Abubakar is a Nigerian programmer, Bitcoin Core Contributor, CEO at Recursive Capital, and BTrust board member.
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED TO YOUTUBE FEBRUARY 2023: https://youtu.be/MWmfDSxtvi0
FILMED MAY 2022.
(00:01) Introducing Abubakar
(00:31) Abubakar's bitcoin story
(04:29) Abubakar teaching himself how to code
(06:34) Chaincode Lab's residency and Qala
(11:16) Why is open source software important?
(12:05) The Bitcoin developer ecosystem
(15:15) The mission of Recursive Capital and Btrust
(21:45) What does freedom mean to Abubakar?
(24:48) The Bitcoin community in Nigeria
(25:47) Bitcoin regulation in Nigeria
(29:47) Is Bitcoin inevitable?
(32:19) The future of the Bitcoin ecosystem in Africa
(35:20) The state of the naira
(38:03) The Bitcoin circular economy in Nigeria
(41:13) Abubakar's new wallet
(42:19) The use of the dollar in Nigeria
(44:57) Abubakar's advice to young bitcoiners
[00:00:04]
Unknown:
Bobakar is a Nigerian programmer, Bitcoin core contributor, and CEO and CTO at Recursive Capital. He is passionate about growing the Bitcoin development ecosystem in Africa and along with his fellow Bitcoiners, launched Thala, a program designed to train the next generation of African Bitcoin and lightning developers. He also serves as a board member of B Trust where he is currently focusing on building the future of Bitcoin and launching Africa into the forefront of the monetary revolution. So above a car. Yeah. It's a pleasure it's a pleasure to have you here. Yeah. Likewise.
It really is. There's there's there's a lot of respect here. Very excited to talk to you. What's your bitcoin story? How did you discover bitcoin?
[00:00:50] Unknown:
I had it really started in 2013 from being honest because my elder bro brought back like this weird YouTube video explaining mining and how bitcoin works and I was 14 at the time. So I really didn't understand anything. My priorities were really music and, like, trying to do cool things. So then fast forward to, like, 2017, that was after I left high school a year earlier and then started reading up more about Bitcoin after he came back, like, oh, because he works in the government, so they're trying to get IBM's DNA program in. And part of the syllabus was, like, trying to get Hyperledger in. And then he was like, oh, have you heard about blockchains, bitcoin? What do you think about it? And I was like, I know nothing about it.
So originally, my plan was to get into college to read and study architecture. But then down the line, after reading a bit about bitcoin, I was like, you know what? Let me try and get into some more CS stuff really since I didn't understand anything I was reading. And then down the line towards the end of the year, I started learning, you know, what's a computer, all that kind of stuff. 2018, I taught myself how to code. And then built a program and I got all that kind of fun stuff. And then 2019, I found out that bitcoin is actually a piece of software that lives on GitHub and is openly accessible. So I started reading up about how the protocol level works, you know, p to p, proof of work, all that kind of stuff. And then I eventually started trying to look at how I could contribute.
I saw, a pull request by Tim Akimbo. So the first time I saw, like, a Nigerian court contributor, I was like, damn. That's possible. So in October that same year, which I think was the month it got merged, I opened my own first pull request as well. It was like one of the first good first issues was like a minor change to the UI, like literally changing the window from debug window to main window. Nailed it. Yeah. So after that I started doing a lot more a lot more technical reading around bitcoin. And then fast forward to 2020, I launched Recursive Capital which is a now bitcoin VC fund. Initially, we we positioned ourselves as like a web 3 fund, but then we lost the whole, I guess, the battle of redefining web 3 and Bitcoin's image. So we just rebranded later in 2021.
So I met quite a lot of Bitcoiners in 2020 at the Chinkode study groups, both the lightning first, which was interesting because lightning is you need a lot more bitcoin knowledge to get into lightning, but I did the reverse and then I did the bitcoin one too. So part of that I met quite a lot of folks. I met Bernard as well around that same time. Bernard from Bitnop. And then in 2021 he was like, you know, let's get more African devs because even running request about something we noticed early on. So we did that. We launched, Kala, which is a program trying to train Bitcoin and Lightning developers in Africa. The main idea is to have a viable pipeline for them. If you're like, I wanna be a Bitcoin developer, I wanna work in the industry, how do I do it? Oh, there's Gala. So we target more mid to senior level developers around that side. So beyond that, it was like really cool building out, you know, recursive, doing work on core, and then meeting all the other bitcoiners around the world. Like the community is great, a lot of great folks. So in 2021 I started talking with you know Alex and the rest, eventually got the grant.
Got to, I guess upgrade my dev kit. That was when I started powering through a lot more pull requests. And then down in 2021 towards the end of the year, the whole b trust thing happened. More like an open application early in the year. I did it. I didn't think I was gonna get in because like there are way older o g's in the space and then eventually kept happening you know with the writing and then all to all all the way to the screening. That was cool. And then having convos with Jack was, like, surreal all the way to, like, getting selected. So it's been a good journey, I guess. And hopefully with all the things I'm involved with, it all pans out well.
[00:04:23] Unknown:
Dude, it's absolutely insane, how much stuff you just went through there. It's
[00:04:29] Unknown:
a journey.
[00:04:30] Unknown:
So let's see. Where where do we start? The you said you taught yourself how to code. Yeah. What was that process like?
[00:04:38] Unknown:
It was it was wild. It was crazy. I mean, I went in totally blind. So I wouldn't recommend the path I went whenever I'm talking to people because it was like, today I'm learning about how programs work and then I'm trying to write some code. I'm looking at Stack Overflow. And then memes helped a lot. Memes? Memes help a lot. They help clarify things that ordinarily would have likely read a bunch of dense material but then like encapsulated in like small photos with like captioning. Like, oh. So that's kind of how it works. So outside of that I was really trying to, I think the best thing that helped was when I got more practical in 2018.
Because 2017, I was still trying to read up on like a lot of theoretical stuff. It's like textbook stuff. Exactly. Like really dry content. But I mean, I found it interesting but like ordinarily it would be dry. So after I did all of that, it was really Python, JavaScript, the regular ones. I did a little bit of c and c plus plus but still not a like hard core c or c plus plus developer. So really that's it. It's been it's one of those things where I had to keep pushing myself and then over time it became a lot easier for me to go, oh, you know, I'm thinking about something. I can quickly code it up. Or, hey, can I try this? And then, really that's all I recommend for folks. I mean, I don't recommend everyone be a developer. It's not a it's not a great lifestyle. Why is it not a great lifestyle? Because you need to be really self driven. You need to you need to have a lot of discipline. Not a lot of people have a lot of discipline, really. Especially when you want to like keep leveling up because there are a lot of mid level developers all around. People who can like go to basic sites with JavaScript. But then for you to get to that next level of like contributing to open source product or like working at large companies and doing great stuff, you need to be really disciplined. So if you're the partying type of guy, you know, there are folks that could and do that. It's like it's a bit of a balance. You have to drive star dev. Yeah. He's always closing out the bar.
Nice. Nice.
[00:06:35] Unknown:
So you mentioned Chaincode Labs. Yeah. Was that the Chaincode
[00:06:39] Unknown:
residency? Oh, no. So they actually wanted to have the, the residency in 2020 in Africa, in Ghana, I think. But then They had a chain code residency in Ghana? No. They wanted to. Oh. But then COVID and everything, and then they postponed. And then 2020, they decided to do the study groups instead. So they have the study groups, then they have the seminars, and then they have, like, the residency thing. And what is that all virtual? Yeah. It was all virtual, the whole study group. So it was really it was cool because it was off the bat of me reading a lot of Bitcoin material from, like, even folks that were in the study groups. So it was, like, surreal to see Murch and some of the other folks in the study groups and then get to talk to them and actually ask them questions you've had the whole time. So it was really cool. I mean, like I said, I did the lightning one first, which I actually just met a few of them right today and and in the conference as well which is really cool and then down the line the bitcoin one. So it's just one of those things where the way the program is designed is kind of how we were doing Kala as well. Cause it's more you meet once a week and then you have a set of questions and then you have material to go over. So you jam it, come in and then answer questions, bring up questions that you have. So it's really interactive and it really helped like push me to a point where I'm a lot more driven when it comes to research. I mean, I already was like I had to be but then that kind of pushed it to a point where I I know how to self organize. I'm trying to learn about something. I know I could put in like points stuff I wanna read about and then follow-up. So it really helped with my discipline as well. So I mean you went through this path on your own pretty much. I mean then chain code helped you
[00:08:15] Unknown:
when you look at that path what lessons were there that you're presumably employing in Kala?
[00:08:23] Unknown:
Oh, yeah. A ton. A ton. So first and foremost, even with Kala, one of the main things we had to figure out early on is who who are we looking at to get into the program? What is the desired outcome? Because that will determine how we could scale it. Another thing was the material too. So when we started it was a huge like still is an open application, but then after reading What year is this? 2021 Okay. Is when we started. So, we saw flooding of a lot of people, mostly in Nigeria. Even though it's an African project, I mean, Nigerians like to flood in things. Right. So we expected that as There's a lot of you. Yeah. To be fair. So statistically, it is. So, we did that. We got quite a lot of folks. But then at the end of the day, we decided we might as well kind of extend the process of getting in just so that we could see those that will make it through to the final program because again there are a lot of great folks. I'm glad we did it that way. So we did the study group first and then quite a few folks dropped out and couldn't keep up which is a good sign that I'm glad we didn't take them to the next stage because they could have dropped out and we'll have no guys in the program. And then they still didn't seem too ready, so then we did, like, Ching Koo's seminar material.
And then we moved them to the main program itself. And then in between, we actually had some other folks join in. They were quite good. So they went just from straight from the study group all the way into the main program. So they've been in the main program for like 5 weeks now. So the main thing is we pay them a stipend because they're full time. A lot of them quit their jobs because again they're senior engineers. So after that really we've spoken to recruiters. We did that first before we started the program because, again, we need to know what the jobs are available, the requirements, and then, like, back port that into the program. So we did that and then, you know, I'm looking forward to seeing them in the wild. We have quite a strong group. There are 13 of them.
It's it's quite a solid group. I think even even if they get in and out and then like have jobs down the line, it'll be cool to see the stuff they build because they're they're building a lot. So we're focusing on getting them to build on bitcoin. Not only to scale up their their what do you call it? Portfolios but also to help in the space really. They need all the help they can get in structure so That's awesome.
[00:10:31] Unknown:
We got Cal has 13 people in the group. Yeah. They haven't been placed yet. Yeah. The the plan is place them with companies.
