Bitcoin wins faster through collaboration @antomousB

Bitcoin is close to becoming worthless.

Now what's the Bitcoin? Bitcoin's like rat poison. Yeah. Oh. The greatest scam in history. Let's get it. Bitcoin will go to fucking zero.

All right, you ungovernable misfits. I'm your host, Max. Everybody knows that Bitcoin is useless, worthless and doomed to fail. But what if everyone's wrong? What if it's the system that is doomed to fail?

Join me as I speak to some of the brightest people in the space and live there to the deepest, darkest depths of the Bitcoin rabbit hole.

Welcome back, everyone. Today's guest is Antimus. He has been helping Bitcoin Q&A with his monthly updates for a while now, and we thought it'd be really cool to get him on the show, our monthly show together.

It's just really nice to see someone giving back. It's really nice to see someone who has found all the work that Bitcoin Q&A has done so useful, and then to decide to help him. And that's what this is all about.

If we're going to make Bitcoin work, if we're going to make these Meastadels work, if we're going to push forward and change the world, we need to all help each other. And yeah, I'm really, really hyped to be working with Antimus on the monthly shows.

And it was really nice to just shoot the ship with him, catch up and get to know him a little bit. So I hope you enjoy the show, and if you have any questions, feel free to reach out. I want to say thank you to Coin Floor UK for sponsoring the show.

If you're in the UK and you're looking to stack stats weekly or monthly, you can do that with the link below. It will be in the show notes and you'll get a 30% discount off your fees. I'd also like to thank Crypto Close for sponsoring the show, and you know where to go.

It's CryptoClokes.com for all your pretty printing needs, node cases, block mitts and everything else they do on there. It can all be personalized, different colours, lettering, anything you can imagine they can do.

Enjoy the show.

Hey, mate, can you hear me? I can. Here we go. Welcome to the show. Nice to have you on. I'm pumped. You've got to tell me how I pronounce your name. It's not the normal type of name. I've got it as Antimus.

Is that right? It'simus, exactly. Yeah, yeah, I didn't think that through when I set that up. Cool. Yeah, well, welcome, mate. It was nice to speak to you the other day, and for anyone who's listening, Antimus is going to be joining me in Bitcoin Q&A on the next monthly show,

and I thought it'd be cool just to get to know you a little bit and talk through your Bitcoin journey and what it is you're doing, so people get introduced to you. Yeah, man, it's been amazing.

Actually, I just had a look again. It was exactly one year ago, or it was the 8th of September last year, that I listened to the first episode, your show, with Q&A. Oh, really? It's pretty fitting.

Yeah. It was the one on coin joins or something. Yeah, that was amazing. Yeah, that was a good one. It's one I still send out to people when people are asking about bits and pieces. I'm just like, "Okay, just listen to this one.

This is probably the most useful thing you can listen to." Yeah, I can just give a bit of background. I'm British, but I've been living in Germany for quite some time now. Yeah, and I kind of...

Yeah, like a lot of people, like education on finances and the economy and stuff is pretty lacking in schools today. I was always living paycheck to paycheck. I was bothering me, but I didn't really take the time to look into personal finance and stuff.

So it was a few years ago that I just said, "Yeah, I've got to change something. I've got to do something about it." And family member then introduced me to stock investing, and that's how I kind of started looking into that, and I got hooked on that pretty fast.

But I've quickly noticed that there's just, like, the valuations and so on is just brutal. And realizing that sustainability in the whole system, I couldn't really grasp what was wrong, but something just didn't add up.

And then, yeah, like COVID and March last year hit, and everything went shit. Yeah, and the time I was listening to a few finance podcasts and stuff, and it was actually on Preston Pish podcast.

They had a guy on talking about Bitcoin, and that just blew me away. So I took a day to do a bit of research and see where I could get more information and quickly stumbled upon, like, Stefan Lavera's podcast and ordered the Bitcoin standard.

And obviously, on Stefan Lavera's podcast, I didn't understand a word. I was like, "What is going on?" But, yeah, the Bitcoin standard was pretty approachable, and especially the whole concept around time preference.

It was just really intuitive, and something I hadn't really thought about a lot, like also the impact of inflation on time preference of people. Yeah, so from that point on, it just took a life of its own stumbling from one to the next, and buying first Bitcoin and withdrawing to Samurai Wallop

with mobile mixing and sitting up a node, and, yeah, that's how the journey began. Yeah, crazy. You've dived in very quickly, and you found the right people very quickly, it sounds like. You know, it's not plain sailing for anyone, but if you can find the right people, people like Preston, people like Q&A,

and obviously Stefan Lavera, although, yeah, I had a similar experience early on finding -- I was listening to -- I listened to every single Stefan Lavera pod. And honestly, like at least 80% of it, I was like, what the fuck is that?

What do you mean? I don't know what that is. I don't get that reference. I don't -- and just slowly but surely, by listening enough and reading enough, you eventually all starts to click into place, but they're the right resources to go for.

They're the people that are going to guide you well. Absolutely. I mean, I've heard so many stories of people, like going through detours with shit-coining or now NFTs and the ICOs. I mean, I missed all of that, but yeah, I mean, they're just so lucky to have such -- yeah, inspiring voices at the beginning as well.

And I remember at the beginning, like writing lists of just terminology or different things that I didn't understand from the podcast. It's just like -- it's a to-do list to go through again, at some point to just understand what these things mean and working through that then is actually amazing

to then how fast you do pick up on different stuff than actually most of it. I didn't have to research again, but just staying with it and listening to as much as you can, reading is hugely beneficial.

