BITCOIN ADOPTION, SELF-CUSTODY, ECASH & FIGHTING STATE CONTROL | Evan Kaloudis of Zeus - THE Bitcoin Podcast

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
I think if we just, if Bitcoin stays where it's at with the small community it has and it's just used as it is now,

(00:08):
store value, ETFs, shiny rock under the bed, gold 2.0, like I'll consider it a colossal failure.
So we need to build out these circular economies and make sure Bitcoin gets used for commerce everywhere.
Really, Bitcoin needs everyone. Bitcoin needs you.
And its success is not inevitable.
And the more that individuals act, we act collectively in pushing this technology,

(00:31):
then the higher chance it is to succeed and the harder it is for the state to snuff it out.
We still have a long way to go.
A lot of our friends are still being prosecuted.
The Tornado Cash guys are still in court.
The Samurai Wallet Devs are still in court.
Not all states or countries have the same assurances about self-custody or mining
or these L2 services that we're running.

(00:53):
And, you know, like I said, like, these things could change at the drop of a hat.
Maybe even this administration changes their tune.
If you look at the geopolitical climate, a lot of that stuff could be used as an excuse to act down on us.
So, you know, my message to all the builders out there, to the people pushing the software is like,
when we're given an inch, let's take a mile.

(01:14):
Let's keep pressing forward.
While we have the runway, let's use it.
I personally think that we're going to win a lot of battles over the next four years' duration of this admin, right?
We're going to still lose some, but we certainly have more runway and leeway than we previously did.
So let's build, let's build, let's build, let's ship.
Let's keep pushing stuff in the right direction.

(01:43):
Greetings and salutations, my fellow plebs.
My name is Walker and this is the Bitcoin podcast.
Bitcoin continues to create new blocks every 10 minutes and the value of one Bitcoin is still one Bitcoin.
If you are listening to this right now, remember, you are still early.
Find me on Noster at primal.net slash Walker and this podcast at primal.net slash titcoin.

(02:08):
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(02:29):
Without further ado, let's get into this Bitcoin talk.
i don't think i've ever made it through an entire lex friedman podcast i don't i don't get the
appeal either like i'm really not a huge fan you know it's like respect to him for what he's built

(02:52):
like that's super cool it's just like that style of like all right let me ask you about your mother
and how that relates to geopolitics.
It's just like, I don't know, man.
And this is coming from somebody who occasionally is told
they have a weird voice.
It's like something about the voice, the vibe.

(03:13):
It's like you can't listen to it for that long.
Yeah, I don't know what it is.
I mean, it's not like that we don't have equally boring podcasts in Bitcoin.
I got to put it on a Bitcoin review with Rodolfo.
He really goes into the weeds so technical.
But like that's really the show you put on as you're trying to get, you know, your 40 hours per week.

(03:35):
You know, you got to be listening at all times.
You put that on just in time for bedtime.
You know, everybody always says that that show is like, you know, whatever, like, you know, very boring, like we'll put you to bed.
I don't know.
I like maybe it's just because like even though I'm not super technical, I am somewhat of a nerd.
Like I always enjoy that show.
Like I have I have I would have difficulty falling asleep to it.

(03:57):
I like NVK too.
Like he brings a great energy to it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's like tongue in cheek, self-aware enough, you know, like he's,
and he's got like a good read on things, but also, you know,
willing to say like, Oh, I don't know.
X, Y, Z, anyone know more about this, you know?
So.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
So yeah, exactly.
I'll be doing that again soon at some point.

(04:23):
But yeah, man, I'm just excited.
wherever you want to take the conversation.
Basically, we're willing to take it.
We can talk about Cashew and Zeus.
We can talk about some of the new stuff
we're doing with Zeus Pay.
We're starting to do, you know,
digital checkout for goods
and expanding our point of sale.
Talk about, you know,

(04:44):
what we're doing to onboard a lot of merchants.
We've got a lot of companies queued up right now
that we're going to be onboarding very soon.
So hoping to get a...
You know, just a little bit of momentum.
Series of announcements going, but nothing I could say yet, unfortunately.

(05:04):
Oh, you're going to tease me like that.
I know, man.
You guys have had quite a – I feel like Zeus has been on quite an interesting journey.
I was thinking about this because I've had Zeus downloaded for a while.
I was going back.
Am I remembering correctly?
you guys were initially just a way to connect to your node remotely, right?

(05:26):
Like that was the original, like.
Yeah, that's still most of our lifetime.
So let's say we started back in like 2019, the fall, I think.
We're coming up in like six and a half years now.
Damn.
And it started just like a remote controller.
So it started okay.
You know, L&D was a powerhouse implementation, right?

(05:46):
Still is, but, you know, some of the other ones are catching up.
It's getting interesting.
So we start with L&D. We added Core Lightning. Then we added like L&D Hub. Then we added all these other like alternate connection types. So you could do like Nostra Wallet Connect. And then, of course, the last two years, we put the wallet in the phone, the note in the phone, we call it, right?

(06:14):
That's great for memes also.
yeah that we just really went crazy with that meme cycle uh which you know just shooting the
with matt on citadel dispatch um you know have a really long history with that show and uh yeah
just people just clung on to it and had a lot of great meme ability um but yeah still like you know

(06:39):
But we still have a long ways to go.
The note in the phone was like a great way to lower the barrier to entry into this whole thing.
But, you know, it doesn't really stop there.
Like with Cashew, we've made it even easier.
Really addresses, you know, that economic barrier you have.
So, you know, self-custody in itself has really high cost, you know, in terms of the transaction fees, in terms of responsibility.

(07:08):
For someone who wants to just start accepting payments, especially in the little economies we're building up with stuff like Nostr and you can get one sat zaps, it's not really conducive to being like, okay, I got to put 6,000, 7,000, 8,000 saps for a lightning channel.
I don't want to do that. How are you going to convince someone to take this plunge into Bitcoin and set up a self-custodial channel when it has this cost unless whoever's onboarding them is willing to bear it?

(07:38):
so now with cashew of course you have trade-offs it's custodial you don't have access to the
you know the underlying asset but you get to you know skip this cost you get a lightning address
that you could take with you as you upgrade down the road you can take that lightning address put
it into nostr start getting your first zaps have your first aha moment with lightning and be like

(08:03):
oh there's permissionless i could do these instant transfers they're it's very cheap
i can get paid for my content um i think that's super powerful and then we as the wallet we can
sort of give the user guidance you know it's one thing to like grab your head around starting to

(08:26):
use a new currency you don't really necessarily need to be inundated with like okay uh receiving
capacity, sending capacity, what the hell is a channel?
It's sort of nice that you could push that back now and say, okay, get started, do it
this way.
Maybe you should copy your seed down, right?
But other than that, it's pretty seamless, easy, you don't have to worry about that stuff.

(08:50):
But then, you know, as you're carrying a larger balance, as it makes sense for you to do so
economically, when like economic self-custody is feasible, which is like a whole other,
Can of worms, we can get into that if you ever want with the new L2s coming up.
But yeah, when it's time, we'll give you that educational materials.

(09:11):
Like, oh, this is what self-custody is.
This is what you have right now.
What you have now, Cashew, has really great privacy properties, but it's still sort of like a bank account.
You don't really have control of your funds.
But if you press this button, you can hop over and for a fee, get a channel, go to self-custody, become sovereign and really control your financial destiny.

(09:38):
You have full control of your money in a way that most people really have never had before in a way that's even greater than holding cash.
So, yeah, it's interesting. It's been really well received the last couple of weeks.
Like, what's it, three weeks since we launched it onto the app stores.

(09:59):
And then we did like about, you know, two months before that of beta.
And, you know, people are just loving it.
And, you know, you sort of, it's not sort of just like one or the other.
You can upgrade to self-custody and still reap the benefits of cashew and have a super easy to use lightning address.

(10:22):
You can then have the wallet automatically sweep your cashew balance to self-custody when it makes sense at whatever threshold you want to incur the fees at.
Which is huge, having that auto-sweep capability, I think.
Yeah, absolutely.
And, you know, it's not that I can't spin up a node and just have that on all the time, but I just like the convenience of having it like that, too.

(10:48):
Like, I'm using the Katshu AutoSweep functionality myself on my Zapps right now.
And, yeah, it's just fantastic.
I think it's, like, a very happy medium.
And, you know, it's like, I think we're also really uniquely positioned here.
Like, how many other wallets are really going to tell you, oh, time to get into self-custody, you know?

