The Rise of Bitcoin and Blockchain in Texas: A Conversation with Amy Anderes Damron

Mike Mills (Host) | 13690 - 67938

Hello, everybody. Boom. All right. Live is live TV mike Mills with Verity Mortgage here today. Welcome to the 49th episode of the Texas Real Estate and Finance Podcast. So today we are let's see, it's not necessarily real estate based. This is something that I'm kind of a dork about, that I was really interested in and have a fair amount of knowledge on. But I wanted to bring an expert in to kind of help share a little bit of fill some gaps for me on stuff that I don't quite understand as well. And it definitely relates to finance because I do think this is where in the next ten to 15 or 20 years, you're going to see a lot of financial applications kind of lean in this direction, if not fully move over because of the cost and effectiveness of it. But we're going to get into all that. So today my guest is Amy Andres Damron. Right. Did I say it right this time? Now. Welcome, Amy. Thank you for coming.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 68024 - 69646

Thank you for having me, Mike.

Mike Mills (Host) | 69838 - 73810

Now, Amy is a member relations director, is that correct?

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 73880 - 74402

That's correct.

Mike Mills (Host) | 74456 - 140058

Okay. Member relations director for the Texas Blockchain Council, which is something that I recently learned about within the last, like, six to eight months, which I was very excited that such a thing existed, by the way, because learning as much as I have over the last couple of years about blockchain and bitcoin and cryptocurrencies and all the stuff involved with that, I was super excited to see that there was an organization in texas that was actually trying to lead the way on making texas kind of one of the innovators in this space. Right. And so I was super excited to find out that this existed and then add another layer to it, which Amy and I discussed when she came in today. Amy and I went to high school together. Yes. So it was crazy. I was online just kind of doing what I do sometimes, looking up stuff, trying to figure out how I could expand my knowledge on blockchain and crypto. And I come across the Texas Blockchain Council, and I'm looking at their podcast that they do every day, and lo and behold, there's Amy. What are the odds, right?

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 140224 - 141930

It is a small world.

Mike Mills (Host) | 142000 - 142282

Yes.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 142336 - 152230

And the crypto space, the bitcoin space, everybody once you get in, it's like, you know, everybody small club. Right now, we're hoping it becomes bigger.

Mike Mills (Host) | 152310 - 154014

That's right. And that's part of what you're doing, right?

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 154052 - 154640

Absolutely.

Mike Mills (Host) | 155170 - 187462

So let's start first with tell me how because we talked a little bit about how you kind of got here before you got here, but before you got on the podcast. So you were a teacher and a coach, and you were an athlete in high school, because I remember that. And you coached all the way through your early twenty s, I would assume, right into your 30s. So how does a teacher coach go from that into becoming, let's call yourself, an influencer in the blockchain and crypto space. How does that even happen?

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 187516 - 212990

I appreciate well, that's very complimentary. Thank you. That I would get that far with it. But you know what? I follow this Instagram page. It's called teacher misery. And she coaches teachers on how to get out of teaching and how all of those skills are so transferable in other areas. And I am a recovering educator. Took some time off to be home with my two sons and one of the friends that wait, by the way, back up.

Mike Mills (Host) | 213060 - 215390

So you said that term earlier, and I love it. What is it again?

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 215460 - 216570

Recovering educator.

Mike Mills (Host) | 216650 - 223854

Perfect. Love it. I got plenty of teacher friends out there that will love that one. You got to have to get yourself a T shirt on that one. You got to trademark that statement.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 223902 - 226606

I like that. Hook up with the teacher misery person.

Mike Mills (Host) | 226648 - 227400

That's right.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 228890 - 251466

But so many skills are transferable. And when I was ready to reenter the workforce after taking some time off to be home with my boys, one of our park friends that we ran around with, she had kids similar age. She said, hey, my husband Lee is super swamped right now. Business is booming. He needs an assistant. Would you come on and help take some work off his plate? And I said, sure.

Mike Mills (Host) | 251568 - 251882

Yeah.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 251936 - 255802

So I started as executive administrator. Executive assistant.

Mike Mills (Host) | 255866 - 256094

Right.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 256132 - 258702

I don't know. I guess that term is dated now. I don't know.

Mike Mills (Host) | 258756 - 266562

Yeah, you were helping out. You were helping all kinds of things, because I'm sure that title encompasses everything, right?

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 266616 - 277314

It certainly did, yes. So I was scheduling. I was helping with emails. But what really hooked me was the events. I got to welcome people in, get them their name tag, get them so.

Mike Mills (Host) | 277352 - 279366

Kind of did PR to some extent for it as well.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 279468 - 286550

Yes, exactly. And so talking to the members, I just learned about the space, and here I am.

Mike Mills (Host) | 286620 - 291926

And you got real excited about learning about crypto and blockchain and all those things that come around with it.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 291948 - 296154

Right, exactly. Because it was foreign language to me. I was like, what even is this?

Mike Mills (Host) | 296272 - 422674

Well, that's the thing, is it's foreign language to everybody. And again, we talked about this when you got here, but for me personally, right before the Pandemic hit in 2020 is when for whatever. And I don't even remember the exact circumstances to why I got somewhat interested in it. I think maybe a friend had brought it up or something. But I'd started seeing more and more stuff about Bitcoin. And so I was like, well, let me see what this is. And what I did, actually was I think I took like, $100 or a couple of opened a Coinbase account, and I just bought some Bitcoin because I was like, let me just see what it's all about. Right. Because I figured the best way to learn about it was to kind of put a little skin in the game. So that way it was like $100 wasn't much, but that made me more interested. So now I was watching YouTube videos. Stuff was coming up on my Twitter feed. It was just a regular inundation of information regarding bitcoin specifically. And then of course, that bleeds into blockchain and bleeds into web three and NFTs and all these other things that are involved with the blockchain. And so as I became more and more fascinated by the topic, well, then at that time, because right before the pandemic hit, when everybody's at home and we all got a bunch of time on our hands, and then you got the Robin Hood app that became really popular during that point. And so people could start investing small amounts of money. And so you start to see the crypto exchanges just explode because everybody had time and to some extent money. That's when I really started learning a ton about it. And of course, investing more and more and more and more. And once you kind of fall into the rabbit hole and you understand what the technology is and what kind of applications it could have for the future, then you become in a place where you're like, I really got to figure out how all this stuff works. Because if I can get ahead of the curve on this stuff and really understand where it's going and what kind of applications the technology can be used for, then it creates all sorts of opportunities. Would you agree with that?

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 422712 - 438246

I totally agree. You hear people take it, the orange pill, they get orange pilled, and then you fought on the rabbit hole. But I like how you laid it out because first you're curious about the currency, and then you're curious about the technology, and then you're curious about the applications, and then it just keeps going further, further, further down.

Mike Mills (Host) | 438348 - 438710

Yes.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 438780 - 440762

And I haven't reached the bottom yet.

Mike Mills (Host) | 440896 - 442298

Well, I mean, nobody has.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 442384 - 443530

It's like Alice.

Mike Mills (Host) | 444350 - 451386

Well, you were doing because you do a podcast. How often do you all do those? Is there any regular schedule?

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 451578 - 453114

We're going through a bit of a reboot.

Mike Mills (Host) | 453162 - 453518

Okay.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 453604 - 457998

I've had two co hosts and different circumstances. Life.

Mike Mills (Host) | 458084 - 458622

Yes.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 458756 - 463102

But I'm hoping I could maybe work relaunches in the works.

Mike Mills (Host) | 463156 - 463326

Got.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 463348 - 464254

You not official yet.

Mike Mills (Host) | 464292 - 464458

Okay.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 464484 - 465778

So stay tuned on that.

Mike Mills (Host) | 465864 - 499354

Well, I've watched a couple of those to try to get an idea of what you do and kind of how you're involved with everything that you do for Texas blockchain. And I was watching one the other day, and I was sitting there going, I have no idea what she's talking about. Because even as much as I kind of pride myself on having a pretty good understanding of how all this stuff works, I was still lost for what was going on because there's so many layers to it. And I don't think people understand how much depth there is in the crypto and blockchain area.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 499472 - 520370

Exactly. And as you know, with the podcast, I mean, what lean do you take? Do you want to be educating people about it? Do you want to be updating people about it? So we never really found our niche because I would pitch it to my friends and family and be like, hey, watch this, watch this. That feedback was the same. I have no idea what you're talking about. I tried to watch it, but I was so lost. It was like you were speaking Greek.

