S3 E11: JScrilla on his Bitcoin Hip Hop Album (Sound Money)

0:48Vlad CosteaWelcome to this special episode of the Bitcoin Takeover Podcast, which is actually a part of season three, which I thought I had finished. But just when you think that you have completed your work, something new and someone new comes along and makes you realize that there's still some valuable addition to be made to the roster of guests. And this is not just an ordinary guest. This is a rapper, man. His name is J-Scrilla, or J.S. Scrilla. I'm not sure how you pronounce his name, but he will inform us. And he has released or is planning to release in a few days, an album, which is all about Bitcoin.

1:30And I have had the privilege to listen to it earlier than most people. And it's quite interesting. It's built from voice samples and rhythms. And you're going to hear lots of personalities who have spoken about Bitcoin in the last few years. And it's really good to have you, Mr. J-Scrilla, or J.S. Scrilla, because I have lots of questions about that art piece that you're releasing.

1:58J-ScrillaYeah, thank you. Thank you. I appreciate you having me on here, Vlad. Just to clear up, I'm not a rapper. I'm a producer and DJ. So everything that I did on that album, I made all the music. I took all the samples, did a lot of turntablism stuff on there. So it's kind of like a mosh, I guess, kind of like a, I guess, compared to like an art piece, it would be like a collage, you know what I mean? And then I got some rapper friends of mine who are in the industry to come on and they're rappers that are already interested in Bitcoin and they're outside the community.

2:32So they're not like, they don't see the shit going on on Twitter and that stuff, but they're just users of Bitcoin who are rappers. And so they've rapped about it in the past in their songs in the past few years. So I reached out to them and was like, yo, I'm doing a Bitcoin piece. It'd be cool to get some rappers who are actually like have fans and like are doing things and already know about the Bitcoin at least a little bit to come on the album and join in on the art.

3:00And they were all about it. So, yeah, that's kind of how I guess I'd explain the album a little bit.

3:07Vlad CosteaYes, and I guess we still haven't clarified how we pronounce your name. So is it J.S. Scrilla or J-Scrilla?

3:15J-ScrillaIt's J-Scrilla. J-Scrilla.

3:19Vlad CosteaYeah. I think you mentioned it in the last track on the album, but I just wanted to do this clarification.

3:26J-ScrillaSure. Yeah. J-Scrilla, Scrilla Ventura, Rare Scrilla, the Dope Pope. There's a couple of names. But I'm part of a production crew called Guns-N-Butter. So it's me and my partner, Chops. We've been producing since the 2000s.

3:48Vlad CosteaThat sounds interesting. So what kind of stuff have you worked on before and how did you come up with the idea of doing something that's exclusively about Bitcoin?

4:00J-ScrillaSo, I mean, I started working on hip hop tracks basically after I was a DJ in college and then got into production and then started doing a lot of underground hip hop releases, independent stuff. And then a lot of street rap from Philly in New York through the 2000s. And then I started putting out my own stuff, like as a producer, some tapes, some projects. And I've done a lot of different niche things with that. I had some music and soundtracks and like movies and all that stuff.

4:31But the Bitcoin stuff started when I found out about the Silk Road and I made an album about it. Actually, me and two of my friends made an album about it back in 2014 and it's called Silk Road. It's on my SoundCloud page right now. But this one was specifically about Bitcoin that I'm putting out on April 14th because that's what I got into at first. Then I experimented with the alts and stuff in like 2015, 2016. And, you know, it was always Bitcoin first for me, honestly, but checked all the other stuff out.

5:11I did some tokenization of artworks even on some stuff, different platforms. Some of them aren't even around anymore back then. And then I was sitting in my room last fall and kind of like I started, I made these tapes called Gorilla Glue in '15 and '16 that were pretty popular and it's like slowed down, like syrupy, like soul samples and dirty drums. So I kind of started working on that for tape three and I was using Trailer Park Boys, a TV series from Canada. I started putting samples from that on there and stuff.

5:46And I was like, you know what, somehow I got into this Bitcoin one and the song I just released yesterday, Faith in My Money, was the first one I worked on. I started using samples from there. I found myself just grabbing Bitcoin samples or actually just collapsing society samples. I was like, you know what, maybe it'd be cool if I put out a Bitcoin tape because the halvening is coming up in May. I'm all about Bitcoin. I thought it'd be cool. And I wanted to kind of merge it.

6:12So it's like the underground hip hop independent stuff, those people would respect it in the sense that it's good hip hop music. And then I wanted to also cater to the Bitcoiners who are like, all right, this is dope, because it's like an education for, you know, a lot of people who probably are going to hear this album and don't know about Bitcoin. So it's kind of like merging that. I try to do it without being too cheesy. And it's kind of a fine line when you're doing like tech and authentic music.

6:44Like, I don't know, I don't make like, pop music isn't really my thing. So I try to kind of walk that line and keep it so edgy a little bit.

6:55Vlad CosteaYes. As I was listening to the album, I realized that you have many samples of celebrity voices. And I have heard Andreas Antonopoulos. I have heard Stephen Colbert when he had that, I'm not sure the name of his show, I'm not sure what it is, but he spoke about Bitcoin at the height of the bubble in 2017 or 2018. So there is a lot of that stuff with voices you have heard before speak about Bitcoin, but being put into a musical context. And my question about you is how did you pick these voices?

7:35Who are some unexpected choices that you made? And also, do you feel like their opinions are balanced because you didn't just pick people who promote Bitcoin positively, you picked lots of voices who spoke about it?

7:54J-ScrillaRight. Yeah. So this was more like, so I didn't want to get so deep down the rabbit hole on this tape that it's like talking only to like 300 Bitcoin maximalists on Twitter. Like I want to make sure it's like Bitcoin pronounced, so sure. Like it starts off the first song, the first voice you hear is a very polarizing voice in Bitcoin from the jump. But what he says is what I wanted to like. That's me talking with my hands using his voice. So like, you know, you can and not that I even disagree with the guy and a lot of stuff, but some people do.

8:37So a lot of Bitcoin people do. They think he's a marketer and just marketing and that. But you can disagree with somebody and still agree. You know, you know, you got to what's the word I'm looking for? Have some nuance. And I was just taking his voice and put it on there. Then there's like Warren Buffett. I have him talking about Bitcoin positively on there. Like I kind of try to like troll his voice a little bit. I took like McAfee talking like that Bitcoin's going to get two million dollars because I just thought it was hilarious.

