The "What is Money?" Show War, History, And Why Bitcoin Matters w/ Coin Dad
Mar 17, 2026
Tobias Barbeer, aka The Coin Dad, is a Bitcoin miner, collector, and founder of the Bitcoin Mining Museum and Discovery Center. He recounts wartime lessons about worthless currencies and how they shaped his money views. He traces early mining rigs to massive deployments, hunting rare hardware, and plans for a 30,000 sq ft museum and educational nonprofit in Texas.
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Army Service Shaped Scarcity Sense
- Tobias Barbeer joined the U.S. Army as an immigrant to earn citizenship and served in Middle East logistics, shaping his practical understanding of supply chains and resilience.
- He ran convoy and boneyard operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, cleaning and recycling vehicle parts under hazardous conditions that taught him real-world scarcity lessons.
First Miner Was A D3 In The Guest Room
- Tobias first saw Bitcoin in 2013 via the documentary Banking on Bitcoin but ignored it until 2015 when his cousin sent him a miner and taught him to set it up.
- The first miner was a D3 dash in his guest bedroom, producing small payouts and teaching him hands-on mining operations.
Physical Miners Make Bitcoin Tangible
- Tobias realized no institution preserved Bitcoin mining history, so he started collecting miners to educate future generations.
- He built a museum of 136 machines from 15 countries to give tangible form to Bitcoin's technical evolution.