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Discussion at the Nashville Bitcoin Meetup.

https://www.meetup.com/nashville-bitcoin/

EPISODE: 41

BLOCK: 704718

PRICE: 1794 sats per dollar

TOPICS: bitcoin privacy discussion, KYC/AML, coinjoin, lightning, fee market, mining, circular economy, ransomware

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[00:00:00] Unknown:

Again for coming out. My name is Rod. One of the co organizers of the Nashville Bitcoin Meetup alongside Mills. And, our goal was just to kind of get together once a month and talk about Bitcoin. And,   more importantly, gathering   local Bitcoiners together as well as Bitcoiners that were traveling through,   Nashville, Tennessee.   If you guys don't know, this is Matt O'Dell. Matt's an independent Bitcoin and privacy advocate. He's also the cohost of Rabbit Hole Recap, which is every Thursday. He also does Citadel Dispatch, which if you go to citadel dispatch.com.   And then Stefan Lovera, he's the managing director at Swan Bitcoin International.  

He's also got another one of the top bit Bitcoin podcasts out there that's super friendly to Bitcoin curious folks, as well as if you're really deep down the Bitcoin rabbit hole, highly recommend,   checking out his podcast.   Okay. Got it. You ready for a story? Yeah. Let's go. So I don't even know if you remember this. This was, about 3 or 4 years ago.   Matt and I are in New York, and,   and I think Marty was there as well. And we're grabbing a beer at a ball   ahead of a dinner. And, of course, I'm I'm selfish and I wanna get credit card points.   And so I'm like, I'll take care of the tab, you just Venmo me. No big deal.  

And then like a damn   James Dean sociopath,   he rolls out a, wad of cash and flips me a $20 bill and says keep the change.   And I was like, who the fuck is this guy?   And so, and then I was like, why do you carry cash with you? Nobody carries cash with them anymore. And then in classic Matt fashion, he goes on this huge diatribe about cash is disappearing. Cash is the last, self preservation privacy centric community of currency we have, and, like, next Cash is king. Cash is king. And so it helped me go down my,   little journey as well. So I guess my first question, and then I'll ask Stephan as well the same, which is the topic, but specifically to you. Why does Bitcoin privacy matter?  



[00:01:58] Unknown:

So financial privacy. Why is financial privacy important? Financial privacy is important because,   if you go to a restaurant   and you buy a sandwich,   they shouldn't know your salary. They shouldn't know your net worth.   And at the same time, your boss shouldn't know how much   you know, what you're buying or what you're doing on a Friday night.   I think that's a very simple concept for people. I think if you start to think about it, you realize that'd be ridiculous if if both of those parties knew the other information.   And unfortunately,   this move to credit cards has   has had this experience where you basically have,   these surveillance companies. They call themselves credit card companies, but you have these surveillance companies that are keeping track of every single transaction you make.  

They're selling it to marketers. They're not storing it securely   and it's being shared around. And if you look at your credit card statement,   you can tell everything about a person. I don't know if you've looked at it very closely,   maybe if you have like a close friend you can look at theirs, you know, share it,   and and have them kind of just look into that. So   when you combine that with the fact that we're removing cash from   the system,   both governments are kind of pushing against it, but also just out of a convenience thing, people are choosing not to use cash, you know. In our everyday lives, what we see is we see, like, basically a privacy versus convenience trade off. You're deciding if you're gonna be more convenient versus more private.   It's it's gonna we're I I feel that we're entering kind of a dark period and people do not realize that, and Bitcoin to me offers   kind of an escape from that situation because you don't have to rely on the fact that a government allows you to use cash. You don't have to rely on the fact that you can get access to cash,   because Bitcoin is non state money,   but at the same time, Bitcoin is not default private.  

Bitcoin every Bitcoin transaction you make is on this ledger. We call it the blockchain.   The time chain. The time chain. The block chain, we expect as Bitcoin bulls to last longer than all of us. It's gonna be forever.   So even if you're not exposed today,   someone could come back and look back at that chain and you could be exposed in 5 years, 6 years, and it could come back to bite you.   So it's really important, I think, for people to realize today   that they should take steps, and there are easy steps you can take to improve your privacy situation   so that in the future you're not as exposed.  



[00:04:38] Unknown:

Yeah. Cool. Okay. Let's see if this works. I think it's alright. Okay. So yeah. Look. I broadly agree with Matt there. I think there's a lot of personal implications   for all of us that you we have to think about when we are stacking and spending SATs,   and   it could come back to bite you in the ass later if you spend in a non private way now.   So those are things to consider.   It could be things like   things that are totally okay now, but imagine in 5 or 10 years time, the conversation has shifted. And now what you did 5, 10 years ago is now that's a cancelable offense.   And so we're starting to see that as well with the pressure of things like YouTube as well. So they're trying to shut down anyone who is talking against the hysteria, shut down. And now anyone who's a climate denier, demonetized, and it starts in a certain process. Right? They'll start with demonetizing,   and then they go to canceling.  

So   that's that that's kind of the   censorship   risk that we all face in the Internet today, and essentially if they can if they silence you online,   and especially if they locked you in your home, how are you gonna talk to anyone? So that's one angle of it. And I think just to add to that aspect, obviously, I agree with Matt on the personal privacy elements of this, but it's also as a system. Right? So if you believe in Bitcoin as a system, one of the things we talk about is this idea of Bitcoin as permissionless.   Now what would happen   if, say,   it were feasible   for mining pools to enforce white lists or black lists, meaning   this transaction must go to a white listed address, or it may not go to a black listed address   as an example, or to a white listed or black listed person even.  

So, well, you could see   heuristics applied   that actually   block these kinds of spends. And so to the extent that we are able to spend more privately,   it kind of defends the overall system in terms of how permission permissionless   it really is. Because if more and more people are using coin join and pay join and all of these privacy preserving techniques,   then it just becomes less feasible   for for as an example, mining pools   to sensor at the, at their level to stop a transaction going through. That's just one example. Another example could be,   in various exchange and broker and OTC partners compliance desks. They might right now have to run all sorts of compliance checks,   or they might start looking at, okay, coin join behavior is suspicious   because only a small percentage of the Bitcoin population as it were uses coin join. So therefore, CoinJoin usage, you're suspicious. We're gonna stop your account. We're gonna ban you. We're gonna whatever.  

So these are some of the reasons why   even if you don't necessarily need every single one of your transactions to be 100% private, you you still care about it as a system that it is viable in the long term as a permissionless system. Totally.  

[00:07:29] Unknown:

Yeah. And so I should also put in the guidelines, we may go deep into a lot of terms and concepts.   Do not be overwhelmed. You're gonna learn a lot through Osmosis, especially with these 2 up here, whether it's PayJoin, CoinJoin,   and a number of other things.   You guys touched on   a a good good phrase, and you guys were in Miami earlier this week for the Oslo Freedom Forum. You guys were meeting a lot of dissidents. You're meeting a lot of folks that,   Bitcoin   could be a matter of life and death in terms of how they're using,   Bitcoin. I don't know if there's and, you know, we're privileged here that we are able to participate in the global financial system, I assume all of us.  

