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[00:00:00]
Unknown:
Now we're recording Zencastr. As I was saying, if we, make it to the end of today's stream with no technical, interruptions, it will once again be a complete miracle because I'm not HQ. I am, elsewhere, let's just say. But, I'm being forced to hotspot and host this stream through my wife's phone on, on her well, it's supposed to be five g, but where we are in the world, we're struggling to even get five g. So, yeah, we're we're up against it today, folks. But, we're once again, we're gonna try and make it work, and we're we're gonna try and bring you all the free usual FreedomTech Friday goodies.
How is it going, mister Max?
[00:00:42] Unknown:
It is excellent, mate. I'm, nicely set up here with proper Wi Fi. Just really professional.
[00:00:50] Unknown:
Love it. Love it. Can, if anybody's hearing this, can you drop us a comment on Twitter or YouTube just to confirm that things are working. Once again, I'm streaming through, my wife's phone, so it might take a while for the the the comments to show up. But, if somebody could, be kind of to drop us a comment and say hello just to check that we're not just completely talking to ourselves and into the ether and that we're being completely lied to and the stream isn't actually working. But let's assume that it is. Well, I don't think it is now because I've just
[00:01:23] Unknown:
seen
[00:01:24] Unknown:
Yeah. We've got a massive lag, haven't we?
[00:01:27] Unknown:
Yeah. And it's dropped. I've just seen because it it was saying replay.
[00:01:32] Unknown:
It was saying replay on Twitter, and now it's dropped off. Okay. I'm gonna kill it on leave leave the the Zendkaster running. I'm gonna kill it on OBS. Do you wanna boot it over your side and the stream will make the shit work?
[00:01:44] Unknown:
Okay.
[00:01:46] Unknown:
Okay. Stop the stream.
[00:01:48] Unknown:
Yeah. Okay. So, OBS?
[00:01:52] Unknown:
Open OBS. Yeah.
[00:01:54] Unknown:
Right. Okay. Right. OBS.
[00:01:57] Unknown:
Now my max beats balling. Fuck off.
[00:02:01] Unknown:
OBS did not shut down properly during your last session. Run normally. Just remind me, do I do do do I do anything else, or I just do start streaming? Well, just Start recording, start streaming.
[00:02:14] Unknown:
Check the audio line when I speak just to check that it's moving and capturing my voice. I should be coming through your desktop audio, hopefully, and it should be moving every time that I'm speaking.
[00:02:25] Unknown:
Yeah. There's stuff moving. I think so. MacOS audio capture.
[00:02:30] Unknown:
Yeah. Check check one two. Is it moving when I talk? Hello. Hello. Hello. Yeah. Yep. And I can have that muted or unmuted.
[00:02:37] Unknown:
Well, if you mute it, then I won't be pumped out through the stream. Coming through. Alright. So and and do I do anything else now or just do start streaming, start recording?
[00:02:46] Unknown:
I think you should because it's the restream, does it say it's ready to go?
[00:02:50] Unknown:
Restream. I've got a login. Hold on.
[00:02:54] Unknown:
No. No. Restream as in the chat on the chat window on the right hand side of your OBS. It doesn't say it's ready to go. You don't you don't shouldn't need to log in to restream.
[00:03:03] Unknown:
I think so. Should just try it? Should just do start start streaming, start recording?
[00:03:09] Unknown:
Yeah. Let's see what happens.
[00:03:11] Unknown:
Let's see. Okay. Now nothing yet on Twitter. I see it on Twitter. We're back. Look at this.
[00:03:19] Unknown:
Live. We we think we're back, ladies and gentlemen, but, please confirm by, dropping us a comment on wherever it is that you're tuning in from just to confirm that you can hear us this second time around. Not seeing us on YouTube. How are you? To be working. You'll have to manage the live chat now then. And we've got a massive delay here. This is disaster.
[00:03:43] Unknown:
That's fine. Why don't we jump into the topics anyway, and then
[00:03:48] Unknown:
I'll pause before Okay. Alright. Well, welcome welcome back, everybody, to the second Freedom Tech Friday on this Friday. Hitting some, technical hurdles, so apologies to, to everybody for that. We are, trying to make things work with substandard Internet on my behalf. So, yes, you can point all of your blame towards me for this week for the hurdles that we're we're facing. But, yeah, welcome to FreedomTech Friday. This is a weekly live chat where we talk about everything from Bitcoin, cryptocurrency, and everything in between, anything under the FreedomTech umbrella. We like to talk about it. We like to cover the latest news articles relating to it, and we like to get your audience questions, in and around all things FreedomTech as well.
Have you got the reminder for for Jordan's, prize for this week? I I don't know how successful this is gonna be in terms of getting the word out there, but, we should remind the the good fellows that, that there's some prizes available this week. Right?
[00:04:45] Unknown:
Yeah. What was it? A a a live question within the chat, and then they have to repost the livestream and follow both accounts, I think, was the sort of rules of it. I'm sending an extra chat. Then you win or can win a year's subscription. Oh, yeah. Oh, is it send an XMR chat rather than send it in the chat, wasn't it? Send an XMR chat it was. Use. And I think you can I think you can pay in Bitcoin or Monero or maybe Tether possibly? And whoever sends the best question in will win a year subscription to Gabriel's, what's it called, Watchmen Torch
[00:05:31] Unknown:
That's the one. Newsletter.
[00:05:32] Unknown:
That's the one. That's the one.
[00:05:35] Unknown:
Alright. So, I'm just gonna find this on YouTube.
[00:05:44] Unknown:
Go on, mate.
[00:05:46] Unknown:
So we had a bit of a scare this week, mate. We, earlier in the week, Google, the the Google Play Store seemingly introduced a policy that required any software wallet developer, custodial or noncustodial, to obtain a license before publishing cryptocurrency wallet apps to the Google Play Store, and I quote, to ensure a safe and compliant ecosystem for users. There's all those, buzzwords once again. So, at the time of its launch, this policy targeted 15 jurisdictions, EU, The United States, and it laid out which regulations the Google Play Store expected from software wallet developers to comply with, relevant to each jurisdiction. This includes being a registered money service business with FinCEN in The US.
Those of you that have been listening for the last couple of weeks will have heard of us mention FinCEN numerous times. And there was also mention of Mica, m I c a, license in The EU. Google's policy at the time of its launch, did not distinguish between custodial and noncustodial software, placing unmeetable burdens on noncustodial wallet developers. So this, was understandably met with a lot of uproar, and, the the inference was essentially that if you were a noncustodial, Bitcoin wallet app, which is essentially all of the tools that we talk about on all of the shows, across Ungovernable Misfits. Doesn't matter whether it's Envoy, Cake Wallet, Zeus, anything like that. They all fell under the same umbrella, and Google is essentially saying that, look, if you're in one of these 15 jurisdictions, you cannot and we will not let you publish your app unless you have the relevant, license for your jurisdiction.
Now for most of the the jurisdictions that were in the EU, that was the Mika license. And, in The US, that was the money service business registration, as guided by FinCEN. As I said, this was met with many, many, tweets of uproar and scandal and people being very, very, pissed off, understandably. And the main reason for that is other than the fact that, you know, there was no kind of heads up for this one, it just quietly dropped, and then I think the rage, came across it and and sounded the alarm, is that and we go I'm going back to what I've covered, recently with the samurai wallet case is that for FinCEN in The US, they have specifically said way back until 2013 that they do not, deem noncustodial tools to be able or to be considered as money service businesses and as such are not regulated by FinCEN.
So if you're a noncustodial Bitcoin wallet app, even if you wanted to get regulated by the regulator in this part of the ecosystem, FinCEN, they've explicitly said, look. We you don't come under our unit. You you're a noncustodial. You're not a you you're we do not classify you as a money service business. So as Google launched this on, Wednesday, I believe it was, basically, it was a case of we're gonna ban you unless you get regulated. And even if you wanna get regulated, you can't because FinCEN, have explicitly said that if you're noncustodial, we, we won't regulate you.
I did a bit more research as as the uproar was rising, and it turns out that, the MECA license in the EU is exactly the same. They have the same kind of guidance that if you're noncustodial, you do not need the MECA license. So, essentially, like, there is a twenty four hour period where people were you know, both both users and developers were, like, fuck. Like, fifth I don't know what the split is of Apple and and Android, but, like, let's just say it's fifty fifty. Like, 50% of the noncustodial Bitcoin wallet apps were about to get deleted from the Play Store by by by, being told they need to have licenses that they physically cannot obtain.
So, yeah, it was a very unnerving twenty four hours. However, I'm I'm happy to say that after there was a complete shitstorm on all social media,
[00:10:14] Unknown:
something's ringing here. What's going on? Can you still hear me, Matt? Von says, sounds like, yeah, I hear you. Bond says, sounds like a Bitcoin brief playing in the background. What?
[00:10:27] Unknown:
I'm gonna just continue and hope that that things are going well. You can still hear me. Right? Yeah. So, yes, I'm thankful to say that twenty four hours later, after a big shit storm on social media, Google reversed this and said that it was essentially an error and that noncustodial tools were, not supposed to be governed by this new Play Store policy and that it was an error on the way that they published it, which obviously led to the industry breathing a a a rather big sigh of relief, myself included, knowing that we weren't gonna just gonna, you know, have 50% of our customer base just cut off from being able to get updates from from our app. And, you know, the it's the same is true for any of the other noncustodial tools as well. Like, it was a very, very unnerving time.
[00:11:16] Unknown:
Fucking what I can't.
[00:11:21] Unknown:
Can you hear me?
[00:11:24] Unknown:
Yeah. Jordan's fucking calling me in the middle of this, and I can't it's coming through the the laptop as well. Right. Fuck off. Signal. Close that down. What a fucking I'm gonna message him now.
[00:11:38] Unknown:
He's messaging the telecom, so there's a big echo going on. I'm not sure what we can do about that.
[00:11:45] Unknown:
I can I can, try muting this macOS capture bit?
[00:11:50] Unknown:
I feel like that's how we had it set up last time. I won't be coming through the stream, though. I'm pretty sure if you mute that. Sounds layered. Should I Yeah. Alright. I see you I see you're chatting in the Nostra chat observer and and pub something something something. I'm not sure what's going on. Yeah. Then observer said phone call. Yeah. You can blame Jordan for that one. He's, he's calling Max.
[00:12:18] Unknown:
I've got I I can either I've got live not edited. There is something playing in the background. Why the fuck is that there? It's there because it's there because we did a live not live last week.
[00:12:38] Unknown:
That's why. We were live last week. I was in Riga.
[00:12:41] Unknown:
We did a live not live the week before, and and that was when I Yes. Must have hosted, and that's what is playing in the background. Is it better now, chat? Is it is it now bearable and better? Jesus. I'm so sorry. This is so unprofessional. Now. This is this is a complete clusterfuck. And if you're still in the chat be ungovernable, but we commend you. Do try. We do normally try and have good production value, but we're we're new to this live game.
