21 in 21: Rod Roudi

Rod, welcome to the 21 and 21 show. I'm so excited to be here. I am so excited that I could get you on the show because you were like a huge inspiration to Presidio Bitcoin. Well, thank you.

Again, this is so rad. I mean, it's an incredible view, incredible atmosphere. What you guys have done is just awesome. Thank you.

For those of you that don't know Rod Rudy, he's dedicated significant time to building local strong Bitcoin communities. In 2022, he co-founded Bitcoin Park, a hub in Nashville, Tennessee, which has become one of the most active gatherings for places for Bitcoiners in the world. And then earlier this year, that expanded to Austin, Texas, which was super exciting to hear. And Rod's also the co-founder of the 256 Foundation.

And before making his passion for Bitcoin into his profession, he spent years building companies, investing, and advising founders. You nailed it. And now a father of four young kids, seven, five, three, and two, which is just absolutely wild. I should have put that in the intro because it's crazy that you do that and then you do all that.

I don't know how. Although my daughter's basketball team, I'm like the assistant to the assistant coach, and we're 0-4 right now. So that's top of mind for me right now. Okay.

Actually, one of my questions on here is about basketball. Oh, good. So you jump to that quickly. Good, because you're going to try to yourself up with that.

Cool, cool. Well, let's get through some of these questions. Let's get let's do it. All right.

So first question for you. If you had to explain Bitcoin Park to someone who's never never visited before, how would you describe it? Yeah. So I would say, simply put, Bitcoin Park is a place for Bitcoiners and Freedom Fighters to work, learn, collaborate, and build.

It's a physical place. And now hopefully we're going to build more of a digital realm as well, especially for the folks that are participate or want to participate that can't make it to Austin or Nashville. So I'd say it's a home for mission-obsessed Bitcoiners and freedom fighters who want to work, collaborate together locally and level up together globally. That's an amazing description.

Yeah. And as I said, Bitcoin Park was like a huge inspiration to Presidio Bitcoin before we started this place. We felt like huge FOMO, that we didn't have something cool in San Francisco. And so we started it.

Totally. And, you know, I'll never forget. I think it was February of 2023. So each of the months, because I had to like manufacture themes and so on.

So we did FOSS February, where we invited so many FOSS teams to the park just to work. And Steve and you took us up on it. And you invited the entire Spiral team out for I think one of your first retreats or off sites. And you guys were like, what the heck is this place?

And then next thing you know, fast forward a couple of years later and you guys got your own, I mean, redonkulous place. Bitcoin Park in Nashville. I haven't been to Austin yet, actually. I've never been to Austin.

Austin's great, too. At all, so I need to go. And now there's a bigger reason to. Yeah.

No, totally. Like, the Austins, I would say, is the OG. And Parker, who's one of my closest friends in Bitcoin, started, helped amplify the BitDevs there, and then helped lead and start the Bitcoin Commons, which then became Bitcoin Park Austin. Very cool.

so you guys are a huge inspiration to us i'm curious when you were building out bitcoin park what was what was your inspiration that is a very good question and funny enough i was just talking with uh leo lopez and a few others last night at dinner and he just they just had berlin uh freedom week and i remember in 20 i want to say it was 2019 for the lightning conference a bunch of us were in Berlin. And there was this place called Room 77, if I remember it correctly. And it was just a dive bar that accepted Bitcoin.

And it was one of the first ones. And we were there when it was the last day of that place. And I was just like, wow, how cool of a place for Bitcoiners to gather, to have a drink, to work. People were working there.

They were hanging. And I was just like, man, I think there's something there. So Room 77 was an inspiration. Honestly, I was hearing stories about these Bitcoin embassies.

And then after time, it just, you know, and I loved meetups. So before I went full-time into Bitcoin, I was in the tech world and I would just travel to different meetups or conferences. I was that guy that was just traveling around, bumping around. And I was like, and especially when COVID hit, I was like, we got to figure out a place that we can bring people to Nashville and do this.

It's a prime example of if you build it, they will come. But you've also put so much effort into getting really, I mean, and Nashville is awesome. Don't get me wrong. But I will say it's a smaller, you know, it's not a huge international airport.

It's like when people come visit Nashville, they have to do like multiple stops. And people are doing that. Like, how are you getting all these people to come to Nashville? Totally.

So I will say the airport is awesome and growing. But with that said, you're right. Like, no, we have a London direct. We have a Dublin direct.

I think we're going to get a Tokyo. So that's my Nashville, Tennessee pitch hat. But similar to what you guys are doing, you guys just hosted Startup Night. You guys are doing Type 1 Energy Summit, which I heard was amazing.

You guys are doing stuff that's unique, that gives you energy. I was just talking to Alex. I was like, does this give you energy? He's like, absolutely.

