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[00:00:00]
Unknown:
Alright. I'm gonna hit the button now. Start streaming. Start recording. Alright. Everything looks good locally, so let's just do the usual checks. Yeah. I'll check the old Twitter.
[00:00:15] Unknown:
I'm refreshing YouTube.
[00:00:17] Unknown:
We are live on YouTube. ZapStream. We are live on ZapStream. Beautiful. Look at this. Just x or Twitter to confirm. We're live on Twitter as well.
[00:00:27] Unknown:
We're getting good at this, mate.
[00:00:29] Unknown:
We are. We are indeed. Yeah. Obviously, we'll do a bit a little bit small talk just to to let people roll in. If this one goes without a hitch from a technical perspective, I will be amazed, because, I'm hosting the stream from a hotel room in Riga having landed about, like, two hours ago. So it's been a bit of a, bit of a a bit of a hectic day, really. Began for me, with a 02:30AM alarm, which was which was a delight. Flew in via via Amsterdam. Had a a about an hour delay coming out of Amsterdam on the way to Riga. Absolutely
[00:01:08] Unknown:
blast in Amsterdam, then jumped on another plane.
[00:01:12] Unknown:
Yeah. I wish. No. It was I had, like, a one hour thirty layover, which I don't know if you ever ever flown through Amsterdam Airport, but that's about as tight as it gets, really. Yeah. Yeah. But luckily with the delay, I actually had more time than I, anticipated, but, obviously, you can't plan for that. On the way home, it's gonna be a different story. I'll I'll I'll do some live, tweeting and noting on that one because I've got a fifty five minute transfer on the way home on Monday. So visions of me running through Schiphol Airport on Monday morning to try and meet my, connection flight back to back to Manchester. I'm not holding out much hope as to whether I'm gonna make it or not. But, I mean, it you know, in theory, it must be possible because it wouldn't have sold me the flight otherwise, but who knows? They might have just done it for a laugh just to see. They'll just be watching you sprint through.
Let's see. Let's just completely fuck with this robot. Yeah. Just just see. Yeah. Just picture him. His his spinty little legs, peddling his peddling himself through Skiffle Airport. But, What was that cartoon where it's like,
[00:02:16] Unknown:
there's like the oh, Road Runner. You look like Road Runner. Oh, right.
[00:02:22] Unknown:
Yeah. That will literally be me at, like Yeah. I've got a pretty early flight back out on Monday, so it'll probably be me at, like, nine or 10AM in Schiphol Airport trying to make my connection flight to get back home. But, Yeah. So coming to you live from a very, very rainy, and dismal looking Riga. Haven't had chance to see any of the city yet. I literally liked it out of the hotel, got a, an Uber straight to the hotel, got some food because I've not eaten for a few hours, which is a long time for me. Did some prep for for the live stream, and and here we are. It's been a bit of busy old morning, mate. How about how's things for you?
[00:02:59] Unknown:
Less hectic, actually. Managed to get everyone out the house relatively early today. Set myself into the sofa here and, yeah, got a coffee on. Feeling relaxed.
[00:03:11] Unknown:
Looking forward to recording. I've just had, like I think it's my fifth coffee of the day. Oh, nice. While we're on here. Yeah. It's it's, 4PM local time, five coffees deep. I'm sure I'm probably still gonna crash and burn come, Yeah. Come, like, 8PM. Early starts are, I mean, I'm I'm no stranger to an early start, but, I think this was an exception early. Yes. Yes. It was indeed. We should also mention that there's only two voices on, on this stream so far. Seth is not gonna be with us today, due to some family commitments, which we well, he can he can discuss those at a later date. But, yeah, just the two of us flying solo.
I think I was thinking about this earlier when I just sat grabbing some food, like, thirty minutes ago. We've probably done more Freedom Set Fridays with just two of us than we have with all of us together since we started. It's like Seth said on the last one, it's been just really terrible timing when you start things in the summer holidays, I guess.
[00:04:12] Unknown:
Yeah. There's been, sorry. I got distracted there. I had a a message from an absolute lunatic just, blowing me up with a billion questions, and I let my eyes go across. So I missed that. And then I did a pretend last laugh to act as if I could hear what you said. You have to repeat that, but I just gotta be honest.
[00:04:31] Unknown:
No problem. No problem. We we can move on from it. It's it was nothing of, of any substance, but, I suppose I should do the intro stuff. We've we've been waffling it. And as you Yeah. In case you can't tell, guys, I'm a bit I'm a bit tired. So I'm I'm hoping Max is gonna bring the energy here and, and carry us through. But, just checking the livestream. Hello to Jordan. Good day, mate. So I'm not sure where the the Australian thing's come from, unless that's a different Jordan. And, also hello to b t wrestle. Nice to have you with us, in the YouTube live chat. Welcome.
Yeah. If this is your first time listening, welcome to Freedom Set Friday. This is our weekly livestream where we go live on Twitter, Nosta, and on the YouTubes. Look at that. I'm a terrible podcaster. My phone's going off. Why? My phone's going off. I didn't put it on mute. I'll never I'll never get the the podcast to cry on, will I? But it's it's on mute now, anyway. Okay. Or one of my phones, should I say. One of many. And, yeah, welcome to Freedom Set Friday. This is a weekly livestream. We go live at 9AM eastern, 2PM, to oh, Dojo Code. It's in the chat. Nice to see you, Pavel. Oh, I'm just off the line.
Yeah. Nice to see you. First time in the live chat, but, nice to have you here, mate. Yeah. We go live every Friday, 9AM, eastern, 2PM UK time. Or if you're in Riga, like I am, it's currently 4PM. And, yeah, unacceptable queue. Yeah. Apologies, BTS wrestle. I'm a I'm a I can't even say I'm jet lagged. I'm just tired. Just tired. Just old and tired. Tired. Yeah. Old and tired. Yeah. I'm feeling it at the moment. Free and Set Friday is our livestream chat where we, we cover off the latest and greatest or or not so greatest as as today's topic is gonna be, much the same as last week, where we we keep up to date on, you know, the the the the things that are happening in the FreedomTech industry. That might be Bitcoin, might be Monero, might be just anything that's FreedomTech related that, you know, is is related to your kind of online and digital, sovereignty, essentially. We we kinda cover that sort of stuff. We usually kick off, the show with a news topic. This week will be the same as last week. We're talking about the tornado cash, result as we now we know we now have a verdict.
And then the second part of the show, we we talk about well, we take some, listener questions. We have lots of questions posted ahead of time from people responding on Twitter and on Nosta to our post. So thank you so much to everybody that does, post those. You are a big, big part of the chat. Sorry. A big, big part of the show. I've got a list as long as my arm of things that we we we have to to kind of get through. We're never gonna get through them all. Obviously, we we also have, a live chat. You can comment on Twitter, you can comment on YouTube, or you can post in the Nostal Live chat as well. If you have any questions for us, anything free and tech related is fair game. And, yeah, we'll we'll always prioritize the the people that are kind enough to join us in the live chat to, Yeah. You know, to post their questions, and then we'll get to the ones that are posted ahead of time after that.
Now before, we we dive into the Tornado Cash stuff, Max, I believe we have a prize available for the livestream,
[00:07:43] Unknown:
attendees this week. That's right. We have an incredible prize this week, an incredible prize from Jordan. So thank you very, very much, Jordan. This time on Freedom Tech Friday, we are giving away a Watchmen torch subscription. So that's Gabriel Custodia from Watchmen privacy with his Watchmen torch. It's a, I think, a biweekly newsletter, isn't it? Everyone that I've spoken to who has read through this and subscribed to it absolutely loves it. I hear so many good things about it. So, I think the value of this or at least the pricing of this is about $200. The value I don't think you can put a value on freedom. So for for anyone who is listening and would like to get your hands on that, all you need to do is share the stream when it goes live. So if you haven't already shared it, you need to do that now.
You need to comment in the live chat, and you need to send in an XMR chat, which you can use XMR, BTC, or USDT. So if you follow those three steps, you are entered in, and we will do we choose we choose live, won't we? Live live questions.
[00:09:00] Unknown:
Yeah. As long as we were able to validate that they've ticked all the boxes. I'm sure Jordan's well, I know Jordan's in the live chat, so I know he's listening live. So, hopefully, he can, he can assist to to double. He can he can, double check. He can do the producer thing and and check that, the best question has met all the criteria. But, yeah. Yeah. Go on. Carry on. Well, we can we can,
[00:09:19] Unknown:
we can trust rather than verify. And then if someone lies, we'll just do them in. We'll just do it that way.
[00:09:26] Unknown:
Yeah. We are coming around to your house, and we're gonna verify you personally.
[00:09:30] Unknown:
We will. Yeah. So just just be honest. But, yeah, incredible prize. Thank you very much, to Jordan for, organizing that and also to the watchman torch and to Gabriel for, putting out such a great newsletter.
[00:09:45] Unknown:
And a great podcast. And a great podcast. And a great guy. Friend of the show. He he is a great guy. Friend of the show. Speaking of friends of the show, we've also got dads in the livestream. He's he's commented on Twitter. Hi, John.
[00:10:00] Unknown:
Hey, pups.
[00:10:02] Unknown:
As is Observer in the live chat as well. Thanks for stopping by, friend. Yeah. Thank you. Right now we've got the formalities out of the way, mate. Shall we, dive into the news topic of the week, tornado cash once again?
[00:10:16] Unknown:
Yeah. Let let's get into it. I I wish that there wasn't two horrible things running side by side at the same time and, like, two weeks back to back with all the samurai stuff in this, but it is what it is. I guess we have to dive into it. Like you said, we've like, this whole show is about using Freedom Tech and trying to enrich your life using it, and that's pushing one way, but there's always the other force, the dark force pushing the other way, trying to take your freedoms away and take the freedoms away of the people that try and give you freedom. And we need to cover that too. So, yeah, let's get into it.
[00:10:55] Unknown:
Yeah. Indeed. It it's been quite the quite the fortnight really for for FreedomTech enthusiasts and and not a great one if I'm being honest. Obviously, we we covered off the the samurai. Well, it's not really a verdict, is it? The guys, you know, understandably kind of, played their cards. They took the the plea, which we covered off the the details of last week. If you don't know what we're talking about, go ahead and listen back, after this on, on the Ungovernable podcast feed. You can get yourselves fully up to speed on that. As we recorded last week, the jury was out for deliberation, on the the tornado cash case. So that was kind of left as a, you know, an open ended story, essentially. And, this week, we have found, or the the jury did come to a verdict on the three different accounts of which Roma Storm was charged off.
We can go into whether or not we see this as a positive or a negative maybe afterwards once I've covered off the basics, because I'm sure there's some there's some hot takes from me, from you, and from the the people in the live chat as well as I'm keen to get, the thoughts of the people in the live chat to see, you know, how they see this as well. I'm gonna be, giving you, you know, a bit of an info on on the results of the case. Once again, huge, huge shout out for, for the people, all the guys at The Rage, therage.co.
The coverage that they've done on both of these, cases, the samurai case and the tornado cash case has been outstanding. They are you know, they don't have any sponsorships. They don't have any official funding. These guys, you know, do this, I guess, out of the goodness of their hearts. Obviously, they are available to take domains. That's take domains. Jesus Christ. I'm tired. They are, available to take Donations. Donations. Indeed. Thank you. The rage.c0/ donate, I believe, urge people to, you know, to go and support our work because they are doing really good things over there and making sure that the industry is aware of essentially, you know, reporting back that we're all under attack, albeit somewhat indirectly for most people listening to this. But it is an attack nonetheless.
So, yeah, the guilty the guilty. Jesus Christ.
[00:13:20] Unknown:
You're alright. You're alright.