(11:12):
Like, it's only when you get into those jams on these other platforms where they restrict access to your region, your account gets flagged.
You know, basically when you get rugged that, you know, you've learned the importance of holding your own keys and having control of the asset of being self-custodial in Bitcoin.

(11:33):
And, you know, Zeus is uniquely positioned because we have this, you know, incentive to move you on to self-custody, right?
You know, we're not running any of the mints.
We're just letting third parties run that.
The user selects their own mints.
But we have the Lightning service provider and we connect people with those self-custodial Lightning channels.

(11:55):
So we sort of have this incentive to educate the users, prod them.
you know maybe there are cases in which like there's regulatory concerns that some of these
wallets might not be like oh we're gonna we want to wind down the custodial part
we'll push you out the door but like financially most of these other services are collecting

(12:18):
fees like for each transaction that goes through their node they probably want to keep you in there
as long as possible and Zeus has the complete opposite outlook our centers are you know push
self-custody have you pay for the channels on lsb or even if you don't go that route you still have
the freedom to you know open up your own channels and go self-custodial in however form you want if

(12:43):
you want to be hands-on and get all that crazy granular control we give you or you know you could
even just swap out like you don't have to be using self-custodial lightning necessarily even though
it's my preferred way to go you might just want to be someone who's like okay i'm going to build
up this cashew balance i'm willing to incur a little more risk i'll go up to 100 000 sats and

(13:04):
then i'll just swap out and i'll go to on chain on my hardware wallet or whatever and that's an
option too and you know really the thing with seuss that you know we're rooted in self-custody
like that's how we started the app you know being that cypherpunk connect to your node remotely

(13:25):
But we also realize that people are going to use Bitcoin a whole lot of different ways.
And if we're going to get angry or like moralized or look down about people, like that's not the right way to go.
I think it's better to sort of meet people where they're at.
And then give them the resources, the education, so they can make their informed decisions.

(13:50):
and then you sort of have this crazy user experience
where you're like,
so this can be the place where you start your Bitcoin journey
not knowing anything
and then you level up as you go.
You can go to the node in the phone.
You could become a remote node runner.
It's sort of like an all-in-one experience now
and we're sort of like your Bitcoin Sherpa guiding you

(14:12):
as you go along.
And I think that's super unique.
I like the Sherpa analogy there.
And I think it's really important what you said about meeting people where they are.
It's like you need to meet people where they are, not where you want them to be, not where you ideally believe they should be, not where you think that they must be or they're completely LARPs.

(14:33):
Because most people don't actually care about that and that doesn't actually help adoption.
But if you can meet them where they are right now, addressing the needs that they have at the moment, then they're going to actually use your product.
And then they, like, like all of us did, like, maybe there's some people who heard about Bitcoin and immediately went all the way down that rabbit hole, wherever it ends.

(14:55):
I was not one of them.
I think for most people, it's a journey, right?
It's a journey down that rabbit hole.
It's a journey of going deeper and deeper, understanding more, being comfortable with more.
Like I remember setting up my first, first time I set up a node and a lightning node, I did the whole Razz Pie Blitz thing.
Had no idea what I was doing.
And, you know, I was going around in various forums, figuring stuff out, like, you know, but got it to work.

(15:20):
And, like, that was really fun.
And it taught me a lot about it.
Most people aren't going to do that, though.
Yeah, of course.
A lot of people still may have a desire to have something in the middle that still gives them some of the same benefits of having something that they're running themselves.
But without a lot of those set up hurdles, let's say.
And actually, I want to kind of dive in a little bit to the e-cash part of this.

(15:44):
Because correct me if I'm wrong, you were not always the biggest eCash fan, correct?
I'm still not.
Okay.
Yes and no, right?
So talk to me about that.
What changed your mind where you brought this into Zeus?
Well, I think it's multiple things, right?
Like, you know, I've had such a funny history with it.
And, you know, I've always like worn my heart on my sleeve.

(16:10):
but you know I'll also be the first to admit that
you know my
opinions have changed over the years I don't think
it's so crazy to
get new info and
vol to grow
right but yeah I'll be the
first to admit like I'm the told
colleague to his face I think
he cashed his bullshit
and had like

(16:32):
giant tirades against it
but at the same
time I can still see the
immense value in it
I think it's in the online age, like it's very easy to try to put things in a box and paint things as black or white.
But, you know, reality is not like that at all.

(16:53):
There's so much nuance and layers to it.
Obviously, if the whole world is just using cashew mints, that wouldn't be the ideal world, right?
Ideally, we'd get to a point where people can use Bitcoin self-custodially and hold their own keys and they can't get rubbed, right?

(17:14):
At the same time, if the whole world was using Bitcoin eCash, that would still be pretty sweet compared to where we are now.
It would be a much better alternative to the fiat banking system as it exists today and would be way, way, way, way better than the dystopian potential futures we have with these CVDCs.

(17:40):
Yeah, CBD is not too dystopian.
No, just to jump in there, for anybody who is like perhaps still confused about cashew, and maybe we can go into some of the high level.
but like there's a bunch of other things I want to get into with you here
today.
I did do a full like 90 plus minute deep dive with Callie on eCash.

(18:02):
So if you guys,
if for anyone that is like still confused about that and like wants to go
back and kind of dig into that really deeply and figure out exactly what's
going on there,
check it out.
Also you'll,
what you'll hear that Callie himself says is look,
this is like,
you can get rugged.
This is not rug free.
This is not a risk free thing.
Right.
Right.
But again,
it's like,
it's serving a purpose.

(18:22):
It's not supposed to be layer one Bitcoin or to compete with layer one Bitcoin, but it's building a really great tool that leverages Bitcoin as money, but doesn't have all of the benefits of layer one Bitcoin.
Because of course there's trade-offs as you go down in layers, right?
Absolutely. Everywhere. There's no perfect solutions in engineering at all.

(18:43):
You just have trade-offs and you sort of just got to figure out what tool best suits the job.
and instead of moralizing about saying oh everyone should be using a hammer
um you know you should figure out what everyone's trying to do and where they're at
and we could say hey the hammer's really great you might want to use this for uh

(19:03):
for hidden nails putting some wood together um you got to understand that you know maybe
people aren't ready for it right away um not to just like give up and say oh
this person's never going to use a hammer. It's like, just not now, you know, just slow your time
horizon and give people time to gestate and give them resources and give them encouragement and

(19:30):
try to explain why these tools are important and why they should consider going down this path.
And I think, you know, it's just so much easier to go online and say, hey, you're an idiot.
you're not using Bitcoin like me
you're not holding your own keys
you're not self-custodying yet
yeah probably some of those labels are

(19:50):
okay to throw at someone
when they're putting you know
serious amounts of their wealth
relative to their net worth
into these systems
but you know people are going to do stupid things anyway
the best you can do is
educate them
show them the way
you know it's like
You attract more flies with honey sort of thing.

(20:14):
And I think if we just, if Bitcoin stays where it's at with the small community it has and it's just used as it is now, you know, store value, ETFs, rock under the bed, shiny rock under the bed, gold 2.0, like I'll consider it a colossal failure.

(20:35):
So we need to build out these circular economies and make sure Bitcoin gets used for commerce everywhere.
And if you expect people to just go in full throttle, you know, run your own lightning node, do it all privately, self-hosted, self-custodial, spit out CoinJoin, go to cold storage on day one, then you're deluded.

(20:59):
But at the same time, this technology, or at least the base knowledge of it, cursory knowledge of it is becoming ubiquitous.
It's everywhere. And the average person on the street sees that it's not going away. They're seeing that these articles that have been written about Bitcoin dying or just being for drug money or scams, they're seeing that that's all fake and that there's something to this as staying power.

(21:25):
More people are adopting it. As we see in just the last couple of months, Stake and Shake, these big chains out of 400 branches plus.
When you hear stories that Square is finally gearing up to turn on by default, they're 4 million terminals.
And I think that's going to include web checkouts too.

(21:45):
and then just like anecdotally from what we're seeing in terms of
usage from both the like consumer level like the app level but also businesses calling us up and
asking like hey how do I do this like I saw Steak and Shake doing this and I see you guys are

(22:09):
doing something similar or I saw you know as used user panic tooth turn was can you help us set up or
I saw
payments at
PubKey and I saw you guys
were running the payments for them
we're having
a lot of really interesting conversations right now
and I'm hoping
we can make some more

(22:30):
announcements in the coming
weeks and months about some of the people
we're onboarding right now
obviously there's a lot of work to do
and you know things are
still very nascent and we have a long way
to go both as
A company at Zeus, Bitcoin as a medium of exchange, the whole thing growing.

