Does Bitcoin and FOSS matter? with @BTCxZelko

Bitcoin is close to becoming worthless.

Let's go!

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.

Alright, 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 this space and slither to the deepest, darkest depths of the Bitcoin rabbit hole.

Welcome back, everyone. Today's episode is with ZELCO. It's been a pleasure to catch up with him again. It's been over a year, and a lot has changed. The Ronan Dojo team is one of my favorite teams, and they have now got a plug-and-play node available.

It's really beautiful, and I cannot wait to get my hands on it. I always love chatting to ZELCO. He says it exactly how it is, and he doesn't mean his words. The Ronan Dojo team have a strong focus on privacy and security, and it shows.

I really hope you enjoy the show, and if anyone has any questions about Ronan Dojo or how to get their hands on one of these plug-and-play nodes, you can reach out to me, and I'll point you in the right direction.

Before we start the show, I want to thank my sponsors, starting with Casa. Casa make it very easy for even a fuckwit like me to have multi-six security. The reason you want multi-six security is to get away from the possibility of $5 wrench attacks,

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Hello mate, I've got you loud and clear. Can you hear me? Yes, I can, very nice. Welcome back, it's been a long time. Oh, I know, too long. This is actually one of my favorite shows to be on, to be honest.

I had the most fun last time. It was a lot of fun, it was one of my highlights of 2020. The one thing I can say, though, is we were fucking wrong about everything that we talked about. Well, what do we get wrong? I can't remember at this point.

We were really concerned about tyrannical governments. We were worried about censorship. We were being pretty hyperbolic, to be honest, because, as you can see, everything is fine and much better now.

OK, we totally missed that one completely. Miss the mark. Yeah, COVID has been an eye-opening experience for everyone, right? Like, we can totally trust the government and everything is just dandy.

Yeah, we all get along, it's amazing. Exactly. But how was your Christmas and new year and happy new year as well? Yeah, no, holidays were great, happy New Year's to you, too. Yeah, no, it was great.

It spent a lot of time with the family. You know, we got a lot of-- obviously, we released Tonto, and we've just been-- we've been doing really well, so it's been fun. It's been a good year.

Minus COVID. Minus COVID. Yeah, well, if you close your ears enough and just live your life, it kind of starts to go away in a lot of ways, other than our freedoms being taken from us. But yeah, I found that's the best approach is just go into the gym every day, tear it up,

sleep well, eat well, and just ignore the conversations with midwits, and life becomes a lot more simple. Yeah, no, for sure. It is nice when you kind of put yourself in a bubble, you know, because it's bad sometimes.

It's good to put yourself with people that aren't like that. Christmas time, brand dinner table, how's your father-in-law? He's my favorite character I haven't ever met, but the fact that he was shilling the corn to you was just brilliant to me.

Was he still shilling hard? Oh, yeah. No, he's-- well, it's funny now, because I've developed a totally different perspective. So obviously, we do always talk about Bitcoin, but it's funny now, because he's like an all-in kind of person like he wants to-- he loves the Bitcoin Twitter, big news stuff, the lightning

strikes, and swan, and all that. And it's funny, because there was a time period where everything that he would say would bring up. And I'd be like, yeah, but this. Yeah, but that. That's stupid.

Whatever. And I noticed he stopped talking about it, so I was like, you know what, let me just pull back a little bit, because not everyone has the same threat models, and not everyone has the same output.

But we're all trying to make Bitcoin better, so I try to be more tolerant, and it's a little bit better. So he knows when and when not to bring up certain topics now, I think. It's funny, isn't it?

Because you've got 99% of the world or whatever it is, just don't even know what the fuck Bitcoin is, don't own any. And then even within the 1% who do, you have this massive amount of difference in opinion, even to that point where it's like the Bitcoiners have more fights than anyone else, although

we're so aligned on most of what we're thinking. But then it comes to the privacy staff, and you get really annoyed when people are fucking around on Coinbase and giving all their details away, and doing stuff that it's perceived as dumb to a lot of us, but we forget how close we are on other subjects.

And I think as much as it's fun to dunk on them sometimes, it definitely gets more done doing what you're doing. And I've taken that step back and just calming things down a bit, because I found the same thing with me, where I'd orange-pilled people and spent so long shilling to them, finally

get them on side, and then I started attacking them for some of the stuff they're doing. I'm like, "This is not smart, let's tone this down a little bit." Yeah, no, it's funny, and some of those I was going to talk about was just like, "I'm not necessarily, I started out being a big lightning supporter, and I thought that was

going to be the future." And then as I kind of changed, I still don't hate the lightning guys. I don't hate what their building, what their vision is, what they're trying to do, because ultimately they think what they're doing is right, and they think it's good for Bitcoin.

And they're trying to make it so you can use Bitcoin, so you know, like actually spend it. So I respect that, there's obviously compocracies in some of it, but it should be making Bitcoin better, having these confrontational fights and stuff like that, but ultimately what

needs to happen is that we all kind of step back and go be like, "Hey, yes, we do disagree, we agree to disagree, but we're all trying to make Bitcoin better," and minus of people that are only in this just for investment, and they're like, "Oh, it's a stock.

Those people?" No, absolutely not, they will never get it, but maybe not never get it, but the people that they don't see the different value propositions of Bitcoin, I think that's the scary part when it's like, "Oh, well, it went up really high, and it's cryptocurrency, so I can make

money with it," and I'm like, "That is not what this..." You're missing the mark, and hopefully you join and you kind of cross over and you start to dive in, but if you've been in Bitcoin for more than a year and you still don't know that it's more than just investment, you're not on it, and I don't know, those people are scaring me.

