FFS106 - Ali Tahini's

[00:00:00]

Intro

Ali: as a business, when you consider Bitcoin as part of your strategy, Thank you. it's so beneficial in so many ways.

Just look at the proof. Over a four year time period, our purchasing power had more than 5x,

you'll still get the same benefit that Michael Saylor gets as a small operator And you should be considering that as well, if you don't own your own business, it has the same effect. truly consider, because you can't make it with just thinking about income. You really can't.

You're going to run faster and faster on a hamster wheel, chasing a currency that's getting weaker and weaker, You'll never catch up. So you need to have a balance sheet strategy to match with that income strategy. Not saying don't go out, like trying to grow your income and get other sources of income.

Do all that, but have a strategy for your balance sheet as well, because one strategy is not enough.

[00:01:00]

Introducing Ali from Tahini's

Luke: Ali, welcome to the Freedom Footprint show. Thanks for joining us.

Ali: Thank you for having me, Luke.

Knut: Yes, a legend in the kebab business, or the shawarma business. What's the difference between a shawarma?

Ali: So shawarmas is basically that big, like, meat on a spit thing, where the kebab is like the little skewers of meat that go on the barbecue. we specialize in shawarmas. Uh, so we specialize in that big, you know, [00:02:00] big meat on a spit, on the rotisserie spit. And, um, yeah, and then we make like wraps out of those that we call shawarmas.

Knut: Okay, because I think this is a, uh, yeah, I'm not following protocol here, Luke, I know, but I want to clear this first. Like, uh, because in Sweden, where I grew up, there was no such thing as a shawarma. Everything was a kebab. And when we drove down to Germany, there was no kebab. There was a döner. There was Which is a kebab, which is apparently a shawarma.

So, so, is it different from different, in different cultures, or what, what's going on there?

Ali: So I'll give you the backstory on, on, uh, the shawarma, uh, business, or the origins of shawarma. it basically originated in Turkey and in Turkey, uh, it's, it's the, the idea was the meat on us on a vertical, uh, rotisserie spit that keeps on spinning [00:03:00] and it cooks that way and you just shave off as the outer layer cooks.

And, uh, in Turkey. It was called Donair, right? And it was made a certain way with certain ingredients, and they're the ones that invented it. And then it went to the Arabs. The Arabs took that idea, made it into their own, put different toppings on the wraps, spiced the meat differently. And called it shawarma.

And then the Greeks took it and, uh, they did their own thing with it. They put Zeki on it, you know, like they put like their own type of toppings and they called it Euro or Gaia, or however you wanna call it. And then the rest of the Europeans, um, just saw this as, oh, this is like, like foreign food. Let's just call it all kebab.

And I think that's. That's where, and oh, also [00:04:00] the Lebanese immigrants went to Mexico and started the same idea and they did it with, with the Mexican style and they call it pastor or el pastor or something like that. So, uh, that's basically like the backstory of the origins of, shawarma or doner or gyro or however, they're all the same thing basically, but each country does it in a certain way with different toppings and, um, they made it into their own.

Knut: Okay. Yeah. So that's good to have that straightened out before we

Ali: I love it. I love, I love how people, like, want to know where, cause I, I'm fascinated by this. I think this is awesome. Uh, how food, like, can integrate into different cultures and stuff, so.

Knut: Yeah. And no matter what you call them, I absolutely love them. I, I love shawarma's, doner's and, and kebabs. Uh, and all, well, most of it, not too shitty ones though, but, but still, I, I grew up on these things, I love them, [00:05:00] especially after a hard night out, uh, like, there's nothing like a roll of kebab before you go to bed.

Um Anyway, enough about that for now. Tell us a little bit about you, Ali. Um, who, who, I mean, we want you on here for several reasons. I mean, you're a legendary bitcoiner, legendary comedian, legendary shawarma man, and, uh, legendary YouTuber. You've, you've got like, uh, at least one gazillion subscribers now.

So, who are you? Give us the TLDR on Ali.

Ali: Yeah, so, TLDR, I'm a, Canadian born immigrant, which means, like, I was, like, born Canadian, like, my parents were the original immigrants, but my parents ended up moving back to the Middle East for, for work, and I was born there and grew up there. And then I moved to Canada in 2011, right after the Arab Spring, the Egyptian Revolution, I was part of [00:06:00] that, and then I came to Canada after and with the intent of You know, starting my career here, we were looking, me and my brother, which is my partner, we were looking for a business to buy, to kind of, you know, give us a start.

And we found the Shorma restaurant in London, Ontario, that was for sale, so we ended up buying it. We had no experience at all in the restaurant industry. And the first few years were a little bit chaotic while we were trying to find our footing and figure the restaurant business out. TLDR again, like we figured it out and then we opened a second restaurant and then a third restaurant all in Ontario, London, Ontario.

