. 32 min read

Bitcoin Energy Usage and Hardware Wallets – Josef Tětek

In this episode of Cryptonews Podcast, Matt Zahab interviews Josef Tětek, Brand Ambassador at Satoshi Labs, inventors behind the Trezor cryptocurrency wallet. They talk about bitcoin mining, energy usage, seed phrase security, central bank digital currencies, and much more.

Episode timestamps:

0:00 Intro 
0:59 Being on a Keto diet 
3:15 Bitcoin mining's energy usage 
9:43 Bitcoin mining 
15:10 Trezor & Satoshi Labs 
24:34 Crazy stories about seed phrases 
31:49 When should someone get a wallet? 
34:11 CBDCs 
37:48 How to hedge against inflation 
41:27 Rapid fire questions 
44:49 Outro

The episode premiered on May 7, 2021.

Episode transcript:

Matt Zahab: 0:08

Ladies and gentlemen, today's guest is a Bitcoin veteran with a background in Austrian economics and political philosophy. This man has a passion for Bitcoin education and a true lover of the keto diet. In the morning, you can find him mowing down on bacon and eggs alongside a big black coffee with a stick of butter inside. He's an absolute lover. This gentleman is also the author of two books, Bitcoin separation of money and state, and enemies of state friend and liberty. Present day, he's a Twitter guru and brand ambassador at Trezor, the world's original crypto hardware wallet, which was invented by the team at Satoshi labs. I'm pleased to welcome to the crypto news podcast Josef Tetek. Josef, welcome to the show, my friend.

Josef Ttek: 0:55

Hi, thanks for the invitation.

Matt Zahab: 0:58

You're very welcome. How was, gotta jump right into it, how was your morning coffee with the stick of butter this morning?

Josef Ttek: 1:05

Yeah, it was pretty good. I try it. Sometimes I use just butter. Sometimes I use ghee, the clarified butter. Yeah. And it's very comfortable, as you said with the keto diet. So I like to just keep it low carb, because that's how you can achieve great focus, great level of energy. And just focus on what's important, like Bitcoin and stuff.

Matt Zahab: 1:35

I love that. What did you get on the keto diet?

Josef Ttek: 1:36

It's quite recent, maybe September 2020. of when I write like some stuff. So from Paul Saladino and Shaun Baker, I would recommend everyone to follow these guys and give a give a read of their books. And it's been great ever since. Like, I always thought, my energy levels are like my own personal problem, but it's just an inappropriate diet, basically. So if you go for a low carb keto diet, you can majorly increase your energy levels and focus in such so it's great for everyone who wants to be productive.

Matt Zahab: 2:22

I completely agree. I've tried it myself right now I am consuming carbs. Just I'm trying to bulk a little bit I'm a bit of a milk bag right now haven't haven't really, you know, been working a lot definitely haven't been taken the type of care that I should be in regards to my body. But what about fasting ever mixing any fasting into the mix?

Josef Ttek: 2:41

Yeah, I do intermittent fasting 16, eight, or 18 six, about two or three times a week. And I like to finish that with a nice bowl of beef, basically, like, I like to slow cook my biscuits. So that's the, I really love those days when I'm fasting for 18 hours. And then I finish with like two pounds of beef. That's really good.

Matt Zahab: 3:15

That sounds tasty. That sounds absolutely tasty. I've been really excited for this one. You and your company, Satoshi labs and furthermore, Trezor, have done some incredible work in the space. And we will jump into that later. But before we do I want to touch on an article that you wrote a couple days ago for Earth Day. This was a special article on trezors medium page that you wrote and it was titled the ecological impact of mining. Well, it was actually titled Why bitcoins energy use will not destroy the planet. I took a deep dive into this. You also referenced a couple quotes and articles from Nick Carter, one of the Bitcoin goats, who is you know, done a lot of work in this space. I would love if we could start off by you telling our guests a little bit more about the farce of Bitcoin energy usage and how it really isn't that bad for the planet.