I think it's easy when something is as interesting as Bitcoin because it kind of is like multi-layered, isn't it? Firstly, you're thinking like, "I'm going to be really fucking rich from this," which is exciting.

That is definitely a big part of it, especially in the beginning. You're like, "Fuck, I'm going to be so rich." And if it does what it's done before, "Oh, my God, you're doing all the calculations."

You're like, "Shit, this is going to change my life." So that is something that pulls you in. And then you start layering on top of that like, "Okay, well, this is actually going to change the world, and it's going to give me freedom."

All those things that have been nagging me in the back of my mind for so long that's starting to make sense. Ah, and these are the people behind it. They're the ones fucking with me, and then you want to destroy them, and you're like, "Okay, well, how do I destroy them?

This is the only way." And so everything starts coming back to Bitcoin. Everything starts making sense the more you dig in, and that is like an addictive... Well, it is literally like a drug, and I think that's why you can consume the amount of information that you've consumed, because it's a very short space of time

that it's taken you to now. The reason I've got you on the show now and what you're helping Bitcoin Q&A with is like, you're already at the stage where you're giving back to the community.

You're already at the stage where you're going to be impacting new Bitcoiners' lives, and you're going to be helping them find what they need to find and get the updates they need. So it's really impressive, mate.

It's very rare to find someone who's done it as quickly, and somebody who also is giving enough to spend the time, rather than mining fiat, to actually give back. Yeah, well, there's an amazing idea, but I say it's a credit to all the people in the community putting out such amazing content, because I've heard that a few years back

there's just the landscape for education was just completely different. Yeah. And I mean, obviously I didn't experience that, but just over the last year, I've already seen so much development, but even at that time, there was so much content out there, and for the life of me, I couldn't absorb all of it.

So, yeah, that's been amazing. And especially, I think the real moment where it really clicked for me was when I started listening to TFTC, and especially Matt, because I've always been really, yeah, like personal responsibility and accountability

has always been really important to me, and having the opportunity to live your life as private as you want to and have the ability to selectively reveal oneself. And that was, I hadn't made that connection even after like reading into Bitcoin for a while,

that really hit home when listening to Matt talking. Yeah, and just this concept of, it's like, Jesus died for somebody's sins, but not mine. You know, it's, I want to own my failures, but also my accomplishments.

And that's something that Bitcoin really ensures. It's, yeah, it's your own responsibility. And if you, if you don't put in the work and if you, yeah, if you lose your seeds, there's no one to help you.

Yeah, it's brutal, but both ways, you know, it's that I would like with great power comes great responsibility. And it is great power that it's giving like the ability to almost freeze time that would otherwise be stolen from you and the ability to have complete control over your money

and your information and your ability to send it anywhere and communicate with people and all the things that it frees up. I think, you know, it is a superpower, but it's, it's like one you have to go and train for.

Yeah, it's like you can be Superman, but you've got to go to the gym like eight hours a day and train like a fucking animal because, you know, it's not actually simple to learn this stuff.

And I mean, I'm sure you're much more technical than I am given what you're doing with Q and A, but regardless of how technical you are or what background you've had, like you've got to put the work in and to, to use these tools as hard.

They're constantly changing. There's risk everywhere. You can't progress without actually some risk or pushing yourself a little bit further than you feel comfortable with. Otherwise you just say stagnant and it's a really difficult balance.

And it's quite tiring. Have you found your time in Bitcoin has aged you have at all? So often, often the case. No, I think it's been, been really inspiring, like invigorating, but it has consumed a lot of time.

I definitely say that. And yeah, I think also like over this last year, it's been amazing to see like the developments like a year ago, I was thinking of setting up multi-sick with electro-immune and like then shortly afterwards, specter came out and then sparrow obviously and all these things have just made it so much easier.

But obviously you have to stay committed to follow all of these developments to be able to take advantage of them, which is obviously the most tiring, but also the value of what Bitcoin Q&A has been doing with the monthly updates.

I mean, that makes it a lot easier to just jump in once a month and get up to speed without having to follow every development. Yeah, all the time. So is that how it came about? You were already reading through the monthly and then you reached out to him to help?

Or how did it? No, it's actually, I think Q&A started his Bitcoiner.guide about the time when I started getting into Bitcoin at all. And when I think on Stefano Vera's podcast, he had someone from Samurai on, so that was the first wallet I got.

And then I was having a few issues and wanted to read up a bit more on the technical part. And that's when I stumbled on this website. So yeah, I was aware of that very early on and helped me out hugely.

And then throughout the last year, I reached out to him a few times because I just had a few issues here and there, like the usual few things that come up. And yeah, and then it was, I think now in March this year, I thought I wanted to be more active in the community anyway,

and I wanted to kind of contribute back, but I didn't quite know how because my background is more in like mechanical engineering. So yeah, not too many opportunities. But yeah, I thought because I'm bilingual, I could do some translations for Q&A.

So that's when I reached out and yeah, started doing a few translations for his articles. Yeah, and I mean, he's an amazing dude. I mean, it's been great just getting to know him a bit. Yeah, and then he reached out and asked if I'd want to help out with the monthlies.

And that's great. Well, I know it's lifting a big weight off his shoulders. I mean, he's a weird man. I mean, he manages to get more done than anyone. That's crazy. I mean, the amount of content, dude.

Really productive. I'm pretty sure he's either a vampire or he really is a robot. I'm not exactly sure or like a mix of the two because his productivity is like ridiculous. But at the same time, everyone has their limits. And I know that like he really was being stretched to his limits.

