Fix the Money, Fix the Food, Fix the World | Bitcoin 2026

Thanks everybody for being here with this is the fix the money, fix the food, fix the world panel here and yeah, thanks everybody for being here. We appreciate you so much. It's the end of the close to the end of the last day, so we appreciate you being here and learning more about food. Uh my name is Tom Taber. I'm part of the beef initiative. I'll be the moderator today. And we have a panel of amazing experts that work in the food industry here. So I'm going to go ahead and let you guys introduce yourself. Eric, >> I'm uh Eric Thompson. Um I'm a homestead farmer up in the Portland, Oregon area. Uh we do uh beef sales, but really we're more than just a beef business. We're a homestead farm that uh engages in a lot of the practices of planting trees and composting and raising a lot of animals. And beef just happens to be one of our big surpluses. And we're glad to sell it into the Bitcoin community really. And uh my name is Adam Saunders. I'm one of the co-founders of the Columbia Center for Urban Agriculture. It's a nonprofit in Columbia, Missouri. And uh we started in 2008, right, with the financial crisis and the first food crisises of the world. And realized that food is not a fad. It's not going to go out of style anytime soon. And so finding strategies to help folks grow their own food, get young kids out out in the garden and the wonder that is in the garden. And so fast forward today, we've got 35 full-time staff doing a wide range of strategies uh to help train new farmers, work with veterans. We do a home garden mentoring program with folks with low income. Three years at their house to help them climb the learning curve to garden. And I think that's really one of the most distributed food systems we could imagine is the home gardening. So whether it's there or on the homesteads or the small mediumsiz farms, there's a lot of potential for growth in our food system. Uh, and I think there's a lot of alignment with the Bitcoin community. >> I'm Tony Beck from Santa Fe, New Mexico. Uh, happy to be here. Thank you. Uh, I own and operate Beck and Bulo, which is a three-prong business. We have an online sales portal where we sell uh, meat, wagoo, bison, tongue totail, lamb, all grass-fed, grass-finish, regenerative agriculture. Also, we have a brickandmortar spot in Santa Fe. And we also sell and distribute to over a thousand hotels, restaurants, and casinos. Anyone that wants high quality meat that's good for the earth, good for you, and tastes amazing. >> Excellent. Thanks everybody for introducing yourself and let's let's get into some of the nitty-gritties of of of your business as well. Eric, you mentioned something about your farm in in Oregon and the kind of cattle you raise. What do you raise? How do you treat them? And how is it different than the way that it's normally done in the the beef industry? >> Yeah, definitely. Um, yeah, first first of all, I don't preface anything with saying that my way is the right way, but one of the important things that we do is to really try to be very visible and transparent on all of our practices and what we do. And I answer a lot of questions why we do it this way. So whether it's uh what the customer wants or not, I try to get it out there. there. And one one example of that in so uh all of ours are grass finished beef which creates a really lean beef. I mean they are Angus and Wagyu cross. So your your coobe beef type of cattle which makes a better marbling in the steak but still grass-fed is much different from say your restaurant special uh steak that has a lot of fat on it. So what we normally try to do is raise up the beef on the farm. We they're birthed and uh and raised all on the farm and then uh basically butcher and sell by the quarter uh to just individual people straight to the straight to the customer. Um, and it'll be a product that is pretty lean, but we try to get keep the cows as healthy as possible during their lifetime. And really have a big belief that the healthiest animals make the healthiest food for us. So >> yeah, another thing about your farm is it's got an orchard. So they are actually applefed as well as grass-fed as well. Yeah, that's really the concept of of uh the farm and the farm name Great Malice, which is the Latin name for for apples, is that, you know, I had a vision that uh someday we would have a big apple drop and uh we could have the grass-fed uh beef also fed from the apples that are dropping. And we're just getting started with that, but it's a pretty interesting system and I'm really happy with it. >> Excellent. Thank you, Adam. tell us more about this incredible center you have in your town and and your vision of how it got started, some of the challenges, but also some of the major successes you had over the years. >> Yeah, absolutely. Um, yeah, so um, like I said, we started in 2008 to try to really get to some of the root causes of food security and food sovereignty and realizing trying to help get make those skills more abundant to have people be able to grow their own food and recruit folks into the farming community. Um those skills take time to develop and so and if we think forward if we have more farmers in the country a lot of folks are have to be recruited out of the city because 80% of our countries lives in cities. So