Hello guys. So we are now at the El Salvador conference, and here is our guest Chris Pavlovski, founder of Rumble, a video platform and cloud hosting service that supports freedom of speech. They recently got an investment from Tether of $775 million, and they also recently invested in Bitcoin from their balance sheet. So great to have you here, Chris.
Great to be here. Yes, so I started Rumble in 2013. We started on the premise of helping small creators get better distribution and monetization because we saw large incumbent platforms like YouTube focus on big influencers, big corporations, and brands, and really deprioritize small creators. So that's what we started the business on. And by 2020, it exploded. We noticed that the big platforms were starting to deprioritize people's political opinions and started censoring quite a bit. We got very big in late 2020 and early 2021. We ended up not only helping small creators but helping very large creators. President Trump in 2021 was the only platform where President Trump was able to stream, and we currently have 64 million active users monthly.
So how did you reach those numbers? What was your strategy?
67 million monthly active users as of the third quarter of 2024. The majority are in the US and Canada. We saw that growth happen around late 2020, early 2021, with respect to the conservative community in the United States because they were heavily censored. And by 2022, you started to see the Bitcoin conference come to platforms, so they ended up coming to Rumble. The Bitcoin community came to Rumble. More recently, we're starting to see gamers come to Rumble in the latest quarter, and the crypto community, which we saw in 2022 but got another bump recently as we've done the deal with Tether. We're really leaning into the Bitcoin world.
Yeah, that's interesting. And can you tell more: how did your partnership with Tether start?
So we, through a mutual friend, were introduced to the Tether people, and we decided to do a strategic investment of $775 million.
And how much did you invest in Bitcoin from the balance sheet of the company?
Since we're public, I can't provide that information. All I can say is that we made our first purchase, I believe... I don't know the exact date, January something like that. I said it on Twitter the exact date that we made our first purchase, but we haven't disclosed how much yet.
Do you invest as well in crypto personally? I do, I do. So when did you discover crypto first on the personal side? Oh, that was probably a very long time. I probably have a computer out there with some Bitcoin that I lost at my parents' house. They threw the computer out, but with a QT wallet, one of those old wallets where you download the whole chain. But very long time ago was the first time I heard of Bitcoin, so yeah, over a decade ago for sure.
Uh, I don't remember exactly, but probably a decade ago roughly, maybe a little before. I don't remember.
Do you invest into any other coins? Not really. So you're a Bitcoin maxi?
Yeah, I really... You know, I've done a little Ethereum, but I'm mostly like probably 95% Bitcoin.
In what do you see the value of Bitcoin?
Yeah, I see... I really like the whole decentralized idea of decentralization. It's obviously very important to me, it's something I've always participated in and liked. And immense value in anything that's decentralized, just like allowing people to speak. Any central control of speech or control of money is something that I don't think is a good thing.
And you recently introduced Rumble wallet to empower payouts to creators in Bitcoin. Can you tell more about that?
Yeah, so we launched Rumble Wallet. The Rumble Wallet is going to be a way for creators and users to tip other creators and users. So as you're watching a stream and you want to give your favorite creator some USDT, Tether Gold, or Bitcoin, you can do that. You can tip them in that, you can subscribe to their channel in that, gift subscribers to them as well. So we're really looking at being one of the first platforms to really integrate transactions with Bitcoin.
That's interesting. And do you plan to introduce other cryptocurrencies? At this moment, we're going to stick to Bitcoin, USDT, and Tether Gold. I'm a big believer in Bitcoin, not really much else. I just want to stick to the things that I think are useful for people and valuable to people. Before we go anywhere else, I really want to stick to that. Those are the three that we think are the most valuable.
And you also have a partnership agreement with the El Salvador government, providing hosting services to them, and you plan to open an office there soon. Can you tell more about that?
