EP53 Bitcoin podcast with 21isenough

Bitcoin is close to becoming worthless.

Now, what's the Bitcoin? Bitcoin's like rat poison.

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 the space, and slither to the deepest, darkest depths of the Bitcoin rabbit hole. Welcome back to Bit by Bit. Today, I have the pleasure of speaking to 21 is enough.

I also interviewed him for 21 ISM, and that one is now live. He's our featured designer. He has designed the Lightning Network ATM. We absolutely love it. It's an incredible product, and it was an amazing speaking term to learn a little bit more about the history, how it came about, and how he found Bitcoin.

Before we jump in, I just want to say thank you to our sponsor's coin floor. Thank you very much for supporting me. Thank you for allowing me to continue with the podcast. And for anyone who hasn't already checked them out, if you look on the link below, and click on that, you will get a discount for auto buy, dollar cost averaging.

Enjoy.

21 IS ENOUGH. Welcome to Bit by Bit. It's an honor to have you on the show. I love what you're doing. And for anyone who hasn't heard of you or seen your amazing design and what you've been building, can you just do an introduction and tell us a little bit about what you're doing.

- Hello, hello, yeah. Thanks very much for having me on. It's a great pleasure. And thanks for that lovely introduction. It is my pleasure to be here and talk a bit about the Lightning ATM, which is the project that I'm working on.

And my sort of open source contribution in Bitcoin, for the longest time, I didn't really know what I wanted to do. I was always sort of under the impression to build either something or to had this idea of either joining a project, contributing to an existing project or doing something on my own and myself.

And eventually I came up with this idea of a Lightning ATM. I was during breaking Bitcoin 2019. And eventually I went on to build it. And that's what I'm currently working on. Yeah, there is a little community of builders now that are building this Lightning ATM, which is basically a do-it-yourself ATM

that you can do for less than 100 euros and just build your own little machine that accepts coins, whatever coin you wanted to accept, euro coins, pound coins, dollar coins, and exchange that into Bitcoin and pay it out to your mobile Lightning wallet over the Lightning Network.

- Yeah, it's a, you're saying about, it's a do-it-yourself project. And what I love about it, I've been looking through some of the pictures on your Twitter. And I love how varied they all are.

You know, you've got a pin tweet there with I assume a sort of early model that you've been working on. And it's just the outside of it is cardboard with fiat little arrow where you put your coins.

And then they vary, there's all different types of them. But the idea behind it is absolutely brilliant. How did you come up with it? - It was definitely during some discussion. I don't even know exactly what the topic was, but it was with friends during breaking Bitcoin last year.

We're sort of talking about Lightning, about Bitcoin in general, obviously, as you do during those conferences. And then eventually I thought, how neat would it be? Because Lightning, with Lightning Network, we have this ability to transfer very little or very low values to these sort of micro

or even nano transactions, fractions of a cent. And I thought, how fun would that be if I could just buy Bitcoin with a coin, with like a two cent, five cent, 10 cent coin. And at the time I didn't really know how I would go about it.

I didn't know about coin acceptors, which are these machines that recognize coins. I didn't know what hardware to use, what set up, what programming language, like not really anything. I just had this idea.

Talk with friends and fantasized about a machine like that. And when I returned from that conference, I started to look into it. I did some research. I figured out I could probably use this part piece here.

Put it together with these other hardware components that I found online. And eventually slowly, like step after step, like got an understanding of how that could work. And then I just started ordering hardware.

I was like, yeah, let me try this out. Let me put this together. Do some measuring. Oh, okay, yeah, I've got some power issues. Do we sort it out? And it was just a huge process for me as well.

I didn't know, as I said initially, initially how to go about it. And then eventually I ended up with a final product, or let's say just with a hardware setup that I eventually had in front of me.

So I did this all on a Raspberry Pi and a Raspberry Pi Zero. A Wi-Fi capable smallest Raspberry Pi version. And a lot of bumper cables and an E-ink display. One of these coin acceptors that I mentioned, the button camera was involved.

And I had it all laying in front of me on my table. Eventually a final working prototype. And then I didn't really know where to put it. I just had it in front of me working sort of on my table.

Shortly before another conference, the Honeyback shirt 2019. And then I basically looked around the room and eventually found this little cardboard box. And I thought, oh, that looks about right.

That looks about the size that I need in order to fit all these hardware components into it. And that is the box that you just referred to, this pin tweet of mine. That is this sort of shoe box cardboard box that I used, put all my hardware inside, cut a bunch of holes for coins and wrote some stuff for it.

And that was the very first version that I then brought to the Honeyback shirt and showed it for the first time to keep it. - What was the reaction like from people? - Oh, it was great. Yeah, they loved it.

They definitely loved it. Like Bitcoiners, in general, we had this table with, well, I basically started and put my little machine there and then slowly one after the other, other people joined in.

The guys from Knobble were around. And other people who had a hardware product with them or just another prototype. They're sort of joking in Bitcoin, everything's made of cardboard or at least the first version of the first iteration.