[00:13:23] Unknown:
I'm gonna get there. I'm gonna get there. I'm like I say, coffee number five is gonna hit in a minute, and, hopefully, I'll be able to speak properly. The, the jury found, Roman Storm guilty of unlicensed money transmission conspiracy this week. So after nearly a four week, proceeding, the jury has found, the Tornado Cash cofounder, Roman Storm, guilty on one count of conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business under 18 US criminal code section nineteen sixty. But this is a very interesting point. The jury could not reach a decision on the charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering, and this the the other charge was to violate US sanctions.
So the the result on those two counts is essentially I I believe it's just considered a mistrial. So before we kind of jumped to to celebrate that they weren't found guilty on those two counts, What that means, if I understand correctly, and correct me if if I'm wrong here, Matt, is that whilst, yes, obviously, the jury did not find him guilty of conspiracy to commit money laundering or to violate US sanctions, that doesn't mean he's completely out of the woods for those two charges. The effective mistrial or the inability of the jury to, come to a unanimous decision on whether or not he's guilty against those charges, means that, yes, he's not found guilty of them yet, but the the, Southern District Of New York, the people who are the prosecutors in this case can, if they choose to do so, try him again, at another trial on those counts.
We have no idea whatsoever as to whether they will pursue that or whether they'll just kind of sit back and take, the result that we're gonna go into in a second as a kind of as a win and just, you know, let the case rest. So, what, Roman Stone was found guilty of, the the 1960 count, the the kind of conspiracy to, operate an unlicensed money transmission carries a maximum sentence of five years. I believe, sentencing is gonna take place, around the same time as the the samurai developers, which will be in around October. Although I've I'm that's just conjecture at the moment. I've not seen anything in writing to confirm when those dates are, but given that this was tried in the same jurisdiction, that and the the the case obviously happening around the same sort of time as the samurai devs, case was, was taking place that, you know, inevitably, the the decision or the the the sentencing the official sentencing will take place around the same time. If that becomes clear, obviously, we'll report back afterwards.
But the TLDR here is he was found guilty on one of the three counts. It carries a maximum prison sentence of five years. And one thing that, I you know, clearly, I was feeling a bit dejected after this because I I don't wanna see open source developers, under fire at all or or even face potential prison centers, which both of them are, of up to five years. I saw this, you know, essentially, as a little bit of a win, because, like, it it could have been much worse. Yeah. That doesn't mean to say that I'm, you know, happy that he's only been charged guilty of of one of the counts. And the other thing that I'm kind of positive on or maybe I'm reading too much into this and, you know, keen to get your feedback here as well. But the fact that the jury didn't kind of quickly say, oh, yeah. He's, guilty of the other two charges, the sanctions evasion and the, the money laundering charges, means that whilst I was very pessimistic around the ability of essentially just common people who Normal people. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. They're they're not familiar with with how crypto works, with how tornado cash works, to be specific.
But they didn't just see what the prosecutor said and jump to a, you know, a knee jerk decision of, oh, look. He, you know, he's got a washing machine t shirt on and, you know, he he clearly has a an ulterior motive here. Let's find him guilty. So looking at the positives of this, I think that that well, yeah, I think that that is a positive. Again, we're not out of the woods yet because this could go back to trial for those two counts. That is TBC at the moment. And the other positive that I drew from this was that I saw one of the news reports. It wasn't from The Rage, I believe. It was one of the other ones whose name is, eluding me at the moment who managed to grab a quick comment from Roma Storm after the case where and I'm paraphrasing here. I don't have the tweet the the tweet from the the reporter in front of me. But, they got a quick comment from Roma Storm, and he essentially says something to the effect of, yeah. I'm feeling positive.
The, the the the charge that he was found guilty of, he believes it to be bullshit, and they're gonna appeal it and they're gonna fight it. Now whether or not you know, I I have no idea how successful that appeal is gonna be, but the the main positive drawing from that is that, you know, the spirit that Roman storm is showing here. Yeah. You know, he's got the weight of the US government leaning down on him, and he he, you know, he he had the the wherewithal to be, you know, not joking about it, but but being kind of, you know, upbeat enough to be like, yeah. This is bullshit. We're we're gonna fight it. So I'm trying to look at the positives here, but also being cognizant of the the potential negatives that could, come down the pipe, later on. Broken of spirit.
Yeah. Indeed. That's a great way to summarize it. But, yeah, I'm gonna shut up for a minute and just see what your thoughts are.
[00:19:13] Unknown:
Well, yeah, I mean, similar. The fact they haven't broken his spirit is, is a big one because, as you say, having having them lean on you is no fun at all like unimaginable stress that comes from that so, just shows how tough, him and, samurai have been through all of this like to to go through all of it and come out the other side is is very, very painful thing to go through. And to do that with a smile on your face is is pretty incredible. And, yeah, like you say, with the, with the jury, that is a big one because bullshit baffles brains. And if you have a slick lawyer up there, trying to act as if these people are criminals and doing something wrong, it's easy to point at some basic stuff that could baffle people.
But the fact that they've actually sat through and they've understood the basics of it enough to at least not make a unanimous, like, guilty, that is more than I expected as well. So I think that's really good. I think that at least there's, like, a bit of a message is going out there that it's like, that was unstoppable code. That was something that couldn't be controlled, and, that it's just a tool effectively. So, I think that's definitely positive when it comes to all the legal stuff and what can be appealed and what can't be appealed and all the rest of it and how likely things are. I have no fucking idea. So, you know, I'm not even gonna pretend that I have an opinion on that, but, just wish him all the best and we'll keep covering it and, keep covering all the ways to keep some freedom and keep some privacy with all this shit going on and try and not let it sort of get the the focus of all of our attention because it's you know, whichever way you look at it, it's not it's not great. It's not positive stuff.
[00:21:12] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. Indeed. And the other thing I'm kind of torn on here and and Dojo Code is in the in the YouTube chat here, you know, put put it quite eloquently that it's not exactly the same result as as the samurai case, because Roman because this is a a jury verdict, Roman has and has confirmed that he's going to has the opportunity to appeal this. So all is not lost in terms of the, the charge that he was found guilty of, the the unlicensed money transmission. So that's the kind of positive side of things. The the negative side of things, and this is where I put my tinfoil hat on a little bit, is that if he doesn't appeal or he appeals and then, doesn't win the appeal, the kind of legal precedent that is set here where we we've said this once again. I'm gonna repeat myself here because it, you know, it it it's prudent to do so, is that he's found guilty of unlicensed money transmission despite it being, just like samurai, a noncustodial tool where Tornado Cash and Samurai had zero control of any user funds at any point.
They all, they both followed the FinCEN guidance of, you know, they are not custodial. They they don't control user funds. So FinCEN, the the actual kind of, regulator for this portion of the industry, deemed them to not be or cannot be licensed as a money transmitter, but the jury still found him, guilty of unlicensed money transmission. So if I'm kind of looking at it through a negative lens, like, that could set a very dangerous precedent here where, yes, Samurai and Tornado Cash were both, I guess, privacy focused software. You know, the the main crooks of or or the main you know, why you would use that tool is to improve your privacy when you're using Ethereum or or Bitcoin.
They they followed all the guidance. FinCEN was even consulted by the prosecution, in at least one of the cases with with the Tornado Cash. I'm not sure whether they were in the samurai case as well. But that was not able to be included, into into the the case itself or into the trial, should I say, which is absolutely abhorrent if you ask me. Like, these guys did all they they could in terms of, you know, following the guidance from the regulator within the industry, and they're still you know, in the tornado cash case, there's a jury still found them guilty of that, which it's difficult for me to wrestle with because, like, what more could they have done in terms of following the rules unless, you know, in in the tornado cash case, he's still be found guilty.
[00:24:06] Unknown:
It's classic. Like, it's what we've said for so many years, though, isn't it? It's like with the legal system, they own the pens, they own the ink, and they own the hands that move them, and they can make them move anywhere they want. And this this is why you use the tech rather than trying to rely on legal systems because they do whatever the fuck they want. What whatever they whatever they want, that's what happens. I mean, at the end of the day, you're relying on a system that does not want you to be free. It's why most of us are here. They do not want you to have privacy. They do not want you to have freedom. They do not want you to have money that doesn't devalue. They do not want you to have any of the things that we had a hundred years ago. Any of the freedoms we had, They do not want you to have a strong family. They do not want you to have any of the things that you should have as a human being.
And, you can't rely on these systems to keep you free. And and that's why it's so important for all of this freedom tech, but the people who are popping their heads up and building it are putting themselves under immense amounts of, risk and stress and everything else as we can see here. So, it's for everyone who cares about this to support them, fund them, do what we can, and and go about it sensibly as well because, otherwise, this tiny little corner of the Internet, which is getting smaller and smaller, even in the Bitcoin, Twitter world, it's like there's only a few of us who seem to actually care and everyone else has got going off and using ETFs and just caring about n g u and making stupid little fucking dance videos on Twitter and whatever else they're doing and thinking they're changing the world and they're not, the people who are are put in fucking courtrooms and handcuffs and treated like criminals, and it's disgusting.
So, I don't know what I'm trying to say there, but it's just I'm a bit pissed off with the whole thing. It's, yeah, you can't rely on legal systems, basically.
[00:26:12] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. Good summary. There's two final things I wanna say just to wrap up up this, portion of the show, really, is that, number one, obviously, Roma Storm is committed to to fight this and to appeal the the guilty charge. That's gonna cost a shit ton of money. So he's obviously gonna need help and funding to to be able to fight that because I'm I'm sure and I'm not I'm not 100% certain on this, but I'm sure all of his or most of his assets would have been in cryptocurrency and have probably been frozen, and he's not able to use them in any legal proceedings just like with the the samurai case. So please please please, like, if you, you know, consider yourself even 1% of a kind of FreedomTech and, and sovereignty kind of enthusiast, please please, you know, look to assist, the the the funding of that appeal via, the links that hopefully Jordan's gonna be able to drop into the show notes for us after this. I don't have the links to hand.
But, yeah, consider donating to the to the Roman storm case so that he can continue to to fight this appeal or, you know, fight the the guilty verdict with the appeal. And, yeah, the final piece as well, which, again, you could look at as a a very, very minor positive, is that the the prosecution in this case actually moves to try and remand Roman Storm, until he was sentenced, which could be another couple of months as we've we've mentioned earlier in the show. Naturally, the defense, fought that and said that, you know, there's absolutely no reason for this guy to be remanded in prison while he's awaiting sentence, especially given that they're gonna appeal that.
Thankfully, the judge, she lent on the on the side of the defense and agreed that, Romasol is not a a flight a flight risk. He's attended all of the hearings, all of the the the trial dates, etcetera, and she didn't deem it proper to to remand him into custody, whilst he's, awaiting the the sentencing. So at least he he's able to be with his family whilst he's, you know, undoubtedly going through an immense amount of turmoil, but, you know, I guess he can take solace in the fact that he's around his family at least for the next couple of months.
[00:28:26] Unknown:
Yeah. Well, shout out to him and his family and Samrai and his family and T Dev and his family. And, huge respect to everyone who's, put in all this work for so many years to to help other people be free, and, we're all sending love to you. Should we jump into some maybe more positive stuff, some things that we can control, some comments, some questions, give a little bit of a pushback, bit of a fight back?
[00:29:00] Unknown:
Yeah. Absolutely. Let's, let's try and spin this into somewhat of a positive. Quick reminder before I dive into the presubmitted questions. If you are in the live chat on Twitter, Nosta, or on YouTube, and you have, you know, some comments around the sort of cash case or the the samurai case or any topics related to anything to do with Freedom Tech, then, please do, please do, you know, drop those into the into the live chat, and we'll we'll jump on those, and take let those take priority. In the meantime, we we have a couple of questions.