Mike Mills (Host) | 521030 - 549446

Well, you have to decide if you're going to be the information that you're going to provide. Is it for a very specific segment of the market, meaning only the people that understand that space and understand what's going on there? Or are you trying to educate the general population? Right. So that's kind of a bleed into the blockchain council. So tell me a little bit about what you guys do, kind of what your mission is in the state of Texas and what activities you all get involved in on a regular basis.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 549558 - 569134

Okay, thank you. So Texas blockchain council is an industry association. So 501 c six. And we want Texas to be the place where bitcoin mining the currency, the transaction blockchain, all of the things that are encompassed in that rabbit hole are protected.

Mike Mills (Host) | 569182 - 569442

Right.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 569496 - 589062

We want Texas to be a hub of innovation. And so our mission is to create the framework and then flesh out the legislation. We have a lobbyist that then pushes said legislation through. We work to educate elected. We work to educate electeds.

Mike Mills (Host) | 589206 - 591094

Is that the senators?

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 591222 - 592170

That's what we call it.

Mike Mills (Host) | 592240 - 595878

State senators. I didn't know there was a term for that. The electeds.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 595894 - 596730

That's funny.

Mike Mills (Host) | 597070 - 600106

Like the infected close to it.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 600128 - 629554

Right? Exactly right. But you only get like ten or 15 minutes with these people if you do get into their office. What do you say? How do you break it down in ten to 15 minutes? It's very hard, a lot of time if you're not getting just moments with these people. So TBC helps you connect with your legislator. They help you with the scripting. Even with we had to battle a bill, 1751. It was going to strip away incentives for bitcoin miners.

Mike Mills (Host) | 629602 - 630054

Okay.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 630172 - 646060

So we had to go on the defensive. We held a rally in Austin on the capitol grounds. We set up this website where you could put in your zip code and find out exactly who your legislator was. Here's the email. Just boom. Put your address in and it'll send it off.

Mike Mills (Host) | 646510 - 648570

Make it easy for people. It's just plug and play.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 648640 - 649222

Precisely.

Mike Mills (Host) | 649286 - 649658

Right.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 649744 - 667460

We hold networking events. We hold educational events. We're trying to really drive some research coming out of some higher institutions, higher ed institutions. So there's a lot that we do, but it all just boils down to making people more aware of this technology and how it all works.

Mike Mills (Host) | 668070 - 675874

Now, you guys do a summit, I want to say every year, but I don't really know how many years have you all done the summit at this point?

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 675912 - 680082

We've done it for three. We're coming up on our third annual summit.

Mike Mills (Host) | 680146 - 687554

Okay. And I've seen before I think you had Ted Cruz was there. Did I see Marco Rubio? No, I don't think so.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 687692 - 688422

Andrew Yang.

Mike Mills (Host) | 688486 - 689722

Andrew Yang. Yes.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 689776 - 699542

That was huge. Who else? The summit. We're moving it out of Austin. So the first two years, we held it in Austin.

Mike Mills (Host) | 699606 - 699882

Okay.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 699936 - 708862

And if you know Austin, austin is a hub of all things cryptocurrency metaverse web three. Every other weekend, there's a summit conference going on.

Mike Mills (Host) | 708916 - 711978

Kind of a mini silicon valley for Texas, essentially.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 712074 - 718194

Exactly right. So we kind of made a risky move to relocate to Fort Worth.

Mike Mills (Host) | 718312 - 718738

Okay.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 718824 - 722370

And Fort Worth. You're hopefully wondering why Fort Worth?

Mike Mills (Host) | 722520 - 737510

Well, I'm not, actually, because there was an article man, I think it was in fortune magazine, like, yesterday that was talking about fort Worth being like the next Austin, essentially because of the amount of growth that's happening over there.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 737580 - 744742

Yes. They want to be. And Fort Worth is the only city in the US. The first and only city in the US. To be mining bitcoin.

Mike Mills (Host) | 744806 - 756222

Oh, wow. The city is the city. Really? So how does that work? How does the city mine bitcoin? I think it's great. But is it funded by tax dollars or how does that work?

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 756276 - 777266

No. So in city hall, the Texas blockchain council donated the equipment. They plugged it in, and it's been running for about a year now. In fact, Carlo Capua, he's assistant to the mayor there in Fort Worth. He came and gave a presentation at TCU a couple of weeks ago, and he shared with us that the mining machine has earned a little over $1,000.

Mike Mills (Host) | 777368 - 780022

Wow. Okay. So they just have one minor yes. Okay.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 780076 - 805690

Because they started with two s nine s, which were the older form of the ASIC miners. They didn't work so well, so they had to come in and switch out the s nine s for one s 19. But it wasn't the money generated. It wasn't the bitcoin that was generated. They got so many media impressions. Mayor Maddie Parker got to go on all these news broadcasts and tout this ad yes. It was hugely impactful to them.

Mike Mills (Host) | 805760 - 832822

Yeah. Just to be one of the first ones that's doing it by itself, whether you've got one mining machine or 500, it doesn't really matter. Just the fact that there's a municipality in the country. It's kind of like was it the country? Bolivia. No. What was the country in South America that actually made bitcoin like, its reserve currency within the country? You remember? Yes.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 832876 - 834114

Is that Brazil or Argentina?

Mike Mills (Host) | 834162 - 866142

Argentina. I think we'll probably get that wrong, but either way but they've got a ton of publicity over that because they were basically buying up all kinds of Bitcoin to kind of keep their currency in balance, essentially. And so that in and of itself drove a ton of tourism and all kinds of things in that direction. So whenever you have a city in the United States as saying, hey, look, we want to be the first ones that actually start getting out there and using this technology to benefit the city, that's nothing but good publicity for anybody, regardless of how much you're mining.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 866206 - 879478

Precisely, right? Yes, exactly. And the next move is, would they be able to keep it on their balance sheet? That's what we're pushing towards as of now. No, they convert it back into, as we say in this space, fiat paper money.

Mike Mills (Host) | 879564 - 931240

Okay. It's always funny whenever okay, we'll get into Bitcoin a second. Let's start simple first, all right? So the title of the entity that you represent is Texas Blockchain Council. It's not Texas, bitcoin Council. Okay. Now, there's probably a very good reason for that, because when people think of cryptocurrencies, they think of cryptocurrencies and they think of Bitcoin and they think of maybe Ethereum or whatever, but they don't think of blockchain. Right. And what I don't think people understand is that the technology that drives all of this, whether it be NFTs, Web, Three, Bitcoin, Ethereum, any cryptocurrency out there, it's all driven by blockchain. Okay, so if I was seven years old and you were trying to explain blockchain to me, how would you describe it?

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 932250 - 935218

I would say, so now you're going to maybe dig into the teacher.

Mike Mills (Host) | 935314 - 939000

That's right. Former teacher. You got to be able to explain this to me.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 940410 - 967300

I can't use the word distributed because that would go over a seven year old's head. It's an open book, okay? You could see the origin of something, you could see the transaction or the exchange of something. You could follow it through multiple transactions, and it's laid out in front. Nobody is controlling it, nobody is writing it. It's doing it on its own. It's operating automatically. I think that's what I would say.

Mike Mills (Host) | 968230 - 972978

So when you said what was the first word you used?

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 973064 - 973554

Open.

Mike Mills (Host) | 973672 - 983622

No, with the D, I remember. Distributed. Okay. So I was thinking decentralized. So I would say that decentralized and distributed are similar terms in this case, right?

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 983676 - 984742

I never thought of that, but yes.

Mike Mills (Host) | 984796 - 1032178

Because when we talk about blockchain, the true advantage to it essentially is that it is not centralized. Right. When it comes down to all, from my understanding, when it comes down to all cryptocurrencies and anything regarding blockchain in general, the biggest advantage is the decentralization of it, because everybody that's on the network has essentially a copy, basically, of the ledger. Right. And they all have to approve of transactions, or there's different methods these days between how those transactions get recorded and approved, because there's what Bitcoin is the competition one, what's that called proof of work. Proof of work. And then Ethereum moved over to proof of stake.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 1032274 - 1032534

Yeah.

Mike Mills (Host) | 1032572 - 1069682

Right. Okay. So we won't get that far down into those things, but that's just the basically verification of the transactions that happen. The best way I've heard it in my brain to say is it's like a ledger. Right? It's an accounting ledger of transactions. Okay, but the ledger of transactions that are being recorded are public to anybody that wants to see it. Right. But it doesn't say Mike Mills. Sold bitcoin. To whomever? Right. It says wallet number, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's like, what are most wallets, like, 25 characters long or something like that? Yes.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 1069816 - 1071186

Letters and numbers.

