$1B Founder: "The Banks Took My Home, So I Built A Company To Replace Them" | Jeremy Almond

Is Bitcoin actually helping anyone, or is it just another Wall Street game with better branding? 

In this conversation, Mike Peterson sits down with Jeremy Almond (@jeremyalmond) to argue that the answer shows up in Bitcoin circular economies, where people earn, spend, and save in Bitcoin as a medium of exchange, and where financial inclusion can look like a kid getting access to school, tools, and a first job.

Jeremy shares the personal story that brought him here, shaped by the 2008 financial crisis, Occupy Wall Street, and a family tragedy that turned “money problems” into a life-changing emergency. It is the kind of Main Street vs Wall Street moment that forces a choice, either accept the system as it is or build toward something that gives people more economic agency.

Then Jeremy breaks down what Paystand is doing, and why the company keeps Bitcoin in the background. He explains how Bitcoin adoption can happen through business-friendly rails, payment solutions, corporate cards, and payroll, so companies get speed and lower costs without needing a boardroom debate about Bitcoin first.

The conversation also goes deep on Paystand.org and corporate philanthropy that tries to avoid the usual traps. The focus is economic empowerment, not dependency, and the goal is to fund and support grassroots leaders who are building circular Bitcoin economies that can stand on their own.

Finally, Mike and Jeremy zoom in on what actually scales, Hope House, Bitcoin education, fellowships, and the tough balance between moving fast and protecting communities from bad actors. If you want the clearest case for how Bitcoin can change outcomes in the economy people live in every day, this episode makes the argument without pretending it is easy.

-Bitcoin Beach Team

Connect and Learn more about Jeremy Almond:
X: https://x.com/jeremyalmond
YT: https://www.youtube.com/@redefinedpodcast
YT: https://www.youtube.com/@PayStand 

Support and follow Bitcoin Beach:
X: https://www.twitter.com/BitcoinBeach
IG: https://www.instagram.com/bitcoinbeach_sv
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@livefrombitcoinbeach
Web: https://www.bitcoinbeach.com 

Browse through this quick guide to learn more about the episode:
00:00  Intro
03:42 - How did the 2008 financial crisis spark Jeremy’s Bitcoin journey?
07:48 - What is Paystand’s "Trojan Horse" strategy for Bitcoin adoption?
12:42 - How do corporate cards introduce companies to Bitcoin? What role does Bitwage play?
16:29 - How a payments company became a top 20 Bitcoin miner
20:16 - Why are circular economies the "purest" form of Bitcoin?
23:51 - How does Hope House use Bitcoin mining for education?
26:33 - Why send tech employees to indigenous communities? How do fellowships change corporate culture?
30:34 - How do you scale grassroots Bitcoin movements without breaking them?
34:29 - Why does traditional foreign aid fail? How does Bitcoin fix the incentive structure?
39:16 - What is Paystand.org? How can you volunteer for circular economy projects?

Live From Bitcoin Beach

Transcript

Jeremy Almond  0:00  
The circular economies, to me, represent the most important movement in Bitcoin. What I experienced was when I came here, it was like, kind of back to the roots of why many of us got involved in Bitcoin, and to see a community change that Bitcoin was like a catalyzing agent for real social change. So things that we care about right are like, access to education, access to jobs, access to finance, literacy, access to language, access to technology, like these are the indicators of improved society. And so what I saw here, with the work you guys were doing, was like, I was like, that is the pure Bitcoin that I got involved with the revolution that started in Occupy Wall Street, that started with a bunch of cipher punks that said, if we fix the money, we'll fix the world. But then the question was, how? And to me that the how is Bitcoin circular economies? You guys are the movement. How do we just come behind you, serve you, wash your feet And see you. Create more disciples around the world. You

Mike Peterson  1:29  
right, I'm here with my good friend Jeremy. Before we started rolling, I told him, Hey, we got we got a people are wondering if you're for real or not out here. So we're going to use this podcast for people in the space to really understand the amazing things that that pay stands doing. Because I, I do get these comments sometimes, like, Are they for real? That seems too good to be true? I don't know. And so, yeah, so we're gonna set the record straight here. Yeah, yeah. This is, this is your chance to let people know who Jeremy is. And then you know also what paystand, the company does. But then the passion side of that, which is paystand.org which, alongside with what we do, it like meshes perfectly, because you guys are focused on circular Bitcoin economies, we support a lot of the same projects that are out there, and we've been able to work side by side and a lot of things. And so it's been a lot of fun getting to know you and Alex over the last couple years. And so, yeah, I'm just hoping that more people in the space will get the understand the good stuff that you guys are doing.

