00:00 Hello, I'm Seth For Privacy, and welcome to a special episode of Opt Out. Opt Out's a show where I sit down with passionate people to learn why privacy matters to them, the tools and techniques they found and leveraged, and where we encourage and inspire others towards personal privacy and data sovereignty. This episode, we're taking a break from the normal structure of Opt Out to focus on a conference I'll be attending and speaking at in April, Monerotopia, and learn more about it from the creator, Doug Tumann.

Welcome on to Opt Out, Doug. Thanks for having me, man. Yeah, I'm absolutely thrilled to chat with you a little bit more for Opt Out and just honestly to have a Monero-focused and privacy-focused as well conference in Monerotopia this year. It's not very often that Monero is represented at a conference, and honestly, I feel like there aren't a ton of privacy-centric conferences that aren't just trade shows. So, really excited to go in really just a couple weeks now and present as well, and thankful for you putting in all the effort to put that together.

But for those who aren't familiar with you, do you mind just introducing yourself and then telling us a little bit about what Monerotopia is? Yeah. So, Douglas Tumann. I run the Monero Talk podcast, which branched off. We also then started the Monerotopia show. I'm a Monero advocate, really, really into crypto, and what I see as it ultimately standing for, moving toward this more decentralized world, breaking down centralized systems. And I found my way to Monero because I think it's the coin that has the best shot at being the most disruptive in that respect.

And so, just super passionate about it, and that's why I started my podcast, so I can interview people and learn more about it. And I kind of hear, get info right from the source, and stuck with it ever since. Just kept going down the rabbit hole. And then, yeah, recently decided to throw a Monero conference. We kind of have the Rolodex to do it, because we've been interviewing people in this space forever. We've been going to conferences as media, so we knew who to contact and how to get it going.

And, yeah, just a labor of love, just like the show itself. You know, just wanted to do something for Monero to help grow it, and that's why we decided to throw the conference. And also, it's because we weren't sure if the Monero con was going to take place, which, you know, there's only been one so far. And then we had COVID and whatever, and it wasn't really, you know, unknown whether or not Monero con would take place, so I stepped up and said, hey, I want to throw Monerotopia.

And we decided to throw it down in Miami in conjunction with the Bitcoin conference with hope that we could kind of, you know, for lack of a better term, leech off of that a little bit so we can get some maybe, you know, not so maxi Monero people, people that are, you know, Monero curious that might want to come over and check it out. It's literally just, you know, you know, just walk down the block and, you know, you're in Monerotopia. So, yeah.

Yeah, very excited for that. And I think it was a good idea planning it around Bitcoin Miami and just the masses that will be there. It'll be a good chance for a lot of people who kind of have a foot in both camps to chat and catch up and hopefully draw on some people who haven't thought deeply about Monero, but who can learn and just chat with some people from the community. That will definitely be a good time. I'm very excited to hear all of the speakers you have planned and we'll dive in a little bit more into what the plan is for this year a little bit later.

But I did just want to kind of circle back. Obviously, privacy and the privacy in Monero is something that's drawn you to it. And it's something you've been one of the early people harping on on podcasts. You've really, I think, done an excellent job with Monero Talk, pushing some of the harder topics like fungibility, like privacy, like the impacts of censorship and decentralization in cryptocurrencies on your podcast, Monero Talk. So obviously, personal privacy or privacy and money, at least, is something that's a key focus for you.

So I'd love to hear a little bit more about what it was that woke you up to the need for personal privacy. Yeah, I mean, for me, it's more of the digital cash thing. And, you know, that's what I really got excited about was this technology, this protocol that you can use to send people money through the internet and it would act just like cash. Nobody can stop you from doing it. Nobody can see that you're doing it. So obviously, for that to work, it needs to be private.

