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A weekly live show covering all things Freedom Tech with Max, Q and Seth.

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[00:00:00] Unknown:

Hello, and welcome to Freedom Tech Friday.   For those of you that are new here, allow me to briefly explain what this is all about and why the hell we are here. Freedom Tech Friday is a weekly live and interactive show hosted on the ungovernable misfits,   X, Nosta, YouTube, and now Rumble and Twitch feeds as well. We are literally everywhere.   We go live for one hour every Friday at 9AM Eastern or 2PM UK time, but the observant amongst you will notice that it's not 9AM eastern currently. It's 10AM eastern. So thanks for that daylight savings people.   But you can, of course, catch up later on the Ungovernable Misfits podcast feed.  

I've got an echo. There we go. I'll stop that. Apologies.   On Freedom Tech Friday, we like to cover the latest news and trends for anything related to Freedom Technologies.   That could be anything from Bitcoin or Monero, encrypted messengers, privacy tools, and everything in between.   Essentially, if there's a news item, tool, or topic that can help you take back some control in today's digital Panopticon,   we wanna talk about it. My name's q and a, and I'm head of customer experience over at Foundation, where we build Bitcoin focused sovereignty tools.   As always, I'm joined by my good friends, Max, the head honcho at the Uncoverable Misfits Empire, and Seth, who is VP at Kcallit.  

As I mentioned, this show is live and interactive, and we rely on you guys to steer us towards the topics that you want us to cover, or to send us your FreedomTech related questions that you want answering.   There's loads of ways in which you can get involved in the show. That includes commenting or asking questions in the live chat, submitting your topics or questions before the show on X or Nostra,   boosting the show on Fountain or any of the other podcasting two point o apps, sending in your questions and tips via XMR chat, or just sharing the show on your social feeds.   Top support for last week's show, about spending your SAT comes from Orange Horizon,   who boosted on Fountain with 5,000 SATs. And they said, Hi, guys. Appreciate the good work. In relation to the topic of this episode,   check out bullishmarket.onrender.com,   which is a new online marketplace for vendors who accept lightning payments for products.  

Imagine a fusion of Nosta, Instant Messenger,   the retro game Zelda, and your local farmers market.   The market stall displays each vendor's products,   and bartering is encouraged.   Customers chat with the vendor, and once a price is determined, a lightning invoice is posted and the trade can occur.   Please support if you want Bitcoin to be money.   Interested? I've not heard of that one. Well, thank you for your support. Who was it? It was Orange Horizon.   Without further ado,   we're back as a threesome once again. Max, Seth, how is it going, guys?  

[00:02:37] Unknown:

Good, mate. Good to be back. Earache,   but other than that, your sweet, sweet voice is, soothing the ears. Are you sure q and a is not the reason  

[00:02:47] Unknown:

for the   ear? Seems more likely. I mean I was going down that route. Hey. Beat me to it. Listen. You were gonna insult yourself.  

[00:02:55] Unknown:

Don't don't push him. He's already had his nail tech delay him this morning. That's why we're late, and now we're now we're insulting him. There's only so much he can and he lives in The UK still. He's having a hard time. That's the real pain. The real pain.  

[00:03:08] Unknown:

I think I think we can all agree by saying, starting the show by saying fuck daylight savings time. I I literally realized, like, thirty   minutes before we were due to go on live,   that it wasn't the time that everybody thought it was and that we were not aligned.   So,   yeah, apologies for, the Americans,   or anybody,   on the,   non UK time zone because you have been affected here. So, appreciate if you can make it. But I have noticed that the,   the Nostril live chat's a little bit quieter than normal, but, hello to Observer and Bon.   Seth, quick one. How was, how was Lugano?  



[00:03:42] Unknown:

Oh, man. It was it was fantastic. Yeah. I mean, I, I I abused my speaker privileges and basically just chatted with, with other people building awesome Freedom Tech all weekend long. So it was a good a good way to just sit there, drink cappuccinos,   enjoy the nice view, and,   talk to people about Spark, about Arc, about Lightning, about privacy, about,   everything under the sun.   So I love those I love those chances. They've they've assembled a really, really good group of speakers this year, better than in a year, I think, in the past.   Obviously, I have my own preference for type of speaker that   isn't isn't suits and isn't bankers and all the the other stuff that sometimes is common in these Bitcoin conferences, but they had a a really fantastic lineup on the, the PGP stage, which is, like, their their FOSS freedom tech   focus stage.  

And that was a ton of fun. I did I only saw one   panel. I I just don't really go to content when I'm at these things. Priority for me is is chatting with people.   But that was a really good time. Had a great time with the cake team as well. We we got a bunch of us out there. Kinda did an impromptu team retreat alongside the conference.   Got to have a a delicious steak and wine dinner with the Bull Bitcoin team and chat all things PayJoin, silent payments, and ARC. And, yeah, it was a it was a good time. It was a good time. I am incredibly, incredibly blessed.  

[00:05:01] Unknown:

Yeah. I got a massive amount of FOMO seeing, pretty much every everyone that who's anyone was there. It seemed like a stacked out, panel or speaker list, and, the scenery   wasn't all bad either.  

[00:05:15] Unknown:

No. It was, it was definitely fantastic. I made the most of it this year too. I found out there's, like, a a funicular   that goes up the mountain right next to Lugano   and got, like, the mountain view from above everything, and it was even more insane. So I, yeah, Definitely, if if you ever have the chance, anyone listening or you and q you, q, and Max, obviously,   get there. It's it's incredible.  

[00:05:37] Unknown:

That makes it  

[00:05:39] Unknown:

Seth, you were just talking about cake water retreat. We we've never had an ungovernable retreat. Feels like Lagano could be Oh.  

[00:05:46] Unknown:

Go work out a minute at the p o w dot space there. Uh-huh. I'm Yeah. Just need to get I was actually thinking about that the other day. Yeah. Well,  

[00:05:55] Unknown:

I got I got short arms and long pockets,   mate. I was thinking about it the other day. I was thinking it would be really cool to do, like, a not a retreat, but just, like, a a big get together.   I don't know where the place would be. We'll think on that. It would be good.  

[00:06:13] Unknown:

Yes. Definitely. Let's make that happen. I wanna meet John in person. It's been too long. Who doesn't?   Yeah. Indeed. Anyway, let's get down to business, gentlemen.   This week's, topic actually comes from from one of our our ungovernable   listeners, over on Nosta.   El Dorado,   asked for an overview and a comparison of Bitcoin's layer two spending protocols,   especially in terms of privacy and their suitability for both online and in person payments.   So today, we are gonna do exactly that. It's I think this is the first, overall topic that we've had decided by a listener, even though we do ask every week. So it just goes to show that if you, you know, if you do ask, you do get. So thank you for, for your question, Eldorado.   And, I hope we can, you know, over the course of the next fifty minutes or so, do it justice.  

