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Jeff, welcome to the podcast.

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Thank you so much. Happy to be here.

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I'm very excited for today's conversation.

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Where I want to start is you are building white noise,

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and I've done some research around what you're creating,

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and it's just a fascinating thing to be working on.

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So that's where I'd love to start.

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Why are you doing that?

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Yeah, great question. It's been a lot of work.

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Um, no, in fairness, like it has been, uh, probably the most fun project I've worked on

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in a lot of years.

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Uh, you know, I think, you know, I, I came to Noster about three years ago.

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Um, at the time it was very broken, very hard to use, very hard to like understand what

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was going on.

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Um, you know, I think even from those early days, like people knew that, you know, private

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messaging was a thing that we really needed to have.

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And we didn't, you know, we had a very broken version of it.

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and for a long time it was just something that everybody said you know oh somebody will fix this

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eventually somebody will fix this eventually but no one was working on it really actively

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and finally one group of kind of you know uh won't call them core devs but like devs that

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were working on the protocol you know at a deep level said okay let's try and fix you know at least

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dms to make it so that we're not sharing all the metadata around who's talking to who

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um and so they did do that and and that was nip 17 and that actually was a big step up over the

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original you know uh private or dm messaging um nip but it still didn't have forward secrecy it

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didn't have post-compromised security it didn't work for groups um it was still a very you know

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it was kind of a solution to a very small point salute you know a point problem which was

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we don't we want to be able to dm somebody without everybody else knowing that i dm'd that person

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but it didn't really solve the problem that most people think of when you think of a messenger right

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you think of a messenger you think of groups you think of rich chat with images and videos and

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whatever else in them and you think of at least when you think about end-to-end encryption you

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think okay this conversation can go on into the future even if my like nostrikey gets compromised

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the attacker shouldn't get all of the conversations and all of the conversation history

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and that to be honest is just a hard problem like it's a very hard computer problem

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and so that was sort of you know the the problem space i waded into i'm not a cryptographer like

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i'm not a gray beard programmer that has you know been doing uh messaging for years and years i'm a

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pretty left-curve web developer um but just no one was dealing with it and so finally i was like well

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i guess i'll give it a try let's see what happens um and turns out you can just do things so yeah

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Here I am two years later with a, you know, nearly functioning messenger.

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Cool. And so to spend some time talking around the problem, you mentioned a few things there that a lot of people won't understand, like even the idea of end-to-end encryption.

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So perhaps we start with that.

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Sure.

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What is the problem? Like, why can't I just send a message over the NOSTA DM?

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And how might that, you know, bite me in the ass in the future if I've sent something I shouldn't say?

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Or what can someone learn about me that I don't want them to know?

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Yeah, that's a great question. And actually, it's a funny one. A couple of, I guess, a month ago or so, Signal went down for a couple of hours because Cloudflare was offline. And it was funny to watch the response on Twitter and stuff because a lot of people sort of assumed that because Signal was down, then it was somehow insecure, that somehow people could read their messages and things. And really what was down was just delivery. They couldn't get messages across the internet to your phone.

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So it wasn't about the encryption.

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It wasn't about the security of signal at that point.

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But it really highlighted the fact for me that people don't understand what end-in encryption means.

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And so a good way to think about this is let's just take your phone and my phone as the two devices here.

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And this can obviously scale up to as many devices as you want.

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But the idea here is that you have some sort of shared state that I also have on my phone.

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so we both have the same keys and that means that we can you know put something in a box you know a

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box we lock the box with the key and then we send it with a courier you know let's let's go full

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analog here we send the box with a courier it arrives to you you've got the same key you can

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open the box and see the message but the courier doesn't have the key so he can't open the box he

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has to transport the box but he can't see what's inside of it right um that's kind of what an

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encryption is. The idea here is basically that somehow you and I agree to some shared state

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and we agree on a method to change that state over time as we change things about the group

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or we change, we send messages. There's just some pre-agreed thing that we are going to do

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in order to make sure that, you know, the keys are changing constantly and we're using fresh

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keys constantly, but we're doing so in a way that once we've got it all set up, we don't have to

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talk about anymore. We just know how to do it. And it means that your messages are going to be

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encrypted on my device and sent to your device and they stay fully encrypted the entire way.

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And they, you know, in the opposite direction, you encrypt your things on your device. They get to me,

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I decrypt them. Now, what that does mean though, is that the copies of the unencrypted content

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live on our devices. So, you know, if you lose a phone and you've probably seen this with signal

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or something else, you know, they've, most of them have good syncing and backup now, but,

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you know certainly several years ago if you lost your phone all of your signal messages are just

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gone like there's no way to get them back because they were they literally only lived on your phone

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um so that's sort of the trade-off inherent in indian encryption is that you make it very secure

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for the pathway to get messages between people um but you need to then be careful with the device

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because how you store those messages locally uh means that you know if somebody if an attacker

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got your phone and got it unlocked, then they basically have all of your chats, all of your

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history, everything. Yeah. Well, and who knows what you might be sending someone, but the point

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is, is you send it to them, not to anyone else. And therefore you don't want it to cost you

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something in the future that you never intended. And actually the context of this that really was

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very helpful for me is I listened to you speaking with Tim on the Free Cities podcast. And

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And just the history of communication was just a cool thing to run through.

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So maybe we can spend a bit of time doing that.

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But the idea that previously you'd use a telephone and you'd go to a switchboard and that would then send you somewhere else.

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So how has this kind of communications technology built on top of itself to get to where we are today?

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yeah it's it's kind of um it's amazing when you kind of go backwards and you look at both just

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general communications and like how we have um improved speed and fidelity of communications

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over time but also how you think about the way that people kept secrets um and did you know

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encryption in the past uh you know if you go way far back like people have you know used to write

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letters and they would seal them with wax so that if the letter arrived and the wax seal was broken

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like, you know, the person knew that somebody in the middle had read it. You know, people very

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quickly figured out, you know, really basic ciphers, where you could just rotate, you know,

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like the Caesar cipher, where you just rotate, you know, the letters of the alphabet by a certain

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number. And all that you need to know about the letter I'm going to send you is what number you

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need to turn the dial by to get back to the right letters. So that's a very simple one. It's like

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very brute forceable, like somebody could just literally turn the turn at once and like, keep,

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you know, uh, rewriting your letter until it makes sense. Um, but over time, like people,

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you know, figured out better and better and better ways of doing this. Right. Um,

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so yeah, I mean, like a good way to think about this and, um, I don't remember exact context of

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what we were talking about with Tim at the time, but, um, but yeah, I mean, like we have always

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sort of had to trust people in the middle after a certain point, right? Like, you know, even when

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it was letters, we had to trust that somebody was going to deliver the thing for us and not look at

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in the middle. Um, so couriers, mail services, uh, all sorts of things like that. Then we get

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to electronic age and we've got, you know, telegraphs where there's telegraph operators

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in the middle. There's an undersea cable. Um, there's the guy who's actually listening to the

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Morris code on the other side and like translating it into a letter and handing it to you. Um,

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so there's kind of always been people in the middle of our communications, right? And we've

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always had to trust them to some degree or another. Uh, I think once we got to, you know,

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the internet age where almost all of our lives have been moving into the digital realm, this has

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become more and more critical, right? We cannot operate in society in full public transparency.

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At least that's my belief. I don't think it's possible to have total transparency of all

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citizens in society and that'd be a good thing. You know, we need to have ways first.

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Is it necessary?

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Yeah, it's totally not necessary, I don't think. But it's also just,

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it's detrimental in a lot of ways because you know,

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you end up with these groupthink problems. You, you know,

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you end up censoring yourself because of what you think the social scenario

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around you demands of you. And so you can't have original thoughts.