One was presubmitted ironically by somebody that is in the live chat. It comes from BTC wrestle. Thank you for your question. It is related to to what we've just been talking about. BTC wrestle commented on Nosta, and they asked, is there any implications from the Tornado Cash trial for LSPs, lightning service providers, and Lightning node runners due to, quote, money transmission. Mhmm. I I'll take the the first, swing at this one. Ultimately, the TLDR answer is we have no idea. If I again, trying to be positive here, my guess is that they probably won't actively or at least in the short term, they probably won't target people that aren't kind of who whose main business is to try and give users privacy, on, you know, what whichever chain or or, you know, type of cryptocurrency that they're dealing with, which it was essentially what what samurai wallet or more specifically Whirlpool and Tornado Cash was for. I I struggle to to wrestle with the fact that they're gonna go out and do that. I might be completely wrong, and maybe I'm trying to look at this too optimistically.
If I was pushed a little bit more, I would say that, yeah, LSPs are clearly gonna be more at risk than, you know, like, you know, runners like you or I or anybody listening to this because that they're very different, aren't they? LSPs are centralized entities who are making money. You know, it is their business to, I guess, essentially relay transactions, but the it's not strictly speaking. The main reason that they do that is is to give users privacy. That is kinda like a byproduct of using something like, I don't know, the Zeus LSP or the Phoenix LSP is that because of some of the Lightning Network properties, you can again, there's a lot of asterisks asterisks and caveats around that with with Lightning as we always mention.
So it's not out of the rounds of possibility that they could target LSPs. I just don't think they're gonna be in the regulator's crosshairs as the next target. I think the the if I was to, you know, put my ugly regulator's hat on, there's probably much more lower hanging front fruits for for those sorts of people than going after somebody like Phoenix who who operates in LSP. But what do you think, Max? I'd agree. No. I would totally agree. I mean, it's pretty
[00:31:58] Unknown:
pretty, like, open and obvious, and they're a business, and they can go and knock on their door and all that kind of stuff. Like, there are there were many, like you say, lower hanging fruit and and definitely lower hanging fruit than actual node runners running your own nodes at home or wherever else. That's I'm not saying that's not gonna happen. Who fucking knows? But, I think if you are using Lightning, that would be the way to go. And, you know, I think you're not at any sort of risk at this point in time. Like, there's there's nothing to say that you shouldn't be doing that, so I wouldn't personally be worried.
[00:32:42] Unknown:
Yeah. In indeed. And in terms of, like, practicalities focusing in on on Lightning node runners just like webs like you and I, the the practicality of targeting those types of people, like That's a lot. 90% of nodes yeah. Exactly. 90% of of nodes are run behind Tor. They're not like an advertised service. You know, if you get a couple of sats via routing Yeah. You know, say you've got a channel to Phoenix or something like that and another player breached their transaction through you or for whatever reason, you earn two sats as a as a routing fee. Like, it's almost impossible to be able to be specifically targeted in in that kind of arena, I I would say.
[00:33:26] Unknown:
Yeah. And it's also you're looking at, like, volumes. You know, there's about £7 on, on lightning on the whole network. So, I like, I don't I just don't see that that is and and it's very centralized what there is on there as well. So they would hit the the more centralized, the bigger entities first. It's, you know, it's game whack a mole. They're gonna go for the, for the big things first. And yeah. You know, earning a couple of sets and then spending a couple of sets and you're doing that on your raspberry pie and your cupboards or whatever it's like now you, I don't think so.
[00:34:01] Unknown:
Yeah. Indeed. Indeed. Thanks for your question, BT Russell. That was a good one. I'm very, aligned with what we've been talking about over the pa the course of the past couple of weeks. Also somewhat aligned as well. Again, apologies if I I pronounce your your handle wrong, but zay ZaykaBoy?
[00:34:19] Unknown:
ZaykaBoy. Yeah.
[00:34:20] Unknown:
Yeah. Their quote is, obviously, with the persecution of Tornado Cash and samurai devs, anonymity is a must as is decentralization. Now the Ashigaru team have stepped up and taken the baton. Could we push for smaller denominations in the terminal? $0.2.0.025 or 2,500,000.0 sats, as a minimum is too rich for most plebs, which is probably why there is just 18 BTC whirling about. Also, is the plans for a more organized and easily accessible launch for personal nodes? Smaller denominations and easier access to running the new Whirlpool will surely benefit privacy adoption.
Max, if you could take the first one. Yeah. I'm just I'm just gonna quickly run for a piss. So give me, yeah, sixty seconds while you feel some dead air for me. So professional. I love that.
[00:35:14] Unknown:
Yeah. I think, you know, we've covered this, quite extensively about the denominations. They've gone for the larger denominations, I think, at least, so that they don't have loads of support questions and things like that as people who maybe have been around and have some Whirlpool, post mix that they wanna put back through, all that kind of stuff. But that is just me speculating, because we don't know how big their team is and what they can handle. My suggestion would be for people is if you want the smaller denominations and be able to mix on the way down, you can do that, but you just do that outside of, outside of Ashigaru. So you might do that with, like, swaps into Monero or something like that, or you just wait until those come about.
If people want to mix smaller amounts at the moment, obviously, it would be nice, but, I'd rather see a team deliver and deliver well, and that's what they've done. We don't know how much funding they have. We don't know how many people are involved. I'm sure they're doing everything they can. So, we'll see. You know? We'll we'll see what happens. And then when it comes to, making it easier to run nodes, I mean, we had Jordan on last week. He's put a huge amount of work in so that people can run, Dojo on a start nine. He also put in a huge amount of work and and others as well. So, shout out to everyone who was involved, but, he's been my, obviously, point of contact for all of this stuff. And he's also made it so that the Ashigara terminal can run there as well. So, that's running all the time. Mhmm. It's very simple to use. It's simple enough that I did it on a phone call when it went live with Jordan on a podcast and mixed, and it worked. So, like, if I can do it, literally any fucking person listening to this can do it. So, you know, I think we've come a really a really long way.
Huge amount of respect to that team for doing all of this, especially with everything that we're talking about. You're much braver than me. And, yeah, I I think the fact that we have it available, with all the darkness that we see, like, that is a shining light of, like, wow. Here are some people who are willing to stand up and fight, and they've made something incredible, that I've had no problems with so far. It's been very, very good. And, just don't expect too much too quickly, is all I would say. Like, there are tools out there. If you wanna do smaller denominations, there are other ways. But, you know, obviously, the the larger amounts that you put in, then the less you're gonna pay on fees anyway or as a percentage of what you put in. So, yeah, it's it swings around the house.
[00:38:15] Unknown:
Yeah. I I don't really have anything major to add there other than, obviously, I have no direct line into the the Ashigaru team, whoever they may be. But, I was gonna say it's nascent software, but, like, Whirlpool's been around for quite a while, but it's a nascent team. They're clearly, you know, and and understandably acting in a slow and steady type of way. And I don't doubt that if, the the ecosystem and the kind of, I guess, yeah, I guess the ecosystem continues to to grow and stand the test of time, the the user base will grow and that demand will will continue to to increase and the smaller pool will come in time, which will obviously, without a doubt, add to or improve the availability to to plebs who don't have millions and millions of stats floating around, and they just wanna get some privacy.
But, yeah, as you said, you know, there's there's already software available, albeit side loaded through, through Start nine. It just again, I don't wanna use the cringe term of we're early in terms of, Ashigaro, but it it's kinda true. You just gotta, you know, let the team do what they do. We're living in very uncertain terms with regards to to Bitcoin and cryptocurrency privacy. So just let them do what they do and support, in any which way that you can, I guess?
[00:39:40] Unknown:
Yeah. Doing things like this, which are not easy, when everything sunshine and rainbows is one thing, but when there's real risk and you're being hunted and attacked constantly, that's a completely different story. And, when you're not public and people don't see your face and you're not taking funding and VC money and all the other stuff, things just, they move a little bit slower. It's just how it is. They don't have social media. They don't have any of that kind of stuff, which helps promote and bring more money in and, and would probably help them be able to develop faster. And when they do put something out, they have to be extremely careful because not only are they hunted by regulators and law enforcement and everything like that, they're also constantly under attack by a load of fucking retards on Twitter, questioning everything that they do, trying to create fard. They have to be ready and have everything in order so that they can, respond and, point out what is fair and what isn't fair. And so it's just a constant battle for that team, all the time. So, yeah, we'll we'll think more more will come, but I'm very, very happy with what I've seen so far.
[00:40:59] Unknown:
Yeah. Likewise. Thanks for your question, z Zikaboy. Next one comes from Jin, who is, part of the hashtag forty hours per week crowd. I can't remember whether this one came on via Twitter or. I know he's on both. But, his question is, I'm gonna let you take this one first, Max, is I'm curious on each of your paths. Let's say you have a close friend who you finally convinced to be more private and sovereign. Where do you tell them to start? Is it buying a pixel, installing GrapheneOS, or is it buying KYC BTC and then using Whirlpool, or is it a place like LocalBitcoins or into the mining space?
So a very wide ranging question here, but, like, what what's your if you you're trying to, I don't wanna say orange pill because this isn't specifically a Bitcoin question, but if you're trying to kind of freedom tech pill one of your friends, like, where do you you tell them to start?
[00:41:56] Unknown:
Honestly, like, none of that. Mine would be if I had a friend who who genuinely understood, like, okay, there is a at least there is a need for some privacy, and there's a need for some money that can be used like cash. It would be in my situation. Look, if you want some, come to me, I'll sell you some because I've always gotta eat and pay for family stuff and whatever else. And, I would sell them Bitcoin and I would do it for cash. And I would, the biggest thing I would teach them is not go and get a pixel and go and download this app and go and get all technical. It would be have this shut up.
Don't talk to anyone. Just shut up. Buy it from me. Be quiet. That's it. That's the number one advice. Like, all this other privacy stuff, half the stuff that I've done in the past using different software and applications and jumping through hoops and trying to buy KYC, and then that's a mistake. And then I'll try to whirlpool it, and now that could be a problem because of x and what. Like, it's all it's all a fucking stressful thing to get involved in. The number one thing is buy with cash. Shut up. That's it.
[00:43:15] Unknown:
Yeah. I think that's, a great way to to kind of summarize it. It's like keeping it simple because it's it's very, very easy to get overwhelmed when you come to this sovereignty space because you you you see a million and one things and you see, like, turbo nerds like us talking about all sorts of stuff like pixels, graphene, Whirlpool, joint market, lightning, Monero, yada yada yada. Like, if you see all that and, like, that's enough to turn anybody off straight away, especially if they're coming from very much, like, with two feet in the normal world where, you know, they've they've got their MacBook and they use Gmail and all the the the typical stuff. Like, so for me, I guess well, obviously, cosign everything that Max just said.
If I was to be more specific and say, I'm gonna do give one answer for Bitcoin stuff and then give one answer for more kind of sovereignty stuff. The Bitcoin one would be, other than just, like, offering to sell them their first stats, obviously, that goes without saying, would be to just try out, like, you know, just a noncustodial app. You know, just get used to handling some private keys. Doesn't need to be a hardware wallet. It could just be, you know, a noncustodial wallet like, you know, Envoy or Ashigaru or Spiro or Cake Wallet or anything like that. Just get used to that, you know, being sovereign in terms of holding your own money and go have them go through the recovery process because that that is the light bulb moment for a lot of people is, you know, they receive some stats on, say, Envoy, and then they punch these 12 words into k quality. And it's like, holy shit. The money just turned up. And these two apps are, like, completely unrelated.
And I didn't have to do anything other than type these work these these two words in. If you can get some quick wins like that, I always find that it really helps people, feel like they've achieved something and then want to take that next step. So that would be my kind of Bitcoin answer. And then in terms of the more broader, I guess, just digital or online sovereignty would be not even getting them to, like, switch operating system. Like, let's be honest. Most people in the Western world, they're probably gonna have an iPhone, you know, or even if they've just got an Android phone, it's probably gonna be like a freaking a Samsung with all of the the spyware in there. Yeah. I wouldn't even say, oh, you need to go and buy this phone and install the software. I'd just be like, okay.