So I guess to to kind of set the scene,   Bitcoin, you know, the the quote base layer or layer one,   is as we know, secure and robust,   but it's not designed,   or simply cannot handle every single possible global transaction,   that exists today, even if we wanted it to.   To scale Bitcoin,   to that manner or to scale the layer one would probably well, it wouldn't probably it will definitely compromise on the ideals and the principles of Bitcoin, like decentralization,   etcetera. So,   a whole host of, you know, an entire ecosystem of layer two solutions, and I'm using layer two here, in air quotes for reasons that will become clear in a couple of minutes.   You know, loads of these options have emerged   from Lightning to Liquid, Spark, Arc,   RGB,   ZK roll ups, things like Citria. There's loads of stuff, and we're gonna unpack all of those today,   including their trade offs, their privacy implications,   and if, you know, one is suited for for one aspect of of kind of Bitcoin scaling, whereas one might be better suited for a different kind of more niche use case.  

But before we get we dive into the specifics of those, I think it makes sense to quickly set the scene with some basics. So,   Max, like,   I I've alluded to it a little bit, but why do layer twos,   and Bitcoin scaling solutions need to exist in the first place? Like, what's the problem that we're trying to solve here?  

[00:08:28] Unknown:

Well, Bitcoin   has   a slow, like, ten minute block time. So   you if you want to make faster payments,   and it also has limited,   space. So if you wanna make lots of payments   and make them faster and make them cheaper,   and unlock things like micropayments   or, like, podcasting two point o, things like that.   You need something   to be built on top of it. You can't just,   you can't just make normal Bitcoin payments.  

[00:09:09] Unknown:

Seth, sorry. You caught me off guard there, Mark. Seth, anything that's about that? Or do you think he nailed it? He was, he was too concise.   Yes. He was just, he was already prepared.  

[00:09:18] Unknown:

A few words. Uh-huh.   Yeah. I mean, the the the biggest things really are, like you mentioned, like, we we need a way to be able to make these payments, but there's also just a lot of stuff on layer one we can't do   well because of how limited Bitcoin's layer one is. Like, it works for basic payments.   It has some basic scripting capabilities, but there's just a lot of limits because of the 10 block, the ten minute block time, because of that limited scripting. We can't do a lot of things with advanced functionality.   We can't do a lot of things with better privacy   without taking that to a place where we have a little bit more flexibility.  

Obviously, what you can then do in a layer two is still somewhat constrained by what you can do on layer one. I don't know. We'll unpack a bit of that, specifically, I think when we're talking about   ARC or ArcadeOS, the specific implementation of ARC.   But I think there's there's a lot of, like, there's a lot of room for growth, not only from a payments perspective   when we're talking layer twos, but also from a a programmability   perspective to be able to do a lot of things that you're just simply not gonna be able to do on layer one, or that would be incredibly, incredibly difficult to do on layer one that get much easier when you're able to take it into something,   off chain and something that you don't have to publish every every aspect of it on chain.  



[00:10:29] Unknown:

Yeah. That's that's a good carve out. I'm glad you you kind of added that.   Also, I just wanna spell out that the the irony is not lost on me that we're having this discussion when   one SAP provider has got you into the next block for the past god knows how many weeks. And, point one is that per v byte. Yeah. Exactly. And I'm looking at mempool dot space right now, and you can actually get into the next block with 0.4   sats per byte. And, yeah, there's literally   a measly 23 blocks in in, Menpool's Menpool.   So, the irony is not lost on me, guys. So, let's just view this with a a lens to look into the future and, you know, that YouTube view of of mass adoption. Go ahead, Max. You just I was gonna say, like, there's still certain things even if it's  

[00:11:13] Unknown:

very, very low fees that you wouldn't be able to do. Like we said, like, the podcasting two point o stuff.   You're not gonna be able to do that.   You can't just send one sat or you know what I mean? Like, it's it's just not   reasonable to be building these type of things, and podcasting two point   o has been really, really good for us,   personally. It's something that I appreciate personally. And the other thing is, like,   for payments and things like that,   if we ever did get to a world where   you are paying in store or in person,   it's not reasonable to wait   for a block to confirm or or three blocks to confirm. And so if you have layer twos,   you're in a much better position to be using this as money if that ever happened.  



[00:12:02] Unknown:

That's also another good call out. Yeah. The the the speed of transaction is is a is a good one that you can't kind of fix. Or we wouldn't wanna fix really because, again, you know, we don't wanna compromise on on decentralization   and all of the the kind of tie ins that we have around block time, etcetera. So, good call out.   Alright. So before we start comparing the different scaling projects,   again, using that term intentionally,   it's worth pausing to ask kind of a a simple but all important question.   What what really makes something a Bitcoin layer two? Because the term gets used very loosely across the industry   to define,   a number of things that may or may not be an actual layer two. And I guess this this could very much be subjective as well.  

You know, loads of projects where the the l two or layer two label,   when, you know, you could argue that their relationship with Bitcoin is is somewhat   more distant than what we might consider to be a true layer two.   So I guess   let's discuss, like, why that definition matters, and just to get get us started, Max. Like, how would you define,   a a Bitcoin layer two?  

[00:13:14] Unknown:

I guess anything where the transactions   that are being made are not settled at the time onto Bitcoin, but then   are eventually settled,   on Bitcoin layer one.   So something that can allow,   more payments to be made, but eventually do settle down. And if it's not something that's settling back to Bitcoin,   then I kind of wouldn't really say that's a layer two.  

[00:13:44] Unknown:

I I'm really, really glad that you fell into my trap there. So thank you for that.   So does that mean that Coinbase   is a layer two? Because I could send some Bitcoin from my Coinbase account to your Coinbase account   if we had one, of course. Mhmm. That would settle by your definition later on, Jane, in theory, if we wanted to withdraw from them. So would that would that mean that Coinbase could be defined as a Bitcoin layer too? Or am I kinda being a little bit hyperbolic there?  

[00:14:13] Unknown:

I don't know, really. I get I guess it is a bit of a type of scaling.   Yeah. I don't know. It would be a type of scaling, wouldn't it?  

[00:14:24] Unknown:

Don't know is the answer. Alright. I I know Seth's got I know Seth's got some heartaches here, and he's probably gonna disagree with the fact that Coinbase is a layer too, as as I do to be perfectly clear. So, Seth, let's bring you in here and, let me know. Well, first and foremost, I'll ask you exactly the same question. How would you define a Bitcoin layer too?  

[00:14:44] Unknown:

A lot of people have spent a lot of words trying to to find, like, a really good definition for l two, and there's a lot of disagreement. So I won't necessarily say, like, this is the definitive definition.   But the way I think about a a Bitcoin layer two is that it's something that   allows users to unilaterally exit from, which means you can move your funds from that layer two back on chain   without any assistance from anyone within that layer two, without any reliance or trust on them, I should say. So unilateral exit will.   Yeah. That that's like that has to be a part of it. For me to consider it a layer two,   alongside that, I would say the fact that the, like, the state within that layer two being anchored back to Bitcoin,   in some clear trust minimized or trustless way is another aspect of that. So, like, instead of just doing everything off chain and then just hoping that people don't cheat, you need some way to essentially allow Bitcoin's layer one to enforce   the trust properties of that second layer. So, like, that's another aspect of that.  