Funnily enough, one of the things that really stood out to me from our last conversation, I remember going away and really thinking about it pretty hard was, you said to me, if you go in shilling to friends and family about how this is a great investment and they're

going to make loads of money, it's very hard to then backtrack, but if you go in and you say, "This is fuck you money," if you go in with that as your sell, then it's much easier to get them to understand why it's important, and I definitely changed my tactics after

speaking to you, and it definitely worked, because now I won't even bother speaking to people about it if I think, "You know what, I don't really want them being the capital allocators of the future, I don't want them being the decision-makers because they're

cups and they fucking wind me up," and I don't actually want them to get wealthy, I'll only approach the people who I think, "You know what, these guys are actually cool, they actually have good values, I respect them, and I can shield them on the fact that fuck you money

and fuck you speech is important," and so that's where I'll take it now, it means that now the sort of questions that I get from those people actually want to answer, and I'm not getting, "Oh, it's dropped 30%, oh shit, the bed, oh no," and get all that

forth, which is so annoying, it's so fucking annoying, it's literally the worst, and that's why it really is funny, because ironically, if you take the approach of like, "Oh, it's a great investment," it's super easy, it's like taking the easy road, and people join

it, whatever, it's like cool, more people buying Bitcoin, that is an approach that some people want to take, and maybe their ultimate goal is like, "Hey, get as many people off fiat as possible," and that's a win, and it's like, "Okay, yes, but you need to understand

that that leads down this path of the annoying, "Oh my God, it dropped," or we're saying shaking out weekends, if you don't bring in weekends to start, or if you don't pitch them, basically telling them that they're going to have weekends, if I tell someone, "Hey, you're going to make

a lot of money," and then they're losing money, they're going to sell, or they're going to be those ones that just constantly complain, so why even start with weekends? Why not just pitch them on the stuff that we are passionate about?

We all know Bitcoin is good, hard money, it's something that you can actually use peer-to-peer, you can buy things with it, you can develop, we can build out this process, and it's censorship resistant, all these things that are so applicable right now is even more reason to be passionate

about the why you should have Bitcoin, and not just like, "Yeah, man, you should get it because you make a lot of money," and it's like, "You're missing it," and you'll have a lot better, I feel like you're right, you have a lot better experience, and that's

what I do when I sell, rarely we'll talk about Bitcoin outside of family and stuff, but when I do, it's like with those people that maybe we're talking about guns, or maybe we're talking about the government and how we hate it and stuff like that, and then they'll bring up

something, and that's when I'll go down the path, like you said, you know that they're going to be, you kind of have that feel that they're going to be receptive, and I just pitch them on the importance of it and why it's so good, and I don't really get questions that are like, "Oh, well, how does the price go?"

Sometimes I'll ask how the price goes up, but normally I'll like, "Well, what is it backed by? How does it have value?" and those are different questions that are better and more thought for provoking questions, and just like, "Hey, hold this for a year, and then you'll be rich."

When it's past the year, because they're in a bear market, they're going to be pissed. Hopefully the bear market's way more fun, I'm ready for it. It feels a bit icy out there, so maybe some shit can get done, who knows.

You mentioned about the lightning stuff. I know, obviously, there seems to be especially a lot of the Ronin guys and Samurai guys aren't particularly interested in it. It sounds like maybe you're not interested in it, but you have respect for the people building.

What are your thoughts on things like the podcasting 2.0, and some of these things that I'm personally finding is quite cool? I don't use lightning that much, but having things like the Fountain app, I kind of quite like it.

People are sending me messages. They're listening to the pod, they're streaming me sats, and I'm like, "Yeah, they're sending me 50 sats here, or 100 sats there, and it's not something they're going to do on chain."

When you say it doesn't really interest you, is it just like you feel long-term, something's going to go wrong with it, or you think there's going to be better tech, or it's just not really of interest, because it's not a use case for you?

I think it's a couple of fold. I do think there are cool things that are being worked on. I think that the streaming apps, people being able to stream you sats and stuff like that, that is definitely really cool.

That is a cool application of lightning. My only disagreement with it is, I guess, just this holier than God idea that this is the only thing that we can do, and that there are no other approaches.

You know what I mean? It's kind of like, "Oh, well, this is our layer." Is it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, and it's like this whole idea of you have people who are saying, "Oh, you have to self-cust, you have to do this," and I'm like, "The best lightning apps that

are there are the ones that are not self-cust, it's like ones that you're not backing by your own node." That's not like a knock on anybody else, but it's just lightning is very complicated.

From a user perspective, any user perspective, channel balancing, and not being able to get the right hops, like not going through and having connection issues, and then having to go to pretty much a central hub for liquidity, those kinds of things.

That's not to say, I'm sure there will be people that comment and say, "Disagree," and that's totally fine. I'm all open for disagreement and all that. I think it's just, it's the voice on Twitter that try to say that you have to do this or else you're not going to like your wallet, your project isn't going to make it.

There's use cases for everything. The more attack and push that I get from a lightning side, the more I'm like, this is like, it kind of makes me cut off from it. I don't see why I would need that.

I definitely get where people want to use it. People want to try it, play with it, send sites, do stuff like that. I hope that we continue to build it out. I wouldn't want something to be unsuccessful that's good for Bitcoin.

If they get there and they can make it secure and we can keep this foundation, if we can make the best apps non-custodial ones that you can back by your own node, then yeah, let's do it with all the great security features and everything else.

Again, I respect what they're doing, it's just not a pressing thing for me right now. When lightning's super stable and it is proven to be the way without shady stuff happening, I'm all for it, but Bitcoin is Bitcoin and on chain is, you can't really go wrong.

We know what's going on. Yeah, I like that approach and I also like the fact that the two nodes I run, I've got my Raspberry Blitz for obviously anything to do with lightning, and then I've got my Ronan Dojo for everything else, and I'm quite happy having that.

