Bitcoin 2026: Why India Will Trigger the Next Massive Bull Run ($1M BTC) | Aaronman

As the SGB Next Issue approaches in India, a massive question remains: Is government-backed gold enough to stop a 12% annual wealth dilution? Today, we explore why the Gold vs Bitcoin India debate is reaching a tipping point. If India already holds the world's largest private reserve of hard money, 35,000 tons of gold sitting in households, why is the state still clinging to a failing fiat standard?

In this episode, I sit down with Aaronman (@plebstogether) to discuss why the Indian subcontinent is a sleeping giant for sovereign money. We explore the cultural transition from physical gold to digital bits and why the mindset of self-custody is already hardwired into the population.

Aaron takes us through his journey of escaping the stifling bureaucracy of Europe to return to Goa and build something that matters. He explains how the Indian spirit of "Jugaad," or frugal innovation, is being applied to Bitcoin hardware and infrastructure. By moving away from centralized education and toward community building, Aaron is helping people realize they do not need permission to build parallel systems that work.

We dive into the mechanics of creating a circular economy in India. Aaron shares how his team is onboarding local merchants and creating peer-to-peer networks that bypass broken fiat rails. It is about creating a localized Citadel in Goa where people can trade, learn, and store value without being diluted by a monetary system that devalues their labor by 12% every year. Aaron provides a strategic roadmap for community building in any emerging market, highlighting why peer-to-peer education is the most effective tool for spreading hard money to the next generation.

—Bitcoin Beach Team


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Web: https://www.plebstogetherstrong.com/
Web: https://bitshala.org/


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Browse through this quick guide to learn more about the episode:
00:00 Intro
02:21 How to quit fiat jobs for Bitcoin infrastructure careers.
05:30 Why Indian schools fail to teach Proof of Work.
09:25 Can the El Salvador Bitcoin diploma scale to India?
12:15 How to find Bitcoin merchants and communities in Goa.
14:11 Step-by-step guide to building grassroots Bitcoin communities in India.
22:21 Understanding the 4 Factions: Builders, Educators, Cypherpunks, Freeholders.
28:43 Is the RBI hostile to Bitcoin? Truth about adoption.
34:00 How to explain fiat inflation to your Indian family.
41:12 Applying the Bitcoin Beach model to the Indian subcontinent.

Live From Bitcoin Beach

Transcript

Aaronman: 0:00

In terms of gold. Yes, India does understand gold culturally. And one another figure that had come out recently was, I think we have 35,000 tons of gold that is self custody by households, housewives, to a large extent, because women in India love gold. They understand it a lot better. In fact, women understand for that reason, they understand Bitcoin even better, because they understand the need to to protect one's wealth, right? And that comes very naturally to Women to protect the family, right?

Mike Peterson: 1:04

Aaron, you feeling jet lagged? Was it 43 hours to get here?

Aaronman: 1:08

To be honest, actually, I thought I would feel jet lagged, but I'm not so much. It was a long, long way to get here from the other side of the world where, like in terms of time zones, we are basically on the exact opposite,

Mike Peterson: 1:21

exact opposite, but like, by a half an hour, because India has this weird they're a half hour like time zone the whole country.

Aaronman: 1:29

Yeah, it shouldn't be that way, but we can't really afford to have more than one time zone to keep things organized. As it is, things are, like, extremely chaotic. If you had two time zones in that country, things would fall apart.

Mike Peterson: 1:41

But that's crazy, that that size of country that only has one time zone, but then it falls in the middle half hour, like, yeah, that screwed me up when I was trying to make phone calls back to the US while we

Aaronman: 1:54

were there, yeah, we managed to, we work it out somehow.

Mike Peterson: 1:58

So why don't you introduce yourself? And you know, I know a lot of people in the Bitcoin space have not met you yet, but I think over the next few years, as you guys help transform India, a lot more people will be hearing about what you guys are doing. So introduce yourself and maybe give a little background on how you came into Bitcoin?