What's the one thing that you want to be more private in your general digital life? And most people are gonna be like, oh, you know, my my web browsing or or my messaging. I should be like, okay. Well, go and download Signal. And instead of you and I chatting on, okay, I don't know, Facebook Messenger or something, let's use Signal. It's end to end encrypted. It's really, really easy to use. You it works off your phone number in a private way, and you can, you know, drastically improve your your, I guess, I I don't know how to call it, but your your kind of message based privacy.
[00:46:06] Unknown:
Mhmm.
[00:46:07] Unknown:
And and it's it's an easy win because, you know, when if you pick the right app and Signal is a great example of this, then, it's not gonna be hard for even the the the normiest of normies to just put their phone number into Signal and start messaging people. Like, the UI is essentially the same as WhatsApp or anything like that, but it's much, much more private. And, yeah, we've got a great comment from BC Russell here in the in the YouTube chat is, delete your Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, etcetera etcetera is a good first step for normies privacy wise. Whilst I agree, that's probably a step too far for most people because all of the apps that you just mentioned are where they spend most of their digital life. So just telling them to delete those without having a replacement, Again, it's it might be too much. It might be enough to turn those people off.
And, yeah, Absurdian is also in the YouTube chat. I am actually agreeing with you. Best advice, s t f u, apply to everything. I couldn't have said it better myself.
[00:47:04] Unknown:
Yeah. It's it's what you learn over time.
[00:47:10] Unknown:
Yeah. It's it's honestly, it's a superpower, especially, you know, when you start getting into the the Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency, in this or ecosystem, not not necessarily even working it working in it, just like holding some funds. Like, it's a superpower just keeping you gobshot. Like, that is one of the biggest privacy tools you can ever have is that the fewer people that know you have Bitcoin or or similar, the better. You know? You just you just protect yourself from so much shit by just not spouting off about stuff.
[00:47:39] Unknown:
Before we move on to this question don't even know you have it yourself.
[00:47:43] Unknown:
Yeah. Indeed. Indeed. Yeah. Before we move on on from this question, because it is a really good one, I'm gonna kick this one back to you. I gave two answers, one for Bitcoin or cryptocurrency and one for kind of digital sovereignty in terms of, like, singular app. On the sovereignty one, other than signal, obviously, because I've mentioned that, what what other one would you think would be similar to that that you could think, okay. Just go and download this and just, you know, you'll get a marked improvement, and it's not gonna be a massive hurdle. Is there anything else that's kinda springing to mind?
[00:48:13] Unknown:
One app?
[00:48:15] Unknown:
Yeah. Or or a couple of apps. So what what what what springs to your mind? I'd probably
[00:48:20] Unknown:
say get a VPN.
[00:48:22] Unknown:
Yeah. And that's exactly where I was lead the path I was leading you down. Thank you. Go on. Elaborate.
[00:48:27] Unknown:
Yeah. And I'd probably say get a VPN like, I like Mullvad. I think it's really good. You can pay in Bitcoin. I'd probably say, look. I'll sell you some Bitcoin for cash. That that pays for my diesel. Lovely jubbly. Now you have some Bitcoin. Now let's use it because that's what it's for at the end of the day. Why don't you get a mobile subscription? I think you can pay, you know, every sort of thirty days or you can do small amounts. So there's your first test. And now just have that on your phone and your laptop, and suddenly you're in a much better position, or most likely to be in a much better position than you previously were for not a lot of money. I would say that's a good one. And and one final thing, which isn't really, it's not an app and it's it's not like Bitcoin specific, but I would say when you are getting someone involved in this stuff, be clear about who you're speaking to and what they really want and and make sure that they're clear about what they really want as well. Because Bitcoin used correctly and privately is very different to Bitcoin that's, like, white listed. And in the coin base slash banking ecosystem, they're very, very different, and they don't play nicely together.
So be clear that there are these two different groups and be clear that, great. If you wanna be very private and you wanna use Whirlpool and you wanna bounce between lightning channels and you wanna buy in cash and you don't wanna have receipts and you want it to be, off the books, understand that that is different to you sat there going, oh, one day I wanna buy a Lambo and I'm gonna hold this. And I'm gonna be all private now, but I wanna buy the Lambo because good fucking luck buying your Lambo with these sats that you've had through Whirlpool and everything else. Because when you go to the dealership and you wanna cash out your Bitcoin for dollars, you're gonna have AML KYC. Where's the funds from? You can't buy it. You're not part of our club.
They are totally, totally different. So if anything and people maybe get annoyed by me saying this, but have two different pools. If if you want some of that's investment and you wanna buy some stuff in the real world that really matters, cars and houses and whatever else that's, like, has to be AML, it's gotta be different. And if you wanna operate in the Bitcoin world, that's a separate thing as well. They don't cross. You can't go back and forth easily. They're different worlds.
[00:51:09] Unknown:
Yeah. Well said. Well said. Thanks for your question, Jin. That was a that was a really good one. Next one, and this one comes from one of the previous shows because it's quite far down my list. It comes from Liberty Tools. What are your plans for an Internet where all of the major platforms slowly lock us out for failing to use KYC? This question feels very pertinent, especially for me, usually sat in The UK at the moment with all of the online online safety act, but it's also very applicable to to the EU at the moment with the, impending, chat control.
I'm not sure I have a great kind of answer for this one. The the first couple of things that spring to mind, and and Jordan's gonna roll his eyes here and I'm sure Max is going to as well, looking at it through the kind of social aspect. And by social, I don't just mean Twitter or or Twitter similar apps, is Nosta. And I know it's it's a bit of a of a Marmite topic, for for Bitcoiners, especially the the freedom, or the ungovernable crew. But I I I genuinely see a time in the not too distant future, again, especially for me as somebody that's in The UK and and also pertinent to eBiblebs, where Twitter is just gonna turn around and say, look. We need your ID.
So is Reddit. So is, you know, all of the the traditional platforms. And, you know, me personally, I'm just not willing to do that, and I'm just gonna have to go elsewhere. The way I see it right now, the only option I have to kind of interact with the people that I want to interact in a similar sort of fashion is Nostra at the moment. That's not to say that Nostra is perfect, but it you know, I can spin up, you know, a a an NSAC, a private key, and I can control that and import that into various different applications. Again, it doesn't have to be something like Primal or Amethyst where it's just a Twitter clone and I can just have a feed.
Like, the building blocks are there with with Nosta and the the kind of private key, infrastructure that is built on on top of for us to have much more. We can have Reddit clones. We can have, I don't know, if we can eBay clones and Facebook clones and forum clones and stuff like that. It's just they those things are just not fully built out yet. So I'm hopeful that something like that, you know, continues to grow, and I see it as one of the only viable options from a social aspect. You know, if I was to put my my my super thick tin foil hat on and say, you know, do I need you know, if we look to the future where I need an ID just to get online, I I honestly don't have an answer for how how I would react there. I guess the obvious one would be, you know, an alternative operating system like Graphene installed on something like a pixel hardware where I can then sideload applications so that I can go and use non backdoored, you know, end to end encrypted apps like Signal or something like that where I can sideload them. And I don't have to go through the Play Store, which, you know, inevitably, if that world ever becomes real, that I would also have to, you know, properly KYC and prove who I am. That's one of the only beacons of hope that that, you know, exists if things get really, really bad.
But, yeah, Max, I don't know whether you've got anything anything else tangible to to kind of add to that.
[00:54:36] Unknown:
Not really. I would say while you wait for all of that magical stuff to be built out, try and rely on handshakes and, you know, real world conversations and friends and family and people who are there in the real world or or people that you've met in this world are known for a long time, rely on that and, try and live less online if possible, where possible, and communicate that way. I know that's like a bit, old school, but, actually, most of the best conversations you have, most of the best interactions you have, most of the best deals you have, most of the best memories that you have are all offline.
[00:55:29] Unknown:
Yeah. That's a a great way to cap that that question off, to be honest with you, mate. And I'm glad you you kinda brought that side of things up. And, a a great way to segue is out of out of the show, really, because I I've gotta head out of the hotel very shortly, is that, you know, go out and meet like minded FreedomTech enthusiasts. You know, I'm here in Riga, and I'm I'm looking forward to to seeing some old friends, meeting some new ones, and and making some new connections, in the real world so that I can, you know, hopefully, for the time being at least, continue those online as well when I go back down to The UK. But, you know, the input the in person side of things is is very, very important, and that's where you make make those real connections.
But unless you've got anything else, Max, I'm gonna bring this one to a close. We're just about coming up on time, and I'm very, very, very shocked that we made it to the end of the hour, thanks to hotel Wi Fi. But, yeah, we It was incredible. We survived. Yeah. Once again, Seth, you were missed. Hope to see you back next week. Hope you and the family are well. And, thank you to everybody in the live chat, for your comments, and thank you to those that submitted your questions both in the live chat and ahead of time as well. You guys always keep us kind of, you know, you help keep the show going, and you help us, you know, produce this week after week, albeit not very often with three of us, but hopefully, that No. Might change next week. Give a giveaway? We we have to choose whoever,
[00:57:01] Unknown:
who's the winner of the giveaway.
[00:57:03] Unknown:
In indeed. I I don't know whether, Jordan's been keeping an eye on who's met the the criteria or not, but, maybe he can quickly comment in and we can fill some dead air for the last minute or two in case he's he's still online. I'm not sure whether he is.
[00:57:19] Unknown:
Yeah. Well, while while he's having a look if if he isn't, then we'll have to choose afterwards. But while we're waiting for him, what you're looking forward to, Enrique, the most?
[00:57:29] Unknown:
Is the thing you're particularly looking forward to? Good question. I'm I'm giving a talk on Bitcoin privacy, ironically, tomorrow, early in the morning, so not too much of a heavy night for me. If you are Enrica and you you're listening to this live, come and say hello. Stop by. Come and watch me do my talk. I believe it's on about, about 10AM, I think. With foundation, I've also got a booth there, so please feel free to stop by with these five, members of the team. Come and say hello. Shoot the shit with us. You can have a play around with Passport Core and Passport Prime. And, yeah, just come and have a chat. Other than that, the obvious one, just just looking forward to seeing some old friends.
Yeah. Some of my, you know, couple of my my, long standing Bitcoin friends, as I like as I like to call them, are are here. Two of them actually walked past the hotel window that I was sat in when I was prepping for the for this show, which is which is weird. They popped in to say hello, so I'm looking forward to seeing them. Spending some time with the team. I I Inevitably, as I'm gonna be manning the booth with the team, I probably won't get to see any talks, unfortunately, which is one of the the biggest pain points I have with, with the show, with the show. Jesus Christ. The time this is showing it is rearing it a little bit better.
With with conferences, is where when I'm there, I'm working. I I just don't get to see people talk. So, the the kind of nightlife and the socializing is is where I get to have my my outlet. So it'd probably be that. Just beers with Bitcoiners.
[00:58:57] Unknown:
Very nice. Okay, mate. Well, I hope you have a lovely time out there. I haven't heard anything from Jordan. Oh, hold on. Jordan, he's just messaging me. Let me just see just before we close out. He said, no one won, no XMR chats, scold the audience. Oof. You useless.
[00:59:24] Unknown:
Useless hunts. So we're gonna roll it over to next week. We're gonna have to, unfortunately,
[00:59:29] Unknown:
and we're coming up to the end. I'm gonna press my little thing before you cut it. Alright? This is the end.
[00:59:35] Unknown:
Thanks for coming, guys. We'll see you in five four three two one.
[00:59:40] Unknown:
Stay ungovernable.
