Citadel Dispatch

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EPISODE: 58

BLOCK: 726473

PRICE: 2594 sats per dollar

TOPICS: ronindojo, privacy, freedom tech, crossing borders, adversarial environments, KYC risks to individuals and the network, bitcoin culture

https://citadeldispatch.com/cd58

@GuerraMoneta: https://twitter.com/GuerraMoneta

@BrotherRabbit_: https://twitter.com/BrotherRabbit_

@rottenwheel: https://twitter.com/rottenwheel

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[00:00:00] Unknown:

Like listening to him. I feel like he's in command and control. He gets these things. He's also pretty smart about how he says things politically,   may not be ready to shake the markets and say we're gonna do this pretty steadfast,   with all of these rate hikes coming through. I didn't get the sense listening to him that they are going to go that much slower. I it it   to me kind of reading through and listening   to hours of that testimony yesterday,   it sounded to me like, yeah,   He he knows that this is an issue. He knows that they need to be moving on this, and he's not gonna say anything to shake the markets up right now. But that was just my interpretation. How about how about yours? Well, well, certainly, we saw when the 2 year rate went up 18 basis point when he opened up the fact that we're gonna have to go faster,  

[00:00:43] Unknown:

I think that the the market said that. But we also have to admit, Becky, that the Fed has been terribly   wrong   over the last year. I mean, all this temporary inflation,   look at their projections for inflation that they did last year,   so way below,   what actually happened all the way to December.   You know, and and listen. Jay Powell is a very, very good man. He's a good communicator,   but but the Fed has been very wrong. And and they're gonna have to to catch up. And they're gonna have to and and really have to admit,   bite we gotta bite the bullet here. We gotta defend the dollar   here.  

Is it that you can do 25% of points? Over.   We gotta defend the we gotta defend the dollar.  

[00:02:00] Unknown:

Take 2.   Happy Bitcoin Tuesday, freaks. It's your boy Odell here for Citadel dispatch 58.   Citadel dispatch is an interactive live show about Bitcoin distributed systems privacy and open source software.   As always, I'd like to thank   all the freaks who continue to support this show. Dispatch is a 100% audience funded without ads or sponsors,   purely focused on actionable Bitcoin discussion.   Easiest way to support the show is through podcasting 2 point o apps. My two favorite are Breezewallet   and Fountain Podcasts.   They work like traditional podcast apps,   except you load them up with Sats.  

So you load them up with Sats, search still dispatch, click the subscribe button, then you basically pick   how many sats per minute you think,   dispatch is worth, and then as you're listening, it automatically will stream stats directly to my note.   You can also support the show using,   my bit 47 pay NIM, which is Odell.   That's linked at sill dispatch.com   as well as my BTCPay   instance that allows you, to support the show,   via Onchain or Lightning,   all Bitcoin.   Dispatch is broadcast on Twitch,   Twitter, and Bitcoin TV.com.   All archives are at Bitcoin TV.com   after the fact.  

The Twitch is twitch.tv/dispatch.   I am no longer broadcasting through YouTube   because they can go fuck themselves.   So with all that said,   this is a conversation that I'm looking forward to greatly.   It might not be with necessarily   the most well known names,   but they've all become friends,   over time.   I like to think, that they're freaks and they listen to the show as well.   And they just have a lot of very interesting opinions,   and   they do a lot of work in   in terms of education and and and building in the space. So I'm very excited for this conversation. I think we're gonna have,   it's gonna be unique. It's gonna be   maybe a little bit disjointed, maybe a little bit organic in proper dispatch fashion,   But,   it's gonna be a fun one, and hopefully, you guys find it enjoyable and helpful.  

So with all that said,   our first guest is Guera Moneta.   Guera, what's up?  

[00:04:28] Unknown:

Hey, man. How's it going? Thanks for having me on.  

[00:04:31] Unknown:

How's it going, Guera?   And we have Brother Rabbit. What's up, Brother Rabbit?  

[00:04:37] Unknown:

Hey, man. How's it going?   Good to be here.  

[00:04:40] Unknown:

Cheers. And we have Rod and Will. What's up, Rod and Will?   Happy to be here.   Thank you.   Fuck, yes.   So brother brother Rabbit and Guero Manera are,   involved in the Ronin Dojo project, the Ronin Dojo full known project.   I they recently came out, with a prebuilt version of their node. It's a free open source software, so you can actually run it all yourself on your own hardware,   but they also now have a pre built version. I have it right behind me.   You can't see that because this is not a   camera enabled show, but it is there.   So I figure we'll start the conversation with that, and then we'll see kind of where it takes us.  

So with all that said,   Gwer or Brother Rabbit, you wanna start off with why someone should be interested in the Ronin Dojo project in the first place?  

[00:05:35] Unknown:

Yeah. I'll I'll jump in. And also gotta do the obligatory   opening the beer.  

[00:05:40] Unknown:

Let's fucking go.   Everyone's drinking today.  

[00:05:44] Unknown:

Awesome. Awesome. So, for anyone who hasn't heard of running Dojo project,   like Matt was saying, we are a privacy focused   Bitcoin full node implementation,   and we're trying to make,   running a Bitcoin full node that enables your privacy as easy as possible.   We're hoping that we could get all the way to a plug and play experience that's smooth, where anyone can run a node.   But that's not all we're focused on.   We're we're a hardware and software company, so we're constantly building new software.   We have new hardware products that are coming, like steel backup,   plates, and   we're we're gonna offer services like premium support   to help people on the long journey to learning about privacy.  

So really, in short, Ronin Dojo as a company is your one stop shop for Bitcoin privacy   and getting started using Bitcoin like it's cash.  

[00:06:47] Unknown:

Awesome.   Yeah. I mean, I   my package had the metal backups in it as well. Is that is that normal? Or That was part of the,  

[00:06:58] Unknown:

holiday bundle that we did. If you ordered before a certain date, each node came with a plate.  

[00:07:05] Unknown:

You know, it's pretty clever, the whole, like, sticker thing on the metal plate.   I wasn't really sold on it at first, but I I kinda dig it now.  

[00:07:13] Unknown:

Yeah. And I think we'll offer a few different options.   Self custody is super important along with privacy.   So,   whether you wanna use, like, a sticker you can peel off and be a little more secret, or if you want to use, like, an engraved one where those lines are, you know, acid etched.   Really, it's just about, you know, what are you comfortable with? What's your threat model?   You know, is somebody gonna find that plate or not, and you can kinda, you know, adjust your strategy accordingly.  

[00:07:45] Unknown:

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so let's just talk about that real quick.   Most,   Bitcoin wallets   have,   a seed backup.   Your secret words, they're either 12 or 24 words.   You can obvious you should never put that on a   online computer.   You shouldn't save that in your Apple notes. You shouldn't save that on your in your Google Drive.   You should keep it offline.   That means you could either write it on a piece of paper, but paper obviously   can get damaged by water or fire. So what a lot of people do is they will stamp it into steel.   Most steel backups,   as Guero said, have these, like,   laser etched lines,   indicating, you know, which word you are engraving.  

With with Ronin Dojo's backup,   it's just a blank piece of steel.   So when you're done with it, it and and you put, like, this this sticker on top of it that has the guidelines, so then you use a punch. You use this, like, hole punch to to punch the dots in the steel. And when you remove the sticker, it just looks like a like a piece of steel with, like, braille in it or something.   I guess some people might still know what they're looking for there, but it just adds, like, another level of   plausible deniability if someone just, like, comes across it. But you should regardless, you should, you know, keep it physically secure where, like, no one can get to it,   at least easily.  

But that is kind of, like, a secondary thing. I mean, the main thing here is the node,   and I know you guys have been working really hard on it.   You know, what makes this node different? What makes this you know, there's a bunch of people who have a bunch of different options.   I had a sale of dispatch where we had a bunch of different node teams on, 247 node teams,   like Woah and and Zelco from your team were there representing Ronan Dojo.   So if people want, like,   if if if people wanna see, like, a comparison between the other projects, they can go and check out that episode.   But  

[00:09:57] Unknown:

but your work, you know, what makes it unique?   Yeah. Yeah. So we have a strong focus on Samurais Wallet, of course. So, you know, I can go ahead and say if you want Bitcoin privacy and you wanna use samurai wallet,   you know, we're the best node project in the space for it as far as uptime goes, as far as stability,   as far as customer support.   Most of the other nodes really are just stuffing a lot of apps in there   and having stability issues.   And, you know, if you want help with Samurais Wallet, there's no one around to help you out, or some of them haven't even written guides or wikis on how to do it either.   So just starting there as a samurai user, it's a very   advantageous setup.  

On top of that, you know, we have   a Whirlpool built in. It's deployed right whenever you set up the node   so you can mix 247.   You don't need to keep your samurai   app open to do whirlpool.   You know, you can remotely access it anywhere in the world over tour.   We don't, you know, cop out and   have any kind of, like,   any security holes, anything that could be considered and insecure, like leaving the firewall open,   like leaving the SSH port open,   we don't let you access it in ways that, could damage your privacy.   Every single step, you know, your privacy is taken into account. And everywhere we can, we, you know, run things through Tor.  

Even if Tor is a little bit slower,   sometimes it's the best option if you're remote.   On top of that, we have really high quality hardware.   I believe we're one of the only nodes using m.2   and BME drives.   We got great,   customer support as far as hardware goes. You know, we'll mail you out a replacement if there's an issue.   Usually, we can have stuff arrive within 2 to 3 days in the states.   And, yeah, that that's a good starting point. Brother Rabbit, you got any more?  

[00:12:06] Unknown:

Yeah. I was gonna say that, you know, abstracting sort of all the technicals away. You mentioned about sort of closing ports to SSH and whatnot. I think it's worth sort of mentioning   that this is all by default, isn't it? So,   those that would have received a Tanto, the lucky ones that, were in the US,   The idea behind the Tanto is sort of a a plug and play node. So   those,   to date that are familiar with Ronan Dojo   will be familiar with flashing like a a micro SD card, getting their hardware, you know, ordering their hardware off off the Internet,   flashing the micro SD,   and then having to go straight into the command line   and,   initiate,   the man the manjaro setup.  

So with with the the tanto in particular,   the idea of of about,   you know, being a plug and play node is that, you know, it arrives in the post,   and you simply just plug it into the ethernet cable,   plug an ethernet cable into it, and a and a power supply.   And, within 10 minutes,   the lights on the node should turn on, and, the initialization sequence starts.   And, you know, you're you're up and running within   within a matter of minutes. Now for for those that are a little bit more sort of, privacy conscious aware or, like to verify the images themselves, you know, you don't have to the the node does come with a pre flashed,   micro SD card, but, if you want, you can open up the bottom after receiving it and flash the image yourself,   verifying it first, of course,   and then plugging in the power supply and Ethernet cable.  

So, yeah, like I said, within about 10 minutes,   you can go to your local browser,   of which,   Pavel,   who, I think that you've had on have you had on, had Pavel on dispatch? I have not had Pavel on yet.   Oh, well, he's a he's a UI wiz, that's for sure.   And he was fucking gorgeous.   It's nice, isn't it? So within a matter of minutes, you know, you can get into your UI and you've got a a dashboard that says,   you know, what the IBD is on, where the indexer is at, and then you can pay your your your samurai wallet.   So it's it's just sort of trying to get to a,   a place where, you know, running a node is is a lot easier for the user because,   you know, if you're   these things can be a bit a bit sort of a bit technical for for those that that are told to that they should run a node, but they don't quite understand or feel like they've got the ability to do so.  



[00:14:47] Unknown:

Yeah. That's perfect.   And to expand on that, I just shared   a a tweet in the chat. I'll share it again.   It's all about,   just shared it right there.   It's all about making this easier. Like, in that tweet,   I listed 5 steps.   And, really, it should be that simple. You should be able to flash the phone or buy a phone that has Kallax on it. You should be able to plug the note in and it's set up. Just download the wallet, engrave your piece of steel, and you're go. You know, you got the Freedom phone. You've got the Freedom money. You're connected to your own node.   And it really should be that simple to get off of 0 and get started and, you know, be set up within a day or 2.  