Aaronman: 2:21

Yeah, cool. So my name is Aaron, or I go by Aaronman, and like in other parts of the world, maybe it's our own. And, like, it depends on where we are. Over here in El Salvador, I'm our own. That's how I introduce myself. And I'm actually a community leader in India in a tiny little state called Goa, which was ruled by the Portuguese for like 450, odd years. So it's quite different from the rest of India in terms of culture and culture and language and the food and the people. It's a lot similar to El Salvador, and you probably would attest to that as well when you came down how similar climate,

Mike Peterson: 3:02

yeah, climate wise, and what it looks like, you know, like the beaches. And yeah, the beaches here a little darker, but yeah,

Aaronman: 3:09

sounds little whiter, I guess, or yellower in outside the world. And yeah, I a little while back about two years ago, around I had gone to a Bitcoin Conference in India called by the Bitcoin for India initiative, and that was my first time meeting Bitcoiners outside of maybe a couple of friends who I knew back home. And I was really inspired by some of the things that were happening there, some of the people that spoke and wanted to figure out, like, what I could do as a next step for Bitcoin. And I don't really have, like, a developer background. I I like thinking in systems. That was my background, working as a as a mechanical engineer, in fact, before all of this, you were working in Europe for a while, right? Yeah, I was working in Germany. In Germany, yeah, with a medical device com fact, medical device manufacturer, and I was there for a while, designing, working with people in the industry, and things kind of didn't make certain. Things didn't quite make sense to me. And in addition to that, just the bureaucracy around in Germany was getting to me, and was felt very stifling to be in the middle of that with ideas that were or concepts that were innovative and just would get caught a lot in red tape, and that really like pushed me to want to think what my next step would be, and I decided to come back to India and to figure it out. Here, I started a couple of things with some friends of mine. One of them was one. A tiny, little space that we we call a co creation space for people to learn to work with their hands. And our focus at that point in time was also working with the youth and just getting them to learn to build things. I think there's a certain experience in working with your hands and thinking with your hands. That doesn't really come in through the traditional education system, especially in India, which is like very exam oriented. So we wanted to help people learn to make things and make things with people. So that's where the idea for a co creation space came into being. We did that for a while, after which I also which is mostly like woodworking and building like furniture, building little wooden articles that people just had an idea or thought about or had seen somewhere and they wanted to make it for themselves, for their desk. And we worked a little bit with some kindergartens as well, and we built some very interesting furniture ideas for them, and we had an idea for a kindergarten classroom, working with a nonprofit organization that mostly dealt with kids that came from a very impoverished background, offered the medication, and then we came in there to make the classroom a lot better, more interactive, like the model of furniture allowed for things to be moved around, for them to have a stage if they wanted to to perform, for them to shift it around in different groups, and also then plug it into the wall to clear out the entire space. So we that was one of the projects that we executed from that part of working with with kids, and I kind of started building my own little toys out of wood as well, and then I got an opportunity to work with another bunch of friends of mine to start a wooden toy company. And that kind of made sense, because when I was working with the co creation space, what we did learn was a lot of the youth didn't really have the openness to be creative and to think outside the box, and like digging into the into that having conversations with a lot of them made us realize that just from a very young age, they weren't given The freedom to be creative, and were always told to solve a problem in a very closed manner. So I started building these open ended play systems with this other toy company that I started with these friends of mine. And the aim there was to cater to that, that very core problem of, how do you get kids to have problem solving skills think creatively and more open, and how do you get them to collaborate more and like, build those skills at a very young age? So it comes very intuitively to them. I think I was quite blessed to have toys around when I was a kid and the freedom to just go and do whatever. So me and my brothers, I have two of them. I'm the middle one, so, like, I'm kind of like the weird one who is out there just doing things. And yeah, so I was quite blessed to have have toys, and I think that has led to how I think in systems, or how I enjoy solving problems, how I when I am when I reach failure in any endeavor, I always find a way to get back up and try something new. And I think that comes at a very core, you know, learning when you're really young, and it gets integrated in how you think. So we worked around designing products to cater to that, and from then, from there, as things started, moving along with the little toy company I, as I was saying earlier on, I might go here and there with when I'm telling you about a lot of things, but that's just how my brain functions. I'm like meandering everywhere, but I'll come back around. So back to the conference in Bangalore, where I met a lot of Bitcoiners. I decided I wanted to do something in Bitcoin. I didn't know what it would be, but I told myself, by the end of the year, and this was end of 2023 I've got to start something. I know what it is, but I'll figure it out. So I found I had, I like the name plebs together strong, because it conveyed something, it was a meme. And at the same time, it could be anything like, what is it like? It represents Bitcoiners in a way, and it could be anything in the Bitcoin ecosystem, in the Bitcoin industry. And I like that was open ended. And I told myself, I'll figure it out. So then months passed by, nothing really happened, because I was busy with a lot of other projects, until I decided, by the end of the year, okay, I told myself I was going to do it. Let me put something out there. So I put out a little post. And then I said, Here it is. Flips together strong in my head. It was probably going to be like. Like a T Shirt Company, which, as you see here, we make T shirts as well now, but that seemed like an easy thing to do, because, like, I can design stuff. I have ideas, and Bitcoiners are out there. Maybe I can make some SATs selling T shirts. But as fate would have it, a few months passed by, and I'm like, No, I really need to do something. So I said. Started searching around for things that I could do with Bitcoin, and I came across my first Bitcoin and like their diploma program, which was open for use by anyone. And that seemed easy. So I said, okay, like I can maybe teach people about Bitcoin. So I took, took the curriculum, looked into it, didn't really read through the entire thing, but I said, I'll figure it out. And we put a post out to the local community around saying that we're doing this for teenagers. We're having like financial education, and we're teaching them about Bitcoin. There's this program. It was made in El Salvador, and it's Bitcoin country now. And now, for the first time, it's happening here in India. And we plebs together strong are partnering with my first Bitcoin and we're doing this thing.