9:12So a lot of it is a little bit fun. Some of it is educational. Some of it I just kind of wanted to put out there to like, let the listener go back and check out what's really going on. Like when I grew up listening to music in the 90s, I heard things talking, you know, when people are snippets of stuff going on or, you know, MCs talking like whatever they were talking, especially stuff like rebellious talk. I would have to go back and look up the book they mentioned and stuff like that.

9:43People would do that. And like it's the same type of thing. I'm not going to give you everything on this album where it's like a boring educational piece. I kind of just wanted to like drop some Bitcoin jewels on what I hope people would think are some banging beats and put it all together in like a 25-minute story format.

10:03Vlad CosteaYeah, I think the vibes that I got, I'm not an expert in hip hop by any means, but I have listened to the albums by Kanye West, and I was thinking about the ye album that he released in 2019, I think, because it's short. It's built from samples that build up to a central theme. And at the end of it, you're left out with some sort of idea. In his case, it was about bipolarity and having some sort of mental illness. In your case, it's like a story of Bitcoin.

10:39And at some point, I think you also have samples from the voice of Dorian Nakamoto, who says that he is not Satoshi, he is not involved in the creation. And I think the first part feels like a search for the creator of Bitcoin. And the second part is more about what Bitcoin actually is. And to me, the highlight of the album is track number seven, Faith in My Money, or Money Printer Go Brrr. Yeah. And I think even though it uses a popular meme that we use nowadays, it also captures the feelings that we have today, and how we're not even sure what's going to happen.

11:22We know that there's going to be money printed, we know it's going to get delivered to people, to some extent, but we don't know the consequences on the long term. This will definitely increase the debt level of US citizens. This will definitely set a precedent for the rest of the world to do the same. And we're not even sure if it's a good idea. And at some point, it feels like shooting in the dark. And Bitcoin doesn't sound as crazy as it did a few years ago.

11:57J-ScrillaYeah, you know what's crazy, Vlad? I made that song, like I said, that was the first track I actually made starting the album, and the market was at like 29,000. Everything was fine. Most of those samples are from 2008. It was talking about that. And at the end of that song, it quotes what Satoshi wrote in the first block, or whatever, with the Chancellor. And that's what that was kind of referring to as the album was getting like finished. The economy crumbled. So I had to, like, that.

12:39I love that Money Printer Go Brrr meme. So I quickly added that in a song and touched up a couple things and kind of added that. So I think it it's weird. It's like, it speaks. It's the same thing. Like it's like the same anxiety, you know, it's the same anxiety as like, that 2008 time, and then also the same anxiety as the 2001 time. But it's like, hyper that now, like, it's beyond all that, like, we I've never been through something like this in my existence.

13:12Vlad CosteaYeah. And if you look at the track names, you have 10 tracks. And if you just read them in order, the first one is 21 million. And that refers to the creation of Bitcoin. And then you have, I'm not sure how you read that, but it's S-T-S-H Satoshi Nakamoto, I think.

13:32J-ScrillaYeah, Satoshi Nakamoto without the vowels in it. Actually, I had to just change that and update that today. My distributor hit me up and I had to turn it all into X's. So now all those blank spaces are X's.

13:44Vlad CosteaOkay. And then you have Dream of Empire, which basically presents the dreams of somebody who invests in a different type of money, which is digital.

13:55J-ScrillaThat's, that's a double entendre. That's true. But it's also if you listen to his lyrics, he mentions Dream of Empire in there. And he also mentioned Silk Road. And he's kind of doing a play on words on dark markets. Because there's a Dream Market and the Empire marketplace for a bit, I think in like 2016, '17.

14:18Vlad CosteaRight. And then you go to Digital Cash, which is track number four.

14:23J-ScrillaAnd I actually just changed the name of that today, too, for my distributor. It's Internet Money now.

14:30Vlad CosteaSorry. It's kind of the same, but I think I prefer Internet Money. It's a better choice. So I think you made the right call with that one. And then you have another one in track number five, which is called Dark Market. So it's possibly a continuation of what you had in track number three. And then you have one about China.

14:57J-ScrillaYeah, that's what that one's about. Kind of, Choyna loosely talks about like decentralization and stuff towards the end, just to kind of like, not without saying what it's for, I guess.

15:10Vlad CosteaAnd number seven, you said that this was the first one on which you started working, Faith in My Money, Money Printer Go Brrr. And I think this is the highlight of the whole album. If at first it feels dispersed, and you don't really understand where this is heading. It kind of finds purpose when it gets to track number seven, you finally get it. And then you have number eight, which is called Bullish, which I think marks the transition between the utility of Bitcoin on dark markets. And then you have faith in, loss of faith in fiat money, and the transition to internet money.

15:54And then it's bullish because you believe that you have made the right choice. And then at number nine, it's called Not in Yer Wallet. So it's also a transition to different expectations for sovereignty. You want to have the bitcoins in your wallet, not on the exchange, not in somebody else's custody.

16:22J-ScrillaDid you recognize that sample?

16:26Vlad CosteaThey're kind of mixed in my head. So, and Not in Yer Wallet...

16:30J-ScrillaIt's the singing one, where it's like a, sorry, yeah, it's from a sitcom. There was a TV show that did a sitcom about explaining Bitcoin. They had an animated character start singing about it. So I took that and I drowned out the music and then I put a different beat behind it. That's what that is.

16:55Vlad CosteaI know that you took a voice sample from Gilfoyle from Silicon Valley when he explains that definition of sound money from Aristotle and then moves on to the creation of Bitcoin. So you also have that one. But I think it's early in the album. It's not in track number nine.

17:14J-ScrillaYeah, I don't know. Track number nine is kind of like it's like my most DJ tracks. So anybody that can appreciate like DJ music where it's like turntablism, where you're taking samples, combining them all together to create something. I think that's probably my biggest collage on the album is track nine because I took a bunch of different blends of songs and put them all together. I don't know. It's kind of an interesting mosh if you look at where the sample comes from, maybe. So listeners could play detective on it.

17:51Vlad CosteaI also felt like track number 10, which is the final one, and it's called Peer2Peer. It didn't feel like it has some sort of closure or final situation that it presents. It doesn't seem like you have presented any ending to your album, which is kind of fitting because we have no idea where this is heading.

18:12J-ScrillaYeah, that's perfect, because actually that's why, yeah, that's track... Because I want to put out a second one after this one does what it does. Then I would like to put out a second one and make it even bigger and better. So yeah, that's good.

18:31Vlad CosteaI was fortunate and privileged to be able to listen to this before it launches. And what's the launch date, by the way?

18:40J-ScrillaIt's coming out April 14, 2020 on all streaming platforms.