[00:15:31] Unknown:

So, like, a couple,   things to note here. First of all,   why would someone use your their own node   to use the Bitcoin network?   You connect to the Bitcoin network through a node. If you don't use your own node, you're using someone else's node.   You're trusting that person or entity that's running the node with your privacy and with verification.   If that node provider is,   pressured or compromised,   data on you and your Bitcoin transactions,   can also be compromised, so it's important to use your own node.   You guys make it extremely easy in that respect.   It's as simple as you just plug this thing in,   you wait for it to sync,   and then a QR code shows on on the web browser screen,   and you just scan that QR code with Samura Wallet, and it automatically connects,   to your own node through Tor. So I really think that   that QR code connection mechanism   is,   vastly underrated. It's a fantastic way of   simplifying the UX in terms of using your own node.  

And then the other thing you guys did mention is, I mean,   the Tanto or the Tanto,   like, the actual hardware case is fucking fire,   or I guess the opposite of fire. It's it's, you know, a single block of aluminum, basically, so it acts as a heat sink. So it's fanless   and just feels really good in the hand. I don't know how often people are actually holding their note in their hand,  

[00:17:11] Unknown:

but it doesn't feel really nice. Have to go for something that was, like, Mac mini level premium.   Because you know how people get about their hardware. They want it they want it sleek, and they want it sexy.   Otherwise, it just feels   cheap.  

[00:17:25] Unknown:

And I don't know about you guys, but, you know, with with my notes that they're used to being sat in the sort of corner of the room, sort of collecting dust that I need to sort of   wipe out every now and again.   But, you know, with the with the tanto, it's not only well, I'll tell you this.   The first thing q and a did when he got his tanto was put it on the kitchen scales,   because it is quite weighty, isn't it, Matt, when you when you sort of hold it? But the the the aluminium   case acts as like a passive heat sink, so,   you know, I'm just looking at my Ronin Dojo,   UI at the moment, and mine's running at 38 degrees, you know, without a fan, and it's sort of warm to the touch.  

So the whole the whole unit acts as like a a passive power is a passive heat sink,   pulling the heat away.   So it is it is a beautiful piece of art, really.  

[00:18:20] Unknown:

Rod and wheel, do you have a Tanto?  

[00:18:24] Unknown:

No.   I have,   I actually won some   contest, something with Bitcoin enemies, and I won the the Gons and Bitcoin treated printed case.   So I I   I practically do have a Tanto, but it's not in that Tanto case. It's in another case. But, yes, I do have a running w.   And a little bit a little bit on top of what you all have said,   speaking from experience,   I appreciate that Samurai does provide users with their own   node, and it's easy just to get it started,   on Samurai   even if the user does not run their own full node.   But ever since I started using running Dojo both on the Virgin wallet and the preexisting wallet.  

The connection is way faster.   In terms of speed, I I   do notice the the change.   So it's it's great. Not only you're autonomous,   but your your speed handling transactions   and fetching,   transaction history   increases a lot.  

[00:19:38] Unknown:

And I think it's worth saying, isn't it? That, you know, we we sort of very, Ronin Dojo is very samurai wallet focused,   but, you know, we have the ability to, change the indexer. In fact, the tantos come,   with, Electrum Rust Server as the default.   And, you know, you can connect connect   other other wallets to it, including, you know, a Sparrow wallet. I've been,   playing with that for the last sort of couple of months   since, Craig introduced,   Whirlpool back in September last year.   So, you know, it it it it gives the ability to to connect to other wallets,   but still have a sort of stable node stable node backing it.  



[00:20:19] Unknown:

Yeah. Because it has,   you can very easily use it with other nodes other,   pieces of software that are on chain based. Most of them use the Electrum standard.   With something like Sparrow, it's as simple as just pasting the Electris on onion address directly into Sparrow, and then it'll use your own node going forward. Sparrow's a desktop wallet. Highly recommend. Fantastic.   As as for, you know, a lot of freaks might be thinking about lightning.   They might be thinking about some of the   other non necessarily Bitcoin specific things that   Umbrel and,   Start9,   have built into their packages or even something like maybe Raspberry Blitz that has a lot of other Bitcoin specific stuff.  

Would you guys agree   that it kinda makes sense   if if if a user is using samurai,   they're using the samurai stack   to have a Ronin Dojo, use that dedicated for the samurai stack. And And then if you wanna run other things, you know, then you have a separate box that's running the other things.  

[00:21:30] Unknown:

Yes.   From a security perspective, absolutely.   Stuffing all those apps on one box   is   even if that you claim that you're using Docker containers   to separate them, there's still   exploits found all the time for crazy stuff, like privilege escalation   and arbitrary code execution   between containers,   and it it's just too risky.   And, you know, I'll go ahead and say there's a reason why,   roll on their   read me. It says it's not a 100% secure, and you shouldn't put more funds on there than you're willing to lose.   And I believe that warning is still on their   GitHub today,   and that's the proper thing to do. Anytime you're introducing   more attack vectors like that,   you need to be careful.  

So if you're playing around and experimenting,   yeah, sure stuff all your apps on one box. But if it's   your livelihood   and your everything that involves your financial data,   that should really be isolated   on one box.  

[00:22:41] Unknown:

And, I mean, the security is a very valid reason, but I would also say there's a reason there from a, like, a reliability point of view. Oh, yes. Stability is another thing. We get lots of people coming to Ronan Dojo,  

[00:22:54] Unknown:

who are I guess we'll call them refugees.   And   we know whenever you're stuffing all those apps in there, stability   goes out the window very quick, or at least it takes a while to dial that in and have a good user experience.  

[00:23:11] Unknown:

Yeah. You'll often see me sort of in the in the chats,   talking to users here and there.   And, you know, when when,   unfortunately, when when you see maybe, like, another node implementation,   that that that has that has the ability to back your samurai wallet to the node,   when they often fall into issues,   because,   those other node projects support so many of apps as well. Now they're not as focused on,   sort of on chain privacy or specifically   supporting Dojo or samurai wallet.   So, you know, it becomes very difficult to troubleshoot those users,   who often haven't done anything wrong.  

They've just been, you know, operating their node as it's meant to be operated. So   I think, you know, what Ronin Dojo prides itself on is,   maintaining, you know, high up time for for when you need it the most. And, you know, when you when you go to push a transaction,   you know, you want it to work as silly as it sounds or when you want to use Whirlpool,   and, you know, leave your SAPS mixing 247   on your node.   You know, you want it to work and be reliable. So,   you know, supporting   loads of other,   apps, although,   you know, it's nice to play around and tinker,   for some users,   you know, you can often fall into pitfalls with troubleshooting.  



[00:24:32] Unknown:

Yeah. And I mean, specifically,   in this case, when it comes to CoinJoin,   I mean, the cool part about Whirlpool's CoinJoin implementation,   there's multiple different CoinJoin implementations. CoinJoin is   I mean, I think most of the freaks at this point know what CoinJoin is, but it's a collaborative transaction,   where you and multiple other people are sending Bitcoin transactions at the same time to improve your privacy.   Whirlpool's CoinJoin implementation   has a flat fee,   and then after that, you can remix for free. So you keep joining coin join rounds. And as a result, to take full advantage of it, you really want Whirlpool to be running 247.   So what I've noticed with some of the other,   node implementations when you're running, you know, Whirlpool on them is they'll lock up and they'll freeze up,   and you don't really realize it because it's not like an active process. It's something you're just going about your life, and in the background, you're just assuming that you're you're getting these free remixes,   and then you realize, like, 4 days later or 5 days later that the Whirlpool process stopped.  

So, like, that reliability   there is is crucial so that you can, you know, just live your life and have some peace of mind   that that it is coin joining in the background without having to constantly check it and troubleshoot it.   Another thing I wanted to discuss before we move on from Ronan Dojo,   is one of the topics we talk about in dispatch a lot is monetizing   free and open source projects.   Free and open source projects   are   inherently,   by design,   free to,   copy, modify, distribute.   So as a result, you don't have the   ability to kind of have the vendor lock in that you see with proprietary   product.  

And as a result, you see a lot of donation   methods used to kind of support these free and open source projects. It's one of the reasons I started OpenSats.   It's also one of the reasons why SIL dispatch is a 100% audience funded.   But you guys have, I mean, 2 interesting   monetization   schemes. 1st, obviously, this prebuilt node that we've been discussing,   but the other one that I found really interesting is this paid support model. You wanna talk about that a little bit?  

[00:26:54] Unknown:

Yeah. We're kind of in the middle of overhauling that right now, and we have some news coming soon about it as we migrate to a new,   support portal.   But, yeah, I think one of the great ways to give away software for free and monetize is through offering services, like,   guided support, like walk throughs, setups,   or even people building their own nodes that just need a little bit of command line help.   A lot of people   don't know where to find solutions,   and they're tired of looking.   You know, their time is more valuable than spending hours googling stuff,   and they're willing to pay, you know, 25, 50, $60,   to get a certain amount of support   and have, you know, a support person there   within a short amount of time, who's ready to whether it's voice chat or,   through, you know, through Telegram or whatever,   you'd be surprised how many people are willing to pay for that kind of service.  



[00:28:00] Unknown:

Yeah. I feel like it's win win for everyone involved.  

[00:28:03] Unknown:

Yep. Yep. And,   obviously, we have some other tactics that we're working on to continue to monetize.   But, yeah, it's it's tough to give away software for free   and keep a roof over your head while you're doing it.   So the more kind of little techniques like this that we can come up with to   extract a little bit of money here and there.   You know, we think it'll be enough to have, you know, a small little company and pay a few people.   And it's not easy, but it's definitely possible.  

[00:28:38] Unknown:

And then the the hardware, you know, the hardware itself is is sort of a way to monetize through,   you know, selling a piece of kit that,   you know, is unique on the market, so to speak. And,   it is, you know, is is a very nice piece of hardware that is is both sort of powerful and practical.   So,   you know, even if you've been a a long standing Ronin Dojo user,   to which, you know, when the when the presale went live in in December, there were many existing Ronin Dojo users,   that that pre ordered a Tanto, to which have now been delivered.   And that sort of as a a way of, those users showing sort of their appreciation for,   for Ronin Dojo.  



[00:29:28] Unknown:

I mean, a common question that's gonna happen after this discussion   is,   the Tanto is out of stock on your website.  

[00:29:37] Unknown:

When  

[00:29:38] Unknown:

how when when are they gonna be back in stock?  

[00:29:42] Unknown:

Come to our booth in Miami. If you're going to BTC 2022,   you can't miss our booth. It's gonna be huge.   We will have tantos on the show   floor.   Maybe shortly before that, sales will go up   to start selling some on our shop again,   but we will not ship them until we get back from the Miami conference.  

[00:30:06] Unknown:

That's April 6th through 9th. V.tc/conference.   Code open source gets you 21% off.   Don't share that code on Twitter. Otherwise, it'll get cut off as well.   And Goro's gonna be speaking on the open source stage, which I'm very excited about.  

[00:30:24] Unknown:

Yeah. You're hosting that. Right?  

[00:30:26] Unknown:

I'm trying to.  

[00:30:28] Unknown:

Okay. Yeah. I know you're gonna have a hell of a week, man. I'm hosting all 3 days of the open source stage.  

[00:30:36] Unknown:

So I'm not sure if which panels I will be moderating,   but I'm basically putting together the whole open source stage. It's like,   I mean, the open source stage itself is gonna   conferences that have ever existed   within   the largest Bitcoin conference that has ever existed. Because the the open source conference hall is   like, the fire code says 2,000 people.   We're gonna have it set up with a little less than a 1000 seats and 12 workshop tables, so they'll be like   it won't feel cramped,   especially after last year where we were in that tiny little tent. Oh, hell no. That was terrible.   So, like, I made I made sure to go   go as big as possible,   and,   there's gonna be 3 days of straight,   content   that it is,   dedicated content for open source projects and contributors.  

So the first day will be, like, highly technical stuff,   and then the next 2 days will be a little will be more accessible content. But, basically, in practice, it's it's gonna be, like, 3 days of serial dispatch content.   So I'm pretty excited about that. But it's a it's been a big haul, and it's gonna be   and stress is high right now, and it's only gonna get higher   and a lot of moving parts. But I'm I'm very excited about it.  

[00:32:04] Unknown:

I feel you on that one, man.   And quick to touch on it, if anybody here has not really jumped into open source,   it's really important.   You know, if you are looking for something to do, looking for a hobby,   you know, if you just got Bitcoin rich and, you know, you need some something to do on the side,   I really suggest looking into how to contribute to an open source project.   It could be something you find useful or maybe you just wanna   help them out. But I I just linked in the chat a little page we have that talks about,   how anyone really can   support open source.  