And you know, it's just cool that you've reached out and that you're helping in this way. It's really nice to see people give back because it's actually quite rare. You know, like so many people come in, they soak up all the content, they go, "Oh, I'm a genius."

You know, I bought Bitcoin and I've made money. And then they never really give back. And that's a shame. You know, this thing grows with people helping each other. And what I find is once you dive in and once you give back a little bit, you will get so much more from helping.

And everyone's like, "Ah, yeah, he's someone who's actually here for the cause." And then that is paid forward and people will help and help and help. And it's something I've found but doing this show is, you know, constantly I've got some issue and I need help.

And there's always someone there with their time. And you know, that's a really special thing. And then you do sort of have these friendships that form out of it. You know, it can be friendships that form out of something as stupid as like, "Oh, I can't update this node.

And I'm having a problem where it's not sinking." And then someone was like, "Oh, I'll help with that." And then you end up on the phone for a couple of hours and you realize that actually you've got a lot in common and you become good friends.

And it's nice. Like it's a good place to meet real proper people who care about more than like just the shit that people talk about day to day. I know you're not in the UK anymore. I don't know if it's any different where you are now.

It's not a doc, but do you find that stepping outside of Bitcoin is a different world? Yeah. I mean, in Germany, that's fine. Cool.

Yeah. And obviously, like in my like circled friends and my family and so on, I mean, there's no one like in, I'm like the Bitcoin guy. As most of us are. But so obviously like the talking points quickly, like you reach a limit on the technical part.

But I'm extremely grateful for like the surroundings I have here, like on a relationship level. So I've got the right people here, definitely. But generally, yeah, in Germany, it's been going up and down over the last year.

There are definitely worse places to be, but there are also developments that are more than concerning. Yeah. So, so we'll see. I'm kind of personally drawn a few lines. And we'll see if they get, you know, like overstepped in a major way.

When not if I'm afraid. Yeah. Sorry to say, but you know, we know we know where it's going. But if you thought about that at all, like, you know, obviously we're in cyberspace and we do all our Bitcoin staff and, you know, we all interact over the Internet and telegram groups and all the rest of it.

But you know, you do still have to live in the physical world, to some extent, have you considered that you might move or have you considered, like, have you given much thought to, I know you're more technical guy, but like, have you thought about this whole citadel or meshedadel theory and have you got any thoughts on it?

Yeah. Not too much. I've, I think, like, most of the, generally, I really like the idea of, like, small communities being like, you know, like having, yeah, like a more sustainable surrounding being contact with, with, like, community.

I'm just not sure at this point. Like, if that really solves the bigger issues that we have with surveillance, or, yeah, different, like the whole monopoly of violence. I mean, that's, that's at the end of the day.

What's, what's driving this whole thing and just having a plot of land with a few people. I don't know if that really eliminates that. But I, I don't think that would be my goal going into something like that.

I just really like the, the idea of, of having like a tight-knit community and having land be amazing, just having space. I mean, I've lived in cities most of my life, which has been amazing.

And I really love it. But I also do feel like a, yeah, longing for space as well, and just, just an opportunity to build things and, and, yeah. Yeah. That's the thing is like, if you've got some land, if it's out the way, if you have a project, something you want to build, something you want to do, you just do it.

And it's told this whole permissionlessness that we have online, you then step back into the real world and you're like, fucking hell, I can't move without filling out a form or someone telling me I can't do something or, you know, getting planning for this or, you know, whatever it is.

And it's just like, why can't I just build cool shit? And then like, you know, if it goes wrong and I blow myself up, then so be it, you know, that's personal responsibility. But it's just like the world is not shaped that way. I guess there are, there are some places like Texas seems to be a little bit more like that.

And there's a few little places where you have a bit more freedom, but even then it's not quite as you'd want it. But then it's just, you know, a case of accepting that that is how it is for now and using these tools so that we do keep off freedom for as long as we can.

And hope that, like you said, this monopoly on violence, we have a way to fight it without guns, you know, we're using maths, we're using cryptography. Exactly. To fight it, which is smart because you're never going to win.

When it comes to the weapons and everything that they have and the power that they have, it's just, it's an absolute joke. You're never going to, you're never going to fight them like that. So what's your thoughts on the tools for someone who's stepping in?

Like, I imagine you're the annoying Bitcoin guy who's trying to tell everyone to get involved and they say, yeah, and I know they'll just say, oh fuck off, I don't care.

But if they didn't, if someone went, yeah, that sounds interesting, like, freedom actually sounds pretty cool. What advice would you give? Like, what's your, what's in your toolkit that you'd say, you know, get this, get this, get this, and these are the best tools?

Do you have a sort of like selection that you'd advise? Yeah, I think, like everything, it's kind of a scale and you have to start somewhere. I think the most important thing is like incremental steps and not being overwhelmed by having or feeling like, I know a lot of people who have that sense of, like, I'm giving up my data.

I'm not quite sure who has access to what. And just not being overwhelmed by that. And just made, I personally just made a list of things that I wanted to change and said, okay, I'll do one a month.

And just switched my messaging app from WhatsApp to first it was signal, but I'm using three more now. That's, that's my favorite. And then also with things like email going to proton or to tonight or just using a different browser.

Those are just small things that do make a difference. And, sure, I mean, the whole, my next step is, is getting a, getting a new phone with Alex, which obviously is for a lot of people is a big step.

I definitely understand that. And I think that may not be one of the first things to do. Yeah, and then obviously switching to Linux. Those are all definitely bigger projects.

But I think that the main thing is just like communication, which we do do mostly over social media and messaging apps, which is actually hardly a hassle switching.

