Satstreet Fireside Chat with Mike Nasser

[00:00:00] Christian: Everyone. Thank you for making it this far. in This Epic live stream. Right now I am sitting down with Mr. Mike Nasser the cofounder of sat street. one of the apps and companies that I am a huge fan of. They are really building a fantastic product to make it super easy for people to get their first Bitcoin and send it around, and they're really focused on mass adoption.

Mike and I are going to talk about what was the impetus for building sat street and you know. Where this product is [00:01:00] going. Mike welcome.

Mike Nasser: Thank you so much for having me. CK, but you know, really big fan of, of a Bitcoin magazine, BTC media and what you guys are doing. And thank you so much for putting in the work to get this Epic, halving broadcast done.

I know it's been a ton of work, so I can really appreciate that. And again, thanks for having sat Street and being at. You know, a loyal fan, you, you, you know, I've seen, I've seen the fruits of your labor, you know, in growing adoption with us. And it's been, it's been fantastic. So, yeah, I just wanted to simply introduce the platform and you know, myself, so I am Mike Nasser, cofounder of sat street.

and you know, sat street is, is a way to kind of. Nope. Between my team and I to give back to the Bitcoin community. you know, I have a very, I'll just kind of give you a background on myself. I've got a very traditional finance background. so I started at fidelity investments, and then from there, [00:02:00] got super bored of, mutual funds and wanted to, you know, explore the tech scene and, you know, fell down the rabbit hole when I discovered Bitcoin.

So I joined a, a startup cryptocurrency exchange in Canada called coin square, about two and a half years ago. So I happened to be like one of the only sales people in North America during the 2017 bull run. So I kinda got thrown into the fire and learned a lot and learned very quickly, and it was a fantastic experience.

And, my, my cofounder Jon Lister. he was doing his own thing. And, he, created a, a stellar wallet called Block EQ They were one of the first, stellar wallets on the app store, was super successful there. And, my company coin square actually acquired them, and that's how we met on the OTC desk and we hit it off.

And, he's a huge bitcoiner and really rubbed off on me. so, you know, even further down the rabbit hole, I went and quickly [00:03:00] realized that, you know, this is the space that I want to dedicate, you know, the rest of my career to. And, you know, what better way to do it then kind of, you know, in an altruistic, you know, tech play to really spur.

a bigger push into mass adoption. And it's something that I think is, is very much needed. so I've got about almost three years in this space of dealing with new users and, you know, I think that there's a certain way to approach it. onboarding newcomers, or nocoiners or pre coiners or however you want to call it.

And we wanted to kind of, you know, scale that and then give Bitcoiners and the Bitcoin community in general a tool, to be able to easily send SATs to anyone and everyone, by, you know, something as simple as email. so, you know, initially the way we kind of came to this, idea. Was, you know, we started with a kind of a pseudo payroll type company in mind.

but, [00:04:00] you know, due to regulations, and us wanting to go global from day one, that wasn't as easy as we kind of wanted to, and we thought that we could do something a little bit more important. so we then kind of tailored into a dollar cost averaging platform, like cash app or Swan. They are doing great jobs there.

but you know, even still, then we kind of sat back and were just like, look, with regulations, we're going to be kind of red tape to Canada and then, you know, to North America and we wanted to do something more on a cool global play. and we really wanted to encompass more of that educational side.

So. It was now, you know, end of, last November. And, my, a family was getting together in LA for Christmas and couldn't bring any presents over the border. And I wanted to give everyone Bitcoin for Christmas. So we thought, you know, how can we get Bitcoin in the hands of friends and family, for Christmas?

And we looked at all the options and we really couldn't find [00:05:00] one that, that, you know, we thought, you know, sufficed there were hardware wallets which were way too technical, paper wallets, which all of our nontechnical family and friends were going to forget about, or only call us when, you know, the Bitcoin price was mooning.

And you know, there. You know, they wanted access or, you know, Oh, I lost my paper, kind of thing. and then, mobile wallets, which we kind of looked at, and again, trying to get my mom or dad to write down a 12 to a 24 seed phrase, and not screenshot it, seemed to be pretty difficult. So what we decided was upon a custodial wallet, you know, utilizing, FICOs hot wallet API.

to, you know, allow someone to send as little as one sat to anyone, for free, via email. So, we did that. We launched on Christmas Eve. It was a great Christmas day. Everyone got Bitcoin. Every one of my friends got Bitcoin, family got Bitcoin, everyone was pumped. And, from there, we've just [00:06:00] been killing it, for, we've, let

Christian: Let me stop you there. So I am that crazy Bitcoin friend that only gives bitcoin out for Christmas and other holidays now, and I hope so. They still think I'm crazy, but

Mike Nasser: we'll

Christian: see in a few years.

But, this is a real problem. Like, seriously, it's a problem. It's not easy to give Bitcoin in a way where they're not going to blow it.