Mike Mills (Host) | 1071288 - 1081254

Yes. So that wallet transformed or transitioned to that wallet. Now, granted, I don't know if you remember back in the day, do you remember Silk Road?

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 1081452 - 1082102

Yes.

Mike Mills (Host) | 1082236 - 1105466

Okay, so Silk Road was an underground website or web server, essentially, that did a lot of really bad things, essentially. Right. And a lot of it was transacted in Bitcoin at the time because there was a thought that bitcoin was anonymous. Right. And would you say that Bitcoin is anonymous?

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 1105658 - 1111806

Not 100%, no. I mean, because of what you're describing, like, you could see address to address.

Mike Mills (Host) | 1111908 - 1143434

Correct. And if you have the powers of seeing IP addresses and things where this stuff is being transacted, then say, like, if you're the federal government, then you could go in and find where those wallets are being tagged to and then go after those people. I would say that Bitcoin is certainly I should say the blockchain keeps the information transparent, but it doesn't give everybody access to know who's doing what. You just know that transactions are happening.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 1143552 - 1151582

Precisely. And the other important thing about the decentralized part is that there is no one individual that is in charge of recording all of this.

Mike Mills (Host) | 1151716 - 1159834

Correct. Right. So you're saying that everybody kind of gets a say, which makes it the word that I hear used a lot is immutable.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 1159962 - 1160766

Right, right.

Mike Mills (Host) | 1160868 - 1181240

Where if someone were to try to go in and hack the system, essentially, then that would be picked up very quickly because everybody within the network, if it's 1000 or 2000, how many people are actually do you know the number of computers operating or miners operating on the Bitcoin specifically? Do you have any idea?

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 1181930 - 1187638

I don't know. I was thinking in the tens of thousands, but no.

Mike Mills (Host) | 1187724 - 1189142

Okay. Don't hold me to it's a lot.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 1189196 - 1189510

Yes.

Mike Mills (Host) | 1189580 - 1213662

Either way. And so all of those have to basically agree and record that that transaction was happening. And if something is wrong about it, because the whole idea of the blockchain is it's a chain of blocks of transactions, and they all link up to each other. So if you go back ten blocks or whatever and it doesn't line up with the one that's at the top, then the network says, no, that's right.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 1213716 - 1222574

Operates on a consensus mechanism. The majority of the blocks have to agree that that's the corrected true representation.

Mike Mills (Host) | 1222622 - 1229366

Of the now imagine if government spending was recorded on the blockchain and how much transparency would be there, right.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 1229468 - 1233862

I think a lot of people would be cut not doing so great things.

Mike Mills (Host) | 1233916 - 1293906

Yeah. This is a conspiracy hole here a little bit. So the government does an audit every year of every department. There's an audit department that does a transaction recording on every department in the federal government. Well, they do it, like, every four years. I think they do an audit every year, but it's a different department every year. So the defense department has never passed the audit. Not one time. They've done it 20 times. They've never passed the audit. And the thing that happened right before 911 was Donald Rumsfeld had come out and said the defense department had lost $2.6 trillion that they couldn't account for, and then 911 happens or whatever. But the idea is that the government that is such a centralized system isn't necessarily a huge fan of everything being decentralized, especially when it comes to monetary interest. Would you agree with that?

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 1293948 - 1298166

I would agree with that. Yes, I would agree with that. Although they are pushing a central bank digital currency.

Mike Mills (Host) | 1298278 - 1327570

Yes, well, and we're going to get into that too. Okay, so now that we kind of have an understanding of what blockchain is, right, it's a decentralized ledger that is transparent and immutable, where people cannot go in and mess around with it and make any changes to it. Which means it's very secure, which means that if you're making transactions over the blockchain, then you can feel pretty confident that there's not going to be any. There's a different word I use, but I won't use it for this one. But there's not going to be anything anybody playing any games. Okay.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 1327640 - 1328260

Okay.

Mike Mills (Host) | 1329190 - 1340858

So then let's talk about bitcoin specifically, because that's what everybody understands. So can you tell everybody a little bit, like a little bit of a brief history of bitcoin and how it kind of came about?

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 1340944 - 1348666

Yes, I can. I mean, I know in the halls of TBC, we suggest the reading of read Satoshi's white paper.

Mike Mills (Host) | 1348768 - 1350634

Okay. Tell everybody what a white paper is.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 1350672 - 1355262

A white paper is a description of a process, a description of an idea.

Mike Mills (Host) | 1355396 - 1356080

Okay.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 1356450 - 1367218

A report, I guess, so to speak. And did you hear that these are, like, hidden in the Mac? If you have an Apple computer, you can actually like it's hidden in the code of your computer.

Mike Mills (Host) | 1367304 - 1381270

Did you I think I do remember seeing that something like that somewhere, but yes, because everybody thinks Satoshi was Steve Jobs, right? Is that where that comes from? Yes. Okay, I'm with you.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 1381420 - 1391062

So the white paper is recommended reading. And then there's a book called the bitcoin standard. It was by an individual safety is his last name.

Mike Mills (Host) | 1391116 - 1391574

Okay.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 1391692 - 1414740

Super dry because it starts at the beginning about the history of money. But if you start at the back half, you get to learn about what bitcoin is. So what is bitcoin? Gosh. It's a peer to peer system. It's a currency. It is right now one of the only proof of work currencies that is available.

Mike Mills (Host) | 1415190 - 1417234

Can you briefly say what proof of work is?

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 1417272 - 1439234

So proof of work is the computers are all verifying the blocks. As we said, this requires energy. It requires what mining is. Precisely. So mining, the computers are solving for a non number, and if they guess that number, then they get the block reward, which right now is 6.25 bitcoin.

Mike Mills (Host) | 1439282 - 1439734

Yes.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 1439852 - 1441818

Right, okay. We're coming up on the having.

Mike Mills (Host) | 1441904 - 1442890

6.25.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 1442960 - 1450538

6.25, yes. Bitcoin would be the reward. If you're mining computer, you get six bitcoin for 6.25.

Mike Mills (Host) | 1450624 - 1452346

Really? Wow.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 1452448 - 1455386

You're like, I'm in a I need.

Mike Mills (Host) | 1455408 - 1458126

To go get a mining machine. Goodness gracious. Okay. Yeah, go ahead.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 1458148 - 1459438

But that'll go down to three point.

Mike Mills (Host) | 1459524 - 1462014

Chain because of the having, which is a whole other thing.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 1462052 - 1473140

Right, exactly. But nobody knows who Satashi Nakamoto was. It could have been an individual. It could have been a group of people. They just sort of put this in motion and stepped back.

Mike Mills (Host) | 1473590 - 1509760

Yeah, that's the craziest thing about it, is that this happened right after the financial crash in 2008, is when the white paper was written or presented or whatever, and the guy who wrote it, who nobody knows who he is, created this distributed ledger, basically invented the blockchain, and it just started kind of building from there. And just like anything else, it starts small with a small group of people. I think there's the famous story of the guy who bought a pizza with, like, 200 bitcoin or something like that.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 1510130 - 1513310

That was on May 23, actually. We just had a celebration.

Mike Mills (Host) | 1514370 - 1515406

How many bitcoin was it?

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 1515428 - 1516506

It was 10,000 bitcoin.

Mike Mills (Host) | 1516538 - 1587030

10,000 bitcoin. Okay. So to give you an idea, bitcoin right now is pricing out at around I think it's down a little bit today, but it was like 25. Let's say it's $26,000 per bitcoin. So this was 10,000 of those. So if that guy had 10,000 of those bitcoins a day, he would be worth a lot of money. But then it just kind of slowly started building and building and building. And so I was telling you earlier that in my little circle of the world here, when I try to talk to people about this stuff, the way I always demonstrate or try to explain how bitcoin works, because what is it? It's just, like, fake, like, how do we even know who got money? And so I say, okay, I have a piece of paper, all right? And let's say Amy and I decide that this piece of paper, it's one piece of paper, we're going to tear it in half. She gets half, and I get half, and we decide between the two of us that we're going to exchange goods with this paper, just you and me, right? And so I want to buy your shoes because I think your shoes are amazing. So I'm going to give you half of my half a piece of paper and you're going to give me your shoes. Right? Well, this is our version of a currency. Nobody else is involved in this. This is just you and me, right?

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 1587100 - 1588022

We agree upon it.

