The Hayek Strategy: Orange-Pilling Silently (Through Commerce) | Musqet

In this episode of the Conor Chepenik Podcast, I sit down with David Parkinson, CEO of Musqet, and Benjamin de Waal, CTO of Musqet, to break down a pragmatic strategy for Bitcoin merchant adoption. Instead of pitching ideology, Musqet focuses on solving real merchant pain first through an integrated commerce stack, then makes Bitcoin acceptance a native feature that is always available and easy for staff to use.We compare the US and UK payments landscape, including why “cheaper fees” messaging and tender-based discounts do not translate cleanly in the UK and Europe, and how that shapes go to market strategy. We also explore why EPOS and operational tooling matter more than a Bitcoin button by itself, and how Musqet thinks about expansion, with the UAE and GCC likely next before a heavier US rollout.Finally, we discuss the next wave: agentic AI and machine-to-machine payments, why Bitcoin fits natively, and why AI can accelerate engineering while still being dangerous near financial infrastructure. David previews Musqet’s upcoming Bitcoin payroll product, aimed at putting sats directly into Lightning wallets so spending becomes as frictionless as earning.David's X: https://x.com/Musqet_DavidBen's X: https://x.com/Ben_deWaalConor's X: https://x.com/ConorChepenikLearn more at https://musqet.tech/Time Codes:00:00:10 – Introductions and Bitcoin origin stories (Ben: cypherpunk/anarchist path; David: government consulting project)00:08:04 – The Hayek approach: getting Bitcoin into commerce without ideological confrontation00:10:00 – Why Musqet is not Bitcoin-only: using fiat payment revenue to subsidize Bitcoin adoption00:13:03 – UK vs US regulatory differences: interchange fees, surcharges, and why cheaper and faster messaging does not work everywhere00:17:02 – The real sell: EPOS integration solves merchant problems first, Bitcoin comes attached00:24:55 – Expansion strategy: why UAE and GCC are likely next before North America00:32:01 – Agentic AI payments: Bitcoin as native internet money for machine-to-machine transactions00:35:40 – AI in development: tool versus replacement, why vibe-coding payments infrastructure is dangerous00:45:01 – Bitcoin payroll: removing friction by paying employees directly in Lightning00:50:17 – The full merchant ecosystem: payments to treasury to collateralized loans to staff payroll to customer rewards00:54:16 – What would you ask Satoshi?