Bitcoin is cardboard, sort of the DIY type of stuff. And yeah, people were enjoying it very much. Initially, I was actually a bit afraid. I was like, I don't want to walk around with like hundreds of grand audio key loads of coins after the conference because people just want to buy Bitcoin, right?

But it didn't turn out that people wanted to buy Bitcoin. People just wanted to try the machine, see how it works, use it with a five, a 10 cent coin and even use it multiple times that we're coming back.

Some people were like, this one dude I recall. He was like, I'm addicted to this. I was going around trying to get more change just so we could use the machines and more. Because yeah, the process is kind of fun.

You have a physical coin in your hand, throw it into the machine. It will be displayed on that little screen how many zetoshis you'll get in return for that fiat money. And then with the push of a button, the pay out process is initiated.

And literally 10 seconds later, you've got Bitcoin on your mobile wallet on your phone. And it is definitely, yeah, people were excited about this possibility. And the fact that it's open source and available for everybody.

- Yeah, so anyone who's listening to this and I assume you have to be fairly proficient or determined to actually build this thing, it's not like you build it in an hour or two. It takes a little bit of time and you've got to have the right kit.

But they can just go on your GitHub or something like that and have a read through and talk some through it, does it? - Yeah, that is more or less how it works. I had a lot of requests early on from people who wanted to build it or actually also wanted to buy it.

I could have definitely sold quite an amount of the ATMs. I had some individuals who wanted to have like 10, 20 ATMs and I was never looking into turning this into a business or making these professionally.

But I wanted to keep it an open source product and project that people can go to and just sort of be this maybe go to Bitcoin ATM solution open source solution for people to build. And initially there wasn't a lot of content.

There was really just my GitHub repo and the read me page and those who are or were technical, they could probably figure it out even though the electric circuits and all, I haven't really published any details on that.

It was mainly the code that was available. And I always had this idea of making it a bit more accessible. And luckily in, was around March, I think this year someone approached me from the US and they wanted to build that lightning ATM in their school with their kids.

- Oh really? - Yeah, and they asked me if I were interested to work on the documentation and actually being paid for it. So they did pay for the production of a proper guide, proper guides with video content, with how to do like step by step guides.

And I went on to do that. So I built this documentation website. It's called docs.lightningatm.me. And on there, there is no, I mean, it is based on a GitHub repo. It's a Git books project that you can, yeah, just online really go through.

And it's a step by step guide. So there's about one and a half hours of video content that I put on YouTube, where I go through the hardware setup. First of all, you obviously have the hardware requirements on that website with all the products that you need.

It's everything's listed properly with links for you to see what products you need. And then the next step is all those videos, it's about one and a half hours. You go through those and look at how to set up this whole in the whole hardware component part of the ATM.

And then goes on to software, to GitHub, cloning the GitHub repo, executing, installing the software, installing the Python modules and all. So it's literally a step by step guide. And I did have people built this ATM who have never touched like a console or a Linux system before.

It's at this point, fairly, even though it might take some time, maybe a weekend or two, depending on your knowledge or your skill level. But it can be done even by kids, almost, yeah, by students, teenagers.

And yeah, I would say at this point, it's fairly almost simple. - That gives me hope then because I want one. Like as soon as I've seen this, I'm like, I want one of those things and I can't buy it.

So I have to build it and just knowing that there are children who are capable of doing this gives me some hope. So that's great, that's really exciting. With these boxes, you know, you're talking about you have all the different parts that people will need and it's all listed.

You said that this can be for under a hundred dollars. I mean, that sounds really very reasonable to me. Is there a reason you've done that? Is that because you're sort of trying to get this into the hands of as many people as possible and you're thinking about sort of outside of Europe

and United States or what's your thought process there? - Yes, yes, very much so. I did have quite a lot of inquiries from people who wanted to use different hardware equipment who want also now there is quite a lot of people who are building these with build acceptors, not only with a coin acceptor but with actual banknotes.

And that's fantastic, that's lovely. But it was always one of my main goals to keep the project as low cost as possible because it is clear to me that someone maybe in Western Europe or the US they can maybe afford to build a bit more of an expensive ATM.

They don't mind if it costs a couple hundred dollars but I still like sort of this hundred dollar limit. I wanted to stay below that with my main build. I want to support everything else so if you want to build it with a build acceptor you can do that by now.

But my main focus of working with hardware that is cheap-ish and you can actually do it like depending on where you buy it from and if you don't want a fancy case or anything you can probably get it down to almost 60, 60 bucks somewhere around that.

And that is one of the main goals definitely. I want it to be accessible to as many people as it possibly can be and I can see that now like there is some development in Asian countries in Vietnam.

There is things happening in Africa and places where they potentially aren't able to spend a couple hundred bucks on an ATM for the EMI project and it's definitely one of my main goals to keep it as low cost as it possibly can be.

- And I assume you have when people are building these things they're generally reaching out and sharing the process and what they've built with you, are they? - Yes, yes they do. Absolutely, there is a telegram group where we've got about 40, 50 people or so and there is a constant exchange.

You have people joining, people drop their issues, their questions, have additional ideas. I get issues that are being opened on GitHub repository from people who have certain requests to want something at it or I'm still looking for also people who can help me with developing additional code or just working on the project itself

because at this point, like for now I'm mainly maintaining it and also doing a lot of support. There's definitely every day, a couple minutes, sometimes even hours that I spend on debugging, helping people set up their machines.