Mike Mills (Host) | 1588076 - 1676914

We agreed upon it. And then Johnny comes along and says, hey, what are you guys doing over here? And I say, well, what's this paper and what are you trading? I don't understand. Well, we're saying that the paper is like, I want to get involved in that. So you give him half of your paper and I give him half of my paper. And now we all three have this paper, and we all decide that we're going to buy tacos and shoes and whatever it is with this paper that the three of us have decided to create. Right. So the security or the value in that paper is only assigned by the three of us in that particular circumstance. Right. So take that and now multiply that by thousands and thousands and hundreds of thousands of people, and that's how you get a currency that people can have faith because they decide they want to put faith in it. I mean, the US dollar is not backed by anything other than what is it? The faith and trust of the US government. Essentially all our tanks and guns is what backs the US dollar. Right. So the differences are negligible in what they're actually based off of because dollars are not based off gold anymore. And Bitcoin is just a digital currency that people are choosing to use to transact and hold value. And it went from being worth one to now it's worth $25,000. So there are people that want to have that value. Would you agree with that?

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 1676952 - 1682758

I would totally agree. Yes, I would. It is all about the participating parties. Like you said, you can opt in.

Mike Mills (Host) | 1682844 - 1683094

Yes.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 1683132 - 1684022

Or you can opt out.

Mike Mills (Host) | 1684076 - 1684438

Correct.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 1684524 - 1689366

If you decide come a given point, this isn't for me. I don't see the value in this.

Mike Mills (Host) | 1689388 - 1692300

Then simply so why do you think people opt in?

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 1694030 - 1715360

Why do people opt in? I think it starts with the curiosity. I think the more that they dig in and start learning, I think the more interested they get, and I think the more people that you meet that exchange with Bitcoin, I don't want to say it's a contagion because that sounds bad.

Mike Mills (Host) | 1716210 - 1773982

Well, it's a little I don't like to use the word cultish, but it kind of is that to a certain extent. I mean, it really is, if you're being honest. Right. It's because you have to kind of buy into it a little bit to understand. And the growth that it's had over the last five years. Let's just say, obviously has been tied to the fact that it went from I don't even know what if you go back 2023, you go back to 2018, maybe it was worth $8,000 per 5000. I don't know that. I don't have the graph in front of me. But then it shoots all the way up to almost 70,000 per bitcoin and then comes crashing back down. But when you look at the cycles over time, what has happened specifically with bitcoin, there are all these big swings up and down because it's a new technology and people don't understand it. Right. And when you're putting money into something like that, that is for the masses, is something that's new. You could say it's innovative. You can say it's untested. It's certainly unregulated. As it currently stands, all of that creates volatility.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 1774046 - 1791434

Right, precisely. And the market never closes. It's not like the SP where there's quitting time. It's all day, every day. It never stops. And so if you just get a wild hair at midnight 02:00 A.m., you can hop on and you can get you some.

Mike Mills (Host) | 1791552 - 1798780

How much do you guys as a council, how much do you all have to spend time actually educating people on what it is?

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 1799790 - 1815594

I would say, honestly, our member body is a majority bitcoin, and they're called bitcoin maxis. Okay, I love all the terminology is solely bitcoin.

Mike Mills (Host) | 1815642 - 1818046

Yes. They don't believe in any other cryptocurrencies. It's just bitcoin.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 1818078 - 1831206

Correct. So within this cult, if you want to call it that, there's tribalistic sort of mentalities that you've got the vaccines and then you get the ones that do combination, and then you have so where was I going with that?

Mike Mills (Host) | 1831228 - 1832886

Well, I think how much time we.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 1832908 - 1834082

Have to spend educating.

Mike Mills (Host) | 1834146 - 1834710

Yes.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 1834860 - 1838598

Not much, because most people that come to the council, they already have a baseline understanding. Yes.

Mike Mills (Host) | 1838684 - 1960174

Well, it's kind of like I always relate it to the early 90s when the Internet started, right. When the Internet came out, there were and we remember this because we were of that age, but anybody that's younger may not. But let's say you had search engines, you had Yahoo, you had Alta Vista, you had Netscape, you had Google, you had all of these different options that you could use in ways that you could go about searching through the Internet, because the whole idea behind using the World Wide Web was there was a ton of information. I mean, obviously it took time to build up, but it was like, how do I get to the information? That was always the thing. It's like, well, somebody may have what I'm looking for on a website, but if I don't know the name of the website or where to find it, then I need something to help me get to that point. And that's why the search engine becomes such a goliath in that area or on the internet, because that was the main avenue that people use to find the information they were looking for. So anytime you have multiple, in this case, multiple search engines competing for people's eyeballs, well, somebody's going to win, right. Or someone's going to be the leader of that, which ultimately, now we all know is google, I always kind of equate the crypto space to that a little bit, as to I think that they're different, and we'll get into that in just a second. As far as what they do, because bitcoin really is kind of a currency. But I think ethereum is different. I think ethereum is more of a platform that uses their ether in their platform to conduct business. But once you kind of understand that they're all kind of competing a little bit for the same space, well, then somebody ultimately is going to win. And right now, bitcoin was the first one out of the shoot. It's so far been the most what's the word I'm looking for? It's like dependable, I guess, or the most secure is the word I'm looking for there. Sure. And because the person that created it, nobody knows who he is, and there hasn't been any shenanigans that are involved with it, it's been the one that's kind of stood the test of time. Right.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 1960212 - 1972206

I agree with you. I agree with you. Yes. And I think the cryptocurrencies that came after bitcoin have kind of shopped the characteristics of it and then added their own functionalities.

Mike Mills (Host) | 1972398 - 1978306

What would you say the difference is between, say, bitcoin and, like, dogecoin, everybody's.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 1978338 - 1993100

Favorite, a meme coin. So it was something that came up as a joke. It's proof of stake versus proof of work. There's infinite numbers, whereas with bitcoin, there will ever only be 21 million. Yes.

Mike Mills (Host) | 1994110 - 1998442

I think that's the biggest thing is the bitcoin has a cap.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 1998576 - 1999260

Right.

Mike Mills (Host) | 1999630 - 2010174

They're not going to be any more than 21 million. That's it. Now, what do you ever say when people say, well, how does that work? Because that means that once it's all bought up, you can't get any more. What's your response to that?

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 2010212 - 2019300

Well, that's the point where I talk about satoshis and how there's 100,000 I always get this number wrong. Is it 100,000 satoshis in a bitcoin or 100?

Mike Mills (Host) | 2019830 - 2022190

Does it have a name now? It's called satoshis.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 2022270 - 2022610

Yes.

Mike Mills (Host) | 2022680 - 2023506

I didn't even know that.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 2023528 - 2025582

Smaller, increments bitcoin.

Mike Mills (Host) | 2025726 - 2032422

Wow, okay. So it actually has it's like a penny. It's like a penny compared to a dollar. It's a satoshi. Okay, all right. I did not know that.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 2032476 - 2046666

Yes. And even after, in 21 40, all the bitcoin will be mined. 21 40. But even as people are exchanging it, interacting with it, there'll be exchange fees, so it'll still be generating, which is.

Mike Mills (Host) | 2046688 - 2047722

What the miners will do.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 2047776 - 2048778

Right, yes.

Mike Mills (Host) | 2048864 - 2080898

Okay, well, so from way I understand it is, and the way I tried to explain it before is so, yes, there is a cap, 21 million of bitcoin that will ever be produced but you can subdivide that 21 million, I mean, really into infinity, essentially, because you can just keep adding zeros right. All the way through. So if one Bitcoin one day becomes have you heard the highest estimate on what they think? I know, it's all like future, who knows? Projections, whatever.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 2080984 - 2082710

The highest estimate I've ever heard is 1 million.

Mike Mills (Host) | 2082780 - 2083510

$1 million?

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 2083580 - 2083814

Yes.

Mike Mills (Host) | 2083852 - 2088230

Really? Okay. I think I heard the other day that someone said it'd be worth one Bitcoin, could be worth $10 million.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 2088300 - 2088662

Oh, wow.

Mike Mills (Host) | 2088716 - 2135138

Ten or 15 years, which would be great. But you can divide that downward in as many different increments as you want to still be able to use it. If you actually do use it as a currency, from what you're understanding is the difference between we were talking about Bitcoin specifically, but when you get into other cryptocurrencies okay, so for me, I've heard of things that are like, you know the term, like oracles and where, you know so, like, Ethereum, from what I understand, correct me if I'm wrong Ethereum is a it's almost like a web platform to some extent because you can build applications on top of it. Right. Because it's a smart contract, crypto.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 2135234 - 2135686

Correct.