It wasn't like I was just, you know, some huge privacy advocate and then got into Monero because of that. it's more so I'm looking for the best form of digital cash. And I'm just really into digital cash because I'm just a, I'm a, I'm just a diehard Liberty guy. You know, that's kind of like what wakes me up in the morning. That's what I get excited about. You know, it's just fighting for Liberty and fighting to make sure we, you know, we as a society trend towards one where we always maintain our humanity and our individuality.

You know, I am like concerned about these potential dystopia outcomes, you know, surveillance, capitalism. And I was always concerned about these things from, you know, when I first started to confront technology from, you know, even from a young age, I was always kind of like cognizant of these concepts. and then to just, you know, it was, I was into the sci-fi and, you know, the matrix and, you know, I was always into, you know, all those things.

And to see it then, you know, these theoretical, you know, things start to come to fruition. I just, you know, I'm more passionate now than ever. You know, it's not kind of, like we used to talk, I feel like we used to talk about these things as like theoreticals. Like, oh, you know, we can't get to this time where it's like, now we're like literally living it, you know, and at the same time, we also have this amazing invention, cryptocurrency, that could potentially, you know, solve those upcoming issues and prevent us from entering into this dystopia.

And so, yeah, the privacy thing is just one element of it. For me, it's the digital cash and the liberty that it has the potential to bring humanity. That's what excites me about it. Yeah, I kind of, I love that you're not just like another piece of the privacy community and so that's why you love Monero. Because I feel like so many people that are into Monero and focus on it are already kind of general privacy focused people. And so, that's why they shift that way.

But it's always cool to me to hear more from like quote unquote normal people, but just people who aren't as like privacy maximalist or like a little bit more paranoid in the privacy scheme, but who see the value in digital cash anyways and see the value in the privacy that is necessary for digital cash anyway. So it's always been a, I think a cool part of your approach and a fascinating part of Monero talk too is your angle is very unique and brings a unique perspective as to why Monero matters in a broad sense.

And then obviously you running for Congress and just all the different ways that you try to have an impact and to kind of push the envelope towards liberty is a fascinating thing. It's been awesome to watch. Thank you, man. Thank you. Once again, yeah, labor of love. Yeah, and you know, just the fact that, you know, Monero is called a privacy coin that bothers me. You know, it is great for, you know, for conveying this concept that it is private, but it also kind of turns it into this niche thing when really it should be the general thing, right?

It should be, you know, we like, I always say it on the show, right? Like, we don't have cash and privacy cash. We have cash. Just start calling everything else surveillance coins and just call Monero cryptocurrency since it's actually private for the crypto part. Exactly. So, working on that. I think we're slowly winning that battle. I don't know. What do you think? Slowly but surely. I've been trying to push some different language around it too, like at least like privacy preserving cryptocurrency or something outside of just kind of privacy coin.

But, it's a hard thing to shift once it's put in place. And it requires people accepting the issues that are inherent in transparent cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin. And that's a whole other thing to open up, a whole other can of worms. But, that kind of is required for that concept to get across that Monero shouldn't be unique and that it's a privacy coin. It really has the basic things you need in good money and especially in something that you want to be as a replacement for cash in a digital age.

So, it really is the bare minimum. But, that's a hard concept to get across to a lot of people. Yeah, yeah. But, an important one. I saw just, I think it was, I don't know if the video was recent. I think it was just posted like a few days ago. And, Andreas Antonopoulos talking about, yeah, it says one hour ago, Andreas, should you use Monero for privacy? So, I don't know if he recorded this a while ago and just posted it. But, it's like a two minute video.

I just watched it before I jumped on here. And, somebody was asking like, should you use Monero if you want to be private? And, he was like, pretty much like, yeah, you should. You know?

10:00 if you want, if that's what you're concerned about. But then he was like, you know, but the thing is, it's a double-edged sword because, you know, Bitcoin is more liquid than Monero. And so it has a larger anonymity set in terms of the amount of people that use it. So yeah, you should use Monero if you really use privacy, but if you want like a store of value, use Bitcoin. And so like, that's the type of thing that just like bothers me to the core.