Was there any kind of big takeaway or big story that you guys wanna share? First of all, I mean, we had,  

[00:08:19] Unknown:

microphone issues in the beginning, so I was a little bit distracted. I do wanna thank,   Rod and Mills for hosting us. And I wanna thank all you guys for coming out.   It's pretty crazy how packed a crowd it is here for the 2nd Nashville Bitcoin meetup ever.   And I wanted to thank I think Bitcoin Magazine sponsored the drinks. Right? So I wanna thank Bitcoin Magazine for sponsoring.   Maybe I can have a quick plug there. So long term Nashville Bitcoin company Yeah. And, a massive amount of the team is here. I I absolutely love the team.   Disclosure, I have been consulting for them for quite a while now,   but but they've built a really great team over there, a lot of quality Bitcoiners. So if you are interested,   in working in Bitcoin, consider applying there. And then to take it back down,   it was really humbling being at the Oslo Freedom Forum,   you know, as big explain that just a little bit. So the Oslo Freedom Forum is run by the Human Rights Foundation. They do it every year. They usually do it in Oslo.  

Because of COVID, everything's moving to Miami,   including the Oslo Freedom Forum.   So this is the first time I got to be a part of it. I was actually supposed to fly out to Oslo previously.   The first time I worked with them was in 2019.   I flew out to San Francisco. I helped teach activists, like, it was just 10 activists in a small little classroom.   This time,   Alex Gladstein, the chief strategy officer of the Human Rights Foundation, set up a whole Bitcoin Academy track,   so they got to learn about Bitcoin from, you know, leading advocates and experts in the space,   all sorts of different aspects of Bitcoin,   also just the normal track of Oslo Freedom Forum as you hear from the activists around the world about their fight,   and it's really dark.  

The reality is human rights around the world are being   trampled on.   These people are fighting for their lives.   Bitcoin offers some hope.   Unfortunately,   there's still a lot of nuance about using it privately, and for them, you know, it really is a matter of life or death. If these authoritarians are able to track their transactions. They're able to see what their spending is. They're able to see exactly how much Bitcoin they hold.   So, I mean,   I think I I I'll let Stefan speak after, so I'm not gonna speak for him. But to me, it was it was just truly humbling. It it gave me more inspiration for for why I put so much effort into the Bitcoin space.   And   but but, honestly, like, I I felt like a complete larp. I felt like a complete larp because   these people are literally, you know, I we talked to Bitcoiners and some Bitcoiners are like, I don't wanna try and use Bitcoin privately. Like Stefan kind of said earlier, like, maybe it puts a target on your back.  

You know, maybe I'll end up in jail if if it's considered suspicious or something like that. These people are getting thrown in jail 40, 50 times already just for being against the authoritarians that they're pushed back against. They have friends and family that have been killed, brothers who just disappeared.   You know, I cried multiple times during their presentations,   and I just think that the big takeaway is is that   with Bitcoin open source tools in general,   they provide   an answer   on a technical level to a lot of   oppression we see in the world today. And to me, there's there's no more practical fight, no more important fight,   than supporting open source development, supporting open source tools, empowering individuals,   and, you know, just trying to make the world, at least, a slightly better place than it is today. Because for these people, like, it's not theoretical. It's it's it's already happening.  



[00:12:06] Unknown:

Yeah. And, yeah, I I totally agree with what Odell was just saying. I think it's   very motivating when you see the stories of these people who are living under these kinds of conditions where they if they based on their political views, they're getting arrested regularly. These people are regularly get being arrested, and they are essentially   in and around circles of people who are political prisoners. They've they've not done, like, a genuine crime. They just spoke out against some kind of oppression or something wrong, and that's sent them into jail or had them disappeared and all sorts of horrific things. And so   I had the chance to, in those side conversations,   speak to some of the different human rights activists and they were from all around the world and some of them were now based in the US because they had been persecuted that they had to leave. And so if you talk to them and you ask them, well, what's the banking situation like for you guys? And pretty much they all get the same answer. If they get shut down, they get stopped, they get blocked, whatever it is. And so   what I found for some of them is really seeing is believing. If you showed them, hey, pull out your phone. Let's get you set up with Moon Wallet or Phoenix or one of these Bitcoin wallets. 2 years. Yeah. And then you you set them up. Sorry, moon with 2 years. Yes. Moon with 2 years. Correct. Yes. And,   you, you, you send them a lightning transaction and their eyes light up. And so that was really interesting for them. And I think for them it sort of shows them how real it could be. Or if you show them, hey, you can buy vouchers with this or you can take donations with this.  

And another important lesson even for those of us who are out there trying to talk about Bitcoin, I think one of the interesting things that HRF really do well is that they really focus on stories. Because I think stories are what motivate a lot of us, and I think in my mind it sort of reminds me every now and again I'm like, you know what? I go down these random technical rabbit holes and I don't focus enough on an actual story that's engaging   and I think that is what can engage someone and pull them in to whatever you're trying to teach them about or advocate for. So that's probably an important lesson for all of us to think about as well.  

[00:14:09] Unknown:

Yeah. Totally.   Again, we're going pretty hard in the paint, especially on our second meetup with amazing guests around Bitcoin privacy. But I do think it's important.   So but one thing and, you know, it's gonna be a little bit of a hot topic because probably and I'm not gonna ask who has bought Bitcoin,   but I'm gonna venture to guess. There you go. Flip over there has bought a lot of Bitcoin. Talk to him.   The, we all and including myself, we all all bought it on a KYC exchange. And what's KYC? It's know your customer. You have to give them your driver's license. A lot of these exchanges, you're putting your face, you're putting your passport. You may have to, like, give your child's blood a little bit or something like that.   That was a joke.  

And so I guess why is that   what are the trade offs, I guess? Because the ease of use is great. You know, you can buy even with strike, you know, and top up.   What are the future trade offs that some of the folks should be concerned about? So, actually, I mean  

[00:15:04] Unknown:

first of all, by a show of hands,   who has never sent a Bitcoin transaction?   Bartender?   Okay. Liar? Good OPSEC?   Let's go.   Okay. So we we do have a good group of Bitcoiners in the crowd.   I don't really like the term KYC. KYC stands for know your customer.   It usually goes k y c a m l with a slash in between.   So know your customer, anti money laundering.   What it really is   is every major company in the Bitcoin space,   is keeping lists of Bitcoiners and their transaction history,   and they're not storing it securely.   Sometimes it is being sold to marketers. It is being shared around with different,   surveillance firms,   and these lists are ever growing and they're being collated. We've just recently had Coinbase,   they had 6,000 people's full transaction history,   home address, social security number,   you know,   ID, driver's license,   all this information gets leaked.  

And then from that information, if you don't take privacy best practices into account,   it can all your transactions can they can be tracked and they can be surveilled and they can make process of elimination decisions.   So when we're looking at Bitcoin privacy well, before I get there,   the common claim is it's to stop criminals.   And what's really, really frustrating about it is it doesn't actually stop criminals.   Criminals either use stolen KYC data to set up accounts,   or they actually buy KYC data. 1 of the   I guess cool is the wrong word, but one of the cool aspects about Bitcoin is it is it opens up these new markets. So there's actually markets on on Tor where you can go on to the dark net and you can buy KYC information from, like, poor Nigerians or poor Ethiopians or people in the Philippines or people in Thailand, and they'll they'll just sell you they'll just sign up to Binance for you and you just pay them $40 worth of bitcoin and then you can use their account.  

And, they just need the money so they don't really care if you use it for nefarious purposes.   So, criminals are getting away with doing whatever criminals want to do, and law abiding citizens are being put at risk.   And to me, I think, like, as an industry, we should take more of an example from,   gun owners in America   and really start to stand up against this idea that it's just normal and expected for these companies to keeping major major ever growing list of bitcoiners, their personal information, and their transaction history.   And then on a more practical basis,   what is basically happening is you have this blockchain data that is forever, your Bitcoin transaction data that's living on this on this ledger,   that's gonna outlive all of us, and it's combined with external data which is these lists and this transaction history.  