Mike Mills (Host) | 2135788 - 2168658

Okay. And with the smart contract, when you build so, like if you and I were going to place bets, for example, right, we're going to bet a football game. You say the Cowboys are going to win, and I say the Redskins are going to win, and we put our 25 Ether into a smart contract. And then an Oracle takes that information once the results are in, essentially, and then puts it result into the smart contract. And then the contract automatically gives the money to you or me, depending on the result.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 2168744 - 2169042

Right.

Mike Mills (Host) | 2169096 - 2169746

Is that how that works?

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 2169768 - 2171218

That's a really good way to explain it.

Mike Mills (Host) | 2171304 - 2172690

Well, I like to gamble.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 2174550 - 2179970

Most of the cryptocurrency exchanging is happening in gambling and gaming.

Mike Mills (Host) | 2180130 - 2180550

Really?

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 2180620 - 2184386

Video gaming and then casinos.

Mike Mills (Host) | 2184578 - 2187462

That's the underground part of it, I guess, right.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 2187516 - 2191770

Where they're although some people would say that could be the way to mass adoption, too.

Mike Mills (Host) | 2191840 - 2232278

Yes. Well, it always starts that way. Right. I hate to say it, but I think one of the drivers behind the Internet originally was inappropriate videos that you could find online. Right. So it's not an unusual thing that the underbelly of society uses some of this technology first before not that look, people gamble at time. It's not underbelly, but it certainly is depending on where you live and depending on what state you're in on what the legality of it is, if you're doing online betting. But I guess that's an easy way to transact and not have to worry about it. Plus, because it does get transferred the way it does with the blockchain, you feel pretty secure about it, right?

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 2232364 - 2233362

Yes, precisely.

Mike Mills (Host) | 2233426 - 2241980

Yeah. So what other cryptocurrencies that you're aware of are starting to kind of gain traction within the last like three or four years.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 2243150 - 2268702

Ethereum. We were watching that closely because they recently transitioned out of proof of work to proof of stake. And I think that was a pretty incredible transition and it went well. And they got out from under the environmentalist eyes. Unfortunately, you hear a lot of the narrative that Bitcoin is an energy hog and is creating a huge carbon footprint.

Mike Mills (Host) | 2268846 - 2271022

Because of the energy. It sucks to do the mining.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 2271086 - 2271566

Precisely.

Mike Mills (Host) | 2271598 - 2272338

Got you. Okay.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 2272424 - 2280360

Precisely. Other tokens or other platforms that are on our radar, I could not tell you.

Mike Mills (Host) | 2282090 - 2302122

They kind of move in and out, depending on well, I think there's been so much in the last really just in the last twelve months between all of the controversial, the FTXs of the world that have kind of gone down. It's caused a lot of issues with people having faith in just cryptocurrencies in general.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 2302176 - 2302970

Right, right.

Mike Mills (Host) | 2303120 - 2304460

How's that going for you?

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 2304770 - 2309610

USDT and USDC are sort of interesting because they're more of a stable coin.

Mike Mills (Host) | 2309690 - 2311946

Okay. So that's a good thing. Tell everybody what a stable coin?

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 2311978 - 2314938

So a stable coin is backed by something physical.

Mike Mills (Host) | 2315034 - 2315342

Right.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 2315396 - 2322546

So that could be money, gold, or fill in the blank, even. We're seeing that people are putting real estate behind it. Got you.

Mike Mills (Host) | 2322648 - 2324994

So it's backed by an asset of some kind.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 2325112 - 2325634

Exactly.

Mike Mills (Host) | 2325752 - 2326466

Okay.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 2326648 - 2333574

And so that sometimes is a safe place for people to dip a toe because they can see that what's behind it.

Mike Mills (Host) | 2333612 - 2334742

It doesn't fluctuate either.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 2334796 - 2337958

Precisely. It will fluctuate with whatever that asset that's backing it.

Mike Mills (Host) | 2337964 - 2350578

But like the dollar, it'll fluctuate that way. And isn't that where it wasn't FTX? There was another one that kind of got into trouble because they were using the stable coin. What was the stable luna?

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 2350694 - 2352586

Oh, yes. The terra luna.

Mike Mills (Host) | 2352778 - 2354206

Yes. So what happened there?

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 2354308 - 2365534

So they were commingling funds and I don't know the exact details of it, but they were funding the project with.

Mike Mills (Host) | 2365572 - 2368626

The with their own token that they were using as the backing of it.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 2368648 - 2369134

Precisely.

Mike Mills (Host) | 2369182 - 2369874

Right.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 2370072 - 2374818

We heard the analogy. It's a house of cards. There was nothing that was supporting it, nothing that was behind it.

Mike Mills (Host) | 2374904 - 2393642

Well, I think that's what scares people a lot about the space is because it's not regulated right now. And I think it would surprise most people to say that everybody that operates in the blockchain universe or whatever you guys are trying, you all actually want regulation. You're not trying to keep it unregulated. Right.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 2393696 - 2418210

Precisely. In fact, one of our bills, it was the house bill 1666, the proof of reserve, proof of liability. So any exchange, any cryptocurrency company that's wanting to do business in Texas will have to undergo these audits at regular intervals to make sure that there is indeed the assets backing that particular token coin. Fill in the blank there.

Mike Mills (Host) | 2418360 - 2430630

Yeah. I think the problem is that blockchain itself as a technology is fantastic in what it can do because of its security. The downside is you still have human beings that are involved.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 2431290 - 2432306

Human nature.

Mike Mills (Host) | 2432418 - 2480886

Yes. I think they conflate the two, right? Because someone says, obviously you see the price of bitcoin to go up and down, but then you also see the FTX's of the world and the finances gotten into trouble and all these things the Terra Luno debacle and all that stuff happen and people go, wait a minute. This whole thing is just filled with chaos. And it's like, well, yes and no. But if you relate it to something like say in the 20s where you had prohibition, right, you could not sell alcohol. Okay, well, alcohol, I mean, I don't want to equate alcohol in the blockchain, but it's just a thing, right? It doesn't do anything inherently of itself. It's a tool. Right. So it's who wields the tool and who uses the tool. That's the problem.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 2480988 - 2481302

Yes.

Mike Mills (Host) | 2481356 - 2534566

And so when alcohol was illegal, well, then you have gangsters and you have criminals of all sorts getting involved in transacting this product problem. We have this today in the drug trade is you have all these bad actors and criminals that are involved in the space because it's not regulated or it's not managed by any federal government, so everybody can feel safe about operating there. And so when you take that and you put it into saying that all these assets because people are doing it whether or not we want them to or not, right. I mean, the cat's out of the bag at this point, right, exactly. So it's up to organizations like you that you guys are to try to help people understand how it works, number one. But then also make sure that our regulators understand that we have to get controls and we have to get regulation in that space because if we don't, then there's a lot of people that can suffer because they're going to get involved with it one way or another.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 2534668 - 2571970

Exactly. And we write a fine line because, yes, we want to regulate it, but we don't want to stifle it. So we want there to be guardrails. We want there to be space for everybody to operate and get their businesses and these ideas off the ground. We don't want to crush it. And you gave the example of Coinbase earlier. I mean, they're looking to go overseas because right now the SEC has been ruling by enforcement. They just come down and smack anybody who's doing wrong. And there never seems to be a rhyme or reason for who they target and who they're going for next. And it's made the entire industry very uneasy.

Mike Mills (Host) | 2573110 - 2588390

Why do you think that the federal government pushes back so hard against this? Why are they coming after crypto as much as they are? I know there's some people that are trying to build bridges there, but as a whole, it seems like the federal government's not trying to do that.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 2588460 - 2594314

I agree. I think it's a control thing. This challenges their control of us because.

Mike Mills (Host) | 2594352 - 2595350

They have a central bank.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 2595430 - 2599130

Exactly. Right. So this is very threatening to them.

Mike Mills (Host) | 2599200 - 2604110

Yes. So speaking of that, why don't you tell everybody what a CBDC is?

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 2604260 - 2626098

CBDC is a central bank digital currency in Texas. We are super anti CBDC. In fact, Ted Cruz was on board with that. He took it up to DC. But it would be a coin. I don't know that it would be a stable coin, necessarily, but it would be a currency that would be controlled by the government.

Mike Mills (Host) | 2626184 - 2626434

Right.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 2626472 - 2627058

By the central bank.

Mike Mills (Host) | 2627064 - 2631082

By the central bank. Why is that a bad theories.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 2631166 - 2643798

But the reason why government is trying to squelch all this cryptocurrency is so that they can swoop in, if you will, and say, well, here's a better idea. Here's what we propose.