And I think the third would be that   you   and this kind of goes with, you know, unilateral exit,   but you have   control of your keys and movement of funds within the layer two, and it's Bitcoin. It's not an IOU. It's not something like that, but it's it's actually Bitcoin within that layer too. So, like, Lightning's a good example of this. It is not trustless. It's trust minimized, but it has unilateral exit. You can force close your channel at any time.   It anchors back to Bitcoin's chain. When you close a channel or open a channel, you're essentially establishing state in lightning on chain.   And it it it uses Bitcoin to enforce the trust assumptions within the lightning network. So that's like the, obviously, the the normal core example, but   those are the, like, the the criteria that I would place on it. There are a lot of things. There's been, like, this, like, Bitcoin l two season thing happening where there's a ton of things that are just, like, bridges claiming to be Bitcoin layer twos. Mhmm. They're not layer twos. That's someone else taking custody of your money and theoretically giving you a cool thing to play around with on the side.  

But I think those fall kinda outside that camp.  

[00:16:54] Unknown:

Yeah. Nicely nicely done. You you kind of said what I was gonna say. And weirdly, Vibrant commented with literally the words unilateral exit as soon as they came out of your mouth. So, I think we've just docked one of your, soft puppets there, Seth. Oh, no. I was too fast on the draw. The timing was impeccable.   But, yeah. Good good call out there. So so would you say now that we've defined,   kind of a layer two and and that all important unilateral exit that we've seen, you know, the term pandered around,   would we if we step away from the term   layer two and just step back to scaling solution,   would you see something as,   the old wallet of Satoshi, the custodial version pre Spark, we'll get into that later,   would you see that as a scaling solution for Bitcoin? Because,   you know, again, loaded question, but they they could, in theory, onboard millions of people and it have little to no impact,   to the to the base layer.  

It could,   allow more and more people to,   transact with, air quotes Bitcoin, albeit in a custodial fashion. So could we deem that as a scaling solution, albeit, you know, it has a shit ton of negative trade offs?  

[00:18:07] Unknown:

You could say it's a scaling solution because it does scale it, but it's not.   It's handling transactions off chain, and you don't have   you you don't have control of it. So   it's not   really Bitcoin   in my   view. Like, if you don't control your Sats, it's a different thing,   which would it would kinda be the same as, like, what you were asking before, like Coinbase. Does Coinbase,   scale Bitcoin? It's like, yeah.   But you don't have control, so it's not really Bitcoin.  

[00:18:45] Unknown:

I,   yeah, I I think, like, it comes down to what is scaling Bitcoin actually mean.   Mhmm. Because, like,   is it scaling access   to Bitcoin, the monetary   unit?   I guess.   Like, you can theoretically have Bitcoin in Wallace Satoshi.   But whether or not you actually have that Bitcoin is always up for grabs. Same with Coinbase, etcetera. Like, it's not it's not your Bitcoin. It's someone else's. They may not even have the Bitcoin to to send for you if you decided to send off of out of that system.   Hopefully, they do, but that's it it's all trusted.   But I think it's it's, like, two very different things. Like, scaling Bitcoin   usage   has to include actually using Bitcoin to count as scaling usage, in my opinion. Like, actually, in some way,   transferring Bitcoin to another person in a way that is provable.  

Whereas, that you can you're scaling custody   by giving up custody to someone else. You're letting more people hold Bitcoin the asset, but not actually the, like, Bitcoin, the   the freedom tech, Bitcoin, the freedom money. So it's it's kinda like I don't know. I don't know if that's too semantic, but, like, scaling Bitcoin to me kinda breaks down on, like, the people actually, like, quote, unquote, using Bitcoin in these scaling solutions,   like eCash, like, well, it is Satoshi.   They're not using Bitcoin.   They're using someone's centralized ledger, centralized database,   and hoping that at the end of the day, they can get Bitcoin if they need it.  



[00:20:09] Unknown:

It would be the same as, like,   someone holding a gold bar   or   trusting a custodian,   and they give them a bit of paper saying they have it, or someone having cash, or   in theory having something in their account until the bank tells you, no. You're not having your money. It's the same thing. And that's like   the thing that's so   impressive   and important to me   about Bitcoin is that   after dealing with banks and all the fuckery,   knowing that you have something that you can control and can use and no one can stop you, that's   that's the powerful bit. And as soon as   you start using something like Wallows, Satoshi, or   any of these other, like, scaling solutions where you don't actually control it,   the the beautiful, magical, incredible   part of it is gone.  



[00:21:05] Unknown:

I have to agree. Yeah. Absolutely.   Alright. So so going, like, the next step up this ladder, we've talked about custodial solutions, and we've danced around the semantics of whether they do or do not scale,   scale Bitcoin.   Where do you kind of   side chains and federated systems,   obviously, the one that springs to mind here is Liquid.   Where do they sit in here? Like, are they   is it the same application that it's kind of more of a semantic argument as to whether they scale Bitcoin?   Seth, I'll hand it to you first, maybe like outline how these,   differentiate themselves from custodial systems, if at all.  

And then kind of head into whether, you know, something like Liquid can be seen as a as a layer two or a scaling solution for for Bitcoin. And if you've got any other,   ideas or or solutions for this other than liquid, I know we've got stuff like RSK and Botanix, which I don't really know a lot about, but I believe that they sit under this umbrella as well.  

[00:22:02] Unknown:

Yeah. I mean, a a lot of it comes down to, like, there's it's still a custodian.   It's it's essentially like a a, quote, unquote, better custodian because in theory, you're not relying on a single entity with this with sole   access and sole discretion of movement of funds   to to not rug pull you or to not mess up and and lose funds. So it's a it's a better custodian, but it absolutely is still trusting us a custodian. And it's   it is very infuriating to me to say, like, Liquid call themselves a layer two for Bitcoin,   but I don't really know why you how, like, how you can call a side chain that's denominated in its own like, that has its own IOU token   that you use on chain, and you hope that you can get your Bitcoin back at the end of the day. In theory, Liquid has been fine. There's been no issues   with people being able to swap back and forth between Bitcoin and LBTC over the years. Like, in theory, they've been good. It's a it's a broad set of functionaries involved,   but it just still is ultimately trusting a custodian with your money. So I don't consider it a layer two, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's,   like, always bad. It's certainly not my preference, and I think unless, like, spark and arc completely fail, I don't think there's any reason to need these types of side chains or federations   for the normal person. I think the one area where this could fit in really well is and this is, like, the the Fedi Fediment model   of, like, village custody   or or community custody   where maybe, like, everyone in a community is not gonna take custody of funds, but they can trust the core leaders of that community.  