And yeah, there is definitely a little community by now and it's growing by the day. So that is definitely an exciting part of this project. Seeing it grow, seeing how people join and love the project, have their own ideas, how to make it better, how to make it more secure, how to add certain components or take components away

because maybe like for example, that initial button that I had on my ATM, depending on how you want to use the ATM, it's not really needed. You can also put in sort of like a timer and say, okay, like there hasn't been an additional coin within the last 10 seconds or so and just start the payout process

instead of waiting for user interaction. And all these sort of small and little things that have been implemented over the course of the last months, they're just making the project better and better and it is exciting to see that people keep coming to it, keep finding it online and joining the community of light and ATM builders.

- Yeah, I love when I see these projects where sort of the physical world and digital world are meeting because I always think that it's a little bit of a hurdle for a lot of people, especially when they're first coming into Bitcoin or they're interested in it, but they might wanna learn

a little bit more and they don't really have any experience. To have something like this or something like an open dime or anything that sort of takes Bitcoin into the physical world. I always feel like it's a really nice step for people and I can imagine if I'm speaking to friends or family

about Bitcoin, and I'm sure you probably have a similar thing, 99.9% of the time, they just don't care, they have no interest, they just think it's silly. But if I could show them something like this and be like, look, put a few pennies in here or a pound in here and it's gonna spit you out a ticket

and now you've got or send it to your wallet, you now have these sats. I think that makes it real, if you know what I'm saying. - Yeah. - And that's what I love about projects like this. I think it's amazing.

- That is very extreme. Yeah, it is like, I've had this experience often and just how you say it, like for people who have not really interacted with Bitcoin yet to have maybe heard of it, we've been told that it's a digital currency and that it does not exist in real life.

It is hard, like understanding Bitcoin with maybe without, even with a technical background, it is hard. Like how can this Bitcoin thing exist in a digital world and still have value not being physical at all?

And if you have a project like that, where it does make it tangible, I realized that early on that my idea was very, very well suited to introduce people to Bitcoin, to put them in front of a machine and go like, okay, so let's not talk about this digital thing that exists on a ledger and is decentralized.

Let's just do it. Let's just try it out. Take a coin out of your wallet, 10 cents is enough. Put it into that machine and then that little E screen flickers for a second that will display the actual, the current exchange rate and will tell you how many Bitcoin or how many Zetoshis in the case of Lightning

where we use the smallest denomination, how many Zetoshis you will get and then make them install a wallet on their phone, a Lightning wallet and interact with the Lightning ATM and get that money.

So this, I think it's also the thought process, the process of like, how do I even get Bitcoin? Oh, I can like buy it with the money that I have with the fiat coins. I can use it and buy some Bitcoin and then have it on my phone, on my wallet that sits on my phone.

That is something that is, yeah, it makes, as I said, tangible, it makes it in a way tangible and much easier to understand for people who do not have access to Bitcoin or haven't had interacted with Bitcoin before.

And accessible as well. I think that it's a really clever way of making Sats the standard because again, there's always that thing where people are like, oh, well, a Bitcoin is X amount. I'm not buying one of those.

Oh, that's the price of my car. Or you know, you'll get that and you're like, yeah, but you can buy a fraction and you go into all that. And you know, it's difficult to explain that. But when they can see it there and then, and like you're saying, they're just putting a few pennies in and they've actually then got those Sats.

They're like, wow, okay, this actually works. And it's magic when you see it. Yeah. Whenever I've played with the Lightning Network, I do. I just think like this is literally magic. This is amazing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's true. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I did have like it is funny, one of the funny things that happened often when I either posted a video or when I showed it in real life, like conferences to people, there was often that confusion.

And I'm still trying to sort of find the root of that confusion. But people often go like, well, yeah, but now, can't you just open that box and take the coins back out and throw them in again?

Like you can do that over and over again, right? It's basically double spending, right? You hacked Bitcoin in a way. And I go on to explain that this is my Bitcoin, right? And the coins that you put into my machine are now mine.

So you sold me your euros and in exchange, I give you my Bitcoin or whoever operates the ATM, depending on who built the ATM or whose company eventually runs the ATM that you're using, sells you the Bitcoin that they acquired from probably an exchange or someplace else.

So but it definitely has to do with that. This is just not something people are used to, like a tabletop ATM. Super small, little fits in a shoebox can be opened. It's not secure, even like the later the iterations that I have now, I'm now working with a MDF, with a proper laser cut case for the ATM.

But even that it's not secure enough to withstand an attack. It's not supposed to be out in the open 24/7 accessible by people. So it is hard for people to understand that this is not something that is gonna be outside on the street for everybody to use.

And yeah, obviously you can break it open, take the coins out and throw them back in. But I do think that has to do also with the fact that an ATM like that has never really been seen before.

ATMs are these machines that are secured into building, basically hard to tamper with. And now there's this like hard work box on a table there. Yeah, it looks so vulnerable in that way. Yeah, I think there are so many of these things that confuse people when they're first coming in.

