How A Tech Executive Built Nashville's Bitcoin Revolution

For me, Bitcoin, the capital P, is the blockchain or the monetary network to serve 8 billion people.

He was mining Bitcoin on stage and really didn't know if this was going to work out. The audience thought it was

probably a prank. The odds of finding one was like one in a thousand. And when it happened, everybody went berserk.

Welcome back to the root of all success. I am your host, the real Jason Duncan. And tonight here at the Standard Club in

Nashville, Tennessee, we're doing something we haven't done before. We're recording in front of a live I wouldn't say studio. That'd be too much. But with

a live audience uh behind the cameras. This is uh what's interesting is that when the show started back in 2020, this

is episode number 350. When I started it, I recorded my first episodes in person here in Nashville at the Standard

Club. Uh Josh Smith, who's the proprietor, who happens to be behind one of the cameras, sitting on the couch

behind the camera, is here. He allowed me to do that. And now here we are recording the first time ever in front

of an audience. The audience is the leadership society. And uh I've been blessed to lead the leadership society

here at Standard for the last four or five years. And we got a bunch of good guys here tonight. But let me tell you

about our guest. Our guest tonight is Rod Rudy. and uh he's the co-founder of a little thing called Bitcoin Park,

which is a community campus for missionoriented Bitcoiners, builders,

freedom fighters that started with 20 people on a rainy night and they he's going to tell a little bit about that

story in just a few minutes. Bitcoin Park is down on Hills Hillsboro Road in uh where where's that? Is it Hillsboro

Village? Hillsboro Village. Yeah. So, it's right here in Nashville. For those of you in Nashville, if you're watching and you're not from Nashville,

look up Bitcoin Park. You can go to bitcoinpark.com and check it out. It's pretty cool. They got one here in Nashville and one in Austin. But uh Rod

Rudy, welcome to the root of all success and thanks for being our guinea pig for the first time we've ever done this. Man, I'm so excited. Thank you for

having me. Well, glad glad you're here. So, tell us about take us back to that rainy night. You've got

rainy night. There's a girl named Mills and there's about 20 15 20 people in the room. And what made you what what did you see

that happened in that room that made you feel like, okay, this is something worth investing in? So, we're at Jackalo Brewery just to set

the stage. It's in the Weiho area here in Nashville, Tennessee. And uh you know, I've never even organized a

meetup. I mean, by the way, this was before even Bitcoin Park existed. We My friend and I were like, "We love

Bitcoin. We love everything about Bitcoin. Let's see if we can get a group of people just to have beers and talk

about Bitcoin." And what started with just her and I turned out to be about 15 or so folks. It was rainy and it was

just so amazing. There was people from all different walks. I mean, people from traveling in for a conference from

Philadelphia to other people. Heck, we had this one guy, his name is uh Dr. FOMO on uh on uh Twitter and he was like

came up to me afterwards and he was like, "You don't understand how awesome this was." And I was like, "Tell me

why." He's like, "My wife honestly thinks I'm so crazy because all I talk about is Bitcoin and we live like, you

know, an hour outside of town and I just have all these Bitcoin friends on Twitter." But in that there you guys

actually exist in real life. So this is so amazing for me. And you know Jason,

we started with that meetup. Then the next month we had another meet up with a hundred people came in. What year was this? When this was like August of 2021, I want to

say. Okay. And uh and then next thing in September we did another meetup. It got a couple

other friends to come in town. And then it was about a hundred people. And I was like, "Holy smokes, 100 people coming to

a Bitcoin focused meetup." And uh and then the next month we had like 150

people and then the next month it just kept on growing and growing and to the point where I was like man I think we we

got something here with the community here in Nashville, Tennessee and we needed a place for us to kind of

work, learn, collaborate and build. And uh then you fast forward to about like

Aprilish time frame. I called my friend who's a commercial broker in town. He was one of the guys that brought u the

In-N-Out folks here. And I was like, "Byron, don't he never sells me on anything."

And I was like, "Hey, in, you know, two, three, four years, I I I need a unicorn

property. I need a place that has a podcast studio cuz my friends have some really big-time podcasts locally. I need

an event space cuz we're hosting all these awesome meetups. I need a place for us to co-work because there's all these amazing builders that are coming

to Nashville, moving to Nashville now because of this small community we have. And then uh I need like a bar like area

that you know we could serve coffee and so on. And he was like, "Rod, I think I have the spot for you."

Of course he did. Of course he did. But but this one, you know, the band Florida Georgia Line, are you familiar with them?

So they had they did an unbelievable job with this place. They had two buildings, these beautiful four square buildings,

and there's a lot of history that I can get into as well with those buildings. And they kitted them out like none

other. There's sound treatment in every room. the the furnishings of like the the chairs to the tables to everything

was just immaculate. Um but they needed to exit the property and um

cuz they broke up cuz they broke up. Yeah. So they're like we're done. Somebody else this was like all under the radar and

all this stuff and I was like oh my gosh let's see what happens and then long story long we were able to to uh get it.

Yeah. And it's a it's a killer killer space. So listeners or viewers, if you're watching this on YouTube or

Spotify, go check out Bitcoin Park here in Nashville. If you're in Nashville, it's really cool building. If I can give this shameless plug, what

I would recommend is just go to bitcoinpark.com/nashville and join our meetup page because it's

actually not open to the public. So you join any of our meetups. So that's the one area I'm really focused on as you

mentioned in the opening, which was very kind, is supporting and accelerating the grassroots freedom tech adoption. So 80%

of what we do is free and open to the public. So these are meetups from like Bitcoin 101's to 102s to learning how to

custody your own Bitcoin, learning about mining Bitcoin to uh how to like acquire

Bitcoin in a in a privacy preserving manner to a number of things because man I have to tell this audience like like

we're talking about Bitcoin. Some people are like what are we even doing here? And yeah, we got to get into that for sure.