Jeremy Almond  2:35  
Oh, well, it's first. It's just awesome to always spend time with you, man. So the projects we're working on, the things that I think you and I align around our mission is always just an honor, and so it's great when you start off with before that the cameras were all like, Okay, we're gonna get just feisty and find out how fake you are. So No, no, it's fun, because I think it's really hard in this space to stay really true to the mission. So for you and I, who've you know, been in the space a while, you know, I think Bitcoin is ultimately a movement, and the movement is about seeing change in the world, but you can't see that change in the world if it doesn't become real in the world. And I think in different ways, you and I have spent time, I think, putting our energy and effort into, you know, ensuring that they're real world use cases where money is a medium of exchange, where the original vision of the white paper is actually seen through and so,

Mike Peterson  3:32  
and you've been in the space like since very early, way before I was so give us a little bit of background on that. Yeah, it's

Jeremy Almond  3:42  
interesting, because we don't spend as much time talking in the Bitcoin ecosystem, at least we haven't for a long time. But a little bit of my background is I really discovered the Bitcoin white paper about a year after it was created, and the really Genesis was around, you know, there was this moment in 2008 where effectively the entire world economy broke, and it was this great financial crisis. And there was an Occupy Wall Street where there's great tension in the notion that if money is broken, it really leaves people behind. And that's been true for 7 billion people on the planet in general, but it impacted the US. And my personal story was, you know, I've been fortunate. I've been in tech for like, 20 years before Bitcoin and tech really changed my life. My mother was an immigrant, refugee from Mexico that came to the US. My dad was a blue collar construction worker that never went to high school or college. But they kind of represented the American dream. And the American dream, I think, was two things. One, to see your children do better, and that's true everywhere, yeah. And the second is to see, you know, I think some version of, you know, growing your economic ladder. And so my parents did that in two ways. They saw me as the first kid to go to college, and I got involved in star. Ups, and it changed my life. And then the second thing was they spent 20 years working in the fields and swinging a hammer to buy a home. Fast forward, I go to college. I go to startup that becomes very, very large, is in the.com era, where these companies go public, takes me out to New York. I'm in New York for a bunch of years working for big financial infrastructure. And I have this kind of Genesis moment where, you know, my parents got this 800 square foot house, and for them, you know, I think their success story was they have a store of value that they can now kind of put their savings in, and then, and then their kid is off, and that's great. And then I had this just brutal moment where I get this call you never want to get, and it's 2008 and the call was my stepmother calls up, and she said, Hey, I got to tell you, your dad went to the hospital last night and he didn't wake up. And just like world changing, right? And as hard as that was, I think what became even harder for me in the aftermath was you got to figure that my my family, is like so many people around the world, not just Americans, but around the world. They had no social safety net. And so even though my life had changed, what their life was built in that house, in the work that they were doing. And so what ultimately happened was this happened at a period where not only were they somebody who had tragedy in the family, but many people had it. And it happened to coincide where the banks failed. And because the banks failed, a bunch of people lost their homes. Millions of people lost their homes. And so, my widowed stepmother had literally lost her husband and then lost the house. Like that's insane. And so for me, the kind of Bitcoin moment was, I'm walking down Wall Street and I'm in a suit and tie at this point, because I'd been in tech and blah, blah, blah, and the Occupy Wall Street people started throwing rocks at those of us who were walking into the banks. And I had this moment for me where it was like, Well, what part of the world are you? Are you the son of Main Street that had been left behind? Or are you now this other thing? And I think what I believe technology is, and then Bitcoin, ultimately has become, is imagine the world not as it is, but as it could be. And so for me, I wanted to be part of the change. And so I went back, and I did my master's thesis on why banks were too big to fail. And about a year later, I found the white paper, and that white paper has transformed my life, like so many people around the world.

Mike Peterson  7:48  
And how did you see that, like, impacting the day to day of the company that you wound up founding? Like, how does that play a role with within paste? And because I know, like, even, you know, meeting with with, you know, a lot of the executives with the company, and they're talking to them, they're like, well, we don't really like talk about Bitcoin because it scares the our clients, which is funny, because most usually it's the opposite, that you have to have companies that they're not really using Bitcoin, but they want to, like, talk about, yeah, no, we're gonna use it this. We're gonna but your people were like, yeah, no. It scares people when we tell them how we're using Bitcoin.