[00:13:12] Unknown:
And Thomas in, in YouTube says it's tolerable. I feel like that seems that's a good way to describe all things ungovernable is is we're tolerable.
[00:13:21] Unknown:
Tolerable.
[00:13:22] Unknown:
Yeah. So so somebody shout open Twitter or not, and let us know whether the echo is gone and the background noise is gone.
[00:13:31] Unknown:
Yeah. I'm sure Jordan would tell us. Alright.
[00:13:36] Unknown:
Alright. I can see Jordan sat there tearing his tearing his eyes out.
[00:13:40] Unknown:
I know. So it was a scary time, unnerving, didn't know what was going on. Seems like that's not actually the case, but it's just a reminder, I guess. Like, the way I look at things like that is it's a reminder how fragile everything is and, like, how Yes. Crazy it is where you've got people saying that, you know, you have to be regulated. The regulator's saying we don't wanna regulate. That same regulator, FinCEN, give guidelines to regulate wallets, and then when you follow it, you can still end up in prison anyway. It's just all a complete farce. It's a complete fucking nonsense.
I don't know how else to say it. It really it really is. Max,
[00:14:28] Unknown:
we're not out the woods yet. Observer and well, both of the guys in the Anastichart saying they can't hear you whatsoever. That's no bad thing. Wrestle, I see you in, in the YouTube chat. Can you hear Max talking?
[00:14:42] Unknown:
What about now? Test. Test. Test. Max, new stream, OBS. No. Mike. Test. Test. Test. Test. Test. Test. Test. Test. Test. Test. Test. Test. Test. Test. Test. Test. I don't know why you wouldn't be able to hear me. I haven't changed anything on my end. Can you hear me, Q?
[00:15:07] Unknown:
Loud and clear, mate. Can't hear much. BTS wrestles just literally just dropped that. I don't know how long it took to come through for me to be able to see it, but he said he can't. Wow. Oh, hang on. The the Nostra chat saying Max is on now. Max is back. Observer. Alright. Okay. Okay. Alright. BTU wrestles confirmed you're back.
[00:15:24] Unknown:
You weren't, you weren't missing much. Let me tell you. I went into a little rant, a pointless pointless rant about FinCEN and how pointless the whole thing is and how it's a complete farce. And it was a pointless rant because it doesn't achieve anything, but I was just having a little whinge. It is is a very fragile and county system, and it winds me right up. And this is why you need APKs and you need open source software, and you need to find ways where you don't have to rely on these big centralized, like Google and Apple and everything else.
The regulators aren't regulating to help you. They're regulating to take your freedoms away. That's a fact. I'm very bored of it.
[00:16:07] Unknown:
Very, very bored. So I have I have a couple of comments around this one. The the second one is around solutions that we can do a bit more of a of a deep dive into. And and the first one, Observer said he said something about cunt, question mark. Like, even if you can't hear him, I feel like that's a pretty safe bet.
[00:16:24] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah.
[00:16:26] Unknown:
So the the second point I'm gonna make eventually, is around solutions. The first point is is an open question to to you, Mac, and to to the live chat if if they're still with us, which I can't believe they are. Thank you, by the way, guys. I can't believe. Google, have painted this to be an honest mistake where presumably one of their interns that's, you know, responsible for updating their website or their policy guidance for the developers, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Whereas I may well, I've heard a few more black pilled views on this, and I I think there might be something in in this that maybe it wasn't an honest mistake.
Maybe they were just, you know, under their own direction or maybe on the direction from a higher power. I know there's not many high higher powers than Google, but I think, you know, you guys know what I'm referring to here. Yeah. That maybe let's just test the water. Let's just dip our toes in and just see what the reaction's like. You know? If if in theory we were to actually do this for real in the future, how would it be taken? What would the reaction be like? Would it be let's roll over, or would people kind of, ride it to the, you know, the end of the earth and people will just take the, take the l? They would get delisted from the Play Store, and then, you know, let's see what that landscape looks like. And and, again, we're gonna get into that in a second.
[00:17:56] Unknown:
What's your take? I I think there might be something in that. Yeah. I think that's not a bad shout, but I would say it's somewhere maybe in the middle where it's put that out, see the reaction, and then you do something that's halfway there, people have, like, almost geared up in their head of, like, oh my god. This is happening. And then it doesn't happen. And then something else bad, but not as bad happens, and people are like, okay. It could be worse. It's like management of expectations.
[00:18:30] Unknown:
Yeah. I can see that. Right there. Yeah. Yeah. Because, like, if a week ago, if you just said to me, oh, yeah. They're gonna they're gonna do this, I'd be like, fuck off. No. They're not. It's like, you know, look at the regulations. And now, like, we feel like we've had a bit of a win when in reality, we kind of we haven't really, have we, because it was complete it was complete insanity. But the industry feels like they they breathe a certain relief, and it's like, oh, you know, we came out on top there. When in reality, we've just you know, they they've pointed a gun at us. Fine thankfully, it didn't go off, and we're just like, oof. Yeah. Glad. Yeah. I will not gunfight when we fucking didn't, did we? It was just a case of No. Well, like you like you correctly said at the start, it's it's a case of it's a stark reminder as to how fragile the whole ecosystem is.
[00:19:19] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of talk about anti fragility and all this kind of stuff, but, really, it is very, very fragile. And there's not there's not many people who are using Bitcoin in a proper sovereign way, and, like, there's not a lot of people. There's probably not even a lot of people who really care about it enough anyway. Like, you know, they're testing the waters and seeing reactions maybe maybe. I'd guess it's more more management of expectations before they make the next move. But it's not like most of normally world is suddenly gonna be like, oh, I'm not fucking using Google anymore. I'm I'm I've had enough of this. Oh, you know, this is this is just too far. Like, most people wouldn't even hear about it or care. They just carry on living their lives because they don't know what Bitcoin is. They don't have any care about it at all. And if they do, most of them are either holding on exchange or ETFs or whatever anyway. So, you know, they're dealing with a a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny percentage of the world's population, and, I doubt they really care. I don't don't think they're gonna be, like, worried about what we do, if I'm honest.
[00:20:30] Unknown:
I I think that's fair to say. I I wanna walk in this a little bit. Let's assume they didn't pull it back and that, you know Mhmm. This what happened on Wednesday is the reality now. This is this Google have they doubled down and they're like, no. It's not a fucking mistake. Like, give me your license, mate. Yeah. What what does that landscape look like? Like, obviously, right now, Apple users would be unaffected for now. Again, I'm gonna come back to that in a in a second. But then we we we're in a situation where all of the noncustodial wallet apps that are not exchanges, which presumably will all have licenses anyway Mhmm. Are faced with a decision. They comply or they die in respect to the kind of, the the Play Store ecosystem.
Mhmm. My bet is there will be quite a lot of wallets that will stay true to their kind of ethos and that they will just, you know, wait until they get pulled, you know, get pulled from the Play Store and either just rely on iOS or rely on the alternative install methods. There will probably probably be some that are more, I guess, normally focused that will just relent and see that, okay. Well, you know, this is the new world now. I'm just gonna have to get, you know, go through the the hoops and get the license. Again, all of this assumes that you actually need the license, which clearly you don't because of the reason that, you know, Vincent and and Mika have have, have kind of, have, you know, set out. Thank you for those apps in the Nasr stream, guys. I see him coming in. Very cool.
So we're gonna get, like, a split where some get regulated, some just some just take the you know, they fall on this, and they go they go all in on iOS and alternative methods. From a user perspective, Max, like, in that world, I'm not willing to make the compromise and go to iOS. Like, what options have I got assuming that the developer of XWallet, basically still builds an Android build, but, it's just not listed in the Play Store because they refused to to to meet the
[00:22:44] Unknown:
the silly regulations that have been set out. Yeah. Well, I don't really see that as a massive leap because you either already are on iOS. And in this scenario that we're painting, iOS is still like, you're still able to use their app store or you're using Android, in which case you can download an APK and use it. Like, there's no real difficulty there. And you're talking about users who are already running this type of software and these type of wallets, which is a very, very, very small group of people. It's not like they're not capable of doing that. It's not like you're dealing with normies. Like, you you know, if you said to, like, my auntie, I'm like, oh, yeah. Just go and download the APK and then, like, or whatever. Then she's been like, a what? That her? And she'll get worried and not wanna do it, but that's not who you're dealing with. So in that scenario, it's not really an issue in my mind, particularly.
Maybe I'm missing something.
[00:23:46] Unknown:
Yeah. I think we we say it quite flippantly. Oh, you know, just download the APK, but there's a there's kind of a lot more to it than that. There's there's, you know, knowing where to download the APK from. Yeah. Knowing how to verify the integrity of that APK. Like, you know, just saying that word integrity of an APK, you've already lost 90% of Android users.
[00:24:07] Unknown:
Yeah.
[00:24:08] Unknown:
E even and I'm talking about the ones that would actually use this software. Like, 90% of people ain't doing that. And, you know, for all Google Play Store and centralized app stores have their their problems. Like, they do that verification on your behalf whether you know it or not. So if you're just downloading a raw APK from a website, like, you you're opening yourself over open I just had an idea. A lot more attacks.
[00:24:32] Unknown:
Go on. I know this is, like, basic, and most people know how to verify and all that kind of stuff. But you could, in that scenario, have some trusted parties who keep lists of important APKs and do the verification for you and then have that on their site or whatever. So you could have, like, you know, like a foundation and a cake and, like, maybe Sparrow or different different, software that people might already be running or websites that people might be familiar with. And you could sort of cross reference and and check that way as well, like, for people who either don't know how to verify or whatever.
But it would just be like an extra quick little way that someone could have a trusted place to go.
[00:25:22] Unknown:
Yeah. I think depending on how that will be implemented, you're you're kinda just swapping one benevolent dictator for another one, aren't you? Admittedly, you know, you're you're having a bit of a choice as to who you're trusting.
[00:25:34] Unknown:
No. Like, I'm saying, like, that each one of those companies verifies an APK, and there's a way that there's a way that it checks across those websites to something that says, like, well, Foundation have given it a tick, and so is Sparrow, and so is Cake, and so is such and such. Yeah. And then and it's like, okay. Unless they're all wrong or they're all compromised, then you're cool to to download this?
[00:26:03] Unknown:
Yeah. So do you know why I'm giggling while you're saying that? Yeah. You you do know why I'm giggling?
[00:26:10] Unknown:
No. No. I don't. I don't. You probably worked out that joke I told you three weeks ago.
[00:26:18] Unknown:
This is essentially how Zapstore works, which is powered by Nosta. And I can hear Jordan rolling his eyes here. But Oh, okay. This is, you know, this is this is literally how it it it kinda works is that it's a, I guess, semi trusted kind of centralized repo that pulls, I believe, directly from GitHub repository just like Obtainium does, which is another alternative. Oh, yeah. Yeah. But you cannot but you can the the the point of having, you know, me saying it's powered by Nosta is that I can see who within my web of trust has installed that specific APK. And it you know, as as I install it, I can zap it. I can like it. I can, you know, mark it as verified, so to speak. So it it's essentially what you're already talking about, and and that store can Yeah. Can be installed on again, and it can be sideloaded on any Android phone.
