Interview│Joel Valenzuela - Dash│ETHDam 2024

Transcript

taxation is theft your phone is spying on you Fiat is a scam start living on crypto before it's too late next up at e them Joel from Dash how does he Envision living fully on crypto let's find out my name is Joel Valenzuela and I do business development and marketing for dash yeah the main message I'm trying to convey is it's time to start trying to live on crypto we've had um adoption delayed for so many years while people are pursuing other things rather than just try to use crypto as money there's been a lot of chasing rabbit holes that don't need to be chased down or accepting compromises poor user

experiences all these kinds of things and I think that's put us behind and I think we really need to start making a real Focus to use Freedom money before we don't have the freedom to use it anymore yeah I where it came from me is in my education as a young person I learned about the story of money where does it come from it comes from Barter and then you have different kind of things and eventually you end up with precious metals made into coins and eventually you turned into you know gold certificates like pieces of paper that represent gold Holdings and then it was always gloss over what happens how did we get rid of the gold and why and uh I grew up in the north of Mexico and I came right at the end of the the peso

crisis when the old Viet currency collapsed and they had a new one I remember my grandmother had these old coins that didn't work anymore these new ones did work but this one didn't and I was always kind of very aware that money isn't always worth the same thing that if you have a government currency something could always collapse and so I was always talking about thinking about oh if we returned to a gold standard the whole Peter shiff angle right if we returned to the gold standard started using precious metals again the world would be a better place but um maybe it's because I'm very impatient maybe it's I'm not that bright and this is all I can think of about but I would say well why can't we do that now why do we have to wait to build legislative consensus and do a bunch of other things

and convince the central bank and so I wanted to try to live off of gold and so in 2011 2012 I was trying to acquire one if Peter shiff had a gold back debit card that I was trying to find I was like I could have all my savings in all my spending money even in gold and it just autoc converts when I swipe a card this is amazing I was trying to get one of those and I never got around to finishing it when I heard about Bitcoin and cryptocurrency and u a friend paid me back for we shared a pizza when I was traveling through Chicago where he lived and I paid for the pizza and he paid me back in Bitcoin and I was oh this is great I got to use this and that sort of started the journey and what it became

is even though I was using Bitcoin anytime I could or getting paid in it any time I could it wasn't until the end of 2015 I started just think like sort of what am I doing with my life a little bit because I was sort of talking about this is great it's going to change the world and using it in my own personal life kind of but then I felt if I really believe this I should have more conviction and also I started feeling a little um uh I guess the pressure to if I'm telling people to do you know this is great use Bitcoin I should know more about what I'm promoting and so I needed to really live it so I can be confident what I'm doing and so then I just

decided to stop accepting payment in fiat currency and only being paid with crypto and it started I was reading for coin Telegraph for a while they would pay me right in Bitcoin and then a few other things and I've done I did some work for dash in like 2017 and 2019 and then did some ran my own podcast and I still do and Consulting and other things whatever would pay me in crypto and then um did some work for zcash last year as well and then finally this year I'm just back full-time getting paid straight from the dashow straight from newly created coins just the way the toi intended right pure and just living on crypto the whole time yeah if you are in the crypto native world everything

is I don't want to say seamless because I complained about just today a lot about how it isn't but it compared to Fiat is so seamless to where if I want to say hey someone here I'll set you up with a dash wall and I just beep you got money that's it you don't have to kyc you don't have to do any of this stuff or someone says hey I don't like that I have Monero I only want Monero and I just do a couple little things hit a swap it swaps and then they get narrow and you can pay or you have a wallet you can I do know some uh Farmers local to me that take crypto and they just have wallet such as Edge and there anything that's supported by Edge wallet they will take for goods

and services and so it's no one would do that with Fiat no one would say except rubles and you know dinar and whatever else and USD as well and then Argentinian pay like no one would do any of that it's is ridiculous but the it's just so easy that anyone anywhere in the world for any time for any amount I can just pay or receive from and if they want a different one it's just so easy to go between all these coins and tokens as long as you can afford gas fees so just stay away from Bitcoin and ethereum maybe and as long as you're transaction goes through so be careful with salana maybe uh which might date this interview in future but whatever so the point is it's just it's the frictionless of it and it really hit me how it's not just a