These are people you know you know where they live. You can go face to face with them. Like, there's a lot of advantages to something like that in that scenario   where those people just wouldn't be using Bitcoin otherwise, but it's a way to enable them to do it with a lot of advantages that they wouldn't have,   wouldn't have otherwise. But   I think, generally, they're just they're a a stop gap, like, kind of a a coping mechanism to the issues that Bitcoin has had over the years, the issues that Lightning has had over the years. Like, we saw this wave of   liquid backed, quote, unquote, lightning wallets,   that kind of pretend to be lightning wallets, but they're actually just liquid.  

And you you atomically swap liquid for lightning   when necessary, but you're actually just holding liquid, which means you're actually just holding an IOU for Bitcoin.   And I think I think that's plateaued. I don't I think that is a dead end and and has kinda hit its growth limit, but,   it's really a coping mechanism for, like, if we can't properly solve these issues with lightning or with,   payments on chain or with privacy or with,   programmability,   like, then then a lot of that will fall back to custodians because that it makes things a lot easier when you don't care about trust.  

[00:24:43] Unknown:

Yeah. Definitely makes, makes things easier. Do you do you think before we move on from this one, do you think it's the the one to one peg that,   allows, I guess, liquid proponents   to think that they can call it a layer two because of that one to one peg and it's not necessarily like a free floating token as it as if you were gonna swap between Bitcoin and Monero or something like that. I've always thought that that was Yeah. The re the main reason that people did it. I'm not saying that's right or wrong, but that that was the kind of knee jerk thought that I had there. Yeah. Because, like, how like, how does that change  

[00:25:16] Unknown:

to like, if you have liquid and it's pegged, it's the same   as having anything else that you don't have custody of. It's like, oh, well, you you might not be able to get your money back. It's like, well, that's the same for any custodian. Like, it it's no different,   in my opinion anyway. And it does have some   benefits, like some privacy benefits.   And for someone who is gonna just give custody over to   someone else, then   why not? Like, I   I don't hate it. It's not something that, like, I generally use or anything, but it's   I don't know. I can see I can see that it is different than swapping out to some other token.  



[00:25:56] Unknown:

Yeah. Yeah.   While we're on the topic of liquids,   Seth Bond is in the Nostra chat. He said, I'm curious how the conversation went at the state dinner with the Bull Bitcoin guys because they use Liquid Network underneath.   Were you were you, being, bullish and, kind of calling them out on that, or was it all nice and   icy?  

[00:26:15] Unknown:

No. I mean, honestly, I I really respect those guys. Like, I I obviously fundamentally disagree with their choice to use Liquid for Lightning.   And and, obviously, they're they're building on arc arcade OS right now, and I think that's their long term vision that they could use that. I don't know if instead of Liquid, they haven't made that clear if that's, like, replacing it or will be just an an alternative option.   Because, like, specifically,   Arc   won't ever have quite the user I shouldn't say won't ever. Right now, would not have the user experience of liquid.   So I'm there may be some users who are would rather have the trust trade off and have something that's a little bit easier to use.  

But, like, they they very much realize the shortcomings of that, but I think they've they've just gotten, like, a little further. There's this this really good slide   that, that Francis   made as part of his presentation   at Bitcoin Prague last year. Yeah. It already has, like, this, like, hard path and easy path. The easy path is you just compromise on everything. The hard path is you find, like, the minimum compromise   to stay within this target outcome. Like, there is an ideal outcome where you don't have to make any compromise, but that's almost never functionally or pragmatically possible.   Mhmm. But there's this acceptable amount of compromise, and he he includes liquid as an acceptable compromise. Obviously, I don't. And I I know that there's a wide range of opinions on that, but I think that's okay to each their own.  

But I think that, like, the goal, I'm sure for them as well, would be that they wouldn't need to compromise on trust if if arc pans out to be all it's supposed to.   I think that their I'm sure that their ideal world would be that they didn't need liquid because they didn't need to to make that trust compromised to have the user experience and the benefits that they they have been getting out of it in the short term.  

[00:27:56] Unknown:

Yeah. Yeah. Alright. Cool.   The the next one is is, a project   called RGB that seems to have been in the periphery of of, like, Bitcoin is for what seems like an eternity that never ever seems to come for to fruition and and gain any real user,   or usage.   Is that for good reason? Like, where does RGB fit in all of this?   Can it be forgotten about? Do you guys have any hot takes on it? I don't wanna spend too long on it because we've got the kind of, quote, true layer twos coming up where I wanna go into much detail. But, yeah. RGB,   hot or not?  



[00:28:32] Unknown:

I think it's one of the many Bitcoin things where I just, like, I will believe it when I see it actually existing in the real world. Like, it it just has been this.   It feels like since as long as I've been in Bitcoin,   RGB has been a thing that's coming soon   or that is, like, quote, unquote, live, but is not actually live.   And it continues to kind of   circle the drain is probably too harsh of a term.   It continues to kind of, like,   exist, but it seems like it's just dying slowly. I I now I did while I was in the gono,   I did hear theoretically   it's making progress,   and, like, the Tether folks are gonna be building around it,   and potentially issuing Tether on there. So there's some some money flowing into it.  

Again, I it seems like it's one of those things that's just way over engineered,   and won't ever actually happen.   And even now, there's, like, conflicts about the actual spec of the protocol that's gonna be used. And   yeah. So I I assume it will never exist. But if it does actually exist one day in reality,   we can definitely chat more about it then. Right now, honestly, I just haven't dug deeply into it because it has seemed to not ever exist.  

[00:29:43] Unknown:

I'm in exactly the same position. I I can remember talking about, like, very random RGB wallet updates, like, when Max and I first started recording years and years ago. And it and here we are, like, in '20 you know, nearly 2026, and it still seems like it hasn't broken through. So   yeah. We'll, we'll we'll keep a a close eye on it and just to see whether it, does make you down that drain or not. I love that. I've never I can't believe I've never heard it before, but, very nice. Alright.  

[00:30:08] Unknown:

Sorry. Sorry, RGB folks.  

[00:30:11] Unknown:

Onto the meat of it, right? The the the by our own earlier definition of, unilateral exit, the true layer twos.   Here's your opportunity guys to call me out. I've made a shortlist,   of four. Have I missed anything before before we move on? Lightning, Arc, Spark, and then ZK roll ups like Citrea, for example, which I know aren't kinda fully fledged out yet. But, any all the obvious ones that spring to mind before we go into those.  

[00:30:39] Unknown:

I think that's pretty much it. There there's a lot that you can include in the z k roll up one because there's, like, different approaches to do that right now. But that's generically kind of the same idea with different implementations. Just like Arc, you could split into multiple, but that's the same same underlying thought process, just different implementations right now.  