Alright. I'm gonna hit the button now. Start streaming. Start recording. Alright. Everything looks good locally, so let's just do the usual checks. Yeah. I'll check the old Twitter.
[00:00:15] Unknown:
I'm refreshing YouTube.
[00:00:17] Unknown:
We are live on YouTube. ZapStream. We are live on ZapStream. Beautiful. Look at this. Just x or Twitter to confirm. We're live on Twitter as well.
[00:00:27] Unknown:
We're getting good at this, mate.
[00:00:29] Unknown:
We are. We are indeed. Yeah. Obviously, we'll do a bit a little bit small talk just to to let people roll in. If this one goes without a hitch from a technical perspective, I will be amazed, because, I'm hosting the stream from a hotel room in Riga having landed about, like, two hours ago. So it's been a bit of a, bit of a a bit of a hectic day, really. Began for me, with a 02:30AM alarm, which was which was a delight. Flew in via via Amsterdam. Had a a about an hour delay coming out of Amsterdam on the way to Riga. Absolutely
[00:01:08] Unknown:
blast in Amsterdam, then jumped on another plane.
[00:01:12] Unknown:
Yeah. I wish. No. It was I had, like, a one hour thirty layover, which I don't know if you ever ever flown through Amsterdam Airport, but that's about as tight as it gets, really. Yeah. Yeah. But luckily with the delay, I actually had more time than I, anticipated, but, obviously, you can't plan for that. On the way home, it's gonna be a different story. I'll I'll I'll do some live, tweeting and noting on that one because I've got a fifty five minute transfer on the way home on Monday. So visions of me running through Schiphol Airport on Monday morning to try and meet my, connection flight back to back to Manchester. I'm not holding out much hope as to whether I'm gonna make it or not. But, I mean, it you know, in theory, it must be possible because it wouldn't have sold me the flight otherwise, but who knows? They might have just done it for a laugh just to see. They'll just be watching you sprint through.
Let's see. Let's just completely fuck with this robot. Yeah. Just just see. Yeah. Just picture him. His his spinty little legs, peddling his peddling himself through Skiffle Airport. But, What was that cartoon where it's like,
[00:02:16] Unknown:
there's like the oh, Road Runner. You look like Road Runner. Oh, right.
[00:02:22] Unknown:
Yeah. That will literally be me at, like Yeah. I've got a pretty early flight back out on Monday, so it'll probably be me at, like, nine or 10AM in Schiphol Airport trying to make my connection flight to get back home. But, Yeah. So coming to you live from a very, very rainy, and dismal looking Riga. Haven't had chance to see any of the city yet. I literally liked it out of the hotel, got a, an Uber straight to the hotel, got some food because I've not eaten for a few hours, which is a long time for me. Did some prep for for the live stream, and and here we are. It's been a bit of busy old morning, mate. How about how's things for you?
[00:02:59] Unknown:
Less hectic, actually. Managed to get everyone out the house relatively early today. Set myself into the sofa here and, yeah, got a coffee on. Feeling relaxed.
[00:03:11] Unknown:
Looking forward to recording. I've just had, like I think it's my fifth coffee of the day. Oh, nice. While we're on here. Yeah. It's it's, 4PM local time, five coffees deep. I'm sure I'm probably still gonna crash and burn come, Yeah. Come, like, 8PM. Early starts are, I mean, I'm I'm no stranger to an early start, but, I think this was an exception early. Yes. Yes. It was indeed. We should also mention that there's only two voices on, on this stream so far. Seth is not gonna be with us today, due to some family commitments, which we well, he can he can discuss those at a later date. But, yeah, just the two of us flying solo.
I think I was thinking about this earlier when I just sat grabbing some food, like, thirty minutes ago. We've probably done more Freedom Set Fridays with just two of us than we have with all of us together since we started. It's like Seth said on the last one, it's been just really terrible timing when you start things in the summer holidays, I guess.
[00:04:12] Unknown:
Yeah. There's been, sorry. I got distracted there. I had a a message from an absolute lunatic just, blowing me up with a billion questions, and I let my eyes go across. So I missed that. And then I did a pretend last laugh to act as if I could hear what you said. You have to repeat that, but I just gotta be honest.
[00:04:31] Unknown:
No problem. No problem. We we can move on from it. It's it was nothing of, of any substance, but, I suppose I should do the intro stuff. We've we've been waffling it. And as you Yeah. In case you can't tell, guys, I'm a bit I'm a bit tired. So I'm I'm hoping Max is gonna bring the energy here and, and carry us through. But, just checking the livestream. Hello to Jordan. Good day, mate. So I'm not sure where the the Australian thing's come from, unless that's a different Jordan. And, also hello to b t wrestle. Nice to have you with us, in the YouTube live chat. Welcome.
Yeah. If this is your first time listening, welcome to Freedom Set Friday. This is our weekly livestream where we go live on Twitter, Nosta, and on the YouTubes. Look at that. I'm a terrible podcaster. My phone's going off. Why? My phone's going off. I didn't put it on mute. I'll never I'll never get the the podcast to cry on, will I? But it's it's on mute now, anyway. Okay. Or one of my phones, should I say. One of many. And, yeah, welcome to Freedom Set Friday. This is a weekly livestream. We go live at 9AM eastern, 2PM, to oh, Dojo Code. It's in the chat. Nice to see you, Pavel. Oh, I'm just off the line.
Yeah. Nice to see you. First time in the live chat, but, nice to have you here, mate. Yeah. We go live every Friday, 9AM, eastern, 2PM UK time. Or if you're in Riga, like I am, it's currently 4PM. And, yeah, unacceptable queue. Yeah. Apologies, BTS wrestle. I'm a I'm a I can't even say I'm jet lagged. I'm just tired. Just tired. Just old and tired. Tired. Yeah. Old and tired. Yeah. I'm feeling it at the moment. Free and Set Friday is our livestream chat where we, we cover off the latest and greatest or or not so greatest as as today's topic is gonna be, much the same as last week, where we we keep up to date on, you know, the the the the things that are happening in the FreedomTech industry. That might be Bitcoin, might be Monero, might be just anything that's FreedomTech related that, you know, is is related to your kind of online and digital, sovereignty, essentially. We we kinda cover that sort of stuff. We usually kick off, the show with a news topic. This week will be the same as last week. We're talking about the tornado cash, result as we now we know we now have a verdict.
And then the second part of the show, we we talk about well, we take some, listener questions. We have lots of questions posted ahead of time from people responding on Twitter and on Nosta to our post. So thank you so much to everybody that does, post those. You are a big, big part of the chat. Sorry. A big, big part of the show. I've got a list as long as my arm of things that we we we have to to kind of get through. We're never gonna get through them all. Obviously, we we also have, a live chat. You can comment on Twitter, you can comment on YouTube, or you can post in the Nostal Live chat as well. If you have any questions for us, anything free and tech related is fair game. And, yeah, we'll we'll always prioritize the the people that are kind enough to join us in the live chat to, Yeah. You know, to post their questions, and then we'll get to the ones that are posted ahead of time after that.
Now before, we we dive into the Tornado Cash stuff, Max, I believe we have a prize available for the livestream,
[00:07:43] Unknown:
attendees this week. That's right. We have an incredible prize this week, an incredible prize from Jordan. So thank you very, very much, Jordan. This time on Freedom Tech Friday, we are giving away a Watchmen torch subscription. So that's Gabriel Custodia from Watchmen privacy with his Watchmen torch. It's a, I think, a biweekly newsletter, isn't it? Everyone that I've spoken to who has read through this and subscribed to it absolutely loves it. I hear so many good things about it. So, I think the value of this or at least the pricing of this is about $200. The value I don't think you can put a value on freedom. So for for anyone who is listening and would like to get your hands on that, all you need to do is share the stream when it goes live. So if you haven't already shared it, you need to do that now.
You need to comment in the live chat, and you need to send in an XMR chat, which you can use XMR, BTC, or USDT. So if you follow those three steps, you are entered in, and we will do we choose we choose live, won't we? Live live questions.
[00:09:00] Unknown:
Yeah. As long as we were able to validate that they've ticked all the boxes. I'm sure Jordan's well, I know Jordan's in the live chat, so I know he's listening live. So, hopefully, he can, he can assist to to double. He can he can, double check. He can do the producer thing and and check that, the best question has met all the criteria. But, yeah. Yeah. Go on. Carry on. Well, we can we can,
[00:09:19] Unknown:
we can trust rather than verify. And then if someone lies, we'll just do them in. We'll just do it that way.
[00:09:26] Unknown:
Yeah. We are coming around to your house, and we're gonna verify you personally.
[00:09:30] Unknown:
We will. Yeah. So just just be honest. But, yeah, incredible prize. Thank you very much, to Jordan for, organizing that and also to the watchman torch and to Gabriel for, putting out such a great newsletter.
[00:09:45] Unknown:
And a great podcast. And a great podcast. And a great guy. Friend of the show. He he is a great guy. Friend of the show. Speaking of friends of the show, we've also got dads in the livestream. He's he's commented on Twitter. Hi, John.
[00:10:00] Unknown:
Hey, pups.
[00:10:02] Unknown:
As is Observer in the live chat as well. Thanks for stopping by, friend. Yeah. Thank you. Right now we've got the formalities out of the way, mate. Shall we, dive into the news topic of the week, tornado cash once again?
[00:10:16] Unknown:
Yeah. Let let's get into it. I I wish that there wasn't two horrible things running side by side at the same time and, like, two weeks back to back with all the samurai stuff in this, but it is what it is. I guess we have to dive into it. Like you said, we've like, this whole show is about using Freedom Tech and trying to enrich your life using it, and that's pushing one way, but there's always the other force, the dark force pushing the other way, trying to take your freedoms away and take the freedoms away of the people that try and give you freedom. And we need to cover that too. So, yeah, let's get into it.
[00:10:55] Unknown:
Yeah. Indeed. It it's been quite the quite the fortnight really for for FreedomTech enthusiasts and and not a great one if I'm being honest. Obviously, we we covered off the the samurai. Well, it's not really a verdict, is it? The guys, you know, understandably kind of, played their cards. They took the the plea, which we covered off the the details of last week. If you don't know what we're talking about, go ahead and listen back, after this on, on the Ungovernable podcast feed. You can get yourselves fully up to speed on that. As we recorded last week, the jury was out for deliberation, on the the tornado cash case. So that was kind of left as a, you know, an open ended story, essentially. And, this week, we have found, or the the jury did come to a verdict on the three different accounts of which Roma Storm was charged off.
We can go into whether or not we see this as a positive or a negative maybe afterwards once I've covered off the basics, because I'm sure there's some there's some hot takes from me, from you, and from the the people in the live chat as well as I'm keen to get, the thoughts of the people in the live chat to see, you know, how they see this as well. I'm gonna be, giving you, you know, a bit of an info on on the results of the case. Once again, huge, huge shout out for, for the people, all the guys at The Rage, therage.co.
The coverage that they've done on both of these, cases, the samurai case and the tornado cash case has been outstanding. They are you know, they don't have any sponsorships. They don't have any official funding. These guys, you know, do this, I guess, out of the goodness of their hearts. Obviously, they are available to take domains. That's take domains. Jesus Christ. I'm tired. They are, available to take Donations. Donations. Indeed. Thank you. The rage.c0/ donate, I believe, urge people to, you know, to go and support our work because they are doing really good things over there and making sure that the industry is aware of essentially, you know, reporting back that we're all under attack, albeit somewhat indirectly for most people listening to this. But it is an attack nonetheless.
So, yeah, the guilty the guilty. Jesus Christ.
[00:13:20] Unknown:
You're alright. You're alright.