(22:52):
But it feels like we're making some real strides right now, and it's really exciting.
So it's a great time to be involved, and it feels nice to help push the needle a little bit.
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(24:52):
slash walker and use the promo code walker not only do you get 5 off but you also help support this podcast So thank you No doubt And I curious too I mean do you think cause I seen this debated and it something that I debate about with my
myself occasionally, but I mean,
do you think Bitcoin is at this point mainstream in terms of at least it's

(25:17):
that people know about it? Because I've seen, you know, back and forth on this.
Like if you see some of like Joe Nakamoto who shout out to Joey does incredible
work uh if you see some of his videos like where he does man on the street type stuff and goes up
and just talks to random people it's like there's still so many people who literally he says bitcoin
to them and they're like what is that i've i've literally never heard that word before in my life

(25:38):
and i'm like how have you never heard that word like but you realize like from an adoption
standpoint we're objectively still early in terms of like we're at probably less like a fraction of
percent of the world that actually owns bitcoin in some some way maybe with the etfs that's
changed a little bit but it's still a pretty small amount of people who at least know they

(26:03):
have exposure to bitcoin maybe there's others that have exposure that don't know about it yet
i don't know but like right that's gonna change too with like yeah and stuff but where do you
think we're at in that though like because to me it still feels very early and i think it's great
that these tools are being built so that when people do decide to actually pay attention to
Bitcoin, they have more options available to them than just, okay, I'm going to go buy a Bitcoin ETF,

(26:29):
which is, you want to do that, that's fine. It's in such an interesting spot right now,
because I feel like, at least anecdotally, my experience, you'll say the word Bitcoin
to the average person they'll at least have like heard of it they're like uh some internet money

(26:49):
digital money what they think of it you know has probably ranged wildly most people have like
talk about like risk aversion all i heard from you know financial person i shouldn't invest in it
or i shouldn't invest more than i'm willing to lose in it like that that's probably the general

(27:09):
sentiment so it's like where are we in this adoption curve and you can't really draw
too many parallels to other technologies i think like looking back like email would probably be an
interesting one like we're in the phase where people have all maybe heard of it because of

(27:30):
articles written in you know um the news magazines and whatnot it's like oh the mail is in the
computer but people haven't done it yet they haven't gotten their um they haven't gotten
internet in their home yet you know like that's sort of where we're at uh i think there might
also be a lot of interesting parallels to like file sharing um you know some people are

(27:58):
there they might be using napster but it's really just the more hardcore people that have been
exposed to it but you know um we still really haven't had our like spotify moment or apple
itunes moment yet not really i mean there are some big players in right now but

(28:21):
adoption like usage really isn't that widespread yet and i think like the reason you can't really
draw parallels to either of these technologies one-to-one
is that when money is involved,
stakes are higher and people are going to be more risk-averse.

(28:43):
It's much less risky to
send an email, for example. There's almost no risk there.
With file sharing, it's a little risk. Maybe you're worried about getting
caught by the cops getting a letter from your ISP
or whatever, getting sued like what Metallica did.

(29:05):
But with money, I think most people jump in there and be like,
oh, no, I can't afford this.
I can't take this risk.
I don't have the budget for it.
I'm just trying to make ends meet.
And, you know, people don't realize that they can receive, like,
less than a cent of Bitcoin on the Lightning Network

(29:27):
or with the Cashew token.
And that you don't have to just dive in with your whole life savings like a lot of us have.
So, yeah, it's interesting.
But, yeah, it's really going to take more time.
And the other interesting parallel that's, like, completely unique, it's not like when email was out that all these email-like things and scams were, like, forcing people out, you know?

(29:57):
It's actually such a good point.
It's like, oh, I got malware from Kazaa or whatever.
Like, no, like, there is so much damn noise with crypto and these scams and FTX and every cycle.
And it's going to just keep repeating and repeating and repeating.
And, you know, that distinction is really tough to make and it takes time and education and all these other efforts.

(30:20):
And really, it takes people, like, actually trying and getting a better grasp of the technology themselves.
and at least understanding the properties of it.
Obviously, the average person doesn't know how email works
and how it gets from one inbox to another.

(30:41):
Similarly, they're not going to know how Bitcoin works
or how it goes from the blockchain all the way up to the cash human
or something like that.
But at the same time, people are still going to use it.
People are using it today.
and it's just going to be a long haul.
We got to be in it for the long haul.

(31:01):
Understand that things are changing in this industry incredibly rapidly,
even though adoption takes a really long time.
And, you know, it's sort of funny at how it's at odds
with how things sort of work in the fiat economy with VC money

(31:23):
and all these hype cycles and trying to take people's attention away.
It's really at odds with each other.
And really the people who are going to succeed are going to be the ones
who can, you know, stay alive and be in it for the long haul
and also be adaptable, you know.

(31:45):
sort of meet people where they're at and actually listen to
what people need and expect and what their problems are.
And not just say, oh, yeah, the problem is central banking.
The problem is your well is being dug literally away.
The problem is you're in a hamster wheel and you're barely making ends meet

(32:10):
and you're living paycheck to paycheck.
And yeah, of course, that's really the problem for most people.
But it's also like a bitter pill to swallow and it could be overwhelming and people might not be looking at their lives at that level and probably have a lot of distractions going on.

(32:35):
you know it's really just it's really a big uphill battle in a lot of ways trying to orange
pill someone and i know many of the bitcoin most of the bitcoiners i've talked to and hang out with
like they've given up on that like i feel like everyone goes through this period when they first
learn about they're like oh my god this technology is amazing it's empowering it can break me out of

(33:02):
my nine to five shackles, my debt shackles, societal expectations,
the fruits of my labor not being stolen from me in this indirect taxation.
And, you know, as you extrapolate, you're like, oh, this could potentially have geopolitical impacts.

(33:23):
This could change the whole fucking world.
And you want to go tell everyone, you get so excited.
You're like, have you heard about Bitcoin yet?
And you just become that annoying guy.
and everyone's like, shut the fuck up, dude.
Every conversation, you try to inject this
and, you know,
most people don't care. They're like,
did you watch the game
last night? Yeah, catch that game

(33:43):
last night, bro. Yeah, and, you know,
it's like nothing against sports. I love sports.
But, you know, people have all
these distractions that they're more worried about.
And
then it's sort of
like a double-edged sword, too. Like, okay,
let's say you get someone in
at the top of the cycle and they're like,

(34:03):
fucking Evan, that son of a bitch,
you recommended Bitcoin to me and now it's down 30%.
And you're going to say like,
oh, you got to lower your time preference.
You just got to wait.
You just hold it for two years.
You're going to be back up two years.
Two years is a millennia for these people.
The other side of the coin is,
oh shit, look, Evan invested in Bitcoin so early.

(34:25):
That's a lucky son of a bitch.
and
you know, they're jealous.
They might not say it directly.
And you know,
in that regard, people
become
averse to like trying to
orange pill people. They have all these bad

(34:46):
experiences and I think as a
result, people just
have sort of resigned and been like,
okay, you know what? I'm not really
going to be too vocal about
it. But instead, we'll let people come to them, which is probably a better way to go about it.
Dude, you've literally just described my entire journey like exactly though, like literally so

(35:09):
gung ho at first hearing about it. And you're right, because it's like, you're so excited about
it and things are clicking for you. And so you're like, I need to share this with the people I care
about. I need to share it with my family. I need to share it with my friends. I need to share it
with the lady cutting my hair and like, you know, I need to share it with everyone. And then like,
part of it is like, maybe you get, you get like rejected enough times, or like you said, okay,

(35:33):
you tell somebody to get in at the, at the current top, you know, which is not going to be the top.
It's going to be somewhere in the middle, like four years from there. But like, right. You know,
if somebody got in right at the top, you look like a, you know, a jackass to them. Like,
and you're like, oh shit. Okay. And then eventually you're just kind of like, okay,
you know yeah come my way like you know you want to do your best to get your family and your like

(35:54):
closest friends on board and like what i've realized it's like a good way of doing this is
like look you know i care about you hopefully you think that you don't think that i'm like a lunatic
i'm literally telling you this because i love you and i want you to be able to experience this
you can turn it down if you want but like you can't say that to like a random person or like

(36:15):
a not such a close friend because if you start telling everybody like you love them it just gets
a little weird but so like there's there's a there's a limit to how much that works to how big
that circle can spread but but but it's tough and well and this is why i love like what you're
building though because it's like yeah not every like you everybody may try to orange pill their
friends and that spreads slowly but like ultimately people come when they're ready like right like we

(36:40):
get bitcoin at the price we deserve uh we start understanding it at the price we deserve and
And once you do start understanding it, like it's pretty amazing when there's great tools that already exist where you can go, oh, wow, this is like, this is easy.
This doesn't feel as scary as I thought it was when, you know, my friend Walker was ranting about magic internet money.