The user experience on these more sovereign apps is amazing. It's the only the network effect, but that has shifted also in the last year with a lot of people going to signal.

Do you ever find like you get a bit overwhelmed by it? Obviously, you're saying I do one thing per month, but do you ever get overwhelmed in terms of like the order of things?

And when I say the order of things like, I'll give you an example, like I've ordered this new Linux laptop, this Starbucks, I've been waiting forever to actually come.

And so in my head, I'm like, right, once that arrives, then I'm going to do X, Y, Z, because I want to start fresh. So, for example, like I'm running spectra at the moment, but I want to try Sparrow.

And I'm like, well, I don't really want to put it on this MacBook when I'm just about to change and fuck around. I want to just start fresh with something completely new. And I don't want to do it until I have that. And then it's like, well, the, like, I want to get this phone so that I can put Calix on it because I'm running.

It's called graphine at the moment on a 3A, which is just like, yeah, it's fine, just for, just for like samurai and stuff, but I don't use it as my daily. Whereas, and then like, there's these things that then pop up. It's like, okay, well, how do I get one of these without having my IMEI link to my identity.

Okay, well, I'm going to go and get a load of gift cards and I'm going to pay in cash and I'm going to use a mask and I'm going to get them from different shops and I'm going to do it over the course for a few days or weeks so that there's no traceability.

And then it's like, well, I've got all them, I've got enough money on these gift cards that I can go into an Argos and go and buy one of these phones. And then it's fucking sold out everywhere. So literally the entire country, there's not one single Argos in the entire country that you can buy one of these.

Actually, that's not true. There's one somewhere in Scotland, it's like 350 miles away. And so I'm like, you know, so it seems like there's always like something in the way and it's just, it's very annoying because then it's like, okay, yeah, I can go and download a new messaging app and I can do that.

But do I really want to do it on an iPhone? No, I want this new phone so I can do it or I want my laptop, but that's still not arriving. Do you ever get sort of, do you get what I mean? And you ever just think, like, oh, fuck, I've just got to wait, or do you just get on with it and then go, will I let her write?

With software, I usually just do it because I've got most of it, I mean, I'm still running Windows, which is fucking shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It wouldn't be nailed to the cross for that. You shouldn't have omitted it. Yeah, I'm still waiting to pull the trigger on in new laptop.

Yeah, so with software stuff, I usually just jump in and just try out stuff. And I've got like one pie where I've just like flashed different loads on to just to play around a bit.

And next time I started off with the my node and now got a Ronin Dojo running full time. But yeah, just played around with the others and also with the other wallet softwares and stuff just to see what developments there are.

With hardware, I find it difficult, especially because there's obviously a cost to that as well. Just buying some laptops or buying a whole bunch of nodes or hardware wallets and stuff. And yeah, yeah, you could either be stacking or you could be buying all this stuff.

It's the trade off, isn't it? It's so hard. So, yeah, like last year I went all in basically on on coldcard, but now obviously I've been tempted with foundation devices and I don't know what the new name of the, what's it, car school.

No, the other one that switched names because they kind of split up. No, it's a big one. Treasure, ledger. The one left. Yeah, exactly. And that they changed names to like key stone stone something.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I had that. I met one for a while as well. Yeah, but that's something I just have to get around to. The DIY ones, you know, seed signer or expected DIY or something like that.

Exactly. I've really got the parts for the seed signer. I've got to, got to do that, assemble that. It's an amazing project. It's been really cool to see how fast they've, they've pulled that off.

That's been amazing. Yeah, so, so, especially on the hardware side, that's, that's where I struggle more. And also putting in the time, because obviously once you, once you start with something like that, you want to get it finished, you want to get it up running.

And that usually takes quite a bit longer than you'd expect. Yep. That is definitely true, but it's worth it. And you know, that's, I guess that's the, the message you've got to get out to people stepping into the spaces.

Like, it's all worthwhile. And if you can, if you, you know, if you could go back in time, you always wish, fuck, I wish my privacy was a bit better. I wish I hadn't done this. I wish I hadn't done that.

And we all make mistakes and trip up. And it just takes time to get better, but it's almost like it should be the starting point, really. It should be, will come in and buy, buy some Bitcoin and then learn how to use it as privately as possible.

I think what's difficult is people just come in and, and they're looking at the price and they are seeing this as an investment. And therefore that's where their energy and time goes, because it's like, right, I need to make sure, firstly, like, am I right?

Am I betting the farm on something that's a scam or, you know, is this actually something that is going to be a good investment? And you have to do that because you have to protect your time.

And at the same time, you don't realize how important your privacy is and how important all of this stuff is until you go down the rabbit hole for most people. And so it's all right. So it's too late.

Yeah, exactly the problem for a lot of people that once you actually notice the implications of having lost your privacy is mostly too late. A lot of these profiles that have been set up, I mean, even if you don't give them any more data, they're pretty accurate anyway.

So I think, I think there is a place for, like, I mean, this whole trade off between, like, being vigilant about it and, and only on boarding people to no KYC and, and being really strict from day one is, I think has a place for a lot of people who have been

thinking about this or have these concerns even before they got into, into Bitcoin. But I think it's just too much of a leap for a lot of people, or for most probably.

And obviously it'd be amazing also for me personally to look back and say there's no KYC record anywhere, but that, that ship sailed.

Especially Bisk is huge. That is one of the most important projects in the space, I think. And it's been amazing to see over the last months, how many new users have been coming in.

That's been pretty amazing, especially in the houses we've got out of the slump a month ago. It's been pretty, pretty crazy.

