EP54 Bitcoin podcast with Rootzoll

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 deliver to the deepest, darkest depths of the Bitcoin rabbit hole. Welcome back everyone. Today I have a very special show.

I actually recorded this a few weeks ago. Bitcoin Q&A is my co-host and root soul is our guest. Root soul was featured on 21ism. Block 1 has our featured dev. And he is obviously known for the Raspberry Blitz project.

Anyone who's into lightning, anyone who's into Bitcoin knows who he is. But it was really nice for me to get to know him a little bit more. Dig into his past, how he found Bitcoin and what keeps him motivated and working so tirelessly in this space.

Before we dive in, I just want to say thanks again to Bitcoin Q&A for helping me out on this. And thank you to Coin Floor for supporting the show. Check out 21ism.com for more info on root soul and enjoy the show.

Root soul, welcome to Bit by Bit. Thank you very much for coming on the show. It's an absolute pleasure to have you on. And for anyone who doesn't know your work or know you, can you do a little bit of an introduction for us please?

Oh yeah sure, hi there. Yeah, I stumbled into Bitcoin some years ago and then connected very quickly to the Berlin Room 77, the kind of Bitcoin crowd. And it's kind of my home place, like so I'm from Germany, Berlin.

And then got started with a hackathon, like trying just to get into it. And then Bitcoin is cool for donations and sending small stuff. But then even got to jump into the Doge coin for some time.

There was a while time there with the Doge rain app. Maybe some people remember. But then I kind of, after this kind of detour or detour, I returned back and always kind of started to help organize Bitcoin events.

Did that in Berlin and did this on the CCC, House Communication Congress events here in Germany. Been there organizing the Bitcoin Assembly. So I always like to bring people together. And then when this lightning thing started to happen, it really grabbed me again.

Like, oh, these small payments are possible again. This is exactly what I liked. And so I jumped in with Jeff from Fullmo and organized the lightning hack days and then even the lightning conference last year.

So and from those hack days, I got involved into this recipe blitz project. So where it's about building your own full node and lightning node and learning about it. And this kind of sprung up from those hack days kind of experiences.

So yeah, I think that's my, my kind of journey. So at least in a short version. I'm yet to get my hands on a Raspberry Blitz, but it looks great. I love that you can have the screen on it as well.

Like it looks really cool. Yeah, it looks like it's got some really nice features and actually Bitcoin Q&A and I did a recording. It was about four episodes ago, which was really digging into everything to do with nodes for beginners and, you know, why to run one, why it's important and the different options.

And obviously Raspberry Blitz came up and he had some very good things to say about it. So Bitcoin Q&A, maybe you jump in and touch your thoughts on it and have you run one or had any experience with one yet.

No, I haven't. I've not had a chance to get to grips with the Blitz yet. I think the, like you said, marks the screen is kind of one of the unique features that the Blitz has got. And I'm looking forward to trying to get one running pretty soon.

I think I like about the Blitz is it seems really when there's an update, everything seems really buttoned down and everything seems battle tested.

And, you know, there's, I think that's credit to the team really that the way that they implement all of the changes and the updates of which there looks to be many, many various facets to the Blitz, which I'm sure we'll probably get into.

Yeah, I just, I just like the way that the team conducts themselves and everything just seems really well thought out and really well packaged together. Thank you. Good to hear. I really, really have to say because it's, it's a work in progress and it's a community project.

So there comes a lot of ideas together and it's not that easy to integrate everything seamlessly. So kind of delighted to hear that from the outside it feels kind of solid. That's good. Because when you're looking from the inside, you can sometimes see those little things starting waiting to get together.

But you know, or maybe the next version will be a little bit more smooth. But yeah, but at least we try to keep those, those cats together, like hurting cats a bit. Yeah. Yeah. So how many of you are involved in this project?

I know I had open arms recently on the podcast. I know he's involved in, you know, is it a big community? I, it's, it's, it grew over time. So I think, yeah, the kind of steady contributors are part of the core team is going to be considered like open arms and Frankie and, and then me.

So kind of with like, this is kind of, I think the, the team that coordinates a little bit closer. And then we have kind of people like, like to contribute, like just on special topics, like people that are developing on the other projects.

Like the additional apps you can install that those people kind of jump in and maybe help on updates and or integrating new features. So, and then of course the people that are trying it out and using the rest of this project to dig a little deeper and find some stuff that's not working.

Also kind of start to contributing little stuff like, of course it starts from a typo corrections, but then also jumps in into, oh, this, this feature was was, I have a better idea how to do this and contribute this one.

Or I have a little feature I built and I just contribute it. So over time we kind of developed a little bit kind of what kind of contributions you can make.

You can start small and we try, we try to want to help you then if you have an idea and you want to integrate it to grow it into more and more into the project, if you like, if you want to do that journey.

And with Raspberry Blitz, I've, like I said, I haven't used one, I currently have a my node, which people sort of seem to say it's sort of the Swiss Army knife of nodes with Raspberry Blitz.

What's the sort of main differences, like if I was to set one of these things up, what would I notice, you know, to compare between the two features wise or I think from from the outside from the hardware side, you will see that the rest of what was the big screen on top.

So this is the thing from the feature side or at least from the hardware side, the biggest difference people can see and it helps you a bit in the beginning and setting up like showing you the IP stuff and also giving you also a status update on the node and that's very helpful.

Especially if you're new to this area and you want to take sometimes take a quick look so oh it's still running. Oh, see, I routed one payment or I earned some one, one Satoshi this day or something.

So there's a little, there's a smaller kind of things like the like the display from from the project setup. It's like there is no kind of the my node comes with this premium business model behind it.

So, and of course it's also open source that's cool but the recipe blitz kind of didn't had a business model in mind from the beginning. So we get started like really from the from the hack days we wanted to have just project collecting and make it easy for people to get

the hands on feeling for running a note. And this is where the rest people it's kind of project develop from a tutorial kind of way to more more into a project. And it's more now like so it's much much more open for people to to like a community

project so it's much much more open to contribute stuff or do do experimental stuff or at experimental stuff to it. So from that side I think as you can see it's also from the contributor side you can see there is a lot of people just just using just this openness.

And the and on the other side like of course now we see that people have much interest in the project and like it very much we try to stabilize it for the future bit.

Coming now a little bit the idea of not giving you a premium or whatever version so this you will always have to complete rest people experience, but maybe adding some services that you could use on top if you want to make your life a bit easier like like the IP to tour service that we developed

of the act days that that we as full more as a distributor are offering for you. But of course you can change if you want to see if somebody else set up the IP to tour services everybody else is free to to to fork the project or just to to add some other service to there

if you stick by the default maybe we are a little bit set touches on the side hopefully in the future a bit more so that the latest kind of business model seems to evolve there to have a stable project for the future too.

But if you try to keep it very open so everybody should be able to fork this project and build their own stuff on it.

Can I, can you talk us, sorry book on Q&A you go ahead. I'm just glad you're at the brought up the IP to tour itself. Could you kind of something I'm quite interested in. Could you sort of break down what it would allow no runners to do and what sort of doors it would open for them if they run this IP to tour.

Yeah sure on the it came out a little bit our from the pain points people had running a note because the basic stuff is you run it from home right so you so you have it running behind your router.

And they're for basic lightning that's okay because you can reach other nodes and connect to them build channels with them that's all not all fine but the reachability if people want to have make a connection from the outside of fresh connection from the outside to your

network. This gets a little bit more complicated normally you can live with this situation but then people want to connect for example the mobile wallets that they the mobile phones to the note so they can kind of remote control their notes from a zap wallet or zoos wallet.