18:49And if you download, or if you go, right now you can go to Bandcamp, rarescrilla.bandcamp.com and preorder it. And with the preorder, you get a couple of the singles that are out now with the videos. One of them is the one that you're talking about, The Faith in My Money. The other one is Dark Market. And then with that too, Vlad, I'm trying to do something kind of like niche and new with Bitcoin. I'm giving out a token, a crypto collectible. It's the artwork. And it's made using Freeport app, which is Joe Looney, who has done a BTCPay Server, and he did the Rare Pepe Wallet and he's known for a lot of stuff in the crypto art space for developing.

19:35He has a cool app where you can just easily make tokens on Bitcoin and the image shows up on the Explorer and all that stuff. So it's kind of just like a fun way to get people to show that they supported the album before others. Just you have a crypto collectible token kind of in your wallet. I guess you could say it's like swag points or something. I'm not using Ethereum like every single other artist does. So I think that some Bitcoiners will hate me because I'm spamming the mempool.

20:13But I think more Bitcoiners should get on board with artists embracing the technology of Bitcoin and using it beyond just a hodl or speculative.

20:29Vlad CosteaSo what you're saying is that your album will leave a permanent mark on the immutable Bitcoin blockchain by having a message signed into a block?

20:39J-ScrillaYes. So the way the Freeport works is it's a Chrome extension. And it also uses Counterparty as like a lit. I don't know the technical stuff. But I think the way it is, it signs a message on Bitcoin that also Counterparty has more access to, more information stored in it. So you use Counterparty, which is like Mastercoin or Omni or whatever, or Liquid or any other stuff. It's like a second layer on Bitcoin. It's been around since like 2016. I'm not even shilling or anything, but it's there.

21:16It's not maintained well or anything, but it works. And you go to, I think, there's a few different explorers you can look at. But if you look at like xchain.com and type in the Bitcoin address of the token, then you'll see the image and how many issued, locked, last traded, all that type of stuff. So it's kind of cool. It's not the most perfect ideal thing that I've kind of been wanting on Bitcoin, but hopefully Bitcoin, I feel like Bitcoin could use that type of exposure, more art and music and stuff like how the Ethereum congregation has gotten over there.

22:05Because that stuff all started on Bitcoin too. And then the VC money came in and swept up crypto art quickly in 2018.

22:17Vlad CosteaI think it was earlier. It was 2017.

22:21J-ScrillaWell, no, I was there, dude. Like January 13th, 2018, at Rare Art Festival, they had 400 people there. It was the first, anything crypto art, like everybody got together. Christie's and everybody was there. It was the first time any of these people had heard about it. And then right after that, money poured all the way into it. And they're doing well. Like, I don't even knock a lot of stuff going on over there. But I feel like Bitcoin dropped the ball because like Spells of Genesis and Rare Pepes and, I don't know, there's a few others.

22:59Tatiana, Free Token FM, a bunch of other stuff, you know, started trying that stuff on Bitcoin at least as early as, what, 2015, '14, '15.

23:13Vlad CosteaYeah, I know that Giacomo Zucco is trying to do the same with Counterparty tokens on Spectrum, which is layer three on top of layer two, which is Lightning. And basically, it's a more scalable way because it doesn't use block space. It's not costly. It doesn't put a burden on those who run full nodes. And it relies on the architecture of Lightning.

23:42J-ScrillaRight. That's dope.

23:44Vlad CosteaSo basically, that's going to be like Ethereum on Bitcoin.

23:53J-ScrillaIs Lightning ready to handle like to build on Lightning yet?

23:58Vlad CosteaThey say it is. And I'm not sure if a lot of independent nodes are spread across the world, but definitely there are lots of companies that put a lot of money into Lightning. You have Bitrefill, which right now I think is the champion in terms of large Lightning channels. They have been able to open multiple full Bitcoin channels. And as you know, when you open a channel which has a certain amount of liquidity, then you're able to transact that amount. And they have been able to open for themselves channels that allow one full Bitcoin to be transacted via Lightning network.

24:43And that's kind of insane as Lightning was made for microtransactions and moving small amounts, but they are trying to make it able to handle so much volume.

25:02J-ScrillaI messed around with Lightning a little bit. When I was at the Bitcoin conference in 2019, I was accepting payment in Lightning using, I was using BlueWallet maybe, I don't know. I had a few of the wallets on there, and I don't know how to get the Lightning converted to Bitcoin without just cashing it out into gift cards or something. It's a little bit confusing still to me. I think I'm a pretty decent user of Bitcoin, but I'm not a technical warlord like most, I think, on Crypto Twitter.

25:42But it needs to be easy enough for somebody at least like me to be able to use it still, I think. And even from me down to like the next user, I know that there's a big gap still. And, you know, those are the people that I guess are going to have to figure out how to use it too.

26:03Vlad CosteaI mean, it's kind of simple unless you have to write command line instructions. And there are lots of applications that you can install and they do it for you instantly. And right now I'm thinking of Node Launcher by Pierre Rochard, which was launched mid 2019, I think, or maybe a bit earlier. But it was able to deliver the full experience with a full node and a Lightning node just by clicking a few times and setting up where you want the files to be downloaded. So from this point of view, it was simple.

26:43But to be able to run Lightning properly, you need to understand networking. So you have to do some port routing on your internet router, port forwarding, sorry, on your internet router. Because otherwise you'll be able to open channels, but you will not be able to receive money because you don't have that port open in your connection. And after you do that, you have to open channels and you have to understand how they work. And there are going to be lots of improvements in this regard. There is a lot of work going on right now.

27:22And we're going to have watchtowers that are basically supervisors of the whole activity to make sure that there is no abuse or cheating between channels.

27:34J-ScrillaHow do you determine who the watchtowers are? How do you determine who the watchtowers are?

27:42Vlad CosteaI'm not sure how you determine. I think you can even run one yourself, but you have to keep it on 24/7 and make sure that a power outage or some sort of internet crash will not affect the way it runs. So it has to be there all the time and check what the other channels are doing and if the nodes are being honest.

28:08I think the biggest concern with Lightning is doing some sort of double spending to exploit some sort of latency in the network. You send an amount and then it doesn't get broadcast by all the participants that are supposed to route it. And you exploit some sort of situation where you purchase something, but it wasn't routed properly and it returns an error. And there's going to be some sort of conflict between the two channels. And supposedly the watchtowers are the ones that enforce the rules objectively and they're going to be there to see if anyone abuses any kind of networking tricks.

28:54There have been cases when this happened, but most of them were discovered by developers and whenever this happened, they just sent back the amounts to make sure that nothing was lost.

29:08J-ScrillaI had a friend lose 0.8 Bitcoin on Lightning last summer, but he got it back through talking to some of the developers or something.