But like you know I've been you mentioned you haven't done politics. I I didn't even know like who our senators

were. And then next thing you know, we got both Senator Hagerty and Senator Blackburn coming through the park. We

got Governor Lee coming through the park. You know, Commissioner McCarter and his entire team uh who run the ECD

to Attorney General Scetti. The list goes on. And we have like I mean not to give the shill for Tennessee, but we

have some of the best people business-wise, policymaker wise, just

capital allocator wise here in Tennessee, which I'm very bullish on. Well, speaking of business, I mean, you were a tech exec

and you were pretty safe there. I mean, everything is good. What made you

decide, okay, I'm going to leave all that and go do this Bitcoin park thing. What, like, how did that how did that come about?

So, beforehand, it was kind of weird. I didn't even have a kid at the time. Now, I have four kids, seven, five, four, and

three. So, my life is pretty uh jam-packed if you That's an understatement. But um I honestly was

just like it tech was great and I learned great connections learned a lot but it wasn't as fulfilling right and it

wasn't like really missionoriented for me and so I was just like what like is going to move me and you know I had this

weird dream about my legacy and I didn't even have a kid at the time but it was like a like a nightmare where like you

know those uh did you have kids as well? Okay. Yeah. A lot older than your kids. Okay. But, you know, they go to like

second grade and they're standing up in front. My dad helps uh a lot of people buy things that they don't, you know,

need or have the money for. And I'm like, man, I'm helping these large companies, you know, sell more stuff to

like, you know, consumers and so on. So, it wasn't really that fulfilling. But with Bitcoin, it was just so amazing. I

mean, if you and I we'll get into the monetary world and and talk about the uh how money works maybe,

but uh if you go down this rabbit hole in terms of Bitcoin, the technology, the capital B, the monetary network, or a

lot of people call the blockchain, and then think about how money works for the

entire world, and how privileged we are here in the United States, like you probably have a mortgage or have access

to mortgage uh uh debt accounts like that, probably have credit cards, probably have checking accounts,

Uh I'm I'm very fortunate to have all those access to all those things, but I want to say like 80 90% of the world

doesn't have access to that. Even in the US, it's like unbanked, underbanked is like the majority of the the the US. But

if you insert Bitcoin, freedom money that is censorship resistant and

permissionless across any jurisdiction, it's pretty phenomenal. So, in just one

example, you know, you may have some uh folks, you know, that like let's say they're uh and I'm making up you but you

put any country, but you know, you're working here in this country and let's say you're from El Salvador and you want

to go send some remittances back home. Well, what you do is let's say you're unbanked or underbanked. You don't have

access to that checking account and more so they don't have access to a bank account that's USD denominated in their

country. they'd have to go to a Western Union or any of those places and go and let's say

it's a hundred bucks. So then there's a $15 fee or $20 fee. So it's 80 bucks. But the story doesn't end even there,

which is actually pretty surprising. That $80 that goes to the Western Union or whatever in El Salvador. Let's say

it's in San Salvador. Let's say you're in that town 45 minutes outside. You take a bus ride. Let's say it's a dollar

and you go all the way up. So now you're already whatever it's from 100 down to 80 bucks. Now you're down to 79 bucks.

So, you get your money and maybe there's a $5 fee just to get your money. So, you know, you're down to 74 bucks. A lot of

these places are not the most safe places. So, you got some guy outside waiting to be like, "Hey, Mr. Jason,

don't worry. I'll protect you. Just give me $7 cuz I know you just went into the Western Union. So, that $74 now just

became $67. You get on the bus. You can make a stop on the bus ride because some

gang members are saying, "Hey, like we're we're here for your safety. Bus ride is going to get all the way home." So now that $67 becomes $42 and now

you're when you get home after five six hours of bus rides now you have $42 of the $100 that that person made and how

much time that took and energy. Now if you have Bitcoin permissionless money

you download a wallet I can send you money over a permissionless blockchain no third party involvement and that

person can go take it and then use that money. So that $100 is $9989

or whatever it is, whatever the transaction fees are. I think that's one of the coolest things about Bitcoin and

permissionless money that we can expand on. So all right, but same scenario to to

play devil's advocate. What if that person doesn't have a cell phone or access to the internet? So they're probably in a much harder

position, but like there are the ways now that you can actually get Bitcoin without even access to the internet. I

mean there's just much more convoluted ways if they don't have access to the internet they're probably education is a

lot le resource uh allocation or resource access is much less so in that

one edge case I wouldn't I mean it'd be a number of other things that I'd be trying to figure out for that well they probably wouldn't have done

the work they wouldn't have been able to do the work they would have got them the $100 to begin with and to piggy back off that the

communication of the person in the US they'd probably work within their local community to figure out a way for that

person to go get into the next town over or somebody to be like, "Hey, you got to learn Bitcoin to go get this wallet

downloaded here and try to figure it out." So, let's talk about Bitcoin just basics. So, we'll do a a 101 really

really fast. What is Bitcoin? Like, if you just one two sentences, what is it?

Bitcoin to me is freed of money. But like, why Bitcoin to me is it preserves

my future purchasing power better than any other investable asset ever created.