But I think that honestly now, if I had to just have one minute with someone and just they're like, "Oh, what is this Bitcoin thing?" I'd probably, if I had one of these, just show them that and be like, "That's the start of it."

Like that's where you peak their interest because everything's easier from that point. And the fact that they can see value transferring and it's as quick as it is and it gives you a starting point to explain because you know, you try explaining about this being the hardest money ever and blah, blah, blah.

And people's eyes glaze over and they're just like, "Oh, I don't get it." So yeah, it's brilliant. And you're saying about you're having to do a lot of helping with people who are getting stuck with it.

I don't want to dox you. So I don't want to ask too deep a question, but are you of a technical background originally or is this something that you've taught yourself because you wanted to build this?

- Yes, mainly I taught it myself. I am of a technical background. I'm a data center engineer and I have been tinkering around with Bitcoin and Bitcoin related hardware and lightning as well since the early days and tests snapped in 2017-18.

And Python that I use as a programming language for the ATM that I did know. I had a foundation in Python before I started the project but learned a lot more while working on this ATM. So for me, it was definitely also a steep learning career.

For a lot of things that I eventually built, designed, I made the case I had to do some 3D modeling as well for my laser and cut design, which is now in its second iteration as well. Also in terms of all the electrical components, I've got a bunch of different things that, for example, I have this coin acceptor that runs on 12 volts.

I have a Raspberry Pi that runs on five volts. Needs to be solved somehow if you have power from one power source you. And in my case, I'm doing this with a five volt USB power, needs to be stepped up to 12 volts and then you get a bunch of resistors and other pieces.

So I had to do a lot of research, definitely, so it was, but it was brilliant, I loved it. I loved not knowing what I was doing exactly and figuring out as I went asking people, getting in touch with people who were much more knowledgeable in certain areas than I was and learning from them how I could go about solving certain problems.

And that's what I'm doing now. So I'm passing on things I learned, most of the problems that are being posted into the Telegram group, I either had myself or I have a good understanding where it comes from and then we'll debug those things rather quickly most of the time.

- To take on a project like this, obviously it's a great way to learn and get your hands dirty, which is always, I think, the best way to learn anything. But there must be a reason that you've dedicated all of this time to doing something like this.

Why is it that you're in this space? What does it mean to you? And why are you dedicating the time to build things like this? - That is an interesting question, yeah. I think it comes down to just my incredible passion for Bitcoin and my sheer will just to contribute something to this incredible technology.

I myself discovered Bitcoin or digital currencies I must almost say, by the end of 2013-14 when I read about this mining thing online and I was like, I'm explained how you could basically turn your power at home into money by putting it through a computer, putting it through GPUs.

Did my research then what GPUs do I need to buy? How can I put them together? What, how can I get the most out of my electric power at home? I eventually settled on a setup and bought all those components, built my own mining rig at home and went on to mine some Dogecoin at the time.

Just like a Dogecoin. - Classic, that's a classic. - Because obviously Bitcoin, that was long on the time that you could mine Bitcoin on the GPU. And for me, over the course of the following years it was an on and off relationship with Bitcoin.

There were months where I didn't pay much attention then I got back into it. And that was probably a thing for about two or three years. And then I would say mid-16, 17, somewhere around that I was, I found my way back to Bitcoin and I couldn't let it go anymore.

I went proper down the rabbit hole and it has captured me in a way that nothing else ever has in my life. So it's such a strong passion. Also, everybody who's been down that road realizes how many more doors open up.

It's not only, for me, it was first definitely the technical aspect. Even though when I was mining, I didn't know about Bitcoin and it's 21 million cap or it's deflationary aspect. And all these sense of it should persist in all these things that I value today as characteristics of Bitcoin.

I wasn't aware of but I learned it over the course of the years and so many different things that I learned about money. In general, what is money? Where does it come from? What's the history of money?

Why do we have it? Why do we use it? And I guess that's probably why I am passionate about my own project. Having my own little sort of thing that I'm entaying, that I help people with, that I help other people getting into Bitcoin, getting interested in what this is, what this can do, how the technology, how does it work,

having their first, like getting people involved and helping them, having their first interaction with Bitcoin, that is definitely what keeps me going and keep maintaining the project, helping other people to have the same experience as I had it when I first learned about it.

Thank you. - Looking back now, can you sort of, you said you sort of dipped in and out and it took some time, like it does with everyone to really sort of grasp the gravity of what this technology can do?

Was there a specific moment in time that you can remember where you're just like, oh my God, this is big, or was it a gradual process of just time after time having your mind blown? - That was very gradual, yeah.

I cannot remember a specific moment where it sort of clicked. I do remember the time when I started to look more or much deeper into the technical aspects of Bitcoin, because I had an understanding of how software works and how I understood that Bitcoin is software, but I struggled a while to understand what this sort of decentralized way

of running software means, like what, that is sort of one of the key problems, I think in general that people grapple with when they wanna learn more about Bitcoin, how that really works, how does the development process work, what are the underlying cryptographic primitives, what do they do, like how are they,

what exactly happens on the under the hood, so to speak. And I do recall that when I went through these and YouTube videos over and over, I had to, yeah, when I started digging deeper and trying to figure out, okay, so what exactly is this whole private, public key cryptography, this ECDSA algorithm

that sort of is responsible for the private and public key cryptography in Bitcoin? And when I watched this YouTube videos and one, it was like little puzzle pieces, one after the other put together and then, oh, okay, that's another thing here that I now understand.