This is awesome for X, Y, and Z reasons. That enthusiasm and energy, just people feel that and then want to be around it. And you don't need hundreds of people, thousands of people to show up. You just need the great core group of five 10 20 30 people that are all about it And so in Nashville A it is a fun place to visit A lot of people want to visit it for the first time or so on It fairly modestly priced compared to a New York or a San Francisco or even Texas and such.

And yeah, and we just, I feel like the kind of stuff that we create between our meetups, workshops, and summits are so unique and highly curated. So I love the saying, Bitcoin is for anyone, but not for everyone. And I feel like these different, like 90 plus percent of our programming is free and open to the public. So you can pick and choose where you spend your time with us.

And so we got to earn it every single time when we're creating these different experiences. Yeah, that was something that you told us before. You're like, events are key. You have to do events.

And that is definitely true. I think something that you have also done a really good job of, and I would love to know more, is how have you gotten the local community in Nashville who's not Bitcoiners to come to your space? So that's a good question. So how have we gotten the local community to come to our space?

So high-quality meetups, for sure. And then just natural word of mouth, I want to say. So like, oh, well, let me take a step back. Consistency is key.

and Parker taught me this third week of every month the third Thursday of every month there's a BitDevs happening in Austin we did I think it was the second Wednesday of every month was our open house and then our BitDevs is the second Tuesday of every month so that consistency for people's calendar to say you know what I need to get the babysitter I need to do this because I'm going to go spend my time over at the park so consistency was one and then I always kind of open up each of the meetups and say, look, we take a lot of pride and responsibility in making this the best Bitcoin experience and FreedomTech experience you're going to have all year.

Even this just meetup because you can spend your time anywhere. Right now I have a babysitter that I'm paying to help my wife do bedtime with four kids right now because I chose to be here and I want to be here with each of you. So taking a lot of pride and responsibility and making it the best experience from the drinks that are being served, from the programming and the content that's there, to communicating the content in the program leading up to the event, to helping even people with all the little things to make the experience awesome.

So I think that resonates. And then they tell their friends and family, and the next thing you know, you got something where both of our senators frequently come to the park. A governor comes to the park. Our ECD commissioner, our attorney general, our councilman, all these people, They just want to be around the energy and the people.

And that's been really, really cool to see. It's definitely an inspiration to me, especially with the local policy. It's a goal of mine to get the mayor here, Dan Lurie. I want him, Apple City Bitcoin.

And I think that there is a huge, compelling story around it because, and I'm sure you have felt the same, that having like a physical Bitcoin space brings so much energy. It brings people, but it also helps local businesses and Bitcoin payments. Now you guys have plushies. We have awesome plushies that we are distributing across the local area.

I will say on the policy side, folks, the key there is patience. Because, you know, so a lot of people are like, wait a minute, we want to get our senators to the park. We want to get the governor. So there's outbound and inbound.

so always just like i'll tell a quick story where we had a mayor's race and uh these folks were like hey i'm running for mayor i want to come to the park for the meetup i was like yeah sure come on and the guy came up in like a little suit and like even i think he had makeup on and i was like wow this is intense he's like okay cool when am i talking and when i'm like you're gonna contribute to our bit devs tonight like oh how like what do you know about bitcoin he's like nothing i just people probably want to hear like about me and so on i'm like no this is just a bitcoin focused meetup and it's specifically focused on these topics that we have you know you're more than welcome to stay here and then he got up and left which more power to you but like having an environment such that these people can come and welcome and participate so i'll tell one story about um senator haggerty he it was like three or four times where his team was like hey we want to come meet and so on.

And I was like, what do you guys want to meet about? Like, I don't know. And so finally we figured out this private round table where he was able to learn from a lot of different stakeholders and so on. And then the team kept on showing up to the meetups, kept on showing up to the meetups.

They're helping fold the chairs. They're helping all this stuff. Same with Senator Blackburn's team, same with Governor Lee's team. And I was like, wow, they're actually showing up and participating, which is I think the key here.

And that area, so I would, based on my experience is figuring out the teams around these people and then having them come and participate as an attendee and experience one of your awesome startup nights. Maybe come to Type 1 Energy Summit next year and see the former CTO of Facebook here and be like, why is the former CTO of Facebook? I thought Libra was their thing and they probably hate Bitcoin. Why are they involved?

And then all of a sudden they're like, oh, got it. The common denominator is freedom for freedom tech or whatever the story is. So that's my little rant on that front. Because it's like one of those things from the outside looking in, you'd think we were, it was very easy and you just need to do it.

It's like a lot of hundreds of meetups and thousands of people coming through the doors and just being consistent. Next time, yeah, definitely. Actually, this week marks our one year of soft launching Presidio Bitcoin. Let's go.

