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Bitcoin Support, a New Service To Help Users Self-Custody BTC
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Bull Bitcoin doubles down on being a noncustodial exchange by acquiring white-glove bitcoin self-custody service provider.
Canada’s leading bitcoin exchange, Bull Bitcoin (Satoshi Portal Inc.), has announced the acquisition of white-glove service provider for bitcoin self-custody, Veriphi, via a press release sent to Bitcoin Magazine.
This acquisition was entirely self-funded by the company’s decision to hold BTC on its balance sheet since 2015, being purchased after bitcoin’s historic rises in price throughout the years also known as NgU (number go up) technology.
Bull Bitcoin is setting the standard by doubling down on being a noncustodial bitcoin only exchange where the customer takes full custody of their coins right from the beginning. They focus on the importance of bitcoin self-custody, which is why customers must have their own wallet to hold their BTC before they can use the exchange.
But because the company does not hold users’ bitcoin for them, it tends to put them at a disadvantage to new Bitcoiners who may want to leave their BTC on exchanges initially. This can be seen as more difficult and inconvenient to new Bitcoiners who just want to take the easy route by not holding their own keys, but this is where Veriphi comes in.
“By combining Bull Bitcoin’s infrastructure with Veriphi’s Bitcoin consulting expertise, we will establish ourselves as the world’s single best destination for new Bitcoiners to be onboarded, the right way,” the release stated. “We expect our transactions volumes to increase significantly as a result and massively increase the proportion of Canadian Bitcoiners holding their own keys and running their own full nodes.”
After being founded in 2017, Veriphi has become Canada’s white-glove self-custody service that aims to turn anyone and everyone into sovereign Bitcoiners. They are a team of solid Bitcoin educators and experts out of Montreal that are well known for their fantastic tutorials and how-to guides, bitcoin wallet reviews, and security/privacy best practices.
“Our message to the Bitcoin community is clear: you can absolutely trust us to take care of your friends and relatives when it comes to being onboarded to Bitcoin. You can drop them off in our care, and we guarantee we will turn anyone (even your grandmother) into a Sovereign Bitcoin holder,” the release stated. “You can have peace of mind that they will have followed all the best practices and that trustworthy experts will guide them every step of the way with phone support.”
By this acquisition, Bull Bitcoin is adding yet another element to its exchange that separates it from its competition. In addition to this new white-glove service, the exchange has already implemented the Lightning Network, Liquid Network, CoinJoin and transaction batching. They are setting the standard and highlighting the importance of cypherpunk ethos, which is important when onboarding new Bitcoiners.
“We not only have to provide support for our services, but we have a responsibility to provide advice and help on how to self-custody Bitcoin,” the release stated. “We refuse to compromise on our values, cut corners on privacy and self-custody and act against the best interests of our users just because it’s easier.”
You can follow the new Bitcoin maximalists joining Bull Bitcoin from the Veriphi team on Twitter below. Bull Bitcoin CEO Francis Pouliot said that he’s been personally mentoring these Bitcoiners for years, and they are “without a doubt, the best successors I could have hoped for and I trusted them without reservation to advise my own family members about Bitcoin self-custody.”
Gustavo J. Flores Echaz – @gustavojfe
Maciej Cepnik – @cepnikmaciej
Tristan Borges Solari – @tristanborgess
Nathaniel Kitzke – @nk1tz
René Vergé – @reneverge
Carlos Chida – @carloschida
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In this episode of Bitcoin Magazine’s “Meet The Taco Plebs,” I sat down with Bull Bitcoin’s newest head of marketing, Pleb.Hodl (@btcplebeian on Twitter) to discuss his unique Bitcoin rabbit hole story, his new position at Bull Bitcoin, the effect Bitcoin has on one’s mindset and much more.
Pleb.Hodl went into detail about his experience being “fiat pilled” coming out of university and the awakening that he had after being around people that advocated for bigger government. Along with this, we discussed the effects that believing in the ideals around Bitcoin has on individuals and society in general.
To finish, we delved into his new position at Bull Bitcoin and the excitement he has for the opportunity to work with the team there and build a phenomenal platform for true Bitcoiners.
Below are some more insights from Pleb.Hodl about his Bitcoin journey.
What’s your Bitcoin rabbit hole story?
My story starts with studying monetary economics at university and getting completely fiat pilled. It’s embarrassing to admit being that lazy, ignorant and/or gullible now, but I bought it all. By the time I finished university, I very much believed in the idea of enlightened government by experts. When I first heard about Bitcoin, I was still under this spell and thought it was a suboptimal solution to our problems. I always thought the focus should be on making the government less corrupt and more competent. I would say the beginning of my path to Bitcoin was when I joined the board for the liberal party in my local riding. Being around people who believed in bigger governmentt, I got to see how they think and how hopelessly flawed my views were. That was 2015 and was the beginning of my red pill journey, which was a necessary precursor for my orange pill.
