet the demand, you know? But during the day it was cheap and it was possible. for the government to actually make it so that there was light on the streets. But yeah, it's like that, those silly things that arise from like very repressed markets, let's say. It's not like you could see it as go— yes, that's the outcome of government intervention. Yes, it's one way of doing it, but I also see that that's the market doing its best to survive. Sometimes it gets killed. It's like it gets totally ruined, you know, you don't get anything. But most of the time, I like seeing the beauty of how well the market works in spite of all the regulations and problems that we put, uh, that we create by intervening with that process.

Yeah, that's, that's, uh, well put. And, and like, look, you know, it's not always the case that these regulators and, uh, these people who interject and, and bother us with their rules and regulations, it's not like they're necessarily evil or they're, they have mal intent or bad intentions. Oftentimes it's just gross incompetence and naivety, right? I mean, I know that Saifedean is a proponent of monarchy over democracy, certainly myself as well. And I think one reason is that, I don't remember who said this, but it's really well put that, you know, a tyrant, if you have a tyrant, he rests every once in a while and stops oppressing you because he gets bored or tired. But a person who truly, from the goodness of their heart, from the bottom of their heart, believe that they're helping people, they will never leave you alone. So there will be regulation after regulation and intervention after intervention if they truly believe that that's what they're doing is helping people. And I think this is an even bigger problem, you know, this naivety and incompetence that you would think that you can control the market or that you, the audacity of, of thinking that you can overrule market that is composed of countless individuals and, and, uh, different wants and needs. But there, I, I'm, I'm sure some people actually believe that. And, and those are the people that they will never cease bothering you because they really think that they're helping you.

Yeah.

That's why, why educating about this, uh, free market principles And, um, um, uh, proper economic theory, which is Austrian economics, praxeology, you know, first principles thinking instead of just, uh, reacting and having these knee-jerk reactions to what, oh, there's a fire. Okay, now I'm going to put it out and then, you know, I'm going to fix this and put some tape and glue on it. And then, uh, something else blows up because you created pressure here. And the circus keeps going on and all you have to do is leave the people alone.

Yeah. And then it, then the arguments like, no, you wouldn't get it. It's too complex. Like the Keynesian economists say, you know, it's like, if you, if you really study economic theory, it's, I wouldn't say it's not that hard. I would just, I would just say. Don't make it, don't try to make it complex when it isn't, you know? I

mean, economics is only complex if you think that you can control the markets.

Yes.

Like if that, that's when it gets complicated. If you accept the fact and the axiom that the markets, in fact, they are extremely complex, so much so that there's no way, there's no computer or brain that could possibly be able to simulate it. If you accept that, then, uh, it becomes simple again. And that's Austrian economics.

Yes, you're right. That's a great way of describing it.

Great story. That's, I really enjoyed that.

Okay. I, I, I was, I was like, okay, I should learn some stats about my country. And then I was like, we have something called dollar Coldplay that Must be put in the story, you know?

Yeah, holy shit. Like, I like how how is that a thing and how didn't didn't I hear about

that? Yeah, it's like and also dollar Qatar after the World Cup because if you bought because it's like there's a dollar for credit card and then if you exceed a certain amount then you go towards you are in the dollar Qatar zone. It's like that. Tax brackets, you know. And in the dollar Qatar zone, if you buy, it's called Qatar because it was the World Cup recently. The World Cup was held recently. And yeah, people just, Argentinians just wanted to go there. It doesn't matter if they had enough savings, they found a way. And yeah, it's a way to Tax people that just wanted to use their credit cards and go there. I mean, I'm sorry if I'm getting some details wrong. I'm sorry, I didn't really— I'm not into saving in dollars, so I don't really know much. But yeah, I might drop in the comments a correction if I— and if I if I find something wrong with what I, what I just said after the podcast is over, you know?

But yeah. Any resources you can drop, any links at all that will be helpful, we can just put in the description. I'm sure like this is really good material and something that you don't hear every day. So I'm sure some of the viewers are gonna be interested in digging a little bit deeper in this. So if you have those, please provide.

Yeah, I will drop a link.

Awesome. Anything else to add?

No, I think that was it. That was the most interesting I can get.

You can get plenty interesting.

I mean, there was another thing, but it was an old thing that arose Like this example of the market arising and is, uh, something women would, a service women provided in Argentina due to a tax that existed. It's like there was something called the bachelor tax in Argentina. And this is something I didn't find because I was Argentinian. I found it on like Twitter. And in a, like, I call it international Twitter, not Argentinian Twitter. And I think it was in Wikipedia. Uh, it's, it was called the bachelor tax. And as you may, uh, guess, it's like if you don't get married, you will get taxed, you know? But how does that, how did that work? Because it's like they were compre— They, the government back then were more comprehensive, let's say, of males because it's like, it's not like getting married is easy for, let's say, incels or people not so, uh, beautiful, you know, handsome. So they had a, like a, a, a tiny, like, exception in which they went, okay, if you At least try, we are not going to tax you, you know? And it's, it's, it's amazing because it's like nowadays you would be just like, nah, you get taxed, outta, for being a virgin, let's say, fuck it. You know, you don't get a girlfriend, you get taxed. But, uh, but back then it was like, no, no, it's okay if you try. So there were women who would sell their services as women that you would propose to and they would reject. Mm-hmm.

No, is that a real thing?

Yes, they, they re— I mean, I, I found it in Wikipedia. I'm not that old, but if it's, if it's there, I, I, I can't believe that happening. I, I choose to believe. We have a saying in Argentina, uh, we choose to believe. We don't have the facts sometimes, but we choose to believe.

Right. I mean, it wouldn't surprise me, to be honest. Like, that's, that's exactly the kind of, uh, government solution. to a problem that never existed. That is how I find it completely believable. That's hilarious. That's what it is at least.

Yeah. And it, it's nice seeing how government in a baby state will be like, you know what? You are right. We're not being like, we, we're not being coherent. It's like, we shouldn't tax you if you are trying your best, you know? So yes, let you try your best. And yeah, it's like, It's like that, uh, was it like, it's like an example of a policy that goes backwards, you know? Uh, they wanted, in some government wanted to reduce the amount of snakes that they were in the wild, so they would put a price on snake heads. And then of course snake, uh, ranches were created. It's like, okay, I'm going to breed snakes to get money. And that didn't solve the problem, you know? It's like, yeah, no.

Amazing. Amazing. And yeah, yeah, like that's a, that's a great example of adding complexity where complexity doesn't need to exist. Like for example, the fact that, okay, we need to find a way to tax people more, right? So we come up with these elaborate schemes, they blow up, then we come up with other schemes to cover up the blowup. And in the, in the, in the beginning, if you just accepted the axiom that stealing is wrong, you know, non-consensual confiscation of funds at the threat of violence is wrong, so you shouldn't do that at all. Again, things become much more simple. But no, once you go that complexity rabbit hole, it just adds complexity over complexity until it completely collapses.

Well, that, that was it for me. I, I don't have anything else.

All right. This has been the Starfish Cast. Let's, let's start to wrap it up. Thank you for everybody for tuning in. Thank you, Gonzalo, once again to joining in and your, all the work that you do. My name is Niko. You can catch me on Twitter, OmniFinNN at the end. Check out Twitter, ConsensusN, and join our Telegram group, which is a public group. Consensus Network. I guess that's the majority of it. Do you wanna, do you wanna share your Twitter profile, Cons?

It's also Gonan Edogawa. So yeah, that's it.

Right. Excellent. Thank you. And we'll see you next time.

Thank you, Niko. See you next time.