Cause like, here's this guy who, I loved Andrea Santana. I love, not loved, I do, I still do. I think the guy, the guy's great. You know, he was amazing. And the way he can convey ideas and the way he talked about crypto at a time before no one really understood it. And he was just able to simply explain it and explain why it's so important. The things that he always talked about really resonated with me as to why something like Monero is amazing.

And then here he is basically saying, you know, Monero is great, but it's not liquid. So, but what I don't get is like, you know, you have this platform, you're Andrea Santanopoulos. You are literally at like the crypto guru, right? Like world renowned. So why not just solve the liquidity problem by starting to talk about Monero and telling people they should use Monero, right? Like, sorry to go off on a tangent there, but I was just staring me in the face.

I mean, what's your take on that? I mean, it's the, it's that same thing of people who talk about like, yeah, yeah, Monero works well. It's great, but it'll never have the network effect that Bitcoin has. And it's just like, people don't seem to understand how network effects work and that they can change and that the way that they change is you just start talking about the tool that's better and using the tool that's better. Right. And eventually the snowball reverses and it goes the other way.

And the same thing for liquidity, like you're, you're mentioning with Andreas, he is a massive platform. Exactly. And he obviously sees the technological benefit in Monero. And I don't know, even that the framing hurts me when people say like, if you need privacy, use Monero. And as someone who obviously is very focused on broad personal privacy, everyone needs privacy. Like that's not a, there's, that's not a caveat. Everyone should then start using Monero if that's the logic behind it.

But obviously it's just this thing that's been twisted into, most people don't need privacy, but if you're doing weird things, maybe you should think about using Monero. And it's just, it's not a, it's a framing that's harmful to the cryptocurrency space, but it's also just a framing that's, that's been harmful for years in the broader technology space and in the privacy space because people go, well, I don't, I guess I don't really need privacy.

So I'll just keep using Bitcoin because it's more liquid instead of realizing that they can use Monero, build up liquidity because they start buying and selling it. And then it solves that one problem, which is not a problem for most people in reality, but it solves that one problem as more people start buying and selling Monero because they start using it because it's the better tool for just general usage. But yeah, that's a complex topic. That's what irks me with the, you know, the guns in Bitcoin crowd and like the Samourai wallet guys who, once again, a lot of respect for, for especially the Samourai wallet guys, but, you know, I feel like, I don't know, I don't know, maybe, maybe it's changing.

I haven't really tuned into them lately, especially guns in Bitcoin. They have me blocked on Twitter. So I don't really know what they're saying these days, but are they still saying like Monero is just a tool and it's ultimately trending to zero against Bitcoin? No, I don't think so. I mean, I think there's been a pretty large shift, especially this chatting with, with Ragnar and seeing him talking on, on Twitter. I think, I think a lot of people who understand the need for privacy, again, not people who need privacy because everyone needs privacy, but people who understand the need for privacy and who are in the Bitcoin space, anyone who is like that and, and actually has an open mind to doing research and learning the answers to questions about how money should work, about how money can work technologically.

I think a lot of them are coming around and, and most are doing so in private and it's not something they're talking about publicly because I, I understand, even though it's a bit painful to see people who don't want to cause a ruckus by talking about Monero publicly, even though it is the better tool for many of the situations that they're advocating for Monero or for Bitcoin usage. But I, I think a lot of people are starting to even come around publicly and, and Ragnar has been one of those who's been talking a lot about the benefits that Monero brings and, um, he even went on what Bitcoin did and talked a good bit about Monero and was talking about how it, it solves a lot of the, the key problems in Bitcoin.

Did he say, you know, it's just a tool and like Bitcoin is the store of value coin and, or is he, is that narrative slowly changing? Um, I think that is the, that's the common narrative for people in that place and I, I really do think it's a journey and I think as most people when they start using Monero and actually interacting with it, um, and this was a lot of what happened in Ragnar's journey. So, you should definitely see if you can get him on Monero Talks.