And eventually, I don't think I had a moment where that puzzle was in front of me and I was like, in awe, it was just like one after the other, I was amazed and discovered something else that I was like, oh, wow, that is just brilliant.

How does, I don't know, like difficulty adjustment, how that's implemented, that is just mind blowing, that's definitely one of the things that's most beautiful about Bitcoin. And yeah, it's a picture that comes together slowly over the course of months, if not years, I would say.

- Yeah, I had a very similar experience and I don't come from a technical background, but it caused me to drop all my other work, just study and learn about this for, you know, a couple of years, just absolute obsession.

And, you know, again, I can't remember a specific moment in time that was like, that's it. Like it clicked, but multiple times, I'd be up at three, four AM, everyone else is asleep and I'd be almost like running around the house with excitement, 'cause I'm like, oh my fucking God, this is amazing, this is gonna change the world, ah!

And like, it was a weird place that no one else really shared my views on anything and it took a while for me to find Bitcoin Twitter and it was a bit of a weird and lonely existence for a while because I was so passionate and so excited but no one to talk to about it, which is kind of why this podcast emerged

and, you know, it gives me a chance to have these sort of conversations. - That's cool. - It's just, it flips the whole world on its head, doesn't it? - Yeah, yeah, yeah, that is very true.

How did you, if you don't mind me asking, how did you, if you're not from a technical background, like how would you approach certain things, the things that I mentioned, maybe just before, like the cryptographic aspects or other functions that are built into the code that can obviously be explained

or detailed in also in the English language but how did you find, what was your conduit to that technical aspect? - My thing that I did was I watched every single one of Andreas Antonopoulos Bitcoin question and answer series.

I don't know if you've seen them on YouTube where he like has technical questions sent in and then he goes through how it works. And then I would write notes on anything I didn't understand and then search that and sort of try and find articles or podcasts that would help explain it.

And then I listened to every single Stefan Lavera episode. I think twice, I listened to every single tells from the crypt episode. Just anything I could get my hands on, mainly audio. And yeah, just sort of somehow pieced it together.

And obviously there are still parts of it that go over my head. It's just, you know, it's crazy stuff. But once I've done all of that, it got to a point where I was like, okay, you know, maybe I can't review the code myself, but I get the general idea of how those things put together.

And if I'm right and understanding this correctly, this is the best money ever and it can bring a lot of freedom and help a lot of people. So I can't do anything else now. - Right. - Yeah.

- Yeah. - That's awesome. That's very good. - Are you still working on other things outside of Bitcoin or is this taking all your time now? - It is taking all my time. Yeah, definitely. I was, for the last couple of years, I was mainly working as a contractor.

So whenever I was working on something else, as I mentioned, I'm a data center engineer by trade and I would work on a project, but just actually on projects that lasted maybe for a couple of months, half a year at most.

And my last project was in 2019 that I finished, I think by the end of July or something. And since then, I haven't done anything else besides Bitcoin now. Focused for many, many months on the lighting ATM, was definitely also a lot of traveling involved.

I did go to a lot of the conferences around Europe over to the US as well, Bitcoin 2020. I was about to say 2019, obviously. And a lot of meeting people, getting to know the community, I think that started for me in like 17 or 18, when I not only learned about Bitcoin online, but also got to meet the people in real life,

got to see them, got to, yeah. I have beautiful and lovely relation and friendships now in Bitcoin, in the Bitcoin community. And it does take up all my time, yes, by now. I am working still on this lighting ATM.

I want to maintain it. I have some ideas for the future. But then I'm also working on a startup that we are trying to get off the ground in Switzerland, which is Bitcoin related. So yeah, my days are Bitcoin only.

- That's amazing. And this project, is this all Hush Hush or can you tell us anything about it? - We are, it's still a bit Hush Hush, so it's not really anything that I could announce properly, but it is gonna be, we are trying to bring this, yeah, this whole idea.

I mean, a lot of the things that we've been talking about, Bitcoin being hard to understand for newbies, being this thing that you can buy maybe on an exchange, but we want to package this into a nice service where people are sort of almost imagined being taken by the hand and led onto the Bitcoin journey, being educated along the way,

being set up with a proper storage solution, possibility to buy Bitcoin as well. So this is sort of, we have an idea with what we want to start as services that we want to launch with. It's still, right now, we are still in Switzerland.

And also dealing with regulatory aspects, of course, that you cannot really go around. And also, yeah, banking, this kind of topic is definitely something that Bitcoin companies in general struggle with a little bit because it's hard to get a bank account and in our business model, there is fiat still involved.

So yeah, we do have one or two ideas with what we want to start, but there is a lot of ideas that we have for the future, like we're thinking about lightning, we're trying to envision how people are going to interact with Bitcoin, how are they going to use it, how will they store it, how can they be educated about it.