And when you combine the 2, what these surveillance firms are doing is, they're basically, everything they do is   a probability game. So they're looking at the chain and   most of you probably realize you can send bitcoin to yourself. So what they're trying to do is figure out what the probability is that I'm actually, say, sending money to Stefan versus sending money to myself. It's a probability game. So our tools that we can use on the side, if you are going to go through one of these regulated on ramps and have your information   connected is to try and break these heuristics that they use to reduce that probability that they know that you're actually,   the the owner of the bitcoin is changing hands. And so, the whole fight, basically, in bitcoin privacy land is this idea of,   reducing the ability for them to figure out a high probability score of ownership change. Correct.  



[00:18:48] Unknown:

Yeah. So,   yeah. Just to add, I guess, the trade offs with that, of course,   and it's not like Bitcoin companies,   you know, enjoy doing this k y c stuff. It's obviously something that has been forced on them at the risk of getting shut down. And any pretty much any financial services company lives at the risk or lives under that threat of having their license taken from them and then not being allowed to operate. And of course, there are non k y c methods of obtaining Bitcoin. You can mine it, you can earn it, you can purchase it on platforms like this can huddle huddle and others.   But I think that I guess the other trade off on the the k y c service or AML k y c service side is that you simply won't be able to accumulate as many coins.  

But   the trade off is   that government data, governments can subpoena that data or even ask for that data. So in Australia, it's basically assumed like it's not even like a subpoena. It's more just like the government will just ask Australian bitcoin exchanges.   You know. We know this guy bought, you know, we know this guy's with you. Give us his records,   and it's basically assumed. So that's how bad it's gotten in Australia.   So you know, you have to think about that and trade that off. And you also have to think about this idea that once purchased, that record is always there,   Right? Even if you then coin join and get what we achieve what we call forward privacy.  

So I buy the coins on the KYC exchange. I coin join them, and then from then on, yes, assuming I do the right steps, I run it through Tor, I run it through coinjoin, etcetera.   I have forward privacy from that point forward, but that record still exists. And so for some people who are really serious about privacy, they literally go back the way they came. Meaning, they sell on the KYC exchange, so they might have bought this amount and sold this amount and then gone and repurchased   at their entire stack non KYC. Now   it's a spectrum in terms of how much of a cost you're willing to pay to do that   for you know, you have to make your own assessment.  

How many how much is the additional coins is that gonna be worth to you in 10 years time, 15 years time. If you, if we're all bullish as we are on bitcoin and we think it's going to $10,000,000 a coin, $15,000,000 a coin. Why so bear? Yeah.   Too bearish.   Canceled. Canceled. So,   but so that there there are a few ideas there, but   at the end of the day,   it I think it's kind of like I'm sort of interested in Bitcoin as a system remaining,   viable and sustainable. And so, you know, it also also here's the other thing.   If we're if I'm too bearish,   let's not forget the, the fee market or the block space market.  

The fees will rise.   It will become more costly to use CoinJoin   eventually.   Eventually.   So that's something to think about as well. The cost to be private. Because remember, Bitcoin is designed we view it more like a settlement layer. So Yep. It's gonna cost you a lot more to be private. So, Stefan, let me just jump in here real quick.  

[00:21:44] Unknown:

First of all, long term,   I think   what we will see is we'll see more of a circular economy develop where you can go to the bar, you pay them in Bitcoin, you're not actually buying Bitcoin, you're not actually selling Bitcoin,   you're earning Bitcoin or spending Bitcoin. And in that case, you don't have these regulated companies standing in between.   The second thing I would add is,   yes, these regulated companies are forced   to comply with these laws,   but we've watched many of them   spend   1,000,000 of dollars, sometimes tens of 1,000,000, 100 of 1,000,000 of dollars   fighting for the ability to sell unregistered securities and sell shit coins,   but they haven't pushed back against,   this collection of information. So so I'm not saying that I expect, you know, regulated companies to just break the law, but I would like to see some more pushback. We haven't really seen much pushback.  

And then the third thing is, you mentioned it briefly, but   right now in the current dynamic,   mining is a very accessible thing that you can do and you can mine from home.   It does involve   a licensed electrician because you need 220,   rad   Yeah. You need 220. Right? 220, 240. Yes. 2 20240.   I don't know personally because I don't know how to do this. But you so you need a you need a licensed electrician,   but what's really nice about that is it's permissionless.   And in the current market, you can kind of,   for most people at most energy costs in America, you're able to get Bitcoin actually at a discount of using through the regulated exchanges.   And if we have small miners   throughout the country, they can kind of jump start that circular economy. If they need to pay their bills,   if they need some fiat, they need some cash,   then, you know, at a local Bitcoin meetup or something like that, they're able to trade bitcoin. So not only does it help the individual   miner, it helps the network as a whole because we have more distributed miners rather than these large public   corporations as miners,   but it also helps jump start your your local Bitcoin economy.  



[00:23:50] Unknown:

So as someone   who may be scared shitless now,   including myself,   you look. Quick recap. So we mentioned At Home Mining.   We mentioned coin join, go forward, pay join.   What about lightning? Is lightning help with,   So there's actually a lot of okay.  

[00:24:10] Unknown:

Here's how I think about it.   And by the way, lightning, if you wanna explain lightning. Okay. So for people who aren't familiar, lightning is a network of payment channels built up on top of bitcoin.   And so you can think of it like when you open a bar tab and you close out that bar tab, that's like a very loose analogy. But think of it like it's not just that, it's actually that you don't need to open a bar tab with every person you pay. It's that there's a network and that using the magic of cryptography and bitcoin smart contracts   that   essentially you can route a payment across the network and the the net result being you can make payments much more cheaply, and these payments do not necessarily hit the chain, as in touch the blockchain.  

That said, there are various ways in which you can leak your privacy on the lightning network. So here's high level how how I think about it. Right? So the least private of all is a nigh what I would call a naive on chain spend. Right? Just a, you know, not even trying any privacy techniques, just spending on   chain. Then a bit more private that more private than that is lightning because you're not necessarily putting everything onto the blockchain. It might require active surveillance or some kind of more advanced techniques for somebody to figure you out.   And then I think most private is coin join off your own node using,   the correct tech, like a well executed coin join flow is probably what I think of as the most   possible the best possible privacy available in Bitcoin today. So it's kind of 123 in that order. That's how I think of it.  

So   lightning has a lot of ways in which you can actually still be doxed. Your channel when you open that channel with somebody   that there are various elements of your,   coins that are being doxed out to the network because it's not just the Bitcoin blockchain.   When we join the lightning network and we run a lightning node, there's this thing called gossip data.   So you our lightning nodes are all talking to each other, and they're sharing information.   And then that information   could be used to sort of know what is your channel point, what is your on chain footprint? So there are various techniques involved. A really good article if you're interested. And, Anthony Ronning wrote this, and I think you hosted him on Citadel Dispatch. I did an episode with him as well. Episode 276 of my show. I had him first, though. Yeah. You did. You did. Oh.   And so That's spicy. That he's, that's a really great article if you're interested in like the really technical nuances of lightning privacy.  

So there, there are a few openings or lots of, do you want to add anything?  

[00:26:29] Unknown:

First off, if someone could grab me a pale ale, that would be appreciated.   You know, he probably just confused a lot of people.  