And you were there. Yeah. I was super honored to be there and I did like a 10 presentation That was we should like pop that up That would be cool Yeah. So big week.

Okay. So who do you think your most unexpected guest has been at? Either in Nashville or Austin. My most, or most unexpected guest.

Or maybe we want to shout out for someone coming to visit. you know most unexpected guest honestly like or someone you're most proud of getting to well Kathy's been great Kathy Wood we do a monthly Bitcoin podcast with her and she's been so kind to come up multiple times you know one person that she's introduced me to, and now his office is right up the street, which he's so awesome, is Dr. Art Laffer. So it's been awesome to see him at the park and have him be involved in the Bitcoin and Freedom Tech community.

I would say he's like 90 plus percent there on Bitcoin and gets it. I love that he's like, it needs to be more private. This is BS that everyone can see everyone's transactions and so on. We need private money.

But yeah, I would say Kathy and Dr. Laffer. very cool um so you guys i think do you still use btc pay for bitcoin payments or you guys accept bitcoin payments at yeah well i'll tell a quick story on that uh matt and i when we started bitcoin park we're like we're bitcoin only or you know hardcore and the price of bitcoin i think was like 40k and uh it just started dropping and it just started dropping and all of our costs are fiat denominated. And I mean, the price went down to 15K and it was just like, I'm like ready to sell everything in the park.

I'm like, got to sell this, got to sell this, got to sell this. But so we now, we use ZapRite for our membership invoicing. So we have a fiat option from credit cards or ACH. And then we have a nice treasury, that's how you learn treasury management is going through that pain.

So we have BTC Pay. We use ZapRite quite a bit now. We use, yeah, ZapRite quite a bit right now. But I think there's a non-zero chance that Square may be coming.

I heard they were accepting Bitcoin or something like that. Have you seen our register? Yeah. Or a Square merchant.

Yeah, I love it. I love it. No, awesome. No, I was having dinner last night with Miles.

And one of the cool things that one of our first summits that we did was grassroots Bitcoin. And I'm super proud of that. It was, I think, in August of 2022, after the first few months. And it's a meetup of meetup organizers.

And it was just amazing. And we try to do that every year. And this will be our third or fourth year doing it this next 2026. And I invited Miles and his team to come and do one of the keynote presentations too.

We'll probably have anywhere from 30, 40 meetup organizers, maybe even 100 plus. You got to have a meetup that's been running for at least, I think it's six months or at least a year to be able to come to it because we want to exchange ideas and best practices and network and such. So very excited for him and that team to get direct access to all these amazing meetup organizers. well I wasn't trying to shill Square in that but definitely great that you guys are excited about Square but my question about that was going to be so right now the Spiral team in particular really cares about making you know we're really excited Bitcoin being used as money we have this initiative which I would love to talk to you more about getting involved in that grassroots effort because that's exactly what we're doing with the Bitcoin merchant community and getting itty bitties and the letters to different like local champions but kind of What has your experience been like as a business accepting Bitcoin?

Any words of advice to businesses looking to embrace Bitcoin as a payment? So, yeah, a few. I'll save advice from the hardcore Bitcoiner that's going into that same merchant store and being like, accept Bitcoin, accept Bitcoin. Put yourself in their shoes.

At the end of the day, they're dealing with employees. They're dealing with costs rising. they're dealing with paying rent they're dealing with a number of things the next thing they want including myself is added complexity even if it makes their life 1% better they're not looking for that right now and so it's like I'm not going to so you're telling me I have to train my staff which is flaky already you know hiring people is really tough I'm going to now train them to say do you want to pay in bitcoin or credit card just give me the money here's your burger have a blessed life So now with Square, I do think it makes it much simpler, not all the way there, but just still much simpler to say, hey, do this.

On the merchant side, from my experience, I would say you should lean in and spend the time on a Saturday, Sunday when the kids are asleep and just go watch the Square videos on getting set up and the reasons why. So the reason why is simple. Why is our friend grumpy? You just told me.

Itty bitty. Yes, he's grumpy. Why? My daughter really wants to know.

He's grumpy because of the 3% credit card fees. And you just bring that up to any business owner, they will see in their QuickBooks account, you know, chart whatever the transaction fees and so on. Or they'll look at their total revenue and say, well 3 of you know a million is Imagine if you had of extra working cash or whatever or you had you know whatever of extra stuff Maybe it a small vacation that you could go on with the family or such. And so one of the cool things, and I'm not here to show square, but one of the cool things is like, hey, if we can pay in Bitcoin, like even the vendors now, we have a whole like system where we ask, we would prefer to pay in Bitcoin.

Here's why. Saving that 3% is super convenient. We have different wallets set up to be able to pay. So on our end, but having that merchant be like, Rod, you had that issue from 40K down to 15K.