I don't like, for example, I do not believe that everybody will eventually have a steep of an understanding about how Bitcoin works as you and I maybe have, but they will much more, it is important that they understand the basics and that they have, it is by the end, it is also a lot more responsibility that you're taking on.

If you're doing Bitcoin in a self custodial way, which is definitely what we are trying to achieve, we want to do that, we want to educate people about Bitcoin and it's about, yeah, this amazing way of being your own bank in a way, right?

And I don't think everybody will have as much of a technical and as much of a deep understanding as maybe those who have been interacting with Bitcoin for many, many years and learning about it, but we still want to make it safe and accessible and yeah, sort of almost like the lightning ATM, right,

when I make it so that people can just use it in an easy way, but still safe and self-sovereign. - That's really interesting. You're almost acting like a sort of Bitcoin shaman and guiding them through.

- Yeah, I think that's one of the problems for many people, right? If you, I had so many friends when you tell them about Bitcoin and maybe they sort of catch on a bit and they're like, okay, so like, how do I do that?

How can I go about it? And then what the next thing is, yeah, either you tell them the non-KYC route, which is a hard and arduous one, if you gotta go down the base crowd, I mean, it's getting better and better, but it is hard.

- Yeah, it's a bit glitchy at times. - Yeah, yeah, that is true. Although, I mean, I do enjoy it myself. I think it is a fantastic project. And if you are technically able to do this thing, then definitely go for it.

But what are the other options? The other options are KYC exchanges, but even these are hard to use for someone who has not yet interacted maybe with stocks or with an exchange platform, right?

You gotta sign up, you gotta go through the whole KYC process and you have an account, you send euros, wait a couple days and then you gotta manually buy Bitcoin and take it off, take it off the exchange and all of that.

It is not easy to go through process for a newbie that just wants to learn a bit about Bitcoin or experience it for the first time. And I do believe that there is a lot of opportunity here to make it easier for people and just go to this website and within a minute or two, you're through, you're signed up

and you're ready to buy some Bitcoin, get it straight into your mobile wallet, into your onto your hardware wallet or open dimes, open dimes are part of our first product that we will launch here at Switzerland.

- They're so cool. They're my favorite piece of hardware. I don't know what it is, I love their design. They're so useful as well. And like you're saying, it brings it into that physical world.

- They are great, they're a lot of fun. Yeah, so I mean, it is definitely now, running or being part of a startup takes up most of my days and then besides trying to keep up with what is going on in our Telegram group, helping out some people, setting up their Lightning ATMs.

There's a little community now in Vietnam where they're trying to build a bunch of these ATMs, put them out, like have, there's a one region, I think in particular where they're trying to educate people about Bitcoin, get stores set up with the equipment to accept Bitcoin and help people to use it in their daily lives.

That is a very interesting little project. There's also people who started, there have been requests, like I've gotten them personally in direct messages or on Twitter where people want to buy ATMs, but I just cannot really manufacture them myself.

But people have been almost like putting bounties up and were like, oh, I pay 250, I pay 200, 300, 400 bucks. And there have been now people who started to be interested in that as well, so there is eventually even someone who will build these ATMs where you can buy them on their webshop, potentially even with Bitcoin.

There is a full mo, full mo's webshop, the guys, the Lightning guys from Berlin, they have parts, you can buy the case, the Lightning ATM case already on their, they're working on getting all the hardware into an easy, into a kit, sort of like a Lego set ATM that you don't need to go buy it from six, seven different shops,

but just buy it with them and they supply you with all the hardware components that are needed for the ATM. So yeah, there's some different fronts there is, there are developments that I'm sort of helping with.

- Yeah, that's exciting. Just coming back to this build and actually setting one of these things up. And I am going to do this, it's on my list of three or four other projects, which I just haven't had the time to sort yet, but I desperately want one of these in my house.

So if I'm going to build this thing, there's just a couple of questions that just come off the top of my head, which is like, I assume this is sort of linked to my own personal wallet, which has to have funds on there.

So if somebody puts the coins in, then obviously the Bitcoin has to come from somewhere. Is that secured in any way or is that just literally, like if someone gets hold of that box, then you're done.

Is there a way around that or? - You can pretty much, I would say, compare it to like, maybe your mobile phone, right? Your mobile phone, you have a lightning wallet on there as well. Maybe you don't have that many funds on it, depending on how you're set up.

It's maybe you have it connected to a remote node where you have a bunch of channels. Maybe you have also a couple hundred euros worth of Bitcoin on there. The Raspberry Pi itself is obviously protected.

So if you are logging into that Raspberry Pi, then you use your SSH credentials that you can set up with that Raspberry Pi. But if someone gets hold of the box and gets sort of access to the SD card, then the credentials to your lightning wallet, which could be either a mobile wallet, like there is an option to basically connect your ATM

to a telegram bot that does lightning, which is called LMTX bot. I don't know, I don't know if you've noticed that before, but it is a wallet that lives in your telegram wallet. So you can basically interact with a bot that is called LMTX bot.