Jeremy Almond  8:23  
So, yeah. So I think oftentimes I'll get introduced on stage, if I am at a Bitcoin event, is like the biggest Bitcoin company no one's ever heard of, and that's by design. So maybe to go back to the origin, you know, I spent a couple years studying the white paper. And, you know, I'm a technologist and engineer, be, you know, by trade. And one of the things that struck me is, really, it's about incentive alignment, right? Is one of the magic things about, sort of the Immaculate Conception of the white paper. And what I realized was, a few years in, you know, how do you ensure that this stuff is being used in the real world? And in the early days, there was a lot of cipher punk entrepreneur types that were building really cool consumer apps. But my view was, well, we need a company that exists that can actually go build it in the real world for businesses and companies, and what I call the real economy and and so we wanted to actually prove that it was useful and valuable and high impact. And so I didn't really care about the number go up. I didn't really care about the price action. I wanted to see the main metric is how many people are using it, and what is the impact it has. And so we built this company now today, that you know is, I think, the largest sort of native use case of Bitcoin for businesses. But most of the businesses don't even realize they're using it. So just to give some stats, we are, we have about a million businesses that operate on our platform. We get a million businesses, a million business Wow. Yeah. About 20 billion in payment volume, and it's growing at this kind of insane rate. And so our motion was to go say Bitcoin values without saying the word Bitcoin, because in the early days, we started the company, you know, a few years after the white paper, we're the second Bitcoin payment processor in the world, which is pretty wild. But what we learned was you had to say, hey, as a company, don't you want money that can move at the speed of light? Don't you want your financial system to be able to sort of operate independently, and don't you want it at this extremely low cost that avoids sort of all of these folks that reduce the bottom line of your business? And they said, Yeah. And Well, we said, well, the only way to get there is through Bitcoin, but we had to build products and services that onboarded them. And so our view was, we wanted to be the bridge to create economic empowerment for these companies. And then my real, like heart and soul, was, I really wanted to see capitalism be, you know, redeemed in a way like finance for good? Because, if all you do is build a great Bitcoin company, and then that company just amasses more wealth at the top, and all we do is build all this sort of Treasury and all these kinds of things, and then, like, just the 1% get rich again, then, then all we did was just reproduce the system. And so, so you know, very early on, which is how you and I eventually got connected, was we said we're going to give 10% of our profits back on the corporate side, and then we're going to give it to a foundation with no agenda whatsoever, other than to see Bitcoin be used for the least of these, the most underrepresented people around the world. And so, because I believe bitcoin is freedom money, and it's for the other 7 billion people on the billion people on the planet. So it's a flywheel for us build a great business, create profit, that creates incentive, that then drives to the bottom of the pyramid, and then the bottom of the pyramid is driving the real use and the real change. And that's really what you know, I think you and I get to spend some of our time on, which is awesome.

Mike Peterson  11:58  
No, I want to spend the second half that definitely just focusing on that. But just to continue with the background, I you invited me last year to come speak at an event that you were you guys were doing. I think you would. It was a grand opening for your new offices there, there in Santa Cruz, and I was impressed by just getting understanding of, like, the size and scope of your guys operations, hearing from, from some of the VCs that have invested in just their outlook on the company, and then I know you guys have just been growing like crazy. Recently, you bought bit wage. So I'm curious to hear, like, what's the plan? Like, what's the goal of pay? Stand, where are you guys going? Yeah.

Jeremy Almond  12:42  
I mean, I think for us, we wanted to prove that there was a real company at size and scale that ultimately is a public company, not because I really care about money power fame, but because I think Bitcoin needs, well, Bitcoin doesn't need anything but having organizations that you can look at and go, these are people that are building real use cases for an important part of the economy. And so, you know, I'll give you an example. We knew the prior administration, the US and the current administration in the US and in the prior administration, there were a lot of my friends that were in the Bitcoin ecosystem that you know, had a really hard time. And we were fortunate. We had less of a hard time because we were powering the largest farms in the US. We were powering the biggest manufacturing companies in the US. And globally, we were powering the supply chain of trade balance, which is important in places like Latin America, where we are, we were powering the largest energy companies, particularly in renewable so, so these are things where it's like, how do you get mad at that? Like, if you're creating economic empowerment for these kinds of companies? You know, it's one thing to be mad at the crypto growth. It's another thing to go like, this, is system, systemically important, and actually creating a fair system for everyone. And so, you know, I think the way we have done that is to provide products and services that are almost Trojan horse Bitcoin products in and, you know, I think that means that we spend a little bit less time in the Bitcoin ecosystem, a little bit more time. And, you know, I'm working with large enterprise companies most of my time, but, but we do things like we have a corporate card. That corporate card is a traditional spend card that companies need to use for hundreds of employees to keep their budgets in line and sort of to be sort of digitally native, but then it rewards them in SATs, kind of like a Gemini or Coinbase card or whatever. But for these corporate clients, oftentimes, it'll be the first time that Bitcoin enters their business. Yeah, and it's a really cool way, because it doesn't require, you know, like, it's one thing to try to get the CFO of a public company, to get the board to say we're gonna put Bitcoin on the balance sheet. It's another thing, like, you know, to be able to Trojan horse and say you already have it. You. And so, you know, our view is make these products and services useful, slowly bring them into the fold. And so we've done that with our payment infrastructure. We've done that with our corporate card infrastructure. We do that now with payroll infrastructure. And this a really fun story. In in our case, we push really hard to make our business internally native Bitcoin. And so we pay our staff in Bitcoin. I personally, you know, operate on a Bitcoin standard, and the way we did that was, there's a company called bit wage. It's actually a payroll company that sort of deals with the compliance and the taxes and everything that an actual company needs to be able to pay out their employees. And so we'd been using this company for a bunch of years. Every two weeks I got my SATs. I'm psyched. And eventually we said, you know, we're growing, and we think that's a great addition to the family. But we also said, like, how can we use that infrastructure to increase global trade? And so, you know, I think bit wage has been a great example of a series of products that we, you know, house within the organization that are real world use cases that Bitcoin can, you know, get adoption in corporate America or corporations around the world.