convenience U I had a friend who was in uh his life was in danger in a different country had to run and seek Asylum and in order to get his plane ticket um I pay for it in crypto and so he bought the plane ticket like he went to the whole thing and I just he just said he sent me the address and the amount I just paid it and then he he escaped the country and he's still alive today thanks to that and if I I don't think I could have paid for it otherwise at least as easily he if someone's life is in danger and you're paying sometimes you don't want your finances Associated to this individual then because then it could be a problem for you so just the ability of like here you go I reach for my pocket and give it to him but

digitally it's that easy that frictionless that's that's the world I want to live in for it's not just my world I want the whole world to be like that um what I like to say is the worst part about crypto is Fiat so the worst part about crypto is any kind of time you have to interface with the Fiat world so for example if you want to pay bills and things like that and you don't want to just your landlord or your whoever you're paying doesn't take it directly you do have to go through a Fiat intermediary with all the kyc stuff and then those get regulated and sometimes your service goes away or you want to pay like buy a prepaid Visa card or something and then where those are accepted and how they're accepted is

always moving around there's always you know in fact just yesterday um I had a card rejection thing for my I have like a a business card for whenever I I pay um I pay uh almost every single business expense with crypto and what I can't I have a reloadable card that I have for my for my business and so when I you know pay for a hotel that I can't with something else and for just I paid for all my hotel and everything in crypto but then when it came to pay the actual tax for the they make you do in person for some reason and the carard just didn't work and so I thankfully I had enough Euros in my pocket just in

case CU I'm unfamiliar with uh the territory a little bit I don't live here that I was able to just cover that charge out of you know C but that's that's the worst part um the hodg podge of services that this one works and this one doesn't this one went out of business but then this that's a huge problem the number one pain Point always or this the situation which when this is over um I'll know that we've won is hanging out socially with people that's the most difficult thing because the payment circumstances are always a little more in like a crowded establishment for example and then you

don't always get like I can pay for anything I want but I do have to choose where I get those things based on where can I use crypto like I will see oh where can I I'm in a new town where can I eat oh let me check bit refill has a gift card section so I can buy for these restaurants if it doesn't take that then no or I'll see their point of sale thing if they in the US there's a lot of places today that don't have NFC tap and pay payments still which is crazy but that's a different story and so if I can't use a virtual crypto card that I have in my watch like I can't really pay and if I'm hanging out with friends who don't have crypto I can't just pay them back at crypto I get a little bit of

anxiety and that's the that's the I guess the nightmare situation of having to pay with crypto and once that situation once I never get that anxiety Feeling Anymore once I just know I can just go out and I know whatever I use will work work and I won't won't decline or whatever that's when I'll feel like there's I can just tell everyone no you should absolutely start not just if you want to you can live on cryp but you should everyone should I can say that once I clear that pain point we don't realize how much control over our lives we give up on a day-to-day basis when you use it with crypto you know what you're doing you

control it and when you try to do it in a non-custodial no kyc way you start to see the complete control and surveillence regime you used to live under or the rest of the world lives under and it's it is scary and people did this by acquiescing don't acques stand up for what you believe and don't let people take away your freedom that is a very difficult one it's lazy maybe to say Satoshi Nakamoto because I think even today with all the techn olical advancements he got so much right the first time that so many other projects had to take a long time to learn um but that's again that's lazy uh I would say

Roger ver is a big one uh and there's a lot of controversy behind Roger ver over the years and especially people who don't like the choices of which coins he promoted or whatever but this person heard about crypto on a radio show actually run by friends of mine in New Hampshire called free talk live in 2010 and then he just went all in and he's been a constant Advocate over the decades and he's there would be no crypto industry today without him the same way because he was the angel investor of the first crypto startups and he was he had the wealth and the vision to really make this into an economy make this into a movement give Bitcoin value and there's a lot of

people I think are very admirable I really like a lot of people but as far as like I think about the void in the space if you pulled him out of history there crypto would suffer the most of anyone other than Satoshi probably ask words J oh audience yeah taxation is theft your phone is spying on you fat is a scam start living on crypto before it's too late