[00:13:23] Unknown:
I'm gonna get there. I'm gonna get there. I'm like I say, coffee number five is gonna hit in a minute, and, hopefully, I'll be able to speak properly. The, the jury found, Roman Storm guilty of unlicensed money transmission conspiracy this week. So after nearly a four week, proceeding, the jury has found, the Tornado Cash cofounder, Roman Storm, guilty on one count of conspiracy to operate an unlicensed money transmitting business under 18 US criminal code section nineteen sixty. But this is a very interesting point. The jury could not reach a decision on the charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering, and this the the other charge was to violate US sanctions.
So the the result on those two counts is essentially I I believe it's just considered a mistrial. So before we kind of jumped to to celebrate that they weren't found guilty on those two counts, What that means, if I understand correctly, and correct me if if I'm wrong here, Matt, is that whilst, yes, obviously, the jury did not find him guilty of conspiracy to commit money laundering or to violate US sanctions, that doesn't mean he's completely out of the woods for those two charges. The effective mistrial or the inability of the jury to, come to a unanimous decision on whether or not he's guilty against those charges, means that, yes, he's not found guilty of them yet, but the the, Southern District Of New York, the people who are the prosecutors in this case can, if they choose to do so, try him again, at another trial on those counts.
We have no idea whatsoever as to whether they will pursue that or whether they'll just kind of sit back and take, the result that we're gonna go into in a second as a kind of as a win and just, you know, let the case rest. So, what, Roman Stone was found guilty of, the the 1960 count, the the kind of conspiracy to, operate an unlicensed money transmission carries a maximum sentence of five years. I believe, sentencing is gonna take place, around the same time as the the samurai developers, which will be in around October. Although I've I'm that's just conjecture at the moment. I've not seen anything in writing to confirm when those dates are, but given that this was tried in the same jurisdiction, that and the the the case obviously happening around the same sort of time as the samurai devs, case was, was taking place that, you know, inevitably, the the decision or the the the sentencing the official sentencing will take place around the same time. If that becomes clear, obviously, we'll report back afterwards.
But the TLDR here is he was found guilty on one of the three counts. It carries a maximum prison sentence of five years. And one thing that, I you know, clearly, I was feeling a bit dejected after this because I I don't wanna see open source developers, under fire at all or or even face potential prison centers, which both of them are, of up to five years. I saw this, you know, essentially, as a little bit of a win, because, like, it it could have been much worse. Yeah. That doesn't mean to say that I'm, you know, happy that he's only been charged guilty of of one of the counts. And the other thing that I'm kind of positive on or maybe I'm reading too much into this and, you know, keen to get your feedback here as well. But the fact that the jury didn't kind of quickly say, oh, yeah. He's, guilty of the other two charges, the sanctions evasion and the, the money laundering charges, means that whilst I was very pessimistic around the ability of essentially just common people who Normal people. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. They're they're not familiar with with how crypto works, with how tornado cash works, to be specific.
But they didn't just see what the prosecutor said and jump to a, you know, a knee jerk decision of, oh, look. He, you know, he's got a washing machine t shirt on and, you know, he he clearly has a an ulterior motive here. Let's find him guilty. So looking at the positives of this, I think that that well, yeah, I think that that is a positive. Again, we're not out of the woods yet because this could go back to trial for those two counts. That is TBC at the moment. And the other positive that I drew from this was that I saw one of the news reports. It wasn't from The Rage, I believe. It was one of the other ones whose name is, eluding me at the moment who managed to grab a quick comment from Roma Storm after the case where and I'm paraphrasing here. I don't have the tweet the the tweet from the the reporter in front of me. But, they got a quick comment from Roma Storm, and he essentially says something to the effect of, yeah. I'm feeling positive.
The, the the the charge that he was found guilty of, he believes it to be bullshit, and they're gonna appeal it and they're gonna fight it. Now whether or not you know, I I have no idea how successful that appeal is gonna be, but the the main positive drawing from that is that, you know, the spirit that Roman storm is showing here. Yeah. You know, he's got the weight of the US government leaning down on him, and he he, you know, he he had the the wherewithal to be, you know, not joking about it, but but being kind of, you know, upbeat enough to be like, yeah. This is bullshit. We're we're gonna fight it. So I'm trying to look at the positives here, but also being cognizant of the the potential negatives that could, come down the pipe, later on. Broken of spirit.
Yeah. Indeed. That's a great way to summarize it. But, yeah, I'm gonna shut up for a minute and just see what your thoughts are.
[00:19:13] Unknown:
Well, yeah, I mean, similar. The fact they haven't broken his spirit is, is a big one because, as you say, having having them lean on you is no fun at all like unimaginable stress that comes from that so, just shows how tough, him and, samurai have been through all of this like to to go through all of it and come out the other side is is very, very painful thing to go through. And to do that with a smile on your face is is pretty incredible. And, yeah, like you say, with the, with the jury, that is a big one because bullshit baffles brains. And if you have a slick lawyer up there, trying to act as if these people are criminals and doing something wrong, it's easy to point at some basic stuff that could baffle people.
But the fact that they've actually sat through and they've understood the basics of it enough to at least not make a unanimous, like, guilty, that is more than I expected as well. So I think that's really good. I think that at least there's, like, a bit of a message is going out there that it's like, that was unstoppable code. That was something that couldn't be controlled, and, that it's just a tool effectively. So, I think that's definitely positive when it comes to all the legal stuff and what can be appealed and what can't be appealed and all the rest of it and how likely things are. I have no fucking idea. So, you know, I'm not even gonna pretend that I have an opinion on that, but, just wish him all the best and we'll keep covering it and, keep covering all the ways to keep some freedom and keep some privacy with all this shit going on and try and not let it sort of get the the focus of all of our attention because it's you know, whichever way you look at it, it's not it's not great. It's not positive stuff.
[00:21:12] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. Indeed. And the other thing I'm kind of torn on here and and Dojo Code is in the in the YouTube chat here, you know, put put it quite eloquently that it's not exactly the same result as as the samurai case, because Roman because this is a a jury verdict, Roman has and has confirmed that he's going to has the opportunity to appeal this. So all is not lost in terms of the, the charge that he was found guilty of, the the unlicensed money transmission. So that's the kind of positive side of things. The the negative side of things, and this is where I put my tinfoil hat on a little bit, is that if he doesn't appeal or he appeals and then, doesn't win the appeal, the kind of legal precedent that is set here where we we've said this once again. I'm gonna repeat myself here because it, you know, it it it's prudent to do so, is that he's found guilty of unlicensed money transmission despite it being, just like samurai, a noncustodial tool where Tornado Cash and Samurai had zero control of any user funds at any point.
They all, they both followed the FinCEN guidance of, you know, they are not custodial. They they don't control user funds. So FinCEN, the the actual kind of, regulator for this portion of the industry, deemed them to not be or cannot be licensed as a money transmitter, but the jury still found him, guilty of unlicensed money transmission. So if I'm kind of looking at it through a negative lens, like, that could set a very dangerous precedent here where, yes, Samurai and Tornado Cash were both, I guess, privacy focused software. You know, the the main crooks of or or the main you know, why you would use that tool is to improve your privacy when you're using Ethereum or or Bitcoin.
They they followed all the guidance. FinCEN was even consulted by the prosecution, in at least one of the cases with with the Tornado Cash. I'm not sure whether they were in the samurai case as well. But that was not able to be included, into into the the case itself or into the trial, should I say, which is absolutely abhorrent if you ask me. Like, these guys did all they they could in terms of, you know, following the guidance from the regulator within the industry, and they're still you know, in the tornado cash case, there's a jury still found them guilty of that, which it's difficult for me to wrestle with because, like, what more could they have done in terms of following the rules unless, you know, in in the tornado cash case, he's still be found guilty.
[00:24:06] Unknown:
It's classic. Like, it's what we've said for so many years, though, isn't it? It's like with the legal system, they own the pens, they own the ink, and they own the hands that move them, and they can make them move anywhere they want. And this this is why you use the tech rather than trying to rely on legal systems because they do whatever the fuck they want. What whatever they whatever they want, that's what happens. I mean, at the end of the day, you're relying on a system that does not want you to be free. It's why most of us are here. They do not want you to have privacy. They do not want you to have freedom. They do not want you to have money that doesn't devalue. They do not want you to have any of the things that we had a hundred years ago. Any of the freedoms we had, They do not want you to have a strong family. They do not want you to have any of the things that you should have as a human being.
And, you can't rely on these systems to keep you free. And and that's why it's so important for all of this freedom tech, but the people who are popping their heads up and building it are putting themselves under immense amounts of, risk and stress and everything else as we can see here. So, it's for everyone who cares about this to support them, fund them, do what we can, and and go about it sensibly as well because, otherwise, this tiny little corner of the Internet, which is getting smaller and smaller, even in the Bitcoin, Twitter world, it's like there's only a few of us who seem to actually care and everyone else has got going off and using ETFs and just caring about n g u and making stupid little fucking dance videos on Twitter and whatever else they're doing and thinking they're changing the world and they're not, the people who are are put in fucking courtrooms and handcuffs and treated like criminals, and it's disgusting.
So, I don't know what I'm trying to say there, but it's just I'm a bit pissed off with the whole thing. It's, yeah, you can't rely on legal systems, basically.
[00:26:12] Unknown:
Yeah. Yeah. Good summary. There's two final things I wanna say just to wrap up up this, portion of the show, really, is that, number one, obviously, Roma Storm is committed to to fight this and to appeal the the guilty charge. That's gonna cost a shit ton of money. So he's obviously gonna need help and funding to to be able to fight that because I'm I'm sure and I'm not I'm not 100% certain on this, but I'm sure all of his or most of his assets would have been in cryptocurrency and have probably been frozen, and he's not able to use them in any legal proceedings just like with the the samurai case. So please please please, like, if you, you know, consider yourself even 1% of a kind of FreedomTech and, and sovereignty kind of enthusiast, please please, you know, look to assist, the the the funding of that appeal via, the links that hopefully Jordan's gonna be able to drop into the show notes for us after this. I don't have the links to hand.
But, yeah, consider donating to the to the Roman storm case so that he can continue to to fight this appeal or, you know, fight the the guilty verdict with the appeal. And, yeah, the final piece as well, which, again, you could look at as a a very, very minor positive, is that the the prosecution in this case actually moves to try and remand Roman Storm, until he was sentenced, which could be another couple of months as we've we've mentioned earlier in the show. Naturally, the defense, fought that and said that, you know, there's absolutely no reason for this guy to be remanded in prison while he's awaiting sentence, especially given that they're gonna appeal that.
Thankfully, the judge, she lent on the on the side of the defense and agreed that, Romasol is not a a flight a flight risk. He's attended all of the hearings, all of the the the trial dates, etcetera, and she didn't deem it proper to to remand him into custody, whilst he's, awaiting the the sentencing. So at least he he's able to be with his family whilst he's, you know, undoubtedly going through an immense amount of turmoil, but, you know, I guess he can take solace in the fact that he's around his family at least for the next couple of months.
[00:28:26] Unknown:
Yeah. Well, shout out to him and his family and Samrai and his family and T Dev and his family. And, huge respect to everyone who's, put in all this work for so many years to to help other people be free, and, we're all sending love to you. Should we jump into some maybe more positive stuff, some things that we can control, some comments, some questions, give a little bit of a pushback, bit of a fight back?
[00:29:00] Unknown:
Yeah. Absolutely. Let's, let's try and spin this into somewhat of a positive. Quick reminder before I dive into the presubmitted questions. If you are in the live chat on Twitter, Nosta, or on YouTube, and you have, you know, some comments around the sort of cash case or the the samurai case or any topics related to anything to do with Freedom Tech, then, please do, please do, you know, drop those into the into the live chat, and we'll we'll jump on those, and take let those take priority. In the meantime, we we have a couple of questions.