Mike Peterson: 11:12

I love the fact that, like coming out of El Salvador all the way, like, I mean, pretty much as far away as you could get, you know because of this, because me premiere Bitcoin, or my first Bitcoin, is willing to make this open source and has that out there. You guys were able to roll out this educational program in Goa,

Aaronman: 11:33

yeah, all places, yeah. And the best thing is, you don't have to ask anyone. So we just took it and we rolled with it, yeah. We put a post out. And then, yeah, 12 kids showed up, and we got started week by week. We decided to compress it into six weeks, because, like, 10 weeks seemed like a lot. That's generally like 10 chapters, so compress it into six weeks, and it turned out quite well. Like we learned a lot while doing it, we came up with a few little games that we could do along in addition to, like, a lot of the activities that are already there, part of the program, and it was fun. So we did it again, and few more people showed up, and that was interesting. And, yeah, that's kind of how we got started with with plebs together strong.

Mike Peterson: 12:15

And then, in addition to to that, you guys also have you started Bitcoin beach Goa, which is a circular economy movement there in Goa, in the very early stages. I know you guys only have a handful of businesses so far, and you're just kind of getting up steam. But when we were there, you showed us a space that you guys were going to be renting near the local was it a football ground? Okay, I couldn't remember it was cricket or football. That that you guys were has? Have you guys got that opened up yet?

Aaronman: 12:49

Yeah, so we, we've been setting the space up, and it's as soon as I get back from here, we're good to roll.

Mike Peterson: 12:55

Okay, perfect. So, but when I was there, you guys were putting on a conference, which, when you told me about the conference, I was envisioning it being kind of much smaller than it wound up being. I didn't realize there was going to be people that traveled from all over India. I mean, like, flew, you know, several hours to get there, and you guys did a pretty amazing job with with the conference. And I, I met a number of amazing people. Some of them said that, you know, they like been listening to my podcast, which I was, like, fascinated by, that even in India, they have people there that are watching the Bitcoin beach podcast. But where did the idea for this conference come from, and, and why do you think you guys were able to be so successful in such short notice? I mean, it was very professionally done, and, but just the quality of people there. I mean, like I was, I was kind of blown away. Wow.

Aaronman: 13:59

I did not expect that, but thanks. Yeah, I guess we

Mike Peterson: 14:03

got some pictures playing up here in the background for those of you who are not watching it. Just you just have to imagine an amazing conference.

Aaronman: 14:11

Yeah, we pulled it together somehow. This was something that the guys from from India, there's a developer school called bit Shala. So earlier in the year, last year, we got together, and we decided to do something, because India didn't have a conference they had done one couple of years before that, but it had been quite silent after that, and really needed something in that space. And we decided to make it like really small. So in March, we actually had the summit for the first time, and then in October, we had it again. So the idea was to iterate and improve and learn how to do a proper conference. But we started like small so we had, I think, 80 people in the first one, and mostly like local builders, talking about what they're doing, sharing their projects. I. Which, in my understanding, it really helped us get more confident in doing the next one, as well as, like getting people together, there was an energy in it that we were really drawn to, like we saw the potential for why that was important and where it could lead to, especially for a country of one and a half billion people, which is an insane number, right?