And then from there, a lot of people came up to us and wanted to open like their own tahini. So they wanted us to franchise and we opened our first, [00:07:00] uh, franchise location in late 2019 or early 2020, I wanna say. And from there we just kept growing this business. Uh, until now we're at 41 locations all over Canada.

41 tahinis all over Canada. And, um, yeah, throughout the way, we were trying to be innovative as much as possible. So within our marketing strategy, early on, we realized that, you know, we're competing with McDonald's, Burger King, and KFC, and all these guys have a thousand X more budget, if not more in marketing dollars.

So we had to find like a creative way to sort of reach our, our guests and our potential guests. So we adopted, uh, social media in an, in its organic [00:08:00] form, trying to create content that would reach the masses organically without any, um, paid ads or stuff like that. And, uh, I started, I think we were like the first restaurant to, to be on TikTok, or one of the first, at least that I know.

every, every platform, YouTube, we were like the first restaurant to probably hit a million subscribers as a restaurant account. Like, I know there's like personal chefs that do it, that also have restaurants, but as, as a restaurant only account, uh, we were probably the first restaurant to hit a million subscribers.

And we just kept getting better and better at that until now we have more subscribers than McDonald's, Burger King, KFC combined.

Knut: Wow, that's so cool. And like, so you, when did you hit a million, and when did you hit two [00:09:00] million, because that, two million is pretty recent, right?

Ali: Yeah, uh, yeah. Last year we, we hit a million and then this year we hit two million, I believe. Yeah.

Knut: that's super cool. Like, uh, people always say when they talk about millions that the first million is the hardest one and it gets easier after that. And I think that's true for YouTube views. However, I don't think it's true for Bitcoin. In Bitcoin, the first million is the easiest one. It gets increasingly harder after that.

And that's a feature, not a bug. Yeah.

Tahini's Bitcoin Standard

Knut: So, so how does Bitcoin come into all of this? When did you find Bitcoin and when did you realize that this is the thing where we need to start accepting it at our restaurants and stuff like that?

Ali: Yes. So Bitcoin kind of like stormed in, uh, stormed through the gates, during 2020 for [00:10:00] us. So during 2020, uh, when the COVID pandemic hit, our restaurants got like, At that time we only had, four restaurants and sales dropped from like, you know, dropped 80 percent in a week. From there, we obviously like, you know, um, went all out seven days a week trying to keep the restaurants afloat.

And at the same time, personally, I had, I was, uh, sitting in a lot of cash. And when everything crashed, I decided, you know what, this is like my, my Warren Buffett moment, my 2008 Warren Buffett moment, where I go in and buy all these, uh, stocks for cheap. So I go in and I buy everything, and I put in a lot of money, and then, you know.

I also buy a little bit of Bitcoin because it, [00:11:00] it had crashed, uh, like 50 percent that month. And I was like, I have no idea what this thing is. I'll just buy a little bit of it. So I buy it. And then, you know, there's, um, a lot of people say like, you truly start to learn about something after you buy it.

And that's exactly what happened. So I started going down this Bitcoin rabbit hole where I was like, um, reading Bitcoin articles. Uh, listening to podcasts. Started getting books and reading books and the more I fell into this rabbit hole, the more my allocation grew and it grew from like 5 percent to 10 percent to 20 percent to 50 percent to 80 percent to, holy shit, you know what, this is probably the biggest opportunity, in my life, so I'm just going to go all in.

So I sold everything else and I just went all in on [00:12:00] Bitcoin. And this is like over a few months. Right. And, but then from there, it sort of like it, it kind of hit me that it's not just the biggest opportunity in my life. It's, it's almost like a way of life. And when I had that change, like that paradigm shift, I was like, okay, I need to implement, I need to implement this into my family.

So my parents, my, my siblings, like everybody that I love. But I also need to incorporate that into my business. So, I orange pilled my partners along the way. They became Bitcoiners, not as hardcore as I am, but they became Bitcoiners. And then, in August, we decided, like, I personally ran out of money and I just wanted to buy more Bitcoin.

And in August, we decided to put the company's [00:13:00] money into buying Bitcoin as well. so we did that. And, uh, we, we tweeted about it. That's, that's when I created like the tahini tick, the Twitter account. Right. And we tweeted about it. We said, okay. Like we're a company out of London, Ontario. We, we have this, this, and we decided to adopt Bitcoin as a treasury reserve.

And that was like a week after Michael Saylor, uh, did his move. That's. Michael really kind of like pushed us over the cliff, like we were debating about it, and then -Michael really like, you know, uh, gave us that last push, and it was probably one of the best business decisions ever made in, in, in our company.

And, um, yeah, we just kept buying Bitcoin on a regular basis ever since. And, uh, we haven't looked back.

Knut: That's such a cool story. And you know, Michael's company name [00:14:00] implies that he might not keep up to restaurant standards when it comes to cooking, since micro implies microwave, right?