You don't have to be a coder. You could have graphic design skills. You could be messing with 3 d printers,   whatever.   And, you know, I can say for the Ronin Dojo project,   we would not exist without   all of the amazing volunteers who've came together   seemingly out of nowhere.   You know, we had devs and   a hardware developer out of Taiwan,   and all these volunteers came together, assembled the Wiki and   working support,   and   it's all mostly donation based.   And   somehow it just came out of nowhere and works.   Open source really is magic,   and you can there's so many ways to dive in and help out   on that, page I just linked in the chat.  



[00:33:36] Unknown:

Ronan dojo Ronan   dojo.io   slash contribute.  

[00:33:41] Unknown:

Yeah. If you go to Ronan dojo dot I o slash contribute, you'll see,   there's other links on there, like, how you can get involved in open source in general   and some strategies.   But, yeah, I just had to plug that because,   you know, the only reason that   this space is even alive is because of a lot of volunteer effort,   for free software building   and more.  

[00:34:05] Unknown:

If if I can,   because,   of course, there is always this question.   We we were looking forward to running wiwi,   b 2,   for months.   Is there any, I don't know,   hints, any news, any   forthcoming features that you can   leak here or no?  

[00:34:31] Unknown:

Kind of. If you go to the Ronin dojo dot I o website, you'll see some screenshots   of the UI   that has some functionality   that's not in the UI yet.   So you can kind of get some hints to what is coming based on those screenshots.   I can't get too specific,   but you will be able to install applications,   via the user interface. I can say that.   We also have some features coming that are specific to,   coin join and things like,   calculating your entropy,   so you don't have to use   KYCP,   or OXT,   centralized blockchain explorers. You know, that there'll be some functionality that's like that that's self hosted.   That's great. So some some really cool things to look forward to, but I can't go any further than that.  



[00:35:30] Unknown:

Oh, of course. See, it's an endless   teasing   session.  

[00:35:35] Unknown:

Yep. Yep. That's how it goes. We just need to wait for him to get drunker, and then he'll give us he'll give us some more.   What kind of apps you mean when you say apps, you mean the   was is that alluding to the block explorers? Or  

[00:35:51] Unknown:

that that would be things like we currently have, like, mempool   or,   you know, like, switching   indexers, that kind of thing. Right now, you have to,   there's, like,   a application management list in the   command line interface, but it is not in the   the the new Ronin UI 2.0 yet. It's coming.   That's up to Pavel whenever that gets done, but he's working on it.  

[00:36:20] Unknown:

Awesome.  

[00:36:21] Unknown:

Cool.  

[00:36:23] Unknown:

Rod, you got any more questions before we move on from Ronan?  

[00:36:26] Unknown:

No. I think I'm good.  

[00:36:30] Unknown:

Brother and Gare, you got anything you wanna talk about with Ronin before we move on?  

[00:36:35] Unknown:

I think covered.  

[00:36:36] Unknown:

I was just gonna say, you know, if you're if you're considering   wanting to,   run a Ronin Dojo, then, you know, by all means, reach out or,   there's there's sort of like   an underground   sort of privacy and sovereignty community,   on sort of Telegram and Matrix.   So, you know, if it tickles your fancy, then, you know, drop a message in one of the chats, particularly sort of the Ronin Dojo chat, and, someone can   direct you into sort of what hardware to buy or where to start.  

[00:37:06] Unknown:

How did they get to the Ronin Dojo Telegram chat?   Someone linked at t.me/ronin   dojonode.  

[00:37:13] Unknown:

Yeah. That's the one.  

[00:37:14] Unknown:

Yep.   If you care about privacy and you wanna get started off of Xero, we're here to help you. Everybody's super friendly.   We got the gear. We're trying to be the one stop privacy shop.   Let's get it done. And,  

[00:37:29] Unknown:

I wouldn't be Odell if I didn't also show the   Citadel   chat, which is,   how people participate live in the show, but also throughout the week.   It's just really, really great Bitcoin conversation. I've been very pleasantly surprised. We have over 700 Bitcoiners in there now,   and it still remained high signal while Twitter has just completely   gone to the shitter.   So if you wanna join that, that's if you go to silo dispatch.com, just click see, they'll chat. You can join that. Awesome. Well, I appreciate all the work you guys have been doing with Ronin Dojo. It is a really fantastic piece of kit.   I look forward to   running this Tanto through its paces, but,   I've graduated from my   the the one I built myself, and I've I've always enjoyed, your project. It's it's it's really fantastic, and I the freaks know I love the samurai stack.  

Cool. So   next discussion.   I was, you know, I was thinking, and I talked to Rob and Weil about this ahead of time,   with everything in the news,   in Ukraine   and in Russia and,   in Canada before that,   There are a lot of people that are   being thrust into   this, you know, very heavy financial censorship,   censorship and surveillance.   Bank accounts closed.   In Russia, their credit cards aren't working.   In Ukraine, there was a run on the ATMs, and, obviously,   they're getting bombed.   So people are trying to flee their cities,   trying to cross borders,   ideally, with as much of their wealth as possible, at least with spending cash so they can spend on the other side of the border.  

So I thought it'd be   a very productive and helpful conversation to kind of talk about   different tools and tactics people could use,   in these types of heavy adversarial   situations.   And not just Bitcoin specific. Right? Because on the Bitcoin side,   fortunately, we do have, like, a decent amount of tooling in terms of   storing your Bitcoin offline, but also just in terms of   general data security   and important files and important documents, maybe even family photos and stuff that that you that you wanna keep even if you're fleeing your home   under in an adversarial environment.  

What do you guys think about that?  

[00:40:09] Unknown:

So you mean, like, on the go kits,   like   crossing borders,   that kinda  

[00:40:17] Unknown:

Yeah. The thought experiment that I was thinking was,   you know, you're in Ukraine,   you're you're living in Kiev,   The war starts. You have a backpack.   You're trying to get to the border. You don't know how hostile the border is gonna be when you get there.   What do you pack in that bag? How do you do it?  

[00:40:41] Unknown:

Well,   definitely   one of the Calix phones,   definitely   doing the panic button setup. Have you looked into that? The I think it's called the panic trigger or something like that. Have you seen that, Odell?  

[00:40:58] Unknown:

I know it exists,   but I haven't actually used it. What how do you initiate it?  

[00:41:04] Unknown:

So yeah. Let me post the link in the chat too because it's a good one.  

[00:41:09] Unknown:

I love Kallix. The freaks know I love Kallix. If you go to kallixos.org,   it's their website,   but basically, it's a d googled version of Android.  

[00:41:20] Unknown:

So the idea with the the panic button is that you can sort of,   preset,   an amount of apps,   and then   when when you trigger the panic button, those those apps will either be sort of, they'll either disappear   or, your that your data will be,   erased, won't they?  

[00:41:39] Unknown:

And it goes even a step further than that.   There's certain things you can set, like a dead man switch, where if you don't check your phone within a certain amount   of time, it wipes the phone. You could set it to, like, an hour.   There's also a geofence   setup   where if the phone goes within a certain area   or, say, was taken to a certain area from you,   it wipes the phone.  

[00:42:05] Unknown:

Is this built into Kallix, or you have to install a separate app for it? Or It's a separate app.  

[00:42:11] Unknown:

There's 2 solid panic trigger apps that use what's called,   the panic kit, now that I'm looking it up.   There's one called panic button, and there's one called ripple.   I think they're pretty similar. I've only checked out the ripple one.   But, I put the link in the  

[00:42:29] Unknown:

chat here for everybody to see. And how do you actually initiate it?   Let me see here. Is it, like, clicking the power button a certain amount of times or something? Or you can think with Ripple, you can do  

[00:42:40] Unknown:

pressing the power button   5 times.   I think you can have, like, a pull down from the, like, the top pull down menu. You can add a button in there. There's a couple different ways to do it.  

[00:42:53] Unknown:

So just in general, I mean, on a on a simpler note well, first of all,   Kallax, by default, is full disk encrypted.   I think most modern phones are at this point,   of varying levels of security, including iPhones.   That encryption's only in place   when you have the phone powered off. So in Correct. The general good rule of thumb is, like, when you are crossing borders, even if it's not in a wartime situation, even if you're not going through the TSA or something,   is to have all your devices powered off   before you go through those kind of checkpoints,   if you can.  



[00:43:37] Unknown:

Right. And while we're talking about phones and checkpoints,   obviously, you gotta be careful,   you know, how high security is this checkpoint and how deep are they gonna dig.   Obviously, if you go through there with a freshly wiped phone   or you set up your panic button in a way that wipes the phone to a very default looking state,   that's gonna be pretty suspicious.   They're gonna say, you know, why don't you have any text messages? Why don't you have,   a gallery of pictures? You know, everyone has this stuff.   So I've also read about people using techniques to have,   dummy data on their phone.  

So if you're crossing a border, you know, you can hide certain apps,   or you could reset your phone to a certain default state.   But it's good to have, kind of, some dummy data   to, you know so they see you've been texting your mom. You know, they see you've been taking pictures of your food for Instagram, and you look like a normal,   person without any Bitcoin to bother them about.  

[00:44:42] Unknown:

Yeah. I mean and to bring that back to Bitcoin,   you have the ability to use something called a passphrase   with your Bitcoin seeds.   Samurai has it by default.   The passphrase and practice, what you can   what you can, think of it as is if you have a 12 word seed, the pass phrase is the 13th word, and you're choosing it.   Obviously, it doesn't have to be a word. It probably shouldn't be a word. It should be longer than a word,   But every time you have a different passphrase,   you have essentially, what you have is a different wallet.   So   if you are carrying a seed on you, which you probably shouldn't just be carrying a bare seed, and maybe we'll talk about that too,   you can keep a certain amount of Bitcoin.  

This is what made me think about it is because you're talking about decoy data.   You can keep a certain amount of Bitcoin on the seed, the bear seed without the pass phrase.   Someone finds that seed,   they restore the seed, they see there's Bitcoin on it, they take it, they think maybe they got all of the Bitcoin,   but, really, you have a passphrase and that's where the majority of your Bitcoin's held, or maybe you have 10 passphrases,   and it's split across them.   So there's a lot of different,   methods you can employ there because of that additional passphrase.  

[00:46:03] Unknown:

Yep. And that I think it's kind of   a a combination of all these things is how you should bring your mobile device   through a border crossing is,   you know, maybe you should have a Bitcoin dummy wallet. So if they open the Bitcoin wallet, they think, oh, this guy has just got $200 on there,   and, you know, they're not worried about it.   All of these tactics can be combined   to effectively fool   the border crossing,   and hopefully not look too suspicious while you're doing it.  

[00:46:37] Unknown:

And I guess, unfortunately, one of the issues here is there's never gonna be a set,   like, a set guide of of what to do and how to do it. Right? You kinda have to base it on your own threat model,  

[00:46:50] Unknown:

your own  

[00:46:54] Unknown:

you have you have to make your own decisions here. There's a level of personal responsibility. Right?  

[00:46:59] Unknown:

Absolutely.   Are you dealing with some   dumbass TSA agent, or are you dealing with,   you know, some kind of 3 letter agency?   It's,   you know, a real three letter agency you need to worry about, not the TSA.  

[00:47:13] Unknown:

I was going to say TSA is 3 letters. So what?  

[00:47:18] Unknown:

Let me let me rephrase a real agency. Someone who's that you actually have to worry about. And if you encounter someone like that, you need to be well educated.   Otherwise, they're gonna figure you out.  

[00:47:32] Unknown:

Yeah. And I guess, you know, all of this is all, you know, well and said, but,   the the most important thing if you're looking at sort of hiding the amount of Bitcoin you're travelling with is sort of keep it keep it simple. So,   yeah, you might you might have your,   your   seed words written down. I mean, if you're if you're just trying to cross a border,   your seed words might be good,   plus a passphrase which is in your head. And, Matt, you mentioned about, you know, having a a passphrase that, is longer than one word. But, you know, if you're just trying to get over that border, then maybe a simple passphrase,   might might be best just for that for that transition.  

And then you can forget it. Right? Yeah. And then you can sweep the funds when you're on the other side.   And then, you know, the question is sort of how would you how would you travel with your 12 words   or your 24 words,   across the border. And then I think you're into the realms of either,   you know, moving it digitally.   So saving that on your phone maybe   if if that's appropriate,   or, you know, writing it down in some sort   of secret or sort of steganographic   way.   I was talking to someone last week, and, you know, whether that be sort of highlighting words in a book,   perhaps,   or,   you know, I think back in the day, it was writing a a Bitcoin poem, wasn't it? The,   since   sort of  

[00:49:05] Unknown:

I'd have a lot of difficulty writing a poem.  