So, okay, that's a pretty bold statement. You know, people here probably invest in real estate. They

probably invest in uh other uh assets like gold. They probably buy stocks and

so on. Uh maybe I can break down what money is in five aspects. So, there's

what makes a great money is divisibility, acceptability, verifiability, portability, and

scarcity. All right, let's compare to gold. So, what gold? And by the way, I'll I'll talk pro on gold for a second.

Why do people care about gold? Because of the history. There's a such a history

amongst gold. We can all talk in this room even though I don't I have I have this gold ring. I hope it's gold ring.

You know, I gota I know we'll talk about that in a second. But uh there's so much history with gold that there's a

perceived scarcity with gold. There's a perceived value of gold because over the entire world we can go to, you know, any

country and just say, "Hey, this is gold. You assign some value to it." Okay, great. But let's talk about

divisibility. Right. Now, if I wanted to to break down uh uh gold into some chunk

to buy, you know, I'd have to have specialized equipment for that. With Bitcoin, I can break it down to a

fraction of a fraction of a penny and send that to you in terms of value. Okay. So, I'd put one point to to to

Bitcoin there. So, history, gold gets the check. Bitcoin's history, you know, January 3rd, 2009 was the first Bitcoin

block mine. So, whatever the date is, 15 years or no, now 17 years. That's

awesome. Um, so, uh, history goes to gold. Uh, but divisibility I would put in the

squarely in the Bitcoin camp. Uh, let's go to verifiability. I meant I joke that

I hope this is gold, but I'd have to go to a third party and pay that person to verify the authenticity of this gold

this ring. I have to have a piece of paper. Maybe they wrap it in some certain like element that it's like uh

sealed. So there's like a a signed um third party validation on

this. But with Bitcoin, there's the blockchain I mentioned. There's no third party intermediary. You can go on a the

Bitcoin public ledger right now and see every single transaction that has ever occurred on the Bitcoin blockchain. So I

mentioned January 3rd, 2009, the first block was mined. So that now since then, I don't know what block height we're at

right now, but 800 900,000 blocks have been mined uh right now on top of that.

So we can go back and verify the supply and every single CH transaction that

that supports the the the supply right now. So there's on verifiability, I'd put another check on the Bitcoin side.

All right. Acceptability. The big joke early days of Bitcoin, which I fell for as well, unfortunately, was like, "You

can't buy a cup of coffee with Bitcoin." I was just like, "Yeah, you're right. You can't buy a cup of coffee with Bitcoin. Why would I invest in Bitcoin?

That's so dumb." Well, nowadays, you definitely can buy multiple cups of

coffee. And around the world, they're using Bitcoin quite a bit. I mean, uh, if you're familiar with the Square terminals right now, Yeah.

you can literally turn on accepting Bitcoin and you can tap or scan a QR code and pay with Bitcoin

and the the merchant actually can take 100% of that Bitcoin in dollars automatically convert it into dollars.

So, you Jason Duncan don't have to worry about me giving you Bitcoin because it goes into USD. And by the way, as a

small business owner, my expenses are fiat denominated or dollar denominated. So majority of what I'm taking in even

in Bitcoin I actually convert into dollars as well because I have to pay guy great guys like Andrew to pay you

know other expenses as as well. So um but on the acceptability side I don't

know has anyone bought like a cup of coffee with gold or used gold to buy anything?

Um not since 1971 we came off August 15th 1971 which we can talk about

the history of money by the way. I knew nothing about money. I I just assumed money was money and like there was like

you know these guys would like manage our money the Fed and I trusted paying taxes and it was a badge of honor you

know and so on. Now I'm just like eyes wide open on the whole system and

I I still think the US monetary system is the best monetary system in the world

and I think we're super lucky to be involved in it but I think we also need to be uh we need an accountability

partner to keep them honest and I think Bitcoin does that. So well let me let me interrupt though.

It it sounds to me like everything you're talking about still comes back to dollars, right? So, help me understand that cuz I

I I get what you're saying. Hey, Bitcoin does this, this, this, but it seems like everything still comes back to dollars.

So, uh, we're only 17 years in, still so early. The entire system is fiat

denominated, right? So, I mentioned like my expenses are fiat denominated, so I'm using those to pay there.

And the the key point that I mentioned at the beginning was it preserves my

future purchasing power better than any other investable asset. So, um, I just keep dollars in order to pay short-term

expenses, but you know, and we'll talk about the liquidity of like real estate investments and some other investments

as well, but just to close the loop on acceptability, I would just again firmly put put a check in bitcoins portability.

Uh, I don't. So, just 100% I don't. But I could have a billion dollars worth of

Bitcoin right now with 12 words saved in my head and I can move freely around, you know, and so on. If I had a billion

dollars worth of gold, I'd have to have a freaking I'd have to call a hedge and be like, "Hey buddy, I need some help.

We got to get some boys together and we got to move this stuff around." And I don't know how much money it cost to to

call the army, but probably a lot of money to move that kind of stuff. So, when you think about it, and and by

the way, also, even let's say you had, I don't know, $100,000 worth of gold.

