About The Artist
We’re living through an Information War. Kinetic military action between Nation States is becoming largely redundant. Increasingly now, it’s simply about who controls the information. That’s why it’s so important to have voices of opposition not bought by the establishment, whether that’s the mainstream establishment or the Bitcoin influencer circle. SimplyBitcoin is a voice of opposition.
"SimplyBitcoin’s mission is to entertain & educate. We’re not trying to bullshit anyone like the fiat system does. We support freedom enabling technology & believe in a Bitcoin future. "
It’s imperative that independent content creators get the truth out. We’re living in a world where you can no longer rely on mainstream media. MSM sells narratives: Fear, Build Back Better, New Green Agenda, ESG, Great Reset – however they brand or spin it.
One of the only things stopping a total truth blackout seems to be the integrity of brave independent voices – critically thinking Plebs & content creators striving for signal. We’re living through a great awakening but it’s likely the situation may well get more chaotic before it improves. Fortunately our community is armed with the soundest money in human history, something governments cannot control, and individuals with visions of a better future. Two of these people are Phil & Nico and their weapon of choice in this battle is Youtube.
A SPOONFUL OF SUGAR
Technical podcasts can be a little dry & aren’t likely to Orange Pill the masses. In contrast, SimplyBitcoin’s irreverent, light-hearted approach feels almost like a new genre. In many ways it brings Bitcoin Twitter shitposting to YouTube and makes viewers feel smart without dumbing down. It’s tribe is clearly the Toxic Maxi Taco Plebs but tbh there’s obvious appeal to newbs here as well. Phil & Nico are clearly having fun but they’re also providing hard facts and clear maximalist signal. What’s niche today may well become mainstream tomorrow.
"After a long day at work, does someone really want to listen to an hour long podcast or would they rather have their biases confirmed & laugh a little?"
Tucker Carlson’s style has been a huge influence on the show – funny, factual, infotainment that pushes the envelope. They structure it like a post-modern news channel, max attention, max viewer satisfaction and max integrity. A big part of this format decision is a reaction to money purposely being made so boring and complicated. That’s a key thing they want to disrupt.
Money is time and it’s important to every one of us. We SHOULD want to know about it says Phil. It SHOULD be something we enjoy learning about. Effectively storing our value & time to a large part defines our lives. Time is everyone’s most finite asset.
SimplyBitcoin seeks to overpower the shitcoin noise on Youtube and get more quality Bitcoin Content Creators on there. The sad truth is that Shitcoin Channels have way better thumbnails, marketing & hooks – they fight dirty.
"Clickbait’s OK as long as the content’s good. We use all the shitcoin channel tricks – the catchy thumbnails & hyperbolic titles but SimplyBitcoin’s pure signal. "
They release shows 6 days a week, Monday to Saturday. Some days they miss a day due to travel, life etc but these guys are relentless – high conviction. The show’s format has 5 main sections:
1) Bitcoin dashboard to warm folks up with price & ecosystem health indicators.
2) Daily Fail to laugh at the the latest MSM FUD clusterfuck.
3) Meme Review to showcasing high signal propaganda in the battle for hearts & minds.
4) Daily News to break down the ever evolving story of Bitcoin.
5) New software/project releases (always something that tried or own).
"I love the Kaiser Report. Max has been telling people to buy Bitcoin since 2010, literally the same message. That’s a major inspiration for me."
Memes may seem like a joke, but they’re perhaps the most effective propaganda tool we have and one of the most powerful weapons in the information war, the battle for hearts and minds. Memes play a crucial part in informing people through humour, something the legacy orthodoxy clearly lacks. No other YT show seemed to be casting light on memecraft, despite it being such a key component of Bitcoin culture. SimpyBitcoin saw this gap and they’re over it. What’s niche today may well become mainstream tomorrow.
"It’s all about bringing people value. If it makes us happy & brings us value we feel it’ll bring others value too."
SIMPLY BITCOIN VIDEO COLLECTION
#01
#03
HOME STUDIO PRODUCTION
They record everything remotely against their DIY Home Studio green screens. Post-production is done on Adobe Premiere and everything else is secret sauce. There’s a reason that it’s so easy to watch though – the editing takes lot of work, a lot of coordination. The funny overlays, transitions etc. They work hard at making shows easy to consume. Nico’s younger sister is on payroll too, helping with a lot of the background work.
"It’s pretty crazy that we’re living in a time where we can do a show completely remote, with someone 100s of miles away & it just comes together."
They’re committed to genuine, grassroots, organic growth, based on a solid foundation and it’s working – viewers keep coming back, again and again. People come to watch SimplyBitcoin to see Phil & Nico, more so than the guests by their numbers. The chemistry’s good and the format works. The only things they want to improve are production values – 1080p video & better sound.
SIMPLY BITCOIN VIDEO COLLECTION
#01
#03
MAXIMALISM
Bitcoin Toxicity and Maximalism is at the core of the pair’s ethos. “People might insult us and label us to try to cancel our ideas, but at the end of the day, if it wasn’t for the Taco Maxi Plebs calling out all the bullshit, going after Elon, Charlie Monger and all the scammers . . . who else would do it? There’s a reason we are the way we are. We’ve been viciously attacked. Bitcoin plebs have been viciously attacked for the last 12 years. Every single year. This year it’s China & Energy FUD, Elon. Year after year someone wants to kill Bitcoin. But it only gets stronger. We’re the decentralised immune system. We stand up and call out the bullshit and point people to the truth. Over time people see the truth, human beings innately seek it out.”