I think it'd be a great conversation, but, yeah, I would love to do that. A lot of his, you gotta, you gotta be, you gotta be, I'll reach out. I'll see what I can do. I'm a good guy. Come on. Um, but I, I think a lot of his journey was because he actually used Monero and he realized the simplicity and the peace of mind that, that comes with using a cryptocurrency that handles the privacy for you, that handles the, the digital cash aspects for you.

Right, right, right. Do you not have to fuss with all that? And that's when he started accepting it on his store and then that's when it became something he wanted to have as a topic at Barams and Bitcoin. And obviously, that's what I'll be speaking about there. And so I think it's, it's a, it's a slow turn, but I think we're seeing a lot of the people who are, who have had hope in Bitcoin as a tool for freedom and as a tool for privacy. And I think you're starting to realize that while it can be that for the individual, Monero is a, at least a key tool that everyone needs to understand and understand how to use and have learned about.

But I think, like I said, like as people start using it, it's, it's really hard to go backwards because once you get used to just being able to spend freely, not having to worry about CoinJoin, not having to worry about CoinControl and PostMix tools and all of these different things, it's very hard to go back to actually using Bitcoin. But it is going to be interesting to see how people handle the kind of the store of value aspects because I think there's still something to be said with the history of people wanting to keep Bitcoin as their, their store of value and, and spend Monero.

And as long as there are atomic swaps, I think that's a viable strategy. Obviously, I disagree with that and I see the long-term store of value properties of Monero as being great and maybe even better than Bitcoin, but I can definitely understand the angle of wanting to kind of use Bitcoin for savings and Monero for checking. And Monero is obviously an excellent tool at that, but it's also an excellent tool for store of value long-term. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

Yeah, the whole, the whole coin control, I mean, Jesus, the fact that that term even exists, that's a problem, right? Like, you know, I don't, I don't have, you know, the coin control doesn't exist with spending cash, right? You're not like picking up the power bill you're going to use out of your pocket, you know? Yeah, it's a, it's a huge regression and it's, it's something I think people, people forgot the benefits of a government-endorsed fungibility by mandate currency like cash and they also forgot the value of the, the physical aspects of cash, which are what make it private.

Like, the reason we need digital cash is because cash remotely is a very difficult thing to do. Like, cash by mail is not fun. You can do it, but it's, it's not fun and it's not a great way to pay for things. And people forgot that when Bitcoin was built and they got excited and once they kind of realized that we've kind of gone backwards when you actually want to spend it because like you said, you don't, you don't go to the restaurant and pull out your wallet and go, oh crap, I can't give them the $20 bill that I got from this source.

I need to give them two tens and then the change they give me back I need to put in a separate pocket and like, that's just not something that's a, a realistic piece of the fiat world, but it's something that we've kind of regressed to with Bitcoin. So it's definitely, definitely a tricky piece and it, Bitcoin's weird because I, if you go through and learn and take the time and educate yourself, you can use it privately and you can use it as a tool for freedom, it's just incredibly difficult and it doesn't need to be that difficult and obviously, I talk about it a lot, but the main reason I focus more on Monero is because I see it as a much easier tool to recommend to people.

I see it as a much easier tool for people to pick up and start using and even people who don't care about privacy gain those strong privacy benefits and gain the fungibility and all of the other things that come with Monero. So it's a tricky topic but it's definitely one that obviously has been a long time coming and I think is coming to a head a bit as Bitcoin starts to get actually used in some interesting real world scenarios and people get confronted with the hard reality of jail time when they use Bitcoin incorrectly.

So it's a time where there's a thread of hope to wake people up and I'm hoping that we can start to kind of shake people and point them in the right direction and if Bitcoin gets improved and Bitcoin gets fixed and we don't need a Monero I think that would be awesome but for now Monero is my the superior solution. I know it's not that's not Monero maximalist talk. You know you do a good job at that though that's why they're letting you on the stage again.