And you can get you know, it's not just Nostra apps that you can get in there. It's like any, any APK essentially that, you know, can be installed on an Android phone. So that that those sorts of things are already in place. Admittedly, they're they're pretty niche at the moment. And to get the most out of it, you need to be more more specifically with Zapstore. You need to be you know, have a web of trust within the Northstar ecosystem. But if you're a new person, then you're gonna have to kind of outsource some of that trust to, you know, popular entities that get showcased on Zap Zaps Store, like, you know, again, quote, unquote, trusted entities within that kind of ecosystem. But as and when you do start to grow that web your own web of trust, you'll see those start to filter through. So I can be like, oh, I see there's a a an update for Zeus wallet. Oh, and Max has already installed it. Okay. That's cool. That gives me, you know, the one that'll tick in terms yeah. Exactly. Yeah.
[00:28:06] Unknown:
Okay. So that that's actually quite cool. And then Obtainium, works in a similar way. But, if I'm I'm right in saying that Obtainium also keeps things updated. Is that right? So, like, normally, when you if you download from, like, the Apple App Store, it just automatically updates your app for you. Whereas if you download an APK, then it won't keep it up to date. So then you have to go and download the new software and update it and blah blah blah. Whereas, Obtainium sort of manages all of that for you like an app store would.
[00:28:41] Unknown:
Yeah. Absolutely. And the cool, bit around that over and above what you just said, is that rather than it being like a centralized app store that you you that surfaces apps for you, with Optaneum, you have to go out and do the legwork first to be like, okay. I'm a Zeus user. Zeus has been delisted from the Play Store, but I want to continue using Zeus, and I want to continue receiving automatic updates. You do one like, a one time verification essentially that you've got the right Zeus GitHub repository, which you can simply verify by, like, cross referencing against the the the Telegram chat and the, the main website, etcetera.
And then you just plug that URL into your Optanium. And then from then on, all of the verification, and and automatic downloads is done for you. So that one's more of, like, I guess, you could call it, like, a pull system, whereas something like zap.store is more, I believe, like a push system where Mhmm. You just go in there and there's already, you know, apps in there that you can search for. And then rather than you go in the sourcing or picking the source yourself Yeah. You can, you know, be surfaced with apps, like, via the usual algorithm or categories, etcetera, and then use that web of trust to, you know, decide how much or how little you wanna trust the specific APK.
[00:30:09] Unknown:
Yeah. So that you know, in that case, when you've got these type of things and it starts to make it, a little bit more user friendly and a a bit a bit more like an app store that someone would be used to, then stepping away from those app stores isn't as painful. Like, it it becomes it becomes less of a burden for people who, at some point, may probably need to switch and start using APKs and sideloading things and, you know, doing things in a non trusted way as these, you know, the Googles and the Apples and everyone have some pressure pushing down on them. And I'm I'm sure they do. Like, it's pretty clear it's pretty clear that Freedom Tech is not wanted.
[00:31:01] Unknown:
Yeah. Agreed. And and just quickly to cap this piece off, let's go back to the war game. Right? Let let's assume that the app stores are being compelled by three letter agencies or or six letter agencies in in terms of FinCEN. But the regulation has now changed. That's to assure that that has changed and that they now deem noncustodial wallets to to need all of this additional bullshit. So Apple and Google have rolled over, and, you know, this is now a reality. What alternatives do iOS users have? You know, let's let's assume that this this thing becomes a reality. What can an iOS user, to your knowledge, what what solutions do they have, if any?
[00:31:45] Unknown:
I don't know, to be honest. I think if it's if it's on a, like, a MacBook or whatever, you can obviously still run programs that aren't from the App Store. But I think on a phone, unless I'm missing something, you just can't. And then I would say go and get a graphene phone, spend a $100, get a used graphene phone, and just okay. Use Pixel and flash graphene on it and and use that. I mean, that's pretty much what I've done for all my Bitcoin stuff for the last however many years. Just if it's Bitcoin related, run it on Graphene.
[00:32:23] Unknown:
Yeah. I I think that's a fair assumption. And and, again, to my knowledge, the the only solution you have is to jailbreak an iPhone. I know that was more common, in my my younger years. I believe it's still possible. And I also believe that once you have jailbroken a phone, you can, install I think it's AAB files, which is like, you know, the iOS version of APK files, which is, like, the raw file. But, again, then, like, talking about the words jailbreak and AAB files and manual downloads, like, for for the iPhone crowd, which is even less technical, generally speaking, than than the Android crowd, you've already lost most people. And, of course, by doing all that sort of stuff, you void warranties and etcetera, etcetera. So it's like it ain't a viable solution for most people. So Yeah. So the summarize is, like, what we all expected.
If you're on iOS, like, enjoy the ecosystem. I agree. It's wonderful. But, like, if if this type of regulation does come down, then I'd rather be in the Android ecosystem to be able to, for now at least, be able to sideload APKs. An open question I have, and I was hoping Seth was gonna be able to join us this week, because he I know he's closer to this sort of stuff than I am, but was was to do a bit of research on, like, what would it take for Google to completely just block sideloading of APKs because that you know, if we go back to our war game, that would be the next natural step, wouldn't it? You know, they know that people can circumvent the the Play Store and and instantly communicate that from people's websites or alternative app stores like the ones we've been talking about.
[00:34:04] Unknown:
Yeah. Probably. Would do you think that would still be possible if you're running, you know, if you're running graphene, then can they still do something because it was still Google hardware? Is that what you're saying? Or or you'd have to you're talking about if you're running it just out the box with, like, Google operating system.
[00:34:26] Unknown:
Yeah. I I think they're two separate two separate steps along this dark path that we seem to potentially be heading towards. The first step, in my opinion, would be that they would just stop, APK installs on, like, stock Android. That seems like a a quick win. Again, I don't know Mhmm. Whether they could only do that on new phones or whether they could stop that as a as a generic software update to all flavors of an Android. So that would be the first step. And then, obviously, the next way people would get around that would be that they wouldn't run stock Android, so they'd run something like Graphene. And then so the next kind of head that you'd need to cut off if you were Google would be to just prevent people from installing nonstandard software onto your hardware. And when I say your hardware, I don't just mean Google Pixels here. I just mean anything that is geared toward running Android, which again is, you know, most of the phone industry, Samsung Mhmm. Motorola, LG, all that sort of crap. Like, it's all just running on Android or flavors of Android. So that would be the next head that you'd cut off really. And then after that, like, what you're left with, like, the mobile the the the FreedomTech side of the mobile ecosystem is dead. It's dust.
[00:35:44] Unknown:
Yeah. I mean, I guess at that point, it would be. And then it would be, okay. Well, you have to run things on a on a laptop, on a computer, run things like Sparrow, whatever. Like, you'd have to you'd have to do that. I mean, it would I mean, could you not I know that there are, like, flavors. There's like you can flash Linux onto certain phones, like different Linux, operating systems and stuff. Presumably, there would then be like a resurgence of work from people to develop something like that. But you're saying, actually, you couldn't you couldn't unlock a boot bootloader and you couldn't flash new software on new phones. So then I guess there'd be value in older phones because they can't retrospectively go back and, like, stop it. So so suddenly these you know, I've got, like, six pixels, like, pixel three a's and stuff that, like, they're worth nothing. They are so tired off by in a few years. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I've still kept them all because I was like, well, I don't wanna throw them. Like, they might come in useful. It it might be Maybe that's the point where that phone draw that everyone has that has, like, five or six phones and, like, you know, one day I'll be Zuma them or something. Like, I've still got old flip phones and slide phones and all sorts of things. Like, I've just been like, I'll just keep them. You never know. Maybe suddenly that's your retirement. That's your pension that you didn't have.
[00:37:15] Unknown:
Max is gonna be like the kingpin of a of a black market phone empire in a couple of years, guys. So you know what to head. Alright. I think that ties a nice bow, yeah, I think that ties a nice bow on this whole, ecosystem or ecosystem. Ties a nice bow on this whole sort of, scare that we had. Let it be a a wake up call to everybody to be like, you know, don't rest on your laurels if you're, you know, running stock Android and you've never installed an APK or you're you're fully entrenched into the iOS ecosystem and all your Bitcoin or cryptocurrency stuff is on there. Like, just picture yourself in that little war game scenario that we just had and, you know, ask yourself, you know, what would be your steps? What steps would you take? What steps would you take to, you know, guide your loved ones so that they don't get further you know, kick up the ass further into the Panopticon?
Yeah. It it pays to to kind of plan ahead, and I appreciate that this sounds a bit doomerish. But, I guess, you know, we're we're Bitcoiners. We we kind of look at the darker side of things alive when we plan ahead. We try and prepare ourselves. Right?
[00:38:23] Unknown:
Yeah. Definitely. You were cutting out a little bit there. I don't know if it's just for me, or for everyone, but, yeah, agreed. I think we can tie a bow on that now, but it's good to be prepared. We had BCC wrestle looking like a little pumpage on Ashigaru Whirlpool unspent capacity, the most important number go up. I haven't actually seen that. I think it is it's on Clark Moody's dashboard now, isn't it?
[00:38:54] Unknown:
It certainly is. Yeah. Let's just have a look. I was gonna say, it'd probably be better if you try and pull that up. I I then open another browser tab for fear of the whole thing falling over.
[00:39:05] Unknown:
Okay. Hold on. Let me have a look. Clark Moody. Let's have a look. Markets, where would it be? Supply, blockchain, network, mining, transactions, samurai Whirlpool. Where's Ashigaru? Or maybe it's just labeled as samurai. No. It can't be because that's 07/2021.
[00:39:41] Unknown:
And it is Ashigaru.
[00:39:45] Unknown:
Where is it then? Am I being fucking blind? Cannot see it. Halving versus block time, top node versions, economics, stock to flow, output, tie, future supply, transaction fees, fee estimates, samurai whirlpool, mempool, mine economics, lightning capacity, liquid transactions, chains, mining difficulty.
[00:40:17] Unknown:
I cannot see it. No. You're right. It's not there. No. I can't see it either. I wonder where I've seen that screenshot come from.
[00:40:23] Unknown:
Maybe it's not on the clock. Somewhere around. I thought it was there. Yeah. We've still got I thought it was as well. Okay. Well, good to see that there's an increase anyway. Look at this. Samurai unspent capacity, 7,451.07 Bitcoin. That is twice the size twice the size of the whole Lightning Network.
[00:40:45] Unknown:
Yeah. The the nostalgia is chastising you here. So Max is blind. Lol. It is there.
[00:40:52] Unknown:
What? Well, you can fuck off because it's not. Where?
[00:40:57] Unknown:
The entire chat. It's it's a it's a fuck you to the entire chat because it's not here. Lost the chat. Tell please send some screenshots in. In fact, I don't know whether you can send screenshots in, in the live chat in Nosta, but chat. Oh, that's a lot. See either in in Max's defense.
