Hola amigos,
Greetings from D.C.
This post focuses on big events and proof of work.
Let’s dive right in.
Topic list:
Economía Bitcoin
Ron Paul’s 90th birthday
Fiat mining progress
Hormozi book launch masterclass
Bitcoin price action
Bitcoin in D.C.
Still bullish on El Salvador
Economía Bitcoin
In most of my recent posts, I’ve saved this section for last. This time, I’m leading with it.
Why?
Because we made MAJOR progress.
The speaker list is filling up… and it’s gonna be incredible.
Multiple circular Bitcoin economies throughout Latin America will be represented in Berlín.
Multiple entrepreneurs building tools for Bitcoin as a Medium Of Exchange agreed to speak on panels. Multiple up-and-coming podcasters agreed to host these panels.
And last but not least…
Some key headliners confirmed!
Two in particular are a huge deal.
I won’t say their names quite yet — those announcements start on September 1st, when we raise ticket prices — but if you pay attention to Bitcoin, you’ll know from these hints: they’re the first two people to ever speak about Bitcoin on mainstream media, all the way back in 2010… they’re now advisors to President Bukele.
The total X follower count of people who have agreed to speak at our event in Berlín is well over a million.
Of course, that metric doesn’t mean everything. Sure, it’s kinda superficial. But it’s nonetheless a strong indicator that Round 2 will be even bigger than last year.
And this time, we actually know what we’re doing!
Last year’s debut event was successful to a degree that surprised even us. For the first couple months of planning, nobody committed. Even two weeks before the big day, we only expected around 100 attendees.
The final result ended up more than doubling expectations: 223 people!
A lot of the feedback we received was incredibly positive. We also made some rookie mistakes, so we’ve taken the constructive criticism into account. For example, lunch won’t have such a slow line again. Talks will be spaced out better, across two half days instead of cramming 30 speakers into one.
Another great suggestion from Mike Peterson, founder of Bitcoin Beach, was that Charlie and I should lean into our youthful energy and make the side events more of a festival experience.
Lots of Bitcoin conferences exist in major cities at fancy convention centers. Most of them are only focused on the “Store of Value” aspect, often featuring Wall Street investors and politicians. Copy-paste vibe, increasingly full of “suitcoiners.”
I’ve tried to set accurate expectations this time by emphasizing that Berlín is not Berlin… or Paris, or London, or D.C., or New York.
It’s the mountains of rural El Salvador. But that’s not a bad thing.
It’s a beautiful setting, immersed in Bitcoin adoption. And the locals love a good party! We’re creating a unique experience in Berlín that fiat cities can’t replicate.
More detailed announcements are coming soon.
If you already trust our vision though… you’ll like this.
Today is my birthday, but you don’t need to get me a gift. In fact, I decided to give you guys one.
Today is also Bitcoin “Infinity Day”:
8/21 = everything / 21 million Bitcoins
So we decided to give a special discount!
Early bird tickets have been priced at 65,000 sats. We already sold some at this level, and we’re raising it once we start announcing speakers.
But for anyone who buys on this holiday, you can get your ticket for just 21,000 sats. Available only today.
This is the best deal we’ll ever offer. If you’re thinking about coming anyway, you might as well buy the dip. Prices will 3x again tomorrow, and increase even more on September 1st.
Ron Paul’s 90th birthday
Speaking of sound money events…
I had major FOMO from missing this.
Ron Paul just turned 90 years old. There was a big BBQ party two Saturdays ago to celebrate near his home outside Houston, Texas.
Unfortunately I wasn’t able to make it in person, but I watched the entire event’s livestream.
It looked like a special experience in honor of a man who is adored by virtually everyone throughout all the separate factions of the liberty movement.
And the coolest part?
Ron Paul didn’t organize it. It wasn’t even his idea.
The venue was filled to capacity, and the total follower count of the speakers was easily several million.
That list included all of the biggest libertarian podcasters (including one who is going on Rogan yet again this weekend), current and former congressmen, and even the current Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.
How did Ron Paul make such a big impact? Why did so many influential people come to honor him?
The man spent decades earning our respect by consistently telling the truth.
He educated people about fiat currency and sound money, even when the masses called him crazy. He stood up for freedom and peace, even when it was unpopular. Even when he was booed by hostile crowds at Presidential debates and mocked by all of the corporate press.
Day after day, year after year.
Persistence paid off.
Ron Paul never wavered in his conviction… and decades later, it built up a movement that is finally changing the world.