20:00 coin they're not letting me not even letting me in the room you know so there's a little more diplomatic something would be said the way you uh handle things it's working very well keep it up so let's circle back get back on topic jump back into to monerotopia talk and uh just to start out why the name monerotopia i never i've never asked you this about your show that's also named monerotopia so i'm curious for the answer uh was actually very similar to the name of your show opt out in in my mind right so like that that was that's what monerotopia is is to me um sunita and i wanted to start like kind of a community oriented podcast show we wanted to start like living quote unquote living in monerotopia you know opting out and then showing people like let's all opt out together and talking about it and that was kind of like the genesis of the uh of the idea like let's let's just you want to live in monerotopia let's just start doing it so monerotopia is this place that you know exists everywhere and anywhere all you have to do is uh move all your money into monero opt out and

you're now living in monerotopia um that's that's kind of the idea and then just to just talk about you know how we really get there you know how we create a circular economy um and just talking to people about about growing it growing the ecosystem spreading the good word about it that's what monerotopia is all about yeah so let's let's chat a little bit more about that that idea of a circular economy because i think that's a a thing that you've done an amazing job with with gratuitous coffee and with your kind of representation of monero and of gratuitous set at different conferences that you go to as media um and it seems like that's also a focus of monerotopia um so you mind sharing a little bit more about like why you see value in building a circular economy and then maybe how that uh intersects with the focus of of monerotopia this year uh with the value in building i mean i think that that is the goal that is the end goal right so we we move away from fiat we completely opt out and uh you know now we're no longer than reliant on receiving permission from the

the government uh we just start using our own cryptocurrency um to compete with the traditional world and you know if i could live in a world where i can you know buy my meat and buy my eggs and whatever pay my rent in monero uh mission accomplished uh and so that that's you know probably our our best route towards success is creating this circular economy where we just all opt into using this as opposed to you know trying to get governments to make it legal tender which you know we saw that happen in el salvador that was cool um or you know people have different opinions on it but uh my point is it should just be this thing you know just allow organic adoption adoption to take place people have a real need for digital cash and the quicker we get there the more powerful it becomes so that it is it literally is the goal sir uh circular economy for for crypto um and that was the second part of the question like how does that play into well the gratuitous thing was once again yeah it's just a project we were trying

to showcase a use case for digital cash so here's a way something you weren't able to do pre-crypto uh but you know not necessarily like you know buying things on the on the dark net not that i necessarily think there's anything wrong with that i think those are just open markets some pro open market guy but i wanted something like to convey something maybe more to the mainstream right so like here's an example uh you know you go buy your coffee at the brooklyn coffee shop we're accustomed to tipping the barista well how cool would it be if you could also tip the farmers that picked your beans such a cool idea with crypto you could actually do it with monero in particular right on chain you know super easy super cheap to transact uh on the other side you just need to give the guy a piece of paper the guy or the girl a piece of paper with their 25 word seed on it they technically don't even need you know for the initial purposes right just they want to just have that little piggy bank with little digital gold nuggets going in it

literally all they need is that you know the piece of paper with their seat on it and then people in all over the world can can send them zap them little tips directly without going through a bank or anything or you know uh so i i when i thought of the idea kind of blew my mind and i was like i got to get this up and running and you know i i thought of it many years ago actually and initially was going to try to do it for bitcoin when i was a btc maxi and then actually when i got you know when i became a monero guy because of you know the the the belief in uh you know that it was a more pure form of digital cash i then also said but wait does this idea not work as well because you know people can't see the transactions going through and i was like even like a little so i i see you know the use cases of both cryptos even they're just looking at this idea and then ultimately i was like actually no it works better with monero because uh the people receiving the tips don't want the whole world to know that

they got these tips especially you know they're like in el salvador where like you know if they get like a hundred bucks uh that could potentially turn into thousands of dollars over time uh i don't you know they probably don't want their neighbors to to know about that you know so uh i ultimately end being actually no it works it works perfect with monero that's especially with the cheap transaction fees um but yeah that's the whole gratuitous thing and then monero topi itself in terms of circular economy i mean we're just trying to showcase like like like let's just start using monero so we're gonna have vendors at the conference accepting monero uh all you'll be able to buy your your drinks with monero we're probably gonna sell like drink like tickets because like just so commerce can flow quickly because we're gonna have like two bars set up that are going to be serving gratuitous coffee cuban sandwiches on demand that will let people make and cocktails all day long uh so you could buy