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You can't have dissident thoughts. You can't say,

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I don't think this is a good idea because those thoughts germinate first in

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your own mind. So of course you've got privacy in your own mind.

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At least I hope so. At least for now.

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but you know like they're they're going in that direction too but uh but you know you've got

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privacy in your own mind but then where does that go next it goes between you and maybe one close

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friend where you're like hey does this seem right to you like let's talk about this some more

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yeah and then it slowly expands to larger and larger groups right and this is how like movements

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form and you know how governments topple and how we get an improvement in life overall in the

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planet in my opinion is that like we have to challenge things we have to push back against

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the norm or the, you know, uh, the status quo. And so I think privacy is a really important part

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of that because until you have some semblance of like security and those thoughts that are

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uncomfortable, you won't have them, um, or you'll shove them down and you won't think about them.

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So, you know, I think as we've become more and more digital, this sort of idea of how do we keep

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communications flowing over public infrastructure, you know, the internet backbones, uh, all the

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fiber optic cables, where we know there's lots and lots of people in the middle.

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How do we do that without totally giving up our privacy and totally letting them see what

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those ideas are?

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And so there's kind of two parts of that, right?

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There's like, keep the message confidential.

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So they don't know what the message is, but also all the stuff around that, the metadata

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is really, really important.

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You know, who's talking to who, when, what are they, you know, might not know what they're

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talking about, but if there's like six or seven people that are always talking together on

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a Tuesday night and you triangulate a few other things, you can probably tell a lot about

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what their conversation's about. Interesting. I just always love the context for these things,

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because of course, you know, like a VC will be like, right, give me a pitch deck, I want to see

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the exact like succinct problem you'll solve. It's like, well, here's a statement. But actually,

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it's so much more than that, because this is a whole history of how humans have communicated and

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how it's evolved over time. And I wonder, like, because this is something I've only really recently

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started thinking through is the difference between privacy and secrecy and they're not the same thing

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so how do you how do you first of all think that through uh jeff and we'll see where it takes us

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yeah i mean i think um i think it was tim may i hope i'm not butchering that but like one of the

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original cypherpunks had this you know statement that like um privacy is the ability to selectively

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reveal yourself to the outside world um it's the ability where you know it's yeah you having control

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over what you share with other people.

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Secrecy is sort of a sub branch of privacy in a lot of ways

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because all secrecy is saying is you're just keeping some things

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from other people.

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Secrecy doesn't really have a moral judgment attached to it in any way.

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I don't think privacy does either.

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Secrecy especially, oftentimes you hear it as like,

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oh, they're being very secretive over there because they're doing something bad.

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sort of the the immediate assumption when you say somebody's being secretive is that they're doing

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something they shouldn't be doing but that's not necessarily the case they might be planning you a

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surprise birthday party right um obviously they want to keep that secret from you but it's not

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anything that's like going to hurt you so you know i think we have to be really careful that we don't

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let the media and you know especially politicians spin this uh in a way that it's just not what it

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means and not actually how it functions in the world. You know, this is the same thing of like

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secrecy, privacy, they're tools, they're things that help us do things better in our lives.

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Tools can be used for all sorts of purposes. And so, you know, you can have bad motives and use

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these tools badly, you know, to do harm to others, or you can use them well. And I don't think like,

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it's not the place of uh society in my opinion to come down on the tools themselves um it's much

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more about like okay what were the actions that were taken with those tools yeah and that's the

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interesting one though isn't it it's like a thought is not an action and a spoken word is not an action

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um speaking with friends or speaking with others and and actually utilizing the freedom of speech

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in my view is not an action and so when people like in the uk where i grew up are now being jailed

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for things they've said online like it's quite extraordinary what's going on in terms of

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the the encroachment on the idea of even freedom of speech it's like hang on so a a tax-paying and

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law-abiding citizen sat in their home commented on something online and now there's a police officer

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in their house saying that's not allowed we're telling you shouldn't be able to do that and i

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I don't even know.

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I not going to name a specific case but what the hell going on there And I then pump in with that Jeff like the very real lived experience of spending many many hours on Twitter

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now X,

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people who had built themselves up followings

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around specific niches

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that they'd become passionate about.

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And Bitcoin's a really obvious one,

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but people more like in the general investing space

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that I was heavily involved in,

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openly admit they self-censor based on platform risk you know it's like i just i'm not even going

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to bother commenting on that particular area of life because it's just too much of a risk for the

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other things that i use this thing for it's like wow yeah just imagine what that means at scale

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when people aren't saying what they think yeah it's crazy and the scary part is i would say this

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is like unprecedented, but it's not like we've seen fascism. We like, we saw this, you know,

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a hundred years ago. Um, this is not, you know, super surprising. There's a book called 1984

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that pretty much spells this entire scenario out. And it's like, are we so dumb that we don't see

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this? Like, I don't understand how people, you know, are able to out of one side of their mouth

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say that they love democracy and freedom, but out of the other side of their mouth say those people

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should go to jail because I disagree with them. You know what I mean? Um, like, you know, I grew

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up in America and, you know, one of the things that I remember my parents like pointed it out to

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me, uh, there was this like landmark Supreme court case where, um, a Jewish lawyer from the ACLU

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defended the Nazis right to protest. Um, there was a group of neo-Nazis in some small town that

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wanted to do a protest and the town shut them down and said, no, you can't, you know, cause

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you're nazis and a jewish aclu lawyer took it all the way to the supreme court to defend their right

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to protest and it was just like that's america you know like that's freedom of speech like we

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don't we might not like what they have to say we might think they're terrible people for a lot of

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reasons and we might be right but that doesn't preclude their right um and i think that's like

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we just have lost that completely yeah when was that jeff i i want to say it's like the 70s or

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60s yeah long it feels like a long time ago because to me that that that's long gone um

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that's like impossible right now like can you imagine that right now no i can't and even just

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in recent years so i emigrated to australia and was based in melbourne for um the covid19 stuff

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that kicked off and it was an extraordinary experience as to like we say this anyone that

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questions this is not allowed you know and we ended up with a police officer on our doorstep

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telling my wife that she was owing the government money for fines for disobeying the chief health

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officer's rules and it was extraordinary man it was really and that's a story for another day but

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the if you question the government of australia and their covid 19 policies they didn't like it

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and it was turned into a police state like center of melbourne i had friends who were arrested for

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trying to protest i was at protests where the police just actively shut the whole thing down

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arrested everyone and said this is not allowed and it was done under the guise of health

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because everyone was spreading covid apparently by being of course you know groups there's always

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a very very specific health reason for the greater good yeah to to squash this this set of dissidents

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and actually it was almost a radicalizing moment in a sense i went to one protest where we saw the

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mainstream media crews there filming and there were thousands of people every age every color

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you can imagine at this thing saying we don't agree with how this covid situation is being

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managed and that night on the tv newsreel there were hundreds of protesters reported

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it's like i physically saw with my eyes thousands and like oh my god they're they're lying they're

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actively lying how many other times has that happened in my life and it just you know the

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whole process begins of like why do i know what i know it's actually very scary what's in a textbook

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well hang on well that's history isn't it oh but then very simple which history history history

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history yeah exactly mate you know history is written by the victor yeah good point i mean i

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would write my history book if i just won um yeah oh it's a huge subject this isn't it and so so

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what is truth you know and okay something like nosta comes along like obviously there's all

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this context this is what motivates you jeff so yeah why do you think this is so exciting for you

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so this is an interesting like what is truth is actually a super fascinating question if you start

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to get down into it because um and i'll try to not rabbit hole into the philosophy i woke up in

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a slightly philosophical mood this morning take it wherever you try not to do it but but i mean