What's the weight of that those gold bars in your backpack? What's the costliness of just moving that? The

energy to move that. I mean, scan a QR code. I could send you a bajillion

dollars worth of Bitcoin on the Bitcoin blockchain. You're welcome to do so. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. And you'll

send it back to me, right? That some of it handling fee. But but the most so even so portability

again, I would put squarely in Bitcoin's favor. Uh before I get into scarcity, I'll say this. Gold from a history

standpoint is right now arguably 10 the market is saying gold is 10 times of a

better store of value and preserving future purchasing power than uh bitcoin

right now and that's where I see the misallocation or the mispricing and it's a massive opportunity for all of us even

in this room but scarcity scarcity is the big reason so with gold there's a perceived

scarcity we believe that gold is uh uh scarce. Why? Because it costs so much

money to dig into the ground to find gold. There's a lot of costliness associated with it.

But every single day we find more gold. Do you know what what's the uh total supply of gold? No idea.

Neither do I. And neither does anybody in this room. And if anyone tells you that they know the supply of gold, they're lying to you.

But I can tell you the supply of Bitcoin is going to be 21 million Bitcoin. And by the time year of 2140, all the

Bitcoin will be mined. But you know what, Jason? You don't even have to trust me. You can run the free and open

source software, the Bitcoin blockchain on your own computer and verify yourself

since every you can basically download the blockchain and verify every single transaction from January 3rd, 2009 that

your copy matches every single copy, all what's called nodes, all the nodes that are running globally.

How cool is that? And so where there's gold, where there's perceived scarcity,

there's provable scarcity with Bitcoin. So that's like an insane check. Not only

just check, but it's a checkmate in my opinion on the difference between Bitcoin and gold in terms of a store of

value. And this is where I actually have done Bitcoin a disservice by just comparing it to gold and a store of

value because it is truly magic internet money. And what I mean by that is it's

also a medium exchange. So instead of now having a gold bar that I have to now take it into dollars somehow with a

third party exchange or do whatever magic I need to do to get it into dollars to use it, I can actually use

Bitcoin. When I go to Nairobi, Kenya, I'm using Bitcoin. When we were just in El Salvador, I'm using Bitcoin. When I

was in Nosara, Costa Rica, I'm using Bitcoin. Even in the US, I'm using Bitcoin. So, you know, to your point

where you're like, well, it's fiat denominated expenses. Absolutely. And I think we may be here for a long time

with dollar denomin. But there will be a breaking point where on the merchant side, I'm actually very bullish on this.

I don't know how many merchants are in the room, but who enjoys paying 3% to AMX or uh Visa or any of those clowns?

No, nobody does. Okay. What if that 3% came straight back to you? And a lot of these

folks are doing serious business like you, sir. you're probably doing serious business on on drink sales and so on.

Imagine when you go look at your QuickBooks account or whatever ERP you got and you're like, "Holy smokes, if that 3% actually stayed to my bottom

line, what would that mean for my business? What kind of reinvestment would I make in my own local business,

my own local community and more just eyepopping?" And so that's where I'm

super passionate about, especially on the entrepreneur side, is to help them figure out ways that they can cut

reallocate those costs in a better way that increases the the experience for the customer as well.

You've mentioned fiat, fiatbacked uh I don't know how you worded it, but you use the word fiat a lot and I know it's

thrown around a lot. Would you please define that for us? So it's just fiat is untethered like money that is uh

printable by any centralized uh uh governing body like fiat we don't know

what the supply of money is today. Yeah. Right. Or or we how this is a better question because they do provide the M2

supply and M1 supply whatever it is. But we don't know what the money supply is going to be tomorrow. Do you know

what the money supply is going to be in the next administration or the administration after that? So, I don't even want to like tell whether it's de

Democrats or Republicans. It doesn't really matter. With Bitcoin, I know what the supply is going to be on a provable

schedule or a determined schedule. Every two weeks, there's what's called the difficulty adjustment. So, it just and

it helps determine what this the the the block schedule is going to be. So, on average, every 10 minutes a Bitcoin

block is mined. And then there's what's called the block reward, which we don't have to get into all that jazz, but um

that's how we get to the supply uh uh distribution of the 21 million bitcoin. But isn't it fiat isn't fiat just like

the I guess the common answer is it's just money that we decide what it's worth. There is nothing backing it's

just decided. But by that definition, Bitcoin is the same thing. So it 100% it's uh it is uh

supported around a common group of people that we agree that this is worth you know a dollar. The problem with the

fiat currency is like I you know I wake up at 4:25 every morning I go straight to Starbucks at 4:32 I'm there order a

venture open that's the only one that's well the two ones West End and that one and sometimes that one's like closed because of

whatever reason I'm asleep I don't know I'll wake you up. Oh, no problem. But uh but at 433

I'm there. 432 and I order my venty pike coffee. You know, 5 6 years ago it was

$1.93 or something like that. Today it's $357.

So we all agree that a dollar is a dollar, but it doesn't matter because like the the the cost of goods to uh

purchase that good that I want. Some people are like, well, make coffee at home or do anything.

It preserves the my future p. Bitcoin preserves my future purchasing power to live the life I've always imagined. I

want the coffee at that point in time. I want to work towards that. I don't want it to run away such that I'm trying to

make even more money just to have the same quality of life that I that I have. So, but let's take it one step back. You

know, there's a big joke in the uh in the outside community about, oh, remember in 2010 that guy that bought

two pizzas for 10,000 Bitcoin, right? Do you remember that? I remember. Yeah. Okay. So people are like, "Man, that guy

is an idiot." Well, hindsight's a you know, like, "Yeah, if I if I knew about Bitcoin then, I would have kept

10,000 Bitcoin, too." But in 2010, I would thought it was stupid, you know, uh, JPEG money. And in 2013, I still

thought it was stupid. Up until 2017, I finally thought it was something. So, I I make this point is because those

10,000 Bitcoin on that pizza, now it costs I don't know how many uh Bitcoin

just to buy a single family home. Let's say a single family home is roughly uh $300,000 uh dollars I would say. So what

is that? Five Bitcoin now. So let's just do that Jason. The 10,000 Bitcoin on two

pizzas. Five Bitcoin now buys a single family

home 2010 to 2026. So that's 16 years.