Mike Peterson  16:12  
No, I love that, and I love that you guys have, like, gone that direction. I know also, you guys have dipped your toe into the mining business. I think, from my understanding more, just because you want to support, you know, the decentralization of mining. I don't know if you want to talk any about that experience, yeah.

Jeremy Almond  16:29  
So one of the things is, we were building products and services on top of Bitcoin because, you know, in the early days, people would say Bitcoin wouldn't scale, and then I'm really excited now that there's a lot of, you know, incredible work going on in lightning and E cash and noster and a lot of really cool layer two stuff. But when we started, we actually had to solve the problems internally. And it was kind of like Amazon, you know, there wasn't a playbook for, like, how do you scale e commerce in 2001 and so for us, you know, we had to both solve, how can you make this practical for businesses? But then how can you scale it? Because we're doing a ton of volume, and so we started building layer two infrastructure internally, and then what ended up happening was, when you do that, you become really interested in making sure that the the mining and the validation infrastructure below it is actually done as intended, in a decentralized way, you know, with sort of no agenda other than the sort of reward system that it's meant to be. And so we wanted to make sure that we were playing a role in that. And so we started, sort of again, kind of as paystan does. We were really quiet building our initial mining infrastructure. Now we're, I think we're, like, in the top 20 mining hash

Mike Peterson  17:45  
rate in the world. Really, I didn't realize it grown that much. Wow, yeah.

Jeremy Almond  17:49  
And our view is that it's really important to not have consolidation in that space, yeah, not have consolidation in the mining space, not have consolidation in the pool space, and also be, I think like a moderating actor in the place, because there is a lot of points of view on like, you know, how should miners operate? How should knowns operate, et cetera. And our view is like, Bitcoin is money. It needs to be used. It should be medium of exchange. It should be incentivized that way. But we need to actually have stable, predictable ways that the software can be rolled out and that the pools can be rolled out. And so we wanted to just be, you know, to the best we could be a neutral actor in the space. And so for us now, you know, we think, we really want to create, I think, a fair ecosystem across the Bitcoin ecosystem, stay behind the scenes and then be known for a company that I hope helps onboard the next million, 5 million, 10 million businesses that ultimately create jobs, create GDP and bring people towards Bitcoin, because Bitcoin ultimately is stored energy money, and it's stored work, so it's pretty important that it gets pushed into the workspace, yeah,

Mike Peterson  19:11  
and used as money, exactly, yeah, exactly. No. I love that, and I love your your vision to give back to the community and support that. And so I want to focus mostly on what paystand.org is doing. But just to start off, you know, some of the pushback sometimes I'll get from people when I talk about what gray is doing, they're like, oh, but they're, you know, they're just doing this to, like, promote their company. I'm like, actually, know, like most of the companies they work with would probably be scared to realize how hardcore Bitcoiners they are. Like, this is the mission for them. They're the companies that they work with mostly don't care, or might even be a negative for them, if they knew how involved you guys were. So So for me, that's what's made it. You know, very clear that you guys are very much about the mission that you want to see. You know, specifically, circular Bitcoin economies around the world thrive, and so I'd love to hear from you, like firsthand. Why do you think that's so important? And why is that the focus of paystand.org,