[00:49:08] Unknown:

I can randomly generate a seed words in it. Well, I I think there's a I think there's,  

[00:49:13] Unknown:

there's like   a a sort of script you can follow, which which, makes it in invert and commas easier.   I wouldn't recommend doing this. I think that someone wrote a a script to sort of sweep the Internet of poems and and try to crack people's,   seed phrases.   But, you know, if if it's just a matter of crossing a single border,   you can get sort of,   you know, quite experimental   or,   you know, come up with some quite interesting ways of of moving it.   But, ultimately, you know,   it needs to be   fairly simple for you to recover.   You know, you don't want to,   sort of split your seed up into so many, you know, so many pieces,   and then perhaps, you know, pop or possibly lose 1.  

So it's, you know, keep it simple, really. Like as simple as you can get away with?   Simple as you can get away with, but, you know, just in case,   you know, any anyone questions it, you know, perhaps encrypt it with a, not encrypt it, but,   add an extra extra word, which is a a passphrase.  

[00:50:19] Unknown:

What are your thoughts here, Rod and Will?  

[00:50:22] Unknown:

Where to begin?   I I guess I should,   first share that I'm Venezuelan.   I was born and raised in Venezuela.   So I actually had once   locally just once.   So the way I did it,   I did it in 2 rounds.   First, I just crossed the border without any Bitcoin, any.   Didn't have anything on me,   just to put the luggage on the other side,   leave it in some storage, and come back.   When I came back, I had an undisclosed   amount of cash. I was leaving the country.   It was on the brink of getting even worse than it had been for the past, I don't know, 15 years.   I knew it was time just to leave,   just to call it quits.  

So what I did was I coupled with a friend.   This gets kind of illegal, but it's what I did.   I just crossed the border   through some river.   I didn't go through the checks.   You can actually do that   between the border,   in Venezuela and Colombia.   You can pay some Fox, whatever. They just look away and you cross the border through a river.   We crossed the river with an undisclosed amount of cash.   I didn't even cross with the Bitcoin on me. I hadn't bought any Bitcoin.   And once I got to Colombia, I I bought the Bitcoin in cash,   KYC free,   and then couple days after I just took off, and   then, there I was.  

So I didn't go through the hassle of figuring out how to cross the border with any seat or stashing it in some luggage.   Not necessarily   because I didn't want to, but because   for for   handling cash internationally,   you cannot,   I don't know,   cross borders with I'm going to throw, random numbers with, I don't know, 50 k because, of course, they're going to,   ask you questions and potentially, just seize the cash.   I just had to proceed in some Latino way.   Was it was it fun?   It was some fun. It was risky. It got dicey. I I didn't know what was going to happen because   they're actually,   are Garrigas   besides the authorities.  

So I was not against a single head. I was against multiple heads.   But still, I I had to risk it because if I don't pull the cash now,   when am I going to return to pull however much I had? It was, like,   either you do it or you don't. You abandon the cash.   I would say that it's it's tough when you're put in a position of either you risk your life or   you're you're dumb or you you will start from 0 in another country.   You you could potentially not even speak their language.   So for me, it was   I don't know.   It was not fun. It was not engaging. It's not something that I recommend to anybody, not even my worst enemy.   Did I do it? Yes. I did it.  

Am I proud of what I do what I did? Yes. Of course. Because I was protecting some capital that was mine.   But but that's a tangent,   kind of of returning to topic of of stashing seeds.   I I   definitely do not advise or wouldn't advise or wouldn't do it myself to keep my passphrase or my seeds in my brain. I think that's an awful advice,   essentially, because I wouldn't be able to recall the first three words, let alone 12 or 24. That's that's just a stupid,   pardon my French. I would just write them the words down on some book and some random pages,   not even mark them, and then go through them as soon as I cross border.  

In order for you to to actually   keep the seats in order,   you should keep it as simple as possible. You, you know, you you   that's the problem when you find yourself in these tight positions.   You start overthinking,   and you start saying, no, but the copy is going to find it. No. But the copy is going to start asking me questions.   And   I don't know if if it sounds funny or not, but   in Latin America, things are done that simply. There is there is no point in overthinking   or making your setup so complicated   that you're so anonymous and you're so,   I don't know, so big into LARPing and stuff. You you do you do things,   fringe things on plain sight, and that's the best way to hide it.  



[00:55:30] Unknown:

I think you nailed it.   You do what you gotta do. You know? Not everyone is   has to   be super sleuth spy man.   Not everyone is up against that kind of adversary.   You know? In in his case,   you know, he was   you you know, you're dealing with   guerrillas, basically,   slash maybe loosely affiliated with some military   at border crossings. You know, they don't care. They'll take a bribe and,   you know, they don't wanna try to hack into your phone or that kind of thing. So, really, you need to,   know your enemy   and know his sword.   And, you know, how are they gonna attack? What methods are they gonna try to use?  

And,   you know, Ron and Will has a good point. A lot of people do   really overthink this stuff, and they end up screwing themselves.   A perfect example is, like, when you get too complex with multisig,   and you didn't need to do that, and you end up, you know, losing your coins or having a tough time when you could have just used a pass phrase.   So it's just about, you know, what is your threat model,   and what is your   actual concern of, you know, who is your adversary and what skills do they have.  

[00:56:43] Unknown:

Rodan, thank you for sharing that story.   Was there a reason   why you didn't,   convert the cash to Bitcoin first in Venezuela?  

[00:56:55] Unknown:

Sure. I,   at the time, I didn't actually know about Beacon too much. I   hadn't heard too much. I hadn't died.   I did not know anybody that   actually was into Bitcoin.   Of course, I I   didn't want to spread the word around of I have some cash that I want to convert because I'm leaving the country. I was trying to keep everything hushy-hushy.   And one thing led to another. I I just became acquainted with some guy   across the border that   dealt Bitcoin o to c Bitcoin.   I was like, hey. Can I come? I have x amount, whatever. What rate could you give me?   Do I see you, I don't know, x date?  

And he was like, sure. Of course. He had a premium,   but, again,   that's a big claim that nobody   but that guy and now I don't know. That sense of people know that I could have,   but still,   it's it's Bitcoin that it had does not have any documentation   tied to it. So   if I ever had any k y c Bitcoin, I I label it as a shitcoin,   and, actually, the the k y c Bitcoin is the one that I spend   regularly. I want to get rid of that crap,   as soon as possible.   So, I mean, we can talk about KYC in a second. Sure. Sure. Sure. It it's just a lot of tangents. The this topic is  

[00:58:25] Unknown:

I I feel that. So   trust me.   I mean, I don't even know. At this point,   probably over 200 hours of dispatch, and probably the majority of it is   significantly more than yeah. It's, like, 200 hours of dispatch and most of it's tangents.   Try and keep it organized.   So, I mean, from my understanding there is is you just basically weren't really familiar with Bitcoin at the time of the crossing.   No. No.   Do you do you see   I mean, I I I assume I don't wanna put words in your mouth.   If if you were familiar with Bitcoin, you're a 100% cross with Bitcoin rather than cash. Right? It's just easier to cross with.  

[00:59:08] Unknown:

Absolutely. Yes. But, also, the the other, I don't know, nuance, the other problem here that that you need to factor in   is that that was precisely   the timing when   the government was clamping down on miners. The government was prosecuting Venezuelans   for Bitcoin.   So I was   again, it was so hectic for me those couple of weeks or whatever however long it was   because I I didn't know what I could do. I could, I don't know, find somebody in Venezuela, but they happen to be some informant, some undercover agent.   And instead of me migrating, I I end up without my cash and it caved for however long. So I was like, fuck that.  



[00:59:53] Unknown:

Yeah. So, I mean, in this in that case, it could actually if if you were trying to convert a large amount of cash to Bitcoin in that situation, it could actually put you at more risk than just the crossing dealing with crossing with cash.   I think that that brings up a a really good point, I think, that has become apparent for a lot of people,   over the last few weeks with with everything that's been going on   is that, you know, a lot of these things, you're in a lot better position if you're prepared ahead of time before the crises hit. Once the crises hit,   everything becomes much more difficult. Right?  



[01:00:29] Unknown:

Yes. Yeah. A 100%.   I I I'm just glad that I made it out. I'm glad that I made it out without a bruise.   I'm glad that I made it out with without taking any losses,   be it emotional or or capital wise.   But a 100%,   once you're you're in that position of   either make it or just you're fucked up, then   you you don't think you you don't tend to think straight, and you can take very bad decisions,   and many things can head south.   So if anything, I mean, the lesson is just   wiggle it. What what else can you do?   Yeah. It   it's it's it's tough.  

It's really tough. And   when   when things like Ukraine or Russia happen,   I don't know.   There is a lot of bank runs and then there is huge lines of people trying to withdraw cash because they no longer trust the government or they're they're panicking about the situation,   then   that's that's   a whole other issue.   Because if you don't have   a   a   a good amount of of cash or money converted to Bitcoin, then your hands are tight. You need to either suck it up and somehow get your cash or just flee cashless   and start from 0. I think one of the biggest concerns of mine back then was exactly that if I don't make it, then   I'm going to be fucked.  



[01:02:11] Unknown:

That's some heavy shit. I appreciate you sharing it, my dude.   On the on the I'm Yeah. Go on. Yeah. I I I won't waste more time. You're not wasting any time. Continue.  

[01:02:28] Unknown:

Besides   that, I'm just more   than than talking about Bitcoin crossing borders.   I have anecdotes   multiple anecdotes because   for our reasons personal reasons, I traveled   overseas   a couple times or more than a couple times.   But more than once, I I will be crossing that same border,   and the Colombian   and the Venezuelan government hate each other. So they, at some point, closed it,   and they had declared some marsh border.   So I was crossing   the border legally. I I does the same, crosses the border by foot, walk in. It's fine.   But I remember one day, I'll pull over.  

You know, they send you to a small room.   There is the soldier   or whatever it was.   Just   and, of course, they can stomp on your on your rights, on your civil rights, however much they want.   They he went all the way through my luggage,   and then he proceeded to ask for my wallet. They the wallet wide open,   went through the cards, the IDs,   the cash that I had in there. And then he goes, you have more than, I don't know, €50,   $50.   This is not good because Marshall Lab blah blah blah blah.   And then he took however much cash I I had   and just let me go. And he say,   I'm letting you go just because you have the cash, and I hope you understand that this is not good. This is forbidden. You could be sent to to jail.  

So that's the level of of corruption   of of   we don't care about your rights, just give us our money that I was, dealing with. And that had happened before the the the   forced the forced migration happened, not after.   So you can figure   that I had already some,   I don't know,   awful extreme.   Of course, I was alpha that. I was born and raised in the sheathole.   I did not know any other government different than the one that I had known.   So   I knew exactly what I was up against, but for me was an   experience that I wasn't initially expecting,   because you do get accustomed to just the stash and things, to use,   hide things in plain in plain sight.  

You just get accustomed to having a criminal   state,   and you mold yourself,   according to whatever you're dealing with, that day.  

[01:05:19] Unknown:

And after hearing that, I don't know how anyone can question   the importance   of Bitcoin being digital cash and self custody   and all and all that stuff.   You know, it's not just a number go up asset.   It's   it's changing lives for people out there and helping them in situations that   there used to not really be a solution for.  

[01:05:46] Unknown:

So you wanna transition into that conversation? I mean, I   Bitcoin,   There if there's non Bitcoin data you wanna travel with,   I personally really like the idea of,   encrypted micro SD cards.   They're fucking tiny.   They can hold a lot of fucking data. You can have multiple of them. If you're running Linux,   it has the built in locks encryption so you can encrypt any drive, including micro SD cards.   Put them in your sock. You can put them anywhere you wanna put them.   I feel like that could be a very useful tool to people.   And once again, it's, you know, keep it simple.  

So it's an encrypted drive. You do it through   the built in   Linux   encryption, the locks encryption,   and,   you keep redundant copies, and you're good.  

[01:06:48] Unknown:

Something I wanna ask an idea.   Go ahead. What's up, brother? I was gonna say something I wanna ask,   Ron, is that, you know,   knowing what you know now   and,   having the sort of friends and, I guess, the sort of Bitcoiners, and I know you're in some Monero too,   Would you would you have sort of done the crossing differently, perhaps giving an, an element of trust into a sort of trusted friend that was on the other side, though, so to speak, or,   you know, trusted somebody with with your wealth when when crossing?   Or would would you still have, sort of, you   know, kept it in your own hands in terms of,   moving your wealth across border?  