One was presubmitted ironically by somebody that is in the live chat. It comes from BTC wrestle. Thank you for your question. It is related to to what we've just been talking about. BTC wrestle commented on Nosta, and they asked, is there any implications from the Tornado Cash trial for LSPs, lightning service providers, and Lightning node runners due to, quote, money transmission. Mhmm. I I'll take the the first, swing at this one. Ultimately, the TLDR answer is we have no idea. If I again, trying to be positive here, my guess is that they probably won't actively or at least in the short term, they probably won't target people that aren't kind of who whose main business is to try and give users privacy, on, you know, what whichever chain or or, you know, type of cryptocurrency that they're dealing with, which it was essentially what what samurai wallet or more specifically Whirlpool and Tornado Cash was for. I I struggle to to wrestle with the fact that they're gonna go out and do that. I might be completely wrong, and maybe I'm trying to look at this too optimistically.
If I was pushed a little bit more, I would say that, yeah, LSPs are clearly gonna be more at risk than, you know, like, you know, runners like you or I or anybody listening to this because that they're very different, aren't they? LSPs are centralized entities who are making money. You know, it is their business to, I guess, essentially relay transactions, but the it's not strictly speaking. The main reason that they do that is is to give users privacy. That is kinda like a byproduct of using something like, I don't know, the Zeus LSP or the Phoenix LSP is that because of some of the Lightning Network properties, you can again, there's a lot of asterisks asterisks and caveats around that with with Lightning as we always mention.
So it's not out of the rounds of possibility that they could target LSPs. I just don't think they're gonna be in the regulator's crosshairs as the next target. I think the the if I was to, you know, put my ugly regulator's hat on, there's probably much more lower hanging front fruits for for those sorts of people than going after somebody like Phoenix who who operates in LSP. But what do you think, Max? I'd agree. No. I would totally agree. I mean, it's pretty
[00:31:58] Unknown:
pretty, like, open and obvious, and they're a business, and they can go and knock on their door and all that kind of stuff. Like, there are there were many, like you say, lower hanging fruit and and definitely lower hanging fruit than actual node runners running your own nodes at home or wherever else. That's I'm not saying that's not gonna happen. Who fucking knows? But, I think if you are using Lightning, that would be the way to go. And, you know, I think you're not at any sort of risk at this point in time. Like, there's there's nothing to say that you shouldn't be doing that, so I wouldn't personally be worried.
[00:32:42] Unknown:
Yeah. In indeed. And in terms of, like, practicalities focusing in on on Lightning node runners just like webs like you and I, the the practicality of targeting those types of people, like That's a lot. 90% of nodes yeah. Exactly. 90% of of nodes are run behind Tor. They're not like an advertised service. You know, if you get a couple of sats via routing Yeah. You know, say you've got a channel to Phoenix or something like that and another player breached their transaction through you or for whatever reason, you earn two sats as a as a routing fee. Like, it's almost impossible to be able to be specifically targeted in in that kind of arena, I I would say.
[00:33:26] Unknown:
Yeah. And it's also you're looking at, like, volumes. You know, there's about £7 on, on lightning on the whole network. So, I like, I don't I just don't see that that is and and it's very centralized what there is on there as well. So they would hit the the more centralized, the bigger entities first. It's, you know, it's game whack a mole. They're gonna go for the, for the big things first. And yeah. You know, earning a couple of sets and then spending a couple of sets and you're doing that on your raspberry pie and your cupboards or whatever it's like now you, I don't think so.
[00:34:01] Unknown:
Yeah. Indeed. Indeed. Thanks for your question, BT Russell. That was a good one. I'm very, aligned with what we've been talking about over the pa the course of the past couple of weeks. Also somewhat aligned as well. Again, apologies if I I pronounce your your handle wrong, but zay ZaykaBoy?
[00:34:19] Unknown:
ZaykaBoy. Yeah.
[00:34:20] Unknown:
Yeah. Their quote is, obviously, with the persecution of Tornado Cash and samurai devs, anonymity is a must as is decentralization. Now the Ashigaru team have stepped up and taken the baton. Could we push for smaller denominations in the terminal? $0.2.0.025 or 2,500,000.0 sats, as a minimum is too rich for most plebs, which is probably why there is just 18 BTC whirling about. Also, is the plans for a more organized and easily accessible launch for personal nodes? Smaller denominations and easier access to running the new Whirlpool will surely benefit privacy adoption.
Max, if you could take the first one. Yeah. I'm just I'm just gonna quickly run for a piss. So give me, yeah, sixty seconds while you feel some dead air for me. So professional. I love that.
[00:35:14] Unknown:
Yeah. I think, you know, we've covered this, quite extensively about the denominations. They've gone for the larger denominations, I think, at least, so that they don't have loads of support questions and things like that as people who maybe have been around and have some Whirlpool, post mix that they wanna put back through, all that kind of stuff. But that is just me speculating, because we don't know how big their team is and what they can handle. My suggestion would be for people is if you want the smaller denominations and be able to mix on the way down, you can do that, but you just do that outside of, outside of Ashigaru. So you might do that with, like, swaps into Monero or something like that, or you just wait until those come about.
If people want to mix smaller amounts at the moment, obviously, it would be nice, but, I'd rather see a team deliver and deliver well, and that's what they've done. We don't know how much funding they have. We don't know how many people are involved. I'm sure they're doing everything they can. So, we'll see. You know? We'll we'll see what happens. And then when it comes to, making it easier to run nodes, I mean, we had Jordan on last week. He's put a huge amount of work in so that people can run, Dojo on a start nine. He also put in a huge amount of work and and others as well. So, shout out to everyone who was involved, but, he's been my, obviously, point of contact for all of this stuff. And he's also made it so that the Ashigara terminal can run there as well. So, that's running all the time. Mhmm. It's very simple to use. It's simple enough that I did it on a phone call when it went live with Jordan on a podcast and mixed, and it worked. So, like, if I can do it, literally any fucking person listening to this can do it. So, you know, I think we've come a really a really long way.
Huge amount of respect to that team for doing all of this, especially with everything that we're talking about. You're much braver than me. And, yeah, I I think the fact that we have it available, with all the darkness that we see, like, that is a shining light of, like, wow. Here are some people who are willing to stand up and fight, and they've made something incredible, that I've had no problems with so far. It's been very, very good. And, just don't expect too much too quickly, is all I would say. Like, there are tools out there. If you wanna do smaller denominations, there are other ways. But, you know, obviously, the the larger amounts that you put in, then the less you're gonna pay on fees anyway or as a percentage of what you put in. So, yeah, it's it swings around the house.
[00:38:15] Unknown:
Yeah. I I don't really have anything major to add there other than, obviously, I have no direct line into the the Ashigaru team, whoever they may be. But, I was gonna say it's nascent software, but, like, Whirlpool's been around for quite a while, but it's a nascent team. They're clearly, you know, and and understandably acting in a slow and steady type of way. And I don't doubt that if, the the ecosystem and the kind of, I guess, yeah, I guess the ecosystem continues to to grow and stand the test of time, the the user base will grow and that demand will will continue to to increase and the smaller pool will come in time, which will obviously, without a doubt, add to or improve the availability to to plebs who don't have millions and millions of stats floating around, and they just wanna get some privacy.
But, yeah, as you said, you know, there's there's already software available, albeit side loaded through, through Start nine. It just again, I don't wanna use the cringe term of we're early in terms of, Ashigaro, but it it's kinda true. You just gotta, you know, let the team do what they do. We're living in very uncertain terms with regards to to Bitcoin and cryptocurrency privacy. So just let them do what they do and support, in any which way that you can, I guess?
[00:39:40] Unknown:
Yeah. Doing things like this, which are not easy, when everything sunshine and rainbows is one thing, but when there's real risk and you're being hunted and attacked constantly, that's a completely different story. And, when you're not public and people don't see your face and you're not taking funding and VC money and all the other stuff, things just, they move a little bit slower. It's just how it is. They don't have social media. They don't have any of that kind of stuff, which helps promote and bring more money in and, and would probably help them be able to develop faster. And when they do put something out, they have to be extremely careful because not only are they hunted by regulators and law enforcement and everything like that, they're also constantly under attack by a load of fucking retards on Twitter, questioning everything that they do, trying to create fard. They have to be ready and have everything in order so that they can, respond and, point out what is fair and what isn't fair. And so it's just a constant battle for that team, all the time. So, yeah, we'll we'll think more more will come, but I'm very, very happy with what I've seen so far.
[00:40:59] Unknown:
Yeah. Likewise. Thanks for your question, z Zikaboy. Next one comes from Jin, who is, part of the hashtag forty hours per week crowd. I can't remember whether this one came on via Twitter or. I know he's on both. But, his question is, I'm gonna let you take this one first, Max, is I'm curious on each of your paths. Let's say you have a close friend who you finally convinced to be more private and sovereign. Where do you tell them to start? Is it buying a pixel, installing GrapheneOS, or is it buying KYC BTC and then using Whirlpool, or is it a place like LocalBitcoins or into the mining space?
So a very wide ranging question here, but, like, what what's your if you you're trying to, I don't wanna say orange pill because this isn't specifically a Bitcoin question, but if you're trying to kind of freedom tech pill one of your friends, like, where do you you tell them to start?
[00:41:56] Unknown:
Honestly, like, none of that. Mine would be if I had a friend who who genuinely understood, like, okay, there is a at least there is a need for some privacy, and there's a need for some money that can be used like cash. It would be in my situation. Look, if you want some, come to me, I'll sell you some because I've always gotta eat and pay for family stuff and whatever else. And, I would sell them Bitcoin and I would do it for cash. And I would, the biggest thing I would teach them is not go and get a pixel and go and download this app and go and get all technical. It would be have this shut up.
Don't talk to anyone. Just shut up. Buy it from me. Be quiet. That's it. That's the number one advice. Like, all this other privacy stuff, half the stuff that I've done in the past using different software and applications and jumping through hoops and trying to buy KYC, and then that's a mistake. And then I'll try to whirlpool it, and now that could be a problem because of x and what. Like, it's all it's all a fucking stressful thing to get involved in. The number one thing is buy with cash. Shut up. That's it.
[00:43:15] Unknown:
Yeah. I think that's, a great way to to kind of summarize it. It's like keeping it simple because it's it's very, very easy to get overwhelmed when you come to this sovereignty space because you you you see a million and one things and you see, like, turbo nerds like us talking about all sorts of stuff like pixels, graphene, Whirlpool, joint market, lightning, Monero, yada yada yada. Like, if you see all that and, like, that's enough to turn anybody off straight away, especially if they're coming from very much, like, with two feet in the normal world where, you know, they've they've got their MacBook and they use Gmail and all the the the typical stuff. Like, so for me, I guess well, obviously, cosign everything that Max just said.
If I was to be more specific and say, I'm gonna do give one answer for Bitcoin stuff and then give one answer for more kind of sovereignty stuff. The Bitcoin one would be, other than just, like, offering to sell them their first stats, obviously, that goes without saying, would be to just try out, like, you know, just a noncustodial app. You know, just get used to handling some private keys. Doesn't need to be a hardware wallet. It could just be, you know, a noncustodial wallet like, you know, Envoy or Ashigaru or Spiro or Cake Wallet or anything like that. Just get used to that, you know, being sovereign in terms of holding your own money and go have them go through the recovery process because that that is the light bulb moment for a lot of people is, you know, they receive some stats on, say, Envoy, and then they punch these 12 words into k quality. And it's like, holy shit. The money just turned up. And these two apps are, like, completely unrelated.
And I didn't have to do anything other than type these work these these two words in. If you can get some quick wins like that, I always find that it really helps people, feel like they've achieved something and then want to take that next step. So that would be my kind of Bitcoin answer. And then in terms of the more broader, I guess, just digital or online sovereignty would be not even getting them to, like, switch operating system. Like, let's be honest. Most people in the Western world, they're probably gonna have an iPhone, you know, or even if they've just got an Android phone, it's probably gonna be like a freaking a Samsung with all of the the spyware in there. Yeah. I wouldn't even say, oh, you need to go and buy this phone and install the software. I'd just be like, okay.