And you can top it up with some hundred thousands of Toshis if you like, and then use it to do lightning transactions. And those credentials, they are stored on that SD card. And if someone gets hold of that SD card, then they will eventually get access to your Bitcoin in that wallet, yes.

As they do, if they get hold of your smartphone potentially, right, depending on how you've secured it, it's not encrypted or anything on that SD card. That is something that I have in mind, like potentially encrypting the credentials, your access credentials to your external wallet.

But for now, it is, yeah, I wouldn't say risky because it's about the same attack surface, probably as it is with a mobile wallet, or depending on where you store your seat in general, right.

Or your access credentials. You can also use LMD node too as a backend of the ATM. So you can install the LMD lightning implementation from lightning labs on a Raspberry Pi or on any other machine and then connect your ATM to that LMD node.

But there you have a similar thing. The lightning ATM itself has never really funds on it or is not a wallet itself. But it only ever talks to external wallets. So it talks to this LNTX bot that is a Telegram lightning wallet or it talks to your LMD node that might sit anywhere in a cloud or at home, wherever you have it.

And then the lightning ATM itself only just has the sort of credentials, yes, a user name and a password in case of the LMD implementation. There is what is called a macaroons. So you have this macaroons stored on the SD card or the lightning ATM.

And whenever it needs to pay out a client, it will do that over an API and will issue the payment to the user of the ATM through that API endpoint and the authenticate with the credentials that are stored on the SD card.

- Interesting. So you can presumably then connect this to a My node or a Raspberry Blitz or something like that as your backend. - Exactly, exactly. That's what you do, yeah, yeah. - Very cool.

In terms of the casing and things like that, as anyone come up with casing, you know, you're saying about you were having one done, did you say with MDF? - Mm-hmm. - Is that something that you're looking to make available for people to purchase or is this again going to just be open source so that it's, they're available for people

to copy it if they want to. - Yes, that is mainly what I'm going for. I have it published already. It is available on the same GitHub repo as the code. It's hosted on so there is a folder and that's called like resources 3D model.

And in there you have all the files that are needed. Those are DXF files. You can bring those to a local laser cutter. Most cities around Europe, they will have like a handful of laser cutters and they have this material that's called MDF.

It's basically a form of, it's not a form of wood, it's compressed. - Bud, glued, compressed. - Glowed compressed wood, yeah. Dust, sawdust, I think. And that is then laser cut. So there's a laser that cuts through the MDF that is a three millimeters in thickness and you will eventually end up with this case.

I have at this point two versions. So the very first version is like a tabletop sized ATM which is about 25 centimeters in height and 20 by 20 in depth and width. So yeah, it's a lovely little box that you can put on a table.

And I have a second version that I've named the pocket edition. And that is literally just a little, it fits in a pocket almost. I'm not in your pant in your pants in your pant pockets but in your backpack or in any pocket that you bring along with you in a tote back or so.

And it is just slightly bigger than this coin acceptor that accepts the coins. But it fits properly just, you can hold it just with one hand and bring it to a bar, bring it to a local meetup and show it around, like carry it around.

It's only a couple hundred grams heavy. And both of those models are available online. You can go and go to a local shop and print it or cut it. There is now in your, I'm not sure, actually if they ship all across Europe but full mall from Berlin, they have the first version, the original version.

They have that already for sale. So you can buy the case on their, on their web shop. And they also wanna put the pocket edition online within the coming weeks, I think, working on that too.

And then there have also been other creative ideas. I've seen, I've been talking to someone in Germany as well. They have been working on a 3D printable version of the pocket edition. So eventually there will be some designs that you can just print with a 3D printer because that's not yet something I've done.

I've only worked on this MDF, sort of Lego. They have like different pieces and basically friction fit those pieces together and have some little screws that hold it together. With a 3D print, you would have just one smooth piece that you can put all the hardware components into.

There is a guy in England that is working on a metal casing. So I'm not sure if you've seen the, there is the Graspy bolt metal casing that open knobs developed together with a supplier in England.

And the same guy is also working on a metal casing for the ATM that looks pretty similar to what I've designed for my MDF version, but would be a bit more sturdy and a bit definitely more suited for maybe to have it in a store, have it in a bar or a coffee.

- Yeah, that would be really cool. - Yes, yeah. So there's various versions out there already of people who also use their own cardboard boxes, put it in like a gift box or yeah, it's like fun.

Whenever I see a new ATM, there's like all the creative ways that people come up with to sort of make ATMs. It's really quite fascinating, yes, lovely. - Yeah, I like that, there's so many different types.

It's not just bought off the shelf. It makes it more interesting and more exciting. Outside of my podcasting, I'm an artist. So I'm thinking I've got some ideas in my head of something I'd like to do with one of these cases.

So maybe watch this space. - Oh, nice, nice, good. - Yeah, I've got a few ideas going through my head at the moment. - Oh, nice. - Well, like I say, I think it is amazing. I love what you've done.

And I love seeing these sort of projects emerge. And it always gets me excited and hyped up when I see that other people are just spending so much time and energy and putting so much love into these sort of projects.

It's what this is all about. And Bitcoin is an amazing technology, but without these sort of things, we don't push the boat forward. We don't get new people interested and excited. And this is the most exciting thing I've seen in some time.