I'm quite happy just knowing there's two different projects and they're doing different things and they're really fucking good at what they do. I think they're the two best, that's why I run them, and they're separate.

I've got no one or desire or need to be like, "Oh, fucking hell, are you going to do great lightning? I don't give a shit. I can just do what you do and do it well." In terms of the custodial stuff, I'll probably get shouted out for this, is I still use custodial

lightning stuff and it's because it's better most of the time and it's because I only deal with such tiny amounts that I don't care, but if I was to get rug pulled for 20 quid, I might be a bit annoyed, but I'm not going to cry about it and that's the sort of money

that I'm talking about, I'll get streamed, I think maybe like 15 quid in like three months or something like that. So it's not like a massive issue for me and then the thing that's like serious amounts, then I'll do that on chains.

So I'm somewhere in the middle where I'm like, "If it works, then awesome, but I just don't yet use it that much," and I'm also interested in any other sort of scaling solutions. Yeah, just see what happens really.

Yeah, and that's the thing, that's why custodial lightning welds kind of look very advertising right now because most people aren't putting their net worth of Bitcoin into a lightning wallet.

It's like, normally people will put small amounts and whatever, however much that they're doing, they put that amount that they're willing to quote unquote risk, and then they take it off.

So it's like, yeah, that works, if that's what works for you and that's what people want to do, especially with these like streaming apps are really big now, like I have no issue with it, and yeah, that's why I think that the more projects focus on what they're supposed

to do and what that they want to be good at, that's why I love Raspberry Blitz, like they are very focused on lightning and building out lightning stuff, that's what they want to do, and I'm like, "That's cool, go for it," and that's why they do it well, and I think

that's why we do well on on-chain stuff and privacy stuff, because we're not like, man, I can't imagine having to the amount of support and help that I would need to like integrating lightning on top of everything else that we do, so I'm obviously graphic, yeah, I mean,

like it's not like, yeah, I think there's like a lot of like a kind of tinkerer people that like love helping other people with lightning, so I think community will kind of take care of itself, but like man, like it would take a lot of like research development time for

me to be like the subject matter expert on like all of the lightning issues that you have and or lightning stuff that's going on, so I I'd much rather, you know, continue the privacy piece, you know, maybe when something really cool happens and we can integrate a

piece together, you know, like we can we can look at it and see how that works, but yeah, I I think I hope that they continue to build some other like use cases for other than just, you know, small purchases and stuff like that, because like the streaming thing is is really cool, I was actually really excited when I saw that, so.

Well, I'm glad that you are focusing on just one thing, you've been very busy since we last spoke, and you mentioned it earlier, but the Ronan Dojo, is it Tanto, is that how pronounce it?

Yep. Yeah, the Tanto. Yep. Pretty fucking nice. I'm really envious of everyone who is ordering these and just I want one on my desk. You've absolutely fucking knocked it out of the park. It's really, really beautiful, so I'd say for anyone who's listening, I'm going to put

a link to the shop in the show notes for when this goes live, but go and have a look at it if you haven't yet, but, mate, how did this come about? How long did it take and I can see a lot of time and effort and thought was gone into this thing?

Yes, no, so, man, what when did this start? It probably started like November, December, last year actually, we got approached by someone on Telegram who goes by Din Jaren, which I thought was awesome, because I do love Star Wars, so that was cool, and he was like, "Harry, I really want to build a metal case," and

we had been doing the 3D print stuff and trying to make that work, and it was kind of like that hobby feel, and we were like, "Yeah, sure, man, whatever you want, let's do it. Send us what you got."

So he kind of took it from there and come to find out he's been a product engineer for a long time, and he wanted to give back to a FOSS community and really liked our focus and our project.

So there's some trial and error and some research and development on his side. He's really like taken the lead, like this is 100%, like the design, how everything looks, it is like his baby, and he's got like local contacts, he's taking care of all the manufacturing

as well, which is great, but he's based out of Taiwan, so he's got all of these other manufacturers out there, so it kind of worked out perfect, and we went from having kind of like a bigger box size, like taller, and then he redesigned a PCIe adapter, so it would be 90 degrees turn, and that's how we keep it nice and small.

It's only four centimeters high, so he went through that, we got it CNC mode, so it's all passive cooling. It's like, I was kind of shocked when I first picked it up, it is solid, it's like a Mac Mini, but like it's one of those things where you pick it up and you're like holy shit, like this is a real deal, you know?

Aluminium. Yes, it's aluminum, CNC mode aluminum, and it only, he redesigned it, the final product only has four screws, so everything goes like falls right into place, so even if he had to take it apart, it's super easy, but yeah, he crushed it, and from there, it was kind

of like back and forth, like one of the cool things that he brought to us was like, hey, I want to put this, if you notice there's like a small cut on one of the edges, and that is from like a product engineer's perspective, right, like that can only be done by CNC milling,

so you can't do that with like sheet metal, and you can't do that with like mass production of like, of other stuff, so it is like a, kind of like a trademark, but it's also like a tip in the hat, we're kind of saying that it's like, it looks like a samurai came and cut the edge off right with his katana.