Josef Ttek: 4:11

Sure. So the article was written as a kind of tribute to Nick Carter because I really respect the work he's putting in and just great. But one maybe tiny problem with Nick Carter is he's writing really deep dives into the topics. So just in the past like six weeks zero to three really long articles on the mining so I wanted to shorten it a little bit and make it like accessible for everyday reader. So it's a sort of TLDR of Nick Carter's arguments. Why Bitcoin isn't going to destroy the planet and like the gist of it is the critics are really just looking at the surface of the problem of Bitcoin mining. They are just printing out, Bitcoin is using a lot of energy and then they extrapolate on that. What if Bitcoin is used 10 or 100 times more likely to consume 10 or 100 times more energy, which is like the first error in our thinking, because you cannot actually extrapolate today's energy consumption to tomorrow's possible volume of transactions, just Bitcoin just doesn't work like that. So, you, as I say, you have to understand what you're extrapolating. And there is no power transaction or energy cost in Bitcoin, because the energy cost comes from two blocks themselves. So yeah, that's like, one sort of it. And I think the most important thing about Bitcoin mining case, Bitcoin miners are always looking for the cheapest source of energy. And the cheapest source of energy is an energy that would otherwise be wasted, or unused. And if you look at like the real world what the Bitcoin miners are doing is they are, for example, using natural gas at Oryx, and using the natural gas that would otherwise be vented or flared, as an energy source for Bitcoin miners. And actually, this is much more ecological. If you use the natural gas as a combustion engine, and use it as a source of energy, then flaring the gas or just venting it into the atmosphere, because natural gas is mostly methane. So it's really bad for the planet. And using it as a green source of energy is much, much better and Bitcoin is the greatest incentive to look for device to utilize these stranded sources of energy. So basically, you have to just understand what you're talking about when it comes to Bitcoin mining. And you have to look at the real world data to understand how Bitcoin actually affects ecology.

Matt Zahab: 7:44

Can you take a little deep dive into the difference of on grid energy versus off grid energy?

Josef Ttek: 7:50

Yeah, so the on grid energy, let's say there's a power plant that's connected to the National Grid so it's cool. But sometimes there's a mismatch between the supply and demand for energy. This can happen with like fossil fuel power plants, like coal power plants, or it can happen with renewables. So if the demand is slow, you cannot actually shut off the power plant fast or if the production is high with like with renewables. When the wind is blowing, or the sun is shining, or there's the rainy season in China, you have to curtail these sources of energy. So it goes to waste. So basically, the problem also with on grid energy is, if you are in some remote location, it's expensive to send the energy to some faraway population center. And this is what's basically happening in China and why Bitcoin mining is still so so concentrated in China, because in the provinces, where Bitcoin is mined, mostly in China, they have these like large power sources, which are under utilized so the energy in there is pretty cheap. And Bitcoin miners are increasing the efficiency of energy production because they are taking the overproduction of... So enter the off grid energy. The off grid energy is basically this trended energy that's, for example, natural gas at oil rates, which would otherwise be flat or rented.

Matt Zahab: 9:43

Thank you for that. And how does how does a country like the United States of America or a continent like Europe or country like Canada, how would one of those get a leg up and really try to make some move in the space and catch up to China in regards to the Bitcoin mining that they are doing at the moment. Is that possible?

Josef Ttek: 10:02

I think it's already happening. I've seen

Matt Zahab: 10:02

Well, that's, I never really thought about it some numbers on who are the biggest clients for new async chips. And although, it's still mostly produced in China, the asyncs, the biggest clients are in I think North America. So that way. That's really thought provoking. A couple more it's it's already happening. And there are like multiple cooperatives emerging where the energy producers like local questions on the topic of Bitcoin mining and bitcoins power plants are entering partnerships with Bitcoin miners, because they see this potential for increased efficiency of energy production. So this is already happeni g. And since Europe is moving or the renewables in the coming ecade, and it's already been ha pening, of Bitcoin mining s something that can really elp there because renewab es have the problem with unpredi table production, basical y, that can easily oversho t the demand and Bitcoin miners an help with that they can con ume the energy when the energy energy use before we jump into the the bread and butter being s cheap when it's over produce . Satoshi labs and the Trezor wallets. Who are the organizations and the groups and the lobbyists that are really pushing this Bitcoin energy use narrative and how it's, you know, the worst thing ever for the environment? What groups are really pulling those strings?