[00:10:41] Unknown:
Yeah. So But then also do open source work. No. So the priority is to get them Bitcoin jobs. Period. Because technically that's what we promised in the program. So besides that if there are folks who would like to get into open source work we could look at how we could do that because again That's open to them. Yeah. That's open to them as well as whether that fits with their development journey because open source work is not as easy as getting a job. There's no structure, if it's grant based, it's infrequent and it requires quite a lot of existing developer, or should I say engineer structure really when it comes to mapping out what you wanna do, following up by yourself and it's kinda lonely really. So let's talk about that. Let's talk about
[00:11:19] Unknown:
to you, you know, why is open source software important?
[00:11:24] Unknown:
It's super important because it underlies, first of all, a lot of the internet infrastructure. A lot of the software in the wild all depend on open source at the end of the day. The cool thing with open source is it allows for open accessibility for anyone who has any complaint whatsoever. So it's no longer okay filing a complaint to a company waiting like a long time. If you can code, just go in. Open up a pull request. So there's tremendous amount of freedom.
[00:11:47] Unknown:
Yeah, I mean, I I I one of the things I love about open sources, you know, there's this meme and devs do something, like, can you can you fix this for me or whatever? And then the response is always, like, you have not submitted a pull request. Exactly. But Exactly. The powers in your hands. You're gonna make it happen. Exactly. Use the strength they're using to complain to actually open a pull request. So I mean, you've contributed to Bitcoin core.
[00:12:09] Unknown:
Have you contributed to other open source projects as well? Yeah. A few other projects. So it ranges from like those one cryptography book was like a minor change to the Python code. There a few other projects like c cache and some of the others. But mainly the majority I think the major one I've done so far is is definitely Bitcoin Core. All the other ones are like a bunch of projects all around us. And was that intimidating? I mean, I hear it's a very unique developer Yeah. Ecosystem and Yeah. So for Bitcoin, it's it's it's unique. It's it's a it's quite a large community, but at the same time, the higher up you go towards, like, the maintainer level, the smaller it is. Right. So the cool thing with that is they're actually open to, like, a mentorship type role, which is really helpful when I got in the first pull request because I had no clue what I was doing. I mean, that was the first time I compiled core to begin with. And then years down the line, I found out the way I was doing it was super inefficient. Like, I wasn't taking advantage of, like, parallel processing or anything like that. So the the journey is it's a lot easier than people would think because if you come in as a new but a lot of people know you're a new because again it shows you're not a contributor or anything. Right. So they already know that you likely don't know what you're doing or you might get a bit confused. So they don't come in too harsh as they were. You mean as in like the built in reputation system in GitHub? Yeah. Yeah. On GitHub. Because you could tell if someone's a member or like a contributor and all of that kind of stuff. So if they do see that, they tend to be a lot nicer to you. Tend to be a lot harsher to themselves, actually. Right.
Which is good for new people. I mean, they walk you through it. If you can't squash, like the commits, they help you out, all that kind of stuff around the journey. So it's really, it's difficult in the sense that there's a lot for you to have in terms of like background knowledge. So learning how the ProQuest, I guess the flow works cause not all of them are the same. You could have a big change and then it gets merged really quickly as opposed to, like, a small one. And at the same time too, there's a lot of things to do with regards to how you check-in cause you have to keep following up on the pull request again. There are like hundreds, hundreds and hundreds of pull requests and a lot keeps coming in. If you're keeping track of that, some gets updated and then it's like a poor request from, like, 2 years ago type stuff. So, yeah, it's it's It's a marathon. Yeah. It is. It's it doesn't start in, like, a day or so like people would expect. But down the line you keep growing. Especially with their capacity to handle all the stuff that's going on because there's a lot of activity. I mean, a lot of bitcoin critics,
[00:14:30] Unknown:
particularly among competing cryptocurrencies say the Bitcoin developer ecosystem is too hostile to developers.
[00:14:41] Unknown:
You just Yeah. I I totally I strongly disagree. Because not only with my own personal journey, I've spoken to other devs that just started out or have been in the space. I mean, all you have to do is just go to GitHub, really. All these things are all just narratives that they like to throw around, but I think Bitcoin has a more welcoming community than the rest. In all honesty, I mean, the others are still, you know, a lot of shit coining going on, a lot of pumping of bags. Really, the priority isn't, like, so much towards signal. But with Bitcoin, a lot of people that work on it really care about it. So they're really, really open to getting people on that same page. So it's really, really welcoming.
[00:15:14] Unknown:
Awesome. So you also started this fund, Recursive Capital.
[00:15:20] Unknown:
What is the mission for Recursive? How do you view that mixing into everything else that you're doing? Yeah. So in general, my my life's goal, I guess, until I die is to help with growing the Bitcoin ecosystem both in Africa and around the world. And part of that mission is obviously getting funding to the necessary projects. Now the thing is in Africa and some of these parts that we're looking at, there aren't too many developers to begin with, which is why I'm involved with Gala. And there aren't too many companies as well to fund. Which is why the way we're structured with the cursive, at least the way we would like to be, is not only be providing funding but we're trying looking at things like doing research around the space and then trying to highlight things like that and trends that will be with recursive research And then labs will be more of practical things like incubating, doing liquidity management, probably pumping out companies ourselves like the wallet I'm building.
And outside of that, it's gonna be a thing where we're looking to fund these companies, bring them in, and then help them grow. We want to be as active as possible in the space because it's still nascent. So you can't just Not just money. No. Money is not the answer. Right. Stuff is not the answer. Especially with open source. You can't expect throwing capital. You can't just magically bring god 10 x devs. It doesn't work that way. But money is a part of it. Yeah, it is. But then the way you deploy the capital has to be strategic as well. And to provide guidance and A 100%. So it's all complementary.
[00:16:41] Unknown:
Yeah. All these things are complementary. So then the 3rd leg of that complementary
[00:16:47] Unknown:
triangle is b trust. Yeah. So b trust is kind of, I mean, it isn't exactly near to what Achersta will be doing because we're not gonna be funding any sort of equity based funding. It's gonna be all helicopter money technically. B trust is. Yeah. B Trust is more of a charitable organization. Yeah. Yeah. So the whole idea is to really look at the space and try and see how best to grow it as organically and as as strategically as possible. Because then again, there's a lot of money and we don't wanna just throw it in and expect things to happen. So we're trying to roll it out in like piecemeal. So starting off with developers and then grand style funding down to hopefully, probably projects and then maybe education efforts all the way to as we're scaling out outside of Africa as well. So it's gonna be it's gonna be a journey. I mean, a lot of people are, I guess, have the notion that things should get up, I guess Right away we need it now. Immediately. But we're doing a lot of the structuring. They didn't joke around what they said, that is our irrevocable brine trust with full control on the board members. They really meant that. So we're doing a lot of running around to set up a lot of things. I mean we have the Genesis principles which is good. I mean especially for the community. Was it like a constitution?
Basically. So the idea is like an immutable set of principles that would guide the entirety of the lifetime of the fund. So the idea obviously is bitcoin only open source projects and then we have provisions for things like transparency. And then what happens if bitcoin has a hard fork? What chain do we follow? Things like that. Obviously with the user majority is a bit complex but like it's it's a rough way to have an estimate on what to follow. So there are a lot of things like that and then there's still a lot to announce. We'll be announcing a few more things before the year ends towards like setting up custody, all that kind of cool stuff I guess. And then hopefully the next year or so we could start deploying capital.
[00:18:30] Unknown:
So b trust was launched by Dorsey and Jay z. Right? Yeah. And they each gave 250
[00:18:38] Unknown:
bitcoin was is that the right Well, there isn't any clarity on what the split was, but it was both of them. But it was 500 bitcoin total? Yeah. In total, it's 500.
[00:18:46] Unknown:
So at current prices that is, I shouldn't do math on air. At current prices, that's a 100. A 100 would be 30 ks 300 ks No, 100 would be 3,000,000 so it's like $15,000,000 $20,000,000 there about so I'm going to start fresh j z dorsey they each together they put in 500 bitcoin About $15,000,000 at current current prices. I think this is really cool concept because if Bitcoin keeps performing, if bitcoin keeps performing as it does historically,
[00:19:25] Unknown:
you guys might never run out of those 500 bitcoin. Yeah. And the cool thing is given the space is still new, there aren't there isn't gonna be too much to throw money at around. Right. So what what will likely happen or at least what I think would happen is as we're deploying capital, bitcoin's price keeps going up. By the time we're done to like a certain stage, we wouldn't necessarily need to re up on the stock really. Right. So But is that like a is that something that you guys are actively thinking about that this 500 bitcoin, if we manage it properly, it just may never Oh, yeah. We're we're looking at that. We're also looking at in the event that Bitcoin keeps plunging Yeah. Or a stage where we deploy quite a lot of it down the line, we still have to look for ways to get more funding. Yeah. What do you do? Would it like if if bitcoin falls down to like 10 k, you guys just gonna panic sell at all? No. No. It's it's not gonna be a panic sell really. It's gonna be more more strategic around how we get liquidity to bridge it. Could be to have that, like, locked up as a Bitcoin backed loan, probably. That could be interesting or probably keep some of the capital in, like, USD or something like that. But, yeah, we're looking at things around that as well as trying to replenish the the stash. Oh, but you are actually considering loans. I mean, even if the price goes up, loans could be, Oh, this is with regards to loans and all that, this is all on a personal level. I'm just Oh, yeah.
[00:20:41] Unknown:
I'm just spitballing here. So you guys are still basically working out that plan? You haven't deployed anything? Yeah. That's still not. Nothing has been deployed. It's still waiting on things like getting the entity set up, custody, all that kind of stuff. Really powerful stuff. How many people are on the board? 4 of us. And it's is it a mix of Africans? Is there is there an Indian on the board? None at all. That's why the main focus is Africa initially.
[00:21:04] Unknown:
Right. But if it's a all African market You put India in there originally. Right? Yeah. Yeah. That that's still that's still the goal. But then the goal is now Africa initially, and then you expand to other global south regions like India and then Pakistan probably in the rest. So, yeah, we're eventually gonna have to get a lead as well because we're all working part time full time,
[00:21:23] Unknown:
if that makes sense. And do you do you get paid you're not getting paid for BH? No. No. No. We're not getting paid. We're not getting paid. You're not taking a cut of your 500 bitcoin? No. No. The way play yourself a bit. No. The way I wanna structure it
[00:21:33] Unknown:
is all the work I'm doing on and do it as pro bono as possible so that my incentives are aligned. And then with the recursive capital, I can be an animal. That's where you make that's that's where you pay the rent. Yeah.
[00:21:44] Unknown:
Awesome. So, I mean, you you grew up in Nigeria your whole life. Right? So as a Nigerian with the population's 300,000,000 people, probably one of the most populous countries in the world, almost the same population as the United States, but much smaller. How do you how do you view what does freedom mean to you?