I don't want to deal with Bitcoin and I don't want to deal with cap gains. Cool. Fiat, Bitcoin, fiat or Bitcoin to fiat, you can go 100% and so on. You need to do fiat to fiat with Bitcoin in the middle now, with cash app now.

Totally. Really cool. Totally. So I would say is there's still a learning time.

I do think not going aggro to these merchants, but just saying, oh, by the way, the Bitcoiners also, including myself, we just need to be prepared to pay in Bitcoin. Yeah. Be like, have your wallet ready. Don't be like fussing around with it.

Be like ready to scan and pay and say, bam, here you go. And then be like, look, I'm going to tell all my friends about this because there's like something about wallet share you know when you go like there's you know you're Monday through Friday you go to lunch I don't know what there's that ill something over there there's probably like 10 restaurants here and you're you know you're probably at the 1230 you look around all right we're going Mexican we're going sandwiches we're going pizza you know whatever how do you go get that wallet share and if you have if you beat these folks early to accepting Bitcoin especially with that one crazy Bitcoiner amongst those five like no I want to go to the Mexican spot.

They also accept Bitcoin. And by the way, I'm buying today. And then all of a sudden, it's like, holy smokes. We just got that one, not only the 3% fees, we just got an extra one or two customers to come through.

So I do think that'll resonate over time. For sure. And that's my long-winded way of saying that. I have lots of more questions for you.

Please. But we only have like a minute and a half left. Okay. But really quick, really quick, before I ask my last Bitcoin question is back to college basketball.

Let's go. Because there's... You're a huge fan. So Steve.

We got a couple of college basketball nuts here. And I know you're one too. How are you feeling about your teams this year? Well, now I went to Indiana University.

And I don't think we're a basketball school anymore, unfortunately. Tennessee, yes. From my wife. They're, I think, number 20 in the country.

3-0. I think they're going to be good this year as well. But now I'm like a football school because Indiana's number two, I guess, in the country. Which is really cool.

But yeah, we'll see. How about you in Gonzaga? Feeling good. Yeah.

Feeling good. Yeah, I think it's, well, we're number one in Ken Palm today. Wait, you're number one in the country? In Ken Palm, but not.

What's Ken Palm? Not like other college basketball, not the NCAA, like traditional ranking. It's like using like data. Yeah.

Interesting. Yeah. Okay. So we're looking pretty good here at Presidio Bitcoin, but it'll be fun.

Anyways, my last question for you is, so you are like, you know, super involved in your communities, do tons of events. We're getting close to the end of the year. What's like one thing that you're like really excited and optimistic for in 2026? One thing, like a million.

No, no. So 2026, I will say, especially with square payments, hopefully on the policy side, even though people are like, well, non-dominimus this side, you just need to remove the friction from people's head. And so once that tax exemption is gone, reflowing of Bitcoin usage, then the merchants are going to win. Everyone's going to win.

Nobody loses in that scenario. It's such a, yeah. So that's one thing I hope on the policy side that we can remove so that we can really open the floodgates. I think the quality of the conversation, especially in person, across Bitcoin Park Nashville, Bitcoin Park Austin is going to be awesome.

We hosted Imagine If, which is this convergence between Bitcoin AI energy and Freedom Tech. We're bringing that Summit of Summits back in October. So Kathy, Dr. Laffer, a bunch of folks are coming back for that.

And I hope in 2026 or maybe before my daughter's basketball team gets that one W, even though we're 0-4. So I'm optimistic about that, too. That's a fun thing. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show.

If our listeners want to follow more about you or Bitcoin Park, where should they go? Yeah, so Bitcoin Park. Honestly, just email me at rod at BitcoinPark.com.

We have a Twitter account. We have a Nostar account. and honestly the one and Steve is super kind and so is Thomas they've given a shout out to our email our date we have due to a daily email yes which is I subscribe to it too oh sweet it's a good it's a good quick read you should definitely thank you yeah it's so one other thing and I was alluding to it earlier it's like build the things you want to see in life and and so one of the things that I'm not seeing when I got into Bitcoin and you know whatever was the education was on fire the the people that were just creating videos and long form Twitter posts and so on, I could learn so quickly.

And now there's just so much, whether it's this treasury, this, and like all a bunch of things. I'm like, I need four bytes of just the highest signal possible. Bitcoin and freedom tech. And now we're doubling into Aon Energy.

So if you go to bitcoinpark.com forward slash email, you'll get what's called OpDaily, four bytes in your inbox, Monday through Saturday. And then our editor, Rob Warren, we'll send a weekly summary, which is really cool too. Very cool.

Well, thanks again for coming on the show. And I'm so happy that you can make it for City of Bitcoin in your SF visit. You're the best. Thank you, Haley.

Yeah, thanks.