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like you know i think we as humans like we've never had perfect truth about you know how the

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world works, what's around us. Like we, you know, we take in an enormous, our senses take in an

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absolutely enormous amount of data. Right. And like probably 99.9% of it gets thrown out immediately

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because your brain has evolved to be really, really good at filtering out which tiny, you know,

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fraction of information actually matters for the situation you're in currently. And then uses that

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information to sort of, you know, decide what to do in that moment. Right. You see a Russell in the

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bushes. Like there's a million other things happening around you, but like your brain is like

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rabbit or tiger. Uh, I should probably leave, you know, because the rabbit case is maybe more likely,

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but if you get it wrong, the tiger case is much worse, you know? So, you know, there's,

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we have been tuned over millennia to operate in this way of filtering information at really high

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speed. Um, so we don't have, there is no like truth per se. There is, you know, there's ground

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physical reality but even that like you know you start to get down into the quantum area you're

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like you okay how much of this do we actually understand versus not you know we have very good

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theories about a lot of it um but theories are just that right they're right until they're proven

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wrong because we've learned something new um and that's kind of generally how i look at the world

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it's like you know pure truth perfect truth doesn't really exist um we get closer and closer

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to understanding how stuff works um but even then like i don't know that we're ever going to find a

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bottom of that well. And so Nostar kind of works like this, right? We have these relays in a very

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simple way. We don't assume that like the like counts or the follow counts are accurate because

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we're not even sure we're seeing the entire network. You know, it's a very large distributed

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network like humanity. There are pools of data all over the place, which are all these different

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relays. I connect to some subset of those. Maybe those relays connect to other relays and pull

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data in, maybe not. But what I see is sort of my curation of the world. I follow certain people,

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I interact with certain things, I use certain clients, certain applications. That helps to

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shape what I get to see. If I go to Japan and connect to all the Japanese relays, I see a

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totally different version of Nostar. And this is actually real. You go to Japan, they have all their

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relays that are geo-flagged or geo-blocked. So you can only use them in Japan. And when you connect

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to them it's all just japanese and it's a totally different set of nostril users that you don't see

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anywhere else cool yeah it's cool like it's really cool and that's what humans are like that that's

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literally how we have evolved over time we have smaller groups yeah it's way closer to nature and

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once you break the idea in your head that like there is a global feed that's the accurate truth

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of everything then you start to go okay well if that's not the way it really is then you know how

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should I be using this and what should I be using it for? And, you know, all those things start to

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change. Um, so I think that's part of what got me really excited was that when I looked at Nostra

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at the beginning, it was like, this is a thing to replace, uh, you know, Twitter X, um, you know,

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social media. But when I looked at it, I was like, this isn't social media. This is the internet over

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again. Like this is the entire internet. We can rebuild pretty much anything we want on this

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with two major distinctions. One, our identities are now cryptographically guaranteed, um, which

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the early internet didn't have, you know, we have email and password login across hundreds of sites

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because we didn't have a canonical thing that we could hang on to and say, this is me. Um,

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and we didn't have base layer money on the internet. And that's why we ended up with

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credit card payments and SAS providers and, uh, advertising driven models. And yeah, stripe,

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like all of that stuff came out of the fact that there was no way to do micro payments on the

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internet, right? Like from the very earliest HTTP spec, there was an error code, like, you know,

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the error code 404, when you don't find a page, it says 404 page, not found code 402 means payment

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required. So it was in the very beginning of the internet, like they were saying like, okay,

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you're going to have to pay for these webpages. Um, but then it just never happened because they

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couldn't really figure out how to do small enough transactions, uh, at the time. So it just,

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it became a non-thing. Wow and it's that funny process isn't it I really love the phrase of

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building on the shoulders of giants and so you you actually couldn't have NOSTA without Bitcoin

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like if NOSTA was something you tried to build before Bitcoin arrived then you'd be creating

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your own token maybe I don't know how it would work but it didn't is the point so you needed

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these other things to happen first before it's like okay well what would actually a decentralized

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communications protocol look like that solve some of the problems that we see with the legacy

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internet experience which has become basically four or five companies that people jump between

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private real estate to use for their you know very very good tools but at a cost that is hidden

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and when i say hidden yes maybe that's not the right word at a cost that is disguised it's a

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better way of saying yeah like use my tool it's free you get all this fun all this education all

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of this information and it's amazing but free on the back end it's it's it's it's stealing from you

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essentially yes yeah very cool because you you probably had a number of different directions

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you could have gone in with your career uh quote career i don't really like that word these days

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but like was there a specific moment or like what was it that really caught your attention about

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Noster in the first place? You're like, oh, I've got to learn more about this.

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Yeah. So I spent kind of, I guess, almost 15 years working in startups before Noster. And these are

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all traditional tech startups, you know, starting in like, you know, the late 2000s. And, you know,

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so I basically had a front row seat to see how the whole VC tech, you know, model took over

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everything, you know, from the very beginning, the earliest SAS folks, um, like all that stuff.

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And it was both amazing, like super fun. Like I got to work at some really amazing companies,

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um, worked with some of the smartest people I've ever worked with. Um, but really towards the end,

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I did start to get this, you know, feeling of like, this isn't doing what we hoped it was going

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to do. Like this is somehow morphed into something really not good. Um, you know, like the early,

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early internet felt just pure opportunity. You know, like it's so cool. Like all these chat rooms,

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all these bulletin boards, like games being passed around, people modding everything,

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you know, just everything was sort of open. And, uh, it was just like wild eyed optimism everywhere.

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Um, and yeah, there was a ton of mess in there as well. Like people were selling credit cards.

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I'm sure there was like some really nefarious stuff going on, like whatever. Um, that's humans.

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Like we are messy creatures. That's just how it works. Um, and I think, you know, I sort of been,

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towards the end of the startup journey, I was kind of going, okay, I'm either going to work in

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Bitcoin or I'm going to do my own company. And I ended up doing my own company for a very short

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period. We raised a pre-seed round and then we're looking to raise our seed right as the bottom fell

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out of the market in early 2022. And I remember just talking to the investors and they were like,

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you did everything right. You just got the timing wrong. So call us on the next one.

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um and so i remember just kind of being like oh okay like it's kind of strange i just burned a

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load of your money and you seem totally fine with this um and at that point i was kind of going what

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am i going to do next and i was kind of looking at bitcoin companies and then i bumped into nostr

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uh and when i saw it it was just i was kind of like in disbelief for a week or two uh i was just

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like this can't be what i think it is um cool and i reached out yeah i don't know if you know

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learn more yeah yeah yeah so i don't know if you know probably it was like yeah another nostr dev

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i reached out to him you know we didn't know each other uh we had a couple things in common so i just

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kind of pinged him one day and was like hey you want to jump on a call and talk about this nostr

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thing and what was supposed to be like a half an hour call went for like several hours of us just

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like yelling at each other at full speed like so cool at that point i was like okay this seems like

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it's a thing. Um, and it's incredibly early. You got to like really squint to see it. But, um,

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I think there's going to be some like really fun stuff that comes out of this. And so at that point

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it was just like, okay, I'll give it six months. Uh, I'll just like work on it full-time six months,

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see what we can build. Um, and we'll see where we go. And towards the end of that six months,

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that was about the time open sets started to spin up and had, you know, started doing Noster grants.

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And so I was able to get a grant and kind of keep the ball rolling for a little while longer. And,

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um, you know, basically just keep going till now.