[01:07:31] Unknown:

It's   a tough question.   I don't know how to answer that, but I personally,   regardless of how much I I know   now or what happened back then,   I would dare say that I wouldn't entrust my capital or my cash to anybody.   I wouldn't I wouldn't ask for advice, from anybody   because thanks to that   type of society or that type of state,   you   grow ever so tired of entrusting anybody.   Everybody is trying to look after themselves.   If they   get a chance to fuck you over, trust me. They will.   So that that's precisely I was   stingy.   I was very cautious with disclosing,   hey. I'm migrating. I   instead of doing that, I I just   did my own thing.  

One thing that I would,   emphasize is just if you're fleeing a country, just do it   k y c free. So   neither of the states nor near the state you're in, neither the country you're in, nor the state you're fleeing to   knows that you actually have possession of those coins.   And better yet, if you can use, I don't know, a breach country like I did, because I'm not actually in Colombia and elsewhere,   then even better because you're   obfuscating   and obfuscating   even   further whatever it is that you're   kind of keeping stashed to yourself. And   I don't even know if I'm answering your question. It's just   it's just a tough position.  

It's just a tough   thing to deal with.   Of course, across time, I   I would say that enduring that or embracing that type of thing   has taught me a couple things,   and   it's it's just hard. I   I don't know I don't know what what type of advice I would give other than   embrace for impact,   and things can happen very quickly.   Today, we see with Ukraine and and Russia that just a flip of of a pen or just   talk like Putin   flipped the the the pancake entirely.   But many other scenarios can happen as well, so you just gotta be prepared. And those times in which you you say,   no. It doesn't happen in the fierce world. Fuck, yeah. It happens in the fierce world. It can happen anywhere. It happened in Canada, and and it happened be within few hours. It didn't happen,   I don't know, in 3, 4 weeks.  

That that is to be prime minister   just declared some similar,   national state to that of of World War.   So the heck is wrong with that guy?  

[01:10:35] Unknown:

Yeah. No. You you definitely answered my question. I think, what I was sort of angling at is that   something that we all often know, you know, champion about is sort of being self sovereign   and, the actions you took,   albeit, you know, somewhat difficult to hear and not sure I could see myself in that situation.   You know, it comes down to, you know, being self sovereign with   your Bitcoin and your wealth and, you know, your data to what we touched on before. And,   you know, it's it's difficult when when it comes to it. But,   you know, being able to trust yourself more than anybody else is is maybe what's important.  



[01:11:15] Unknown:

Yeah.   I wish I wish,   the the situation in Venezuela have been better   or that I have better context. I don't know. Some miners,   some OTC traders, and it would have been way   easier for me. I wouldn't have,   taken a couple trips.   I wouldn't have done the revert thing.   I would just have done what I preached before.   Just write down, 12 words or 24 words   in different pages in a book and just stash it somewhere in the luggage. And don't even bother about having a Bitcoin wallet in my phone.   With the seed, I know that I can restore it anywhere else once I cross the border or get to my destination.   There is not even a need for me   to have anything on the phone that says I'm a Bitcoiner or I'm into Monero.  

As long as I have the seed, that's fine.   And the way that you can, I don't know,   provide yourself with some ease of mind is once you have written it down somewhere,   however you want to do it,   you take the with the words, you take a Virgin wallet, and you try to restore deceit so that you know that   whenever you cross the border,   you're going to have your money saved?   I wouldn't even bother about the passphrase.   It's just   the bottom line is just keep things simple,   attest that they work before you do it,   and just roll with it.   That it's as simple as that. We   when when you find yourself in those tough spots,   you you're just killing yourself with your mind. And   instead of making changes, you're you're making things worse.  



[01:13:05] Unknown:

And also to   continue on,   about recovering seed phrases,   I've just put a link in the chat. The Calix phone as well has   a seed vault encrypted backup.   So, you know, if you need to recover your Bitcoin   or recover your Calix phone,   the functionality is very similar.   I believe both of them are 12 words, at least if you're using Samura wallet.   So, really, as long as you come up with the scheme for this, then you can I think you can cross these borders effectively and recover whatever data you want, you know, bit whether it's your Bitcoin or your phone or whatever? The main difference with the Galaxy Vault is you also need the the digital encrypted file.  

[01:13:52] Unknown:

Okay. That's good to know. So you're on, like, a micro SD or you put it in the cloud or something because it is encrypted with the with the seed.  

[01:14:00] Unknown:

Right. That's a good idea to you could use a cloud   or even using, stuff like PGP   and then have that, you know, encrypted in plain sight and then have, you know, your key hidden off somewhere,   You know, a mix of all of these tactics, however you wanna combine them, and a little bit of education.   And I think   people could fool most border crossings   and have a really effective   kinda mobile setup if they need to be on the go.  

[01:14:31] Unknown:

So, Rod and yeah. Go on. Go ahead. No. No. No. Please. You.  

[01:14:37] Unknown:

So, Rod and I know I know you listen to the show. I know you have very strong opinions. I met you in Miami. I gave you a I gave you a dispatch hat for free   after,   you asked to pay me in Monero.   You're one of 3 freaks that have asked me to pay in Monero,   since I've   been since I've been,   distributing the dispatch ads.   What do you wanna talk about? I know you have strong opinions. I know you think certain things aren't covered on here. You wanna talk about KYC?  

[01:15:10] Unknown:

I mean, there is plenty of topics.   I mean, we could go on for   If we can get to KYC, I appreciate the invite.   I appreciate the hug that you gave me along with the hat too. No   for the record.   But   I   can we talk about number go up, please?  

[01:15:33] Unknown:

Yeah. Oh, let's talk about it. Start us off.  

[01:15:39] Unknown:

Because,   at the end of the day, the thing with   with these,   scenarios of the borders   is that there is a huge difference, and you see firsthand or you experience it firsthand when you're escaping things.   If if you buy k y c coins   and you flee with those coins, they're going to have a permanent record or not permanent   before some compliant asshole says that it's a store for 10 years only because it's written in law blah blah blah.   Let's say 10 years. There is going to be a a record of how much you bought,   when, how, for 10 years while you're being,   I don't know, a refugee.  

And for me, it's it's pointless.   And the the problem with number go up and mass adoption things   is that they make the user,   lazy.   They make the user,   more prone to entrusting third parties, to entrusting centralized exchanges.   They they don't,   advocate for,   self custody.   So,   effectively, number go up or pen permanent   pull or however you want to label it,   it's it's kind of a counterproductive,   narrative   because it's it's undermining what we're in for. If   we're in here to become sovereign,   to free ourselves,   to be self defiant,   unconvertible   misfits,   while we're advocating for people to, I don't know, sign up on Swan or Cash App or your next KYC shop,   you're not you're you're you're kind of being hypocrite   because you're advocating just to enrich yourself.  

You're not advocating to free,   others or yourself,   and that's what pisses me off big time.   Because while you're evocating   for a tool for freedom,   you're not using the tool correctly.   You're telling the state that you own it.   And not only you're telling your the state that you own it, you're also entrusting private companies with your data.   So it's it's   it's like, what are you doing? And   it it it happens in multiple chains. I I'm not saying this   just because Bitcoin maximalist   suck. It happens in Monero as well. It happens anywhere.   Number number go up is is just stupid.  

And there there cannot be just 1 coin either.   This is going on a tangent, but, still,   I don't care if Bitcoin goes to $1 tomorrow.   I know the mining dynamics, blah blah blah. It's nonprofitable   blah blah blah.   But the point is, if if Bitcoin were to go to $1 tomorrow   and Monero goes to 1¢ tomorrow,   the transactions will still clear.   People would still be sovereign.   People will be still sovereign.   So I think the motto of my my rant is   let's focus more on sovereignty,   on on   freedom,   on freedom of speech, and on financial freedom and independence,   rather   than Bitcoin is going to go through, I don't know,   200,000,000.  

There is not going to be anything else. We're phasing everything out just because Austrian economics are awesome   and whatever else. It's just a lot of blatant back pumping, and it's just part of my friends, and I'm done with this, retarded.  

[01:19:29] Unknown:

Well, I mean, I agree with a lot of what you said,   if not most of it.   Would you   when you say number go up, you don't necessarily mean   do I mean, do you not think that the data will increase?  

[01:19:46] Unknown:

Woah. What will happen there?  

[01:19:50] Unknown:

Somebody drops any something. Can you repeat that?   Just smacked his table.  

[01:19:56] Unknown:

No. It's my cat jumping on shit behind me. Continue. Continue.  

[01:20:01] Unknown:

You you mean more of, like, the culture surrounding it rather than actual,   like, purchasing power going up.  

[01:20:09] Unknown:

Yeah. I yeah. For sure. It's just a lots of of people on Twitter or whatever else   that   just go on on cancel run pages.   Get it off of BISQ or Minit   or Bio 2C.   And it's   it's like, yes. We're going to achieve mass adoption through Swan, but but that's not the that's not the way. It's like   I don't know. For me, it feels like I feel I I see a person hitting her, their heads with a closet door over and over again   and being in denial.   Yes. We're winning the fight, but we're not exactly winning. I'm shooting my own feet while I'm saying that I'm winning. You get what I mean. It's like It's funny. I was at a a meetup last night, and some of the guys there are kinda newer Bitcoiners.  

[01:21:03] Unknown:

And they were kinda coming to the same realization   where   mass adoption at all costs, you know, if,   you know, huge KYC exchanges, most people having their coins locked up on exchanges like it is right now,   they were they came to the conclusion themselves that that's just not worth it. It's kind of defeating,   to this dream of,   you know, the, like, the white paper itself is titled Bitcoin is electronic cash,   and it's supposed to be peer to peer without   intermediaries.   You know, Satoshi said it in the first sentence of the abstract.   So it couldn't be clearer, you know, what the mission is here.  

And I think most people will realize very quickly,   especially once you have a sizable stack and you could become a target,   that it's not worth it   to have everyone within the walled garden.   If that's what it takes for mass adoption,   then,   we've effectively failed. And I get that privacy will always be a fringe movement,   and self custody is getting a lot better, and and more people than ever are pulling their coins off exchanges and things like that and thinking about privacy.   And, you know, the wind is in our sails very much,   but we still have a really, really long way to go before we even put a dent in all of this KYC   mindset and custodial   mindset.  



[01:22:30] Unknown:

So so do you guys think,   I think we all   agree that, you know, KYC Bitcoin has already captured Bitcoin.   I mean, it's ideal that people self custody. I I still think that's a net benefit even if they KYC.   But, you know, in a in a truly adversarial environment, if there's a record of you purchasing Bitcoin, how much Bitcoin you purchased, your withdrawal addresses, you don't use any privacy best practices going forward.   So your future transactions and balances are are essentially actively tracked.   There's a lot of points where pressure can be put on you.   I mean, we just saw with the the Department of Justice,   they seized those Bitfinex hacked coins. Right? And that was the largest single seizure in Department of Justice history.  

So we have people sending out engagement tweets   saying that, you know, Bitcoin is unconfiscatable,   but meanwhile, the largest confiscation   in department of justice history   was done with Bitcoin.   So, obviously, the privacy aspect is key there, and it's not just the state because these records are kept   practically forever. You can just pretty much assume they're kept forever,   and they're stored in securely.   We've seen anything that can get hacked will get hacked.   So it's not just the state. It's all different sorts of malicious entities that are gonna get their hands on this kind of information.  

[01:23:57] Unknown:

There's too many misconceptions about Bitcoin, and this has this has happened to everyone. You remember even whenever we listen to Ross Ulbrich speak at the BTC 2021,   he said he mistakenly thought that Bitcoin was private. Right?   And,   this has been going on for a long time. People say it's unconfiscatable.   It's not. Just like you said, they confiscated it,  

[01:24:20] Unknown:

from that the Department of Justice confiscated it from the Department of Justice. They put a gun to their head. Exactly. Give us a fucking Bitcoin. It is  

[01:24:27] Unknown:

confiscatable. It can be centralized. It can be fully custodial.   It and Bitcoin is what you make it. It is how you use the tools. And Bitcoin means different things to different people. So sure, while an energy plant wants to offset their flare off by using Bitcoin   and they're already within the system, that's one thing. That Bitcoin means one thing to that industry.   But to our side of the industry where we wanna use Bitcoin like it's cash,   you have to use the tools completely differently and you have to operate completely differently. And if you just   and if you just listen to people on Twitter who say, you know, Bitcoin's perfect.  