How many new users with young accounts and unsigned accounts have been coming in? That's been really great. That was one question I wanted to ask you.

What are you doing? Like with, with this, all announcements with, with decentralized exchanges and also hardware wallet development and so on. Like, is, do you buy that? Believe it when I say, yeah, I don't know. I mean, to be honest, I don't really pay that much attention to these sort of things anymore.

Because time has sort of taught me that, you know, 90% of what these announcements are and people saying they're going to do things either it doesn't happen at all, or they underdeliver, or they're captured in some way.

And so it's kind of like, I like to just use the tools that I think are best at the time and not really worry until something comes out because otherwise you just spend your whole life sort of either hyping yourself up about something that doesn't happen, or putting off using anything at all.

I mean, my personal views, I know like loads of people really hate Jack and they sort of dunk on him all the time and everything, but my personal view just from the interactions that I've seen with him on certain podcasts and the way that he speaks about Bitcoin

seems to me like he does actually care. But there are some weird things that he does as well. And like, it's not all completely congruent. So I think with anyone who's got one foot in or one foot heavily planted in the legacy financial system, they've got some sort of noose around their neck.

And I feel that he definitely does. So, yeah, I wouldn't hold my breath on that one. What's your thoughts on it? Exactly. I mean, I think that, especially like with the hardware wallet, that might be a more difficult thing because that is very

much led by them. I think this whole idea of like decentralized systems and platforms is, because if I'd put myself in his shoes, and I actually do have the beliefs that he claims to have, but I do have also restrictions

through my corporate position. The only opportunity I have to make a difference is to build decentralized systems that I afterwards cannot control.

And that's what, at least on the surface, he's kind of doing with his social media platform, and now maybe with this exchange. Obviously, I think best approach is to give credit when it actually happens.

But I think under the circumstances, that would also be the only way. I wouldn't trust anything that would come out of Square or Twitter that is still under their control.

So, yeah, we'll wait and see. They all sort of end up bending the knee at some point. And even if they don't do the beginning, at some point, they could if they still have that power.

But then at the same time, it's like, I mean, if you put yourself in his shoes for a minute, like really put yourself in his shoes, if he didn't care why, like why carry on why do what he's doing, because he could just tomorrow go, fuck this, I'm going to go and buy an island,

and I'm just going to chill on the beach for the rest of my life. Literally, like, that bloke never has to work ever again, and he can live just the most unbelievable life.

It does seem like he is captivated by this technology, and it does seem that he wants change. So, it might not be exactly how we want to do it, but then at the same time, he can't move like we move, you know, he's got the whole world watching.

And it's the same with Michael Saylor and all these guys, and it's like, a lot of people, "Oh, yeah, Michael is going to be amazing. Oh, look, he's this god, he's this genius." And it's like, just wait, just wait, just see, he's going to bend the knees, he's going to do things you're not going to like, and they all do.

And I think probably most people would in their situation, so that's why, like on this show, I try and spend my time getting people on who are actually building and doing, pushing forward, like, from the ground level and actually making changes that are literally happening, you know, and that's what I find interesting.

The rest of it is a little bit kind of like, I don't know, not pointless, but a bit, it feels like a bit of a waste of energy. Yeah, absolutely, no, I can understand that. So what's the stuff that's really grabbing your attention at the moment?

Are there any projects that are on your list or anything that you're really excited about? Well, there are a few smaller developments, like, or one thing was diverted brought out a guide a few months back on, like, expub support for Whirlpool,

that you can then basically just straight from post-mix set of certain amount of rounds and have your UTXO sent directly to a predetermined address or to address derived from the expub,

which would be absolutely amazing. Those are smaller things, but obviously the huge news on that front was Sparrow integrating or planning to integrate Whirlpool.

I think that's been talked about for a while, that is an opportunity that other wallets can integrate, but it didn't seem to catch much attention, and that news was huge.

And I think if that works successfully, and they can actually, if, like, liquidity actually comes in from Sparrow, I think that could open a lot of doors for a lot of other wallets to integrate as well, and that would be the ultimate goal.

It would be fucking amazing, and if anyone can do it, Craig can do it. He's something else. And I think, you know, we talk about, you don't get hyped about things that haven't happened yet and all this sort of stuff, but he doesn't strike me as the sort of man who says he's going to do something and not.

Like he is, he doesn't fuck about. And he came out of nowhere, and like the sophistication of the wallet, like from day one was crazy. I mean, it's like, like opening it up as this like boy.

And then since then, there's been so much put in. Yeah, he's been churning out a lot. Do you have a preference, specter over Sparrow, not that it's a competition, but you know that you just personal preference.

I mean, because I'm using the, I've got my node as a daily node for lightning and stuff I have specter on that. So I use that most of the time, I have Sparrow and my laptop just to double check, receive addresses and stuff.

But I think if, if, if Sparrow were on the, on my node, I'd, I'd prefer that. I like the word workflow better.

Yeah, it's a bit more, I really like the trade off between like simplicity, but also having a very granular control if you, if you want to. And he does a good job of obviously skating a lot, but giving you the necessary information and the option to look into more.

Yeah, it's, I still haven't played with Sparrow. Yeah, I'm still running Spectre, but like say, when I get this laptop, it's something I want to run. It does seem that a lot of people maybe will start with Spectre and then when they want a little bit more functionality, then they go across to Sparrow.

But I mean, personally my, my feeling with Spectre is it's fucking amazing. Like, I, I really enjoy using it. I think the interface is like incredibly slick. It is really user friendly. And, you know, it is, it was quite a big jump up because I started using that as soon as I got the cold cards.