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And so yeah I also done some angel investing and things in the past and looked very closely at startups and tried to start some of my own and they none of them worked um i always interested in like how do you make money out of something so is white noise a company or it actually just a project that you taken funding for

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as a like open source uh grant process and yeah i'm just intrigued just like because it's just so

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so different and i love that like hang on what does it mean if the people building this from the

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bottom are motivated in a different way because the internet would be different if it wasn't so

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ad driven yeah i think that's one of the problems right is the main business models become monetize

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eyeballs somehow even gmail's being gamified like it's like it's out of control so what would it

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look like if that wasn't the incentive structure at the bottom yeah and i think maybe like noster

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tools for customers. Yeah. Yeah. It's an interesting question. I mean, like, you know,

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white noise is not a company, not a for-profit company. I had to think about that for a little

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while at the beginning was like, you know, what, what's the format here? To me I took the path I

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did mostly because to me, this is like public infrastructure for humanity to thrive. You know,

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we need a distributed way of talking to each other safely, privately. Um, and I don't want that,

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you know, tainted by any other incentive. Um, now that's not to say that the thing is not going to

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cost money and it's not going to, you know, we're not going to be, um, you know, pushing really hard

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to try to make it work. Um, I think that it just, it requires a different set of incentives. Um, so

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it is, you know, we've set up a 501 C three nonprofit. Um, we're still waiting on some of the,

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you know, details there, but, um, you know, the idea is that similar to the signal foundation,

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you know, this will remain free in perpetuity. Um, we will definitely have things where people

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can donate to us in the app. Um, we will definitely, you know, there's like a version

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of the world in the future. I wouldn't say definitely, but there's a version of the world

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in the future where maybe we run certain like add on services that people want to pay for and they

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can. We will definitely go to major donors and be looking for money for this thing, for covering it

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into the future. One cool thing though I'll mention is that Signal, which I think Signal's

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amazing. It's a great product. I do actually trust that they're very secure. I mean, I've

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looked at all the papers, all the open source stuff that they do. I do actually think they're

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incredibly secure and they go to extreme lengths to blind themselves and their servers from knowing

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who's talking to who and what they're talking about. And, you know, they, they tick all the

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boxes and, you know, do all the things right. Um, but even signal, like they have to run a lot of

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servers. They, they pay $50 million a year in servers, uh, to run the signal service. And so

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if that dried up, if they didn't have that money one year, or they, you know, got into legal trouble

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because somebody didn't like something that, you know, Meredith Whitaker, the CEO said,

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then signal could just disappear for all of us. And that's a centralization risk.

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the amazing thing about white noise is we don't have to run any servers right we have nostril

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relays and that's it and you can choose whichever nostril relays you want and so there will never be

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a you know super high ticket server bill for us the way that signal is because of what we've built

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on top of because we don't have you know user accounts with phone numbers and things like that

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we won't be a honeypot for trying to get to people's data. So I think that's kind of a really

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encouraging thing is like for a very small fraction of the money that, you know, costs to run Signal,

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we could potentially run a service that's even better and more resilient.

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Wow. Gosh, it's cool. It really gets me thinking about so many different angles, but it's this,

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oh, how do I even describe this? Coming across Bitcoin is such a revolutionary process and it

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happens over almost many years but one of the ways that i've i've previously described

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um like taking a meaningful position in bitcoin and with an investment lens like what's your

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allocation and your portfolio and all this kind of stuff and it's like this is this is digital

375
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property rights that aren't previously accessible and so all of your trad fi yeah investment

376
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portfolio it carries some kind of counterparty risk that most people won't tell you right your

377
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stock portfolio well you've actually bought it through some kind of discretionary manager and

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you've got to trust all of them to give you your money when you ask for it and bitcoin is just this

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whole different beast right it's actually money it's a savings tool you can have in self-custody

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and and it's it's like a foundation upon which to build that wasn't previously possible like you

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hear sailor talking about the difference between using wood and steel to to build things it's such

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a cool concept how you just described nostr and the ability to use relays instead of come to some

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kind of centralized server and signal it's kind of similar right you're actually using an entirely

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different architecture to build something that's more resilient and i would pay for that like in

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the same way that i've previously played around with paying for relays like why wouldn't i pay for

386
00:33:27,335 --> 00:33:33,395
a good dm service like i would i'm sitting here right now knowing that i'm i'm also paying

387
00:33:33,395 --> 00:33:41,415
subscriber for um uh what is it i recently signed up to albi and their node for lightning channels

388
00:33:41,415 --> 00:33:46,095
like that kind of stuff really cool and you start like i would actually pay for all of these things

389
00:33:46,095 --> 00:33:51,555
to know that they're mine um right unlike for example you know a google workspace that i still

390
00:33:51,555 --> 00:33:57,435
pay for i'm like oh i really would like to not use google if i didn't have to but like i like

391
00:33:57,435 --> 00:34:01,315
google docs and suddenly you're doing stuff and you're using that i mean they're really good

392
00:34:01,315 --> 00:34:06,335
products you can throw a hundred thousand engineers at problems like that for many many years you come

393
00:34:06,335 --> 00:34:11,115
out with amazing products like it's um yeah the infinite money printer does have its uh

394
00:34:11,115 --> 00:34:15,755
its benefits for google for sure absolutely um and that's a hard one for us right building on

395
00:34:15,755 --> 00:34:21,095
something totally different aren't you yeah yeah yeah totally different i mean and it's a real hard

396
00:34:21,095 --> 00:34:26,055
when you see when people come in like devs come into nostor and like they still have this sort of

397
00:34:26,055 --> 00:34:30,335
uh client server classical client server architecture in their mind and it's really

398
00:34:30,335 --> 00:34:34,495
hard for them to sort of break from this thing of like, I asked the server for data and it gives me

399
00:34:34,495 --> 00:34:38,415
data. And then I display the data. You know, it's like, no, no, no, that's not how it works. I mean,

400
00:34:38,435 --> 00:34:41,835
yes, you're going to ask a server, the relay for data, but it's going to stream it into you.

401
00:34:41,955 --> 00:34:45,335
And you're never sure it's going to be all right. You're gonna have to validate it as it comes in.

402
00:34:45,395 --> 00:34:50,835
You're gonna have to, you know, decide what you're going to do with it. And, and it's funny,

403
00:34:50,835 --> 00:34:55,595
like, you know, I think simply just those two things I mentioned before, which is your identity

404
00:34:55,595 --> 00:35:01,795
is portable and is, you know, tied to a cryptographic key, which means that all the content that you

405
00:35:01,795 --> 00:35:06,795
put out has to be signed to be valid. So it's untamperable. You know, no one can tamper with

406
00:35:06,795 --> 00:35:10,795
the events that you have put out in the world. You know, like it's actually trivial for some random,

407
00:35:11,035 --> 00:35:16,455
you know, AWOL X employee to like get into the database and like start tweeting random crap

408
00:35:16,455 --> 00:35:21,215
from Donald Trump's account. You know, like they can do that. That's a thing. And there's nothing

409
00:35:21,215 --> 00:35:25,395
that any of us in the world would be able to look at that and be like, is that real or fake?

410
00:35:25,595 --> 00:35:27,535
You know what I mean? Like what just happened? Fake news.

411
00:35:29,155 --> 00:35:30,895
But you can't tell. You wouldn't know.

412
00:35:31,175 --> 00:35:32,855
Like literally no way to tell. Yeah. You wouldn't know.

413
00:35:32,995 --> 00:35:35,035
They would just delete them later and they'd be like, oops, sorry.

414
00:35:35,295 --> 00:35:37,815
You know, we had a crazy, crazy like guy went, went mental.