Josef Ttek: 11:55

Hmm, that's a good question. I think like, some of it is part of a general misunderstanding of Bitcoin and distaste of Bitcoin as non state neutral currency or money. And so it's heavily pushed by journalists that either they don't do their homework, or they are intentionally trying to confuse the readers and give them some ammunition for criticism, which isn't necessarily fact based. We've seen this recently with the New York Times and Nick Carter's article, like the most recent one on ecology of mind, and this is a critique of the New York Times piece. And he just completely destroyed that because it was so full of errors. And I don't think like, the paper and the journalist didn't know it's full of errors, or that it's dishonest. I think they know better than that, and they can do your research. So we are part of it is definitely political. I would say.

Matt Zahab: 13:08

That it is a hot topic that, you know, I'm sure when the New York Times, post an article like that they definitely get a bunch of views as everyone and their cousins do care about Bitcoin, and especially the ecological impact. I guess last thing on the Bitcoin energy usage, and I've heard a lot of different stories about this, let's talk about the recent drop in bitcoin price. I know a lot of that was attributed to the power grid going off in that city in China, that really made the hash rate, take a plunge, and that obviously affected the price of bitcoin. What's your take on that? And is that actually true? Or is that just a farce?

Josef Ttek: 13:47

Well, you know, every time Bitcoin drops or goes into array, you can always find some narrative that seems to fit it. I don't think it's that much related to the hash rate drop. Or if it was, the prices basically back where it was like a few weeks ago, so who knows? I think, like the short drop was a good experiment. Somebody described it as a natural experiment, which fits quite nicely. And we've seen that the free market works had a few rates shot up higher, and you had to pay if you wanted to get into the next block, which is how Bitcoin is supposed to work. And the incentive for the miners to rejoin or startup their new miners was much higher back then. So that's good. That's good. Yeah, I don't read that much into it. Like I never know when the price drops or rises on the short term was the cause. It's, you know, it's just more people are buying or selling at the moment. And they have their own reasons for it.

Matt Zahab: 15:10

Right, interesting. Let's, I really want to talk about Trezor and Satoshi labs as a whole. Not a lot of people know that Trezor is owned by Satoshi labs, the company that invented and created the Trezor which is probably the world's most famous hardware wallet, definitely a world class hardware wallet, and really pioneered the space. I love if you could give me a little full history lesson in regards to Trezor and Satoshi labs, and then we'll get into some of the nitty gritty.

Josef Ttek: 15:44

Sure. So yeah, Trezor is the world's first hardware wallet and it was invented by two guys Slush and Stick they are Czech and Slovak respectively. And Slush and stick were the early adopters of Bitcoin in like 2011. Slush, actually came up with the first mining tool, the Slush pool. So he's like a double inventor, he invented the mining and later on the Trezor and Slush and Stick were basically trying to solve the common problem because they were evangelizing Bitcoin to their friends early on, like this is years 2011 2012. And they found out there's no existing infrastructure for Bitcoin safekeeping, if you are like, non technical guy, because if you are a technical guy, you can securely boot up Linux laptop, or flash drive and search and keep it totally air gapped and store your bitcoins that way. But it wasn't doable if Bitcoin is going to take off. So they basically met at one Prague hackerspace, was called Bromley up. And they started working on the prototype for the hardware wallet. And one of the goals was, the hardware wallet has to be like a standalone device that should be usable by non technical guys and gals. And it also should be affordable, like it shouldn't be $1,000 or something. So like usable security has always been the goal for Trezor. And the first prototype was announced in 2012 on the Bitcoin talk forum. Later, in 2013, there was crowdfunding for the hope for the wallet. And first results were sent to consumers also in 2013. Yeah, one interesting thing, maybe about Trezor or and Satoshi Labs is it's completely privately owned by Slush and Stake. And there were never any venture capital investors just which allowed the founders to keep true to their vision to build the Trezor hardware wallet in an open source manner. And to make it usable and secure for everybody.

Matt Zahab: 18:31

Did the founders ever think that they would be pioneering the whole hardware wallet space? Or was this just like a, you know, we're gonna do this for the people as this is definitely a problem. And we have the solution to this problem. But did they ever think that they would be pioneering the whole industry?