PHIL’S RHS
Phil feels his path to Bitcoin was pretty typical, hearing about it initially from a friend in 2013 and dismissing it as nerd money. He followed the Silk Road and Wikileaks stories, relocated homes and turned to Bitcoin as a medium of exchange in mid 2016. In those early years he spent a lot of sats, seeing and using it as Internet money rather than store of value.
"I watched Bitcoin go from $400 to $2-3000 before it started to click you know . . . why is everybody buying this & why is this so important? "
Like so many of us, Phil fell down the shitcoin rabbit hole first in 2017/18 and got royally rekt, losing close to $24K. This forced him to take an inventory, figure out what he was doing wrong and why he was there in the first place. A big part of making sense of everything was him starting his own podcast – FunWithCrypto (fairly quickly rebranded FunWithBitcoin) as he went full Taco Maxi Pleb. Interviewing people with bullish stories got him digging deeper.
Phil’s built a solid reputation as one of the most respected, relatable and inquisitive voices in the space. He always seems to be at the bleeding edge, releasing pods with Plebs and Devs right at the coalface of Bitcoin. It’s encouraging and reassuring for me to see his involvement grow and evolve. The guy’s a legend.
NICO’S RHS
Nico’s RHS started in 2008 when the Financial Crisis sunk his father’s business. He grew up pretty comfortably in South Beach, Miami – in Venezuela they’d call it a ‘golden crib’. His first car was a Maserati for instance. But when his dad declared bankruptcy and left his mom with $500 in cash and $120K in debt, his world did a 180. Nico went through some dark times – turning to drugs & almost dying after an OD. His girlfriend left him & he hit rock bottom, lived on a friend’s couch and started working minimum wage doing cell phone repair.
"One of the best things that ever happened to me was finding Bitcoin. It gave me purpose. "
Fate intervened when a cousin from Venezuela visited and talked about machines that ‘print money’. Nico insisted they tell him everything. With $10K to his name he quit his job and got on a plane to Venezuela with wind in his sails. Before long, he’d put everything he had into Bitcoin mining, setting up hosting facilities in Venezuela where the cost of electricity is heavily subsidised. He shipped pallets of Bitcoin miners there but the Venezuelan government began wising up, regularly seizing shipments and mining operations & making business there increasingly unpredictable.
Fate again intervened through a family real estate partner with an old pantyhose factory in South Carolina. All the electrical infrastructure was already in place, it even had hot air extractors. He convinced many of his clients to shift their hosting to South Carolina with him.
Then 2017 came along and Nico got swept up in Miami’s frothy ICO scene – parties, events & shitcoins. In 2018 mining went to shit, lost a tonne of money on shitcoins and went back to fiat mining. Nico then started a podcast called CryptoCreamers with a shitcoiner friend but they kept having disagreements. When Nico met Phil on @BitcoinKindergarden he realised this was someone he could really work with. They interviewed one another on each other’s pods, things flowed and the rest is history – SimplyBitcoin was born.
"During those first episodes, we had no idea what we were doing – no clue. But it’s kept going, we’ve kept creating & building. It’s been an epic freakin’ journey. "
INTEGRITY & VALUES
There’s nothing wrong with getting paid for providing value but there is something wrong with shilling absolute garbage to unsuspecting newbs. Phil & Nico practice what they preach and won’t shill Blockfi, Coinmine or any other garbage product. Their one sponsor is @CryptoCloaks.
"We’re trying to do it differently. I think it’s because we’re both Orange Pilled. You don’t change Bitcoin. Bitcoin changes you. Principles matter, reputation matters & the truth is essential."
They made a mistake reporting Taproot recently and 10 people unsubscribed. After receiving a bunch of hate in the comments they did a U-Turn & corrected it the next day. “It’s not about us, it’s about the truth. We fucked up. In a world full of lies we think that’s important. The truth becomes a lighthouse of hope. We’re trying to be that tiny lighthouse.”
CALLING OUT SHITCOINS
Newbs might be coming into the space from hard times and are looking to make informed investment decisions for their future. It’s tragic that there’s so much scammy noise coming from shitcoiners, particularly on YouTube. SimplyBitcoin rails against these predatory shitcoin scammers.
Partly due to Nico’s mining experience they’re acutely aware of how Bitcoin mining and hash rate comes from real world, long term economic decisions about resource and energy allocation. Nico and so many others continue to put real value, blood, sweat and tears into Bitcoin. That’s a big part of the message out they’re wanting to get out there. In contrast . .
"Look at any shitcoin monthly chart & you see scam-wicks during Bitcoin pumps – flatline, scam-wick, back down, flatline, scam-wick, back down."
When Bitcoin pumps, the idiots come back to sell the same tired BS narratives – faster, more transactions. Nobody cares about more transactions on the base layer. That’s what layers above like Lightning are for. The Bitcoin base layer solidifies the essential honest ledger of money from fuckery enabling us to confidently build on the layers above.
"During those first episodes, we had no idea what we were doing – no clue. But it’s kept going, we’ve kept creating & building. It’s been an epic freakin’ journey. "
SOMETHING’S COMING . . .
At the Miami Conference, it looked to me like Bitcoin Magazine had recognised the potential of SimplyBitcoin. They seemed to get lot of exposure. The guys are cagey about giving too much away but admit . . .
"The establishment doesn’t like us, but they respect the hell out of us. That’s all I’m gonna say."
It’s obvious that people are starting to pay attention and something’s afoot. Watch this space. The pair are also looking at a long format show as well, doing it differently but just as entertaining. I’ll be tuning in and I suggest you do too.
Subscribe to SimplyBitcoin if you haven’t already. Episodes drop Monday through Saturday. Just Search for SimplyBitcoin on YouTube.
Article & pod by @selfbankt