[00:22:10] Unknown:
That's that's a good one. So I definitely think freedom has a lot to do with sovereignty. I think they're intrinsically tied together. Because if you're really free, you'll likely be sovereign on all fronts. So financially sovereign and even in terms of philosophically sovereign at the end of the day too. Because again, we're we're moving into more and more, not necessarily authoritarian regimes, but more censored communities and more cashless communities which they require you to get on rails into things that could easily be censored. Right. So that ties into now, like, credit scores and, like, censoring on ideas and, you know, the whole PC culture and everything. So I think obviously for you to maintain your freedom because the first thing that's attacked if you wanna harm your freedom is money. So it makes a lot of sense for you to have that sort of financial freedom and then that translates into expanding the rest of the freedom across your your life, I guess.
[00:23:00] Unknown:
Yeah. I mean, so, unfortunately, I have not been to Africa, period. So I love Nigeria. Yeah. I'm hoping to go for 4 days conference in Ghana. Okay. But I would love to go to Nigeria at some point, but can you clue us in a little bit like what is the what is how how do payments work in Nigeria? What's like if you go to a store Yeah. Is it still mostly cash or Oh, no. No. A lot of people still use cards.
[00:23:28] Unknown:
It it depends on the store. So if you're if you're talking about more like mall type stores around the cities, it's usually cards or like cash. If you're talking a bit more rural, you're talking bank transfers, actually.
[00:23:40] Unknown:
The rural Yeah. Is not cash, it's bank transfers. Yeah. Bank transfer as well as cash.
[00:23:45] Unknown:
So you tend to have shopkeepers go, okay, if you don't have any cash, you have a bank account, you have transfer, then you have addresses you can send to, bank accounts, and then you do that. So another thing is unlike other parts in Africa, we don't necessarily have mobile money. You don't have, like, M PACE that's Kenya. Right? That that's all Kenya. Yeah. So with regards to that, MTN, one of the larger, I guess, cell carriers in Nigeria. It's actually South African company. They're looking to get into the mobile money space. So hopefully that brings in a ton of folks on, I guess, mobile money. And that would likely key into Bitcoin adoption too because there's quite a lot of ways to integrate mobile money with Bitcoin in general.
[00:24:20] Unknown:
But do you think so I mean, you're obviously on the younger side Yeah. Among your peers. Do they still do people still use cash? Or is it Yeah. A lot of people still use cash. Because in America, it's like everyone our age, they stopped using cash. Oh, wow. I pull out I pull out the cash and they're like, what what are you doing? What is that paper? No. No. We still have a lot. It's it's still heavily cash based. Awesome. It's good for privacy. Exactly. No privacy, no freedom, you know? Exactly. Exactly. So, the bitcoin community in Nigeria, is it is it a strong community? Is it is it growing or It's getting there. I mean,
[00:25:02] Unknown:
before I knew about like bitcoin and everything, there's still guys inside and it was mostly speculative and then small amount of folks like out in Lagos and some of the other parts either building, you know, products like Buycoin or some of the others. And then now it's like Buycoin? Yeah. Buycoins. It's an exchange. It's one of the early exchanges in Nigeria. So buy and sell bitcoin. And right now is more there are a lot more folks across the entire pipeline. So quite some folks doing, you know, core development and all of that. Quite a few folks at, like, the beginner stage, like running meet ups and all of that. And then in the middle where you have, like, folks who have built companies or are trying to do some of those community organizing. So it's it's getting to a stage where it's significant enough.
[00:25:47] Unknown:
Am I correct that the Nigerian government, they did a soft ban of bitcoin? Was it they've, like, moved against bitcoin to a degree this year? Yeah. So it was the CBN specifically.
[00:25:58] Unknown:
Okay. So they had this, circular band which essentially said if you're a financial, if you're like a Fintech company you can't necessarily work with banks to process crypto payments. Okay. Bitcoin included. So that sort of translated into average folks too. So if I was to send you a bank transfer and then write a memo I put like Bitcoin or crypto Right. Your account gets banned instantly. And so does yours. No. They do it on the receiving end, which is like crazy. So if You just send you just send those bank transfers to people you don't like and just get their accounts. Yeah. I mean, I had one of my accounts closed for that same reason. Someone sent it in like the memo had bitcoin. Then my bank was like, bro, they've closed the account. I'm like, oh, damn.
But that's why I don't bank on on the regular rails. I've been Bitcoin only the whole time. I only got a bank account because I had to travel out. You still can't prove you can sustain yourself with bitcoin selling the bank account, unfortunately. Oh, like other countries won't let you in? Yeah. Yeah. Because if you're proving, you know, proof of I guess finance Right. You have to use a bank account. They don't recognize like a bitcoin address with a ton of money in it. That's interesting.
[00:27:01] Unknown:
Hopefully, that changes soon. Hopefully, it changes. Hopefully. So how do you do you do you think are you are you worried at all about, you know, I mean you obviously are creating this grassroots or helping to foster this grassroots. You know, it's bigger than any individual. I know you would agree with that. Not a 100%. Foster this grassroots movement in Nigeria. Are are you concerned that the Nigerian government's gonna rug pull you?
[00:27:26] Unknown:
I mean, it's interesting because a lot of people in, you know, the Bitcoin space and in general like to go, you know, after the government and all that. But at the end of the day, if you really wanna get it to a stage where a lot of people have access to, you still need them to come on board for favorable regulations Right. So people have access. But at the same time, the Nigerian government isn't like a 100% against Bitcoin or crypto. It's more to do with like a reactionary 2017 type, I guess, policy that we saw across the world. So it's it's a thing of we have to just sit down with them and really explain what it is, the benefits economically speaking. As well as some of the ways they could actually also benefit from it, as well as average folks. So I think it's a thing of just sitting together and talking really. So you seem pretty positive about it. You're not too concerned. I'm totally positive. But they didn't like arrest people for owning bitcoin or anything? No. No. It's not it's not on that sort of crazy level. The only thing is, if you're involved in, like, protests and stuff like that, they definitely closed down accounts. That's when it happened. Right? It was during it was the SARS movement? Yeah. It was I think it was the tail end after that or during that sort of period because they had all the accounts blocked for all the activists and then a lot of them couldn't even travel out because if they go to the airport they're like, you're on the no fly list. And then beyond that, they started moving towards Bitcoin. And then I guess for them, that signaled, oh, so that's how you wanna play it. Right. So let's play the game. So it's it's really one of those things. And it's a good thing also for the wider ecosystem that they had that sort of ban Because what happened was people started moving to p2p. Right. Self custody. Exactly. So that helps with the resilience, especially with regards to the liquidity, which is really, really good. I mean, you don't want to have all of that locked up in, like, exchanges that are And specific, SARS was an anti police it was anti police protection. Yeah. So it's one of the units in the police department where, like, like, the main things they were doing at the time was looking at young folks and then, like, raiding them of cash and all that kind of harassment. So they already closed down that unit already. So I guess the protests work. Interesting.
[00:29:25] Unknown:
It keeps coming back to money. Right? So like the protesters were getting cut off from the financial system. They were protesting other people who were getting their money seized. Yeah. Traveling, you need money to travel. Exactly. It always comes back. It's always about money. For the money. But it's not an open source self software. It's not just the money you need. No. No. No. It's it's more ideologically driven there. So when you think when you think about Bitcoin, you know, a lot of a lot of Bitcoiners say Bitcoin is inevitable. Yeah. Do you think Bitcoin's inevitable?
[00:30:01] Unknown:
I mean, from the point of view of seeing given how things have been progressing, like from a monetary evolution standpoint, it is something that's inevitable. Because of your as you're having more, I guess, hammering down on rights and then censorship, it's going to likely result in something that would have to guard against all those sort of externalities that you have. So I think from that point of view, I think it is inevitable. Well, inevitable, I guess. And another thing to consider is even if Bitcoin wasn't invented, there'll likely be something like Bitcoin down the line. Again, because of that need. Right. Folks will still try to band up. I mean, Bitcoin isn't the first version of itself. Open source. Exactly. Exactly. There have been many, many different versions. Just that Bitcoin solved how to get it working without necessarily relying on banks or having some sort of fragile structuring with regards to governance.
[00:30:52] Unknown:
So what's your what's your biggest concern when it comes to the current state of Bitcoin? Like, wait. I mean,
[00:30:59] Unknown:
there are a couple of concerns I have from the dev side is obviously, there are a few devs that are leaving the space like core maintainers, which is Do you think they're actually leaving? I mean, I hope they come back some of that. They're coming back as nims is is Yeah. One of the theories. A lot of people have been bringing that up. And I think that that would be best because down the line, we'll likely need more anonymous Bitcoin developers. Right. So a nim is a pseudonym. So it's someone who's not going by their government name. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Do you regret going by your I a 100% regret. As you can tell from some of my my handles, there's an attempt to kind of make it a pseudonym, but then it didn't work out because I eventually had to show myself down the line. Well, your your Twitter handle's I hate 1999. Yeah. What happened in 1999? I was born and in 2010 was when I joined. So I keep telling folks, I have no idea why I chose that. I was like, dick. I thought it was cool, I guess, at the time.
[00:31:53] Unknown:
So you don't particularly hate that year? No. Not at all. Like, that would be, like, weird. That was one of the most important questions I had to ask you was was why you hated 19 99 so much? No. No. It's it's totally unrelated definitely. So so the dev ecosystem, I mean, that's obviously why you are focused on Kala, and just like to create more devs to make a more robust community. Yeah, for sure. When you when you think about when you think about Africa as a whole, a lot of Bitcoiners particularly in Western countries myself included Tend to say you know Bitcoin is is is is for the people that that need it. Right?
You know, Westerners, maybe we we have really good banking relationships. I can travel without proving my finances. Like, we have all these freedoms that we take for granted, and maybe the appeal of Bitcoin doesn't is not as obvious as in as in developing countries, as in Africa, Latin America. When you but at the same time, it is a little bit of a larp. Right? Because, I mean, I've never gone to Africa. Most of the people that talk about it never gone to Africa. The ecosystem in Africa seems to be growing at a really quick pace right now recently, but I it feels like a more recent, phenomenon. How do you view Bitcoin open source in Africa?
What does the future hold there? What are the what are the what are the pain points?
[00:33:29] Unknown:
I mean, with regards to pain points right now, there isn't any structure, which is why, you know, Gala and the other initiatives we're working on is there. Because, again, folks wanna get involved. There there's a ton of enthusiasm. There are a lot of developers actually and engineers in Africa, but they're either being pushed into shit coins or working at Google and some of these other companies. So for us, it's like, okay. All that talent exists, then it just means we have to structure and pipelines for them to get into the space. Right. Now with regards to picking up, as of recent, it has definitely I think we've started that whole trend of having exponential growth when it comes to, well, the community as a whole. I mean, initially before, maybe the last 3 years, it wasn't as as frequent as it is right now for folks to say, oh, you know, I'm trying to get into bitcoin or I have bitcoin company, things like that. It was still around, okay, I've heard about Bitcoin. I have some Bitcoin, but I shitcoin, all that kind of stuff. So with regards to concerns, it'll be, I hope that a lot more programs like Gala at different stages of the development, like from 0s to like you could code. And then in between that and then the main program itself and then towards the tail end Right. A lot of them hopefully will come out. If they do, then we can now start looking at a more thriving and, like, vibrant ecosystem. Because if you have more devs, you have more companies. If you have more companies, you have more innovation. If you have more innovation, you have more problems solved. So I think that's just the way I look at it, and I hope I hope it's gonna keep continuing the way it is right now. You think it will?