415
00:35:38,595 --> 00:35:40,915
In Nosterworld, literally, you know, for a fact,

416
00:35:40,915 --> 00:35:43,115
like if somebody is tweeting from, you know,

417
00:35:43,155 --> 00:35:46,075
or sending notes from, you know, Trump's account or whatever,

418
00:35:46,715 --> 00:35:48,775
if it's signed with the right signature,

419
00:35:49,015 --> 00:35:52,155
you know that that person has control at least of Donald Trump's keys.

420
00:35:53,215 --> 00:35:55,535
You know, that's, that's, you know, it's a fact.

421
00:35:55,595 --> 00:35:56,595
It's a mathematical fact.

422
00:35:56,795 --> 00:36:01,835
And so, you know, that with an identity that's portable, you can move all of your data to

423
00:36:01,835 --> 00:36:02,495
different apps.

424
00:36:02,675 --> 00:36:05,155
The apps themselves are basically commodity.

425
00:36:05,755 --> 00:36:10,835
You know, like very quickly, I was like, this is going to collapse to just be a total, you

426
00:36:10,835 --> 00:36:15,135
know, competitive landscape built on nothing but brand and like user experience.

427
00:36:15,395 --> 00:36:19,215
Because if you can't deliver the best user experience or have a, you know, much better

428
00:36:19,215 --> 00:36:24,335
brand or solve the problem 10x better, then like no one's going to use your stuff because

429
00:36:24,335 --> 00:36:28,175
they can literally just pick up and move over to another product instantaneously so there's like

430
00:36:28,175 --> 00:36:34,395
zero lock-in in nostril um and again that that idea of like decentralized relays means that your data

431
00:36:34,395 --> 00:36:38,935
is like everywhere and always and kind of backed up you like let information do what information

432
00:36:38,935 --> 00:36:45,315
does which is you know spread and copy itself and so jeff this is something that's interesting in

433
00:36:45,315 --> 00:36:54,035
terms of the is there venture backable opportunities within nostril and you know you just described

434
00:36:54,035 --> 00:37:01,595
very well the okay we'll dive into that the context i was going to give is like the in the

435
00:37:01,595 --> 00:37:07,375
bitcoin market it's like who's actually making money and what is actually a vc backable kind of

436
00:37:07,375 --> 00:37:13,095
concept remains to be seen so money's been thrown around not all that much frankly as bitcoin only

437
00:37:13,095 --> 00:37:17,975
and some businesses are coming through slowly but surely but like for example like the exchange

438
00:37:17,975 --> 00:37:23,215
market very very obvious the people that were like bitcoin as an exchange business is really

439
00:37:23,215 --> 00:37:28,235
shit and it's only going one way which is that margin is getting smaller and smaller and smaller

440
00:37:28,235 --> 00:37:32,895
just because so many ways of buying bitcoin well let's list a whole lot of altcoins and get people

441
00:37:32,895 --> 00:37:37,995
doing you know degen trading casino stuff because yeah that's how we're going to make some money as

442
00:37:37,995 --> 00:37:42,755
an exchange yeah high volume you see very clearly why they ended up going in those directions as

443
00:37:42,755 --> 00:37:50,995
businesses um right with NOSTA what you just described is interesting to me so the idea that

444
00:37:50,995 --> 00:37:56,255
Like if your brand isn't brilliant or if your UX isn't brilliant, people will go elsewhere.

445
00:37:57,255 --> 00:37:58,875
Well, yeah.

446
00:37:59,055 --> 00:38:01,115
Where is the business there in that sense?

447
00:38:01,135 --> 00:38:02,415
So you see some opportunities.

448
00:38:02,595 --> 00:38:05,055
I'd be intrigued to see like, you know, what might work.

449
00:38:06,175 --> 00:38:06,615
Yeah.

450
00:38:06,695 --> 00:38:11,055
I mean, let's look at Bitcoin very quickly and I'll do a quick example and then we'll

451
00:38:11,055 --> 00:38:11,635
step into Noster.

452
00:38:12,035 --> 00:38:15,395
So like my friend Rob's company, Anchor Watch, you know, they do insurance.

453
00:38:15,655 --> 00:38:17,155
Insurance is a boring business, right?

454
00:38:17,895 --> 00:38:18,075
Yeah.

455
00:38:18,075 --> 00:38:23,875
Yeah. So, but like, if you think about it, that's a very valuable service for someone, right? Like

456
00:38:23,875 --> 00:38:28,475
they want to have control over their keys. They don't want to be leaving everything with Coinbase,

457
00:38:28,975 --> 00:38:34,715
but you know, it represents a very large part of their wealth. And so they recognize that like,

458
00:38:34,715 --> 00:38:38,715
I should probably insure this the way I insure my house or the way I insure, you know, my boat,

459
00:38:38,855 --> 00:38:45,795
whatever it is. And so paying for insurance is a service that a company offers and that a customer

460
00:38:45,795 --> 00:38:47,495
who wants that service will pay for.

461
00:38:47,635 --> 00:38:50,735
Like it's just a very straightforward business

462
00:38:50,735 --> 00:38:51,955
to customer transaction.

463
00:38:52,215 --> 00:38:54,615
There's no like nefarious things in the middle.

464
00:38:54,855 --> 00:38:56,055
Like in the advert model,

465
00:38:56,135 --> 00:38:57,915
like the whole thing is predicated on the fact

466
00:38:57,915 --> 00:38:59,795
that there's nine people in the middle of the transaction

467
00:38:59,795 --> 00:39:00,935
and you are not one of them.

468
00:39:01,315 --> 00:39:01,715
You know what I mean?

469
00:39:02,135 --> 00:39:04,755
Like Google is selling to a big stack of players

470
00:39:04,755 --> 00:39:07,235
over on one side that you have no idea that even exists.

471
00:39:08,015 --> 00:39:10,355
And to my mind, this is also why, you know,

472
00:39:10,375 --> 00:39:12,435
the whole healthcare system in America is totally fucked.

473
00:39:12,835 --> 00:39:14,355
People are like, oh, well, look at America,

474
00:39:14,355 --> 00:39:18,435
a public health, you know, private healthcare doesn't work. And I'm like, no, this is not what

475
00:39:18,435 --> 00:39:23,375
we have over in America. In America, we've got a health system where you're forced and your employer

476
00:39:23,375 --> 00:39:28,475
is forced to pay for this health insurance thing. But there's like nine people in a big stack off

477
00:39:28,475 --> 00:39:33,755
to one side. It's like the buyer and then the hospital and then the, you know, aggregator of

478
00:39:33,755 --> 00:39:38,895
the hospitals. And then like, so there's all these layers of obfuscation where the service between

479
00:39:38,895 --> 00:39:43,675
the person providing the service and the person, you know, getting the service has been completely

480
00:39:43,675 --> 00:39:51,255
erased. And so how can you provide a good service in that scenario? So in Rob's case, Rob sells

481
00:39:51,255 --> 00:39:56,275
insurance, people buy insurance, problem done. They get value, he gets value, that's the end.

482
00:39:57,075 --> 00:40:02,855
I think in a similar way, there will be plenty of things in Nostro world like that. So there will be

483
00:40:02,855 --> 00:40:10,975
people that go way deep on having really high availability relays that do a bunch of moderation

484
00:40:10,975 --> 00:40:13,235
and like cleanup and spam control.

485
00:40:13,235 --> 00:40:18,175
And like, they spend a lot of time on figuring out how to give you just high quality stuff.

486
00:40:18,175 --> 00:40:19,255
That's not trash.

487
00:40:19,915 --> 00:40:23,415
Um, and that'll be a service that people will pay for, for sure.

488
00:40:23,475 --> 00:40:25,435
You know, you'll be like, I don't want to see all that garbage.

489
00:40:25,435 --> 00:40:29,375
Like, I want to make sure that like, I've got parental controlled relays for my kids.