And before that, I mean, I should never, never admit to this, but I was using fucking ledger and they're disgusting software and, and I had a couple of treasures and I was using their stuff and, you know, it wasn't linked to a node.

And I just, that's the way that I was doing it. And then once I got this set up, I was like, wow, this feels like a step up. Like this is, this is so much better. And, you know, getting into address labeling. I mean, I didn't even know about UTXO management for ages, like, 2018.

I would just bought loads and loads of ledgers. And then every time that I got, every time that I stacked or bought, especially if I was buying in cash, then I would just use a brand new ledger.

And then so, so, because I didn't know about UTXO management. So I've got like, fucking, I've got like 20 legend and OS is because I was like, well, I don't know what to do here.

And I knew enough that I was like, I don't want to mix. I don't want to mix like I don't want to buy from somewhere and then this that I bought with cash then goes to that because I knew that then it's trackable.

So I was like, well, what do I do? And so I'd sit there and write out my 24 words and then link that up and then label that. And I had little folders with different ones. And that's how I did it.

Yeah, well, that's that would come in handy. Now you're the seed mint. Yes, that is also an amazing project, man. That's. Yeah, that's really cool. Yeah, coming handy if you have to like stamp out like 20 seeds.

One of those. Yeah, it was literally how I was doing it. But that's the thing is like, and then, and then you something like like Spectre and you're just like, well, this is better, isn't it?

Because I can just fucking label something and it's actually segregated. It's like, I'm talking about segregation. Oh, God. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of talk about segregation at the moment. It's not the right word separation maybe of these UTXOs.

And yeah, it's just incredible. It does. It does make me think like, where does this stuff go moving forward? Like, when do we get to a stage? I know it's kind of there, but when do we get to a stage where it's like, you have your node running.

And then there's a really slick interface which you have access via your mobile and your laptop and everything runs over tour and you can just have your mobile mixing. Sorry, you have your world pool mixing, but you can spend from there, like all in one slick interface.

And it kind of feels like we're not that far away from that. It's still a little bit ropey. It's still you've got a piece bits together a little bit. Yeah. And especially because obviously UTXO management and labeling is not logged on the blockchain.

So you've got to keep separate backups for that. Just recovering from a seed in 10 years won't help you need that information to go along with that.

And that's something I think that can be improved as well to somehow make it easier to back up that and to transfer that from one wallet to another interoperability. And just making that more intuitive to because that is essential information.

If you've been putting in the work now to do all of that is basically the same thing also with with well pool and having coin joined your UTXOs. You have to kind of still know what you did in 10, 15 years or the whole idea of inheritance as well.

I think there there are still a lot of a lot of room for improvements to get that sorted and more intuitive. Like in the last years, especially the last year, like the technical developments have been amazing.

Like from just especially on things like multi-sick, just how much use the friendly that is. But I think still on backups and interoperability, I think that's still something that I struggle with every now and again.

Yeah, just keeping all that. Yeah, staying on top of all of that. Yeah, it's no easy thing to do. I had the other night like a massive scare because I went to set up the passport actually because no spectra has just said, "Oh, we've got this new release."

And now you can use the passport with spectra. And I was like, "Right, it's about time I set this thing up." So I sat down, like cleared a bit of time. I was like, "Right, I'm going to do this this evening."

And then so I opened, went to open up my spectra and I was like, "Right, why is this not fucking opening?" Like it just wouldn't open. I was like, "Right, that's really weird." Kept trying another 20 minutes, kept trying no, restart the computer, all that.

Wouldn't open, wouldn't open, wouldn't open. I was like, "Fuck sake." Check my mind node that it's linked to that, I don't know what had happened, but it was like really behind on blocks and it was like trying to sink, but wouldn't sink.

And I was like, "I literally turned this thing on to back it up." And now I can't back it up because I can't access it. What if I've now lost this because the only backup I have is like of, you know, two months ago, whenever it was, and it hasn't, I haven't, I've done so many more transactions, I've done so much labelling,

I've done so many things that have hopefully helped improve my privacy, and now had this feeling where I was like, "That was all fucking pointless." And I've now lost all those labels, and that is a horrible, horrible feeling.

And so like, I kind of think it would be nice if you could have something where maybe you run two in parallel, where you have, you know, like spectra and sparrow, and somehow you can have all the labels across both of them, and then you do your backups across both of them, because then if at least if one goes down,

and for some reason you can't access it again, you're not fucked. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I've set for myself just time periods where I force myself to do backups of everything and to check everything,

which is just a hue, I mean, takes up loads of time. I've had a few situations where it's been massively valuable. I mean, Samurai does it really well with the mobile wallet, with the automatic backups.

Yeah, I've had, so I've had to set it up so many times and it's been flawless. That's been amazing, but especially like the node packages and so on. That would definitely be something that would be really beneficial to have.

Yeah, the option to set up automatic backup systems to storage that you choose yourself. Yeah, and I mean, that's something I think that Ronin wants to implement as well with like RAID setup.

And yeah, that would also be a huge step up, but obviously with cost as well. Yeah, yeah, it's so key, isn't it? And that's very German of you like putting side, like time where you go. I'm going to do my backups and then check my backups.

And I'm taking more of the English approach, which is like only really decide to do your backups once you've already lost everything and you're fucked. That's when you start actually reacting.

Yeah, I've had my fair share of confused pass phrases and lost seed phrases that I won't know about. That's been, that was tough lessons and a lot of sweat and tears at the beginning. Putting my first chunk on a mobile wallet on Samurai and then a backup didn't know their seed phrase didn't work.