Mike Peterson: 15:25

Which that I feel like most people still they hear that number thrown out there, but I don't think they like conceptualize like that's literally more people than all of North America and South America and Central America put together, like in the subcontinent of India, and so just the impact that that can have on the Bitcoin space, if bitcoin really takes off there, I think people are really underestimate,

Aaronman: 15:54

yeah, yeah. The way I like to explain it to people, a little bit more visual manner, is, if you if you're American or from the United States. Imagine four times as many people in 1/3 the amount of size. So that's like 12 times as many so in terms of population density, density. So yeah, think of instead of one American walking at you, you have 12 Indians walking at you, right for

Mike Peterson: 16:19

so that's definitely feels like that in Mumbai.

Aaronman: 16:24

Mumbai is crazy. I get I find that too much for me, too chaotic for me as well. But yeah, we have a lot of people, a lot of talent, especially like working in IT, working in so many other little fields. Indians do things in their own Indian way. There's a word for that. It's called Jugaad, which means frugal. So like being innovative, but in a frugal manner, with whatever little resources you have, like we were able to launch a craft to the moon in like, a tiny fraction of how much it takes NASA to do it with the ISRO program in India. So Indians are really good at building things. There are tons of unicorns that you see coming out of India, which do maybe solve problems that you guys do in the West, but we do it in our own Indian way. And the need for a conference like this to bring people together, to expose them to ideas, and the need for solving inherent problems over here with Bitcoin, that was something that was pressing us a lot, especially seeing how things have really picked up in Africa in the past three years. And I think big credit goes to beattrust for doing that, who are also like one of our sponsors at the event, because they're being able to within three the span of three to four years, they have multiplied the number of projects. And there's that lovely map of African Bitcoiners with all kinds of like, community projects, developer projects, events that are happening, meetups, bit devs. So a lot of very interesting things happening in Africa. And what we saw this as possibly like, like a birthplace for a lot of similar projects around here, which is really needed, and that did eventually end up happening. So a lot of people who came for the second summit that we had, the one that you attended, they already came back with ideas from the first summit that we had, and had started building upon them. They already had built alliances with people they met the first time. They were already taking steps forward in putting a project plan down, some of them already started building. And this really opened up a lot of possibilities. And we saw quite a few things emerge from there, one of them, which, if you know, student of Bitcoin, who Santosh, he's traveled all across Africa and other places he came in. He was a judge at a pitch contest held by anger at our event. And he saw the kind of talent that was around and decided to start the student of Bitcoin remote accelerator program. So now there's that, yeah. So there's nine projects now that he is incubating and over 12 weeks where everybody meets together weekly is they're also guided and providing updates on what they're doing. And everyone's like sharing resources and ideas and feedback. And pleb space, which is like one of our projects, is part of the accelerator as well. So pleb space is the little local Bitcoin hub that we have, which we realized it doesn't really make sense to have a Bitcoin hub, because nobody wants to learn about Bitcoin. And I'm talking in terms of in terms of India, so you have to be creative in terms of meeting people where they're at. And I think that's what we're trying to solve in a very different manner with web space. Is. Is making it more of a community event space or a Community Learning Hub, and that opens up to partnerships with a lot of other people who otherwise would, you know, want to hold, want to stay away, because it's a Bitcoin space. So that's kind of the approach we're taking with that project, and with the accelerator program, we get to really be pushed in terms of having good strategy in place, also figuring out if there's a business plan around this, and making the hub more sustainable long term, because you can't really rely too much on on just funding from grants, it would make sense if it can sustain itself and provide for the community somehow. So that was one of the ideas that now is like forming a lot more. And it happens through conversations. It happens through meeting people in cafes, understanding what their problems are, and then realizing, okay, we can solve it in a really innovative manner. Through this, through this physical space, I can go on and talk a lot more about some of the ideas there.

Mike Peterson: 21:04

Well, yeah, let's, let's get into that. But I would like to have you give a shout out to the people that sponsored the conference, because I know you guys rely on on sponsors and for them to take a risk on something that's fairly new. So I think HRF, which, which is always, you know, they're there. They seem to always be in the middle of sponsoring a lot of great things. Who else did you guys have there? We had B trust.

Aaronman: 21:32

We had Angular pay stand as well. Really great for them to have.