Mike Mills (Host) | 2643974 - 2714682

Well, China is already they are already testing out a central bank digital currency in China right now. They haven't had mass adoption because they're trying it out in certain markets. But from my understanding, what they're trying to do with it essentially is say, okay, all of your money is now tied to the central bank. So they can see every transaction you make. They can record and watch every single dollar that you spend, essentially. And where the real kicker comes in is they have control to basically turn it off if they don't like what you're doing. And it's kind of anytime I talk to people about privacy stuff, when we discuss because dealing in banking all the time, we talk about people's privacy and documents and information and financial information. And when you joke about Siri listening to your phone calls and all this, like, oh, well, I don't have anything to hide. I don't have anything to hide. And my response to that is always like, well, yes, based on who gets to say what you do is right or wrong. Right. Now, sure, you may not have anything to hide, but what happens when a person gets in control or power of that decision making on who gets to decide what's right and wrong. Right.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 2714756 - 2715090

Exactly.

Mike Mills (Host) | 2715160 - 2734982

And that's where the privacy things comes into such a big player. And that's why the CBDCs, in my opinion, are a terrible idea. Because if the federal government can then decide what I don't say they don't get to decide what you spend your money on, but if they can decide when you're allowed to spend your money, that's a problem.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 2735036 - 2759214

This is a big problem. And surveillance is going to be the name of the game there. Yes, because like you said, they could see every transaction. They can halt any transaction if they don't like where you're spending it's. Just a terrible idea. And with only the days, the 25th, four days left of the Texas 88 session, we do have a resolution that is in the pipeline somewhere, and we're still holding out hope that it could.

Mike Mills (Host) | 2759252 - 2769106

Still to try to I think did I see was it in Florida? Maybe? I think DeSantis might have actually passed something that said they would not accept any CBDCs. Is that right?

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 2769128 - 2769602

That's correct.

Mike Mills (Host) | 2769656 - 2795580

Okay. He's everybody's favorite out there these days, at least in one side of the world. Okay. So we understand a little bit of what blockchain is. We understand a little bit what bitcoin is. We understand a little bit of some of the other cryptocurrencies and how they're involved. NFTs. Okay. This is always something that throws people for a loop all the time. So, again, how would you explain what an NFT is?

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 2799310 - 2808654

Okay. I read this book on the airplane. An NFT is a way to prove ownership of an object, a digital object.

Mike Mills (Host) | 2808692 - 2810000

Digital object. Okay.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 2810370 - 2819182

And it shows the provenance who created it, when it was created, who it was transferred to, what we're talking about with the open ledger.

Mike Mills (Host) | 2819246 - 2820254

And it uses the blockchain.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 2820302 - 2821054

It uses the blockchain.

Mike Mills (Host) | 2821102 - 2822542

And all of this uses the blockchain.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 2822606 - 2850118

Yes. Artists really like this because after you sell a piece of art for the first time, yes, you get the commission, you get your money. But then if that piece of art gets sold again or again or again, you don't get to see that money back to you. But if you were to put this on the blockchain, the NFT, you could, as the artist, receive a reward every time your piece of art is exchanged.

Mike Mills (Host) | 2850214 - 2956800

Yes. It's a programmed residual, essentially. So when you create those NFTs, I think it's taken off so much in the collectible space because it's just the easiest adaptation for people to understand, essentially. And you'll see a lot of artists when I say artists, I don't necessarily mean, like, painters, because obviously they've got the Board Apes and Board Ape Yacht Club and all that stuff. But even athletes are getting into it, too, where it's like a baseball card, essentially. But the difference is when the baseball card gets traded to somebody else or sold to somebody else, that athlete that created that actually gets paid every single time, which is fantastic. And I've heard in the music world, where they're trying to push things towards is so if I'm the Foo Fighters, one of my favorite bands, and I create an album, right? Well, I can create an NFT of that album. That is, if I want to create 300,000 copies of it, or whatever the number is, well, every single time that that album gets sold or traded, then I, as the artist, get a percentage of that sale every single time. And so now you get to hold that as, again, some of it's collectible stuff. But I've even heard, like, concerts. We went to Lalapalooza last year, and I'd seen somewhere where they were talking about so the pass that you get to go to Lalapalooza is actually an NFT. And the way it works is if you have a certain NFT that you purchased, then you get access to certain parts of the concert that otherwise you wouldn't. And then it's just like if I had a ticket to the Rolling Stones in 1962, right? Well, how do I authenticate that? My ticket stub that now is a collectible for any Rolling Stones fan is actually the actual ticket stub? Well, with the NFTs, because they're recorded on blockchain. That's what that is.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 2957810 - 2972162

I want to learn more about NFTs, and I want to invite anybody who's in the NFT space in web three space, we need those voices heard at the Texas Blockchain Council. We need people working, because our session will be two years from now, texas legislature meets again.

Mike Mills (Host) | 2972216 - 2972962

So you got to get ready.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 2973016 - 2977446

Yeah, we got to get ready, and we need to have these voices at the table to help us build this.

Mike Mills (Host) | 2977468 - 3161342

Regulation well, in our world. So in real estate and mortgages, where NFTs, I think they're not there yet, because, again, it's regulation. It's the state being, okay, recognizing these. But imagine a world where you build a house, okay, and you go in and say, I'm Dr. Horton, and I'm building this property. And so on the blockchain, I've recorded who the contractor was, who the plumber was, what the costs were, everything that I did in the construction, of how much I paid for the land, what the taxes were at that time, all of that stuff is recorded on the blockchain, okay? And then every single time, the properties oh, by the way, that's an NFT, because this is what I've recorded to say that this ownership or title, because we have real life NFT now, they're called recorded titles. That's what you get when you go down and you want to take your spouse off the deed of your house or whatever. A deed is basically an NFT. That's what it is. It's just a physical NFT and not a digital NFT. Now, every single time that house gets sold, it gets recorded on the blockchain, and that NFT gets transferred, okay? Well, there could be a world where Dr. Horton gets paid, and that's where when I say this, because I don't like the idea of it, but this is how things get adopted. When there's profit involved, people say, oh, I want to do that. Right? So if the builder is like, wait a minute. So every single time I sell a house from here into perpetuity on one that I built, I can make $1,000. It's like, yeah, you could if you want to, but that NFT changes ownership, and that's your proof. Now, the downside in our industry, though, is that right now, we have mortgages, we have real estate agents, and we have title, okay? So the ones that NFT would affect would be title. And the reason for that is because part of title's job is they do two things. They're a third party intermediary. So if I give money, I'm not giving it to a seller when I write earnest money. And when the bank transfer funds, I'm not sending it to the seller. We're sending it to the title company, and they distribute the money. So they're a third party intermediary. Now, just imagine if there was a smart contract that took care of that, right? Then their other job is to research the title history of that property to make sure that someone doesn't come back and make claims to say, no, my grandmother's grandfather owned that land and they never consulted me. Blah, blah, blah. Well, when you pay title insurance, when you buy a house, that's the whole point. The title insurance is to protect you if someone comes about and makes a claim to your property. Well, the state of Texas sets the title policy, the amount of the policy every year. Like, title companies don't actually set the premiums. The state of Texas does, okay? So you pay the same whether you use Old Republic title or Allegiance title or whoever. So now imagine a world where all of the transactions that have occurred, the entire chain of title is on the blockchain, and it takes half a second to verify as an individual, because I could go on the blockchain and check and see who owned it when and all that kind of stuff. Well, I don't really need title insurance anymore, do I?

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 3161476 - 3174450

This would be a very disruptive, very disruptive technology. And not just to real estate. Have you heard California, their DMV is using blockchain for their driver's licenses and such.

Mike Mills (Host) | 3174600 - 3175070

Really?

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 3175160 - 3177480

So, yes, this is happening.

Mike Mills (Host) | 3178250 - 3181698

See, I think we should vote on the blockchain.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 3181874 - 3182978

Oh, my goodness.

Mike Mills (Host) | 3183154 - 3191178

You want to get all the who cheated in voting and the machines and all this other stuff? I think there's a real easy solution to that.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 3191264 - 3192502

Think about medical records.

Mike Mills (Host) | 3192566 - 3193978

Yes, everything.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 3194144 - 3195418

Everything, yes.