So this was the first time where it got not that easy to reach a note because there is this firewall of this of your router the nut the nut traversal stuff and so the more technical people were able of course to open ports on the router and forward stuff to their notes.

But we were seeing more and more that this is getting hard for people to do to manage their infrastructure infrastructure on that kind of level deep in that kind of level and also some people were not able to do it because there are some providing a providers

out there that put you behind provide a nut so there is no possibility to open a port or you use your Wi-Fi from your neighbors or from your community flat or something then you cannot open a port there.

So then we were thinking what our solutions there and of course there is Tor and some people also are able to use this very successfully because if you just use Tor the Tor network you get kind of a public Tor address the hidden service address.

And this one is reachable even if you're behind the nut so so from if you have some mobile app or some service you can connect to this hidden service but then you're on the Tor network and this is also for everybody not that easy.

For example if I want to provide something to the outside maybe for my local community to have people in my neighborhood reach me simply with their smartphone and with their browser. They would have to install Tor browser I have to give them a long address.

And this is kind of not feel it's not natural to the people outside and to a lot of apps that are trying to connect to you know and then so there was this pain point how can we take the benefits of Tor being very unknown and then have it easy to get outside your local

infrastructure. And on the other side providing people kind of classic clean it IP like they're used to surfing the weapon get then all the benefits of a clean it IP like having HTTPS server where you get this transfer this is security and all the stuff.

So the idea came up with how cool would it be if there are some service out there so about there and a server has about 50,000 ports like public ports on one IP you can give out and you just rent out one port on your on your server.

So if you have one server running you can rent out 60,000 ports there to people that can make use of it.

And so the IP to Tor is a service open source service you can set up and we built even a shop around it frankly built complete shop around it so that you can really just very easily rent such a port on a public server out there and pay it with lightning and then your note gets reachable

for everybody out there and you can get even a let's encrypt certificate and host a complete website that feels like it would maybe run on a normal internet server but it runs from your home behind Tor and very unknown service.

So this was the kind of goal we were heading for was the IP to Tor. So what I'd be writing saying that say I'll use Max as an example, if he was wanted to sell some of his art online and he runs a local BTC pay instance would this be a kind of fix for that that he could sort of safely expose his instance of BTC pay

out to the wider sort of well to the internet. Yeah, this would be one of the kind of two classic services for as web service we have at the moment the Alan bits and the BTC pay server where you kind of run a website on your

internet and it would make sense to offer it to people to the outside and BTC pay server would be one example that you can set behind the IP to Tor and then you integrate it.

Then you have really a BTC pay instance running but of course you connected or integrated to some other store or somewhere so maybe the being a non is not that 100% in this scenario so you would maybe also need to completely host your website where you're selling stuff on your

recipe blitz. I don't know do they have a complete home server setup was maybe not the goal of the project but really running such critical instances like BTC pay or an Alan bits kind of this is something where you can deliver a website service to the outside to your local community.

Was this what you were talking to me about the other day Bitcoin Q&A you were saying about if I was to use BTC pay that I would actually be exposing my IP address and that maybe that's not such a good idea is this what you're saying this is basically potentially a fix for that.

Yeah that's certainly what it sounds like to me anyway yeah the way yeah which all explained it yeah. Okay very cool then I will have to be setting one of these up. Yeah sure let us know because I'm a little bit more focused on the Alan bits part at the moment but getting experience

from people running BTC pay server behind the service would be great just to have some practical feedback on that because the service is very early we did we kind of hacked together a prototype that we just now testing.

So this is something don't expect kind of a ready product but it's really really early but we have it out there for everybody to try it out and let us know if this is working for them.

Yeah definitely give that a go yeah and hopefully can give some feedback because if there's anybody who can come across problems when doing anything technical anyone who can give you feedback on what can go wrong that's me I will find I will find a way to fuck it up and cause problems and report back don't you worry about that

and no no pain no gain is it okay. That's it. And what made you come into the space in the first place like with lightning obviously you said you you were involved for some time and looked at those and some other different things but what was it about

lightning that really excited you and why have you gone down this route. It was really just to see that we can really censor Toshi's again so there was the thing that we're lightning got more of course I heard about lightning there was the idea

but then about to this December 2017 we had the chaos communication Congress and there we were kind of assembled and we're talking about Bitcoin and we were saying a lot of fees getting so hard.

So this is you will not pay maybe pay not paying the coffee but but make you a small payments there we were seeing glitching this idea away of cheap payments on the network so

it was like and then somebody brought a prototype I think it nuclear was like the first prototype on sea lightning still on test net but you had this one button and you just press the button and you would be donating once Toshi over test net to another lightning wallet

and more like for donations so we had to kind of contest how often people were pressing the button. I don't have the final number in my mind again but it was some Toshi's there.

And this was like okay this could work so this is nice we need something where we need this the small payments if you want to have the money for the internet like we need to be able to even pay this website some Toshi's to make this advertising away and all this

those situations and yeah and this was like where we had this feeling at the assembly like I think let's try this lightning thing out let's see how where we can kick this and then this was like in and then I think some weeks later

kind of Jeff asked me like what do you think like do we want to go a little bit more into this formal direction and do this and then I said yeah I would love this and that's where I kind of started where onboarding

I was also learning from the beginning and I was learning with the people like we did our first hack day and just invited people that were interested and then to see where this is going and then we were seeing like after the first event yes yes this is good

yes this is what we want to do and we did more of it and has it sort of exceeded your expectations or is it along the lines of what you're expecting you to achieve or sort of where are we if you take what your vision was on that day and you were thinking

wow this could be the future where are we along that line well at least at least a good way ahead because a lot of questions you're very early on you had like oh would have been oh there was a lot of routes there have multiple routes

can I use multiple routes at the same time so there was a lot of these early questions there but and and and I think a lot of from this basic questions we were kind of soft and we have kind of solutions there like also watch towers now

so sort of basic stuff is there but of course like when you dive when you really try to make it practical you can now really see okay there is still this liquidity thing that's not that easy for people to explain on the first thing

like we we see it like so off because you're just in store breeze or just in store Phoenix wallet but in the end it's still for people a topic there and it's still there and then to when they come from the classic Bitcoin on chain idea

it's like something to to grasp so so I'm I'm very on one side I really love to to see all this grows and what what already has happened and really to have those all those notes and on the note projects you can

this is really the division I really had a mind and I love to see now that people take it it's so important to run their own infrastructure and we have something against those big servers and cloud services that out there

so that we did this seems possible and this part of division I'm very optimized on the other thing is still like that people don't people using Bitcoin as for payments is still still maybe also cultural thing

not exactly sure I think the technology is almost there like we're very close to to give good good even a good technical infrastructure and technical you even want to use ability I think it gets better every day it's already on a quite good

if you just look from the consumer kind of perspective we're already on a quite good level there it's more like the people really that want to pay with Bitcoin is still we can see maybe we have even the technologies a little bit more early than what

what people really have have the pain point for so think it was come at one point but I don't think we are culturally there that people already use Bitcoin as a novel way of payment so it's more the hodl kind of investment and speculation is still for a lot of people though the main stuff

so you kind of see that as a barrier for people really using this stuff yeah it's more like an interesting it's that your pain point needs to be big enough right so you're you're I'm in Germany here and credit card work well yes now we have also this tap and pay stuff and then

so so this is it's working for most of the people so they there's not the pain points yet so the inflation stuff is still in there people get really asking about this so much money gets printed this is why they get interested in

in seeing Bitcoin as a hedge or as a maybe speculative hedge maybe for for for that kind of for their savings but still like why should I pay with Bitcoin like even then you have if you really take it seriously you have

then all those text stuff you have to keep in mind like did I really hold this Bitcoin or this Satoshi for one year and how much did I made made gain or loss on a cell and all the stuff if you take this seriously to the penny it gets complicated

in your mind and I think this is still what people I think if you really want to do stuff on the Internet like for me personally I like to pay my VPN stuff for this all security related stuff