29:17Vlad CosteaAt this early phase, people are very open and honest and they're willing to help much more than usual just because they want to make the technology work and they need this feedback to improve it. But it's still reckless. I don't think it's there for all the applications for which it can be used when it matures.

29:42J-ScrillaYeah, yeah. And I guess like right now for me, it's like the easiest way for me to make a Bitcoin token right now still is just to use the Counterparty apps, because even though Counterparty is not like being worked on that much, you know, they do have some stuff going on. From what I understand, it's still the simplest for an artist to do. It's limiting in a variety of ways compared to what Ethereum can do, like some of their stuff. But I would like to see more work on that.

30:24I'd like to find out what Giacomo is doing with that. If it works out.

30:29Vlad CosteaI actually had an interview with him. You can check it out. It's on the YouTube channel of Bitcoin Magazine. And Giacomo talks all about layer three and what he thinks it is about and what he's working on right now. He calls it Spectrum.

30:47J-ScrillaOkay, I'll definitely take a look at that.

30:52Vlad CosteaAnd it's not just about you. It's about anyone listening to this and maybe they want to find out more. Giacomo is one of the most rational people around.

31:06J-ScrillaYeah, I've seen him talk at conferences a few times. He's funny.

31:12Vlad CosteaWhich conferences did you attend last year?

31:18J-ScrillaThe TABConf in Atlanta. I was at the Bitcoin steak carnivore thing, the first two of those. What else? Bitcoin 2019 in San Francisco. I did a couple parties in New York that were like crypto art parties in Brooklyn. I don't know. A couple of local DC ones. I was lucky enough to go to the Roundtable, but I wasn't invited. I went with my wife, who was invited.

32:01Vlad CosteaOh, so you were brought to the Satoshi Roundtable by your wife?

32:05J-ScrillaYeah, yeah, yeah.

32:06Vlad CosteaCan you provide more details or is it some sort of secretive meeting and you're not supposed to tell what happens there?

32:15J-ScrillaI don't know. I'm not even getting into it. But yeah, it was nice to hang out in nice Mexico. But it was good. It's not, I don't think it's, it's not the, I don't know, I'm not even going to... I know people are on both sides of that one. But it was fun. It was interesting. It's good to get heads talking, but some heads probably shouldn't always be there, and some heads are excluded. But somebody putting it together and taking the time to do that and all that, you got to, you know, anybody can do that.

33:02Vlad CosteaOkay, so you said that you're based in DC. And what is the art scene for Bitcoin in there, or the Bitcoin scene in general?

33:12J-ScrillaIt's government. It's government blockchain. It used to be more, there used to be a little bit more meetups and stuff. I attended a few. The scene's not, I don't think it's that big, unless Georgetown University, I think, has a little scene. But I've got a meetup page and we've done some meetups. There's a couple of hundred people, but the meetups were only like 5 to 15. I think we had like 20 at the most during the bubble. I know that was like an art and blockchain meeting. So it'd be like artists learning about Bitcoin and Ethereum.

33:56Vlad CosteaOkay, so what you're saying is that there's not much going on right now?

34:01J-ScrillaYeah, not so much. I mean, Bitcoin, people are investing in Bitcoin. There's government blockchain stuff is big, like, what is it, like the IBM stuff and all that people talk about. But Bitcoin ATMs are going strong out here, I think. So there are people buying Bitcoin.

34:28Vlad CosteaIn the United States, the ATMs are KYC only, right? So you have to sign in with your ID or driver's license and then you can purchase.

34:40J-ScrillaFor anything over a certain amount. Most machines, I think, are at least $300, they start asking for stuff.

34:51Vlad CosteaWhat about withdrawals? Do they still ask you for ID when you withdraw less than $300?

35:01J-ScrillaIf you sell, I believe they still do. That's a good question. I don't know. I think most companies that are doing the Bitcoin stuff now, they're getting into it and putting money into it and trying to take over the market are putting machines out there that are like fingerprint. You got to sign up. Once you sign up, then you could freely use it easily. But yeah, I think it's going super KYC.

35:30Vlad CosteaIt's kind of crazy how they made sure that nobody can withdraw or buy without doing KYC in the United States. While in Europe, it's much more unpredictable. Sometimes you find KYC only ATMs and then you go into places like Berlin, and you're going to see lots of ATMs that don't ask you for anything except for your wallet, for your public key.

35:58J-ScrillaThe way it should be.

36:01Vlad CosteaAnd your cash when you buy.

36:05J-ScrillaYeah. Isn't Germany, they still have a law, or they don't have the law, or the law is that if you hold your crypto for more than a year, it's not taxable, I think.

36:17Vlad CosteaI'm not sure what it's like in there.

36:20J-ScrillaThat's how it was at least up to a year ago. I know because I have a friend that did it. But who knows?

36:28Vlad CosteaIt's still interesting with all these different degrees of regulation.

36:36J-ScrillaYeah, it's annoying. That's the scariest thing for Bitcoin, because, you know, even when some... You can't stop Bitcoin, but too many regulations on it are going to keep a lot of people away from it. And, you know, you got to be careful who infiltrates the space. I mean, you got to keep it, to the best ability that you can, I guess, in the original image.

37:14Vlad CosteaI agree with you. And I suppose they can enforce this. So possibly in five years, all of us will be KYC all across the planet when we try to buy or sell Bitcoins. But there are still methods that don't rely on traditional finance. And you can think of situations where you use Bisq, which is totally decentralized and you're sending Bitcoins to an address and you're receiving fiat in your bank account. And the bank will not know that it's for a Bitcoin purchase because it comes from a person and not from an exchange.

37:57And we still can move Bitcoins and exchange for cash in situations like using items that allow us to store Bitcoins like bearer assets, for example, like the Opendime, or cold storage devices. And you can just hand that one and you scan it because it's watch only. You can see how much Bitcoin there is on it and you pay cash for it. So that's a possible scenario.

38:26J-ScrillaI think the Opendimes are, they don't, like, Opendime technology, I'll even call it, not just Opendimes, but I enjoyed your podcast with Novak, or whatever his name is, NVK. But that technology is like the simplest way if people are all worried about mixing and stuff, like if you're using Bitcoin as a bearer instrument, then it's not even on-chain. So that's like the ultimate if people want to mix, like there's your mix right there.

39:08Vlad CosteaThere's no evidence that any Bitcoin has been moved and has changed hands. And that also gives everyone who holds Bitcoins a plausible deniability because there is no proof that somebody else has taken custody of the keys to these Bitcoins.