[00:41:13] Unknown:
Yeah. Thank you, mate. Fuckers. Anyway, good to hear.
[00:41:20] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. It's good to hear. Just I know I'm kinda circling back here, but I just caught up on some of the the other chats. You know, we're talking about app stores and whatnot. And somebody somebody's dropped a link to freedomstore.io. And I think correct me if I'm wrong here, live chat. This is the first time I've seen this. But this is, one of the first alternative app stores that you can get on iOS. Yes. I said iOS. Within the EU. So I think we might have spoken about this on briefly on briefly on the brief, where last year I think it was last year, the EU basically forced Apple to to open up the the App Store kind of ecosystem so that they weren't so much of a walled garden.
We'll, we'll, caveat that by saying that it's just the EU. Oh, it's Bon that's been chastising you in the live chat and that dropped the Freedom Store link. Oh, no. That was Observer. But, it seems that you can install your Don't you start, Bon? Alright. Thank you. With me. It seems that you can, install alternative app stores. Now the question I have, and I I'm not hoping to be able to answer this myself, but maybe we can get a a comment for somebody who's actually used this. Like, again, like, it's on iOS. It's being enforced by the EU.
Like, I I it still doesn't seem that that would pass the the war game sort of thing that we that we mentioned. Like, I believe that all of these Freedom or or alternative App Store still have to, like, pay pittance to Apple and things like that. I think there's still technically an approval process via Apple. So, again, like, yes, it's great that there's an alternative. But if I understand correctly, it still has to go via Apple in some way, shape, or form before it gets approved. So, again, it it wouldn't kind of pass the the war game that we did. But, you know, something that I'm gonna look into nonetheless. Thank you for dropping that link, Observer.
I I wonder whether because we're still trying to shake off the shackles of the EU legacy here in The UK, whether I've got access to that as well. Maybe I'll try and install it on my, iOS device. Yeah. Give it a go. It'd be interesting to see. Okay. Well, we we've limped our way through forty eight minutes of this with some, I say, some many, many technical hurdles. Shall we shall we hit on in fact, Bonds dropped a question in in the live chat, so we'll always, give those precedent. Yeah. He says, privacy preserving modem slash router or router, if you're from The UK, and mesh Wi Fi network system. Doing any research on the usual ones, in brackets, Eero or Netgear, reveal some privacy nightmares with accounts needed to use the thing and details, analytics being collected by the manufacturer, any recommendations that just give you what you think should be fucking normal, saying noninvasive use of your own networking gear. I'll let you hear this one too, like, a different thing that you're looking in.
[00:44:37] Unknown:
Yeah. A Flint two router is what I would suggest. It's pretty pretty simple to use and seems like it has pretty sane It it doesn't ask you for anything crazy that that it shouldn't, and there's a lot of people who use it in our circles, so I would say probably try that. I had one until I gave it away, before I left The UK, and I'll probably get another one because I was pretty happy with it. And then the other one was, I don't know if it's ever gonna actually happen, but font nine were talking about, releasing their own, router when I spoke to them.
When was it? A year, year and a half ago or something like that, and they were gonna do some sort of open source router, but I don't know whether they've got any further with that or not.
[00:45:35] Unknown:
Yeah. So I I recently got, one of the the flint routers or routers, and I think we talked about it a couple of, FTFs ago. Yeah. Once again, I have not been asked to give any personal information to use the thing. I'm by no means a networking nerd, and I'm sure the networking nerds that listen to this or or or tune in in live are gonna chastise me in a second. But, I believe it comes installed with something called OpenWRT, which is like open source router firmware. Yeah. I remember seeing some comments around people saying make sure you change x, y, and zed on it. Was he I can't remember why they said that or what it was for, but I'm just using the generic, you know, the software that it ships with.
Very, you know, powerful real was fairly inexpensive and fixed all of my usual networking woes that I had with my bullshit kind of ISP router. Thing. But, yeah. Yeah. It's it's been good for me, and I've not changed any settings, and I've not had to give any personal information just to use the thing. So Flint router, Bon, if you send me a DM, I I can send you the exact model, that I got after the after the stream. I think I think it was, like, I think it was, like, a £100 or something like that. It wasn't, you know, a huge amount of money, and and it's been very stable. And I've actually had noticeably improved speeds as well.
[00:47:03] Unknown:
Yeah. Concur.
[00:47:05] Unknown:
Alright. I will. Got a list of our presubmitted questions. Yeah. I'll I'll, I'll carry on talking, Max. I know we've got a lag, so to save any confusion, I'll just keep going. Oh, we've got a couple of loaded ones here, and I'm just looking at the time, but we've got six minutes to go. Okay. Let's go with the loaded one. B mouth BTC, presumably, that's a Brit from Barmouth. The this question came in on on Nosta, and they said, hashtag Cashew is the pinnacle of anonymized transactional tech that I would love to hear your guys' views on. And, of course, Calle at the center of that and BitChat. I'll kick it off, because he's asked two questions, views on Cashew and views on Calle.
Spent a lot of time with Calle, as a dev, like, very, very clever individual. Like, he he built he ships some, like, very, you know, interesting software that's and he ships very, very quickly as well. He's worked on Cashew, of course, BitChat, but he's also one of the unsung heroes from the early days of LMBits as well, I believe. So got a huge amount of respect for for, you know, his contributions to to the Bitcoin ecosystem. My thoughts on Cashew have remained fairly unchanged, although they have softened somewhat in recent years, and I will explain in recent months, should I say. The general, knee jerk reaction that I have is, like, it's custodial tech. I would never, openly push people towards that for for any kind of long term usage or large amounts of Bitcoin for the obvious reason that it's custodial tech.
From a privacy perspective, I think it's fucking awesome. Like, there's not a lot that comes close in terms of the privacy guarantees that you can get from using Cashew if and it's a big, big if, if you're okay with essentially giving up custody of your Bitcoin. I I was very much, when it first came out, a staunch kind of advocate of, like, just never use it. Never ever use it. But having had recent conversations around, you know, some of the the use cases that Cashew appears to be aimed towards, there is no alternative to be able to do that in a noncustodial way.
So things like onboarding people with small amounts maybe on something like, and, like, there is no feasible way to kinda fix that with a a a, you know, air quotes better tool that's noncustodial. Like, it just doesn't exist. So if you're somebody that has a use case that you, you know, you want to send five p to your friend, you know, over the over a social network or you wanna onboard somebody to to a social network like Nosta, where you just wanna give them that wow factor and send them a really small amount. Like, you're not gonna open a lightning channel for them. You're not gonna have to go through them hurdles. Like, I can see why people would want to or or would be okay with doing that and and, you know, giving up the custody of the that five p. I guess the final piece to tie it off would be really, you know, the elephant in the room around the longevity of of the protocol.
You know, we we've talked the last two or three shows have basically been about open source developers getting locked up for for doing stuff that the regulators doesn't like. And I think that anybody running a cash human is essentially a custodian and would, the way I understand the regulations fall under as a money transmitter because they are literally taking control of people's Bitcoin and giving them Casu tokens in return. For that reason, I think that, you know, the the Casu Protocol will only ever remain niche. It will be, you know who who who in their right mind is gonna put their head above the parapet as a public person and be like, yeah. I am a Bitcoin custodian. Send your Bitcoins to me. You know? I will run them in for you. Like, nobody's gonna do that. The only people that are gonna do that maybe are regulated people that already have, you know, x, y, and zed licenses.
But then you could also argue that, you know, if you were in that position and you've got all these licenses, but you're openly interacting or operating a protocol on behalf of your users that you have zero clue what they're doing within that protocol, I could easily see how the regulators would point a finger at those people and say, like, what the fuck are you doing? You're either going to jail or at very least, we're taking your license off you. So Yeah. To summarize, yes. I think it's got some niche use cases where we just there is no other option but to use custodial tech, and Casio is is the best of the custodial tech. But I remain bearish on the longevity of, like, just who will run the mince, unfortunately.
[00:52:01] Unknown:
Yeah. Completely agree. I think we've said that since almost the very, very start of, the talk around Cashew repeatedly.
[00:52:12] Unknown:
Yeah. Absolutely. I I guess the to find the the final thought I've just had on that, this just popped into my head, and I actually brought this up, on a panel I was on, ironically, with Kelly and a few others in Riga, is that, there has been an interesting development in in the recent months in in that ecosystem where you can have a single wallet, but rather than have it giving custody of all of your Bitcoin to to one Mint operator, you can have or you can be connected to multiple Mints so that you can kind of spread that risk of of losing all of your Bitcoin such that, you know, let's say you've got five minutes connected. For you to lose a 100% of your Bitcoin rather than one of them just walking away with your coins, you all five of them would have to, you know, walk away. And, obviously, if one of them went rogue, you'd lose lose a certain percentage. So there is some mitigation to the custodial risk of foot, which is better than nothing. But, you know, the fact remains is you are giving your Bitcoin to somebody else to be able to interact with that protocol.
Yep. Oof. Big boost from from Bon there just to round us out, mate. 4,200 sats. Thank you very much, Bon. And and and thank you thank you to everybody, in the live chat that stuck with us and interacted with us, today. It's been a testing one. We got there in in the end. So appreciate you, Barn, Observer, BTC wrestle, for for showing up every week and interacting and sticking with us when we're talking over one another or, in fact, that we're just streaming two podcasts at once. We, we appreciate you you stopping by, getting involved. I say it every week, and I'm gonna say it this week as well is that, you know, we we thrive on this sort of stuff. That is the whole point of this show. We do a a a quick news topic that inevitably turns into a half an hour chat, and then we we take your question, then we interact with you guys on all things FreedomTech. So, yeah, genuinely mean it. Thanks for getting involved, guys. Thanks for sending these apps. Any comments, any questions, it's it's, a huge help to the show. Yeah. Absolutely. And I'd I would just add that that shows true resilience. Anyone who has just sat through the last hour,
[00:54:20] Unknown:
congratulations.
[00:54:21] Unknown:
That is, that's really antifragile. Well done. Indeed. Just one final comment from Observer. He said, does Max also see the NostraChat, or is he still allergic? I I think he can see it. Obviously, he's he's welcome to log in to zap.stream. I just think that he's already spinning too many plates in his head by having to deal with OBS, Observer. So that would probably send him over the edge.
[00:54:44] Unknown:
They would. You're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. Alright. Well, thank you, everyone.
[00:54:50] Unknown:
Listen. Next week, we're gonna do better, aren't we? We're gonna have better connection. We are. We are. I I will I'll I will actually be at HQ next week. So all being well, I'll be back at the back onto OBS, back hosting the stream, and, all things should be, swimming nicely. Okay.
[00:55:08] Unknown:
Alright. Well, we're gonna love you and leave you. Stay ungovernable.