I'm definitely go lightning and Bitcoin but but on the classic outside situations it's still I think no it doesn't feel natural yet for people but still there is the pain point situation in Germany is very privileged country when it comes to at least even to still the financial stability

I think in other areas of the world there's there's different pain points and then we can maybe even see they're more maybe even more early adoption for for everyday payment with Bitcoin

Yeah yeah for sure I think certainly for me anyway like I'm not massively technical I try my best but I always have that fear in the back of my head especially with lightning I'm definitely less sure and lightning than I am with on chain payments

I always do worry like if there was a way where I felt confident sending payments between other peers and people that I know I probably would do it more but I always have that fear in my head of like

you know down the line can this be tracked how how good is this how is it going to protect my privacy and even if I am to run something you know through samurai and then take it on to lightning then really am I giving any information away that I shouldn't and

I think certainly for me that's the biggest issue and I would use it a lot more if it wasn't for that do you see the possibility for privacy improvements on the lightning network and ones that are going to be accessible for

you know more more normal or less technical people down the line I definitely hope so the I'm also but I'm also seeing the other side like like people making lightning easier for people by by reducing their kind of privacy

like so so there is always I think we will first I think first we will see see more of the tendency that we have a lot of services out there like even the custodial services that banks maybe will offer soon

so so we will see a lot of that in that direction I think this will be stuff that we will see more than at one point more more and this is maybe on the privacy side not net positive this more on the other side

but I think it will spark counter counter movement even and so that that there will be people that don't like this thing and they will put even more effort into building solutions and then catching make it easy for those people see what

what exactly do they need how can it work and really learn again from them and offer solutions there so if we really want to replace Visa and MasterCard I think we will also get into get a lot of those people that also don't care they just want something

that works and maybe it can work cheaper with lightning they will choose lightning or the merchants will choose lightning because they don't have to charge back fees or something so there might be just economical reasons to do it and not the privacy reasons

I can see that at least personally as thing lightning adds a lot of privacy to it because you don't have this this on-chain tracks that you leave but of course if you just go into some big if you just download a big mobile wallet it gives you everything from the start and just have this one big big note there

and then just with not much notes in between connects you to your goal sure you leave your tracks somehow so if you really for the but for those people that really care we have those note projects we have all those infrastructure you can run by yourself or you know friend that runs it

I think this note and family note for friends and family and this is all there and they will not be able to take this away from us so it is there when we need it and again it's a pain point situation often that people really take care about this

there's a good point there it's all about the whole privacy aspect of thing and if you met somebody today that was sort of starting out in Bitcoin and they were you know of a fairly good base level of technical ability what sort of main things would you say to them to you know recommendations in terms of maintaining their privacy when

they're interacting with Bitcoin and lightning KYC look out where where did you kind of connected first of all on the on where did you get your Bitcoin so it's like always a little bit of hygiene right so so you have to take to take away do I got them promised that I offer there are some KYC stuff or whatever

you know on a spending site like if you spend in an order something you'll give you a dress so you have this coin so also maybe tainted so in a kind of way so yeah it's always good at least at least the advice would be like have a wallet to play with you where you can just kind of do normal stuff to just try stuff out and don't do risky

stuff and on the other side maybe have a second wallet that you try to keep clean from the beginning and this is the wallet where you always think twice because if you just have one wallet and you try to be the 100% privacy person you maybe just

either you make it wrong or on the other side you don't you don't have to guts to do anything because you're always kind of if I do it is right so I think you should have to kind of these two to kind of wallet things like one really to do have just small things play with just get a feeling in general

and then the other things where you really always think twice like in this intersposed directions and maybe then try to learn a little bit about coin mixing even if I have to admit I'm personally not the biggest user of this myself

So this is but but this is definitely stuff to look into if you're if you want to care about the second wallet a little bit more carefully I think the two wallet thing is that's great advice just pick it up on something you said there around it you're not a great user of coin joining implementations

Why is that is that is that because there's a barrier there for you or is it just not something you're interested in as so it's a little bit like it's it's a time thing

We really have to say and then because all the development stuff on the rest we did so a lot of my free time also then I try to put into the into its development and fixing issues developing stuff it eats your time to really take time for other stuff so

I mean I have really have to say after even the joint market integration is on the on the rest people it's I never had time to really play through so it's it's on my list it's like on my my to do list or my playlist

But it's it's more like every time when I think about like do do that time or do that direction I I'm almost kind of go for the productive thing on the on the on the project so it's not the best kind of solution because sometimes I have to really have to wait and then I hear about open arms

What's his kind of wisdom there so but but really the best thing is the hands on on on experience and if you develop or I think you you you cut a lot of of your play time for productive time

Yeah it's kind of a bittersweet situation for you there really isn't it in terms of pushing the project forward and then not having time to play with it yourself If you could wave a magic wand and sort of adding any any feature that you wanted regardless of how difficult it would be on to on to the blitz what what would that be?

If I really just have a magic want to make I think the yes the web you eyes definitely something we we had a mind for a long time and so so but maybe it's good that we waited a bit

So because now we can see like like the umbrella project really delivering there are a lot of people loving it so this is definitely maybe something sometimes good not to to start to early on stuff

So maybe the idea is really to give it a good weapon maybe to just put the umbrella UI on there but it's something I have to maybe to check out to contact the people from the umbrella project and see how comfortable that would be if we just take this open source part and then put it on top of the blitz

Not sure if there were any hard feelings or something it's open source basically it should be in the area but yeah every I know it's like it's projects maybe there's have to see if you if somebody has a good contact to the umbrella people feel free to to make an introduction

There and to see maybe how we can work together even on that at one point they're actually on my list of people I want to speak to so once I manage to get in contact I will put the two of you together

Oh yeah or maybe just ask how they would feel if other node projects would kind of just make use of the and then of course it would be nice at one point even of course to contribute back but I think in the beginning would more be more adoption and one one direction

I don't know if you know or if you're here or if the umbrella people here feel free to comment would be interesting to know And any other features that you'd be looking for on the project or anything that you've got up your sleeve

kind of next so at the moment we have the one point six out and we are working on a one point six one what's more like a service release mostly working on the same basic setup but fixing some script stuff and also some hopefully on the

other side I hope to get fixed this week so that we can make this respite for community projects like having this lighting vouchers maybe in the first version or having this merchant onboarding with cash in the back concepts

So two things I hope we will get into the really early next service release and then the then after this is the one point seven this will be more a background refactor version a lot of stuff in there it's like putting it by a tour by default

in there and then do whole installation process should be a little bit more kind of streamlined so that maybe later on we can put a web UI on it so like preparing for this kind of step so maybe then one point eight will go a little bit into this

I direction and the goal is a little bit like for the 2.0 maybe to really have them this from her from a SSH kind of thing in into really to something where you have them the hybrid that that's on that you could use it for even from a more consumer perspective

