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Workout and perk out with the PF Black Card. Join today for zero enrollment and $24.99 a month. See Home Club for details. Welcome to this introduction to my newest course called Private Cryptocurrencies, How to Buy, Own and Use Bitcoin Like a True Radical. My name is Josh Rascheitz, host of the Radical Personal Finance podcast.

And I have here today with me Gabriel Custodiate, host of the Watchman's Guide to Privacy podcast. Gabriel, welcome. I'm glad you're here. Yeah, nice to be here, Josh. So I thought what we'd do is take a quick promotional and introductory video here, talking about the new course that we have launched, that we're launching together.

The scenario that we designed this course around is very simple. The basic idea is this. Imagine this, your bank accounts are frozen. You must flee the country with only what you carry. Gold is suspicious and cash has limits. You cross the world and find a public computer, download a single program, type from memory a private key.

You now have access to $2 million worth of Bitcoin, unattached to your identity, tucked away for just this scenario and the knowledge to buy, trade and convert it into any local currency in the world. Now Gabriel, I was thinking about how this particular course came about. And as I remember it, I think I came to you with this scenario and I said, Gabriel, here's what I am working on.

I really want to figure out how to use Bitcoin to its fullest as a last ditch form of money. A form of money where with nothing other than a few code words in your head, you can cross any border in the world, go anywhere and have access to your money.

But I don't know how to do it. And that was when I came to you and I said, let's figure it out. And of course from there, you've taken and we've worked on an outline and we've got an exciting course to offer. So what I thought would be interesting is let's start at the beginning and go over some of the content that we're going to be covering and most importantly give an outline of the scope of the course.

Yeah. So I would say, Josh, that this came about partly upon reflecting how people talk about Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies as this radical alternative to current finance. We've seen recently with the banning of the SWIFT system for Russian people, not just the Russian government, but Russian people of the situation in Canada with people's bank accounts being shut down.

We've seen and we've heard that cryptocurrencies can be a radical alternative, but most people are not actually using them in that way. Most people have them in these centralized exchanges, which are antithetical to Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. And so I've read all the books on Bitcoin about people saying that this is an alternative.

This is going to take down the Fed, etc. But then they don't really explain how to own and to use Bitcoin like a radical, in other words, self in a self-sovereign way where you own your own private keys, where you have access to these things yourself and where you do it privately.

And privacy, of course, is important because that which is surveyed can be controlled. So let me tell you a little bit about the course. Basically, we are going to do a comprehensive mini course on Bitcoin with an emphasis on privacy. We're going to be talking about what Bitcoin is, how to use it, how to acquire it, how to engage with decentralized and centralized exchanges and what all of these things are.

We're going to talk about how to store it safely with or without hardware wallets and software wallets. And so all of this was with a privacy focus. What do I mean by privacy focus? Well, my definition of privacy is to have these things have Bitcoin without any attachment to your identity.

That is the goal, whether that is your IP address or your name or any other distinguishing piece of information. Now, that's difficult and there are various ways to do it, which is why I need some time in order to unpack this stuff. And so let me describe a few of the things that we'll be talking about.

We're going to go over wallets, hardware wallets and software wallets. We're going to talk about Bitcoin ATMs and how to use them and how to use them privately. We're going to talk about getting your Bitcoin out of a public exchange like Coinbase and obscuring these coins through mixers and through conversion to privacy coins and back into Bitcoin.

It's not as complicated as it seems. We're going to cover briefly what you need to know about mining Bitcoin. We're going to talk about how to acquire Bitcoin from other people, where to do that and the best method. We'll talk about and by the way, throughout all of this, we're going to define our terms.

We're going to explain things in the simplest way possible. I don't want anybody to be left out. We're going to assume no prior knowledge. And we'll also be talking about how to use decentralized exchanges to trade for other coins. Important point. This is not just about Bitcoin. We can use these strategies and we will be using these strategies for other coins, alt coins as they're called.

We're going to talk about things like how to memorize your seed phrase, very practical things about the responsibilities of owning your private keys, which is part of the process of having them privately. And we'll be discussing a number of other things along the way. And what I want to emphasize in this course is a few things.

First of all, it is practical, right? We're not talking theory of Bitcoin. We're talking about how I've gone out to as many ATMs as I can, and I've learned how to approach this in the best way possible. We're not going to be talking about the theory of how to use Bitcoin privately.

You're going to see on my screen the entire time what I'm doing, what wallet I'm using, why I'm using this wallet, how I'm doing all of this over the course of several hours while I explain it. Another part of this course, another thing to emphasize is that this has been a long time in the making.

I've been ruminating on this course for years now, and I've talked to Bitcoin experts. I have consulted with people. And one thing I've noticed is that there is really a dearth of knowledge about owning Bitcoin like a true radical in a private way. And so I did the work and I figured out all these methods, and I'm happy to share them with you, a kind of accumulated wisdom about my trials in exploring this topic.

Another thing is that this course is designed to be as teachable as possible. In other words, I am trying to walk you through in the most basic terms possible how to do all these steps. I'm going to try not to skip anything, not to use overly technical vocabulary. I want this above all to be completely comprehensible to everybody.

And then the last thing I'll point out is that we will have a Q&A afterwards. So if you have any questions about the process, you will have a chance to ask that of me. And I think that's going to be exciting because I really believe that in many aspects of finance, if you'll go just the extra mile, you'll get a lot more benefit from it.

Bitcoin is a powerful technology, but this is kind of the missing piece of how to do it privately. It's even more powerful. It's certainly powerful if you have it in the normal way, the easiest ways, etc. But it's just so much more powerful if you go the extra step.

And I think that you mentioned some of the examples, right? But right now there are people fleeing Ukraine. And I tell you what, it's a whole lot better if you have some private money along the way. Gabriel, as you've been researching this so intensively, and I really respect your academic comprehensiveness, what has been the hardest of the problems to crack?

What for you has been the most difficult thing to find a solution for? Well, yeah, that's a good question. I don't know that any one thing is too difficult. The problem is that this is a constantly evolving scene. So you have exchanges, decentralized exchanges that come and go. You have Bitcoin ATMs that at one point were okay with a burner number, and now they are not.

And so it's a matter of testing just enough things to get a sense of... Do more together this holiday in a new Chevy. Take on more adventure in the strong and capable Chevy Silverado. More confidence in the Chevy Equinox. Winner of the J.D. Power Award for initial quality among compact SUVs, two years running.

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