I'm I'm super optimistic. If I didn't think it would, I would just I'll start buying shit coins.
[00:35:05] Unknown:
So I mean, you keep saying this word shit coins, you know, what is a shit coin to you? Yeah. A shit coin is anything that is in bitcoin. Anything that is. So this is this chair a shitcoin? Yeah, it is. The chair is a shitcoin, narrow is a shitcoin,
[00:35:17] Unknown:
my shoes are a shitcoin.
[00:35:21] Unknown:
So, I mean, it's good that we have you on the record. Chairs chairs are indeed shitcoins. We don't own these chairs. The so the naira did I did I pronounce that right? The naira? The naira is the Nigerian national currency. Right? Oh, yeah. What is the history of that? Is it a strong currency?
[00:35:43] Unknown:
Initially, it was at a point back in, like, maybe 50, 5th some 50 years ago, it was actually almost on parity with with the with the pound. And in some points, it was actually even higher than the pound, which is, like, wow. That's insane. But then over the years, throughout quite a lot of devaluation, a lot of inflation, all that kind of stuff, it all went from, like, $50 to like $100 in 2015 and now it's like around $600 per naira, which is insane. And there's also a food crisis, which adds a lot more pressure. So people earning in naira, spending in naira, really doesn't have room for savings at all. A lot of people are battling to make ends meet. Hence, why Bitcoin is a lot more of a convincing argument right now and why you see a lot of people tend to flock towards bitcoin. Both for remittance, local commerce, as well as savings.
[00:36:30] Unknown:
Did you get that combination of both Yeah. Censorship resistance and increase purchasing power over time. Exactly. Exactly. And I imagine the perspective of Bitcoin short term volatility is is more understandable when you have a currency that's just constantly
[00:36:48] Unknown:
losing value. Yeah, 100%. And that's part of the reason why some folks move into stable coins or like they just hold US dollars. Either physical or in like a bank account. Is it easy to hold US dollars in Nigeria? It's more it's it's easier to have physical US dollars than to have, like, a domiciliary account where you're holding US dollars. So they hold the actual, like, greenbacks? Yeah. Actual greenbacks. Yeah. Can you be, like, just go in the store and just pay? No. No. You can't you can't do that. But there are a lot of places to exchange that for naira. Oh. So it's like if you have a ton of USD in cash, the moment you need to start spending, all you have to do is change it up. That way you're not losing the value of your currency over time as you would with the naira.
[00:37:28] Unknown:
Awesome So I mean this has been absolutely fucking awesome conversation. Yeah, I've really enjoyed it We kind of it's it's it's really cool because I mean we kind of have similar perspectives in terms of, like I launched open source foundation that I'm getting no money for I have a venture fund that's bitcoin only that I make money on right So like I see that combination there But I feel like you're doing it way more sophisticated. So anyway, so in the bitcoin community one of the things we talk about a lot is this idea of a circular economy This idea of Bitcoiners earning Bitcoin, spending Bitcoin.
[00:38:14] Unknown:
Do you how do you see do a lot of businesses accept bitcoin right now in Nigeria. How do you see growing that? Is that a priority of yours? Yeah, for sure. So the thing is if we're talking about individuals saving bitcoin or holding bitcoin and using bitcoin in and out both locally and outside, we have to look at ways to make it a lot more convenient for them to actually use it. And part of those things is, you know, right now merchants don't accept bitcoin directly. I wish they would, but we're still like maybe 2 years out. We'll likely need to get, you know, lightning point of sales machines because, again, those could do offline transactions, which would be good for, like, local retailers and and some of the larger branches as well. So in general, it would be the priority will likely be getting that to a stage where it's possible. Right now it's not impossible.
I personally have been paying for things using bitcoin for a while now. Now one of the ways you do that is again, back to the bank transfer for example, as well as cash. Now there are companies like Coin Profile where you literally have, you show up with a bank account, like you send it to them, or at least you put it into the service and then they generate Bitcoin address. You pay that address and then straight makes up the bank transfer on your behalf. And the cool thing with that is the government can't necessarily attack that because you can't tie in the transaction. It'll appear as a regular wire.
Right. And then you could do a similar thing for getting cash. So what you do is the same thing but instead it will be to like a Buru DeShange type person where they'll give you cash in exchange for the transfer you made. What? So you pay them bitcoin and then they give you cash? Yeah. There are a lot of people that do that directly. You could do it via, you know, the method I explained with Coin Profile. Or you could just generally do, you know, an actual trade with the with the person in the store. Like, oh, you accept Bitcoin? Yeah. You know, he could do that. And then he could you could send him Bitcoin and then settle it. But that's still happening not at, like, a large scale. So So it still needs to be at a point where we have the point of sale machines, whether it's with lightning or we have cards that have, I guess, bitcoin on it and then make the payment and then can, like, switch to it. Exactly. So it'll likely be things around that. But, yeah, it's not impossible to pay with bitcoin. I know a lot of folks that do that already. But not that much. There's not that many stores that are accepting it directly. Not at all. Not at all. Even the ones that would are like really small stores like
[00:40:23] Unknown:
you know the person type store. Right. And what do you yeah. So I mean do you think I mean in like 5 years you think we're gonna have you think I'm just gonna be able to get off a plane and and Lagos and just A 100%. Not convert my currency and just go and pay bitcoin? Yeah. 100%. I think
[00:40:40] Unknown:
based on the conversation I've been having with merchants, a lot of them are open to getting Bitcoin or accepting Bitcoin. Again, because a lot of them don't necessarily wanna hold Naira. Right. And they can't necessarily get USD like that that accessible as well. So it's a thing where they're like, okay, we're enthusiastic, but how do we do it? Now we're like, oh, okay. Now we have to start thinking about, okay, as a point of sales, are we doing it via lightning? Are we doing it via bitcoin? So the thing is is for us to really just start deploying test cases around and then seeing what works best or what the, I guess, the consumers respond to. You were saying you're building a wallet app. What Yeah. What's the deal with that? Yeah. So it was born out of really personal experience.
So I'm the type to be constantly looking for bitcoin services that work with the regular financial system because I don't hold, you know, accounts and stuff like that. All I do is everything's all in bitcoin and then if I wanna spend then I step out. Now the thing with that is it's not as convenient. What I usually have is like a ton of tabs on different services, different wallets, and then moving in and out. So I was thinking, you know, I'm a huge advocate for, like, non custodial wallets as well. Right. And part of that reason is because again, being an open source developer and all of that. So the idea is to have a non custodial wallet which has a lot of these services in app. Right. So the idea would be essentially BlueWallet with a lot of these services. So when you say non custodial wallet, you mean you're holding your own keys? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't understand. Seize your money or take your money. 100%. And it's gonna be open source because, again, I would like for it to be a tool that people use and care about. And if they care that much they could help build it as well. That's awesome.
[00:42:18] Unknown:
Fantastic. One last thing. You if you have cash in your pocket oh, no. Two last things. You said you said earlier that you can't spend US dollars cash in the store. Yeah. Why?
[00:42:34] Unknown:
So it's it's a thing of currency control because you don't want to have folks moving and being able to easily spend the dollar because that would incentivize holding the dollar. Right. Meaning, the narrow would likely keep more keep crashing even more. So there are a lot of restrictions with using USD in general. So things like accounts being having, like, insane limits at around $100 or 50 or not even being able to send it via an app, which as of recent is the case. So in general, they're hugely disincentivized to allow you to easily use cash, USD at least. So it's government control that is preventing US dollars from being used. Yeah. For sure. Because it's not exactly unless maybe you're in some of the tourist zones where, like, a foreigner, then you could, like, spend, I guess, USD. But that's where it's, like, for checking in and stuff like that. So are
[00:43:20] Unknown:
are they gonna try how does Bitcoin fix that? Does Bitcoin
[00:43:24] Unknown:
is can Bitcoin be stopped in the same way there? No. It can't. And that that's the cool thing about it. So even if they did try to stop it, it would just keep going underground and then building out resilience until they start to contend with it, which is the case right now. So, like, their biggest control point with the US dollar is they don't let you have the US dollar denominated accounts in the back end. Right? That's why I said They make it a lot more difficult too. And even if you're trying to spend out the USD, not everyone accepts it. A huge chunk of people don't accept it. Well, with Bitcoin, it's permissionless, so you can just Exactly. Create a wallet. You don't have a financial institution that's holding it that can be regulated. Exactly. And the cool thing again with Bitcoin is a lot of people think about it as just the asset. Right. But if you think about it as more of a monetary network Right. Then you could be using that as a conduit. Right. Which is what a lot of people have been, I guess, realizing that you could do with Bitcoin. So it's it's more about having this monetary network that efficiently allows you to transfer value across the network, which you necessarily can right now. So it's cheap, instant, global. And the cool thing with that is, once you have that sort of payment rail that's that global and easily accessible, you could easily plug in applications that talk over bitcoin but still settle locally.
[00:44:32] Unknown:
Right. They settle in in
[00:44:35] Unknown:
naira or dollars or whatever local currency is. But they're transferring through Bitcoin. Exactly. But that's probably a a short term thing. Right? That's like an adoption thing, and then we just move forward with Bitcoin. A lot of places will likely still keep using that down the line, but maybe we'll see some self organize around Bitcoin, like, having, like, a local bitcoin economy as well.
[00:44:54] Unknown:
If you were talking to a if you're talking to a young African child, young Nigerian kid thinking about getting into Bitcoin Okay. Where do they start?
[00:45:11] Unknown:
I definitely say you first of all have to really look at the basic material. So Jameson Law has a good site where he has a bunch of resources. And part of that is things like, you know, Hello Bitcoin's videos which are really short, but at the same time they're accurate, which a lot is missing in this space. A lot of people like to teach Bitcoin, but they're teaching the wrong thing, you know, with with regards to mining and everything. But they're quite short videos. There's a lot of resources on the site. It's lob.net. You could go there. Outside of that, it would be to take it easy. There's a lot of information. You'll be really, really overwhelmed, especially the first two days plus or, like, week where, like, okay. I don't know what proof of work is. I don't know what mining is, but take it easy. What you have to do is realize Bitcoin is an entire system. It's it's really a monetary system really at the end of the day. So there are different aspects. What you have to do is understand how it works at, like, a general overview level and then progress down the line. So if you wanna focus on networking, you can do that. So just take it piecemeal.