But if you want to then go deeper you can find all this community as is aging in and really get crazy there so this would be a thing the magic one thing if I really can do a lot of stuff done with a magic one that would be great really to have those those

areas that you have a note that really feels like a consumer product if you install it but then you can really go with one like oh you can SSH in like okay cool and then bam I have all this crazy scripts and stuff that people experiment on that it didn't see

that was all hidden a little bit like behind this consumer kind of looking product but then if you have it all at your disposal this is what we kind of think the 2.0 version that I would wish for but it's everything we have to see and

everybody has to be happy in a team with where we go but just from my perspective magic one idea yeah this maybe hmm and it's interesting hearing I love speaking to devs and people who are actually building this stuff because I have all these grand ideas in my head of how things can work but I'm not the one building it and have no

bloody idea what I'm doing so it's interesting to know how far away you feel we are from that type of consumer product where I could say to any normal person who's not into Bitcoin here you are here's this thing you can buy you can set it up like do you have an idea

ahead of a timeline where that would be possible I think there's don't get me wrong it's more like this is for the rest people it's what the rest people came what comes from this community like more hacky kind of set up where

so that that's okay for the rest of it's this is a little bit down the road maybe and maybe timeline maybe talk mid to sell with 21 or whatever so I'm not good at this timeline so but those projects are already out there that you ask for like this is exactly the

like projects I have the feeling at least projects like the umbrella or the my node come more from those consumer perspective first kind of ideas and think they're also very open for community distribution but they come more like from this design

first user experience reduce it to the minimum kind of a little bit thing and so I think we have those kind of notes almost out there like I think the my node is already kind of if somebody's asking like what to set up I would say okay if you really coming from the consumer kind of side check out

them the the mine out project or if you're more like an emergent situation maybe the nodal and if you really and maybe in some months we will have the the umbrella also have a good more like this is replacing what the cars are wanted to be so I think there's

already from that perspective we have already something out there or something in store for the rest of it maybe take a bit more longer to finish that kind of road but I'm coming more from from another perspective and obviously your developer you're working on this stuff

you're spending your time making all this stuff more accessible but there must be a reason that you're so heavily involved in Bitcoin there must there seems there usually is more to it than just I find this technology interesting

what is it about Bitcoin that has really grabbed your attention is there one thing that for a few things that really grabbed your attention and made you stay in the space for sure so the question how long to explain the there was a bigger journey after I was it was interested in and kind of also political

change or like how we can can overcome the system a little bit where we're in and then also after my study finished I was kind of on this journey and asking me okay the rest of my life will be about this money so what is this money so so so so so and then when

and then was this crisis 2008 and then it was like what the hell this is all wrong and then yeah and then seeing money so no so so basic in our society like it was something at least I was sensitive about about the topic and when I was seeing

Bitcoin like a solution coming from my kind of world like programming kind of world this this was fascinating and especially because of all the solutions we were talking about in the past.

At always this was also easy to corrupt so even if you could people in the beginning maybe the next generation would fuck it up so the this is always a problem with this people out there so so and then and then we have this this really this this idea of really having this in the code and of

sure there is also bigger process behind this developer and minors and there's a bigger structure also there and there's also people involved but but it's it's really a big barrier in the best the best kind of hope or a glimpse or or what that we have at least what I can see to change this this very powerful system to have something

that maybe can take this standard chance against this. I'm very convinced that this is our best shot not there's maybe this little percentage there where I'm still asking is it really uncorruptible.

But this is more like my when I had some drinks and then maybe you can wear this little pink. You've got to think about it you know when you're spending all your time and if you're heavily invested in your living on this stuff then it's always going to creep into your mind.

And that's a good thing I think anyone who sits back and doesn't sort of think critically about it maybe they should be. But if you sort of if you put on that adversarial hand you're trying to think of like you know how how can this be corrupted like what can people do what worries you the most.

But lately we can see a lot of Wall Street money is coming in so I think I'm not sure I think there was always a little bit of it so because people like to put their fingers in early to just see what's happening.

And I think a lot of people also even on that thing on Wall Street you find people that in the end know the complete systems. So they love to have something on the side and play with it like they let out the anarchist.

Like they used to take control so of what they kind of even even think of the internet so in the beginning it was invented by hippies and and it was was was this crazy everybody's one voice whatever idea and then big big money came in and then change this complete system

like. And then we have now what we have like with Facebook and Google and all the Amazon and stuff. So, so the thing we there's always this naive thing that we like in the beginning. And maybe we even over rate ourselves sometimes so it's always the question what is it.

And I'm not exactly sure but there will be at least a try at one point to influence the development or maybe doing their own fork or trying to for example what will happen in the in our note with our notes.

So the economical variable notes count in the end so the notes that are making the all the transactions coming through like the lightning, the big lightning notes where where stuff is happening.

But people standing behind like, for example, the denoted coin bases running is much more kind of powerful economically than the note I'm running yet from my home. So there's just and those things.

I think when when when they decide then to do something or fork something off or change something. There is this battle will be hard it will still be hard so because then we really have to convince the the all the other smaller notes to stick to our side.

And I think we have a good chance there because they because they cannot risk too much split of the network so they if they can really they really get an 80% they need some 80% 90% consensus to don't fog up the system too much that they will disturb their business.

But but maybe they would try and the question is how will it look like them.

I think that's probably along the lines that I would go as well and one of the things I worry about is like rehypotication and people you like you're saying with Coinbase and these people do they actually hold the funds how many people have claim to the Bitcoin they think they own

is one of the reasons that I push as hard as I do for privacy and making sure that people hold their own keys and Bitcoin Q&A has been helping me along with the coin join side of things and all of that because these are the tools I see that we can fight against this.

And I think it is inevitable I think you're absolutely right that you know there's never been a time that they don't want to get involved in something and at the end of the day this is something that sort of it would affect them in in a way that they're not used to.

You've never seen any competition and now they can see it or at least some of them are starting to see it and like you're saying the system is fucked there's there's no way to argue that and this is now this competing system that they're not sure how to control and they want to.

So we need to be on our guard. It's the good thing is they're normally they're not they don't speak with one voice so it's normally they are also kind of split and they hate each other.

And so we also can count a bit of that so it's really hard to do that they will produce a consensus that's so hard against everybody else and can have the chance to succeed. There needs to be something that that really unites them so so hard that there's something in Bitcoin that cannot swallow.

And hopefully I think because when it comes from a sound money perspective, I think that resonates with a lot of kind of people that come from the startup mentality or from the more economical world.

So I hope they maybe they they they more welcome it in the end then then just try to find it so we have to see. We will see it does feel though like you said like it's creeping in.

It seems like every couple of days I'm hearing about someone changing across and changing their views on Bitcoin and that it's getting more and more more normalized in current financial models and people are starting to open up to it.

So it's only a matter of time. I'm not sure the best way to fight this other than you know people holding their own keys and caring about their privacy but it's a really hard thing to get people to care about.

It's something that I think like you're talking about the internet it started off for something that was meant to be free and that everyone could connect and there was no sort of man in the middle sucking up all the value and now we do have Google and Facebook

and Amazon and it certainly doesn't feel to me like it has ended up like it was supposed to. Do you feel there's any hope for the internet now or is it something where we have to start something completely new down the line.

I think the internet is still great so we have still this wires that connects us and we have encryption so we can use those wires for whatever we want like we can make those communication we have this.

Every time even in a country where I am very even quite good board broadband compared to some other parts of the world. So I think this is great the infrastructure at least is there so the we just have to make sure that we keep those tools and not be taken away from us.