Ali: should change his company to Macrostrategy instead.

Knut: yeah. He's becoming a micro strategist and not a micro strategist. Oh, well, but that's, yeah, what a cool story.

The Growth of Tahini's

Knut: Uh, so, so, is Tahinis still only Canada only or is it, uh,

Ali: Yes. So our, like, our game plan and our strategy is basically to conquer Canada first and then move to the US and then move internationally. So, um, we're in that conquering Canada phase. 42 locations is a pretty, you know, good achievement for, for four years. Um, from, from our first franchise that opened.

So, but next year we will be opening our first location in the US. I don't have a confirmation on which [00:15:00] city exactly that's going to be. There's multiple options on the table right now, but next year, we're within the next 12 months. we're looking at, uh, our first U. S. location.

Knut: and where does the name Tahinis come from? Is that your surname?

Ali: Uh, no, it's just, it's just a name that we came up with. Tahini is, is like one of our main sauces that we use

Knut: Okay.

Ali: in the restaurant. The tahini sauce, it's like a sesame paste.

And we, we kind of saw it as like, we want to be like the Chipotles of the Middle East sort of thing. So, so we got the inspiration from that idea.

Knut: All right. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I've, I've seen your videos and first of all, they're hilarious, uh, and, uh, second, Uh, they look extremely tasty. I'm like, why isn't there a tahini's here over here? Like I would go every day. Maybe not. Maybe that's a lie. I would go once a week. [00:16:00] Uh, yeah. So if, if you ever need to start a tahini's somewhere in Europe, maybe we can, maybe we can figure that out somehow.

Ali: Yeah, so we're, we're, we're looking at the UK right now. the, the challenge with opening franchises is that you need a partner, right? You need a partner that is sold on, on the restaurant, sold on the business that wants to open their own tahinis. So, so that's, you know, having somebody in Canada is easy and the States a little bit easier, but international, it's, it's a little bit more of a challenge.

So, but yeah, we're, we're going to get there eventually. It just needs more time.

Knut: cool. UK is not really Europe anymore though. I'm sorry, but they left.

Ali: Oh yeah, I don't know. It is to me.

Knut: They, they're not in, they're not in this lovely, you know, flag with stars on the front. [00:17:00] And, uh, red background, uh, I mean a blue brack background, uh, this wonderful free trade agreement thing that turned into, you know, strawberry measuring contest. Anyway, um, yeah. Luke, do you have any questions for Ali?

The Canadian Situation

Luke: Yeah, so, uh, so I'm, I'm from Canada, um, Calgary, uh, and, and, uh, yeah, I, I am a recent lever from, from Canada. I've, I've been in Finland almost three years now. and I didn't leave only because of, of what was going on politically, uh, but the, the, the thing was that life was getting pretty tough, uh, under Justin Trudeau, especially, especially, uh, in, in Alberta.

and, and, yeah, just, uh, your, your take, uh, um, on, on kind of how, how things are going in Canada right now, because it, I mean, There's, there's, uh, [00:18:00] there's a lot of optimistic people, uh, in Canada, a lot of Bitcoiners that are, that are doing great things and are, are super optimistic. Uh, what's, what's your take on Bitcoin in Canada, the Canadian situation in general?

Uh, open-ended question sort of.

Ali: Yeah. I mean, like when it comes to politics, like it's, you know, I used to care a lot and now I just realized that the best thing. The best political move or stance you could take is to just focus on Bitcoin because, you know, if most of the problems in, in the world today is because the money is broken and left, right, uh, you know, I stopped caring.

And, uh, you know, if the only thing I would engage in with politics is to [00:19:00] help Bitcoin move forward, uh, so I did have, Pierre Poliev, who's the guy running against Trudeau right now, I Had him come to Tahini and he bought a shawarma with Bitcoin and it was big news. It was like the first, you know, uh, can, you know, candidate that, uh, bought something with Bitcoin.

And I also also, Pierre became, we became good friends, uh, from there. And he also invited me to speak to the finance committee and the finance minister and the, the members of parliament. Uh, for the, the yearly financial budget. So, like, it was like this meeting where they were going to decide, okay, what are we going to spend on, what are we going to spend all this printed money on, right?

So, I went up there and I prepared a 5 minute, speech [00:20:00] trying to convince them that they I should be open to adopting Bitcoin as, as like a new technology, they should ride the technology wave of Bitcoin, like El Salvador, and they should, I told, I recommended that they should adopt Bitcoin as legal tender.

And then finally, I told them that they should borrow 10 billion from the Central Bank of Canada, and they should go buy Bitcoin with it. And of course, I got laughed at, you know, especially on the way down during the bear market, uh, everybody was dunking on us and they're like, huh, like, hey, how's that, you know, how's that Bitcoin thing going, you know, like.