[00:46:10] Unknown:
I love it. Thank you. Thank you as well. Dude, it's a pleasure. Pleasure.
Bobakar is a Nigerian programmer, Bitcoin core contributor, and CEO and CTO at Recursive Capital. He is passionate about growing the Bitcoin development ecosystem in Africa and along with his fellow Bitcoiners, launched Thala, a program designed to train the next generation of African Bitcoin and lightning developers. He also serves as a board member of B Trust where he is currently focusing on building the future of Bitcoin and launching Africa into the forefront of the monetary revolution. So above a car. Yeah. It's a pleasure it's a pleasure to have you here. Yeah. Likewise.
It really is. There's there's there's a lot of respect here. Very excited to talk to you. What's your bitcoin story? How did you discover bitcoin?
[00:00:50] Unknown:
I had it really started in 2013 from being honest because my elder bro brought back like this weird YouTube video explaining mining and how bitcoin works and I was 14 at the time. So I really didn't understand anything. My priorities were really music and, like, trying to do cool things. So then fast forward to, like, 2017, that was after I left high school a year earlier and then started reading up more about Bitcoin after he came back, like, oh, because he works in the government, so they're trying to get IBM's DNA program in. And part of the syllabus was, like, trying to get Hyperledger in. And then he was like, oh, have you heard about blockchains, bitcoin? What do you think about it? And I was like, I know nothing about it.
So originally, my plan was to get into college to read and study architecture. But then down the line, after reading a bit about bitcoin, I was like, you know what? Let me try and get into some more CS stuff really since I didn't understand anything I was reading. And then down the line towards the end of the year, I started learning, you know, what's a computer, all that kind of stuff. 2018, I taught myself how to code. And then built a program and I got all that kind of fun stuff. And then 2019, I found out that bitcoin is actually a piece of software that lives on GitHub and is openly accessible. So I started reading up about how the protocol level works, you know, p to p, proof of work, all that kind of stuff. And then I eventually started trying to look at how I could contribute.
I saw, a pull request by Tim Akimbo. So the first time I saw, like, a Nigerian court contributor, I was like, damn. That's possible. So in October that same year, which I think was the month it got merged, I opened my own first pull request as well. It was like one of the first good first issues was like a minor change to the UI, like literally changing the window from debug window to main window. Nailed it. Yeah. So after that I started doing a lot more a lot more technical reading around bitcoin. And then fast forward to 2020, I launched Recursive Capital which is a now bitcoin VC fund. Initially, we we positioned ourselves as like a web 3 fund, but then we lost the whole, I guess, the battle of redefining web 3 and Bitcoin's image. So we just rebranded later in 2021.
So I met quite a lot of Bitcoiners in 2020 at the Chinkode study groups, both the lightning first, which was interesting because lightning is you need a lot more bitcoin knowledge to get into lightning, but I did the reverse and then I did the bitcoin one too. So part of that I met quite a lot of folks. I met Bernard as well around that same time. Bernard from Bitnop. And then in 2021 he was like, you know, let's get more African devs because even running request about something we noticed early on. So we did that. We launched, Kala, which is a program trying to train Bitcoin and Lightning developers in Africa. The main idea is to have a viable pipeline for them. If you're like, I wanna be a Bitcoin developer, I wanna work in the industry, how do I do it? Oh, there's Gala. So we target more mid to senior level developers around that side. So beyond that, it was like really cool building out, you know, recursive, doing work on core, and then meeting all the other bitcoiners around the world. Like the community is great, a lot of great folks. So in 2021 I started talking with you know Alex and the rest, eventually got the grant.
Got to, I guess upgrade my dev kit. That was when I started powering through a lot more pull requests. And then down in 2021 towards the end of the year, the whole b trust thing happened. More like an open application early in the year. I did it. I didn't think I was gonna get in because like there are way older o g's in the space and then eventually kept happening you know with the writing and then all to all all the way to the screening. That was cool. And then having convos with Jack was, like, surreal all the way to, like, getting selected. So it's been a good journey, I guess. And hopefully with all the things I'm involved with, it all pans out well.
[00:04:23] Unknown:
Dude, it's absolutely insane, how much stuff you just went through there. It's
[00:04:29] Unknown:
a journey.
[00:04:30] Unknown:
So let's see. Where where do we start? The you said you taught yourself how to code. Yeah. What was that process like?
[00:04:38] Unknown:
It was it was wild. It was crazy. I mean, I went in totally blind. So I wouldn't recommend the path I went whenever I'm talking to people because it was like, today I'm learning about how programs work and then I'm trying to write some code. I'm looking at Stack Overflow. And then memes helped a lot. Memes? Memes help a lot. They help clarify things that ordinarily would have likely read a bunch of dense material but then like encapsulated in like small photos with like captioning. Like, oh. So that's kind of how it works. So outside of that I was really trying to, I think the best thing that helped was when I got more practical in 2018.
Because 2017, I was still trying to read up on like a lot of theoretical stuff. It's like textbook stuff. Exactly. Like really dry content. But I mean, I found it interesting but like ordinarily it would be dry. So after I did all of that, it was really Python, JavaScript, the regular ones. I did a little bit of c and c plus plus but still not a like hard core c or c plus plus developer. So really that's it. It's been it's one of those things where I had to keep pushing myself and then over time it became a lot easier for me to go, oh, you know, I'm thinking about something. I can quickly code it up. Or, hey, can I try this? And then, really that's all I recommend for folks. I mean, I don't recommend everyone be a developer. It's not a it's not a great lifestyle. Why is it not a great lifestyle? Because you need to be really self driven. You need to you need to have a lot of discipline. Not a lot of people have a lot of discipline, really. Especially when you want to like keep leveling up because there are a lot of mid level developers all around. People who can like go to basic sites with JavaScript. But then for you to get to that next level of like contributing to open source product or like working at large companies and doing great stuff, you need to be really disciplined. So if you're the partying type of guy, you know, there are folks that could and do that. It's like it's a bit of a balance. You have to drive star dev. Yeah. He's always closing out the bar.
Nice. Nice.
[00:06:35] Unknown:
So you mentioned Chaincode Labs. Yeah. Was that the Chaincode
[00:06:39] Unknown:
residency? Oh, no. So they actually wanted to have the, the residency in 2020 in Africa, in Ghana, I think. But then They had a chain code residency in Ghana? No. They wanted to. Oh. But then COVID and everything, and then they postponed. And then 2020, they decided to do the study groups instead. So they have the study groups, then they have the seminars, and then they have, like, the residency thing. And what is that all virtual? Yeah. It was all virtual, the whole study group. So it was really it was cool because it was off the bat of me reading a lot of Bitcoin material from, like, even folks that were in the study groups. So it was, like, surreal to see Murch and some of the other folks in the study groups and then get to talk to them and actually ask them questions you've had the whole time. So it was really cool. I mean, like I said, I did the lightning one first, which I actually just met a few of them right today and and in the conference as well which is really cool and then down the line the bitcoin one. So it's just one of those things where the way the program is designed is kind of how we were doing Kala as well. Cause it's more you meet once a week and then you have a set of questions and then you have material to go over. So you jam it, come in and then answer questions, bring up questions that you have. So it's really interactive and it really helped like push me to a point where I'm a lot more driven when it comes to research. I mean, I already was like I had to be but then that kind of pushed it to a point where I I know how to self organize. I'm trying to learn about something. I know I could put in like points stuff I wanna read about and then follow-up. So it really helped with my discipline as well. So I mean you went through this path on your own pretty much. I mean then chain code helped you
[00:08:15] Unknown:
when you look at that path what lessons were there that you're presumably employing in Kala?
[00:08:23] Unknown:
Oh, yeah. A ton. A ton. So first and foremost, even with Kala, one of the main things we had to figure out early on is who who are we looking at to get into the program? What is the desired outcome? Because that will determine how we could scale it. Another thing was the material too. So when we started it was a huge like still is an open application, but then after reading What year is this? 2021 Okay. Is when we started. So, we saw flooding of a lot of people, mostly in Nigeria. Even though it's an African project, I mean, Nigerians like to flood in things. Right. So we expected that as There's a lot of you. Yeah. To be fair. So statistically, it is. So, we did that. We got quite a lot of folks. But then at the end of the day, we decided we might as well kind of extend the process of getting in just so that we could see those that will make it through to the final program because again there are a lot of great folks. I'm glad we did it that way. So we did the study group first and then quite a few folks dropped out and couldn't keep up which is a good sign that I'm glad we didn't take them to the next stage because they could have dropped out and we'll have no guys in the program. And then they still didn't seem too ready, so then we did, like, Ching Koo's seminar material.
And then we moved them to the main program itself. And then in between, we actually had some other folks join in. They were quite good. So they went just from straight from the study group all the way into the main program. So they've been in the main program for like 5 weeks now. So the main thing is we pay them a stipend because they're full time. A lot of them quit their jobs because again they're senior engineers. So after that really we've spoken to recruiters. We did that first before we started the program because, again, we need to know what the jobs are available, the requirements, and then, like, back port that into the program. So we did that and then, you know, I'm looking forward to seeing them in the wild. We have quite a strong group. There are 13 of them.
It's it's quite a solid group. I think even even if they get in and out and then like have jobs down the line, it'll be cool to see the stuff they build because they're they're building a lot. So we're focusing on getting them to build on bitcoin. Not only to scale up their their what do you call it? Portfolios but also to help in the space really. They need all the help they can get in structure so That's awesome.
[00:10:31] Unknown:
We got Cal has 13 people in the group. Yeah. They haven't been placed yet. Yeah. The the plan is place them with companies.
[00:10:41] Unknown:
Yeah. So But then also do open source work. No. So the priority is to get them Bitcoin jobs. Period. Because technically that's what we promised in the program. So besides that if there are folks who would like to get into open source work we could look at how we could do that because again That's open to them. Yeah. That's open to them as well as whether that fits with their development journey because open source work is not as easy as getting a job. There's no structure, if it's grant based, it's infrequent and it requires quite a lot of existing developer, or should I say engineer structure really when it comes to mapping out what you wanna do, following up by yourself and it's kinda lonely really. So let's talk about that. Let's talk about
[00:11:19] Unknown:
to you, you know, why is open source software important?
[00:11:24] Unknown:
It's super important because it underlies, first of all, a lot of the internet infrastructure. A lot of the software in the wild all depend on open source at the end of the day. The cool thing with open source is it allows for open accessibility for anyone who has any complaint whatsoever. So it's no longer okay filing a complaint to a company waiting like a long time. If you can code, just go in. Open up a pull request. So there's tremendous amount of freedom.