Jeremy Almond  20:16  
yeah, I think you know, all credit to you. The circular economies, to me, represent the most important movement in Bitcoin. And Bitcoin, to me, is the most important invention in the world. And so, you know, what I experienced was, quite honestly, like a resurgence for me coming here in the early days the work you guys were doing. Because, you know, when we started paystand, there were a lot of what I consider, like, you know, people that were there for the right reasons. They didn't care about money, power, fame, they wanted to transform the system to create sort of more equity around the world and and over time, what I saw was, you know, it was a different crowd that that got involved and and I almost I stopped going to the Bitcoin events. You know, we were really, really quiet. We started doing, you know, giving, but we were very quiet about it. And what I experienced was, when I came here, it was like kind of back to the roots of why many of us got involved in Bitcoin and to see a community change, that Bitcoin was like a catalyzing agent for real social change. So things that we care about right are like access to education, access to jobs, access to finance, literacy, access to language, access to technology, like, these are the indicators of improved society, right? Like, if we want to be Bitcoiners, but then, like, society doesn't change. Like, it didn't actually drive the purpose. And in the reality was, like, back in America, you know, you have number go up crew, but like, like, How is it changing the world? And so what I saw here, with the work you guys were doing, was, like, I was like, that is the pure Bitcoin that I got involved with the revolution that started in Occupy Wall Street, that started with a bunch of cipher punks that said, if we fix the money, we'll fix the world. But then the question was, how? And to me that the how is Bitcoin circular economies? And so we tried to stay really quiet. The gal who runs our foundation, Alex, my partner, she got involved, and we had these debates, really in the early days, where I was kind of this view that, you know, it's best to give when no one is looking. And so we started doing that, and we had some community projects that we were doing that, and, and, and then what we realized was, like, these grassroots movements are wildfires. You know, it was like you and some kids, and then a town, and then a state, and then a country, and then now multiple circular economies, and we just wanted to see that the fire grew faster and and so we have these debates internally where I was like, we're not going to talk about it. We just want to give some money. We want to see them grow. And then what I've realized over time is the stories need to be told and and so we came in and we said, Okay, well, what role can we play? And we said, okay, with the foundation. So we give 10% of our profits back to the foundation with no agenda whatsoever that operates as a separate entity altogether, as a 501, 3c, now and then. The notion was like, we would go into these places and we'd say, what do you need? Do you need capital? Do you need volunteers? Do you need marketing? Do you need help with grant writing, like you guys are the movement. How do we just come behind you, serve you, wash your feet and see you create more disciples around the world.

Mike Peterson  23:51  
And I know you guys have been huge supporters of Hope House and and I think you guys are doing mining there now, and so many different things. So I talk a little bit about that, about because was that one of the first projects that you guys got involved with?

Jeremy Almond  24:07  
Yeah, I think that was the first public project we got involved with, was Hope House. And, you know, Hope House is one of the places where, like, it all started, right? You know, it's a the It's this incredible education center. And, you know, for me, Bitcoin education is really near and dear to my heart. You know, you and I are also involved in my first Bitcoin because, in my own story, I should be working in a field like or swinging a hammer right now. And what changed for me was, like I got part of this crazy program back in the US where, like at risk, kids take a test, they go, they end up getting to a better high school or whatever. And then, you know, their their opportunity gets much larger. And so for me, you know, I got bused to some rich kid school that I didn't really understand. I had harder classes that gave me exposure. Then I got in college, and then I got involved in start. Been my life change. And so that story for me now represents what I see in places like Hope House, whether I see it with the kids from my first Bitcoin digital nest back in the US, which is like farm immigrant kids, which is like, if you teach a kid who is like an open canvas and they don't know what the world can't be, you just start telling them what it can be. It's like the seed of change. And so whether, in hope houses, case, you know, starts with these kids who are, like, learning English, they're learning technology, you know, they're learning, like, after school programs, and then they learn Bitcoin, and then bitcoin is like this incentive mechanism. And then they go, Okay, now I like, I now see a bigger world. So now I'm, like, incentivized to do more. And then now what we're experiencing is with them and other programs. It's like, well, how do we actually help them move even farther into the job market? So, you know, in this case, we're training them with sort of mining infrastructure is really like, good way for them to sort of get into the ecosystem, get them internships, have them have fellowships. Oftentimes it's the first time they've come out of the, you know, their community, or even their country. And so we just think, like, if you give people exposure to a world that's bigger, like I, you know, I want to create right now, you know, the Einsteins and the Elon Musks of the world really can only come from these places that have access. But what happens when you give, you, know, the other 7 billion kids in the in the planet, the same kind of incentive to go change the world.

Mike Peterson  26:33  
But I know in my own life, I've been very impacted by by being by travel and being exposed to the world. And I believe travel has been a big part of your story. And so I think we both share a passion of being able to use opportunities to get kids out of their communities to other countries. I know you guys brought several people from Hope House down to Columbia last year for the conference there. So for me, that's always like a passion, if we can get them out of El Salvador to see how things are done in another part of the world. They can build their own networks. They can start to be the one that has those connections that can bring that back to the community. So tell me a little bit about what your vision is like going forward for these things. Do you Do you want to just continue to build on these circular economies, you guys have other things that you're planning to roll out. I know you guys. You know we were able to meet the indigenous community. And you guys, was that in Colombia? That was Colombia, right?