Uh, so, from there, if I look back, when, when I recommended the [00:21:00] government should buy 10 billion worth of Bitcoin, Bitcoin I think was at 50, 000 Canadian, it's now at 90 something thousand dollars Canadian. So, they would have made a lot of money if they listened to me, but they didn't, so now I get to tell them I told you so, and, you know, maybe I can do a push, try to rally Canadians to try to convince the government to be more Bitcoin friendly, and I think that's honestly, like, that's the best thing to focus on.

everything else is just noise.

Luke: Yeah, so, and definitely that's a great perspective and interesting that you got so involved, I guess, in the little bit that Canada has dipped its toes, I suppose, politically into Bitcoin. Just leaving the politics aside though, I mean, uh, Uh, how is the Bitcoin scene [00:22:00] in Canada going right now? Again, lots of great Bitcoiners in Canada.

I saw that there was recently a setback in BullBitcoin's Canada Post thing, but it seems like the Bitcoin community in Canada is doing really well. What's your take on that?

Ali: The Bitcoin community is probably like the, and that's like worldwide, the best community I've ever been a part of. And, um, the Canadian Bitcoin community, especially like you put sound money with, with just cool and nice people, like the, that combination is killer, right? That's why you get like, Incredible Bitcoiners here in Canada like, you know, um, Francis, Jeff Booth, from, you know, and Greg Foss and, and, uh, Brad Mills and, and like so many amazing Bitcoiners here. [00:23:00] And the, the best thing about The, the, well, for Canadian Bitcoiners, it's there, it's exploding. We have the Canadian Bitcoin conference happening in May.

We have like a Bitcoin halving party organized in Ontario where hundreds of people are going to show up. Uh, so it's a very tight niche, crazy community. but we're very loud and we make a splash and, you know, Uh, we're, we're causing waves and we're causing ripple effects and overall it's just, we're just another part of the Bitcoin network and we're doing our own thing and we love everybody else and like, this is, this is the best thing about Bitcoin.

Like Bitcoin as a network is borderless. It's open, permissionless, and there's nothing more [00:24:00] open and secure than, you know, other than Bitcoin. And it sort of translates to the community. So the community ends up being borderless. Right? I, you know, you know, love you guys more than a lot of people that I know very well here.

And the reason is because I know, you know, you guys have the same ideas and the same level of thinking and we have the same mission. And we're all about truth. So, I already connect with you guys more than I connect with a lot of people here that I know and I, like, you know, some people I work with even, like, every day.

So, this is the best thing, in my opinion, about the Bitcoin community. The other thing too is just, they're [00:25:00] so nice, they like, when we announced, uh, our Bitcoin strategy for the company, that was like our, our coming out moment. And we were just met with nothing but love from the community. Everybody was like, retweeting about it and, and talking about tahinis and like seeing like amazing things about us.

And it was like, man, these guys are awesome. So, uh, it just keeps getting better here in Canada for, for Bitcoiners and, and it's going to grow, especially in the coming couple years when more and more people start to come into the space. And, um, yeah, we're happy to be a beacon of hope.

Knut: Right back at you, man. And, uh, I saw a fantastic map, uh, the other day of, um, searches, Google searches for the word Bitcoin per capita in each country. And Canada is like, uh, has the biggest number. search number for the word Bitcoin per capita and on [00:26:00] the entire American, both American continents, which is pretty cool.

But I think it's due to some of the great Bitcoiners that are Canucks, like yourself, Luke, I mean, and everyone else we mentioned, and we're forgetting a lot too. Um, but. The thing you said about the network, let me try to give you a perspective here, if you can bear with me for a minute or two, like, and, and, uh, because I'd like to see what you think of this idea.

You Are Your Bitcoin

Knut: So, so I've had this idea for, uh, quite some time, um, that if you think about, What, what owning a Bitcoin is like, what does it mean to own a Bitcoin or even to possess a Bitcoin is even a better term for it because ownership is something more legal. Possession is when you really, when something is really possessed by you and with Bitcoin, you might be possessed by it as well, but that's another topic.

So the thing is. [00:27:00] Uh, when I think about that, like if you memorize your, the first thought I had was like, if you memorize your 12 magic words, your seed phrase, uh, and you destroy every other location that seed phrase exists in, then those bitcoins exist solely in your head. That's where they are. They're nowhere else. But when you think a little deeper about that, you realize that that is true for all bitcoins, because all owning them means is you're keeping a secret. You don't really own them. You have the ability to unlock them and move them, right? So it's not really ownership. It's not really possession either. It's something else. And if you take this thought even further, if you think about what a computer is, Um, then all that is it's ones and zeros in a row. Like, so it's calculating stuff for human beings, but it's basically just an extension of our brains. It's like an abacus, but a very, very advanced abacus. Uh, [00:28:00] so all the computers used in Bitcoin are just extensions of the Bitcoiners minds.