Boy, that killed me. It was about for a day. It worked out at the end, but boy, that was rough. And at that point, then you suddenly notice that you're like having noted everything and stuff is just not sufficient.

You have to be really detailed and just taking the time at the beginning to mark everything. It's about clearing not only time, but space. I find if you're not in a clean, tidy environment at the right time, it's easy to make mistakes.

You need to really have everything clear and then decide, right, I'm going to stamp this seed and then I'm going to make another second copy and then I'm going to make sure that I know everything that I need to note down.

And it's very, very time consuming, but once you've done it in that environment where it's like tidying clean, you do feel a lot better because otherwise it's kind of like, well, did I write that down properly?

Is it actually going to be safe? Have I actually done things properly? Did I actually check that back up? Did I delete it and then start from fresh and recover the wallet and did that work?

No, I didn't. How am I going to sleep that? It's about allowing yourself to be at peace and feel comfortable. This is what you said at the beginning about step-by-step doing one thing every month is really good advice because it's easy to get yourself in a right fucking muddle if you try and do everything all at once.

Yeah, absolutely. And that's, I think, my biggest resource there was Q&A and his guides. That's been just such detail and just extensive write-ups. It's been amazing.

Just before diving into everything, just having the opportunity to read through that and just get a feel for what's required to actually set it up and what you'd need before I get everything set up and then go through step-by-step and not stumbling through and making mistakes that you'll regret at some point.

And that's been absolutely amazing. And do you have any views on single-sick versus multi-sick? And if so, do you have a preferred method of storing the data?

Well, I think single-sick with a strong passphrase is, that's most of it. I mean, I think that's sufficient in most cases. I'd like to, I mean, I've played around with setups of multi-sick, but I haven't made the switch completely yet.

The main thing holding me back is just backup locations, getting that sorted out, because I don't want to rely on safety deposit boxes or stuff like that.

And so I want to get those locations down and get that whole setup figured out before I actually do the switch. And for a long time, I knew that I wanted to do it with at least three different vendors of hardware wallets.

And up till now, that was pretty difficult. I remember reading Michael Flaxman's guide on multi-sick, which was really amazing. Definitely recommend anyone looking into that to have a read through that.

And there also, he said, I mean, it's pretty thin on the opportunities or the options for hardware wallets. And now with the passport and also with seed signer, that's no excuse anymore.

Yeah, that now opened the door to do that. So that's next on my list as well. So I think it is, it does like raise you to another level of like comfort and peace, knowing that there are additional like fail safes as well.

And just knowing you can lose one in a two or three or even two in a three or five. That would be personally for me, a huge, that would calm me down. Yeah, I think you're right. I think that is sort of like the gold standard, especially with the multi-vendor multi-sick. I think that's key.

And then like, what's your thoughts say you were going to do it? Would you actually then ever feel comfortable with one multi-sick setup?

Because the way I view it is it's like, well, if you do that, you have all your eggs in one basket. And yes, I know that obviously, you know, if you lose one or two in a three or five, whatever, you should be okay.

But I always think like, what if there's like something that I've missed or I've not done or like, you know, some way that I can't actually get these funds, then I've lost everything.

Whereas I kind of like not having all my eggs in one basket and like splitting risk. And so would you ever consider going, well, I have two separate multi-six setups, or would you feel comfortable enough just going, no, I have one?

I think it depends on obviously the amount. So I think like the step from from a three or two or three to a three or five that would be sufficient for me.

But that obviously depends on a lot of variables, including the backup locations, like how confident am I in these backup locations, how often can I do do like checks.

How confident am I with with the security there and that I will have access to any at any time. And then also, like with inheritance, do I have people in my family or close friends that have the technical ability to actually gain access.

If I have three or four setups of a two or three, that makes it quite a lot more complicated to pass that on. Even if three or five, but that might be if it's still one one wallet, I think that does make it a lot easier.

So I think the personal situations for everyone are a bit different. I think for me, I'd start off with the two or three and then level up to a three or five or maybe keep things.

The certain portion on the two of those, but I wouldn't like do three, four, five, ten different two or three setups. I think that would get quickly, pretty complicated.

I think you're right. And the other one that I really, really would love to do, but I know that I'm too dumb for it, is the just memorizing. I know there's massive warnings about it. I don't don't fucking do that. And I'm like, well, trust me, I can't.

I can barely remember what day it is most of the time. So, you know, that's not for me. But have you got any thoughts on that? Like, even if there was a backup. And the reason I ask is like, I think anyone paying attention knows that shit is going to go badly in the next year to two years.

Like, it's not unreasonable to think that at some point people are going to have to flee countries or seriously leave everything behind. And if it had to happen quickly, then it's like, well, you know, what if you don't have time to go to the five different locations or sorry, three of your five locations.

And then, and then how do you transport it? What do you do? You make one transaction and then, like, that's a PSBT or something.

And then you keep that on a micro SD card and shove that up your ass. I mean, like, what would you do? And so the idea of like having your seed words in your head, if you could remember them, feels quite powerful.

But obviously, it's difficult and it doesn't seem like, I know some people have done, like, really clever shit where they've got different servers running and they've got, you know, a passphrase over here and some words over here and they've got to get through layers and layers

and layers of encryption to get to it and all this stuff. But I'm like, you know, that's not for me. What's your thoughts on that? Like, in terms of you have to flee tomorrow. Yeah, you've got to go. What do you do?