Jeremy Almond  27:31  
Well, we, you and I met them in Colombia, and then we end up with them in Peru. And now there's, like, multiple indigenous communities

Mike Peterson  27:37  
that are connected with the with motive, with value from motive, yeah, and,

Jeremy Almond  27:41  
and I think that's, like, maybe a big part of the story is, like, I mean, you know this well, but the circular economies are each different, but then they have this through line, right? And they're all connected in a way. And so I think that's been one of the things we're most excited about, is just seeing, you know, how can we come behind them? And I think it goes in both directions. So, like, you know, you asked about the like, kind of, like, what's the catch of the agenda? Like, there's no commercial catch. But I think what I've learned is there is, like, a culture and a missional role that it plays back to, like, my day job. And what I mean by that is, like, you know, when I run my day job, we have 400 and something employees, and quite honestly, and a lot of them work in Silicon Valley, and, you know, they want to work at some hot FinTech, you know. And they're kind of like, Bitcoin light people, right? Like, and so, like, how do you onboard them to see the truest mission? And, and so what we've learned is the circular economy is not only represent this incredible story locally, but we now do, one of the things we do is a fellowship where a couple times a year we'll bring volunteers from the company, and we'll embed them, and we'll like, go, Hey, look like you need to work with them. I do this. I literally spent my embed them with one of the circular economies, yeah. And like, you know, I try to go in each one, and it's like, literally my vacation, but we end up washing the feet. We were with Valley at motive like, with these kids that, like walk down the mountains for like, two hours to go to school and they have no shoes, and say, like, Okay, well, how do we get you like shoes and clean like, clean like ability. So then once you do that, then you can talk to them about incentive change. But then, like, they become so receptive to, like, how Bitcoin can change their community, because you're now embedded in their community. And then like, our team comes back, and there's nothing commercial about it, because literally, like, my day job is big companies, like, there's nothing for me to do with indigenous communities for like, my day job, but I'll tell you that the 20 people that were sitting on the bus with me that were pay standards, that were there washing feet, their lives are changed, and then they come back, and they bring that back to, you know, the developed world in America, where everything is cushy and you don't feel the pain of financial inclusion in the same way. And then. Bring it back. And we think that's been like, the most incredible story is like, how do circular economies work together? So, so our goal is to be able to do more to grow them and partner with people like you guys and others, to say, how do we grow the circular economy federations? How do we make sure that the best ones are actually getting the best resources. How do we give them visibility? But then how do we actually help it go in both directions? Where it's the economy is where people are coming in, then their lives are changing and going back, and then they can tell their stories. And we think that's how, like a spark becomes a movement.

Mike Peterson  30:34  
Yeah, I know, I know one of the things that we wrestle with internally. And I, you know, I've talked with you, and I think even you and you and Alex wrestle sometimes is like, I'm wired, like I want to, just want to go out and do stuff, and like, I hate when the bureaucracy and the other things like, hold us back. And I feel like, why are we spending all this money doing all this stuff? Let's but also see the other side, that if you go too fast and you, you know, you can have people that are bad actors in the space, that you know, that make off with funds. You can, you can actually harm people by providing them too much, too fast, exactly where it like, kind of corrupts them. And so I'm just curious if you come to any solutions yet, because I feel like I'm always wrestling through that? Or do you think that that we just need two types of people that have, people like you and me that are going to push and and the people like Alex over there that are going to say, like, hey, we need some structure. Yeah.

Jeremy Almond  31:31  
I mean, it's, it's hard to get it right. What I would say is, you know, ultimately, you want to be aligned with people that are shared mission and shared values. And so I think that's really important for us, you know. I think there are people that have different incentives, like they want to come in and sell something, or that they have different motivations, or there's policy level motivations or other things, you know. And I think our goal is just to see the communities that the real grassroots change happening. We want to see that multiply and so they're the real leaders. You know. We just hope to serve them, but you do want to be able to choose the leaders that you you know that, you know that can scale and and so I think one of our roles in paysan.org is to kind of go, Hey, we can't support every circular economy. Would be awesome, but we want to, like, come alongside with slightly more structure and say, which ones can can benefit and are ready for scaling. So, they can, you know, take a grant from us. Maybe we can get them more visibility. We can then help connect. Because I think we our role is really like the connectors. So, like, we can be a bridge back to potentially, other people who can come in with other capital. We can, you know, bring other folks that are from other institutions. One of the crazy things we do, which I think goes both ways, is like, I'll talk to, you know, CEOs of tech companies or whatever, or like, banks or VCs, and they just don't believe this actually is happening, because it doesn't get reported on as much. They think like all of the innovation is happening in New York or Silicon Valley. And I'm like, No, the most important innovation is happening in small visiting villages. Visiting village in El Salvador, or small mountain town in Peru, or like an off grid farm in Africa. And so we actually sometimes will take them and, you know, I think that experience of connecting the ones that are rising in the top, we want to be able to see them become the next leaders. And I'm so proud, honestly. I mean, you must be as well seeing leaders from the local community spur up and go like they own it. It's their story. And so you want to be able to be good stewards of the capital, but then you also want to see them ultimately, like, Bitcoin is all about, you know, self sovereignty, and so you want to see those leaders kind of create their own circle and community. And so that's been really exciting,