Urban Egg is really that stepping stone to get folks back on the farm. And so how how we interface with Bitcoin is we had a donor donate uh a bitcoin to us or not a whole bit but partial and we sold it and moved on like a lot of nonprofits will do. Um and then he was like why did you sell that? like you got to hold on to that. And so I'm like, well, tell me more. And so that began my journey learning about Bitcoin and trying to understand how how does the ecosystem here and the the interface with the nonprofit and the regenerative agriculture space. And I really think that there's like a concept that I've been talking and workshopping this whole this whole conference is a a Bitcoin endowment like for regenerative agriculture. So to try to use Bitcoin and hold it in a way to then borrow against it, leverage it and varying strategies such that we can support farmers and they as they diversify their farms to use regenerative agriculture practices like what Eric's talking about or to do that programming in the cities to help home gardening become more prevalent, recruit those farmers. And I feel like there's a lot of synergy um like the the Bitcoin community is very open to a paradigm shift in finance and I think our agriculture system needs a similar paradigm shift towards regenerative agriculture that generates healthy food uh and builds community around food. America imports $ 32 billion dollars worth of fruits and vegetables a year. And so to try to shift away from importing around the world to growing it at home and using small urban farms and community agriculture uh and that relationship that comes from that uh there's a huge upside potential to that. And so I feel like there's it's a win-win across these different communities that I think has a ton of potential. >> It's amazing. And and what that's doing is decentralizing the food supply and keeping it local which is keeping more freedom there. So education. >> That's right. Okay. So, like in my my county, there's like 200,000 people in Boone County and they estimate about $700 million is spent on food every year. And if we were to figure out, okay, what percent of that is local to local? It's maybe one, maybe 2%. So, if we but if we could change that by 1%, that'd be $7 million worth of produce or or meat that would stay in the community. And that is a lot of food. And so, I like that. That would be a big number for the food system, but it's a small number in the grand picture, >> right? Tony, let's let's go down to you and tell us more about this this business that you started in Santa Fe and and how did it start? How did it grow? What what what happened exactly? >> It's kind of a long windy story, but it started in South Dakota. I I was spending a lot of time with the Lakotas and practicing some of their spiritual practices, the Sundance, sweat lodges, and I fell in love with the people and central to that is the bison, which they call Tatonka and their name for God is Wonkan Tonka. So, Tatonka buffalo is in their their name for God. So, it it just sort of fell in my lap after years and years of practicing and and trying to find good bison. I I I I met my business partner JP. I think he's somewhere around here. He's a big red-headed leprechaun over there. Okay, there he is. Uh he's also single, too. So, just so everyone knows. And so, I met JP and he was in the specialy foods business. I I think he was selling tomatoes and olives. Uh possibly some calamari. And I said, "Chonal, c can you just find some good bison? I go to Costco. I go to Smiths. I'll go to Kroger's. It just looks like beef. It tastes like beef. They add beef fat." And Yeah. Yeah. Tony, I'm I'm going to look. There's a a local guy around here. So, lo and behold, a couple years later, JP and I were hanging out. I just moved to Santa Fe from Albuquerque. Best decision I've ever made in my entire life. And J I I was with John Paul and he said, "This this rancher's calling me and and he and he and he keeps saying that he wants to meet up and he's got a business idea." And John Paul was asking me again and again and finally I said, "Look, why don't I just come with you? You don't know anything about business and you don't have any money, so let's go." So end of the day, we signed a check. We we bought about $20,000 worth of bison, you know, that had already been cut and packaged and and and we started selling at the farmers market. At that time, I I thought I had ruined my life. I was like, there's no possible conceivable way this turns out good for me in the end or or we make it with the bison. But I did believe in the Buffalo. Santa Fe has a very nice farmers market and and we learned what people want. People want great tasting meat at a great price that is very flavorful and and and it's very very healthy, but the health comes later. And so over the years, you know, CO was a big boon for us. Everyone was like, "Oh god, it's scary." And yeah, it was very scary. But I was also acutely aware that there was an opposite and equal opportunity there. There's no other time the government's just going to be passing out checks left and right. So CO was hit. We took advantage. We were uh at this time starting to do some wholesale, not really uh the farmers markets were were were too much work. So we were done with the farmers markets and we pivoted into retail primarily