Name: Nico ZM

Country: FL, USA

How long have you been into Bitcoin and what got you interested?

I am class of 2016 and what got me interested in Bitcoin was desperation. I was living on my friend’s couch working a minimum wage job, hating my life. My cousin came to visit me from Venezuela one day and told me about magic internet money. I saw hope for the first time in a long time and quit my job shortly after. I borrowed all the money I could, maxed out my credit cards and put the savings I had all into Bitcoin. Best decision I’ve ever made in my life.

Best Bitcoin experience and worst Bitcoin experience?

Best: Starting Simply Bitcoin and meeting Coinicarus.

Worst: Every time I spend Bitcoin I end up regretting it.

What is the biggest fail you have ever seen in the Bitcoin world?

At the Bitcoin 2021 conference I was invited to speak, and I said “If you're against Bitcoin toxicity you’re against Bitcoin and if you’re against Bitcoin you’re against freedom”. Erik Voorhees’ panel was right after mine, and the first thing to come out of his mouth was: “Who ever said if your against Bitcoin toxicity you’re against freedom” is wrong”. He got a huge boo from the audience and then on twitter the clip of me saying that went viral. It drove the shitcoiners insane. That tells me I was right over the target. Definitely not the biggest fail in the Bitcoin world, but the biggest one I had a front row seat for.

How did you get into Bitcoin mining?

My cousin came to visit me when I was living at my friend’s place, and he told me he was mining with my uncle(his dad) in Venezuela. I saw it as an opportunity, and I was on a plane shortly after. I convinced my uncle to teach me everything I needed to know. He agreed under the condition that he wouldn’t pay me anything. 

Tell us a little about your Bitcoin business and how you started it?

Residential electricity prices are very expensive for Bitcoin mining. I provide rack space for anyone who wants to mine, and I charge a fixed monthly fee to host their miner of preference in our facility. The fee covers maintenance, security and electricity. Since my power costs are industrial by hosting with Bitvolt, your cost to mine Bitcoin there will be significantly lower than if you tried to mine at home.

I started Bitvolt because I was forced to leave Venezuela, as the government started to catch on, and started cracking down on mining in the country. They literally started stealing machines as they arrived from China and used them to mine themselves. I relocated to a small town in South Carolina in 2017, and I’ve been there ever since. I brought most of my uncles partners/clients, as they still wanted to mine, and I was the only American citizen. I got very lucky in that sense.

What do you think about the recent growth in the US Bitcoin mining industry and how has this helped or hurt your business?

The recent growth was due to the China Mining ban. It will cost China trillions in the future, however for me personally it helped my business tremendously, as Chinese miners fled in droves. My partner and I completely ran out of rack space in days. I haven’t been able to take in new clients for months. I’ve been looking to expand ever since, but Simply Bitcoin has been taking more and more of my time.

It’s very time consuming to scout cheap energy sources, build the necessary relationships and at the same time keep up the production quality of Simply Bitcoin. I will expand eventually. There is so much opportunity in the US, and I love mining, but my priority is growing the show at the moment.

You also co-host the Simply Bitcoin podcast with the legendary Coinicarus? Tell us how this started and what it’s all about?

Once Bitvolt was set up and Bitcoin’s price started to pick up again in 2020, the income from hosting and mining was sufficient for me to hire people, and also quit doing commercial real estate. If you aren’t actively scouting new locations, the hosting business is actually quite passive if you have everything set up properly.

I had a lot of spare time, and I wanted to contribute more to Bitcoin, because I was obsessed at that point (still am). I knew the Bitcoin podcast field was heavily saturated, and I noticed so many of these shitcoin youtube shows were getting a lot of engagement. I figured I would keep the formula of the shitcoin shows (catchy titles and thumbnails), but instead of selling hopium and price predictions I would only focus on the actual signal.

I pitched Coinicarus the idea after being on his podcast, and he was down. We put our heads together, got to work and started releasing videos relentlessly day after day. To our surprise, the Bitcoin pleb community loved it.

We are honored and privileged to be in this position, so we try to put our heart and soul into every episode, and most importantly NEVER SELL OUT or CENSOR ourselves. Believe me, there have been many offers, but no amount of money is worth selling your soul. We made a promise to ourselves from the very beginning that we will stay true to the plebs. We get a tremendous amount of hate from the Bitcoin establishment media for it, because they have masters, and we bow down to no one. The plebs appreciate that alot.

What type of growth have you seen in your channel and where are you guys headed?

If we sold hopium and price predictions we would grow much faster, but we stick to actual signal that you can independently verify, as we provide all sources for our videos. We encourage our viewers to correct us if we incorrectly report anything.

That being said, the growth (while keeping our souls) has been exponential. Without revealing too much of the secret sauce, we are on track to become a major Bitcoin only YouTube channel within 4-5 years, if we don’t get banned by YouTube for telling the truth of course.

You do a meme review in your show. What is your favorite Bitcoin meme of all time and why?

It would be a crime to link to just one meme, but what I can do is name a couple of meme legends that make the meme review possible: Yellow, GregZaj, ChairForce, RD, Pedro, Weinicus, Bitcoin Taliban, Big Sean and the rest of the memetards and memefactory guys. They are all legendary Bitcoiners in my view. In this info war we are currently living through: if tweets were bullets, memes are the fucking artillery. 

Who is the biggest Bitcoin sell out of all times that deserves to be put on blast? 

Peter McCormack, American Hodl and Robert Breedlove are the first to come to mind, and honestly anyone who puts themselves first before the revolution. Bitcoin is bigger than any one individual, so if you put your own self interest before Bitcoin’s, you deserve no mercy from the plebs.