So like all those little details, like he, I'm not going to take credit for it because like, this was like, he just brought it to me, and I'm just like, I shit my pants every time he brought something new to me, and yeah, so he crushed it, and then from there we, you

know, we started to, now that we kind of had that down, we're working on the distribution piece, and you know, the distribution piece, we're, we want to make sure like our goal, like I know it sucks, we have a lot of UK people, a lot of EU guys, I've had people

from like, all these other countries kind of reaching out, and they're like really, really want it, which is awesome, and I want to get it to people, especially those who need it, the hard part is that we don't want to like, you know, with COVID and, you know, imports

and all that other stuff, we don't want to screw over users without knowing the exact risk, so we're trying to work that piece out, and we should have, our next batch will be for the EU and UK guys, so that'll be exciting, hopefully, hopefully end of February is what

we're looking for, and then, yeah, we'll be able to get that out, and then software side, the cool thing is that, we're about to have a new release, but when these get shipped out, right, there's going to be a new release with this brand new UI that we've been working

on, so it's going to be, either way I like to put it, and I'll show you a picture, actually I'll just damn it to you when you, so you can see it real quick, but it's, it looks like, I like to say, it looks like a safer punk version of, of the Umbro kind of, kind

of style, and it's super clean, it's super clean, but it's super mean, and I like it, so yeah, I'll send it to you real quick, you see a little quick video that I got, but yeah, man, it's been, it's been a blast, it's been a lot of fun, we've been really, really, really

hard at work, and, and yeah, it's going to be, it's going to be really good, yeah, I think when people see this, I just sent you a quick video clip on you, yeah, but yeah, but, you know, we're, we're really solidifying everything, we've been testing the new electaur SL lot,

the Electrum Rust server, because we want to make sure that that is super stable and running well, before we just start releasing it to users, and with this final release, it's working like perfectly the way that we want it, so we want to be able to incorporate,

you know, some Sparrow stuff, people being able to mix and, and use pain ends and cahoots off of Sparrow, and back it by Electrum Rust server, so I'm excited to see, see what kind of new stuff we can come up with now that we're going to be, hopefully working more

and more with them, because they have a great product over there at Sparrow, I'm just having a look at it now. Look shit mate, I really don't like it. No, it's really fucking clean. Is this going to be only available on the sort of pre-built node, or is this going to be for everyone?

No, that's going to be for, yep, that's going to be for everybody. Awesome. And yeah, it's going to be, it's going to be super clean, yeah, and we're adding more and more functionality to with the later releases. You'll be able to do everything from this UI, hopefully by

the end of like the second quarter. So installing, switching apps, pulling up everything, it's going to be, you know, full control from that, from that UI that, of course, you can access via Tor and, you know, or mobile and be taking care of your node anywhere. So we're, we're

super excited for this. And I think it's going to be a game changer. So I can't wait for that for it. I'm a cheap bastard. And as much as I desperately want one of those things on my desk and I really fucking do, I've gone for the cheap option and I'm just building

a from a rock pro now. I had it ordered and going to rebuild because I had so many problems previously, trying to run it on a pie, but I'm moving soon, hopefully in about a month. And then should have stable internet and rebuilding with, with the rock pro. So I can't wait to

have that UI. It really, really looks slick. Yeah. So the nice part, the nice part. So I didn't because you have four people that have the rock pro, right? So we're gonna, we're gonna be selling the pieces and our goal is to be able to sell pretty much like an upgrade

kit that people can like buy the case. Like I feel like I, like this case is sick. I want this, this whole experience. But like, I already have the pieces like why, why buy a whole brand new one, right? So our goal will be to be able to have that available for people too.

Because we do have a lot of people that took our advice and went the rock pro route. So we don't want to leave them behind. And then we also have like the full DIY kit that will come with the, the metal cases as well that mine farm by will be, will be taken care of.

So you can buy it through his store for the full, all the parts, all the pieces, SSD, everything will come through him for people that like to just kind of build things themselves. But yeah, I'm super excited. And yeah, you're gonna love the UI. It's gonna be fun. And all

the new images are going to be plug and play. So plug and play and just to add a quick piece on plug and play from like a security standpoint, there's no default password set. There's like a whole debacle about some other node projects with a default password set. And that isn't

the case with with Ron and dojo. So with our plug and play, you're going to have a unique password that is automatically generated that we have no control over. And then in a username. And so then those can get you can change those from the UI once you sign in. And so your sign

in from the UI is going to be your, your new user password. And then you can change your user from inside there as well. So we're, we're trying to make sure that it stays secure and also stays usable and all that fun stuff. So to find balance. It's a very fine balance. It really is, you know, and, you know, you

just, it's kind of nice. Like you see these other projects and people, and I guess it's the beauty of, you know, the Bitcoin community, I was going to say almost at false, but, you know, thinking about like, Umbrell, they're not necessarily false, but they're not, they

are not false. Let me rephrase that. It's, it's nice to, to be able to see other people's mistakes and kind of learn from that, learn from their mistakes and make sure that you're not making the same, same mistakes that they are. And, you know, the, it's, I've been such

a false advocate for so long. And it's funny when people try to make that argument against it, that like, you know, it doesn't matter as long as it's source available. That's always a fun debate, fun topic. But yeah, I'm definitely grateful to see all these other people making

mistakes that we can learn from it. Yeah, well, it is incredibly important. And, you know, we wouldn't be here. We wouldn't have Bitcoin without free open source software. And it just doesn't seem to me that it fits with the ethos of Bitcoin to not have it. I,

you know, as much as I like, I'm not going to attack projects, but I'm quite selective about who I have on here, because I want to try and keep the ones that I feel comfortable with. And if they're not going to be fully open source, it's just not something I want

to run because why would I? Because there are other options that are better. It just doesn't make sense. Right. And, you know, so I kind of, I've like gone through this in my head a lot. Obviously, like through debates and other stuff like that with people. But

the false thing is, is so important. And I don't think people really understand why. But the biggest point for me, at least in my idea, so like, number one, like, false kind of represents that idea that you're like, you're kind of standing on the shoulders

of giants, right? So like foundation being a great example of like forking off, you know, what was open source at the time? And then, you know, so going from that and kind of building our thing, but it's like acknowledging like, Hey, like, you know, we're building on this,

