The Frontier

David Bennett's "Bitcoin and" podcast explores Bitcoin's "edge effect," intersecting it with diverse fields like regenerative agriculture, gaming, and education to gain a deeper understanding of these overlapping systems.

Joel, from Untapped Growth, launched untappedgrowth.com in April 2021, a platform enabling participation in regenerative agriculture through a "choose your own story" model that connects investors with homestead ranchers.

Regenerative agriculture fundamentally seeks to heal both the human condition and the soil, recognizing that the planet's wealth generation primarily stems from six inches of topsoil and rainfall.

David Bennett suggests that the gut's extensive neurology indicates it processes environmental "information" from food, theorizing that food allergies may stem from consuming non-local products that confuse this internal sensing.

Joel operates a regenerative cattle farm on 28 acres of pasture, 30 acres for wildlife, and 50 acres of scrub woods, which he leases for $1 annually. This arrangement benefits the landowner by reducing residential tax rates and eliminating mowing.

Joel applies Alan Savory's "Holistic Management" principles to his operation, noting the framework's broad applicability from ecology and soil health to business strategy and team leadership.

Joel's "piney woods" cattle, an ancient, resilient Spanish breed, have a 30-month finishing time, leading to an almost four-year payback period. He considers this a long-time preference investment in "animal wealth," valuing ancestral resilience over fast yield.

Joel proposes regenerative grazing as a viable career path where a manager working 5-6 hours weekly can oversee 200-250 cattle across multiple properties, potentially generating $200,000-$250,000 annually.

The highly regulated butchery industry centralizes power and stifles small producers, forcing Joel to use "libertarian processing" (selling live animals for on-site butchering) while advocating for legislative change.

Joel's decentralized grazing co-op uses "cow share" legal precedents to match ranchers and investors, splitting animal offspring rather than involving complex business agreements. This model builds on the raw milk herd share framework.

His personal journey into regenerative agriculture began with severe health issues in 2009, leading him to holistic health and later to Bitcoin as a solution for censorship-resistant commerce needed for self-sovereign communities.

Joel explains that "animal wealth" goes beyond mere numbers, encompassing the deep resilience and genetic adaptability of animals like his Pineywoods cattle, which thrive with minimal inputs unlike modern breeds.

The co-op model offers investors a hard asset (animals) that is inflation-secured, yields new calves annually, and provides a sustainable meat supply for families. This diversifies wealth beyond traditional investments.

An investment group proposed a land trust model to Joel where they acquire degraded land, and homesteaders, in exchange for stewarding and regenerating it with livestock, receive a small acreage (1-2 acres) for their homestead.

Joel notes that collaborating with people sharing a "Bitcoin mindset" - characterized by goal orientation and precise communication - significantly reduces friction and accelerates project development compared to fiat-minded individuals.

David Bennett postulates that vast tracts of chemically degraded commodity farmland may soon collapse, creating opportunities for regenerative methods to restore soil and productivity quickly, transforming barren landscapes into vibrant ecosystems.

David Bennett advocates applying permaculture principles - using context-specific natural solutions - to solve a patio heat problem without expensive construction.

The concrete patio at his Panhandle Texas house is unusable in summer because its southwest orientation traps solar radiation with no existing shade.

Bennett planted bamboo around the patio perimeter to create an instant, self-sustaining shade, windbreak, and privacy barrier.

His chosen bamboo strain thrives in extreme West Texas conditions: he never waters it, and it grows 15-20 foot stalks.

He propagated bamboo by digging up existing clumps, cutting the corms into two-inch lengths, soaking them, and planting them in a trench.

Bennett planted 35 corms spaced roughly every foot and a half around the patio's edge.

Within a week, 12 bamboo shoots emerged.

He left two gaps in the planting as entry doors to the patio area.

Bennett warns that bamboo corms have sharp defensive spines; handling them requires gloves or extreme care.

The bamboo will harvest its own water from patio runoff and roof gutter overflow, establishing a self-sustaining system.

Dave Bennett sees forest fire fuel load as a direct result of US forest policy since the 1930s. The Forest Walker concept aims to autonomously clear forest floor debris to mitigate fire risk.

Bennett argues the Yellowstone fire of 1988 highlighted flawed fire suppression policies. That fire burned 36% of the park, demonstrating the danger of accumulated fuel loads.

Wood gasification is ancient, proven technology. Bennett notes Germany had nearly half a million vehicles retrofitted to run on wood gasifiers during WWII petroleum rationing.

The core Forest Walker design is a quadruped robot processing wood. Bennett envisions a Volkswagen-sized unit that ingests wood chips, gasifies them to produce syn gas, burns that in an engine to generate electricity, and uses surplus power to mine Bitcoin.