Mike Peterson: 21:39

You have you met Alex and Jeremy from paystand, person I know you had a phone call. Yeah, I had a chat with they're gonna be here this week. So yeah, so you should be able to meet them in person. So yeah, and ferry, I think ferry as well. Yeah, we just, I just did a podcast with, with Obi earlier. So yeah,

Aaronman: 22:00

I ran into him this morning at the beach, like, very randomly. He was just, you know, getting some sunlight, and there he was. So it was pretty cool to meet him. And was that first time you met him. We met before, I think, a couple of times in other places, but just to randomly run into people on the day

Mike Peterson: 22:15

you arrive. Well, that's, that's how it is here. And Bitcoin beach, you just run into Bitcoiners everywhere.

Aaronman: 22:21

Yeah. So that is pretty cool. And yeah, in addition to that, of course, like, thanks a lot to Bitcoin beach as well for also supporting this event and some of the other side events that were happening alongside at the summit. The idea behind that was also to get people in. I can talk about, like, the faction idea that you had. So what's interesting about this particular summit is we decided to to be a little bit more creative, and we looked at the board, okay, who shows up to a Bitcoin Conference, or who is required for building the Bitcoin ecosystem, kind of like starting with that point, and realized, like we could categorize them, and we turned them into almost like factions. So we have four of them. The first one is called the steel bond. Who are the builders? The huddles, the entrepreneurs. You need them. They form like a solid base for for building these ideas into things that actually work out in the real world, in the market. And, of course, the hodlers, who are like, just doing their bit, right? So these guys who are thinking about the monetary aspect a lot more, and thinking about business. And then you have the luminaries who from, like the sound of it, it's like light, right? So each of these factions also has like a symbol as well. So this one is like a lantern, and that's the educators and the community builders as well as who did I miss? Mostly these, these people who are out there spreading knowledge, podcasters like yourself as well, to help people learn about Bitcoin and all the different aspects. Then you have the note breakers, who are the cipher punks and the developers, also the UI UX designers, who are part of actually building the tools and like, kind of form, the the defense, or even the attack at times, right? For if you think of like a citadel, right? Yeah, you need these, these people in these roles, and then you have the freeholders, who, I would think of them more on the philosophical, philosophical side of things, which is like the political advocates as well as the Libertarians and people who are, who are writing as well. They're important because they allow the ideas to spread in other ways, and they push the boundaries in terms of, like, what Bitcoin is or what it should be. And yeah, so the idea there was for people to figure out their next step, as I did when I went to my first Bitcoin Conference, like, what do I do next? So this kind. Gives you a direction, and kind of also connects you with people who are similar minded as well as you kind of realize maybe I need, if I'm building something around I need somebody from one of the other factions as well to balance things out, because I just don't want to be with like minded people. I need somebody to push back on my ideas. So we give people these little faction cards when they entered into the summit and we stamped in the block height. So then it makes a pact that you are now part of, you know, the bitlebs community, and we left them with a challenge at the end of the first summit. Is okay, fine. What can you do for Bitcoin when you come back the next time and you see these many blocks have already passed, so you have this as a reminder some of some of the people, they kept them, you know, in their wallet. One guy, he was so like on fire about it. He taught himself. He was a retired guy from the army, Indian Army, and he taught himself to solar and to build boards. And now they started a bit AX production facility, and they're catering to, like, very cheap, very well made Bitcoin home miners. And now they're brought they got together in the last summit, and few other people got together, and now they have something called bit Asha. You can look it up with Paco, who is also, like, a great, funny, amazing person. Everyone in the Bitcoin space knows him. Parker. Shout out to him, because he was one of the guys that inspired me to get into bitcoin as well from the very first conference. So these guys got together, and now they are also looking into building other Bitcoin hardware, so they're part of the accelerator as well. So everything, kind of like all the little bits and pieces, like little Lego blocks are now fitting together. Yeah. So that was kind of the idea. If we have to build out the ecosystem, we need to get people together in the same room. We need them to understand the need for building out projects and for solving real problems that we have in India.

Mike Peterson: 27:02

That's for those of you can't see. We got a picture now of we did a fireside chat, me and Aaron. So I really enjoyed doing that during the conference. I'm curious. I still am a little bit perplexed at why India isn't leading the way more on Bitcoin. I mean, historically, you have, everybody knows, Indians love gold. They understand gold. They understand hard money. They have hoarded gold for, you know, for centuries. And you also have a population that's very focused on tech, and you have a big portion of the work done in the tech world is, you know, offshore to India, or done by Indians that move to the US on the h2 b1 visas, I think, H 1b H 1b, yeah. So, why is it that Bitcoin has seemed to have a slow uptake in India? It just seems like it would have all the right elements. So I'm curious as to what you think. I know the government's been, you know, hostile towards it, and there's been times where it's been declared illegal, and then they go to court, and it's not, and it's a little bit and ambiguous, but I feel like there's other countries that have been anti Bitcoin, but still, the population, like, you know, really has gone all in. So what, why do you think it is that India has not gone all in in Bitcoin? And then what do we need to do to help push in that direction?