Now we're recording Zencastr. As I was saying, if we, make it to the end of today's stream with no technical, interruptions, it will once again be a complete miracle because I'm not HQ. I am, elsewhere, let's just say. But, I'm being forced to hotspot and host this stream through my wife's phone on, on her well, it's supposed to be five g, but where we are in the world, we're struggling to even get five g. So, yeah, we're we're up against it today, folks. But, we're once again, we're gonna try and make it work, and we're we're gonna try and bring you all the free usual FreedomTech Friday goodies.
How is it going, mister Max?
[00:00:42] Unknown:
It is excellent, mate. I'm, nicely set up here with proper Wi Fi. Just really professional.
[00:00:50] Unknown:
Love it. Love it. Can, if anybody's hearing this, can you drop us a comment on Twitter or YouTube just to confirm that things are working. Once again, I'm streaming through, my wife's phone, so it might take a while for the the the comments to show up. But, if somebody could, be kind of to drop us a comment and say hello just to check that we're not just completely talking to ourselves and into the ether and that we're being completely lied to and the stream isn't actually working. But let's assume that it is. Well, I don't think it is now because I've just
[00:01:23] Unknown:
seen
[00:01:24] Unknown:
Yeah. We've got a massive lag, haven't we?
[00:01:27] Unknown:
Yeah. And it's dropped. I've just seen because it it was saying replay.
[00:01:32] Unknown:
It was saying replay on Twitter, and now it's dropped off. Okay. I'm gonna kill it on leave leave the the Zendkaster running. I'm gonna kill it on OBS. Do you wanna boot it over your side and the stream will make the shit work?
[00:01:44] Unknown:
Okay.
[00:01:46] Unknown:
Okay. Stop the stream.
[00:01:48] Unknown:
Yeah. Okay. So, OBS?
[00:01:52] Unknown:
Open OBS. Yeah.
[00:01:54] Unknown:
Right. Okay. Right. OBS.
[00:01:57] Unknown:
Now my max beats balling. Fuck off.
[00:02:01] Unknown:
OBS did not shut down properly during your last session. Run normally. Just remind me, do I do do do I do anything else, or I just do start streaming? Well, just Start recording, start streaming.
[00:02:14] Unknown:
Check the audio line when I speak just to check that it's moving and capturing my voice. I should be coming through your desktop audio, hopefully, and it should be moving every time that I'm speaking.
[00:02:25] Unknown:
Yeah. There's stuff moving. I think so. MacOS audio capture.
[00:02:30] Unknown:
Yeah. Check check one two. Is it moving when I talk? Hello. Hello. Hello. Yeah. Yep. And I can have that muted or unmuted.
[00:02:37] Unknown:
Well, if you mute it, then I won't be pumped out through the stream. Coming through. Alright. So and and do I do anything else now or just do start streaming, start recording?
[00:02:46] Unknown:
I think you should because it's the restream, does it say it's ready to go?
[00:02:50] Unknown:
Restream. I've got a login. Hold on.
[00:02:54] Unknown:
No. No. Restream as in the chat on the chat window on the right hand side of your OBS. It doesn't say it's ready to go. You don't you don't shouldn't need to log in to restream.
[00:03:03] Unknown:
I think so. Should just try it? Should just do start start streaming, start recording?
[00:03:09] Unknown:
Yeah. Let's see what happens.
[00:03:11] Unknown:
Let's see. Okay. Now nothing yet on Twitter. I see it on Twitter. We're back. Look at this.
[00:03:19] Unknown:
Live. We we think we're back, ladies and gentlemen, but, please confirm by, dropping us a comment on wherever it is that you're tuning in from just to confirm that you can hear us this second time around. Not seeing us on YouTube. How are you? To be working. You'll have to manage the live chat now then. And we've got a massive delay here. This is disaster.
[00:03:43] Unknown:
That's fine. Why don't we jump into the topics anyway, and then
[00:03:48] Unknown:
I'll pause before Okay. Alright. Well, welcome welcome back, everybody, to the second Freedom Tech Friday on this Friday. Hitting some, technical hurdles, so apologies to, to everybody for that. We are, trying to make things work with substandard Internet on my behalf. So, yes, you can point all of your blame towards me for this week for the hurdles that we're we're facing. But, yeah, welcome to FreedomTech Friday. This is a weekly live chat where we talk about everything from Bitcoin, cryptocurrency, and everything in between, anything under the FreedomTech umbrella. We like to talk about it. We like to cover the latest news articles relating to it, and we like to get your audience questions, in and around all things FreedomTech as well.
Have you got the reminder for for Jordan's, prize for this week? I I don't know how successful this is gonna be in terms of getting the word out there, but, we should remind the the good fellows that, that there's some prizes available this week. Right?
[00:04:45] Unknown:
Yeah. What was it? A a a live question within the chat, and then they have to repost the livestream and follow both accounts, I think, was the sort of rules of it. I'm sending an extra chat. Then you win or can win a year's subscription. Oh, yeah. Oh, is it send an XMR chat rather than send it in the chat, wasn't it? Send an XMR chat it was. Use. And I think you can I think you can pay in Bitcoin or Monero or maybe Tether possibly? And whoever sends the best question in will win a year subscription to Gabriel's, what's it called, Watchmen Torch
[00:05:31] Unknown:
That's the one. Newsletter.
[00:05:32] Unknown:
That's the one. That's the one.
[00:05:35] Unknown:
Alright. So, I'm just gonna find this on YouTube.
[00:05:44] Unknown:
Go on, mate.
[00:05:46] Unknown:
So we had a bit of a scare this week, mate. We, earlier in the week, Google, the the Google Play Store seemingly introduced a policy that required any software wallet developer, custodial or noncustodial, to obtain a license before publishing cryptocurrency wallet apps to the Google Play Store, and I quote, to ensure a safe and compliant ecosystem for users. There's all those, buzzwords once again. So, at the time of its launch, this policy targeted 15 jurisdictions, EU, The United States, and it laid out which regulations the Google Play Store expected from software wallet developers to comply with, relevant to each jurisdiction. This includes being a registered money service business with FinCEN in The US.
Those of you that have been listening for the last couple of weeks will have heard of us mention FinCEN numerous times. And there was also mention of Mica, m I c a, license in The EU. Google's policy at the time of its launch, did not distinguish between custodial and noncustodial software, placing unmeetable burdens on noncustodial wallet developers. So this, was understandably met with a lot of uproar, and, the the inference was essentially that if you were a noncustodial, Bitcoin wallet app, which is essentially all of the tools that we talk about on all of the shows, across Ungovernable Misfits. Doesn't matter whether it's Envoy, Cake Wallet, Zeus, anything like that. They all fell under the same umbrella, and Google is essentially saying that, look, if you're in one of these 15 jurisdictions, you cannot and we will not let you publish your app unless you have the relevant, license for your jurisdiction.
Now for most of the the jurisdictions that were in the EU, that was the Mika license. And, in The US, that was the money service business registration, as guided by FinCEN. As I said, this was met with many, many, tweets of uproar and scandal and people being very, very, pissed off, understandably. And the main reason for that is other than the fact that, you know, there was no kind of heads up for this one, it just quietly dropped, and then I think the rage, came across it and and sounded the alarm, is that and we go I'm going back to what I've covered, recently with the samurai wallet case is that for FinCEN in The US, they have specifically said way back until 2013 that they do not, deem noncustodial tools to be able or to be considered as money service businesses and as such are not regulated by FinCEN.
So if you're a noncustodial Bitcoin wallet app, even if you wanted to get regulated by the regulator in this part of the ecosystem, FinCEN, they've explicitly said, look. We you don't come under our unit. You you're a noncustodial. You're not a you you're we do not classify you as a money service business. So as Google launched this on, Wednesday, I believe it was, basically, it was a case of we're gonna ban you unless you get regulated. And even if you wanna get regulated, you can't because FinCEN, have explicitly said that if you're noncustodial, we, we won't regulate you.
I did a bit more research as as the uproar was rising, and it turns out that, the MECA license in the EU is exactly the same. They have the same kind of guidance that if you're noncustodial, you do not need the MECA license. So, essentially, like, there is a twenty four hour period where people were you know, both both users and developers were, like, fuck. Like, fifth I don't know what the split is of Apple and and Android, but, like, let's just say it's fifty fifty. Like, 50% of the noncustodial Bitcoin wallet apps were about to get deleted from the Play Store by by by, being told they need to have licenses that they physically cannot obtain.
So, yeah, it was a very unnerving twenty four hours. However, I'm I'm happy to say that after there was a complete shitstorm on all social media,
[00:10:14] Unknown:
something's ringing here. What's going on? Can you still hear me, Matt? Von says, sounds like, yeah, I hear you. Bond says, sounds like a Bitcoin brief playing in the background. What?
[00:10:27] Unknown:
I'm gonna just continue and hope that that things are going well. You can still hear me. Right? Yeah. So, yes, I'm thankful to say that twenty four hours later, after a big shit storm on social media, Google reversed this and said that it was essentially an error and that noncustodial tools were, not supposed to be governed by this new Play Store policy and that it was an error on the way that they published it, which obviously led to the industry breathing a a a rather big sigh of relief, myself included, knowing that we weren't gonna just gonna, you know, have 50% of our customer base just cut off from being able to get updates from from our app. And, you know, the it's the same is true for any of the other noncustodial tools as well. Like, it was a very, very unnerving time.
[00:11:16] Unknown:
Fucking what I can't.
[00:11:21] Unknown:
Can you hear me?
[00:11:24] Unknown:
Yeah. Jordan's fucking calling me in the middle of this, and I can't it's coming through the the laptop as well. Right. Fuck off. Signal. Close that down. What a fucking I'm gonna message him now.
[00:11:38] Unknown:
He's messaging the telecom, so there's a big echo going on. I'm not sure what we can do about that.
[00:11:45] Unknown:
I can I can, try muting this macOS capture bit?
[00:11:50] Unknown:
I feel like that's how we had it set up last time. I won't be coming through the stream, though. I'm pretty sure if you mute that. Sounds layered. Should I Yeah. Alright. I see you I see you're chatting in the Nostra chat observer and and pub something something something. I'm not sure what's going on. Yeah. Then observer said phone call. Yeah. You can blame Jordan for that one. He's, he's calling Max.
[00:12:18] Unknown:
I've got I I can either I've got live not edited. There is something playing in the background. Why the fuck is that there? It's there because it's there because we did a live not live last week.
[00:12:38] Unknown:
That's why. We were live last week. I was in Riga.
[00:12:41] Unknown:
We did a live not live the week before, and and that was when I Yes. Must have hosted, and that's what is playing in the background. Is it better now, chat? Is it is it now bearable and better? Jesus. I'm so sorry. This is so unprofessional. Now. This is this is a complete clusterfuck. And if you're still in the chat be ungovernable, but we commend you. Do try. We do normally try and have good production value, but we're we're new to this live game.
[00:13:12] Unknown:
And Thomas in, in YouTube says it's tolerable. I feel like that seems that's a good way to describe all things ungovernable is is we're tolerable.
[00:13:21] Unknown:
Tolerable.