And the, the miner is not the hangar full of ASICs. It's the guy deciding to buy all those ASICs and run the software. That's the miner. Especially we can get into the debate of miners versus hash salesmen and that you need to connect to a transparent pool if you actually want to be a Bitcoin miner. But let's not go there for now.

Like, also, if you're running a node to see that the transactions you make and the transactions you receive are valid and follow the rules that you define as Bitcoin, that node is not Actually, the Raspberry Pi running Umbral, it's you deciding to run the software, regardless of if you're running Bitcoin Core on an old laptop or, you know, [00:29:00] something else on a Start 9 or a Raspberry Pi or whatever. The point is, there's a person behind all of it. And the computers involved are just extensions of our minds. So we, we aren't, maybe not all Satoshi, but we are the Satoshis. And that's what makes a Satoshi something else than just mere data. Uh, it's all the other data can be copied, but we are the bitcoins. So you and I, and Luke, We're not only parts of the same network, we're parts of the same entity. We are more than mere humans. We are Bitcoin. We are Legion. We cannot be stopped.

Ali: I

Knut: Deal with it. G E F Y. Like, it's wonderful. Yeah.

Ali: Yeah. I love, I love that idea. And that's, that's the, [00:30:00] that's the reason why the bond between Bitcoiners is so strong and it's so strong without, without us having to meet each other. So, yeah, absolutely. Like, uh, I, I like to, you know, if you go back in history, you, you know, you can see that one of the main, um, reasons for civilizations to, to grow and expand Bitcoin is by trade and throughout history, almost, well, I don't want to say all wars, but most wars have been fought for those trade routes.

And what Bitcoin basically came and did is that, and it's the first thing that ever [00:31:00] conceived of that idea, is that it secured our trade routes forever. So we can, you know, we can have true relationships. So we were able to connect with each other without having the need for militaries and governments to protect our trade and our communication and all of that.

So it opened the front to, for like people to deal with one another in a completely different way. Like we've never seen anything like this. In history, there's, there was always wars for trades and, and, um, wars between nations and Bitcoin came and just flipped out over its head and said, okay, you can securely trade with one another now, um, let's see who you are.

Right. And we're seeing that [00:32:00] in real life right now. So it's, it's pretty amazing. And that's just the only thing like I can add that was an amazing rant, by the way. And we are Bitcoin. I love that.

Knut: Yeah, it's hard to debunk, right? You can't really say, uh, I mean, I'm made up of kebab and bitcoin. That's, that's basically my body. Yes.

Ali: Me too.

Knut: There you go! Shawarma, sorry. Yeah, I mean, the non violent interactions. These are all trades, like we're trading right now, we're trading information, we're trading words. Like everything's a trade, until you introduce violence. And for, for anyone to engage in anything consensually, uh, they need to think that there's something in it for them.

otherwise the, the interaction doesn't happen. And this is true for all trades, but I would say it's true for every human [00:33:00] interaction that is not violent. And as soon as you introduce violence, one party loses, uh, one party wins at the expense of the other. Like, that's just what happens. And we've been living in a, all of human history is, is colored by this mix between consensual interactions and non consensual interactions, which are all over the place.

And so we're taught in schools that democracy is the shit, da shit. But Civilization happened despite democracy, not because of it. Like democracy might have been better than other hindering hindrance systems that were in place before it. We can debate that too, but still it's not the thing that makes Societies work.

Trade is like free trade is the thing [00:34:00] that makes makes things work in the l Farron. so, so that's just what, what I think now, now we've got a system that they cannot do anything about, and that is very, very important. Expensive to try to attack, regardless of if you try to attack the Bitcoiner, because the Bitcoiner can just die with all the Bitcoin in his head.

The Bitcoiner doesn't have to give you all his Bitcoins because you cannot know how many Bitcoins another person has. I don't know if you have 10 or a hundred or a million, like, and I can never know. So, and that's true for everyone on earth, by the way. So we just, as you said, we've, uh, flipped everything.

So yeah, that's what I find so insanely fascinating about it. But I truly believe that this notion that we are our bitcoins is why you feel that way, that you love us more than some other poor soul that is working for you. But, uh, but yeah, I feel it too. We all do.

Ali: Yeah, I agree. And the other [00:35:00] thing to, to add to your point is like, you know, if they even like kill a Bitcoiner, you just, by killing that Bitcoiner and that Bitcoiner dies a little Bitcoin, like in his head. You've just, you've also made every other Bitcoin, Bitcoiner stronger because you, you, you know, you remove those coins from the network or from the circulating supply and just made everybody else stronger.

So you can't kill us. We're just going to come back stronger. It's like the Hydra that you cut it off and comes back with two heads, you know, so it's, it's so resilient. And yeah, it's just amazing to, to be a part of. I'm so bullish on, on so many aspects about Bitcoin. The other, the other aspect, like another aspect that I'm really bullish on is that, you know, the, the decentralized, the decentralized.