Aaronman: 28:43

Yeah, I mean, there's, there's a lot of factors there to unpack into, like, why India as a country is where it is in terms of Bitcoin adoption. There are some figures which I don't really believe, which which claim to have, like, a lot of self custody Bitcoin huddlers in the country. Okay, I'm not very certain, because if they are around, where are they, you know, but that's also maybe a good thing. But I think if you really dive a little bit deeper into, like the some of the mindset that has been pushed into a lot of modern Indians, it comes generationally from, to some extent, from the British having, you know, being in India for quite a while has made had has made a lot of Indians very subservient in their outlook, towards towards government or towards authority. Most people just they're very compliant, yeah, yeah. And we saw this during covid as well. We see this in terms of the overall politics of the country.

Mike Peterson: 29:55

People are like the opposite of Americans. Americans tend to not be very

Aaronman: 29:58

Yeah, no. I. Shouting liberty and freedom, you know, in the streets. And overall, that's that's kind of like one one thing that contributes to it in terms of gold. Yes, India does understand gold culturally. And one another figure that had come out recently was, I think we have 35,000 tons of gold that is self custodied by, you know, households, housewives, to a large extent, because women in India love gold, they understand it a lot better. In fact, women understand for that reason, they understand Bitcoin even better, because they understand the need to to protect one's wealth, right? And that comes very naturally to women, to protect the family, right?

Mike Peterson: 30:47

And definitely I did. I was surprised at how well represented the the women were at the conference in India, because a lot of times you go to conferences, it's like 10 to one. But there was, there was quite a few women that were attending there. So that makes sense?

Aaronman: 31:00

Yeah, I hope that rises as well, because that definitely helps. So they do understand gold. They understand where was I going with this.

Mike Peterson: 31:16

You were just saying that the women in general kind of understand that the need to be able to, like, control your wealth and to have sovereignty over it, and that they get that with gold, but with Bitcoin, it's Yeah, yeah.

Aaronman: 31:31

Overall, I think there are a couple of other factors. I think there's a lot of misconceptions around Bitcoin, especially pushed into the mainstream media. Every time you hear the word Bitcoin, you hear the word scam linked to it on the newspaper reports most

Mike Peterson: 31:46

and there have been some big scams in India, right, that they used. They weren't really about Bitcoin, but they were using Bitcoin as the form of money in the scam.

Aaronman: 31:56

Yeah, a lot of times. There are even some cases where people would go and, like, show them a piece of paper and then tell them that they're buying Bitcoin. And, you know, people would thinking that that's a person representing Bitcoin, they would buy into it. So things as silly as that also tend to work, but the overall mainstream narrative always links to people to this. So people are a little bit careful around it. Somehow, like the crypto industry has really picked up like crazy in India, or at least it had, you know, during its surge in the in 2021 22 especially during that time, though, it still has, like, a lot of crypto communities around I think these are just like techies who are looking to solve fun problems. They aren't really thinking too much, or aren't exposed to the real problem of money. And that's one aspect that we try to help people understand, is sure, like, inflation isn't as big a problem here in India, you don't feel it as much as other countries, but it's, it's, it's happening, like, I

Mike Peterson: 33:02

mean, it's still significant. I remember last time I was in India, which was, like 30 years ago, but it was, I think, 30 to one at that time. And now, what's it? 9190 to one. Yeah. So it's, it's definitely losing value, even, and that's against the dollar, which itself is losing value.