to stand the shoulders of giants, we're going to try to make it, we think we can make it better. So you make it better, right? And then if if you're truly false, you just kind of take whatever changes that they make and they're trying to do, and you try to make

your own changes, everyone's vision's different. So it's never going to be the same product twice. Right. But, you know, it's, you know, I've gotten so much help and so much, so many people reach out from other like node projects and other like developers, you know, just reaching

out and like adding, you know, whether it's helping out with an issue or adding in a new change or whatever, like, it's, it's remarkable to see how much more can get done when people work together, you know, because you are false, because they don't have to worry about, you

know, licensing or forking their project and you and them getting in trouble. It's like, no, man, we're, we're all here, we're all together, let's do this together and make everything better because we all have different, especially in the node space, like we all

have different projects, but we're all trying to get to the same spot. The only one that isn't false that I do, I really like their team. And, and I respect them for going on the dispatches where I kind of, we were shitting on everybody was a start nine, Matt Hill and

the start nine guys are, they're really good dudes. And I got to meet him in person at Bitbok Boom. And he was, he was really, really awesome guy. Their whole team is, is super good. And, and you know, like, what I respect is that he stood up and kind of, you know, he took

all the, all the attacks that we were throwing at him and stood by his decision. And, you know, it was a business decision that they made. And, you know, ultimately, like, Hey, man, that's, that's your decision. And I respected that for it. And he earned more respect for

me for, for being able to stand up on the show and do it. And I listened to them. And they've just been like good. Yeah. And, and they like even like we've been helping each other out, even though we're not false, like, you know, we still kind of lean on each other

for implementing different things or help with, you know, advice and, and whatever, like, I'm in good contact with them. So, you know, it's, it goes a show, right? Like, there's a difference right between people that are like, Hey, we want to be false. We're trying

to do this, right? Which is what start nine is how I see them and other groups that are kind of like, Hey, we're just going to do our own thing. So it's, it's cool. I hope more people just support those free open source projects. Because if anything ever, and the

other piece is like, if we're running where to die, like everyone just, you know, stopped working on it, someone could fork our project and then just continue it on, you know, or fork it and then continue the legacy, which is something that you see a lot more from

the, like at a smaller level, like applications or code level stuff. Sometimes like people make a fork and then they stop using it, but it's, it's false. So then someone else comes along and forks it and continues to maintain whatever repo that was. So that can be super useful. So I just, I think it's important.

I remember listening to that particular episode. And I think basically you took the line that you were like, well, if somebody's going to fork what I'm doing and do it better, I don't deserve to have that business. And I thought that that was really cool. Because I was like,

yeah, that's right. Like, you know, if you're going to have something free and open source, if someone can do it better, fucking work harder. You know, and like you said, then if that goes away, then someone is going to, you know, if you guys went away, someone can

still work on top of it. And it seems to me that that's just naturally how things are going to progress fastest and most securely. That's why I really like, really like foundation. I pestered Zach for fucking months really, really annoyed him, just like, can you sponsor

the show? Can you sponsor the show? Can you sponsor the show? As soon as I had one in my hands and had a play with it, I was just like, this is brilliant. Like these are the guys that I want to be working with and have a huge amount of respect. And once obviously that

had been out in the world, then they pull in Q and A and they're building up a really cool team. And that's what happens when you do things properly. So I think it's going to be interesting to see long term what the difference is, whether you stay open source or not.

Yeah, I love foundation. I was really happy I got one in my hands and I've been not even a hardware wall guy. But I did start using it, especially with Sparrow. But yeah, it's an amazing product. And ultimately, like, that's really what it's got to come down to.

If you are a, you know, software developer, if you are running a business in the software tech community, and you have code, and if you are really, I still give Matt shit, Matt Hill shit for this, but like if you're open source, or if you're in this, in this space,

like make it open source, do the right things. That's what Bitcoin's all about. But like, no one's going to build my product better than me. There is no way like I will die on this hill before you can outperform me. Like, I promise you, there are a few people that

can work harder than me, especially when I'm angry. And like, like, if you try, like, if you want to do it, like, it would be, it would fire me up so much to see someone try to do that, that like, you're not going to win, you won't win. And if that, if that's

the mentality that we all had, man, like, like, if it was like a hostile fork, you know what I mean? But like, if that's the case, man, like, you better bring it, because like, I don't care how much VC money you have, like, I'm going to do it better. And, and that's

like, you know, that's what it comes down to. I think my only issue with like false, and I think a lot of people agree with that idea, especially on Bitcoin, Twitter, but like, I think the problem I have is this, it feels disingenuous when people are like, Oh, well,

open, it's the code is viewable. And it's like, so it's open, it's open source. I'm like, it's not, that's not open source. It's not what this about. Like, no one gives a shit that your code is visible 99% of the people can't read it. It doesn't matter. Like, no

one cares. You know what I mean? Like, people care about, like, whether or not it's like a value thing. It's like, where are your values at? And what is your, what is your like, business perspective? Because like you, you're not going to win. You know what I mean? Like, you're

not going to win over people in Bitcoin, or you shouldn't, if you had to close source your stuff because competition, in my mind, you shouldn't be able to, because that is like, that would have never happened in the past. And I've had that, I've talked to like

a samurai wall and T dev before, like we were kind of just shooting the shit. And they were like, cause they've been in, they've been in space for a long time. And they were telling me like, dude, having closed sourced anything. And Bitcoin was like, that was not fathomable.

Like people would never, that would have never happened. And if it did, it would have been everyone would have dropped it. Like it would have not had any support. So that's kind of the, the only piece that scares me, you know, is that like, people are like, so still, like,

just kind of making excuses for it. But I do see a lot of pushback. I see a lot of people kind of fighting that fighting the good fight for, for open source. And I think that's the way to go, man. I really do.