490
00:40:29,455 --> 00:40:30,535
Like you'll pay for that.

491
00:40:31,035 --> 00:40:37,415
Um, and so, you know, it'll be the same as, uh, as I guess any, you know, business.

492
00:40:37,415 --> 00:40:48,855
And unfortunately, like the internet has sort of trained most people to think of like everything on the internet should be free simply because, like you said before, you know, the what they're paying has been sort of hidden from them.

493
00:40:50,135 --> 00:40:54,055
But I think we're sort of starting to recognize that more as a culture.

494
00:40:54,215 --> 00:41:00,555
And I think we're starting to lean back in the other direction of, hey, if I want something good, I should probably be willing to pay something for it.

495
00:41:01,295 --> 00:41:07,115
And there will be lots of businesses that do lots of different parts of that stack in really good ways, you know.

496
00:41:07,415 --> 00:41:23,935
Yeah, very cool. And in that sense, it requires you just to kind of take a breath and think about what works in the analog world and what's been missed by the current iteration of the internet that might end up in Nosterland.

497
00:41:24,595 --> 00:41:35,635
And more often than not, opportunities come from your own personal experiences, don't they? You're like, oh, well, I probably pay for that. Why doesn't that exist? And every day there is good marketing for Noster.

498
00:41:35,635 --> 00:41:40,195
You know, there's just so much censorship going on.

499
00:41:40,355 --> 00:41:49,695
Like even this week here in Australia, there's all sorts of laws coming in around digital identity and having to access the Internet via a driving license.

500
00:41:49,695 --> 00:41:51,075
Age verification for everything.

501
00:41:51,575 --> 00:41:54,095
Yeah. And 16 year olds have been banned from social media.

502
00:41:54,375 --> 00:41:55,995
And it's it's wild. Right.

503
00:41:55,995 --> 00:42:00,315
So the police have arrived on the Internet in a major way.

504
00:42:00,495 --> 00:42:05,395
Yeah. And what was so interesting again, when I looked into this a month or two ago,

505
00:42:05,635 --> 00:42:12,375
the it's very aggressive how companies are being told they have to behave and if a user

506
00:42:12,375 --> 00:42:27,813
misbehaves then the penalty is thousands and thousands of dollars on the company so all of these tool providers they going to do what the government telling them to do Otherwise it going to bankrupt them basically So it be very interesting to see what comes out of that

507
00:42:27,813 --> 00:42:30,913
But NOSTA benefits, it must.

508
00:42:31,413 --> 00:42:32,813
How do people not look at that and go,

509
00:42:32,973 --> 00:42:34,173
okay, do you know what?

510
00:42:34,473 --> 00:42:37,053
I'm not having someone tell me what I can and can't say online,

511
00:42:37,073 --> 00:42:39,413
and I'm not going to be sharing all of my private details

512
00:42:39,413 --> 00:42:41,273
just to log in and do a search for something.

513
00:42:41,953 --> 00:42:42,493
Fuck that.

514
00:42:42,733 --> 00:42:43,873
I'm going in a different direction.

515
00:42:43,873 --> 00:42:48,833
Yeah. And someone like something like white noise is a key part of that, isn't it?

516
00:42:49,113 --> 00:42:54,053
As I think about it, it's like, of course, you need to be able to send people messages without everyone reading them.

517
00:42:54,973 --> 00:43:05,093
Right. Right. Very important. I guess like one thing I thought of just there is, you know, maybe maybe I shouldn't have been so quick to say yes.

518
00:43:05,093 --> 00:43:13,293
And to your like VC question, I think, you know, a lot of what people think of as VC may not quite exist for all that much longer.

519
00:43:13,293 --> 00:43:17,333
I think we've just gone through a period where, I mean, VC has sort of collapsed back a little bit.

520
00:43:17,773 --> 00:43:33,993
It's going mental with AI at the moment, but I think it got really way out over its skis there for a while because, you know, the VC model wins big when there's this, you know, natural monopoly effect with the service that they are, you know, backing, right?

521
00:43:33,993 --> 00:43:40,653
Like when you back Google and they win completely on the online search, it means they've got

522
00:43:40,653 --> 00:43:45,333
this one in a million unique opportunity where it's never going to happen again.

523
00:43:46,253 --> 00:43:51,373
And so I don't know that we're going to get exactly that scenario with VC backing in Bitcoin

524
00:43:51,373 --> 00:43:52,133
or in Noster.

525
00:43:52,553 --> 00:43:57,393
I think it might go back to what VC was before, which is, hey, you have a capital intensive

526
00:43:57,393 --> 00:43:57,813
setup.

527
00:43:58,533 --> 00:44:01,693
You need capital in order to get this business up and running.

528
00:44:01,693 --> 00:44:03,833
And then you'll have a very defensible position.

529
00:44:03,993 --> 00:44:06,893
that we can take off of going forward.

530
00:44:07,533 --> 00:44:09,293
So back to AnchorWatch,

531
00:44:09,433 --> 00:44:10,873
they had to set up all the relationships

532
00:44:10,873 --> 00:44:13,133
with the banking partners and the insurance providers

533
00:44:13,133 --> 00:44:14,153
and the reinsurance people,

534
00:44:14,253 --> 00:44:15,953
and they had to get certified for all sorts of stuff.

535
00:44:16,133 --> 00:44:17,913
And it's a long, arduous process.

536
00:44:18,593 --> 00:44:20,593
They also had some tech knowledge

537
00:44:20,593 --> 00:44:24,093
that I think is deeper than any other player in the market.

538
00:44:24,293 --> 00:44:25,813
So they knew the thing inside out

539
00:44:25,813 --> 00:44:28,113
and they had all the proper stuff backing them.

540
00:44:28,113 --> 00:44:31,873
So a VC in some ways should be looking at that and going,

541
00:44:31,873 --> 00:44:37,013
okay, this is something where us having money can give these guys the head start to really

542
00:44:37,013 --> 00:44:43,833
solidify a position. But I don't think it's going to necessarily be the 10,000 X returns of we've

543
00:44:43,833 --> 00:44:50,873
taken the entire internet. We've taken all of humanity like Facebook or Google. I hope that's

544
00:44:50,873 --> 00:44:56,993
not the case. So do I actually. And because it's a couple of things, isn't it? And I love this

545
00:44:56,993 --> 00:45:04,673
subject by the way it's like how do we how do we incentivize innovation how do we profit from

546
00:45:04,673 --> 00:45:09,993
risk reward like there are incredible people out there that are doing difficult things and trying

547
00:45:09,993 --> 00:45:15,273
stuff that no one else is trying to potentially benefit many many more people than initial

548
00:45:15,273 --> 00:45:20,533
traction might kind of suggest it's like that's still an interesting game to me it's like well

549
00:45:20,533 --> 00:45:25,033
someone needs money to build this thing this thing could be a lot more valuable than it is right now

550
00:45:25,033 --> 00:45:29,433
and I'm recently reading a book about some entrepreneurs in America that were building

551
00:45:29,433 --> 00:45:38,053
railroads in the 1800s and this guy he just he just knew that connecting together these two areas

552
00:45:38,053 --> 00:45:44,673
like basically between the US and and Canadian borders around the Great Lakes it was a great

553
00:45:44,673 --> 00:45:50,993
fucking idea because he could just see farmland for just miles and miles and miles but no one had

554
00:45:50,993 --> 00:45:56,553
done it yet so he was already thinking about how valuable this place was going to be but no one had

555
00:45:56,553 --> 00:46:01,553
built it right and his position in the business he built he wasn't the wealthiest he wasn't the

556
00:46:01,553 --> 00:46:06,793
most well connected but he's the guy that knew the shit on the ground inside out and they needed him