Aaronman: 33:19

So, yeah, the thing is that it's slow enough for it to not be such a problem for most people. So the way I like to explain it to people is like, even though the government or the economist report inflation is at really low levels, the reality is that it's linked to the monetary expansion, and that's kind of like closer to 12% so that's like 1/8 of your savings is getting diluted every year, and that means in six years, your money has halved in its purchasing power. So the moment you tell people something like this, like my mom understands that now, because it's it's pretty simple to see someone taking away half your money every five, five to six years, and then that becomes real to them, enough for them to to understand. Yeah, that kind of makes sense. Like, the price of like, the something that they're used to having has doubled in in five years. So that must mean something's wrong. So we press upon that a lot more. We make it a lot easier for them to understand in a lot of like, the courses, the meetups, of the workshops that we, that we organize, and just like make it simpler for them to understand what they could do about it. And the fact that we do have tools now that are open and accessible to absolutely everyone, and all it takes is a little bit of like responsibility, to learn a few things and then apply that responsibility in how you preserve your wealth, and then nobody can take away 1/8 of it every year, like it's as simple as that, right? So that's probably a better place to. To lead with, especially in conversations with people rather than you know, like dropping everything you know about Bitcoin onto them and telling them it's going to change the world and this and that. Like you just meet people where their problems are, make the problem apparent to them, because a lot of times, they aren't aware of their life decisions that they make. You know, whether it is the staying in a current job or not wanting to have a family, which is quite common amongst a lot of millennials today, they choose to, you know, either adopt cats and dogs or even, you know, be plant parents, which is crazy when you think about it, but they'd rather do that, because having kids is expensive, right? And that's what they're taught to believe, that it'll it's better to to have to, you know, play a pets. So when you make these things apparent to them, like how their life choices stem from a broken monetary system that they are forced to to use that kind of opens up the possibility for them to want to do something about it. And a lot of times it's just about talking to people, helping them see it for themselves, rather than pressing it upon them. And that's kind of been super helpful with a lot of people we've seen open up to understanding it, wanting to learn more, wanting to come and join and be a part of the community, and then buy some SATs, learn to self custody, figure out what else they can do with it. Right? Maybe you can go and even spend some at at a local cafe. Maybe you can, if you have, if you're running a tiny little business, maybe you can start accepting it from, from people as well. Maybe you can look for jobs freelancing that help you, you know, stack some more of that really good, hard sound money, right? So, yeah, it's, it's been, it's been fun, to be honest, like the past couple of years, it's to help people and to also, like, find meaning in this entire journey, which is something that I was really looking for while I was working as an engineer, what I thought was for the medical industry, but realizing that how big of a scam all of That is like almost all centralized institutions today are just designed to keep you enslaved by them. And here you have, you know, people who are building things in parallel. Now you have, I'm very interested to see how things are in El Salvador in terms of health and wellness and education, because these are also otherwise very centralized systems that now have

Mike Peterson: 37:47

definitely have a long way to go in those areas, but I feel like the government understands that, and we're starting to see some action on it. So, yeah, some so you're here for the summit first, and it's going to be fun for you to be able to meet all these other people that are running circular Bitcoin economies all over the world. Then we have the plan B conference, and then you're actually staying for the fellowship program that we do here at Bitcoin Beach, where we have people from different circular Bitcoin economies kind of stay with us for a while, work alongside the team see what it's like to be living in a community where you know, 95% of the businesses you know accept Bitcoin, and you can easily live on a Bitcoin standard. So what are you looking forward to the most in the next couple of weeks? Here? What's like your vision for what's going to happen.

Aaronman: 38:41

Yeah, I mean, I'm very excited so far, like, I've already gotten to, like, in just one day, got already gotten to see quite a lot of things happening around and even, like, the change that has come into the space in a few small conversations with locals around over here. So it's exciting to see how magic internet money can make such a magical difference in a part of the world that hasn't had opportunities, and now suddenly, because people are thinking differently and are basing it on something that is bound in laws of the universe. Now those laws and that physics flows into a lot of how they interact, and the systems that they build upon that, and the panel systems especially, right? And it'll be it's interesting to get to speak to a lot more people. I'm super excited for the circular economy Summit, put together by the Federation of Bitcoin circular economies and Bitcoin beach. I think it's really great initiative to get so many people together. In my head, it's almost like there's the scene from Spider Man into across Spider Man, across the spider verse, which has like different variants of spider man from different universes coming together and. They're all like in this in the same room, and that kind of feels like, what, what the summit might just be, which is, they're all community leaders trying with a very similar vision, but different flavors, because they're they're serving different needs, different people, different cultures, in very different ways. And now we all get to, like, learn from each other and see what works, why it works, what's their thinking behind it? And really get to build some bonds with these people who you know. We end up running into them in a lot of different places around the world, as Bitcoiners do. It's just such a tiny group of people, so it's nice to get to stay a little while, get to know them. We're staying together in like, the same little guest house over here as well. So really looking forward to understanding what's unique, what drives them, what are they afraid of, what what modes of failure do they see in their work that they're doing right? Because all of us have, or if we haven't yet, we will probably face similar issues at some point in time. So it's great to to have this opportunity

Mike Peterson: 41:12

to lots of failures. When you're doing a Bitcoin circular economy, lots of things you try that don't work, but it's that's what's so great about bringing people together. You can share with each other, like, hey, you know, we tried this way. It didn't work. Maybe it'll work for you, but for us, this what we saw. And so, yeah, that's what's so great about bringing all that knowledge and experience together.