Josef Ttek: 18:45

Well, I can really talk for themselves for them. But from what I know, they were hoping someone else would actually invent the hardware wallet, and they could just use it. Because Slush was focusing on focusing on the Slush pool. And, you know, there were just early bitcoiners, who wanted to do some other Bitcoin stuff. But since nobody was going to do that, they had to, like solve the problem they were facing. So I think it was like the best incentive, when you're making a product, you have to solve, like your own problem and the problem that you perceive and your friends, and some other people, and it's just natural to go from there because you know, what kind of problems you have to solve and what trade offs you can make and what kind of trade offs you cannot make and such, but I don't think there was actually any like ambition to become like the global hardware voice that came later on when actually It took off. And there was a real demand for standard open device to safekeep Bitcoin.

Matt Zahab: 20:07

It's so cool. Now when you look at the Trezor, and you see how many coins there are, I believe there are 1000 plus coins that you can hold on a Trezor, which is absolute crazy. You have the monochrome display, you have the full color touchscreen, you know the pin entry, the seed phrase, the device recovery, the whole nine yards, it literally has everything you could ask for. I understand that Trezor is also releasing the Trezor suite, along with a whole bunch of main features. Now this may be under the table, but can you tell me about any of those?

Josef Ttek: 20:41

Sure. Well, actually, there's always a fully open source. And that's not just from the hardware perspective, but from the software as well. And we actually have an open the roadmap, so we can take a look like what's coming in suite. And just to let you know, suite is going to be publicly launched on the Bitcoin 2021 conference in Miami, in June. So everything is going to be talked about in there. But the most interesting features of the suite are, which will be launched this year are the child pays for parent feature, which is very important, if you are facing higher fees nowadays, coin control should be also part of the suite later this year, which means you can select your utxo's for spending, which is very good from the privacy perspective. Suite also will come with Bitcoin full node capability. Because now you could of course, connect the altars or to your own full node. But like through electron, let's say not to the native app, but suite is going to come with the full capability and most users are probably going to use the full note. Coinjoin is also on the roadmap and the Android mobile app should also be be a part of that. And that's quite important to launch our own Android mobile app. Because right now, there are many fake phishing apps on the Google Play Store. And we are of course fighting against that. But you know, it's still a problem with these phishing caps. So we have to launch our own and just communicated clearly what is safe and what isn't safe. For now. There is no official Trezor mobile app that this should be set definitely

Matt Zahab: 23:05

Folks, you heard him, definitely take a look at the upcoming updates to the Trezor suite. We're going to take a quick break. This episode is brought to you by our dear friends at coinpoker, the world's premier crypto poker platform. Coinpoker is a revolutionary blockchain technology based platform that was developed by an ambitious team of poker players. Coinpoker uses USDT stable coin as the main in game currency and $CHP as ingame fuel, offering all benefits of the crypto world alongside. Coinpoker also features instant and secure transactions using USDT Ethereum Bitcoin or $CHP tokens and no KYC you heard that right no KYC. Coinpoker users get huge promotions as they give away 1000s in fiat each week. $CHP is the currency of the coinpoker economy, providing players with exclusive benefits and supports future developments delivered to the coinpoker community. My favorite part about coinpoker is the mobile app. When I'm on the go, I whip out my phone and play a couple hands of Texas Hold'em or bet on sports. They have an amazing sports book, really clean spreads, very clean UX, and an overall great time. If you'd like to check them out, go to coinpoker.com and give them a try. Now back to the show. Josef next topic I'd love to jump into is seed phrases. As you guys have done so much in that space, do you have any crazy stories about people forgetting seed phrases and just blowing up customer support trying to get it back somehow like any crazy million dollar loss stories?

Josef Ttek: 24:53

Well, yeah, unfortunately there are a lot of them. I don't probably go into any specifics. But you know, the biggest problem with seed phrases and making a backup of the seed is people trying to come up with their own, like security practices, like they write down the 24 words. And then they try to shuffle the ordering of the words and they think they can remember the or the new ordering. And like the aim is to confuse the potential thief but they end up mostly confusing themselves. So we sometimes see that, like, somebody shuffled their words, and they cannot remember the order, and they think the entropy isn't that large. But if you shuffle around 24 words, it's still pretty much unbreakable like to brute force attack. So nobody should do that. You should use, if you are going to, like strengthen your backup, you should use Shamir backup for that. And you should use passphrase but please don't do anything with the ordering of your seed or like miss some of the words or something like you write down just 23 words or something and that you're not going to remember the 24 this could be for still brute forcible but still view problem for you to access your Bitcoin that way. Yeah, so just follow the best practices what we are recommending, and use from Shamir backup, use the passphrase.