[00:30:55] Unknown:

Cool. Cool. Alright. Well, lightning. Like, you   know, Max and I are on the brief. We've spoken about Lightning,   at length.   At a high level, it's a, you know, peer to peer network that uses bidirectional payment channels. And then you can hop through,   your peer to another peer and then to another peer, like like, a little bit like Tor so that you can reach,   to or to pay people, that are also on the network without having a direct,   relationship or or channel with them.   That enables,   when it works,   you know, very fast payments,   sometimes low fee payments depending on the route, etcetera, and the and the fees along the route,   so that you can get much, much closer to,   the kind of utopia of instant payments,   with while still, you know, having that security to to exit unilaterally on chain so that your channel partner or channel partners, if you've got multiple channels, cannot simply just run away and steal all of your Bitcoin, which obviously would   make it fall short of our true layer two definition.  

With all of that complexity   comes, some user experience downfalls, namely in terms of, you know, the need to open and close channels, which are on chain chat transactions. They attract fees.   You've also got channel management where, you know, if you're only spending out,   through your channel,   then you're quickly gonna run out of what we call a local balance, and then you you need to do some more jiggery bokeh to kind of top that back up so that you can continue spending.   Obviously, if you're a bit more of a merchant where you've got a two way channel, that could be less,   less of a of a headache for you. But it's definitely something to consider.  

And what we've seen with Lightning is that it's very much gravitated towards a hub and spoke model   where   most people,   particularly those that are non or less technical,   have gravitated towards, solutions like Phoenix or even, you know, to custodial solutions like Wall of Satoshi,   where a lot of that, headache is managed for you.   That that comes with trade offs. In the olden days with Wallet's Satoshi, the trade off was custody. It was a custodial wallet.   And then in terms of, like, Zeus with an LSP, Lightning Service Provider, or with, Phoenix,   The trade off generally is is privacy,   and is with fees where you're paying them to have a service,   and to manage the channels for you. That means that it can be a very, slick user experience. Phoenix particularly is is excellent, and and the the the best way to get onboarded.  

But there's only so far you can get in terms of obfuscation before you still hit hurdles in terms of, like, opening channels and things like that.   So,   I guess before we move on to the other solutions,   because again, Lightning everybody kind of has the basics on Lightning. Have I missed anything obvious there, guys? Particularly in terms of of the shortcomings,   around channel management, etcetera, because that will perfectly set the scene for for the conversation about ARC and Spark that we're about to have.  

[00:34:00] Unknown:

I think the only, like, minor thing I would I would add is, and you touched on it a little bit, is just that Lightning is not trustless. Like, I think a lot of the, like,   the simple marketing around Lightning has been that it's, like, just this trustless l two, and nothing can go wrong.   And I know that a lot of people maybe don't intend it to be that simplified when talking about it, but there are a lot of trust   elements   in Lightning, especially the way that most people use Lightning. Like, if you're using something like Phoenix,   those guys have built an absolutely amazing piece of software, but it's it relies on a lot of trust in Async, the company.  

They do just in time channels, which means that they own the entire balance until it confirms. They could rug pull. When you first open a channel,   they are the ones who are you're completely reliant on them monitoring your channel and managing channel state. You don't you're not running a node all the time. You don't have a watchtower that keeps an eye to make sure that they don't lie about the channel state and try to steal funds.   There's a lot of trust put in the counterparty   right now in the way that most people are using Lightning. And while you do theoretically have unilateral exit, we could always force close the channel if the counterparty is misbehaving.   That would require you to know that the channel party is misbehaving and come online in enough time to be able to to unilaterally exit and punish them for it. And that's something that's just really tricky in the current way that Lightning works, with most people not actually running a node and relying on just their mobile phone for that process.  

So just kind of calling that out because we'll touch on some of the trust trade offs in other systems.   And a lot of times people think of, okay. Lightning is trustless, but all these solutions have trust trade offs. Why are we compromising?   And it's not really that simple. So yeah.  

[00:35:40] Unknown:

Yep. Good call, Art. Alright. Before we hit Ark and Spark,   z k roll ups, like, what what's the state of play there, Seth? I know you've you've had conversations previously with   some of the builders in this space. Like, is it too new for us to dive into,   at the moment, or does it show a lot of promise? Like, could you give us a a quick high level, of some of the the solutions or pending solutions in that field?  

[00:36:04] Unknown:

Yeah. For sure. So, I mean, they're they're very, very promising, and they open up a lot of potential for being able to do more advanced functionality off chain, things like   if you wanted a Monero or Zcash style privacy.   Again, layer two or side chain. It gets a little weird, but I would probably say it's a layer two. I think I would include it in that.   You could do that. You can do, like, full EVM   style smart contracts. You can do very advanced functionality   off chain, and then you use zero knowledge proofs, not for the privacy perspective. A lot of people hear z k proofs or zero knowledge, and they think privacy.   In this case, the z k proof is being used to prove   the state of the z k roll up in a way that's very succinct. So z k snarks or starks, the s, and that stands for succinct, which means that you can have a proof be very small.  

Even if actually validating or creating the proof takes a long time, the proof itself is is tiny and a fixed size. So, like, 64 bytes   would be a proof of the state of, a z k roll up, for instance.   So you can do a lot of crazy stuff and then   publish that proof. The sequencers or validators in that z k roll will publish this proof on chain,   and then anyone can check that proof and validate the state to make sure that those sequencers and validators aren't lying. And if they do lie, there's this whole process of essentially punching them and slashing   their Bitcoin that they're holding,   as part of that.  

The main drawback to these right now,   one, the actual like, the the zero knowledge proof used. That system is very complex, and it's changing very rapidly. There's been a huge breakthrough that   I do not remember the,   the full meaning of what it stands for, but the the acronym is GLOCK,   is this this new approach to be able to use what are called garbled circuits, like a very old zero knowledge proof mechanism. But a way to basically do this proof in a way that requires, like, terabytes of data off chain, but on chain just requires this one very small proof. And the actual process of slashing or,   proving fraud is much easier than, like, BitVM and others that were the initial ways that that this type of thing was going to be done. The main drawback of all these, though, is really that they do have a trust model in terms of custody, where you're essentially   trusting that   at least one of the   the validators or sequencers, whatever they're called in the given system, are honest.  

Because if all of them are malicious,   you're essentially bridging funds into this layer too. And if all of those parties are malicious that that handle the funds for the bridge, they could steal funds. But if any of them are honest, no one can steal funds without getting caught and punished. So it's I think it's a reasonable trust assumption, but it is a bit different than some of the other layer twos that that we'll talk about here.  

[00:38:55] Unknown:

Alright. And fair to say that there's there's no kind of user facing,   applications for this just yet. Is that is that correct?  

[00:39:02] Unknown:

Yeah. There's not. It seems like Citrea is the closest,   but there's a lot of others building around this, building around Gloc, building around Bit B M 2.   There's a lot of, like, a lot of promising developments, but this is it's still very early. So I wouldn't I wouldn't assume that anything like this will come, like, within the next few months or something, but nothing right now.  