Coffee in 2010 was maybe a dollar. Let's just call it the Aventi Pike. And now a

coffee in 2026 is $3.97. That actually went up in dollars, right?

In terms I had to actually make more dollars. I didn't have to make more Bitcoin to go by from two pizzas to a

single family home. Mhm. But isn't that just the opposite side of that same scale? I don't think you can I don't think you can do it both

ways because the dollar devalued. Correct. But the value USD value of Bitcoin goes

up because the dollar devalued. Would you agree? So, uh I would agree to a

portion that the USD dollar uh purchasing power devalued, but then more

people also got to the value of Bitcoin in terms of those five things that make up money. So, to your point, which

you're absolutely spot on, we need more people to learn about Bitcoin. That's why I'm so passionate about. So, I love

everybody around the world. I love you guys, all of the hundred thousand viewers and so on. I want you to learn about Bitcoin, but I truly care about

this local community in Nashville as well as Austin, but really Nashville, that's where I raised my kids so that we

can learn about Bitcoin and we can get stronger and our preser purchasing power can get stronger. You know, the concept

of blue zones, it's like u Yeah. Yeah. Blue zones where like a lot of healthy people live to centurions and they're

100 years old because they uh socialize together, they exercise together, they eat well together. Well,

I want to create like an orange zone here in in Nashville where we just and

again it's up to your own after tonight you're like all right still Rod it's crazy and I don't want to even do Bitcoin totally you're more more power

to you but maybe there's one or two people here that are like you know what I'm going to go learn a little bit about Bitcoin I'm going to go buy a little bit

of Bitcoin I'm going to go use Bitcoin the next day then all of a sudden they're going down this rabbit hole and they're helping educate their family and

their community and their business and their employees and then next thing you It's kind of like, think about it,

right? You mentioned the AI stuff. Does

the internet is so amazing, by the way. So, the internet is just made up of free and open source protocols. So, SMTP is

smart mail transfer protocol. You know, I'm not going to date you, but you do have an AOL account or don't have one.

Never had one. Okay, there you go. I might have had one in 95. There you go. So, AOL, that gentleman may have a

Gmail. You may have a Yahoo. I have an Outlook email, but you don't know that. You send me emails and I receive it and

I send you an email back and you send it around that goes around the smart mail transfer protocol. The application layer

is Outlook, Gmail, uh you know, Yahoo and AOL. That's the application layer

that there's um uh but what's MI and then FTP for file transfer protocol and

all these different protocols that make up the internet. What's missing from the internet? The money protocol. So the

money protocol that's missing from the internet is Bitcoin the blockchain. So Bitcoin is the money protocol that is

for 8 billion people in this room and we in this room get to play. And you can't

invest in SMTP. You can't invest in FTP. Imagine owning a piece of that asset

that actually had value. We get to own a piece of the money protocol which is Bitcoin.

Pull your mic back. Oh yeah. So before we get back to the conversation, I want to take just a

minute to talk to everybody listening and watching. Uh if you're an entrepreneur, which I assume you are because a lot of people listen the show

listen for the entrepreneurial stories. I want you to ask yourself a question. If you were to take 30 days and had no

contact with anybody at your business, what would happen to your company? Now the sad truth is for most people it

would not be good. Things would probably go ary. Even if the company survived, it's probably not going to be doing very

well after 30 days. So, if you want to know how to deal with that, I put together a six-minute video that answers

and at least gets you to wets the appetite on what that might look like. And all you got to do is go to what to

fix before you exit. What to fix before youexit.com 6-minute video help you

answer that question. Now, before we get back to Rod and talk more Bitcoin and I want to talk to a I want to talk about

AI, too, because you got the AI Freedom Lab. I want to get into that. Uh, I want to thank our sponsor for today's

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onyour yourself. The realjduncan.com/bank onyour yourself. Set up a free 15minute

consult and find out how you can get free from banks. So, speaking of free

from banks, let's talk some more with Rod. Yeah. So, Rod, and I want to call you Rod Rowdy. The first time I saw your name, R

O U D I like it's rowdy, right? No, good. No, it's Rudy. I think rowdy is kind of cool. You might rowdy. Rod Rudy.

Anyway, so on AI Freedom Lab, this is something that you you've kind of put together with Bitcoin Park. That's

right. Why? I mean, I I I think I see why, but tell tell me why. So you mentioned like

I mean I feel like as an entrepreneur my life's just done a flipped upside down with the tools that we have at our

disposal. I mean we have basically super intelligence at our fingertips and it is unbelievable right now.