[00:26:39] Unknown:

I I I hope that Matt's a lightning bear. I Esteban's a lightning bear.  

[00:26:44] Unknown:

I use it myself. I I I think when we win, it will be that you won't have,   you know, 2 nerds sitting up here for 45 minutes talking about the nuances of Bitcoin privacy. You'll just be able to just, you know, open a mobile mobile wallet and just spend in a relatively private fashion?   Thank you, sir.   I would add a couple things to what Stephan said. First of all, high level,   you know, lightning is for most people, you don't need to know about payment channels or anything. You install an app on your phone, you load it up with some Bitcoin, you're able to pay for less fees, faster transactions.   Lightning in general at a high level has pretty strong privacy guarantees for senders.  

Most of the issues revolve around receiving lightning transactions.   So if you're sending lightning transactions, you should get a bump up in privacy   just across the board.   And then last but not least, he said the 3 different ways,   he said, naive on chain,   Lightning, and then CoinJoin, but you can use them in combination. So what I really wanna see is the 4th one, which is   wallets basically automate.   You do CoinJoin, and then you CoinJoin into Lightning, and then you make spends with Lightning.  

[00:27:58] Unknown:

Right. Yeah. And so there's some interesting aspects with that. I think, Anthony Ronings piece touches on some of these things of this idea that you would spin up a lightning node,   send some coin joined money into that node, and then open one channel out of that. But then   even from that point on, you might then dox other aspects of your setup. And so it kind of gets   complicated. But I think   where we're going longer term with things like taproot and with things like someday channel factories and various techniques   that   will,   you know, once once they've been developed and popularized and commercialized and put into wallets and software that we use,   it'll be it'll be better then. You know, Lightning is very new,  

[00:28:42] Unknown:

and there hasn't really been much focus on privacy. It's kind of just a,   like a secondary effect that has happened. So like there's been privacy advocates who have just kind of played around with it to try and use it as a privacy tool. So I hope more development goes into it, more privacy focus goes into it. But one of the really cool aspects of Lightning, and to be honest, you call me a lightning bear,   One of the cool aspects of Lightning is   Bitcoin doesn't change. Bitcoin is very difficult to change on the protocol level. And that's part of the value prop because   being easy to   change is an attack vector because you can you can change it in ways that make it worse money.  

So we have Bitcoin, which has very conservative development, and then we have layer 2 networks on top, like Lightning being the most   most used one and most famous one, that have very rapid change. And they're able to change very quickly, develop very quickly.   So hopefully, we see development there   keep improving and and keep making it more private and just a better experience.   But at the same time, if lightning fails, we'll have other layer 2 networks, it won't be the end of the world.   And to me that's the most bullish part about lightning. The most bullish part about lightning is   it could disappear tomorrow, and it wouldn't it wouldn't be the end of the end of Bitcoin. And I should have probably prefaced it by saying you cycle through bearishness,  

[00:30:05] Unknown:

skepticism, bullishness.  

[00:30:06] Unknown:

It's true. Bearishness, skepticism. And then he was talking about the fee market. I got pie on my face earlier in the year because   I basically got fee FOMO and I was like, the fees are just gonna keep going up. And then they just went all the way down. You can, like, send a transaction now for like a 120 sets. It's like what is it? Like, 20¢ or something? 10¢?  

[00:30:26] Unknown:

Yeah. Exactly. And   Catan was right, unfortunately. Yeah. Our our buddy  

[00:30:31] Unknown:

Catan completely owned me on that one,  

[00:30:33] Unknown:

but I do ex I do expect fees to go up. Otherwise, we we probably have some issues on our hands. Of course. Yeah. I mean, if the fees don't go up by say, you know, so 99% of the bit all the bitcoins that will ever be mined will be issued in   2035. So if the fee market and block space market rather doesn't happen by then, well, maybe the security element maybe might be a little bit more in question, but honestly, You   know,   you're   using  

[00:30:59] Unknown:

if   especially   if   you're   using   a KYC, You know, you're using if   especially if you're using a KYC custodian,   like, they're holding your keys. They can see all of your transactions. They know your balances. They can seize all your money. And I think part of the reason why we've seen the fee market,   not really developed yet is because so many people just buy Bitcoin and they just hold it in the custodial wallet. They never actually withdraw it. And if they do withdraw it, they just do one transaction out. They don't take any privacy precautions.   So so the amount of transactions that are actually getting settled on the Bitcoin network are significantly lower because of these custodial platforms.  



[00:31:41] Unknown:

Yeah. I agree with you there. I think there's a few factors going into it. I think the Segwit and batching also made a big difference. And the for example, blockchain dot info having enabled Segwit for a long time, they were not doing it.   So that on the margin, that was a lot of transactions because a lot of people are using blockchain dot info. So I think that was part of it. I think lightning's taken a little bit off. I think more people using stable coins,   and maybe there's less and less of a   transactional culture in Bitcoin. It's it's sort of became more and more of a saving. Do not use blockchain dot info.   Yeah. That goes without saying.  



[00:32:14] Unknown:

So,   one thing, and I lost my train of thought, but I'll ask one more question and then maybe we open it up for the audience to have some questions as well. You know, one thing I was thinking about that New York story, you know, someone's probably in the audience like, well, why don't you just pay them, you know, the $20 in Bitcoin and use Lightning? I mean, back 3 years ago, Lightning wallets   didn't really exist. I mean, we had to go to a terminal and, like, you know, hard code a transaction basically.   And then if I sent you a transaction on chain, $20, it would have been, like, $7 worth of fees. So that $20 worth of cash was, was a okay.  

I guess I'll close with, you know, can the Bitcoin   protocol, so layer 1 privacy, you mentioned Taproot, you mentioned a couple of these other things, Can we get more private by default?  

[00:33:01] Unknown:

So the current hope   is   there's a few. So Taproot will help in small ways.   It will make certain transactions look the same.   There is a hope of this idea of cross input signature aggregation, although that's like a very far off, and we don't know if we'll ever get that.   There's also another kind of more far off idea of confidential transactions,   which would help in terms of some of the privacy heuristics.   But currently, the trade offs associated to get confidential transactions   just make it untenable in terms of getting the users and the developers over the line in terms of getting them to agree with that. But, I did a recent episode with Adam Backupset 300 talking about some those trade offs if you're interested about that.  

[00:33:41] Unknown:

But Is that the only time you had him on? For episode 42 is my first episode. Damn. You beat me on that one. What about 83?  

[00:33:50] Unknown:

Is that Connor? I can't remember. I don't remember the name of this. I can't remember them all. What about Citadel dispatch 31?  

[00:33:57] Unknown:

That was the mining episode. Dope. But anyway, continue. I didn't mean to cut you off. I'm sorry. Yeah.  

[00:34:02] Unknown:

So the hope now one one positive hope that I have that that's kind of recent   is seeing Sparrow wallet integrate Whirlpool.   Now I think this is really cool for a number of reasons because,   you know, you guys might have seen that meme video of the first follower, right? Like this guy, there's the first guy dancing crazy and whatever. Maybe in that analogy, it's like samurai wallet of the crazy ones and Sparrow wallet was the first follower, and maybe some of the other wallets will actually   integrate Whirlpool as well. And so then we'd have all these different wallets all mixing through the same protocol and becoming part of the same anonymity set and liquidity   set, if you will. So that could be a positive development, and we might see more and more people using bitcoin more privately in that way, and it's got some interesting features that previously were not easy. So for example, mixing to your cold storage.  