[00:39:23] Unknown:

Got it. Okay. Thanks for that overview. Alright. Onto the, I guess, the the hot topic that everybody seems to be talking about at the moment.   And they seem to be, getting used interchangeably,   and that's ARC and Spark.   I believe under the hood, they are somewhat similar.   But maybe,   is it is it a fair assumption to say that, you know, the for these two protocols to be discussed, in the same vein, Seth?   Or is that kind of a bit of a faux pas? So give us a heads up on that one and maybe   outline how they work and the the kind of differentiators   between the two, because this seems to be the big thing at the moment in terms of scaling Bitcoin and l two that everybody's, super excited about, myself included, to be clear to be clear.  



[00:40:08] Unknown:

Yeah. For sure. I I mean, I think that they're   useful to talk about together because right now, the primary use case for both is an easier way to do lightning wallets. So instead of the the liquid backed model where you're trusting custodian with funds and then doing these atomic swaps to lightning,   in ARC and Spark, you can essentially have your funds off chain in ARC or Spark and do atomic swaps with a Lightning service provider to make Lightning payments. But you're not giving up custody of your funds. You have much better trust assumptions than you have with with Liquid   or, obviously, with the Wallet of Satoshi custodial system, something like that. So when we're talking about just that payments angle, I think they are useful to talk about together.  

But they're   they're kind of different in what their focus is if you expand past that. Like, for instance, if you look at Spark, the the focus for them is really on   payments both within within Spark and via Lightning and tokens.   There's not a lot of programmability   focus   right now in Spark. There's already some, like, decentralized exchanges being built on top of Spark, but the trust model there is a little unclear. That's something that I'm trying to dig into, but haven't had the chance yet.   But they're very, like, laser focused on payments, token issuance,   and token   token transfers. Like, you being able to use something like a stablecoin or a mint your own token,   on Spark and be able to send it in a way that is is trust minimized as a a core focus for them. So that's really, like, the thing that they're mostly focused on right now and the thing that I think their system is built really, really well for.  

But then   ARC gets weird because there's two potential implementations.   There's ArcadeOS, which is being built by ARC Labs,   and there's, an implementation by the folks at second.   The second implementation is focusing primarily on payments upfront but with a plan to do more programmability,   while ArcadeOS   is really   they're they're really focusing on programmability. So being able to do more advanced functionality   with your Bitcoin, but with good trust assumptions. Things like doing Bitcoin lending in a way that is,   nearly trustless and much easier for the   the company to do than like, right now, you can do this on Bitcoin, but you have to do it with DLCs. And DLCs are really complex to build around with Bitcoin right now. Like, there's there's probably 10 people in the world that could write DLC based smart contracts,   whereas doing it within ArcadeOS is much, much simpler.  

So they're really focused on, like, broad programmability   and building out this this OS like system where you can do a lot of things that you we wouldn't be able to do on Bitcoin naturally   while also covering payments. That's something that they just kinda get out of the way that the system is built because it's built to be very Bitcoin like.   But I do think talking about them together is useful because right now, the the exposure most people will get will be that Lightning wallets, I think, will be primarily switching   to,   using Spark or Arc. Like, the vast majority, I think, will will do that moving forward outside of the   the unique,   entities like ASYNC and and Phoenix Wallet.  

But, yeah, talking about them together, I think, is is useful for now.  

[00:43:12] Unknown:

Okay. Cool.   Vibrant just commented on Twitter. He said, I'm too dumb for this. I hear some words like arcade and fruit roll ups.   With that in mind,   ARC and Spark, like, can we you know, I gave a high level before about Lightning, how it works with, like, bidirectional payment channel between two peers, and you can hop through peers to pay, you know, distant   people on the network that you don't have a direct relationship with.   That's how, like, how this kind of scaling solution at a very, very, very high level works. How does ARC differ from that, and and what are the kind of pros and cons of of using something like ARC or Spark to achieve the scaling,   versus something like Lightning, which is, you know, at the moment, the de facto   scaling solution that we've had for a number of years.  



[00:43:58] Unknown:

Yeah. I'll be honest. If I fully explained this, we would be here long past when we're supposed to wrap up. So I'll I'll keep it very short. Yeah. And we can link. I just wrote a piece for Bitcoin mag that talks exactly through this and specifically focuses on trust assumptions and and privacy trade offs.   But the the TLDR of it is that   ARC inherits a lot of the, like, the functionality of Bitcoin. It uses the the UTXO model, but with what they call virtual TXOs,   because those those aren't those aren't all existing on chain.   And it essentially lets you share UTXOs in a way that is trust minimized.  

You can exit at any time. You get unilateral   exit.   You   generally have good trust assumptions.   For the most part, you will be relying on   a previous sender and the ARC operator not colluding to double spend funds.   They will be able to do that unless you   you join a collaborative signing round. It kind of in practice, it works like a coin join, not from a privacy perspective, but just from, like, how you're coordinating with a central entity   and other users to create a collaborative transaction.   If you do that, you get, like, Bitcoin level finality where and at that point, the ARC operator and previous sender cannot collude to, double spend funds, and you get really strong,   trust assumptions in that sense. But the way that ARC works, the complexity that that brings with those those signing rounds, especially on mobile,   most users are not going to be doing that. So you'll you'll generally be relying on this that trust assumption where you're you're hoping that the ARC operator and a previous sender do not collude to double spend funds.  

But I know that sounds a little scary. Obviously, there's clear financial incentives for the ARC ARC operator not to do that. Like, they're not gonna steal your $10 in Bitcoin   and ruin their multimillion dollar business. Like, there there are good incentives for them not to do that, but it it is still   a trust assumption.   But the nice thing in ARC is, like I said, you can remove that trust assumption if you have the time, and can go through that signing process with other users to to gain strong finality.   But the other thing it really opens up because it inherits a lot of the stuff from Bitcoin, like scripting,   like HTLCs, like atomic swaps. You can do things like lightning.  

Instead of just the atomic swap with a lightning service provider, you can actually build lightning channels within ARC. So, like, they're looking at something called Spillman channels, which is a a unidirectional   channel where,   let's say, me and a merchant I frequently use are both using ARC. Instead of me passing them ARC VTXOs every time I wanna pay, I could actually just open a unit unidirectional channel with them and just continually pay using that and only close it once I exhaust the balance.   And unlike on chain, I don't need to pay those on chain channel closure fees whenever I do that.  

So it can help with the speed. It can help with cost as well, and and let us do extra functionality. So   there's a lot of really cool stuff you can do within it, but that's kind of the the TLDR and the main trust assumption is that that hope that the ARC operator and the previous sender do not collude, or you can kind of opt out of that trust assumption if you have the time to go through that signing process, and get get full finality.  