Um it's also kind of scary how much data is going into these uh uh platforms. Uh

and so there's a saying in Bitcoin called not your keys not your coin. So, if you're not custodying your own

Bitcoin, you're entrusting a third party to bit uh trust it. Uh it's not really your Bitcoin, it's just paper Bitcoin or

maybe they have it. There's been a lot of This is the the bad side of uh the crypto industry is entrusting third

parties or trying to replicate the existing financial system. Uh you know, FTX and a bunch of these crypto uh pump

and dump coins, meme coins or whatever. But um yeah, so not your keys, not your coin. But in AI, I'm I'm kind of

thinking through this, especially as I use it all the time. I mean, I wear out my Claude code subscription. I like send

screenshots to the team. I'm like, I've hit my weekly limit. I don't know what to do. I'm going to go for a walk now,

you know, or something. That's a hat that's a part I hate about Claude. Well, they got to give us the limits. I'm paying for this thing. Let me keep Well, you could actually hit the

increase usage, but I'm like too cheap to do it right now. But yeah, I and I agree. That's why you got to roll it into the next codeex or whatever. But um

but not your memory, not your brain. And so that's where I think we all just need to be cognizant of the information that

we're putting in and the tools that we're using. So, and I'm working on the kind of the and this is such a new

concept, but the AI freedom lab is like really building AI on your own terms. Whether you want to use, you know, these

the open AIs, the claws, the perplexities and so on, or there's alternatives like a privacy preserving

AIS like Maple AI. Um, you know, I I have a goal to live to60 years old

healthy. So, I quit drinking 798 days ago. I try to get a a perfect sleep

score. I try to do all of these things like eating wise and exercise-wise and so on. But I don't want to put all my

health data, you know, into any of these apps cuz god forbid I get an ad or they just know xyz about me or my insurance

uhoh insurance is going to go up because of whatever, you know, things that I got going on. So, we just got to be careful

and cognizant about it. And so we're going to be hosting a number of free and open meetups focused on AI OpenClaw. Are

you messing around with OpenClaw much? Uh I'm trying. Okay. It is unbelievable. And so that's

where you know you brought up and I'm thankful you brought up that story about a in August the rainy night with the 15

people. We've just hosted some of these small meetups and that energy feels like the exact same as we hosted the Bitcoin

meetups back then. The amount of enthusiasm, the amount of entrepreneurship that is in this space

is unbelievable. So why like now this convergence between

Bitcoin and AI is going to be absolutely unbelievable. What are the what are the

agents going to use for money? So like I don't know in this room how many folks are using agents right now, but we we

use it quite a bit. for them to use a monetary network.

Actually, you should ask your uh AI like, "Hey, if you had to choose a money, which one would you choose?" Oh,

the smart ones, the smarter models will say Bitcoin because it's censorship resistant and permissionless. There's no

backies on the money. So, like they cannot get the agent or the robot cannot get rugged from the counterparty on

their money because it's a oneway. So, you got to just be careful about that. But um but I that's where I see um do

you know who Kathy Wood is by chance from Arc? Okay. So she's the CEO and CIO of Arc Invest. She's like Elon one of

Elon's like largest investors. I do a monthly Bitcoin podcast with her called Bitcoin Brainstorm. And so Kathy has

been amazing and she's always at the frontier of a lot of this stuff. And she's like rod Bitcoin AI energy and

then she goes on a number of other things like robotics. There's a convergence happening. So this past uh

uh September, I hosted a new experience I've called Imagine If. Uh if if you're

familiar with the Fischer Center for Performing Arts, it was there. We hosted about 500 capital allocators,

entrepreneurs, developers, really amazing people from all around the world. And that's where I think this world is going is I truly believe we're

not get maybe in 15 years we don't even talk about Bitcoin. We just talk about money. I don't maybe in 15 years we

don't talk about AI. We just talk about intelligence and then the next wave I think is on energy. I don't even think

we talk about or debate oh is this nuclear energy, coal energy or you know whatever. I think we just say that's

power on or power off and I think the world is going to just be so amazing and

it's the abundance of opportunities are going to just be absolutely amazing. So we talked a little bit at the top of

the show about what Bitcoin is and you mentioned capital B, little B with blockchain. I want to get a little bit

technical on that and then we're going to start getting back into your story as we get ready to wrap up. Uh and then and

then for those that are here live, we're going to stay around for another hour and do Q&A. So you got to come to do the

live stuff if you want more information uh about this. But so what's the deal with blockchain and Bitcoin and how are

they connected? Totally. And by the way, uh even though I'm focused on Bitcoin, my time, capital, and reputation is focused all

in on Bitcoin, you should learn about like what are what what makes a cryptocurrency, what makes a memecoin,

and what why is all that out there? And then just compare it to Bitcoin. I think that's a good like action item from

here. For me, Bitcoin, the capital P is the blockchain or the monetary network to serve 8 billion people. Uh the like

the monetary network to transfer value. So, I mentioned, you know, how uh Square Terminal I can tap or scan a QR code,

pay with Bitcoin, and it could automatically convert into dollars for the merchant. That's going over the

Bitcoin monetary network. That's pretty cool. Doesn't go over Visa Rails or anything like that. It goes over the Bitcoin monetary network. Bitcoin, the

lowercase B, is the reserve asset. That is where I preserve my future purchasing power better than any other investable

asset. So that's where there's fixed cap of 21 million Bitcoin. By the way, I'm my family's in real estate. I love real

estate, you know, but just to give a quick comparison to real estate. And

again, it just pains me because when I was growing up at the the the kitchen table with my grandfather, you got to

own real estate. That's the best way you can preserve your and we're immigrant family, you know, and so on. So I was

like, okay, American dream. This is the way, you know, buy real estate. And I did. and I owned quite a bit of real

estate, but there's problems with real estate maintenance, appreciation, and I

don't even want to get me started on the property tax here. It's like, and hopefully Governor Lee is like