What's the one thing that you want to be more private in your general digital life? And most people are gonna be like, oh, you know, my my web browsing or or my messaging. I should be like, okay. Well, go and download Signal. And instead of you and I chatting on, okay, I don't know, Facebook Messenger or something, let's use Signal. It's end to end encrypted. It's really, really easy to use. You it works off your phone number in a private way, and you can, you know, drastically improve your your, I guess, I I don't know how to call it, but your your kind of message based privacy.
[00:46:06] Unknown:
Mhmm.
[00:46:07] Unknown:
And and it's it's an easy win because, you know, when if you pick the right app and Signal is a great example of this, then, it's not gonna be hard for even the the the normiest of normies to just put their phone number into Signal and start messaging people. Like, the UI is essentially the same as WhatsApp or anything like that, but it's much, much more private. And, yeah, we've got a great comment from BC Russell here in the in the YouTube chat is, delete your Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, etcetera etcetera is a good first step for normies privacy wise. Whilst I agree, that's probably a step too far for most people because all of the apps that you just mentioned are where they spend most of their digital life. So just telling them to delete those without having a replacement, Again, it's it might be too much. It might be enough to turn those people off.
And, yeah, Absurdian is also in the YouTube chat. I am actually agreeing with you. Best advice, s t f u, apply to everything. I couldn't have said it better myself.
[00:47:04] Unknown:
Yeah. It's it's what you learn over time.
[00:47:10] Unknown:
Yeah. It's it's honestly, it's a superpower, especially, you know, when you start getting into the the Bitcoin and the cryptocurrency, in this or ecosystem, not not necessarily even working it working in it, just like holding some funds. Like, it's a superpower just keeping you gobshot. Like, that is one of the biggest privacy tools you can ever have is that the fewer people that know you have Bitcoin or or similar, the better. You know? You just you just protect yourself from so much shit by just not spouting off about stuff.
[00:47:39] Unknown:
Before we move on to this question don't even know you have it yourself.
[00:47:43] Unknown:
Yeah. Indeed. Indeed. Yeah. Before we move on on from this question, because it is a really good one, I'm gonna kick this one back to you. I gave two answers, one for Bitcoin or cryptocurrency and one for kind of digital sovereignty in terms of, like, singular app. On the sovereignty one, other than signal, obviously, because I've mentioned that, what what other one would you think would be similar to that that you could think, okay. Just go and download this and just, you know, you'll get a marked improvement, and it's not gonna be a massive hurdle. Is there anything else that's kinda springing to mind?
[00:48:13] Unknown:
One app?
[00:48:15] Unknown:
Yeah. Or or a couple of apps. So what what what what springs to your mind? I'd probably
[00:48:20] Unknown:
say get a VPN.
[00:48:22] Unknown:
Yeah. And that's exactly where I was lead the path I was leading you down. Thank you. Go on. Elaborate.
[00:48:27] Unknown:
Yeah. And I'd probably say get a VPN like, I like Mullvad. I think it's really good. You can pay in Bitcoin. I'd probably say, look. I'll sell you some Bitcoin for cash. That that pays for my diesel. Lovely jubbly. Now you have some Bitcoin. Now let's use it because that's what it's for at the end of the day. Why don't you get a mobile subscription? I think you can pay, you know, every sort of thirty days or you can do small amounts. So there's your first test. And now just have that on your phone and your laptop, and suddenly you're in a much better position, or most likely to be in a much better position than you previously were for not a lot of money. I would say that's a good one. And and one final thing, which isn't really, it's not an app and it's it's not like Bitcoin specific, but I would say when you are getting someone involved in this stuff, be clear about who you're speaking to and what they really want and and make sure that they're clear about what they really want as well. Because Bitcoin used correctly and privately is very different to Bitcoin that's, like, white listed. And in the coin base slash banking ecosystem, they're very, very different, and they don't play nicely together.
So be clear that there are these two different groups and be clear that, great. If you wanna be very private and you wanna use Whirlpool and you wanna bounce between lightning channels and you wanna buy in cash and you don't wanna have receipts and you want it to be, off the books, understand that that is different to you sat there going, oh, one day I wanna buy a Lambo and I'm gonna hold this. And I'm gonna be all private now, but I wanna buy the Lambo because good fucking luck buying your Lambo with these sats that you've had through Whirlpool and everything else. Because when you go to the dealership and you wanna cash out your Bitcoin for dollars, you're gonna have AML KYC. Where's the funds from? You can't buy it. You're not part of our club.
They are totally, totally different. So if anything and people maybe get annoyed by me saying this, but have two different pools. If if you want some of that's investment and you wanna buy some stuff in the real world that really matters, cars and houses and whatever else that's, like, has to be AML, it's gotta be different. And if you wanna operate in the Bitcoin world, that's a separate thing as well. They don't cross. You can't go back and forth easily. They're different worlds.
[00:51:09] Unknown:
Yeah. Well said. Well said. Thanks for your question, Jin. That was a that was a really good one. Next one, and this one comes from one of the previous shows because it's quite far down my list. It comes from Liberty Tools. What are your plans for an Internet where all of the major platforms slowly lock us out for failing to use KYC? This question feels very pertinent, especially for me, usually sat in The UK at the moment with all of the online online safety act, but it's also very applicable to to the EU at the moment with the, impending, chat control.
I'm not sure I have a great kind of answer for this one. The the first couple of things that spring to mind, and and Jordan's gonna roll his eyes here and I'm sure Max is going to as well, looking at it through the kind of social aspect. And by social, I don't just mean Twitter or or Twitter similar apps, is Nosta. And I know it's it's a bit of a of a Marmite topic, for for Bitcoiners, especially the the freedom, or the ungovernable crew. But I I I genuinely see a time in the not too distant future, again, especially for me as somebody that's in The UK and and also pertinent to eBiblebs, where Twitter is just gonna turn around and say, look. We need your ID.
So is Reddit. So is, you know, all of the the traditional platforms. And, you know, me personally, I'm just not willing to do that, and I'm just gonna have to go elsewhere. The way I see it right now, the only option I have to kind of interact with the people that I want to interact in a similar sort of fashion is Nostra at the moment. That's not to say that Nostra is perfect, but it you know, I can spin up, you know, a a an NSAC, a private key, and I can control that and import that into various different applications. Again, it doesn't have to be something like Primal or Amethyst where it's just a Twitter clone and I can just have a feed.
Like, the building blocks are there with with Nosta and the the kind of private key, infrastructure that is built on on top of for us to have much more. We can have Reddit clones. We can have, I don't know, if we can eBay clones and Facebook clones and forum clones and stuff like that. It's just they those things are just not fully built out yet. So I'm hopeful that something like that, you know, continues to grow, and I see it as one of the only viable options from a social aspect. You know, if I was to put my my my super thick tin foil hat on and say, you know, do I need you know, if we look to the future where I need an ID just to get online, I I honestly don't have an answer for how how I would react there. I guess the obvious one would be, you know, an alternative operating system like Graphene installed on something like a pixel hardware where I can then sideload applications so that I can go and use non backdoored, you know, end to end encrypted apps like Signal or something like that where I can sideload them. And I don't have to go through the Play Store, which, you know, inevitably, if that world ever becomes real, that I would also have to, you know, properly KYC and prove who I am. That's one of the only beacons of hope that that, you know, exists if things get really, really bad.
But, yeah, Max, I don't know whether you've got anything anything else tangible to to kind of add to that.
[00:54:36] Unknown:
Not really. I would say while you wait for all of that magical stuff to be built out, try and rely on handshakes and, you know, real world conversations and friends and family and people who are there in the real world or or people that you've met in this world are known for a long time, rely on that and, try and live less online if possible, where possible, and communicate that way. I know that's like a bit, old school, but, actually, most of the best conversations you have, most of the best interactions you have, most of the best deals you have, most of the best memories that you have are all offline.
[00:55:29] Unknown:
Yeah. That's a a great way to cap that that question off, to be honest with you, mate. And I'm glad you you kinda brought that side of things up. And, a a great way to segue is out of out of the show, really, because I I've gotta head out of the hotel very shortly, is that, you know, go out and meet like minded FreedomTech enthusiasts. You know, I'm here in Riga, and I'm I'm looking forward to to seeing some old friends, meeting some new ones, and and making some new connections, in the real world so that I can, you know, hopefully, for the time being at least, continue those online as well when I go back down to The UK. But, you know, the input the in person side of things is is very, very important, and that's where you make make those real connections.
But unless you've got anything else, Max, I'm gonna bring this one to a close. We're just about coming up on time, and I'm very, very, very shocked that we made it to the end of the hour, thanks to hotel Wi Fi. But, yeah, we It was incredible. We survived. Yeah. Once again, Seth, you were missed. Hope to see you back next week. Hope you and the family are well. And, thank you to everybody in the live chat, for your comments, and thank you to those that submitted your questions both in the live chat and ahead of time as well. You guys always keep us kind of, you know, you help keep the show going, and you help us, you know, produce this week after week, albeit not very often with three of us, but hopefully, that No. Might change next week. Give a giveaway? We we have to choose whoever,
[00:57:01] Unknown:
who's the winner of the giveaway.
[00:57:03] Unknown:
In indeed. I I don't know whether, Jordan's been keeping an eye on who's met the the criteria or not, but, maybe he can quickly comment in and we can fill some dead air for the last minute or two in case he's he's still online. I'm not sure whether he is.
[00:57:19] Unknown:
Yeah. Well, while while he's having a look if if he isn't, then we'll have to choose afterwards. But while we're waiting for him, what you're looking forward to, Enrique, the most?
[00:57:29] Unknown:
Is the thing you're particularly looking forward to? Good question. I'm I'm giving a talk on Bitcoin privacy, ironically, tomorrow, early in the morning, so not too much of a heavy night for me. If you are Enrica and you you're listening to this live, come and say hello. Stop by. Come and watch me do my talk. I believe it's on about, about 10AM, I think. With foundation, I've also got a booth there, so please feel free to stop by with these five, members of the team. Come and say hello. Shoot the shit with us. You can have a play around with Passport Core and Passport Prime. And, yeah, just come and have a chat. Other than that, the obvious one, just just looking forward to seeing some old friends.
Yeah. Some of my, you know, couple of my my, long standing Bitcoin friends, as I like as I like to call them, are are here. Two of them actually walked past the hotel window that I was sat in when I was prepping for the for this show, which is which is weird. They popped in to say hello, so I'm looking forward to seeing them. Spending some time with the team. I I Inevitably, as I'm gonna be manning the booth with the team, I probably won't get to see any talks, unfortunately, which is one of the the biggest pain points I have with, with the show, with the show. Jesus Christ. The time this is showing it is rearing it a little bit better.
With with conferences, is where when I'm there, I'm working. I I just don't get to see people talk. So, the the kind of nightlife and the socializing is is where I get to have my my outlet. So it'd probably be that. Just beers with Bitcoiners.
[00:58:57] Unknown:
Very nice. Okay, mate. Well, I hope you have a lovely time out there. I haven't heard anything from Jordan. Oh, hold on. Jordan, he's just messaging me. Let me just see just before we close out. He said, no one won, no XMR chats, scold the audience. Oof. You useless.
[00:59:24] Unknown:
Useless hunts. So we're gonna roll it over to next week. We're gonna have to, unfortunately,
[00:59:29] Unknown:
and we're coming up to the end. I'm gonna press my little thing before you cut it. Alright? This is the end.
[00:59:35] Unknown:
Thanks for coming, guys. We'll see you in five four three two one.
[00:59:40] Unknown:
Stay ungovernable.