[00:11:47] Unknown:
Yeah, I mean, I I I one of the things I love about open sources, you know, there's this meme and devs do something, like, can you can you fix this for me or whatever? And then the response is always, like, you have not submitted a pull request. Exactly. But Exactly. The powers in your hands. You're gonna make it happen. Exactly. Use the strength they're using to complain to actually open a pull request. So I mean, you've contributed to Bitcoin core.
[00:12:09] Unknown:
Have you contributed to other open source projects as well? Yeah. A few other projects. So it ranges from like those one cryptography book was like a minor change to the Python code. There a few other projects like c cache and some of the others. But mainly the majority I think the major one I've done so far is is definitely Bitcoin Core. All the other ones are like a bunch of projects all around us. And was that intimidating? I mean, I hear it's a very unique developer Yeah. Ecosystem and Yeah. So for Bitcoin, it's it's it's unique. It's it's a it's quite a large community, but at the same time, the higher up you go towards, like, the maintainer level, the smaller it is. Right. So the cool thing with that is they're actually open to, like, a mentorship type role, which is really helpful when I got in the first pull request because I had no clue what I was doing. I mean, that was the first time I compiled core to begin with. And then years down the line, I found out the way I was doing it was super inefficient. Like, I wasn't taking advantage of, like, parallel processing or anything like that. So the the journey is it's a lot easier than people would think because if you come in as a new but a lot of people know you're a new because again it shows you're not a contributor or anything. Right. So they already know that you likely don't know what you're doing or you might get a bit confused. So they don't come in too harsh as they were. You mean as in like the built in reputation system in GitHub? Yeah. Yeah. On GitHub. Because you could tell if someone's a member or like a contributor and all of that kind of stuff. So if they do see that, they tend to be a lot nicer to you. Tend to be a lot harsher to themselves, actually. Right.
Which is good for new people. I mean, they walk you through it. If you can't squash, like the commits, they help you out, all that kind of stuff around the journey. So it's really, it's difficult in the sense that there's a lot for you to have in terms of like background knowledge. So learning how the ProQuest, I guess the flow works cause not all of them are the same. You could have a big change and then it gets merged really quickly as opposed to, like, a small one. And at the same time too, there's a lot of things to do with regards to how you check-in cause you have to keep following up on the pull request again. There are like hundreds, hundreds and hundreds of pull requests and a lot keeps coming in. If you're keeping track of that, some gets updated and then it's like a poor request from, like, 2 years ago type stuff. So, yeah, it's it's It's a marathon. Yeah. It is. It's it doesn't start in, like, a day or so like people would expect. But down the line you keep growing. Especially with their capacity to handle all the stuff that's going on because there's a lot of activity. I mean, a lot of bitcoin critics,
[00:14:30] Unknown:
particularly among competing cryptocurrencies say the Bitcoin developer ecosystem is too hostile to developers.
[00:14:41] Unknown:
You just Yeah. I I totally I strongly disagree. Because not only with my own personal journey, I've spoken to other devs that just started out or have been in the space. I mean, all you have to do is just go to GitHub, really. All these things are all just narratives that they like to throw around, but I think Bitcoin has a more welcoming community than the rest. In all honesty, I mean, the others are still, you know, a lot of shit coining going on, a lot of pumping of bags. Really, the priority isn't, like, so much towards signal. But with Bitcoin, a lot of people that work on it really care about it. So they're really, really open to getting people on that same page. So it's really, really welcoming.
[00:15:14] Unknown:
Awesome. So you also started this fund, Recursive Capital.
[00:15:20] Unknown:
What is the mission for Recursive? How do you view that mixing into everything else that you're doing? Yeah. So in general, my my life's goal, I guess, until I die is to help with growing the Bitcoin ecosystem both in Africa and around the world. And part of that mission is obviously getting funding to the necessary projects. Now the thing is in Africa and some of these parts that we're looking at, there aren't too many developers to begin with, which is why I'm involved with Gala. And there aren't too many companies as well to fund. Which is why the way we're structured with the cursive, at least the way we would like to be, is not only be providing funding but we're trying looking at things like doing research around the space and then trying to highlight things like that and trends that will be with recursive research And then labs will be more of practical things like incubating, doing liquidity management, probably pumping out companies ourselves like the wallet I'm building.
And outside of that, it's gonna be a thing where we're looking to fund these companies, bring them in, and then help them grow. We want to be as active as possible in the space because it's still nascent. So you can't just Not just money. No. Money is not the answer. Right. Stuff is not the answer. Especially with open source. You can't expect throwing capital. You can't just magically bring god 10 x devs. It doesn't work that way. But money is a part of it. Yeah, it is. But then the way you deploy the capital has to be strategic as well. And to provide guidance and A 100%. So it's all complementary.
[00:16:41] Unknown:
Yeah. All these things are complementary. So then the 3rd leg of that complementary
[00:16:47] Unknown:
triangle is b trust. Yeah. So b trust is kind of, I mean, it isn't exactly near to what Achersta will be doing because we're not gonna be funding any sort of equity based funding. It's gonna be all helicopter money technically. B trust is. Yeah. B Trust is more of a charitable organization. Yeah. Yeah. So the whole idea is to really look at the space and try and see how best to grow it as organically and as as strategically as possible. Because then again, there's a lot of money and we don't wanna just throw it in and expect things to happen. So we're trying to roll it out in like piecemeal. So starting off with developers and then grand style funding down to hopefully, probably projects and then maybe education efforts all the way to as we're scaling out outside of Africa as well. So it's gonna be it's gonna be a journey. I mean, a lot of people are, I guess, have the notion that things should get up, I guess Right away we need it now. Immediately. But we're doing a lot of the structuring. They didn't joke around what they said, that is our irrevocable brine trust with full control on the board members. They really meant that. So we're doing a lot of running around to set up a lot of things. I mean we have the Genesis principles which is good. I mean especially for the community. Was it like a constitution?
Basically. So the idea is like an immutable set of principles that would guide the entirety of the lifetime of the fund. So the idea obviously is bitcoin only open source projects and then we have provisions for things like transparency. And then what happens if bitcoin has a hard fork? What chain do we follow? Things like that. Obviously with the user majority is a bit complex but like it's it's a rough way to have an estimate on what to follow. So there are a lot of things like that and then there's still a lot to announce. We'll be announcing a few more things before the year ends towards like setting up custody, all that kind of cool stuff I guess. And then hopefully the next year or so we could start deploying capital.
[00:18:30] Unknown:
So b trust was launched by Dorsey and Jay z. Right? Yeah. And they each gave 250
[00:18:38] Unknown:
bitcoin was is that the right Well, there isn't any clarity on what the split was, but it was both of them. But it was 500 bitcoin total? Yeah. In total, it's 500.
[00:18:46] Unknown:
So at current prices that is, I shouldn't do math on air. At current prices, that's a 100. A 100 would be 30 ks 300 ks No, 100 would be 3,000,000 so it's like $15,000,000 $20,000,000 there about so I'm going to start fresh j z dorsey they each together they put in 500 bitcoin About $15,000,000 at current current prices. I think this is really cool concept because if Bitcoin keeps performing, if bitcoin keeps performing as it does historically,
[00:19:25] Unknown:
you guys might never run out of those 500 bitcoin. Yeah. And the cool thing is given the space is still new, there aren't there isn't gonna be too much to throw money at around. Right. So what what will likely happen or at least what I think would happen is as we're deploying capital, bitcoin's price keeps going up. By the time we're done to like a certain stage, we wouldn't necessarily need to re up on the stock really. Right. So But is that like a is that something that you guys are actively thinking about that this 500 bitcoin, if we manage it properly, it just may never Oh, yeah. We're we're looking at that. We're also looking at in the event that Bitcoin keeps plunging Yeah. Or a stage where we deploy quite a lot of it down the line, we still have to look for ways to get more funding. Yeah. What do you do? Would it like if if bitcoin falls down to like 10 k, you guys just gonna panic sell at all? No. No. It's it's not gonna be a panic sell really. It's gonna be more more strategic around how we get liquidity to bridge it. Could be to have that, like, locked up as a Bitcoin backed loan, probably. That could be interesting or probably keep some of the capital in, like, USD or something like that. But, yeah, we're looking at things around that as well as trying to replenish the the stash. Oh, but you are actually considering loans. I mean, even if the price goes up, loans could be, Oh, this is with regards to loans and all that, this is all on a personal level. I'm just Oh, yeah.
[00:20:41] Unknown:
I'm just spitballing here. So you guys are still basically working out that plan? You haven't deployed anything? Yeah. That's still not. Nothing has been deployed. It's still waiting on things like getting the entity set up, custody, all that kind of stuff. Really powerful stuff. How many people are on the board? 4 of us. And it's is it a mix of Africans? Is there is there an Indian on the board? None at all. That's why the main focus is Africa initially.
[00:21:04] Unknown:
Right. But if it's a all African market You put India in there originally. Right? Yeah. Yeah. That that's still that's still the goal. But then the goal is now Africa initially, and then you expand to other global south regions like India and then Pakistan probably in the rest. So, yeah, we're eventually gonna have to get a lead as well because we're all working part time full time,
[00:21:23] Unknown:
if that makes sense. And do you do you get paid you're not getting paid for BH? No. No. No. We're not getting paid. We're not getting paid. You're not taking a cut of your 500 bitcoin? No. No. The way play yourself a bit. No. The way I wanna structure it
[00:21:33] Unknown:
is all the work I'm doing on and do it as pro bono as possible so that my incentives are aligned. And then with the recursive capital, I can be an animal. That's where you make that's that's where you pay the rent. Yeah.
[00:21:44] Unknown:
Awesome. So, I mean, you you grew up in Nigeria your whole life. Right? So as a Nigerian with the population's 300,000,000 people, probably one of the most populous countries in the world, almost the same population as the United States, but much smaller. How do you how do you view what does freedom mean to you?
[00:22:10] Unknown:
That's that's a good one. So I definitely think freedom has a lot to do with sovereignty. I think they're intrinsically tied together. Because if you're really free, you'll likely be sovereign on all fronts. So financially sovereign and even in terms of philosophically sovereign at the end of the day too. Because again, we're we're moving into more and more, not necessarily authoritarian regimes, but more censored communities and more cashless communities which they require you to get on rails into things that could easily be censored. Right. So that ties into now, like, credit scores and, like, censoring on ideas and, you know, the whole PC culture and everything. So I think obviously for you to maintain your freedom because the first thing that's attacked if you wanna harm your freedom is money. So it makes a lot of sense for you to have that sort of financial freedom and then that translates into expanding the rest of the freedom across your your life, I guess.
[00:23:00] Unknown:
Yeah. I mean, so, unfortunately, I have not been to Africa, period. So I love Nigeria. Yeah. I'm hoping to go for 4 days conference in Ghana. Okay. But I would love to go to Nigeria at some point, but can you clue us in a little bit like what is the what is how how do payments work in Nigeria? What's like if you go to a store Yeah. Is it still mostly cash or Oh, no. No. A lot of people still use cards.