Matt Zahab: 26:45

I, me personally, I have mine written down in a couple of different notebooks. A friend of mine actually just sent me a seed secure and I can put that on steel if my house ever burns down, praying to the Lord, it does not but if my house burns down that paper will be toast and on the seed secure, which is in metal that will still be there. Again, that's pretty extremists. But can you tell me about Shamir backup, the recovery seed and passphrase?

Josef Ttek: 27:16

Sure, so yeah. You actually touched a little bit on that, if you have a simple seed written down, you basically are faced with a problem. Do you keep like one copy of it in your house? And if it burns down, it's gone? Or do you make multiple copies of that. So you have some redundancy. But you have a problem that somebody can find it and steal your coins. So Shamir basically solves for that, because you can create someredundancy by basically making multiple charts that can be interconnected later. And you can access your words this way. But if one of the charts is found, you are not compromised, your security is not compromised. Actually, like one of the most basic Shamir setups is three out of five, where you create five charts of, let's say, 20 words, and you have to combine three of them and it's any of those five charts. So if you combine three of them, you can access your piece later on. So that's much better from the security standpoint and just making five copies of your original receipt, because this could be used against you. So Shamir is, I guess, right now, the best way how to make a backup of your Bitcoin wallet, and you can do Shamir backups through Trezor D is the newer model. Trezor one so far doesn't have the capability of doing Shamir backups. And one of the important facts about the Shamir backup is it's an open standard. It was defined by slip 39, it's such a sharp improvement proposal 39. So if you do Shamir backups, you are not locking yourself into some closed ecosystem. If Satoshi labs went bankrupt, and there are no mortars, you could still recover your bitcoins on some other device that that follows the Shamir backup standard. And for example, Cobo vault is also supporting Shamir backup. So it's an open standard that other manufacturers are gradually adopting as well. I think it's important to remain open and transparent, and just increase the security of the whole industry, not just of our own devices. And the passphrase, yeah, that's also important. Because Trezor devices don't come with the secure element chips. That's totally intentional, because secure element chips are basically black boxes, where you cannot actually look inside what's going on. So if there's any vulnerability, you cannot know about that, if you find out some vulnerability in a secure chip, you cannot disclose that because they are under NDA. So you have to trust the manufacturer, and you cannot verify it, which goes against like the basic Bitcoin promise that you cannot trust, you have to verify everything. And Trezor is always based on this promise. So everything we do is open sourced, and secure elements just don't follow this practice. So instead of secure element, we have a passphrase. Because in the edge case, when somebody accesses your Trezor, under like very special circumstances with a high budget, they could access your seed on the device. But if you have the passphrase that is not stored on the device, it's basically your passwords for managing the pathway to the private keys that unlock your, all your bitcoins or cryptocurrencies. So passphrase, since it's not stored on the device is like the second level of protection for the physical attacks.

Matt Zahab: 31:49

Good to know. I know, this is a very tough question. And it's extremely contextual, but how do you recommend for a crypto rookie who has maybe started, you know, increasing his or her bag of alt coins, shit coins? And you know, some of the stable coins? And then of course, you have your Bitcoin, your so on and so forth. At what, you know, financial level, do you take those coins off of a hot wallet and bring it onto a cold wallet? Is there any industry best practice? Or is it strictly based on the user's comfort level?

Josef Ttek: 32:22

Well, I think if your portfolio is worth, like, $1,000, it's okay to buy Trezor by then. If you have like $100, it's probably okay to hold it somewhere else. But you know, as you as their portfolio value goes up, you should definitely think about securing it properly, which is in Trezor or in a hardware wallet, where you control your own keys where you can do the proper backup and such. One of like, problems is also for example, inheritance planning. If you hold like a large bag, on some exchange, or on some software wallet, and something happens to you, probably your family won't be able to access your back. I would say it's something that people don't think about that much, because usually they're young and healthy and everything. But it's a problem with Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies, because you just have to have the access to use private keys. And if you don't write like a concrete guide for your loved ones, and I think Shamir is a good fit for that, then they simply won't have access to that. Yep.