because people were worried about their food safety. And during co they they were saying, "Oh, you can only get two pieces of meat or or or limiting how much red meat that people could buy." So then we had people showing up to our warehouse and and we were selling the freezers that the meat stayed in. We people were just packing their freezers and that was the birth of beck andblo.com. And since then, you know, we just created a community of food. People like good food. They they they want to be around people that are have never been accused of being boring and and and uh uh very fine food that's approachable. You know, we sell caviar, but it's uh caviar or or wagoos or Kobe. It's just food. You know, it it comes in one way, but it all comes out the same way. So, we're we're very uh approachable about the food. Definitely believe in it tongue to tail from we'll eat everything from the tongue to the tail. Uh so, that's how started. >> Thank you so much. And that was a huge boon for the community there as well. Creating food security, creating highquality food at a time it was most needed. As we look at the global macro events that are happening in the world, there might be some food shortages in the future. There might be some ch supply chain issues and having solutions. These these men up here are great examples of how we can have greater greater food security. I mentioned I'm working with the beef initiative and I see some bay hats here in the front row as well. So, we got some supporters of El Salvador. >> Uh, we're working down there. They they've been through 40 years of hell actually until President Bi came along and he he he put the he he he set us has set his country straight in terms of making it a safe place and now it's becoming an abundant place and the beef initiative is working to help rebuild the genetics and the cattle industry in that country. Uh we're on the cusp of flying some amazing cattle from Texas down there to help uh improve the genetics of their cow uh next month. And so we have some of our team here in the audience today. And uh it's a it's an exciting project to start from ground zero with a country that's very open and willing to be working on behalf of their country to make it safe food security for their entire country. So we talk about homesteads. I consider El Salvador to be its own homestead of food security. So, we're working very hard to make that a reality today. As you Thanks, as we talk about this too, let's talk a little bit. We're here at the Bitcoin conference and we said a few things about Bitcoin and food security and and what about the sovereignty aspects of what you guys do because we all as Bitcoiners, you can have Bitcoin and it's it's perfect and beautiful money, but you can't eat your Bitcoin. And if we have some disturbances in our in our food supply, having something that's close and local and accessible, learning, educating, and growing your own food, this is all possible. These men are examples of how you can actually do something to to make yourself sovereign, to make your community sovereign, and to use Bitcoin to help educate people how to become more sovereign individuals. Any any words on that? >> Yeah, I got I got some comments on that. So definitely um I've been in the Bitcoin community for 7 years and more so recently just because of a lot of rapid acce acceptance of what we do and how it works. Um if we talk about sovereign food um bitcoiners are completely into sovereign currency and they understand right off the importance of sovereign food. And you look at what does that really mean? Ideally, sovereign food would be well, I control my own food supply chain. I I make my food in my backyard and I grow what I eat and I control the entire production and distribution and everything of it. And um not everybody can do that. So the next best thing that you think would be at least I'm one step removed from that chain, but I can see what's going on on chain. So just like Bitcoin, I understand what's behind the scenes. Um I don't want somebody in some other place doing something to my food supply that I can't understand, I can't control, and is going to come back to bite me later. So being able to look at what you want from your food supply and to organize that way I think is a lot of power and Bitcoiners do that. So Bitcoiners going to their local farmer, somebody like me or say a CSA for local vegetables or you might meet somebody with products that you like at the farmers market. All of those are good resources and you can local resources are something that are very transparent. So, um, starting to buy some products from those places goes a long way. And, um, just building the relationship, you can get into, well, you you sell all these things, what else do you sell? And that gets you into an area where you can actually stack food like you stack Bitcoin. So if even if you're not growing yourself, you can build these relationships and get carrots at the farmers market, but also get to know that farmer and say, you know, I want to put away 30 pounds of frozen carrots this year. Can you make me a deal on things that you have? And those relationships go a long way for everything being economical and and kind of a win-win. And the last part about that is that when you build a relationship with those farmers who a lot of them