[00:47:04] Unknown:

Okay. Cool. Yeah. Appreciate that. Some some pointed questions here to to kind of eke out a bit more of the the kind of how it works in terms of ARC and Spark.   What are the,   you mentioned around, like, joining around and things like that. Presumably,   as a user,   I can do that whenever I want, and there would be an associated   fee for that. Is that correct?  

[00:47:27] Unknown:

So this is where we get into a lot of stuff that's, like, theory and not known in practice.   So arc fees specifically are a little weird.   So we're very used to Bitcoin. Like, you pay a fee based on the size of the transaction,   which makes sense because you're choosing to store that information in   Bitcoin's blockchain forever. So, like, you need to pay a requisite fee to get that transaction in and to to get it in in before other people.   Within our the data, you mean? Just Yeah. Sorry. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah. The size of the data of the transaction, not the actual amount in stats. Yeah. You're right.   In ARC, that is very different. So the fee model is quite complex and is not set in stone yet. Basically, how it will work,   and this gets into a whole another side of ARC, and so I said, we can easily be here all day.  

Within ARC,   ARC operators are essentially constantly   fronting liquidity, like providing   Bitcoin liquidity to users within ARC.   Like, if, for instance,   I receive a lightning payment into ARC, that ARC ARC operator   doesn't actually get the Bitcoin   at that moment.   But I need to be able to spend that Bitcoin as a VTXO.   So they're fronting me liquidity, but they have a way to reclaim that liquidity and get that Bitcoin   get that Bitcoin amount back, not take custody. Like, it's it's really hard to explain this stuff quickly.   But they need a way to be able to essentially reclaim their liquidity and get the Bitcoin back that they've loaned out for for lack of a better word. So every   roughly, like, thirty days,   the VTXOs   that you get within ARC will expire   and will have then shared   ownership   between you and the ARC operator, and either of you can move those funds.  

That's necessary so that they can reclaim liquidity at the end. The way that should work is that you refresh. You get a new VTXO.   You work with the   ARC ARC operator to do that.   And,   basically, how long into the life cycle of that VTXO you wait to do that will change how fees work. It's, again, it's really complex. It's really theoretical.   In theory, if you   keep your VTXO longer, you will pay more in fees.   If you get a new t VTXO   sooner, you'll pay less in fees. But it's not gonna be like a per transfer kinda thing the same way we're used to. It won't have anything to do with the amount of, like, the size of the transaction in terms of data.   It'll be quite different. But you should expect that the fees will be much lower than on chain.  



[00:49:58] Unknown:

Got it. Alright.   As a as a user, like, what does it what does it look like to to interact with an r quality? I know there's a few that are kind of starting to come out now with alphas and stuff like that. Is the experience similar? Do I just have invoices and addresses and send and receive buttons, or is it a lot more complex than that?  

[00:50:16] Unknown:

Yeah. So because a lot of the complexity   like, both Arc and Spark sound really complex, but all that complexity is on the,   like, the operator side and the wallet SDK side, not on the user side. The the main pain point of Lightning is that there's only so much that, like, a wallet dev can do   to to simplify the user experience because there's just so many, like, architectural hurdles within Lightning. With Arc and Spark, that's very different. So they sound very complex on their face. But for a user, like, for Arc specifically,   if you're okay with that trust assumption of assuming that the Arc operator and a previous sender won't double spend, won't include to double spend,   then you will get essentially a a a liquid backed lightning wallet like experience where you can receive funds within ARC using an ARC address just like you would with a Bitcoin address, or you can send and receive lightning payments just like you would expect to do within a lightning wallet,   very fast. Right now, no fees. Like I said, that that will change, but right now, no fees.  

On the arc side, there will be some for the lightning side. And it it should feel very seamless, very fast,   practically instant for the the arc side and the lightning side. So that's the that's the goal.   We'll see exactly how that plays out because there's a lot of complexity there, especially with the VTXO refresh and how that works in practice.   But that's the goal is that it will feel like that. And and early on, it's it's promising.  

[00:51:40] Unknown:

Okay.   On to privacy,   with ARC and Spark, like, what's the the privacy trade offs there? You mentioned earlier, like, it's similar to a CoinJoin, but without the privacy.   Kind of can you spell out, like, if I'm interacting with a an ARC operator and, you know, I got all these wonderful   simple onboarding, simple user experience, no need to manage channels, etcetera,   am I giving away a lot of privacy here? Can the the operator see everything I'm doing? Like, what does that landscape look like at the moment at least?  

[00:52:07] Unknown:

Yeah. So right now with both, you should basically assume you have a Bitcoin like privacy model,   but one with ephemerality.   So only the ARC operator or the Spark entity,   would see all transactions,   and they're not published for the world to see. They're not published on a blockchain for all time. So you gain that ephemerality where, like, just a a naive outside observer won't be able to see your transactions,   but you should assume it's kind of like the VPN trust model. The the ARC operator and the Spark entity have full visibility into transactions   and can see everything just like a normal person could see everything you do on a Bitcoin in a Bitcoin transaction.  

In theory, both systems can have   some privacy that we can't do on chain, like on the spark side.   They've already had plans for,   hiding amounts, so doing confidential transactions.   But confidential amounts is a better name, basically hiding the amounts and transactions.   You can do things on the spark side like blind signing. So in theory, they could actually make it where even the spark entity can't see the details of any transaction.   They've said that they won't do that, that they have some other privacy plans that are a bit vague.   But even just hidden amounts plus the ephemerality of not every transaction being published to a blockchain would be good for privacy but can be much better.  

And on the arc side,   it's pretty similar. You're inheriting all the privacy problems from Bitcoin. The arc operator sees everything about your transactions.   But because you can do all the same things in arcade OS, for instance, as you can do   in Bitcoin, you could do something like build out coin join within arcade where you can do rounds   every minute, every five minutes, every hour, whatever you want. You can do them very rapidly. You're not dependent on the block time in Bitcoin. You're not paying all of the on chain fees as you are if you're doing it on layer one Bitcoin.   So you can you can implement you can reimplement a lot of the privacy technology that people have built out   for Bitcoin into something like our arcade OS,   but you'll still have all of the downsides of that privacy technology. Like, you can't recombine funds freely or you're gonna lose that privacy. You you'll have all of the same things. So it's very similar to Bitcoin, but you can do things faster.  

You can do probably some more advanced stuff that has yet to be developed,   and you have that ephemerality where only the ARC ARC operator knows about that, but they could publish it at any time. They could be forced by law enforcement to log. Like, you it is a very much a VPN like trust model in terms of privacy   as it is now.  

[00:54:33] Unknown:

Yeah. Okay. I've seen some horror stories on on Nostra and Twitter at the moment.   People raise an alarm about the the privacy trade offs of one of the first movers in the Spark ecosystem, which is Wallace Satoshi. They've moved to a, or an optional noncustodial option that is backed by the Spark protocol. Can you give us a just a quick high level? Like, what what are people complaining about there? And is it is is it as bad as people are saying it is in terms of privacy?  