Characteristic of the community. [00:36:00] So Bitcoin being a decentralized network, you know, benefits that the actual network in a massive way. But when you put a decentralized community on top of that as well, everybody all over the world is doing their own thing to help advance Bitcoin, you know, uh, you guys, you're writing books, you're doing a podcast, you're, you're doing so many other things.

I'm, uh, you know, trying to talk about Bitcoin for businesses, for people in Canada, you know, somebody in the U. S. is doing their own thing, and we're all doing this in a way where we're not like coordinated, you know, where we're organized in a decentralized manner, but we're not coordinated. And it's almost like we're like a [00:37:00] decentralized intelligence agency.

Yeah. Yeah. That is secret. That is like pushing, um, the success of its own empire or its own country. Like, if you consider like, you know, you know, there's like a Bitcoin empire or Bitcoin country, right? Every single one of us is like a member of this like intelligence agency that is like pushing to advance education, the adoption, the, the, uh, purchasing of, of Bitcoin.

And we're all doing it in a completely decentralized way. And we don't even know that we're doing it. That's the crazy part. We don't even know that we're doing this. We're just doing it.

Knut: I would say we're, uh, emerging, we're, we're, we're an emergent phenomenon arising from a very simple set of rules that we agree to, and that are fixed. so Bitcoin is nothing more than, uh, an agreement on a [00:38:00] fixed set of rules. And we are this. Emerging phenomenon on top of that, that is like blooming like a great big flower and just becoming more and more beautiful and more and more multifaceted as, as time goes by.

And it's a fascinating time to be alive for sure. And especially if you're in this community, because it truly feels like you have a front row seat to the future of humanity. Simply amazing.

Adopting a Bitcoin Strategy

Ali: Absolutely, absolutely. And I just want to tell like, uh, I hope, like I'm trying to be as beneficial to your audience as, as possible, but, um, as a business, when you consider Bitcoin as part of your strategy, Thank you. it's it's so beneficial in so many ways. Um, you can't go wrong by doing it. So the biggest way it's beneficial and is that it's it increases your purchasing power.

just look at the [00:39:00] proof. We got in this August 2024, over a four year time period, our purchasing power had more than 5x,

so, like, it's so beneficial in that way, and nothing else By the way, nothing else does that for you, you know, like, you try to buy real estate, you try to leave it in bonds, you try to overborrow debt, like, it just, it hurts your business, you know, you need, as a business, you need to be, like, well capitalized and, you know, Michael Saylor talks about that a lot and, you know, Uh, you should really like, you know, whether Michael Saylor, I know he's buying billions of Bitcoin, but you can buy as a business, you can buy thousands, you know, it'll still have the same effect.

You'll still get the same benefit that Michael Saylor gets as a small operator, [00:40:00] right? And personally, you should be considering that as well, like you're, if you don't own your own business, it has the same effect. So, truly consider, because you can't make it with just thinking about income. You really can't.

You're going to run faster and faster on a hamster wheel, chasing a currency that's getting weaker and weaker, exponentially more weaker, meeker. You'll never catch up. So you need to have a balance sheet strategy to match with that income strategy. Not saying don't go out, like trying to grow your income and get other sources of income.

Do all that, but have a strategy for your balance sheet as well, because one strategy is not enough.

Knut: No, absolutely. Uh, yeah, that's a good, I I would say that, um, a Bitcoin strategy probably benefits a smaller company even more [00:41:00] than it benefits a, a, a, a big actor like MicroStrategy. because like a small actor, uh, a big actor can afford to lose and can afford a lot, uh, a small actor. You know, even more important, the smaller you are, I'd say, it's because it's your only option, basically, uh, the everything bubble is real, the currency, the dollar isn't working, the euro isn't working, it's, it's, Well, it's working for some, but it's at the expense of everyone else.

And it's sort of like the, uh, the last days of the Soviet Union. If they only knew we could all, even them, even they could have a better life. Like if they stopped the money printing, it would benefit even them. I truly believe so. Like it would benefit everyone. Uh, Bitcoin adoption absolutely does that. I just like to.

Devil's advocate. One thing you said before, because I don't like people to have an incentive to kill Bitcoiners, [00:42:00] and that is, yeah. While it's true that you increase the scarcity of all the coins in circulations, uh, in circulation, if you kill a Bitcoin or with the Bitcoins in its head, you also remove a potential trading partner from the market. that might even out, at least in the short run, so don't go around killing Bitcoiners, trade with them instead. It's way, way, way more, uh, pleasurable, less costly, and, uh, better.

Luke:

We also have no idea if anyone actually owns any Bitcoin too. That's the thing. As far as any of us know, none of us own any Bitcoin, and that's probably good.