already have the currency mind of well cash is king and I don't really take credit cards and those kind of things. You you understand those people are one step removed from being introduced and orange pill to Bitcoin. And if you can just get a little bit of that in there to say, "Oh, we've been doing transactions, but have you thought about Bitcoin?" Because I can introduce you to some of these things and this would be kind of your first Bitcoin wallet that you could put in, and I can guide you through the first steps so you won't get scammed or anything like that like you would worry about. And that's a good introduction to really building that financial connection that works. the same as your food connection. So, you're working both ways at that point. So, I really encourage Bitcoiners to get close to their local food supply chain. >> Adam, yeah, I think building on that, but also building on like the food is medicine movement. Um, how do we have live long healthy life? Well, we need to eat well. Like what we eat really affects our health outcomes. And so getting close to knowing your farm, growing your own food, um, and and helping your kids and your neighbors, like there's so much of that that we're that makes a huge out big outcome in our health and really our cost of living and cost of health care. And so there's a lot of strategies out there right now uh that are moving in that direction to try to incentivize those things. And so that's take take advantage of those, climb that learning curve of how to eat healthy, how to get processed food and and sodas and and sugars out of your diet and replace it with healthy food, good meat, good vegetables. Uh that's going to help you live a longer healthier life. Um and a lot that I think that's where the local food system interfaces with the health care system and the monetary system. They're all like synergistic in that space. You know, I woke up one day and uh I I I I was thinking about this this talk, Fix the Money, Fix the Food, Fix the World. And I was talking to my daughter, she's she's 10. And she said, "Dad, it should be called Fix the Money, Fix the Food, Fix the Future." And I said, "Well, that's interesting, but you know, half the times I wake up in the morning and I look in the mirror and I have a hard enough time about fixing myself. But what I I I do know that I I I probably could fix my money, which I've been doing, you know, investing in Bitcoin. We also moved our company into our 401k into Bitcoin, which has provided amazing results. And that's taking care of our staff that takes care of us. We care about them. We love them. That's an ecosystem in itself. It's our responsibility. And fixing the food. So I I I don't know about you, but I'm in New Mexico. So, I've never seen an olive tree. I've never seen a coconut tree in New Mexico. And And I I started to wonder, what did people cook their food with? I think they cooked it with beef tallow. They cooked it with tallow. So, we we use tallow quite a bit. And I I I was telling my daughters, they're really interested in their their looks and their makeup. They get the targeted uh YouTube ads, which I'm not too happy about. I said, "Girls, that tallow is the number one medicine for your skin. It's at home in the kitchen and the bathroom for a lot of different uses. And and and the thing about growing your own food, the these guys who seem like amazing gardeners, farmers, beef, it it just it's the lifestyle. It tastes good. If I want to fix the world, I'll tell you what I I I can do is just turn off my phone, go outside, plant some vegetables, and cook a steak. And there's nothing more satisfying than that. And I absolutely love it because at the end of the day, the sun's going to rise in the morning and it's going to set at night. And the world's been spinning a long time. People been eating meat and quality foods for as long as we've been here. And it seems like it's only been in the last 100 years or so with this industrialized food system. The same as the banking system. So I think it is very important what what these gentlemen are saying is buy local if you can. um farmers markets and know the people that provide your food. Do you even see the difference? If if you look at a pack of your meat or our meat compared to the meat that you might buy in a big box grocery store, they look totally different. One's purple and has amazing vibrancy of the fat. And one just looks, for lack of a better word, it's not going to be the most glamorous. It just looks like slop. So, I I don't want to put that into my body. And just like I don't want to buy coins either. I I want to own Bitcoin and I want to eat good meat. >> Right on. Right on. Hallelujah. >> Welcome to Predict. The world is a market. Everything is a market. Every headline moves the line. Every moment is your market. Call the moves. Bet on your instinct. Your prediction, your edge. Dual bits. Predict where everything is a market. So, Bitcoiners come from all walks of life. There's kind of a bias towards tech techsavvy Bitcoiners because a lot of folks come from that world. And it's like, well, if that's the case, can you were always a farmer all you guys? Were you always doing this or did you have some other life before that? Is it possible for somebody to come from whatever walk of your life and become a food producer? Is