[00:54:59] Unknown:

Yeah.   So the the short story is   well, just Satoshi launched too early and made some really poor choices that, like, compounded   the privacy issues in Spark   today well, really before today because they're already better.   And they made some unnecessary choices theoretically to help the user experience that made the privacy even worse. So   there's a a few there's basically three main issues that they have that don't need to exist and won't exist.   Like, by the end of the year, all of these would fix. Some of them already fixed right now. But it's the combination of,   when you share a lightning invoice in all of Satoshi, they actually encode your spark address in the invoice, which isn't necessarily a bad thing to do. Other wallets have done that in the space before as well so that you   can you can pay within Spark if you're also a Spark user,   and save the the fees of going over lightning.  

So that's not necessarily a bad thing, but   that's paired with the inability to rotate addresses within a wall of Satoshi. You have one static spark address, and you can't change it. You can't get a new one.   And that's due to   a fundamental issue right now with spark that is being resolved, by the end of the year, which is that you can't spend for multiple addresses within Spark.   That's already obviously a known issue. It's gonna be fixed. But because you can't spend for multiple addresses, if you're rotating addresses, spending gets really weird.   And then that's further compounded by the fact that an   a spark operator,   was publishing all transactions to an explorer, so you could just see everything that was going on.  

Again, that doesn't have to happen. That's already been changed so that wallet developers can opt out of that so that their their users'   transactions are not published to that explorer.   But the combination of you can't reuse you can't rotate addresses.   Your address is published in every lightning invoice that you share, and anyone can look up all the transactions for a given address on an explorer was a really bad combo and unnecessarily   bad, like, absolutely unnecessary,   and will be resolved. But was definitely bad luck and,   not a good idea for all of Satoshi to do that. Unnecessary for sure.  



[00:57:04] Unknown:

I see. Thanks for clearing that up. So it sounds like it's gonna be or can be fixed fairly easily, in in the coming months, which is good to hear.   Matt, you've been quiet over there. I just wanna check you're still awake and if you've got any questions related to Arkanspark.  

[00:57:18] Unknown:

Awake. A little bit lost, if I'm honest.   But, yeah, I mean, it sounds good in theory, all this stuff, other than the wallet of Satoshi clusterfuck that we covered on the brief.   Wasn't someone doing, like, a explorer, like, a doxing explorer?  

[00:57:35] Unknown:

Mhmm. I'm sure we mentioned. Who was who made that? Yeah. It was one of the Spark operators,   FlashNet. Okay. Yeah. Okay.  

[00:57:44] Unknown:

Yeah. So, I mean, I don't know. This is all a little bit over my head.  

[00:57:49] Unknown:

Let's,  

[00:57:50] Unknown:

let's let yeah. Let's take a look at this. Go on. Go on. Yeah. Just let me, like, give a two second summary. The I I think I dove too deep into the technical here and probably lost a lot of people. The short story is both ARK and Spark are really promising to give you way better lightning wallets with really good trust assumptions,   and can provide better privacy and cooler things built on top of it, tokens, Bitcoin lending, etcetera,   all without sacrificing custody of your funds, all while retaining unilateral exit, all while giving you really good self custodial options. So that's, like, that's what these things are going to provide. The technical details are very influx and are very complex and are changing rapidly.   Those aren't as important. But the the more important thing is more people have access to lightning wallets without giving up custody with a good user experience   with the ability to do more advanced stuff down the line, and that's that's really exciting.  



[00:58:45] Unknown:

Good summary.  

[00:58:46] Unknown:

Indeed. Indeed. So let's cap it off with some practical advice because we are out of time. If somebody is excited about all the wonderful explainers that you've just done, Seth, and they wanna get to grips with Arc and Spark,   where can they go and do it now? Maybe,   as we just outlined, maybe not Wolof's Toshi,   or or going in with a big pinch of salt knowing that the privacy is not great at the moment for for the Wallet of Satoshi Spark solution.   Outside of that, where else can people go if they wanna get their hands dirty and be very, very careful, guys? Like, this is alpha software. Like, where can they go and play with this sort of stuff?  

[00:59:18] Unknown:

Yeah. I mean, like you mentioned, it's really early for both. So Spark is further along. I I think if you're just testing, I think trying it with all of Satoshi is totally fine,   but definitely understand those privacy hurdles. But that can give you a feel of, like, what the user experience will be like.   When it comes to ARC, there's really   kind of two options.   So Arcade themselves have published a web wallet that you can use as a progressive web app, that works   reasonably well. It's it's buggy, but it works reasonably well. There's there's growing pains.   So you can use that to try it out right now. Alternatively,   Bull Bitcoin have a super, super experimental   implementation of ARC in their wallet, but I think it's, like, hidden behind,   like, a hidden switch somewhere. I don't remember exactly how to access it because they essentially don't want using people using it too early because it is very, very early days. This is very much if you want to be on the cutting edge.  

That's great. If you just want to wait till you have something usable, hold on. It's not quite ready yet.  

[01:00:20] Unknown:

Sounds good. Alright. We are overtime. Thank you very much for your explain today, Seth. That was very insightful.   And, yeah, I I'm very bullish on on Ark and Spark and what they can do for,   for for Lightning wallets in in the short form, short term, should I say. And then all of the awesome programmable stuff that I know you you know, Alex has been talking about with, with Arc specifically.   That all excites me, but it's probably a number of years off just yet. So temper your expectations and, you know, tread carefully if you are gonna play with this stuff.   So, yeah, thank you very much for coming to Freedom Tech Friday. Happy Halloween, and, we will be back for more of the same at the same time next week where I think daylight savings time is aligned once again. So we will be 9AM eastern and 2PM in The UK.  

Thanks for, stopping by, sir, and Max, and, have a good one all. See you next week.  

[01:01:10] Unknown:

Thank you for listening to Freedom Tech Friday.   To everyone who boosted, asked questions, and participated   in the show, we appreciate you all.   Make sure to join us next week on Friday at 9AM   EST and 2PM London.   Thanks to Seth, Max, and Q for keeping it   ungovernable.   And thank you to Cake Wallet,   Foundation,   and my NIM box for keeping the ungovernable   misfits going.   Make sure to check out ungovernablemisfits.com   to see mister Crown's incredible   skills and artwork.   Listen to the other shows in the feed to hear Kareem's   world class editing skills.  

Thanks   to Expatriotic   for keeping us up to date with Boost's   XMR chats and sending in topics.   John,   great name and great guy,   never change   and never stop keeping us up to date with mining news or   continuing to grow the mesh to Dell.   Finally,   a big thanks to the unsung hero,   our Canadian overlord,   Short,   for trying to keep the ungovernable   in check   and for the endless work he puts in behind the scenes.   We love you all.   Stay   ungovernable.