Matt Zahab: 33:54

That's a Yeah, no one ever wants to think about potentially getting whacked by a bus. But I guess that's something you have to think about, especially when you have hundreds of 1000s or sometimes millions and the odd whales were billions in their and their crypto wallets. Definitely thoughtful. I'd love to move forward and talk about cbdcs Central Bank digital currencies. I know you've written a couple pieces on this and talked about this, you have a very interesting take on cbdcs It seems like the industry is almost split in half. A lot of people think it's great for Bitcoin Ethereum and the bigger boys and a lot of people think that it might cause a little bit of a shit show. I'd love to hear your take on that.

Josef Ttek: 34:32

Yeah, well cbdcs probably are good for Bitcoin, but they are definitely not good for liberty and private property. Because if we take a look at what are the proposals, especially in China, where if you had like this retail cbdc that ordinary people will earn and spend, it can come with an expiration date. So you receive $100, and you have to spend it in 30 days, you cannot save it, you cannot repay your debts with it, you cannot invest it, you just have to spend it on some stupid shit like some consumption. And such entity, if you like, have bigger problems than that if you have to save up or repay your debts, it's just a crazy amount of social engineering. And the other proposal that's, like, advocated as like cbdcs, are going to be programmable. So we can do like any type of monetary policy stuff in it. But this just means social engineering can. Another type of that is that cbdcs would be just sector specific. Meaning you wouldn't be able to, like buy bitcoin with the stimulus, or pay down your debt with the stimulus, you will be only able to, for example, buy groceries with the stimulus. And, like, that's interesting, because with debt approach, fiat money is actually losing the property of money. Like it's universally accepted. It's fungible, and such. So if cbdcs are introduced in these, like dystopian kind of ways. It's, I guess, it's good for Bitcoin, because bitcoins monetary qualities are heavily accented by that. But it would be very bad for like ordinary people that have to earn a wage, they have to get some kind of welfare from the state, maybe because the state prohibits them from working like to some COVID policies. So it's really like dystopian, but, you know, there are basically two types of cbdcs. There's the wholesale cbdc, which will replace the bank reserves with the central banks. And that's not really disruptive and not really interesting, I think. And then there's the retail cbdc, which will actually replace coins and notes and bank accounts. It will basically disintermediate commercial banks, so it would probably be a heavy blow for the banking sector. And we should be afraid of like, the monetary shenanigans that would come with that. Like what I said, basically central bank could do anything with your money and it wouldn't be your money anymore.

Matt Zahab: 37:48

That's again, wow, I've never really heard of the whole wholesale versus retail aspect that before. Another thing touching on the inflation points, and I know you're a big advocate of this is the sort of low key inflation that's happening all over the world, especially in the States right now. I'm in Florida, and even just being here back in January, and being here now in end of April, the price of everything has very quickly gone up the price of you know toilet paper, paper towel, bananas, apples, you name it, the everyday things are going up by cents, and the quantity is going down. Besides Bitcoin and a couple other cryptocurrencies, what do you recommend for the average consumer to sort of hedge inflation?

Josef Ttek: 38:34

Yeah well, one important feature of inflation is pricing. Prices are just one of the possible ways how inflation can basically happen. The other possibility is the short inflation, as you mentioned, like toilet papers have a fewer. I don't know how to say like, fewer shots

Matt Zahab: 39:01

Fewer pieces less shitter tickets,

Josef Ttek: 39:04

Yeah. And like the packages are getting smaller, and like, bottles are getting smaller, and such. So that's sure inflation and it's actually preferable by the manufacturers to keep the retail price and just shrink the packaging and shrink the contents. And the third option is what I call like corrupflation, where you lower the quality of the products. And yeah, like if you have chocolate bars, what happens over the years is they are getting smaller because of inflation, but they also have lower, like cocoa powder content and more sugar and more.

Matt Zahab: 39:52

More fillers.

Josef Ttek: 39:52

More fillers. Yeah. So that's how inflation happens as well. When it comes to hedging against inflation, I think Bitcoin is still the best long term hedge against that. And what's also good is like having the skill set, not being a total corporate slave wage, because you can find out that you're redundant and replaceable. Yeah, and that's the other problem with the pressure to increase the minimum wages, and like making the labor laws more hard to follow by the manufacturers, that people are getting priced out from the market by the robots or some software solutions in such. So you should always build in a unique skill set. And Sandra said you should invest in education, not speculation. You should view Bitcoin as a hedge against inflation as a long term savings, not as a speculative instrument for some short term gain. And besides that, besides saving in Bitcoin, you should just build your own unique skill set.