Yeah. Well, I mean, like you said, even if something is viewable, if it's not fully open source, then people can't build on it. And like you said, then it's, you can't stand on the shoulders of that giant anymore. And you're going to see more development faster

and better if things are open. It just naturally, it has to, it has to work that way. And then the question is, well, firstly, are you prepared to have competition? And if you're scared of competition, there's probably an issue. The other thing is, are you here just for the

money? Or are you actually here to fix the money? If you're here to fix the money and have and have this technology succeed, then I would think it would matter more that we have more products available to more people with more diversity and, you know, just, just

things happening faster and better would matter more than your bottom line. And so I can't really see an excuse for it. But at the same time, like, you know, specifically when it comes to cold card, I still use my cold cards. I still really like them. I've always got

on with a dull phone, no matter how much beefy house with you guys and everyone else. And like, I've never had any issue. But would I buy one again? No. Would I suggest it over the foundation to friends and family? No, I wouldn't. So that's really where my line

is. And it would be the same with any products. It would be the same with you. If you guys suddenly decided you'd do that, I'd be like, I'm not going to suggest it anymore. So, you know, I think we do need to set a precedent. And you know, this is Bitcoin. And like you

said, this is not the legacy system. This is something completely different. And we start losing our character. And we start, you know, changing things because we're worried about a bottom line over probably the greatest technology ever. And I think that's a bit short sighted.

Absolutely. So it's, it's really like, it's one of the things that kind of skaged my guess as part of mass adoption, but or the quote unquote is mass adoption here. You know, more people that are like, why does it matter? And I think that's why maybe some of it gained

so much traction as the years went on that like, it's okay for this or it's excusable. We understand where they're coming from. And that's, you know, I guess that's a piece of it. But you know, that the whole ethos of Bitcoin and potentially losing some of that

idea is kind of what does, you know, scare me a little bit, you know, good example is like the progression that has been made. And you might get some hate for this comment. So I'm sorry. That's fine. But my opinions, my opinions of thoughts, my opinions of thoughts

on my own, they are not maxed by a bit by this. But, you know, I remember, I remember like, when I first started in a, you know, it was like, Oh, lightning's really cool. And I saw a zap wallet and I was like, this is awesome. And I watched a podcast with our list of podcasts

with Jack Mallar. And I was like, dude, this kid is a genius. He's developing his own like lightning wallet, this little brand new. It's all open source and like all this stuff, right? It's like, this is awesome. But then you kind of see the progression and, you know,

other benefits and you see a progression from like zap and trying to do this and trying to do open source to like, to where we are now with with him and running zap or running strike. And you're like, this is this is totally different. There's like, you know, terms and

conditions, you can't do certain things. You're working directly with the fiat system. And, you know, you're using, yeah, you're using lightning to to make things happen. And, you know, could it be, you know, different could it be used in different ways? Yeah, I mean,

I mean, maybe, but like, is it like, is it that same mentality that we have before? Like, I don't know, like you just kind of it's one of those things like I saw his progression. I was like, wow, like a lot has changed. And you just hope that, you know, you hope that

like the good minds and great minds, you know, try to remember where like what this is all about. And we don't lose the ethos of Bitcoin, you know, through this idea of like trying to get to X percent or X, you know, Valley fiat value. Because I think then we've been

taken over, you know, yeah, it's it's that thing of like mass adoption, pushing for that, pushing to get more and more people involved and make it as easy as possible. There's just always a trade off. I don't know, Jack, I've never spent any time with him. So, you know,

I have no real comment on it, but it's a different product. I'll put it that way. It's not something I would personally use, but I do see that it is useful. And it's just is walking that tightrope of how far can you push things before there are major issues and how hard can we

push on the other side saying no, you need to do things privately and hold your keys and not interact with the fiat system and do things in a more sovereign way. But it is a sort of journey, isn't it? And I suppose, you know, with some of these things, people will use

something like that. And then maybe a percentage will progress and go, no, I'm going to change and I'm going to run my own node. And I'm going to do this. And I'm going to do that. And so I don't know. It's something I struggle with myself. And the other thing I'm struggling

with is this whole, there's loads of arguments on Twitter with like, should you be all in on Bitcoin or should you be using the dollar to speculative attack itself or like, you know, all these arguments that are going on, it's like, I don't think there's like a clear

answer to any of it. And it depends on your personal circumstance, but how far can we go before we get captured? And there are certain things that are happening now, which do concern me. And I do think that maybe we're a bit blase about it.

Yeah, I mean, that's really where, yeah, that's, that's where I'm at. I think that's kind of where a lot of samurai guys are, is it, you know, we get to a point where we're just like, we're trying to do what we, what we think. And again, it kind of came down,

comes back to that original position, like everyone's trying to do what they think is right for Bitcoin. But man, it's hard. And you know, especially when you disagree with, with people, so we're all trying to meet the same end goal, you know, it would be, it's

nice when you do have people who kind of meet in the middle, you know, who kind of are like, they're the ones that are trying to get people to like, agree and understand and, and see all sides. And, you know, like you're, like you're doing a good job, like you're not like,

you know, like, hey, I see lightning as a, as a purpose or I use hardware wallets. And, you know, there's, there's no need for the amount of harshness that I think sometimes goes with, with places. And I just think people get very passionate about, you know, what

they do and how they do, how they do things on Bitcoin. And ultimately, like how, how this all started, right? This is fucking money. Use it how you want to do what you want. Be that sovereign individual and the rest will play itself out. Like if you want to use custodial,

use custodial, you want to run your node, I hope you do, run your node, right? Be, be sovereign as possible, right? You want to use lightning, use lightning, you don't want to, don't use it like who cares, you know, like use, use the tools the way you want to

use them. And, you know, hopefully we keep seeing more people building better, better tools to make the space better. I just get concerned, like you said, with people, with like the wrong space, you know, made like people with too much influence that are compliance

bros that are willing to sell our soul for the number to go up, you know, if we're also confident that Bitcoin is number go up tech, then we shouldn't need to bend the knee or, you know, lick any boots in order to get there. And so that's, that's my, my only real gripe.