(37:00):
Like he made it sound way too complicated, that ass.
But like, so that's like, you need those tools in place because people are coming.
It's just, it's not a question of if, it's just a question of when.
It's happening.
It's crazy.
It's happening.
Is that, I am, I am curious, man, even the boomers are coming. I'm telling you,
I don't call, I don't call boomers a lot, but I hope the boomers that I know,

(37:23):
listen to the show and my friends, dear friends who are boomers know that I'm not talking about
them specifically. I'm talking broadly. Like when boomers say, and I'm again, broadly boomers say
like, well, you millennials, if you just didn't eat your avocado toast and, you know, pick yourself
up by your bootstraps, maybe you too could buy a house for four raspberries like I did in 1971.
And, you know, so shout out to shout out to the boomers.

(37:45):
I love you, even though you are the butt of some jokes.
You know who you are and I appreciate you.
Yeah, they don't just they just don't know how good they had it.
It's like, OK, yeah, maybe we have our cheap avocado toast relative to you guys.
But you guys had all the assets that anyone wants.
So much cheaper housing, you know, just cost of living in general.

(38:07):
It's crazy.
It's absolutely crazy.
But, you know, I think boomers are at least seeing that this thing has staying power.
It's been around a long time.
We can't ban it.
You can't stop it.
It's not a scam.
People are improving their lives over it.
They are integrating it into their businesses.

(38:30):
And, you know, I feel like they've seen it time and time again in their lives.
It's like at some point you need to get a website for your business, right?
You need to get on social media and use that to grow your business and reach out to more customers.
And eventually it's going to become you got to accept Bitcoin at your business.

(38:55):
You should really have a Bitcoin treasury too.
And that's sort of a funny distinction that we're having with some of the boomers that we're talking about and onboarding.
onboarding, they're like, oh yeah, you know, I see the volatility, you know, Evan, you sent me,
you sent me a thousand sets, you know, it was a little bit over a dollar. Now it's a little bit

(39:16):
under a dollar. What's going on? I want to get rid of this as soon as possible. And it's like,
okay, okay, okay. You know, they don't have to dive in all the way, but really, you know,
you've got to plant those seeds. Like, you should probably think about holding this. It's like,
this probably won't be a huge amount of your sales right out the gate.
Maybe you should just hold that part if you can.

(39:37):
And, you know, obviously it's your money.
You're free to do whatever you want.
We'll even help you convert it.
But it might make sense to hold on to it.
Maybe.
So, you know, like I said, people are in different stages of their journeys.
They make these realizations at different points.

(39:58):
they're going to use it differently.
Everyone's life situation is different.
Every business has different requirements and needs and clientele and costs and X, Y, Z.
And, you know, we're seeing like just cult-like behavior by so many people.
It's like subsections of our community where like everyone's got to do this.

(40:21):
Everyone's got to use it the same way.
Everyone's got to be self-custodial or everyone should just use, you know,
this custody app, it's so easy,
or everyone should run core,
or everyone should run not.
It's like, no, dude, do what makes sense for you.
And here's some reasons why X, Y, or Z

(40:44):
might make sense to you.
I don't know, it's just so easy
to just get into your corner and be like,
okay, these are my people, right?
This is how I do it.
this is who I'm going to refer to for my thinking.
You know, if this person likes this, then it can't be good.

(41:05):
It's like, well, where's the critical thinking of some people?
It's pretty scary.
And, you know, I feel like this is also like another side effect of the internet age.
It's like people think that they can't have disagreements with people that they're friends with or they love this.

(41:26):
like I'm not gonna I can hang out with them because they're they're a lib or they're a
magintard or whatever it's like sort of a sad way to to live your life you know and and you know
same thing with bitcoin it's like okay like you're into bitcoin you like bitcoin you that's great

(41:48):
that doesn't mean that you know we're best friends or that we're simpaticos it's like
it's also just a tool you know it's like oh dude you use email too oh man we're bros
you got a twitter account that's
so hey that said being a bitcoiner at least at this stage we're at now i've found can be a good

(42:13):
filter for finding some good people now there's still plenty of shitty people who have bitcoin
there's shitty people everywhere but like at least at the earliness uh early or this stage
of earliness we're at now it it can be a cool filter uh for for finding people that are at least
roughly ideologically aligned you roughly right right most most people that got here

(42:38):
got here for a reason yeah but you know there are outliers so but no you're right you're right
Where we are in the adoption curve, it is a really good filter.
And most of the people that we have come out to the meetups that we do out here are generally really great people.
I'm sure there's like a spook or two in the middle.

(43:01):
I think there's always a spook or two.
It would be crazy if there were.
I mean, the CIA invented Bitcoin after all.
So, of course, there's got to be a spook or two there.
They've got to check on how their little project is doing, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, who knows, really?
I don't try to know, but, you know, if you look at, you know, deception of the Internet, all these other, you know, pieces of encryption, even even apps like Signal, how they've been funded.

(43:34):
You know, it's ubiquitous.
It's just how society has really organized itself and the state has really grown to such a crazy level, especially in the last hundred years, let's say.
yeah it's it just makes sense that and just thinking about the stakes of course these people

(43:55):
are going to be embedded everywhere and uh yeah it sort of makes operating as a bitcoiner a little
tricky a little dicey i wanted to ask you about this because like okay obviously the last
administration in the U S was exponentially less friendly and was trying to make life hell. And as,

(44:18):
you know, been prosecuting or was prosecuting various open source developers, where are you
at right now with your level of comfortability running a, a Bitcoin business and building
awesome freedom tech for people like, are, I mean, are, are, are you always just one

(44:39):
administration away from like okay i gotta like shut this down and go somewhere else or like
how do you think about because like it can change it can change every four years drop of a dime you
know yeah like if the state doesn't like what you're doing they could basically stop you like
The state by itself can always crush any single individual.

(45:07):
But if the actions are taken on by a group and it's a distributed thing, it's multiple efforts, it becomes cultural.
And it's not just, you know, one small group or one individual, then, you know, then things become inevitable and they become unstoppable.
and

(45:28):
I think
you know we just got to keep
leaning into that and you know not to be
like an uber collectivist
I mean
that's already been an interesting talk
theme in our talk so far
but you know really
Bitcoin needs
everyone, Bitcoin needs you

(45:50):
and
its success is not
inevitable and the more
that individuals act,
we act collectively in pushing this technology,
then the higher chance it is to succeed
and the harder it is for the state to snuff it out.
So where's my comfort level right now

(46:12):
building this technology?
It's not 100%.
Right now it's way better than it was
the last couple of years.
That being said, we still have a long way to go.
A lot of our friends are still being prosecuted, right?
The Tornado Cash guys are still in court.

(46:35):
The Samurai, Walla Dez are still in court.
Not all states or countries have the same assurances about self-custody or mining or, you know, these L2 services that we're running.
and you know like i said like these things could change at the drop of a hat maybe even this

(47:01):
administration changes their tune and you know if you look at the geopolitical climate
a lot of that stuff could be used as an excuse to crack down on us so you know my message to
all the builders out there to the people pushing the software is like you know um when we're given

(47:23):
an inch let's take a mile let's keep pressing forward while we have the runway let's use it
i personally think that we're going to win a lot of battles over the next four years
duration of this admin right um we're going to still lose some
but we certainly have more runway and leeway than we previously did so let's build let's build let's

(47:49):
build, let's ship, let's keep pushing stuff in the right direction. And we need to get this tech
to a point where it's proliferated so much that it's not socially acceptable to put the clamps down
on the technology, the users, the developers. So still a lot of fighting to do.

(48:15):
we should expect things to get worse
before they get better
but we can also
tell ourselves and accept
things are definitely
better than
where they were like
two years ago
and when Samurai was just getting arrested

(48:36):
and
while the Satoshi in Phoenix
while leaving the United States
I'm not going to lie to you
that was scary
really scary
and
to think that that's the worst of it
I mean hopefully it is
and obviously

(49:00):
geopolitically the whole world is different
different countries are going to do crackdown
some countries have more to lose than others
but yeah we just gotta be resilient
and
no that that's likely not the worst of it we have a lot of bigger battles ahead of us to fight

(49:23):
i mean what happens if hyperinflation really hits some of these western countries
we're definitely a prime scapegoats
but again it's about education it's like no you guys are the assholes who put us
30, 40, 50 trillion dollars in debt.