Mike Peterson  34:13  
well, for me, like specifically here at the adopting Bitcoin Conference, I'm so proud, because we've got, I think, like, half a dozen of the Bitcoin beach team, you know, who you know never left El zonte before. They're presenting at this conference. They're on panels, they're, they're doing this stuff. So, and I see

Jeremy Almond  34:29  
them in countries, like, it's like crazy, you know, yeah, and you're not there, and Romans not there, and you see them just like, they just become leaders on

Mike Peterson  34:36  
their own. They're becoming leaders on their own. And so that's, that's what is just fabulous to see. Yeah, that's, that's that that, for me, is, like the end goal is to develop these, these new leaders, and that they, they don't need us. We're the, we're the old guys that, you know, they don't need us anymore. That's what's my

Jeremy Almond  34:53  
goal and my hope out of it, right? Like, is, you know, you want to create. Not handouts, but agency. That's the whole point of Bitcoin, you know. And I gave a little bit of a, I hope, a tilting talk. I got, I don't know how, but I got asked to go talk at the UN maybe about a month ago or so about the Bitcoin circular economies and and that was a big part of my story. Was like, hey, look, we think that all of the changes that are intended in community building, but the incentives get misaligned. So you want to see people lifted out of poverty, you want to see people access to jobs. You want to see people sort of growing in innovation and technology that then moves the world forward, but if you give them the wrong incentive, which is, quite frankly, what a lot of UN and foundations and nonprofits have done for so many years, like it actually just breaks everything and so on the other hand, what we're seeing is the opposite of true. So like, my belief is, and we're working on, hopefully, some impact studies and some, like, formal pieces of this. But like my belief is, broadly speaking, you can accelerate the kind of community building that that those programs tried to do and took 50 Years and failed at it, and you can do it in an order of magnitude less, less time, and then you can actually create the local community leaders that will create self sustainability. That is a wild concept.

Mike Peterson  36:16  
So no, I feel like Bitcoin is that missing piece in the economic development field. Like you look at places like Haiti, you've had more aid fed into them anywhere else in the world, and they're just an absolute mess. Yeah, so obviously, the way we're doing it is not working. But we've seen, you know, on the ground in places like El zonte, once you introduce Bitcoin to people, they start to do the work themselves. They start to understand how money works. They start to think long term. They decide to go back for more education. And so I really think if more organizations that are doing economic development would incorporate Bitcoin, we would see, for the first time, real fruit coming out of that field.

Jeremy Almond  36:55  
That's absolutely right. And I think there's kind of two sides to it, right? So, like, there's the grassroots side, you know. And quite frankly, like, I mean, there's like, missionaries that are driving a lot of this change. There's freedom fighters that are, like, it's resistance money in places like Cuba or Afghanistan, et cetera. And so there's that side of it, which is so important, and they're my heroes. They literally motivate me to go do the day job and put on a suit and go talk to big companies or whatever. But then there's the other side of it, which is what you're describing, which is like, Well, how do you bring more people onto the boat from the other side? Because what we're finding is now, you know, these NGOs and these institutions and these policymakers are coming to us and going like, whoa. This looks really unique and really different and and then, you know, we can have kind of this tilting conversation where we'll say, like, well, like, you're, you know, this, this is my day job, but we're like, we're partnered with you. You're one of the largest financial service or technology companies in the world. You have this nonprofit. And what are you actually doing for Financial Inclusion? It's like, well, they're, you know, giving some big check to some rich kid school. And we're like, if you actually want to put your dollars to work, where it's going to be multiplied in a material way, like, you need to see what's happening in the frontier fields. And so that's been a lot of like, well, our next step, I think, of our connections, we're doing, is trying to, like, bring them in. So we're like, you know, kind of Trad fi institutions that are on the NGO side, like International Youth Foundation, which is a big NGO United Way, which is a big NGO these are, these are folks that were not Bitcoiners, but were moved by the Bitcoin circular economy. And then we're bringing them in to go partner and then to create more distribution. So, like, we're really, really excited about what that hopefully does. But the key is, ultimately, it's a grassroots movement. It's not an institutional movement, but like, if they can come behind the grassroots movement, that's how it goes from just a few kids in a village to all of a sudden, you know, like just multiplying everywhere.