Knut: No, no, no, we, we, I, I, I just, my, my boating accident, uh, company, uh, just, uh, went bankrupt. So, so, uh, I mean, we, we've lost all the Bitcoin in, in all of those accidents. So, like, there's no, no Bitcoins left.

Ali: Yeah. Yeah. I go on a boating trip every time I buy Bitcoin. Like it's, it's, it's a really [00:43:00] nice habit. Bitcoiners have, you know,

Knut: Yeah, professional boating accident, like, uh, yeah, there's something there.

[00:44:00]

Bitcoin an Non-Haram Money

Luke: Yeah, [00:45:00] this has been a fun conversation. We're right around the corner from one of the big events in the Bitcoin calendar, so to say. Uh, the having this episode might be out after that, but, but anyway, uh, uh, what are your thoughts on the upcoming few years, uh, this having cycle? Uh, any thoughts there? Uh, are you as bullish as the rest of us?

Ali: Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, the layout that we have is just incredible. Um, everything that, you know, happened over the last four years. with Bitcoin's run right now and the ETFs coming in and then the halving right around the corner, the layout is just, it's impossible to miss. Like, you can't with a sane mind say [00:46:00] that dismiss Bitcoin or say, oh, it's probably a fad or it's tulips or it's this or it's that.

Like, uh, You can't have, like, you'll just sound like an idiot if you say that, and people do sound like they still, some people do still say that, like Peter Schiff, and, you know, he's considered to be an idiot by almost everyone now, right? It's, it's, it's undeniable at this point. And it's becoming more and more of a reality.

And one thing that I find really bullish that I don't think a lot of other people are sort of, thinking about or talking about is the idea of Bitcoin Non haram money, there

Luke: please. Please explain. This is awesome. Thank you. Great, great angle. Yeah, go ahead.

Ali: yeah, nobody's thinking about this, but there's, there's like 1. [00:47:00] 8 billion Muslims in the world. Okay. And in our religion, the last, like, sermon that the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, gave us. Do not do usury. Okay. Do not. Interest is forbidden. Usury is forbidden. Do not do it. And for centuries, we didn't do it.

Okay. We avoided usury until the global debt economy took over the world with the last century. And we had almost, almost as if, you know, Muslims all over the world just kind of got dragged into this. Economy with, uh, no other option. And we were like, okay. I guess that's just, you know, the way things work.[00:48:00]

But what they don't realize is that everything they own and touch in their fiat world is a USY based system. Now, for the first time we have. A non usury based system, which, because of just, just because of it being there, it becomes haram to leave any money in the fiat, in the, in the normal fiat system, right?

So another example of this is like, one thing that is haram for Muslims is, is eating pork, right? But if you're stuck in an island and that island has nothing but pigs on the island, You're, you're allowed to eat the pigs. You're not allowed to starve to death, right? [00:49:00] So, the fiat system was almost, is almost like the pigs on the island analogy for us.

Now that, that we have, once a cow comes in, those cows start coming into the island and we start breeding them and we have a sustainable, like cow ecosystem. Okay, then we can just not eat the pork and eat the cow, right? And Bitcoin is like the cow for us, right? So, it's a, it's a halal way for Muslims to save, conduct trade, adopt as, as a means of, of savings that, you know, Non negotiable at this point.

Again, going back to like, you can't deny it at this point. You have to start looking into it and start seeing it. And I think once 1. 8 billion people start looking [00:50:00] into this, they're not just gonna like convert, you know, 5 percent or 10%. They're gonna move everything over, right? And it's gonna start with, start with the big money.

It's going to start with all the royal families in the Middle East, it's going to start with all of these, and then once they get it, they become Bitcoiners, they become intelligence officers within the Bitcoin network, they start seeing the idea that, you know, Bitcoin is non haram money. And they start telling everybody about it and start preaching about it, then you're just going to convert everybody at this point.

And that's, that's what one of the things that might not happen like this cycle, but it's, I think it's happening with, like, it's going to happen more and more at an exponentially increasing rate. over the next decade. [00:51:00] And I'm very bullish about that.

Knut: there's this, uh, is it a sheik or an emir, I can't remember, but from Oman, right? That's, uh, traveling around in a private jet and talking to Bukele and all of these people.

Ali: Yeah, they're getting more and more exposed to it.

Knut: and, uh, and yeah, uh, I think most, it's more common for Muslims to take these things seriously than, than for Christians, I guess. Uh, yeah. So hopefully we'll, I, yeah, I think this is totally underrated because as soon as they, you see it, you can't unsee it. It's, it's sort

Ali: Once you see it, it's like you switch, like, like, you don't, you don't see Muslims like, you know, um, eating pork as an exception anymore.

Knut: no, it's, it's, it's like, I was just gonna say, it's, it's just like the first time you taste bacon. You never go back afterwards.