[00:13:22] Unknown:
Yeah. So so somebody shout open Twitter or not, and let us know whether the echo is gone and the background noise is gone.
[00:13:31] Unknown:
Yeah. I'm sure Jordan would tell us. Alright.
[00:13:36] Unknown:
Alright. I can see Jordan sat there tearing his tearing his eyes out.
[00:13:40] Unknown:
I know. So it was a scary time, unnerving, didn't know what was going on. Seems like that's not actually the case, but it's just a reminder, I guess. Like, the way I look at things like that is it's a reminder how fragile everything is and, like, how Yes. Crazy it is where you've got people saying that, you know, you have to be regulated. The regulator's saying we don't wanna regulate. That same regulator, FinCEN, give guidelines to regulate wallets, and then when you follow it, you can still end up in prison anyway. It's just all a complete farce. It's a complete fucking nonsense.
I don't know how else to say it. It really it really is. Max,
[00:14:28] Unknown:
we're not out the woods yet. Observer and well, both of the guys in the Anastichart saying they can't hear you whatsoever. That's no bad thing. Wrestle, I see you in, in the YouTube chat. Can you hear Max talking?
[00:14:42] Unknown:
What about now? Test. Test. Test. Max, new stream, OBS. No. Mike. Test. Test. Test. Test. Test. Test. Test. Test. Test. Test. Test. Test. Test. Test. Test. Test. I don't know why you wouldn't be able to hear me. I haven't changed anything on my end. Can you hear me, Q?
[00:15:07] Unknown:
Loud and clear, mate. Can't hear much. BTS wrestles just literally just dropped that. I don't know how long it took to come through for me to be able to see it, but he said he can't. Wow. Oh, hang on. The the Nostra chat saying Max is on now. Max is back. Observer. Alright. Okay. Okay. Alright. BTU wrestles confirmed you're back.
[00:15:24] Unknown:
You weren't, you weren't missing much. Let me tell you. I went into a little rant, a pointless pointless rant about FinCEN and how pointless the whole thing is and how it's a complete farce. And it was a pointless rant because it doesn't achieve anything, but I was just having a little whinge. It is is a very fragile and county system, and it winds me right up. And this is why you need APKs and you need open source software, and you need to find ways where you don't have to rely on these big centralized, like Google and Apple and everything else.
The regulators aren't regulating to help you. They're regulating to take your freedoms away. That's a fact. I'm very bored of it.
[00:16:07] Unknown:
Very, very bored. So I have I have a couple of comments around this one. The the second one is around solutions that we can do a bit more of a of a deep dive into. And and the first one, Observer said he said something about cunt, question mark. Like, even if you can't hear him, I feel like that's a pretty safe bet.
[00:16:24] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah.
[00:16:26] Unknown:
So the the second point I'm gonna make eventually, is around solutions. The first point is is an open question to to you, Mac, and to to the live chat if if they're still with us, which I can't believe they are. Thank you, by the way, guys. I can't believe. Google, have painted this to be an honest mistake where presumably one of their interns that's, you know, responsible for updating their website or their policy guidance for the developers, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. Whereas I may well, I've heard a few more black pilled views on this, and I I think there might be something in in this that maybe it wasn't an honest mistake.
Maybe they were just, you know, under their own direction or maybe on the direction from a higher power. I know there's not many high higher powers than Google, but I think, you know, you guys know what I'm referring to here. Yeah. That maybe let's just test the water. Let's just dip our toes in and just see what the reaction's like. You know? If if in theory we were to actually do this for real in the future, how would it be taken? What would the reaction be like? Would it be let's roll over, or would people kind of, ride it to the, you know, the end of the earth and people will just take the, take the l? They would get delisted from the Play Store, and then, you know, let's see what that landscape looks like. And and, again, we're gonna get into that in a second.
[00:17:56] Unknown:
What's your take? I I think there might be something in that. Yeah. I think that's not a bad shout, but I would say it's somewhere maybe in the middle where it's put that out, see the reaction, and then you do something that's halfway there, people have, like, almost geared up in their head of, like, oh my god. This is happening. And then it doesn't happen. And then something else bad, but not as bad happens, and people are like, okay. It could be worse. It's like management of expectations.
[00:18:30] Unknown:
Yeah. I can see that. Right there. Yeah. Yeah. Because, like, if a week ago, if you just said to me, oh, yeah. They're gonna they're gonna do this, I'd be like, fuck off. No. They're not. It's like, you know, look at the regulations. And now, like, we feel like we've had a bit of a win when in reality, we kind of we haven't really, have we, because it was complete it was complete insanity. But the industry feels like they they breathe a certain relief, and it's like, oh, you know, we came out on top there. When in reality, we've just you know, they they've pointed a gun at us. Fine thankfully, it didn't go off, and we're just like, oof. Yeah. Glad. Yeah. I will not gunfight when we fucking didn't, did we? It was just a case of No. Well, like you like you correctly said at the start, it's it's a case of it's a stark reminder as to how fragile the whole ecosystem is.
[00:19:19] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of talk about anti fragility and all this kind of stuff, but, really, it is very, very fragile. And there's not there's not many people who are using Bitcoin in a proper sovereign way, and, like, there's not a lot of people. There's probably not even a lot of people who really care about it enough anyway. Like, you know, they're testing the waters and seeing reactions maybe maybe. I'd guess it's more more management of expectations before they make the next move. But it's not like most of normally world is suddenly gonna be like, oh, I'm not fucking using Google anymore. I'm I'm I've had enough of this. Oh, you know, this is this is just too far. Like, most people wouldn't even hear about it or care. They just carry on living their lives because they don't know what Bitcoin is. They don't have any care about it at all. And if they do, most of them are either holding on exchange or ETFs or whatever anyway. So, you know, they're dealing with a a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny percentage of the world's population, and, I doubt they really care. I don't don't think they're gonna be, like, worried about what we do, if I'm honest.
[00:20:30] Unknown:
I I think that's fair to say. I I wanna walk in this a little bit. Let's assume they didn't pull it back and that, you know Mhmm. This what happened on Wednesday is the reality now. This is this Google have they doubled down and they're like, no. It's not a fucking mistake. Like, give me your license, mate. Yeah. What what does that landscape look like? Like, obviously, right now, Apple users would be unaffected for now. Again, I'm gonna come back to that in a in a second. But then we we we're in a situation where all of the noncustodial wallet apps that are not exchanges, which presumably will all have licenses anyway Mhmm. Are faced with a decision. They comply or they die in respect to the kind of, the the Play Store ecosystem.
Mhmm. My bet is there will be quite a lot of wallets that will stay true to their kind of ethos and that they will just, you know, wait until they get pulled, you know, get pulled from the Play Store and either just rely on iOS or rely on the alternative install methods. There will probably probably be some that are more, I guess, normally focused that will just relent and see that, okay. Well, you know, this is the new world now. I'm just gonna have to get, you know, go through the the hoops and get the license. Again, all of this assumes that you actually need the license, which clearly you don't because of the reason that, you know, Vincent and and Mika have have, have kind of, have, you know, set out. Thank you for those apps in the Nasr stream, guys. I see him coming in. Very cool.
So we're gonna get, like, a split where some get regulated, some just some just take the you know, they fall on this, and they go they go all in on iOS and alternative methods. From a user perspective, Max, like, in that world, I'm not willing to make the compromise and go to iOS. Like, what options have I got assuming that the developer of XWallet, basically still builds an Android build, but, it's just not listed in the Play Store because they refused to to to meet the
[00:22:44] Unknown:
the silly regulations that have been set out. Yeah. Well, I don't really see that as a massive leap because you either already are on iOS. And in this scenario that we're painting, iOS is still like, you're still able to use their app store or you're using Android, in which case you can download an APK and use it. Like, there's no real difficulty there. And you're talking about users who are already running this type of software and these type of wallets, which is a very, very, very small group of people. It's not like they're not capable of doing that. It's not like you're dealing with normies. Like, you you know, if you said to, like, my auntie, I'm like, oh, yeah. Just go and download the APK and then, like, or whatever. Then she's been like, a what? That her? And she'll get worried and not wanna do it, but that's not who you're dealing with. So in that scenario, it's not really an issue in my mind, particularly.
Maybe I'm missing something.
[00:23:46] Unknown:
Yeah. I think we we say it quite flippantly. Oh, you know, just download the APK, but there's a there's kind of a lot more to it than that. There's there's, you know, knowing where to download the APK from. Yeah. Knowing how to verify the integrity of that APK. Like, you know, just saying that word integrity of an APK, you've already lost 90% of Android users.
[00:24:07] Unknown:
Yeah.
[00:24:08] Unknown:
E even and I'm talking about the ones that would actually use this software. Like, 90% of people ain't doing that. And, you know, for all Google Play Store and centralized app stores have their their problems. Like, they do that verification on your behalf whether you know it or not. So if you're just downloading a raw APK from a website, like, you you're opening yourself over open I just had an idea. A lot more attacks.
[00:24:32] Unknown:
Go on. I know this is, like, basic, and most people know how to verify and all that kind of stuff. But you could, in that scenario, have some trusted parties who keep lists of important APKs and do the verification for you and then have that on their site or whatever. So you could have, like, you know, like a foundation and a cake and, like, maybe Sparrow or different different, software that people might already be running or websites that people might be familiar with. And you could sort of cross reference and and check that way as well, like, for people who either don't know how to verify or whatever.
But it would just be like an extra quick little way that someone could have a trusted place to go.
[00:25:22] Unknown:
Yeah. I think depending on how that will be implemented, you're you're kinda just swapping one benevolent dictator for another one, aren't you? Admittedly, you know, you're you're having a bit of a choice as to who you're trusting.
[00:25:34] Unknown:
No. Like, I'm saying, like, that each one of those companies verifies an APK, and there's a way that there's a way that it checks across those websites to something that says, like, well, Foundation have given it a tick, and so is Sparrow, and so is Cake, and so is such and such. Yeah. And then and it's like, okay. Unless they're all wrong or they're all compromised, then you're cool to to download this?
[00:26:03] Unknown:
Yeah. So do you know why I'm giggling while you're saying that? Yeah. You you do know why I'm giggling?
[00:26:10] Unknown:
No. No. I don't. I don't. You probably worked out that joke I told you three weeks ago.
[00:26:18] Unknown:
This is essentially how Zapstore works, which is powered by Nosta. And I can hear Jordan rolling his eyes here. But Oh, okay. This is, you know, this is this is literally how it it it kinda works is that it's a, I guess, semi trusted kind of centralized repo that pulls, I believe, directly from GitHub repository just like Obtainium does, which is another alternative. Oh, yeah. Yeah. But you cannot but you can the the the point of having, you know, me saying it's powered by Nosta is that I can see who within my web of trust has installed that specific APK. And it you know, as as I install it, I can zap it. I can like it. I can, you know, mark it as verified, so to speak. So it it's essentially what you're already talking about, and and that store can Yeah. Can be installed on again, and it can be sideloaded on any Android phone.