Many of the most prominent right wing influencers now openly acknowledge that Ron Paul was right about basically everything.
President Trump even copied much of his foreign policy and turned the Republican Party relatively antiwar.
And most importantly, his book “End the Fed” inspired many people — including myself — to get involved with Bitcoin as a viable sound money alternative to liberate the world from the evils of central banking.
Long live Ron Paul.
It wasn’t easy, but his persistence led the antiwar and sound money movements to become bigger than ever.
Fiat mining progress
Sales jobs are NOT for the faint of heart.
That’s especially true for “high ticket” sales.
I started my new role a month ago in a cohort of six people. Two didn’t even last a full week. Two others dropped out a couple weeks later. The other still hasn’t closed his first sale.
But last week, I finally did!
Another customer also signed a Letter of Intent, and I have several other promising prospects in my pipeline now… but it’s been far from easy. Not many individuals have the money ready to move forward immediately with five figure deals.
I finally found one though.
Even that was tough to close. I almost lost the deal at two separate stages. But persistence paid off.
Five figures.
It’s the biggest sale I’ve ever done so far. And now that I’ve settled into the role, I’ll keep putting in the work to make sure it’s just the first of many.
After all, I’ve barely scratched the surface of what I know is possible. Speaking of which…
Hormozi’s $100 million day
If you don’t consume much business-related content online, you probably haven’t heard of Alex Hormozi. But if you do, you’ve seen him everywhere.
The launch of his third book this past Saturday (“$100 Million Money Models”) was the pinnacle of this phenomenon.
It shattered the Guinness World Record for most nonfiction books sold on their launch day. Prince Harry was number one of all time with 1.4 million copies… until Hormozi nearly doubled that record, ending Saturday just shy of 2.8 million.
By the end of day three, that grew to 3.5 million copies of a $29 book. That’s over $100 million, not even counting the backend revenue for his consulting upsell.
“$100 Million Money Models” pulled off a $100 million launch.
How did Hormozi beat British royalty, both Obamas, George Bush, and every other nonfiction writer?
How did he break the top five in history for ANY type of book, only behind the final three in the Harry Potter series?
It wasn’t an accident.
Years of persistence paid off.
Hormozi went from anonymous to millions of followers on YouTube and other social media platforms. And unlike many influencers, he actually walked the walk before talking the talk.
At 23 years old, he left a management consultant job to start his first business, a gym. Bootstrapping it with his own savings forced him to learn sales and marketing to survive.
After successfully scaling from one to six gyms — nearly going bankrupt twice along the way — some advice from marketing legend Russell Brunson led Hormozi to switch to a consulting and licensing model, showing other gym owners how to grow their own businesses.
That’s when the Hormozi journey took off.
Within four years, Gym Launch and his supplements company EACH had 8 figure revenue annually. He also started a software company for customer acquisition (aka sales and marketing) metrics.
By age 31, he sold all three to achieve a net worth over $100 million.
That’s when he and his wife Leila started their current company Acquisition.com. Unlike traditional Private Equity firms, Hormozi paired the core business with a media empire that pumps out an insane amount of business videos and podcasts.
His free content blows most paid courses out of the water, and he gives it all away for a transparent reason: helping more entrepreneurs scale to $3 million annual revenue creates more deal flow of companies that he can invest in and scale even bigger.
And why do I care?
Nobody’s perfect. I don’t idolize him like I do with Ron Paul.
But his story is inspiring… somewhat relatable to me (unhappy in a white collar career, switching to the riskier path of sales and entrepreneurship, just without a detour into liberty activism)… and most importantly, his content has directly helped me earn more in my fiat mining jobs.
A lot of marketers downplay Hormozi, but four things really set him apart in my opinion:
His range of fundamental knowledge across all facets of business
His superb talent for articulating concepts
His absolutely insane work ethic
His mastery of SALES in particular
Most of the business content I’ve consumed over the past year has been about sales. That’s my new career path, so I’ve listened to ALL of the most well known experts.
Hormozi is easily top three on that topic. When I started my first sales job, I listened to this 4 hour compilation of his best sales content at least 10 times on 1.75 speed:
It’s no accident that I went from no formal sales experience to Top 20 out of several hundred reps nationwide within three months. Hormozi has directly helped me earn close to a six figure pace in my first year.
And I’m not alone.
That’s a huge part of why $100 Million Money Models earned $100 million in just three days.
Hormozi put in the proof of work with years of top quality free content. It paid off for his audience, so when the day came and he launched a worthy offer, they made sure it paid off for him.