That was something that was very difficult to do if you're just on your Samura wallet on your mobile, but now with Sparrow, you can do that. Oh, actually previously, you could have done something similar with join market, but, again, join market is not as accessible.   So I'm hopeful there that with some of the application level   technology and software and hardware potentially,   that will get more privacy that way,   but it's it's kind of up in the air right now. Joy Market was one of the first CoinJoin,  

[00:35:13] Unknown:

implementations.   They're working to make it more accessible. I've actually been working with Human Rights Foundation.   We set up a bounty so that it's easy to set up on your own node. All these node packages, whether it's raspiblitz   or Umbrel,   or myNode, you'll be able to easily use join market.   I I I just I like to privacy projects in the space. I am very, very excited about Sparrow. That's Sparrow wallet dot com.   Craig Raw from South Africa developed it. He basically made a wallet that he wanted to use. It has very few dependencies. It's very reliable. It it's just very efficient.   I actually convinced him on CIDO Dispatch Live to add,   Whirlpool, which is pretty cool.  

I do not remember the number even though I've had way less episodes than you,   but you can just check it if you want.   But   I don't think confidential transactions will ever happen. The the idea of confidential transactions is that the amount is blinded,   not the sender receiver, but the amount is blind. And what's nice about that is all CoinJoin implementations up until this point relied on equal amounts. So when you send a CoinJoin transaction a CoinJoin transaction at its core is a collaborative transaction. It's this idea that you send a transaction with multiple people,   and you all get increased privacy because   that probability game, like we were talking about earlier,   it breaks the probability. You don't know which one is which person because you all shared it together.  

If you add confidential transactions to the mix and you can't see the amount,   then they don't have to be the equal amounts. Right now, the CoinJoin implementations rely on the fact that you're all coming in at equal amounts because the amounts can be seen.   All that said,   I highly doubt confidential transactions are ever gonna happen on Bitcoin.   So the dream is really on the app level and that's what Stephane was talking about earlier.   Apps like Sparrow Wallet, apps like Samura, apps like JoinMarket   can implement it on the wallet level as more people start using it on the wallet level. Everyone gets increased privacy.   And what I expect is I'm actually really bullish on Bitcoin privacy long term,   because I think regardless of privacy, Bitcoin is gonna take over the world. And that's one of the reasons why there's a lot of,   so called, like, privacy coins   where, like, these coins focus on trying to make private transactions, and I don't focus my time on them because   Bitcoin's gonna win regardless of what happens.  

So the goal should be to try and make Bitcoin as private as possible.   And what I think happens is what's gonna happen in all of our everyday lives is that as more of our lives become digital, as more of our lives,   start to use Bitcoin, as more of our lives just and every day you buy a concert ticket, you   buy this, you buy something on Amazon, goes digital, we're gonna get burned. And we're all gonna start to get burned.   The leaks are gonna get worse. We just had Facebook. I think it was, like, 1,800,000,000   people's records got compromised on on Facebook.  

As people start to get burned, they're gonna realize the need to increase their privacy.   And I think   Bitcoin as this open permissionless   way of innovation, like you can innovate on top of Bitcoin and no one can stop you, will result in kind of market forces that push people   into these better privacy solutions.   So the way I look at it is Bitcoin will be easy to use privately,   eventually.   And   the difference is it'll either be really messy in the middle and we'll all get burned,   or we avoid that process. But at the end,  

[00:38:47] Unknown:

it'll be easy to use it privately. Like, that's kind of how I view it. Yeah. Interesting. And actually, let me ask you a question as well because you said,   Bitcoin's gonna win regardless,   which I agree with.   There is an interesting hypothetical, and I think put this one up a while back. But he said this idea of imagine if every sat was KYC'd.   And would you regard Bitcoin as a as a failure at that point, or would you still see it as a like, would you still see it as a set as a an improvement?  

[00:39:14] Unknown:

Well, that will never happen.   But in that theoretical, then then we've we've we Bitcoin is no longer permissionless. If if you have to ask permission to spend your Bitcoin, it's not your Bitcoin.   And if every transaction is known,   then   people will self censor themselves.   They they can get their like, the thing is, like, Bitcoin's hard to seize,   but it's not hard to throw you in jail for doing a transaction you weren't allowed to do in the first place. Right? So privacy is key to the censorship resistant aspect of Bitcoin.   So   in that straw man theoretical and every   every every UTXO, every status k y seed,   to me, Bitcoin will have failed. The price still might pump,   but,   I I would hope that there'd be pushback before we got to that point. Yeah. Yeah. And look, it is it is an unrealistic hypothetical. I agree. I it's just an interesting thought I think. Would would Bitcoin have failed at that point?  



[00:40:14] Unknown:

I think   the main problem is more about the   government's tentacles getting into a lot of things because the government is what forces AML and sanctions controls onto all these businesses.   I think   it would. Yeah. So like you were saying, it's an unrealistic hypothetical in that not every sat will be k y c'd. But here's the other thing, it might be that there are different countries or jurisdictions or citadels, as we might say, that have different rules and maybe some of them it is kyc, but you just, you're allowed to just spend what you want. And so   it might allow more of a competitive jurisdiction aspect and that in turn might give people more freedom in a way that   maybe   is not implied. It's not the same future that you have implied. Yeah. I think it's a pretty shitty thought experiment, to be honest.  



[00:41:02] Unknown:

I find interesting. Thanks, Stefan. Yeah. No. Just kidding.   Any questions from the audience? We can do this. Yes. Emily, you enunciate. I'll repeat.   The next frontier   for Bitcoin,   assuming it's taken over the world, where is that next battle? Is that a fair  

[00:41:16] Unknown:

recap? Okay.   I think it'll be those countries that really go hard on Bitcoin first. You know, maybe El Salvador will be one of the first places where if they if they stick with this thing,   a lot of people in that country will get a lot richer than people in other countries because they will have been day to day native using Bitcoin.   That's one example. But I think it's also just people who hold a lot of coin right now will will kind of drive that competitive pressure amongst the different states and maybe some of the smallest like so might not, it might not necessarily be like the Australia, US, UK, Canada. It might be some of the smaller nations that are maybe a little bit more nimble and actually offer a bit more freedom. Who knows?  

[00:41:56] Unknown:

Yeah. I mean, I think in general, what you see with Bitcoin is it's   it's the challengers that adopt Bitcoin first and and end up benefiting from it more. So you you tend to see disadvantaged people get it first.   You see tend to see the secondary companies, not the top tier company isn't the first one who adopts it. It's a secondary company. You see countries like El Salvador adopt it before a large GDP nation.   And at some point that will change,   but in the short to medium term, it'll probably continue to be   kind of, you know, countries, companies,   individuals that have something to prove, something to truly fight for,   that will adopt it first. And that's kind of, you know, that's one of the most beautiful aspects of Bitcoin to me, at least in the adoption cycle,   because, you know, Bitcoin doesn't, like, magically   fix income inequality   or,   make the world necessarily,   you know, more financially equal,   but it does guarantee you a fair money,   and it it guarantees you the ability to fight on a fair playing field where the money isn't necessarily,   working against you or being co opted by super powerful forces.  

Thank you, Emily.  