sorting that out right now, but um it's just it's crazy. These are things outside of my control, right? And uh so

when you add up all these things and for what perceived appreciation in the asset

that is actually pegged to the dollar. So, when we're doing that whole comparison with the pizzas and the Bitcoin and then the coffee with the

dollars and so on, you look at the house as well in terms of the appreciation value of those properties, well, you get

better appreciation than you do on uh some of these other assets. Maybe not

the stock market, but you know, maybe it depends on what you but um but the

biggest one is around liquidity. Uh Bitcoin is liquid 24/7. You know,

there's no like, oh, hey, the bank's closed. You can't really sell Bitcoin. I could literally transfer Bitcoin to you

at 2 am. And actually, you don't even have to be you just I just have to know your address that you I can send it to,

right? Which is pretty pretty amazing. I mean, you could liquidated with a heliloc and do all this stuff, but you're taking on

interest and all, but it's just again more work, more people involved, more costliness associated with it. That's

why I'm in love with Bitcoin. if you can take the time just to do a little research and so you know who Stanley

Duckham Miller is by chance. He's uh he's the one that uh with George Soros just destroyed uh the I think it

was like the silver or whatever they made some crazy trade that like killed the British pounder. I think I got my

story right there. Anyways, he's an insane famous investor and he had one

statement which I wish if you know the movie Back in the Future like oh what

would you do one back in the future? I'd be like, go back to the 2010 when I thought Bitcoin was stupid and put a

Stanley Duck Miller quote on my computer and say, "Invest, then investigate."

Don't just write it off and be like, "Oh, that's stupid because my friends or I read a New York Times article that said it was like dumb or you know,

terrorists only use uh scammers only use Bitcoin." Just invest then investigate. Invest a little bit. A week later, a

month later, you think it's dumb, sell it and get your money back. or you mean like maybe you made a little bit or you maybe lost a little bit, you know, and

so on, but I don't think there's anything more or better I could be working on than Bitcoin and now AI.

So, you've had a lot of success moving from out of the tech world and as an exec into now running Bitcoin Park and

and your passion for Bitcoin is is definitely there. I can everybody can see it and feel it and hear it. So, what

do you what do you consider has been the key that has unlocked success for you more than anything else as you've been pursuing what you're building with

Bitcoin part? So, I actually like that question um a lot. Um I would I would say I finally

found something that gives me energy meaning like I I've only been waking up at 4:25 for the last like 3ish years. I

was I was like 7 a.m., you know, ready to go drink, you know, whatever. I

wasn't really as motivated to just get out of bed and just seize the day. Now I

couldn't even think of anything else I would want to work on right now. And so um hopefully that's a way to answer your

question, but like if you find purpose and what gives you energy, then you'll

be unstoppable. And and honestly, the people at the park that are members, there's some of the most amazing people,

Jason. like the most amazing creative thinkers, the most most of creative doers, the most amazing people and it

just once you get into that melting pot of people and it it's like a gravitational force that attracts other

quality people and just magic happens. So, how do you define the word success? This is the name of the show is the root

of all success. This is much more topical conversation tonight because of the setting. I usually get more into the

personal stories and how you became successful, but we're going to jump right to it. What how do you define that word success?

So I would define the word success as the freedom to choose the life you've

always imagined. So I get to choose to be here tonight. Thank the invite that

you gave me. I'm really appreciate it. But um and all of us I'm really appreciative of everyone here that they

chose to spend their time with us tonight. But you could have been you know it's a pretty nice day. We could

have been hitting golf balls right now and we could have been doing a number of different things. Um, but the freedom to choose where you spend your time is the

ultimate sign of success. Well, based on that definition, do you consider yourself successful?

So, uh, you know, it's funny. If you asked me four weeks ago, I would say absolutely,

cuz my schedule was like pretty nailed down. I'm I'm pretty hardcore about like

and I'm still hardcore about my schedule and don't get me wrong, but with this AI stuff

honestly J like and all of us as entrepreneurs and business owners and so on, I I would put your head on a swivel

right now. Like this is real talk because the world is changing right in front of us in a in a way that I cannot

even imagine. uh Jack uh you know let go of 4,000 people over at Block uh you

know and in his note he wrote he said hey yes we did have a little bit of

bloat but it was due to uh the AI work that they're doing internally as well as

what he predicts in the future. So I think the way of work is going to absolutely and fundamentally change. I

don't think it's a it's a a net negative. I think is actually going to be a major net positive, but the way we

get to that net positive is going to be scary. It's going to be tumultuous. And

so over the last four weeks, I've been I've never coded really anything in my life. I mean, unl, you know, I was like

an HTML adviser back in college in like the early 2000s. That was the last time I was in a codebase. Now, my GitHub has

like a million stars or whatever. I don't even know how they uh rate me or whatever because I'm I'm writing CEO

dashboards. We're working on all these other things and we're canceling all these SAS subscriptions that we no

longer need anymore because we can just tool it ourselves. That's awesome, man. It is so awesome. I mean, that's where

and so that's where, you know, I I definitely research, invest, and then

investigate in Bitcoin. But if you're not and and oh, I'm using chat GBT to do

some cursory searches and so on. That's great. But your example is a really great one. You use you have you you use

it in a very thoughtful way. You have perplexity for research. Great. You have co uh chat GPD on the go taking a

picture. What is this? What is that? Great. And I forget what your third one was. Maybe Claude. Yeah. Yeah. For some