(49:46):
It wasn't us who wanted to recklessly spend.
It wasn't us who wanted to give money to foreign countries when we have veterans starving at
home.
And you know at some point The existing system is going to topple in on itself

(50:07):
And there's going to be, there's going to have to be a new restructuring.
I think, again, it's like not going to happen this year, next year, probably not even during
this administration.
I think, you know, I think in the next 20 years, though, there's going to be some radical
things that happen.
currency is getting re-pegged

(50:27):
I'm not necessarily set
that fiat is going to go anywhere
obviously the incentives
are too strong
but yeah I mean
we could already see today that this
technology
is really having profound impacts
obviously Bitcoin is not crypto

(50:48):
Bitcoin is not
CBDCs, Bitcoin is not
stablecoins
but we're seeing things like tether
might be the most successful company in the world right now like they print money
the current administration sees tether as a way to offload treasuries have them buy

(51:15):
treasuries and help address some of their debt issues um so to
only look at Bitcoin as a medium of exchange
and say, oh, it's failing.
It's not having an effect on the world.
It's a little myopic.
It's a little nearsighted.
And obviously, medium of exchange is super important.

(51:39):
And that's how the world is really going to change.
But we're already seeing the effects
that Bitcoin is having on finance and geopolitics.
it's super interesting right now
did uh did you guys ever pull out of uh u.s availability during that no no i mean

(52:03):
um
did the thought cross my mind well not really i mean when phoenix pulled out it was like an
no shit moment where I'm like, am I going to have to pull out?
Like it was, it was really a scary day, but you know, like I alluded to earlier, Walker's

(52:29):
like, okay, this thing, if it's going to be successful, it has to be done collectively.
And people are like, oh, Evan, you should have just shut up.
You should have just kept operating and not made us think about it.
It's like, yeah, probably that would have been the smart thing to do, but we would have been worse off if we didn't inspire some confidence in our other peers and more people decide to leave the market.

(52:57):
We would have sucked.
So, you know, obviously everyone's situation is different.
Not everyone is a U.S. citizen.
But where am I going to go?
You know, and the United States, they think they're the police of the world.
Even if I were to go somewhere else, they'd probably still think they could go and prosecute me wherever I was in the world.

(53:21):
So the choice was simple.
It's like, no, we're staying.
We're standing our ground.
We're going to take this risk.
we're going to keep building.
And it paid dividends.
And hopefully we inspired confidence
in some users and users of Bitcoin.
And hopefully we inspired confidence
in some people that were on the fence.

(53:46):
And like I said, that was a test.
I think we passed it with flying colors.
But we got to be ready for the next test.
And we got to make ourselves more resilient.
And we got to have contingencies and, you know, have plans for when these events happen, what we're going to do to, you know, make sure we can keep providing these services and this technology for users.

(54:17):
Yeah, it was just a test.
It was just a test.
I've got to say on the record that you've got balls the size of watermelons.
Because like – I mean – and this is nothing – like you said, everyone's situation is different.
Yeah.
Like I don't really want to judge anyone on their actions.
Obviously –
No.
But you did what you did.
Different legal situations, different legal situations, different legal guidance.

(54:42):
But yeah, I'm happy we made the decisions we did.
And it's not just me but tons of other companies do the same.
Maybe they weren't as vocal about it.
and you know that's that's what's gonna take us gonna take collective action like that
and to like sense yourself take yourself out of markets uh preemptively without like

(55:04):
the state forcing you to do so is like
it would it would have been the worst thing we could have done and
i'm just i'm just so glad we didn't did did you guys see just from like a user standpoint
when phoenix and waldo satoshi pulled out did you guys see your uh user base expand

(55:29):
like as a result of that i i assume so yeah probably like
three x or so wow so at the same time you know it was also when we had just really hit our stride
with our services and we're rolling it out um so good timing i mean you know yeah yeah yeah

(55:50):
Shitty situation, good timing.
Yeah, yeah.
And now people tell me about it.
It's like, dude, this sort of has added a lot to the ethos of it too.
I'm like, I didn't even think about it that way.
I mean, we were just trying to figure out what the best thing to do in that environment was.

(56:11):
And we had to make a tough decision.
And it wasn't fucking easy for me to make.
Like, you know, we just had our first kid in the last year.
And, you know, around time that stuff was ruminating.
And I'm like, okay, am I going to run the risk of not being there for my kid?

(56:34):
Or am I going to just, like, bend the knee and be like, yep, we're not doing this anymore.
You got to live in this world and set this awful example.
It's like sort of like being in between a rock and a hard place.
So, yeah, it wasn't easy.
It's not something I took lightly.

(56:55):
But at the same time, like I knew my decision within, you know, just a couple of hours of Phoenix, like making the decision.
And it just didn't seem like there was any alternative.
We had to do it.
That's that.

(57:15):
Massive respect to you, dude.
I'm glad you continued to build in the U.S.
I mean, purportedly, we're the freest country in the world.
So it is absurd that companies even felt that sort of pressure in the first place.
The last administration was rough.
This administration is by no means perfect.
And as you correctly said, that can change on a dime, right?

(57:39):
Right, right.
Right.
These guys are wild cards.
We don't know.
They're changing their views on all sorts of stuff, as you can see in the last week or two.
Yeah.
So you never know what's going to happen.
But yeah, you can just try to figure out where your hard lines are.

(58:01):
Try to plan in advance to the best of your ability.
Try to gather the resources that you can.
and you know we're never going to forget the people who had our backs who helped us out who
helped us navigate that who reached out and even said hey we support you or thank you for doing this
um those little actions they meant the world to us and you know we know who's got her back when

(58:28):
hits the fan again if it ever does god forbid um but yeah just like it really just meant a lot
the support that we got and being being able to grow our user base and our company and our

(58:48):
services was was a great reward for it too um so yeah it was it was tense it was scary but
it paid dividends.
I want to kind of talk about like, okay, you've grown your user base.
You've just released vo.11.0, right?

(59:13):
What's the version number?
It's 0.11.1 right now.
Okay, okay.
We call it 11.1.
Who knows?
Maybe we'll drop the zero at some point just randomly like Bitcoin Core did.
Yeah, screw it.
Why not, right?
Version numbers are just, yeah.
People are like, Evan, you don't have to go to 1.0.

(59:34):
Although we're sort of at a point where we're like, okay,
we sort of want to get to a place where like, okay,
this is the culmination of everything we've done.
And I think, you know, I think that's a lot of our focus.
Like we've built up all these great building blocks over the years.
The remote node, embedded node, the LSP services, the swap services,

(59:55):
the cash view and now we have all this
arsenal of
tools and now
I think a lot of our focus
for the rest of the year is like
how do we round out
the edges how do we
improve the onboarding how do
we identify the biggest
pain points how do we just like

(01:00:17):
really put on our
UI UX hat and
obviously like
it's not easy that there's
a lot of people we're going to bring in and rely on and help us with this thing.
But yeah, I think with our current set of tools right now,
I think that like, yeah, this is the bones of the 1.0 product.

(01:00:39):
It just needs that polish and it needs, you know, those user interviews.
It needs just a little love and I think it's really going to shine.
And I think we've really built, like today, what I personally believe is the most powerful mobile Bitcoin wallet on the planet.

(01:01:02):
And with just a little bit of love, we can make it the best Bitcoin wallet, period.
Something that you'll be comfortable onboarding anyone, even your grandma, even my ya-ya.
And that's always been the goal.
And it feels really close now.

(01:01:22):
we still have a ton of work, a lot of work,
a lot of work that we don't typically do.
And it might be a little uncomfortable, it might be difficult,
but that's where the best growth happens.
What do you mean work that you don't typically do?
Like, you know, UI, UX.
Okay, okay.
Thinking about how people on board interact with the app, you know.

(01:01:44):
Like a lot of our stuff has been like,
and I don't think this is necessarily a bad way to build apps,
but like really just scratching my own itch.
like like I think it would be awesome if I could do this and then build it for myself first and
foremost right and um if anyone else likes it that's just icing on the cake like that's how I

(01:02:06):
thought about it for like a long time and I understand that the app can still be that it
could be the wallet of my dreams and do everything it wants but there are like different UX flows that
can definitely stand to be improved in these.
And there's an overwhelming amount of functionality in the app.