[00:43:07] Unknown:

Yeah. Gentleman in the back.   So with   Chinese miners coming over, especially to Texas, especially with flare gas in West Texas,   seeing the federal versus the state level,   you see, like, a Texas, Wyoming,   Tennessee,   hopefully,   North Dakota, South Dakota kind of saying, hey, we're gonna create our own rules  

[00:43:29] Unknown:

versus the federal coming down with a federal mandate. Is that fair to go? Well, we see, like, the states' rights base he's basically asking will we see, like, states' rights become a a bigger issue in Bitcoin? Well, we're seeing Wyoming too.  

[00:43:42] Unknown:

You,   say   make   some states, I guess, more likely to try and execute that strategy. Right? Would you say that's a fair? And who are the  

[00:43:52] Unknown:

players?  

[00:43:54] Unknown:

Oh, okay. As in which would they support the privacy aspect of it as well? That's probably more complicated. I think in terms of just broadly supporting Bitcoin, I think if there are a lot of jobs in that area, then the politicians will be a lot more inclined to be amenable to that. So Texas and having a lot of bitcoin mining, people like Ted Cruz and others who will be out there saying, yeah, look, let's let's rah rah Bitcoin. Right? So there might be a bit of that. But in terms of the privacy angle, that's probably a harder question. I don't really, I don't think I could offer an intelligent,  

[00:44:24] Unknown:

so   Yeah. You know, first of all, I think Bitcoin is private Bitcoin usage is protected,   by the constitution of the United States,   the first and fourth amendment, the first being free speech,   and the fourth being unreasonable search and seizure. If you're not using a third party because we have the 3rd party doctrine, which is why it's important to use it with your own node, holding your own keys,   and I would like to see more constitutional fights on that level.   But you also have, I believe it's the 14th amendment, which is states' rights,   and I wanna see it protected on that level as well. So I wanna see more constitutional   law kind of,   plays with Bitcoin.  

I expect states to start doing it. I expect, once again, to go back to the previous question, the challenger states to kinda step up first, who have less to lose, who have been, you know, completely,   destroyed economically in a lot of ways.   But with Texas,   you know, it's a very interesting beast because they are a powerhouse.   And   while it's nice to see   the mining industry grow down there, and I I very much support the use of,   we didn't repeat that part of the question, but waste natural gas,   that's just being put out into the atmosphere and it's horrible for the environment. There's actually an incentive now to to be better for the environment, a direct financial incentive   by capturing that that waste gas and turning it into Bitcoin.  

We are the land of KYC.   And when you look at international exchanges,   a lot of times it's not their own governments that force them into complying with,   KYC laws and lists of Bitcoiners. It's the American government that does it. We had a major exchange called BitMEX. Right?   BitMEX didn't wanna implement KYC AML. They were based in the Seychelles.   They were forced to implement it because the US government said to them,   if you don't implement   KYC, Americans might use it. So you have to KYC every single one of your customers to make sure the Americans don't use it. And then we used, you know, our 8 aircraft carriers or whatever to make sure that that policy was enforced. Right? They threw 2 of the founders in jail.   The 3rd founder ultimately bent the knee and settled with them, and now they're fully KYC'd AML'd.  

So the more miners we have in America, that becomes more of a risk to me.   And, you know, as much as I love this country, I think it's important for us as Americans to, like, keep our guard up   and,   at least at the very least, you know,   try and   support, you know, mining   firms that are pushing back against   unwarranted,   regulation against them that is that is ultimately worse for Americans and worse for people around the world. Yeah. I'll just add there as well. Even with the,  

[00:47:10] Unknown:

international censorship pressures, you got FADF. Right? Financial Action Task Force. And so sometimes it goes either way. So one one of my episodes with, Jake Shevinsky, he talks about how it kind of sometimes it's pushed from the country level, and in other cases, it's pushed from, like, a FADF level because the FATF will then push it down to that country and say, oh, look, you naughty little country. You're not doing enough.   KYC, AML,   you're a Europe. You're on the blacklist, and we're gonna try to stop you in terms of banking. And so then that country now faces pressure,   either the legislators or the regulators of that country have pressure on them. We need to push KOC onto our banks, financial services, and to Bitcoin companies. And so that's a bit of that pressure game that goes on there. But   maybe an interesting example though is,   Bekele with El Salvador sort of almost giving him the middle finger to the IMF.  

Maybe there is a scenario where maybe some country governor or state governor   starts giving the middle finger to FATF.   We don't know.  

[00:48:10] Unknown:

Yeah.   Go ahead.  

[00:48:15] Unknown:

So the question was,   countries, authoritarian   countries like, the Democratic Republic of Congo,   just shut down internet, shut down text messages. They go the full 9 yards to to try and   quash any kind of, opposition to them. And how can Bitcoin be more robust against that?   I would say that, you know, when people see a need, a true need, and this is one of the things I, you know, I really took away from the Oslo Freedom Forum by the HRF,   is they they will find a way. Right? And   I I think,   you know, for people in those types of situations, you don't have to explain the need for Bitcoin. You can skip that whole first step. You just have to explain to them and help them how how can they access it, how can they use it.   And   I think the important part is, you know, at least on our side, me and Stefan's side, like,   you wanna support the tools,   you wanna   make the education, you wanna have it there for people. So when they realize that need, they can come   and and and learn for themselves and take their own journey and try and make it happen. But I think, ultimately, like, every attack against Bitcoin makes the network more more robust.  

And, frankly, to be honest, you know, between the competition between countries,   between,   like, the the way that the Bitcoin network is now, I think it's   extremely robust. Like, I think we're we're we're very well situated   in terms of   state resistance,   on the network level. My my bigger concern is on the actual individual user level.   And, you know, if you're a developed country,   like,   you know, that that's a weapon of mass destruction shutting off the Internet for your whole for for for everything. Right?   So so the really the low hanging fruit is you attack users,   and specifically what you do is,   and hopefully this is not prescient, you attack the the users that are outspoken about these causes like me and Stefan, and then you make an example out of us, and then everyone else kinda just falls in line and complies.  

Right? Because that's, you know, unfortunately,   especially over the last 2 years, that's the unfortunate reality. The unfortunate reality is if you if you scare people enough, you make examples out of a few people, the majority of people will will fall in line, and you don't have to go through those drastic measures in the first place. Yeah. So just to add to that, I think it's about building a social movement that there's enough,  

[00:50:45] Unknown:

there's enough people out there who just want their freedom and chase it. One other thing I'll just add on the developing country. Like, I just came from Sri Lanka recently as well. So I was there. I was born there. Right? So I have I I was raised in Australia, so I had the the luck to be to be raised in a Western world nation.   And talking to some of my cousins,   it it's bleak when your income is really low. You just can't save. Right? So with the average, you know, a person in Sri Lanka might be earning. If I were to US dollarize that income, it might be 5 or $6,000   a year   or maybe a little bit more. Right? But it's imagine living on $6,000 a year. Like, you just it's very hard for you to save when your income is just simply that low. And it's even it might even be difficult for you to use Bitcoin non custodially when your income is that low. And so that's why in El Salvador, we're seeing things like Bitcoin Beach, by Galloy,   doing this idea of like a community lightning bank and things like that because you just can't afford it otherwise. And so that's one of the difficulties there. But I think education and over time and especially   this might be like my friend Hasma Cook with his DCA army message of, you know, if enough people start stacking sats hard,   you monetize Bitcoin globally, and then that's actually how you can save people in the developed in the, developing countries. Because   quite frankly, there's a wealth and income   disparity that is just so   immense.  

He also called privacy dev spooks though. Yeah. So, look, I don't agree with his views there, but I agree on his DCA army.  