557
00:46:06,793 --> 00:46:12,693
and you think isn't that interesting that's almost 200 years ago but like what's the equivalent today

558
00:46:12,693 --> 00:46:17,633
where it's like well i think most people that are along bitcoin in a major way having conversations

559
00:46:17,633 --> 00:46:23,453
like this re-engineered their life around sound money we're already like well along the path so

560
00:46:23,453 --> 00:46:29,352
like okay fiat's long gone for us as a building technology and so this concept of putting money

561
00:46:29,352 --> 00:46:35,253
into a VC fund that's able to get you outrageous returns when the money's so cheap it doesn't make

562
00:46:35,253 --> 00:46:41,973
sense in the world we're moving into but real businesses will still exist and so if you see

563
00:46:41,973 --> 00:46:47,053
opportunities for those businesses then investing in some of them early might well be very profitable

564
00:46:47,053 --> 00:46:51,613
but of course you've got the bitcoin hurdle right next to that where it's like well of course maybe

565
00:46:51,613 --> 00:46:57,253
just sit on the on the king itself and you know everything will be okay so yeah i don't know it's

566
00:46:57,253 --> 00:47:03,953
it's the word vc in some ways got it just got a bit nasty hasn't it as to what it represents

567
00:47:03,953 --> 00:47:09,213
but like yeah i mean still gonna take bets on early ideas right right you hit it on the head

568
00:47:09,213 --> 00:47:14,113
though like when the money was uh cheaper than free you know what i mean like the the interest

569
00:47:14,113 --> 00:47:18,253
rates in Europe were negative for a while there. Like everybody forgets like we were in the weirdest

570
00:47:18,253 --> 00:47:24,973
period ever with Zerp, you know, money was cheaper than free. Uh, and you know, that caused a lot of

571
00:47:24,973 --> 00:47:28,913
misallocation of capital and like, that's just exactly what it was. Like it clearly was that

572
00:47:28,913 --> 00:47:33,693
situation. So I think you're totally right. Like bring back sound money, um, make the hurdle rate

573
00:47:33,693 --> 00:47:38,613
high. Uh, people that have capital will only deploy capital when it's a really good idea,

574
00:47:38,613 --> 00:47:42,553
you know? And so those really good ideas will get built and a lot of the trash won't. And like,

575
00:47:42,553 --> 00:47:49,313
yeah, okay, some probably good ideas also won't get built. But that's also fine. That's just how

576
00:47:49,313 --> 00:47:56,033
it works. So yeah, I mean, I look at Nostra and I think we're so unbelievably early with it.

577
00:47:57,433 --> 00:48:01,253
People don't understand keys. They don't understand any of the basic cryptography

578
00:48:01,253 --> 00:48:05,653
things and why that matters. I think Bitcoin's still really early, even though it's quite a bit

579
00:48:05,653 --> 00:48:10,852
older than Nostra. So the idea of having Bitcoin payments for a lot of people, especially in the

580
00:48:10,852 --> 00:48:14,832
that makes no sense whatsoever they're like yeah but i got them oh i got cash app why do i care

581
00:48:14,832 --> 00:48:19,213
you know um when you go to africa people get it immediately you're like this is an austria this

582
00:48:19,213 --> 00:48:23,013
is how it works you get paid bitcoin for shit posting and they're like what like it blows their

583
00:48:23,013 --> 00:48:28,553
minds and they're like show me now you know like they're set up instantaneously yeah totally like

584
00:48:28,553 --> 00:48:32,713
they are in it immediately because they're also the people that are getting cut off from the

585
00:48:32,713 --> 00:48:37,093
internet cut off from the services like their voice is getting silenced in the places they are

586
00:48:37,093 --> 00:48:43,033
um you know and and money doesn't work in a lot of these places you know like the money is garbage

587
00:48:43,033 --> 00:48:48,953
uh like you know how many people in the west know about the you know sifa frank you know the central

588
00:48:48,953 --> 00:48:55,053
african frank which is it's a colonial holdover where all these nations still have to use money

589
00:48:55,053 --> 00:48:59,493
made up by the french and can't use it anywhere else in the world they can't even use it in their

590
00:48:59,493 --> 00:49:03,073
neighboring countries they have to translate it from like the one sifa frank to the other sifa

591
00:49:03,073 --> 00:49:07,613
frank and get you know their eyes ripped out in the process criminal so isn't it it's it's super

592
00:49:07,613 --> 00:49:11,973
criminal yeah it's so criminal but like you show them nostril and bitcoin but we're the good guys

593
00:49:11,973 --> 00:49:16,433
bro i got it this is yeah yeah like it's so interesting like this makes total sense

594
00:49:16,433 --> 00:49:22,332
yeah and to use some more startup analogies like product market fit for bitcoin is at the fringes

595
00:49:22,332 --> 00:49:27,433
of the financial services system where people are like this works and everything else doesn't so i'm

596
00:49:27,433 --> 00:49:32,613
really use it yeah i made a previous podcast actually jeff called bitcoin with jake from 2022

597
00:49:32,613 --> 00:49:40,553
for 12 months which is a big part of my deep dive before or as i made the biggest allocation

598
00:49:40,553 --> 00:49:47,413
of the whole last five years into bitcoin from traditional assets and the thing that really got

599
00:49:47,413 --> 00:49:53,373
me over the edge in terms of confidence and in terms of adoption and and just like this thing

600
00:49:53,373 --> 00:50:02,993
is real was stories of people from Venezuela or from Kenya or from Guatemala, wherever they were

601
00:50:02,993 --> 00:50:06,873
from. And I was able to get them on a video call and ask them like, so where did you grow up? What

602
00:50:06,873 --> 00:50:10,473
was it like? Why do you use Bitcoin? And they're like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And you're

603
00:50:10,473 --> 00:50:17,193
like, wow, that's massive. Well, of course, this is a big deal. I had to unlearn a lot of stuff

604
00:50:17,193 --> 00:50:24,493
through that um but willingly did and and here i am today uh jeff i'm aware of time so i just want

605
00:50:24,493 --> 00:50:30,093
to sneak in one question um so is max working with white noise working on white noise with you

606
00:50:30,093 --> 00:50:35,213
or have you worked with him recently yes okay cool yeah yeah so max i wasn't sure of that

607
00:50:35,213 --> 00:50:42,493
yeah so we when i started kind of looking into this um i like i've been you know friends with

608
00:50:42,493 --> 00:50:45,793
max and we've talked about lots of different projects and things over the years um and i

609
00:50:45,793 --> 00:50:47,693
I remember we were at a conference.

610
00:50:47,973 --> 00:50:51,573
We were actually at Cheat Code in Bedford two years ago.

611
00:50:52,113 --> 00:50:54,253
And I remember sitting down with him and being like,

612
00:50:54,352 --> 00:50:56,433
I think I'm going to look into this messaging stuff.

613
00:50:56,593 --> 00:50:57,473
And he was like, oh yeah?

614
00:50:58,273 --> 00:51:01,133
Max loves that whole angle of stuff,

615
00:51:01,213 --> 00:51:02,253
all the cryptography, everything.

616
00:51:03,253 --> 00:51:05,993
So he was immediately like, all right, tell me more.

617
00:51:06,273 --> 00:51:07,713
And Max is not a coder.

618
00:51:07,893 --> 00:51:09,073
He's not a software engineer.

619
00:51:09,253 --> 00:51:10,613
He's very technically minded.

620
00:51:10,613 --> 00:51:12,593
And I think he understands the concepts better

621
00:51:12,593 --> 00:51:14,513
than a lot of people that are writing code.