Aaronman: 41:32

Yeah, that's the richness of it, right for me as well. It's doing the community, doing a lot of the Bitcoin work back home, it's a lot of it was just learning what not to do, like, by failing. And when you have this group of people that is doing the exact same thing in a lot of different ways, everyone's learning what not to do. And I think that's very important, as well as like, what really is working, what's hitting, what's really solving needs for people in and the kind of systems that they're putting into place to make it work. I think that's the next layer that we need to be building upon a lot more is how do we improve, or how do we scale, or how do we automate certain things? What tools are more useful than others, and how do we link up these these tools? How do we be more efficient with our time? And how do we serve people's needs a lot better? So really looking forward to what's in store over the next few days, and then maybe hopefully travel around a little bit in El Salvador as well. Really looking forward to Berlin. I spoke to Evelyn. We got gotten connected a little while back by Aza who had attended, Aza who also runs adopting Bitcoin, she had gotten connected, and she got us connected. And we had really good conversation, because a lot of ideas that we're doing in parallel, very similar in terms of, like the vision as well, in terms of how you want to use a hub and how that eventually forms a citadel years down the line, like we're seeing happening over here in El zonte. It's a little citadel of itself. And, yeah, there's going to be a lot of things that I haven't prepared for, but I'm looking forward to whatever El zonte and El Salvador throws at me. I'm excited. Awesome.

Mike Peterson: 43:30

Well, where can people follow you if they want to come visit the project? What's what's the best way to do that? If you have any other information about upcoming conferences, any anything that people need to know about what you guys are doing in India, this is the time for you let them know.

Aaronman: 43:49

Yeah. Well, there's, there's us plebs together strong. There's also bit Shala, who is doing a lot of amazing things. And we have, we are just getting started with planning the next bit pleb summit sometime near the end of this year.

Mike Peterson: 44:04

And is their twitter handle or website? Or what's the best way for Yeah, you

Aaronman: 44:08

can search for bit plebs. I think it's bit plebs, underscore in, or.in I'm not really sure what the Twitter handle is, but you can also go to the website bit plebs.in, and we also have our website, plebs together strong.com you can find a lot more information about us over there. The other thing that I'm also very excited about is the plan B forum that's happening right now, which to me when I attended the one in Lugano as well, because I also work with Plan B handling the Asian communities around over here, I some of whom I ran into over here, the guys from Korea, I expected. Did you meet them? Yeah, before I just a few weeks back, I got in touch with a with a few of their colleagues who are doing interesting things in Korea. And, yeah, there's, there's many conference happening. There's. Certain other projects, but it's great that I get to spend some time with them as well, and yeah, basically help spread, spread Bitcoin in whatever capacity, the forum as well that we are that's happening this, this weekend, I believe a lot of people from my team in Plan B are going to be here as well. So that's going to be pretty good to for me. For me, I'm probably going to spend a lot of time in the booth, so I'm looking forward to, like, meeting a lot more people at the forum and come say hi. And if you're ever in India, like you can which way should I look? Right right there. Like, if you're ever in India, like Goa is a nice place to come in. It's what we are hoping to build, like the El Salvador of India. That's the way the El

Mike Peterson: 45:54

Salvador of India.

Aaronman: 45:55

Yeah, and let's see how that goes. So if you, if you want to come be a part of things, join us. Get in touch with us. We are happy to see how you can, you know, just be a part of this journey with us. Have you guys set dates for the next conference we will be very soon, and we put the dates out on the website as well. Okay, perfect.

Mike Peterson: 46:13

All right, Aaron, well, I'm looking forward to having you here for the next couple weeks. And yeah, it's, it's, it's fun to see you again now, now on my my home turf. Yeah. So thanks for being here.

Aaronman: 46:28

Thanks a lot, Mike. This has been like a pleasure being a part of this and such a privilege to come here and witness like Bitcoin country firsthand and the magic that's happening, like on the beach, like that to me on Bitcoin Beach, I'm super grateful to that awesome you.