I have a much younger brother, he's like, you know, in middle school I gave him. I don't know, maybe like $400 worth of Bitcoin at this point. It was much less at the point, but he's already lost it. And now I'm like, okay, well guess what? You lost all that money. Sorry buddy. Like let's walk through the process of actually doing it right.

And tools like sat street maybe have been, you know, if that was available, the way to go, he would still have the funds if he was using sat street and he could always, as he becomes more interested in Bitcoin then you know, graduate to a hardware wallet or something that's more. you know, Bitcoineresque

[00:07:00] Mike Nasser: Yeah, no, exactly. And we think it's super important to be in control of your keys. which is why this is merely a, a tool to send small amounts. You know, deposit a little bit that, you know, you're not thinking too much on and giving it to Uber drivers, waitresses, what have you. but small amounts and.

What we actually do is once they received the Bitcoin, they get a nice, simple email. they, we don't require any KYC. So on a regional, global basis, we abide by, and restrict, sending limits so that they all fall in with, KYC restrictions. So just a simple email and password to sign up and then you're into your wallet.

and then from there, actually we really wanted to. Focus on education and you know, a big feature that we have is the ability to kind of pull that newcomer down the rabbit hole. It takes a long time to really [00:08:00] understand Bitcoin and to get it. And we thought if we put a little gamefied spin on it and kind of allowed use newcomers to earn Bitcoin while they're learning it, we can.

Kind of pull them down that rabbit hole and then open them up to a sort of discovery platform where based on the regional regions, they will have a really good mix of Bitcoin focused companies that they can discover. because it can be extremely overwhelming because there are so many nice, cool companies popping up.

but. It's a burden on newcomers to try to find those companies. So what we've done is we've built in an educational component that pulls users down and then opens them up into the Bitcoin ecosystem based on their region. and we think that's really, really cool and very important. And the benefit, an added benefit to just growing adoption as a bitcoiner and sending those sats out is your [00:09:00] referral.

Your referral codes are actually baked in to all of those, to all of those links. and to all of our partners, affiliate partners. So as the new user is onboarded and learns about Bitcoin, decides to either buy or, you know. Pull their coin off into a ledger, or one of the other hardware wallets that we have, on board with us.

or like a BlockFi for example Or really, any sort of products and service that we have there. You're as a, you know, the person who referred them or brought them or introduce them to Bitcoin, in the first place are getting rewarded for that. So we're sharing the revenue that we make with you because we think it's important to kind of reward you for growing the network.

So we think that's really, really cool and exciting. And you know, from there we've had a tremendous traction and we've had a faithful users reach out to us being like, Hey, can you tell me like. How many people I've sent SATs [00:10:00] to, where do I rank on sat street? Like am I one of the top

Christian: Oh you're going to gamify even more?

Huh?

Mike Nasser: Yeah. So what we decided to do was just add in a simple ranking function. So users Bitcoiners are able to like take a look and be like, Oh. Well, I'm a 36th on sat street right now. I got to get my numbers up. Like me personally, I'm, I, I have so much fun sending sats Last month, I, onboarded, but I think it was 67 newcomers to Bitcoin people who.

had never had bitcoin before and now they do.

Christian: That's incredible.

Mike, let's talk, we got, we got to wrap it up. So let's talk about what is coming up next for Sat Street and why people should scan that QR code right next to you and download the, or in an open an account right now.

Mike Nasser: Yeah, for sure. So, some really cool things coming up.

we right now are just a web app, but, we're working really, really hard, to launch, the, an [00:11:00] app for Android and iOS. So that should be launching within the next month. probably sooner. our, our engineering team is working really hard to perfect that. and, we wanted to have that done for this, but, you know, we want to make sure that it's a really great product.

So both of those will be coming out which is super exciting. And, we're launching a couple of really cool competitions, for people to kind of bring on, newcomers. The, you know, the wave is here. tons of retail flow is coming in, but we want to make sure that, you know, people are. Knowing why before they buy.

and, and, you know, really getting to understand the intricacies behind this revolutionary technology that is Bitcoin. And we think we are positioned very well to be, you know, the first step to Bitcoin. So, you know, as you're. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So as your phone is blowing up from, you know, nocoiners or precoiners reaching out to you saying, Hey, you know, what's this [00:12:00] Bitcoin thing?

Instead of taking your time and messaging them one-on-one, just send them over a couple of sats and, and allow us to kind of, you know, take their hand and bring them down the rabbit hole for you. and, yeah, we're super excited. Yeah,

Christian: that's amazing. All right, you guys, again, I'm a big fan. I've been, I've been messing around and send in sats myself, so check it out really clean and I know the app is going to take it up to the next level.

Like that is huge.

Mike Nasser: Yeah. Thanks so much. We're super excited and you know, thanks to anyone who, who hops on board. It's been, it's been a wild ride so far and we're really excited for what's to come scan the code, scan the code right there!