(01:02:28):
And there's definitely stuff that we can tuck away in other menus.
There's different things we could explain better.
And it's like this sort of introspection, looking in the mirror,
that we're all going to really have to do more widely

(01:02:50):
for Bitcoin to reach peak adoption.
And that's what we're going to be trying to do, yeah.
Let me ask you a question on that because, like, I mean,
I love Zeus as an app.
For me, I get it also.

(01:03:12):
I get what you guys are trying to do.
I know enough about how things work on the backend and channels and everything else.
Like things make sense to me.
Do you think, and this is not about Zeus specifically, but let's just say more broadly,
like are we ever going to be to a point where the majority of people, let's just class for
majority, over 50% of people are using Bitcoin in a, how do I say this?

(01:03:39):
in a way that is further along the self-sovereignty spectrum than 50%.
You know what I mean?
They're using it like I think sovereignty is a spectrum like many things.
You're never going to be perfectly sovereign.
You can be pretty much a slave though.
Perhaps that's the other end of the spectrum.

(01:04:00):
How realistic is it?
What actual penetration of the world in a hyper-Bitcoinized future?
Maybe a better question is what does that mean to you?
Does that mean it's a majority of people that are actually using Bitcoin in a relatively self-sovereign way?
Or does that just mean that Bitcoin itself is ubiquitous?
It's the water that the fish swim in.

(01:04:21):
People are using it, but they don't even know it and they don't care about the method in which they're using it,
whether that be custodial, non-custodial, whatever.
It's just, it's so ubiquitous that that's just what hyper-Bitcoinization means.
Where do you fall on that?
That's a really loaded question.
I know.
But self-custody, like, let's break down.

(01:04:42):
Yeah.
Is it realistic to think that most people will hold their own keys to, you know, underlying Bitcoin?
Probably not.
But that doesn't mean that that's not a worthwhile ideal to strive for.

(01:05:04):
and even if we'd never
crossed that threshold
I think these are the things that are important
one that the average person
can do
that can decide to go and hold
their own keys if they so choose
and then
on the other side of it

(01:05:25):
thinking about
the systemic
risks
of this world where people
aren't holding most of their keys.
Where those disruptions can happen,
stuff like running fractional reserves,
manipulating the markets.

(01:05:49):
We can still strive to have those Bitcoins
held by enough parties for users to have them
across enough different custodians
to have the rails between them
and the ability to switch custodians and leverage rails like people are using Lightning today.

(01:06:10):
I think that's what's important.
People are so passionate about using Bitcoin the right way.
You know, running it self-custodially, run your own node, doing it privately.
I think mainly because they have this fear that is, I think, very real, right?

(01:06:34):
That in a lot of ways, we run the risk of recreating the existing financial system.
And from that perspective, I entirely understand the toxicity, the name calling,
just trying to jump into these groups and say,

(01:06:56):
oh, you're in the in group, you're in the out group,
you're doing things right, you're doing things wrong.
So I totally sympathize with those fears, at least.
And they play their role.
It's like people should really be vocal about the importance of these things.
We don't want to just recreate the existing financial system

(01:07:20):
and change the name of the units to Bitcoin.
But at the same time, it feels like even at this point,
there's a lot of freedoms that we've taken
that really just can't be taken away.
Like, you can't get the toothpaste out of the tube,

(01:07:41):
back in the tube, excuse me.
Like, from here on out,
it's going to be very, very difficult to stop people from being able to create
their own keys, their own 12 words, memorize them and store their wealth.
Like you can try to intervene in that in very unique ways,

(01:08:08):
pushing people onto custodial platforms, compromising networks and hardware
and all this sort of stuff, but the underlying ability,
it's sort of out of the tube.
It's like saying, oh, humans learned how to make fire

(01:08:31):
and we're going to stop that from happening.
It just seems ridiculous.
So we should still be vigilant.
We still should be concerned about this thing being co-opted,
especially now, especially in this environment
where heads of state are talking about Bitcoin,
where we have ETFs, where we have paper Bitcoin,
Bitcoin treasury companies,

(01:08:53):
people taking buy pressure away from Bitcoin,
the underlying asset,
and putting it into these easier to get into avenues.
There's a lot to have your guard up about.
But sometimes you also need to kick your feet up
and look back at all that's been accomplished already by this technology.

(01:09:16):
And, you know, a lot of these freedoms are now inalienable
and can't be taken away.
And, you know, obviously, like I said earlier,
a state can go and crush any single individual,
but as a widespread technology, it's not going anywhere.

(01:09:39):
and we can be very grateful for that.
And now it's just our job to make sure it reaches its full potential.
I say amen to that, brother.
And I think that is such an important point that, like, yeah, okay.

(01:10:01):
It's very, like, it's a, you know, cliche, but, you know,
like you know uh united we scan we stand you know like but separated we fall like
it is much harder to stomp the boot of the state down on a massive group of people who are also
armed with cryptographic uh cryptographic weapons no those are weapons of defense right those are

(01:10:22):
asymmetric defense-based weapons but weapons nonetheless uh which is why they're doing the
jason lowry thing now no i meant more so like they try they've tried to classify strong encryption
as arms like this this happened like what wasn't it adam adam back who like printed out i forget
which uh uh which algorithm on his like on a shirt and like was wearing it across borders i thought i

(01:10:45):
think it was adam back who did that right yep indeed it was dr back just a badass move like
honestly to be like nope yep okay i'm gonna i guess i'm gonna you know transporting arms across
borders like that's amazing and also just shows the absurdity of trying to classify code open
source code as somehow the like to classify it as the same as the bombs that uh the u.s

(01:11:10):
sells and drops around the world like just insane they literally put the rsa algorithm encrypted in
a pearl script that you could scan with an advanced barcode scanner and wrote on it,
warning, this shirt is classified as a munition and you cannot export it from the United States

(01:11:36):
or give it to a foreign national.
But here it is on my shirt.
They literally did that and they followed those same principles.
they said it as clearly as they could with this action said the toothpaste is out of the tube
there's nothing you can do about it it is proliferating to all humanity and that's just

(01:12:04):
such an incredible statement it's unbelievable yeah that sure is legendary um i think they have
a new updated version of it on the Blockstream store. I have it upstairs somewhere.
Nice.
It's classic. Shout out to Dr. Beck.
Do you, just a slightly kind of different route on this, obviously all of the tools that are

(01:12:27):
available to individuals are available to the state, right? Strong cryptography is available
to individuals. It's available to the state. Bitcoin is available to individuals. It's available
to the state. All of these things are. Now, I'm curious where you sit, like CBDCs and which are

(01:12:48):
basically just like the CBDCs are essentially the ultimate form of like AML KYC, right? It's like
automated AML KYC using some of these same tools, like basically inspired by Bitcoin, but CBDCs is
the ultimate fiat shitcoin, right? It's taking fiat to its worst possible conclusion. It's taking
the only good thing that fiat had which was cash which cash is cash is great physical cash i mean

(01:13:13):
that's actually great that's yeah anonymous it's it's excellent you should use cash more
uh it's taking that only good thing away from it where do you think we're at on this kind of uh
i mean you've spoken pretty strongly about uh kyc aml and so i'd love to kind of get your your
thoughts on that because obviously i think that's a travesty and we see there's just another huge

(01:13:37):
data breach today. And it's just a classic example. Anytime I see a data breach, I'm just like,
all of our, anytime you KYC, like that's just an invitation for a data breach. It's an invitation
for you to get docs. It's an invitation for bad things to happen. A CBDC is the ultimate form of
KYC yourself. It's KYC every single thing you do. It's zero privacy. Where are you at on this?

(01:14:00):
Do you think that America has rejected this strongly enough? What are your thoughts?
I think America is in a very interesting position in terms of its CBDCs and as a result of its values.
It's not like the CBDCs that we're going to see are going to be the same like a Chinese CBDC tied into WeChat, just perfect view into these users.

(01:14:28):
I think one of the funny things that America's done that, you know, we've seen sort of as a result of like the Snowden revelations, like they will outsource their spying, for example, to these third parties, to these corporations.
Right And they like okay we not going to do this directly but we easily cut a check to these telcos or these financial services companies in exchange for that data And that be okay That be our way to skirt around the Constitution I feel like similarly we going to see the role

(01:15:09):
of private issuers,
companies like Tether,
players like JP Morgan, BlackRock
who might get into issuing CBDCs
play that role.
It might be
marginally better
in terms of it being
distributed widely, but
it's effectively going to still have those same controls,

(01:15:32):
that same surveillance,
because, you know,
they're working so closely with the treasury department,
with FinCEN,
they have this data,
they have to answer the government requests.
They can freeze their currencies.
Like we've seen with Tether time and time again.
Yeah, I think it's like a really prescient time to talk about it.