I can't wait to have one and be able to get normies and no coiners to try it out. So yeah, thank you for doing it. It's brilliant. - Cool, cool. Yeah, you're welcome. Well, thanks a lot for the compliments.

I'm happy to hear. And definitely saying, yeah, I'm very excited. And I do think in general, one of my messages that I often try to sort of get across is for people not to be afraid. It is Bitcoin can often be daunting and they can be intimidating with all its technicalities.

And it's, yeah, sometimes you might be afraid or you might be put off by setting up your own full node and these kind of things can become complicated. But nonetheless, I think if you're interested, if you want to learn more, if you want to dig a bit deeper into the technicalities of what makes Bitcoin work,

then a project like the ATM or like a Raspberry Blitz or something like that is just perfect. Like get your hands dirty, buy a bunch of hardware and just start somewhere. Pick it up, put it on a table, take a Saturday afternoon and look into some instructions, read a, ask questions, join chats and ask away.

Like people, maybe there's also, they're sometimes a bit afraid, they don't know whom to ask and how to approach people and these people, they've all got other things to worry about than my new question.

And that is definitely not the case. Like I'm always happy to have people ask me about how to use the common line or how to connect to, how to connect via SSH to my lightning ATM and these kind of things.

It's all, there is a first time for everything. And a project like that, a Tinkerus project in Bitcoin is a great way to learn more about the technology I think. - I think that's really good advice.

I couldn't agree more that getting your hands dirty is not only the best way to learn, but I actually think it's very interesting and fun to do most of the time. And yeah, there are times when these things can be frustrating or you can feel a little bit lost or worried about what you're doing.

But what I've always found is that there's always someone who's willing to help and that's an amazing thing. There's always someone you can reach out to. There's always someone who's written a tweet thread or written an article or done a podcast or whatever it is who's there to help.

And I think that's amazing. So if someone is going to take this project on and they're listening to this and they're like, "Oh my God, I've just gone on to 21, it's enough Twitter. "I've just had a look at this thing.

"It's fucking awesome, I'm building one." And then they set up this desk on their Saturday afternoon, they're a little bit stuck. Where do they look, who do they reach out to and what's the best step forward for them?

- Yeah, so they will find, definitely a good entry is my Twitter profile there. I have a link to my GitHub repository. You will probably also find that if you Google just for lightning ATM, GitHub, probably it'll come up.

Try to find that, my GitHub repository. There will be a link also to the documentation website. And that is probably where you want to start, the documentation website, which is docs.lideningatm.me.

There, you will find all the information how to go about it, what hardware do you need? I've linked it, like I will show you, I put the names of every single hardware piece that you need.

You can buy it from any store you like. Often you can get these things from like a place like AliExpress, but also on Amazon, there's a lot of these hardware products that you will find on Amazon shipped to you here around Europe or the US.

And then I would say, watch the videos, look into those videos that I've put online, check out the documentation website itself. And then there is at least 10 places on that documentation website where I put the Telegram link to join our Lightning ATM builder community.

Come in there if you're stuck, ask a question, ask away. Maybe also there's people who are willing to help. If you live in some country and you don't know where to buy this particular piece of hardware from coming to the chat, ask away, ask where can I get this, where can I get that, people are willing to help.

And just, yeah, I think the Telegram group is probably the best place to post your questions once you're stuck or you don't know how to go further in that process of setting up your ATM. - Okay, great.

And after we've jumped off this call, I will make sure I have all of these links and put them in the show notes for anyone who needs the help with it. If anyone wants to build this, definitely go and check out @21 is enough on Twitter and that's the best place to start.

Is there anything else that we haven't covered or that you wanted to go through before we wrap up the interview or anything else that you can tell us? - I think one of the things that I would very much love, if there's someone around who does have some experience in Python, not necessarily in Bitcoin, like, or the Lightning Network,

that is obviously a nice addition. But just in general, if you're excited about a tinkering project, I'm a little struggling to find people who can help contributing some code, helping me with additional features, with requests from the community, people have ideas what else could be built into the ATM additional functionalities,

maybe additional wallets that could be supported, not only as of right now, LMD and this Telegram wallet, maybe I want to make it compatible with all the other Lightning implementations or other little features that could be added and would be, as for example, the encryption of credentials to your wallets.

So basically, additional contributors, that would be something I'd be looking forward to very much. So if there's someone around who has a bit of spare time on their hands and would like to contribute to a Bitcoin project, I'd be more than happy to have you on.

- Okay, so anyone who's listening and is skilled in Python and has a little bit of time on their hands, definitely reach out. Come on, do your part. 21 is enough, has put a lot of time and effort into this amazing project.

And if you have some time, then it'd be amazing if you can dedicate it and help. - That would be super cool, yeah, thanks. - Yeah, and if I can think of anyone off the top of my head, I'll be giving them a kick to do it as well.

- That's great, great, thanks. - All right, well, thank you so much for coming on the show and thank you once again for what you've been doing. It's brilliant and I've loved chatting to you.

- Absolutely, thanks a lot as well. Yeah, it was a great pleasure, thank you.