It's perfectly decentralized. It's totally unconfiscatable.   It's anonymous. Whatever.   You know, then you're gonna get fooled. And you're not gonna get proper education.   You're just gonna smash that like button and believe everything you read. Like and retweet.   Yep. And,   you know, unfortunately,   it's detrimental. These influencers are fucking over a lot of people,   and especially people who really need privacy   because there's people out there, like he was talking about in Venezuela,   and we see users like this all the time in the Ronin Dojo and the samurai rooms. There's people out there who can't screw up. And if they do, it has serious real world real world consequences.   And these influencers   are not taking it seriously.  

You know, I don't know if they just they're just boosting their ego or they're just engagement farming.  

[01:25:56] Unknown:

But either way, I see it as harmful to the industry at large. Yeah. I mean, when you screw up on Bitcoin, I mean, it happens on a ledger that is probably gonna outlive us all. Yeah. So it can be used against you in the future,   by a passive attacker that might not even be watching you yet, doesn't have external data yet, but gets it later.   But to to jump off there, I mean, where I was going with that question was   I mean, it wasn't a question yet, but this was the question.   Is this idea of, like, mass adoption at all costs, this idea of   the majority of people coming in through KYC,   is is it an attack on Bitcoin, or is it a threat to the individuals   that   are captured by it?  



[01:26:41] Unknown:

Both. I mean   my opinion. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.  

[01:26:45] Unknown:

I I could sound like Alex Jones or some shit like that.   But for me, k y c k y c is, an active,   attack   from the state and and the private companies and the essentially a way to   seize,   considerable amount of   the supply and hold the hostage and be like,   I don't know, some fucked up movie scene.   Do you want the ice cone? The ice cream cone? Come and get it. The first suck my dick. You know what I mean? It's it's just fucked up. K y c, it's it's the enemy,   and   it's   I I I don't say that I'm pristine.   I don't say that I'm an I don't know the best   Bitcoin owner, and I'm supremely anonymous on Mars because I as well have KYC coins.  

They may or may not be mine,   as in I was the one to who put the documents. But regardless,   I have owned, k y c coins. And as I say before, they're like the poison to me.   As long as I see the opportunity to spend them,   go for it.   It's just an effective attack from the state and the central banks   and should be avoided at all costs.   That's my take.  

[01:28:09] Unknown:

I mean, using using Bitcoin or or sort of accepting Bitcoin donations can be done in the sort of with the best intentions, can't it?   You know, trying to use an asset which is, unconfiscatable,   and, you know,   as s 2 l said before, you know, it's peer to peer. Electronic digital cash is is all well and great, but it's an immutable ledger. And,   I think we saw we saw the sort of the events   of the Canada donations   to,   the,   the truckers,   that were protesting,   you know, sort of,   I guess, sort of Bitcoin Twitter   went from,   sort of   I don't really know how to phrase it, but sort of   celebrating and and championing a a a crowdsource   fund of of Bitcoin   to support,   the truckers. But,   you know, when it came down to it and and I and I don't mean to say this   in a in a too much of a negative sense,   because   I think that the,   that, you know, those that backed the the sort of the Crowdfund campaign   did it for the right reasons. But when it came down to it,   you know, there were some some sort of basic,   unfortunately, some basic,   Bitcoins or 101,   101   rules.  

Can you call it those? Could it   that that weren't followed, which which sort of led to some some real big screw ups. And,   you know,   going back to, I think, one of you said earlier, you know, not screwing up. Well,   not screwing up today doesn't mean   not being bit in the ass, you know, tomorrow or in in a week or in a year,   because of the immutable ledger. So   obtaining an OKYC Bitcoin is is a step in the right direction,   certainly.   There are some tools you can use,   with Bitcoin that can   certainly   help you,   transact,   not only sort of freely, but   privately.  

And, you know, watching the the sort of, like, what went on in   Canada with that that donation round,   was was really difficult to observe because, you know, what, I guess,   maybe us that have sort of frequented   the more privacy sort of chats,   on on Telegram and on on Twitter and the likes   is difficult to watch because, you know, reusing addresses, for example, is is one that is   is horrible to watch and, you know, easily tracks   on chain.   And, you know, not using CoinJoin,   regardless of whether you obtained your Bitcoin through KYC means,   making a donation   with Bitcoin, which hasn't been through CoinJoin,   to put a line in the sand between   where your Bitcoin came from and its future spending,   you know, future spending   trail.  

You know, it's,   it's difficult to watch   people sort of screw others through,   through their use of not not trying to transact privately on Bitcoin.  

[01:31:34] Unknown:

Definitely well said and very diplomatic.   And I think what brother Rabbit was trying to say is a bunch of influencers got caught with their freaking pants down   and proved,   you know, what they really know and what the status of things really is.   That was a great,   litmus test for   the current status of Bitcoin privacy,   and it failed, right, miserably.   It shows that, you know, education is extremely important.   And, like,   like what you're doing, brother Rabbit or Bitcoin QA or whoever's   helping, you know, write guides or teach,   that's the best thing we can do. Because when you look at that shit show that happened with the donations in Canada, it's very obvious we have a long way to go in proper education.  



[01:32:26] Unknown:

Yeah. That shit was,  

[01:32:31] Unknown:

extremely frustrating to watch go down.   On a positive note,   as a result of that,   I did still dispatch 57   with Pavel next and coin joiner and Tony,   and we covered every pretty much, I like to think that everything you need to know about crowdfunding with best is taken into account in an adversarial environment.   So if you are thinking of crowdfunding in the future   and you're listening to this, you should   go listen to that episode 57.  

[01:33:05] Unknown:

Going back real quick, I wanted to highlight,   if if you don't think that KYC   and mass chain surveillance is an attack on Bitcoin,   you know, you gotta check yourself. Because what better way is there to attack something   than to bring it into the fold, bring it into the system? Right? They can't turn it off. They can't fight it. They can't disable all the nodes and all the miners.   So what better way than you to need your ID and, you know, your driver's license, your passport?   You know, what better way to control this thing.   And if if everyone has to work within these walled gardens and say things like self custody become frowned upon or   it becomes difficult, like exchanges start asking you tons of questions about self custody coin or coin joined coin,   then that's gonna be their way to crack down effectively.  

You know, you you put the privacy guys in a corner, you put the self custody guys in a corner and put pressure on them.   And everyone else who stays within the fold and gives up their ID,  

[01:34:19] Unknown:

then they're fine. That's They all get number go up. They all get number go up. They might actually think it's bullish. It's regulatory clarity.  

[01:34:26] Unknown:

And and remember whenever Bitcoin used to be about challenging the dollar, having a true alternative,   you know, when when did,   you know, parking in Tether and having all these options to trade to stable coins and all this stuff.   But when did that become popular? It it happened overnight, but that's not really what Bitcoin is about. It's not about USD gains. It's not about number go up. You know, it might be for you, if that's how you treat it, you treat it just like a savings account and you never spend a sat in your life.   But for a lot of people, that's not what Bitcoin means.  

And at least for all the freaks who are listening out there,   you know, KYC   is the antithesis of Bitcoin, and you should know that.  

[01:35:13] Unknown:

And, I mean, besides the whole surveillance aspect of KYC, and I would I would   it was a little bit I was curious what you guys are gonna answer, but it's obviously an attack on Bitcoin.   It's a massive attack on Bitcoin, and everyone's just blissfully unaware   or intentionally ignorant about it.   And I think part of it is because   it's just easier to be an influencer if you just absolve yourself and everyone else of personal responsibility.   So I think there's an element of laziness. I think there's an element of ego. I think there's an element to monetization.   It's easier to monetize sheep than freemen.  

But,   in in in addition to the surveillance aspects of KYC, I mean, KYC,   did   the these requirements   keep out a ton of people in terms of financial access. I mean, there's, there's   there's boatloads of people that are blocked out of the traditional financial system,   and they're blocked out of out of these KYC on ramps as well with Bitcoin. So it's it's   to me, it's always about   it's about financial freedom. Right? And they're just completely blocked out about from using these tools, And it's more than just onramps now.   It's it's tools that you use once you have Bitcoin as well.  

Right? It's not it's not just the on and off ramps, like people like to say.  

[01:36:38] Unknown:

And,   remember whenever Bitcoin used to be banking the unbanked or the underbanked?   Well, you know, what was that, 2014, 2015 when people used to say that?   You know, what happened to that? Where did that go? How are we gonna bank the unbanked and the underbanked   and people who don't have access to proper ID   and proper banking services? You know, how are we gonna get them taken care of if everything in the future is,   you know, strike and KYC'd up   and custodial? And, you know, those people are never gonna qualify.  

[01:37:11] Unknown:

And you yeah. I mean, you see a taste of it with BlockFi,  

[01:37:16] Unknown:

because, like, BlockFi   explicitly,   you know, blocks CoinJoin usage. So it's a slippery slope where it's like   it's like,   do they technically let you do self custody? Like, yeah. But, like, if you do something on chain they don't like after you take custody,   they close your account and take any funds that you have in your account.   Yep. So so So, honestly, I think it's the device they don't make. Custody? Or they, like, is that even self custody at that point?  

[01:37:47] Unknown:

No.   I mean, barely. But and, also, I see a divide just coming in general in the industry. You know, the the compliant   platforms and noncompliance   will continue to separate, and there'll be a bigger and bigger divide over time, in my opinion.  

[01:38:10] Unknown:

Pressure from all angles, and most people are just blissfully unaware.  

[01:38:17] Unknown:

I mean, what is sad   what is sad is that that divide manifests,   in within us.   You can clearly see how,   we're we're just getting between sorry for the punch line, Matt. I I don't mean it, but we're getting a split between stay humble at Stack Sats   and just be a defiant asshole and stack through DISC, and I don't know, spend it through, I don't know,  

[01:38:45] Unknown:

back end market. I don't know what I mean? Humble StackSats is  

[01:38:49] Unknown:

No. It's easy. Go. KYC, Cuck services. No. No.  

[01:38:53] Unknown:

I think you should be humble humble enough to   humble enough to realize the threat that KYC is.  

[01:39:00] Unknown:

Indeed. Indeed.   But I Again, it was just I was just being playful. That's why I love you.  

[01:39:13] Unknown:

You know, I mean, I I   I I think that's one of the I mean, stay humble, stack sets is what you make of it. But   at least from my perspective,   you know,   like, it's   it's this idea that that you need to have personal responsibility.   There there's I think a lot of what you can see in the corruption of this space   over the last however many years I mean, people don't even realize, like, in 2016, like, KYC was basically nowhere, and they it just got rolled out everywhere really quick, normalized super fucking quick. People come into the space now,   and they,   you know, they they KYC, like, 8 different services. You know, they send their passport all over the place.  

Like, you know, part of it to me is, like, be humble enough to realize that, like, when BlockFi tells you I mean, they don't even offer it anymore. But when, like, BlockFi tells you, like, you're gonna get 6% on your Bitcoin   and that there's, like, no risk there, that that there's a shit ton of risk and that you're just completely exposing yourself.  

[01:40:19] Unknown:

I mean, I don't think BlockFi are the only ones sort of, you know, with dirty hands, really. You know, you've got Oh, 100%.   You've got companies like,   one that springs to mind is, like, Bottlepay. I mean, they they were a UK business that,   I I wasn't too familiar with them before they, if you like, went away and came back. But to my understanding,   their their intentions were good,   before they went away. And they went away under sort of new regulations that were brought in in the UK.   And they're ones that have sort   of taken those regular would you call it regulations, Matt? I mean,   taken   let's let's call it regulations. Take taking those  

[01:41:01] Unknown:

With bottle pay bottle pay,   first of all,   I was an adviser to bottle pay   before they were KYC'd.   And I was proud of their team   when   so what happened was the FCA,   which is, like, the British FinCEN or whatever, the financial regulator came in and hit them with KYC.   But, like, new regs came out very strict.   They were like, you need to KYC everybody.   And what they did was they completely shut down bottle pay, had everyone withdraw all their money.   Yeah. And then they separately launched a KYC product.   So   after that, there was a lot of fuckery that happened,   and they were blocking CoinJoin,   and there was a lot of over compliance that was happening.  

But at least at that transition,   that's, you know, kind of what you wanna see. I mean, they put themselves at risk doing that. That was not, the easy move would have been shotgun KYC, and we see that all the time. Binance did shotgun KYC,   right, where they they onboarded people saying you didn't have to do KYC. And then after they had funds on the accounts,   they were like, you can't withdraw unless you do KYC.  