39:27J-ScrillaExactly. Yeah, I've been supporting those guys for a while. Anything they release, I just buy it, with something, just to get it, because it's always some weird shit. Some weird shit, too.

39:43Vlad CosteaSo do you use any kind of hardware wallet? Because that has been the subject for the entire Season 4.

39:51J-ScrillaYeah, I've got some hardware wallets. I don't know, man. I'm losing faith in a lot of these hardware wallets long term. I guess I'm not losing faith. It's just, I'm just getting, I don't know what the solution is for long-term storage. So what is your take on it? You did all those podcasts on it.

40:18Vlad CosteaYeah, I think the best episodes that I have recorded were the ones with Lazy Ninja and also Peter Todd, as they explained that it's very important to understand your threat model. Because there is no jack of all trades, really, you're not going to have one device which solves all of your problems. And you have to understand from what or from whom you're trying to protect your bitcoins. And for every use case, you're going to have one service or one product that is superior to the other one.

40:58So for physical security, if you carry your hardware wallet around all the time, and you leave it on your desk and stuff like that, I think that the Ledger, because of its secure element chip, is the best. But if you don't want to trust anybody, and you want to verify all the code that's in there, you want to be sure that your device is honest when it displays the amounts of bitcoins that you hold, then there is no way to beat the Trezor.

41:31And everything else is kind of in between these two. I think the Coldcard is like a nuance. Yeah, go ahead. Just don't forget what you wanted to say, and I'll go on. I think the Coldcard and the BitBox are kind of in between. They are not as transparent as the Trezor. They're not as physically secure as the Ledger. But they're not as safe as cold storage. So they provide different kinds of interfaces that grant you more privacy. So that's something that or something for which they can take credit. They provide new and nice features. And they help push innovation in this rather new industry. But otherwise, they're not perfect.

42:25So I think there's a lot of marketing. And there are a lot of Twitter accounts that push for one product. And they say it's perfect. And it serves their needs. And it might be true. But it doesn't necessarily mean that it's what's right for you.

42:43J-ScrillaYeah, the thing that, so I was all the way with Ledger for a while. And I agree, they seem like the most robust and but the problem is, is they're not open source. But the main problem that I have with Ledger is somehow they had a, in the App Store, as the number one Ledger app for a little while, was a corrupt, whatever, like a hacked version of their software. And from what I understand, nobody ever figured out who it was. Nobody lost bitcoins because of it.

43:27But it had like the most open access when you download it to like, all your shit. And that's like a mystery to me. And like, that it was on their web, from what I understand, it was on their website for like, at least a few days, months, weeks, I don't know. But do you know about this?

43:47Vlad CosteaI know that there are lots of phishing attempts, and lots of malware applications that look just like the interface of the application, the original one. And they also, they look like it, they work like it, but they collect your data. And they're only there to steal your bitcoins.

44:10J-ScrillaYeah, so that just scares me, like, as somebody who's like, I don't know, like, a regular user, like, if I was, during that time period, to download that app, and then I would, I know, and I have a friend who right now is, like, going through it with them, trying to get Bitcoin back on the address that she had after she downloaded that had changed the read only address or whatever, to send it to Bitcoin that she didn't an address she didn't control.

44:43And it was one of those things where it was like a service she was providing. So she was getting Bitcoin in there constantly, or a flow of it, at least. So she wasn't checking every transaction. And I guess after a few weeks, she figured out that the money wasn't in her account, which is scary.

45:05Vlad CosteaOh, so she got linked to a different software that she was watching?

45:13J-ScrillaIn her wallet, or her, or not her wallet, I'm sorry, in her, let's call it Ledger Live, or whatever it was at that point on that they had for an app. It was reading when she opened it up, it was the address that she copied wasn't the address that it was before. Ledger, I guess now they do like a verify address and all that stuff on it. It was one of the older models.

45:39I don't know the exact, I might be mixing up the story a little bit, but it was, it was a mess. Like, and like I said, I still like Ledger, but that was a little scary. Those type of things can happen. So I guess that's what the development stuff. I guess everybody's working on, obviously, but we're still not there, I guess, as far as like, being safe and like being like, Oh, yeah, buy some Bitcoin and hold it for your kids college fund. Like where, where are you going to hold that for 15, 18 years?

46:10Vlad CosteaYeah, that's a fair point. From this point of view, I think the Coldcard does the best job, because they have no user interface, you have to use a third party wallet that is actually developed by professional developers, and it's open source. And you either get Wasabi Wallet, that's more private and uses Tor and also allows you to mix the coins, or you use Electrum. That has been around for a longer time. And you choose between these two products. And those are going to be your visual interfaces for what goes on.

46:52And you don't even have to connect your Coldcard to the computer with a cable, you just take the SD card and put it inside your computer. So the device itself doesn't get connected. But you still use a wallet file that reads the amount of bitcoins that you have, and grants you access. It's like a multisig setup. And you have to sign it both from the device and from your computer to make a transaction.

47:31J-ScrillaI'm looking, I got a Coldcard, the first Coldcard, in my hand right here. I set it up for a second. I never got all the way to set it up. But I don't think it has an SD card. That's a new thing.

47:44Vlad CosteaYeah, that's Mark 3. So you have Mark 1, which is a year old. And I think this is what kind of sucks because you get one device and by next year, it's going to be obsolete.

47:58J-ScrillaMm-hmm. Yeah, exactly. So if you're not an active Bitcoiner, like, you kind of can miss out, you can lose out on things. And like, even, dude, I've been heads down in this space, at least since like, let's say 2015. And I took a little break last year to really work on music hard again. And so I lost connections with some of the things going on. And it happens quick, dude. Like if you just put your head up for like, three months, like, if you're following like a bunch of different things, like, things happen fast, and some of them disappear, some of them move fast.

48:42I don't know, like, you know, it's like a day is like a week in this space.

48:47Vlad CosteaOh, yeah. Just if you look at the Bitcoin price today, I mean, it went from 6200 to 7200 in like 30 minutes. And as we're speaking, it's at 6700 and going down. So it was like this huge pump. People got excited and a lot of shorts got wrecked. And now it feels like it's going back to normal.

49:17J-ScrillaThat's fucked up, man. I have a note in my thing. So anybody that I used on this album, on this Bitcoin album, that I had to pay, I paid them all in Bitcoin. So on top of that, I guess it might be, it's probably the first album to all be transacted in Bitcoin as well. But I owe the mix engineer some money and I got to send him Bitcoin. I have a note on my phone, after this interview, to send him the Bitcoin.

49:50And I was thinking right before this interview, I was like, man, watch this shit's going to go down when I get off. I should send it to him right now when it was like 7,000.