[00:52:13] Unknown:

CK.  

[00:52:14] Unknown:

So the question was, how big does the anonymity set have to get in terms of coin join or privacy techniques, privacy users, users who are using privacy techniques,   for this basically to be a viable thing.  

[00:52:26] Unknown:

Anonymity   set being, like, this idea in privacy that   you're only as private as the crowd that you're among. If only, like, 10 people are seeking privacy,   it's very easy to just   realize those 10 people are using, you know, the privacy methods. That's not just a Bitcoin thing. That's just a a a normal you know, it's a it's a it's a privacy meme almost, but it's a it's a real it's a real aspect to privacy in general.   And then   he c k asked,   like, when can we see larger Bitcoin anonymity set,   specifically with CoinJoin?   I think it's gonna be a while, you know. I've spent, you know, 2 years not shutting up about it   and,   it's grown quite a bit. I mean, Whirlpool right now It's at 34,000   Bitcoin? No. It's at like 43100   Bitcoin and,   I see some, you know, people wearing their their Apple Watches. I know some of you had the Bitcoin price on there.  

Bitcoin price is up right now, so I think it's at a all time high both in dollar terms and Bitcoin terms. It's probably like a   what is that? What is,   I I am horrible at live, Matt. Alright. Let's do it. So 40, mate, how do you call it? 200 Bitcoin at 55 k a 1000.   55 k.   Is I think a quarter of a1000000?   Yeah. It's a quarter of a1000000. It was great math.   A quarter of a1000000000. Yeah. That was Mass that's pretty big. That's pretty big. That's pretty big. But, we need to see that number go up. And I think ultimately, and it just goes back to the previous the previous question, ultimately, like, people just need to get burned really before they start to realize the need. I think the tools have improved, so it is easier to use now. And we were talking about Sparrow Wallet. It's extremely easy to use. You install the wallet. You connect it to your own node. You can just use it with Bitcoin Core if you want.   Super easy to use now,   relatively cheap,   and   that should help it increase. But ultimately, people need to get burned, I think, before before that number really goes up significantly.  



[00:54:28] Unknown:

Yeah. Bull Rogers.  

[00:54:30] Unknown:

Three tips to improve your Bitcoin privacy. If you really if you if privacy is important,   then step 1, acquire the coins non non KYC.   Step 2 is,   run your own bitcoin node. And step 3 is, like, use CoinJoin,   wallets like Samura Wallet and Sparrow Wallet,   would probably be my kind of easy  

[00:54:49] Unknown:

1, 2, 3 steps. Avoid KYC as much as possible.   Hold your own keys. Use your own known.   Learn privacy best practices.   Cell phones are horrible for privacy.   We're literally just walking around with surveillance,   trackers on us. I mentioned the Apple Watch. It's just a modern day cattle tag that you guys all have on you.   There are certain techniques you can use with your cell phones to improve your privacy situation. I have covered them on SITO Dispatch.   I really like Kallix OS, which is an open source,   fork of Android with Google removed from it. It's still a surveillance device, but at least it reduces it somewhat.   And it's just all about that privacy versus convenience trade off.  

The the the true privacy advocates   don't have a phone, period.   I run Kallix, you know, I got my face on here, you know. The privacy advocate that talks publicly about privacy. He's also the co founder of Bitcoin TV.   The The question is, what do we think of ransomware and governments going after Bitcoin and our privacy to fight ransomware   and how that should how how we expect that to play out? Yeah. So  

[00:55:59] Unknown:

some of it, I mean, some of it is a real risk, right? But I also see it like I could imagine that being a big flat angle. I could imagine that being a big, oh, look, look at these illegal hackers and   see how bad bitcoin is. It's being used by the hackers and so on. So there will be a bit of a narrative battle about that and I think people who are advocating and from a human rights point of view and from   an anti inflation or anti fiat money point of view, we'll have to,   make that case.   I think there will be a lot of resources put into chain surveillance. So, you know, Coinbase are putting money into that. The chain analysis of the world are getting government contracts   to do spying on people and to have that sort of exchange relationship. So these are all yeah. They're a bit concerning and, what you'll see is actually really interesting on this sort of stuff as well is,   Ergo BTC from the samurai camp. He's a part of OXT research. He often does some research reports on some of these hacks and he'll trace it through. And funnily enough, he ends up tracing it through some exchanges and being like,   this money went to Binance.  

So someone knows who this person is.   So, certainly very interesting guy to follow,   in terms of his ability to trace things on chain. He's like a white hat on chain analyst, so he's an interesting perspective there.   Yeah.  

[00:57:18] Unknown:

I mean, ransomware increasing ransomware attacks will be used against Bitcoin, will be used against Bitcoin privacy.   Advocates and people who attempt to use Bitcoin privately,   will be a u used as an excuse to   enforce greater KYC laws and make them even more burdensome and more dangerous.   Ransomware is not Bitcoin's fault.   We've entered the era of digital money. There's no going back now. These companies need to secure their data better.   They shouldn't get hacked in the first place.   The rent no one blames cash when, someone gets kidnapped and you you have a double bag of cash to pay the kidnapper.   If anything, bitcoin makes the ransom more safe because you don't have to actually have that physical transaction.  

And then the ultimate irony of ransomware   is,   the really dangerous ransomware is So the basic ransomware is a hacker   gets access to corporate systems,   they encrypt all of your data. So they don't actually steal your data, they just encrypt it and then they have the key. So to get the key back, you have to pay them.   And once you pay them, they actually most of the time they'll give you the key because   they just they just wanna get the easy payment and they want people to know that if you keep paying them, if they do it at scale, that you can pay them and you can reliably get the key back. The new breed of ransomware actually a lot of times takes the data hostage as well.   And   the unfortunate reality is   ransomware is gonna be used as a reason to collect more information on people,   And then that information is gonna get stolen by the ransomware hackers   and make ransomware even more profitable for them because then they can go and sell that data. So so   the the strategy that's gonna be used, unfortunately, to try and fight ransomware   is actually gonna be making ransomware more dangerous and and increase the incentive for it in the first place.  

And, you know, I just,   I I I just when when these ultimate these ultimately, it's used as an attack against Bitcoin and just, you know, encryption in general,   I hope that, you know, enough people will start pushing back and and saying that it's unreasonable and puts Americans at risk.  

[00:59:24] Unknown:

Maybe we wrap up with 2 questions,  

[00:59:26] Unknown:

Ben. K. So the question is, what are the top two things we would like to see Bitcoin open source developers do to improve privacy? Or wallets and exchanges. Wallets and exchanges.  

[00:59:38] Unknown:

You're giving this one to me first. Yeah.   I wanna see I wanna see more privacy development, you know. I I don't think, you know, we need, like, the 28th KYC on ramp.   You know, like, let's I and I'm, you know, maybe   maybe I'm being a little bit of a dick because I'm not coding it, you know. So I so I just get up here and just push for it. But,   you know, I   I I I want to support   developers that are focused on privacy in a free open source way,   And I wanna see less,   you know, money going to these, just the 28th, 29th, 30th KYC on ramp that's regulated.   And then the second thing is it's not even a development thing. I wanna see the existing regulated companies   start putting money   on the side to fight for users' privacy. Like I I I expect them to comply with the laws, but, you know, you know, pay up and fight.  

Like, actually try and and push back and try and reduce some of these, you know, oversteps because all we've seen is it get worse and worse and worse and worse. We haven't seen any pullback.  