So a lot of comes in the internet is what we want what the people out there wanted in the end like they didn't want to take care about their router was then it had a home server and have all this in the beginning they were happy just having a browser and just have a client there

and so it's also the what the consumer wants so it's also a machine that produced to do that consumer to a certain degree if the computer had demanded from the beginning something else.

Maybe we would have something else so I don't see it's lost I think we just in a in a phase where we at least have to reconsider some stuff we did in the past.

So and I think this is a lot of people are aware of it at least in my bubble even my my more not Bitcoin friends data privacy definitely they they know so like people getting more more aware of it so this is starting.

And we maybe see now with start Bitcoin maybe started with even as as much as the whole blockchain is often too much overhyped there are things very interested to see what will happen with projects like firecoin so if they can really decentralized the cloud

data centers that would be great so I'm just curious and then at least that the Bitcoin has inspired all those moves to decentralization even if a lot of stuff has failed or were scams.

I think this is basically good thing we hopefully something good even some beside Bitcoin something else will still be the come up and will be there so I'm very happy to see those progress such progress.

And I was going to jump in route all and ask was I'm keen to this is probably a bit of a question for my own benefit really is that I'm coming to visit Berlin in a couple of months I'm keen to know what the Bitcoin seems like down there could you tell us a bit about that and perhaps a bit about the lightning

days that you'll the yeah basically the the room 77 would be the first thing to say about Berlin and Bitcoin this is the one bar the one of the bar that way you could buy beer for Bitcoin like brick and mortar kind of first off.

So the but but at the moment it's close because of all the Corona COVID situation so the it's I'm not sure if this did the bubble most probably not be open in the next kind of weeks.

So from everything else it's been all those kind of public places are a bit kind of close now it's we have the we try to do in October, a smaller kind of rescue blitz kind of hack day. It's a small event but if you're mid mid October in the Berlin area let me know.

And then maybe to the end of the year because there's normally the CCC Congress that's which is normally a thousand of people come together. And but this time it will be more in a decentralized way but there will be stuff happening in Berlin between Christmas and New Year's Eve so there will be locations where stuff will happening.

So we will try to have one place where we will meet as the kind of the Bitcoiners so so if you're in Berlin around between Christmas and New Year's also try to check out or maybe drop me a note so there will be also something possible.

The other stuff is more online events so we have this burden so credit seminar that's kind of regularly but at the moment also it's an online event so and there will be some event at least on the first Thursday a month which is the classic date for the Bitcoin

but you have to check on meetup.com where this is happening because this is moving around and because of the location problem.

This is a graph for that one just on the lightning hack days has there been any talking about previous ones now has there been any real gems or real usable pieces of software or hardware or anything like that that sort of come out of there's been a product of one of those meetups.

The watch the watchtower projects not sure if they were really started on the hack day but at least people for example were participating and finishing there.

The thing very early on we also have those the hardware tinkering stuff like the M5 stack stuff the lightning ATMs were very early on like at least maybe not exactly sure if the projects really started at the heck days but definitely kind of the heck days were part of the development

journey there. So all these little hardware projects like the lightning ATMs the the supportive sales stuff even some some I think there was a bubblegum machine very early on that didn't develop into a big project but but was like a hacking project

there was this beer tap the lightning beer tap that we had on the hack days. I think even the more experimental stuff so we've seen a lot of prototyping things like this this this ATM that can work even offline.

And stuff so there's a lot of the even the hardware wallet side the step on signal that was showing a lot of the of the specter to yourself wallets so the thing there's.

And of course the even the even the bigger implementations we're trying to always update us on under the lightning implementations we're trying to update us on the latest kind of the stuff they're working on so I don't have a complete list I have to say

but I can see that at least a lot of stuff was influenced during those kind of hack days. Yeah, for sure I think let you touch on early I think the Danko and the virus is sucking the phone out of everything it's always kind of easier to sort of work on these and it's right on these these kind of things when you're in person

you can sort of bounce ideas off one another so hopefully they can kick off against you one more and then I'll let I'll let Max jump in again and I was thinking. I presume you guys are in you must have like the telegram support group.

What would you say one of the common pitfalls that new people come into into the last five minutes community tend to make a couple other one. What sort of things would you sort of recommend that people avoid.

The the classic thing is like because a rescue blitz project invites people to build with their own hardware like you get the single parts from Amazon user shopping list so this is really the kind of this do it yourself start feeling.

And really a lot of people use stuff they have lying around and and it's good on one side to reuse stuff I'm totally a fan of that but on the other side so if you just choose or then for example power supply that's not powerful enough

because power constraints are quite quite hard on the on the rest people it's because you power a complete hard drive together with her with the Raspberry Pi that's doing some heavy computation.

So this is a classic pitfall that people choose choose choose choose just one of the power supplies they're flying around.

I'm very careful with this really check if this is really good stable one giving you three ampere kind of really a power so and even maybe a little bit more so the one on the shopping is very recommended at least we were seeing no big problems at the moment there.

And the and also the this this goes then for hard drive so even if this is an old hard drive that you have maybe it's not the best place to store your lightning fund so so also be an even chooser on the SSDs there so there could be a bigger SSDs that

have bigger power demands so also so one advice would be try to stick as close to the to the shopping list we have because this this hardware combination is something at least we were trying to provide something that works well together.

That's kind of the first thing. And then of course the whole backup situation so think of you have to think about what is with your power outage and your device just gets offered and then your data is corrupted.

Can you recover from such an event so this is a little bit the idea so if you just have money there to play in the beginning.

That's maybe not you don't maybe have to be 100% on that area but but very closely look into the aesthetic channel backup stuff see where you can store this maybe even outside of your device at the moment we offer a drop box storage that's maybe not perfect but at least

the solution hope to be provide something better in the future maybe not a drop boxing but it's kind of safe it's encrypted this file so important thing that you have to static chat up the channel backup file in some place other maybe even than the

blitz itself so for just backup somebody comes into your room and steals this complete box so that you have maybe some chance still to get your funds back before the other person is figuring it out how to get it out of this box.

But this is more an edge case it's more normally it's don't get too afraid to that people other people will steal from you normally you you will problems more that you will lose them or something in this direction so that's more the attack you should first

fight against and not make it for you too complicated on recovering sometimes if you want to be too secure this can also at least when you're beginner to stick to the defaults a bit and

don't try to already already from the beginning put maybe the extra options in maybe reserved as maybe for your second set up where you then if you want to then plan to run really a bigger note or something to start at the beginning again start with something to play

keep keep the funds low until you feel it kind of a certain go to through the absolute update process once and if you feel comfortable then with all those situations then maybe take a weekend and then start fresh and then really

maybe go for a little bit more like I said to you before it's something I want to set up myself I'm just wondering parts wise you're saying obviously go through the list and and order from there to get to get the best quality set up you can

do you have an idea on cost including the screen and all the bits that you need it is it much different to my my node set up which was I think 300 pounds ish with the SSD and the Raspberry four I think I did and all the other bits

I don't know the pound situation euros about the same now the normally the yeah normally what but from the hardware it's very similar to the other node projects so we I think almost everybody now goes with the one terabyte SSD

the Raspberry Pi for a standard and normally the I think the four gigabyte is kind of the even on the cheapest kind of level already so so I think this is where you kind of equal to to the other projects that the LCD screen is not the big difference it's kind of 20 euros so

this just doesn't add too much and you can even run the recipe bits without the LCD if you really want but I always would recommend to put in the extra 20 it looks so cool for 20 euros it makes me it would make me feel like a cipherpunk but with no skills like I'd come into

my office and see that and be like oh look at that it just looks so nice it's the same as like I'll have Clark Moody's dashboard up and a few other bits and pieces and I'm like oh yeah it just excites me even though half the stuff goes over the top of my head

it's at least something to admire and then you put maybe you see in there sometime into it so that's good is there any sort of things that sort of said the things that are coming down the line with the Raspberry Blitz project but is there anything that you're working on

personally or excited about in the broader Bitcoin space and it's a little bit the the the Raspberry Blitz for community kind of part about the lighting vouchers and the cash in the back concept.