[00:23:28] Unknown:
It it depends on the store. So if you're if you're talking about more like mall type stores around the cities, it's usually cards or like cash. If you're talking a bit more rural, you're talking bank transfers, actually.
[00:23:40] Unknown:
The rural Yeah. Is not cash, it's bank transfers. Yeah. Bank transfer as well as cash.
[00:23:45] Unknown:
So you tend to have shopkeepers go, okay, if you don't have any cash, you have a bank account, you have transfer, then you have addresses you can send to, bank accounts, and then you do that. So another thing is unlike other parts in Africa, we don't necessarily have mobile money. You don't have, like, M PACE that's Kenya. Right? That that's all Kenya. Yeah. So with regards to that, MTN, one of the larger, I guess, cell carriers in Nigeria. It's actually South African company. They're looking to get into the mobile money space. So hopefully that brings in a ton of folks on, I guess, mobile money. And that would likely key into Bitcoin adoption too because there's quite a lot of ways to integrate mobile money with Bitcoin in general.
[00:24:20] Unknown:
But do you think so I mean, you're obviously on the younger side Yeah. Among your peers. Do they still do people still use cash? Or is it Yeah. A lot of people still use cash. Because in America, it's like everyone our age, they stopped using cash. Oh, wow. I pull out I pull out the cash and they're like, what what are you doing? What is that paper? No. No. We still have a lot. It's it's still heavily cash based. Awesome. It's good for privacy. Exactly. No privacy, no freedom, you know? Exactly. Exactly. So, the bitcoin community in Nigeria, is it is it a strong community? Is it is it growing or It's getting there. I mean,
[00:25:02] Unknown:
before I knew about like bitcoin and everything, there's still guys inside and it was mostly speculative and then small amount of folks like out in Lagos and some of the other parts either building, you know, products like Buycoin or some of the others. And then now it's like Buycoin? Yeah. Buycoins. It's an exchange. It's one of the early exchanges in Nigeria. So buy and sell bitcoin. And right now is more there are a lot more folks across the entire pipeline. So quite some folks doing, you know, core development and all of that. Quite a few folks at, like, the beginner stage, like running meet ups and all of that. And then in the middle where you have, like, folks who have built companies or are trying to do some of those community organizing. So it's it's getting to a stage where it's significant enough.
[00:25:47] Unknown:
Am I correct that the Nigerian government, they did a soft ban of bitcoin? Was it they've, like, moved against bitcoin to a degree this year? Yeah. So it was the CBN specifically.
[00:25:58] Unknown:
Okay. So they had this, circular band which essentially said if you're a financial, if you're like a Fintech company you can't necessarily work with banks to process crypto payments. Okay. Bitcoin included. So that sort of translated into average folks too. So if I was to send you a bank transfer and then write a memo I put like Bitcoin or crypto Right. Your account gets banned instantly. And so does yours. No. They do it on the receiving end, which is like crazy. So if You just send you just send those bank transfers to people you don't like and just get their accounts. Yeah. I mean, I had one of my accounts closed for that same reason. Someone sent it in like the memo had bitcoin. Then my bank was like, bro, they've closed the account. I'm like, oh, damn.
But that's why I don't bank on on the regular rails. I've been Bitcoin only the whole time. I only got a bank account because I had to travel out. You still can't prove you can sustain yourself with bitcoin selling the bank account, unfortunately. Oh, like other countries won't let you in? Yeah. Yeah. Because if you're proving, you know, proof of I guess finance Right. You have to use a bank account. They don't recognize like a bitcoin address with a ton of money in it. That's interesting.
[00:27:01] Unknown:
Hopefully, that changes soon. Hopefully, it changes. Hopefully. So how do you do you do you think are you are you worried at all about, you know, I mean you obviously are creating this grassroots or helping to foster this grassroots. You know, it's bigger than any individual. I know you would agree with that. Not a 100%. Foster this grassroots movement in Nigeria. Are are you concerned that the Nigerian government's gonna rug pull you?
[00:27:26] Unknown:
I mean, it's interesting because a lot of people in, you know, the Bitcoin space and in general like to go, you know, after the government and all that. But at the end of the day, if you really wanna get it to a stage where a lot of people have access to, you still need them to come on board for favorable regulations Right. So people have access. But at the same time, the Nigerian government isn't like a 100% against Bitcoin or crypto. It's more to do with like a reactionary 2017 type, I guess, policy that we saw across the world. So it's it's a thing of we have to just sit down with them and really explain what it is, the benefits economically speaking. As well as some of the ways they could actually also benefit from it, as well as average folks. So I think it's a thing of just sitting together and talking really. So you seem pretty positive about it. You're not too concerned. I'm totally positive. But they didn't like arrest people for owning bitcoin or anything? No. No. It's not it's not on that sort of crazy level. The only thing is, if you're involved in, like, protests and stuff like that, they definitely closed down accounts. That's when it happened. Right? It was during it was the SARS movement? Yeah. It was I think it was the tail end after that or during that sort of period because they had all the accounts blocked for all the activists and then a lot of them couldn't even travel out because if they go to the airport they're like, you're on the no fly list. And then beyond that, they started moving towards Bitcoin. And then I guess for them, that signaled, oh, so that's how you wanna play it. Right. So let's play the game. So it's it's really one of those things. And it's a good thing also for the wider ecosystem that they had that sort of ban Because what happened was people started moving to p2p. Right. Self custody. Exactly. So that helps with the resilience, especially with regards to the liquidity, which is really, really good. I mean, you don't want to have all of that locked up in, like, exchanges that are And specific, SARS was an anti police it was anti police protection. Yeah. So it's one of the units in the police department where, like, like, the main things they were doing at the time was looking at young folks and then, like, raiding them of cash and all that kind of harassment. So they already closed down that unit already. So I guess the protests work. Interesting.
[00:29:25] Unknown:
It keeps coming back to money. Right? So like the protesters were getting cut off from the financial system. They were protesting other people who were getting their money seized. Yeah. Traveling, you need money to travel. Exactly. It always comes back. It's always about money. For the money. But it's not an open source self software. It's not just the money you need. No. No. No. It's it's more ideologically driven there. So when you think when you think about Bitcoin, you know, a lot of a lot of Bitcoiners say Bitcoin is inevitable. Yeah. Do you think Bitcoin's inevitable?
[00:30:01] Unknown:
I mean, from the point of view of seeing given how things have been progressing, like from a monetary evolution standpoint, it is something that's inevitable. Because of your as you're having more, I guess, hammering down on rights and then censorship, it's going to likely result in something that would have to guard against all those sort of externalities that you have. So I think from that point of view, I think it is inevitable. Well, inevitable, I guess. And another thing to consider is even if Bitcoin wasn't invented, there'll likely be something like Bitcoin down the line. Again, because of that need. Right. Folks will still try to band up. I mean, Bitcoin isn't the first version of itself. Open source. Exactly. Exactly. There have been many, many different versions. Just that Bitcoin solved how to get it working without necessarily relying on banks or having some sort of fragile structuring with regards to governance.
[00:30:52] Unknown:
So what's your what's your biggest concern when it comes to the current state of Bitcoin? Like, wait. I mean,
[00:30:59] Unknown:
there are a couple of concerns I have from the dev side is obviously, there are a few devs that are leaving the space like core maintainers, which is Do you think they're actually leaving? I mean, I hope they come back some of that. They're coming back as nims is is Yeah. One of the theories. A lot of people have been bringing that up. And I think that that would be best because down the line, we'll likely need more anonymous Bitcoin developers. Right. So a nim is a pseudonym. So it's someone who's not going by their government name. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Do you regret going by your I a 100% regret. As you can tell from some of my my handles, there's an attempt to kind of make it a pseudonym, but then it didn't work out because I eventually had to show myself down the line. Well, your your Twitter handle's I hate 1999. Yeah. What happened in 1999? I was born and in 2010 was when I joined. So I keep telling folks, I have no idea why I chose that. I was like, dick. I thought it was cool, I guess, at the time.
[00:31:53] Unknown:
So you don't particularly hate that year? No. Not at all. Like, that would be, like, weird. That was one of the most important questions I had to ask you was was why you hated 19 99 so much? No. No. It's it's totally unrelated definitely. So so the dev ecosystem, I mean, that's obviously why you are focused on Kala, and just like to create more devs to make a more robust community. Yeah, for sure. When you when you think about when you think about Africa as a whole, a lot of Bitcoiners particularly in Western countries myself included Tend to say you know Bitcoin is is is is for the people that that need it. Right?
You know, Westerners, maybe we we have really good banking relationships. I can travel without proving my finances. Like, we have all these freedoms that we take for granted, and maybe the appeal of Bitcoin doesn't is not as obvious as in as in developing countries, as in Africa, Latin America. When you but at the same time, it is a little bit of a larp. Right? Because, I mean, I've never gone to Africa. Most of the people that talk about it never gone to Africa. The ecosystem in Africa seems to be growing at a really quick pace right now recently, but I it feels like a more recent, phenomenon. How do you view Bitcoin open source in Africa?
What does the future hold there? What are the what are the what are the pain points?
[00:33:29] Unknown:
I mean, with regards to pain points right now, there isn't any structure, which is why, you know, Gala and the other initiatives we're working on is there. Because, again, folks wanna get involved. There there's a ton of enthusiasm. There are a lot of developers actually and engineers in Africa, but they're either being pushed into shit coins or working at Google and some of these other companies. So for us, it's like, okay. All that talent exists, then it just means we have to structure and pipelines for them to get into the space. Right. Now with regards to picking up, as of recent, it has definitely I think we've started that whole trend of having exponential growth when it comes to, well, the community as a whole. I mean, initially before, maybe the last 3 years, it wasn't as as frequent as it is right now for folks to say, oh, you know, I'm trying to get into bitcoin or I have bitcoin company, things like that. It was still around, okay, I've heard about Bitcoin. I have some Bitcoin, but I shitcoin, all that kind of stuff. So with regards to concerns, it'll be, I hope that a lot more programs like Gala at different stages of the development, like from 0s to like you could code. And then in between that and then the main program itself and then towards the tail end Right. A lot of them hopefully will come out. If they do, then we can now start looking at a more thriving and, like, vibrant ecosystem. Because if you have more devs, you have more companies. If you have more companies, you have more innovation. If you have more innovation, you have more problems solved. So I think that's just the way I look at it, and I hope I hope it's gonna keep continuing the way it is right now. You think it will?
I'm I'm super optimistic. If I didn't think it would, I would just I'll start buying shit coins.