Mike Mills (Host) | 3195504 - 3296282

And I think that is the part where the reason I get frustrated by the cryptocurrency part of it is because that clouds the whole thing, you know what I mean? Because there's so much money involved and people lose money and people get cheated and all this other stuff that happens because of all the trading of the cryptocurrencies, people lose sight of what the underlying technology is, which is the blockchain and what that's starting to do. I don't know if you've heard this. So I read this somewhere. I don't know if this is true, but who knows? So in the Midwest, there are independent farmers that it's basically like an insurance blockchain co op where these aren't big farms. These are small farms where they put money every month they pay a premium into a smart contract, okay? And they have built within the smart contract to measure precipitation, rainfall levels, drought, big storms. Like, they have all this data that gets input into this smart contract. And so they know, obviously, where your farm is. They know what kind of crops you produce, they know how much you spend on corn and all this other stuff. It's all recorded. And instead of state farm or farmers being the insurance company, all of these farmers co op into the blockchain. And so if something happens that's catastrophic on your property because of bad weather, because of drought or some sort of infestation of disease or whatever that kills your crops, well, that data gets put into the smart contract and then that person gets paid out the premiums so they don't need an insurance company.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 3296416 - 3297146

Wow.

Mike Mills (Host) | 3297328 - 3350242

So it's like the whole concept of the blockchain and what it does is that it takes the need of a third party intermediary and it essentially eliminates it once you scale it out. Now we're going to take a long time to get there. It's not going to happen overnight. That's why we need guys like you and groups like you guys out there pushing. But that's the thing that gets me so excited about it now it scares the hell out of me as a mortgage lender because I am the third party here. But I do think that the technology itself has so many applications that get lost in the shuffle of all of the cryptocurrencies and crypto bros that it saddens me because if more people understood what it is and what it does, I think that the adoption level would happen much quicker.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 3350326 - 3357230

Yes. We have a committee within the Texas Blockchain Council called Enterprise Blockchain special Interest Group.

Mike Mills (Host) | 3357300 - 3357678

Okay.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 3357764 - 3375730

And they just published two white papers about the implications of distributed ledger technology. Those are on our website, on the policy page. I'll shoot them over to you. I think you would really appreciate it. And one other thing I want to talk about is supply chain. Supply chain?

Mike Mills (Host) | 3376390 - 3377426

Oh yeah.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 3377608 - 3379958

Imagine we as consumers, we want to.

Mike Mills (Host) | 3379964 - 3381286

Know where our stuff came from.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 3381308 - 3387334

Our stuff came from right. And we can track that from its origin to the store where we're buying it.

Mike Mills (Host) | 3387372 - 3390358

Were my eggs really farm fresh eggs? Exactly, yes.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 3390444 - 3393654

Were they really open pasture? What do they call it? Open range.

Mike Mills (Host) | 3393702 - 3397930

Free range. Free range, yes. I have free range chickens, by the way. I do.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 3398000 - 3398806

My colleague Steve.

Mike Mills (Host) | 3398838 - 3434902

That's hilarious. Well, I started with eleven chickens and now I'm down to two because nature happens, different predators and whatnot. But yes, they're actually surprisingly easy to deal with. Chickens aren't bad, but that's a whole other thing. So when someone would ask you, I don't want to invest in crypto because it's so volatile, I don't want to lose all my money, what would your suggestion be to them to start learning about how all this stuff works? How would you recommend someone go about just to get started to figure out, okay, well, I want to learn about this, so how do I do that?

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 3434956 - 3449020

I would say look at the blockchain companies like Polygon, Polka Dot. You don't. Have to invest in the token per se, but you could invest in the company or just research them. We don't advise anybody to invest.

Mike Mills (Host) | 3450430 - 3453962

When you say invest in the company, are they traded on like the stock exchange?

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 3454026 - 3454446

Exactly.

Mike Mills (Host) | 3454548 - 3455102

Are they really?

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 3455156 - 3455614

Yes.

Mike Mills (Host) | 3455732 - 3456846

I didn't know that.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 3457028 - 3469422

So you could just kind of see, get a feel, watch them, see how they're tracking, doing your due diligence reading, doing the research, like you said so much on YouTube.

Mike Mills (Host) | 3469566 - 3504430

That's how I mean, honestly, I learned everything that I know from YouTube and I've followed different people on different social media platforms that specialize in crypto stuff. And I won't name any of them in particular because some of them, I was like, oh, this guy's great and I love you, all this stuff. And then you kind of learn a little bit more about him and you're like, listen, no matter what space you're in, whether it be finance or you being crypto or you're in auto trading or whatever it is, there's always going to be bad people that have bad intentions that are going to try to screw people over. That doesn't change.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 3504580 - 3505454

Unfortunately not.

Mike Mills (Host) | 3505492 - 3532566

Right? Yes. That's just the nature of human beings. It doesn't get better depending on what industry you're in now, unfortunately, because crypto is unregulated as it currently stands and there's so much money in there because I think that's the thing too, that maybe people don't realize is how much money is actually into this area. So I want to show so you'd given me some slides here.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 3532668 - 3547382

Yes. This is an interesting poll that we outsourced, but what was really interesting was how many people claim to own cryptocurrency in the state of Texas.

Mike Mills (Host) | 3547446 - 3547818

Okay.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 3547904 - 3554080

It's significantly higher than the national average, which is around, I think, 15%.

Mike Mills (Host) | 3554770 - 3555870

Tell me when I get to the.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 3555940 - 3572894

Right here one more. Sorry. This is the age race breakdown of who owns what. So the data shows that the younger you are, the greater the probability is that you own bitcoin.

Mike Mills (Host) | 3572942 - 3575966

So you're saying the old they don't like the bitcoin?

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 3576158 - 3583078

They don't like it. And that's what we're running up against to at the legislation, because they're all old. Well, the house is young.

Mike Mills (Host) | 3583164 - 3583750

Oh, really?

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 3583820 - 3586726

They're younger. They're more about nothing against old people, by the way.

Mike Mills (Host) | 3586748 - 3593066

I mean, I'm basically old, too. I don't mean to mean to say if anything's bad if you're old, but.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 3593088 - 3596700

The Senate errs on the elder side of things.

Mike Mills (Host) | 3597550 - 3598922

So a little more pushback there.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 3598976 - 3600140

Precisely, yes.

Mike Mills (Host) | 3601150 - 3609322

Okay. And then you can see, well, this is favorable versus unfavorable, but it seems this is all in Texas specifically.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 3609386 - 3610270

This is Texas only.

Mike Mills (Host) | 3610340 - 3625826

I mean, the only ones that have like an unfavorable view of cryptocurrencies are just based on age. Actually, when you look at demographics of white, african American, Hispanic, they're all that's odd. So the white people are 50 50.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 3625928 - 3627022

Isn't that funny?

Mike Mills (Host) | 3627166 - 3652174

And you know what I feel like when you go back and look at I don't want to get off on this, but just the vaccine. When the hesitancy occurred for that, it was mostly in minorities groups that were hesitant on taking the vaccine. But that's because they don't trust the government basically. Right. So I guess I'm not surprised at all that hispanic and African americans are way more favorable of something like this because it doesn't involve the federal government.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 3652292 - 3653646

That's a really good way to look at it.

Mike Mills (Host) | 3653668 - 3664458

Yeah, that makes sense. All right. And then this goes down to the area which are all favorable to reasons.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 3664474 - 3672914

For owning bitcoin, which I think if that see that third one from the bottom support blockchain. That's a lot of what you've been talking about today.

Mike Mills (Host) | 3673112 - 3689794

Okay. They're into bitcoin because they support the use of the blockchain. Okay. And then it's pretty democrat, independent, republican. There's not any big SKUs there. It all kind of looks the same. These are your proposals. Crypto owners. Here we go.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 3689852 - 3696474

Do you now or have you ever owned any type of cryptocurrency like bitcoin? 29% of texans said yes.

Mike Mills (Host) | 3696592 - 3697018

Wow.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 3697104 - 3698954

69% said no.

Mike Mills (Host) | 3699072 - 3710030

That's odd. So people support it and they think it's a good thing, but they don't own any. Interesting. Okay. Well, I mean, that's just kind of the way it is, I suppose.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 3710610 - 3716382

And look at the difference between republican and independent. That pretty much right down the middle.

Mike Mills (Host) | 3716436 - 3722370

Yeah, I mean, it's not even the democrat side is not that big of a difference either. Do you have you ever owned any crypto?

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 3722870 - 3726318

A lot of bitcoin folks I find, are lean. More libertarian.

Mike Mills (Host) | 3726414 - 3755998

Yeah. Well, yeah, because they don't want the government involved in any of their stuff. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, unfortunately, I kind of keep start pushing more in that direction myself these days. How likely are you to purchase bitcoin or cryptocurrencies now? This was in 2022, so it's a little bit older. Man, that's a lot of people that were planning on getting it, and that's surprising. Like 86% of the people polled over twelve said it was unlikely that even though they don't own it right now, they could see themselves being likely to purchase it in the near future.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 3756084 - 3756890

Very likely.