I don't really care how people implement or build or do or use Bitcoin at all. Yeah, I might not agree with it, but that's, that's when I'm saying your choice. But like we should all be on the same page about like not not being so easy to comply or ask for permission

from like the state in order to get the number to go up, you know, there's always the talk of like high time preference and low time preference. It's very fucking high time preference to be trying to sell your soul to the devil. Yeah, you're going to get the price go up

if you keep doing these deals and keep complying and scratching their back. But they're going to bend you over and fuck you. Do you want the short term joy of the price going up with the long term pain of pretty much I see it as our final chance to take back our freedoms

and to build a better society. And you know, a lot of people say, Oh, that's a bit of a wild thing to say. But I really do believe that I really think that this has come at a time which is like it's becoming desperate now. You know, if I speak to a normal person

in my day to day life, I'm thinking we're at the end of times here like this is really fucking bad. And to try and sell our souls to the people who have fucked it up so bad and trying to take our freedom just so that we have a few more digits in an account that

don't mean anything so that we can buy some more shit that doesn't mean anything long term is is the most high time preference thing I can think of. Yeah, I mean, I think that, you know, COVID this year, COVID the year before, probably COVID this year, you know,

worse, worse, worse. And years from now, you're seeing, yeah, please don't say I'm not willing to accept that reality. But you know, we see, we see it, right? Like you see the government intervention, the government lockdown and like, you know, there are plenty in it. And

it's some people look towards Big Brother and say like, please take care of me. I can't do it myself. I need help. But you know, that's that can't I can't work, right? I can't be the way that we operate. And Bitcoin, I agree. I think Bitcoin represents the last major

stand against it because if you do, if you do take the money, right, they got nothing to stand on. And you're seeing it, right? Like you're seeing people losing their jobs, right, over not getting vaccinated or, you know, you having to ask permission and have all these,

you know, passport, like special COVID passports and vaccination paperwork and, you know, positive or negative COVID tests to do anything. And then, you know, and that's your, that's your well-being. You know, that's like, literally your well-being. And, you know, if we didn't

have, if we didn't ask for so much permission, if we didn't ask, you know, ask for help from, from the government, we just kind of let things do what it needed to do. I think we'd be in a totally different spot. And really what it comes down to is that, that we need to, you know,

we need to start taking our freedoms back. We need to start, you know, preparing because, you know, what's the next thing after you make people fire, you have all these people get fired for it, you know, that you could, they could, the banks shut down your paperwork if you don't get

vaccinated. 100%. I don't know. It's already happening. Yeah, like they could do whatever they want. Oh, sure. I didn't even know that was already happening. So yeah, there you go. It's literally happening. People are being refused entry to banks to take their money out, you know,

it's, it's, it's very, very close to a future where, oh, and you're not allowed to go into shops to spend your money. And it's, it's getting very close to that future where people can't live. And, you know, it's, it's either at the very best, it's coercion, because it's saying, well, you know,

you either play by our rules and inject this shit into your body, whether you need it or not, whether you've had the virus or not, you're going to inject this. And if you don't, we're going to fire you. We're going to stop you spending your money. We're going to stop you from having an

account. We're going to take away your right to move. We're going to take away everything, your whole life from you, basically, and unless you want to live in a cabin in the woods, you're fucked. This is the power of Bitcoin is that not only if they say, well, you can't spend

your money. If you have Bitcoin, you go fucking try and stop me, as long as you're using it correctly. And you also have the time with number go up, you have a little bit more time, hopefully, to think about these things and a little bit more of a cushion where, you know, I've got some really,

really close friends people have been on the show, who are in normally fiat jobs, who are just about to lose their jobs, because they're in the medical profession and they're standing up to it. And, you know, they spent 10, 12 years, whatever studying, and they're about to lose their job

because they stand for something. And that's a pretty scary future. And I just thank God that they actually have a bit of a cushion and that they can think because the panic otherwise is, well, I can't feed my family. I will comply. Exactly. That's, it's, you know, it's kind of

putting us up in that position, right, where you have to make that that choice and maybe I'll try to be optimistic. We'll try to be optimistic for a second. Yeah, let's do that. People learn through pain, you know, and maybe that's what we need. Maybe that's like,

maybe that's like the push that people have to have mass, mass firing mass, you know, bank closures and whatever. And people are like, how am I supposed to do this? And Bitcoin's there for them. Like, I don't, I don't know. I maybe that's what it is. Maybe I'll try to be

optimistic and say that like, people start waking up more and more. I know in America, like, I've seen more and more people as like, they're like, Oh, now you need a booster. You know, you need this people are like, this is stupid. People that were pro vaccination before are slowly

starting to be like, what's what's the point? Or they're like, I'm double vaccine I got, you know, I still got sick and you're like, see, like, what is the point? You know, but, you know, I'm hoping, you know, I'm starting to see a trend. I'm hoping that those kinds of things open up people's eyes,

you know, and you know, maybe all this fiat printing will add to it too. Maybe we're just going through like the, you know, the final throws, the final, yeah, the final push, you know, the final like disaster. And then all of a sudden comes out glorious Bitcoin, maybe that's like the optimistic

outlook, right? Like, you know, it's going to be super, you're going to get super shitty before you get better. Right. So maybe that's what'll happen. And, and people will be there for it, you know, well, that's certainly a positive take. And on a personal level, what I noticed was, if you look

at it like, like a chart of my mental health, it went right fucking down, like bottomed out, practically zero complete rug pull on my mental health for a while, and physical health. And then what's happened recently is I've got so angry at all this stuff. I've gone fuck this shit.

