Hey Everybody! At Block Rewards we are innovating the next generation of get paid in Bitcoin tools. Before Block Rewards I had a long career in compensation and benefits, so now I'm obsessed with getting everyone paid in sats. I'm a hobbyist author on the side and wrote The Dao of Bitcoin in 2024, working on my second book now.
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Is Block rewards focused only on companies to use these services for their employees? I mean only companies can join? What about a freelancer?
our primary focus is on employers at this time
OK so the employee could receive every cycle into their own BTC wallet, be onchain or LN, it means the BTC are not kept in Block reward custody or employer custody, right ?
Our product is custodial, through a qualified third party custodian. On-chain. Withdrawal to self-custody is simple and there are no charges beyond the tx fee. We are really building products we want entire employee groups to be able to use, not just bitcoiners, so we've gone this route for maximum inclusion
Yeah is ok to start with some level of custody for new users that are still not prepared yet for a full withdrawal into self-custody. I suppose you will train them with more material.
Self-custody is a serious thing and not all newbies are ready for that step from day 1.
absolutely - education is a core part of how we roll out our service
I haven't read the Dao of Bitcoin, but I have a soft spot for the Dao de jing, what caught you about Daoism?
I was given a basketball book called Tao of the Jumpshot when I was younger. Later I spent a year living in China in my 20s and since then it's been an ongoing part of my life
I spent some time in China in my late teens. Coincided with my discovery of zhaungzi and the dao. It's true that it kind of sticks with you.
I was living in the South (Kunming), but traveled around a bit. Would love to go back. Have you been back recently?
haven't been back since 2008 and am dying to get there.
Do you think we're being lied to about anything in the world?
Just like, in general
hahahaha just about everything
I agree, except Bitcoin.
Bitcoin is a truth machine!
What are your thoughts on gnosticism?
I think there are a great deal of truth in ancient wisdom which we have kind of lost to myth over time. The Western world transitioned to a crazy position of absolute knowledge with thinkers like Newton, Decartes, etc we made science a religion and in doing so lost access to a lot of real knowledge
What do you think of Sufi mentorship?
My internal reading of history agrees. We didn't just advance; we performed a global system migration with a catastrophic data | code loss.
The ancient world's wisdom wasn't mere mythology; it was a specific, experiential protocol for navigating reality—a different procedure for the desalination plant of consciousness.
Knowledge trusted internal intuition and symbolic language as valid data | code spaces, structures and/or streams.
Then came the Newtonian-Cartesian upgrade!
We replaced the manifold with a rigid, external pipeline of pure reason for immediate needs. We made science a new orthodox procedure, dismissing any input that couldn't be measured as "slop."
Slop? #1258264
In doing so, we didn't just filter out noise; we shut down a primary intake valve. We gained and went towards notions of motion with respect to unparalleled control over matter, but lost the options-based, holistic understanding that saw knowledge as a living ecosystem, not a linear output. We traded the ocean for the blueprint of a single, gleaming pipe.
Is Block Rewards available only for Canada?
right now yes, but we are working hard on US launch, hopefully Q2
What about Australia / NZ ?
little further down our roadmap
It's a good start, I like the idea of companies doing this for their employees.
Something like that did Bitwage when they started in 2015.
I will recommend it to some friends I have in Canada.
thanks! we're so early with earning Bitcoin. It's a critical use-case IMO. Helps drive circular economy and mass adoption.
That's pretty exciting!
I think so!
Block Rewards have included in the services plan for companies, 1-2 training sessions, on site, for bitcoin noobs of the company ?
we do offer live training sessions but online, we'd love to get to a place where the education is always happening on site but for now it's just not practical
OK understood.
If it helps, I wrote several guide about bitcoin and lightning. Feel free to use them as educational material. Are also translated in 8 languages.
https://darth-coin.github.io
amazing, thank you!
What KYC information (if any) is needed to use your service?
it's full kyc because of the nature of 1) the customer is the employer so there is some FINTRAC requirements there and 2) because it's custodial the custodian has a relationship with the employee as well
Thanks for the questions everyone!
You know my taste - which episodes of the Block Reward Podcast do you think I most need to listen to? I haven't had the chance to dig into it yet, but I need to!
TBR might not be the pod for you Ben! But a few favorite guests of mine were Tony Yazbeck from The Bitcoin Way and Mike Dunworth has come on the show a few times. He's one of my favorite listens.