It's a little bit more it's a it's a part where I want to want to see or want an experiment to see how far we can really make use of the Raspberry Blitz that you run at your home and normally use for yourself or maybe share with your friends and family

how you can really maybe use it as a tool to make some change in your neighborhood like in your local community and then the for example the lighting vouchers like I can just remember how great it was easy it was to give people a Bitcoin paper wallet

so to just give them the first kind of Bitcoin on maybe not Bitcoin but part of a Bitcoin and just I think we need something similar and so that we can give easy Satoshi's out and we already have L and URL and so the idea is now to run the Raspberry Blitz behind tour so that you can run it really

a non to the outside but then you can really give away Satoshi's to people that then with a voucher and then they can experiment with themselves so this is definitely something I'm excited about and this is part of the elements project

where try to connect a little bit more with Ben now to maybe even jump a little bit more into also into that and maybe contribute a little bit there to work on the little details.

And also then the on the other side because this is the one is to giving Satoshi's away for people to try stuff out and the other part is like making it very very easy for merchants to accept Bitcoin.

And that maybe even with the kind of cash in the back thing where you just kind of give them a back with some cash in there and say here's even there's a little QR code in there.

And then here wants to pay with Bitcoin, just scan this and you have a temporary POS system and just take all the money after the process. So to have very easy onboarding solutions and then we see them in action.

This is something I'm very excited about and think we're getting closer there. And I hope we can do on the next rest people it's kind of hackathon thing mid mid October we can kind of get the kind of first prepare the kind of first onboarding off of people and maybe lighting a voucher action.

And then maybe have it prepared to end of the year and maybe to try it in a little bit bigger kind of scale like or maybe some really some neighborhood widespread to see how the reactions are from people and see what kind of feedback we can trigger by normal confronting them was this was just crazy bit quenting.

I'd love to get involved in that when you're a little bit closer down the line because I think these sort of projects are so important it's all well and good sort of talking about how sound this money is and going into the sort of technical details of things but

at the end of the day we need to get normal people involved and spark their interest and I actually have a conversation last night with 21 is enough you were talking about the lightning ATM and it's these sort of projects that I get really excited about because I think for people who haven't got involved with Bitcoin before.

These are the things that excite them these are the things where it brings it into the physical world and where it sparks their interest and they're going to dig a little bit deeper.

I can see because a lot of people have the memory from giving out Bitcoin paper wallets and then they gave it to somebody and those people were kind of, I lost it no no it's 100, 100, but where is it?

No, no, you have a copy. So yeah sure this is all the scenarios were back there but even this gives those people a relation to Bitcoin and not just something they just read on the news and say yeah it's some crazy thing those watch free people do.

So yeah it makes it real so it gives us the possibility to learn early but we're still the pain points and maybe something still to be fixed and to be improved really by confronting and giving this in this local community we have around us.

I think this is the best way then to learn. So I could say a little bit closer down the line if you let me know I'd love to get involved with that. So we're, we're coming up to about an hour now and I feel like I know a lot more about the Raspberry Blitz and you've really twisted my arm now I'm going to set one up.

But is there anything that we haven't covered that you'd like to or yeah anything you wanted to go through or anyone you want to hear from and if so then let them know where to find you and where to reach out.

So if somebody out there wants to wants to get interested now there is the raspyblitz.org raspyblitz.org that we're just have a simple very ugly side but it kind of gives you to quickly the basic links there's a video even with a deep dive as you can you can watch to maybe just get a really technical overview of how to set it up and

what's the basic stuff there and what does it really offer for you and what you can do with it in the end.

And then directly there is a link to the github and on the github you will find kind of everything you and you need to know like the shopping list and the download or for the SD card image or even the build script if you want to build the SD card yourself.

So there's I think this is a good starting point definitely the raspyblitz.org or just search for raspyblitz on Google or your website or search engine of choice and it should find it very quickly and yeah and then you're very welcome to try it out.

All right well Rudsel thank you so much for joining us today it's been an absolute pleasure speaking to you and learning more about the project and if you find yourself in London give us a shout and we'll go for a beer and if I find myself in Germany I'll do the same.

Yeah sure if you're a rounder Berlin let me know. Thanks so much and speak again soon. Bye bye.

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Rudsel welcome to 21ism thank you so much for joining us and for anyone who doesn't know about what you're working on. Can you please just do a little bit of an introduction.

Yeah sure I think most people know me from the raspyblitz project which is a running a Bitcoin and lightning note on a recipe pie and do it yourself project and sprung into a lot of other additional apps you can now add to this to this note so it's running your own Bitcoin

note is one of the main projects I'm involved but it's down but it started from the full more lightning heck days and even the lightning conference that's where I'm involved in organizing mostly the heck table already technically kind of parts.

So I think this is the kind of most area I'm around and visible in the Bitcoin area. And what was it that first grabbed your attention and brought you into Bitcoin you can say price rise if you like.

It was the really the concept about the money without banks so it started after my studies like I was seeing like this I have to work for money now.

And what is this money and so I had this interest about money so and then you were seeing like what's going on with was all the 2008 crash and was like yeah there needs to be something better and because I was just kind of sensitive

from that kind of perspective this is where Bitcoin grabbed my attention. I think it took some time before I had time to really jump in because sure there's private life and stuff so but then I had this moment and and I jumped in with a hackathon just kind of

in the weekend just trying to stuff out build something a small idea about donations and this is where it really grabbed my attention about this all those just this money system this payment system also this is why maybe was going a little bit more into the lightning direction

later on is the is this a fascinating me and the thing and having this in a decent lives way and changing the system a bit with this is very powerful. And what was that experience like falling down the rabbit hole. Did you feel lonely when you were doing it or did you have enough people around you who were on a similar path.

We were quite good connected so I started with this hackathon and kind of very quickly connected to the Berlin Bitcoin scene the people that were active at this time and most people are still.

So it was was great because of a lot of on one side there were a lot of like minded people because there was the same interest a little bit like the second culture background for a lot of people or at least technical interested and on the other side it was this diversity

of people that really never it never got boring. So let's talk this way and and so now it was a great journey. It was connected with people and after this I kind of stuck to the kind of Berlin Bitcoin meet up scene even that I had my my short kind of departure

or detour into the Dogecoin world was more more like a protective kind of measurement because at one point I was there in one of those big events at Texas Bitcoin and there was great only one side but on the other side you really could see all this

the people that just wanted to make business was Bitcoin and didn't see that I think they liked the underlying flavor they were seeing but you would already see like people just Oh, this is great. This is a hype where can we can get my finger in here.

And those people that care more about the scam than about the other stuff. So you could at least see those people or at least feel those people around and this is where it was then hiding a bit in the Dogecoin world.

What which is was also not perfect when protecting against scam so yeah so made my lesson and no fascinated by lightning. And outside of Dogecoin any other Bitcoin horror stories from either you or your friends that you can share with us like real life boating accidents.