Ali: yeah, sort [00:52:00] of,

Knut: sorry about that. Yeah.

Ali: Yeah, but like, once they see it, they're just gonna switch. Okay, I'm just gonna switch and not just see it, but see, see it and see it working for 20 years, right? It's not just seeing, it's seeing a proven track record as well, and a better system, you know, that is not haram, because everything they're doing is haram.

Their car is haram. Their house is haram, their savings account is haram, their checking account is like a haram as well, because that's like a sort of like short term bond, right? It's all debt, it's all usury, everything, right? So yeah, it's a, it's a big catalyst in my opinion, that's eventually going to hit and eventually just going to go exponential.

Knut: Yeah. I know Seyfriedin has had a couple of people talk about this on his [00:53:00] pod. I've listened to some of them, but not all of them. And it's a very interesting, uh, Angle, because I think most people underestimate how important that is in the Arab world. It's, it's a really big thing. And like Arab banks, as far as I know, they, they get around that Haram Haral thing by, uh, and not doing, they, they, they figure out other ways to actually do interest, but they don't call it that.

Like you have to deposit this amount in order to get this amount and whatever.

Ali: the word interest for fee.

Knut: Yeah, yeah,

Ali: That's all they do.

Knut: so, uh, yeah, hard to not be uber bullish, absolutely, and, um,

Ali: Let's go, baby.

Knut: yeah, Bitcoin and, Bitcoin and

Ali: I'm ready. You better buy some more Bitcoin.

Knut: absolutely. Alright, uh, what else do we have, Luke?

Wrapping Up

Luke: Yeah, [00:54:00] anything else on your mind? Uh, like, uh, anything you haven't told us about tahinis, uh, anything you're, you're doing right now in the space? Uh, the floor is yours. Anything else you want to talk about?

Ali: no, not really. I mean, just, you know, if you're in town or around the Tahinis, come give it, give us a try. We have some good food. Good shawarmas. and follow us on, on Twitter. We're, we're, we're going to try to, Twitter is basically the, the avenue we used to, talk about Bitcoin and talk about our Bitcoin story and, and any Bitcoin related topics.

Uh, but follow us everywhere else. You know, we'd love for you guys to be our guests, to come be our friends, be our, um, you know, loyal Tahini fans. And, uh, we'd love to feed you and, uh, yeah, that's, that's about it. We're about to, we have like Bitcoin ATMs at all, [00:55:00] not all, sorry, at a lot of Tahini locations.

So if you want to buy some Bitcoin with cash, come to the restaurants, get some cash, and you can buy some Bitcoin at Tahini. Uh, we're still not accepting Bitcoin for payments for all guests because, our POS and the technology, we, it's still not there. We haven't figured out a way to do it Also in like a franchising model.

Type of way where, it can just all integrate easily. So we're still working on that. Bitcoiners get really mad at me for, for not accepting Bitcoin at Tahini. but we're, we're slowly working on that. We just need, you know, the integrations and the APIs and technologies to kind of catch up. Uh, we're early guys.

super early, right? So, But yeah, we're, we're, we're doing the best we can to, to push the, the Bitcoin movement forward. So,

Knut: Yeah, this is something I don't [00:56:00] get, like, uh, a lot of Bitcoiners get flack for accepting fiat, and you should be Bitcoin only and stuff. I, uh, I get messages like that, like, uh, why do you charge euros for your t shirts? And I'm like, dude, uh, I, the reason I can do this Bitcoin thing for, uh, full time, I need something to show for it for the authorities.

You know, I need some sort of fiat income. Otherwise I get a big spotlight aimed at me. I'm probably getting that anyway, but you know, uh, there are reasons. And if you want to buy something for Bitcoin from me or from you, I guess, just send us a DM if I can solve it. It's easy. What?

Luke: Will we, will we be seeing you in person at some point? Uh, uh, we're going to all the European conferences mostly. Uh, did you have any plans to get over this side of the world?

Ali: Uh, unfortunately not this year. Um, [00:57:00] my, my And I won't be able to come to like the main Bitcoin conference this year. My wife's having her, we're having our fourth kid, um, in the month of the conference. So, uh, it's, thank you. So it's going to be hard for, for me to go to any conferences this year, probably.

I'm just going to the Canadian Bitcoins, Bitcoiners conference. And that's in May and that's about it this year. I'm just going to bunker down until the little newborn is, is kind of grown up a little bit.

Knut: well, family first. Anyway, I hope to see you, uh, in real life too. Um, As soon as possible, even if it's not this year, I'm sure it'll be one of these years. So Ali, thank you very much for coming on. Uh, it's been a wonderful conversation and we hope to see lots of you on the internets in the future. So yeah, take care.

Ali: Thanks for having me, guys.

Luke: Thanks a lot. This has been the Freedom Footprint Show. Thanks for [00:58:00] listening.