(01:15:53):
Now that I feel like the genius act,
the new stable coin act,
I don't know all the ins and outs of it,
But I know it's just passed the Senate, I believe. I had passed the House previously, I think. Does Trump just have to sign up on it now? See, like, I'm not following it closely enough.
but I know that there's going to be
I think there's going to be a deluge

(01:16:15):
of newly
privately issued stable coins
and
the government's position is going to be to
just try to
cut deals to monitor them
individually
that's my outlook on it
we're going to see
what this looks like I feel like other big players

(01:16:35):
in the fintech space like
Stripe, PayPal
all these sort of players are going to get involved, issue their own coins.
But yeah, like from a surveillance perspective,
you know, the government's going to hook into these companies.

(01:16:56):
On the other side of things, I'm not optimistic,
but I think there are opportunities for us to try to,
for lack of a better word
or better way of putting it
like Bitcoinize the dollar
where we try to
build these systems

(01:17:19):
on top of Bitcoin
or on top of eCash
and we could sort of reap the benefits
of the privacy benefits
of the self-custodial properties
of these assets
at the same time
we have to be realistic
and be like okay
The underlying asset is this completely untied to these blockchain assets, like the dollar could be printed at a whim and self custody really means nothing in this context.

(01:17:49):
but privacy does
and
if we have the opportunity
for
the
dollar to be operating
on Lightning where the
payers' privacy
is fantastic at least

(01:18:09):
and the receivers'
privacy properties are getting
much better especially over the last couple
of years or
you
The properties of cashew where you don't know how much any individual user has or who's what and you can't stop any individual or shut down their account.

(01:18:32):
You have to rug the whole mint.
Like, I think there might be some interesting opportunities there.
And if we can take them, we should.
But at the same time, what are the incentives for the government to do that?
These are going to be, if they exist, they're not going to be sanctioned stable coins.

(01:18:53):
They'll be privately issued black market dollar pegs that are put together in a plethora of different models.
As we see now, there's algorithmic stable coins, stable coins where the issuers are just putting together short or long positions on these exchanges,

(01:19:16):
depending on what their assets and liabilities are.
Yeah, I mean, there's opportunities there
and perhaps that could be an interesting avenue
to onboard people into Bitcoin,

(01:19:36):
especially for Rails to dump your shitcoin,
fiat, dollar coins, whatever,
and slip into Bitcoin.
It's as easy as making a payment or pressing a button.
that would be phenomenal that's definitely a lofty uh but worthwhile aspiration to have
um but at the same time let's not rely on that let's try to onboard people onto bitcoin directly

(01:19:59):
let's try to show them the way and go from there one day at a time one person at a time
and a quick uh just fact check for on both of us uh it still has to go to the house but it did
passed the senate 6830 so it didn't go through the house okay yeah so it's it's uh it's it's

(01:20:20):
going to the house next and honestly i i haven't followed it super closely just because it's like
i know that a lot of people are super jazzed about stable coins right now i just i don't find it
quite as interesting i mean the the the whole point of it is literally like this is like senator
Gillibrand like quoting her it's like you know protect u.s dollar dominance or safeguard dollar

(01:20:40):
dominance yeah i think this demand for treasuries it's like what was the appeal for us walker i mean
and you know i completely understand people in like uh these countries where they have like much
weaker currencies just wanting it like it makes sense to want tether in turkey you know like
their currency is dog shit like we can it is terrible it's really bad in other places and

(01:21:05):
And, you know, we have easy access to these dollar rails, these dollar banking and financial services.
So, you know, at the same time, we're probably the worst people to be talking to about stable coins and, you know, what usage looks like.
I can only just provide my guidance on like privacy perspective and how I think it's going to be surveilled.

(01:21:31):
But yeah, there's – it's obviously – like I said earlier, Tether is like the biggest company in the world.
There's very real demand for it.
It's not just an artificial thing propped up by the government.
But the government is going to take advantage of this demand and use it to sell other treasuries.

(01:21:53):
Then the lifespan of the dollar.
yeah and you know to be fair it's like the the dollar is as far as fiats go like if the dollar
has fallen that likely means pretty much every other fiat currency in the world has already
collapsed if we're being honest like people like to single out the dollar it's like okay
the dollar is going to be one of the last dominoes to fall it's it's not the first you know what i

(01:22:16):
mean we like it's that's just a reality of the situation is melting ice cube and you know when
the dollar eventually falls.
You know, it's going to be at the cusp of dystopia or utopia or probably just a bi-multipolar
world where it's a little bit of both.

(01:22:37):
Probably bad in some places, probably amazing in some others.
It's a bit scary to think about, but, you know, nothing lasts forever and everything
has its own lifespan.
And, you know, as much as I really love American values, a lot of late empire, late stage empire vibes right now.

(01:23:04):
And a lot of scary things going on in the world.
And obviously change is the only constant.
So we'll see what happens.
yeah i mean i won't deny the the scariness of things happening in the world right now and
the late stage empire vibes as well i i again though it's like it's it's difficult for me to

(01:23:26):
see the united states collapsing before basically everywhere else has collapsed just realistically
you know and maybe i'm maybe i'm totally wrong i also you know it's like if there's one thing
we've realized in this fiat world,
it's, man, the powers that be are really
good at kicking the can down the road.

(01:23:47):
They're really good at kicking
it down the road, just until they all
get to retire.
In a lot of ways, obviously,
we want a hyper-Bitcoinized world tomorrow.
We want a better world for our children tomorrow.
But at the same time,
it would probably
most definitely
be better to have
an easy transition

(01:24:08):
onto the Bitcoin standard instead of
like, oh shit, here's societal collapse and figure it out and just mass chaos.
So I think a little patience will go a long way.

(01:24:28):
And, you know, like I said, I'm not expecting fiat collapse tomorrow either.
I think they're going to repeg it.
They're going to do all sorts of new arrangements.
And, you know, we should fully expect fiat currency to be around for a long, long time, for generations and generations.

(01:24:49):
That being said, humanity can still benefit from Bitcoin greatly while it's still around.
That doesn't mean we should be working to extend the lifespan of it, though.
So be careful what you work on, be careful what you wish for.
And, you know, just try to be mindful and have intention with your actions.

(01:25:17):
Speaking of intention with actions, what are you most excited to kind of, you know, you mentioned some of the things you need to tweak about Zeus.
And we've gone in, I think, a big wide arc here.
And we're coming back a little bit to where we started.
but you've,
you've got a lot of stuff in this,
this latest release.
You guys have done a lot over,
you know,
in the past couple of years,

(01:25:38):
is there something,
you know,
beyond the UI UX stuff that you're really,
you want to make sure you turn on,
if you can,
something you can talk about,
I know some stuff may be under the hood still,
but like,
is there something that you think like,
Oh,
like we really need to get this in the app.
And I can't fricking wait for it to happen.
Um,
yeah,

(01:26:00):
or are you getting close to like okay close there's well i definitely know where the freckles
are the spots the things people struggle with i think some optionality on how the embedded node
works how you sync it to change stuff like that like just a lot of technical stuff i know that
once we flesh out a little more it's really going to shine but no honestly welcome the thing i'm

(01:26:25):
most excited about right now is like talking with merchants,
onboarding companies,
you know, Bitcoin
adoption and tooling from
the consumer side
I think is actually really good right now.
Tons of optionality.
It's getting super easy to use.
Lightning is the
de facto rails for Bitcoin.

(01:26:45):
Everything's interoperable.
Get out of
a KYC
account,
self-custodial Lightning,
wallet very easily with really good privacy.
Like all that stuff is great.
The business side tooling is not so great.

(01:27:06):
Needs a lot of work, but has a lot of opportunity right now, a lot of demand.
I think some awesome things are going to be built.
And I, more than anything, more than any technology in Zeus or any products we're building,
I am just really excited in general for adoption to grow on the merchant side.
And that's where we're also going to be spending a lot of focus on and are actually really focusing on right now.

(01:27:29):
Like we're talking with three pretty interesting merchants this week that were in various stages of onboarding.
And, you know, we really see this demand ramping up.
And, yeah, I don't, I mean, there are improvements that I'd like to see come to lightning and even to the base protocol.

(01:27:52):
Like we recently signed a letter signaling our support for a CTV, CSFS soft fork.
Whether I think that's going to actually come to fruition, I really don't know.
I think some of the tribalism going on right now is going to make that exceptionally difficult.
Can you explain in ADIQ terms what that means?