Well, I mean, that is the power of Bitcoin, isn't it? You have that option. And I mean, the people fleeing their countries. I mean, we're seeing that around the world, millions of people, and that gives them at least that option.

For me, I talk in my sleep. So that's a problem. I think if I recite things too often, that would be a problem. But if I can, I can definitely see the value in that.

I mean, that is also one of the advice that people give to select your backup locations in different jurisdictions as well. So even if you do have an issue in one jurisdiction, you can still get to the others.

Obviously, that comes with a high cost as well. If you do have to just check your backup regularly or do want to do that, that gets pretty expensive pretty quickly. Around the world trip. Exactly. And that obviously also depends on the amount you're storing.

I think that like, because like 24 words memorizing that. And the passphrase. And the passphrase. That can definitely, I mean, you can definitely do it for, I mean, probably not. I wouldn't do it.

There's like a for like life savings and retirement account. But if you really have to flee a country or cross a border, you can definitely do it.

And, yeah, I think for a lot of people, it can be beneficial to just maybe memorize half of them just as a exercise and when push comes to shove, you do the rest.

But I don't know, I think personally, I'd still take the risk of having some kind of documentation hidden on me or in me when crossing a border, at least for part of the secret.

Then having like a single point of failure, just my memory. I mean, situations can be very different. And then if it's severe enough, that's your only option, maybe.

Yeah, weird, weird place to take it. I just just sort of crosses, it crosses my mind quite often at the moment. No, but I mean, I mean, there are a lot of people around the world who are in exactly that situation, even if they're not fleeing directly.

They maybe do not have a secure location to back up their seats. And that is a very powerful, powerful concept that you do have that opportunity to save it in your head.

It's true sovereignty. It's like you are literally walking around with all your wealth. You don't need anything else. But obviously, then you have to trust your memory and human memory is pretty shabby, to be honest.

And even someone with good memory, you know, you only have to fall over and knock your head or whatever. It can go very, very wrong, very quickly. So the whole like having a backup thing is definitely key.

I'm sure something will be worked on that helps with all these sort of things. It seems that this space just moves at such a rapid rate. You know, imagining what's going to be a possible in sort of, you know, five years, really sort of boggles my mind.

What is going to happen? Have you got any thoughts of like trends that you're seeing or things that you're imagining that aren't quite there yet, but you think will be?

No, not too much. I think that like turning back on different developments is going to be very difficult, especially on like surveillance on like information collecting.

Those are things that I think is not going to be realistic to like slowly just turn back and then come to a state that we had 20, 30 years ago, especially like the getting rid of cash.

That's something that I think is worrying. Because that has just been a tool for a lot of people, and just to be able to choose when to pay with cash and when to pay with a card.

And, yeah, so the whole concept of selectively revealing oneself and having the power to choose when and where.

And it's not, yeah, it's not secrecy. It's just, there might be just things, especially with medical situations or books that I buy, where I maybe just prefer to have that state private.

And having the tool like cash has been incredibly valuable and seeing that being slowly phased out, I think is a huge loss.

Become sorry to go on. Yeah, seeing the developments in Australia, especially that's been been tough, seeing things like passport verification for social media.

Yeah, that's crazy. And just like this whole concept, I think like the Internet is actually such a young technology that we've, I think we've kind of been living like for the last 30 years we've become living in a world where still a lot on the Internet is not regulated.

And I think we'll see that being decimated over the next years. And that's where encryption comes in and open source software is so crucial that we have that like community and that ecosystem of people building things decentralized

and organizing the cells to build these tools and further development to develop them is absolutely crucial.

And do you think that lightning is going to play a part in that? I know that a lot of the sort of privacy community, there's quite a split, a lot of people, especially in the samurai groups and stuff, and are really not interested in lightning.

Do you have any views on it? And do you think that it plays a part in this ability to get outside of this like regulation that's going to come down on the Internet?

I think it will definitely have a role. I'm not too, I don't have a too negative view on lightning. I think it is an attack vector for government regulation, for like routing nodes to be viewed as payment processes and so on.

So I think, but at the end of the day, it's still built on top of a decentralized network that I think the opportunities to use it in a sovereign way will still be there.

And if, like, privacy guarantees may turn out to not be as great as thought initially, I think the permissionlessness will still be achievable, and especially for a lot of people around the world who may not be able to afford on chain fees

in the next decades, that may be completely infeasible, and that would still be a huge improvement over all other alternatives.

Even other layer twos like liquid has a completely different trade off and I definitely prefer lightning to a liquid model, even though privacy for outside observers is better on liquid.

I still see a huge problem in the federation and the long term security. I can see the value in jumping in and jumping out, maybe to quickly obfuscate the flow of funds, but for storing wealth and just long term.

I think that lightning will play a bigger role and also an important role. Yeah, I tend to agree.

All right, mate. Well, look, it's been really nice to get to know you a little bit, hear your backstory and, like I say, I'm really pleased to see that you're giving back and I'm really excited to have you on the next show with Q&A and dig into the monthly updates.

Yeah, I mean, just massive respect for coming in and doing as much as you have as quickly as you have and for giving back. It really is cool. It's been an absolute pleasure, man, and thank you to you for welcoming me in and for everything I learned from you and your guests over the last year, it's been amazing.

So you've played a big role in that. Cheers. That's really cool to hear. It's awesome to hear that people find value in it and, well, mainly it's mainly when Q&A comes on, but we all learn together.

Exactly. Thanks a lot, man. All right, mate. Well, yeah, we'll speak soon. We'll get it booked in in the next couple of days and we're really looking forward to it. Wonderful. Thanks a lot. Cheers.

Cheers, mate.