If I ever take that dark path, I would expect the plebs to rip me a new one. It doesn’t matter what you’ve done for Bitcoin in the past, as soon as you start shitcoining, it’s over. You revealed your true inner character. Reputation is worth more than anything in my eyes, and especially if you start to gather a following, you have a responsibility to people that look up to you to always be honest and transparent.

Why is it important to call out these bad actors?

Because if not us, then who? Plebs are some of the most based people on the planet, because their unit of account is anchored to the truth by proof of work. It’s not only calling out bad actors in the industry, but also world events. Plebs can call out the bullshit happening in the world right now because they know their wealth can’t be seized if stored properly.

Who are some of the most hardcore Bitcoiners you know and why?

Awyee, Pirate, the space cat, Coinicarus, Optimist Fields, Svetski, Nikcantmine and many more. They have no shame, no agenda, and they will call out anyone, no matter who it is. They want to free mankind, and they know what’s at stake. Honestly, I’m honored to be in the trenches with these bros. I know they would all have my back if push came to shove.

Why do you think some people, especially noobs gravitate to shitcoins?

The fucking unit bias bro! Exchanges need to get off their asses and switch to a sat standard already. From a psychological perspective, it feels much better to own 1000 of something than .001 of something, even though that 1000 of something is shit. Also, the influencers that are rampant all over Youtube and Twitter don’t help either. But I really believe that if we switch to a sat standard, people would start buying Bitcoin a lot more.

Why do you think Bitcoin plebs are important?

They are a selfless army with no leader. Bitcoin’s decentralized immune system in meat space is always going after something or someone who is actively trying to scam others or hurt Bitcoin.

You can ban us, but we will create another account. We will make sure that your bullshit is exposed, and we don’t give two fucks about your fiat credentials. They mean nothing to us.

You are honest or you’re not. We are everyone and no one. Like a hydra, you cut off one head and two grow back. You can block, ban, censor, but we will not stop calling out your bullshit. We are the grunts in the trenches, doing the hand-to-hand fighting, the last line of defense. That’s why plebs are important.

Why do some Bitcoin influencers hate on Bitcoin Plebs?

The truth is inconvenient to people that are trying to scam others, either by promoting scammy products/services, shitcoins or someone who is using Bitcoin for personal gain. The dangerous part about an influencer who is in it for personal gain is that they can be bought by the system and lead so many of their followers down the wrong path with their influence.

However, what I’ve noticed is that in some cases, if said influencer steps too far out of line, plebs are so savage that some of those influencers quit social media altogether. Take Trace Mayer as an example.

What potential obstacles in the road do you think Bitcoiners need to pay attention to?

The last and final boss; the US federal government. The US is the world reserve currency, and they have the most to lose when Bitcoin takes its place. I suspect individual states like Texas are going to protect Bitcoin to the bitter end, but the federal government will fight tooth and nail to keep the power of the money printer.

The state holds a tremendous amount of leverage over its citizens when they use the state’s money. This is going to be a tough war. They will not hand over the keys. We must separate money from the state, or humanity will never be free. People don’t realize how high the stakes are. This is not a game, and this is exactly why influencers who put themselves in front of Bitcoin are so dangerous. They will be the first to sell out once the going gets tough. And trust me it will. Bitcoin or slavery. 

What Bitcoin innovations have you the most fired up lately?

Taproot, Lightning Network, seedsigner

What Bitcoin startups or companies are you most excited about?

Citadel21, Cryptocloaks, cyphersafe, Bitcoin Magazine, Casa, Unchained Capital, Blockstream, wasabi, bisq, Amber, and the companies that are turning flared gas into Bitcoin. That is freakin incredible. I’m sure I missed a lot, but any Bitcoin only company that has high moral ethics, I’m a fan of. They are all helping the cause.

What are your goto Bitcoin storage options?

First off, running your own node is essential. Without your own, you are trusting someone else's. The Coldcard is nice for single sig, but for large amounts of corn, multisig with geographically separated seeds with different hardware wallet manufacturers is a great solution. Casa and Unchained also offer easy to use multisig, but you are giving up tremendous amounts of privacy if you decide to use them.

Everything has pros and cons. There is no perfect solution. You just have to find the one that works for you. I prefer to minimize trust as much as possible, but I give up a lot of convenience by doing so.

Any tips you want to give to people new to Bitcoin?

Everyone is a scammer! Don’t trust anyone. Verify everything yourself. It takes months if not years to fully appreciate the paradigm shift we are living through.

In my experience, it takes a full cycle to understand Bitcoin. The bull markets are easy, but the bear market is what forges you into a Bitcoiner. Losing decades of salary in days due to volatility, and then doubling down, can only be done once you understand that you are not investing in Bitcoin, you are exiting out of a system of slavery, and you are buying yourself freedom, and freedom does not have a price.

Name some of your favorite information sources and/or podcasts in the space.

Nowadays I make Bitcoin content everyday, so the last thing I want to do is listen to more Bitcoin content. However, back when I first started my rabbit hole journey, all I would do was listen to Andreas Antonopoulos lectures on repeat every night for hours. He eventually became a shitcoiner, but his original Bitcoin lectures helped me understand the power of Bitcoin and how broken the fiat system is.

Also, an incredible book that I recommend is “the Sovereign Individual”. It's incredible how spot on that book is, and it was written in the 90s!

Honestly, the best place for information is Bitcoin Twitter. The tricky part is finding the signal. You do that by following plebs, and the twitter algo will make sure you won’t miss anything of importance. Even if twitter wants to censor it, the plebs will find a way to get the signal out. Take anything an influencer, hopium account or blue check account says with a grain of salt. 99% of them have an agenda or narrative to sell you.