Matt Zahab: 41:13

I love that line, invest in education over inflation. I don't think I've ever heard that you got a patent that.

Josef Ttek: 41:19

Over speculation. Yeah.

Matt Zahab: 41:21

Yeah. Invest in education over speculation that was it. I love that. Josef, this has been incredible. A couple more rapid fire questions before we finish up here. What is going to happen first Bitcoin at 100k or Ethereum at 5k?

Josef Ttek: 41:36

I'd go with Bitcoin

Matt Zahab: 41:37

Bitcoin at 100k. And when will Bitcoin hit 100k?

Josef Ttek: 41:41

Oh, well it can be like, next month, or it's gonna be a year from now? Well, I don't like these short term price predictions, you know, it's going to get there. And I think Bitcoin is going to reach the gold market cap parity, which is like 600k I think right now. And like in today's world, it's absurd to think Bitcoin should be priced lower than gold, because Bitcoin has much better monetary qualities than gold. And all the gold has going for it is basically the Lindy effect that it's been used for 1000s of years. But Bitcoin is much better as money. Yeah, so it's going to happen. But you know, you should be happy if Bitcoin falls, because then you can stake more sets and tha 's good for your future. Yea . So just be patient and sta e sets and, you know, be pro uctive in the meantime,

Matt Zahab: 42:44

Which of the G 20 countries will be the first to adopt a cbdc?

Josef Ttek: 42:49

Oh yeah, that's a tough one. I don't know. Like if China is in the G 20. If yes, is going to be China. If not, well, maybe it could be someone like UK because they are not part of Eurozone, I think things are going to move slowly in the Eu ozone. I think it's going to mov slowly for United States as wel . Like recently, I've seen a interesting paper from Swiss ational Bank that's writte by David charm, like the grandf ther of cryptocurrencies. So tha 's a pretty solid paper. And co pared to most cbdc propos ls, it's not built on blockc ain. And it comes with strong privacy features. So it will b very good if this cbdc will b the one to be launched and to e an example for the other ones. Yeah, so it's going to be China, I think from the major countrie is going to be China.

Matt Zahab: 44:01

Nice. And last question before you go. Will you be at the Bitcoin conference in Miami, and in a month or so

Josef Ttek: 44:10

I'm not going to be there personally. But two other guys from the shops from Trezor should be there to introduce and launch the Trezor suite. And they are basically the product owner of the suite so they are much more appropriate to talk about the features in there. And so hopefully, they'll be able to attend in person, its kind of hard to you know, travel overseas right now. But hopefully they'll sort it out and be there.

Matt Zahab: 44:49

Josef, this has een incredible. Really ppreciate your time. I learned lot in this episode, and I'm ure our guests did as well. hank you so much for coming on. efore we let you can you please et us know where we can find ou and Trezor and Satoshi labs n socials?

Josef Ttek: 45:07

Sure. So, Trezor is at Trezor on Twitter, I can be found as SatsJoseph, also on Twitter. And our main form of communication with people is to newsletter where you can always find like the latest features and firmware updates and such. And you can also find everything on block.Trezor.io.

Matt Zahab: 45:37

Awesome. Josef, hank you so much. Folks, I hope ou enjoyed this episode. This as an absolute treat. And osef thank you so much for j mping on. Hopefully we can h ve you on for round two s ortly.

Josef Ttek: 45:49

Thank you. Yeah, it was a great.

Matt Zahab: 45:50

Folks this was the cryptonews podcast. Thank you for tuning in. As always, if you enjoyed listening to this episode, please give us a follow. Subscribe to our channels on Apple podcasts, Spotify podcasts, and I just want to give a big shout out a big thank you to our team, the whole team at cryptonews, everyone has been absolutely crushing, couldn't do this without you, and mor importantly, our incredibl sound guy Justas who crushe this every single time, th jingle the clean up couldn't d without him your staff throug the man. Appreciate you folk Hope you enjoyed listening t this. And again, we are th cryptonews podcast. You can fin more about us at cryptonews.com And on all socials, we ar cryptoNews. Thanks again hop you have a wonderful day and w will keep in touch. All the best.