Mike Peterson  38:57  
So no, I love that. I love that vision. How, how can people get involved with with paystan? I know you guys have recently formed as as an NGO, so I'm assuming you guys are are taking donations in addition to what you guys are pouring in from the company. But is there other ways besides that? Or, yeah, yeah.

Jeremy Almond  39:16  
So, so, so paystan.org which, like, it's its own entity, you know. And again, like my model for that was, you know, I was prior in a previous life. I was involved in this fair trade company. And, you know this guy, Yvonne, who wrote this book called Let my people go surfing. You know, his view was, you, you have to be a good neighbor in the businesses you operate in. And capitalism can be a force for good, but it has to have purpose and meaning behind it. And so our view was, okay, build a great company, create a different organization, then help multiply that organization, seed it with the capital from the core business, and then bring partners that can multiply that seeding. Be back to the grassroots movement. So that's kind of like our own circle. And so like, you know, I think we do bring in now partners that can come in on the capital side, but they're larger institutions that we want to introduce to the Bitcoin world. But then what we also have done is we, like turned, I think, people who've been really curious, and have them start volunteering or participating. And so we've started to say, Hey, do you want to come to the fellowships and go volunteer? Because that's really where their lives are changed. It's not money, but it's actually your work. Yeah, right. And so you can go to paystand.org, you can see, you know, if you're a circular economy, how do you apply for a grant if you want to have us just bring more exposure to what you're doing. We want to have visibility into that if you're a person that we can partner with, whether it's Bitcoin beach or, you know, some of these other, you know, programs that are happening around the world, the Bitcoin circular Federation, things like that, like we want to be able to just be a good partner. We just want to be behind the scenes to help. And then what we found is other people actually also want to come behind and serve. And so you also can sign up to serve in our fellowships, to be part of the volunteer programs and spread the word. Because this is, this is, I think, the most important thing happening in the world. It's happening on the frontiers of the world. But it is, I think, the best representation of what Satoshis vision was, you know, over a dozen plus years ago.

Mike Peterson  41:28  
No, I love that. What about for people that are, that are, you know, business owners out there that are looking for better payment solutions, you know, she'll your service.

Jeremy Almond  41:37  
Yeah, my goal is never to shell so, like, I need to take the sweater off or whatever. But, you know, you know, I think, like, what we want to be able to do is, is help organizations that it these are products and services that just make your business more profitable and more useful. And then, if that's powered by Bitcoin, then that's just another way to grow this the circle. And so you can go to paystand.com you know. And there are products that are everything from corporate cards to payroll to international payments, but, but really honestly, like that. If that helps a business, we're super, super honored, but we have no agenda other than to see it be useful for businesses to create GDP change, and then for whatever we can do to give back behind the scenes to support the circular economies, those are two separate things, and we want to keep them separate.

Mike Peterson  42:32  
No, I appreciate that, that, and I know you guys have always so I'm pushing you to show. I also know you have, you have a podcast. So because, yeah, you don't have enough plate on your plate, and all the places you're traveling and all the different business lines that you're rolling together. So, you know, tell us about the podcast.

Jeremy Almond  42:52  
Oh, geez. Well, I think I called you at one point and I was just like, I don't know what I'm doing. Why am I doing a podcast? You really need another podcast. But I think again, like our world, like my role is oftentimes to connect the other side. Because I believe, like, if someone's not a Bitcoin or they're just not a bitcoiner yet, and but, but you got to show them why it's meaningful for them. And so I have this podcast called redefined, and the purpose of that is really, like, focused on, on business leaders, investors, institutions and policy makers to understand the real world use cases of this tech, because I think that's where a lot of their skepticism is, is okay? That all sounds cool, but like, how does it change a farm, a coffee farm? Like, I was just talking to the Cerrito guys, like, how does that change their value prop? Or how does that change, you know, these manufacturing companies that want to stay competitive, or what is the policy making need to be done that looks like the policies that are here in El Salvador, like, how do we replicate that in other countries? And so we really want to create kind of frameworks for that. And so that's a redefined on YouTube and Spotify and all the other places that podcasts go. So yours is the better one. But if you're like a business guy, maybe there's a little bit

Mike Peterson  44:06  
info for you. There awesome. Anywhere else people can follow you on Twitter.

Jeremy Almond  44:11  
Yeah, you can find me on X, I guess I'm Jeremy Allman, you can find me on LinkedIn, and then you can also find me on Noster, sort of Jeremy Allman, in all three places. Awesome.

Mike Peterson  44:20  
Thanks, brother. Now we appreciate it out surfing this weekend.

Jeremy Almond  44:24  
So I've been on the road a lot, but I'm dying for it, so the fish is drying up.

Mike Peterson  44:30  
All right, thanks, Jeremy, all right. Brother.

Jeremy Almond  44:31  
Thanks, Mike. Thanks, guys. You.