In 2016 to 2017, I started becoming more open to Bitcoin but still wasn’t taking it seriously. I was also held back by my commitment to only investing in my own businesses… I was pretty cocky and didn’t believe any investment had a better risk/return. By early 2018, a couple of things had happened:
One, bitcoin had crushed my returns over the previous year, even after a 60% drop from its all-time high. And two, something like five to 10 people that I respected were telling me I was wrong about Bitcoin.
One day, I just decided that, at least as an exercise in critical thinking, I needed to steelman my argument. Obviously, as anyone who has ever undertaken that task knows, I failed. I fell down the rabbit hole and didn’t do much other than read about Bitcoin and listen to podcasts for the next year.
How has Bitcoin changed your life?
I mean, the most obvious way it has changed my life was by shifting my investment philosophy 180 degrees… I went from only investing in myself to committing my wealth and future savings exclusively to bitcoin.
It’s a nearly impossible benchmark to beat unless you’re starting a Bitcoin business, and I didn’t have the financial or technical background to pursue anything like that. I’ve never known how to describe myself but it would be something like “analog entrepreneur”… I like building brick-and-mortar businesses where you get to interact with people and communities. As an entrepreneur, that made it difficult to expand my business or start new ones because they needed to be entirely funded by someone else. Investor discussions were always kind of awkward too because — although not explicitly — implicitly the discussion always rests on the investor asking the question “if you were me, would you make this investment?” and the entrepreneur answering “YES!” whereas my answer was, “No, you should put it all in bitcoin but you won’t, so yes.”
Beneath the surface my heart was in Bitcoin and in hindsight it was inevitable that my path would lead me to working in Bitcoin.
This is a really obvious and basic way that it’s changed me but obviously, Bitcoin has this ability to change the way you see everything in life. It’s been far more all encompassing than investing, too.
What is the most amazing thing about Bitcoin to you?
By far, the most interesting thing about bitcoin is its capacity to completely change individuals. A significant part of my worldview is that life is psychedelic. Everything from books to conversations to everyday experiences alters our consciousness… who we are and how we see the world. I’ve become obsessed with “Bitcoin as psychedelic” — I think it’s inevitable that everyone in the world will be orange pilled. Whether it’s consciously or subconsciously, Bitcoin will transform human consciousness on an individual level. This ability to shift all of humanity toward all of the values associated with low-time preference and away from high-time preference fiat values is what makes me completely obsessed… I really believe it’s the most hopeful thing humanity has ever seen.
What are you most looking forward to in the Bitcoin space?
Bitcoin has consumed most of my time and energy since it first clicked for me in 2018. I guess the thing I’m most looking forward to (beyond the shift in human consciousness) — though it’s already begun — is having an outlet for all of that energy… having started at Bull Bitcoin last month as the new head of marketing, I’m unbelievably excited to have the resources to start orange pilling on a large scale. One obvious thing we’re focused on is customer acquisition, i.e., orange pilling no coiners. But Bull is such a unique company in terms of its commitment to using Bitcoin in the right ways… I’m really excited about being able to not just pursue surface-level orange pilling for bitcoin as an investment but deeper orange pilling with bitcoin as censorship-resistant money, freedom tech, etc. We have lots of projects in the works that will allow us to better educate our existing clients on self custody and privacy best practices that will hopefully nudge them further down the rabbit hole. It really feels like a unique opportunity for me to contribute to the Bitcoin project in a meaningful way.
Price prediction for the end of 2021, and the end of 2030?
For 2021, I’m going to be super boring and guess the middle of the range I have in mind… $85,000. I think anything can happen short term, especially if we see another round of lockdowns in the fall which I fully expect. With that being said, I think the ten-year bull run is far from over and I wouldn’t be surprised to see $500,000 within 12 months.
For 2030, I would be surprised if we’re still under $5 million. At that point, nominal predictions are kind of useless so let’s say $5 million in 2020 purchasing power.
Earlier this week, Wasabi Wallet creator zkSNACKs and Canadian bitcoin exchange Bull Bitcoin announced they would be donating a no-strings-attached grant toward Bitcoin Knots development.
The two Bitcoin-focused companies split a 0.86 BTC (or about $40,000, at the time of this writing) contribution in support of the development of Bitcoin Knots, a node and wallet software that can serve as an alternative to Bitcoin Core.
This grant is a great example of Bitcoin-focused companies investing in projects that advance the ecosystem, and ultimately their own best interests, through development grants. Both zkSNACKs and Bull Bitcoin have built businesses that rely on Bitcoin Knots and it is important that they support the development of that underlying technology.
“Leading by example is the motivation behind our contribution and we want to make sure that people see our support for the development of open-source software in the Bitcoin ecosystem and are inspired to follow suit,” Daniel Belushka of Wasabi Wallet told Bitcoin Magazine.
We saw a massive trend of Bitcoin development grants in 2020 and it is fantastic to see more happening in early 2021. Let’s hope other companies take note and follow Wasabi Wallet and Bull Bitcoin’s lead in supporting Bitcoin development.