49:58Vlad CosteaI guess you should have, but you never know what's going to happen in 30 minutes.

50:04J-ScrillaMy gut told me that though, I swear.

50:08Vlad CosteaYou should put that in the liner notes of the album. That is the first one which was entirely paid with Bitcoin.

50:16J-ScrillaYeah, yeah. I'm my own artist, my own PR, my own everything on this one, man. This is a true independent release right here. I'm part of some other stuff that's not like this. And so you really appreciate other people, all the work they got to do because I'm sending emails, PR and just trying to get the awareness out on this. It's funny.

50:45Vlad CosteaYou should also send me the PR so I can publish it on my website.

50:50J-ScrillaOh, sweet.

50:51Vlad CosteaThis interview will get published on iTunes and Spotify and YouTube. And then there's going to be a blog post on the website about the interview, which contains all the links. And among the text, I can also add your PR if that's okay. You should also let us know if the album... And by the way, what's the name of this album? And after you name it, and you tell us what it's called, is it going to be available on any streaming services except for Bandcamp, or is it just an exclusive?

51:29J-ScrillaYeah, Sound Money is the name of the album. DJ J-Scrilla, Sound Money, is out April 14th on all streaming platforms. You can preorder it now on Bandcamp. And you will be able to preorder it on iTunes and Google, etc., in a few days. When you preorder it, I have information on my Bandcamp at least right now. I need to make this more accessible. But when you preorder the album, you also get the crypto collectible token that you kind of like a Patreon thing. And who knows, maybe it'll do something. I have a DJPEPE coin, we didn't even talk about that, I started in 2016, as a music access coin that I use, a SoundCloud private link page.

52:17So if you own the DJPEPE coin, then a bonus link shows up on your website, on the layer three. And you get access to my music. So maybe we turn this into an access token too. That's really the plan. But we just haven't gotten with a developer to do that yet. And also, I really would like to find more places that accept Bitcoin, platforms that accept Bitcoin and Lightning streams and stuff like that. So if anybody's out there that wants to talk to me about that, I'm definitely interested in trying to do stuff like that.

52:56Vlad CosteaSounds interesting. And I really appreciate that there's some artistic effort that's being put into this. And I think a lot of the artists right now are much more into sculpture and paintings, but not so much into music, other than Tatiana. I don't think I, I mean, there was some guy doing YouTube videos, and there's that other person doing the astronaut music videos. Which are renditions of 1990s hit songs.

53:31J-ScrillaParodies. Yeah, yeah. Most of the stuff that's come out in the Bitcoin space is parodies or freestyles. Like, what's his name, the one rapper that was big in like 2013 in the Bitcoin space. He was dope. But most, I think, all this stuff was over like Drake beats and stuff like that. So Tatiana, for sure. She makes music about the, you know, libertarian movements and Bitcoin and Silk Road and stuff. A few others. My man Theo Goodman makes crazy, like, German kraut house rage music, a lot of Bitcoin and stuff involved in that.

54:11And, you know, there's a few people that have jumped in, like 3LAU, who's a super mega DJ, internationally known, jumped in and started his own Ethereum token for, you know, stuff in 2018. He jumped right out, I think, as soon as his lawyers figured out it wasn't popping, but he was in it. DJ Khaled. Statik Selektah, who's a Sirius XM, he's one of the biggest hip hop DJs. He's definitely into Bitcoin. Some other people too, so you'd be surprised. There's people into it, but nobody that's really like, I guess, embracing it.

54:54Like I'm trying to show people like I'm not the hugest artist, obviously. So I hope that I can lay out this foundation of trying to use crypto in some way using Bitcoin, like I said, like the Lightning, or accepting payments and stuff like that. And there's been platforms that have been up before and I've done it before but as of right now, it doesn't seem like there's any like new ones that are improving on anything or anything that really is feasible, that makes it easier for the consumer, or worth their while, at least.

55:26Vlad CosteaWait, so DJ Khaled is actually into Bitcoin? Because last time I heard about him, it was about him...

55:33J-ScrillaI mean, he was in the crypto space at some point. If he's doing that, he must know about Bitcoin. If he's doing that Centra thing, whatever he did.

55:45Vlad CosteaYeah, I think he even was investigated by the SEC or something.

55:51J-ScrillaYeah, yeah, definitely. I don't know if he caught a fine or not. But he was part of that, him and Floyd. Nipsey Hussle, who died last year, actually, today or yesterday was his one-year anniversary. He was a huge hip hop rapper and mogul and won a Grammy and stuff. And he was in the crypto heavy. He was another rapper, hip hop guy that was into it. I don't know what coins he was into and stuff like that. But I know he was into Bitcoin, at least.

56:26Vlad CosteaWhen you think about it, it's kind of interesting. I think the first example in hip hop that we know about an artist selling his album for Bitcoin is 50 Cent. And it was very early on.

56:43J-ScrillaYeah, it was like a 2016 album, that it was his worst-selling album of all his albums, but it made him probably close to the most money because of how much Bitcoin went up.

56:55Vlad CosteaWell, possibly because we have no idea what happened to the Bitcoins, where they went.

56:59J-ScrillaYeah, we don't know if he sold them or anything.

57:03Vlad CosteaWe're not sure if it was his wallet that received the Bitcoins or somebody from his management thought it was a fun idea.

57:11J-ScrillaYou're right. You're right. It was definitely not him probably getting those. It was probably his management. But to be fair, he wasn't the first artist to do that. Like, Murs, who is a big, he has a really big following. He made a Bitcoin song. He was like a hip hop artist that made a Bitcoin song in like 2013 or so.

57:37A couple of other people. There was a couple of people before 50. Oh, Talib Kweli, who's part of Black Star with Mos Def, he put out a song. And he sold his album for Bitcoin. I don't know if it was before or after 50, but it was around the same time. But he was like all over that Bitcoin wave before most people.

57:59Vlad CosteaAnd then there was Soulja Boy, or I'm not sure how you pronounce his name. And he released one song about Bitcoin. And it was so, so bad. It was awful, man. It's like he didn't even try. Even the rapping was terrible.

58:16J-ScrillaNo, he doesn't ever try, bro. The guy's never tried in his life. Like he doesn't understand like that's not the wave anymore. He was part of a wave that he didn't have to try in music during that time. He just had to make YouTube videos because YouTube was, you know, he kind of helped pop YouTube off. He didn't have to try. Now he has to try. Now nobody cares. He has no label backing. That guy was never like, yeah.

58:43Vlad CosteaI mean, when I listened to that one, it just sounds poorly produced and cheap. Like the samples that he has, or his instruments. They're possibly taken from a Casio keyboard or something because they sound bad.