If you’re curious, the audiobook is already available for free on his podcast. But people bought millions of physical copies anyway because he’s provided so many of us with so much more value than he charged.
He put in proof of work for years.
His persistence paid off massively.
Bitcoin price action
As usual, this is a short term roller coaster.
Last week brought another new All Time High! Then it dipped back down from $124k to $113k…
The M2 correlation, at least for now, hasn’t held up. We haven’t seen the explosive rise past $150k yet that many Bitcoiners expected.
But that’s fine with me.
I’m still stacking. My first commission check just arrived at the perfect time for me to buy the dip!
Bitcoin has always been volatile in the short run. In the long run, it consistently outperforms every other asset.
And the Fed’s rate cuts haven’t even started yet.
A lot of the stock market also dipped recently. August is well known as a difficult month anyway for investing with so many people on vacation.
But the conditions still exist for the bull run to continue. Big institutions continue to buy massive amounts, now including Harvard for $116 million of a Bitcoin ETF.
And just like organizing a conference… or spreading liberty ideas… or starting a new career in sales… or building a business empire…
Volatility = opportunity
Persistence pays off for people who stack sats long term.
Bitcoin in D.C.
I’m already close to 2000 words for this post, so I’ll keep this part really short.
The D.C. Bitcoiners meetup continues to grow. Two weekends ago, we went to that Sunday farmers market in Dupont Circle again.
This time, we recorded some street interviews asking people basic questions about their economic awareness. We got some good footage, and I’ll include that in another Substack post whenever it’s published.
We also onboarded another merchant!
The world won’t switch from the scourge of fiat currency back to sound money overnight… but one merchant at a time, the Bitcoin Economy continues to grow.
I haven’t made any money from any of this kind of effort by the way. Last year I did all of that work for the debut Economía Bitcoin entirely for free. Using sound money as actual money also still incurs capital gains tax.
This is my Ron Paul side, inspiring more good in the world, not my Hormozi side.
But it is fulfilling, so I continue to do it anyway. Every new merchant with self-custody Bitcoin brings the world that I want to see closer to reality.
Persistence pays off.
Still bullish on El Salvador
The big theme of this post has been persisting through periods of struggle.
“Struggle” certainly pertains to how many people perceive El Salvador right now.
I recently had dinner with my non-Bitcoiner aunt. The “Bukele = dictator” narrative is still widespread, so she was shocked to hear that I’m going back there soon.
Stories about my surfing lessons and friends there helped, but even though it’s the safest country in all of the Americas, it’s still widely perceived as risky.
Even among Bitcoiners, a lot of people lost faith in Bitcoin Country after the IMF loan.
I’m not giving up though.
Before I first moved to El Salvador two years ago in August 2023, I listened to a lot of podcasts from people there, and one line still sticks out to me:
“Bitcoin in El Salvador won’t fail because Bitcoiners won’t let it fail”
Despite all of the FUD, many Bitcoiners — expats and Salvadorians alike — continue to do amazing work there.
Merchant adoption is higher than ever:
It still has the most Bitcoiners per capita.
It still has more Bitcoin educational initiatives than anywhere else on earth.
It still has a lot of Bitcoin entrepreneurs doing great work.
And it’s still a beautiful country with beautiful people.
Some people refuse to see the progress. That’s their problem. Amazing things are still happening in El Salvador, and we’re creating a special experience in Berlín this November to showcase the best of what’s possible in that environment.
The speaker lineup is coming together well. Some tickets have already sold, and I’m more confident than last time about people FOMOing in at the last minute to make this year’s event even bigger.
And we’ll be ready to put together an unforgettable weekend for everyone who wants to celebrate the life-changing impact of Bitcoin adoption.
You don’t have to buy me a birthday present, but I do hope you come to our big party this November.
If you’re seriously considering it anyway, now’s the time to decide.
The only thing that’s more scarce than Bitcoin is the amount of time this two-thirds discount will be available.
P.S.
I’m not joking. That discount link expires at the end of today.
So for anyone who sees this post in the future, here’s the normal ticket link where you can buy the same experience for more than 3x the holiday discount price.
Happy Birthday!!!! I am so sorry to miss the conference this year. I can see the back of my head in the photo you posted from last year. I highly recommend it. I am so glad I went. I hope to make the next one. Thanks for the great posts. I heard the guy you write about. I spent a year in a business group with Joe Polish and he was in it. I remember his story about the gyms…and how they changed their business strategy. I imagine you in that group at some point. You have the drive and passion of the people I met there.