[01:42:14] Unknown:

But, you know, it's exactly that. It's that over compliance, and, you know, when when they came back, I I don't think they offered they you know, to what we've been talking about today, you know, I don't think they offered   anything of benefit to Bitcoin.  

[01:42:28] Unknown:

Right.  

[01:42:29] Unknown:

You know,   for the sort of morals and principles   mentioned mentioned above, if you like.   And, you know, they're they're a business that just relies on on on people, you know, DCA ing all the time and not even spending, not not using   been interpreted a few different ways over the years, but I think the sort of agreed upon definition is that it it is like the cash out of your wallet.   And,   you know, when you've got bottle pay,   refusing,   I think I think I think not only have they refused,   deposits,   that have have got past,   CoinJoin history, they've also,   and I may stand corrected on this, but they they've also,   pulled up, customers that have withdrawn   and then coin joined their funds.  



[01:43:27] Unknown:

So I don't think so. No? Okay. I'll have to be worried. What what service did you say was doing that? Bottle pay? Or It was deposit it was deposits only as my understanding. Okay. I I believe that they're thinking it was blocked by. Yeah. They there was one that was, like, 2 months after withdrawal that they followed up on, and that was pretty shocking.  

[01:43:47] Unknown:

But I expect most of them to start doing that. Like, that's not great. Yep. And I I do too. And and, you know, what what that is saying to all of us is that, you know, they don't give a shit about your privacy,   even even though you might have had to KYC   for that,   for that service or whatever, so they they they already didn't care about your privacy. But talking about your future spending habits or any any future any any any habits you, you know, you or any sort of privacy you want to take back when when spending, you know, they don't give a shit. So,   although KYC   no KYC is more is more difficult and, you know, we we try to   champion it as much as we can. We try to provide people with the information   as best we can.  

These sort of services are sort of falling by the waistline. In fact, I I tried out a new, a new, no KYC service last week,   Azteco.   Yeah.   Although, you know, they've been around for a a fair while. They they bought in a service through PayPoint. So,   it it seemed genius at the time, and I'll and I'll get to the punch line in 2 moments. But, you know, the idea was that, you go online, you create an invoice,   if you like. You can either do it on chain or on lightning.   You enter in an email address, so you could use, like, an email alias,   and you turn up a a PayPoint. Now in the UK, you can pay your,   your gas and electric bill through PayPoint. And what it is is, you know, you walk into your,   sort of, corner shop if you like,   and you scan a barcode and, and you pay pay with your cash, your your gas and electric. So Azteco integrated with that system,   to,   pay for Bitcoin. Now all seems great, and I think it was last or it was on Saturday. I was at a meet up on Saturday, and,   a couple of the guys,   were sort of quite excited to to to hear about this new service. So I was accompanied by, I think, 4 other people to the to the corner shop   with my barcode in hand,   and got myself some no no KYC Bitcoin. But, you know, that service has has since been pulled. And,   and,   you know, it doesn't look like it's going to return, at least not sort of from the Twitter sentiment. But we can expect for   no KYC to, you know, continually be sort of quash, squashed, if you like. Yeah. I mean, I respect what the guys at Azteca are building,  

[01:46:16] Unknown:

but it does seem like their strategy, at least from my perspective,   is,   basically offload the regulatory burden on the individual vendors.   Yeah. Totally. And, ultimately,   individual states are gonna pressure   them to   either a centralized service.   So I I I I fear the unfortunate reality is that you're gonna see KYC rollout on those types of products as well. Hopefully, it takes longer.   One thing that was interesting this week   is so   the, you know,   the the US and their allies have put, like, their full weight   of of their financial   weaponry on Russia with sanctions.  

And as a result,   regulated,   Bitcoin businesses are on the defensive because there's accusations that, you know, maybe,   Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies   are being used to evade sanctions. And as a result, what happened is,   you know, one of the really dark aspects of all this financial regulation   is that there's essentially,   either by law or   lawyer advice,   you have a situation where these companies can't really talk about what their policies are.   They never talk about them pub they very rarely talk about them publicly.   Even more rare is talking about exactly what their procedures are.  

And, you know,   I've   I originally,   when I started working in this space, thought, you know, maybe there was a concept of, like, a best practices,   you know, like, the best possible   on ramp in spite of KYC.   And   I advised 2 companies   that were KYC onramps.   Disclosed them early and often, They're bottle pay and,   Swan,   both prelaunch.   Bottle pay started at non KYC. Swan was always KYC, but I saw a lot of, like, the behind the scenes shit that people don't see, and that is never talked about.   And I've since, you know,   do not think   it's it's productive   for me to spend my time doing that,   and better to focus on   on supporting open source projects, supporting   free education to people so that they can make their own decisions and their own assessments.  

But one thing that is really interesting here this last week is because these Bitcoin exchanges were put on the defensive,   they're going above and beyond to kind of explain what their processes are.   And we had Brett Harrison, who I believe is the CEO of FTX.   He had this thread   that he put out 2 days ago,   and he outlined basically,   like, their entire process. And I just wanna just read it real quickly.   We collect identifying information of every user, including name, date of birth, phone number, Social Security number, and photo ID. We cross check this info against government databases to ensure veracity,   name matches, Social Security number, etcetera.  

If we can't verify an an identity, that user is rejected and prohibited from trading. If a user's identity is fully verified, we then check the name against all sanctions list and watch list, including treasury's OFAC list, DOJ's FBI wanted list, and the UN's consolidated sanction list. If found, the user is rejected and prohibited from trading. We monitor the user's fiat transactions if we detect a deposit coming from or a withdrawal going to a sanctioned bank or other blacklisted source, we block the user's activity. We monitor the user's crypto deposits withdrawals using on chain risk analysis and transaction monitoring tools, such   as blank surveillance tools. We use the same transaction monitoring tools that government agencies use.  

These tools have databases of known sanctioned addresses, heuristics that determine geographic locations, and machine learning algos that identify suspicious patterns and transfer histories.   If we detect suspicious activity, we block the user from moving assets.   Along with the above methods,   we are in continuous productive dialogue with governments,   regulators, and law enforcement and update our procedures based on their instruction.   Crypto exchanges have extremely advanced technology and effective procedures for enforcing AML and sanctions.   Recent public assertions that crypto is in is an effective means of evading sanctions due to lack of regulation or without factual support.  

And then after he did that, Coinbase,   also released their own post   yesterday.   And in their post,   they said they had   blocked 25,000   addresses that were associated   with Russians, including some addresses that the government wasn't aware of that they then shared with the government.   And they said this one thing,   They have methods for identifying accounts held by sanctioned individuals outside of Coinbase even if we don't have direct access to their personal information.   I mean, we know Coinbase has their own,   surveillance,   platform   that they also sell to governments.  

Through advanced blockchain analysis, we proactively identified over 1200 additional addresses potentially associated with the sanctioned individual.   We added it to our internal block list. We shared it with the government to further support sanctions enforcement.   So it was like a it it definitely turned into a little bit of, like,   a looking glass moment, you know.  

[01:52:06] Unknown:

Yeah. It shows you, first of all, how far these systems have come   and how automated they are.   You know, they these aren't people   individually handling accounts 1 by 1.   You know, they,   this chain analysis software is assigning risk scores,   and it's automatically   flagging users based on that.   And it's getting better every day,   and it's super important   to understand your adversary. Like, my one of my favorite quotes is know your enemy, know his sword, and that what you just said is very telling, and it shows you, you know, just what we're up against.  

[01:52:45] Unknown:

Like, how can someone think that's not an attack on Bitcoin?  

[01:52:51] Unknown:

Because they're compliant.   They're within the system. I mean, that's the only way someone could see it that way if they believe   in KYC AML.  

[01:53:00] Unknown:

What do you think? Get on 0, bro.  

[01:53:03] Unknown:

Get on 0. What do you think about this,   this phenomenon that I've been noticing that it's like,   I'm not a pussy. Like, I don't care if you know.   Like, I, you know, come and take it.  

[01:53:20] Unknown:

Yeah. You talk that way until someone puts a gun in your face.   It's fun   to larp and act like a big dog and   say, you know, no one's gonna take it from me. You know, I got my guns or whatever.   But whenever your door actually gets kicked in,   things go a little bit different than,   like, what's that famous Mike Tyson quote? Everybody's got a plan till they get punched in the face. Right? Yeah.   A lot of people are just either they don't live in the US and they don't have to worry about certain things, or they or they don't live in a place where   they have to worry,   or they're just naive, and they've never actually been   in a real situation like that.  



[01:54:08] Unknown:

Yeah. I mean, I think it's a lot of naivety.  

[01:54:11] Unknown:

Absolutely.   I've you know, I don't wanna dox myself. And there's a lot of people too. One one time, you know, I   had a gun put in my face, and that changed my life. You know, it makes you take privacy extremely seriously.  

[01:54:31] Unknown:

Ron, do you have anything to add here?  

[01:54:36] Unknown:

No. I I think I have said enough. I   I went on many rants already. Come on. Don't make me do it again.  

[01:54:47] Unknown:

Yeah. Go on. But but but,  

[01:54:51] Unknown:

kind of a parting thoughts for me, at least on this topic, is that   given what what you know by now,   you can   try to decipher, try to understand, try to get on my   on my boots   as to   so opposed to mass adoption,   because   I I have said it, before   in in other spaces, in other   chats,   But I I didn't care if I buy if I bought Bitcoin back then and it was 1,000 per coin.   I wouldn't care if by the time I got to the other side of the border, it was 66   k instead of 1 k   Because at that exact time, at those,   couple days,   I I didn't think   about how many coins I was purchasing   or or anything else. I I just care   that   by the time I flew to my final destination,   I could take what was mine.  

Be it a 100 k Satoshis   or   a 1000 Bitcoins, Fuocoins.   It's a matter of of protecting your capital, of becoming sovereign.   It's not a matter of I have however many coins and become as cocky as you can get because you're   so rich in USC.   It's more like,   I want to spend the coins right now to get, I don't know, a lollipop.   I do it. I want to spend the coins or decides   to buy a house, I do it.   It's about making the transaction they don't want you to make.   And beyond that, make it in a k y c freight free fashion. So it's effectively opting out.   It just become price agnostic.  



[01:57:00] Unknown:

And to to go back to, you know, re you're reading those, sort of tweet threads off as well. You know, the   the k y c AML info,   and data collection,   that I guess is, you know,   come out of the woodwork in the last week   because of the,   sort of global affairs,   that have been going on.   These are things that have already been known about in in the privacy space. You know, the the there there are already things that we're very familiar with,   and know that is going on, but but to have them spell out in, you know, such   such clear plain English, if you like,   does sort of hit home as to exactly what you're signing up for when you use one of these services. And   you sort of do ask yourself the question, well, if if I,   if I've if I've sort of KYC'd myself, then where do I go from here?  

And,   you've got a few options,   but but nothing beats sort of as as I think, you know, you've you've said before, Matt, you know, sell back to the exchange and buy no KYC.   You know, you can hold on to your KYC Bitcoin,   and and put it through sort of a Whirlpool coin join,   But but that doesn't erase the the history that of, you know, where you've purchased it from before.   So I I don't I don't wanna end on, like, a an a negative note as such, but,   you know, it it goes back to the,   know, what you do today, you might regret tomorrow. And,   you know, you might not be screwing up today, but you could be screwing yourself in the future.  

So  

[01:58:45] Unknown:

Well, let's talk about that. Like, how do like, okay. So   the majority of people listening to this probably, you know, have already KYC'd.   They have a,   you know, a decent stash of coin that is KYC'd.   What are you know, what what can they do to reduce their risk?   You know, how how do they proceed from here? Is all hope lost?  

[01:59:10] Unknown:

There there was a question relating to what brother Ravi was talking about with regards to CoinJoin and KYC, if I may bring it up. I'll   I'll read it out loud.   Somebody on Twitch asked, if it if it touched KYC,   consider it at least somewhat tainted even even after coinjoin, it seems. It's more of comment   still, just to clarify or to touch on that a little bit briefly.   K, CoinJoin helps your forward looking privacy, meaning   you can   acquire some level of Anonset with your UTXOs   moving   forward. But the the bottom line, the problem at hand is not your the anode set of your UTXOs.   The problem at hand is that your   identification,   your selfie, whatever you provided the exchange with,   is off the blockchain.  