[00:35:05] Unknown:
So I mean, you keep saying this word shit coins, you know, what is a shit coin to you? Yeah. A shit coin is anything that is in bitcoin. Anything that is. So this is this chair a shitcoin? Yeah, it is. The chair is a shitcoin, narrow is a shitcoin,
[00:35:17] Unknown:
my shoes are a shitcoin.
[00:35:21] Unknown:
So, I mean, it's good that we have you on the record. Chairs chairs are indeed shitcoins. We don't own these chairs. The so the naira did I did I pronounce that right? The naira? The naira is the Nigerian national currency. Right? Oh, yeah. What is the history of that? Is it a strong currency?
[00:35:43] Unknown:
Initially, it was at a point back in, like, maybe 50, 5th some 50 years ago, it was actually almost on parity with with the with the pound. And in some points, it was actually even higher than the pound, which is, like, wow. That's insane. But then over the years, throughout quite a lot of devaluation, a lot of inflation, all that kind of stuff, it all went from, like, $50 to like $100 in 2015 and now it's like around $600 per naira, which is insane. And there's also a food crisis, which adds a lot more pressure. So people earning in naira, spending in naira, really doesn't have room for savings at all. A lot of people are battling to make ends meet. Hence, why Bitcoin is a lot more of a convincing argument right now and why you see a lot of people tend to flock towards bitcoin. Both for remittance, local commerce, as well as savings.
[00:36:30] Unknown:
Did you get that combination of both Yeah. Censorship resistance and increase purchasing power over time. Exactly. Exactly. And I imagine the perspective of Bitcoin short term volatility is is more understandable when you have a currency that's just constantly
[00:36:48] Unknown:
losing value. Yeah, 100%. And that's part of the reason why some folks move into stable coins or like they just hold US dollars. Either physical or in like a bank account. Is it easy to hold US dollars in Nigeria? It's more it's it's easier to have physical US dollars than to have, like, a domiciliary account where you're holding US dollars. So they hold the actual, like, greenbacks? Yeah. Actual greenbacks. Yeah. Can you be, like, just go in the store and just pay? No. No. You can't you can't do that. But there are a lot of places to exchange that for naira. Oh. So it's like if you have a ton of USD in cash, the moment you need to start spending, all you have to do is change it up. That way you're not losing the value of your currency over time as you would with the naira.
[00:37:28] Unknown:
Awesome So I mean this has been absolutely fucking awesome conversation. Yeah, I've really enjoyed it We kind of it's it's it's really cool because I mean we kind of have similar perspectives in terms of, like I launched open source foundation that I'm getting no money for I have a venture fund that's bitcoin only that I make money on right So like I see that combination there But I feel like you're doing it way more sophisticated. So anyway, so in the bitcoin community one of the things we talk about a lot is this idea of a circular economy This idea of Bitcoiners earning Bitcoin, spending Bitcoin.
[00:38:14] Unknown:
Do you how do you see do a lot of businesses accept bitcoin right now in Nigeria. How do you see growing that? Is that a priority of yours? Yeah, for sure. So the thing is if we're talking about individuals saving bitcoin or holding bitcoin and using bitcoin in and out both locally and outside, we have to look at ways to make it a lot more convenient for them to actually use it. And part of those things is, you know, right now merchants don't accept bitcoin directly. I wish they would, but we're still like maybe 2 years out. We'll likely need to get, you know, lightning point of sales machines because, again, those could do offline transactions, which would be good for, like, local retailers and and some of the larger branches as well. So in general, it would be the priority will likely be getting that to a stage where it's possible. Right now it's not impossible.
I personally have been paying for things using bitcoin for a while now. Now one of the ways you do that is again, back to the bank transfer for example, as well as cash. Now there are companies like Coin Profile where you literally have, you show up with a bank account, like you send it to them, or at least you put it into the service and then they generate Bitcoin address. You pay that address and then straight makes up the bank transfer on your behalf. And the cool thing with that is the government can't necessarily attack that because you can't tie in the transaction. It'll appear as a regular wire.
Right. And then you could do a similar thing for getting cash. So what you do is the same thing but instead it will be to like a Buru DeShange type person where they'll give you cash in exchange for the transfer you made. What? So you pay them bitcoin and then they give you cash? Yeah. There are a lot of people that do that directly. You could do it via, you know, the method I explained with Coin Profile. Or you could just generally do, you know, an actual trade with the with the person in the store. Like, oh, you accept Bitcoin? Yeah. You know, he could do that. And then he could you could send him Bitcoin and then settle it. But that's still happening not at, like, a large scale. So So it still needs to be at a point where we have the point of sale machines, whether it's with lightning or we have cards that have, I guess, bitcoin on it and then make the payment and then can, like, switch to it. Exactly. So it'll likely be things around that. But, yeah, it's not impossible to pay with bitcoin. I know a lot of folks that do that already. But not that much. There's not that many stores that are accepting it directly. Not at all. Not at all. Even the ones that would are like really small stores like
[00:40:23] Unknown:
you know the person type store. Right. And what do you yeah. So I mean do you think I mean in like 5 years you think we're gonna have you think I'm just gonna be able to get off a plane and and Lagos and just A 100%. Not convert my currency and just go and pay bitcoin? Yeah. 100%. I think
[00:40:40] Unknown:
based on the conversation I've been having with merchants, a lot of them are open to getting Bitcoin or accepting Bitcoin. Again, because a lot of them don't necessarily wanna hold Naira. Right. And they can't necessarily get USD like that that accessible as well. So it's a thing where they're like, okay, we're enthusiastic, but how do we do it? Now we're like, oh, okay. Now we have to start thinking about, okay, as a point of sales, are we doing it via lightning? Are we doing it via bitcoin? So the thing is is for us to really just start deploying test cases around and then seeing what works best or what the, I guess, the consumers respond to. You were saying you're building a wallet app. What Yeah. What's the deal with that? Yeah. So it was born out of really personal experience.
So I'm the type to be constantly looking for bitcoin services that work with the regular financial system because I don't hold, you know, accounts and stuff like that. All I do is everything's all in bitcoin and then if I wanna spend then I step out. Now the thing with that is it's not as convenient. What I usually have is like a ton of tabs on different services, different wallets, and then moving in and out. So I was thinking, you know, I'm a huge advocate for, like, non custodial wallets as well. Right. And part of that reason is because again, being an open source developer and all of that. So the idea is to have a non custodial wallet which has a lot of these services in app. Right. So the idea would be essentially BlueWallet with a lot of these services. So when you say non custodial wallet, you mean you're holding your own keys? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't understand. Seize your money or take your money. 100%. And it's gonna be open source because, again, I would like for it to be a tool that people use and care about. And if they care that much they could help build it as well. That's awesome.
[00:42:18] Unknown:
Fantastic. One last thing. You if you have cash in your pocket oh, no. Two last things. You said you said earlier that you can't spend US dollars cash in the store. Yeah. Why?
[00:42:34] Unknown:
So it's it's a thing of currency control because you don't want to have folks moving and being able to easily spend the dollar because that would incentivize holding the dollar. Right. Meaning, the narrow would likely keep more keep crashing even more. So there are a lot of restrictions with using USD in general. So things like accounts being having, like, insane limits at around $100 or 50 or not even being able to send it via an app, which as of recent is the case. So in general, they're hugely disincentivized to allow you to easily use cash, USD at least. So it's government control that is preventing US dollars from being used. Yeah. For sure. Because it's not exactly unless maybe you're in some of the tourist zones where, like, a foreigner, then you could, like, spend, I guess, USD. But that's where it's, like, for checking in and stuff like that. So are
[00:43:20] Unknown:
are they gonna try how does Bitcoin fix that? Does Bitcoin
[00:43:24] Unknown:
is can Bitcoin be stopped in the same way there? No. It can't. And that that's the cool thing about it. So even if they did try to stop it, it would just keep going underground and then building out resilience until they start to contend with it, which is the case right now. So, like, their biggest control point with the US dollar is they don't let you have the US dollar denominated accounts in the back end. Right? That's why I said They make it a lot more difficult too. And even if you're trying to spend out the USD, not everyone accepts it. A huge chunk of people don't accept it. Well, with Bitcoin, it's permissionless, so you can just Exactly. Create a wallet. You don't have a financial institution that's holding it that can be regulated. Exactly. And the cool thing again with Bitcoin is a lot of people think about it as just the asset. Right. But if you think about it as more of a monetary network Right. Then you could be using that as a conduit. Right. Which is what a lot of people have been, I guess, realizing that you could do with Bitcoin. So it's it's more about having this monetary network that efficiently allows you to transfer value across the network, which you necessarily can right now. So it's cheap, instant, global. And the cool thing with that is, once you have that sort of payment rail that's that global and easily accessible, you could easily plug in applications that talk over bitcoin but still settle locally.
[00:44:32] Unknown:
Right. They settle in in
[00:44:35] Unknown:
naira or dollars or whatever local currency is. But they're transferring through Bitcoin. Exactly. But that's probably a a short term thing. Right? That's like an adoption thing, and then we just move forward with Bitcoin. A lot of places will likely still keep using that down the line, but maybe we'll see some self organize around Bitcoin, like, having, like, a local bitcoin economy as well.
[00:44:54] Unknown:
If you were talking to a if you're talking to a young African child, young Nigerian kid thinking about getting into Bitcoin Okay. Where do they start?
[00:45:11] Unknown:
I definitely say you first of all have to really look at the basic material. So Jameson Law has a good site where he has a bunch of resources. And part of that is things like, you know, Hello Bitcoin's videos which are really short, but at the same time they're accurate, which a lot is missing in this space. A lot of people like to teach Bitcoin, but they're teaching the wrong thing, you know, with with regards to mining and everything. But they're quite short videos. There's a lot of resources on the site. It's lob.net. You could go there. Outside of that, it would be to take it easy. There's a lot of information. You'll be really, really overwhelmed, especially the first two days plus or, like, week where, like, okay. I don't know what proof of work is. I don't know what mining is, but take it easy. What you have to do is realize Bitcoin is an entire system. It's it's really a monetary system really at the end of the day. So there are different aspects. What you have to do is understand how it works at, like, a general overview level and then progress down the line. So if you wanna focus on networking, you can do that. So just take it piecemeal.
[00:46:10] Unknown:
I love it. Thank you. Thank you as well. Dude, it's a pleasure. Pleasure.
Introducing Abubakar
Abubakar's bitcoin story
Abubakar teaching himself how to code
Chaincode Lab's residency and Qala
Why is open source software important?
The Bitcoin developer ecosystem
The mission of Recursive Capital and Btrust
What does freedom mean to Abubakar?
The Bitcoin community in Nigeria
Bitcoin regulation in Nigeria
Is Bitcoin inevitable?
The future of the Bitcoin ecosystem in Africa
The state of the naira
The Bitcoin circular economy in Nigeria
Abubakar's new wallet
The use of the dollar in Nigeria
Abubakar's advice to young bitcoiners