Oh yeah there was there's this great feature on the dresser where you can set an extra password. So I don't know if everybody knows it there so you've no more normally you set up your trailer you get your words to recover.

But then you can add an extra password that with every password you put in it kind of puts you on to new wallet pass and if you don't have this password you don't have access to those funds anymore.

And I was like I have all the words here. I want you to be too secure here. Because I liked it very much because it has this feature because it's so nice you can if somebody rops you you can put in another password and have some small Bitcoin there.

Or mount or something and say look this is what everything I have please take it from me sir and then you have the other stuff safe under the other password I like that idea but but really make sure to remember the best.

Good tip that's a great tip. Take take something maybe that you're very used to and not try to be too smart. And so once you've gone through the horror stories and you got out of those and all of this stuff and you really went down the Bitcoin rabbit hole.

What was it that got you involved in the Raspberry Blitz project it's a fantastic project I love what you guys are doing and like I said to you before I'm yet to set one up but it looks so cool and everyone raves about it.

How did it come about. I'm really developed from our decision to do the hack days so the lightning hack days and the decision to learn together with the community what this lightning can do.

And when we planned the first event the last the first hack day in Berlin Germany. We were saying come on we need first of all people should bring notes and so that we can see what does it take to run a note do you need a big computer can you do it in a smaller thing.

And also there is this recipe blitz tutorial recipe both from staticus. That's already a lot of people were starting to building notes on recipe pies so we're like come on let's buy some recipe pies and and then just try to do the tutorial there and see how far we get.

And then on the first hack day it was nice because a lot of people had interest and then we started to do this and we're not even finishing finishing sinking the blockchain after the second day so so at least we were finished.

So at least we were starting copying stuff and then we're saying oh this is USB 2 this is a small so all the stuff looks like like eating our time to get this finished so I think that the tutorial was great.

Or it's still great from from staticus if you really want to do it step by step but there was the idea to make it maybe a little bit more convenient or more easier to set up a note on a recipe pie.

And this is then where we kind of just put the tutorial this little lines into scripts and so this is why this whole project is built on on best script most of most of their scripts.

So and this kind of developed from there and at one point I was seeing this problem with people setting it up but what is my IP and we really was like okay now I have to look it up here and we didn't.

So, and we were just going to why not the screen and I was seeing this little nice screen on Amazon was saying let's try this out it doesn't look this hard.

And yeah and so step by step it developed from there so this is the original original story how why we started it to make it easier for us to to have those on the act days and then make it easy for people to add their projects to it so that we can play them with them with it and just everybody can bring it to the events

and just change it online about it and we have this if you run it yourself you would have a better understanding and it was the kind of basic idea behind it.

That sounds amazing and this is why 21ism has chosen you as our dev you are the first dev that we've had on here and we love we love what you're doing and what I thought for this interview was me I'm not massively technical I try my best

but you know really I don't know what the hell I'm talking about so I have Bitcoin Q&A joining us on this interview to make me sound a little bit better maybe sound like I know what I'm talking about and ask some questions to dig a little bit deeper into the technicals so Bitcoin Q&A can you take over and ask the next question please.

Absolutely yeah I'm not going to get too technical too quickly first question for you it's always what advice would you give to somebody who doesn't currently want to know that he's looking to start taking that next step and what would the first piece of advice to get to them.

I think the first advice or at least question this person should ask is what kind of person I am and how much time do I have to spend on it. Maybe this changes afterwards but if you're more coming from this consumer kind of perspective so if you're

more a pandemic comic kind of guy then then then maybe really start with something that that really tries to pick you up very very on your on your level like like I think the the umbrella now with the web your eyes doing a great job there and reducing

hiding all the complexity from you just try to make it very simple and order you didn't mind notice even think also reaching this goal quite good because it picks you up with a web browser and really tries to hide the kind of complexity behind

the cute QI which is great because with such note projects are needed and think for if you're more like that kind of person maybe really start with such a project but if you really know maybe from yourself even if you're maybe not a programmer but

your person that really likes to tinker and then get a little bit likes to have the possibility to quickly get under the hood or something and then then maybe to rest people it's a project for you to choose so this is a kind of

coming from a do-it-yourself culture definitely check out the rest people it's so it's so this is the kind of maybe first question people ask which direction because we have to choose in a project the thing this is maybe the first question people ask themselves and then also ask us to have a bit like what is maybe your goal maybe even

that's changing in the end but but if it's really just to run if you want to become a good routing

node in the network that's something different than just running your own Bitcoin node maybe a small lightning node for yourself and a electron server to have more privacy on your hardware wallet transactions so there is a little bit different kind of journeys you can take but sure you can also jump between them most of the projects try

to give you a big variety there

yeah I think that's great advice like you said there's quite a lot of things to consider before taking the plunge and diving into the whole node space so let's say somebody's asked they've asked themselves and questions they decided to go for the blitz they're a bit of a tinker or they just want to get stuck in

what what the common pitfalls that people would make that you see from the sport groups that they generally tend to make them when they're getting set up with the blitz so the basic two ones are kind of stable power

and kind of data stability so this is why the first kind of lesson is even even that the rest of it invites you as a do-it-yourself project to build it from parts we really recommend that you try to stick as close to the shopping list that we have online

and kind of when all the single parts are very important to have a stable power supply and also to have the hard drive SSD close to that model that we recommend because even if you go into the same SSD but take it a bigger one

it could mean that it takes more power and maybe then kind of makes it unstable from the power kind of side so those are having reliable hardware and have the hardware very close to what we recommend is something I think is the kind of first pitfall you can fall into

especially if you just choose your old power supply that you have lying around and then just plug it into those set up of the recipe blitz then the second part then to look into is to make sure that you have your backup credentials

right and at least in a good secure way so for sure make sure to keep your written down words in a safe place and the other thing that you need is the static channel backup file that's normally already saved on the SD card and the hard drive by default

but also have a better backup to have the last version makes it possible to connect the additional small USB thumb drive to it and have it storing there again the file but also have storing it outside your location

like with a remote place like on Dropbox definitely recommended even if Dropbox doesn't sound like the most trustworthy place on the script is the file is encrypted with your seed words so as long as you don't store your seed words on the Dropbox

it's safe to use and the benefit that you get is even if you're completely say your place gets flooded or burned down if you have the seed words and the static channel backup in a remote location then you have very good chances to recover your funds

yeah great advice especially around the whole hardware piece I've certainly come across with some various USB 2 and 3 issues with Raspberry 4 so yeah great advice since you first started working on the Raspberry Blitz project what's been the hardest add on to get up and running

I think the we had this face when the Raspberry 4 came out we had a lot of experimentation how to get this stable because it was very it was getting very hot and so we then started to go with a with a fan to cool it

and then made the experience that having a moving part in that setup isn't this is a journey you really want to choose because this is a mechanical thing that spins can really make problems like getting loud and just getting annoying

or we even have sometimes just drop that because there was was had one Raspberry Pi Raspberry Blitz I was was maintaining and I was buying a dead fly in there so there is really stuff that can happen and and all this even even the dust situation then gets gets can get problematic

so figuring that out getting away from this this moving fan again especially because it even made strange problems we were kind of try to figure out why and thanks to open arms this is he really figured out a lot there so so we get rid of the fan again

so I think this journey was at least from the hardware kind of situation something that took us some time to get right and I think at the moment we quite happy with the heats in case that we have this was on the hardware side on the software side it's it's really

like really now seeing that we have a lot of moving parts because again the Raspberry Blitz tries to be very open community based project so people are very very happy that people contribute to the project but then of course you have a lot of moving pieces and just to try to get keep them together

at least as a constant kind of journey we're on but I think at least we require best there but really getting used to having all those different setups that's definitely something that's took a lot of time to really get used to it and I think I hope we reached a quite good good level there

I think when you've got a node implementation it's a feature practice as I've heard some shoulders every single add-on causes many many headaches there so yeah kudos to you and the team for keeping it also locked down and working so well together

So last one for me it's solved with the if you could wave magic ones and sort of steal another feature from another node implementation or come up with a completely new one and just get it implemented into Raspberry Blitz what would that be?