you know these these tickets that will that be redeemable for anything there but then there's also going to be additional vendors that you know to be a vendor you have to accept monero so there'll be vendors there selling magic mushroom growing kits for monero uh selling hemp products uh edibles and all this other you know fun stuff for monero um and yeah just try to showcase showcase in that respect so what is it this year that you're i say this year this is the first year of monerotopia um but what are you most excited for at monerotopia in uh just a couple weeks now well i guess just that it's the first one um for me like this we got i'm super psyched that we have a really good lineup of speakers you included obviously um obviously so like that was like the thing that you know that was like kind of the initial worry like can we can we pull in the get the talent you know uh we got the talent there we got we got the the content um venue is pretty kick-ass because it's right down the block and then

so really the only thing like fingers crossed is that we get a good crowd and we already got a pretty decent amount of ticket sales and then with the amount of speakers and vendors there it's going to be a party so i'm just excited for this thing just coming to fruition yeah i'm sure with all the work that you've poured into it it's just going to be an exciting day to actually sit down when things get rolling and realize that what you build is kind of paid off and worked out yeah and people could celebrate monero a little you know manero's a little funny too because right because everybody it is more privacy-centric people are trying to stay off the radar so it's it's got a little bit of that you know going to it but we've tried to you know uh make everybody feel comfortable with with attending the conference you know it's you could essentially attend anonymously right you could just buy your ticket with monero or just ask for an email address use whatever email you want uh you could you

could even just come to the door and buy a ticket at the door i i the only reason i'm not encouraging people to do that because i just want to like know how many people are going so i hope people buy in advance but you could essentially tend pretty anonymously uh just grab your ticket yeah out the door awesome yeah very it's very hard to pull the monero community together because like you said they're not only very privacy-centric but uh usually just on kind of a different more cypherpunk wavelength than the bitcoin crowd so a little bit less party and a little bit more uh a lot of times heady or um just kind of technological so that's definitely a different crowd but it'll be a it'll be a fun time to get a ton of people there together and i know a lot of the kind of the the ogs of monero are going to be there and giving talks and chatting so yeah very excited for that amazing lineup of like pure monero people that are going to be talking about the protocol but then we also have like you know new people to

to the community that's really cool like our our early morning speakers like martha uh bueno she's a local to miami cuban of cuban descent um and she's running for office down there and she's like recently discovered monero and she's really into it she wants to figure out how to use it to help uh um cubans uh you know basically for sending remittances to cuban cubans and things like i'm excited like for her talk in the morning uh i'm excited for so many one one that i could announce uh here we didn't even put it on the website yet is

30:00 let's do it uh philip zimmerman so uh do you know who he is the name rings a bell but i don't know off the top of the uh the inventor of pgp yeah yeah yeah awesome how awesome is that now so he's the only one speaker that won't be in person which is unfortunate but it's awesome that everybody else pretty much is in person uh but we still thought it'd be worth it to have him even though he's remote just because he's you know philip zimmerman um so that's i'm really excited for that you know monero community can can ask him it's basically just going to be a q a session with him not really a talk which is awesome so everybody could just like ask their questions uh you know for people that are listening right now so yeah he was the inventor of pgp and uh what really you know what's really interesting about him is you know he was basically kind of like the guy who made encryption you know uh legal for all in the us right so there's there's this time where the u.s government uh was basically trying to to ban corruption or uh is calling it uh you know what