And you can get you know, it's not just Nostra apps that you can get in there. It's like any, any APK essentially that, you know, can be installed on an Android phone. So that that those sorts of things are already in place. Admittedly, they're they're pretty niche at the moment. And to get the most out of it, you need to be more more specifically with Zapstore. You need to be you know, have a web of trust within the Northstar ecosystem. But if you're a new person, then you're gonna have to kind of outsource some of that trust to, you know, popular entities that get showcased on Zap Zaps Store, like, you know, again, quote, unquote, trusted entities within that kind of ecosystem. But as and when you do start to grow that web your own web of trust, you'll see those start to filter through. So I can be like, oh, I see there's a a an update for Zeus wallet. Oh, and Max has already installed it. Okay. That's cool. That gives me, you know, the one that'll tick in terms yeah. Exactly. Yeah.
[00:28:06] Unknown:
Okay. So that that's actually quite cool. And then Obtainium, works in a similar way. But, if I'm I'm right in saying that Obtainium also keeps things updated. Is that right? So, like, normally, when you if you download from, like, the Apple App Store, it just automatically updates your app for you. Whereas if you download an APK, then it won't keep it up to date. So then you have to go and download the new software and update it and blah blah blah. Whereas, Obtainium sort of manages all of that for you like an app store would.
[00:28:41] Unknown:
Yeah. Absolutely. And the cool, bit around that over and above what you just said, is that rather than it being like a centralized app store that you you that surfaces apps for you, with Optaneum, you have to go out and do the legwork first to be like, okay. I'm a Zeus user. Zeus has been delisted from the Play Store, but I want to continue using Zeus, and I want to continue receiving automatic updates. You do one like, a one time verification essentially that you've got the right Zeus GitHub repository, which you can simply verify by, like, cross referencing against the the the Telegram chat and the, the main website, etcetera.
And then you just plug that URL into your Optanium. And then from then on, all of the verification, and and automatic downloads is done for you. So that one's more of, like, I guess, you could call it, like, a pull system, whereas something like zap.store is more, I believe, like a push system where Mhmm. You just go in there and there's already, you know, apps in there that you can search for. And then rather than you go in the sourcing or picking the source yourself Yeah. You can, you know, be surfaced with apps, like, via the usual algorithm or categories, etcetera, and then use that web of trust to, you know, decide how much or how little you wanna trust the specific APK.
[00:30:09] Unknown:
Yeah. So that you know, in that case, when you've got these type of things and it starts to make it, a little bit more user friendly and a a bit a bit more like an app store that someone would be used to, then stepping away from those app stores isn't as painful. Like, it it becomes it becomes less of a burden for people who, at some point, may probably need to switch and start using APKs and sideloading things and, you know, doing things in a non trusted way as these, you know, the Googles and the Apples and everyone have some pressure pushing down on them. And I'm I'm sure they do. Like, it's pretty clear it's pretty clear that Freedom Tech is not wanted.
[00:31:01] Unknown:
Yeah. Agreed. And and just quickly to cap this piece off, let's go back to the war game. Right? Let let's assume that the app stores are being compelled by three letter agencies or or six letter agencies in in terms of FinCEN. But the regulation has now changed. That's to assure that that has changed and that they now deem noncustodial wallets to to need all of this additional bullshit. So Apple and Google have rolled over, and, you know, this is now a reality. What alternatives do iOS users have? You know, let's let's assume that this this thing becomes a reality. What can an iOS user, to your knowledge, what what solutions do they have, if any?
[00:31:45] Unknown:
I don't know, to be honest. I think if it's if it's on a, like, a MacBook or whatever, you can obviously still run programs that aren't from the App Store. But I think on a phone, unless I'm missing something, you just can't. And then I would say go and get a graphene phone, spend a $100, get a used graphene phone, and just okay. Use Pixel and flash graphene on it and and use that. I mean, that's pretty much what I've done for all my Bitcoin stuff for the last however many years. Just if it's Bitcoin related, run it on Graphene.
[00:32:23] Unknown:
Yeah. I I think that's a fair assumption. And and, again, to my knowledge, the the only solution you have is to jailbreak an iPhone. I know that was more common, in my my younger years. I believe it's still possible. And I also believe that once you have jailbroken a phone, you can, install I think it's AAB files, which is like, you know, the iOS version of APK files, which is, like, the raw file. But, again, then, like, talking about the words jailbreak and AAB files and manual downloads, like, for for the iPhone crowd, which is even less technical, generally speaking, than than the Android crowd, you've already lost most people. And, of course, by doing all that sort of stuff, you void warranties and etcetera, etcetera. So it's like it ain't a viable solution for most people. So Yeah. So the summarize is, like, what we all expected.
If you're on iOS, like, enjoy the ecosystem. I agree. It's wonderful. But, like, if if this type of regulation does come down, then I'd rather be in the Android ecosystem to be able to, for now at least, be able to sideload APKs. An open question I have, and I was hoping Seth was gonna be able to join us this week, because he I know he's closer to this sort of stuff than I am, but was was to do a bit of research on, like, what would it take for Google to completely just block sideloading of APKs because that you know, if we go back to our war game, that would be the next natural step, wouldn't it? You know, they know that people can circumvent the the Play Store and and instantly communicate that from people's websites or alternative app stores like the ones we've been talking about.
[00:34:04] Unknown:
Yeah. Probably. Would do you think that would still be possible if you're running, you know, if you're running graphene, then can they still do something because it was still Google hardware? Is that what you're saying? Or or you'd have to you're talking about if you're running it just out the box with, like, Google operating system.
[00:34:26] Unknown:
Yeah. I I think they're two separate two separate steps along this dark path that we seem to potentially be heading towards. The first step, in my opinion, would be that they would just stop, APK installs on, like, stock Android. That seems like a a quick win. Again, I don't know Mhmm. Whether they could only do that on new phones or whether they could stop that as a as a generic software update to all flavors of an Android. So that would be the first step. And then, obviously, the next way people would get around that would be that they wouldn't run stock Android, so they'd run something like Graphene. And then so the next kind of head that you'd need to cut off if you were Google would be to just prevent people from installing nonstandard software onto your hardware. And when I say your hardware, I don't just mean Google Pixels here. I just mean anything that is geared toward running Android, which again is, you know, most of the phone industry, Samsung Mhmm. Motorola, LG, all that sort of crap. Like, it's all just running on Android or flavors of Android. So that would be the next head that you'd cut off really. And then after that, like, what you're left with, like, the mobile the the the FreedomTech side of the mobile ecosystem is dead. It's dust.
[00:35:44] Unknown:
Yeah. I mean, I guess at that point, it would be. And then it would be, okay. Well, you have to run things on a on a laptop, on a computer, run things like Sparrow, whatever. Like, you'd have to you'd have to do that. I mean, it would I mean, could you not I know that there are, like, flavors. There's like you can flash Linux onto certain phones, like different Linux, operating systems and stuff. Presumably, there would then be like a resurgence of work from people to develop something like that. But you're saying, actually, you couldn't you couldn't unlock a boot bootloader and you couldn't flash new software on new phones. So then I guess there'd be value in older phones because they can't retrospectively go back and, like, stop it. So so suddenly these you know, I've got, like, six pixels, like, pixel three a's and stuff that, like, they're worth nothing. They are so tired off by in a few years. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. I've still kept them all because I was like, well, I don't wanna throw them. Like, they might come in useful. It it might be Maybe that's the point where that phone draw that everyone has that has, like, five or six phones and, like, you know, one day I'll be Zuma them or something. Like, I've still got old flip phones and slide phones and all sorts of things. Like, I've just been like, I'll just keep them. You never know. Maybe suddenly that's your retirement. That's your pension that you didn't have.
[00:37:15] Unknown:
Max is gonna be like the kingpin of a of a black market phone empire in a couple of years, guys. So you know what to head. Alright. I think that ties a nice bow, yeah, I think that ties a nice bow on this whole, ecosystem or ecosystem. Ties a nice bow on this whole sort of, scare that we had. Let it be a a wake up call to everybody to be like, you know, don't rest on your laurels if you're, you know, running stock Android and you've never installed an APK or you're you're fully entrenched into the iOS ecosystem and all your Bitcoin or cryptocurrency stuff is on there. Like, just picture yourself in that little war game scenario that we just had and, you know, ask yourself, you know, what would be your steps? What steps would you take? What steps would you take to, you know, guide your loved ones so that they don't get further you know, kick up the ass further into the Panopticon?
Yeah. It it pays to to kind of plan ahead, and I appreciate that this sounds a bit doomerish. But, I guess, you know, we're we're Bitcoiners. We we kind of look at the darker side of things alive when we plan ahead. We try and prepare ourselves. Right?
[00:38:23] Unknown:
Yeah. Definitely. You were cutting out a little bit there. I don't know if it's just for me, or for everyone, but, yeah, agreed. I think we can tie a bow on that now, but it's good to be prepared. We had BCC wrestle looking like a little pumpage on Ashigaru Whirlpool unspent capacity, the most important number go up. I haven't actually seen that. I think it is it's on Clark Moody's dashboard now, isn't it?
[00:38:54] Unknown:
It certainly is. Yeah. Let's just have a look. I was gonna say, it'd probably be better if you try and pull that up. I I then open another browser tab for fear of the whole thing falling over.
[00:39:05] Unknown:
Okay. Hold on. Let me have a look. Clark Moody. Let's have a look. Markets, where would it be? Supply, blockchain, network, mining, transactions, samurai Whirlpool. Where's Ashigaru? Or maybe it's just labeled as samurai. No. It can't be because that's 07/2021.
[00:39:41] Unknown:
And it is Ashigaru.
[00:39:45] Unknown:
Where is it then? Am I being fucking blind? Cannot see it. Halving versus block time, top node versions, economics, stock to flow, output, tie, future supply, transaction fees, fee estimates, samurai whirlpool, mempool, mine economics, lightning capacity, liquid transactions, chains, mining difficulty.
[00:40:17] Unknown:
I cannot see it. No. You're right. It's not there. No. I can't see it either. I wonder where I've seen that screenshot come from.
[00:40:23] Unknown:
Maybe it's not on the clock. Somewhere around. I thought it was there. Yeah. We've still got I thought it was as well. Okay. Well, good to see that there's an increase anyway. Look at this. Samurai unspent capacity, 7,451.07 Bitcoin. That is twice the size twice the size of the whole Lightning Network.
[00:40:45] Unknown:
Yeah. The the nostalgia is chastising you here. So Max is blind. Lol. It is there.
[00:40:52] Unknown:
What? Well, you can fuck off because it's not. Where?
[00:40:57] Unknown:
The entire chat. It's it's a it's a fuck you to the entire chat because it's not here. Lost the chat. Tell please send some screenshots in. In fact, I don't know whether you can send screenshots in, in the live chat in Nosta, but chat. Oh, that's a lot. See either in in Max's defense.
[00:41:13] Unknown:
Yeah. Thank you, mate. Fuckers. Anyway, good to hear.