59:02J-ScrillaThey sound like exactly a Casio beat. It's probably just a Fruity Loops beat his man cooked up in like 10 minutes.

59:11But you know, man, like, I'm an artist and I treasure the art, for real, like in all ways. But for the most part, you can't deny it. The industry of music, the industry of art is all marketing. So if you put money behind something the right way, I mean, that's how you sell music and art.

59:37Vlad CosteaI mean, I agree. You can always find somebody who is more talented than the artist being promoted. But at the same time, there's always so much more than the music that's being sold to you. There's some sort of attitude or lifestyle or idea.

59:56J-ScrillaYeah, definitely. That's, I mean, that's how you get the budgets, that's how you get the marketing, the corporations behind you.

1:00:04Vlad CosteaI'm not too much into hip hop, so it's not my field of expertise. But I know that artists from the 60s, like you think of Bob Dylan, right? And he's the worst singer you can find.

1:00:16J-ScrillaSure.

1:00:17Vlad CosteaHe cannot sing in tune. If you pay him a billion dollars, he will not do it. But he was still something like the marketing behind him was trying to promote him as this rebel who ran away from home and is really, really badass and wears sunglasses all the time. And, you know, he was kind of an icon at the time.

1:00:45So I think equal to his music is that image that he projected in the 60s. And it was very hard for him to move on from that because he, as an artist, has grown and tried different styles and people were still stuck in that era. And I think that's everyone's problem. When you have a hit song, people are going to associate you with it for the rest of your life, even though you might grow as an artist and develop different tastes.

1:01:18J-ScrillaYeah, that's absolutely true. And I've seen it hundreds of times where I've done something with an artist who's got a hit song from back in the day. And they got to perform that because that's what the crowd demands. And it's like their least favorite song. But that's the one that resonates with the crowd.

1:01:38Vlad CosteaOh, it's not just about that. It's about the marketing because possibly you're not 21 anymore. And you don't feel like you felt when you're 21. You cannot project the same amount of energy and the song that you wrote back then doesn't resonate with the way you feel. So you're trying to promote a different kind of image for the fans, but they're going to find it weird because in their minds, you're still that 21-year-old who was singing that song.

1:02:08J-ScrillaYep. Yep.

1:02:13It's, you know, I respect like a lot of artists that come up that do it on their own, for the most part, you know, if you can do that, then you kind of, you start from the bottom and grind the gears up, it's hard for you to fall down the ladder fast when you're put on a pedestal quickly, get that one hit out, and you didn't have any of the knowledge coming up the ladder. Then when you fall down, you're not going to know how to bring yourself back up that ladder.

1:02:43Like when an artist who's got his hands kind of like involved in everything and knows what's going on, like, if they stumble, they'll know where to like catch themselves and get back up, I feel like. Especially when independent, at least in hip hop and rock, like when the majors started falling, around towards the end of the 2000s into the early 2010s, like, and the independents started rising, you saw a lot of rappers that were signed in the 2000s or the late 90s. They didn't know how to readjust accordingly to the independent scene.

1:03:18They didn't know how to market themselves or distribute themselves or manage their time or any of that stuff as well, because they didn't have a team around.

1:03:30But now artists, I kind of built, I think, more or less because of the internet, they build up themselves with a few of their homies and catch on to a couple of things and then they can, they kind of walk that whole ladder up. And hopefully it'll be easier for them.

1:03:47Vlad CosteaRight. So right now you have an album that's coming out in two weeks. It's called Sound Money. And do you have any type of expectations for any of the songs to become cult classics in the Bitcoin space?

1:04:01J-ScrillaI don't know. I released the Sound Money, or the, what's it called? Money Printer Go Brrr yesterday. And I've had a couple of people tweet out that it's their Bitcoin song of the decade and post-apocalypse and shit. So that was good. It's gotten, it's been well received so far. It's got up to like 1,000 plays over the last 24 hours.

1:04:28Yeah, that one probably, my personal favorite is track two, the Satoshi Nakamoto track. So that one, I think the one with Rome Streetz, Rome Streetz has a big buzz in the underground hip hop scene. So I think people have been asking me for a video for that one, and I've heard it.

1:04:51Vlad CosteaRight. So I presume that most people will not invest enough time to listen to the entire album, even though it's not so long. But if you could recommend three songs from the album to help them understand what this is about, which one of them would they be?

1:05:10J-ScrillaIt would be Satoshi Nakamoto, Dream of Empire, and the Faith in My Money, Money Printer Go Brrr. So tracks two, three and seven.

1:05:35Vlad CosteaI mean, I listened to this last night. And I expected it to take me about one hour because that's the length I usually expect from an album. But when I realized it was only about 20 minutes or something, 25, possibly, I was just relieved. And I said, Okay, this was fresh. It felt energetic. There was a lot being presented there. I've heard many familiar voices speaking to me about Bitcoin in different contexts. And I feel like this was kind of a juxtaposition of different voices speaking about Bitcoin in different contexts to tell the story of the album.

1:06:20J-ScrillaYeah, yeah. These days, I think, because the fans don't listen to full albums as much, especially not an album that's an hour long, at least in my line of work. Usually, 30 minutes is the max these days on albums, and 10 tracks is about the most you'll get. Most albums coming out these days are six or seven tracks, at least in like the underground hip hop field, because you can charge more on iTunes. The difference between an EP and LP is I think five to six.

1:07:00And you can charge more by putting that sixth track on. And it's kind of because the market has moved to so much quantity and less quality because people just want to get new songs. A song lasts with them for like a week, lasts with them for a day, you know, who knows? They're quick, though, you know, because albums come so fast, and so many and so saturated, that the better artists over the last few years, at least in like the underground hip hop scene, I don't know, I can't speak for the whole music scene, but they've been releasing just quick, like every couple months.

1:07:33Six, seven song albums, and then maybe once a year or twice a year hit you with a big one. It's like 10 tracks and more. It's more polished and more marketed, heavier.

1:07:46Vlad CosteaI think even Kanye West does that.

1:07:50J-ScrillaSure. Yeah. Kanye West is a major independent artist, if that makes sense. Like he's a major artist, but he still does it his own. He's indie, you know.

1:08:01Vlad CosteaWhich is crazy, because whenever he releases something, it becomes part of the mainstream culture.

1:08:10J-ScrillaYeah, he's definitely an icon of hip hop for the last 20 years, for sure. He'd be on the Mount Rushmore, probably, over the last, I mean, not probably, he'd be on the Mount Rushmore.

1:08:26Vlad CosteaI totally like him, because he has some of the most tasteful samples. And if you listen to his music, it doesn't feel like hip hop.