It it does not matter how many times you,   will pull those UTXOs,   that record is elsewhere,   and it it's it's agnostic of what happens on the blockchain.   So even if you,   coin doing some KYC or TXOs,   you're still   fucked.  

[02:00:28] Unknown:

But, yep,   that's   So I I mean, I would say, first of all,   Lion makes a good point in the chat   that in the future,   as a circular economy develops,   it will lessen the pain points,   to a degree because most people will not be buying Bitcoin. They'll be earning Bitcoin. Most people will not be selling Bitcoin. They'll be spending Bitcoin.   And then all of a sudden in those situations,   ideally, merchants are using sovereign setups, whether that's something like BTCPay or SatSale or PayNIMS,   or just mobile wallets without reusing addresses or,   like, those centralized   pain points that are getting regulated and that have all of these   surveillance measures attached to them become less important.  

In the meantime,   I would say   I'm of the belief that   I I think there is there is a decent argument for selling back,   at the same exchange you came in with. So, like, you bought in Coinbase,   you know, maybe you have a coin, you sell the coin back,   and then you go no KYC from that point forward. And, you know, if someone thinks if someone thinks you own Bitcoin, I sold I sold the Bitcoin there, and, you know, if someone gets those KYC records, they see you bought this much, you sold this much.   Now that,   you know, adds another element in terms of,   you know, you might have a realized gain, then you're reporting that to the tax authorities. You're doing all this additional,   you you you're increasing your data footprint in a lot of ways in that situation.  

There's no perfect answer.   If you coin join early, though,   the sooner you coin join right? So so the way these surveillance   firms work is it's all a probability analysis game. So, like, I can send Bitcoin to myself all day.   Just generate a new address, send Bitcoin to myself. You know? Brother Rabbit can send Bitcoin to himself.   Would the name of their game is to try and figure out when it actually changes hands. So it's not   me sending Bitcoin to myself, it's me sending Bitcoin to Rod and Will or me sending Bitcoin to Brother Rabbit. And they attach a probability to it, and they have tools that automate all of this, but they attach a probability to it. So   when you're trying to counteract them, the name of the game is to break their probability analysis, and CoinJoin is a very useful tool for using that.  

They call it stowaway on samurai.   They also have these non coordinated coin joins called stonewall 2 x. You can also do,   fake stonewall two x's where instead of a second person, you're doing a coin join with just yourself.   And on chain, they it's hard to tell whether or not it's a coin join with yourself or whether it's a coin join with another person. You're breaking these probability analysis.   So   in that scheme, right, the worst thing you can do is you buy KYC, and you just hold it on an   exchange. The second worst thing you could do is you buy KYC,   and then you, like, send it to your ledger or your hardware wallet or whatever, and it just sits there in that same address and never moves because they're just assuming you did exactly what everyone else did, which is you bought KYC, and then you just hold it long term, and you're still holding it.  

There's that middle ground there where   you you take that KYC coin, and you   you start using CoinJoin, you start practicing   privacy best practices going forward.   And as the years go by,   there's more and more plausible deniability on whether or not you sell that coin. I mean, there's millions of way like, the boating accident thing is ridiculous   and irresponsible joke in my opinion.   No one's gonna fucking believe a boating accident.   But   the truth of the matter is is, like, it's really hard to hold on to coin for 5 years.   Like, you're either spending it, you're losing it, you're getting scammed. There's, like, lots of different things that could happen.  

So I'm of the belief that if you are KYC ed and you're not gonna go back out through the same KYC   exchange,   That coin joining sooner rather than later and learning privacy   best practices sooner rather than later and deleting your KYC account sooner rather than later.   Like, there's no trust that they're actually gonna delete your data when you delete it. But if you delete it now,   and then it's 8 years later,   you know, it's more likely that it's deleted   than if you don't delete it now. And it's more likely that you have plausible liability if you do do the CoinJoin now.   So I wouldn't   that's, like, my positive spin. I know it still doesn't really sound that positive.  



[02:05:23] Unknown:

Also, it kinda kinda depends if you're a big fish or a small fish. Right? If they see that you bought that coin, how much of it did you buy, and how much will it be worth in the future?   And, you know, maybe if you're talking a massive capital gain,   you just need to take the hit to avoid,   you know, getting too hot, if you will.   But if you just if you only played around on KYC   platforms with small amounts,   then you're probably fine. I mean, the   in short, BTC noob,   what I would take away from this is once you coin join, from there looking forward,   they don't know whose coin is whose coin. They can't follow that from your original stack.  

But they do know you have acquired that original stack. Right. And that that's the knowledge that you should be concerned about depending on if you're a big fish or a small fish and what your threat model is. They know how much you bought, when you bought it, your withdrawal addresses,  

[02:06:22] Unknown:

and when you coin joined.  

[02:06:24] Unknown:

Right. So one could speculate that,   they have software to kinda estimate, you know, what is that coin worth now.   Is there a possible capital gain that they should be looking out for   or some kind of you know, maybe they're trying to monitor you for cashing out,   how you spend it. But as long as you coin join, stick to new KYC,   you know, you learned your lesson early on,   then you'll be fine, and you can opt out, escape the system, and enjoy life.  

[02:06:56] Unknown:

I think I think it's just draconian. It's just awful. And it happened recently with the elliptic,   graphs, the the GIFs or the images of of the hack that   that they assign,   certain UTXO   with an identity,   and   they can even put a picture of your selfie   is attached to that UTXO.   So no matter how many hops,   your identity is going to be linked for, I don't know how many, hubs in that wallet cluster,   say, 5 hubs, 6 hubs. So your phase is going to be plastered   all over   even if you use it now   and that merchant receives it and sends it somewhere   for 5 or 6 transactions,   it's going to be your face assigned to that specific UTXO.  

So it's like, what?  

[02:07:50] Unknown:

I guess what I'm trying to get at is, like, I don't I and I see I see this a lot. So, like, the the meme in in   the the common   meme in, like, privacy,   not just Bitcoin privacy,   is   the average person saying,   I do I have I have nothing to hide, so I'm not worried. I do nothing wrong, so I have nothing to hide.   But that's not really the common   holdup that I've noticed. The common holdup that I've noticed is I'm so fucked that it's worthless for me to try and improve my situation.   And I think   it's important for people to realize that that's not the case. You can always improve yourself.   Now is it gonna be perfect? No. But you can you can improve yourself, and you can make progress, and you should do it   for yourself.  

And at scale, if everyone is trying to improve themselves, it helps everyone together.  

[02:08:50] Unknown:

And there's no such thing as perfect privacy.   If you think you're ever gonna achieve that, don't even try it.   Just find what works for you. And even taking   a few small steps,   you know, once a month or try out a new piece of software here and there,   it all adds up. And   and people who say I'm screwed,   like, fuck it. Just be a nihilist.   You know,   that's that's foolish. There are solutions. There are tools, and it's getting made easier   every day. It's just a matter of do you care   or not?   Or even have you been made to care yet? Right? Because in the west, where we're spoiled with modern banking and   or we don't have as much conflict going on with our,   like, internally in our nation,   that people haven't been awoken yet. But, you know, other people are made to care about this stuff very quickly.  

And like we've talked about on the show already, it's better to get into this stuff early than it is,   too late.   And it's not a doom and gloom thing. It's really just a matter of do you wanna be in control of your money and your data, or do you want someone else to be in control of that? It's really that simple.  

[02:10:09] Unknown:

Well said.   So, guys,   we're a little over 2 hours.   I I really appreciate your time. I think this has been a great conversation.   I appreciate you all. I like to end the show   with some final thoughts.   So with that said, final thoughts, brother Rabbit.  

[02:10:31] Unknown:

I think, you know, buy where you can, buy no KYC Bitcoin.   What you said earlier, Matt, about, you know, coin joining as early as possible,   just to, you know, provide yourself with some forward looking privacy.   If you've got any questions, you're you're welcome to to jump in sort of the the Telegram chat, which is where where you'll find a a lot of people,   in the sort of samurai   and Ronin Dojo,   chats   that that care about their privacy.   Whether, you know, whether it be interacting on Bitcoin or,   as you know, often a lot of people in there that ask about setting up,   your routers   and, you know, what phones to use or what apps to use.  

The community there is,   sort of second to none.   So if if someone can't can't answer a question, they can very often not, direct you to a guide or, another Telegram group   if you're if you're one of those that's got a 1,000,   1,000 Telegram groups that you're in.   But, you know, just just do the, you know, do the best you can and and follow best practices.   You know, it's all well sort of,   shouting about best practices, but actually putting them into place and taking the steps to better your own privacy.   And it feels good, really. You know? Once you've once you've taken a few steps, even if it's just to sort of get off Google or, start using your own node,   You know, every little step counts,   and it gets easier.  



[02:12:08] Unknown:

Awesome. Thank you, brother Rabbit.   Guerra, final thoughts.  

[02:12:12] Unknown:

Yeah.   Mainly just   run a node, make every spin a coin join,   engrave your seeds and steal, do your own custody.   All you freaks are in the right spot. You know, keep listening to Matt. And   in a few simple steps, I think everybody can get off of Google,   take control of their own funds,   and really not need anybody. Be totally self sufficient   and cut out all the 3rd party service,   surveillance bullshit from their lives.   And like you guys are saying, it's one step at a time. It doesn't happen overnight.   But man, it feels good when you finally delete that Gmail,   delete that Google account.  

It it goes from hopeless to hopeful   and very quickly.  

[02:13:00] Unknown:

Thanks, Guarra. Look forward to kicking with you in Miami.   I mean, we didn't talk about it earlier, but,   me and Guero were kicking out, like, 2 in the morning at Bitblock, boom, and that was a great fucking conversation that none of you will ever hear.  

[02:13:14] Unknown:

Yeah, man. I'm excited.  

[02:13:17] Unknown:

Rod, and final thoughts.  

[02:13:19] Unknown:

Well, other than   thanks for having me on. Thanks for the time and space.   Personally, I could I could speak for myself here. I I revived. I resurrected   yearly dispatch.   It was just laid back, open mic. I had some alcohol. I I spoke my mind.   No filters.   I appreciate it all. And   more more of, on topic,   privacy at the end of the day, it's gray. It's not black and white.   You don't go from 0 to a100 so quickly.   Just keep iterating. Keep doing your own research. Keep tinkering. That's the most important thing.   And keep asking questions whenever it's it feels like it's required.   Cheers.  



[02:14:06] Unknown:

Cheers. Thank you, Ron, and we'll appreciate you.   I'm gonna see you in Miami as well. Right?   I hope so. I'm still on the fence. I don't know. I I'll I'll think about it. Okay. Well, let me know. Hopefully, we'll kick it. If not, then we'll, I'm sure we'll kick it again in person soon. For sure. For sure.   Just huge shout out to our guests,   Brother Rabbit,   Guero Maneda,   Rod and Will. Follow them on Twitter.   Ronan Dojo note. T. Me / Ronan Dojo note is their chat. Ronan Dojo dot io is their website.   I appreciate all these guys. And huge huge shout out to all the freaks who come back week after week to dispatch, especially those in our live chat.   You guys make this show unique,   by participating.  

It is,   you know, this is,   it was dispatch 58.   Like, one of the reasons I started this show is because I just   I felt like there was not enough conversation about important topics, and there was not enough focus on   all the great names that we have   in the space. A lot of people like video content, and that's one of the reasons why dispatch is audio only. So it's   a privacy friendly   playground for good thoughts. But at the end of the day, like, let's be honest. I mean, I just mentioned kicking it with Guero and Roden.   You know, consider   local meet ups, consider in person conversations,   off the record, not recorded.  

Those are real real value lies,   and,   just keep on trucking and keep on improving. It's all about personal responsibility.   Cheers, guys. Thank you.  

[02:16:47] Unknown:

Runs in   your ways, and you'll have to do   I'll tell you what it means.  

[02:19:52] Unknown:

Some cosmic  

[02:20:33] Unknown:

Love you, freaks.   I hope you found that conversation as enjoyable as I did.   I'll see you for a rabbit hole recap on Thursday   and dispatch on Tuesday.   I'm having rock star dev on for dispatch on Tuesday.   And we're gonna talk about privacy because what else do we fucking talk about on this show?   Also, I think   probably going to do an in person dispatch,   before the conference in Miami, the Tuesday before the conference in Miami. So stay tuned for details on that.   Trying to line up a venue, it should be pretty good.   And then, of course, you know, the open source stage is basically gonna be dispatched for the next 3 days after that.  

Love you all. Stay humble, StackSats.