other work. Maybe uh whatever you're doing. And so I would recommend

really challenging yourself as a operator to get into the weed. So that's

where I mean I own my schedule and I feel like I own it, but I'm I'm so I'm cautiously optimistic about

the future, but I'm also nervous and I need to get back hardcore into the pilot seat to learn all this stuff. And the

only way I can learn this is being like next to Andrew and being like, "Hey man, APM standup like what are all these

things we got to be doing? Like where are the blockers? How do we get the agents to now to do this stuff and re

give us more time to be able to do more on the business?" All right. Well, this has been a very

interesting conversation and I want to I want to get to a rapid fire close. So, I got three or four questions. First of

the rapid fire question before we finish up today. Bitcoin hits a million dollars. Yes. What are you doing the very next

morning? First of all, uh what year is this? You think? Whenever. Whenever it hits whenever. Okay. Uh I Why so bearish by

the way? Can I ask you a question back? That's just the question that I decided to ask.

But the reason why and I'm sorry it's not rapid fire because you know even a million dollars I think is a bearish

number. Why is that? Well, I just explained how 10 times Bitco Bitcoin is

better preserving your future purchasing power than gold. That's 10 times. So Bitcoin's market price is 60 some

thousand. That means a a spot market price of 600,000. Okay, we're just starting the arena. Real estate. I

explained how Bitcoin's a better at preserving your future purchase power than real estate. Real estate is a 200

to 300 trillion market cap. That's 200 300 times more valuable than Bitcoin

right now. Take 10 of that. 10 times. So we're now at $6 million a coin or whatever. Okay, let's touch all the

other silver. Let's touch collectibles. Let's $5 trillion. We're going to eat it. Is the apex predator that's going to

eat it all away. So one $1 million. You know what do I do? Sounds like you'd do

nothing different because you think it's going to keep going. Yeah. So, so, so I live a pretty modest life, you know, and and I the the things

that I aspire for. Okay. So, not to get philosophical a little bit, that's where I think people need to like Bitcoin will

change you fundamentally like it has changed me. It has made me value my time insanely more. It's it made me uh uh

value my relationships so much more, my health so much more. Um, and then also

just, yeah, I do much more with my kids, much more with my wife. And so, nothing would really change in that regard. May

like I want my kids to go to these Catholic private schools. I want to, you know, do a couple vacations here and

there. Uh, maybe we go and get the bigger suite at the hotel or whatever, maybe. But nothing really changes other

than like hopefully I'm a great dad and a great husband raising great kids. Good answer. All right. Best meal in

Nashville. best meal in Nashville. So, we are very fortunate to uh know a number of uh

restaurant tours. So, um because we we through the AI hack for freedom and then

a couple other events, we buy out a number of restaurants in town. The best is standard. I haven't had a meal yet,

but I'm excited. Have a meal here at the standard club. So, that Locust I got to give my friend Max a big

shout out. Max Goldberg. Locust is a great meal. Uh the new sushi restaurant

that at what's the name of that place in 12 South? Sushi. Sushi. Sushi. I didn't know this. I love

Sushi is on a new restaurant in 12 South. That's And I love Nashville. My kids are eighth generation Tennessans. I

am long Nashville. That's why I did Bitcoin Park. Really? Um the missing piece was there's no good

sushi here in town. Yeah. I moved from New York 15 years ago and I was just like, "Oh, that's a bummer." But sushi song.

All right. We got to go. You're not going to go get some sushi. I love I love it. All right. one book non- Bitcoin that changed the way you think.

Uh, The Millionaire Mind by Dr. Thomas Stanley just comes right off the bat. I think that's a great book I read early

on. Uh, Dal Lama is a great book. Uh, any of the Neil Stevenson books are are

great as well. Last question. One person dead or alive that you want to do a co-working table

at Bitcoin Park for one week. Uh, probably be Elon. I love that. Yeah.

and Elon I think he'll come to I mean he's been to Nashville before and I think he'll especially what we're doing

between Bitcoin AI and energy I think that'll be a non-sair chance. Well Rod it's been a pleasure talking to you and we're going to keep the cameras

rolling here in just a couple minutes but before we get off the show the recorded portion of this that's going to go out on the podcast. I want everybody

to know how to get in touch with you and how to get in touch with Bitcoin Park because I know you just riled up some

people that want to know a little bit more about what you got going on. So tell us how to get in touch. I appreciate and first thank you so much. I know this is the first episode

and I thought this was awesome. Thanks for everybody in the audience for being here. Um, honestly, bitcoinpark.com, go

to any of our meetups and then the AI freedom lab as well, but just shoot me an email rod at bitcoinpark.com if you

have any questions and would love to see you at any of our free and open meetups. Well, congratulations on all your

success and what you're building. I know I can see the passion in you. Thank you. And uh I wish more people had that. So,

congrats, man. Thank you very much. Well, there you have it. That's another really great story about someone building something worth paying

attention to. And you can obviously see Rod's passion about what he's building with with Bitcoin Park. And I have been

to Bitcoin Park, the one here in Nashville. And it is really a clever clever concept and really cool. Of

course, the building's cool, too. The Florida George line. Really, they did really do a good job at that building. But I want you to go check it out. Go

check out Bitcoin Park. And if there's something that you're passionate about, one of the things he said is invest first, investigate later. I think that's

really clever. So maybe there's something you need to invest in and then go investigate it later. Make sure you tune in again next week when I talk with

yet another very successful entrepreneur about his or her journey to success. Until then, as always, I am your host,

the real Jason Duncan and Jesus is King.

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