was it uh they said it was like uh an illegal arms essentially um and you know that they didn't want you know it being used among the citizens or exported as a tech they essentially didn't want it being exported as a as a technology that others can use and uh he was kind of like the guy that got us to the point where it's like okay you know um it's you know it's basically our constitutional right to essentially have and use uh you know encryption uh so it's really interesting with what's going on right now in crypto right because we're you know reaching that point where that question is going to be asked right because you know bitcoin maybe not so much maybe the us government is completely okay with bitcoin uh for because it's it's essentially traceable right but uh with monero uh we don't know you know maybe maybe they do try to ban it you know maybe we have like our pgp moment with monero so i think it's cool that we have this this old school guy who's essentially already been through

this and so it'd be interesting to hear his kind of comments on all that yeah it should be a great q a i'm glad you're able to to get him and uh it'll be a fun conversation to have for sure um and i i know with the speakers there's kind of a a split speaker schedule so you're having normal speakers during the day and then kind of an uncensored section afterwards do you mind kind of breaking out why that is and what the what the approach there is going to be yeah so that came out of the whole debacle when we first started this conference uh we came out of the gate we thought we were doing amazing work we're like oh we got speakers lined up and one of them was chris sky who's a very controversial figure apparently who i had just had on my show we had a great conversation and nothing too controversial was said and i didn't really know much about the guy whatever anyway anyway he's a very divisive figure and like i don't know what percentage of the manero community doesn't like him but there

is some some cohort that really does not like the guy and a very vocal core cohort that like attacked us endlessly and basically what happened was like you know you you were there but for anybody listening it created an issue and then so our realization was you know i i want to stick to my ideals of here i am like mr liberty guy and you know free speech free speech money and i you know i want to stick and live by those ideals because that's what will make me you know sleep soundly at night um and i was finding it hard to do so with this conference so we devised a way to basically allow you know people to uh self-register as a speaker and the idea being so then that removes us as a potential gatekeeper and we did it for you know that experimentally for a portion of the conference so the morning would be curated i think there's certainly something you want you you know it's a conference you want people to get value out of it they're going to get value by by if we curate it and we give them the best content possible that talks

about these topics so obviously some kind of like completely open-ended thing where anybody come and talks probably just gonna be a show um so we tried to do a hybrid so half show and half curated so but the the evening uh you know i don't think it's gonna be too crazy we had we had like four people reach out i put up three we only have room for three so the fourth i had to tell sorry no it can't come up uh but they they self-registered and they sent us to monero to as a down payment for their spot um because i don't know who they are you know i don't know if and i and i wanted to kind of them to prove that they at least are coming to talk about monero right i figure if they have two monero to send me and willing to send it they have to at least be somewhat familiar and into monero right and they're going to stay on the topic of monero uh but yeah that was that was the thinking there so day is just going to be like a traditional conference and nighttime is this like uh you know free speech

event where anybody can come up and speak and we got three anonymous speakers that are going to be presenting at night i've definitely never heard of that concept so i'm interested to see see how it plays out it's definitely not uh not your normal conference there but it'll it'll also just be a fun time to hang out with people in the monero community after hours and see what happens yeah it'll be interesting to a party at night too um because we're gonna have uh performances we have crypto bear that's performing we have the free knots that are performing um we'll probably i guess do that after the dark uh the after dark speakers and then like it will just be you know lights off and just like party uh but my hope is like party's gonna happen throughout the entire day so i put the bars outside of the the main main hall um so you could either chill in the hall listen to speaks or you go out and like take take a take a smoke break and you know get a cocktail and like just talk to people so my hope is

like you know half the party will be partying the entire time while the other half is inside like listening to the talks so people definitely need to bring their their monero while it's ready uh but what else should people know in advance about like paying booking uh the venue itself any recommended hotels any kind of kind of details that they need to know before they they head out to come to monerotopia uh yes good thank you for asking that um number one they should buy a ticket today uh so you know we know how many people are coming so that we can guarantee that they can get in um but if they can't they could show up at the door and they can pay in cash from monero uh number two in terms of like where to stay we put it up on our website like recommended places we coordinated with the vendor who they also happen to own a bunch of hotels so we listed a bunch of places where you might be able to get a decent deal but to be honest it's not super cheap because it's miami and there's a lot of conferences especially

now at this point but there's still hope you know so number three is go to the monerotopia telegram group uh and there everybody's just kind of talking monero and talking about the conference but it's also a good place to like you know team up with somebody get an airbnb or somebody that already has a room airbnb coordinate get to know them maybe crash on their couch or something that's taking place on the monerotopia telegram um a conference is starting super early because we have so many talks so we're like first talk starts at like 8 15 i guess doors maybe will open at like 7 30.