[00:41:20] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. It's good to hear. Just I know I'm kinda circling back here, but I just caught up on some of the the other chats. You know, we're talking about app stores and whatnot. And somebody somebody's dropped a link to freedomstore.io. And I think correct me if I'm wrong here, live chat. This is the first time I've seen this. But this is, one of the first alternative app stores that you can get on iOS. Yes. I said iOS. Within the EU. So I think we might have spoken about this on briefly on briefly on the brief, where last year I think it was last year, the EU basically forced Apple to to open up the the App Store kind of ecosystem so that they weren't so much of a walled garden.
We'll, we'll, caveat that by saying that it's just the EU. Oh, it's Bon that's been chastising you in the live chat and that dropped the Freedom Store link. Oh, no. That was Observer. But, it seems that you can install your Don't you start, Bon? Alright. Thank you. With me. It seems that you can, install alternative app stores. Now the question I have, and I I'm not hoping to be able to answer this myself, but maybe we can get a a comment for somebody who's actually used this. Like, again, like, it's on iOS. It's being enforced by the EU.
Like, I I it still doesn't seem that that would pass the the war game sort of thing that we that we mentioned. Like, I believe that all of these Freedom or or alternative App Store still have to, like, pay pittance to Apple and things like that. I think there's still technically an approval process via Apple. So, again, like, yes, it's great that there's an alternative. But if I understand correctly, it still has to go via Apple in some way, shape, or form before it gets approved. So, again, it it wouldn't kind of pass the the war game that we did. But, you know, something that I'm gonna look into nonetheless. Thank you for dropping that link, Observer.
I I wonder whether because we're still trying to shake off the shackles of the EU legacy here in The UK, whether I've got access to that as well. Maybe I'll try and install it on my, iOS device. Yeah. Give it a go. It'd be interesting to see. Okay. Well, we we've limped our way through forty eight minutes of this with some, I say, some many, many technical hurdles. Shall we shall we hit on in fact, Bonds dropped a question in in the live chat, so we'll always, give those precedent. Yeah. He says, privacy preserving modem slash router or router, if you're from The UK, and mesh Wi Fi network system. Doing any research on the usual ones, in brackets, Eero or Netgear, reveal some privacy nightmares with accounts needed to use the thing and details, analytics being collected by the manufacturer, any recommendations that just give you what you think should be fucking normal, saying noninvasive use of your own networking gear. I'll let you hear this one too, like, a different thing that you're looking in.
[00:44:37] Unknown:
Yeah. A Flint two router is what I would suggest. It's pretty pretty simple to use and seems like it has pretty sane It it doesn't ask you for anything crazy that that it shouldn't, and there's a lot of people who use it in our circles, so I would say probably try that. I had one until I gave it away, before I left The UK, and I'll probably get another one because I was pretty happy with it. And then the other one was, I don't know if it's ever gonna actually happen, but font nine were talking about, releasing their own, router when I spoke to them.
When was it? A year, year and a half ago or something like that, and they were gonna do some sort of open source router, but I don't know whether they've got any further with that or not.
[00:45:35] Unknown:
Yeah. So I I recently got, one of the the flint routers or routers, and I think we talked about it a couple of, FTFs ago. Yeah. Once again, I have not been asked to give any personal information to use the thing. I'm by no means a networking nerd, and I'm sure the networking nerds that listen to this or or or tune in in live are gonna chastise me in a second. But, I believe it comes installed with something called OpenWRT, which is like open source router firmware. Yeah. I remember seeing some comments around people saying make sure you change x, y, and zed on it. Was he I can't remember why they said that or what it was for, but I'm just using the generic, you know, the software that it ships with.
Very, you know, powerful real was fairly inexpensive and fixed all of my usual networking woes that I had with my bullshit kind of ISP router. Thing. But, yeah. Yeah. It's it's been good for me, and I've not changed any settings, and I've not had to give any personal information just to use the thing. So Flint router, Bon, if you send me a DM, I I can send you the exact model, that I got after the after the stream. I think I think it was, like, I think it was, like, a £100 or something like that. It wasn't, you know, a huge amount of money, and and it's been very stable. And I've actually had noticeably improved speeds as well.
[00:47:03] Unknown:
Yeah. Concur.
[00:47:05] Unknown:
Alright. I will. Got a list of our presubmitted questions. Yeah. I'll I'll, I'll carry on talking, Max. I know we've got a lag, so to save any confusion, I'll just keep going. Oh, we've got a couple of loaded ones here, and I'm just looking at the time, but we've got six minutes to go. Okay. Let's go with the loaded one. B mouth BTC, presumably, that's a Brit from Barmouth. The this question came in on on Nosta, and they said, hashtag Cashew is the pinnacle of anonymized transactional tech that I would love to hear your guys' views on. And, of course, Calle at the center of that and BitChat. I'll kick it off, because he's asked two questions, views on Cashew and views on Calle.
Spent a lot of time with Calle, as a dev, like, very, very clever individual. Like, he he built he ships some, like, very, you know, interesting software that's and he ships very, very quickly as well. He's worked on Cashew, of course, BitChat, but he's also one of the unsung heroes from the early days of LMBits as well, I believe. So got a huge amount of respect for for, you know, his contributions to to the Bitcoin ecosystem. My thoughts on Cashew have remained fairly unchanged, although they have softened somewhat in recent years, and I will explain in recent months, should I say. The general, knee jerk reaction that I have is, like, it's custodial tech. I would never, openly push people towards that for for any kind of long term usage or large amounts of Bitcoin for the obvious reason that it's custodial tech.
From a privacy perspective, I think it's fucking awesome. Like, there's not a lot that comes close in terms of the privacy guarantees that you can get from using Cashew if and it's a big, big if, if you're okay with essentially giving up custody of your Bitcoin. I I was very much, when it first came out, a staunch kind of advocate of, like, just never use it. Never ever use it. But having had recent conversations around, you know, some of the the use cases that Cashew appears to be aimed towards, there is no alternative to be able to do that in a noncustodial way.
So things like onboarding people with small amounts maybe on something like, and, like, there is no feasible way to kinda fix that with a a a, you know, air quotes better tool that's noncustodial. Like, it just doesn't exist. So if you're somebody that has a use case that you, you know, you want to send five p to your friend, you know, over the over a social network or you wanna onboard somebody to to a social network like Nosta, where you just wanna give them that wow factor and send them a really small amount. Like, you're not gonna open a lightning channel for them. You're not gonna have to go through them hurdles. Like, I can see why people would want to or or would be okay with doing that and and, you know, giving up the custody of the that five p. I guess the final piece to tie it off would be really, you know, the elephant in the room around the longevity of of the protocol.
You know, we we've talked the last two or three shows have basically been about open source developers getting locked up for for doing stuff that the regulators doesn't like. And I think that anybody running a cash human is essentially a custodian and would, the way I understand the regulations fall under as a money transmitter because they are literally taking control of people's Bitcoin and giving them Casu tokens in return. For that reason, I think that, you know, the the Casu Protocol will only ever remain niche. It will be, you know who who who in their right mind is gonna put their head above the parapet as a public person and be like, yeah. I am a Bitcoin custodian. Send your Bitcoins to me. You know? I will run them in for you. Like, nobody's gonna do that. The only people that are gonna do that maybe are regulated people that already have, you know, x, y, and zed licenses.
But then you could also argue that, you know, if you were in that position and you've got all these licenses, but you're openly interacting or operating a protocol on behalf of your users that you have zero clue what they're doing within that protocol, I could easily see how the regulators would point a finger at those people and say, like, what the fuck are you doing? You're either going to jail or at very least, we're taking your license off you. So Yeah. To summarize, yes. I think it's got some niche use cases where we just there is no other option but to use custodial tech, and Casio is is the best of the custodial tech. But I remain bearish on the longevity of, like, just who will run the mince, unfortunately.
[00:52:01] Unknown:
Yeah. Completely agree. I think we've said that since almost the very, very start of, the talk around Cashew repeatedly.
[00:52:12] Unknown:
Yeah. Absolutely. I I guess the to find the the final thought I've just had on that, this just popped into my head, and I actually brought this up, on a panel I was on, ironically, with Kelly and a few others in Riga, is that, there has been an interesting development in in the recent months in in that ecosystem where you can have a single wallet, but rather than have it giving custody of all of your Bitcoin to to one Mint operator, you can have or you can be connected to multiple Mints so that you can kind of spread that risk of of losing all of your Bitcoin such that, you know, let's say you've got five minutes connected. For you to lose a 100% of your Bitcoin rather than one of them just walking away with your coins, you all five of them would have to, you know, walk away. And, obviously, if one of them went rogue, you'd lose lose a certain percentage. So there is some mitigation to the custodial risk of foot, which is better than nothing. But, you know, the fact remains is you are giving your Bitcoin to somebody else to be able to interact with that protocol.
Yep. Oof. Big boost from from Bon there just to round us out, mate. 4,200 sats. Thank you very much, Bon. And and and thank you thank you to everybody, in the live chat that stuck with us and interacted with us, today. It's been a testing one. We got there in in the end. So appreciate you, Barn, Observer, BTC wrestle, for for showing up every week and interacting and sticking with us when we're talking over one another or, in fact, that we're just streaming two podcasts at once. We, we appreciate you you stopping by, getting involved. I say it every week, and I'm gonna say it this week as well is that, you know, we we thrive on this sort of stuff. That is the whole point of this show. We do a a a quick news topic that inevitably turns into a half an hour chat, and then we we take your question, then we interact with you guys on all things FreedomTech. So, yeah, genuinely mean it. Thanks for getting involved, guys. Thanks for sending these apps. Any comments, any questions, it's it's, a huge help to the show. Yeah. Absolutely. And I'd I would just add that that shows true resilience. Anyone who has just sat through the last hour,
[00:54:20] Unknown:
congratulations.
[00:54:21] Unknown:
That is, that's really antifragile. Well done. Indeed. Just one final comment from Observer. He said, does Max also see the NostraChat, or is he still allergic? I I think he can see it. Obviously, he's he's welcome to log in to zap.stream. I just think that he's already spinning too many plates in his head by having to deal with OBS, Observer. So that would probably send him over the edge.
[00:54:44] Unknown:
They would. You're absolutely right. You're absolutely right. Alright. Well, thank you, everyone.
[00:54:50] Unknown:
Listen. Next week, we're gonna do better, aren't we? We're gonna have better connection. We are. We are. I I will I'll I will actually be at HQ next week. So all being well, I'll be back at the back onto OBS, back hosting the stream, and, all things should be, swimming nicely. Okay.
[00:55:08] Unknown:
Alright. Well, we're gonna love you and leave you. Stay ungovernable.
Technical Challenges and Stream Setup
Introduction to FreedomTech Friday
Google Play Store Policy Scare
The Fragility of the Ecosystem
Alternatives to Google Play Store
Potential Future Restrictions on APKs
Preparing for a Restrictive Future
Privacy-Preserving Networking Solutions
Listener Questions