that is that possible, Eric? >> Well, I think everybody becomes a food producer at some point. And at at our farm, we try to lead somebody in as gradually or as much as they're able to take on. Even if somebody only has an apartment patio, we try to get them producing their own garlic or something like that on their patio. But but more specifically, you've worked your whole career as a farmer. Is that right? >> Um no. Well, I >> I used to have a day job. I'm I'm semi-retired the last seven or eight years. >> But you chose this path. >> Uh absolutely. So, I grew up uh on the farm where this is just a natural mindset and uh basically started running uh my grandparents estate farm uh part-time uh while I was working the day job. And when I retired from the day job, that's something that I could just go into full-time. >> Is this possible to do? And and Adam, have you been a farmer guy your whole life? >> Uh, no. But, uh, like a green thumb is very much a learned skill. And so, it's something to try and try again and try again and and look for a mentor to help you. But also after you're up that learning curve, it is your I think a responsibility to to share that with others, your your family, the neighbors and others to the skills because when you give someone skills, no one can take that away. And that is I think our responsibility as citizens to to help each other because and help people get more towards a food sovereign because that education is a really key both in the kitchen, in the garden, in in so many parts of life. >> That's right. Well, I I dropped out of college and took an internship on an organic farm just because I was failing out of college. Probably doing a little too much extracurriculars. So, that was my introduction into farming. And then, no, I didn't want anything to do with with selling uh meat at all. It's not like I chose it. I I felt like it kind of chose me. I was a real estate and uh crypto guy beforehand. Um, and and I never in in a million years in any conceivable reality or timeline could have ever like seen how how it could have worked out, but I I just trusted and kind of went with it. Uh, and it's been absolutely amazing. And I I feel the same way about Bitcoin. Like it seems like how sometimes how the hell is this ever going to work out? And I I feel the exact same way. That's why I'm here today. Um, very happy to be here, but things are going to work out and they're going to work out just fine. >> Thanks. Thanks so much. You you know I I I think it's funny the name of this this this talk. It's fix the money, fix the food, and that that middle part it's do something useful with the Bitcoin to help fix the world. And I think fixing the food's a big part of that. Uh we have a couple more minutes here. I just want to give last thoughts. Do you guys have anything you haven't said that you want to kind of get out there? >> Yeah. Just kind of following up on what we were just talking about that um a lot of Bitcoiners are very conscious of their health and they put a lot of work into their health and their own personal health. Um I really encourage people to understand the health of the animals and the plants in your food supply affects your health a great amount as well. So just like you take care of your personal health, you should be making sure that your animals are raised to thrive. And a lot of our most of our industrial animals are not a lot of our plants and crops can't survive without pesticides and those kind of things to get them by. And you should really try to eat the most vigorous and natural plants that you can find. And I really believe and I've seen that uh that's the way to better personal health. So, >> um, yeah, I'd say that the urban agriculture movement is in every city around the world. And so, uh, get in touch with folks in your area, the community gardens or urban farms, and you can go to our website, which is colombia urbanag.org, and we've got a lot of resources and and descriptions of our programs and information. And if we can be helpful and sharing some of the innovation that we've had, uh, this little innovation hot spot in the middle of Missouri, uh, we want to help share what we've learned with others. So, if we could be helpful, reach out. We'd be happy to help. And, uh, yeah, I I would like to say, I mean, it meats amazing. I I own a butcher shop and I still after years and years, I got onto the carnivore diet and still had some something in my head that too much red meat is bad and that's been banished. I've never felt better in my entire life, mind, body, and spirit. Energetic and powerful. I wake up with zero brain fog. And that is from eating meat. Hunt or go to the farmers market or find a good quality meat uh purveyor where you can find us at beckandmo.com. We'll stand by everything. Any questions you have, we have a lot of good information about the meat. I have a lot of uh hacks in the in the meat industry. So, thank you very much for coming. >> Thank you everybody. That's our time. Appreciate you all being here. Have a wonderful rest of the conference. >> Every year this community comes together to celebrate, to debate, to build what comes next. And every year the stage gets bigger. Sound money center stage. So where do you go to celebrate the next chapter in Bitcoin history? You come home. Nashville, July 2027.