1:08:40J-ScrillaHe's, yeah, he's just a dope producer. At this point, he's past being a beat maker, and he's just a conductor and a maven and brings people together and puts out in his artist, takes the artistic vibe surrounding him and makes albums. He's like the Andy Warhol of modern hip hop kind of.

1:08:58Vlad CosteaReally? So when did he stop making beats? I was not aware.

1:09:02J-ScrillaNot that he stopped making beats, don't get twisted, but he's not in his basement banging out on his ASR anymore. Like, see, Kanye, like, came up through the same channels as, like, us, like, people like they're cool to beat, he was in like 100-person capacity arenas doing beats and stuff like, so he's walked his way up. And he's now in a position where, you know, he might start a beat, but he's got, you know, violins and, you know, he's, bring this person in, bring this choir in and like, and he even started doing that as an indie artist.

1:09:38He put, he invested his own money into bringing like the Harlem choir on a track, as opposed to whatever, the Chicago one or whatever, the one the label wanted to pay for that was way cheaper. He put his money up and it was like, nah, I need them on the album, on "Jesus Walks," actually, and stuff like that.

1:10:00I forget where I was going with that.

1:10:03Vlad CosteaOkay. So I feel like I should ask you one last question about your album and wrap this up to keep it short and sweet, even though I suppose we have talked for about one hour now. And it didn't feel like it has been one hour, but this is how it goes. Interesting conversations happening. So we just have to follow. So do you have any kind of target audience? Do you think that there are specific people in the Bitcoin space who should hear this or is it more generalistic and everyone should listen to it?

1:10:42Be them Andreas Antonopoulos to hear his own voice or just the newbies coming into the space and trying to understand what this is about?

1:10:53J-ScrillaSo I guess I made the album and I tried to walk a fine line that it could be played by Bitcoiners, traders, and no-coiners that like raw, grimy hip hop alike. So I try to walk a fine line there where it's not going to be too cheesed out for a person that's just a regular fan of hip hop, where hopefully it's not too overly content. So I have some songs, have a lot of breaks in them where it's just the beat.

1:11:33Try to be artistic with the samples, putting in there the scratches and the changing of the voices and the echoes and stuff, the dub effects. But then the Bitcoiners, I would assume Bitcoiners would get behind it and be like, oh, cool, as long as they like it. But, a quality album that represents the culture I'm in, I'm going to fucking share it. I don't think this is going to be something that you play all the time or anything, but it's something I think it can motivate you.

1:12:06It's good trading music, I think it would make sense. Trading Bitcoin, just have it on in the background.

1:12:17You know, if any YouTubers or TV series or anything doing crypto stuff want to holler at me and get some music, I can license it out, stuff like that.

1:12:26Vlad CosteaYes. And as a closing note, I think I should express what I have felt as I was listening to the album. And the vibe that I was getting is that I'm being reminded why I'm into this and how it all started. Because when you get lost in the daily events and you see all of this crazy series of events happening, it's very easy to get lost and forget the origins of Bitcoin and what the intentions of the people who promoted it in the early days were and how they presented it and how they were expressing their affinity for Bitcoin, maybe in 2012, 2013.

1:13:14And part of that initial spirit was lost. And as I was listening, I felt like this is definitely a work about the early days. And it's not until track number seven that it gets more contemporary. Yeah. So it's like a story about how Bitcoin became a cultural phenomenon and an economic instrument before our days, and it gets to our days in track seven. And after that, it just tells a story that doesn't come to a conclusion because it's still being written.

1:13:53J-ScrillaMm-hmm. That's good. I might have to write that up like that, Vlad.

1:13:58Vlad CosteaYeah, you can listen to the recording. Take notes. Maybe I should become a music critic.

1:14:05J-ScrillaYeah, there it is. But, you know, when I piece things together, this is kind of my thing. Over the years, I've made a lot of projects where I pieced together things. I'm kind of known in my circle for being a really good post-production person. So putting things together in this type of thing, even when I did my Art on the Blockchain podcast about crypto art for a couple of years, everything was like, people commented a lot that it sounded like an underground college radio show, with music and sound effects and shit like that.

1:14:35So I do a lot of that stuff. And I've always done that because I came up as a mixtape DJ back in the day. And I'm kind of into even my artwork that is around is collage. It's kind of like, I don't know what the fuck it is, but it's like the same thing. It's just a free flow of thoughts and stuff. So I try to just kind of put all that stuff together and make it into something that people can understand, hopefully.

1:15:10Vlad CosteaI hope so, too. So what was the date? The 12th or the 14th of April?

1:15:17J-Scrilla14th.

1:15:18Vlad Costea14th of April. Check out Sound Money. It's an album that's going to get released on Bandcamp and then it's going to be on all the major streaming platforms. If you're a Bitcoiner and you have 25 minutes, and you most likely have, while doing something else, you have absolutely no excuse to not listen to this one. It's a great album. I recommend it. It gives you the vibes of being an early Bitcoiner and then takes you through a journey where you discover how we ended up into this mess.

1:15:57And it also gives you hopes for the future. So if you ever feel doubtful about your involvement in Bitcoin and you forget why you got into this in the first place, then you listen to Sound Money. It reminds you why you got into this and why you should keep on doing stuff in the space. And it pumps your motivation back. So even if the price dumps, your motivation pumps because you're listening to Sound Money by J-Scrilla.

1:16:30J-ScrillaAppreciate that. That's kind words.

1:16:34Vlad CosteaOkay, so I'll see you around, Mr. J-Scrilla. Thanks for this interview.

1:16:39J-ScrillaAll right, great. Thanks, Vlad. Take care.

1:16:40Vlad CosteaNo, wait, wait, wait. I should allow you to promote your social media platforms. Do that, please.

1:16:47J-ScrillaYeah. You guys and gals can follow me at Scrilla Ventura on Twitter, at TheScrillionaire on Instagram and rarescrilla.com is my website. And yeah, check it out. And you can preorder everything at Bandcamp. All those socials have the link there.

1:17:10Vlad CosteaYeah, all the links will be on the Bitcoin Takeover website so you can see them. You just click there and you purchase the album.

1:17:20J-ScrillaAnd listen, don't forget, it might not be crazy interesting to some of you, some of you might be, but you get a crypto token exclusively for pre-ordering it and supporting throwing $10 towards this Bitcoin cause, you know what I'm saying? So you can do that. And that's a cool little thing I'm trying to do, too. So yeah, enjoy.

1:17:47Vlad CosteaOkay, so thanks for this interview.

1:17:50J-ScrillaAll right. Thanks, Vlad.