[01:00:45] Unknown:

Yeah. So,   I think yeah. So privacy development maybe an example might be   lightning privacy stuff like opening channels with a coin join. I don't know. People like Lisa and I go to talking about stuff like that, dual funded channels and things. Or maybe like   lightning wallets that also combine coin join. But right now there's no one that sort of you either do one or the other world. There's no one who's sort of doing both. Maybe that's an angle.  

[01:01:10] Unknown:

So I would love to see that. That that coin joint plus lightning could be really interesting. Like imagine if you had, like, samurai wallet plus, I don't know, Zeus or some something like that. You know? Like, that might be a interesting I literally pressured Evan, the lead maintainer of Zeus, while we were on stage at HRF. I was like, he's gonna be the 1st lightning wallet to implement coin joint.  

[01:01:28] Unknown:

So now he has no choice. That's right. So that's one idea. And,   I Yeah. I think some of the, like, the lobbying stuff I think is like I I think people get frustrated because they they sort of   sense,   like, there's not much you can do about it, but the like, these people in this government are just putting out this more regulation, more regulation, and they're kind of creeping and creeping. Even, now this new thing of every transaction on the what is that? $600? $600. Yeah. Right? So, like it's not even just a bitcoin thing, it's just a life and just financial services in general. They're just closing the doors, closing and shutting the gates and try to   yeah, push everyone. So  

[01:02:09] Unknown:

I will say one thing is think big and acts a little small. You're probably there's somebody that's connected to some politician,   somebody   that owns one of these companies.   Have those conversations. We've invited a number of local politicians, and I hope they are gonna come to these future meetups,   and just have these conversations,   get them to use Bitcoin, get them to understand Bitcoin. Because once you use it I mean, we have senator Lummis that disclosed, I think it was today or yesterday,  

[01:02:35] Unknown:

her purchase of Bitcoin. And she's continuing to to fight the good fight. And she was fighting the $600 thing as well. Totally. Totally. And the $600 thing is a very interesting point. Like, I know, like, we kind of sounded like Debbie Downers up here.   I wanna be absolutely clear,   that Bitcoin is a massive step improvement   over the legacy financial system. Like, if you use Venmo, you have no privacy. Like, the majority of my peers are using Venmo and credit cards and Cash App, and they just have no privacy whatsoever. Disclose it. So   well, when I'm talking shit, I don't have to disclose.  

Cash App sponsored the podcast.   So bitcoin is a is a step improvement, a massive step improvement,   And, we already have tools that make it easier to use Bitcoin privately.   Those tools will get better.   Improvements will be made. Those will make the tools even better. And,   I'm I'm definitely optimistic long term, and I think Bitcoin is a massive net benefit,  

[01:03:34] Unknown:

for for privacy in general. So maybe I'll make a few announcements and then maybe ask you guys just to have some closing thoughts and and so on. So thanks again for everybody coming out. We alluded to a number of topics. We alluded to custody,   mining, lightning. So our next meetup for this group, you know, whoever wants to sign up, it's gonna be on, November 10th. The topic is gonna be why is custody   your why is custodying Bitcoin yourself   super vital and important?   We're gonna have some folks from Unchained, River potentially, and others   coming in town.  

And then on December 8th, it's gonna be At Home Mining. Doctor Fomo and I, gonna work on that. That's you, buddy.   And, and then in,   January 12th, it's gonna be lightning focused. So the reason why I was super excited, and thanks thanks to these guys again for spending time with us, is to really set the base around why Bitcoin privacy is so important   before we accumulate as much   as many stats as humanly possible and live a super awesome life. So,   and one other thing, David Bailey in the back. Yeah, I saw you sneak in.   He's the CEO, and he was my queue, by the way, to give the Bitcoin Magazine guys a shout out. But, thanks again to them for sponsoring the drinks tonight. They are literally, not to dox them, but it's on Google. So they're right across the street.  

And they're a huge, huge Bitcoin company here in Nashville, Tennessee. So thanks again to those guys.   Do you wanna make an announcement?   Okay.   They got something cool in the works. Potentially, it'll be on Twitter tomorrow.   And thanks to Jackalope. Please tip your bartenders.   They are awesome,   to work with,   here as well. So, Matt.  

[01:05:24] Unknown:

Thank you, Rod.   I wanna thank Mills as well, the co host of,   Nashville Bit Corners. I wanna thank Nashville. I love your city. It's a great city.   I just you know, I don't want I don't want people to be discouraged.   I think, you know, take your own journey. Don't get overwhelmed. Small steps, small improvements help.   Every little thing   you can you can cut out of your life that hurts your privacy does help. It does make a difference. You know, unplug your Alexa, unplug your Google Home, take off the smartwatch,   the little things, it's it's important.  

I wanna thank Bitcoin Magazine for sponsoring.   I literally spent, like, 7 hours at their office today going over Bitcoin 2022.   It's gonna be absolutely insane. It's gonna be in Miami April 6 through 9th.   55,000   people. They they tell me no, but I think it's gonna be 50 5,000 people, the largest bitcoin only conference in the world. I don't know your track record on price predictions. You can. And,   we're gonna be over 200 k by congress today.   You can buy your ticket at b.tc/conference.   If you use code 1 trillion,   you get 21% off. You pay with Bitcoin, you get a discount. I don't think that price will ever be cheaper than it is today. You will get FOMO in, like, May. No, May's afterwards.  

You will get FOMO in, like, February, March, and end up paying way more money to go. So consider buying your ticket now.   My two shows are Citadel Dispatch and Tales from the Crypt. Open up your favorite podcast app, ideally a podcasting 2.0 app so you can stream sats using lightning, just load it up with sats, go to new podcastapps.com.   You can look up the podcasting 2.0 apps. Once again, thank you all. I really do appreciate you.   Bitcoin is going to the fucking moon. We're gonna change the fucking world together. Stay humble, Stack Sats.   Yeah.  



[01:07:20] Unknown:

So yeah. I think,   there are   different ways you can go about this. Right? You can start by just earning non KYC if that's if that's, important.   You can   use   easy wallets like Sparrow. You can use Samurai Wallet, and you just get started   and then   step up to things like, say, Ronin Dojo running that as your own backing node for your samurai wallet or run your own Electrum server as the backing for your own Sparrow wallet. So these are some steps you can take along the way if you're interested in the non k y c element of this.   And, you know, it doesn't have to be all or nothing. Right? So you can have, like,   not everyone agrees with with me on this, but you can have, like, some k y c coins and some non k y c coins. So I think you can you can sort of have a foot in both worlds there. So that's another idea that you can take from that.  

So at the end of the day, I think it comes back to what I was saying before about the overall system that if it's permissionless and censorship resistant, then that's gonna help make bitcoin more successful in the long run. That it's like if the coins are and you can spend it in a way that's actually fungible and not doxing your stack or doxing   your wallet to people when you every time you make a spend or you receive coins. So there's there are a few interesting elements just for you guys to think about. And of course, if you're interested, I've got lots of episodes on my show or, you know, I've interviewed many privacy advocates and privacy developers. People like Matt, people like samurai wallet, people like ergo, various others who are working on this. So you can find me online, stephanlovera.com,   and of course, swanbitcoin.com   as well. I work for Swan, so you can buy with us, and we're bitcoin only. So you can send them to us.  

It for me. Thanks. Thanks for having us. Thanks to bitcoin magazine for sponsoring. Thanks to Rod and Mills for hosting us. Thank you guys for showing up. Thank you, everybody. Cheers.