622
00:51:14,513 --> 00:51:19,473
um so he's a great like rubber duck to like talk through stuff with uh even like quite technical

623
00:51:19,473 --> 00:51:24,933
things um so i remember we just sort of like sat there for you know a couple hours one one afternoon

624
00:51:24,933 --> 00:51:28,913
and we're just like going through some of the old protocols and like okay this is the way that this

625
00:51:28,913 --> 00:51:33,332
thing you know otr off the record worked like and what did it like what why did it work like that

626
00:51:33,332 --> 00:51:36,852
okay this is how the original signal protocol worked and this is how they made it work for

627
00:51:36,852 --> 00:51:41,673
groups and you know we kind of went through all these things and um and then just you know i went

628
00:51:41,673 --> 00:51:45,993
back home and you know max went along and we just would do kind of a phone call or something every

629
00:51:45,993 --> 00:51:50,173
week for a while and it'd be like okay i've gotten this next section like what do you think about this

630
00:51:50,173 --> 00:51:53,473
and like how do you think about you know how are we going to protect this bit of the metadata

631
00:51:53,473 --> 00:51:59,593
um and so it was just a lot of back and forth like that for quite a while until um you know i

632
00:51:59,593 --> 00:52:05,733
basically had the thing cracked in a sense of okay i'm using this this protocol mls for the key

633
00:52:05,733 --> 00:52:10,953
agreement and key sharing, which is, you know, very efficient at large scale for groups. And

634
00:52:10,953 --> 00:52:16,953
we're applying that over Nostra relays and Nostra identity like this. Um, and MLS is really cool

635
00:52:16,953 --> 00:52:21,173
because it doesn't care about, you know, uh, it doesn't care about the delivery and it doesn't

636
00:52:21,173 --> 00:52:24,273
care about the identity system. They basically say that at the very beginning of the doc,

637
00:52:24,313 --> 00:52:26,733
they're like, you got to bring your own identity and you've got to bring your own delivery.

638
00:52:26,832 --> 00:52:30,773
And I was like, what is Nostra really good at? Cool. Identity and delivery. I was like, perfect.

639
00:52:30,873 --> 00:52:35,073
This is great. Um, but it was a bit of a trick to like figure out how to mash it in there and make

640
00:52:35,073 --> 00:52:39,993
it so that you weren't, you know, giving away data and metadata, especially about the conversation

641
00:52:39,993 --> 00:52:45,053
and who was in it. Um, so once we'd kind of worked out all those, uh, you know, a lot of those

642
00:52:45,053 --> 00:52:48,233
details, it was like, okay, this is a thing, like, this is going to be a thing. We're going to build

643
00:52:48,233 --> 00:52:52,013
the thing. Um, and at that point we were just real like, okay, yeah, we're going to do the thing,

644
00:52:52,033 --> 00:52:57,453
right. Okay. We're going to do the thing. Um, so yeah, it's been Max and I sort of, um, driving it

645
00:52:57,453 --> 00:53:00,673
a lot of ways. And I think it's great. Cause you know, he compliments me on so many things and,

646
00:53:00,673 --> 00:53:05,033
uh, you know, takes stuff off of my plate that I don't want to deal with. And I take, you know,

647
00:53:05,033 --> 00:53:09,273
the code stuff off that you know he can't deal with and so it's been um it's been great partnership

648
00:53:09,273 --> 00:53:14,233
awesome well shout out to max i had the pleasure of meeting him at um the indonesia bitcoin

649
00:53:14,233 --> 00:53:20,013
conference a couple years ago now he's also been on the podcast in the past and just a really great

650
00:53:20,013 --> 00:53:25,873
thinker like you know you can just get him talking about these subjects and he he's able to eloquently

651
00:53:25,873 --> 00:53:30,433
explain something better than anyone else i've ever heard explain something on some areas where

652
00:53:30,433 --> 00:53:36,832
I'll ask him you're like fuck yeah that was good Max how do you do that yeah yeah yeah yeah it's

653
00:53:36,832 --> 00:53:41,813
quite amazing yeah well Jeff listen so we're coming up to the hour and I said we'd finish

654
00:53:41,813 --> 00:53:47,813
then so I really really appreciate your time um talking this evening so thank you I'd like to just

655
00:53:47,813 --> 00:53:52,773
leave it with one last thing which is so what are you most excited for over the next kind of 12 months

656
00:53:52,773 --> 00:54:03,433
excited excited in a uh slightly anxious way maybe um in the sense that uh i i mean i do kind

657
00:54:03,433 --> 00:54:08,213
of feel like we're in a bit of a race at the moment um you know they are trying hard to close

658
00:54:08,213 --> 00:54:14,253
the doors on us um you know all of the age verification stuff um all of the you know like

659
00:54:14,253 --> 00:54:18,973
the samurai stuff is really worrying in the sense that hey you built an open source tool and now

660
00:54:18,973 --> 00:54:25,573
we're going to send you to jail for how other people used it. Um, you know, I think all that

661
00:54:25,573 --> 00:54:30,693
stuff is signs of more bad stuff to come. You know, I still think we're going in the wrong direction.

662
00:54:31,273 --> 00:54:36,973
Um, and it's sort of a race to see like, who's going to get, you know, enough momentum there

663
00:54:36,973 --> 00:54:41,093
fast enough. You know, like I don't, I don't, I'm not under any illusion that like, we're going to

664
00:54:41,093 --> 00:54:46,653
convert, you know, 8 billion people to use Noster in the next few years. Um, but it needs to be

665
00:54:46,653 --> 00:54:54,053
solid enough and widespread enough that it is unstoppable. For the first few years,

666
00:54:54,133 --> 00:54:58,093
Bitcoin was definitely very stoppable. Any major state actor could have come in and just crushed it.

667
00:54:58,673 --> 00:55:02,113
But they all laughed at it and thought it was nothing until it got to this point where it was

668
00:55:02,113 --> 00:55:08,013
like, actually, the resources required to turn this off are basically beyond the reach of anyone

669
00:55:08,013 --> 00:55:14,473
now. I don't think we're there with Noster. And I don't think we're there with a lot of the privacy

670
00:55:14,473 --> 00:55:19,453
tech and a lot of the kind of freedom tech that's out there. And so I think, you know, next 12 months

671
00:55:19,453 --> 00:55:24,513
is for sure, like, you know, it's go time. We need tools on top of Bitcoin to make it easier and

672
00:55:24,513 --> 00:55:29,873
faster. We need tools on top of Nostra to make it more private, more secure. We need to like,

673
00:55:30,533 --> 00:55:34,453
make this not less of a toy and more of like, these are, you know, life and death tools for

674
00:55:34,453 --> 00:55:39,533
actual real people in the world. And for those people, you know, like you said before, product

675
00:55:39,533 --> 00:55:43,973
market fit might be small, market might be small right now. But I think if we get it to some

676
00:55:43,973 --> 00:55:50,973
critical mass um then it becomes unstoppable and we're in a much better position and it has the

677
00:55:50,973 --> 00:55:56,453
raw ingredients to do that but it's that process of being okay with the fact that you happen to

678
00:55:56,453 --> 00:56:01,433
know this a lot earlier than anyone else like just because you if you've pieced all the bits together

679
00:56:01,433 --> 00:56:06,393
and you're early doesn't mean you're wrong just the world doesn't look like how you think it will

680
00:56:06,393 --> 00:56:11,873
look and it's really hard to be in that place because you're like yeah hang on are we sure

681
00:56:11,873 --> 00:56:17,093
that this is this is real isn't it what the hell's going on here right wow right awesome well jeff

682
00:56:17,093 --> 00:56:21,693
thank you so much for your time it's been really cool to learn from you thank you absolutely thank

683
00:56:21,693 --> 00:56:21,793
you