I think definitely the web UI so because if we had this in mind for a longer time because people are used to use the browser and again like I was telling like the people that coming a little bit more firmly consumer perspective they want to have something neat and a little bit complex

But this wasn't felt right in the past because we want to have this openness and when we people have with SH that was great and then give themselves all the possibilities to tinker but having a web UI is definitely something I would like to have a magic one and just make

And it's on there and this is why it looked a little bit closer to it at the umbrella project that really seems to make a very very great job and having coming from this kind of design first perspective and this is something maybe not impossible

to take parts of the UI of the dashboard kind of world maybe we have to redo something on the back-hand side but this looks at least interesting so if I can make a friendly wish I wish the humble programmers would be very happy even if the Raspberry Blitz would have some parts of this

And then we get good contributes back in the future let's see we'll have to take a take to see there if this is something that people like and also the program a team likes

Yeah for sure I think yeah the web UI will probably be a big selling point for particularly for like you say those users that are not perhaps not so technical especially now that you know the world's going increasingly mobile I think if that web UI was accessible on people's mobile phones as well

But I think that that makes things a lot easier for the people wanting to get on board and running on so yeah that's been great so thank you very much I'll hand it back over to Max now

Thanks for asking those more technical questions and now back to the basic questions from me I'm going to have to put you put you on the spot a little bit here roots old because we're trying to keep these interviews

better than what I'm used to so I'm going to do a bit of rapid fire for you here and put you on the spot all right let's go what's the most contrarian view you hold

That I think that next to Bitcoin there will be local currencies and kind of social money that's maybe even working extremely more with inflation but can but can make something real like a universal basic income or something

People just think there is just this one word without money and it will rain all will swipe away all the other stuff but I think it opened up the opportunity for having other money experiments and we will see those And do you think these things will all be digital?

You think most of them I think it's something once people get used to digital money especially like having Bitcoin also as an option I think it doesn't make sense it makes sense you can be so much flexible now with digital tools and abs and thickness something we will see more

And what if anything do you see could possibly destroy Bitcoin?

And those guys are used to take control of what they kind of own or at least think they own and we will see some attempts there and we have to watch out that the economy there's a good article from from static curse like running a full note is important and we need

an economical full notes that have some economic power and the good message is there a lot of smaller notes together can can sum up at least against the biggest like Coinbase running notes and Amazon running notes and Google running notes and Apple running

You know it's whatever we have in the future there so yeah that's something to look out for and this is why I think a lot of people like also to train and to do running a note.

Excellent advice yeah completely agree everyone who's listening let's run a note get a Raspberry Blitz running and keep these dirty weasels out and from trying to control Bitcoin.

But but it is just to let everybody know it's not that important that you run a note every time so because that's something really to run it run something from your home is not for everybody but to be able to understand what it takes to run your own

it's a when the time comes that you're maybe possible to do this and maybe then provide a little bit this depth of training is very important. If you could speak to Satoshi I gave you one hour in a pub just you and him a couple of pints share a packet of crisps.

What would you say to him. First of all of course thank you so this is such a selfless act that we're seeing the don't know anything something and even then not touching those Satoshi coins that are on there.

Thank you for that. The more details maybe I would I would be very interested in his view on the energy consumption question because I think a lot of Bitcoin is very easily weasel out of there.

It was one of the first questions even how Finney was asking like oh we have to talk about this energy consumption thing and how it maybe can have to do with the CO2 problem and maybe add to it and I know there's a lot of I like discussing this at least.

And from Satoshi I would like to hear if you had in mind what we were seeing now with the mining industry.

Interesting. Yeah it's a it's a big question that comes up a lot to my mind I think it's been answered and I think it's been answered pretty well but it's a complex rabbit hole and I'm not sure I fully understand and yeah it'd be fascinating to hear what

you had to say about that. Good question if I never if I ever find myself in a pub with him I'm going to be stating that one from you. What's your top five books you've ever read.

Then there's from the top of my mind there is some good books from Eric from or some good Haragi thing books that we'd like those. There's a lot of stuff there good science fiction, lamb azimuth of course.

Maybe one one in particular I really liked was the kale after menu I don't know if you know it's about the the guys that did the kale after they wrote a book like the menu how to do a number one hit.

So it's really manual you can follow and I really like the spirit in there it's like no respect for the industry and just get going and do it is like it's like like cyberpunk's right code it's like like music punks right music like it's

so we really like the attitude there so Caleb very interesting band so that definitely a good book and yeah and at the moment I tried to have this depth the first 5000 years on my table from David Greba didn't know knowing knew knew him before but

I think he died recently and came up on my timeline and a lot of people I respect recommended in his books so definitely something to read on now. Okay, great. I'll check that one out. How if at all has Bitcoin changed you.

That's good. I think on a social level it was a very interesting journey because as you can can can see I'm kind of with all these events we're doing and the meetups. I kind of even I'm normally a little bit more kind of a nerdy person, not too much but at least

I also like to be a lot by myself. So a lot so meeting all those different people was really interesting. I think it changed a lot in my perspective to have a broader view and also on the tolerance level it added a lot to at least week to be able to handle some

views that I was very strange maybe to me before. So this is definitely a journey that's that you can learn a lot from the Bitcoin scene to even if it doesn't seem to in the beginning maybe but there's a lot of diversity there in different

mindsets and why people are there and and what they're thinking about the world and that's very interesting and I think it definitely let there's some imprint there. Yeah, it is amazing. I think whether people like to admit it or not. It does change all of us to some degree and it's such a powerful force when you really

get involved with it and I think it really flips your mind on a lot of issues and I think that's amazing. You know, people say Bitcoin will change you more than you change it and I completely agree. Definitely it's a journey. Yeah, for sure.

Alright, we're coming up to time now. It's been amazing talking to you. I love what you're doing and it's great to have you as our first dev. So thank you for taking the time to speak to me and to Bitcoin Q&A. But before we close out, I would like to finish on

you giving me your best one minute elevator pitch. Oh, okay. At the end, it's like everybody knows not your keys, not your Bitcoin, but I really like to add to this, not your note, not your rules. So yeah, this is something to think about maybe to expand a little bit this pitch line.

Brilliant. Alright, thank you so much for joining me. As I say, it's been an absolute pleasure and I'll be reaching out to you in the background. Once I try and set out my Raspberry and it all goes wrong. So we'll be speaking again soon. Any final words from you, Bitcoin Q&A?

No, well, I'd just like to say to Ruth, so on behalf of myself and probably the rest of the community, just a big thank you, you know, I've got huge respect for everybody that's in the trenches building stuff to push this whole space forward.

So yeah, just a big thank you to it. So you keep doing what you do. It is appreciated. Thanks. Any final words, Ruth? So I'm quite good. But maybe if you want to check out the the resublitz project, the resublitz.org or just search resublitz on the search engine and you should find it on the GitHub page and enjoy the journey from there.

Amazing. Thanks for everything you do and we'll speak again soon. Alright, bye bye.