so you know try to get there early so you can get in you know grab your grab your gratuitous coffee and nice warm cuban sandwich and strap in for a wild ride that's really it awesome yeah we might have an after party too we might do like a bonfire on the beach it's gonna be a heck of a day yeah start at 7 30 and who knows one with cubans all day long so that's what what really matters coffee and cuban sandwiches will keep everybody going awesome well last question i had for you doug is just how can listeners help support what you're doing with monerotopia even if they're unable to attend because i i know travel right now is really tricky it can be hard to to get into the us if you're outside miami at that time of the year can be really expensive and there's a lot of things that they go into actually traveling to a conference um but for those people who can't make it what are some ways that they can they can help out with monerotopia um spreading the word uh to others you know helping helping us get the word out there to everybody and um what we added a we added a virtual conference

component actually so we just put that up there okay we just put it up today or yesterday we teamed up with the crypto vigilante um so there we don't really have the capacity to do everything we're doing and then plus run the virtual conference and it's something we wanted to do so we're like oh why don't we have somebody else do it that already knows how to do this so uh we teamed up with rafael from the crypto vigilante so he's going to be i don't know he's going to pretty much like kind of be in a tent outside running the virtual conference version so all the talks will be streamed live um but you know we're charging for that uh but you know reasonable price i think we put it up for like you know 10 dollars less than the physical ticket so it's like 89 bucks or something and so we'll stream all the all the talks will be streamed live there and then with like q a 101 q a the

40:00 that Raphael's gonna have with the speakers. We're asking the speakers after they speak to go, spend like 10 minutes with Raphael and he'll give him- - It's a good idea. - Yeah. And then he'll have the live viewers at home being able to interact and ask their questions. So yeah, if people want to participate, they literally can. They could attend the conference virtually. - Awesome. Well, thank you so much for jumping on, Doug, and chatting with us and walking through what Monerotopia is, and obviously a lot of your background and your heart for Liberty and focuses there.

And obviously, like I mentioned at the top, I'm really excited to come, to have a Monero conference to go to and be able to hang out with a lot of the Monero community there also to speak and just hear some great talks. So thank you so much for the effort that you've poured into that. I have not organized a conference, but I have heard that it is one of the harder things to do and very, very time consuming on top of everything else I'm sure you have going on.

So thank you for pouring that time into it for the community. I'm very excited to jump in in just a couple of weeks now. - Thank you, man. Thank you for having me on your show, helping me get the word out. And thanks for participating in the conference. We were really excited when you said you could commit to it. And yeah, you know, I have a ton of respect for you, man. And, you know, I think you're doing, you're doing an amazing job. And you're one of these kind of like level headed, you know, down to earth, down to earth guys that has really good instincts.

So please do not hesitate to let me know and let Sunita know if you think we should be doing anything different with regards to the conference too, because that's one of the things, you know, it's like you're doing these things. It's hard to also have an outside global perspective as you do it. You kind of get my epic. So please don't hesitate to hit me up if you think there's anything else that you think we should be doing or doing differently. - Yeah, definitely will do.

Thanks, Doug. - Cool, man. Thanks for listening. And I hope you enjoyed this episode of Opt Out. If you did, please take a moment and subscribe to the podcast. Or if you're already subscribed, share it with one friend or family member this week. As always, you can check out the link to the guest content and contact info, as well as links to all of the tools we discussed in today's episode. Now get out there and opt out this week.