(01:28:18):
Yeah, covenants.
Covenants allow you to put spending restrictions on your Bitcoin.
It's all optional.
It's all opt-in.
But it's going to pave the way for a lot of L2 systems to work more efficiently.
This includes Lightning.
This includes stuff like ARK.

(01:28:41):
This includes UX for coin joints.
Yeah, just a lot of things you can do much more passively with coin joints and sort of take your setup offline.
Super exciting.

(01:29:01):
And then just in general, what you can do with vaults.
faults. It's like spending restrictions that you can have for your personal stash to ensure that
your family and your savings are safe without really having to rely on a third party. Like
right now we have really good tooling that you can do with collaborative multi-sig,

(01:29:26):
like these companies like Unchained or Casa, signing tools, like stuff like Nunchuck Mobile
while it makes multi-sig really easy,
Phoenix hardware wallets
that allow you to do all these crazy things.
But a lot of them really require third-party help.
If you have a vault, you can say,

(01:29:47):
hey, my money is in this vault.
It has a three-day, 14-day, three-month,
six-month cool-down period,
and I can send something out into transit.
I don't need to get this money
until the end of that period.
But if I see anything is messed up, flow it back.

(01:30:08):
I have an exit path.
Bring it back, put it back in the vault or kick it out somewhere else where I know it's safe.
And the ability to create this time-limited place for your Bitcoin to live for these big transfers is huge.

(01:30:33):
it really reduces the ability for someone to break into your house,
just dig a gun to your head.
It's like, no, it's in the vault.
Someone else, or if it's not me, claw it back within that time period.
And it gives you just like a whole lot of assurances.

(01:30:55):
It puts time on your side when you're doing self-custody.
And I think that vaults alone are worth activating OpCTV for. I truly do. I think for self-custody to really flourish and for the individual to really take it into their own hands and reap these benefits, get rid of these security concerns, vaults and covenants go so, so far.

(01:31:22):
and that's why I've been a real ardent supporter of them
on top of the benefits we get with L2s, ARK, Lightning, CoinJoints
new constructions we haven't even thought of
and yeah, I just don't want Bitcoin to stagnate either
the discussions have been really interesting right now
because a lot of people are opposed to change on Bitcoin

(01:31:43):
because the secondary effects of say something like Taproot
and enabling or at least making
stuff like ordinals or rather inscriptions easier
has left a lot of people risk averse
and not wanting to change Bitcoin at all, and I understand that.

(01:32:05):
But still, Bitcoin usage
overall in the world is still super low. Bitcoin is a medium
of exchange, still not widely adopted. And I
really think that these opcodes are simple, they're well-reviewed.
I don't think there, although you can never know for sure,
I don't see any major impacts in the same way that a new scripting type has.

(01:32:32):
I think Taproot was a much bigger can of worms.
Yeah, of course.
I love this technology, want to protect it,
but also want it to be as easy to use in its use case as money as it can be.
And I think that the software does that. It's very much worth considering. And I've been loving the discussions that we've been having the last week or two since this letter we signed has been out.

(01:33:04):
obviously a lot of pushback, but just the fact that these discussions have been happening
have been fantastic. And I think it's much more productive than arguing about
relay policy or some of the other even more shallow topics the community has been talking
about. So it's been really great to champion that and see where that goes. So we'll see.

(01:33:25):
We'll see what happens. Hopefully we have an activation client maybe end of the year,
probably next year we'll see um but even if we don't get it activated still a ton of stuff that
we have to work on in bitcoin and still a lot of things we can do to make adoption more widespread

(01:33:48):
do you think the uh the filters debate is a important one right now or
Or do you view that as a bit of a distraction?
It's not entirely a distraction.
And I'm very sympathetic to the view that Bitcoin shouldn't just be a general storage database.
But at the same time, there's a lot of noise.

(01:34:14):
There's a lot of noise.
There's a lot of tribalism.
Really, at the end of the day, it's your node.
It's your rules.
You should run the policies that you want.
I fully believe in the ability for people to run whatever node implementation they want.
I probably, you know, the one single implementation for everyone is probably not the best way to go.

(01:34:41):
I think it's better to have competing implementations.
Centralizing power, of course, is dangerous.
There have been some red flags for sure that out of the core camp and how that's organized.
but at the same time it's definitely been overstated
you know there's a lot of nuance to it

(01:35:04):
but it's definitely not the end of the world
the relay policies
you can just run an older version of core
or you know if you're technically inclined
you can run the latest version without the commits
that you don't like on it
but generally speaking
like I've been saying this whole show
people are going to use Bitcoin differently

(01:35:25):
this isn't a consensus change
Bitcoin isn't really changing at its core
your node, your rules
you should use Bitcoin in the way that makes the most sense for you
so yeah
we'll have to see a lot of people spinning up their own nodes though

(01:35:47):
it's fantastic
spin up a node, run it
use it for your transactions
if you're just spinning up a node and just having a talk on the internet
and you're not doing anything with it,
just to increase a number on a chart, on a pie chart,
who cares about that?
But if you're using it, that's amazing.

(01:36:12):
Validate your own transactions, hold your own keys.
It's all we've ever really wanted.
Man, that's a heck of a node, I think, to wrap up on.
We've been running here for a little over 90.
Is there anything we didn't cover that you wanted to make sure we touched on,
either about Zeus or where do you want to send people?

(01:36:32):
Yeah, feel free to shill anything you want right now.
Do it.
Check out the wallet.
We're at ZeusLN.com.
We're on Noster.
We're on X.
We have a Telegram group.
Everything is linked on the website.
That's ZeusLN.com.
Check out the wallet.
You can get started with a cashier wallet.
You get a free Lightning address.

(01:36:54):
You could put that in your Nostra bio.
You could start accepting zaps.
And when you get enough stats that it becomes economically viable to upgrade to self-custody,
we're going to bug you about it.
But once you get your own Lightning channel, you got some funds in self-custody,
those messages are going to go away.
You can reap the benefits.

(01:37:14):
Keep that cashew wallet.
Sweep to self-custody whenever it makes sense for you.
and you could keep going on that journey.
You can become that self-sovereign full node runner.
You can point your lightning address
that you've kept this whole journey
to your full remote node using Nosterwallet Connect.

(01:37:35):
And yeah, we've got a whole lot of other tools
that we're working on.
Our point of sale products are going to be improving.
We were working with new merchants.
We just started doing our proof of concept
for selling digital goods on ZeusPay.com.
go check out
Bitcoin for
institutions
by our friend
fundamentals
that's all linked
on our social
profiles
go check that

(01:37:55):
out
and yeah
just
you know
think critically
use Bitcoin
in a way that
makes sense for
you
and
you know
make Bitcoin
payments your
work
that's it
amen to that
Evan thanks so
much for coming
on here man
great
great to finally
get you on the
show

(01:38:15):
I really
appreciate it
The only thing I'm really confused about is like the TickCoin podcast.
I don't know.
I shouldn't breast once.
Maybe when you have me back, we can hit on that, I guess.
You come for the tits.
You stay for the bits.
That's how – it's really just to hook people in who would otherwise find Bitcoin itself too boring.

(01:38:37):
I do have BIP 6969 as well, which, yeah, it's a pretty serious BIP that I've published.
so if you ever want to check that out
it's pretty fascinating
okay I have some reading to do tonight
seriously man appreciate you coming on here
welcome back anytime
likewise man
talk soon

(01:38:57):
and that's a wrap on this
Bitcoin Talk episode of The
Bitcoin Podcast
remember to subscribe to this podcast
wherever you're watching or listening,
and share it with your friends, family, and strangers on the internet.

(01:39:18):
Find me on Noster at primal.net slash walker
and this podcast at primal.net slash titcoin.
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and find this podcast on X and Instagram at titcoinpodcast.
Head to the show notes to grab sponsor links.
Head to substack.com slash at Walker America to get episodes emailed to you

(01:39:41):
and head to bitcoinpodcast.net for everything else.
Bitcoin is scarce, but podcasts are abundant.
So thank you for spending your scarce time listening to The Bitcoin Podcast.
Until next time, stay free.

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BITCOIN ADOPTION, SELF-CUSTODY, ECASH & FIGHTING STATE CONTROL | Evan Kaloudis of Zeus

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}BITCOIN ADOPTION, SELF-CUSTODY, ECASH & FIGHTING STATE CONTROL | Evan Kaloudis of Zeus