Mike Mills (Host) | 3756970 - 3757358

Wow.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 3757444 - 3759690

Yeah. We need to do a follow up poll.

Mike Mills (Host) | 3759770 - 3777074

Yeah, no doubt here's. Bitcoin coin awareness in Texas. They're kind of neutral. So why do you think Texas is driving? What makes Texas unique about being willing to kind of push these initiatives and make it more on the forefront of what we're trying to do compared to other states?

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 3777192 - 3805322

I think it's first of all, the deregulated energy market, that appealed to a lot of the bitcoin miners that were having to relocate out of China in 2021 when they banned it. The second thing is the policy were pretty lenient in that domain. Like, there wasn't any I mean, it was kind of wild west. Nobody really saw it coming, but we have a lenient policy. And there's a third reason. What would it be? There's three main reasons.

Mike Mills (Host) | 3805386 - 3907422

Well, I feel like it's probably just because it's funny. Whenever people think of Texas, they think we're all country backwards, whatever. But somebody said one time, you don't understand how much we need Texans because if shit were to ever hit the fan, we need those crazy fools down here. We're the ones with all the guns, right? So you got to remember that there's a maverick sense of existence that happens in Texas. And we don't necessarily want to be like everybody else. We like to be different. We want to kind of blaze our own path, and we are our own country for a period of time. So some of that stuff is in our DNA a little bit. And I really think that just the desire to not go along with the status quo. And I also think we're unique in that we're a red state, right. With maybe we're more purple these days, but either way but we have very big pockets of blue, right? Austin is incredibly blue, and I don't think either one's good or bad. But what I do think is you need a balance, right? You got to have the ability for one to play off the other. Because the biggest problem I think that we have these days in some respects is that the two sides aren't willing to talk because everybody's standing hard and firm on this thing and they're standing hard on this firm. And the whole thing about our country has always been discourse. When you have a discourse between two parties that disagree, more often than not you're going to come to a solution that's beneficial for both. And I've heard it said before, which I agree with, is, you know, when both parties walk away from the table unsatisfied, then you know you got a good resolution, right?

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 3907476 - 3907790

Absolutely.

Mike Mills (Host) | 3907860 - 3989078

Because they didn't get everything they wanted and we didn't get everything we wanted, but we were okay with meeting in the middle somewhere. And I think that we're a unique state because when you look at Florida, I know a lot of people, but Florida, I think it's about as red as it gets these days. I mean, I think DeSantis won his last election by like, 70% or something. And California, obviously, is the far side of the spectrum on the blue end of things, where you got people running into stores, holding up CVS and shutting down Walmart because they have so much theft and there's no police. So it's like chaos there not everywhere. Of course, I'm sure I'm just using a generalization, but for some reason we've been able to kind of manage this middle ground a little bit where we want our freedom, but we're also willing to let everybody else have their freedoms, too. We're not trying to take anything away from anybody. Everybody gets to do what they want to do. Basically. And I think that that's created an environment in Texas to where something like this, when you talk about bitcoin and blockchain and this new innovative technology, which is going to be a big disruptor once it permeates throughout society. I think you're going to see the fact that Texas has been willing to be okay with not going with the grain, that it's going to put us in a position in ten or 15 years where we're going to be way ahead of the curve over everybody else.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 3989164 - 3989814

I think you're right.

Mike Mills (Host) | 3989852 - 3990442

Would you agree?

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 3990496 - 3991482

I would totally agree.

Mike Mills (Host) | 3991536 - 3993866

And it's all because of guys like you all.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 3994048 - 3995846

Well, thank you for that compliment.

Mike Mills (Host) | 3995958 - 3996282

Yes.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 3996336 - 3999046

It's hard work, but it's very rewarding.

Mike Mills (Host) | 3999158 - 4025940

Well, it takes and I don't realize it until you start seeing stuff like what you guys do when you're down there at the state legislature every time they're in session and you're lobbying and you're having these meetings, and it's not like you all are swimming in money. Right. You're not doing this for the money. But does the blockchain council do you all mine bitcoin yourself?

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 4026870 - 4027618

We do.

Mike Mills (Host) | 4027704 - 4031782

Okay, perfect. Okay, so that's a way to kind of generate revenue for what you all are doing.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 4031836 - 4034662

That's true. And becoming a member is a way to support us.

Mike Mills (Host) | 4034716 - 4034982

Okay.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 4035036 - 4036054

We have a pack.

Mike Mills (Host) | 4036252 - 4047494

Oh, you do? Okay. So yeah, that's a good thing. So tell anybody that would listen if they wanted to become involved with the blockchain council, what are the different ways that they can support you guys and how can they get involved?

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 4047542 - 4071250

The best way would be to go to our website, texasblockchaincouncil.org head to the join page. There's a waterfall that lays out. There's five tiers of membership from Collegiate to Executive. You can scroll down, check out at the bottom of the page that gets you access to our member meetings, our Slack committees, if you want to be. That's how our members communicate with one another.

Mike Mills (Host) | 4071320 - 4079426

Okay. That's a communication app. Yes. I've heard of that, actually. I've never used it before, though. Why is that? That's become prevalent.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 4079618 - 4081798

A lot of corporations are using is.

Mike Mills (Host) | 4081804 - 4083106

That anything to do blockchain?

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 4083218 - 4087446

No, and that's what's funny. None of our office operations are well.

Mike Mills (Host) | 4087468 - 4092682

Because it's not mainstream yet. It's a difficult thing to put together unless you have a lot of money behind it.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 4092736 - 4101290

Yes. Although I've been meeting a lot of people that will come in and help integrate this technology into your office, into your daily doing.

Mike Mills (Host) | 4101360 - 4101690

Okay.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 4101760 - 4111070

Kind of interesting. That's awesome. And then if you're just curious and you want to know more, come to one of our meetups. Come to one of our networking events that'll be found on our events page.

Mike Mills (Host) | 4111140 - 4112414

What do you all do on those?

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 4112612 - 4115034

We'll do lunch and learns.

Mike Mills (Host) | 4115082 - 4115306

Okay.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 4115348 - 4121314

You can even earn like, a CLE or a CPE on certain events. Sometimes it's just pure networking where you just come meet up.

Mike Mills (Host) | 4121352 - 4122306

What's a CLE.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 4122488 - 4124660

A certified legal education.

Mike Mills (Host) | 4125910 - 4130040

Sorry, my acronym game is a little loose these days. I don't have them all there.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 4131210 - 4134322

Yeah, that would be the best ways to connect with us and get involved.

Mike Mills (Host) | 4134386 - 4213790

Well, awesome. Well, like I told you before, as you can probably tell, because I talk a lot on these things, this topic is just fascinating to me and just being an outsider, that doesn't I'm not directly involved in any of it. I own ethereum and I own some other coins, and I used to own quite a bit of bitcoin, or not quite a bit, but a decent amount. But I sold it because it was coming down. But that doesn't mean that when it gets to a place where I think it's going to be good to buy it again, this is more investment strategies than it is faith in technology, because I have immense faith in the technology on where it's headed and what it's going to be. But I'm also trying to make money, but I am a big believer in it, and I think that there needs to be more education in this space. I think there needs to be more discussion. And the fact that you guys are out there fighting the good fight and trying to get Texas on the forefront of all this, I think is amazing. And I really hope that more and more people get involved and kind of become educated on how all this technology works because I do think it's going to revolutionize how we do a lot of things, and I don't think people will fully understand that just yet.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 4213860 - 4217950

I totally agree. And we have got a lot of resources on our YouTube channel as well.

Mike Mills (Host) | 4218020 - 4221934

Okay, great. So they can go to the YouTube channel and they can get all kinds of information from there also.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 4221972 - 4222430

That's correct.

Mike Mills (Host) | 4222500 - 4252426

Awesome. All right, well, we're over now now, so I don't want to keep you too much time. I know you got new member orientations and all kinds of fun stuff you got to do. So thank you so much for coming in. Thank you for spending some time with me and going through all this stuff. I definitely want to have you back again in a few months and we'll kind of see what's going on, what kind of new regulations are being passed. And now that everybody has at least some sort of cursory understanding of how all this stuff works, now we got to make sure that the regulations is in place so it can be more mass adoption.

Amy Anderes Damron (Guest) | 4252538 - 4255150

Thank you so much for having me, Mike. I look forward to coming back.

Mike Mills (Host) | 4255220 - 4260570

Awesome. All right, well, thank you, anybody that stuck around, and we'll see you next time. Bye.