I've given up smoking. I've given up drinking. I'm in the gym six days a week smashing the shit out of it, getting stronger every day, fit her every day, because I'm like, no, I'm ready to fight now. I fucking take these bastards on. And so in that sense, on a personal

level, it's been positive because I have something to fight for or fight against. And I don't know whether any of this is related as well. But we're seeing since the last time that we spoke, which was October 2020, then we were all hyped. We were sat because we had made notice it was 1693.68

Bitcoin in Whirlpool. And now we're sat at 4379.40. And I don't know if that's because the UIs got better, the UX is easier, or maybe it's because of this sort of shit. And people are going fuck this, I'm out and I want to be properly out. Oh, yeah, I hope I hope that's probably both. But I'm

kind of like, I was sitting here just like grinning, and kind of like, like your speech made me like feels super rad. Now we're doing the same thing. No, I mean like, I'm telling you, that's like all the aggression, all that stuff and anger that people put on Twitter,

like to go to the gym, like you are going to feel so much better. I've been doing the same thing, like I've been hitting the gym a lot more lately, like five or six days and just like, like you said, just crushing it in. It's such a relief, you know what I mean? Like you come back, you feel better,

you know, you saw the next couple days and you just but you feel better about yourself. And you're like, I'm so glad I like, I took my anger out that way instead of getting angry and or thinking about the end of the world, like what like there's nothing I can do. I guess sometimes I've stopped

people before where, you know, it's like, oh, this is horrible. Like there's nothing that we could like what could we do? And you're like, man, like, just do what you do, right? Like figure out what figure out a path to take care of family and everything else. So it's like, but like trying to

go through depression of like, this is the end of the world, like that's not going to help. Like that's not going to do it. You know, like ultimately, like it either comes down to how you interact with your government, you know, good or bad, you know, or rebellion or whatever. Or your rebellion is

Bitcoin and you go that route and then you keep building or you find ways to contribute to projects and support things and, you know, or you turn whatever your day job, fiat job was, and you turn figure out a way to sell that skill for, you know, and accept Bitcoin for it are ways to opt out.

We just have to get to that point. And I think we'll be there soon. I like, something tells me that like, this is only going to get worse for a little bit. And then I think people are going to have like an absolute like, it's going to be enough. And then, you know, maybe like the people in

Australia, Australia, they'll either like, lock down the whole country, or like there's going to be like some sort of like civil war, and they can start the revolution of the world. That would be pretty cool. Because they're the worst. I'll get them there. They're terrible over there.

And Austria, yeah, Australia's fucking terrible as well. They haven't learned their lesson, it seems. Yeah, apparently not. Yeah, so it's gloomy. But, you know, I think, I think we could try to stay positive and just keep building. I think that's really what the from like a Bitcoin perspective,

it's like, that's why I love, I love podcasts, like I love people trying to put out information for people because you know what, like, maybe not everyone needs it needs it or needs to hear it this day, or whatever. But maybe it's someone like, you know, six months from now, a year from now,

you know, maybe then they hear it and they go, Oh, shit, it makes sense now. I got like a minute now, you know, and you know, maybe the tools that I use are a building for Ronin, like, maybe they're they're niche now, but maybe it's the tools. And that's, that's the idea behind why you build what

you build as a developer. But, you know, you want these tools for the people when they need it. So, it doesn't matter when they get in. Well, thank you for building the tools. I think we'll wind this up on a positive note because I feel infinitely better than I did when I started this call. I

feel very positive. I'm very excited to have my Ronin dojo up and running again, especially with this new UI. And, you know, I'd like to get my hands maybe on one of these cases as well. They just look fucking beautiful. But is there any bits that any updates or any bits we didn't cover that

you wanted to? And we haven't. Yeah, no, I mean, we're, like I said, the EU and UK shipping should be, should be happening towards the end of February, early March. So, we'll start serving you guys out there. And, and yeah, the, we only have about 18, sorry, 18 now, of the initial 100

order left. And then, yeah, like I said, you can buy DIY cases with the case in there from Mind Farm Buy. But yeah, it's on that. And yeah, new UI, new UI is going to be sexy. That's going to be, it's going to be my favorite release by far. So, hopefully everyone's ready and prepared for that.

And yeah, I don't think we missed, missed many other things, but it's always fun talking to you. Yeah, mate, it's, it's always very enjoyable. We need to not leave it as long next time. Maybe when this UI goes live, we can have a chat. I'll continue shilling this, this beautiful beast,

the tanto as well. It really is gorgeous. But yeah, thanks for everything you do, mate. I really mean that. I really appreciate it. It is the node that I love the most for, for anything on chain.

There's only two in my mind that, that really matter at the moment to me. And yours is one of them. And yeah, thanks for fighting the good fight. Yeah, brother. And yeah, I definitely want to do this again sooner. Because like I said, this is definitely one of my favorite, favorite podcasts

to talk on, because it really does feel like, yeah, like we might be across the world, but it feels like I'm just like shooting the shit with with one of the boys. And, and that's like, you know, as a person doing this, it's hands down the most fun. So, I appreciate what you're doing. And yeah,

we'll definitely have one as soon as we get this release out. And, and yeah, hopefully everyone loves it. Maybe I'll try to get my hands on an extra case, extra case out there, maybe Q&A can help take care of you. All right, mate. Well, yeah, this has been awesome. And maybe one day we can do

this in person. That would be great. But until then, thanks again. And we'll catch up soon. All right, sounds good, buddy.